The Prepper Broadcasting Network - Raising Values: Fighting Fair

Episode Date: January 21, 2024

https://www.facebook.com/RaisingValuesPodcast/https://linktr.ee/PBNLinkshttps://www.instagram.com/raisingvaluespodcast/http://www.mofpodcast.com/www.prepperbroadcasting.comhttps://rumble.com/user/Mofpodcastwww.youtube.com/user/philrabSupport the showMerch at: https://southerngalscrafts.myshopify.com/Shop at Amazon: http://amzn.to/2ora9riPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/mofpodcastAll relationships encounter conflict from time to time. Whether a case of misunderstanding and hurt feelings or opposed priorities, couples fight. The hard part, and the most important part of fighting, is fighting fair.Raising Values Podcast is live-streaming our podcast on YouTube channel, Facebook page, and Rumble. See the links above, join in the live chat, and see the faces behind the voices.family, traditional, values, christian, marriage, dating, relationship, children, growing up, peace, wisdom, self improvement, masculinity, feminity, masculine, feminine

Welcome to the Raising Values Podcast, where the traditional family talks. You can find us on iTunes, Stitcher, and Spotify, and be sure to follow us on Facebook and Instagram. You can support the Raising Values Podcast through Patreon. Bill and Gillian are behind the mic, and we hope you enjoy the show. welcome back to raising values we're having a malfunction with a cat well we've been having a couple of malfunctions lately just with life i think life yeah we'll go with that should we just go with that but the cat right now is trying to, now she's under me. Hopefully she'll stay away from the camera and the table and we can not have to stop the broadcast just to fix things. But we've already had to fix things today. Anyway, hello and welcome back. It's not our normal Sunday, as you can tell. It's Tuesday and it was a quote-unquote snow day for us. There is no snow. Not where we were. There's ice. A little bit. There was like icicles and ice on roofs. Roofs. Roofs? Roofs? Roofs?

Roofs sounds weird, but it's probably grammatically correct. On the tops of people's houses. And that's all. But we do have tomorrow off as well because it's supposed to be super, super cold. And I know that our friends up in the north are laughing at us because super cold at, what, 19 degrees tonight is like nothing for them. So, it's a big laugh. What, 19 degrees tonight is like nothing for them. But like I am forced to remind our northern friends, every time this happens, you come down here when it's 95 degrees and 100% relative humidity, and then we can have a discussion about how we react when it's cold.

Yeah. Like this is a tropical climate down here almost. Yeah. I don't know. I went for a walk today almost. Yeah. I don't know. I went for a walk today below freezing temperatures. It wasn't horrible. Except when you got to the end of the street and there's like all the industrial buildings and the wind was picking up. I don't know.

For some reason it was just like really really cold anyway anyway so we are back on a Tuesday because Saturday night was really weird and Sunday morning was not the day to record wouldn't you say so dear I'd say so I'd say. Sunday was not the day. But anyway, so fighting fair is what we were scheduled to talk about. And, yes? You're looking for me to bail you out. I'm just letting you go. Bail me out of what? No, fighting fair is a subject that, like, I think we have alluded to in the past.

I don't think we've done, like, a specific episode on it, but we've certainly talked about it. Especially in the guise of the differences, some of the growth we've had as a couple over the past 20 years, give or take. I think we're going to spill a lot of beans today. It's going to be hard to... There's going to be tea spilled, huh? going to spill a lot of beans today it's going to be hard to there's going to be tea spilled there's going to be it's going to be hard to keep um keep it all contained um and and it was okay so it was ironic because saturday night we had a big blow-up fight and we don't fight we really don't and saturday night was like the night of course why Why not have a blow up when the next day you're going to be talking about fighting fair and all that other stuff.

So it was a very long night and I was not ready to get up in the morning and talk about fighting fair when I don't feel like it was a fair fight on either of our parts. when I don't feel like it was a fair fight on either of our parts. But it's going to dredge up some bad stuff, huh? I ain't worried about it. I'm not worried about it either. And I did too. But, you know, I think it's, anyway, I think you learn how to fight with your spouse or your loved ones or whatever on what you see growing up. Do you agree with that?

I would agree with that a lot, which I know for me was like, you know, I didn't see my parents fighting a lot when I grew up. Because, like, to me, those fights were always supposed to happen behind closed doors. It was not something children were to be involved in. It was a private matter between husband and wife and especially if especially if my brother and i were somehow central to the fight there was a zero percent chance we were going to be involved in it because mom and dad were always going to present present a unified front to the kids you know i'm saying like they're i've always laughed whenever I hear people talk about, oh, well, you know, the kids pit husband and wife against each other. And I'm like, I never saw that growing up. Like, as far as I'm concerned, my parents shared a brain, which I know now as an

adult, they obviously didn't. But that was the way they fought. It was always in private. It was behind closed doors. It wasn't something that spilled out in the neighborhood or the friends group or the family. It was private. It was between the two of them. So I grew up not learning how to fight with my spouse. I grew up with the expectation that, like, this is something we're going to hash out privately after the fact. We're not going to do this in front of other people. Yeah, and I agree with you there.

I mean, that's something we've always agreed on, especially after we had Piper. Before we had Piper, we agreed on that. I did not grow up in a house that hid fights. I grew up in a very, oh, try to be nice about this. I grew up in a very, um, screamy, screamy, violent house. Um, not necessarily physically violent all the time, but violent house. And so there was always screaming and they're still always screaming and you can blame it on being an Italian. You can blame it

on being just a Southerner or whatever. You can blame it on all sorts of things. But the fighting in my house was never private. It wasn't ever private. And so I've tried as an adult to really, really, really stay away from doing that in my family, because I didn't want, I didn't want our kid to grow up in a house that had that atmosphere all the time. And I know she's going to see us fight. I know she's going to hear it. And she said the other night, she turned up the volume on the TV so she couldn't hear us in the bedroom and that I'm glad she did that. But you know, and I apologized to her. I was like the bedroom and that I'm glad she did that. But you know, and I apologized to her. I was like, I don't ever want her to hear that. It was always scary

times for me when I was a kid growing up in a household that was so screamy all the time, especially in the 90s, 80s and 90s when divorce rates were starting to skyrocket and things like that, I was always scared that this fight was going to be what ended my parents' marriage. And I would always, you know, after they calmed down or whatever, I was always asking, are y'all going to get a divorce now? Because all my friends in school, all their parents were getting divorces. And I just figured, no, this was it. This was when my parents were going to get a divorce kind of thing. And they, they didn't, they did when I,

after I graduated high school, but then now they're remarried again. So, but, um, yeah, it's just something that I didn't want to continue in this house, but I can remember going to family therapy when we were young and the therapist looked at all of us and said, well, basically looked at my parents because I was a child and said, none of y'all fight fair. You don't fight fair at all. You, you bring up things that are going to hurt. And, you know, you're there. I learned that when you fought with someone, you, your intention is to hurt them. And it wasn't to get to, you know, an agreement or a conclusion or to express what was happening or what made you feel the way that you feel, you know, feel and all that stuff, it was to hurt someone. And I think that's how I fought for a long time was to hurt someone.

And you have to be honest too. I think sometimes that's how you fought too. You were hurt. So the phrase hurt people hurt people. I don't think anyone is innocent of that. Your feelings are hurt, so you want to hurt their feelings too. You want to rub it back in their face. And a lot of times our fights have been like that. I would say ever since Piper was probably three or four,

our fights really started to get more of, well they started to get fewer and fewer and they also stopped being so backstabby and more constructive i think i think at some point the two of us both i feel like the two of us both went through our own little character arc but we arrived at the same point where when we first started fighting, it was to prove who was right. Yeah. Somebody was going to win. Somebody was going to lose.

And, you know, that was just the way it was. And I think at some point along the way, we both came to realize that, like, what we really wanted the most from the other person was just to, like, shut up for five seconds and listen to what I'm, listen to me trying to say something happened, and it scared me. It frustrated me.

My feelings were hurt. I didn't feel valued. I felt belittled. There's an emotional harm there, and it's not that I want a pound of flesh because I was hurt. I just want you to hear the way that made me feel so that we can move past it. And I feel like that's been on both of our behalf because i can remember for years i don't and i couldn't tell you like where it was in that character arc where you if i finally had a great aha moment but i remember a moment where you and

i were fighting and like everything you were throwing at me i was basically thrown right back at you because i was like i was trying to fight from a standpoint of I'm right. And I don't remember when exactly this was, but it stands out in my mind. I remember the moment you told me, I don't want to talk about who's right or wrong. I want you to understand how I felt. And the light bulb went on. And I was like, oh, that's what this is about. This isn't about who's right or

wrong or about you did this now I want you to do this to make up for it you literally just want me to shut up and like understand my feelings validate your feelings yeah and pretty much well but that was also a light bulb moment for me because I feel like that was when I started changing not so much the way i fight but the goal like is to me with me or with everyone well not that you fight with everyone no but here here's the thing i've and i've had this conversation with piper i don't think she's quite old enough to get it yet but i've always said like what the biggest change i've undergone from childhood to adulthood is that i make decisions much more tactically than I used to.

Like if I blow a fuse on somebody, it might look from the outside like I've totally lost my cool. I haven't. I am choosing to blow that fuse. I'm choosing to yell at that person or I'm choosing to get aggressive with that person. yell at that person or I'm choosing to get aggressive with that person because I am I've made a decision that like this is the way I'm gonna I'm gonna be able to get my point across and nothing else is going to solve this problem most of the time sometimes my emotions do boil over but it's not as it's not a default it's not like oh I'm mad I'm gonna lose my cool it's like it's much more of a controlled

i am i'm going to raise my voice because not raising my voice didn't get the point across but so what was the other night then oh the other night my feelings were hurt and i didn't feel like you were i didn't feel like you had any interest in understanding that my feelings were hurt it felt it felt to me as though you'd already decided my feelings shouldn't be hurt. I should just get over it. And that was what sent me into orbit. Because at that point, I was like, I can't even get her to understand what she did to hurt my feelings. Because as far as she's concerned, she did no wrong. And I just need to get over it. Do you think it could have just been a miscommunication?

It certainly could have been. Do you really think that i don't care about your feelings okay we'll turn the question around all those years ago when we were fighting and your feelings were hurt do you really think i didn't give a damn what your emotions were or was it just are we back to all those years where you were just trying to win the argument or who was right one could do i mean that shoe fits pretty easily on both of our feet well i i'm not okay to simmer down i'm not accusing you i'm asking she's accusing i'm not accusing i'm really asking to try to be right. To try to understand. I'm going to get pinched under the table. Not necessarily be right.

I'm just saying. I really think there were extenuating circumstances with that argument on Saturday. Even though, yes, your feelings came before anything. So to kind of give you an idea of what sparred everything on Saturday, guys, we were at the grocery store. I was obviously in the way of someone who wanted to get past me. And instead of saying, excuse me, ma'am, may I get past? He said, move, and then hit me with his buggy and i saw red and i almost jumped over the counter of the you know we're checking out or whatever and i just kept staring at him and fuming and saying things under my breath that i would hope that he would have heard they weren't under her

breath i was mad he hit me with the buggy like you can be polite there's there was a thousand people in there i swear anyway so phil asked where the barcode was on the item that he was checking out and i said i snapped at him and said it's anywhere it's well it's on the whole bottom of the box the guy because aldi does a whole barcode like the whole thing is on the bottom of the box and he said i'm not the one you're mad at hun or something like that i'm not the one that asked you to move oh some i don't even remember what you said because i was shaking i was so mad at this man not this man not husband but this man who had hit me with the buggy to get me to move was so mad so I grabbed the pizzas and I start walking out of of the store and when we

got to the car and Phil got in the car I said I wasn't talking I wasn't saying anything to you I was telling you where the barcode was I wasn't trying to be ugly to you but I didn't saying anything to you. I was telling you where the barcode was. I wasn't trying to be ugly to you. But I didn't apologize and I didn't ask, you know, sorry, I hurt your feelings kind of thing. And so he stewed on it all day and spoke to me all day as well and acted like everything was fine. And then...

Because true to Ravale form, we were going to your parents house and i was not about to cook off a fight with you at your parents house i appreciate that then yeah anyway so that's the backstory of what happened on saturday but to be fair the reason it pissed me off so bad was because i i perceive that tone whether it's from you or anybody else, as a lack of respect. And it's demeaning, and I don't tolerate it. Like, it's part of that, the whole discussion you and I had that night was like me trying to remind you, like, I don't tolerate that tone from anybody on earth except you.

It doesn't, I don't like it from you but anybody else in the world i'll snatch them up by their collar because i'm not going to be talked to like that not by another grown man not by a child not by anybody it's not happening you i have to try to like get you to understand be like babe talking to me like i'm stupid in front of in front of our daughter and you know out in public is a little demeaning i mean if i just snapped'm stupid in front of our daughter out in public is a little demeaning. I mean, if I'd have snapped at you in front of other people, it would have made you feel about this tall. Yes, I know, and I've apologized. I've apologized about 20 times.

But anyway, so that's what happened. But I do feel like our old ways kind of came out on Saturday, our hurt for hurt, tit for tat kind of got out came out on saturday our hurt for her tit for tat kind of thing um i really do feel like that it it was just such a unfair fight for the both of us that you know we were both just we we first off we were screaming we don't ever really scream at each other hardly ever anymore um also i don't know if you see our camera, but it's weird looking. We're a little blurry and fuzzy. It does seem a little.

But we don't scream and holler at each other like we used to before Piper was born. You know what the problem is? We don't have the natural light that we usually do when we do this in the morning. Maybe. But we totally did scream and holler at each other on Saturday. And I mean, if you're going to put your business out there in a podcast, I guess you're going to put your business out there in a podcast. But yeah, so when I woke up on Saturday, I was getting ready to go on. And I had said the night before, and I guess I just didn't realize it

that I didn't, I didn't think it would, I did not want to talk about fighting fair tomorrow that I did not want to do the broadcast. I didn't want to do the episode. I didn't think it was first off. I knew that I was going to wake up still very upset. And so, and still probably very pissed. still very upset and so and still probably very pissed so i did not want to sit next to you sunday morning and talk about our fight with such raw emotions still very much raw um sunday morning so i woke up the next morning completely over the whole thing because she apologized and that's all i ever wanted of course you did completely over it all gone i know you were like skipping around the house like everything was fine like nothing happened and i'm sitting there going i'm so sorry that you had to hear all that piper i'm really sorry that me and daddy had a fight last

night and i'd already apologized to piper that night i know you're such a good dad. Oh, man. I try. Anyway, so, yeah, it took, it probably took a handful of years for me to break tradition, break cycles, break, you know, whatever of what I was conditioned, how I was conditioned to fight. And I will always, always, always remember that family therapist saying, y'all do not fight fair. None of you fight fair. So I know that at a young age as a child, I had been fighting like that with my sisters or, you know, I don't remember fighting with a lot of people. One, because I hate confrontation. And two, I'm just not, I would rather not fight with you. I'd rather just talk it out or whatever. But you get me to that point, then yeah, it's, you know, it's a tit for tat. It's a hurt feeling for a hurt feeling kind of thing.

And I've been really, really proud of us because, like I said, we just don't fight hardly at all anymore. I think mostly because we talk things through first, or I know that I can be completely defenseless. We actually had a lot of conversations about how we fought too, because, you know, we were very honest with each other. There was a moment in our relationship when, and I still feel like this sometimes, but a moment in our relationship when we would fight that you would, what am I trying to say here? Like you would, you would already be like three steps ahead of me in what you were going to say and what you were going to do. And, and there were, there were times where you were

very manipulative in our fighting and you would, you to that. There was something else that you did, and I can't remember what it was now. I remember us talking about it, but there was definitely some manipulation in the fighting. And of course, I totally own up to manipulation. I think fighting like that is a total manipulation drive. Like that is what I think that it's very easy for people to get to that point where it's no longer about your point of view on this or your feelings on this and my feelings on this. It's now how am I going to manipulate you to win this argument? I have to win this argument and that's what i was trying to say earlier like i feel like our fight started as many people's do as i'm right you're wrong how am i going to get you to how am i going to knuckle you under so that

you admit that i was right and i feel like now we've come to a point where and this is this kind of leads towards fighting fair but like i feel like we've reached a point now where it's much more about, it's not that I need you to admit that I was right. I just need to get you to understand where, like my point of view and my feelings and my emotions around this. Like that's, that's become much more my focus when you and I have a disagreement because usually whatever we disagree about,

we're not that far apart usually. And first of all, most of it's pretty minor nonsense. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, I would agree that most of it is very minor and stuff that just doesn't even need that level of intensity for a fight. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, but the emotions come in in and that's where I think things tend to bubble up because at that point it's, I feel like what, what a lot of people do is they

get, they get this thing in their head where they think they just don't understand how I feel. I get that in my head a lot. Yeah. As if them understanding would make their behavior change. And I think that's, that's the slightly toxic part of this. Well, I think it would be, it's a hope that their behavior would change if they truly understood how I felt. Okay, but let's take that down to like a micro level. How bad does it aggravate you when I'm making more noise than you think is appropriate in the morning? Pretty badly, right? I don't know why you're so loud in the morning.

But here's the thing. From my point of view, I'm an early riser. I always have this mountain, this mile-long to-do list of things that I'm trying to get done. And sometimes it's yard work. Sometimes it's prepper stuff. Sometimes it's whatever. A lot of times it's just housework, trying to keep up with stuff. But my way is I'm going to get up, I'm going to get the work

done, and I can relax when the work is done. There is no, oh, I'm going to sit and read for an hour. Oh, I'm going to watch a show for an hour. I'm going to do all that. No, it's get up, coffee, breakfast, do the work. And there's no amount of me knowing that my wife doesn't operate like that is going to change the way I'm going to operate. Because it would drive me crazy to do it. Just like if I busted you out of bed at 7 o'clock in the morning on a Sunday and said, come on, we've got stuff to do, hop to, you would throw stuff at me. So that's one of those moments in time where, yes, from your perspective, I might be the noisiest housemaid on earth, but believe it or not, I really am trying not to make any more noise than necessary in the mornings. But I'm still going to do what I think

needs to be done in the time I think it needs to be done. Okay. I know we've talked about this. I know. But I guess that's kind of my point is that I think where a lot of couples get screwed up is that they think to themselves, well, if they would just understand where I'm coming from, their behavior would change. It's like, no, that person might just be a different kind of person. They might do things differently. They might have different priorities. But whatever it is, like I remember telling another couple that was about to get married years and years ago. I told somebody, the best advice I can give you as a soon-to-be-married couple is to never fall into the trap of tolerating someone's faults.

Because tolerance wanes and tempers get short and sooner or later that fault will annoy you. You have to learn to love a person for their faults so yeah you live with a person who wakes up too early and makes too much noise but you also live with a person who's literally but you have to admit i spend most of my waking hours busting my butt trying to take care of my family like i totally admit that and i'm very thankful for that yes so i guess what i'm saying is sometimes these fights can be headed off at the pass by changing our own perception of things. Sometimes they can.

I'm just letting you know that Morning Gillian... The Italian hand just came out. Morning Gillian isn't going to see anybody else's viewpoint except for what's going on in her head the same for you before your coffee can morning gillian stay in bed until morning gillian goes away and real gillian comes out it depends did phil wake up morning gillian that was morning phil though it doesn't matter which phil woke Gillian. You're going to get morning Gillian. You see how this is going, right?

I don't know. Do you see it? Yeah. I'm going to make twice as much noise next time. Oh, okay. May, again, not have another co-host. Anyway, I said it was going to be a short episode. I don't know if...

We haven't even talked about what fighting fair actually is. We'll talk about it okay so i think fighting fair like you said earlier i think fighting fair first of all involves not making i think fighting fair is it's two components it's your goal and it's your methodology in a fight the goal cannot be make the other person wrong. And it can never be hurt the other person. Because if your goal is to hurt the other person or

prove that I was right at their expense, it's not going to be a productive fight in my opinion. And the other thing of it is that I think at the end of the day fighting fair has to be conducted from a basic standpoint of like, I care about this person. You know what I'm saying?

Like, I might be mad as hell at them. But I love them. I care about them. So you have to try to temper the hurt feelings and the anger and the disappointment with this constant, like, the rock you base this fight on of, I care about this person. I need this person to understand what I'm feeling right now, but not at the expense of, I, I, I am angry. There's so angry. This person, I don't care about them anymore. That's never how I feel. Like I'm, I'm never to a point where I'm so angry with you that I don't care about you anymore.

I'm speaking in generalities. Well, I'm just saying that that's never how I feel with you. I'm trying to think if I've had fights with people, arguments with people. I really don't because I don't because I don't like confrontation. I loathe it so much. I avoid it at all costs if I absolutely have to. I will drop off the face of the earth and stop talking to you before I have a confrontation with you. That's just always kind of been who I am. I'd rather just deal with it from my point of view. I mean, but I can't do that with you. So, because we live together.

Kind of in this whole agreement, arrangement together kind of thing. But as far as other people go, I don't have very many arguments. Scratch that. I will have arguments with some family members. I will have arguments with some family members. I will do that. Because a lot of times, and there's a couple of people that I'm thinking of in particular, a lot of times what the arguments, I guess, are based in for me is I'm no longer a child. I actually do have a brain and can think.

And this person or these people, mannerisms and the things that they do and the things that they say are so far away from what I believe in that I am willing to argue with those people simply because they still have a part in my life and in my family's life. And so therefore they could also potentially have

some sort of, what's the word that I'm looking for? I need a word. Impact? Yeah, an impact. Thank you. I was going to say like rubbing off on Piper kind of thing. An impact on my child and an impact on us and definitely an impact on my emotions and feelings for the day kind of thing.

I also, I go back now thinking about it. I also want them to know that it's not right. Like the things that they say or the things that they do, it's not right. And just because they were, yeah, I know it's like really weird. I don't, oh, it's because we're on the computer's camera. Are we? Yeah. We didn't do the...

That's not a... Anyway. But it's not because... I don't know. I guess it does go back to me, I guess, wanting to be right. And, well, I'm just kind of jumping around in my head because I'm trying to say things without saying a lot of things. And I have to do that sometimes on some of these episodes.

So why do you feel like that was always the goal of your fighting, though, was to be right? Because I don't want to. I don't want to I I already feel in a lot of cases that I'm already inferior or stupid or I don't give myself a lot of credit anyway as far as like my brain power and everything and especially when it comes to arguing I'm already at a disadvantage because I'm already so nervous and so anxious because of it being a confrontation. And I don't want to be taken advantage of. So I have to show that I'm smart enough to say I'm right in this and I have to prove myself I'm right in this. This is me being right.

And it's not, and it shouldn't be like that. It should be this is my point of view and I need you to accept that point of view. The problem that I have for some people is that no matter how I explain my point of view, it will never, ever be good enough. It will never be enough for them. It will never even be enough for them to say, I get you. I totally get it. And I understand exactly where you're coming from. And then they back down. That's never, I can't

ever think of a time besides arguing with you that that's ever happened. So I guess being right proves that I'm adequate enough to be in this fight. Adequate's not the right word. Proves that I am... Help me out with some words, babe. What's another word for adequate? Like, I'm good enough to be in this fight. I'm strong enough, powerful enough, good enough. Are you just going to stare at me?

Are you going to help me with words? I'm just trying to see what exactly direction you're going while I was having an internal conversation in my head. That's what I thought it was. We started this off by saying that a lot of times our blueprint for how to fight is based on what we learned growing up. It sounds to me as though the blueprint you grew up with was, if I admit I'm wrong, then it demeans me.

So there was never the ability, like you were never taught that there was even space to just apologize to a person for hurting their feelings. You know what i'm saying and like hurting someone's feelings is it's it's a statistical inevitability that two people living together are going to piss each other off sooner or later it there's no way for it to not happen but i i do notice that there are couples out there that like when one hurts the other's feelings they will fight to the death before they will they will apologize for that hurt feeling because they feel like to to even say i apologize somehow is giving ground which turns the whole relationship into a very adversarial i have to prove i'm on top i can't let you be on top you can't have more power in

this relationship than me you see where i'm going with this it turns it turns into a power struggle which is what i was trying to get at. Okay. Then I stumbled straight into what you were trying to say. But I don't see that a relationship like that can ever be productive, much less can last the test of time. Because marriages should never be power struggles. They should never be about a power dynamic. It's a partnership.

And it has to be an equal partnership like i've never seen a i've never seen a happy marriage where husband or wife felt like they had to pull the other one along you know i'm saying or like they were constantly subsidizing the other one's lack of effort or whatever like marriages happy marriages of equals it's the reason why i told you but that before met you, I assumed I was going to be a bachelor for the rest of my life. And then that's also why I get so frustrated when you discount yourself. Because from my point of view, I'm like, you are the hardest working and the most intelligent woman I've ever met. You were the only one that convinced me to try marriage. Which shocked my parents more than anybody.

They assumed that they were never having grandkids. True. But I don't know. I think we've kind of stumbled around and around and around what fighting fair is. I think that you have to focus on not hurting the other person just because you're hurt. to you have to focus on not hurting hurting the other person just because you're hurt you have to focus on trying to like trying to explain ultimately because i feel like when we were talking about a fight it almost always has to involve emotions if it's if it doesn't involve emotions it wouldn't be a fight it would be a disagreement yeah so what we're really what

you're really fighting about at that point is not who's right and who's wrong. It really is I don't feel heard and I need to feel heard, which I feel like is probably more difficult for men than for women because men generationally have never had good instructions for how to process our emotions or express them and quite frankly i also think a lot i also think with i also think probably part of the reason for men and women having so much trouble fighting is because like the example i was shown growing up not from my parents but from just kids you know other I knew, was that whenever emotions got brought up in a fight, that was 100% the woman trying to manipulate the argument.

Like, if she's crying, if she's screaming, if she's bringing up emotions, it is 100%. This argument is no longer about anything concrete or about anything rational or about anything that makes sense to men, it is a, I'm mad and I'm going to use my emotions to hurt you or to make you admit that you were wrong, even though you weren't. That's how you used to be. And that, and okay. I'm not trying to be ugly. No, no, no, no. But hear me out. So we start off by saying that I never saw my parents fight, but I had had plenty of fights with ex-girlfriends. And that those are the ones that taught me that fights always involve manipulation from a woman's point of view using emotions. And then you married the most

emotional person ever on the planet who cries at the drop of a hat. And yeah, you can imagine how those fights went. There was always always tears i think there's always tears no matter what i think we could have a very serious disagreement and i'm still gonna cry yeah because i cannot stop emotions i cannot block them i cannot turn them off emotions are tied to literally everything i do i mean i'm an empath i just emotions are tied to literally everything I do. I mean, I'm an empath. I just, emotions are just everywhere and all the time. It's like the coal in your furnace. Yeah, it's like I can't get away from emotions and, you know, I can't get away from all that stuff.

But that's actually a realization that, like, I'm having right here at the table. Like, that's probably where a lot of my bad habits fighting with you stem from, is all the girls I dated before you. Thanks, girls. Well, I mean, call it what it is. My relationships with most girls lasted about two weeks, most of them. Those aren't even relationships.

Those are coffee dates. Okay okay two to four weeks but my point is they would last just long enough for one of these fights to brew up them to try to manipulate me and i'd literally like drop them off and home and never talk to them again just done with them because i was tired of being jerked around and manipulated and i could feel it coming a mile away and that was my default reaction was you out am i doing this and i think that might be the reason why whenever you get emotional when we were fighting it like it would just i would shut down because i'm like i see where this is going the waterworks start the tears start because she's lost the argument and she can't stand to lose, and she's now going to cry her way out of this. It's not that I lost the argument, although it was very hard to win any kind of argument with you. I'm sorry. I am a very good, I am very good

at debating. I know. Trust me. That's why I try not to get into arguments with you because I am not strong in that field. And when I say that you're always three steps ahead, it is because you are a very good debater. And so you're already thinking about where is this conversation going? And so you've already got prepped and planned what you're going to respond with. And I have never been like that. I've always been a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants kind of person, and I'm going to respond to exactly what you just said and not what I think you're going to say in five minutes. So to sum all this up,

the reason why our fights used to be so awful is because you grew up with the understanding that you could not lose an argument or admit fault because that lessened your position in the relationship. And I grew up with the understanding that any emotional discussion in an argument was automatically manipulation and therefore discarded. Okay, yeah. How did it take us 20 years together to figure this out? For you to figure it out? Well, figure out my half of it.

I figured out your half a while ago. I mean, because as good of a debater and as smart as you are, you are not observant. Oh, I have a blind spot a mile wide when it comes to self-reflection. I'll be the first to admit that. You have a blind spot in a lot of categories. But common sense and emotional intelligence is like you walk around with blinders on and you're blind. But imagine if I had emotional intelligence. Like no other man would stand a chance against me.

Like God had to hold something back. Thanks, God. He could have made me late. Because he knew that I was going to be with you, so. Well, I mean, he could have made me, you know, lazy as hell and incompetent. You would have had that to deal with instead. No, I wouldn't have. There wouldn't have been an us.

So what I'm hearing is you won't trade the devil you know for the devil you don't. I know what lazy and incompetent is. I'm not trading for that. So fighting fair. Just try not to kick the other person in the shins just because you're mad at them. Don't kick them while they're down. Or don't kick them while you're down. Or while you're down.

That's true. Yeah, fight fair. Yeah. Don't do what we did on Saturday. Well, and I will just say this, that, like, I do think it is critically important to teach this to your kids, for those of you who have them. I'm constantly, I know I just interrupted, I'm constantly thinking about, I mean, not just when we argue, but I'm constantly thinking about how Piper sees the two of us interact. Because I do not want her to end up with someone who treats her so poorly. I want her to find someone that treats her the way that you treat me. And even though we argue and we fight sometimes, it's very far and few between.

And I wouldn't say we have a perfect marriage or a perfect relationship. But I do think we're better off than most, most people that we know anyway. And I want our kid to understand how to fight and how to fight fair. But I want to set that example for her, not just in fighting, but just in general, like I said. So I'm constantly thinking about what is piper seeing and what does she feel is appropriate you know that kind of thing you know i'm saying like i just i don't know i'm always thinking about how i respond to this situation

whether it's with you or co-worker or friend or family member or whatever however i respond to this situation my daughter's watching and she's learning and she's a damn sponge i mean she will she will come back two years from you know two years ago and spout something off that i don't even remember having the conversation and it's like when did we talk about this? And she's like, oh yeah, you remember you were sitting on the couch and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, wait, what? How do you even remember this child? And then I think it was the first time she did that. I was like, oh boy, I have got to start really watching. My mom always used to say, they're watching, they're listening, they're watching, they're listening. And I was always like, okay, mom, I get it. They're watching, they're listening they're watching they're listening and i was always like okay mom i get it they're watching they're listening and then proof is in the pudding you know out of the mouth of

babes kind of thing mom i saw when you did this or mom i heard when you said that and it's like gotcha loud and clear i will be watching every step i make so that you don't I will be watching every step I make so that you don't repeat bad habits and manners. And we will always and forever be their first teacher. They do remember Jo. She is a woman. They do remember forever and always. She'll probably remind me of something from when she was eight years old when I'm in my 60s.s do you remember mom she's not gonna sound like that

i doubt it anyway so um yeah fight fair fight nice don't fight to hurt each other kind of thing um but like i said earlier this is gonna be kind of a short show because um i kind of i kind of just was like phil i mean piper's art class started today even though we had our quote-unquote snow day she still has an art class this afternoon and we were usually we go and have a coffee date at the lakefront but um negative because it feels like it's negative degrees outside it's 30 degrees outside right now So we're not doing a coffee date. And so when we got home, I was like, why don't we just record? I felt really bad about not recording on Sunday and yelling at Phil to tell him I'm not recording on Sunday.

So this one is that one. And we'll see if we actually do. Yes, Joe, I was going to get there. The plan, I don't know saturday is my 40th birthday we have a party we have a party going that night yeah so i don't know i mean like i i highly highly doubt we'll be recording at 10 o'clock in the morning yeah we might do a late afternoon show yeah on sunday that might be a possibility i think that's a better better idea um i also wanted to put out to everyone who's listening and hopefully we'll get this episode up pretty quick um producer man but um if you know I'm kind of running out of ideas on topics, show topics, and that

has really been eaten at me a lot lately. And it was actually one of the other reasons why I was just like, you know, it was the beginning of this whole big Saturday debacle between me and Phil, because he woke up that morning and he was like, you know, you still don't have a show topic. And I'm like, I know, I still don't have a show topic. I got it. Snap number one. Yeah, that was the first.

That was the snap number one of the day. And then whatever. There was other, anyway. So if you have ideas for show topics that you would like to send me or Phil, you can send them to me. But please share those because I'm really on the struggle bus right now on what to talk to and not wanting to repeat any shows that we've done in the past. And I know that this one was kind of close to something that we've already talked about. But I don't want you as listeners to go

like, you know, start listening and be like, oh, well, they talked about this two months ago or whatever. I think it's good to, to go back to certain topics, but, um, yeah, I'm really, really interested to hear what, um, what you have to say and, uh, or what you want us to talk about. And, you know, I think just putting it out there. Do we need to get the little bracelets made that have, like, WWGD on it? What would Gillian do? What would Gillian do? As a show topic?

Well, no. WWGD. As a prompt to the listeners. Oh. What would Gillian talk about? Is that what you're talking about i meant like if they have a life situation and they're like what would gillian do in this moment oh okay i didn't quite understand it made sense in my head but it made no sense you had to get

all of that information out for me to understand again struggle bus i've been on the struggle bus lately um so anyway we'll see what happens on sunday maybe we don't maybe we do take the day off um but i will be so much better about it um i will let everyone know by saturday if we decide to have an episode or not so if not then it will be back the week after so yeah but um thanks for everyone who joined us tonight on our live. I know we kept getting the little pop-ups here and there of people coming in and out. And Joe, of course, always thank you for being in the comment section of our episodes. But anyway, I hope you all have a great rest of your afternoon, your evening, whatever.

Stay warm. I think half of the country, for florida is cold so we're bundled up again tomorrow no school for us but um stay safe stay warm and we'll see you next week maybe i don't know happy birthday to me bye guys bye y'all Thank you.