 And welcome to today's healthy marriage. I'm your host, Charlene Lamers, executive director for Great Marriages for Sheboygan County. Today's topic is fighting for your marriage, part two. Our guest today is Sally Isley. She's a marriage educator and mentor for Great Marriages. So we'd like to welcome you to our show today, Sally. Thank you. You know, we talked a little bit about the book. The topic today is the fighting for your marriage and it's based on the book by Markman Stanley and Bloomberg. So last time we talked about fighting for your marriage and what a great tool it is to help couples. You know, it's preventative tool to keep them on the right track and keep their marriages strong. And also, if a couple is going off the track, maybe to get them back on and show them how important it is to fight for their marriage. Absolutely. That's a lot of good details in there as how to do it well. And so last time, just want to reiterate what we covered in case somebody didn't see the show last time. We talked about the four hallmarks of a healthy relationship. To be safe at home, to open the doors to intimacy, to do your part and be responsible in the relationship and to nurture security in the future together, in the couple's future together. You know, the book is broken down into four parts. Last time we covered part one, to understand the risk to a healthy relationship. There are some risks that if we see these things happen in a relationship, we know that they're in trouble. And we covered the topic of escalation when conflict escalates. And in a little bit, we're going to kind of recover that again with the speaker listener technique. Yes, exactly. And that is such an important technique. And so then we have escalation. The second one is invalidation when we invalidate each other and our feelings. The third one is negative interpretations when we see things negatively, more negatively than they really are. And we tend to interpret everything in a negative manner, thinking, oh, it's bad now, always has been, it always will be. We get in that frame of mind. And the last one is withdrawal and avoidance. And when that happens, you know, it's hard to work on saving the marriage because someone's withdrawn and they're avoiding the conflict and they're not wanting to work on it anymore. Correct. So today we're going to focus on part two, you know, teaming up to handle the conflict. Right. And you mentioned something about the speaker listener technique. That's right. The speaker listener technique is just an excellent tool to use. There are rules that we explain to the spouses. The rules for the two of them is that the speaker has the floor. And we encourage them to actually use an object, be it a pen, a ruler, a cup, whatever, whoever has that in their hand has the floor. And they are the only one that gets to speak at that time. But they need to share the floor. And it goes really fast. That person does not get to sit here with the object in their hand for 20 and 30 minutes. It should be about 20 and 30 seconds. And they will share the floor with the next person. And also during this time, they do not do any problem solving. They only are discussing the issue. Now we'll have the rules for the speaker. And the rule for the speaker is that we speak for ourselves. We don't try to interpret what the other person meant when they were talking. Because we're really not mind-readers, which sometimes is kind of shocking to us, but we're not. Do we find that as couples are married longer, sometimes they say they read each other's minds. You know, my husband and I have been married 30 years. Sometimes you can finish their sentences. So when that happens, you tend to relate that to all aspects of the relationship. And honestly think that sometimes you can read each other's mind, but we know that's definitely not true. That's true. That's very true. And how does that get a couple into trouble in the speaker-listener technique when we're reading each other's minds? When we anticipate what they are thinking, and it's not what they were thinking. Even though we've been married 34 years, there is times that we think we know what they meant, but we need to just listen to what they have to say and take it from there and not interpret what we think they meant. And that's where we get into the next part, but finish up the rules for the speaker. Speak for yourself and use I statements. I feel. I think. And then we only say it once. We don't say the same thing over and over again. That's why we need to keep passing that object back and forth to be able to share the floor. And then it will be the listener's turn to speak once the object is handed over to them. And they need to paraphrase what they heard. That way, it's clear between both spouses as to what this one said and when it's paraphrased, they'll say, yes, that's correct, or no, that's not really what I meant. You didn't hear what I was trying to say. And don't don't rebuke what you heard. Don't try to make up reasons why, you know, or whatever. Just rephrase what they what they said. I think that was an important lesson that you just said. Instead of trying to rebuke what the person is saying. We're just making sure that we understand it correctly. This is not the time to be defensive or to try to explain why you feel like you do or to prove that you're right or the other person's wrong, but merely to really understand where the other person is coming from in the paraphrasing. And this means we don't have to agree with them. So we can hear what they have to say and not agree with them. This is just discussion time. I would give an example. You probably have examples too because you've worked with lots of couples. We had one couple and they were doing the speaker listener technique. And it was a husband's turn to speak, to say something that he wished for. And he said, I wish that you would help me with the finances, you know, they're looking at each other. He said that to his wife. And she, instead of paraphrasing what he said, said, oh, I know what that means. You want me to get a job. We've been down here before and I'm not going to do it. You know, when they started arguing, I said, hold on, we're just supposed to be paraphrasing what he said. This is not the time, as you said, to rebuke or to argue the point. So can you paraphrase what he said? And then she said, what did you say? She didn't really hear him because she was already being defensive because she knew where she thought it was going. So I said, we'll ask him to say it again. She said, well, can you say that again? He said, I want you to help me with the finances. She said, what does that mean? I said, exactly. If the speaker is too vague when they make their statement, the other person doesn't know what they mean, and that opens up to misinterpretation. Correct. So they have to fill in the blank. So we need to be very specific when we talk about our needs, wishes, and desires with our spouse instead of being too vague. And if we are vague, our spouse needs to ask us a question, well, what does that mean? Right. And when she asked the question, he said, I would like you to sit down, go over the finances with me. Look at where we're spending money, where the income's coming in, and how we can balance this. And she said, oh, that's all you want me to do is look at the checkbook and see where the expenses and income is coming and how we can cut together. And he said, yeah. And she said, I can do that. So that was an example of some mind reading and not really hearing, not really listening, hearing but not listening, and how this technique can work if we do it right. Do you have any examples of couples that you've used it with? Right. The same thing, too, has happened with us when we have mentored. The person will start to paraphrase it back and say, and you said this because, and I'm like, no, no, no, you can't iterate that right now. You just need to paraphrase what they had to say. And the speaker listener technique actually will feel very awkward at first, not natural at all. So we highly recommend the couples to practice. Do it on something that's not a sensitive issue. Watch a movie together, or if you've gone out to sightsee or to some kind of game, and then sit down and say, let's talk about it, and use an object, hold it, and discuss it, and let it become natural that way. And it will take time. It's not going to be just like, oh, I can get this. It's easy. It's not easy. But marriage is work. And that's why this is a very important area to work at. So when you practice, like with a TV show or a movie, and use a speaker listener technique, then it will become easier when you do have the sensitive issues, the hot topics, that you really need to sit down and discuss using the speaker listener technique. Right. And then where do we take it from there? So they get the speaker listener technique down, you know? Maybe we're actually really listening to each other and understanding the true desires, needs, and wants of each other. Then what happens? You learn how to communicate and actually understand what each other's viewpoint is. That just makes the whole relationship closer and understanding one another where you feel secure with one another. And we see this work with couples because sometimes their relationship is so full of negative interpretations, you know, and misconceptions about what the other person is trying to say, that just by understanding what they really meant, they see that they weren't trying to attack them. Right. And then you have, you know, a time when you're escalating, getting out of control. That's the great time to use the speaker listener technique. And it will not damage your relationship because you're doing it in a controlled manner and not allowing it to get out of control. Exactly. So, you know, part three talks a little bit about enjoying each other and how important it is for a husband and wife to have a friendship because when we're newly married, we have that type of friendship and sometimes that really grows strong. And with other marriages, you know, child rearing, paying the mortgage, jobs, everything gets in the way. And we kind of lose that friendship. How do we get that friendship back and how do we make sure that we can enjoy each other? Put yourself on the calendar is number one and make time for one another. Sometimes we are just so busy that we're the last ones to think of ourselves. But you have to schedule yourself in just like you schedule everything else in. And when you go out and you have the fun times, it's fun time. It's not a time to discuss issues. We'll get to that in a little bit. But it's just a goal and enjoy one another. And if something happens to creep in, you need to allow yourself to say, no, I'm not going to go there. This is our fun time. Let's just enjoy one another. And we find that some couples find that really hard to do. You know, they have not gone out and enjoyed each other's company in a while. So when they do go out and it's been a long time, they don't know what to say to each other if it's not about the kids or money. And that, like you said, it creeps in and they may have an argument and it may become not pleasant to spend time alone, so we stop doing it. So what are maybe ways we can make sure that we get back on track and learn how to have fun again and not allow those negative times to creep in? Because if they do and I say to you, hey, stop it, you're letting that creep in, then you're going to get defensive and it's going to become an argument. Yeah, I just say, sweetie, this is fun time. That's not no discussion time. There are actually books out there. One couple that we mentored actually, she wrote a little book and just to bring back memories and things that you can discuss, like what was your favorite Christmas and what's your favorite foods to cook or eat and just ask each other questions because, I mean, after 30 years and 34 years of marriage, we're still learning about one another. There's still more to learn about each other no matter how long we've been married. I'm glad that you brought that up because we do have books in our library at the office that can help couples. You've gone through the 10 great dates. You're very familiar with that and you've recommended it for a couple, if I believe. You know, that is a great book. It facilitates conversation and communication on a date night. 10 great dates. We also have books that are, I think it's like 52 questions or other ones, 101 questions to ask each other. So you have these set questions and it seems weird at first that you're married 30 years or whatever and you have to have them in place. But it really does get the conversation, like you said, going off in a new direction that doesn't bring in the negative things and we do learn to have fun. Or if we do something like going bike riding or bowling or a walk on the beach, something that's physical that we are involved with. Right. And get involved in each other's what the other person likes. My husband likes antiquing and garage selling. I like garage selling also, but he likes it even more than I do, you know. And I like sitting on our deck. And so last night I said, let's sit on the deck. And so he stopped what he was doing and came and sat with me. So give of yourself. Exactly. Because sometimes we find that somebody says, I've actually had a couple of days, I don't like doing it, I'm not going to do it. But then if the other person doesn't like anything you're doing, where you've got to find some common ground. So sometimes we have to do what the other person likes and then they, you know, do give back to us. Yeah. That's called sacrifice. Yeah. And that's what marriage is about, is sacrificing for one another. And I think sometimes we forget that because in our culture can be sometimes me centered. You know, it's all about me, what I like. If I'm happy, if I'm, if I feel in love and we tell couples they'll say, come in and say, I'm not in love anymore. We see the stage or seven stages of marriage. That's about right. So how do you get that back? Right. You know, let's work on that. Right. You know, part four in the book talks about staying the course. You know, you can't always get what you want, which is kind of what we're talking about. Sometimes you have to give. And a lot of this goes into expectations and unrealistic expectations. We find you've done pre-marriage couples. They have many unrealistic expectations. Right. So what kind of things do you find that they will have unrealistic expectations? It's very difficult for them to meet as a couple and for their partner to meet. I think one that is, it's the little things, you know, that always drives us crazy. I like the example of where the one spouse expected the other spouse to make their orange juice. And it just drove that other person crazy. But then when they actually talked about it using the speaker listener technique, they found out that the one that wanted it to be done, to them it was an act of love. Because that's what her father had always done for her mother. And it was an act of love between them and that's the way she saw it. And so she wanted it to be done in their marriage also. It's the little things. It's like, who's going to clean out the lint dryer, you know, on the dryer? Who's going to take care of the checkbook in the housework? It needs to be talked about. But the other thing that's very, very important is, like you said, are our expectations reasonable or unreasonable? Example, yesterday we had a busy weekend doing, not playing, okay? So I'm like, okay, Monday we're going to go in and enjoy the day. Well, things got turned around because of what's happening today and tomorrow. And so it had to be done yesterday. And so I just took my expectations and say, that's life. That's the way it is. And so I just enjoyed the day, even though it was totally different than what I had hoped it to be. Because that's just the way life is. It always sends us a curve ball and I needed to let go of my expectations of not just enjoying the day with my husband and watching him do other stuff. Great, you brought in a number of great topics. You brought in, that was a way she felt love, which goes back to the five love languages. There are different ways we express love and we receive love. You talked about making sure we make time for each other. That comes to the fulfilled couple's calendar. Making sure that our relationship is as important as our job and all of the activities that we're involved in. Making sure our spouse is number one. And then the last one was the expectations. How a pre-marriage couple may have unrealistic expectations like we're in love and because you're my soulmate, we'll never fight and we'll be in love forever. And those of us who are married know that's not going to happen. There will be tough times. But what about a couple who's been married 30 years? You talked about an expectation that could be unmet even after 30 years because you think that, well, we have more realistic expectations. And so you talked about being flexible. And that goes to the couple's map. Our flexibility level and our closeness level. How flexible can we be with our expectations? And not too flexible, but we have to have some boundaries. But we do need to be a little flexible when things are not happening. So what do we do if our expectations are not being met? We need to ask ourselves, are they realistic? And then talk with our spouse about what our expectations are and go back, use the speaker listener technique to do that. So it's done in a healthy manner in a safe environment. But just say, this is, because actually I said to my husband, this is what I expect Monday to look like. And he said, that's fine. But then when other things came up, he's like, this is what I have to do instead. And I'm like, OK. So being flexible, but then talking about it also. Exactly. I think the talking about what our expectations are is, you phrased it so important, because sometimes couples hold their spouse responsible for meeting their expectations. But they've never voiced the expectation to their spouse. Right. We're not mind readers at all. Exactly. So the person doesn't even know what you're expecting, but you're holding them accountable for meeting them. And when they don't, you're hurt, which leads into pain and hurt, built up resentment over how many years. That leads to forgiveness. Book also has a great chapter on forgiveness. Can you talk about forgiveness? We all have to be able to forgive. We live in an imperfect world. We're imperfect people. And we do end up hurting one another, even though we may not mean to. And hopefully, most of the time, it's because we don't mean to. Actually, the definition of forgiveness I'm going to read this is decision to give your perceived or actual right to get even with the one who wronged you. It's to cancel a debt. And forgiveness is actually a verb. It's action. It's active. So without having forgiveness, there's going to be a buildup of resentment and anger, hopelessness. And it can lead to depression. How can we work at forgiving someone? Sometimes that's very difficult. Personally, in my case, it was praying for my husband. And just telling God, at this stage in my life, it's really difficult to be in this marriage. But I'm going to pray for him and ask God to bless him and wish good things upon him. And eventually, my love came back. We sometimes have couples make a list of all of the things that they've been wronged with. All of the ways they've been wronged by their spouse. And then we make, on this side of the paper in this column, how they reacted to it. How they reacted to that wrong. Tear the paper after they get that done. They've put the wrongs down. How they've reacted to the wrong. Tear the paper in half. We throw how they've been wronged away. And we look at the reactions. Because that's what you have control over. Don't have control over the other person. So your reaction to that wrong. Those are the things that you can work on. And sometimes when we see that, maybe we didn't react in the best way. Maybe we held them accountable for something that wasn't really their fault. Maybe we assumed something was their fault or a misintention that wasn't really there. Then maybe those are ways we can start seeing that, oh, they didn't really mean to hurt me. We can start forgiving. And we can see ways in which we're not perfect either. And by allowing ourselves to not be perfect, then we're not as quickly to judge the other person. The other thing is to focus on the good. Their positives. That is in their lives. And just dwell on them. And ignore the things that drive us crazy. That's an important point. Because when you have a lot of bitterness and resentment that's built up. You know that negative interpretation we talked about slides in. Everything starts looking negative. How can we turn that negative interpretation around? One of the exercises is by looking at ways to compliment our spouse. I mean, sometimes it's hard. If you're not used to that and you haven't done it for a while to find good things in our spouse. Which is really kind of sad when we think about it. We can do it for other people but it's hard to find good things of our spouse. So to tell them something complimentary. It gets easier. I mean, when you're down in that negative it's really hard to find something good in them. But you start with one thing and you focus on that. You start with, you know, you add more and more. We had one couple. I don't remember there was an example. I said, well, let's just try it in the office. Just can you pay her a compliment? And he said, I like your hair. And she said, oh, my hair. See, that's easy. He doesn't like my hair. I know he doesn't like my hair. And he doesn't really mean it. I said, well, hold on. I said, did you really mean that? He goes, I definitely meant that. I like her hair like that. And she goes, how can you like my hair? I don't like my hair. He says, well, you don't like it but I do like it. I said, he could have said, I like your blouse. I like the way you're sitting. I like the way you laid the paper on the table. It could have been anything of a million things. But he said that. I said, do you think there's a possibility that maybe he really likes the way your hair looks? And she said, I guess so. You know, sometimes we dismiss things even when they're positive because we've been in such a negative state for so long. We dismiss positives and we think there must be an ulterior motive or something negative behind that. You find that with the couples that you and Ellen have mentored? Absolutely. And that's where going through the resources that the Great Marriage has is just wonderful to bring these marriages back and being strong and healthy. Can you talk a little bit about the differences in genders and gender roles? How do as men and women, how does that affect our relationship and the way we see things and the way we can get along? From everything to forgiveness, to compliments, to negative interpretations, everything. Well, there definitely is a difference between the genders. I know for men, when they relate to one another, they can just have a couple words and it's done and over. Women, we will hold grudges a whole lot longer. There's a book called Love and Respect that we have and it shows how we see things so differently between the sexes. Yes, and we get hurt more. Women tend to sometimes get hurt a little. Much more sensitive. Much more sensitive than the men. I go to the compliment thing because men don't go around saying, I like your pants, I like your boots, I like your shirt. They don't tend to do that to each other but as women, we do that to each other. So then when we say to our husband, well, first of all, we expect him to notice that we look nice if we're going out and then he doesn't. So then we say, how do I look? And he says, fine. And she takes that as just fine. Like, oh, he doesn't like what I have on. But to a man, that might be, no, you really look fine, you look good. Where they're just as likely, if you don't, to say, are you really gonna wear that dress or something. If they say, fine, sometimes as women, we have to look at that as, hey, I shouldn't have to be upset because I had to ask him how I looked. But the fact that he said, I look good. You know, in whatever form or word he chose to. I mean, he really meant it. And to maybe not be so hard on each other that way. And when it comes down to it, in all marriage, the main thing is to be committed. We must be committed to one another no matter what. We need to make ourselves a priority. We need to call ourselves a team. That's important. Can you talk with the team? Why team? Because we are a team. And if we're not a team, then we're fighting against one another. And we treat team members differently than we treat enemies. And we need to work together and realize we're on a team rather than opposites and enemies. Exactly. The team effort is so important to remind ourselves we're together, we're together. So well, that's our show for today, folks. We wanna thank you so much for joining us on Healthy Marriage. And we hope that you will join us next time. Go to our website, at great-marriages.org to look for some upcoming events and programs that we're offering. We'll see you next time. Remember, marriage, it does matter. ["Hotel Del Luna"]