You're Not The Boss of Me!

Okay, so you're not the boss of me.

I don't know if you've ever struggled with this in your marriage either. Maybe you feel like your spouse is exerting control on you, or maybe you're the one exerting control on your spouse. We're going to talk about that in today's podcast.

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All right. It's a marriage Monday, and I got my hubby Blair with me as usual. Thank you. I'm so glad you're here.

Glad to be here.

So I kind of sprang this on you all of a sudden. Like, honey, we're going to talk about. You're not the boss of me. We're going to talk about being a boss. And I hope I wasn't bossy when I did that.

No, you weren't bossy at all.

Okay. All right. So I do think this is a big issue that a lot of married couples struggle with feeling like you're being controlled or that for some reason you are trying to control your spouse. And I think there are some underlining variables that are going on here, some subconscious issues that are driving this behavior. And when you're aware of that, if you're just cognizant of it, I think when you. When you're aware of it, you can start to eliminate it or start to manage it a little better. I think for the most part, people, a lot of married couples just spend their lives in react. Reaction. Yeah, I can't say that.

Sort of reactionary.

Yeah, like a reactive mode and not really considering. Why am I saying this to you?

Right. Well, and that comes back to old habits, I think, where you fall into a rut and it doesn't necessarily mean a bad rut, but just like a singular path that you always fall into and that causes sort of reactionary responses to situations.

But I think that's unconscious.

Yeah, it is unconscious. It becomes just a. Like, that's what being reactive means. You're not thinking it through.

And so we learn these. We learn these behaviors that help us manage our subconscious beliefs. We learn these behaviors when we're kids. So sometimes it's like a seven year old married to an eight year old because we haven't, like, developed in our Awareness or our thought life or managing our mind or why we're doing what we're doing. And when you're living by default, instead of design like that, your, Your marriage is not going to be in a place where it's, where it's a joy, where it's, you know, satisfactory. And you're both kind of like the power couple, right? Like you're, you're, you're both doing things effectively the way you should do it. Do it effectively and not be dependent on your spouse to comply in a certain area. Does that make sense?

Yeah, totally.

So one thing I think when we try, and I want to just out of this podcast, if you can just become aware of why you might be controlling and also aware of my. Why your spouse might be controlling and how to respond to that, I think that would be amazing. One thing I think happens is when we struggle with something personally, we try to exert control over other people. Like, I'm gonna give. I'm gonna like, sew air my dirty laundry right now. I really, like, I don't. All the time, every time, but I think sometimes people. I struggle personally, okay, this. I, I struggle personally with feeling like I always have to be massively busy and I always have to be taking action and everyone around me should be taking that action too. I struggle with that. And so when there's, when there's a personal struggle, I, I'm like, hey, like, you should be doing this. You should be. Let's go clean your room. Let's go listen to a. Let's go watch a documentary. Let's go organize something. Like, I, I love that. I love being productive, but I also struggle with not being productive.

Right. Well, I mean, it's funny too. Yesterday, and that this specifically happened, I did that. You did it?

I did it.

You know, it was in the morning and you were getting your day going.

But I was real about it.

Yeah, well, you caught. You actually stopped and made a realization, which actually I hadn't thought about, and it was very eye opening to me. But it was good in that you got up and you had work to do. You had. And the thing is about Hannah that if you don't know, she obviously loves what it is that she does every single day. She gets up in the morning so excited about doing the work that she does. And that's fantastic. I wish that to anybody. I feel that way about the things I do, but it's amazing how intense she can get when it gets.

That's a nice way to say it, babe.

She just Wakes up in the morning and gets going.

How's your wife? She's intense.

Yeah. And that's co. And it happened to be a holiday weekend for us, and so we were just. Everybody was relaxing before people are out at the pool and hanging out by the pond, and everything was really nice and relaxed. I was gonna go down and paint for a little bit, which is one of the things I just like to do for. For fun and. But Hannah wanted to work, and she's, you know, she was sitting there kind of pouting at her desk, and I was like, what? What's wrong? Everything okay? And she was like, yeah, I'm just gonna do my work now. I'm like, well, I thought. I mean, you wake up all excited about you.

You're like, but you love your work.

You love your work. And she was like, yeah, I just. When I don't see anybody else working, I just kind of want everybody else to be working as hard as I'm working. I'm like, oh.

But at least I was aware of that. I was like, oh, this is what's going on.

Such a beautiful insight as to what's going on.

But we did the things that we struggle with where we'll get mad at someone for bringing. Like, if we're dieting, we struggle with food or something, we'll get mad at people for eating things that we can't eat, you know, like, that kind of thing. Or we'll, you know, we struggle with relationships, so we push that on our kids or things. But when you're trying to exert control over another person, there's something going on in your mind that says, this person needs to comply with my own struggle.

Right.

You know?

Right. And almost.

Almost like 100 of the time.

Right. Trying to bring somebody to your level.

And thinking, my life would be better if this person would comply to my belief here.

Right.

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And so if we're. First of all, if we're aware of that, how liberating that is, so we can say, and to have the humility like yesterday. And I was like, oh, you Know what? I do love my work. I just feel like everyone else should be working too.

Right.

Like having the humility to say, oh, this is actually what I'm. This is my struggle. I'm sorry for trying to wrap you into it.

Right, right.

Also, I think we need to talk about like, understanding why we might exert control on another person and be able to like nip it in the bud, like, stop that and be aware of it. Be humble enough because the Bible says that, you know, when we humble ourselves, in due time we'll be exalted. So we've got to humble ourselves about that. But the other thing is, what do you do when someone is trying to. Like someone is exerting control on you?

Right. When, when somebody, when you feel like.

Like, stop pushing me, stop pushing me. I think for the most part, first of all, no one can make you feel anything you don't already hold as a belief.

Right, Right.

So. So if someone is putting pressure on you, I think, well, what's an example? Like, like you need to be, you need to clean up more. You need to clean up more.

Right.

You should keep a better house or you should, you know, pick up after yourself. I think the first thing we need to do whenever we feel like someone is coming down on us or exerting control over us, we need to ask ourselves, is, is, is there any truth in that?

Right. Is there truth is. And is there an underlying reason why that is sort of coming up? Yeah, but, yeah, I mean, is, is there, is there any truth in it? And especially if there's a situation where there isn't, it again, just happens to be a preference that one person has and is trying to exert that preference on, on you. And it's not where you like to be. Whether it is, you know, let's talk about the working thing again. Right.

But sometimes it can bring to light something in you that you're like, oh, well, maybe I should.

Yeah, but face that. But being conscious and self examining is. And sort of dig deep and see, oh, wait a minute. You know, there is something that maybe they have identified, something that is not. Strong in sort of the way that.

I, something I need to work on. Like a struggle of mine.

Right, exactly. Or again, if there is no truth in it, if it just seems to be somebody that is trying to manipulate the way you live your life into the way that they live. Live their life. And then, you know, obviously you, you want to figure out a way to positively confront that particular situation so it doesn't deteriorate into something worse.

But I think there's a lot of humility when you can. I think our first reaction when someone comes down on us or someone, like, starts being the boss of us, when someone starts bossing us around, our first reaction is just defense.

Right.

You know, we immediately, like, have our fight or flight. Like, we're either gonna try to escape or we're gonna fight back. Like, that's just our primitive brain saying, hey, you feel threatened, fight back. But I think if we can just. Yes. Like, someone could be coming out of a place where they're just trying to deal with their own personal struggle. But also, it's such another act of humility to say, is there any truth in this? Let me just stop before I. Before I yell back or before I walk out of the room or before I do one of these emotional games like a silent treatment. Is there any truth here? And if you can say, is there any truth here? You can look inside yourself and say, you know, maybe the confrontation was totally unwarranted. Maybe there wasn't any truth in it. But sometimes we can find a little. A little thing that we can work on.

Right. Something small that may be a place where you can. Whether it's adjust or improve or what, that may make the situation a little bit better.

But how mature to say, you know, honey, there's some. There's some truth in that night, and I appreciate you confronting me with it and how can I work on this?

Yep.

Like, that would be like. Like the craziest thing for some marriages. Instead of, like, why are you telling me that? Like, you're so. Blah, blah, blah, like, we'll immediately get the fisticuffs.

Right.

You know? Yeah. But to just say, you know, there's some. There's some truth there, and thank you for bringing that to light.

Right. In some instances, too, you know, if you happen to be in a place that may be a little bit more volatile for that moment, like, you know, it's almost as if, to use the cleaning example, you know, one spouse loves everything clean. The other one doesn't necessarily like to clean up after themselves. If the one that likes to clean is saying, hey, hey, guys, clean up, it isn't that sort of give in and do what they want to do. That can lead into a damaging place. But when you have a moment to kind of sort of think through it, I mean, okay, well, maybe there is a place where I can help to clean up just a little bit more.

Yeah.

Whether it's make the bed or I'm going to Put the laundry in the appropriate place.

Help me think of some ways to, like, maybe your skill set isn't my skill set.

Right.

So what would be some ways that I could improve in this area? Like that. That is the groundwork for an amazing marriage, I guess.

But my point is trying to make a switch or a change in the heat of the moment isn't always successful. That doesn't work always for the situation. If you're trying to make a switch, hey, let me do something different. That might not be.

That might just. It may not solve the problem.

Increase the volatility of whatever the moment.

Yeah. But I think both sides, whether you feel like you're being controlling and bossy or whether you feel like you're being bossed around, I think both sides of this, the number one thing you need to go to is humility and not defensiveness is to be humble enough to say, you know, maybe there's something I need to work on. Maybe this is a struggle I'm trying to rep you into, or maybe this is you bringing to light something that I really could work on.

Right.

So practice humility. And just like the Bible says, in due time you're going to be exalted. That includes your marriage. And now we have dogs that are, that are hacking up stuff and want to go outside and barking. So we better take care of that. All right. We love you guys and praying over you and just believing that your marriage is going to be blessed like crazy.

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