0:00:00 – Speaker 1
nextTalk, sponsored by nextTalk.org, contains content of a mature nature. Parental guidance is advised. Music playing. Welcome to nextTalk Radio with Mandy and Kim every Saturday at 10 am on AM 630, the Word nextTalk Radio is brought to you by nextTalk, a non-profit organization keeping kids safe online through cyber parenting and open communication. Find resources, videos and subscribe to our weekly podcast at nextTalk.org.
Are you ready for the nextTalk? Well, last week we continued our marriage series with Mandy, but because obviously we’re not married, she brought in her husband and had a great time sharing some of those difficult things about you know, the things that you want to say to your spouse, like I don’t know about that outfit. I’m not sure how I feel about what you made for dinner last night, how to do that with tact and respect, with love and marriage. So that was a lot of fun this week. I am very excited to have my husband, charles, in studio to co-host the show. Charles has been a teacher for 15 years. He’s now an assistant principal. We’ve been married for 15 years as well. I never put those two together.
0:01:18 – Speaker 2
Good things happened about 15 years ago.
0:01:20 – Speaker 1
Apparently, that was a good time for us.
0:01:23 – Speaker 2
See, I think what happened is, once I married you, I realized I needed to get the rest of my life together.
0:01:27 – Speaker 1
Ah, you needed to get a job. I needed to get a job, I needed to settle down this crazy life and yeah, the rest is history. Well, welcome to being my co-host today on the radio.
0:01:37 – Speaker 2
Oh, it’s in the honor. This is so exciting Versus just life, right, I know.
0:01:41 – Speaker 1
Well, let’s jump in. We have such a short amount of time. You know it’s really difficult in marriage to have open communication and important, fruitful conversations with your spouse when you’re in the heat of an argument.
0:01:55 – Speaker 2
Agreed. Agreed yes.
0:01:56 – Speaker 1
It’s just you’re angry, you’re hurt, emotions are overflowing and you want to address this thing that has just happened. But that’s not the time. That’s not the time, obviously, to have those types of conversation. So that’s one of the things we wanted to talk about today. What are some of those topics that we really have to take the time, a concerted effort, to set aside? When things are good, in the happy times, in the date night, when you have extra time to discuss important things about your marriage. What are some of those topics that should be addressed outside of the argument?
0:02:35 – Speaker 2
Exactly Right. So when things are going great, that’s actually a really great, because you’re in the right frame of mind to have those conversations. You’re more of who you are, instead of the angry person that erupts sometimes in those arguments, who is probably going to regret most of the things that are said or done. And so having these regular moments to check in and to have some really good conversations when things are going great, chances are, even if it’s a difficult conversation to have we’re probably going to be more proactive in reaching a solution together, as opposed to when we’re angry and defensive after an argument.
0:03:10 – Speaker 1
You know, we wanted to talk today about a lot of different things and it’s funny, what spurred on our idea was the conversation you had with one of your friends.
0:03:18 – Speaker 2
Right, we were just sort of discussing, you know, as parents and as dads, there’s going to be a moment where we take our sons aside and sort of have a little talk with them and not the typical talk that you’re thinking about, but it’s the when a boy gets to a certain age and he starts to show interest in girls, women and maybe particularly like the one. We were just kind of chatting back and forth about how we need to be very cautious to our sons about women who are just straight up crazy, and I’ll just leave it at that.
0:03:53 – Speaker 1
We won’t, as women, take offense to that, but you know.
0:03:56 – Speaker 2
Right, and so we just kind of were talking about really big, like red flags that we’ve observed as men, grown men, now in our 30s and almost 40s. You know, what are we going to do and say to our kids be like, hey, these are some things like she might be great. However, there are some red flags that we’re noticing, and so I thought that was interesting, that you were just sort of like, really so what would be my red flag? And I just kind of said it wasn’t a red flag. I just said everybody has a little bit of crazy.
0:04:26 – Speaker 1
Yeah, we’re all crazy. We’ve got that surface crazy. You know that’s not so difficult to deal with, maybe challenging, but much easier to work through. And then there’s the deep-seated crazy.
0:04:38 – Speaker 2
Right, there’s like clinical crazy, like certifiable crazy we’re just talking about. You know what are some of those like quirky little things here and there that of course you’re going to live with and you really love about those people. But sometimes it either drives you crazy or you just kind of like sit back sometimes and shake your head going, wow, I really am having a hard time understanding this person. They are very difficult in this particular situation.
0:05:00 – Speaker 1
Well, let’s get to the bottom line. It’s not just to have conversation about this, but we all know you’ve heard before it is the little things and it is Over time. Yes, the big stressors are a challenge in marriage or in any relationship, but truly, truly, it is the small things, when not addressed, not talked about, there’s not open communication about them and the ability to work through them, that build up, build up, build up, and before you know it, you are a divide. There’s a huge divide between you and your spouse over the little things.
0:05:31 – Speaker 2
Right and those little things. Hopefully, in a marriage and as long as that we’ve been married we’re aware of our own crazy. Hopefully it doesn’t come as a surprise to someone when their spouse comes out and says, wow, you have this particular tick or you really fly off the handle when this happens. Hopefully it’s not a surprise to that person when it happens. So, prior to engaging in this conversation, it’s really important to know oneself and to be comfortable with somebody coming not necessarily at you in a critical way, but coming at you and saying, hey, I really think that if we were able to overcome this, we are able to grow closer together and just acknowledging that we all have a little bit of crazy and it’s okay and that we still love each other despite it. But you need to have an understanding of what that is.
0:06:23 – Speaker 1
Well, and the reason we bring this up is truly for the bottom line of growing closer together to sharpen one another. I mean that’s in marriage. One of the greatest parts of the relationship is your ability to sharpen one another in love and to learn how to create new norms that avoid those triggers and those hot buttons, because none of us like to be in that seat being pushed or we realize we’re pushing the button but for some reason we can’t stop, like I just keep wanting to push that button. We don’t want to do this because we want fuel against our spouse. We don’t want to do it because we want to hold it over our spouse or to shame them or take advantage of them. None of that. This is truly to sharpen each other and have a better marriage.
0:07:06 – Speaker 2
Right. So we’re to caution to all the dads and husbands out there. So if you’re having this conversation, you’ve got to be able to kind of go back to last weeks and we were talking about. What Matt and Mandy shared is, like you know, be able to use tact, to use love and to be ready to kind of get like some interesting looks, Because you gave me that interesting look when you said or you asked so what’s my crazy? Yeah, you know, almost like oh boy really put me on the spot.
0:07:33 – Speaker 1
Well, go ahead. What is my crazy? We’ve talked about this and we decided we’re going to share this because it’s important that we’re transparent about how to talk through these kinds of conversations.
0:07:43 – Speaker 2
Yeah, and when you asked me I had no problem saying it right out in front. I don’t even think I hesitated like a half second. I probably should have, but at least you know that without hesitation you knew that I was speaking the truth and I flat out said like you have a weird thing with food, you do, and it’s very strange, like you’ll go like, especially like right before, either like a holiday or after a holiday. It gets a little strange Like things have to be just right with the meals. But the biggest thing is like setting yourself up for an upcoming diet or exercise plan.
0:08:18 – Speaker 1
I don’t know what you mean. No, it’s kidding.
0:08:20 – Speaker 2
You know, and it’s not like I understand getting prepared.
0:08:24 – Speaker 1
You know you always want to yeah, absolutely.
0:08:26 – Speaker 2
You want to get into like you don’t want to do like a whole food 30 challenge. You want to go paleo, Atkins, keto, whatever they’re called. If you want to get into that, you want to get prepared. But you, prior to these diets, like you go like a little Mardi Gras, like you go a little fat Tuesday and it’s like, well, I need to have this ice cream now, because I’m not going to have ice cream for the rest of my life.
So like three of them, three pints of ice cream, Like even stuff that wasn’t in the house. I have to go to the store right now. It’s not like we’re cleaning out the fridge and like, oh, we need to get rid of these sprinkles because we’re never going to eat them again and so, but it’s. You know, that’s one side of a good coin is, or the other side of the coin is that you’re very dedicated and you’re very committed to the things that you put your mind to, because you know that if you’re going to go into something that’s going to require like a hundred percent commitment, you are all in.
0:09:24 – Speaker 1
Truth.
0:09:24 – Speaker 2
Right and so, but the other, of course. I mean, that’s what makes it so great, that’s what makes you so great and that’s a. And usually I think what we found is that the crazy in your spouse is really the flip side of a very strong and very good quality. Yeah, right, and and well, at least we hope so. It might be hard to find out because you’re like man, this person is really really crazy. But if you love this person and you really kind of look at them as a whole, as a creation of God, as someone who you know, you’re willing to put your life on the line for that, that crazy is usually something that’s actually really positive.
0:10:01 – Speaker 1
And I’m glad you said it that way, because that’s really the precipice for change, and so when you can have, it sounds like we’re having fun here. You know we’re talking about this funny thing like Kim goes and buys 50 candy bars. But what happened was in him saying that to me, and I will tell you God’s honest truth, I was surprised when he said that to me. I mean, we’ve been together for 20 years and I didn’t think that he noticed that about me. But what was fantastic about it is it started on the surface and that allowed for good conversation, because I didn’t respond with, you know, feeling embarrassed. I didn’t respond and snap back at him like what do you mean?
We were able to talk through that and as the days and weeks followed that conversation, I realized that I do that in a lot of areas of life, like kind of like a binge, like I will be a gung-ho about something for a short amount of time and I’ll overdo it and burn myself out, and so I could notice that pattern and talk through that with him. Do you see this too? I really feel like the Holy Spirit put this on my heart, that I’m doing this in other areas of my life also, and that’s not healthy.
0:11:12 – Speaker 2
Yeah, and what I thought was just sort of a passing conversation, because I was just sort of filling you in on a conversation I had with somebody else Several days later you came back and shared that with me and that was really big. First of all, I didn’t know that, you didn’t know that. I knew, I thought it was pretty obvious that you had this thing about food. But then the fact that I just sort of said it out loud and not in a hurtful way, we weren’t fighting, we weren’t having an argument at the time when I mentioned it but because of that it allowed you to have some retrospective right.
And to really kind of think about some other things in your life and you’re like, wow, that really kind of it’s not food per se, it’s this whole other thing.
0:11:52 – Speaker 1
Yeah, I tend to have this kind of bingey personality with certain areas of my life, so it allowed for some time with the Lord to say what does that look like and how can that be different and how can Charles help me with that? And this is a great example of something that he noticed and we weren’t planning on talking about it. But then there’s those deeper things too. I come from a family of divorce and so abandonment is something we’ve had to talk about all 20 years. It’s an ongoing conversation.
That is part of my crazy the way that when we first were married, there was a lot of things that I had crazy thoughts. Satan would pour in my mind that every time Charles walked out the door even if it was just a 7-11, and if he was frustrated, I thought, well, he’s never coming back. And I believe that. And that kind of crazy thinking is something that needs to be worked through over time and talked about and is important and serious. But until it’s brought out into the light and the conversation has started, it’s just gonna build deeper and deeper and you’re gonna be separated further and further in the middle of an argument. So I’m not the only one with crazy.
0:13:02 – Speaker 2
No, no, obviously not, and it wouldn’t actually be as fun. Look, everybody’s got a little bit, you know, at a minimum at least one issue.
0:13:13 – Speaker 1
Or 20. Or like me, I have.
0:13:17 – Speaker 2
I don’t know, we lost count. After we started we did a little personal inventory and I was like, wow, I actually I thought I had a pretty good list. And then you chimed in with a few others and I was like, oh, I guess my crazies are a little bit different than what I thought mine were.
0:13:32 – Speaker 1
Yeah well, god bless you, I love you. So I just wanna throw out a Bible verse here that’s so important Ecclesiastes four, nine through 10. Two people are better off than one, for they can help each other succeed. If one person falls, the other can reach out and help. But someone who falls alone is in real trouble. And that just really spoke to me in preparing for this show and reminding me of the gift of marriage that it’s easy to think I can handle this on my own. I got this and even if you are not in a marriage relationship, having a dear friend or someone in your very inner circle that you can talk these things through, being able to have a helpmate or a helper, changes everything. And again, starting that process with yourself, lord, show me, lord, reveal to me what is it I need to work on, and then being able to voice that to your spouse so you can work together as a team, like in Ecclesiastes, always better than being alone. So you’re crazy. What is it? There’s so many dear Well.
0:14:34 – Speaker 2
So this is a good okay. Maybe before I thought this would be kind of neat to kind of share with people out there is that maybe before you have this conversation, kind of do a little personal inventory of what you think your top maybe three crazies are, and so when we were having this conversation it was okay. So let’s buy ourselves on our own, let’s list and maybe even rank our own crazies and then, once we kind of have a good list, then share that with your spouse and see how well they match up. So when we were doing this, the two that I thought were on my list that you also hit on were my. I have this disdain for crowds.
0:15:17 – Speaker 1
Yeah, especially heat and crowds.
0:15:19 – Speaker 2
Right, and so, like you know, it’s hard to get away from that here in San Antonio in the summertime and it’s like your kids wanna go to like a theme park or they just wanna go to like Six flags in July, baby.
Oh yeah, that is like my least favorite thing, like I rather go to an amateur dentist, like I rather do like so many other things. And I don’t even mind the heat so much, like I love yard work out in the heat, but it’s the combination of crowds and heat. It just drives me nuts.
0:15:47 – Speaker 1
Something breaks inside of you.
0:15:48 – Speaker 2
Yeah, but then when we were going over this, you shared something about me that I didn’t realize was such a big issue. But then, like once you started like explaining it, I was like, oh my gosh, I really need to work on that because it’s around a critical time of year.
0:16:00 – Speaker 1
Yes. So one of the things that is a struggle that we’ve been working through for a long time now is your struggle with gifts, and not like gifts of the spirit we’re talking about, like a tie, a popcorn machine, whatever it is, and we didn’t realize this until we started having kids. Now, if you’re just tuning in, this is nextTalk Radio, usually with Mandy and Kim. Today, kim and Charles, my sweet husband, we’re here every Saturday at 10 am on AM 630,.
The Word nextTalk Radio is brought to you by nextTalk, a nonprofit organization keeping kids safe online through cyber parenting and open communication. Find resources, videos and subscribe to our weekly podcast at nextTalk.org. Are you ready for the nextTalk? So we just started talking about your quirky relationship with gifts and it started out as thinking it was quirky, but it really is something a little more deep-seated and we realized this when we had kids, and I remember this Christmas I was pregnant with our second. We have three kiddos Our son, who was the first grandson for my side of the family, the first grandchild. Let’s just say there were probably 200 presents under the tree. I mean it was crazy time.
0:17:18 – Speaker 2
It was crazy. I thought it was. I would go so far as to say it was obscene.
0:17:24 – Speaker 1
Yeah, and I might have used that word like several times.
0:17:27 – Speaker 2
I was like this is actually getting disgusting. Like for a child to have this many gifts I mean Jesus only had three, so for our son to have. It was getting.
0:17:39 – Speaker 1
It was. It took all day to open presents. I mean, they came from all over the world. First grandchild, it was over the top. But I’m thinking this is over the top. Next year it’ll be different. We’ll tell them, tone it down. And I moved on. It turned into days and days and months of conversation and stressful discussions because it really upset you.
0:18:02 – Speaker 2
Yeah, and it continued like even for myself to receive a gift. It wasn’t so much that I was unhappy with my own son to receive gifts you know who we cherish and we love and you know everything for him but at the same time, like I realized that I have a thing with gifts, I even have a thing with praise, you know. And if we were actually talking about like the five love languages, like gift giving or gift receiving I believe is the love language gift receiving I would actually put that on a hate language for me. Like I don’t. It’s so far down on my love language list that it is not even in the top, you know 10. And because I really struggle with receiving, Gifts and praise.
Praise, yeah, even words of affirmation.
0:18:43 – Speaker 1
Gifts are like a physical praise for you. So, it’s this two-sided thing.
0:18:48 – Speaker 2
It’s very hard to get.
0:18:49 – Speaker 1
Now the flip side of that, like you said, for me is this is a man who is very selfless. I can tell you many stories where he has come home without shoes, without other personal belongings, because he’s given them to homeless people on the street, or come home very hungry very often because he will give his food away to people in need or people on the street. So his lack of desire for gifts he just completely gives to everyone else. He’s incredibly generous with his money and with gifts and with time and anything that he can give. So that’s the good side of that, the good side of that coin. He is not selfish at all. He never hordes things or buys expensive things for himself.
0:19:34 – Speaker 2
That’s very nice of you to say, well, it’s true, well, but I think the ugly side of that coin is that holidays, birthdays and those things I can really make that a bad day because of that crazy side of me. And so when people I’ve learned now people ask me what would you like for this particular holiday or this particular maybe it’s a birthday coming up.
I have to say something, and I’m trying really hard to not just say that, yes, this would be a great gift to receive, but I’ve actually learned to enjoy that gift and to enjoy the process and to understand that it really brings a lot of other people joy to give gifts, even though that’s not what I like to do. I have to understand that that’s really where a lot of people are coming from. That’s how they showed love and for me to not receive that in a positive way is almost to reject their love.
0:20:29 – Speaker 1
Yeah, it’s frustrating. It’s really difficult. Like Christmas, we’re in our matching PJs and having an amazing day and you’re like shutting it down with your grapchy face and that was not fun. It has been a long process of these difficult conversations, not in the heat of the moment, not in that you’re crazy and I want you to know it. Moment for me and truly calling on the power of the Lord to calm and create a space. Like Lord, I need you to let me be calm in this moment. This is not the time on Christmas morning to address this with my sweet husband.
And work through the day and find a time when we, like we said, outside of the argument, outside of the moment, where the Lord creates a space for you, where you’re on a walk, where we’re on a date and I can say, you know what I’ve noticed and it’s hurtful not to just me but our family, and we’ve had this conversation and now we know those triggers and so before a holiday comes, we know we need to just have a little chat Like how are we gonna handle this? How are you gonna handle this?
0:21:28 – Speaker 2
Right. And so you know, although I haven’t had to be on a couch with a therapist yet, you know there are some things like, but before we get there to kind of like deal with my crazy, and you know, ultimately it’s about enjoying you know the time, the season, and really just enjoying each other as a family, and so, but again, if there’s no like conversation ahead of time because we know, hey look, the holidays happen every year around the same time we need to have those conversations leading up to it and just so we kind of all we’re always on the same page, and then we could kind of not only just take like our words but we also look at our nonverbal cues as we sort of like address these kind of things, as we continue to be better parents and to be better spouses to each other. You know, that’s one of the things we just have to constantly, constantly work on.
0:22:17 – Speaker 1
That is why this is such a big nextTalk issue. You know we talk about protecting our kids from the online world, but all of that boils down to open communication, and that starts in your marriage. Your kids are watching that from a young age. What does that look like? And for us, it’s super key that we are preventative, proactive and that these conversations are ongoing. It’s not a one and done, because we change and our marriage grows and our needs change too, and so it’s very important that we’re addressing those at all times. And it’s not easy. Not easy, most of us know. Our crazies, not visible to the outside world, is super obvious. But the beautiful gift of marriage I think one of God’s greatest gifts to us is that he gives us someone to walk through life with. That sees our crazy, and if we’re talking about it and if we’re in a healthy marriage, we will know that they’re not gonna run out the door and leave us. So being known and being loved is such an incredible gift in marriage, but it does take the work.
0:23:20 – Speaker 2
Right.
I think we kind of equate it to getting a college degree or preparing to have a career.
We spend tens, maybe even like hundreds of thousands of dollars to get a certificate that prepares you for life in the real world, so to speak, in which you get a job where you work 40, maybe 60, sometimes 80 hours in a week and you do that job for maybe from your 20s to your 60s about 40 years and there’s very highly skilled, highly trained people who take you aside and actually you get training on this, whereas, like in marriage, this is a 24-7 relationship. There is no formal education for it and there is no let’s take four years out of our life to go and study how to be a great spouse. This is sort of like this is on the job training. This is an internship where you constantly have to learn to get better. You have to learn to know what makes your spouse tick and to address things as they go, and the only way to do that is to have some time to really talk and to communicate and to, in a loving way, take care of these issues.
0:24:34 – Speaker 1
One. You have employees that never go home. We have three of them that wake us up in the middle of the night. So it is a whole nother realm of work and it does take the most commitment. And what I would say is the first step is Lord, reveal to me my crazy, show me what that is, help me to find peace with that and accept your forgiveness and your help in that, and then start having these conversations with your spouse. The more transparent you are, the more transparent they are, and pray before you have that conversation that the Lord would give you a spirit to receive, and then make it a habit, an ongoing habit.
0:25:11 – Speaker 2
You gotta make it a habit. You gotta set time out. You gotta look at you know, once a week we try to sit down and have a time to you know. Look at this together. When’s a good time this week to sit down and actually put it all? If we could have these conversations, because if it doesn’t get put on the planner, it doesn’t happen.
0:25:24 – Speaker 1
It doesn’t happen.
0:25:25 – Speaker 2
And marriage, the most important relationship takes a back seat to everything else.
0:25:29 – Speaker 1
Absolutely Well. Thank you so much for joining us on nextTalk Radio, Normally with Mandy and Kim, but thank you, my sweet Charles, for being here today. That was a lot of fun.
0:25:38 – Speaker 2
Thank you so much.
0:25:39 – Speaker 1
We’re here every Saturday at 10 am on AM 630. The word nextTalk Radio is brought to you by nextTalk, a nonprofit organization keeping kids safe online through cyber parenting and open communication. Find resources, videos and subscribe to our weekly podcast at nextTalk.org. Are you ready for the nextTalk? Ashleyoguecom showcases the leadership of State and community. And존 bots are the leading professionals for creating online and business perspectives. Thank you, and the next胆s thing is advocacy. We’re going to make an application on the streaming.
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