(upbeat music) - Brian writes in to ask this, Pastor John, I logged into my wife's Facebook account yesterday as I sometimes do in order to keep up with family and friends. I don't really use Facebook, I don't post. My wife was at home and also logged on and she was having a private chat with her best friend.

The message feature pops up automatically in your show and the conversation, so I saw it. And they were talking about me. They were not speaking kindly at all. In fact, they were discussing my faults among comments about my personal struggles with depression. My wife messaged a few extremely private topics to this friend.

I was heartbroken. How would you advise spouses on what they should and should not share with friends or family? - Here are five or six ideas or guidelines that have helped me. Noel and I have faced this and I've blown it a few times and I'll mention one of those to give you hope at the end.

These ideas or guidelines are based on the assumption that the struggles a husband and wife have are normal hardships of getting along when expectations are different and there are more or less frequent disappointments in life. I'm not talking about illegal behaviors or life-threatening situations. So I just wanted to clear that from the beginning.

So here's idea number one or principle number one. I think we should follow Matthew 18, 15, which says, "If you find your brother or sister sinning against you, taking the fall, you go to them first." In other words, there's a real effort not to gossip, the real effort not to tell anybody else what you've just seen or found in a person and how much more spouses, right?

So I'm assuming that there have been serious efforts on the part of a husband or a wife to deal together privately with what their struggles are before these other principles kick into play. Number two, the words of Jesus that we do unto others, what we would have them do unto us is profoundly significant in marriage.

And I feel warranted to say that and to apply that because of the way Paul, amazingly, in Ephesians 5, takes that command, do unto others, he would have them do unto you, and he applies it to a husband's love for his wife. He says, "In the same way, husbands should love their wives as their own bodies." It's like love your neighbor as yourself, applied to husband, "As your own bodies.

He who loves his wife loves himself." So Paul draws out the implication, not only that we should measure our words and our actions by whether we would want our wives or husbands to treat us that way, but also that when we treat each other that way, we're really blessing ourselves.

We're doing something really good for ourselves not to betray each other's trust. So the golden rule becomes hugely significant in whether that woman on Facebook is doing something she would want her husband to do with his friends about her. And if she doesn't want him to do that, she should shut her Facebook.

Number three, the third goes like this. Wives should think long and hard about whether what they are saying to their husbands and about their husbands in public or in private is honoring or respecting their husbands because of Ephesians 5:33. "Let each one of you love his wife and let the wife," actually it says, "love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband," reveres him.

Is this behavior, are these words spoken this way in this time, in this place, a respectful behavior? Similarly, the husbands should think long and hard whether what they're saying about their wives in private or in public honors them as a fellow heir of the grace of life, the way Peter talks in 1 Peter 1, 7.

So that's the third, the principle of respect and reverence and honor. And the fourth one is that we should seek permission from our spouses to share the problems of our marriage with one or two very trusted couples or friends that both of us agree on. This is so important.

This was so important, is so important for Noel and me. We've walked through this numerous times, talked it through numerous times, namely to agree on one couple or one guy or two that I ask her, "May I share with David and John, may I share with them what we talk about?

May I share with them what is so frustrating? May I basically share with them anything in our relationship that I think would be, would enable them to help me love you better?" Which is so different than gossip and venting. So we do that. Noel can say whatever she wants to X and I can say whatever I want to Y, and we have entrusted each other to those friends.

It's a huge thing. You don't do that unless you've got some very close friends. So I can speak freely, she can speak freely 'cause we've agreed. And I would frankly encourage all couples to have those kinds of friends. Do you have friends like that, that you could actually entrust your personal lives to, to know that it will not go beyond them and it will not come back and be used against you?

So get permission. I blew that. I really blew that one time. I can remember so clearly mentioning something in public at church and Noel was so angry with me when I got home because I hadn't talked to her about it. And I was, she was so right about that.

And we got that, we got that healed, but I wanted you to be encouraged. There is one more. I would say finally that even if you have permission to share specific family issues, you should do it with the greatest of care. Things easily degenerate into simply venting our frustrations.

And a wise friend will call us out on that. They'll just call us out. No, you're not speaking in an edifying way here. You're not seeking help out of love here. You just are dumping and this is not helpful. You need to love her better than this or love him better than this and turn towards something more edifying.

We should ask whether we are, ask ourselves whether we are sharing the right amount of detail or is it too much? It could get very unseemly. Whether we are sharing it in the right tone, whether we're using the right medium. Like I doubt that Facebook is ever the right medium.

Good grief. Any kind of media that would run the risk of someone else listening in on what is meant for one person, we would avoid that at all costs. So I have a lot of sympathy for this concern. All of those, it seems to me, should be taken into account.

Even when we're talking with somebody we've both agreed on, we can trust. And of course, I'm assuming that all of this will be in the context of praying for and with our spouse and reading Scripture with our spouse so that we seek help from God who alone can keep us married and bring this relationship to a God-honoring, satisfying situation.

And some of these things I've had to learn in a very hard way, as I said. And I just want to close on the note of hope that if some breach of trust has happened, there is a way forward. There can be repentance and forgiveness. I know that from personal experience.

Noel and I are in a really good place after 46 years, and we've really blown it more than once. That is hope-giving for all of us married couples. Thank you, Pastor John, and thank you for your openness here today. We are closing in on the weekend, and we're closing in on 700 episodes in the Ask Pastor John podcast archive now at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn.

There you can listen to our most popular episodes, and you can search all the episodes we have. You can also send in a question. You can download the apps for the Apple and Android devices, and you can subscribe to the podcast feed. You can do all of that from our landing page.

I'm your host, Tony Reinke. John Piper and I return on Monday to talk about whether or not Christians need to learn to forgive ourselves. We'll see you then. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)