Welcome to better today with your Marriage Counselor Edmond host Shawn Maguire and with over 25 years of counseling experience, this is the podcast. It inspires you to create both an amazing family and marriage. This is the podcast that helps you to navigate the challenges of modern life. In this podcast, you will be given the same tools, techniques, and stories that Sean and his team have used to help thousands of people to transform their lives. If you’re ready to make real progress, that will change your marriage, your family, and your life. Then get ready because better today starts now.
Hi everyone and welcome back. I am so glad that you could join me again today. You know, recently I was struggling because my son had been sick for almost three weeks and I was praying about it. Lord, is there something we should do? We believe in eating naturally, but we also believe there’s a value for having doctors and so we took them to the doctor or we took them to do our natural chiropractor. We gave them vitamin supplements and in my time with God, I was like, God, what is going on? And I was praying and he just said as Jerry Gates, this lady that is local to pray for him, one of our friends who loves God and we’re at the arts festival after church on Sunday, and guess who’s there? Sherry eights in her family and we asked her in the middle of all these people to pray for our son, nothing happens immediately.
They actually have to leave because he was so sick and he starts to get better. Within two hours he starts to become Hayden again and starting to become active, wanting to throw the football. And what I discovered was my wife also and her quiet time within the last few days, God put on her heart to have Sherry pray in. The great news about our lives is that we have a god who’s always looking out for our best interest. He wants the very best for our kids. So no matter where you’re at today, listening to this, I would just encourage you to tune in because you may have a very different parenting style than your spouse, but I’m going to give you some strategies, solutions to understand why you guys have differences, where they come from, some solutions about how to talk to each other, how to discover best practices for you to navigate these waters that may be challenging and maybe even cause a lot of fights between you.
Because I will fight for those I love. I will fight for what I believe is right and the higher the value I assign to the cause or the person, the greater the length I will go to fight for what I think in believers right now. This is a great tee up for pairing because how many of us love our kids or what I say it would be more accurate to say a door. Some of you may say idolize, obsess over. Think about constantly your kids. Well. So many of us love and adore our kids and so let’s start out by saying it is great to want the very best for your son or your daughter. That’s a noble God. Given that you need to value value in yourself value and your spouse or the other parent. You know, some of you listening may not be married to the father or mother of your child, but I would all, I would encourage you to really consider there is a high value to being able to see past your Marriage Counselor Edmond arguments or fights your past wounds.
If there are elements of that person that are great, that are good or even not really, really bad for, some of you may have to really reframe this heavily that they’re not an awful, terrible evil person if they like to play catch. If your ex husband likes play catch with a son or something like that, find value in what they do that can be good and then build on that. This is a really great way to appreciate the differences in each other because what I know about a lot of you is that you’ll be able to relate to some of these things in marriage with parenting. Your kids. Think about this. When I ask clients, when they come in, you know what’s going on, give me some background, give me some story of where these arguments began or what happened to get you to this place where you’re in my office and you’re needing help.
They’ll say things like, you know, my husband’s a workaholic. All he does is work, work, work, and then he feels entitled. So when he gets home, he wants to sit up on the couch, and when the kids interrupt his TV time, he yells at him and get over there, you’re quick. You know, and he just is tuned in his own world. Or He may say, you know, every time I try, she just undercuts me. She, you know, I’ll, I’ll say, go to your room or do these chores, wash the dishes, and instead of her being thankful, she’ll say, you’re being so mean. I’ve got this. And she’ll undercut me. Or maybe you think he, she overly is a moat too. Overly emotional. She just gets so worried about the kids’ feelings that she’s appeases them and she’s like, oh baby, no, I’m sorry. Okay, well I’ll give you one more chance.
I know I’ve told you 30 times to clean up your Marriage Counselor Edmond room and put your leg goes up, or I’m just going to give you a great team. I’m going to give you another chance. You know, I just love you so much. I just love you so, so much. And the husband’s over there pulling his hair out, or if he’s bald, he’s pulling his fingernails out because he’s so stressed out. Maybe. Maybe you’re the kind of person that says she’s too, too nice or he’s too harsh. She’s too mean. I want him to lead. But when he does, he’s so mean and harsh about this or your excuses. Well, he says he doesn’t have time to read the great parenting books and you know, I do. I read all these books, I’ve studied my kids, I’m with them all day. I am the expert. Now, most women would never say that.
Ever, ever, ever say that. Some do. I’ve heard it but most will never say that. But there’s a belief that because you’re with the children all day that because you are the one reading the books, taking them to their events, that you have the most authority that you know the most. And sometimes that can come across as he’s an idiot and that you don’t deserve the right to have this kind of influence or to the kids or to speak to them and direct them. Now I know that what I’ve observed is a lot of times women that I see have this, they don’t even know. They would never say this to their husband. And I think it just starts to happen because the reality is guys, it’s true. You know, when my kids were really young, like especially infants, I really believed in my heart, hey, these guys are the experts of women.
They carry the children, they’ve read a lot of books on babies and you know, they have this secret society of baby rearing and I’m just not been invited to be a part of it. I’m a guy, I don’t know as much as and and so my belief played into the reality of they were home with the baby all the time and they didn’t know a lot more of what to do and when to do it. And I wasn’t competent in a lot of areas. So I think there’s value in appreciating that just because something is not a all the way like she’s just, because you may know exactly what it is that you think your child needs at the time, should not negate the fact that the guy, the husband that may be working outside of the home does not have a positive influence or have some really pearls of wisdom that he can impart upon your kids.
Now I want to be really clear. I do not in any way, shape or form, endorse any kind of abuse verbally, physically, spiritually. And I think the Bible is really clear that God hates divorce. He hates abuse. He hates people that hurt children and hurt men and women. He hates all of that because he’s a god of love. And so I want to validate as I go through and I teach you these different ways of how to appreciate each other, the differences and how to value them, how to have some practical techniques and skills to develop further healthy ways of communicating with each other. I want to just say, I do not endorse any kind of verbal, physical, emotional, spiritual abuse on any level. If you were to ever come see me in counseling and that was a part of your story, you would see the eye very effectively and very abruptly deal with these situations because I high high value the honor of the men and women that I get to serve, and I think God is an ambassador of love and we as his children can show that and there’s really no room for abuse in a relationship that’s healthy.
They’re just not in your room. However, I want to be really clear that because somebody speaks harshly to you in a moment of anger does not mean they’re in abusive, awful, evil, wicked, insidious person. It could just mean that they’re a guy or that they’re a woman that is really passionate about something. So I think it’s really helpful to distinguish between what that is and what I’m saying because I’m going to counsel the majority of the people that don’t have the threads of real abuse in their marriage, they don’t have the threads of things that you really need to separate from and get professional help immediately. If that’s you, then go to a shelter or go to a counselor, go to your Marriage Counselor Edmond pastor, go to a friend, go to somebody to get help. Because in this series that I’m going to do, it’s gonna be multiple parts.
I, I always am counseling to the majority of the people that I see. But if you were to come to see me or our team individually, we would be able to accurately counsel the specifics of each nuance of your Marriage Counselor Edmond relationship, of your Marriage Counselor Edmond parenting. And I just want to appreciate that. I know that you are out there, those of you that are in an abusive relationship and there is help and there’s hope for you, so take from this time what you can that will be valuable for you, but remember that God wants you to live in a space of love and identity and value and a culture of love. I didn’t even value that looks like him and nothing else. All right, I’m waiting on really, really long on that because I just want to be sure that I can serve in everybody as much as I possibly can and that nobody feels left out or misunderstood.
Now we all have different parenting styles. We all do and there are books written written on different parenting styles and are likely in the future do a podcast on this, but to start with, I’m not going to get into that very detailed parenting styles, authoritative, authoritative, the submissive parent, that passive parent, the proactive parent. There’s all different ways to describe it, but I will go to the depth of why we parent the way we do, appreciating the differences, and then we can get more specific in later podcasts. This will really help you to have a grid to understand yourself and your spouse. Here’s a news flash. We are different people. We are men, we are women, we are husbands, we are wives, and we bring a different element to the equation. A man is typically going to be very different than a woman physically. He’s anatomically different emotionally men.
Guys, you know this. We typically bring more logic to a situation and don’t nearly necessarily have all these thoughts of, well, how is my wife going to feel when I say this to my kids harshly? How is my son going to respond when I call him out in front of his entire team because he dropped a pass? How it, we don’t have that natively in our DNA. We have the logic, we have some other elements that are very valuable, but then the women you guys buying a large bring to the equation, the relational component. You bring the, hey guys, let’s think about the heart of the situation. Let’s think about how people are going to feel. Let’s think about maybe what you’re going to say and how that’s going to effect them later on in their life or their emotions. And I think the best parents are those that are able to value your Marriage Counselor Edmond unique differences and instead of attacking, you learn to empower instead of attacking.
You don’t go for the victory of defeating the other parent and their style. You go for the complimentary unity of how can we work together as one in this relationship. Now when you do that, what you’ll discover is God has a great plan for your Marriage Counselor Edmond family. When you work in accordance with his will and his way, it’s really drastically different. Now, one of you will typically be more reactive [inaudible] guys and some of you will be more responsive. That can be oftentimes women. Now there are for sure differences and I would say this is not a hard line between men and women because I see a lot of women that are reactive and I see a lot of men that are responsive. The difference is men typically we have a reaction of aggression. We have a reaction of, don’t talk to me that way. Nobody’s going to disrespect me in my own house.
You know how hard I’ve worked all day and we get animated. We get excited and we really have an opportunity to learn to channel and funnel our emotions in healthy ways. Now for a woman, her reaction will look very different. It could be crying, a could be yelling, but not aggressive. It could just be getting loud because she’s emotionally spent because she’s been with the kids for so long and she’s at the end of a rope. All of her nerves are exposed and so the littlest thing can set her off. Now I’ll call this a homeschooler a stay at home mom because you guys are the real heroes of society. When I see homeschool moms, they are sacrificing. When I see stay at home moms, they’re the ones that are taking their kids to all the events. And you guys, I say pretty much every other day in counseling, I am not called to be a stay at home or a homeschool mom because I would need the Lord to overwhelm me with His grace.
I would need to become overwhelmingly less selfish, more sacrificial, and they laid on the line. Now for those of you moms at work, I mean I was raised by a single mom who worked constantly two to three jobs to just put food on the table and she had to not only work all day, but she had to come home and raise a strong willed son who constantly was getting into things getting into trouble. And if you work and you’re a mom, whoo, that’s a lot. Now we all have differences and I understand that you may say, Sean, I’m a dad and I come home and I’m with my kids. Look, I get it. We all have differences and we’re going to hit as many of these as I can, but just know there’s a value to appreciating the differences and some of you may have a family that the man is more passive and the woman is more more of a leader in the home and you know what?
I’ve seen situations where that’s right now if a wife is great at finances and a husband is terrible at finances, I think the wife should be the one that leads the finances and the husband should wisely go upon her strengths and they should unifying talk about what to do, but she should be the one keeping the checkbook. She should be the one being like, no honey, we’re not going to spend money on that because I want to live in a house and not under a bridge. I had this conversation with a couple of the other day and this, this is the same truth that applies to your Marriage Counselor Edmond parenting styles. If one of you is more structured and one of you is more filled with grace, which almost every couple has this, then you want to go with each other’s strengths. You know, I know that my wife brings an element of grace to all the situations in parenting and I bring an element of structure and we’re expecting things to be done in a timely manner and there’s value for both.
I would likely have little soldiers that had a lot of fun, but they would be little soldiers and my wife would typically have kids that would probably stay in their toddler age because I liked the structure and she likes the fun she reads and she’s just a beautiful person and that’s what she gives them. So the the best is in both. So remember that when you’re having a disagreement so that you do not undermine each other’s authority in the relationship. Because when you do that, man, it can just get ugly really, really fast. It can be stressful and you can cause each other to get infuriated and even start to feel hopeless because you’re not being supported by the other parent. Now you say, Sean, you really went on a lot about the differences between men and women and maybe how they they interact and the differences of parenting styles and how one may be reactionary.
And I would say most people are reactionary. The goal of why I’ve done this is I just want you to know that it’s okay to be different than your spouse. And there’s a value there because if both of you are the same, then God would have very little room to help you grow. Because when you clash, when you have a disagreement and then you’re able to navigate through and see the other person’s side, well that’s the space in which God can grow you the most. Through that adversity, through seeing the value in, you know what, I’m not always right my, you know the, if I didn’t think I was right, I would not fight for my cause. Now there are people that fight for their cause just because the wind is being right and not the wind is doing what’s right. But I would say most of you listening, I know that you believe what you say to be true.
You believe your Marriage Counselor Edmond ways the best. And that’s why you are passionate about fighting for this in your Marriage Counselor Edmond families and with your kids. And if you can appreciate that your spouse is also believing that, then you can go beyond that, the technical, that things that they say, the actions they take. And you can see the heart of, you know, my spouse is good and they want the best. And from that platform you can go and you can apply scriptures like brothers and sisters in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is Paul in First Corinthians one 10 saying, um, I wish that all of you would agree with one another and what you say and that there’d be no divisions among you, but that you’d be perfectly United in mind and thought. Now let me just say, I’m not that with my wife. We are not perfectly United in mind and thought that the ideal is we are perfectly United in mind and thought with Christ and that the goal isn’t for Shawn would be right or my wife tended to be right, but the goal is that we do the right thing and the right thing is always God’s will for our life.
And sometimes it looks more like my wife Hannah, and other times it looks more like meat. So this first one, part one, I wanted to just tee up the differences that it’s great. It’s okay. And the next one we’re going to get into more of the details of what those differences look like. Some ways to talk to men, some ways to talk to women, some practical strategies to empower each other. That I think will be very helpful. But I just want to encourage you to share this with your friends, your family members. And if you are saying, Sean, I like this podcast. I like what you’re saying, I resonate with it, but I just need more. Here’s the great news. The great news is that we have a team of counselors that marry biblical principles with cutting edge counseling techniques. We want to partner with you today in your story.
We want to partner and we can do that when you give us a call, where you go to our websites, New Vision counseling.live. It’s New Vision counseling that l I v E and you can call us, you can email us, but the journey to better can start today if you make that call, if you need help, but you don’t need to go to that level of reach out to a friend, read a parenting book, do something today to start acting upon what you’ve learned. And when you get home and you see your spouse, look at them with the eyes of value, with the eyes of how do I help you feel valued and important. Mary Kay would say something. See them with a sign that says, make me feel important. And I would say see them with a sign that says, validate who they are as a parent. Validate who they are as a person. Because when you do that, man, you’ll have a world of opportunity available to you and you do that. You making one great decision after another, God bless. And that for those of you that share this, thank you, and those of you that rate reviews on iTunes, it means a lot because it gets the word out. God bless, and I look forward to talking with you again really soon.