Uncommon Freedom

5 Rules for Unshakable Trust & Respect in Marriage and Business

April 25, 2024 Kevin Tinter
5 Rules for Unshakable Trust & Respect in Marriage and Business
Uncommon Freedom
More Info
Uncommon Freedom
5 Rules for Unshakable Trust & Respect in Marriage and Business
Apr 25, 2024
Kevin Tinter

Want to experience the joy and freedom of true partnership with your spouse? In business and in life?

According to Kevin & Bekah Tintner, who have been married 25 years (13 of those in business together), it IS possible. But it takes more than just love.

In this episode, Kevin & Bekah share their top 5 non-negotiable rules for building a "bulletproof" marriage and an unstoppable business partnership, including:

  • The communication secret that prevents 90% of misunderstandings
  • How radical transparency breeds unbreakable trust
  • Why under-promising and over-delivering is key in relationships
  • What "ride or die" really means for couplepreneurs
  • The perspective shift that eliminates ego and deepens empathy

If you're ready to take your relationship to the next level, this episode is a must-listen. Tune in now to discover practical strategies for becoming an unshakeable team in love and business.


Subscribe and tell a friend!

Get my new book "The Seven Disciplines of Uncommon Freedom" on Amazon!

Visit bekandkev.com today to sign up for our email newsletter.

Access our Free health assessment HERE

Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers

Want to experience the joy and freedom of true partnership with your spouse? In business and in life?

According to Kevin & Bekah Tintner, who have been married 25 years (13 of those in business together), it IS possible. But it takes more than just love.

In this episode, Kevin & Bekah share their top 5 non-negotiable rules for building a "bulletproof" marriage and an unstoppable business partnership, including:

  • The communication secret that prevents 90% of misunderstandings
  • How radical transparency breeds unbreakable trust
  • Why under-promising and over-delivering is key in relationships
  • What "ride or die" really means for couplepreneurs
  • The perspective shift that eliminates ego and deepens empathy

If you're ready to take your relationship to the next level, this episode is a must-listen. Tune in now to discover practical strategies for becoming an unshakeable team in love and business.


Subscribe and tell a friend!

Get my new book "The Seven Disciplines of Uncommon Freedom" on Amazon!

Visit bekandkev.com today to sign up for our email newsletter.

Access our Free health assessment HERE

Speaker 1:

keeping our word, even in small things, builds self-respect, which translates to spouse respect. Be a man of integrity. It's so easy to not keep our word to ourself.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

And when we don't keep our word to ourself, it becomes easy to not keep our word to other people. Welcome to the Uncommon Freedom Show. Today is all about helping you and your spouse level up your marriage, your business and your life. My name is Kevin Tinter and I'm here with my beautiful co hostess. We've got an amazing show ahead, don't we? Beck?

Speaker 2:

Absolutely we do. Hey friends, I'm Becca T Tinter and today we've got five powerful rules for building unshakable trust and respect in your marriage and your business partnership.

Speaker 1:

That's right. As couplepreneurs, we know firsthand how critical it is to master both dynamics simultaneously. It's not always easy, but it is worth it.

Speaker 2:

I totally agree, and today we're going beyond the typical surface level advice. Here's the vision Feeling completely in sync with your spouse emotionally, spiritually and professionally.

Speaker 1:

What do you think you feeling in sync with me right now, Beck?

Speaker 2:

Oh, my goodness, am I.

Speaker 1:

All right True confessions everyone. We're going to be honest, that is our goal. We're not perfect. We're not really feeling in sync right now, but we are going to pull through. But after 25 years of marriage and 12 of those actually 13 of those in business together now we have five non-negotiable rules that will make a huge impact. Those five rules include the communication secret that prevents 90% of misunderstandings. Imagine that how radical transparency breeds unbreakable trust.

Speaker 2:

I love that.

Speaker 1:

The power of under promising and over delivering in a relationship, and actually that's a great rule for life and business for sure. Why ride or die is more than just a catchphrase for couplepreneurs and the perspective shift that eliminates ego and deepens empathy Dang.

Speaker 2:

That is a power-packed bunch of things we're going to go through today.

Speaker 1:

That is technical.

Speaker 2:

Bunch of things. Bunch of things it is a power-packed topic that we're going to get to, so let's jump in with rule number one, Kevin, which is listen, listen talk.

Speaker 1:

Let's jump in with rule number one, kevin, which is listen, listen, talk, listen, listen, talk, all right. So it's important to communicate wants, needs, preferences and expectations clearly, rather than making assumptions.

Speaker 2:

Boy is that true, absolutely.

Speaker 1:

Really listening to understand your spouse is the key.

Speaker 2:

Yes.

Speaker 1:

You have a story about a couple that went out to dinner. Do you want to share that real quick?

Speaker 2:

Well, a couple who wanted to go out to dinner, and I can't remember if we read it in a marriage book or where I heard it, but it was such a profound example of what can happen so often I knew it was something that we could relate to. So I could relate to, and I'm not sure if it's a true story. But the idea was, if I understand correctly, the husband comes home from work and says to his wife hey, do you want to go out for dinner tonight? Is that how it works? No other way around. The husband comes home from work and the wife says, hey, do you want to go out for dinner tonight? And he says no, I don't, I don't.

Speaker 2:

And she gets completely flustered and frustrated and angry and it starts this whole you know just conflict between them. And they can't sort it out until they finally unravel that she really just wanted to go to dinner because she didn't feel like cooking. It had been a long day. But she asked him do you want to go out? And he, who had been gone all day at work, said no, I don't. And he didn't understand any of the reasoning behind it.

Speaker 2:

And so the point of the story is that if she had just said I would like to go out for dinner tonight, or I don't want to cook, so would you like to prepare dinner, or are you good with going out for dinner tonight? Now she's clearly communicating her expectations, the reasoning behind wanting to go out to dinner, and he really understands, and then they can make a more unified decision and it just reduces conflict. But so often we don't say what we mean and we expect the other person to interpret what's inside of our brain instead of what we said out loud, and it leads to so much conflict.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and we kind of come to this on a revelation ourselves even our own marriage and I think just within the last few years have gotten good about actually asking specifically for what we want, especially when it comes to like holidays I was just thinking even just like Mother's Day, like I've known that you've talked about a Mother's Day brunch, but I didn't really know exactly what you meant by that. And then last year like we went to one. It was a couple years ago.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, we've tried a couple.

Speaker 1:

But they weren't. What I learned was they weren't what you had in mind. You had in mind this really nice, high-end relaxing atmosphere and we finally found it last year and it was really helpful because I think like it spoke your love language.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

And now I know that, barring you telling me otherwise, it's kind of a go-to, and I think I was yesterday or the day before.

Speaker 2:

I made our reservations for this year.

Speaker 1:

but it's helpful because I know exactly what you want. And so many times we expect we're like, oh, if my spouse loves me, they'll know what I want. And and yeah, if you have to, I mean if, if I after last year, if I didn't remember that what was important to you, shame on me. Yeah, but now. But. But also, if you had never clearly communicated exactly what you're looking for, then kind of the fault would lie with you, or at least with me, for not asking hey, what really do you want? Right?

Speaker 2:

So how many of you can relate to the story the way I described it? I think a lot of us can. Where again we have an interaction with maybe it's a spouse, a friend but basically we have a reason that we want to do something or not do something and we're just not clear. We don't ask for what we want. So many of us are passive or passive aggressive, and that's just not a healthy way to communicate. So really working on just asking for what we want in a nice way and being open if someone else doesn't want to go along with it, but being clear on our reasoning behind that, instead of expecting someone to read our mind and know exactly what we're looking for. So the other skill set that we've really developed through, you know, our coaching, business and personal development and reading books and learning from mentors is the idea of separating facts and stories.

Speaker 1:

Yes, yeah. So this is something that I've even applied to my own life as a parent, because it is so easy to assign intention to people, especially our kids or our spouse. It seems like we assign well it's. We actually assign intent to people, especially our kids or our spouse. It seems like we assign well it's. We actually assign intent to just about everybody many times, especially if it's something that bothers us. It's very easy to assume or assign intent and and when you step back and think about it, you're like there's not that many people in the world that are intentionally trying to screw us over like all of the people driving slow in the hiv lane now that they are probably not intending to piss you off electric vehicles that are only there because one of kevin's top three me and dennis prager, me and dennis prager three irritations in life

Speaker 1:

yes, but the the the concept with this is to, when you're dealing with a frustration, is to say okay, what are the facts, what is the story that I'm telling myself? And I I vividly remember an example where we were at one of our kids soccer games. Another child had to go to football practice and I sent him to go get changed because we had to go directly from soccer to football practice, and I gave him like a 10, 15 minute headstart because I know it would take him a little while to change. It was like meet me at the truck, got to the truck, nowhere to be found, and the story I started telling myself was this kid is never where he's supposed to be. He always gets lost. This kid is never where he's supposed to be, he always gets lost. What is he doing? Why isn't he where he's supposed to be?

Speaker 1:

And then I started storming around looking for him and I eventually found him, and what had happened was the bathroom the gym locker room area that was open when we showed up was now closed, and so he actually had to go. It was a private school with a weird campus. He had to go find a different area to change, and that's what he did. So actually the reality was he was you know, this was several years ago. He was younger and really did the mature thing to say okay, where Dad told me to go is locked. I can't do it there, I'm going to go find a different place.

Speaker 1:

And he didn't have a cell phone, so there was no way to communicate Exactly exactly, and so that was just a profound lesson for me, because I'd heard this. You know what are the facts, what are the story you're telling myself? And the story I was telling myself was all this negativity. And if you step back and look at the facts, you say, okay, he's not where I told him to be.

Speaker 2:

um, I don't know where he is, and it helps take a lot of the emotion out when you break it down it can keep you from really, uh, treating someone in a way that they don't deserve and that doesn't make you feel good when you hear the whole thing. Um, and we've actually used fact and story not just in our business and in our marriage, but very much in our parenting journey, not just with us looking at our kids, but how our kids interact with each other. So has anyone had this encounter where your kids both come to you and tell you a version of something and they tattle you know so-and-so knocked me down or so-and-so did this or that? You know that happens all the time in our home, especially when the boys are playing sports together and it's like no, the fact is, you know you tripped on the basketball court. You know the story you're telling yourself is he did it intentionally. And so many times it's just a matter of helping them separate that out, which takes maturity, takes time, takes practice.

Speaker 2:

But really, going back to what you said about intent versus perception, because I know in some of our disagreements and we've had plenty you'll say things like do you really think I intended to make a slate or to offend you, or to irritate you or whatever, and sometimes you do intend to irritate me, because there's a few things that you love to do, despite me begging, pleading and asking for what I want, which is to please stop using the really poor accent I'll just leave it there that you and Dylan love to do around the house. But other than that, in most scenarios where we might get upset with each other, we often assume the worst instead of assuming the best and realizing that we're all human and we're going to make mistakes, and so the other thing when it comes to this listen, listen, talk is to really assume the best about each other's intentions. It can take you a long way in relational equity.

Speaker 1:

Then when you do hit that impasse where you're just kind of bumping up against the same thing over and over we've talked about this several times recently, but just the value of an outside perspective, whether it's another couple that you trust or a counselor, a pastor, something like that, someone like that is really helpful.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely so. Rule number one was listen, listen, talk, and rule number two is radical transparency. So Kev talk to the men for a minute.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, men, husbands, I want to chat with you. So I think it's really important for us to create a safe space for our wives to open up by being attentive and empathetic something that's very difficult, especially for me, but really for I I think, most men in general. It's important for us to resist the urge to immediately problem solve.

Speaker 1:

This is the default mode for most men I'm speaking in generalities here, but this is just most men our instinct is to problem solve. When we go to a man, one of our guy friends, we're not necessarily looking for emotional empathy and things like that. We're like hey, I got this problem and we go to our guy friends, we're not necessarily looking for like emotional empathy and things like that.

Speaker 2:

We're like hey, I got this problem and we go to our. You all saw this, yeah exactly.

Speaker 1:

But yeah, many times our wife just needs us to listen and validate her feelings. So let her fully express herself before responding. And I like to ask, or I try to ask you is do you want me to just listen or help you come up with a solution? And the answer to that question is very helpful. Does that bother you when I ask you that?

Speaker 2:

No, I mean, I think inside every woman is a deep desire for her husband to just know all the things that go on in her brain. But the truth is most of us women don't even know why we have all the emotions that we have, or where they come from or how they change so quickly. So what's difficult is so many times we want you men to understand our brains and yet many times you might say to me like what's wrong? And I would be like I don't exactly know why I'm crying right now, or I don't know why I'm feeling so frustrated, or, um, so it you know, we're still unraveling the spaghetti brain that we have and your little waffle brain is like I already went through that box with you I don't understand, and so it's interesting and it doesn't normally bother me because it does help to have either like the process with you of like, hey, I just need a really deep hug and I need to know that life's okay and we'll figure it out tomorrow, or no, I'm actually problem solving with you and I need to know what you think is my next best step or what your opinion is on the situation, which leads to me speaking to women. And so many times again, we want men to read our thoughts. We want them to respond intuitively, even though they're men and they think very differently than we do and we're not clear about what we want or even what our thoughts and emotions are at times. So, even though we're not always going to know, it's important that we do our part, which is to clearly communicate things.

Speaker 2:

We've been interacting with couples lately who are going through some really hard things, and one of the things we notice is there's just a complete miss when it comes to communication. You know and we're going to talk in a minute about pink and blue hoses but just the idea that she says something and he hears it differently. He hears something, or he says something and she hears it differently, and that is. We're built to be different in God's design. But we have to work at the relationship side. So clearly articulating our thoughts and emotions.

Speaker 2:

Women, even if we're uncomfortable, if you're in a relationship with a spouse, this is how you build relational equity, this is how you move towards that radical transparency, and so just trust that your vulnerability is ultimately going to bring you closer. And if he does try to fix it right away, just gently remind him that you need him to listen first. Now, if you complain all the time, especially about all the same things, it's going to be difficult for him to give you empathy. Do you remember the story that Darren Hardy tells in one of his Darren Dailies about the nail in the head? It's actually a video.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

So that came to mind when I was thinking about someone who complains all the time and this isn't just women, but complains all the time about all the same things and then expects empathy. Do you remember that story well enough to walk through it? I mean, basically it's two people sitting across from each other, just like this, and I think it's a man and a woman. But you know, she's complaining, my head hurts and he's like I'm so sorry your head hurts.

Speaker 1:

She has a nail sticking out of her head.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and goes on and on, and it's like he wants to point out the nail in her head.

Speaker 1:

And instead she's basically like you never listened to me. Finally the epiphany comes on for the guy and he listens and says, oh, he becomes empathetic yeah and the second, that he becomes empathetic, she calms down, she becomes receptive and her whole demeanor changes. And then it opens up the door for him to say I think, by the way, there's a nail sticking out of your head that might be part of the reason that you have a headache.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, of what analogy, basically, of what it can be like to just have someone who's not willing to move forward or someone who needs heard before they're ready to look, I guess, at a result in a situation all right, whatever you this is number three.

Speaker 1:

Whatever you do, follow through, so unhealed anger and unresolved hurt will fester until something breaks man, we've seen this way too often.

Speaker 2:

We have.

Speaker 1:

Following through on working through issues is so critical. Sweeping things under the rug is one of the biggest mistakes. I mean really. Every time we sweep something under the rug, it's like adding a fuel to the fire and when it ignites, it's going to ignite that much bigger. So one of the mistakes that a lot of people do is we bring up past hurts and hang-ups, which makes it very difficult to move forward, and what we found is it's easy our default is to assume the worst of people when we haven't resolved these.

Speaker 2:

When we take care of it, resolve it, it's much easier to not assume the worst and I would really say this is a spiritual journey for a lot of us, because you know like, as humans, we're only going to be able to go so far on our own. We're going to need god to basically come in and, um, give us fresh ice for someone. So I mean, you and I have this person in our lives that used to rub me the wrong way consistently every time we spent time together and it was based on some hurts that you know, year after year, experience after experience, kind of, were built in. And the thing is when, with that kind of experience, then what happens is, anytime you spend time with that person, you're like looking for the things, you're like I'm just waiting for the offense to happen and I know what's happening and I can.

Speaker 2:

I'm already assuming that the next thing that's being said, or something that might be innocently said, is now that thing said in that same way, because there's been very little forgiveness and moving past something, and I remember I'm still a work in progress, but it took taking it to Jesus and being like I need fresh eyes for this person and a fresh way to look at them so that every time I spend time with them, I'm not expecting them to fail again and I'm going to catch them and it's going to be another hurt, um again. What came to mind is do I want to be reminded of all my shortcomings over and over again? No, like when we screw up with the kids and I say I'm really sorry and ask their forgiveness, even though I am going to make future mistakes. I do want a fresh start with that person as often as possible.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and then just another reminder, specifically to men, is that keeping our word, even in small things, builds self-respect, which translates to spouse respect. You know, be a man of integrity. You know the it's so easy to not keep our word to ourselves yeah and when we don't keep our word to ourself, it becomes easy to not keep our word other people becomes very so. Rule number four all or nothing. A ride or die. Becca, what are your thoughts on this?

Speaker 2:

well, really, an uncommon marriage has shared dreams and goals that you're aiming for together. Make sure you're on the same page about your family's future. Uh, you can have different hobbies and different interests, but if you don't have that shared passion and direction that you're going, it's going to be really difficult to create what we call an uncommon marriage, which is bulletproof, which is basically saying we chose each other, so let's create a life together. Maybe one of you is a dreamer and one of you is not, and that's okay. I would say you have a lot more ideas than I do on a lot of things, and maybe I'm more practical and grounded at times, but one of the things we want to do is we want to be dreaming and goal setting together and finding ways to work in our strengths and balance each other out, going the same direction. Because what we see is when couples start building these separate lives, it's just super easy to not need each other anymore and you start, you know, losing that ride or die partner kind of feeling.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and this is something that we see happen over and over. Typically considering we see plan out or pan out is a couple gets married and they didn't have any big dreams. It was kind of like hey, you know, we're going to do our jobs and we're just going to do the nine to five kind of the typical working class lifestyle.

Speaker 2:

Regular dreams and standard plans. I mean, that's what we had at the beginning.

Speaker 1:

And then one of the spouses starts hanging around high level people, abundant minded people, or they catch a vision, they start to catch this abundant minded, entrepreneurial spirit and it can be very difficult for the other spouse to get on board with that. So we see a lot of conflict.

Speaker 2:

yes, even in health journeys, right like there are people who like decide I'm I'm gonna get. I'm gonna get health.

Speaker 2:

I'm gonna create health because it's important to me and somebody else actually can run into a lot of resistance because you're dragging me out of my comfort zone right and you're settled and happy and you want to netflix and chill although that means something different to younger crowd, and I want to, you know, eat healthy and be active, so to speak, and all of a sudden we have less in common and I'm trying to pull you up and out and you're trying to pull me down and back, and it just doesn't go well as far as working together.

Speaker 2:

So if you both have dreams, you know how do you navigate towards both things. Sometimes you might take turns like, hey, this is your year to you know, write a book, fly an airplane. Next year I want to do something really big. You might also just again empower others to come alongside you in that delegation process so that you have more time to put into the things that are important to you. Like those dreams and also from the book Extreme Ownership, you might have to do what's called prioritize and execute, which is like this year, this season, these are the things we're going to put first, we're going to execute on those and then we can bring in some other things that are important to us. But all of that takes collaboration and really a working together attitude.

Speaker 1:

I want to go back real quick. If you're stuck in a rut, with you being the thinker, the doer, the dreamer, someone more goals than your spouse, two great things to do is, first of all, have a conversation and just share with your spouse. You know, I realized that, um, I've changed a little bit, like I caught a vision. I've been hanging around some people, I read this book, I listened to this podcast whatever it might be, um, and I realized that I want more out of life and I also realized that I'm disrupting the status quo and that even though it's for the better, it could make you feel uncomfortable Right.

Speaker 1:

And then the other thing is when you're working towards things, and this is something that you did is to say hey, I have some new goals. Um, these are some of the goals that I have. What is something that you would like to accomplish? Or, if I continue to do this, what is something that you would benefit?

Speaker 1:

from this, yeah and that buy-in before I really caught the abundant spirit uh was helpful because I was like, well, I'm not really on board, but if I can get something, out of it. I'll support it, so that helped.

Speaker 2:

You know, actually, what came to mind, too, was sometimes people have a dream or start building something, get awakened, you know, start a business and the other person's not ready to come with them.

Speaker 2:

And I see both the separation that can happen from that like I'm going with or without you, and then I also see people that get started on something and then they hold back because they're like I'm going to wait till my spouse comes along with me, and what happens is it kind of sucks the life out of them and they lose momentum and they lose excitement because they're like I need them or I want them to come with me, and that person's not coming right now.

Speaker 2:

So what we're not suggesting is you get a divorce and you walk away from your marriage, but you don't have to both want the exact same thing at the same time, as long as you can just be going the same direction with your family goals. So when I started health coaching, you had no interest in that. It totally filled my cup and I was like I don't need you to join me in the business, I just want to be able to build the business and I need you to support me along the way, which you did, and then that gave you the freedom to actually show interest and come when you were ready. And we've seen people who start that business and think like I want my spouse to join me, they're resistant, and so then they wait to try to build or grow and it causes some dissonance in their relationship because one person's like stretching to grow and the other person's just standing there holding them back but they haven't made a decision to like let that person start walking out what's been put on their heart.

Speaker 1:

All right, and then, as we wrap up, all or nothing, right or die. A great way to have open and honest communication is to simply say something like when you say X, I feel Y, or when you do X, I feel Y. Because we all have different love languages, we interpret things differently. Once again, someone's intent is very different from our perception many times, and so when you phrase it that way, there's nothing wrong, right, it's, it's really, it's a statement of fact. When you say or do X, Because my feelings are my feelings.

Speaker 1:

Exactly so something that doesn't offend me very well could offend you or bother you or upset you or whatever it is, and when you phrase it that way, take the emotion out of it it, because, whatever you feel, I might not relate to feeling that way when, when someone else says or does that, but I can relate to feeling that way right and so that's a great, uh, great little phrase to remember, write down, keep handy and next time you have some type of conflict yeah to just share that say, hey, can I share something with you Really important Bam, there we go.

Speaker 2:

For a healthy relationship. So let's close this one out with one more thing, which is that big decisions really need to be made as a unified team, and there's a couple of things that fall into that category One might be something like an adoption or a career change or moving. In fact, we have walked this out actually in a lot of areas, because we've moved a bunch, we've had some career changes, but one can't drag the other into a major life shift that will never work out well and we've seen it tear people apart actually. So not only have we done it through career changes and moving, but we actually had to walk through this, you know, painfully and over time in the adoption story.

Speaker 1:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

I mean, we could make a short version of it, basically, but you felt very called to adoption just straight from God and I was like, no, thank you.

Speaker 2:

That's not the season of life we're in, and it really it was a whole year really of God and I wrestling it out and you and I figuring it out, because you felt very called to do it. I did not. And so, even though we were, you know, still in love and still, you know, building our life and our marriage together, this was like a major thing that we were not on the same page about.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and ultimately we. I had to come to the point where I said, hey, I'm not going to force this on you, and we have to make the. We have to be you have to be on board with this. This has to be a mutual decision and if you're not there, I'm willing to give up on what I thought for sure God had said to me. And ultimately, I mean.

Speaker 1:

I think when I made that commitment to you kind of released you from it, it created a shift in you. But things like this, you know, unilaterally deciding we're going to adopt, move, going to a career change or something like that Very risky. The likelihood of it leading to significant strife and conflict in your marriage is very high.

Speaker 2:

And many times again you need an outside person like a counselor. So for us, when we went through counseling, I needed the counselor to say to you you can't choose this over your bio family, Even if God has told you to do it and Becca cannot get on board. You cannot, this cannot become a priority over the family God already called you to steward. And that was also so pivotal in me opening my heart, because there had just been that it felt like an us versus them situation and it really just took an outside person to kind of paint that picture, for you, to give you that empathy that you didn't have, and then for me to say like, okay, I trust you with this decision because you're not going to sacrifice the life we've already built together or what you think is our next step. And then we were able to move forward.

Speaker 1:

So All right, let's jump to rule number five. Seek to understand, then to be understood.

Speaker 2:

Yep. So what happened when? I mean, we're going basically just continuing the adoption story? But I think I felt abandoned and isolated at the beginning of that journey because, number one, god said it to you, he didn't say it to me and you got all excited and you had this strong connection and you felt passionate and I had a lot of resistance and it felt like it was you moving forward and me, uh yeah, being left behind in the decision or just having to be the bad guy in the decision.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, and I think it's important for us to be willing to adjust our own habits and behaviors better serve our spouse and the health of our marriage. Uh, your commitment to understand and adapt strengthen on um you can't avoid hard things is the bottom line. Uh, don't expect to never fight.

Speaker 2:

You know, couples who say oh my goodness, Correct.

Speaker 1:

I'm guessing they don't have much depth to their marriage.

Speaker 2:

Or they're liars.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I mean, it doesn't mean that you're physically, you know, hitting each other, but I love this to fight for each other instead of against each other. It's really important to remember, okay, you're not the enemy right. Outside forces are. There's conflict, but you're not the enemy right Outside forces are.

Speaker 2:

There's conflict, but you're not the enemy. And I would say, if you're fighting all the time, like you need help in conflict resolution. When we talk about the conflicts we've gone through, I mean we have a couple of conflicts, big ones maybe a year, and we have rare conflicts, which is a blessing. But, like, if you're living in constant strife, that is not, that's not a partnership. So there's some, some room there where you're going to need some help.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and it just takes its toll on you.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah. But when you have a lot of relational equity, like we do, then we know, even in a really rough one, where two firstborns with a very strong opinions and you know, you're Italian and I'm Something is my opinion is always right.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, italian and I'm things.

Speaker 2:

My opinion is always right, uh, yeah, well, you're an eight on the enneagram and I'm either a one or three, so I'm somewhere between perfectionistic and achieving and and you're just stubborn.

Speaker 2:

We're both stubborn, actually, and so when we get into a conflict about something that's really important not the little things, I mean we can have a knockdown, drag out, and not physically, but like mentally, emotionally it can be, it can be harsh for a few moments, um, but because we're fully committed to each other, we're never going to leave it there, which is something that's such a gift to each other and to our kids, um, so I would just say, as far as seeking to understand as well, it's like let's you got to pray for each other. If you're not praying for your spouse and we don't mean praying to fix, for your spouse to be fixed, we're talking about praying for your spouse to be fixed we're talking about praying for your spouse to be blessed, because the more you do that, the more you see them through fresh eyes. And again, that's about getting our own hearts right so that then we're able to be who we need to be in a relationship to make it longstanding and healthy.

Speaker 1:

All right, let's recap. So listen, listen, then talk. Right, we have two ears and one mouth for a reason Radical transparency. Whatever you do, follow through. Number four is all or nothing, ride or die. Number five is seek to understand, then do what's good. All right, that's a wrap for this episode, beck, but I have a feeling it's just the beginning of an incredible season of newfound trust and respect for some people, maybe even us.

Speaker 2:

Oh, my goodness. Yes, I'm already feeling it, babe, just from doing this. So we love investing in marriages, especially for our fellow couplepreneurs, because even the strongest business will fall apart if your marriage isn't bulletproof.

Speaker 1:

That's true. All right, friends, if this was helpful, please do us a huge favor and share it with someone you think it'll help. Beck and I were just talking about this or I was maybe with you or someone else that every oh yeah, it was yesterday In conversation we were having every single book that we've ever purchased has been either a recommendation from someone or someone that we heard on a podcast or saw them speaking somewhere. So if you enjoyed this, please share it with a friend that you think would enjoy it. Take five seconds to review the show. Give a thumbs up, press, subscribe all the other things, all right, and remember five-star reviews only, or don't if you don't have anything nice to say don't say anything at all.

Speaker 1:

Yep, all right, friends, thanks for partnering with us for your freedom, and we'll see you next time.

Building Trust and Respect in Marriage
The Power of Communication in Relationships
Navigating Dreams and Building Relationships
Navigating Different Paths in Relationships
Marriage Strengthening Through Communication
Share Book Recommendations for Success