February 4, 2025 • 43 mins
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Ever found yourself trapped in a cycle of failed relationships and wondered if there's a way out? In our latest episode, Cody Butler shares his riveting journey from personal struggle to marital success, offering a treasure trove of insights for anyone looking to improve their relationships. Cody opens up about his transformation through faith, education, and self-awareness, highlighting how these key elements helped him overcome immigration hurdles and financial woes, leading to a fulfilling marriage. His candid discussion about battling alcohol addiction and navigating family expectations is a testament to the power of responsibility and growth in achieving relational harmony.
Tackling tough issues head-on, Cody delves into the detrimental impact of addiction on marriages and the crucial role of honesty and self-awareness in healing. Through powerful metaphors and personal anecdotes, he paints a vivid picture of how denial can obscure the severity of personal issues, and how shedding light on these can disrupt harmful patterns. Cody's wisdom shines through as he discusses the importance of embracing vulnerability, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic, which has brought existing relationship challenges to the surface, necessitating direct communication and accountability.
In a heartfelt exploration of marriage dynamics, Cody emphasizes the art of letting go, forgiveness, and sincere apologies as the bedrock for rebuilding connections. By prioritizing love over ego, couples can foster a future rich with mutual understanding, rather than being hampered by past grievances. Cody’s insights provide a compelling narrative for listeners seeking to enhance communication and intimacy within their relationships. As we wrap up, we express our gratitude to Cody for sharing his valuable experiences, encouraging our audience to explore his work further and reflect on the positive impact of embracing personal growth and responsibility in relationships.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is Christina Gerena with Capacito for two.
We are so excited to be herewith you today.
It's been a little bit of ahiatus and we've missed you very
much, but we're starting on thesteady and I'm very excited.
Javi apologizes for his absence, but he's here with spirit and
(00:21):
we're making it up to you.
We're having a fabulous guest,mr Cody Butler, and he is going
to share his wonderfulexperiences.
And it's so amazing sometimes,y'all, when you have sort of a
partner in crime, or at leastactually two partners, because
him and his wife are engaged ina marriage ministry as well, and
(00:44):
so we feel such a kinship toall folks that really are on
that spiritual journey with usright in marriage as a calling,
as really in some ways, amission in terms of how are you
going to give sustenance andrenewal and rebirth to not only
(01:06):
your faith but your partner inyour marriage.
So I want to welcome and I hopethat you give a good, strong,
warm welcome to Mr Cody Butler,and it's such a pleasure to have
you.
So nice to see you today.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Thank you, christine.
I appreciate you having me onhere.
It's every bit as much of apleasure, I promise you.
Thank you, christine, Iappreciate you having me on here
.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
It's every bit as much of a pleasure, I promise
you.
And the excellent thing, andyou may notice, is that Cody is
coming in today from Australia.
So I love the internationalbond.
It's the way the world works.
It's a beautiful thing, so it'sjust so nice to have you here.
We may be in a differenthemisphere, but our hearts are
(01:46):
aligned right and our faith isaligned, so it's a beautiful
journey to share.
I wanted to just ask you to tellour audience your story and to
share with us, you know yourwalk with your faith and how you
found yourself in this work ofa marriage ministry, what it
means to you.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Yeah, so I'll give you the short version because
there is definitely a longversion.
But in my 20s I went through aseries of really failed
relationships and they followeda pattern and it left me in a
very poor position really.
It left me very depressed andcaused some psychological issues
and stuff like that left mevery depressed and caused some
psychological issues and stufflike that and I just got tired.
I just got tired of, like,broken relationship after broken
(02:30):
relationship and then at thatpoint I decided to get some
education and figure out,because what's the lowest common
denominator in all of theserelationships?
Right, there was patterns thatwere being followed and the
lowest common denominator was me.
I'm like, okay.
Well, the first point I reallycame to was I like to act where
I have power and the placecommon denominator was me.
I'm like, okay, well, the firstpoint I really came to was I
like to act where I have powerand the place that I have power
is on myself and I can look atthe other person and say the
(02:52):
other person has done this orthe other person has done that,
but then what I actually havedone there is completely
disempowered myself.
I've put the solution in thehands of somebody else and I've
put the problem in the hands ofsomebody else.
So I just assumed that I wasthe cause of the problem and
started looking for solutions.
I started reading books, goingto seminars, getting all the
education I could get, and then,a few years after that, I met
(03:15):
my fiance my wife now.
We met, we started dating andnone of the problems were there.
Like all of the problems seemedto be solved.
But the issue was she was fromAustralia and I was from England
, hence why I'm in Australiaright now.
So this presented a whole newproblem.
Visas expired and immigrationlaw started to kick in and we
(03:36):
wanted to be together.
We decided we were going to getmarried and she had to go back
to Australia.
She applied for a marriage visato come back so we could get
married and we got denied.
We she had to go back toAustralia, where she applied for
a marriage visa to come back sowe could get married, and we
got denied.
We actually got denied twicefor a marriage visa.
Yeah, the government can tellyou who you marry and who you
don't marry.
They really can.
So we were separated for a wholeyear there and, of course, I
went back to my old habits ofnot dealing with things very
(03:58):
well and my way, my way ofdealing that was really
excessive alcohol use.
So that was a very stressfultime because we didn't know when
we was going to be togetheragain.
We really didn't have anyfinances at the time.
To speak of the immigrationprocess was hugely expensive.
It was four or five thousanddollars for every application we
got denied.
Then we had to appeal, whichwas another two or three
(04:20):
thousand dollars.
They denied it, then we had toto apply again, so literally
tens of thousands of dollarsthat we really didn't have.
We never knew what.
We didn't know when we wasgoing to be back together again.
So I started drinking andactually started drinking very
heavily.
So, long story short, we gotback together.
We came back together, we gotmarried and her family weren't
(04:41):
overly supportive of the wedding.
Obviously my financial positionwasn't great and she came from
sort of an upper middle classbackground and I wasn't the
standard upper middle class boythat they were looking for.
So there was some frictionthere and she had some
indoctrination while we wereseparated from her family.
And when we actually cametogether we got married quite
(05:03):
quickly, just because it was thebest thing to do right, get
married and immediately therewere some issues there.
My drinking started to affectmy personality and affect my
behavior within the marriage andsome of the stuff that she was
mirroring back to me coming fromher family was really starting
to cause some conflict.
So we were off to like a prettybad start.
(05:24):
To be honest with you, it was astruggle from the very beginning
and it never got better.
It continued to get worse,continued to get worse until
finally I agreed to get somehelp, just because I could see
that would buy me some time, andI actually started seeing a
counselor and it was just a joke.
I just treated it like a joke,christine.
(05:46):
I was going just because it wasbuying me some time and I kind
of played with the guy.
I thought I was intellectuallysuperior to him and I'd go there
and I'd play games.
And after a year there wasreally no progress whatsoever.
And a little bit more time goesby and finally she's like we
need to solve this problem.
I can't continue like this.
(06:07):
So I agree to go to a secondmentor and I'm expecting him to
placate me and say oh, it's notyour fault.
This the usual nicey-nicey,let's talk about it, it's okay,
it's going to be okay.
And five minutes into the firstsession, he goes, he goes.
I'll just be honest with you.
He goes, this is hopeless, yoursituation is hopeless.
(06:28):
And I was like it just reallyis a real pattern.
Interrupter.
I caught me off guard and I waslike no, it's not hopeless.
And he goes.
No, it's, he goes in thenatural world.
This is hopeless in the naturalworld.
This is hopeless In the naturalworld.
This is hopeless.
There's no hope for you or yourmarriage.
And I was like whoa, I neveractually, and what he did there
(06:53):
was he gave me the gift oflosing her.
Yes, absolutely.
That was the first time thatI've actually faced with the
consequences of what was goingon in that relationship, and I
and he gave me the gift oflosing her, and and that's what
I really want.
Like whenever I see couplesthat are, that are struggling
now, it's like that's the giftthat I want to give them.
I want to give them the gift oflosing each other without
(07:15):
losing each other, becausethat's leverage, right.
That's like okay, well, this is, this is the path that I was
traveling down, this was theconsequence and that was the
first time that I'd ever seen.
This is the outcome of mybehavior and I was like that is
it.
I know what the problem is.
The problem is my drinking andnow some additional drug use on
top of that, which was veryserious.
We're not talking marijuana andstuff like that.
(07:37):
We're talking some prettyserious, some pretty serious,
some pretty nasty stuff, and Ijust didn't want to give all
that stuff up before.
I wanted to have my marriage andhave that stuff right and I got
to the in that session where Ilost her, I'm like, okay, well,
I'm gonna have to choose.
I'm gonna have to choose drugsand alcohol.
I'm gonna have to choose mywife.
I can't have both.
(07:57):
And I told him.
I said it's not hopelessbecause I'm about to be honest
with you for the first time ever.
And I said that's, I'll tellyou why it's not hopeless,
because I'm about to be honestwith you for the first time ever
.
And I said I'll tell you whyit's not hopeless, because I'm
about to tell you the truth.
And you're the first personthat I'm ever going to tell the
truth to.
I'm engaging in thesebehaviours and I'm stuck in
these behaviours and I need help.
And the great thing is fordarkness to thrive, it needs to
(08:18):
be absent of light.
Darkness cannot survive whenlight is shone into it.
The second that you turn thelight on in a dark room, the
light, the darkness, does notstand a chance Light defeats
dark 100 times out of 100.
So the real key, the realtakeaway for me and that was
like you have to shine lightinto the darkness and for that
(08:39):
to happen you have to be openand you have to understand.
So I think a lot of peopleunderstand what the problems are
within their marriage.
They're just not willing todeal with those.
They're not willing to shinelight onto that because they
want to keep their habits, theywant to keep their addictions,
they want to keep their badbehaviors.
And that was the revelation forme was you've got to shine
light into the dark.
You've got to be honest andyou've got to.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
You've got to really come face to face with the Wow,
I really appreciate your honestyand your candor, your
vulnerability, right now, justto be open, because I think in
some ways that's revolutionaryand transformational in itself.
(09:20):
To just tell your story sostraightforwardly, because this
is a lot of our stories andthere's so much shame around
this sense of I'm making badchoices, I don't feel like I can
get out of it or, like you said, almost like this binary
thinking, like we get stuck insort of this magical sense of we
(09:43):
can have really what you knowour weakness or, like you said,
the darkness or whatevertemptation that is.
People can relate to it as sinor addiction, whatnot, and it
can't coexist.
You can't grow in that, youcan't get closer to an
unconditional love or compassionor self-awareness and closer to
(10:05):
your faith.
In that state it's just notpossible.
And I'm so impressed I mean,did you feel like you got?
Did you have to get it to astate of readiness?
Do you feel like that's?
There was something in thatmoment that just opened up to
you, yeah, or was it work as,like you know?
Because it is a miracle in away?
Speaker 2 (10:26):
it is a miracle, it's 100% a miracle.
I don't want to, I don't wantto downplay it and it's like,
you know, just to throw some,some, some encouragement out
there to people that are in thissituation.
It's like I mean, today, I, youknow, it's like I work with a
lot of couple, I do a lot ofstuff and it's like I could be
considered a marriage expert,right.
But here's the thing everymaster was once a disaster.
It was out.
It was out.
(10:47):
It was out of the disaster thatmy life was, that I had to
build from that and I'm like I'mnot staying in this place of
disaster anymore.
It's not like I had skills.
It was because I had no skillsthat I developed the skills and
it was recognizing that I didn'thave the skills.
And, to be honest with you,christine, I think a lot of
(11:07):
people, most people, don'tunderstand how bad their
situation is.
They're in denial, because wecan call it, we can call it sin,
we can call it addiction, wecan call it indulgence, we can
call it hedonism, we can call itwhatever we want.
It goes by a lot of differentnames.
But a lot of people they don'tunderstand how bad their
situation is and what theconsequences.
Like porn is a great example.
(11:28):
I mean fortunately.
Fortunately, porn was not mystruggle.
You just read my mind.
They think they can have theporn and have the relationship.
And it's like you don'tunderstand how bad your
situation is while you are inthis temptation.
It is wrecking your life.
It is wrecking your marriage.
It is wrecking your physicalbody.
It is rewiring your brain towhere you're a different human
(11:49):
being that you don't know.
You're having no choice overthis.
You're being reprogrammed in away.
You have no choice and by thetime you realize what's going on
and how bad the consequencesare, your wife or husband is
going to be gone.
Your body is not going to workproperly.
You're going to have acompletely abnormal appetite in
(12:10):
many ways and you're going to bea person you don't know who you
are and you don't recognize andyou don't like and you're not
going to know what to do aboutit.
It's like if you couldunderstand right now, today,
what the end result is.
Wisdom is seeing the end fromthe beginning.
Right, right, wisdom is morevaluable than pearls and rubies
and diamonds.
It is to be sought above allthings, above all wealth.
(12:31):
Wisdom is to be sought andwisdom is to see the end from
the beginning, and most peoplecannot.
While they're in theirtemptation, they can't see the
end state, because if they did,it would scare the living
daylights out of them and theywould change.
People say oh, you know, youcan't get off drugs, you can't
get up.
Yeah, big enough scare will getyou off of it instantly.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
It's all about the environment and the consequences
at stake, right?
I mean absolutely.
I think it's also reallyinteresting to add in here, and
I'm curious if this is coming upfor you in your work with
couples.
I know that you counsel them andyou're a huge support.
What we see, too, is thatpeople are just slowly and it
(13:13):
will be stage by stagerecovering from the trauma of
covid, you know, and thepandemic, and having their
families forced into quarantinefor a period of time, or their,
their church or their communitybeing on lockdown for a period
of time.
It's's not like you.
Just, you know, bounce rightback in a week or a month after
(13:36):
this prolonged period and Ithink it has taken its toll.
I mean, I know it has on ourparents that we've had to
revisit.
you know past issues and youknow seek counseling and for us
that, for I see that as anopportunity for growth because
once you've been through it youkind of realize okay, so we're
regressing.
But usually in my experience aregression is sort of the
(13:59):
prelude to big growth.
If you're willing to consciouslyengage it and open your heart
to it and both willinglyco-create, you know, then you
could do it.
But I think that's one of thebiggest struggles is that so
many people do feel isolated andperhaps go or regress and don't
(14:20):
necessarily catch themselveswhen you have these outside
factors that are so bigabsolutely.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
and look with covid.
I, like you, know, the thingwith covid is like covid hasn't
increased problems withinrelationships.
Covid has highlighted, hasn'tincreased problems within
relationships.
Covid has highlighted problemsthat already exist within
relationships.
There's very few relationshipsthat COVID has created damage
where there wasn't.
It's simply highlighted thedamage that was already there.
It's exacerbated it and sped itup, because again, what it's
(14:47):
done, it's highlighted, it'sbrought people face to face with
the cracks in theirrelationship.
And my distraction was drugs andalcohol.
Some people's distraction isporn.
Some people's distraction isvideo games.
Some people's distraction isdistraction.
It doesn't matter what it's,just distraction is all it is.
And a lot of times we go towork.
The way we stay married is we goto work because we can't be in
(15:10):
the presence of that person 24hours a day, or we go to the bar
at the end of the day, or we goto the sporting event with our
friends, or we we distractourselves with other aspects of
our lives, and the reality iswe're only spending, you know,
10, 10 or 12 hours a day withour partner, and eight of those
hours are asleep.
So now, now we're brought faceto face and and it's like we
(15:31):
have to talk to each other.
We have to communicate, we haveto coexist.
We can't distract ourselvesfrom our problems.
We now come face to face withour problems and I don't believe
personally that COVID hascreated those problems.
It's just simply brought usface to face with those problems
and the question now is whatare you gonna do about it?
Speaker 1 (15:48):
Right, what?
How do you in your life, youknow, in terms of being a
support in your work, how do youcontinually work on yourself
and your marriage and yourrelationship?
Do you have a certain structure, cody?
It seems like you certainlyhave done like a massive you
know, healing transformationyeah, I'm curious around.
(16:10):
Just what are some of thosepractical ways in which you keep
yourself in check?
Speaker 2 (16:15):
So one way is to come on shows like this.
Like there's two things reallythat if you want to master
something, you have to teach it.
So if you learn a skill like,my advice is, if you get
something out of this podcasttoday, either from myself or
from Christina here teach it tosomebody within 24 hours.
Find somebody to teach it to.
Like mastery comes out ofteaching.
(16:36):
People say those who can do andthose who can't teach.
That's absolute rubbish, that'snonsense.
That's complete nonsense.
Those, those who can teach,like who was the greatest?
You know?
Look who was the greatestteacher ever in the history of
the world?
It was Jesus.
You know, he didn't have toteach, he could have just done.
The greatest of doers areteachers.
(16:57):
So the first thing is teachingand sharing others the way out
of the canyon, the way back.
That's really helpful.
And the second thing is comingon shows like this.
It brings a massive amount ofpublic accountability.
It brings scrutiny to mymarriage's.
Like well, if I'm here givingmarriage advice, I better have
my affairs in order, right?
Speaker 1 (17:18):
yeah yeah, when we first wrote our book, cody, my
husband and I, so our book it'sit's essentially boundless love,
healing your marriage before itbegins, and it it's a he she
version or testimony around howfaith saved us at the first,
this breaking point, and it wasa lot of unresolved patterns
exactly what you spoke to forboth of our families of origin
(17:40):
and childhood, as well as thepresence and dependency of
alcohol and and, and both of usbe dealing with undiagnosed
depression, my husband dealingwith real anger management
issues.
And it just had that perfectstorm right, that combustion
that just blew up.
And practice goes wide openwhere you're so vulnerable right
(18:02):
, you're, so you really aredesperate, and so that was the
ceiling that really transformedus.
But one of the things that wasso funny and I kind of just, you
know, blew it off a little bitat the moment when it happened
but we were at a speaking eventand one of our friends said to
us you know, well, y'all betternot divorce now, like for real.
(18:25):
Exactly, you know, it was likeit's true.
What you're saying and you'rereally speaking to that is when
you put yourself out there.
That's the gift of beingaccountable, because you then
hold yourself accountable.
That's what I'm hearing fromyou of leadership.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
You have to be willing to take the first arrow.
You have to be willing to takethe first bullet.
It's like how do you get troopsto advance into fire, which is
about the most unnatural thingin the world?
You have to be willing to putyourself out there and take the
first bullet, take the firstarrow.
You can't be the general up onthe hill saying I'm gonna be up
here watching the battle from mybinoculars because if I get
hurt you're in trouble and a lotof it is going to be coming on,
coming on shows like this andit's like you say, like being
(19:11):
vulnerable, and saying, okay,well, this is what I was going
through, these were mychallenges.
As ugly as they are, it gives.
It allows other people to seethat, hey, we're all going
through that, we've all got ourchallenges, we've all got a a
hill that we've got to take andit's okay.
Nobody came out of the wombdoing relationships, at at least
doing them well.
It's so counterintuitive and alot of times we see these role
(19:35):
models and they're so unhelpfulbecause they present this
picture of perfection.
It's almost a problem with thechurch to some extent.
It's like there's a lack ofvulnerability in the leadership.
It's like I'm not a leader.
I'm just here with you and Iwant to share with you my story,
(19:55):
because my story might be ableto help you, my story might make
it okay for you to come out andsay, okay, I'm having those
same issues, because nothing'sgoing to change in your
relationship until you confess.
Right, salvation is conditional.
A lot of people don'tunderstand that, but salvation
is a hundred percent conditional.
It's conditional on confessingyour sins and repenting.
(20:17):
It's conditional on confesslike step one, and it doesn't
matter what your religiousbelief is, it doesn't matter.
It's like you have to confess,you have to own up and
acknowledge where you are.
There is no there.
There is no reconciliation,there is no improvement until
you say, okay, this is thebaseline, this is how bad it
really is.
This is how much trouble that,that ownership, and also
(20:42):
ownership is.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
You know that transparency?
It's like I think you know somuch.
It's just so powerful, to kindof put the veil back on the
institution of marriage and todemystify it for people and to
be vulnerable and real about it,Because I think you know, at
least in the spiritual evolutionof marriage as a spiritual
partnership, why not just bereal about how sticky and messy
(21:08):
and ugly it can get?
Speaker 2 (21:09):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
If we don't move through that, how can we heal
like, how can we go to anotherplace with it?
There's no way that that'sright.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
If we have an unrealistic expectation of of
what marriage should be, whichis a lot of times what we see
right the role models ofmarriage it's like it's
completely you're shooting at atarget that doesn't exist.
You're shooting for a goal thatis unreal.
It's like marriage is messy andit's like, yeah, sure, me and
my wife we're in the marriageministry.
Does that mean we don't fight?
No, we have ways to recoverquickly.
(21:40):
Does it mean that we don't haveproblems with each other?
No, we just don't live there.
We don't stay there for decadesat a time.
It's like we have all the sameproblems that everybody else has
.
We have all the same challengeseverybody else has.
We just don't live there.
We just don't stay there.
We recognize it, we confess it,we get it out of our lives and
we move forward quickly.
And that's the thing You'renever going to have a perfect
(22:02):
marriage.
It's how you respond to whathappens, not what happens, which
is going to determine the levelof success and the level of
happiness that you experiencelevel of success and the level
of happiness that you experience.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, I couldn't agree more,because you know my orientation
or my I'm a social worker,that's my trade, and so one of
the things that is so key isit's not about eradicating
behavior or, you know,dismissing or denying a problem.
It's about looking at lesseningintensity and frequency of the
hiccups, right of those of thoseobstacles, and, like you said,
(22:34):
you don't sit there, you don'twallow in it like you're not,
you're not stuck in it for aslong and it's okay to be stuck
even for however long, but it'sabout are you moving forward
right and catching on like?
The other thing and I'm sureyou can relate to this too is
like what are the narratives andspiritual narratives and
pitfalls of your marriage story?
Right, and it's your individualnarrative and your couple's
(22:55):
narrative and how that?
Then, once you get to own thatand take responsibility and
share it and be transparentaround it, then this recovery
time you're suggesting isquicker, because you don't have
to kind of be like in the darktotally by yourself trying to
you know, figure it out fromlike from zero right well,
(23:16):
there's a great.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
There's a great parable about.
Man was walking down the streetand there was a hole in the
road and he fell down it.
Have you heard it?
Yeah, I love it, but go for ityeah man was walking down the
street and there's a hole in theroad.
He fell down it and there wasan underground labyrinth of
sewers or drains or whatever.
It took him years, walkingaround for years, to finally
found his way out after years.
Was walking down the samestreet again a week later.
(23:38):
Saw the hole fell in it anyway.
Was walking around for months.
Finally found his way out aftermonths Walking down the street
again.
Saw the hole fell in it anyway.
Took him a week to get out.
The next day he was walkingdown the same street, saw the
hole, stepped around it andwalked on.
And that's how our relationshipswork.
(23:58):
We fall in a hole and we staythere for years.
Now we get the skills to getout of that hole.
It doesn't mean we're not evergoing to fall in that hole again
.
We just don't stay there quiteas long and we might have to
fall in that hole two or threeor four times, and that's okay.
But eventually you're going toget to the point to where every
time you fall in the hole ittakes less time to get out and
eventually you're going to getto the point where you just step
(24:19):
around that hole and you neverhave to fall in it again, and
that's a realistic analogy tothe marriage recovery process.
It's not that you're not goingto fall in these holes ever
again.
We just can't stay there.
We got to stay there less andless time.
Every time we've got toremember our way out and we've
got to action that very quicklyright, and I love too, because
(24:40):
none of that story includes achapter on, like you know
blaming the whole, no, thereyelling at the whole like hiding
the whole.
Why didn't the government fix it?
Speaker 1 (24:51):
yeah, exactly like being victimized by the
existence of the whole, like allthese ways that we are
humanists, like we canpersonalize or take, take it
personally that the whole exists.
It's like no, everyone's got it.
This is part of the humancondition and, like you said,
it's like these small victoriesadd up really and we want and we
(25:14):
want to.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
We want to measure ourselves too.
So I I found like, afterworking with like thousands of
people, not just in marriage butin lots of different areas of
life, like human psychology isjust fast.
It's my hobby, it's my, I'veloved it.
I've always been veryfascinated with how human beings
work and, and I can tell you,as human beings we tend to
measure ourselves against thedistance from where we want to
be to where we are, versus fromwhere we were to where we've
(25:36):
come, and we get discouraged.
We go, okay, well, I'm here,but I'm so far away from where I
want to be.
It's like, yeah, but look howfar you've come.
Why are in on on how far youare from what you want to be?
Let's look at the progressthat's been made and let's get,
let's get excited about thedistance that you've traveled
from where you were.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
If you do that, it's very easy to get the momentum to
keep moving forward well andand I think you're right so much
that is like one of the mosthuman sort of defense mechanisms
or ways in which we fall, youknow, crazy.
Was this like the comparisonright, the game of comparison?
(26:12):
And?
Speaker 2 (26:13):
and shooting on ourselves.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
Well, I should be here, we should be at this place
in our marriage or this placein our life for success or
whatnot, and it a lot of it islike it said.
It's falling into this trap ofart, this sort of pretty picture
which doesn't exist to beginwith right and so it is.
It's a lot of taking away andstripping down these illusions
(26:38):
and expectations, like youmentioned earlier of what you
think marriage is and, obviously, being able to discern and sift
through how you were raised andwhat were the models of
marriage in your life.
As a kid, my husband was anorphan.
He didn't have parents.
So, me, mothering our childrenfor him is, like him, healing a
(27:02):
lot of the mothering he nevergot by proxy.
And so what comes up with that?
And so all of us, you know, Ithink it's, it's something that
you don't realize sometimes whenyou get married, but it is
where the rubber meets the roadin adulting oh look, I.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
I worked with a fighter pilot one time and he
was telling me that in intraining they they obviously
talk about getting shot downscenarios and they're taught
that this, the faster you canaccept that you've been shot
down and what happens next?
Every second counts.
He's like, as you're going downin that parachute, they're
looking for you and he's like,if you, if in your mind you go
well, did I do this wrong?
(27:41):
If I'd done that differently?
The past is irrelevant, thatthat you've got to cut.
The faster you can cut the pastoff and start looking forward,
every second increases yourchance of survival, and I think
marriage is a very good analogyfor marriage.
We can look at the past and Ialways ask people when I start
to work with them did anybodybeat anybody?
Did anybody cheat on anybody?
(28:02):
Are there any seriousstructural issues within the
marriage?
No, okay, well, can we startfrom a point of view of if I've
hurt you, I'm sorry and ifyou've hurt me, I forgive you?
Can we just have, can we justsay that to each other?
Because that's like you'recoming down in a parachute right
now and every minute thatpasses by your marriage is in
perilous danger If, if we've gotto go back into that aircraft
(28:24):
and decide should we havepressed this button?
Should we have done that?
Should?
It's like this is not helpful.
Can we just get to a point ofif I've hurt you, I'm sorry and
if you've hurt me, I forgive you, and move forward and start to
put a plan in place to how we'regoing to resurrect this
marriage, how we're going torecover this marriage, and not
unless there's seriousstructural issues from the past?
Can we just move forward andstart to build from a solid
(28:45):
foundation?
And I think that's reallyimportant?
We can spend a lot of time inthe past and couples will start
talking to each other.
It's like well, when it happened, you had a fight.
Every time you bring it up, Ihad, you have a fight.
What is the issue here?
Does it?
And a lot of times I'm likeneither one of you even remember
, even know what happened.
This happened 20 years ago oryou have remaining that the
(29:07):
facts have left you.
Maybe a half of one percent ofthe facts remain and the rest is
the story that you've beentelling yourself for 20 years
about what happened.
Can we ditch the story?
Can we agree to ditch the storybecause we we don't know what
happened 20 years ago anymore.
We simply don't know right.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
there's no way to get into the truth, so sometimes
you have to release it.
Just release it, surrender itand let it go and move on with
what you have, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
Do you want to be right or do you want to be
married?
Speaker 1 (29:35):
Yeah, yeah, that's a biggie.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
That is a biggie.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
And that and that and it gets us all.
I mean I definitely go throughmy phases of like, wow, I'm
really committed to being rightabout this right now.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
You know like I can kind of.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
I mean, I don't always catch myself, but it's
like why am?
I so like vehement about thiskind of silliness.
You know, and sure enough.
You know, sometimes it's reallybasic.
You know, I'm tired, I'm hungryor you know what I mean.
And then these, these thingssurface and bubble up and
(30:10):
whatnot.
It's that hard.
But I do think you're right.
It's like there is a moment inwhich you have to really say
it's not worth rehashing, rightlike there.
You have to arrive at some sortof midpoint, like okay, we're
going to build upon the factthat we do love each other, and
we don't necessarily know howthat's going to materialize or
look like now, but we're goingto go in that direction right,
absolutely.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
I mean, when you've got an event that's so
destructive in the past, it'slike why do you keep bringing it
into the present?
It's in the past, can we not?
Can we not let the dead burytheir own dead?
It's like it's not necessarylike now.
That's not to say that, liketalking about the past, there is
obviously like issues do haveto be discussed, but they only
have to be discussed once.
It's like we're gonna, we'regonna have this discussion and
(30:51):
and a lot of times you know I'llask couples of as well.
When we're talking about issues,I'm like when was the last time
you was able to actually haveyou was actually able to express
a thought to its conclusion,you was able to express a
complete thought without yourpartner jumping in and
interrupting, yeah, and?
And to the other partner, I'mlike what's going on in your
head?
Are you listening to yourpartner to try and understand
(31:13):
what they're saying, or are youlistening to your partner to
build your defense, to buildyour case, and you're just
waiting for your opportunity topresent your case?
Because there's a case buildingis absolutely devastating to a
relationship.
It's like if you change, if youjust do the simple act of
changing how you listen to I'mlistening to try and understand
how my partner understands, touh, from I'm listening to build
(31:35):
my case to, to rebut you and todefend myself.
It's like all she wants to dois express her feeling.
All he wants to do is expressher feeling.
Let them do it and it will goaway.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
The feeling will go away, yeah no, I see that with
my kids right, I'm sure allparents do.
It's so obvious when you'reoutside of another relationship,
looking in, and it's like ifyou just say your piece and you
say your piece, you don't haveto talk over each other,
everyone's heard and itevaporates.
But until you get to thatopenness, right where people can
actually trust, let down theirguard and not protect and be
(32:10):
available and present to theother individual, then you know,
then it is, there is grace inthat moment.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
But there's a lot of dance and protectiveness
sometimes to get there andthat's where people misstep.
Yes, and I see that in myselfDefinitely.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
And I worked in customer service for a long time
and like somebody would comewith a complaint and they'd just
be like you're gonna do thisand I'm sewing, and it's like
you just sit there and listenand listen and say, okay, yeah,
you're absolutely right.
I understand you're upset.
Is there anything more you'dlike to add to that?
And then you ask again okay, isthere anything else, anything
else you'd like to add to that?
No, I think I'm done.
(32:49):
Okay, what would you like me todo?
Well, just like anotherhamburger, please.
Would that make you happy?
And that's it all they want todo.
But if I, if I had jumped inthere, like I learned very
quickly, oh yeah, it's just likeif, if somebody has a thought
that they want to express andit's not like it's not a
(33:09):
positive thought or it's not apositive feeling, all you're
doing by interrupting is you'rejust suppressing that thought
back into that person and you'repouring gasoline on it and it's
going to come out at a laterdate.
It's as tony robbins says wewant to do battle with the
monster while the monster's ababy.
We don't want to let.
We don't want to let themonster grow into a full-grown
beast before deciding to battlewith, and the easiest thing is
(33:30):
to like stop building cases andjust let the other person
express their view to itscompletion and its fullness and
ask them is that, is that acomplete thought?
Did you just express thecomplete thought or is there
more you'd like to add to it?
When they say, yes, that's acomplete thought, that thought
has now left them right.
It has no home in them anymore.
It's like it's out there andit's somebody else's problem now
(33:51):
and it's the easiest thing inthe world to do, but we just
don't know to do it.
Speaker 1 (33:58):
We just don't know how to do it yeah, practicing
that, you know, if you canself-regulate enough right to
not be defensive and, like yousaid I love that I didn't think
of it that way or put those twowords together but case-build,
then at some level you know youcan you're really moving your
(34:18):
energy in such a much more likereally creative and constructive
way in the relationship,because think of all of that
like build-upup right thatyou're creating around something
, but it's actually in your head, it's not even necessarily
being spoken and, yeah, it'slike spinning your wheels in a
way.
Really absolutely, it lookedlike that well, I could talk to
(34:42):
you forever, you're still on it.
It's so, it's so refreshing.
Speaker 2 (34:46):
Oh my gosh, you gave so many nuggets I'm gonna be
processing this.
Speaker 1 (34:50):
This is fantastic.
Where can people find you?
Because I know that you're youdo so much, but I know you're
you and your wife have a websiteand you do counseling we do, we
do help.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
We do help couples.
Indeed, bettermarriagecomau isprobably the best place.
We've got some free resourceson there.
We got a.
You can sign up for a freeworkshop there on how to end the
fighting immediately, improvecommunication and restore sexual
intimacy.
We share with you how to dothat very quickly.
Speaker 1 (35:17):
yeah, bettermarriagecomau is kind of
the hub of where we, where wehang out okay, it's easy that
and that's to the point rightthere, because that's what folks
are looking for in that moment.
It's easy that and that's tothe point right there, because
that's what folks are lookingfor in that moment.
It's like how can I improve mymarriage?
And and, and you know,sometimes I really believe this.
It's like it doesn't have to befancy and I you know what I'm
(35:39):
saying like one resource or onearticle sometimes can tip it,
you know, in terms of being thatquantum leap moment and the
other thing, and I don't knowhow you feel about this, but I
do believe that we cannotobviously control our spouse,
but we can control ourbusinesses If one person does
the work, even if your partneris not doing the work or work.
(36:01):
You are changing that dynamic.
I strongly believe that Becausea lot of people get caught up
and I know I did around likewell.
I want my husband to change andit's like no, that's really not
the focus.
I need to mind my own businesson this and start here.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
Can I just add one thing before we wrap it up?
I think it's really, really,really critical.
Like in a traditional marriagewhich we're talking about here,
we've got to look at thecovenant and the agreement right
, and it's I promise to have andto hold, to love and to cherish
to death.
Do us part for better or better, for worth, to death, to death.
Do us part.
That's an unconditional promiseand a lot of people say well,
my husband's not doing the work.
My husband, it doesn't matter,like the your.
(36:38):
Your promise to have and to hold, to love and to cherish was not
conditional.
There's no condition on therein there on your partner doing
the work.
It.
It's like this is an absolutelyunconditional agreement where I
promise to love this person andcherish this person and be
there for this person,irrespective of their behavior
back towards me.
And a lot of times we forgetthat and I always say well, are
(37:01):
you upholding your end of thecovenant?
Are you upholding your end ofthe agreement?
Because you've entered into anunconditional agreement and now
you're complaining thatconditions are not being met.
So if you're not meeting yourend of the agreement, who are
you to hold your husband or wifeaccountable until you are
absolutely congruent with thecovenant that you've entered
(37:21):
into, the agreement that you'veentered into.
The only place to work is onyourself, the only place.
Once you've entered into theagreement that you've entered
into, the only place to work ison yourself, the only place.
Once you've achieved thatperfection and now you're giving
unconditional love to the otherperson, now we can start to say
okay, but until we get to thatpoint, yeah, I am the only
person I can look at in myrelationship.
I can't say that I give my wifeunconditional love.
Of course it's conditional.
(37:42):
I'm human.
Do I love her unconditionallywhen she, when she winds me up
or annoys me?
And in that moment that love,you know, I might withdraw that
love conditionally.
It's like my love is notunconditional permanently, as
much as I would like for it tobe.
It's what I'm working towards.
There are moments when Iwithdraw that love because she
upsets me right.
So I've got work to do onmyself.
Speaker 1 (38:03):
Yeah, no, that's a great way to frame it and to
look at it, because I thinksometimes that's how we're
taught, that's how we'resocialized, and it's gendered
and it's complicated.
But I think to focus on yourpartner, it's almost like a
welcome distraction, right, and,like you said, a temptation,
(38:25):
and that's not.
You know, you need to take theflashlight and point it inward,
because that's really where Ithink you know, in your own
growth center, in your faith inyour ability to actually make an
impact.
That's where it's going to startand it will, it will affect
them, but it just may not be inyour timing or at your pace
(38:47):
that's it.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
And I always tell people people don't understand
what I've said.
You're responsible and peopledon't understand what that means
.
It means, if you break thatword down, it's you are response
able, you are able to respond.
You are able to respond.
However, your partner'sbehaving, you are able to
respond to that.
You are response able.
So I tell people you'reresponsible, it's not your
partner's problem, you'reresponsible.
And once they understand whatthat word response responsible
(39:10):
means which is response able,it's like we're responsible in
every situation.
We can control our response toour partner.
We are responsible for ourmarriage.
It is our marriage.
At the end of the day, we areresponsible and really that's
the beginning of healing andrestoration is like you have to
take responsibility and say I amresponsible, this is my life,
(39:31):
this is my marriage and I'mgoing to take responsibility.
I'm not going to delegate thatresponsibility to someone else
and outsource it and give all mypower to someone else who
clearly isn't responsible rightnow.
Speaker 1 (39:41):
Right, I know well.
We had a guest once and shesaid something really beautiful
around.
You know her husband.
They had been married for over25 years or something and she
really felt like they were atthis impasse and that,
ultimately, she was like youknow.
I don't feel like my husband'sromantic, I don't feel like
there's any element of romancein our marriage.
And she said you know what I'mgoing to create, that I am not
(40:09):
going to put that on him, I'mgoing to do what I I feel is
romantic.
And she said that you know itwas unbelievable what just small
gestures over a consistentperiod of time and how it
shifted things and it really didaffect him and of course, it
was unconscious.
It wasn't like he was all of asudden like she spoke to him and
and declared this or was tryingto control his behavior.
(40:31):
She was just doing things andsetting things up and creating a
different you know attitude andenergy and environment in their
relationship.
And I strongly believe thatit's like you have a huge sphere
of influence in yourrelationship that sometimes we
forget.
Speaker 2 (40:47):
We have absolutely and and ultimately, just to
leave people with this.
It's like it's not newinformation that will transform
your relationship.
It's radically seeking out andimplementing new behavior.
It's behavior that's gonna andI always say like, if you're
watching this podcast today,don't, don't intellectualize
this and go oh yeah, that thatsounds good and that sounds good
.
Find one thing you canimplement, one behavior.
(41:09):
Just take one behavior that youcan implement into your
marriage, because it's radicallyseeking out and aggressively
implementing new behavior.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
Behave differently and you will get a different
response, and that is wheretransformation starts yeah, and
I will publicly commit, becauseI'll tell you, one of the things
that I've been working on in mymarriage with my husband is
making eye contact with him whenhe speaks because I know that's
important to him to feel seennot only heard but seen, and I'm
(41:39):
a busy bee, Like I know I'malways like on the go doing a
million things, and so I really,and believe me, I still do that
.
Speaker 2 (41:48):
I haven't changed my personality.
Speaker 1 (41:50):
But I am super more successful and intentional about
pausing, you know, andlistening and I'm telling you it
is huge and in terms of thelevel of just intimacy and
communication on a day-to-day,just by doing that one thing, it
just like disrupts a patternand it unlodges like more trust.
Speaker 2 (42:14):
Tiny little things right.
New behavior it's seeking outand implementing new behavior.
That makes the difference.
Intellectual informationdoesn't change anything.
It just puffs you up and makesyou feel you know more qualified
than you really are.
It's about it's.
It's really seeking out newbehavior and radically
implementing that new behavior.
That's what's going totransform your relationship.
(42:34):
So take just one thing andcommit to implementing that and
you, you'll see thetransformation start to take
place.
Speaker 1 (42:39):
100 well, I love it.
It's been such a pleasure.
Thank you so much, cody, Ireally wish you and pray for you
and your wife, I'm sure you'refantastic and I can't wait to
share your information and foreveryone who's listening to this
, we'll be sure to have allCody's website address and links
(43:00):
and all the social media onlineso you can easily access him
and his resources.
Speaker 2 (43:05):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (43:05):
Thank you again, Cody , and have a wonderful rest of
your day.
Speaker 2 (43:08):
No, thank you.
Thank you for having me on, Iappreciate it.
This is Christina Gerena with Capacito for two.
We are so excited to be herewith you today.
It's been a little bit of ahiatus and we've missed you very
much, but we're starting on thesteady and I'm very excited.
Javi apologizes for his absence, but he's here with spirit and
(00:21):
we're making it up to you.
We're having a fabulous guest,mr Cody Butler, and he is going
to share his wonderfulexperiences.
And it's so amazing sometimes,y'all, when you have sort of a
partner in crime, or at leastactually two partners, because
him and his wife are engaged ina marriage ministry as well, and
(00:44):
so we feel such a kinship toall folks that really are on
that spiritual journey with usright in marriage as a calling,
as really in some ways, amission in terms of how are you
going to give sustenance andrenewal and rebirth to not only
(01:06):
your faith but your partner inyour marriage.
So I want to welcome and I hopethat you give a good, strong,
warm welcome to Mr Cody Butler,and it's such a pleasure to have
you.
So nice to see you today.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Thank you, christine.
I appreciate you having me onhere.
It's every bit as much of apleasure, I promise you.
Thank you, christine, Iappreciate you having me on here
.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
It's every bit as much of a pleasure, I promise
you.
And the excellent thing, andyou may notice, is that Cody is
coming in today from Australia.
So I love the internationalbond.
It's the way the world works.
It's a beautiful thing, so it'sjust so nice to have you here.
We may be in a differenthemisphere, but our hearts are
(01:46):
aligned right and our faith isaligned, so it's a beautiful
journey to share.
I wanted to just ask you to tellour audience your story and to
share with us, you know yourwalk with your faith and how you
found yourself in this work ofa marriage ministry, what it
means to you.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Yeah, so I'll give you the short version because
there is definitely a longversion.
But in my 20s I went through aseries of really failed
relationships and they followeda pattern and it left me in a
very poor position really.
It left me very depressed andcaused some psychological issues
and stuff like that left mevery depressed and caused some
psychological issues and stufflike that and I just got tired.
I just got tired of, like,broken relationship after broken
(02:30):
relationship and then at thatpoint I decided to get some
education and figure out,because what's the lowest common
denominator in all of theserelationships?
Right, there was patterns thatwere being followed and the
lowest common denominator was me.
I'm like, okay.
Well, the first point I reallycame to was I like to act where
I have power and the placecommon denominator was me.
I'm like, okay, well, the firstpoint I really came to was I
like to act where I have powerand the place that I have power
is on myself and I can look atthe other person and say the
(02:52):
other person has done this orthe other person has done that,
but then what I actually havedone there is completely
disempowered myself.
I've put the solution in thehands of somebody else and I've
put the problem in the hands ofsomebody else.
So I just assumed that I wasthe cause of the problem and
started looking for solutions.
I started reading books, goingto seminars, getting all the
education I could get, and then,a few years after that, I met
(03:15):
my fiance my wife now.
We met, we started dating andnone of the problems were there.
Like all of the problems seemedto be solved.
But the issue was she was fromAustralia and I was from England
, hence why I'm in Australiaright now.
So this presented a whole newproblem.
Visas expired and immigrationlaw started to kick in and we
(03:36):
wanted to be together.
We decided we were going to getmarried and she had to go back
to Australia.
She applied for a marriage visato come back so we could get
married and we got denied.
We she had to go back toAustralia, where she applied for
a marriage visa to come back sowe could get married, and we
got denied.
We actually got denied twicefor a marriage visa.
Yeah, the government can tellyou who you marry and who you
don't marry.
They really can.
So we were separated for a wholeyear there and, of course, I
went back to my old habits ofnot dealing with things very
(03:58):
well and my way, my way ofdealing that was really
excessive alcohol use.
So that was a very stressfultime because we didn't know when
we was going to be togetheragain.
We really didn't have anyfinances at the time.
To speak of the immigrationprocess was hugely expensive.
It was four or five thousanddollars for every application we
got denied.
Then we had to appeal, whichwas another two or three
(04:20):
thousand dollars.
They denied it, then we had toto apply again, so literally
tens of thousands of dollarsthat we really didn't have.
We never knew what.
We didn't know when we wasgoing to be back together again.
So I started drinking andactually started drinking very
heavily.
So, long story short, we gotback together.
We came back together, we gotmarried and her family weren't
(04:41):
overly supportive of the wedding.
Obviously my financial positionwasn't great and she came from
sort of an upper middle classbackground and I wasn't the
standard upper middle class boythat they were looking for.
So there was some frictionthere and she had some
indoctrination while we wereseparated from her family.
And when we actually cametogether we got married quite
(05:03):
quickly, just because it was thebest thing to do right, get
married and immediately therewere some issues there.
My drinking started to affectmy personality and affect my
behavior within the marriage andsome of the stuff that she was
mirroring back to me coming fromher family was really starting
to cause some conflict.
So we were off to like a prettybad start.
(05:24):
To be honest with you, it was astruggle from the very beginning
and it never got better.
It continued to get worse,continued to get worse until
finally I agreed to get somehelp, just because I could see
that would buy me some time, andI actually started seeing a
counselor and it was just a joke.
I just treated it like a joke,christine.
(05:46):
I was going just because it wasbuying me some time and I kind
of played with the guy.
I thought I was intellectuallysuperior to him and I'd go there
and I'd play games.
And after a year there wasreally no progress whatsoever.
And a little bit more time goesby and finally she's like we
need to solve this problem.
I can't continue like this.
(06:07):
So I agree to go to a secondmentor and I'm expecting him to
placate me and say oh, it's notyour fault.
This the usual nicey-nicey,let's talk about it, it's okay,
it's going to be okay.
And five minutes into the firstsession, he goes, he goes.
I'll just be honest with you.
He goes, this is hopeless, yoursituation is hopeless.
(06:28):
And I was like it just reallyis a real pattern.
Interrupter.
I caught me off guard and I waslike no, it's not hopeless.
And he goes.
No, it's, he goes in thenatural world.
This is hopeless in the naturalworld.
This is hopeless In the naturalworld.
This is hopeless.
There's no hope for you or yourmarriage.
And I was like whoa, I neveractually, and what he did there
(06:53):
was he gave me the gift oflosing her.
Yes, absolutely.
That was the first time thatI've actually faced with the
consequences of what was goingon in that relationship, and I
and he gave me the gift oflosing her, and and that's what
I really want.
Like whenever I see couplesthat are, that are struggling
now, it's like that's the giftthat I want to give them.
I want to give them the gift oflosing each other without
(07:15):
losing each other, becausethat's leverage, right.
That's like okay, well, this is, this is the path that I was
traveling down, this was theconsequence and that was the
first time that I'd ever seen.
This is the outcome of mybehavior and I was like that is
it.
I know what the problem is.
The problem is my drinking andnow some additional drug use on
top of that, which was veryserious.
We're not talking marijuana andstuff like that.
(07:37):
We're talking some prettyserious, some pretty serious,
some pretty nasty stuff, and Ijust didn't want to give all
that stuff up before.
I wanted to have my marriage andhave that stuff right and I got
to the in that session where Ilost her, I'm like, okay, well,
I'm gonna have to choose.
I'm gonna have to choose drugsand alcohol.
I'm gonna have to choose mywife.
I can't have both.
(07:57):
And I told him.
I said it's not hopelessbecause I'm about to be honest
with you for the first time ever.
And I said that's, I'll tellyou why it's not hopeless,
because I'm about to be honestwith you for the first time ever
.
And I said I'll tell you whyit's not hopeless, because I'm
about to tell you the truth.
And you're the first personthat I'm ever going to tell the
truth to.
I'm engaging in thesebehaviours and I'm stuck in
these behaviours and I need help.
And the great thing is fordarkness to thrive, it needs to
(08:18):
be absent of light.
Darkness cannot survive whenlight is shone into it.
The second that you turn thelight on in a dark room, the
light, the darkness, does notstand a chance Light defeats
dark 100 times out of 100.
So the real key, the realtakeaway for me and that was
like you have to shine lightinto the darkness and for that
(08:39):
to happen you have to be openand you have to understand.
So I think a lot of peopleunderstand what the problems are
within their marriage.
They're just not willing todeal with those.
They're not willing to shinelight onto that because they
want to keep their habits, theywant to keep their addictions,
they want to keep their badbehaviors.
And that was the revelation forme was you've got to shine
light into the dark.
You've got to be honest andyou've got to.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
You've got to really come face to face with the Wow,
I really appreciate your honestyand your candor, your
vulnerability, right now, justto be open, because I think in
some ways that's revolutionaryand transformational in itself.
(09:20):
To just tell your story sostraightforwardly, because this
is a lot of our stories andthere's so much shame around
this sense of I'm making badchoices, I don't feel like I can
get out of it or, like you said, almost like this binary
thinking, like we get stuck insort of this magical sense of we
(09:43):
can have really what you knowour weakness or, like you said,
the darkness or whatevertemptation that is.
People can relate to it as sinor addiction, whatnot, and it
can't coexist.
You can't grow in that, youcan't get closer to an
unconditional love or compassionor self-awareness and closer to
(10:05):
your faith.
In that state it's just notpossible.
And I'm so impressed I mean,did you feel like you got?
Did you have to get it to astate of readiness?
Do you feel like that's?
There was something in thatmoment that just opened up to
you, yeah, or was it work as,like you know?
Because it is a miracle in away?
Speaker 2 (10:26):
it is a miracle, it's 100% a miracle.
I don't want to, I don't wantto downplay it and it's like,
you know, just to throw some,some, some encouragement out
there to people that are in thissituation.
It's like I mean, today, I, youknow, it's like I work with a
lot of couple, I do a lot ofstuff and it's like I could be
considered a marriage expert,right.
But here's the thing everymaster was once a disaster.
It was out.
It was out.
(10:47):
It was out of the disaster thatmy life was, that I had to
build from that and I'm like I'mnot staying in this place of
disaster anymore.
It's not like I had skills.
It was because I had no skillsthat I developed the skills and
it was recognizing that I didn'thave the skills.
And, to be honest with you,christine, I think a lot of
(11:07):
people, most people, don'tunderstand how bad their
situation is.
They're in denial, because wecan call it, we can call it sin,
we can call it addiction, wecan call it indulgence, we can
call it hedonism, we can call itwhatever we want.
It goes by a lot of differentnames.
But a lot of people they don'tunderstand how bad their
situation is and what theconsequences.
Like porn is a great example.
(11:28):
I mean fortunately.
Fortunately, porn was not mystruggle.
You just read my mind.
They think they can have theporn and have the relationship.
And it's like you don'tunderstand how bad your
situation is while you are inthis temptation.
It is wrecking your life.
It is wrecking your marriage.
It is wrecking your physicalbody.
It is rewiring your brain towhere you're a different human
(11:49):
being that you don't know.
You're having no choice overthis.
You're being reprogrammed in away.
You have no choice and by thetime you realize what's going on
and how bad the consequencesare, your wife or husband is
going to be gone.
Your body is not going to workproperly.
You're going to have acompletely abnormal appetite in
(12:10):
many ways and you're going to bea person you don't know who you
are and you don't recognize andyou don't like and you're not
going to know what to do aboutit.
It's like if you couldunderstand right now, today,
what the end result is.
Wisdom is seeing the end fromthe beginning.
Right, right, wisdom is morevaluable than pearls and rubies
and diamonds.
It is to be sought above allthings, above all wealth.
(12:31):
Wisdom is to be sought andwisdom is to see the end from
the beginning, and most peoplecannot.
While they're in theirtemptation, they can't see the
end state, because if they did,it would scare the living
daylights out of them and theywould change.
People say oh, you know, youcan't get off drugs, you can't
get up.
Yeah, big enough scare will getyou off of it instantly.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
It's all about the environment and the consequences
at stake, right?
I mean absolutely.
I think it's also reallyinteresting to add in here, and
I'm curious if this is coming upfor you in your work with
couples.
I know that you counsel them andyou're a huge support.
What we see, too, is thatpeople are just slowly and it
(13:13):
will be stage by stagerecovering from the trauma of
covid, you know, and thepandemic, and having their
families forced into quarantinefor a period of time, or their,
their church or their communitybeing on lockdown for a period
of time.
It's's not like you.
Just, you know, bounce rightback in a week or a month after
(13:36):
this prolonged period and Ithink it has taken its toll.
I mean, I know it has on ourparents that we've had to
revisit.
you know past issues and youknow seek counseling and for us
that, for I see that as anopportunity for growth because
once you've been through it youkind of realize okay, so we're
regressing.
But usually in my experience aregression is sort of the
(13:59):
prelude to big growth.
If you're willing to consciouslyengage it and open your heart
to it and both willinglyco-create, you know, then you
could do it.
But I think that's one of thebiggest struggles is that so
many people do feel isolated andperhaps go or regress and don't
(14:20):
necessarily catch themselveswhen you have these outside
factors that are so bigabsolutely.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
and look with covid.
I, like you, know, the thingwith covid is like covid hasn't
increased problems withinrelationships.
Covid has highlighted, hasn'tincreased problems within
relationships.
Covid has highlighted problemsthat already exist within
relationships.
There's very few relationshipsthat COVID has created damage
where there wasn't.
It's simply highlighted thedamage that was already there.
It's exacerbated it and sped itup, because again, what it's
(14:47):
done, it's highlighted, it'sbrought people face to face with
the cracks in theirrelationship.
And my distraction was drugs andalcohol.
Some people's distraction isporn.
Some people's distraction isvideo games.
Some people's distraction isdistraction.
It doesn't matter what it's,just distraction is all it is.
And a lot of times we go towork.
The way we stay married is we goto work because we can't be in
(15:10):
the presence of that person 24hours a day, or we go to the bar
at the end of the day, or we goto the sporting event with our
friends, or we we distractourselves with other aspects of
our lives, and the reality iswe're only spending, you know,
10, 10 or 12 hours a day withour partner, and eight of those
hours are asleep.
So now, now we're brought faceto face and and it's like we
(15:31):
have to talk to each other.
We have to communicate, we haveto coexist.
We can't distract ourselvesfrom our problems.
We now come face to face withour problems and I don't believe
personally that COVID hascreated those problems.
It's just simply brought usface to face with those problems
and the question now is whatare you gonna do about it?
Speaker 1 (15:48):
Right, what?
How do you in your life, youknow, in terms of being a
support in your work, how do youcontinually work on yourself
and your marriage and yourrelationship?
Do you have a certain structure, cody?
It seems like you certainlyhave done like a massive you
know, healing transformationyeah, I'm curious around.
(16:10):
Just what are some of thosepractical ways in which you keep
yourself in check?
Speaker 2 (16:15):
So one way is to come on shows like this.
Like there's two things reallythat if you want to master
something, you have to teach it.
So if you learn a skill like,my advice is, if you get
something out of this podcasttoday, either from myself or
from Christina here teach it tosomebody within 24 hours.
Find somebody to teach it to.
Like mastery comes out ofteaching.
(16:36):
People say those who can do andthose who can't teach.
That's absolute rubbish, that'snonsense.
That's complete nonsense.
Those, those who can teach,like who was the greatest?
You know?
Look who was the greatestteacher ever in the history of
the world?
It was Jesus.
You know, he didn't have toteach, he could have just done.
The greatest of doers areteachers.
(16:57):
So the first thing is teachingand sharing others the way out
of the canyon, the way back.
That's really helpful.
And the second thing is comingon shows like this.
It brings a massive amount ofpublic accountability.
It brings scrutiny to mymarriage's.
Like well, if I'm here givingmarriage advice, I better have
my affairs in order, right?
Speaker 1 (17:18):
yeah yeah, when we first wrote our book, cody, my
husband and I, so our book it'sit's essentially boundless love,
healing your marriage before itbegins, and it it's a he she
version or testimony around howfaith saved us at the first,
this breaking point, and it wasa lot of unresolved patterns
exactly what you spoke to forboth of our families of origin
(17:40):
and childhood, as well as thepresence and dependency of
alcohol and and, and both of usbe dealing with undiagnosed
depression, my husband dealingwith real anger management
issues.
And it just had that perfectstorm right, that combustion
that just blew up.
And practice goes wide openwhere you're so vulnerable right
(18:02):
, you're, so you really aredesperate, and so that was the
ceiling that really transformedus.
But one of the things that wasso funny and I kind of just, you
know, blew it off a little bitat the moment when it happened
but we were at a speaking eventand one of our friends said to
us you know, well, y'all betternot divorce now, like for real.
(18:25):
Exactly, you know, it was likeit's true.
What you're saying and you'rereally speaking to that is when
you put yourself out there.
That's the gift of beingaccountable, because you then
hold yourself accountable.
That's what I'm hearing fromyou of leadership.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
You have to be willing to take the first arrow.
You have to be willing to takethe first bullet.
It's like how do you get troopsto advance into fire, which is
about the most unnatural thingin the world?
You have to be willing to putyourself out there and take the
first bullet, take the firstarrow.
You can't be the general up onthe hill saying I'm gonna be up
here watching the battle from mybinoculars because if I get
hurt you're in trouble and a lotof it is going to be coming on,
coming on shows like this andit's like you say, like being
(19:11):
vulnerable, and saying, okay,well, this is what I was going
through, these were mychallenges.
As ugly as they are, it gives.
It allows other people to seethat, hey, we're all going
through that, we've all got ourchallenges, we've all got a a
hill that we've got to take andit's okay.
Nobody came out of the wombdoing relationships, at at least
doing them well.
It's so counterintuitive and alot of times we see these role
(19:35):
models and they're so unhelpfulbecause they present this
picture of perfection.
It's almost a problem with thechurch to some extent.
It's like there's a lack ofvulnerability in the leadership.
It's like I'm not a leader.
I'm just here with you and Iwant to share with you my story,
(19:55):
because my story might be ableto help you, my story might make
it okay for you to come out andsay, okay, I'm having those
same issues, because nothing'sgoing to change in your
relationship until you confess.
Right, salvation is conditional.
A lot of people don'tunderstand that, but salvation
is a hundred percent conditional.
It's conditional on confessingyour sins and repenting.
(20:17):
It's conditional on confesslike step one, and it doesn't
matter what your religiousbelief is, it doesn't matter.
It's like you have to confess,you have to own up and
acknowledge where you are.
There is no there.
There is no reconciliation,there is no improvement until
you say, okay, this is thebaseline, this is how bad it
really is.
This is how much trouble that,that ownership, and also
(20:42):
ownership is.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
You know that transparency?
It's like I think you know somuch.
It's just so powerful, to kindof put the veil back on the
institution of marriage and todemystify it for people and to
be vulnerable and real about it,Because I think you know, at
least in the spiritual evolutionof marriage as a spiritual
partnership, why not just bereal about how sticky and messy
(21:08):
and ugly it can get?
Speaker 2 (21:09):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
If we don't move through that, how can we heal
like, how can we go to anotherplace with it?
There's no way that that'sright.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
If we have an unrealistic expectation of of
what marriage should be, whichis a lot of times what we see
right the role models ofmarriage it's like it's
completely you're shooting at atarget that doesn't exist.
You're shooting for a goal thatis unreal.
It's like marriage is messy andit's like, yeah, sure, me and
my wife we're in the marriageministry.
Does that mean we don't fight?
No, we have ways to recoverquickly.
(21:40):
Does it mean that we don't haveproblems with each other?
No, we just don't live there.
We don't stay there for decadesat a time.
It's like we have all the sameproblems that everybody else has
.
We have all the same challengeseverybody else has.
We just don't live there.
We just don't stay there.
We recognize it, we confess it,we get it out of our lives and
we move forward quickly.
And that's the thing You'renever going to have a perfect
(22:02):
marriage.
It's how you respond to whathappens, not what happens, which
is going to determine the levelof success and the level of
happiness that you experiencelevel of success and the level
of happiness that you experience.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, I couldn't agree more,because you know my orientation
or my I'm a social worker,that's my trade, and so one of
the things that is so key isit's not about eradicating
behavior or, you know,dismissing or denying a problem.
It's about looking at lesseningintensity and frequency of the
hiccups, right of those of thoseobstacles, and, like you said,
(22:34):
you don't sit there, you don'twallow in it like you're not,
you're not stuck in it for aslong and it's okay to be stuck
even for however long, but it'sabout are you moving forward
right and catching on like?
The other thing and I'm sureyou can relate to this too is
like what are the narratives andspiritual narratives and
pitfalls of your marriage story?
Right, and it's your individualnarrative and your couple's
(22:55):
narrative and how that?
Then, once you get to own thatand take responsibility and
share it and be transparentaround it, then this recovery
time you're suggesting isquicker, because you don't have
to kind of be like in the darktotally by yourself trying to
you know, figure it out fromlike from zero right well,
(23:16):
there's a great.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
There's a great parable about.
Man was walking down the streetand there was a hole in the
road and he fell down it.
Have you heard it?
Yeah, I love it, but go for ityeah man was walking down the
street and there's a hole in theroad.
He fell down it and there wasan underground labyrinth of
sewers or drains or whatever.
It took him years, walkingaround for years, to finally
found his way out after years.
Was walking down the samestreet again a week later.
(23:38):
Saw the hole fell in it anyway.
Was walking around for months.
Finally found his way out aftermonths Walking down the street
again.
Saw the hole fell in it anyway.
Took him a week to get out.
The next day he was walkingdown the same street, saw the
hole, stepped around it andwalked on.
And that's how our relationshipswork.
(23:58):
We fall in a hole and we staythere for years.
Now we get the skills to getout of that hole.
It doesn't mean we're not evergoing to fall in that hole again
.
We just don't stay there quiteas long and we might have to
fall in that hole two or threeor four times, and that's okay.
But eventually you're going toget to the point to where every
time you fall in the hole ittakes less time to get out and
eventually you're going to getto the point where you just step
(24:19):
around that hole and you neverhave to fall in it again, and
that's a realistic analogy tothe marriage recovery process.
It's not that you're not goingto fall in these holes ever
again.
We just can't stay there.
We got to stay there less andless time.
Every time we've got toremember our way out and we've
got to action that very quicklyright, and I love too, because
(24:40):
none of that story includes achapter on, like you know
blaming the whole, no, thereyelling at the whole like hiding
the whole.
Why didn't the government fix it?
Speaker 1 (24:51):
yeah, exactly like being victimized by the
existence of the whole, like allthese ways that we are
humanists, like we canpersonalize or take, take it
personally that the whole exists.
It's like no, everyone's got it.
This is part of the humancondition and, like you said,
it's like these small victoriesadd up really and we want and we
(25:14):
want to.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
We want to measure ourselves too.
So I I found like, afterworking with like thousands of
people, not just in marriage butin lots of different areas of
life, like human psychology isjust fast.
It's my hobby, it's my, I'veloved it.
I've always been veryfascinated with how human beings
work and, and I can tell you,as human beings we tend to
measure ourselves against thedistance from where we want to
be to where we are, versus fromwhere we were to where we've
(25:36):
come, and we get discouraged.
We go, okay, well, I'm here,but I'm so far away from where I
want to be.
It's like, yeah, but look howfar you've come.
Why are in on on how far youare from what you want to be?
Let's look at the progressthat's been made and let's get,
let's get excited about thedistance that you've traveled
from where you were.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
If you do that, it's very easy to get the momentum to
keep moving forward well andand I think you're right so much
that is like one of the mosthuman sort of defense mechanisms
or ways in which we fall, youknow, crazy.
Was this like the comparisonright, the game of comparison?
(26:12):
And?
Speaker 2 (26:13):
and shooting on ourselves.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
Well, I should be here, we should be at this place
in our marriage or this placein our life for success or
whatnot, and it a lot of it islike it said.
It's falling into this trap ofart, this sort of pretty picture
which doesn't exist to beginwith right and so it is.
It's a lot of taking away andstripping down these illusions
(26:38):
and expectations, like youmentioned earlier of what you
think marriage is and, obviously, being able to discern and sift
through how you were raised andwhat were the models of
marriage in your life.
As a kid, my husband was anorphan.
He didn't have parents.
So, me, mothering our childrenfor him is, like him, healing a
(27:02):
lot of the mothering he nevergot by proxy.
And so what comes up with that?
And so all of us, you know, Ithink it's, it's something that
you don't realize sometimes whenyou get married, but it is
where the rubber meets the roadin adulting oh look, I.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
I worked with a fighter pilot one time and he
was telling me that in intraining they they obviously
talk about getting shot downscenarios and they're taught
that this, the faster you canaccept that you've been shot
down and what happens next?
Every second counts.
He's like, as you're going downin that parachute, they're
looking for you and he's like,if you, if in your mind you go
well, did I do this wrong?
(27:41):
If I'd done that differently?
The past is irrelevant, thatthat you've got to cut.
The faster you can cut the pastoff and start looking forward,
every second increases yourchance of survival, and I think
marriage is a very good analogyfor marriage.
We can look at the past and Ialways ask people when I start
to work with them did anybodybeat anybody?
Did anybody cheat on anybody?
(28:02):
Are there any seriousstructural issues within the
marriage?
No, okay, well, can we startfrom a point of view of if I've
hurt you, I'm sorry and ifyou've hurt me, I forgive you?
Can we just have, can we justsay that to each other?
Because that's like you'recoming down in a parachute right
now and every minute thatpasses by your marriage is in
perilous danger If, if we've gotto go back into that aircraft
(28:24):
and decide should we havepressed this button?
Should we have done that?
Should?
It's like this is not helpful.
Can we just get to a point ofif I've hurt you, I'm sorry and
if you've hurt me, I forgive you, and move forward and start to
put a plan in place to how we'regoing to resurrect this
marriage, how we're going torecover this marriage, and not
unless there's seriousstructural issues from the past?
Can we just move forward andstart to build from a solid
(28:45):
foundation?
And I think that's reallyimportant?
We can spend a lot of time inthe past and couples will start
talking to each other.
It's like well, when it happened, you had a fight.
Every time you bring it up, Ihad, you have a fight.
What is the issue here?
Does it?
And a lot of times I'm likeneither one of you even remember
, even know what happened.
This happened 20 years ago oryou have remaining that the
(29:07):
facts have left you.
Maybe a half of one percent ofthe facts remain and the rest is
the story that you've beentelling yourself for 20 years
about what happened.
Can we ditch the story?
Can we agree to ditch the storybecause we we don't know what
happened 20 years ago anymore.
We simply don't know right.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
there's no way to get into the truth, so sometimes
you have to release it.
Just release it, surrender itand let it go and move on with
what you have, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
Do you want to be right or do you want to be
married?
Speaker 1 (29:35):
Yeah, yeah, that's a biggie.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
That is a biggie.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
And that and that and it gets us all.
I mean I definitely go throughmy phases of like, wow, I'm
really committed to being rightabout this right now.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
You know like I can kind of.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
I mean, I don't always catch myself, but it's
like why am?
I so like vehement about thiskind of silliness.
You know, and sure enough.
You know, sometimes it's reallybasic.
You know, I'm tired, I'm hungryor you know what I mean.
And then these, these thingssurface and bubble up and
(30:10):
whatnot.
It's that hard.
But I do think you're right.
It's like there is a moment inwhich you have to really say
it's not worth rehashing, rightlike there.
You have to arrive at some sortof midpoint, like okay, we're
going to build upon the factthat we do love each other, and
we don't necessarily know howthat's going to materialize or
look like now, but we're goingto go in that direction right,
absolutely.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
I mean, when you've got an event that's so
destructive in the past, it'slike why do you keep bringing it
into the present?
It's in the past, can we not?
Can we not let the dead burytheir own dead?
It's like it's not necessarylike now.
That's not to say that, liketalking about the past, there is
obviously like issues do haveto be discussed, but they only
have to be discussed once.
It's like we're gonna, we'regonna have this discussion and
(30:51):
and a lot of times you know I'llask couples of as well.
When we're talking about issues,I'm like when was the last time
you was able to actually haveyou was actually able to express
a thought to its conclusion,you was able to express a
complete thought without yourpartner jumping in and
interrupting, yeah, and?
And to the other partner, I'mlike what's going on in your
head?
Are you listening to yourpartner to try and understand
(31:13):
what they're saying, or are youlistening to your partner to
build your defense, to buildyour case, and you're just
waiting for your opportunity topresent your case?
Because there's a case buildingis absolutely devastating to a
relationship.
It's like if you change, if youjust do the simple act of
changing how you listen to I'mlistening to try and understand
how my partner understands, touh, from I'm listening to build
(31:35):
my case to, to rebut you and todefend myself.
It's like all she wants to dois express her feeling.
All he wants to do is expressher feeling.
Let them do it and it will goaway.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
The feeling will go away, yeah no, I see that with
my kids right, I'm sure allparents do.
It's so obvious when you'reoutside of another relationship,
looking in, and it's like ifyou just say your piece and you
say your piece, you don't haveto talk over each other,
everyone's heard and itevaporates.
But until you get to thatopenness, right where people can
actually trust, let down theirguard and not protect and be
(32:10):
available and present to theother individual, then you know,
then it is, there is grace inthat moment.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
But there's a lot of dance and protectiveness
sometimes to get there andthat's where people misstep.
Yes, and I see that in myselfDefinitely.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
And I worked in customer service for a long time
and like somebody would comewith a complaint and they'd just
be like you're gonna do thisand I'm sewing, and it's like
you just sit there and listenand listen and say, okay, yeah,
you're absolutely right.
I understand you're upset.
Is there anything more you'dlike to add to that?
And then you ask again okay, isthere anything else, anything
else you'd like to add to that?
No, I think I'm done.
(32:49):
Okay, what would you like me todo?
Well, just like anotherhamburger, please.
Would that make you happy?
And that's it all they want todo.
But if I, if I had jumped inthere, like I learned very
quickly, oh yeah, it's just likeif, if somebody has a thought
that they want to express andit's not like it's not a
(33:09):
positive thought or it's not apositive feeling, all you're
doing by interrupting is you'rejust suppressing that thought
back into that person and you'repouring gasoline on it and it's
going to come out at a laterdate.
It's as tony robbins says wewant to do battle with the
monster while the monster's ababy.
We don't want to let.
We don't want to let themonster grow into a full-grown
beast before deciding to battlewith, and the easiest thing is
(33:30):
to like stop building cases andjust let the other person
express their view to itscompletion and its fullness and
ask them is that, is that acomplete thought?
Did you just express thecomplete thought or is there
more you'd like to add to it?
When they say, yes, that's acomplete thought, that thought
has now left them right.
It has no home in them anymore.
It's like it's out there andit's somebody else's problem now
(33:51):
and it's the easiest thing inthe world to do, but we just
don't know to do it.
Speaker 1 (33:58):
We just don't know how to do it yeah, practicing
that, you know, if you canself-regulate enough right to
not be defensive and, like yousaid I love that I didn't think
of it that way or put those twowords together but case-build,
then at some level you know youcan you're really moving your
(34:18):
energy in such a much more likereally creative and constructive
way in the relationship,because think of all of that
like build-upup right thatyou're creating around something
, but it's actually in your head, it's not even necessarily
being spoken and, yeah, it'slike spinning your wheels in a
way.
Really absolutely, it lookedlike that well, I could talk to
(34:42):
you forever, you're still on it.
It's so, it's so refreshing.
Speaker 2 (34:46):
Oh my gosh, you gave so many nuggets I'm gonna be
processing this.
Speaker 1 (34:50):
This is fantastic.
Where can people find you?
Because I know that you're youdo so much, but I know you're
you and your wife have a websiteand you do counseling we do, we
do help.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
We do help couples.
Indeed, bettermarriagecomau isprobably the best place.
We've got some free resourceson there.
We got a.
You can sign up for a freeworkshop there on how to end the
fighting immediately, improvecommunication and restore sexual
intimacy.
We share with you how to dothat very quickly.
Speaker 1 (35:17):
yeah, bettermarriagecomau is kind of
the hub of where we, where wehang out okay, it's easy that
and that's to the point rightthere, because that's what folks
are looking for in that moment.
It's easy that and that's tothe point right there, because
that's what folks are lookingfor in that moment.
It's like how can I improve mymarriage?
And and, and you know,sometimes I really believe this.
It's like it doesn't have to befancy and I you know what I'm
(35:39):
saying like one resource or onearticle sometimes can tip it,
you know, in terms of being thatquantum leap moment and the
other thing, and I don't knowhow you feel about this, but I
do believe that we cannotobviously control our spouse,
but we can control ourbusinesses If one person does
the work, even if your partneris not doing the work or work.
(36:01):
You are changing that dynamic.
I strongly believe that Becausea lot of people get caught up
and I know I did around likewell.
I want my husband to change andit's like no, that's really not
the focus.
I need to mind my own businesson this and start here.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
Can I just add one thing before we wrap it up?
I think it's really, really,really critical.
Like in a traditional marriagewhich we're talking about here,
we've got to look at thecovenant and the agreement right
, and it's I promise to have andto hold, to love and to cherish
to death.
Do us part for better or better, for worth, to death, to death.
Do us part.
That's an unconditional promiseand a lot of people say well,
my husband's not doing the work.
My husband, it doesn't matter,like the your.
(36:38):
Your promise to have and to hold, to love and to cherish was not
conditional.
There's no condition on therein there on your partner doing
the work.
It.
It's like this is an absolutelyunconditional agreement where I
promise to love this person andcherish this person and be
there for this person,irrespective of their behavior
back towards me.
And a lot of times we forgetthat and I always say well, are
(37:01):
you upholding your end of thecovenant?
Are you upholding your end ofthe agreement?
Because you've entered into anunconditional agreement and now
you're complaining thatconditions are not being met.
So if you're not meeting yourend of the agreement, who are
you to hold your husband or wifeaccountable until you are
absolutely congruent with thecovenant that you've entered
(37:21):
into, the agreement that you'veentered into.
The only place to work is onyourself, the only place.
Once you've entered into theagreement that you've entered
into, the only place to work ison yourself, the only place.
Once you've achieved thatperfection and now you're giving
unconditional love to the otherperson, now we can start to say
okay, but until we get to thatpoint, yeah, I am the only
person I can look at in myrelationship.
I can't say that I give my wifeunconditional love.
Of course it's conditional.
(37:42):
I'm human.
Do I love her unconditionallywhen she, when she winds me up
or annoys me?
And in that moment that love,you know, I might withdraw that
love conditionally.
It's like my love is notunconditional permanently, as
much as I would like for it tobe.
It's what I'm working towards.
There are moments when Iwithdraw that love because she
upsets me right.
So I've got work to do onmyself.
Speaker 1 (38:03):
Yeah, no, that's a great way to frame it and to
look at it, because I thinksometimes that's how we're
taught, that's how we'resocialized, and it's gendered
and it's complicated.
But I think to focus on yourpartner, it's almost like a
welcome distraction, right, and,like you said, a temptation,
(38:25):
and that's not.
You know, you need to take theflashlight and point it inward,
because that's really where Ithink you know, in your own
growth center, in your faith inyour ability to actually make an
impact.
That's where it's going to startand it will, it will affect
them, but it just may not be inyour timing or at your pace
(38:47):
that's it.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
And I always tell people people don't understand
what I've said.
You're responsible and peopledon't understand what that means
.
It means, if you break thatword down, it's you are response
able, you are able to respond.
You are able to respond.
However, your partner'sbehaving, you are able to
respond to that.
You are response able.
So I tell people you'reresponsible, it's not your
partner's problem, you'reresponsible.
And once they understand whatthat word response responsible
(39:10):
means which is response able,it's like we're responsible in
every situation.
We can control our response toour partner.
We are responsible for ourmarriage.
It is our marriage.
At the end of the day, we areresponsible and really that's
the beginning of healing andrestoration is like you have to
take responsibility and say I amresponsible, this is my life,
(39:31):
this is my marriage and I'mgoing to take responsibility.
I'm not going to delegate thatresponsibility to someone else
and outsource it and give all mypower to someone else who
clearly isn't responsible rightnow.
Speaker 1 (39:41):
Right, I know well.
We had a guest once and shesaid something really beautiful
around.
You know her husband.
They had been married for over25 years or something and she
really felt like they were atthis impasse and that,
ultimately, she was like youknow.
I don't feel like my husband'sromantic, I don't feel like
there's any element of romancein our marriage.
And she said you know what I'mgoing to create, that I am not
(40:09):
going to put that on him, I'mgoing to do what I I feel is
romantic.
And she said that you know itwas unbelievable what just small
gestures over a consistentperiod of time and how it
shifted things and it really didaffect him and of course, it
was unconscious.
It wasn't like he was all of asudden like she spoke to him and
and declared this or was tryingto control his behavior.
(40:31):
She was just doing things andsetting things up and creating a
different you know attitude andenergy and environment in their
relationship.
And I strongly believe thatit's like you have a huge sphere
of influence in yourrelationship that sometimes we
forget.
Speaker 2 (40:47):
We have absolutely and and ultimately, just to
leave people with this.
It's like it's not newinformation that will transform
your relationship.
It's radically seeking out andimplementing new behavior.
It's behavior that's gonna andI always say like, if you're
watching this podcast today,don't, don't intellectualize
this and go oh yeah, that thatsounds good and that sounds good
.
Find one thing you canimplement, one behavior.
(41:09):
Just take one behavior that youcan implement into your
marriage, because it's radicallyseeking out and aggressively
implementing new behavior.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
Behave differently and you will get a different
response, and that is wheretransformation starts yeah, and
I will publicly commit, becauseI'll tell you, one of the things
that I've been working on in mymarriage with my husband is
making eye contact with him whenhe speaks because I know that's
important to him to feel seennot only heard but seen, and I'm
(41:39):
a busy bee, Like I know I'malways like on the go doing a
million things, and so I really,and believe me, I still do that
.
Speaker 2 (41:48):
I haven't changed my personality.
Speaker 1 (41:50):
But I am super more successful and intentional about
pausing, you know, andlistening and I'm telling you it
is huge and in terms of thelevel of just intimacy and
communication on a day-to-day,just by doing that one thing, it
just like disrupts a patternand it unlodges like more trust.
Speaker 2 (42:14):
Tiny little things right.
New behavior it's seeking outand implementing new behavior.
That makes the difference.
Intellectual informationdoesn't change anything.
It just puffs you up and makesyou feel you know more qualified
than you really are.
It's about it's.
It's really seeking out newbehavior and radically
implementing that new behavior.
That's what's going totransform your relationship.
(42:34):
So take just one thing andcommit to implementing that and
you, you'll see thetransformation start to take
place.
Speaker 1 (42:39):
100 well, I love it.
It's been such a pleasure.
Thank you so much, cody, Ireally wish you and pray for you
and your wife, I'm sure you'refantastic and I can't wait to
share your information and foreveryone who's listening to this
, we'll be sure to have allCody's website address and links
(43:00):
and all the social media onlineso you can easily access him
and his resources.
Speaker 2 (43:05):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (43:05):
Thank you again, Cody , and have a wonderful rest of
your day.
Speaker 2 (43:08):
No, thank you.
Thank you for having me on, Iappreciate it.
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