Ken spends a lot of time away from home working on the pipeline in Alaska, but our podcast has become his lifeline. Focus on the family has helped my marriage by leaps and bounds. You give us so much meat and potatoes to think about. It just keeps us grounded, keeps me grounded.
I'm Jim Daly. Together we can bring real hope to marriages like Ken's. Give today at FocusOnTheFamily.com slash Real Families. God has given us some amazing tools to help us to be successful at work and as a protector, as a provider within our family, and we need to celebrate those. Those are important tools.
And so we're not asking men and suggesting, well, you need to change. What we're encouraging them to do is just to add some other tools into their already full toolbox that will help them within their marriage, within their family as they deal with relationships. We just noticed there's some tools that can really, really help. That's Dr. Greg Smalley describing how we as men can learn to communicate more effectively.
And the good news is it's a lot easier than you may think. Greg and his brother Michael are back with us today on Focus on the Family. Your host is Focus President and author Jim Daly, and I'm John Fuller. John, last time we had a great conversation with Michael and Greg exploring how much we men love our toolboxes. And the question is, do you have the right tools in the toolbox for relationship?
And typically the answer is going to be maybe not all of them. And we covered the fact that we're pretty good at data collection, problem solving, those things that at one point are helpful, but at another point may frustrate your wives terribly. And today we're going to equip you with some additional tools, building on the conversation last time, to help you in your marriage communication.
That's the basic idea here. If you missed it last time, get the smartphone app, get the download, go to the website and listen to the program last time. And it's going to be fun to once again talk with Michael and Greg about both our strengths and our deficits as men. And a lot of the content is from the book they wrote with their father, the late Gary Smalley. It's called Men's Relational Toolbox, and we do have copies of that here at Focus on the Family.
Click the link in the episode notes or call 800 the letter A in the word family. Greg and Michael, welcome back to Focus. Thank you so much. Thank you for having us.
Good to have you. And let's just quickly get a little more depth on that review. And last time we did talk about those tools that again, the 80-20 rule applies. About 80 percent of men are going to possess these and 20 percent have different tools that they're born with. They are God given, I would say.
But review those for us, Greg. What were those basic things that most of us men possess? Yeah, I think God has gifted us in so many ways to be successful as a provider, to be successful as a protector. Like I was with my my youngest daughter. She's 13 and it snowed here in Colorado. So we're out shoveling and I could see in our next door neighbor some tire tracks because he gets up at like five thirty every morning and drives far to be at his place of business to provide for his family. And so we went over and shoveled his driveway because I was trying to teach Annie going, look, isn't that cool? Look, he's getting up that early to provide for his family.
What an amazing gift. And that's what God has equipped him to do. So he's able to get up that early and drive and do all that, because, again, those are strengths that we possess. We possess things like being good at it, hearing the facts and in in pursuing details to figure out how we need to solve something. And we have a competitiveness and can do tasks. All those are our amazing tools that help us to be successful as that provider, as that protector. And we need to embrace those and celebrate those.
And that's a great thing. And all we're encouraging guys to do is to recognize those same tools that help you to be successful at work. Probably you're going to need to use a different tool. So it's not that those are bad tools that you've been equipped with. But what would it look like to develop some of these other tools that will help you be just as successful with those as you're talking?
What are the six that you highlight? Well, I mean, for me, I would say the biggest takeaway from Greg's precious story is for you, Jim, that clearly Greg does not put a lot of time into his job here. He can shovel everybody's yard. And so I'm just throwing it out there. Just a green light idea.
It would be easy to replace him with another smallie. You could call me Greg. I don't even care. But to those six that you point out in the book, just for the listeners, say what they are.
Yeah, there's one called the open sharing tool. So this is recognizing that that we need to be known. Our wives so crave to know what's going on on the inside. So when we answer, no, I'm fine, they want more.
And so really developing that skill, the patient listening to learning how to really to feel with to empathize with our wife and our kids. You know how scary that sounds? I know.
I know. But it's such a cool example in the Bible when Jesus got to Lazarus's family. So Lazarus had died in equipped with the natural tool to problem solve.
Jesus shows up in, you know, he's going to ultimately raise Lazarus from the dead, which is the greatest problem solving way ever. And yet I love what he models that when you got to that family, Jesus wept. He cried with them. He empathized. He felt what it was like, even though he knew what he was going to do, why he didn't say, hey, everybody, it's me. I'm here, Jesus.
Just relax. But he took the time because people don't care what you know until they know that you care. That's my favorite Teddy Roosevelt quote. Yeah, no, and it's good. And, you know, when you think of the selfless honor tool, one of the most painful things I had to learn in July of 2019.
So this is fairly recently. You'll never be as good as your older brother. Well, I didn't even have to learn that.
I lived it. But this selfless honor, I want to encourage men, I genuinely believed that I'd been asked a question when our marriage hit, just a real critical crisis thing, and it just flat out got toxic. Someone asked me that, you know, how have you done this? And my answer was kind of always the same of, well, I claim to love Jesus, so I need to lay down my life and walk the extra mile and love people when they're being difficult and blah, blah, blah. And my first coach to really help me in this time of crisis, he goes, would you mind if I pushed back on that? And I thought, you're going to push back on me wanting to be like Jesus.
I'm in, you know, what's going on? He goes, I don't know if you've been doing those things to actually be selfless. Sounds like you've been doing a lot of those things to avoid pain. And I mean, I wept. It was like a Holy Spirit weeping. It was so convicting that I thought I was being selfless. I thought I was doing and trying to be like Christ. And then all of a sudden I have to recognize that, no, I may have looked selfless.
I may have even sounded selfless, but the heart behind those things, those behaviors towards my wife were really selfish and were really motivated to avoid pain. What a gift to be able to recognize that, though, seriously, to see that and kind of wrap your mind around that. Yeah, it's a great challenge from a friend.
It is. And it's painful to do that. But I just want to encourage guys, like we really do.
It is about our heart. So you can learn these tools, right? You can do the time and energy tool, the tender touch tool. These are wonderful tools. But if you're not constantly aware of your heart and what's behind this. Right. I used to offer early on in our marriage.
This is humiliating to even share and I can't believe I'm about to do it, but I'll do it. So I used to I was at one point going to be a masseuse. Like I wanted to be a massage therapist.
Right. So I'm actually never knew that I'm gifted learning that massage. And so because I learned and I used to massage, you know, offer massages for my wife. Well, the problem is every time I go, hey, would you like a massage? Really, what I was wanting was sex. My wife finally lovingly kind of called me out going, hey, look, it kind of feels like when you offer to give me a massage, what you're really wanting is sex.
And I just knew instantly. And I wasn't necessarily trying to be manipulative or but it was it was true. She called me out and I went, yeah, that's probably fair. She goes, I think I would love to be able to have a massage just for a massage. Those are some of those difficult conversations that the two of you have to be willing. You've got to be honest, but you need to do that out of care and concern for the person. Right.
Not to punish. And so what we finally figured out because she was willing to kind of call me out on it. We figured out that I could now go, would you like a sport massage or a sexy massage? Well, you know, that's so true. And I think all of us, if we're open and truthful, we do those things, even the minor manipulations.
You may engage in talking more at that bedtime moment. And your wife is really quick to put two and two together. I mean, we think we're out foxing them, but they get it. They get it. And it is good to be able to delineate. Let me go back for a second to the first two tools that are essentially talking and listening.
That's what we're getting at. I mean, is there anything that we need to know further about that struggle that we have to do these well? How do we mentally say, OK, tonight, I'm really going to engage my wife with listening and with talking? Do you have to set time up to do that, Greg?
How do you start a discipline to be able to do that better? Yeah, the research actually shows that spending about 10 to 15 minutes a day exploring the inner life versus, you know, talking about tasks and to do lists and who's going to do what tomorrow makes such a big difference. So when when instead of trying to have a business meeting with Aaron, which is easy for me to do, I'm good at that. Again, that's one of those natural tools to come up with some questions that I can ask her. And I asked her this one time.
So if I need to explore your inner life, 10 to 15 minutes a day, what would I ask you? Because I was clueless. I was like, I don't know. And it was so good for her instantly.
There was no pause. She said, why four? And I went, well, guy, do you want to pray about it or think about it? She has.
Yeah. She's like, I'll come up with 10 to 15. How many do you want?
And so I'll take four. And she just said, if you were to ask me on a daily basis, how am I feeling? So what's going on emotionally? How are things going relationally between me and the kids? How are things going between me and my girlfriend?
So friendships are very important to her. And then what's one thing God's been teaching you as of late? And so I'm telling you, I have those are so deeply rooted in my brain now that when we have some time, maybe over coffee in the morning or laying in bed, you know, after the massage that Michael is talking about, you know, those that's a time when when we can ask those questions. So ask your wife, explore that. What what could I ask you that would help me understand better who you are on the inside? And I guarantee most women instantly will have a question or two and then just be committed to exploring that, asking that.
And that's that's really helped me to learn how to just be that that patient listener with her. Well, and by the way, don't be embarrassed. It is not a failure of anything to have to find questions. We have questions in the book. It's OK to have conversation starters.
That's the number one thing that couples requested at this big survey of all of our people at small institute dot com. And they just their number one thing they wanted were conversation starters. It's not a bad sign that you don't know what to talk about.
I mean, you don't really learn that growing up and with guy guy friendships and you're out hunting. We know we're going to talk about killing things and the weather and, you know, going killing things and killing. We kind of repeat the loop in sports.
Let's not forget sports. And so don't be afraid to utilize questions that are already there and that you can find. Just Google, you know, conversation starters or even Google deep questions to ask your spouse or I actually know focus at your website. You have a ton of those kinds of things that it's OK to print that out, put it on your phone, go out to dinner and then look.
And I'm telling my wife and I've actually had a lot of fun doing that because I've I've got a bunch on our website, too, and a lot of them are just fun. It's like what? You know, if you could be any Marvel character, which one would you be? And it sounds like a silly question. Now, I am a Marvel fanatic, so everyone just back off.
There will be no negativity. Yeah, right. So, you know, but it really can lead to a deeper understanding of your spouse, even with some of the goofier questions. So that's where I feel bad for people sometimes is they they sort of belittle themselves going, well, we shouldn't need this. It's like, what are you talking about? If you don't already know and you weren't born naturally gifted at something like my brother, is it everything?
We need to learn. And so pull, you know, having resources, printing them out, pulling them up on a phone. Those are wonderful ways to utilize these tools we're talking about. This is Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. And today we're talking about some of the concepts in the book Men's Relational Toolbox, written by Dr. Greg Smalley, Dr. Michael Smalley and their father, the late Gary Smalley. And we do have copies of that here. We'll encourage you to get one when you call 800 a family or click the link in the episode notes. Greg, let's go into the win win tool. What is it?
It sounds good. Everybody's a winner. But what is the win win tool? Yeah, it's really recognizing that there has to be room for both people inside the marriage. And that took me a long time to really fully understand it. When Erin and I would have to make a decision around something or we're trying to discuss something, I was always prepared to defend my ideas, why I thought the way I think the solution lay out.
And it was so good that sometimes it was I can't remember who told me that, but it's kind of like Michael, your experience when that coach kind of encourage you to think through the motivation. Someone said, you know what, when you and Erin tend to get into these discussions, it seems like all you do is advocate for your side and then she'll do the same thing. And then maybe you guys will agree on something. And he just said there has to be room for both.
Both have to matter. And that's really the basis of this idea of a win win. Just recognizing that this isn't competitive between Erin and I. She's never my adversary. We have an enemy and he wants to kill, steal and destroy our unity, our oneness.
And so we have to learn how to protect that as we go into making decisions. I say that to myself. Erin matters. Well, an easy example is the lights in our home is one of our biggest irritations between the two of us, because I'm one of those people that I probably would never, ever turn a light on. You know, I'm like, there's plenty of natural lights or what are you hiding? I know. I hate pain thinking in my mind that I'm pain, especially if there's no one in a particular room. Why do we have to have every lamp?
Every conceivable there goes another nickel. But I had to realize that Erin matters, too. And if she wants lamps on in her home, even though no one's there, that that needs to matter to me. That's important. And I told her and I said, you know what?
I'm done arguing about this. It sounds like this is super important to you in that matters to me. And so I think that's the sort of attitude.
Now, people are going to do, obviously, with much greater, you know, issues than a long do we live on or not? What I would add, though, to the win win tool, and this is something, again, that I've had to really learn and just come to embrace. There's also a term called compromise to win. And we got to stop looking at compromising as someone's losing. It's no, I might compromise so I can get to the win.
It's not a dirty thing. And by the way, and I don't know how all of your marriages are, but my wife and I could not be more different. I mean, really stark differences between the two of us. So the reality of us ever like consistently landing on a win win is impossible. That's just not going to happen. We have we took this assessment that says how many perpetual problems you have. Oh, my. I mean, it was like discouraging. Had like 48 perpetual problems. At least you have those two. Oh, my heavens.
And, you know, it was like, wow. And so one of the things we've had to learn is it's OK to disagree and it's OK to compromise to win. And how does that work, though? Because it feels like the compromise does necessarily mean somebody isn't going to be happy in this equation. It's a matter of mindset.
Right. But kind of talking about Greg with the lights going, recognizing that, hey, it's not just about me. One of the things I like to say to husbands, especially going, man, the dumbest thing you ever did was get married. And they're like, wait, but we're at a marriage intensive. I thought you're supposed to be helping my.
Well, apparently you want the world to revolve around you. And unfortunately, when we choose to get married, that's over. It's not about me anymore. It's about this woman I've married. And so now she her needs are more important than mine. Right. Her life is more important than mine.
My whole job is to lay down my life and serve her. That's the biggest part of being a leader as a man, which means that I've got to allow lights to be left on. Now, I've seen Greg at night. I think he is right.
It's just better for it to be darker with Greg around. But, you know, myself goes. So I would encourage a man, John, don't think of it as, oh, I'm losing something. Oh, no, you're winning. You're getting to serve your wife. You're getting to be more like Christ. You're getting to lay down your life. You're getting to be selfless and sacrificial.
And that's the greatest win of all. Well, in fact, you had a story in the book about, I think, a guy named Troy that attempted to do that for a summer, if I remember correctly. What happened with Troy and his his good desire to lay his life down for the summer? Yeah, it's a great story because it illustrates he had plans that he wanted to do during the summer. He was a teacher, so he had some really cool things he wanted to do. But but she wanted to to do some writing in. He recognized that he had an opportunity that he could sacrifice what was important to him for her because of her value in his mind. Like he gets her value and he wanted to give up something for her in. And I love that in in what he ended up doing, growing closer to his kids.
I mean, he had the best summer because he focused more on what was going on at home. It freed her up to to be a writer and it took their relationship to such a better level. I love it reminds me of there's a George Elliott quote that says, What do we live for if it is not to make life less difficult for each other? And that honestly, that quote is one of my favorites because I'm always trying to think, how can I make life less difficult for for my wife, Erin, even through covid quarantine? I remember like day one, she gathered the family and said, listen, let me be super clear. I can't I can't cook three meals a day for this entire family.
Someone else is going to have to step up. So we did the spiritual thing and cast lots. And I lost in and I became in charge of cooking dinners, which I've just never done because she's such a good cook. And so as as I started to learn to do that and to cook more, here's what was so interesting is that I found myself getting up in the morning, starting to worry about what was I going to cook? Did I have the ingredients? What I have to go to the store? What they actually like?
When would I have to start defrosting the meat? And I went to Erin. I said, hey, like, does this ever happen to you? Like, do you worry about this stuff?
And she went for 28 years. That's what I do during the days. I worry about that. And it was maybe if you could have seen it, there was such a big light bulb that went off above my head because all of a sudden I realized that that Erin had suffered alone in that burden.
Thinking about dinner, I had literally no idea. And what I said to her is I said, so from this day forward, I'm going to cook. You're never going to have to worry about this again, because it's that idea that I have an opportunity to find things that Erin hates or that she struggles with or that she's just flat tired of doing, especially alone in sacrifice and jump in to do those kinds of things to make life less difficult for her. And that's the idea behind that tool is that we can employ that tool in like the teacher did. I mean, it just it just was so cool how God then used that within his family.
He was closer to his kids and they were closer as a couple. Let's end on this, because it perhaps is the most important tool, and that's forgiveness. You know, it's what we're about as Christians. It's hard to do at times, depending upon the severity of the treatment that we've received.
We tend to calculate it, frankly. Right. I don't know if I could forgive that person because they hurt me so deeply. But bringing it into the marital relationship, how do we learn to forgive deeply, not just in a token way? You know, Colossians 3 13 says, bear with each other and forgive one another. I love that idea of bear with simply means be patient with me. And you talk about tenderness, you talk about all these tools giving us the ability then to turn around and to forgive. If I'm willing to bear with my wife, to be patient with her, if I'm willing to to give her grace, which means that I see who she really is and not how she's showing up in that moment.
And through that grace and patience, it keeps me open and it keeps God's love flowing through me so that I can then quickly forgive. But, you know, so often our pride gets in the way. You're right. Exactly. Oh, the ego does. And I'm a simple minded man. I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed. We weren't going to bring that up. And the other allegories I could use. But I don't understand.
We can't ask that question. Like, do I or should I forgive? Like, this isn't, you know, an idea. Jesus was like, you know, maybe think about it. Yeah, whatever. You're in the mood.
This is a command. And the biggest part of forgiveness that people have to understand is not for the other person. This is for myself. This is healing to me. And so people get hung up on that idea. And it's like, well, this isn't an option. So how I tend to encourage someone is it's OK. Because, Jim, you said, like, depending on the severity of hurt that you're having to forgive, that is going to be a harder process. And so if you're at a place with your wife or husband or father, sibling, you might need to start at going, Lord, I know I have to.
I know this isn't an option, but I can't. And frankly, right now, I'm kind of won't. So, Lord, would you even just give me the desire to want to forgive?
We can start at that baseline. The Holy Spirit is going to come through. Right. He will.
This is guaranteed. If you're willing to ask him for it, that is his will is for you to live in forgiveness and then don't get hung up on how many times you have to forgive. It doesn't mean you haven't forgiven. If you're still hurting, that doesn't mean you haven't forgiven. And it doesn't mean that something's broken if you have to continue forgiving and releasing. This is a part of the human existence.
Right. This is that product of sin that, yeah, I might have to forgive you a thousand times for this thing. And I'm going to do it because of the benefits of forgiving.
No, it's so good. And, you know, we tend to say this, John, often, but we're talking about the normal dysfunctional relationships. We're not talking about where someone's safety is in jeopardy. And we want to make sure we say that loud and clear.
If you're in that situation, you get to a safe place and that maybe you get out of the house, whatever you need, and certainly call focus, call for help if that is the situation you're in. Gentlemen, this has been so good, Michael and Greg Smalley and your late father, Gary. What a great book, Men's Relational Toolbox. And there's so much good stuff in here. And I hope people will contact us for a copy of it.
Support the ministry here at Focus With a Gift of Any Amount, and we'll send it as our way of saying thank you for being a part of the ministry. Greg said it. I'll put the dare out to the guys. Get the book. And maybe, wives, you get it for your husband and circle the six tools, one of or two of the six tools that you would like your husband to think about. What a great way to start. Do it lovingly. Do it in a fun way, kindly.
But that would be a great way to start the discussion. And there's one purpose and one goal in all of this, so your marriage can reflect the character of Christ. And that's what we're about here at Focus on the Family. Guys, thanks for being with us. Thank you for having us.
It's an honor. What a great conversation we've had, and I hope our heart here at Focus has come through. We want to help you in any way we can.
And so if you're facing problems in your relationship, get a hold of us, please. If you'd like to speak with one of our counselors, we can make that happen. If you have a prayer request about your family, we're here for you.
Maybe you just want to communicate better because of a great resource, like the book by Michael and Greg. It's all available to you when you call 800-AFAMILY. I should note that if you can make a donation of any amount today to the Ministry of Focus on the Family, we'll say thank you for joining the support team by sending a copy of Men's Relational Toolbox. And if you can support our family building efforts on a regular basis, that would be wonderful.
Real Families in Crisis are contacting Focus every day. And because of the generosity of friends like you, we can offer them real hope for the future. Please donate and get your copy of Men's Relational Toolbox when you call 800-AFAMILY or stop by the episode notes for more. I should also mention that we have a free marriage assessment to offer you a quick overview of what's working well and maybe an area or two that needs some help as you build that stronger relationship with your spouse.
The link is at our website. Coming up next time on this program, a powerful story about caring for a loved one with dementia. You see that they need someone to love on them even if they can't remember.
It fills them up with joy in their heart that can last the rest of the day and they may not even know why. On behalf of Jim Daly and the entire team here, thanks for joining us today for Focus on the Family. I'm John Fuller inviting you back as we once more help you and your family thrive in Christ. Man, I knew my marriage was falling apart.
I just didn't know how to fix it. I felt like I would always be alone, even if I stayed married. At Focus on the Family's Hope Restored Marriage Intensive, we offer hope to couples in crisis so they can have the marriage they've always dreamed of. For the first time, I felt like my husband truly heard me. I've received some great tools from the counselors that have changed my life and my marriage. To begin the journey of finding health, go to HopeRestored.com today.
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