Calm Parenting Podcast - 3 Tough Talks With Husbands & Dads

Episode Date: January 10, 2024

3 Tough Talks With Husbands & Dads What is the role of the step-parent with someone else's biological children? What do you tell your daughter when she is being mistreated by her father? How do you talk to your husband about his propensity to escalate situations in the home when he is usually not receptive? Kirk gives scripts to use in this bonus podcast. Our New Year's Sale Continues This Week. You get everything we have ever recorded delivered directly to an app on your iPhone, iPad, Android, or computer. Listen anywhere, anytime. You get 35 hours of practical strategies and concrete examples, along with multiple PDF workbooks. Make 2024 different. Click here to learn more and take advantage of our New Year's Sale: https://celebratecalm.com/calm-2024 Go to https://www.HelloFresh.com/calmfree and use code calmfree for FREE breakfast for life! One breakfast item per box while subscription is active. A Revolutionary Baby Monitor is Born. Visit https://www.masimostork.com/ to learn more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Why? Because men oftentimes are very hard to talk to. You know how I know that? Because I'm a man. Because I did all these things when I was younger. I would dismiss my wife. I would not listen. I would say this one, watch out for this. Oh honey, I'll do better and I do better for like a week or two But then I'd slip back into my old habits and I wouldn't keep trying and that lets you know that your husband's He doesn't really value it and doesn't care about it because we put our time and effort into what we really value Now part of it is not an excuse is that we're not often just good at these things No, but like like my dad never taught me how to do emotionally difficult work. He didn't teach me how to understand your wife's concerns and raise kids like that.

My dad was a career military, my way or the highway approach kind of guy who just barked orders. I can hit a jump shot. I can change the oil. I'm really good at sports. But I wasn't good at doing the soft skills in life. He didn't train me with that. So I got overwhelmed with that. Not an excuse, but I want to give you some scripts and some insight into how to talk to husbands in some different situations because I am a man and I know

what we do and how we use sometimes we intimidate people because we'll kind of get gruff when you come talk to us we'll get kind of gruff or we'll respond to be a little bit angry or we'll withdraw I did this one when Casey was little you know what fine you know you guys would be better off without me anyway that was a big manipulative move is a big baby move because I didn't know what to do. And so I don't want you allowing your husbands to get away with that stuff because we will if we can. And I know this is extra hard because if you are tough with your husband, I want you to use this with wisdom. Some of you married someone who can be violent and I don't want you getting hit I don't

want you being abused that way and I don't want you being abused in any way at all but use some wisdom in this but I do want you to as you can speak very directly to your husbands talk to them like men talk to men because that's how we hear it. So I'll try to verbalize that for you. So I'm going to go through three different situations. I'm not picking on men. I just know I've done this a long time and I'm not apologizing for it. Most of the time, it doesn't mean moms are all, wives are always right and husbands are wrong. Not at all. Not at all. There's plenty. We both co-create these situations together. And if I wanted to make women feel bad, which I don't because moms and wives tend to already beat themselves up enough, right?

It would be like, well, why'd you marry a guy who was like this in the first place, right? There's something in you, right? It's always the question. I'll do a podcast sometime on controlling men. It's like, well, what was it there inside of you that drew has always drawn to you controlling men? It's not your fault, but you have to break that pattern within yourself or every single man that you will ever be with will be a controlling man, right? So I'm not

blaming anyone here. I'm just saying that in my experience, women tend to be willing to change and work hard at things with parenting and in the marriage, and men tend to be more resistant to it. I think that's a truth. Anyway, so here are the three questions. First one, my second husband, so this is a couple, they're both on their second marriage. And then the mom already had kids. My second husband is jealous of my relationship with my kids. He thinks he should come first and they should just listen to him because he's the authority figure. Now, I've addressed this before. Literally nobody follows my advice on this. And that's okay because I don't have to live out the horrible consequences that happen when you have this misguided perception. But this doesn't work.

I'll just be blunt. He's not the authority figure. And I'm speaking as someone who had a stepdad that I actually liked, but he's not the authority figure. Think of it from the kid's point of view. I didn't choose for my two parents to get divorced. They made some bad choices along the way. They chose that. I didn't. And then all of a sudden, my mom or my dad marries someone else. I don't have anything to do with that.

So in the case of this, I'm just going to use as the husband is the new one in the scene. If I'm looking at that guy who's marrying my mom now, he's not an authority figure. You know who he is? He's just some guy that's sleeping with my mom. That's true. I know that's hard to hear, but that's also true. And that's often their perception. I didn't choose you just because my mom fell in love with you doesn't obligate me to love you or like you. That's too much of a burden to put on kids. They didn't have any choice in this matter. And I want to encourage you if you're in the process of dating someone, getting remarried, really think this through because most of the time it doesn't work.

It doesn't. And most of the time, here's what happens. I'm just being honest with this. You get all excited like, oh, I finally met a good guy and I met this guy and I don't want him to, you know, the first marriage didn't work out. I'd love to have this good guy around my kids and there are red flags and there are other things happening and you don't fully talk through, hey, how are we going gonna handle discipline with my children? You don't talk about that. You know why? Because it's a landmine and it may blow up

and you don't wanna ruin your chances here. That happens a lot. Don't let that happen because there's way more pain on the other side. If it inevitably doesn't work out because you didn't go through this ahead of time, then there's even more pain because now what do we have? Well, now I've got two divorces and now my kids have found

out that there are two dads who are supposed to be good who didn't work out, right? Take this seriously. He's not the, look, I'll just, he's not the effing authority figure. He's not. He's just some dude that came into the scene. Now I get this. If, if you, um, if there is a stepdad who was there from the time your child was very young and he has been there and been patient and he's built the relationship and he has that connection, good. But that's not really applicable here because that guy did it the right way. But if you've got a guy coming in and he's like, well, I'm just jealous because she doesn't give me the same attention. You married a woman who already had kids.

It doesn't work that way. They owe, think about it from the child's point of view. They owe him nothing more than I would say civility and politeness. It's too much to ask for kids to be like, well, love your new daddy. That's not a fair thing or a right thing to do, and it will cause an awful lot of resentment. The new step parent, man or woman, has to earn the kid's respect over time. But just because you're the adult doesn't mean that you automatically get authority over someone else's kids. No way. The step-parent's role is never to directly discipline someone else's kids. It doesn't work. Again, unless he or she's been in the picture for a really long

time and earned their trust. Otherwise, you are setting your new spouse, the new step parent up for failure by putting them in that role. The step parent's job is to come alongside and support the biological parent as the bio parent disciplines his or her own kids. See, that way you're seen as a net positive because you're helping the biological parent stay calm and stay reasoned while they're teaching and disciplining their kids. Because watch how this works sometimes. I've had this happen. new stepmom comes into a situation with dad and dad's kids but dad doesn't usually discipline his kids that well he never really learned how to do that so he's like hey new wife why don't you take care of that and then he puts his new wife in the position of disciplining kids that are not her own.

And guess what? The kids end up hating her. And that husband just put her in a compromised situation. That is not a kind thing to do. And it will not work. So I would rather, if you're the step-parent, come in softly. You're coming. Think about this if you're the step-parent, come in softly. You're coming. Think about this if you're going through this even before you're married. What is the net benefit that you bring to these kids, right?

What is that to them? Because at first, you know what you are? You're a distraction. You're someone who's taking their mother away from them, the attention away from them. It's not always a net positive for the kids. And it's awkward and it's weird. And now they walk in and now some other guy is in their mother's bedroom. That's weird sometimes. And it's awkward. So realize that. Don't dismiss it. Well, we're the adults. We get to do it. No, I don't really. Look, I love all of you, but I really don't care about how you feel. I care about how the kids feel in this situation because they're the innocent ones who didn't get

to choose who you married the first time. They didn't get to choose the divorce and they didn't get to choose this new person that you're marrying and bringing into their home to roll over them and make things kind of awkward. So I'm not saying don't do it. I'm saying be aware of those things because these are landmines. And I've done this for 20 years and I've seen this happen over and over again. And every couple who emails me about this, I tell them the same thing and they never reply back to me. Never. Not once have I had someone reply back and say, you know what? We really do need, thank you. I don't need your thanks. But what I wanted to hear was, you know what? That's good perspective. We really need to recalibrate how we're going to approach this. Instead, they dismiss it. And then I hear back after the second divorce. So again, I don't need

to be right with things. It's not the point. The point is, I really want you to take this seriously. And if you have friends who are considering this, bring up these points to them. I always get inside the head of the innocent kid first and think, what's the benefit? So think about this. What's the benefit of this new guy coming in? So if you're a new guy coming into this, here's what I want you to do. Relax. Be kind. Every time you see your new stepkids, compliment them. Ask them questions about their lives. Be a good listener because eventually when they trust you, and they will trust you when you become the person who brings calm to their home, who helps their mom calm down when situations are happening, when you come in and you show that you're a benefit, that you're an asset to them,

they will seek your advice and they will listen to you. And you will have this really cool place in their lives because you're not their bio dad, right? But you're this important person who's also training. Watch, this is really important too. You're training them how to be treated by a man. You're also showing them, you're showing the daughters how they are supposed to be treated by how you treat your new wife. They're watching these things because look, both of you are likely on your second marriage. So, right? So you probably got married too young, whatever it is, there's no

blame, no guilt. It's very normal. But whatever didn't go right there, you have a chance to do it right this time. And so you have this very privileged place in this new family where you can come in from the outside and bring calm and to bring encouragement and to bring positivity, to bring stability that maybe this mom and her kids have not had for a long time, especially if the first husband and dad was abusive or was controlling. You have a huge opportunity here. But I want to tell you, let go of your whole like, well, I need to be the authority. Stop. Just grow up and be a man and stop needing

everybody to walk. Don't do that, right? You're never going to come first. This awesome woman that you married either bore these kids in her womb or went through hell to adopt them. And she's probably been through hell with them to protect them through the first divorce. And so they have this deep bond and you're just coming, you're gonna come in as an outsider. You're not gonna replace them, nor should you try.

It's unrealistic expectation of yourself, of your wife, of the new kids. So come alongside, be supportive of this new family. Be thankful that, look, I'm going to speak to you as a guy. Be thankful that someone else wants to be with you. I'm a guy. We have a lot of flaws. It's not always a given that some woman's going to want us, especially the next go around. So be thankful that you found someone who wants to spend her life with you, who trusts you to come in. She's trusting you with the thing that is most important to her for her entire life,

which is her kids. So honor that and do it with a lot of respect. Do it with some gentleness and do it quietly at first. I promise if you do this right, you will have the most amazing place in these kids' lives because you're going to be someone that they have never had before, a man that they can trust. And they're going to watch how you treat their wives and how you treat them. You're going to have a huge influence on them. But instead of making it all about you and what you need, be the man and grow up with that. And if you connect with the kids, you will enjoy this. I promise you.

But don't screw this up. Moms and dads, don't screw that part up. Let go of all those dumb expectations that we have of how that's supposed to work. Okay, that was fun. Okay, number two question. So my husband and I are going to separate for a period of time. Part of the reason for the separation is that he makes cutting remarks to my teenage daughter, hurts her, kind of makes fun of all of her teenage girl drama and all that stuff. So we're going to separate. So how do I tell my teenage

daughter that we're going to do this? What do I tell her? Now, this is a very specific situation that I'm dealing with. Okay. So it doesn't mean this applies all the time, but sometimes you can take some principles that we teach and then apply it to your own situation. And I really liked this. So that's what I replied to this mom. I would tell your daughter exactly why her dad is leaving the home for a period of time in blunt terms. And this is how I would say it. Something like this. Honey, you don't ever allow a man to treat you like this. Your dad does love you, but he also says things to you that are mean and hurtful and confusing. And I want you to know that even if a guy is nice and says he loves you, true love means he will cherish you and he will work extra hard to never hurt you.

Love goes the extra mile. Love doesn't hurt people. Love doesn't diminish people. I also want you to always feel free and unafraid to speak up for yourself without fear. Because in this case, the dad, like, and I'm going to say a lot of us, is hard to approach. And that's not a good thing. Because guys, guys, any guys listening, we want our kids to listen to us. Why?

Not because we're tyrants, but because we have a lot of wisdom in life. We don't want our kids to make the same mistakes that we made in life. So we want them to respect us. So they listen to us. But when we react to them all the time, make cutting remarks, diminish what they're doing, dismiss them, then they won't come to us. So honey, you should feel free to speak up for yourself without fear. A good man should always be humble. He should listen, even if he doesn't agree with you. It's not healthy the way he treats you. And I don't want you to ever make excuses for men like that. Side note, moms, this happens a lot. I guarantee many of you have said this in your heart, right? Well, he's a good man, right?

And we do that to justify things. And I don't want you to, because what happens, you know this if you're a wife and you've married one of these men. It happens year after year after year after year. And then you finally figured out, man, I married a guy who's controlling, who controls our finances, is controlling emotionally, controls all kinds of things. And we don't want that. And I want you to train your kids so they know these red flags. Casey and I wanted to do a program at one time, like five red flags for young men, for young women as you're dating. And one of my first original red flags is, hey, if you ever go to your boyfriend and you say, hey, I need to talk to you about something that's hurting me or that you're doing that's not nice or kind that I don't like.

And if that boyfriend turns things around on you and makes this issue about what you're doing wrong, then you run. You don't walk, you run, and you never ever have a relationship with a guy or a woman who turns things around on you and who doesn't respond and say, you know what, I didn't mean to do that. Help me do that in a better way, right? But we don't do that with our kids sometimes. So let me end this one up. This is what I want the mom to say too. I love your dad and you love him and I want him here, but I only want him here if he's willing to do the hard work to change so he doesn't hurt you and disrespect me. And if he doesn't make the effort to change, then he has told us what he is really like and what he values. If he does change, then that is the kind of man you want around you.

Look, I think there's tremendous value in this. This is a hard situation, right? So it doesn't apply to all of you. But I encourage you to start speaking to your kids about how you, they should expect people to treat them because they grow up with this. We're dealing with this. I'm doing now a entirely separate podcast called The Alternative Christian Podcast. It's at thealternativechristian.com. But I'm doing that because so many women in the church have been hurt by men who took advantage of them and have been abused and nobody ever spoke up

about it. And I want to start breaking some of these generational patterns so girls don't grow up making the same mistakes, right? That a lot of people in my generation did. So I hope that makes sense, but there's something very powerful about saying, uh-uh, I don't care if it's the president of the United States. I don't care if it's a boss. I don't care if it's that guy who's like valedictorian of your high school class. I don't care if it's your dad. A man is not supposed to treat you like that. Let's start doing that. Number three, my husband tends to escalate things with our son and I'm always caught in the middle. This I've addressed before is one of the

most common dynamics in our homes, which is you have a strong willed child who's very difficult. They are, they're challenging, right? And it's emotionally exhausting. And then husband comes home, why are Legos all over the floor? Why'd you do this? And starts yelling at the child. Guess what position the wife is in?

And I did this to my wife. I did this exact same thing with our son, Casey. Now, guess what? The wife now is caught in this position where, well, if I don't say anything, then I allow my child's spirit to get crushed by my husband. But if I speak up now, I'm undermining my husband's authority.

Again, a brutally horrible thing that the church overall, I'm not gonna get into that here, it's for a separate podcast, has done because we allowed that. And in some ways, we kind of even encouraged that and it's horrible place to put a wife where she can't even speak up and she doesn't know what to do now. So how can I talk to my husband about this? Now, look, this would be its own podcast and several podcasts, but let me give you a few things you can start trying this week. And again, use wisdom in how you do this.

I want you to have courage in doing this and knowing it's the right thing to do as well. Men tend to like clear, direct instructions. So let me get, because if you come home and say, you know what? I got the new calm parenting package. I bought this parenting resources from, from Kirk's thing. And we just need to change our entire parenting paradigm. Well, I'm out. That's way too broad. I can't handle like we need to change everything.

No, come in. If you do get our materials, and we do have a really good New Year's sale on. But if you get that, even if, you know, honestly, even if we didn't, it's worth it. Just get them and go through them. But as you go through them, give your husband something very specific. Hey, honey, when you get home tonight, could you simply walk into Ethan's room and tell him you're proud of him for doing X? And you could even say, I'll take care of the rest, right?

Over time, you want your husband taking an active role, helping, digging in, doing the hard emotional work. But right now, let's just get some small wins. Let's be very specific. Give your husband ideas of how to handle things, but don't necessarily do it like right in the moment, right? But beforehand, hey, hubby, the next time this happens with our daughter in the kitchen,

could we try this? Sit down and simply ask her a question. But don't correct, don't get upset, don't start threatening things. Could we try that? Here's another good way to phrase it. Hey, we've been trying your parenting method for the previous 6, 7, 10, 12 years. It's not working. It's not working. We tried to tough route. We tried spanking. We tried taking away everything the child owns. It's not working.

If you had this success rate at work, you would have been fired by now. It's not working. So we got to try something else. So for the next two weeks, could we try X? The next time this happens, could you simply walk into the room and say X? Because I'm really good. If you give me a specific instruction, I can do that. And I'm not trying to make us as men sound like we're incapable, but this is not always our strong suit. You put me in a job somewhere, I'll figure it out, know how to do it.

You throw me into a hard emotional situation with other human beings, kind of tough. So giving him a script is actually a really nice thing. So if let's say you're in a situation and your husband's starting, you know, you can tell when this happens, right? Starting to go down the wrong path. You see his, you know, he shifts in his chair, his body posture changes, the tone changes, and your husband's going down the wrong path with your son, instead of correcting him in the moment, say, oh, honey, you know what? I forgot to grab something from my car from the basement. Could you go grab that for me? It really helped me out. Give him an out so he can calm down. That's better than correcting him in front of the children. You can be nice and say, hey, I know you're really stressed now. What can I do to help reduce your stress?

But you can and should also be direct and say this. You don't get to take your stress out on a kid. I expect more from you. Please, wives, don't let us get away with so much. Now, watch this. I'm not saying this. Don't walk around and nitpick all the time either and say, well, I listen to this guy's materials and podcasts eight hours a day, and you're not doing it right, right? Like, set us up for success, and when we do try, and when your husband does get involved and makes an honest

effort and does a good job but doesn't do it perfectly, don't come in and say, well, you know, you could have done that because then he's going to be like, you know what? You're better without me. I can't do it. Walk in and say, you know what? I really appreciate you working on that. I appreciate you being more patient tonight. That worked much better. And then just leave it at that. At another point in time, you can come back after that and say, hey, that was really good. Next time, can we try this? Because I noticed at the end it didn't go as well, but man, that was awesome and I appreciate it, right? But I do want you to be direct with things at times and say, look, you don't get to take your stress out on a kid, right? It's like that podcast of the people, like my husband has, whatever they call that thing of like, he's

stressed from work. Well, welcome to life. But you don't get to take that on a kid. You got to grow up. I do like to call BS on men when they make excuses. Just do it in a direct, concise way because that's what men respond to best. You know, there's this thing like for many years, like I went through things where it's like, oh, men, come on, I'm going to teach you how to speak to women so women kind of get it more. Because there are some differences, not always, and sometimes the roles are reversed, right?

Some of you are more, some of the moms listening, you're like the tough, rigid one, right? You're the Kirk voice like this, right? And your husband's the passive one, whatever. I get that, but I'm just playing the percentages here when I do this. So you know how that works. But anyway, men were kind of taught like, okay, I can do that. I'm going to talk more emotionally connected language and do all these things. But we haven't really taught women how to talk to men. When men talk to men, we're very direct. When I, my son is a man now, he's 30. When we're kind of tough with each other, I'm tough with him. It's a sentence and

there's usually a swear word involved and it's really, really, really, really effective. And so I do like, I encourage you to talk to men in direct, concise way because that's what we respond to. Don't talk about, look, I know people are going to say, oh, you're a man. You don't get to tell women how they should talk. I'm not, it's not what I'm doing. I'm trying to make it effective. I want it to be effective. So short to the point, hey, honey, that's an excuse and it's not right. There's another one. Hey, hey honey you don't let the kids make excuses and you tell them to be responsible for their choices it's time you did the same I like that now here's a snarky one I had given a mom once for military husband was

oh is that the way they taught you to treat women and children in the military? Really? Because I expect more from you. Don't be afraid to be blunt with your husbands. I know they don't usually receive it well at first, but it can be really effective. But mostly, I want to try to get some small wins. Be assertive about what you need. Be very, very specific. Here's an example that doesn't work. And this is more like your own marriage or relationship. Well, honey, I just feel like we're lacking intimacy and we need to really connect. Look, I'm a guy. Now, I know what that means because I'm an evolved guy, but most men are not, right? Typical guy's like, I have no idea what you just said. We're lacking intimacy. We really need to connect.

I don't know what to do with that. But here's a better example. Honey, I like it when we lay in bed and your leg touches mine. Okay, good. I can make sure my leg touches yours. That's doable. And it's not talking down to us. It's just talking in a respectful way because it's like, I can do that. Don't talk in roundabout language with your husband because you're intimidated by him. I get why you would do that. And I know you get

intimidated and it's really, really hard for some of you. But let's practice being direct. I'll throw this out to you. Email us. If you're struggling with this, email me. And you can say, this is what I really want to say to my husband, but I don't know how. Can you give me some words to use? And I will do my best by email to email you back with a more direct language that you can use that I think your husband will respond to. I also will, it's not always my favorite thing, but I'm doing

it more and more of like, hey, will you do a couple phone consultations with my husband? I'm like, let's do two. My whole thing is though, if I'm going to talk to your husband, he's got to know I'm going to be very kind because I'm a kind man, but I'm also going to be very direct and say, hey, cut the crap, cut it out. You got to grow up. Stop talking to your daughter like that. Stop talking to your wife like that. Here's what we need to do. And I'm good with that. And I'll also give them some very practical tools to use. So that's an option. If you're interested, go to the website, you can sign up for a couple calls. Here's another way that you could talk to your husband. And I'm going to got to the website. You can sign up for a couple calls. Here's another way that you could talk to your husband. And I'm going to got to close up. Hey, I know you probably weren't even

aware that you were doing this. It's a really nice way to lead in because sometimes men don't know that they're doing it. We're just being idiot guys because that's kind of what we are in some ways, right? I know you probably weren't aware that you were doing this, but when you do X, it makes me feel like Y, right? When you talk to me like that, it sounds demeaning and it makes me feel like I'm a little kid and not respected. Say that, and I know you don't want to convey that. See, that's a nice introduction to it because your

husband may feel embarrassed. He might feel like a failure in this area, like he never knows how to do it right because you married a software engineer or a left brain project engineer or someone who's like, I'm not really good at these things. So give him some scripts to use. So you can be gentle and kind at first, but by no means do you let his angry or gruff demeanor and response dissuade you and throw you off the track. At some point, he's got to grow up and handle this stuff. So don't let him off the hook. So I'd encourage you. You can do this. Feel free to email me. I will help you with that as best as I can. We do phone consultations if you want.

Also, I would go through the Calm Parenting Package because there's a program just for men. Actually, this might be your better option first. It's a little bit cheaper than the phone calls. And it's way cheaper than a divorce. And besides the cost of it, it's the emotional cost of this, right? There is a program in the Calm Parenting package called Straight Talk for Men. It is me talking directly to your husband, man to man. And you

can get this package. It's got like 12 different programs. It's very robust. And it costs like, it's like the cost of one trip to a therapist's office. You get to all the programs. And all you have to say is, hubby, I'm going to download this to your phone. There are 12 programs. Guess what? I'm not asking you to listen to all 12. Just listen to this one.

Just listen to this one. And then mom's, I want you to listen to the men's program too. So you know what I'm saying to him. So you guys can talk about it. And you could even go to him and say, Hey, so, um, um, you listened to that. What can I help you do? Right? I can start with the kinder thing, right? I can come alongside and know like, Hey, this guy that you married is really good at doing X and Y, but man, he's really not good at these relationship things. So how can I help you with that? Because I know your dad didn't teach you that. Dad didn't model that. What's the hardest part? Have that talk. What's the hardest part of dealing with our

strong-willed child? What does that trigger inside of you? Are you afraid because you're the dad that you have to come down on him because that's what your dad taught you. You come down on a kid and go through that with him. Anyway, if we can help you in any way, please let us know. Reach out to Casey's email is C-A-S-E-Y at CelebrateCalm.com. You just email me if you want. It's Kirk, K-R-R-K at CelebrateCalm.com. Hey, thanks for listening to this. Thank you for sharing this.

Share this podcast if you find it helpful. And thanks for bearing with me as I share some more difficult things and letting me do this in a way that's authentic to me because I'm a guy. And I like this guy language. It just works. Anyway, hey, love you all. Talk to you soon. Bye-bye.