Focus on the Family Marriage Podcast

Guest (Female): I firmly believe that God gives us the responsibility to train our children in His ways. And that's a huge responsibility. What Focus on the Family did was give us the resources to do it.

Jim Daly: I'm Jim Daly. When we work together, we can transform our nation one family at a time. Make a monthly pledge today at focusonthefamily.com/families.

John Fuller: When conflict arises in your marriage, does one of you maybe retreat and the other get aggressive, maybe follows the retreating spouse? "Hey, we're not done yet." Whatever your style of conflict is, we're going to do a deeper dive on how that can impact the relationship and what you can do about it.

I'm John Fuller along with Greg and Erin Smalley, and we're going to turn now to a conversation that featured Jim Daly and his wife Jean, and Dr. Josh Straub and his wife Christie. And it's all about conflict.

Christie Straub: Josh, you compare dance to conflict in marriage, I believe. What does dancing have to do with couples who are experiencing conflict?

Josh Straub: It's a dance that we get into. It's that one of us pursues, the other withdraws. One of us uses sarcasm.

Christie Straub: Hypothetically speaking, that could be what some people do.

Josh Straub: Passive aggressiveness. Martyrdom, playing the victim. Especially when we were in the early years with the kids and I'm up all night with the kids, I felt in my mind I was doing everything I possibly could, and yet she was still attacking me.

What I would do is I would just play martyr as she's attacking me. Woe is me, because what I do in that point is I don't hear her. I shut her down because now you've got to look at me and I make it about me. There's ways that we dance in our relationship that shut the other person down.

That's what I refer to. You can pretty much see if you take a moment where you're not arguing, but your defenses are down and you're just on a date night and you say, "What was our last argument?" You can identify pretty much who's doing what. And you'll see it every time. It's the dance that we individually get into in our marriages.

What we do is we just put that out. The Bible is so powerful in saying bring these things out into the light. When they're in the dark, the enemy takes them and twists them and starts to whisper lies, like she's out to get you, and she doesn't really care about you, or he doesn't really care.

When we put this out into the light, we can identify it and say, "What is it that you're doing right here? And what's the truth? What's the real truth?" You're experiencing this, but the truth is that I'm on your team. The truth is I love you. The truth is I see you. The truth is I believe you're an absolute rock star, Christie.

When she experiences that, now all of a sudden the way she acts towards me is going to get me changing the way I act towards her. And now we get into this different cycle as opposed to the other dance. I think that's good and that's excellent. Jim, would you kindly share with us maybe what martyrdom was mine, I don't know if there's any dances that you have in your marriage that maybe you want to highlight for us here tonight.

Josh Straub: Thanks for coming out tonight. This has been really good. I so appreciate it.

Jim Daly: I think we should ask Jean what my problem is.

Jean Daly: I'm thinking what our dance was, or even if one of you withdraws, the other wants to resolve faster, too fast for the other. I do the withdrawing in general.

Jim Daly: You think? It doesn't always feel like that. I was going to say I'm the one withdrawing, but obviously...

Jean Daly: I think what we have gotten so much better about is recognizing that. If I win the argument, then we lose. And if he wins, we lose. And it isn't ever about whatever the thing is.

Jim Daly: That's a true statement. You can never remember what it was about.

Jean Daly: It's about a past hurt or a trigger. I think we have just gotten to a better place where I think we have more bandwidth in our lives, which helps. We don't have young children, which is challenging on a marriage when at least one of you might be working really hard in the career.

If like you, Christie, I'm staying home with the kids, I feel like now it's easier, we're more mature, we recognize we're in this together, that we are a team. I think now this is just how we're doing it right. I'll really consider is this something I need to talk to Jim about? And I look at myself first now. I believe Jim does that. That's not the dance that we used to do.

Jim Daly: I think that's well said. I think what you've been really good about especially over the years, the growth that I've seen in you is, and it is part I think of your science mind. You will stop and say, "Okay, let's figure out what's happening."

I think when you speak to me or you say something like that, this is how I feel it. You've gotten a lot better because I'm not sure in the past I'd be saying whatever I'm saying and you'd be reacting. I don't know what button I'm pushing. I know I'm pushing a button, but I don't know what button I'm pushing. I think age and wisdom has come along with that.

John Fuller: Erin, our theme for the month is conflict, and one of the threads seems to be taking responsibility for my part in it all. What if somebody's recognizing I've been playing the victim and maybe something has to change? What do you say?

Erin Smalley: It's important. Much of understanding conflict comes from self-awareness. How am I contributing to conflict? Often times, it's very easy to see what your spouse does, what Greg does, how he's contributing to conflict versus how am I contributing to conflict.

If I'm playing the victim, often times I can explain everything away that just look at what he did. I didn't do anything, this happened to me. Versus no, this is my 5% of how I contributed.

One of my favorite insights is the more mature, the healthier person is going to own conflict first, their contribution to conflict. Really the bigger person is going to step forward and say, "Hey, this is what I did. And this is how I've contributed to this." And that takes maturity. You're not the victim in that because you're owning how you've shown up.

John Fuller: That's really good. I hope people are feeling a gentle nudge from the Holy Spirit, not a push over the cliff, but a nudge to start examining yourself because it doesn't always take two to fight. It might be somebody that's really just being egregious in their behavior.

Greg Smalley: I think it's so important also to point out that we're talking about normal marital conflict. So we're not talking about abuse. Conflict can become very abusive to where there's rage and there's violence. That's not what we're talking about. We're not trying to help someone learn how to better tolerate abusive conflict.

Erin Smalley: Or to own their spouse's abusive behavior. If something like that is going on, I cannot say, "Hey, this is how I contributed to my spouse being abusive." That is just not okay.

Greg Smalley: The reactive cycle assessment that we've talked a lot about, that's intended for normal marital conflict. We're not trying to teach a couple how to do unhealthy, abusive, violent conflict better. That's not at all what we're trying to say. If that's going on, please get help immediately. Go to a good licensed Christian counselor and begin that process.

John Fuller: Get safe and then call us maybe. We have caring Christian counselors here at Focus. Our donor community makes it possible for them to give you a call back, talk on the phone for 20, 25 minutes and listen to you, point you to resources, give you some insights, maybe connect you with somebody in your area for ongoing counseling.

That's a free service that we're able to provide. The starting point is 1-800-A-FAMILY. We do have the link in the show notes for that service as well and for the reactive cycle assessment.

If you're able to, make a donation today of any amount to support this show and this ministry. When you do, we'll say thank you by sending a copy of Dr. Josh and Christie's book, Famous at Home: 7 Decisions to Put Your Family Center Stage in a World Competing for Your Time, Attention, and Identity.

It's a terrific comprehensive resource and reflects the wisdom you heard in the conversation that Josh and Christie had with Jim and Jean. Next time, Deborah Pegues shares about the importance of controlling our tongue. For now, on behalf of Greg and Erin Smalley and the entire team, I'm John Fuller and thanks for joining us for the Focus on the Family Marriage Podcast.

Josh Straub: Josh experienced a traumatic childhood, and today he wants to help other families thrive. I've partnered with Focus on the Family for quite some time now because they were instrumental to hope, to help.

Jim Daly: I'm Jim Daly. Let's transform our nation one family at a time with your monthly pledge at focusonthefamily.com/families.