Growing Your Relationship Through Every Season of Life (Part 2 of 2)

Focus on the Family with Jim Daly

Focus on the Family hosts Jim Daly and John Fuller welcome counselor Debra Fileta to explore the four natural seasons of relationships: spring, summer, fall,

Key takeaways

• Debra Fileta redefines compatibility as a learned skill to navigate differences rather than a measure of shared similarities.
• Conflict during the fall season is presented as an unavoidable and necessary pathway to deeper intimacy.

Main topics

• relationship seasons
• marital conflict

Notable quotes

"Compatibility is actually a skill. It's an ability to be able to learn from you."

Conclusion

The episode equips listeners with a practical, faith-centered model fo

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:06) And so if you're in a season of winter, don't lose heart and think about, oh my goodness, how are we going to navigate back through fall and through summer? And is it even possible to get through spring? Winter is the season of doing the work so that spring can come again. Speaker 3 (0:23) That's Deborah Folletta describing ways you can navigate the inevitable ups and downs of marriage and relationships. Welcome back to Focus on the Family Speaker 4 (0:32) with Jim Daly. I'm John Fuller. You know, John, last time we covered the different seasons of relationship. Actually, we covered two. We're Speaker 3 (0:39) going Speaker 4 (0:39) to cover the other two today, but spring and summer. And it was such a wonderful insight into how to frame our relationships, whether it's marital or parenting or friend group or... those acquaintances at church you might know. It's just a really good way to see how God has created us. You know, it says in the Word that God created us for a relationship. It's probably one of the most unnoticed things that we need to concentrate on. I think we concentrate on salvation in Christ and how to live a Spirit-led life. Those are tremendous and important, critically important. But He also built us for a relationship. What about that Scripture that says, think more highly of others than yourself? The golden rule. Wow. Are we applying things there? I think we need to. And Deborah does a wonderful job at helping us better understand it. And she shared from her newest Speaker 3 (1:32) book called Relationship Skills, The Four Seasons That Will Make or Break Your Love Life. We have copies of that here at the ministry. Stop by our website to learn more. And of course, if you missed the previous show, don't fret. We have audio copies here. You can contact us. Download our app and have the programs on the go. And we're also on YouTube. Speaker 4 (1:54) Debra, welcome back. It's so good to have you. Speaker 2 (1:56) Always good to be with you. You know, it's Speaker 4 (1:58) so fun. And I mean this for the listeners and the viewers. You just bring... Power-packed information for us. We can all learn so much from what you've written and what the Lord has shown you. So thank you for that. Well, Speaker 2 (2:12) thank you. Speaker 4 (2:12) It's diligence. I mean, you have to put time into it. Writing a book is not easy for those that haven't done it. I mean, it is time-consuming and you want to be thoughtful. So thank you for that effort. Speaker 2 (2:23) Well, it is a privilege. Speaker 4 (2:24) Yeah, it is really good. We left off, like I said, we covered spring and that infatuation stage and then the hot heat of summer. And you mentioned at the end of the program last time just how you're exposing yourself more in every way in that summer heat, you know, emotionally, physically, et cetera, especially in the context of marriage, obviously. Let's move into fall. Let's get those out of the way, and then we'll come back and cover some more ground. But what is fall about? I Speaker 2 (2:55) always say that in fall, you start seeing things in HD. All of a sudden, Speaker 4 (3:00) the Speaker 2 (3:01) rose-colored glasses are gone, and now I'm seeing everything in high definition. Can Speaker 4 (3:06) I give an example just to help? Because in my own life, I love, I joke pretty constantly. And I think my fall awareness was... Jean going, yeah, you're not as funny right now. She Speaker 2 (3:17) used to laugh at Speaker 3 (3:18) your Speaker 2 (3:18) jokes. She used to laugh at everything I said. All Speaker 4 (3:20) right, Speaker 2 (3:20) Jim. But that's an example where anything, Speaker 4 (3:23) too much of anything. Is fall. Speaker 2 (3:26) Yeah. And we're seeing things through a different filter now. We're seeing things in the details, in the fine details. And sometimes actually we can see too much to the point where everything our partner does and even the things that used to draw us to them are now irritating and annoying. And now we're struggling with some of those differences. A big thing that I talk about through the season of fall. is compatibility. Speaker 1 (3:54) And Speaker 2 (3:54) all of a sudden, all of your differences are clear. Maybe in spring and in summer, you were focused more on your similarities. And now your differences feel really intense and extreme, and you can have a hard time navigating the season of fall. This is why a lot of people say, well, maybe I married the wrong person in that season of fall when all those struggles start to come up to the surface. Speaker 4 (4:18) Right. It moves into intolerability, which is very interesting. I think that's where the enemy and our own flesh begins to plant those seeds of doubt, like you said. And I think as we've counseled people here at Focus on the Family, the fall seed. is when you start thinking, maybe I need a divorce. Right. Speaker 2 (4:35) A lot of people do struggle. And there's different parts of compatibility and different areas where we can find ourselves butting heads, whether it's personality differences, lifestyle differences, culture differences, education differences. We can list so many different areas that can become sticking points. But one way that I like to think of compatibility is not how much do we have in common. Compatibility is more our ability to come together in our differences. Speaker 3 (5:06) It's Speaker 2 (5:07) an ability. Compatibility is actually a skill. It's an ability to be able to learn from you. And to be able to come together in the areas that we are different, whether it's our financial perspective, whether it's our personality, and learning to see the other person as an asset, as a blessing and a resource rather than a burden. Speaker 4 (5:27) Yeah. So you wrote the book. I'll ask you for an example of how you and John have managed incompatibility. Speaker 2 (5:34) Yeah. Honestly, this is a really clear example in our marriage because even on this conversation of chill to extreme and intense, Intensity. He's more chill. I'm more intense. Like, let's change. Let's do this. Let's grow. Let's, you know, and learning that neither of those sides are in and of themselves good for a marriage. It's like the gas. And the breaks. You can't just go, go, go, go, go without pulling back and stopping. But you can't just always be on break and expect your relationship is going to move forward. And so finding that balance looks like us learning to see the other person's personality traits as an asset, as a blessing. And also, over the years, we've been married for almost 20 years. And I think one of the most, the greatest lessons has been learning. to learn from one another. Me learning to become more chill and laid back. Him learning to become more intentional in our relationship. Learning from each other has really been one of the greatest gifts. Speaker 4 (6:42) You know, Jean and I have talked about that. We both feel like we have melded into