Opposites Attract

Brad and Tiffany discuss how to make your marriage thrive even when you are complete opposites. 

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SPEAKER_01 0:19

Hey, good morning. This is Brad. I'm with my wife, Tiffany, and we are the authors of the Hustle and Flow podcast. Thank you so much for giving us a listen this morning. Hope you guys are having a great morning. Look, it's it's going to be a great day. No matter what you're facing, God is in control of this thing, and it's going to be a great day. Good morning, Tiffany.

SPEAKER_02 0:36

Good morning.

SPEAKER_01 0:37

What's happening over here?

SPEAKER_02 0:39

Nothing much. In the middle of summer, trying to, you know, we we went into summer thinking we had not much planned, and then it turns out like I keep all these little things keep popping up. And you know how I feel about little things popping up. I know exactly how you need it needs to be on the calendar for at least uh 31 business days before, you know, before I'll consider doing it. We've got some some fun things and then just things, you know. You gotta do gotta do things. I'm excited about having a new grandbaby, and we're gonna be having that shower over the house. That means you've got so much to do and to get done. Um it does.

SPEAKER_01 1:16

It does.

SPEAKER_02 1:17

Your list is gonna be long and it's always long.

SPEAKER_01 1:20

And that's one of the things we're gonna talk about this morning is opposites attract. That's the subject that we're gonna be talking about this morning. So got some great material coming up, and that's just one of those things. She's gotta have 31 calendar days. I don't have to have quite as many, and uh that's the way our life works.

SPEAKER_02 1:37

I was just thinking about, you know, um uh last last week or whenever it was, going to the cabin by myself for a few days. That was kind of a last, a last minute thing. You had planned to have some time at the cabin by yourself, and you did this, I don't know what you did, life inventories and thinking and planning and and all of that stuff. And so then I had a couple of days where I didn't have anything scheduled, and you know, you said, just go, just go, just go. And you kind of kept, you know, I told you later I feel like you you made me go out of town, but you said, you know, just go. It's halfway through the year, and you know, you need to reevaluate your goals and you need to like work on your books and all these things. And I didn't really want to go and I didn't want to really want to do it, but I went anyway, and so then I showed you I did none of those things, and I binge watched True Detective, and I read two books on my new Kindle, and I did not touch either book that I'm working on. I did not visit my goals one time, but that's just how talking about opposites, that's how opposite we are. I don't you like to have time alone in your thoughts, and I don't want any alone time in my thoughts.

SPEAKER_01 2:44

What goes on in your head?

SPEAKER_02 2:45

Everything that like I either I'm I'm one of two things. I am thinking of 9,000 things at one time that I want to get done, or I am absolutely not productive at all. And it just depends, you know, we've talked about it before. I do have attention deficit disorder, and so it depends on which which you know what I let win. Um, and when I went to the cabin, nobody was there. I had no boss, I hadn't not having so that's that's it. So for me, not having plans and not having structures, not having my days planned, that wins. The not productive, like put everything off because I have an eternity. That side wins.

SPEAKER_01 3:30

See, and I'm the opposite when when I went to the cabin, and when we let me just clarify, we really don't go on separate vacations ever. So this may be the first time in a long time that we've ever taken any real time away from each other, and it was just three or four days. But I I don't remember the last time we did that.

SPEAKER_02 3:49

But well, we'll take like I I went with the girls when Bree graduated nursing school, and I went with my mother, like that's a whole thing. That trip to Nashville for her birthday that I felt like I needed to tag along, Lord, that could be a whole conversation in the city. And Dixie trying to fight in the bathroom. But anyway. But um, yeah, but we don't like we don't that's not our we don't plant, yeah, that's a whole other thing.

SPEAKER_01 4:08

Yeah, we just don't do that. So it was so for me, uh I went up, stayed a few days by myself. I was the nerd. I took a I don't know what you call it, uh maybe nobody, maybe there's not a term, but I took a personal life inventory. I went back to my earliest memory of when I was five or six or whatever year old that was, and began to document things that had happened, good and bad, between that memory and 52 years old. And I filled up pages. I took a whole day in between just just watching something on TV like sports thing or drinking coffee and just filled up a whole day. And what happened was I began to go through and I saw patterns in my life that that evolved, and I was able to write down eight to ten patterns in my life at 52 that I can clearly see that trace back to when I was X number of years old.

unknown 5:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:10

And whether it was this or that or whatever. And and what that did was it helped me clarify where I am now and what I need to be working on. And so my thought was, hey, would you go take some time to yourself and you know get some clarity and maybe maybe this is you know whatever, and and like that ain't what you did.

SPEAKER_02 5:32

There's zero chance that's there's zero chance that's gonna happen. And um, if I was if I was in prison and I was gonna get out earlier on good release, if I did that, I would consider it. But there's zero chance that that's gonna happen because that's just how different we are. And so you thought this was good for me, so that'd be good for you. Absolutely into what we're gonna talk about today.

SPEAKER_01 5:50

Which today's subject is opposites attract. And if anybody knows us personally, you know that we are day and night. We are not the same.

SPEAKER_02 6:02

Oil and water, I mean it it's fire and ice, any kind of anything that's opposite that.

SPEAKER_01 6:10

And you ask yourself, how could two people be that opposite but be that much in love and spend thirty-four years together being that opposite? And you know, that's a good question. So we're gonna talk about how opposites attract and maybe what that looks like and and help you in your marriage, hopefully, because your spouse is not like you. They're not like you at all. You know, you you can you can think that you want your spouse to be like you, but guess what? They are not. So hop in there. Let's go. Tell me something. Give me right off the the front end your thought.

SPEAKER_02 6:53

Yeah, well, I mean, just because, you know, just because we're different, it doesn't make me wrong and it doesn't make you wrong. It doesn't make me right, it doesn't make you right because we're different, and because we have different outlooks on things, different you know, perspectives kind of the same thing. Um, you know, if we're asked a question, my first thought and your first thought are usually always going to be opposing. Absolutely. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:18

Yeah. Is anybody else out there like that? I mean, or do you and your spouse just hold hands and sing kumbaya and all your thoughts are the same and all your your verbiage is the same or or do you just think differently? We think differently. Different isn't wrong, it's just different. Yeah. It's just different. And you know the thing though, I think that the thing that confuses people a lot of times is that uh differences uh can become a bone of contention. However, differences actually complete you. They complete us. And and I like to think of it this way, that my spouse uh can have strength in an area where I'm weak. And vice versa. Because I you know, again, it's it we're not talking about this the Christian thing, but everybody's seen the yin and the yang, you know, the yin and yang symbol, that there's a completion, that there's there's the opposite to whatever you are, and there's there's some type of completion. And uh for me, for us, for 34 years, your strength has has has helped me in my weakness. And and I hope that my strength has helped you in your weakness. So that that's where I'm at with that particular thing.

SPEAKER_02 8:36

Yeah, I mean, because you know, like one of my strengths is I have always been able to speak up for myself. And that come I know that some of that probably comes from my childhood of always feeling like I needed to or I had to, because you know, just being honest, maybe somebody nobody else would. And so I've been comfortable my whole life being able to speak up in a situation. That's right. Um which is a strength, but then it's it's it could be, you know, when we're haven't been together very long or you're not nor maybe not used to something like that, it can it can be so different for you or for what you know you're used to. But you know, we were we were talking and like now though, it's coming handy for you.

SPEAKER_01 9:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:24

If if if there's situations where you don't really want to have to speak up about something or whatever, then it's handy for you that that is a strength of mine that I don't mind. I don't think anything about saying, hey, I'm sorry. We didn't order this, you know, this way. This the way we ordered it was this. Do you mind taking this back and and fixing this? Or, you know, whatever it is. If we have a problem at the at the bank or wherever, I don't mind to call and say, Hey, this happened. Can you take care of this? Like how how can we fix this? It it it it's natural for me. It's a strength of mine. It's not something that you get excited about.

SPEAKER_01 10:06

No, and it's something that I've had to acquire over over my adult years. And and but going back, looking at that particular thing you just said, it was birthed, in my opinion, it could have been birthed out of nobody speaking up for you. That if you didn't speak up for yourself, that it wasn't going to get done. And even as a eight, nine, ten, fifteen-year-old child, you know, you had to be outspoken because you weren't going to allow just whatever to happen. Well, I grew up in the safety and comfort of a home where my dad spoke for us. Yeah. My dad took care of us, my dad defended us, my dad didn't mind being that person, so I didn't have to. And then my mother, on the other hand, was not outspoken. She might be outspoken to my daddy. I mean, there was times I she'd be happy to speak her mind to my dad, but in general, she was very meek and docile and and kind and polite. Even behind closed doors, she never really was mean about people. She would get hurt by them. So I never I didn't grow up. And then all of a sudden I marry somebody who is the polar opposite that doesn't mind a speakermond. And it, you know, now it's like my own personal Tiffany doll. I just pull the string and she'll be happy to go, you know, say whatever. But I think that the idea is this is that your spouse adds a dimension to your life that you cannot acquire on your own. We were talking about this earlier. At 52, if I was by myself and single, I would be one-dimensional. Because I have a way that I like to do things.

SPEAKER_00 11:54

You do.

SPEAKER_01 11:55

I know that shocks you, right? Yeah, no, I know. I have a way that I like to do things. I have places I like to go, I have things that I like to eat, I have a routine, I know when I want to get up, I know when I want to go to bed, I know what I want to watch on TV, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And so I would be one dimensional without somebody who was different than me. And I think that that's what when you when we say opposites attract, it is true. Because I'm attracted to something in you that causes me to be multidimensional in my life. Without you, I'm just one dimensional. And and I and I become boring. You bring excitement to my life.

SPEAKER_02 12:36

Yeah. What is it? You call it the hurricane. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:38

Yeah, the hurricane.

SPEAKER_02 12:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:39

Hurricane Tiffany. I d I don't know if there's ever been one, but uh I know one.

SPEAKER_02 12:44

So And I'm not chaos because I do like I do like things to be d but I am very multi-dimensional, whatever that means.

SPEAKER_00 12:54

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:54

Yeah. Um just, you know, just like you, you're you're talking about that, you know, you bring stability though to to me. I you know, I might bring the whatever, but you bring stability and and you bring, you know, I don't have jail time because of you. This is true. You you're the things that where I can be wild and I can be whatever and all those things, you bring stability and you bring goodness and rules because you know, I need that's why I said like I don't have I've not caught jail, um, jail time, I've not caught any time because you probably bring help me stay in line and bring the the rules and the steadiness and the stablen. So it's good. It's good how we can, you know, I didn't but being young married, I did not love the rigidness sometimes of just how you operated your life and the the rules and all that because I I'm you know, we can make I like to make up rules as I go along. And yeah, and so you brought an element that I didn't know I needed because I didn't appreciate it for a while. But now that I have been married to you 34 years and I've not caught time, I appreciate that.

SPEAKER_01 14:10

Absolutely. And I well I appreciate the fact I don't have to bring you smokes to trade for favors on Sunday. So that does help me too. Yeah. You know, but but but you're right. We used that analogy earlier. We were talking about how you are and and and listen, if you don't know us, you're like, well, he's just being me. No, no, no. This this is just who we are. We use the analogy of you being a hurricane and that I'm the I'm the stable building that you run into, but even in a hurricane, a stable building gets moved. It may not be blown away, but it gets moved. But also in a hurricane, when a hurricane meets a stable building, it realizes that it can't overpower everything too. So what that does is those those two analogs of you being a hurricane and me being a stable building, it creates something beautiful. It it shows both forces that there is somebody else just as strong as you, but they're different. Yeah. And different is okay.

SPEAKER_02 15:05

Yeah, and different is okay. Um and I think when we marry each other, you know, we're so excited about the differences, and it can bring a level of excitement, of course, but then sometimes we see it. People divorce because they're just too different and they can't figure out how to live with the differences.

SPEAKER_01 15:26

Well, yeah, because when you first meet somebody, you're like, man, she stokes my fire. She's different. Well, I mean, he's different. Yeah. How many times have you heard that though? Yeah. You know, uh there's just something they're just different. Yeah. Just something about them. They're just different. And then all of a sudden, when you go to the attorney, you say they're different. Yeah. It's just too different. What what's the what's the term of getting divorced? Irreconcilable differences. Differences. And guess what? You had irreconcilable differences when you got married. There there's differences when you meet somebody, uh but you go back to you celebrate those when you get together. But then when things get rough or it sucks, you're like, oh my God, you're really, really different. But it goes back to this is that we think we can change the other person. We really, really do. We think we can change the other person, and that's why those differences don't really bother us as much. You know, we we think we can change. Because I'll be honest with you, I thought I could change you. I did.

SPEAKER_02 16:29

And then you just got tired along that way. I don't know. I worked out.

SPEAKER_01 16:35

There's really like I'm not the Kool-Aid man. So there's only so many times you can run against a brick wall to where you're like, man, this hurts my head. I'm gonna stop this. And but you think I I can fix this. And you overlook it.

SPEAKER_02 16:49

Well, you know, and and this I I don't think this is just with us, but if you would have kept trying to change me or I would have kept trying to change you, we would have broken down, broken the spirit of the other person of who they who they were. That's good. You would have broken my spirit of who I was, and I may not be I I actually I like who I am. And it's been hard because I'm I'm not just different to you, I'm different to a lot of people sometimes. If I would have kept trying to be what you wanted me to be or what somebody else wanted me to be, that would have broken who I really am and I would not be a functional whole person. Same thing, you know, with you. If I would not let you be strong and be stable and be steady and be good, I may have turned you into a criminal. I may have turned you into not the best version of you. And so we've, you know, we've got to figure out how to let let you be you and let me be you. Now, how can we make you know make that that work?

SPEAKER_01 17:48

Well, uh, you know, that that's true because you said that you like who you are. See, I don't like who you are. I love who you are.

SPEAKER_02 17:58

Yeah, I was wondering where that was going. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:00

I love who you are. And I never ever I'm gonna be honest with you, i you know, we can say this. I probably used to apologize for you sometime.

SPEAKER_02 18:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:08

But I don't apologize for you anymore because it I embrace who you are. I love you. I love the difference that you bring, I love the perspective that you bring, I like the ideas that you bring to the table because you have an uncanny knack for seeing things from a different angle. And I and I never appreciated that before because that was a difference to be quite honest. And this is something I thought about is that sometimes we don't really like the differences. Yeah, and we think we can live with them. I can live with that. I can live with that quirk, I can live with that until it becomes maybe to a point to where you despise, reject, or you even loathe those differences. You're like, oh God, here he goes again, here she goes again. This is just I I am sick of this. I am sick of this. And and and you become sick of that person because you don't celebrate her or whatever their differences. And I think that that, you know, we think we can change somebody. And I'm living proof. You're you have zero power over me. You can try to uh persuade me, you can try to guilt me, you can try to do whatever, but you've got no power over me. The only person that can change me is is God and me. And that's it. You can't fix me. But I I think that that's where a lot of that comes in, is that you know, we we laughed about you being outspoken. And uh I mean, who's gonna tell them my chicken tenders are wrong?

SPEAKER_02 19:32

Yeah. Well, I mean, just like this morning we were in a staff meeting, a staff text message, you know, dealing with church, and you know, and I I just finally said, I just really don't want to do that. I will, but I don't want to. There's a time where that probably would have like, oh my gosh, I'm sorry she didn't like and I finally I said, like, I don't mean that serious. I'm just we're just all talking. I don't really want to do that that way. But hey, we'll we'll we'll do it. And so I'm I am. I'm I'm outspoken, but it's not everything doesn't have just because somebody's outspoken, you realize that sometimes just because I'm outspoken doesn't mean I'm mean or it's a big deal. Like, Pastor wasn't offended by that of you know, it was it was a date change, something about a date change that we're all talking about, you know, and it's just not that serious, but if you're not used to something, it becomes that serious. You know, if you've got a, you know, I I see husbands and wives sometimes where the husband maybe doesn't talk to people very much and they're apologizing for him, I'm sorry, he's just that way, or I'm sorry, he's you know, he's he doesn't like people, or I'm sorry, he doesn't want to be here. And we do find ourselves, you said that apologizing, yeah. We find ourselves apologizing for the other person of just like letting that be on them. Yeah. Like even, you know, we were in a situation and I said, you know, I told you I said I kept speaking to the husband and he wouldn't speak back to me. And you said, well, the you know, she compensates for him because she realizes it, but just let him be him. Yeah. If he wants to sit there at that gathering that we were at and be on his phone the whole time and not speak to the rest of us, like don't apologize. Just like let them be, let them be them.

SPEAKER_01 21:00

Yeah. And that but that's hard.

SPEAKER_02 21:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:02

That is hard to let people just be people.

SPEAKER_02 21:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:05

And because uh look, you love to get people involved in stuff.

SPEAKER_02 21:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:11

And you're like, uh, okay, well then whatever, you know, if you want to be wrong, be wrong. I mean, that's that's just but but it's hard. I it's hard for people to let other people just be who they are. And in marriage, and that's what we're really kind of talking about, is is opposites attracting. It's hard for me to let you just be you. Now this long in it, I've realized that I'm not gonna change you. You're you're gonna be who you are. But for a long time, especially when we were married seven, eight, ten, fifteen years, I didn't want you to be you. I wanted you to be who I wanted you to be, and this is what I want you to be, and this is what I expect you to look like and act like, and whatever and until I thought this is dumb.

SPEAKER_02 22:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:02

God gave me a beautiful woman who is capable, who has great perspective, who has great wisdom, who has great knowledge and and ability. And I need to look at this difference. And I want to be multidimensional in my marriage. I do not want to be one dimensional to where i have everything my way. I'd love at that, you know, but but ideally, the only thing that makes your marriage great is that you become multidimensional and you embrace other people and other things and you embrace the differences in your spouse and quit trying to beat them out of them and beat them down.

SPEAKER_02 22:37

Yeah, and you know, and we can move on to talking about something else. But I just when you're talking about that, I just thought about how I think about good cops, bad cops, and like even just partners. Most cop shows you see, there's partners, and they always usually are different, and they bring something different to the table. I told you I bench watched True Detective because my son has told me forever I needed to watch it, and I'm not recommending anybody else watch it, but it's got Matthew McConaughey hot K in it. And so you didn't catch my little Yeah, I got you. All right, all right, all right. And so he had told me, you know, you need to watch it Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey, whatever. So I finally watched it, but you know, they were just so that's I think the last thing I just finished watching that had that dynamic. They're just so different. And Matthew McConaughey's big and he's got all these big ideas and big perspectives, and Woody's more calm and more whatever. But just going back to that, like, but when two people are working together with their differences, they get something accomplished that they might not have gotten accomplished on their own.

SPEAKER_01 23:37

That's good. That's good. Absolutely. And even though I know you have a Matthew McConaughey thing, and we're talking about the same girl who took binoculars at the Alabama football game and was was spying on him at the Texas Alabama game. I'm sure you could. But but it goes back to you're right, good cop, bad cop, bringing two personalities. Because there's the I think about like uh we watch Blue Blood some. There there's that because whoever it is responds differently. It depends on who he is, and that's the person that needs to come to the front at that particular point to help move whatever it is along. And so that's a good point. I like that a lot, is that so I guess good cop, bad cop? Well, I don't know. I don't know. So so people bad cop, I don't know. Well people may think you're bad cop, but who who really is the bad cop?

SPEAKER_02 24:26

You're really the bad cop. That's in it. We are all the time, it's really funny because I'm perceived because I am outspoken, I'm perceived as maybe bad cop, even though I'm not saying anything bad, it's just that I'm I'm I'm I'm loud. And but you're really the bad cop. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 24:40

Uh when we have uh we we have people that we need to talk to at work, I'm like, hey, y'all want me to talk to them? They're like, no. Yeah, I know. When you talk to them, everybody quits. Yeah. And so anyway, but yeah, I I I think you're right. But go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 24:54

You know, empty nest can really reveal how different you are. You can be caught up for so many years raising kids and being busy that you you don't realize how different you really are until it's just me and it's just you. And we're looking at each other thinking, oh gosh, how like how whatever year old you are when empty nest happens. I've got to live with this person that I have um nothing in common with that I don't know what do I do, what do I do now?

SPEAKER_01 25:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:27

Well, and you're right, and some of you are there, we're there. We're we're empty nesters, we've been empty nesters for several years now. But the the one thing that we have done is that we built relationships outside of our kids, outside of other things. We stayed building relationships so that when our kids left, we were like, hey, what's happening? What you doing? For men, most men, when an empty nest happens, I'm just gonna tell you what they think. They think we're gonna have sex every day.

SPEAKER_02 25:55

I thought you were gonna say they think, gosh, we can get all those projects done now that have waited for so long.

SPEAKER_01 26:00

Yes. If sex is a project, they think that. Absolutely. They think we're gonna have sex every day, and the woman's like, Do they really? Oh my god.

SPEAKER_02 26:06

Are you serious? This is like we have never talked about this.

SPEAKER_01 26:11

Absolutely. You wake up with the possibility that sex can happen today because there's no kids in the house. And that is a true statement. And but women don't think that way. Women probably think, oh my gosh, let me see how I can get around this one today. But I I love Failure to Launch. It's one of my favorite movies, and I think about Terry Bradshaw. And God, if you've seen that movie, nobody really wants to see Terry Bradshaw's backside. It's um at his age, nobody really cares to see that. And so he creates the naked room. You remember that? Yeah. Tripp comes home and he says, Hey mama, what's going on? She says, I don't know what I'm gonna do with you, Dad. He's up in his naked room. And uh she said, I'm scared to death to be with that man. And and that's that's what happens. When you're you have differences, if you don't learn how to have commonality while the kids are at home, it really, really exposes it when there's an empty nest.

SPEAKER_02 27:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:08

It does. And you you've just got to evolve over time. That that's that you there's no way.

SPEAKER_02 27:15

Well yeah, because you're gonna you're you're and you're gonna be learning somebody who may be very different than they were, you know, we got married very young.

SPEAKER_00 27:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:26

If if we if I was having to learn you now, we've been we've actually only been at Gnesters about two however old the dog is. That's how old. Three years. Yeah, three years. So uh yeah, because he showed up literally that like I'm like, oh, thank goodness I have nobody now to take care of. The last one's out of the house, and that dog showed up within a few weeks, and now I have somebody else to take care of.

SPEAKER_01 27:46

I'm still not convinced that y'all didn't plan him there.

SPEAKER_02 27:50

No, I did not I would not have to no. So that's the thing is like who you were, and we immediately started raising kids. So who you were at twenty is not who you were at forty-seven, and I would have had to have been figuring out who in the world am I married to and what because we are nothing alike if I'd waited until we were empty nesters to discover that, and that would be that would be hard.

SPEAKER_01 28:17

Well, you know, case in point, uh I I just thought about this. Uh last Friday night, a group of of people that I went to graduate high school with, we went to hear my buddy play Andy Ratliff. He he played it at Reds Blues over in Coldwater. He plays bluegrass, like blues type stuff. I haven't seen Andy in about 35, well, probably not quite that, 25 years. And I've not taught I talk to these people, but not on a regular basis. Right. Great people. But as I was talking, I've got to relearn those people all over again because we've not stayed in constant relationship week after week after week after week. Versus somebody, a buddy like a buddy of mine named you know, got Keith. Like I talk to Keith all the time, or Cody, I talk to them all the time, or Mike. I talk to them all the time. So I have some kind of relationship and it's not as having to learn that again. It's the same concept. If you don't spend time with your spouse and you wait till the kids leave, you don't know them anymore. You don't know them anymore. And I I think that that's where you know you really have to take take time.

SPEAKER_02 29:20

And so how how you know, so gosh, if you're there, you have to, you know, you have to figure out, I guess, really how to appreciate those differences like we've been talking about, you're not gonna change it, and especially like if you're empty nesters and you're now figuring out, you're definitely not gonna be able to probably change them. And you're gonna have to accept that, like we've had to accept that we can we can have a different idea and we can both be right. It doesn't mean that I'm wrong or that you're wrong. It just means that we're just you know, even we talk about differences as far as like maybe you're quiet, I'm I'm loud, like whatever, but even just in our thinking, we usually think differently about almost everything, but it doesn't mean that I'm wrong or that you're wrong. And that's that's the probably a really hard one to to overcome is when your thinking is so different. Like if if we both read a Bible verse, we're we're not gonna think the same a lot of times. We're gonna think different. If we're talking about how much we want to spend on vacation, we are not gonna think the same. If we're talking about how much we want to spend on a car, we are not gonna think the same. I mean, we don't but that doesn't mean either of us is wrong or right. No it's just different.

SPEAKER_01 30:36

But if you but if you put those two things together, generally, you can come out with the right decision. Yeah. And that's the beauty of being different is that you need to respect your spouse and respect their opinion and listen to it and not constantly think, okay, you're wrong, you're wrong. Okay, hurry up, keep talking. Nope, that's not right. Whoop, oh, I got an idea. And just listen to what they have to say because there's something in that that can give you perspective as well and help you make good decisions. And I I can tell you today, at R 52, as we get ready to finish up, we need to respect each other's differences and appreciate it. God made those things, He made us unique, and you need to appreciate and respect that. And and that's where I think it it's hard for young couples when you're in the throes of raising kids and trying to trying to make a living and trying to go to church or or whatever it is you're trying to do. You sometimes they they just get on your nerves, and those differences really, really cause cracks in your marriage if you don't learn how to appreciate 'em.

SPEAKER_02 31:41

Yeah. And you know, go back to what you were saying about listening and and appreciating and and with an open mind, you have to sometimes stop and and think, am I listening to this with an open mind, or do I already have my mind made up? Am I gonna be so?

SPEAKER_01 31:53

I have my mind made up already.

SPEAKER_02 31:55

Yeah. I mean, am I gonna be so stubborn and so prideful that I'm gonna be stuck in this in in this that I'm not gonna listen with an open mind and with an open ear? And I think that's, you know, important too. Um but what you're talking about like, you know, can cause cracks and all that, or it can cause something great. You know, we we probably neither of us would have probably ever known that we would be sitting here saying that me being a hurricane and you being stable has made us better. And it's made us, you know, the things that we fought against have made a beautiful life and a beautiful marriage and made kids who have components of both of us, some like some are a little stronger towards like your your things and some to mine, but it's made us all those things have made us better. If we can not fight against each other's differences and learn how to make it work, just like on I I did not play basketball. Um, you know, if anybody knows me, that's very obvious. But you learn to your teammates' strengths and weaknesses and you become a team and you make everything better. Same thing. If we can figure out how to make our our differences and our oppositions with better you know, make it make it we can make better.

SPEAKER_01 33:12

We can make it better.

SPEAKER_02 33:13

Yeah, I really botched that.

SPEAKER_01 33:14

Yeah, we can make it better. We can make it better. But you know, that's a good place to end right there. Embrace those differences and know that that your spouse is not your enemy. Right. And their differences are not your enemy. That those are things that God give them, and it's beautiful. And you're right. Your your strengths combined with my weaknesses, and vice versa, have created a beautiful life. And a beautiful marriage. And I like the beautiful marriage more than I like the beautiful life. Because when I wake up in the morning, I know you're there. I know you I know how you're gonna be, who you're gonna be, and what you're gonna be. But that came with 34 years of learning how to celebrate, tolerate, work through, and embrace the differences. Yeah. Opposites do attract because we are not the same. Right. And uh we're living proof that God can work through opposites and He can do it to you. Listen, if you're on the verge of of giving up, if you're on the verge of of wanting to file a divorce for irreconcilable differences or whatever it is, God can work through that. You need to learn your spouse and learn how to love them and appreciate them. And we just want to encourage you to do that. Any other final thoughts as we get ready to close?

SPEAKER_02 34:34

Nope.

SPEAKER_01 34:34

Nope. That's some that's some good stuff. So anyway, thank you so much for listening. We encourage you to get in the flow of life. And if there's an area you want to get better in, find people who are going that direction and hop in the flow with them and go. Thank you so much for listening. We encourage you to share this with your friends and give us a five-star review. We thank you so much for listening. Have a great day.