When Plan A Fails: The 3-Step Backup Plan for Marriage Fights

     Hey believers, what do you do when you hit a wall in your marriage, a disagreement gets heated, and your go-to strategy completely fails? Most couples rely on a "Plan A" that leaves them trapped in the same frustrating cycles over and over again.

In this episode of the Allen and Eve podcast, we are getting incredibly raw about a recent, real-life disagreement that put our own communication tools to the test. When avoidance started creeping in, and our usual strategies broke down, we had to instantly shift to a powerful 3-step "Plan B" framework to save the conversation from spinning out of control.

We are introducing the core concepts behind this backup plan, including:

1. The essential mindset shift required to halt the negative momentum of a fight before it riles you up inside.


2. The hardest thing a spouse can do to genuinely drop their armor and see the real issue.


3. The "slam dunk" anchor of communication that completely breaks down walls and stops the blame game in its tracks.


When you hold a mirror up to the situation, healthy communication becomes contagious—but you have to know how to open that door. Stop letting the enemy create distance between you and your spouse. Pull up a chair, find out exactly how we navigated the heat of the moment, and learn how to build a backup plan that actually works for your marriage.
Because when things get real, you can't rely on a broken plan—and remember, marriage is not a game!

If this conversation challenges or blesses you, hit that subscribe button, slam the like button, and let us know your thoughts in the comments below



      🔥Remember, it's Allan & Eve here to help you believe that marriage is not a game!!!🔥

Transcript

Allen 0:00

What do you do when you hit a wall in your marriage and you have a disagreement and you only rely on your plan A? And it fails and you don't have a plan B, you end up right back in the same cycles over and over again. And it fails, and you didn't have a plan B, and you're back into old cycles again. If this is for you, pull up a chair and let's have this conversation. Alan Eve here to help you believe that marriage is not a game. Talk to him, girl. What up though, everybody? Oh man, it feels so good to be here doing this video. Man, I am so happy because a lot of times I rely on plan B when things go wrong, and me and my wife having a discussion and we have a disagreement. Never argument, disagreement. I see arguments as you're yelling and screaming at each other and you're putting each other down. We're having strong disagreements on things. And how do you do it when you only have a plan A? Let me get into this conversation, and I promise you, this will bless you. You will understand and not just have one way or just one plan for a situation when you have a disagreement. We are going to lay out the three points of my plan B that helped me in our last disagreement that was honest when we have a healthy communication.

Eve 1:22

Some of it didn't help.

Allen 1:23

Some of it. So is anything you want to add before I start flowing and going?

Eve 1:29

Anything I want to add, I didn't even where we where we at?

Allen 1:32

You didn't anything you want to add to this so far that what I already said. No, I'll just interrupt when I can. No, I'm gonna listen, but I'm gonna try to the reason why I bring this video up because a couple weeks ago, me and my wife had a disagreement, and we came against uh uh strong heated disagreement that I thought, hey, I have a plan A. This is what I'm going to do. When things get rough and we just seem like we're disagreeing and we're not hearing each other out. I'm gonna say, hey, let me call you back, or let's take a pause in this conversation and talk about it later. And but my wife in the heat of the moment did not. Do you want to explain?

Eve 2:15

Yeah, yeah, I can tell them what I said. I don't mind. What was going through your mind? What was going through my mind is avoidance. You don't want to have the conversation, you know. You know, we're about to talk about this. Like, and it wasn't that we because we don't cuss each other out. So I feel like we've been getting through it this way all of this time. Why are you now trying to change up on me? Well, I don't like you changing up, and we where we at with this because it it did to me at that time feel like he was avoiding the conversation, yes.

Allen 2:47

And my defense, in a way, or my strategy was plan A, plan A. It didn't work out, and it didn't work because I told her, hey, let's like I said before, let's take a break, let's pause. She said, No, no, no, no, no, we're not gonna talk. It's like, whoa, now at that point, I can just snap back into our old cycles. But I thought about it, I said, hold on, I remember this other thing I read. I should try this right now, and this is part of my three steps on with my plan B. The first one was the hard stop and breathe. So as you were carrying on talking, instead of trying to pick out the things, nitpick every little thing you say, focus on that, and then wait till you stop and then have a rebuttal. I did the whole stop, calm down, and breathe. I did a hard stop, I just stopped my mind, I stopped everything. Right. And I just sat there and cooled and try to like like doing breathing exercise. Like get my mind right. It definitely um helps when you're in a heated moment to just like breathe sometimes. Because I I don't know what it does, but it just like just ease your nerves and ease the like you're just getting riled up inside and furious. So once you like, it's not that you're stopping just to ignore the person that's talking, but if we can't walk away, let's do some breathing exercise or me do some breathing exercise, or we both do it together, we can do it together, that's fine. But let's we have to cool out, we have to stop. At least one person has to do that, right?

Eve 4:32

And I agree with that. But two, I wanted to just bring up it did also feel like I don't, I felt like I didn't want to have to rehab this conversation. Sometimes when you're in the heat of the moment, you don't want to keep having the same conversation over and over again. Maybe some people just want to deal with it, but right, of course, if the person is hollering, screaming, yelling, y'all cussing each other out, yes, that's not gonna work. But I feel like in our situation, it does work, and we got through it.

Allen 4:58

And if I stop and not doing that, constantly cutting you off and talking, because where does that get us if I constantly we cutting each other off, just getting more furious and furious about now? It's new things that's coming up. It was about this small thing, now it's something else. Like, hey, you just said this, and that's not what I say it. So what are you now? We're arguing about five different things in a mystic. Is that making anything better? No, you're yelling at the person, putting them down, being condescending, being very rude, right? Going through this process. The second step that I had to do, it was the whole step back and put myself in their shoes. This is one of the hardest, difficult things to do because now, after the breathing exercise, I have to stop thinking about myself, drop my armor, stop focusing on me, and focus on what you're saying, what the argument with the discussion and everything. Put it my like, yeah, of course, put myself in your shoes, but kind of just look at it from your point of view. What is she really saying? Like, what if she's trying to get through to me that I'm not understanding? How do it feel to be in your shoes? How do it feel to be you trying to tell me this?

Eve 6:22

Right, you know, I don't so I mean it feels like sometimes you understand, or you say you understand, or you're saying words just to me so that it can go away. That, yeah, I understand everything you're saying right now, everything is very clear to me. And like you just saying, not you don't say that, but you know, if somebody stood there and just agreed with everything, that didn't tell me anything about how you really feel because I know you really don't feel like that, or we wouldn't be having this conversation. Right. So there is a lack of communication and a breakdown of communication somewhere, and it is frustrating to try to talk to somebody that may not be a talker, okay? And maybe they don't know how to express themselves as well, or they shut down. That's not helpful, you know, because you have to come out of that too. You can't just ex, you know, expect them to, oh, I know you're shutting down right now, and that's always the end of it. You know, everybody should be compromising. Sometimes you should let it go in the moment because you know they shut down. The other person that shut down, they need in other moments to speak up and not always shut down. It needs to be some give and take here, you know.

Allen 7:32

Right. And it's difficult to put yourself in somebody else's shoe. Very difficult. You're not gonna get this right the first time, but over time, you're gonna have to understand your own tricks and and and tips and stuff, how to do this, how to put yourself like really that whole stopping and breathing, that's gonna help. Realizing what they're saying, actually listen, take it in and be like, okay, this is the problem. I'm going to focus on that point and put myself in their shoes. How would I feel if that happened? We don't want to be like, yeah, yeah, okay, I understand, you know, like whatever type of thing. No, really think about it. And um, I promise you, putting yourself in their shoes. I know it's gonna be difficult. I understand that I've been through it, but I'm telling you, put yourself in their shoes.

Eve 8:31

Now you said that five times.

Allen 8:33

Hey, because it's so important, it's very important, it's hard to do, and I want to get them across to them to do this for sure. It will help. Just put yourself in that shoe. The third and last one.

Eve 8:45

Wait, hold on. I want to just add to that. When you're putting yourself in somebody's shoes, don't think about how you would handle it. Right. Because once you start thinking about how you would handle it, oh, they should have done it like this. But that's not where they are. This is not how they're handling. You have to respect where they are too. You see, because some people could see what their spouse is saying, but just don't agree with it, so it never goes anywhere. Just respect where they are, respect what they're saying. Pray for them that they will grow on that in that area. And um, just try not to make everything a big deal. You know? Okay.

unknown 9:21

Yeah.

Allen 9:22

I like that. Okay. The last and third step, the final step. This is the the slam dunk of this whole thing. I mean, this is the most powerful part of all of it. You you can't have, you know, you you you can't. This is just the anchor. This is the the the the golden ticket right here. If you speak with self-awareness, now this is the speaking part. You you you know, you stop, you listen, took it all in, thought about your spouse, and now this is the person. Now, this is where you come out and you start speaking. You're not being um pointing the blame back. That's not self-awareness when I say, Oh, I'm doing this because of you. So we're doing tick and tack. I'm I did it because what you did. No, self-awareness, you're only displaying and you're talking about what you did. Yourself, right? Yeah, yourself. You're talking about what you did, and you're taking accountability. A lot of people will be like so amazed and so happy to talk to somebody, have a discussion with somebody, a disagreement, don't matter how heated it gets. At the end, you can be self-aware, have self-awareness and not just be like, Oh, oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah. Yeah, I know I did this. And it's always my fault. Saying that, yeah, that it's not going to get anybody.

Eve 10:43

It's kind of annoying, right? I can't never do nothing right. It's like, that's all you had to say out of everything I just said.

Allen 10:49

Right.

Eve 10:50

Like, we're not gonna dress nothing else, you just gonna throw that up and walk out, right?

Allen 10:55

To make somebody feel good about a discussion is the letting them know that you actually heard what they said. If I repeated what you said, and then I I after I repeat what you just said, and I agree, and I'm saying, like, okay, I do do that, and I'm sorry, and I made a mistake. It wasn't trying to be like this. I was the way the reason I did that is because X, Y, and Z. And I'm not, you know, I'm not trying to dismiss what you're saying, but I see where I went wrong with communicating that. And I apologize. And I'm sorry, and I made a mistake. When you hold a mirror up to your own flaws, the stuff is like it's contagious in your marriage. Then the other person will be like, wait a minute, they're taking accountability for this and their own faults. I should do this, I should be able to do the same.

Eve 11:49

Well, the door is open for you to walk right through the door of what the, you know, typically it's the husband. Open up that door, you know, because us as wives are a little bit more emotional for some. I can't say all. But um, yeah, it definitely helped me with you taking accountability. I see in like you expressing yourself. Sometimes I guess people look at it like, oh, if I just listen and don't say anything, that's the best thing to do. But no, somebody needs to hear you express that you understand where they are, express your feelings as well so they don't feel like they're in that by themselves.

Allen 12:27

Right, you know, and you help me with that a lot because hearing you constantly bring up the same things over and over. And when we get to a point trying to figure out why this keeps coming up, right, is because I took one of my, you know, another thing I used to do is just listen. If she wants to talk about the issue, I think the best thing is if I listen and just we had a conversation, that's it. No, no, I need more than that. Right. It's that three, that powerful uh uh uh speak with self-awareness is where we start breaking chains, we start opening up communication, we start losing cycles and start breaking generational curses by being self-aware. You help me with that too. You know, you're very self-aware with things you're going through. Just task snitching on myself all the time. With the things that you you're not, you know, you don't have perfect. No, but man, when somebody, oh Lord, you the the the the the fence that wall, everything starts coming down. And I don't know, I I just can't express how much this works. Right. So have this as a plan.

Eve 13:42

So basically, the simple thing is to just agree with your wife. I'm just playing.

Allen 13:47

Or your spouse, right? Just agree whatever they say. Like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Nah, nah, not everything.

Eve 13:53

Uh right.

Allen 13:54

Of course, you know, we do want to address issues.

Eve 13:57

Of course, yeah.

Allen 13:58

But first, you know, address the yourself, and then let's talk about the smile. Because if your spouse, the one who brought up this conversation, let's deal with one thing at a time. Right. You didn't bring up this conversation, they did. So this is what we're going to deal with. This wasn't Joe turn to hop in the buttons. What you do, you know. All right, this ain't so get your leg back, get your get back, you know, say something back. No, self-awareness. I know it, I hey everything. I know this is gonna be hard for some people. It's hard for me. But it feels so good when you when you do when I did these steps, when I did everything after, I'm like, wow, I'm not frustrated, I'm not angry. I was so happy. It's like I felt love again.

Eve 14:44

Like, what was love at all this time? It was anger, uh madness, like it should have been when you start breaking, when somebody breaks trust, yeah, they do some deceptive stuff, let the devil in, not a devil with the demons in the fluence of your marriage and your attitude, and you have unforgiveness, bitterness, and all this stuff on the inside of you, it will manifest in your marriage. It will.

Allen 15:11

So, in this plan, it's gonna at least give you one of the steps to fight the enemy in your marriage, especially if y'all not causing more of the problems and y'all putting out fires, y'all defeating the you know, the enemy that's coming between y'all the fiery darts, yeah. The fiery darts have up that shield, put that shield up, put that shield up. Hey, put that shield up.

Eve 15:36

So, why don't we stop at the same time? That's funny.

Allen 15:40

We twins. We're twins. We are, yeah, and you know it. So I um it's anything you want to add? Anything you want to say?

Eve 15:50

No, I think that you definitely covered everything. You did a wonderful job, and um, I'm just here.

Allen 15:57

Stop being just here, you're not just here. Uh at the end of the day, you're not going to get the results you want out of your marriage if you only rely on a plan A. Some circumstances, disagreements, are called for plan B. If you need to be ready with that plan B, especially take these three, just use them as a you know, template or something. I don't know, try it. I promise you, you're gonna get good results if you don't post the blame on your spouse.

Eve 16:28

I just thought about this. All of this plan B talk. Plan B. It's a lot of people, as Christians, that's taking plan B's, but you don't have a plan B in your marriage just to have a simple conversation, but you for sure you want to take that plan B.

SPEAKER_02 16:43

It's good. You suppose it's good.

Allen 16:46

But I'm saying, like, right finances, people have plan B. When you do jobs and stuff, people have plan B. When you want a career, plan B. They tell you, don't rely on your plan A. Always have a backup plan, backup plan. And there's nothing wrong with that. Yes, because you now I haven't really heard too many people talk about backup plan when you have a disagreement, right? You're trying to communicate. This is the only way. Do it like this, do it like this. What if it does now what? I did plan A, it didn't work. Now I'm like, forget this. Like free for now, baby. I tried it, didn't work. So now let's go back. If she I'm gonna give my get back time now. She don't want to stop it. Let's keep going then. I promise you, we should have stopped it.

Eve 17:27

I'm glad we don't have that type of relationship. Ain't nobody ever been trying to get no get back. We're trying to get the the stump on the devil's head. That's what we're trying to do together. Just ace down tummy.

Allen 17:40

Usually now we're trying to get down, right? Y'all get yourself a plan B. Understand, it's not just one way to do uh have communication in your marriage. I just saw, I mean, I well, I didn't see, kind of realize having multiple plans does help.

SPEAKER_02 18:00

Right.

Allen 18:02

Well, but plan B failed, then what?

Eve 18:03

It's like well, keep working on it because it's it's gonna come with experience. Like you're not just because we give out advice, somebody else give out advice, and you try to apply it, it doesn't work. It doesn't mean like it's just you have to find what works for your marriage, you know. Everybody's different, everybody is different, and I just want y'all to know that I do respect where people are in their life, you know, in their marriage. I I don't want to come off as, oh, I'm telling everybody this is what you should do, because if you don't do it this way, if you don't do it ease way, you wrong. That's something I had to grow and learn. Like everybody don't revolve around what I'm supposed to be telling them to do, you know. Frankly, what do you do?

Allen 18:48

So I I love my marriage so much. I love growing. I love that, you know, we can have our communication, even on our good days, bad days, you know, the worst days, that we can find different tips and tricks to work on and to come together and still get through it. Because we're not gonna allow the enemy to be in, we're not gonna allow just to give up and not figure this thing out. It has to be some other way to work on my marriage where it's thriving and it's getting healthy.

Eve 19:17

Right.

Allen 19:18

If you believe that, if you think what we just gave you was some good information, and hey, you like what everything you heard in this video, hit the subscribe button, hit the like, hit the like button. Even if it, you know, you got disagreement, yeah, what we said, please comment down below or say write us an email or something. Write a hit, hit us up. But we're not just saying this for a video, we're actually doing it in our marriage.

Eve 19:47

My bad. I'm sorry, don't put that on the butt.

Allen 19:51

We have to go, we have to get out of here. It's getting late. We gotta get out of here. We appreciate y'all so much. We love y'all. Thank you for joining the Alony podcast. Marriage is not a game.

Eve 20:03

We love y'all.

Allen 20:04

Peace. Peace.

Eve 20:06

That was so funny. Not y'all was like, that's probably how I was looking. I wonder, is it when you see because I felt my eye, you know how you feel looking on boat? Marriage is not a game.