In this weeks episode, hosts, Jason & Lauren Vallotton answer five questions sent in by listeners like you! Topics include the following:
Connect with Lauren:
Instagram
Facebook
Connect with Jason:
Jay’s Instagram
Jay’s Facebook
BraveCo Instagram
www.braveco.org
In this weeks episode, hosts, Jason & Lauren Vallotton answer five questions sent in by listeners like you! Topics include the following:
Connect with Lauren:
Instagram
Facebook
Connect with Jason:
Jay’s Instagram
Jay’s Facebook
BraveCo Instagram
www.braveco.org
Welcome back everyone to Dates, mates and Babies with the Bellatins. We're excited to be with you guys this morning.
Speaker 2:Yes, we sure are Glad to be back and glad to take some time this morning to talk about some of the questions that we have received over the last few weeks. You guys know we like to do this from time to time, but we like to talk about things you want to talk about. So we've got some questions we're going to answer for you today.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're going to dive in right away here. So let's see. The first one is about boundaries.
Speaker 2:They asked you specifically.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what are all the boundaries with the roles that I carry as a therapist, a pastor and a husband? That's a good question, I think, for me. I always make sure that everything that I'm doing serves my family and ultimately protects my family, and so I really pay a lot of attention to that. And there are some seasons like, for example, I preached this last Sunday.
Speaker 1:And so there are times, like last week, where I needed more time to that, and there are some seasons like, for example, I preached this last Sunday and so there are times, like last week, where I needed more time to study, and so you know that it takes away from the family a little bit.
Speaker 1:Or I have a Braveco conference and a Braveco gala coming up a fundraiser for Braveco, and so I'm having to work a little bit extra sometimes, but we just communicate through that type of stuff really well, and so I don't, you know, it's everything that we do. We work hard to communicate so that each of us have the right expectation and vice versa. I mean, we spent five weeks in South Carolina with mom, you know, with when mom was dying, and so that was, you know, that was a big pull on us and how we dealt with that was I communicate, I communicate to my um coworkers, I communicate to the people around me, and we make sure that that we're doing a great job, um, in these busy seasons. So I think, where people, uh, in the areas of my life where I got really out of sorts, like um, I used to fish four days a week and it's not the amount of fishing that I did, it's it was really hard on you because I was using it to meet my need for um, managing my anxiety.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And in that it's like when work becomes a way that you're managing anxiety, or when your hobbies are one of the sole way that you're managing anxiety, then it's like you have to have this thing and that's where it becomes we are I'm giving up, or instead of being at home with the kids, I'm at work, and I say that I'm at work because I need to make money for the family, but I don't actually need to be at work to make money for the family. I'm actually at work because I feel stressed out at home.
Speaker 1:And so, therefore, I have you know, like men, a lot of men have that, that issue. I have bad boundaries with work um, because that's actually the place where I feel most alive or I feel most powerful, so that's the thing to watch.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I think too. You know, when I think about boundaries with different roles, it almost doesn't matter how many roles you have. You either do, or you don't do, a good job having boundaries.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you either do or you don't do a good job having boundaries. And I say that because once you really learn how to have boundaries which requires that you understand your needs or, in your case, like our case, you have to also understand the needs of your family or your spouse or whatever Then you set up a set of boundaries that protects the most important thing, and everything gets run through that filter. Whether you have, you know, a dog and a nine to five job, or whether you've got five kids and you pastor a church and you dot dot dot, it's all kind of run through the same filter. And so learning boundaries is critical, because if you do have a lot of roles and you don't know how to do boundaries, then ultimately you're serving all the other things instead of protecting the main thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's true.
Speaker 2:And it takes people time to figure out how to do that. Really well, I think.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's real.
Speaker 2:Can I ask a follow-up question that?
Speaker 1:came up.
Speaker 2:Okay. So I'm thinking about how because it's related, unrelated, right Like the hobbies that take your time and you're using them as an escape I feel like sometimes people don't actually know that that's what they're doing, so how do you think you know? I'm thinking of the man who stays late at work and he actually isn't really aware of himself or why he's doing that. How does somebody act Like? What are the indicators that you're using something in a way that is unhealthy? How do you know?
Speaker 1:if you're abusing something. Yeah, I mean ultimately, like, addiction is giving, giving up what you really want for the thing that you don't want.
Speaker 2:So say that, say that like a different way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm going to explain it. Okay. So like when people have an alcohol addiction right, they're giving up what they really want. They really want their family, they really want their kids. What they don't really want is they don't really want alcohol, but they have to have it. And so when I look at even hobbies and stuff like, what I really want is I really want to be called a good husband and a good father. Yeah.
Speaker 1:But what I'm doing is I'm out on the lake or the river fishing and sometimes it's awesome and sometimes I feel really guilty but I'm still out there. And I know that I probably should be at home um caring for my family, but I feel overwhelmed at home and I feel powerless at home and I'm frustrated at home.
Speaker 1:So I think part of how you start to identify even at work, right Like I, what I really want is I really want to be a good husband and a good father, and I want a connected marriage and I want a great sex life. What I'm really doing is building a business, which is good, but the problem becomes when I feel powerless. It's like it's a combination of I don't feel successful in one area that I really want to feel successful in, and so I overcompensate in this other area.
Speaker 2:Totally.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And so I think how to tell is the. I think that you, ultimately, you have to pay attention to your convictions, because I actually think that guys do know. I think that they don't pay attention, I think that they suppress their conviction and justify it with well, I'm working hard, I'm building this business. This is going to serve us well.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I think it's they. It's a lot of justification.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that makes sense Great. Yeah. Okay, so the second question that somebody wrote in was um, where do I begin in rebuilding a dead marriage?
Speaker 1:Yeah, do you want to go, or me?
Speaker 2:You can start. Well, I think that's the first place to yeah, when do you just begin?
Speaker 1:You just you began by probably getting a really good therapist or um, a counselor or something or take a course, like we had the course that we did, because part of what happens is and this is what I see a lot is people try to rebuild something that they don't know how it got there or what to do to get out of it, and so they spend longer trying to solve issues that they don't even know how they got them created or they don't have the tools. If they had the tools in the first place, they wouldn't have a dead marriage. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So you need a really good coach, you need a really good system, you need good practices, somebody that's going to hold you accountable to do what you haven't done.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:The next step is ownership, 100%. What am I doing? And that's really hard inside of a marriage. When, let's say that the husband was looking at pornography, the wife still has to ask what am I doing? And if he asks what am I doing wrong and she asks what am I doing wrong? What am I contributing, that's a marriage that's going to get well, because all too often again, I see well, maybe I can say the opposite side I worked with a couple who he was a sex addict, so he was getting you know massages at like.
Speaker 1:He was getting you know like masturbated and blowjobs and sex with prostitutes at massage powers for a long time. When they came in to my office it was crazy because obviously she had kicked him out of the house after finding out. But the question that she kept asking was what did I contribute? And I was shocked. Right.
Speaker 1:I really was. I was like, oh my gosh, I it really taught me a lesson. This was probably. This was probably eight years ago, 10 years ago. I that I didn't think their marriage had a chance and their marriage totally made it, and he had had I mean 20 years of affairs, because she kept asking the question what am I doing to contribute to this? Marriage, so that when he got well, she was also working on her stuff.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:And that, to me, is just a massive key If you want to fix a marriage. I don't care how bad the, you know how bad one person is. You can't change that one person. All you can do is change you Totally.
Speaker 2:So if you're the, if you have 15% and he's got 85%, well, fix your 15%, because it's going to matter at some point, yeah, yeah, if people are living in an area where they actually don't know how to find great help. You know, if you're in a marriage that is sinking and you need help ASAP, then our transformation center at Bethel church is a great place to start. I say that because there it's. It's a counseling center that we have vetted and that we know Jason helps to oversee it, and it might not be a forever solution because actually we, we do really think that, like, being in community where you are is really important.
Speaker 2:And it is amazing when you can find therapists and counselors that are local to you. But sometimes it's hard to know, unless you have great recommendations from people, like because I'll tell you what marriage counseling can be, all kinds of ends of the spectrum, like you don't? I mean, there's a lot of advice out there and there's a lot of therapists out there, and, anyways, I think our transformation center is full of um of therapists and pastoral counselors. That could be a great place to start for you, so check it out. Okay, let's see.
Speaker 1:When ending a committed relationship? What do you do with all the tangible reminders of a relationship the photos, the flowers, the gifts?
Speaker 2:That's a great question. That's like a really practical question and if you've ever been through the ending of a long-term relationship, you know you have that moment where you're like what do I do with all this stuff? Can I tell you something hilarious? I'm realizing right now. There is a box Under my bed or in the back of my closet at my childhood home that is full of memorabilia from my high school relationship. Oh, wow.
Speaker 2:I'm just remembering this right now. That's funny. You don't know what to do with it. Sometimes you just it's in a box and it just is where it is. But as you get older obviously that was high school and I moved way to college and I mean, I haven't thought about that and I don't even know how long. Yeah.
Speaker 2:But when you're an adult and you have this, you know I didn't have an iPhone then. Now you've got iPhones. So what do you do with all your photos and what do you do with all of your memories? It's a good question.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you got to push, eject right, so the relationship's over and that was a past time in your life. And the more that you hold on to all of that stuff, the more you end up living in the past. And so part of the process of working through pain and mourning a loss is knowing that you don't have that anymore. That life is over, it's gone, it's not, it's not, um, it's not a part of your future. And so why hold on and keep stuff that isn't a part of your future? Now it's, you know, am I, am I literally saying to you, babe, like you need to go back and throw out all those?
Speaker 2:burn the box.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think especially that I'm mostly talking about. I think, people I would have told you to do that when you were young, Like hey, these relationships are over.
Speaker 2:A hundred percent. I would tell me that when I was young, these aren't helpful.
Speaker 1:It's not something that you're going to go back on. You're not looking at that box with pain now. It would just be an interest for you at this point. Yeah, and someday, you know, maybe Edie will laugh reading those letters. But you know, for my, for my marriage, I mean, I had photo booth, uh, photo books and all kinds of stuff that it's no longer something that was for me. It's not mine. This isn't, this isn't my life anymore. This isn't you know. So I deleted all the photos out of my phone. I have one photo um of my ex-wife with the kids, cause they were so little, and it's a cute photo um that I have and that's it. And everything else I got rid of because that's my past life, that's. You know. That's not the life that I'm living in. I don't even need reminders every day of the life that I left, like that's part of what you work out of and close and move on from.
Speaker 2:So, yep, I will say like for our kids. I mean, there there are, um, you know, grandma and papa have photo albums full of pictures of the kids and the family from all the years of growing up and the kids have baby books and things like that. So I do think like when you go through a divorce and your family splits, you have to think of more than just yourself and you can't actually erase the history of a family.
Speaker 1:I'm not, yeah, so I just want to bring clarification, because I do think that that is an important clarifier. I save stuff for the kids that I thought that they would want Right, that I thought would be important to them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, even wedding rings and things like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but as far as my own personal what I'm looking at, you know, in my phone I didn't save any of that Right.
Speaker 2:Right and I think that's important if you're. If you're, I mean probably the more common scenario is, you know you've been in a long-term dating relationship and you've broken up and it feels hard and sad to get rid of things but it's also, but it's also painful to look at it.
Speaker 2:You know, that sweater that you guys bought together, or that bouquet of dried flowers that he gave you, those are things that you probably want to figure out how to leave behind. Yep, um, because it isn't going to serve you to stay attached in an emotional way to that relationship. Okay, great question.
Speaker 1:All right babe.
Speaker 2:How do you create healthy boundaries in marriage? Back to the boundaries. People have a lot of questions about boundaries. They're a bit of an elusive thing, but you actually talked a lot about boundaries this past weekend.
Speaker 1:I did.
Speaker 2:You spoke at church.
Speaker 1:Yeah, which people should go and listen to that message? You can watch it for free on the Bethel YouTube channel. Um yeah, boundaries to me is all about protecting your love. It's all about, um, creating order and structure in your life that that serves each other, and so boundaries in marriage to me is all about learning your needs and being able to share your needs. Most people. The problem with with people in boundaries is most people are using boundaries to keep someone out.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:They're using boundaries because they're afraid, and it's not like you can't use a boundary because you're afraid. It's just not the primary use of a boundary. Yeah.
Speaker 1:The better use of a boundary is to communicate needs and to communicate desires, to communicate needs and to communicate desires. And so, for instance, like you know, we have, over the years, I've heard you say hey, if you're going to be late, I would love to know ahead of time. Hey, can you please communicate your day with me? Those are when I'd go fishing. You know, even now, like, like I know, whatever time I tell you that I'm going to be home is the time that I need to be home, not 20 minutes later. And those are things in our marriage. You know that if we are in a confrontation with each other, that raising your voice is is not okay with me. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And those are. Those are boundaries, but they're also needs that we have. That we've talked about a lot, and so how you set the boundary to me is more important than what the boundary is. Right.
Speaker 1:To me, how you set a boundary is all about sharing with love, especially when we're talking about your kids and your spouse, where you're at and how you best operate. So, hey, babe, I'm having a really hard time in this conversation right now. Just the way you're talking, it actually feels really painful to me. You know. It's a loving way that you can hear. This isn't really working for me. Or, hey, you're home 20 minutes late and I feel really sad. I'm just have such a hard time with that. Or I am really looking forward to getting off work today. Um, what time you're going to be home?
Speaker 1:I really, I really want to have dinner done on time and I'm looking forward to our evening.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's things like that that I think if people were to proactively set boundaries in a way that was engaged, inviting and engaging, there'd be a lot more traction.
Speaker 2:Okay, how about in a more high stakes boundary situation? So let's say that there's some destructive behavior happening in a marriage where one or the other spouse is actually creating some chaos in the family and one spouse has to quote set a boundary with the other, and it's not like mutual. There's not an agreed upon culture where they're like oh yeah, you're welcome to set a boundary with me, but it's actually like I have to set a boundary with you because, in order to protect us, and the family. I can't keep letting you do this.
Speaker 1:So I mean Danny's really helped over the years. I've got to watch Danny and get a lot of advice from him, danny Silk and so I've worked on a lot of cases with Danny marriage cases, where one person is off the rails and you know the other person has to let them know what they are going to do, and so, hey, the way that, um, hey, what's happening right now is it just feels so unsafe and so scary to me and I'm not okay living like this. I'm going to whatever I'm going. Um, I actually don't feel safe staying in the same house anymore.
Speaker 1:I'm not sure what you're going to do, but I don't, and so feel free to feel free to let me know what you're going to do, feel free to let me know what your plan is, but I can't keep doing this. Um, that would be a way. Um, hey, um, yesterday, when we had this conversation, I felt so scared because it was just screaming and yelling, and I can't do another conversation like that, screaming and yelling. So, um, I just want you to know that before we ever do a conflict like that again, that if there's screaming and yelling involved, I'm going to remove myself from the conversation. I just can't do it again. Right.
Speaker 1:And I won't be a part of that. But I really care for you and I want to solve conflict. There's lots of ways. Most it's almost always around what you're going to do and not what the what you're telling the other person to do?
Speaker 2:That's the key and I do think that people miss that. It is really important, when you're learning how to set boundaries, that it becomes what you're going. You're communicating, so like with our kids, right, like with my daughter. She's four and when she is upset by something, whether it's her brother grabs a toy or the dog nips her. You know we've got a new puppy and the dog's learning how to not play with biting. So you know our daughter has a freak out or a meltdown. What I do with her is I say hey, I hear that you're frustrated. I'm going to give you this warning Next time you hit your brother, you can expect that I will take you to your room. That's what I'm going to be doing.
Speaker 2:Or you scream in my face because you're upset about something. Hey, love, you're upset. If you scream at me, I'm going to go into the other room. Yeah, so it's, it's that.
Speaker 1:Yep, okay, that's great Next question Um what?
Speaker 2:would you tell? What would you tell um a young woman about how to be ready for a healthy relationship?
Speaker 1:Oh, we've talked about this so much in the past. I like this question, but to me it's all about making sure that that you're comfortable with your story, making sure that you're not carrying a bunch of pain around. The boundaries thing is huge, right. Being able to share your needs and set healthy boundaries and making sure that your moral compass is working, that you have character good healthy character is working, that you have character good, healthy character. And so you know if you're, if you're not, ready to share your story, if you, if you're struggling with your character, um, if you're having a hard time with boundaries and needs, you know all those things are going to make relationship more challenging.
Speaker 1:So that, just in a, in a nutshell, what would you say, babe?
Speaker 2:Um, I think that women have to I always say, as a woman, I would say this for to a guy as well but if we're talking to young women, I would say, um, work really hard to build a life that you love, which means you are thriving emotionally, spiritually, physically. You've built a life that you're proud of and that you love. You're not waiting to have the right guy in your life in order to build the life you love, but you're actually doing it now, and when you set your mind on building a life that you're proud of and that you love, you're very attractive and you're open and you're ready, and so I yeah, I think that's what I would say. It's quite simply.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Well, guys, hopefully y'all enjoyed this week's episode and us answering your questions. If you have questions, feel free to ask us and otherwise, have an incredible week. We will see you next week on dates, mates and babies.