Sid Roth - Problems Communicating with Your Spouse? with Craig Hill
Sid Roth: Hello. I'm Sid Roth your investigative reporter. One out of two marriages are in divorce and it's not getting better, it's getting worse. There's something wrong. There's something terribly wrong. And many of you have never considered that there is an invasion in the invisible world to destroy your marriage. Aren't you sick and tired of being hurt or being used to hurt your spouse? Isn't there something better to life than what you have? My guest Craig Hill says there is. You, well you're an expert in marriage. How long have you been married, Craig?
Craig Hill: Well I've been married 23 years, Sid, and I experienced exactly what you just said. You know, I found out there were supernatural forces working against my marriage and I didn't realize that. When my wife and I got married we loved each other and our plan was never to hurt each other, but to obviously we got married to help each other, and to want to be together. But you know, very short after...
Sid Roth: No one gets married for to destroy it or they wouldn't bother getting married. They all feel it's forever.
Craig Hill: That's right. And you know what happened, shortly after I got married I found out that my wife would end up crying all the time. She would end up being hurt by me all the time. I mean, not physically, but emotionally. And it seemed like everything I tried she always just, it just made matters worse. She felt worse and worse, and worse.
Sid Roth: Wait a second. You're a smart person. You see you're hurting your wife. You really, you didn't want to hurt her, did you?
Craig Hill: No, no.
Sid Roth: But you were. So why couldn't you just stop whatever you were doing that was causing the hurt.
Craig Hill: You know, I couldn't understand what it was that was hurting her. And I tried and tried for seven years to try to understand. And you know what my conclusion was, Sid?
Sid Roth: What's that?
Craig Hill: I concluded there's just something wrong with my wife. She must need a lot of counseling or she must need a lot of help. There is just something emotionally wrong with her because she seemed to be emotional about everything, you know. I mean, even things that I didn't think should matter and they mattered to her, and she'd be upset and unhappy, and cry, and be angry with me, and I just felt like I must be a terrible person to cause somebody this much pain. And I could not understand what it was that was doing that until seven years into our marriage.
Sid Roth: But you know something? You thought she was the problem.
Craig Hill: Exactly.
Sid Roth: Isn't that what happens? You say, I know what I'm going to do. I'll divorce my wife and I won't have a problem.
Craig Hill: Sure.
Sid Roth: That's the natural way.
Craig Hill: And of course, what people don't realize two things. They don't realize that they are carrying with them the seed of that problem, which they will plant in any other field. I mean, they can...
Sid Roth: What happens when people get divorced normally?
Craig Hill: Well there's a destructive force that obviously they carry with them a lot of wounding and hurt.
Sid Roth: So they into the new marriage. Does the new marriage usually work out?
Craig Hill: Well I think the statistic you were quoting, 50 percent are in divorce. I think for second marriages, it's between 70 and 80 percent.
Sid Roth: So it's like we don't learn whatever lesson we're supposed to learn, we don't learn.
Craig Hill: Apparently statistically, it's worse. People carry more with them. And there are two problems. One is they carry seed with them that they plant in the next marriage and the second problem is they don't realize there is literally supernatural forces that are working against them to destroy their marriage. The Bible talks about these kind of forces, but very few people understand that these things are real and actually impact people.
Sid Roth: So what happened in your marriage?
Craig Hill: Well in our marriage, finally after seven years, I had a personal relationship with God where he would speak to me and I had an experience where God spoke to me at a particular time and gave me a key that unlocked something in my marriage, Sid, something that I didn't know before that I never understood. And actually the experience happened first with one of my children because I noticed the same thing was beginning to happen with my children. They were only four and one at that time. I have two sons. They're probably, this was probably 12, 13, well maybe 15 years ago now, something like that. But what began to happen, I got into an argument with my son and he was only four years old, in a restaurant. This would be a common experience, I suppose for a lot of people.
Sid Roth: Sure.
Craig Hill: I was trying to get him to eat his food.
Sid Roth: Sounds familiar.
Craig Hill: Anybody that has small children has had this experience. And while I was in the middle of this argument, this power struggle with him, what had happened, he had hamburger. And the moment it had come I had cut the hamburger in half, and he teared up, looked at me and said, "You ruined it". And the thing that I failed to recognize is that I had been making a big deal out the fact that his plate of food was his, because he was four years old. So I just released his plate of food to him, let him put on his own ketchup and his own, cut his own food and that sort of thing. And here I just reached into his plate and violated that. And so he was crying and I was trying to get him to eat the food. He was saying, "You ruined it. You have to fix it". I said, "I'm not going to fix it". "Well then you have to buy me another one". I said, "I'm not buying you another one. Those cost money". And God stopped me in the middle of this interchange with my son and he said, "What are you doing"? And I said, "Well I'm trying to get my son to eat his food". And God spoke to me and he said, he said to me, "You're not just trying to get him to eat his food. What you have done," he said, "this discussion isn't even about hamburgers. This discussion is about his identity. This discussion is about his value as a person". And God said to me, "Without realizing it, you communicated to him a message that he is worthless, that he means nothing". And I thought, what are you talking about, God, I don't understand that. And God said, "See, you made a big deal out of how that's his plate of food and you also made a big deal out of how as a four-year-old he's not allowed to put his hands in any other's people's space, and then you reached right into his space, you cut his hamburger and by doing that you communicated a message to him that he's not a real person, that he's worthless, that has no value in your sight". And God said to me, "He's actually crying over the fact that he has no value in your sight. He's not crying over the hamburger". And so I decided to check that out with him. And my son's name was Josh. And I said, "Josh, listen, when I reached over and cut your hamburger, did I make you feel like I don't care about you, like I don't love you"? He said, "Yes, dad". I said, "Now Josh, when I further threatened to spank you and became angry with you, did I make you feel like eating that hamburger was important to me than you are as my son"? He said, "Yes, dad". And I said, "Josh, God just spoke that to me and I never saw that before. That was so wrong of me to do that that way without even asking you. Would you please forgive me"? And he said, "Yes, dad". And you know it was over for him instantly.
Sid Roth: What about your wife?
Craig Hill: And right after I had this experience even as I was walking out of the restaurant, I heard God speak to me again, Sid, and he said, "You know what just happened to your son"? I said, "Yes". God said, "You do that same thing to your wife all the time. You cut her hamburger". And I mean not literally, but he said, "What you do to your wife is often times you communicate a message to her heart, you're worthless".
Sid Roth: Give me an example of something you might have done to communicate that to your wife.
Craig Hill: I had an experience one time of coming late, two hours later than I said I was going to come home, and that she was angry with me as a result of that. And I had reasons why I was late and we argued about all those reasons. Now this happened, again, after that experience. And I heard God speak to me again in the middle of that, and he said, "Son, you're not talking about being late. You're talking about value again. You're communicating a message to her, you're worthless. You don't mean anything. You're not worth spending time with".
Sid Roth: Craig, you're touching a lot nerves right now. We'll be right back because there is hope for your marriage, not in the natural, but in the supernatural. Be right back after this.
Sid Roth: Hello. I'm Sid Roth your investigative reporter and oh, have we touched on nerves. Are you devaluing your spouse and not even realizing it? Are you hurting your husband? Are you saying by your actions you have no worth? Craig, you told me that God taught you something in a restaurant.
Craig Hill: Yes.
Sid Roth: With your son who you love. You'd give your life for your son.
Craig Hill: Right.
Sid Roth: And you were devaluing him.
Craig Hill: Right.
Sid Roth: But God told you something else about yourself in the restaurant.
Craig Hill: You know, a thing that happened as I was sitting there, God reminded me of a Bible verse that I had read where Jesus said, "Having eyes you don't see, having ears you don't hear. You have a hardened heart". And that's what I heard God speak to me. He said, "That's happening to you right now. You have hardened heart. You think you're talking about hamburger, but this has nothing to do with a meal. This has everything to do with the value of your son". Now what I learned that day, Sid, is that there's two levels of communication. There's what I call a topical level and a relational level. And on a topical level, people are discussing issues, why were you late, who takes out the garbage, why did you spend that money, why didn't you do this. In marriage, you know, people discuss all these various things on a topical level. And what they don't see is that underneath that topical level there is a relational level where they're communicating valueless messages to one another: you're worthless, you don't mean anything, you're of no value. And that's the level of people respond to. That's what they're responding on a heart level to that and not really realizing that. And so I've noticed that couples will go round and round, and round on a topical issue never dealing with the value issue.
Sid Roth: Not having nothing to do with the subject even.
Craig Hill: That's right.
Sid Roth: I mean, many times I'll talk to my wife and I'll realize there's a problem and I will approach it logically.
Craig Hill: That's right.
Sid Roth: And I won't even touch the surface of the problem.
Craig Hill: That's right. I remember one couple came to me and they shared this story with me. Here was a husband driving home with his wife and son on the way from an event and he was just wanting to do something to really honor his wife, do something special for her. And he remembered how much she loved ice cream and specifically ice cream from the Dairy Queen store.
Sid Roth: My wife, too.
Craig Hill: Yeah. He said, "Honey, how would you like to stop at Dairy Queen"? She said, "Oh, that would wonderful. Let's do that". So they went to Dairy Queen and what he didn't realize is, again, I believe there are negative, supernatural forces that work against people's lives to destroy their marriage, and people don't recognize it, don't realize it, and they walk right into a trap and don't even know it. That's what happened to this man in Dairy Queen invariably. He walked into Dairy Queen, looked up on the menu with his wife and said to her a very innocent statement or comment, "Honey, what would you like to have"? Well she looked on the menu and she said, "I think I'd like a banana split". He looked up on the menu and replied, "Four dollars and 50 cents for a banana split"! And she replied, "All you ever think about is money. You're totally selfish and greedy".
Sid Roth: You know what I've noticed the all, and then the husband response, "Well I thought about it at that time, but I normally don't do that". That's what's going on in the husband's mind. But what's going on in the wife's mind has nothing to do with the money.
Craig Hill: It didn't have to do, see honestly, he thought they were talking about ice cream and how expensive ice cream was. That's what he thought they were talking about. And again, that was the topical issue. But underneath that what he did not realize is that he just sent his wife a relational message that was very simple: you're not four dollars and 50 cents. You're not the price.
Sid Roth: It's awful when you really hear that?
Craig Hill: Sure. If you walk up to any person, man or woman, family member or anyone else, look them in the eyes and say, you're not worth four dollars and 50 cents, well that would hurt any wife.
Sid Roth: Sure.
Craig Hill: Anybody would be hurt over that. And what happened was this man did that and didn't realize he had done it. Now I believe that that was set up in the supernatural realm.
Sid Roth: After it was set up, what should he have done to correct it?
Craig Hill: Well he needed to do is to recognize the relational level of communication. And what I found in marriage, what I found in my own marriage, when I discovered this principle of relational communication that every time I got in an argument with my wife, we were not talking about what I thought we were talking about, ice cream or being late.
Sid Roth: So if you're not talking about what you thought you were talking about, how do you know what you're talking about?
Craig Hill: Here's how you know. You get a clue when your wife gets angry with you or your husband closes up and withdraws, or your husband is spending more and more time at work and not coming home, not wanting to be with you, and you think, well he just doesn't love me. No, chances are what's happened is there's a relational message that's been communicated, you're worthless, and what husbands tend to do is close up and what wives tend to do is criticize. And those two things are pretty consistent.
Sid Roth: A lot of divorces.
Craig Hill: With most people. So what do you do about it? Well when your husband closes up and withdraws or when your wife criticizes that is a sure sign that you just sent a relational message, you're worthless. So what did the man in the ice cream store need to do? Well when he gets a response coming back to an innocent question or an innocent comment, four dollars and 50 cents for a banana split, which he thought was innocent, and he gets a reply back, "You're selfish. You don't love me. You don't care about me," in anger, that's a pretty good indication that we're not talking about the price of ice cream. We're not talking about a topical issue. We’re talking about a value message that he did not see. And you know, one of the best pictures I've ever seen...
Sid Roth: Would you hold that thought.
Craig Hill: Yes.
Sid Roth: Because your whole destiny, your whole marriage is at stake by really opening your ears and opening your eyes to really see what's going on in the invisible world. We'll be right back after this.
Sid Roth: Hello, Sid Roth. I'm here with Craig Hill. I know there are people whose marriages are going to be so radically changed. Craig, you were telling about the whole issue that if it had been me I would have said, "Ice cream, four dollars! I have a problem with spending so much on an ice cream cone". But that's it. I made the comment and it's true. I don't even think about it any more. What's going on with my wife?
Craig Hill: Now what I found is that often times there's a relational message in our speech that we just are totally blind to, unaware of. And when we don't see the relational messages then we can't even apologize. And what happened with this man...
Sid Roth: It's really a trap.
Craig Hill: Yeah. This man was just totally taken aback and wondering why is she having such a response. I mean, why is she flying off the handle in anger about an innocent comment about the price of ice cream, and of course, himself being totally blinded to the area that or to the fact that there was a relational message of you're worthless taking place, which he needed to deal with. And of course without dealing with that, just staying on the ice cream level, he can't ever do anything with her to understand her heart. But you know what I think most people don't realize is that there really are supernatural forces in the spirit realm that set people up to fall into these kind of traps without even realizing it, without even recognizing it. People don't understand that there are spirits in the supernatural realm whose purpose it is to destroy marriages and to destroy specific marriages on purpose. And I saw a movie one time about the American Revolution. It was called, "The Shot Heard Around the World". And the way this movie depicted it, is the first shot was not even fired by the Americans or the British. But here were two lines of soldiers facing each other and the two generals talking in between, and they were making some headway in negotiation. But unbeknownst to anybody, over here in the bushes was an arms dealer who didn't care anything about either side and he, from the bushes, shot the second in command British officer dead. And when that man fell over dead, of course the British assumed that it was an American colonist who had shot him. They returned a volley of fire against the colonists, who returned a volley of fire against the British, and the war was on. Now I don't know if that movie is historically accurate, but I thought that was a good depiction of what happens so many times in people's marriages like happened to this man in the ice cream store, where really there was a shot fired against his wife that through his mouth. And the reason I say it's like the arms dealer in the bushes firing the shot, because he didn't even know it happened.
Sid Roth: Yeah. Let me ask you a question. Should I just roll over and play dead? I mean, should I just avoid every argument possible? Should I just be a wimp?
Craig Hill: No, there's no way you can avoid arguments. But you know what? How do you solve that is when you get an angry response from a marriage partner or a husband withdrawing and closing up you can know that this very thing has happened. There's been a relational message communicated.
Sid Roth: Okay. You know it's happened. What do you do?
Craig Hill: So what you do is you want to deal on a relational level, not on a topical level, and here's what I noticed. The first step is you want to apologize to your husband or apologize to your wife, not for, for example in this case, not for saying, I'm sorry I said ice cream is so expensive. No, that's not the area you want to apologize for. I'm sorry for making you feel like I don't love you, like I don't care about you. Now I notice one of the reasons people never do that is because on the topical level they're right. And see, what I found is it doesn't matter if you're right or wrong about coming home late, about how you spent the money.
Sid Roth: So in other words, you're saying you apologize for the real problem.
Craig Hill: For the real problem, which is not I came home late, not I spent this money, not I did this wrong or didn't do that, or whatever the topic is.
Sid Roth: What happens if the wife or the husband says, well your apologies are cheap, your action doesn't change.
Craig Hill: Yeah. What happens is people will say that when they sense that there's not a sincerity in your heart. Here's what I found happened, is that when I, after seven years in my marriage, when I had this experience I was sharing earlier in the broadcast today, and I began to understand what I had done to my wife's heart. See, I personally never understood that before. I had always just thought she's irrational, she's responding irrationally.
Sid Roth: She's got a problem.
Craig Hill: And that's what this man in the ice cream store thought.
Sid Roth: But you're saying that you were contributing to the problem unintentionally.
Craig Hill: Unintentionally. And that's why I was never able to apologize is because I didn't even understand what was happening.
Sid Roth: Or if you did apologize it would have been insincere and she would have picked up on it.
Craig Hill: She would have known it because in reality I didn't understand what the problem was. But once I understood what I had done to her identity, what I had done in sending her a message, you're worthless, and I began to apologize on that level instead of saying, I'm sorry for coming home late or I'm sorry for driving too fast.
Sid Roth: Okay. Let's get to where the rubber meets the road, your own marriage. What did you do? What happened?
Craig Hill: I then began to, when this event would take place and I'd get a reaction coming back at me in anger and criticism, I would recognize, oh I must have sent her a message, you're worthless, and then I can discover what is that. And I'll tell you what I did, is I didn't just do that on my own, but I asked God to show me, what did I do exactly? And as God would show me exactly what it was then I could apologize and say, I'm sorry for making you feel worthless by doing what I did or saying what I said.
Sid Roth: So you actually say, I'm sorry for making you feel worthless.
Craig Hill: Well I'm making, the actual language I usually use, Sid was I would say, I'm sorry for making you feel like I don't love you. The truth is I love you, but I can see, and this is what caused her to understand my sincerity and the genuineness of my heart is that when I said, I can see that by saying what I said or by driving the way I did, or by coming home late, or by whatever the topical problem was, by doing that that way, that I made you feel like I don't care about you and like you don't mean anything to me.
Sid Roth: Okay. By being sincere, by doing that one time, did your marriage change or did it take a while?
Craig Hill: You know, it began to change the very first time because it was the first ray of hope that came to my wife where she said, he actually understands my heart, he actually understands what the real problem is. For seven years she had been trying to explain to me what the problem was and I had never been able to hear or understand it. By the way, I have found in talking to a lot of couples, this is not just true for men. A lot of women listening to the broadcast today are saying, I wish my husband could hear this.
Sid Roth: And everyone that has that thought right now, everyone that says, I wish my husband could hear this, means you're not listening.
Craig Hill: That's right.
Sid Roth: Am I right?
Craig Hill: That's right because what I found is this thing we're talking about does not just go one way. It goes equally from a wife to a husband.
Sid Roth: You were just talking about the blame shift.
Craig Hill: Yes.
Sid Roth: Of if they would only change my marriage would be Heaven on Earth. So I'll change and I'll find someone else that's perfect.
Craig Hill: Right.
Sid Roth: And then as you said, the statistics are as bad in the second marriage as the first, if not worse.
Craig Hill: Well sure because everybody is carrying seed with them. And it doesn't really matter what field you plant your seed in, you're going to produce the same crop. And of course, people think the problem is in the field and in reality it's in the seed.
Sid Roth: Is there hope for every marriage?
Craig Hill: I believe there's hope for every single marriage. I don't believe that there really is a marriage, and I know there are people listening today, Sid. I believe that there are people listening right now and watching this broadcast that are saying, you don't know my marriage. You know, I want to tell you right now, there is hope for your marriage. You can get involved with the supernatural. You can release the power of God in your life today. You can experience the same thing that Jan and I experienced in our marriage, which is the supernatural power of God intervening and beginning to change something in your marriage.
Sid Roth: How is your marriage today?
Craig Hill: You know, my marriage is wonderful.
Sid Roth: Did you hear that? His marriage is wonderful.
Craig Hill: I love being with my wife.
Sid Roth: He loves being with his wife. That can be true for your marriage. Don't give up. Don't yield to that force in the invisible world that's trying to destroy your marriage. Link with the force of the invisible world that's trying to heal your marriage–God. Turn to him. Say, God, I want you to open my eyes so I can really see what's happening to my spouse. Open my ears so I can really hear what's going on with my children and with my spouse. And if you will do this God says, in the day that you seek him with all of your heart, in that day he will be found. He knows your name. He has you watching me right now. He's calling you by name. He knows you. He loves you. He's got a destiny for you.