How Endurance can Improve Your Marriage | Pastoral Counseling Series

Hey there, everybody. Welcome back to the third video in the series, restoring your marriage with God. Today we're talking about developing endurance. I'm your host, Dr. Donnelly Snipes. What is endurance? Well, our wedding vows talk about endurance. You know, that whole in sickness and in health, richer, poorer. You know, we said we were going to endure the good times with the bad. Endurance requires courage to do what needs to be done to endure the hard things, and is motivated by hope that things will be better. In Romans 5, verses 3 through 4, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance. Endurance produces character, and character produces hope. Life and marriage are not cakewalks every day. So in order to live a rich and meaningful life, we are going to need to endure some hardships to get to the good things. Sometimes, however, it's easier to endure other people's mistakes than to have the courage to admit our own and endure the consequences. Yeah, it's a whole lot easier if somebody's doing something and it makes you angry or it hurts your feelings to endure that and blame them than it is to hear about what you've done or admit what you've done and endure the consequences. James 1:12 8 Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life which God has promised to those who love him. Let no one say when he is tempted, I'm being tempted by God. For God himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. That desire may not be lustful desire. It may be the desire for the easy way out. It may be the desire for something else. Only you know what your desires are, but you are being enticed by your desire to act in a way that is not enduring and in a way that is not. Guess What? Prudent Proverbs 15:32. Whoever ignores instruction despises himself. But he who listens to reproof gains intelligence. This is important. As I mentioned earlier, it is really hard to receive feedback, especially constructive feedback. However, if we listen, we can gain intelligence. I said in other videos, take what's useful, leave the rest. James 4:6 says, God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble, reiterating that we are willing to endure Correction. And Philippians 4:13 I can do all things through him who strengthens me. How can God and good, orderly direction strengthen you and help you do all things that are important and worthwhile in your life? And finally, Romans 15:5 7. May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with another. Hey, sounds like they know what we're talking about. In accord with Jesus Christ, that you may with one voice glorify God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you. We for the glory of God. So much in there. And you could probably spend an entire session just going through this one scripture. But it's important that we recognize that God is one of endurance. God wants us to endure things and gives us the energy and the strength to endure things and encourages us so we can live in harmony with one another. So that we can live in harmony like Jesus lived and we can be forgiving and accepting and peaceable with one another like Jesus is with us. Biblical examples of endurance of others mistakes or their own. This first one, we're going to start with people's own mistakes where they had to own up and say, you know what, I screwed up and handle the fallout. And. And it's important to remember in scripture we are taught not only what to do, but through examples like these, what not to do. Adam and Eve. Eve was told, don't eat from the tree of wisdom. And guess what? She did. And so she and Adam ended up having to come clean with God and they got expelled from the garden. Yeah, it was hard and they had to endure a lot as a result of their actions. As a consequence, Noah, now Noah is on both sides of it, he had to endure the flood. But after the flood, when the crops started to come in and they had their first harvest of grapes, Noah ended up getting drunk and he was exposed. He ended up falling asleep and was butt naked, he had to admit. And atone for that. Abraham and Sarai lied to the king of Egypt and said that Sarai was Abram's sister instead of his wife. Aaron and the golden calf. Aaron didn't have faith at a certain point that he could control the people or that Moses was coming back down from Mount Sinai. So he allowed the people to build the golden calf. Ultimately, he had to own up for his mistakes and suffer the consequences. The Israelites in the desert. Oh my gosh. Chapter after chapter, they complain and they whine and they fuss and they show ingratitude and they turn away from God. And each time they do, they experience consequences. And those consequences get them back on the right path for a little while and then they start to drift away again. Moses by striking the rock instead of holding his staff up, by saying that I will give you water instead of saying, God is going to give you water. Had to own up for his impulsive actions by not going into the promised land. Jonah hidden the belly of the whale because he was afraid to do what God was asking. And ultimately he had to come out and say, okay, I'm here hiding, and I'm calling out to you for strength and strength and survival. And David and Bathsheba. David murdered Bathsheba's husband, which ended up obviously angering God in a big way. I think it's important that we note a lot of these patriarchs and prominent figures in the Bible we think of as being all good. No, they were fallible. They were human. And it's important that we recognize that. But also, as humans, we are willing to endure the consequences of. Of our actions in terms of enduring other people's bad behaviors or mistakes. Jacob, when he went to marry Rachel, he was tricked into marrying Leah first. So he had to. He kept getting tricked by Laban. Joseph was sold into slavery, and then he found his way into the good graces of Potiphar. And Potiphar's wife ended up falsely accusing him. It just. The hits kept coming for this poor guy. But he endured. Moses was terrified to follow God's initial command from the burning bush, but he did. Moses had to deal with the Israelites, who were very ungrateful at times, but he endured because he knew that what they were doing was important. Ruth and Naomi, similar to Joseph in a lot of ways, suffered a lot of losses, but they stuck together and they endured the hardships and the famine and survived. Hannah was barren, and she prayed to God for a child and said, if I can get pregnant and have a child, I will dedicate it to you. And so. So she got pregnant. She gave birth to Samuel, and she had to dedicate. She had to give her son Samuel to God to live in the rectory after he was a certain age. And that had to be incredibly hard. Job endured the trials of the devil. David had to endure Saul's pursuit and desire to murder him. Jonathan endured all of the tribulations of Saul, his father, while he wanted to help protect David, who wasn't even technically his blood brother. But Jonathan loved David so much, he said, I am going to help you stay safe. And Jesus's ministry in and of itself showed a lot of endurance because Jesus wasn't a popular dude when he was going into some of these areas. Jesus endured temptation by the devil and the accusations by Pontius Pilate, and ultimately, we know the crucifixion. There are other Stories in the Bible of endurance. However, I think it's important for us to recognize that in the Bible, the. A lot of our important figures have to go through some really difficult things and rely on good, orderly direction and their faith in God to help them get through it so they can achieve their purpose, so they can achieve a rich and meaningful life. So let's look at you now. What things have you done that were hard, but you did them anyway? Maybe that means graduating from school, parenting. I'll. I can attest that's hard. Personal growth. Looking at yourself and trying to make positive changes, that's hard, but we do them anyway when we are so motivated. When have you courageously taken. Taken risks or leaps of faith with the willingness to endure the fallout? For example, getting married, that was a risk you took and you courageously took that leap of faith saying in the beginning at least, you were willing to endure whatever you had to go through. Having kids, yeah, that's a leap of faith. You don't know how hard or how easy it's going to be, but you do it and you're willing to endure whatever happens on a lesser scale. Setting boundaries with people. Sometimes people really don't react well when you set boundaries with them. And when you do so, it requires courage and a leap of faith and endurance. If they act out, if they get sick, Nitty requires you to endure their anger, which is prompted by their fear that they won't be able to control you anymore. What risks do you need to take now to repair your marriage that you're afraid to take? Such as speaking the truth to your partner or hearing the truth from your partner, or starting to trust your partner again. What risks do you need to take that you're afraid to take? Of those risks, which ones do you have? Evidence, facts in context will have negative consequences. You know if you tell them this, and you know based on facts, if you tell them this, there's going to be negative consequences, you may have some inkling. Which ones are you assuming though? If you're assuming that, you know if I tell them this, they are going to hate me forever. Well, that's catastrophic thinking to begin with and you don't know how they're going to react. Maybe they already know about it and having you be truthful about it will actually be a relief. We don't know. What consequences are you willing to endure for your actions to grow as a person and as a couple? I've talked about taking some hard steps and enduring, but how do we endure? I talked earlier about how part of endurance is motivation to keep going in order to increase motivation for working on your relationship, for working on yourself, or even for a specific action or behavior. I may be totally motivated to work on our relationship. That's why we're in counseling. Okay, great. But then the therapist says, well, I want you to start journaling every day. I may not be so motivated to journal every day. That may. That may sound like a really awful thing. So you can be motivated for a meta concept, for a big concept, but maybe not motivated to do all the things you need to do to get there. And it's important to enhance your motivation to increase your motiv, even for the things you don't want to do. Everything we do fulfills a purpose and tends to focus on the greatest reward with the least pain in the short term. Our primitive brain is wired for short term rewards. Motivational enhancement helps you engage your higher order thinking, your human part of your brain in order to choose a behavior that will benefit you in the future. So you forego short term pleasure or benefit for the long term benefit of your improved relationship or your improved self esteem. How do you do this? Well, first you identify either the concept or the behavior and talk about or think about the benefits of the new behavior or the benefits of working on yourself or the benefits of working on your relationship. Whatever you're looking to enhance here, just choose one. How do you enhance those benefits? If you think that working on your relationship is going to have the benefit of being having your environment at home be more relaxing, well, great. Okay, so how can you enhance those benefits? How can you make it more relaxing? How can you notice and seize on those moments when it's more relaxing so you recognize progress and what can you remind yourself to do them? If I'm supposed to work on my relationship by journaling for 10 minutes in the morning and at night, what can I do in order to remind myself to do that? Because that's not something that's on autopilot for me. It's a new behavior that I have to integrate into my flow. It's also important to consider the drawbacks to the new behavior and the benefits of the old behavior. Remember I said that we choose the path of most pleasure, least pain? What you were doing served a purpose. It may not have been the best choice, but it served a purpose. It's important to think about how to create safety and minimize drawbacks from your change. For example, if a person says if I held my tongue or pretended I didn't know, we wouldn't Argue. So I don't want to confront my significant other, my spouse, about this because we always argue. And in the past, if I just bit my tongue and let it go, there wouldn't be an argument. It would be calm. It would be okay. Well, that's true, but at what cost? If I speak up, we will argue and I will feel minimized and criticized. Okay, so there's cost to that too. How can we protect you? How can we help you feel safe and minimize the negative impact of speaking up? What agreements can we set so you don't feel minimized or criticized when you do speak up? Similarly, if somebody says, if I stay, you know the benefit to staying is blah, blah blah. Okay, that's true. The benefits to leaving are blah, blah, blah. You need to figure out which one is more important to help you move toward your rich and meaningful life and enhance the one that's more important. Enhance your motivation and enhance the triggers in your environment that help you remember to do what you need to do to get there. Motivation is only half of the battle, or not even half the battle. Change is difficult. Distress tolerance is going to be extremely important and you can use the mnemonic mad here and it's appropriate. When you feel mad or anxious, be mindful. Notice how you're feeling, accept how you're feeling. This is how I'm feeling right now. It is what it is. And then downregulate. For some people, this means taking a few deep breaths. For some people, this means singing really loudly. For some people, this means rubbing their vagus nerve. Whatever it takes to help you slow your heart rate, slow your breathing. For other people, grounding activities such as looking around for five things in the room that are brown can also serve the same purpose because it turns your attention away from the stressor and towards something that is neutral and your body stops registering the threat. When addressing challenges like you do when you're in therapy, you're naturally more uneasy or anxious. You're naturally more on guard. This makes it easier to escalate. Think of it like a pressure cooker. When you are addressing challenges, you already have the heat on somewhat. So when something else happens, it turns up the heat more and it makes it easier to blow the top off. Make an agreement with each other to respect needs for distress tolerance. In a lot of relationships I see people either just going at each other, just screaming and being aggressive because they are not using their distress tolerance skills, they're reacting out of anger or anxiety, or one partner will try to take a step back so they don't start escalating, and the other partner feels anxious and pursues them. Neither one of those is going to work here, so make an agreement with each other to respect needs for distress tolerance. Each person creates a contract. When I notice I'm getting upset, I need to take a walk for 15 minutes, I need to go to the bathroom, I need to be quiet for 15 minutes. Or journal, whatever it is that helps you get into your wise mind and down regulate. Notice I'm not saying calm down because what you're wanting to do is reduce the amount of stress hormones coursing through your body so you can think more clearly and decide whether it's something to be angry about and address or not. You're down regulating, you're turning down the volume. The other part of the contract is when you think I'm starting to get upset, please let me know by. And this can be through hand signals. If you go, all right, time out, or safe words or even actual communication. I notice that you seem to be getting upset. I'm wondering if you need to take a time out. Or I'm wondering if you need to down regulate and then let the person, let me do it. Let me do what I need to do to downregulate. So the first step is saying when I notice I'm getting upset or when I'm getting upset, this is what I need to do to calm down so we can have a rational and productive discussion. When you notice or think that I'm getting upset, let me know. A lot of times our partners sense we're getting upset before we even notice it. So it can be helpful if they say, you know what, you're getting upset. Recognizing how to communicate that effectively is also important. If they say you're getting upset, why don't you go take a time out? Oh, my gosh. That's like something my mother would have said to me. I'd escalate from there. If they say it seems like you're getting stressed out, do you need to take a break? That's something completely different. And then they agree to let you take the break. They're not going to pursue you. It's really important to have time limits on these so the partner doesn't think, okay, well, we'll readdress this 15 minutes two weeks from now. When are we going to resolve this? I need 15 minutes or I need an hour, and then we can talk again. Another tool is dialectics, and this means embracing the good and the bad. Everything has good and bad to it. I Have animals. I have lots of animals. I've been doing rescue for 20 some odd years and I love my animals to death. They bring immense joy in my life. However, I hate their muddy footprints and their hair everywhere. I mean, I've even got hair on my microphone. That is annoying to me, that's frustrating to me. But I embrace the good with the bad because the good far outweighs the bad. And that is what dialectics is about. Recognizing that nothing is a hundred percent one way or the other. So make lists. Each person make lists of the good and the bad things, about yourself, about the other person, and about the relationship. And it's important to make sure that you're doing good and bad. We're not just criticizing here. And this can help you see things in a more balanced light. Then, despite the current challenges, how has this relationship helped you move toward your rich and meaningful life? Tragic optimism takes dialectics a step further. When you embrace both the good and the bad, you also and also have hope that it can get better. That's what we call tragic optimism. It's a tragedy that things are not great right now, but you're optimistic it can get better. That's a whole lot healthier than being toxically optimistic where you say, oh well, things are fine, they're going to get better, the sun will come out tomorrow. No, just take all that away and let's be authentic here again with tragic optimism, identify one thing you each have recently started doing to get back on track and discuss how it's helped. This is important to see those see that progress. Tragic optimism. Yeah, it's not perfect, but hey, look at where we are. Even if that means starting to go to counseling, a therapist. Note on handling resistance. If one or both parties in the relationship regularly fails to complete assignments, I say regularly. Every once in a while somebody may flake on something. It's not ideal. We want to talk about it, but it may not be a huge issue. But if one or both people regularly fails to complete assignments or implement agreed upon changes, explore if they see the reason for the change, do they see why it's important to do this? If they don't understand why it's important to do it, then they're not motivated. Do they understand how the change should help? And I don't like the word should, but I used it here because not every change or not every intervention is going to work for every person. So do they understand how the change. What I'm asking them to do or what you're asking them to do is Supposed to help them move towards their goals. If they do great, do they believe it will help? Yeah. All right, I can understand how it should work, but if I don't believe it's going to work, then I'm probably not going to be motivated to do it. Do they have the skills to do it? I just went through distress tolerance really quickly, and you might think, okay, well, that makes sense. Easy, bada bing, not so much. A lot of people have a really hard time disengaging that autopilot and becoming mindful, which is the first step they need to take in tolerating distress. So we may have to say, all right, maybe we need to provide a few more precursor skills in order to help you do this. People aren't learned, taught. People don't know coping skills the minute they're born. They learn them, they're taught them. And if they've never been taught, then they don't know. Are they afraid of following recommendations or doing what you say? Because they're afraid of losing control, either control of themselves, or maybe they're afraid that they're going to get vulnerable again and they're going to get hurt again. What's going on? Are they afraid of failure or disappointment? Or is the other party doing something to inhibit the behavior, either intentionally or unintentionally? And intentionally would be something like being critical or saying, I know you're not going to do that, or sabotaging them in some way, unintentionally. There are a lot of nonverbals that somebody may throw off that, for example, says, I'm not open to talking about this right now. So they don't have the discussions they're supposed to or when they're supposed to be having a complimentary discussion. The other partner either refuses to have it or turns it into something critical. And those are just some examples. But it's important to understand what. What is this resistance to the activity? What is this communicating and how can we address it? More tools for endurance. Well, in counseling, it's often painful and traumatic. Growth is what happens when we emerge from a challenging situation, when we endure it and come out the other end. Going from the the caterpillar to the butterfly. A mentor of mine once said, change causes crisis, and crisis causes change. Well, that's true. And going to counseling often prompts a crisis. It prompts you to have to look at yourself or whatever got you to counseling was a crisis. And that is going to motivate and necessitate change. Some of the things that are important in this recovery process are the willingness to endure and grieve the losses that you have as a result of whatever's happened. Maybe you are grieving the loss of the dream or vision that you had as a couple growing old and blah, blah, blah. Maybe you are grieving the loss of time because the two of you have been fighting for like literally years. Maybe you're grieving the loss of trust between the two of you and maybe even the ability to trust yourself. You're start starting to second guess your own honesty with yourself. Or maybe you're grieving the loss of motivation. You're coming to counseling because you're trying to do the right thing, but you just, you don't hardly have the energy to try anymore. And all of those are things you may need to address and grieve. You need to have the endurance to hear the hard stuff about the other person's thoughts, feelings and behaviors. You may not agree with them, however, it's important to understand their perspective so you can get a more three dimensional awareness of what's going on. And you need endurance and courage to make small changes and recognize progress in yourself and your partner without expecting perfection. And finally, hardiness. This is one of my favorites. Commitment, control and challenge. Each person needs to review their rich and meaningful life to identify all of the things that are important that they're committed to. All right, so that's commitment. How. How am I using my energy? You only have so much and you've got to decide how, where you're going to commit your time and energy. One activity that can be really helpful is to use two clear cups, the one labeled good, one labeled bad. Or you can use a balance scale if you happen to have one. Have a bag of various sized marbles. Three sizes are ideal, where you have a really big one, a medium one, and a small one. Go through your rich and meaningful life and all the things that are important and put in the cup, whether it's good or bad, the appropriate marble. So if something in my life is really important and it's going well, I'm going to put one of the big marbles in the good cup. If something that is important in my life but not really important is not going so well, I'm going to put a little marble in the bad cup. Eventually you'll get a sort of a visual representation of how things are going in your life. You can also do it with pie pieces and have enough pieces of the pie to represent everything that's important in your life and color the things that are not going well. A dark color. And color. Things that are going well, yellow. So you can visualize it and hopefully get some more perspective. Think about which cup is fuller. How has your relationship contributed to the success or the achievement of the good things? And although you don't want to hear this, if your relationship doesn't work out, which of the good things would go away? A lot of people are. Try not to even talk about this. And it's a. It's a fact. It's a reality. It may happen. Are we trying to avoid that? Certainly, that's why you're in counseling. But if it happens, let's just be aware of what the potential consequences or fallout might be. So that's commitment. You've identified what you're committed to. Control of those things in the good cup. What aspects of each of those do you have control over? Nurturing relationships, going to work, doing your best, all that. What things do you have control over? Likewise, of the things in the bad cup, what aspects of each of those do you have control over? Things aren't going well in your relationship. Okay, well, you can't change your partner. You can only change yourself. You can't change your partner's reactions. You can only change yours. You. It's important to identify the things that are in the bad cup, what aspects you have control over, because you don't have 100% control over much of anything in life. Once you've identified that, make a list and a plan. All right, these are the things I do have control over. How can I. How can I work it to make it work? And finally, challenge. Now that you have this list and a plan, whoa, that's a lot of stuff to do. It's a challenge. How can you envision changing your behaviors to address the bad things and appreciate the good things as a challenge instead of an obstacle? Repairing attachment to self and others is also really important. And I could have stuck this under several different areas in this series, but we're going to talk about it a little bit here. And the mnemonic is cares. When there is distress in the relationship, there's often problems in attachment. And attachment behaviors are characterized by consistent mindfulness of myself, my thoughts, wants, and needs, and the other person. That doesn't mean mind reading, but that means being aware and being consistently willing to hear and pay attention. The next one is attention. And that means more than just, you know, putting down your phone. Occasionally. That means proactive, positive attention, being happy for their successes, supporting them in the bads, responding. And this is emotional intelligence. Responding to your thoughts, wants and needs and their thoughts, wants and needs. Appropriately identify your emotions if you feel angry. Being able to identify that and say, I feel angry. Being able to down regulate or tolerate distress, being able to identify the triggers for how you're feeling, and being able to effectively choose the best response to help you move toward your rich and meaningful life. The same thing is true when you're working with children. They don't have these skills, so we respond to them by helping them identify their emotions, helping them down regulate, helping them identify what, what made you upset, and helping them figure out how to respond. Very basic set of skills, but it's one that most people haven't ever been taught. E stands for empathy and validation. Empathize with yourself if you're having a bad day. It is what it is. Empathize with your partner if they're frustrated. All right, I. I can see you're frustrated right now. I may not agree with it, but that doesn't matter there. Your feelings are your feelings and I will empathize with it and support and encouragement. So starting to engage in these again is going to be really important and help you endure all of the changes that you're going to make together. Starting to repair your belief and your faith in one another is going to be huge. By the time most couples come to counseling, they've been enduring a lot of distress. So you've already started to dip your toe into endurance. Increasing endurance and motivation for recovery is crucial for success. So you're already, ugh, exhausted. Helping yourself or helping the people you're working with. Figure out how can you muster just a little bit of energy to push through? Increasing endurance and motivation is crucial to success. Highlight progress and small successes in any pieces of your life as a result of the changes you're making. If you're sleeping better now because you and your spouse are not fighting all the time, that's progress. That's a benefit. If you are less emotional now because you and your partner are communicating more effectively, that's progress. And that will help increase your endurance because you're seeing forward movement. You're seeing how it's benefiting you and potentially the relationship. Remember that just like Moses and Jonah, resistance is communicating that the person is afraid to or lacks the tools to change. Jonah. 2:2. In my distress, I called to God and he answered me from the depths of the grave. I called for help and you listened to my cry.