After the Vows is a podcast about the real challenges that arise in marriage after the honeymoon phase fades. Hosted by Joe & Karen Coffey, each episode offers honest conversations about growing together through every season of marriage. New episodes drop every Thursday, offering real talk, real struggles, and real hope—whether you're newly married or decades in.
Welcome to After the Vows, a podcast from Christ Community Chapel about the challenges that show up in marriage after the honeymoon ends.
I'm Joe Coffey and together with my wife Karen, we will gather in each episode with some friends just to talk about the real issues that happen in every marriage.
I hope you'll join us. Hey everybody, welcome to this episode of After the Vows. Today we are talking about what I think is probably the most important uh topic for any marriage, and that's communication.
And so let me introduce our guests for this episode. My lovely wife, Karen. Hi. My co-host. And then our friends, Matt and Sara Koons. Hi. Thanks for having us. Great to have you guys.
I know that you guys have been married for a while. We have a wedding photo of yours and of ours. If you're viewing this, then it's going to come up on your screen right now.
And Matt... Need you to take a look at this. It doesn't look like you. Wow. You have a full head of hair. Sara, you're as beautiful today as you were back then.
Nice. Thank you. Nice. Yes. I think the women change less than the men do. Indeed. It's probably a good thing. I do. Oh, that's kind. Yeah. Karen looks the same to me. We were just babies.
Yeah. I know. We're so young. And Matt, give me one thing you remember about your wedding day. Yes. Yeah, a lot of things I remember. Joe, you did the first portion. You officiated the first portion.
Jim, Sara's dad, did the second portion of the ceremony. And I vividly recall you and I being kind of the only ones left as the groomsmen all exited out before the ceremony.
And you accidentally twice called me Sara's former longtime high school boyfriend, which was... wildly uncomfortable. I corrected you the first time. I didn't have the heart to say anything, just from a communication standpoint.
I knew you were a professional. Hey, I was just trying to put you at ease. I felt better about it. Yeah, making you think about something else. I was nervous about the first portion of the service.
Why did you be nervous about me, not about you? Okay, so I knew you guys way back, and I remember being in the Dominican Republic with you, Matt, when you were between your junior and senior year in high school.
I remember sitting... with you and you saying we were just with some guys talking about girls and who you might date and stuff.
And you saying, I think sarah college is a proverbs 31 woman. Do you remember saying that very very much okay uh so Sara, when was the time where you, uh, figured out that matt was the one?
Well, it was pretty quick, wasn't it? I mean, you didn't take much time. No. I had been in a long-term relationship with the aforementioned person throughout high school.
I don't remember his name. No, me neither. But when we started dating, it really was probably within the month that we started dating that I said, oh, I think this is it.
And part of that is we had known each other since seventh grade. So we had known each other for six years before. ahead of that. And we were good friends in high school.
So there was a lot of things at the beginning of relationship that we didn't need to like discover about each other.
We, we had known each other and we had watched each other for a long time and that, and I really respected him a lot.
And so I think when we started dating, it was like, Oh, all those pieces kind of came together. I do distinctly remember my dad telling me, if you don't marry him, I will.
And I thought, okay. Which was, again, another awkward moment for me. Yeah, for sure. All right, we're going to talk about communication. And I said it's, whenever I'm talking to a couple that are thinking about marriage, I always say that there are three major issues.
And there have been three major issues for a long time. And then I have them guess what they are. Number two and three are sex and money. And those have switched places.
from two to three, three to two. But number one has always been communication. So in talking to you guys about communication, Matt, you seem like you are more steady.
I'm sorry. I can't wait to see where this goes. I like where it's going. Like more cerebral and stuff. Sara, you seem like you would be more passionate, a little more...
like feelings oriented. So how has communication been like, let me ask you this, was communication, did it come easy for you or hard for you as you started your marriage?
I think part of it, Sara had mentioned we had been friends for, you know, since middle school and, So that laid a foundation.
We knew each other really well. So I, sometimes as we talk to other couples who have not known each other and get, you know, as long as we had and then date and, you know, get married, sometimes, yeah, I think to myself, man, we're lucky because we had, because we knew each other so well, I think it helped us.
It doesn't mean it was easy. I mean, I think there were moments that we had to figure out how we communicated as a you know, engaged couple and a married couple.
But I think that created a foundation. I think of Tim Keller talks a lot about the, the foundation of, of marriage is really not romance.
It's actually friendship. And we had established that, like we went into our relationship as really, really good friends.
Yeah. But I think you're right. And describing our personalities and that I tend to be a shark, you know, when it comes to communication, just kind of, are you a verbal processor?
Probably more than I am. Yes, definitely more than him. But I think early in our marriage, I wasn't very careful with my words.
And I think I was just more concerned with getting my way. And I don't know if I would have been able to articulate that. Looking back, I can say, oh, wow, I was really selfish.
And that's the one thing about marriage is that doesn't work well in that new partnership. And I think I tended to... take advantage of Matt and his steady, patient manner.
I distinctly remember being in the grocery store in downtown Chicago. So we got married. We still had a year left of school. We're living in downtown Chicago. And we're in the middle of the cereal aisle in Jewel Osco.
And I wanted to get the brand name. of this cereal. Just to frame the story a little bit, we're, we don't have any money. I mean, yeah, we don't have any money and we're going to be homeless shortly.
Yeah. So that's what's on my mind. And he wanted to get like the bag of cereal, you know, that's not even in a box. Yeah. And I think the price difference might have been like 23 cents.
No, I think the value though. Right. Value is important to him. The amount that you get based on that. But we sat and I was like, why won't you let me just get this?
And it was the first time he kind of what I would quote unquote consider fought back. And I was like, whoa, what is happening? I think we still got the cereal you wanted at the end.
But I do think it was just that was kind of my first, I guess, indicator like, oh, maybe this isn't going to maybe work in the future.
way I thought it was going to. But I think that was a lot because I was being selfish. I know with us, I know that Karen's more of a processor than I am.
I think Sara, you and I maybe are more alike and Matt and Karen are more alike. And I know when we first got married, I was very competitive.
So I thought when you get into some kind of disagreement, the important thing is to win. And I remember thinking it was almost, I felt like I've never played speed chess, but that's the way I felt like I thought.
Like I was just saying, just say what you're going to say because I know what I'm coming back with.
Just go ahead and say it. I know your move. And that did not go well. Consequently, it would take a long, long time for me to articulate something because I had to think, okay, if I say this, then he's going to do what?
And then if I say this, he's going to do what? So it was... I thought you were just trying to frustrate me by not saying anything.
But yeah, yeah. I can be complicated. How long did it take you guys to figure out how to resolve conflict? 28 years. I mean, I think in truthfulness to his, I think because every life stage brings something different that you're not, you know, whether it's, yeah, being newly married and then maybe a move or a different job, or then you introduce kids.
So like everything produces another potential conflict. But I mean, probably I would say those first couple years, two or three years is where we really had to figure it out.
But then I would even say kind of in those early kid years when they were we really had to, I think, readjust again because it was me being at home with the kids and I wasn't doing a great job communicating frustration around that.
And so learning how to do that better again. Yeah, I want to get to that, to the different stages of of life and how communication changes um But I was thinking about who is a better talker and who's a better listener, if there's one.
I might be a clearer communicator. I think you're a better listener. But it seems like out of the two, listening may be more important.
Like who's a better listener, who's a better talker? I think, yeah, I'd be a better listener, yeah. Yeah. And he's a better active listener. Okay. You know, where... Yeah. I mean, do you want to talk about that?
Yeah. I mean, to me, active listening is... Don Litchie would always talk about solar. So squaring to the person, being open, you know, making good eye contact, being relaxed.
You know, those are things that are... necessary for all of us in any in any venue when we're trying to have care about somebody and have compassion and kindness towards somebody but yeah yeah i think we all struggle with that because now you know selfishness is at the root of all that, right?
I mean, we In the first few years of your marriage, or maybe decade or 15 years for the first 20 years of ours, there was no such thing as a cell phone.
So now Yeah, that's true. Like, do you put your phone somewhere else? I know For me, my phone makes a sound, and I am not good at not looking.
Now I have a watch that even if the phone's not there, it's like, that is not a good thing. So how do you guys deal with the phone? Yeah, I don't know if we have any tricks other than, the intentionality that you're talking about, just be, just turning it off and being intentional with one.
I think I'll go back to, again, part of, part of our relationship, we like hanging out with other people, but at the end of the day, we prefer just to hang out with each other because of that friendship that we have.
We laugh a lot. We, so, you know, it, it is easier. It's not easy, but it's easier for me to turn that off than if I were, meeting with you Joe as much as I like you I might be distracted over here I'm sometimes less distracted with Sara in those ways but still challenging yeah now one of the challenging things I think with the phone issue is to not know when we're really talking like it's one thing to go hey let's talk we need to talk about this then to put the phone away it's harder when we like are just home alone now And then start to talk.
Do you think it's different though? Like with you guys, like I have thought about this. Wait, are you allowed to ask questions here? Nevermind. No, but thinking like you don't have kids to distract you.
Right. Right. So any time could be a time to have a more serious conversation. Whereas I think for Matt and I, even though a lot of our kids are older, we've almost found like a space where we physically go to talk.
And we've even told, we tell the kids like, hey, we're going downstairs to talk for a few minutes. Don't interrupt, that kind of thing. So it's almost like we've created that space.
So we, it's almost like if I say, hey, Matt, I really need to talk to you. Can we go downstairs? He automatically knows. Okay, this is not a time for me to be on my phone or something like that.
Whereas if we're sitting around the family room and the TV's on and we're doing stuff, then it just doesn't feel like it's hard to create.
It's like you have to create that environment. Right. so you can have that conversation. I just think you have to do that because there's just so many distractions.
Yeah, I would say for us, we have to be intentional because if you don't make time, then we will let the phone interrupt us.
Because although the kids are at home, we still hear from them, you know? So I think we need to be intentional. We have a space our best times are in the morning when we go outside and have coffee and yeah.
Um, okay. I got a few things. Uh, one is what do you think goes wrong with, with people and communication in their marriage?
Because we've all known couples who've probably done counseling. We've done counseling with people. Uh, what, what makes it go wrong? I know you guys started with a friendship.
Karen and i jumped right into dating we didn't have a friendship but we became friends i do remember on our honeymoon it's kind of i remember waking up you know because a honeymoon's pretty special if you've saved yourself for the honeymoon so but i remember waking up and looking at karen she was still asleep and i remember thinking i'm glad i really like her because This the whole I figured I felt like the whole thing of I have got to marry this woman was driven a lot by sexual energy.
I just didn't know it at the time. And then all of a sudden I'm going, oh, man. I really like being with her because there's an awful lot of time in the day when we're not actually having sex.
So that was, that was, you know, so yeah. So I think, so what do you, what would you say to both those things? Like, how do you grow into a friendship if you've been, if you've just gone the romantic sense and then also what goes wrong with people's communication?
I think for me, the growing, the friendship is, part. If you've kind of gone just from, I've just met this person and now we're dating and doing that.
I mean, I really do think you need to spend intentional time doing things together that are fun. You know, what does the other person like to do? What are their hobbies? What are their activities?
And participating in those together? And I think it is probably a lot harder for those people who get married later in life and kind of already have an established friend group and community that they're doing stuff with.
And now they're kind of inviting this person into that. But I think that's exactly what you need to do is you need to spend that time together.
I often think of, I don't know if you've given this advice or even my dad, but at a wedding, at the reception, when the couple like splits apart and goes and talks with people and they're not spending time together instead of going and greeting all their guests together.
I think that is kind of an indicator of that relationship. Like do life, together. But I think you have to be really intentional about that. I don't think that just happens is what I'm trying to say.
Yeah, and it feels like, I mean, you're in it for the long haul. There's a lot of patience that marriage demands. I don't think there's any great marriages without a real high degree of patience and forgiveness and going, hey, this is the long game.
This isn't the short game. And most of our, if I think about most of our conflicts, it's short game stuff. It's I mean, it can be bigger things, but a lot of it's shorter.
And then I go back to just the nature of marriage and covenant. Like as Christians, we come to the table going, well, we are in it for the long game.
This is the deal. And you're not going anywhere and I'm not going anywhere. And so I think that lays a foundation for taking those steps of friendship that we're talking about.
And for some, it's going to. you may get married early and develop that friendship over time. And if I'm committed to that relationship over time, I think that plays well.
I actually think that's part of what we came to. Yeah, I think, Matt, what you said is so true. I think you can't have communication without conflict.
Those two just go hand in hand. And you have to figure out how to navigate conflict. And it can be just small things. things but small things can also grow to be bigger and we we found that to be true.
And then it was about, I think, maybe five years in where it was almost like we we stopped and had a light bulb moment and just said, okay, wait.
I love you and I love being with you. And so if I feel like I'm hurt or mad or it's because I'm misunderstanding something.
Something was miscommunicated or even I took it the wrong way. So we kind of started out with that attitude of, okay, we are for each other.
And so we're going to trust that what we say is for each other. And if we feel hurt, we're just going to express it and see where that takes us yeah and a big part of that was, I think, for me at five years, I think for both of us, we decided that that's when it dawned on us that we're in this for the long game like like Matt said like we're not I'm not going anywhere.
You're not going anywhere. So, and if we're going to be committed to each other, to love each other, then I want what I don't want to ever hurt you on purpose.
Yeah. Right? That's what we ended up having that conversation. I think at five years and just saying, if I hurt you, it's never going to be on purpose so I that really freed us up to say, okay, I'm hurt.
And that's not an attack because then I get to say, and I feel like because, oh, this is one of those things too.
Are either of you struggle with communicating hurt? Like if somebody says, like if one of you says, hey, are you okay? Oh, I know where this is going. Oh, really? Still with Karen, I'll say, wait, something's wrong.
Are you okay? And she'll say, no, I'm okay. And now after 45 years, I'm like, I have 100%. Oh, it drives me crazy. My antenna is like 100% accurate. Something's not right. I just need to know what it is.
I know it. Yeah. I don't know how big it is. I don't know if it, like the best is when she says, yeah, there's something wrong, but it's not about you.
And then I'm like, okay, well then take your time. I'm good. Most of the time it is about me, but it's, it's something that I've done or said.
But a lot of times now I know, I mean, I, I know when I've said something that I sort of, I'll try to ignore it.
Like it wasn't that, I mean, it was kind of funny. It wasn't that funny. money a little sharp wasn't that sharp and then we can be sitting watching TV and I can feel the distance growing and I'm like I did it again.
Yeah, I would say that we can feel that, I think, between the two of us. I never have to guess, though, where Sara's at. So that's, you know, I mean, she's who she is, and I don't have to, I wonder how she's doing or what's going on.
I would say probably the other way, it's harder for you to know exactly what's going on. And communication, by definition... is mutual understanding. Just because I communicate to her doesn't mean I'm actually communicating if I'm not listening and hearing.
So that's where I think the tension you're describing, Joe, is it's the back and forthness of what we're trying to accomplish in the midst of scarce resources or different opinions on something or when the conflict arises.
I'm trying to really understand where is she coming from and she's trying to understand where I'm coming from in all of its complexity.
I know with Karen, it's When you are saying nothing's wrong, in some ways you're trying to do the love covers a multitude of sins.
It's not that big of a deal. Maybe I should just get over it. I don't think relationships get over many things just naturally. I think they can accumulate it. If I were to guess what goes wrong with most people's communication in marriages is that they have too many little things involved.
Like a bank account over time. Yeah. And it's an infection that will grow over time. And then all of a sudden, and then when it bursts open, then it's like, oh my gosh, I had no idea.
I think people don't understand the power of their words. Yeah, for sure. Words are so powerful. Like I can still remember... something someone said to me in high school that was really negative that, like, that was 30 years ago.
Why do i even me again? I mean, because matt just brought up something let's go go ahead sir which time was that but i i i think in marriage, what is so ironic or crazy or whatever you want to say is, like, this person who i care about the most in life is tends to be the person i hurt the most.
Because I'm not careful with my words. Because it's like, well, we're in there for life, so you can't leave me. That's hard, though. Because I remember thinking when we had other kids over to our house and one of them would spill something, I was much kinder to that kid than to my own kids when they would spill something.
But I think that's the way it is with kids. you know, with Karen, part of it is taking somebody for granted, which in some ways is a weird compliment and some ways it can be a very, very dangerous thing to do.
Right. So, yeah. And I think one of the other pitfalls, I think you were, um, you both were kind of alluding to this, but listen to the nonverbal communication.
I think that tends to get all of us in trouble quite a bit, you know? So whether that's, you know, in a look, um, or in the, you know, maybe withdraw, withdraw.
Right. I even think a lot of times where I, the pitfall in our marriage was I had all these expectations for Matt that I thought he just knew, but I never really told him about that.
And so when he didn't do those things or whatever, I automatically was annoyed or got upset. And he's sitting there going, well, I'm not, what's happened.
You've never told me that you had this expectation or I, I had an unreasonable expectation for him that he would never be able to meet.
Yeah, it's super unfair to say, if you love me, you would know, right? Yeah, I think you need to verbalize those things, right? Because I do think a lot of times...
I wouldn't say it was unfair of you. I'm saying it's unfair of me, too. People. I saw that look. Just people in general. Did you see that? I picked it up. Body language. I'm on it. That's important.
Yeah. So let me ask you this. So now that you've been married 28 years, a long time, you've gone through different life stages.
What stages are particularly challenging? Like if you were talking to a couple that was just getting married before kids, what would you tell them about communication, about how they learn at what they would do?
Like I said, first three years, let's say before marriage. Yeah, I think it was advantageous for us, Sara alluded to it earlier, to figure out what were our communication styles and the way we approach conflict.
I was probably on one side of the spectrum and she was on the other. So she's more of the shark and I'm more of the teddy bear. And as we learn that, I think what's happened is we've actually come to the middle.
She's softened and I've probably gotten harder. Like I've pushed back and she's gotten softer and at times. And marriage does that. That's the point of why we get married and kind of in the gospel.
So I would encourage the young couple to identify how they see, even in other relationships, how do they approach those conflicts that they have?
Identify those, name them. And then, you know, I think that just that self, yeah, you just identify that in yourself and then that helps kind of move forward.
Yeah. Okay. Sara, you take the next stage. Yeah. Once you have little kids. Yeah. I would say that I think you can't let your circumstances be the thing that informs how you communicate with your spouse.
Because you're going to be tired. You're going to be exhausted. There's going to be a lot of just little things that are fresh. Because there's so many things out of your control with young kids.
You know, as much as we want to try to control. And so... I think even if it's saying, hey, five minutes every day, we're going to sit down and have a face-to-face conversation and talk about what happened in your day or what's going on.
I just think you need to make the time to do that because you could probably go a week in that stage and be like, oh, we haven't even...
Yeah, no, I think you can talk a lot longer. And part of it is I remember... hearing when a couple gets engaged, they quit growing together because all the focus becomes on the wedding day and the event.
And I bet when kids are born, from the time kids are born on, it's really easy for a couple just to communicate about the kids, about their schedule, about what's going on in their lives.
I think it would be very good for a couple with kids to say, we're going to spend five minutes, but we're not going to talk about the kids.
We're going to talk about Yes. The two of us. Yes. And what's going on in you, how you're feeling. Right. Even how you're feeling about being a mom or a dad.
Yeah. All right. Now, Karen, you are always good at caring for people, going deeper with people as a counselor and with me.
What would you say to a couple... to move to different levels of communication from communicating about events and schedule to feelings?
How do you make that transition or how long does it take? You can't say, hey, in five minutes, let's get deep. Yeah, wow. Okay, that's a complicated question. I think you first need to have a foundation of trust.
And what that means is each person person feels safe to talk to the other. um that's why just talking about news is what they talk about because that has become the safe place so i guess that's pretty that could not be more important than trust, right?
so uh how do you try to develop that in a couple? I think by being honest. Okay. um respecting the other person. And one thing that is really important is to respect the timing of the conversation, it's so easy to kind of, um, you know, push in and say, okay, I want to talk now seriously.
And if the other person's not ready or if the kids are screaming, you know, it's just not good timing.
So respecting the timing, I think. Trust is built through respect and little by little wanting to understand, um, like even for us, when you would say, I know something's wrong.
I felt seen, even though it would drive me crazy because you would want me to tell you. But sometimes you would say, I'm not ready to say. Yeah, I think that was the best thing that I would say.
Yes, I'm feeling sad or something. Yeah, something. But I don't I'm not ready to articulate it yet. And I'll let you know. It's not about you. Don't you think it's okay to verbalize even like, yeah, I'm really frustrated.
I don't know why. Or I have said to Matt, like, hey, I want to talk to you, but I don't want you to like try to solve this problem for me right now or whatever.
Like, I feel like we have learned how to like say exactly what we're feeling and that like that trust, you know, the other person isn't necessarily sitting there going, oh my gosh, they're crazy or what's going on.
It's just kind of like, hey, let me vent or say these things and then we can process eventually. But just being like, I think you do need to say it.
Yes. Don't let it stay there bottled up. Right. Even if it's unreasonable. And even if the other person were to say, well, tell me what happened today or investigate kind of what's behind the question or the feelings, I think.
But it all takes time and it all takes time set aside. It doesn't happen overnight. just in passing. Yeah. A lot of intentionality. Yes. So if a couple's listening to this right now and they're thinking, oh my gosh, okay, we have work to do.
How do they start? Gosh, I mean, I think step one would just be, if you don't already have that time set aside each day, just start doing that.
And just say like, I think when I said like, Matt's a really good active listener, right? a lot of times he'll say something like, hey, this is what I hear you saying.
Is that right? Or is that wrong? We always use I statements when we speak. We're not accusatory towards the other. We've never, I'm not, full disclosure, we've not always been good at that.
But learning to do that. But that's where I would start. I don't know. What, Matt, do you have? Yeah, I... I mean, I think there's so many layers to this conversation that we're having.
And I continue to kind of go down to the base layer of the gospel and being grounded in the gospel and being emotionally healthy in some ways.
So there's some things I have to work on. I have to kind of lean into sometimes before I even... get to the conversation with the conflict or whatever it might be.
It was not that I don't want to work those out. I don't want to let the sun go down on my anger, but there's times I just need to do a gut check and go, okay, is this the right response?
Like my, what's my joke? Sometimes you'll talk about anger as a symptom. Like, why am I angry about this? There's something going on inside of me where I'm not really understanding if, if Jesus did what he did for me and he forgave me, I come to the table with that disposition.
So now in a, in the moment I might have to give myself, sometimes we do that. We say, Hey, we just need a minute here. Cause we're going to say something or that we just regret.
So we learned that from our camp counselor days of the kid who's just freaking out. Cause we're that big kid emotionally where we just need a minute.
Like let's just pause. And then in that minute, hopefully I have enough wherewithal to go, okay, let's, let's step back and maybe get a gospel perspective on this before we try to move forward.
So, there's a lot of layers to that. Because I even think your question to Sara earlier with little kids, I mean, I need to stay healthy.
You know, I'm tired, but how am I doing my best with sleep? How am I doing my best with exercise? What's my prayer life look like? There's some other, it's kind of like Keller sometimes says, you know, problems in marriage show up in the bedroom, you know, and that's one of the first places it shows up.
Well, that's true also in communication. There's some other things that might be going on that, we're having maybe constant arguments over some things that I need to just do some self-assessment around.
Yeah, that's really good. I think, yes, so for each individual to be healthy and then to articulate what do we want this relationship to look like?
How is our communication? How's our conflict resolution? And what are some things we can do to become closer through our communication?
And I guess I would say, too, I was thinking some, Matt, you mentioned about the gospel taking root, and I always think of the fruit of the Spirit.
And there are some couples where I just say, you need to just be kinder to each other. Say something kind. Be gentle. Be loving. So I think I would start with that.
I remember reading a book years ago called As for Me and My House by Walter Wongren. And he said that every word... everything, every action is like a nail in the structure of a house.
And so, uh, I would just start being, uh, be better today. Just, uh, be loving today, be kind today, start the conversation today.
And then too, I would say too, that there, there are, there's a lot of help with counseling too. If you, if you have gotten into unhealthy communication kind of patterns, uh, You should probably have a counselor sit down and they can help kind of figure that out.
Would a mentor couple help with that? Mentor couple would help too. And we will provide that for somebody. So thanks so much for joining me for this episode.
It's been great communicating with you guys. Got to apologize again, Scott. We love you. All right. Thanks. Thanks for joining us for this episode of After the Vows.
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