Military Wellness Collective
Military Wellness Collective is made up of four friends — two retired Marines (Joshua and Brian) turned church planters and their wives (Brittany and Kelli)— who have lived life both in uniform and on the home front. Together, we share real stories, hard-earned wisdom, and practical, biblical encouragement to help military members, and their families thrive in every season. Whether you’re navigating deployments, adjusting to life in a new town, or simply seeking hope in the middle of your military journey, our mission is to equip you with truth from God’s Word and tools for a healthy, resilient life.
Military Wellness Collective
EP 8: Sacrificial Love: How Military Husbands Live Out Ephesians 5
WARNING: Please note if you have littles in the room, you may want to preview this episode before listening with them!
What does it mean to be both a man in uniform and a godly husband? Our candid conversation tackles this question head-on through the lens of Ephesians 5 and 1 Peter 3.
Military service inherently demands sacrifice, yet many husbands find it easier to risk their lives for country than to consistently sacrifice their own desires for their wives. Why? Because military sacrifice comes with medals, recognition, and praise, while marital sacrifice often goes unnoticed. As our guests reveal, this reality exposes how even noble sacrifices can become self-serving without the transforming power of the gospel.
The discussion takes an unflinching look at pornography and sexual sin—identified as the greatest barrier to spiritual growth for military husbands between 18-29. In a culture where such behavior is normalized or even celebrated, this sin silently erodes marriages in ways many men fail to recognize. "This sin is robbing you of a marriage that God wants for you and for your wife," one guest powerfully states, before offering practical resources for those battling this addiction.
For husbands facing deployment, we explore practical strategies for leading from afar: establishing decision-making patterns before departure, delegating responsibilities wisely, and trusting your wife as a partner in your absence. The conversation balances theological depth with tactical advice on expressing appreciation, speaking life-giving words, and building trust through consistent, Christ-like behavior.
Whether you're currently serving, a veteran, or simply want to understand the unique challenges of military marriages, this episode offers biblical wisdom without compromise. The military context offers no exemption from God's commands for husbands—there's no footnote that says "unless you're deployed." Join us as we discover how the gospel transforms marriage, even amid the unique stresses of military life.
SHOW NOTES:
1. False Love: 9 Steps Toward Sexual Integrity - New Growth Press
3. Amazon.com : the meaning of marriage by tim keller
http://instagram.com/militarywellnesscollective
Hey y'all, Welcome back. I'm going to be your host today. This is Brittany, and I'm going to be joined by Brian and my awesome husband, Joshua, and also Kelly's on here, so if you hear her, pop in. But today we're going to focus on guys. Okay, what does this look like to be a husband, and how does the gospel affect your life as a husband in uniform? It's kind of going to be the topic. Last episode we spoke to the wives and now we're going to hit on the guys.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And, but I want to encourage you, if you're a wife, listen to this, or listen to it with your husband. Don't, don't jump off. Okay, so there are two passages that I'd really like to discuss with both of you. Of course, the first one is going to be Ephesians five, so we're going to look at the guys passage portion on that. So Ephesians 5, 25 through 33. And then I'd really like to make it over to 1 Peter 3 and hit on the guys too.
Speaker 2:over there, you're telling us to not spend an hour and a half on Ephesians 5. Yes, that's what I'm telling you. I want to hit the pastors so they can get a little carried away.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I want to tell you where we're going. Okay, so, joshua, can you start us off with Ephesians 5, 25 through 33?
Speaker 4:Thanks, babe, here we go. It says of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way, husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself, for no one ever hated his own flesh but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself and let the wife see that she respects her husband.
Speaker 1:That's good.
Speaker 2:So let's just jump right in Gave himself up for her. So, husbands, our example for how we husband is what Christ has done for us, and the first thing, well, the first thing is loved. He loved the church, and so we are to love, in expression, in word and in deed, our wives. And the second thing that's listed there is that he gave himself up for her. And so our aim and our goal is to example Christ to our wife by serving her and loving her in a self-sacrificing way.
Speaker 4:In a self-sacrificing way first thing that jumps out yeah, and, and honestly, like the vast majority of the time, when this doesn't go well, it's because we're being selfish. And so if we don't truly get the point of this and be sacrificing of ourselves, then in nature we are just going to fall into a selfish state and our whole not just our wives, but our whole family ends up being hurt by that.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So one good like self-examination question you can be asking yourself, like if you're currently in a tension with your wife, is to ask yourself what am I clinging to? What self-serving thing am I after right now? That's gotta be a good filter initially, to just think through. Am I just trying to do something selfish when I need to be thinking what is the best thing for the family, the mission of the family and ultimately for my wife and for the family?
Speaker 4:Yeah, if you have a good self-filter. Yeah, I say that because there's some people that will say selfish, yeah, I'm not being selfish. Yeah, I'm not being selfish, I just want everything for filter.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I say that because there's some people that will. Yeah, I'm not being selfish.
Speaker 4:Yeah. Yeah, I'm not being selfish, I just want everything for myself, yeah.
Speaker 1:It's interesting that both of you are mentioning sacrifice, when you're both retired military and you took an oath to be willing to sacrifice your life for the country, and so you're talking about sacrificing for your wife. You're talking about laying down your life for the country, and so you're talking about sacrificing for your wife. You're talking about laying down your life for your wife, so does that come easy to you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, it doesn't. And here's the thing it should right. It's interesting you say that Like this should come easy. We've been trained, and the whole bent that got us into the military is one of sacrificing on behalf of others, and so our encouragement is don't forget that when you come home. Don't forget that.
Speaker 1:That's really good.
Speaker 4:Well, here's part of the problem is we will self-sacrifice for the country because there's this honor that comes from other men, there's this pride that comes with it, and that in itself can be something that we put above our families in a bad way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because even the sacrifice in the military turns into a self-serving thing if we're not careful. Because what do they do?
Speaker 2:They give us stripes to put on our uniform and they give us medals to wear on our chest and they right, and people praise you oh you're a, you're a Marine, or oh, you just got back from deployment, oh you right. And so it turns into this self-serving thing. Man sacrificing for your wife is self-serving in the long term, which he gets into later on. About he who loves his wife loves himself. Like you, sacrificing and pouring into your wife actually does serve you. It's just way more long term and way deeper level that you might not see in those moments that you're doing it.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, that's good, yeah, it's. Sometimes we can make the military an idol. Sometimes we make other things idols and we put them before our spouses. But it says here we're supposed to love our spouse so much so that the way Christ did for the church and literally went through pain, suffering and died for what are some ways that you show love to your wife?
Speaker 1:As a guy who's in the military, like some things that you do and maybe some things that you abstain from.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, so we've got to get. So we're still in, like the first verse here.
Speaker 1:I think Right.
Speaker 2:Well, the second verse. Okay, good, you got us in the second one. So love your wives as Christ loved the church, gave himself up for her that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, and I think a lot of times husbands read that passage and they're like I am supposed to have a expository Bible study with my wife every single morning and guess what? We're going through Romans. I've heard this so many times. It's crazy. Like we're going through Romans and I'm giving my wife a sermon on Romans every single, every single morning, and so you hear that.
Speaker 2:you hear that wives are responding to that and and and she's. If she's a Catholic wife, she's going to submit to that, and I'm, you know. But what we really need to realize is what Paul's talking about here, the author. He's talking about Christ doing this with the church, and so if you're a Christian husband, then you need to be allowing Christ to sanctify you as part of the church and you need to have Christ cleansing you by the washing of water with the word, and so that needs to be happening. So you need to be growing in your sanctification in Christ. You need to be being washed by Christ in the word. Then, as that happens, then you can overflow into leading your wife in that way.
Speaker 4:And what did Christ do for the church? He not just died for the church, but he also lived a perfect life that was admirable in so many different ways to where it exemplified and it is the standard we are to live to. So the things that Christ did as he walked on this earth, we should be looking to that as an example to do in our own lives and live lives of distinction.
Speaker 2:So biggest barrier? We're talking Christian husbands in the military, which means most likely between the ages of 18 and 29. What is the biggest barrier that they have to growing in Christlikeness? Sin, yeah, sin, sin. Just let's be explicit. What is the sin? That is probably the biggest problem in every guy's life that's listening to this between the ages of 18 and 29?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I'm going to steal this from you actually. Yeah, I'm going to steal this from you actually. So there was a few years back. You had mentioned that you stopped asking young men if they struggle with pornography. You started asking people when they struggled or if they're still struggling. Tell me about your struggle, yeah just leaving it open and that because it's so everywhere that—.
Speaker 2:We can assume it. We can just assume. Yeah, when were you first introduced to pornography? What's the current struggle against pornography look like? Or, to generalize it a little bit more sexual sin. So it may be expressing itself in pornography. It may be expressing itself in an adulterous affair, it may be expressing itself in a host of different ways. So sexual sin is the thing that is getting in the way of sanctification.
Speaker 2:And so the first thing I want to say, if you're hearing that and you're so tempted to like, let me go listen to something else today, let me just first empathize with you. Somebody, probably you probably first engaged with pornography around the age of 9 to 11 years old, and maybe even earlier. So that means it's been a part of your life for most of your memory, and somebody probably gave you unlimited access to the Internet in your pocket, not much longer after that, and so while you're in that age of adolescence and puberty and everything else. So I just first want to empathize with you. That like this was difficult, you know, a thousand years ago, but it's even worse now because of the access and the age at which there is access.
Speaker 1:And so, yeah, I would say it's probably even more difficult for you guys in the military because it's accepted. It's looked at as like well, it's okay, we're away from our spouse, it's fine, so it adds an extra layer, right, it adds an extra layer Right.
Speaker 2:Then you join the military, where it is the air we breathe.
Speaker 4:Sexual debauchery, sexual sin, is not only accepted, it's praised and acted like it's completely normal. Well, the other part of it is you can hide it and you think it's not hurting anybody, you think it's not causing any issues. But what you don't see is this slow eroding from the true relationship and love that you can have with your wife. There it affects every other aspect of your life but you just don't see it. It's this like slow erosion of that. It affects your conversations with your wife, it affects the depth of your relationship. It affects how deeply emotional you'll get with your wife when you're talking through certain things. It'll affect, obviously, your sexual relationship with your wife and that it really messes that up as well and creates this really weird dynamic that just doesn't present itself right away, but it's one of those things that just it creeps in and then it just starts eating away at everything.
Speaker 2:Right. This sin is robbing you of a marriage that God wants for you and for your wife. It is stealing from you and we would be remiss if we were talking to husbands, especially in the ages of 18 to 29, and we started talking about, like you should help out around the house and you should do the dishes and you should help wash clothes and stuff like that that I hear in so many marriage talks to husbands like no, this is the thing that is robbing you. It is stealing from your marriage. It's stealing from your wife's marriage. It's creating all kinds of havoc and, because it's been with you for so long, most likely you can't even see the effects that it's having.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's good. There's a new book out that I just finished up and it's called your Story has a Villain and he's talking about the enemy and where he blinds you. And when I think of pornography in the marriage, you're breeding disunity, you're breeding distrust, you're discouraging your wife, you there are so many aspects that it's harming and we do see this. It's a huge problem and sadly, not the men, but even among some of the wives that we're talking to the guys, yeah.
Speaker 2:And yeah, you need to kill it right? There's only a few verbs that get used in Scripture in the realm of sexual immorality, and the words are abstain, stop it and flee, run away from it. That's it. There's not other things, and so this we've got to do work with this.
Speaker 3:So what does that look like?
Speaker 1:practically yeah that's a good question.
Speaker 3:Kelly. Stop it and run away from it.
Speaker 2:Right, do that. No, the best material and we'll link it in the show notes, the best material get a copy. I cannot encourage this enough. Brad Hamrick just wrote a book called False Love. It's essentially a workbook and it is going to work through sexual sin and you can work through it. Ideally, you would work through it with a spiritual mentor who would you would like, after every chapter you would talk to him about what you're working through.
Speaker 1:Not your wife.
Speaker 2:Eventually you'll include your wife, but it'll walk you through that honestly, several chapters in, and so work with that mentor and then you'll disclose what's been going on with your wife and then you'll rebuild your life. It is an amazing resource. I use it for guys in our church. It is an amazing resource. I use it for guys in our church. Give them the resource and like you're going to work through this on your own and you're going to talk to me after every chapter and we're going to work through this. It's written as a small group thing. That's been a struggle for us in our context, so I usually do it one on one, but it is so good I cannot encourage it enough.
Speaker 2:So, we started with love your wife, as Christ loved the church and we gave this big like don't do this but let's flip it on its head and say okay, so how do we love our wives?
Speaker 4:well, and one of the things that I've seen over and over and over again is and it seems like a small thing, but I think the wives in the room would agree with me showing appreciation to our wives in various ways, but oftentimes we just don't say it enough.
Speaker 4:And just all the things that they do when we're gone, when we're home with the kids, whether it's at the house, whether it's whether they're working or not, like all of the things that they're doing. We don't want to compare our hard and go oh yeah, what I'm doing is super hard in the military and I'm doing this and doing this and you know I deserve all this. We need to take that lens away and look at what our wives are doing and appreciate them for it and just say honey, wow, I love you and I'm really really thankful for you, for all the things you do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I said similar to the wives in last episode. But, husbands, your words to your wife matter. What you say to her matters. You are either speaking life into her life or you are speaking death and discouragement and just wearing away at her soul with your words. Your words matter.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think that's so important and it reveals where your heart is. So I think one of the best ways you love me is caring about my sanctification. And so when your words even though because I think another thing is like passivity, like men not saying things to their wife when they should maybe, and so when you've come to me, but it's with the heart of I want you to be more like Christ Now sometimes my reaction is defensiveness, but I know that you love me and you want me to become more like Christ, not just point out what I did wrong.
Speaker 4:That's good. Yeah, I think this is very practical too, because if my wife wants me to take the garbage out more often, if I take the garbage out and she goes oh, thank you so much for doing that I'm going to be like oh, she likes that I'm going to keep doing that.
Speaker 2:Instead of her saying like well, yeah, once out of a hundred times, exactly, exactly.
Speaker 4:It goes the same way for guys to the ladies, though. If you appreciate the things she's doing, if you want her to do more of those things, you need to tell her you appreciate those things you always say babe, say what you mean and mean what you say. Like words have impact.
Speaker 1:That's good, good. So what do you do as a guy Like you're talking about leadership, how to love your wife. Well, things you shouldn't do sins to combat. What do you do as a husband if your wife is unsubmissive to you? We know that the first part of Ephesians we talked to the wives in the last episode, and it does say submit to your husbands as husbands. Husbands, how do you lead if she doesn't want to submit? What does that look like for you guys?
Speaker 2:ma'am, the thing that really helped me on this was realizing how hard I am to submit to that's great you know, one of the I have saying I say all the time I don't know where I picked it up, but everything's easy for those who don't have to do it, you know. So if it's like, hey, take out the trash, it's easy, like well, I'm the one taking out the trash, Like I get to decide if it's easy or not. And so when I realize I'm not the one being asked to submit to me, but if I can like get outside of myself for a second and realize if I were being asked to submit to me, that'd be really hard, like it'd be really challenging, because sometimes I don't say what I mean and mean what I say. Sometimes I don't ask the question that I should be asking. Sometimes I don't say the thing that I should be know, using the Bible as pound her over the head with Ephesians 5.22?.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I think there's two ditches we can fall into when we fall into this situation.
Speaker 4:One ditch is going to the aggressive side of like oh no, you have to, you need to and this is the way it's going to be, my way, or the highway type of like weird thought process, and this is where we that's one ditch.
Speaker 4:The other ditch is falling into this extreme passivity and then you just kind of give way and you go okay, well, she's not going to submit to me, so I'm just going to let her do whatever she wants, and then she ends up becoming the leader in the family and then it creates a whole other side of issues. So staying on the road is truly just being patient, being loving, being like Christ to your wife and realizing that if she does it, if she, if she follows you out of just anger duty, because she has to, that's not actually submission, that's so key. And so you have to see your wife as someone you need to lead, like Jesus would lead, and love her well, and so that she can get to the point of oh, okay, I see myself as following Christ in this, not following your sinful weirdness, as the, as the guy.
Speaker 1:So the gospel needs to be impacting your leadership. First is what you're saying Like how's Christ leading? The gospel needs to impact your life personally. Yeah, that's right, yeah, okay. So this we asked the ladies Brian did in the last episode about submitting, like when the guys are gone, how do you, as a military member, lead from afar? What does that look like for you, and do you have any practical examples of maybe how you did this well, maybe how you did it unwell?
Speaker 4:during deployment. First and foremost, if you're leading from afar, you were near for a while prior to being afar, so what you did prior to leaving is a huge part of this. So establishing some rhythms and walking through normal behavior together, and then also like setting up some normal patterns and understanding each other and building that relationship before you leave, to where. When you're gone and your wife is at home and needs to make decisions and do things without you there, she is thinking as if okay, if my husband were here, what would we be deciding together?
Speaker 1:because when you get in that word together.
Speaker 4:Yeah, if you're, if you're in those if you're, if you're making decisions together regularly, you start to learn how each other think, and then you start to do things in the home, even when the husband's away.
Speaker 2:Yeah, imagine like you're in a business partnership and you're the one husband that I guess gets the final say. But you're really in a partnership and you understand that you are going to be gone, and so how do you set things up in a clear way? You talk about rhythms and talking about it ahead of time. How can you set those things up so it's not a question every five minutes like, oh man, what do I do with this, oh, what do I do with this, and everything's an emergency. So setting some of those things up ahead of time, I think is huge.
Speaker 4:Well, your blog is actually helpful for that. What's the address for that? Again, I can't remember.
Speaker 2:Yeah we'll drop it in the link, but.
Speaker 4:I do a deploying well like pre-deployment.
Speaker 2:There's a journey for pre-deployment. If you're, especially if you're in a deployable billet or a billet where you're going to be gone a lot, I would encourage working through that pre-deployment material. We'll put a link in the show notes.
Speaker 4:Yeah, because it forces you to ask yourself those questions Okay, what is this going to look like while I'm away? And then it helps the wife realize oh, these are the things that are going to continue to be the same while you're gone and these are the things that are going to change, that need to be covered down on.
Speaker 1:It's interesting that you both talk about setting those routines and rhythms. All of us can speak from experience here. Your first few deployments, communication was almost non-existent, so in today's deployment world it looks a little bit different. You do have full communication. I still love Brian's blog for walking through that. I think it's really important. And then between the husband and wife realizing there might be a big decision she has to make if you're in a deployable zone where she can't get ahold of you, and is there any?
Speaker 1:how do you handle that? Like, let's say, she has, the car breaks down, it doesn't run, transmission blows, she purchases a new car. Do you lose your mind on her? What happens with that? Like that's hypothetical.
Speaker 4:It's probably a fallacy. You have to trust one another. You are one flesh, you are together for this entire lifetime and so when you're away, you have to realize you're not there and you have to trust your wife to make certain decisions while you're gone and and know that she has the same desire for the family to to thrive as you do. And if she makes a decision that you wouldn't have made, hey, you know what. You're not there, you can't be mad about it. You've delegated some of those things to her while you were away. So, understanding that and having that conversation ahead of time to which things those are and how that happens and how you're going to feel about it you need to walk through that well with her.
Speaker 1:I love the word you use delegate, because good leadership does delegate. So you are leading your wife in the delegation of things. Even seeing it that way, yeah, well guys, do you have any last minute thoughts on how the gospel impacts your marriage in these passages?
Speaker 4:I have so many more thoughts.
Speaker 1:Well, we're close to time, so it has to be a quick thought that was her.
Speaker 2:we need to stop talking.
Speaker 3:One verse, I just yeah, one verse.
Speaker 2:We didn't yeah go read, oh bless, go read. 1 Peter 3, 7. Actually, I'll just read it. Yeah, go ahead. 1 Peter 3, 7.
Speaker 1:Actually I'll just read it. Yeah, go ahead, read that.
Speaker 2:Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered.
Speaker 2:I just want to focus on that last part. Your prayers may not be hindered. Listen, you're not going to answer to me for how you live as a husband. You're not going to answer to Joshua. You're not even going to answer to your wife. Ultimately, on the final day, for how you live as a husband, you're going to answer to the Lord for how you live as a husband. You're going to answer to the Lord.
Speaker 2:And he has expectations for how you live with your wife, his daughter, and if you live as a husband in the fear of the Lord that one day you will give an account to him for how you treat his daughter, I think everything else will probably fall in place.
Speaker 1:That's so good, and the military context does not give you an excuse or an out to follow these passages.
Speaker 2:There's no footnote here that says unless you're in the military. There's no oh, except for you guys. You don't have to do this. Those exceptions are not in there. I've been looking for my whole life for those exceptions and they're not in there.
Speaker 1:Do you guys have any quick resources that you'd recommend that we can drop down in the show notes?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I said, mine, hamrick's materials, false love and my pre-deployment stuff I think is hopefully helpful and my pre-deployment stuff I think is hopefully helpful. And that includes two articles about sexual purity, specifically in times of separation.
Speaker 1:Do you have anything?
Speaker 2:babe.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I would second the one on here. It says this Momentary Marriage by John Piper is really good, and there's a whole bunch of marriage books out there that you could probably dive into. I'm not going to give a laundry list right now.
Speaker 2:But yeah.
Speaker 4:And I would—the other part of this is friendships here, biblically, bible-following Christian believers in your church to be talking about these things with, because marriages can get messy, they can get emotionally charged and they can be difficult, especially in a military community. So find a church, be a part of it and be careful about which friends you make, because there are some of them out there that are like they can really lead you astray really fast. So just be careful with that.
Speaker 1:I have to add this to that. That is so good, babe. We have always said to our kids Amnon had a friend. If you don't know the story, look it up. Amnon and what his friend encouraged him to do, it was a sexual sin against his half-sister, and so your friends matter. So that is really good, really good stuff. We love you guys. We hope to see you back here soon and until then,