Loving The Fight Marriage Podcast

Episode 173 | The One Conversation You Must Have With Your Spouse Weekly

• Travis Rosinger and Dawn Rosinger

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Is your marriage in need of better communication, the kind that will grow you closer to one another and help your love increase? Communication is one of the biggest foundational pieces of any relationship that allows it to get stronger and flourish. What if there was a marriage communication tool that could take your conversations to the next level and help you understand your spouse in a way that you never thought possible? Well, there is! It’s found in the one conversation you must have with your spouse weekly!

Join host, Travis and Dawn Rosinger, as they share an incredible marriage tool that will help you and your spouse unleash the power of communication in your relationship. By listening to this episode, you just might become addicted to this marriage communication tool and begin to enjoy a much more fulfilling marriage!

Travis and Dawn Rosinger are the Loving The Fight Marriage Podcast Hosts and Authors of the books, Verbalosity - 7 Steps to a Verbally Generous and More Fulfilling Marriage and their newest book, Gripping -  What Matters Most | A Life and Relationships That Hold on to You

For more information about Travis and Dawn Rosinger go to Loving The Fight

Travis Rosinger:

Welcome to the Love and the Fight Marriage Podcast. My name is Travis and I'm here with my wife Dawn.

Dawn Rosinger:

Hey everyone. It's so great to be with you guys today.

Travis Rosinger:

Well, we don't say this often enough, but honestly, guys, we care about you. Yes, we sure do, man, we are so grateful for you and it matters to us that you tuned in and are listening, like for real.

Dawn Rosinger:

Yes, thank you. We love that you have been a part of this journey.

Travis Rosinger:

Yeah, we're amped, and the reason why we do this week in and week out is because we truly want to know that somewhere in the 84 countries that this podcast has been downloaded, in that there is a couple who is growing a strong marriage and in some small way, if we're lucky we played a small role in that. We are fighting for your marriage and we're excited to watch you guys continue to fight for your marriage as well.

Dawn Rosinger:

Well, I love what you said, travis, but I hope there's more than just one couple.

Travis Rosinger:

I need more than one. Hopefully there's hundreds.

Dawn Rosinger:

But honestly, we know that if we are able to help one couple, it's worth our time and what we're doing here just to be with you guys today oh my, it absolutely is.

Travis Rosinger:

And wow to know that there are other people out there that are following Jesus and loving their spouse with everything within them, man, that's a huge win and really rewarding for us.

Dawn Rosinger:

I know. It's just super encouraging to know that there's other people that are fighting for their marriage, just like we are, every single day. So we are in it together. We are a team and we can do this.

Travis Rosinger:

Yeah, yeah, team marriage, absolutely. Well, we've had a good week. It's been kind of fun. We got some new phones, and I'm not saying that to give you the highlight because of the phones themselves. I'm kind of saying that to rib you a little bit, Don.

Dawn Rosinger:

You are. I know where you're going with this, because getting a new phone to me is usually the greatest thing to you. It's great. It's amazing, but to me it's not, and especially this time, because I had to re-log into every single thing. It just took a long time.

Travis Rosinger:

Like a hundred things I forgot. Yeah, that happens.

Dawn Rosinger:

And even an authenticator to get my work email. So many things. I'm like this is just crazy. Is it really worth having a new phone? But honestly, I must admit, this time was a little bit different, because I went from an iPhone 13, mini, mini.

Travis Rosinger:

Well, let me just interrupt the smallest phone on the planet.

Dawn Rosinger:

Well, I wanted to fit in my pocket. It's so small I don't want to carry a massive computer in my back pocket, so I went with the mini for the 13. Well, this one is not the mini, and it's great because my eyesight's probably getting a little bit worse every day, but I can actually read my phone now.

Travis Rosinger:

Yeah, it feels like a tablet, it's huge, well and honestly welcome to the world of normal phones.

Dawn Rosinger:

Hey. I'm sure there's other people out there that thinks that minis are great because they do fit in your pocket.

Travis Rosinger:

Well in Swedish, valkyman, welcome to the world of normal phones, real phones.

Dawn Rosinger:

Well, I don't have to be like everybody else, I'm okay being me. Oh, true, true, yes, no, I do appreciate our new phone.

Travis Rosinger:

I'm glad you're you. I'm attracted to you. Well, last night was kind of fun. We got a chance to go on a date, a delayed date. It was one day after Valentine's.

Travis Rosinger:

Day I can't think I can't talk. But yeah, we went out on a Valentine's Day date a day later and we went out to a really really great meal Not a fancy place, but just really great kind of like pub food. But there was some live music there and that was a big reason why we went. There was a guy there that played guitar one of the better musicians guitarist.

Dawn Rosinger:

He was incredible.

Travis Rosinger:

I think I've ever seen in my life Great singer, but he was doing something unique. He had a music stand and there was like not a brick but like a cement block on his music stand.

Dawn Rosinger:

Yeah, it was just his music book of all of his songs. You guys, I took a picture of it. I had never seen that many papers in one book. It must have been almost a foot tall.

Travis Rosinger:

It had to be.

Dawn Rosinger:

And then he was flipping through it and I'm like how does he even know where to go to find the next song? But he was very talented.

Travis Rosinger:

It was a fun night, so talented.

Dawn Rosinger:

And I'm so glad that we were wise enough to wait an extra day from Valentine's. We had a wonderful week, but it was just honestly one of those extra, extra busy weeks. So we came home on Wednesday night and we're like no, I think we should stay in for the night. We should go out because I'm going to fall asleep. It just wouldn't have been fun.

Travis Rosinger:

I would have been just like a zombie and you didn't fall asleep last night during he had like 40 you know lead guitar solo kind of things on his acoustic guitar and was just killing it and you didn't fall asleep at all.

Travis Rosinger:

So that's that's really good and we're not over exaggerating his songs. I swear he had 500 songs and he'd be playing guitar and then flipping to the next song. Look like thousands of songs. I don't know, it was wild. We had a great time, but just to fill you in a little bit how this has been a pretty good week. Well, hey, the title of this episode is the one conversation you must have with your spouse, and this isn't a part of the title, but we could maybe even add and would regret if you didn't have that conversation with your spouse, and that's kind of a kind of a title that jumps out at us, isn't it, don? Jump out at you.

Dawn Rosinger:

Yeah, hopefully you're like okay, I'm curious, like what is that one conversation that you must I mean, it is true, it's a must have conversation? Well, we all know that communication is one of the most important things in marriage, and if it's not, it really should be. If you don't talk and communicate, share your feelings and update each other on what's happening, you're honestly, your marriage just won't make it very far. Your marriage relationship will. Eventually it will break down, your feelings for one another will wane and you will likely just drift further apart and that would be terrible happen in multiple marriages around us and even in our own marriage.

Dawn Rosinger:

When our communication is on, we're not as close as we know that we could be absolutely. But when we make communication, especially respect in communication, and priority, our relationships will not only flourish but we'll have the potential to become all that we dreamed they could be. It's true, I've. If you really put that time and make sure that you're communicating the right day. Unfortunately, you know, after the wedding day some couples might walk away and just stop talking like a quiet quitting.

Dawn Rosinger:

Right or they're just more silence, like a silent. Hey, I'm gonna just not communicate as much, and so you're quietly quitting Disengaging. Yeah, you know, they may take their foot off a gas pedal, sometimes intentionally out of frustration, and, honestly, sometimes they don't even realize that this is happening. As we just sit and think about reasons that couples might stop talking, I think the first thing that just pops into my mind is just because they're preoccupied.

Dawn Rosinger:

They have so much of the responsibilities of life on their minds that their spouse isn't even fortunate enough to get their mental and verbal Leftovers. I have to admit I feel like the last week or two I kind of felt like that was happening to me. Life Just got so busy at work and with family and just so many things. I I looked at you.

Dawn Rosinger:

I'm like, okay, I think I hit my limit, I hit my lid yeah and I just kind of was living in my own world, but having to make sure no, I can't. We still have to communicate. I still got to make sure that you know everything in life is just present, that's happening and being able to talk through it.

Travis Rosinger:

Yeah, which was hard because you were tapped. You were mentally, you hit a wall.

Dawn Rosinger:

Yeah, I did you know I don't hit a wall very often, but I looked at you one night and I'm like, hey, travis, I really think I'm at my limit. One more thing, if there's one more thing I think I could. Know what that looks like but I just knew we needed to stop.

Dawn Rosinger:

Yeah, yeah, that makes sense another reason or another thing that maybe pops into my mind. That you know couple stop talking is just because they're stuck. There is just so much conflict in the past and they can't figure out how to get unstuck or back the way they were before they spiraled down into the maybe a dark hole of arguments, insults.

Travis Rosinger:

That's so good, so true. Actually, you know just when you, when you think of how things can go in a spiral down, and then they don't come back sometimes you know?

Dawn Rosinger:

another thing that just pops in my mind is just they're afraid to talk. Maybe communication has been used as a weapon in the past, through awful things that have been said and Things that honestly can't be taken back, and fear has corrupt in where you man. You're just kind of walking on eggshells, so you're just afraid to talk. Or Maybe some couples just can't see the point of talking anymore. They're just they don't have a desire to communicate, so they don't say all the things that are necessary to breathe Life in a relationship that is just slowly dying. So they just don't see the point.

Travis Rosinger:

Yeah, and I think you know, it might be too that they don't know how to get the conversation Started. I think sometimes couples want to communicate there. There's just this desire to want to get to know each other better, but there's some kind of invisible wall and so they just don't know what to talk about or what questions to use to kind of get the conversations going. So they might also not have follow-up drill down questions ready to go. So maybe they ask a question and then it all dies after that questions answered.

Dawn Rosinger:

I just look back at my parents marriage when I was younger and I know that there would be conflict and Sometimes they wouldn't talk for like months, like it would be a long time. I was like, wow, like that is a silent treatment and neither of them are gonna say a word. And it was. It was not the greatest thing to experience or be a part of, because it just felt like everything was going to explode but they wouldn't say anything.

Travis Rosinger:

Yeah, yeah, and you love them dearly, we love them dearly, but that was just kind of the reality.

Dawn Rosinger:

Yeah, that was just the environment that I grew up in.

Travis Rosinger:

Yeah, some couples, you know, the husband grunts, the wife throws her hands up, you know, whatever it is, but the communication isn't there. And I think it's important to point out that it's not that couples get married kind of with this belief that they'll one day, you know, give each other the silent treatment. Of course they don't do that, it's that they slowly drift, you know that way over time drift apart, and it's simple, right? I mean, all you need to do to fix it is just talk, just share what's going on and how you feel. Of course, like we just discussed, that is not reality in many cases. So how do you get talking Like, how, as a couple, as a married couple, do you get that communication flowing both directions?

Dawn Rosinger:

Keep it flowing. You don't want to just do it once Like continually keep it flowing.

Travis Rosinger:

Yeah, where it's just bubbling out over and over again, kind of like a well that's springing up out of the water. Well, sometimes you have to just start simple and sometimes you've got to just say we're not going to talk about problems with our marriage or stressful things in our lives or money or any other thing that's bothering us right now. Sometimes a couple just needs to go on a date or a trip with a plan of really just deepening their understanding of their husband or their wife and of who that person is as an individual, and so we want to, as a couple, fighting alongside of you guys.

Travis Rosinger:

we want to give you one little communication tool that we think, if you use it often, it might just get your communication moving in a way that could really change how you think and how you talk to each other, forever possibly. So what is that tool? What is it?

Dawn Rosinger:

Let me do the drum roll right, we need one.

Travis Rosinger:

What is the tool?

Dawn Rosinger:

Because communication is a big topic and we need communication.

Travis Rosinger:

Oh my gosh. We feel like this is a good tool to have, yeah it's a good one.

Travis Rosinger:

Well, here it is, guys. We want you to take time with your spouse, away from all of the craziness of life, and, once a week, ask the question what matters most to you? That's it, what matters most to you. You see, this is such an important question because in the busyness of life, how often are we looking eyeball to eyeball into our spouse's face and saying, hey, you know, with your hand on their knee or your hand on their shoulder, and saying, hey, what matters most to you? And here's the good part After you've listened and heard what's really on their heart and on their mind and what matters most to them, then it's important to ask a drill down question. That is just a part of this tool and that is what matters most to you right now.

Dawn Rosinger:

Yeah, like right now, like for this next coming week, like now Exactly.

Travis Rosinger:

Or even just in this day. So I mean, think about it there's a big difference to what matters to a person most in life and then what matters to a person most right now right, yeah.

Dawn Rosinger:

Like what they're dealing with right now and we actually tried this, you guys, we did this is something that we don't just think, hey, let's have you guys try it. No, we tried it, and so we were on a date recently in Travis. That's exactly what you did. I didn't know where this was leading, and then obviously the podcast came out of this. I popped the question.

Travis Rosinger:

Yes, this question.

Dawn Rosinger:

Yes, you did, you were like, hey, don, what matters most to me? So I was just honest with you and I'm like, obviously God matters most to me, my family matters most to me, my friends like I love them, they matter most to me my job and then ultimately, just making sure that I'm a productive member of society and trying to make a difference in the world. So those are just some big things that matter most and I'm like, oh cool, I answered my question. I gave you a few other things to do at a big, large scale.

Travis Rosinger:

You did great yeah.

Dawn Rosinger:

But then you just stopped and you asked me. You said well, but what matters most now?

Travis Rosinger:

Now, yeah, at this moment and I was really pleasantly surprised, just some of the things then, all of a sudden, and I kind of compared it to you know the question what matters most is like a whole pizza, right?

Dawn Rosinger:

Right, yeah.

Travis Rosinger:

But then when I say, well, what matters most to you right now, like in life this week, and then it's like taking a piece of that pizza and now I'm holding it in my hands it's up close. I'm not overwhelmed by the whole thing and you began to give me things down and then I was like whoa, now I'm suddenly very in tune with your mind, your heart, the stress, the responsibility or even the things that you care most about in your life at this moment.

Dawn Rosinger:

Right, it's cool that you asked me what matters most first, because it just helped me just stop and just re-center my thoughts in that moment. What does matter most? It was like a great macro level, right. And I was like man, I know this matters the most. So when you ask them, you know on the micro level what matters most. Now I was able to take what matters most but look through a different lens and it was great and I was able to give you just completely different answers.

Travis Rosinger:

Yeah, when I asked that question first, your answer initially was like big black things, like God, family, friends, my job, you know, making sure I'm not wasting my life away, things like that. But then when I asked you, don you know what matters most right now, like this week, then I heard from you a completely different set of specific things, like spending time with family, and you were talking about those family members or getting rest. We talked about hitting the wall or, you know, having that break. We're going on vacation next week and just in the midst of a busy week of lots of work you're planning out a funeral for somebody. And you know you just shared things about relationally, about hanging out with our friends or a small group or again, just that getting away and hearing those things were so important for me and really it made our time together so special. It was very bonding.

Dawn Rosinger:

Yep, honestly, when you switched it to what matters most to you now, it was just totally different answers and it helped me really look at you and go wow, you're actually listening to what I'm saying, you're caring, you're hearing, and so now you know what's pressing in this moment. And now our actions, your actions. From here on out, you'll understand where I am at.

Travis Rosinger:

Yeah, this is a powerful question that really you can leverage it and it does a lot of work within side of a human heart but within a relationship.

Dawn Rosinger:

So why is this a must ask question? Well, we want to reveal the secret sauce behind this question, and I think it's this. It will show that you respect your spouse and what they really care about. Your relationship will automatically. It just goes to a deeper level. The minute you asked me that and stopped, and I knew that you were listening I just went a little bit deeper and let you know how I truly felt. You know you'll experience a greater intimacy when you know what really matters most to your spouse, cause then you put you guys on the same page. It increases your listening skills, cause I would have been really frustrated if you would ask me more of a deeper question and not taking the time to just stop in. You know, listen to me when you make it a habit of just asking this question often, you will become a much better listener, because it's going to give you answers for your next week, for both of you, on both sides.

Travis Rosinger:

Yeah, why is this a must-ask question? That's kind of hard to say must-ask, but really too it's. You're going to discover things that you didn't realize mattered to your spouse. In fact, you're likely to uncover their values. And why is that important? Because values are so neat, to know pieces in their lives and you realize what's important to them. And then you can talk about them and you can even write them down or remember them and keep bringing them up to your spouse.

Travis Rosinger:

And again, that just provides that deep connection Jesus said. He said ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be open to you, for everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and the one who knocks it's open to them. And we know Jesus is talking about prayer and our relationship with our Heavenly Father and him. But this is actually a great communication verse and a chunk of wisdom.

Travis Rosinger:

Jesus is like hey, you ask a question, you're going to get an answer.

Travis Rosinger:

And that's really what we're trying to say is, you know, this is a must-ask question, where you ask and you're really wanting to hear the heart behind what's going on in your spouse. And so when you do that, why does it work and why is it a must-ask question? Because it will satisfy a curiosity that you already have about your spouse. I mean, after all, you're the one that married them, you fell in love with them and the whole idea was to spend a lifetime together getting to know each other, and so you want to know these answers about your spouse that they're about to give you after you ask that question and you likely just don't know how to get them from them. But by using this question, hey, what matters most to you Right now? Right now, I think those are just super, super important, and the effect is this it's going to blow up your communication in the best way possible. I mean, they're going to likely ask you that back, which will get two-way communication going, and that's what every couple, every relationship needs.

Dawn Rosinger:

You know, ultimately, I think it's going to diffuse a thing called narrative fallacy. You know, we think we know why our spouse does something or maybe acts a certain way. So then we create stories, you know, or that go along with these assumptions that we have created. You know, asking this question shatters those assumptions. It doesn't help you have this false narrative, it gives you the truth. So then you don't just play into like something that's false.

Dawn Rosinger:

That's not a reality. I appreciate what Roy Bennett said. He says this listen with curiosity, speak with honesty, act with integrity. The greatest problem with communication is we don't listen to understand. We listen to reply. When we listen with curiosity, we don't listen with the intent to reply. We listen for what's behind the words.

Travis Rosinger:

That is an incredible quote.

Dawn Rosinger:

I love that it's so true. You want to make sure that you're listening with curiosity.

Travis Rosinger:

Yeah, I like that part, listening with curiosity, because, man, that just really starts to like I don't care what I'm going to say next, don, I'm just dying to know what is in your heart, and that's what's so powerful about that question.

Dawn Rosinger:

And that question honestly, it truly applies to almost every topic. What matters most to you with family? What matters most to you with sex? What matters most to you with having fun and what you want to do for hobbies. What matters most.

Travis Rosinger:

And that's part of why this is such a great communication tool, because we want you to use this what matters most overall, what matters most today or this week. But, like you just said, Don, when it's applied you can do that for anything. What matters most to you, at work right now or with your family man, it just opens a world of possibilities.

Dawn Rosinger:

I think it will ultimately make your spouse just really feel significant, because someone they love is taking the time to find out what matters. Most of them not only taking the time to find out what matters, but actually listening.

Travis Rosinger:

Yeah, that's so good, and it's also going to inform you how to pray for them, and this might be the most important part. Why? Because praying specific prayers for your spouse is so important. Prayer changes things and prayer changes the person that prays them. And so when I pray for you, don those specific things that you've given me, man, god's going to begin to move and do things in your life, but he's also going to change my heart, like I'm not going to be as cranky towards you or as frustrated or whatever it is, because I know you better, but I'm also lifting you to God in prayer.

Dawn Rosinger:

And I can tell, because oftentimes if I tell you something of what really matters most or what I need right now, then the moment all I will get a text from you later on, typically that says that you're praying for me and you'll list out those specific areas that I need prayer for. And it's man. That's just encouraging knowing that you're fighting with me or you're my cheerleader and I'm going to make it through.

Travis Rosinger:

Yeah, and Proverbs 18, 17 says the one who states his case first seems right until the other comes and examines him, and the context is the court of law, when you get two different people that are talking and trying to draw that out. But that's really again. This is another verse about communication, how communication can be very one-sided and it takes sometimes another person to bring it up and draw that out, and so I think that we don't know the whole story until we get communication flowing two ways from me to you, don, and Don from you to me. All right, guys, your assignment is to go on a special date, go on a trip or put the kids to bed early, stay home, light some candles, have a little meal that you made and ask this question what matters most to you? Then follow up with the questions what matters most to you right now?

Dawn Rosinger:

And the key to this is just being honest. When you are asked those questions, take the time and just be honest and say this is what matters most to me right now. It's going to be different next week. It's going to be different. The following but what matters most to you right now?

Travis Rosinger:

Yeah, and feel free to apply that to many other different topics. Well, hey guys, we want to thank you for listening to this episode of the Love in the Fight Marriage Podcast.

Dawn Rosinger:

Remember, you can do it. You got this. Keep loving the fight, We'll see you next time.