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There’s a phrase that’s been thrown around in conversations about men and marriage for a long time: protect and provide. And depending on who you ask, you’ll get very different reactions to it. Some people hear it and feel proud. Others roll their eyes. Some feel like it’s outdated, even offensive. And some couples have quietly built their whole marriage around it without ever questioning what it actually means.

Dr. John Deloney recently said something that really stuck with me. He pointed out that those two words, protect and provide, actually still matter. They’re not the problem. The context is what’s changed. And I think he’s right. But I want to take it a step further, because we need to talk about what protecting and providing actually look like inside your marriage and inside your sexual relationship.

The Old Model Wasn’t Wrong, It Was Just Incomplete

For most of human history, the roles were pretty clear. Men went out and earned money, women managed the home, and protection meant keeping literal threats at bay. That model made sense in a world that looked a certain way.

But the world doesn’t look that way anymore.

Recent data shows that women between the ages of 25 and 35 now out-earn men in that same age bracket. Women run companies, manage finances, handle logistics, and do all of it while often still carrying a disproportionate share of the emotional and domestic load at home. So if a husband’s entire identity as a provider is wrapped up in a paycheck, and his wife is also bringing home a paycheck, where does that leave him? And more importantly, where does that leave the marriage?

And here’s the thing, for those of us in the LDS faith, this isn’t just a cultural trope. This language is literally in the Family Proclamation. It says, “By divine design, fathers are to preside over their families in love and righteousness and are responsible to provide the necessities of life and protection for their families.” Provide. Protection. It’s right there.

So we’re not talking about abandoning a principle. We’re talking about understanding it more fully. Elder Ronald A. Rasband said as recently as 2025 that “preside does not mean dominate,” and that when husbands and wives truly understand their responsibilities, “they will strive together to protect and care for the physical and emotional well-being of their children.” (Ronald A. Rasband, “The Family Proclamation — Words From God,” October 2025 General Conference) Physical and emotional. The Proclamation was always pointing at something bigger than a paycheck and a deadbolt on the front door.

What Deloney is saying, and what I want to expand on here, is that the words are fine. The definitions need an upgrade.

Before I go further, I want to say something clearly. This episode is focused on husbands, and the work that falls on their side of the equation. That is not because wives don’t have their own work to do, because they absolutely do, and I talk about that plenty in other episodes. It’s because this particular conversation needs to be had without watering it down. So if you’re a husband listening, I’m not here to beat you up. I’m here to give you a fuller picture of what your wife might actually be experiencing, and what it could look like to step into your marriage more completely. And if you’re a wife who’s going to share this episode, I hope it opens a conversation rather than starts a fight.

But before we get into what those upgraded definitions look like, we need to talk about something that doesn’t get addressed enough, and that’s the conditioning that came along with the old model. Because for a lot of men, the problem isn’t just that their definition of protect and provide is outdated. It’s that they’ve built their entire sense of worth around it. And that’s where things get complicated in a marriage.

When Worth Gets Tied to a Role

When a man grows up being told, explicitly or implicitly, that his value comes from what he earns and what he can shield his family from, he starts to measure himself by those things. Did I pay the bills this month? Check. Did I fix the leak, handle the car, keep the lights on? Check, check, check. And when the checklist is complete, there’s often an unspoken expectation that follows: I’ve done my job. I’ve held up my end. So why isn’t my wife interested in being close to me?

That transactional thinking is incredibly common, and I want to be gentle here because most men who operate this way didn’t choose it consciously. They were handed a blueprint. Do these things, be this kind of man, and your marriage will work. Nobody told them the blueprint was missing half the pages.

Nathan was a perfect example of this. Early in our work together he came in genuinely baffled. He said, “I work hard, I don’t complain, I come home every night. I’m not one of those guys who pressures his wife. What else does she want?” And he wasn’t being sarcastic. He genuinely believed he wasn’t being demanding. But what came out over time was a more complicated picture. Nathan wasn’t checked out entirely. He did reach for Paige. He’d come up behind her in the kitchen, he’d suggest they watch something together, he’d be warm and attentive in the evenings. The problem was that Paige had noticed a pattern. That warmth showed up almost exclusively on the nights he was hoping for sex. The rest of the week, he was present in the house but largely unavailable. Paige worked too, and then came home to a second shift: dinner, kids, homework, bedtime, the grocery list that lived permanently in her head, the appointments, the emotional temperature of the whole family. On those nights, Nathan was on his phone, or watching TV, or just decompressing. And that was fine. Except that his version of “connecting” had become a signal she’d learned to read, and it made her skin crawl a little. Not because she didn’t love him, but because she knew what it meant.

Paige described it to me once like this: “By the time the kids are in bed, I feel like I’ve been touched and needed and demanded of for sixteen straight hours. The last thing I want is one more person wanting something from my body.” Nathan heard that and it stopped him cold. He had genuinely believed that initiating occasionally and not being pushy about it made him a considerate husband. He hadn’t seen that his attentiveness had become transactional, a means to an end she could feel even when he couldn’t.

And underneath it was something even harder to look at. Nathan had quietly come to believe that he was owed sex. Not in a way he would have said out loud. But it was there in the way he felt when she said no. Not just disappointed, but wronged. Like she was failing to hold up her end of something. He worked hard. He was faithful. He came home. In the blueprint he’d been handed, that was supposed to mean something. Nobody had told him that Paige wasn’t reading from the same blueprint, and that even if she had been, sex doesn’t work that way.

There was one more layer we had to dig through, and this one was uncomfortable for Nathan to admit. He resented that Paige worked. But somewhere in his conditioning, the story he’d inherited said that a man provides for his family, which meant his wife shouldn’t have to work, which meant if she was working, he was somehow falling short. So her job felt like a quiet indictment of him rather than something she might actually want or value. And wrapped up in that resentment was another unspoken belief: if she weren’t working, she’d be home. She wouldn’t be so tired. She’d have more space for him. More availability. More interest in sex. He hadn’t said any of this out loud. But it sat underneath the surface of their dynamic like a slow leak.

When we finally got to it, Paige looked at him and said, “You think my exhaustion is the problem. But my exhaustion is a symptom. The problem is that I don’t feel like your partner. I feel like your housekeeper and your nanny and your cook — and then someone who is supposed to be available to you sexually on top of all of it.” That hit Nathan somewhere deep. He had been so focused on what he was providing in the financial sense that he had completely missed what she was actually telling him she wanted, which was to be an equal in the marriage, not a dependent who owed him something in return for his provision.

She could feel when he was being attentive because he wanted to connect versus when he was being attentive because he was hoping it would lead somewhere. That distinction, between being wanted as a person and being used to satisfy a desire, is one women feel very clearly, even when nothing is said out loud.

Sex isn’t a reward for good behavior. It isn’t something that gets unlocked when you hit your performance metrics. It’s something that emerges between two people who feel genuinely connected, safe, and drawn toward each other. You cannot earn your way into that with a checklist.

The Proclamation itself says fathers and mothers are obligated to help one another as equal partners. Equal partners. That isn’t just a nice sentiment. It has very practical implications for what happens in your kitchen, your laundry room, and yes, your bedroom.

So if you recognize yourself in any of this, I want you to hear something important: the fact that you were handed a flawed blueprint is not your fault. But what you do with that awareness now is entirely your responsibility. The upgrade isn’t about doing less. It’s about understanding what you’re actually building.

So let’s get into what these updated definitions actually look like in practice. Starting with provide.

What “Provide” Actually Means Now

When most people hear the word “provide,” they think money. Income. A roof overhead, food on the table, bills paid on time. And yes, financial provision matters. It’s real and it’s important. But if that’s the entire definition you’re working from, you are leaving the most significant parts of provision completely off the table.

Providing in a modern marriage also means providing emotional safety. It means your wife has someone she can actually talk to, not just someone who lives in the same house. It means she can come to you at the end of a hard day and not have to brace herself for a lecture or a list of solutions. She can say “I had the worst day” and you can just sit with her in it. That kind of provision doesn’t show up in a bank account, but for many women it is more sustaining than financial security, because it feeds something in her that money cannot touch.

Providing also means providing your full presence, not just your physical proximity. A man can be home every night and still be completely unavailable. Scrolling, checked out, decompressing in his own world while she manages everything around him. Presence that only shows up when you want something isn’t presence. It’s strategy.

It means providing consistency, doing what you say you’ll do, following through, being someone she can actually count on beyond the paycheck. It means providing a relationship where she doesn’t feel like a project you’re managing or a problem you’re tolerating, but a person you are genuinely curious about and interested in.

Deloney put it simply: “Maybe providing is a safe, quiet place for your wife to speak out loud and not get lectured yet again on something.” That sentence alone could reshape a lot of marriages if husbands really sat with it.

Once Nathan started doing that deeper work, something else became clear. Even in the day-to-day, he wasn’t providing what Paige actually needed from him emotionally. She told me, “I never feel heard. He either fixes my problem immediately or gives me a reason why I’m wrong. I stopped telling him things.”

That is a provision failure too. And it’s one of the most common ones I see.

Over the months we worked together, Nathan started catching himself in the fix-it spiral. Paige would start talking, and instead of jumping in, he’d take a breath and ask, “Do you want help solving this, or do you just need me to listen?” That small shift changed everything. Paige started opening up more. She stopped bracing herself when she walked through the door. And here’s what Nathan said happened next: “She started reaching for my hand again. Like, just randomly. And I didn’t even connect it at first.”

He didn’t connect it, but I want you to. More on that in a minute.

Providing in Your Sexual Relationship

When we talk about provision in the context of sex, we have to talk about desire. Women’s desire, in particular, is deeply context-dependent. There’s a ton of research on this. Dr. Emily Nagoski’s work on responsive desire explains that for many women, desire doesn’t just show up out of nowhere. It emerges in response to conditions. The conditions have to be right.

So if you want a wife who genuinely wants to be close to you sexually, not a wife who is just tolerating sex or going through the motions, you have to ask yourself: am I providing the conditions that make desire possible?

That means providing emotional presence throughout the week, not just on the nights you’re hoping something will happen. It means providing consistency and follow-through on what you say you’ll do. It means providing a relationship where she doesn’t feel like a project you’re managing, but a person you’re genuinely interested in.

Nathan figured this out the hard way. For years, he thought he was doing the right thing by not being pushy. He’d make his move, and if Paige said no, he’d back off. He told himself that was respectful. What he hadn’t reckoned with was that the attempt itself had become loaded, because she already knew it was coming on certain nights, and the predictability of it, the warmth that appeared on cue, had started to feel like a performance rather than genuine interest in her. Once Nathan started showing up emotionally across the whole week, not just on the nights he wanted something, the dynamic started to shift. Paige said it herself: “It’s different when I don’t feel like I’m being warmed up.”

That is what providing looks like in a sexual relationship. You are providing the emotional environment that makes it safe and genuinely appealing for her to want to come toward you.

What “Protect” Actually Means Now

On the physical side, Deloney’s bar is pretty straightforward: “If the neighborhood breaks down, sure, know how to handle yourself. That’s human 101.” Fine. But then he goes further, and this is where it gets really interesting. He says, “Maybe protect is protect her emotional self, her emotional intelligence, protect her spirit on a particular issue, protect the family finances, and don’t spend yourselves into a hole.” Her emotional self. Her emotional intelligence. Her spirit. The finances. That is a very different job description than what most men were handed. And it’s the one that actually matters inside a marriage.

But that’s not where most marriages are struggling.

Most marriages are struggling because one partner’s spirit is taking a beating, and the other person doesn’t even know they’re the one throwing the punches.

Caleb and Jess came to me because Jess had completely shut down sexually. Caleb was frustrated and confused. But what came out over time was that every time Jess expressed an opinion that Caleb disagreed with, he’d talk her out of it. Every time she tried something new, he’d point out what she’d done wrong. He thought he was being helpful. She felt constantly critiqued. And that feeling, of never quite being good enough in the eyes of the person who is supposed to love you most, had quietly eroded her desire to be vulnerable with him in any way. Including sexually.

Protecting your wife’s spirit means being the person who builds her up rather than chips away at her. It means noticing when she’s fragile about something and handling it with care instead of logic. It means standing up for her when family or friends say something that undermines her, even if it’s uncomfortable for you to do it.

It also means protecting the family’s financial health, not as a control mechanism, but as an act of care. Stress about money is one of the biggest desire-killers that exists. When a couple is drowning in debt because of unchecked spending, it’s very hard for either of them to feel free and playful and interested in sex. Financial protection is real protection.

Protecting Her in Your Sexual Relationship

In the context of sex, protection looks like a few things that I want you to really sit with.

First, it means protecting her right to say no without consequence. If your wife knows that saying no will result in you sulking, withdrawing, getting cold or distant, she is not operating from a place of freedom. She’s operating from a place of threat management. And sex that comes from threat management is not something anyone should want. Real desire requires freedom. She has to know that a no tonight doesn’t mean the relationship is in jeopardy, or that you’re going to make the next week miserable.

Second, it means protecting her from feeling like a means to an end. Women can feel very clearly when they’re wanted versus when sex is wanted and they just happen to be there. That distinction matters enormously. When she feels seen and desired as a whole person, she is far more likely to want to be close to you. When she feels like a body you’re using to meet a desire, she will pull away, even if she can’t always articulate why.

Third, it means protecting her emotional experiences during sex itself. If she’s ever said something was uncomfortable, or expressed that she didn’t like something, and you either dismissed it or forgot it and did it again, that is a protection failure. Paying attention. Remembering. Adjusting. That is how you protect her in the bedroom.

When Caleb started to understand this, something shifted for him. He said, “I always thought protecting her meant I would take a bullet for her. I had no idea I was the one making her feel unsafe.” That’s a hard thing to hear. And it’s a brave thing to face. He started asking more questions instead of offering critiques. He started noticing when Jess seemed uncertain about something and leaning in with curiosity instead of correction. It took months, but Jess started coming back to life.

The Emotional Intelligence Piece

Deloney says it plainly: for all of human history, men didn’t need emotional intelligence. Now they do. And rather than treating that as an insult or an impossible burden, I want to reframe it as one of the most powerful things a man can develop.

Emotional intelligence in a marriage means knowing what you’re feeling and being able to name it without exploding or shutting down. It means being able to read your wife’s emotional state and respond to it thoughtfully instead of reactively. It means understanding that when she’s upset, it’s not always about you, and when it is about you, it doesn’t mean you’re a failure as a man. It just means there’s something that needs attention.

The husbands who develop this skill become the kind of men their wives are drawn toward. Not just for sex, although that certainly increases. But for all of it. The late-night conversations. The partnership in hard moments. The sense that you’re genuinely building something together.

Nathan said it best, near the end of one of our sessions: “I thought I was already a good husband because I worked hard and didn’t cheat and came home every night. I didn’t realize that was just the floor. There was a whole building I hadn’t even started on.”

The floor matters. But your wife doesn’t want to live on the floor. She wants the whole house.

So to bring it all together: protect and provide are not relics of a different era. They’re living principles that need to grow as the world grows and as your marriage deepens. Providing means creating emotional safety, being present, and building the conditions where desire can actually breathe. Protecting means guarding her spirit, her confidence, her financial security, and her freedom within your relationship, especially her sexual freedom.

And underneath all of it is emotional intelligence, the capacity to feel, to listen, to be honest about what’s happening inside you, and to stay regulated enough to show up for what your marriage actually needs.

That’s not less than what men were asked to do before. That’s more. And as Deloney says, the more responsibility you take on, the harder and scarier it gets, and the more incredible your life becomes.

Alright my friends, that’s all I have for you today. Remember, love is a journey, not a destination. Stay committed, stay passionate, and stay connected. I’ll see you next week…ba-bye.