What Marriage Asks of Us

Conversations with Dr. Jennifer

Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife

Education, Sexuality, Self-improvement, Health & Fitness, Mental Health

4.7 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 5 May 2026

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Most of us enter marriage hoping to lock in someone who will love us, support us, and make us feel okay about ourselves — no matter what. So when friction, disagreements, and disconnection show up, it can feel like something has gone terribly wrong. But marriage wasn't designed to keep us comfortable. It was designed to pressure our growth. And the engine of that growth is conflict — the honest collision of two people who see the world differently learning to love each other and create a shared life that makes room for both of them, in all their difference. In this conversation, Dr. Finlayson-Fife joins Amy and Greg Langford of the Undressing Intimacy Podcast to explore the ideas at the heart of her book That We Might Have Joy. They discuss what happens when we stop asking marriage to manage our sense of self and start letting it do what it was actually designed to do. The reward is not comfort, Dr. Finlayson-Fife teaches, it's something better — genuine desire, real intimacy, and the gift of two people choosing to share their life with each other. GET THE BOOK (it's on SALE!) or LEAVE A REVIEW (it would mean a lot to us!)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Eros is to be alive in the marriage.
0:04.4	And the fastest ways to feel that in a marriage is to speak about something you don't want to deal with in the marriage.
0:10.7	To be more honest, to bring more truth between you.
0:14.0	That is life-giving.
0:15.9	It's also conflict-giving.
0:17.0	But it does open you up into growth.
0:29.6	Music giving, but it does open you up into growth. Welcome to Conversations with Dr. Jennifer, a collection of interviews on the topics of
0:35.0	relationships, sexuality, spirituality, and more, all featuring Dr. Finlayson Fife.
0:45.3	Welcome to episode number 62. I know we sound like a broken record, but I can't tell you how excited we are to have our doctor,
0:54.8	Jennifer Finlayson, Fife, with us today. She has meant so much to us in our personal lives and also
1:00.9	in our professional lives. And it's just a pleasure to have you on with us today. Thank you so much.
1:06.5	Thanks for having me.
1:08.0	We've been a guiding mentor for us.
1:10.2	Absolutely. Yeah. One little thing different about Jennifer today than when we had it on last time, she is a published author. Woo-hoo! We're so excited that she was able to finish that book up and get it published. And today we're going to spend some time talking about it. So, Amy, you want to dive in? Sure. I'm holding the book up right now, and the book is that
1:29.1	we might have joy, desire, divinity, and intimate love. And like I usually do, it's written up and
1:36.8	colored and dog-eared. And I love what you've done with this book because you have really
1:43.4	profound, in-depth, ideas and yet you were able
1:48.9	to share them in very real concrete, digestible examples and ways. And that's not easy to do at all.
2:01.5	That's why it took four and a half years.
2:04.9	But I think I...
2:06.9	Oh, yeah.
2:08.2	Oh, yeah.
	...

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