Communication and Conflict in Marriage

Y'all ain't nobody. What y'all doing out there? What y'all doing? Oh man. Tell me that's not how you feel sometimes. That video is crazy. But also, it's not about It's not about the nail, is it though? Hey. Hey. Y'all doing all right out there? Yeah. Good, good, good. you know, um we we uh surgery is tough. It is surgery surgery is tough. Um and so we're not just here because God is surgically doing stuff. But we're here because God um he's going to apply anesthesia.

Yeah. To the difficult places in your life where surgery is required. Yes. Do you understand anesthesia? It it would be um it it wouldn't be God wouldn't be a good God uh to do surgery without giving you some form of anesthesia. That's it. And so we're here to help you laugh. We're here to help you enjoy this time because surgery can be difficult. And literally what we're here to do is because God is surgically doing some things in your marriage now. All right, we are here. So we back. We are back. I love it. hope for your marriage conference. That's it. And overwhelmingly, we heard you say that communication was something you guys wanted to talk about.

Yeah. All right. So, today we're going to continue to discuss how to resolve conflict. How big conflict. Yeah. Um this session is called Can We Talk a Minute. God, I want to know Yahe. Hey, that happened right there on the spot. See, I like it. I want to know your way. Um, yeah. But, uh, what we're going to give you to you in this can we talk uh, session is we're going to share with you some dos and some don'ts. Amen. To better communication. Now, in our book, we got like seven dos and seven don'ts. We probably are not going to get

to them all. So, if you're an ADD person and you get we get to four and you're like, "What about five, six, and seven?" It is in the book. It's available. We'll try and get through them all. But what we want to do is we want to give you practical application. We want to equip you to get a jump start on communicating better. And we always love to give you our uh objectives for doing this because it's foundational uh to what we're trying to do here. So, our number one objective is to present truth in love. We're going to give you the truth in love, but with love. Uh we want to give you the tools to help you communicate better. And number three, to prepare you with tenacity to practically apply this so that you guys can become a better team. Yeah. Tenacity, practical application. We want you to be a better team.

Okay. So, ironically, Montel and I both majored in communication in college. What is the irony there? So, I mean, of course, it's going to be easy for us to figure this all out and how we know how to communicate and we got this all together. Not at all, y'all. Could nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, learning how to communicate with your spouse, it it's probably the same thing. So, for us, we needed to know how to communicate in marriage. Um, and sometimes we need to know how to do this. This is the only way we get to rocking chairs and beyond, guys. If we understand and learn how to communicate better. And so, um, this is another foundational building block in regards to how we have successful, healthy legacies and marriage of learning how to resolve conflict. So, I need you to be encouraged.

Please be encouraged when we say Kristen and I have been pushing up on 32 years of marriage, which is 131 years with music business years. It keeps getting longer, y'all. And listen, we still don't have it figured out. That's it. We're sharing with y'all. And we we haven't cracked the code completely. And what we do know is that many people um many of you here can be challenged. Uh because when conflict arises and and it's remember the Bible doesn't say if when the Bible says when, right? When conflict arises and we all are in marriage and we're speaking sometimes at different volumes and at different tones. Um, a lot of times you want to make sure your spouse is listening to what you have to say. Um, but you don't realize

that just because someone hears you doesn't mean they're listening to you. Come on, somebody missed that. Just because someone hears you doesn't mean they are listening to you. You can hear a song and not really listen to the words. That was uh uh the Michael Jackson uh mama say mama sama maku side. Somebody told me, he said, "I'mma say it one more time. I'm not going to stop." I was like, "What? What?" My whole life, a thousand% I thought it was mama say makus. Yeah. He may have said both, but you can hear a song and not really listen to the word. You can hear a sermon and not really listen to the message. You can you can hear a preacher and not listen to what God is saying. Uh oh.

Listen to me. journey. Hearing is what you do with your ears. Listening is what you do with your heart. Yeah, I'm gonna say that a little slower so you don't have to listen faster. Hearing is what you do with your ears. Listening is what you do with your heart. And in order to resolve conflict, some of you got to be able to listen with your hearts to determine if you just want to be right or if you want resolve. That's it. James chapter 1:es 19 and 20 says, "Understand this my dear brothers and sisters, you must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to get angry." Human anger does not produce the righteousness God desires.

Let's start with the things that do not help resolve conflict. And maybe you're saying, "I know how to resolve conflict. I got this. I got this." And if you are a sweet baby, I assure you maybe not. Um, there are seven don'ts that we talk about in our book. And some of these things they need to see, but some of these things you need to hear in a way uh that you're able to relate to them. And I assure you, one of these will resonate with you because every one of us does one of these things. And maybe we recognize it, maybe we don't. But this is one of the things uh for me that I did early on. Yeah. This this does not help resolve conflict. The first one is silence. Silence. This is called the silent treatment. Many times it's not what's said but what goes unsaid that speaks the loudest. We share in our book um that we had these

unrealistic expectations. Okay. Wait, wait. I had these unrealistic expectations that I never shared with him before. And when we have unrealistic expectations, we are trying to hold him accountable. And it's not real. Okay. Okay. I let me break it down. So, this is one of the things. So, like I don't know if it's too much TV or my unrealistic expectations, too much Disney. I'm not really sure what it is, but what was happening in the beginning um I had this unrealistic expectation. And so, let me share with you what it is so that I can uh let you into my world. My unrealistic expectation is when we first got married, what was going to happen is I was going to go to work. I was going to come home. I was going to make dinner. We were going to sit down and have dinner. We were going to talk about our day, look into each other's eyes, tell each other about the day, and sing kumbaya. I don't know, guys. I

don't know where I got this from, but in my mind, we were going to sit down to dinner every night, have dinner, and talk about our day. Only problem is I never shared that expectation with him. Okay, so here's what really happens. So, I go to work, I come home, I cook. Remember, I'm an acts of service person. Let's also talk about that. Mhm. So, my love language is acts of service. And so, here I am and I'm cooking up this meal and I'm showing you I love you and to sit at the table. Hamburger helper was like, "Bop." My hamburger helper game was unparalleled, y'all. Buddy. So, so we're sitting down. I I'm anticipate that we're going to sit down and talk about our day before we go to bed, right? Except for he doesn't come home.

I was in the recording studio. recording an album, y'all. So, my unrealistic expectation was that he was going to come home and we were going to sit down, but then not only does he not come home, okay, so then the next day, let's do it again because maybe tomorrow he's going to come home to do it, but then not only does he come he comes home, but he comes home with three of his buddies. It's not enough hamburger helper to go around. So, now we rationing, man. Hot. And I'm mad. I'm big mad, y'all. But I never said it. If I don't give him the expectation, how in the world will he meet the expectation? Yeah. And so, you know what? I did what any good wife should do. I start showing up for dinner. And so, conflict shows up in my place. That's what happened. But I'll tell you what what really happened is I said, "You know what? I'll fix this. No problem. I just I just won't cook anymore.

And we're not going to talk about it." And for two years, I didn't I didn't cook a meal. Not a breakfast, a lunch, or a dinner. Hold on, y'all. We're talking about silence for two years. The first two years of our marriage, she did not cook a meal. Like it became regular breakfast. Like we ordered so much food. Like just before Uber Eats, y'all, the the the first the first two years of our marriage, we could have bought a condo with the money, maybe a whole house. We spent we we we were eating down payment money. All right. Facts. And it's all because of silence because she never verbalized. This is an expectation for me. And so we want you

to know that the silent treatment is not good. No. For my girl Lupe who was here last night. Elento sencioso is no bueno. Okay. All right. Silence is no good. The second thing that's no good is something called shutting down. Oh man. Shutting down. Shutting down seeks to can take to take control of a situation. And here's what that may look like. Okay. Shutting down can look or sound like this. Um, I don't want to talk about this anymore. You going to do what you going to do anyway. So, what difference does what I think make? I'm done. I'm I'm done with this convers. We Oh, man. We know a guy that actually would say, "I'm shutting down right now. I'm shutting down right now." I like Okay.

Like like like I'm shutting down right now. I I can't deal with this right now. And and just understand if that's you, just look straight ahead. Don't blink. Just look straight ahead. Nobody's going nobody gonna know it's you. Guess what? Once your spouse shuts down, everything else after that, it sounds like Charlie Brown's teacher, right? M. And you can't hear anything that they're saying. Yeah. You don't want to shut down. The third thing or another thing that we do is something called storehousing. Storehousing. This is uh but we create a space in our heart for a fence to grow. Uh there say it again. Say it slower. What what storehouse? When we store house, we create a space in our heart for offense to grow. All these things that we store up of the

things they did, the things that that were offensive, the things that I'm so mad about. What I need you to understand is that you have to keep that storage place empty. There's an old gospel song that says um my storage is empty and I am available to you. Guess what? This is not that. This is not that. This is novail. Guess what? Storehousing your storage is unavailable. That means your heart is unavailable and it's hiding something under the rug. It's hiding the things and like I'm gonna put this in my pocket. I'm gonna put this in my pocket. Have you ever had kids and they put the things in their pocket? I don't know moms. like a frog and then like a coin. Yeah, this is that, right? So, this is all the things that you're putting in your pocket. And what happens is that when we store these things, we're hiding our feelings. We're not dealing with the

truth. We're not dealing with how we're feeling. And when we storehouse these emotions, it can take over and it can become an incredible challenge for our relationships. Yeah. You start keeping a record of wrongs is and the Bible addresses this very succinctly and it says 1 Corinthians 13:5, it says, "Love does not keep record of wrongs." That's right. So, listen y'all. What what Kristen is saying is that when you're starhousing, you're basically keeping score. That's it. Oh, he did this and this. Tally tally tally. Yeah. Tally tally tally. And and and if you're keeping score in your marriage, nobody wins. If you're keeping score in your marriage, nobody wins. In other words, what happens is, and we talked a little bit last night about, you know, when when you can't make the main thing the main thing, uh, if you're keeping score, it becomes, we're talking about this one thing. Yeah.

And then you go to another place and you're in 1976. Yeah. You really, this is the fourth time that you've done this. This is the 612th time you did that. You do this all the time. Yeah. When you keep score, that's a problem. Nobody wins. Another one is called stockpiling. Stockpiling. This is what you do with that storage space that you've created in your heart for that offense to to harvest. Um, and when you continue, and here's how you know that it's stockpiling. When you continue to get in the same arguments over and over again, seemingly circling around the same things, what's happening is you're building a war chest of offenses. Yeah. That the other person has committed against you.

got this uh uh this thought about what stockpiling looks like. Um y'all probably can get hot uh up here in in uh central Oregon. Um but it is nothing like the summers in Atlanta. It's called Hot Atlanta for a reason. Uh it's like a steam bath in the summer. It gets super super hot. And I can remember a couple of years ago, man. One day I got in my car and the stench almost killed me. There was something Yep. that was just gone really, really bad. And I'm looking in the side dashes. I'm figuring something had I thought maybe a squirrel or something had died, y'all.

Crawled into the engine. And death warmed over. It smells like 30,000 years of funk. Yeah. the funk of 40,000 years as Vincent Price would say. And listen, I tried everything, y'all. Uh, air freshener for breeze, new car smell, and and nothing worked. And I'm trying to figure out why does the car smell like this? Now, I realize it's not coming from the inside of the car. It was coming from the trunk. And so I go and I start unpacking all the stuff. There's blankets, there's car tire, there's all this stuff in the trunk. And I I dig into the trunk, man. Y'all, you feel me?

A tuna fish sandwich. Tuna fish, y'all. Why couldn't you? Had been left in a bag in the trunk of the car. Yeah. cooking in 113 degree Atlanta heat. And I realized that as this thing is cooking and basting and marinating and developing and growing in my trunk, this stanky sandwich that was in my car reminds me some of y'all are also carrying too much junk in your trunk. And I'm not talking about the junk that we can appreciate.

In other words, if you don't deal with the root of an issue. Yeah. Every additional thing that you keep placing on top of that, whatever the original thing was, those other things that are compiling on top of it causes this thing to rot. And you got to understand something. each additional thing you pile up on top of it, uh, it makes the in the entire thing rot and decay from the bottom up. Here's what I mean by that. With the stuff that goes on top of it, actions are going to happen to you. Yeah. From the outside in, but offense happens from the inside out out. And from that standpoint, either love or offense is going to be at the

core of how you interpret your spouse's reactions. Whatever they do, their responses, their reactions to everything, you're either going to respond in love or you are going to respond uh with offense. 1 Peter chapter 4:8 says, "Most important of all, continue to show deep love for each other, for love covers a multitude of sins." I'm going to cover a multitude of sins right here. Amen. Even when your spouse legitimately sins against you, your reaction to their action will either be rooted in love or it'll be either rooted in you covering them. It's either offense and you uncover them or love that covers a multitude of sins.

Yeah. I want to I want to say that again. Even when your spouse legitimately sins against you, that's it. Your reaction to their action will either be rooted in love to cover them. Yep. Or be rooted in offense to uncover to cover uncover them because love covers and offense uncovers. uncovers. That was one of the reasons why we said when it comes to uh the session we're going to have later where you are putting we wanted it to be anonymous and you not to put in details that would lead us to know who you are. Love covers offense uncovers. Yeah. And that's super important. I just want I need 30 seconds right there. Um love covers. Offense uncovers. And we've been in places and situations where someone will be like, "Okay, well, um, you know what?

If what if one spouse is more spiritual than the other and a public forum there and and that this is a husband and wife, they were in a you know, and I was like, yeah, what what if what if uh one of us in the marriage is more spiritual than the other and the other one doesn't spend time in the Lord and this or that?" And I'm like, in love. I'm like, you are uncovering you prideful peacock in your spouse. Don't do that. And that's why we said anonymously ask your question, but ask your question in a way that does not uncover your spouse. God will give you what you need. He'll give you the answer that you need, and he'll honor you for covering your spouse. Your spouse. All right. Suppressing. This is uh number five. Suppressing. Suppressing is what conflict goes unresolved. Things could happen and continue to happen instead of expressing how we feel. It's

the stuff that we stuff deep, deep, deep down inside. Deep deep inside. This is the um what I'll call like spiritual grenades. The stuff that you like stuff so deep down and then as it builds and builds and builds and then all of a sudden you explode over something that seems little, you didn't make the bed, you're like, "Oh, dear God." Is it really that serious? And and what it is is that's not the real issue. Yeah. And this leads to all kinds of issues. But really, when we get to this point where we are um suppressing things deep down, it can affect our intimacy. It can affect the way that we speak to one another. And what's being suppressed on the inside now it starts to manifest. I'm going to withhold on the on the outside. And and that babe leads to um those other cousins, not just

suppression, but oppression, depression, depression, all those things. They're like cousins. They all, you know what I'm saying? To come out and and they and they hang together. And I'll tell you this, this is personal for me because one of the things is is that over time when we suppress and suppress and suppress a thing, it can turn into something else. What do I mean? I'm going to give you a personal testimony here. Um, and this is a difficult one, but the reason I'm telling you this is because I need to in my vulnerability of telling you what these things are, I need you to see yourself and say, I don't want to get caught up in that. What do I mean? So remember there's a season where we are going through absolute utter hell. Um this is a season where um we have we call it the seven years of darkness. Um and it was that

u and it begins with he lost his record deal. He we lost a child. Um and that was a big deal. We didn't really know what to do with that and we didn't know how to process any of that. We uh we're in a series of losses, losses, losses. Um we end up filing bankruptcy in the middle of this. So it's thing after thing after thing. So what's happening is is that he's in a deep seed of depression. We literally Oh my god. Uh he is listening to Shade every day, all day. Dear God, love her. Also, there's a way to listen to Shade. Ah, I had not chosen the right way. It was like, yeah, but in that what happened is is that I kept taking on offenses of the things he

wasn't doing, the things he wasn't saying or the the issues that we were having. And so, as I began to suppress these things and internalize these things and I wasn't saying these things. And so, what would happen is is that um he didn't see me anymore. I became unavailable. I was physically unavailable. I was emotionally unavailable in our marriage. And I would do things like get dressed, look pretty, do my hair, and I would be like, "Hi, babe. Okay, I'm going to come and I'm going to go out and do this." He like, "Hey, okay." And then I'm I'm really trying to get his attention, right? So, I'm doing things to get his attention. I'm doing these things so that you can pay attention. And after a while and a series of a while and a series of a while and months, it it takes a toll. So he's in this season of um uh of this of this dark place. And so

now um here's the dangerous part. So I am still a manager. I am managing another client and um this is actually a a single man. He's a divorced man and he uh actually has his wife had left him and she had cheated on him. And so he had this uh story of that it was woe was me and he was an attractive man and all of those things. But I didn't really see that until I got to this season where I was longing for the attention and the affection of my husband except for he wasn't available. And so in the enemy's uh sovereign way, what he would do is this young man would say, "Oh man, if I was your husband, I wouldn't treat you like that. I wouldn't see you like that or I wouldn't not see you because you're too beautiful not to see. All of those

things seem flattering. They seem good in the moment, but the truth is that's the enemy's voice. And so I need you to see that this is the enemy's game. And so this particular thing led me to this particular thing. And I'll give you another context of that. We would have conversations and we would be talking on the phone. Of course, it was just as a client at first, but then over time as this door is open and now we have other conversations and we're having texts. Can I say you should not be having text conversations with another man or woman or woman that is if you're a married man or woman that are not covered. What do I mean? You must do that in the round. You must have accountability for that because if you don't, the things that are said can lead to other things. Here's the truth.

The lack of availability and the lack of uh responsibility on my part led me down a road that led me to a very deep and dark place. It wouldn't didn't allow him to start seeing this and then he would accuse me of having an affair. And the truth is at that point I wasn't having an actual affair or so I thought. But I was having an emotional affair because anytime that I'm giving my emotion or my thoughts or my love or my words of affection to somebody else other than my husband, that is an affair. I don't care if you're physically doing it, but if you are emotionally or spiritually making yourself available to somebody else who is not your spouse, that is an affair. In the Bible, it says the mere thought of. So, I was in the middle of affair that I didn't even recognize what it was. My emotional affair led me down the road of

a physical affair. And it was the thing that almost undid me. What do I mean? My heart posture as a prayer warrior, my uh heart posture as this is after we've resolved the infidelity on his half. Right now, I'm at a place of once this happens. When I say the enemy came in like a flood, I'm talking about he couldn't wait. This is the epitome or the visual I want you to see is the crouching lion at the door waiting. When that happened, the sin that came upon me and the guilt and the shame that overtook me almost took me out to the point that it made me bedridden and and in a depressive state to where I wanted to take my life. Now, I want you

to see that the drastic way that the enemy swung this pendulum all just because I didn't share what was going on in my heart. I didn't share what I was feeling. I didn't share how I felt neglected and that I didn't felt seen. But the truth is is that the enemy is a cunning adversary. Yeah. But God Yeah. Yeah. And listen you guys, this is this is a good point, a a good place to just just I'm I'm I'm shooting y'all 100 here in the room. Okay, y'all hear me? Okay, it's my Okay. Um, we share our personal story. We share our personal testimony to show you that God can turn failure into faithfulness.

Yeah, he can turn tragedy because this is tragic. He can turn tragedy into triumph. Now, why would why would she tell that story? Why why would I share with y'all that I was unfaithful to my wife? Why? Why would we share that with y'all? That's that's kind of personal. Why would we sh Why would she say Yeah. that she was involved in an affair, physical, emotional affair? Why Why would she share that with I'm I'm going to tell you why. Yeah. Because there are men and women here in this conference. Yeah. In this room, that are probably involved in extrammarital relationships, whether it be physical, whether it be emotional. And here's the here's the thing. We believe God wants to expose the enemy. Yes. For the liar that he is.

So that you can be free. You got to take yourself out of the equation and you got to be able to see that this is what the enemy desires to do. The enemy desires to steal, kill, and destroy. Some of y'all think that's one thing because you say it together. Oh, the enemy comes to steal, kill, and destroy. It's not. It's three things. Yeah. The enemy comes to steal. He wants to steal your intimacy. He wants to steal your relationship. He wants to steal your love. He wants to steal your trust. He wants to steal your marriage. But that's not good enough. After he steals it, I want to kill it. I want to kill

your intimacy. I want to kill your relationship. I want to kill your communication. I want to kill your marriage. And that's not good enough. I want to destroy it. I don't not only want to steal it and kill it. I want to make it as though it never ever existed. Your marriage never existed. Your relationship never existed. And so when you're dealing with the enemy that hates you that much, that wants to steal and kill and destroy everything that you have, you have to fight not each other, but you need to fight an enemy that is after what belongs to you so desperately. And so what we're doing, yeah, is we are presenting transparency, Yeah. before you. We are vulnerably sharing with you something called transparency.

There's a difference in being transparent and being naked. Everybody listen what we've been through. If we got if we got naked and told you every everything that we've been through, you could not handle that. That's it. You couldn't. And and and there's a reason. One, because nakedness, everybody can't handle your nakedness. That's right. Because people will abuse people who are naked. They will hold stuff against people who get naked. And so that's why God never asks us to get naked before you. He asked us to be transparent. Naked says, "I see you." Transparency says, "I see through you." That's it. And so what he's doing is he's allowing us to be transparent so you can see through us so that you can see yourselves. That's right.

In our story because you may be going down a dangerous path that you don't realize the danger. entertaining conversations, entertaining thoughts, entertaining texts, entertaining people on your work. Do you know that 50% of affairs happen because of a relationship at work? Because you spend most of your time there. That's your nineto-5. That's it. As opposed to your five to nine. And so this is why it's important. The reason we bring these things up and the reason I had no anticipation of this guys, under no circumstances could you have told me that I would have went down this road. Yeah. But because of the vulnerability of my heart, this is how I ended up in this way. But what I will tell you is is that God is a redeemer. Yeah.

He's a redeemer of broken things. And he arrested my heart and he told me that this was a lie and a trick of the enemy. Again, look at the strategy. Now I want you to see what a clown cake he is. Not me. The enemy is a clown. Enemy is a clown cake. My mom's second marriage, this man was so reflective of her second husband, it was creepy. In fact, what I would later figure out and find out after having conversations with her, the same tactic, doing the same thing. also a divorced man whose wife had cheated on, who had children, who flattered her and told her all the things. Again, it's just a cycle.

Whenever you want to know what the enemy's next move is, look at the cycle. Look at the strategy. Look at the pattern. And so, I had to come out of it and say, "Listen, Lord, I lay myself down and I repent of all of these things." And we were able to find healing and a restoration that only God could provide. But the only reason we share this with you is so that you don't fall into the same traps. Yeah. So I think we we got six and seven which is but 67 that's stupid. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. So dumb. So dumb. Uh six is selferving. And we're going to just we're going to go ahead and move past that. That's that's an important one too, but we'll we'll try and circle back around to that. We'll probably get to that individual sessions. Uh, and then subject hopping is number seven, which basically you're not now dealing with the the sickness at hand.

You're dealing with the symptoms of bouncing around because you've been keeping score. And from that standpoint, it's like, oh, but you did this and then two years ago, but when you did this, you did this. And so, you can't even remember what the actual challenge was because you are now subject hopping. Uh, but we we gave you a lot of what not to do. Yes. Now, we're going to give you the to-dos. Uh, and here's what you do need to do. Uh, in opposed to silence, you need to speak. That's it. You need to speak. Uh, the word of God tells us in Proverbs 15:1, "A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger." That's it. Um, kind words turn away wrath. You guys, it's imperative that when we speak to our spouse, even in the heat of the

moment, it's not in the heat of our temperament. Like in other words, if you have to wait to calm your My cousin would say, "Calm your little self down and it make me angrier." You know, calm calm your little self down. If you need to calm your little self down, if you need to to take a little time out to wait until the right time to effectively Wouldn't that make you mad for somebody say, "Hey, calm your little self down." Sorry, I'm getting mad right now telling myself to calm my little self down. one night. Uh, but in order to effectively communicate, um, we we have to be able to find the right time. But plea, please understand something, and I want to say this to my to my guys out there. Don't mistake silence for kindness. Amen. Meaning, you feel like because I'm being silent, because I'm not saying something, that's you being kind. That is not you being kind. Because our wives

need to communicate. I'm talking to my men. We got a lot more words than y'all. you got lots and lots of more words than what we have. And what happens is when we shut down and when we become silent and we just kind of we kind of brood and and we're withholding our communication. That's not kind, guys. And it's it's not the answer. Um number two, things we do need to do. Yeah. Surpass. Surpass. The definition of surpass means to exceed or go further or be greater than or go beyond. That requires us to press past our own threshold of where we would normally throw in the towel or shut down. Yeah. So, an intentionality to show our spouse that even in the midst of human frustration, God's faithfulness will be the mediator. This is something that we

had to learn to do early on in our marriage because we didn't know how to talk to each other. Okay? So, we didn't know how to to have conversations without it getting on level 12. Now our kids will never know that. Our kids never understood we in front of them. We don't fight. And so in their minds we don't fight. It's not true. We just don't do it in front of them. But what I will tell you is what we had to learn to do is what you can do and implement in order to be successful um in your marriage. We had to put a third stool in the room, a third chair in the room. Because what we learned is is that this third chair represents God sitting in the room. Okay? So if God is sitting here and we are sitting here and we're having conversation, um you're not going to say

any old kind of reckless things if God is sitting in the room, right? Okay. So just for clarity, this is God's son. Okay? So, put yourself in a father position and your father, as a father, you're sitting here and you're watching your daughter or your son have conversation. If the girl says something crazy to your son, you are going to come unhinged. Correct? As a father, they say something crazy to your kid, it's a wrap. So, I had to envision, listen, God sitting here so that when I want to say that reckless thing or I want to say something at a little bit too high a volume, I will temper myself cuz I'm not I'm not fitting to say it in front of my daddy.

Listen y'all, what what we're showing you is this is practical application. Yeah. Practical application is some of y'all don't know how to talk to each other, right? Facts. And because you don't know how to talk to each other, right? You can physically place a chair in the midst of your conversation as though God is in the room because he is. Because he is in the room. And then what this does is this is a reminder to me that before she is my wife, before she is the mother of our children, before she's a woman, she's his daughter. Amen.

That's it. And be and before This is his daughter guys. You can't talk to her any kind of way with with anger or with however it is that you feel like as her husband you have the ability to approach that. This is his daughter and I know how I am as a father when it comes to my daughters.

Yeah. But I'm going to talk any kind of way to his daughter. Nope. Not a chance. And here's the truth. Before he's my husband, before he's the father of my children, before he's the man of this house, he is his son. You're not going to disrespect my son. You are not going to talk any old kind of reckless way to my son. My son deserves honor. He deserves respect. And you will do so accordingly. You bet not. That's a whole word. You bet not talk to my son that way.

Practical application, not in a harmful way. Please, as couples, if y'all find yourselves tussling, not able to communicate well, bring in the mediator. Bring in the Holy Spirit and invite him into that tough conversation. Because when you invite him in, he's not going to barge in. He wants to be He's a gentleman. He wants to be invited in. He doesn't come where he's not invited. Even though you started that way. Remember when we were at the top of the altar yesterday and you stand before God and you take your vows before God and you invite God and you say we stand here before God and these people

and you invited him in that day. You need to invite him in every day. Yeah. Yeah. So, we're going to leave that chair there. Yeah, we are. Because it's as though God is in the room. Cuz he's in the room. Cuz he's in the room. Mhm. Uh number three is share. Instead of storehousing, you want to share your frustrations with each other. And that simply means instead of let's just get over it. Getting over it means it's still there. We got to get through it. You want to get over it. You want to get through it. I don't want to give this. It's a great example, but we we got to we got to keep it moving. Yeah. Um the fourth one is to submit. That's it. You need to submit. Now, this might be a cuss word to some of y'all. Submission. Submit. So, but you know what? Sometimes we've heard this word or heard it out of context. You got to submit to your husband. Listen, submitting is a superpower.

Yeah, it is. There's safety. There's safety in submission. 100%. If you cannot submit to a man you can see, how can you submit to a God that you cannot see? It's not possible. It is not possible. And what happens is that you have this incorrect version of what that's going to look like. And if you can't address your spouse in love and submit to them, then you're going to have an issue with what God is trying to tell you. There is power and safety in submission. When I learned to submit to him, there was a an authority and a power unlocked in me that I never even knew was available to me. Yeah. And one of the things that that comes along with submitting is that what she's saying is when you have something that you're navigating with your spouse, can you submit it to God first?

Facts before you go and try and work it out with your spouse directly. Like there could be some things that your spouse isn't even aware of that that they're doing or whatever. And so from that thing, um, when you're submitting this argument, when you're submitting this thought to God first, when you're doing that, you're inviting God to come in to help y'all navigate and I was talking to a young lady last night and I told her eight times out of 10 when I take that to the Lord, I was spoken to you. Eight times out of 10, um, when I am bringing it to the Lord, he's like, "That's you, Boo Bear. That's not even him. You think that's him. That's not him. that's on you. Let's handle that. Let's talk about it. And then that way I don't have to address it with him. And quite frankly, the other two I don't have to address with them either because once I've submitted it to the Lord, the Lord is

free because I've invited him in to deal with his heart. I trust the God in him to hear from the Holy Spirit. And when he does wrong, I don't have to say it. I don't have to say a word. Yeah. The Lord will jump all over it. He got it. I I would prefer you I would prefer just to deal with you than she get the Lord. Get him, God. It was him. Get him, Lord. No, just No, you you get me. Don't let God get me. You You get me. You don't want that smoke. Yeah. The next one, we'll we'll move, pastor. The next one is to surface instead of uh suppressing things. You want those things to surface so that you know what God can't heal what you won't reveal. So, you have to make sure that you allow those things over there. Say that again. Oh, God won't heal what you won't reveal. And basically if if we we got to release it to God by allowing it to

surface and we release it to God first before emotionally exploding on our spouse is basically what happens. Um this one is important uh and it's called spouse serving. Spouse serving. In all the years, yeah, that Kristen and I have done counseling, biblical guidance, speaking to couples, we have never we have never seen a marriage fail where both the husband and the wife were trying to outserve each other. Facts. We have never seen a marriage fail where the husband was trying to outserve the wife and the wife was trying to outserve the husband. We've seen one happen where the other one wasn't and the other one was taken advantage of.

But serving, spouse serving means you are placing your spouse's needs above your own. Above your own. Quick example of this and this is funny. I was with an Uber driver once and we were driving and he was just he just opened up to me and he's just sharing about his wife and you know I mean I made totally vomiting on it. Yeah. I made some bad choices in my marriage and his wife was feeling insecure you know that you know they had some different desired results in their marriage and everything and he's just going on and on and I said to him I said do you love your wife? He said yeah. I said do you want to save your marriage? He said, "Yes." I said, "Um, can you place your wife's happiness above your own?" And he said, "What do you mean?" And I said, "Let me be a little clearer." I said, "Are you willing to place your dreams?

Are you willing to place her dreams and her wishes and her desires above your own?" And he said, "What do you mean?" He says, "I don't I don't think I can do that." And I said, "Then you probably won't stay married." This could be your uber moment because God tells us that the greatest among you shall be the least among you. That's the word. Being great doesn't always mean being first. Say it again. That's why we open doors. That's why we pull out chairs. That's why as men, we're required to go first because

someone has to decrease in order for God to increase and listen because we take that role of decreasing in that space. What it does is it actually propels us in the relationship because God can do more with us when we are serving than when we are actually being served. That's a good word for somebody else. Remember his whole gig was he came to serve the people. That's why his disciples were so disturbed when he was washing their feet. Yeah. No, no, no, no, sir. I should be washing your feet. And he's like, "Calm down. I got it." Yeah. I'm want to serve you. Yeah. And instead of subject hopping, the last one is spotlighting. Meaning, as opposed to bouncing around, you got to shine a light on. Shine a light on

them. Shine. Listen, that's a very urban thing right there, but it's really cool. I wanted to share that with y'all. Shine a light, meaning to spotlight on something. You're able to not be caught in the hoopla of everything. You're able to really focus in on what the real issue is instead of jumping all over the place. Yeah. So, um, we have learned most people do not have issues communicating the victories and the positive things. The challenge is how to effectively communicate our disappointment. And um, that's done in a not hot time. Yeah. And done in a non-critical way. Like it's possible to critique your marriage to make it better as opposed to criticizing it uh and making it worse. And so um yeah, I think we we're out of time. We got to we'll have first of all, we're going to have to come back. Yeah. Woohoo.

We have to come back because and we'll start because this is there's a lot of stuff that's going on here. But um I want to make sure we stay stay on task right here. We stay on time and we just want you to know the communication skills are the cornerstone of our marriage and we learned everything that we're sharing with you the hard way. The hard way. All right. Don't learn the hard way. If there has been somebody who's been down the hard way, listen to them as they come back down that road and say, "Don't go down that road. There are wild screaming monkeys down that road that will tear your face off. Don't do it." Yeah. Don't be that guy. I have one daughter. Yeah. Don't be that. I like I like monkeys. Don't don't be that. Don't do that. Don't do that. Learn from others mistakes. Yeah. We're going to pray this session out. We're going to invite our pastors to come up. Uh let's bow our heads. Uh heavenly father, thank you so much.

Thank you for your goodness, for your mercy. Thank you for uh giving us tools to communicate better. We know we're not done today. Yes. Uh and Lord, I pray that laughter um will continue to be the the anesthesia that you use uh to do the surgery that you need to do. Uh so that our marriages would be something that honors you, something that is a reflection, yes, a father, son, holy spirit functioning properly here in the earth. Yes, we are grateful for the opportunity that these couples took the time to invest in their marriages. And we know it's not perfect. We know everything is not great. But God, we still trust you that because we are willing and because we're obedient that you will help us put in the work, work, work, work, work as we

put first things first and we position ourselves to not just talk to each other, but to talk with you. Yes. We pray these things in Jesus name. Amen. Aba.