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Sleeping On It: Why Happy Couples Sometimes Go to Bed Angry - Miller/Hudson

March 20, 2025
00:00

Could one of the long-held beliefs of happy couples actually be wrong? Guests from the "Married With Benefits" podcast discuss why going to bed angry can sometimes lead to better marriages.

Speaker 1

That imagery, we haven't swept things under the rug and left them there.

That's really, really good. Because that's a good image for people to go, is that what we're doing, you know, with these issues that are coming up?

Are we sweeping them under the rug and then the next morning leaving them there?

Speaker 2

I am willing to go to bed mad, but it's not so that I can resolve it in the morning. It's not so that I can be fresher in the morning to deal with it. It's just that I so hope the problem just goes away on its own.

Speaker 3

Welcome to Family Life Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Dave Wilson.

Speaker 4

And I'm Ann Wilson. You can find us at familylifetoday.com. This is Family Life Today.

So, Married with Benefits is on The Family Life YouTube channel, and it's a podcast that Brian Goins and Shaunte Feld have been doing. This is our fourth season, so you're gonna want to lock into this. You're gonna love this season.

Speaker 3

Go to the YouTube channel. Family Life YouTube channel.

Watch this clip. Watch this whole interview because Shaunti and Brian have been talking about one of the books she wrote called *The Surprising Secrets of Highly Happy Couples*.

What's a highly happy couple? It's a couple that's really highly happy.

Speaker 1

Really?

Speaker 5

I couldn't have said it better myself.

Speaker 3

You talk about a strange term. But what is. She interviewed couples and found the best of the best. So these are couples that really are happy and satisfied.

Speaker 4

Both the husband and wife say they're highly happy, and so she put them.

Speaker 3

In this category, like they're the best and we want to learn from them. So there's habits, and she calls them surprising secrets. We've been looking at some of these.

Today's Secret is really interesting. In fact, when you hear it, you're going to be, no, that's not what we should do. And she's like, no, the best couples do this.

So we're going to watch a clip with Brian Goins and his wife Jen interviewing Shaun Tfeldhahn on their Marriage with Ben podcast about going to bed mad. Watch this.

Speaker 2

Have you guys ever heard or were introduced in premarital counseling? The idea, don't go to bed mad.

Speaker 6

Yes, obviously. I mean, there's scripture to back it up, and so you don't want to go to bed angry. And I mean, I think generally it seems like a pretty good principle. So we'll talk about that.

Speaker 1

It is a pretty good principle.

Speaker 5

Yeah.

Speaker 2

And it does. You said you brought up that verse, Ephesians 4:26. Be angry and do not sin. I like the fact that Paul says, be angry. Anger is reality. I've often said anger is like that check engine light in my heart where I know something's off in my relationship and I need to resolve it. But I tend to not resolve it. I end up sinning.

And then it has that great advice: Don't let the sun go down on your anger. So since we're looking at all these pros, that's what this whole season is about. The pros, the people that are doing marriage right, they are highly happy. They are enjoying life with each other. And we're like, that's who I want to be.

Like, I'm guessing that in your research, there's a ton of people that applied this principle, right, that did this principle.

Speaker 1

Hate to tell you this, but this is definitely one of those areas where what they said to do is often not what they actually did.

You know, everybody who's in a happy marriage gives advice all the time, right? Like, when they say, "These are some of our secrets," what they suggest to do is often not reflective of their actual practices.

Speaker 2

Really?

Speaker 1

Yes. And we were looking at what the highly happy couples actually did. We wanted to understand their practices because you don't always know what the advice is, right?

It was actually pretty hilarious because Jeff and I would be sitting down across from one of these highly happy couples, asking them to share their advice. We wanted to get that out of the way. They would often say, "It's really important to not go to bed mad."

I would always respond, "Oh, absolutely, I totally agree." Then I would ask, "Do you ever go to bed mad?"

Speaker 2

What do they do?

Speaker 6

How did they react?

Speaker 1

They would be like, well, it's a really important principle, you know, and we were telling Steve and Jeannie the other day, I'm like, no, no, no, I get it. Like, I get that it's an important principle.

But Mr. and Mrs. Happy Couple, that's not actually what I'm asking you. I'm asking you, do you ever go to bed bad?

Well, yeah, sometimes. It was fascinating how in that do.

Speaker 2

What I say, not what I do.

Speaker 1

Well, and we were, again, I wanted to know what they did, because apparently what they did is working. And so I'm like, okay, what does this look like?

And so it turns out in practice, many of the happiest couples, not every time, but certainly sometimes, they had discovered that when you have two exhausted, angry, upset people trying to duke it out at 1 in the morning, like nothing good is going to happen from that point on.

Speaker 6

So true.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Speaker 2

You like to, in fact, Jen, you like to say about. What is it? There's a word that you use about when you are. It's like halt, right?

Speaker 6

Oh, yeah, yeah. Which I think is a pretty classic thing when you're hungry, angry, or when the other person or yourself is hungry, angry, lonely, or tired.

And I don't know, the lonely part has always kind of confused me because I don't know how to immediately stop that.

But the hungry, angry, tired, like you can fix some of those things before you have a conversation.

Speaker 2

Yeah, that's good. Yeah. So when you, when you're feeling those things intuitively, you should go, I need to stop and make any kind of life changing decisions or try to deal.

Speaker 6

With conflicts or grab something to eat, take a nap, get some rest, and then you'll be able to deal with those things.

Speaker 1

The anger a little bit one in the morning. The tired is usually big for both. That's huge.

Speaker 2

Yeah, absolutely. And I know, I'm realizing this even as she's talking about these, interviewing these highly happy couples.

They never came talk to us. So I feel like this is us. This is our season to find out what the pros do because obviously we're not pros.

Speaker 1

So I think we actually did talk to you.

Speaker 2

No, you did not.

Speaker 1

I think we might have. Really? I think we might actually have.

Speaker 2

Yeah, you might have interviewed us for this part.

Speaker 1

I think we did.

Speaker 2

Okay. I didn't sign.

Speaker 6

I would say that I'm a highly happy married woman.

Speaker 1

I'm glad she feels that way.

Speaker 2

Oh, I'm supposed to reciprocate. Yes, yes, we are. We are so happy and in love. And I love you, honey. Thank you. That's great. Okay.

Speaker 1

Everybody in the booth is like, yeah, I know, exactly.

Speaker 2

So what does it mean? So in other words, you discovered that basically the title of this session, Right? They would go to bed mad.

Speaker 1

Yes, they would. Sometimes, occasionally. When they were both like, okay, you know, if we keep talking like one of us is gonna agree to something, we're gonna resent the next day. Somebody's gonna say something that I wish they wouldn't have said, you can't.

So they had discovered in practice that there were times when they said, you know what, we need to time out. We need to say, we'll be okay, but we just can't do this right now. And let's pick it up in the morning.

What they found in practice is that sometimes just sleeping on it solved it. You know those times when you get up and you're like, what was that about? Right? Like, you know. Yeah, it just.

Speaker 2

Was it really that big of an issue?

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Speaker 2

Was it really that big of an issue that I left the bubbles in the sink? Like, Right, right.

Speaker 1

You can tell. She's like, I'm now starting to think about that. But they had also discovered. And this is what we actually found in practice, this is where the statistics were.

Really fascinating is that if sleeping on it didn't solve it, if that issue was still there the next day, the highly happy couples didn't let it go. They addressed it, and everybody else was far more likely, even the generally happy couples were far more likely to just not want to deal with it and hope it kind of went away the next day.

The happy couples didn't do that. They dealt with it. And so that was. It turns out the difference. It wasn't what happened the night before, it was what happened the next morning.

Speaker 2

And I think that's where, for me, that's where my pain is in marriage, when we deal with conflict.

I am willing to go to bed mad, but it's not so that I can resolve it in the morning. It's not so that I can be fresher in the morning to deal with it.

It's just that I so hope the problem just goes away on its own.

Speaker 7

Right.

Speaker 2

That it just dissipates. And certainly there's that verse in Proverbs 29:11 that says it's the glory of one to overlook an offense.

And there are things in marriage that you just need to overlook. It's not that big of a deal.

Is this something that's going to affect me later in life? Is it or not later in life? Is this something that will affect our relationship or lead me to bitterness?

We ask those questions, and if it's not, then okay, that's fine.

Speaker 6

But I think generally, I think that you and I both, over time, we have gotten better at that, where we don't have a lot of things that we've swept under the rug and kept there. Whether it's a day or two or three or four, I think we've gotten better and better at saying we are going to deal with this.

And so I think that makes us a happy couple because we don't have things where maybe we're in a counseling office years later that's piling up, and there's so many things that have piled up.

And so I think that is a key of a highly happy couple: dealing with it.

Speaker 1

You just said something really interesting, Jen. That imagery.

We haven't swept things under the rug and left them there. That's really, really good.

Because that's a good image for people to go, is that what we're doing with these issues that are coming up? Are we sweeping them under the rug and then the next morning leaving them there?

Speaker 6

We have to give credit to someone from A Weekend to Remember who wrote in to Weekend to Remember and said, we got things out from underneath the rug. We'd been pushing them there so much that we could barely. We kept tripping over the rug.

Speaker 1

So good.

Speaker 6

And so we read that a lot. So that I can't take that for myself. It's from a Weekend Remember guest.

Speaker 1

That's awesome.

Speaker 6

Who said, we took things out from under the rug. So it is a really good mental picture, maybe to ask yourself, do we have things under the rug that we've left there not only overnight, but for days, for a long time?

Speaker 2

And we keep tripping over them. And that's why we're struggling. That's why we may not be highly happy, so.

Speaker 1

Yep, exactly.

Speaker 2

And you talk about in the book a little bit the difference between resolving the anger and resolving the issue. Why was that such a key?

Speaker 1

It comes back to again the next morning. Right. Like, you've got all the emotions and all of that. Those are real. It's fine. Like, we're human. That's gonna happen. You don't necessarily have to resolve all that, you know, before you go to bed.

But the next morning, what you're trying to do is actually deal with that issue. You're actually trying to say, okay, I could have hurt feelings, and those are maybe even still there. Right. But I can actually work on this despite these hurt feelings, and actually tackle the issue without sort of making it an attack.

I mean, all the normal things that we talk about in a relationship.

Speaker 2

What's the benefit really, of going to bed mad?

Speaker 1

Well, the benefit is, remember that whole thing that the happy couples told us of? Yeah. Someone is actually gonna start agreeing to something that they're gonna resent the next day. Like, you're setting up other problems if you keep trying to force this.

And so give yourself. Probably there's two things. Give yourself some emotional space and give yourself some mental space. The emotional space is this, like, you know, you are just upset. Right. You need to be able to sort of de-escalate.

One of, you know, our main executive producer, Jim Mitchell, was saying earlier that, you know, this whole step of going to bed, even if you're mad, that is a type of de-escalation. Right. It's crucial, and it's a willingness to say, I'm not gonna let my emotions take over here.

Speaker 2

There is a psychological term called flooding that our emotions actually flood our brain, right? Yep, absolutely.

Speaker 1

The whole limbic system in our brain.

Speaker 2

And it can take up to 40 minutes. I learned this from Art of Marriage, our new series where we talk about conflict.

One of our teachers on that series talked about how it can take up to 40 or 50 minutes for some of that flooding to dissipate from your brain just so that you can get into a better emotional state or a mental state.

Speaker 1

Yeah, and the mental state piece is more recognizing that for some people, and this is stereotypically, it is more common to be men. I actually quantified it, and I can't remember the number right now, but it was something like 75 or 80% of men need internal processing time. Like, they can't think straight enough to actually articulate.

And so they instinctively want to withdraw, not in a bad way, but in a way that's actually good for their brain to be able to process what am I even thinking? Like, how do I even explain why I'm upset or whatever?

And there's plenty of women for whom that's the case too. But that mental thing is for whoever is the internal processor, for whoever needs a little more time, we need to honor that. Like, we can't force the other person to have the same kind of processing as we do.

Speaker 2

See, honey, it's brain science. That's why. That's why I'm like a turtle, right? Is that I withdraw.

Speaker 4

That's why I'm like a turtle.

Speaker 3

It's funny sticking a little head out every once in a while. All right, we're gonna talk to two couples who are in different spectrums of their marriage. Rob and Liz Hudson are with us, what, nine years married?

Speaker 1

Yep.

Speaker 3

Three kids.

Speaker 8

Three kids. Almost three, six and eight. So we're in it, in the thick of it.

Speaker 3

Are you guys highly happy couple?

Speaker 8

I kind of side eye that whole highly happy couple.

Speaker 3

Ooh, what is. What does that mean?

Speaker 9

What does that mean?

Speaker 5

Let's talk.

Speaker 3

Rob doesn't even know.

Speaker 8

Well, I just. I side eye that. That term in general, it just feels. Life right now feels so deep and complex that for someone to say, we're a highly happy couple, my first thought is kind of skepticism, like, what's really underneath the surface, you know?

And not to say that there aren't happy couples.

Speaker 3

Right.

Speaker 4

Do you think those couples that are highly happy have kids that are older?

Speaker 8

That's another thing I. Don't your life look like exactly. Give me the details. Because there are so many complexities to just the season of life we're into that I think play into this conversation.

Speaker 3

Or it could be a couple that just got married, you know, like, figured out John and Alyssa are sitting across and they. What? Three months.

Speaker 7

Three months, yeah.

Speaker 3

So you're sort of that couple with no kids. Any pets? No, no pets. How can you not be happy?

Speaker 5

Can I point out how silly it is that a couple that has been married less than three months is on family life today?

Speaker 8

I'm so not silly at all.

Speaker 5

Oh, man. We are honored. But this. I feel like we're, like, taking notes every time we watch these clips. Like, remember this for later. I gotta learn stuff.

Speaker 3

Well, let's talk about what Brian and Shaunti talked about. I mean, when you think about that concept of don't go to bed mad, you think we should not go to bed mad. We should never go to bed mad. That's sort of a marriage principle. Whether you believe the Bible, read the Bible or not, most people would say, that's not good. You don't go to bed angry. You figure it out before you go to bed.

And they're saying, no, the best couples go to bed mad. Do you guys do that? Do you agree with that? Do you push back on that? What are your thoughts?

Speaker 9

Well, first I had to become comfortable with the idea that we get mad in marriage.

I came into marriage thinking it was actually the very verse that Brian said about love overcoming a multitude of sins, that the sign of the health of our relationship was a lack of getting mad at each other.

So that was.

Speaker 2

I had.

Speaker 8

And I was on the other end of the spectrum. I'm like.

Speaker 3

I was gonna say, how long did that last?

Speaker 8

Healthy relationship you're gonna fight. It's just inevitable. So you can imagine the clash.

Speaker 3

Did you guys clash, like, quickly?

Speaker 9

Oh, I remember our first night. Our first night in our apartment. We argued about something.

Speaker 8

Yeah, it. Yeah.

Speaker 9

And I rolled over, not facing her and literally thought, what have I gotten myself into?

Speaker 5

We've been married for three days.

Speaker 3

Three days.

Speaker 8

Yeah.

Speaker 4

Because you're coming in thinking unmet expectations, Rob. You're like, if we love each other, we won't be angry.

Speaker 8

Well, that's what we had been taught, too. And for me, it felt like I was constantly being silenced because there were things I needed to talk about, things I needed to work through.

And like, oh, but now your spirituality is tied up in this. Like, if you are a godly couple, you will not go to bed angry. Or, you know, love will cover a multitude of sins.

I'm like, well, then why. Why am I still feeling all these things inside, you know?

Speaker 3

Yeah, right.

Speaker 8

So, yeah.

Speaker 3

I mean, Rob, where'd you get that idea? Did your parents never fight?

Speaker 9

Never that I saw.

Speaker 3

Oh, so it was hidden.

Speaker 9

Looking back, I go, oh, it just happened behind closed doors when the kids run around. But I have zero memory of my parents ever fighting.

Speaker 3

Wow.

Speaker 9

Which I understand why they did that. They wanted to give their kids the sense of security. But Liz also had a sense of security because she saw her parents work things through.

Speaker 4

They resolved it well, sometimes, but you know what I mean, Pretty normal.

Speaker 3

Remember, she had the side eye toward highly happy. So we know.

Speaker 8

I'm like, there's always more. There's always more pressure to stay highly happy. When that's just, you know, that's hard even.

Speaker 4

That is a great conversation with John and Alyssa. Where did your families come in on this? Did you see them resolve issues or even have conflict in the home?

Speaker 3

And they're probably listening right now. So, you know, you gotta be careful.

Speaker 5

Mom, Dad, I love you.

Speaker 7

I would say for my family, I don't know, I have, like, a few memories of, like, just like, people would yell in our home, but I don't know that I ever saw. Like, you would see the anger, but I don't know if you would ever see the resolution.

And I know for a fact, for me, it's like, oh, I don't know that I was ever taught how to really resolve it. You just kind of like, they were talking. You just sweep it under the rug and you never talk about it.

So I was like, uh, maybe if I just, like, hide and never talk about it, like, it'll be fine. So I feel like that's what. That's what.

Speaker 3

I mean, we can talk about this later. But side note from the empty nesters who now have grandkids: Parents, teach your kids how to do conflict. This is one of the most important skills you can not only model, but teach your kids.

And I know some parents are going, "Well, we don't know how to do it. We don't do it well." This is, I mean, nobody teaches this. You don't learn this in school. This is 101 for your kids.

I mean, I watched Ann do this. She was a master. When our boys were in middle school, sitting there mad, she'd be like, "Okay, let's talk. Why are you mad? Look at that, man. Let's get to the root." And I'm like, "Wow." She is just teaching that right now—that their anger's coming from somewhere. And how do you manage it?

Speaker 4

But let me add this, Dave. I think that if, as parents, you can deal with conflict in a healthy way, you're not calling each other names. You're not saying, "I'm leaving and divorcing you." If you can have the fight with it being about the issue and not attacking each other, then it is healthy for them to see the conflict.

And then you might even get angry and yell at each other and sin. But you can still go back to your kids, say, "Hey, we just want you to know we shouldn't have yelled, and we have apologized," and let them see that your relationship's okay. Because if you're fighting ugly, that will scare your kids.

And so I think you pick and choose.

Speaker 3

That's what I saw in my home with two alcoholic parents. And then it ended up in divorce.

So I came into marriage a little bit like Rob, thinking, "We won't fight." Because divorced couples fight, and we won't.

And then when we did fight, I didn't know what to do with it. So I ran upstairs. I literally.

Speaker 4

And Rob, he turned the other way, too. He turned to the bed and faced the wall.

Speaker 6

And I'm like.

Speaker 4

I'm grabbing him, like, turning him back.

Speaker 1

Like, hey, we need to talk about this.

Speaker 3

I mean, I was sort of like, Brian, I just withdrew, thinking it'll be gone in the morning, and we'll talk tomorrow about what happens the next morning. But it's not gone. And so then you gotta figure out how to resolve it.

So let me ask you this. One of the things that they talked about, and it's in Shanti's book, is that sometimes men—and it could go either way, I think—but they said sometimes men need to process. And so they're sort of wanting to put it off till tomorrow because they don't know.

I mean, Anne would say to me, "What are you feeling?" And I'm escalating because it was usually sort of loud at that moment. "What are you feeling?" And I'd be like, "I don't know." Yeah, of course you do.

Speaker 4

You don't know what you're feeling. Who doesn't know what they're feeling? Dave's like, I don't know. I have no idea.

Speaker 3

And then when I.

Speaker 4

Are you guys like that?

Speaker 3

Yeah. Yeah, I resonated with that. I'm just Asking, did you?

Speaker 5

I mean, I think we would say both of us fall in that category of, like, I need a moment of separation. I gotta pull away. I gotta figure out what I'm thinking, what I'm feeling.

Speaker 7

I literally said the other day, I just need a moment to be moody. Cause I was like, I was trying to figure out, like, what am I feeling and why am I feeling this way?

So I have learned, and he's learned this about me. I'm a very deep feeler, but I often don't know what's causing that feeling. So I.

Speaker 5

And I've really come to appreciate that, you know, when your emotions are at such a level that you can't meaningfully unpack the issue, you need to go be moody for a minute.

Figure out what you're feeling, what you're thinking, and then we come back and hash it out.

Speaker 4

Liz, talk about what that's like with kids. You're moody, you're in a bad mood, and you can't pull away from anybody in the moment.

Speaker 8

It's really hard. I mean, it's so funny because I feel like as I've processed this conversation, kids come into play a ton. Both in, if we don't solve this now, there will not be time later to solve it.

Speaker 5

Right?

Speaker 8

There's no space to solve it, or we're trying to. We're in a good conversation, and someone's screaming, someone's coming through the door, someone's, like, outside of. And we're escalating just from the external things that are happening.

So I think, even just personally, to have space to be like, okay, I'm spiraling. I can feel myself spiraling, whether it be with Rob or the kids or whatever it might be, to have a moment to just lock the door and put my AirPods in and be like, okay, I just need to have a moment. I tell people I need, like, a padded room sometimes, like a noise-canceling room, to just be and to just gather myself.

It is so difficult to understand what's going on because not only do I not have time and space to understand what's going on in here, I'm regularly trying to understand what's going on in my three kids and help them understand that and to resolve conflict with each other and to communicate.

And so, you know, I'm out of gas by the time it comes to me. It's like, I feel all kinds of ways, and I have no way to process and move forward or even explain that.

Speaker 4

And I'm somebody else.

Speaker 8

I'm so tired. Like, I know I need to have a hard conversation. This is sticking with me. It's heavy on my heart, but where's that energy gonna come from?

Speaker 3

I mean, Rob, when you see that with her, how do you deal with it? I should ask Liz. How does Rob deal with it?

Speaker 8

Cause I see it in him too. Like, this isn't just me as mom. He's tag teaming with me a ton. And we're really in the thick of. So sometimes we're looking at each other like we know we're both out of gas. And so I don't know what might be.

Speaker 9

Maybe the answer I'll give is related to needing that time to pull back and process. I think one of the things that was really important for Liz and I is because I think I've always needed that.

But it took us a lot of time to rebuild trust because for so long I wasn't engaging in the hard conversations. And so what looked like when I did legitimately need to pull back to think what it looked like was I was just shoving it under the rug again, which pressed up against what she needed was, we need to work through this.

And so it's taken us a long time for me to know that I'm actually going to deal with it and for her to know that I'm gonna deal with it and that we will come back to this at some point.

Speaker 8

That I'm not gonna be forgotten and lost in the the mix.

Speaker 4

That's big for the person that wants to resolve conflict. That can create incredible insecurity and angst.

Speaker 8

Yeah. I'm not seen. I'm not valued. I'm not prioritized. It's not worth getting into the muck.

Speaker 9

You're not worth getting into the muck.

Speaker 4

It could feel like if it goes even deeper.

Speaker 8

Yeah. Oh, 100%. There's always so many layers to it.

Speaker 4

Yeah. And I think we all know that marriage is not easy. I think Dave and I would be the first to say that that's true.

And it can be absolutely wonderful. It can be amazing. But it can be incredibly hard.

And we have resources here at Family Life that I think they'll really help you. So I hope and I really pray that you will just take advantage of the resources that we have for you.

You can go to familylife.com/marriagehelp. Again, that's familylife.com/marriagehelp.

Speaker 3

You know, I don't know where I saw this. I honestly, it was on Instagram as some marriage couple talking about marriage principles. I should be able to tell you who it was. Maybe you'll remember.

But I'd never seen it explained this way. They said in our marriage, we typically every day will say something like this to one another. I've only got 30.

Speaker 5

That's a brene Brown bit.

Speaker 3

Is that. Yeah, I got 70. And the husband may say, I got 40. Okay, I got 60. Like, we need 100. I've been with the kids all day or whatever. My job. And I thought that is because you always think 50, 50, and sometimes you don't have 50, and sometimes you have.

Speaker 4

10, and you're supposed to give 100. We all know we're supposed to give 100.

Speaker 5

And if the two of you together can't make a hundred, you gotta, like, make a plan of attack. How are you gonna create that space for each other?

Speaker 4

What is it?

Speaker 8

Priorities?

Speaker 5

Exactly.

Speaker 9

Isn't Netflix the last 15%? I always thought Netflix was covered like that.

Speaker 3

I like that.

Speaker 5

I wanna pick on something that actually you guys taught us in premarital counseling. Robin listed our premarital counseling. So fun. So fun. You know, we're talking conflict styles, right? You explained this idea that some people are rhinos is the metaphor. They just want it. Like, they see the problem, they wanna attack it. They're just gonna give it full force, you know, confront it immediately. Some people are more like, you know, hedgehogs or turtles, right? Like, hold on, I got a draw. I can't deal with this right now. You know, and so even just kind of, you know, for us, we've talked about this a lot. Like, okay, I'm hedgehogging right now. I don't have the emotional or mental space to deal with this. You know, we've even seen among ourselves, you know, or between ourselves. Like, there are more often than not moments where I will rhino, like, I feel insecure. If I know the problem exists, I need to attack it and deal with it right away or at least figure out where we're at, you know? And more often than not, I'm the opposite.

Speaker 7

I'm like, ah, I know the. This is a problem, but right now I just can't do it.

Speaker 5

Which is funny because I think going into marriage, we thought we'd be the opposite.

Speaker 9

So it's funny, I'm sitting here going, I don't think you said that three.

Speaker 2

Or four months ago.

Speaker 5

Turns out we got married, and it's the exact opposite of what we thought.

Speaker 4

But aren't these great conversations?

Speaker 5

Well, and once, you know, like, you can put. You can kind of explain why you're reacting the way that you are. It's like, okay, your hedgehog is. I get it. Go take a minute. Go take a lap. Go take a nap.

Speaker 4

And don't take it personally.

Speaker 5

Right?

Speaker 3

Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 5

And she knows that, you know, she knows where my need to attack the problem is coming from. So, yeah, I think that created, like, an opportunity for empathy once we kind of had that language to deal with it. So that was really great.

Speaker 3

Yeah. And I think, you know, we all know this. One of the big pushbacks to what Shaunti said about go to bed angry is if you're a Bible believing person. You know, the Bible says, no, no, no, no, no. You never go to bed angry. Don't let the sun go down on your anger. And that's actually one of the principles she talks about that we're going to hit tomorrow.

Speaker 5

Amazing.

Speaker 3

So come back tomorrow. Let's talk about that.

Speaker 8

Yeah.

Speaker 4

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About FamilyLife Today®

FamilyLife Today® is an award-winning podcast featuring fun, engaging conversations that help families grow together with Jesus while pursuing the relationships that matter most. Hosted by Dave and Ann Wilson, new episodes air every Tuesday and Thursday.

About Dave and Ann Wilson

Dave and Ann Wilson are co-hosts of FamilyLife Today©, FamilyLife’s nationally-syndicated radio program.

Dave and Ann have been married for more than 40 years and have spent the last 35 teaching and mentoring couples and parents across the country. They have been featured speakers at FamilyLife’s Weekend to Remember® since 1993, and have also hosted their own marriage conferences across the country.

Dave and Ann helped plant Kensington Community Church in Detroit, Michigan where they served together in ministry for more than three decades, wrapping up their time at Kensington in 2020.

The Wilsons are the creative force behind DVD teaching series Rock Your Marriage and The Survival Guide To Parenting, as well as authors of the recently released books Vertical Marriage (Zondervan, 2019) and No Perfect Parents (Zondervan, 2021).

Dave is a graduate of the International School of Theology, where he received a Master of Divinity degree. A Ball State University Hall of Fame Quarterback, Dave served the Detroit Lions as Chaplain for thirty-three years. Ann attended the University of Kentucky. She has been active with Dave in ministry as a speaker, writer, small group leader, and mentor to countless women.

The Wilsons live in the Detroit area. They have three grown sons, CJ, Austin, and Cody, three daughters-in-law, and a growing number of grandchildren.

Contact FamilyLife Today® with Dave and Ann Wilson

Mailing Address

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Orlando FL 32832

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