387 | The Ripple Effect of Fatherhood, Saying "I'm Sorry," and Going Upstream in Conflict (Ken Sande PART 1)
Episode Description
What if the reason marriages grow cold after the honeymoon year isn't about compatibility, but about something dads never learned to model? In this episode, Ken Sande reveals how emotionally stunted men are created when fathers never show their kids how to say "I'm sorry" or "I need help." You'll discover the Seven A's of confession that can break generational patterns and the upstream approach to preventing conflict before it starts. Plus, Ken shares practical tools for managing your emotions in the heat of the moment—including the six-second technique that can save your tongue from doing damage.
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Ken Sande founded Peacemaker Ministries and Relational Wisdom 360, organizations focused on conflict resolution and relationship skills. After 30 years of mediating conflicts—including over 600 divorce cases with more than half reconciling—Ken shifted focus to go "upstream" and help people prevent conflict through biblical emotional intelligence. He's the author of multiple books on peacemaking and relational wisdom, and lives in Billings, Montana, where he enjoys hiking and backpacking with his family and grandchildren.
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Your kids are watching you handle conflict about 10 times more than you realize, and they're learning whether real men apologize or stay stoic.
The ripple effects of one dad's choices to change can impact generations—possibly even world leaders who haven't been born yet.
Learning the Seven A's of confession can help you model healthy conflict resolution instead of passing down patterns of emotional stuntedness.
Going "upstream" by building relational wisdom prevents conflicts before they start, rather than just putting out fires after they happen.
Your royal identity as a child of God, priest, and ambassador should shape how you approach every family interaction.
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Learn about the next DadAwesome Accelerator Cohort
Subscribe to DadAwesome Messages: Text the word "Dad" to (651) 370-8618
Discovering Relational Wisdom Course (RW360.org)
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Today on Dad Awesome, I have Ken Sande joining me from, where are you at in Montana, Ken? Yes, we came through with the RV. We traveled with the ministry with my four little girls and my wife through that area. And I've actually heard you describe it as something about like the gateway to heaven or something. What do you, how do you describe it?
Ken Sande (00:44) The Lanes, Montana, big sky country. Yeah, gateway to heaven, that's right, you bet.
Jeff Zaugg (01:02) It is beautiful. I was curious as just a fun starting question about Montana about maybe it's an adventure you've had or something you enjoy doing in the wilderness and the mountains. Any fatherhood principles you feel like you could pull from a mountain, a river, an adventure, an animal, any fatherhood principles jump into your heart from the country, the landscape of Montana?
Ken Sande (01:26) Well, just getting into the outdoors. I mean, both, you with my kids when they were little, we did backpacking, I mean, hiking all the time. The thing I love about that, we didn't have any money back in those days, but you've just got enough to put some gas in your tank and, you know, pack a brown bag lunch and head to the mountains. And then more recently, my grandchildren, just giving them a love for creation. And the whole time we're there, just trying to draw attention to the fact of the Creator who made this beautiful place. And of course, kids love...
They just love being in the mountains. It's just being out there. I remember my son especially, like most little boys, just loved throwing rocks in any water. It was a puddle on the trail or a stream or a lake, and we'd be walking up the trail. And he just wanted to be prepared if any unsuspecting water suddenly appeared. So he would not only have an armful of rocks himself, but he would load us up with rocks as well. So we're ready with lots of ammunition. I will never forget that. It was just a great joy.
Jeff Zaugg (02:25) That's amazing. We can all picture this, a rock, especially a calm, a mountains, a pool of water, a little pond, and the ripples, right? I have heard you share about this ripple principle and the ripples that we just, we don't know whether it's a moment of reconciliation, whether it's a moment of deciding to press back into something that's hard versus giving up, a moment of being the peacemaker versus letting someone else go first. Would you just share about the principle of the ripples that we may never know and how it affects the dads?
Ken Sande (02:33) Mm-hmm. Yep.
Ken Sande (02:57) Yeah, yeah, I've shared quite often just one of my fantasies about heaven and I know it'll be infinitely greater than this, but this is just my little teeny under, you know, imagination is that we get to heaven and there may be a room with a computer. Now that's not my wife's, my wife's definition of heaven is there is no technology whatsoever. But imagine you can sit down at a computer, type in something like podcast with Dad Awesome on April 29th, and at the top of the keyboard there's one button that says Ripples. And you touch that button and suddenly across the screen, super fast, but now we have a supernatural ability to process. Just see, you know, one dad listens to this.
One dad decides to change his workaholism and spend more time with his kids. And because of that, his daughter grows up and has a vision for what a really godly father and husband is, changes the course of her life instead of just going after some hunk. She really looks for someone of character. She marries that man, has this child. That child goes on, I don't know, be president of the United States.
You know, change the world. And we could sit there and you just think, the things. And of course, you want to look at the main rep, we'll go clear back to Abraham. Here's one man, one woman, and their children are like the stars in the skies. And so I just think we will never know in this life and possibly God will bless us. But I would just sit at that computer just going.
Wow, wow, my goodness, little insignificant things in this life that turn out to be incredibly decisive junctures in effect in lots of other people.
Jeff Zaugg (03:17) No screens. Yeah.
Jeff Zaugg (04:43) Wow, that ties with the concept of people are watching. And when we press in with courage, when we seek, again, forgiveness or healing, like often more people are watching than we're aware. We have these little eyes that certainly are watching. If we're dads with little kids, I know that you like to people watch. So you're one of the people watching that a lot of people don't even know about because you're picking up on eyes and nonverbals. And would you just share about the concept of people watching for one, then secondly, this idea that more people are watching us as dads.
Ken Sande (05:16) Yeah, I always tell people that when you're in a conflict, there's about 10 times more people watching you than you realize. In your home, at your spouse, your kids, at church, in the workplace. We think it's just between me and the other guy, but actually we are teaching. And I've done about 600 divorce mediations, Jeff, and by God's grace, over half of those reconciled. We always try to turn them back from the cliff. But in case after case, what I've heard, especially from men, is they never saw their father say he was wrong or I'm sorry. And if we don't model the humility of confession and repentance to our children, don't be surprised, they get married someday, have a passionate first year, and then after that, their marriage just grows cold because they can't say I was wrong, I'm sorry, or I need help.
And their sons watch that. They say, well, a real man never says he's sorry, never asks for help, he's stoic. And it just passes from generation to generation what I call emotionally stunted men. So for us to see that we can do those things and even cry in a movie. Show emotion, show what, we're emotional creatures by God's design. Our kids need to see those things in us and as the old saying goes, people learn much more from watching us than just receiving a lecture from us.
Jeff Zaugg (06:38) And that should fuel courage to be humble, courage to press in that we want to, you know, I talk about fight or flight. It's so easy as dad to kind of flee a hard conversation or flee and play it safe and get quiet. Let's go into one of the tools. We're going to talk about a lot of tools today that you've created to help us dads. Or maybe you didn't create exclusively for dads, we're leveraging them to dads today. The seven A's of confession. Because you said, you know, a dad who doesn't say, I'm sorry. But that's one of the many tools. Could you walk us through those seven A's?
Ken Sande (07:08) You
Ken Sande (07:12) Yeah, first of all, you know, we teach this a lot in our peacemaking course, the 7A's. I always want to say don't turn this into a pharisaical checklist because I've tried to do that perfect 7A confession to my wife and she looks at me and says, that sounded pretty mechanical to me. My wife would rather hear a sincere, honey, I am so sorry. Tone of voice is more important actually than the words themselves. Having said that, you know, when I'm dealing, for example, with a family, a marriage has had serious conflict, maybe there's been adultery or something, you don't begin a healing process in those situations. But yeah, I'm sorry, I'll try not to do that again. That ain't gonna hack it. So anyway, what you really need to think about when you are gonna give a confession is these are elements to think about including.
Number one, address everyone involved. If it's just you and your wife, you go to your wife. If you lost your temper in front of your four daughters, guess what? You need to confess to them also for the poor example you set for them and the way you mistreated your wife. So let's address everyone involved.
Avoid if, but, and maybe as a second A. We love to find words to minimize our guilt. If I made you mad, then I'm sorry. Well, that's not even a confession. That's basically saying, I can see you're ticked off about something and until you get a confession, you're gonna make life miserable, so I'll give you this token statement to get you off my back. That doesn't do it. So avoid if, but maybe those are all things that minimize our responsibility.
Admit specifically both the heart condition, you know, James 4:1 says, what causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your passions or your desires that were within you? Anger, bitterness, jealousy, envy, self-pity, those are things you have to get down to the root if you're gonna really solve the outward behavior problems. And then also, admit the action, the words you spoke, the tone of voice, anything you've done like that.
Acknowledge the hurt. Recognize the emotional impact you had on the other person. This is not just a technical confession, but just saying, honey, I'm so sorry that I hurt you so deeply, embarrassed you, that I worried you. I can see why that was so upsetting. That's really a key in many relationships is acknowledging those emotions.
Accept the consequences, the biblical concept of restitution. I remember when my son Jeff was young and he turned every stick in the world into a sword, and he came in the house one day with his sword, his stick waving it around, and of course, bam, hits the figurine that I gave to my wife when we were engaged. And I was angry and I didn't strike him, but I spoke to him with a very harsh voice and I was, because it was irreplaceable. And I raised my voice, spoke to him harshly, and then I just realized I was not in control and I said, ugh, I just said, I need to go and pray. So I went into my study, I was just sitting there trying to calm down. About one minute later, this little eight-year-old boy walks in, opens his hands on the desk, and out comes all these nickels and pennies and dimes and quarters. He said, Daddy, that's all the money in my piggy bank, and if it's not enough to buy a new one, I'll get a job.
Do you think I forgave him? I mean, there is evidence of heartfelt repentance. He wanted to repair the damage.
Alter your behavior is you say, you know, next time with God's help, this is the way I want to do it differently and I'll try and I want you to hold me accountable for it.
And then finally is to ask for forgiveness. Will you forgive me? And in many ways, that's often the hardest one for me because at that point I lose control. When I say, will you forgive me? Now that I've passed the ball to the other person and there's sort of a, if I was gonna rewrite the peacemaker today, I'd probably have eight A's because there's an implicit eighth A which is allow time.
If you've really hurt another person deeply, whether it's a child, your spouse, or someone else, you can't expect them to just immediately respond. I don't care how good your confession is, we need to process the emotions. So, you know, I might just say to my wife, you know, honey, I know that hurt you deeply, and I know you need some time to pray and process it, but I just really hope you'll be able to forgive me, you know, eventually. If there's anything I can do to make that easier for you, please let me know. I truly want to be reconciled.
And again, tone of voice is key in all of that. Now, my wife has actually written a children's curriculum called the 5As, and she's simplified it down. She's got a great little rhyme that goes with it. And I would just encourage dads, if you want to really bless your kids when they're still young, is get that children's curriculum and walk your kids through it. We went through it several times, the family just trying to ingrain these peacemaking principles at a very young age.
Jeff Zaugg (10:29) Yeah.
Jeff Zaugg (12:03) Yes, it's for sure that we'll link that curriculum. And I actually headed my notes here. It's the Young Peacemaker. Is that correct? That's what it's called?
Ken Sande (12:05) Mm-hmm. That's correct. Yeah. Yeah.
Jeff Zaugg (12:11) Yes, okay. So we'll link to that. I'm realizing I want to pan out for a moment and just as a note to all the dads listening, the acrostics will share these eight A's we just shared. These are all going to be listed on the episode web page along with all the show notes. So you're going to have all these tools to reference back to and then of course links to your books and different resources. The concept, this is kind of springboarding back to Montana in a mountain stream, is there's, can be at one place in and realize something's going on and you can stay there or you can go upstream. And I love that your career has been major impact, major value that you've brought to companies, to marriages, to so many different spheres, churches, and then you hit the hard pause and said, I'm gonna go create something else and go upstream. So could you just kind of pan out and explain the two sides of the body of work that you've been invested in?
Ken Sande (12:17) Thank you.
Ken Sande (12:46) Yeah, my initial, the initial ministry that God allowed me to establish was called Peacemaker Ministries and that was founded actually under the auspices of the Christian Legal Society. National Fellowship Christian Attorneys. And its initial goal was to help Christians resolve lawsuits between themselves out of court and within the church whenever possible, as God commands in 1 Corinthians 6. So worked on that for about 30 years, saw God just do, I mean, things that by worldly account were just impossible. Lawsuits, church splits, divorces, sexual abuse, you name it, we saw it. But after 30 years of putting out the fires of conflict, I thought, you know, I really was just seeing patterns again and again and again in people because they had not learned some really just fundamental, constructive relational skills, especially how to process and manage their emotions. And I decided I'd really like to add some more training on skills, relational skills that can help prevent conflict, prevent the fires of conflict. Or as you just mentioned, Jeff, help people get upstream of conflict. So they're only gonna fall in the river in the first place. And so I went to the Peacemaker Board.
And they prayed about it and just didn't, they didn't feel that God was leading the ministry in that direction. And I'd been urging them to consider a leadership transition for a while anyway. I'd been there for 30 years. So I stepped down in 2012 to launch a new ministry, Relational Wisdom 360 or just RW360. And I stayed away from peacemaking for about nine years because I didn't want to compete with Peacemaker. We're now back integrating actually all the peacemaking content with Relational Wisdom. So we've got a whole new generation of training resources coming down the market. But the Relational Wisdom specifically is basically biblical emotional intelligence. How do we take the best information we now have about neurology, how the human brain, which God designed, so this is really part of the great mandate is taking dominion of the earth, which means how does my mind work? How do my emotions work? Understanding our emotional makeup.
Integrating that with good theology so we really understand, okay, what does the Bible say about how we manage emotions, relate to other people, and what do we know about the science of our human brain, how we react. And so we're integrating those and that's what we call relational wisdom, it's just the term that we use.
I'd much rather prevent a marital dispute. I'd rather people never even think of the word divorce. So we're focused mainly on prevention, but we still do all the peacemaking training because sometimes, I mean, yesterday my wife and I had a difference of opinion, but we were both really thankful. We stayed calm. We practiced what we preach. Within two or three minutes, we'd come to a very mutually agreeable resolution.
And we were both smiling and said, wow, we're getting better at this.
Jeff Zaugg (16:12) Amazing. I actually borrowed one of your principles. In a teaching, you took a seven second or six second drink of water and you said like that gives my brain time to catch up. Well I took like a 70 second pause and went and did some pull-ups last night. I just like stepped out to the back porch, did some pull-ups, came back in. So that's concept. I mean one of many, but can you explain that one of how it gives the brain time to catch up?
Ken Sande (16:25) You
Ken Sande (16:25) Yeah, yeah. There's a concept called amygdala hijacking that we teach in our course on relational wisdom. And the amygdala, think of it as the experiential, emotional filing cabinet of your brain. It's where a lot of our experiences are filed away. It's also the part of our brain that governs our fight flight responses when we sense a threat. And it's where we just react instantly without, you know, a long process, that's a rattlesnake. Rattlesnakes are dangerous to Montana. Rattlesnakes are poisonous, maybe a better jump. No, you see the snake and you jump aside. And that's what the amygdala does. And so it's helpful in that sense, but sometimes it causes us to react to things impulsively to say something, do something. A lot of the dads listening would recognize they have a temper, either toward their wife or their kids.
Sometimes, like in my case, I don't think I ever struck my kids in anger, but boy, I sometimes really spoke harshly to them. Certainly, I've done that to my wife. And so you get a sudden emotion that causes an impulsive reaction that you quickly regret. And that's what we want to try to avoid. And so we teach a concept called READ. If you want to manage your emotions, be more self-controlled, self-aware, read yourself, R-E-A-D.
Recognize and name the emotion. And the reason naming it, even mentally, you don't have to verbally name it, like anger, bitterness, jealousy. When you do that, what you're doing is you're not just operating in the emotional part of your brain, the limbic system. In order to name something, you have to basically flip the switch on your neocortex, which is where your impulse control, language skills, memorized scripture, all those things are stored out there. When you name it, it basically throws a switch and turns it on. And so now you've got your emotions moving you, you've got it's under the power of your will, your reasoning capacity, and you have a better chance of making the right decision on what to do.
So recognize and name the emotion. E stands for evaluate the source. Why do I feel this way? Where is this coming from?
Jeff Zaugg (18:41) Yep, upstream.
Ken Sande (18:41) A stands for anticipate the consequences. If I give a sarcastic response to my wife right now, what's likely to happen? There's going to be a hurt look on her face. She's going to say, there you go again. You know how much that hurts me. It's going to go exactly the wrong direction. And then D is how do I direct or channel that emotion in a constructive direction? And the reference you made, Jeff, to the glass of water is if you're in a situation where you're inclined to, usually where we fail is we speak too quickly. We say something without thinking. So there's one guy that came to me one time and he said they had this terrible habit in staff meetings in his business of just speaking impulsively, making cute little sarcastic remarks. Ultimately, the heart condition there was he just loved to have attention. He had to deal with that. But I told him, here's a short fix before you really got it and you work on your heart condition.
But to modify the outward behavior, just when you go into a staff meeting, take a bottle of water, a cup of coffee, and just resolve, you will not open your mouth until you take a sip of water or coffee. And it takes about six seconds to lift it to your lips, take a sip, and put it back down. And that basically gives your neocortex time to catch up with your amygdala, and you realize, you know, I don't need to say this. And boom, it just stops.
Jeff Zaugg (19:53) Yeah
Ken Sande (20:05) So it's one of the acrostics people tell us has been the most helpful in just helping them for the first time in their life really get control of their tongue.
Jeff Zaugg (20:15) I want to kind of go back into that upstream concept, a dad who is good at reconciling, a dad who's good at repairing, a dad who's good at figuring his way through conflicts. Really, I mean, fatherhood is a series of conflict moments, large or small, right? It's just a series. That's a good skill set to have, but if we could have the skill set, and it's modeling those skills to our kids, which is like double impact, but if we could have the skills to go upstream as a dad and actually have the relational skills, which is the body work you're doing now and you're helping us with today. We're still gonna need, like you said, even the example of you and your wife just recently, like we're gonna need both sets of skills. How would you kind of, where would you guide us to start? And I'd just love to hear it. Where would you go from this conversation forward into training on both sides?
Ken Sande (20:31) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Ken Sande (21:08) Well, again, as we mentioned just earlier, the Young Peacemaker curriculum, if you've got young children, great place to start. There's a full parent-teacher manual. It's all laid out. It's almost like a script, so you don't have to come up any original material. You can certainly modify it, and that's great. But it's all laid out for you. There's student activity books. You can download and print. So your kids have got, it's like a comic book, and they love those. And you can just use those. In fact, we were teaching those to our kids before they could read the concepts. They could see the pictures and stuff. But where the changes really began to take place with them is when they got old enough to read, we gave our children the alternating responsibility to lead the lessons.
So if I really wanted my daughter to be more forgiving, I'd have her lead the lesson on forgiveness. And it's amazing when you teach something, you tend to take it more to heart. And they got into it more. And kids love to control. And each one has a role play. So they say, well, dad, I want you to play the part of Eddie. I want mom, I want you to do this. I want some real passion here. They love to control things. So I would start with a young peacemaker when they're young. When your kids get older, I would encourage you to go through the discovering relational wisdom course, it's an online course, or you can buy a small groups study set with DVDs or videos on flash drive and go through that with your family. I tell you, men, if you went to your wife and said, honey, I want to go through, in fact, this would be a great Mother's Day present. This would be, if you're looking for a Mother's Day present...
Jeff Zaugg (22:14) Yes.
Jeff Zaugg (22:40) Okay, yes. Yes.
Ken Sande (22:43) Go and sign up for the Relational Wisdom course and tell your wife this is your gift to her for Mother's Day. You want to go through the eight lesson course together. And you can each go online, complete one of the lessons. We recommend one a week so you have time to practice each new set of skills. And then just say on Wednesday or Sunday afternoon after church when the kids are playing, we're going to sit down, have a cup of coffee, we're going to talk about what we're learning.
But you can also have your kids go through it with you. I had my grandson go through with me when he was 10 years old. I was amazed how much he got. He was reading most of the lessons and then we'd talk about the applications. I was just, I was absolutely amazed how much he picked up. And the other great thing about doing this with your children, not only are you teaching them relational skills that really set them up for success in life, lifelong marriages especially, that's one of the greatest things. Career advancement, job performances, those are all skills that are related to relational wisdom or emotional intelligence. The other thing is, if you take your older kids, high school kids, through that material, and they turn in their work to us, they can send it in with an email, and they've done at least half of the application questions, we will send back a certificate in enhanced emotional intelligence. If they add that to their resume, they will stand out to in terms of competing for scholarships, for college, jobs, things like that. Corporate corporations around the world this year, Jeff, are going to spend $8.9 billion on emotional intelligence training.
This is a proven beneficial skill that employers are looking at. So when your kids are competing with other kids, your kids might get straight A's and know, captain of football team, but there's other guys with state A's and captain of football team competing, but when their resume has certificate enhanced emotional intelligence, it can really give them the edge. So these are great skills to learn, but they also set them up for success at a young age. And then once you do the relational wisdom course, if you like what you're seeing, move on to the Relational Peacemaking course. You've got both sets of skills. We call that Relational CPR, Conflict Prevention and Resolution.
Jeff Zaugg (24:58) Yes, this is amazing. And I will, I'm gonna be sending all of our dads to those two online courses and the young, yeah, the curriculum. Another way of going upstream and something that really just affirms the direction that we've gone with Dad Awesome is to say, hey, let's be... Let's walk in our real identity as loved sons before we try to show up as loving fathers. And you talk about royal titles. And I'd just love to hear a little bit of your heart around these royal titles and how it changes how we approach different dad situations.
Ken Sande (25:03) You
Ken Sande (25:34) Well, just think of all the terms that are given to us in the Bible. We are friends of Jesus Christ. I mean, what great time. Better yet, children of God. It's like the prince of a nation. You know, your father's the king, but you're the prince. Man, that's a status position. But it's also a great responsibility. We are priests. We are here to actually speak to God on behalf of our family and to actually communicate God's word to our family. We are ambassadors of reconciliation. You know, ambassadors, United States ambassadors, they don't work eight to five Monday through Friday. Ambassadors are 24-7. Even when they go out for dinner on Saturday night, they can't just do whatever they want. They are still representing the United States of America. Well, the same thing for us. Everything we do is to be representative of the High King.
And so when we really think about our identity in Christ, I especially love just Colossians 3:15, chosen by God, dearly loved children, and precious in the sight of God. I mean, those are incredible, incredible titles for us to have. We need to live up to our identity. It's very precious.
Jeff Zaugg (26:52) And that actually ties really close with this SOG, the SOG plan, because when we're self-aware, other aware, God aware, that's part of self-aware is our identity from God that God has given us. But would you unpack the SOG plan?
Ken Sande (27:05) Yep.
Ken Sande (27:05) Yeah, we like to take the complex neurological concepts, theological concepts, we want to be rigorously biblical and understand how God made us, but then we want to reduce those things down to very simple acrostics we can easily memorize and then practice throughout the day until they become habits. And it's like riding a bike. When you first start it seems awkward, we're uncomfortable, we have to focus, but after a while you're not even thinking about balancing the bike. You know, I see kids go down with their hands, you know, playing on their phone as they're riding their bike. So these things can become habits. So we just give these four acrostics for relational wisdom, for example.
We've talked about one already, the READ acrostic to become more self-aware, self-managing. The SOG one applies the entire Relational-Wisdom paradigm and there's three dimensions in that paradigm. Our relationship with God, how we manage ourselves, just with ourselves, and how we engage our neighbors. So God-Aware, Self-Aware, Other-Aware. So the SOG plan is just self-aware, other-aware, God aware. If we think three-dimensionally, and when I get involved in a conflict that's been going on for long time, invariably, the reason that people have been locked in a conflict is they're stuck at self-justification, other blaming. So they're just looking at self and other, but in the wrong direction. I'm vindicating myself and blaming you, and that makes the other person very tempted to do the same thing back at me. So we're just back and forth. I'm right, you're wrong, you're wrong, I'm right, we go back and forth.
It's bringing God into the equation, where is God in this? Where is God in this? And so one of the questions when you're thinking about God, to be God aware, I ask people all the time, is what would please and honor God in this particular situation? And one of the best illustrations I could give, I'm a lawyer, so I'm not a fun person to have a conflict with. I love to advocate for my favorite client, which is me, and I love to prosecute anyone who's against me. But God was gracious to my wife. He gave her an equally powerful tool. She was a second grade teacher and she has the voice, okay? So she can control 25 kids with her voice. So in the early years of our marriage, we got into conflict. You know, I'd whip out the adversarial skills, she'd whip out the voice, and we would have a jolly old time.
So one morning, early in the morning, we got into a disagreement. I don't remember what the issue was. They were always, I'm sure, looking back, absolutely trivial. But she wasn't quite ready to fully engage, so we had an initial exchange, and then she sort of threw her arms up and said, oh, I can't believe you. She stepped into the bathroom, which was right next to the bedroom. She was in there, stoking up the voice. I was in the bedroom, planning my opening argument. And the thing about marriage, why marriage conflict is so terrible, when you live with someone year after year, you find all their weak spots. You know exactly what buttons to push. You know exactly how to accuse them of hypocrisy. And that's why marital conflict can be so painful. So I'm in there ready to just win this argument. And I take one step toward the door to go and engage Corlette. And this phrase that I've asked hundreds of clients comes to mind. It's not an audible voice, but it's just this thought. And it's basically this. Ken.
Jeff Zaugg (30:02) Such.
Ken Sande (30:25) What would please and honor me right now? And I just, what I basically did mentally was go, I am busy right now, go away. I mean the last thing I was thinking about was pleasing and honoring God. I was thinking about vindicating and glorifying myself. That's my sin nature coming out. But God, it was just like the Holy Spirit was so gracious, just put that thought there a second time. Ken, what would please and honor me right now?
And it just took all the wind out of my sails. I mean, I was dead in the water and I just stopped. I said, oh God, please forgive me. There's my pride, my self-righteousness, my lack of empathy, and I am not loving my wife the way Christ loves his church. Please forgive me, God. And suddenly, it just became very evident my sin became much bigger. I was ready to see the log in my eye rather than the speck. So
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"If we don't model humility to our children, don't be surprised when their marriages grow cold because they can't say 'I was wrong.'"
"There are 10 times more people watching you in conflict than you realize—and you're teaching through your reactions."
"When you name your emotion, you flip the switch from reactive to thoughtful—that's where self-control begins."
"Real men aren't stoic—they're humble enough to say 'I'm sorry' and 'I need help.'"
"Your words as a dad become your child's inner voice—make sure it's one that builds them up."
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