Hi, I’m Shawn Maguire and this is the New Vision counseling.live OKC Christian marriage counseling podcast, a place where we help you discover what better looks like for you and then equip you with the tools to create it. You know, today in episode number 39 we’re going to go over the biggest mistake in marriage and how to fix it. Part two, this is going to be the part where we go over the solutions to the problems that we discussed in episode number 38 the podcast number 38 so I don’t know about you, but in our marriage we’ve had lots and lots of difficult situations come up from inlaws to financial problems or problems with friends. And it’s easy to disconnect and to see our spouse as anything other than our best friend, biggest ally in person that we chose to spend a blissful life together by choice, by choice, by choice.
So I’m going to go over briefly what I discussed and OKC Christian marriage counseling podcast 38 and if you haven’t listened to it, please go back cause I’m going to briefly hit the highlights and you’re not going to get the full understanding of what it means, but I’m going to give you a reference point just in case you haven’t. So the biggest mistake in marriage, what is it? It’s making your spouse the enemy, making your spouse the enemy and not seeing them as your ally, as your best friend has God’s chosen one for you. This is true of any relationship. When you make them, the enemy in certain things will start to become progressively more true about you and about your relationship with them. The first one I went over was focusing on who is right and who is wrong, focusing on who’s right and who’s wrong. Now the problem with that is there’s always a winner.
There’s always a loser and I mean that just stinks. I’m going to go into more detail on the second one, and that’s like a big focus, but when you’re focusing on he was right then it, it’s, it’s focused on the problem. It’s focused on your smart, they’re dumb. You made a great choice. They made a bad choice. The their way to handle that. Instead of focusing your efforts there is focusing on what is wrong. Take the problem that you’re struggling with, externalize it and put it outside of your marriage. And I’m not saying pretend it’s not real, but what I am saying is externalize it. So instead of saying you were so down for spending money on that stock or you were so dumb for thinking that you could make it there in 30 minutes, it took an hour with traffic. You could say, wow, the traffic was severe.
Then maybe next time we did issue is we need to plan just an include traffic when we make our plans. So instead of focusing on his right, who is wrong, you said leave 30 minutes early or an hour early. And she said, let’s just leave 30 minutes early. So you’re 30 minutes late. Take that, put it out here and then you could focus together as allies on the issue. When you make it about who’s right and who’s wrong, then that person has to defend themself and two dukes up fist in front of your face versus hands out to the side, walking side by side together towards a solution. That’s one. That’s the antidote to the first one. The second problem under making your spouse the enemy is the focus is on winning the argument and defeating your spouse and some of you would say at all costs. Now, if you make it about winning the argument, well then your goal shifts from doing what’s right from building the relationship, from doing what’s best for your family in the moment and long term to really, it’s just about you feeling good about the decisions you made.
It’s just about kind of a pride thing for a lot of us. It’s I want to win. I went away and I want to win. I’m going to conquer this. I’m going to conquer you. I’m going to defeat you. And when you’re going after somebody you’re trying to win, will you put them in a defensive posture? If you’re on offense, by default, they’ve got to play defense and I want you to imagine when somebody is in a defensive posture that could be crouched down and it could be hunched down, but they’ve got their hands by their face because they don’t want you to hit him and that’s physically. Now, emotionally, it’s the same thing emotionally. They have their, their, their, their wall in front of the heart so that you can’t access so you can’t hurt them so you can’t defeat them, beat them again.
And if they have a lot of history with you, then they have this wall that is really thick because of how many times you guys have had these kind of fights. So the solution for that is seek to hear their heart instead of focusing on winning the argument and defeating them. Seek to hear their heart. Now how do you do that? Why? What does that even mean? Seek to hear their heart. That sounds like such a Florida baby metro kind of situation, but in reality it’s a godly situation where you care enough to seek to understand first and then to be understood. Second, seek to understand first, then to be understood. Second, when you seek to understand the heart, then you’re going to be really moving towards a solution that both of you will feel good about because I don’t know about you, but I know when I feel like my wife understands the plight of whatever I’m struggling with, whether it’s work or a relationship or it’s with one of our kids and just how my hardest torn of, I have these great opportunities to serve people as a OKC Christian marriage counseling counselor, as a speaker, as somebody who does business consulting and Edmond, Oklahoma City and other areas.
Then I had this amazing family at home that really wants me there, that loves me. That is, it’s just like gold waiting for media to be a part of an enjoy and there was this tension. And so if my wife understands the tension, then she’ll value the sacrifice of me serving other people, of me being faithful to the call God has in my life to merit, to do OKC Christian marriage counseling, Edmund Oklahoma City, and around this area and on the phone around the country and consulting people. So that really means a lot to me. And so instead of her attacking me because I’m not there, she can validate the feelings that I have about what I’m doing and appreciate that tension. And so then we can more strategically focused on the issues of scheduling, of when we do schedule being really intentional about scheduling times that we can connect times with the kids that are meaningful and significant.
Not Times where we just sit on the couch and watch TV together. I mean, unless of course it’s a marvel movie then other than Deadpool, then yeah, we’re going to be all about it. The third is the the negative side of making your spouse. The enemy was your spouses to blame. Blaming your spouse or the problems in your life, problems in the relationship, problems in your work, even the problems with your kids. Well, if you would support me more than the kids would honor and respect me, if you would show them the example of washing the dishes of serving around the house, of talking to me in respectful ways, we’ll then they would model that behavior. Now, I’m not disagreeing with you necessarily. I’m just saying if you focus on that your spouse’s issues are you focused on will continue to grow. The great news is whatever you starve, we’ll begin to die.
So if you focus, if you switch your focus on how God can change you instead of your spouse, guess what begins to happen? That’s right. God begins to change who you are and you as the person that God saved you as the person that accepted Christ. You are the person that is listening to this podcast because you care and because your relationship matters to you because you love and you’re a great person that wants a better marriage. So why not give God the access to your whole life by focusing on him and what he can bring into your life instead of allowing yourself to focus on a person you can’t control? Now, should you pray for that person? Absolutely. Is it helpful to talk with that person and helpful, productive ways? Absolutely. Should you focus on blaming that person for all the plights and adversities in your life?
Absolutely not. Not Not so. Focusing on a God can change you and not your spouse is one of the biggest ways to have a successful marriage and all the things that I’ve done. That is a key component to all the marriages I’ve seen that are successful and are enjoying each other. No matter if they’re in Edmond, Oklahoma City, no matter if they make $100,000 or they make $1 million and living Gallardo or a rich part of whatever neighborhood that you have in your state, it doesn’t matter if you focus on how God can change you and not your spouse, your life will start to get better because you give him access and God, Kevin Lane with any hand, as long as you let him play it and you give it to him. The fourth, what’s the fourth? Well, it was the negative side of when you make a spouse the enemy, you’re focused on the content of you go for what happened more than you go for hearing what they meant or what they wanted you to understand.
You’re so focused on the content of, well, you disrespected me in front of the kids. And you said this in a harsh way that you miss that they’re human and they’re sorry. You don’t have just one couple, uh, Bella and Robbie and she constantly berates him and won’t forgive him. Bella is so, she’s cool. But when it comes to Robbie, she’s not pro Robbie most of the time. And when Robbie makes a mistake, she is so quick to focus on the area that he failed. And here’s the kicker. According to her standards, not even that it was necessarily a failure by your standards are my standards or even God’s standards, but by her standards and because the focus is on the content, this poor guy has no hope except for her to focus in on God could teach him instead of his spouse. So what can Robbie do in this situation?
What can Bella do in this situation? Well, Bella, get focused on the process. Robic he focuses on the process. And what I mean by that is focused on how, you know, Robbie, I, I’ve been done wrong in the past by boyfriends and I bring it into this relationship, or even in our own marriage. You’ve looked at pornography, and so I don’t trust you and I move rapidly to distrust and thinking that you’re doing something that’s not helpful to our relationship. Okay, that’s great. That’s a start. And then when you’re gone for work, then that insecurity starts to come back and then I get more short. I don’t believe what you say and I get upset. So I just think it’s helpful and then you come up with a plan of how to take care of that moving forward. Now the other one is you could say, another example is, you know, I noticed when we go out and we’d drink, they’ll be getting a lot more fights and so maybe we need to remove the drinking from our interactions and see what the, see how that impacts our lives.
Another one is we need quality time together. We need quality time together. I noticed that when the process is, our lives are so busy with kid’s activities, with kids sports or maybe you serve a lot in church or you have a 70 hour work week because you’re an entrepreneur and you’re going for it. And so we need to really be diligent and scheduling that one on one day time with each other because that’ll make a big difference and staying connected through the week is if we have that time when we are able to remember why we got married, remember that we got married because we love each other. And then when you get into an argument you’ve invested into each other’s loves, love accounts, which that’ll probably be a podcast I do in the future and you have some equity to draw from there so that you can really care about the person’s heart.
You can care about what’s happening in their lives as well. Well guys, I hope this was amazingly helpful. You know, as we talked today, you probably thought of a friend or some buddy outside of yourself that could benefit from this. So I’d encourage you to do is share this with them, share the podcast and if you haven’t already subscribed so that you can make sure to not miss any episodes that we do. Because at at New Vision OKC Christian marriage counseling, the goal, the mission is to help you discover what better looks like for you and then equip you with the tools to create it. And maybe for you, this is a great start, but you need more help. And if that’s where you’re at today, well then I encourage you to reach out. Nutrition counseling. Dot Live is the website where we have a team of counselors that you can contact that Mary Biblical principles with cutting edge counseling techniques.
And we want to join you in your story today. So don’t wait any longer. Reach out. And something that would mean a lot to me is if we were to review us on Google. And what that does is it just lets people know that what we do matters and it actually can change their life, whether it’s through just a podcast or through coming in to see us as OKC Christian marriage counseling counselors. So many people have told us the stories on Google have really inspired them, that that if they can have god changed their lives in these situations and they believe it’s possible for their lives to be changed as well. So have a great day. And remember, we want to help you discover what better looks like for you, and then equip it with the tools to create it. So look forward to talking with you again next time.