Cruising Forward in Life | Enthusiastic Speakers Pam and Bill Farrel Inspire, Equip

Who doesn’t love to laugh? Humor can open doors, lighten moods and break down barriers. Pam and Bill Farrel, M.Div., creators of marriage and family focused Love-Wise, are known for their enthusiastic and fun delivery of wisdom gleaned from four decades of marriage and ministry. Their Men Are Like Waffles, Women are like Spaghettihas sold nearly 400,000 copies in 16 languages and includes digital components for individual or group study.

Early in his pastoral career, Bill researched relationship material to learn how to help people navigate more skillfully. The studies showed physical, emotional and intellectual differences in how men and women are wired. He searched for a way to explain the concept that would resonate with men as well as women.

“I have tried as hard as any man has to understand his wife,” Bill said. “Sometimes you have to accept someone you can’t completely understand and just appreciate them. Romans 1:7 says to accept one another.”

God gave Bill a revelation during a counseling session with a couple. The husband, an acquaintance through a sports league, was convinced his “wife was broken.” As the wife took off speaking during the session, Bill realized the thread of her conversation was like a plate of spaghetti. Every noodle had to touch the other noodles, and she’d not finished recounting her thoughts until she had wound her way through each and every one. While this woman was an extreme example, her conversational style is typical of females.

Men do not follow that pattern. Men compartmentalize, processing one subject at a time. Breakfast with their children gave Bill the idea for an example for men — pop up waffles. He realized that the individual squares of a waffle represent compartmentalization well. (Secret spoiler alert ladies, every man has a few blank boxes on his waffle. So when you ask your husband what he’s thinking about, and he says, “nothing,” his brain might actually be mediating in an empty box — that’s how men recharge — a thought almost unfathomable to a woman!)

The picture of spaghetti and waffles simply portrays the idea that men and women communicate differently. Each style is equally valuable. Another component of the analogy is that spaghetti and waffles are rarely eaten together at the same meal. This illustrates the practice that each spouse needs their time to speak, to listen and to process in the style appealing to them.

This is a main point of the book, Pam said. People process differently, and healthy couples take turns. The Farrels applied these principles to 10 areas of best practices for marriage, sprinkled with research and humor.

“We celebrate differences and get really practical about working with each other the way we are. We can be really serious about working on marriage without taking ourselves too seriously. We are all in need of mercy,” Pam said.

From the Beginning

Early in life, dysfunction from their families of origin steered Pam and Bill toward a relationship with Christ that overcame the emotional deficits of their upbringing. Desperate to learn how to create a life different from the examples they’d left behind, they both immersed themselves in campus ministry in college, where they felt God was trying to heal their hearts and give them a structure to make better decisions. They became involved in Cru in separate cities and met at a leadership retreat, where the switch flipped.

Neither felt they knew the roadmap to healthy dating, so before they went out to do something fun, they asked questions to learn about each other. The first question Bill asked Pam was, “What has God been teaching you?” which set the tone for their relationship.

They both found from experience: the more unhealthy the home in which you grew up, the more intentional you want to be in your current relationship.

“We realized we didn’t have good instincts,” Pam said. “We loved Jesus and we loved each other, but we didn’t know what to do. We bought a notebook and started writing questions. How much time should we spend with friends? Should we pray together, read the Bible together?” The Farrels talked through everything and started making decisions about their relationship. Their questions eventually turned into one of their 55 best-selling books, The Before You Marry Book of Questions, which includes hundreds of questions and activities for couples to do together.

As they look back at their courtship, they’ve put together some tips for couples.

*Take a road trip together to a safe place

*Ask couples a little farther down the road for their secrets

*Visit each other’s families (because you marry the family, not just the person)

*Introduce each other to your faith friends

*Do something that has a component of hardship to it — go on a mission trip, do a home improvement project, take the whiniest kid you know to the zoo.

When they didn’t know what they didn’t know, the Farrels asked others. They often talk about how they would sit behind a couple in church that “looked like they liked each other” and then ask them for their best advice on how to enjoy marriage.

“We had to be more intentional,” Pam said. “When we noticed something from our past was going to ruin our future, we grabbed mentors out of desperation.”  Following their strategy of asking questions, they would ask practical things like, “What do you do first thing in the morning? What was your worst crisis and how did you get through it? What was not smart the first time that you wouldn’t like to repeat?

“A lot of really normal people have great wisdom to share. Seek out the normal couples in a casual setting and ask them real questions about life,” Bill said.

These questions have found their way into many of the discussion questions in the Farrels’ resources, including Coffee and Conversations to create connection. Several of their best tips, “The most influential thing for kids is for their dad to love their mom,” Bill said. Another surprisingly effective idea, one couple told them they stashed mini-Snickers candy bars around their house. When they got into an argument, instead of counting to 10, they would take a break long enough to eat the candy bar, which gave them time to calm down. Bill also said he was forever grateful for the man who looked in his eyes and said, “Bill, you married a woman. You didn’t marry a better-looking buddy.”

These practices and examples, loaded with wisdom and delivered with energy and humor are the reason the Farrels typically travel 200 days a year delivering their messages (pre-pandemic). While they speak in person often, their material is available online at Love-Wise.com. They also host regular online date nights and other group meetings in real time.

One of their first words of wisdom for couples, put date nights on your calendar as an appointment. As they began this practice, the Farrels realized some of the dates turned into business meetings, definitely eroding the passion of the red hot monogamy they espouse in their book by the same name. To keep business from encroaching on romance, they created the concept of the Marriage Meet Up, which they have incorporated into their 52-week devotional, Marriage Meetups: A Planner for Couples Who Want a Productive, Passionate and Purposeful Life. Marriage Meet Up pages help couples talk through the business side of their relationship in positive and healthy ways and keep the fun in marriage.

Red Hot Monogamy, a practical, eight-week guidebook to turn up the temperature in your intimate life, is their second-best seller, behind Men Are Like Waffles, Women are like Spaghetti. Like all the Farrel’s books, it includes questions, but also “hands on homework” pun completely intended, Pam said, and dialogues.

“The first thing that goes is sex and romance,” Pam said. “Marriage is not just about work. We wanted to keep the romance growing.”

Pam and Bill Farrel’s resources are full of practical wisdom presented in an engaging manner. They encourage others by reminding that every couple is one breakthrough away from having a great relationship. It’s no wonder they are in-demand speakers at churches, marriage conferences, parenting events, date nights and men’s and women’s retreats. Find more at Love-Wise.com.