Podcast appearance
MRTS Spotlight – United Front: How Couples Win When the World Pulls Them Apart – Pesa Shayo
Yusef Marshall and Pesa Shayo discuss why outside pressure divides couples, how men can protect marriage unity, and why the real issue is often deeper than the argument in front of them.
- Podcast
- The Men's Roundtable Series
- Host
- Yusef Marshall
- Published
- Guest
- Pesa Shayo
Episode overview
About this conversation
In this Men's Roundtable conversation, Pesa explains the United Front framework: spouses learn to identify outside pressure as the shared problem instead of treating each other as the enemy.
Yusef and Pesa discuss extended-family boundaries, conversations that quietly undermine a spouse, faith, root causes beneath recurring conflict, and the deliberate work required to restore connection.
Key takeaways
Marriage principles discussed
- Name the pressure surrounding the marriage before blaming your spouse.
- Protect private marriage decisions from conversations that create divided loyalties.
- Address the root issue beneath recurring symptoms and arguments.
- Combine respectful family boundaries with a clear commitment to your spouse.
- Recover the intention and positive energy that shaped the relationship at the beginning.
Chapters
Conversation chapters
Full transcript
The Men's Roundtable Series 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 Introduction
Yeah, yeah, yo. Pull [music] up a chair, let the real talk begin. Faith on the table where the brothers lock in. Life gets heavy, but we stand our [singing] ground. Truth in the room when the circle comes [music] round. No mask, no front, just real men here. Talking about
faith through the doubt [music] and the fear. From the grind of the week to the lessons we share. Welcome to the Men's Round Table, pull up a chair. Men's Round Table series, [music] step inside. Real men, real faith, where the truths collide. Voices at the table where the
stories get shared. Welcome to the Men's Round Table, pull up a chair.
Many couples believe their biggest challenges will come from within their marriage, but often the greatest pressure comes from outside of it. Today's guest is the author and co-founder of Live Your Best Marriage.
Through his experience in a cross-cultural marriage and years of helping couples navigate family expectations and cultural differences, our guest has discovered a powerful truth. Many marriages are falling apart not because of a lack of love, but because they're being divided by pressures they never learned to face
together. In the house with us author and co-founder Pesa Shayo is with us today. Pace, it's good to have you here, man. How are you?
Thank you very much, brother. I'm doing great.
I'm glad to have you here, man. I'm excited about our convo for today. Let's
01:05What a United Front Means
go ahead and jump into it. We're going to be talking about boundaries, uh building a united front, which is a big story in my household, along with some other things. Let's go ahead and jump in.
Yes.
So, you know, your work seems to center
around helping couples build what you call a united front.
Yes.
For me, I we have a blended family
Okay.
in our home, and for me, a united front was the the defining moment in our marriage. We We were at a place,
probably about 3 to 5 years in, which is the toughest part of a marriage anyways, in most cases, and I was at a point where we had some questions about whether we were going to go forward or not.
Yep.
And when we decided that, you know what?
No matter what happens to the kids, no matter when they get up when they get old up in age and they leave and go on with their own lives, start their own families, guess who's still left in the house? Me and my wife. So when we decided to go
to have a united front
Yep. We were unstoppable at that point.
Yes.
Your words center around that same kind of thing. Tell me what's a united front in your estimation and how are you helping couples with that? Go ahead.
Thank you. So for for us, what we believe united front is where the husband and wife are able to we are not When we talk about united front, we are not saying that we don't disagree. Yes, we disagree, but the first thing is we
view each other as friends. So we see each other as friends, so even if Think about it, if you have a friend and you are having any issues with them, you always give them the benefit of doubt. You're like, "You know what? It's my friend. Um
let me see what they really meant before I start reacting." And it's that's what we are trying to say here. See each other as friends and then so that if there's any problems, you can always come and work through the problems first. And when we talk about
03:10Boundaries and Outside Pressure
when it comes to boundaries, especially from in-laws and other family pressures I just other pressures, we have found out that most of the problem is we don't view the problem as um it's outside of us. Most of the couples, we look at a problem, we start fighting each other
instead of coming together and then fighting the problem. Yes. And that little nuance, that little distinction that we have to come together to fight the problem is um where we call the united front, coming together at all times. Yes.
I love
I love that picture. Uh you know,
I know there's a lot of couples who are probably going to be watching this either live or on the replay, and they I don't know if it's a a general opinion that's just happening in our world, but I see it so much, especially on social media, especially in the relationships
in my social circle. It feels like we just go to outside sources for help. We just it seems to be our default. I don't know why exactly. Then we decide, you know what, our default is not to talk to each other. We go to outside sources to get help. I
don't I don't I don't understand that. Have you been seeing that in your work? People are kind of leaning on uh their mother or their father or their girlfriend who's unmarried. You know, talk about that a little bit because So, so for us
us, we see that a lot, especially if you uh coming from a cross-cultural family where like one person is coming from another country where they believe that that the family of origin is the most important thing. So, they're coming from a place where the mom, the dad, the
aunts, the cousins are so important. And then now they come over here, and the issue comes to the phones. So, they have the phone, they have the WhatsApp group, they have the Facebook group, and they're literally constantly communicating the whole day. But what
they have left out of that group is their spouse. So.
Wow.
It's a It's a It's a family group, but the family group is has been created in such a way that it's the family of origin. And now they're making decisions. People are complaining.
They're viewing, you know, you know what, your husband is not really the right man for you because and they're they're having the whole this conversation there all day long. And then so when she comes home or when he comes home, he's already been poisoned.
Mhm.
There's no way and so when we talk about United Front, we can say, "Okay, you need to be able to say this kind of conversation should not go on because I will support my husband or I will support my wife first."
Yeah. Yeah.
06:00Family Conversations That Divide Couples
They allow these conversations to go on and they just don't say anything. Yeah.
Incredible, man. Yeah,
[laughter]
we can go a lot of places with that one for sure. I want to ask you about, you know, just You mentioned about the United Front. I
want to ask you more about when you mentioned a cross-cultural marriage situation, it sounds like you might be specializing in that. Give us an example of what that looks like without any unique names or identifiers. Just kind of you say cross-cultural marriage situation that has those kind of misunderstandings or
Yes.
communication gaps. Give me Give us an example of that.
So, most of So, when you get married, just any marriage, we always go in with assumptions. We are basically assuming this is how life is done. But when you are bringing two people from two
different cultures, now these assumptions are being stacked on on others other things. So, for example, um how you spend money. One person might think, "Oh, you know what? I as a husband decide how to spend money." Somebody else comes to the marriage thinks, "You know what?
We need to sit together as a family or as a couple to decide where the money goes because it's a family budget.
Right.
Sounds very simple until somebody who thinks they are the man and they will decide where the money goes
is with somebody who thinks we need to come together and they never really had this conversation before getting married. Like um how how are you going to like how do we view money? Another problem we see in cross-cultural families is sending money home.
Mhm. okay.
Send Yeah, sending money home. Cuz somebody comes with this uh notion they they they already have the assumption that they were the one who was brought over to this country, so they need to continue sending money to help their family back home.
Oh.
Sounds great until you
you are with somebody who believes that first we have to take care of ourself first and then if there's anything left, now we can decide to send or um donate somewhere else. So, when somebody has this obligation and they never had a conversation that
okay, this is what I'm supposed to be doing. No, it brings a lot of um animosity in the house. And there's ways to handle these situations like, "Hey, let's talk about it and decide how we will be handling this for our family, not
your culture, not my culture. How are we going to do it in our family? Basically, at the end you're creating a different culture in your marriage. Like a new And in like in my family we call ours Team Shayo. So, we at the end we end up
creating a Team Shayo culture where we pretty much decide how we going to handle different situations in um basically our life.
I do man. And because this show is generally for all male audience, we're going to tailor the last couple of questions to the husbands, fathers, brothers, and
09:20Marriage Experience, Faith, and Responsibility
sons that watch this show.
Yes.
And I know that a lot of marriages not my wife and I we next month will be 30 years for us, so we've been in the fire. We know what's going on.
Yes.
Uh many marriages kind of struggle with
the whole in-law dynamics. Uh we've seen a little bit of that.
Yep.
Conflict loyalty conflict, you've seen some of that. You mentioned that yourself. Expectations of family. How as a man have you been able to navigate still being the leader of your household, but not trying
to be the most dominant force in the household? How How did you handle that because a lot of guys that are watching don't know there's a difference. Go ahead and share that.
Yes. So, and that's a really good question because uh, being I was raised in a place where
it was uh, male male dominated. So, um, the man was not only the leader of the house, but whatever he decided goes.
Hm.
Whatever he decided goes. That sounds very crazy until you realize that was was what was going on. Now, in here,
I am taking that role as a leader, but I'm not So, you are So, the role is of a leader, but at the same time you are thinking, "What if it was me uh, trying to take uh, to give my point and somebody else doesn't listen. How
would I like that?" You see? Sometimes you need to pause and think, "Okay, how would I like a situation where I have a great idea? I'm trying to express myself, but somebody else is just brushing it off and just making a decision." If you really understand that, and that goes
back to the issue of being empathetic. The person that you are leading in the house does not mean that she's dumb, or does not mean she doesn't really understand the situation. She understands, and she wants and also because uh, she will also suffer the consequences of these decisions.
If things go well, she learn things will go well, but if things go bad from the decisions I make, she will also have to go through the consequences. And because of that, I make sure that her points are also considered. Because the idea that I make decisions
and somebody will suffer from those decisions if things go wrong and they never had a seat on the table doesn't really work well with me.
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, man. That makes sense. All right, two more questions and we'll be closing the show
12:00Treating Root Issues Instead of Symptoms
out for today. So, you are one of the thing that you that I love that you do helping couples with is kind of identifying the underlying issue. And sometimes people who offer counsel, therapy sometimes uh things in the ministry circles, they deal so much with the symptom that they
don't even realize what's causing the symptom. And they can't even get there they can't even get there because they're still fighting with the symptom.
Yes.
You are What would you say is the most common recurring issue? Not the symptom, but the issue that you
see in so many times and you know it's a it's it's deep rooted in men especially. What have you seen?
So, one thing I see is men I've seen a lot that men we are not willing to listen and stop defending defending our actions. So,
so sometimes all we need to do is pause, listen, apologize, take responsibility if we need to take responsibility. I see that is a big thing that's missing. I I had a that problem for a long time.
Oh, wow.
Not taking responsibility and constantly
defending myself. So, in terms of my wife says something and I already have rebuttal. I already know what she did last week and I'm going to defend myself instead of just pausing and saying, "Okay, what do you What does she really mean here?" So, it's so good. So,
if we can just learn to pause, listen, and quit defending ourselves, we can um get along farther. And also, just I always say, when you're having some of these deep conversations, please put the phone away so that you can actually connect. Look at each other.
That's true.
Put the phone away and just have a conversation.
Yes, noted, man.
Yes.
One of the ways that we first off One of the ways that we end our show is we just do what's called the mirror check where we ask a question and you
share with the audience and we kind of get them some assistance and some support.
Yes.
I have your website up on the screen, Pesa. It's unitedfrontmarriage.com for you guys that are not watching us yet, but you're listening to the show, unitedfrontmarriage.com.
It's also going to be in the chat and in the show notes. Easy to find. If you have any challenges with it, you can reach out to me. I'm happy to get you connected to Pesa. All right. So, the mirror check question
for you, Pesa, is the last one for the show. If a husband or wife listening today realize that they've been protecting everybody else's feelings except their spouses, and that family influence we're talking about, that in-law uh dynamic,
Yes.
what's the question you think they need
to ask themselves when they look in the mirror?
Okay. The question you need to ask yourself tonight, brother, is why did I get married to her? To my wife. Most of the time, you got married because you loved her and you made a choice
15:00Restoring Connection
to get married to her. And that time when you were dating her, you were proposing, you were looking forward to get married to her, you really felt that this is the right one. Get that energy back. Because it's the same person. You are the same person. Just get the energy
back. Pret- Go back to that time when you were pursuing you pursuing her, wanting her, calling her, texting her, sending her pictures, images, all that time. Because that is what will bring that fun person that is not in the house at the moment. Yes.
I love it. Thank you so much, sir.
Yes.
It's really good, man.
Thank you.
First off, thanks for being here, Pesa for sharing your insights on marriage, man, and relationships. You're obviously doing great work out there. Thank you for doing that and sh-
sharing it on the show. I appreciate it, man.
Thank you, sir. I enjoyed being with you here with you and thank you just for getting our message out there.
Yeah, absolutely. My pleasure, man.
Thank you. This episode has resonated with you, share it with a married
couple, an engaged couple, or somebody that's navigating the challenges of family expectations, cultural differences, or relationship conflicts. Strong marriages don't happen by accident. They are built intentionally, one conversation, one decision at a time. You can have the Pesa at unitedfrontmarriage.com, unitedfrontmarriage.com. Please subscribe to our show, They Call
Me Mr. U the Podcast, on our YouTube channel, youtube.com at They Call Me Mr. U, or you can just find it where you listen to your podcast from. Thanks again for joining us and don't forget the difference between who you are and
who you could be is found in what you do every single day. This is the Men's Roundtable Series Spotlight. That's Pesa Shayo. I'm Mr. U. Have a great day. Thanks for listening.
Men's Roundtable Series. [music] Step inside. Real men, real faith, where the truths collide. Voices at the table
where the stories get shared. Welcome to the Men's Roundtable. Pull up a chair.
Credits and links
About this podcast appearance
The Men's Roundtable Series is hosted by Yusef Marshall. 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.