Bare Marriage

Latest Episodes:

Episode 281: You Shouldn't Iron Your Cheating Husband's Clothes--Plus We Answer Your Questions! May 01, 2025

Show notes

It's an Ask Me Anything episode! Keith and I open talking about the viral video where a woman claims that she felt called by God to iron her husband's clothes before he left for the weekend to be with his mistress. And then Rebecca and I answer your questions about drawing boundaries, dating, protecting kids from abuse in church, and more!

OUR SPONSOR:

Thank you to our sponsor, Zondervan and the book Saving Face. The church needs to get away from harmful tropes, and call us towards true community based on vulnerability and safety. Aimee Byrd points the way!

TO SUPPORT US:

Join our Patreon for as little as $5 a month to support our work
For tax deductible donations in the U.S., support Good Fruit Faith Initiative through the Bosko Foundation
And check out our Merch, or any of our courses!
Join our email list!

LINKS MENTIONED:

Our book She Deserves Better
Our new book The Marriage You Want
Last week's podcast on rumination and our one-sheet download for The Love Dare

Support the show

Join Sheila at Bare Marriage.com!
Check out her books:

The Great Sex Rescue
She Deserves Better
The Marriage You Want and the Study Guide
The Good Girl's Guide to Great Sex
and The Good Guy's Guide to Great Sex

And she has an Orgasm Course and a Libido course too!
Check out all her courses, FREE resources, social media, books, and so much more at Sheila's LinkTree.

Episode 280: The Problems with the Book The Love Dare--And How It Papers Over Real Problems Apr 24, 2025

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The Love Dare, based on the movie Fireproof, has been a huge best-selling marriage book for two decades. But does it actually contain good advice? Today on episode 280 of the Bare Marriage podcast, we show how The Love Dare simply regurgitates all the typical harmful evangelical marriage advice, telling women to make themselves smaller; never bring up issues; paper over problems; and, of course, never divorce, even if you’re being abused.

OUR SPONSOR:

TO SUPPORT US:

Join our Patreon for as little as $5 a month to support our work
For tax deductible donations in the U.S., support Good Fruit Faith Initiative through the Bosko Foundation
And check out our Merch, or any of our courses!
Join our email list!

LINKS MENTIONED:

Our Harmful Materials stickers to put on your problematic books
All of our one sheets:
Our new book The Marriage You Want
Join Sheila on her social media channels: Instagram, YouTube, Threads, Facebook
Our podcast on forgiveness after trauma

Support the show

Join Sheila at Bare Marriage.com!
Check out her books:

The Great Sex Rescue
She Deserves Better
The Marriage You Want and the Study Guide
The Good Girl's Guide to Great Sex
and The Good Guy's Guide to Great Sex

And she has an Orgasm Course and a Libido course too!
Check out all her courses, FREE resources, social media, books, and so much more at Sheila's LinkTree.

Episode 279: Saving Face: Finding My Self, God, and One Another Outside a Defaced Church (feat. Aimee Byrd) Apr 17, 2025

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What if vulnerability and authenticity are vital for true community? And what if we can never truly know God, and each other, until we know ourselves? It's episode 279 of the Bare Marriage podcast, featuring Aimee Byrd talking about her new book!

Aimee Byrd's Book Saving Face
Aimee Byrd's Substack

TO SUPPORT US:

Join our Patreon for as little as $5 a month to support our work
For tax deductible donations in the U.S., support Good Fruit Faith Initiative through the Bosko Foundation
And check out our Merch, or any of our courses!
Join our email list!

LINKS TO THINGS MENTIONED:

Our new book The Marriage You Want

Support the show

Join Sheila at Bare Marriage.com!
Check out her books:

The Great Sex Rescue
She Deserves Better
The Marriage You Want and the Study Guide
The Good Girl's Guide to Great Sex
and The Good Guy's Guide to Great Sex

And she has an Orgasm Course and a Libido course too!
Check out all her courses, FREE resources, social media, books, and so much more at Sheila's LinkTree.

Episode 278: Why Don't Evangelical Women Want to Marry Evangelical Men? Apr 10, 2025

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Al Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, recently did a podcast bemoaning the fact that young women, unlike young men, are giving up on the "creation order" and abandoning marriage. But he distorts the argument, and misses the main problem: Women want to get married, but too many of the men available don't make good partners.
WITH THANKS TO OUR SPONSOR:

Beth Allison Barr's insightful and important new book Becoming the Pastor's Wife: How Marriage Replaced Ordination as a Woman's Path to Ministry. Learn how women got pushed out of ministry positions in favour of marriage, and what we can do about it.

My recent article about Becoming the Pastor's Wife

TO SUPPORT US:

Join our Patreon for as little as $5 a month to support our work
For tax deductible donations in the U.S., support Good Fruit Faith Initiative through the Bosko Foundation
And check out our Merch, or any of our courses!
Join our email list!

LINKS TO THINGS MENTIONED:

Our new book The Marriage You Want
Al Mohler's "Briefing"
The original Wall Street Journal Article: American Women Are Giving up on Marriage
European study about fertility and attitude towards household tasks
Time study about mothers based on marital status

Support the show

Join Sheila at Bare Marriage.com!
Check out her books:

The Great Sex Rescue
She Deserves Better
The Marriage You Want and the Study Guide
The Good Girl's Guide to Great Sex
and The Good Guy's Guide to Great Sex

And she has an Orgasm Course and a Libido course too!
Check out all her courses, FREE resources, social media, books, and so much more at Sheila's LinkTree.

Episode 277: Why Emotions Aren't Feminine (and Why Women Aren't More Emotional!) Apr 03, 2025

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So many evangelical pastors teach that men are rational while women are emotional. But is this true? And if women are more emotionally mature than men, then doesn't that mean that men need to learn from women? Listen in as Keith and Sheila dissect several clips from Josh Howerton, Emerson Eggerichs, Josh McPherson, and Matt Walsh.

WITH THANKS TO OUR SPONSOR:

TO SUPPORT US:

Join our Patreon for as little as $5 a month to support our work
For tax deductible donations in the U.S., support Good Fruit Faith Initiative through the Bosko Foundation
And check out our Merch, or any of our courses!
Join our email list!

LINKS TO THINGS MENTIONED:

Our new book The Marriage You Want
Open letter to Focus on the Family
Our one-sheet download on the problems with Love & Respect
Emerson Eggerichs’ sermon dissection and the podcast that goes with it
Carolyn Custis James' Maelstrom
Josh Howerton clip
Matt Walsh post
Our podcast on emotions with Becky Castle Miller

Support the show

Join Sheila at Bare Marriage.com!
Check out her books:

The Great Sex Rescue
She Deserves Better
The Marriage You Want and the Study Guide
The Good Girl's Guide to Great Sex
and The Good Guy's Guide to Great Sex

And she has an Orgasm Course and a Libido course too!
Check out all her courses, FREE resources, social media, books, and so much more at Sheila's LinkTree.

Episode 276: Is Reading Romance Novels for Women the Same as Watching Porn? Mar 27, 2025

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We know watching porn is wrong--but are romance novels just as bad? We've often heard that comparison made: Sure, guys watch porn, but remember that women read novels! Today Rebecca and I talk about when the comparison may be fair, and when it isn't. And we ask: how should we see romance novels or erotic novels? Listen in and see what you think--as we try to reason it through!

WITH THANKS TO OUR SPONSOR:

And join Beth Allison Barr and Karen Swallow Prior and me for a FREE webinar TONIGHT, March 27, at 9 pm EST. Registration is FREE.

TO SUPPORT US:

Join our Patreon for as little as $5 a month to support our work
For tax deductible donations in the U.S., support Good Fruit Faith Initiative through the Bosko Foundation
And check out our Merch, or any of our courses!
Join our email list!

LINKS TO THINGS MENTIONED:

Our new book The Marriage You Want
Our puberty course for parents to talk to kids about puberty and sex: The Whole Story
Study that Rebecca mentioned about dark romance
Study on how reading erotica can change our behaviour

Support the show

Join Sheila at Bare Marriage.com!
Check out her books:

The Great Sex Rescue
She Deserves Better
The Marriage You Want and the Study Guide
The Good Girl's Guide to Great Sex
and The Good Guy's Guide to Great Sex

And she has an Orgasm Course and a Libido course too!
Check out all her courses, FREE resources, social media, books, and so much more at Sheila's LinkTree.

Episode 275: Becoming the Pastor's Wife feat. Beth Allison Barr Mar 20, 2025

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What if marriage replaced ordination as a woman's path to ministry? What if we've systematically erased the stories of women ministering in the past, and in so doing silenced women's voices and removed opportunities to serve Jesus? Today Beth Allison Barr joins us to talk about her new book Becoming the Pastor's Wife!

REGISTER FOR OUR FREE WEBINAR
Join Beth Allison Barr, Sheila, and Karen Swallow Prior on Thursday, March 27 at 9 pm for a FREE webinar (recording will be available afterwards if you can't make it live).
Register here
BECOMING THE PASTOR'S WIFE
Find the book here
TO SUPPORT US

Join our Patreon for as little as $5 a month to support our work
For tax deductible donations in the U.S., support Good Fruit Faith Initiative through the Bosko Foundation
And check out our Merch, or any of our courses!
Join our email list!

THINGS MENTIONED IN THE PODCAST

Our new book The Marriage You Want (read the Amazon reviews!)
Everywhere you can get it
Keith's series on The Danvers Statement
Our Podcast on the Danvers Statement
Beth's original podcast with us about The Making of Biblical Womanhood:

Support the show

Join Sheila at Bare Marriage.com!
Check out her books:

The Great Sex Rescue
She Deserves Better
The Marriage You Want and the Study Guide
The Good Girl's Guide to Great Sex
and The Good Guy's Guide to Great Sex

And she has an Orgasm Course and a Libido course too!
Check out all her courses, FREE resources, social media, books, and so much more at Sheila's LinkTree.

Episode 274: The Marriage You Actually Want Mar 13, 2025

Show notes

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The Marriage You Want is LIVE! Our book launched this week, and in this week's podcast we take a broad, investigative look into the state of evangelical marriage publishing, and why there has very little change in the top 10 books in decades. Plus what it means to have SAFE and HEALTHY marriage advice! Come celebrate with us in episode 274 of Bare Marriage!

THE MARRIAGE YOU WANT

Order it on Amazon
Other places to buy!

TO SUPPORT US

Join our Patreon for as little as $5 a month to support our work
For tax deductible donations in the U.S., support Good Fruit Faith Initiative through the Bosko Foundation
And check out our Merch, or any of our courses!
Join our email list!

THINGS MENTIONED IN THE PODCAST

Download our healthy sexuality rubric and see how the bestselling marriage books fared!
Our podcast on the 5 faulty premises of Christian books
Our analysis of the Christian marriage publishing industry

Support the show

Join Sheila at Bare Marriage.com!
Check out her books:

The Great Sex Rescue
She Deserves Better
The Marriage You Want and the Study Guide
The Good Girl's Guide to Great Sex
and The Good Guy's Guide to Great Sex

And she has an Orgasm Course and a Libido course too!
Check out all her courses, FREE resources, social media, books, and so much more at Sheila's LinkTree.

Episode 273: Are Traditionally Christian Marriages Linked to More Immaturity? The Data Speaks! Mar 06, 2025

Show notes

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It's episode 273 of the Bare Marriage podcast! We found that certain beliefs are correlated most with emotional immaturity--passive aggressiveness; outbursts of anger; emotional dysregulation. In our research for our book The Marriage You Want, we found that when couples believe the husband should have the tie breaking vote, they score lower on maturity.
Is this because emotionally immature people are drawn to these beliefs? Or do these beliefs hamper maturity? Today we talk about why it's actually both, and what that means for our own personal responsibility.
THE MARRIAGE YOU WANT

Order it on Amazon
Other non-Amazon links!
Send your pre-order receipts to preorder@marriageyouwantbook.com to get our pre-order bonus!

TO SUPPORT US

Join our Patreon for as little as $5 a month to support our work
For tax deductible donations in the U.S., support Good Fruit Faith Initiative through the Bosko Foundation
And check out our Merch, or any of our courses!
Join our email list!

THINGS MENTIONED IN THE PODCAST

Download our healthy sexuality rubric and see how the bestselling marriage books fared!
Check out our post on why complementarianism is linked to emotional immaturity and toxic church cultures

Support the show

Join Sheila at Bare Marriage.com!
Check out her books:

The Great Sex Rescue
She Deserves Better
The Marriage You Want and the Study Guide
The Good Girl's Guide to Great Sex
and The Good Guy's Guide to Great Sex

And she has an Orgasm Course and a Libido course too!
Check out all her courses, FREE resources, social media, books, and so much more at Sheila's LinkTree.

Episode 272: Is "Acts of Service" Love Language Really a Cry for Help? All New Bonus Stats! Feb 27, 2025

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What if the "acts of service" love language is masking something else--the totally unequal division of labor that many couples have, and Gary Chapman ignores? Plus does the "physical touch" love language mask something wrong in the bedroom? ALL NEW BONUS STATS today! Some of them aren't even in the new book!

PREODER THE MARRIAGE YOU WANT

Pre-Order on Amazon
Get other links to Pre-Order
Send in your preorder receipt to preorder@marriageyouwantbook.com

TO SUPPORT US

Join our Patreon for as little as $5 a month to support our work
For tax deductible donations in the U.S., support Good Fruit Faith Initiative through the Bosko Foundation
And check out our Merch, or any of our courses!
Join our email list!

THINGS MENTIONED

Our post about the study showing that the love languages are junk science

Support the show

Join Sheila at Bare Marriage.com!
Check out her books:

The Great Sex Rescue
She Deserves Better
The Marriage You Want and the Study Guide
The Good Girl's Guide to Great Sex
and The Good Guy's Guide to Great Sex

And she has an Orgasm Course and a Libido course too!
Check out all her courses, FREE resources, social media, books, and so much more at Sheila's LinkTree.

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