Am I Playing Into The Generational Curse? // Hump Day Q&A

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You know what time it is, sweetie?

It's hump day. Q and A time. Hump day Q and A. Hump day Q and A. Welcome to the Naked Marriage Podcast. Hump day Q and A. We love answering your questions. So every Wednesday we're dropping a special podcast episode focused on one of your questions. You can submit your own marriage related question online@nakedmarriagepodcast.com or by sitting sending us a message on Instagram. Ave and Ashley Willis. We've got a great question today, so let's dive in.

Here's the question for today. Hope you guys are ready. It says, what is your advice to help me change my voice tone toward my husband? His mom was amazingly happy all the time. My mom was not. So my example of how to sound like I want to without necessarily feeling that way is hard for me, I guess. I'm not a good actress and I have a hard time sounding happy. All right, so here's the question. You know, put it out there. It's like, husband grew up with a mom who talked one way. Wife grew up with a mom who talked the other way. So the husband has this expectation that this is how a wife. The tone that a wife's supposed to have. The wife's like, well, that's not me. That's not what I'm used to. When I do things my way, it offends him and hurts his feelings. But when I'm not doing things my way, I feel like I'm being inauthentic. I feel like it's a lose, lose. So what do we do in this situation?

Right? And I can sense just in that question that she's frustrated, you know, and she probably feels like she's being compared to his mother. And I think we will. We were talking about this question before we started the podcast and we were like, you know what? We should do a whole episode on this because, my goodness, there's a lot we can say about it. But in the short, I'm gonna answer this question today and then Be looking in the future for another episode about this. I would say she needs to be authentic to who she is. You know, he didn't marry her because he thought he was marrying his mother. Okay? He married her. And she needs to be who she is. She doesn't need to feel like she needs to be just like his mom. But I will say, even though she's being authentic to herself and that's what she needs to be, you can do that in a kind way. So even though she grew up maybe with a mom who just, you know, was barking out orders, that's not healthy. And she doesn't need to be doing that. But she does need to be honest. I think she was saying kind of his mom would never really rock the boat and was happy most of the time, so she wouldn't really address issues because they didn't bother her. You don't need to act like things don't bother you. You need to be honest. And in fact, I mean, I learned this the hard way. You need to come out with it earlier rather than later. I mean, I waited for 10 years once to tell Dave that I hated him making my plate. And then I, like, splurted what I like to call word vomit on him and told him how much I hated it. That's not good. And I told myself, well, I shouldn't say anything because I just need to act like it doesn't bother me. But that's not authentic to who I am. I'm a very honest person.

Tell me.

I like to address 10 years.

I didn't even like putting together your plate of food. I just. I know acts of service is my love language. I just thought you liked it for 10 years.

And I never said anything. I just, like, had a probably a sort of slight, weird smile, acting like I liked it, but it was really, like, a resentful smile.

You gotta be honest. We laugh about a lot of these things now, but you gotta just be honest with each other. But at the same time, I think our default mode can sometimes lead us to a place that isn't healthy. Right. You know, because we by default will tend to do what we saw in our house growing up, even if it wasn't healthy.

Right.

And so you need to be able to step back from the situation enough to say, okay, now, what part of this is, like, just, you know, my personality that I need to be true to? But then what part of this is me taking on kind of, in a lot of ways, a generational curse, you know, a generational brokenness and Emulating something that isn't healthy. And if, you know, barking orders around each other, it's not healthy from either spouse, no matter what your personality is. You know, having a just kind of a negative, complaining bent is not healthy, no matter what your personality is. I think that we all have aspects of our personality, personality that we have to overcome, that we have to go against what we're feeling sometimes. And that's not being fake, but that's rising above and choosing to lead our feelings instead of being enslaved to our feelings. And the Bible has a lot to say about this, about choosing to focus on that which is good and pure and excellent, worthy of praise. Philippians 4, 8 talks about that and other places that we're called to step above whatever the situation is that we're feeling and show kindness and tenderness to each other. Now, with that being said, while our default mode should be kindness and tenderness to each other, the marriage has to be a safe place for both of you to fully express what you're feeling without judgment. To just say, man, I'm having a hard day. Like, I am just, I'm having a hard time. I'm struggling. But in that honesty, that doesn't give us a license to be rude and disrespectful to each other. And so that's where you two have to find that balance. And that's where you two have to be really honest about sharing your feelings, but at the same time being sensitive to how your spouse is feeling by the way you're sharing.

Absolutely. And so how do we change our tone of voice? It really starts in the heart. It starts with humbling ourselves towards the Lord, recognizing that we have a bend a certain way and that we struggle with maybe, and I don't know for sure, I mean, she didn't say that her mom was barking out orders, but definitely said her mom was more negative toned. And so if you have a. A tendency to be negative, ask the Lord to help change your heart with that. And he will, you know, and that is a struggle that I think many of us can struggle with, is negativity and not necessarily seeing the positive and only seeing the negative. So, you know, go to the Lord in prayer and ask him to change your heart. But also be willing to talk through these things with your husband. I don't think that you need to just act like nothing bothers you. Go to him and say, listen, I don't wanna look at this in a negative way, but I'm feeling a certain way about this. And when you talk calmly like that and you just share your heart with your husband and you're not, you know, intense about it or mean about it or just barking it off, you know, at him, then he's going to listen and he's gonna talk through that with you. And so I think it's all about leading with kindness and keeping a soft heart towards each other. And I think, you know, as long as we keep on doing those things, then we're gonna approach each other in a much healthier way than if we're hard hearted and we, you know, just are seeing the negative in the situation.

Man, that is so good.

Thank you all so much for listening to today's episode of Hump Day Q and A. We love getting your questions and we want to answer your question. So if you go to nakedmarriagepodcast.com you can submit your question right there or you can follow us on instagramavenashleywillis and you can give us your questions right there by giving us a dm. So we'll catch you next time on Hump Day Q and A.