Emotional Distance in Marriage

Focus on the Family Strengthening Marriage Podcast

Focus on the Family

Society & Culture, Relationships

4.7 • 1.7K Ratings

🗓️ 9 September 2025

⏱️ 15 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Allowing your spouse to share their feelings is one of the best ways to make your marriage safe. Jim Turner and Jim Daly talk about how men tend to compartmentalize their emotions. Also, John and the Smalley's will give some ideas on how to make sure you and your spouse are connecting frequently.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	God is at work and he's calling his people to rise in truth. Truth Rising is a powerful new documentary from Focus on the Family and the Colson Center. See how ordinary Christians choose courage in a culture that needs truth. Watch Truth Rising today and find out how you can become an agent of restoration and hope.
0:24.1	Visit truthrising.com today. That's truthrising.com.
0:30.9	Well, emotional safety is one of the most important things for a couple to experience, but it can be hard to feel safe if you're distant, if you have some issue kind of dividing you.
0:45.1	I'm John Fuller, joined by Greg Smalley and his wife, Aaron, and they co-lead the Focus Marriage Department.
0:50.6	And Aaron, you have a counseling practice, and how many wives come to you and say,
0:55.9	oh, my husband, he's so emotionally distant. He's just, he's a slab of stone. He doesn't ever
1:00.9	open up. I wish he would engage with my emotions. Is this a common thing? Yes, absolutely. I hear that
1:08.5	a lot. I'm not the only slab of stone, a don't hear slavistone, but I do hear,
1:14.3	I would love to know what my husband's feeling, what he's feeling about certain things. I want to
1:20.4	know what he's fearing, what's stressing him out, how he feels about me. So there's a longing to
1:27.3	connect heart to heart.
1:28.9	And what I love within the counseling arena, there are opportunities to help each of them,
1:37.6	each the husband and the wife, to share that stuff.
1:40.7	And because it's safe.
1:42.4	That's my job is to create a place of safety, that some of those conversations can go better and I can help guide them.
1:48.0	However, the research, John, this is super interesting.
1:51.0	Approximately 84% of wives feel that they do not experience emotional intimacy or a sense of emotional oneness with their spouse. So 84% of
2:02.5	are saying they're not connecting at that deeper heart level with their husbands.
2:08.0	That's really sad. But it's interesting. We taped a podcast earlier with a couple men who wrote a book
2:14.8	about men not being connected with their hearts.
2:19.3	And so it's not often done intentionally.
2:22.4	No one ever taught them possibly how to access.
	...

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