Crazy Little Thing Called Marriage

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Dr. Greg Smalley: Welcome to Crazy Little Thing Called Marriage. I'm Dr. Greg Smalley.

Erin Smalley: And I'm Erin Smalley.

Dr. Greg Smalley: We're so glad you're with us today. We want to talk today about conflict.

Erin Smalley: When you argue with your spouse, how do you handle it?

Dr. Greg Smalley: Perfectly is how I handle it.

Erin Smalley: Mm.

Dr. Greg Smalley: Beautifully.

Erin Smalley: That might be the case, however, sometimes conflict doesn't get repaired or sometimes people just sweep it under the rug, or sometimes it can be a pressure release like a balloon with too much air.

Dr. Greg Smalley: Yeah, well, I can tell you we don't want to pop your balloon. So unless you only like a

Erin Smalley: For some reason, I felt connected to that last one.

Dr. Greg Smalley: But, but really, since all of us experience conflict in our marriage, you know, maybe the Lord brought you to this podcast to help you to repair that, uh, to help you learn to repair all of your future conflicts as they happen, ultimately drawing you closer to God's plan for your life.

Dr. Greg Smalley: You know, our speakers today, Dave and Ann Wilson have such a precious way of sharing their marital issues and how they work through them. They are the host of Family Life Today Radio, and I promise you'll be helped by what they have to say.

Erin Smalley: And later, Greg and I are going to create a bingo card full of things that both he and I would like to do. This will be fun for you and your spouse so you can customize your next date night.

Dr. Greg Smalley: And following that, we'll be addressing a question from a wife who feels as though she's at the end of her rope. We have a lot to get to so let's jump right in. Here's Dave and Ann Wilson on how to resolve conflict.

Guest (Male): Probably the most important thing you need to know when you are in a relationship, whether it's marriage, dating, teammates, anything, any relationship is how to resolve conflict. Here's what I know about conflict. We never have conflict, but you guys do. And so we decided to talk to you about it.

Guest (Female): And and here's the thing. What did Jesus say? They'll know you by what? How you love each other, right?

Guest (Male): Unity.

Guest (Female): Unity. And so what happens is if there if Satan's strategy is to always cause division. And I we're passionate about this because it drives us crazy that you go to school all these years to learn a profession, but how many years have you spent learning how to have great relationships? How to love each other?

Guest (Male): Most of us and when we do this, most people say I've never heard anything on how to have great relationships with friends, peers, husband, boyfriend, girlfriend. And so we're passionate about like we should learn this stuff so that Satan doesn't get a foothold into our relationships. So here's what we're going to do. This applies to marriage obviously, but applies to every relationship. So here's the first thing. If you're taking notes, you're going to write in your notepad or whatever you're going to do. The first thing you need to know, there's basically four styles or patterns when it comes to conflict. And you fit in one of these. You may do several, but you've probably fit in one of these. Write them down real quick.

Guest (Male): First one is this. Some people want to win the conflict. I call it winner. Conflict happens, they're good at it, they can debate, they usually bring out, you know, fingerprint evidence and iphoto shots and evidence and they win. They're really good. The second style is what I call yield. Some people call it lose, but I call it yield. They yield to the other person because they think the relationship is more important than this specific conflict. So sometimes they just yield to get, uh, you know, resolution. The third one is withdraw.

Guest (Female): And the withdrawer, what they do is they hate conflict, so they just want to get away from it. They don't want to deal with it, they just want to run away from it.

Guest (Male): They usually leave. They leave or shut down emotionally.

Guest (Female): They usually leave.

Guest (Male): And then the last one is resolve. Some people, and this is where we're going to get to tonight, how do you get to resolution? Because everybody, you know this, everybody knows how to have conflict, everybody. We do, you do, we all do. Let me tell you, less than 10% know how to resolve it. Take a guess what her style is. Anybody want to guess from this morning? She's a winner. She is really good. She likes to roll sleeves, let's talk about this, let's go right now.

Guest (Male): And she grew up in a family, that's how they handle conflict. And it doesn't always your style is the same as your parents or what you saw, but often you sort of copy that. So she was a winner. Of course, we didn't know any of this when we got married. We just got married, we love each other, it's going to be awesome. And then we started learning this stuff like, oh my gosh, she's a winner. Guess what I am? I'm a withdrawer. Now, you heard it if you were at Chapel this morning, you heard at the very end my story of my family. Two alcoholic parents, abuse, divorce, affairs, the whole thing, right? In my family, whenever there was conflict, it got ugly and it ended in divorce. So I grew up thinking, man, you avoid conflict at all costs. You do not, it never works. You don't talk it through.

Guest (Male): So we get married and and, you know, we're we're missionaries. We go on staff with crew and we're raising our support back in our hometown of Ohio. Her parents, we're living with her parents. They're gone for, uh, an afternoon and we get in a fight in the house. Nobody's there. The windows are open, nobody's home, and I get up and start to leave the room. And I don't even know if this is what I do, but that's what I did.

Guest (Female): We're in this huge fight. So he just

Guest (Male): I just literally started walking out of the room. I'm like, I'm not going to talk about this.

Guest (Female): And I'm amazed like, and you guys, this is what I say to him. This is so bad. I say, where are you going? Come back here and fight me like a man, you chicken.

Guest (Female): Who said that, right?

Guest (Male): And I'm halfway through the kitchen and I hear that and I literally took off.

Guest (Female): Our Our windows are open. Our neighbors are probably thinking, oh, that's that young missionary couple. Having a fight. That's awesome.

Guest (Male): I was 22, she was 19. She follows me upstairs. I go upstairs.

Guest (Female): He goes upstairs. He closes the bedroom door to get away from me. I open the door, I go and I sit right down beside him like, we have to talk about this.

Guest (Male): I'll never forget. I was like, what are you doing? What are you? I mean, I I was so uncomfortable. You know why? I I at that point, I'm married now. I don't know if I'd ever ever entered into a conflict. I always withdrew. I always got in the car, drove away, broke up with the girlfriend. Um, ended the relationship. I'm too good for this. I don't need that. That was my MO. And here we are married and she's saying, we got to resolve this.

Guest (Male): Now here here's the reason I avoided conflict. Not just my family. I had a presupposition that conflict is bad, you avoid it. Was I right? No. I've totally flipped that. Here's what I will tell you. Conflict is good. Now, I'm not saying always like, hey, let's go have a fight tonight. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying, man, if you learn some things, even tonight, we're going to fly really fast. Um, and learn how to resolve conflict, you will get to a place in your relationships, romantic relationships, teammates, classmates, family, better than you've ever been in your life if you will do that.

Guest (Female): Sisters.

Guest (Male): We called it our church, man, and our staff. We say, let's roll up the sleeves and go. And that doesn't mean fight, that means let's roll up the sleeves and do the hard work, because it's hard work. Really hard work to resolve conflict.

Guest (Female): Because I really always felt like when we get through that conflict, we're better. Like we know each other better. We've talked more and now we know each other so we've become even better in our relationship.

Guest (Female): But you never saw it like that before.

Guest (Male): No, I and I do now, but I and I'll tell you this. This is the big truth of this whole thing. There's one big idea. This is basically it. The health and future of your relationship is determined by how you handle conflict. And I actually think relationship and conflict rhyme so you can remember it better, right? The health and future of relationship is how you handle conflict. Okay, so that's that's how it works. That's how I preach. I always want it to rhyme. Um, but but here's the thing. Some of you know the, uh, marriage, uh, writer, uh, probably the foremost expert in the country, John Gottman. He's the guy that can spend 15 minutes with a couple and watch them fight and tell you if they're going to make it or not, and he's 98% accurate. 15 minutes. He watches them try to resolve conflict and he says, they're going to make it, they're not going to make it. He's true right almost all the time.

Guest (Male): The most important thing for the future and the health of any relationship you have, marriage relationship, friendship, you name it, is how you handle conflict. So here we're going to go. We're going to give you five S's. They all start with the letter S and they're two-word statements. Five principles. I hope we can get actually all of them done. We'll try our best, but here they are. The first one you need to know, if you're going to resolve conflict, the first S is this: shut up. Write it down. You're thinking, what else? That's it. Shut up. What do I mean? Shut up and listen. Because often in a conflict, we don't listen, like what I'm doing right now. I'm not letting her talk. I'm talking, talking, talking. And that's what you do in a conflict. You talk, you talk, and when they're talking, all you're doing is, you're not even listening, you're just like, would you shut up? You shut up. And you try to jump in, and it's like, no, you got to shut up. Don't say a word. Focus in, turn the phone off, turn the TV off, look them in the eye and try to listen for what? The real issue, because the issue's usually behind the problem they're talking about. It may be that, but it's probably something behind that. If you don't listen well, you won't even catch it.

Guest (Female): So you guys have heard James 1:19. But listen to it now. My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this. Everyone should be quick to what? Listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry. Because here's the truth, like, because we've raised three sons and I'm married to Dave.

Guest (Female): I realize that a lot of times Dave would come home, he wouldn't even tell me what he's feeling. Like if I was upset, I would be verbalizing it, or I would be crying. I've never come home and Dave's sitting on the couch like, I had the worst day. He just doesn't do that. But he gets quiet, he gets like moody, or else he's angry and snappy. So I should be thinking, not what is your problem? Why are you being a jerk? I should be thinking, what happened and what's the underlying issue? Why are you acting like that?

Guest (Male): So I'll tell you a quick story. I was preaching at our church, I'm sort of welcoming people in the front door. Hey, welcome to Kensington. How are you doing? How are you doing? I see Ann pull up and there's a parking spot right by the front door. She whips into it real quick. She's late.

Guest (Female): Oh, yeah, because here's the here's what happens. So I'm late because our kids are teenagers and we're late. So I pull in.

Guest (Male): She's blaming the kids. You hear that? You notice that?

Guest (Female): Everybody's there and I see this spot right by the front door. I'm like, thank you Jesus for my spot. So I pull in. I see Dave like, hey, you're out here. It's sunny. You're greeting everybody. And he looks at me. He's smiling like, oh, hey, how are you doing everybody? And then he whispers in my ear like yelling at me.

Guest (Female): Go.

Guest (Male): Whisper yelling. That's what you just said.

Guest (Female): It was like, go move the car right now.

Guest (Male): I said, move the car now. And she's like, I'm not moving the car. I said, no.

Guest (Female): I said, God gave me that spot. I'm not moving it.

Guest (Male): I'm like, God did not give you that spot. I go, Austin, here, move the car. And Austin's like, no, I'm not moving the car.

Guest (Female): I stood in front of Austin like this, and I'm like, no, Austin, don't move the car.

Guest (Male): I'm I'm literally in front of the church going, hey, how are you doing? Welcome to church. Go move the car. It was like, what are you doing? And then I'm like, I got to go in and preach. You get that car moved and I took off. And I go in and I'm up there preaching. I can see her sitting in the back.

Guest (Female): Oh, and I'm sitting in the back like this, like, I can't stand the pastor of this church.

Guest (Male): And I can tell she's thinking that every time I my head went that way. I'm like, you know, giving her the look like, this isn't finished, you know. And, uh, so I get home later. Now, here's what you don't know yet, right? You're you're probably thinking, what's the deal, dude? Why are you asking her to move the car? Okay, I'm going to give you my side of the story, right?

Guest (Female): It's no good.

Guest (Male): It's good. It's the truth. And I and this is the reality. We started our church 25 years ago, so we're the founders, right? And when you're the founders of a church, you get to set the values. I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but one of our core values to this day, 26 years later, is we leave the best parking spots in the church for the unchurched that aren't there. We leave them. Those spots are left for the people that we are trying to reach.

Guest (Female): They were already there. They were not there. They were already there. I was late and so they were already inside. So my wife, the pastor's wife takes the best spot. I'm like, no, you got to move the car. Okay, anybody with me? No. Nobody's with me.

Guest (Female): No.

Guest (Male): The guys are. The guys are. Look at some of them are. Yeah, okay. Okay, I got one.

Guest (Female): We're not done yet. You keep going. Okay.

Guest (Male): So I get home after preaching, right? And and sometimes conflicts are going for hours. That doesn't always happen. We could resolve it then. Yeah, we could.

Guest (Male): So I walk in the door. I mean, I'm not kidding. I walk in the door after that last service. I walk in the second I see her in the kitchen. I'm like, I cannot believe you parked there. What are you thinking? So we start yelling at each other. We don't yell often, but we were yelling then.

Guest (Female): Yeah. We like we we speak around the country on this stuff. So we.

Guest (Male): We're experts.

Guest (Female): We know the skills, but we didn't care at that point. We're just yelling at each other and so I'm like, oh my gosh, I can't believe you're so angry about it.

Guest (Male): And by the way, neither one of us are listening.

Guest (Female): At all.

Guest (Male): We're shutting up. The very first principle I tell you. And so it gets so bad that my son Cody, he's now on our staff. Okay, so he's 25, married. He was 14 maybe. He's sitting at the end of the kitchen table. I'm at the other end. We're going at it and Cody goes like this. He goes, hey dad, don't you and mom like speak around the country and how to like resolve conflict?

Guest (Male): He goes, yeah. He goes, could you maybe show me? You know, maybe you could do it. This this isn't looking real good. And I remember going, you sit right there, young man. This you watch this whole thing. And so I go out and she actually leaves and goes upstairs.

Guest (Female): I'm so mad.

Guest (Male): And I was like, yeah, you should. You know, you're wrong. Go upstairs.

Guest (Female): So and I end up going upstairs. Have you do you do this like the fight's going on and you're building your case in your head? Do you know what I mean? Like you're going through like, this is what I'm saying and this is why I'm so right. So I come downstairs. Like I am I come down like, all right, here it is. So he's sitting there like, here's the truth. I do everything around here. I go to church by myself all the time. You're here speaking and you're here speaking and you're doing this. I'm here at home mowing the grass and I'm fixing the cars and I'm changing the oil. I snowboard and I wakeboard just to be with the guys. And I'm cleaning and I'm doing your laundry. And if one time there's a spot that Jesus gives me, I should get to park there. Right? Yes. Go. Go.

Guest (Male): Hey. Hey. There's guys actually clapping too. Man, we're together here, man.

Guest (Female): Hey. Hey.

Guest (Male): They're like, you you're toast, dude. I mean, I'm sitting there and that kid, she says this little speech, you know, right by by the door. And Cody again looks at me right at the end of this thing. He gave me the look just like you guys. He's like, dad, dude, you lost this one. I mean, it was like, look at what she said.

Guest (Male): Now, here's what happened. Here's the amazing thing that I didn't tell you yet. When she went upstairs, I was initially like, yes, you, you know, we can't even talk right now. But she was upstairs for like 15 minutes. Cody's eating and I'm sitting there. And so here's what I did. While she was gone, I calmed down a little bit. And I said this, I prayed. Just a quiet prayer and I said, God, what am I missing? What am I not seeing? Help me to see what's really going on. So when she comes down, right? I'm not even hot anymore. She comes down, she does this whole little thing. Cody gives me the look. And I say this, I go, let me ask you a question. I said, do you feel like Kensington, that's our church. Do you feel like Kensington is more important to me than you are? And that's all she did.

Guest (Female): Yeah.

Guest (Male): She shook her head and I knew right then what the issue was. I finally listened. But one of the best things you you can do in a conflict is ask God, pray. Ask God for wisdom, ask God to let you hear. So, I realized in one second, this whole thing was never about a parking spot. It was about her not feeling cherished and a priority in my life. Now, I said this yesterday at the marriage class, but years ago, I would argue with her that she shouldn't feel that way.

Guest (Male): That's an immature person not understanding how to resolve conflict. You, what do you mean you feel like Kensington is more important? It's that's what I would have done. And I knew now if she feels like the church is more important than her, the church is more important than her, whether I agree or not. It doesn't matter if I in my heart, I was like, there's no way, not even close that Kensington's more important to you. But she feels that way. So I didn't even say, there's no way. I just said, oh my gosh, I'm wrong. Not you're wrong. I'm wrong. Right? And so finally, I shut up enough to hear and now we can go somewhere. But if you never listen, you'll never get to step two. And step two, we just illustrated for you, is soft answer. If the first one is, uh, shut up and listen, the second one is soft answer. What happened when she came down and she did her little deal? Did I yell back? No. I tenderly and quietly asked a question, do you feel like? And that tone changed the whole conversation.

Guest (Female): Because Proverbs 15:1 says a gentle answer turns away wrath. So if you're escalating, it will continue to escalate. But if someone then goes down, the whole situation.

Guest (Male): Every time. Somebody escalates, the other one escalates. Somebody goes down. It is hard to yell at somebody that's real gentle. You can do it, but you're an idiot. You really are, and everybody knows they're like, dude, what is up? There's a real problem there. But when somebody de-escalates, it tends to de-escalate the conflict. Not always, but usually it does. Somebody has to de-escalate. Here's the question for you. Who should make the first move?

Guest (Male): How about this for an answer? He who is most mature, make the first move. Boom. Cuz you know what you're thinking, they should. You know, I'm right, so they should. Now he says, whoever's most mature, make the first move. So if you make the first move, that's because you are actually being more mature than them and say, you know, I can keep yelling, but I'm not going to. We've got to move this thing toward resolution and I will make the first move. And it's hard. Sometimes you don't want to make the first move. But that's really the the second S. It's just, um, uh, what was it? I'm going to check you out. Okay, first one was shut up. Second one was soft answer. Third one speak truth. Speak truth. We talked about it a little bit already. But speak the truth in love. Speak the truth. The truth needs to be spoken. That's often hard, but it needs to be packaged in a context of love.

Guest (Female): And I think that's what happens. We don't package it because some of you are great, you're totally good at speaking the truth. You're all about speaking the truth. This is me, like, I'm I can speak the truth. I feel like it's my gift to Dave when I speak the truth. And some of you, though, like when it says, speak the truth in love, some of you are so loving that you feel like you don't want to hurt this person and so you won't speak the truth. But sometimes the most loving thing you could do is speak the truth. And so what I used to do is I feel like, I'm going to tell Dave everything. So I would just say it. Instead what I've realized now is I have to ask God first, should I even say it? God, will this help our relationship? And then if I feel like I should, I need to package it in a way that Dave will receive it.

Guest (Male): You know, it's interesting. John Gottman, when he talks about speaking the truth, he he uses a word that he looks for when he analyzes couples that are arguing. He says, I look for contempt. You know what contempt is? I'll read you his quote. He says, contempt is the single best predictor of relationship breakdowns. He defines contempt as an attitude of superiority speaking down to your your friend through name-calling or direct insults. You know what contempt is? Arrogance. I'm better than you. You may not say it, you can feel it. And Gottman's saying, you can just smell it. It's like, oh my gosh, there's contempt here. It isn't just an argument, there's contempt. And so they're speaking the truth, but they're speaking it with arrogance, with contempt. And when you see that, it's big trouble. In fact, um, you know, Ann has been the best at speaking the truth to me. But there was a time in our marriage where I didn't feel like when she was telling me the truth, it was helping. In fact, we were speaking at a, uh, mothers of preschool.

Guest (Female): Yeah, mobs. Mothers of preschoolers.

Guest (Male): And and they said, Ann, bring Dave along. We want to hear get a guy's perspective. So Dave comes and he starts like getting into this. So he's like, women, I'm telling you, you don't even know what it's like for us as men. He goes, us little boys.

Guest (Female): Is that how I do it? Yeah.

Guest (Male): Is that how I do it?

Guest (Female): You're like, yeah, you're really into it.

Guest (Male): So he he goes, when we as boys, most of us, us little boys have somebody that's cheering for us. Like, good job, good job. He's like, and then we get older and there's a coach or we get into something that we're into and it could be a teacher, a coach or whatever. But they're saying, good job, way to go. And he goes, and and I played college football. And so every Saturday, I have people that are cheering for me. They're saying, yes, Wilson, way to go. He said, then I meet Ann. And she's basically cheering for me. We're dating and she's like, of all the men in the world, I choose you. He goes, she's the best cheerleader. It's amazing. And these women are tracking with him. They're like, yeah, that's good, that's good. He goes, and then we get married and I walk in the door and all I hear is, boo. Boo.

Guest (Female): I'm sitting there like, what are you talking about?

Guest (Male): It was bad. I didn't tell her. I was I didn't even know I was going to say this. I was I was starting to say this, like, oh, this is this is exactly how I feel. I go, boo, boo. And I look over. She's like, what? I'm like, oh, we're in trouble. We're not getting the car.

Guest (Female): So I had never heard him say that ever before. So he gets in the car. I'm like, what was that? He goes, I don't know. It just came out. I guess that's It's like what I feel. So I said, you feel like I boo you? I and here you guys, this is what I said. I am helping you. Like honestly, like these people don't know you, honey. Like I am helping you to be better. And I he's like, yeah, it doesn't really feel like help. And I what I realized was I was continuingly thought I was helping him by I'm speaking the truth to you. But all he heard was boo. So even in your relationships, what are you doing in your relationships? Are you cheering each other on? Are you applauding them? Because you know who applauds you? God. He looks at you and it's like, look at my masterpiece. He's clapping for you, cheering for you. But so often we don't even listen to God. We listen to the applause of our peers or friends. And God is saying, I am cheering for you. So for me, I didn't realize it for Dave, he walked in the house and felt like a failure because I was continually critiquing him.

Guest (Male): And I tell you what, we don't have time to get into it. We talk about this a lot in marriage. But, you know, the number one need of a man is respect. And I felt disrespected. She changed 15 years ago, maybe, and really started to be my biggest cheerleader. Started to speak how great I am, even when I'm not. She would say, man, you are unbelievable this. And I'm thinking, no, I wasn't. I was actually pretty bad at it. But she kept saying it. And I'm like, she's not just saying that to try and, you know, impress me. She actually sees something in me. I don't even see in myself. And I'll just tell you women something. When you praise a man, every guy in this room, including me, are little boys longing to be praised. I don't care how old we are, we are longing to be praised. And when a woman praises us, we rise up to be the man she says we are. I don't know how to explain it, but that's how you change a man. You don't change a man by control or contempt or telling him what he's bad at. You tell him what he's good at and he becomes great. And it's probably the same for women, isn't it?

Guest (Female): It is.

Guest (Male): The praise of another person, it's truth spoken in love. And I would only say this other side of speaking the truth is, and it's really important, but I don't have a lot of time to develop it, but you also need to hear the truth.

Guest (Male): By the way, if two or three people say the same thing to you, that's a hard truth and they love you, guess what? It's true. I want to be great. And if I'm not willing to hear what my wife or my best friends tell me is missing in my life, I'm never going to be the blockbuster movie that God has created me to be a masterpiece. And so many of us get so defensive, we don't want to hear the truth, we never become great because we're unwilling to hear it. So there's both sides. You speak the truth in love, but you also have to be willing to hear it. Um, how many we got? First one is, shut up. Second one is soft. Third one speak truth. Fourth one is what is it? Solve or sleep. Here's what it is. Solve the conflict. And if you can't, go to sleep and solve it tomorrow. Now, some people will say, no, no, that's not biblical. The Bible says, in your anger, do not sin, do not let the sun go down on your anger. Anybody know that one? Ephesians what? Ephesians 4:26. Write it down. Go look it up. We were told when we got married, that was a literal verse, that it meant, you can never go to sleep with a conflict in your marriage. You have to resolve it before.

Guest (Female): So it would be 3:00 in the morning. And Dave is like falling asleep. I go, how can you fall asleep? This is so important. Like, you don't even care about our relationship.

Guest (Male): And I'm like, the sun went down hours ago, you know? I mean, and we really were mentored and told it's literal. Can I just tell you, it's not literal. It's a principle. I mean, if you start the conflict at 9:00 PM, the sun's down. You got till tomorrow, okay? It it's not literal, but it is a principle that says, solve it quickly. Don't wait a week, don't wait a month, don't wait till, you know, next Christmas.

Guest (Female): Because because some of you are avoiders. So you're like, oh yeah, we'll solve it in a week. And you hope it never comes up. Like solve it within 24 hours.

Guest (Male): If you're working on it, you can't get to resolution. Sometimes you just need to say, okay, let's talk tomorrow morning at 10:00 AM, noon, whatever. And sometimes, especially for guys, we need more time to process. It's not always true for men and women, but I do. Sometimes she's like, what are you thinking? I'm like, I don't know. I really don't know. How can you not know? I don't know. You know. Can we talk tomorrow? And it's by tomorrow, I'm like, oh, I do know. I really do know. This is what I was feeling, and we can get somewhere. And sometimes we can resolve it before we go to bed, but many times we schedule the next day. And the best relationships resolve it the next day. They don't wait a week. They resolve it the next day. But if you can solve it right now, do it. And they may not respond, but you do everything in your power to resolve this thing and get to the next S. And we're we're out of time. So we'll do this real quick. Seek forgiveness. And it's really seek/grant forgiveness.

Guest (Male): So if you're the one that has offended a brother, a sister, you go. And you apologize and you own up to your responsibility of what you did wrong, what you gossiped about them to somebody wrong, you have to go to them and say, I realize what I said hurt you. What I said was wrong. I'm asking and they may not be able to forgive you at that time. That is not up to you. That your is you need to go seek and ask. Say I'm sorry. But on the other side, if you're the one that's been offended, and this sounds crazy, but Jesus said, Paul said, as I've forgiven you, forgive others. And it's not easy. And I'm not going to say up here and say, oh, you just do it. Snap your your fingers and it's done. No, it took me 32 years to forgive my dad. Who walked out on me at seven with his girlfriends. 32 years. And I remember, you know, uh, when I realized Ann actually spoke truth to me and said, you need to forgive your dad. I was 28, I think, at the time. And I got defensive and said, I'm cool with my dad. It's no big deal. Long story short. She was right. I began my process. And when she said that, and I realized, I do need to forgive my dad.

Guest (Male): I literally thought, what today's Sunday, I'll do it by next weekend. That's what I thought. Four years later, God took me to a through a process. I remember reading a book about forgiveness. And the author said this, he says, when you forgive someone, you set a prisoner free, only to discover you're the prisoner. And I thought I'd locked my dad up. You're not going to have a relationship with me because of what you've done. I locked myself up. And I was not able to become a man of God because I was locked up in bitterness toward my dad. And when God, I didn't do this. When God gave me the power to forgive my dad, I tell the guys at my church, I became a man at age 32, because I was a boy until the day I was able to forgive my dad. And again, when I say I, I didn't I couldn't even do it. God's spirit through me did it. And that's the last S. I'm adding one more. There's shut up and listen, there's soft answer, there's speak truth, there's solve or sleep, there's seek and grant forgiveness. But really, the biggest one, and it's the only one if we wanted to, I would have talked for the whole time on the last S. It's the most important one is surrender to Jesus. It is the only one that I could give you.

Guest (Male): You can walk out here and say, okay, I'm going to I'm going to shut up and I'm going to soft answer and I'm going to speak truth. And if you don't have the spirit of God empowering you to do any of those, guess what? It's not going to work. And people come to us all the time. You can't do, we can't do any of this apart from Christ. And that's a full surrender to say, Jesus, I need you. And when you surrender fully, not play the game, not the Christian college game, not the seminary game, the real game of living in relationship with Jesus. But when you live there, totally surrendered to him, what's he do? He gives you a power you don't have to be a man or woman you can't be and to live that this this conflict stuff.

Guest (Female): Yeah. I mean, that honestly, for Dave and I, we've been walking with Jesus for 35 years. You guys, it's better than it's ever been. And we feel like, we don't want you to miss it. When you are surrendered to him and you have the power of God's spirit. You have the king of the universe living in you. And some of us need to forgive ourselves. Because we are locked up because we've failed God. And we feel like we continually fail him. He loves you. And don't believe the lies of the enemy who says you're worthless, you're nothing. God says you're everything and I have a plan for you.

Guest (Male): Yeah, and I and we'll close this. We're going to pray and we're going to sing, but, um, what Ann just said just hit me is so true. Is we so often forget if you're a follower of Christ, I'm guessing you are. Maybe you're not. Tonight's your night. Seriously, tonight can be your night. You think you can do this? You have no chance without Jesus. But I'm guessing many of your followers, if not all of your followers of Christ. Do you realize what Ann just said is truth? The living God of the universe lives here. The temple of the Holy Spirit is not a brick and mortar building. It's not the Holy of Holies anymore. It's this body. I know you're looking at mine saying, man, that's a body right there. You're looking at, right? I know you're not saying that. But but that's where he lives. And here's what we do. We walk around like not confident, not Yeah, just like living in fear. It's like, well, well, wait. You know, it's like you walk in a room like timid and it's like, well, wait, the king of the kings lives here. And I'm going to walk in like afraid?

Guest (Female): In fear.

Guest (Male): So that means I can step into this relationship. What? I used to be dead, now I'm alive. I used to have no hope, now I have hope. I used to have no joy, I have joy. I used to have no power, I have power. In me? No. The God of the universe lives in me. That means I live confidently, not arrogantly, confidently. The kingdom of God goes everywhere I go. So I step into this relationship. It's like, the king of God is here. Can we not resolve this conflict? No, we can't, but he can. So let's go. So that's why surrender is everything. I'm not talking about playing the game. I mean, absolute complete surrender to say, I am absolutely all yours. And God, I can't forgive them because they hurt me deeply. And God says, I know. And I was hurt more deeply than you can imagine, and I forgave you. And I will give you the power if you trust me and surrender to me to let go of that thing. And it may take days, months, years. But he will give you the power. And let me tell you, there's nothing better than living free. I did my dad's funeral.

Guest (Female): Yes.

Guest (Male): My whole family's there. Two brothers, sister, my mom did not come. She hadn't forgiven me. She's not there. And there's like seven or eight people at my dad's funeral. I looked at their eyes. I realized, I'm the only one in the room free. Because they all still have issues with this guy in the casket. And I'm free. I actually could look at my dad's casket and say, I love this man, because God did that. How? Through surrender.

Dr. Greg Smalley: So, what did we learn today?

Erin Smalley: I know, this was pretty timely.

Dr. Greg Smalley: Because we last night even had to talk through a sensitive issue in our marriage and do exactly what they're encouraging all of us to do, which is how do we really repair when conflict happens? You know, for me, it's just a great reminder to think about those conflict styles. Like how do we typically show up? I know for me, I'm more of what they were calling the yielder. So I often yield in, you know, for me, I'm trying to keep the peace. So I might give in or or not say something that maybe is important for me to say, ultimately leading me to kind of shut down and and withdraw.

Erin Smalley: Or you hold it inside and then it comes out like rapid fire during when the conflict is addressed.

Dr. Greg Smalley: Did I do that?

Erin Smalley: Yes. Defending.

Dr. Greg Smalley: I appreciate how you were really trying to come up with a a word that would be kind to describe me as a defender. Yes. So I I often will keep the peace in my mind by defending myself because if I think I can explain it to you, then there wouldn't be a conflict because you'll go, oh, well, that makes sense. Well, I hadn't thought about it that way. Oh, I just misunderstood. Yes. So that is kind of how my my yielding happens.

Erin Smalley: And yes, you absolutely go towards the defending stance. Um, I I think out of the four win, yield, withdraw, I probably am more of a resolve conflict style to where I want to pursue understanding and peace. Um, because I want the connection so much. So it's painful when there's not the connection. And thus pursuing repair is important to me.

Dr. Greg Smalley: Yeah, and I really appreciated their kind of five keys to resolving conflict. And for me, just that first one, that shut up. I like that is the the first S shut up. And it because there there's something else going on deeper that at times, I don't really pay attention to. And, you know, for us, like last night when we were talking, the more we talked, the more I realized how anxious I had felt and I was driving a lot of how I was showing up that was frustrating to you and that we needed to kind of talk through. But I really wasn't paying attention to that before.

Erin Smalley: I thought you were literally saying you were driving. I was like, where did you go? It was driving your approach.

Dr. Greg Smalley: Yes. We were talking about this as we were driving. So.

Erin Smalley: Oh, that's true. I was driving though.

Dr. Greg Smalley: Yes.

Erin Smalley: I really appreciated the solve or sleep because sometimes when conflict comes up, especially late at night, the best thing a couple can do is go to sleep. Go to sleep because it's going to give you new perspective in the morning. And things are more than likely going to go better when you're well rested. I know often people will throw that verse out. Don't let the sun go down on your anger. Um, but of course, we know that anger is a reaction. So it's really saying, don't let the sun go down on your closed heart. So it's being aware of what state am I in. And if your heart's closed, conflict is never going to go well. And if you're exhausted and your heart's closed, it's really not going to go well. So I appreciate go to sleep.

Dr. Greg Smalley: Yeah, and what you're talking about in terms of the the opened or closed heart, it fits so well within what Dave and Ann are talking about. Because I know for me, if if I'm going to shut up, in other words, if I'm going to really try to listen, especially identifying what's deeper, it's kind of like that James 4:1, why do we fight? Is it not the desires that wage war within you? It's just saying that conflict is being driven by something deeper. When I think about all the things that have really helped me around conflict, it's recognizing just the importance of making sure that your heart is open before you and I can ever resolve, work through, repair conflict, it it requires open hearts.

Dr. Greg Smalley: What would you say is kind of the key for you to get your heart open?

Erin Smalley: Well, we often encourage people to utilize something called the care cycle. And the five A's where you really dig into what's really going on inside of me, acknowledging that there is something going on and becoming aware of what it is. And so within that process, it's so helpful for me to ask myself, what did I really want through this engagement or interaction that you and I had? And oftentimes when I realize that what I wanted was just to be heard or to be cared for, I I realized like, oh, it didn't happen and that makes sense that I'm disappointed.

Erin Smalley: And so it's just helpful to understand what's driving the conflict. What and when we're in conflict, typically one or both hearts are closed. So it's just taking time to acknowledge that is how this is landing on me. And I my job is to identify that because as we identify it, that helps to de-escalate uh all everything that's going on inside when we're in fight or flight.

Dr. Greg Smalley: Yeah, for any new listener, Aaron and I always start off by really encouraging the individual to lean into what they actually can control, which you can control how you feel, you can control what's going on inside of you. Because when you take a moment to do Aaron exactly what you're saying and and put names to how you're feeling. So what what are those emotions? There's a way in which not only does that calm you down, but that's how you care for you. As you invite God into that. Now all of a sudden you have two people, you and the Lord caring about how you felt versus sometimes what we do, I know I was guilty of this is that I didn't know how to do that job. I didn't really invite God into that process. So I would just be patiently waiting for you, Erin, to care for me in the way that I hoped that you would. And and often times then we're just left feeling uncared for versus the the the empowerment comes from going, boy, I can care for how I feel. I can put names to it. God can care. God does care for how I feel.

Dr. Greg Smalley: So now all of a sudden you've got two sources of caring going on. And that's why that that's such an important point because otherwise we're just locked in this power struggle and this long debate.

Erin Smalley: Yes, and it's it stays cognitive because I can imagine that one or both are going to say, well, okay, if you think I'm overspending, then I'm going to go and get the credit card.

Dr. Greg Smalley: Yeah.

Erin Smalley: And I'm going to print out the last year to show you who's spending what. So we don't want to go there. We want to go under the waterline to really look at what is driving this for you. Um, how is it impacting you? And again, no right or wrong feelings. It's just it's just triggering something. And it doesn't excuse the poor behavior. It is naming the emotion as well as describing the behavior.

Dr. Greg Smalley: Yeah. And and Connie, there may be a point if your husband isn't willing to actually have this sort of of productive conversation where we're really talking about feelings, we're caring about how each of us feel, then it's time to set some boundaries. You know, again, you can't control whether or not he flirts with someone, but you certainly can begin to set some boundaries. So Erin, if you were working with this couple in your office, how would you coach her kind of to bring these things up?

Erin Smalley: Um, it's important how we bring it up because so often we launch into it in the middle of being triggered or in the middle of a conflict over one of these issues. So in I would say, at a time when you're not triggered, maybe you've just spent time reflecting on how has this impacted me. And then inviting him in, asking him, hey, when would be good to have a conversation that might be it might be a harder conversation. But I really care about our relationship and I want to share some things that are impacting me. And then set a time because then he's not drafted into a conversation. He's not wanting to have. He's aware there's something that you want to discuss, but you're asking him to freely schedule that with you.

Erin Smalley: So invite him in. And then again, you don't want to point fingers, you don't want to talk about you. You can talk about when this happens or when you do this, I feel. But don't talk only about him and utilizing a lot of you conversation. Utilize I, I feel, I want, I desire. And this hurts me when this happens. And I'm I want to share this because I care so much about our marriage and I want to be close to you and be connected to you. So I encourage you, Connie, take a shot at that, see how he does uh with you utilizing those things. If he gets defensive, I encourage you, stay calm. And just repeat the heart of what you're really wanting. I really want to share this with you because this is important. It's causing me to feel distance from you. So I really care. But if it doesn't go well, try again. But if it continually spirals, I would be reaching out to a licensed Christian counselor. He can call us here, of course, at Focus on the Family 1-800, the letter A, Family F A M I L Y.

Dr. Greg Smalley: Well, thank you so much for your question. And Erin and I just want to start out by saying, man, it sounds so painful what you're going through. I mean, you're carrying a lot. And you're not overreacting. I I think any of those things that you're describing would hurt someone. So it so it makes sense that you're feeling the way you do.

Erin Smalley: Yes, because you're saying that your husband can be insulting to people and covering it up as humor. Um, he's flirting with other women, young and old. We adopted our four granddaughters and I feel at a loss. We argue a lot. I'm on a budget from him, but yet he has three Harley Davidson motorcycles in the garage. Ugh. Please advise how I can bring this up to him in a way that he can hear it, be good examples for our granddaughters and address finances being fair, not just one-sided. This was my first time listening to you both. What a blessing.

Dr. Greg Smalley: Well, thank you for joining us on Crazy Little Thing Called Marriage.

Erin Smalley: Yes, thank you for following the show and sharing it with your friends and family. We want you to have a seat at the table every week as we help equip you and your spouse to have a lifelong satisfying marriage.

Dr. Greg Smalley: Yeah, we want to see you guys growing together spiritually, not only as individuals, but also as a couple.

Erin Smalley: So, you can turn right around and invest in other couples to help them build thriving marriages.

Dr. Greg Smalley: Well, thanks for listening. We'll talk to you again next Monday about this crazy little thing called marriage.

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