After the Vows – Roles and Responsibilities

In this episode of After the Vows, Joe and Karen Coffey sit down with Jimmy and Emily Kozy to talk about roles and responsibilities in marriage. Together, they reflect on how family backgrounds shaped their expectations, how shifting circumstances like work schedules and raising twins required flexibility, and how assumptions can create conflict if not discussed openly. They share personal stories of learning to divide household tasks, growing through unmet expectations, and reframing responsibilities as opportunities to serve one another in love. The conversation highlights that communication and grace are essential for navigating roles in different seasons of marriage.

What is After the Vows?

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 happened in every marriage. I hope you'll join us. Hey, everybody. Uh, welcome to after the Vows. Uh, this episode is going to be about roles and responsibilities when something doesn't seem quite fair. All right, so let me introduce our guests for today. I have my co host, Karen, my lovely wife. Hi. And our, uh, friends, Jimmy and Emily Kozy. Hello. Welcome. Glad to be here. Great to have you. All right, uh, we already showed your wedding photo at. At different times. But, Jimmy, tell me one thing you remember about your wedding day. Uh, the biggest. I mean, there are a lot of things, and this is maybe not the biggest, but the one. One of the most memorable is we had intended to take communion in our wedding ceremony, which. And so when we got to the table, we realized that whoever was responsible to put out the elements for communion, the juice and in the, uh, bread, had not done so. And so we faked it. Yeah, we just mimed it. We mimed it. Mem. It. Mimed it. Mimed it. I think it is the word. Yeah. And then we came back later after that. As a professional clergyman, I don't think that counts. I don't think you can mime communion. I don't either. I'm a professional clergyman as well. Well, I'm not, and I think it counted. Okay, well, okay, you're not a professional, obviously. Okay. Emily, how about you? What's one thing you remember? Well, I would have said the community thing. Um, but my dad, right before he was about to walk me down the aisle, was like, are you sure? Oh, Phil. Not that he didn't like Jimmy, but he was u. Uh, fighting words. He was a little bit like, this is your out. If you need an out, you got an out. And then he goes, okay, I'm gonna have to give you away. And then he started crying, and I said, do not cry right now. We're going down that aisle. We're doing it. Suck it up. So, all right, Karen, what's one thing you remember? Oh, I totally forgot our vows. We wrote our vows ourselves, and, um, did not have a copy with us, nor did the pastor who was performing our wedding. And I literally forgot the vows. Yeah. So I did my vows, and, uh, I finished with I love you, Karen. And she was looking at me. Threw that in, too. That was extra bo. Yeah, that threw me off. So then she was looking at me and I was thinking, okay, good. Dramatic pause. And then I realized her eyes were just like blank. And the only part of her vows I knew where I went, hi, Karen. Take you, Joe. And she picked that up and then you, Rol. Mhm. Yep. Mhm. You were great right through it. Yep, that's m. Something I remember too. All right, we're talking about roles and responsibilities. One of the things we've said on this podcast over and over again is that when you marry somebody, you don't just marry a person. You marry kind of a family, or at least a family history. We talk about roles and responsibilities. I, uh, think a lot of that's, uh, we pick up from our family of origin. With you two, what were the roles of your parents in their marriage that you saw that maybe you expected, uh, to fill when you got married? I think, I mean, for me, and this is, I think, true for Emily as well, but she can speak for herself in a moment. I grew up in a pretty traditional household. My dad worked and worked outside the home. And uh, my mom did not. She stayed home with us. I was one of four. I was the second out of four children. And so we were all two years apart. And my mom managed the household. She did all the cooking, cleaning, laundry, etcetera, etcetera. And I, uh, was kind of very, very much a traditional, uh, two parent home with a dad who's out there'the breadwinner and a mother who works in the home to do everything else. And did she do the normal, what you would think, Cook the meals, change the sheets, clean the house? Yeah, she did it all. Your dad didn't do that? My dad did a lot of outside work. Uh, he mowed the lawn. He mowed the lawn. He is a prodigious gardener and still is to this day. Um, but in terms of the inside the house. That's a good word, Jimmy. Just want to just give you props. Yep, yep. Prodigious. Okay, off now. Yeah, he did most. Most. I mean, uh, I, you know, this is a while back, so it's possible he helped when needed with things inside the house. But primarily the one who bore the responsibility for those things was my mom. Okay. Yeah, same with me actually. So my mom always had dinner on the table when my dad got home and then she stayed home with us. Uh, my dad did all the outside work. He like, made sure the cars were maintained, uh, that kind of thing. The house, like, if things were broken, he would fix them but everything else my mom handled. And I would say that probably, um, both of our dads stepped in when they got home from work. Like they would come and help with doing bedtime and they were both very involved in our sporting events and like they weren't completely separate at all. Like they were good dads that were involved but very traditional. I would say that day to day parenting, actually in my house, um, it was like issues would be handled to my mom unless handled by my mom, unless they needed to be escalated. And then you'd call dad and then dad would show up and then that's when you knew you were in big trouble. You had really gone astray. Uh, yeah. So I think it's good we both came from similar backgrounds. Right? Yeah. Not that my dad wasn't involved, but he was like the executioner. Right. Okay. Now uh, Karen and I have done our share of uh, marriage counseling with different couples. And one of the reasons that we're uh, interested and we try to preempt this with people who are getting married, that they need to talk through roles and responsibilities or some of the stories that we have uh, heard uh, in marriage counseling. One in particular, I know Karen, we have talked about about a couple that were struggling with taking responsibility. Go ahead and share that one. Yeah. I think it's really important when it comes to roles and responsibilities that again you go back to that idea of a team and what we do, what I do is for both of us and what you do is for both of us. And I remember it's been a while now about a couple that um, had decided each one would take turns doing dishes and so one night she would do them and the next night he would do them. And somewhere along the line they got off and she couldn't get it done. And so he didn't want to do two sets. So he didn't. So then consequently all the dishes are in the sink and nobody's doing. Yeah, the dishes. Nobody would offer to do the dishes. So they went through to where they had no clean dishes. Mhm. Wow. I just wantness. Yeah's absurd. And really the problem with that, and we're goingna get into that is that um, they were looking at the responsibilities in a different, in a wayus really my responsibility is to serve you in the best way I can. Uh, and your responsibility then is to serve me. And if we're doing that then that's great. If you're doing it because you're saying begrudgingly, okay, this um, got assigned to me. This Chore got assigned to me, so I'm gonna do it and. But I'm not doing it out of love. That seems like, I think, what hammered that home, at least for me, because like I said earlier, I grew up in a house where the primary share of the housework was done by my mom and the rest. And my dad didn't do that that much in terms of housework. But when we first got married, Emily was working night shift as a nurse and I was working day shift because I had started on staff here at ccc. And so, uh, it quickly became apparent that if laundry was going to get done or if dishes were going to be clean or if there's going to be food on the table, you know, night shift just was really difficult. And, uh, you know, Emily would try her best, but, like, she was so tired because it was such a hard transition to go from living in the daytime to living in the nighttime. It forced me and was actually, I think, a really healthy thing for me and for us. But it forced me to. To take a mindset of this. Unless I do this, it's not going to happen. So it becomes less about who is doing what individually and more about how we are getting these things done, whether it's me, whether it's her. In this case, some of the things that maybe I hadn't expected to do coming into marriage, I have to do because they need to get done. We need clean clothes, we need food and so on and so forth. Now, Emily, was that hard for you? Did you feel like you were losing a battle or because you, you came in thinking that was going to be your responsibility? Yeah, I kind of figured it would be. Uh, I just felt so terrible switching my shifts like that that I honestly, I don't have much memory of that time. It just. I know we got through it, but I guess I was mostly just frustrated. I was frustrated in general, uh, that I couldn't do it. I was frustrated that he was doing it and doing it differently than I wanted it done. I was frustrated that just this was our life. Right. So, yeah, I think that's what made the first year tricky to figure out. And then I switched to day shift. And we still have dou. Yeah. Yeah. We still have things that maybe are non traditional roles that we each carry, and it kind of works for us. Okay. All right, let's go into that. Yeah. Uh, uh, what non traditional roles? What's a role that you, Jimmy. That you do, that you did not expect to do? Um, that is now yours, your responsibility. I Cook most meals. Okay. Dinners, dinners and often breakfast or most often. Yeah. Well, that's because eggs is the one love the one food you would have on a dessert at. So it's so versatile. You know, you can make anything with it. He loves it. Yeah. What you can make with eggs is egg's right. I wanna be the one done more eggs. Y. Yeah. I cook most of our dinners. Uh, and I actually, I think that doesn't. I would not have expected to do that coming into marriage, but I couldn't imagine it differently now. It works for us because from my perspective, uh, like I enjoy cooking. I enjoy. Did you always enjoy cooking? Like, when did you discover that? That's a good question. I don't really know when that happened. I think I was interested in cooking for a long time, but then when we got married and I, you know, it started with me having to cook again like I said earlier, where, you know, meals were notn toa be on the table necessarily if I didn't do something about it and because of how hard it was for Emily. But, uh, I think along the way I just developed. I started to get excited about it, I started to enjoy it and it just kind of naturally slipped into. Even when it wasn't the case that I would have had to cook for us to make it work, I still did it because I enjoyed it. But it's good like uh, cathartic exercise sometimes after work to just do something that I can see the start and finish of and see the result of things being completed. And I don't just ended up that way. And she's not, you know, she's there a lot of that way about cooking. She's excited about cooking is not one of them. And that's okay. That's. I can cook. I should say I can. I just don't enjoy it like he enjoys it. Good. Okay. Karen, what's the role that or responsibility that you do that you did not expect to do in our marriage? I catch you by. You did catch me by surprise. Um, because I grew up in a home like yours where my mom did. Did everything. Now, your dad had to handle the finances though, right? My dad did handle the finance, so he boance the checkbook and everything. So that would be a. All the bills were in the second drawer on the left. Yeah, yeah. Um. Uh, I don't know that there is anything. I think right now the surprises how many tasks you do, how many rolels you have with making breakfast. And I'd like for you to go over and learn how to cook, which, because cooking is not my favorite either, and I feel like it's less and less of something I like to do. But, um, he is a very goodhader, um, dishwasher loader, and very specific about things. And I'm a little like, I'm in a hurry, get all this in here and shut the door. So when he's out of town and I load it all messy, I'll take a picture. Just. Yeah, I think still works. It's not think early. I think early on in our marriage, we did things. Um, at least I did things because they had to be done and that kind of thing. Then I've gotten to the point where I delight in doing my. My thing. Like, I don't get we kid about. Maybe I'm frustrated of the way you, uh, load the dishwasher, but my real thing is that's my. One of the ways that I show you that I love you. I can't do a lot of stuff around the house, which I've told, uh, anybody who will listen, but I can load the dishwasher, I can unloadw waser y. And every time you say that, you just guarantee I'm goingn keep doing it. Uh, I can vacuum at times. It's funny, though. I have not never did the laundry until just recently. Just. And I only do my workout stuff because I feel like I can't mess that up, but I just never learned how to do that. What are some. Some times in your life where roles have shifted? Like you said, like, you started out, it shifted right away from what you expected when you got. When you were doing second shift. But then I would assume that when you had twin twins just seems like a lot to me. It seems like more than double. Uh, it just feels like I think it is, actually. So when that happened, did you Were there different roles? And how do you. How did you navigate that whole thing of just saying, okay, you got to start doing this. I can't do this? Well, I think we had, like, from early on, we had kind of a. Whatever needs to get done, you know, just ask. Hey, I need help with this, and be okay with it not being done necessarily the way that I would do it or that I expected it. But when I, um. Now, wait, let me stop you there. Can you. Do you do okay. Asking for help from Jimmy, I would say I ask for help best from him, but I struggle with it overall because I like to be able to think that I can do anything you can at any point, and that I am Invincible. Um, but there have been a few times that I've been knocked on my backside. And those have been the opportunities, I guess, for Jimmy to be like, you know what, I could do the laundry or I could do whatever, you know, whatever needs to be done. So I would say twins. Um, I had my appendix out when I was pregnant with my second daughter. So when we had the twins we had. Hollis had just turned five, she's our eldest. And then Elliott was still two. So we had a five year old and two year old and then newborn twins. So we were totally underwater in it. Thankfully, we had a lot of good support and help and everything. But we, um. That was definitely an opportunity to ask for help when I didn't really want to. But, um, yeah, there's been a handful of times though. Yeah, I think that just became a, uh, all hands on deck situation. Yeah, you can't. There was no opt. There's no room for. Well, I don't. You're the one who does this, right? I mean, he was getting every night. Cause usually I would just handle all the overnight stuff for our kids, but every single night those babies had to eat and they were very angry about. And you had to keep them on the same schedule. Now, did you ever. Do you remember any time where you had conflict regarding, uh, roles? The roles, yeah. Not, uh, connected to the twins, I don't think. But I do think, um, maybe this goes back to that family of origin concept. But, uh, I would say I am not as good at, like, outdoor stuff and car stuff as, uh, Emily maybe expected that I would be, or as proactive about it or as attentive to it. You know, I can be very focused. Right. Wait, you can back up right there. That's a great, like, point to make, is that, um, you said what she expected. Like, it's not only the roles that you. Yeah. Like assume for yourself. This is going to be my role in the marriage. But you also have built in expectations for your spouse. And then when those aren't met, you know, we always do the thing. And if you're. If you're listening and not watching, um, I have one hand above the other. There's expectations in reality, and in between, that gap is called disappointment. And so. So she had expectations for you that you'd be handier or more like her dad was and you were not. I think maybe that I'd be invested in certain parts of the household in a way that, uh, that. That she had expectations that I'm not necessarily as excited about as she had Hoped that I would be right. Um, and I think that can be challenging for us because I am also, um, pretty proud. And so if, um, I'm, you know, if I'm doing something and she doesn't like the way that I'm doing it, and she tells me that I don't actually respond very well to that. I don't know how many people do that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, he will be like, youtubing how to fix the sync that I. I will have already. So I like to do home projects. I like to do that kind of thing. So that's maybe a role that I assumed that I didn't expect to assume. Um, but I like that kind of thing. So I would gladly take on a leaking syink and fix it and all that. But kind of recently he's wanted to figure all that stuff out. And, um, so he will have watched the YouTube video, and then he will be tinkering with the sync that I already know how to fix. And so when I'm watching him, you know, but from my perspective, I'm saying I'll never learn how to do this. And I do want him to learn, because I do want. Clim down. Excuse me. Yeah. All right, Karen, let me ask you this. Like, uh, Emily says she, uh, doesn't like to ask for help from other people, but she doesn't mind asking it for Jimmy. Um, you have trouble asking for help, period. Terrible at asking for help? Yes. No. Why do you think that is? Oh, I think mostly because I, um, want to do it myself. Because I feel like if I ask for help, that means I'm weak or, um. Uh, not enough is always my thing to go to. So I will just push through and figure it out and get it done. Um, you have not done anything that makes me not want to ask. And I. I think we've probably had more discussions about me not asking for help than we have. That's what I was gonna say. Our conflict comes. You would have helped her. There's a right kind of conflict, but it's still conflictuse. There are times where I'll be inside and she'll pull up and she'll start bringing groceries in, and I'll say, I'm right here. That's something I can do. Just tell me. This is. Is my wheelhouse. Yeah. Great. There aren't many things I was like, what are you doing? But, uh. And that's been. That's been a bone of contention because it takes away a chance to serve and to care for you the way I Want to. So I think that's a better kind of conflict. But it's interesting because it hooks into something inside of you to ask for help. Mhm. Uh, and it hooks into something inside of me to not do not help. Yeah. It means that I'm. I can't do, uh, even the smallest thing to help you. Uh, so there are two ways to kind of, I think, fall off the edge and have conflict and roles and responsibilities. One is, is to not look at your responsibilities there as a chance to love the other person. The other is to not look at the other person's responsibility roles as an opportunity for them to love you to be. So go ahead, Jim. I think a third way is to not have conversations about. About it and just make assumptions that absolutely. Either they are going to do something and then you get frustrated that they didn't do it and then you never talked about it. So they don't know that you're frustrated about it. And so now you're in this cycle of frustration when in reality if you just had a conversation about it, you might have been able to resolve it or they might have been perfectly happy to fill that role. They just weren't, you know, aware. Right, right. And then I think the other thing I would just say is that every, I think every relationship is probably going to be different people bring different skill sets and different backgrounds. And so I think rather than trying to shoehorn your spouse into an expectation of roles that you think they should fill, I think every couple needs to kind of reinvent their household operations in a way that makes sense based on the people who are involved in it. Yeah. Or the people that are just more particular. Like maybe you really care about your laundry being separated a specific way. Then you take over laundry or you open your hand and be okay with laundry. All getting between being. Yeah. Chucked in together. Pink. All turning out pink. Yeah. So I have a question. If what you said, Jimmy, about the yard and I don't know what your preferences are, but say one of you really likes the yard to be well manicured and no weeds and we have four kids. What? Yes. It looks like a defunct preschool. Teach how to weed make game. It's like the opening montage to a zombie move. What about though, that family, that one really wants a neat yard and the other one can't contribute to that. What are some options? You just say, okay, this is a value that our family has decided to invest in. I just think parity. The other values that it's going to cost you. I think. Yeah. Have to. Sometimes you have to pay a landscaper to how you want it. Sure. I think we might see this in our household with things, you know, we have four children, there is a lot of laundry. And, uh, I could be frustrated all the time about laundry not being done, but I know that that would come at the expense of my relationships with my wife and children. And so I have to decide, does it matter enough to me that laundry is done on a certain timeline and in a certain way that I am willing to, you know, damage the relationships with the people that I live with? You have to make. That's the calculus. You have to be willingeah. One of those things to do is to try to figure out. And you have to do this with parenting as well, is to figure out, uh, what hill you wantna die on and if it's worth dying in that hill. Right. So. But I also, I want to go back to the idea of, you know, one of the. One of the spouses is doing a job in a way that, uh, are a role or responsibility in a way that the other one feels like could be improved. I always want to tell couples, if you want somebody to keep. If you want. If Karen wants me to keep doing something, all she has to do is encourage me. If she wants me to stop doing it, all she has to do is discourage me. I'm a very simple. Like, if she says, uh, oh, how I remember this? I mean, you took over. You do all the finances. And I remember seeing one time that, uh, I opened up our account or whatever, and I saw a late payment, and I saidus, you always would wait right to the end and then you'd make it. You had it all timed out and something slipped through the cracks. And we paid. And I was one, hey, why do we have this late payment? And I was getting on you about that, and you said, do you want to do it? Do you want to take over? And I was likeop, uh, nope, nope. Reversed. Reverse Danger Will Robinson. Yeah, so that's the thing. That's the kind of thing too, is I think, think that if you want your spouse to do something, you can go and explain it how you would like it done. But then if you want them to keep doing it, I would encourage him. So if, like, Karen will thank me for making breakfast, and I've only been doing that the last few years, um, but that makes me, uh, delighted to do breakfast like the night before. I'll say, what are you thinking about breakfast? Since Jimmy says eggs are very versatile. Can I have eggs? That's hardboiled, fried. Think these are like mana. You can do it all. Shrimp salad. I think with, uh, roles and responsibilities. You asked them about, um, different stages and phases. Um, we had a chapter where I went back to school and um, I think it was about 45 and the K. Most of the kids were gone. And um, you started. That's when I think my disdain for dinner started. Because you started having dinner for us. Or your mom made dinner once a week. And um, I never felt. Well, just so you know, we got to clarify that my mom and dad were living with us. I'm glad you clarified. We would have dinner over. You would invite us over to their side and have dinner. But I never felt, um, any bitterness or resentment that I wasn't doing my specific responsibilities during that time, that I was just really not home very much. And so I appreciated that. But I think that that's something that kind of have an open hand with how you're supporting each other. Yeah, I think we hit it on it when we talked about finances. But it seems like any area of conflict is also that tremendous opportunity to increase intimacy and uh, to love your spouse better or get to know them better. And what is important, like instead of having an argument about, um, about the sink, is to say, jimmy, why is it important for you to learn, like, just talk about it? I would say because it matters to you. Mhm. Like I know it matters to you that I learn how to do that stuff. So I'm gonna go on YouTube, I'm gonna. Well, it matters to me because I will not learn that. And if my sink is leaking, I'm calling either one of that's good. We'll just come over together and we'll fight about it right in front of you. All right, so what, uh, if somebody was just getting, um, before they get married and you were gonna talk to them about roles and responsibilities, what's a tip that you would give them? Uh, I think one thing that was interesting was in our premarital counseling, we did an exercise, if I recall, where it was like, uh, you had two columns of different responsibilities and separately from each other, you wrote down who you expected. Mhm. Would do each of those things. Was that three? So was you him or both or both you. Ah. Or both or you her or both. And then you come back together. And I think that's a good something like that. And you know, that's probably included in any marriage premarital counseling curriculum, but I think it's really wise because it just will start to reveal what are the probable early areas of conflict when it comes to roles and responsibilities. Because you can see right away what as you said Joe earlier, what the expectations are and where you can front run a difference in expectations you can communicate to avoid the disappointment that could come. Right. And I think it's a maybe even biannual discussion where you can just continually revisit it because uh, stages change, people's health change, things change. Um, and just your willingness to do something after a while, like if you just decide, you know what, I've never liked making dinner. I'm just, you know, that's not my thing. That's okay. But it just has to be a discussion and then all somebody has to make dinner. At the end of the day both we going to do dinner. You still got to figure out how your family make it worth. I can make eggs. You can make any egs. Eggs can be dinner, breakfast. Uh, I, There's a Tim Keller wrote a book called the Meaning of Marriage and one of the things that I remember really clearly from it is he says in it that you're not actually marrying one person, you're marrying five people. Because over the course of a marriage the person changes, uh, and you grow and you develop. And I think you also probably, I would extrapolate that to say you have five different or more marriage stages where your roles and responsibilities might require reconfiguration. And so I think Emily's point is a really good one. Communication is essential to understand who is responsible for what and make sure that we're on the same page with those things and not mismatched in expectations or experiencing that disappointment that comes with it. All right, let me. I have a couple more things just that I want toa talk about. One is uh, uh, there do you feel like there are any biblical mandated roles and responsibilities? Uh, I know we all came, I think we all came from the traditional uh, household of the like what people think about in the 50s and 60s and 70s where the father came home and dinner was being said, the woman kept house and all of that. Uh, and people would assume that I think back then that that was what it meant uh, for that husband have the biblical role of leadership at. I don't think that's true. So what it, what does it mean for to have the biblical roles fulfilled? Well I think for a mom you have a direct discipleship role in your kids life. So you have the opportunity day in and day out to point them to Jesus in the little things. And I think that that can Be such a huge and transformative thing because, you know, you're driving, you see an ambulance, let's pray. You're looking at a butterfly. God made that, you know, you have the opportunity all day to point your kids to Jesus. So I think that it cannot be understated the effect that a mother's discipleship in children's life, um, and that role can be transformative for kids. Right. I think, uh, I guess the way that I think about this and is that as a father and a leader in the biblical sense, it's my job to work toward and ensure the flourishing of everybody in my house in every way. That doesn't mean that I'm always the one hands on doing everything that contributes to that. But it does mean that ultimately God is going to look at me as responsible for how my kids are and how my wife is and the way that I care for and love and serve them. And so I think, uh, that means things. That is a. By the way, that is a great definition of biblical leadership, I think just because I think people have in their mind, uh, at least let's say non Christians would have in their mind when somebody says that a husband is the leader of his home coming in and sitting at an easy chair and his wife bringing him Iice tea, um, with a remote control. And you said that your biblical responsibility is for your family to flourish and you do whatever it takes for. And there are situations where that means I'm, um, the one administering the discipline or the. Because that's what it requires. There are situations where it's Emily who does that because they need a different touch, a different angle, a different. But I think the way I view that is what you said, that it's my job to ensure that my family flourishes, that my kids have an opportunity to hear and respond to the gospel of Jesus, that uh, I'm making sure that they're physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, uh, in this, the best position possible, making decisions along that line. Everything from, you know, the practical ones of like how are we going to spend our time to where are we going to, you know, go to school, to whatever the case may be. My job, I feel as a leader is to make sure that everything we're doing is pointing in that direction. Uh, yeah, one other thing and Karen, you can chime in on this one. I know that um, with disciplining the kids, I know one of your goals and something that I really, really appreciated was that you never wanted me to be the heavy one. That was always weigh to your Father came home. That, um, so. And I know Jimmy, you mentioned that your dad was. If things got escalated up to your dad, then it was serious. So what do you think the roles of discipline are? Well, I think, um, Jimmy expressed it so well with flourishing. I think if we all. We see our home and our family, the roles, the responsibilities, um, as we're for each other, we're creating order to accomplish goals that we have set. And that's another thing to talk about, what those goals might be, what your family, what your home looks like. But we are all on the same page. And so it was always really important for me, um, because I am more passive, that the kids didn't think that I would, uh, defer to you for discipline. I didn't want that dynamic to be something that was strong, um, in our homes. So I would handle it. And if something came up, um, that I could deal with, than I would. And then I would tell you specifically, okay, this is what happened. This is how I handled it. You don't have to handle it. You would say, you don't have to do it. Again, I did it. I took care of it. Yeah. Yeah. But again, I think communicating and knowing that this is for the betterment of the family. It's not an individual thing. It's for all of us. Yeah. The important thing that I would say to all the couples that are listening, if you have kids, um, I don't think it's good for one of the spouses to be the disciplinarian and the other to be the nice one. Uh, I think that's a mistake. I think if kids can. Will run over one spouse, uh, and then the other spouse has to always be the one that says, you know, stop it. I think that puts them in an unfair position, and that doesn't help for the flourishing of the kids. Yeah. I think m. For me, I feel like there are two things that are important here that maybe you can speak to how you see these play out. But I think the first is kind, uh, of a tag team principle where, you know, we are not. It's not a situation where, like, Emilya is going to escalate to me or vice versa, but rather that we're teammates. Kind of like a tag team wrestling match where there are times where Emily will come to me. Cop, bad cop. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. There are times where Emily will come to me and say, it seems like you're the one who needs to talk to Hollis. And I'll just tag in and go, and. Because I think that's that's teamwork. And then I. The other is a principle of the united front. And so try. I think we both try to be really careful that if we know that one of us has already engaged in a situation that we don't reverse or undermine a decision that they have made. Like, what did dad say? Because our kids will. Our kids, they're smart. You know, they'their. Um. Kids. Yeah, they're kids. There are. They are smart. Uh, my dad uses an analogy from the movie Jurassic park, which is one of my favorite movies ever. But, uh, there's a scene where the raptors break out of their. Are trying to break out of their cage, and the guy says, you know, they test the fence, but they never test the same part of the fence twice. Yeah. Because they're looking for weaknesses. And I think kids do that. Ye. They're just. They're smart. They're like little raptors. That's right. That's right. And they turn into bigger Raptors, and then eventually they eat you. All right, uh, again, thanks so much for, uh, joining us. It's been a great conversation about roles and responsibilities and how important it is to be on the same page. So thanks. Thanks for joining us for this episode of After the Vows. This hit close to home, and you want to know what your next step could be. Your next step could be just a conversation. We always think that it's good for you to connect with somebody who might have a little more experience, a little more insight. Uh, so we've set up marriage coaches, and there's no curriculum or anything, but. And there's no long term commitment. It could be just one meeting, could be a couple of meetings. Uh, but you can sign up for that. Uh, that would be great. Another possibilities if you want to grow spiritually or through, uh, your marriage, there are other episodes of this podcast or other podcasts that you can access through our YouTube channel or a church app, but, uh, you're welcome to access all of those. Uh, but we're so glad you joined us for this episode.