Loving The Fight Marriage Podcast

Episode 175 | It’s Not Wrong, It’s Okay To Be Different

• Travis Rosinger and Dawn Rosinger

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None of us are exactly alike. We all have facets of our personalities, beliefs and behaviors that define who we are and what we value. Because of this, there are so many things that make us different than our spouses and annoy us even though we were attracted to the differences we originally saw in them. Yes, we said “I do” to each other, but we didn’t say “I will” with the intention to become just like the one we married. It’s those differences in marriage, especially in the areas where we may never be the same that can cause friction that leads to conflict. What if married couples took a different perspective on their spouse? What if they chose to react positively to those differences that they see daily in their spouse rather than take a judging or negative approach?

Join hosts, Travis and Dawn Rosinger, as they share funny differences about themselves in their own marriage, differences they see in others, and what changing your approach and how you view uniqueness in your spouse could have a huge positive impact on your own marriage relationship!

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

Dawn Rosinger:

Looking into. Start today off a little bit different with this question. If you only had today what you thank God for yesterday, for what would that be? What would you have today? Starting off with a challenge today, as I welcome you to the Love in the Fight Marriage Podcast, my name is Don and I'm sitting here with my husband, my best friend, my bed buddy, my adventure partner, my traveler partner, travis.

Travis Rosinger:

Yeah, I think that means we share the sheets and the covers right? Yeah, we sure do we do hang out in the same room, but we also hang out in the same house and live the same life together and I'm so grateful for that. Well, hey, everyone glad to have you listening today. We just got back from a week of vacation on the beaches of Florida and we say beaches because I think we went to like literally five or six different beaches and different parts of Florida.

Travis Rosinger:

It was a beach vacation Super, super fun, had a great time. Part of it was because the weather was so good. It was like upper 70s pure sun, no rain. They said it was the driest season.

Dawn Rosinger:

It didn't rain the whole entire week. It was incredible. The temperature is 75 to 80. Like we didn't wear a jacket, you wear shorts every day.

Travis Rosinger:

Shorts. That's weird. Weird for us in Minnesota, because today or yesterday it was 19 degrees, so super, super cold and Don we got a chance to go over and spend time with your brother. So we were on the Atlantic Ocean and we took a day and drove two hours to the Gulf of Mexico.

Dawn Rosinger:

Yeah, went through the Everglades and got to hang out with my brother and my sister-in-law, had some great lunch and we just had coffee for a couple hours just really catching up and hanging out.

Travis Rosinger:

Oh man on a place called Marco Island.

Dawn Rosinger:

It was paradise.

Travis Rosinger:

Eating on the water and then drinking Starbucks sitting outside. It was so warm and so good. But part of why we loved our vacation and part of why we love pretty much all of our vacations, is because we work out every day and get lots of steps. Our goal is to always hit over 20,000 steps. Yeah, over 10 miles, basically, yeah and with a legit workout in there as well, whether it's lifting weights or running three to five miles.

Dawn Rosinger:

But yeah, so that's Well there's kind of a reason that we do that.

Travis Rosinger:

There is.

Dawn Rosinger:

Because when you're on vacation maybe like everybody, I'm assuming you eat a little bit extra calories, like French fries and chocolate and ice cream and just some stuff that you wouldn't normally eat, or three pretty full meals, versus maybe not three full meals on a typical day in a typical week.

Travis Rosinger:

Yeah. So what you're saying is, the reason is sinful.

Dawn Rosinger:

Yes, we want to be able to eat more.

Travis Rosinger:

We kind of go off the food wagon when we're on vacation but why not, you're on vacation, you're having a great time and there's awesome food all around. And again, one of the beaches that we went to or should I say a portion of Florida, but certainly they got beaches there, but we went to the Florida Keys, specifically Key Largo, and then we went past it and is La Morbada I don't even know how to say the name of it's like four islands altogether.

Dawn Rosinger:

Robbies is right, robbies, yes. Restaurant where you can do something very interesting.

Travis Rosinger:

Very not safe no, not at all Very, maybe stupid on my part.

Dawn Rosinger:

And you pay to do this.

Travis Rosinger:

Everybody was doing it. So I was like, hey, why not? I'll give it a try. So we paid 10 bucks for a bucket of fish and we were able to feed some of the biggest fish we have ever seen in our lives. You just stick your hand down through a net in the middle of a dock and there are what Like a hundred fish in there, but they're big.

Dawn Rosinger:

They're like 80 pound fish Long yeah.

Travis Rosinger:

With like huge teeth.

Dawn Rosinger:

And they're called tarpons right.

Travis Rosinger:

Yeah, they look like they can bite your finger off and so you're dangling this. They're teeth. They actually show people.

Dawn Rosinger:

when I asked the gentleman and Mike so do people get baked? He goes yeah, sometimes people bleed and like, oh, we're paying to do this.

Travis Rosinger:

Yeah, sometimes there's blood, let there be blood. You were a little bit braver than I was.

Dawn Rosinger:

I know you went first, put your hand down there. And the fish? You can see them and they're just staring at you holding this fish.

Travis Rosinger:

They are.

Dawn Rosinger:

Just for the exact moment and they jump out of the water and they grabbed the fish out of your hand.

Travis Rosinger:

It's crazy and I was like you were holding your fish over the big fish and I was like Don, it looks like he's about to, and then you just jump and I dropped the fish.

Dawn Rosinger:

I was so bummed because he was about to hit you know, take the fish out of my hand, but you scared me. I dropped the fish. But when you were doing it there was actually what type of bird was attacking you.

Travis Rosinger:

Yes, a pelican came up from behind. Have a picture. Started to pack me a one, the fish. Oh my gosh, that was funny. Anyway, such a good week, super fun.

Dawn Rosinger:

You know, one thing that we do, though, while we were gone. Honestly, what I kind of do every time we go on vacation is I pay attention to everything that's around us. I love adventure, I love exploring and people watching People absolutely fascinating.

Travis Rosinger:

That's a lot of fun. There's a lot of us different, unique, unusual people on the planet, including us.

Dawn Rosinger:

Yeah we're from Minnesota, so everyone else in the United States. They do different things than we do. But I realized really quick that we really all do different things, not wrong, but honestly extremely different, Different.

Dawn Rosinger:

The way that we do things. I know we noticed a ton of people. They were walking with strollers like, oh, I love babies, I love kids, oh yeah, and it turned out they didn't have babies in these strollers, they were dogs and even a few cats in them. It wasn't just a few people, but there was numerous people that were pushing strollers and dogs and cats were in them so many.

Travis Rosinger:

Apparently they're fur babies that's what they are, because they weren't real babies when we would be all excited. Oh there's this, you know lady with her kids and the stroller, or this grandpa with his grandchild, and nope, nope, it was some big hairy dog, a hairy dog or a cat, you know again, not wrong, but just very different.

Dawn Rosinger:

Right Travis, extremely different, yeah, yeah.

Travis Rosinger:

Yeah, one of the things that we noticed when we were, you know, on our vacation and on the Gulf of Mexico, we were on Marco Island and went to the beach to watch the sunset. And as we got out there were three raccoons right by our car. We didn't notice them right away, but as we got out we were like wait a second, they're right by our car.

Dawn Rosinger:

You were just trying to pay for the parking and it was this big garbage can and these big raccoons.

Travis Rosinger:

Yeah, they were right there on the garbage cans and we had to walk by the garbage cans to get to this dock that take us to the ocean, to the beach.

Dawn Rosinger:

Well, and it wasn't just those garbage cans, there were. Every garbage can had raccoons. It was crazy. Everyone would draw a line like there's raccoons.

Travis Rosinger:

Yeah, we walked to the beach and then came back after the sun was starting to set and there were more, and so we're like how do we get back on this dock? They're just sitting there.

Dawn Rosinger:

And I know, I think raccoons are kind of mean, at least the ones I love here in Minnesota. You don't mess around with a raccoon because they can bite you or they can attack you.

Travis Rosinger:

Yeah, especially if they think that you're going to take their food. Well, when we started coming back, not only had we seen them on the way, but when we started coming back, there were raccoons and we were like making noise and trying to scare them away. And all of a sudden we looked over at a lady who was smiling really big and we were like, hey, there's raccoons here, you better be careful. And she looked back at us and she goes yeah, I know, I just bought them a huge chicken dinner.

Dawn Rosinger:

And she was all excited. We were trying to warn her about these raccoons and she is welcoming them and she's feeding them a chicken dinner. And she was all excited and we're like, OK, wow, what a different perspective.

Travis Rosinger:

Apparently raccoon Uber eats whatever delivers them. You know kind of thing. What do you call it DoorDash? For raccoons and we're just trying to stay alive. We don't want the things to bite us or kill us, or kill us or give us some kind of disease or whatever.

Dawn Rosinger:

But they're crazy Again. Just, we were looking at the exact same thing, the exact same raccoons, but just two very different perspectives. Right, so not necessarily wrong, but just different.

Travis Rosinger:

She loved them, thought they were maybe really great pets or something. We thought they were dangerous.

Dawn Rosinger:

I wonder if she probably pushes her on her dog and a stroller.

Travis Rosinger:

I think she does Not that that's a bad thing. If you do that, you're listening. Hey, more power to you.

Dawn Rosinger:

There's some dogs that probably have to be in strollers.

Travis Rosinger:

Yes, yeah, maybe if they have heart problems or hip problems or something.

Dawn Rosinger:

So we're not bashing the people If you're doing that. No, it's just when you're expecting a baby.

Travis Rosinger:

Please don't put your great dane though. Yeah, and a stroller, that could look a little weird.

Dawn Rosinger:

Well, you know what I think for us personally, we did a lot of things differently on our trip, like one thing that you guys need to know about Travis is when we go on a trip, he has this pursuit of the rental car company.

Travis Rosinger:

Yes.

Dawn Rosinger:

You know what? He instantly becomes like a marathon runner. When we landed the airport and we have to get our rental car, he wants to be the first one in line. So if you sit next to him on the tram or the shuttle man, you better be careful, because he is just out that door, grabs his language and speed, walks to the car rental. And hear me me, I'm on vacation. I run a very you know we're very busy people, but when I'm on vacation I'm literally on vacation. So I want to walk. I'm absolutely in no hurry. I'm in a hurry the rest of my life. I don't want to be in hurry on vacation, but, man, you travel as well.

Dawn Rosinger:

Look out like here comes Travis. He goes and he gets in, he becomes the first person in line to get that rental car.

Travis Rosinger:

I usually wait by the bus door, the tram door and not sit down, and then I just book it. I'm like I'll see you in an hour, yep, and I go get the car and it works. But if we don't book it and we just kind of stroll along like everybody else, it ends up being three hours to get a rental car.

Dawn Rosinger:

Yeah, not wrong, just different, right we are different.

Travis Rosinger:

Yes, well, I know too, when we were walking on the beach or working out, don, you're somebody who is so different than me, like I can get to 5.95 miles and be done, because, well, I hit my time limit or whatever.

Dawn Rosinger:

But why be done at 5.95?

Travis Rosinger:

Right, you're a numbers person. It blows up your brain to quit early. According to you, it's not early to me.

Dawn Rosinger:

Well, it's an odd number. You can't end on an odd number. Yeah, Like can you. How can you end on an odd number?

Travis Rosinger:

You can end on an even number or an odd number, I don't think it matters. But you think there's rules and so there could be a little friction there. Sometimes I'm like, hey, keep going if you want, but I'm done at 5.95 miles.

Dawn Rosinger:

But you know our watch, you have distances, you have calories, you have time. I just which one do you pick? They just can't be odd numbers.

Travis Rosinger:

Yeah, so not wrong. We're just very different in terms of it's not the different that I want. Your different is the different that you want. Man and we just got home, just landed in our plane just a few minutes ago I think it was maybe an hour and a half ago, 90 minutes ago and we're so different on airplanes. Don you think you're going to die when you take off in an airplane? You?

Dawn Rosinger:

think the tail is going to scrape on the runway and you're going to crash and burn, and I saw it not that long ago on the news that there was a plane. Yeah, that doesn't happen, by the way.

Travis Rosinger:

That was really weird. But I'm different, because I think that when we go to land, that's when we're going to die. And you're like, well, we're closer to the ground, so we're going to live, and I'm like, no, no, no, they crash land Like that's what happens.

Dawn Rosinger:

Yeah, but we're getting closer to the ground. It's safer it feels like safer than going up.

Travis Rosinger:

Again, the way we think is so different. We're completely different people.

Dawn Rosinger:

Again, yeah, not just wrong, just very different, very different perspectives, very different people, and that's okay. Well, that was just a few things on a vacation that I noticed, but honestly, beyond vacation, every single day we're different. There's certain things that we do. We fold our towels differently and, according to you, like that's the only way to fold the towel.

Travis Rosinger:

Oh yeah, for sure. No, I've got the right plan.

Dawn Rosinger:

I actually refold his towels. Which is sad because my car wanted him to look the same way. You know we drink differently. When you drink, Travis, you take a drink, you drink really, really loud. Yeah, you gulp, you gulp. And when I drink, you can't even hear that I'm drinking.

Travis Rosinger:

Which I wonder if you're enjoying your drink. I'm like if you enjoyed it you'd make noise. You?

Dawn Rosinger:

know we drive very differently. I drive slower than you. I take my time. You actually want me to. You make me have to speed five miles per hour over if I'm driving right. Don't tell anybody that you say you can drive, but you have to go at least five miles over. You're giving away my secrets. Well, you just drive faster and you know when you need to get in. You need to cut into a lane. You just cut in Like you barely use a blinker.

Travis Rosinger:

And I'm just like, I'm like.

Dawn Rosinger:

I'm all patience. I'm like they'll let me in when they want to, and I put my blinker on like a half a mile away Don.

Travis Rosinger:

let's be honest. You get people months notice that you're going to change lanes. I do.

Dawn Rosinger:

I'm a very I'm just a very polite driver. You know we spend our allowance differently. We were Dave Ramsey fans, or still are Dave Ramsey fans, and he talks about allowance. So we started allowance a long, long time ago, something that we've carried, you know, through to this day. But you, you buy energy drinks or kombucha with your you know, with your allowance for I tend to buy clothes or shoes. I save up for something, or save up.

Travis Rosinger:

What a waste of money. Something different, no, you should buy. You should buy the good stuff.

Dawn Rosinger:

Anyways, we just do a lot of things that are not wrong, but they're just different.

Travis Rosinger:

And again. You know I guess I say again, but actually we haven't said this yet. But that's Emerson. Egrics said that once and that really stuck with us Not wrong, just different, and he's an awesome guy and it really helped us to understand wait we're. We're different, and that's okay.

Dawn Rosinger:

Yeah, and honestly, everybody's different.

Travis Rosinger:

just like looking at our vacation, all the different people, the stroller people or the raccoon people, I mean, everyone's just different everyone's different and couples are different in marriages, so sometimes, though, these differences, as you guys can imagine, as we've alluded to, can actually cause a ton of Conflict. You ever find yourself and your spouse just getting in a big fight over something really petty and stupid, one of these differences and, of course, in everyday life, well, even when we're not on vacation, these things can actually be super annoying and we can argue over them. I think they're easier to laugh at and goof around about, don, when we're just coming back from vacation.

Dawn Rosinger:

But when we're stressed out and there's a lot going on cute anymore not not very cute, no.

Travis Rosinger:

So here's what Elizabeth moon once said. She said it's not wrong to be different. Sometimes it is hard, but it's not wrong. Hmm, that's so true I think we need to be reminded of that that there's a reason why we are drawn to each other and we give each other rings and say I do, and it's partly because God brings those differences together so that we can be strong for each other.

Dawn Rosinger:

Yeah, so how do we keep the attitude that things can be not wrong, but just different? So how do we keep that attitude without causing Frustration and bringing in, you know, a lot of conflict into a marriage, which these little things can? Honestly, I think it's a time to kind of step back, but the first thing that we need to do is just don't be so uptight. Maybe your life is just so scheduled and you need to just stop and readjust your life. Dave Merer, the author of days of our wives, puts it this way God has made each one of us to be unique. A great marriage is not when the perfect couple comes together. It is when an imperfect couple learns to enjoy their differences.

Dawn Rosinger:

So just don't be uptight, learn to enjoy the differences that we have that is so good.

Travis Rosinger:

I really think that's important learning to enjoy and really let's just say, celebrate right their differences to go. Don, you're a numbers person. That's important to get to six miles for you. It's not for me, but I love that about you. I celebrate that. I'm not gonna nitpick or or judge you and just just really enjoy those differences and thank God that we're not a bunch of Boring people that are exactly alike.

Dawn Rosinger:

I have to admit, when I'm stressed out, I can be a little bit too uptight, I may. I'll just be the first one to say that you're probably not saying anything because you're like yep, that's true, but I definitely can be a little tight and sometimes I just need to let things go and not let when you guzzle your water.

Travis Rosinger:

I should not bother me. He's gonna be done with whatever he's drinking in two seconds.

Dawn Rosinger:

You know, another way to keep the attitude that things can just not be wrong, they're just different, is to laugh at the differences. We laughed a lot this last week, especially as we were watching people and seeing just crazy things out there. But when we started noticing all the differences again, we just laughed. We turned the stroller thing into a game and we would be like, okay, as a person was walking up with a stroller. We'd be like, okay, is it a dog or is it a baby? You know, we'd have this game.

Dawn Rosinger:

It's, and we thought it was really Hilarious. But when we finished a walker workout and the number wasn't an even number like I wanted to be an even number, I would just do a quick lap around the parking lot while you would just start the car and turn the AC on and watch you look really strange running around the parking lot laughing and joy even at the rental car company. I just started laughing because I'm like there is, he's mr Speedy man, he's off to the rental car after hurts to get our car.

Travis Rosinger:

Hey man, I just let you go there and I'm like, here I'll meet you there later on anyway.

Dawn Rosinger:

So just laugh at the differences. Some things are just really funny and we just needed to not take life so seriously.

Travis Rosinger:

Yeah, and I think what you're talking about down is just appreciating those differences, celebrating them. I mean, I mentioned this earlier, but life would be boring if we were the same, and so it's good that we're different. Maybe you're listening today and you're thinking all there's? There's just this list of eight things that my spouse does or says that Drives me crazy, and I think it's time to just stop and and to just realize that those differences are a good thing. Yep, our differences actually help us out in the long run, because it gives us more options.

Dawn Rosinger:

Yeah, absolutely, because, honestly, if I need to do something, I get to ask you and you're going to do it a completely different way.

Travis Rosinger:

Right, or if I need to go the extra few miles down, or whatever it is feet, you're going to help me. You pull me along sometimes with working out or helping me stay in shape, and so we're different, but then we're committed. Here's what Stephen Covey says about differences. He says strength lies in differences, not in similarities.

Dawn Rosinger:

Wow, they're actually stronger because of the differences we are.

Travis Rosinger:

And so couples that are too similar are missing out, and so what that means is those of us that have those maybe even extreme differences, if we start to celebrate them and see them the way that God sees them, then we can begin to leverage those, as you know, kind of a superpower for us as a couple, and I think, ultimately, we just need to be thankful.

Travis Rosinger:

We need to thank God for those differences in our marriages, between us as husband and wife, and also you need to be thankful that you're not alone. Yeah, there might be things that drive me crazy about the way I go up when I drank down or the way that you run laps around a parking lot because we didn't get to six miles yet, but we're not alone. We get to grow old together, we get to live life together, we're not in isolation, we're not fighting massive loneliness, and so I mean we all know many people who want a spouse but they haven't found one yet. Or we know many people where the spouse has passed away and they are very lonely or living and alone life. And so have you ever just stopped and thank God for your spouse lately? Even though they may drive you nuts at times, I think that's a really good thing. Maybe them driving you nuts is your reminder to be thankful, right.

Dawn Rosinger:

I think that goes back to my original question that I started this episode off. I said you know, if you only had today what you thank God for yesterday, would you have your spouse? Did I thank God for you yesterday?

Travis Rosinger:

That's really good.

Dawn Rosinger:

Because if I didn't, then I wouldn't have you today. So that was just a big circle. Come around like how often do you thank God for your spouse?

Travis Rosinger:

That's really good, because you actually confused me and I didn't fully understand why you were asking that question. But now I do and that's why I'm here today. I'm thanking.

Dawn Rosinger:

God for you yesterday, I'm thanking God for you today, so that I can have you tomorrow Energy drinks and running down rental cars, whatever it is.

Travis Rosinger:

But here's what Ecclesiastes says. It says enjoy life with the wife whom you love. Enjoy life.

Dawn Rosinger:

Enjoy it, yep. With your wife and I think we can put in with the husband whom you love. We can definitely interchange that word wife or husband. And John 1334 says a new commandment I give to you that you love one another. Just if I have loved you, you also are to love one another. So love each other through those differences. Laugh, celebrate each other, Be grateful for each other, but make sure that you're loving one another.

Travis Rosinger:

Yeah, and the book of Thessalonians, the New Testament. It says rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances. This is the will of God and Christ Jesus for you. What is the will of God, man? Rejoice always and thank God in all circumstances. It's pretty clear cut, pretty simple.

Dawn Rosinger:

Let me go back to that original question. If you only had today what you thank God for yesterday, what would that be Again? Are we allowing these differences to come in and cause conflict and frustration, to a point where we're not grateful for our spouse? Or are we letting those differences be strengths and realizing it's actually making us stronger that we're different? Life would be boring if we were the same.

Travis Rosinger:

And again, let's celebrate the differences and thank God that we have someone in our life who is different than us.

Dawn Rosinger:

Well, with that, we want to thank you for listening to this episode of the Love in the Fight Marriage Podcast. Remember, you can do it. You got this. Keep loving the fight. We'll see you next time.