About This Talk

How is your marriage doing? How would you rate your marriage? How would your wife? Gary Shavey, the new Seattle Area Chapter Director for IMPACT Players will be giving a game-changing talk for your marriage! Gary will be taking a high altitude look at developing a winning marriage relationship, with some on-the-ground nuggets for growing a healthy marriage.

Whether you are engaged, newlyweds, fighting the 7-year itch, or celebrating decades of marriage, you will get some deep truth and practical applications. Men who are not married will get a jumpstart on building a better foundation for your marriage future. Start becoming an IMPACT Husband and win your wife!

Gary grew up in the Pacific Northwest where he played football and graduated from the University of Washington. Married to his wife Pamela for 24 years, they have 3 boys, 2 in college and 1 in high school. Gary brings over 20 years of experience as a pastor in local churches as well as serving as campus director of Athletes in Action at UW for 5 years and Seattle Mariners Chaplain for 8 years. Gary’s last 2 years were spent in US donor development with Special Hope Network in Zambia.

He loves discipleship, leader development and creating relationships. Through his many areas of work in ministry Gary is positioned well in helping men be Impact Players in the Seattle-Eastside area.

Transcript

Gary Shavey: So it, daunting, daunting topic, a marriage opponent to teammate. And it's not, and it is not that I treat my wife as an opponent all the time, but there's moments where I'm like, I am treating my wife as an opponent. And we, and we're supposed to be teammates. And so, one night my wife asked me this question, "Why don't you tell me you love me anymore?" I don't know if you got that question or not, but year four is probably not a good question to get that to me. Year four of our marriage to get - why don't you tell me you love me anymore? And I, again, not thinking that my wife was an opponent, but I went into self defense mode. It's like, what do you mean? We got married in a church. I said, I love you in front of hundreds of people. Like what, of course I care for you. Thank God my wife said this, asked me this question. Challenged me. It is very humbling.

So just, yeah, Matt mentioned married 24 years to wife, Pamela. I got three sons. We have a preference for In-N-Out. So some of you guys do the conviction, belief, and preference. Maybe it's a belief and it's, I think it, for my wife, it's a conviction. She's from California. I'm just sharing lessons, I put 'learned' and I changed that to go, I'm learning. I am still learning. So I, there's some, kind of three big lessons that I am learning in my own life and in my own marriage to have a marriage that actually thrives and actually, because that marriage actually affects those three young men too. I'm not a guy that likes to tell you what to do, but you'll see that I had done that with my wife. It's really about, just my background is I'm a sports guy, so it does take me a while to learn, you know. The six Ps, right? The perfect practice prevents piss poor performance. So, you know, you have to practice it over and over and over again, right? So I really think IMPACT Player cohorts, they really help. I mean, I was in the, starting the cohort in the fall and just what I share with my wife and the challenges that I got as a husband, as a father, as a leader, those things are the things that really just kind of like permeate and challenge and challenge my heart and my thinking of how I do things in my life.

So, but first things just to kind of get going here a little bit. You guys remember this guy? Sergeant Holka. So he has some very, he has very sound wisdom for us. And he says, " Your mamas are not here to take care of you." So one of the things I learned very quickly was that your wife is not your mom, okay. Just make sure we're clear on that, okay. Your wife is not your mom. And so young guys, you're not gonna marry your mom. You're marrying your wife. If you're newly married, just remember she's not your mom. So, that's always kind of stuck with me, and I've shared that with young men as well. I also call this, I know kung fu the I know kung fu complex or syndrome. Guys can think they can read a book, I know marriage. I download a bunch of podcasts about marriage, I know marriage. I know how to be a husband. Neo got, downloading Kung fu and Morphius says, show me. Show me if you really know it or not. So, again, it's not all about just downloading things or or reading things, it's really about how you put it into practice.

So when, when did I realize I thought my wife as opponent? As I was looking back in my marriage, I looked back and it kinda all started with this. You guys know what this is? You young guys, you have ever seen something like this? Backgammon. Two months before I married, I am crushing my wife in backgammon. And you know, you remember what this is called? The bridge, right? I had two of her pieces on that bridge. I blocked her out. I was stacking my pieces back and I was just, and you know, I'm like, geez this is awesome. I look over and she's just crying. She's just... she's crying. She's like, what is your deal? This is a guy I'm marrying in two months. Yeah, 'cause it was a challenge for me.

So, lesson one, you guys may have have heard this song before. "Lights will guide you home and ignite your bones, and I will try to fix you. Tear stream down your face." You guys know who wrote that? Cold Play, okay. What's the lead singer, guys? Chris Martin. Okay. He, everyone knows his, his ex-wife Gwyneth Paltrow though. He wrote this song to her and for her. To fix you. Anybody know if they're still together? Okay, thank you. I was trying to make a point. My blurred bias as a husband was - my wife is the real problem. I say blurred bias. Bias in the sense that it's a misconception I had. A false belief that my wife is the real problem. And so I'm trying to solve her like this crazy Rubik's cube. Like, I gotta fix this. I gotta figure it out. I gotta do all these things. And realizing that the truth is, my wife is not a problem to solve. And how many times do we have our wives come to us and not, tell us something like, well, you know what you need to do... and come up with a couple of tricks, or all these things and, you know.

My wife and I started out in ministry together and she's like, I'm meeting with this gal. I was like, well, you need to just tell her she's in sin. So she didn't need a problem solver. She needed a husband. Houston, we have a problem. That problem is me. I had to learn to ask questions. And guess what, I had to just ask questions and just listen. That was one of the most powerful things I had to learn was just, and still learn, is just listen to my wife. Just listen to her, share her struggles, her problems. And sometimes, honestly, it does go to the point where my wife will say like, I need your help to actually fix this. So, 'cause we've actually learned over the years, 24 years of marriage that she's actually had to communicate to me. She's like, no, this is where I actually need you to step in and help me with the problem solving. Okay I appreciate that you're just listening, but now I actually need you to help out.

So, but these are just the things that I had to struggle with through time. And what happened was listening helped us move from opponent to teammate. Because sometimes, people talk about face to face, and I, face to face conversation is what you need. But sometimes I think when you're face to face, you start kind of building up walls because you start seeing your own faults. You start seeing your own inadequacies. And so you start building up walls, defense systems, and all of a sudden you don't even see your wife. And she's built up her wall. And then I've actually created a little turret in that wall and start shooting arrows at her. And all of a sudden we are totally disconnected, totally disconnected until we start tearing down those walls. And then we can move more shoulder to shoulder. So instead of the problem being in between us, the problem, we're shoulder to shoulder talking about the problem, trying to help figure it out together 'cause we're in it together. We're together on the problem.

Lesson two, I read this author Gary Thomas, he says, "What if marriage is not about making you happy?" It's not the way I thought it was supposed to be. What if marriage is not about making you happy? And this, I wrestle with this question for a long time. A long time. 'Cause that's what you assume. The assumption is you get married and it's about to make you happy. I mean, how many times you've heard, "Oh, as long as he's happy?" Even if it's something that's crazy that you wouldn't think would happen, they go, oh, as long as he is happy. But what if marriage is not about making you happy?

You guys recognize that guy? George Costanza. Independent George, everyone, the independent George, he's fun. The one that we love. And then there's relationship George. And you get the two together and worlds collide. And that was some of my feeling is like, my wife is supposed to be joining me on what I'm doing because I'm Gary. I'm the football player or whatever it is, or the leader of this ministry or whatever. And so she joins my world, otherwise the worlds will collide. So as, as a bias as a husband, another one is I'm supposed to be the boss, the leader, however you want to say it. The boss, look what I say goes. In year 10 in our marriage, her dad is dying of cancer and my selfishness comes out. She's visiting her dad and she said her dad asked her to stay one more day. And I was like, you gotta come home. I can't take care of these kids all by myself. 'Cause I thought I was the boss then.

You remember this quote, "I don't think it means what you think it means." Anybody know that who that's from? Inigo Montoya. Gary, I don't think you, I don't think it means what you think it means - that boss. Inconceivable. I don't think it means what you think it means. You have to have a different understanding of your leadership. And this is the verse for me from the good book, Ephesians five, that is the pinnacle of all of it. And everything falls underneath. "Husbands love your wives as Christ love the church and gave himself up for her." Wow, that's a different definition of boss. That's a different definition of leader. That's a different definition of how you're supposed to treat your wife. So learning marriage is not a transaction. I was trying to look for transactions with my wife. What do I get outta this? 'Cause I'm supposed to be happy, right? And that's a challenging question. What if marriage wasn't about making it happy? What if marriage is about transforming you? Transforming you. That's a different relationship you have with your wife when it's not an opponent but a teammate. I learned that and, and I'm still learning that I'm being changed for the better. Take the ego out of it. Take what you think you know about what it means to be a man as far as the world's concerns. You're being changed for the better. To me, it's the second most important relationship in my life, besides my relationship with the Lord. It's the relationship with my wife is the second most important relationship I have. So how am I treating that relationship? How am I investing in that relationship if it's the second most important relationship in my life? It's not my kids. And I've told my kids too, it's like, I love you, but whatever you're doing with mom right now is not right. I don't care 'cause she's my most important relationship next to God. So hard conversations. Part of our design, I believe our part of our design is to be teammates. It's part of our design. And when you push yourself to that, it's amazing, It is amazing what things can happen in your life. So as IMPACT Players, our other relationships will be better when our marriages are better. And and Coach Shapiro said that last month. How many times guys noticed something's wrong with 'em. It's like, hey, how's your marriage going? And that is a true statement.

Alright, lesson three. And this is in some of the cohort material if you guys have seen it before. But have you, has everybody heard of men arel like waffles and women like spaghetti? Compartmentalizing things. You know, I love it because I love that box, the the none box. 'Cause my wife asked me, what do you thinking about? Nothing. It's just, I'm just like, just enjoying. This is nothing time. We're not saying it's good. I'm not giving you a free pass. But we do compartmentalize things. So when I, in my women are like spaghetti where like the one meatball over here is all touching the other parsley over here and another meatball on the other side of the plate. And there's times where we get up in the morning and my wife's mad at me. I'm like, why are you mad at me? She's like, you were mean to me. I was like, when? In my dreams. I know like, stop watching Sopranos with your wife. But knowing the differences, you have to know what's going on. So if  you wanna do something and she just came off a hard conversation with a friend or a family member, it's like, it's not so easy to shift gears going like, okay, let's go do this.

So my bias, false assumption I had, my wife is just impossible to understand. Just impossible to understand. Well, I'll tell you, my silence didn't help. And again, like I said, I'm a little slow, these things. So it was around year six in my marriage where I realized I was very silent with my wife. I didn't share with my wife. I didn't, I mean I shared things. We talked, surface level. We didn't share deep things that are going on. My dad just passed away from cancer and I was processing things and I was just silent with her. And all of a sudden over dinner or maybe we're just at the table and our kids were in bed. And I just said, I wanna apologize. I've been silent. I haven't shared some deep hurt of losing my father with you at all. And I think I just, you realize that's wrong. She just starts crying, bawling. And she said, "I'm crying tears of joy. I thought that our marriage was just gonna be two people raising kids. No deep fellowship, no deep love, no connection. No deep connection with understanding who you really are. These are tears of joy 'cause now we can really get to know each other."

This is you five, six! I'm like, again, I'm not the quickest guy, not the sharpest tool in this shed here. So my silence is it, my silence did not help. And part of it had to do with communication. It's a big, I mean, I like coach Mass said, I've done so much marriage counseling, premarital counseling. Communication is so key to our marriages. It doesn't matter what stage of your marriage is in, if it's decade one to decade six. But I have this teddy bear, like okay, Gary, what's communication? What's up with the teddy bear? Well, my wife had this teddy bear that her uncle gave her years ago. And had you guys, anybody done that object game for communication? So you put the object down and ours happened to be a teddy bear. And the person that picked it up is the one that can be able to talk. The other person can't say anything until the teddy bear goes back down on the table and the other person can take up the teddy bear. Because we were just talking back and forth so much that we would never get anything accomplished. We wouldn't be able to talk about anything because we didn't slow down to listen. So the teddy bear was worn out. I think it fell apart. So that, but communication was, is key.

And I just wanna throw this up here. We don't have time to go through all this. The but from 'Love and Respect,' it's a great book. How many times we been on that crazy cycle that I would only love her if she respected me and she would only respect me if I loved her? This crazy cycle until I realized that it didn't matter what she did. But I have to love her regardless of her respect and her respect, regardless of my love to her. So it was this constant cycle that you get on, but you can get off. And I encourage you guys if you want to just, and it's in some of the cohort material as well, get into that. But I had to reject passivity. My silence was so deafening that again, when I told, when I confessed that to my wife, tears of joy coming down her face. Reject, passivity, bring up whatever I have to bring up. The silence can kill marriages so easily. I had to realize my wife is not a micromanager. When she asked me about my day, and I said, good. She wants more. Not because she's checking on me going like, well, did he do that right? Did he... why would he do that? Like, why does he need to check the air in his tires? Why does he...? She wants to be with me in the journey. She wants to be a part of my life. She's not micromanage. So sharing what's going on through our day, the challenges that we have, the struggles we have, the joys that we have, the great things, the great conversations that we've had. She wants to be a part of that. She wants to be a part of that. So, and a lot of times it's talking about expectations, which reduce a lot of frustrations in my life and in our marriage. I mean, it gets to a point sometimes like we're, hey, we're about to go, on vacation. I just wanna know your expectations?

And I'll show you with my expectations because, you know, sometimes my idea of vacation looks a lot different than her idea of vacation. I like to come home for vacation, not needing another vacation. And sometimes, she wants to have a vacation so she can plan the next vacation. So it's just, manage those expectations is super key. I realize when I talk with my wife, it's not about keeping accounts. And I always, I always say when we're in conversation these days, no bookkeeping. No bookkeeping. I'm not gonna bring something up in the past to add fodder to our marriage right now. No bookkeeping. It is very easy to, I mean, we do it all the time. I get it. Like, hey, it was my turn to change his diapers. Now your turn, we do that bookkeeping like that. But you start doing with little things and all of a sudden you're doing with a lot of things. So we can't, let's not keep accounts on things. We gotta keep those accounts clean. The power of forgiveness. And forgiveness, I have a simple definition of forgiveness is giving up the right to get even with the other person. The power of forgiveness is so huge in marriages. You don't, I mean, in that, like I shared that moment about telling my wife she had to come home when her father was dying of cancer. That that didn't get resolved till like three years ago. And he passed away in 2009. So the power of forgiveness is huge.

Forgiving and asking forgiveness. Reject passivity, and ask for forgiveness. You see, forgiveness is the power of the Gospel. Les Mis is one of my favorite storylines. And this is actually, I have a picture of this movie because it's not the non-singing version, it's Liam Neeson. If you haven't seen it, you gotta watch it. But the power of forgiveness drastically changes people's lives. It's amazing. So, I make time with my teammate a priority. I make time with my teammate a priority. And if we're really busy and we, and we have been and taking over this executive director role here, I've been busy and we have to, it sounds silly, but looking at your calendar going, where is our time? Let's do that together. Where is our time where we make it a priority that we are connecting with one another? And, and on your tables, I'm not saying, again, I'm not telling you what to do. Just a suggestion. There's these, we have these check-in questions that we do once a week. Sometimes we get through 'em all. Sometimes we only get through like one or two. But it, we want to know what's going on in each other's lives. What are we learning? What are we struggling with? And it's amazing what, how connected you feel with your spouse. And if you guys aren't married yet, just thinking about this as you're planning your own future, right? How can I connect, with my communication. Work on your communication now. Work on your communication now.

And then, you know what I do? I do a lot of praying And I pray for my wife, but ultimately I pray to understand my wife. And that's a turn, that's a turn for some people, maybe. 'Cause we pray for our wives - yeah, I hope she does it. She figures this out. And then go back to that problem solving again. Pray to understand your wife - Lord, help me understand who she is. How can I help let her flourish? How can I treat her as Christ treated the church? Let her flourish. Pray to understand your wife.

So in conclusion, give a little story about the drift king. And I'm not talking about, the drift king from a Fast & Furious Tokyo Drift. Okay, thanks to my son for introducing me to that movie. Talking about a different drift king, king David. Now, some of some of you guys in cohorts had gone through this recently. This story of David and his mighty men. Which is powerful because there's this King David, if you guys aren't familiar with it, in the old, in the olden days, before, before Apple iPhones. And he had these, these group of guys, and he was a young guy in his twenties. And man, all these, and it shares these stories, these mighty men. These guys are just like, you know, killing like tons of people with a spear. And like this one guy goes into a, kills a tiger and a snowy cave. I mean, imagine trying to fight in a snow with a tiger. All these things about these mighty men. And he, and he goes like, oh, if I just had some water from the well in Bethlehem that I just, it will remind me, me of my home. And so these three guys of this mighty men go and fight their way through, and I mean, just, I'm trying to figure this out. Like they're fighting these guys off. And then where they have, they must have like a wine skin or something like that to like, and then they, it is not just, you know, grab a bottle of water, it's, they gotta go get into the well, bring the water out, put it into something that they can carry back. All the time fighting off these guys to get the water for their leader, David.

So then they come back and they're, they come back and they bring the water and, and David goes, wow, you guys brought the water for me. He's like, you guys could've died for that. It's, I'm gonna offer this to the Lord because these guys were so great. Pour the one out for the homies, right. So that's how much they cared about this guy, David. And how much David cared about these guys to pour out the water 'cause I'm just blown away by the fact that you would do this for me. That's the kind of connection they had as men.

But as the story goes, David, as he gets more kingly, he gets in his capital city, he gets into his palace. The days of him going to war with his mighty men are over and he's just on his rooftop checking things out and he sees this beautiful woman. He's like, I gotta have that. So he has an affair with Bathsheba, finds out she's pregnant, and he is like, well, who's the husband? It's one of those guys listed with the mighty men earlier, one of his own mighty men. And he gets, and David gets that guy killed.

We, there's amazing that, I mean that's, that's why we have these stories. These stories show how damaging that it can be when we drift. And I was sharing stories already how I've drifted as a husband. I'm sure there's a lot of times we have drifted in our lives. Man, we can't drift. We're in a time and, and a place in a setting in a area of the country where we cannot have men drift. 'Cause all it takes is just one little drift. It may not seem that far in the beginning, but as time goes on, that drift is further and further apart.

You, you're not alone. You're not alone. And, I know this is a plug, for whatever. It could be, it doesn't have to be IMPACT Player cohort, but we have IMPACT Player cohorts everywhere for guys to get plugged in. Get plugged in, don't drift. You're not alone. Be with other guys. And it doesn't matter if they're already going, get involved, you don't have to say anything. You can just sit there and just say like, I just wanna observe for a while till you're comfortable. But there is great leaders and there's a lot of cohorts in the area to get you guys plugged in so that you're not alone to help you with your drift. Let's stop drifting.