Hi friends, welcome in. It's me, Cynthia Lujan. I'm your host, and this is my podcast, Living Room Talk, where I have the privilege of hosting you here in the comfort of my living room. It's one of my absolute favorite things to do. So whether you have stopped by for a bite size negative faith, or to listen in on a conversation with one of my amazing guest co-hosts, I know either way, you are going to walk away blessed, refreshed, and encouraged to continue your journey ahead. So sit back, relax, because we are about to dive in. Guys, we're going to jump in this morning on a topic right away that I'm not sure we have ever chatted about before on the podcast, and that is marriage tips and tricks. Ooh, tips and tricks. That was a hard one. That has helped us along our journey, things that we have had to learn and grow in. And I think this year we have been together 28 years back? 29. 1996. Yeah. I'm not good at math. I also say it was the end of 1995. It wasn't. That's not true. There's a longstanding debate about that. I did not date a 15-year-old. You were 16 and I was 17. Your eyes were locked. Thank you. You were locked on me. Oh my. So anyways, David would love to share with you guys just some tips and tricks we've learned along the way in regards to communication, marriage, evaluating one another. Creating safety and space to protect, listen, value, honor, and push each other forward toward the more that God has each called us to become. And oftentimes that doesn't just happen on its own. It happens in the stretch, as we all very well know about here at Living Room Talk. We talk about the stretch often. Well, we're in the stretch when it comes to marriage too and creating the beautiful life that we want to. It takes putting some skills to use, right, babe? Yeah, I think there's a handful of really useful tools that we've picked up along the way, some from we developed ourselves, some that, you know, maybe that you had read about. But I thought, you know, it'd be great to share some of these tools. It may be one of those ones that you're going to want to take notes on. But some of those tools, they may be out of order. We're not going to start from when we were kids and move our way back, but we'll start with some important ones. And we'll just keep compounding important tools that may be very helpful for you in your marriage where you're at now. We've had a colorful marriage. I say colorful as in we started young and broken and figuring life out. And that's no longer our story, but we have journeyed many difficult things in order to get to the place we're at. And so we do have some functional tools, not conceptual tools that we might be able to give you that were helpful for us. And remember that tools are things that have to be used just because you have a shovel at the house doesn't mean it's going to dig a hole for you. You're going to have to pick them up and apply it, right? Let's get let's get into it. One of the one of the things that I think is is necessary and, you know, is core element is how you speak to one another. Right. And we have consistently worked to edify one another to make sure that the other felt encouraged, felt seen, felt loved. And I say consistently, as in that's not the way it started because we didn't know any better. But understanding that, you know, if your mouth is planting seeds, you want seeds of edification. You want the other people to be built up and you want them to be encouraged. You want the person, your spouse, to feel loved and know that they're admired by you. You want to be intentional about compliments. And maybe you're hearing me say that and you're thinking, oh, my gosh, I'm not good at compliments. That's okay. Nobody was great at compliments in the beginning. You have to, in order to compliment people, you have to be able to get over yourself because many people feel like, well, nobody's complimenting me. Nobody's giving me these affirmations. Like, I don't know how to do that. And I don't want to start handing them out. And now, you know, this one person who's kind of like a vacuum who wants, you know, always wants to be told they're doing great. And now I'm telling them they're doing great all the time. Maybe you're trying to keep that from them, whatever the case may be. That's not good either, right? So one of the first things is how you speak to your spouse matters. And using words of edification, positive reinforcements, encouragement, letting them know that they can conquer the world, they need you in their corner. And I believe when you train your mouth and your thoughts to think positive and say positive thoughts about your spouse, you will begin to think positive thoughts about your spouse. Right now, maybe you're frustrated and you only see the bad. It's the same way with gratitude. When you start being grateful for the great things they are, the bad kind of slips away. Whatever you focus on grows. And so being intentional to focus on how you view and how you speak to your spouses is incredibly important. And it's a decision. Just FYI, when you hear me say this, it's as simple as picking up the shovel and putting it to work. Like I said, it's a tool. Put it to work. Be intentional about that. And if you feel a challenge on the inside says I can't do that, you know, I would say most people can. I'm not talking to everybody. Obviously, there's exceptions. Sometimes there's abusive relationships and things and they're not actually being beautiful. But even in difficult situations, you can call them higher by saying things like, hey, like you're such an amazing person when you do X and I really need X right now. Now, you can call people higher in a creative way, but your mouth and your words and your thoughts will drive much of the relationship. Yeah, I think that most of those things start with us in our own heart, in our own identity. And it's going to be really hard to hand out affirming and honoring compliments if we have a lot of brokenness and unhealed. In our own hearts that need to get healed and addressed. And I think oftentimes we think it's the other person when it's actually more about what's taking place and what we're cultivating in our own heart, in our own life, rather than believing I actually am blessed. I'm actually loved. I can hand out these compliments freely because I value you. Obviously, you chose one another from the start. So that means we have to stretch ourselves and speak into one another, you know, even when we don't necessarily see it or feel it, we have to like find it in our own heart, in our own health first, in order to be able to hand it out, you know. And so I think that that's really important is choosing to recognize those areas of our own insecurities. And just oftentimes, you know, even where I think affairs start isn't necessarily what the other person is doing or not doing, but what we are doing or not doing in taking captive our own thoughts and taking captive our own state of mind, our own posture. Because people can be just mean and salty. And so they think like, if I tear down the other person, it's going to get me the fruit of what I want. So which is what you're talking about. So we want to just like find that place of health within our own heart. And oftentimes it can be like, well, I don't see anything good. We might even have to go back to like, what has God done for us? What has Christ done for me that allows me to be able to handle it? And then, you know, the Bible says, like, freely you've received, freely you can give. So when there are people who are not living Christ-like, we can still continue to call them higher in spite of what we see that they're reacting or responding in because of what Christ has done that has allowed us to walk in gratitude for those things in our own life. So then we can love and honor other people based on what we see, you know, with our natural eyes. I think, you know, I think the other thing is, is that, you know, we, we, we teach people also how to love, how to love us, right? Like, and, and how we, we want to be loved. And so another thing I would say, which has been a really good tool and, and, and you may be listening to this. Some of this may be outside of your reach right now, but these are things to be worked towards until you can master them, right? Nobody was great at riding a bike until they started. Nobody jumped on a bike and instantly took off. So you kind of got to put work to it. But I think communicating your needs is another important thing, right? Are many people we talk to believe that they've communicated the thing that they would, that they're looking for, whether that is, hey, listen, I'm feeling lonely right now. I just need somebody to sit with me. Or, hey, I'm feeling scared. I don't know that we can take on this challenge. Or, hey, I'm not feeling heard. I just need somebody to listen to me. Whatever those things are, are you communicating your needs so that the other people clearly understand what, what it is you need. And sometimes people won't communicate their needs because they're afraid of rejection. So they don't want to, they don't want to open themselves up to say, Hey, I need this. And the other person not deliver that can, And so both parties need to be aware that, OK, look, somebody the other person in this relationship is looking and needs something right now. And I want to be able to help to meet that. And it's cyclical, right? Meeting each other's needs is what it turns into, is that as you help to meet your your partner's needs, your spouse's needs, they also begin to meet your needs as well. It is cyclical. Yeah, I think that when it comes to like communicating your needs, just because you tell someone that you have needs in that area doesn't mean that those needs are warranted. What we're actually talking about is helping them know how to love you in a way that brings health to one another, brings health to the relationship. Just because someone starts saying, these are my needs and you should meet them, doesn't mean they're valid, right? It's about communicating what those needs are in a way that causes the relationship to grow, That causes our safety to grow. That causes our ability to honor and hear one another to grow because I want to create that stability for you. I want to become that for you. And a lot of times people are just so caught up in their own worlds that they don't even recognize that they're doing some of those things or missing those opportunities to love and honor one another, which for me goes back to healing your own heart. Because if you didn't have that affection or safety or affirmation when you were a child, it's going to be like gaslighting in some ways. You're going to put those expectations on somebody else of how they should meet those needs. And it's unrealistic. It's not fair. To put something on your spouse that's not theirs to fix, right? So some of it, we have to make sure what are my legitimate needs that are being neglected from my spouse and have that conversation, not in an accusatory way, but allowing them to take notice, you know, take some personal accountability and then make those adjustments in a way that isn't accusatory or unrealistic of what those needs should be. Yeah, I think I heard somebody say one time, they said, hey, if you listen to your wife, she'll tell you exactly what she needs, right? And I think one of the things I'm saying is that, you know, for many people, the spouse is asking, how can I meet your needs? Not necessarily in the example, and although you're exactly right, there are people who feel that they have a need that isn't being met by their spouse. That's probably not even an actual need. It might be grounded in some type of brokenness if it's a huge demand on the other person or something. Right. But I'm saying, teach me how to love you. Not just me teach you how to love me, but teach me how to love you so that you feel seen, so that you feel cared for, that you feel loved. And sometimes I would say for me and us, I needed you to explain what that was because many men at least have an idea of what that is and it's way off. It's just literally not actually right. And so some of it is teach me how to love you better so that in my actions and my responses that you feel seen. And I think for many men, at least, they can take action if they understand what that thing is. It's the confusion. And in many men's cases, them thinking that they actually know and standing on, I know what she's saying, but maybe you said something, but what you really needed was something else, i.e. That's that fixer thing. So, hey, babe, I have all these problems. We're like, cool, I got the answers. and they're like, I don't want you to fix it. I just need somebody to listen. Sometimes for a man that's like, yo, I don't know what you're talking about. You need me to listen. We don't do this whole sit around and listen to each other and then we feel better. It's like, if there's a problem, at least for me as a fixer, if there's a problem, then we fix it, right? We don't feel better after hearing it. But that's a real thing for many women is that they do feel better once they've kind of got it off their chest. And so teach me how to love you better. I can't do that unless you're willing to take the time to help your spouse understand when you do this, I feel really seen and loved. When you listen and give me the time, that's when I feel cared for. And when you say it that way, when you do this, I feel really cared for, the other person goes, oh, that's my actual target. I thought my target was to fix a thing. My target is actually in those moments to be a better listener, to sit and pay attention to put my phone down to be, you know, not to be articulate, but to be ears wide open. Right. I think that that. You know, just trying to help clarify what you're saying. It's important that communicating those needs isn't, we sit down and I tell you everything that's wrong with you and what you need to do to fix yourself to be better for me. That's very self-centered. And I see a lot of that, you know, used in our culture where it's high emotion, high expectations, no practical relational skills that takes ownership for our own responses. You hear that sort of gaslighting language and culture right now of what you should be for me and how you should, you know, clean up the mess for my sake. Does that make sense? Yeah. So would you say it's better to engage the conversation where I say where the individual who seeks to know better how to love rather like I say, hey, babe, teach me how can you can you tell me how I could be I could better respond to this moment rather than hey let me tell you how you could have done better there is that is that really just a. Yeah, I think it's more just like inviting one another into the conversation instead of like in an accusatory way, right? It's like, here's the list of everything you should be for me. Now go meet it. And this is how you offended me, by the way. I've had that done in friendships before where I had a friend come to me and vent all her frustrations with me and then leave it to me to clean up. But it actually, the mess was never mine to clean up. It was more internal in that person's relational world. And people, you know, put those expectations on other people and they're unrealistic, whether that's in your marriage and your friendships with your children. With your adult children. You'll see that a lot in in-law relationships where they tell you what their expectations are and then you're just supposed to be on board with it like they're still little children. That's not how it works. We're all adults here who make adult decisions. So we should come to the table and communicate how or what's best. We do that by asking questions and genuinely desiring to meet and understand instead of just tell someone what it is. Does that make sense? Yeah, give us an example. So people listening home, you know, we do this type of stuff, but people listening at home, this is a foreign concept. Where do they start with this? So there's a husband or a wife listening right now that's thinking, oh, shoot, I really would love that. What's the practical first steps of coming to the table and what does that conversation sound like? Yeah, I had a wife reach out not that long ago that was really frustrated and bothered by her husband's like approach to a certain topic. And she was really frustrated that he was not seeing it from her perspective. And so basically I was saying to her, do you think your method is helping him to have greater understanding or is it pushing him further away? If you're telling him everything he's doing wrong and how he needs to do it this way, Do you think that's helpful to him? So do you think you're pursuing connection and understanding of one another so that he can hear your position? Or are you coming at him and telling him this is what you need to do wrong without like any understanding? I just think like support and encouragement of each other in helping one another get to that space in time and process and trusting God does so much more than like a nagging session. But you know me, I'm a nuts and bolts kind of person, right? So we just sat down at the table, you and me, and there's a thing that you're hoping to get from that conversation. Have that conversation with me right now. What does that look like? So that somebody understands this is how you would have, this is a way you could approach the conversation. You know, the conversation is the feedback. Like, how would you provide that feedback? Give us a real example. I think a lot of times those revelations have to come in time for that person you I mean you can tell them until you're blue in the face you you can try to like help them to understand but ultimately ultimately it has to be a process and a journey that we're willing to be patient on that helps them that helps that that process unfold it's not always I know for you I can tell I've told you things a hundred times. But it's not until you've like gotten that revelation for yourself, whether through somebody else shared that or Dr. Brian or, you know, you've heard the message elsewhere that it will make sense to you in that moment. It's not always we resolve this in the moment. That's why we have to have a bigger picture of supporting each other in that process to be patient with one another rather than just how do I convince you to understand how I feel. Does that make sense? Sure. I guess I would say if I was trying to have a conversation with you about something, let's say we were just somewhere and you made a joke and we were with your friends. This is not something that's happened, but you made a joke and I felt cut on and was embarrassed in that joke. I felt like maybe I was the butt of a joke. Yeah. How would I how would I approach that so that we could resolve that in a in a beautiful way so that we grow from it and not just end up in conflict from conflict. Right. And a way that we could do that is I could approach you and say, hey, babe, when we were at this event, I need to let you know you may have already seen me respond, but I need to let you know that that made me feel belittled. Like when everybody was laughing at my education or something, that didn't make me feel good. I just want to let you know that... When that like that, that doesn't make me feel good, you know, when, when we're in those environments and I would appreciate if one, if we don't do that again, and just that you're aware that that's how that makes me feel. That's like, that's a simple way to build towards communication that leads to, you know, positive outcome of, of, of understanding how the other person wants to be seen. And maybe we joke about something all the time, but in public, it felt like, it felt like I was the butt of a joke. Yeah. Like dishonoring. Does that make sense? Right. Well, I think, I mean, there's multiple ways that you can handle it. Like, is it you being oversensitive about something or is it the spouse being insensitive about something? There's multiple ways that you have to approach that and really look at it before coming at it in an accusatory way. But it's more so just like, hey, this is what I heard. This is how it caused me to feel. Can we not do that again? or can we talk about that? Like how, how can we understand why, you know, that came across that way and how it made me feel. And then the other person like genuinely take the time to understand and communicate if you felt that it was coming from a different perspective. But really it just comes back to, for me, the safety that you're creating and cultivating in your own marriage, because not everybody's going to hear it with open ears outside of like defensiveness. If we have these hardened heart postures or insecurities that cause us to self-protect. You know what I mean? Yeah, agreed. Okay. Another thing that I see happen in relationships. I see this happen in relationships. We've seen it in our own relationship. Not something that, you know, we've seen in a long time, but I see it in young people's relationships. And that is people that come out of broken or codependent relationships or broken or codependent relationship with their parents, where behavioral responses drive people towards them and they use, they use the silent treatment or they use the anger in order to shift the direction back to them so that they can start to get the thing that they need, that they've been trained to, i.e. When they were a kid, they threw fits, their parents responded and they comforted them. And so when they're not feeling necessarily comforted or they feel a problem, they cycle back into behavioral, behavioral, behavioral induced relationship dynamic. And I'll give you an example, right? I know, not David, but if a person knows that I can throw a fit right now, I can give you the silent treatment and know that this is a way for me to overwhelm the argument is that the other person feels rejected because now I'm not talking to the other person. One, you know, so I'm not talking to you anymore as an example. I'm completely cold shouldering you. And now because maybe there's a wound in your childhood that can't stand the feeling of feeling rejected, I know that you're going to forego the position that you have in this argument in order to come back to me to make sure that I'm OK, because it's more important to that person on the inside that they don't feel rejected than the issue be resolved. And people learn to operate in these patterns. I see it where somebody will throw a fit or somebody will do something that makes the other spouse feel very scared and not safe. And then that spouse will respond to bring the situation down. They'll come in real quick to calm things down. And that other person is now no longer in the heat, no longer feeling the pressure of maybe a mistake they made or something. And they loop back into this really big codependent behavior, right? Right. One of the things that I wanted to bring up about that, because I see that so often is to be self-aware enough to know that. There are ways that I can respond that hit a much deeper place on the inside of my spouse that pull them into their childhood and not into this moment. Does that make sense? Like I can overwhelm the situation and now have my spouse responding from their childhood and not like in the brokenness of them being scared. Maybe you had a dad or a mom that yelled a lot and got really angry and that makes you feel very uncomfortable and makes you feel scared on the inside. And when the spouse starts to overwhelm the situation, they've learned in a pattern that when I overwhelm the situation, my spouse will respond and I'm back in the clear. The tension's over because they're going to settle down. They're going to back up, right? I know I just introduced a really big, wild topic. Yeah, I thought we were just giving tips and tricks. You just really went full on on those ones. So that's so much bigger. We're talking about codependency and unhealthy patterns and dysfunctions in marriage that you see need, like real, like licensed marriage and family therapist, you know, inner healing deliverance, because it's going to cause people to... Until you get healthy on those levels, it's like a vacuum or a leech that you see in people's lives that stay stuck in those patterns until you actually get healthy for yourself. Agreed. To break that codependency. So I see that in a lot of young people. Well, where do they start then if we don't have necessarily the time on this podcast to dig into that? What's a resource that they can start with that would help them to see that? Is there a book that you would recommend that might be helpful for young people who are, you know, growing through those codependent behaviors and stuff? Yeah, I would say Dr. Henry Cloud's book on boundaries. Memories because when we are confident in who we are, when we are healthy, when we are aware and have self-awareness, we, we're going to recognize that's not what we want for our life and either need to break off that relationship or go into like real. You know, like I said, counseling with a marriage and family therapist, because that's not just something that is fixed in a moment that's that's a real core identity wounds that you'll see not only in marriage but with parents with you know their children she's very codependent and latched on in an unhealthy way or latched on to certain relationship patterns that's more again of identity issues as well that you're talking about that's like oh I actually don't have to do this dance with you anymore because my life's not shattered, that I need to stay attached to you. I'm healthy and want to create a healthy life. But that has to be something that you are working toward in your own personal life to put those things into place. Oh, so you're saying the answer is that the individual needs to be pursuing healing and and restoration when you become self-aware enough to see those patterns. When those patterns are in place, you're often going to find more addictive nature-type personality traits. Oftentimes, someone who is a high-level manipulator or gaslighter or codependent in that way, there's oftentimes going to be more addictive patterns of personality traits that are going to cause those people to want to stay in that dysfunction because they haven't pursued health in all aspects of their life, mind, soul, body, spirit, emotions. Becoming a stable, safe person takes a tremendous amount of, personal work and accountability for and self-awareness for owning my portion and my responses wow that's an amazing statement thanks yeah so you so you're saying and i say i i bring this up i bring this up because i because i see this most often in relationships from the outside after we've done the work and we've gone from codependent and broken i see many people who are frustrated and it's not actually what they're frustrated about the individual topics are not the single thing they're frustrated by usually it's somebody's pain somebody's hurt that actually is is the the bus driver and they're just a passenger on it they almost can't see it themselves yeah well people are people aren't looking for what they actually think they're looking for what they're looking for to have that need met for in that moment is much bigger and deeper than. Their spouse can solve for them. So it has to be personal awareness and doing the work for yourself. There is no quick fix and your spouse cannot be the one that does the work for you. If you are lacking health on a core identity, self-aware level, you will continue to accuse, you will continue to stay codependent and you will continue to stay stuck in those cycles when you recognize that. I I'm actually the one most responsible for building and sustaining health communication that the life flow that comes from me is nobody else's responsibility to give me only I can do the work to be responsible for what what flows from my life. That's great. So core identity and self-worth. I think those are fantastic points to point out here. That is, if you're seeing brokenness and tension consistently in your relationship, are you being self-aware enough to go, what is my contribution to this? And you said it best, which is it can't be fixed easy, but it is a journey that you have to begin to take. And we've taken that journey. And sometimes you can forget how long you've been on the journey or how much room you've made up on that journey and forget that people need to do the work. You're going to have to do the work of self-awareness. You're going to have to do the work of realizing when you see something that's broken. One, being willing to look inward and say, what role do I play in this and how can I fix that? And number two, what can I do to make it so that this changes? What efforts or steps can I take so that these broken things begin to have change? Yeah. And it takes a lot of, it takes an incredible amount of bravery and courage to look at those areas of your life and say, I no longer want to operate that way anymore. And then put the work in. Because most of the behaviors you're describing to me are really driven by fear and control. So fear, meaning I have grown up this way. And so I so fear losing this. There's almost a comfort that comes with it. So I have to control it in order to keep the peace. Right. In order to stay in these cycles, I operate in fear and control. And in order to operate in freedom, that means we have to start letting go of some of those codependent patterns, addictions, dysfunctions that we have used to numb like drugs for so long that become our safe places when they're not safe. They're actually completely disruptive and dysfunctional to our life. So that is the first place to start is, is, you know, brave communication and, and courageous steps toward healing the soul and the heart of my own, you know, um, health more than it can be trying to fix you to have you meet my needs. Yeah. So great. The, the, you know, the point you're making right now is like the core essence of life and. In a nugget, which is, I can't fix you necessarily, but I can fix me. And if we're constantly looking at what's wrong with the other person and not willing to look at what's wrong with us, then that might be part of the problem. Is that, are you doing the inward reflection to say, man, what did I do wrong in that moment? I always tell the kids, what could I have done differently that would have produced a different outcome? That's extreme ownership. What could I have done differently in any situation that would have produced a different outcome? When you begin to look at life that way, like, what could I have done differently? It begins to produce different results. And what you're saying is, take a pause, be introspective, and you might actually be the problem. And we have to stop sometimes. And instead of blaming others, say, man, what role am I playing inside of this? And at least begin to address that, right? Yeah, I think that if your spouse says something to you or someone in authority in your life says something to you and you have quick, auto-responsive, defensive reactions that reject correction. Reject change, reject hearing what they have to say, then you have to stop and evaluate where does this come from and why do I react to this way? Why do I, why does my reaction self-protect more than work to protect and connect the safety that I am looking to build or want to build for my life? And how do I change that? Brilliant. Well, that's it for today, guys. Thanks so much for coming to hang out with me. I love our time together and I don't take it lightly that we get the privilege.
