The Prepper Broadcasting Network - Raising Values: The Five Most Common Family Issues

Episode Date: April 28, 2024

https://www.facebook.com/RaisingValuesPodcast/www.pbnfamily.comhttps://www.instagram.com/raisingvaluespodcast/http://www.mofpodcast.com/www.prepperbroadcasting.comhttps://rumble.com/user/Mofpodcastwww.youtube.com/user/philrabWomen Who Prep Conference: Come See GillianSupport the showMerch at: https://southerngalscrafts.myshopify.com/Shop at Amazon: http://amzn.to/2ora9riPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/mofpodcastGillian's Google Fu took her by fivelittledove.com, so this morning her and Phil sit down over a cup of coffee to discuss their take on the article.Raising Values Podcast is live-streaming our podcast on our 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. Good morning, everybody. Good morning. Our cat's eating something she's probably not supposed to. We always start this so weird. Good morning.

Welcome back. Yeah, that was weird. So do we make this more weird or just say that this is the weekend of the Women Who Prep conference, so it's possibly too late to get tickets for it since it's already started? It's too late. The last day to get tickets for the Women Who Prep was the 19th. So if you missed out this year, I'm so sorry that it wasn't my fault because I know I pushed it. But we will be having Holly back on after the conference so that she can talk about her experience.

So you can live vicariously through her. Yeah. But, you know, like I've said in multiple shows, the conference, people who purchase tickets have access through July. So I'm not pushing Holly. Holly, if you're watching today or listening, I'm not pushing you to go and do it right this second because I know you're super busy and you have a life and you'll probably watch it throughout a couple of weeks or whatever. So, yeah, we'll have Holly back on to see how she liked it.

But right now I think the experience that people are having is pretty good. I know that the likes on our Instagram page have been, we've been getting a lot of, we're over, we're almost 130 people who have liked the Instagram page, which is cool. I mean, I'm not one of those. I'm sure people who follow us on Instagram is like, I don't ever see anything from them. I just don't post. It's really bad. It is what it is. I mean, you can follow us on Instagram. That's where we'll post announcements and things like that. But I'm just not going to be this constant poster.

Yeah, I'm just not. That's the same decision, Adrienne, I made years ago with Matter of Facts, was that, like, this is, you know, it's a hobby. It's something we enjoy, and I enjoy the people we've met through it and the community that's been built around it. And I've enjoyed getting more familiar with the preparedness community through the podcast. But I told Andrew very definitively years ago, I'm like, this will never be a full-time job for me. Because I already have a full-time job, and I don't like that full-time job all the time. And I don't want another full-time job.

Like, if this stops being fun, there's no point in doing it. Yeah. By the end of the day, I'm mostly spent, so I don't want to stay glued to any sort of marketing campaigns or anything. If the podcast grows, it grows. If it doesn't, we have our sweet listeners who already listen to us. Morning, Joe and Garden Girl. Her name is Nina. Why do you always call her Garden Girl?

Because her username is Garden Girl. I know. So anyway, speaking of not really spending a whole lot of time marketing and pushing this podcast, I always run into the problem of, I don't know what we're going to talk about. I feel like we've talked about so much stuff already, and a lot of times it's repeated in my head. I feel like we've repeated a lot of our shows. I think I'd have to go back and look

because I have all the notes and everything on the other computer in the office, but I think we're up to like 46 episodes on this one. 43. It's 40-something episodes we've done on Raising Values. I know that we've reached our anniversary date. It's come and gone. It was in March.

But we've taken time off, so it's not like, you know, it wasn't 52. Once we get to 52, that's a year. But our anniversary date has come and gone, which is cool. I didn't think that we'd actually make it to a year for the podcast. For a weekly podcast? Yeah. I didn't think so. I really didn't.

And I'm starting to see that struggle. And actually, I started to see the struggle way back in. Six months ago. Yeah. Of what are we going to talk about today? And what are we going to do for the show this week? And things like that. Because I think, like you said, I funnel it into, we can only talk about these certain topics.

And for the most part, I think I do that. But other times, it's more of a, well, we've talked about this. Let's not kill our listeners by talking about it again. And let's not, you know, there's only so many times we can discuss a certain topic before people start to tune us out. So that's the fear that I run into all the time. And so like this morning, we still didn't have a topic for the show. We were out late last night. We didn't go to bed until midnight. So we didn't get home until like 1030. And I thought the whole way home that we were driving, it was a two and a half hour drive.

You know, what are we going to talk about? What are we going to talk about? And to be fair, like without going into specifics, like I got sick last night. So I was not, I wasn't in a good way. I don't know if y'all have dealt with this um stomach bug this virus that's been going around i feel like i everybody i talked to has had some dealings with it but we've now had it twice in this house i've gone to the doctor i keep pushing him maybe he'll even just take the medicine that i've been given before last night i've been getting better like i think last night

because we went to a crawfish boil i mean yeah i mean crawfish and i i think i pushed the nuclear button and my my stomach said no that was too much too fast because up till then i've been getting better i mean i wouldn't say i was back to normal but i was certainly heading in that direction and then last night was just it was bad phil does joe says phil does look kind of pasty this morning. He did not feel good last night. And I kept like pushing my drugs on him. Like, take this. My doctor gave it to me because of the symptoms that you're having. Take this. Yeah. But as a general rule, like, first of all, I don't like, I don't like taking, especially prescription medication for the first time when

I'm away from home or like when we're driving for two and a half hours to get home because my concern always is like what if there's some kind of a side effect and instead of having instead of being home and instead of having a hospital that we know that's right down the road we're two and a half hours away from home if something goes bad so to me it was I feel bad, but it's not like I'm dying. I just felt horrible. Yeah. But anyway, so we've been dealing with all of that since Easter because Piper first got sick on Good Friday.

So anyway, so this morning I'm talking to Phil about, I don't know what we're going to do this morning. Maybe we just cancel the show, blah, blah, blah. So then he's like, you know, sometimes me and Andrew, what we do is we just Google what's happening, like current events. Like not to give you all too much of a peek behind the curtain of MatterFacts podcast or podcasting in general, but it's like I told Gillian, I'm like, you know, I've been doing MatterFacts with Andrew for eight years.

We just passed our one-year anniversary with Raising Values. But there are long-form podcasts that are similar format to ours that have been going on for well over a decade and then some. You know what I'm saying? There are shows that are much, much larger than ours. And they struggle with the same thing. But it's like I gave you the analogy about Joe Rogan's podcast. Joe Rogan started off really just interviewing comedians. But how many comedians are there?

You're going to run out sooner or later. So he's kind of spread out to interview like politicians, UFC fighters, people in pop culture. He could grab a random person off the street and have an hour-long conversation with them. People would tune in and listen to because it's Joee rogan show and that's the way he does things is that what we are kyle says we're celebrities so are people just tuning in now just to see the phil and gillian show i hate having the word celebrity hung over my head because i laugh at him every time i laugh at him but anyway what to my to my point was sometimes when we're kind of like we've talked we've talked about home defense 15 000 times we can't do it But anyway, what we... publishing and how it relates to a no knock raid that happened about a month and a half ago, because it was for the exact same reason. So it kind of shows the direction of that agency's

focus. And I'm like, that's what's happening right now. And it's going to impact the community that we're speaking to. So I feel like sometimes you're right. We can't just talk about, you know, we can't talk about raising kids for the 15,000th time, but we can talk about things that either we're seeing that impact families or current story, the current news cycle that's impacting families or current legislation that's impacting families or just somebody else's take on this is what they think is impacting families and this is our take on it. That's all within bounds. Yeah. families and this is our take on it that's all within bounds yeah so actually you made me just think of one that would be good if we are able to do the show next week because we have to go out of town again but if we're able to do one i have remind me it's something that just passed the house or it might have passed the senate federal or state state in our state and i won't

give much away anyway so anyway what we decided to do was I found this article, The Five Most Common Family Issues. I didn't read the article because I wanted to just take the banners that they used and then, you know, give my opinion. I didn't want to be influenced by this author's position on all of these. But I did think that, yeah, these are all pretty common issues in a marriage and a family. So that's what we're going to talk about today. No, Joe, I didn't. Send it to us either through Signal or something. Okay, so for Stuart and the listeners, Joe said— Oh, Stuart's in there too.

No, Stuart's not in there, but I always have Stuart in the back of my head going, you have to read the comments. Oh, daggone it. You see the new, Joe said, did you see the new school legislation in Missouri? No, but it is

a school legislation, a bill that has passed in Louisiana, and I thought that that was, there's a lot of uproar. It's becoming a very heated debate. A lot of people are for it

and a lot of people are very, very against it. So our new governor is shaking that pot a little bit. He is starting that pot, which is good. We needed that. I think we needed, you know. That's why he was elected, because people wanted the pot shaken. Yeah.

Quite frankly, you know, we've had two terms of, after two terms of John Bel Edwards, like categorically not listening to the voters on a broad scope of issues. And I blame the Republican Party for a lot of that, believe it or not. I blame them all. They are all worthless. Well, but hear me out. Some of them are okay. Some of them are really good fight.

John Bel Edwards was a Democrat. Well, but hear me out. Some of them are okay. John Bel Edwards was a Democrat, and he was never a super popular candidate among independents and Republicans for lots of obvious reasons. His policy positions were not good, in my opinion. Okay, well, I'm going to stop you there. Can I just get it out? Okay, get it out.

But then you're going to have to repeat it again next week. But the problem is the other side ran an even less popular candidate, a Republican, stayed home. And they did it twice. Yeah. Well, the first time they ran. Well, Shreveport and Baton Rouge, New Orleans. But the first time the Republican Party ran a known adulterer. And, you know, for all Louisiana's problems,

if you are a person that cheats on your wife, you should probably stay out of public service because we don't have a good opinion of that. And the second time they ran unknown crooked slimy businessman that everybody knew was crooked and slimy. And the voters stayed home. They said, I'm not voting for that guy. Yeah. And I digress. Yeah. I don't want to give too much away because i do think that um look joe joe is always talking about how he gets us going on

different rants and not squirrel squirrel and we're really bad about that so um joe this is the one and only time i'm gonna say thanks joe no but that's good because now i don't have to worry about what are we going to talk about next week so i have that unless you forget no I'm going to say, thanks, Joe. No, but that's good because now I don't have to worry about what are we going to talk about next week. So I have that one. Unless you forget. No, I'm going to remember this. I'm going to remember this. Okay. So the five most common family issues. So if you agree with us in the comments, I want to hear it. If you don't, I want to hear it too, because like I said, I didn't read the article specifically so that I could give my own opinions, not based on the influence of this author. I shouldn't have.

Well, as soon as you came in and said it was written by a feminist who hates men. That's not exactly the way I put it. I said this was written by a woman for women. Like, but anyway, I digress. Anyway, so the first one is being far away. Now, again. Geographical distance far away. Okay.

Being far away geographically. This is, I don't see it as an issue. But I guess, so I have to think about the time when you worked for the airport and you were gone a lot. You were gone. I was pregnant most of the time. I was by myself most of the time I was pregnant with Piper. And I didn't blame you or anything like that. I was a strong enough woman I could do it.

In that career, I mean, I lived out of a suitcase six months out of the year. I mean, I was away from home a lot. It was hard. We were three, four years married. Four? Yeah. Four years married when I got pregnant with Piper. So it was a little difficult.

But now I think... We'll get to that in the bonus round, Joe. He says money, physical affection, and in-laws. Physical affection. Yes. Yeah, I think we'll get to that. That'll be the bonus round. That'll be the bonus round, yeah. When you have that banner down there that says, what would Gillian and Phil add to this? That's what we can add. What would Gillian and Phil and Joe add to this list? Being far away. So I don't like it when Phil leaves. I, I get, I, this is going to sound really strange and I would love it if other women could, um, chime in. Maybe if you're listening

post live show, tell me if you feel this way. I get super stressed and I used to have really, really bad anxiety attacks. Sometimes I still do get a little anxiety if Phil falls asleep before me and he thinks it is the craziest thing I know, but I really, he's not far away. He's in the same bed as me. I'm literally like on him, but I have these like horrible, like anxiety attacks because now my husband is going to sleep and he's like, I'm right here, babe. Like I'm not leaving you. I'm right here. You can crawl on whatever you can, not like that. But, um, I'm like, yes, but you're now unconscious. And I don't know what it is, but after about 10 minutes of him being asleep, I'm like, okay, I'm cool. Like it's, we're fine, whatever. So I have, I do get super bad anxiety when Phil leaves. There are times

when he has to be deployed because of work. And, um, I, I know I can handle things. I know I can be, I can woman up and be like, you know, run the show. I'm very capable of doing it and have done it through most of our marriage and, you know, time together. I mean, hell, we went through – we weren't married when you were in Iraq, and I didn't know you while you were first deployed. But I did – we were together when you were deployed for Katrina, and you were gone for six months and like really gone and not like a cushy office kind of gone, but sleeping on the floor in a hangar that, you know, had been ruined by Hurricane Katrina. So. Well, and that was also an issue where like cell phone coverage wasn't

exactly super consistent in New Orleans. So like there were, there were times you wouldn't be able, if you had tried to get ahold of me, there could be hours or even days sometimes where I'll get it sooner or later. Yeah. But I think, I'm guessing because I didn't read the article, but what I'm thinking is this person is saying that when one person is taken from the relationship and maybe they have to go away for work or something, then that other person is then left to shoulder all the, I don't want to say burdens, but all the burdens, responsibilities of the household and raising the kids and making the dinners and making the lunches and maybe doing all the diapers and putting them all to sleep and things like that. And I do understand that. I think if that were the case all the time in this house, it would have become an issue. But what we did was we decided,

you know, I changed my job. I changed, I wouldn't say career paths because I was still in nonprofits, but I changed where I was working because I was gone 12 hours and I wasn't home. So like it wasn't working for our family. And we both realized that. And so I decided I'm going to start working on the North Shore so I can be home more. So I don't know. So what do you think, like being far away? So I look at it in two contexts. First of all, I think back to the time that like I was still considering going active duty military as a career.

And I had been very upfront. That was a scary time too. Well, but I'd also been very upfront with you about the fact that like, if I do this, because I was considering like officer candidate school and, you know, second lieutenant pay is not great, but it's a heck of a lot better than enlisted pay. Well, it was a heck of a lot better than what we were making fresh out of college in first year marriage. But I was looking at it from the guise of, if I'm going to do this and I'm going to be deployable and I'm going to be working away from home a lot, it has to accommodate you being a stay-at-home mom. It has to at least enable you to do that. Like if you want to go get a part-time job away from the house, that's fine, but it could not require that. Because I understood that me being away for a long period of time is going to be a burden on you. So I had to try to alleviate the burden somewhere else. And then when that fell through, I look at it in the context of when I lost my job working in the aviation business, because like I said, I was away from home six months out of the year. And we made up for it. When I would come home, I'd knock off

two days during the week because I was a salaried employee. My boss didn't care how many hours it took me to get my job done as long as it got done. So I'd be gone for two, three weeks. And when I'd come home, I'd take two, three extra days off, catch up on sleep. We would hang out, we'd go do stuff. And then we'd balance the scale some kind of way. But when I got laid off from that job and I had the opportunity to stay in aviation, I made the assessment pretty quickly of with a child on the way, this is not the way forward. This is just not the way forward. Like, I need to be home more. And this is before we had any earthly idea about what was going to happen with you in postpartum. It turns out it was a really good decision to make.

Yeah, it all worked out. But, yeah. But, I mean, at the end of the day, I look at it as, you know, like no fault to those, especially those dads, but those parents who have to work away from home a lot and don't get to spend as much time with their families. I put more of a priority on being home every night. of a priority on being home every night. I believe that if I had the opportunity to change careers, and I made a major career change back then, like dump the career that I was in that I enjoyed,

that I was very successful at. I mean, I'd made my way to being a general manager when I was 29 years old. That's unheard of in that business. But it wasn't worth it to me if I couldn't spend every night home with my wife and daughter. It wasn't worth it to me. The only reason I tolerate having to deploy now is because it's so intermittent, but I digress. I think like you said, the issue with being far away, with having to travel for work is that it does take you out of the house. And as a result, it's not even just the, Oh, I have to do the laundry or I have to do this or I have to do that, that my husband usually does. It's all the tiny little things that we don't even notice that that other

spouse gets done that you never even think about because it just gets done. It's, it's like when you're, cause I, Piper and I go through this, we went through this recently when you were away for a while. Like we – I told Piper, I'm like, the only way I can make this operation run smoothly when you're gone is to be hyper-organized. Like everything gets done on schedule. I have checklists. We had her lunch made the night before every day. We had her clothes laid out.

Because that level of neurotic OCD is the only way I can ensure that we're not going to miss something. Because in the morning, usually, you get her up. You get her ready for school. She gets herself ready. She really does it all by herself now. But what I'm saying is that when she sleeps in or she misses something, you're the checklist. Without you being there, I had to be the checklist. It's all this little thing.

So, I mean, I think that this can make things difficult for a family. I think you can offset it in a variety of ways, either with, like, sliding duties between spouses where, like, when spouse A comes home from being out for a couple of weeks, they just understand they're going to have to kind of pick up additional slack to let their other spouse recover. Or you have to figure out some way like, well, if I'm going to be gone a lot, then I have to take a load off my spouse so they don't have to work full time. You know, you got to balance the scale. Yeah. the theme for a lot of these topics with me is you got to balance the scale because when it comes to how to manage a family, there are very few moments where I am very, this is the only right way and that's all there is to it.

It usually is if you take from here, you have to give here. You have to balance. I mean, every family finds their balance point or they don't. Every family finds their balance point or they don't. I know I've said this before, but my dad, who is 71, he's retired, obviously, and gets to stay home and think about things. And that is the one thing that he apologizes for all the time, which I tell him stop doing, was that he wasn't home enough. My dad worked an hour away every day. But he was – so my dad was an environmental engineer. And so when things blew up, literally, or when there were leaks or whatever, I don't know what all happened.

But he worked at all these chemical plants. And he was also very much into legislation and writing it and, you know, doing all these things for chemical oil and gas filled kind of thing. So he was out a lot. And now at 71, he can reflect back on, he has a lot of time to reflect back on how much time he was away from home. And like I said, I tell him all the time, stop apologizing. I don't think he ever will get over the guilt of not being home all the time. But that is just something we decided a long time ago we didn't want to have.

You know, so anyway, I think we need to move on to the next banner this one is you and me all over only because we're total opposites we are polar opposites like but it works i don't but to that point i can't think of one aspect of our personalities that's the same like here's the thing not one no not even personalities that's the same. Like, here's the thing. Not one? No, not even one. Here's the thing. We agree on a lot of the same things in principle.

Like, think about, like, our opinions about marriage. Things like monogamy, faithfulness, the fact that this is, like, a very emotional bond that nobody else can intrude into that spouse has to come before children like there's there's a lot of these principles we agree on which is why we got married because if we didn't agree on those things this wouldn't work but when it comes to personality you're a type b i'm a type a you're very go with the flow like i want to spend four hours sitting in the chair with my cat in my lap reading a book on a on saturday on sat Saturday or Sunday, what she was doing right before we started podcasting. And in my head, I'm thinking, okay, I've got to get laundry done. It drives me nuts.

I've got to get laundry done. We've got to go grocery shopping today. I've got like 200 or 300 cases on my bench I want to reload. I've got this. I've got this. I've got this. I've got this. I've got this project.

I have projects I am literally planning right now. Like I'm writing out lists of components and everything and how I'm going to assemble them. I'm trying to figure out wire routing patterns and everything. Like my brain is a constant maelstrom of stuff. I'm always thinking about stuff I want to work on. And it's usually prioritized in order of this needs to get done right now. This can get done later. Or it's prioritized in this is going to require x amount of money and i don't have that money

right now so it's got to wait till later but like i'm always in motion and it drives you crazy that i won't just sit down and read a book for five minutes or hours but therein lies my point we are complete opposites. We are. So how do we, and I'm not going to say how do we stop from clashing because sometimes we just do. Yeah. I don't think I,

well, okay. I think we clashed a lot more early in our marriage. Yes. Now I just know that on Sundays, Phil's going to be running around here like a chicken with his head cut off or whatever. Because as Phil says, I'll look at him sometimes and I'm like, could you just stop? I need you to just sit down.

But that aggravates me worse than anything. Relax. It's Sunday. Okay. So here's my issue with that. I love you. And this is why every time you tell me just sit down and take a break, it pisses me off worse than anything. Or no, this is what pisses me off worse than anything.

Is when I'm actively in the process of doing something like emptying the dishwasher. And then you tell me, well, if you would leave that, I'll get to it. If you'll just leave it, I'll get there. That drives me crazy though. Because my point of view is a couple of things in this order. I want it done. Oh, I didn't know this one's going to get so feisty. I want it done.

It needs to get done. Okay. I have decided I put it in my priority list, like I do everything in a priority list, type a personality in the seat, and I've worked my way down the list to this item. So I have decided now is the time to get it done because there's other things that need to get done behind it. And I'm not going to like jump your butt and say, get your lazy butt up, put the book down and come over here and do this. I'm just going to take care of it. Is that what you think? No, no. Time out. Time out. My point is, I'm going to take care of it.

Okay. So when you tell me, oh, I'll get to that later if you leave it alone, that drives me crazy because my point of view is like, if you want to help, come over and help. If you don't want to help, sit over there and leave me alone and just let me get it done. It'll be done in five minutes anyway. And then I'll move on to the next thing. Yeah, but then I feel guilty. But that's your own internal guilt and my point of view is if you feel guilty you should put the book down and come and take care of it so i can move on to number five six seven eight on my

priority list and you do the dishes or just sit there read a book and take a load off i don't mind unloading the dishwasher it's being recorded that. Okay. But my point is that. You all heard it. My point is that when you try to like wave me off of something I'm working on, that aggravates the crap out of me. Because my point of view is, is this needs to get done and then there's six other things that need to get done. And I know that on a Saturday and Sunday, like you and Piper like to just kind of like veg chill and everything else and that's fine. But I don't derive any kind of enjoyment from sitting in vegging. I am a very task oriented person. I'm very driven. I like to go to bed at night feeling like I got a bunch of stuff done. I got a bunch of stuff taken care of. I got a bunch of projects knocked out.

I feel accomplished at that point. The idea of me, if I did what you do on a Saturday or Sunday and I sat around for like four or five hours reading a book, I would go to bed feeling like a lazy POS because I didn't get anything done. Is that how I should feel? But that's the problem is you shouldn't feel that way because your personality, you derive enjoyment from relaxing. I don't. Okay. But this is the personality clash though, is that you have to accept your husband is going to run around like Flight of the Bumblebee on a weekend because that's what I enjoy. I enjoy getting things done. I enjoy being able to take a step back and say, I have a whole ammo can full

of stuff loaded up that wasn't loaded up this morning. I feel accomplished. I got something done. Or I got a radio installed in my truck because it needed to get done and I got it knocked out. I figured it out, ran into a couple of problems, but it's done now and it's an item off my to-do list and something that I can make useful again. But those are the personality clashes. Now, I feel like where the clash would come in is A, when you try to get me to take it easy because that's what you want to do. Or if I try to hustle you up and stop you from taking it easy because I like to get stuff done. That's where the clash comes in. It's to me, the personality clash can be

avoided if you just accept the other spouse is very different from you and their motivations are different and what fulfills them is different. You have to allow the other spouse to be them. Now, that's not to say that sometimes it doesn't need to be a little bit of meat in the middle, because I also think when we talk about personality clashes, I think about the fact that like when we go on vacation, what is our fight? Planning. I'm a planner. I like to make a schedule. I like to know what's going on. I like to know when we're going to do stuff. And that's usually when the fight starts because you're like, hey, you're a, we're on vacation. We don't need a schedule. We don't need a plan. We're just going to go figure it out. But that level of not knowing what's going on when makes my OCD go into orbit. So we have to kind of like, I feel like there's moments when it

comes to personality classes where you have to just meet the other person where they are. And there's times when you got to compromise a little bit. Like you have to bend a little bit to me wanting to plan and I have to bend a little bit to Like you have to bend a little bit to me wanting to plan, and I have to bend a little bit to not make a schedule for a vacation. Okay, but you're already on the June vacation. What do you mean? Well, you know, as far as we've planned the June vacation is where, like what day are we leaving?

What day are we going to stop and see your cousin on the way up there? That's what I'm talking about. And what days are we going to be up there? That's as much planning as we've done. Like, once we get up there, my plan is to sit out by the lake, smoke cigars, drink bourbon, and screw off with our friends. Okay. We have comments.

We do. So, Nina, because I can't call her garden girl, even though she gave me permission. She gave me permission to call her garden girl. She did. You can call her whatever you want. I can? No. Okay. You can call her one of two things.

Said, we are super different too. We are getting ready to go somewhere because he can't just relax. Somewhere like where? Like a psych ward? Well, okay. Is that where I need to put Phil? No, but here's the thing. I'm joking. That was a joke. I think what she's referring to is probably that when her spouse is at home, they see all the projects that need to get done. You have to take them out of that environment so

there's no projects to get done. But I understand that. And I can't even say that's all men, because I don't know if it's all men. But I do feel I do. I resonate with that because like I'm a very task driven person. Things need to get done. And if I don't get things done, I feel bad. And I don't know. I don't know a more primal way to break it down or that just I feel like I feel like I didn't get my job done that day. I feel like I didn't get my job done that day. And the funny thing of it is, is that I get enjoyment from getting things done for me and for this family.

That's the first time you've ever said it like that. That's the first time you've ever said it like that, which does, it does spin a different look for me. Like it does make it, make me feel a different way about you running around like a, you know, whatever. Because all these years you thought I was just trying to shame you into getting up off the couch and doing stuff, right? Yeah. Even though I told you multiple times, that's not what I'm doing. I know. I know.

But then I have to deal with my guilt of my husband's running around doing all the stuff. And I really just want to see what happens in the next chapter. And then in the next chapter. And then I start thinking of, you know, did I get my lesson plans done? And what do I need to prep for tomorrow? And I don't want to be in tomorrow yet. I want to be right here in my chair, reading my book and finishing it. And then thinking about my next book. I will say this much though. There have been times like the last weekend when I was ripping the brakes off your Jeep. And when I came back into the house, like, I don't know, what was it?

Three, four hours later, covered in brake dust and everything. I noticed, I'm like, okay, the dishwasher got unloaded. The laundry got started. Like all these things that I normally do were getting done. Well, yeah, because you were out there. I mean, you were fixing my brakes. You were. I was literally sledgehammering her rotors off of her Jeep because they were stuck a little bit.

And I get that. That's the whole balancing, you know, whatever. But, so yeah, of course I was going to do that kind of stuff. But therein lies my point, is that I was detained with something else, and you put your book down and stepped up and took care of stuff that I would normally take care of. I did. There's balance there.

Yeah. I don't expect you to get, you know, to like learn how to reload ammo and come join me at the bench and, you know, rattle the gear, lady. I don't mind doing that stuff. Joe's, okay, Joe, you said, I'm not waiting for, you always do that

and then I can't read it. I'm not waiting for my wife to leave for church. Then I'm a tornado of getting it done. I guess I don't understand. And then you asked me what my thoughts were. I don't know if that was something that Phil was talking about. I think it's because Joe waits until his wife is gone and not watching him run around like a tornado. Oh, no. I think. Okay. Anyway, no. I think.

Okay. Anyway, those are your comments. So I know that you'll be in the comments to explain that a little bit more. Wait, wait, wait. I just missed something. Garden Girl will say, and we just redid our entire front planter because he didn't like the bushes, but it does look way better.

And then Joe said yes Phil. So how do you feel about the fact that. He waits until his wife is not around. And then he goes in a flight of the bumblebee mode. I mean I think that's. If your wife gets as. You know. Crazy about it as I do.

When Phil's going around. And whatever. I think that's great. I think that if you realize that it bothers your wife to see you like that, but you know you have to be like that and you wait for her to leave so she doesn't have to witness it, then that's really nice of you, Joe. I'm sure your wife really appreciates that. I take the opposite point of view of you have to meet each spouse where they are. That's your husband. I'm not suggesting that, whoa, time out now. I'm not suggesting

that I need to go somewhere on Sundays while you work crazy. Now that you have put it into a different perspective, because you've never said this is you getting enjoyment and fulfillment in your day. You've never said this is you getting enjoyment and fulfillment in your day. You've never said it like that. So it does shed a different light on it. So I always will deal with, I'm someone who always carries guilt. I carry guilt for every single thing. The way I talk to somebody, the conversation I had at school, the how did I talk to the kids today, or what did we talk about, or how did I speak to my husband? Or why do I feel, you know, I, there's an ongoing list of why Gillian

feels guilty. So maybe, hopefully that would help with the guilt of, I really just want to veg out and read my book because when I'm doing that, that is me disconnecting. And you know me, that is me disconnecting. And you know me, I have to disconnect. I can't constantly be plugged in. My personality does not allow me to be constantly plugged in. I need to break away, separate, even, and this is what we were talking about last week with mental health. I've got to take that time to recharge. And that's how I recharge. And if this is what gives you enjoyment and fulfillment, then by all means, do it. And I won't turn around and be like, hey, babe, if you'll just leave that, I'll do it. But we have always known that we get enjoyment and fulfillment out of different things. And to be fulfilled, you have to be able to allow the other to do what they need to do.

Light bulb. Communication problems. We don't have those. We just talked about having one. No. That's the only one. No. So just before we move on, Joe said, it's how me and Phil take care of our family.

And yes, it is. Like, I don't know how else to say it, you know. I will say that, like, when it comes to... So, let's talk about communication problems. Using the dishwasher is the example. What frustrates me is when you tell me, oh, leave that and I'll get it later. Because I see doing things around the house as taking care of my family. Okay. I also see it as like, I'm not going to berate somebody else about, you know,

come over here and help me unless I need help. If it's something I can't do by myself or I really need to do this, I need you to step up and take care of this. Or especially like with her, with Piper, I'm trying to teach a lesson. Like I'm not going to put water in the cat's dish or food in the cat's dish, clean the litter box, unless it's an extenuating circumstance. But I'm going to get on her about it because I'm trying to teach a lesson. Yeah. I'm trying to break her into this thought process of like, you have chores around here too.

They got to get taken care of. Right. And only part of that is with escalating costs involved in raising a teenager, I'm expecting her to shoulder some of the burden of the housework around here. Right. I mean, it's only fair. Right. But if I'm in the process of doing something to take care of my family

and then somebody else says, oh, just leave that, that drives me crazy because my point of view is it comes across to me as you're trying to do me a favor by taking a load off of me, but I feel like if you want to take a load off of me, you get up off your butt and come over here and help. So by telling me, oh, leave it and I'll get to it later, that means nothing to me. It literally, it doesn't take something off my plate. Because in my opinion, if you want to take it off the plate, come over here and do it right now.

Because if you're not going to, I'm going to get it done right now. And then I'm going to move on to the next thing. going to, I'm going to get it done right now. And then I'm going to move on to the next thing. But it also doesn't provide me like any relaxation because the way my mind works is that if I skip this and go down to the next thing on the list, I'm still working. I'm still not going to sit down and take it easy for the day because I've still got stuff to get done. But what's going to happen is after I get those other things done, if that isn't done, now I have to come back to it and do it. So by me rearranging my priority list, I have accomplished nothing other than frustrating myself because I was told, leave that, it'll get done. And then when I came back to it, it wasn't done yet. That's why I would just say that like communicating to me means if you want to help, stop what you're doing,

come over and help. And if you, you're, if you're relaxing, if you're reading a book, redo whatever, that's fine. Just don't stop me from trying to take care of it.

But I feel like when communication problems come in for us, a lot is also just like the way we communicate. Like you're, you're very focused on like, and stop me if I'm wrong, but like, this is from my perspective, but you're very focused on like, and stop me if I'm wrong, but like this is from my perspective, but you're very focused on like the tone, the inflection, the how a message was communicated. And I'm very focused on what message was communicated.

That's always been our biggest. Yeah. Yeah. Because sometimes I call what it is. Like I am communicating to you exactly what I'm trying to get across word for word in a very strategic way. But sometimes the way I communicate it or the tone I use because I'm frustrated or because I'm worried or whatever, that bleeds through and your mind says, oh, he's mad at me. And then we get into the big old fight about, well, you said this. And I'm like, I never said that.

I said this. And then that's another fight about you're putting words in my mouth because that's not what I said. I said this. But regardless of what I said, this is what you heard because that's what my tone said. But I don't hear my tone because I'm a type A personality. I don't operate in the world of emotions and all that. I operate in the world of rationality and saying specifically what I'm intending. And, you know, like we communicate, we used to communicate totally opposite. Gillian and I used to be the people that can have a parallel conversation and hear totally different things.

And that's the way I, that's the way I describe it as parallel conversation. I would say this, she would hear this, and the two would never meet in the middle. Yes, but we've gotten a lot better over the years. We have. I mean, we've – I think so. We have – There are times where I'm still like, watch your tone. Like, you're speaking to your wife.

This is not – I'm not an employee. I am not – I'm not like, watch your tone. Like you're speaking to your wife. This is not, I'm not an employee. I am not, you know, I'm not a soldier. I am your wife. I need you to speak to me like your wife. I just need you to put a little bit more love in there. Like sprinkle a little bit more love in there. A little bit more compassion. A little bit more, you know, this is, this isn't a job.

This is, this is your life partner. this is the person who's going to be there forever and if you don't want me to punch you i need you to check your tone but to that end like that's also the situation where like a until you tell me check your tone i don't hear it i don't even realize it but the other thing is like you and i have both done this where it's like i'm not yelling at you i'm just yelling because i'm angry like i'm angry about that over there but i'm talking to you about it so the anger is still in the tone well i think all of so every couple fights i mean if you if you say you don't fight with your spouse then you're lying but But every couple of fights, we used to fight a lot. And I think that had to do with our age.

I think when you're 21 and 22, when you first get together, you don't even know who you are, much less who you're dating. Really, you really don't. I've always been the same person. Shut up. You are like the one anomaly in the world. I've been the same grouchy old man since I was in my 20s. No, you've calmed down. I have chilled out a bit.

You have chilled out a bit, which is nice. It's, you know, you were a lot of high energy, high like, gosh. As we just got through talking about me, Flight of the Bumble being around on a Saturday and Sunday getting stuff done. Yeah, think about when he was in his late 20s, early 30s. Then it was just testosterone on top of all this. It was like dial set to 11 constantly. It was.

But anyway, so if you don't fight with your spouse, then you're lying. But over the years, we've matured. We've obviously learned each other more. years we've matured we've obviously learned each other more and when those when each when each of us when when you change because okay well maybe you're not a good example when i change because when i change in my personality because i do i I'm going to integrate that into my vocabulary now. I'm going to say. Is fluctuate not a word? No, it's a word.

I'm just going to integrate it into my vocabulary or be like, are you fluctuating right now? I'm going to. Y'all. It's going to be a short-lived podcast. Short-lived podcast or episode. I'm not quite sure which one it's going to get to first. Yes, I fluctuate.

Monthly. Weekly. Hourly. Sometimes hourly. Sometimes hourly. And you can either fly to the bumblebee it around the house or you can go hide, okay? One of the two. Anyway, you're such a jerk, guys.ass anyway i don't even remember what i was

going to say oh we're able you are able now to know that gillian is doing this little wave of whatever in her personality and in her behavior and things like that i I would like to say that I am at least consistent. Am I? Consistently inconsistent, yes. I am consistently fluctuating. Consistently fluctuating. I have to keep you on your toes. No, you don't. I do.

The world does that just fine without you introducing your own brand of randomness into it. Yes, I have to keep you on your toes. And yes, Nina, we had this conversation. So Nina said, not your employees. She, you know, I said that. We had this conversation. That's funny. She said, oh my God, Phil, you are just like my husband.

We had a conversation before we decided to start having children that we were not going to raise our children in a boot camp and that they were not going to be little soldiers that were going to be running around here, sir, yes, sir, and give me 20 because you didn't clean the dishwasher or whatever. You didn't unload the dishwasher. And that was one of our first big headbutts because I wasn't trying to say there won't be rules, there won't be structure, there won't be things like that. I was just saying we're not going to treat our children like our own little privates.

going to treat our children like our own little privates. And so anyway, I think the reason, one of the reasons that conversation came up when we started to talk about children was there were times where I felt like that. I was being spoken to like I was one of the privates in the army with you, or I was one of your employees at the airport, or I was in the same category of people who needed to be told what to do, how to do it, and when to do it. And that wasn't going to work for me. And so we had that argument. And I think my brain keeps going to our apartment when we work for me. And so we had that argument. And I think I, my brain keeps going to our apartment when we first got married and, um, we were in the car, we were going home, we were in the car and we started talking about, okay, you know, we've been married for three years now. What about children? Do you, are you still wanting to have children and blah, blah,

of course we both still wanted children. And somehow we went from, could you imagine us having car seats in the back and listening to our children coo and whatever, and then it went somewhere, I wouldn't say dark, but it went to the, okay, yeah, I can see that, but I don't want this. I don't want our children to grow up in a household like this. that but i don't want this i don't want our children to grow up in a household like this ironically we had a child that um thrives on structure and needs all i did i was just the vessel in which a tiny female phil was born she says that but she's a tiny female gillian in a lot of respects she is she is She is. She's a good kid. Well, but here's the thing. Thinking personality clashes. Thinking back to the differences in the two of us. And I would

argue that even though we've both kind of grown together and met in the middle, we're still coming at things from very opposite perspectives. But when we first got together, I've made it very apparent to you that like, whether you realized or not, you were auditioning to be the mother of my children when we were dating. Like I, you told me that. Yeah. But I were telling you told me that when we were dating, but I look at things that far down the road and I look at things that analytically, like I was asking auditioning. Well, yeah, because I was, because my, my whole thing of it is, is that I knew if I was going to have children, I knew what kind of a marriage that I wanted to raise.

I knew what kind of a relationship I wanted to raise them in. I knew like, I knew that structure and discipline and consequences for their actions were going to be central to that because it never, because like I wanted them to be perfect little privates or salute or do push-ups or any of that crap. But it was more the fact that I see consequences for actions and discipline as central to being a healthy, well-adjusted child and a successful adult in the world around us. My experience from my teenage years to now has been that my work ethic has been an enormous benefit to me, that my discipline, my ability to like shrug off things like, oh, I'm tired or I'm in pain or I'm whatever, shrug that off and stick to the plan and do what I have to do no matter what, that has been an enormous benefit to me. My ability to cope with mental strain and stress has been enormous for me. And none of those things I see most parents

raising their kids with these days. So I decided before we even got married, this is the way I want to raise my children. And it was whether they were boys or girls, I don't draw a distinction. They're going to learn the same things. They things they're gonna be like i understand that allowances have to be kind of made for the different emotional balance of like boys versus girls but it wasn't as if i was going to say if it's a boy there has to be discipline if it's a girl let them run free that that's that doesn't work for me i i look at children as if they're going to be the child of Gillian and Phil Rabelais, then when I let them out into the world, people are going to say, I know that's a Rabelais. Because they're hardworking, because they're disciplined, because they're respectful. You do realize that people are like that with our child.

I know they are. Okay. But my point is that these are all things i was thinking about before she was even before we were even married i'd already decided like this is the way that children need to be raised because it's the way i think children need to be raised and if i can't raise children in that environment i don't want to i don't want to create them so like there was no part of marrying you and there was no part of us having Piper that was accidental. It was all very, very intentional on my behalf.

It was all very, very, I don't like to use the word like calculated because it almost makes sound cold. Like there's not love involved in this. But like my decision making is hyper rational. I intentionally take all my emotions and shove them into a bag and tie it shut while I make a decision. That's because your wife has an overflowing bag of emotions during our decision making. Well, you could say that, but I was that way even before we got together. To me, my fear is always that my emotions are going to betray me. They're going to make me make a bad decision. So I take my emotions, I put them off on the side. I look at things rationally. I

make a rational decision. And then I bring the emotions back in and say, can y'all explain to me a really good reason why we shouldn't do this? And nine times out of 10, the emotions and the rational part of my brain kind of like all agree, like, okay, this will work. We can accept this, but I don't, I don't make emotion. I don't make decisions emotionally. It scares the hell out of me that I would, because I feel as though I'm going to betray myself by allowing my emotions to

make a decision without the rational part of my brain checking in and saying, that's a stupid idea. You shouldn't do that. But I don't know how we got all the way over here. In any case. So to me, it comes down to like when you were telling me, we're not going to raise our kids in a boot camp. I was like, like what I heard from that was, we're not going to raise them with discipline.

And that's why the fight started. Because I was like, there is no scenario here where I'm having children and we're going to raise them in a house with no discipline. And they're going to be allowed to like run wild and be little heathens. Free range. No free range children. Okay. But see, here's the thing. Free range means I think free range children and the idea that you're not a helicopter parent, that's one to think. But i believe that children need discipline i believe children need rules and they need structure and yeah and the only way they're ever going to understand how to like how to live within this family and live within that world out there is if we teach them

and i just can't sign off on the idea that parents say well i don't want to stifle them i don't want to stifle their creativity i'm like stifle the hell out of that kid. Like that's your job as a parent is when these children are born, they are a literal lump of clay and it's our job to mold them. Now you can leave, let the lump mold itself if you want, but that doesn't work out well. It's our job to press into this child our values and our work ethic and our beliefs and to press into this child everything that what we what we believe is the best parts of us and leave out the parts we wish we didn't have like i know i'm an impatient person which might sound really funny to some people because like I make plans that are like 10 years down the road, 20 years down the road, and I'm will, but I'm working towards those plans

every day. But if I could literally go out and get a second job, work 80 hours a week to get my job, my goals done faster, I would consider that. But the problem is then it'd take me away from home life. And I feel like that's, that's a, that's a sacrifice that kind of doesn't work. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. But my point is that from my perspective, I'm a very impatient person. I want things to happen right now. It's the reason I'm running around like a chicken with my head cut off on Saturday and

Sunday because I have this long list of things and if what it means to get those things done is an eight-hour day of killing myself, cool. Sign me up. I'm there. But in spite of all that, I don't know that I necessarily want to teach that to her. I want her to learn my work ethic, my discipline. I want her to learn how to make rational decisions. I want her to learn the best parts of me without the parts of me that I feel like aren't helpful and vice versa. But my point of view of children and this idea of like free range parenting is if you don't impress upon your child, your values and morals, somebody else is going to, and they probably won't be values and morals you wish they had.

True. I have to go back to the comment section since I chased a rabbit down a hole. Joe said, well, first of all, Garden Girl said, oh my God, you're just like my husband. I don't know whether to say I'm sorry or you're welcome. Joe said, men can only have emotions over a very few select things. And Joe said, free range with manners and morals. Like, yeah, I think that if I think that there's definitely utility to not being helicopter parent, letting your children struggle and let them figure stuff out the hard way sometimes. But I think that there's a balance point there.

And we've talked about that before. But insofar as like men only have emotions about a very few, very few select things like, yeah, that resonates with me a lot because I've been very upfront about the fact that like, you know, there, there are, there's almost nothing in this house I'm really emotionally connected to. Like, you know, take all my firearms, smash them all. Take my truck, burn it to the ground. Take all the stuff in my garage and put a match to it. I'm going to be aggravated. I'm going to be frustrated that I lost those things that I considered useful to us, but I'll replace them. That's why they're insured. But take from me that aggravating little cat or you or her and now i now i'm truly mad i'm upset

i'm heartbroken because there's just there's a very small group of things in this world that i i am emotionally connected to and outside of those things it's binary it's like i'm either really attached to it or i really don't care i I just, I don't care that much. It's just stuff. It's replaceable. Like there was another 2015 Toyota Tacoma out there in the world. I could go get for that insurance check if I had to. I'd rather not. I'd rather keep that one that I know it's well-maintained and it's set up the way I want it. But at the end of the day, it's not like I'm going to mope because I lost my truck. I'm just going to go get another truck, but I can't really go get another wife or another daughter.

I mean, I could, but... You could, technically. If you want to be... Now, Joe, I'm not saying... That's not free license for somebody to go mess with my truck. Joe said full stop, do not mess with my truck. It is second to family. But I guess there with my truck. It is second to family. But I guess there's my point.

It's second to family. Like, it's my family that's really important to me. It's my family I don't want, I cannot replace in my heart. Everything else is just stuff. It's just stuff. Okay, so question based on time. We've hit an hour. We still have three more banners to do. Do we want to?

Let's plunge through them. Okay. You're welcome to stay if you want to, or you can just catch the audio later. I'll stop chasing rabbits and we'll stick to the point. Yeah, right. Balancing work and home life. We'll do that better. Well, I feel like we kind of talked about this in the last hour.

Yeah, that's true too. Because we were talking about being away and everything. Yeah, I mean, yeah, we've both made career changes. We've both made massive career changes and geographical area changes as far as where our workplace is located to have more time together as a family. And the whole reason I'm in the industry I am now is because I have a flexible work schedule. I'm off on the weekends. And that was because I have a flexible work schedule. I'm off on the weekends.

It's hourly, which by its own nature kind of reduces the amount of time I end up having to work on a Saturday or Sunday. I don't deploy very often. So, I mean, yeah, we've made all those decisions so we can have more time with the family and a better home life. But we're also just more engaged as a family. Yeah. Like we have a strict rule about no screens at the dinner table. We make a point of spending time together, talking to each other. We're very involved in each other's lives. Like the most terrifying thing I can think of is to have that life where you get home

from work, she gets home from school, and the three of us just go our separate ways and don't talk to each other for the rest of the evening like she goes to her room you go to your room and we just yeah we're all home together but we're not actually together right that that is something i want to avoid at all costs i want to have this i don't think even as she becomes a teenager i don't see that happening i think she enjoys spending time with her mom and dad. And, you know, as it is right now, we come home and then we're all in the living room together. Whether that's decompressing watching shows on TV or she's watching something and I'm reading. And you're probably researching something on your phone or whatever.

But we're all in the same area. We're all together. Sometimes we're all sitting on the couch together. We're all, like, huddled up and loving and all that stuff. And she's about to turn 12. We still do the whole bedtime routine of she lays in the bed and watches one more show before you walk her to her bedroom kind of thing. I can see her being, and I hope I'm right, I can see her being 16, 17 years old,

and she's still sitting at the foot of our bed watching a show before she goes to her room, and she's by herself now. I think we looked at how unbalanced we were. I was in New Orleans. And when you add how much time you just have to go to work, and then you put in the commute of, you know, driving to New Orleans every day each way.

And then, well, or an hour, it just depended an hour to an hour and a half. And then for me, I had to come home and I would take another hour to decompress because driving in New Orleans traffic and driving that commute home over the causeway, it was just a lot. Even when we lived in Sido and I had to drive home through New Orleans East and all that stuff, I still had to take about an hour to decompress from that. And so it was an hour by myself doing whatever I needed to

do to woosah. And then I could come join the family that just couldn't continue. And so we've, we've done a lot. And while, you know, COVID and the tornado that hit y'all's facility, while those were all horrible things, the light, the good thing that came out of it is you are from home now. And I get up every morning and I know that my husband is home. So when you say, I, Hey, I go, I have to go into the office today. It's like, Oh, that's not going to be home today when we get up. It's like the two of us are moping in the mornings and we're, we're, I'm constantly going, okay, did I do this? Did I do this? Did I do this? Because a lot of times in the morning you come behind me and you're like, oh wait,

here's the coffee. Like, or, you know, Piper, did you pack your lunch? Or I'm still getting ready and you're in the kitchen with Piper making sure she's done whatever. And then I can come out and be like, deodorant, teeth and hair. Did you get all that done? Okay. Put your shoes on all that stuff. But that, that 30 minutes of us getting ready to walk out of the door when you're not here, it does get a little, I remember one of the, one of the times that you had been working from home for a while and you had to go back into the office for a day or so. I remember getting to work and getting at my desk and texting you going, I did it. We got to school and we both had everything we needed and I did it. Yay me. So anyway, I think, yes, work-life balance. We've done a lot of really good things. And we've also kind of talked about this, which is why I was saying like, let's just plow it ahead

because we've already hit some of these things. Yeah. Like dividing household duties, like you and I have kind of divided household duties. And it's always been, I would like to think it's always been done like roughly with an eye towards the fact that we both work full time. So it's only fair that we're both contributing here at the house if we're both contributing to the finances. That was a discussion you and I had before Piper was born about, if you want to be a stay-at-home mom, we're going to have to arrange things a certain way. If I'm making 100% of the money, I have to be in full control of the finances because that's the only way this is going to work if there's only one income between the two, the two and a half of us or three of us. And that's going to influence how much we can afford to spend on cars. It's going influence like how much we can afford to spend on cars.

It's going to afford how much we can afford to spend on a house. It's going to impact all those things because it's a budgetary problem. And for various reasons, you decided, I kind of like my career. I want to go back to work. And I was like, that's fine. It doesn't matter to me one way or the other. It's the thing we first started off talking about where I said, you got to find balance. If we take from here, we got to give here. If you're going to go back to work, that's going to bring in a second income. That helps me out on the financial end of things. It loosens up our finances in a lot of regards.

But it then means maybe I don't have to go get a part-time job to keep the bills paid. But it does now mean I have to help out with housework, which I'm fine with. Balance. Balance this thing. But the other thing I think really screws people about dividing household duties, it's not, like, at least in my experience, there are, in this time, there are very few households that are like, you woman, you do woman stuff. Or you man, you do man stuff.

I would like to think that's less of a common thing these days. And again, for the households where that's the way you arrange things, man works, woman stays home, I ain't mad at you. Like, I think that's a way to balance things. I get frustrated when one of two things happens. frustrated when one of two things happens. Either A, there's a recalcitrance to readjusting things sometimes. Like let's say you have one of those traditional households where like wife stays home, manages the kids, manages the house, husband works, wife is sick, or wife is recovering from childbirth, or something's going on where the wife's ability to shoulder that burden she normally does has been impacted severely.

And husband refuses to pick up the slack. Because that's not my job. I did my job. You're not helping me do my job. Why should I help you do your job? It gets to be this very jealous, confrontational, tip for tat thing. And I can't agree with that. Because my point of view is just like the other day. I'm working on the breaks.

If I wasn't spending four hours working on your breaks, I'd have been in here doing the things you did. Even though those were tasks I normally take care of, you, without me saying a word, just appraise the situation. It's like, you know what? If he gets finished with those breaks and he goes takes a shower and this laundry and these dishes aren't done that's the next thing he's going to be fighting with because i love you but that's my point we re we we both reassess the duties and we both like try to step in to help the other out and just keep things going. Like there is no that's your work, this is my work.

Like it's work and it has to get done. Right. And I think the only time we ever really get into it with each other is when we feel like one person is loafing. But I don't even feel like that's a common thing. Like nine times out of ten. Not in this house. Yeah. Well, first of all, that's not my way.

My personality doesn't allow for that. No, you're not a loafer. But the other problem is that sometimes I get sick and I'm laid up in the bed for a while. And when that happens, you just flip a switch and fly to the bumblebee just like I normally do. Because you've got to keep things going. Sometimes. Sometimes I'm just like, you know what? All of this can wait.

Because he doesn't feel good. Usually, if you don't feel good, then I'm already not feeling good. So sometimes it is just this can wait. Like I don't have to vacuum the floors for 8th and 2nd. I can vacuum the floors. 90 past starts singing the Cinderella song. You like that song. See, he says all this stuff, and then he goes around singing the Cinderella song.

He doesn't. He can't. Don't. Just stop. I can't carry a tune in the bucket. Stop. Oh, Lord have mercy. So anyway.

So yeah, the refusal to like break those rules to help out the other spouse really frustrates me. But the other thing that really drives me crazy about household duties is the idea that like, what the other thing that drives me crazy, and again, this doesn't apply to you and me, but this is something I've seen in other relationships, is an expectation that once an agreement has been made, as far as you do this, you do this, is that then there's an attempt to renegotiate the agreement after the fact without something changing. In other words, somebody might say, oh, yeah, I'll take care of that. And then like two, three months in, I don't like doing that. You take care of that. It's like, no, no, no.

You agreed to do this. You're not sick. You're not broke. Your leg's not broke. You're not lame. I'm not working more. You're not working more. Nothing has changed. So why aren't you honoring the agreement and pulling your weight? Like, I feel like, sorry, I'm very OCD in your shedding.

But I feel like discussions about dividing household duties, like, I feel like most of the time when this becomes an issue, it's because one party is trying to like shove all the work onto the other or try to shove more of the work on the other. Instead of them just approaching in a very mature fashion and saying, hey, I do X, I need you to do Y, we got to work together to get all this stuff done. But I find this to be an enormous problem when you have two working spouses and one spouse one spouse gets in their head that well i just worked an eight hour day i came home i don't want to do housework it's usually man doesn't want to do housework but i've seen it the other way around too where the woman says well i'm tired it's like what the hell do you think i am

i worked just as many hours as you did i'm tired too but i'm still holding my end i don't know so in 10 minutes or less what would you add to this list as like a big family a big issue because most of this list i feel like has really been like spouse to spouse. It's been married couple. What would you say is like the most common family issue? I always go back to differences or clashing on how to raise children. Maybe it's, you know, discipline or, you know, we talked about raising them in a boot camp or, you know, free range, let them run around and do whatever. I always feel like, because I can remember my childhood still, and I feel like my parents were like that too. My dad was more of a laissez-faire kind of, you know, let them be kids and blah, blah, blah.

And my mom wanted structure. I think my mom thrived on structure, too. I think she still does. She still is one of those, don't hate me, but comparatively to you and my mom, she's always doing something. She's always meddling in something. She's always moving. She's mowing the yard, even though she mowed the yard two days ago. Even the grass is this tall. You know, she's always doing something. She's always moving. She's mowing the yard, even though she mowed the yard two days ago. Even the grass is this tall.

You know, she's always doing something. She's never still. We went over there the other day. She wasn't there. Where was she? I don't know. She was running an errand. Was the errand absolutely, did the errand need to be run at that moment when she knew we were coming over? Probably not, but she just had to go. She had to go do something. So, and then my dad is just kind of like, yeah, you know, just laying around today, kind of like doing nothing and whatever. So, um, and then my dad is just kind of like, yeah, you know, just laying around day, kind of like doing nothing and whatever. So I think the, I'm trying to think of the word or the phrase on how to say this, however you prescribe to whatever way you prescribe to raising children. I think that is a common clash in families.

Well, and to your point, I think, now this isn't mine, but you got me thinking something you're not saying that I suspect pairs with this is parents subverting each other regarding how to raise children. In other words, the parents don't agree, but rather than be adults and find a middle ground and agree on something, they undercut each other constantly. Because it's like, well, I'm right. I'm going to do what I want, and I don't care what they think. Or my husband, he's too hard on the kids,

and I'm going to let him run around and be wild. But I always tell people, I'm like, not only is that an incredibly toxic thing to do to your spouse, but you're literally teaching your children not to respect. They're going to, nine times out of 10, kids are going to default to the parent that lets them get away with stuff. Absolutely. So you are literally training them and molding them to have no respect for the other parent's authority. And it's like such an incredibly destructive thing to teach that child but it's also a pretty i think it's i think it's it it rises to the level of like betraying your spouse yeah like to me i don't like to use the d word then it ain't dallas but i think that's grounds for divorce and that

sounds pretty harsh but i just i can never imagine me telling me teaching your daughter your mom's an idiot. She doesn't know what she's talking about. Like that's just, that twists my stomach just thinking about doing that to my spouse. It's just wrong. But I see so many parents doing it. Oh, God, yeah. I, yeah.

And you know what? I have a couple in my head that I. And every one of their kids is screwed up. Yeah, for sure. So that's something that we've always done in this house every one of their kids is screwed up. Yeah, for sure. So that's something that we've always done in this house. You know, kids are going to be kids. They're going to get an answer from one parent,

and then they're going to go to the other to see if that parent will, you know, go along with what they're... We've gotten caught in that once or twice where, like, I didn't... We didn't realize the other parent had already said something, and... But even in those instances, that other that other parent like i would have looked at you and said did you really did you give her that permission or whatever and if you had said yes and i was like well okay well if dad said yes and i guess it's fine and we might we might address that on the back end privately absolutely we always have but this is so funny because so piper doesn't play that game she used to when she was a kid, you know, and not a lot. She didn't play it a lot.

She learned really quick that, oh, mom and dad are on the same team. They're not going to go back and forth. But yesterday she had asked Phil a question, and I don't remember what it was. She did not hear Phil's answer. And Phil, like, responded, and then he was, like, talking or did something. Now he turned and did something else. And then he was like talking or did something. Now he turned and did something else. And so she didn't hear his answer. So she turned to me and she asked me the question and I looked at her and I,

my eyes got real big. I was like, did you just, did you just ask your dad something and then ask me the same thing? And she goes, well, I didn't hear. And then you were like,

did you really just do that? And she's like, I didn't, daddy didn't answer. And I didn't hear. And then you were like, did you really just do that? And she's like, I didn't. Daddy didn't answer. And I didn't hear dad's answer. Dad did answer. Well, dad did answer, but she didn't hear it. I mean, it was an honest, you know, she wasn't trying to be so blatant with turning mom and dad against each other. But I didn't realize she didn't hear it either.

But she really didn't hear your answer. So anyway, that was like, I was like, wait, what? Did you really just think that was going to work? Like, we weren't even in different rooms or different parts of the house. We were literally in a little huddle. And you, mom, I just thought that was funny. But anyway, I think that's one of the biggest issues. And then, of course, the things that Joe talked about up in the top,

which were, you'll have to go back up, it was intimacy, in-laws, and it was way up there. And money. Money is a big, money is... So let me wrap all those up with a bow. Really quick. Well, okay, two bow. Really quick. Well, okay. Two things.

We have three minutes. Well, in-laws, I'm going to say the same thing we said earlier about when we talked about having children, we agreed very early on spouse comes before kids. Nothing comes between the spouses. Yeah. In-laws very often try to come between the spouses. Sometimes. Or one of the spouses tries to insert the in-laws between the spouses. Did we do that?

We sure as hell didn't. And I told you very early on this marriage, it's going to be a really quick, fiery engagement if that starts happening from either one of us. Because, like, I have a very, probably as a result of my very Christian Catholic upbringing, but I have a very biblical outlook on marriage. There is nothing that comes between husband and wife. Period.

End discussion. Never, never, never, ever, ever does anything come between husband and wife. The kids do not come first in the marriage. The husband and wife? The kids do not come first in the marriage. The husband and wife come first. If the husband and wife, again, Christian, my household is arranged God, wife, children, everything else. But that doesn't necessarily mean I'm going to put God's will ahead of my wife because God's will is that I take care of my wife. Like, you know, those two things really ought to marry together pretty well and there's never going to be a moment where like an angel comes down from heaven and says you really should cheat on your wife that's just not that that's not the

way that works at least my interpretation of my religion and you know religious beliefs more like a demon from hell yeah but in any case so like nothing comes between spouses not friends not not not not friends not social media not screen addictions not drugs not money nothing no never nothing comes between the spouses the spouses have to put each other at the tip top of their priority list and i told you when we were either engaged or freshly married i'm like if you don't put me first, I can't put you first. And if you don't put, and if we don't put each other first, this will not work. Were we engaged? I think we were engaged. I don't think we were married yet.

Yeah. That was a, that was a, but I, I did, I, I shifted my parents away and then you took that top spot. And that was never to say and i never once said like you can never speak to your family again you're mine now no but i was my priorities were very shifted and shouldn't be that way shouldn't happen that way yeah but that way anymore but very often we are also influenced by our upbringing and my my influence was that like that's the way I had been taught marriage should be is that, you know, like I remember having conversations with my father about how when you get married, like I'm always going to be your dad. Mom's always going to be your mom, but your wife

is your family. She is the person you cling to. She's the person who you put your head in her lap when you've had a bad day. She's the person who will always be there for you. I'm never going to abandon you, but that's your family. And when you have kids, your wife and your kids are your family. They're your responsibility. Like I was taught this at a very young age about what to expect from a family unit. And now being a father myself, I totally understand where my dad was coming from because I'll always be her father. She could call me 20 years from now, married with kids running

around. I'm still going to be ready to jump in the truck and run her rescue. But I never expect her to put me ahead of her husband. No. Or her kids. Yeah. You let me stay in this house and starve to death. That's what it has to be. You let me stay in this house and starve to death. That's what it has to be. You take care of them because they're your responsibility. Yeah. I totally understand where my father was coming from. But to that whole end about never let anything come between you, you know, the spouses, I do also think one thing that really hurts marriages is when the two stop trying to take care of each other and take care of each other

means a lot of different things like for a lot of like we talked about the five love languages which would probably be a fun episode is to talk through that for now we have two write them down write this stuff down and this was in there and i don't want to totally spoil that for the next one but like i feel like very often where people fall into this trap is that they try to communicate love in the way they receive love, which is not always the way their spouse receives messages of love. But I do think that the dangerous part, which I don't want to get into a lot right now. I want to save it for that episode. But I do think the dangerous part is when one spouse says, I don't have to show love that way, or I don't want to show love that way. Yeah. Because that's the way your spouse

feels that affection. If you want to show your spouse affection, I'm not saying that is the only method, but I am saying that is their primary way of feeling affection. And I see lots and lots and lots of couples that fail at this and they fail at it intentionally because they just quit. You know, like physical affection is one of the love languages and that is a... That's because they allow things to come between their marriage. They give up. Well, it's not a priority. Their marriage, their spouse is not a priority. But what frustrates spouse is not a priority. But what frustrates me is that usually for most of those couples we're thinking of,

probably because we're probably thinking of the same ones, the spouse stopped being a priority as soon as they didn't feel like they had work to keep them. And this is something this would be a... Work to keep them. What do you mean? Okay, so... Oh, wait. Okay, never mind. No, because...

No. This is good. I love this. Let's hold on to this for the next topic. Well, but we've talked about it before. Okay. Anyway. Anyway, I'm just looking at the time.

I know. But, you know, I feel like that's what I would add to this list, is that you can't let anything come between spouses. And you have to continue to show that person affection. let anything come between spouses and you have to continue to show that person affection. They have to feel like you still care enough to put effort into the relationship because if you pour effort into a relationship right up to the moment the wedding cake gets eaten and then you quit, that marriage didn't mean much to you in the first place. You should be trying as hard to make sure your spouse knows they're loved 40 years into a

marriage when you're old and gray and everything's pointing at the floor as you did when you were dating. You can't stop. It's not as if, oh, I can coast now. I got the ring. That's not no oh do you want me to just coast i'm joking i was just joking i just sit in my chair for four hours at a time and coast that's not coasting you know what i'm saying joking anyway so we have two episodes to do we do and i do want to say and i think i've said this before if you have an idea and you want to help a sister out you can always message me with hey why don't you do a show on you know on this topic and i'll consider it um probably take it so that we actually have a show anyway but very good okay we're an hour and 25 minutes in. Thank y'all for listening.

We won't keep you any longer than what we need to. We weren't keeping them anyway. I mean, this is on the internet. They can watch it later if they got bored. Whatever.

Whatever. Some people like to stay for the live. Anyway, we love y'all. Okay, have a great rest of your Sunday. See you next week. Bye.

Bye, y'all. Read a book or run around and do chores. Talk to you later. Thank you.