Whinypaluza Wednesday Live: Your Marital Questions Answered

Hello everyone, happy Winey Palooza Wednesday! No need to whine, it's Winey Palooza Wednesday. Have some wine and join us on the Winey Palooza Wednesday with the Green Family.

Cha-cha chicken!

Thank you, honey, sweetheart. Will you stay close in case I need you? Sure. I, I don't think your sister wants to sing us out.

Hello everyone, happy Winey Palooza Wednesday!

How is everyone doing? Chime in and tell us how you're doing today. I'm not quite sure where the day went. It just goes away, poof, and then it's 9 o'clock.

It disappeared on you.

It just goes by so fast and We decided this week that Seth and I love to talk about the topic of marriage. I would say it's definitely your favorite topic.

It's, it's definitely in the top 3. Yes, I, I would much rather talk about marriage than the latest school plan for the children.

Well, the good news is we— he doesn't like when I talk about it.

It's not that I don't like it, it's just we talk about it, it's always changing, so we're talking about it all the time.

Okay, so, so, uh, we are— we talked about school last week, right? So this week before—

and the week before—

stop! This week I am entertaining my husband with a marital vlog. Yes, we are live in multiple places on Facebook. Yes, we will also share this on YouTube, and for people who would rather listen on a podcast, this will be released next Wednesday on my podcast.

Yes.

So the— I asked you for questions. This— the title of this vlog is Your Marital Questions Answered. So I asked you for your questions and you gave me fabulous questions. So I want to start—

you being the audience, not me personally.

You, everyone who said— wonderful viewers, our wonderful, um, contributors. Yes. So thank you so much to everyone who, um, contributed a question. And Seth, do you want to start us off with questions?

I do. I will be the questioner and you will be the answerer.

Well, you're going to help answer, right?

Yes. Some of them you don't need my— some—

yes. Oh, wait, wait, before you start, I wrote my blog today. Well, no, I didn't write it today, but I published it today. And I wrote out specific answers to every question. So you can always go to my Facebook page to Rebecca Green, to Winey Palooza, or to wineypalooza.com. And you can find the actual blog to read out the answers, because I'm sure that I'm not going to cover everything tonight that I wrote down.

We are not going to have time. Okay, first easy, easy question: how long you been married?

I'm excited to report that before we know it, it's going to be September 3rd, and this September we will celebrate 16 years. So we are almost to the big one-six.

I didn't know there was a big one, 6. I just do round numbers. So in 4 years we'll be at 20.

Oh, 20 years. What are we gonna do for 20?

Why do 50% of marriages end in divorce? What's the major reason?

He's gonna be like, I gotta keep you going, you gotta keep me— you gotta keep me focused.

Yes, ma'am.

Okay, so I did research on this, on this to give you the actual data. The 3 top reasons are, um, Lack of commitment, infidelity, too much conflict.

All right, uh, the state government— I thought this was interesting— the state government has proven it is wrecking family lives through the family court system. There is no recourse for wrong and harmful rulings by judges. Why would I want to invite the state government into my sacred relationship with my lover? Why do we need to get married and have a marriage license? You know, honey, why did we need to get married?

I love this question because I never looked at it that way.

I never thought about it either.

I think it's a Thank you for the question. I think it's a fabulous question and I'm going to give you my opinion and I'm going to give you the data. So I like that Seth is legally— I like that he's legally tied to me. I like that it's legal and official. I totally understand that the government can definitely be too into our lives, too invasive on personal things. That I feel like they should not be involved in. However, I do agree with getting married, and I'm gonna tell you all of the actual legal benefits that you get. I actually did research on this. Tax deduction. You can file your taxes jointly and, um, pay less taxes. Social Security benefits, IRA benefits, legal decision-making benefits, inheritance benefits, health insurance benefits, paternity child benefits, leave benefits, and there's emotional benefits, um, to getting married. You statistically live longer, and you also are statistically less likely to suffer from depression. So there are lots of reasons to get married officially and legally, and I approve.

All right, how do I convince my husband when I ask a question. Um, I— we, we have a school is never out is our household motto. I realize he has an overarching heart to— overachieving heart to please me. I don't like the mean answers he gives.

Well, this question has me fascinated in so many ways, and what stinks is that Seth had something, um, I liked what he said, that we should have brought them on live to talk because I don't have enough information to answer some of these questions, but I'm going to try to help. And I am curious what isn't working for your husband. Are you asking too many questions? Are you making him feel like he does— you don't trust his own decision-making? Is he feeling like it's the wrong time to ask a bunch of questions? Is he busy? I definitely think that you need to always be honest with your spouse when something isn't working for you. Use I language. Always, always use I language. I feel sad when you don't want me to ask questions.

I language starts with the word I, as in me saying something about myself.

I feel when. I feel sad when you don't want to answer my questions. What could I do differently?

Move the dog, that's what I could do.

What can I do differently to make it more pleasant for my questions? What would be a better time? What isn't working for you? It sounds like he's feeling put on the defensive. And I think that one of the things that I see is that when women ask questions, men can sometimes feel— I don't mean to generalize, this is just what I've seen— men can feel like we don't trust that they're doing something correctly.

Or your way, which might not necessarily be the only correct way to do something. So, um, that segues perfectly into our next question. Is there a best time to address conflict?

Yes. So if Seth is cranky, busy, I don't— I know it's not a good time to talk.

I know it's not a good time to talk to you about anything when you're texting someone on the phone, because then you're too busy and you can't multitask while you're texting. You can't think.

No, it's— and sometimes that's the funny thing is, yes, sometimes I'm in the middle of texting someone, but sometimes you see I'm trying to— but sometimes I'm in the middle of like an email. Sometimes I'm doing work on my phone. It's not always texting a friend. But if I'm in mid-thought, it makes me feel crazy if you try to talk to me.

Yes, it does.

Okay, I did not answer that question at all. So hold up, hold your horses. Okay, so when you're both calm, not when you're heated. If you're both heated, then definitely say, I don't think this is the best time for this. Let's take a timeout and let's come back together when we can both cool off. We don't have—

not in a resourceful state right now.

Yes, when we're not in a resourceful state, the conversations don't go very well. There was more to that question. What was the rest of it?

Literally, there wasn't. Is there a best time to address conflict? When, where, what, how?

Use your I language. No blaming. Put it on yourself. What can you do differently? How are you contributing to the problem?

How do you talk about the diff— now you're rushing me. How do you talk about the difficult subject matters in a relationship, especially if it's something that's caused you conflict in the past? When do you know if the issue's been truly resolved? If you aren't going to find a resolution sound, how can you still be respectful of the other person?

There's a lot of questions.

Uh, you talk about a difficult subject.

Okay, so I will say some of the same things over and over again.

Stay tuned anyway.

Stay tuned. Well, and there's going to be new information too. Um, definitely the biggest thing that we can do, learn in our relationships, is the 'I feel when.' Okay, so, um, I— give me an example.

You say I'm always rushing you.

I feel stressed when I think you're rushing me.

I am glad that you use the 'when I think you are rushing me' qualification because I am very rarely ever never actually trying to rush you. I learned that painful lesson years ago. I make out a point not to rush you. So I'm glad that sometimes that you have owned that you may perceive that you feel rushed, but it's not necessarily my doing.

Okay, so the biggest thing is that we have to identify what the problem is. We have to really be specific with each other and really get down to what is upsetting you. So step 1 is identify the problem. Step 2 is come up, brainstorm some solutions together. Step 3 is see if there's something that you can both feel okay with. And sometimes I find in our marriage that something is so much more important to Seth than it is to me. So I'm like, I don't really care. You can have it your way. That's fine with me. And I feel good about it. And sometimes it's the opposite where Seth is like, this means more to Rebecca. I really don't care. So go ahead. Sometimes we come up with something in the middle, and when we don't resolve something— there was more to that. What was the end?

Uh, when do you know if an issue has been resolved? If you aren't going to find a resolution, how can you be respectful of the other person?

Okay, so you know that an issue is resolved when you both feel satisfied with the conclusion, or you've agreed to disagree, or you've agreed to disagree, which is I think the next question.

How do you address the difference of opinion over conflicts? Is it necessary to totally resolve differences of opinion How do you agree to disagree and still respect one another?

Yes, really, really good question because I thought of a couple examples when I was writing the answer. Let's say one person's Jewish and one person's Catholic. Neither person wants to convert. Both want to stay Jewish and Catholic. Both are okay with that. You agree to disagree and you respect one another and you bring both religions into the household. And some couples are really able to do that and are able to respect one another. And some couples I have seen are like, no, no, no. Like you had said, your spouse would have had to convert.

Yes. If I had married someone who wasn't Jewish, I would have insisted. It would have been a commitment or a deal breaker that they converted.

So you have to know your deal breakers. So for instance, I wanted to marry someone who was going to want children. Um, and The other example was like one person is Republican and one person is Democrat, and you just can't seem to convince each other that your way is the right way.

And there's no right way.

I think that, I think that a lot of marriages— I have heard this a lot, and it is, it is okay if you can just agree to respect one another's opinions. We do not have to agree on everything. I think that's impossible for you and I to agree on everything.

We're two very different people.

I also respect Seth. I think that he has a really I think he's really intelligent, and I respect that he has his own mind. And I don't always feel— I like— I'm okay sometimes with just having my own opinion. I think, I think we do that.

Yes, definitely.

Okay, you're moving. I can see he's moving me.

I'm not doing anything. See, I'm not rushing you. What are some key things that people should talk through before making a commitment to one another?

Um, what? Oh yes, because I did research on some of these questions, because some of these questions there's actually data on. Um, what to discuss before you get married: children, career, career plans, finances. One of the things with finances that I see with couples— I didn't realize until I started talking to couples about this that some people want to keep their finances separate and they're good with that, and some people want to combine their finances. And also, like, agreeing on budgeting what we're spending a week.

Which we respectfully disagree. I think we should, as a financial advisor, that we should have a budget and we should have predictable things. And you think you should be impulsive and do whatever you want.

I think I'm way too impulsive and I think I need to work on this.

Yes, we have said that for years. We have not made any progress.

Okay, we will.

But that's a—

sure, we will.

Okay.

Um, I wasn't done.

Oh, sorry, you're still going.

Okay, religion. Arguments. How are you going to handle arguments and conflict? And I think that's most of the research, so you can, you can move on.

How do you address the differences of interest between spouses if one really doesn't like to do something the other one loves to do?

This is another common question, and there's a lot of different interests between couples, and I think that marriage is most definitely about compromise. I don't recommend being in a relationship or getting married if you don't like to compromise.

I don't know that anybody likes to compromise because it means you're not getting what you want anymore. I think if you're unwilling to compromise, then maybe you shouldn't be getting married.

Okay, so I'm gonna answer the question—

sorry—

with— no, no, no, not— I want you to chime in— with the fact that I think that you should find things that you both enjoy to do together. I think that possible. And I think that you can research this and come up, brainstorm some ideas that you can both do together. Do you both like to bowl? Do you both like to go bird watching? And I think that if your husband loves to go to the Bills games, for example, like, you can encourage them, you know, please go find a friend, I don't want to go. You can always encourage your spouse to find a different family member or a friend to go with. But I think that it's also important, number one, to have some some stuff that's like recreational companionship between the two of you. And I also think that if it's important to your spouse, if Seth really wants me to go to a magic convention with him— wow, I— if he was like, honey, I really want you to come, I would go. So I'm just saying, be willing to compromise and come up with stuff that you both like to do and encourage them to bring someone else if it's something that you really don't want to do.

All right, um, Connie and Esther say hi.

Hi.

Um, how do you address communication style differences between spouses? Like one wants to talk through things right now every time and the other spouse doesn't want to necessarily talk or is conflict averse.

Yes, and I, you know, I remember that question And I think that it's interesting that one of the— thank you, Adrian. So it's interesting that if someone is avoiding conflict, there are reasons for it. They're uncomfortable with it. They're not feeling safe. So put it on yourself and talk to your partner and say, how can I make you feel more comfortable in conflict so that you want to talk to me? What can I do? Do I get too heated? Am I too pushy? What can I do differently to make you feel safer? And start small. Start with a small conflict and show them that it's not so painful. Show them how you can stay calm and resolve it together. And when you have small successes, the bigger stuff, they'll feel more confident to have that discussion with you.

Baby steps. What is your perspective when one person is interested in going to the bedroom and the other one is not?

So this is like a super, super common marital question, and it's rare that the couple agrees on how many times a week, how many times a month to have sex. So, um, again, I'm going to compromise. And for example, let's say that one person wants to have sex 3 times a week and the other person is not interested at all and says, ah, zero, once a month. So I would say number one, compromise. Come to some sort of resolution in the middle that you can both, you know, maybe he or she is not gonna get 3 times a week, but what are they willing to compromise to? And how come the spouse is not interested? What is that about? And how can they get more interested? Have that conversation with them. I recommend, you know, foreplay begins in the morning. I, I use the example in my blog that when Seth is super sweet before work, um, to me, that is foreplay.

If we are fighting before work or cranky with each other, that's not good foreplay, because then you'll spend the rest of the day thinking about how you're mad at me. No, no, never happened. Maybe once or twice.

I don't know, but I'm just saying that we need more information. Find out why the other partner isn't interested and help them get more interested.

Dan Ferver, Lisa Riley, and Becca Cronin say hi.

Hi.

Most marriages start at the same place.

Tanner, come on.

What are things must do to— what are the things you must do to invest every day for your marriage to blossom? What are some pitfalls to avoid? How do we tend to our marriage every day?

I think— I'm so sorry, our dog is in here eating stuff. We cannot let him in. We're in the playroom. And my daughter Lily has so many little things and he is eating lots of stuff and distracting me. So a marriage is— I think of a marriage as like a bank account and you want to make a lot of deposits into your bank account, many, many more deposits than withdrawals. And you want to make deposits every day and you want to work on your marriage every day. It's like you need to water a plant, you need to water your marriage. And the interesting thing is, in talking to couples, is that we think that we're giving and giving, but it doesn't— might not necessarily mean much to your partner because we've talked about love languages before, and it's so important because maybe your partner doesn't really care that you show up with flowers. Maybe they're just looking for you to tell them how beautiful they are and how much you love and appreciate them. Maybe they don't want the gift. Maybe they want to hear how much— how you feel about them. So I recommend finding out what kind of deposits your partner wants. And then the pitfalls to avoid— John Gottman is a brilliant marital researcher who I'm hoping to get on my podcast, and I'm working on that. And his Four Horsemen that you should avoid in your marriage is criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling. And for those of you that don't know, stonewalling is like shutting down and refusing to talk. So those are the 4 to avoid.

Awesome. I'm working on being less defensive. Um, any business partnership has key performance indicators that we measure in influence. What are key performance indicators any couple must look at closely, measure, and influence in their journey together? I love this question because we live on KPIs at work.

I did research on this question.

Oh, I'm excited.

I, I had opinions on all of these questions, but I wanted to give you guys the data, so I'm run through the data. Are you interested in your partner? Do you feel comfortable communicating with your partner? Do you feel supported by your partner? Do you share responsibilities? Is there emotional and physical intimacy? Do you trust your partner? Do you have fun together? Do you prioritize your partner? Do you work on yourselves? Do you handle conflict well? Do you give to each other? Do you handle finances well? How do you get through traumas, hard or hard situations together? Are you both 100% committed? And these are questions that you can use, but you should really think about what is most important to you. And I think it's important that we evaluate ongoing because at certain times in your marriage, certain things will be more important to you.

Absolutely. As an independent contractor, I'm always seem to always be thinking about some aspect of my business. Even when I'm home or we're at the park, I'm still thinking about work. My wife has noticed and is quite unhappy about the whole situation. I try to schedule enough time for work and for life, but they still seem to blend together. I have a strong passion for what I do, but I do work to create the life we want, not just for work's sake. Um, how can I better separate the two and be more present at home?

Honey, we understand. Oh, my brother's here! Hi, Corey!

My, um, how do I separate work and home and be more present? You could answer that question for you.

So this is a perfect question for Seth and I. We literally just had this conversation. So I sent my answer to, um, the person who asked me this question. I sent answers to everyone who answered, who asked me questions. But, um, I love that he's thinking about this because it shows how much he cares about his family. And Seth can relate because Seth not only works at work, he works a ton at home. And I recommend sitting down and coming up with what you are both comfortable with. Is it, is it that— is your wife looking for you to put work to bed before you come home? And is that realistic? What is realistic and what is she looking for? So for example, I need to be specific with Seth on what I need. So Seth, will you go take a walk with Tanner, our dog, and I? And can you focus on quality time for 30 minutes?

Which means I leave the phone at home and don't bring it on the walk because otherwise it doesn't matter if it's Saturday or Sunday or later at night, it will go off.

Okay, so I will be specific with what I need. Seth, can you put work away soon and come sit and talk to me? Like, I miss you. I haven't seen you today. Can you come talk to me? What do I need from him? What is realistic? It is not realistic for Seth to not work ever when he's home. That is kind of asking for a lot. If for your sanity you need to not work at home, my— what I did when I was at the office all day is I would make a list before I left work. Book of everything that was on my mind so that I knew when I walked in the next morning that my list was there and I could tackle everything that morning and I didn't bring it home with me. So, figure out together what's gonna work best for both of you.

Yes, brain dump is an excellent tool, whether it's before you leave work or whether it's at night before bed. Is it okay to fight in front of the children?

So, you know, it's funny, this is a question that I get frequently. People ask me this question a lot, and my answer is a huge giant yes. And I will tell you why. First of all, we don't want to fight about the children in front of the children. That is a no-no.

I think we've done that just a few times today.

And we want to make sure that our conversation is appropriate. Like, if you're arguing about sex, Probably don't want to do that in front of the kids. However, I think it is super important for kids to see all the emotions and all the normal emotions of a marriage, and we are teaching them how to argue. We just have to remember that they're watching, and Seth, we're not perfect.

I didn't say we were. I've never claimed to be perfect.

Nobody is perfect. And as I just told my friend We work on ourselves every day and we're all imperfect. None of us are ever going to achieve perfection, but the fact that if we want to work on ourselves all day, that is the biggest thing. But going back to the question, just remember that the little eyes are watching you.

Remember, ears are listening.

And remember, if they're not in the room, that they are learning how to fight in general with you, with their future spouse, with their friends.

Yep, I've seen Lily saying things to her dolls that I was like, I swear I heard you say that the other day.

Thanks, honey.

It's happened to me too.

I hear Ella scold Lily the same way that I scold Lily. They repeat what we say.

Yes, you have said, hey, they're saying what you said to me and that's not okay and you shouldn't have said it.

You know, they do. They caught— they talk to me how Seth talks to me. I do notice that. And you know, we, we have So many opportunities to teach our children and they— I'm sorry, but they don't care what you say to them. They're gonna learn from you by your actions and they're gonna model you and they're gonna copy you. So just be conscious of it when you're fighting and if you hide conflict from them, they will be super uncomfortable with conflict.

Yes, I learned this lesson. I will throw myself under the bus. My parents did not fight in front of us. They thought that was inappropriate. They went to another room with a closed door and hid.

I think a lot of parents did.

They didn't want us to see them fight. And then I didn't know what conflict was. I didn't know how to resolve it. I had no experience with it. And when you came along and opened up my emotional floodgates, and I was like, what the heck is this? And the first time I think that you like yelled at me when we were dating, I'm like, oh my God, my life is over. Our relationship is done. And you were like, 5 minutes later, like, doo doo doo. And I'm like, I don't understand what just happened. Um, so I had to learn that conflict is okay and necessary in a marriage when you have two imperfect people trying to love each other. And I think I— it took me a while to get used to it because before that I didn't know what the heck was going on and I would just run away.

Well, and I think that through the years I have learned my parents weren't the calmest when they fought. There might have been some swear words.

I wondered where you learned it from.

So I just have to You know, I think the biggest thing that we can remember is to be respectful. And, you know, John Gottman talks about contempt, and that's just kind of being mean. You know, "You're such a jerk." You're so, you know, "You're so nasty." You know, just be respectful with how you're fighting. And I, you know, I wanted to say to you, like, Seth and I aren't perfect. You know, in our parenting, in our marriage, we don't claim to be perfect at all. We, we claim to want to learn and grow every day, and we love to read and learn. And I'm just, you know, my mission is to just share with you stuff that I think that can be helpful. And when I share with you, I'm helping you and I'm helping me because it's all reinforcing stuff to me too. So I loved your questions. This topic is so much fun to us. We love talking about marriage and we love hearing from you. And you can always submit questions, you can always submit topics. Um, my email is whineypaloozamom@gmail.com. You can send me topic requests, you can send me podcast suggestions, you can tell me you want to be on my podcast. And, um, please listen this Friday. I love when you listen to my podcast and leave me, um, a rating and review. We have learned— we have, we have learned— we have learned that this is subliminal messaging.

It's subliminal messaging.

Yeah, but you're distracting me. Sorry. I appreciate what you're doing. So when you do leave a review, it's— it helps to show it to the audience so that we can get, um, get the helpful messages to more viewers and We— oh, thanks, Becca. We decided that we are going to do a giveaway each month for my podcast. So we are going to give away a gift card to a lucky winner each month who leaves me, um, a 5-star review.

There's a bribe. It's an ethical bribe.

It's not an ethical bribe, but I have heard women who I listen to doing this, and I loved the idea, and I'm learning and growing from other people who are doing stuff that I am doing. So I'm— see, I'm learning and growing every day with you. So thank you so much for joining us tonight. We— I, I had fun. Did you have fun? I had fun. Okay, have a wonderful week. We don't have— do we have anyone?

Thank you for watching Winey Palooza Wednesday with the Green Family.

Cha-cha-chicken, cha-cha-chicken, baby!