A3- MC

In part three, we are going to bring a little bit of a book end here. Before I go on, let's do a little bit of a review. Rules 12.3 were to help orient a couple, get them on the right track, determine the goal, what they're aiming at, what we're working on. The other rules, as we talked about in part two, are to help a couple stay on track. That's the case with these remaining three rules as well. Let's just get into it right now. Rule number eight goes like this. I will be responsive, not reactive, when discussing issues and problems, or receiving feedback about my behavior from my spouse. Stop for a moment and ask yourself, what is the difference between responsiveness and being reactive? Think about it. A reaction is what? Everything into the gut and out of the gut. It's emotional. It can be loud. It can be angry. It's the knee jerk response. Right? We've all experienced that. We've probably all witnessed that. A response, however, is a little bit more thoughtful, it's a little bit more thought out. Maybe the person even anticipated something and prepared ahead of time happens is couples in the moment tend to be reactive with each other and not necessarily responsive. So we have to help them see the difference between the two. Imagine for a minute if the President of the United States and the premier of some other country, we were at the brink of nuclear war. As the two national leaders were sitting at a table trying to talk this down. As they were talking, they both had their finger 1 " over the button that would launch the first strike. What do you think is really going on inside of them? They're probably thinking to themselves, is he going to push that button? Could he push that button before I could push. They're not really going to engage or talk about calming this down until what happens. They take their hand off or away from the button. Same thing in a marriage when a husband and wife are getting into it in one or both senses, oh, they're just ready to just, yeah, they're going to bring it up there. There's nothing productive usually going on. It's just setting the stage for another reactive moment. Ask yourself, do you know anyone who is diabetic? Probably. Do you know anyone who has asthma probably, Or angina pain? You know they have heart fluttering issues. These people, it's critical for them to understand what's going on and to read what the signs that the problem is on its way. If you're in a diabetic coma, it's too late to take your insulin, right? If you're in a full blown asthma attack, it may be too late to crawl 30 feet down the hallway to get your inhaler. Or if you're having a full blown angina attack or a heart attack, it may be too late to get your nitroglycerin tablets. These people must recognize, hey, the problem is on its way. Be prepared, we can help couples understand. Do you see the anger train coming? Do you see the emotion coming? Pay attention. And the reason I say this is because whenever there's conflict, stress levels typically increase and the body starts releasing stress hormones. It starts releasing more adrenaline, more cortosol which are stimulants, right? They get you up, they get you riled up, they get you moving. Different people respond differently to stress levels. Increase stress hormones such as adrenaline. Some people start pacing around a little bit. Some people they're clenching their fists. Some people get tight in their shoulders or the neck or their jaw. Some people just like start stacking things or slamming things. Everyone's a little bit different, but the body is trying to give you some clues, hey, there's a problem right in front of you, you better pay attention to it. Marriage obviously has its share of risks, right? If you remember in part one I said the goal is not to eliminate all risk or all conflict out of the marriage. It's not going to happen. It's to manage them. A marriage has risks. It's a lot like walking on the railroad tracks. Now, I can walk on the railroad tracks as long as what you would say well, as long as the trains not coming. But I would say no, I can even walk on the railroad tracks with the train coming. As long as what you would probably say well, as long as you get out of the way, I'd say correct. But in order for me to get out of the way, I have to what? I have to see the train. I have to hear the train. Maybe feel the vibration on the tracks. But then I would even say, is it enough to just to see it or hear it or feel it? No, I do need to see it. I do need to hear it and feel it. But I need to see and feel and hear it. What far enough away that I have. Time to get off the tracks. Because if I don't see the train coming until it's 10 yards in front of me and it's doing 70 miles an hour. Frankly, it doesn't matter if I saw it, I'm still going to get plowed over. Same thing with a reaction. If it's an anger response, or I always say blaming words, or I get hypercritical or whatever the case might be. In a reactive moment, if I don't see it until it's upon me, there's no time for the person to step away, perhaps call that time out until it's upon him. I'll give a great question that I often encourage the spouses I work with to ask one another. It's a tough one, but if they can do it, it's a great question. I say, hey, sometime look at your husband or your wife and ask this question. What do you see in me that tells you or alerts you and says, oh, here it comes, because their spouse probably sees it. It's like the bad breath syndrome. Do you always know when you have bad breath? No, but the people around you often do. I was sharing this principle with a couple is actually funny, but it's good not to try to laugh in the middle of a session. But the wife immediately looked at me and then looked at her husband. She goes, your eye twitches. He goes, excuse me, says, yeah, every time you were about to say something mean and you get upset, and I know you're going to say something hurtful, your eye starts twitching. It was the funniest thing. Because he got very defensive. I do. Now, what do you talk about that's crazy? And I sat back and I pointed at him. I said, hey, your eye is twitching. And he was not tuned into it, but the body's trying to tell you you're about to have a reaction. So if you can help couples pay attention to that, then you might help them avert being plowed into by that emotional train. Rule number nine, I will not attempt to control my spouse with things like sarcasm, rage, threats, manipulation, shame, jealousy, the silent treatment. This is not an all inclusive list, but it's the things I see probably more often than not in a marriage. I understand control in a lot of people. You've heard the term probably control freak. I want to say that in general, I don't see control as a character logical disorder as much as it's a survival tool that a lot of people pick up. If you're a child, if you're small and scary, anxious things happen to you, think of abuse or things like that, that child often says, the one thing I didn't have in the moment was control. Because someone was always bigger, batter, faster, stronger, whatever it might be. If that happens a lot, that child will begin to say, okay, I understand. When I have no control, I get hurt. And therefore, the opposite must be true. If I can just figure out how to control my environment and the people in it, I think I'll be safer in a heated moment, In a moment of conflict or important decision making that's not going well, then one person might feel like, boy, I'm losing control of what's going on here and they might get into that survival mode. The only problem is that the average person doesn't respond well to excessive control. So you have a problem. I talk to couples about how to give up control. That can be a hard thing because it requires a measure of trust, right? If you think about it, let me give you another picture. I talk and picture some. When you boot up your computer and turn it on and the desktop pops up, the program manager or whatever it's called, you see these little boxes on the screen, and what are they called? Icons? And what does each icon represent? It's a program or an application that you can access. Right, right before this happens, right? The emotional head butting or whatever happens, this little emotional switch at the back of our brain goes click. All our options pop up. And what I tell couples, if the control, sarcasm, rage, jealousy, blaming, silent treatment. If those pop up on the emotional desktop, I tell couples, delete them and empty the trash can. The next time there is an argument or something, you go, oh, wow. Raging at my spouse. I deleted that file. It's not even accessible anymore. I have to find another way to solve this problem. Goodness, jealousy that files gone. It's not accessible anymore. I have to find another way to resolve this issue. I tell couple, delete the emotional control files. Off your emotional desktop, it's really critical. If I can use another allegory for couples and I've used this. I'll look at a husband and wife and I'll say, now where is the most intimate place for most husbands and wives? And they'll look at me and a little embarrassed, and I'll go, well, the bedroom and I'll say correct. And I'll say what often is the highlight or culmination of love making. And of course, I usually have to say it and I'll say climax and I'll say, but in that moment, what do you have? None of zero zip nata, if you think about it. No control. Usually a husband or wife will say that was wonderful, but then all of a sudden they make a power play to say, but I'm in control of the money or I'm in control of our social schedule, or I'm in control of the kids, or whatever the case might be. And I'll tell couples listen, you can have a kind of intimacy different than the bedroom, but every bit is wonderful. If you're willing to give up control, not because your spouse is demanding it, not because they're taking it, that's called rape, but because there's a mutual abandonment of control. It can be a wonderful thing. I don't know how couples have honest, true, authentic intimacy without the mutual abandonment of control. Let me model it for you. I think of the continuum again, right? We're here. Here's the mutual abandonment of control. We're both taking some steps toward each other. I'm no longer in my perfect ideal, secure, happy comfort zone. Do I feel a little bit more exposed? Yes, yes, but so is my spouse. You want intimacy, you're going to find it there. And so if we can have help couples figure that out, that will be a great benefit to them. And then the last rule, it's really a follow up to control. It says I'll actively seek the forgiveness of my spouse when I'm aware of any wrongdoing on my part. And I'll extend forgiveness whenever it's asked for by my spouse. Listen, I've said this already. We're human. We can have the best intentions, We can have a great relationship with God. We can be mature in a lot of ways, but sometimes we just have a bad day. Sometimes we say things in anger or frustration, or do some things. I get it, we're sinners. We make mistakes, which means there's times where we hurt the one we love, and then you have to pick up the consequences. I will tell spouses, I'll say, listen, if you have a sense there's unfinished business. I'll have them sit down on their own and come up with two lists, and they do this on their own list. Number one starts off something like this, Honey, I need to forgive you for blank and I say fill out the blank. When you said that to me, when did that to me, it hurt and I need to let it go. I forgive you. The second list starts off something like this, Honey, I need you to forgive me for B when I said that to you, when I did that, I know I could see it hurt you. I'm sorry. Would you please forgive me? Then I'll say, come together. Read your list, give forgiveness, receive forgiveness. And then I tell couples, literally put a match to the lists, throw them away, put them in the fireplace, and destroy them. And then make a pledge to each other, you're not going to go fishing in those waters anymore. It won't be the last list you have, right? But don't keep going there. But what happens is couples don't deal with the hurt. It festers and it becomes a wound that gets infected. Any wound that gets infected, if you think about it in the natural sense, has this propensity to spread into other parts of the body. Same thing in a marriage, unforgiveness and bitterness and anger and unresolved issues become like an infected wound that spread into every facet of the marriage and the family. We want to help couples work toward forgiveness in the areas that they really need. I've given you some ten rules, ten guidelines, ten principles that you can work with couples. I'll often print off these, give each couple a set, walk them through it, much like a little psycho educational teaching in session. And then from that point on, I will actually help them stick to the rules during our time together, and I'll follow up on them again. You and I can't heal any marriage. We can't force a couple to implement anything. But we can attempt to give them the tools, a map, a compass, a good direction, help hold them accountable. So in the end result, they can have healthy, vibrant, Godly, stable, and balanced marriages. And that's the goal. I hope these ten principles have been helpful to you, that you get some mileage out of them working with couples, God bless.