It Takes Two Healthy People to Make One Healthy Marriage - Ep - 279

No doubt about it, marriage can be difficult.  Anytime we are putting two people with differing ideas and opinions together for one common cause, we are bound to have conflict. 

Yes, we can and we should develop our communication skills, build our trust, and treat each other with respect. However, these essential relationship attributes could be meaningless if we have unhealthy individuals. If one has significant past trauma, drug or alcohol addiction, or mental illness, to name a few, the marriage will often be sacrificed.

Healthy marriages require healthy people. If it can be identified that one of the people in the relationship is being haunted by an illness or past event, then we must spend the time to heal that person.  We must work to attain the greatest level of health possible within the individual for the good of the marriage. 

This can be hard work. All of us have stuff to work on.  Things that keep us from being our best.  If those things are significant enough to negatively impact the marriage, then they certainly require our attention.

If you are working on your marriage but find yourself at a stand still. Take some time to think about how you are doing as an individual.  Are you bringing in your best version?  If not, get some help.  You owe it to yourself, your partner, and your marriage.

http://rocksolidfamilies.org

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

So he played the old hand slap or hot hands or whatever you call it right. And you're flipping your hands over and the very first time you get hit you're not panicked, but you go, oh.

Speaker 2: 0:11

Yeah, oh, I gotta be quicker. So it takes you, you get burnt once or twice.

Speaker 1: 0:16

And then all of a sudden you watch the anxiety build. You watch the anxiety build and as I, told the kids in doing that.

Speaker 1: 0:24

It's not that you don't trust the guy hitting you. You know he's gonna try to hit you. It's you don't trust your ability to get out of there. You don't trust that you're gonna be able to do what you have to do ANYBOD Citizens. Rocksolid families wants to thank Maxwell Design for sponsoring the Rock Solid Families podcast.

Speaker 1: 1:01

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Speaker 2: 2:30

Welcome to the Rock Solid Families podcast. I am Linda Hutchinson and I am here with my husband Murrell. How are you, honey? Now that I woke up, I'm really good I was just saying before, you were in a weird mood and you were such a weird mood that you forgot to push record.

Speaker 1: 2:43

I forgot to record, but we didn't get too deep into things. Oh, my goodness so anyway, what are we talking about today?

Speaker 2: 2:49

Well, we're talking about healthy relationships, and we're talking about how to identify them when they're not healthy. And so, hun, you and I have known each other for 40 years.

Speaker 1: 3:00

This week it's our anniversary 40 years, that's right. 37 married.

Speaker 2: 3:03

Yes, this summer, this summer, but 40 on spring break 1984. That probably wasn't the most healthiest way to.

Speaker 1: 3:13

That was BC, as we always call it.

Speaker 2: 3:14

That was BC A college spring break in Daytona Beach, Florida. You guys just use your imagination on that one. What happens? The Florida stays.

Speaker 2: 3:21

Florida but that did lead to 37 years married, five kiddos, right, six grandkids as of a couple weeks ago. So, but I say all that because just because we have those relationships doesn't guarantee that they're going to be healthy. So we want to have some disclaimers on what does it look like to have a healthy relationship with your kids, your grandkids, your spouse, whatever? And the first thing, hun, we want to say is it takes work.

Speaker 1: 3:50

Oh yeah.

Speaker 2: 3:51

You know you can't just assume because you got married or you have children that they're going to be healthy. So please, please, don't. It looks really good in the Hallmark Channel or romance novel, but it's going to take some work.

Speaker 1: 4:03

Well and early on, I think there's a lot of I'll say just that physical attraction and lust that we believe is the relationship and it is not. Is all that is? Is the kindling wood right? It's the start, it's the spark which is we've talked about in other shows. It is absolutely necessary. You want to have that, but that's not what sustains the relationship. And then, like you said, now I got to go out and cut big lumber and put logs on the fire.

Speaker 1: 4:30

And so that's an ongoing thing. Otherwise the fire goes out. So, and even when, even when you think you might have it together in a lot of ways, hun, there are other external forces that always weigh on you.

Speaker 2: 4:44

Yes.

Speaker 1: 4:45

I also think, though, something that you maybe discredit when you first get into relationship with somebody is what you grew up with.

Speaker 1: 4:57

Yes what your past is you know, how you learned how to be in relationship, which you're constantly learning. But you, you get things modeled to you as a little kid. You see how your mom and dad operate and how Grandma and grandpa and everybody gets along, gets together, and so then you got all this other stuff. You got divorce, you got death, you got addiction, you got trauma. All these things Make up who you are today.

Speaker 2: 5:22

Yes. So the second disclaimer is learning how to have a healthy relationship starts early, even before you can walk and talk, and so if You're struggling, like you said, to connect with people you don't have to make friends or you can't find that special somebody it might be because that you did not see it modeled growing up, or you didn't have healthy Relationships with your parents, or that a bonding, an attachment early, and so please get some help for that, because you know you might be feeling like you're putting a square peg in a round hole and wondering why it's not fitting with people and that might be why. So it really does start early. We learned that through the trauma of our youngest three, who were adopted from the foster care system and man, they had seen a lot of dysfunction, so it was really hard. We had to retrain a lot of things that they just learned, you know, and just thought that was normal.

Speaker 1: 6:09

It's stuff that we didn't understand right, so you might think. You know, we were even trained in this line of work, but you don't know what you don't know, right you?

Speaker 2: 6:18

start, you meet with them. It is. I've made that up.

Speaker 1: 6:22

So the idea that you start to wonder why do they do that? Well, you come to find out later that maybe they were experiencing something from their past that you go. Oh well, that makes sense. Now why they Tell lies, or? Yeah hide from things or get their temper flares up instantly. So these are all parts of that.

Speaker 2: 6:44

But we say that all that, but don't let your childhood trauma and your past turn, turn you into a victim. Okay, just because that's what you saw growing up Doesn't mean what you have to carry into your new relationships, but it does take some work.

Speaker 1: 6:57

Well, that's why we changing that's why we believe in the work we do. Right, like if you come in and you say I'm stuck because this is the way it's always going to be. Then you're if you're working with us, you're gonna be challenged, because we do not tolerate and accept that we're all just victims and stuck for life. Yes you know, you could be in a situation where, yeah, bad things happen. But, now, as an adult, you, you have to do the work to get through and heal from that trauma.

Speaker 1: 7:23

Yeah, and the third thing? You ready for the third thing? Yes, third disclaimer third disclaimer so third disclaimer is the idea that, in order to have a healthy relationship, you got to have two healthy individuals. Now I'm not saying perfect individuals, I'm not saying everything's exactly right, but the idea that you have two people who, basically, are mentally, physically, spiritually healthy people.

Speaker 1: 7:49

If you don't, so you know, something we see Frequently will be working with a couple and we come to find out that maybe one person in the the Relationship is really struggling with something or they got past trauma. Maybe it's addiction, maybe it's it's pornography, maybe it's trauma from a past event as a kid, you know. We kind of have to put the brakes on on working on the relationship and we say, okay, what do we need to do to get you healthy? Yes, because if you're gonna constantly carry this burden everywhere you go and into this relationship, the two of you can't thrive.

Speaker 2: 8:23

Yes for sure. The fourth Disclaimer is there's no stronger or healthy relationship you can get when two healthy people bring in that third strand, in other words God, into their relationship. And you know, I think of Ecclesiastes 412 where it says though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. But a cord of three strands is not quickly broken, and this verse is often used on in marriage, mm-hmm. But if you look above that verse and to verse 8, and it talks about a man being alone and it doesn't have a son or a brother, and and they're toiling and they feel like why are they toiling? And they feel like it's meaningless. But here's an interesting verse above. It says pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up.

Speaker 2: 9:08

Yeah and I'm thinking you know who is around you to help pick you up. Mm-hmm, if you're not married, then do you have friends? Do you have family members, do you have neighbors, people who physically, emotionally, spiritually, relationally can pick you up? And so man God brings that opportunity in there when we invite him into those Relationships, because then it's on a whole another level of not just what I'm getting from you but what Christ wants me to do through you, know to do in my life and through my life.

Speaker 1: 9:38

Yeah, yeah. The idea, honey, even in the relationship part, is, as an individual we are, we are called to pick up our cross and follow him right. And that's that idea that we, we take all of our burdens, all of our challenges, everything that comes with us, and when it we follow him. That that means we, we become submissive to his way of doing things. And so, even in our marriage, we pick up whatever burdens we have and then we say let's go follow the way of Christ, his path. Like what would he do in these situations?

Speaker 2: 10:14

Yeah, submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Ephesians 5 says so what we're gonna do is we're gonna give you some key elements to a healthy relationship. Okay, and there's a spectrum, okay, and so you may have great communication but horrible trust, and so it's gotta be that you're on the healthy side of all of these to have this true healthy relationship. So there might be one or two that you're like oh gosh, I don't have that. So we're gonna actually include a link to the handout for this dichotomy that kind of gives you the spectrum from healthy to unhealthy, to almost to the end of the other stream of the I cannot say that word Spectrum.

Speaker 2: 10:56

The other side of the spectrum of abusive, okay and so, but these are the key elements. So get a piece of paper, write these down and again you can grab the show link and have that handout as well.

Speaker 1: 11:07

Yeah, include that in there. Okay, so let's walk through them, sure, okay. So the first thing and you hear this all the time, we hear it all the time but we have to have effective and healthy communication, communicating back and forth with each other, and this is not our ability to talk. This is so much deeper than that. It's the ability to read each other well, to know how each other's doing and to acknowledge that.

Speaker 1: 11:34

Right To listen, I've been guilty before of. I know how you're doing, but I'm not really going to acknowledge it, or almost can be dismissive of it. So the idea that we're gonna communicate back and forth, we're not gonna. We're gonna be transparent about these kinds of things. So let's keep the conversation going.

Speaker 2: 11:51

Yeah, so again, we're talking about listening to understand each other, and so when a person feels heard and understood, they feel connected in their relationship.

Speaker 2: 12:00

So, communication, a two-way street. Listening and speaking how you feel what you want in a relationship, back and forth is important, sharing each other's opinions. So communication is one, respect is the other. You value each other and each other's know and you value each other's boundaries Like you don't have. If I was your best friend and I said, hey, I want you to come and help me with this project if you honestly don't have the bandwidth, like I want you to say no and then as a good, healthy relationship, I need a respect, your no right, and sometimes we don't feel like we have the permission to do that.

Speaker 1: 12:35

Right, right and just treating each other the right way, the way we'd want to be treated. That's that respect idea, right.

Speaker 2: 12:43

Yeah, even if you disagree, Like in a healthy relationship, you can disagree but be respectful.

Speaker 1: 12:48

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2: 12:49

How about the next one?

Speaker 1: 12:50

So the third one that we have to have, and really this is kind of an underpinning of all relationships, and this is the idea of the trusting, or the trust within the relationship, and I actually got to speak on that a little bit today Hun yeah to middle schoolers.

Speaker 1: 13:06

Yeah, but what really hit me when I was preparing for that is how Scripture talks about trust no one but the Lord. But then we have to have Scripture that says lean not on your own understanding but only on that of the Lord, and that idea like I can't even trust myself and you have to hear what you're saying, because when you're in any, you are fickled as a person. Your emotions, your energy level, all these things make you somewhat untrustworthy in terms of, well, what are you going to do in the moment?

Speaker 2: 13:43

Yeah, okay, and it doesn't make you.

Speaker 1: 13:45

yeah, you're just like oh man, I knew the right thing to do, but I didn't do it. Okay. And so the idea that we really have a keen eye for making sure that we're transparent with people, that we are open, that we do what we say we're going to do, our actions follow. And so when we talk a lot of talk, but then we contradict it by our actions you know, that's that hypocrisy that comes through we start to lose credibility and all of us have that right, so none of us get out of that. Oh, I'm not a hypocrite, no, we all have a level of that. But if I'm going to be in relationship, I really want to do the best I can to make sure my words and actions follow each other.

Speaker 2: 14:26

And man, we just had this conversation with our 16 year old the other day. You know, if we can't trust you in the little things, then how do we trust you in the big things? And so that's the key. Like it's simple, simple things, like you are where you say you are going to be and you did what you say you were going to do, right, and you didn't like blab that secret that that friend told you. Like those are the things that build trust. And you're right, hon, it is the lifeblood of relationships. And so it was cute. You did a little hand slap game with the junior hires and you saw their, you know the reaction like they're fearful, right, like getting hurt again.

Speaker 2: 15:00

And that's what trust is. It's like man, you hurt me once. How would I ever trust you again?

Speaker 1: 15:05

And so it was a great you know when you play that game. So we played the old hand slap or or hot hands or whatever you call it right, and you're flipping your hands over and the very first time you get hit you're not panicked, but you go.

Speaker 2: 15:18

Oh yeah, oh, like a quicker, so it takes you, get you get burnt once or twice and then, all of a sudden, you watch the anxiety build.

Speaker 1: 15:27

You watch the anxiety build and, as I told, the kids in doing that. It's not that you don't trust the guy hitting you. You know he's going to try to hit you. It's you don't trust your ability to get out of there. You don't trust that you're going to be able to do what you have to do.

Speaker 2: 15:43

I had one little girl. She was literally she's like she was convulsing. She was trying to keep away from getting hit. Here's the fourth one. The key element to a healthy relationship is being honest, like you just said, through, you know, doing what you say you're going to do, being where you're saying you're going to be honest with each other and allowing things to keep private, you know, but the fact that you're being honest and transparent, as you said, is critical If you're hiding things, if you're keeping secrets, if you're sneaking behind people's back, man, it's not gonna be a healthy relationship.

Speaker 1: 16:14

The next part is the idea of being equal and reciprocal. What that means is and I want to qualify that a little bit, because it's not 50-50 equal, it's not like well, I did this for you so now you have to do this for me.

Speaker 1: 16:28

And the reciprocal is not like, well you know, one plus or one to one ratios on everything. That's not what we're talking about. What we're talking about is a spirit of the spirit of being equal, the spirit of being reciprocating in our actions. And so we're not counting and please hear that I'm not counting. We count people's rights and wrongs all the time and we go well keep score, and so you do that for me, I'm not doing this for you.

Speaker 1: 16:53

That's not at all what we're doing. What we're saying is a spirit of I know that if I need something, that Linda's going to say, hey, what can I help with? She knows that if she needs something, I'm gonna say, hey, just tell me what you need, babe, just let me know. Okay, so it is a spirit of that versus the counting Tint for tact.

Speaker 2: 17:12

And this is where abuse comes in. Where there's a level of power and control Like I control the money and I make all the decisions, that's not a healthy relationship. It's got to be reciprocal. Where you have freedom, you have your opinions, you have your say in things. That's what we're talking about. So if you have a friendship, for instance, and it's always one-sided, you're always calling them, you're always paying for the, you know going out together you're always having to come up with the ideas, like when you're you probably are feeling a little exhausted, like why is this so one-sided? That's not a healthy relationship. So yeah, last one.

Speaker 1: 17:47

And the last one is you are still an individual, even though you're trying to be in a relationship, and so you still have your own personal business, your own personal time, and so you don't lose sight of yourself. You are not your partner. You are wired and gifted in completely different ways, and if so, you are either holding your spouse to well, they should be more like me, right? You're completely dismissing that. They are a different entity, a creation of God, and so you want to nurture. Hey, if that's what? If you like going to the gym and working out and I have no interest in doing that you don't stop the guy from going to the gym, right? If you like going to concerts, then I have no interest. Yet I don't say you shouldn't go to the concerts, right? It's like this idea that you have to encourage their own individual gifts in person of who they are.

Speaker 2: 18:41

But again, this is on a spectrum, so it can swing the pendulum both directions, to the extreme which is super unhealthy and almost abusive. So, for instance, if you are so amashed and I can't breathe or go to the bathroom without your permission, okay then that's not. That's not individuality. We're not allowing these people to have their individual lives, and we do that with some of our children. I've got some clients who were trying to kind of un-twine the emeshment where they're sleeping together and they can't. The child doesn't feel like they can make decisions without mommy or daddy, and so we've got to allow our children to start feeling this individuality and this independence and this responsibility. But then it can swing the other way and we've had people who are just they look at themselves feeling like they're just having roommates right, like you do your thing, I do my thing, we do separate vacations, you have all your own hobbies and we don't have anything together. So there is those extremes that are not healthy. We need a good balance of a long time personal time and together time.

Speaker 1: 19:44

Yeah, yeah. So. So, guys, those are some of the the basics of what we're talking about for just creating the start of a healthy relationship. And these are all very fluid and you work them, and so you might be at one time thinking like things are really good in a certain area, maybe not so much another. Well, you know, focus on that. I would never look at a couple if I'm working with them and say we have to improve all of these, but I'd say, okay, which one are we really suffering the most?

Speaker 2: 20:14

in what's the biggest right?

Speaker 1: 20:14

Yeah, and go after that. Like you know, so often it's trust. Okay, like right now, let's work on the trust in the communication. Let's get that going so that we can start building these others.

Speaker 2: 20:25

And again, as we said at the top of the show, maybe you're the one that's not healthy, maybe there's wounds or trauma in your past that are being triggered by something that friend or that spouse is doing, and so you want to get help for you so that you're not reacting out of past hurts. Or maybe you're the person that desperately wants the relationship and that other person isn't healthy, and so you're the one trying to put the square peg in around whole and have that friendship or have that relationship that isn't going anywhere because that other person is struggling with depression or anxiety or addiction or whatever. So please recognize it takes two healthy people to have a healthy relationship.

Speaker 1: 21:05

Yeah, let's. Let's move to the secret sauce part.

Speaker 2: 21:09

If we could, yeah, okay.

Speaker 1: 21:10

Yep. So here's a challenge that many of us have, and I would be guilty of this. Pride and ego says that you're not going to tell me what I should be doing and how I should do it. I'm my own person. Don't tell me what to do, and there's a degree to that. Like we don't need one adult trying to govern over another adult. Right, you're both free to do as you do, but you have to have a common standard, a common foundation that you build on, and this is the secret sauce of Jesus. Christ becomes a common denominator that you build upon. And so now, when I'm trying to work on trust and honesty and respect and all these things, I Linda is the benefactor of that when I do it as Christ would do it, I'm not doing it because Linda set the bar for me. Linda said you have to do this, this and this. No, and Christ set the bar. Linda benefits from me following the bar of Christ, and so that's how. That's what we talk about. Christ is in the middle of this. He is that third cord.

Speaker 2: 22:19

Right.

Speaker 1: 22:19

So Christ has to be the, the, the bar setter. What I'm shooting for, he. And if Linda's doing the same thing, she's shooting for the way of Christ. I'm shooting for the way of Christ. The two of us come together and we and we just do it well, because we're not holding each other to our own personal standard.

Speaker 2: 22:39

And we have a rock, solid foundation that we're building off of and, as you said, that rock is Jesus Christ. I will say this because I can hear somebody on the other end of this podcast saying well, what if that other person isn't willing? Okay, god is going to bless your faithfulness. So, even if it is somebody you're living with, somebody that you're you've been growing up friends with, and they're not open to building on this foundation, building the friendship, building the relationship on Jesus Christ, you do that. You do that and God is going to bless you and he's also going to equip you on what do you do next? Maybe it is somebody you're married to.

Speaker 2: 23:17

You know the Bible talks about being unequally yoked, but it also says, if you're married to an unbeliever, you stay, right, you stay, and that you might be the one that shows them Christ. And so, man, that's powerful. That's powerful that doesn't give you a ticket out, that says you stay there and show them through your actions, through your attitude, through your submission to them, your, your sacrifice to them, that that God is your foundation and he is how and why you're loving them well. And so, man I know this is happening a lot where there is unequally yoked either in neighbors, partnerships, friendships, marriages, families. But you do the work. God will bless that.

Speaker 1: 24:02

Yeah, With all that being said, we have to have boundaries. Yep, and a lot of these boundaries are actually based off of personal wellness, the idea that we are going to actually we're not going to take abuse, we're not going to say, well, you know they abuse me, but you know, I'm Christian.

Speaker 2: 24:22

Jesus says yeah, Jesus says you're committed.

Speaker 1: 24:25

No, that's not what he says. He also says, if somebody's rejecting you, if somebody's rejecting him, to kick the sand off your feet and move on. And so that's you know. The idea here is we are always working towards a healthy situation and if you know if somebody's kind of neutral, they're not helping you or hurting you, then you stay in there, right, you stay in there because you could be the witness to them. You may be the person that wins them over to the way of Christ.

Speaker 1: 24:52

But, if they're abusive and they're hurting you or hurting family members, then we set the boundary and that may mean stepping out of the relationship.

Speaker 2: 25:00

Yeah. So again, we're going to post in the show notes a link to this handout that does give a level on that spectrum of abuse. And so, if you can check one of those sections in the abusive side, please, please, reach out for help. Either call us at rockcelladfamiliesorg or call us at 812-576-ROCK. We want to walk alongside you, we want to help you get healthy, yourself personally, but also in your relationship. So, hun, there's some resources that I wanted to leave folks, because this isn't just because Merle Linda says so.

Speaker 2: 25:36

Okay, there are a lot, of, a lot of researchers, a lot of professionals that would attest to what we're talking about and they can be found in these resources that we're talking about. One is boundaries, as you mentioned, the book Boundaries by Dr Henry Cloud and Dr John Townsend. The book Trust, which is also by Dr Henry Cloud. Okay, the book Safe People, which is also by Dr Henry Cloud and Dr John Townsend, that talks about what we're looking for in a safe person. Leslie Vernick wrote a book that we use a lot in the Eve Center. That's called the Emotionally Destructive Relationship or the Emotionally Destructive Marriage. He wrote two, but Leslie Vernick is one that really kind of red flags red flags, what you're don't want in a relationship. How we love is another one, especially about marriage and family, love and respect as an old classic. And then the last one, which is another old classic seven principles of making marriage work. All of those resources speak on what we're talking about today.

Speaker 1: 26:34

Yeah, can I say something with that as well? Yeah, these are resources. They are resources for you to take in. They're not resources for you to try to use to beat your spouse over the head over. And so the idea here is, if there's a weakness in your relationship and you seek help, you seek help for you to learn how to manage this, versus you saying, hey, counselor guy, go fix my spouse, okay. And so this is not about trying to fix other people you, I mean. Ultimately, we would like people to change if they need to change a certain behavior. But if you approach your spouse with the idea of you have to change because something in you is broke, you're just not going to get very far Well.

Speaker 2: 27:21

that's why the Bible says stop looking at the spec in your partner's eye when you have a plank in your own eye. Take care of the plank first, and that's when God is going to bless and protect and guide you in the next steps in a healthy relationship.

Speaker 1: 27:34

All right. So, guys, that outlines what we would think of as the means of a healthy relationship, and it's even beyond the spousal relationship. These are just relationship guidelines for any kind of relationship that you have. As Linda said earlier, if there's something that we can help with, let us know. Right, Give us a call. You can reach our office at 812-576-7625. Again, as Linda said, go to our webpage rock solid familiesorg. You know we want good relationships so that we can model them for the people that we are bringing up.

Speaker 2: 28:11

Right.

Speaker 1: 28:12

And so we talked earlier in the show that a lot of times we are the way we are in a relationship because what we saw, modeled or what happened to us when we were younger. And so let's get it right, let's try to straighten out things that maybe were softwired into us through our upbringing and see what we can do to rewire some of those.

Speaker 2: 28:31

Yeah. So thank you so much for just joining us today. Again, if we can help, you, just reach out to us at rocksolidfamiliesorg and we just thank you for listening to the Rock Solid Families Podcast. Building a stronger community, one family at a time. Make it a great day. Rock solid families would like to thank Hoosier Ice House for being a proud sponsor of the Rock Solid Families Podcast. In the heart of historic Lawrence burg, indiana, the ice houses at the corner of Vine and High Streets. The historic building evokes a feeling of comfort, with spacious indoor and outdoor dining, a large bar and comfortable dining areas, large enough to host parties, yet intimate enough to feel like your favorite neighborhood restaurant. So thank you again for the Hoosier Ice House for sponsoring the Rock Solid Families Podcast.