For years, we’ve been showing how the vast majority of Christian marriage books contain toxic teachings.

It started with us reading Love & Respect, and seeing how terrible the sex advice was. When the powers that be ignored us when we tried to bring up concerns (like this Open Letter to Focus on the Family), we decided to start some major research projects, culminating in surveying 20,000 women for our book The Great Sex Rescue. 

We followed that up with She Deserves Better, and with The Good Guy’s Guide to Great Sex and the revamped Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex.

We’ve been doing our Bare Marriage podcast for six years now, focusing on how we can get a healthy view of marriage by examining the toxic stuff that is so often taught, and rejecting it.

But this year, something changes.

It’s time to build something healthy to replace the toxic stuff.

Over the last few years, I keep coming back to these verses in Ecclesiastes 3:

There is a time to scatter stones–to knock down that which has been built in a faulty way. There’s a time to demolish.

But then, there is also a time to gather up those stones and rebuild something new, something better. 

This year, we want to start building. 

We’ve been knocking stones down–and we will continue to do so! Don’t worry; there’s still lots to correct, and my Fixed It For Yous on Instagram will continue!

But we want to start showing what marriage looks like when it’s healthy, not based on toxic stuff. We want to show you how it’s possible to achieve a great marriage without having to hear all that toxic stuff to begin with. We want to raise a generation who never has to read a toxic marriage book.

And so The Marriage You Want is coming on March 11! Based on our survey of another 7000 people, we asked the question, “what is correlated with the best marital outcomes? What kinds of relationship habits get the best outcomes?” And we found the answers! 

This book is fun. It’s validating. It’s achievable. It’s relatable. And it’s chock full of so many graphs and charts for all you people who love data!

Plus we’ve got a study guide for couples to use together, for small group curriculum, even for premarital curriculum (so that no pastor ever has to use Love & Respect again!).

In this book, we’re not tearing down other books or toxic teachings (although we do have a great sidebar on how our data completely disproves the whole premise of the Love & Respect book!).

We’re just painting a picture of a healthy marriage that honors Jesus and makes you both feel intimate, close, and known.

We’ll have a great pre-order bonus coming next week, and a chance to join the launch team (which means you can read the book immediately, and you can get a free audio copy of the book when it comes out!). We just ask you to promise to write a review on Amazon and/or Goodreads, and tell your friends about it.

We’ll have an announcement next week on how you can send in your receipt to get your bonus or join the launch team.

We want to have something to offer those who are rejecting the toxic stuff. 

We want to show you that there’s another way to love God and do marriage than one that suffocates people and relegates them to boxes.

And, quite frankly, we want to start reaching more of the evangelical church.

We’re ever so grateful for all of you who show up every week; who like my posts on social media; who have bought our books and told others about them.

But there are still so many people stuck in places that teach toxic things. We want to reach them and rescue them with hope.

That’s where you come in.

Things will be changing for Bare Marriage online in 2025.

A lot changed in 2024 that showed us how fragile so much of our reach to our audience is. Our Facebook page was stolen in August (thankfully we were able to rebuild a vibrant page! Please follow us there).

Twitter (or X) has fallen apart and become so toxic, and so I’ve left there for Threads and Bluesky. I used to have a vibrant X page, and that was a big loss for me.

And blogging has taken a steep decline. Though my traffic has actually kept relatively stable compared to most blogs, the truth is that most people don’t consume information from blogs and websites anymore. They consume it on social media, and especially on video.

And so this year, we’ve realized two things:

1. We can’t rely on any one platform to reach people, because all of these social media platforms can fall apart at any minute
2. We have to invest time and energy in more video content

After 16 years as a blogger, that’s a lot to change!

So here’s our plan for 2025:

1. We’re going to post here, at the blog, three times a week rather than four: Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. 

I still am, at heart, a blogger, and I need a place to be able to process all my thoughs and so I can share big posts with people. It’s much harder to share social media posts when someone asks a question about 1 Corinthians 7, or vaginismus, or the “every man’s battle” idea.

And so we’ll be here every week, just not on Fridays.

2. We’re going to start a Substack.

My most in-depth post of the week will also be cross-posted on Substack. I know so many consume most of their long-form media through the Substack app, and it is super easy! So I want to make sure I’m there too.

I haven’t published anything yet, but you can subscribe to me now! It will be coming in the next few weeks.

3. We’re going to post more shorts on YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok.

On Fridays, instead of a blog post as we’ve done in the past, Rebecca and I will do a quick video round-up of the week, with some of the things we’ve been thinking behind the scenes, reactions to our podcast from the week, some of the comments on social media that got us thinking, and more!

So make sure you’re subscribed to YouTube and Instagram to not miss those!

4. We’ll also be creating some more videos and even podcast series this year (hopefully!)

Thank you to all who answered the call so generously in our fundraiser in December! We do have the funds to start planning for an awesome podcast series, and a series of videos, that can hopefully reach those still in the midst of toxic teachings! More on that as it happens.

5. We’re going to keep up our activity on Threads, Instagram, and Facebook.

When I have something big to share, I’ll likely go there first. So make sure you’re following me there too!

If that feels like a lot…

Here’s the easiest way to keep track of all the cool stuff that’s going on–as well as hear as soon as the launch team opens, or find out when I’m speaking in your area!

Subscribe to our email list. Seriously, this is the most important thing you can do to encourage us and to make sure we can always reach you, even if our online presence gets torpedoed like it did last year!

Plus you’ll get exclusive content! Rebecca writes the post every Friday, and it doesn’t show up anywhere else. And she has an AMAZING open rate, because her posts are so good!

And if you want even more exclusive content, or to be part of the group where we often get our best material from, you can also check out our Patreon!

You all are our best advocates, and our best chance to reaching others.

When you like our posts on social media, and comment (even just to say “way to go!”), you help engagement, which helps other people see it.

When you share things, other people in your social circle will find us.

But no one can keep up with us everywhere. So will you do this for me?

Sometimes I feel overwhelmed at how big the task is.

But then I read your email and your comments and I see that people are finding freedom, healing from toxicity, and getting a healthy view of Jesus again in the process! And that’s wonderful. Jesus didn’t try to overthrow Rome; he worked with a few people, and it grew from there.

It was grassroots.

And Bare Marriage is too. We have 0.1% of the funding of Focus on the Family. But we’re making a huge difference. 

And this year, as we start sharing what healthy looks like, I hope we’ll make even more inroads–with your help.

Let me know: What would you like to see this year? What do you want us to start doing? Let’s talk in the comments!