Transcript: 42 Years of Marriage - Part 2!

Hi!
Welcome to the US and Kids Podcast. I am your host Jan Talen. I'm a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, a wife, a mom, and a grandma. With my own marriage and with my clients, I work to help us avoid that pain of divorce and achieve the grand balance of being married forever while parenting together by using the D.N.A. Method of Communication. We know that working on this is worth the work and is very rewarding. 

And today, we are talking about how my marriage has lasted 42 years and one week, because last week was my 42nd anniversary to my husband Chip. We have known each other for 45 years. And so, I took a little walk back through history, and went, "Wow, look at that! What have we done? How have we done it?" I looked at it through the lens of our program that we use to help you guys build up your family life and marriage, and that is the D.N.A. Method: it's looking at our desires; what are our necessary skills that we need; and how do we apply them. 

And so, last week I talked our way through some of what did we have that was the same and talked about some of the beginning key desires that we had together. We knew we wanted to love each other well. And so, we worked on patience and taking responsibility for our own actions and interactions. And, we worked on being willing to sacrifice so that the marriage worked, because we knew we had to make that a high priority. We also knew that we had a desire to stay married. And so, what did that mean? That meant we knew that we had to stay faithful. And, we had to do things that married people do like date and spend personal time with each other. We also knew we had a desire we did not want to be too poor. That didn't mean we want to be filthy rich. It meant we didn't want to be too poor that it was too exhausting for other parts of our lives. And so it was necessary for us to use good skills. For me, often, because I was more of the purchaser I realized that my necessary skill was to make wise purchases. I was great at coupons, and I was great at returning things. And, Chip used the necessary skill of working diligently, bringing home money, and sharing it with the family, and he did it consistently. 

Today, we're going to branch out on those things a little bit more and continue to think about what else did you want out of life Jan and Chip?
One of our desires was that we wanted to have a family. Well, we knew how to do that physiologically. We also knew that we didn't know an awful lot about how we would do the parenting part together. We had never practiced it. It was like a whole lot of the rest of our marriage. We had never practiced things, and we had to learn how to do things together. So, we had to think through some of our parenting styles. Now, I'm not sure that we did this directly. We did it more by happenstance and by watching each other. Our necessary skill was finding ways to blend our two approaches. How to make it so they worked together. And, that meant that we had to use the necessary skills of talking, but also of being gracious towards each other and trusting each other with the care of the kiddos.
Chipper was a pretty hands on dad. He didn't mind changing diapers. He didn't mind... well, he probably did mind some but he did it anyways, without complaining. At times, I was exhausted. Our kiddo had an earache, again, and he would sleep in that Lazyboy so that that little kiddo could rest on his shoulders and both get some sleep. For this little one, if she could stay sleeping mostly standing up or upright, then her ears drained, and she would sleep a little more. Hmmmm.... Some long nights. It was part of having a family. But, it was also part of saying that we had to have a skill of sharing in the joy and in the pain. We did it well. It wasn't always smooth, but we did it well. 

We had four kids in eight years. On the one hand, so you go, "Well, yeah. That's pretty normal." And we will say, "Probably was." It also made it very, very busy. Chip finished up law school. I went through grad school, and by the time I was done getting my hours for my license, our fourth kiddo was born. So, we added a lot of other things to that.
We think that it went fine. But, there were lots of conversations about: food; and about what's too messy and what's too neat; how clean should a car be when you have children in it; where and how to spend money; what do the kids truly need, and what is extra.
Much of this was Chipr trusting me with the money and purchasing things. He was working. I had to honor his efforts of working but purchasing wisely. This was that give and take. And often, I returned things: if they didn't work; if they didn't fit; if we didn't need them; if we bought too much... I brought it back. And, I would say to him, "Look, honey. I made money!" And, he would giggle and go. "Thank you." But, I also know he meant it. Thank you. And, that was one of those necessary skills in having a family was working together financially, but also really appreciating the effort somebody put in. And so, when he said, "Thank you." I know he was saying thank you to me, making the effort to respect his effort in making money.

And, having all those kiddos, we also had to talk about discipline and parenting. What's that blend of absolute obedience and flexibility? "Do as I said, when I told you to." Or.., "Oh, let it go. What does it matter?" We had different approaches. I was more the "Let it go." He was one of the "Toe the line." That's the way it goes in most families, but now we had to blend those two and figure out what was the line. Where did the line move? When did it become foggy? Was the line the same for every child? Not always. Don't tell the kids. 

And, how do we do that, so that we both can stay pretty relaxed and solid secure? This is how we did it. We often sat down on our bed, after Chip got home. I was mostly set up for supper. And often, I had a nursing baby next to me. The kids that could understand that they weren't really invited into the bedroom.
We talked for a few minutes.
We talked a little bit about the kids, and what they been doing.
We talked about what we were going to do that evening.
What else had to be finished up?
What would I need help with?
What did he need time for?
It wasn't a long conversation. We had a kiddo running around. So maybe, we have seven minutes... sometimes 10. But, in that, we, sort of, planned what did we want the outcome to be? And often, when we look at this D.N.A. method, that was what we were doing. We didn't know it at the time, but we know it now.
We were looking at what was our end desire for the night?
And then, we use skills to make that happen.
We use our skills about being patient.
We used our skills about conquer, that divide and conquer.
We use our skills about, "This is the routine. We're gonna stick with a routine."
And, we used our skills about somebody being the more stern one. And, the other one coming into a rescue holding the same line, but now able to encourage and control that kid into a calmer space so they could sleep. 

Bedtimes are messy, and they were messy for us too. That’s just how it was. Today, I'm going to tell you: Your children do learn how to go to bed. They do not keep crawling in your bed at night, and they do learn how to go to sleep. Keep working on it. We had to do it for years and years and years. We sat by their beds. We sat outside their doors. We found out that harshness was not very effective for our kids, but that gentle persistence really was. 

Parenting took a lot of effort. We knew that we wanted to have a family. That was our desire. And in having a family didn't just mean birthing children, it meant building a bond between the kids and us. And that meant, that we had to use those skills of emotionally attaching. Which meant that we had to: be kind; and we had to understand; and we had to be helpful. Those were skills that we used in helping our kiddos attach to us, so that we could be known as being trustworthy and safe. We also worked to teach our kids how to be trustworthy in their choices, and their behaviors, and in their interactions with us. 

We often talked for years and years and years about how to parent this kiddo or that situation. They were worth the conversations. We often waited until we knew what we wanted to say or do before we really confronted anyone. That was true between Chip and I, that we would think things through in our head, and then we would start to do a conversation with each other. And then, we would go back and think again. And then, we would come back and talk again. Our conversations and confrontations were ongoing. Doesn't mean they didn't finish, but often we talked for an hour now and a half and hour for a couple of times later and back and forth, two or three times. This processt gave our brains time to reset. Talking from 2:00 to 3:30 in the morning got us somewhere, but eventually our brains didn't make any sense anymore. And so, we hugged, and we said, "We'll talk more later." In the moment, as we parented our kids, and as we worked with each other, we worked towards being kind and truthful and responding with trust. 

The kids were not allowed to put Mom against Dad. And, if one of us didn't like the other one's discipline... if Chip didn't like my approach, or I didn't like his approach, we would talk about it with an eye about what to do differently. And, we would think way outside the box, like, lock them in the room? Na... Lock them out of their room? Okay/maybe Put them in their car seat and take them for a ride. Make them not have dessert for a week. (That) usually didn't work. I couldn't remember how long the week was. All those funny things. 

It is just a persistence in parenting. Keep trying new things. Don't get too stuck in a rut. Respond to your kids as they changed. And, as we did that, our kiddos grew. And, we bonded and blended as a family.
Stay with it with your parenting. It is some of the most intense work you will have to do. The more health you have as a couple, the more you can lead your kids into really good emotional and relational health. So work on your marriage, because it will help you blend together as you parent. 

Finally, we had a desire to stay spiritually steady. We had grown up in the Christian faith. We had taken those beliefs on as our own that Jesus was our Savior, taking away the guilt, the shame, the sin, the wrongdoing that we had done, and giving us the strength and the mindset to think clearly, to trust well, and to have wisdom that we couldn't have gotten on our own. 

So, in our desire to stay spiritually steady, we did a few things that we had learned from childhood, but we now owned as our own.
One of them is we did join a church, and we stayed steady with that church.
We worked on your own spiritual walk. In Christian words, we would say we often had devotions. We didn't often do those together. We did them as a family, but we didn't necessarily as a couple do those together. We took our own different directions in our spiritual walks. Chip is far more cognitive than I am. I'm a therapist. I'm far more touchy, feely, sort of, "what do I think?" "What do I hear?" "What are the voices in my head?" Those are very different walks. We respected those walks. We still do. And, we blend them together. 

The other thing we did in our desire to stay spiritually steady is we joined a small group of other people with similar faith, different places of growth, struggle, wonders. But, they then became our friends, and we knew we could call them. They would help us. They would help us move. They would help us with childcare. They would help us with a meal. They would help us. We trusted them. 

The spiritual habit we did together consistently is that every night we prayed with each other. And, we just... were pretty good at snuggling... so we just snuggled up close to each other before falling asleep. (We) Chatted for a few minutes. I was usually awake. Chipper was usually falling sound asleep. We took a few minutes to refocus and to end our day talking with Jesus about how the day was and what our concerns were. We prayed for our kids. We prayed for us.

When we were stuck, we prayed for God to help us give us a new thought. We didn't know how to solve this problem. It gave us wisdom and strength from the words of the Bible, from words from Jesus in the Bible teachings about faithfulness, and kindness, and forgiveness, and hope. And, we leaned into those things while we talked with Jesus about our concerns and about the wonderful things we were so thankful for. 

We personally considered what did Jesus want us to do? What did Jesus want me to do with my husband, who was... I was at odds with? What did he want me to do? How could I be like Jesus? If Jesus were me, what would he do? And those thoughts often helped us change. It gave us the energy and the courage to sacrifice and to make an adjustment, because it was what Jesus wanted us to do, more than what my spouse wanted. It was also what my spouse wanted, but Jesus was nodding and saying, "That's a good idea Jan. Whichever one is a good idea." Okay. When Chipper wanted some of the paper and the stuff around the kitchen cleaned up a little more, and I was just overwhelmed. I was like, "What do I do with all of this?" And, Jesus was like, "Just deal with the paper. You'll feel better." And, I did. 

We learned here in our parenting and in our spiritual life, how to balance things. We had to figure out the tension “right now! was often the thought and the idea. However, what we also knew was that some fights, for us, took weeks to resolve. There was no vacation time planned and so we were going to have to do this “fight” with the kids around.  Our best time to work through a difference of opinion and direction was (and still is)  when we went on vacation together, without kids.  We had time to do talk and think patiently and persistently. We could play, and we could talk... play and talk, and that often helped us figure out the balance, we had to understand the struggle. We had to decide what to take on, and what to put under the rug - what is not important in the long run. We both wanted and still do want to please the other. But often, we were quiet for too long. We didn't speak up soon enough, and we had to really think things through to get clarity about the issue and our requests. So, we would distract ourselves with the relationship stress with work, the kiddos, household redoes, household maintenance, helping somebody else. 

In the end, we had to come back to that basic desire that we had to be married forever while we parented kiddos together. And, when we came back to that focus, we pulled back on the skills that we knew we needed to use. Hearing each other accurately, not just in what their words were, but what their heart was trying to say. And, when we heard each other accurately, we were able to then speak into that, so that they knew that we were loved. We were there for each other. And, that was a priority that calmed so many fights is, "I'm here for you." "We're in this together." "This doesn't tear us apart." It became where we knew that the love would override whatever the tension was. (This) Doesn't mean we don't still have disagreements. It means that we trust the base of our love, because we have kept that base consistent. Not perfect, but repairing it quickly when needed repairing, keeping it from really becoming torn apart by faithful witness, by trustworthiness, by no big surprises, (aside from maybe your pregnancy or two:) 

I want to cheer you on. You've heard my story now. I want to encourage you to stay with your story.
Do things intentionally. Look on the US and Kids Website, and look for when the next Us..and Kids  Communication Program is coming out. We will teach you this method, and you will be able to then move forward with strength, with sensibility, with steadiness for you and for your kiddos. You are so worth it!
I'm always honored that you listen. There's always a printable there for you. So, grab it, and we will talk again next week.
Thank you again for joining. Bye, bye.