Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: We are going to be talking about relationships today.
[00:00:05] Speaker B: So We've been married 54 years.
We married young and we went to college together.
You're just not going to get up tomorrow and just naturally start being better friends. There's a difference between sharing space and sharing your life together.
[00:00:27] Speaker A: Yeah.
What would you say to someone who isn't very open with how they're feeling? So maybe their spouse wants to be sympathetic, but they just don't. They're not very open.
Hey, welcome back to grow tential, the father daughter duo where we are learning and growing and we love to share what we're learning about.
I am in a current crazy season because we just married my last baby off and now we are empty nesters for a little bit. How have you enjoyed the empty nester life?
[00:01:07] Speaker B: Well, my daughters and grandkids live close to me, so when I want to see them, I go pester them and then I get in my car and go home.
[00:01:15] Speaker A: Yeah. You call me. You're like, where's my summer friend?
[00:01:20] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:01:20] Speaker A: We're going to be starting a brand new series on relationships and I'm very excited about this one because I think as relationships you're beginning or you grow, like there's seasons of relationships where it's always good to stop and reflect and refresh good ideas. And so we are going to be talking about relationships today.
[00:01:46] Speaker B: Six good ideas.
[00:01:47] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay, so why don't you give our viewers a little bit of a history.
A lot of people know who listen about your relationship with mom, but why don't you give us a little backdrop?
[00:02:01] Speaker B: So We've been married 54 years.
We married young and we went to college together.
We came from different kinds of families.
In Sharon's family, if people were upset, nobody said anything.
[00:02:23] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:02:23] Speaker B: It kind of got put in the closet.
[00:02:26] Speaker A: Right.
[00:02:27] Speaker B: In my family, when people were upset, they stood in the kitchen and yelled.
So we came from very different backgrounds and I made as many relational mistakes as a person can make, but I wasn't happy doing it. And so I started reading a marriage book every year.
And then that evolved into Sharon and I would both read a book together and we would discuss it.
[00:02:56] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:02:59] Speaker B: And like every relationship, we had our ups and downs.
But I'm just telling everybody the longer you make it work, the more beautiful your life is.
[00:03:12] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[00:03:12] Speaker B: My life is. I could not ask for a better life partner than Sharon.
[00:03:18] Speaker A: Yeah.
Yeah. I think that's one of the beauties of being in a relationship. Longer is grass isn't always greener.
But I think the Beauty is you get to know each other in the kind of way that has such depth and such friendship. And there's such a quality of life that when you can move past some of the hardest seasons and the hardest difficulties, you truly have your best friend by your side.
[00:03:46] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:03:47] Speaker A: And that's the goal. The goal is to kind of have. To have the kind of relationships where you.
Your life is better because these people are in your life.
So I've been married, I think, 24 years, and I married my junior high sweetheart.
And we had every relational error you could have.
We struggled our way through his.
We grew up similarly as far as you just said, you and mom. So. So his home is loving and wonderful. But they weren't very emotional. They didn't really show their emotions, whereas we are very emotional in the Collings household.
And so that was a learning curve for us big time, because we weren't relating in the same way. We had grown up.
But the gift for Jacob and I has been growing up together, really.
And.
And we are more in love today than we have ever been. It is by the gift of God. So we want to talk about the six qualities that healthy relationships. Do you know, what are the qualities that these relationships have in common?
So we are going to start at number one today. And what do you got for us?
[00:05:14] Speaker B: Simple companionship.
Good relations begin and are maintained because you have a commitment to figure out how to share life together.
[00:05:35] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:05:38] Speaker B: There's a difference between sharing space and sharing your life together.
[00:05:44] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:05:45] Speaker B: A lot of people share space, but they're not really companions.
[00:05:49] Speaker A: Well, and I sense that you can drift into this.
Like, my sense is because I kind of feel that way a little bit with Jacob. I can see us sharing space and not having that companionship that we would so truly enjoy just because the season of life.
So the kids are gone. We are both very high capacity at work right now. We get home, we're tired, and the habits can drift to kind of doing your own thing when you get home instead of enjoying each other's company because it takes a little more energy.
So what would your advice be to someone like me who is maybe in a new season, maybe the kids are gone.
The focus has been on the kids for so long, and you can see sense that that could become a reality.
[00:06:46] Speaker B: I would say, like everything else that's important, you have to start by being purposeful.
You're just not going to get up tomorrow and just naturally start being better friends.
[00:07:05] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:07:06] Speaker B: But you can say, I'm gonna meet Jacob at work once A week. Or I mean, for lunch.
Once a week, we're gonna figure out how to get a date night back into our life.
Then there are.
This is something I like to do with Shay.
There are simple things, like holding hands.
[00:07:34] Speaker A: Yeah,
[00:07:37] Speaker B: you can.
We walk across the parking lot on Sundays. We park up front, so save the good spaces for mama kids.
And when we walk in, we hold hands.
[00:07:55] Speaker A: Ah.
[00:07:57] Speaker B: Ah.
Because it's just.
It's just a simple way of being together.
[00:08:06] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:08:09] Speaker B: I'm fussy about phones at lunch.
We'll go out for lunch and I'll see people.
They don't. They're sitting at the same booth.
[00:08:20] Speaker A: Right.
[00:08:21] Speaker B: But they're on their phones. And the other person might as well not be there at all.
[00:08:26] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[00:08:27] Speaker B: Because the phone's getting all the attention.
[00:08:29] Speaker A: Right?
Yeah. That's a good gut punch.
Is when you are home or something. Because this will be very common at the burger household. So our kids come home often during the weekends.
And my kids joke and they'll be like, you're being an iPad kid, mom, get off your phone. And they'll call me out on it. Or we'll call each other on out. But you can kind of look at the couch sometimes in the. Late in the evening, and it'll be like the guys are on the phones or the girls are on their phones and we're all together but ignoring each other totally.
And so you can easily see how that drift happens from just sharing space to companionship.
Yeah. Have you ever struggled with this, Mom? You and mom?
[00:09:13] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
When I was younger and so foolish, I would be unhappy with Sharon and I wouldn't talk to her.
We were not companions.
[00:09:32] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:09:33] Speaker B: I was being a jerk.
[00:09:34] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:09:35] Speaker B: And.
Life isn't fun like that.
[00:09:43] Speaker A: No, it's miserable.
[00:09:44] Speaker B: Yeah.
I want to.
I want to be a joy for Shay to be around.
I want to.
I want to notice her.
I want her to feel noticed.
I want.
I want to be her friend.
[00:10:14] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:10:16] Speaker B: So the proverbs say, the one who wants to have friends have to be friendly.
So you just start by saying I'm gonna be on purpose about being a better companion.
[00:10:31] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think this makes sense for a lot of people. It just makes total sense. Like, you know, you need to put some energy in to the right areas of your life. And you can use excuses like kids and tired and the heaviness of things, but at the same time, it's what you put the intention in. You're gonna get the results from what you reap. You sow. Right. Or what you sow, you reap.
So what would you say to someone who they're living with their partner, but they don't feel like companions? And maybe there's not a true desire because there's some bitterness or there's some resentment that has set in. What would your advice be to a couple who's feeling that way? If this is one of the first qualities that a healthy relationship does, but you don't really want to be, or maybe you desire. You think you do, but you're doing all the things against it.
[00:11:28] Speaker B: I think often feelings follow actions.
So if I want to feel more loving, I have to be more loving.
If I want to feel a deeper friendship, I have to give friendship because my feelings are.
My feelings are gonna follow my actions.
[00:11:51] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:11:54] Speaker B: I mean, something as simple as reaching out and touching your partner's hand.
It doesn't cost you anything unless you got an ego problem.
[00:12:08] Speaker A: Well, it's making me think love languages. So I'm guessing your love language is touch.
[00:12:12] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:12:12] Speaker A: Yeah.
What's mom's love language?
[00:12:16] Speaker B: Affirmation.
[00:12:17] Speaker A: So what would something simple like that look like for her, then? So touch a hand hold or a gentle touch like that is what. What would it look like for her to feel that kind of companionship?
[00:12:31] Speaker B: I always keep a stack of cards in my desk, and I try at least once a month. I should do it once a week, but I try at least once a month to write her a little note of affirmation.
I just take the card.
They come in boxes.
[00:12:57] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:12:57] Speaker B: All you have to do is. It's got the envelopes and everything.
[00:13:00] Speaker A: All right.
[00:13:02] Speaker B: It's ridiculous. It's all so easy.
And I take out a pen and I say.
I try to affirm her, and I try to.
I saw you do this. I heard you do this.
You are so good when you do this.
And I am affirming my delight in her.
[00:13:29] Speaker A: Yeah.
Yeah.
I think we often give love how we feel, love.
But one of the game changers for Jacob and I was the love languages.
[00:13:39] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[00:13:40] Speaker A: And so his is acts of service, but when he's going through stressful seasons, it's not. It's affirmation.
And so I.
I want to try really hard when the world is beating my husband up to be his safest place, to be the voice of encouragement, the voice of love. I'm a little bit psycho for Jacob. I don't know if you've noticed or not, but I want him and everyone around me to know that he is.
He is my guy. He is wonderful. I Love him. I think highly of him. I think the best of him.
And so I will. I'll do it privately, I'll do it publicly.
Not sure if he loves the public part as much, but it's fun for me, so.
But yeah, I do think this act of companionship is. Yeah, you don't always feel it, but you're right. When you start having intentions towards it and start moving towards it, the feelings do follow. It's like working out, you know.
Okay, what would be your greatest piece of companionship advice before we move on?
[00:14:50] Speaker B: Be start on purpose.
You have to say, this is important to me.
You don't let your car run out of gas. You. Before you run out of gas, you go to the gas station and fill it up.
I don't want my companionship to run out of gas.
I want to be doing the things consciously that fill that up.
And then the more you do it, the more it becomes a natural part of your life.
And it's like a habit. You get in the habit of treating this person in a. With a richer friendship.
[00:15:30] Speaker A: I talked to. I want to go to the next one, but I talk to a lot of people being in the church world and people coming for, you know, just some advice and spiritual advice. And I hear people often say to me, like, I've tried this and it does not work. And so there is a sense of, I'm giving more than the other person is giving.
And I don't want to be the one that has to initiate this.
When I was early my marriage, you would always say there has to be a champion in the relationship.
And so that had.
That resonated deeply with me. I believed in the champion in the relationship. But there is seasons and moments where you're like, I don't want to be the champion in the relationship. What would you say to someone who's feeling like that about, maybe they've made the bids, they've tried and they've been ignored, or it's not reciprocated the way they had hoped and their expectations aren't being met.
[00:16:35] Speaker B: Well, I would have to press a little harder to find out how willing they are.
I've learned the hard way.
I can't wanna help people more than they wanna be helped. Yeah. And often I end up talking to people and they really don't want help. They just want you to agree with them. My spouse is a jerk. There's nothing I can do about it.
All right?
So if I discern that that's where they are, I let it go.
[00:17:07] Speaker A: Let's say, though, for the present listening is they do want something better. Their desire is for a better relationship.
[00:17:14] Speaker B: Then I would say, like everything else in life, if what I'm trying isn't working, then I need to try something else.
Okay, you've tried one way, but there's probably 10 ways you might be able to try.
And you figured out that this way doesn't work, so why not try something different?
I've said to people, just start by reading the love languages.
Just start there.
And I asked them, six weeks later, did you get the book yet? And they say, no.
[00:17:52] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:17:54] Speaker B: So they.
[00:17:56] Speaker A: I say, don't even read it. Skip to the end, take the test, and just read your two chapters. You know what I'm saying? I try to make it even simpler. Yeah.
[00:18:04] Speaker B: Which if they would do that.
[00:18:06] Speaker A: Yeah. All right.
[00:18:08] Speaker B: So I'm a firm believer that just because I try one way and it doesn't work, it doesn't mean that nothing will work.
And because I'm a Christian, also, I want to invite God into it a million percent. I want to be praying a prayer that says, marriage is your good idea.
[00:18:35] Speaker A: You.
[00:18:35] Speaker B: You shared it with humanity, and I want to make this work, and I'm failing at it. Would you please grant me grace? Would you help me to understand something I don't understand? Would. Would you put somebody in my life that can.
[00:18:52] Speaker A: Yeah. I would often find myself, like, praying for Jake to change.
[00:18:55] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:18:56] Speaker A: In the name of Jesus. You know, I'm saying women. Women.
But I think what happened as I matured was I started praying for God to soften my heart, to help me see what I couldn't see. And I think that kind of leads into this number two quality of.
Because I think companionship grows when we do these next five. Really. Well, companionship grows.
So can you talk about the second one?
Second core idea.
[00:19:28] Speaker B: Prompt me.
[00:19:29] Speaker A: Yes. It's sympathy, empathy.
[00:19:32] Speaker B: Right.
Sorry.
[00:19:36] Speaker A: No, you're good.
[00:19:39] Speaker B: In thriving relationships, people try to.
Feel what it feels like for their partner.
So it's real easy. It's real easy for me to feel my side of it.
It's easy for me to make my complaints. All right.
But in a good relationship, I have times where I stop putting myself first. And I try to say to myself, what must this feel like to Shay?
[00:20:18] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:20:20] Speaker B: How does this feel to Shay?
And when I do that, I end up feeling like I have to write a note of apology every time.
[00:20:31] Speaker A: Shoot. Yeah.
[00:20:35] Speaker B: So in healthy relationships, we consciously try to say, what does this feel like for my partner?
[00:20:44] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:20:47] Speaker B: They're having Difficulty at work.
It's easy to say, oh, that'll pass. Don't worry about it. All right.
But that's not what it feels like to them.
[00:20:59] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think I find myself trying to fix it. Yeah.
I very much have that personality as I hate being stuck in a problem. I'm always like, okay, well, there's a way out, so let's just figure it out. And that is the least sympathetic thing I can do.
[00:21:14] Speaker B: I've done that.
[00:21:15] Speaker A: My partner.
Yeah. Because we've been in tricky situations just where life is hard, it's difficult. There are things he experiences through his day that are invisible to me. I never see it, I don't really know about it. He doesn't really tell me about it.
And it. He's carrying a weight I don't know or don't see. And then it's easier for me to just think about my end of the deal and how hard my day's been and what I've experienced. And then.
So we're coming at it from very two separate places and.
But when I stop and when I try to get better understanding, there is a deeper level of sympathy.
[00:21:57] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:21:58] Speaker A: That he is carrying such a weight and such a load, and he's the financial provider in our case. And so there's. There is such a load that he carries that's invisible to me, you know, and taking time to even just think about that, of what it must feel like for him. It's a game changing idea.
[00:22:18] Speaker B: Yeah. I also believe so, like in Shay and I's relationship, Shay is a naturally sympathetic person.
If you break your toe, her foot will hurt.
She's so sympathetic.
[00:22:39] Speaker A: Mom's like, you look beautiful, but you look like you don't feel good.
[00:22:43] Speaker B: Ah, she's very sympathetic. All right. So I believe I've learned.
I've learned to be more sympathetic from her.
[00:22:53] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:22:55] Speaker B: If you asked me 30 years ago, what is sympathy, I just said it's not an important topic.
But I honestly believe I understand sympathy better because I've seen her and I've learned it from her. So we can learn it from each other.
[00:23:22] Speaker A: Yeah. I also think there is a reality in some relationships where this might come really easy. You might have moments where, man, you just want the best for your partner and you sympathize so deeply.
And then other times, I think life, we can get annoyed with each other and it's the dumb little things that we're picking on or the dumb habits that annoy us that we focus on instead of what our partner's truly going through.
And I think when you give your partner the benefit of the doubt and just sit with them, Jake is pretty private. He's a pretty suck it up kind of guy. He is not a guy that likes to sit and talk about all the things. And I'd say I'm similar in some of that sense, but I do feel like I need to get it out.
Just get it out of me.
What would you say to someone who isn't very open with how they're feeling? So maybe their spouse wants to be sympathetic, but they just don't. They're not very open.
So it's hard to know. It's hard to have empathy.
[00:24:32] Speaker B: Well, then sometimes we just have to resort to everything humanity shares in common.
[00:24:39] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:24:42] Speaker B: For example, people would rather be encouraged than criticized.
That's just universal.
[00:24:48] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[00:24:50] Speaker B: So there are these universal things in humanity. And if I don't know specifically, then I can sympathize at the human level.
[00:25:01] Speaker A: Right.
[00:25:05] Speaker B: I can say something like, it seems to me like you're going through something really hard and I'm here. Right?
[00:25:18] Speaker A: Yeah, just the I'm here presence. Oh. I heard a story about a family who had lost their son and it was a very tragic way. And they were waiting in the driveway for the police to show up because the house was locked and they couldn't get in it.
And their life group, they're. They're people that they just, you know, try to grew, to grow together with God. They showed up and just stood on the driveway with them until that house was opened and they could find their son.
And I think he. I think it was Rick Warren who shared that.
And that story deeply, like, profoundly changed the way. I just want to show up for people because you always feel like you have to say the right thing or do the right thing. And sometimes just the gift of presence is what the soul changes, genuinely needs.
So companionship, having sympathy and empathy. And now let's go to the third one, which is understanding.
[00:26:30] Speaker B: Understanding is, it's, it's.
It really gets to the bonding nature of relationships.
And it can be as complex as understanding a person's.
Psyche, understanding their fears, understanding something got us all where we are.
[00:27:16] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:27:19] Speaker B: People don't wake up one day 45 years old with a broken self.
[00:27:25] Speaker A: Right.
[00:27:26] Speaker B: Something has been breaking them for 45 years. All right.
In a healthy relationship, I want to understand both the negative and the positive, how my spouse got where they are, what's been happening in their life that.
That got them to this point.
Shay and I have a Different life experience. Her parents both died when. When she was very. When she was young.
[00:28:04] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:28:05] Speaker B: And my parents both lived to be in their 90s. All right, so her parents dying when they're in their 50s, that had a.
That had a forming effect on her. Sure. And I want to understand that and be aware of it.
[00:28:30] Speaker A: I think even just the idea of how you grew up. You mentioned it earlier that her home was quiet, yours was rowdy.
And that affects the way you guys show up in fights or arguments or whatever it is.
So what would you say a tool for getting to understand your partner would be?
[00:28:53] Speaker B: Well, the best tool is on the list. So we'll talk about it later. Listening.
And I think to really understand, we can't judge.
We have to.
Our goal is not to make a judgment about this. Our goal is to understand it.
So often we don't understand because we hear part of the story and we make a judgment.
[00:29:30] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:29:31] Speaker B: And that judgment is probably a bias. It's probably.
And so we tell ourselves we understand and we don't understand at all.
[00:29:41] Speaker A: Yeah.
Okay. So, man, is that judgment piece difficult because that's such a human nature kind of thing. Like we jump to assumption or you jump to an idea.
So something that Jacob and I love to do is not waste our dates. So I don't know if you and mom find this, but sometimes you run out of stuff to say.
Like you just. You've talked so much, you run out of stuff to say. So sometimes we'll go on dates and we will just sit there and I hate that.
I do not like it. So we've had a fun habit of looking up questions to ask each other and in the most unannoying way as possible, like get to know you questions. Or we'll do this sometimes with you and mom. I think the kids did it one time when we went to lunch. Like creating an atmosphere where you can learn and grow. That's fun because we are evolving, we are changing. I'm not the same girl I was when I was 18.
Now at 44, so what are the ways that I have grown? And so you can look this up all over the Internet, like 30 questions to ask your best friend or whatever it is. And that's like a fun, non assuming way of just trying to get to know each other, even though we've been together since we were 13, you know, do you and mom have a trick? Do you guys talk pretty easily?
[00:31:13] Speaker B: I. I think we do.
I don't always keep up my end. Sometimes Shay has to say to me what are you thinking?
And sometimes I'm not thinking anything at all.
I don't want this to just be negative, though.
I want to understand Shay's hopes and
[00:31:42] Speaker A: dreams a million percent.
[00:31:43] Speaker B: Yeah.
What does life look like for her when it's best?
If she could have anything she wanted, what would it be?
I pray almost every day for the Lord to give Sharon the desires of her heart.
[00:32:00] Speaker A: All right, Lex just pulled up a game you can buy at Target. It's like a card, and you just pull out one card. Or you can do a little game night with it, but it's called We're Not Really Strangers. And you can buy that fun little game.
Yeah. Because something I think is interesting, I think it's in Gottman's book. But sometimes because we don't truly understand our partner's dreams or desires, we miss something that can create depth in the relationship. It can create a richer companionship. And so when I think about understanding Jake's dreams, it used to scare me because he is a dreamer and he would want to do crazy things fast. And I used to. It used to be so overwhelming. But what I learned was he just needed to talk, he wanted to share, he wanted to get it out. So I learned that all the things that he wants to do, he's not going to do.
And he has, like an architect mindset and he loves landscape. And so, like, he's got million dollar ideas, you know, And I used to shut him down, shut him down, shut him down. And then I learned, like, no, he's just dreaming with you. He's just expressing a creativity that's in his mind. And so I learned to listen and be in the moment with him rather than letting it overwhelm me or scare me.
But I think it's because the deeper understanding is.
And this is what I think is in Gottman's book is like, what you really want to accomplish in your life, what drives the goal behind it. And so finances, this was a big thing for us was I discovered that the root thing at finances for me was it was safety.
And the root goal for Jacob was adventure and fun. It was. We were coming at it from two different angles. And so we would bump heads into these things. And so having a deeper understanding of what was really going on in our heart created. Now we can do both. Now we can create the safety, but have the fun for adventure also.
And it created a more fun relationship.
[00:34:32] Speaker B: Absolutely.
I believe the reason, part of the reason Shea and I have been married 54 years and that we've pastored this church for 44 years is.
We shared that calling.
I understood that she. She had a divine call on her life. She understood I had a divine call on my life, and we shared that.
And so even when it was hard, it was.
It tied us together.
[00:35:12] Speaker A: You understood?
[00:35:13] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:35:13] Speaker A: Yeah.
All right, so let's just review. It's the simple companionship, being friends, having empathy, and putting yourself in your spouse's shoes, and this idea of understanding each other. What are your hopes and dreams? What are. What are some of your fears? What are some of the things that maybe you grew up differently, and when you understand it better, you. You can grow closer together.
I'm gonna end this here because we love these podcasts to be shorter so that you can do them on a drive to work or while you're doing dishes or something. But so we're gonna end here. Thank you so much for watching, but please join us for part two, because I think the list gets better.
I think my favorites are the next three.
So make sure you tune in next month for part two of what Healthy Relationships Do. We hope you have an incredible day. And again, if this is helpful, please share it, rate us, review it, and God bless you. Have a great day.
