“We definitely urge you to be purposeful about surrounding yourself with godly sisters who are navigating the same waters. … You don’t want to blab your husband’s problems all over town, but being able to vent and pray with someone who cares for you can do wonders for your sanity.”

“The key to integrity is that who you are in public aligns with who you are in private, and that both public and private life align with God’s standards. True integrity allows a few chosen individuals deep enough into one’s private life so that they can compare the two life‐styles and see they’re equal. That’s the kind of accountability that makes integrity pure.”

"When someone close to you is running from the truth, love demands that you speak. Sometimes love must risk peace for the sake of truth."

“Our enemy goes after people who isolate themselves from other Christians. Stragglers make easy victims. Without other people to encourage them, watch out for them, and confront small compromise in their lives, they often end up drifting into serious sin ... If you want to experience long‐term victory over lust, you must lock arms with other believers.”

“Most of us live more responsibly when we know another person who cares about us … will mentor us, check up on us, monitor us, in other words, hold us accountable. If you want your relationship to deepen and go the distance, I strongly encourage you to welcome loving accountability from your spouse and others. For many newly married couples, developing accountability relationships may be one of the most important steps they take.”

"God uses other people to help us see. As we have undoubtedly witnessed in others or ourselves, we might be blind to our own hearts, but other people can often see our problems very clearly. Other people can sometimes spot our self‐deception and real beliefs better than we can ourselves … This is one reason why it is so critical for each one of us to be accountable to others, and to have people in our lives who are willing to say hard things to us.”

“We all need the influence of good people to keep us on the right path. Every married couple should have at least two strong believing couples with whom they can share encouragement, strength, and the richness of their lives. Being around such people is edifying, enriching, balancing, and fulfilling, and it helps us keep perspective when things seem to grow out of proportion. Having the positive qualities of other people rub off on us is the best thing for a marriage.”

“I don’t want my words to make a spouse feel ‘caught’ in sin, because I don’t want to create a temptation to be more concerned with fixing a problem than encountering God. Confrontation is not a ‘gotcha’ event. I want my spouse to encounter the Holy Spirit, sent to convict the world of sin (John 16:8), and thus to experience the cleansing and faith‐inspiring work of godly sorrow over sin.”

“For our own protection, we must run to accountability and not from it. The quickest road to character demise and moral catastrophe is withdrawal from accountability and isolation from those who love us and are concerned about our development.”

“It might seem that life will be easier if we take the timid path of avoiding certain uncomfortable truths or winking at selected sins, but we always reap what we sow (Galatians 6:7‐9). If we sow loving honesty and courageous care, we will reap growth in godliness. If we avoid confrontation, we will just get confrontation anyway, because sin unaddressed is sin unconfined.”

“Not everyone has the material to be a good friend. Not every man you hunt and fish with speaks wisely when it comes to matters of marriage. Not every woman in your lunch group has a good perspective on commitment and priorities. In fact, anyone who undermines your marriage does not deserve to be given the title of ‘friend.’”

“Character cannot be developed or refined in isolation. To cultivate a righteous and fruitful life, we need the context of a local church.”

“Accountability is a scriptural principle that tells us to ‘submit to one another out of reverence to Christ’ (Ephesians 5:21). This means I choose to submit my life to the scrutiny of another person to gain spiritual strength, growth, and balance. Marriage is a perfect arena for this to happen as husbands become accountable to wives and wives to husbands.”

“Spiritual growth usually occurs in the context of relationships. We all need people close to us—not just to enjoy friendship and fellowship, but also to reap the benefits of mutual accountability.”

“Give your friends permission to ask you hard questions about anything. And offer information to them as well. We must learn to bring into the light the private conversations, fleeting thoughts, personal struggles, and personal interactions that occur while traveling for work. Once something is discussed and brought into the light, it loses its power to control you.”