Participants: J.D. Quinn (Host), Mike and Gayle Tucker
Series Code: IAA
Program Code: IAA000264
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00:30 I'm J. D. Quinn with Issues and Answers.
00:32 Welcome. We have a wonderful 00:34 topic that we're going to be 00:35 sharing today and that is 00:37 communication in marriage. 00:39 I like to start it off with a scripture and I'm taking our 00:42 scripture today from 1 John 1:7: But if we walk in the light as 00:48 he is in the light we have fellowship with one another 00:52 and the blood of Jesus his Son purifies us from all sin. 00:56 Wonderful text. I am so glad to be able to share this time with 01:01 Pastor Mike and Pastor Gayle Tucker from Arlington, Texas. 01:06 I know that y'all have a large church there. How large is the 01:10 church? About 1800 members. 01:11 1800 members! My goodness! And not only do you man that church, 01:16 but you also are speaker and director for Faith for Today, 01:21 Right? That's right. Faith for Today. 01:23 God has really blessed that ministry and it's 57 year old 01:26 and still growing. My goodness. So you picked up a 01:30 long-time tradition. Oh absolutely. And you love it? 01:33 I love it to death. I stand on the shoulders of William and 01:36 Virginia Fagal and Dan Matthews and it's kind of hard to go 01:39 wrong from there, isn't it? 01:40 I'll say. And exactly what do you do, Gayle? 01:43 I am an associate pastor at the Arlington Adventist Church in 01:47 Arlington, Texas and I take care 01:50 of worship and music and 01:52 women's ministries and children; 01:54 kind of whatever anybody else 01:56 doesn't do is part of my job 01:58 description. So not only are you a pastor's 02:00 wife but you are also a credentialed pastor which is 02:04 absolutely wonderful. I am. It's been a blessing. 02:07 We're also blessed to have a really wonderful staff of 02:11 pastors at the church and they work hard and it just works 02:15 together. We're going to get right into 02:18 our topic today: Communication in Marriage. 02:22 There's communication and there is noncommunication. Now I think 02:26 that we may be trying to go into this left-handed today. We're 02:30 going to talk about maybe the negative aspects, so this means 02:34 that if we can identify with any of these particular traits then 02:38 we're doing something wrong. Is that right? 02:40 You need to take note. Yeah. The good news is that if indeed 02:43 you have a negative communication trait this is a 02:45 dynamic factor; it can change. We have static factors that 02:48 affect our marriage, things that you cannot change and we have 02:52 dynamic factors. Static factors would be such as the 02:56 socio-economic level of your parents. You couldn't affect 02:59 that. Whether or not your parents stayed together or 03:01 whether they were divorced. That affects your current marriage. 03:04 Those are static factors. You can't do anything about it but 03:07 communication cycles and patterns are dynamic factors and 03:10 we can change those. We present this material when 03:16 we do marriage seminars and they say well coming to a marriage 03:19 seminar, why shouldn't you just give us the positive. What are 03:22 the good things that we ought to do? Why do we want to look at 03:25 negatives. But the truth is in America we get married a lot 03:28 you know, but we don't do marriage very well. 03:31 The University of Denver was looking at that fact years ago 03:36 and they decided that they would do a study and they would try to 03:40 find the things that were good in marriages that stayed 03:43 together. Because their thought was if we can determine what 03:46 keeps a marriage together, then we could provide education 03:50 to people and hopefully prevent some of the divorces that happen 03:53 in America. And that makes sense Yes that makes sense. But what 03:56 they discovered was something very different than that 03:59 because when they look at the marriages that stayed together 04:03 over this 20-year study, they didn't look alike at all. There 04:07 were many different reasons why marriages succeed. But what they 04:11 found was that in marriages that failed there were some very, 04:15 very strong common denominators and they were all about 04:18 communication and these negative communication patterns that they 04:23 identified existed in nearly every marriage that failed. 04:27 So they became strong predictors for failure in marriage. 04:30 The other thing about it is that these communication patterns are 04:34 passed down to following generations, to your children 04:39 and so if these communication patterns are predictors for 04:43 divorce then in your passing those to your children, what are 04:47 you doing? You are helping to ensure that they are going to 04:51 end up in a bad situation, in a possible divorce situation. 04:54 So we think it's worth looking at them. 04:57 Also if you have one of these negative communication patterns 05:01 in your relationship and you remove that from the 05:03 relationship, you do more to ensure the long-term stability 05:07 of your marriage than adding five positive things. So these 05:11 are very powerful tools, they are. Drs. Stanley and Marcum 05:14 are two of the leaders of the research there at the University 05:17 of Denver and they've come up with these. Would you like to 05:20 know what they are? My goodness, yes. There's four 05:22 of them? Four. Four negative patterns. 05:24 The first of these negative patterns is called escalation. 05:27 Escalation occurs when an argument starts perhaps over 05:30 something small and builds. It increases in intensity and 05:34 negativity until you're leaving socks on the floor ends up with 05:38 I'm leaving you. It can start small and then build to 05:41 something louder and increased in negativity and ugliness until 05:45 it looks something like this. We'll just role-play this for 05:47 you, if that's all right. Well certainly. All right it may look 05:51 like this. You know you left those dishes in the sink again 05:54 when I asked you to put them on the side so I can use the 05:57 sink. Well, yeah, but I thought the 05:58 sink would be a better choice than the floor where the kids 06:00 left them. Pardon me but I thought that was a better 06:02 choice. Yes but I specifically asked you 06:04 to do something and you did something different after you 06:07 said you would do it. Floor, sink, floor, sink, it 06:11 sounds like a good idea to me. I'm sorry but I think that this 06:13 is better Miss Cleanliness is next to Godliness. 06:15 Oh that's good. Let's do name calling now, I like that. 06:17 Well okay we can go back and forth with this if you like. 06:20 I don't know why I stay around here. 06:21 Well I'm not sure either. 06:22 You see that? Mercy! So it starts over something small and 06:26 builds and increases in intensity and negativity until 06:31 we're calling each other names, we're yelling at each other. 06:34 The issue is dishes on the floor versus the sink and/or the 06:37 counter and all of a sudden we're calling each other names. 06:41 A lot of arguments will start this way. Successful couples 06:44 recognize their propensity to do this and they exit this early in 06:48 the first 30 to 180 seconds. They have to recognize, all 06:52 right we do this and then they have to exit early. So in other 06:55 words if I noticed that we're starting to do this then my job 06:59 would be to soften my tone and to become conciliatory and say 07:03 you know maybe I'm over reacting here or maybe we need to talk 07:06 about this further at a later time when we're not so emotional 07:10 and then she is to pick up on that verbal clue and say you 07:14 know you're right. Let's wait and talk about it sometime later 07:18 and maybe set an appointment when we talk about it. 07:21 So it's important that you identify this together and 07:24 realize you know what, we do this and we want to stop it. 07:26 Because it's hard just because someone gets a little softer in 07:30 their tone, if you're angry already that may not help, but 07:33 if you've agreed ahead of time then maybe you can stop. 07:36 This is how to get out of this and move on. 07:37 And this is not a situation you can turn around and send them 07:42 to their room. No. Exactly. So when do you agree on this as 07:46 a couple? You can do that right now and 07:50 say you know, we tend to do this Let's stop this because we're 07:53 killing each other by doing this. The first one who notices 07:57 we do this become conciliatory, soften your tone, I'll try to 08:00 match that tone and then we'll bring it up at a later time and 08:03 try to talk about it in a civil manner when we're not so 08:07 emotional. And this is called escalation? That's one of the 08:10 four negative traits. That's right. The second one. 08:12 The second one is called invalidation. Invalidation is 08:16 where one in the couple either subtly or directly puts down the 08:21 other person; puts down their thoughts, their feelings or 08:24 their character and just basically says, I don't value 08:28 you. The thing that's difficult about this is that it happens in 08:32 many different ways. It can be very, very direct where it goes 08:36 to name calling, you know, you're just stupid, you never 08:39 get it right, all kinds of things like that or it can be 08:42 much more subtle. One of the 08:46 ways that women tend to 08:47 invalidate men is by acting like their husband has no sense, 08:51 particularly when it comes to things like maybe the children. 08:55 There was a situation where there were some of us moms 09:00 when I was a young mom and we we're all going to have a moms' 09:04 night out and the guys were going to take care of the 09:07 children. So all the guys came to the church to pick up the 09:10 kids because we all had them there as a meeting place and 09:14 the father came in and he was taking the kids away and this 09:19 mom right as he walked out the door, she's giving him 09:22 instructions all the way like... 09:24 Have them eat supper. Cake and ice cream is not good supper. 09:26 I know that sweetheart, we'll take care of it, you know. 09:29 Then the last think she says is oh and don't let them get run 09:32 over. Glad she mentioned that because 09:35 he never would have thought of that. 09:38 There are subtle ways of invalidating: interrupting. 09:44 We go out to eat with a couple and I start to tell a story. 09:47 I say, you know last week you wouldn't believe what happened.. 09:50 It was Tuesday actually when this happened, it was Tuesday. 09:52 Oh it was Tuesday. Well we were going to the mall and as we were 09:56 walking in just through the parking lot, we almost got to 09:58 the front door. No, no, you don't tell this 10:00 right. No what really happened was... You see? 10:02 I just invalidated her. She gets quiet and he has taken 10:07 over. So we need to look at those things. 10:10 Have we invalidated our spouse in that way? 10:13 Another way that men tend to invalidate, although women can 10:16 do this too, but this is more typically a male response; 10:19 If she comes home and wants to tell me a story about something 10:22 that happened, maybe a problem, then my typical reaction as a 10:26 man is to try to offer a solution. But that's not usually 10:29 what a woman wants. What she wants is empathy, for you to 10:32 listen, not fix. So if I say, 10:34 you know what you need to do is 10:36 She'll say you never listen to 10:39 me. What she wanted was to bond 10:41 with me by telling the emotions of the story. That's why she 10:44 takes so many details into the story. You can tell the same 10:47 story in three sentences. She can take three days to tell it, 10:50 it seems like. But she's getting all these details so that you 10:54 can experience it with her and bond with her and when you try 10:57 to short circuit that you invalidate her saying your story 11:00 is silly, you're silly, let's fix it and go on. And that's not 11:03 the message you meant to send at all. 11:05 It can be much more direct. What about the tickets? 11:09 Oh, let's say that this happens. I come home and say sweetheart 11:13 I'm sorry but I got a ticket today. I thought I was going 11:17 the speed limit and he pulled me over and evidently I wasn't, 11:21 I don't know. You never learn do you? 11:23 Pardon? Well I thought I'd learned. 11:25 Well let me tell you how it works. People who don't speed 11:27 don't get tickets. I didn't think I was speeding, I 11:30 really thought I was obeying the law. 11:31 Someday maybe you'll learn something. 11:33 Pretty ugly isn't it? 11:35 It could get real ugly. 11:37 Real ugly. It can go worse than that. We don't even like role 11:40 playing this stuff. It feels uncomfortable. In fact we did 11:44 this in church once and one of our little parishioners said, 11:47 you guys stink as fighters. You're really not very good at 11:50 fighting you need to stop and don't role play because you're 11:52 not good at this. Come to my house. You'll see some real 11:55 fighting going one. Well bless your heart you know. 11:58 But invalidating is really just anything that says to that other 12:02 person, I don't value you. And it can be very blatant or it can 12:06 be very subtle. The hard thing about it is sometimes we don't 12:09 realize we're doing it. We can invalidate the other person and 12:13 think we're just trying to make them feel good. Oh, don't worry 12:16 about that bad review you got. Aaah it's not a big deal, I like 12:19 you anyway. And you haven't listened to the feelings behind 12:23 them. She says you know I'm frustrated; I'm trying to lose 12:27 weight and I didn't lose anything. Oh don't worry 12:29 about it, I say, it doesn't matter you look great. I don't 12:32 like skinny women anyway. Well you know you've just invalidated 12:35 her. You thought you were trying to make her feel better 12:38 but that's not how it came across to her. 12:40 It comes across as either he doesn't care or he just doesn't 12:43 want to hear it again. You know. I've heard this too many times. 12:45 I'm just trying to pass it off so we don't have to talk about 12:48 it. Yeah. It doesn't matter. Let it 12:49 go. Let it go. I can imagine that most people 12:52 can certainly identify with invalidation. I mean, I'm 12:55 sitting over here squirming in my chair and I thought I'm 12:59 guilty of this. You know I don't mean to be. My goodness. 13:02 This is where pride comes in. Absolutely. 13:06 We do it to our children. Often we forget that we need to turn 13:10 and look them in the eye when their telling us their little 13:14 story. You know, we need to validate them and let them know 13:18 that they're valued and important. 13:19 So this really comes down to a strong discipline. But if you 13:23 care enough about parenting and about your relationship, 13:27 then you'll work harder to make this happen. 13:30 Absolutely. The way to fix invalidation is through 13:32 validation, and I validate you by listening to you. By not 13:35 fixing your problems but by empathizing with you and by 13:39 caring about what you say, by looking you in the eye when you 13:43 talk to me, by hearing the emotions behind the words as 13:47 well, by truly caring about you and by avoiding calling you 13:51 names or making judgment statements about you. I don't 13:55 need to go there. Instead I need to be a gentle person who 13:58 lifts you up and ennobles you and makes you feel good. 14:02 And you could probably summarize it in the word respect, just 14:06 respect, respect for that individual. 14:07 And I would imagine though you sense that you respect but 14:13 there are different degrees of respect. This is good stuff. 14:17 The third one of these is called negative interpretations. 14:22 That's when someone says something but your partner 14:25 interprets it more negatively that what you've intended. 14:28 Now there's got to be some degree of mind reading going on 14:32 here and you say this but what you really mean is... I know 14:35 what you mean is not you've said. Well the truth is no one 14:39 has the ability to mind read and if there's much of this going on 14:43 at all in your marriage then it really is very detrimental to 14:47 the relationship. It much better to mind read positives rather 14:51 than negatives but we don't tend to do that. Let me give 14:54 you a little example of what... You're going to role play. 14:57 Yeah. Please understand this is role play of what negative 15:01 interpretations might be like. Sweet heart you know that I know 15:03 that Thanksgiving is coming up soon. You've got so much on your 15:06 mind, so much you have to do, let me help this year, let me 15:08 make the candied yams, all right I can do that and I think it 15:13 would... Well, really? Yeah, I'd like to try, let me do that. 15:18 Well I always just make them with the rest of the meal. It's 15:19 not a big deal. Well I know that and you do a 15:20 great job but I just feel like maybe I could do something to 15:23 lift the burden off of you a bit. 15:25 You don't like my candied yams do you? 15:27 Oh no, that's not it. I love them. 15:29 No that's it. The more I think about it and you're always 15:32 saying, Oh do them this way this year. No do them that way next 15:35 time. You don't like them. I like them, their great! 15:37 No please, I just wanted to help. Do you see? How do I 15:40 get out of this? You've backed yourself into a 15:43 corner. I've backed myself into a corner 15:44 because she's chosen to interpret what I said negatively 15:49 I may have had the most pure intentions, I may have had the 15:53 best idea in mind, but she's chosen to interpret this 15:57 negatively and no there's no way for me to win. 16:01 There's no defense for that. Yeah, there's not. Because it's 16:03 totally the other person's interpretation. 16:05 When we first got married I did some of this. Basically Gayle 16:09 did something which hurt me early on and I told her about 16:13 it and she apologized. I told her about it again and she 16:17 apologized again. I told her about it again and about the 16:21 fourth time into this Gayle is getting tired of this and she 16:25 says Mike you act as though I did this on purpose. You have 16:29 to understand Gayle grew up in this home that was so idealic. 16:32 It was like "Father Knows Best" with God. Remember that old 50s 16:36 sitcom. It was really that idealic. I on the other hand 16:39 grew up in the "Simpsons". It was a very different life from 16:43 me. So when she said you act like I did this on purpose, my 16:47 reaction was yeah. And her response to me I'll never forget 16:51 she said all right I want you to understand something. I will 16:55 never intentionally hurt you. That was a brand new thought to 16:59 me. And we've kind of made this the theme of our marriage. 17:03 We make our marriage a safe place. I will never 17:05 intentionally hurt Gayle. In 31 years of marriage, I can promise 17:10 you she has never once intentionally hurt me. 17:12 Now you know like all of us you forget or something will slip or 17:17 whatever but she never does this on purpose. So if indeed she 17:22 does or says something which hurts me I can look at her and 17:25 say Sweetheart I know you would not do this on purpose but what 17:29 just happened was painful. How I interpreted this was... and 17:33 then she can say no that's not what I meant, or I apologize 17:36 I didn't realize that. Let me fix it. Let's start over. 17:39 What it does is basically it makes your marriage a safe 17:42 place and it frees up when something does happen because 17:46 I trust that Mike didn't do it to hurt me, he didn't do 17:49 something on purpose to me. Then I can back up and say okay it 17:53 wasn't on purpose, what really is going on here. And it only 17:57 works if you make this agreement then both parties say this is 18:01 what we're going to do. We will not intentionally... And all of 18:04 us know that it's easy to intentionally hurt and maybe not 18:08 even admit that you're doing it, but you know what buttons to 18:12 push and you know your spouse well enough. Sometimes you can 18:16 do it and act like you didn't really mean to do it, but we 18:20 have to make that agreement and that commitment that says never 18:24 will I intentionally do something to injure my spouse. 18:28 That's right. What a covenant though. That's a wonderful 18:31 covenant. It is. We choose to make our home a safe place and I 18:35 choose to interpret what Gayle says and does positively. I ask 18:39 myself. Is there another way to interpret this? And if there is, 18:43 and you know there always is, I'm going to choose to interpret 18:48 it positively. If I feel pain I'll express it to her and 18:50 she'll help me make it right. 18:52 Because I know that Satan is just looking for, he's just 18:55 lingering to find a way to plant some doubt in there. Well this 18:58 time it's a little bit different. But if you've made 19:01 this covenant, I mean... 19:03 She's going to keep it, I'm going to keep it. 19:05 And then you can at least ask the question, where is this 19:09 coming from? What's going on here? And it's really very 19:12 freeing. Yes it is. Wonderful. 19:15 This takes us to our last negative pattern. 19:18 The last one is called... Do we have to talk about this. I don't 19:21 want to talk about it. Well it's the last one. No I don't want to 19:24 avoidance and withdrawal. I'm just kind of tired right now 19:27 and you cannot avoid or withdraw from this. 19:29 You see what we're doing? 19:30 Avoidance and withdrawal. Basically this is when a party 19:35 recognizes that there's going to be an issue come up that they 19:38 really don't want to talk about. It's a little bit too heated for 19:41 them. Maybe they feel guilt over it or whatever it happens to be 19:45 and they withdraw from the situation. And you can withdraw 19:48 in a variety of ways. You can withdraw by leaving the room. 19:52 I'm out of here, I'm not talking about this. You can withdraw 19:55 by just getting quiet, just clam up, I'm not talking any more. 19:59 I tend to be guilty of that. You know I don't want to talk 20:03 about this, this is too hot for me. 20:04 Her lips get thin and white and she gets really quiet. 20:06 I hope it will go away. But you know it doesn't go away. 20:08 You can also withdraw in other ways that might not be as easy 20:13 to recognize. One way is to explode in anger, just blow up. 20:16 And you don't think of that as withdrawing, you think of that 20:20 as aggressive. But when you think about it, if I explode all 20:23 over the place that pretty much stops the conversation, doesn't 20:26 it? Sure does. So that's another way to withdraw and we tend to 20:30 have withdrawers and pursuers in marriages. We're usually one 20:34 or the other. Sometimes, depending on what the issue is, 20:38 we can trade back and forth. Some things we'll withdraw on 20:42 and in others we want to pursue. Now the avoider is even more 20:47 adept, because this person just seems to have a sixth sense and 20:50 they know when something is going to come up that they don't 20:54 want to talk about and they just avoid it all together. 20:56 Hey, let's go out to eat. Let's grab the kids, let's get out of 20:58 here. Hey it's going to be a great day, let's go out to the 21:00 park, whatever. Yeah, anything to keep the 21:03 conversation from every happening or they stay late at 21:06 work. If I don't come home from work, you know she's already 21:08 asleep in bed, then I don't have to talk about it. But they avoid 21:12 the issues. And the reason that this is so dangerous and so 21:16 damaging is because it allows the things between us to just 21:19 pile up, and pile up, and pile up and they're never dealt with. 21:24 And they will cause separation. They can cause a separation that 21:28 is actual divorce or they can just cause a separation that's 21:32 a wall within your home that stays there. 21:34 It's just like you can start over again and then just repeat 21:38 the same thing again. Absolutely. It's a delicate 21:40 dance that is a cycle that keeps going and going. Basically the 21:44 person who's pursuing is not wanting to fight, they want the 21:47 intimacy that comes when you resolve a relationship issue. 21:50 The avoider and withdrawer is not avoiding or withdrawing 21:54 from the spouse. They're looking for peace. Can't we just all get 21:57 along? Let's just be happy. That's Gayle's mantra. Can't we 22:01 just all be happy, can't we just be happy. So that's what they're 22:04 looking for is peace. What we have to do to fix this though is 22:07 the pursuer has to agree to pursue less. The avoider and 22:11 withdrawer avoid and withdraw less and to say let's find a 22:15 time and talk about this so that it actually happens. Usually we 22:19 find that the best thing to do is if you have an issue is to 22:23 say Mike I'd like to talk about X, when's a good time? 22:26 Now I can say second Tuesday of next week but that's not fair. 22:31 Basically I have to, with Gayle, set a time within the next 24 22:35 hours when we will set down and talk about this. What this does 22:39 is it makes the avoider and withdrawer feel less trapped. 22:42 And it gives peace to the pursuer knowing we will talk 22:45 about this. We're going to keep this appointment. We will talk 22:48 about it. Often a person is a withdrawer 22:50 because they feel like they can't bring the argument forth 22:54 quick enough and they're going to lose if they get blindsided. 22:57 So if you can say to that person all right here's what I really 23:01 need to talk to you about, but can we set a time, then they 23:05 can think about it and they can deal with it more rationally. 23:09 That's true for me. If I know that I can sit and think about 23:13 something first and then we'll sit down and talk about it. 23:16 I do much better than if I'm blind-sided by an issue because 23:20 Mike can out-talk me any time and he can out-think me but if 23:23 I have time then I can come up with some pretty good arguments 23:27 on my own. So it helps to be able to just say okay, we're 23:31 going to set this aside now but we are going to talk about it 23:34 and have a certain time. 23:35 Those are the four negative patterns. If you have those in 23:38 your relationship and you remove them you really do a lot 23:42 to ensure the long-term stability of the relationship. 23:45 I think what I understood you to say earlier, Pastor, that if we 23:47 can just remove one of these... 23:49 Yes, it does more to ensure the long-term stability of your 23:53 marriage than adding five positives. 23:54 In other words, I could bring mama candy, I could bring her 23:57 flowers, I could bring her something nice, take her to a 24:00 something that she'll appreciate but it's doing nearly 24:03 as good as removing one of these. That's right. 24:05 Because you're sending mixed messages. You got me flowers 24:09 today but the way you talked to me last night? So if you can 24:13 remove that undercurrent of negative and then bring the 24:15 flowers then you've hit a home run. But you've got to remove 24:19 the negative undercurrent otherwise we send them mixed 24:21 messages. Now the thing we have not done yet is decide how we 24:25 can solve problems. Basically the way to do that is when you 24:29 set the appointment you sit down with each other. I suggest you 24:33 hold something in your hand, usually something soft. 24:35 The person holding this object has the floor and they have the 24:38 floor until they make one or two points and they make their 24:42 point like this: When you do X in Y situation, I feel Z. 24:47 Gayle might say to me, Mike when you leave the dishes in the sink 24:52 when I've asked you to leave them on the counter I feel like 24:54 I'm your maid. My job as the listener then is I can't argue 24:57 with her, can't disagree. I just simply acknowledge what she's 25:01 said. I have to repeat it back to her so she knows. We do this 25:04 until we make points back and forth till all the points have 25:06 been made and then we say all right, now we understand each 25:09 other. Let's make a list of possible solutions to this issue 25:13 We brainstorm together, we choose a solution, we sign it, 25:17 we say this is what we're going to do and we move on. We have 25:21 become a team now solving this problem rather than... 25:24 Our friends Mike and Brenda Aufderhauer say when the 25:27 problem is here every time I look at the problem I see you. 25:31 But what this does is it puts the problem out here and now 25:34 we're a team solving this problem and it's not us, it's 25:38 just a problem and we're working on it. 25:40 So it's a good model. It's an opportunity to have some rules 25:43 not to talk over each other and not to judge each other, but 25:47 truly to listen and to demonstrate we're listening 25:49 by repeating back what we say to one another. 25:51 This is absolutely fantastic. We're running out of time so 25:55 fast I just can't believe. Whenever you get involved with 25:58 everyday matters, especially with communication, things just 26:02 happen. Why don't we review quickly. We're talking about 26:04 the negative sides and then let's look at the positive side 26:07 real quick. The negative communication 26:09 patterns are escalation, invalidation, negative 26:13 interpretations and avoidance and withdrawal. If we can 26:16 identify that we do those things and remove them from the 26:20 relationship, we go miles toward making sure that we have a 26:23 stable, happy relationship. Then when we solve problems, we 26:26 actually do this as a team, putting the problem out here, 26:29 brainstorming together and listening to each other 26:33 therefore, validating one another. 26:34 I'll tell you, this is absolutely wonderful stuff. 26:37 Anything else that you might want to add quickly? 26:39 I think that we actually have to live in a relationship of 26:43 genuine concern and tenderness for one another; that my 26:46 communication with Gayle has to be tender and open and loving. 26:50 I have to communicate that to her through my words. 26:53 I think we have to hold in our hearts and minds all the time 26:56 the fact that this is a person that God placed in my life. 26:59 This person is a gift to me and I don't ever want to break it or 27:03 injure it in any way. I think that that is the thing that will 27:07 keep us together. As a husband, it's my job to 27:09 make sure that Gayle is safe so that she has the opportunity 27:12 to flourish and to grow to be all that God wants her to be. 27:15 Then my life benefits from that. I find richness in my life when 27:19 she becomes God's woman and if I treat God's woman right, God 27:23 gives me an additional gift and that is closeness to her that I 27:26 can never have otherwise. 27:28 So obviously this is a win/win situation. Absolutely 27:31 Isn't this wonderful to hear this type of success story. 27:34 You know I mean seeing a husband and wife you can just see that 27:36 they love each other, you can see that they respect each other 27:41 I just want you to stay tuned. We're going to our next program 27:46 and everything is going to deal with the spirituality in 27:48 marriage. This was absolutely special. We look forward to the 27:52 next one. Until then just want you to remember that God loves 27:55 you and so do we. |
Revised 2014-12-17