How To Fight Fair

0:46 But it doesn't have to be like that. It is possible to move through conflict with grace and generosity, especially if you put the right tools in place before things come to a head. So stick around. We're going to get into all this today on In Good Faith. so the first panic attack i've only had two but the first one i had people say it feels like a heart attack and you wonder if you're dying was actually a fight that you and i got in in the beautiful place of hawaii which is a place where you shouldn't fight but we got in a fight And it was probably 10 years into marriage. I feel like Grace was probably about three or four years old. And we have a rule in how to fight there.

1:40 And one of those is we don't use the word divorce. And you didn't exactly break that rule. You just kind of towed the line on that rule. I never used the word divorce. Yeah, you didn't break the exact letter of our rules and how we fight. But you definitely broke the spirit of the rule, which was when we're in fights, we don't use that as an opportunity to threaten leaving one another. It was an emotional moment for sure. And one that I regret, but nonetheless, a good example of crossing lines we had already agreed on. Yeah. And I think that's the importance of today's topic, which is setting up rules for how to fight fair. Because regardless, when you get in a fight with a person who you love so much, who knows how to hit all of your buttons and things come up in the heat of the moment, emotions can happen and babe what are you doing what i'm like literally trying to have a conversation with you and you're just like i'm with you i'm listening i'm thinking sorry i'm sorry what was i doing not looking at you no oh sorry i'm with you don't you love it when you fight in an episode of how to fight fair okay so you didn't say i want to divorce you but you did say something No, I did not.

2:48 No, because you're the best. But you did say something along the lines of, I don't know if this is going to work out, or I don't know if we're going to make it, or something along those lines. I believe the exact statement was, well, maybe this won't work out then. Yes. I believe I threw in a maybe. I will give you the maybe. But it definitely wasn't that calm, let's be honest. We're in the emotions and throes of a fight and hurt and disagreement and all of those things. And here we found ourselves really fighting and hurting each other, which is never our intention. We love each other. We want to build each other up and support each other. But those moments of passion, those heated moments, we found ourselves breaking our own rules for how to fight fair. And it didn't turn out so well. Yeah, no, it didn't. And what we've discovered in 22 years of marriage is this idea of if you are pretending, hoping, wishing, or praying that when the heated moment arrives, that somehow you're going to instinctively without preparation, just appropriately fight, it's not going to happen. Unexpected, unprecedented seasons, moments, weeks, days just happen. They happen to the best people in the world.

3:59 I wonder if the Pope ever gets upset, you know? Well, not with his wife because they're not allowed to get married, you know? But I'm sure with some- Maybe some of the cardinals. Yeah, some of the cardinals, they get mad at each other. But I do think fighting is so important in relationship, at least for ours. But even with friendships and with extended family and parents, for a relationship to actually work, there has to be tension and fighting because we are individuals with our own agency coming into this relationship and in marriage specifically, living life together day in and day out. And I feel like if we're not fighting, then we're not bringing our complete selves to the table. So first, I think fighting is important. there's going to be disagreements. There's going to be different points of view. There's going to be, I don't see it like that at all. So if you're like, I don't think anyone in marriage should fight. Well, fine. Put a different word to it. But the reality is you're going to have those days where it's like, I just do not agree. In fact, I vehemently disagree.

5:01 Yeah. But before we get into how to fight fair, I want to look at what does it look like when we fight unfair. Different people tend to have different styles of fighting, different weaknesses. Just all of our personalities have strengths and weaknesses, and so do our styles of fighting. So I'm going to read some different types of fighting. I want you to figure out what type you are, what type I am, you know, see ourselves in here. But just so you know, I didn't come up with these by myself. These actually are from the Counseling and Mental Health Center at the University of Texas, Austin. So we can thank them for this incredible information. Go Longhorns. Number one, people who avoid conflicts at all costs. We can call these avoiders. Number two, people who feel like any criticism or disagreement is a personal attack. That feeling of, oh, if I did something wrong, then you're saying I am wrong. And that's just deeply personal and debilitating.

5:57 The sensitive people. Are you going to make a nickname for each one? I like that. Okay. Number three, people who hit below the belt and regret it later. The fighters who, when things get heated, their go-to response is just to say something so mean and so nasty and so hurtful. The below the belt people. Wow, that was creative. Number four, people who feel extremely out of control when conflict arises. And so it just ends up snowballing and becoming this thing that's so much bigger. The out of control fighter. Wow, thanks for your Western voice there. Number five, the people who withdraw and become silent when they are angry. The silent assassins. And number six, people who store up complaints from the distant past. Add them all up and bring them right now into the present moment. The storage bin fighters. I would call those the bottlers.

6:50 People who just bottle, bottle, bottle and store them up. And then one thing sets off a whole volcano of conflict and emotions. I know you and I have probably both participated in all of these. But what do you think my go-to weakness is when I fight unfair? I don't think you avoid conflict. I don't think that you feel like it's an attack on you. I don't feel like you're below the belt. I don't think you feel out of control when conflict arises. I do think there is sometimes a withdrawal maybe like emotionally yeah a little bit and store up when you're feeling weak you store up but you're not a um a hold it against me kind of person but I do think you like to reflect and consider where I like in the moment I want to solve it right here right now and I've probably forced you to do that and as a result it's probably gotten below the belt because you're like, I am not ready. I told you I'm not ready. I don't want to do this, but you're making me do it. So fine. But I think probably five or six are a little bit more your territory if we're making the list of the six. What do you think? Yeah, I agree. I think probably out of those, mostly I'm a bottler. I will let little things not annoy me and I try to come above them and be better, but I also don't completely get rid of them. And so it's almost like filling up a glass and it's like those little things fill up, fill up, fill up. And then I tend to overflow and bunch all of these things together. And I know I've seen times when you're looking back, I do not understand why you're so frustrated at this one thing when really it's this whole bottling of things. And I believe that's why you got frustrated at the beginning of this recording, I believe. Because I was late and I was not organized. And then I thought you had salad in your teeth and it was on and on and on. Yeah, very true. Call it a bottling. You want me to guess yours? Yeah. I definitely think yours would be mostly number two, that you feel like any criticism or disagreement is an attack on you. But I know that comes from a place of love. Like you

8:56 so want to please me. You so want to do the right thing. You so want the people around you to be happy. Okay. Maybe a teeny bit of codependence in there too. So I know it comes from a good place, but you just feel like the world is against you when you can't handle it. I was in an event two days ago and there was a group of friends, most of who I knew of the like six people I was hanging out with. There was two of them that I didn't really know that well. And I wasn't sure how they felt about me. And so one of the two new friends in the group was holding the door open for all of us after this restaurant. And everyone was walking through saying, thank you. And they were all kind of laughing, making a joke. And then I was the last person to come through and he's like, nah, I'll hold the door for everyone, but you. And he like, let the door go and walked out kind of laughing and like I'm 43 and I'm still thinking about it two days later. I'm like, do you think he doesn't like me? Do you think that was like a real joke? Isn't there a little truth in every joke? Did you go overboard afterwards to try to be like extra nice?

9:54 1000%. And prove that you were worthy of having him open the door. You know, I did. I overextended myself and probably overplayed it. And he was probably just a funny joke that he thought we could connect on, but I was like, it was like an attack. Isn't it crazy how we do have those tendencies and they're different for every person. I mean, maybe thank God we don't have the same tendency. That might be even worse. It could be good in the sense that you understand each other and you can understand the emotion so much more. But when you're in the heat of that emotion, I bet that would be pretty brutal. Pretty brutal. Yeah. I am really grateful. I'm two and you're kind of six, you know? Yeah, and definitely five, withdrawing and become silent. The cool thing about me though is you can fool me with that one because you can tell me like, I just need some time to think about it where you could actually just be withdrawing and becoming silently angry. Yeah, but I do say when I do withdraw, it is for a chance to like try to get some clarity and try to calm down emotionally.

10:53 It's not a form of punishment to you. I'm like, I'm now defending myself on the podcast. This is great, let's do it. So how do we fight fair? What does fighting fair look like? And by the way, I definitely think fighting ugly is also anything physical, obviously below the belt verbal abuse hurtful words emotional manipulation completely unacceptable those are beyond a personality tendency and those just go into the areas of being unsafe where there actually just needs to be a complete removal of oneself from that situation you may need authorities and you may need professionals you know to get involved there and we want to be very cognizant, careful, and conscious of that. So back to this idea of really any relationship of fighting fair, but particularly a romantic relationship, a partnership. Here's the reality.

12:01 This idea of fair that we're using, what we're defining that basically is agreed upon, agreed upon engagement. That's what we mean by fair. Fair is not like you each get the same amount of time to talk. I mean, I'm always going to talk more than you, so that's not fair. Or a talking stick or like maybe that works for some people. Yeah, and that might work for some people. But it starts with agreed upon, ground rules. When you're not emotional, when there's nothing on the table, start to talk about ground rules. And for instance, the story we started with is that the D word is just not allowed. You're not allowed to use divorce. And if we're honest, we knew, speaking of the spirit of that rule of engagement, that you can't really even insinuate. Breakup would also be a D word. And that's what I did. I crossed that line and said, well, maybe this isn't going to work out then. Yeah. And I think what's so important about having those ground rules is, first of all, it normalizes disagreements and it recognizes at the start of a relationship or wherever you are, that we are going to get into disagreement, conflict, fights.

13:00 And our goal is that those are healthy and productive and actually can be come closer and bring us together and not lead us to a place where we are going to be so afraid that this fight is going to drive a wedge between us that will be lasting and lead to either emotional distance or physical distance or an actual breakup. And I think one of the ground rules I've really appreciated over the years really is this idea of staying on the actual disagreement, staying on the topic, staying on the instance, not adding it up, not throwing in, you know, will you also not spider webbing, spider webbing? And yeah, yeah, that's been something that has really, really guided us. And maybe our incredible listeners are like, great, bro. Like we don't say divorce. That doesn't keep you from it. And that is so true. It certainly isn't going to hurt. I think it's going to help if you don't use that as a threat. Or that's not like in football or soccer, as we call it here in the United States of America, you know, the ref pulls out certain cards, you know, the ultimate red card.

14:02 You know, you just keep that in your pocket. You don't use it. But this idea of like, you can't spiderweb. You can't go, well, last week you also didn't do the dishes. And it's like, well, no, we were talking about how you hurt my feelings. And it makes sense that that's the first rule that you brought up because that would be my personality as a bottler would be to become a spiderweber. And I didn't know that was going to be the first one that was going to come to your mind, but it makes a lot of sense. in the middle of fights when we're emotional, when things do get heated, you feel hurt. What tools have we used to actually keep a fight on track to keep it from spider webbing? There is one prevailing tool and thought that has helped me. It is as simple as saying out loud, and I have done this. I'm going to say something I don't mean. I need to just stop here. This isn't going to be good. This isn't, I don't go on to say that you say that you are coming to the edge of saying something. Yeah. And maybe that's the tool we could give out. It's like, Hey, I'm on the edge here. And you know that because of my disposition, which is increasingly emotional, sometimes my emotions override facts. That's the way I'm wired. And so when my emotions override facts, I blow things out of proportion. I say hurtful things. We used to have a fight fair quote unquote rule. Finish it before you go to bed. Finish it before we go to bed. Don't ever go to bed mad at each other. But whereas I'm an internal processor, you are an external processor. So you want to talk things out. You know, there's that ancient scripture. It's like, don't let the sun go down on your wrath. And so I took that as like a law. If you remember early on in marriage, if we got in a fight, we had to solve it before we went to bed. And there are some things you have showed me over the years because of the way that God's wired you and made you where it's actually, could you give me a night or a day or a couple days? And then can we pick it up with a little less emotion? It actually is. We were thinking about this podcast. That's one of the rules that has changed. That is not a hard and fast rule anymore. I think we've learned to let that go.

16:00 Do you remember like times in our past where I'd literally keep you up? We'd be in bed still and you'd be like trying to roll over and go to sleep. And you're like, are you seriously doing this right now? And I'm like, I just want to talk about it. It's like one in the morning. We're exhausted. You're emotional. You're exhausted. That's when the bad fights happen. And by the way, in Hawaii, it was late at night. It was. I hadn't put that together. It was late at night. It was late at night. And I just was determined we were going to talk every detail out. It was honestly basically how we were handling our social interaction and our daily life. Yep. And you and I are such opposite in personalities that way. And I can see where you are so exasperated and just ended up at a place of, I don't know if this is going to work out because when you're in that and it feels so emotional and so real, it does feel hard to see an easy way out. So I now understand why you said that. And I have complete wholeness and healing because of that. So complete again, I think the idea of fighting fair and these agreed upon rules of engagement is they add some sobriety in the drunken emotion of the moment. It's like a drunken experience. You're just like, out of your mind.

17:10 what you know and especially for me and those agreed upon rules of engagement when addressed is like nope I agreed upon this and the benefits now have been so clear in our journey and maybe that's a little unfair speaking of fair to people who've just started you're nine months into a friendship relationship romance and you're like but 22 years in the cool thing is that you keep at this there is like this sacredness almost a holiness to like nope that I just that is something I agree on. And so when you or I are willing to go, Hey, we're not doing that. There's this like sobriety. That's almost instant. Like, yep, you're right. We don't do that because that's going to hurt me. It's going to hurt you. Yeah. I feel like in the spirit of not spider webbing fights of keeping the main thing, the main thing we actually have started to, at the beginning of the fight, almost identified. And it feels so weird and clinical when you're emotional and frazzled, but identifying what are we fighting about? What is this fight actually about? Because sometimes it is just so emotional and that emotion just feels like such a tidal wave that it just knocks you over and you're sucked into this wave of turmoil and you don't really know what the fight is about. So in some ways at the beginning, identifying what are we fighting about and making sure that we're fighting about the same thing, to be honest.

18:27 Totally. And think about movies just for a moment. A lot of the rom-coms, there's that moment in a movie we've all seen where it's like, just hold each other, just hug. And I have to give you enormous credit because I think you were way better at this and have been traditionally in our marriage where you finally are willing to admit, I guess I just needed you to hold me. I guess I just needed you to hear me. I guess I just needed you to hug me. And man, when you're in the moment, you're in that drunken state of emotion. You don't want to do the simplest of things. And I don't mean to be trivial and I certainly don't mean to be insensitive, but I definitely know some incredible partnerships that were ended simply because there was an inability or unwillingness to identify something as simple. I just needed you to hold me. And one day of no holding and then a week and then six months and then nine months in a year, we have met with couples. We have met with best friends who were unwilling to just go, I was wrong. Can you give me a hug? Absolutely. And it leads me to one of the keys that we have identified in fighting fair with each other. And that is a willingness to be vulnerable.

19:41 And this is one for me is way easier said than done because normally when you're in a fight, you've been hurt, your defenses are up, you go into protection mode. And all of a sudden we're not a team anymore. It's me against you. And I need to protect myself and protect myself from you. And the last thing I want to do when I am in that space is to open up and say, the reason I feel like I need to protect myself is because you just hurt me. Normally, what we did in our early years is we'd get in a fight and I would be in that place instead of being vulnerable and saying, I feel hurt because you did X, Y, Z, or you made me feel small or you, you know, whatever that feeling you made me feel. I just go into accusing you mode. I can't believe you. Don't you even care? I just go into accusing you of what you did wrong, which furthermore puts your defenses up instead of stopping and being vulnerable and saying, here's why I'm hurt. And I feel like for us, that's been so significant because we do love each other and we do actually want the best for each other.

20:45 and the first person who can actually be vulnerable and show their hurt. It's pretty amazing how so often then the real you comes out, not the defensive you, but the real you comes out who wants to help heal my hurt. Does that make sense? Yeah. And I'm going to make a statement in regards to that. More often than not, particularly in my situation and my emotional disposition in the way that God made me, I oftentimes get hung up on something that isn't the real root of pain, or it's that I feel like you're not happy with me or I feel like you didn't hear me. It's not that I'm frustrated because you're upset at me because we were late again because I told you I'd be there in five minutes and it was more like 20. And you aren't upset because it feels like- I feel, yeah, I feel devalued because you know that's important to me. Totally.

21:37 It's like, you're not honoring what you know after 22 years, it's significant. And by the way, everything isn't significant to you, but being on time is. And so it's like, I think the emotionally mature people that we know and that we get to call friends, ironically, they do something that I would call is more childlike. And there's this instinct in children that's like, I just need to eat. You know what I mean? As simple as that sounds. Children are so good at asking for what they need, at crying for it, at begging for it, stomping their feet, whatever. But I feel like we end up as adults and we feel like we need to mature from that we become so proud and so independent and self-sufficient that we actually are not great at asking for what we need anymore whether it's to be held or to be listened to or be acknowledged that i actually just felt devalued in that moment and can you just acknowledge that totally dumb but sometimes those are the things that you need to just to dissolve the emotion and come back to a place of connection because i post fights i mean we talk about post fighting sex all the time, you know, it's so common in our culture, but there is a fresh makeup sex, makeup sex. Yeah. Thank you. Post fighting sex.

22:50 It's totally makeup sex, but there is that intimacy after a fight that's truly been resolved and actually gotten down to the core and been vulnerable and opening up that is really special and almost is worth the fight to get to that place of intimacy. But you have to be open to do that childlike thing that you were talking about. Do you feel like we do that in our marriage? And when and how does that happen? Meaning, if we're in a fight, heat of the moment, do you say, can I tell you how I really feel? Because I do feel like we have installed some sort of system where I'm able to say, I just feel really insecure. I just feel like you're not happy with me lately. You know, how do we do that? I think for me, that's where I do sometimes need some distance. when that like drunken state of emotion comes in, or I'm, I'm picturing it as a tidal wave. And it's just coming at you from every angle. We're beings who have a mind, but we also have emotions. And sometimes our emotions are feeling something that our mind doesn't recognize and understand yet. And for me taking time to identify what are my emotions feeling and getting it just from that flood of emotions into my mind, I kind of need some space away sometimes. And I think That's where that has been beneficial for us when I can just get some space and take a walk, take a drive and just try to discern what am I really feeling and what am I needing and what's going on and to connect my heart to my head a little bit.

24:12 It's the thing behind the thing. It is almost always the thing behind the thing. This morning, it's not that I made a joke about the salad in your teeth. It is compounded from, you know, it's time to record the podcast and I'm somewhere in my robe downstairs pouring coffee. And you're like, for the love of the angels in heaven, please come upstairs. And the ability to have an environment that is prepared is so helpful. And we've said it before, I think in our experience, and this is a really interesting moment because I want to know if you agree, gosh, we've been trying to help people in community and church and leading and pastoring and teaching and preaching for 20 years, at least two decades in almost every case. It's a molehill almost always that becomes a mountain. I'm not saying that it's insignificant, but it's very acute and specific. And it's not typically this mountain of like hurt and pain over 40 years. You know what I mean? I agree. And I disagree.

25:15 Okay. Sometimes it takes the mountain. Sometimes it takes the flood of emotions to actually get down and dive into what is the thing behind the thing. And if that can never be communicated or dealt with, I feel like a drift happens in a relationship and intimacy is lost and you all of a sudden aren't on the same page. And so I think it can be a molehill or it can become a mountain if it's not dealt with and addressed when it's small, not that we nitpick at each other, but we also don't let things grow so big that it's, which is my problem, you know, which is explosive and bottling. I mean, it's a form of keeping score and that really, really is tough. When you keep score in a, in a friendship or relationship or romance, uh, may God help you. Yeah. Which is one of our rules. And we had to deal with this early on so much. We don't even use this verbage anymore and actually haven't had to think about it in a while, but not saying the words you always and you never, I know it sounds so simple, but thank you for remembering that one.

26:15 Even, you know, I was frustrated that you were late this morning. That would have escalated so much if I'd have been said, you're always late. Always do this. You always do this to me. Because it's not true. You're not always late. That's just the times that I remember and are standing out to me right now. Because that's what I'm annoyed at. I know what else it was, though. What? Oh.

26:35 How does body language affect all this? When you're in a fight, what does body language say? That's so true. And I actually think that's something that you and I haven't dug down in and got really specific for what are rules around body language when we're fighting. But we probably should. Because what do they say? 90% at least of communication is nonverbal. Well, let me be clear. I couldn't disagree more. Okay. So I feel like body language is an enormous part of particularly your priority. Body language is important to me as a public speaker. Square your shoulders. Open up your heart to the audience. Like, you know, some of these values that I hold very, very dear and some that I try to teach younger communicators all the time. And I think what I do probably subconsciously is that when we are having a disagreement, I will use body language to say something to you. And I think it's not healthy and it's not good.

27:28 And I have found over the last two decades that you're like, what are you doing right now? And that statement usually is connected to my posture because I'm typically, you know, square shoulder, stand up straight, lift up my head kind of guy. And I will use that to send a message and embarrassing to admit, but I do. And you're very consistent at going, hey, can you sit up? Can you look at me like we're grownups? And I don't think I react to that. I think I tend to kind of go, yeah, you got me. You're right. yeah, not using nonverbal cues as a further means of hurt. I mean, eye contact in all the research and all the science and all the data tells you like it is a big, big deal. In fact, recently you told me a proper cheers when you're going to dinner or having a meal to cheer someone, you actually have to look them in the eye. And that's part of the deal. And so I have been doing that lately. You have. I've appreciated it with you and your sparkling sparkling water chelsea drinks alcohol i do not because i'm more holy congratulations

28:35 So there are times when we need to have a big fight and it's very valid. But what about those times when we are just annoyed and bothered by little things or we feel like we don't have a right to be bothered, but that emotion is really real? and it is creating conflict and tension in a relationship. How do we either deal with it or get over it to move on so it's not just this underlying stench in a relationship? How do you think we do that? Oh, way to turn the question back on me. I appreciate it. You know what I do think is after 22 years of marriage, it has been so helpful learning to choose our battles, to determine what are we going to fight about and what are we not going to fight about.

29:32 There are things that I know I love about you. You are who you are. you're probably never going to change. And if I still kept either being bothered about them or fighting about them over 22 years, we would just have a lot of unnecessary fighting for something that actually isn't going to be resolved. So I would say, first, a willingness to choose our battles. And unfortunately for us, I think that came through hard fought time and experience of having unnecessary fights that caused us unnecessary emotional energy and drain. And having gone through a few of those, it's helped me to realize, okay, I'm bothered at this, but what am I going to do with it? I'm either going to get in a fight over it and that's not going to be worth it. Or I'm just going to make a choice to not be bothered by this or go have a conversation with God about it, have a conversation with a trusted friend and get it out in a healthy place. Somebody who can give me proper perspective to say, Hey, you know, Judah does that, but he's and get ahold of yourself, Chelsea. Yeah. Learning to understand each other. And I would say it's the conversations before those moments where it's like, oh, wait, I know what Chelsea is doing here.

30:36 And that helps me kind of go, all right, grow up, adjust your attitude and let's move forward. So that tool for me is what has really helped avoiding making something more than it needs to be. Yeah, that's so good. I can't help but think of Proverbs that says above all else, get understanding and trying to come to a place of understanding of why this person is doing the things that they're doing to bother you. And getting that is often so helpful in being able to move on from it. So what would you say to people who are, find themselves in a place where they've gotten in fights, not fought fair, maybe used a low blow, use a silent treatment, and they actually never got to the root of the problem and ended up with genuine hurt in a relationship that just caused maybe one degree of distance and then it tries to happen again in another degree of distance and couples who have found themselves just drifting from one another or hurt by each other in a way that maybe hasn't been resolved and so fighting feels very traumatic you know after that fight in hawaii fighting after that was not an easy pleasant thing because it was like there was this extra level of trauma could this be could this be is judah going to threaten totally you know an extra layer or two of defense is up and it's even harder to get to that route and even harder to get vulnerable. Where do people start to get out of that cycle? Well, thank you for using the word drift because I think the reality of fighting unfair or fighting unprepared, what ends up happening is it fizzles. When fights fizzle as opposed to end, I think they tend and trend towards drift. And so it's like, all right, whatever. I'll never be heard. She doesn't get it he doesn't get it they don't get it if the big thing on the table today in this podcast is like i don't want to lose this friendship or i don't want to lose this romance i don't want to lose this marriage i think you've got to look less at the demonstrative like defining moments um slam the door get in the car go on a drive that's because you still care it's the drift it's the it's not

32:44 worth it it's that movie i think it's life as we know it is that the one with katherine heigl and you've got mail. Like that's the only one I go to, you know, the notebook. Wait, what? There's this line that says I'm divorced from my spouse, but if we would still fight like that, we'd still be together. But at least there's an element of showing that you care. But when you said, whatever, that was so powerful to me in so many ways. I feel like that is more destructive than the hurtful words, the below the belt, the withdrawal. When you get into a place and if I were just like, whatever, I'm just not going to try anymore. I'm either not going to try to understand, or I'm not going to try to be understood. That puts up just one degree of drift in a relationship. You've given yourselves over to believing I either can't be understood or I can't understand this person. It's that scary point of do whatever you want. I don't care. That's what we're trying to avoid because in fact, we do care. And the more you say you don't care, it's because you do care. I think our passion today is to encourage people in any relationship where you feel the drift. That's what we're trying to avoid in these relationships.

33:52 So what we are suggesting is, if possible, you may need the help of a professional. You may need the help of a therapy retreat. You may need the help of online therapy, which we're big fans of therapy in all of its many forms. That might be necessary. Or there may be a shot here at saying, could we sit down and have a non-emotional discussion about when we have conflict and when we fight, and can we set in some ground rules? Ironically, the conversation about ground rules when you fight might end up leading into some actual conflicts and disagreements that are unresolved. And it might become a very distinct and healing process. Absolutely. I think about, we recorded a podcast about forgiveness and how important that is. But what forgiveness is not is sweeping something under the rug. If you have been hurt and traumatized through fighting, forgiveness is important.

34:48 Not in the sense of just sweeping it under the rug and pretending like it never happened, but actually having a conversation to say, okay, what are our ground rules for how to fight there? So toolkit, how do people have that conversation? Where should it start? We want to give you some questions to ask. And the first question is, what kind of fighter are you? I'm going to review them here. There's six fighters we've defined today. I'm sure there's more, but here's the six ones that kind of stick out to us. Number one, you're the avoider. Avoid conflict at all costs. Or number two, you feel any criticism or disagreement is an attack on you. Or maybe you're a number three, you're a below the belt, regret it later kind of fighter. Maybe you're number four, you feel out of control when conflict arises. Five, you withdraw and become silently angry. Or number six, you store up the compliments. You store up the complaints from the distant past. You're probably somewhere in there, maybe a combo of two, which I found is probably true of us.

35:47 And so let's start the conversation by saying, okay, one to six, what kind of fighter are you? And then the follow-up question is, what does fighting fair mean to you? Before we even get into the minutiae and the details, what does that mean to you? Yeah, I love that question because it's personalized. we all have our own past. We all have our own trauma. We all have our own triggers. And being able to identify that to your spouse or the person you're in relationships who loves you and doesn't want to intentionally hurt you to be able to say, you know what, if bowing up and getting big is very scary to me because I was abused as a child, then that needs to come out as one of your ground rules. That needs to be a very personal conversation based on your own past and history. Yeah. What are some of the behaviors or words that cross into unfair fighting territory? When does the fighting become unfair to you? And you might need to get your laptop out and write these down or even a pen. Whoa, what a concept. And write it down on a piece of paper and start listing them out. Let's build a plan here. Let's get super intentional.

36:45 Yeah. And I think the last question is what are some tools that we can use to help each other diffuse conflict and fight fair? And here's my last piece of advice for our toolkit for the day. And that is that if you feel like even this conversation is going to lead to too much of a fight that you cannot imagine even having this conversation with your significant other without blowing up. Either have it with a counselor or with a really trusted couple friend. And maybe you make a double date to have it together because let's be honest, we all know that we're a better version of ourselves when we're around people who aren't our spouses. One more time, we'll shout out Les and Leslie Garrett. Thank you for being that for us. Yeah. There's also great resources out there. Saving Your Marriage Before It Starts actually by Les and Leslie has great chapters on how to fight fair, which was the foundation for us in our marriage. There's also a really good book called how we love, and it talks about different love styles and how that affects conflict. So those are some good resources too, but I'm hoping this conversation is really helpful and encouraging for couples to realize that fighting is not just necessary, but it can be very beneficial and bring about intimacy in a relationship if it is done right. Do you want to pray? I wanted you to pray. Do you want me to pray? I'll pray. Okay. Yeah, you pray. See, we just resolved conflict right there. Look at that. That was amazing. God, we realize that conflict and disagreement is a part of this life and we need you in that space. To be honest, we need you and your presence everywhere. But specifically, we're asking in this moment, on this day, that in the area of conflict with anyone, but particularly people we love that are in our life on a regular basis.

38:24 Give us wisdom, guidance, and understanding. We pray for every single marriage that's represented by every single listener right now. And we ask that you give strength, clarity, understanding, empathy, and grace in that place, in that space. We love you. Thank you for the opportunity to share thoughts and understanding to hopefully add to people's path and journey on a daily basis. We pray all this. Amen. Amen. You This has been a presentation of OBB Sound, SV Projects, and Cadence 13. Executive produced by Chelsea Smith, Judah Smith, Michael D. Ratner, Scott Ratner, Elias Tanner, Scooter Braun, Scott Manson, James Shin, and Chris Corcoran. Produced by Caitlin Plummer and Eve Bishop of OBB Sound and Kyle Vanuja of SV Projects.

39:20 Produced by Lauren LaGrasso and Serena Regan of Cadence 13. Edited, mixed, and mastered by Daniel Chavez Crook with editing support from Caitlin Plummer and Eve Bishop. Original composition by Colin Gilliard. Production support from Kristen Crosby and Dylan Marder. OBB Sound is an OBB Media Company. Cadence 13 is an Odyssey Company.