• Referenced scripture:
  • Ephesians 5:3
  • 1 Timothy 5
  • 1 Timothy 4:16
  • Hebrews 13:4
  • Hebrews 13:1

• Recommended resource:
  • thenewsisgood.com

Ryan: Selena, what would you do if I was at work and you came and visited me and one of my co-workers, a lady, got her ladyfingers [Selena chuckles] all over my shoulder, on my arm?

Selena: I’d probably give her kind of a funny look. And if she kept going, well, watch out, lady. [Ryan laughs]

Ryan: Okay. We’re gonna talk about that today. We had a listener write in with that question. Kind of making a joke out of it right now but it’s a very serious question. Where do those boundaries lie? How do you address boundaries if you feel like they’ve been breached? How do you know if they’ve been breached?

Selena: How do you address it with your spouse? And then how do you address it with the person if they don’t have the same values as you? How do you go about that without… you know?

Ryan: So we’re calling this episode “hands off my husband.” Of course, Selena is the one saying that. [laughs]

Selena: Hands off my husband. [both chuckles]

Ryan: So we’ll see you on the other side.

[00:00:49]

Selena: I have to say that I’ve really been enjoying getting these questions that we’ve gotten in the last couple of weeks, I think. They’re very timely. They always get down to a core issue of what people are actually wondering about.

This instance we’ll read through the question that Amy sent in and we will talk about it because it does hold a lot of, I think, deeper questions, foundational questions that couples should be aware of and should be thinking about, “How do we discern through these things? How do we implement these boundaries?” But before we do that—

Ryan: I’m Ryan. This is my lovely wife Selena. We are the Fredericks. We are all things fierce on the internet: Fierce Marriage, Fierce Parenting, The Fierce Family if you’re a YouTube person. We’d love to have your subscription. We’re almost at 10,000 on YouTube.

Selena: Oh, my goodness!

Ryan: Yeah.

Selena: Seems like a lot to me.

Ryan: Well, it does. We were like at five when we started earlier this year. So it’s doubled in a year.

Selena: Wow. Praise God.

Ryan: So yeah, go give us your subscription there. We really enjoy that. If you’re watching this, hit that “subscribe” button. We answer these questions periodically. We’ve done almost 300 episodes of the Fierce Marriage podcast, only about the last 50 or so of those have been recorded on video. So we’ve covered a lot of topics. So we really do look to our audience to ask questions that are going to be relevant to you that maybe we haven’t covered in the past or haven’t taken a certain angle on it.

So if you want to ask a question, we have a really easy way for you to do that. Just go to fiercemarriage.com/ask. You can either text it in, you can call it in, if you want to be fancy about it, because calling used to be a thing. [Selena chuckles] Nobody hardly ever leaves voicemails anymore. You can leave a voicemail, you can text that number at that page, or you can actually do an internet form, which is the most common way people do it. You just fill it out on your phone or on your computer. It’s fierce marriage.com/ask.

You can also suggest topic ideas, generally speaking. You don’t have to have an exact question. You can say, “Hey, can you talk about this thing.” That gives us some content fodder as we work hard to put these episodes together to make them relevant to you and obviously very biblical. So…

Selena: All right. I am going to read this question from Amy and then we’re going to kind of break it down, some observations and questions we would have in the situation and then some scripture and tangible ways to move forward in this awkward instance.

So Amy says, “How as a Christian woman should you handle it if another woman touches your husband in front of you? A woman at my husband’s work puts her hand on my husband’s shoulder and arm in a way that I find inappropriate. I do not feel my husband’s body language or interaction invited this behavior. The lack of boundaries in general in society is hard to navigate. Should you say something in the moment? Should I let my husband say something? My husband understood my discomfort and said he would feel the same way. What are some ways to handle these uncomfortable social situations and make sure boundaries are clear?” Good question. Good question.

Ryan: When I read this question to Selena the first time, I didn’t get to the first sentence and she’s like, “Oh, I’m gonna smack that woman in the face.” [both laughs]

Selena: Just punch her in the face.

Ryan: And get turned in with assault charge.

Selena: No. Jokingly. [Ryan laughs] But also hands off, lady.

Ryan: This is why it’s salty and sweet,. Oh, what a treat! You can’t have the sweet with a little bit of salt sprinkled in here and there.

Selena: That’s what I’m saying. A few observations about this question.

Ryan: You’re my salted caramel bride.

Selena: Oh my goodness. Okay. Moving forward. How does a Christian woman handle this? I liked that she identified and said, not just how do you handle this. But as a Christian, as a wife, as a woman of God, how do I handle this with most likely an unbeliever and someone who does not hold the same moral values as you? Because obviously smacking someone in the face is not a good Christian thing to do. [chuckles]

Ryan: And why did you say it?

Selena: It was an off-the-cuff reaction.

Ryan: That’s good. I’m glad that you say that because there’s two ditches on the side of this road. The first one is like, you say, “Why are you spending a whole podcast episode talking about this woman who just maybe nonchalantly touched your husband’s shoulder? No big deal. Move on.”

Selena: Shoulder and arm. There’s only two ways to do this. Like this and like this. Too much touching already. [both laughs]

Ryan: Yeah. That’s on one end of it. [00:05:00] So you say, “Why are you so prudish? And the other end of that you get so defensive about it that now all of a sudden you’re alienating yourself from any sort of like-

Selena: Sure.

Ryan: You become just the office sexual harassment police. You say, “I don’t like the way Cindy looked at me, it made me uncomfortable because I want to guard my marriage.” It’s like, “Well, okay, no one wants to fault you for guarding your marriage, Scott, [laughs] whatever your name is.” But can you just not be such a, you know, uptight person about it. We will help you in this, but it’s making it awkward for everyone else. So there’s like a spectrum here.

Selena: And we have to actually discern-

Ryan: And I’m not advocating like it’s okay to kind of touch everyone. That’s not what I’m trying to say. [both laughs]

Selena: No.

Ryan: But how you respond to it can create something in the middle of those two extremes.

Selena: Yeah, how you respond, can either maybe invite somebody into a conversation about the Lord or not, or a conversation about respect, a conversation about your marriage and your covenant and how much you love one another, and how that is just such an important thing to you. And I think that’s a different conversation. People don’t hear that, I think, quite as often as we think. So, again, how does a Christian woman handle this? I love that she said that. Clearly-

Ryan: How does a Christian man also in light of this…?

Selena: Absolutely. How does a Christian handle this situation? Clearly, there’s an understanding, I think, of this, you know, we’re made in God’s image. She wants to handle it with care but with clarity. We always say here, at least, I’ve heard it said that clarity is kindness. And so how can we be clear?

There might have to be some awkwardness that comes from the other person if you are being clear. But I think, again, it’s only when you have that clarity you can then move forward with a better relationship.

I love that her husband… again, these are observations about this question, and then we’ll kind of ask some questions I’m sure the listeners and viewers are having themselves. Clearly, the husband understands and wants to honor his wife.

Ryan: I really like that she wrote that in there because the fact that that made it into this question tells me that there’s probably a lot more of that that happened that didn’t make it into the question. Because it would have been really easy for him to say, “You’re blowing it out of proportion. It’s fine. She wouldn’t mean anything by it. Forget about it.” But instead, he’s acknowledging, “Yeah, you’re right. That was awkward. And I get how you would feel that way.”

Selena: “I’d feel the same way if your co-worker did that too.”

Ryan: “I would feel the same way. How do we deal with this?” I think that’s really cool. So kudos to that husband for responding that way and understanding.

Selena: Just, I think, acknowledging the lack of boundaries within society, within the workplace. Right? Again, you’re dealing with people who don’t share the same… assuming you’re dealing with people who don’t always share the same values. Again, we have different upbringings, we have different moral standards. Again, maybe she’s a touchy-feely person, but does that make it okay for her to touchy-feely whoever she wants? No. [both laughs]

Ryan: Because I can even see this happening at a church, to be honest.

Selena: Oh, for sure. Absolutely. I think it happens all the time. Because church people are always like, “Oh, hey, bae, friend.” They’re always hugging-

Ryan: What kind of church are you hanging out at?

Selena: Well, not on my church. But we’ve got some standards. No, I’m kidding. But you know, it’s just kind of how that goes sometimes. It’s the culture.

Ryan: Yeah, it’s the culture. And it could be even just a family culture thing. If a woman comes from the sou… We’re in the northwest. People are not like people in the south also. [inaudible 00:08:21] say that, right?

Selena: In what way?

Ryan: Like hospitality is not the default up here, I don’t feel like. You know, culturally speaking. It’s more of like arm’s length.

Selena: Sure.

Ryan: So if you have someone from the south comes up and… My caricatures of the Southern person is they’re just super friendly, in your space, but in a good way and offering you food and coming inviting you into their house and giving you a hug when you didn’t want one. [chuckles] I know that’s just a-

Selena: That’s on you, though. You should want to hug from this other person.

Ryan: I always do. I will always take a hug. I’ll give hugs too. Remember that woman that wandered into our yard off the street?

Selena: Yes. But she was not mentally stable.

Ryan: And she goes, “Give me a hug.” And I was like, “Okay.” [both laughs]

Selena: How dare you? How dare you?

Ryan: You were standing right there. You were standing right there.

Selena: I know. She was… yes. [Ryan laughs] There are tangible ways to handle this, and we’re gonna get into that in a moment. I think it’s threefold. You handle it, of course, in the moment, but you can only handle it in the moment, if you’ve dealt with it prior to the moment, you’ve had conversations with your spouse. And then there’s gonna be some aftermath that you probably need to deal with.

So again, there’s some questions that you have to consider, I think that will determine or dictate your response. The first one being, at least for me, is this a consistent behavior from this woman? Is it only to Amy’s husband, the person who wrote in, or is it to every man in the office, or is it to every person in the office? Again, is she just kind of a touchy-feely person, and how-

Ryan: By the way it made Amy uncomfortable, which means-

Selena: I’m not questioning that. But if it’s a one-time thing, I think I would say, “Okay, yes, that made me feel uncomfortable. Please, if it happens again, like let this be our course of action,” as a wife. [00:10:00]

Ryan: I think that regardless of whether she’s touchy-feely with everyone or with every guy or just with Amy’s husband, the difference for me is, is it ongoing, or is it a one-off?

Selena: Because if it’s ongoing, then you have to get things like HR involved. As a man, you can-

Ryan: Yeah, I would recommend if you’re part of an organization you would get another person involved.

Selena: Especially as a man because… it can go sour so quickly for a guy, I think. That if a woman wants to misconstrue something, she very easily could in the workplace.

Ryan: They ought to nod in man’s failure in this case.

Selena: In the man’s favor.

Ryan: But if it’s a one-off, then you just kind of deal with it and say, “Yeah, that you’re right. That was awkward.”

Selena: Why was it awkward?

Ryan: That’s worth talking about.

Selena: Yeah. Why was it awkward? Because no one really gets to touch you like that, except me. That’s kind of an exclusive… That’s a distinctive of our own relationship is what I feel like this wife is probably feeling.

Ryan: Sure.

Selena: This is not something that everybody… It’s not a handshake, right? [chuckles]

Ryan: Yeah. In that instance, if we were in these couple’s shoes, I would say, “I agree with you. We’re 100% in agreement. I will do what it takes to make sure that doesn’t happen again.” If it doesn’t happen again, then I’m not gonna say anything because I feel like it’s done. But if it starts to happen again, then I’m gonna say… See, that’s where you’d have to just read the situation I can even say in the moment. You mentioned the way to defuse it right then and there is when she’s touching your shoulder just look at her hand on your shoulder awkwardly. [laughs]

Selena: You can use body language and not say a thing.

Ryan: And just look at it and don’t say a thing and then look at her with your eyebrows up like, “Excuse me, what are you doing? Get your hands off of me.”

Selena: There have been many moments where I have learned many lessons just through somebody’s body language. Not in those kinds of types of instances but… A joke. When we were first dating, Ryan’s parents took us to… Was it [inaudible]?

Ryan: I don’t know that we’ve ever been there together.

Selena: That was our first date. Your parents took us…

Ryan: It’s all blurred.

Selena: You were supposed to take someone else and they didn’t want to go. Remember?

Ryan: I don’t remember this.

Selena: Uuuh, oh my goodness.

Ryan: I was twitterpated. Give me a break.

Selena: Anyways, we were jazzed up in the back of his parents’ car. They’re driving us because I think we were like not even… we were new drivers. Driving in the city was something we weren’t allowed to do yet. He grabbed my hand in the back seat, so we’re holding hands. His dad turns around and stares at our hands and then looks up at me, he looks up at Ryan, stares you down with like daggers. I think you let go of my hand in the back of the car [laughs] because he was just like, “What is going on here?”

Ryan: That is my dad to a tee, though.

Selena: What I’m saying is that he illustrates the point of you can use body language and not be offensive and not say anything but make it clear that this is unwelcome. [both laughs]

Ryan: I just think you could also be hilariously awkward about it.

Selena: You could be. You could be.

Ryan: As soon as she touches your shoulders, you’re like, Haaayeee.” [both laughs] And just like… Or like fall to the ground. [both laughs] And just do anything that’s-

Selena: I mean, those are some of the tangible things that we’re talking about. Not that, falling to the ground, but clearly, you could walk away or you know, if you’re a friend of that woman, coworker, help a guy. Grab the woman and like, “Hey, come over here. I want to show you something.” There’s just ways that you can just defuse that whole thing.

Ryan: And if you’re in a professional environment, you probably have a few ideas on how you’d be able to handle that appropriately. And if it comes down to it, then yeah, getting HR involved. I certainly would not have any private conversations about this. I would want them to be-

Selena: On record.

Ryan: …at least maybe in the cubicle space if that’s where you’re at.

Selena: Absolutely. Absolutely.

Ryan: …or the common area.

Selena: You mentioned too, what’s the dynamic? Is it like coworker co-worker, is it superior? Is she the superior?

Ryan: It gets tricky.

Selena: It feels-

Ryan: Because then you’re like, “Okay, I’ve confronted Cindy about touching my shoulder and now she’s giving me-

Selena: Cindy.

Ryan: Sin. It’s in her name. [both laughs] Cin. And now she’s making my job terrible because she thinks I poisoned the water and I’m not a team player, you know, whatever.

Selena: Again, this is what makes the dynamic of at work different and more challenging because of the lack of values, and how people approach different situations and conflict. So what is your standard of operating procedure? Again, this is something that should be determined before.

Ryan: I want to make a note here because it could be tempting to say to Cindy, “Listen, Cindy, my wife doesn’t like it when you do that.” That’s not the thing to say. [Selena chuckles] Because that’s just putting the blame on your wife.

Selena: Right.

Ryan: It’s separating you from the discomfort, from your displeasure. I would say, however you come about the actual conversation, that’s for you to figure out. Something that effect of “this feels awkward to me when you touch me in this way, namely, because it feels like it’s dishonoring my wife and it’s dishonoring our marriage. I love my wife [00:15:00] and I don’t ever want to hint otherwise to myself, to you, to her, to anyone. I love her. And so please, if you could, I’d appreciate if you would just honor my marriage, honor this request.”

Selena: “If you could.” No. “I want to invite you in to honoring my marriage and my wife,” right?

Ryan: Yeah. Yeah. I want to invite you in. Would these conversations actually ever happen? I could see it happening. It would probably be really uncomfortable. And that’s okay. You got to have uncomfortable conversations sometimes. But I like that language because it is us versus you but it-

Selena: It is my wife and I am the middleman communicating this to you.

Ryan: You don’t want to use your spouse as a scapegoat for the hard conversation.

Selena: No divided front, you are one. Right?

Ryan: And it’s in the name of unity that you can go to battle.

Selena: Right. So using wisdom, understanding that, you know, there’s a time and a place, there’s a way to address this. Again, if it’s ongoing, if it’s a one-off, take it as a lesson and figure out, “Okay, where are our boundaries? Where have we failed? How can we be stronger about this and have a united front? But also, you know, being forthright with the truth about our covenant in Christ. I don’t think we need to back away as Christians. Saying, like, “This is what we believe. This is what we value,” just for the sake of not making someone else feel awkward. They’re the ones that started the awkward. [chuckles] So…

Ryan: I don’t know. If a guy was touching you like that and I caught wind of it from you, most likely, [Selena chuckles] I would make his life very awkward as quickly as I can.

Selena: I’m sure.

Ryan: “Hey, Scott, how would you like to touch my left shoulder? Let’s talk about that.” [both chuckles]

Selena: Oh, my goodness.

Ryan: “If you like your fingers not being broken…” [both chuckles]

Selena: again, the goal is to walk in the light as Christ is in the light in every situation, whether it’s awkward or not. We are called to be salt and light. And so how do we deal with a situation tangibly besides falling over or acting really awkward if someone’s touching us that we don’t want to be touched by or making it awkward for our spouse?

The first one I said was kind of walk away or step back, kind of out of reach. There’s always an excuse to go to the watering hole, I don’t know, get coffee. I don’t know what the situation was she’s at his work seeing this happen. I don’t know. I think I assumed it was like an office party or something like that. But maybe not.

You know, just get some space. Call somebody else into the conversation if it’s just the two of you. Call someone in.

Ryan: You know, what occurs to me is the episode of The Office when Jim is on the business trip in Florida-

Selena: Oh, yeah. Sure.

Ryan: Ugh.

Selena: And that girl comes in because she’s just crushing on him. And she’s he is married at that point.

Ryan: She’s actively trying to seduce him. And the length he goes to-

Selena: To avoid it.

Ryan: The bedbugs. [both laughs] So smug.

Selena: He calls Dwight in. It’s so good.

Ryan: Go to the lengths.

Selena: Go to the lengths.

Ryan: I’m very much on the prudish side of this.

Selena: Absolutely.

Ryan: Don’t leave any crack in that door, crack in that foundation. Just avoid it like the plague. It’s okay. Do that with confidence. Don’t feel like you’re being uptight. Like not worth it.

Selena: No. I think in this day and age, the more you can value each other and your covenant outwardly and other people can see that truth that you really are living out God’s purpose and design for marriage, the more order they will see. And yeah, they probably will get offended, but Jesus says, “They’ll hate you because they hated me first.”

Ryan: It’ll seem foolish to them that-

Selena: It will.

Ryan: …you’re bringing this up or you’re making a big deal out of it. It’ll seem foolish. Don’t buy that lie. It’s not foolish.

Selena: It’s not foolish. Again, discussing your boundaries ahead of time. Maybe this was a one off and this was just a “Oh, we need to talk about this. This made me feel this way. Why did it make you feel this way?” You and your spouse need to discern and discuss those types of things together as kind of general rules of thumb.

Ryan and I don’t really hug people of the opposite sex. We don’t usually even touch them unless it’s like a handshake. If you’ve been our friend for anywhere upwards of like five years or something, then you might get a hug. [both chuckles]

Ryan: That’s just a function of me feeling awkward about hugs all of a sudden. I like hugs. Like I mentioned that lady that walked in, she clearly needed like to be assured of something. But like just saying hello and goodbye to friends to me in a different category.

Selena: Right.

Ryan: We don’t have like a hard and fast rule about. It’s just-

Selena: We just don’t though. I will give a side hug to somebody if they want a hug. If they’re going in for it, you know, I’ll kind of go in for it like that way, but I am not-

Ryan: Not me though. I get front hugs only.

Selena: You do?

Ryan: Me and you.

Selena: Yes. Sorry, I thought you were saying you give friend hugs to people, and I was like, “I’m sorry. You’re just ruining [chuckles] this conversation completely. This is not where we’re going.”

Ryan: I’m talking about hugging you.

Selena: Yes. There was one article I want to mention briefly. It was on Focus on the Family. It talked about [00:20:00] setting godly boundaries in marriage. And they had a little chart in here just defining what a boundary is. It’s a limit. But its boundaries wrapped in God’s love is what it talks about.

So the boundary like in Ephesians 5:3, no of course joking, not a hint of sexual immorality. That’s the boundary. But God’s love in this is to be imitators of God, therefore as dearly loved children and live a life of love. So we have this boundary, not just to ruin your fun or to make you seem like you’re a prude. But because you are loved by God and you are purposed for being a reflection and glory unto Him within your marriage.

They said here, “Treat younger men as brothers and younger women as sisters, with absolute purity.” This is in 1 Timothy 5. “God’s love, watch your life and your doctrine closely. Save both yourself and your hearers. Another one in 1 Timothy 4:16.

Another boundary. Keeps the marriage bed pure, Hebrews 13:4. Hebrews 13:1 says, “Keep on loving each other as brothers. So that’s God’s love.” So you have this boundary of keeping the marriage bed pure, but showing God’s love, keep on loving one another as brothers in Christ.

Again, just understanding the difference between what a boundary is. It is a limit. But it’s wrapped in God’s love. It’s not just rules. We’re not in the Old Testament anymore. It’s not just these laws and these rules that you have to keep in order to stay in God’s favor because Christ came. Now we have these rules or these boundaries so that we can thrive in our marriage, not just for us, we don’t just want our marriage to be fierce. We want it to be a bright reflection of God, of His glory, of Christ, His Church and the bride. So hopefully, that makes a little bit of sense here.

Ryan: I’m reading J. C. Ryle right now, Thoughts for Young Men.

Selena: Oh, yeah.

Ryan: Toward the end, he’s giving young men imperatives advice. And the first thing he says is, “Give sin no occasion in your life. Don’t let any sin go untended, unmodified in your life.” And what he say… I mean, this book is… it’s just powerpack. But he goes, once the needle pokes the hole, it pulls the entire thread through. And it’s like, sometimes we treat those needle pokes like they’re nothing. We don’t realize what’s attached to that. And it pulls the entire thread through.

He talked about the leaven working its way throughout the entire loaf. That whole thing. And so yeah. It’s amazing to me how we’ve casualized—Is that even a word? I’ll say it’s a word—we’ve casualized sin.

Selena: If not, modified it.

Ryan: But we’ve made it so casual. Like our culture has so… We’re so used to it-

Selena: Familiar?

Ryan: Familiar with it that… In many other cultures throughout the world, any sort of contact between a man and a woman would have been very platonic, very transactional, and almost taboo. But now it’s like, you know, we’re just with everything that feminism has unearthed in our society, that there shouldn’t be any distinction, right? Of course, we don’t agree with that. We think there are distinctions between the sexes, and they’re beautiful ones and they’re complimentary distinctions. And that’s God’s design, both in terms of form and function.

But the feminist kind of narrative is that, no, there are no meaningful distinctions between. And so that’s in the workplace. That’s in how a woman asserts herself. That’s in how a man is submissive in a way to these sorts of advances.

And I’m saying all this, just to kind of remind us that like, remember, exactly why we guard against the tiny things. Because it’s the tiny things that are the occasions and they’re the building blocks for the big things. So we want to be guarded.

Again, like you said, I love it. It’s not just so we can have a better marriage, so we can be happier. It’s because this thing, this marriage is a beautiful cathedral and to God’s glory. And we have stepped into it something that He created that we might glorify Him even more. And that’s what’s at stake. It’s the glory of God. It’s the good of our unions, it’s the good of our children. There’s so much at stake. And it’s worth taking the time to have these conversations about seemingly small things, because as you unpack you realize nothing’s really as small as you think.

Selena: So thanks for that question, Amy. I think that was a really great question. Especially if you as a wife feel something in your gut, then you need to obviously bring it to your husband and maybe take it further.

Ryan: And it sounds like she has. And I would just say keep having these conversations and act wisely and act decisively and prayerfully. [00:25:00]

If you’re talking about the glory of Christ and you don’t know exactly what that means, we always like to end with an invitation. The gospel is the best news you’ll ever hear. And it’s basically this. That you are worst sinner than you ever imagined, but Jesus is better than you could ever hope for. And He is calling you into relationship with Him because of the sacrifice that He gave.

You’d mentioned the God of the Old Testament. We’re reading through the greediest parts of the Old Testament right now, all the wars, there’s a lot of death, there’s a lot of sin, there’s a lot of running away from God and being cursed as a result and dealing with the wrath of God being poured out on the people. And-

Selena: We deserve that.

Ryan: And I’m just reminded without Christ, that is me.

Selena: That is me.

Ryan: I deserve that same wrath, that same unscrupulous treatment. But Jesus came as the man foretold for thousands of years, starting even in the garden so that the wrath of God wouldn’t just be set aside, the wrath of God would be quenched, it would be satisfied. Not set aside. Satisfied. How’s that? [inaudible] tweet? [laughs] Satisfied, because so that I don’t have to bear the wrath of that.

Instead, I can bear the blessing that Christ won. And that is life. Because Christ did not just satisfy God’s wrath for my sin but has imparted into me his own righteousness so that God doesn’t just see me at a zero balance but He sees me brought up to zero, and then now I am covered and clothed with the righteousness of Christ, the perfect God-man. That’s what it means to be Christian is to put your faith in Christ, in that man who was fully God, fully man.

So if you want to take a step down that path, we have a website for you. Thenewsisgood.com. We encourage you to check that out.

Let’s pray. Father God, thank you for marriage. Thank you for the gift it is to have a wife. Thank you for the gift it is to be married to her. Thank you for the gift it is to defend her, to defend our union, and that you’ve given us the faculties and the wisdom to do that.

I pray for couples that may be struggling with establishing these boundaries that might seem small. I pray you’d give them wisdom. Help them to see it clearly. Help them to act decisively, wisely, and at your leading, Holy Spirit. I pray that it would be for the good of their union and it’d be for the glory of Your Son so that we might be a light unto this world that needs you desperately. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Selena: Amen.

Ryan: Thank you for sticking around. If you’re still watching, listening to this, we would be honored, grateful, elated, if you would partner with us. That’s one of the main reasons that God has allowed us to continue doing this work. He has been gracious through the people that He has led to partner with us.

If that’s you, if you feel led, it doesn’t have to be a lot. We actually give you books and rings, these silicone rings. You’re not wearing yours because your fingers have been swollen.

Selena: My fingers are fat. [chuckles]

Ryan: Swollen.

Selena: Fat. [chuckles]

Ryan: So if you want to part with us, go to fiercemarriage.com/partner. There are some freebies there. We just ask you pray about it. And if you pray about it, and the Lord leads you, then take that step with us. We’d be honored. But with that said, this episode of Fierce Marriage is—

Selena: In the can.

Ryan: We’ll see you again in about seven days. Until next time—

Selena: Stay fierce.