Preview:

Debra Fileta: You start to really reveal who you actually are in connecting with people emotionally and spiritually. Like this is not… I’m not who I think you want me to be. This is who I actually am.

Jim Daly: Mm.

Debra: And learning to just become more authentic and vulnerable in a relationship.

End of Preview

John Fuller: Well, which season of relationship are you in? Is it spring or summer or fall or perhaps maybe a little more like winter? Uh, we’re talking today with counselor Debra Fileta on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly about ways that we can navigate every season of our relationships. Thanks for joining us. I’m John Fuller.

Jim: You know, I’m excited about today’s program, John, because, uh, it really will illuminate where couples are at. I remember Jean and I, when we were first dating, we started, I proposed, we started to do our premarital counseling. We were on the cloud. I mean, I couldn’t breathe without being around Jean, right?

John: (Laughs).

Jim: I lived in San Diego at the time. I remember driving her dinner to Orange County, 90 minutes each way. She worked at a vet clinic, and I knew she’d like this Thai meal at this Thai restaurant, and I’d go get it and bring it to her, and then just sit there and eat with her during her break and then drive 90 minutes back to San Diego. That was the best time of my life. And, uh, you know, you just wanna maintain that. It’s hard to maintain that attitude because of that infatuation. But I think today we’re gonna, I think, help you with, uh, staying engaged, hopefully, and kind of enjoying the warmth of those seasons of relationships, spring and summer. It’s a great place to live, but all of them have things we can learn from.

John: Yeah, they’re part of the human experience. And, uh, I’m so glad Debra Fileta is here. She’s a listener and viewer favorite, and she’s a wife, mom of four, married to John, and a licensed professional counselor. We’re talking, uh, about some of the concepts in her newest book, Relationship Skills: The Four Seasons That Will Make or Break Your Love Life. And we’ve got details about Debra and this resource on our website.

Jim: Debra, welcome back. So good to have you here.

Debra: Always good to be with you.

Jim: You know, let me paint a picture from the research that we’ve read. Um, Greg Smalley, who runs our marriage area, he and his wife, Erin, um, they are aware of research, which you are too probably, that 24% of couples in the church are in a marital crisis. There’s some conflict that is putting them in a bad place. That’s a quarter of the couples. And on the one hand, I appreciate that vulnerability that they answered the survey-

Debra: Yeah.

Jim: … that way. It should also be a wake-up call for pastors and the rest of us in the church that, A, if we’re in that place, we need to get help. B, if others are in that place, we need to be talking about the difficulties in marriage and the idea that it’s okay to hurt. We wanna get to a better place because of our witness for Christ, right?

Debra: Right.

Jim: We should be showing the world that we can have happy, good, solid, joyful marriages.

Debra: Amen. Relationships are the great revealer, aren’t they?

Jim: Mm.

Debra: They reveal what’s going on inside of us, and they often reveal what God wants to heal. And I think when all of these things come up, including a point of marital crisis, it is an opportunity to go deeper with our healing.

Jim: What do you see in those couples that make it possible to get to a better place?

Debra: If I had to give you the number one word, it would be ownership.

Jim: Huh.

Debra: Owning my weaknesses, sins, struggles, owning what I bring to the table, and starting to do it differently. Because when I’m just focused on the other person and what they’re needing to do differently, and what they’re doing wrong, I’m, I stay stuck. But when I can own, God moves me forward. When I can find my role, I now have some sort of control, and I can actually begin to do things differently.

Jim: That’s really good. And that’s what the book is about.

Debra: It’s interesting because as I’ve been working with couples now for almost two decades, I have seen that just like in nature, as nature walks through these four particular seasons, so do we in relationships. We walk through spring, summer, fall, and winter. Each season has a purpose. Each season comes with its own obstacles and its own opportunities. And if we lean in and learn from these seasons, we can actually become better as individuals and have healthier relationships as well.

Jim: Yeah. Let’s describe them, spring, summer, uh, fall and winter.

Debra: Yeah.

Jim: Give us the definition.

Debra: Brief overview. The season of spring is the season of growth. It’s the season of new beginnings. It’s a season of attraction and connection. And you see life through a rose-colored lens, right? You, you, you know what it’s like to have the flowers blooming and blossoming. Then we move into the season of summer, where things get hot. Summer is the season of intimacy and deeper connection emotionally, spiritually, physically, but you can also get stuck in the heat of summer if you’re not careful. You can get burned by summer. We move into the season of fall, which is the season of conflict and communication. Fall is where your true colors start to shine through, you know?

Jim: (Laughs). That’s good. That’s good.

Debra: And you start really seeing that person for who they are, but that can come with conflict. And then we move into the season of winter, which I always say is the season of turning inward. It’s a season of hibernation. Um, but not only that, winter I have learned is also a season of disinfecting. God uses winter to disinfect the ground and get it ready for the season of spring. So even when you’re in a season of winter that feels cool, that feels apathetic, that feels frozen, there is hope that spring can come again.

Jim: Boy, that’s such a good analogy. Um, man, it, it just fits. I think when we get to heaven, one of the things, if we know in full, like Paul writes, rather than looking through the glass dimly, I think it’s gonna be the cycles that God put into the universe. All of it.

Debra: That we didn’t know about. (Laughs).

Jim: Yeah, that we didn’t know the importance-

Debra: I agree.

Jim: … of.

Debra: I agree.

Jim: That… And that’s even where Paul writes about nature. When you look at nature, you can see God in nature. I think that rhythm that you’ve identified in relationship, just like the earth going around the sun-

Debra: Right.

Jim: … there’s something there that God wanted us to see and made it that plain.

Debra: Yes.

Jim: You can see it in yourself. Let’s get into spring and we’ll go through all of the seasons, but I think John and I, uh, share this commonality that when I met Jean and you met John, you two, you and Jean did not have that, like, love at first sight, unlike John and I had.

Debra: Right.

Jim: … and looking at the two of you… What was going on there for you and John?

Debra: My first thought when I met my husband before I knew he was going to be my husband was he’s really tall and who wears long sleeve dress shirt with shorts? (Laughs).

Jim: Did you ever get an answer to that question?

Debra: No.

Jim: ‘Cause I’m with you.

Debra: No. But you know what he tells me now, he says, “Hey, I didn’t try to trick you. I was never a fashionable guy.” (Laughs).

Jim: Well, or he could have said it worked, didn’t it? (Laughs).

Debra: “It worked. It got you in the end.”

Jim: It made you think about him.

Debra: But it’s funny because, you know, you have this idea of what it’s supposed to be like when you meet the person that you’re gonna marry, that there’s gonna be writing in the sky or God’s gonna just say, “That’s the one,” and you’re gonna know. But even though John looked at me and thought, “I think I’m gonna marry this woman one day,” and I looked at him and thought, “What kind of fashion statement is that?”

Jim: (Laughs).

Debra: We both had to navigate through the four seasons of the relationship. We both needed to see what was really here. And each season reveals what you need to know in order to know whether or not this person is going to actually be a good fit. So it doesn’t really matter what you feel at the start of the relationship. What matters is what’s revealed through the seasons of the relationship.

Jim: That’s so, so good. You mentioned in the book that attraction certainly is powerful, and I think many psychologists have listed how that works. You know, you see somebody you’re attracted to, and then it goes to holding hands and so on and so forth into full emotional and physical intimacy, which is, for the Christian community, that’s where we wanna see that in the context of marriage, right?

Debra: Right.

Jim: Not just one-night flings, obviously. But that, that is how God has set up that attraction scale.

Debra: Yeah.

Jim: And you can see it. It’s very predictable to where psychologists, counselors, you know the path and the pattern that usually happens. In that context, you said you and John described your own rose-tinted glasses when it came to your premarital counseling. Wh- what did that look like?

Debra: Yeah. You know, when we first got engaged and, and I will note that as we went through these seasons, my attraction toward him grew. You know, there’s different levels of attraction and physical attraction, emotional, spiritual attraction, all these things start to grow to the height of the point where we were engaged. And I remember going through premarital work and doing this assessment with our counselor. And he looked at me and he’s like, “Debra, you rated everything off the charts. Like this guy has no flaw.”

Jim: (Laughs).

Debra: Like you really are seeing this relationship through a rose-colored lens. And I was.

Jim: Mm.

Debra: Um, the reality of the hardships of a relationship had not yet hit. I was in full-blown spring, seeing everything through that lens of growth and attraction, and blossoming, and blooming. But reality is, spring is just one season of a relationship. It’s just one fraction of the relationship. And all of the other seasons actually add depth and meaning to the relationship. And we hadn’t gone through those quite yet.

Jim: Yeah. It’s such a, again, a great framework to understand human relationship. And it’s just a good way to look at it. And it gives you insight into perhaps where you’re at-

Debra: Right.

Jim: And where you wanna move from there to a better place or stay where you’re at if you’re in that spring/summer area. Uh, healthy give and take in relationships is essential. It’s a learned skillset, I think. I don’t know that we come into marriage with that ability. We probably have a modicum of it, and then we get better, hopefully.

Debra: Yeah.

Jim: And I think the fallout, like our Hope Restored, which is where couples are struggling significantly, and that’s okay. Come as you are, just don’t stay that way.

Debra: Exactly.

Jim: And that’s where we can do so much work to help, uh, couples get to a better place. I know that’s what you do in your counseling. But you illustrate this beautifully with your experience of gardening.

Debra: Yes. I-

Jim: And so what ha… What’s going on there?

Debra: I’m a plant killer, unfortunately. And-

Jim: (Laughs). I am too.

Debra: I have not really mastered it yet. It’s funny because I, you know, typically I forget to water my plants. I just forget and move on with life and then they die because they did not get enough water. So John got me these succulents and he’s like, “Listen, Deb, you, you hardly have to water these. It’ll be fine.”

Jim: (Laughs). It’s called a cactus.

Debra: It’ll be fine. Just once a week, put a couple drops in. But I forgot if I did or if I hadn’t, and what I ended up doing was over-watering the plant, and then they also died. So as I’m going through this, uh, planting and, and the analogies are flowing in my mind, I realize that relationships are like a plant. You can kill a plant by giving it too little water, but you can also kill a plant by giving it too much water. And I think that’s something we don’t talk about enough in relationships when you’re doing above and beyond, um, in your relationships because you’re accustomed to giving too much, making excuses for the other person, enabling unhealthy behaviors. So just like in nature, we’ve got to learn that healthy balance of give and take in order for the relationship to grow as strong as it possibly can.

Jim: Uh, regardless of what season a marriage is in, it’s critical for us to identify those unhealthy patterns. I think you list, uh, a number of unhealthy patterns that I think for the Christian, we might see some spiritual benefit in there that we think this is the right spiritual tone to be giving-

Debra: Right.

Jim: To be caring, to be concerned, but there’s an unhealthy edge to that. Describe it.

Debra: Exactly. You know, one of the personality types I talk about of people who give too much is the rescuer. You know, maybe the rescuer, deep down, they believe that their goal, their role is to fix this person, to make them better, to rescue them from their sin and struggles. And some of the reason you become a rescuer is because maybe you come from a family where you were put in that position of rescuing.

Jim: You learn to be.

Debra: You learned to fix the problems. You learned to bring peace to the chaos because you had to. And interestingly enough, when we come to Jesus, that leaning does not go away. Those coping skills that served us in one season sabotage us in another season. If we don’t face them and address them and bring them into alignment with who God wants us to be, God doesn’t want us to be the rescuer because He is the ultimate rescuer. He is the Savior, not us. And so we don’t wanna bring that mindset into relationships because our relationships will quickly become unbalanced if we come in as the rescuer.

Jim: Yeah.

John: Hmm. This is Focus on the Family with Jim Daly, and our guest today is Debra Fileta, and we’re talking about some of the concepts in her book, Relationship Skills: The Four Seasons That Will Make or Break Your Love Life. There is so much here to, uh, apply in your own marriage regardless of where you’re at. Get a copy of it from us today at the ministry. Our number is 800, the letter A, and the word FAMILY, or stop by focusonthefamily.com/broadcast.

Jim: So u- under that category, those who give too much, it even sounds funny because it feels like the Christian life is about giving, always giving. But you mentioned the, the rescuer. You also have the pleaser and the insecure. Describe those two.

Debra: Yeah. People pleasers, you know? When our goal is to please man more than it is to please God, and we get in a role where we’re so focused on the needs of everybody else, but we neglect our own. And then the insecure are those who are looking for their value and worth to come from relationships. So they don’t want to rock the boat. They don’t want to upset you. They don’t wanna even speak truth sometimes because they want to feel loved and liked by you. Those are personality types that can quickly bring a lack of balance to a healthy relationship.

Jim: The pleaser skill one is pretty pervasive. I mean, I can tend to do that too. I wanna be liked. I think most human beings want to be liked. And then the question is where do we get unhealthy with that, um, attribute?

Debra: Yeah.

Jim: And then at the core of it with the pleaser, w- what am I gleaning from it versus my motive, my good motive for doing it? Like it makes me feel better-

Debra: Exactly.

Jim: … to please you.

Debra: This is where it gets unhealthy is that motive part where my goal isn’t to actually serve you. My goal is to get you to like me. So I’m gonna do whatever it takes for you to like me because I need you to like me to feel valuable about myself.

Jim: Yeah. Which at its core is manipulative, but we wouldn’t even necessarily know that.

Debra: You’re right. At its core, it’s actually selfish.

Jim: Yeah.

Debra: It’s like I’m doing this so that I can get something from you rather than my goal is to please God. Because if my goal is to please God, sometimes I’m not gonna be able to please you at the same time.

Jim: Yeah.

Debra: I’m gonna have to tell you a truth that you might not like, but God is the measuring stick, not your approval of me.

Jim: Yeah. In that insecure, uh, person under the, again, that category of people who give too much-

Debra: Yeah.

Jim: I would think with social media, that is at its all-time high, that insecurity. I think young people feel that. There’s a lack of understanding identity, you know, who am I?

Debra: Yeah.

Jim: And that insecurity that is driven by, oh, all the social media that I don’t look as good as that person.

Debra: Right.

Jim: I’m not as well-educated as that person. Whatever social media is portraying as the standard, it’s kinda like the old days of airbrush.

Debra: Yeah.

Jim: I can’t be that person in the magazine.

Debra: Right. And sadly in relationships, you will live up or down to the level that you believe you deserve.

John: Mm.

Debra: And if you don’t believe you deserve anything because you’re not walking in your identity in Christ, you’re going to settle for a low-level relationship, an unhealthy relationship. Whereas if you believe God made me for healthy relationships, I am His heir, you’re gonna expect and require different standards in your relationship. So this is why our identity really does shape the type of person we engage with and how we engage with the people that we’re in relationship with.

Jim: And I think that idea of knowing your identity in Christ is becoming so critical for everybody.

Debra: Yeah.

Jim: But man, especially young people, because I think if there’s an assignment for the parents, that’s like job one, help your child, teen, 20-something, understand their identity in Christ, because that’s the foundation in which these antidotes occur against these things that we face, right?

Debra: Absolutely. You attract people on your level of health, on your level of worth, on your level of value. And so if you think about it that way, we’re magnetic to certain people. And when we go out into the world not feeling good about ourselves, not having confidence in who God has made us to be, we’re gonna attract people on that level as well. So this is why it’s important as parents for us to instill that true identity in our kids, not because of what they do, but because of who they are.

Jim: Let’s hit those others, those that give too little, because again, this is really the out of balance human experience. So you’ve mentioned too much.

Debra: Yep.

Jim: Now too little. The cynic, the wounded, the empty.

Debra: Yeah.

Jim: Describe each of those.

Debra: We’ll start with the empty, because I think a lot of people can relate to that. People who are feeling on E. They’ve got nothing left.

Jim: No fuel.

Debra: Life has taken it out of them. They’re stressed. They’re maxed out. They have few boundaries. And then when they come home, they feel like they’ve got nothing left to give, you know? And I think that is a lot of people today where they give their leftovers to their relationships, not because they want to, but because they’re truly not filling up in the proper ways. And so when you go into a relationship and you’re on empty, you’re going to make a bad partner because you’ve got nothing left to give in your relationship.

Jim: Well, talk about that in the context of marriage.

Debra: Yeah.

Jim: You know, that you’re giving everything outside the walls of your home and then you have nothing inside.

Debra: Right. And God calls us to be filled. God calls us to live abundantly. Jesus modeled to us boundaries and protecting what matters, staying filled and fueled in many different ways and practicing soul care so that when we walk home, when we’re home in our, with our family and our marriage, which is our primary ministry, that we have something to give in a significant way.

Jim: Let’s hit the, the cynic.

Debra: Yeah.

Jim: Oh, I love this person.

Debra: The cynic is the type of person who has been hurt in relationships. They don’t really trust you, you know? They, they either don’t trust you because you are, you haven’t proven yourself, they don’t know you, or they don’t trust you because they know you and you haven’t proven yourself. You know, they, no matter who you are, they’re not gonna trust you. And, and usually it’s people who have been hurt in the past. And so they sort of, um, put this wall up in relationships.

Jim: For protection.

Debra: For protection. It’s like, I don’t know. You might hurt me. I’m not sure if I can fully trust you because I’ve been hurt in the past, so I’m gonna keep you at a distance and I’m not going to give as much as I could.

Jim: And finally, that third one, the wounded.

Debra: The wounded is the person that’s been hurt. And we, you know, somebody who carries triggers and wounds that they haven’t healed. And so they stay away from relationships so that those wounds don’t get pressed upon. Um, they don’t wanna feel pain. And so they avoid the intimacy that comes with a relationship. They avoid the vulnerability and they kind of seem withdrawn-

Jim: Mm-hmm.

Debra: … in a relationship. And so when you think about those personality types, you realize that you can give too much and destroy a relationship and you can give too little and destroy a relationship.

Jim: Yeah. That does seem to be a theme scripturally that the Lord, you know, even that, I think it’s in Proverbs where, “Don’t give me too much that I forget you, Lord, and don’t give me too little that I have to go beg and steal.”

Debra: Hmm.

Jim: And I, I, you can apply that emotionally too.

Debra: Absolutely.

Jim: You know? It’s that same thing where you’re just out of balance.

Debra: Yeah.

Jim: And I think, I think that’s the thing I’ve learned about the Christian faith is the Lord wants… He wants you to laugh. He wants you to have fun. This is your, your gift of life. We get one shot to live a life and hopefully can do that in the best of ways that we’re not out of balance.

Debra: Right.

Jim: And that we can end this life in our last days healthy in Christ, right?

Debra: Yeah. So the season of spring is really about taking that assessment. Where do I need to give a little bit more? Where do I need to pull back a little bit?

Jim: It’s good.

Debra: Where do I need to ask for my needs to be met? And bringing our relationship back into alignment.

Jim: Right at the end here, let’s make sure we get summer covered and then we’ll come back next time for fall and winter.

Debra: Yes.

Jim: But summer sounds like a great place to be. (Laughs).

Debra: Summer is the season where things get hot. It’s the season of intimacy, emotional intimacy, spiritual intimacy, physical intimacy, and learning to make the most of each season. Uh, the beautiful thing about this book, Relationship Skills, is it applies to married couples, but it also applies to those who are in the dating world.

Jim: Sure.

Debra: Um, and kind of helps you unpack it no matter what stage you are in in your relationship.

Jim: And again, these seasons, as you’ve mentioned in the book, they don’t run like with the seasons of the earth. You’re, you’re going through some of these rapidly-

Debra: Right.

Jim: … you’re coming back to those times.

Debra: Right.

Jim: It just, it helps you put a context to what you’re feeling, right?

Debra: Exactly. Exactly. It helps you have an awareness. It helps you know what to look for. It helps you identify some of the, the opportunities for growth that come in different stages of the relationship.

Jim: Now with respect to summer, you mentioned in the book a funny analogy with your sports jerseys.

Debra: Yeah.

Jim: (Laughs). How do you connect summer, the heat of the moment relationally with sports jerseys?

Debra: Well, sometimes you become who you think you’re supposed to be in relationships. And I was going through my old jerseys and I remember this-

Jim: I’m impressed you had old jerseys.

Debra: I know. I passed them all down to Eli, my son. And it’s funny because I look back at that season and I thought, was that who I actually was or was that who I thought I needed to be, to be liked, to be desired, to be wanted in that season? ‘Cause I’m so far removed from that today. And I think oftentimes, um, we become who we think people want us to be rather than who we actually are, rather than who God made us to be. And in the season of summer, um, this is the time where you start to shed the layers. Uh, you start to really reveal who you actually are in connecting with people emotionally and spiritually. Like this is not, I’m not who I think you want me to be. This is who I actually am.

Jim: Mm.

Debra: And learning to just become more authentic and vulnerable in a relationship.

Jim: Let me ask you about emotional connection. You talk about summer also being that time of emotional connection that-

Debra: Yeah.

Jim: … is so good. I think, again, I’m gonna stereotype. Husbands generally can struggle with emotional connection. I think we get the physical connection down really well. It’s the emotional connection some of us are just lost in because we don’t-

Debra: Yeah.

Jim: “Hey, I said I love you.”

Debra: Yeah. Uh, you know, I always say it’s a conditioned experience. It’s how we’ve learned to show up in the world or not learned to show up in the world. And if you think about how little boys in the 40s, 50s, and 60s grew up, there wasn’t much conditioning toward emotional connection, emotional awareness. And so we do have a generation of men who are, uh, disconnected from some of those things and having to learn some of these relationship skills. Emotional connection is like a spider’s web. With each string, you’re building an attachment to the person in front of you.

Jim: Mm.

Debra: And I think that’s an important way to think about it in marriage. It’s with every conversation, with every interaction where I’m choosing to go a little bit deeper, share a feeling, share an experience, I am connecting. I’m building a web of emotional connection, which strengthens the relationship as a whole. But that’s a skillset that many people have not learned how to do.

Jim: Yeah. That, that is so good. And again, it gives it great context to understand this, make it, it makes it easier to kinda understand where you’re at. Take that self-assessment. Where am I? Summer? Spring?

Debra: Yeah.

Jim: Fall? Winter? We’re gonna talk more next time about those, but, uh, especially fall and winter. But thanks for being with us. This is, again, this has flown by the time, but, uh, let’s come back and keep it going. Can we do that?

Debra: Sounds good.

Jim: And let me turn to the listener. If Debra’s book, Relationship Skills: The Four Seasons That Will Make or Break Your Love Life would be a help to you, get ahold of us. I mean, we’re not… We’ll get it out to you. If you can make a gift of any amount, we’ll send it to you. $5, that will barely cover the postage, but we’ll get it out to you, um, as our way of saying thank you for being in the ministry together. If you could do more, obviously, we can reach more people.

But no relationship should stay the same forever. We’re growing. We have these seasons in our relationships that we need to be mindful of. So contact us. Last year alone, half a million marriages were strengthened through the Focus on the Family resources. I’m really proud of that.

John: Yeah. So reach out today, donate as you can, help us reach even more people. Our number is 800, the letter A, and the word FAMILY.

And then online, we’ll have Debra’s book and an opportunity for you to give also a, a free marriage assessment, which covers a variety of aspects of your relationship. It’s, uh, maybe five or 10 minutes of your time. It’s gonna give you hours of conversation with your spouse, and we’ll link over to that on our website. And that site is focusonthefamily.com/broadcast. Or give us a call, 800, the letter A, and the word FAMILY.

And thanks for joining us today for Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I’m John Fuller, inviting you back next time as we continue the conversation with Debra Fileta, and once again, help you and your family thrive in Christ.