Special Ep: Reconnecting When There is a Buffer

We record from a cabin in the Arkansas woods to celebrate 22 years of marriage and talk about what we do when life feels like it’s buffering. We use a glitchy Titanic stream as a metaphor for stress, short nerves, and the kind of reconnection that brings us back to center. 
• celebrating our anniversary with a simple getaway 
• noticing how “buffering” shows up as irritability and overwhelm 
• choosing quiet and solitude as our way to recharge 
• explaining why reconnection looks different for every couple 
• making time to connect on purpose rather than waiting for a crisis 
If you found this helpful, please share it with someone you care about. 

Transcript

Welcome To Married Hot Take

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Everyone, welcome to Mary Podcast, the podcast for the podcast. It's not about being perfect all together.

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It's about real life, real laugh, real struggle, real growth, and learning how to talk to each other every single day.

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Everything in between.

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So whether your marriage is in a great season or a hard one, you're not alone.

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Let's get into today's topic. Welcome back to Married Hot Take. Thanks for joining us today. We are your host, Aaron and Kim Degler. We like to come to you each week and just share a little about our marriage over 22 years and leave you with a hot take that you can take into your relationship.

Anniversary Getaway In Arkansas

SPEAKER_03 0:58

We kind of have a special edition. Usually we put one out every week. But as you can tell, if you're watching, we are in a different location than in our where we usually record at.

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It just got really loud. It's been peaceful.

SPEAKER_03 1:15

It's been peaceful. And if you're watching, we are in a cabin in the woods, is the name of it. We are in Arkansas. We are celebrating our 22 years of marriage. And this this past week, our episode came out on Thursday about all the things we got wrong in our marriage. And so we just thought we'd do a real quick little special edition of Marriage Hot Takes as we're here at kind of our getaway for our 22-year anniversary. And just share a little bit, kind of a thought we had while we were here. I'm kind of actually while we were watching TV, really. Because we're kind of we are out in the woods. As you heard noise, we're just probably about a mile and a half from town, so we're kind of close to a highway. But as you can see behind us, all kinds of trees, so we're kind of secluded. But um as we're watching TV, uh, you know that signal that goes around and around.

SPEAKER_01 2:17

Buffering.

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Buffering. Buffering. And we're watching a show, we're like, you know, it gets us well, actually we're watching Titanic.

SPEAKER_01 2:24

We haven't seen it before.

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Yeah, uh, because we had three hours to waste today. Um, so we weren't doing anything else. So we watched it all. And and it kept buffering. And we were just waiting for it to reconnect. And

Buffering Turns Into A Marriage Lesson

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as we're waiting for it to reconnect, we were talking about um the buffer in our life. Um, and and as as we spend our time here in Arkansas for a few days, um, it's how we reconnect.

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Um not necessarily Arkansas always, but no, not necessarily Arkansas. How we reconnect in the woods.

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In the woods.

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In the solitude.

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So you know, we we kind of talk about how's our life look when it's buffering. And how's it looked? Yeah, not just our life, but in general kind of.

SPEAKER_01 3:10

You mean like are you mean like how things get on your nerves and things? Yeah, they can't for me before we left, everything was on my last nerve. I felt like I was barely hanging on. And I don't know if it's necessarily because we knew that we were probably about that I knew we were about to take a trip. And I just was counting down the hours to for it to get here, but everything was on my last. It was on I was just barely hanging on.

SPEAKER_02 3:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:38

I was the laugh raft was deflating as we were going through today.

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As we were just watching Titanic, she was rose on the uh on the door at the end. See where she's just shivering, you know.

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Yeah, I think this is it. I'm going down this way.

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And then she can barely, you know, uh holler for the boat.

SPEAKER_01 3:57

I'm over here.

SPEAKER_03 3:59

Save me. Yeah. And and and so this is really um, whenever we want to reconnect, um, a lot of people say, Well, what are you doing? Because we're in a place called Clarksville, Arkansas.

SPEAKER_01 4:12

There's nothing here.

SPEAKER_03 4:13

There's nothing in Clarksville, Arkansas.

SPEAKER_01 4:15

We just drove through and went straight here. We have no idea what it has to offer. And when we get back home, we will still have no idea what it has to be. No idea what has to offer.

SPEAKER_03 4:22

We came just for this cabin in the woods. Um, because when we could con for us, when we can reconnect, we also go to Red River, as we've mentioned numerous times. Um, we usually go once a year. Um, and it is a time for us to reconnect. Um, as we're sitting out here on the deck, um, it's where we had lunch uh today, where we had breakfast this morning, um, where we had supper last night. Uh it's just a place that we get to spend time together and and uh we don't do anything. We'll go for a walk.

SPEAKER_01 4:51

When you say reconnect, I don't know if it's necessarily reconnect or just connect.

SPEAKER_02 4:56

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 4:57

You know what I mean? Like just a time to connect. It wasn't that there was a disconnect. No.

SPEAKER_03 5:04

So no, it's just a connect. When when you're buffering, yeah, you're reconnecting to to the internet. To the internet. So when we're buffering, we're we're just kind of reconnecting. We're saying this is you know, why we love each other. We we visit, we talk, we slept late, we ha we watch Titanic for three hours.

SPEAKER_01 5:24

Yeah, we did.

SPEAKER_03 5:25

We did.

SPEAKER_01 5:26

And the thing is, is when we go places and like this or Red River, we honestly get here now, Red with Red River we'll go hike and we'll walk through the town. But our only plan here was to never leave this cabin. We might go for a walk down this road or up the road to see if we're the only ones here because at night it's a little scary. It was real, real, real dark. So dark that we had to leave a lamp on last night in our bedroom because we were over there.

SPEAKER_03 5:58

It was dark.

SPEAKER_01 5:59

So I left my lamp on the whole like the whole lamp.

SPEAKER_03 6:02

Yeah, and then we left a light on out in the living room because we were a little scared.

SPEAKER_01 6:06

But we'll probably do that walk, but we brought all of our food. We don't go to eat, we picnic and we cook and we do nothing. I mean, I mean we sit and watch Titanic for three hours like we've never seen it before.

SPEAKER_03 6:20

Yeah, and we haven't done anything.

What Reconnecting Looks Like For You

SPEAKER_03 6:23

Um and and I guess is really what we wanted to share is what does reconnecting look like for you when life buffers, when sometimes, you know, and and buffering looks like, you know, sometimes just everything gets on your nerves. Or sometimes um if you have kiddos, you're going in a million different directions. I mean, we were there. Um, we had four kids, and and you know, especially summertime as we go into summer, they would all be playing ball and we'd have to, you know, two games at one time, or all I mean, it was just craziness. Um and and that reconnect, I think sometimes life does pull us a little bit apart. Um when we have jobs, when we're mom and dads, um, when we have uh aging parents, um, all those things pull us in different directions. Um and and this it for us is a you know, we don't have to worry about business.

SPEAKER_01 7:12

Yeah. And I think that that's another big thing is we don't necessarily want to go to a place where we're gonna need to talk to people. Because for you, you have all the words and talk to people all day long. And that's the last thing you want to do when we go somewhere to get away is to then have all the words again. So it's just that time of the quiet. And what does the quiet so for some people the quiet and the recharge for them may look like going you know on the A T Vs and and you know, more adventure or be around people, but for us it's the quiet.

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Solitude.

SPEAKER_01 7:52

Yeah. And really I do watching these che these trees sway in the background. They're not swaying right now, but but they're kind of on and off today.

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They've been swaying back and forth.

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And we enjoy it.

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And so for us it's a time when um I do give a lot of words, and so here you get all my words.

SPEAKER_01 8:07

I get every one of your words, and they're s every one of them are so meaningful to me. Yes, so because I don't get the words during the week because you used them all. And by the time you get home, you're out of words and get the full attention, and that's very, very important to me.

SPEAKER_03 8:27

And and so we just wanted to do a little special edition to show that um after 22 years, um, whether it's been 10 years, 15 years, 30 years, 40 years, five years, five years, it's still important to take time um throughout the year to just kind of reconnect. And and I think it is too, it's just kind of remembering why you got married, why you're together, why you love each other, why you do this thing together called life. Um, and really just focus on each other because uh all those other things will take our res our time and attention, parents, kids, grandkids, jobs, hobbies, all those things. Um, and whatever your reconnecting time looks like, your um, like you said, adventure, um, going on a big vacation, um, the two of you s eating, having a picnic lunch, um, whatever that and it doesn't have to be, we're just here for a couple days. Um, it can be somewhere overnight. It doesn't have to be this great big thing. Um, just what's something that you can do to reconnect?

SPEAKER_02 9:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:31

Um when life is buffering, and and it does kind of you were kinda in that buffer zone this past week of it going around.

SPEAKER_01 9:38

And and the thing is, it's odd because I'm not the one that works. You are.

SPEAKER_03 9:42

But but but there's been times too when um we we've had to get away because of you. I I'm it it you're buffering. I'm buffering. And and it's like, come on, come on. And we just can't, it can't. I mean, like we were at a good scene in Titanic, and we just couldn't wait till you know we've seen it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:59

I think Jack just fell in the water.

SPEAKER_03 10:01

And we're just and we're just waiting. Um, and I think that's kind of what happens in life. If we set something up and you plan for something, because and we planned this is about a month or so ago because we wanted to do something, and um you have to plan

Why You Have To Plan Time

SPEAKER_03 10:14

it. You have to plan those times together.

SPEAKER_01 10:16

And sometimes you do it last minute. I know the time that you had to get away, it was literally planned in a week because because we were talking about that.

SPEAKER_03 10:23

That was about five years ago.

SPEAKER_01 10:25

Yeah, I think so. It was a great need for you to leave and get out and in the quiet. And we planned that quickly and went, and it wasn't our best accommodations, but it was quiet.

SPEAKER_03 10:38

And it was a really good time. Yeah. We enjoyed it. Yeah. Um, so we just wanted to encourage you to reconnect in your relationship. Um, do it often, uh, make it intentional, make it a priority. Um, and we just have kind of an um hot take um that we'll we'll leave you with uh because we didn't want to take up a lot of your time today, but we wanted to share a little bit about how important it was um to reconnect when when life is buffering.

Hot Take And Final Encouragement

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Today's hot take. When life keeps buffering, the way you reconnect matters because not every marriage recharges the same.

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And so, whatever, however your marriage or relationship recharges, we encourage you to reconnect in that manner. This is what works for us. We love this. Um so everybody will see us on Monday and ask what all we did. And this will this will come out on Monday. So when you're listening to it, we're already back and happy. And everybody ask us what we did, and we'll say absolutely nothing. And it was the best time ever. We just spent uh time together, um, and it was a good time. So thank you so much for joining us on this special edition of Marriage Hot Takes, and we look forward to seeing you here next time later in the week. I'm Aaron. I'm Kim. I'll see you next time.

SPEAKER_00 11:47

Thanks so much for spending this time with us on Marriage Hot Takes.

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We hope today's conversation encouraged you, challenged you, and gave you something practical to take back into your marriage.

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Remember, strong marriages aren't built in one quick moment, they're built in small help, please share it with someone you care about.