New Man: What made you want to write a book on marriage together?

Stasi: Well, we had a great time writing Captivating together, but we never really desired to write a book on marriage.

John: Who in their right mind would want to dissect their marriage and write about it?

Stasi: But we had been asked about it for quite a while by a whole bunch of people. The truth is that God really moved us to do it. He cares so much about marriages. When we look around, we don't know a marriage that hasn't gone through rough waters at some point. We wanted to bring some hope and encouragement for a more wonderful life story. We're not marriage experts, but we have had a journey together and a life with God together, and we wanted to bring our experiences to readers.

John: Wild at Heart has helped a lot of men find salvation and hope in life. Captivating did the same thing for women. The next thing that people get to after that is their marriage. The Lord has led us to a place where we want to help with this next step—men and women finding that life together.

New Man: Was it challenging to discuss your marriage so much in preparation for this?

Stasi: It was; it opened a lot of closed doors. We were driving home from dinner one night after an argument and I remember John saying, "See, this is why I didn't want to write a book on marriage." We were doing so well before this. But God just stirred us up, and we remembered things that we needed to write about. We had to write this book from a place of honesty and integrity. We went deep into talking about and processing our marriage.

John: This is probably the most transparent book I've ever written, and that's saying something. It's a very vulnerable book. That's the only way to really help people, though. We had to be completely honest about everything we've been through so others could learn.

Stasi: While we were writing this, we had been talking with this young couple. They told us that they had a great marriage and everything was going smoothly, and so they thought God was calling them to start a marriage ministry. We said: "No, that's not your calling. It's much better to have people who have had messy marriages, and then to share how God has come to bring redemption to their story."

New Man: Tell us about the title of the book; how was that chosen?

John: I think the title, Love and War, is the theme that kept coming up. It's really amazing when you think about the movies or stories that you love—from fairy tales to the stories in the Bible—but so many of them are about love and war. Whether it's a girl's or a guy's movie, the man and woman have to fight through a great battle in order to find "happily ever after." And there's a lot required of them. That's why we love those stories.  They have to rise up and pull together.

But most people haven't made the connection: That's your story, too. You find yourself in a love story set in the midst of a war that rages on every day. You have to see yourselves fighting this war together. That's a really key area. Tips and principles don't offer enough. You're not just tinkering with the dials and setting on your marriage. You are living in a great war together. That's what Christianity is all about. Every marriage is under attack, and until you understand that, you won't understand marriage. When bad things happen, you'll blame your spouse or God.

Stasi: I was thinking about how both husbands and wives are required to rise up together. It's essential for each person to find life in God and be willing to face their own brokenness and find healing. To submit to being humbled by God and then offering themselves to Jesus to show them what whey need to become who they should be. It's a valiant undertaking, and it's essential to both people to do it.

The other thing I was thinking is how important marriage is to God, how much every marriage matters to Him.

John: It's of supreme importance. When we were writing the book, I realized that the Bible really starts and ends with marriage. In Genesis you have the first, original marriage. Then when you flip to the end, you read about the bride of Christ and the wedding feast of the Lamb. As a guy, I had never seen that before. I didn't notice what a central part marriage plays.

And that's true for a lot of guys. Women are God's relational gifts to the world. They're the ones who make sure relationships stay a priority. Guys are designed to conquer, attack and build. So it was really good for me, as a guy, to go: "Wait a second. This marriage thing has a lot bigger role in this than I had noticed."

New Man: One of your chapters is titled, "How to Have a Really Good Fight." How do you?

John: Well, the key is to understand who the real enemy in your fight is. Most people don't recognize the ways the enemy is coming against their marriage. If you don't know you have an enemy, your spouse becomes the enemy. And they don’t even have to do anything. It can get to the point where sometimes they can just walk into the room and it feels like they're the enemy. We wanted to unveil the ways in which the enemy gets in.

There are things that go through your head after a fight, sentences that just come in. Things like: "He'll never change"; "She'll never understand me"; "He's always doing that." We make agreements with these statements, but we don't realize that we are agreeing with Satan and his lies. Every married couple has dealt with this, but few people recognize it for what it is. If you don't, you're going to blame it all on your spouse.

Stasi: There's a lot of healing that can come when you learn that you're not actually fighting your spouse. There's a lot of hope and power there.

New Man: Did you feel it was essential to talk about sex?

Stasi: It's absolutely essential to marriage. It's a physical consummation of who you are as a couple. But did I want to talk about it? No way—eek!

John: It's essential to talk about. You should be doing it often and in a way that both of you enjoy. We have a number of younger couples who we're mentoring. It's a amazing to hear how many of them are struggling sexually. These are really good couples. They love Jesus and are walking with God, and yet they are still struggling. And even though our culture is saturated with sex, when you get into marriage, it's not easy. It's a messy issue, and you can go through hard times. People don't want to talk about that. So we wanted to be vulnerable and share with others what we have learned. One of the things we talk about is the importance of praying for your sex life together. We have found that praying for it can bring a lot of healing and redemption.

Stasi: Sexuality is so core to masculinity and femininity. If there are other issues going on in your marriage, it's not long before it shows up in the bedroom.

New Man: What did you learn about each other during this process?

John: Ha! I'm interested to see how Stasi answers because we've never been asked that before. One thing I realized is that so much of my daily life is my work and focusing on the battle going on out there. "How am I doing? Am I making headway? Am I having an impact for the kingdom? Will I be able to provide for my family?"—in doing that, it's way too easy for me to leave Stasi out. As we've been doing this together, I've watched some amazing parts of her come forward. She's really got a knack for this. She's really articulate and insightful, and if we hadn't done this together I might not have known that.  So what did you learn, honey?

Stasi: Well, most people have noticed that John is a really great communicator. We do talk about relationship, and sometimes you're more of the communicator than I am about what's going on with you underneath. One of the things I've noticed about you during this process has been you letting me have my own space. I'm not a good writer, and I think you're an incredible writer. But you've given me my own space to write and kept your hands off and let it be what it is. You've let go of what can sometimes be a perfectionist tendency in yourself and you've given me my own room.

Something else I learned is that you need me. I learned this more deeply. I'm learning more and more how all men need women in their lives. Where they're married or not, women are needed in order for the transformation that God has intended in your life to take place.