• Referenced scripture:
  • Exodus 20:17

• Recommended resource:
  • thenewsisgood.com
  • Husband in Pursuit 
  • Wife in Pursuit

Selena: Do ladies try to flirt with you when I’m not around? You’re so handsome.

Ryan: If they are, I’m oblivious. I don’t think so.

Selena: You’re not oblivious, but… I think it’s easy to tell when people are being flirtatious.

Ryan: Yeah. You know what? I can’t say that’s something that happens very often. And that’s good. Maybe I put out the-

Selena: “I’m married” vibe.

Ryan: “I’m married” vibe. Yeah, that’s actually what we’re talking about today. Affairs are sadly very common. Physical affairs, emotional affairs. And so we spend a good bit of time thinking through how to at least make couples aware of that, make couples understand that’s why affairs are wrong, why they’re devastating, how to avoid them. Today we’re going to talk about affair repellent. And one author said it’s the most effective affair repellent ever. So we’ll talk about that on the other side.

[00:00:54]

Ryan: How about you, Selena? Do guys try to get, I don’t know, fresh with you? Is that the right way to think about it?

Selena: Fresh. Not that I notice. I think in my younger years, there was more attention. But no, I don’t think people are that… I don’t know. The people that I see are not that bold. Especially when they see me with like four kids or something, they’re like, uh. Not that I’ve noticed. And I think that there are things wives can do to kind of deter that or to shut those types of things down in a very friendly, but clear manner. We can talk about that a bit.

Ryan: Yeah. By the way, welcome to the podcast. My name is Ryan. This is my lovely wife, Selena. We are the Fredericks. We do the Fierce Marriage podcast. We’ve been doing it for… how many years now? We’re on episode like 360 something. 370 something.

Selena: Yeah. I mean-

Ryan: I’d say we’re close to five years. Six years?

Selena: Five years. I think we’re on five years going on six.

Ryan: Oh, there’s 50 in a week.

Selena: It’s October.

Ryan: 50 episodes in a year.

Selena: It was October we started, I thought.

Ryan: Yeah. I think we’re headed into-

Selena: We only had two kids.

Ryan: Seventh year. Anyway.

Selena: Okay.

Ryan: Welcome. Now we’re happy to have you here. Thank you for giving us your time. Our hope is to encourage your marriage and to point you to Christ. And we do that by sharing some stuff that we’ve learned, but also by sharing our own mistakes.

Today we’re actually going to share out of a book. We talked about it last week. If you haven’t watched or listened to last week’s episode, we gave some creative date ideas in the name of pursuing one another. So real quick, just as a recap, for those who maybe haven’t caught that episode, why do we need to pursue one another? Why don’t we…?

Selena: You’re asking me?

Ryan: Yeah. Why do we need to pursue one another?

Selena: Well, because we will actively or inactively drift apart. That’s our tendency is it’s not to stay unified. It’s not to just, well, we’ll grow stronger without any work. No. It’s just like a garden. Like the fastest things that grow in there are weeds, it chips away at your unity. And so actively pursuing one another means you’re actively building up your covenant and trying to keep it strengthened for God’s glory, your own sanctification.

But for also your enjoyment here on earth and also for the fruitfulness that the Lord gives you and children or whatever. But, you know, there’s various reasons.

Ryan: Yeah.

Selena: God’s ordained and purposed.

Ryan: It plays into the idea of having high regard and high mutual respect for each other. If you’re a worthwhile person, that’s going to be evident in how I’m wanting to go after you, to pursue you, to talk to you, to do that. So these books that we wrote, Husband in Pursuit and Wife in Pursuit, it’s a 31-day challenge where each day you’re kind of progressively together pursuing one another.

There’s studies that have been done that one of the strongest predictors of whether or not a couple will make it past a certain point, I’ll say 10 years, is whether or not they have high regard for each other. And so consider this training in that regard.

So we’re going to, in the name of that, talk about this idea. One of the days in the Husband book, it’s a chapter titled An Obvious Pursuit. And the whole premise of it is how can it be crystal clear, not just to you, but also to those in your immediate vicinity that you love your spouse. So I just want to read the verse. The verse might not seem like it makes too much sense, but we’ll read it anyway and we’ll get back around to why this was chosen.

Here’s the verse. It comes from Hebrews 7, starting in verse 25. “He’s able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.” Okay, what in the world? Little cliffhanger there. Just wait. I’ll start. I’ll just read the first paragraph then we can talk about it.

It says, “I once read a statement by author Michael Hyatt that immediately embedded itself in my thinking as a husband. He said this: I will speak often and lovingly of my wife. This is the best adultery repellent known to man.” So obviously this applies to wives as well, right?

And then I use the example of, I used to go to this gym. We lived in California and I would go to this gym with a buddy and he’d work out. And I noticed that the gal that was working at the front desk was very smiley.

Selena: When you walked in.

Ryan: Yeah. You know, smiling is not whatever, but she was borderline flirtatious, if not fully flirtatious. And I was getting a little bit of an ego boost from this. I mean, this was probably 12, 13 years ago. And by the grace of God, I’d realized in my mind that I was not guarding my heart well on this issue.

I don’t know if I read this quote right around that time or whatever, or somehow the Lord brought it to mind, but I thought… something prompted me to make it blatantly obvious to this young lady that I was married. And so the next time I went in there, I obviously had my wedding ring on every time.

Here’s the crazy thing is people almost disregard wedding rings at times, but they won’t disregard this. And so we were making chit chat, my buddy was there and I started talking about Selena and how much a great she is, you know, without being obvious and awkward. But just, “Yeah, my wife, blah, blah, blah.” When you’re speaking glowingly lovingly of your spouse with enthusiasm immediately it’s like adultery repellent, right?

What do you think of that? Do you, do you, have you ever had to do that overtly?

Selena: Yeah. You know, looking at the progression of things too, I’m pretty sure you told me about this and we reconciled it, and we… You always need to kind of have that clarity and that repentance, if there’s any, or admittance, just to keep lines of communication open, to keep trust open.

S I think we worked through that and then, yes, you did this, and then coming back together. And I say that only because I think it can look different for women. I know that, yeah, when we lived in California, we had no kids. I was a photographer. I was out shooting all the time and it’s just like all these beautiful people everywhere.

As a woman, you know when a guy takes notice of you. You’re not oblivious to that. And if you are, then I don’t know how you are. So how much do you entertain that as a woman, right? Especially if maybe your husband isn’t giving you attention at home, it’s so easy to entertain those feelings.

And is that sinful? Is that crossing the line? Like to me, yes, that is. To entertain the acknowledgment of other men was not good. I knew it would never lead anywhere because I would never let it. It was more of just like looks, because anything further than that, like it would just be weird. Right? But again, the repellent that came is, you know, “Yeah, my husband and I moved here. We love it here, you know, just-

Ryan: I’m interrupting. Because imagine that you… imagine… we have a pretty loving marriage.

Selena: Yeah.

Ryan: We are good friends. We were friends before we got engaged, before we started courting you, and then we got engaged. But what if I were less loving?

Selena: That’s what I’m saying. If you had given me less attention. Because I feel like we have a great marriage and a strong marriage and still I noticed other men noticing me. Like I was aware of that.

Ryan: And still you were like, It’s kinda nice.

Selena: Yeah.

Ryan: It’s affirming. It maybe plays on some insecurity that you might have.

Selena: Right. It’s affirming that I fit in, that I can hang with these people and that, you know, yeah, I’m a confident woman or something, but-

Ryan: Well, I’m thinking of the guys that maybe are starved at home for intimacy.

Selena: Right. Any sort of attention-

Ryan: And not to say they’re blameless in it. Maybe they’ve not-

Selena: We’re all guilty of not pursuing one another in ways that we should in a healthy way.

Ryan: Because that means they’re going on a sexless, you know, three months.

Selena: Yeah.

Ryan: And all of a sudden somebody who is attractive is basically offering that sort of thing. And here’s the warning, friends. We’re talking about adultery repellent. Okay? Think about what repellent is. You go out into the woods, you put on an insect repellent. It’s not meant to deal with the bite after the bites happen. It’s meant to keep the thing from even landing or even being interested in.

Selena: Yeah. Yeah.

Ryan: Right. But so often we think, ah, just, you know, you’re going to be in a swarm of mosquitoes and I won’t get bit.

Selena: Yeah. It’s foolishness.

Ryan: It starts in the mind.

Selena: It’s foolishness.

Ryan: It starts with the little, “Did God really say? Did you really commit? Is your wife really loving? Are you really committed to your marriage? Is she really loving you? You really deserve better.”

Selena: I think it’s even like less than that. I think it’s “it’s not wrong for me to like, talk to this person like this.”

Ryan: Sure. The more subtle.

Selena: You start to justify and question, well, is it really sin? I mean, I’m just talking to her and she’s really nice. As a husband… I would imagine her as a wife, like, “Hey, we’re just talking. We’re talking shop and laughing together and whoa, he totally understands this. And we have a lot of common ground.”

But again, as you are building this friendship, you are at the same time tearing at the fiber of your threads of your covenant. Because there’s no neutrality ever.

Ryan: Yeah. It doesn’t mean you need to be rude to everyone in your life.

Selena: And you don’t need to be like throwing it in their face about your spouse.

Ryan: They should know. This is why it’s called an obvious pursuit is they should know that you obviously love your spouse and you’re pursuing them. And that’s the adultery repellent. And this is the, again, the warning is that it always starts in “innocent”, quote-unquote. Scare quotes. It always starts innocently. “Oh, it’s a work text” or “We have this project together. Oh, we need to travel to this conference together. Oh, we’re just getting coffee because we’re catching up on projects” or “We’re just being friendly. Oh, he put his arm on my shoulder because he’s just that kind of guy. He’s just friendly.” Right?

Selena: Yeah.

Ryan: Okay. And then pretty soon… Here’s what it says in the book. It says, “Affairs rarely happen out of the blue. It’s never the case that you’re like, I’m in a happy marriage, boom affair. Or like, I’m just going to go and make a really terrible decision.

Selena: I mean, anyone who’s had one would tell you it was not a quick decision.

Ryan: Right. It says, “Affairs rarely happen out of the blue. They start small and progress subtly over time. Every affair begins in the imagination — and this is key — it takes root in the heart and slowly turns into action.” Of course, those actions are building as well. You know, sending that text and then responding to the text and then not calling out the hand on the shoulder.

Selena: And for all you people-pleasers, like you can’t take on the responsibility for the fallout of you saying like, “Hey, this is inappropriate” or “Hey, I love my husband. I am so grateful. We are in love.” You know, just sharing all about your husband and kind of giving the message of, “Hey, back off or know where we stand. Here is where we stand kind of thing.” You can’t be responsible for the fallout of that.

Ryan: This is why the whole chapter exists. Because by the time that that shoulder, that the hand lands on your shoulder, the mosquitoes landed. You’ve not been obvious enough.

Selena: The lines have been crossed. Yeah.

Ryan: Now, in a rare case, someone might be brazen enough to know that you love your spouse and still try to draw you away.

Selena: Sure.

Ryan: But that’s far less common. Like truly it requires more complicity usually than that.

Selena: Absolutely.

Ryan: And so there’s three benefits. We talked about what the affair repellent is. It’s speaking often and lovingly of your spouse even when they’re not around. I like to imagine when I’m in those types of dialogues with people that we don’t text the opposite sex without each other on it.

Selena: Yeah.

Ryan: Even good friends that we’ve known for years. That’s just the way that we believe is wise. But there are other habits that you can put in place to kind of just make that the culture and the habit of your marriage.

But there’s actually three really tangible benefits that I want to outline here that doing this sort of thing, applying the affair repellent regularly, this will do it in your marriage.

Number one, it will stir your affections for each other. It’ll remind you, right? Because you can’t really fake this sort of like… surely you can say things you know are true without feeling the full intensity of that truth at that time. But if I’m talking about you in ways that are glowing and loving, say, “Man, I’m just so thankful for my wife. She gave me this encouraging note or she made me this incredible lunch” if I’m at work or something,” or “man, we had a great time hanging with the kids,” whatever it is. Right? My wife is just, I don’t know, because there’s a line you can cross me like just weird.

Selena: Right. I’m just thinking of like, maybe you had a fight that morning and you go to work and you know, Hey, there’s Ted over there. He’s really happy and he wants to hear what I have to say. It’s so easy to just kind of distract yourself with someone else when you and your spouse, your husband may not be on the same page or an agreement.

To that wife, I would say, don’t entertain that, but put on that repellent even more. Yeah, we might’ve had a fight, but you know in your heart you’re going to resolve it and you know that you’re going to reconcile it. That is an opportunity for you to start stirring your affections for your husband, remembering why you love him, even though you feel very frustrated with him, remembering why you are married, the point of your covenant, right, the purpose of it.

Ryan: I’m thinking about Ted. Hate that guy.

Selena: Invisible Ted.

Ryan: I mean, I’m thinking about like, as a guy, what makes me feel loved is going to be the thing that’s going to repel other men the most. So like when you show me respect, right?

Selena: Mm-hmm.

Ryan: There’s a reason the Bible says, Wives-

Selena: So disrespect all the other guys. I’m kidding.

Ryan: “Ted, this TPS reports trash.”

Selena: “Sit down, Ted.”

Ryan: No. There’s a reason why God’s word says, Wives, respect your husbands; Husbands, love your wives. Because respect is the currency that men deal in. When I think about men that I enjoy being around, men that I want to build friendships with, men that I want to build God’s kingdom with, they’re men that I respect. So if you want to show your husband’s love, show him respect.

And how do you show respect? Well, men, greatly value competence. And so if you ever talk about me or give me a compliment, you say, “You know what? You can fix anything.” Like, it sounds silly.

Selena: Me?

Ryan: Yeah. If you tell me like, “Oh, yeah, my husband, he can fix pretty much anything. He can build anything.”

Selena: I’ll tell Ted that.

Ryan: We were talking to one who is a good friend and the husband wasn’t there. We were together, I think. And she was talking about him. She says, “Yeah, he can build anything.” Like, I’m just like, “You love your husband. You respect your husband. And now I respect your husband.” I would never think to dishonor-

Selena: Right. No, no.

Ryan: That’s what I’m talking about.

Selena: It’s electrifying.

Ryan: Yeah. So it’ll stir your affections for one another while also making it blatantly obvious that those affections are there.

The second benefit of being obviously in pursuit or putting on this affair repellent is it causes one another to feel loved, cherished, and honored. So it’s stirring your affections now-

Selena: Yeah. When you go and recap that to your spouse and say like, “You know, Hey, Ted tried to talk to me again at work, but I told him, I told him, I reminded him… he was trying to tell me about how he builds stuff and I was like, yeah, my husband can build anything.” That’s not what I’m talking about because that’s just mean. Clearly, Ted was just trying to have a conversation. But-

Ryan: “You’re an idiot, Ted. My husband can build anything.”

Selena: No, but it does. It’s a good feeling to know. And it builds confidence and trust in one another, to know that you’re having those conversations without me, right? That you’re augmenting me in your life in front of everyone. So yeah.

Ryan: Yeah.

Selena: What’s the third one?

Ryan: The third benefit of doing this is it makes your devotion to your spouse unquestionable for others. So by the time that foundation is cracked, it’s not too late, but it never has to get to that point. If people are starting to get the sense that you’re unhappy in your marriage, clearly you’re downstream from something that’s the font of something further up the mountain.

And so the ideal is that you are shoring up your foundation all the time. And if you’re doing this on a regular basis, everyone around you will know. It’ll just become part of talking to you, knowing who you are. Selena is a… you don’t go to a job, but if you’re in the office and Selena is good at her job, she also… like clearly she loves her family. She loves her husband and it’s just part of who she is. It’s unquestionable.

Selena: And I think that’s a testament to your beliefs as well. Right. Because even though you may have had a disagreement… Because I know that many people… I mean, we did work in offices. We had different careers prior to Fierce Marriage and everything. I remember, you know… not everybody believes, not everybody’s a Christian. Not everybody believes in the Lord. And if they are Christian, there’s also different beliefs there on different levels.

So for them to see, Oh man, she had a fight with her husband, but they reconciled it and she still just speak so well of him and she won’t bad mouth him, she won’t be like, “I need to get mine,” you know, that’s a testimony of God at work in your own heart and Him producing fruit in you and Him saying, “Look, this covenant can work. This is a purpose covenant for when there are fights, you know? Like our marriage is not here… Like Gary Thomas said, it’s not there to just make you happy, but it’s to make you holy. So doing this and living this out day in day is definitely not only a repellent, but it’s a testimony.

Ryan: Yeah. Yeah. There’s a caveat here that I want to share. There’s a little fly friend buzzing around. You’re on my hit list fly. That’s Ted. I was going to read a paragraph here to kind of maybe put some, I’ll say, questions at bay. Does all this mean that you must have a perfect marriage or at least act like you do? So the question is, am I just acting? If I don’t feel like it, are you telling me to act fake? I said, no. When you speak lovingly of your spouse, I said your bride in this book, you’re not faking it, but quite the opposite. You’re reminding yourself and others of one of the most potent truths in your life.

And here’s the truth. You have committed to loving your wife exclusively and in increasing measure until the day you die.

Selena: Right. I think you’re acting out of duty. It’s just a dutiful thing to speak of your spouse in a loving way, even when your emotions don’t-

Ryan: [inaudible 00:20:45] works of faith.

Selena: Yes.

Ryan: When you’re sitting in the chair that… you said that the chair would support my weight.

Selena: Right.

Ryan: You’re actually doing the thing that you know.

Selena: Yeah. Faith is in things that you hope for, not what you’ve seen and what you know. So, yeah, absolutely.

Ryan: It says every time you make your love for her known or Him, if you’re a wife, you’re reiterating the commitment you made on your wedding day. Amen.

So here’s the encouragement to you. Affair repellent is effective at doing just what it says on the label.

Selena: Always carry it.

Ryan: It repels affairs. Always carry it with you. Apply liberally. Here’s the encouragement to you.

Selena: As needed. Okay.

Ryan: Just bathe in it. If you want to know more about this, check out these books, Husband in Pursuit, Wife in Pursuit. You can find them where you get yours, or you can go to our website and find them there. But the encouragement to you is simply this. Talk about this with your spouse. Go home and say, “Hey, I listened to this podcast episode. They talked about this obvious pursuit idea of speaking often and lovingly of one another, being affair repellent.” And say, what do you think about that? And just talk about it. And maybe even commit to doing it more or saying, “Yeah, we’ve been doing pretty good in that. That’s good. Let’s keep it up type of thing.”

I want to go back to that Hebrews passage because I said I would. Why did I read from Hebrews 7? It says this: “He is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.” What does that have to do with this obvious pursuit? Again, I’m just going to read from this as you may be wondering what today’s passage has to do with pursuing your bride, obviously in public.

As the verse says, Jesus quote, “Always lives to make intercession for those who draw near to him.” Jesus is God’s fulfillment of His promise to save His people, His covenant to send a redeemer, a savior, and a king. There is nothing Satan, sin, anything, or anyone else can do to steal God’s affections toward us or suspend His commitment to His people. He is unwavering. Your own imperfections and sin won’t stand in the way of God’s affection because of Jesus. When you put your faith in Him, Jesus actively intercedes and stands in the gap publicly on your behalf. He stands before the Father Himself as your great defender.

And here’s where we bring it full circle. And this will be the gospel message as well. “In the same way you have promised to love your wife despite her imperfections, you are also called to love her as Christ loved the church.” Again, I’m talking to husbands in this book. “As you make your affections for her obvious to others in the interest of protecting her honor and guarding your marriage, you are her earthly defender. Let Christ’s unfailing intercession before the throne remind you that your place is secure in heaven. Then let His love and commitment fuel your own love and commitment to your bride. Let your affections for her be known. When you do, she’ll feel honored, cherished, adored.”

We as believers have a defender. We have an intercessor. We have somebody who is professing, in a sense, He’s vouching for us before the throne of the Father. His name is Jesus Christ. If you are in Him, you have all the benefits of Christ. That message is saturated throughout the New Testament, that those who are in Christ, who place their faith in Him, aren’t just somehow trying to muster enough goodness. We’ve been given all the benefits. That’s admission into heaven. That’s all the blessings that Christ has as the Son of God. That’s all the righteousness that he earned in His life. He’s paid the price for all of our sin. It’s been expunged from our records.

That is the message of the gospel. And all it takes is to repent and believe that Jesus, in fact, did die for sinners, including you. So if you don’t know who Jesus is, or you’ve fallen away from Him, we want to encourage you to place your faith in Christ. Talk to a friend who’s a Christian, say, can we read the Bible together? Go to a church that preaches out of the Bible. Beware there are churches that are called churches and they have Christian on their front door, yet they don’t preach the gospel, it’s some other thing. You may not be able to decipher what that means. That’s why, hopefully, you have a friend who can help you.

We also have a list of churches on a website that we’ve created for you that will help. It’s thenewsisgood.com. Check that out. We trust that will be helpful to you.

Let’s pray. Lord, thank You for Your pursuit of us, that while we were sinners, you died for us, that we might know You, that we might experience what it means to be loved by You, to be called by You, to be saved by You, to be reconciled to You, and to enjoy You forever. Thank You for that.

I pray for the husbands and the wives who are listening to this, watching this. I pray that they would be encouraged to love each other more obviously in the name of honoring each other, in the name of safeguarding their marriage from any sort of temptation or any sort of little crack in the foundation that might lead to something worse. Lord, we pray that You’d give them wisdom and courage to act in faith in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Selena: Amen.

Ryan: Amen. All right, friends. Thank you for joining us. Once again, if you would like to partner with us, we would ask two things. You pray about that, and if the Lord leads, you’d go to fiercemarriage.com/partner and consider the options there. There are benefits to being a Fierce Fellow. Namely, you get to… I don’t know. What’s the main benefit? You get to be part of this ministry.

Selena: Did you forget?

Ryan: No, I was trying to think. I didn’t forget. It was just… whatever.

Selena: It was just not there yet.

Ryan: Whatever.

Selena: Sorry.

Ryan: Whatever, Freddie. Yeah, so you get to be a part of this ministry. You get to be complicit in what God is doing through Fierce Marriage, Fierce Families. And we’re excited to say that He is doing stuff. We’ll have a lot more to talk about in the future, but He’s doing stuff through the marriage, including events and things. Anyway, thank you for joining us.

This episode of the Fierce Marriage Podcast is—

Selena: In the can.

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

Selena: Stay Fierce.