When people observe Larry and me today, they sometimes assume we’ve always had the kind of marriage we have now. We haven’t. Not at all. In fact, it used to be terrible.
The truth is, we built it. And building it took work. It took difficult conversations, humility, intentionality, and yes…therapy. One of the greatest decisions we ever made was investing in our marriage and learning new ways of relating to one another.
So today I’m going to share three things that have helped us create emotional safety in our marriage.
We made our home a safe place to come home to
Somewhere along the way, our home stopped being a place where we merely lived and became a refuge we fiercely protect.
After nearly four decades of marriage, I’ve learned something important:
Home should be the safest place you go all day.
Life is hard enough. Ministry is hard enough. Leadership is hard enough. And if your workplace is a difficult place, and particularly if it is a toxic or emotionally unsafe place, you need a refuge to come home to. A peaceful home will be key to your survival in the midst of the challenges that come with that.
The world will ask a lot from you. Your home shouldn’t be another place where you have to armor up.
It wasn’t always this way.
Early in our marriage, our home was a revolving door. People were constantly coming over, and entertaining was simply part of our rhythm. When we entered ministry, that hospitality was put on steroids. We loved people, but if I’m being honest, there were seasons when it felt like it was going to half kill me.
Today, we still extend hospitality often, but it is no longer excessive. It is balanced, intentional, and aligned with the season of life we’re in now.
One of the greatest gifts Larry gives me is that he never springs it on me that people are coming over. Ever.
That may sound small, but it isn’t. For many years, he surprised me like that all the time. But those days are over.
He understands there are days—and sometimes entire weeks—when I need to close the door, rest, and protect my peace. He understands that after pouring into hundreds, sometimes thousands, of people, there are moments when what I need most is quiet.
He supports my calling because he understands that when God calls one of us, He blesses both of us.
And because we are both called, we are doubly blessed—but also doubly in need of a refuge.
There are days when I don’t need to entertain anyone at all. I simply need to walk around my house in my pajamas with a cup of coffee and exhale.
I’ve learned not to apologize for that anymore.
Rest is not selfish. Protecting your peace is not selfish. Building an emotionally safe home is not selfish.
It is wise.
Because if you spend your life pouring into everyone else, you need one place in the world where you don’t have to perform.
You just get to be.
Larry and I are equally committed to this, for one another. He knows that I need a refuge but I have to be just as committed to give him one.
I do my best to make him happy to come home, and happy to be there. I feel like I need to give disclaimers all the time on these type of things and say, “of course I’m not perfect.” Hopefully anyone reading knows I mess up. But by and large, it is my goal for my husband to have a happy home and I do my best to make that happen as far as it depends on me.
My husband protects my heart
I’m much more prone to throwing my heart out into the world, while Larry is the opposite. He is very careful and reserved with his heart.
I tend to open my heart wide to people. I love deeply, I invest deeply, and honestly, my heart gets stomped on a lot. I probably need to go back and read the Scripture about guarding my heart every week.
The beautiful side of this is that I genuinely love people. I want to know them, go deep with them, and help them in meaningful ways. But loving people at that level also means I get hurt sometimes.
Larry is the protector of my heart. If someone intentionally hurts me, He is not okay with that. If someone hurts me in the church, he doesn’t expect me to just suck it up and move on. He will go to them and have a difficult conversation if it is warranted.
He will tell me if he observes that someone may not have my best interests at heart. Sometimes I disagree with his assessment because I’m naturally willing to take risks. I want to grow. I want the ministry to grow. I want to believe the best about people. Larry, on the other hand, is often more concerned about protecting my heart than expanding my opportunities.
And while I don’t always agree with every warning he gives me, one thing I know without question is this: he has never spoken up without my best interests in mind.
Over the years, I’ve learned that this isn’t control. It’s care.
One of the greatest gifts a spouse can give is not simply protection from harm, but the assurance that someone is paying attention when your heart is vulnerable.
Because people who pour into others all day long need someone who is also pouring back into them.
While this is a mutual thing, my husband has to end up doing it much more for me than I do for him. He’s already got the guardrails up guarding his heart. I’m the one who needs the help on this one, for emotional safety.
My husband understands my need for deep friendships.
I am wired to have a few very close friends and to share most everything with them—even some of the darkest, most embarrassing parts of my story and of me personally.
Larry understands that healthy friendships are not a threat to our marriage; they are part of what helps me stay healthy as a person.
There is something about our marriage that may be a little different from many others I know, and it’s this: my closest friends genuinely know my life and my marriage. Now, I realize everyone approaches this differently. Some people believe everything that happens within a marriage should remain entirely private. That’s not the approach we’ve chosen. I don’t mean I broadcast our problems to everyone. I don’t. But I do believe in the value of trusted, wise friendships.
There are times when I will confide in a close friend about a struggle and ask, “Am I wrong here?” I ask for perspective. I ask for wisdom. I ask for prayer.
My closest friends know our joys, our struggles, and the places where we’ve had to grow. And honestly, our marriage has only been better because of it. When you choose healthy, trustworthy friends, accountability and support become gifts, not liabilities.
Every month, I make time for coffee, lunch, or dinner with close friends. We have regular phone calls. We stay connected. Larry has never been jealous of those relationships, nor has he ever made me feel guilty for spending time or money investing in them. He understands something important: I am not the same person without my friendships. He knows my friends help me process life, laugh harder, heal quicker, and stay emotionally healthy. And because he wants me to be healthy, he wants me to have those relationships.
One of the greatest gifts a spouse can give is the freedom to have a life-giving community outside of the marriage. No one person can meet every emotional need another person has.
Healthy marriages don’t isolate people; they encourage people to flourish. On a practical level, here’s what this looks like.
There are times I come home from work wanting to process a difficult situation. Larry and I may discuss it over dinner for 30 minutes. But maybe after 30 minutes, he’s talked out about it and I’m still processing it out loud.
I might say, “I’m going to call Cindy and talk through this a little more.”
And he’ll simply say, “Cool.”
That’s because he understands something about me: talking is part of how I process.
He’s not offended by it.
He’s not threatened by it.
He doesn’t see my friendships as competition.
He sees them as support.
The older I get, the more convinced I am that some of the healthiest marriages are the ones where both people are secure enough to celebrate the relationships that help their spouse become the best version of themselves.
While this is something we both value, it’s more of a gift that Larry gives to me than something I necessarily give to him in the same way.
Larry has friendships, but they’re different from mine. His relationships tend to be more social and activity-based in nature, while mine are often built around deep conversations and emotional connection.
I would love for him to experience more of that depth in his friendships someday, and it’s something I would wholeheartedly support. But one of the things we’ve learned over the years is that we don’t have to be wired the same way to honor each other’s needs.
Healthy marriages don’t require two people to be identical. They require two people to understand and support how the other person is uniquely designed.
Larry understands that deep friendships are part of how God wired me, and because he loves me, he makes space for them.
The bottom line
The older I get, the more convinced I am that one of the greatest gifts you can give your spouse is this simple message:
“You can fully be yourself here.”
No performing.
No competition.
No walking on eggshells.
No earning your worth.
Just the freedom to exhale.
This didn’t happen automatically for us.
It happened because we chose to do the work.
Therapy didn’t fix us. It gave us tools.
We still had to pick them up and use them.
The world can be a hard place.
Home shouldn’t be.
0 Comments