The Top Three Things That Keeps Couples from Playing The Long Game
Apr 26, 2024Episode 70
Doug & Leslie Davis
Have you ever felt like you're speaking a different language than your partner, even when you're both speaking English? Join us, Doug and Leslie Davis, as we unpack the top three things that keeps couples from playing the long game. In our heartfelt dialogue, we discuss the art of active listening and echo back techniques that forge a path to clarity and closeness. We confront the thorny issue of criticism head-on, revealing how to transform potential roadblocks into opportunities for growth, and share strategies for couples to keep their relationship front and center, even in the face of life's distractions.
The shadow of contempt and the weight of hopelessness can darken even the sunniest of relationships. In this discussion, we shine a light on these hidden adversaries, exploring how a cycle of criticism and defensiveness can lead to a fortress of bitterness that shuts out love and connection. We expose the traps of guardedness and stonewalling that couples may fall into and guide you through the process of breaking free from these patterns. By addressing the root causes of contempt, we aim to help listeners rediscover the warmth of mutual respect and affection that may have been lost along the way.
Finally, we navigate the intricate web of intimacy and communication within the sacred space of marriage. We tackle the silent saboteurs of unvoiced expectations and differentiate between productive reminders and the pitfalls of nagging, offering a husband's perspective on these delicate dynamics. As we weave through the different threads of intimacy—physical, emotional, and spiritual—we reveal how they intertwine to strengthen the bond between partners. For those who see themselves in these shared struggles, we open the door to further discussion and support, inviting you to journey with us towards a vision-driven, deeply fulfilling marriage.
Have you ever felt like you're speaking a different language than your partner, even when you're both speaking English? Join us, Doug and Leslie Davis, as we unpack the top three things that keeps couples from playing the long game. In our heartfelt dialogue, we discuss the art of active listening and echo back techniques that forge a path to clarity and closeness. We confront the thorny issue of criticism head-on, revealing how to transform potential roadblocks into opportunities for growth, and share strategies for couples to keep their relationship front and center, even in the face of life's distractions.
The shadow of contempt and the weight of hopelessness can darken even the sunniest of relationships. In this discussion, we shine a light on these hidden adversaries, exploring how a cycle of criticism and defensiveness can lead to a fortress of bitterness that shuts out love and connection. We expose the traps of guardedness and stonewalling that couples may fall into and guide you through the process of breaking free from these patterns. By addressing the root causes of contempt, we aim to help listeners rediscover the warmth of mutual respect and affection that may have been lost along the way.
Finally, we navigate the intricate web of intimacy and communication within the sacred space of marriage. We tackle the silent saboteurs of unvoiced expectations and differentiate between productive reminders and the pitfalls of nagging, offering a husband's perspective on these delicate dynamics. As we weave through the different threads of intimacy—physical, emotional, and spiritual—we reveal how they intertwine to strengthen the bond between partners. For those who see themselves in these shared struggles, we open the door to further discussion and support, inviting you to journey with us towards a vision-driven, deeply fulfilling marriage.
Welcome to the Vision Driven Marriage Podcast. If you're struggling in your marriage, or maybe you're wondering if it's even salvageable, before you give up or before you let things get too hard, let us come alongside you and help you solidify your marriage. We offer biblical encouragement and insight to help you strengthen your marriage. We offer biblical encouragement and insight to help you strengthen your marriage. Welcome to the Vision Driven Marriage Podcast. We're Doug and Leslie Davis, and today, as we continue to look at how to play the long game as a couple, we're going to be looking at the top three things that keep couples from being able to play the long game.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, so pay attention, because if you see any of these three things happening in your relationship, it's definitely time to take notice, because you still have time to make some changes, right?
Speaker 1:
And these aren't the only three things that could make you feel like bailing out early, but they're three of the most common things that cause people to think you know, I'm not sure if I can be in this for the long haul. Good news is, you can be, so let's go and take a look at some of the things that can keep you from feeling like you can do this for the long haul.
Speaker 2:
No surprise. The first one is communication breakdowns, yeah.
Speaker 1:
And we see this a lot. I know that there's people who come to talk to me. There's people who come to talk to me, there's people who come to talk to Leslie, and communication is an issue. Now, just like with most of the other things that we deal with as a couple, you have to realize that you need to focus on your own communication and the communications more than just talking. I've met so many couples who are really really good at talking at each other, but they're not communicating because there's no listening going on.
Speaker 2:
Active listening is a really good skill to work on implementing in your relationship, and what I mean by active listening is when you can reflect back what your spouse is saying to you and embody what you're hearing. Then your spouse has an opportunity to correct it. No, that's not what I meant to say. Here's what I mean, so that you can be on the same page. So active listing is very, very, a very, very good, important skill to have in your relationship.
Speaker 1:
Right and communication can break down in so for so many different reasons. It could be that you're you know, you're just not listening, you're not taking different reasons. It could be that you're just not listening, you're not taking the time. It could be that you're not speaking clearly because you're concerned that somehow, if you speak the whole truth too much, that it won't be received. Let me just warn you that if there's something you need to say, say it. It's always going to be better to work through what's true than to tiptoe around the truth, because then there's a lack of understanding for a really difficult reason. But what we're going to be looking at today are some of the things that can cause communication breakdown that, if not checked, if not wrangled in, can really be cataclysmic in your relationship can really be cataclysmic in your relationship.
Speaker 2:
And I think one of the things to set into motion first is a commitment that the relationship is going to be a priority, so that when you see these four things, we're going to go over four things of ways that communication can break down. But when you see these things and you go, oh, that felt bad, but my relationship is a priority, so I'm going to press into it and make sure that it gets worked through. The first one is criticism. We always hear and feel criticism. I mean it and I don't mean always, always, but what I mean by that is every relationship experiences criticism at one point or another.
Speaker 2:
I know, in our relationship I was, you know, coming out of my childhood. We were, I was 19 when we met, so I was still a child, Just a baby, and I was bent towards hearing criticism because that was the atmosphere in which I was raised. And so he would say something benign and I would hear it as a criticism. And at that time we didn't really have good active listening skills For me to reflect back and say I heard that as a criticism. Did you mean it that way? Or here's what I heard you say Is that what you meant? We didn't have that skill in place.
Speaker 1:
But you know, we're very thankful that we developed that skill, but so there is hope you can develop it. But there's there's two different ways that criticism can enter in and create a roadblock, not an over, you know, not a roadblock that can't be overcome. It can be overcome, but if left unchecked it can be oh, but, but if it's left unchecked, it's bad.
Speaker 1:
And so there's two different ways. The first one's what Leslie just described, where, um, every relationship will have a comment uh, from time to time, that either is criticism and it was difficult to work through, or it was something that was an innocent comment that was heard as criticism. It was taken as criticism, and so when you have those days, the majority of your days, you're gonna have things that went really well. You're gonna have things that could be corrected. It's good to share those things. Don't be afraid to be critical of the areas that need to be critical, and working through those things will be healthy and good for you.
Speaker 2:
I think one of the things there is that in a mature relationship, what you see is that humility in asking for that help and saying, hey, how can I get better? At that point it doesn't become criticism. Right, that's how you work together.
Speaker 1:
Well, it's critical.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, but not criticism, because we think about the word criticism as negative or nagging, and critical is evaluating it, so we can do it differently, and so maybe, if you differentiate between the two words, we want to encourage you to be critical. You know this is something that we did in a way. We can do it better, and so let's talk about it. But if criticism automatically brings up negative connotations for you, then instead look at how can we talk about doing something better, but the other way that criticism can come in. We have natural tendencies within us to let the things that have gone on through our day affect our mood, and so, you know, you may have something that had nothing to do with your relationship at home happen at work, but you went through Wait what who?
Speaker 1:
does that.
Speaker 1:
So you go through a series of events that have caused you to start to see the world with a little bit of a negative tilt.
Speaker 1:
And you know, because the real truth is nearly every day there's something good that happens to you and there's something bad that happens to you, and you know when those days are balanced out, we can navigate them pretty well, but sometimes you have a day where you have one good thing and a thousand bad things happen and your mood is just negative, is just negative, and so if you come home with a critical heart or a critical spirit, it might have nothing to do with what's going on in your relationship, but it's going to feel to your spouse like it does.
Speaker 1:
And so being able to navigate the fact that, because I'm having bad experiences over and over and over again in my job or while I'm going to school or whatever it is, that's outside of your sphere of relationship, if you let that taint the way you see things throughout your relationship as well, you can have a pessimistic attitude, a negative attitude, even though there's also good things to look at. And so don't be afraid of the things that you get to fix just because it might seem critical, but at the same time check your heart and make things that you get to fix just because it might seem critical. But at the same time, check your heart and make sure that you're not having a consistently negative attitude about things, because that's where criticism comes in and causes people to feel like kind of shutting down.
Speaker 2:
I got an exclamation point too, along those same lines. When you come into your relationship and you're feeling criticized, right, there's times when you're asking for that critical, analytical kind of thinking and being able to humbly move into those types of conversations saying, okay, this is what we can do better, right. But if that humbleness isn't there, or in that humility you're not the one that started that conversation then what it's going to ensue is a level of defensiveness.
Speaker 1:
That's the second thing that can lead to a communication breakdown. It's pretty easy to get defensive if you feel like you're being attacked. So what exactly does that do?
Speaker 2:
Well, defensiveness will shut things down. We'll shut down the communication because, let's say, your spouse is coming at you with some criticism not critical, analytical communication, but some criticism and you immediately become defensive. In those situations At that point it's me against him or him against me. You know it's not. It's not us together against the problem. So that's what defensiveness does. It divides the team and makes the communication the problem instead of whatever they're trying to work on. You know, whatever you're trying to work on it's not you as a cohesive couple against the problem.
Speaker 1:
Right, and if you're talking about something that you're trying to fix together and you're discussing what went wrong, not placing any blame, you can check your own heart and just ask am I feeling defensive without cause? Because sometimes we do feel defensive, even though it's not about what we did. It's about the circumstance and the situation and what, as a couple, we could do differently. So if that's the case, you can check your heart and say I'm being defensive for no reason. However, there are times where things are made to feel very personal. It triggers defensiveness and in that case, I want to ask that you, as the spouse who's triggering the defensiveness in your spouse think about am I talking about the situation or am I trying to assign blame? Because if I'm assigning blame instead of looking at how can we do this differently?
Speaker 1:
it's going to trigger a lot of defensiveness and it can trigger an absolute shutdown.
Speaker 2:
Absolutely. And that absolute shutdown leads to the heart issue of contempt.
Speaker 2:
And that's the third thing that we want to talk about and if any of this sounds familiar, you probably have followed us for some time we had an episode in the very beginning so it's probably about a year ago where we talked about Gottman's four horsemen. And these are them criticism, defense, contempt which is what we're getting ready to explain and stonewalling and got. The gotman institute has studied these four things and the one thing that he's concluded like the big thing, is that when you have these four horsemen at play in your relationship, it is 90 percent uh sure that your relationship is going to end up in separation or divorce because, these things are left unchecked are very dangerous.
Speaker 1:
Right, and so the good news is, each of them can be overcome. But if left unchecked, it's going to be bad for you. So contempt is one of those things where you start to feel like things are happening so often you know I'm defending myself so often, or I'm constantly facing criticism you start to look at the one that you love so dearly. You said I want to spend the rest of my life with you and you start saying, oh great, here it comes again. You know they're just going to say bad things about me. Of course it's my fault.
Speaker 2:
And I think it's even deeper than that. I think there's a bitter root of unforgiveness there because of all of the history of the defensiveness and criticism, like those two things kind of work um together, uh, back and forth, like this cycle, right?
Speaker 2:
so there's this level of unforgiveness that just creates a bitter root of contempt of the. The word that comes to mind is hatred, and like contempt left unchecked is going to ensue to this type of of hatred, and I don't have another word for that and it leads to so many uh statements that that just aren't true because they're all or nothing statements.
Speaker 1:
You always do this.
Speaker 2:
Or I never.
Speaker 1:
I'm never able to be good enough, and contempt brings out things that make us feel like something's absolute when it's not, and it can cause you to feel like there's no hope. There is hope, but it can cause you to feel like there's not, like there's no hope. There is hope, but it can cause you to feel like there's not. And you know, the other thing with contempt that really really can negatively affect your relationship is when you start to look at your spouse thinking, okay, today was a good day because they didn't criticize me, but in your heart you're expecting them to. You've pre-loaded your contempt. It's like when you get one of those gift cards and they load some money onto it.
Speaker 1:
You've pre-loaded this contempt and you're just expecting it. It's going to happen and that's a really, really dangerous way to live your life Leslie talked about. It's a bitter root type of judgment. Maybe the way for you to picture it is this it's a wound that's deep and when you don't feel like you've had to express the contempt for a while, it starts to heal over a little bit, but when you haven't dealt with it, it never heals fully. It's a scab, and the very next time something happens where you rake that scab, it bleeds all over again, and so contempt becomes dangerous, because there's never any real healing. You can fool yourself into thinking it's been several days since I've actively felt this, but without dealing with it. It's still right there at the surface, and all it takes is a little scratch and it's back.
Speaker 2:
And you mentioned something that kind of leads us into the fourth one is that contempt will lead to hopelessness, and when you become um hopeless, then you um tend to start stonewalling, like just totally shutting down, shutting your spouse out, not talking about it, not trying like totally disconnecting, and um, that's a really, that's a really bad place to be for sure.
Speaker 1:
And and you can convince yourself wrongly when you're stonewalling that well, I'm just making sure that we get along.
Speaker 2:
You know my spouse is yelling at me my spouse is yelling at me and I'm just okay, I'm, you know, I'm fine. They deserve that.
Speaker 1:
Right and and so in the process of stonewalling it can be active or it can be passive stonewalling. If it's passive stonewalling, you're just saying okay, and you're not really listening, you're just agreeing, because then the yelling will stop. That's a really dangerous place to be, because you're not actually fixing anything, you're just trying to placate, and when you placate it feeds the contempt. So stonewalling doesn't just bring up an end to the argument, it also feeds and fuels the contempt.
Speaker 2:
That caused it. Yeah, so those are some behaviors and some ways that communication can break down, and that was the first thing in the top three things that keep couples from playing the long game. The second thing is unmet expectations, and I'm going to add unspoken there too. You probably heard us talk before about unmet expectations. Right, because more often than not, when there is a communication breakdown or a difficulty in the relationship, maybe more often than not, it has to do with unmet expectations. And guys, there's always going to be unmet expectations, like that's common, that's kind of normal. But where it moves into the unfair playing field is when they're unspoken. You've heard the old adage. Well, he can't read my mind even though he's supposed to.
Speaker 1:
He can't Right.
Speaker 2:
The reason why we have that adage is because there's unspoken expectations, and it is never fair to have unspoken expectations for your spouse.
Speaker 1:
Right, and we were looking at Gottman's Four Horsemen and in the process of all of those things we talked about, there will be times where you have an expectation that has been communicated and it isn't met as well, and we know that that can lead to a real breakdown within your relationship. And so one of the questions that we've asked ourselves and talked about lately is what's the difference between reminding and nagging? Let me go ahead and give you a husband's perspective here. Okay, cause if there's an expectation that has been properly communicated, we all know that sometimes stuff gets in the way. Sometimes you get so busy with what you're doing you really just forgot. Sometimes it's not because it's unimportant, it's because you were so distracted, your brain was going a thousand miles an hour and you missed it. Those times we all know it's helpful and it's good to be able to remind one another of you know. Hey, we said we were going to do this. You know, can we do that now? And did you notice that? If it's, hey, this is something we agreed to do, let's do this. That never feels like nagging. What it feels like nagging is you said you were going to do that and you didn't. Yeah, well, haven't you done that by now, and so reminding, though is hey, do you still have time to get to that today? It's not nagging, that's a reminder, that's a blessing, but it's not just those expectations that have been communicated.
Speaker 1:
Leslie mentioned the big one that we see so often, where you expect something but you never said it, but it's important to you, really important to you, and you didn't say it. And you expect your spouse somehow to just know Guys. She doesn't just know Ladies, he doesn't just know Ladies, he doesn't just know. And so what we do is we set ourselves up for hurt, real hurt, deep hurt, that then causes us to believe things that are lies, you know, because then my wife doesn't do something that I really wanted her to do, but I never told her she doesn't do it. It was really important to me and I convinced myself, even though it's never been true. Well, if she loved me, she would have done that, so she must not love me. We know that's not true. Do you see the danger of having something that you really want and not communicating it? Please, if you have an expectation, don't let it go unvoiced. Share it, even if it's going to take a while before it can be met. Share it so that in the future it can be met.
Speaker 2:
Or if it's unreasonable.
Speaker 1:
Or unrealistic or unrealistic Right.
Speaker 2:
Then you can talk about it and both be on the same page about it and find something that is realistic. Find something that is reasonable, that still accomplishes the goal Right Without undermining the relationship Right.
Speaker 1:
You know, because there's things that you know. If Leslie would ask me to do certain things, there's things I cannot do. Wait what? There are things you can't do.
Speaker 1:
I know Don't you know, whether it's because we don't have the resources to do it or, you know, don't have the talent or the ability to do it. Those things need to be communicated too, because sometimes things are unrealistic. But what Leslie just said is so important you can have the communication to say I want to be able to do for you the things that I can do and still be able to get that sense of belonging and purpose and hope and love and care and concern that the original expectation would have brought if it had been fulfilled. So talk about it. So if it's unrealistic, you can go into the real world. If it's been spoken and not been done, you can communicate in a way that's helpful and reminding, not nagging. And if something really matters to you, it's unfair to leave it unspoken and expect it to get done.
Speaker 2:
I think I have a whole Pinterest list that you would consider unreasonable.
Speaker 1:
Yes, and, by the way, whoever invented Pinterest is just evil. That's just evil.
Speaker 2:
Just kidding, no, not no. We love our Pinterest boards, don't we? I love it. Well, the third thing that keeps couples from playing the long game and this won't surprise you either it is a lack of intimacy.
Speaker 1:
You might be thinking just physical intimacy, and of course that's important, but it's not just that, it's emotional intimacy, and I'm going to tell you spiritual intimacy too.
Speaker 2:
Friendship, intimacy.
Speaker 1:
And there's so many ways that you can build those big three categories through friendship, through recreation.
Speaker 1:
But when you focus on those big three of physical, emotional and spiritual, then all of those other little subcategories fall into them and feed them. But if you don't have emotional intimacy, you're not going to have the desire to have physical intimacy, and vice versa. And as believers, you need spiritual intimacy, not only between yourself and the Lord, but as a couple, between the two of you as a couple and the Lord, and it's going to feed the desire to be intimate in every area of your life.
Speaker 2:
This is just one of those mysteries of the gospel that there's no easy way to explain. It's just a mystery. But when you work on your own spiritual intimacy and your spouse is working on their own spiritual intimacy your intimacy as a couple, your physical intimacy as a couple, your emotional intimacy as a couple and your spiritual intimacy as a couple it's all going to grow and it's one of those things where you might not even have to really work on it. But you work on your own spiritual intimacy and your spouse commits to work on their own spiritual intimacy, and God is going to honor that and God is going to bless that in your marriage.
Speaker 1:
Now it will grow, but that doesn't mean it will go from infanthood to adulthood in a day, but it will grow and as it grows you're going to see the blessings.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, celebrate those blessings Right.
Speaker 1:
You'll see the blessings of that growth. And, um, you know, one of the things that we hear so often, just because it's stereotypically so true, is something that we need to just address real quickly. Um, if you feel like you don't have enough physical intimacy, gentlemen, um, ask God to show you whether you have the proper emotional intimacy with your wife. Ladies, if you feel like you don't have enough emotional intimacy with your husband, ask yourself if you're having proper physical intimacy with your husband. Not that they're completely connected, but they're connected in a degree. They're connected in a way that God expects us to be one in every way and if, while we're struggling in one area, we withhold in another area, we're actually moving further away from intimacy rather than toward it.
Speaker 1:
Please don't misunderstand that, gentlemen just because you're perhaps being more physically intimate doesn't mean you don't need to also increase and improve your emotional intimacy. And, ladies, vice versa. If he's being more emotionally intimate, it doesn't mean you don't need to also increase and improve your emotional intimacy. And, ladies, vice versa. If he's being more emotionally intimate, it doesn't mean you don't also need to increase your physical intimacy. But what I'm saying is you want to make steps to move toward intimacy in every area of your life, not away from it and the caveat there is that we're generalizing about a couple that are both emotionally and physically healthy.
Speaker 2:
Right, you know there's some situations that are going to be, you know, outliers of the norm, and if you're in one of those situations, I would say give yourself some grace. Yes, if you need counseling, find a counselor. If you need a mentor, find a mentor, because there's no shame in having someone come along beside us and help us through some of those times. As a matter of fact, it's good.
Speaker 1:
It's not just something not to be ashamed of. It's something that's such a blessing when you can have somebody else walk beside you, and so, again, the patience that comes through the process and the mercy that's given, as well as the grace that's given, is something that's going to help you if you're feeling a lack of intimacy. Be able to identify your own heart first where do I need to be more intimate? And then working together as a couple, but with all three of these things that could stand in the way of playing the long game the way you should with each one of them, it's going to start with your own heart. Check to see where it is that you can do the things that you're wanting to do a little better than you've been, and then, start coming together as a couple to figure out how you can do that together.
Speaker 2:
I hope that you've enjoyed this episode. If you are struggling with any of these things, or any of these things kind of hit home for you, we would love to hear from you. Catch us on social media. You can DM us or send us an email. We would just love to be able to connect with you.
Speaker 1:
This is the Vision Driven Marriage Podcast. We're Doug and Leslie Davis. Today we've been looking at the top three things that can keep couples from playing the long game in their relationship. But we are excited about the fact that God overcomes those things and we continue to pray that God will solidify your marriage.