Not Every Want Is a Need: Ending Marriage Fights the Biblical Way

This podcast episode from Vows to Keep explains that marital conflict usually comes from inner desires and spiritual battles, not from a spouse being the “enemy.” Drawing from James 4, Galatians 5, Ephesians 6, and other passages, David and Tracy urge listeners to:

• Identify and list their desires (tangible and intangible)
• Sort them into biblical, neutral, and sinful categories, backed by Scripture
• Bring those desires to God in prayer, examining motives
• Shift from demanding personal wants to trusting God as Father
• Surrender desires with an “open hand,” seeking more of God (His Spirit, presence, and purposes) rather than worldly fulfillment

They emphasize three key words—belief, trust, and surrender—as the path to healthier “roots” in the heart, which leads to less fighting, greater unity, and a biblically healthy marriage

Transcript

What Do You Really Want

SPEAKER_01 0:08

Welcome to Vows to Keep Radio with David and Tracy Sellers. The mission of Vows to Keep is to help couples develop a biblically healthy marriage through the application of God's Word and a deeper relationship with Him. They desire to help you and your spouse grow closer to each other and closer to the heart of God's design for your marriage. Now, here's David and Tracy with today's broadcast.

SPEAKER_02 0:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:42

Hey, we are David and Tracy Sellers. And we've got a question for you today as we start out Vows to Keep Radio. What do you want?

Wants Versus What We Have

SPEAKER_02 0:50

It's not a question you get asked a lot, but if right now we could look you in the eye and ask you this question, what do you want? Boy, you probably have an answer within a second or two, right? I think I would. Today we're going to give you a how-to for hope when it comes to the topic of fighting in our marriages. And if we want the fight to stop in our homes, that's the question we have to start with today. What do you want? Now it'd be pretty easy for me to answer that flippantly, right? I'd like some time in the garage. I'd like some time with the kids. I want distractions from some of the hardest, most challenging things I deal with at work at the end of every day. But here's the thing, though, if we want to stop the fighting, we've got to be super candid about our answers. We've got to be gut level honest and just lay it out on the table. We usually don't have an issue with wanting what we already have.

SPEAKER_00 1:39

I can give a great example on that. You want to hear this one? Okay, so I've been on a 12-week long hiatus from sugar and bread and pretty much anything yummy. As you well know, David, you've been beside me through this whole process. So I have a bowl of steel cut oats every morning. And as I count down to the end of this 12-week stint of healthy eating, I am counting it by bowls of oatmeal. I've only got nine to go. Now, I like oatmeal. I really could keep eating oatmeal for a long time every day. But when it comes to food, if you ask me what I want right now, oatmeal is not going to be at the top of my chart. Ice cream, maybe.

SPEAKER_02 2:16

Right.

SPEAKER_00 2:16

I already have oatmeal. I want something that I don't have. I want something different. So is the want that came to your mind when we asked you what you wanted something that you already have? Probably not.

SPEAKER_02 2:29

It's most likely something that feels just out of reach. Like for me, the garage playground that I love to be in is literally feet away from the office that I work in every day.

SPEAKER_00 2:41

So you might say, okay, Tracy, besides a big bowl of ice cream with peanut butter on top, what do you want? Okay, I'm gonna be honest with you today. I want a dog.

SPEAKER_02 2:49

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 2:50

Arf, arf. Now, this may not seem like a big deal to you, but it is actually a pretty big deal to me. So growing up, my family had schnauzers, and we got our first dog when I was 11, and he died after David and I were married. Like we had that dog forever. I grew up with the dog. He was part of my life, like he had kind of always been there. My parents have gotten other dogs over the years, and they're really nice and all, but they don't take the place of my first dog. You probably know how I feel. But now I'm the mom, I'm the parent, I'm the wife, and one of my deep desires is to have a dog, and not just any dog. No, I have the dog picked out. I want a golden doodle. Now, several years ago, I met one outside of Culver's while his owners were having their ice cream, and I fell in love with that kind of dog. So I guess you could say ice cream and dogs do sort of go together for me. Now, David, not so much. David grew up with dogs. David likes dogs, he just doesn't want one at the house. Nothing personal. You might think that we have this perfect marriage because we have a marriage ministry, but yes, we do actually disagree on things. So where does that leave things between the two of us? This dog topic has become one in our house that gets joked about. It gets tossed around, even by the kids, because of course they want to gang up on their daddy to convince him to get this golden doodle. And this topic gets hinted at, but it never gets fully discussed. I bet you've got something like that in your home too. It would lead to a fight, and I actually know that. I want this so bad that I can almost like physically feel it rising up inside me. It's just a dog, you might say, yeah. But sometimes we can tend to hang on to a desire so strongly that it can affect us in these out of proportion, extreme ways. So what's a girl to do?

SPEAKER_02 4:36

We know that we're not alone in these kind of fights, right? For you, it might not be a dog, but what do you want that your spouse doesn't want? Or what do you want him to do or to take initiative on that he's past the point of refusing? I mean, it's not even up for discussion anymore.

Little Things That Divide Big Loves

SPEAKER_00 4:51

For you, what you want might crop up when you come home after working all day, running the kids around, you're exhausted, and you really wish that your husband would lend a hand and jump in and help you. Instead, he kicks his feet up and goes to his phone or YouTube.

SPEAKER_02 5:07

Or maybe you're hungry for her and she flat out refuses you, or she keeps herself at a distance. What's that untouchable subject that seats itself between you and her on the couch, and you no longer can reach out to each other because this thing is in the way. Whatever the topic, whether it's something benign like a dog, or something gigantic like moving to a different state, Tracy and I can relate to the chaos. We know what that animosity feels like, even if it's if it's quiet, if it's there, but kind of underlying those casual conversations with each other. We know what it feels like when discord is present in our home.

SPEAKER_00 5:46

It truly is a pandemonium of the heart. So in your marriage, you may find yourselves fighting more and more, or maybe you find yourselves withdrawing more and more, trying to avoid the fights. Disagreements abound, conflict is the norm, and even in the quiet, there truly hasn't been a peaceful moment in a long time.

SPEAKER_02 6:08

Let me give you an example. Late one night we got a phone call from a couple and they were in the heat of battle. What was the bone of contention, you might ask? A four hundred dollar gaming chair.

SPEAKER_00 6:20

Yes, our eyebrows hit the ceiling as well when we heard what they were fighting about. But we realized that we've been in those same shoes. Sometimes it's the little stuff that can undermine our unity and our relationship.

James 4 And The Source Of Fights

SPEAKER_02 6:33

Yeah, we can literally be arguing over something that in a year is going to be sitting by the curb waiting for the garbage truck. So here we are letting something material be the point of division for what should be eternal. So why all the talk about what we want? Here's why. Because if we want to stop the fighting in our homes, we need to understand the source. This is just James chapter four in a nutshell. Verse 1 tells us as plain as day where our fights come from.

SPEAKER_00 7:01

That would be us.

SPEAKER_02 7:03

What causes the fights and quarrels among you, the verse asks? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you?

Quiet Desires And False Peace

SPEAKER_00 7:10

You desire, but you do not have, so you kill, you covet, but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. Wow, does that ring true? We hear this verse, we know the truth of it. You've probably heard lots of sermons on this, yet in the heat of the moment, we don't count the cost of a desire that's gotten out of control. We think that something out on the horizon is gonna make us happy. You know what? I'm actually gonna change that statement. We don't think it's gonna make us happy. We know that thing is gonna make us happy. Even a good, godly desire like sex in your marriage or wanting a husband who spiritually leads can become a dividing point between us and our spouse. Not all of what we want can be packaged up or classified as something that we can see or something we can hold in our hands. For example, I want a peaceful home, don't you? I want a joyful husband. I want to know I'm going to be provided for in the future. I want David to watch out for my needs and really be looking for opportunities to serve. I want him to pray with me. I want to be able to do this marriage ministry full time with my husband. Now, there's things on my want list that I've hinted at with David for years. He might know some of those. There's things I've come to God with and I've pleaded with him again and again to make these things happen. And then there's things that I've never mentioned to David. I let them fester like a rock in my shoe, and I've convinced myself of this, that I'm doing a good job of not demanding my way. I'm keeping the peace, avoiding the fight, because I've learned to just hold my tongue. We think there's victory in that. Have you ever had this conversation with yourself that if you just stay quiet about this issue, then it's just better for everyone in the end? If there is some sort of marital prize for that, I want to see it and I want to know if you've seen it and where you've seen that played out in your marriage. Is it that not saying anything keeps arguments at bay? I would have to examine that a little bit. And I hope you would too. I think temporarily, yes, there is a small victory. There are times when I'll start to say something to David, and I can hear this quiet nudging of the Holy Spirit in my heart prompting me to, Tracy, stop talking. Don't say it. Have you ever been there before? Sometimes I'll even stop mid-sentence and David's like, hey, what were we going to say? And I just leave him hanging. I feel convicted in that moment to set my desire aside and actually stay quiet. Now, that's not the kind of holding our tongues that I'm actually talking about here. This is when we push a desire deep down inside of us where we think no one but us can see it. We put it under lock and key and we stoneface our emotions to our spouse. Our husband may think it's water under the bridge because maybe we talked about it one time. We've never brought it up again. They think it's over and done with because we're not mentioning it. But you know what? We know. We revisit that place often. We dwell on it in our quiet moments. It's the thing that comes to you in the middle of the night and it tries to break out at the most inopportune times. It's something that we're holding on to because we're not ready to let it go. Those hidden desires will come out and they will cause fights, even the quiet ones. And I know we're gonna run out of time in this particular broadcast to talk about what to do with those hidden desires, but trust us, we are gonna talk about it. So join us next week as well.

SPEAKER_02 10:44

I think as Christians, when we mentally make these want lists in our minds, we're like a little cautious, right? Even if no one but us knows it, no one but us sees this want, we want it to look really good, right? We want to appear to be like the good Sunday school boy, right? Let's admit what's really there. We all have these wants that we'd rather that no one else could see.

SPEAKER_00 11:06

Okay, so here's some more honesty. Here's some things I'd rather not be out in the open. I want to appear put together when other people see me. There it is. I just laid it out for you. I want people at church and at school and at the store to be respectful to my family. And you know what? I have a hard time when they're not. I want to have sufficient what I would call quote unquote downtime. I want to be able to recharge and not think about anything that would trouble me, even if there are responsibilities and things God's called me to do that I haven't even touched that day.

SPEAKER_02 11:39

So, what do you want and what have you been doing to try to get it? If you're not clear on what your wants and desires are, let me ask you this clarifying question. What was the last thing that you and your spouse went to blows over? Think about this for a minute. Was it something that you would classify as an ongoing problem? Something that one of you has said that you want and the other is just not giving in? Or is it something intangible? Maybe something you haven't even given a name to. The truth, I'm talking about the evidence of our desires and what we're gonna do with them, it comes out behind closed doors in our marriage. Our desires make sure they're very well represented in our conversations most of the time.

Three Types Of Marital Fighting

SPEAKER_00 12:22

So even though the origin of fights has a common denominator, not all of our fights are gonna look the same. The frequency of our fights is going to be different. And the way you fight is gonna be different than the way someone else is gonna fight with their spouse. So let's talk about the three categories of fighting within your marriage, within your home. And I want to know which one of these you can most relate with. The first one, David, I'm gonna call it minefield fighting. This is like gunpowder in a cannon that gets shoved down deeper and deeper, and our desires seem to sit dormant until a spark causes this great blast to go off. This explosive material in our hearts, it can actually sit for years untouched. I've I've witnessed this in people. But it's a lighted fuse about ready to erupt. It's a grenade that's just about ready to be stepped on, and it's gonna affect the lives of everybody it touches.

SPEAKER_02 13:20

Your marriage might be like that, quietly waiting to erupt, or you might be like the second category: enemy lines fighting. Your marriage might be like two enemy lines, each with their cannons lined up, aimed at the other person, and you've got no problem lighting the fuse, and letting your wrath and your anger fly at each other. When you're together, there are words being thrown back and forth in amazing ways. Seething temper, slamming doors, picking up any ammunition that you can find, and throwing it right away. Trying to get others to join us in that force against our spouse, maybe our mother or our friend. These are the kind of marriages that our kids would say, Whoa, if that's marriage, I never want to go there.

SPEAKER_00 14:06

I think the third way that we can fight in our homes is really more of like a civil fighting. Somewhere in the middle of these other two. So I was with a friend recently and she took a phone call from her husband while we were talking, and they had to have one of those just really logistical conversations that married people have to have sometimes. Like, is there enough money in this account for me to make this purchase? Or what card should I put this on? What time do the kids need to be picked up from school? Can you run this errand for me later? We all have those kind of conversations with our spouse. They're just part of life. But as they talked, I could hear his responses on the other end of the phone. They didn't use foul language, they didn't raise their voices, but they quietly argued in a very polite way. There was what I would call like a civil defensiveness between them. Nothing blaringly ugly, but let me tell you, it was ugly. Nothing overtly hurtful, but after the business of the phone call was taken care of, there was really no tenderness between them, no thankfulness, no loving tones, no kind goodbyes. Whatever your fights look like, the way we stop fighting is the same. Let me say that again. Whatever your fights look like, even if they seem like you could never recover from them, the way we stop fighting is the same.

SPEAKER_01 15:29

If you have a marriage question, please email questions at vowstokeep.com. Vows2Keep will respond to you via email and perhaps use it on the air. Now let's rejoin Vows2Keep Radio with David and Tracy Sellers.

SPEAKER_02 15:47

From my own experience, when we approach this topic of fighting and how to stop it, the answer's really clear. Our spouse needs to change. They need to stop what they're doing. If they would, everything would be easy peasy, right?

SPEAKER_00 16:01

Lemon squeezy.

The Buck Stops With You

SPEAKER_02 16:02

That's right. If they would just change, everything would be hunky dory. The bottom line though is the buck actually stops with you. No matter what your spouse does. And this is hard to hear. I get that. Especially if your spouse is in sin. When it comes to fighting, the question you really have to ask yourself is will I continue this? Will I be someone who steps into sin myself? Or will I be the one who stops it? Will I be the one who extends grace and introduces a change into the status quo of this fight? So what do you want? And what have you been doing to try to get it? The struggle is real, as the t-shirts say. Real, real, real. Our desires don't let us ignore them for long. They're blatantly in our faces every single day. We don't get what we want, we come up empty-handed, and soon we're fighting mad about it. So we quarrel, we fight, that's what James says. And it's killing our relationships. If you want there to be peace in your marriage, if you want to stop the fights, we've got to start here. Here is the homework that you're gonna walk away from today's broadcast with. First of all, be up front with yourself about the kind of fights you're having. Think about those three categories that we gave. Is it minefields? Are the enemy lines drawn? Or are we playing it cool with just a little bit more of a civil mixture of fighting? After you've identified the the kind of fighting, next get out of pen and paper and answer this question. What is it that I want? Before the end of the day today, make two lists. And I'm talking a tangible list and an intangible one. The first column is going to be filled with the desires that you have that you could just touch with your hand, the things you can see with your eyes. And in the second column, it's the list of desires that are more in the category of like your heart wishes, those intangible things. Write these two lists out and stick them in your Bible.

SPEAKER_00 17:59

Definitely. Pray about it for a few days. Ask God to reveal your own heart to you, and then what he reveals, add to that existing list. Be bold enough with yourself and with God to just be a hundred percent gut level honest about your answers. Write out everything that comes to your mind about what you want. And this might take you a little bit, but I do want you to start this today. Try to get that list going before the end of the night and then take a few days to pray about it. And then the next step, after you've recognized what kind of fights you have and you've got your list of desires, now you're gonna take your list, those two columns of desires, and separate them out into three categories. So you've already got your list to work from, so this shouldn't be too hard.

SPEAKER_02 18:44

And real quick, I want to interrupt you, Tracy, because this stuff is gonna be on our website as well. So you go to vowstokeep.com, you'll be able to see the same kind of information for you to really give it that kind of reflection we're asking you to.

SPEAKER_00 18:56

So in the first column, I want you to include any desire that's on your list, whether it's tangible or not, that's actually a biblical desire. It's something that you can see really specifically in scripture that scripture would really back up in every single way. For example, men wanting your wife to be respectful to you. That is a biblical desire. Ladies, desiring your husband to be the spiritual leader in your home, wanting your spouse to pray with you, wanting your spouse to show you love, those are biblical desires.

SPEAKER_02 19:26

How about getting debt free? These are all biblical desires. And what we want you to do is actually write down the scripture reference next to each one of those.

SPEAKER_00 19:34

Now, in the next column, I want you to take your original list of desires that you wrote out, and I want you to make a second column of things that aren't biblically mandated, but maybe aren't necessarily wrong. For example, my wanting a dog would fall into this category. That's not a sinful desire, but dog ownership is not a command in the Bible.

SPEAKER_02 19:56

Going out to the garage to go have some fun in the in the mandomain, same, same, right? This isn't something which is sinful, but certainly that time away from your marriage has an impact on it.

SPEAKER_00 20:07

And then in the third column, working from your list of those tangible and intangible desires, I want you to put the ones that are actually sinful. These would be things that are clearly wrong from a biblical standpoint.

Homework: Naming Your Desires

SPEAKER_02 20:18

Yeah, I've got an example of that, Tracy. I have a desire to be accepted by people. But God's word tells me that if I'm trying to please people at the same time as I'm trying to please him, guess what? I'm not going to be God's servant in most situations. And again, we want you to cite the reference. So in this case, Galatians 1, 10.

SPEAKER_00 20:37

In my third column, I would have to put my demand for downtime at the expense of others. It's not wrong to have downtime, but if I look at it as my right, that's when it becomes a sin. And I can back that up with scripture as well. The$400 gaming chair that we mentioned earlier would fall into this third category.

SPEAKER_02 20:57

And this is because I'm putting my needs above the needs of another. I'm loving the things of this world at the expense of my marriage. As we're wrapping up today's broadcast, and rest assured, we're going to be actually taking another broadcast to break this down even further. So please tune in for that. Seeing these things in black and white before you is going to revolutionize your heart, right? It's going to have a major impact on your marriage because these lies that we believe have everything to do with what's happening in our marriage. Because the things that we want, well, they've allowed us to believe a lot of lies about what's most important. And these lies have a heavy cost on your marriage. Now I want you to answer this. Am I willing to do some changing despite what my spouse is going to choose to do or how they might respond to me? Am I willing to set them completely aside, completely out of the equation? And am I willing to just get right with God? Am I willing to do what the Bible has asked me?

SPEAKER_00 22:01

I don't think that's always an easy spot to get to. Like I think in theory we want to change, but when it comes down to it, we're kind of keeping score. Like if they're not changing, I don't really need to. I think it can feel easier, David, sometimes just to keep fighting. But I think there are a few tipping points that can get you to the point where you are willing to change. And maybe that's why you're listening today. I think the first one is you're just sick and tired of the yuck. You can't take it anymore. And you're looking for godly change. You're looking to have a healthy marriage that's attractive to you because you're just sick of the sin.

SPEAKER_02 22:37

And secondly, maybe you've seen a glimmer of light of how God's way pays off. Maybe you've seen that in another marriage near to you. You see the hope that they have, you see the success that they have, and you want that.

SPEAKER_00 22:51

I think number three, a way that we can get to the point where we say, Yes, God, I do want to change, is just a heart of humility. Earlier, David, we were reading in James chapter four, and James 4 continues on that road. And guess where it points us to? It points us to humility. It tells us we have an enemy that would love for us to just want everything the world has to offer because it's going to create fights in our marriage. And how God would say, Come before me, I've got better things in store for you. And it starts with a heart of humility. Are you ready for change?

SPEAKER_02 23:23

Good. We are too. Just the smallest corner of your heart, having a pliable area, is what it takes to get you started. So you've determined you don't want your marriage to stay where it is. We are right there with you. You're ready for the fights to stop. You've listed what your wants are. Now we can move on. Communication techniques, healthy fighting tips. Nope, that's not where it's going to happen. We've asked what do we want? Now we've got to ask, what should we want? Tune in next week to Vows to Keep Radio.

Sorting Wants: Biblical To Sinful

SPEAKER_01 23:54

Like what you heard today on Vows to Keep Radio? Listen to more life-changing broadcasts at vowstokeep.com. Vows to Keep is supported by a team which includes biblical coaches, writers, and pastoral advisors. If you have a desire to serve marriages in your community, we would love to hear from you. Vows to Keep is a not-for-profit marriage ministry designed to bring God's encouraging truth to the marriages of our area. As a not-for-profit organization, our commitment to Christ-like marriages includes providing much-needed services regardless of a couple's financial ability to offset the cost of Vows to Keep operations. If you are unable to donate your time or abilities, but would like to help support Vows2Keep financially, visit vowstoKeep.com and click on the donate link.