How to Intentionally Listen: Kevin and Marcia Myers

About 10 years in, we figured it out, and we wrote Fair Fight Rules.

Now, we were learning them all along. But I'll give you the first, just the beginning of the principle. When you're under pressure and you have conflict, you want to be heard. The objective is not to be heard, but to hear. So my job is to listen.

And our rule is, I have not listened until she says I have. Welcome to Family Life Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Shelby Abbott, and your hosts are Dave and Ann Wilson. You can find us at familylifetoday.com. This is Family Life Today. So I remember sitting at the Family Life Weekend to Remember marriage getaway two weeks before our wedding.

Yes. Which it was a phenomenal weekend. In fact, I got to say this, you know, before we jump in, if you want to go to a Family Life Weekend to Remember, sign up right now because it's half off.

Yeah, they're happening right now. We paid full price in 1980. And you can get half off.

Yeah. And you can do that at familylifetoday.com. I'm telling you, it'll literally change your marriage. But we were sitting there engaged two weeks from that Saturday. We're going to be getting married. And I'll never forget, Dennis Rainey was on the stage and, you know, at the time president and founder of Family Life. And he said something like this.

And I know exactly because it's in the manual and we now teach it. But he says, conflict is common to all marriages. And what did you think? All marriages go through. Oh, what do you think? I mean, we're sitting there before we're getting married and we both thought, not our marriage. I really thought there has been no one on the entire planet that has loved and love each other the way we do.

No one. And I think every couple thinks that. Like, nothing compares to our love for one another. I remember sitting around watching all these couples take notes.

We didn't take any notes. We're like, I just remember thinking they don't love Jesus like we do. They obviously don't love each other like we do.

They're not going into full time ministry the way we are. Yeah. Yeah. And then we got married. We did. Was it a week? No, I was like, we had a great first five months. We did? Yeah.

Okay. So we'll tell you five months later. But I mean, there were struggles, but we were fighting daily, if not hourly within five months. And I think many marriages experience that. So we got to talk about that. Well, I think too, Dave, I think a lot of couples get into marriage thinking it's going to be great and they don't have a handle on how to deal with conflict.

We didn't. And that's what we learned at the weekend to remember marriage getaway. Yeah, we actually pulled that manual out later. And we're going to get some help on conflict today. Yeah, we got Kevin and Marsha Myers back in the studio with us. They wrote a book called The Second Happy, which is you talk about a great title for a marriage book. It's like there's another happy available to us. You know, we had the first happy, right? Right.

And we have a second. But anyway, welcome back to Family Life Today. You know, it is interesting.

A lot of people in the church tend to think the pastor's marriages are just wonderful. You're like us. We've said from the stage, we have problems. We struggle. And they still sort of walk up to you like, yeah, you know, we have a little problem, but nothing like ours. Like you have conflict, but nothing like our conflict. And one of the things you talk about in your book is how to do conflict well. So let's talk about that.

Because we were so good at it from the beginning. We could have taught the conference you attended, but we weren't invited. Yeah, you were.

So far from the truth. Well, it's interesting because earlier you've already talked about that, Marsha, you kind of shut down a little more in conflict. Yes.

And then Kevin, I'm guessing that you're coming in there like pretty. I'm afraid so. Yeah. But you're not afraid to deal with conflict. No. So I'm guessing that created some conflict. You are so discerning.

Yes, exactly. So how did that go for you guys? How did you guys fight? Or how do you guys fight? Poorly then.

As Dan said, yeah, he mostly was on the attack. And it's not that I can hold my own, but in my own way. So as I said before, I'm stubborn and also the silent treatment kind of thing, you know, where then I'm going to ignore you. Oh, no. Dave would do that to me.

And Kevin, that like spurs on this, no, we're going there. You're probably much better and more mature than I was. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. You give me the silent treatment and that's a challenge. I will steamroll you and then I'll back up. And my best attack, I'll have to say, but not really godly, was on Sunday mornings when he was preaching. Oh, no.

Just having like looking at him and staring at him like with the arms folded. You did this Dave, come on now. You're in the service. I did this too.

There you go. One time I sat in the back row and I looked at him like, I don't even like the pastor of this church. And she told me that when I got home. So you're up there preaching and you're in a conflict. And this is the part people don't understand when they say, well, your marriage must be fine. Listen, we have learned how to look better than we live. And a lot of people have that art. And that's almost part of the pressure in pastoring, but let's not pretend it's limited to that.

People know how to come to church and look better than they live. And so gunny sacking conflict or pushing it to the side or just volcanically, which mine would be more volcanic. Me too. I would get pushed to rage and I'm going to be verbally aggressive. Get it off my chest simultaneously. You ought to listen and perhaps agree with me. So my conflict resolution style was, I'm right. Listen, and you'll discover that. Agree with me and we've resolved conflict.

And for some reason, I know people listening can't understand what I'm talking about because no couple has ever done this. But I couldn't understand. I just say to her, you know, people will come and counsel with me. They want my advice. They want my advice and you dismiss it. Isn't that a clue to you? Because I am smart and godly.

And wise and discerning and they love me and I don't know what's wrong with you. So what have you learned about conflict? Probably the most helpful thing. I don't know.

I'm overstating perhaps. One of the most. The most used thing by other people that they say has helped them the most is the fair fight rules.

How good. About 10 years in, we figured it out and we wrote fair fight rules. Now we were learning them all along. But I'll give you the first, just the beginning of the principle. When you're under pressure and you have conflict, you want to be heard. And so what's understandably broken all of us is that you think communication requires you being heard. And that conflict resolution begins with them hearing you. And the difficulty is once you've been heard, you're emotionally done. And that's the beginning of real communication and conflict resolution.

The objective is not to be heard, but to hear. That has been said through scripture. That has been said in leadership circles. That's been said at marriage conferences. This is easy to say.

It's incredibly complex to do. I'm thinking of James 1, that we should be quick to listen. And do you know what we do? We take scriptures like that and we read them to our spouse. The whole point of it was for you to take that in. But I would read it and say, Marcia, be quick to listen. Slow to speak and slow to anger.

Honey, that's what's broke right here. So everybody has that challenge on one side or the other. So we set up what we call rules, fair fights. You watch them, boxing, you know, whatever fighting style you prefer that's in the legal realm. They set a time.

They've got rules. We have pre-fight set up and then we have fair fight rules. And it's three phases. So it's communication and that's four rounds. It's compromise and that's four rounds and if necessary, counseling four rounds. It's not overly complicated, but if you don't know how to resolve conflict, you have to be mechanical before you're emotional or you'll never build the capacity to resolve it. And that's what's hard.

You get emotional because this is intense and this is a person who's supposed to love you and you don't feel loved. You feel rejected or dismissed or unheard or you don't understand, you don't care. So the first segment of communication and it's because she's already said I'm forceful and I am.

So I talk too much and I know it and she talks too little and she knows it. Now listen, if you're a couple and you're listening to this, part of communication is being honest with who you are. And you're really, you're looking at your differences and now you're honoring them. Like you're just different than I am and that's okay.

God's made you a certain way. And we all have things that have happened in our past that create some wounds that maybe shut us down or make us loud. So I think that's a good thing to note and it's okay. So for us then the rules and had to be under communication, four rounds. First round is she speaks, I listen and you can say nothing.

She always speaks first, no matter who calls the fair fight. So if we want to fight on something, we've got conflict. Somebody has to call a fair fight, they have to explain it in about 60 seconds what it is.

We set a date and a time. Okay, give us an example. Show us.

Coming home late. So what would you say? Kevin, I want to have a fight. And you would be like, what? And I would be like, yeah.

I like how you do him, what? Pretty accurate. Honestly, almost always, whoever calls for the fair fight, the other one does not want to do it. But because it's in the rules, we will.

We obey the rules. So you say, I want to have a fair fight. The one who wants the fight has to declare what it is. So I would say, you're always coming home late. I have the dinner made and we're waiting for you. I have children, they need to eat, we need to work this out.

And then we say, okay, instead of going into the fight right then, we decide when we want to fight. That's really important. I cannot respond. That's one of the rules. I don't legitimize or dismiss her request. I even try not to roll my eyes.

Oh, that's good because body language tells a lot. And so we have to get out the calendar and decide when are we going to fight. I mean, do you try to do it soon instead of wait a week or wait a day?

Yes, but if calendars are heavy and kids' activities, the kids have to be to bed for us at that season of time. We have to be emotionally capable to engage. Sometimes it's days down the road. It has to be concentrated time. One of the things that would be good about this is you have time to pray. Now, you could go one of two ways.

I used to build my case in that time. Like, I'm going to say this and he's going to say this, but I'm going to win because I'm going to do this. But what I've learned, and I'm sure you guys too, that gives you time like, Lord, check my heart. How should I say this?

How should I bring it up? Is there anything I'm missing? So I like that it gives you a little time. That's good. And it requires that of you. And if you follow Christ, the Holy Spirit's going to do that whether you're asking Him to or not.

That's just who He is. Now, is it hard to not go into it right there? Because if Marsha, I mean, Marsha used a word that we say at Family Life. Always never. Don't use always.

So if Ann would say, you're always late, we can talk about this tomorrow. But I'm not always. So do you find yourself like, I have to exercise self-control? I do want to do it right now.

And it's not going to go well if I do it right now. So you learn, you practice, you build a habit. That's mechanical versus emotional.

You have to walk the mechanical process. Not emotional. That's what makes it nearly impossible to resolve conflict. Because when you express your emotions, you are rarely loving. Love is a discipline.

It's not an emotion. To value someone is a discipline. It's a choice you make.

And so I have surrendered that we are one. And therefore, I care about this because she cares about this. And therefore, she gets to call the fight.

We set the time. She starts. Even if I call the fight, she starts.

Wait, wait, wait. Why does she start? She always starts because I'm too forceful. Oh, so it's a choice in your marriage.

I truly am. In our marriage, we don't think it's true for everybody. But here's what we've discovered.

I cannot start without me solving it while I start. And I have got to learn to shut up, and she's got to learn to speak up. We're not going to build resolved conflict, authentic love, true companionship, and intimacy if we don't learn to communicate.

And solving conflict is at the heart of communication. I really like that it's a good conversation of who would start. I'm thinking about that for us. I'm sure people are listening thinking, hmm, who would start in our relationship? I think you would start. I'm glad you think that. Because I was thinking the same thing.

Congratulations. Okay, so now when you come to the actual fight, walk us through it. So, like you said, I would go first no matter what.

I don't understand how you would do that. So, if you have an issue, Kevin, you've already stated what it's about, how would Marcia start it if she doesn't really know everything? Nine times out of ten, if you have a conflict in your relationship, you both know it, and you both have a different perspective.

So, when I call for a fight and I say, I want to talk about finances, I want to talk about your spending. Oh, maybe you would know what to say then. She immediately has an opinion. I want to talk about our parenting of Julissa, our daughter, our second child.

And I have to say something about that. So, I say, I think we're over disciplining her on this, or I think we're not addressing this, or I think we're over investing in this, or this is frustrating me. It seems like you're dismissing me. So, you've given her enough.

So, I've given her a statement, but I can't go into. There's a difference between giving context and trying to win. So, I have to give context. We already know this is not, oh, we don't know we have conflict. Yeah. Yeah, we know we have conflict.

Yeah. So, even though you brought it up, she's still going to start. That's how we've done it. And then after the first person gives their perspective, the other person, instead of just automatically rebutting, has to tell you back what they said. So, my job is to listen. And our rule is I have not listened until she says I have.

We have literally had fights where it took an hour for us to do round one, for her to speak and me to listen until she said, you have heard me head and heart. You have said what I've said and you said it with the right heart. So, you restate back and you say, here's what I'm hearing. And you go, no, no, no, no, that's not what I'm saying. That's it.

Until you get to, yep, you've heard me and you understand me. Yep. Yes.

Now you can go to the next round. Right. That process, however long it takes in the early stages of learning how to communicate, always shaves some of the rough edges off from a guy like me. Mm-hmm. From anyone.

Whatever has this dynamic in them. The Holy Spirit will soften your edges because we can't go on. Now, it's at that moment that you just want to be able to say, well, there you go.

You can't. And I want to just run. Yeah. And when you quit on communication and you let conflict reign in your relationship, you're going to be alone, but you chose it. This is hard work. We've been doing this for a lot of years, so we don't have to do it with the mechanics that we're talking about right now, but we did for some years. Right. Yeah. So then it's my turn.

So once she says, I've heard you, well, she sometimes has to write her thoughts out to bring them. I don't have to write mine out. I have them in my head. Yeah. Let's go.

I'm ready. Yeah. But it's a good idea sometimes, probably, to write it out. Oh, yeah.

Oh, it's very helpful. Yes. Yeah.

Yeah. So then I get to share my perspective and she has to respond until I say she's understood me, head and heart. And when you have walked through those four, if you will, rounds, you have accomplished communication. Everybody wants to solve a problem before they understand the problem. And so it's often broke because you want to compromise before you communicate. My job is not to say, all right, here's what I think the problem is and here's what we do.

No. Would you like to do that? Every single time. In fact, sometimes I start with, here's what we should do and here's why. I start with the solution. So this discipline of communication before you find a solution. So the phase two is four rounds of compromise and she has to give a solution and then I make sure that I understand and then I give a solution and then we negotiate until we find one. And it does kind of help you understand the other person too, as you're doing it.

As something you wouldn't have thought of. I'm not Kevin and he's not Marsha. You go, oh, well that's how he thinks. And now you understand how he thinks so that the next time you have a conflict, you have that piece of, oh, he usually thinks this way. So maybe the conflict isn't what I think it is. You kind of mix the two. And the beauty is you're really getting to know each other, exactly what you're saying, Marsha. You're understanding one another so much better.

And you asked her at the beginning to give an example of a fight. Let's play this out for people. Remember, you're always home late.

Let's take them to our compromise. So after we went through the rounds of communication and then we went to compromise, he of course made his points of the fact that sometimes he has to go, he's a pastor. He has appointments or something, an emergency crops up.

He can't help that. But there are other times when he just needs to finish something and wants to do it and wants to get it done. So we decided that we would set a specific time for dinner and that he promised he would be home. So I agreed with her.

I said, I agree with you. You make a meal. We're trying to build family. We're in the season of building family. And we said, we value family above the work I do. And I'm valuing my work above our family because we have a very small slot in which to engage in family togetherness. And it's between 5.30 and 7.

And I'm blowing it. So I will get up earlier. I'll get these section of things done for an hour or two at work alone in the office. So that by the time I get to the end of the day, I have margin.

And I'll be home at 5.30 and you can count on me. Now, if I'm not, it's because there's an emergency I'll call, but I'm going to move it from the exception to the rule and vice versa, which means as a rule, I was late and I made that an exception. That honors her. That requires change for me. That puts our family in the place of valuing that we both said it had. And it literally changed the way I do my calendar in life. It changed the way I think.

And I felt like when he was late, there was a good reason. So it didn't create the same conflict or exasperation that it would have. When you solve conflict, you also solve future conflict. When you actually resolve conflict, you set up a marriage where you have less and less conflict over time because you literally build the mutual honoring, mutual understanding and mutual grace. So we have all sorts of grace because we know the other person is committed to one another. Yeah.

And I love the concept you've developed of mechanical before emotional, because we often get in a fight and I've done this like, forget the mechanical. We need to just, and it's like, no, no, no, you can't forget that. That is critical. It's like, obviously as a guy that played football and was around the NFL forever, there's out of bounds.

And when you step out of bounds, the play's over. It's like there are rules, mechanical, and they help you get to compromise. They help you get to resolution. And as you said so well, that helps you in the future. I mean, I'm thinking of a couple right now that's not been able to fight well. You have just given them tools to help them fight well. And if you forget, listen to this again, better yet, get the book, the second happy, read through the chapters together and say, let's implement this in our marriage.

I think it'll take us to a whole nother place because conflicts every day, it's part of every relationship, every church, every team, every business, every family. And we don't get any training on how to do it well. And today's been a training session on how to do it well.

Thank you. That's been awesome. You know, not many of us have probably ever had someone say, Hey, want to get some help on how to argue better? We might hear that and be like, uh, that's weird, but yes, actually help me fight well in my marriage. Well, the help has been delivered today and Dave just helped us to see the gift that we've received. I'm Shelby Abbott and you've been listening to Dave and Ann Wilson with Kevin and Marsha Myers on family life today. Kevin and Marsha written a book called the second happy seven practices to make your marriage better than your honeymoon.

Now they're going to go through a lot of what we talked about today in that book, help you disagree well, help you to remove pretense from your relationship, pick fair fights, all that kind of great stuff. You can go online to family life today.com get your copy by clicking on the today's resources link or you can get the link in the show notes or you can give us a call. Our number is 800-358-6329 again. That number is 800 F as in family L as in life and then the word today and feel free to drop us something in the mail if you'd like to.

Our address is family life, 100 Lake heart drive, Orlando, Florida, three two eight three two. You know, we've been talking about marriages a lot today, so I have a question for you. How would you honestly rate your marriage on a scale from one to 10? That number may, it really might scare you or it might make you excited, but regardless of where you're at, I want to encourage you to check out family life's weekend to remember marriage getaway. Here's what a wife of 27 years said about her experience at weekend to remember.

She said this, I found my best friend again, just getting away together and focusing only on us is just what we needed. The sessions were timed perfectly ordered intentionally and I feel a new hope going home. Isn't that incredible? Just to hear how God transformed that marriage in one short weekend.

Well, we've been doing this for the last 40 years and we've seen so many marriages impacted for the glory of God and the health of relationships and we want to see that for you too. So now through January 22nd registrations are half off. That's right. 50% off.

You could visit weekend to remember.com, find a date and a location that works for you and save 50% off and I really honestly believe it's going to be worth it. Why? Because your marriage is worth it.

Check that out. Now tomorrow, Kevin and Marsha Myers are going to be back with David and Wilson to discuss the challenges and baggage in marriage. We all bring baggage in, so they're going to talk about it. We hope you'll join us on behalf of David and Wilson. I'm Shelby Abbott. We'll see you back next time for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a donor supported production of Family Life, a crew ministry helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.