Podcast appearance
United Front: Building a Marriage That Stands Together | Pesa Shayo
Dominic Saviour and Pesa Shayo examine the hidden family, cultural, and loyalty pressures that can make spouses turn against each other.
- Podcast
- Hidden Secrets in Books
- Host
- Dominic Saviour
- Published
- Guest
- Pesa Shayo
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Hidden Secrets in Books
Episode overview
About this conversation
Pesa explains why in-law pressure, cultural differences, and unspoken family expectations often become the hidden source of recurring relationship tension.
The conversation offers practical and faith-based ways to honor family, create healthier boundaries, communicate without fueling arguments, and stand together as one team.
Key takeaways
Marriage principles discussed
- A United Front begins when spouses agree that they are on the same team.
- In-law conflict is often a loyalty problem before it becomes a boundary problem.
- Honoring parents does not require sacrificing the integrity of the marriage.
- Communication habits should strengthen unity instead of recruiting allies.
- Faith, forgiveness, and clear agreements help marriages remain resilient.
Chapters
Conversation chapters
Full transcript
Hidden Secrets in Books transcript
Transcript note: Published with permission and formatted for readability. This transcript was automatically generated from the original public recording or caption track. Speaker names are omitted where the source did not identify them, and minor transcription errors may remain.
00:00Opening and Guest Introduction
Welcome back to another exciting episode of Hidden Secrets in Books.
And you guys know I only bring the best of guests to my show, we call them the top 1% of guest, special special guests on the show.
And as always our guest are authors, those who have written a lot of, they have embedded a lot of wisdom in books,
things that you can only find in books, their experiences and their stories are berating in books.
So, our guest today is Pesa Shayo.
Pesa is an author of course and co-founder
of Live Your Best Marriage.
Pesa, welcome to the show.
Thank you very much, Dominic.
I'm very excited to be here.
All right, Pesa.
So, I would like you to introduce yourself
to my audience.
Yes.
Um, yes,
I'm Pesa and originally
I'm from Africa
and I'm from Kenya
and I've been married for about 20 years,
and we have four daughters.
And as Dominic said,
we run Live Your Best Marriage,
L-I-V-E, your best marriage,
where we help Christian couples,
especially those who come from different cultures,
create a united front against situations
like in-laws, problems, loyalty, culture,
problems, and boundaries.
And our latest book is the
500 ways to embrace and blend
and celebrate your unique differences.
All right, Pesa, thank you so much.
So let's get into the questions I have for you.
Okay, so talking about building a united front in marriage,
what does it mean for a husband and wife
to build a true United Front in marriage?
You know, a united front
the way we have it, it does not mean that you are not going to have any arguments.
What it means that you will have conversations and agree in private before you go out
in public to dealing with in-laws, friends, jobs, and things like that.
And what we mean is sometimes people will say, oh, you know what?
I'm having an in-law problem.
My mother-in-law always, my mother-in-law always makes decisions with my wife.
And we always say that is a symptom of the real problem that you're having.
And the problem you're having is not your mother-in-law.
Your problem is you and your wife are united.
So she's able to find a way to separate the two of you.
If you guys were united and making decisions together,
she will not be going and making decisions with her mother.
It sounds like not a big deal, but when a couple is not united,
it's very easy for outside pressure to come and divide them.
03:30In-Law Pressure and Cultural Assumptions
Okay, thank you so much, Pesa.
Tell us why in-laws and family expectations create so much tension,
especially in cross-cultural Christian marriages.
Yes, this…
This usually is because when people get married, they come together with a lot of assumptions.
They are assuming how things, how the world works.
But what they don't really realize is what they think is how things should be
is actually how it's coming from their culture,
how they do things where he comes, where they come from.
And when you're meeting,
to somebody who's from a different culture, you start realizing what you thought is how things
should be done. It's not that way. For example, you might think that naming kids, for example,
in our marriage I grew up assuming that when it's time to name our kids,
they'll be named after my grandparents. That's how we've done it in my culture and thus just
how it was going to be done.
Where my wife comes from, she's the mother,
she has gone through nine months of pregnancy,
she felt like she has to decide
the name of the baby.
And that was a big conflict because I'm coming
and me and my family are believing
we need to name this child.
This is our child, we need to name it
and she's also disagreeing.
Eventually,
we had to come
and have a compromise where
she chose the first name, I chose a second name and then
the last name is our family name. But although that sounds very simple
at that time it was such a big problem because nobody
was willing to give in. Me and my family were me and my
family of origin were like we were very adamant on how
things should be done. She was also adamant but
we had a child and we had to figure out a way to make
it work. And those are the things that some people might say, oh, that's just because you're in a cross-cultural marriage. But sometimes even if
you are from the same culture, sometimes people think differently and being able to come up with
compromises, I think can be a very important thing in any marriage.
Okay, thank you so much, Pesa. So how can couples honor their parents?
why making sure their marriage remains the highest human relationship?
That's very important because we work a lot with Christian couples.
And in the Bible, we talk about living and cleaving,
leaving your mom and dad's house, creating a new home,
and the two become one.
But at the same time, we also,
the Bible also tells us that we need to create,
we need to honor our parents,
honour your mother and father.
That's a commandment in there.
So in the Ten Commandments.
So those two things mean a lot.
So yes, you are creating a new home.
Yes, you are creating a new unit called your new home.
But at the same time,
you are not saying that you need to be very angry with your parents
because now that
07:30Honoring Parents and Making Decisions as a Couple
you are saying, you have a united front. United Front means
you will be nice to your parents, listen to the advice, but
the most important thing is at the end, the last decision needs to be made in
your marriage. And that's a very interesting thing. You are saying, yes, I'm going to
listen to you. Yes, I'm going to listen to my uncle. I'm going to listen to
my father and mother. And I'll take their point very seriously. But the most,
the last decision, I will make it with my wife.
And that can be a very big problem, especially if you're coming to,
coming from cultures where mother and father
will continue making decisions for you for all their life.
Okay, thank you so much.
So how should your wife or husband respond when they feel their spouse is
constantly choosing their family?
their marriage.
Say that again?
How should a wife or a husband respond when they feel their spouse is consistently choosing
their family over the marriage?
Oh, yes, that is very important.
That's very, very important because it seems like the issue here is loyalty.
They have not transferred the loyalty from where they came from, which is
their family of origin to their new family that they are building, the new marriage,
the new family that they are building. They still believe that their loyalty always will
always remain with their family of origin. And that can be a very, very big problem because this
marriage will never work. Because it is, until they get to a point where whoever is doing
this has, they transfer the loyalty. That means let's for example,
let's say they're in a WhatsApp group and they are now in a family what's up
group and in the family WhatsApp group they are talking about how bad their husband is
and maybe she's talking to her sisters and brothers and uncles and others in that
WhatsApp group. She believes at that time that her family of origin is more important than
the new family she's creating.
And until she's willing to make that transfer and say, you know what?
I'm going to start building up my family,
that I'm going to start building up my new home.
Unfortunately, it's not going to work.
And if I would just advise whoever is going through this
to have conversations with their spouse about transferring loyalty
It's very hard for somebody who really believes 100% that till they die,
they will never move from like that mindset of their mom and dad.
And also this can be made harder if, for example,
they are taking loans,
like they're taking loans,
they are taking money from their family of origin
because now the family of origin will expect to have a say in there
in her home or his home.
So in terms of, like, where the kids will go to school?
Where are they going to be living?
Can they even live in another city?
They have to leave where maybe the dad wants them to live and things like that.
11:30Transferring Loyalty and Family Influence
So I would say it's doable but it's very hard until somebody accepts
that they need to transfer their loyalty.
All right.
Thank you so much, Pesa.
That was very wonderful to hear because there's always a problem with us
our spouse talking about them choosing their family over your marriage.
And I think there's some misconceptions that they tend to have,
and they tell you as a man, they say that your wife is not your family.
So what do you have to say about these misconceptions?
It's talking about, okay, when anymore she could marry on an adult man
and half-kiss for another man so you can see she's not your family.
So you don't need to treat her as family.
What do you have to say about then?
You know, brother,
very, a very good question because I hear that a lot.
Somebody will say, oh, you know what?
I listen to what you're saying, but you know what?
Blood is thicker than water.
I'm going to stick with my family.
But you also have to know that your mother came from somewhere else.
If you really do the math, she did not come from…
She came from a different family and they created a new family.
That's how you ended up having.
And if you…
Why is it okay that for your mom and dad,
for them to have a family?
And she came from a different place.
Your dad came from a different…
And they created a family.
And you view that as more important
than the one you are doing right now
that you view that as more important
than what you're creating right now
and you are hoping that your children
in the future will be looking at you
and getting advice from you
because, yes, family,
yes, we believe water is thicker than blood is thicker
than water.
But every family is always brought together by,
it's always created by people coming from different parts.
And what we don't want to accept
is the same way that needs to happen in your situation too.
You will have a wife who will come from somewhere else
and you guys will create a family
and then your kids will look up to you
and say, oh my goodness, this is such a great family.
We will try to be like them.
See?
So yes, it's important
to be logical about it
and realize that
all families have to start somewhere.
Right, thank you so much for…
Yes.
I've got a lot of the disin misconception
that you have just
ironed out doing that answer.
So what's the road
those splits play, helping couples handle conflicts, cultural differences and outside pressure.
You know, so handling conflict, I think the first thing that we've learned
and also talking to reading books, also reading the Bible,
we have found out the best thing is you need to be friends. And that sounds so strong
simple. But when you really think about it, when you get married,
you are marrying your friend. You are marrying, you're saying,
you know what? I like her. I'm going to go through all this so that we can be
15:30Friendship, Expectations, and Disconnection
married so that we can have a life together. That's true for many people. What happens is
we come together with a lot of expectations. Oh, you know what? This is how my wife's
going to be, oh, this is how we're gonna raise our kids without having that conversation.
Now the issue comes after a while, the friendship and the love goes away.
Now we are two enemies in the house.
And no matter how many books you read, no matter how many lessons you get, if you forget
that this is your friend, you will always find a way to argue
with them. But if it's a friend, you will always find a way to see the best in
them because you say, you know what? If it's a friend, you're like, okay, let me see
what they really mean by saying that. I don't really think they mean it that way. Maybe
you are giving, you're always giving them the benefit of doubt and someone might say,
OK, you are giving them a benefit of doubt but they are taking advantage of you. That's not
what people say for their friends because sometimes we might look at a
friendship and you're like, wow, they are being taken advantage but they are still there because it's their friend or
it's a friend from school. It's a friend from high school. So it's the same way with your spouse. Nobody is perfect. But a lot of these conflicts can be prevented
or reduced completely if you are dealing with somebody you view as a partner, a friend,
somebody you are viewing that you are going through life together and they make mistake. You misunderstand
each other, but ultimately they are not there to harm you.
Right, so couples from very different cultural or family backgrounds
because there's some misconception as well that it is difficult
to marry outside your cultural or family programs.
Most people say cultural backgrounds, many people see different religious backgrounds
as well.
So what is the key to creativity instead of division?
Okay.
From my experience, an experience of talking to a lot of people, the key is being aware that when you are coming in,
you are coming with a lot of assumptions.
You really might not even know that you have these assumptions.
Assumptions and what I mean by this is you might be thinking what you think is how things need to be done.
you might believe that is how things are supposed to be done.
Let me give you an example.
During my marriage, in the beginning of my marriage,
I was raised in a place where men are supposed to work hard
provide for their family financially.
That was how people don't even talk about it.
You just know.
You know that's what a man's supposed to do.
A good man where I came from,
their family was well taken care of financially.
So nobody needed to tell me that, I just know.
So I'm here working, making sure that my family is taking care of.
Six nights a week, I'm working.
I'm never home, but I expect my wife to know
as long as I'm working and everything is taking care of
financially at home, she should be appreciative.
She should be happy about it.
That's what I thought.
What she would have?
was thinking, is he's never home. He's never home and he's not there emotionally. Nobody talked to me about emotions
19:30Financial Provision and Emotional Presence
and being listening, listening to what your wife is saying. It's like, no, I come home, sleep,
I wake up, go back to work that I had to learn what I thought. And this was hard because a lot of my
friends were doing the same thing too. So I would say,
Hold on. You are not being, you're not appreciating what I'm doing here.
I'm sacrificing for this family. But she's thinking, hold on, I'm alone.
I'm taking care of three kids at home. I can go through this. Eventually, I had to pause.
Thank God, I was able to pause and change my ways. This does not mean I'm not providing
for my family. Now I'm also more, I'm able to listen to what she's saying.
I'm able to help out more.
I'm not dismissing things like,
I need help with the kids.
I'm not just dismissing that as in not important
because I guess
as long as it's important to her
should be somewhat important to me.
All right, Pesa, here is my final question for you.
Okay.
What is one practical step
every couple can take this week
to stop fighting each other
and start facing life's pressures
as one thing?
Thank you. What I think they can do, if you're listening to me and you are having these problems in your house,
I think the most important thing you can do tonight is when you get back home, just put the phone away.
Put the phone away especially when you're having a conversation.
Let's see you come from work. You're having a conversation with your wife or husband.
when somebody is talking to you and having a conversation, I think the most important thing
is that can really make a big change is listen. Put the phone away. Really show that
you are, you really care about what they're talking about. It might not mean a lot to you, but showing them
that it means something, they will actually respond better. So some of the fights that go on every day
23:00Listening and Closing Guidance
can be stopped by just listening and actually acting like you care about what the other person is talking about.
Now, you can make it even better by showing that you want to help more.
But just putting the phone away and listening and not being defensive can really help out.
Okay, well, once again, thank you so much.
Thank you for sharing such a practical and faith-filled wisdom on building stronger marriages.
The message reminds us that the healthiest relationships aren't those without challenges.
They are the ones where husband and wife choose to stand together as one team.
So, for those I would like to connect with you and learn more about your book, how can they do that?
They can always go to our website which is liveyourbestmarriage.com
and the live is L-I-V-E, Live Your Best Marriage.com
And if they are on Instagram, we can always connect at Live Your Best Marriage
on Instagram, L-I-V-E, your best marriage on Instagram.
And if they're there, just send me a DM.
All right, Pesa, thank you so much.
This has been a very exciting next episode as well.
Thanks to all my listeners as well.
You guys are the reason why we are able to do this come here
and have a wonderful guests on the show.
Thank you all so much,
and I'll see you again another episode of Hidden Secrets in Books.
Bye guys.
Thank you so much.
Thank you very much.
Okay, bye-bye.
Credits and links
About this podcast appearance
Hidden Secrets in Books is hosted by Dominic Saviour. This page remains connected to the original public episode.
Learn more about Pesa Shayo, explore his books, or see more podcast appearances. Marriage resources are available from Live Your Best Marriage.