Married With Benefits by FamilyLife

Brian Goins: You've heard the line, "Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me." I'm not sure who said that, but I'm pretty sure the guy wasn't married. The Bible talks a lot about the power of our tongue. In fact, it says that the tongue can bring the power of life or death. All too often, in an attempt to be honest with our spouse, we can bring death into the marriage.

It begs the question: where's the line between being authentic and pointing out those great growth opportunities that our spouse has that we see and notice? Today we're going to find out why highly happy couples don't always tell it like it is.

These secrets, Shaunti, what's been great about them is how simple they are to execute, yet it does take a significant mind shift for most of them.

Shaunti Feldhahn: It's that whole being purposeful, which is easier just to have inertia. It is easier just to drift. It's easier just to go to default. I think especially with the one we're going to talk about today, it does take a lot of intentionality and really working against how we're normally wired.

One of the ways that we saw this actually was not even in the stats for the happy marriages study, but our study for the 30-day kindness challenge. One of the things in the 30-day kindness challenge was we were telling people we're going to do this intervention for 30 days. You're not going to say anything negative about your spouse, either to them or about them to somebody else. You're going to look for things to praise and you're going to do these actions of generosity every day, simple stuff every day.

At the beginning, one of the things that we have done since is people will take an assessment to tell them where they are starting. We were being a bit sneaky. At the beginning, when we asked them to self-rate their kindness, their tone of voice, and general whatever, people will recognize sometimes I'm having a bad day and I'm impatient with a cashier. I give myself an eight out of ten.

Then we take those exact same measures and we say, "Okay, now answer those questions about how you relate to your spouse." It's like, "Oof."

Brian Goins: People were honest, though. I could see people easily just going, "I think I'm pretty kind to my spouse."

Shaunti Feldhahn: Once you're actually into the assessment, the questions are designed so that you can't just answer general. It's really specific, like what is your tone of voice when you're irritated? Either you lie to yourself or you don't. It's just between you and you in an anonymous assessment telling you where you need to start.

We found that there was that "oof" moment where people recognized, "I am speaking to that cashier, the person at my kid's school, or my colleagues at work way more kindly than I'm speaking to my spouse."

Brian Goins: Isn't there something inside all of us that goes, "But isn't that okay? Isn't marriage a place where I can be candid? I can be myself. I can tell you what's really going on in my mind. I can tell you like it is. I can just be authentic with what I'm feeling in the moment."

After all, in Genesis, it talks about we can be naked and unashamed with our spouse. So I'm just going to let everything hang out, whether that's my bad tone, I'm irritated, I'm short. My spouse should be able to handle that.

Shaunti Feldhahn: A lot of people place a high value on being brutally honest. It's important in marriage to be able to be honest. Here's what we found with the happy couples, and this was an "oof" for me.

The happy couples' secret was they were absolutely honest, and they weren't brutal. That's a big distinction. For most of the happy couples in the study group, some this was just their natural personality, but most of the time it had become a purposeful thing where they basically said, "I need to be more kind. If I'm going to be kind to anyone, I'm going to be kind with my spouse. I'm going to be more purposeful about having a tone of voice that is respectful instead of disrespectful."

If you think about it, we all say, "I'm just being me." Well, are you being you at work? Are you speaking that way to somebody like your boss? We have to be honest about the fact that we're often saying, "I just want to be honest," when we actually want to be brutally honest. That is not what the happy couples did.

Brian Goins: I felt a little bit of this when we were doing an episode where we talked about bossing our feelings around. There was a part of me that was going with a little bit of angst going, "But I want to be authentic. I want to be real with what I'm feeling right now in this moment. What should I do with these feelings? I am feeling short right now. I am feeling irritable right now. Isn't it okay where I can express this stuff honestly and openly? I thought marriage might be that place for me."

Shaunti Feldhahn: We mentioned that this is one of those things where my feelings either boss me around or I boss them around. Which side of the line are you on? This is what we generally tend to say when we're doing a marriage event. When Jeff and I are talking about this topic and we get anonymous questions, that is often an anonymous question.

People are asking, "But I want to be authentic. Shouldn't marriage be the place that I can just let it all hang out?" The reality is you don't have to change anything based on what we said. I'm not telling you what to do. Different people are going to have different applications.

It's kind of like Dr. Phil. How's that working for you? You may wish it worked that way in marriage, that you could just let it all hang out and say whatever you want to your spouse in whatever tone you want, and that they should be able to handle that. But if it doesn't, how's that working for you? It's really about being a bit realistic.

Brian Goins: We've all had that thought of, "In marriage, I can just be who I am. You can either take it or leave it, but that's who you married. That's who you got." I'm married to somebody who can be on the brutal side of honest, Jen. She has been accused many times of just not having a great filter. She just blurts it out. Often what that feels like is your own "oof."

I've had moments where it's my wittiness and my sarcasm. I've often said sarcasm is my love language. I love to give it out. I love to be sarcastic. I was on an elevator with one of my bosses at a former job. As we were going up, she got on the elevator, then she got off the elevator, then she got back on the elevator. I was like, "Oh what, early Alzheimer's?"

You just go, "Oof, now you need the oof over your head." She looked at me and was gracious in that moment because she could have just said, "You're fired," which is what she might should have said. Just because that's my natural bent doesn't mean all these thoughts need to be expressed.

What about you, Shaunti? You're married to a lawyer. He's a Harvard-trained lawyer. He's trained in debate. He's quick on his feet. Is he the kind that would be unfiltered and just let it all hang out?

Shaunti Feldhahn: No, it's me. I'm the strong personality. I'm more like Jen, your wife, where it's not necessarily that I let it all hang out because I've tried to learn over the years, but I definitely used to and saw that it didn't actually go so well for me. Honestly, Jeff put up with a lot. He is very good at just being calm and taking it and not responding. But there were a lot of "oofs" over his head, I'm sure.

Brian Goins: One of our dear friends, Ed and Amy, they're Weekend to Remember speakers. Ed is one of those guys that just tells it like it is. He likes to be brutally honest. He likes to tell you in the moment. He grew up in a home where conflict, if it wasn't handled right then in that moment, it wasn't handled. He didn't like it when it felt like there was this angst and when things got left undone and the loop was still open.

You deal with it right there, right in the moment. You just talk in whatever direct tone of voice you need to. We often don't have a mirror. I always wonder what it would be like if somebody would just record us at home and then would play back the game film and what we would end up seeing in ourselves.

If we don't have a camera, we might as well just ask our kids. What happened was he was in this moment talking with Amy, and his five-year-old son came downstairs. He didn't talk hardly at all. He just raised his voice and said, "Dad, you need to stop. The way that you're talking to Mom is making her cry, and it's making the kids scared."

Talk about putting the brakes on. He realized, "Maybe the way that I am isn't good. Maybe the way that I am..." we go, "That's being authentic. You married this person. You signed up for this. This is who I am. You need to take it or leave it." If who he is is causing his wife to cry and the kids to get scared, maybe he needs to change. I wonder if marriage is that place where God is giving us help to be a better version of ourselves.

Shaunti Feldhahn: Let's think about this for just a minute. You said, "Let's be naked and unashamed." Can I just come home and let it all hang out? Remember, naked and unashamed in Genesis was before sin entered the world. Our version of letting it all hang out, we have to recognize candidly, if I'm being really honest with myself, when I say I want to be my authentic self, what I'm actually saying is I want to be my sinful self.

I want to be able to say those words that are festering and have that little mean bite to my voice to let you know how much you hurt me rather than going, "This is not who Jesus is trying to make out of me. This is not the person that I'm supposed to be growing into." There is a truly big, simple little secret. There is a big, huge spotlight that God uses and is putting on each one of us about, "This is where you're supposed to be changing to be more like me."

Brian Goins: That process of sanctification, of actually growing into my authentic self in Christ, is what we want. Marriage is that place where God allows us to grow up. He allows us to actually become the person that we're supposed to be like. I think that's why the Bible has so much to say about the tongue and the power of the tongue.

In this secret, I want to be clear: you're not saying that we're not supposed to be telling the truth or being honest. It's just that we don't add that brutal to it.

Shaunti Feldhahn: As you're honest, you are being far more attuned to how it is coming across. Think of yourself as a radio tower sending signals. They go through the air, and we have an enemy who's the prince of the power of the air. They travel and they hit the eardrums of your spouse.

Those signals may be received different than how you intend them. Of course, that can happen in anything. But if you are not going, "Lord, I really want to be more the person you want me to be, regardless of how it impacts my spouse," knowing that it will impact my spouse well, I need to be careful as I'm sending those signals. How is this going to be heard? Sometimes we have to be honest with ourselves about that.

Brian Goins: In marriage, I start realizing how much I don't really care about my spouse if I'm just saying I want to be my authentic, sinful self. I just let my words go out. I just tell it like it is. The Bible says that often is a very foolish action.

In Proverbs 29:11, "A fool gives full vent to his spirit." That's that idea of, "I'm going to just send the signal out. I'm going to just say what I think, express my thought in whatever tone that I want to." The Bible says you're a fool. How's that working for you? Whereas it says, "But a wise man quietly holds it back."

Proverbs 12:18 says, "There is one whose rash words are like sword thrusts." It's an incredible image. I am poking my spouse with a sword. But the tongue of the wise brings healing. Proverbs 15:28 says, "The heart of the righteous ponders how to answer, but the mouth of the wicked pours out evil things." Am I in a marriage where I'm pondering before, or am I just pouring out? Both can still bring forth the truth and honesty, but one's pondering it and one's just pouring it out, being brutally honest.

Shaunti Feldhahn: There are going to be some people who are listening to this, and believe me, I understand because I've had to go through this myself, who are having to do a little bit of grieving right now. There is a recognition that comes upon you when you're like, "I don't get to do everything that I want."

Brian Goins: Isn't that what sanctification's all about? Paul says, "The very things I want to do, I don't do. The very things I don't want to do, I do." But deep down, I do really want to hurt my spouse in this moment.

Shaunti Feldhahn: Deep down, it's not even that I want to hurt my spouse. I would never say, "I want to hurt Jeff." Of course not. However, in the moment, I do want to be at home, be relaxed, be in a place where I can let my hair down, where I can make my mistakes and be loved anyway.

All of that is fine. Yes, that is one of the things that ultimately marriage is designed to be. Jeff will love me anyway, even if I have the sword thrust through his heart. But I have to recognize, if it's a pattern where me letting my hair down is hurting him, then no, that's not okay. There is a grief there of, "No, you are called to look out for the interest of others, not just yourselves."

Brian Goins: That's good. It's why James talks about how this tongue, this small thing, is like a rudder. It's directing coming from our heart. We know that it's connected to our heart. It's coming out in either good or bad fruit. James is like, "Listen, your tongue is like a fire. It can set fires."

I wonder how many of our homes actually feel like little places where every room's got a little forest fire. It takes a moment just to step back and even ask our spouse that honest question, "How am I doing with this? Am I too brutal in my honesty?" That'd be a great honest question, just reflective. Am I too brutal? The flip side needs to be said because I think for me, I can do this. I can be brutally honest without saying anything. The flip side is I don't tell the truth. I'm not being completely honest. I'm just being brutal in my silence.

Shaunti Feldhahn: I am walking away.

Brian Goins: When we keep it inside, it can end up resulting in some of the same problems that we have in marriage. It's super easy for you to support this podcast. All you really need to be able to do is press two buttons: like and subscribe. Leave a review, leave a comment. Let us know what you're leaning into, what's encouraging you, what you feel that is helping your marriage. We would love to hear those comments. That's it. That's super easy, and it would help us out a lot.

So, Shaunti, with that, the secret is the happiest couples are honest, they're just not brutal. How do we do that? What are some steps that we can take in the right direction? I'm recognizing that pattern, but I want to actually be highly happy. What is it that I can do in the moment that I'm feeling that?

Shaunti Feldhahn: There is one thing that we've seen over and over, and this actually works when you look at neuroscience and when we look at some of the data from some of the different studies that we've done. It's this process of building a habit of interrupting yourself before you speak. Everybody's parents told them when they were little, "Think before you speak."

I certainly had a hard time learning that one. But you've learned that obviously because you're a functioning adult. You know how to do this. It's time to put that hat back on. Basically, the way to do that usually is in the moment when I am seeing that I want to be brutally honest, and I am seeing that I want to say this thing or use this tone of voice, it's almost like calling a mental timeout and basically going, "Think before I speak and figure out what my tone of voice is. Think about what I'm about to say. Does it have to be said in this way?"

Brian Goins: I like that image of a timeout. You call a timeout when the momentum's going against you. When the momentum is shifting in the game and you feel like, "Man, we're losing right now." Some of us need to realize that the difference between reacting and responding to our spouse or just letting telling it like it is is about five seconds.

We're not talking about something that's long. It's just call a quick mental timeout and go, "Is this the right time to have to say these words? Is this going to hit them at the right time?" When Jen would say as I come in after a long day of work, and she's come in from a long day of work and we both come back, and the first thing she says is, "I just can't believe how late you are," something negative right from the beginning. Is this the right time or is this the right moment to say that?

Shaunti Feldhahn: This is a very common issue in marriage statistically. The person who is the external processor, who tends to be the wife in many marriages, has to recognize this is a moment where I can probably put a sword through my husband really easily.

For example, Jeff will come home... he has a technology business that he's been working on for a number of years, and he'll come home with this great idea. He'll explain, "We got this great idea, and so-and-so said we could build it." He's just wanting to share the excitement. My analytical hat goes on instantly. I think, and I go, "Yeah, that is a good idea, but we should also think about this, and we can't do it here. We would have to wait until November because..." He's like, "You're just throwing a cold bucket of water on everything."

In the desire to process out loud, there is a real responsibility to take care with our spouse's heart.

Brian Goins: I love my wife. Every strength pushed too far becomes a weakness. She would be right now nodding her head and she'd probably say to the same fact... we have a joke now in our family where we call Jen the "dream killer." Whether it's our kids or us... Bradley's a lot like me, has an idea every second and wants to just... she'll talk about like, "Hey, next year as a family we should all go to the Bahamas and do this and this and this."

Jen immediately is just going, "Well, we have this going on here and we got to save up for that." She's immediately thinking about the roadblocks, which aren't wrong. All of that would have to take place, but in the moment that your idea's just coming out, please don't drop an ice bucket challenge right on my idea.

Shaunti Feldhahn: I need to call Jen, and we need to develop a support group for the dream killers. We just do. Jen and I need to have a support group.

Brian Goins: I think in the moment when you're wanting to be brutally honest, just call a timeout and think about: is this the right time, is this the right tone? Am I being a dream killer here? Do I need to schedule that back and just say, "Hey, I'm excited actually about that. When can we talk about how to make that happen? Maybe I should talk about the Bahamas trip in a couple of days."

There's this one quote from a lady where she's answering that question about, "Is marriage the place where I can be just brutally honest with my spouse?" She's like, "Well, you should be able to let your guard down. You don't want to be in a marriage where it feels like you're always walking on eggshells. You should feel like there's some freedom there. You should be able to be relaxed and safe. You should be able to make mistakes and have your spouse forgive you. But that doesn't mean it's okay to have a pattern of treating your spouse poorly."

I just love that because it is saying: am I delivering this in the right way, in the right tone? Do I care about how I'm treating my spouse? A great internal question which you ask often is, "Would I say these words to a friend or even to a stranger?" In other words, as I'm saying these words, and we know when we're going to say something that's going to light the place on fire... we just know it.

But we just don't often pause and go, "Are these words going to be helpful or harmful?" Going back to Ephesians 4 where Paul talks about, "Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only as such is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it might give grace to those who hear."

Shaunti Feldhahn: Again, there are people who are listening to this going, "But I should be able to say what I want to say." Okay, yes, maybe we should. Maybe we wish that that was the way your spouse is wired and that marriage was created. But if it's not, how's that working for you?

Brian Goins: You ask a few internal questions, take that mental timeout. I think this is a good one: just practice. Practice being honest and kind, both of those things. Because it is a practice. It doesn't come naturally. Either for me, I don't always just tell it. So I need to practice being honest, letting the words out. For those of you that are more verbal processors, expressers, you might need to go, "Are these words being honest and kind?"

It goes back to Ephesians 4, which is a great passage for you just to read as a couple and just ask, "Are we doing this well? How's our diagnostic going?" Paul goes on in Ephesians 4:15, "Rather speaking the truth"... he doesn't just say, "Speak the truth," which is what we should do. It's, "Speaking the truth in love."

Whenever a company is making a new product and they've got creative ideas, they don't just put it on the shelf. Before the product ever gets created, they send the product to the marketing department. The marketing department's job is to put the right packaging around to make it attractive, to have all the right words, the copy, all of that. Often what ends up happening is you spend more money on the packaging than you do the product.

Are my words going to the marketing department before they come out? That's just a great analogy. Too often we just want to get the product out because that's what we think we should be able to do.

Shaunti Feldhahn: Too often we think, and I can guarantee you there's some people listening to this going, "I shouldn't have to be marketing oriented with my spouse. This is where I should be safe." Again, just like that quote that you read from one of those highly happy wives, yes, but that doesn't give you an excuse to treat your spouse poorly as a pattern. Let's stop using the word "authenticity" as an excuse for meanness.

The good news is, even if this is a pattern, one of the things that we saw in our 30-day kindness challenge research is that people started, and what we told them again was you can't say anything negative to your spouse or to your person who you're doing this for. That included tone of voice. That included all the things that we're talking about.

You start day one, and having done the 30-day kindness challenge, I can tell you you spend the first couple of days going, "Oh my gosh, I had no idea how often I did this or said this or used that tone of voice." The good news that we found in almost everybody, really it took about three or four days for that to shift. That's it.

It sounds crazy. I need to make sure that I qualify this. It's not that you've built the new habit yet, but you've interrupted the old one. It takes about three or four days for that interruption to happen enough that you go, "Oh my gosh, I don't want to be this person because I'm tracking now every time I do this or say this or whatever." Three or four days to interrupt that, and then you can start building the new habit.

Brian Goins: We've mentioned this now a couple of times. I want to make sure everybody that's listening or watching has an opportunity to go to the kindness challenge. It's out there. It's at Jointhekindnesschallenge.com. It really is 30 days to get to a new habit. After three or four days, you've done enough of a pattern interrupt where it's like, "Ah, this is how I practice."

For the first couple of days it'll feel like dribbling with your left hand. It's not going to come naturally. But being truthful, being practiced, being honest and kind is a much better pattern that you'd have in your relationship.

Shaunti Feldhahn: As our producer pointed out, all these things we've been talking about, all these secrets of the happiest couples, they do build on one another. So now if you've been listening to these episodes in order, by now you hopefully will have already had that "Oof" over your head. Hopefully by now you're seeing this isn't as hard as I thought it was going to be.

Brian Goins: When we think about these little steps going in the right direction, again, easy to do... they're not always easy to implement would be a better way to say it. In the moment when you're starting to want to be honest right now, just call a timeout and say: is this the right time, is this the right tone? Am I being a dream killer here? Do I need to schedule that back and just say, "Hey, I'm excited actually about that. When can we talk about how to make that happen?"

I've always had this dream: I wanted to watch Carolina play in the Thanksgiving week Maui Jim Maui Invitational, which is like this big basketball thing. I've always said we're going to go do that one year. Jen now just kind of goes, "That'll be great, Brian. That'll be awesome," knowing that it probably won't happen because I've got to save up all these miles and money, but I still have the dream. One day it's going to happen. Just calling a timeout: how can I encourage in this moment? Are these words going to be helpful or harmful in that?

Secondly, be practiced being honest and kind. The last thing that I would say is just in that moment, remember who you're married to. I think too often we forget the gift that God has given us and what it is our job that we get the opportunity to actually love somebody to being their more authentic version of Christ. We do that with our words.

Reminds me of the story back in the Renaissance days, when there was all these artists that were trying to create these great works of art, whether it was Da Vinci, Michelangelo, they were rushing to do these kind of things and get them done and get them out for the people to enjoy.

There was this guild that had purchased this marble that had sat in the back of a church for like a decade. Their investment was starting to lose money. They're like, "We got to do something with this marble." They asked Da Vinci, "Would you please create something out of this marble? Look at it, it's great. It still has its value." It was a big block of marble. Da Vinci's like, "It's not worth my time. It's not good enough, guys."

They gave it to another young sculptor. They gave him the commission, and then he almost drilled all the way through it and almost broke it in half. They pulled him off the job. This young Michelangelo, I think he was 26 at the time, he said, "I'll do something with it. Just trust me. I'm not going to break it. You're not going to lose your money. I'm going to create something out of this."

He puts a tent around it and he stays in that tent for 30 days. All he's doing is viewing it. He's looking at it. He's seeing all the unsightly veins. He's noticing that it favors and leans a certain way. He sees where that hole almost cracked it in half. After 30 days, he takes out his chisel, he takes out his hammer, and he starts whittling away.

These artists at the time, they believed in this process called Disengo. Disengo really meant that embedded in any image, whether it was wood, whether it was canvas, whether it was marble, was the image of God. The job of the artist and the creator was to draw out that image, to whittle away the imperfections until that image of God was clear to be seen.

Whatever God intended for that painting, that marble, after 18 months, he drew back the curtains and he revealed what many would say is one of the most impressive works of art from the Renaissance days. You would know it as the statue of David. I just think how often that's a lot like we're married to somebody where we have the opportunity to come alongside God in the process of sanctification.

When you live with somebody long enough, you know the unsightly veins. You know the imperfections. You can't help but see their sinful flesh come out. We have an opportunity to take out our hammer and chisel in the form of our tongue to either shape that and craft it into the image of God that was embedded in there, or to crush their spirit.

A fool gives full vent to his anger. A wise man ponders his words. The angry man just pours them out. I could be at a party and we could be hanging out with a group of people, and I'm more of an extrovert than Jen, and I could be having fun. We can get into the car at night and she could say, "You know what, Brian? I get so tired of those jokes you tell. You've told those things 15 times and people only laugh because they just want you to shut up." Now, is she saying the truth? Probably, because I probably do that.

Or we could get in the car and she could go, "You know what, Brian? I've lived with you long enough to know that there's a little blinker in your heart of insecurity. Sometimes that causes you to try to do things to impress people. I just want you to know that when you feel that, I want you to hear my voice in the back of your head going, 'You don't need to impress anybody. You're already impressive enough.'"

Two different things, saying the same exact thing. One's brutal and one's speaking the truth in love. I tear up because I feel like Jen has learned that. I feel like I've tried to learn that. I feel like she's done a much better job of that of just going, "My job, my role in this marriage, as every spouse's is, I get to help craft the image of God in my spouse. My tongue will either crush that image or it can craft that image." What I love about this secret is that highly happy couples have learned that they're honest, but they don't have to be brutal.

So thanks for joining us for this episode. If you enjoy this podcast, please hit like or subscribe. Please leave a review or a comment. It just helps get the word out to more couples so that they could find hope for their own marriage. If you haven't picked up Shaunti's book that we're talking about all this season long, *The Surprising Secrets of Highly Happy Marriages*, you're going to want to get that and maybe grab one to give away. That's really what we're about here at FamilyLife.

We want to help you experience oneness so that you could impact your corner of the world. We've got a lot more help and hope for your marriage and family at FamilyLife.com. You can find other articles, podcasts, shows, small group resources. You'll want to check that out at FamilyLife.com.