Jeremy:
One of the things that is really amazing about being married is that you are on a lifelong journey with your spouse, of intimacy, of closeness. You want to be getting closer and closer to each other every single year. But this can be really challenging when you have little kids, really challenging if, as a guy, maybe you’re a little bit emotionally distant. Maybe emotions are not the first thing that you want to share with your wife. So I want to speak directly to those dads who feel that kind of emotional distance. If your wife’s ever said that she feels like, “I don’t feel like we’re getting deeper in our relationship or going deeper in our intimacy, our knowledge of each other. We’re not sharing vulnerably with each other.”

Jeff:
Yeah, this one’s common.

Jeremy:
It really is important, guys, that we learn how to really share our emotions. This has not been an easy thing for me. I love to talk about ideas. I could probably forever talk about that. That’s where my mind just goes when I’m in a deep conversation. That’s kind of my personality. But that’s not really healthy to be constantly building my relationship with my wife on that. And guys have other reasons why they might not be sharing these kinds of emotions.

So, I want to give you a super practical tip. If this is your problem, and you let’s say you have a date night every week or a time where you’re connecting with your wife, something that I’ve started to do, that’s been amazing for just conversations I’ve had with April is that every morning I write down, I journal every morning, and this just takes like one sentence, maybe two sentences. I ask myself, “When did I feel a strong emotion yesterday?” And I just write a sentence about it. It could be a conversation I had with one of my kids It could be anger, it could be joy, peace, surprise, whatever. But I felt something. And I just write one sentence about Dixon. It takes me about 20 seconds to do this every morning. Then when I have date night with April, I just start to share a couple of those stories. And man, my heart opens up. Because that’s the stuff I need to process.

Jeff:
Yeah.

Jeremy:
That’s what intimacy really is. It’s having an emotional reaction that you didn’t expect and processing with people you love when you don’t know where the conversation’s going to go. That’s the definition of emotional vulnerability. Every single one of us can do this. It just takes a little bit of discipline.

Now, there are some guys … I know Jeff, you were saying this, you have no problem with this. You don’t need to write anything down. But some of us are like, this is not easy. If I sit down with April and I try to think, “What should we talk about during this date night?” Almost nothing very helpful is going to come just suddenly into my mind.

Jeff:
Yeah.

Jeremy:
And so I needed a prompt, and this is really easy, but man, this really helps uncover stuff as well, and just have that kind of intimacy with your spouse.

But yeah, Jeff, what does that stir up for you?

Jeff:
Yeah. It’s funny now that you talk, we actually do the same thing, but we do it for different reasons. I think it’s actually kind of a cool encouragement to guys all over the spectrum.

I tend to be an oversharer. I’m just super like, if I feel it, I’m going to tell you. There’s no purpose, there’s no need, there’s no reason for me to not do that. So I actually have the opposite problem where I have to hold back a little bit, because I realized in our marriage, especially with Alyssa being more of a sensitive, soft, tender personality, that I have to make sure I think about what I’m saying first or I’ve processed it. That’s the word you just said, which I loved, before I say it. And so, one helpful way for me is to write some things down real quick, two in the morning, just like, “Oh, is this going in a direction that doesn’t need to go? Have I thought about this before? Have I actually given this any thought?”

And so, yeah, it’s funny that they’re both opposite ends of the spectrum, but it’s actually the same solution, which is a little bit more of intentionality starting your day, or another way is reflection. I’m hearing I have to reflect, you have to reflect, we have to think about it before it comes out and not in a huge way.

Jeremy:
Yeah.

Jeff:
Just give it two seconds I think that’s enough to set the sail in certain directions. And the last thing I’ll say too, guys, is yes, lean into date nights as times of processing. Don’t be the husband where you set the tone of making it feel like your wife has to pry out of you or that it’s like pulling teeth. That is the heart, because it’s for your joy, too.

I think when you actually emotionally connect with your spouse, with your wife, you realize that, man, this is where joy is at. This is where intimacy is at. It’s such a beautiful and rich thing, but a lot of us have to fight for it. We have to learn how to do it. We have to discipline ourselves in a particular direction, but it is worth that battle.