How To Nag Less & Let Him Lead | Wife School With Tilly Dillehay

Summary

Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark Episode: How To Nag Less & Let Him Lead | Wife School With Tilly Dillehay
Release Date: July 18, 2025
Host: Turning Point USA
Guest: Tilly Dillahaye, Author of My Dear Hemlock

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Introduction

In this insightful episode of Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark, host Alex Clark welcomes Tilly Dillahaye, a pastor's wife, homeschooling mom, and the acclaimed author of My Dear Hemlock. Together, they delve into the dynamics of marriage, focusing on reducing nagging behaviors and embracing biblical submission.

Understanding Nagging and Communication

Tilly begins by addressing a common misconception: "You can't have a spiritually healthy marriage if you're a spiritually immature woman" ([00:00]). She emphasizes that nagging often stems from unmet desires and poor communication rather than genuine grievances.

Key Points:

• Perception Differences: "A man hears our words differently" ([00:00]).
• Timing Matters: It's crucial to choose the right moment to express concerns, as immediate reactions may not yield positive outcomes.
• Sinful Expressions: Sometimes, what's on the heart may be sinful or unnecessary to express immediately ([03:13]).

Common Mistakes Women Make in Marriage

Tilly identifies two primary mistakes that fuel marital arguments:

1. Undefined Desires: Women often have numerous, conflicting desires that are not clearly articulated. For instance, wanting both "free range chickens" and a "clean yard" ([04:53]).
2. Lack of Courtesy: Simple acts of common courtesy, such as greeting one's husband warmly, are frequently overlooked, leading to resentment ([04:51]).

Notable Quote:

"If you speak in a courteous manner to the person that you live with, you will grease the skids for years of a kind and a happy home." ([04:51])

Self-Awareness and Recognizing Nagging Tendencies

Many women may be unaware of their nagging habits. Tilly advises self-examination to identify and change these behaviors.

Key Points:

• Private Conversations: Assessing how one speaks to their husband in private can reveal underlying issues ([07:50]).
• Gratitude Over Criticism: Maintaining a high ratio of praise to criticism builds a positive marital environment ([07:34]).

Notable Quote:

"Say thank you three times a day and see how that feels." ([07:50])

Practical Strategies to Reduce Nagging

1. Thankfulness Challenge: Implementing a daily habit of expressing gratitude can transform marital interactions ([07:50]).
2. Apologizing Regularly: Consistent apologies help maintain a clean conscience and foster mutual respect ([29:32]).
3. Letting Husbands Lead: Empowering husbands to make decisions without overstepping can improve harmony ([28:32]).

Notable Quote:

"Let the Failures happen. Like, back up and let them fail a bit because that's how you learn." ([32:06])

Biblical Submission and Accountability

Tilly discusses the balance between being submissive and holding a husband accountable for his actions.

Key Points:

• Respectful Communication: Maintaining a strong praise and affirmation ratio allows for constructive criticism when necessary ([37:32]).
• Fellow Discipleship: Engaging spiritually with one's husband fosters a supportive environment for addressing sins ([37:32]).

Notable Quote:

"You want like 20 times the praise and affirmation ratio to the criticism." ([37:32])

Handling Strong Personalities and Authority

For women with strong, authoritative personalities, Tilly suggests:

• Selective Expression: Knowing when to voice opinions to avoid emasculating the husband ([20:01]).
• Decision-Making Autonomy: Allowing husbands to lead in areas where they are competent boosts their confidence ([23:21]).

Notable Quote:

"Leave that decision-making conversation. I could see a little wind go into his sails." ([21:47])

Contentment and Managing Expectations

Tilly emphasizes the importance of contentment in marriage, highlighting how societal influences like social media skew women's expectations.

Key Points:

• Social Media Impact: Unrealistic portrayals of marriage create pressures that lead to dissatisfaction ([48:13]).
• Spiritual Contentment: Recognizing that ultimate fulfillment comes from a relationship with God helps mitigate worldly disappointments ([61:54]).

Notable Quote:

"One of the big secrets of contentment is recognizing that this world is not our home and this place is not our place." ([61:54])

Steps to Improve Marital Harmony

For couples seeking to enhance their relationship, Tilly recommends:

1. Gratitude Exercises: Engage in daily gratitude practices to shift focus from complaints to appreciation.
2. Consistent Apologies: Regularly apologize to maintain trust and cleanliness in the relationship.
3. Spiritual Growth: Prioritize personal and joint spiritual development to strengthen the marital bond.

Conclusion

Tilly Dillahaye offers profound wisdom on fostering a peaceful and loving marriage by reducing nagging, embracing gratitude, and adhering to biblical principles of submission and mutual respect. Her insights provide actionable steps for women to cultivate healthier and more fulfilling relationships.

Notable Quote to End:

"A woman is the heir in a house, and it can be sweet air or it can be foul air." ([62:16])

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Remember: A spiritually healthy marriage requires personal responsibility, effective communication, and a foundation of mutual respect and gratitude.

Transcript

[Tilly Dillahaye]

A man hears our words differently. There are a lot of times that we believe he can't do something, and part of why he can't do it is because we've never let him do it. You can't have a spiritually healthy marriage if you're a spiritually immature woman. You're not going to be standing with your husband in the final day when you meet your maker. You'll stand before him and it'll be you. You're responsible for your spiritual.

[Simon]

Everything you thought you knew about building a thriving marriage might be missing A transformative truth, the power of Overcoming a Quarrelsome spirit.

[Alex Clark]

In this episode, not only do I discuss with my guest overcoming being a nag and quarrelsome and anxious, but also we discuss biblical submission and what that practically looks like even when your husband is actively sinning. Today, I'm thrilled to welcome Tilly Dillahaye, acclaimed author of the brand new book My Dear Hemlock, a beautiful exploration of.

[Simon]

Resisting temptation and cultivating feminine virtues in a world of comparison.

[Alex Clark]

She is a homeschool mom, a pastor's wife, and compelling voice with Canon Press. She brings biblical wisdom and practical advice.

[Simon]

To help women move from contention to gratitude.

[Alex Clark]

This episode is one of my team's very favorites of the season. All of the women on my team and including Simon, my editor said, I just love this. I said, really Simon? Even though this is really for the wives?

[Simon]

He said yes, because this really showed.

[Alex Clark]

Me the lead I need to take as the man in a relationship one.

[Simon]

Day and he's just precious.

[Alex Clark]

So any single women, Simon, for you, you just let me know. Anyway, I hope this episode really fosters a sense of peace in you. It helps you embrace a godly approach to marriage. Obviously I'm not married yet, but I really appreciated this episode. It taught me so much, convicted me.

[Simon]

Of so much and I get a little vulnerable.

[Alex Clark]

So you guys have a pret appreciated that before. Hopefully you don't burn me at the stake this time. Watch this episode on the Culture Apothecary, Spotify or Real Alex Clark on YouTube. Leave a five star review to support the show. It's free. It helps us climb the podcast charts.

[Simon]

And get even bigger guests.

[Alex Clark]

Please welcome Pastor's wife and author Tilly Dillahay.

[Simon]

Is telling women to speak their truth Turning women into nags?

[Tilly Dillahaye]

Yes, I think so. That's a great way to say that. Telling a person that if you don't say exactly what you feel and what you're thinking at all times, you're somehow repressing something vital. You Know, to your emotional health or something. And we tell this to children too, which is equally destructive with children. But to tell a woman you need to say what's in your heart and mind at all times, you're somehow lying, lying to yourself. That's something that our grandmothers would have snorted at. Like they would have heard that and just laughed.

[Simon]

But is that just talking about what you're old fashioned. I mean, why is it bad to speak what's on your heart and mind at all times?

[Tilly Dillahaye]

Because sometimes what's on your heart and mind is sinful and wrong and sometimes it doesn't need to be said. Even if it's true and it's not sinful and wrong, sometimes it's not the right time. And if you want to learn how to love, well, you have to learn to choose the right place and the right time. And also, you know, if you've ever been married to another human being, you know, sometimes waiting, you know, a day means it's not on your heart and mind anymore. You know, it's gone. And so that moment of saying that thing wasn't necessarily the right moment. And maybe it, you know, yeah, I do think placing a premium on say exactly what you're doing, thinking and feeling right when you're thinking and feeling it is so foolish.

[Simon]

What is the biggest mistake that wives are making that is fueling arguments in their marriage?

[Tilly Dillahaye]

Sometimes women don't really know what they want. So I think there's kind of a twofold answer to this. Number one, I think that our desires are so multitudinous and so undefined, even to ourselves, because we have, we have dreams and ideas of what life should look like that aren't even logical necessarily, because sometimes desires are not compatible with each other. And I know, I don't know if women have always been this way, but I do know that today's woman is like this. We want a lot of things and sometimes those things cannot all be acquired at the same time. And some of them are just not possible.

[Simon]

Even so, like, what's a good example of that?

[Tilly Dillahaye]

Like a good example would be, here's a real small down to home example. It's not possible to have free range chickens in your yard and also have a yard that doesn't have chicken poop in it. I'll tell you that from experience. It's not possible, it's not logical. You have to put the chickens in the gate and then you don't get them to be lovely free ranging in your yard or you have a dirty yard. It's just not. It's not logical to have both of those things. It's not logical and possible to have a man who is a husband, who is a city dweller, who's smartly dressed and who is maybe really outgoing. And also have a quiet and thoughtful guy who knows how to, you know, who lives in the country with you and helps you keep your chickens, you know, like. I'm just saying, we think we ought to have little tiny smatterings of all the kinds of things and lives and men and children that we've ever seen and loved. We think we could have all of those things at the same time. And it's not possible and it's not logical either. So I guess women need to learn to think about their desires in a more logical way, I think, to lay them out and just say, okay, is this a reasonable thing to desire? And then can I get this desire stated in a way that's clear enough even to me that it would be helpful to say it out loud to my husband so that he could help me maybe come up with a solution, you know, to meet with that desire? So I guess so that's one thing is just desires. Having them be within the limits of reality in accord with reality. Fueling fights by just ignoring common courtesy, I think is a really big one. So if you speak in a courteous manner to the person that you live with, you will. You will grease the skids for years of a kind and a happy home. And we. I think we were willing to give courtesy to people who we don't even live with a lot of the time. Like, we would greet a friend who came over. We would greet her if she walked in the door. And yet our husband comes home day after day, and we don't greet him. Or when we see each other again, we don't. We don't even agree or a please and a thank you or a waiting to say that thing maybe that you're wanting to say. So just. Just common courtesy is overlooked. And because I think sometimes we. We think it's too simple of a solution for some of the problems that we have in our marriages.

[Simon]

I think most women can be in denial about the fact that they have tendencies to be a nagger or to be fretful or anxious or not peaceful. What does that actually look like on average? For those that might be like, that's not me.

[Tilly Dillahaye]

Right. Well, it is really hard to hear yourself. You know, there are things about you that are so obvious to the people who live with you or work with you, you know, I'm just saying, yeah, it's hard to see yourself sometimes and it's hard to hear what your voice sounds like. A little self examination, to listen and say, okay, how do I speak to my husband in private? And maybe you're willing to, you know, post great things about him on Instagram, maybe you're willing to do a whole lot of PR for your little family unit, but how you speak to your husband in private is the measure of what kind of a wife you really are. So rigorously looking at that and saying, am I marked by a kind word to my husband? Is it normal for me to say thank you? Like, when was the last time you said thank you to your husband? And it's amazing to me, but not amazing because I've been married and I know, I know how those things slip. They just slip because you, you've lived with the person, they've taken out the trash for 10 years. And so saying thank you for taking out the trash just doesn't occur to you. But men, men respond so warmly. It is so powerful to praise and thank a man. And I don't care if he's your husband or your son or your co worker or whoever it is, but, but the praise of a wife to her husband is so powerful. My dad used to tell me this when I was a kid. He would say, when you get married, just so you know, you can be the wind in his wings. And I would add to that. Or you can be the dead weight that he carries around because he knows that no matter what he does, he cannot please you.

[Simon]

As a pastor's wife, I imagine you're doing a lot of couples counseling, probably with your husband, meeting with people in your church. What is an example of a conversation.

[Alex Clark]

That you've had throughout the years with.

[Simon]

The couple where the husband is insisting that she is fretful, that she is quarrelsome, that she is nagging, and she doesn't see it?

[Tilly Dillahaye]

One of the first things that I'll often do is put a wife on the homework of just saying three thank yous a day. And that's like step one. And part of that is just when you do try to say it. If you're not used to saying that to your spouse, it's like gravel in your mouth. Like it's so unfamiliar that even saying the words feels unnatural and weird. And I've had many wives come back to me and say, like, he looked at me after the second time. I said thank you and said, what do you want? And to her, you Know, and I think rightfully what you should. The lesson there, and of course that's an ungracious way to respond, but, but the lesson there is he's not used to hearing this. Yeah, he's not used to hearing this. So maybe, you know, some very specific little challenges like that are very, we find that very helpful just to say, all right, try saying thank you three times a day and see how, how does that feel? And also what it gets you doing is looking for, what are the things you can say thank you for. And it's very common, I think, for a wife, this cycle of, of her being more and more disappointed in him. Like he's just, he doesn't seem to want to spend time with me. He keeps failing to do the things, anything that I ask him to do, he's not going to do it. You see this in middle aged couples. I don't know if you've seen unhappy middle aged people who stay together. That cycle is so, so familiar where she continues to tell him all the disappointments that she has in him for years and years and years. And for some reason he doesn't want to spend time with her. And you know, from the outside looking in, you're just like, you are difficult to be around, you're unpleasant to be around. But it's so hard for her to see it because her complaints are real and they feel very real to her. They have been her constant companions for years. The fact that he won't change the light bulb, he won't fix the, you know, the thing around the house or be a man and lead the family, you know, spiritually, like these, these complaints are real things. They, they affect her life. So the, the, the stakes are, feel very high and with children, the stakes feel very high.

[Simon]

When you have a marriage where you've got this badly nagging wife almost always. Is there also a husband failing to spiritually lead his family?

[Alex Clark]

Or could it.

[Simon]

Or do you see a nagging wife and a husband who is totally an exemplary leader spiritually?

[Tilly Dillahaye]

Right. This is a great question. I've thought about this before and I don't think I have a great answer for that because there are people who would say if he's leading spiritually, she's happy and healthy. Right. You know, and so there's probably something to that that like it's more difficult to end up with that horrible cycle of the more and more and more nagging woman and the passive, the more and more and more passive man. I guess I've seen, I've seen enough to think that if a woman is determined to be unhappy and to count her offenses and treasure them up in her heart, every man, every man will have something, some failing. Every man has something that you can complain about, if that's your mission. And I would also say every man has something you can praise, if that's your mission.

[Simon]

What led you to write about transforming contention into gratitude in marriage in this book?

[Tilly Dillahaye]

The person that I'm writing about is a woman living today. And so she's the patient that the demon is trying to tempt. And I wanted to follow her through 20 or 30 years of life. So you get to see her learn some things, and you get to see a lot of the kind of worst of real from the beginning of her life turn into a mature Christian woman who has learned a lot of things.

[Simon]

And so it's kind of like Screwtape letters for women.

[Tilly Dillahaye]

It is. That's right. Yeah. So except that, you know, Screwtape's patient died pretty young in an air raid in London, and my patient makes it into her middle age by the time she's an older married woman who has practiced some things and learned. Learned to say thank you. The demon is very frustrated that she's so inaccessible because she has learned gratitude. And that's one of the. That's one of the biggest things that makes her almost inaccessible basically, to the demons, is that she has discovered the secret of contentment. Because she has. She has learned to see that she is essentially fortunate. She was purchased by her savior. She has a new life in him. And so every little thing, even that her. Her husband or her children do, that is praiseworthy or excellent, she's primed to love and enjoy those things. But because she's living out of this gratitude, the things that used to produce cursing under her breath, you know, those irritating, you know, the dishwasher broke or the delivery guy didn't get here on time. Those things that are minor things, but if you're living and in gratitude, those are even more fuel for the fire of your complaints are really against God himself. You know, God is the one who allowed your life to be this way. God is the one who gave you this husband who doesn't take the trash out. God has. God allowed this dishwasher to break down. So all of life can either be one big piece of evidence that you've been mistreated by God, or all of life can be more evidence of his kindness to you.

[Alex Clark]

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[Simon]

I want to dive into practical ways to be a more peaceful, loving wife, but I have to address because I know some people listening will be up in arms if I don't. You emphasize a wife's responsibility to move from quarrelsome to grateful, but some women, like those in abusive or deeply unbalanced marriages, might feel like, well, that's placing the burden solely on me. So how would you address a wife whose husband isn't living with her in an understanding way, as 1st Peter 3:7 calls for? And what role does his biblical responsibility play into breaking the cycle of contention.

[Tilly Dillahaye]

In a marriage right it's obviously, it's huge. And you have men who are just, who are just wicked, you know, and you have men who are, don't understand how to repent, who are just hard headed, hard hearted. And of course that's a very difficult place to be. But I think the same passage that you just referenced is, this is the passage that, that speaks to a wife who's married to an unbelieving husband and says, you can't drag him to church with you. You can't, you know, Bible thump him all the time. You can't. You, you, you will do better by your husband to win him with your meek and quiet spirit, your gentleness and you know, assuming that your physical safety is not in question, I would say a wife's ability to continue to gently live with and support and speak kind words to her husband are so powerful that you never know what the Lord may do. But you don't do it because it works, because you know that it works. You do it because the Lord has asked you to do it. You do it as unto Christ, because it's what he has asked, even in that passage. And let your adorning be the adorning of that, that beautiful spirit that will not fade and there will be a return on that, even if it's not a return that you can see inside your marriage with your husband, you know, repenting. So I would say there is hope, but the joy on the other side of just walking faithfully is yours, whether he repents or not, because that's before him and the Lord, that's between them.

[Simon]

If you are a naturally very blunt, very opinionated woman, how can you use those gifts for good and not accidentally emasculate or disrespect your husband?

[Tilly Dillahaye]

This is a problem even for women who wouldn't necessarily identify as being a blunt and outspoken person. I would say I'm the kind of person who thinks about 20 minutes before I say things in general. It's just hard for me to even think of what to say. So talking too much, I wouldn't have said, was one of my problems getting married. But I did not understand. Even so, even someone like me, I didn't understand how many ways there are to inadvertently emasculate or disrespect a man. He hears things differently than we would. A man hears our words differently. And when we think that we're helping him by giving him suggestions for how to do something that's really his responsibility, it's in his court that comes off as disrespect. He hears it as disrespect. So a lot of the things that we do to try to be helpful or to say our truth or whatever, you know, depending on the personality, it sounds different, but I was amazed when I discovered how much of little irritability that I was getting from him was me taking things off of his plate and trying to do for him or make decisions. Instead of just say, why don't you make this decision? Like walking, you know, leaving the room, basically like you, I'm sure that you know best about this. Let me know what you decide. And leaving is so powerful because they rise to the occasion. They recognize you're. You're communicating incompetence to a man when you try to tell him or make suggestions for how to do something. Even if you think what I really do know better or he's about to make a mistake, even when it feels like the stakes are pretty high, if he wears that to the party, it's going to embarrass me. Or if he takes that route, it's going to take us 15 more minutes to get there. Those things feel like, well, I'm going to, I'm going to avert disaster. But what's more important, your intimacy and your connection with your husband or taking 15 more minutes to get there, or having him buy the wrong. I'm going to. I'm going to use a very recent example where we're doing a little addition on our house and we were talking about which door to buy. Just the back door. I don't care about the back door. I really don't care which door we buy. But I think he was asking, well, what do you think about this door? And it wasn't even really. I realized this is not an opinion that I really have. But we were in the middle of a back and forth conversation about which door? And I realized he's totally able to make this decision alone. I'm not helping him by continuing to give input about this door. I need to say, you just decide and let me know whatever you think is best is great with me. And leave the. Leave that decision making conversation. I could see a little wind go, you know, it's a tiny thing, but a little wind goes into his sails, you know, and in that moment he knows she thinks I'm competent to do this thing.

[Simon]

If there's a woman listening who is similar to me personality wise, and sometimes when she speaks, she can have an authoritative tone. How do you work on that in a marriage? How do you dial that back? Because I mean, I just speak for a living, you know, I just. I know how to speak authoritatively in everything I do. Talking on the news, podcasting.

[Tilly Dillahaye]

Right, and you're. And you're rewarded for that in this kind of sphere. Yeah, it works better, you know, to. To do a podcast that way. But it's not. It's not gonna make a man feel like a big. A big guy, you know, it's not going to make a man feel like a man.

[Simon]

And I understand that. But is there also something to be said that the right guy isn't going. Is going to be so in his masculine that he is not threatened by me?

[Tilly Dillahaye]

Yeah. I mean, I think you definitely gonna have to. To pick a person who can. Who can live with a strong lady.

[Simon]

You know, because it's not. I mean, even the way you're talking.

[Alex Clark]

You are so.

[Simon]

Gentle in the way you speak and everything. That isn't natural for me. So I'm trying to figure out, like, I don't want to be a quarrelsome wife. You know, I don't want to ever disrespect or emasculate my husband. I want to reel in those things before I'm in that chapter of my life for sure.

[Tilly Dillahaye]

Right.

[Simon]

So I'm like, how do I work on.

[Tilly Dillahaye]

Yeah. So it's not a matter. This is. You know, I think there's a really. A really good concern here of like, are you telling me to take to slouch, you know, are you telling me to take my heels off?

[Simon]

Right.

[Tilly Dillahaye]

Because I'm with someone who's not tall enough, you know?

[Simon]

Yeah.

[Tilly Dillahaye]

Figuratively speaking. And I think there's. I think there's a way to do that. But part of it may feel like taking your heels off.

[Simon]

Okay, I'm listening.

[Tilly Dillahaye]

Right. So maybe this is a matter of thinking to yourself, I don't have to have the answer every time. There is some feminine part of you that I think is. Is essentially an essential part of feminine, of the feminine spirit that wants to allow the masculine to do for them in some way, to serve them, to protect them. There's a part of you that wants to be protected. There's a part of you that wants to be led. And I know that because I'm a woman too. Yep. And there's a party that doesn't want to have to be the one who always knows what to do, because someone else might know what to do in that situation. And so this might be just a matter of practicing asking for help from the masculine and saying, I can't do this. Could you do this for me? Or even not. I can't do this, because maybe that's a lie. Maybe you could pick up the chair and move it by yourself.

[Simon]

I see what you're putting down here.

[Tilly Dillahaye]

But would you move this chair for me? Or I have a headache and I need to lay down. Would you watch the kids for me for a few minutes?

[Simon]

So do you notice in helping and speaking to married women that struggle with letting their man lead in certain situations because they feel like he's inept? Maybe they don't tell him that, but inside they're like, he does not know how to clean his kitchen. He does not know how to get these kids to bed. You know, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

[Tilly Dillahaye]

That's exactly right. And you'll hear that. You will hear that from almost any married woman. She's. And I've used this analogy before of marriage being like a tandem bike. So it's a bicycle built for two. Have you ever ridden on a bicycle built for two?

[Simon]

I never have, but I've seen lots of Bugs Bunny episodes.

[Tilly Dillahaye]

That's right. Okay, great.

[Simon]

Or whatever, cartoons that have that.

[Tilly Dillahaye]

So a bike, you know, a bicycle built for two is a scary thing to ride on the back or the front of, really, because it's really unwieldy. You know, it's long. And the person who's on the front has to know how to turn the bike, but they've got an extra person, an extra weight on the back. So the communication between the two is pretty dicey. But on the back of the bike is even scarier, in my opinion, because the back of the bike has handlebars that don't move. All you do is pick your feet up off the ground, which means, you know, we're either balancing or not, but you have to pick your feet up off the ground, and then you have to pedal as hard as you can. And that is what being a woman married to a man is like. You have jumped on the back of a tandem bicycle, and he's on the front of that bicycle because God put him there. Whether he wanted it to be there or not, God put him there. And your job is to pedal with all of your might and to learn how to lean with him and to learn how to support his efforts as he moves this family forward. But it's scary because you're watching him for years. You're sitting on the back of the bike, and guess what? For him, he has a woman sitting on the back of the bike watching every mistake that he makes in all of life. And you are the one person that he most wants to respect and to think that he's doing a great job. He wants that. He wants to know that you think he's doing a great job because you're the number one witness of his life.

[Simon]

Yeah.

[Tilly Dillahaye]

So you get. But. But at the same time, you've lived with him for so long, you know what his weaknesses are, you know what the things that he can't do or that you think that he can't do.

[Simon]

So it's not that you're telling women it's bad to be opinionated or have a lot of knowledge about a lot of different things. It's knowing when is the appropriate time to voice them.

[Tilly Dillahaye]

Yes. Or I would say there are a lot of times I think that we believe he can't do something. And part of why he can't do it is because we've never let him do it. Yeah. We have never backed the heck off and let him learn.

[Simon]

I feel like I'm a very self aware person. I know what it is about me that rubs people the wrong way. I know what brings people in all the things. And I think with being a single woman who wants to get married, but also I'm like in this job where I'm learning everything there is to learn about marriage and child rearing and education and, you know, how I want to homeschool my kids, how I, you know, all the things. It's like I already have my mind made up on exactly how I want my family to run.

[Tilly Dillahaye]

Right.

[Simon]

What is your advice for women that are in their single season, like me, who are taking this season as the opportunity to learn as much as we can about those subjects before we're in that chapter of our life. What is your advice on and how we cannot intimidate men with that?

[Tilly Dillahaye]

When you're not married to somebody, you're not submitting to them. So you're not saying you make this decision, you know, you don't have any obligation to them, but you can begin to practice some of those things with them by saying, surprise me about where we're going to dinner. Or you can back off and let them make decisions, even if they're decisions that you maybe could make a better decision, you know, and you're sending the signal to a man that you are leadable, that you're pleasable, that it's possible to please you. You don't have some kind of impossible standard, you know, But I think another thing that you can be doing Is just preparing your heart for flexibility because you're gonna have a lot of. And the longer you live single, the more opinions you're gonna develop about how things should be.

[Simon]

I know, I hate it. I mean, I. If I could have gotten married at 20 years old, I would have.

[Tilly Dillahaye]

Right?

[Simon]

This is not. It's not like my choice. I wanted to be this working career woman or whatever. I mean, I literally, I remember being like 9 years old, being like, oh, I'll be married with all my kids by 25.

[Alex Clark]

I.

[Simon]

It just is God's timing of how things have gone. But yeah, I'm very aware. I'm like, oh, I know too much now. I have so many opinions on how things should go, how my house should look, you know, what laundry detergent we're going to use. Like, I've got it all figured out.

[Tilly Dillahaye]

Right.

[Simon]

And then how do I meet that guy, allow him into my life and allow him to be leading? That's that. It's 30 years of learned behaviors and patterns, you know?

[Tilly Dillahaye]

Right. And it is difficult. Yeah. I think, you know, practicing now, like, you have opinions and you're gonna keep having opinions. You'll be a 60 year old woman who probably has even stronger opinions than you have now. And yet learning to be a person who doesn't always have to say your opinion. And also who can say, you know what? I think that this is the right way, but it is the mark of a strong person to be able to let someone else take the lead.

[Simon]

So much wisdom.

[Alex Clark]

I love this.

[Simon]

I love this. Okay, so for a woman who's very type A organized. Not me. Loves running their family on a schedule. How do you navigate challenges when their husband isn't automatically on the same page?

[Alex Clark]

They're like, okay, I hear what you're.

[Simon]

Saying, Tilly, but you don't know my husband. If I were to say you figured out. Why don't you figure out our weekend plans? We will miss every T ball game. We will be late for everything.

[Tilly Dillahaye]

I would say let it happen. Like, back up. Reestablish with yourself what is more important. Intimacy with your husband. Unbroken intimacy, where you both feel good things towards each other. In the middle of the night when you wake up and you see him laying next to you, when you feel warmth towards each other because you have maintained intimacy with your husband, is that more important than being on time to T ball? Like, what is more important in this moment? Is it maintaining intimacy or is it being right? And being right, you will find is not that important. And how about let. Let the Failures happen. Like, back up and let them fail a bit because that's how you learned, you know, like, you know, my normal day is that I'm teaching math right about now.

[Simon]

So let's say that happens. You let your husband lead, he fails.

[Tilly Dillahaye]

Right.

[Simon]

And now you're like, I knew it. I knew I was right.

[Tilly Dillahaye]

I knew it. I told you.

[Simon]

How do you address that?

[Tilly Dillahaye]

You don't. You don't need to talk about that.

[Simon]

You don't talk about it.

[Tilly Dillahaye]

You don't talk about that. There is no need. I mean, I can think of a handful maybe of like, okay with parenting. I would say I have even this week said, can I talk to you in the bedroom? Not in front of the kids, can I talk to you in the bedroom? And asked him to reconsider the way he handled a specific situation very gently and mildly, but not in front of other people. Right. Doesn't necessarily have to be in the moment, even if it feels like it really does. And there are so many things that you don't have to say anything about. So this is like when he fails to get them to T ball in time. You think he knows that he failed to get them to T ball in time?

[Simon]

Sure.

[Tilly Dillahaye]

Heck yes he does. He's totally aware. So do you think that his wife coming back around to just let him know she also knows that he failed to get them to T ball in time? You think that's motivational for him? Or do you think that's poking holes in his wings so that he's gonna crash hard? You know, just like the catch more flies with honey. You know that saying, somehow women have forgotten how to catch flies. Yes, you catch more flies with honey.

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[Simon]

This kind of brings me to asking you about what biblical submission in a marriage actually looks like. So you bringing up okay you notice something? You didn't love how your husband handled a situation privately, away from the kids, away from other people you address. Hey, I don't love how you handle that situation. What gets lost in the submission conversation is okay, how how am I submitting while also maybe holding accountable on sin? How do you call out lovingly, gracefully your husband when he does mess up?

[Alex Clark]

I mean, what does that look like.

[Simon]

When you're also being submissive?

[Tilly Dillahaye]

Here's one one thing to keep in mind about any any relationship that you have. You want like 20 times the praise and affirmation ratio to the critic, the criticism or the. The questioning of how a person did things. A body, a person of any age or gender needs much, much more positive affirmation in order to build the relational capital that allows you to have an audience with them when you do need to bring that thing to them. It's the same with friends. I mean, a friend that you barely know, but you're going to go to her and bring sin to her attention, you don't have the relational capital with that person to do that. And I would say with your husband adding in the respect element, you know, kick that ratio up even higher, you know, if he is hearing from you on a regular basis, I trust your judgment. I am so grateful that you're providing for our family, that you're. That you went to work today. I'm so glad that you're here with me tonight instead of somewhere else. You know, if he's hearing that kind of thing from you and that's what he expects to hear from you when you open your mouth, that's what he's used to out of you. You have so much capital to then also be a fellow disciple with him and bring sin to his attention when. You know, when that's necessary.

[Simon]

Wow, that makes sense.

[Tilly Dillahaye]

I also say that if he has friends in his life, and it'd be so one, you know, it's wonderful if he does have this. You know, men who will bring things to him half the time, a man, his friend bringing it to him. It just works better. I'm not sure why that is. I mean, there are things that only I can see, you know, obviously some there. But it's a joke, you know, it's a joke between us that he'll come home and say, you'll never guess what so and so told me today. I really should consider that. And he's joking because it's something that you had told him. Yeah, yeah. Six months ago or whatever. But it's just. It's life, you know, and you can. You can kick against it. You can say, this is. I hate this, you know, I don't want to have to give. I don't have to fill the bank account with 20 praises for any criticism, but it's reality. And if you want to stay married and be happy in your marriage, get with what's real, get with the way God made the world.

[Simon]

How many years have you been married?

[Tilly Dillahaye]

13 years.

[Simon]

13 years.

[Tilly Dillahaye]

We're pretty baby married.

[Simon]

So how did you gain all of this wisdom?

[Tilly Dillahaye]

I don't. I Don't know. You just know your stuff.

[Simon]

I was expecting you to say, like 25. I mean, I don't know.

[Alex Clark]

That's impressive.

[Simon]

Was it important, important for you guys in the dating stage to have another Christian married couple mentoring you and like, walking you through things in those first years of marriage and also in dating or.

[Tilly Dillahaye]

Yeah, yeah. Well, we had, you know, we had our premarital counseling with our pastor and his wife. And then we have had friends that we've gone to through the years and just asked advice. You know, be in a church where you know people in your church and you have intimacies in your church, because those are the people who are going to tell you, go back home and apologize to your husband or go back home and repent to your wife. And those are the people that you want in your life.

[Simon]

Is being fretful, quarrelsome, or nagging entirely in your belief a wife's fault, or do husbands typically play some sort of role?

[Tilly Dillahaye]

Of course they play some sort of role. Everybody sins in a marriage. Everybody sins in a marriage. So you can't. There's no counting who sinned more. You know, he did something. I know he did because he's a person. You know, for a wife that needs to stop being the point, like that needs to be the thing that she's ready to say, that is no longer the point for me. The point is, can I take responsibility for my. For my side of the street? Can I keep clean? Can I keep short accounts on my sin? Do I know how to repent of my own sin?

[Simon]

What should true repentance look like in a marriage?

[Tilly Dillahaye]

Okay, here's what it sounds like. I'm sorry for specific thing that you did or said. It was wrong. Will you forgive me? That's it. That's it. And it can. This is something else also. You know, in the book, the idea that you would live with somebody and never sin against them is impossible.

[Simon]

Right?

[Tilly Dillahaye]

If you ever made it. Have you ever tried to make a cake before? Like, you can't. You can't bake without getting flour places. It's not possible. I've never done it one time. So the way that you keep a clean counter is not by baking perfectly. It's by wiping the counter down on a regular basis. The way that you keep short accounts and keep from cresting over sin in a marriage is by. Is by repenting on a regular basis. And you should expect it. You should not say, something's wrong here. Something's gone terribly wrong. We're having to repent to each other, you should say, oh, this is. This is normal. This is like cleaning your house. It's part of being a person is that you have to repent.

[Simon]

And so what happens if you're repenting to your spouse and you're saying sorry and they're saying, you know, well, I don't believe your apology because you've already made this mistake before, or something to.

[Tilly Dillahaye]

That effect, you know, that may be the feeling. Even if they're not saying it, you know, if they're more gracious and they're not saying that like, I'm glad you're apologizing, but you'll probably do this again next week, you know, that's not really your responsibility. Is how they. How they accept the responsibility, how they accept the apology. Also, it's not your responsibility whether they return with one for their. For what they did because they probably did something. You don't apologize to someone in order to get an apology back or knowing how it's going to be handled. You apologize because it's you keeping your conscience clean before the Lord and you doing your. You keep taking care of your part. It's your part to take care of. And independent of what they do, that's still your responsibility. You stand before the Lord.

[Simon]

What is your opinion on silent treatment in a marriage after a fight?

[Tilly Dillahaye]

I don't like it, but it's my weapon of choice because I'm not the person who accidentally speaks, so I'm the person who thinks and thinks and thinks and thinks and lines up all the wrongs to count them over the next day. So what I've actually had to learn more of is a little more what I would. What feels like confrontation to me because it's a difficult conversation. But of going and saying, you know, I'm sorry, and starting that conversation, but also choosing the time and the place to say this has hurt me, that's something else. It's like. It's hard to say. It's hard to just say you hurt my feelings because it's vulnerable to say that. It's less vulnerable to punch back. It's hard to just say that. Hurt my feelings.

[Simon]

Yeah. How can you overcome being a quarrelsome wife if your husband is a jerk? I mean, to put it mildly, Like, I remember one episode we did, we had listeners submit marriage questions. And she had said, you know, I asked. I tried to start this habit of asking my husband, how can I love you best today? And he said, well, you sure already know that. I don't know why you're asking Me?

[Tilly Dillahaye]

Jerk. Yeah, jerk. Way to respond. Although I would say a lot of women seem to live that, like, have that kind of attitude towards their husbands. You should already know. Yeah, I do feel like that's a. That's an unwritten, an unspoken demand that we can tend to have with men. If you were. If you're in a. Just a super difficult marriage with a man who just has not. Had never seen himself clearly, you've got a hard road. You really do. And I don't. I don't want to just breeze past that. It's a hard road. It's a road that many women have walked before you and many men have walked before you. What you do is you get down on your knees and you pray and ask for help every single day. You beg for that day's allotment of help to do what is right by your husband, not because he deserves it, but because it's what the Lord has asked you to do. And it. It glorifies him when you do that faithfulness that is invisible to anyone but you and the Lord is glorifying to him.

[Simon]

If a wife's temper reflects what's going on in her heart, how do you root out the real cause of quarrels?

[Tilly Dillahaye]

Yeah, James says that the reason that we quarrel and fight is because we're not getting what we want. We aren't getting what we want. A woman who is quarrelsome, a woman who is continually henpecking and is difficult to live with. She's not doing it because it's fun. Right? She's not doing it because she wakes up in the morning and it's just like, you know what sounds fun today I'm gonna just make life miserable for everyone around me. But she does it because there's something that she wants. And for some reason she thinks this is the path to get that thing. And maybe if I continually remind him again and again of how disappointing he's been to me, eventually it's going to motivate him enough that he's going to change. Or if I continue to voice my feelings, maybe that will some way make me feel better. You know, if I continue to narrate all of my frustrations in life to everyone who can hear me, maybe that'll make me feel better somehow. You don't do it because it's fun. You do it because it's a habit and because you're pursuing something. I think that brings me to the point of just being extremely hard on your desires and laying them out before the Lord and saying, is this A legitimate desire or not to start with. And this is something that I think the Internet age, like the social media age, young wives especially, I see this. We've had this kind of little taste of fame or of another life that we kind of think maybe we could have. And it's very hard for us now to live in a normal life. I think it's hard for women to just live a normal life.

[Simon]

What do you mean?

[Tilly Dillahaye]

I'm just going to use Instagram as kind of an example. Like, you look through Instagram and you see houses that are unimaginably beautiful and big. And it, it, you see enough of those houses and it does set your expectations for life. Eventually, if those are the images that you're looking at, eventually you think this is the kind of house people have. Like, this is a normal house to have. And it's not a normal house to have, but it begins to feel normal. It begins to feel like a legitimate demand. You watch other people's relationships online, which are not even the real relationship. It's just what they're, you know, it's the thing they're presenting to the world. And you begin to think this is what a husband should be. You know, he should be this, this cobbling together of all the best, you know, every rom com I've ever seen and everybody else's husband, but only the good parts that I know about. And I should have a man who, who has all of these attributes. And I'm not sure why I deserve a person like that, but I do, and I should have him, you know, and then there's the. Just the eye. The eyes of people. Being on social media gives you this illusion that people are looking at you and that you should be looked at. You come to the end of that kind of a diet. And the eyes of a normal man looking at you from across the kitchen table with a bunch of dirty toddlers around you and laundry that you need to go do later. And those eyes are no longer enough for you because they're just one normal human being looking at you from across the table because you have fed on something that's not real. And so young moms, I think their appetites have been been skewed a little bit by social media, and it makes it hard for them to live normal life, which is the life of a mother of. Especially of young children. It's a very exhausting life, but it's a. It's a very quiet life and an unseen life.

[Alex Clark]

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[Simon]

I love it.

[Alex Clark]

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[Simon]

Actually.

[Alex Clark]

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[Simon]

Hungry hikers agree.

[Alex Clark]

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[Simon]

We've talked about how to encourage better behavior from your husband as wives. How should men be leading to encourage better behavior from their wives?

[Tilly Dillahaye]

I can tell you if you want to know. You know what an aphrodisiac, an aphrodisiac for a man is. You did a great job. Thank you so much for doing that. You looked real good while you were doing that. I don't know. An aphrodisiac for a woman is. I have made a decision about where we're going tonight. I'm taking you somewhere and I'll let you know. I'll let you know. I can, I guess in general, like being willing to make a decision on behalf of her, to look, just look her in the face and say, I've taken care of this. It's extremely powerful. I think we respond to it. I also think a man who's willing to, when it counts, let her know she's wrong is also, to me, a necessary ingredient to really being attracted to somebody.

[Simon]

How can a man let his wife know she's wrong without, you know, igniting a firestorm in her in a huge fire?

[Tilly Dillahaye]

Yeah. You know what? Everybody has a different. I call it a turd voice. It's the voice you use when you're just being a turd. Yep. And I know he. Every man's got a voice like that. I know we've got him. You don't use your, you know, use your voice. That shows. I am not, I'm not speaking out of anger and frustration. I'm speaking because I, I'm above the situation. I'm seeing the situation with a clear view, a bird's eye view. And I'm speaking firmly but gently into the situation and saying, you need to reconsider. Because I don't think you're, I don't think you're thinking right right now. There's a way that he can say it. A lot of it is voice. Honestly. I know there are words, the word choice matters, but the voice matters. I think most of all is leading.

[Simon]

A wife similar to leading a company or completely different or employees or whatever?

[Tilly Dillahaye]

Yeah, I guess it is similar. That's a good question. Like leading a family can be similar because real leadership is a sacrificial leadership. But it's also, it's a leadership that can make a decision and just say this is where we're going and I'm making this decision for the good of all parties. And it's clear to everyone involved that it's not a selfish decisiveness, it's a decisiveness that is for the good of all. So yeah, the man who is not just about his own comfort and is not just about the short term pleasure of something, but is willing to put those things aside in order to make, take to set a course that is, you know, that's CEO stuff.

[Simon]

How can you master self control and not be so quick to give in to anger?

[Tilly Dillahaye]

Practice, you know, it's your instincts have been formed in you over a lot of years. Watching your own parents, maybe the things you learned from watching, but then also the habits that you formed. This is again, this is why repentance, repeated repentance is important, but learning to shut your mouth and wait is really, really helpful. I'm thinking of children a lot right now because, you know, for me, I don't think I knew I had a temper until I had children. And that's when I discovered that I actually did. And the Lord has been really kind. You know, he's helped, he's helped me, but there's been a lot of repentance.

[Simon]

Is the idea that a woman should be a man's peace at the end of the day outdated? Because I think, you know, well, if a woman is home all day with screaming kids, what if her husband to be her piece for a few minutes when he walks in the door? Like, how do you balance that?

[Tilly Dillahaye]

Yeah, I mean it's so, it's such a blessing to a woman when a wife, when a, when a husband comes home and is ready to say, I'm here and I'm, you know, I'm ready to give you a little moment and can kind of be the emotional stability that maybe she's needing in that moment. Especially again when the kids are really small. That's a hard season. It really is. Is, But I would also say that the better, the better you get at practicing the kind of emotional self control that allows you to prepare to greet him warmly. He will remember that for years to come. Even when that hard season is over, he will remember that you made an effort in that very difficult time to not become a total basket case, you know, and let, and just, just be self indulgent in, in the way that you're talking and feeling. And there are, there are ways also that you learn over time of resting effectively, like resting strategically so that you're not in social media. Once again, you, if you rest via social media, you'll never be rested. You'll, your kids go down for a nap and you spend that 30 minutes scrolling. You're not, that you're not helping, you're not doing yourself any favors and you're certainly not going to get closer to being really rejuvenated where you're ready for the next half of the day. So like it's hard, it's a hard season. Train like an athlete, rest like an athlete. Realize that when you're in the trenches, you know, take, take your rest seriously and take your preparation seriously. Be rigorous with yourself about growing forward in that kind of self control and how you use your time at home with the kids and the dividends later on will be enormous.

[Simon]

I have an interesting question for you that might be kind of a hot take depending on your answer.

[Tilly Dillahaye]

Okay.

[Simon]

Do you feel like wives owe it to their husbands even as stay at home moms in the trenches to get ready, get dressed, try to look put together for their husband when he comes home?

[Tilly Dillahaye]

Yeah, I don't think it's, I don't think you owe it to him and I don't think that it would be reasonable for him to demand it. But, and this is one of the things, I didn't do that for a long time. I was kind of slobby, you know, at home, didn't make my bed. Making your bed, getting dressed for your day, no matter what your work is, even if you're a stay at home, you know, you're on your laptop working. It just, it's a huge marker for yourself of like what kind of a day you're gonna have have. So do it, do it because it's a helpful thing in life. Like you will feel better. Like think of yourself as being in the trenches in an intense period of hard work and meet your day with that, with that awareness. Like being, being a mom at home is no pic, it's no picnic. It's not a walk in the park. It's hard work, so prepare for it.

[Simon]

I don't know that I have an opinion either way. I mean, I know when I'm home I'm definitely like, no makeup, leggings, whatever. But a thought, it was so interesting. I remember, I don't know, a couple years ago, Candace Owens kind of posted.

[Tilly Dillahaye]

About this and she was showing full makeup or something.

[Simon]

No. Well, she just said, I'm sick of going to the parks with. I'm sick of going to the park with my kids or something to that effect. And like every mom is like a slob in leggings. Like nobody has real clothes on. Like nobody wears jeans anymore. Like women don't even try.

[Tilly Dillahaye]

Right.

[Simon]

And she felt like that was like a. And I mean, I don't want to misquote her, but it was something to.

[Alex Clark]

The effect of like, I feel like.

[Simon]

This is an epidemic. It's negatively impacting marriages. Like, women need to try a little harder. And I just wondered what your opinion was.

[Tilly Dillahaye]

Yeah, like you're respecting your body. Like it's, you know, motherhood's hard on your body. Whether it's pregnancy or after, it's hard on your body. I think finding that like middle ground of the thing that is comfortable for you to wear, but it makes you also feel like, okay, I'm. I feel good. Like I feel good in what I'm wearing. I feel I could go to the park and feel like I'm presenting, you know, but it's also, this is my at home wear. You know, you gotta find, kind of find what your uniform is or whatever. You think uniforms are helpful actually, like having the thing that you keep wearing that you've got the same shirt in six colors or whatever. I find that I find that helpful. Every, you know, everybody's. I feel good about how I'm dressed is different, looks different.

[Simon]

You say that gratitude alone can flip a wife's attitude. What is the simplest way to start feeling great when you're already fed up?

[Tilly Dillahaye]

By giving thanks? Go through the motions of giving thanks to God and to other people. Saying, speaking the words that you're not even necessarily feeling will change the way that you're feeling. It just will.

[Simon]

Can a wife's peace influence her kids? And how does that start with her marriage dynamic?

[Tilly Dillahaye]

I mean, that would be like the understatement of the century to say, I'm wife's peace will influence your children. Your peace will make a life for your children. It'll make or break the. The home that they grow up in your mood is the. Is the air that they're breathing in the home. It's the atmosphere that's floating around in your house. Your peace before the Lord and your ability to be cheerful and present and, and industrious in your home will have a huge impact on your children. It impacts what they think is normal behavior for themselves when they're adults, but it also impacts their idea of whether they had a, you know, had a happy day, you know, that happy wife, happy life thing. It can be silly, I think, the way it's used, but the truth is a woman is the heir in a house, and it can be sweet air or it can be foul air.

[Simon]

How does confessing sin to your spouse ignite joy in marriage?

[Tilly Dillahaye]

Well, it ignites joy the same way that wiping your counter and mopping your floor ignites joy. Because it's wonderful to have a clean counter and a clean floor. It's not fun to do the cleaning, but it's fun to have a clean house. And it's not necessarily fun to confess sin to somebody, but it's a great joy to keep a clean conscience. It really is.

[Simon]

If somebody is living in a very contentious marriage right now and they feel convicted after this conversation, what are three to five steps that they can take today to turn the ship around?

[Tilly Dillahaye]

Yeah, we've talked about several of them. Do this, do the challenge. Do this. How about this? Phone a friend and do the three thanks a day challenge with a friend. Because then you get to text each other. Here are the three things I thanked my husband for today and keep each other kind of on track if that's a really unusual thing for you to be doing. 2. Begin today to apologize to your spouse. You can't have a spiritually healthy marriage if you're a spiritually immature woman. And I know that you want him to be grown spiritually. I know you want to see him making strides and you know, the Lord willing, that's what's going to happen in his life. But you yourself, I think a lot of times women are waiting for the men to somehow lead them into spiritual maturity. Like, if he is strong enough, I will somehow become a spiritual woman. And that's just not true. You're not going to be standing with your husband in the final day when you meet your maker. You'll stand before him and it'll be you. You're responsible for your spiritual health. You're responsible for learning about him in his word and praying and speaking to him. You have to have a relationship with the Lord, if you want the kind of strength to do the things that I'm talking about here, you can't just do them in your own strength. You're a forgiven person. And then you walk with him, which means you're communing with him, you're speaking to him, you're hearing from him, and you take responsibility for those things.

[Simon]

They're hard even for a professing Christian. Let's just say they're hearing that and they're like, okay, I know that. That's right. I know she's right about that. But I just feel like I'm terrible. I'm awful at praying. I don't even know what to say. I don't know how to pray. Praying isn't my strong suit. What are some tips to become a better prayer and get more comfortable with praying?

[Tilly Dillahaye]

When I became a Christian, I was in my early 20s and I moved out to this middle of nowhere little town where I still live that has this wonderful small church there. And every Wednesday night, all the saints of this church get together and pray and they pray. They give prayer requests, and they break up into little groups of three. And the women pray with the women, the men pray with the. So I hated going. Like, I never wanted to go because it's terrifying to go and pray with people if you've never done it before. I dreaded it. And I felt like there was spiritual warfare, honestly, on Wednesdays that just didn't want me to go, you know, But I would show up. And these older women who were fate had been faithful for years in the Lord. They taught me to pray. They didn't teach me by telling me how to pray. They. They taught me to pray because I listened to them for years and prayed with them. And I felt stupid every time for years, you know, but you learn. You learn with. In a community of people. So, you know, getting with another woman and praying with her I think is a great idea because it kind of keeps you on track in that moment. But then I would say you cannot learn. You can't learn something except by doing it. So set a. Set an alarm and say, this is the thing that I do it at 6am or whenever you roll out of bed, get on your knees and pray out loud. Because when you're praying out loud, it's harder to stop praying without knowing it, you know, because when you. Usually when we're praying in our heads, our attention spans are so short. Our ability to stick with a task, it's so short, it's so weak that we don't even know when we stopped praying, you know, but get, get on your knees and pray out loud and then pray through passages of scripture. If you're saying like, I don't know what to say. You know, you have your, have your little list of the people that you're trying to pray for, the things that are burdening you. And there's, there are passages early in almost every epistle that are like a passage of just blessing. Like early in Colossians there's a prayer, I think it's in, in like the last half of Colossians 1. It might be the beginning of chapter 2, but I just will pray that over for people like, like I don't even know what to pray for. My sister in law is having a hard time. I'm praying through Colossians. The Lord's Prayer was given to us. Just say the Lord's Prayer. It feels rote. And people, I think today we have this, this idea that prayer should be like extremely wordy and, and spiritual sounding. But the Lord's Prayer is very simple. And just pray using the Lord's Prayer that teaches us something. That's what Jesus thought was a good model for prayer.

[Simon]

That's true for the married woman who is listening to this. And she is in a season. She just hates her husband because there are people that are struggling right now to the single woman who is single and she doesn't want to be, she desperately wants to be married. Who's listening to how can we find as women true contentment, no matter the season we're in?

[Tilly Dillahaye]

That is the real question. Like that is the real challenge I think, in marriage and out of marriage is contentment. I think that's probably the number one issue facing women. Women don't know how to be content in their lives. We have too many ideas about what's needed to make us happy. And if you ask almost any woman who's married or not, if you ask her like, what's the one thing that you need in order to be really happy? The answer is like waiting behind her lips like it's right there. There's always something, like when my son gets back from college and I can see him again, or when we get the kitchen remodel done, or when my husband takes me on a date because he refuses to take me on a date. I've asked him a million times, he won't take me on a date. Like there's, there's, it feels like there's always that thing kind of waiting in the wings when you're speaking to a woman about that she'll bring up at some point. And it's the thing she's waiting on in order to be happy. I think one of the big secrets of contentment is recognizing that this world is not our home and this place is not our place. So learn to expect that in life. You're always going to have a little piece of longing that's not ever going to be met. Until you, you get to heaven and you see Him. That's where it's going to be met. Which means that everything that you're doing now, every little, little pleasure that he gives you, every meal that's, that's a great meal, has no, no seed oils in it. It's got all fresh, beautiful ingredients. And you're looking at it, you're saying, this is gorgeous. That's. That's a little shaft of, of pleasure and glory that God has given you in that moment. Moment. And you can thank him for it, but it's not the thing that you're waiting for. It's just a little taste of the thing that's coming. And so every pleasure that you have in your marriage, every time he does see you and you feel totally seen, you feel totally loved, he makes a decision for you and you feel totally cared for. All those things are beautiful reminders of who God is. Their kindness from God that He used your husband to send to you. But they're not the final thing. That's one of the hardest things about marriage is when you're single, when you're young, or even when you're a kid, your whole life is out ahead of you. It's all open possibilities. Every dream that you have, you think this may be fulfilled. And life is like one series of closed doors after another. It's a bunch of different roads. And every time you take a road, road, it's a bunch of roads you didn't get to take. You know, so growing up is, is. Is a slow process of disappointment, but in the best way. Like it can be in the best way or it can be in the most embittering way. Like you can become more and more bitter because of the losses. And life just brings loss after loss after loss. But if you're, if you're walking with the Lord, every loss is just another step closer to heaven. Heaven. And so you can accept the good things that he gives as a gift from him, but recognize that they are not the main thing that you're waiting for.

[Simon]

If you could offer one remedy to heal a sick culture, it could be physically, emotionally, or spiritually, what would it be?

[Tilly Dillahaye]

I think people need to eat rich spiritual food and stop eating spiritual junk food as their main diet for each.

[Simon]

Eating ultra processed spiritual food.

[Tilly Dillahaye]

That's right. Ultra processed spiritual junk food.

[Simon]

What does that mean?

[Tilly Dillahaye]

I do think I don't want to villainize media.

[Alex Clark]

False teachers.

[Tilly Dillahaye]

Well, I'm. Yeah, okay, false teachers, but I don't want to villainize media. I think that that's such a steady part of our diet and it analogs so closely to me with candy and junk food that it's the first thing that comes to mind is that we don't even know what spiritual food tastes like because our appetites are so dulled by the junk food that we're just feeding on. And so that's the, that's one of the biggest things. But yeah, I mean, a false teacher, that's a, that's a bad food. Feed on the word and on your commune with him, you know, in private and maybe wean yourself off of some of the things that you know, oh, this is actually a spiritual junk food. It's feeding my appetite, but it's not satiating me.

[Simon]

Tell us about your book, my dear Hemlock, your new book. And why is this such a game changing read for wives?

[Tilly Dillahaye]

It does seem like the marriage stuff in the book is one of the big things that I'm getting a lot of, just a lot of connections. Women are connecting with it and that's really great, but it's about a lot of things. So. Are you familiar with the Screwtape letters? The idea of just taking this device where you're looking at. What would a demon like to see in my life? What would a demon like me to do in this situation? What kind of thing would a demon want me to be continually thinking about? It's been instructive to me, honestly, to think about those things. It, it changes. It changes. It's changed me because I do think about it on a daily basis. Like what would he. What are the demons interested in in this situation? And it may not necessarily be what I think they are, are interested in. It's been, it's just been a really, really fun and helpful thing to think through to kind of flip what, what God wants to see and what God is working out in my life. To contrast that, I guess, contrast that with what are the victories that Satan is really having in my life that I, I don't, I'm not even aware of.

[Simon]

And the book is published by Canon Press. Right?

[Tilly Dillahaye]

Right. That's right.

[Simon]

Yeah. We love Canon Press here. Amazing people. Are you on social media at all?

[Tilly Dillahaye]

I'm not. I'm not reachable really on like Instagram anymore. But you, you can if you message me on Facebook, I usually see it. So.

[Simon]

Okay.

[Tilly Dillahaye]

Yeah.

[Simon]

And where's the best place to buy my dear Hemlock?

[Tilly Dillahaye]

I guess at Canon. I mean, you can buy it pretty much anywhere. Cool. You know, 10 of those or Amazon or whatever. But you could buy it directly from Canon is as well. Awesome.

[Simon]

Tilly, thank you for coming on Culture Apothecary.

[Tilly Dillahaye]

Thank you for having me. It's been enjoyable.

[Alex Clark]

I feel like I was just knocked.

[Simon]

Out of my chair after that interview.

[Alex Clark]

Just so much she said to really think on, pray on.

[Simon]

Amazing words of encouragement.

[Alex Clark]

I hope you share this episode with.

[Simon]

All of your friends who are wives. Let me tell you as a single.

[Alex Clark]

Woman, just observing on the outside, all of my friends, all of their marriages.

[Simon]

All of their relationships, people I know.

[Alex Clark]

Know, etc, it's like I totally see.

[Simon]

The difference in my friends who practice self control. They speak life into their husbands, they encourage their husbands, they are actively thanking their husbands.

[Alex Clark]

And then people that I know in my life who basically every word that.

[Simon]

Comes out of their mouth is just a criticism. It's did you remember to do this? I can't believe you would do this.

[Alex Clark]

Why don't you ever listen to me? You forgot this again. And it's like when you are around.

[Simon]

That 24 7, I can't imagine how.

[Alex Clark]

Small that would make you feel as a husband. And I mean, I'm always just like.

[Simon]

A passerby, you know, I'm here for dinner, I'm just coming in for a trip or whatever.

[Alex Clark]

It's like, I don't know. This episode is challenging to listen to, I'm sure, but I really hope it was helpful. Hopefully Tilly's very gentle spirit made it.

[Simon]

More palatable than if it were me sharing this information or something. Which I wouldn't anyway because I have.

[Alex Clark]

No expertise, I've never been married. But anyway, I know you guys love.

[Simon]

To point that out.

[Alex Clark]

Hopefully you loved it. Leave a five star review if you did. Anywhere you listen to podcasts, you can subscribe to YouTube at Real AlexClark. Not only do we post new episodes there, we post a lot of additional content and vlogs. So you know me living my life and what I do outside of the show, all those types of things. So make sure you check that out. You can also follow me on Instagram at Real Alexclark and the show at Culture Apothecary. We release new episodes with different expert.

[Simon]

Guests every Monday and every Thursday, 6pm Pacific, 9pm Eastern.

[Alex Clark]

I'm Alex Clark, and this is Culture Apothecary, the Carry.