Episode 29: Relationships part 4 (Conflict)

Welcome to the Beauty of Better podcast, where we help moms thrive in health and faith.

Hello, Beauty of Better mamas.

It's Cristiana here.

And today we are gonna talk about conflict and marriage and just disagreements.

We know that stress can heavily influence our health and our families and just whether we're having more or less health.

So conflict is something that we're gonna want to give you some tips and tricks on what we do in our own families and relationships with our spouses, just to be able to reach resolution so it doesn't lead towards some long-term outcomes due to high stress.

I think it's super helpful to talk about hard things like conflict.

Sometimes it's easy on social media to just be like, oh, everything in life is perfect.

Look at these filtered pictures.

And it's like, oh, but people fight, right?

Like, real life, we have disagreements.

And really, in marriage, I feel like when you disagree, when you have conflict, it really infiltrates life.

Like, it heavily weighs on everything, especially if you're trying to make decisions together.

I feel like kids pick up on the tone of the room and, like, your relationship.

And then, you know, it really ties to stress, cortisol, stress levels, just, like, influencing your physical health and just your mental health.

And so, I think it's really healthy to just talk about this, not that we have answers.

One thing I love about Beauty of Better is learning from each other.

I feel like every time we have an episode, I learn from you guys.

So, hopefully, other mamas are doing the same, and I just feel like if we can just process together just what conflict looks like when we disagree, how do we process?

So, I can just start.

I feel like I...

And I think it depends, right?

Like, on the level of disagreement, like, if it's a major, like, life disagreement, or if it's, like, a more minor thing.

But I feel like I need to verbally process, but I also need, like, time to just, like...

I give myself a 24-hour rule a lot.

Like, if it's something bigger where it's like, oh, I really need to pray about this, I need to process.

Like, if I respond now, it's not going to be healthy or kind.

So sometimes I use the 24-hour rule where I just tell my husband, like, I just need 24 hours to, like, process this.

Some things do need to be resolved in the moment.

So I feel like there are differences with that.

But just, I feel like sometimes looking at just a moment, like, intentionally pausing and praying.

My husband sometimes likes to talk about things sooner than I do, which is weird because I'm a verbal processor, but I also need time to just, like, make sure my thoughts are, like, OK, that I haven't, like, got in my head or, like, responded to quickly or to just really try to see.

I really feel like trying to see both sides is important.

But again, and we've mentioned this in so many episodes, I feel like, but going back to really believing the best.

And at the end of the day, like, coming to that conclusion, like, especially when I'm processing, like, we have each other's best interests, like, we're not malicious towards each other, right?

Usually, it's just a misunderstanding or communication that we're trying to work on and get better.

I feel like so much of conflict goes back to communication and learning that new language, learning how to talk about things.

I don't know.

I feel like I'm talking too much.

Somebody else jumped in.

No, no, it's so good.

Well, you know, as we've talked in previous episodes about being equally yoked, and it's like pulling together in the same direction.

And sometimes, you know, just stressors in life, you know, Kelsey just had a big move to the Midwest, and like these big life changes, you know, with your spouse, like, just learning how to get, like, if there's things that come in that you all of a sudden feel like, oh, we're pulling in, like, opposite directions, because, like, maybe I, I think this way, he thinks that way, you know, it's like, how can you get back to a place of, like, feeling like you're pulling together?

And like, for us, you know, we've had a big life change where we, we now have a foster son that we're in the process of adopting, and we've had him six months now.

But it's been a huge shift, and I think I've, I kind of underestimated how much that transition would affect our whole family.

And it's bringing out stuff that like, honestly, I didn't even know what's in there.

But like, God is dealing with it in a beautiful way, but, and it's for both my husband and I.

And we have found that if we don't have regular moments of like connecting, you know, before, I think we were in a habit after we got the kids to bed of just like watching a show together.

But now we've really had to learn like, okay, we actually need not watch a show.

We need to talk about this day because there was a lot that went on that I'm carrying frustration of and then we're taking it out on each other because we just internally are feeling the stress of the situation.

So we've really had to be intentional in taking like, you know, 15, 20 minutes at the end of the day, even though you're exhausted, getting the kids down.

And just saying like, okay, hey, how do we deal with this situation?

How can we move forward?

And really processing these areas of big stress, you know, which often is around our kids and how to handle them.

And so, yeah, that's something that we've really had to be intentional in.

And a lot of times, if we just leave that, if we just leave that, then, you know, that tension builds up and we start working against each other rather than for each other.

And so I just want to encourage mamas too.

Like if you have a tendency to withhold things, we talked about that in previous episode too, about just making assumptions.

Like if you're just assuming what your partner's thinking, then rather than just pausing, asking, then that can breed, you know, or that can leave space for conflict to come in because you're not actually verbalizing what's going on in your mind.

And I know I'm not the only one in that.

I've talked to several other women who have a tendency to just kind of hold it all in and just keep going on, plowing forward.

But it's like we need to work on bringing our husbands in on our internal dialogue so that we feel connected in that.

But just want to share that aside.

Yeah, I think that's great, Kathleen.

I'm just going to share something that my husband and I do when things get really heated and we both maybe aren't acting at our best.

So if we're having a conflict about something and it's in the moment, and maybe everybody's emotions are just a little bit more intense than usual, we actually have a little code word that we just say to kind of like snap out of it in a way.

Because sometimes like you can know all the things that you're supposed to do.

But if you are waking up multiple times at night, you're trying to navigate, like I'm just thinking about when we just did this move, all the things that were causing me to be more emotional than I normally would be, like I'm waking up at night with my kids, we're trying to find stuff, we can't find things because we're trying to unpack, we're in a new place, we don't know where things are yet.

So there were probably more moments than usual, where I just felt like I'm getting more strung out about things that I could normally handle.

And so one thing that I've told my husband to do, I'm like, if you just come and put a hand on my shoulder, that signals to me in a non-verbal way that, like, oh, you're a little intense, like, just take a breath without having to say that.

Because I think sometimes in the moment, while it's helpful to maybe say something, it could also be helpful just to, like, do a visual cue or, like, a physical touch or something like that that's not verbal.

At least that's really helpful for me.

Another thing that we do, if the kids are around, we'll just say, we have a, I don't know why this is our code word, but it just says, we'll just say, Oklahoma, if it's, like, a really, like, we're just, like, going in circles, and we'll just be, like, Oklahoma, and that's just, like, the word that we say that means we're gonna talk about it later, and we're not gonna, like, try to work it out right now, because it's too stressful, there's too many loud noises, everybody wants something, and we're trying to have this, like, you know, we're trying to figure out the solution to this problem, but it's just not working.

So we'll just say that, and that just means, like, okay, we're gonna pause and pick it up later without having to say that whole sentence.

I really love that, Kelsey.

Like, I don't think I've ever heard of a code word for that.

I have code words when we're traveling internationally and something is unsafe, but not for conflict, so I'm like, hmm.

Yeah, it's just helpful, because sometimes, I mean, as we all know, it can just get a little heated, and you just don't want to do that, and we've talked about how we want to have disagreements in front of our kids, and one of the things that we do is we just make sure that we go back and repair it if we say something in a way that we don't want to talk to each other in a disrespectful way.

We don't want to raise our voice.

We don't want to set that as a model, but if we do make a mistake, go back and apologize to the person in front of your kids and say, hey, mom and dad, we're having a disagreement.

That's not how we want to talk to each other.

And just modeling that repair, I think, too, is really important because we're not perfect.

And in James, it talks about how the tongue and taming the tongue is so challenging to do, and it's this little part of your body, but it has so much power.

And it really does.

Like, what we say is really, really powerful.

And I think back to when I was a kid, and this is one of the things that my mom, I just remember her saying this over and over and over, but she would always say, if it's not kind, true, and necessary, you probably shouldn't say it.

And that's really true.

Like, a lot of things in conflict, maybe it's not the right time to say it.

I had, you know, I did this the other morning, like, somebody came into our room screaming, and we were both, like, startled when we woke up.

And I, like, said something in a way that I didn't mean to say it, but I was frustrated, and I was, like, in fight or flight, because someone was, like, there was kids screaming, and I'm like, what is going, like, what are they doing, what's going on?

And then I had to go back and apologize later, because the timing was bad, and my tone was bad, even though, like, what I said wasn't necessarily bad, it was how I said it.

It was not great, so it wasn't received well.

And I think just paying attention to, you know, if you have something you want to talk about that's a bigger issue, just asking them, like, hey, I want to talk to you about X, like, fill in the blank, is now a good time to talk, or when's a good time to talk about it?

Just so you can ask them, and if they say, no, I'm really trying to focus on this project, can we do it tomorrow morning, or tomorrow night?

Sometimes we'll wake up before the kids and have conversations, because we're, like, not tired, or both fresh.

So sometimes we'll just get up earlier instead of saving conversations for the evening time.

But this is just with little kids, like, our kids are four, two, and seven months.

So these are just some of the things that we use right now, but I'm sure that changes as they get older, and, you know, you can't spell things anymore to each other.

Like, I can still spell out words to my husband, but nobody knows what it means yet.

So I'm not there anymore.

But I think modeling is so important.

I feel like that is a big piece to this.

And letting kids see disagreements and not just think that marriage is perfect.

And letting them see, like, how to handle conflict and how to walk through it and how to apologize.

I feel like that really ties back to family values, too, which we have a whole episode on, or multiple episodes on, and just looking at, like, what do we value and how do we make things right?

That's kind of the term that we always use in our family, is how do we make it right if we do something wrong?

Whether it's language or conflict about something or our tone, Kelsey, I liked how you said that too, because I feel like a lot of conflict is, like, maybe what you're saying isn't wrong, but it's, like, your tone or the time that you said it or your approach to it.

So I think those are all good to reflect on.

I could relate to the evening thing of connecting, but I think with us having olders, and I, me being more of a morning person, sometimes waking up at, like, 430, my best mental functioning isn't always evening, but that's normally our time to connect.

Because, like, so, I'm like, if it's past 10 p.m., we are not making big decisions and having big, like, conflicts.

So we've kind of set that similar role, but also it's trying to get those kids to bed.

Sometimes it's a walk, right?

Like, I know the walkers like to do that as well.

But one piece of advice that my husband and I were given, I don't remember at what point, probably, gosh, I'm guessing it was probably about seven or eight years ago, is that if you don't have agreement, then you don't have a decision, right?

So there's sometimes that argument stems from big decisions that you're making, whether it's a move or something with work or how you're going to handle something with the kids.

And I remember, you know, back to when we were trying to decide on school for our oldest, we were just in very different camps of like what we thought.

We said he wanted public school because that's what he did, and I wanted private school because that's what I did.

And we both agreed we wouldn't home school, but that's what God has for us now.

But it took us months to make that decision, and a lot of prayer and wise counsel to make that decision.

But there was a lot of disagreement in that.

And until we could come to common ground, we wouldn't make a decision.

So it can't be one person being like, well, this is just what we're gonna do, and you're just gonna have to be okay with it, because it does impact the whole family.

So delayed decisions until disagreements are handled is kind of one thing that we learned as like, okay, well, we're just gonna have to wait.

And sometimes what we'll do is we have shared notes on our phones, so we'll put facts down that like help us in decision making that could be potentially an argumentative thing.

And so we kind of can go back and be like, okay, well, these are some of the reasons for this, and this is some of the reasons here, and that we can go back and just look at facts that can kind of diffuse some of the emotional side of it a little bit.

But yeah, I think I definitely echo the modeling in front of kids.

I'll mention that the bruise on my face is not from a disagreement with my spouse.

That's actually from a water park playing with my seven-year-old son and a handle of a tube hitting my eye.

So this is not a result of a disagreement.

It's just a result of like connecting with my kids, but life happens that way.

But I think being willing to model healthy disagreements as well as healthy resolutions, as some of the others have talked through.

I like resolution quickly.

It's uncomfortable to have lingering stuff, but I have learned that often it's healthier to wait till we're in a better space to talk through that.

In most of our disagreements, we do face-to-face, not in the phone, not because then that way you can read the non-verbals as well as the verbals.

Because I think those play into each other a lot.

That's good.

I can't even stress enough how much I love walking when we're trying to process things that we disagree with.

Because I feel like it's getting that movement, it's getting you outside, it's getting you fresh air, and just like, I don't know, I feel like walking through hard things, like physically walking is so helpful for us, which is why we try to walk daily together, to just have that time.

It doesn't always work.

And I feel like we're in a more challenging season right now with like trying to find those times, just with like school getting ready to start, and new schedules, and new work routines, and you know, we've been traveling a lot this summer.

So I feel like the other day, like, I can't remember what happened, but we needed to like connect about something that we just hadn't even talked about and had to make a decision.

And it was like, oh, I haven't seen you all day today because you've been traveling and you just got home, but then you were with our boys because they need to see you.

But now I'm too tired and I'm sick, so I'm going to sleep.

And it's like, I feel like something important is making sure that you go back to, and I don't know if anybody has tips on this, but like, Kelsey, like your Oklahoma word, like, how do you remember to go back to your Oklahoma word?

Like, how do you remember to resolve everything and not just like forget it, or let it like float off into space and come up later?

And it's like, I feel like finding those moments, whether it's in the evening or the morning, to just like pause and say like, okay, was anything unresolved?

Or like, what do we still need to process?

And some things take longer than others.

I don't know if anybody has tips on like...

I think for me, like, it goes back to us doing the five aides.

So like, if we're like asking something, we're like, we really need to decide on the situation for our children or something for work or for our home or our schedule, right?

Like, we just need to sit down and have a conversation.

And so, but we don't have that conversation, and that five-minute period of time, but it's just saying like, we need to have that.

And then typically, it's like Kathleen was saying, it's probably going to be in the evening.

And so, that might mean us trying to keep dinner simple, putting the kids to bed at like a decent time, because there's often delays with bedtime routines that can eat into that.

And then we can kind of like mentally prepare for that conversation later that day, and we just know what's coming.

So that's kind of how we make sure we tag back in and talk about those things.

And sometimes it's not resolved in the first conversation.

Sometimes there's follow-ups as well.

Yeah, we normally do, like if I say the word, then I bring it back up later.

Or if Josh says the word, then he'll bring it back up later.

But yeah, we've been doing the five A's at night too, and that just kind of helps bring that up if needed.

And I think another thing I was thinking about, as you were talking about dinner, Cristiana, is related to food.

And a lot of times with our kids, they have a hard time if they aren't rested and fed.

And so I feel like for us, we always try to make sure we're rested and fed.

Like, a snack and a nap can help a lot of problems just become a little bit more manageable for kids and for moms, so that's helpful to people.

Completely.

I just wanted to share one little kind of tidbit that I was thinking about of just how, yeah, just kind of like moving in, yeah, just in that kind of same direction and kind of choosing, just choosing your spouse.

So, I'm blanking for a second, but yeah, sorry, my train of thought here, but yeah, I think it's just really important when you just think about in the Bible, just how it says about, sorry, I'm like totally getting a blank here for some reason.

I had a train of thought that I like just felt like it was just important for mama to share.

And I don't know why I'm blanking.

Anyway, we can, we can, maybe that's not about planning to share in the end, but yeah, I just, I just really like how, oh, that's what I was going to share.

There you go, came back to me.

Just about how God builds upon the generations.

And I just think about, you know, conflict wasn't modeled well in my family.

And, and to be honest, it's been a real journey for me of like learning to be comfortable with conflict.

And I know that a lot of people find it hard with conflict because maybe it wasn't modeled well to them.

You know, I think even previous generations, a lot of things were pushed under the rug and kind of hush-hush, and you weren't really even modeled by your parents, like how to deal with conflict, or maybe they modeled it in an unhealthy way.

And I think something that's been important for me is, for one, forgiving my parents, like honoring them for what they have taught me.

That's, you know, but then realizing that there's always things that, like, when God says he builds upon the generations, when we bring forth these things to the Lord, I've had to come to the Lord and say, Lord, would you teach me how to do healthy conflict?

Because I don't know how to do it.

And I'm afraid of anger.

I'm afraid of conflict because of how it was modeled to me, and would you, by your spirit, teach me how to not be afraid of conflict?

Would you show me how to learn to do this with my husband?

And he has, he's taught me courage, he's taught me to embrace these moments.

And every time we push through that fear of conflict, like when we say, when we bring the Lord into those situations, like he just by his grace, he enables us to sort things out.

And so I just want to encourage moms out there, if you're afraid of conflict, or if you feel like you're in a place, you're like, I don't know how to bring stuff up to my husband.

Maybe you both have backgrounds that haven't been modeled healthy communication.

Just know that in these little steps of, of yeah, just inviting the Lord into conflict resolution in your marriage, like he'll meet you there, and he'll teach you how to grow in that step by step, and he'll help your marriage grow stronger as a result of that.

So, sorry that took me a little brain freeze on that.

But yeah, that was something I just wanted to leave mamas with, is just know that, like, you can take steps towards health and conflict resolution, and everybody fights.

There's nobody who doesn't fight with their spouse.

I think Danielle mentioned that.

People had asked her, do you ever fight with your spouse?

And yes, we all do.

But we're all growing and learning in that.

So we just want to leave you mamas with those tips today.

We hope you were, we hope you're encouraged and blessed in that.

Just know that the Lord is with you and everything on your plate.

And yeah, have a good week.

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