Participants: Shelley Quinn (Host), Paul & Carolyn Rayne
Series Code: IAA
Program Code: IAA000225
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00:29 Hello, I'm Shelley Quinn, and welcome again to Issues
00:31 and Answers. Today our issue is going to be 00:35 how to have meaningful couple communication in a world 00:39 of disposable marriages. The Bible says in Proverbs 18:21 00:45 that there's the power of life and death in the tongue, 00:49 and we're going to be talking with a couple who are very 00:52 practical, they know how to put God's word into practice, 00:56 they're going to talk to us today about our communication 01:00 between spouses. I want to welcome again, 01:03 Carolyn and Paul Rayne. Thank you all so much 01:07 - for coming back. - Thank you for having us. 01:10 - Tell us about your ministry. - Restoration International 01:14 is a small family ministry up in the northwest corner of Montana. 01:18 We travel all over the US and around the world 01:20 giving camp meetings, and church seminars, community meetings, 01:26 all based on the practical "how tos" of putting 01:31 intellectual knowledge into real, everyday practice 01:35 so that we can be loving and loveable Christians. 01:39 This is true, my husband once told me that the word of God 01:42 needed to be practical, and at first I thought 01:45 "That doesn't sound right, it sounds like you're trying" 01:48 "to take something wonderful and spiritual and bring it down" 01:51 "to the mundane", but what God wants us to do, is Jesus said: 01:55 "Blessed is he who puts his word into practice", 01:59 so that's what it means to be practical, to put God's word 02:02 into practice. Now, on what basis do you 02:05 have the authority to talk to married couples? 02:07 How long have you all been married? 02:13 In fact, the first time we were speaking up front one man 02:15 came up to us and he says: "Are you 2 married?" 02:18 And we said: "Yeah, we've been married" 02:21 "for several years". He says: "You can't be older" 02:24 "than 15", [everyone laughs], but actually we've been married 02:27 18 years in a couple of months time, and the Lord 02:30 - has blessed us. - Yes He has, and you have 02:33 2 lovely children, Carolyn, tell us about them. 02:36 Hannah and Caleb are 9 and a half, and 7 and a half, 02:38 and they're real precious to our hearts. 02:41 I know they are. Before we came on the air 02:44 you were talking about the first time that you ever communicated 02:48 with one another, why don't you share that with us Carolyn. 02:52 Well, I was 24 and I had been raised a Christian, but I had 02:58 walked away from the Lord, and now I had found the Lord again 03:01 and I started going to a different church, people were 03:04 encouraging me: "There's a lot of young people in this church" 03:06 "and you'd really like to go there". 03:09 And finally I decided I would go and we had a discussion group 03:12 in the church, a Sabbath school class, and a young man 03:15 in the group there - handsome looking young man - I'd never 03:17 seen before, started to say how the topic for this week 03:21 was really very uninteresting to him and he'd got 03:24 absolutely nothing from it. Well, on the contrary, 03:27 I had found it such a blessing, I wish I could remember 03:30 what the subject was, this is some 18 years ago, 03:33 I can't remember what it was, but I know it meant 03:36 an awful lot to me that week. So I said: "I don't agree," 03:39 "it was fantastic", and I went on to share whatever it meant 03:41 to me. That was our first ever 03:44 communication: an argument across a Sabbath school class. 03:47 Well it went on because like my wife said, 03:51 sometimes you just read something and for whatever 03:54 reason, it just didn't sink in. And there was this young girl 03:58 across and she got something out of it, and I said: 04:01 "You couldn't have done", I was out of turn for sure, 04:05 but the thing was that the group leader also didn't get 04:09 anything out of it that week, so he was kind of egging 04:12 me on, and I was egging him on, and then comes along 04:15 this young girl who said she did, so I wanted to find out 04:18 straight away what makes her tick. 04:21 So over the years you started off with a good argument, 04:25 which is something many couples do, [everyone laughs], 04:29 and some not till after they've married, but over the years 04:32 you have learned some effective tools to make communication 04:38 between you as husband and wife more enjoyable, 04:44 shall I say, what are some of those tools? 04:49 We have shared both from the pulpit at our camp meetings 04:54 and in churches many times the need to priorities our time. 04:59 When it comes to couple communication it's another thing 05:03 that's so easy to get crowded out. 05:07 For Carolyn and I, if we did not set a time, and that's the point 05:12 I want to make, if we did not set a time to have 05:14 some couple communication, we really probably wouldn't 05:17 have any because she's a busy mom, I'm a busy dad, 05:21 we both work for a ministry, there's always 100 things 05:25 that won't get done, never mind the things that need to be done, 05:29 so if we didn't carve out the time from somewhere in our day, 05:33 I'm quite sure our communication would be something like: 05:37 "Did you pay the bills?" "Did you pay these?" 05:39 Or "Oh no, the car's got no gas in it, didn't you put any" 05:43 "gas in it?" I think that would be the extent 05:46 of our communication, but we are learning, we haven't arrived, 05:50 but we are learning that if we can set a time, 05:53 that's going to be different for different people, 05:55 for us, we like to have "walkie- talkie time", which is just 05:59 walking up the road together, chattering away, 06:03 we live out in the country, so we walk up a gravel road 06:06 and I talk on the way up because my wife gets out of breath, 06:10 and then we're out in the middle of nowhere, so we'll have a kiss 06:12 at the end and then we shall turn around and Carolyn 06:15 chit-chats on the way down, but that's just part way 06:18 through the day. Of course, I work from home, 06:20 but even if you don't work from home, there's always 06:23 a phone nearby if your wife's at work or at home, 06:26 you can just call up and check in, say: "How's it going today?" 06:29 "What are you up to?" and share backwards and forwards, 06:32 just have some couple communication that keeps you 06:36 - connected to each other. - But the key to this time 06:40 is it won't happen unless you make it happen. 06:42 So you actually schedule this time? 06:45 We actually schedule this time, and it's never convenient. 06:48 I'm a homeschool mother, so I'll be schooling my children 06:51 and I know they need to get such and such done, 06:54 but we need to have our talk time. 06:57 It's like: "Lord, I've given all the instruction I can give," 06:59 "now let them continue whilst we have our talk time. " 07:02 But it's never convenient, so you have to make a decision: 07:05 this is a priority, this is something that we need to do. 07:08 At first when you haven't done it, you don't recognize 07:10 the need, but when you start having this communication 07:13 time on a regular basis, suddenly you can't live 07:16 - without it. - It might different for 07:18 different couples, we've gone through several options on this. 07:23 For a long time it was during the middle of the day, 07:26 we would just take half an hour out and just walk up 07:29 our gravel road like I said, more recently we've been 07:31 involved in some other projects that haven't made that possible, 07:35 so pillow talk is what's been a great communication time 07:39 for us. Once we're in bed and our heads 07:41 are on the pillow, we just start talking, start processing, 07:45 - start communicating. - Or as we did on the way here, 07:48 just in the airport, it's an ideal time to communicate 07:52 and we had some really good communication time on the way 07:55 - here in the airport. - So sometimes, you're saying, 07:59 you have to snatch that time wherever you can... 08:02 - ... That's right, improvise. - ... and improvise, and other 08:05 times you're scheduling that time. 08:07 I know that if I tried to schedule pillow talk with 08:10 my husband I'd be talking to myself. 08:13 Well we can relate because my wife has requested pillow talk 08:16 for a long time and I have said: "Sweetie, as soon as my head" 08:21 "touches the pillow, it sends a signal to my brain" 08:24 "that sends a signal to the rest of my body" 08:27 "that says: 'Shut down' ", and I'm normally gone 08:29 within 2 minutes of touching the pillow, but since we couldn't 08:34 take that time in the middle of the day, which is more 08:37 normal because we're in a build project at the moment, 08:40 because we've had that time, I find now that even though 08:44 I'm tired, there's things I want to communicate because we're 08:46 so used to communicating. There was some prayer in there 08:51 as well because actually the turning point was, 08:55 I like to close my eyes as soon as my head touched the pillow, 08:59 but we were at one of our family camp meetings, 09:02 I must share this with you, and the room we were staying in 09:05 had no windows, so when you shut the lights off 09:08 it was pitch black. This was the turning point 09:10 in our pillow talk because I could talk to Carolyn with my 09:13 eyes closed. She normally doesn't like that, 09:16 - she likes to have eye contact. - You can't talk to eyelids, 09:19 - I've got to see eye balls. - But now I had my eyes closed, 09:21 she couldn't see me because it was pitch black, 09:24 and we had good communication. 09:26 And I didn't know his eyes were closed. 09:29 So first option would be to schedule a time. 09:32 Maybe it's just one evening a week where you go out 09:35 on a date night, or whatever, maybe it's a lunch time 09:39 whilst you have a chance to talk on the cell phone, 09:43 maybe it's just every Thursday and Tuesday evening 09:45 for an hour. Whatever works, but set a time, 09:48 I wouldn't encourage people to try and snatch the time 09:51 because usually unless you've had scheduled time for 09:56 a long time, when you try to snatch time it gets 09:58 snatched from you, and it never really takes off. 10:01 Okay, so scheduling time is important, but there's 10:04 also communications skills. J.D. and I used to teach 10:08 a communications course and when we started this it did improve 10:12 our communication, but men and women do speak very 10:15 differently and relate very differently, one thing that we 10:18 learned is that listening is the most important communication 10:23 skill there is. So let me address this to you 10:26 Paul, because I have found that men have a tendency, 10:30 evidently, because many women tell me this, I'm counseling 10:34 with them, that men seem to listen in a sense 10:40 that they're only half way there, how do you teach people, 10:43 especially if you're talking to a male, a husband, 10:46 how do you teach them to really be active listeners? 10:51 Well, I think most of our viewers, or some of our 10:53 viewers will know the Bible verse: "Let every man be" 10:57 "swift to hear and slow to speak", that's James 1:19. 11:02 "Swift to hear", I think often times why us men, 11:06 and I certainly put myself in this category, why we don't 11:09 tune in entirely is for some reason we think we know what 11:15 our wife or our spouse is going to say. So if we know already, 11:19 it's almost like: "Yeah, yeah, yeah, just say it", 11:23 and you pointed out that the ladies, and this is fairly 11:28 generic from the counseling that we've done, tend to use 11:31 more words than the men. So my wife might speak 11:37 for 5 minutes and saying the same thing 2 or 3 times, 11:41 and then at the end I'll say something like: "So you don't" 11:44 "want to go?", and sum it all up in half a sentence, 11:48 and she says: "Yes, you got it, that's exactly it. " 11:50 But for me as a man, it's a conscious choice not 11:56 to tune out, listen to what she is trying to say, 12:00 and it takes almost a superhuman effort, it's really 12:03 the Holy Spirit to, what I say, zip the lip: 12:09 not to say anything; let her get out what she's trying 12:14 to say. Often time, when my wife 12:16 and I communicate on those more delicate, those more difficult 12:19 things, it's not until she's getting near the end 12:22 that the penny will drop for me. 12:26 Explain what you mean, that's an English term. 12:30 When it just starts to dawn on me what she's saying. 12:34 I remember one time Carolyn was talking and I was saying it, 12:37 but in my mind I wasn't saying it: "Yeah, yeah, I know what" 12:40 "you're saying", and then it got to the point where I just 12:44 started finishing her sentence, and she said: 12:49 "That wasn't what I was going to say at all", and it was 12:51 a real wake up call to me, "Oh, that's not what" 12:54 "you were going to say? Okay, well I'll be quiet" 12:57 "and I'm going to listen more carefully because I was" 13:00 "fairly sure I knew where you were going with this", 13:03 and it wasn't at all. Then when I listened, 13:06 I finally realized so often we think we know what they're 13:09 going to say, but we're just not listening, so listening 13:11 is a key point, and that takes self control. 13:15 I find that many of the simple things that we call upon, 13:19 the congregations that we speak to to put into practice, 13:22 like "Husbands, listen to your wives", "Oh, okay. " 13:27 It takes earnest prayer, it takes the Lord's power 13:31 for this man to be quiet, not to tune out, not to 13:35 [sighs] "come on sweetie... ", it takes the Lord's power 13:41 to say "okay sweetie, I'm still not getting it, can you just" 13:45 "say it one more time", with a real desire to understand 13:49 her, and she loves it when I do that. 13:51 Well, because I know that he really wants to know 13:54 then your mind opens up, but there's also 13:58 the opposite of that when you feel like he doesn't really 14:01 want to hear it, he just kind of closes off. 14:03 - And then you use more words. - Yeah, then you jut go blank 14:06 and you come out with a load of other stuff, and you know 14:09 you're not getting it across, and they know you're not, 14:12 so that sensitivity on both sides, but particularly from 14:15 the guy to the girl, to be listening not just to what 14:18 she is saying, but what she can't verbalize, what she 14:22 isn't saying, but deep down they can tell. 14:25 I know this is frustrating for a lot of men because they're 14:27 not used to talk about feelings and all this, which women do. 14:32 On the other hand, I often counsel with women and say: 14:35 "Sometimes when you're speaking with your husband," 14:37 "just give him the bullet points, just give him" 14:40 "the outline and if he wants more detail, he'll ask. " 14:43 Now, of course, if it's important that he does 14:46 understand then it takes that superhuman strength 14:49 and the Lord setting a guard at the door post of your lips. 14:53 But what happens when the 2 of you have a disagreement 14:59 because so many couples do talk on a superficial level, 15:06 they're almost fearful of trying to explore one another's 15:09 feelings, and when they do start to talk on anything 15:13 beyond the superficial level they'll find they're disagreeing 15:16 What do you teach to help couples through their 15:19 - disagreements? - Well let me share an example 15:23 that happened to us not so long ago; we travel a lot 15:26 in our ministry, so Minneapolis, Saint Paul, has become 15:31 a place that we know quite well and this one particular day 15:37 as I was booking the air tickets, it became very evident 15:40 to me that we were going to end up with a 5 hour lay over 15:43 in Minneapolis, so I said to my wife, normally it's 15:47 a couple of hours, if it's a couple of hours we just 15:50 stay at the airport, but here 5 hours is a long time 15:53 to sit at the airport. I said: "Why don't we go" 15:56 "to the Mall of America?" You get the shuttle over there 15:59 and you're there in just 15 minutes. 16:02 For those of our viewers who aren't familiar there, 16:05 there's shops, stores, around the outside, and then 16:08 in the center is a big theme park. 16:14 This is something very important in couple 16:16 communication that a lot of your past tends to start 16:22 coming up, so I was brought up as a non-Christian, 16:26 didn't even know the Lord till the age of 21. 16:30 My wife on the other hand was brought up in a very 16:32 conservative Christian home. So immediately you can tell 16:36 there's some big differences. So when we've got our 16:40 little Hannah and Caleb, I realize we're going to the Mall 16:43 of America, I think: "Wouldn't it be fun to take them" 16:46 "on the bumper cars, and on some of those rides" 16:49 "just like I did when I was a child. " 16:52 That's what brought me happiness as a child, and we tend 16:54 to try and relive that for our children. 16:56 So I said to Carolyn, "You know, we're going to have" 17:00 "5 hours in Minneapolis, why don't we go to the Mall" 17:02 "of America and take the children on some" 17:05 "of those rides?" 17:07 Well, I'll let Carolyn pick up the story at this point. 17:10 And I said: "Why would we want to take the children there?" 17:13 And he looked at me really confused, like "what's the big" 17:16 "problem?", and I said, "where are the principles in it?" 17:18 This is the point we want to make, so right at that point 17:21 it's very evident we're heading for a disagreement. 17:25 I see nothing wrong with it, I had lots of enthusiasm 17:28 as the thought dawned upon me, and as soon as I bring it up 17:31 to Carolyn, it starts to die. So for men this is a pivotal 17:37 point, at this point I can dig in my heels, I can let 17:43 my desires, "self" we call it, I can let my thoughts, 17:47 and my feelings come to the surface and say: 17:50 "don't poohoo that, it'll be great for them" and we can 17:53 steam roller the idea through, what's that going to do 17:57 to my wife? So what the Lord is teaching us 18:01 to do is in disagreement to stop right there, 18:06 not for me to start bolstering up my side of the equation 18:10 and for Carolyn to start bolstering up her side 18:13 of the equation, but to let God have a say in the matter. 18:19 So it's not how I was brought up that's right, and it's not 18:22 how she was brought up that is right because if you've got 18:25 2 Christians that are growing up, that can get pretty sticky. 18:29 So right at that point I said to Carolyn: "so what are" 18:33 "the principles involved here?", I think actually you said that, 18:36 "what are the principles involved here?" 18:39 can you remember some of the things you said? 18:42 You said to me: "What principles are there that would stop us" 18:45 "doing that?" I said: "Well, in Philippians" 18:48 "about what sort of things are pure, true, honest," 18:50 "lovely, a good [rapport], is this environment going to be" 18:53 "an environment that will conjure that in the hearts" 18:55 "of our children?", and he's like "hmmm, what else?" 19:00 I remember one thing you said was that, we live in 19:02 the countryside, we'd made a deliberate choice to move out 19:05 from the city and live in a quiet place because we 19:09 read in a book one time the more quiet and simple the life, 19:12 the more free from artificial excitement and stimulation, 19:16 the more conducive it will be to an interest in 19:18 the Scriptures and a spiritual walk; and we have found that 19:22 to be the case. But my wife brought that 19:27 principle up right then, I thought: "the more quiet" 19:32 "and simple the life, hmmm, the more free from artificial" 19:35 "excitement", I thought "that place is all artificial" 19:39 "excitement", the people screaming on the roller coaster 19:42 and the different things. Not that we're necessarily 19:46 speaking against those things, but what we're trying to do 19:49 is to show at a point in communication where we are 19:52 in disagreement to let the principles that we do agree on 19:56 bear sway and make the final decision. 19:59 So, as we talked about that a little more we thought: 20:03 "Well, maybe that isn't what we really want for our family", 20:08 and for me, I found out part way through that conversation 20:12 that it wasn't really Hannah and Caleb, our 2 children, 20:16 that my desires were centered around, it was me wanting 20:20 to live a bit of the past. So it was a little struggle 20:25 in my heart, but I said: "Lord, if we are going to be" 20:29 "unified in our marriage, then we have to let You be" 20:32 "the one that unites us. " So I can't just hold on 20:35 to my will, so I was willing to say: "Okay sweetie, we'll let" 20:39 "that one go, that was a dumb idea", and that was 20:43 the end of it. And it really was the end of it 20:45 in my heart, I was back there a couple of weeks later 20:49 on my own this time, or actually with my colleague, 20:52 and there was no pull in there to go and do that 20:55 because I knew it was something we'd decided as a family. 20:58 So let God's word, let principles that you've 21:01 agreed on be the deciding factor. 21:04 Amen. 21:05 You know, often what happens in marriages is if couples 21:10 are disagreeing and they can't have a meeting of the minds, 21:16 what they will do, the wife will go and she gets on the phone 21:20 with her best friend, and she's talking about her husband, 21:25 and the husband may go to his friends, and his buddies 21:27 and be talking with them about the wife and their problems. 21:32 Do you see a danger in that? 21:34 Definitely. There is a big danger. 21:37 Around each couple and around each family, the Lord has put 21:40 a sacred circle that should not be broken. 21:44 So I don't need to go to my best friend and tell her all 21:46 the negatives about my husband because by doing that 21:50 not only am I breaking confidences that should be 21:53 between he and I, but it actually builds up in your own 21:56 mind even bigger the negatives that you share about 22:00 - your husband. - Specially if you have a friend 22:02 who's saying: "That's awful" and they're agree with you. 22:06 Absolutely, and now next time you see him it's even worse 22:09 than before you shared it with her, so it's doing no good 22:12 except pouring the negative. So we've committed to each other 22:14 that we won't go there, and we will not do that, 22:17 we will keep it between the 2 of us, and then instead of her, 22:21 my best friend who I dump all my negatives about my husband, 22:25 my husband becomes my very best friend. 22:28 We can talk together freely and vulnerably about our weaknesses 22:33 and each other's weaknesses. Now you may ask, 22:35 some people will say: "Well, but happens if my marriage" 22:38 "is falling apart? Does that mean this sacred" 22:41 "circle means I can never go outside of that marriage?" 22:45 No, it doesn't mean that, and if your sacred circle 22:47 is about to fall apart permanently, and you know that, 22:51 then you best go outside of that circle and seek counsel 22:55 to restore that circle. So we're not saying 22:57 there's never a time when you step outside of there. 23:00 That stepping out of the circle would be for a very specific 23:04 reason and that is to get some counsel to hold the sacred 23:08 circle together, not just to dump a load of woes 23:13 and frustrations on the first person that happens to come by. 23:19 Would it be safe to say that, as far as the sacred circle 23:22 is concerned, that you should step out of that any time 23:27 something that violates the Scriptures is happening 23:30 in your life? For example, if a husband 23:33 is forcing a wife to do something that is against 23:37 the Bible, she should seek counsel as to how to deal 23:40 with this, because I agree with you, I think that couples 23:43 should be very careful about what they're sharing. 23:45 At the same time, I don't want to give the impression 23:47 that you're a prisoner in here because there are times 23:53 when people get trapped in some type of an abusive relationship 23:57 or controlling and manipulating relationship, so then it would 24:01 be safe to step outside and get the counsel. 24:04 But not just for the gossipy "I just want to offload" 24:07 "my frustrations about him", they need to be dealt with 24:10 here so that you're sharing them with each other, not with 24:13 another, but if it turns into that kind of a situation 24:16 then yes, the counseling, you need that. 24:19 I think we would all know in a situation "why do I feel this" 24:24 "need to talk outside of the sacred circle?" 24:27 And if the "why" is just a frustration: "I've just got to" 24:31 "tell somebody", then that's the time to take it to 24:35 the Lord and fall on the Rock and be broken, 24:38 but if it's "If I don't do anything it's just getting" 24:41 "worse and worse", then give 3ABN a call, give Restoration 24:46 International a call. There's people waiting to help 24:49 - in those situations. - Our time is passing 24:52 so quickly, let's get to a few other things. 24:54 What are some communication stoppers among couples? 24:58 [Paul laughs] Well, we've talked about setting a time, 25:01 if you never set a time then that's the first communication 25:03 stopper because it never got going, but I know 25:06 for my wife, why don't you talk about body language? 25:09 Because we've talked about this quite a bit amongst 25:12 - ourselves. - Body language is a big thing 25:15 for me, so when I walk into his office and I've got 25:17 something really pressing on my heart, and I just say 25:20 "Sweetie, can I talk to you for a minute?" 25:22 And I get the back of his head and I know he's still doing 25:25 this, it's a killer for me. So I'll say: "Sweetie, can you" 25:28 "just turn around?" And he'll say: "No, it's okay," 25:31 "I'm listening", and that right there is the biggest 25:34 - communication stopper. - Now I've got to speak 25:36 to the guys at this point because I work in an office 25:39 with other people and we communicate all day back to back 25:43 and it took me a long time to realize: "How come I can talk" 25:47 "to my colleagues in the office without eye contact," 25:51 "but as soon as my wife comes in the office, she wants" 25:53 "eye contact?" And I realized as I prayed 25:56 about it that what we're talking about in the marriage 25:58 relationship is often of a deeper nature than is: 26:03 "Did you email such and such?" "Did we get that out?" 26:06 "It needed to go out today. " That's a completely different 26:10 level of communication to husband wife communication, 26:13 so whilst eye contact might not be so important for the man, 26:20 if it is for your wife then it's important, I'm learning that. 26:26 Well, why don't you, Paul, just look into our camera 26:29 in the minute that we have left, and share from your heart, 26:34 summarize what we're talking about today. 26:38 I'm a guy, I'm a man, so I tend to find myself speaking 26:42 to the men, and if you have a wife or a girlfriend 26:47 in your life, what she wants even more than flowers, 26:54 even more than dinner at a favorite restaurant, 26:59 what she really wants is you, and your attention. 27:04 She wants some of your undivided attention, so if you take 27:08 her out for a meal, or if you just sit her on the couch 27:11 and you say: "Sweetie, is there anything you want" 27:14 "to talk about?" You will find that she opens up 27:18 like a rose. Carolyn and I have found 27:21 in our marriage that the more we communicate, the deeper 27:25 we communicate, the more we are drawn to one another. 27:30 There's a depth to marriage that doesn't come from just 27:34 social relations, and going from this place to that place. 27:37 It's really as we venture off of normal ground in our 27:41 conversation and we become more intimate that we find 27:45 a real joy in reaching each other's hearts and drawing 27:50 - closer to the Lord. - Thanks so much for sharing 27:52 and thank you for joining us. |
Revised 2014-12-17