Heart Versus Head
A podcast that helps couples fight better and connect again.
Heart Versus Head
VNEs: Exploring Values
In this episode, Randy and Beverly continue to explore the reasons that couples fight: different values, unmet needs and miscommunicated expectations, VNEs. This episode focuses on values, the deep core beliefs that form in our early years and shape the way we live, communicate and love later in life.
Heart Versus Head is a podcast about relationship styles and how those relationship styles influence communication in the most important relationships. The hosts - Randy Hampton and Beverly Craddock - are a married couple who are sought-after relationship coaches, award-winning authors and regular people who (like everyone in relationships) are just trying to stay connected through all the noise of life in the modern world. You can learn more about the couple and their work at HeartAndHeadCoaching.com, where you'll learn to fight better and connect again.
Welcome to Heart vs. Head, a podcast that helps couples communicate and fight better. Here are your hosts, Randy Hampton and Beverly Craddock.
SPEAKER_01:Today we're going to focus on values. Values are important because we need to know Where we stand, what's most important in our life, and also in a relationship, we need to know what values are shared and where we disagree or where we don't see eye to
SPEAKER_02:eye.
SPEAKER_01:Which is all the time. values allows us to make decisions coming from those underlying beliefs and principles to treat one another on a regular basis. You could think about the golden rule, treat others as you want to be treated, for example, would be a value. And lastly, to help us envision a future together based on those same shared underlying beliefs.
SPEAKER_02:They are big. They are built in our past. They are built in how we grow up. Sometimes where we grow up, certainly culture plays a role. Here in Hawaii, we have a balanced cultural landscape, lots of Asian culture here in Hawaii. So there's a lot of influence from Asian culture. Obviously, the Hawaiian culture, the Polynesian culture is very strong here. And then there's a Western culture that kind of comes from the States. All of those things mean that you're going to meet people that maybe just see it a little bit different. And sometimes that's hard to click with a person.
SPEAKER_01:Or navigate.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. And that happens in couples a lot where we see this person, we like this person, we love this person and it's wonderful and we're dating and everything's great. And we think they must be just like us. They must see the world the same and they don't.
SPEAKER_01:In the dating phase, we're definitely looking for, we see the commonalities. Oh, they love the same music, they like the same hobbies or same sports team or so forth. But that doesn't necessarily mean that all of our values are shared. I think one of the things I appreciate about Randy and I's relationship is that going into it, we do have a lot of shared common values. Some of those would be how we were raised, we grew up more in Colorado, and a lot of that has to do with our urban versus rural living and kind of more of a neighborly approach. Definitely the golden rule, treating people the way we want to be treated, respecting people. One of the ones where Randy and I have had some conflict around would be forgiveness.
SPEAKER_02:Forgiveness. I don't do it. So that pretty much covers it. And Beverly thinks everybody should a lot. And she's really actually very good at it, which makes me very lucky. But I'm not good at forgiveness at all. People cross me and I'm like, okay, you're done. And that's kind of it. I'm not a second chance kind of guy. It's just me.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And compare that to my first husband who let me down all the time. He had an addiction for those who are just listening now. My first husband was alcoholic and after 13 years of marriage and two kids, I divorced him and he eventually died in 2019 from that disease. But I know that during that 13 years, when we were going through that addiction, there was a lot of forgiveness on my part. I go from one marriage to another to now Randy, who doesn't ask for forgiveness. And I'm just puzzled by that because I'll bring him his coffee and I'll say, oh, sorry, it's a little bit hot.
SPEAKER_02:Like she can control the hot on the coffee. My favorite, Beverly will work really, really hard. She'll make breakfast, she'll make bacon and eggs and toast, and she'll bring me the breakfast and she'll say, I'm sorry, the toast is a little brown. In my mind, I'm like, why are you even saying I'm sorry? Why on earth would you apologize for making breakfast? Because if I make breakfast and the toast is a little brown, you're getting brown toast. And you know what, if you don't like the brown toast, Hell, go make your own. Get over it. And so Beverly has this thing where she is 12 times a day. She'll just kind of naturally come out with, I'm sorry about something. She'll say, oh, sorry, this or sorry that. She'll do it 12 times a day. And I swear I don't do it 12 times in a year.
SPEAKER_01:Right. If that.
SPEAKER_02:And it is a really big values difference. It can be frustrating when there's a disagreement or an argument or something like that. I'm not the guy that comes charging back in and goes, oh, I'm sorry. I do when I'm wrong.
SPEAKER_01:It is more than 12 times a year.
SPEAKER_02:It's probably closer to 12 times a day. But the way that I look at it, because I suck at forgiveness, sorry, character flaw, maybe, but I don't apologize because I think if I'm apologizing, I'm admitting I was wrong. And in my mind, Beverly's got some list somewhere of all the times that I've been wrong. It's going to sound suddenly one day like I won a big jackpot in a casino or something. The machine's going to go ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. You finally pushed me over the edge with all of the times that you were wrong and I'm out.
SPEAKER_01:That's
SPEAKER_02:a very head thought. And there was the potential of at least emotional infidelity. And it blew up. And this guy said to me, he said, you know, Randy, I can't, I just, I really can't convince her that I'm sorry. And, you know, I've said it and that should be enough. I've said it once and good enough. She should just move on. It didn't work that way for the heart partner. She was like, no, this is a big deal. And I don't know if I can believe you or trust you or all of these things.
SPEAKER_01:Plus, he probably didn't sound And
SPEAKER_02:why wouldn't he sound sincere? He tells me later when we're doing some individual work together, he says,
SPEAKER_01:Ha ha ha! Just because you don't apologize doesn't let you off the hook. There's still a list. You've still screwed up. In fact, now you're worse because you screwed up and you didn't say you're sorry.
SPEAKER_02:And you won't apologize. So when we don't give forgiveness, we don't ask for it. And so you can see where this gets to be a real challenge. You've got to be able to talk to your partner. You don't have to agree on the values. Right. Beverly and I don't agree on the value of forgiveness She forgave her first husband a billion times, thankfully, because that was ultimately someday I'll tell the story. That was ultimately the way I realized that I might have a chance. I met Beverly's first husband twice, I believe, and she is able to forgive him more than I'm able to forgive him. And I didn't know the guy. I don't have that same depth of forgiveness that Beverly has. Hearts,
SPEAKER_01:I think, forgive a lot because we care about people. And so I would rather say, I'm sorry if I think there's a small chance that I've offended you or hurt you in some way. And I would rather just throw that out there up front. In fact, I do see the downside of asking for forgiveness too often is that it becomes so complacent, you know, just so like it doesn't make sense. mean anything anymore if you say it 10 times in a day. I've pulled way back from that, just this whole conversation about forgiveness, probably for us happened three or four, five years ago, and something that we put into our couple's rulebook, which is available on Amazon. Small plug there. But forgiveness is something that you do need to discuss and to understand one another. I think asking for Randy's forgiveness constantly was also a bit of an annoyance on his part. I think in some ways, maybe they don't respect hearts as much because we're always apologizing. But that's kind of along the lines of viewing weakness and emotion and this whole idea of hearts caring about people. And so we're just kind of two different individuals. We look at things differently. And when it butts up against the value of forgiveness, then it needs to be discussed to communicate about it.
SPEAKER_02:Though we both in general believe the basic same things, we see it very differently. And there's so many of these things. It's money that leads to fights because some people are like now people. They have a value for wanting what they want now. And if we're a now person, our value for money may be how much can I make right now because I really want that car. Somebody else might have a better value for later when it comes to money. And they say, hey, I want to save that up because I want to have that life later. I want to retire. I want to be able to do those things with you later. And so we can have these different values based on, is it now? Is it later? Beverly's already mentioned that hearts have a big heart for people and relationships. So we can have this different value for the people around us. And when we end up in an argument, Beverly and I will argue differently based on our values. Beverly goes slow and has this kind of cautionary approach to, I don't want to hurt anybody's feelings. Randy has this drive the tank over everything and let's see if I can't get to the finish line faster than anybody else. Neither is right or wrong. This isn't about judging the values that people have. Now, that doesn't mean you can't have screwed up values. If you grow up in a house where I think
SPEAKER_01:one of the ones that is really important in a relationship would be communication as a value from the standpoint of, are we going to openly communicate? Are we going to share our thoughts, our feelings, our needs? Are we going to be honest to one another? Will we be willing to listen carefully, be patient with each other?
SPEAKER_02:Okay, yeah, enough about patience. Patience. Let's back up and talk about honesty. Sorry, couldn't resist the patience joke there. Honesty is one that's hilarious because as a head, there's this honesty dilemma in my brain. Because I know there's moments where Beverly will try on a new outfit and she'll say, oh, does this look good? The last thing that I think she wants in that moment is honesty. Oh, no, looks great. You look beautiful today because I want to build her up. I want to, you know, I want to support her. I want her to feel good about her choices. I want all of these things. And if I think outfit looks like something one of the kids would wear, I feel mean saying that. So there is a bit of a check on the relationship, maybe. But honesty comes up. Is it OK to white lie to your partner? Do you have the right answer to that? Because I don't. But
SPEAKER_01:well, I think when When it comes to a relationship, I think that as much as a heart cares about what other people think and we don't want to hurt our partner, you've asked me before when you bring out that shirt that is disgusting and you start to go out the door and I say, are you wearing that? And we rethink the shirt. So I'm very honest with you and I think it's because as a heart, I do care about you and so I don't want you to go out and wear something that I think might embarrass you. you or me or have people concerned about your welfare.
SPEAKER_02:Or my mental health. Values fool us. They fool us sometimes because we believe that we have good values. Studies show 80% of people think they are a good driver. Now, for anybody that's driven anywhere, anytime, you know that's not true. We think we're smarter than we are. Harvard did a study. They found out that everybody thinks their pretty smart. And we know this. You can go down on the bus bench in downtown Honolulu out here and find a guy laying over there with a needle in his arm. You want to find out how smart he is, ask him what he thinks about the government, and he'll give you what he considers to be a very smart answer about that. We all believe that we're smart, and maybe we aren't. Our values can fool us. The best example of this was the study that was done on pregnant women and quitting smoking. When women quit smoking, when they got pregnant, you ask them, why'd you quit smoking? It's an easy answer, right? The baby. And yet this study found that that's not why women quit smoking when they're pregnant. They quit smoking when they're pregnant because pregnancy shows and they don't want to walk down the street putting a cigarette in their mouth because they know every human's going to judge them and go, well, no, you can't do that. Sometimes these values fool us. We think we have great values. We think we have great ethics and great morals and we're a good person. And it may not entirely be that as well. So watch for your own values because they can fool you sometimes. And it's really important that your partner's on your team and can kind of point out sometimes some of these blind spots that we may have for our own values too. Something to think about.
SPEAKER_01:Values certainly can be at the root of many different conflicts. Even communication, for example, open communication and how open we are to that. When we know what our partner's number one, number two, top level priorities are, then we can support them in that, especially if we agree with those things. Sometimes partners will come in and they'll say, I work because I want to save for a vacation. Vacations matter. And the other person says, well, no, I mean, vacations are a luxury. We want to save for retirement. And so we get this misalignment in, are we going on a vacation this year? Are we putting the money away for retirement 20, 30 years from now? There's no right or wrong, as Randy says, there's just a difference. And what we find is that if people can talk about values and begin to find the shared values, and then the things that are not shared, and then to come to an agreement on what it is that we're going to do in that area, if it's vacation versus retirement, Maybe one year it can be put money toward vacation. Maybe the next year put money toward retirement. There's a lot of ways to find a compromise or to work that out, but not if we don't sit and talk about it, the deeper issue about the imbalance in that value.
SPEAKER_02:And values change. It's an ongoing conversation that you need to have with your partner about your values. Values change over time. I laugh sometimes when we do things like Beverly and I will go to the pool and we're sitting at the pool and they're some kids playing loudly. And I think in my mind, man, that's annoying, those kids playing loudly at the pool. And then I also realize when I have grandchildren, I want them to laugh and have a wonderful time at the pool. And so our values can shift depending on where we are in life. All right, we promised to keep the podcast episodes commuter short. So we're going to leave you with all these things to think about. Next time, we're going to talk about needs and what we need in our relationship. Remember, you fight about three things Thanks for tuning in. Bye.
SPEAKER_00:Thanks for listening to Heart vs. Head. You can learn more at heartandheadcoaching.com and check out new podcast episodes every Wednesday. If you have a question for Randy and Beverly, send an email to info at heartandheadcoaching.com.
