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Our lives often leave us feeling hopeless—like nothing will ever change. But perspective is everything. When you know where to look, hope can be found in the spaces and places you least expect.
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So I wanna go back to that analogy of the yard.
Who is in the yard? Yeah. Right.
So what's in my yard versus what's in my in-laws yard. Yeah.
And are they trying to mess
with something that's in our yard?
I don't mean that in a mean way.
I just wanna get clear definition. The potato patch.
The kids, that's our yard. Right? We're in charge of that.
We're, we're, we're accountable to the Lord with that.
But I am in charge of the potato patch.
I need my in-laws to respect that. Yeah.
I need my parents to respect that.
Welcome to the Hope and Real Life podcast with Jason Gore.
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Let's get the conversation started.
Hope and real life family. Welcome to part two
of a conversation that we are calling Face.
The friction Dealing with conflict
inside of our relationships.
We are here with a very special guest, April Miller.
And we are gonna pick back up talking about
what healthy boundaries look like inside
of our relationships. Here we go.
Like the Bible talks about we wanna be of one accord.
What can I do so that we can get into that same space?
Don't think of compromise as losing.
Think of it as finding that place of accord. One accord.
That's great. And I, and I think, um, in relationships,
whether it's learned or a pattern, or there are some people
and all of them maybe find ourselves in places where
we go in with that mentality of, I,
I'm not really here to compromise.
I am here to win. Mm-Hmm. I am here to get my ass.
But if that happens over
and over again, I mean, we'd use the word boundaries.
Like at some point someone might have to put up,
uh, a boundary.
Mm-Hmm. How do we think about boundaries
as it relates to our spouse?
Because it's not like you say, okay, time away. Mm-Hmm.
We can talk again in a week. Mm-Hmm. Or something like that.
Mm-Hmm. So what does that look like? And then Mm-Hmm.
How do boundaries play a role
in Yeah. With the communication?
So I'm a big fan of Henry Cloud,
and he often writes books with Gary Townsend.
They have several books on boundaries.
And I borrow an analogy from him.
He talked about one time, think about your life as a yard,
and the yard has a fence around it.
And so I picked that up and I've just kind of run with it.
But when we get married, so we have this yard,
you're a yard when we're not
children, but when we become adults Right.
And we leave our parents' yard. Right. Uh, you have a yard.
I have a yard. Well, you and your spouse have a yard. Right.
Shouldn't do this with you. Sorry. You and John,
You and John have a yard. We got it. Yeah.
When you got married, you merged those yards together.
Yeah. All right. And now we share fence line
with new people.
I now have his mom in my life and his dad in my life,
and his brother, and vice versa.
Right. People, coworkers, things like that.
For old friends that they, you know, that are dear to them.
Now, share a fence line with me and my husband.
But even within that yard, there should still be a very
low fence line between you and your spouse.
Low for me represents transparency.
I should be able to see over that fence line
and in my spouse's yard and see everything that's going on.
And vice versa. When we're safe
and we're in a good relationship, that fence line is low.
We raise fence lines to reduce transparency.
And I do that with unsafe people
or people who shouldn't be privy to certain things.
But back to my spouse,
there should be a low fence line between the two of us.
What it represents is areas that I shouldn't be in charge of
and shouldn't, shouldn't be doing for him, or vice versa.
I cannot walk with God for my husband.
I cannot take care of my body or,
or his body, I should say, for, for my husband.
I can't manage his work relationships for him.
Those are things that are still his to do.
But I can look over, maybe I have a conversation about, Hey,
I noticed you haven't been taking your multivitamin,
or I, I noticed, you know, you've been, you know, uh,
struggling with that coworker
and it seems like things aren't going well.
Do you wanna talk about it a little bit?
But at the end of the day, I'm gonna respect the boundary
and I'm gonna let you do what's yours to do.
When we are aware of those boundary lines
that can help us have cleaner compromises
and cleaner conflict communication,
because I'm not trying to be in charge
of things that I'm not supposed to be.
Gotcha. Mm-Hmm. So in that Mm-Hmm.
Um, if someone is seemingly stepping
over the fence line Mm-Hmm.
At some point, you gotta be able to talk about that as well.
What would you say are, are good ways
to set up those boundaries?
And to be clear about that,
because it sounds like you've had some
really good practical examples.
How do you set up those boundaries inside of a relationship,
but not create more conflict Mm-Hmm.
Um, or hurt someone's feelings
or create more of a challenge.
Yeah. So first of all,
we talked about that butter sandwich.
I did that early on on purpose.
I really wanted us to think about
using that butter sandwich.
Right. You know, I'm gonna remind you we're on the same
team, but here's my felt need about a boundary.
And I'm telling you, because we're on the same team,
but I mean, there's a lot of different techniques out there
for delivering, uh, conversation, you know,
needs in a healthy way.
Another one I'll just bring up here that I like
to encourage my couples to use is what the gottman's,
this was borrowed from the Gottman's.
Uh, they call it a point of agreement.
You start with a point of agreement. So, hey, we can both
Agree that I'm the best.
Yeah. Let's start. Is that, that's exactly
Where we start. Okay.
You know, we can both agree that we want
to be healthy, but I just,
I can't see a life without potato chips.
I gotta have some potato chips. Yeah.
Or we can both agree that we wanna have great relationships
with friends, but I don't wanna be home alone three nights a
week while you're out with your friends.
Right. So we can both agree.
But, and I think often using that point of agreement, first,
I'm not responsible for helping, for making my staff,
my staff, my staff, my spouse,
Not Okay. Now we
see how this goes. Mm-Hmm.
That is kind of how it runs at my house. Who
Works for who. Yes.
I'm not responsible for having my spouse not be defensive,
but I can set a nice environment for him
to be the most successful.
And a point of agreement can help with that. Yeah.
So that's what's in inside of a marriage. Mm-Hmm.
Um, and how about boundaries?
You know, you mentioned when you get married Mm-Hmm.
That brings a whole nother collection
of family members to the table.
Um, that can be difficult to navigate those boundaries.
How, how can we establish healthy boundaries, say
with our parents?
Mm-Hmm. With our in-laws,
and then especially, you know, children show up on the scene
and you've got the whole other,
what are we gonna do at Christmas time?
Mm-Hmm. And who gets to spend, how,
which grandparent gets to spend?
How much time? What are some ways
of navigating that conflict as well? Mm-Hmm.
Again, kinda staying in those broad strokes.
I wanna go back to that analogy of the yard.
Who is in the yard? Yeah. Right.
So what's in my yard versus what's in my in-law's yard.
Yeah. And are they trying to mess
with something that's in our yard?
I don't mean that in a mean way.
I just wanna get clear definition.
The potato patch, the kids, that's our yard. Right.
We're in charge of that. We're, we're,
we're accountable to the Lord with that.
But I'm in charge of the potato patch.
I need my in-laws to respect that. Yeah.
I need my parents to respect that.
So I would encourage a nice bread, butter bread,
and I would encourage it to be the blood relative
that maybe delivers that.
Right. When it comes time just talking
with my person at the,
the person who's violating the boundary at that boundary,
I can't guarantee this person will respond well,
but I can tell you there's a lot and a lot of peace.
And knowing that you delivered your felt need.
Well, and did the best you could to help
that person receive it.
Well, they may need a minute to get over it,
but I can lay my head on the pillow that night
before the Lord and know I did my best.
But the potato patch is mine. I have to do it.
The rutabaga, our finances, that's ours.
I might come to the fence line with a safe relative,
fairly low fence line.
What do we mean there? It's, that's communication.
I'm letting you know what's going on,
or I'm not letting you know what's going on.
The transparency. Right.
If I'd, if it's a safe relationship, I might ask you some,
Hey, can you give us some advice about when to buy a house?
Or, you know, I might invite it,
but at the end of the day, healthy people let people go back
and be adults and be in charge of their own yard.
So when I'm thinking through in-laws, when I'm thinking
through parents, think about that boundary line.
Are they in my yard? Am I being pulled into their yard?
Who needs to be where? Right.
And if they're not in the right spot, it may need
to get addressed with a nice butter sandwich.
And I would encourage it to be the blood
person who does that.
Yeah. Two things I I'd love to even chip in on, on that.
Yeah. And, and one is you just reiterated it again.
Uh, so fellas, if you miss this,
if you're having a challenge with your wife's family,
have the conversation with your wife
and allow your wife
to have the conversation with her family.
Now obviously things happen and things get blown out.
At some point you gotta step in and protect. Mm-Hmm.
But, um, man, you, we don't want to jump in and say words
or do something that's gonna create more tension
for an extended period of time. For what it's worth. It
Can be a we you go together.
But she should be leading the way I think, on that,
or having the conversation on her own.
Yeah. I think if it doesn't go well,
then maybe you come together
and she still should be leading the way.
But yeah, I would discourage him just jumping the
gate and, and talking. Yeah.
And the other thing I would say is just recognizing,
'cause we just talked through, it's very possible,
dare I even say likely.
Mm-Hmm. That there's gonna be times
where we're gonna make the best butter sandwich
and we're gonna have it on the plate.
Mm-Hmm. And we're gonna go over there
and we're gonna present it.
Mm-Hmm. And then what we're gonna get back is
what us just sitting here right now, not in fight
or flight mode with no flooding would say, well,
that's an irrational response. Yeah.
So easy To see and, and that's gonna happen. Mm-Hmm.
But to your point, like there, we have
to acknowledge the piece of we can only do what we can do.
We can't control other people's responses to our attempts
for and this illustration Mm-Hmm.
A great butter sandwich. Yeah.
And I think a lot of times, I know me personally, I,
I carry a lot of weight at times as it relates to family.
And probably a lot of it has to do with the role
that I've carried inside of my family for years
of when I don't believe I get that.
Oh, that makes so much sense, Jason. I get it. I understand.
I'm with you. Mm-Hmm mm-Hmm.
That, then I take that on as like extra weight for myself.
When you really can't control other people's reactions
And it's at its core,
that's a boundary issue even for you internally.
Yeah. What am I gonna own? What am
I not gonna, you're gonna, you're gonna end up
charging me for this.
Yeah. Hope in real life family.
We just want to take a moment and let you know about a
resource that is available to you.
I know a lot of our listeners aren't necessarily active in a
church, might not even be a Christian.
We are still thankful that you're spending time with us.
However, we do get asked regularly,
how can we find out more about your church,
or even just about this Jesus guy.
And so if that is you, I want you to know you can tune in
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We have live services on Saturday, 4:15 PM and 6:00 PM
or on Sunday at 9:30 AM
or 11:15 AM Those are Eastern standard times.
If you can't tune in during those times,
we will drop our YouTube link as well
as our podcast link down in the show notes.
We would love to have you join in with us.
Let's keep sharing some hope. Okay.
So how about this,
how about we communicate healthy boundaries?
We say, here's the fence line.
We say, Hey, this is
how high the fence line is on this specific topic,
but the boundary continues to be violated.
Yeah. What are some steps we can take?
Okay. So I wanna put this into populations.
I mean, there are people in our life that
they're continually violating that boundary.
And we don't feel God has put a special calling on our
heart to be in their lives.
They don't have to stay. Yeah.
You don't have to keep, you know, stay in that relationship.
Now, when it comes to family in particular,
we're coming up on the holidays, so I really want
to keep hitting that one.
Um, you, you've got, you,
we wanna stay in relationship with them.
Right. And so one thing is with a violator,
you can frequent the fence line less.
So maybe I only see you on special occasions,
and I don't, I don't make myself privy, you know, available
to you as much as I used to, just to reduce some of
that exposure because you won't stay in your yard
or you won't try, stop trying to pull me into your yard.
That would be more of a codependent relationship. Right.
Right. Um, you can also raise the boundary in,
or sorry, boundary, the fence line.
Uh, you can raise it
and you can raise it at
different levels, at different spots.
So we all have that Uncle Joe at Thanksgiving, you are like,
don't get in a conversation with Uncle Joe
about politics or religion.
Right. Right. So I keep my boundary
or my fence line really high,
Especially this year. Right. Especially
This year. Especially this year.
I keep it really high
with Uncle Joe on certain those topics.
I don't tell him how I vote.
He doesn't even know where I go to church.
But I love talking to Uncle Joe about football
and family memories.
So you can manipulate your fence line
and again, not have so much transparency in certain,
certain areas, but some people are so toxic, you do have
to shut down the fence line.
Yeah. So if you're dating a guy or a woman
and they are constantly in violation of those things,
it's okay to shut that down.
Or if, you know, occasionally there's an extended family
member, there's abuse or something like that,
and you don't have
to stay in relationship just 'cause that's your uncle.
What would you say to someone who knows
what you just said is true?
Probably do need to walk away from the relationship,
but for some reason, whether it's guilt, a sense of,
but maybe, um, can fix this person,
or I'm the only person that this person has, um,
any number of reasons Mm-Hmm.
That just continues to stay at the fence line.
Um, even though they know they probably need to walk away.
Um, what words of encouragement would you offer to them?
I think the first thing that's occurring
to me is do it in community.
Don't, don't just stand there in isolation knowing
something's not right, but not feeling like you can fix it.
I would engage my peers, my friends, my trusted people
to help speak into this with me.
Obviously, if you're a Christian,
I wanna go to the Lord about that.
I wanna look at biblical principles.
Um, there's, you know, one
of my favorite verses in Proverbs, which
of course it's not gonna pop right now,
but might be ten nine.
You know, he who walks in integrity walks securely.
He who walks in integrity.
If you are walking in the truth that you know, that the Lord
has put out there, then there's security available to you.
You can, you can not, uh,
second guess or be upset.
You can, you can draw that line
and not have to feel bad about the consequences, but,
but it can be stolen away if you let it.
Right. So do it in community, find some accountability.
Um, but if you know you're not doing the right thing,
you know, you can either keep doing that pattern
or you can do something different.
Right. In order for the pattern
change, somebody's gotta do something different. Yeah.
At the end of the day, we've gotta look ourselves in the
mirror and say, am I gonna do the right thing or not? Yes.
Yes. Uh, okay.
So in marriages, oh, we've talked a lot about it and,
and we're getting close to the end of our time, say a couple
is really dealing with some of these things,
whether it's setting boundaries, dealing
with conflict in a healthy way, when should a couple
consider professional counseling as it relates
to a conflict marriage inside of their relationship?
Yeah. I think a good hallmark for
that is are you feeling stuck?
Are you feeling stuck? It keeps going the same way.
It keeps deteriorating. It's not going well.
I don't know how to get outta this pattern.
I referenced the Gottman's before. Mm-Hmm.
In their research, they've come up with, um, four,
what they call the four horsemen, hallmark
of unhealth in a relationship.
And the longer they hang around,
the worse the relationship's gonna get.
Uh, they've highlighted, uh, defensiveness
when people get defensive, uh,
they've highlighted withdrawal when people either physically
withdraw or they emotionally withdraw,
they're in the same room, but they're
not really there anymore.
Um, they've highlighted criticism where you start
to become very critical of the person you're with.
And they've highlighted contempt, which is where, you know,
I just believe now that I am actually better than you.
Uh, when those things are showing up
and communication keeps devolving
or deteriorating into that stuck space,
it might be a great time to reach out
and get a third party to help you work it through.
Wow, that's great. Hey, bro, I appreciate it.
We, we've talked about a lot.
Um, how about to the person who's listening's, like, hey,
um, maybe I can't, uh, find a way to book a session
with April tomorrow, but, um,
but I'd love to go a little bit further.
What resources would you recommend?
I know you mentioned Henry Cloud.
What, what podcasts are out there?
What are some places that our folks could look
to find a little bit more
of this conversation if it's helpful for them?
Uh, I do like, uh, the Gottman's, obviously they've got a,
they also have a lot of work out there.
Um, I think the church is a good place to go.
Uh, we were talking earlier, I know hope offers reengage.
I think it's an amazing, uh, class for people to go through.
We've gone through it, my husband and
I, it's excellent material.
Um, and then, yeah, I think getting that third party,
whether it's a trusted, uh, spiritual leader
or it moves to a level where you need a professional,
I would, I, I can't, I can't stress enough how, uh,
important it is to do that.
Think about marriage. It, you know, like
with your car, you get tuneups.
Right? Even when you go through certain changes of life,
season of life changes, it's a good time just to, Hey,
let's, we're not, doesn't mean we're in crisis,
but let's go get a tuneup on how we're communicating.
Are our values the same? Are our dreams the same? So, yeah.
April, I, I really appreciate it.
I'm gonna ask you one question
that I ask every single one of our guests.
Mm. You know, the name of this show is Hope in Real Life.
Mm-Hmm. And so we try to do everything that we can just
to take moments and recognize, uh, places
and spaces that we're actually looking forward to,
to experiencing some hope in our lives.
I would love to hear from you. Hmm.
What are you the most hopeful
for within the next five years of your life?
So many things. Right? And I was thinking about this.
I knew you were gonna ask this. Um, you started
to say something in your sermon on Sunday.
Okay. And I was hoping you'd clarify it for me,
see if I can get you to recall it.
Um, but you said something along the lines of, um,
the way to make our mark the most important way.
And I, you started to reference,
I thought you were gonna say something like some people
would say, it's who you raise, or something like that.
Okay. Yeah. What were you gonna say?
I said that some people in life and, and I heard this Yeah.
From somewhere, what do they say?
Like the first time you quote someone,
you have to actually give 'em credit.
And then if you do it again, you can say like,
I've heard it said, and then after the third time,
you can say, I've always said, oh.
Um, what I've always said is, yes, uh, uh,
often people go through life thinking the most important
thing that they ever do is, uh,
that they're gonna accomplish is something that they do.
Or the most important thing that they're ever going
to do is something they accomplish when in fact,
the most important thing that you ever, um,
work towards in your life might be someone you raise.
I love that. I thought it was something like that,
that you're, you sort of just lightly alluded to it.
Yes. Yeah. It's investment in people. Yeah.
And, um, not everyone raises children
and they have other ways they're gonna invest in people.
Right. For sure. Um, but we do, John
and I have been, uh, called to raise three,
and we are at that phase of life
where they're starting to launch.
And so when you talk about hope in the next five years,
for me, it's that they will be using their gifts
and abilities to God's glory
and that they will truly be in love with him.
And so they're about to leave
and start doing that in the real world.
Yeah. Um, and so we shall see in five years what
that all looks like, but we've done our
best to get those seeds in there. Well, I've
Watched from afar and, um, and you
and John are incredible people,
and yeah, I am grateful to be able to say that.
I know you both.
I'm thankful for the, I mean,
and the value add that you guys have been to our church
and now here to this podcast to our listeners.
So thank you for being here. Yeah.
To our listeners, listen, this is something
that we know every single one of us deal with.
Okay. Conflict is a part of everyday life,
and so I hope that you'll take,
maybe even look into some of these resources.
But even more importantly than that,
we all know other people that could be struggling
with this in their life as well.
The whole heartbeat behind this podcast is
to bring hope into the everyday
moments of other people's lives.
So the more you like, the more you subscribe,
that helps us get the word out.
But I would say to you also mean, share this episode.
Share this content with someone that you know, um,
could use help in this area.
Uh, be careful not to offend them.
Hey, I saw you and your husband fighting at the party.
You should listen to this podcast.
But I'm certain that there is something valuable
that they're gonna be able to pick up from this.
April, thank you again so much for the time.
Look forward to having you back on the show. Thank you. I
Was honored to be here. Thank you very much. All right.
Hope in real life family.
We'll talk to you soon on the next episode.
Thanks for tuning into this episode
of The Hope in Real Life podcast.
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