Pesa Shayo: Building a United Front in Cross-Cultural Christian Marriage

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Welcome to the Universal Podcast Network, One Voice Everywhere. This is Coaching 101, space for growth, accountability and transformation where insights miss action and people learn to move forward with purpose. I'm your host Daniel Lucas and our today's guest Yes, he's an author and co-founder of Live Your Best Marriage.

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Now then, Mr. Pesa Shayo. Thank you for having me. Welcome, welcome. Yes. Mr. Pesa, I want to go to you one on one. And can you please introduce more by yourself that I miss? Thank you very much. Again, I'm Pesa Shayo and I run the ministry Live Your Best Marriage, L-I-V-E, Your Best Marriage. And I'm an author and we help cross-cultural couples work in their marriage to prevent all these problems dealing with in-laws and family pressures that they might be having everyday in their marriage.

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Well said and what an explosive introduction. Mr. Pesa here on Coaching 101, we salute you, we celebrate you for sharing your knowledge and wisdom to us as well. As to the world! Thank you. So today, let's talk about all the hats that we mentioned. You're talking about building a united front in marriage.

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What does that actually look like in a real-life moment of tension say when a mother-in-law criticizes a parenting decision? Thank you. Especially when you are coming from a marriage where there's two cultures that might be a very hard thing to build a united front but that is the most important thing and what we call United Front, what we are basically saying is that that does not mean you never disagree. We are saying that you're going to have these conversations between husband and wife in closed doors before you go and talk to the in-laws, talk to the kids

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and they should be always getting the same answer for both. I've had this problem in my marriage when and my wife Whitney would talk to my mom. And she would say, my mother would say, that's okay but I'll wait for my son to really tell me, to tell me, I'll just wait for my son.

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So what she was telling, my mom was telling my wife that she is gonna get a different answer when she talks to her son versus when she's talking to my wife. that means we were not on the same page. They know, she knew very well that we are not on the same page. So what we say most in-law problems are not really in-law problems. Most of them, and I say most it's because the couple is not agreeing on what they need like they're not Interesting, interesting. Mr. Pesa Shayo, why do you think couples so often turn against each other?

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and when the real problem is outside pressure, what is the psychological or spiritual dynamic happening there? So this is from all the couples we have cancelled and also for my life. We are finding out that as couples have been married for a while they actually forget all the excitement and the friendship that they had when they were dating.

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So if you talk to a couple before they get married, there's so much excitement, so much love but there is also that feeling like she's my friend and we can solve a lot of problems together Fast forward 10 years later now you don't even view her as a friend, you view her as an enemy And from that point you don't come close, you are not together as you're solving a problem or dealing with the pressure from outside.

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You actually view yourself as two enemies living in one house. And until you correct that, all these other problems that you think you have, money problems, in-law problems, children problems, all these other things are really not the real problem. The most important, the real problem is the fact that you too are fighting against each other every day.

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Yeah. Interesting, master and you say couples don't have to keep fighting each other when outside pressures rises but in the first shift couples needs to make the start facing pressure as one team instead as opponents. So it's the first thing you have to do is remember that he or she is not your enemy I believe that if you always remember she's not an enemy and you are going home to a friend, you might disagree. We are not saying we're not gonna disagree but at the end of it all

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Her or give him the benefit of doubt. I'm just saying her because I'm just thinking about my wife, but you can give her the benefit of doubt. I think that is very important that you can look at somebody and they're giving you their point of view. You disagree with it, but you're like, you know what?

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She must be coming from somewhere. There's something that made her think that way. Maybe I need to listen. Maybe I need to be more curious where she's coming from, because once you have that curiosity, you'll actually find maybe she sees something that you can't even see. Maybe you have that blindness but you cannot see something but you're so stuck in your way. I used to do that a lot. So stuck in my way that wasn't even curious to understand where my wife is coming from and end up thinking that she's against me. But actually, when I flipped it

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and I thought okay, she's still my friend, I just need to see where she's coming from, things changed a lot in my marriage. Mr. Pasa, how does a couple know they have a united front or if they're just avoiding conflict? Is there a difference between unity and sweeping things under the rug?

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Thank you. That's very important. That's a very good question because there are some people who believe as long as we are not having

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Problems like we're not arguing everything we are in agreement a hundred percent That means we have unity and I disagree with that. I believe Two people two different people married which is a couple They have two different ways of thinking, two different ways of seeing the world. And if we can go through that process of explaining these things to each other, making each other see our point and with love come up with one way to move forward there will be a lot of arguments.

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The same way even one person, sometimes you might decide I'm going to do something After a while you start doubting yourself. After a while, you might be like, maybe is that so you are also conflicted if it's just you by yourself. Now imagine two people from two different cultures through different worlds living together.

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There'll be a lot of conflict but that is not where the whole story ends. The story ends when we get to that agreement. We're not sweeping things under the rug because sweeping things under the rug what he does It brings a lot of resentment. I'm always giving in. She always does this every time, so you haven't solved the problem. So that resentment will keep building. Bring everything out, have their conversation with love. Maybe you need to get an outside counsel but eventually you can see the way forward. Mr. Pesa, beautifully articulated why do in-laws and family expectations

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create so much tension specifically in cross-cultural marriages? What makes that dynamic different from marriage where both spouses come from the same background? Thank you. We always teach couples that the fact that they come from two different cultures, it's not like they are not inventing problems but they have this cultural multiplier. The fact that two cultures will bring will add more to their problems and what I mean is in different cultures As different things mean, different things.

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For example, when we were about to get our first daughter, when we were dealing with the naming of the child, that we had a lot of disagreement. I was, my wife just wanted to name the baby because she was the mother and I just want, she wanted to name the baby.

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I on the other side believed that from our culture, it was very important to name my grandmother. that's how we do it. So the argument here was, and a lot of people are involved on my side of the family, was because we at that time could not express very well that we were afraid that our culture will be forgotten with this new baby being named a different name. So the baby will not have the name for my culture so that means our culture will be forgotten.

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or maybe the question was will our language survive? Or who culture will this baby carry? So although a lot of couples will say big deal, you are talking about naming a kid. A lot of couples have problems naming a kid but when you're bringing up the issue of whose culture is gonna be on top,

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whose family lineage is going to end because they are being forgotten, Now it becomes very touchy and very intense. Thank God we were able to solve that problem by naming her, the first name was my wife's name, she chose a first name and then the second name we named after my grandmother.

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So basically our culture was also honored but that was a very intense thing where we were not just dealing with names but it was deeper than just names. Well, Mr. Pesa, what is the most common loyalty conflict you see between spouses when it comes to their families of origin?

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How does the conflict show up in day-to-day arguments? You know, loyalty… this is a big problem in marriages because, especially cross-cultural marriages, because there's the family of origin and then this new family somebody is building. But they will tell you when we bring up the issue of loyalty, because sometimes the wife will say oh I feel like he's choosing his family every day over me okay so and we bring up this issue that the husband otherwise would say blood is thicker than water. I need to stick with my family because blood is thicker than water. I cannot forget them. And we are not saying

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forget your family, we are saying that because you're building a new family here,

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you need to transfer loyalty from your family of origin to the new family that you're building because with that now you will be able to give your new family more priority. Again, We are not saying because you're giving your family priority, you need to disrespect your parents or disrespect where you came from. No,

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Because they are afraid that what if? What if my marriage fails? So I will have disrespected my family of origin so they really don't really believe that they can actually make their marriage work. So they believe like, okay I'm just gonna see how this works but I'll keep my loyalty with the family of origin because that is what I already have.

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So the most important thing is do you really even believe your marriage is going to work? And if you do start putting a lot of energy there because you need that growth and the growth here is walk on your marriage but at the same time do not disrespect your family in the community of origin.

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In, they don't respect certainly. And you help couples tell the difference between honoring family and letting family divide the marriage. Where is the line? And how do a couple find it without feeling guilty? Thank you. So the line can be different for different families. Here is the most important thing. For us to even know that there's a line, we need to already know what we can put up with and what we can say no to. And that's different from different couples. So we go back to the United Front. Can we walk through this? Do we even know what

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we stand for as a couple? And once we know that, we have worked on that behind closed doors. and let's say it's something as easy, as something as simple as when the kids go to grandma's house they watch TV shows which you don't approve. Maybe they watch x-ray not just TV shows which you don't approve. And in that situation you might bring it up say hey um hey mom this is what's going on I don't like it but what if grandma says it's my house my rules? When the grandkids come to here, to my house. They will follow my rules. We don't want mom's rules in

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my house. So now we have a problem. Grandma is also setting her own boundaries and when it comes to that once we know what we cannot tolerate, we might respectively say okay that's fine next week they are not gonna come for daycare with grandma just we are being very respectful around it and this can get very complicated because sometimes you don't even have a babysitter to watch the kids. And now it becomes, should I even have this conversation? Because if you have this conversation, you don't even have a place to take the kids. You might be putting yourself in

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a bind. So being on the same page as a couple and then knowing what if grandma says no, What are we going to do next? We'll make it easy for you to proceed.

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So, Mr. Pesa what should a husband or wife do when they feel like their spouse keeps choosing their family over the marriage? How do they address that without making their spouse defensive? Yes and this is a hard one because it will always go back to why are they not transferring loyalty from the family of origin to this new family that they say it's their family that they are building.

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And we might have to explore different reasons why maybe they feel like if they don't choose their wife, if they choose their wife, they're actually saying that they are choosing to neglect their family of origin. So maybe having that conversation and letting them know that just because you are choosing your wife or choosing a spouse does not mean you are neglecting your family of origin.

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And sometimes, choosing your spouse might be, for example, you're in a WhatsApp group, a family WhatsApp group. And maybe there's an aunt who always makes jokes about how maybe your wife is lazy or maybe they are saying how, maybe let's say if it's an American, how Americans are self-centered.

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Something like that, like a joke like that. You have to stand up and say hey I'm choosing, like hey you cannot talk about my wife like that. So you're making it clear that you are not going to tolerate those kinds of jokes. And basically that's basically choosing your wife over your aunt who is making those jokes.

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Eventually, they will see if you are really serious about it. They will see that he is serious about his marriage that he's building and we are not gonna make those jokes around him. But if you're tolerating it, they'll just continue. Yeah.

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So Mr. Pasa, you speak specifically to Christian couples. How does faith shape the way you approach boundaries with parents and in-laws? Is there a tension between honor their father and mother, and live and cleave? Thank you very much. You literally nailed it. We can call it tension like live and cleave and honoring your mother and father, honoring your parents.

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But we believe you can actually grow to the point where that you can have these two things at the same time which is you can actually live and cleave and the two of you become one. So and we know about cleaving is cutting. You're cutting yourself off from your family of origin so you can live and cleave, and the two of you become one. But at the same time, you can hold this other idea at the same time which is you can continue honoring your parents.

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So if you can walk that fine road, fine path of honoring and living and cleaving, I think you have achieved something very big and a lot of people cannot do those two at the same time. It's possible, definitely. Submit or something like that. What does boundaries without dishonor look like in a practice?

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Can you give an example of a couple setting a boundary with intrusive parent while still showing respect? So quick, quick example. Story, this didn't happen to me but I was working with this couple and they were dealing with a father, a dad who they lived close to each other.

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So the dad would just constantly, he was such a nice guy and he would come and visit them. He's just let's say he's coming from work, he turns around comes in talks to place with the grandkids and then goes home. So that was fine. So it was okay with their daughter but her husband, he was just like, okay man your dad needs to call before he comes all the time.

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So that was bringing a lot of tension in that marriage because every time he shows up, the husband is feeling like man, he needs to call. Okay so they found a way and also now their daughter is afraid to talk to the husband. No, the daughter is afraid to talk to the dad because in her culture the idea that you can talk to the dad and say no to your dad will seem as like this, no way you can do that. But they were able to come up with a plan where she

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talked to the mother and the mother was able to have a conversation with the dad. Now that, yes the dad was still upset because he felt that he's being rejected by his own children so he felt very disrespected but because they went around and talked to the mother and then the mother, his wife talked to him. They were able to have that conversation. And now they still are able to… So now he calls before he shows up. Now things have changed, now he calls before he shows up but the most important thing is they were able to maintain

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that relationship of dad being the dad like he they still maintain that respect of the dad how How he has always done things, but at the same time set a boundary. And that is something where most people would have said no you live and cleave so cut him off tell him off and let him deal with it.

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He's coming into your little family, but they were able to find a way to balance those two. Do balance, definitely balance indeed. And Mr. Pesa to wrap up our discussion for today. Many Christian couples feel guilty about setting boundaries because they equate it with being unkind or ungodly.

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How do you help them reframe that? Yes, I helped them realize that boundaries is basically being clear about what you want and just expressing to somebody else your preferences. You are not saying that they have to change, you're just expressing your preferences. And now it might be the definition doesn't sound as complicated by the implementation

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The boundary is not a problem. It's what comes with the boundary. Sometimes we are not ready to set a boundary because, let's say for example if the in-laws have paid so much, they've paid for your school, they have paid for your marriage, they give you money every week for your family it's very hard to set a boundary there because now they feel like as as much as they're giving you money, they need to be putting in also telling you what you need to do.

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So we'll say like if you are thinking that you're going to be setting boundaries in the future, start also standing on your own two feet create your own property basically because boundaries like if you think about a house it has a fence around it is that's basically the boundary for for the offense. So if you're going to be creating these boundaries, also make sure that you are not…maybe for example money, you are not getting so much money from them that now setting the boundary becomes so hard because they expect to tell you about how to raise their grandkids

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because they just paid for you to go on vacation. See? Things like that. Be very careful because it may make boundaries harder to set. Well said, Mr. Pesa, can you please invite our listeners to support your projects, your business or anything you want to promote on Coaching 101?

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Thank you! They can actually come to liveyourbestmarriage.com which is L-I-V-E, yourbestmarriage.com and there we have a united front quiz, which is like a two to three minute quiz where they can learn how in-law pressure, loyalty conflicts and all these things are affecting their marriage And from that they can learn how to fix it. So just go to liveyourbestmarriage.com and take the free United Front Quiz Yes, people let's connect with Mr. Pesa and I have one more question before I will let you go.

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For couples listening or watching right now who just had another blow-up about in-laws or family's expectations what is the one practical step they can take this week to stop fighting its other and start facing the pressure as one team? So if you had just another blowout regarding your in-laws, pause and remember that most likely that blowout might not have really…

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It wasn't… might not be really about the in-laws but about both of you fighting each other. That's why you're having the blowout. So you are basically fighting each other. If you can just pause and realize that actually, we are fighting each other. We are not fighting the in-laws, we are fighting each other.

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Pause, remember we are friends. What can we do to work at this problem together? And one of the things you can do is just remember that as long as you're remembering your wife is your friend, start doing fun things that you used to do like sending them text messages.

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Fun text messages when they are at work. Call them and be happy when you are answering their call. That's something very simple but every time you pick up your phone and it's your wife, smile and then start talking to her. Things like that will start bringing this positive energy in in your marriage and then you can start working together.

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It's easier to work together with a friend than with an enemy. Eventually, you will even believe how crazy it is that a couple will fight each other instead of dealing with the problem. Well said Mr. Pesa. Yes. So thank you so much for your time. Thank you very much Daniel I really appreciate being here.

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You're most welcome. Yes. And I will invite you again to please do come over to my other podcast and let's talk about marriage, marriage, marriage indeed. So thank you so much for your time. Thank you very much. Thank you for joining us on the Universal Podcast Network. One voice everywhere.

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