Managing Conflict Through Curiosity

Welcome to the Beauty and Battle podcast where we talk about winning in marriage by waging a war. I'm Jason Benham. I've got my girlfriend slash wife, Tori Benham with me. And we are here to talk to you about how Satan tries to get you to fight face to face with your spouse. But God designed you to fight shoulder to shoulder against Satan so that you can win in your marriage, fighting together, draws you together. We can not wait to jump in. So here we go. So today we have a really fun topic. We're going to talk about managing conflict with curiosity. Yes. This is really fun. We actually just returned from a marriage retreat. Yeah. Where were we? We were in Kioa Island, South Carolina, just outside of Charleston. It was beautiful. Oh my gosh, it was incredible. And fortunately, Tori and I, we just did, we just had to do a few sessions. Actually, I had to do a couple sessions. Tori and I did a session together. And then we had several other couples that were there with us. And one of them was the comedian Michael Jr. and his wife, Ebony. They also do married stuff. And they taught this little principle that we thought, oh, you know what? That's so good. It was so good. And we're like, we definitely need to do a podcast on this. Another another tool in the tool test. Yeah. So it definitely give Michael Jr. and Ebony credit for opening up this idea on how we can manage conflict with curiosity. So before we get going into that, I do have a song, though, Tori. Okay. Well, let's hear it. Yeah. You know, Tori and I always love country music. And there's a guy named Brett Young. And he, I think he's fantastic. I know Lundy really loves this guy. And he's got this really fun song called Catch. It's about catching your spouse. So I'm going to play this partway through the chorus. So it's going to kind of start off a little fast, but you'll like the words. But go into your podcast player and scroll down to one speed. So you're not listening to this on two speed because then you're not going to understand the thing. All right, here you go. Ready? Here. Did that good? So cute. You got me trying to catch my breath. You got me trying to catch my breath now, Tori. No, there you go. That's a good one. It was really funny because this, this retreat that we did was so fun. And at the very end, one of the folks that was helping and hosted said, okay, now I want you to turn and face your spouse. And I want you to pronounce a blessing over them. And which was so good. But I saw a bunch of spouses hugging and pronouncing blessings over each other. And they did it for the same reason that Tori and I did it because we had just gotten done with like an hour and a half session. And nobody had gum. So we're all like, how about I whisper that in your ear? Yeah, we're going to just do that in the ear. No, facing that quite as close as. Yeah. Because and that song trying to catch my breath just kind of made me think about that. All right. So Tori, let's talk about conflict. You guys have heard us talk a lot about conflict. And we always have had the opinion that conflict is not something that you need to run from. It's actually something that you kind of have to embrace. You don't run toward it. It's like, Oh, Tori, I can't wait to get in a flight today. No, we don't want to do that. But conflict is not something you have to run from. Why? Because conflict is meant for connection. Yes. Yep. It's the opportunity for God to turn me into we. And marriage is the context for conflict. Right. So you guys probably if you've read our books, you've taken our courses, been to any seminars that we've done or listened to our podcast for some period of time, you've probably heard me use this analogy when it comes to conflict and how God uses it. Because the same conflict that Satan uses the terrorist apart, God uses to bind us together and and draw us together. Think about this analogy, Tori's famous Ranger cookies. Amazing. And when she's going to make those, she's got this, is it a cast iron bowl? No, it's not a cast iron bowl. What's this? Kitchen eight. It's a kitchen eight bowl. Okay, got it. Sorry. Don't know the difference. But now you're going with like wood bowls. Why aren't you? Yeah, I still a kitchen eight bowl, but it is wood and you're right. Okay, got it. So she takes that bowl. She puts it out on the table, you know, our counter and then she grabs all the ingredients. You got flour, king Arthur, good flour. You've got cane sugar or coconut sugar. Yes. Or cane sugar, organic sugar, whatever. Yeah, whatever it is. And then oats. She got oats. You've got vanilla. You've got, I don't know, whatever. Eggs. Yeah, eggs. You got all that butter. You got all that stuff. And they're all sitting out on the counter. Now imagine taking a spoon and dipping it into the king Arthur flour and jamming that into your mouth. What's that going to take to take that? No, or you're not going to take a spoon full of butter and down it. You're not going to do that because the ingredients are not meant to stay individual. Right. They're meant to be put into the bowl and mixed up and blended into one new batch. Yes. And the bonding agent is the eggs. Okay, so when she puts the eggs in now, all of a sudden, she's stirring all the stuff up. She takes the flour, she puts it in, she takes the sugar, she puts it in, she puts it all in and then she puts the eggs in there and it bonds everything together. And then they come out on the other side, this heavenly dough that's so much better together than it than they ever were separate. Right. So in our analogy, God is the master baker. The bowl is marriage. God puts us into marriage as separate ingredients. And then the eggs is the Holy Spirit. And then he puts the Holy Spirit in there and says, Hey, you know what? Just let me blend you guys together. And it, you know, if flour had feelings, it probably wouldn't enjoy the process. If sugar had feelings, it probably would look at flour and say, Yeah, you know what? You're soft, but you're bland. Flour looks at sugar and says, Yeah, you're sweet, but you're hard. But put them both together and you have something beautiful. Yeah. That's what conflict is meant for. So here's what you have to understand. Most conflict, specifically perpetual conflict, like stuff that you and your spouse fight over a lot. Most conflict can never be resolved. You don't, don't go into conflict thinking I'm going to resolve it. Like I'm going to fix it. We're going to get to a point where we never fight about this again. Right. Yeah, there's probably going to be some stuff that you can get to that point. But there's going to be other stuff where it's just going to be something that you'll never resolve. You have to think about managing it. Yeah. And it's so true. As we were doing this exercise, Michael Jr. and his wife, they asked everybody in the crowd to write down the conflict that they were like the biggest conflict in their marriage. And then they asked how every like they started picking out people. How many years have you been dealing with this conflict? And whatever the number was, it was the number of years they had been married. Across the board, I think yes, like four or five people and they're like 16. Okay. How many years have been married? 16. Yeah. So you just have to know that conflict is going to be just a part of your relationship. But how do you handle it? Are you going to explode on each other? Are you going to constantly be offended? Every time conflict takes place, like why do we keep fighting about this? And then your hurt. And you feel like something is wrong with you or something is wrong with your relationship. None of that stuff is true. And what we learned from Michael Jr. and his wife, Ebony, was a fun little conflict hack. Something that can actually help you manage the conflict. And how do you going to do it? You're going to add in curiosity. Curiosity is so good. And I love what MJ said. He said, you cannot be curious and furious at the same time. Yeah. That's so good. So let me show you how you can go about doing this. Okay. And this is a little worksheet that we filled out at our marriage retreat. And right at the top, okay. You're going to fill in two blanks. Okay. I feel blank when my spouse blank. So there's the first thing that you're going to do is I feel, like what do you feel when my spouse blank. So for them, Michael Jr. and his wife would fight about how he was not clean and she was uber clean. And then when she would come downstairs after he had made breakfast for the daughters. And he's already done making breakfast for the daughters. And now he's off doing his thing in his office. But the dishes are out. And it's a wreck. She would get frustrated. So that was one of her. I feel like he doesn't value me when he leaves. Doesn't clean up after. So for me, I wrote down, I feel annoyed when Tori asks me a bunch of questions about details. And it was just, it's always been something. Yeah. Like we look back at our, you do kind of just look back at your most recent fights. Yeah. And you're like, what was our most recent conflict? Yeah. And just write that down how you felt what it was. So take a moment. If you want to press pause, if you're not driving or press pause on this and think about it for a second so that you're not hearing me and Tori talk. Press pause on this and think. Okay, what is the conflict we have? And then write down what you feel with that conflict. So I wrote, I feel annoyed. So you're gonna write down you feel what? When you're spouse, what? Press pause right now and think about that and then come back. Okay, now you've got your statement. So for me, I feel annoyed when Tori asks me a bunch of questions about details. Okay, now here's the beautiful part and this is what's gonna help you with your conflict. Add the three words at the beginning. You're three words at the beginning. You're gonna wanna add, I wonder why. Mm-hmm. I wonder why. I feel annoyed when Tori asks me a bunch of questions about details. Okay, you're gonna ask that and you're gonna apply those three words to both you and your spouse. So now I'm gonna ask the question. I wonder why I feel annoyed, why Tori asked me about a bunch of questions about details. So I need to think about myself first. And then secondly, I wonder why Tori asks me a bunch of questions about details. You see, so you're adding in, I wonder why and now figuring out, I wonder why I feel this way and I wonder why my spouse does this. So let me, Tori and I were talking about this this morning because this is something that is very true. I never thought about this until we went through this little exercise, but when I went through this and I realized, I wonder why I feel annoyed. If Tori is gonna ask me a bunch of questions about details because David and I would go on all these trips and still to this day, life's surgery, whatever. And then we will end up coming back and she's asking me lots of questions about it and I'm trying to answer, but if she asked me too much then sometimes I get a little bit annoyed. It's like, okay, you know, most guys are like not detail. Well, as I ask that question, I wonder why I feel that way. I realized that being a twin, David was always more talkative than me. So David and I would go on a trip or we come back from college or whatever and my mom would be peppering questions and David always answered for me. And I loved it. - Yeah. - It was great. - You didn't have to talk. - I didn't have to talk. - You didn't have to think through anything. - I didn't have to think through stuff. I didn't have to pull back into the archives. I didn't have to say what we felt about it. I literally would just sit there and David would-- - And David loved it. David loved it. - 'Cause he's the talker. And he loved it. And next thing you know, I get married and Tori's asking me these questions and I don't have David there to answer him for me. (laughing) You know, like now all of a sudden I realize, oh, that's why I feel annoyed. But this isn't, it's not Tori's fault. It's the fact that I never had to answer. And when I'm around David and in person when he and I are doing stuff and some people are talking to us, David is gonna talk more than me. And you know what, I love it. I'm great with it. But if David's not there, I have to talk more. And if I've talked too much, sometimes I start like getting a little war out 'cause I'm not as talkative as David is. - Yeah. - And so when I went through that, that was very eye-opening to me. Now, you don't just stop at, I wonder why I feel this way, okay? Now, my job was to go in and say, "I wonder why Tori asks me a bunch of questions about details." And I'm talking with her about it this morning. And we've always known this, but for her, she just wants to be included. Like she, the minute we got married, it was like I was already kind of going so fast with work and then when my brother moved into town a year and a half later and then we started our business, I'm flying out, I'm doing all these things. And she kind of felt a little left out of my life and she needed details to make her feel included. And when I realized that, it's like, okay, I wonder why I do this. Well, it's because why I feel annoyed when she asked me a bunch of questions is because David always talks for me, but why does she ask me a bunch of questions? 'Cause she wants to be included. It's not that she's trying to be annoying. She wants to feel connected to me, right? And that helps. - It's not trying to be annoying. - Yeah. So what does that mean? It means that whenever I go on a trip, I'm gonna come home and Tori is going to ask me a bunch of questions, but now here's the cool part. This curiosity can lead to a little bit of a compromise. So what's the compromise? The compromise is I don't need to get annoyed when she's asking a bunch of details. So I need to not let myself get annoyed. But she needs to make sure that she's not asking too many details because when she starts to see my body language change and I start to drop a little bit, you can come back. - It's like if I know that you're feeling annoyed as your wife, I don't want you to feel annoyed. I know what it feels like to be annoyed. It's not a fun feeling. So I don't want you to just feel annoyed. So there's, I can pull back a little bit because I care about your feelings. You care about my feelings. So if we're both curious about each other's feelings, then we can accommodate a little bit more without knowing. You don't know. You're like, what's your problem? Why aren't you mad at me asking so many questions? - And when I really know, and I focus on the fact she just wants to feel connected to me. Then I don't get annoyed. If I'm not focusing on that and I'm not getting curious about why she's asking questions, then I am getting annoyed. But can you see how curiosity, it helps you get to the root. It helps you get to that root. It's the probe that gets to the root and it keeps you from assuming motives. - So good. And one of the things that they said was, "If you don't go within, you will go without." And I thought that was a really profound statement. Like if you don't go within and you don't get curious, then you're actually gonna go without some connection. There's something you're gonna miss out on. Like you have to go within, get curious, dig a little deeper, go a little, you know, did I just say go a little deeper? - Yeah, dig a little deeper. What is that, there's that song. I think it's-- - Anything to please a girl. - Yeah, there you go, tour Diamond Rio. Go a little farther, dig a little deeper. - Dig a little deeper. - Go a little farther, dig a little deeper. - Yeah. - Get curious and you will go on, come out on the other side with something connected, connective with your spouse and it's a beautiful thing. So you don't go, you can't, you don't go within, if you don't go within, you will go without. - Yeah, for sure. - Yeah, I'm a little off today. Sorry, we're not gonna even cut it out because we-- - I love it. - But we got in late, we actually like got a really great night sleep, but we, I am like feeling the brain fog. - Yeah, but you know, it's not just for that. We have been traveling so much. That's why it's been in a little minute since we've done a podcast. Now we're gonna try to do more podcasts, but our travel schedule is absolutely insane. And I feel as though, you know this, now here we are, it is July 15th, 2026, and there's this thing going around, this little virus or whatever. - Got a parasite. - Parasite? - We have, we got back from Cancun and Jason, we're like deathly ill for an entire week. It was awful and then we went straight from there to the marriage retreat. Still weren't feeling amazing, but we had been on an antibiotic. Like we were kinda like-- - And we're very anti-abiotic. - Yeah, we don't have any medicine, but we were like, we gotta make sure we get rid of this thing so we can go to this marriage retreat and, oh my goodness. And it's just, we're still not 100%. And we just found out that there's this thing, it's not contagious, so don't worry. But it's a parasite and it just really wreaks havoc on your gut and we have been feeling that. - Do you know what's funny? Is that I forget we were on a panel or something like that and somebody was saying, well, how do you stay in shape as you get older and you got businesses or whatever? - You're a systemic bug. - I always said that. I said, you know what, my goal is always to stay one virus away from a six pack. (laughing) - Yeah, but the crazy thing about this is, like we're more bloated than ever. - Yeah, it's bad. - Because we're pretty sure that it's this parasite. What is it like, cyclos? - Cyclos, glor, sclopro, whatever. - I don't know. You get it through water or through vegetables. - Yeah. - Anyways, it has not been the same effect that you would typically get with a stomach issue. - No, it's terrible. - It's like your, our stomach's-- - You don't want to eat. - It's so bloated. - Hey, but you know what, here's the beauty and this is so incredible. And I heard this from some famous couple, oh, it was Tom Hanks and his wife were asked, how are they able to stay together for so long, in Hollywood and all these other couples don't. And she said, get separate bathrooms. - Oh. - And so Tori and I, we do share a bathroom, but I don't ever use the toilet closet in our bathroom. I always used to-- - Yeah, I used to have that. - So that has really been helpful to me and Tori. - That's interesting, yeah. Like the fact that I don't have to-- - TMI, TMI. - TMI. - It smells as morning. - Okay. - You zip it. (laughs) We're gonna start fighting about this. This is some conflict. All right, hey. - I'm gonna get curious about that one. - I really love this. I love this small little simple teaching. You can manage conflict through curiosity. Think about your perpetual conflict. And for me, I feel annoyed when my wife, Tori, asked me a bunch of questions about details. Now, add the three words at the beginning. I wonder why. - Yeah. - And they think about, I wonder why, I feel this way. And then think about, I wonder why they do that. Get to the root, it will help you get to the root. Curiosity helps you get to the root, but it also helps you not assume they're motive. - Yes, because curiosity helps you to be more humble. Because when you just know something, right? Like I know they did that on purpose or they're, like you're just like, you've done something and I'm like thinking, why does he keep on doing that? Like I'm just like set in my thoughts towards you about it. That you've done this, you know, I'm not, when I'm not curious, it really can lead to a more prideful spirit of knowing in your heart why something is happening, right? But when you get curious and you start asking questions and you're like, then it is leading you toward humility. - I like it. And I just, I'm gonna end with this. This is so funny, Tora and I are coming back from South Carolina. We pull into publics. Our son, Jake, was with us. We had him staying in a separate room with his cousin, Chase. They hadn't seen each other in a while, so we just brought him along. And we were gonna get him a public sub. We were gonna get a public sub. And we go through, do a little grocery shopping. I've got this fruit. And this really, really old lady was the checkout lady. And she said, wow, you really love your fruit, don't you? And I'm like, oh yes, ma'am, I do. And she said, now you make sure you wash it. You heard about that virus going around. And then she looks around her right and her left. Like she's gonna tell me a secret. And she's like, it'll give you the dire ears for years. (laughing) She really said it just like that. And I'm like, I love Southern people. I love a good Southern red neck. Gives you the dire ears. You know, I should have told her, I've already got that. I was just in the public's bathroom dealing with that. (laughing) - You're like, that's why I'm in here. - That's why I'm here. But thank you. Shoot, should have thought about washing the fruit. (laughing) Don't you want to? That's how I ended it, Tor. Maybe you should end it a little bit better. - Oh gosh, let's end with getting curious and not furious. - There you go. All right, let's do that. And hopefully if Tori and I can get over this, we'll lay down another podcast in the next few weeks. But thanks for hanging with us, get curious. - See you guys. - Peace. (upbeat music)