Marriage, Conflict, and Irreconcilable Differences

In this episode, Kiana, Ben, Roger, and Becky have a conversation around Marriage, how to resolve conflict, and what it's like to have irreconcilable differences. 

Ben Maxson is a licensed marriage and family therapist working in the field since 2018 with experience working in dual diagnosis treatment. Ben now works with individuals in breaking patterns, navigating challenging life events, resolving trauma, managing anxiety, developing self-confidence and internal resources. Ben is also passionate about helping couples develop fondness and admiration, communication and conflict resolution skills, and deep meaningful partnership. 

Episode Links:

Seriously Dating or Engaged Class 

The Workbooks 

Little Changes Big Results for Crazy, Busy Couples

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Hi, my name is Kiana Maxson and welcome to the Fragrance Podcast. Fragrance is a ministry that seeks to create safe spaces for women to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Whether it's a retreat, inner healing and deliverance prayer, a Bible study, a monthly event like our workout and worship event morning routine, or a worship night, or now this podcast, Fragrance Longs to See Women, know the love of the Father, step into deeper intimacy with Jesus, and be filled by His Holy Spirit. This season of the podcast is How to Live as Exiles in an Empire. How do we, as citizens of the Kingdom of God, live in an empire that is in exact opposition to the Kingdom of God? And today on the podcast, we have three of my favorite people, and we are going to be talking about marriage in a culture where it is do what's best for you, self-seeking, power hungry. Like, how do we live in a marriage that is self-sacrificial? How do we live in a marriage where Jesus is Lord? So I have my own husband, Benjamin Maxson, on the podcast today, and we have Roger and Becky Terabasi. And so we are gonna get a wealth of wisdom today. Buckle up. Let's go. Hi, guys. So we have my husband Ben, and we have Roger and Becky Terabasi on today. I am so excited to have all three of you. This is so fun. I've never had three people before, so I feel like who am I gonna look at? Um, Ben is my husband. Um we've been married together for 13 years, married for nine, almost nine. And Ben, would you just share a little bit about who you are and what you do?

SPEAKER_03 1:34

Uh yeah, so I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist. I work with a lot of individuals and couples on, you know, the very thing that we're talking about. Like, how do we, you know, work on the tools and skills to be able to have an effective marriage and also have God at the center at the same time?

SPEAKER_00 1:48

Incredible. And uh, Roger and Becky, so we met you guys originally by taking your seriously dating an engaged class probably what, 10 years ago?

SPEAKER_03 1:58

About you.

SPEAKER_00 1:58

Because we took it before we were engaged.

SPEAKER_03 2:01

Yeah, so probably 10, 10 or 11.

SPEAKER_00 2:03

Ready to go. Because we dated for four and a half years. It's a long time. And so we took your class and we met you guys then, and we were all at Rock Harbor together. Will you share a little bit about um just your class for a moment, and then share a little bit about who you are, how you met, and a little of your story? Sure.

SPEAKER_01 2:23

Why don't you start?

SPEAKER_00 2:24

I know that was a big question.

SPEAKER_04 2:25

Okay, that's good. I was a pastoral counselor, and uh at the time Rock Harbor had a lot of young people who were dating and engaged and getting married, and so I, in my private counseling practice, they they were all these couples were coming to me for to do a premarital, you know, series. And the pastors at the time said, Could we do this as a class? Do you think you could do this as a class? And I said, I think I could. And so uh we wrote a book and we started a class, and um it just took off. And so over a period of time, it started with like 15 couples, and we ended up with uh eventually uh I think we've had close to 6,000 now people who have gone through the premarital class. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:12

Well, I remember when we took it at Rock Harbor, it was in the big sanctuary. Like there was so many couples. Yeah. Oh my gosh, that's cool.

unknown 3:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:20

We met. Um, I was really a we're from Cleveland, Ohio for starters. You don't have to feel sorry for us, but we now live because you made it out here. Yes, we now live in California, but you know, I was uh actually I was a student in the high school where Roger was a guidance counselor, but we never met each other because I was never going to go to a guidance counselor. Then, you know, both of us had dramatic conversions to Christ for different reasons, and we met in a youth ministry. Wow, and Roger really identified my call to ministry, and then we became best friends, and I served on the staff he worked on for a year, and then he asked me to marry him, and we had never kissed and we had never dated, and I said yes. So, him writing a book about marriage, we've been married 48 years now, yeah, and have had a real impact in terms of the younger generation just really wanting to glean what he teaches in such a calm and beautiful way, and then impacting that with faith in Christ. That I probably bring a lot of fire to that part of the marriage discussion, just keeping on fire for the Lord as individuals, yeah, so that you can live together really as a couple, kind of going at the same pace, not dragging one person behind and loving Jesus with all your heart.

SPEAKER_00 4:45

Yes, so good. I know it's funny because we joke that we're like mini you guys. Because Roger's LMFT, Ben's L MFT, and we're both pastor, pastoral pastors. And it's funny because even we got to be on your guys' marriage panel for one of the classes on Saturday, and it was so funny because we were saying like every question. I answered from like a well, did you ask the Holy Spirit about that? And then Ben answered from a well, here's my psychological MFT brilliance on it. And so it's just cool. It's just like a the perfect combo, and it's so much fun.

SPEAKER_01 5:16

Well, Roger came home and said, Okay, you and Kiana just alike, and which is great.

SPEAKER_04 5:23

I think it is a balance, yeah. It's the blending of those two that makes a marriage good, too. It's what marriage is about, right? It's blending, right? The differences that you have, which makes it difficult at times because those differences also can create the friction, you know, yeah in the relationship.

SPEAKER_01 5:39

Well, we talked about personality, it's obvious you have different personalities, yeah, and we have different personalities, and one of the main points in Roger's class is that you are not all the same personality.

SPEAKER_05 5:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:53

And I know you mentioned it in the past that it's not that the other person is wrong, it's that they're different.

SPEAKER_00 6:00

Yes. And what was it that, Bill, was this Bill that said you're going to have at least three irreconcilable differences?

SPEAKER_03 6:07

Like five to ten, actually. Five to ten. In your American thing. These are things that will not change.

SPEAKER_00 6:13

Like you in your partner. Yeah, because it's like, you know, you hear all the time it goes, oh, they got divorced because of irreconcilable differences. It's like, you know how many irreconcilable differences we have? You know, could you guys talk to that for a little speak to that for a moment of just what does that look like in your marriage?

SPEAKER_04 6:26

I'll use another line that that's often used for divorce, which is we were incompatible. So people say, Well, we're incompatible when it's not really that they're incompatible, it's just they have differences in their personalities that are not going to change, but it doesn't make them incompatible. If anything, I'd say to people, like, incompatibility could should be the problem for everybody about everything in life because we're not compatible with ourselves for starters. You know, Paul says the things I do I don't want to do and things I don't want to do, so he's not even compatible with himself. So what are you gonna say to that? Like, oh, I guess we can't use this idea of incompatibility as my justification for divorce. But we really have to work through the differences in what would maybe be thought about as incompatibilities when actually it might be that those incompatibilities are differences that really are gonna actually make you as a couple more productive for the kingdom of God.

SPEAKER_01 7:27

Well, Ben, you talked about it having tools. And I think you know, you're a generation behind Roger, but he has tools, the five A's, conflict resolution, and we put them into resources because anybody needs a tool to get through conflict unless you're going to withdraw or barrel through the other person, and that's what personalities do unless they have tools. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 7:52

Yeah, absolutely. And I think like just even conceptualizing conflict in itself, like people say, I don't want to have conflict, but it's like you actually need to have conflict because if you don't, you're actually not bringing up issues that you could potentially, you know, reconcile or come up with strategies or different ways of addressing it where it could actually be something that builds your relationship and actually helps it grow in the same way that like our muscles need tension and to break. Like sometimes we actually need conflict in order to grow as an individual and as a couple.

SPEAKER_01 8:23

Well, think about that as in your own quiet time. Do you think you don't have conflict every day you come to God? It's either I need to change or what do I need to do different or I can't figure this out, and it's asking God to help you either change, find a solution, but it's this conversation every day with God that even in our relationship, you know, you've got to reflect on my life is full of relationships with God and others, and that does include surrender, sacrifice, I think you talked about that at the beginning, rather than selfishness. And I I read something recently, there's no 50-50 relationship. That's not how it's gonna work. Will you give? Will you forgive? Will you be all in all the time? Yeah, yeah, that's good.

SPEAKER_00 9:12

Well, and too, I think like our personalities could not be more different, and your personalities could not be more different. And we we talked about this on Saturday. Like, if I were to have married another me, if I were to look for someone just yeah, see you got it, it would be a train wreck. It would end in like a fiery explosive train wreck that would just be a mess. But the fact is, I always thought whenever I would like, you know, was younger and I would like pray for my future husband or journal, I'd literally just pick journal, someone outgoing, someone, someone like me, someone extroverted, you know, big personality, and boy, I could not have been more wrong. Like it was like God knew that Ben's personality and my personality would actually, we actually got prayed over multiple times by different people when we were engaged. A picture of a boat and an anchor. Sometimes the boat needed to reel up the anchor and go, and sometimes the anchor needed to ground the boat individual. Oh, yeah. Multiple people prophesied that over our marriage, which is crazy. And so I thought about that often and like even us breaking down the other day of like what kind of processors we are, like Ben was like, Well, you're an emotional processor, and I'm a logical processor. And we've been going through something hard just in our life with a relationship, and I think the perfect example of that would be we both just hit our limit with someone in our life. And I end up crying on the floor, just like sobbing, and he ends up, I this is I there's nothing I can do about this situation, puts in his headphones and just starts working. He's like, I just I have to choose to move on. And I'm like, but I need to feel through it. Like, and it's just learning that about each other, like neither way to process is wrong. It's just different.

SPEAKER_03 10:57

Yeah, and holding space for it too.

SPEAKER_01 10:59

Yes, yeah, yeah, that's what I mean by that, Ben.

SPEAKER_03 11:02

Like holding space, like, you know, if we know that about our partner, like once we've discovered that, then like you can hold space for it. And you know that it's coming, and when it does happen, you know, you can allow, you know, space for that to um yeah, just take place. Or like you can respect that, like, okay, you're processing in your way, like, do what you need to do, and you know, how can I support you in the midst of that while also you know having empathy for your partner who processes differently.

SPEAKER_01 11:31

Raj always uses the phrase, empathy is the key to intimacy. And basically that's what you're saying. Rather than judging, rather than trying to change a person, empathy starts a different um way of dealing with it. You you always say it's not tell them what you define empathy as.

SPEAKER_04 11:54

Well, empathy is not um, you know, knowing what another person is thinking, it's knowing what another person is feeling. And it's actually beyond just knowing what they're feeling, true empathy is actually feeling what they're feeling, which really does take a lot more effort, but it's what why I say empathy is the key to intimacy, because when you have the when you both are having the same feeling, not necessarily over the same incident. There you go. But you know, maybe you're saying I feel sad, and maybe what makes you sad is not what's making me sad, but when I ask myself, what is it that makes me sad, and then I can articulate back, we now have this really intimate connection, and it's a connection of our feelings, even though we don't feel the same way about the same thing.

SPEAKER_05 12:41

Wow.

SPEAKER_04 12:41

But now we're all of a sudden having an intimate relationship, and that's why I believe totally it's the key to intimacy. Even when Jesus said for the joy set before him, you know, he endured the cross, he's really thinking about, you know, joy, he's thinking about an emotional thing. And then um, you know, there's just so many uh situations um that that without the empathetic connection, a lot of people think, well, I'm just not an empathetic person, but again, this is w why we're talking here today is all these things are skills that can be learned. Yeah, like so many people are I'm just not empathetic. It's like, well, we can teach you how to be empathetic very quickly. All I have to do is to find some bad feelings that you have and talk about them, and all of a sudden you will have a feeling. Yeah. Because you you all you had them or you wouldn't be where you're at, you know. So, but we have to uh dig down. Part of our talk when we talk about marriage work, it's it's it has to be, you know, I always say, what you did what you did naturally in your premarital days, you have to do intentionally in your marriage. So naturally you had some empathy with each other, naturally you had those feelings, but now you have to intentionally do the things that brought you those feelings when you were in your you know honeymoon stage. We talk about the honeymoon stage of the relationship where you really don't have to try very hard, not like you just automatically open the door, you automatically buy flowers, you automatically say, Oh, you look so great. And then after you get married, you don't even say anything.

SPEAKER_01 14:12

I mean, I just asked how do I look today?

SPEAKER_04 14:16

But you probably think them, but you don't say them.

SPEAKER_00 14:18

That's what we talk all the time. I literally sometimes will just be like, Ben, are you obsessed with me? And he's like, Yeah. Every day. Every day. But then and then I'm like, yeah, he'll say you'll say, Well, I think I thought he looked pretty.

SPEAKER_04 14:28

I'm like So those are things that literally are the key to marriage is doing intentionally what you did naturally in the premarital stage. And that's when you have that's maturity, that's where your relationship has to mature. Uh and you get because you get out of the honeymoon stage pretty quick. Actually, research shows you get out of the honeymoon stage between usually three months and thirty months. So if we're if we're if we get married, the danger is getting married while you're in the honeymoon stage, and then uh not being realistic to know that those feelings are gonna kind of come and go.

SPEAKER_01 15:06

Wow. And I think that happened to us. Really? Oh, yeah. Oh, we got because we didn't go to pre-mortal. That was the thing. We were like, how many children are you gonna have and what's the wedding gonna look like? And the next thing you know, we were married a year and a few months after we met, um, and we were never going to have children. Yeah. And Roger said, about three months in, I think God wants us to have a baby. I'm like, What? We were never gonna have children, and he said, I know, but God keeps telling me. I'm like, Well, he's not telling me, yeah, and then it was like, read your Bible and I don't want to, and it was like well that this is where I would talk about spirituality in your relationship to like I wasn't?

SPEAKER_04 15:50

Because this is where do you leave space for God to speak to you about anything in your life? And and it really was you know, we had we were in youth ministry, we had 50, 100 kids, their parents were divorced, we're working with the kids, we're working with the parents, and we looked at each other and we're like, do we even want kids? Like, we got all these kids, we have all these kids, we have all these kids.

SPEAKER_01 16:16

We did have a lot of kids.

SPEAKER_04 16:17

We have a lot of stuff. Like, I don't need children, I don't need children.

SPEAKER_01 16:20

I was a coach, I had a hundred students.

SPEAKER_04 16:24

Yeah. So, you know, but the quiet times where you listen to God and He may tell you something that you don't really necessarily think.

SPEAKER_01 16:31

I think that is a habit that we began early on when we hit that first. Well, actually, we had a little bit on our honeymoon too, I wasn't happy about. But besides that, it was God is gonna speak to us in the same way. And until we get there, we haven't heard from God yet, because he's not gonna tell us two different things. Yes, and that was early Roger Becky, and now it's just a habit. I don't like it necessarily because I said we've been looking for a place to live for so long. It's because I like it and he doesn't. Yeah, I mean, or he likes it and I don't, and this has gone on for a long time. Yeah, so I woke up this morning, gave up all my stuff, and went for okay, we need a garage because that's what he wants. Yeah, and guess what came up on Zillow today? You know, so it's like uh, I I often am the impulsive, am the driver, am the charger. I have no idea what that is. Why are you shaking your head then?

SPEAKER_00 17:29

Do you know someone like that? Can you speak to that a little bit more? Because I think this is where a lot of couples get hung up, is like, my husband's hearing something from God and I'm not, or I'm hearing something from God and he's not, and now we can't.

SPEAKER_01 17:43

I'll say one thing before I know the wisdom's gonna come out. Yeah. The the one thing is God does speak to me, and I'm I'm pretty much going to hear that and kind of go after it. And sometimes Roger goes, Oh no, here goes the tornado again, and yeah, he knows, you know, every time we've moved, it's like I feel like God wants us to move, and he's like, Oh, here we go. And sometimes it's a really big move, or um, I said, you know, I think God wants me to start a prayer house. He's like, Oh no, this is gonna happen. You know, and it didn't work.

SPEAKER_00 18:15

Will you share the prayer house story though?

SPEAKER_01 18:17

Because that was really cool what happened. Well, part of that is our relationship. It because we didn't agree on it, what I've I knew was for sure, until God tells us both the same thing, I don't get to go. I don't get to move. But I've always trusted Roger from before we were married. And one of the things was his belief in the call on my life as a woman, period. Wow. A woman youth worker, a woman author, a woman speaker, not his wife. He met me before all that, and he fanned a flame on that, and he called me into evangelism. He identified the call of my life. So after we were married, I knew he wasn't going to undo that. Yeah. I had trusted him in the beginning, and I think that was really important. It I'm fast, I'm pretty impulsive. Did God give me someone who's a little bit slower, like way too slow?

SPEAKER_05 19:13

For sure.

SPEAKER_01 19:15

But it's carried us through. I will wait, but I'm going to wait for God to speak to both of us in the same way. And so He has to as well.

SPEAKER_04 19:26

Well, I go back to uh to finish the story at the beginning with the children. Like we both agreed premarital. If we would have been at premarital, we would have both checked off the box like you don't want children, I don't want children. Here's why. Oh, that's great. You like two missionaries and whatever. But then after just really honestly, like three months into marriage, in my quiet time, back to the spiritual part, in my quiet time, I killed, I kept feeling like God was saying something about children, something about children. And I'm like, oh my goodness, like, no way, like that can't be. And I kept hearing, and then I started hearing, I discipline those I love, I discipline those I love. And now I'm getting some, you know, something we don't really talk about that in the spirituality that God really disciplines us. We kind of just like the love side and the forgiveness side, but he also at times will say, Look, I need to get in line with me. And if you don't get in line with me, things are not gonna go so well for you. So uh I kept getting disciplined.

SPEAKER_01 20:26

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 20:26

I'm like, what if God said we're you know, and I didn't come with her like God told me, you know, I think those are those that's a whole nother conversation. But when we say the God told me thing, that's authoritative and we have to walk with humility. I did walk with humility, and I do think with the prophetic stuff you have to walk in humility. So I don't know. I feel like this is what God is saying to me, and I really did feel it, but I didn't pull that card, and I just said, uh, and she's I remember Becky, she goes, I don't think so. There's no way. And I'm like, would you just do me one favor? Just pray about it. And I we kid about she goes, I quit praying. I quit out reading my Bible and then Would you just read your Bible? Because that's where I'm getting this.

SPEAKER_01 21:11

We were so poor, I had a Bible that was plastic, and it cracked, and it would crack to children are an inheritance of the Lord, and I'd go, Oh, are you kidding me? So I gave everybody, God and Roger, ten days, and I got pregnant. Yeah. So ten days, I said, you know, we're going, we we babysat like three children. I got pregnant while we were that bathouse, and we came home, and one year and ten days after our one year, our first anniversary, I had Jake. Wow.

SPEAKER_04 21:40

And what a blessing.

SPEAKER_01 21:42

Not even six months later, he goes, I think God wants to have a baby. I'm like, we're going to a counselor, we're going to the pastor, and our pastor had nine children, and I didn't care. I'm like, I'm going to the pastor. And he looked at us, talked to us, and he said, You know, I don't think Becky is ready for that. And I think you should honor that. And I'm Like, go Jesus. Yeah. And we never had another child. I think we used birth control till we were like 50. I'm like, we're not doing this. Not with the rest. And we always say, God had one child, it was enough. Yeah.

unknown 22:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:14

And so we, you know, we that was our first really big one where I did not something I didn't want to do, but I wanted to obey God. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 22:23

And so what a blessing.

SPEAKER_01 22:24

Oh, it's Hey, I I told you from the beginning, I felt like Roger believed in the call of my life. It wasn't like you work for me or you're under me. It's like we're co-pastors, we're a team. But we can't have two decisions in this family. We have to have God's decision.

SPEAKER_04 22:42

And when you have conflict, if you bring God into the conflict, this is so many times we get into trouble because we have a conflict and we're out there solving it or fighting about it or worrying about it when we don't bring God into it. And I think it's a missing thing. And even for a lot of people who would call themselves Christians, I don't know that they're they're allowing the Holy Spirit to actually begin to mold them and to make them. And I would say this on conflict resolution, real quick. What God has in mind, we might have both settled for less than if we got our way. But by working together, you end up with something that is much better than what you would have actually got yourself.

SPEAKER_01 23:26

You know, Kiana, as a charger woman, called, I knew I was called to travel across the United States another time in our lives. I got an opportunity. And Raj said, if we move to California, you cannot travel for one year. Because if you hit the ground traveling and we have a child, you're gonna be gone. I'm like, okay. So in about 11 months, I get this opportunity to speak for Salvation Army. I'm like, Roger, can I go? Roger, can I go? Roger, can I go? He's like, ah, here it goes. And I spoke for 700 women and doors opened, like flew open. Wow. And Roger took a part-time job. He had his master's, he had his doctorate. I had nothing. He took a part-time job to be the at-home parent for the child we wanted, knowing that I had a call in my life. And that lasted about seven years. I traveled 30-some weekends a year. And Roger took a part-time counseling job. So nine to three, he'd pick up Jake from school. Um he was the at-home parent. Of course, they bought motorcycles and a boat while I was gone, you know, to be dead and seven.

SPEAKER_04 24:34

You have to find a win-win.

SPEAKER_01 24:39

So I just I look at our lives as Rog often saying, We're a team, but God has called you to a more public, yeah, charging ministry. When we wanted to plant a church, he's like, Oh, I don't want to plant a church. And I said, I can't preach unless we do this because I'm called to preach. He's like, Yeah, you are. Here we go. And it was like, but now we have a church in you. Worship it. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 25:04

Well, and I want to just touch on one of the parts of your story of the discernment process with kids. Because there were two different parts to it. One was we're both gonna go away and pray, talk to the Lord. The next time was we're gonna do that, and we're gonna seek wise counsel. I think both are essential. Like you have to have people within your marriage that have that have your trust that can say things you might not want to hear, but also want the best for you. And you know, hear from the Lord.

SPEAKER_01 25:36

You know, that is the exact process for the lead house. I felt in Washington, D.C., God said, I want you to establish a prayer house. I come home and tell Roger, I think I'm gonna get house in Washington. And he says to me, You don't have a job in Washington. Why would you do that? I'm like, I don't know. We had one of our bigger long blowouts where I went to the beach for four hours. He went, I don't know where you went for four hours, probably right there. You know, I'm like, I gotta go. And we both prayed. I came back, I'm like, okay, I won't do it. And he went, I think you're supposed to do it. I went, What? And it was like the time alone with God kind of put us in a wow, will you just listen to God?

SPEAKER_05 26:17

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 26:17

And we both flipped, but back to I think she's supposed to do this, Raj. And I've been there for eight years now. Wow. In Washington with just a prayer house.

SPEAKER_06 26:31

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 26:32

It reminds me a lot of the whole morning I've been thinking about Philippians 2. And I feel like this is such a framework for the type of mutual submission humility. And I just want to read it because what I feel like you guys did in that process was you both put your own needs on the altar and said, God, what do you want? And I'm just gonna start from the beginning because the first part's great too. Therefore, if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the spirit, if any tenderness, if any compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in the spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility, value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interest, but each of you to the interest of others. In your relationships one with one another, had the same mindset as Christ Jesus, who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God as something to be used to his own advantage. Rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. Powerful.

SPEAKER_01 27:57

You know, I think for Kiana, you and me, we're women who have a very clear call on our lives, and we're married to two men. Oh no, we're married to one man, but men who uh understand, appreciate, acknowledge, believe in the call on our lives. And there were many seasons in my life where I was the at-home parent, and seasons in Roger's life where he was the at-home parent. There was not, you can't do this because I need to go to work. It was, I remember when Raj said, Okay, if God is calling you on the road and we have an elementary son, I will take a part-time job. So the humility piece is different every time. Um, who gets to play more of the humility role? But uh, if you're both not there, um I think you don't get to experience all of what God has for you as a couple.

SPEAKER_04 28:54

You know, there's another part too to the story when, you know, yeah, this is why you have to work things out to find what God's best is. A lot of people wanted Becky to go speak at their retreat, like women's retreats, and all over, you know, she was getting calls all the time. But they wanted her to go to do a retreat. She would have to go Friday night to open Saturday, and then they wanted her to close it on Sunday morning. And so we had talked together and prayed together that she would always be back on Sundays, no matter what, she would not do any of these things that were that that she had to be going on a Sunday. Well, there were I remember there were a number of times when people were she would be getting a booking, um, or they would book and then they would say, Well, if you can't be there on Sunday, then you know we don't we don't want you. And it, you know, it was a fair amount of money, it was a big part of our income at the time because she was making she was more of the provider at that point because I was taking care of Jake more. Um, but I remember the one time we did this and and and she just said to the that was a very lucrative situation, and it would have been financially very smart. And she just said, you know what, I'm not gonna be able to do it because I have to be home on a Sunday. So we sort of stuck to that. And it was amazing that it was like an hour later, the phone call went and they called and they said, Well, we'll we'll still like to have you, and we'll get you out of your Saturday night.

SPEAKER_01 30:13

Wow, it did become a really nice rhythm by the time Jake was in high school. Yeah, it we'd go to church as a family, and off I'd go, you know, the next Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Wow.

SPEAKER_04 30:25

You know, you brought about the counseling and that mixture between the spirituality and and the wisdom and the listening to the Lord's voice and so forth. And I love the proverb says, in the multitude of counselors, there's safety. You know, and that is why sometimes, even as two people, you know, you need a third person sometimes, you know, just go, here's my input, here's your input. And that third person that God uses, sometimes you've been as a counselor. I'm retired from that, I don't do that anymore. But you know, you become that person that can help that couple find their win-win situation and and maybe uh de-escalate, you know, the emotional stuff that kicks in because fear kicks in pretty strong. I feel like I'm gonna be controlled, I'm feeling like I'm not gonna get what I want, I feel like you, you know, you're not gonna feel what I you know, understand my feeling, which is back to that empathetic feeling. Like if you can help the couples to be empathetic with each other, it makes the resolving of the conflict, you know. I just say it, you know, it's just like when you don't do it right, it's like cold butter on wonder bread, is how I were to say it doesn't spread very well. But if you if you do the empathetic, if you do it right and pray first before you try to solve it all, it's amazing the difference is night and day with conflict, whatever that conflict might be. It's night and day. It doesn't mean the conflict's going away. It doesn't mean you have to not work out that conflict. I tell a story about uh there was a time when there was a wedding that um we had there were two weddings uh at the same weekend, and one was up north for uh Becky had family up north for their wedding, and I had somebody in San Diego, and I wanted to go to the wedding in San Diego, and she wanted to go to the one up there. And so now we really had a conflict, you know, because it it became one of those things that you have to, you know, I might say, Well, you know, I'm the husband, so you know, you should submit to the husband, and then she could easily say, Well, I'm the wife, and you're supposed to love me like Christ loved the church and sacrifice, so now we have Bible bash going, you know, because that doesn't work very well. So we so we used our system of conflict resolution and we began to say, brainstorm, you know, what do you think? And we each had uh we did our finances and we each had an allowance that you could save up for your allowance. So you had certain money that was your money, you could blow it. You know, I told Becky you could put it on toenails polish if you want to, but I don't want my money going there. But if that's your allowance, you can do that. And so we laughed about it. But anyway, um, I said, I you know, I she wanted this dress, this really nice dress, and it was more expensive, and she didn't have enough money in her in her allowance money to buy it, and I came up with the idea. And when you do conflict resolution, you do brainstorming. And so I said, I think I have a brainstorm. I will give you my allowance money that I've saved up for the for uh you know for stuff. I'll give it to you for the for the dress. You get the dress, and then we go to the wedding I want to go to in San Diego. Yeah, it didn't work at all. You know, it was like all brainstorms don't work. She goes, No way, I want that dress for that wedding. And so, like, do we go individually? Like, that didn't feel good. So she comes up with the idea and she goes, because this is what you do during brainstorming, no idea is a bad idea, we say, even though they are. Um she says, I got it, I got an idea. Um, I have this money in my allowance, and I would uh I know that you've been waiting uh to buy new golf clubs for a long time, and you're you're not gonna get there from my calculation for at least another year or two. I could take the money that I have in my allowance and we can get you those golf clubs. And you know, up in up north there's a golf course called Pebble Beach, and I'm like, you know what? She up beach a man has to love his wife like what? Christ up the church, we're gonna go there. We're going up north. We went up north, it was great. And I use this example because I think if either one of us would have submitted to the other one, because Ephesians says submit to one another, there would have been a bitterness probably in there. Had I driven up with her to San Diego, I probably would have said the whole up the up to San Diego, uh up to San Francisco to your wedding, I probably would have complained the whole time. I would have said, Boy, this is a lot longer drive than I ever thought. Yeah. And then when she says, let's go dance at the wedding, I probably went, you know, I'm kind of tired.

SPEAKER_05 34:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 34:37

So it would have just been more of, you know, that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_05 34:40

Wow.

SPEAKER_04 34:40

And so I'm happy, let's go, let's dance, let's do whatever, you know. And I believe if we would have gone south to my wedding and she would have submitted, but she would have submitted maybe out of resentment, which we can do, which I always tell couples, you know, my in in counseling or whatever, if you can't, if you can't submit without resentment, don't submit. That's no that you can't do that. That's what you have to do. How can you find the win-win without resenting? And I this is where it comes in. So I could go up there and wouldn't resent, and if we could have found something for her, she would have gone. Because resentment, I believe this was on my heart. Let's say I would have gone south to the we would have gone to my wedding, but she didn't want to, but she was a submissive wife, you know, that night. We have our own hotel room and all of this, and well, you know, I'd go, oh, and she's like, I'm a little tired, you know, I'm really tired. And it's like it affects you, lose. Uh and so out of the conflict, I still have the golf clubs. I we have the greatest uh experience. So just an example of uh of one way that practical, you know, that that for me when it comes to marriage, because you are gonna have these differences, they're gonna come about instead of being afraid of being controlled. Oh, you're gonna control me, or you're not gonna submit to me, and then we we do all that. Um and and it doesn't work very well.

SPEAKER_00 35:59

Yeah, it's like sorry, were you gonna say something?

SPEAKER_03 36:01

I mean, I just love that you kind of like model that so well as a couple of like what mutual you know self-sacrifice looks like, you know, and like you're really championing each other, like you're looking at each other's needs before your own needs, you know. And I see so much sacrifice in that as we're I'll see a lot of couples who are like me focused, like, you know, what am I gonna get out of the situation or how do I protect myself? And like to me, that indicates like if you're not willing to sacrifice, there's a lack of safety, you know. And to speak to the fear that you talked about, it's like, well, how do I let this go if I can't necessarily trust that the next time you're gonna take care of me? But you're modeling like so well, like you're more concerned about you know, the ramifications of the decision on the relationship. You know, it's like even in the kind of like model of you know how Jesus describes the church as like one body. Sometimes I'll ask couples like, well, would you only wash your left hand? Like, no, you would wash your right one too, because it's like we have now become one. So it's like I look at Kiana as an extension of myself. So sometimes it's like I want to make sure that you know she is taken care of in the same way.

SPEAKER_01 37:03

You know, then that's kind of how our church works. You know, we're co-pastors, and I think everybody in our church sees a husband and a wife using their gifts for the Lord, having to sacrifice, or I do a lot of the preaching, and Roger doesn't like to preach as much, but we all know who makes healing happen in all the relationships around, where one is not better than the other, but different. And I I think it's you know, kind of what you're speaking about. It is a model, whether you're co-pastors, whether you're husband and wife, but to be that in a church setting, a lot of the families are impacted, and it causes you to rethink what is submission, what is the body of Christ, what is a marriage relationship, what did Paul mean? How did Jesus treat women and and men in with spiritual gifts? What do those scriptures mean in the church today? So I think just calling it modeling, role modeling, it's probably the last 15 years as we pastored together, we've had to realize we are models, role models as well, not getting our own way all the time. There's we're in a fishbowl, we always have been. And it isn't hard work.

SPEAKER_04 38:32

You know what's interesting too, though, being a role model is also showing people that you have conflict. See, people could look at the four of us and watch and go, oh, you guys, you marry the right people, you're all you know, but the reality is if we don't tell people that we also struggle, we're not being a good role model. Yeah. If we don't say we had conflict, we had a uh we were short with each other here, and we were, and then we had to get away and we had to pray, and then we had to come together and hug each other and say we're sorry. I mean, the people just you know, it's easy for for people who are struggling in their marriage to say, oh, that's e that's easy for you guys because. And the reality is marriage is difficult. It is difficult. It's not easy to blend each other. You know, I I like uh Gary Thomas's book, I think it was called The Sacred Marriage. His title was What if Marriage Was More to Make You Holy Than Happy?

SPEAKER_00 39:25

That's so good.

SPEAKER_04 39:26

Because so many of us, you know, and again, even C.S. Lewis has some great quotes about that, like almost we get married, you know, to be happy, but it's just sort of a trick because the reality is it's also, and I think maybe even Gary Thomas got some of his ideas from that, but it's really to to grow you, to develop you, to mature you. And so life is a is a whole so we should be pretty mature mature, by the way. Oh, we should be. We ought to be, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, that's what it makes you good goal uh role models because it even at our age, at married 48 years, we still are growing to be like Christ. And how sometimes that growth takes difficulty, it takes that submitting at times when you don't want to, or looking at what could be the win for my partner. How could I think about what a win could be for for my partner instead of being afraid I'm gonna lose my win? You know, and I love back to that scripture. I quoted it as Jesus says, for the joy set before him, he endured the cross, which is that idea of a win. He found the win. He did if he did not go to the cross resenting, so he didn't submit to God with resentment. It says he said the joy set before him, he was able to do that. See? So I think that's key.

SPEAKER_01 40:43

The scripture you picked this morning, I don't know if you can reread one or two of those verses, but it does seem like that's the thread that has gone through this interview. And it's a word for everyone. You know, we forget, we don't read Philippians every week. Yeah, but when you just read it, I thought, oh my, God really gave you something that is the thread that has gone through this. So maybe there's a couple verses just to refresh us what you kind of popped out of nowhere.

SPEAKER_00 41:13

Yeah. Okay, let me just read it. Okay, let's go. Therefore, if any of you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded and having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility, value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests, but each of you to the interest interest of others. And your relationships with one another have the same mindset as Christ, who being in the very nature of God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage. Rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness, and being found in the appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.

SPEAKER_04 42:09

So good. That humility factor is so vitally important to life. Pride will just kill you. It'll kill your relation. I'm right, and I know I'm right, and you know, we need to do this because I because I'm right.

SPEAKER_03 42:22

I think we almost need like a courage to be wrong. Yeah. You know, I think like in that the spiritual aspect of it is like our relationship with shame, like in the garden. You know, like a lot of times in our you know, our conflict or conversations, I'm like, in what way can I be wrong? Like, where am I wrong here? He said that a lot. You know, like when she brings somebody to me, I'm like, okay, like what can I empathize with? Like, what can I relate with? How did I hurt you? Not because like hurt or feelings aren't a fact, you know. So I'm just saying, like, how did you experience me in that moment that came across to you as hurtful? Because we need to address that, you know, because like I'm imperfect, I'm in flawed, or I'm flawed. Yeah, you know, so it's like, how do we have the courage, you know, to be wrong in our relationships?

SPEAKER_00 43:03

That's so good. He actually says that I always joke that he's the one that gets us through all of our conflicts. He probably is. Yeah, no, he is. I'm not kidding. And um, it's it's because like anytime there's a conflict, and it inspires me, and I learned so much from Ben that he always says, like, I could be wrong, or like, where am I wrong? And that's taught me, and you're also really good at one thing I wanted you to speak to is pointing out patterns in our conflict. Because sometimes it's not about the thing, it's about like the pattern we get into. Can you talk about that a little bit?

SPEAKER_03 43:38

Yeah, I think it's like usually with conflict it it's gonna be a repeating issue, you know. So it's like that is the container, essentially, and you could put any different number of problems in it, but I think you know, you were kind of speaking to like withdraw or something like that. It's like when an issue comes, like maybe you shut down, and then you shut down, then You know, the other partner gets anxious when you withdraw. So then it creates a pursuer-distancer dynamic. So then the more you withdraw, you know, the more they pursue, the more encroached that you feel. So the more you withdraw. So it just creates a pattern. You know, so if we can actually identify, you know, according to like Sue Johnson, like what your pattern is, like what are your steps? Like, okay, you take two steps to the left, I take two steps to the right. So I think it's really important to kind of like have meta communication. It's like communication about our communication. You know, and we don't do that enough. You know, we'll have a rupture and then we're so focused on the issue that we don't actually talk about the way in which we're having the conversation. Because if we talk about, hey, when you brought that up like this, or we're or you use the word you instead of I feel, or I felt attacked when you brought this up, or like, how do you actually debrief your interactions? So that the idea is that if you do that and you debrief it, then every conflict you have, you actually get better at conflict.

SPEAKER_01 44:58

Oh, that's good. Simple things such as after you've debriefed, which is kind of after all these years, you say things like, Don't be general, be specific with me. And suddenly you're like, Okay. Um I I that's a really simple one. You you can say it to kids, you can say it to teenagers, you can say it to parents, and everybody has to stop and go, oh yeah, not you always do this. Never say always and never.

SPEAKER_05 45:25

More times than I care to experience.

SPEAKER_00 45:27

That is something we still say all the time. Really? So in Roger and Bucky's Seriously Dating in Engage Class, they taught us that, you know, instead of always and you always leave the light on. You always do this, you always, it's like, hey, more times than I care to experience, this happens. And what we love about it is it diffuses, especially because we learned it together. So it's almost makes it, it's not a joke, but it almost makes it like, oh, you're trying. Like it proves that I'm trying not to blame you or I'm trying not to shame you or say always. It's like, okay, more times than I care to experience this or that. So many people. Oh, it changes everything. And it reminds you, the other, the other major takeaway that we got was we're on the same team in conflict. And we say that all the time. Like, in conflict, the way that you guys, hey, well, if we do my wedding, then you get to golf and get new golf clubs. Like, that's better for the team. Like, what's the best thing for the team, you know? Um, and so that was another huge takeaway from you guys that we still ten years later say.

SPEAKER_03 46:34

Because I do think we have to be afraid to win, you know, because if we're competing and I win and you lose, well, if we're on a team and in a relationship, then I win at the expense of the relationship. So we have to be careful.

SPEAKER_01 46:50

This is the humility piece that is missing in a lot of relationships.

SPEAKER_00 46:54

Yeah, yeah. Can we talk for a moment? And then I have other things I want to jump to on um accepting the other person's differences for a minute because you guys, Roger, you share a story um about leaving lights on that I just think is so Becky, that I just think is so important in the whole like we're gonna have irrecontellable differences, we're gonna have to accept that the other person isn't wrong, it's just different. And what you know, what's a hill worth dying on, and what's just something you have to accept. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 47:26

Well, first of all, let's talk personality for a minute because that is a huge piece to any marriage, and especially it's in my premarital work. It it's like I want these couples to see and know those recurring behaviors that are personality based, not character-based. And there is a huge difference. For example, let's say hypothetically, Becky would leave the lights on more times than I would care to experience, just hypothetically speaking, of course. And and I began to say, Well, see, you really don't care. That you leave the lights on, and I've told you how important it is, but you just don't care. Now that's like a character sort of uh a criticism.

SPEAKER_05 48:09

Like an accusation.

SPEAKER_04 48:10

Instead of understanding that Becky is a high outgoing and she's a charger, so she's thinking about what's next, what's next, what's next. She doesn't think turn the light off. She thinks I'm going there to answer that phone and do that.

SPEAKER_00 48:23

And so it's home.

SPEAKER_04 48:24

So what happens, you know, now I'm thinking about the cost of electricity, you know, or something, you know, logical. That's in the thinking part. So what what happens in the relationship, and again, this is as you're not, you know, you start to get irritated because you've told somebody this bothers me, whatever it happens to be, and it this can go either way. We all have probably about the same amount of differences anyway. But uh the secret, you know, what was understanding this is personality driven, it's not character driven. Now, if she says, I left the lights on, I really don't give a rip about the electricity, I don't give a rip about anything, then we have a character issue that we have to deal with. But honestly, it's not not that's not usually the case. It can turn into that if we're not careful, but it really is personality driven. And so um uh responsibles are again, so I I do the core thing real quick. C-O-R-E. It's charger, outgoing, responsible, and easygoing are four typical personality uh traits traits, you know. Uh in any way. So each of those has its own strengths, and every one of them has their own strengths and their own weaknesses. And so if you can st if you really can understand that this is understand what these personalities are and the tendencies of each of these ten of these personalities are, then it's a personality issue. So this is where you understand. So I mean part of what our So how do you help me?

SPEAKER_01 49:45

So one of the By leaving the let on.

SPEAKER_04 49:47

Yeah, so what well actually we could do a win-win on it and find it, and there's some things.

SPEAKER_01 49:53

Which is kind of where we look.

SPEAKER_04 49:55

It is, that's kind of where we land.

SPEAKER_01 49:57

So now you know Without telling me he did it. That took a while.

SPEAKER_04 50:00

That's the secret, you know. Like it because it's yeah, so you have to learn these things. And these are learned things, you know, that you don't know you're gonna have until after maybe you're married. Yeah. So one of the things I do now is when I I go in there and I just turn the light off. It's funny, sometimes she's been in, she's in there. I'm like, Oh, sorry. Just doing my daily thing, you know, turn the lights off. But I do think the switch was I began to remember that. And then I began to put a smile on my face. Like when we do different things because of our personalities, you can out actually turn that. You know, James says, you know, consider joy when you encounter various uh various problems. He says, consider it uh in one of the versions, it says, consider it an opportunity for joy. So that's wonderful. I have some opportunities for joy in these conflicts, you know. So again, it's not I don't know one way, like it's not always conflict resolution, it's not always personality, it's not it's there's not an always to any of the stuff we're talking about. But it's individually, and I'll go back to I know your your movement or the Holy Spirit. It is discerning, and that's what the Holy Spirit should give us. It's a discerning spirit. Like this is the time when you submit. This is the time when you don't submit and you actually allow it to be a conflict, not a fighting conflict, not a you know, that that tendency is to either, you know, withdraw and isolate, which is terrible, uh just as painful as outwardly yelling and screaming. Neither of those, both of those are not God's ways of dealing with problems, and both all either one of those is usually a tendency for each of us. We have an initial tendency to either withdraw or to explode. Um but any any withdrawal will eventually become uh you know, a fighter, any flighter will become a fighter, and every fighter will eventually become a flighter if it's not working. So that's just kind of how it works. But typically we say, um, you know, I do tend to be more of a flighter, and and I do tend to be more of a flighter. I tend to withdraw. And so I have to be careful because there is a proverb that says, um, better is open rebuke than hidden love. And I think that's a very powerful proverb because it it really it sort of it sort of comes after the withdrawal and says, you know what, you know, your withdrawing is is just as bad or painful as as open rebuke, you know, as screaming and yelling. Neither one is functional. Oh, deliver the counselor. Yeah, do you know what the thing I do? No, those are serious things, though, to to make sure we understand what's going on. Back to what you said, Ben, you know, uh in in the in the communication, like one person does this and it causes the other person to withdraw, which can be more painful than what you already had. Abandonment can be one of the most painful emotional things. I think there's a lot of abuse in families that takes place because one person is trying to get away and they don't realize they're trying to get away because they don't want to fight. So they're so they're gonna leave. They're gonna ex- you know, they want to leave. But when they start to leave, it causes for the other person a feelings of abandonment. Then sometimes they'll run to the door to stop the other person because it's so it floods them, it floods them feeling abandoned, so then they grab the person, and now we have physical abuse. And now we're talking all about physical abuse when really, if you you know, obviously it's a but down deep it was that this couple didn't have a plan for how they were gonna deal with flooding. They didn't have that de-escalating line, like you guys have a timeout. What what's your de-escalating line? We need a timeout or we love each other. I forgot.

SPEAKER_00 53:49

We say we're all we're on the same team. Yeah, we're on the same team.

SPEAKER_04 53:51

We're on the same team. Yeah, so you have a de-escalating line. And we have one, I love you and you loved me, we know we can't go here. Uh, the other de-escalating line we'll have is I feel like we're in a spiritual battle. And when we say that to each other, like we could be in one of those moments where uh, you know, I feel like we're in a spiritual battle. There's something that just holds us together in just saying that uh that can be a de-escalating line, you know.

SPEAKER_00 54:15

And that's the I think the discernment and nuance of like, is this just conflict and is it us, or is this demonic or spiritual or whatever you want to call it? And it's that discernment to know the difference between the two. Because I remember we we recently watched The Hunger Games, and um in one of the last movies, they're like in the big arena, and they're like, Katniss, remember who the real enemy is. And like then she remembers, you know, it's the capital. And like literally remembering, like, he's not the enemy. And you've said that to me before, like, hey, I'm not your enemy. Like, you know. And and just remembering, no, this there is a spiritual war going on. The enemy comes to kill, steal, and destroy. He does not want marriage, he does not want unity, he does not want safety, but he'll masquerade and disguise himself as all certain things. And so I think that's key to remembering the spiritual realm in conflict.

SPEAKER_04 55:16

He tries to put a wedge between us. I think it's important to understand that probably every day he would love to put a wedge between us, he'd love to steal our romance from each other. Yeah. And we don't realize that that it is an enemy, you know, and that's why we have to pray, and that's why we have to re you know, battle. I mean, the Lord's prayer, lead me not into temptation. Why should we pray that? Because we're going to be led into temptation, and one of the temptations is gonna be to treat each other uh uh obviously in the ways that uh Second Timothy are in your uh uh Philippians. Yeah, in your Philippians scripture, you know, because we have a battle, and that's why we have to be reminded of these things and to keep those in our you know in our in our thought. Very, very important, I think. And it's what makes marriage challenging because we have an enemy. Yeah, and and we shouldn't minimize that. Obviously, we could spiritualize everything, and that would be the other, you know, we go off the wrong side and then we spiritualize everything and we don't do our work and we don't grow and we don't do those things. But it's both. You know, it's really a both. And you and you really, if you want to have the greatest marriage that God has for you, you know, you have to contend for it. You know, you have to be intentional.

SPEAKER_01 56:29

I don't know if it's every couple, but I tend to think one of the two is a little more positive and less critical than the other, whether it's the melancholy or the charger, or because you're responsible. But I think I've found me saying a lot lately when something feels like a huge problem to us, I I have found myself saying almost every day, you know, we're not sick, we have a home. Yeah, we are making a big deal of this really little tiny thing, yeah, and it's shadowing, overshadowing our joy.

SPEAKER_05 57:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 57:10

Or going out to dinner or or being kind to each other. I mean, just kind.

SPEAKER_05 57:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 57:17

Because we're weighed down by somebody else's problem or an unresolved situation. And I think it is good to kind of take the temperature every couple hours in our relationship and buoy back to a place of we're floating, we're floating, we're good, we're floating. Because there will come a day where there is an illness or there is a very difficult thing, and it's gotta be I'm on your team. Yeah, I love you dearly. We can get through this, it's going to be okay. And you have to say that, I think, every day, not just when it hits.

SPEAKER_00 57:54

Yeah, because it that kind of stuff has to be built in the moments of calm. It's like, why do we worship when things are great? It's so we know we learn the songs and the light that we can know the words in the dark. You know, it's like the more you build into your relationship, and even to bring up Philippians again, Philippians uh two. Philippians four is actually like the antidote to anxiety is gratitude and thanksgiving. And it's like in everything with prayer and petition and thanksgiving, offer your request to God, and he will give you peace that surpasses understanding. Not he will resolve all your conflict, he will give you everything you want. The promise is peace. And I would so much rather have peace in our marriage than circumstances going our way. Because those change every day.

SPEAKER_01 58:40

Yeah. You know, I think the thing that we're talking about is you've been married a long time, we've been married a long time, but the root of it is because we have a relationship with God and His Word and the Holy Spirit that has the unique reminder of, as I was mentioning earlier, there's a psalm that says he is entirely faithful. And when I read that to somebody, they've been telling me that every day since, and I'm like, that is so calming to them, that is so secure to them. It's secure for any relationship, especially ones that get rocked by finances or illness or disappointment. I mean, disappointment seems to be around every corner, or unmet expectations. If you don't buoy up with the word of God and the Holy Spirit and worship, you're counting on your spouse to do that for you. Or to be this perfect anchor, you know, when you're really the buoy jumping around out there. And I just I think, Kiana, why I love when you come to worship at Bew Point Church. We've got to get our eyes on Jesus. You do not know what tomorrow holds.

SPEAKER_00 59:50

Yeah, yeah. And I think your point you just said about your spouse not being your God and your everything is huge because we went through seasons in our marriage where I like he was going through something really hard, and I felt like I couldn't rely on him. So then I went to not relying on him at all to then I was going through something really hard, and he was in an amazing place. And then I like over, well, I don't know if it was over at that overly relied at that time. I really needed him. Uh he was like my crutch and my rock, and like was literally holding me up during a season. And then we sung sung into a season recently where it wasn't life or death, it wasn't anything crazy, but it was just really hard emotional. God kind of allowed a crazy curveball into our life that we just affected us both differently and we were not expecting it. It was really hard. And I immediately went right back into like needing him to be everything, processing all my emotions with me. Why aren't you feeling this as strongly as I'm feeling it? Again, the emotional processor versus the logical processor. And it kind of just in this season, what God did with this external conflict was he re- I had to go through the really hard process of relearning how to process my emotions with God and not letting them either fall all on Ben and then getting angry when he can't fix it, or angry when he's not feeling it the same way that I am. And I really was reminded in this season that Ben is not God. He can't fix my problems as much as as amazing and wise as he is, yeah, he can't, and um or you're skilled and educated to do it.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:28

Yes, no, exactly.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:29

You know, I think the key is to know when God wants to use you to minister to another person or to your spouse, when they really are and sense the hands and the feet of Jesus, right, at that point, and they are because God wants to use you to do that, and knowing when it's just gonna be God that has to do it. And um, one of my lines from my class that I go over and over is that people do not make good gods. You know, Becky makes a great wife, she does not make a great God.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:00

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:00

And it's important to and every so often God corrects us. Yeah. And he goes, You're a little too much there now. Back off and give back with me because I'm a jealous God.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:10

You know, in the in the in the most right way of jealousy, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:15

Your honesty is probably refreshing, and someone listening is probably thinking, Oh, I needed to hear that. But I was wondering, you know, is it hard for a counselor to be honest on a podcast about just like capacity or like emotional capacity?

SPEAKER_03 1:02:31

Uh I mean I wouldn't say so necessarily. I I think it's just, you know, having those challenging conversations and like I'm human, like, you know, degree or not, like whether I can listen, you know, or even with CBT, it's like I have these tools to use cognitive behavioral therapy as an example. It's like I have these tools to reframe my negative thinking. But it's like I actually have to put it into practice just as much as anybody else does, just because we have this knowledge, like we still have to implement it. And like I'm a broken human being as well, you know, and there'll be times where you know, I'm coming home and I'm like completely spent, I have nothing in the tank, and then I'm recognizing, like, wow, I don't actually have the capacity to sit with you in this right now. But how do I like still love you, you know, and let you know? Because, you know, I'll try my best sometimes, and she can see like I can see your eyes are glassing over, or like you know, like she can sense that I no longer have the emotional capacity, you know, and being honest about that, like, you know, can I get the highlights or I really care about you in this moment? I can see your pain, you know, but I'm just like tapped, you know, I'm running out of resource. Like, could we process this more tomorrow? Or oftentimes, like, I think, especially when we first got married, I was really terrified actually of therapizing my wife. You know, I think that was a healthy fear that I had. So I kind of underfunctioned in calling her out sometimes or challenging her in ways that, you know, like in a healthy conflict type of way.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:01

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:01

You know, where I was just like, is there someone you could talk to about that? Or like we're gonna pray.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:06

So let me tell you what's gonna happen in about 20 years. She's gonna come to you and say something like, When can I get on your schedule? Yeah, like 30 minutes later, like what do you need to do so that you can look me right in the eyes and give me a little of the advice you're giving everybody.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:20

Uh yeah, very much.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:22

Which is really back to when I said the living in an intentional marriage, like in the premarital, you know, you talk and you'll stay up till three o'clock at the morning talking. Like, oh, we've got a constant, we'll stay up till four, we'll stay up, we'll, you know, this is more important than anything else. And then after you get married, it's like, it's already 10 o'clock. We can't do this. I'm tired, I gotta wake up in the morning. And and then you have to be intentional to say, like, okay, can we do this tomorrow? And what time can we do this tomorrow? And Becky would even often say this to me. She would say, When can I get an appointment? That's what she would she would say to me.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:55

But then I would know, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:57

Yeah, the good thing was, I mean, that prepared me because sometimes, honestly, when you just start talking and talking and talking, especially for me, and I didn't, not that it's all gender, but there is some gender part to this too. That, you know, to just be talking and talking and talking and talking, like, I don't know what to listen to here. You know, it's just like I'm flooded in thoughts, and then I miss something, and then you know, you get irritated because you didn't hear me, you know, it's like, wow man, I just can't hold on to all of that. So sometimes you have to say, can you slow down and be specific and try to share like what's the worst part of this specifically? Um, those are important things, you know, and they're real. This is why we're talking real marriage stuff here today, not just hypothetical and this is how this is real struggles that the humility piece.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:42

I I think even Kiana for a woman in ministry who is in a man's world, I think it's been really good. Roger has not treated me like a woman in ministry. He's like, suck it up. Yeah I'm like, what? Yeah, you know, he's really kept the high bar of you are a person in me. In the street.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:01

What do you need to do? Yeah.

unknown 1:06:04

Ooh.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:05

Girl could get away with a few other things. Yeah. He's like, no, I want you to be the highest call. And I think I've always maybe benefited from that.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:15

Yeah. Well, Ben, can you speak to how you in love would call out your spouse? Like, let's say I'm doing something that either you know doesn't really align with my character, or maybe it's not even like maybe I'm I'm hearing something from God and I'm not acting on it, or something as simple as like, hey, I think you should apologize to that person.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:41

Well, I think first of all, like if I would to feel something like that, I'd sit on it for a while. Like I would pray about like, what is this? Like, is there something in me that just is uncomfortable or just doesn't like that? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:52

You know, that's or just wants to tell them what they should do.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:54

Or should do, you know, that's a temptation. Like, is this like is this a pattern is something I typically ask, you know, because we're all gonna have, you know, being imperfect, you know, and falling short, like we're all gonna have lapses in judgment. Maybe we're a little bit snappy, you know, maybe we come off short, you know. So it's like if that becomes a pattern, then I feel more confident that hey, maybe this is something that I should address. But I think it's really important to check in on the person before like you always address the person in my perspective or or thought before you address behavior. So I want to check in with you, like, hey, how are you? What's going on? Like, are you okay? Yeah, you know, because I like for for who I know you to be, I'm thinking, well, this doesn't line up with your character. So I try to weigh what I'm thinking or what you did based on your character and who I know you to be as a person. You know, and then I check in, you know, like what's going on? Are you stressed? Like, what caused maybe this? Like, I I don't want to assume that it's character. Yeah, I want to assume that there's something stressful going on in your life that is resulting in some behaviors. You know, and usually I don't even have to call out the behavior because like we got to the issue, you know. So it's like we're almost going deeper, we're like bypassing what's going on because it was just a symptom.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:11

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:11

You know, it was a symptom of what was really underneath.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:15

Coworker, family member, spouse. That's good. Yeah, I like that.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:20

Yeah, I would say uh another point is be your partner's advocate.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:26

You know, you you married them because they were your advocate. You didn't marry them because they were the prosecuting attorney. You would never get married. But we end up in marriage as becoming prosecuting attorneys to our spouses when it comes to these kind of things. And you and I really do believe like if we are going to confront a behavior, we really do need to do the anesthetic first, which which is first becoming an advocate and saying, look, like what you just said, like I know you care about this. So you're being her, you know, advocate, you're being her defense attorney, and you're saying, I know this is who you are, but like what just went on here? Did you realize that maybe the way you came on with that person could have caused them? Because I know you you're not the kind of person that hurts people, and even sometimes as a as a defense attorney, coming up with some specifics before we enter into those critical kind of things, which might be important, but did we first become their advocate? Did we first become their uh um you know uh defense attorney? Do we really think about all that stuff? And I use the the f the the picture of Jesus. Jesus comes to a woman caught in the very act of adultery. So it it came out in terms of they were you know trying to trick Jesus pretty much by by coming out that way. But they so they bring it, and and what does Jesus do? He becomes her defense attorney. And and to all of them he goes, Who's without the sin? You go ahead and do that, and then he has to write some stuff in the sin, which we really believe was just him just saying, but you know, just to give you an idea, maybe why you shouldn't be stoning this lady. But then he doesn't, but so he saves her life and he becomes her defense attorney, but then he says to her, now uh don't sin anymore. Like now I'm gonna also not take it not gonna go here with you.

SPEAKER_06 1:10:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:12

Um and I and it's amazing, but it's very important, I think. So if we get too quick, we get irritated again, maybe recurring things make us shorter that we have to we still have to become that's why I go back to personality as a as a defense attorney position. It's like, what's her personality? You know, this is maybe not a character thing, this is maybe a personality thing, and talk, look at what those personality traits are. So you can become you can become the defense attorney by saying those are the positive things about this person. Becky's a mover and a shaker. So as a mover and a shaker, that's how God created her to make decisions quick. She's very decisive, way more decisive than I am. So the the key I have to remind myself, okay, she's a mover, she's a shaker.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:57

I bought my car in one day, it took him six months. One day I was in and out. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:02

Sounds like that's I see you. Yeah, I gotta like it, like amazing, you know. We have to figure out how do we do that together, you know. And we are and so I you have to become the you so you I would say this to people might even be listening, be f find out your partner's personality traits. Yeah, look at the the benefit the the reasons why you got together in the first place was because of the positives, and then keep reminding yourself of that when the negatives start to come out because every strength has an equal and opposite weakness. So you don't see those, you don't see that in the premarital time, right? So he's peaceful and he's calm, and I love that about him, but now get going. Like, what's wrong?

SPEAKER_01 1:11:48

You see, now is what's wrong with you, totally and on your uh bathroom mirror, you put I'm obsessed with her every day.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:56

No, exactly, exactly. So don't ask him. Okay, I because all of this stuff, I heard this analogy once of like it was referring to our spirituality and relationship with God, but I think the same goes with marriage, is if you are on the beach and you run into the water and you're just not paying attention and you're just playing around and you're swimming and you're floating, you will look up and all of a sudden your stuff is all the way down the beach.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:26

You've drifted.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:27

Yeah, you've drifted. If you go in and you're intentionally keeping your eye on the stuff, then you're not gonna drift too far. You're gonna like make sure you're, you know, whatever. Same goes with God. It's it's like, oh, if we don't actively guard your heart because everything you do flows from life. If you don't actively, you know, worship and pray and do all the things to invest in your intimacy with Jesus, all of a sudden you're gonna look up and be like, I got so far. And I think with marriage, it's the same thing. If you're not constantly checking in, constantly doing the conflict resolution piece, constantly doing all these things we talked about, you can just drift so easily. And one of the things that I love that you guys created to help with this is called the five A's. Can you tell us about the five A's? And then I want to ask you to if you would give an example, like do your five A's today.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:21

Sure. I'll start because I was in private counseling at the time working with a lot of marriages, a lot of couples who I really believe just needed some tools, simple tools, and and I did pray about it. I remember saying, God, you have to give me some practical ways of helping these couples. And that night I prayed that prayer. That night I just got these five A's, and I felt like they were uh they it I just felt like you're saying, keep it simple, keep it quick, don't, and here's how, and so here's how how it came out. So it was A was affection, that there'd be some affection that we would have for each other. Then there would be some affirmation. So these are five A's, the affirmation, you know, so it would just be sometimes, you know, we'll we'll do it, actually to you. But I mean, we could actually do it while I teach it. So yeah, why don't we do that? So this is this is something you do every day. So this is what we do.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:16

So sometimes we walk down the street and he'll go, This is my affection, and he'll squeeze me and all like that.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:22

So I'll go like that.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:24

She's more physical touch than I am, so that's a love language talk we won't have today. But anyway, there is a difference.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:29

So or a hug. But you know, even you could see if you go off to work in the morning, you don't see each other till six, and then you make dinner, and then you rush by. So it's a start. It's just a little touch warmth.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:40

It's so it's a three-minute, it's usually uh five minutes is the absolute most. It should be done in three minutes, honestly, or less. Because I won't like it. The goal is to keep it intentional and practical and practical. So that's something you can do. So it's affection, and so it's a hug, and it's a kiss, and and it's uh it's that. Um just where you say something about that person. It can be their character, it can be something that actually.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:10

But this turns out to be really tender if you do it right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:14

So um my affection, uh, you know, uh my affirmation is that I affirm you for being a person who is a mover and a shaker who wants to make a difference in their world, and also I would affirm you for being a person with great compassion. Uh you you feel the you feel so strongly about people and you care for people when you meet them, they know that you you honestly sincerely care for people in the most amazing way.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:44

So if we were walking down the street, and we usually are, I think of something in the day. And so today I want to go see this house, and he really doesn't. It's probably out of our price range-ish, just at the tippy top. And he's like, Okay, okay, I'll go. I'll go, well go. I said, Well, then you have to text them by if we can go to 11:30 tomorrow, you gotta text her right and he goes, Text her right now. You want me to text her right now? I'm like, Yes. So we did. And I would affirm you for I know you didn't really want to do it, but this may be our little window. So you did it. Yeah, that would be like in the moment. Yeah, a lot of times it's about our child or something.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:22

Yeah, so it's an affirmation, it's short.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:25

The next one is apology. Have I hurt you today? If you do it early in the day, you have a greater chance of saying no.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:31

So we say this is there any way that I hurt you, irritated, or frustrated you today?

SPEAKER_01 1:16:36

So today we got out the door pretty rough. It was a little rough. I was gonna go, this will work great for a marriage thing. Let's do it. Is there any way I hurt you or frustrated you today?

SPEAKER_04 1:16:47

A little frustration in how quickly you're ready to buy a house that we haven't looked at.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:54

You want to ask me that question?

SPEAKER_04 1:16:57

Do you want to answer?

SPEAKER_00 1:16:59

That's the key, is the apology piece. I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:03

Yeah. Well, you forgive me. This is how we do this. I am the counselor. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:08

Well, usually we say no. We don't really bump into each other too much anymore, but apparently we did today.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:14

Well, we do. But uh the key is the quick apology, and it's not deep, and it's not like this does not work for felonies, it works for misdemeanor. So that's good.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:24

Also, if I hurt you, I don't want to hurt you. I know that. Yeah. So I'm sorry I hurt you. Yeah. We're way past wanting to hurt each other. Way past that. We're saying I never want to hurt you.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:35

Is there any way I irritated, frustrated, or hurt you?

SPEAKER_01 1:17:38

Yeah, no, I'll give you pass.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:39

So that feels like an affirmation almost. So sometimes you know you do pass. And if it's such a tiny little thing, you don't need to really bring up every tiny little thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:48

The next one, this is really good. Is there anything I can do for you today?

SPEAKER_04 1:17:51

Yeah, this is the ask part.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:53

Usually it's about dinner. Okay. Who's doing what?

SPEAKER_04 1:17:55

So is there anything? Is there anything you can do for you today?

SPEAKER_01 1:18:02

I'll think of it, but I don't have one right now.

SPEAKER_05 1:18:04

Okay, that's good.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:04

Is there anything I can do for you today? You already asked me. Go help with the dog.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:09

Okay, good. So I asked her if we could. Which I would normally not do.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:13

So that's a quick ask. And the ask, same thing on the ask. You don't ask for these crazy, like, I want you to buy me a new car, or you don't ask for the case. It's just like, can you go to the dry cleaner? Can you pick up the apples? You know, they're kind of like acts of service.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:25

Yes, but for the day. Yeah, a little bit better.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:29

Let's say you're struggling on the sexual issue and you've got sexual problems and you didn't ask for that, then that probably is not the time to do that. So you have to be thinking sensitively. But but but it is important. And if you don't have a problem with that, it could be that. It could be like I'd like to be intimate tonight, or something like that. So it could be. It just you gotta be careful with it. The other thing is you can also say, I would I would prefer not to do that today. So you don't get into a no, I won't, but I I'd rather not do that today. So an ask isn't a demand.

SPEAKER_05 1:19:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:00

So that's the asked. So yeah. There you go. The affection, the affirmation, the apology, and the ask. And the last is amen. Amen.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:08

So how can I pray for you today? And you only get one thing. Yeah. I love it. Because we're we're like usually walking down our last five minutes home, and we kind of keep the same thing.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:18

So it's not your prayer time as a couple. I mean, you may have it another time when you go, let's spend some time praying together.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:25

So it's affection, affirmation, apology, ask, and amen. And how can I pray for you? I would like to go see that house.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:35

Okay, let me pray. So I'll pray right now. Oh, I love it. Yeah, I'll pray right now. So, dear Lord, we come to you because we know you have a place for us to be, and you you have a place that um is gonna be good for us and best for us, and I just pray that if this is the place, that you would make it clear and that we could be on the same page in Jesus' name. Amen.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:56

And how can I pray for you?

SPEAKER_04 1:19:58

You can pray for me for the same thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:00

Then we've covered it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:02

And that's the same thing. I look at it. And it's three minutes. Now, I would say this, and I tell couples this if you decide you're gonna go on a long walk and you're you're you know, and you decide, hey, let's do the five A's for a half hour on our walk, then you can go through a lot more affirmation, you can turn even your apology into a little bit more deeper, maybe where you say, like, how did this make you feel? And you can actually really get down into a little deeper relationship. Yeah. But it's meant to be a vitamin pill for your relationship. Just a way to make sure. Because amazing after you've been married a long time, you have kids, you don't even hardly touch each other anymore. You're just so it's just life is going so fast and you're moving, and you haven't had a time, and you maybe thought four times during the day something good about her or him, but you never said it. But this intentionally does it. That's why it came about. And I have couples, you guys, I I say so many of my couples have have have gone beyond their teacher. I have a couple in my church, I think, hasn't has not missed a day like in 14 years. I've had couples that have never missed a day, like in 10 years, in 15 years, and and I've I just tell people, what kind of marriage do you think they have? I guarantee you.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:13

And it's practical.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:14

It's practical, it's a simple, it's a simple tool. So some of those little simple tools covers emotional, physical, spiritual, no, it just is a very simple thing. But it but it there's a battle, it's personality, also. Some some people are are high responsibles, that's one of the personality traits. And for them, usually those people are doing it every day for four or two years, there's also a personality piece that goes with that because they're highly structured and so go go with it. So you don't want to beat yourself up. I would say this some people too, when you hear, is there any way it irritates, frustrate, or hurt you, it'll trigger them because they they they have a hard time hearing that they did something wrong and so they get defensive. So I've had to say to some couples, I want you to keep doing this. Use the four A's, don't do the five A's, just skip that A. And you have to figure out now how you're going to deal with your conflict because you avoidance is very big. In fact, one of the number one causes for divorce, people what is a ca number one cause of divorce? It is two avoiders.

SPEAKER_05 1:22:17

Wow.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:17

That's the number one cause of avoidance. Because if you keep avoiding and avoiding and avoiding, somewhere along the line, it completely blows up, and then they end up divorced. Wow. And it was because they didn't deal daily with those little things, and that's why again the five A's are there. It keeps you from avoiding. Because I've had couples, you know, I've worked with couples for a long time, and they say, you know, uh, I just can't ask for what I I I just don't have it. Something's broken within me, and I can't ask, and then I resent, and and so they, you know, a couple said to me, like, the five A's have been the secret for me because my favorite thing is the is when they say, Is there anything I could do for you? Because they set the table. Yeah. And I'm like, I'd never, I never would have thought of that.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:59

Well, and then it creates an opportunity. Yeah, it it sets yeah, opportunity.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:03

Yeah. The I love that it builds trust though. It's like first the affection.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:08

I'm with you.

SPEAKER_06 1:23:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:09

Then the affirmation. So then when the apology comes, it's like, oh, we're we're on the same team. Like we're together, you know, I'm for you, you know, I love you, all of those things. I love that.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:19

Or even from like just like a psychological, like biofeedback perspective, it's like just you know, there is like it releases oxytocin when you touch somebody and you feel safe. So you're almost like creating this safe container and a sense of connection before you even bring up something that could potentially be challenging.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:35

You know, we had one of these early in our marriage, we had a blowout pretty early. I was probably with Jacob. And well, yeah, we did a honeymoon problem, but this was another time. And we both we had to go to our separate rooms, had a timeout.

SPEAKER_05 1:23:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:49

And I felt like in the timeout, I felt like God said, the next time this happens, I want you two to hug. That's what I want you to do. Back to the biofeedback, right? So I come out and I said to Becky, you know, I think, you know, we prayed and so forth. I'm sorry, we apologize to each other. And I said, I think that the Lord wants us the next time this happens, I think He wants us to hug each other. And she goes, Okay, let's that's a good idea. And I probably within a half hour we had an opportunity to try that out. And I and I she was mad at me for something I did, and it probably, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:21

Rightly so?

SPEAKER_04 1:24:22

Rightly so. And so I said to her, I go, You have to hug me. And she goes, I'm not gonna hug you. Like I don't want to hug you. I said, No, God told us that we're supposed to hug each other, we're gonna hug each other. She goes, I'm not hugging you. So she starts to go down the hallway, and I go after her, and I go, You are gonna hug me. So I tackled her in the hallway. We're laying on the ground, just belly laughing. We are belly laughing, and and but it's amazing what happens when you hug and you just calm down, but you hold because the abandonment issues come up to without that. So just holding, and then by hugging and saying, I feel we're in a spiritual battle, it is amazing what you can avoid in terms of escalating, and then you end up saying things and having a problem that's way worse than the initial irritation problem. Then now we really have problems because it's turned into a felony. We said things we shouldn't have said. We broke the one of the rules was we don't use the word divorce, we don't use the D word. Now we're using the D word, but really it's it's out of a it's out of an escalated emotional amygdala part of our brain that just has kicked in. It's a fight or flight part of our brain, and now I'm in an amygdala moment, and I say things I would never say if I was in a prefrontal cortex, you know, executive functioning portion. And so I got to get the blood back to the prefrontal cortex so that we can executively, you know, talk with each other. But we say things and then and then we believe those things and hold on to those the rest of our life, like you said this one time. You know, I talk about the amygdala, is the only part of your brain that's fully developed by the time you're five years old. So it's like, okay, what would two little five-year-olds have? What kind of marriage would they have? Oh, wow. They would not have a very good marriage. And yet we're two people who are operating on a five-year-old uh, you know, level, and no wonder we say things. What do little kids say to each other, I don't love you anymore? My father, you know, I'm never gonna see you again, I'm never gonna talk to you again, and then they're fine hugging each other. Right.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:15

And that makes so much sense too. It's like if you're someone who's prone to going to fight, like what's the survival tactic there? It's like, how do we end this conflict as quickly as possible? Yeah, because I'm I'm so unsettled in this interaction that I need it to stop. But if we don't have the tools to have that interaction or have that conversation, then we're gonna say something hurtful. Why? Because you storm out of the room, the fight's over, and now I feel better. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:41

So we need a timeout process, you know, and again, these are all the tools that that you know that we give in our premarital and marriage work that we do. Um Becky was gonna share about the book. I don't know if you want to share that or not, you know, but we do have a couple, you know, we have a book, you know, that's called Little Changes, Big Results for Crazy Busy Couples. It's true, it's our marriage book.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:02

It's right there. Yeah, we can you can we show it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, we took it from the premarital. So it's just helping marriages, but it's that easy. You can stick it in your glove compartment of your car if you really need it just the tools. Tools, is what you said from the very beginning. Yeah, I teach people tools. That's how they're gonna get through their problems when I'm not there. And whether you're a parent and a student, a married couple, a dating couple, you know, he's made a a life work of it, you're making a life work of it. Um and we want people to have great relationships, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:27:39

We're gonna put the link to this book in the episode info. So on underneath, you can scroll on and get the link. So this will help you so much.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:48

Well, I was just gonna say, like, about the five A's, like something I I love about that so much is it keeps couples from withholding affection or love. Like, I think I'll see a lot of couples where like a Happens, and then it's almost like they split their partner into black and white, and then it's like, Well, I can't love you, or I can't do anything nice for you, or I'm not gonna wash your dish, or I'm not gonna do that act of kindness or service. Like they start withholding until the conflict resolution has happened, and then it's like, okay, now that we're like quote unquote good, now I can be kind to you again, and like what a cool intervention where it's like you can actually have this thing that you do where it prevents withholding. Yeah. Because the withholding eventually just exacerbates the problem, creates more disconnection, and then you have several problems instead of just the one. So it keeps you like, you know, you know, yeah, speaking the truth in love and acting in loving kindness, even if you don't feel love, you're acting in love, and that actually creates the feelings. That's right.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:48

So if you went to a really big conference, they'd probably say, Don't go to bed angry. Well, the five A's is every 24 hours you're gonna come in with, is there any way I've hurt you? Which is why I said rarely do we have to do an apology because we're kind of in the rhythm like, well, we're not going to bed angry. And if you kind of had a scuffle in the middle of the day, I'm gonna go after it. I'm like, let's hug. Yeah. Or he'll say, Why do you laugh when I'm mad at you? I'm like, because I know it's I don't know. I you know, I don't let this stuff get so serious. When you're newly or wed, you have a flag you want to put in the ground or something.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:27

And I'm an avoider, so that's so I'm so thankful that, you know, again, this is when she irritates me because she has to get it out and we got to talk about and and it's irritating, but it's needed. It's needed healthy. You're gonna do it before you go to bed.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:41

You're gonna have your 24 hours.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:43

Let me give you a quick story, really, on this, too. I was a I was a high school guidance counselor years and years and years ago, and I had a um a a boy that would come in on a regular basis, his dad abused him. He was physically abused so much so that his dad ended up uh going to jail for the physical, but he then he went through his jail term, and then he went through counseling, he's back in back in his home, and the boy is coming back into my office on a regular basis, having been abused and so forth. He came back in one time, and he's and he's and I looked at him and he was as down as I'd ever seen him down. I mean, total depression, totally. I mean, I I said to him, like, what happened? Like, I knew something happened. And I was waiting for him to me to roll up his sleeves and say, My dad just did something horrific to me. I just was waiting, and I'm like, so you know, and he says, and he goes, and he says to me, he goes, Um, Mr. Terabasi, because I was a guidance constant, Mr. Terabasi, he says, it is the worst thing that has ever happened to me. And I went, oh my goodness, what is it? He said, My dad has not talked to me in two weeks. I remember going, did he do anything else? No. He goes, I would rather have him hit me than to ignore me and to not talk to me at all. I mean, for me as a young counselor, I guess I have a wake-up call, like, oh my gosh. Then I read in the proverb, better is open rebuke than hidden love. And you realize that you can be sinning more by withholding love than anything else you do in your life. That was a very powerful insight for me, and to realize the significance of what you just talked about, Ben. We don't do the right thing because I'm mad at you, so I'm not gonna wash your dishes. I'm not gonna buy you what you want, I'm gonna withhold something. And I think it's important to have these Bible verses and this truth to help us break out of back to spiritual warfare. What is the core of that? I do believe it's Satan trying to get us to withhold love. Yep. It is demonic. And we have to.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:58

That gives the devil a foothold to go to bed angry.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:01

And that's why you know the Bible says, you know, put on the full armor of God. What this is very practical stuff that we're talking about, just memorizing verses, but actually applying these verses to our relationships. And I think that's the key. The word of God, the Holy Spirit moving through the word of God. I mean, this is how this is how you have a great relationship, which is, you know, again, what's the purpose of our relationships to bring glory to God? It's supposed to be that this is show this should show some things about God, his love for us. You know, I I think back to what you just said again, Ben, too. When it said, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. That's a verse that really hits on what you just said. He didn't wait until we were good, he didn't withhold his love until we did it. He extended his love, and then there was change, and then we saw it. And this is the secret I think of marriage. Like you just do, you just love your spouse, even when you're ticked at them, even when they bothered you. And you don't you have a goal. You just you just love them. And then, you know, obviously you have counseling that might keep you.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:06

Kiana and I are very fortunate. We've saved a lot of money by marrying a counselor.

unknown 1:33:11

Yeah, I know.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:13

Well, and it's it's doing the opposite sometimes of what it's not letting your emotions bully you around. And it's doing the opposite of what you want in that moment. It's like, I mean, same with sanctification, same with your relationship with Jesus. Same with everything. It's like same with the kingdom of God. It's an upside-down kingdom. It's like everything is like, okay, I'm so mad right now. The last thing I want to do is grab his dish. For the sake of the marriage, I'm going to die to myself and grab the dish. Like, I'm just gonna do it because those are the things that sanctify us, that grind up against the rough edges in us that actually make us more free. We think, same with the kingdom of God, we think that freedom is doing whatever we want. It's actually like it says in Judges, one of the worst moments in judges is there was no king in Israel, and everyone did what was right in their own eyes. That was one of the most horrific moments in the kingdom that that was speaking to. It's like it's the lie, and it's so it's like, okay, how do I lay down my rights and my freedom? I have a right to not do anything for Ben. I have a right to feel what I need to feel and do whatever I want. I'm a free human being. No. You're actually then enslaved to your emotions and your anger and your isolation. It's like, oh, okay, it's the opposite. If I lay down my rights, then I'm more free and our marriage is better.

SPEAKER_04 1:34:34

Yeah. How many times do we know in life where we realized we didn't want to do something and then when we did it, like something amazing happened? I I, as a pastor of a church, you know, sometimes I wish I wasn't because I want to tell this to everybody. You've got to find a church. You you know, how many times we go, I just don't feel like going to church today. That's probably the most important day to go to church. Yeah. I most leak least want to do something nice for your wife. It's probably the most important day to do something for your spouse. And it's like, but that takes a discipline, it takes that wisdom that takes the understanding. And hopefully, out of the podcast, somebody can realize, man, I've been hurt by back to we talk about church hurt a lot in the church because that happens a lot, because people hurt people, and they just happen to be in a church, and so we'll call it church hurt. Well, it could if that happened in a restaurant, it'd be restaurant hurt, and it'd be whatever it's gonna be hurt. I mean, call it what he wants. I mean, if you were hurt by a person at a time, and now I think spiritually Satan gets in there to try to pull us away from the very place we need to be. I think he does it in our marriage, I think he does it in work, I think he does it in every single place you could find. Yeah, and we have to learn over maturity, like I gotta do this. And somehow, and I gotta pray, and maybe I do have to go through three or four churches to find the church that finally is the church that I feel is the safest, maybe if it's safety or whatever it might happen to be, you know, in your church. But speaking as pastors as well, um, I just can tell you how many stories I've heard when people say, you know, I just didn't want to be here today. And then they'd come up afterwards and say, I heard what I had to heard. I can't tell you how how much I didn't want to be here today, you know. So whatever it might might have to be. And I think, you know, you're the exercise girl. I mean, how many people like they just don't, you know, I'm I don't last place I want to be is exercising, and yeah, it's probably gonna save your life.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:23

Well, Ben and I always say this is we are a little modest. You never regret a workout. You might regret not going, but you won't regret going. Yeah. But two things I want to say to each other. But two things I wanna I want to close with is one, this verse from James, where it says when we are dragged away by our evil desires. So this is what James is speaking to sin. He says, When tempted, no one should say, God is tempting me. For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone. But each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then after desire is conceived, it gives birth to sin. Sin, when it is full grown, gives birth to death. And that key word dragged away. The enemy will always isolate you and drag you away. The Holy Spirit will always push you into community, unity, and wholeness. And so that was just thinking about that verse when you um and then just one more story about doing the opposite. And when this is just about our spirituality to kind of close today, is we were probably two months ago, was having a really just hard week emotionally. Like everything just felt discouraging. It was literally the day I mentioned earlier where I'm crying on the floor and he's just headphones and working, and we're just like, we don't know what to do. And I got invited to this worship night um conference thing. And it was the last thing I wanted to do. I did not want to get off the floor. I wanted to just throw my own pity party and just be sad and be angry. And I just I did the exact opposite of what I wanted to do, and I showed up, and even when I was there, I said the message ended up being awesome, and they did a prayer ministry response time to come and get prayer. And I literally said to God, not today. Like I was like, I'm not getting prayer today. And then I heard my own words that I say at every fragrance event. If you're listening, you've been to a fragrance event, I say, We don't get prayer, we don't get prayed for enough. Please do not leave this event without getting prayed for. And I said, Thank you. And I I said that to myself, I said, Kiana, what would you say to yourself? You don't, when's the last time you were you had someone lay hands on you? Was it five days ago? That's too long. Like, that's too long. And so I'm sitting there and I'm watching the prime ministry response happening. I've been arguing with God, telling him how I don't want to be there. I'm so mad and just sad and discouraged. And I watched this woman just get hit with holy laughter. Like she was just so like it was like a joy bomb just fell. The person praying was praying for joy, and she's just cracking up. And I've had that happen once in my life. And I remember and it made me think of the time where God, I just couldn't stop laughing when someone was praying for me, and I just felt this like joy that I hadn't felt in a long time. And I literally said to God again, I said, not today. I was like, I don't want that today. And then I heard my own words again go get in prayer. And I went down and I got prayer. I someone was praying for me, and I they're holding my hands, and I'm just kind of like, you know, when you're like trying really hard to receive, and you're just like, you know, and then my friend Kylie, who didn't know at all what was going on that week with me, I barely talked to her, but she walks up and I could hear her voice, my eyes are closed. She grabs my hands, throws them to the ground, and says, This is it's been way too serious around here. She puts her hand on my head, and I kid you not, I fall to the ground cracking up. Like, could not, like it reminded me of like David worshiping in his underwear, like just all dignity out the window. Like, I'm like in I'm I because the funny thing is, as a girl, I was wearing white pants, and I was like, God, I don't want to be on my knees in these white pants. I end up literally on the floor, just cracking up to the point where God even said to me, He, he reminded me of something that happened that day that in the moment I was really mad about. He said it in a way that was like, remember this? And I started laughing even harder. Like he just turned my morning into joy. And it was like synthesis, because I always I always look for fruit in moments like that when I'm like, okay, like, yes, God could do this crazy thing and you could have a emotional reaction to something, but like, what's the fruit? Like, how are you walking it out after? And I remember, like, after that time, I was like, joy was in this little cup that was way more easily accessible. Like, it was like I forgot about the cup, and God through that just like deposited joy into this cup to the point where I got home and I was trying to tell Ben about what happened. Could be I could crying like I, you know, when you're laughing so hard, you can't even get the words out. I didn't even, I think I told you the next day because I couldn't even anyways. I share all that to say. Number one to say the Holy Spirit is just so amazing. But number two, to say that was the last thing I wanted or expected. But it was it literally took everything in me to get there to do the counterintuitive thing to receive, and I didn't want to receive. And like I say that story not to toot my own horn and say, like, look what I did, but look at what got look what God did when we make a tiny decision to lean in and said to lean out. So, anyways, thank you guys so much for being on here today. So, I have one question that I ask, and it's a little bit different every week, and you can just give a quick answer. But first thing that comes to mind, Jesus rolls into town, he's staying with you, and he says, I want you to take me on the best day trip ever. Like Southern California road trip, whatever. We're gonna go somewhere for the day. Where do you take him?

SPEAKER_03 1:41:48

I think easy for me. I would take him snorkeling and laguna. Easy. Show him some fish, some some seagrass, some kelp. It's his anyways, but I think you'd have a good time.

SPEAKER_00 1:41:57

Yeah. Look at what you created. Look at what you created. Look at all these things you made.

SPEAKER_03 1:42:01

Look at that fish you made. I love that. I like that. I love that.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:06

I totally don't know, but every morning I wake up and I sit in my living room and I look at the ocean, and I have my time, my hour, two, three with the Lord. I'd say, Well, this is where we're gonna be today anyway. Yeah. Let's just be there.

SPEAKER_06 1:42:22

Oh, I love that.

SPEAKER_04 1:42:23

That's good. I'm on the golf course. Yeah, I'm on the golf course with a bunch of people.

SPEAKER_05 1:42:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:42:29

And uh maybe even uh we're having a competition on the golf course with a bunch of people, but we're doing it on teams. So we're we're a team competing against another team. Wow. So there's a Jesus on your team? Oh, for sure. Yeah, so I mean it's just a little bit of fun, competition outside, no uh on a golf course that there's no houses, there's just nothing but but the beauty of God's creation there, and it's just great fellowship and great fun.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:59

Wow, you know what? That was a curveball, Roger. Was not expecting you to be with a bunch of people. I feel like I would be like me and Jesus alone all day. He's mine, no one else gets his time or attention. I mean, I come and talk to all day. This is me. Yeah, I'm loving it. Oh my gosh, my I didn't even, oh my gosh, no one ever asked it back.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:20

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:43:20

I would. Oh my gosh, this is hard. I'm like really throwing out some fingers. Well, first I'd wake up. That's always gonna be like, okay, I woke up. Obviously, I'd wake up. Um, and me and Jesus, we probably would take him to a spin class. Oh, you would? Oh yeah. Oh, I'd take him to like, yeah, my my good friend Topy. I'd be like, hey, you created movement, let's go. Um, and then we'd probably go to the beach. And, you know, I'd probably share him with you. I'd probably be like, you gotta come come chat with Ben. Like, you know, I'd probably, oh, I'd make him a loaf of sourdough bread. I'd teach him how to make bread as if I could teach him anything. Um, yeah, I think I think we would just oh, we'd probably go shopping.

unknown 1:44:04

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:05

That sounds silly, but treats. That's what he treats, right? Right. Limitless resources. Anyways. Oh, love you all so much. Thank you so much. We are gonna be back on with you guys again soon. I just know it.

SPEAKER_05 1:44:19

So thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:22

Thank you for listening to the Fragrance Podcast. We'd love for you to subscribe, like, and write a review for this episode. Fragrance is a 501c3 nonprofit ministry, and your donations are tax deductible. If you'd like to support fragrance, you can click on the link in the episode info.