From Self-Protection to Oneness: 5 Ways to Tear Down Walls in Marriage

Learn the five shifts that help couples tear down walls, rebuild trust, and move from self-protection to true oneness in marriage. 🔥

Most couples don’t wake up one day disconnected.

The distance happens slowly.

One hurt.
 One disappointment.
 One misunderstanding.
 One act of self-protection at a time.

Before long, walls replace vulnerability, pride replaces humility, and couples find themselves living more like roommates than one flesh.

In this episode, Chelsey shares five practical and biblical ways to tear down the walls that block intimacy, rebuild trust, restore right order, and move toward true oneness in marriage.

You’ll learn why vulnerability is essential for connection, how self-protection quietly sabotages intimacy, and why couples who share a mission greater than themselves are able to weather even the hardest seasons.

Because thriving marriages aren’t built by accident.

They’re built when two people stop hiding and start moving toward God and each other.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to today's episode. This is gonna be off the fly because I just got back from a retreat that we did for couples. There were nine couples that came. So from high-level husband, high-level wife side, and it was such a powerful event for so many reasons. But one of the biggest reasons was that community. Like, let me ask you do you have people in your circle who will not only challenge you, but will set the standard of realness and rawness and vulnerability for you and expect nothing less than that? Like it was interesting to see the arc of the weekend because, you know, when everyone got there, like there were people who didn't want to be there who, you know, only agreed to go because one spouse um figured it all out and made it work, right? And you know, like from the standoffishness of the beginning to like at the very end when like just walls were down, and because we had done like all this vulnerability work. And here's the thing like we as leaders got to lead and set the standard for vulnerability by sharing our own testimonials and not leaving anything out, and you know, for many, including myself for the most part, you know, it women are in community, we are we will get vulnerable, right? Like we will, but how many men do you know that will that or that live a life of full transparency, right? Most men are in the camp of boys don't cry, right? Like, real men don't cry, and and like what are you crying for? You know, rub some dirt in it. And ironically enough, like growing up on a farm, like that was my mentality that I took on. Um, you know, pull yourself up by your bootstraps, figure it out. Uh, we don't have I don't do feelings. Um, but here's the thing like when we live like that, we build walls around us. And one thing I said this weekend was that it is safer to keep walls up, and as women, especially to be strong, and men included, like it's easier and safer to stay hard and you know, to have a hardened heart and a rough and tough exterior that nobody gets into, right? It's actually courageous to get vulnerable. Like, it is brave to pull all the walls down and no no holes barred to like share the deepest, darkest things. And and here's what happens when we when we allow this kind of vulnerability or we lead the charge with this kind of vulnerability, what happens is we are able to hold space and show the unconditional love of Christ to others. Like in amazing ways, because we, you know, we we put on this hard, tough exterior, and we don't have rawness, and we don't have realness, and we don't have vulnerability, right? So there's disconnect and dysfunction because that's the opposite. Like that's what happens when we have these tough, hardened exteriors. Um, and that's that's easier, and that creates an environment for very conditional love, right? This idea that if I show up as my best, putting my best foot forward, regardless of how I'm feeling, what I'm going through, what I've been through, it creates an environment for a very conditional, transactional type of love. But when we are brave enough to let those walls down and we lead the charge on that, we create an environment where unconditional love can live and can flourish. And so often we do not actually tell our spouse what is going on or the hurt that they've caused because it's a two-way street, right? And we're afraid that at our worst they will not love us because we've had these dysfunctional patterns of even at my best, you still struggle to love me unconditionally as Christ loved his church while holding a standard, right? And um, you know, so we hold back and we don't share what our actual deepest fear is, right? Our deepest fear of not belonging, that if I actually live deeply of who God created me to be, if I actually step out in faith in the anointing that God has on my life, that I will be rejected and people won't understand, people will misunderstand my intentions, and so we remain pardoned with these tough exteriors and we don't let anyone in. And the problem with that in marriage, especially, is you can't have oneness with tough exteriors, you can't have oneness without vulnerability, you cannot have oneness without being raw and real and laying it all out, and so the disconnect happens when we build walls to keep ourselves safe, but within that effort of honestly not safety, um, because there is no connection possible and no oneness possible, which is what we really want, right? We want to be one, we want to be on the same team, we want to move in the same direction, right? We want to be so deeply connected to first the source, the Lord, that we are so deeply connected to each other that we seamlessly move together, and all of the troubles and the struggles and the striving amongst ourselves fades away because we're so sold out on the same mission together. And that was one thing from this weekend that, like, first of all, watching the men specifically get into environments where other men were setting this standard of rawness and realness. Now, I wasn't in there for the men's vulnerability portion, I was leading the women's vulnerability, um, which was just amazing because you know, so often we we just don't tell anyone what we're actually struggling through, or we don't share what we've actually been through. And here's the thing: with those hard things we've been through, through the breaking and the things that the enemy meant for evil, but God can use for good, those are like stepping stones along the way of preparation for the anointing that God has on our lives, and everyone's is so individual and specific, right? Like before we were born, God had a purpose for our life. And do you know what is the purpose of life? We talked about this a lot this weekend of how do you define the purpose of life? Because so often as Christians, we say, well, you know, the purpose of life is to go to church and and be a good mom or dad or husband or wife, and you know, good uh law-abiding citizen, and you know, get a good job and you know, eventually retire and you know, help the grandkids or travel, right? Like, how many of you would raise your hand if I said that's that's been your undefined purpose, right? Like that's just the direction that you've been going in um without the intention of it specifically, or maybe you you are specifically going to that direction. Like, how many of you would raise your hand right now, right? Most Christians would, but that problem with that is that is not actually our God-given purpose. Our purpose is to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind, to love others as we love ourselves, and to go out and make disciples of all nations. That is the purpose of life. We are kingdom builders, and we can't be kingdom builders on mission if we are not one with our spouse, if we're pulling in opposite directions because we don't actually know the direction we're going in, because we're living out of order, right? Like, what is the order? It's God, then us, because we have to be able to pour from an overflow, and then our spouse, and then our kids, and then our work and everything else. Are you living in that order? You can say you're living in that order, but if you actually look in the mirror, and a great indicator for this, two things. The first one is peace. How much peace do you actually have in your life? That's a litmus test of how close do you abide in the Lord and if God truly is first in your order. And the second is how do you spend your time and your energy and your resources? Because that is gonna be more telling of the order that you're living than anything that you actually say. So that's the biggest thing. And so we need to understand that if if we are out of order, we are gonna be so focused in on the frustrations and the lack and the limitations and the false identities that keep holding us back, right? That we allow to hold us back, and not actually one focused on the Lord and moving. And what happens is when we're so deeply rooted in the Lord and abiding in him, like think about this, ladies. If your husband was so sold out for Jesus and on fire for him, and in community with brothers who challenged him, who called him out on his blind spots, who you know was seeking the Lord relentlessly with everything within him, and was asking the Lord, search me, break me, send me. If your husband was doing that, would you feel safe? Would you feel so seen and so heard? Would you feel confident that you could trust him and trust ultimately the Lord and where he's lead leading? And honestly, wouldn't that be extremely sexy? Yes, and that's the design, right? The design is our husbands pursuing the Lord with all their might and becoming a channel of God's love to us so that we can step into the role that God made us for, which is helper, which is life giver, which is about being soft and receiving and feminine. But unfortunately, husbands, this is you, you don't know what it looks like to lead because you've never seen it and no one has taught you. So it's no wonder you don't have the confidence to lead. But that's what your wife wants. Your wife, deep down, if we were to actually write it out, she wants you to follow the Lord relentlessly. And anything you say, as you're following the Lord relentlessly, she will say, I'm in, let's go. Like this is why back in 2014, my husband yelled across uh the I think it was the rehearsal dinner for his brother's wedding, and said, Hey, hey, you want to move to Texas? And I said, I'm in. And everyone else about lost their minds, like, hey, don't you need to talk about this first? Like, whatever. Because we both were on the same page that we saw God moving and we knew something was coming, and we were already surrendered and seeking his will. And so when it came about, it was just like, oh, there it is, that's what we've been waiting on, and here we go, right? I was able to follow him without hesitation because I knew he was pursuing the Lord and he did not lead our family astray because it wasn't it was him being a vacation, but it was the Lord also leading our family, right? Please think about that. That we said right in the man you want to fumble, right? And your husband has that potential because God created him with that role and that responsibility to lead you because he keeping the right order, because he understands the risk of life, and all because he understands that everything we have, every good and perfect gift is from above, and we are here to steward it and to manage the things that God has given us, including our finances, including our bodies, including our homes, all of it, right? And the work that he's called us to and that leads us into disciplines, right? We want to be disciplines because I just keep thinking of Paul's words when he's like, I beat my body into submission because I would not want to miss out on running this race well, because I didn't discipline my own body and my own self, right? And so it is a natural process for us to be disciplined. Not because we're trying to gain something here, earthside, but because we are managing and stewarding well what we know already belongs to the Lord, including our bodies, including our minds, including our social interactions, including how we give, including how we rest, including how we serve, including how we surrender ourselves to solitude with the Lord, including how we bow our will and posture ourselves in prayer and in getting in God's word. Right? Those are all things that we can do, right? Faith without works is dead. There is no fruit unless there is faith in action, right? It doesn't save us, it doesn't get us to heaven, but it is a byproduct of our walk with the Lord as we lean in closer to Him and we mature. We cannot mature. Go back and listen to my episode last week that we cannot mature spiritually past our emotional immaturity. And so these are all things of like radical awareness that are required of us. And so if we want to have a marriage that is full of joy and holiness, we're gonna have to do some knocking down. I said, you know, so often, like in the marriage coaching world, you know, and and conferences and resources and all of that, like we're we're slapping another, a new, a fresh cone of paint on the same broken down house. And instead, what we actually need to do is we need to bring in a wrecking ball, let the Holy Spirit be our wrecking ball, and let community be our wrecking ball that holds us to this higher standard, and we knock the whole thing down and we rebuild it God's way on mission, going in the same direction. So, one of the really cool things we did this weekend is we we helped the, like we set the framework for helping the couples with the husband leading to craft a mission statement driven by four mutually agreed upon core values. And here's what I love about this: like, not just for the marriage, but for all decisions in life, because when you and your husband have a set of core values, it makes decisions very simple. Because if your core value is um, let's see, hospitality or communion or fellowship, maybe it's fellowship, I don't know what it could be, right? But you are your your life is so jam-packed with activity that you don't have time to open your home to invite people in to show them the love and generosity of God, right? Adding more to the schedule is going to be an easy decision, right? Taking things off the schedule is going to be a very simple decision. If Sabbath is your practice, then that's part of your core values in your mission statement or your disciplines. When the kids say, Hey, I want to do this sport, but we have games on Sunday, or we have practices on Sunday, or hey, I want to go to a friend's house on Sunday or do this activity, it's going to be an easy, simple answer. Like, look at our core value, look at our mission statement. It doesn't align. So the answer is no, right? It simplifies everything for us. And we're moving in the same direction then. Like, what is that direction? You never get in a car and just go somewhere and then are surprised when you don't get to where you wanted to go because you didn't actually like put the GPS in and go that way, right? Well, marriage is very same similar. We do not naturally grow together, we naturally grow apart. It takes intentionality and action for us to grow together. And the only way we have that oneness is if we have a shared mission. And when our mission is rooted in being a kingdom builder and our family is a kingdom builder, all of the other problems of marriage fade away because we're no longer so zoomed in that all we can see are the selfish things right in front of us and and and you know, demanding our own way and all of that. Like we are so zoomed out, focusing on the Lord and what he wants of us, everything else pills in comparison. You know, this week I I got to participate. This is probably one of the coolest things for me, um, because preparing for this weekend, I've always had a vision of doing retreats, like the community of it, of the in-person of it, like just was something that was always on my heart, like a desire that I've had. And the Lord gave me this desire in my heart this weekend, um, being able to be a part of this. And in preparation for this weekend, you know, I just felt like God gave me just a vision, or I don't even know, just the thought that this is gonna be so powerful, it's going to include baptisms, right? And guess what I got to do this weekend? I got to help baptize human. And then I got to stand there and celebrate as a husband alongside Tommy baptized his wife. Like, how awesome is that? Like, we are building kingdoms here. God's kingdom, not our kingdoms, God's kingdom. The only way that you can build your earthly kingdom within your family and your home is if you are first and foremost together building God's kingdom. All other missions are gonna be futile. And so I'm gonna leave you with that. I'm gonna challenge you to walk through these questions. What is the order that you are walking out? Not the order you want, but the one you're currently doing. What are your disciplines and habits look like when you really get down to it? And are you doing them just because you're checking a box, or are you doing them because it's a spiritual act of worship as a stewardship of the things that God has given you, right? And creating space for him, for him to move in your life. Right? And then the last one is do you know where you're going? What is your mission and what is your purpose? Right? How would you define what is the purpose of life? And then get so specific. Create a mission statement. Get your core values defined. And if you're not doing these things, you're gonna continue to struggle in marriage. You will, because you're focused on the problems, you're focused on the lack, you're not letting your walls come down, you are blocking the oneness that God has designed for you in marriage. I hope this lit a fire under you today and that you make some massive changes in your life, especially for you husbands listening. This is your call. This is your higher call that you are responsible for your family and the state that it's in today. And it's gonna take courage for you to look at your wife and let her tell you how much you have hurt her and how unsafe you have made her feel. And to do it in a way of like, okay, how are we gonna move forward, right? How am I going to take responsibility of my family and lead you in a direction where my wife feels so safe that she gets to step fully into her God-given assignment? It's gonna take courage. You're gonna have to be brave. And ladies, it's gonna be scary to follow while trust is being rebuilt. But remember, you are trusting the Lord to never leave you and forsake you. You are trusting the Lord working in your husband. Right? You're not going to wait until trust is rebuilt. You are going to surrender as trust is being rebuilt. And both of you are gonna move in the same direction. And it's not gonna be perfect, and people are gonna make mistakes. But let this be your wake-up call. Let this be the trumpet sounding that the alarms are going off, and it is time to unite as one on mission and marriage together. And I tell you, your marriage woes are gonna pale and fade away.