Dates, Mates and Babies with the Vallottons
Dates, Mates and Babies with the Vallottons
97. Insights After Completing The Last Marriage Intensive
Join the Vallottons as they share insights after leading their recent marriage intensive, where we spent six weeks with couples dedicated to enhancing their relational health. Through real-life counseling scenarios, and rounds of these marriage courses, the Vallottons have discovered what is common to many couples and identify keys to breakthrough in these different areas.
Takeaways include:
- it's the couples who want to grow and learn who get well
- it's not conflict that tears apart connection, but rather behavior in conflict
- a lack of self-awareness about what you bring into your marriage can be a downfall
- a lack of tools for healthy communication is common and impacts EVERY other area of marriage life
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We're the.
Speaker 2:Valetins, and we are passionate about people.
Speaker 1:Every human was created for fulfilling relational connection.
Speaker 2:But that's not always what comes easiest.
Speaker 1:We know this because of our wide range of personal experience, as well as our years of working with people.
Speaker 2:So we're going to crack open topics like dating, marriage, family and parenting to encourage, entertain and equip you for a deeply fulfilling life of relational health.
Speaker 1:Welcome back everyone to Dates, mates and Babies with the Ballotons. We are here on a rainy what Monday.
Speaker 2:I feel like we always talk about the weather.
Speaker 1:Oh, we do.
Speaker 2:Does anybody else out there just kind of obsess over the weather? It's like one of the first things I do in the morning what's the weather going to be?
Speaker 1:Well, we live in the sunniest city in America.
Speaker 2:Except for a couple months of the year, I think it's the rainiest.
Speaker 1:And when it rains we all kind of complain. But then when we don't get any rain and we get tons of fires, we complain too. It's true.
Speaker 2:We are here. It's cold and wet, but we are happy in our hearts, preparing for Thanksgiving. Y'all.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:How about you?
Speaker 1:Well, we just finished our marriage intensive and we thought it would be fun to do some takeaways, some things that we learned every time we do it talk marriage, but even pre-marriage as well, and we're finding that our marriage intensive is one of our favorite things that we do.
Speaker 1:Yes, absolutely. It's so much fun because we get to interact with couples, see where they're at, give them some tips, walk, help them walk through some painful, hard places, but also, like there's a lot of people that just have really great marriages already, they come in and give them more tools. So it's been really fun.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we, we just finished walking for six weeks with about 25 couples and you know it's really a privilege to spend that kind of time with people who, ultimately, they're passionate about what we're passionate about. They're giving six weeks of their time in the evening, um, and then even through the week doing some of the homework and digesting the material together, but making a pretty big investment in the health and strength of their marriage connection and their family. And whenever I find people who are willing to make that kind of time, investment, financial investment, emotional investment, I just feel privileged, honestly, because it's the stuff that we're eating and breathing and it's the stuff that we are most passionate about. So I love finding the people on planet earth who just are relentless about making sure that their marriage is as strong and healthy as it can be.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when I think about what's the difference between strong, healthy couples and couples who are struggling because we get to see that a lot Like we've done our marriage intensive a lot. I've spent 20 years in the field counseling people and to me, marriages that are strong and healthy are marriages that are willing to change and grow.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:And I was thinking about this. The other day I was doing a counseling session with a couple and I was watching them.
Speaker 1:They were in the middle of an argument and it's kind of fun being the counselor sitting back and watching right, because I get to it's like watching a bad movie but it's so helpful because then I see their dynamic and I see like, ah, this is what happens, Cause I'm like these people are awesome, they're like great people and then you watch them try to navigate through life and what I was seeing is the one of the couples I'm not going to say which one, just to keep it good, yeah, I wouldn't.
Speaker 1:Joey, yeah, yeah, one of the couples was one of the partners on in. The couple was very condescending and they were very afraid because of something that had happened and they were very angry, but they were also very condescending and rude and I just started thinking like, oh, oh, this is actually the problem in their marriage. They're afraid, they are scared, they're trying to set a limit, but because they don't know how to set a limit, they're being super punishing and super condescending. My family would never do this. Nobody in my family would ever blah and blah, blah.
Speaker 1:And I stopped them right there and was like, hey, hold on. How do you guys feel? How do you feel in the midst of this? How is it like hearing this feedback? Does it make you want to move towards or run away? Does it make you want to fight? And so I've done that like so many times recently. And what reminds me to do that kind of stuff is going through our marriage intensive, starting to remember like, oh, it's not how we do conflict or, sorry, it's not the fact that we're in conflict.
Speaker 1:It's how we do conflict, that that makes a difference, and so. But part of the challenge I think with people is if you never have someone speak into those areas of your life, they cause so much damage.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And which brings me to my next marriage counseling appointment I did the week before. I've been doing tons lately. I watched the same thing happen. I watched the guy. It's been long enough now so I watched the guy be.
Speaker 1:He wasn't condescending I would say that he was very antagonistic and just continued to antagonize and antagonize and had to stop and go like, hey, how do you feel right now, how do both of you feel right now? I'm asking her how do you feel Him? How do you feel right now? I'm asking her how do you feel Him? How do you feel? And watching having them feedback in a real time, like I feel super defensive, I don't feel cared for, I feel scared, I feel angry and then going okay, unless you do something new, yeah.
Speaker 1:Unless you use a different tool, you will always reach for the tools that you grew up with, and we talk about that a lot. But so, anyways, I think one of the biggest feedbacks for people in your marriage is if you, if you are, have never grown, if you've never said this is off limits and this is off limits. I'll give you an example. I know I'm having to talk um and code a bit, but I was doing another marriage counseling appointment recently and they said we didn't know how to solve our marriage um conflict. But we had listened to your the four horsemen of conflict and what we realized is that we don't know how to solve it. And what we realized is that we don't know how to solve it, but we know that if we bring in these four horsemen right, criticism, contempt, what are the other ones? Help me, I can't remember.
Speaker 2:Well, on the spot, I can't remember either.
Speaker 1:Yeah, whatever. So if you look up the four horsemen of conflict, Criticism, contempt, stonewalling. Yes.
Speaker 2:And the fourth is good, good job on that one.
Speaker 1:So they wrote down each one of them and a definition for each one, and then they wrote a contract between them.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's, great yes.
Speaker 1:And decided that and actually signed the contract that they wouldn't take these into their conflicts.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And it started to change Right their conflicts. Yeah, and it started to change right. It didn't make the relationship perfect, but it started to now create a place where we're not damaging one another.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And so this is like. This is a couple who's growing, who's learning, who's going to get you know, who's eventually going to get to where they want to be in their marriage. And so, again, my main takeaway is the people who come in and go. I'm willing to change, I'm willing to grow, I'm willing to learn new tools, no secret, those are the ones that are getting well.
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 1:Because we all grow up with these bad habits, and or you grow up not learning anything and so you create bad habits inside of marriage.
Speaker 2:because you don't really know what to do, so absolutely. That's so good, that's so good. You're right People who come in willing to learn and grow are the ones that get well.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Um, one of the things that well and you touched on this too but one of my uh biggest takeaways is you know, I look at the six weeks of the intensive and I think about which are the which are the hardest weeks for couples, and undoubtedly every time I would say that conflict resolution is one of the hardest weeks.
Speaker 1:And making amends.
Speaker 2:Making amends is hard. I'm gonna circle back to that. But, for the purposes of this conversation. Conflict resolution and making amends are so related, like that whole thing.
Speaker 2:Healing past hurt inside of marriage is one of the hardest things to do, and sex those are the two most triggering, hardest weeks for couples, hardest content to digest and you touched on this, but you were talking about how, in some of your counseling appointments, just continuing to circle back to the reality that it's not conflict in and of itself that breaks down a marriage connection, but it's our behavior inside of conflict and that people don't actually.
Speaker 2:They often either don't have enough self-awareness to even really know what they're bringing to communication inside of marriage, either don't have enough self-awareness to even really know what they're bringing to communication inside of marriage, um, or they just don't have the right tools and either either situation that's like the perfect couple to come alongside, because it really is true that, with a different framework for how to look at conflict inside of marriage and how to really understand um, where you're missing it with each other inside of your communication, it really is the crux of all the problems. And every single time I'm blown away because when we get to week number five, which is about sex, people are triggered out of their minds, like everybody gets triggered that week, and you know some couples, that some couples. It's not actually one of the more painful areas of marriage but I would say this category if
Speaker 2:the area of sexual intimacy in your marriage is one of the hardest places for you. It's actually all the other stuff that you need to get great at before your intimate life will get great. So your ability to communicate well, your ability to work through conflict, your ability to make amends, your ability to turn towards one another and actually pour into the emotional bank account of your marriage, how to actually express love in a tangible way and um build a strong emotional connection Like. If those things aren't functioning well in your marriage, there's no way your sexual life can be fulfilling, because at the bottom of, at the foundational level of a healthy sexual relationship in a marriage, is all of those other things. Ultimately, I think it's fun leading people on that journey because almost everybody, whether they are in the boat of you, know having a lot of disconnection in their marriage or having a great marriage. I would be willing to say that almost every couple that has gone through our intensive communication and conflict resolution would be at the top of the list of things they need to work on.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Even in strong marriages.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That is a hard area.
Speaker 1:It's super hard.
Speaker 2:And and the and how much it impacts all the other areas of your relationship is always profound to me.
Speaker 1:It's true. Um, you know I have because I've been doing so much counseling lately. It's been really interesting seeing watching couples go back and help each other heal. So I just did a counseling appointment a couple weeks ago where a couple had just tons and tons of pain from their early marriage years. Couple had just tons and tons of pain from their early marriage years and it's so easy to to move past stuff that's happened two, three, four, five years ago and not revisit it and not actually be conscious of how much that's affecting your life today. And so I've been really helping couples to go back and talk through. Well, tell me about your whatever honeymoon night, or tell me about your, um, what are the big places of pain?
Speaker 1:One of the things that we do in our marriage intensive is have them map out their past. Right, couples go through and they create a map of their past and then be able to ask each other, like, is there any place that you're still stuck Right? If you, if we, if you mapped out your past, I'd be able to look at your map and go, oh, wow, 2012. Like, those are the years when I was fishing a lot, or my nervous breakdown, or is there, are you still stuck back there? And we push past so much, so many things in our life and not realize like, oh, I still have a lot of pain back there. In fact, I asked a couple the other week and she said no, I think I'm good, like I don't have a bunch of pain back there.
Speaker 1:He started talking about it and then she wow got angry unleashed and I was able to go like, okay, so it looks like you do have a lot of pain. She was so unaware because it happened so long ago and hadn't brought it up. But all the emotions and all the anger and then the mistrust, and at one point I stopped and said hey, maybe we need to talk about your pain first instead of his and he's the one that brought it up and so it's really interesting, like if you can give your partner the gift of going back and healing those places, it's incredible. One of the one of the keys so a key to going back and offering and making amends right or just healing one of those old wounds is you have to realize you're not the same person yeah so if I was to go and talk about the years when I used to fish a lot, it was very painful for you because, for whatever reason, right right, you're home, I'm gone.
Speaker 1:I'm doing this thing four days a week, it's.
Speaker 2:I'm not. It would be the fear of being alone. Yeah, being alone, all that in our life, yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm not that same guy anymore, so for me to go back into here your painful emotions is you and I looking at this guy that I don't want to be?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you and I looking at this guy that.
Speaker 1:I don't want to be you and I looking at this guy that I'm not interested in doing that anymore. And once that clicks for a couple, once a couple goes and it really clicks, like, oh, I'm actually upset at that guy. I don't like how I handled that. Yeah, if I could do that again, I would do this whole thing different. It changes the feel of the yeah, if I could do that again, I would do this whole thing different. It changes the feel of the whole conversation because at first couples are typically um, defensive, fighting off being defensive.
Speaker 1:That's not what I really meant, that's not what I tried to do, that's not what I was, you know, intending to happen. But the truth is, yeah, we know that that's not what you meant to do. We know if you could do it over again, you would. But why are you struggling so bad with defensiveness? Because you're being misunderstood. If you start to realize that that's not who I am anymore, that's not what I wanted to do, then you can give this massive gift of helping someone to feel heard and seen and known and loved in the past and heal so much stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's true, that's really good. As I'm thinking about all of these couples, they just end I mean, it's only been a week since they finished up the course and we send out some surveys after our courses. It's always good to hear how people experienced it, what they needed more of less of. You know how it was for them, and some of the feedback always, every time, is just that it's a lot of material to digest in six weeks and it is right. Right.
Speaker 2:But if you think about it, if you go and take a college class on microbiology right, If you're going to take an online class on microbiology, you might have eight weeks in a little quarter of your class to get a couple credits. And if you're not studying the material every night, you're going to get behind. If you're not doing the work, like between classes, you're going to feel so lost and actually takes quite a bit of time and energy to like digest new material. And so I think, when, when couples give the feedback it's a lot in six weeks, you know, I think what they're really saying is I'm not a hundred percent sure where to go from here in order to, in one topic area, make a bunch of headway and grow and of course we give them the.
Speaker 2:You know the activations during the week and things like that. But but it highlights for me the reality of like, yeah, when you go ahead and pinpoint a number of areas that you really want to level up in, you can't just look at the material and hear it one time and then all of a sudden everything's new and different and you can't just actually sit in one class and change an entire culture inside of your marriage dynamics. So maybe we could talk for a few minutes about, um, like, when people identify growth areas, how do you actually implement good, healthy habits to actually change a course of direction in your marriage? It doesn't happen to six weeks. We always tell people it's an intensive.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's supposed to be intense.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's not. You know you're not going to be new. At the end of six weeks You're going to have a lot of information about how and where to grow.
Speaker 1:Well, it's why we give cheat sheets, right. So I mean, that's my first thought is like if you have a guide that's helping you and then you just want to follow what the guide told you to do over and, over and over again and also reflect on is this working, is this not working, and go back to the drawing board to learn again you know.
Speaker 1:So I think our cheat sheets our conflict resolution cheat sheet is super helpful. The processing pain cheat sheet that we give is really helpful and I know for me I've spent a ton of time practicing on my own. If I know one of my weakest areas is conflict, then I'm going to practice my startup a lot, I'm going to think about it, I'm going to write it. Write it out Like I did that for years.
Speaker 1:I literally would write out what I was going to say before I was going to say it, and or I would sit on the couch and think through, like man, if I was going to, if I was going to do this, how would I say it? But I think the other thing that we don't talk about a lot is teaching. You learn so much more by teaching than you do just simply by observing, and it's why I've gotten really good, I think, at counseling is because I've had to counsel so much. I've done it over and over and over again. So when I find a new tool that I really like, like the soft startup I didn't come up with that, that was a Gottman tool I had to think through constantly okay, how am I going to teach this to people and how would I?
Speaker 1:And then it becomes mine. Right, it becomes this thing that I've learned over and over and over again. So I think one of the greatest ways is to teach something that you're learning and you don't have to say like I'm an expert in this area, you could just do it with another couple or do it with a friend. For a guy to go like hey, this is a really cool tool that I learned to my guy friends and I want to challenge us this week to X, y, z. It's a great way to start to add it into your daily diet. What about you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, that's really good, I agree, and I think that it can be hard sometimes to track growth in areas of our emotional and relational health. Um, because things don't just change overnight. When it's rooted in like a certain culture or a normal that's been well-established, it really does take time to like move a big ship Right. And so one of the things that we tell people after they finished the marriage intensive is like identify a goal and, as you know, cheesy or cliche as it might sound, these should be your quote smart goals, like as much as you can, even inside of your emotional health life or your relational health life, which can often feel a little bit um, it can feel intangible. If you can work to make your goals specific and measurable and achievable and relevant and time, bound, you're going to actually be able to track your growth better and it will be encouraging the the the thing about any area of growth in our life, whether it's a physical skillset or a emotional health culture in your home or in your marriage.
Speaker 2:We are encouraged when we see growth and it encourages us to do more work when we can tell that we've gained ground. It makes us hungrier to gain more ground, and so I really think that when people are trying to shift a culture inside of their marriage getting really specific about the goals that you have and taking one at a time and moving through them with a plan people don't like that because it actually takes quite a bit of work and effort. But I don't know another way to change and really be able to measure your change um than getting specific about it. Like we always say, like you, you don't change by hoping that you get better at this. You can be really inspired by a message or by a teaching or by an e-course like this, but just because you like the material doesn't actually mean that you're going to digest it and implement it and see it make change in your life.
Speaker 1:I think the biggest hindrance to change in a marriage in my mind at least, right off the cuff, if I'm just talking is that unhealed pain. Yeah, because I recently worked with a couple who had tons and tons of unhealed pain and they were just doing everything that they knew to know to do. They went to a bunch of counselors and part of the the challenge is, unhealed pain creates this emotional drain. It's like leaving your lights on in your car all night long.
Speaker 1:And you go out and you try to start your car and it doesn't have any more energy.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Because it's just draining all the time. And unhealed pain in a marriage is that right? Every time I see that person, unconsciously I'm like, ah, I've got this and I'm trying to connect and I'm trying to use the tools, but then I get triggered really easily and I don't trust and I don't feel cared for and seen and known, and so it's just this major drag on the relationship. So I would say that unhealed pain we cannot overlook that. You just cannot. Cannot overlook that you just can't.
Speaker 1:You just cannot move past that. The other thing that I really think hinders healing in a marriage is people don't have enough energy. We've talked about this a lot and I'm even getting tired of talking about it, in the sense that I'm really aware that maybe I'm talking about it too much Is turning towards one another and filling up that emotional bank account I have seen the magic, literally the magic in.
Speaker 1:Okay, don't try to work through your past just yet. If you don't have any connection and you don't have any energy, stop trying to fix your past and pour in a whole bunch of don't argue, pour in what you love about the person. Man, thanks so much for making dinner tonight. That was awesome. Hey, great job putting the kids down. I watched you keep your cool. It was so great. Hey, your clothes look great today. I mean just, it's everyone's like oh, that surface and shall we? Yeah, it feels good and you're pouring.
Speaker 1:You're pouring energy back in okay, yeah use that energy, spend it wisely, to then go and fix the past totally but if you try to like, people get so gung-ho of trying the new tool and which we should and trying to, um, you know, solve stuff, but they don't realize, they don't have any energy, they have no connection and so it's like I'm trying to use a tool on somebody that I don't even want to be around because we have no connection and it doesn't work. So if you're struggling in your marriage or in your relationship, this doesn't have to be marriage stuff, like 90% of what we teach would work for predating couples.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:So it's like if you're struggling in your relationship, ask yourself how much have I poured in to our emotional connection lately. And if you're on E, you got to fix that before you do anything else.
Speaker 2:I'm glad you mentioned premarrieds, because every time we finish one of these marriage intensives I have the same thought, which is wow. If every married couple could receive and implement this kind of content before they get married, how much better off would they be.
Speaker 2:There's nothing like having to change a 20 year old culture in a marriage, when learning everything from communication and conflict resolution and making amends and turning toward one another, sexual intimacy, teamwork all of those topics. My word if you were able to, at the beginning of a marriage or even before marriage began, come to some agreement on the standards that you're going to have and keep inside of your marriage dynamic Gosh.
Speaker 2:So for pre-married couples, my word, this is golden information. I mean what a headstart you would have, Even for us. I think about the advantage that we had going into marriage, you having been a pastor and a counselor for many years, us having incredible mentors in the area of relational health, and yet some of this stuff, you know, we, we learned so much in our first.
Speaker 2:I would say like six, seven years of marriage were real learning and implementation years, and it wasn't until you know the last kind of seven years or so that I feel like we have been operating with a firm culture, and when things get hard you can feel the temptation to move outside of the standards we've set inside of our marriage, but we're so quick to return to the baseline of like the health and thriving is our status quo.
Speaker 2:And so it's our normal, but it wasn't for so many years. And so if that's the case for us having had the setup that we had and the upbringings that we had and all of it, gosh how much more so for pre-married couples that haven't had some of this foundational teaching. So, Gosh can't say enough to people who are in those dating years.
Speaker 1:Looks like we might have to do a premarital course we might.
Speaker 2:There's nothing like being set up beforehand.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's real.
Speaker 2:And it's hard to know how valuable that is until you're like two, three, four years into marriage and then you're like, oh yeah, totally. Would have been great to focus on that a little bit before marriage.
Speaker 1:Well, y'all, I hope you guys enjoyed this. Um, we are eventually going to launch another marriage course. Yeah, so people can check that out. I think we're going to launch one in February. Uh, we'll start talking about it soon yeah. And if you haven't gone and used our um, what is it? Our marriage assessment? Just our quick free, you can check it out.
Speaker 2:Jason and Lauren Valtoncom. Check your, check your weather, as it were.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you can take our it's just 10 questions. Our marriage assessment, just our quick one, yeah, and it's really cool.
Speaker 2:It's at jasonandlaurenvalentoncom. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:Yeah, otherwise, y'all have an incredible week. We will see you next week. Dates, mates and babies with the Valetons, I almost said at Braveco.
Speaker 2:That too. See y'all All right, y'all Bye, thank you.