Episode Transcript
[00:00:04] Speaker A: Hey, everybody. Welcome back to grow tension, the podcast where we are trying to grow into our full potential. We are a father daughter duo. I'm Sarah, and I'm with my dad.
[00:00:14] Speaker B: Doc, on a beautiful day.
[00:00:16] Speaker A: It's kind of gray, but I'm with you, so it makes it beautiful. How you doing?
[00:00:20] Speaker B: Good.
[00:00:20] Speaker A: Good. Okay. We are on part two of a relationship series that we started last month, and we talked about Gottman's book, the seven Principles for making a marriage work. And the idea is, in every relationship you have, there's kind of a bottom line of friendship. Can you just refresh our mind about that?
[00:00:41] Speaker B: Yeah. So Gottman does all this research, and he says there are three qualities, three elements that make a solid friendship between a spouse. All right. The first is understanding each other and having love maps. And basically, that means I want to understand what does life look like for Sharon when it's at its very best.
[00:01:09] Speaker A: I loved how you said that. I thought that was really great.
[00:01:12] Speaker B: Then the second is having a fondness for each other.
[00:01:17] Speaker A: Yeah. Fondness and admiration.
[00:01:21] Speaker B: Focusing our thoughts on what is best in each other, because then we're going to be expressing that in our relationship. And then his third idea was, we all make these little bids for each other's attention and affection.
There's something as simple as touching someone's hand or asking somebody to look at something with you or just asking for a little attention. And we turn toward these little beds, or we turn away from them.
[00:01:55] Speaker A: Yeah. And as we were talking, we were saying, really, at the core of relationships is friendship.
[00:02:00] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:02:01] Speaker A: And so these ideas work for not just married people, but any relationships that you want to be healthy. This is going to work really well for you. I think a lot of people, though, struggle in their relationships, and we always hear, like, communication is the big thing, but sometimes people need deeper tools on how to solve problems. And so today, I thought we kind of put our energy in this idea about, how do you solve problems in a relationship? And Gottman's got a cool idea because he says there's solvable problems and there's unsolvable problems. Would you like to share some of your unsolvable problems? I'm just joking. You don't have to do that.
[00:02:43] Speaker B: I don't have any.
[00:02:46] Speaker A: Okay. But in reality, there are things that are solvable, and then there are some things that are unsolvable. So tell us a little bit about an unsolvable problem for most people.
[00:02:56] Speaker B: Let's just take something that's pretty visceral.
People have different ideas about money and so maybe you have somebody who wants to save, and maybe you have somebody who is a little more free spending. All right. What we can't do is demonize our spouse because they have a different attitude toward money.
[00:03:22] Speaker A: Yeah. And this is easy to do because you're clashing with ideas.
[00:03:27] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:03:28] Speaker A: So money is an easy one because that's pretty easy to see. But there's other ones, too. What are some other ones?
[00:03:35] Speaker B: Raising kids.
People have different ideas about how to raise kids.
It's often in families they have political differences that neither one of them are going to change, and they're always going to disagree on it.
[00:03:56] Speaker A: Yeah. So when you think about an unsolvable problem, it's one that keeps recurring. No matter how long have you been together, no matter how long you've tried to solve it, it's a fundamental difference. And Gottman's got this idea that instead of just keep spinning the wheels and having the same conversation over and over and over again, you look at it a little bit different. Have you found this to be helpful for you in your life?
[00:04:20] Speaker B: Yes, it's very helpful. When I use Gottman's idea and say, there's something about this issue that triggers something deep and important to Sharon.
[00:04:35] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:04:35] Speaker B: Okay. This isn't just about, are we going to save this money? Are we going to pay a big bill?
That's just the presenting issue.
If we're not going to save the money and we're going to pay a big bill, it's going to meet a security need for Sharon, or it's going to meet a sense of, I'm taking care of things. Okay. If I can understand the problem from the internal values and experiences, I'm going to deal with her in a very different way.
If I don't understand that there's really something deep and important behind why she feels this way, then I'm going to end up saying, you're so hard to get along with. Why can't you compromise?
[00:05:35] Speaker A: Okay. So I think this is really healthy to talk about right now, as far as conflict, maybe especially politically. Like, my husband and I, we are. We share the same values. We just see things different, and we don't demonize each other for it. We have a very healthy household. We have great relationships. We don't. And I think it's easy to demonize when you are only coming at it from that angle. But when you look at it from a deeper value system, like Jake's looking at policies, and maybe I'm looking at the person, we can say, we want the same things. We're just ourselves. Focus is on two different areas. And so I think for most relationships that this was very eye opening. And it can be a very healthy tool to say, what are some of the fundamental things that you guys are fighting about? And what is the value that it's pricking, or what is the value that feels like it's not meeting?
And it can be. It can be little things, too, right? It can be.
Jake's idea of vacationing looks a little bit different than mine does. He likes to adventure and do all these things because at the core of it, it gets him outside of his own head, where I like to unwind and shut off and relax and read a book. And that's because I need to detach for a little bit. And so when we go on vacation, there can be these where I'm always, or he's always feeling like we're not meeting each other's needs, but there's a value there. And so I think it can be big. And like we were saying, there's solvable problems. So I think that is going to be worth its weight in gold for couples to dig deeper into what is the value that is behind this unsolvable argument. And it doesn't mean it's going to get solved. I think that's the point, right?
[00:07:39] Speaker B: Okay. It.
We're not trying to manipulate each other into coming to our side.
[00:07:47] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:07:48] Speaker B: That's the last thing we want to do, because that's going to make things even worse.
What we're trying to do is to get to a point where we can look at our spouse and say, we disagree about this.
But I have a sense of why.
Because she's always going to value this more than I value it, and I'm always going to value this more than she values it. So we're not trying to manipulate each other across the line. What we're trying to do is say we understand the source of this conflict, and this conflict can actually make us appreciate each other more instead of undervaluing each other.
[00:08:34] Speaker A: And I think instead of demonizing or feeling like you're just spinning the tires again, you can add some humor into it. That's one of Gottman's big things, is have some fun in your relationship if you can poke fun at these differences.
And maybe it's not sarcasm like we had talked about earlier, but it's just humor. It's just having a little fun with each other. You have a way better chance at not letting these big pillars become like a breaking point. For you because they're not gonna change. Sometimes it's a fundamental difference.
[00:09:10] Speaker B: Yes.
I would like to add.
It seems to me that the better we get the friendship piece, the easier this piece is.
The better I practice the friendship piece, the easier it is for me to just accept Sharon has a different need in this than I do.
If I'm not getting the friendship right, it makes the conflict worse.
[00:09:46] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:09:47] Speaker B: If I'm getting a friendship right, then we argue fairly.
If I'm not getting the friendship right, then we don't argue fairly. Or maybe I shouldn't say argue, debate, or whatever you want.
I bring the friendship quality to solvable and unsolvable problems.
And over time, they just don't seem as important.
[00:10:15] Speaker A: Yeah. So when.
If you haven't listened to our last podcast on that three part idea of how to become better friends, really grow in your relationship, highly recommend you go listen to that, because that really is a pillar and basis for. It's like the scaffolding.
Scaffolding for the rest of his principles. And you can feel it when you do it.
[00:10:45] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:10:45] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay. So his solvable problems, these are problems that are, you know, you leave your socks out or you're constantly picking up after somebody. Or maybe it's the tone of how you're talking. Solvable problems, things that can be solved.
He talks about this idea of, like, how you talk to someone matters. I think he calls it the soft startup.
What have you found helpful when you think about solvable problems with you and mom?
[00:11:18] Speaker B: I don't know where Shay picked it up, but at some point when we were having a conflict, she began to say to me, you're a better man than that.
And it takes all the fight out of me. I have no fight left in me.
It's such a simple thing, but it changes the tone of the conversation.
The higher expectation, but the gentle word. Do you know?
[00:12:04] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:12:08] Speaker B: Shay has always been more gentle than I am.
She's got the mercy gift.
I also want to recommend to every, all the men who are listening.
Men are from Mars, women are from Venus. I learned more about how to talk to my wife reading that book than anything else in my life. In fact, the chapters even have examples where I don't have to figure it out. I just use the example.
But the proverbs even say, Sarah, a soft answer turneth away much rather, yeah, it does.
[00:12:53] Speaker A: I think about.
So you've been married 52 years this year? This August.
[00:12:59] Speaker B: August, yeah.
[00:13:00] Speaker A: And I think about that is a lasting relationship that most people, I think you and mom, a lot of people admire your relationship deeply. I had someone say they watch you walk into church together because you'll pick the farthest parking spot to park in so that you can save the better parking spots for everybody else, and you and mom will walk in holding hands, or you'll be driving in the golf cart holding hands, and someone said they can just sense the deep love that you have for each other. And after 52 years, there's an idea of maybe shared meaning that can shape relationships into something and take you so much farther than you could without it. Do you want to talk about that for a minute?
[00:13:47] Speaker B: When, before I knew Sharon, she had a sense of God's call on her life before I ever knew her, and I didn't have a sense of call till I was 18, so we were blessed by God that she felt called to the ministry, and I felt called to the ministry. So from day one, we had a shared purpose.
[00:14:24] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:14:28] Speaker B: But for people who don't get that.
[00:14:30] Speaker A: There are other there for the rest of us.
[00:14:33] Speaker B: Okay. Like, when you have children, you have a shared purpose.
[00:14:37] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:14:38] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:14:39] Speaker A: If you let it be right.
[00:14:40] Speaker B: If you. If you live up to it.
[00:14:44] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:14:45] Speaker B: If you.
Okay. This shared purpose, it's gonna look and sound different in each person, but it has an incredible bonding to it. So you gave the idea of vacation.
You vacation differently, but you have a shared value in having vacation time, because some people never have vacation time together. They just don't do it.
[00:15:14] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:15:14] Speaker B: So even when you're experiencing the purpose and the meaning in a little bit different way, it's still bringing you together.
[00:15:24] Speaker A: Yeah. This is triggering my mind, because in his book, he talks about, like, being a values detective, but I think I'm saying that wrong. It's this idea of find what your partner loves and support their dream. And so he talks about it in three different levels, but I'm sorry, my notes are a little everywhere.
I think the first level is like, dig in. What is the dream? I think he uses an idea of his wife, always valued riding bikes or something. I might be getting this wrong or making it up, but Michael Scott, you just thinks. I think it's that way. But the idea of.
I was gonna do an office joke. But you don't watch the office.
[00:16:19] Speaker B: I don't watch the office.
[00:16:21] Speaker A: It's really funny. You're missing out.
[00:16:23] Speaker B: Yeah. I find it obnoxious.
[00:16:25] Speaker A: You just got to watch it. It's so good. But anyways, the idea is, dig in. What is the dream of your spouse? What is something that they value that maybe has been hidden and how to honor your partner's dreams. Yep, that's it. Okay, perfect. So the first one is, once you figure out that there's something that your partner values, you got to express an understanding of the dream and be interested in learning about it. So this woman wanted to ride bikes. So the guy started researching, like, what are the best bikes? The level two is actively enable the dream. What are things that you can put into your life that can enable your partner to dream?
And so this guy goes and buys his wife the bike.
And then the third one is become a part of the dream. So for some people, maybe their values look different. Maybe their dreams look different. You did get incredibly lucky. I got very lucky because Jacob values the church so much. And so he gives a lot of his time outside of his job, you know, to the church. So Saturdays and Sundays, those are. He'll do mentoring stuff with me on the weeknights, and we do a marriage, small group. So he spends a lot of his extra time. And so we do have some shared meaning in that.
But becoming part of the dream is like, I think he bought a bike and he would ride bikes with her. So that's. It's a silly example, but I think it hits the point of maybe it's not as clear to you what your shared value is, or maybe you don't have kids yet, or.
But finding what dream is inside of your partner and enabling it and becoming a part of it. I didn't know the power that that has. It has so much power.
[00:18:21] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:18:22] Speaker A: So how did you and mom. So you both had this idea of a calling from God, but it looked different, I'm sure, many times in your life. Like you said, mom is Mother Teresa. She is sent from heaven above.
[00:18:37] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:18:37] Speaker A: She is holy.
So what does that look like for you guys when you maybe don't see quite eye to eye on the dream? But it's the dream, right?
[00:18:49] Speaker B: So this is one of our areas in our life where we have.
We see things a little differently, and we're never going to see them exactly the same.
So Shay tends to be a little more conservative.
Her religious approach is a little more conservative than mine. And my religious approach has felt uncomfortable and dangerous to her.
So we have that unsolvable conflict. But we share the desire to serve God stronger.
That desire to serve God is stronger than our differences.
And I had to learn to honor her more conservative approach, and Shea had to learn to let go of a little bit and honor my less conservative approach.
But I think we've gotten there.
I can't remember the last time that we had a discussion about being too conservative or not conservative enough.
[00:20:34] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:20:35] Speaker B: I also want to add, it's been harder for Shay than for me, being a.
Being on the staff and serving. It's been harder for her than for me.
And I respect what it's cost her to do all this.
[00:21:02] Speaker A: Yeah. I think as a pastor's wife, you carry a lot.
[00:21:07] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:21:07] Speaker A: And you are protective of your spouse, so you don't have a lot of safe places to land. I think when you grow up in ministry, you see it a lot different than maybe outside looking in.
But she has been such a phenomenal source for our entire family, and I respect her to the utmost degree.
[00:21:29] Speaker B: I'll need binoculars to see her in heaven.
[00:21:32] Speaker A: Yeah.
We'll be in the bleachers.
[00:21:36] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:21:37] Speaker A: Okay. So I was thinking about this as parenting, too, because sometimes mine and Jacob's parenting style is very different, but the value of our kids is high. And so we had to come together very early on as parents and say, what do we value most and how do we live that out and respect each other's differences? So one of the things we just had a different. He has. He's a little more harsh than I am, so he had a different parenting style than I did. And we made a deal that when we were interacting with the kids, we would never, we would always support each other.
But when the kids went to bed that night, we would talk about it and we would say, hey, I hated how this went down, or can we try to change this approach? And so we had a united front for our kids because we thought that was important. We never wanted them to start pinning us against each other, or dad said, or mom said, but we also created a safe space to talk about it, because if you don't talk about it, you start to get bitter and angry.
And then we said, okay, here's what we value. We value these three ideas, and I think I've shared it before in the podcast, but fun. We wanted to create an environment where our kids wanted to be around us, where we could enjoy each other's company. We created that idea of God will always be first in our life. And so, by the grace of God to this day, our kids put God first in their lives, in their relationships.
And then it was respect. We wanted to respect the people around us. We wanted to respect each other. And there's honesty tied up in that. But that was our three values, that that was what we lived and died by. It was how we disciplined. It was how we saw a lens through life. And so, although, as different styles, we brought together the values that mattered. And you did that for us as kids, too. We did. The family motto. The family motto. All right, one last good idea. Because of who we are, when you think about relationships and the spiritual aspect of, like, who God is, can you give us one good idea to end this pile?
[00:23:57] Speaker B: Well, relationships are God's idea.
[00:24:00] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:24:01] Speaker B: I mean, he invented marriage.
[00:24:02] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:24:03] Speaker B: We didn't come up with that. We've messed it up a lot. But the idea is God's. And guess what? It's his first idea. The very first thing he does in humanity is it's not good for a man to be alone. And he says, for this reason, a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife.
[00:24:30] Speaker A: So clinginess is good.
[00:24:32] Speaker B: Yes, cling to your spouse.
So I know God's perfect idea for marriage will enrich our lives.
But I also know, like you guys said in your sermon Sunday, there's got to be the love triangle. You, your spouse, and God at the top.
[00:24:57] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:24:59] Speaker B: I also know that when.
[00:25:01] Speaker A: So we just. So it's a picture of a triangle. At the very top of the triangle is God, and in the bottom corners, one is you and one is your spouse. And as you grow closer to God, you naturally grow closer to each other.
[00:25:15] Speaker B: Beautiful.
I also know that there were times when God intervened in my life and marriage.
I couldn't get it right. I wasn't getting it right. And God, in his divine grace, in the riches of his mercy, he caused something to happen, and it got us through the hard times.
[00:25:41] Speaker A: Okay. I wanted to say this in our sermon, and I.
So I want to say it now.
Sometimes in that love triangle, your spouse doesn't believe in God or your partner doesn't believe in God. And that can leave a lopsided triangle. But the Bible specific about this, is it in one corinthians or second Corinthians where they say that your faith can be a blessing to your family? Your faith, if you're married to an unbeliever, can change your children's lives, can change your spouse's life? I'll have to look up the verse, but do you know what I'm talking about?
[00:26:17] Speaker B: I know exactly. If the unbeliever wants to stay, let them stay, because who knows?
You might win them.
[00:26:26] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think so.
Don't let that detour you or don't let that be breaking point. If you're married, you keep believing in God, you let him be your lifeline, because God can use your faith to be an incredible blessing to your household.
[00:26:43] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:26:44] Speaker A: Okay. Thank you so much.
[00:26:46] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:26:47] Speaker A: I appreciate doing this with you, and I really value your wisdom, so thank you so much. I love ya.
First Corinthians 712 is the verse. Okay. We hope you had a good time in this. We hope this is a value to you. I believe if you take some of this advice, it can really change the trajectory of your relationship. So if this has been helpful, please like it, share, subscribe, do all the things you're supposed to do. You know what I'm saying?
[00:27:17] Speaker B: I do.
[00:27:18] Speaker A: All right. Have a wonderful week. We'll see you next time.
