What happens when your marriage feels impossible to sustain—but you believe God still has a plan? In this powerful episode, we sit down with author and speaker Laurie Krieg, who shares her story of navigating a mixed-orientation marriage, wrestling with faith, desire, trauma, and the transformation that followed.
In this episode, we cover:
- Laurie’s honest story of same-sex attraction and her decision to marry a man
- What it means to trust God when your marriage feels “impossible”
- Trauma, Jesus, and the healing process
- Practical ways to love your spouse through pain
- What Christians can do better to love and support LGBTQ+ individuals and families
This episode will stretch your compassion, deepen your faith, and remind you that every marriage—no matter the struggle—can be a place of redemption and growth.
Resources:
👉 Get our free training about how to get your marriage unstuck.
👉 Apply for our amazing couples retreat coming up in the spring!
👉 And join our free private facebook group, Christian Couples Improving Sex & Intimacy
Disclaimer: The opinions and values expressed by guests on the Get Your Marriage On! podcast are their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and values of the host. Appearance on the podcast does not imply an endorsement of the guest or their products by Get Your Marriage On or its host. While we work hard to bring you quality and valuable content, listeners are encouraged to use their own best judgment in applying the information or products discussed on this podcast.
Transcript
This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors or inaccuracies. For the most accurate and complete experience, we recommend listening to the full podcast episode.
Dan: A few months ago I read Lori and Matt Craig’s [00:01:00] book, an Impossible Marriage, and I really like their story. It’s a story about this couple and how they’ve navigated the many challenges that come from being in a mixed orientation marriage. I was inspired by what she said and I wanted to invite Lori on my podcast to share her story and her experience.
Now I understand that the topic of same sex attraction and building a marriage are difficult topics, and there’s a lot I do not know or pretend to even begin to understand, but I do know that God loves all of his children and that there is much about God’s plan that I just don’t understand. But I have faith that he is all knowing, perfectly wise, perfectly understanding and just, and I trust that he isn’t surprised at all about all the things that we think or do or don’t understand.
I also have faith that God knows what he’s doing regardless of the challenges we face on a micro or macro scale. In bringing up the topic of mixed orientation marriages, I also don’t want to minimize the real [00:02:00] struggles people face, especially those of my gay friends and their family members.
In this episode, you’ll hear Lori’s insights and perspectives based on her own experience, and yet, even if your choices are different than Lori’s or same sex attraction is not part of your marriage story. I still think Lori and Matt’s experience has such valuable lessons in it to teach us how to face situations in our marriage that are really hard or sometimes feel nearly impossible.
Also, a little trigger warning. Lori mentions briefly her experience being sexually abused as a child. Her experience isn’t general advice for everyone in a similar circumstance, such as, you know, saying those with same sex attraction are wrong if they don’t choose to marry? I, I, I don’t believe in taking that general approach.
I don’t, I think it’s naive in sensitive and dismisses the reality of the complexity of life, especially the complexity of sexual attraction and desire and the sacred moral agency that God sacrificed so much to preserve [00:03:00] for each of us. The part of her message that did resonate with me though is that if you think about it, every marriage faces obstacles that seem impossible and conserve to grow and stretch your faith if you let it.
Your challenges could be financial, being married to a neurodivergent spouse. Or struggles with children, health concerns or serious sexual struggles, or aging parents or never feeling good enough, and the list goes on and on and on. But just because you have challenges doesn’t mean you’re doomed. Life is meant to be lived, not avoided.
Challenges can serve to give us experience to aid in our development so that we’re more compassionate and understanding and more humble. And how to grow and stretch who we are if we let it. There is room for hope and good days ahead for everyone, and that’s the message I hope you take away from this episode.
At the time of this recording, we have three spots left for our spring couples retreat. This is a perfect retreat for any couple [00:04:00] that feels like they’re in an overall good marriage, but wish things were better when it came to sex and intimacy. You get to work with me and my team for four days in beautiful settings.
It’s romantic. It’s fun. We have a lot of, uh, fun things with what we do. It’s not just in some stodgy, uh, conference room at a hotel. We rent out a resort and we mix it with some outdoor fun activities as well as some. Really deep instructions to help you get really deep on all things intimacy in your marriage.
You’ll find all those details on my website. Get your marriage on.com, click on events, and then you’ll find the retreat. Now, if a retreat isn’t in your cards, but you’d like a similar experience with you and your spouse, that is what my Get Your Marriage On Coaching Program can facilitate. This is an in-depth coaching program where you get to work with me and my team, and we help you really unpack everything in your marriage so that you can have a thriving, happy, fulfilling, joyful, sexual, intimate marriage.
And that’s what we do. [00:05:00] So you’ll find those details also at our website. Get your Marriage on.com. Without further ado, let’s talk about impossible marriages.
Dan: Laurie, what a pleasure it is to have you on the Get Your Marriage On Podcast this morning. How are you?
Laurie: I’m doing so great. Thanks so much for having me.
Dan: I’ve read your book and it was really inspiring. You wrote it with your
Laurie: Mm-hmm.
Dan: gotta be like a fun process in and of itself, I’m sure. And, uh, I found it inspiring and I wanted you to come on the podcast to share your story and inspire my listeners too. Your book starts off with this question, what do I want? Can you tell me the story behind that? What led to that, and, what that means?
Laurie: Yeah,
Dan: want?
Laurie: totally. The question, what do I want was really related to what do I want in my marriage and what do I want for my life. and I was in a place, we are seven years married, which I don’t know what it is, about seven years, but so many of us.
Dan: right?
Laurie: That’s when it gets real, uh, for many of us. But, I was, I, I, I say I packed that question into my [00:06:00] suitcase, not to leave yet, question mark,
Dan: meaning Uhhuh,
Laurie: leave the marriage, but to go on a silent retreat and really ask the Lord what do I want?
because before Matt and I, my husband Matt, uh, got married. He knew, I knew I experienced attraction toward the same sex. Uh, when I met Matt, I was actually in a secret same sex relationship with another woman. I knew theologically it was not God’s design, but it felt right. It felt like it scratched the itch of my heart.
These needs to be seen and known and loved. Um, and that jacked with my brain, my theology, until I met someone who was technically my therapist, but she knew the heart of. Any forms of sexual brokenness and the heart of those, along with really any brokenness. What will hone in on sexual brokenness is we wanna be seen and known and loved in the ways that we want, but God knows the best ways, which is not in a perfect marriage, [00:07:00] but it’s in him in marriage, can reflect him.
It can be a part of the ways he meets those needs, but it’s really in him. And so I fell in love with Jesus and through this relationship with this therapist, she helped me to find, uh, what we might.
Dan: spiritual basis, I guess,
Laurie: A spiritual basis or, um, what Thomas Chalmers, the 18th century Scottish, preacher said the explosive power of a new affection.
When we find a deeper love, it can expel other love. So I still experienced attraction toward the same sex when I met Matt, but it was this, I love Jesus. And Matt was, Someone to whom I was attracted. But it was a hard attraction first that could, that grew into a physical attraction. So I wasn’t attracted to all men.
I didn’t go from gay to straight. I don’t even really use those words to describe myself. I just say I love Jesus and I’m married to Matt and I do. If I struggle with lust, it’s toward women. but I love my husband Matt. We were married for seven years, but when we were seven years married, suppressed [00:08:00] childhood trauma resurfaced.
Dan: Whammy.
Laurie: whammy,
Dan: Uh.
Laurie: and they magnetized and they produced this question of, what do you want? Because all of a sudden I had this trauma triggering. So even though Matt was not my perpetrator, he was male like my perpetrator, and he reminded me of that trauma. And so I was like, these attractions, I was happily surrendering to Jesus.
I was like, why am I doing this?
Dan: Yeah.
Laurie: Because it’s hard.
Dan: Yes.
Laurie: And so I packed that question into my suitcase, went on this silent retreat, journaled it to the Lord, and um, he really, it’s like in the Bible when, when God just, it’s like, it’s not angry God. It’s like, I like to call him stern Jesus,
Dan: Uh,
Laurie: like where he is encountering you.
And he is like, what will that actually give you? I, I like told him, I’m like this fantasy in my head of leaving Matt and finding a wife, and Matt becomes my best [00:09:00] friend. There’s this such this script written
Dan: Uh.
Laurie: right now for women and men who are not default attracted toward the gender of their, their spouse, their opposite sex spouse.
There’s such this fantasy lie that the enemy in the world is writing that’s like, it’s gonna be so much better
Dan: Uh huh And easier,
Laurie: and easier.
Dan: because this is your sexual orientation, you have an automatic like
Laurie: card. Mm-hmm.
Dan: Yeah. Get outta jail card. Right. Right. Mm-hmm.
Laurie: But what really I was confronted with was the book of Jude that I had read in my Bible reading that day as I was journaling back and forth. And you can read all about this in our book In Impossible Marriage. It’s the first chapter I talk about this, but it says. Did you not know? This is the book of Jew, that in the last times there will be people scoffers who follow their own ungodly desires.
These are the people who divide you, who follow what is natural to them because [00:10:00] they do not have God’s spirit in them. I was like, this feels natural to me.
Dan: Yeah.
Laurie: The world says that this feels, because this feels natural to you, you should follow it, and this is gonna give, make all your dreams come true.
Dan: Mm-hmm.
Laurie: Just because it’s natural.
Is it natural because of fall or is it natural because of God’s desires in you? And I was like, well, who cares? Who cares? What if I follow this because this is what I want? What if I lose God’s spirit? Who cares? What’s it even give me? And um. It’s the most bizarre thing, which sounds real out there, but in that moment, I’m not kidding.
As I ask, what does your spirit even give me? God
Dan: Mm-hmm.
Laurie: felt like every bit of joy and happiness and peace that was inside of me, even in the midst of this wrestling just evaporated and I was so cold and so lonely, and like I was a black hole of [00:11:00] emptiness, just gasping for something or someone to hold onto.
And like after the two seconds was done, I was like, oh my goodness, my God, who was that? I was like, that was insane.
Dan: Uhhuh.
Laurie: But I truly feel like God allowed me to experience a micro taste of life, devoid of him. People who are not following God experience something called common grace. There is this sweetness that God gives to everyone, but if there is a, if I, if we follow.
Our desires to the other side of eternity. That is what we will experience is a life devoid of God. And I was like, you know what? I really don’t want Matt right now. I don’t even really want God, but I do want his gifts. I want his peace. I want [00:12:00] his joy. So, God, this is not even for a hundred percent pure motivations, but I decided as I drove home in a snowstorm from that moment, I was like, okay, I don’t know how God’s gonna do it, but I’m starting with following his gifts, submitting to him, and then, God, let’s just see if you can fix this marriage.
Dan: Wow. At that point you’re probably like, this is an impossible
Laurie: Yeah, dude. Oh yeah.
Dan: Because you have, a mixed orientation
Laurie: Yep,
Dan: top of that childhood trauma,
Laurie: yep, yep,
Dan: and Matt had, has had his own challenges too.
Laurie: yep.
Dan: pornography use for example,
Laurie: Yeah.
Dan: or history of that and, and you add children mortgage. Life It just, it feels impossible. And it’d be so easy from the outside in to say, why? Why are you still doing
Laurie: Yep.
Dan: setting yourself up for something impossible.
Laurie: Yep.
Dan: But I love how you say something. And [00:13:00] can you elaborate on this a little bit more? If you really look at it, isn’t every marriage impossible?
Laurie: So from that point, I go home. I tell Matt what I’ve been wrestling through in my mind, like thinking of leaving, he didn’t even know I hadn’t been telling him, and I dove into the theology of marriage, which is where your answer will come in.
Dan: Yeah. Yeah.
Laurie: And I was, because I, I picked up many marriage books and they talk a, they joke a lot about how dumb the other gender is.
How what a funny, hilarious mess that God puts. Two people are so different, but then sex makes you want put a ring on it and then you hate each other and ha ha ha. It’s a covenant, like truly there.
Dan: isn’t it?
Laurie: It’s cynical. And for someone like me whose default attractions are toward the same sex, like. You are not helping me at all.
Dan: No.
Laurie: Like you’re actually adding fuel to my argument, like, yeah, why would you marry someone of the opposite sex? It’s a big cosmic [00:14:00] joke, so I’m just begging you all to please stop doing that. Um, but, but I was asking a question as I read some of these marriage books and chucked a lot of ’em across the room, so I was like, why did you put two different things together?
Is it a big cosmic joke or a cosmic punishment that you really just wanna make us sanctified because I can get sanctified elsewhere. Thank you very much.
Dan: Right.
Laurie: Like there’s other ways.
Dan: Uh.
Laurie: and so I was reading Francis and Lisa Chan’s book, you and Me Forever, which is basically the gospel through the lens of marriage, which that’s what marriage is, and then with some like advice in between and it just struck me.
Is that, wait a minute. I was reading Ephesians 5 31 and 32, which I had read a herd a thousand times at weddings. For this reason, man, father, and mother and be united to his wife and thought to will become one flesh. This is a profound mystery. I’m talking about [00:15:00] not men and women, not, it’s such a mystery that God has men and women fall in love.
Geez, no. The profound mystery is Christ in the church. there’s something to male female marriage that makes us see God’s heart for us. What is that thing? We see the entire Bible, Christopher West says in, in, uh, paraphrasing Pope John Paul ii, the entire Bible could be summed up in five words. God wants to marry us.
We, when husbands and wives, if God calls us to marriage, die to ourself to be one with our spouse, even though they’re yes, kind of different from us. That’s why we joke.
Dan: Uh,
Laurie: We are showing, we’re showing our kids and our neighbors and strangers in the grocery store a small picture of how Jesus, who is far above every ruler and power and authority, not only in this life, but in the life to come.
It says in Ephesians once how [00:16:00] he died to be one with dusty old Adam, us. He wants to marry us. So how is every marriage impossible? You want the union. You want your marriage to show the world a picture of God’s love for them. Tell me that’s easy.
Dan: Right. Not at all. but it’s by, Being committed to that covenant that facilitates our spiritual growth and development. So we get a glimpse
Laurie: Yes.
Dan: what it’s like, what God is like. We get experience godliness our marriages or through our commitment to, to our marriages, I
Laurie: Yeah. Yep. And they feel God’s love through you. You feel God’s love through them. Your kids experience the sweetness.
Dan: Mm-hmm.
Laurie: Your neighbors see it. It really is bananas.
Dan: That is so good. Then what happens next with, with you and Matt?[00:17:00]
Laurie: So the theology was the engine to put me into therapy.
Dan: Okay. ’cause you resisted it before, I assume.
Laurie: I just, I’ll just be honest with you, a lot of therapists, you sit down and you have the box of struggles that I have and that our marriage has. You, you are either gonna get the Get outta marriage free card. Oh, a little thumbs up or they’re gonna try and make me straight. I’m gonna be the cause of every problem because Matt’s problems are,
Dan: Uhhuh.
Laurie: Matt’s problems are normal.
They’re every man’s battle. You must be the problem. And so we had like a list of like, if they do these things, we’re walking out. And so,
Dan: Uhhuh.
Laurie: which was actually very kind of Matt to be like, I will defend you. You are not the bad guy. This is very hard. I know I’m at fault. How do we do this?
Dan: that’s really mature of him. ’cause I could see in a different situation, a different person
Laurie: Yes.[00:18:00]
Dan: he wouldn’t take that stance.
Laurie: No, he’s so humble and loving and that honestly, I’m sure was another huge percent of why we’re on this side of the conversation.
Dan: Mm-hmm.
Laurie: Uh, so we go to therapy and really, Effective therapists are so good at getting below the surface below, like gimme a break. If I hear one more communication strategy, I’m gonna go my eyes out.
Like I’m sorry,
Dan: Uh,
Laurie: I don’t tell me
Dan: you.
Laurie: effective. Yeah, let’s fix the bandaid. Let’s bandaid it. And that lasts another 50 years.
Dan: can help you with communication strategy.
Laurie: Exactly. So No, no, no, no. So I love you. That’s, I’m just not going to, you’re not gonna be my therapist. they helped us find the little boy inside of Matt and the little girl inside of me.[00:19:00]
And, um. He really actually focused on Matt in the beginning, which was really good. That was really helpful because Matt was in that humble posture and ready to go where I was like, I’m just gonna see if I can trust you, jerk. I already hate you from the beginning. Not really, but you know, I was like. I just was defensive.
I shouldn’t have been, but my heart was, I was tentative, I was hurting, and so it was actually such, again, sweet modeling of Matt, but it helped actually grow me to hear Matt’s stories of rejection. I. And how he felt like the little boy on the stairs, he would hide, he’d walk away from his family during dinner just to see if anyone would notice him and come after him and find him as he sat on the stairs at five, six years old
Dan: Mm-hmm.
Laurie: for me.
So here I am. I’m like, all right, fine. God, I’m in with you. Fine. I get your theology. This last piece was tenderizing my heart toward Matt, not with any goals, not [00:20:00] so then you guys can have sex and everything can be perfect. It was just, can we figure something better than it is? And I found Matt in that space sitting on the stairs and.
I still think of it this, we’re now year 16 in our marriage of just, how can I come alongside him? Go find him on the stairs, feeling lost and forgotten, and just sit by him.
Dan: Mm-hmm.
Laurie: sweet like that, that marriage as friendship,
Dan: Yes.
Laurie: marriage as protector of your spouse’s intimate pain.
Dan: Mm-hmm.
Laurie: That’s powerful.
Dan: Yeah. Wow. So you, uh, got lucky, or maybe that’s lucky is probably not the word, but you
Laurie: Yeah.
Dan: fantastic help help you through this. And did it go the other direction too?
Laurie: Yeah.
Dan: find the, the little Lori, the little girl
Laurie: Mm-hmm.
Dan: [00:21:00] too? And
Laurie: Yeah,
Dan: take that.
Laurie: he did. And, and you hear us write, he write about it in the book too. Uh, we write about Matt on the stairs. And then for me, Matt actually helped me later. I. Through like a listening prayer kind of IFS exercise of even working through some of the trauma, which I don’t necessarily recommend.
Matt is a licensed mental health therapist. He still should not be my therapist, but what I would recommend is praying together with your spouse even into places of deep pain and shame and inviting Jesus there like.
Dan: Yes.
Laurie: God, he is real and like he’s beyond time. And so I was having him show up, uh, and maybe he’ll show up through, okay.
He led us to read Psalm 34 over you or it’s all whatever. But Matt did a prayer exercise with me that was, um, some months after that therapy, intense time, and it was very [00:22:00] helpful to have him. For me to trust him and with my deepest pain and shame, but then to see Jesus there, um, was so powerful in healing my traumatized heart.
Dan: Mm-hmm. Can you speak more on how one can use their faith in Jesus to heal trauma? ’cause when I hear you say that, I think, didn’t it? Jesus descend below all things so that he can raise us up above all things it wasn’t that the whole purpose of his ultimate and infinite sacrifice for us, it is to heal the broken hearted.
To liberate the captive, it’s to set us free. But on his time schedule, of course, we can’t demand it. He’s not a vending machine where you hit the button and demand it now, but there is this aspect of. Of the this amazing healing power that does come through, Jesus.
Laurie: Mm-hmm. I mean, Jesus [00:23:00] rescued me on the cross, and the gospel rescues me every day as I recite it to myself and as I, I’m not like getting saved every day, but it’s like I’m remembering him, but in my trauma. Like, again, I don’t know the theological viewpoint of your listeners or what, like I’m such a mishmash of like, we’re going to a reform church.
We’ve been Baptist, non na. So just, you’re gonna hear a hodgepodge. Here’s the reality, if I didn’t know and hadn’t experienced. Jesus and the Holy Spirit in this sort of IFS listening prayer model, I’d either be dead or not a Christian. So maybe for some of your listeners, they’re like, dude, all I need is like Psalm 91, bandaid.
I’m awesome. I love it. That’s not for me. So when, how I experienced him multiple times in different places of pain and shame is I pray I go to a safe place [00:24:00] in my mind.
Dan: Mm-hmm.
Laurie: I can feel safe and at rest with Jesus. And then when I’m ready or if I’m ready, I go back to the trauma invite Jesus there, which I know it’s not him in bodily form.
I know it’s just the Holy Spirit. I get it. But I picture Jesus
Dan: Yeah.
Laurie: and he comes into the space and he doesn’t change it in the sense that like the trauma never happened because that’s not real.
Dan: Yeah.
Laurie: But I see where he was in it. I see that he wasn’t what my brain like makes up stories in order for us to heal.
We’re always writing the story. We’re trying to finish the story of our trauma. And so it’s not that I’m even rewriting him into it because he actually was there. It’s, I’m opening up the eyes of my heart to be aware of Where were you when it felt like you abandoned me?
Dan: Uhhuh.
Laurie: Did you And in that moment when I, you can [00:25:00] read about it in, in the book, like Seeing Jesus show up as warrior and rescue me and show me my own strength was so powerful.
Dan: And giving you your armor and your sword, I think is how you said it.
Laurie: He gave
Dan: you
Laurie: yes. That I wasn’t this weak person who was helpless, which if, if you’re a therapist at any level, you know, you’re like, yes, you’re giving her.
Dan: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Laurie: So it’s, it’s really was powerful for me not only to do like parts work if you think about an IFS world, but to really invite the spirit. It takes IFS parts world to like the extreme for me to invite Jesus there. Does that make sense?
Dan: Yes. I know what the term IFS is. I don’t think our listeners know. Can you give a brief,
Laurie: Yes.
Dan: of that?
Laurie: So IFS, so I’m not a mental health therapist. I’m just married to one and I talk to a lot. So I know just enough to make me either helpful, helpful or dangerous.
Dan: it’s a very popular methodology or, modality, I should
Laurie: it’s a very helpful and [00:26:00] popular modality. Um, my friend Dr. Allison Cook, she has a podcast and a book on it, um, on the IFS model for Christians, but it’s basically, it’s like inside out.
If you’ve seen the Inside Out or Inside Out too, the Pixar movie, it talks about how we have these different parts inside of us and in, and often we like love in that movie Joy, but we exile or we don’t want sadness. And so in our, even though life is a mix of emotions, we so often are like, you are my friend emotion, but not this one.
Uh, and we can do that in our memories too. So with this. When I say IFS, it’s called Internal Family Systems, and it’s just like understanding what’s going on inside of you and instead of immediately judging and shaming and telling that sadness inside to just sh and it’s, it’s saying what’s going on with you?
It’s asking it questions, being more curious as opposed to judgy [00:27:00] of what’s going on inside.
Dan: that’s good.
Laurie: Yeah.
Dan: I can see how that’s very helpful in healing when that part of you is used to being exiled and not listened to.
Laurie: Right.
Dan: Right. So, you in your book talk about core needs
Laurie: Yeah.
Dan: know if we wanna spend a lot of time on this, but. If you’re a listener and you’re like, yeah, there’s definitely elements of my marriage that feel impossible at times help me understand more about finding this, you know, the, the five-year-old hurt version of me or whatever.
Just seeing myself a little better. Are there any like trailhead or clues you can look for to help you kind of. Help you understand your spouse better in that situation, so you can come with more of that open curiosity, like you said, rather than being judgy.
Laurie: Man. What are some trailhead as far as how to care for your spouse’s pain and you’re feeling like there’s just distance? actually, I mean, as much as I’m gonna recommend my [00:28:00] own book, I also recommend Dan Allen’s new marriage book. I just interviewed him on his marriage book and one of my sisters is reading it and his is all about.
Understanding each other’s story and
Dan: Okay.
Laurie: ’cause if you understand your spouse’s story, all of those communication tactics, et cetera, are actually gonna flow from that because you’re gonna speak more tenderly. But I would just say in the last five years with Matt and I, and even in the last year and a half, I give myself a beat or 10.
Before I react to something that he might do or say, and I think to myself, why is it Matt saying that right now? And instead of assuming the worst, assuming it’s fruit of his story, and yes, his sinful nature’s in there, but just think, where is this coming from in [00:29:00] his story? So. Matt and he’d be okay if he was a part of this.
does not naturally give compliments, like he has a very hard time being effusive with his words. Now. For the first 12 years of our marriage, I was like, Hey, Jess doesn’t think I’m pretty and doesn’t like me and is such an intentional jerk. So that’s me assuming the worst. Then I hear and learn more of his story out of just genuine, like not in a fight time,
Dan: Right.
Laurie: playful time, or just like asking questions about each other’s story.
We go on a lot of walks and talk, and I understand more and more as I ask him about. What was it like with your dad? What was it like with your mom? Just how Matt rarely I, I might even say never was asked. How he feels about something or almost his opinion about anything. [00:30:00] And when he spoke he always felt very like his words didn’t matter.
One of his parents would always take up all the verbal oxygen in the room. And the other one, if Matt spoke, would just like suck his emotions out of him. So he learned to be very quiet. So now when I notice like and I do offer feedback, Hey, Matt would be really meaningful to me as someone who appreciates words to hear words like I’ve said that.
Hundreds of times. It does hurt me. I say it in a more respectful way, but the communication is tender. But Matt, at the same time, I recognize that this is not easy for you. It’s so young inside of him.
Dan: Yep.
Laurie: a piece of him that’s like a, yeah, like a 2-year-old is, his words are still quiet in there
Dan: Uh.
Laurie: I know his story and we talk about it.
Yes. In therapy we did, but, and just on walks, what was it like to be you? We just, I asked him, this is new, Matt, [00:31:00] what was learning about puberty like for you? Had, we’ve never talked about that. I just wrote a book on how to talk about puberty. He’s like, oh, no one ever talked to me about it. I was like, what?
So how much more grace do I have when we’re trying to quip our kids about puberty? And he’s like a robot because he was never taught. It’s,
Dan: Yeah. Yeah,
Laurie: are the trail heads is what was it like to be you in this situation?
Dan: That is so good. Great. Any other trailheads or any other of advice?
Laurie: We talk a lot in the book about different forms of intimacy, really like the different gardens and, um, when we were in our healing journey, like we could be so focused on the specific part of intimacy that is sexual intimacy.
Dan: Right, because it’s the elephant in the room. It’s the obvious thing, right?
Laurie: And it’s where every, that’s the fate of black scene. That’s the ultimate intimacy, and
Dan: It’s also the source of a lot of hurt at that part. At that
Laurie: [00:32:00] That’s right.
Dan: Mm-hmm.
Laurie: of a lot of hurt.
Dan: Yeah.
Laurie: So it was really helpful and it’s helpful now to think about how else can we relate and then share intimacy.
Dan: Uhhuh
Laurie: That can be play, that can be, um, nonsexual touch. That can be economic connection like, or work. It can be, it can be with the kids, it can be with, working out together, like physically caring for bodies.
There’s a lot of sweet intimacy you can have, and I, I think the more you can laugh together.
Dan: Uh huh.
Laurie: The better all the other parts of your marriage all go. And so even as we start naming these like parts in each other that are like, yes, this is a hard point where we keep coming back to the same situation, with words or something like that.
Or, if you have laughter and can laugh at yourself and can laugh with your spouse about things, it’s just. Go for that.[00:33:00]
Dan: Yep.
Laurie: Aim for that more than almost any other, like, aim for a sweet joy between each other. It will benefit you a lot of places.
Dan: That’s great. Good. I love that. Love that. I wanna switch gears for the last part of our time together. what can we do better as Christians or Christian culture towards people that have, maybe they’re in a mixed orientation marriage or their sexual orientation is different from the majority. how can we love and support those better? in general.
Laurie: Without question, my top advice is stop raging and making fun of the L-G-B-T-Q community. Stop. You have no idea who is in the room. You think you’re in the room in your small group with all straight people. I doubt it. One out of five or one out of four. Gen Z, identify as L-G-B-T-Q and at least [00:34:00] 10% if not 15% of millennials identify as L-G-B-T-Q or experience attractions toward the same sex on some level.
Do you know how many times I have been hurt? Automatically distrust someone to share about what’s going on in my own life because they come to small group, they come to church and they’re like, I can’t believe that alphabet, Nazi communists, blah, blah, blah. They hate everyone and I hate them, and ugh, like gasping and sign.
And here I am. Not identifying as the L-G-B-T-Q mafia, but I experienced attractions toward the same sex I am. I’m actually maybe even hurting in my marriage, and I hear you say that I’m gonna love you. I’m not gonna trust you. I am not going to share with you what’s going on in my marriage, and honestly, I really need a safe place to talk about it.
So without question. Stop groaning and rolling your eyes and making [00:35:00] fun. We can grieve like Jesus in Matthew 23, where he is like, Jerusalem, Jerusalem. How I long together, you together like a mother hen gathers your tick. There’s the grief and a longing for a loving relationship. That’s a fine heart judgmental, looking down on and making fun of exactly not the heart of Christ.
You are not gonna win, uh, you’re not gonna offer safe places to people like me, and there’s a lot of us.
Dan: Yeah, that’s great advice. I, we live in a culture, modern American culture is very into division these days,
Laurie: We sure are.
Dan: much a us versus them
Laurie: Yes,
Dan: It’s this culture of division and any language that divides that’s not what we wanna do.
Like the mother hen. Right. Let’s,
Laurie: Long for loving relationship. There can be grief. Grief is not scoffing, vitriol. It’s
Dan: No,
Laurie: and longing for intimacy. Oh, I just wish they knew [00:36:00] Jesus. What a wonderful heart. Oh, I just want them to know how love they are and now I can. Wonderful. I’m just so sad about sin in the world. Great scoffing anger, uh, division vitriol.
Dan: Yeah. Great, great. Okay. What’s number two?
Laurie: so after setting the scene, so those are nonverbal cues. So how can you love people like me? I’ll tell you, we’re pretty much just like you in mixed orientation marriages and in fact, some informal surveys I’ve taken and even some more formal one, formal ones that mark your house has done, show that we’re actually kind of better at like the friendship part of marriage and.
We actually have, we struggle similarly with sexual intimacy. That’s, that was the number one issue among mixed orientation marriages and straight marriages. So everybody struggles with it. So there are some unique pieces in that our default attractions are not gonna be the same. But there’s actually some [00:37:00] similar things.
And I think when I have talked with mixed orientation in marriages and the informal survey I put out, the number one thing we want is just safe places to talk.
Dan: Mm-hmm.
Laurie: way that you can be a safe place is to both hold our experience as unique in the sense that like, oh, your sin is actually celebrated in the world.
Mine’s not like straight person. Having an affair probably is not gonna be celebrated. But for me to find a wife and become me. Is gonna be celebrated. So that’s a uniquely challenging aspect, but at the same time, struggles with sexual intimacy. wrestling with normal marriage, stuff like it’s, that’s normal.
So it’s both normal and there is some unique pain, just like you have unique pain because of your story and your unique struggles. So we’re we’re, we’re just like you.
Dan: Yes, Uhhuh. That’s good. Let’s normalize things a
Laurie: Yeah.
Dan: right. And that’s the birthplace of this podcast. Get your [00:38:00] marriage on. It’s, every marriage needs help in the sexual domain. And, uh,
Laurie: You’re right.
Dan: need good, healthy resources. We need inspiration. We need, tools. We need also just the pat on the back. Hey, it’s great.
You’ll figure it out. We’ll work through this and there’s so
Laurie: that.
Dan: to be had on the other side. Let’s work through it.
Laurie: That’s so good. That’s so good. I’m so glad you’re doing that.
Dan: What about parents that have children that have different, sexual attractions
Laurie: Yeah. I mean, there’s so many books written.
Dan: families
Laurie: Yeah.
Dan: are that way?
Laurie: Yep. so again, it’s both. There’s unique challenges and then there’s the same challenges. So the unique is. This is a struggle and an experience that is celebrated in the world. That’s hard. Like a kid who is snorting crack off of cars. Isn’t usually celebrated, but so there’s a unique aspect, but then there’s the same aspect [00:39:00] in the sense that if this child is not following Jesus with their version of sexuality, so I’m someone who experienced churches or same sex.
I’m following Jesus. Hopefully I’m not like my parents’ prayer request all the right all the time. Like I hope they’re like, oh my gosh, look at God using Lori’s weakness. Right? So you might be a parent like that where you’re like, look at God using my kid. But if I was not following Jesus, that probably would be a big prayer request for my parents.
but so I would want them to see it as uniquely painful, but also the same in the sense that if I wasn’t following Jesus, I’d be a prodigal like every other kid, like many other prodigals. So I. In need of Jesus. And I, I think, um, that can be a unique pain in this space is we can just see like sexual sin, sexual sin, sexual sin as the top issue in this kid’s life.
And I’ll tell you what, I have walked with hundreds. Of L-G-B-T-Q. Same sex attracted gender non-conforming [00:40:00] people at this point, my husband, Matt, probably thousands ’cause he’s a licensed mental health therapist who specializes in this space. And I tell you what God’s order of operations for people is not usually our order of operations.
All we see is sexual sin, gender issues. Look at what they’re wearing. Look at who they’re dating. Oh my gosh, they’re poly. Oh my gosh. They identify as this is this, and God sees parent wound.
Dan: Mm-hmm.
Laurie: sees the need to be to belong. First. It’s the whole, please excuse my dear Aunt Sally, the parentheses, exponents, we have an order of operations in math.
God has an order of operations that he wants to work with them. So if I was a friend of a parent whose kids we’re identifying as LGTQ and not following Jesus or my kids we’re not follow Jesus, I would be, this is my controlling mom claws.
Dan: I see
Laurie: I would be.
Dan: holding up [00:41:00] your hands like claws. All right, Uhhuh.
Laurie: I’d be begging the Lord Jesus, take my hands off of them.
I surrender to you, Lord, help me. How do you want me to reach out to them Today when I’d walk with people, I’d be like, I need to send ’em 92 verses today and tell ’em blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And the Holy Spirit would be like, we’re just send him a meme. Send them a joke. And I was like, what? But it’s building.
Just love them right now where they’re like, just with your mouth, Lori, my goodness. Chill. But the, it was a whole relationship that the Lord was building and, um, in order to do his timing and will and work in them. And so he cares more about these kids than you do mom and dad. He cares more about your friend’s kids.
And he is at work at every minute of the day.
Dan: Yes, I agree with that. And perhaps one thing I admire about you, Lori, is of all your identities, you’re a mother. [00:42:00] you run a ministry, you’re a business owner, you’re an author, you’re a same sex attracted person by natural. That’s your natural orientation. You choose what order you’re gonna, put your identities
Laurie: Yes.
Dan: I’m a disciple of Christ first. And, and the world wants us to like, you know, change the order of those things. And
Laurie: So good.
Dan: just remember what matters the most here, let’s, let’s put our identity. I’m, I am a child of God. I’m a disciple of Christ. I’ve made promises and covenants to God. Those come first
Laurie: Yes.
Dan: everything else is secondary to that. I think, that helps too. It’s what
Laurie: Yes.
Dan: you gonna prioritize is your identity.
Laurie: I love that because even the world would be like, well, mom should be first. I mean, God, wink, wink, but mom, and then I’m like, eh, poor God.
Dan: Uh huh. Right, right. Yeah. Yeah. Very good. This has been such a great discussion. Where can people go to learn more about your work,
Laurie: Yeah.
Dan: and all the good things you’re doing?
Laurie: Oh, I’m so glad. Um, you can go [00:43:00] to lori krieg.com, L-A-U-R-I-E-K-R-I-E-G, or follow me on Instagram, or I also work for the Center for Faith, sexuality, and Gender. You can go to center for faith.com. We’ve got a ton of stuff coming out there. We have a parenting video series coming out in September. We have a book coming out in January with inter Varsity.
I just wanna help and resource people with what I got before I see Jesus someday. So happy to share.
Dan: Very good. Thank you.
Laurie: So welcome. Thank you.
Dan: Thank you for listening to this episode. If there’s anything in here that you’ve found, hey. I could use some help in this area in my marriage, or I would really like help taking down these walls or navigating these challenges. Sometimes bringing in a neutral third party that’s a professional that works with marriages all the time can be just the thing you need so that you can see things that you’re missing so that you can be coached on and helped through the growth that, uh, that’s ahead of you.
So you can have more faith and more joy and more excitement and fun in your relationship again. [00:44:00] Or you might be in a great marriage and you wanna take things to the next level and go even deeper and explore what your full potential is as a couple. Either way, I invite you to check out get your marriage on.com.
I have a link in the corner that says free training or talk about this very topic. So, uh, don’t hesitate. Go to get your marriage on.com. Meanwhile. Please share this podcast with your married friends. I promise they will. Thank you for life, and now it’s your turn to go get your marriage on. Talk to you next week.
Okay.
