• Recommended resource:
  • thenewsisgood.com

Ryan: Husbands, be tough for your wife, but be tender with her.

Selena: Amen.

Ryan: I wish I would have heard those words as a young man.

Selena: Young married man.

Ryan: As young married man. Yes! Because there is a toughness about being a man. There’s a toughness about the work that I think is required of men. Not to say women aren’t tough.

Selena: Right. That’s not our conversation.

Ryan: Please don’t read that kind of stuff into it. But the point here I’m trying to make is that, at times our toughness can be toughness in the wrong place. So we’d be tough for our wives, yet tender with them. So today we’re going to talk through kind of how to do that, where that phenomenon even really comes from. Obviously, it comes from scripture, but we’re going to unpack that.

And hopefully, it’ll enliven men’s hearts, husbands’ hearts to be tender intentionally with their wives at home with their children at home in a way that they aren’t outside of the home. And that their toughness would be amplified by the knowledge knowing that this is a good thing. There’s a good and right place to have toughness. Also, I’m hoping that wives will learn maybe how to understand their husband just a little bit better. So we’ll do that on the other side.

[00:01:09]

Selena: So I think you need to do us all a favor and define what do you mean by “toughness” or “being tough”. Because men can be tough but then closed off to their wives. What do you mean? What do you mean? [chuckles]

Ryan: It’s good question. There’s something to be said about some of the caricatures of manliness, right? Again, people like John Wayne, you have these stoic myths about you, you’re just kind of gritty, you have… There’s that side. I think there’s some truth to that. But then there’s dangers in that, right?

Selena: Right.

Ryan: There was a whole… the pendulum swung. I don’t remember but back when Promise Keepers was a thing, the big thing with Promise Keepers was that men have feelings too, basically. Like men can cry and men can, you know… And I think that itself was a pendulum swinging away from like, men aren’t supposed to show emotion, men aren’t supposed to… they’re supposed to be stoic. So there’s always this kind of cultural pendulum swinging.

And when that Promise Keepers thing happened, I think this was on the rise and fall of Mars Hill. I think, this is where I heard this. Mark Driscoll comes onto the scene and he’s like totally pushing back against like… he would call it effeminate men. And you know, men should… You know, they need to be tough, they need to be leaders, they need to be blah, blah. You know, kind of that wild at heart. You know, you should want to go like conquer a mountain, you should want to kill a deer, you should want to like skin it with your teeth.

Selena: So what I’m hearing, though, is that the toughness without the tenderness is not really what you should be striving after or asking the Lord to help you with. You need that balance, yeah?

Ryan: Absolutely. Yeah. It’s not just-

Selena: Because I want you to go slay things for us and protect us and I want to have a husband, who’s strong, and who’s going to take charge and who’s going to lead but I don’t want that if it cost us our relationship or a cost us you not been able to know how to be tender with our children or with me.

Ryan: So I guess what I’m saying is, yeah, there is a toughness and a tenderness. And it’s never going to be on the far ends of that bell curve. Scripture is pretty down the middle with this kind of stuff. And we tend to distort it, amplify it and turn it into… We go too far off either side of the scale.

Selena: Yeah.

Ryan: So the point I’m trying to make here is that there is a toughness that is, I think, intrinsic to a man. I’ll use the example. By the way, this is coming out of a chapter of a book that’s going to be releasing here, hopefully, by God’s grace, in time for Christmas. Because we have to go through all the different printings. It takes a long time with supply chain issues.

But this is a chapter called The Precision in the Power. It’s the husband paradox, where it’s like you have this power, in that you are designed as a man to work the ground, to bring forth fruit from the earth, to not toil, but labor—to work. There’s a toughness there. There’s a power there.

But there’s also needs to be precision. And the example that I love is heavy machinery. We have a good friend who is really good with bulldozers, tractors, those sorts of things, excavators. And so he turns me onto these videos that are like… just like ninjas with these machines.

I went down a YouTube rabbit trail one day and I found this video of a guy who had taped with duct tape… It looked almost like a state knife to the fork [00:05:00] or to the tooth of like a 72-inch excavator bucket. These are the machines that literally move mountains. And he’s taped this steak knife to the tooth of this bucket. And he rests a cucumber on top of a balloon, and with the machine, he’s in the machine controlling it, cuts the cucumber in half without popping the balloon.

Selena: Oh, man.

Ryan: That’s ultimate precision with magnificent power. and I feel like that’s a good analogy for maybe the husband paradox, right? Because we have this mode of being, that if that mode of being doesn’t morph and transform, you don’t learn the tender side of it when you step through the front door.

Selena: Right.

Ryan: Sometimes it can mean that you’re a little bit too tough with your wife. And I mean tough like just harsh, maybe not as patient, maybe not as whatever. So I don’t know, that’s something I’ve been processing through and that’s something I processed through as a young husband is, How can I be tough for my wife? I mean, I want to go out and earn, I want to go out and slay the whatever, the beast and skin it and bring it home and present it before my bride as this magnificent meal. But I don’t want to come through the door with blood all over my face and scare all my kids. [Selena laughs] Like they’re just not ready for that yet. So I’ve wrestled through a little bit. So let’s process through this.

So the premise is this, is that even in Eden, okay? I think oftentimes we think Garden of Eden, perfect, right? What comes to your mind when you think Garden of Eden?

Selena: Just glowing fruit, glowing everything, clear water-

Ryan: Glowing fruit? Not really glowing but just radiant?

Selena: Yeah, it’s radiant, I guess because it’s untainted and it’s pure and it’s the original, the first of its kind. And so-

Ryan: Bananas are so big you called them Bananananananas? [laughs]

Selena: Bananananananas. There it is. Yeah. I mean, you don’t think of work. But I do-

Ryan: You see fruit, you see flourishing trees, grass, rivers, yes. What do you see Adam and Eve doing in the garden? I’m just thinking, what’s the general view of Eden? I guess-

Selena: Well, you know, I mean, what they’ve listed in the Bible. Adam’s naming the animals. And then when Eve comes along, I just… I do imagine they’re tending a garden. I imagine that they are grabbing the fruit, they’re gathering, they’re harvesting. I don’t know if they have a house. It seemed like the temperature was pretty nice and they could just be out and about, you know?

Ryan: Yeah.

Selena: So the thought of working to live. I mean, they were in the presence of God. I don’t know what else you would need, right?

Ryan: Yeah. Yeah. Well, they did do that. We see that picture in Genesis 1 and 2. God placed Adam in the garden to specifically work the land. He did put him to the task of naming. That’s the beginning of dominion. There’s so much to be said about naming something—putting a word to a thing as a dominion thing. That’s part of the reason why we’re having these culture wars we’re having nowadays with pronouns and gender, hospitality, and all that stuff that’s happening around. It’s all about like, owning the namespace.

I recently was looking at a domain name that I was thinking about picking up. I don’t know why I love… There’s a namespace out there. And if someone owns the namespace, they are going to make you pay for it. So there’s dominion being exercised already in the garden. But Adam and Eve were working already. Work was good. It wasn’t until the fall where the work became toil.

Selena: What makes it toil?

Ryan: The thorns, the struggle, the fact that the ground would not yield its crop readily.

Selena: So that indicates that in Eden the crops would readily grow. There was a flourishing. There was a thriving that was happening.

Ryan: And it was done in joy. And it was done in relationship with God and perfect relationship between Adam and Eve. And I got to think they were there for a while because I mean, if you’re in the garden, and there’s every good… every tree was good for eating, basically, you’ve got animals enough to keep you busy, like you got a lot to do. And then you find yourself, you know… Eve’s in the garden bored and the serpent says, “Hey, doesn’t this fruit look good?”

Selena: She was [inaudible]. [laughs]

Ryan: She must have been there for a while doing work. Genesis 1:28, Be fruitful multiply. This was the cultural mandate. It says, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it.” In other words, “and have dominion.” That’s what God told Adam and Eve. So even in the garden, there was this sense that I need to go and I need to put this planet to work. And I will take great joy in doing that.

Selena: Yeah, the toil has definitely [00:10:00] taken out the joy of the work. I mean, not to talk about wives and women and being a mother, but that was kind of something I was struggling with like this last month or so of finding the joy in the work. Because you can see it posted all over social media, you know, the beauty of motherhood and the beauty of the outdoors, and I’m just sitting here thinking, “Man, they had to pack all those bags, they had to get in the car, they had an argue in the car, somebody needed a snack, like all of the things that actually happen versus just this one picture. Right?

Ryan: It’s funny. What you’re saying is that the social media has a way of highlighting the work and downplaying the toil in places like that.

Selena: Yes. And I think that, you know, after we talked about, we went to this conference, and Doug Wilson was talking about how there’s joy and there’s hope and there’s goodness to be found in the work that the Lord has given you. That was very clarifying and I think helped my faith grow. And it reminded me that this work that we do as husband and wife, parents, people, it’s not in vain. It’s for God’s glory. And all the snack requests, all the arguments in the car, all the things that we just have to go through, they’re an opportunity for God to be glorified in.

Ryan: Yeah.

Selena: But it takes an understanding, I think.

Ryan: That work is good. It’s intrinsically good. It’s not part of the curse. The curse made the work toil. And we can focus on the work, we can focus on the toil. But I think the point I want to draw out here is that it was pre-fall when this mandate was handed down, to be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, take dominion.

There was pre-fall differences between men and women. And they work themselves out in both their assignments. In other words, in both how they are assigned, but how they are designed. So there is goodness to be found in recognizing and embracing the design of God and the assignments that He’s given us as men, as women as husbands, as wives.

Even just saying that is like modern rebellion, right? It’s like heresy on the modern stage. But Christian rebellion doesn’t just stop with saying the truth, we must also live it out. So what does it look like to actually live this out? Are there actually differences?

Biblically, we can take that for granted and we can say yes and amen. There are differences, there’s a thing called headship, there’s a thing called helpership, maybe not that exact word, but they’re heads and helpers. And we can embrace them and love them and love those roles because they’re made by God as a means for us to love one another and to love Him and to glorify Him. We can take that and say, Yes, amen. I’m really curious how this has played out on a large scale.

Selena: By “this” you mean?

Ryan: By these in baked realities. Rather these inbuilt realities of like you’re a woman, you’re designed and assigned differently and I’m designed and assigned differently. Do those works themselves out in the cultural moment that we’re in and also throughout history?

I don’t know how long ago it was. There was a bunch of scientists, a bunch of psychologists, I should say, they went and did a bunch of study, tons of empirical data. And they wanted to find like, what are the kind of essential, human personality traits. They would characterize humans themselves in varying degrees. So like, you might have traits one through three, while traits four, and five are maybe to a lesser degree. What are those traits? And how do those work themselves out?

So the five traits are this. We’re gonna put something on the screen for you if you’re watching. Neuroticism, openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, and agreeableness. So they went and found these traits and they said, Okay, we know these traits are real, we’ve done all this work, we’ve written all these papers. This is like mainstream psychological stuff. It’s well-accepted, well-researched.

Now they started asking themselves, or they started observing rather than there are patterns and tendencies like so… You can see patterns and tendencies and that were correlated with sex and or gender, which there’s one of the same? So in other words, did the women tend to have certain traits to a greater degree? Do men tend to have different traits to another degree? And do they separate themselves naturally?

Selena: And why do they? Yeah.

Ryan: What they found is there is a significant-

Selena: Separation.

Ryan: …separation. Then the next question-

Selena: Why?

Ryan: And a lot of this comes from Jordan Peterson, by the way, and some of the stuff that he’s done. He’s the pro on this. This is not me. I’m just kind of like restating some of the stuff I’ve heard him talk about. [00:15:00] Then they wanted to know, why are these changes there?

Selena: Is it based on their gender or biological factors? Was that the determining factor? Was it a psychological factor?

Ryan: I think, yeah. So is it biological in that that difference is only accounted for because of biology and all the things that come along with biology? We’ll talk about that in a second. Or was it a socio-cultural thing? Is it socio-culturally informed? In other words, is it because the society you’re growing up in is encouraging certain traits in women and other traits in men? So, therefore, you’re gonna fall into those traits-

Selena: [inaudible 00:15:37] question.

Ryan: Yeah. So they asked that question. So they said, “Okay, we can figure this out.” And the way they did that is they went and looked at a whole gamut of societies. You have complementarian societies, more traditional, you know, you’ve got the traditional roles, and then you’ve got more egalitarian societies, which are completely… like there’s no gender wage disparity, there’s no gap there.

And I think the way they looked at it is, are the policies egalitarian, whether or not they’re lived out perfectly? Are the policies egalitarian? And in those societies, where do the sexes land? And what they found was… I guess what the theory was is that in egalitarian society, you would see that the distribution would be completely equal. That you’d find half of men would be over here, half-

Selena: This is what they were hoping for.

Ryan: And everybody would be the same across the board. There wouldn’t be any meaningful distinction between the traits and how they work themselves out in society. That’s the theory. They assumed that’s what they would find, but they found the opposite.

In other words, in places like Norway, you have men doing all the men jobs, you have women doing all the stereotypically women jobs. So things like nursing, like women tend to gravitate more toward that. Before they would gravitate toward being a framer or being a coal miner. Right, they’re gonna gravitate toward jobs that are geared toward tenderness, where men are going to gravitate towards jobs that have to do with toughness. Those are, I guess, the terms that I’m using-

Selena: Pretty big generalizations too.

Ryan: Well, they’re big generalizations but that’s what the data pour out. And then you have other maybe dimensions of that, where you have more interconnected jobs, more interconnected ways of living, and then more isolated ways of living. And I’m guessing there’s going to be a divide there as well.

The point is, is that as men… I’m trying to make the case in this chapter of the book, that biblically speaking men are designed differently, and this bears itself out. And we need to be mindful of that. So we don’t come into the front door as a bulldozer, instead, we come in as something else, something more gentle.

Selena: As a husband.

Ryan: As a husband.

Selena: As a father. [both laughs]

Ryan: So I guess the question is, how? How do we do this? I think the first step is being-

Selena: Well, I mean, can you identify that… So contrasting this, you’re saying not coming in as a bulldozer. So what would that look like for a man coming home from work or coming home from a trip or even, you know, I think, in the rare special cases of somebody coming home from deployment and dealing with the effects of PTSD or encounter with war? So what does it look like for a man to come home with the wrong kind of toughness as a bulldozer versus the toughness that is needed?

It almost seems like the toughness that should be facing outward. So out from the front door, we are back to your home, right? Like, you’re defending, you’re protecting, you’re working, but you’re doing it for the protection of your family and your home. Whereas if you flipped that and you brought yourself in, and you’re fighting at home, and you’re… all the efforts that should be out there are now being directed here-

Ryan: Maybe a lion outside but a lamb in the home.

Selena: Right.

Ryan: And if you’re a lion in the home, that’s what your wife’s gonna start to feel tore up.

Selena: Right. I guess I just want to make some clear examples.

Ryan: That’s really good. Let’s talk about the example of the military guy. So there are husbands that have spent a year plus… I remember working as a janitor-

Selena: In our early years, yeah.

Ryan: …on the military on the apartment building. I worked there for two years. And some of them would deploy for three months, usually on the Special Forces guys, and they would see some pretty crazy stuff. Then you’d have maybe the second lieutenant types who would be gone for maybe 16 months or 18 months or whatever. There was a longer period.

And so these men are out there, they’re having to be tough, they’re having to endure a tough living situation or having to be emotionally tough. They’re away from their wife and kids. I don’t know what man that doesn’t tear apart. If you have young kids, they are growing up while you’re overseas. That’s really hard. [00:20:00] So they’re being tough. They’re being tough with other soldiers. And I mean, these guys are not-

Selena: And they’re being tough 24/7. They are still resting, but they’re in this culture they’re in this headspace of-

Ryan: We had a podcast a while back with Steven and Brooke Elliott. And Steven was a Ranger. He saw unspeakable things.

Selena: Literally unspeakable. He couldn’t talk about them.

Ryan: Yeah, because of the nature of his work. Listen to that episode by the way. He was a part of a friendly fire incident with Pat Tillman. And in many ways, he was the scapegoat in that whole situation. But that caused an immense amount of PTSD.

So he comes home to Brooke and they’re fairly newly married and he’s having to flip a switch from being somebody who has seen and killed and seen, killed and seen brothers of his killed, brothers in arms, and seeing things and living in a certain way for a period of time and dealing with all the toughness there. And then coming home and parachuting in, not literally, but parachuted into the home and being like, no one understands.

And this is what every veteran deals with, is that no one knows what it’s like. And that’s an extreme example. But I think in a sense, men have… there’s always going to be that sense that I’m at work and having to be tough with coworkers, employees. I mean, tough, not like reprimanding them. Tough as in you have to-

Selena: Manage them. It’s a different kind of a-

Ryan: Puff your chest out, you know, you’re acting professional, you’re task-oriented, you have to produce, get the job, do the good work that you were designed to do and toil in the process, that’s part of the fall and look to Christ in that, but and then come home through the front door tired, worn out-

Selena: Ready to just embrace your family.

Ryan: And somehow flip a switch that says, “Now I’m going to be a lamb. I’m gonna be tough out there and I’m gonna be tender here.” I’m thinking of like… we’ve had a few cases in our lives where, I mean-

Selena: Well, and it’s not saying that you can’t feel like… You know, when sales are down or things are not looking super great right… For us, praise God, by His grace we have consistently been taken care of, but that affects you. Like if the ground is not producing the harvest, that affects him to a deeper level. As it should, you know, because men are placed in these roles as providers.

Again, not that women can’t. This is not the conversation. But they are the head. And so if they’re the spiritual head, then they’re supposed to be able to lead and provide that instruction for knowing God and worshiping God and understanding the things of God.

Again, pouring that over into work, if things are going really badly at work, you don’t have to hide that from your spouse. But I think there’s ways that you can talk about it, you can deal with it. How can we be praying wife? As a wife, I can say, “How can I be praying for you today?” I know that this has been a really tough season.

You know, prices on everything are going up but salary and pay is not. So there’s a stretch on families, there’s pressure, there’s stress. And so how do we as wife welcome our hard-working husband, you know, coming home and how can we love him well in a way that honors God and glorifies God? But then yeah, how does the husband come in and kind of decompress maybe a little bit before he walks in the door so that there’s not just a “kids be quiet. I’m so tired. I can’t deal with this.” There’s got to be some ways to transition and how to communicate through that.

Ryan: Yeah. I think maybe a few tangible ways to deal with the husband paradox. One, recognize that it exists. That there’s a toughness-

Selena: And it’s good.

Ryan: There’s a toughness that is toil free. It’s the kind that you employ to finish a hard task, to make good on your promises, to solve difficult problems, to lift heavy things. There’s a toughness that you employ. And there’s a joy toil free aspect of that kind of toughness.

But when you get home, like you recognize that there’s a change that has to happen. I like the analogy of maybe somebody’s working on a big diesel engine or like a boat engine. I said this to you today as I was processing through some of the writing. I said, “your wife is not a rusty bolt to be broken with a wrench and a cheater bar.” [Selena chuckles] She doesn’t need the torque. She’s tender. She doesn’t need to be wrenched like that. [laughs]

The point is, is that you have to switch roles. Like change your clothes, put a different hat on, maybe literally, maybe not. But whatever it takes, recognize that the change is needed. Figure out a way to make the change.

Selena: And understand it’s a part of who you are, like how God has purposed and designed you. Right?

Ryan: Right. And I love the analogy you said. Like when I’m facing outward, like I’m looking out for my front door maybe potentially at a hostile land, I will be tough with that land in the name [00:25:00] of protecting my family. But when I turn around and look inside, my face falls in the most disarming way, I’m no longer furrowing my brow, I’m now looking with open wide eyes at the ones the Lord has given me to steward, knowing full well that you can make that switch.

I think, yeah, recognize that there’s a switch that need to be flipped. Figure out how to flip the switch in a good way. It doesn’t mean you suppress how you feel. Like we said, it means you can process together. Go to your helper now, she’s not an opponent, she’s your helper, and process with her. So that’s for a husband. And I think just talk through that with your wife. And we talked through that dynamic.

As a wife, quickly. I mean, sorry to put you on the spot here. But how can a wife help her husband to this end of the toil-free toughness, but also the tenderness at home?

Selena: Yeah, I think there’s a couple of ways you can recognize I think just in action and thought. As a wife, if you know that your husband’s dealing with some really intense problems at work, simple actions of making a meal that he really enjoys, or having some sort of… I hate to say special treat. But sometimes it’s like a plate full of hot cookies on a cold day after a hard day’s work might be something that really warms his heart and like diffuses things, and reminds him that he’s home and that he can be safe, and he can rest here. And so you feed his belly and feed his soul, right?

And then, secondly, I think recognizing that if he comes in burdened, if he comes in tough, if he comes in swinging a little bit, remember it’s probably not about you, there’s probably other things that have been happening. And so don’t take a first offense to it. Again, you’re not being a doormat, but just take a step back, ask some questions nicely, out of love, out of wanting to understand, not out of policing, but out of wanting to understand so that you can help and you can love. So those would be my answers.

Ryan: I love it.

Selena: You have a way of disarming my toughest defenses. I think every wife does.

Selena: Well, if they have that line I think to their husband’s heart because it doesn’t always work itself out that way, right?

Ryan: I would argue that every wife has that line to her husband’s heart, it’s just how clear are those lines of communication? That’s why-

Selena: How are you using them too?

Ryan: And that’s why we’re writing books on communication. [Selena chuckles] But the example that comes to mind that I just love so much, it’s from the movie 300 and it’s where Leonidas is headed off to war, to certain death. And he’s kissing his wife. They had been together the night before and like she… it’s clear that they are in love, that they love one another. The soldiers have marched on, he stays back, he’s talking to his wife, and she looks at him and just says, “Come back with your shield…Or on it.” And he looks at her like, “Okay.” Come back with your shield…Or on it-

Selena: Only a wife can say that.

Ryan: A wife can say that. Like, go and win or die. In this life of pursuing Christ, of providing for your family, go win or die trying type of thing. Now, obviously, we’re gonna talk about physical death. But there is a sense that like that is what men need to hear. Because I need to know that I have a wife who is waiting for me to win for her, and to do what it takes to win. And she’s gonna be there with soft, tender, open arms with a meal. Not that you’re just a person who makes meals, but you’re the person I’m doing it for, and to be received in that way. I think it’s probably one of the most powerful ways to flip that switch. And of course, it takes two. But you have unique ways of getting about that goal as a husband and as a wife.

So wherever that lands with you, fierce husband, fierce wife, you’re listening, watching this video, talk through it. What does it look like to be tough outside the home? And what does it look like for you as the husband, you’re a husband, if you’re wife, to be tender with you in the home? When have you won? When have you lost that battle? When have you done well? When have you done poorly? Talk through that and I’m sure it’ll be fruitful.

All of this is possible. If we’re talking about roles, and you’re thinking this is really grating, like, I’m just gonna tell you, the data shows it. This is kind of how we’re wired. Biology is real. There is a connection there in terms of the way you’re designed and the way you think. That’s because we have a creator who’s real. We have a Creator who carefully crafted, did the good work of creating us, creating creation, and then placed you there to steward it. And things broke. Adam and Eve broke everything and we are complicit in that sin. In other words, we have a powerful, good Creator who we have rebelled against.

And we will rebel against God when it comes to our roles too. This is why you get tyrannical husbands and you get usurping wives, you get passive wives, you get disengaged husbands because there’s distortions of these roles that are the result of our rebellion from God. The only answer is to turn to Christ, [00:30:00] and to ask Him to help, to forgive you of your sins, to make you a new creation so that you might live in step with the Spirit who is the helper that He sent.

If you want to know more about what that means, go to thenewsisgood.com. That’ll get your foot on that path toward becoming Christian. Getting into a good church and walking with Christ. Let’s pray.

Father, you are eternally good. Thank you for the gift it is to be loved by you and to take that love and then extend it to one another in marriage. I pray that you would help the couples listening to this or watching this, that they would have a real sense that a) you are with them, b) you are for them; you’re not against them, c) you are worthy of their entire lives, and d) that they are not hopeless because you’re walking alongside them.

I pray that they would feel your presence in a very real way. Help the husband struggling, walk with him. Help the wife struggling, walk with her. Bring life, bring light. You are life, you are the light that is our salvation. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Selena: amen.

Ryan: If you’re still watching, still listening, thank you so much. Make sure you hit that subscribe button. We wouldn’t be able to do this without our awesome patrons. So if that’s you-

Selena: Thank you.

Ryan: …thank you. Virtual hug to you. Audio hug to you if you’re listening to this. If you’re not a partner of ours, we would ask that you would consider it. And if the Lord leads, then you would take the next step and go to fiercemarriage.com/partner. I can’t say it enough. Thank you to our partners.

You guys. Selena mentioned sometimes it’s been really tough. We don’t do ads on the podcast because I think they’re distracting and it takes too much time to set them up, and it’s frustrating. We don’t want any barriers to this content getting out to people. And if you are a partner, you’re helping us not have ads. So thank you. So yeah, go to fiercemarriage.com/partner.

That is it for this episode of the Fierce Marriage Podcast, which is now in the can. [laughs]

Selena: Oh, my! This is over. It’s done.

Ryan: This episode of the Fierce Marriage Podcast is—

Selena: In the can.

Ryan: See you again in seven days. Until next time—

Selena: Stay fierce. [chuckles] Almost 300 episodes. [both laughs] Every single time I’m pretty sure we’ve said that.

Ryan: It’s because we’re so excited.

Selena: So excited.