Connie Durham (00:13.282)
Hi, and welcome to the Extraordinary Marriage Podcast. I'm Connie Durham, and today I'm gonna be sharing the fourth of my Empowered Marriage series. This week it's called Empowered Marriage. Understand what triggers you. Think about those arguments that you have with your spouse. That's what we're gonna figure out: how to overcome today. So here's where we're gonna start.
Did you know that? Happiness is knowing that the best things in life aren't things. So often we get caught up in all the things we want to do, what we want. Yeah, all the things. But you know, happiness is not about things. It's about people. It's about the people in your home and where you live. And this is really what keeps you happy. So this is from Mac Anderson and
And I'm gonna share a little word and it's from it. It's called The Road to Happiness: Simple Secrets to a Happy Life. Mac Anderson and BJ Gallagher. I tell you what, they say that what goes in is what comes out. And if you're listening to good stuff, you're engaging with positive people, you're gonna put forth a more positive life. And so let's listen to this. Earl Nightingale said.
Everything that's really worthwhile in life comes to us free. Our minds, our souls, our bodies, our hopes, our dreams, our intelligence, our love of family and friends and country. All of these priceless possessions are free. Think about it. You can lose all your money and start over. If your house burns down, me my, you can rebuild it.
If the things that cost you nothing, it is the things that cost you nothing that you can never replace. And that's like your spouse, your family, right? One of the most important keys to a living a happy life is to clearly identify your core values. Make sure they match with your spouse, right? You must decide what matters most. Why the need to identify your values? Many people think.
Connie Durham (02:37.131)
I know what's important and I don't need a list to remind me. What they don't fully understand, however, is that core values often serve as critical guides for making important decisions. And when you're in doubt, your values will cut through the fog like a beacon in the night. We all know that there are many distractions along the road of life and that will try to pull us away from our values and
Sometimes we're forced to make difficult choices, but a good rule of thumb is that when you have to sacrifice material possessions for one of those free things that life has given you, you've made the right choice for a happy and fulfilling life. Well, today we're we're uncovering what causes you and your spouse to end up in the reactive cycle. I also call this the crazy cycle in many of my past.
podcasts and blogs. So, let's see.
Connie Durham (03:42.616)
So I am gonna give you how to stop this cycle from the book Empowered to Love, published by Focus on the Family. And you might want to grab a pen and paper or take some notes on your phone for this one. Here's the book right here. I mean, all of my empowered series is coming out of this book. All right. And like I said, this is the fourth podcast from that empowered series.
And today we're gonna do some self-coaching as you answer some questions to yourself. You can make a list, write it down, but be sure and stay with me.
Connie Durham (04:35.309)
Okay, so first let me share with you the different Empowered Series episodes because they're kind of spread out. Usually I do everything right together, but these did not all get right together. So in episode 109, if you've not already listened to that, it is about stop reacting and start loving. Each of these podcasts in the Empowered Series gives you something in the equation that brings solutions that brings peace.
into your home. That particular episode is done with my daughter Melissa. and they she and her husband had gone to a wind shape week long event that helped them kind of get their stuff together and and she personally shares with you on that. In episode 111 regain personal power and episode 112 is with my son in law, my daughter's husband and it is Stop the Blame Game
And I added first of all 96, which was the formula for forgiveness. That is also from this book. So let's review a bit from the past episodes, just in case you have not heard those episodes, but you do want to go back to them. So as adults, we are responsible for and must care for our own self. And so there one of the podcasts talks about caring, taking care of yourself.
So you're the best you that you can be. Emotional, spiritual, physical, mental health is part of that. And it's referred to as ESPN. ESPN, emotional, spiritual, physical, mental health. And we're each responsible as adults to take care of that. So you hear that in one of the podcasts. And it's important to recognize the shadow monsters.
This is where we bring our old pain, our old baggage, our old problems, rejections, frustrations into our marriage. You know, that stuff maybe that went on in your family, and you're like, I'm never doing that. I don't want to have that when I grow up. maybe a past relationship where you fought or you felt hurt or somebody left you. all of those things are called shadow monsters. The things that
Connie Durham (06:57.845)
We bring from our past into our future. And unless we're self-aware and paying attention, they may ruin your relationship. So beware of the shadow monsters. Also, people are hardwired with different behavior styles. Some people are naturally controlling, naturally perfectionist. Some people get mad easily. Some people withdraw and won't talk to you. It's kind of natural for some people not.
To share their thoughts. They don't share their business. They don't share what's going on with them because they're private. But when it comes to being married, you have to learn to come out of your shell. And some of us talk a lot and we have to learn to listen, of which I have done. I have learned to listen and I've learned the importance of that through going through all of these processes. So people, most people, react.
To frustration and conflict conflict with flight f well, excuse me, it's fight, flight, or shutdown. Think about it. Which one are you? Fight, flight, or shutdown. Also in the past ep episodes, we have identified what we each want our marriage to be like.
Do we want trust in our marriage? Do we want to be supportive of each other? Do we want to feel loved? I think everybody's nodding their head on that. Yes. And so that's why we're here and why we're doing this. Everyone wants to be heard, understood, and appreciated. Do you feel heard, understood, and appreciated? Do you think your spouse does? All right. Here's the serenity prayer.
God grant me the serenity to accept things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Because the truth is, you cannot change your spouse, but you can learn to meet in the middle. You can learn to understand why they act the way they do and understand it's not always about you. Often when our spouse is grumpy, not friendly.
Connie Durham (09:16.895)
Needs to go be by their self. We take it personal. And it's not usually personal. It's usually something outside that has caused that. All right, so I'm gonna give you two major tools today. Uh-uh. I'm gonna help you understand this reactive cycle, and then I'm gonna give you the stop meth method. This is because all marriages have this happen. It doesn't matter.
How well you're getting along. You still have this happen. My husband and I he came in extremely tired yesterday, and he was not as friendly as usual. And I thought, who is this? Why is he acting like that? This is not him at all. But it happens that on Sunday in my church, we are we have a pumpkin patch. And so all these pumpkins, I'm talking about a semi-load of pumpkins, every size of pumpkin.
Bumpy, lumpy pumpkins, white ones, green ones, orange ones, black ones. I mean, every kind of pumpkin you could ever think of. So is in this semi. And so, you know, a lot of the men of the church stayed, and the youth also, because this is their event, stayed and unloaded all these pumpkins. Picture a semi-trap. Okay, so he stayed to the inn. So we were at church that morning, they fed him lunch, and then he stayed to the inn.
he got home like after six. And so he was tired. We are not young anymore. And honestly, if you are really young, you're still gonna be tired and sore. So he was kind of grumpy on Monday. Yeah. But understanding that reactive cycle, even though I understand it, when he was grumpy, I reacted still. And yes, we still do the reactive cycle.
Just for us, it's not very often, thank goodness. But for many of you, you might be that person that the reactive cycle happens every single day. And you never know what's going to happen when your spouse walks through the door when they come home. So all you can do is learn to understand them better and really mentally figure out that it's not about you, it's about them. And so maybe you can move forward.
Connie Durham (11:38.722)
I want you to recall the times you've had the most conflict, frustration, tension. What actually caused it? Were you rested? Were you cared up? You know, had you been taking care of yourself like yesterday? He hadn't been taking care of himself because he was serving to the end. Not shop till you drop, but work till you drop. Anyway, all right. My expectations you know, are sometimes different.
Than his. So let's start and let's look at the reactive cycle. Got your pen, got your pencil. You're gonna want to take some notes, or you're gonna want come back to this. It's really important. All right. So, first of all, I want you to list. Remember, I said this is self-coaching? no charge, right? You must list your top five feelings that lead you to be reactive.
What is it your spouse does that makes you reactive? Maybe they didn't put their clothes away or they dropped them on the floor or they left their dishes on the table. maybe they didn't cut the yard. Maybe this is a man listening to this, and maybe she never cooks dinner and you're hungry. I mean, there's all kinds of things that cause reactive cycle. There again, remember, it's not always about you. Sometimes it's about the other person not being cared up.
List your five feelings that lead you to be reactive. these might be fears, triggers. I'm gonna call them buttons. You know, like I'm sure you said it, man. You push my buttons. You push my buttons and I react. So, what causes those arguments? Here's some of the feelings. which top feelings trigger arguments for you? And then after you figure that out, figure it out for your spouse. And if they will.
Have them listen and go through this so that you can figure out for each other what are my buttons? What are your buttons? All right, here's some of the feelings. Abandonment. You feel like they're never home. or they don't care. You feel disrespected. You feel deceived, betrayed, alone, afraid of intimacy. Maybe you feel helpless.
Connie Durham (14:02.153)
Ignored, not good enough, taken advantage of, rejected, unloved. What is it for you? What is what are the feelings that make you react to your spouse? Now have him do the same. The second thing is now as you identify your reactions, what you do when your buttons are pushed. So my buttons pushed, and now I'm reacting.
And I want you to list your five reactions. So what happens when your button is pushed? And that was and this is what starts the reactive cycle. Your buttons getting pushed, you know, your fears, your triggers. Now, number two, you're reacting. So what five reactions do you have when he pushes your buttons?
Maybe you deny responsibility. It's not my fault. Maybe you get angry, you avoid, or you argue. maybe you belittle or gaslight the other person. Maybe you broadcast and tell everyone how terrible your spouse is. Maybe you become clingy. Maybe you make accusations as you're frustrated. Maybe you criticize. Yeah, that would be a one for a lot of women. We start getting like nagging, fussy, yeah.
Maybe you become defensive or you have denial. Or maybe you're dishonest and you actually don't tell the truth in how you're feeling. and so you say things that are not true. Maybe you get out of control, or you shut down, or you minimize the problem, kind of try to ignore it, or maybe you provoke, or maybe you become sarcastic. So which one of those reactions are you, which you're your
Five that you do, and which are the five once you push your spouse's button that he does. All right, that's reactions. Number three, identify your desires and wants in your marriage. And then list five desires. What do you really need in your marriage? I actually have a free gift. It's called the chemistry of lasting love.
Connie Durham (16:27.145)
And this is where I am taking the top 10 needs. You're really not going to understand what I'm talking about, but you'll understand when you get the guide. And this guide, there's a little pop quiz that you can do. And if you do it by yourself, then you're going to be 50% better in your marriage. Because one person learning all this and looking for answers and reacting better, not allowing their buttons to be pushed.
one person's gonna make your marriage 50% better. But if you can get your spouse to do it then later or now, then you know you're a hundred percent better than you were. Cause sometimes that's coming from a long ways, right? 100% you're a hundred percent better than you were. All right. So we're gonna identify your desires and wants in your marriage. And to each of us, they're different. To you, they'll be different than what your spouse needs. And in the chemistry of lasting love.
It gives you, like I said, a pop quiz. It tells you what you and your spouse need most from each other. And there's like five things for each of you, and they're not what you think. And then inside that guide, there's also around 50 things that you can look at and see if you can find some things in common that you like to do together. Because it's very important to spend 15 hours a week together, and I explain that in several different places.
but all of that is in the chemistry of lasting love. And it's a free gift. There's so there's no reason not to get it. When you get it, go through it. Don't put it in a pile, don't lay it aside, print it, keep it, and read it two, three, four, five times as you go through it so you can really make it your own. That one tool can make a difference in your relationship because there's just stuff we're not thinking about, right? All right. Once in your marriage, maybe you want acceptance.
Maybe you need more affection. And this is covered in the chemistry of lasting love. Affection. Maybe there again, you're not feeling good enough. And you want to feel like you are enough, appreciated. You know, when we appreciate our spouse, it lets them know that we love them and simply that we appreciate what they do. We all need that verbal recognition, verbal recognition that
Connie Durham (18:51.223)
Affirms us. Because sometimes, I mean, I have that myself sometimes where I don't feel good enough. I don't really know exactly why that is. I am finding as as the years go on that things that I think are just my problem are many people's problem. Many people have challenges and frustrations that they just don't talk about. A lot of times, not only they not talk about them with their spouse, they don't talk about them with anyone, they just hide them inside.
And they continue to feel that frustration or like they're not enough. Sometimes, you know, it's a a lie from the devil. I think that's a big one. Where the devil just lies to us, making us think we're not enough, or making us think our spouse doesn't love us. And so it's important to appreciate one another and to verbally communicate and affirm each other. we're looking for approval. We want to be cared for, we want companionship.
Partnership. We want intimacy. Intimacy is a really big important part of marriage. And if you are not taking care of your relationship and you're not aware of challenges, you're not approaching those challenges and trying to figure it out. Intimacy goes bye bye because not only do you not want to open up and communicate and talk with your spouse and tell them what you're really feeling.
But you really don't like to be with them because to be honest, you know, intimacy means like, you know, you gotta like your spouse. And so you really have to keep your whole relationship rolling properly to enjoy your relationship and to enjoy one another. And so if there is any trouble there, you need to do all that I'm talking about so that you can figure out yourself and figure out your spots.
your spouse and figure out what's wrong with the relationship right now. Everybody wants some passion in their marriage. They want grace. Please forgive me. I acted out. Please forgive me, right? Some people can't say, please forgive me. And some people cannot forgive. go to that podcast I told you, the formula for forgiving, because what we don't know and what we aren't, we can learn because we're smart people, right?
Connie Durham (21:16.353)
We're smart people. We are able to learn if we want to learn. So we want grace and we want to give grace. Respect for one another and love. You know, there's a a book that's called Love and Respect. And typically men want to be respected. I mean, this sounds like a little old timey, but it's still the truth. they need to be respected.
Because women are are more affectionate and loving and they need to feel loved. And when a man is not loving and affectionate, and the things that fulfill that woman to make her feel loved are not taken care of, then she doesn't feel respectful. And she may mouth off at him and fuss at him and all these different things. And then he feels disrespected. And so then he's not loving. And then she's not respectful.
And he's not loving. You see what I mean? It's the same kind of thing for the reactive cycle. One thing happens, the buttons are pushed, and then the other person's irritated and they react and they push the other person's button and then they react, and then it's a vicious cycle that goes round and round. Men want respect, women want love. Now, on this day and time, I know we all want respect and we all want love, but ultimately
Men gotta have that respect because I gotta feel macho, gotta feel in charge, gotta feel like they're taking care of things. And women wanna be loved. So another want in marriage is safety, support, trust, and understanding. All right. So just to review that, let's see. We had fear and triggers like our buttons. Somebody pushes the button.
And then now that person reacts. And then what did we want in our marriage? All right, so the reactive cycle, that's what we just looked at. So let's bring this list together. Five things she really wants in marriage. Same for him. Picture a circle and arrows, just like I was saying, going round and round. The his button gets pushed, he react and she reacts. No, his button gets pushed.
Connie Durham (23:40.243)
And he reacts. Then as he reacts, he pushes her buttons and then she reacts. And then it just goes round and round and round.
His top five buttons caused by feelings, fears, old baggage. Then he reacts, and then she's her buttons are pushed, and then she reacts. She reacts, he reacts, it's on, baby. It's a bad night, it's a bad day, there's frustration going on. But guess what? I'm gonna give you the stop method in the book. It talks about.
Of the stop method. All right. So I want you to write down S T O P. So the first thing you're gonna do, it's gone crazy. It might be loud, somebody might be crying, somebody might have gone to their room and they're not talking. Stop. S. Tell yourself to stop. What is really the matter here? it's like
When we get into this position, we go into kid mode. We act like we're a four-year-old, right? We don't act like we're an adult. We don't have our adult brain anymore. We're frustrated. And now we have our little kid that takes co takes over, or that teenager that's out of control. Stop and tell yourself to stop. What's really the matter? Is it old baggage? Some kind of old frustration, something that
used to trigger you some kind of problem you had as a kid or a teenager or a young adult, something that's happened. Do you need self-care? Remember we talked about being cared up and your your mental attitude, your feelings and all of that. are you cared up? Do you need to stop? Rest? Take time out. T, take a deep breath.
Connie Durham (25:42.413)
Breathe in for four counts.
And then breathe out for eight counts. Take your time. Don't be in a hurry. You're trying to calm down. observe what just happened. I call this the distraction. You know how whenever you're you have a, if you have children, yeah, like there's the toddler and they're upset.
They're maybe screaming, maybe they're throwing their body on the floor and you're trying to talk them down with verbally by making some sense to them, but hey, they're two years old and they're not understanding. And so I call it the distraction. So I talk about something else, or I change the subject totally, or ask a question, or say something that surprises them. So observe what just happened.
Press your feet into the ground. How do your shoulders feel? Maybe wiggle your body a little bit. So you kind of distract yourself. Stop. S-T-O.
You're taking a minute, maybe another breath if you need it. Recognize how you feel. Are you cold? Are you hot? Are you numb? Weak? Are you sweaty? Knotted? Stinking? Number one, you have to care for yourself. What am I feeling? Number two, what do I really want right now? What do I really want right now? Number three, what is the truth?
Connie Durham (27:28.009)
Often when we get all hot headed and in an argument, you know, there's sarcasm, there's anger, there's shutdown. You know, what is the truth? Do we get been all out of shape? Number four, am I turning up the volume somehow? Yeah, I've seen myself do that. Mm-hmm. Turned up the volume somehow because I reacted and I was frustrated. yeah. So P out of the word stop, P.
Pull things back into perspective. Pull things back into perspective. So let's look at that stop one more time. Tell yourself to stop. What's really the matter? Is it old baggage? T. Take a deep breath. Four counts in. Eight counts out. observe what just happened. Let's shift it up. Let's change it.
What am I feeling? What do I want right now? What's the truth? Am I turning up the volume somehow? P, pull things back into perspective. Stop and think and use your brain. Bring yourself back into a healthy place. My prayer for you is that you'll take God as your partner and pray for your marriage. Ephesians 4 2 says be completely humble and gentle, be patient.
Sparing with one another in love. When you really love one another, you don't want to cause each other pain. You want to support each other and lift each other up. Have you ever seen a relationship like that? Maybe your parents had it all the time, maybe they had it most of the time, or maybe they didn't have it at all. And so you have no example to look to. Find a mentor. Find somebody to talk to, you and your spouse, so that you can figure this out.
Because it can be better. But you have to find someone who knows more than you know to get you out of this spot you're in. Or if you're a self-help person, listen to the podcast. You know, I have a place online of fresh insights where you can talk to me for a very low fee and tell me a lot. And I could tell you by the behavior styles and the different things that you tell me as we talk, and I can give you a little bit of guidance. And then also there's the rediscover.
Connie Durham (29:54.646)
Your spouse, which is an online workshop that helps you understand yourself and your spouse. And I think I'm gonna tell you about that in a minute. So let's go over ESPM. Empower yourself. Check your emotional health, your spiritual health, your physical health, your mental health. Where are you? Is there a lot of stress at work? Is something else going on? Are you cared up? Have you been taking care of yourself? Have you eaten? Are you rested?
You know, sometimes we think we're supposed to be super women or supermen and do it all. Yeah, you gotta take care of yourself. We're adults. Recognize the old hurts in the baggage, know what you want in your marriage, identify triggers or buttons that start conflict, use the stop method. So listen to this podcast over and over. Have a conversation with your spouse if you can. And on a good day, when you know you're all cared up, you got good.
emotional, spiritual, physical, mental health, E S P Read the book, Empowered to Love. You know, it is a great book. And I mean, it would take reading it a few times or studying to really get it. every one person seeking solutions, each and every person, one spouse seeking solutions can make a difference. Think about it. A 50%
Difference because if I'm not reacting to the challenges that are going on, I'm not taking it personal, the challenges that are going on. I start realizing that my spouse has challenges, they're not cared up, they're exhausted, or they're reflecting something from their past on me. if I can understand that, then I can keep them from pushing my buttons.
And we can keep that reactive cycle from happening. So be sure and grab the chemistry of lasting love free from my website. And my next podcast is going to be 124. It is empowered marriage, how to end conflict. And I'm going to give you the fifth in that series of empowered love. All right. Thanks for listening, and I'll see you next time.
