Finding Delight, Honor, and Growth in Marriage Featuring Dr. Dan Allender Part 2/2 [Podcast Transcript]

Title: Finding Delight, Honor, and Growth in Marriage Featuring Dr. Dan Allender Part 2/2

Podcast Date: February 28, 2025

Listen Here: 

Watch Full Video Interview Here:

Description

In part 2 of this interview with Dr. Dan Allender, Heather and Dan delve into what it truly means to experience a deeper, more fulfilling marriage. Dr. Allender shared profound insights into how our past plays a crucial role in shaping our present and how this understanding can guide us toward redemption and healing in our relationships.

Here are themes for our conversation today:

• Growth in Marriage: True growth in marriage is not just about comfort and convenience. It involves addressing past traumas and engaging with each other's differences to heal and understand the work of the spirit in our lives.
  
  
• The Role of Desire: Desire in a marriage is never equal, and understanding this difference can lead to greater curiosity and compassion rather than conflict. It's about exploring each other's hearts and seeking out redemption together.
  
  
• The Intersection of Shame and Delight: Our deepest areas of shame are often where we can find the most profound delight, especially in the context of marriage. Dr. Allender emphasized the importance of inviting kindness into our hearts to truly reflect this delight onto our spouses.
  
  

Stay til the very end when Dr. Allender explains why shame and food are as interconnected as shame and sex!

Learn more about Dr. Dan Allender and his new book: Deep-Rooted Marriage. (Amazon affiliate link)

Learn more about Compared to Who? or join the next 40-Day Journey to Body Image Freedom here: https://www.improvebodyimage.com

Transcript

Disclaimer: This transcript is AI-generated and has not been edited for accuracy or clarity.

Heather Creekmore [00:00:02]:

Life audio. Hey, friend. Heather Creekmore here. Thanks for listening to the Compare To podcast. Do you feel delighted in? Do you feel honored? Have you been working for a, quote, unquote, good marriage with, quote, unquote, good communication? But are you missing out on the deeper level of helping your spouse heal their wounds and them helping you heal your wounds? Woah. Like, that's a whole different kind of marriage than a lot of the surface y conversations we have around how to have a great marriage, seven ways to have a better marriage. Like, friends, we're going deep today. I hope you listened to part one of my interview with doctor Dan Allender.

Heather Creekmore [00:00:53]:

He's an expert on all these things, a very accomplished author, psychologist, therapist, teacher, leader, you name it. Today, we talk about how to go deeper in your marriage, how to feel that delight. We also talk about food, which might seem like a really sharp left turn, but I've heard doctor Allender talk about food and its connection to shame and enjoyment and all these things. So I just had to ask him about it. So stay till the end for that. Hey. We're starting another forty day journey, Monday, March 10. I really hope you'll join us.

Heather Creekmore [00:01:31]:

You can go to improvebodyimage.com and find out more about how to sign up for that. Also, we've got a brand new gift for you on the website on improvedbodyimage.com. It's a free mirror fast Bible study. So if you're curious about a mirror fast, if you ever thought about doing a mirror fast, go to improvebodyimage.com and the pop up will pop up for you. And you can sign up and download that free sixteen day bible study on Spotify. You talk about the list, what shame, judgment, resentment are the things that kinda stamp out that honor and delight.

Dr. Dan Allender [00:02:17]:

Yeah. Well, just think of it this way. Many people have really good marriages, but they're not really growing together. Mhmm. And when I define the word good, it means they love each other. They like each other. They spend time with each other, but it's more about comfort. Just kinda like you're my old pair of slippers, and I can't imagine not having you around.

Dr. Dan Allender [00:02:48]:

And convenience, like, we just do good together. Well, fantastic. I think many people would call that a great marriage. Mhmm. I just wouldn't. Mhmm. Why? Because the realities of your own lust and anger, the reality of your own heartache past and present are not being addressed. You're not in the valley of the shadow of death together in a way in which you can anticipate the banquet before your enemies.

Dr. Dan Allender [00:03:23]:

So that's part of what we're trying to accomplish in the deep rooted marriages, an invitation into how our past is playing out at the present and is meant in the present to be disrupted in a way in which we're really, in one sense, having the invitation from each other to greater healing, great greater understanding of the work of the spirit in each of our lives so that we're seeing actually the very thing we wanted from the beginning, redemption, but not quite in the way we thought when we didn't even winningly know we were seeking redemption, yet we were. Now we know we are. Not to, in one sense, perfect one another, but to be the face of God on behalf of one another. I just don't think there's a sweeter or deeper reason to be married than I get to be the one who gives my beloved a taste of what she is gonna have for eternity.

Heather Creekmore [00:04:36]:

Wow. Yeah. You you didn't know that you oh, I hate to say the word triggered. Dan, that's so, like, overused. Right? But but I broke up with someone in my twenties because he told me that I was like that old pair of slippers. I was always there. I was like, no, I want more. Like, I don't want to be married to someone who feels like this is just comfortable.

Heather Creekmore [00:05:01]:

I want more. And, I mean, it was just a dating relationship, so it wasn't that deep of a breakup, if you will. But, but yes, I, I hear that. I know that's what so many long for, but what if it's just you longing for that? What if your spouse isn't there and is okay. I I'm good with slippers. Slippers are comfortable. What do you do?

Dr. Dan Allender [00:05:25]:

Yeah. Well, let's just start with this premise. Desire is never equal in a marriage. Ever over anything. You don't likely have anything where you would say, if you put desire on a scale one to 10, that we each want to make love, at a nine or a 10 at that moment, or that we want to go to Italian restaurant, nine or a 10 exactly at that moment. So if you begin by saying that desire is always the place of fundamental difference, and how we then, quote, unquote, manage difference is largely we either ignore it or just compromise. Let's go. Let you know, we we went to lovely Greek restaurant last week.

Dr. Dan Allender [00:06:22]:

Fine. You wanted to go to Italian today. Great. But it it's sort of that fifty fifty. I I give a bit, you give a bit, and we get along. And I'm, again, hardly finding full with that. I'm just saying, difference is where we feel the tension, of, in some sense, the greatest point of conflict between us. So how we fail to engage, what is in your desire? And the the or your lack of desire and a kind of curiosity, a commitment to be able to enter into difference with Conflict is actually meant to create curiosity, and compassion, a kind of like, wow.

Dr. Dan Allender [00:07:20]:

This is really something you don't like. Can we explore that? Not to change you, but because it's how you engage the world, whether it's for good or ill. It's where you are not the same as me. So Yeah. In the area of growing, this is where it's madness. Like like, if you're a believer in Jesus, you're a follower of Jesus, and growth is not central, all all I wanna go is then a stable marriage is literally, if I do it like a heartbeat, it means you're dead. So stability is nothing to proclaim as the ultimate goal of a good marriage, and I mean a good marriage. Mhmm.

Dr. Dan Allender [00:08:16]:

So one of the things that has to be engaged is I wanna grow, and I don't sense that you do. Mhmm. And so what happens if I keep growing is we're going to be further apart.

Heather Creekmore [00:08:34]:

Mhmm.

Dr. Dan Allender [00:08:34]:

And I don't wanna be further apart. Mhmm. But I'm not going to not grow in order to keep you and I from a a form of division.

Heather Creekmore [00:08:45]:

Right.

Dr. Dan Allender [00:08:46]:

So if you don't choose to grow, at one level, you're giving up our marriage. And if that's the case, it'd be better to know today than a year or two or three down the road. Now that sounds, presumptuous perhaps or confrontational, but it's just the way of beginning with regard to like, when you go to church, what for? Mhmm. You know, you read the Bible, what for? If it's not to become more like Jesus Mhmm. Then, I'm perplexed. Mhmm. But I do think convenience, comfort, control, and that's the keyword. Mhmm.

Dr. Dan Allender [00:09:26]:

If we add that third c, I don't want to enter this conversation because I don't want to deal with my alcoholic father. I don't want to deal with the fact that my uncles, who I just call weird, did things like walking in while I was showering and standing, talking to me in a way that felt very inappropriate. We use lots of language like weird, inappropriate, strange, to actually get close but not actually name. That was sexually abusive. So for a man, particularly with regard to vulnerability, owning up to my angry mother, who I still feel loyal to, I can't afford she's been off the earth ten years, or she's still alive. I can't afford to mess with the loyalty that was not of God when you ask me to begin to enter small and large t trauma. So this is where as a spouse, oh, this is a dangerous sentence. You need to be more committed to your spouse than your marriage.

Heather Creekmore [00:10:47]:

Oh, wow.

Dr. Dan Allender [00:10:48]:

Because a lot of people are committed to their marriage being sustainable, comfortable, convenient, controllable, not committed to growth. So, again, we're not talking about demanding change. Mhmm. We're we're talking about the ability to engage the heart Right. In a way that invites curiosity. But again, back to maybe a key key key word here is, Romans chapter two verse four. It is the kindness of God that leads to repentance. And then Paul goes on to say, Why do you treat the kindness of God with contempt? So right there, I would in almost all the work I do with couples or individuals who are struggling in their marriages, how are you doing in the invitation to repent based not on your spouse changing, but on the kindness of god.

Dr. Dan Allender [00:12:00]:

And and then how kind are you to the young, unaddressed, broken parts of your own heart. Mhmm. Because the failure to be kind to oneself always has an implication for how kind you are to others. And if you think you can be kind to others and refuse to be kind to your own heart, sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. It just is not the way.

Dr. Dan Allender [00:12:32]:

We have literally neurologically, let alone spiritually, been created. Mhmm.

Heather Creekmore [00:12:38]:

Thank you for saying that. Yes. Yes. We've I've had that conversation many times with women who tell me that they are so good at giving grace to everyone else, just not good at giving to themselves. I'm like, well, that's actually true. So I, and I understand it. God.

Dr. Dan Allender [00:12:56]:

Well, it, it, to me, it's as simple as this. You're writing checks and you don't have anything at the bank. That's generally called fraud.

Heather Creekmore [00:13:06]:

That's true. That's true. And I'm just thinking about how you're you're, you know, you're talking about kind of you didn't use this word, but essentially like a complacency that we develop in marriage. Right? And the things we call love. Right? Because kind of complacency equals love because we're still married or however you define it. Right? But that call to honor and delight, I mean, that word delight, like, that's really hard for me. Like like, I might cry. But just thinking thinking about that level of, I want someone to delight in me and that the call to that is so big.

Heather Creekmore [00:13:53]:

It's an, you know, and I feel like ultimately on my journey, I'm going to blame the fact that you're a counselor as to why. But I feel like on my journey, it has been really, and I have a wonderful husband who we both have been working on our stuff, working on our traumas and, and, you know, kind of trying to explore these concepts of honor and delight. So this has, you know, this is not negative towards him at all, but just for me recognizing, I have to figure out how to feel the Lord's delight. Yeah. Because it's very difficult for me to feel anyone's.

Dr. Dan Allender [00:14:28]:

Yep. Yep. Well and and here's the paradox that, for me, it's very important. I just got home from a trip, and my wife met me. We we live on an island. I take a ferry home. And when I got off the ferry and she's waiting for me, and I can see in her eyes, like, I'm excited to see you. Well, I had gotten up Eastern Standard Time at about 01:30 in the morning to be able to make it back.

Dr. Dan Allender [00:15:01]:

And I had a less than pleasant flight, let's just say. And so I'm feeling like my face is maybe about six feet long and I'm scraping along. And I'm like, I can see her delight and I want to mirror back to her the delight, but I also feel like I'm just sort of stumbling. I've got a cold, tired, and and it her ability at that point to be able when she helped me and I helped her to be able to say, your face looks like someone ran over it. And I'm like, that's hilarious. Just totally hilarious, which was incredible attunement on her part because what she's saying is, my face is so much more alive for you than your face is for me. And I I will not I will not pull away. I will not judge you, but I'm also not going to pretend like it's not like it's just fine.

Dr. Dan Allender [00:16:13]:

Mhmm. So all that, when you begin to go, oh, look. Even one moment of sweet delay when I we went to bed last night, I I was just I just said to her, I really do wish my face then and now have the same play of delight for you that you had for me, but thank you. And it's like, well, you're welcome. Oh, no way that would there's no effort to pretend, but it it it what I'm trying to get to is one dollop, boy, it's enough at times to be able to create the hunger for what you were most made for. But here's my point. The more you taste it, the more it becomes part of your grief because I've got a remarkable wife. And we still fight over things like, a baked potato that we we she thought was done and I didn't.

Dr. Dan Allender [00:17:15]:

We're in the kitchen having really a nasty interaction over minutes over this baked potato, and it's like, how can you how can what? What? Yeah. The taste of what is so good creates a hunger for what only heaven can provide. Mhmm. So in that sense, the sweeter your marriage gets at at some level, the harder it becomes.

Heather Creekmore [00:17:46]:

Yes. Wow. Can we change course here? We just got a couple minutes left. I was listening. You've got a wonderful podcast. You and Rachel on the Allender Center podcast talk about a variety of very helpful things. I highly recommend it. But I'm listening to you interview, doctor Kurt Thompson.

Heather Creekmore [00:18:06]:

And you're talking about shame or something, and then all of a sudden you asked him about food. Like, what is going on? And and you are you did a series on food. Oh, it was a number of years ago, maybe five, six. That was a long time ago. And they know you've got a food story. I know we I know we don't we don't have time for a full episode on that. I wish we did. But could you just maybe, like, speak to the fact I I think we live in a culture, right, where especially, like, my audience of women and men who've had eating disorders and, you know, control issues around food and food, you know, has not been a source of delight or anything symbolic of hunger has been evil.

Heather Creekmore [00:18:52]:

Right? Delight is delight is sinful is kind of, you know, the cultural terms we use around, you know, good tasting foods can just, I don't know, your best wisdom. That's a really horrible way to, like, ask a question. That's not a question at all. But what what are we missing when it comes to this good gift of food and what it can teach us about other things?

Dr. Dan Allender [00:19:17]:

Alright. Well, you can edit this out if you wish, but let's start with this. In the womb, you have your fingers in one of two places Okay. In your mouth Mhmm. Because they're more nerve sensitive cells in your mouth. Or if you're a boy, on your penis, if you're a girl, your clitoris. So sex and food are the realms where we bear the greatest shame because it's also where we bear the greatest potential for pleasure. It's also where the reality of the gospel is spoken about as union, a knowing.

Dr. Dan Allender [00:20:00]:

And that knowing is not a left brain, I know you. It's a full bodied, full brained, full, in one sense, sensual experience of lovemaking. Well, where is shame most profoundly located for most of us? It's in the intersection of our mouth, food, and therefore our larger body in terms of being to this or to that or to whatever, and our sexuality. So when you begin to say, Why did God put so many neuroendings in our genitalia and our mouth? Well, I don't know. So I'm suggesting because he wanted to talk about the reality of what union with him and fellowship with him is most about. Mhmm. Union, sexuality, fellowship, banquet. And what's the banquet? It's one of the most sensual things we do as a human being with others than making love.

Dr. Dan Allender [00:21:06]:

Mhmm. So no wonder our struggles tend to be regarding shame, exposure, judgment, a sense of contempt. Why do you treat the kindness of God with contempt? So our bodies and our eating becomes a place of contempt. Our sexuality becomes a place of contempt. And no wonder the interplay of food and sex becomes an issue for many marriages. So I think if you begin to go nerve endings, gospel, you've got some categories as to why that playground, is fraught, with a lot of struggle.

Heather Creekmore [00:21:48]:

Yes. Yes. Well, yeah. I mean, there's the shame. Right? It it's the shame. And I just kinda, maybe this is my the last question would tie it up here. We know Jesus we we know the gospel covers our shame, but I feel like we jumped to that too quickly.

Dr. Dan Allender [00:22:12]:

Oh, we do. Brilliant point. And and that's where because Jesus took our shame, and in one sense, Hebrews 12, that first verses one through five, for the joy set before him, he endured the shame of the cross. So because he's ultimately saying, anytime you're shamed, it's my shame. Therefore, there is meant to be a freedom not to escape shame, but to be able to enter it. But here's the difficulty. When you experience shame, even from memory of twenty, thirty years ago, your body actually experiences, your brain experiences a degree of trauma. So there's gonna be fragmentation.

Dr. Dan Allender [00:22:59]:

There's gonna be some degree of numbing and a desire to isolate. So when you've got those three factors, fragmentation, numbing, ice isolation, when whenever we get close to shame, essentially, we're on the run away from it. And yet, marriage is meant to be the one place where the reality of shame has sufficient safety to be able to go, I feel like a fool. I I feel so dark and dangerous or vile. Can I come and be in a conversation? Again, I'm not saying, that your spouse should be your therapist. Mhmm. But on the other hand, there should not be stories that deeply held in a locker that shape who you are, that you're not at least moving toward being able to grow maybe over a decade to be able to share with your spouse. So there were stories that Becky shared with me.

Dr. Dan Allender [00:24:12]:

I remember about a year about '24, something, she shared with me. I won't go into detail. And I I was both heartbroken for the story, but also irritated. Like, why didn't you share that with me before? And her kind words were, it took me twenty four years to trust you with this story. And so I'm trusting. Though we've been married forty eight years, there will be stories my beloved will share with me in our fifty, you know, fifty years married. I I would pray for more than sixty years. Then to be able to say, are you angry or irritated that your spouse took that long to trust you? That's how powerful shame is.

Dr. Dan Allender [00:24:58]:

It takes a long while to enter those stories, even though they have shaped you and they need to be addressed. And that's where, again, part of that work is good therapist, good coach, good spiritual director that can begin that process of helping you come into a a level of reconnection with your body, with your story, really with your heart. Mhmm. Then over time, trust can be built that growingly because trust is never final. Growingly built to be able to be able to say I am meant to be the face of god on your

Heather Creekmore [00:25:39]:

behalf. Wow. I love it. Wow. Well, doctor Allender, you've got this new book, The Deep Rooted Marriage. Can you give us the thirty second just pitch on it? I know it's available everywhere books are sold. It's out now. What what do we need to know about this fantastic book aside from some of the things we've discussed today? Just what's the overview?

Dr. Dan Allender [00:26:01]:

Well, your your past is playing out in the present. Whenever you're triggered, whenever there is an interaction that doesn't go as you would wish, it isn't just the problem in the moment. There is rooted systems that we have to engage. And to the degree we engage the past and the present, we really do have the potential for a present future redemption, not only for ourselves, but for our marriage. And that's where I just want people to have a sense of growing delight and honor on behalf of one another and oneself.

Heather Creekmore [00:26:38]:

I love it. Doctor Dan Allender. I'm so glad we figured out the mute button.

Dr. Dan Allender [00:26:43]:

So glad. Hello, Heather. Thank you for your kindness through the whole process.

Heather Creekmore [00:26:49]:

Thank thank you so much for your time today. This has been invaluable. So thank you so much, and thank you for watching or listening today. I hope something today has helped you stop comparing and start living. Bye bye. I compare two podcasts as part of the Life Audio Podcast Network. For more great mission podcasts, go to lifeaudio.com.