Marriage Talks: Pandemic Revelations

hey welcome everybody um we are gonna do some uh amazing things this uh tonight for my numbers here um i don't know where they are i let it go all right so we're gonna give you just a few minutes for everybody to to uh log in and uh it's seven o'clock so i believe i announced this morning that we're gonna start at seven and it's important to just get it all in there so um you know we wanna welcome you guys that's right i'll give it for about two minutes and then we're gonna go ahead and get started so blessings to all of you guys we um are gonna share some things tonight that i think will be a blessing to your life i think it'll be a blessing to you know your marriage and uh somebody said to me today well i'm not married so i don't need to to to hear this well if are you going to be married one day and if you are then you might want to you might want to check this out um this might change your mind about marriage you know yeah you might not want to get married you want to after this or you may decide you don't want to he may decide yeah but i i think tonight we're going to share some things that um you know we're going to try to be as practical and as organic as we possibly can [Music] we want to we want to try not to be real technical but i want to kind of bring it on home where you guys are right so that you can understand some things um and and we're we're blessed to be able to uh have walked through this we yes we know what we're talking about because we've experienced it in our own marriage and we need to we need to share with you uh during the time of uh this pandemic you know i spent day to day just talking to hurting people that everybody knew somebody that had covet there were people who were passing not just of kobe but other things and they were hurting uh this morning's confession just you know lost to people said i'm sad i don't know what to do um help me and so our hearts has really been going out to people all day today and you know besides all of the things that are going on in the world today there are marriages that have that are hurting and that are relationships that are struggling and they're sad and they're not happy and especially if you are people in the ministry you may want to try to hide behind the ministry and you might want to try to turn off your humanity and try to get spiritually deep and you don't deal with the issue that is at hand and so we want to really bring some issues up tonight that i think will be a blessing to you we cannot share everything tonight um this is a plan to be kind of like an hour and five or ten minutes uh session but we wanted to start something we're gonna have some uh marriage talks uh later on in the 2021 year but we definitely want to close this year out where we could hopefully be able to share some things with you that will be a blessing to your life taffy's gonna spend some time talking about uh something uh we've called the fear dance and uh i'm gonna i'm gonna kind of start it off by trying to set up the stage of the things that happens from the man's perspective and and how to achieve true intimacy uh in your life so we got a lot of things we want to share with you um and uh i pray that we'll it will bless your life and that uh maybe you can you can hit some you know share buttons and invite your friends in but um we're gonna go ahead and pray and we'll go ahead and get started and um you know if whoever comes in misses the beginning of it they can uh well do the replay something like that so so here we go let's get into it father we thank you taffy and i are blessed and honored to be able to share with our family and our friends uh we don't come as you know the experts or you know the perfect marriage of the perfect people that's right but we come willing to empty our lives and to share what we have and we pray that it will be a blessing to those who will will join us tonight and that it will cause some restoration and and uh father even though this is uh streaming and we're doing it virtually i pray that the spirit of god will will will not only be with us but the spirit of god will be with those who are listening uh couples that are listening together or maybe they're separate but we pray that the power of god will touch their hearts and touch their lives and use us lord we want to be a blessing that's just it we just want to be a blessing and hopefully rescue some marriages and and bring about some joy back in the lives of people in jesus name we pray and everybody said amen amen well i'll set the stage because i want to make sure you have plenty of time to talk about you know uh what you got to talk about i know you put a lot of time into looking at this but um you know the pandemic uh and the the lockdown and spending a lot of time with uh each other uh it probably bought a lot of things out because in the past maybe there were some issues you just kind of did not deal with because you know you know you're you're in and out you're going to work you're coming home and so there maybe there were some little uh irritations that you didn't deal with or you kind of let ba let go by uh but then you know when the pandemic hit you know couples were there together there had to be a team you know um you had to throw the rule book in a sense out of the out of the window that said you know you supposed to take care of kids and i was supposed to work and all of that and you had to come together and be a team and um wondering what was revealed in that wondering what kind of irritations you woke up with or or you went to bed with um i wonder uh what were some of the things that you both did in the marriage and it caused irritation or it bought out revelation um something happened and you expressed how how disgusting that was to you or how you didn't like it or how you never liked it and you know wonder what kind of arguments you had and and uh wonder how many of you uh you know even thought about separation divorce um i wonder how many of you had the cover removed from your life and discovered there was some brokenness that was still there that as a husband you may have discovered that um you know there's some brokenness that you thought you had dealt with or most likely covered up and of course as i said in the past when you cover up things that are are broken uh then the only thing you produce is a false identity i wonder how many of you discovered that you know the false identity that you have created and what happens is in the middle of all of that you're now able to see what you didn't pay attention to before when it when it's amplified and when it's magnified you see things that you just probably didn't pay attention to and how how the small things were ma amplified and magnified and became bigger how you said some some some real snappy things and harsh things and and how many how many marriages said things that hurt one another and then you said things that hurt one another but you were afraid you know to to reveal that it hurt you uh how much pride came up in the marriage uh uh it's just a lot of things that we could probably talk about but there's one thing that we we do know and that we are aware of you know how many walls were built between you and and your mate uh regardless of whether it was brokenness whether it was a wall that was built whether it was i don't know frustration that came up there's one thing that we discovered it is an issue of safety now what do i mean by that you know why is it that you don't feel safe to be completely honest with one another what is it that's that you say well you know i'm not going to say this to my wife or to my husband because i don't feel safe i don't know how they're going to respond i don't know what this is going what door this is going to open up uh and then you know how many how many wives or even maybe hubs and you built walls that were so high that you just kind of pretended like everything was okay but in any any sign of penetration trying to hit that wall you know you were you were just fortified because you weren't gonna let the walk all of that is an issue of safety i don't feel safe to be to be honest with you i don't feel safe to bring a subject or to confront you about a certain thing i don't feel safe to tell you what i don't like uh i don't feel safe to to to tell you that it bothers me when you do this or it bothers me now you're gonna have to really fill in the blank as far as all those things it bothers me when you do this it bothers me when you say this it bothers me when you go this way when you look this way it bothers me and so you don't feel you don't feel safe you don't you don't have conversations because you don't feel safe you don't you're not you're not being honest because you don't feel safe uh what uh you may you know withdraw and just you know shut down yeah withdrawal shut down or blow up that's right all of these are issues of not feeling safe it's an issue of safety you might want to ask yourself like okay well you know uh i don't know why she built that wall because she don't feel safe so she'll see she she fortifies herself for protection because she doesn't feel safe um let me say this to you why is this so important for us to talk about this and this is going to set this thing up for for what time is going to talk about that's why i want to go first so you can really dig into this and you jump in in time um the reason why it's so important to for both of you to identify those areas where you don't feel safe i don't have this conversation with you about this because i don't feel safe i don't tell you that you i feel belittled and devalued because i don't feel safe i don't ever ask for anything or don't even express my desire for anything because i don't feel safe and i won't even tell you when i'm hurt that's true because i don't feel safe and so for most men it's like well you know for the sake of peace that's why i didn't say enough you didn't feel safe that's why you why you didn't say it now why is that important because your safety is going to determine your vulnerability in other words you won't be vulnerable and open and naked with one another if you don't feel safe there's no way you're not going to get because vulnerability is it can be scary vulnerability is like you know if i open up and show you this if i if i'm if i'm honest about this uh this could hurt me this could hurt my marriage this could be a divorce this could be a separation this could be something that just makes life miserable for the next six months and so all of those things because you don't feel safe will not affect whether or not you are willing to be vulnerable and why is it so important to be vulnerable [Music] because vulnerability is going to lead to true intimacy most marriages say that they're intimate but if you if you don't feel safe then you won't be vulnerable and if you won't be vulnerable then the intimacy that you say you have is fake and so what you really have is fault intimacy because there cannot be true intimacy without vulnerability and there won't be vulnerability without feeling safe so there's those are the three steps there you know safety will then open the door for vulnerability and then being vulnerable will open the door for true intimacy true intimacy there's nothing like true intimacy and so my question tonight is those of you who talk about well you know we we we're intimate it must be fake it can't be real it can't be genuine uh there's no such thing as genuine real intimacy without vulnerability and vulnerability is a risk because it i think it only becomes a risk when you don't feel safe yeah and i think like you mentioned with safety you can also feel like it will be the risks that um can maybe open the door to rejection right because we've talked about that and so it could be the very thing that could lead to intimacy um from our partner or it could be the very thing that you know you're afraid to share and then you still don't become intimate so it's a matter of going across that bridge and i'll just say what safety is too safety is when you feel free to open up and reveal who you really are and know that the other person will still love accept and value you no matter what and i think what one of the comments that was just made here they said well why would i want to be vulnerable when all i'm going to hear is you do it too in other words one partner shares something and they're just like well you know only thing i'm gonna hear is you two and so you don't communicate but that's a safety issue it is a safety issue and is really part of what we're gonna talk about tonight is how we respond a lot of times is out of fear too you know and not really knowing how to go a little deeper so that we can create safety um between the relationship and how we respond to each other okay um going with that what you were saying this is a good time it's a good time to go into i think so yeah because you know what we're talking about is and and i'm saying the comments you know well you know uh she does that to me well you do the same thing well uh he does that to me well you do the same thing they're they're having that dance right and and they're walking over the bridge but they're only getting halfway right and they've never been able to cross the bridge and successfully cross over the bridge because there's always something that's coming up you say something well you two you say something well what about this and digging up dead bones and you say something and so that fear issue um and why can't i make it across the bridge or you know one of the partners decide well i'm gonna try this and then somebody has a tendency to blow up and so now i don't feel safe there you go you know i tried to bring it up and you don't blew up and you you screaming and hollering and acting the food i'm just gonna shut down so both of them the blow up and the shutdown is the issue of of safety and fear so yeah i think uh and it goes so close together hand in hand is it's like what you were just saying you know where we don't feel safe uh and therefore we don't open up it's like a catch-22 right and because of fears we only go so far or maybe we get the response that um we didn't want to hear or it just kind of further digs into our past or pain or it's hurtful you know what i'm saying so i think we we um recognize when you say okay well you do the same thing when you try to become vulnerable and you try to open up and really what that's doing is preventing um the safe conversation you know what i'm saying because it's um not the right response per se and you're right about that like to go to your husband and start questioning his manhood and and you who are not a man saying a real man should do this and a real man should do that what you're doing is he's building a wall up because he has defenders he has to defend himself about being a real man yeah yeah he doesn't feel safe yeah and when you when you talk about being vulnerable it is are you willing to risk opening yourself up to what's really going on open are you willing to open your feelings up open yourself up are you willing to remove the bandage and show the womb are you willing to share with somebody a wound and are you willing to let them see the broken area are you willing to let them see the wounded area because you know for example i remember when i came here in chicago and i said i i believe that i suffer from and still suffer from rejection well i'm not gonna i struggle with that because i'm thinking like if i tell her that how how can that be used against me right and when you when you come to your husband and you say stuff like you ain't no man uh a real man ought to do that now what you're really saying is i would like for you to do that but then when you define it as manhood then a a man who is already broken in that area when he hears that he's got to either build a wall up or flight it's like fight or flight uh to do those kind of things so this fear dance you know i already see it through these questions okay just the just the questions and the comments people are making uh the only thing they're doing is setting themselves up for a fear dance so yeah i'm excited about what you want to share just start with the fear thing walk through it and then i'll just input as you go but that that's uh i think that's where we are we're at a really good point for that okay and i want y'all to really pay attention to this and we'll tie all this in to um safety vulnerability and real intimacy but i want to show you what we do if we don't mature enough to recognize that uh you know we're never making it across the bridge okay yeah and i think um just picking up where you left off really um and not sure how long we'll go in this but we'll try to cover as much as we can at least get to a complete thought this is our kind of first session doing this in a while so um [Music] just believe to get the answers and and pull and pray with us as we uh share in this space but um i think safety is so big and you can't talk about um fear without understanding um the opposite of it is is uh the need to feel safe and so um fear dance is the number one destroyer of relationships and those of you who may not be married or want to be married i mean it applies to uh any relationship in the family outside of marriage i mean you can be involved in the fear dance with your children um with your employer i mean it really uh once we get over into it you'll see okay i i recognize it and it's really where um there's the triggers and the buttons that are being pushed and touching on those sensitive spots um you know i hurt my back a while back and uh it was just difficult as i tried to go to the gym or do different things because it was sensitive and so even as we have physical sensitive spots in our bodies we also have emotional sensitive spots and when those things are touched on that's what really causes a reaction you know just like in the physical as does an emotional right so i think for us we we we are learning those sensitive spots and you know being married 34 years you're still learning all these different spots and stuff you know so um things that were very sensitive to you things that were sensitive to me and then we are learning how to react the right way yeah i mean they were they were sensitive but how in the world could we have ever dealt with it if we've never dealt with the safety issue right to be able to say that's sensitive not that hurts um that makes me sad uh but you know most people i guess they want to kind of like run away well you know it doesn't work yeah because i would often like flight you know like you said we fight a flight and so i would you know retreat or withdraw and that is not how you're dealing with things you know you're just avoiding it and it eventually is going to come back up again you know um and so when when we learn how to respond where we can understand what's going on well why do you feel that way or um and what if something were to happen or you know try to get to the root i you know the fear of of protection the fear of safety when we first got married and me going places and the experiences that you had in your family made you feel as if i wasn't safe and things that i experienced in my childhood i didn't feel safe so it was this fear dance where we were kind of um reacting to each other you know as it relates to certain things so my hurt um would trigger a reaction in you [Music] and then how you would react would trigger uh reaction in you right and it would just be this cycle the cycles yeah on and on and on and um how would you know because it would it would the the sensitive spots um that may that one partner may not even know i didn't know that was a sensitive spot and we're pulling the trigger the whole time but then when i don't it's amazing how this happens you might say something and pull my trigger now hurt people want to hurt people so i'm looking for something that might be sensitive so i can pull the same trigger in you right so what are we doing we're just we we're we're going through a cycle and when you get caught up in that cycle you don't even know you're caught up in that cycle no you because we don't even i didn't know that was a soft tender spot or trigger or trigger yeah that would trigger something in here it triggers me to say something that triggers you to say something that triggers me mm-hmm and on and on and on and on right that's good yeah that's really good and i don't know what it is it's like instead of us recognizing the cycle you know we keep trying to blame one another right well that's adam and eve did right yeah that's not that's that's exactly right yeah they're too deep but the fig leaf that they used to cover themselves up it was the same thing where they were blaming each other you blame god they blame um the serpent and all of that so a lot of times we we blame each other and we just revert back to what um the curse and where all this stuff started and it really started with the leaves they should if they if they would have remained naked they would have been able to accomplish a lot more than covering things up and and that's what we've done we we cover things up and then it's happening we get religious well the bible says you're supposed to do this and then you know when i always say is you're supposed to do that and it's like dude what happened to partnership what what happened to well i'm you know i'm i'm i'm so afraid of this gigantic word called submission even though it's in the bible because to me when i hear submission i hear slavery i hear devaluing because i had a mother who you know was submitted and was abused and devalued yeah and that's a man yeah and i'm afraid that you're trying to or if i do the same thing i'll end up being hurt as well and we have these experiences or uh images in the back of our mind of these words that you may even know that's what it means to me and you're thinking why so good are you just exploding over the most simplest words something that's in the bible but it's like that word means something different from me yes and when you say it that triggers me it triggers me and and and that is so true so there is no relationship without communication none and uh i think people try to have a relationship with our communication the same same thing true with god you don't have a relationship with god without communication uh and that communication is to identify those soft spots those tender spots is to identify the triggers that i didn't even know i was pulling i was pulling triggers in you i'm thinking i didn't know i was pulling triggers there right but once i talked about them with you you were able to help me heal and to say okay i didn't know that what i said make you feel this way i apologize or um that was not my intent um let's sit down and agree on what i mean and how it should be said so we can disagree but we can do it in a way where is you know doesn't make each other feel threatened or um so yeah fighting fear you're gonna have disagreements but it's a way to do it right and to understand that we can have um the most fulfilling relationships and that's kind of where i am i know this pandemic has slowed us down for sure but i just want everybody to realize that um so many times based on uh the generational things that we've seen or maybe um the hurts and things from the past that were based under the law based under the curse based on domination based on abuse and all those kinds of things that uh we understand that now that we're under grace uh we're made to have satisfying relationships um and that we can learn how to have better relationships and not to avoid each other avoid having relationships because for generations and centuries we've seen nothing but failure divorce um heartache disappointment and things like that but i i firmly believe that the more that we get rid of fear uh even just in our relationship with god it makes us so much more intimate with him and how much more intimate it can make us with our spouse and with one another explain how this whole fear dance and i think people will get it after a while you know how to recognize the triggers and being you know sensitive to those sensitive spots where a person there are some people who feel like you are responsible for my happiness that's true people do believe yeah people believe that you know uh you know i'm not happy and it's your fault and you're responsible for how i responded to you yeah you're responsible for that and and that's that's that was a that's a big revelation that i i'm not responsible for your happiness even though people told me i was you're not responsible for my happiness even people told you that you were and i've come to recognize wow that that's a big thing right there so when i'm not happy the first place i look is here like what is it about me and my life or what i'm covering up or what i haven't resolved or on my unwillingness to become vulnerable and to take a risk at this thing uh how does how does that work this issue of each individual in the marriage accepting responsibility for the happiness because i've seen and counseled so many married people who sit there through the whole session and say you know the reason why i'm not happy is because and then they the list that the person's doing the reason i have and then the list and i'm thinking you know i had this thing one day i'm not happy because of me because i'm i'm i'm i'm i'm broken and i won't deal with this and i i used my my cover to cover up all my wounds was religion scriptures let me let me get let me get a scripture blanket cover my wounds up because i'm afraid that if i don't cover him up i might be discovered and you might find out that i am not the man i've been portraying that i was and let me cover the wound up i'm not gonna let you see my wound i'm responsible for my happiness walking around miserable upset nobody likes me everybody hates me how could that how can the fear dance help deal with with that um it just sounds like um not to be so matter of fact but i'm just trying to be mindful of the time too and try to make our points as quickly as we can but i guess it goes back to the blame that we were talking about earlier um and the shame um that we want to just put off on on everybody else because it's easy for me to say you're the reason why i'm not happy and and um but i have to take responsibility for um doing the right thing so that when i respond to you and i take responsibility for what you express to me then hopefully to move us closer together and not um just pointing the finger at each other um for lack of a better word but yeah i just think that um responsibility is so important really big really big i mean accept a responsibility for responsibility your actions for really accepting responsibility for your brokenness your shame your guilt and here's the cool thing about it jesus is there to take all that from you but as long as you play the blame game i mean we go back to the garden of eden it's the first thing they did it is was they played the blame game even even when adam went so far as to say it's this woman you gave me and i and i think all the way up to where we are right now we're still playing the blame game and it's just easier i remember when we first got married and and i mean i mean i'm taking what 80 invitations a year and all over the place and uh i said you're the reason you're the reason why we we we have these arguments and i and i i think i thought i think about that later from that point on and that's when god uh through a very you know wonderful spiritual man told me he said you know how she treats you is none of your business your business is how you treat her and and i thought wait a minute i was i was i was i was making it her her business or i was blaming you for everything and it wasn't and i and that's that's what i i believe you're saying accept the responsibility first of all you know you determine how people treat you that's true you you determine how people treat you we teach people how to treat us we train them we do and i think the fact that there was a lot of performance based living early in our marriage and um just feeling like we had to perform to please god um to do all these things right 80 imitations a year 100 invitations a year um 20 services a week and all these kinds of things just crazy you know in order to be a good christian and to do what is um what we thought was required right so yeah i mean it's that whole performance that we got out of um instead of realizing the importance of us just being able to love each other as we are and receive each other based on um his grace and his gift and seeing each other based on grace you know and not out of fear and feeling as if we have to perform in order to be um according to you know what society says a wife should be or what a husband should be we didn't put all those rules and responsibilities um on ourselves now like we did back then um in just recognizing okay what i'm grace to do versus what your grace do what you're called to do versus what i'm called to do yeah and and those things believe it or not make a big difference um in creating safety too and just um getting rid of the fear the love the love factor that you mentioned for me has been the big big thing for me it's it's not i don't know i don't even know how to describe how married couples love each other but love for me was if she's asking for this and it's important to her for this marriage to work figure it out and some people are so i don't i don't have a word to describe what i'm what i'm saying it's like no i'm not gonna figure it out she needs to figure it out and you know that's why people in they they split up they leave one another because your your love should be strong enough at the end of the day to say all right maybe i'm not supposed to do this according to what now well man law or the norms and values of the world but what about according to love yeah i'm gonna do this according according to love you know i remember when my wife had lost the smile she'd get up early in the morning and she just had to smile and i noticed a smile wasn't there anymore and it became my number one priority i am gonna put the smile back on your face whatever i have to do i'm gonna put the smile back on your face because i accepted that that was i felt like that was something i did and there was something that i could you know repair now she may say something different accepting her part but i don't you know whatever she accepts fine but i took it upon myself to say listen man you know i'm gonna put that smile on on her face uh and it it's it's the number one thing and i think a lot of men they need to step up to the plate and be willing to do whatever you need to do and stop making excuses excuses are nothing but reasons for why you don't want to do it did you get that excuses are nothing but reasons for why you don't want to do it and i'm telling you especially you people who are getting married soon man you you better have that because if you don't have that if marriage is just uh something you're going to check off in your life and you don't have a real genuine love which says i love you so much that i'm willing to make the necessary adjustments for you not even knowing when you make those adjustments they're going to automatically make those adjustments as well so some of that stuff is still true and some of it still works uh the competition that you may have seen in marriage that's a big thing it's like you know how is it that there's competition in marriage and how was that competition created in marriage the questions that come in a person's mind may be about an emotional relationship you're having with another person that may be robbing your spouse of the intimacy that should be theirs only uh yeah we know there are lots of issues we can't cover them all but in this fear dance this cycle and for some cases staff has been going on in marriages and they don't even know it for 20 years and that can stop it can stop that can stop it sure can and we just believe that tonight will be the end where you'll start at least becoming aware of um maybe some of the triggers that you see occurring in your spouse and you can sit down and talk and say okay i think i might have triggered something in my or you realize okay that was a sensitive spot and i need to let you know that that's sensitive and we need to talk about it so you can help me to move forward and to pray with me over it and we can be healed and learn how to move on and let things go um and not avoid it or dance around it you know yeah uh you know i've learned from you that there's nothing that a woman can be that a man can't be either in other words you know you i can't say uh you know a woman is self-centered like a man can't be self-centered right i can't say a woman's dingy like a i mean i've met a lot of dingy men right you know and i'm learning not to uh do that to take and and marriages need to even if you're single and looking at being married no matter what the world is saying don't don't put don't put a man in a category uh alone or a woman in a category all alone because humans can be self-centered humans can be disrespectful humans can do all of that and i think what happens is when you see issues in one another ask why why does that issue exist yeah and most likely it's gonna be a issue of i don't feel safe i'm broken i don't feel like i can be vulnerable enough to tell you this hurts that's broken that's a real sensitive spot that's a trigger um and so what we do is while we're under the cover we try to produce real intimacy real intimacy let me go through this short list um some things that we can do uh is to learn our triggers um and i know like i said we've been married a long time and it may be you know people are really young and still kind of learning different things who are on with us tonight but you know that's something to think about is to uh learn and maybe think about what affected you when you were uh you know in your childhood or things that uh you vow to take into uh your adulthood that you would never allow your significant other or your spouse to do to you those inner vows and things like that so learn your triggers uh pay attention to just the negative self-talk maybe you know when you hear certain things um the enemy's always trying to feed into what's not being said yeah make the connections to the past like we said we can pretty much see the line from the different fears that trigger us to something that happened um in our past so make connections sit with the feeling um just sit with yourself i think sometimes before the pandemic we were just so busy we weren't able to really sit with um the things that we were feeling take control take responsibility over your part of the dynamic these are things by the way too are from uh gary smalley's book on dna of relationships uh the collaborative communication collaborate understand the reactions um and just between you and your partner get back on track and and try to collab make it a collaborative effort to listen to talk and things of that nature does it seem like that'll help yeah i mean you know discovering those triggers are are so important but i think a lot of times we gotta leave our we gotta leave our traditions of the past um you know sometimes people get so stuck on their past religious traditions about relationships they're not hearing you you know you're trying to say yeah i understand all that but you know we got to learn how to deal in a practical way why this isn't working while you talking in tongues why is this not working why you go to church all the time why this isn't working while you've memorized the whole bible why is this not working you know why you shake and jiggle and prophesy you know it's flying off the handle and just saying that some religious um excuse yeah and covering up well don't want to do it yeah hiding behind scriptures right hiding behind scriptures and then you know making a bible using the bible to uh stay covered up yeah using the bible is to stay covered up uh disrespecting context and just making the bible say what you wanted to say so that uh you can feel better about your brokenness and and god doesn't want you to feel better about your brokenness he wants you he wants you to let him deliver you from your brokenness and there are lots and lots of people and lots and lots of marriage that are broken marriages because you still have broken people and if if if each individual is not willing to confront their brokenness and uh confront their situations in life and confront what happened to you why is it that you're like this why is it that you like that um you know it's not going to get better it's not going to get any better and and what we're saying is during during this time uh this thing will be over with but how can you come out with some wisdom come out stronger right yeah can you come out stronger let's not come out divided let's not come out talking divorce let's not come out separated let's not come out with new husbands and new wives that you got to be introduced introducing everybody if if the issue comes up there's a way out and you don't always have to you know just give up on one another the deception is that we do we do think the grass is greener on the other side and that's not true i love what kenneth fuller says he says uh somebody told him the grass was green on the other side and when they got over there they found out they didn't tell them it was artificial turf that's right and i i used to be where it need to be mowed too but now that's good to have it you know grass needs to be mold which means you got there's there's a way what he's saying is it's fake yes fake because it it it's always perfect right it always stays the same it's not real but when it's real you got to mow it you got to trim you got fertilized you got to do the right kind of maintenance yeah yeah in order to to do what needs to be done and and i just don't think that uh people really you know marriage requires a decision on your part to do all the things that are necessary for to work and if you just kind of sit back and you're not willing to make any investments in it uh like i don't think it's a bad thing for people to go through to counseling sessions we have a therapist we go see uh to help work us work things out in our marriage where you know we're not communicating right or we've come to a point where i had to put this on the shelf i got to take it down i'm still not i think one of the healthiest things you can do is involve yourself in some kind of marriage counseling some kind of marriage therapy some kind of something uh it's it's it's kind of like what people do is um you know the plumber has to go and learn how to fix pipes lawyers got to go and learn how to you know practice law right but for some reason we think we can just get married and we're we're not even prepared for the marriage doesn't even have a chance it fails it starts failing day one because we don't take serious there's maybe there's some some um some education and some preparation and some maintenance that needs to be done in order for those marriages to produce successfully the way they need to to produce and and i and i think that um you know you know we we we really really enjoy i am enjoying it probably more now than before and i think this would be good to share but when your marriage is in trouble it's important for the man to show a willingness to do whatever he needs to to do to to to uh to work it out so if counseling and therapy is the thing the man most of the time i won't go see no counseling i don't want that nobody know my business uh-uh you're afraid that somebody's gonna move their cover and show the real reason why you're acting the way you're acting but it's important to a woman to see that you care that you care enough to want to go to a counseling that you care enough to want to deal with this situation and not just sit back and fight wanting to do anything about it you're just for your own fear just would let it all you know mess all up and then you think well it's good and i can go get another woman listen the first one didn't want you i know the second one ain't gonna want you you gotta you gotta wake up and smell the coffee dude listen the generations are so different right now you just ain't gonna match you better keep what you have and you better you better work it out most men that i talk to that are divorced most of them not all of them admit that they made a mistake and they should have stayed with that first wife and they also admitted that the problem was so small why didn't they just go to bed get up go to bed get up and and deal with what needed to be dealt with so we we don't want y'all to to leave one another we this marriage can work if you work it yeah to keep making mistakes right we're gonna make mistakes but yeah once we know more and we have um the commitment that we know is um necessary in order to go and make progress then go ahead and make the investment where you are now not to say that you look back in guilt and all those kinds of things but now look forward and figure out what you have to do in order to make progress you know what i'm saying because i think that's the thing is we don't have to settle for um how we just said well it was good enough for so and so and so so i don't need to change i don't need to do anything well was it really good enough because you know a lot of people came out of that wounded a lot of casualties and all kinds of um dysfunction malfunction and and brokenness yeah so now we can do things a lot better when we get the fear yeah and we work on the fear um and get you know start creating the love dance or the joy dance or the peace dance instead of continuously uh activating the fear dance well what would you say if somebody said something like uh and i saw one comment so i thought it was a good point um somebody to say well you know you need to love more and they say well you do too uh it goes it goes both ways um you have to be careful that's a dance too you know you're so busy dancing around the fact that you know what you just said just hurt me so i'm just going to say you too right you too and you don't accomplish anything you're still you're still in a cycle right and what has to happen somebody got to be willing to step out of the cycle and and say i don't think you're hearing me right i'm not you're not you're not listening to me well you two you too uh on youtube you two didn't get mad your mama too so you got everybody how you gotta die you know you throwing pots and pans at each other you know yeah you're not hearing me or if you are hearing me tell me how you're hearing me because i might be saying something you may be interpreting it based on a hurt or injury on the past and that's not what i mean when i say that and a lot of times we need to just learn how to communicate with one another sometimes we are not listening to hear what somebody's saying we're just listening to hear when you shut up so we can go ahead and say what we want to say this dance and the and the and the base of that whole deal is that fear that cycle that goes around and now i don't feel safe i don't feel safe well we got about three minutes left after you want to you know do a closing word listen we're gonna there's no way we can you know say everything but hopefully maybe we pulled a rescue trigger you know that hopefully you kind of reevaluate it and you get offline and you just ask this one question are there areas in you that you don't feel safe could you tell me where you don't feel safe right this may help too okay um a few things to do when your partner triggers you number one uh so you've been hurt something that your partner has done or didn't do or said or didn't say has brought about an uncomfortable emotion as soon as you recognize it the recommendation is to stop just like a stop sign um number two remind yourself that you're working towards having more self awareness being woke i guess as they said your goal is to respond not react working toward emotional maturity isn't that the truth that's so true we can put so much emphasis in financial yeah maturity and all other kinds of maturity but um think about emotional maturity and pray about that emotional maturity emotional maturity and part of emotional and maturity is learn learn how to control your emotions instead of being controlled by your emotions in fact immaturity can be based solely on how a person can controls or a lack of control where his emotions are concerned if you let your emotions take you there that is that is a huge huge statement huge emotional maturity which a lot of people just don't they they're not conscious and aware of it enough or the need to even focus on that or even to be aware of it we're just led by our feelings and in the moment yeah the heat of the moment and it's just well i speak it's uh that's big that's huge emotional emotional maturity because that's what the devil can get most people is like right up here and man if you can't figure out why that makes you angry or why that makes you sad and why how was he able to get into adam and eve's mind when he said god hadn't said that you eat that you won't die and and um when eve saw the fruit right and that was good tree to be desired to make her wise and they both ate of it right so even adam and eve um i'm sure there was some levels of uh immaturity oh yeah starting off with not doing what he first said you know all the trees of the garden yeah what they saw they wanted it and they you know yeah yeah appetizers yeah the appetizer that's a whole nother reaction responsibility yeah that's a whole nother thing it's like you know this is weird times and people are viewing relationships like really weird they get married with the understanding that i'm going to cheat on you because everybody cheats and it's like emotional immature emotional immaturity yeah and that's what that's with people who have been married for a long time or people who just got married um and who maybe have hurts from their past and they're just not in the position where they really are prepared to be married and need to be healed and whole first before you even get into a committed relationship like marriage yeah because you're just gonna hurt and bring all of that baggage into this next relationship oh absolutely and so absolutely because you know people you know they will declare well my marriage perfect we don't have none of those problems so you're going to go to help a line that's not even a marriage what are you talking about the marriage is the challenge that gives you the opportunity to change and the marriage is the challenge that changes you both you it's the it's the tool to help you mature in all of these other areas that's why it's such a blessing and and it's not going to do you any good walking around in deception or pretending like we don't have issues i mean when most of the time people come tapping that and you know they're kind of embarrassed because they're like spiritual people and and they you know and i'm thinking embarrassed man that's marriage bro that's marriage and this is nothing but an opportunity for you to change for the better right we all have the fear dance it's just part of um how relationships that are so intimate and so close and um relationships that are intimate i mean it's just not anything that couples in most instances are gonna experience i mean it's normal it is it's it really is i mean it's not abnormal what what what kind of marriage is it where there are no challenges to produce change and challenges are opportunities for great change both in our spiritual life as christians and you know when when somebody dogs you out or hurts you all of that is opportunity for you to determine am i gonna walk out of this with some wisdom and so we got to look at these challenges as opportunities to make wisdom deposits into our life and into our marriage uh but it's not the time to quit because you're you won't make the wisdom deposits and you know you know illustration i use about the the the mother encouraging the two-year-old to walk and the number of times that that two-year-old falls and stumbles he you know the they're not beating him up there's they're picking him up and encouraging him and walk and then you know when he's like i mean come on there's a certain age where he walks effortlessly and i think if christian people will learn how to stop running and hiding from the challenges of life in marriage there will be a day where what was once rough becomes effortless in its protocol and process and doing what needs to be done and uh you know tap and i about just just acting real i i'm i just i'm so fed up with just fake and phony in the body of christ and amongst people and um i really i really just think it's time for you to be okay with who you are and be okay with what you have be okay with with everything you have and quit judging relationships based on outer appearance and you know start looking for quality people people that make you happy people that you want to be with that you don't feel like you have to give an excuse for why you're with this type of person or that type of person because it doesn't fit somebody's idea of who they thought you should have should have been with and you know taff and i were com complete opposites and i'm just nobody there's nobody on the planet i can't see myself with nobody i mean something that would happen to her i might as well just gone because i ain't gonna be no good and it's just it's it's when you recognize that you fight to keep it yeah fight to maintain it and we still are opposites i tell people that because they laugh um but it's okay our opposites have attracted us to each other and glued us and we are strong in different areas because i don't want a man nobody like me well guys hey we gotta finish one more we got more something else yeah real quick um we finished talking about emotional maturity and so when those moments come up or when you feel like your partner uh is triggering you turn towards your partner might sound a little corny but hey it works and share that you've been triggered let them know what triggered you and the thoughts and feelings coming up for you around that trigger if you're unsure of what you are feeling ask for a few minutes to process what is coming up for you um of course that's an ideal situation right give your partner an opportunity to show up for you and the relationship yeah yeah yeah yeah say that again give your partner an opportunity to show up for you and the relationship i want to give creflo an opportunity to show up for me yeah in every uh time that fear starts knocking on the door or when i start reacting or responding a certain way and um give them the chance to validate your feelings and in turn thank them and validate them i love putting my superman cape on hey and most men do um take time out give yourself a few minutes to process what just happened uh using the conversation escalates quickly after the trigger so that's when you slow down sit with yourself identify what emotion is coming up think about uh why that emotion was triggered was that something maybe from your childhood something that reminded you of what you experienced before um identifying that and um what did that experience tell you about the world around you and who you are in this world share with your partner what you learned about yourself and together together together together together you can work towards finding ways to work through the triggers when it arises um and then acknowledge for yourself that you did it you did something different and that's when that fear dance uh starts going in reverse and you have a win-win and you realize that um you're on the road to emotional maturity and you're creating the love dance the joy dance peace dance all that good stuff so that's all we have for tonight well that ain't all we have for tonight but we gotta go [Laughter] time is out hey guys if you enjoyed this uh uh share this with uh somebody you know that may bless them and may help them hopefully we can leave this up for people too yes watch again um put it on other sites as well i mean we don't we don't know everything we just wanted to share with y'all out of love of some of the things that we do know and we want to make sure that we always kind of keep it transparent with you we don't ever want you to feel that you know we're not touched with what you're going through and what's happening in your life we do have a marriage seminar plan for 2021. yes and uh taff and i are going to be spending time with you guys a whole lot to make sure everybody's recovering properly and doing what they need to do we just installed a medical wellness center uh on property because we want to make sure that you know you're having some other opportunities to care for yourself physically we will open up lots of counseling and taff and i may be doing some counseling as well as other counselors and then of course we'll feed you spiritually so we want to make sure that you know when we come back together at church we have everything covered spirit soul and body so that you can take full advantage of doing what needs to be done what we're going to do is put the um diagram in um creflo's story is going to be a link to just kind of give you some of the uh steps that i went over tonight and things that you can take home and talk about with your spouse in your own relationship and uh just start having those conversations to start creating safety and uh going across the bridge and all the things that we talked about tonight so we're gonna go ahead and put that up in just a minute so you can uh avail yourself to it i'm a visual person so i believe that it can really bless your life but thank you well okay i will see you guys in the morning uh for our confession tomorrow's friday right that's right 10 a.m in the morning for our confessions and uh we're preparing for thanksgiving and you guys be very safe out there and uh taff and i love you let's pray over these marriages right now and those who get married those who've been divorced and those who all that you know so father we pray over relationships right now and we plead the blood of jesus over marriages we plead the blood of jesus over relationships period and we thank you that the power of god and the anointing of god resides over these relationships that they will walk in the emotional maturity their walk in wisdom and uh i declare that the anointing is removing every burden destroying yoke in their life and we just thank you lord thank you no more fear we thank you that they will learn how to be safe with one another vulnerable and experience real intimacy yes and finally walk across that bridge we give you praise holy spirit we trust you thank you we trust you that you will get so involved in their relationship that you will show them that they need the holy spirit and the holy spirit will take away they all their old old want to's and replace it with new want to's and to have to not just agree that you are perfecting every marriage you're perfecting those are engaged to be married you're perfecting him those who realize where they went wrong and will be married again one day and so father we give you praise i pray this was a blessing yes i pray that it helps somebody somewhere for truly that was our only motive and intent and we thank you for that right now and we love you god and we thank you for breakthrough in jesus name jesus name amen good night everybody god bless you

Channel: Creflo Dollar Ministries

Views: 46,303

Rating: 4.942564 out of 5

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Id: fbi45V5_Ssc

Length: 71min 0sec (4260 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 19 2020