I had violated my own beliefs and values, which means I had become a different person.

I had to at least try to put my marriage with Alice back together.

Acknowledging reality is powerful because any other person feels, I can be open and

honest with you.

There's things that are destroying marriages that we don't know are destroying marriages

that are unintentional and kind of subcurrent, but actually there's hope.

This is the Made to Advance Podcast.

I'm your host, Brian Aulick.

We're here to inspire and equip you for your best future.

- Hey everybody, welcome to Made to Advance.

It is so good to have you with us today.

And this episode is gonna be something different.

Today, instead of me hosting,

I have my good friend and fellow pastor, Gerald Jobe.

And he's gonna be interviewing Joe Beam,

who is a relationship expert and a certified sexologist.

So if that sounds interesting to you,

I hope you're gonna enjoy this conversation.

- All right, we've got Joe Beam in the house.

Dr. Joe Beam, or as I like to affectionately call you

every time I ring you up or you call me, it's Dr. Love.

- Dr. Love.

- Dr. Love.

- First time I was called that was actually at Disney World.

They needed somebody to play a part

and they called me out of the audience

and named me Dr. Love.

- Did they even know who you were?

- Had no clue.

- All right, all right.

Well, I call you Dr. Love for a reason.

You're marriage expert, family relationship expert.

- Theoretically, at least, yes.

- At least you talk about it a lot.

You write a lot of books, you do workshops,

you've been doing that for decades,

and you have a PhD in sexology.

- Well, it's not specifically in sexology.

It's a PhD from University of Sydney in Australia,

and it's from the Faculty of Health Sciences.

But yes, I studied the causes of and correlations

between marital satisfaction and sexual satisfaction.

So therefore, I am a sexologist.

- All right, all right.

We gotta stop or start right there, I suppose.

So why did you focus on that?

And what was your, again,

your specific area of dissertation or study?

- Okay, well, because of the fact

that I started working with couples in 1994,

so a long time back.

And I noticed that a lot of these couples

were also having difficulties with sexuality.

about 94% of the people that come to our workshops

identify as Christians.

And so I was noticing that these Christians

were having hangups of one kind or another.

And I thought, I'd like to be able to address that.

And so that's when I decided to enroll at University of Sydney

and praise God, they accepted me.

It's a pretty prestigious school

and I didn't think I could get in, but finally I did.

And so that's actually what I studied.

My research was all about marital satisfaction

and sexual satisfaction, every bit of it.

- All right, we'll probably have to come back to that

before we're done here, 'cause some folks may be interested

in some tidbits, what you got to say.

But your story of getting to that point, to 1994,

beginning helping couples, probably began way before that,

not with a marriage of bliss,

but kind of self-sabotage and destruction.

Can you give us the abbreviated version of your backstory,

what happened and then what really launched you

into this path of working with marriages?

- Well, Alice and I married each other the first time

1969. 1969. Before you were born, probably. That's just before I was born. Okay, so we

married each other then. And for the first 15 years of our marriage, I was in ministry.

I would be lead pastor of various churches. And in 1984, I divorced Ellis. She didn't

divorce me, I divorced her, but I divorced her because I had fallen "madly in love"

another woman. All right, so you're pastoring, you're preaching, you're teaching, you're married,

and you "fall in love" with another woman and divorce your wife.

So I could marry her and we would live happily ever after. Like you did.

Like you didn't. That's what people think is going to happen. Okay, so what happened?

Well, the other woman eventually left me, which is almost always the case, by the way. I read

- I had to, in one statistic,

I can't cite exactly where it is right now,

but about 80% of people who leave their spouse

for another person never marry that person.

And so that didn't happen,

and so I went wild for a couple of years,

lived a very Godless lifestyle.

And after, end of the third year,

began to come to my senses,

and I called Alice, who was already dating somebody else,

and asked her if she would consider coming back,

or letting me come back.

You know, would you let me marry you again?

- After several years?

- This was in the third year of our divorce.

- Third year, and for context,

like what age demographic were you at this point?

You in your 20s, your 30s?

- I see, I was about 35 when the divorce happened.

- 'Cause you were married 15 years,

and then you went rogue.

So in your mid 30s.

- For three years, that's correct.

- All right, three years, gone crazy,

and then you called Alice back, and then what happened?

- She said, "Well, I have to think about that."

- I reckon she would.

(laughing)

- Yeah, she did.

So everybody she talked to, everybody said,

"No, don't marry him again.

and you can never trust him again.

So they counseled and I prayed and I outprayed them.

So we married each other the second time.

- All right, all right, all right.

So three years and at some point you're like,

"I think I should call Alice."

I feel like there's a big comma of happenings, right?

Like was there a moment where you woke up,

a moment where, like Luke 15 says,

"The young son came to his senses."

Was there a conversation you had with somebody?

Are you at the bottom of the barrel and can't see up?

What happened that caused you to begin to shift

and even think there's a possibility of hope?

- Not many people ask me that question, interestingly.

- Here we are.

- Alice was already dating somebody else,

and so was I, into that third year,

and it was becoming pretty serious.

And I was contemplating asking her to marry me because--

- The other woman, the second--

- The second woman, yes, the second one.

And then I decided, no.

I've got to call Alice instead.

The simplest way to say it,

and it may not make any sense to anybody,

is I missed me.

What I mean is I had violated my own beliefs and values,

which means I had become a different person.

And I wanted to be the person I was before only better.

And the only way to do that was to go back

to my original belief and value system.

So that meant I had to at least try

to put my marriage with Alice back together.

Now, of course, she could say no.

But I would never believe I really tried

a plan B. So I ended things with the other woman and called Alice and asked her if she

would take me back. And she said, "I'll think about it." And after two weeks, she called

back and said, "Okay, but I don't want the same anniversary." So in 1987, we remarried

each other and have been married to each other ever since. Neither one of us ever married

anybody else. It does make it difficult sometimes to tell people how long you've been married

with that three-year gap, but we're happily married to this day.

For the second time, how many years?

Okay, so from '87, and this is 2025.

I have trouble remembering just how many years I've been married, so I'm curious to see how

you're going to do it when you've been married twice to the same woman with a three-year

gap.

Okay, well, it's 25 years in this century, right?

2025.

Yeah, that's true.

And there were 13 years in the other, so that's 38 years.

38 years in this marriage.

And this year, plus 15.

- All right, all right.

- And in the second marriage is when we had

our daughter Kimberly, who now is my boss.

I work for her in our marriage ministry.

- She's a mover and shaker.

I've had the opportunity to travel with her a few times.

She gets it done.

- I tell her, I don't know why you're trying

to work me to death, there's nothing to inherit.

But she's quite a leader, a very gifted leader,

and we're working with thousands of couples

around the world, thousands.

- All right, all right.

So you were married 15 years, you're pastoring, you're preaching, you're teaching the Bible,

you had values that you alluded to, you were a kind of person that you then later became

away from and wanted to go back to.

You obviously didn't get married the first time thinking, "Hey, 15 years from now, I'm

gonna go broke, leave my wife, connect with other women, and at some point get divorced

and hopefully remarried."

So nobody says, "I do," to later say, "I don't."

- I wouldn't say nobody.

- All right, all right.

- On one national television program a few years ago,

they flew me out to LA to debate this woman

who had written a book called "Starter Marriages."

- Interesting.

- And her premise was you have the first marriage

to learn how to be married,

and then you move on to the marriage you want.

- That sounds like a stupid idea.

- Really?

And when I basically told her that,

she said, "I'm not advocating it, I'm reporting it."

And she said, where I live, which was in New York,

she said, "This is a common thing,

and I'm just writing a book to report on it,

not to advocate it.

- Yeah, how's that working out for everybody?

- I don't think it works out very well at all.

Can you imagine?

Particularly if children come along in the first marriage

and it gets, well, let's just say it's not a good idea.

I'm all for get married, stay married the rest of your life,

learn how to love each other more deeply,

and that's what Alice and I are doing now.

And we have become, for lack of a better word,

experts on what it is that leads a person to do what I did.

Okay, so I'll reframe my question. Nobody says I do to later say I don't. And you probably

can rebuttal my rephrasing. Nobody says, "I'm entering into this marriage with the hope

that we have a heartbreaking, soul-wrenching divorce."

I agree with that wholeheartedly.

But something happened with you to lead you to that place. What are you seeing? What's

going on there? You talk a lot about limerence, and I don't know if limerence comes into play

But what is limerence and and how does that take into play this conversation? We're having okay back in the 1970s. Dr

Dorothy Tanov wrote a book that she called love or limerence

Limerence is basically an intensified version of romantic love

That's so intensified that has a lot of similarities to addiction and a lot of similarities to obsessive-compulsive disorder

Therefore it's not the same thing as romantic love. It's romantic love on steroids. That's it was almost an addiction and

We have studied it, as a matter of fact,

we're one of the leading thought providers on that subject.

Now when we first started talking about it 30 years ago,

nobody was talking about it.

- I don't know that a lot of people use the word limerence

in their daily conversations.

- It's all over the internet now.

But interestingly, I still go and teach,

I'll teach groups of counselors and therapists

that will have their master's degrees

from various universities who've never heard of it.

- Okay, so what is it?

or what, dive in a little deeper,

maybe apply that to your own situation,

the story you shared, and like, let's unpack it that way.

- All right, it typically starts as a friendship,

and in that friendship, you get deeper and deeper

by sharing more and more things about yourself,

and you get to the point where you're sharing things

about yourself you don't even share with your spouse

for fear that your spouse will be upset

or get angry or whatever it might be,

and by doing that, you feel this unbelievable level

of acceptance, and then what happens

happens in the brain. Interestingly, um,

there've been some interesting studies where they do F MRIs,

functional MRIs on the brain with people who are in this condition,

where they show them pictures of random people and they show them a photo of the

limerick object.

And they know that what happens is two things happen inside the brain.

When that occurs. One is that dopamine increases dramatically,

which is a feel good high and serotonin decreases dramatically,

which is a, an inhibitor chemical to help you say no.

It also helps you to calm down.

And so with one going high, the feel good,

and one going down, the one that helps you stay in control,

you really go out of control.

- Okay, okay.

- Makes me think of that passage where Paul said,

"We are by nature children of wrath."

'Cause it starts happening in the brain

and it is unbelievably overwhelming.

Now it can be overcome,

obviously by the power of God, anything can.

But it can be overcome,

but it will last somewhere between three months

in 48 months, extremely rare.

I mean, so extremely rare they can't even count it,

of any of the past 48 months.

- So that's, I'm assuming that applies,

one, to extramarital engagements or relationships.

- It can happen between two single people.

- But it can also happen on the front end of relationship.

- Not every couple goes through it,

and not every person in a couple.

It could be she does and he doesn't,

or he does and she doesn't,

or neither of them, or both of them.

But either way, it's such an intense high.

Like I said, it's very similar to an addiction.

And very similar to obsessive compulsive disorder

to the point that it's so intense

that up to 85% of your waking hours

are thinking about that other person,

daydreaming about what life's gonna be like with them

in the future, those kinds of things.

- Is that part of what goes in,

you hear couples sometimes say,

I love you, I loved you,

but I'm no longer in love with you.

Does that phrase show up statistically

around those timeframes where Lemertz is on the default?

And does that phrase show up at other times as well?

- It shows up other times as well.

But if you have a couple, like with me,

where that I got involved with this other woman,

I never ever say her real name,

so I just call her Sally Sue.

- Sally Sue, that's a good Southern name.

- Plus, I've never met a Sally Sue.

So if you know somebody--

- You live in the South, you've never met a Sally Sue.

- Never met a Sally Sue.

- All right.

- Met a lot of other double names.

I bet you have.

So the long and short of it is, uh,

we begin to spend a lot of time talking to each other, et cetera, et cetera,

letting what we down on what we call the wall,

letting the other person see you intently until those emotions begin to develop.

And when those emotions develop, they get extremely strong. Well, when they do,

I still loved Alice. And so that was when it's like, wow,

can you be in love with two women at the same time?

Are two men at the same time? The answer is yes,

but they're different kinds of love with Alice. It was a deeper kind of love,

because if we'd ever had labyrinths, it was long gone. You know,

we've been married 15 years and with Sally Sue, it was intense and new.

And then I got to the point of thinking, well, I'd say to her, Alice,

I love you,

but I don't love you because I was comparing the emotion I was feeling for Sally

Sue with the emotion I was feeling for her. Right.

Now other times you may hear that same phrase by somebody who's gotten into

something that's going to lead them away. Okay. And,

and it may not be another person. It may be, uh,

I want to become a famous musician. Therefore,

I'm moving to Nashville and you get in my way. Yeah. Okay.

Or, or, uh,

I'm going to become the best race car driver in the world. And that doesn't,

anyway, long and short of it,

anything that starts leading you away from the spouse can get to the point where

you would say, I love you, but I'm not in love with you.

What that means is I'm not feeling the intensity of emotion. I want to feel,

I'm feeling it toward this person or this thing,

but I'm not feeling it for you.

- Is that normal for every relationship though,

to go through those things where I'm not feeling it?

- Oh, yes, that part's normal.

- So is that a sign of a marriage

that's on a detour to a bad place?

Or what would then be some signs

to a marriage that's in trouble,

when I'm not feeling it,

when I've got these other ambitions?

Or I begin creating an image in my mind

of how great things would be if only she,

or I guess in a woman's case, he,

were different or were like this,

and I began comparing them

to this imaginary fantasy in my mind.

- It's according to how real that fantasy

becomes in your mind.

If it's just like, just a real fantasy

where you hardly ever think about it,

it really doesn't cause that much difficulty.

It may lead to being dissatisfied with some things,

but there's no relationship on earth,

in a marriage, that's perfect.

We have a saying in the marriage industry,

Whoever you marry, you marry a set of problems.

And whoever marries you, marries a set of problems.

Because we're all flawed.

And so we have to learn how to get along with each other.

And you can still be married 50 years

and get irritable with each other

for a week or two or whatever.

And those things aren't signs of crisis.

Those are signs of natural processing through life,

the ups and downs.

It only becomes a problem when that crisis reaches a point

or that dissatisfaction reaches the point where a person is actually very vulnerable

to something else.

Now, unfortunately, sometimes they don't admit that to themselves.

For example, many years ago I dealt with a couple where the woman was extremely committed

to her husband.

We can measure that.

And she was extremely committed to her husband, but felt that they had no openness, transparency,

or trust between them at all.

That's what she felt.

If she opened her mouth to say anything, he would put her down.

And you're wrong about that. Why don't you get smarter?

Whatever it might be. And so nothing she thought was good enough. Right.

Nothing she did was good enough, but she was totally committed.

And I'll show that screen sometimes in one of our workshops.

And I'll end up, I've got this all graphed out and I'll say, okay,

do you think she's vulnerable as an extramarital affair? And they'll go, no,

look how committed she is to which I'll reply.

That makes her actually more vulnerable.

there's a passage that says, let him who thinks he stands,

take heed lest he fall.

I said this woman has such vulnerability here that she doesn't think that,

that anything that she would do anything wrong because she's so committed.

And when you think that you're not temptable,

you become more tempted. Okay.

And so we would recommend to a couple like that. Okay. You are in crisis,

right? And, and we need to help you get this fixed. We can help you do this.

- Okay.

- All right, and if not,

then this woman is extremely vulnerable.

That does not necessarily mean that she's gonna leave him

or that she's gonna have an affair,

but it sure increases the possibility.

- Okay, so your whole ministry, by and large,

is working with couples who are in crisis.

- More than any other thing, yes.

- More than any, you're doing, on average,

five intensive three, four-day workshops a month.

- Three day workshops.

- Three day workshops, five of them across the country

with different leaders.

How many couples are we talking a year

that you're working with?

- Well, we also have other things we do,

but just in the workshops, we probably average,

let's say 20 couples in a workshop,

so it'd be 100 a month, so maybe 1,200 a year.

- 1,200 couples a year?

- In the workshop.

- In the workshop only, right.

- But we have thousands of couples

that do other things with us online.

- Okay, of the workshops, it seems like

from a prior conversation, and give me the update,

that a large percentage that show up at your workshop,

they're showing up because they're about ready

to call it quits.

- Typically nobody comes to our workshop

until just about everybody, including their counselors

or even their ministers, have given up on the marriage.

- And they got divorce papers in hands often.

- They actually, often that's actually used

to get the spouse to come.

I will sign the divorce papers after the workshop

if you'll go with me and participate.

Okay. So of those 1200 couples that come to these three days intensive workshops, all

of which have probably been given up on... When I was pastoring for 26 years, we referred

dozens of people to your workshops, but that was usually after... Did you do the marriage small

group? Have you been through counseling? Then it's like, "I got a friend in Nashville, you need to go

be a part of his workshop." So this is after people are far down the path. Of those 1200,

What type of results are you seeing just in broad terms of leaving the papers at your workshop?

70% of them stay together.

70% of the people who are planning on ending it choose to we've got new tools and resources

To make this work. That's right. That's astounding. Praise God.

Praise God. We know it's a God thing. All right. All right. Wow. I got so many questions right now

So on the so two parts less on the front give me more on the back

What are some common denominators if there are, here's three, you know, we see 1,200

couples for these weekend workshops.

If I could tell you the three main common denominators that have brought them to this

place, are there three?

There are probably 23, but like what are the main reasons that, like if people could have

done something about this earlier, which that'll be the second part of the question, holy smokes,

Batman, they would not have, I mean, have to been in this place.

I mean, as good as it is for, in the day you're providing food for your family, but I'm sure

you would rather 1,200 couples didn't have to come to your workshop.

Yes, absolutely.

So what are the common denominators?

And then let's talk practically, like I don't want to be in that place.

What can I do now that would help me from never showing up at your workshop?

Okay.

Now, if you say common denominators, let me first start with the presenting problem.

In other words, why do they say they're there?

The number one presenting problem is an affair.

67%, two-thirds of the couples that come to our workshop,

the marriage has been affected by an extramarital affair.

- And what percentage of couples in general

are experiencing an affair?

- Who knows?

The research varies so much.

- Okay.

- So much.

We actually asked Barna if they would survey that for us

and Barna wouldn't do it.

- So 67 that are coming to your workshop

are like this is the key problem.

- It's hard to know exactly because people tend not

to tell the truth about that.

- Well, I--

- So when you survey it--

- I get you, I get you.

- And that's why Barney wouldn't do it.

They're not gonna tell us the truth, so we won't do that.

Okay, all right.

But come to the workshop.

Either he has had the affair, or she, or each--

- Gotcha. - Has had an affair.

The second presenting problem is control and domination.

- Control and domination.

- Like, I'm treated as if I'm an inferior.

- Okay.

- As if I don't have as much intelligence,

I don't have as much value, I don't have as much worth.

And more men dominate than women,

but we see a lot of them with dominating women.

And it's the guy, it's the guy who's being treated like that.

And when they finally get to the point where it's like,

I can't live like that anymore,

where that you're constantly tearing me down,

ripping me apart.

Okay, and so that's the second largest.

And then about everything you can imagine

falls into the third category.

If we were gonna help a couple,

are you familiar with a thing called

emotionally focused therapy, by any chance?

- Give me a workshop.

- I gotcha.

We are not--

- No, I'm not very familiar with it.

- Yeah, we're not emotionally focused therapists.

Nobody that works for, well, I have therapists

working for us, but they don't work for us as therapists.

They work for us as teachers.

- Gotcha.

- We don't do counseling or therapy.

We do coaching and we do teaching.

but basically what happens in emotionally focused therapy,

here's the principle.

And we actually work with that principle in our workshops and our material,

which is that,

that everybody has learned as they came into the world and went through

childhood and came through adolescence into adulthood.

You have learned whether the people that you need to be there for you are going

to be there for you or not. And so you may have,

like we met somebody recently, you and I did,

who said that she was abandoned by her parents. Right. Okay.

Now each they're actually four different outcomes and I won't go into all that as much to detail

Four different outcomes that might happen based on what you experienced in youth

But also in adolescence and also in previous relationships and what it really boils down to is this is

This person going to be there for me when I need them

Emotionally, okay, are they gonna listen? Are they gonna accept are they gonna understand or are they gonna tell me I'm wrong?

or they're going to tell me to grow up or going to tell me that I'm aberrant in

some fashion, like you're a narcissist or whatever people do now,

which is actually a terrible thing to do.

It's weaponized therapy talk is what it's called when you do that. Okay.

So if the other person, rather than feeding back, like, well,

you do this or what are you talking about? You are blah, blah, blah, blah.

If they really listen and try to understand,

really listen and try to understand and then try to understand their own

reactions to that, like, "Why is this making me so mad?"

They shouldn't be making me mad.

"Oh, I know why it's making me so mad."

And then we help people figure that out.

So it's basically the key, the absolute key, is what Jesus did with people, which is, "I

can accept you where you are.

Now I'm not going to leave you there, but I'm going to accept you."

And so the prostitutes would hang out with him, and we know he didn't approve prostitution.

It's the first guy in these women's lives that can treat them with respect and

dignity and try to understand them.

If that can happen in a marriage where each one of us is trying to understand

the other person without that devolving into thinking we're both counselors

because that doesn't work at all,

but just trying to really understand the other person where he or she's coming

from and where I'm coming from and learning how to communicate that way.

It also works parent to child, parent to child.

Couples who do that are highly unlikely to ever show up on one of our workshops.

- So the second category is dominance and control.

And I don't know if you've done quantitative studies

on this or know statistically,

but of those who the main issue is dominance and control,

what percentage do you think the one dominating

and controlling is doing so intentionally

or it's their own just default patterns they learned

so that if this person could actually speak up

and if they actually listened,

could actually engage in new tools

to get better down the path?

- Yes, yes, yes, and yes.

Some of them don't have any realization

they're doing it at all because they're emulating

what they learned from mom or dad.

- So I got my own fears,

so out of preventing my worst fears coming true,

I by default control, or whatever that case,

- Very insightful.

- Actually, you know EFT.

That's very, very-- - What's that?

- You do know EFT.

That's very, very insightful.

But yes. - So helping,

I'm just using myself as a hypothetical example.

If that was me, you, my spouse saying something,

and then me being able to identify,

wait, I'm not really meaning to control you,

but I'm doing so out of this fear

or this experience or this hurt,

then obviously I got my own issues

and I probably need counseling in other areas.

But there's things that are,

I guess my point is there's things

that are destroying marriages

know or destroy marriages that are unintentional and kind of subcurrent, but actually there's

hope for.

Yes, absolutely.

That's what I'm hearing.

We believe there's always hope.

Is there never not hope, or is there hope for everybody, you think?

Almost everybody.

We work for the principle there's always hope.

All right.

Now, could we come up with a situation where we might change that?

But maybe.

But we work from that principle.

But you're right.

It can be, let's say you grew up in a home with an alcoholic father, and so you always

you felt that your family life was out of control.

Well, that might mean that when you become an adult,

you are very controlling because you couldn't control anything in your

childhood. Okay. On the other hand,

you're also right in the sense that some people just by their personality are

more dominant and,

and they're not trying to control in the sense of,

I want to make you my servant, but they're just dominant. They just do it.

But if the other person were to also respond in the same way, like, no,

I don't wanna do that, it would work.

The other person would go,

"Okay, then what do you want to do?"

But if that person just becomes subservient,

like, "Okay, okay,"

then this person becomes more controlling

because they think that's what this person is happy with.

Where if this person stood up,

it would be a much different relationship

because this person's not trying to dominate,

it's just his personality or hers to be a charger.

- All right, all right.

So there's a whole lot we could probably unpack there, but let's flip a little more proactive.

What are three principles, three practices, three habits that you see healthy couples

do, intentionally or unintentionally, but it's probably intentionally.

When these couples do these three habits, there could be more.

Like man, that's the sweet sauce of marriage.

One is definitely to listen, but not just listen for the words, listen for the meaning.

Like, "What are you feeling right now, sweetheart? What's really going on here?"

And the other is to learn how to accept. Now, let me explain that.

We view acceptance as being acknowledging reality.

Therefore, I may not endorse it, I may not encourage it,

but I can still acknowledge the reality of it.

So if Alice were to come to me and said,

I found myself very strongly attracted to Charlie over there. If I go,

no, you're not. Or if I say, that's just a sin. You need to straighten up,

you know, which would be kind of the thing I'd be tempted to do.

Whereas if I were to say, if that's what you feel,

I accept the fact that you feel that way. Now you're saying, Oh,

you're encouraging. No, no, I'm not.

Acknowledging reality is powerful because any other person feels I can be open

and honest with you. Now, I'm certainly not going to endorse it. Like, man,

don't blame me. He's a hair of a guy. I'm not going to do that.

And I'm certainly not going to encourage it. Like, well,

why don't you just move in with him for a while?

I can accept it and definitely not encourage it or endorse it. Uh,

and by doing that, and that's kind of what Jesus did.

When you look at how he handled like, um,

it's a kiosk and how he handled the prostitutes and et cetera. It's like,

okay, obviously I'm not endorsing what you're doing, but I know that.

So you are, come on, follow me. Yeah. Okay. And, and so they feel like

This guy understands us.

- Okay, so listen.

- Listen, accept.

- Accept.

- Those are the two most things.

And the third is time.

You've gotta spend some time with each other.

It is so difficult to do a long distance relationship

if it's gonna last very long.

- Okay, any other, anything else that you see?

When healthy couples are doing these things intentionally,

We don't see a lot of them come around in our workshops.

- No, we don't.

Those couples do really well.

I actually rewrote a book for Dr. Nick Stenay.

Nick and Dr. Dufresne did a study that started back in 1974

where they looked for the strengths,

what are the strengths of a strong family?

What are the aspects?

And so they did this research.

I mean, it's the largest study on strong families

done in the history of the world.

They did it in Russia,

in the Fiji Islands, et cetera, et cetera.

Last time I talked to Nick,

which is at least 10 years ago,

last time I talked to Nick,

more than 50, F-I-F-T-Y, 50 doctoral dissertations

and master's theses written off the study.

- Okay.

- And they found that there were six characteristics

of a strong family.

- All right, let's go.

- Okay, well, I rewrote the book for them

because it wouldn't sell.

- Nobody was buying it.

- Nobody was buying it.

So I rewrote it for them and nobody's buying it yet.

(laughing)

- What'd you call it?

Maybe somebody will buy it.

Fantastic families fantastic families Florida State University actually took those principles and put it into their experimental school

Which was an elementary school and and and figured out how to use it with different age groups

even down to

Infants and so there's a workbook that goes with it that tells you how to use it with children

Even down to infants fantastic families fantastic family. All right, you can you give us some of the six? Oh

- Been a long time since I rewrote that book for them.

One is spending time with each other.

Another is the ability to handle stress and crisis.

So for example, this may sound weird,

but families that go camping together

actually have better ability to handle stress and crisis.

It's because of the fact they get a lot of experience

and practice.

- Trying to figure out, troubleshoot.

- Exactly.

All right, so time together, stress, and crisis.

Another has to do with a spiritual unity.

I can't remember all, I am embarrassed.

- I read a study recently,

we were having a gathering for mentor couples.

So at the church, we have about a dozen or so couples

who help mentor young couples that are engaged

and moving towards marriage.

And so I was doing a little research

prior to one of the meetings we had,

and I don't remember the exact number,

but it was looking at the current statistics and trends

of divorce among non-Christians,

quote unquote Christians, evangelical Christians,

but then it pulled in another study

of evangelical Christians who regularly

engage in spiritual practices together.

And the number went from whatever it was,

like 33 whatever percent it was for evangelical Christians,

it went down to like less than like 2%.

- That would make a lot of sense to me.

- Only because they're doing these intentional

spiritual practices together.

So either going to church, worshiping, praying,

reading scripture, having these spiritual conversations,

that just by doing that, it pulls down so many other areas.

So there's a spiritual component.

Well, think about it.

If you're praying together and praying openly and honestly,

if I were to pray, "Oh Lord, forgive me for looking twice

at that blonde in the mall today."

And Alice was able to pray, "Be with him, Lord,"

rather than praying, "Strike him, Lord," right where he is.

Because if you pray openly and honestly together,

you're opening your hearts to God,

which means you're also opening hearts to each other.

And think about how bonding that is.

See, we typically, in our workshops,

don't run into those folks.

What we run into are people who get so busy

that they don't practice the spiritual drinks.

Okay, or they will come in and say,

one lady I remember in a workshop, she said,

"God sent me this other man

"that I'm leaving my husband for."

- Oh, there he did, did he?

- And I said, "Is that right?"

She said, "Uh-huh."

I said, "But what about the fact that God said

"that Jesus, this is it, you stay together,

God's, blah, blah, blah, the barriers may not be defiled, all those kinds of things.

She said, "That's just your interpretation."

- Oh, okay.

- She said, "Now, he's leaving his wife for me, I'm leaving my wife for him."

We have to change churches because people in our church are just so judgmental.

They're telling us that what we're doing is wrong.

And so their relationship with God is not a relationship with God.

Their relationship is with the God that they have formed in their minds.

- Sure, yeah.

What's that quote, "God created us in his image

"and we turned around and returned the favor"?

- Mm-hmm, something like that.

- Hey, let's talk about sex.

- What about it?

- Well, you got a PhD in it, so I mean,

we just seemed like we'd be amiss not to at least--

- I'm 149 years old, I remember nothing about it.

(laughing)

What do you want to talk about?

- I don't know, I don't know.

What are some of the biggest lies Christians believe?

- Lies?

- Lies, like misconceptions, myths, I don't know.

- What level of Christian?

'Cause they're different.

The world out there believes that sex is just for enjoyment

and you should have it with anybody you want to

anytime you want to.

That's the worldly view of it.

If you don't believe that, watch a sitcom.

If you don't believe that, watch a movie.

It is the common mores of America.

And you'll even be like, okay, well,

a 15-year-old says that she wants to have sex.

And so I'm telling her, honey, you just need to wait

until finally you feel love towards somebody

and then that'll be the first time that you do that.

It's not about commitment,

it's not about being together the rest of your life,

it's about just enjoy the physicality of it if you want to.

And many Christians, believe it or not,

at least whatever level you wanna put 'em on as Christians,

have bought into that.

So one of the questions I get

when I do my love, sex, and marriage seminar--

- You got a book on that?

- Do what?

- You got a book on that?

- Oh, no.

- Gotta come to the seminar, huh?

- You gotta get this.

- All right.

- I just don't, I mean.

- What do you tell us?

- I'll put that in Kimberly's mind, I'm so busy already.

But when I get the questions, a question I'll always get,

no matter what kind of church I'm speaking for is,

is it really wrong to have a threesome

or to have other couples that you enjoy sex with?

I get those questions everywhere I go,

no matter what kind of church it is.

So there's some people in the church,

people who are nominal, at least,

Christians who believe that that's the way to do it.

All the way to the other extreme,

there are some Christians that believe it's only for procreation.

All right.

And for example, our Catholic friends would say that.

If it cannot possibly create procreation, then it's wrong.

You can't do it.

Okay.

So therefore, a condom, any kind of thing that would prevent that from occurring would

be a sin.

And in some of the churches that are not the Catholic churches, the real conservative churches

where people believe that, they don't have sex very much at all because they're not ready

for children, and they may not have sex at all. 3% of American marriages

are unconsummated. 3%. They've never had sex with each other.

- Okay. Does the research show any findings, correlations between frequency of physical

intimacy and marriage longevity, stability, quote-unquote--it's probably not the best

word--happiness, fulfillment?

- Interestingly, there's a Canadian researcher, okay,

and she's done two different studies.

Her name is Peggy, oh my, you're coming off,

going with this, and her last name starts with an F,

I'll think of it hopefully in a minute.

Two different studies with two different groups

of people studying with her.

- I'm just impressed that you remember the studies,

personally.

(laughing)

- We've known each other too long.

Both of her studies were about what's the difference

in great sex and good sex.

Okay. And she's found seven characteristics. No, ask me what they are.

She's found seven characteristics difference,

but it kind of boils down to this.

You could actually put scripture to it and preach it. Now she,

as far as I can tell, it's not a believer based on things I've written by her.

Okay. But, um,

you could actually put scripture to it and preach it because it basically comes

down to that.

The difference in great sex and good sex is the fact that you can completely let

go with each other.

You're not afraid of what the other is going to try to get you to do. Okay.

You're not afraid that it's going to hurt you psychologically, emotionally,

whatever it might be physically, et cetera. And, and that,

well, it kind of boils down to this. My early mentor back when I was not in college,

you know, back in the late 1800s, he said,

and I've taught this every time I taught human sexuality at Lipscomb university

for eight years. And in every class, every one of my semesters,

I would teach them what happens outside the bedroom affects what happens inside

bedroom and what happens inside the bedroom affects what happens outside.

Okay, kind of the whole concept. I think there was a book years ago, "Sex Starts in

the Kitchen." Yeah, it basically is correct. And so frequency, the number one

presenting problem to sex therapists is frequency or levels of desire. And

there used to be a model from Masters and Johnson people would use if they

were a sex therapist. It starts with desire and then it goes on from there.

And what we have learned, me meaning, we meaning the people in that world, what we

have learned is that desire does not have to proceed.

If a person can become aroused and can enjoy the sexual experience and can

reach the climax and have a good resolution in the sense that it's not just,

okay, I'm done. I'm away from you.

It doesn't matter if desire was there to begin with or not.

With most women they have discovered, and they've done a lot of research on this,

Most women don't feel desire until they actually are becoming aroused.

Right.

And so if you wait for the wife to say, "I want to have sex,"

Might not happen for a while.

Exactly. And so the better thing would be, "Okay, try to fulfill each other as best you can."

Now, should there be limits to this? Well, there should be moderation in all things.

That's what the scripture says.

Right.

And so moderation in all things, because the female body, as well as the male body,

will have difficulties if you have it too much.

Sure. Okay.

Okay, so it seems the optimum, now this is not for newlyweds.

All right, everybody's taking notes.

It appears that the optimum is about 70 every 72 hours.

Okay.

Which would be two times one week, three times the next.

All right.

So that enters into a whole, I think I've read some articles and debates,

the difference between scheduled sex and wait for the moment.

What I'm hearing you say is, yeah, both are probably needed

and both are probably a recipe for health.

You see, I call it the difference between everyday sex and Solomon's sex.

Solomon's sex, if you read through the Song of Songs,

often referred to as the Song of Solomon.

Which was banned from little Jewish boys until they reached a certain age in the ancient times.

Well, I think it was 30. Was it 30?

It was banned for the young.

They used to have to have a wife.

Mm-hmm.

The reason is because of the fact that it's a highly, highly sexual book.

Now, sometimes we miss that because it's written in their idiom.

Right.

when he refers to her breasts as being twin fawns on a hillside.

We don't typically talk like that. Not down South at least.

And so we often miss the sexual references and they're really in there.

And one of the things he says until the shadows flee and the day breaks,

I shall go to the mountain of, uh,

he talked about two spices. Um, I went blank on them.

I'm getting too old to quote scripture in a terrible. Anyway,

And that particular passage, he says all night long,

until the shadows go away, till the day breaks,

I'm going to keep making love to you. And of course,

when I'm talking about that to audiences, I say,

what does it tell you about Solomon? And then I pause and say,

it tells you he's the King. He doesn't have to work tomorrow.

And that's what it tells you about Solomon, making love all night long.

What it really says is it's slow. Like the old Pointer Sisters song,

I want a man with a slow hand, but you can't do that all the time.

we live in too rushed a world, but sometimes we need sexual release because there are

physical benefits to both the female and the male if they reach the climax level.

For example, men who regularly do that have a lower chance of having a fatal heart attack.

All right. So if a guy wants to stay away from a heart attack, one of the reasons,

one of the practice would be...

No, it won't stay away from a heart attack, but a lethal heart attack.

All right. All right.

- A fatal heart attack.

And women actually have fewer heart attacks.

- Interesting.

- Period.

And there's some other things, other things, other things,

but there are physical benefits.

And so when I talk about everyday sex or et cetera,

like sometimes, sometimes you just don't have time

to do Solomon sex, which means being very slow

and careful.

- It's busy lives, you got kids,

and end of the day, we're tired.

- But we need release.

And that can happen even if one of you

doesn't have desire at the moment,

if you can function well all the way through.

saying it'll kick in. Yeah. Just don't force it on somebody who's not ready for it.

But yeah, absolutely. Gotcha. You said this earlier, it's never too late to start and

try and there's always hope. We've seen marriages that have been divorced ten

years get back together because of the fact that when they finally learn how to

really communicate, understand each other, how to look into their own behavior. If

you're trying to blame the other spouse for everything, it's never gonna work

But when you start also examining your behavior,

how am I facilitating this or how am I precipitating this?

And so, yeah, we have couples come to our workshop

in their 70s.

We have couples coming to our workshop.

The youngest I remember was 16.

She was already married.

Of course, this is the South.

She was already married and at 16 years old

was in our workshop with her husband.

So we've seen them everywhere in between

and I'm saying that we haven't seen a situation yet

that couldn't be healed by the power of God. I'm not saying it doesn't exist.

Love it, love it. So let's end on that. There's two things I like to think a lot. There's

our part and there's God's part. You see this all through Scripture. You're obviously in

your workshop three intensive days, lots of unpacking, lots of dialogue, lots of tearing

down the walls, as you often talk about, lots of practical tools. So there's something to

learning skills, learning how to do something right, 'cause most people have grown up in

world and they learned how to really jack things up.

- That's right, that's correct.

- So there's skills, there's tools, but then you just said by the power of God.

There's the Holy Spirit and there's in Jesus.

So maybe speak to that balance a little bit, and then maybe there's somebody watching that

wants a better marriage or just wants to take their next step.

What advice would you give?

- Well, if they want to find out what we do, you can go to Marriage Helper.

That's marriagehelper.com/call.

Just the word C-A-L-L, marriagehelper.com/call.

And you can talk for free about a half hour with somebody that's on our staff.

They're not counselors, they're not therapists.

There are people who will listen to your story, and if there's anything we have that can help,

they'll tell you what it is.

If we don't have something that will help, they'll tell you that too, and that's a free

call.

So that's how they can find us.

Now, what was the other part of the question?

You also have books.

You've written a number of books.

to a few strange fascinating families.

You got one about sizzle and sex or something.

You got one called Love Path, Becoming One,

and you've got a book on spiritual warfare.

- Yeah, if you go to amazon.com and just type in Joe Beam.

- You're there, not Jim Beam.

- Not Jim, Joe.

There's only one book under there that I didn't write.

Somebody wrote a book about veganism

and put my name on it as author, no joke.

- Interesting.

- So I didn't write.

- You probably don't get any kickbacks now,

- I'm not a vegan.

All right, so the thing to do,

and about God, just understand this,

that one of the key principles of Christianity

is surrendering yourself to God.

And there's another principle that Ephesians talks about

where we also submit one to another.

Ephesians five, I think that's verse 21, I believe.

And so people who truly yield to God

will yield to each other in the sense of,

okay, honey, I'm not particularly in the mood,

but you need to make love, well, let's do that.

Or, okay, honey, I realize you need to talk.

Alice, for example, needs to talk.

- All right.

- I'm always fast-paced, let's get it done.

- Which means you have to listen.

- Yeah, so we'll go out on the front porch,

watch the sunset, and because Alice loves to talk,

she'll start with, first, the earth cooled,

and then we go through all of the things

she wants to talk about.

- Gotcha.

- But if I'm gonna submit to her, she needs that,

even though I'm a fast-paced, get it done,

let's move down a person.

And so that's what Christianity does.

Now, the current workshop we do, we don't quote scripture,

but everything's based on scripture.

Because we have people come in who are atheists

and et cetera, et cetera.

And the Christians all get it.

Anyway, just like that, like I know where this is coming

from, but the surrender to God means taking yourself

off your own throne.

And the same thing works in marriage.

I'm taking myself off my own throne.

This is a partnership.

- Gotcha.

Love it.

So have sex often, listen to your spouse,

there's always hope, and when we surrender to God,

everything works better in our life.

- Yeah, and buy my books.

(laughs)

Hey, if they buy one of my books on Amazon,

I'll tell you the truth, I make one dollar.

So if every one of you buy one,

but if we can help you, seriously now,

if we can help you, er@marriagehelper.com/call,

we'd love to help you.

- Awesome, thanks so much for being with us today.

- Thank you, brother, really always good to see you.

- Well, I hope you enjoyed that conversation.

This has been a production of Enghetti Church.

And so until next time, just know you were made to advance.