Marriage in Real Life
Marriage in Real Life
Finding Harmony in a Politically Divided Home
What happens when political polarization creeps into the heart of our personal relationships? You won't want to miss this heartfelt exploration of how differing political views can test the bonds of marriage and family. We share our holiday traditions, like cooking and family gatherings, while reflecting on the unexpected winds of life, both literal and metaphorical, that remind us to prioritize health and family above all. Amidst these tales of warmth and gratitude, we delve into the real impact of politics on relationships, drawing from studies and personal anecdotes to shed light on this increasingly common dilemma.
Navigating the choppy waters of political differences can be daunting, especially when they threaten a marriage's stability. With rising divorce rates linked to political disagreements, particularly during the heightened tensions of the COVID era, we engage with expert insights and studies to understand the devastating effects on both couples and families. Our discussion underscores the critical need for prioritizing marital health, a beacon of hope in turbulent times, and fostering unity, even amidst challenging political climates.
Communication is the lifeline in relationships that keeps partners connected, especially when ideological divides threaten to pull them apart. Join us as we offer strategies for maintaining respect, understanding, and open dialogue, advocating for establishing boundaries that allow love to flourish despite differences. From sharing personal stories to setting boundaries to avoid contentious topics during family dinners, we highlight the transformative power of mutual respect and genuine listening. This episode serves as a reminder of the commitment and love that should bind partners together, encouraging listeners to embrace their differences and build meaningful partnerships founded on respect and understanding.
Season 3 intro done by Carolena
Season 3 Outro done by Carolena
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Well, welcome to Marriage and Real Life.
Speaker 2:Welcome.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm so glad to be back here. Yeah, right, and we want to make sure that if you're joining us, even for the first time, or you're back again, please check in with us. You know, let us know where you're watching from so we can give you a shout out or we can give you a clap, you know, and so we want to make sure that we like to do that. We want to make sure that our audience is with us. Even those who will be listening on podcasts later on, they can still get the names and where people are watching from. You know. All right, yes, we want to make sure we do that.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, it's a lot of fun and appreciation. We appreciate you Also. An appreciation. We appreciate you. Yeah, we appreciate you For tuning in with us.
Speaker 1:I want to make sure you like and share. Like and share. Please make sure you like and share this podcast to your family and your friends. I believe tonight is going to help somebody. Amen. I'm going to start it out with some stats, so I think it's going to help somebody. Amen, I'm going to start it out with. You know, I'm going to start it out with some stats, so I think it's going to help somebody. Okay, all right. You know what's been going on these last two weeks. You know I know we had Amai and you know she just she, just busy body. Give Amai a shout out.
Speaker 2:Yay, my.
Speaker 1:Yeah, she's just such a busybody, she's such a character.
Speaker 2:She has such a personality. I love that about her.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I love that about her. Well, we know.
Speaker 3:Thanksgiving is going to be.
Speaker 1:Yes, the children are coming home. The children are coming home for Thanksgiving. Oh my gosh. And we got a text today asking about hey, are y'all going out of town? Y'all always eat at y'all house. So I know you didn't, you know, feel like cooking this time, but you're cooking this time.
Speaker 2:I actually plan not to cook anything, but when my babies come home, I got to get in the kitchen and burn, you know, do a little something, of course with the help of my baby boy.
Speaker 1:Well, Nikki said she was going to cook too. Yeah, she did.
Speaker 2:I'm excited about it, yeah, and that you know.
Speaker 1:All of them get in there and burn a little bit. I think the kitchen is big enough, you know, to do y'all things, so we can't wait. Hey, see, samson is online. Hey, samson, how you doing? Hey, harold, all the way from Houston, texas, texas is in the house.
Speaker 2:To get into the topic, hey, but what about what we did Saturday night?
Speaker 1:What did we do Saturday night? We were going to see John B. Oh yeah, John B, I was so excited.
Speaker 2:I wanted to see him. He was at 38th Street.
Speaker 1:Barbecue yeah.
Speaker 2:And it started raining out, I had to leave. I couldn't see him, but the next time he in town.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I want to tell you I already started looking and he's not coming back here soon, so yeah, hey, if we have to drive out, like to Orlando or Georgia, New York? What Say drive out to Georgia man? You just kept going farther and farther, the. You're gonna say jamaica, and and and, because he is gonna be in england. But uh, yeah, so, yeah, I'm so, I'm so. I was so bummed that you didn't get a chance to see john b, because I know you like john b yeah, but I just got over that.
Speaker 2:Really bad cold.
Speaker 1:You didn't need to be out there.
Speaker 2:I had to take my health into consideration. It was a decision to make Right right right.
Speaker 1:I know, in the last two we voted, we did our votes, we did a mail-in ballot. We weren't going to stand in a line. We did that one time. I did a mail in ballot. We want to stand in the line. So you know, we did that one time. Lord have mercy, we ain't doing this again, you know. So you know we voted All right. So all the people that voted, we give you a shout out, all right? And that leads us to tonight's topic. You know we're talking about. You know politics and marriage, politics and marriage. You know politics and marriage, politics and marriage. Um, and I just want to start out, you know, because I know you was kind of reluctant about doing this topic, wasn't it?
Speaker 1:yeah, I'm a little bit tired of it, a little bit well, I'm yeah, I'm tired of you know, I'm tired of the commercials, I'm tired of the back and forth, but you will hear tonight from these stats that this topic needs to be talked about within marriages because a Wakefield study Now this is an old study, but Wakefield study in 2017 found this Eleven percent said differing politics have doomed a relationship, with the number even higher among millennials. With the number even higher among millennials. The figure doubled for younger people, with 22% citing politics as a reason for a romance breakdown. So this is it happens. And then this was down in 2017. It says also that the Wakefield's research went on to find 22 percent of people surveyed said they knew of a marriage, one couple negatively impacted by the president at that time.
Speaker 3:This was a wait for study in 2017.
Speaker 1:All right, and it goes on to say and this wait for study says passionately opposing points of views are not only driving wedges between strangers and even friends, but we are now seeing evidence that dissent is having a detrimental impact on Americans' marriages and relationships. So this is a big thing, you know, and it started back in 2017. You know, I would say I was telling somebody you know back in the day I mean people had differing, you know, political views or whatever like that, and I think social media has, you know, just put it up to the forefront and you know and talked about it because you're indated with it. You know it's on TV and you got all these opposing views and all of this kind of stuff, and what can happen is marriages. It can. It can break up marriages, because one thing I think Pastor Barr said it at our last thing is that you are two people coming together, but you're still two individuals.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Right, you are still two different individuals. You know you're coming to be as one, right, you are still two different individuals. You know you're coming to be as one, right To where, you know sometimes, like how we think the same, we, you know, finish each other's sentences. You know it builds to that, but you still are two different individuals, right, right, you grew up differently, you looked at worldview differently and I, as a husband, I can't make, I can't, and we're going to talk about this. I can't make you Me and you can't make me you Right, right, so we're going to have to.
Speaker 1:You know, we may have two different, opposing opinions and so some people can't handle that, right, some marriages can't, can't handle that, and that is a big thing. And especially now, what's going on? All right, um, and so this, this lawyer here and I'm looking at these stats here, babe, I'm telling you, uh, sharon knew a family attorney with uh new and loringer, a law firm in bethesda, maryland, says this and this just order just came out of 2024. So that was 2017, this is 22. Uh, 2024, says. Over the past five to seven years, she has seen more people than ever before cite politics as the main reason for wanting to split politics wow and this is happening in between the last five to five to seven years that she is seeing more and more people do that.
Speaker 1:She says you know, such um ideological polarization started to play a role in divorces during covid, when issues such as masking vaccinations and social distance became politicized right. And then, uh, and that's what this DMV attorney, jessica Markham, told this article, and it goes on to say these kinds of divides are also playing a big role in the Maryland area, the DMV area, custody battles. So it's not only affecting the two adults, it is affecting children.
Speaker 2:It's a family thing.
Speaker 1:Yes, because it says look, listen to this baby. I'm just saying, when I read this I said this is heartbreaking to me Because we know we care about marriages, we want marriages to succeed. And this is heartbreaking because he says and some clients are even going back to court to modify existing custody agreements because they think the other parents' views have become too extreme. They're going back to court, back to court.
Speaker 3:That's a shame ain't it?
Speaker 1:It says in some of Markham's cases, a parent this way it comes to social media. A parent's social media posts, such as those including anti-immigrant and extreme pro-gun stances and fake news and conspiracy theories, have been used as evidence that they're perhaps not fit to have custody.
Speaker 3:Wow.
Speaker 1:We're talking about politics and people are going on people's social media because they're saying this and they're saying that, and they're saying that. And then she says she also has a case in which one parent was going to so many protests and rallies that the other parent felt they had abandoned a family. That's 2024. This is happening, it's sad.
Speaker 2:This is happening, it's sad.
Speaker 1:This is a sad. This is a sad thing that America has gotten too polarized with politics. And again, I didn't say this in the beginning we're not here to endorse any candidate tonight. We're not here to endorse any candidate. That's not what we're doing tonight. We're not doing no endorsing what we want to do. We want to endorse any candidate. That's not what we're doing tonight. We're not in doing no endorsing what we want to do we want to endorse marriages, amen that's right.
Speaker 1:We want to endorse marriages and and and marriages. Just, you know now, even though, if you look at it, people, the stat says divorce rates are falling, they're coming down, but even though they're coming down, the percentages of the political marriage and divorce rates is going up. So all in all around, divorce rates are coming down but it's still inching up by percentage because of the people, the reason why they're getting divorced. That's a sad thing for America.
Speaker 1:It is that's sad. That's sad that we have come to the point where we're using politics as a reason for divorce or a reason for a relationship to fail is because of your political view. Wow, that is crazy. It is wow, that is crazy. I mean, did you ever think about that? You know, in our marriage. I mean, did I ever thought it would cross your mind?
Speaker 2:well, you know it hasn't, but we did our vote by mail what? Two weeks ago, maybe three two weeks ago, I don't remember and there was a decision on there that both of us had to make and I voted yay and you voted no. We didn't file for divorce.
Speaker 1:No, we didn't file for divorce, right, because we're two individuals.
Speaker 2:Two individuals. And I have my reason for believing and standing on what I stood on, and you had your reason and we're not going to argue over that.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:We had too many other questions to go. Put a pin in that and come back to it.
Speaker 2:But I think, because we communicated, we talked about it, I told you my view on it, you told me your view on it and we decided to go ahead and vote. And when we both found well, when I found that you voted, I was like babe, I couldn't believe it. But you know, we, we took that, we took that stand back and we took that time. And I think that's why doing the mail-in ballot is so important to me, because I get to sit down and actually really re-understand. Look, look up the candidates you know, see what they're about. Look at a little bit of history of them before I make a decision. You know, outside of what they're doing on TV?
Speaker 2:It's just like 90 seconds, if that long. Right, right, right you get the full gist of who these people are, but when you can follow their career a little bit before you make a decision, I think that was important to me. A career a little bit before you make a decision, I think that was important to me and, like again, we had opportunity to, I even had an opportunity to actually look up one of the amendments and say let me see exactly what this is talking about before I make a decision, and so I think that was good with us.
Speaker 2:It's never come down to that.
Speaker 1:I mean, the thing about it is, I mean, I think we even talked about it and you went to work and you came on today and I said you know, I really see what you're talking about. You know, I think it was more than one that we had a, you know, just a disagreement. But I understood what you were talking about and I think that's that's the problem in communication, uh, communicating with your spouse is that you don't want to see the point of view of them and you're so big-headed and you think that you're right all the time that you don't want to listen to your spouse, to get their point of view and say man, you know what, I understand, I understand how it affects you. I understand that, understand, I understand how it affects you. I understand that. You know, because, look to be to be real about it, it's some things that that that's in politics that would not affect me as much as it affect you, right, there's some things that's going to affect our children more than it affect us, you're right and our grandchildren. So we have to.
Speaker 1:You know, I heard I think I told you about Pastor Marvin Sapp. He said this. He said he was telling his congregation. You know, a while ago he was saying look money-wise. You know Marvin Sapp, you know he's a millionaire, you know, you know, you're a millionaire, you got money. You know, even though he's passing, he got plenty of money. You're a millionaire, you got money. You know, even though he's passing, he got, he got plenty of money. So you say, money wise, it is better for me to vote for a Republican candidate. Right, he says that because you know, a lot of times they look after, like they say the millionaires or whatever, whatever you know party says, whatever people say, I have to put my own benefits and look at my congregation and look at my children and grandchildren and I have to say that outweighs my own personal benefits. Right, and so, even in the political way is, a lot of times people are looking out for their own interests but they're not looking out for their spouses, they're not looking out for their children interests. They they're not looking out for their spouses, they're not looking out for their children's interests. They're just not doing that. All right, all right, we got, we got.
Speaker 1:Samson here says he says I know of a household where one spouse is voting one way and the other spouse is afraid to go against it. Man, we're going to talk about that. Wow, it should be. That should never happen. You should never be afraid, because to me that's manipulation and to me, if somebody is afraid to do something, that is a form of abuse to me. They may not, you may not agree, and people who watch it may not agree with that, but that is a form of abuse because you are having control over somebody, and God has never told us to have control over a person's. What they do as far as they vote, never said that, he never said that. He said love your wife and he says wife, submit Right, and that's what he said. And so not have control of the way, because if you're having control, that's a form of abuse to me. What do you think?
Speaker 2:Any type of forcing that's being done in any relationship without the person wanting it. I think it's abuse, emotional, mental, verbal. You know threats may not be physical, but they hurt just as bad.
Speaker 3:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:You know. And if you're afraid to make a move, if you're afraid to go against that, what else are you afraid?
Speaker 3:of Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, mm-hmm. All right, let's get back, let's get into it. Let's get into it more. Okay, we're going to give some tips. All right, here's some tips. All right, here's some tips. And we want you, you know, if you're watching with us, if you've got anything to say, come on, put it in the chat. We'll give you some time to call. Yeah, let's talk about it.
Speaker 2:man, let's talk about it.
Speaker 1:Let I seem very passionate about it and you hear from here just that. But then you hear Samson say it. He knows somebody, so he's part of that percentage, right and again. But I'm just like this. I want marriages to succeed and the enemy will use any kind of thing to mess up marriages right, and we let him use, out of all things, politics, right? I tell all the people there's three things that break up marriages communication, sex and money. Now we're talking about we need to add a fourth thing Politics will break it up. Oh man, it shouldn't happen, we shouldn't do that, all right. So this person wrote to this lady and I'm going to read what she wrote, right, I'm not going to put the names Right or whatever like that, but I'm gonna read and I want y'all to hear that everybody that's out there, please make sure you like and share. Please make sure you like and share, all right. She says dear emily.
Speaker 1:It says says my husband has become increasingly embroiled in politics. He is almost blindly devoted to a certain candidate and watches Fox News every night. He said my politics are foremost central and I am of a certain party and we are at odds. And this is what he says. Despite being retired, we spend very little time together. I feel I cannot discuss or respond to his comments about fake news or politics. And this is what got me.
Speaker 1:We have been married for almost 30 years and not until the last two or three did we ever discuss politics. And we have pretty and we've had a pretty great life. And she says I do not. And she put it in I do not want to give up on our marriage, but I feel alone. I asked him about counseling and he flatly refused, refused. He says how do I proceed with this conversation? And she put help. And so we're going to go through some things. You know that not only can help her, but maybe help somebody, right, all right, and you know, and as she said, you know, political tribalism is, as we said before, is tearing our country apart. Not only marriage is tearing up friends, but they can't. You know, they from one particular person and this from this particular person. They just friendships are being broken, churches are being broken, patsy churches are being broken.
Speaker 2:Patsy, I hear you.
Speaker 1:Churches are being broken. When the churches are being broken over politics, man, there is something wrong. So how can we expect the marriages to succeed if the churches is not succeeded because they're broken on a politics? It's not going to happen. It's not going to happen Because, in order for the marriages to succeed, they should be able to come to church and get a politics. It's not going to happen. It's not going to happen Because, in order for the marriages to succeed, they should be able to come to church and get a word. A word, a word should be coming from the pastor, the man and the woman of God, you know, telling them that, hey, god still reigns on the throne, right, that's what should be coming on, not political messages, not this. You know, hot topics and not this stuff. Preach the gospel of jesus christ, right and so um and so what happens when opposing opinions and strong emotions drive us apart? When somebody got strong opinions and they don't want to listen, they don't, you know, because it comes down to what you always say in everything Communication.
Speaker 2:Communication is key.
Speaker 1:Communication.
Speaker 2:Dr Barr said that as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, communication, you got to sit down and communication is just not talking, as we often say. Right, communication is listening and not having a wall. That, okay, I'm fake listening to you, but I'm still right. Right, I'm hearing you, but I'm not listening to you. I'm not really hearing what you're saying. You know You're talking and it's wah, wah, wah, wah, wah. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:You're blowing me off, yeah, yeah, yeah. And you know what I mean. You're blowing me off, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And so that's what. That's what's happening. So here are some keys, here's some keys. Here's some keys to loving people and who believe differently from you. All right, but the first one is believe that you can. All right, believe that you can can, all right, believe that you can. Some people have moved to such extremes that they no longer believe it is possible to live with and love those who think differently than they do on certain topics. So if you get to that point, that's when you go to divorce. Right, you go into divorce because you don't think that I can live with somebody who has a differing view than me. Right, you know what I mean. And and, and and. The thing is. I mean, I know we're talking about politics and life, but that's on anything, right?
Speaker 1:I agree with that, that's with anything, that's with anything you don't believe that you can live with somebody. That and if you are going to be married long, if you want to be married you're going to have different views on something on a lot of things oh man, it's not the views that you have.
Speaker 2:It's how you assess them. It's how you get through them and how you express them yeah, exactly. Assess them is how you get through them and how you express them yeah, exactly, and how you express them without belittling and criticizing and saying you know, we had one statement we talked about. You know, we don't want to be called stupid. Right, right, you got to know how to address the situation without causing harm to the relationship.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm, all right, you got to the relationship. Mm-hmm, all right, you got to believe that. And so this one here, believe that you can't. It's in any situation, because in order to believe you can love someone you strongly disagree with, you must first realize that you can achieve unity of purpose on some level. On some, you got to believe that, mm-hmm, because if you don't believe it, it's not going to happen. Uh, yeah it. We got to have unity. We got to have unity on some level. So they gave some examples and I love the examples that they gave. It says um, you and your spouse should be able to sit down and agree on on some of these things, you know. You should be able to say my goal is to have a strong, healthily joyous marriage with you. You and your spouse should be able to say my goal is to have a strong, healthily joyous marriage with you. You and your spouse should be able to say oh, yeah, I agree with that, because marriage should be over politics.
Speaker 2:It should be Marriage should be over anything, everything.
Speaker 1:Marriage has got to be over your kids.
Speaker 2:You know you have to. It's a, it's a commitment, it's, you know it's the, the oneness, the, the one flesh, but still the two individuals. So you got to be able to be put that over anything, everything.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So you got to believe that the goal is to have a strong, healthy, joyous marriage. And if we're going to have a strong, healthy, joyous marriage, we may not agree on everything, but we can know how to communicate about it, to work it out. He says. He says I believe that our political beliefs are just one aspect of our identity. That's what we said. That's just one aspect of it. You can't say, I can't say to you that you know, patsy, you're a Democrat or you're a Republican, and that's who you are.
Speaker 2:What is that supposed to mean?
Speaker 1:That's right. I can't say that to you because that's not your identity.
Speaker 2:And I'm going to say well, what is that supposed to mean?
Speaker 3:What are you trying to say?
Speaker 2:You're like really, how do we get to that? Oh man, I think I don't know.
Speaker 3:Go ahead.
Speaker 2:I'm not into politics like that, but that's on anything.
Speaker 1:I can't say yeah.
Speaker 2:Something like that wouldn't trigger me. Yeah, something like that wouldn't trigger me.
Speaker 3:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:But I mean, there's so many other things in the marriage that would trigger me.
Speaker 1:Right, but I can't identify you as one thing. No Right, absolutely not Right. The only thing I can identify you is as a child of God and a beautiful black woman. Yes, sir.
Speaker 2:Let's stay focused. Okay, well sir, let's stay focused.
Speaker 1:Let's get back on topic. I'm sorry, excuse me y'all, I'm not your superwoman. Yes, you are baby. So we can't believe that politics is a person's identity. Because they believe something, because they believe one way In politics, they can't say that that's their identity. We got to believe that. I believe there is much more to each of us than our political identities. It's something got to be more than that In political. Yeah, it's something there.
Speaker 1:And then you say I love these. You know, I should be able to say to you I love these aspects of you and these are things that believe that you can't. You should be able to sit down when it comes down to politics or whatever. You know, this is what I love about you. I love that you are a free thinker. I love that you don't think like me, because any leader, any leader, doesn't want as a man and God has put man as a leader right but any leader should not want people to be, yes, men, to always think like they do, because you'll never progress. You know, you want some kind of friction, you want some kind of comeback, you want somebody to say to you you know what? Let's rethink about this. Let's look at it from a different angle. How would this affect me? How would this affect the children? How would you know, you looking at it from this way? But you know, eric, you got girls. You can't think like that.
Speaker 2:You got girls and I remember telling you that all the time.
Speaker 1:Yeah you remember, remember, I came home and they weren't cleaning their room and I just came home lunchtime and I put all of this stuff in one of this stuff in one pile in the middle of the floor and I didn't know it was there until Peaches came in and said Mom, what happened to my room?
Speaker 2:I was like I don't know, I ain't been in there. I opened the door and I'm like okay. I said you know what, go ahead and clean it up. We're going to have a talk with Daddy.
Speaker 1:And you, can, you talk to you? And the first thing you said, eric, first of all, they're not Marines and second, they girls, right? You just can't, you know, do it, because they got privacy, they got things that you know, that's them and you can't do that, right, right? So, uh, you need that person in your life to say you know, let's look at it at a different point of view, let's what about this? Because, again, you're two individuals right, from two different worlds, right?
Speaker 2:and and especially me, with a hundred relatives and cousins, that I'm surrounded around at all times and being you, it's just you your mom, your sister and your dad. So you didn't know that full scope of coming from a tribe, yeah tribe, tribe, right, right, right but you know I'm saying so. Things were different, even in the marriage, because there were things where you, you were raised one way and and I was raised another way.
Speaker 2:Like you weren't allowed to get in your parents bed I was right my kids got into our bed, the first thing you said is why are they in my bed? I was like they, my kids. Oh man, that's why I'm in the bed, y'all come on and you never. You know you, you didn't say anything about you like, oh, oh, okay, you know they had to be clean. They can just hop in there with their dirty feet or whatever yeah, yeah, yeah that was your rule, okay.
Speaker 2:If you're gonna come and get in our bed, you have to be clean. They can just hop in there with their dirty feet or whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that was your rule, okay. If you're gonna come and get in our bed, you have to be clean in our bed so that was something that was different growing up okay yeah, that was something that you know. You know we discussed yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:and I had to get the feeling of that okay, now they come home, they get, they get right in the beat. Hey Mom, what you doing in here?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, they want to ask us what we doing in our own bed In scooch over.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 2:So I think it's just. I love all the aspects of you two. I don't want you to agree with me all the time either, but sometimes I need someone to bounce something else off, you know, and give me a balance, another way to see things, and I think that's so important in marriages, instead of taking on the full responsibility and doing it all yourself, you know, and doing all of the decision-making.
Speaker 2:You know, just a leisure conversation as well, you know how sometimes we go out and walk at the beach and we just talk and just, you know, have our little conversation. I think that's the balance that most marriages need. Again, communication is definitely key. You know, you're not going to get anywhere without communication.
Speaker 3:That's right, if you're communicating with your husband.
Speaker 2:You don't have anywhere without communicating with your husband. You don't have a husband.
Speaker 1:You got a roommate, oh man we don't want no roommates, alright, so that's one. You got to believe that you can. You got to believe that you can be two individuals with two different opinions and you can believe that and you can. Your marriage can build on it. Number two is you got to set boundaries. You must set boundaries, hey Jordan.
Speaker 2:He know it's true, he's like Matt, sure do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know you got to set boundaries. You must set boundaries, you know, because healthy relationships have boundaries that are maintained by respect for oneself and one's partner. When you have differences that trigger each other, setting some boundaries is helpful. And when it comes down to politics, you got to set what. So one of the things you can say, you know, for example, you can say let's agree not to talk about politics during dinner.
Speaker 3:That's a boundary.
Speaker 1:We're not talking about politics during dinner, matter of fact. We don't want to talk about that. We should be talking about how's your day, you know, and if you got kids, you definitely don't want to be talking about politics. You should be talking to your kids during dinner time how was your day, you know. Did you do your homework? You know what about sports homework? You know what about sports, you know. You know they get the girls get older. Hey, you got a boyfriend. Don't be trying to sneak up on me. You got a girlfriend. You know you, playfully, you know, just asking that's the dinner time is supposed to be special, right? If we, you know, date night.
Speaker 2:We ain't talking politics during date night we ain't talking about nobody doing doing dates.
Speaker 3:Nobody and nothing.
Speaker 2:It's important for us to have that time with just, you know just.
Speaker 1:Talking about us, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. What's the? Next plan and having fun, and having fun. Hey, we're going to have fun this Friday, ain't it?
Speaker 2:Yes, this weekend is my time to take Eric on date night and I'm taking him to miniature golf.
Speaker 1:All right, all right, I'm going to win back the title Okay. We'll see All right, miniature golf, y'all, hey, y'all know, y'all let us. I'm going to get on her. You know, when we come down to competition, I don't play you don't all right, you can say, okay, that's for times.
Speaker 1:You can say topics it seems like when we, you can say this it seems like when we talk about politics, we both end up angry and frustrated. So you can say let's try not to talk about politics with each other for a week and see what happens. Right? I often say, if you know something angers your partner and you do it, that mean you are, you're intentional, you know what triggers your partner and you do it. You doing it out of spite is mean that you know that you, you, you try to do something. And what I found out is a lot of times is that, uh, when people, people want to start an argument, especially when around six o'clock pm, seven o'clock pm, they just want to start and they know it's going to trigger a problem, and they and a person get all mad and he's who I'm going to go. Yeah, yeah, I know where you're going to go, finna. Go you, finna, go to the sports bar, or you going to see somebody else. A lot of times that happens. Come on, now talk to me.
Speaker 2:I don't know. I never did anything like that, so I don't know.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:I know when people are having strife they sometimes it appears from the outside Like that person started their argument, so they can get out of the house you feel right for the trap yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, all right.
Speaker 1:So so you know, let's not try to talk with each other for a week and see what happens. You know they, we just we're gonna don't. If you see it on social media, we're not talking about it, we, you know. If you see it on tv or whatever and you keep on moving, you know what I mean. Mean, so we do that. And then you look at the process. So you got times, topics and process and the process says I'm willing to listen to your views and would like to understand them better.
Speaker 1:And when you share your views, please do so in a way that don't disparage or disrespect mine, and that is good. Disparage or disrespect mine, and that is good. When you share your views, don't get all angry and get frustrated that you got to listen to me and you got to pick my view. Don't do that. Don't talk down to me when you're talking about your views and your political views. Don't talk down to me, but you don't. No, no, no, no. Just say your point, know, okay, and I should be able to hear you out and listen to you and say you know what? Yeah, yeah, but you know what about this? You know what I mean. What about that, what about this? And we can have a, a good discussion.
Speaker 1:And I think that is what's missing inside america right now, where people can't sit down without getting mad. You know, and what I found out is, a lot of times, when they get into discussions, what's in the heart actually comes out. What is the heart actually comes out with these discussions that you see, you know, comes out with these discussions that you see, you know, and so. But you know, if you're dealing with something, even as your partner, if you've been dealing with something that maybe you grew up in and it may be ingrained in you and you're trying to get it and it's still in your heart, it's going to come out and at least we could talk about it. And I'm not going to go and tell the church, I'm not going to go tell my mom and dad, everybody. You know that person got some hate in there. That ain't none of their business. This is something for us to talk about.
Speaker 3:Why are you looking like that?
Speaker 2:What was that look? I just thought about it funny.
Speaker 1:Oh geez.
Speaker 2:I see a woman of God. She ain't no woman of.
Speaker 3:God, she ain't no woman of God, she's a woman of the devil.
Speaker 2:You don't listen to nothing I say.
Speaker 1:Wow, wow, wow, all right. So you got to believe that you can Believe that you can have two different views. You got to believe that you got to set boundaries. You know you got to set boundaries when and where or how we want to do it. You got to believe that you got to set boundaries. You know you got to set boundaries when and where, how we want to do it. You got to set those boundaries and the next thing you want to do is build emotional safety. Build emotional safety. So we know that with so much at stake, passions can get into it and it's.
Speaker 1:And sometimes, because you get so passionate, you forget that the person you're discussing your political views with is the love of your life. You think that's. You think that's. That's somebody on the street, that's somebody here. No, no, no, no. This is the love of your life. This is the one that you went down down to the, you know, to the courthouse. Or you stood before God and you said to death, do us part and sickness in the health. I'm going to love, I'm going to obey, I'm going to submit to each other, I'm going to do all these kinds of things. This is the love.
Speaker 1:Maybe the mother you're cheering, I don't know, but this is your person that you committed to, that you could have a covenant with, and so you gotta you. You can't be treating her like some Joe Smoe on the on the side. You can't do that right. So you, you, you, you, you got it. You got to build emotional stability, says you. You know, um, it goes on to say that sometimes you can even go and think of them as your enemy. Now that's bad. If you get to that point where you think, because of a political view, that you think your wife is your enemy or your husband is your enemy, boy, you got a problem.
Speaker 2:A big problem.
Speaker 1:You got a problem. That's your enemy Again. Again, that's the person that you love, that's the person that you said you're going to spend the rest of your life with and because they think differently than you, on a political view that every four years or every two years is going to change something on the outside right, but none of these people. You're going to lay it with None of these people. You're going to sleep with None of these people, but this is the person that you said you want to grow old with and you're mad man. That's the enemy. No, no, no, that's not the enemy. The devil is the enemy and the devil is a lie.
Speaker 2:Amen, Come on brother.
Speaker 1:So that's what it says. You got to remember that your spouse is not your Satan, is it Right? And it says here we should also remember that regulating your spouse's political thinking is not your job. This right here, this is what I wanted to get to Regulating your spouse's political thinking is not your job, that is not your, that's not, especially for men.
Speaker 1:Because now, you know, I didn't I don't have the clip, but I remember, you know, michelle Obama, she did, she did a speech and she was saying you know she was saying to, you know she was talking to women and she was. She said that, hey, when you go into the booth, right, you know, nobody knows who you vote, your husband don't know who you're voting for, right? So she was appealing to women, right? And then then the Democratic Party, they ran a ad saying that same thing with Julia Roberts roberts, you know saying. You know saying that, um, and the husband actually said, hey, you made the right choice. She said, I sure did. You know that was a political ad. And she smiled or whatever like that. But then you had people, uh, on the other side saying this one person said if my wife went in and voted against what I wanted her to vote for. That's like she's having an affair.
Speaker 2:Wow, that's crazy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he said that. That's like having an affair.
Speaker 2:Cheating on me.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Then you had another guy say you know, this party is telling wives to lie to their husband. No, our job is not to regulate our spouse's political thinking. It's not our job.
Speaker 3:Not.
Speaker 1:Not our job.
Speaker 2:I agree with you.
Speaker 1:Right, I agree. Your spouse is not your political conscience. Your spouse is not your political conscience. You are not your spouse's political conscience. You're not. You know who the political conscience is it's the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 2:Amen, let's see, we got some comments.
Speaker 1:We got Warren. Hey Warren, how you doing? God bless you, hi Warren. He says do we as a couple really need to talk about it as much at all If we have different views and it doesn't change how we live practically, except for the worst, potentially so do you as a couple? You can set boundaries, you don't have to. If you don't have to talk about it politically, you don't have to talk about it politically. You don't have to, but it is happening it is from this. Do I need to go back to the stats?
Speaker 2:no, you don't need to go back to the stats. We just you and we. We are two different parties I'm independent right yeah, you are so I'm like, okay, I never really this. This really baffles me and I'm glad that you did bring it to light because, like I said, I'm not into politics like this, but just to see that people were literally in their marriage over something like this is mind boggling to me, because I'm like, really, you know, I don't.
Speaker 1:Like what.
Speaker 2:You know, are you serious? Like what? Are you serious People?
Speaker 1:would actually go back and change the custody of their kids because of politics, because this person is at a rally and these people say that you abandoned the kids because you had a rally.
Speaker 2:It depends on how often you're at that rally. Now you ain't putting no dinner on the table and you out there picketing and walking around, and that's questionable.
Speaker 1:That is a question Come on lady.
Speaker 2:You know, at least if you want a shot or a meal you know, get dinner ready for Monday, tuesday and Wednesday on Sunday night and you can go. You know we can pop it in the microwave or something. But and even you know vice versa, that's something to say hey, hold up, you're putting this before us and nothing should go before God, your spouse, your children, nothing.
Speaker 1:Right, nothing should go, especially, like Warren said, it's not going to really do anything. But you know, yes, warren, you do not have to talk about it, but if you do, you got to learn how to talk about it Exactly, and you got to learn how to say that you are two different people.
Speaker 2:If you do and accept each other's point of view.
Speaker 1:And this is the thing is that we've, as we have said tonight, this has something to do more than just politics. It could be anything.
Speaker 2:Anything.
Speaker 1:Anything. So you need to know how to talk. Talk about things that you may have two different point of views, where you can sit down and if you want to have a conflict resolution or what, however you want to do it, but you got to be able to sit down and have and know that your wife may have opposing view than you, your husband may have opposing view than you, and you need to sit down and talk about it.
Speaker 2:Right. Like the first time I went grocery shopping you was like well, you got Eric, I spent $182. You say where's the meat?
Speaker 3:I was like, oh yeah, I didn't get none of that.
Speaker 2:We decided right then. And there who?
Speaker 1:was going to do it.
Speaker 2:I'll do the grocery shopping past.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's it. That's it. Yeah, you know, but you got to be able to sit down and talk about two opposing views. You got to, and if you're not willing to do that right, then something is wrong. You know we're talking about politics tonight. That's the main thing, but you got it in anything. But I love what this says is that I am not your political conscience. I'm not. You know, the Holy Spirit is, and as a leader of the house, I got to be able to say I can't make you vote like me. I can't make you do what I want you to do, right, and that's it. Anything. I'm not. That it's.
Speaker 1:The Holy spirit is supposed to work on you. That's what it is. So if it's something that that you're doing that I don't like, right, and we sit down and talk about it and we can't agree about it, then we know what I'm supposed to do. I'm supposed to pull away and get on my knees and start praying. I say, holy Spirit, you know, this is something that you know, that's something that's driving the wedge. And, lord, you know, if it's me, change me, change me. And if it's something with her, you know, bring it to her attention. But it's not my job to keep beating you about it and beating you about it. No, let the Holy spirit do it, right, yeah, that's what we got to do and it's just like you know, even with the church, we often tell you know people, oh, you got to get ready, you, and let the Holy Spirit dress them, you know, and talk to them about the way they dress, the way they smell and all this, you know, and stuff like that.
Speaker 1:Let the Holy Spirit do His work. Why we try to do more than the Holy Spirit. So that's why marriages, a lot of marriages, mess up, because we're trying to be the Holy Spirit and we're not supposed to be their conscience at all. All right, so that's between each spouse and God. So that's why people can say, when you go into the booth, when you do your ballot, right, whatever, if you want to discuss it, that's fine.
Speaker 1:But you know you say OK, yeah, ok, I hear your point of view. And you know, again, there may be some things that affect you as a woman that doesn't affect me as a man, right. And there may be some things that affect me as a man that don't affect you as a woman, right. And so it's time to discuss it and I have to be able to see from your point of view, and there may be some experiences that you had in your life that I didn't have right and I may be like I'm full force of this, but if I don't ask you about your experience and you don't tell me about your experience, I can't empathize with you, right?
Speaker 1:And so that's how you said that you're, the Holy Spirit is talking to you and your political thinking is between you and God, all right. So, as this thing is, it is not the husband's job to tell your wife what to think God wants her to do. The husband's job is this. You know, I can't come to you and say God wants you to do. The husband's job is this I can't come to you and say God wants you to do this, god wants you to do that, god wants you to do that.
Speaker 1:What are you going to?
Speaker 2:do? I'm going to go to God. Eric said this, you said it, you confirmed that. For me. I don't take anybody's word when they come to me. I don't care what form they come to me in and say that the Lord says does I?
Speaker 2:go to the Lord, I do bamboozle too many times in my life, believing what people have prophesied and say the Lord told me to tell you this or whatever. No, I go to God for myself. I'm telling you Not to put anything bad on because some people they be on the point. And it's been a lot of times when the Lord say, yes, I did, and I know how to roll with it and it's backed up with the word. You know, and it's backed up with the word, and there's been time when the Lord was like no.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:No confirmation. No other person come and tell me the same exact thing when they've never met that other person. None of that.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:You have to be careful and I think it's so important, and I say that all the time you have to have the Lord in the center of every relationship. You know and let him guide and, like Warren say, you know, you really won't even have to have that discussion Because you already know. You'll know how to move forward. Like we move forward. Like I said, we voted yay and nay. I mean on a topic. Okay, we moving on.
Speaker 1:We moving on.
Speaker 2:I'm funny because Eric is against the people. Oh Jesus. So I'm like you know. I'm like you know, I'm cool, like that. You can be against the people, but I'm going to be down. I'm going to be down for the people.
Speaker 1:You're going down for the people. I'm against the people you're against the people.
Speaker 2:I ain't going to hell for the people, though, alright yeah, and I think communication is so key, it's so, it's so important. And if I could go back when you first got married and I know what I know now, our marriage be totally off the rock, of course but that's what.
Speaker 2:That's what that's, that's the beauty of growing, yeah and I'm just glad I had opportunity to do that I with you, and that we grow every day. And I think it's because we communicate Not that we don't get mad at each other, not that we don't get into our looks.
Speaker 1:Because I'm spicy. Yeah, spicy is spicy, you know, she on the hot pepper side, whatever.
Speaker 2:You know, I shoot from the hip. I get that from a grandma. Yeah, you do shoot from the hip. I get that from a grandma.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you do shoot from the hip now. Yeah, you do do that. All right, so this is what it says. The husband's job this is the husband's job is to love your wife unconditionally, and that is vice versa. That's the husband job. Love your wife as Christ loved the church, right, and that's the husband's job. Love your wife as Christ loved the church, right, and that's the husband's job. So that's why we got to again. We've been talking about this and we really got to get down. We've been talking about talking to your spouse.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's it.
Speaker 1:We got to talk to your spouse.
Speaker 2:Right, not belittle, not insult, not criticize. Talk.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:You got to talk, you can't be belittling, you can't be criticizing, you can't do that and and and. In this it says one of the things they have found in studying relationship is that the health of a relationship is a function of the average lag time between identifying and addressing a problem. And we say that all the time. Right, if you got a problem, don't keep sweeping it under the rug, sweeping it under the rug, sweeping it under the rug, sweeping it on the rug. Right, you deal with it at that time, and you know. And if you can't deal with it at a time, you talk and you can't do the conflict resolution or whatever, say, okay, let's take a break, come back, but you got to deal with it. You don't wait till a year down the road. You don't wait two years down the road. You know three years road and say, oh, now we need to deal with this problem. That happened three years ago Because, look, one of your spouses already said, oh, I think it was already over.
Speaker 2:We didn't follow up.
Speaker 1:We didn't follow up with it. We didn't do that, so I thought it was gone. But if one spouse is still holding on to something, you got to deal with it, because if not, that's in your heart and eventually what's in the heart is going to come out.
Speaker 2:And when it comes out it's going to come out bad. And that brings me back to this first statement that Warren said. I wanted to read that before we got to the second one. But he says from the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks, and it does. You know, when you got stuff build up and build up and build up, you'd be like you know, eric, I'm so over this. You remember back in 1995 when you did so and so you know.
Speaker 2:I never got over that and you thinking all this time that was a done deal. Hey, we, we finished with that. But here it goes. It brought, brings it right back to the surface, or may have been something that you did in the kitchen that brought that right back to mind you know, like you, you never apologized to me for this and we never got past this and you're going to keep bringing stuff up, but you keep bringing up that I owe you how much money About an insurance. Yeah, you owe me $86.42.
Speaker 1:See you keep bringing that up, yeah but, eric, I paid your insurance.
Speaker 3:And.
Speaker 2:And at the time you was dating me and somebody else. You owe me my money, my money how much are? You right now. You owe me eight thousand the interest for that from eighty six dollars to eight thousand.
Speaker 1:Yes, oh boy eight thousand dollars.
Speaker 2:Six hundred eight thousand six hundred dollars and 42 cents Boy.
Speaker 1:You just help Boy. Look at here, Look at here, Look at here.
Speaker 2:But you know I mean, but you know I feel like if we stay focused on the most important thing is a healthy, productive marriage and family relationship with God, that's going to be the foundation that you can get over anything even when it comes down to politics.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:You know, I mean that's the key, that's the key? I don't really have anything else to add to that If you if again, like I said, if you're not communicating, you're not in a marriage your roommate.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. My note here. It says relationships can get better. It doesn't happen without work, without effort and without pain. You're going to have some difficult times, some growing pain you're going to have some growing pains you're going to. You're going to have that, but pains You're going to have that. But you know, we are overcomers. In Christ we're overcomers and even if you're not a Christian, you still can overcome the pain. Right, I mean Jordan says you know what the song says no pain, no gain. Right, that's.
Speaker 2:Betty right, that's Betty right. And in order to have something, in order to get something, you got to go through something, go through something.
Speaker 1:You have to. People can look at us or people can look at other people and say, man, I want my marriage to be like that. That means you have to go through something, because our marriage was not free of any pain. We had pain, but we had to grow. We had to learn to love deeper than what's on the surface. You know, we had to look between our faults and say, okay, that fault right there, the good is going to outweigh the bad. So you're going to have pain and you got to work at it. So you're communicating, setting boundaries.
Speaker 1:You know being safe. You know not thinking that you write and you, you know, especially the men, because we are dealing with so much toxic masculinity right now that people that people don't even understand that. You know this. This toxic masculinity is like is like crazy, you know, and some things they are calling toxic masculinity, which is not crazy, you know, and some things they they are calling toxic masculinity, which is not. But some things are. When I tell you that you got to believe what I say and believe what I do and not let the holy spirit do it. That's toxic and it can't be like that. So it's going to take work. It's going to take, you know, effort and it's going to take pain. It's going to take time too, all right, hey, hey, I think that was good. Tonight, man, I I really enjoyed this conversation. You know, I'm passionate about it. You know, again, we have not, we have and we will not endorse any candidate. That's what this is not about. We just want marriages to win.
Speaker 1:Yes that's what we want, if you want to call in 754-222-2219.
Speaker 1:Again, 754-222-2219. If you want to call in, you can and we will take your calls in. If you want to say something. So we want to just say if you want to, you know, donate something. Again, we want to get an engineer, you know, to do all this stuff, so I don't have to do it, you know and set up the place so you can donate to marriage in real life. If you want to and you know you can, you can do that as well and you know it'll help us create more, more programming, so you can do that as well. But you can call in to 754-222-2219, 754-222-2219. And we'll. I know it's like a 16 seconds delay and so we'll just, you know, just wait and and and see. Again, we want to thank everybody who joined us tonight Samson from Texas and Jordan, the little Richards.
Speaker 3:Natalie.
Speaker 1:Natalie for joining, you know, and Natalie in Chicago, Maureen Warren, Warren from Port St Lucy. So we thank God for those. I didn't see Ferg was online and not. You know, I think Nikki is on, so we get Nikki for those. I didn't see Ferg was online or not. You know, I think Nikki is on, so we give Nikki and Juicy. Hey, hey, Lon you know, we just thank God.
Speaker 2:I'm excited about seeing her.
Speaker 1:Oh man, I can't wait to see my Juicy Juice. You know, I can't wait to see my Juicy Juice. Man, we're going to have a little fun. Maybe go and take out some ice cream or something. She'll love that. She'll love that. We want to thank each and everybody for participating. You know again, uh, nine, five, four, um, but I say the nine five, four, or seven five, four, two, two, two, two, two, one, nine.
Speaker 2:I'll be getting them, you know. So that's just me and we do. Thank you all for joining us. It's been like so amazing Season three, season three man.
Speaker 1:It's been. Yeah, man, you know, just think about you know, you were just telling somebody the other day that you know. You said, hey, we need to do this, and I was like I'm glad we did, I'm glad we did because we learned from people. You know, people think that we got all, but we doing this because we're learning from people and we want. We want people to learn growing together and and again.
Speaker 2:You know, like you know I, I can remember falling down when I was a kid and hurting myself and then going in and telling my mama, oh, I got to buy, I need a band-aid for this. And she would say to me oh, it's just a growing pain, it's going to heal, you'll be okay, you'll be out there tomorrow and you'll be back at it again. And I couldn't understand. You know how much I used that rare growing pain in my adult life because you know, you gotta, you gotta go through some things. You, you get through some things. You, you know you, you break, you fall, you get back up again. You've done it with Kirk and said you get back up again right, right, back up again.
Speaker 2:So every relationship you're going to have to go through some growing pains so that you could, so you can progress and you can grow and you can help build one another in every aspect, not just with you, know, with the politics, but with so many other things. It's all a matter of growth. I learned something about you almost every other day. I learned something different about you and you and me, and we've been together for 32 years and, trust me, we're going to learn a lot more about each other.
Speaker 3:Go.
Speaker 2:One thing we do is we have that respect for one another, and I think that's very important that we respect and we have boundaries with each other.
Speaker 3:Yeah, now, but thank you so much with each other. Yeah, now, now.
Speaker 2:But thank you so much for joining us. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, nobody called in yet, so we want to. We want to just thank you for joining us. You know, as we, as you know, as I often say, man, you know you could be doing something else, you know you don't have to join us, but we thank God for all of those who join us. All right, and we want to make sure, please make sure you like I know we got make sure you, like we had 10 people on, we should have at least 10 to 11 likes. We went up to 11, 12. So we should at least have those likes and we'll make sure you, if you come back and you want to re-watch it, make sure you comment. And for those who listening on the podcast a week, you could download and go back and listen to it on apple podcast. You know, did I tell you that we, in all the continents except for antarctica, yeah, you did.
Speaker 1:God is good, god is good, yeah, man, we got downloads for every continent except for Antarctica, all right, so, yeah, so, so, yeah, so you know, we want to do that, we want to make sure that we could do that, all right, but, god bless, and we thank you for joining us tonight. Again, like I said, you could have been doing something else, but you decided to join us, all right, you know, juicy? All right, we want to grab some frozen, you'll get. All right, we'll make sure we'll make sure we do that, all right. Well, god bless you and good night.
