Well, hi there, I'm Julie Slattery and thanks for joining me on Java with Julie.

Today we're re-releasing a conversation we recorded a few years ago.

We're going to be talking about boundaries in a marriage relationship where there's an overbearing or controlling spouse.

I'm sitting down with Dr. Ron Welch and his wife Jan.

Ron is a professor at Denver Seminary and he calls himself

a recovering controlling husband. You'll hear how he used to use subtle forms of manipulation,

like complaining or pouting to control his wife, Jan. And Jan shares about how she grew tired

of trying to change things and actually began to enable Ron's

controlling behavior.

And this conversation doesn't address domestic violence or physical abuse, but if you've

ever thought, I'll never be good enough, or he or she never listens to me anyway, this

just might be a conversation for you.

Ron, now you wrote a book called The Controlling Husband, and you're also a psychologist.

I am.

But I think what women want to know, not so much is that you wrote the book or that you have the degree, but that you were a controlling husband.

And you and your wife, Jan, have walked through this journey of recognizing that and making some changes.

That's what they want to hear.

I think I would say I'm a recovering controlling husband.

To say I was a controlling husband probably wouldn't be fair because I still have to deal with that every day. But there is a

different experience in our relationship now that was not what it was. So part of the book has been a

journey of healing for both of us as well. Yeah. And isn't that always true that it's not like

you just turn your back on a behavior or sin and then automatically you're cured?

...