Podcast appearance
Building a United Front in Marriage with Pesa Shayo
Oluwaniyi and Pesa Shayo examine why strong marriages struggle under outside pressure and the small shifts that help couples stand together.
- Podcast
- The 1% Shift with Niyi
- Host
- Oluwaniyi
- Published
- Guest
- Pesa Shayo
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The 1% Shift with Niyi
Episode overview
About this conversation
Oluwaniyi and Pesa Shayo examine why strong marriages struggle under outside pressure and the small shifts that help couples stand together.
The conversation covers love and the pressure surrounding marriage, in-law pressure and loyalty conflicts, cultural differences and communication, faith-based strategies for unity, small shifts couples can practice now.
Key takeaways
Marriage principles discussed
- Love and the pressure surrounding marriage.
- In-law pressure and loyalty conflicts.
- Cultural differences and communication.
- Faith-based strategies for unity.
- Small shifts couples can practice now.
Chapters
Conversation chapters
Full transcript
The 1% Shift with Niyi 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.
00:00Introduction and guest background
Welcome to the 1% Sheet of Nii, the podcast where we explore the small intentional sheets
that create lasting impact.
I'm your host Oluwaniyi.
Today's guest is Pesa Shayo, author and co-founder of Live Your Best Marriage.
Pesa helps cross-cultural Christian couples view the United Fronts through in-law pressure,
loyalty conflicts, and cultural differences.
Through his books, podcasts, and marriage resources he equips couples to stop fighting
in each other and start facing life challenges as one thing. Pesa, it's good to have you on 1% shifts.
Thank you very much Nii. I'm very excited to be here.
Pleasure is my answer. Now, Pesa, you said that many marriages don't feel because
couples stop loving each other. They struggle because outside pressures quietly pull them apart.
Now, when did you actually first recognize this pattern?
You know, I recognize that pattern because I realize by the way, I'm originally from Africa in Kenya
and my wife is American. So we already having that cross-cultural issues because we came into a marriage
with different cultures but although we love each other, we thought love would take care of everything
but we were wrong. Actually, coming from different cultures you see life differently and that is
something that we did not appreciate so that was our first pressure how can we be able to live
happily function every day and at the same time be seeing things very very differently
that really opened up our eyes. Just the way I was raised, how I believed a man should be,
what I believed was the right thing was totally different from her. She…
I believe as long as a man was providing financially, that's all they needed to do.
provide, stay faithful and that as long as you do that everything is fine. But that's not what she
thought. She also thought like you also have to be there emotionally present I didn't know anything
about emotions. I didn't even think that it was important or needed. I had to learn the hard way.
Yes. Interesting. Yes. And then with your years of experience after communicating
with other couples and helping them with their marriage.
Now what have you actually found out as the biggest mistake couples make when conflict arises?
You know, one thing I've found out is that other than thinking that they are acting or acting like
their spouse is their enemy, I think just being constantly blaming each other.
Oh, that can really get you into a lot of problems because they are also thinking the same thing. I'm doing it a lot too
How come you're not grateful? And that will just bring a lot of problems
I do still agree on that
Basically this
Discussion is about building a united front shelium marriages now talking about United Fronts now
04:00Love and the pressure surrounding marriage
What does the United Front to really look like in practice?
so in practice
It doesn't really mean that, okay, you're united. That means you are two robots. You don't have any differing ideas.
No! You can have disagreements. You can have all these issues. But what we are saying is you have these conversations in private.
You disagree, you go through… deal with any issue that you're having but you are doing it in private
Because when you come in public let's say as a simple thing in the house and you have children
If you don't have United Front, children know very well that mom and dad are not united
And they will be able to pick that and we call it parent shopping
so they'll come to one parent and ask for something
if they say no because they know they are not united
they will just go and talk to dad and most likely dad would say yes
So we say okay just even for the children
before the children should know that mom and dad
father and mother are on the same page and if they don't agree
they will still back each other up
this is very important especially when it goes to the in-laws
because when you're going through in-laws
now, if they would be able to know if you guys are not on the same page
so I can talk to my side of the family
and I can say hey
you know what? I'm okay with it but you know what?
My wife will always say no
or I can say you know what?
I'm okay with it but
you know how she acts
that is literally telling other people that you and her are not on the same page
or me going to work to my job and saying and talking about my wife as we are not connected
other people will pick up on that so it's easy to come in between a couple
that they are always putting each other under the bus
So we are not saying that do not have disagreement, we are saying do that in private
and when you're coming out in public it's gonna be one voice all the time.
And then now some persons may have pushed their partners under the bus to take them in a way
that's naturally pleasing. Now for those who have done that now how can couples actually
and repeat after repeated conflicts.
is also breaking up your marriage.
Now, if both of you want to continue with your marriage,
and both of you actually, or if you've decided like,
you know what?
I think I'm ready to apologize, be okay.
This might be very hard for a lot of people,
especially coming from where I grew up,
for a man to say apologize,
but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.
Sometimes the best thing is to apologize. Say, you know what? I know what I did. I'm ready
to stop it but apologizing is one step. Building trust, you talked about building trust. Oh that's
07:59In-law pressure and loyalty conflicts
where the work comes because it's one thing to say apologized. Building trust means you are saying
You are doing what you said you're gonna do
So that means building trust means you are showing that the things they said you are not going to do
You don't do them and at the same time you are willing
To be transparent and let other people check on you because trust
It's easy to break
But it's very hard to build because most people are not willing
to go through the process of, number one, apologizing, saying I'm wrong and two,
they are not willing to do what they say they're gonna do. And also be okay that
somebody is going to be questioning them. Did you really do it? Are you where
you said you're gonna be? Oh my goodness! That can be a big one but sometimes we
just have to look at, okay, do I want a divorce? Do I want to go through my kids
So basically, the healthiest marriages and the ones that actually do not have conflicts
they are the ones who are committed to actually resolving the conflict together, right?
Yes. And thank you very much for saying that.
It does not mean that they don't have conflicts. Think about it.
If even by yourself, you might have conflicting ideas
Should I go or should I not go? Should I eat this food or not?
There's always this conflict. Now imagine putting two people into one
marriage. Okay, if you by yourself have conflict what about two humans and then
two humans who are brought raised in two different countries? Oh my goodness now
you're bringing a lot of conflicts but it's not that they don't have conflict
it's they are able to see okay is this even important? No it's not important is
this even worth it? Most of the conflicts are not worth it and you look at
What are the big pictures? Do I want to go through all this so that I can get a divorce?
Most of the answer is no. Okay, this is a nice person or marriage too but we're having
disagreement about trash. We're having disagreement about dinner. Think about it. Dinner you can
buy even you can buy for very little money and end that argument but that can be an argument
for days because somebody burned their dinner. And you can buy a new dinner for less than,
I don't know like very little money. So when you look at some of these disagreements they really
don't mean anything but they become very important. But when you look at the big picture,
I want my kids to be raised in the same house with me. I want to be in the same house with
my children. Oh you know what? I want my kids to see a good example of how a man treats his wife.
is that you are a weak person, and you can maintain peace and connection with your wife.
If these are some important things to you now you can say,
I really don't need to have this fight.
That does not mean you're weak.
Actually you're stronger because you can look at it like,
You know what?
I don't need this.
And still maintain the peace
11:59Cultural differences and communication
because you're connecting on bigger issues
and if you have any problem that even she doesn't sleep at home? No.
And those words are actually very deep. Now, what I love about your work is the fact that you actually intertwined faith with marriage.
Yes!
That's really nice.
But we all know this time now, how does faith actually strengthen your marriage especially during difficult seasons?
Yes, so faith it helps you because you can learn for example something very simple.
You learn from the Bible about living and cleaving and the two unite and become one. So that helps
you know that your marriage that you've created the two of you have united and became one.
That is important because there's a lot of people who will say, my wife is not my family.
They will say, families only blood. So as long as she is not my blood, we cannot become one.
But faith already told you two became one. Some people will say okay so you're doing this United Front
United Front, you are agreeing with your wife.
That means you need to be disrespectful to your parents
because you're having this united front and we say no.
The Bible will tell you about,
honor your parents, honor your mother and father.
So you already have in that
there's a commandment of honoring your parents.
So they have done a lot and you are honoring their part
but at the end of the day
you are still making decisions as a couple.
So there's this argument of saying, oh blood is thicker than water.
I don't really need to put a lot of weight on my wife with my wife.
These are the same people who if somebody said that to their mother or your mother came to
your family and they really are no blood, they would be very offended.
They believe the family that they came from is a real family, but the one that they are building, it's not.
So just using faith and also faith will help you become more kind, more loving.
Treat other people the way you want to be treated.
Some people will treat their wives worse than a dog and still want her to respect and obey them.
That is not a Christian way to do it. So, we are not using faith to oppress people, we are using faith to actually bring up a couple and for them to be nicer to each other.
Now quick one. You've written book to help couples build stronger marriages. Which book would you recommend for someone to start with and why?
Okay, we can start with I always am biased so yes our latest questions for culturally and
ethically diverse couples that's a good one but one book that really helped me when I was going
through a lot of problems was Love and Respect by Dr. Eckridge you can find it on Amazon Love
Love and Respect, that was a good one because I was going through a hard time in my marriage
and we nearly went through a divorce.
And that book, Love and Respect really helped me.
15:58Faith-based strategies for unity
One thing, the reason why most of our books have questions in there where couples can use
to ask each other is because we found out that a lot of couples are told, okay communicate
better.
these are the ways to communicate. But now when they're supposed to communicate,
they don't know what to say. So we like to write books which are very practical and we are taking
things away from their theory and strategy and breaking it down in such a way that when they open
the book they can read some of the conversation status and that way they can have conversations
even if they don't know what to say because you'll be surprised how many people have been married for a long time, 20, 15-20 years
and they are just so good at fighting and now they really want to get better at working on their marriage.
Really wanna get better. They're trying but they don't know what to say.
It's after…they start nicely and then before you know it, start blaming your mom did this,
Your dad did this, I can't believe this, you are too soft with the kids.
You're too hard with the kids and it just starts all over again.
So if they have a book where they can use
conversation status and help them go through a conversation,
we believe that's a really good idea.
And then obviously always the Bible is a good one.
Hello? Hello.
Can you hear me?
Yeah, I can hear now.
Alright, okay, be fine.
Now, I will just edit the parts out of it.
You're able to round up your last statement right?
Yes.
Okay, alright then.
Now, you've given marriage advices and also received one
And like you said, yours had the onset who almost led to even a divorce
Now what's the best marriage advice that you actually received?
Okay, and when I say best because with your podcast you like to, you're working on that
1% shift that a couple can do.
And I really believe any guy or any lady right now listening to this, I believe if they start
learning to pause. Just pause before you react. Every time you and your wife or
you and your husband are arguing, there's just a way you guys do it. They say
something and you know what to say and it just works. Both of you know how to argue
but if one of you just learns how to pause, when somebody is talking
Pause before you start defending yourself. Don't explain yourself, don't defend as usual
Just pause and let that person talk. And then you can start asking questions like things
19:58Small shifts couples can practice now
Like you know what? You can say something like give me an example
Start being curious Give me an example when I did that
or like how did that make you feel? Things like that. Just start being curious because
what that will do, it will start changing the way you guys fight. So remember to pause
when he's yelling or when she's yelling and you know how things go. Don't respond. Just look at them
nicely and pause and you're like, you know what I really understand where you're coming from.
Just give me an example because I really need to get this.
I really need to understand it so I can help you.
Give me an example.
And that will also start making people start thinking and relaxing.
Yeah, you know what?
If that happened to me, I would be very upset too.
You know, uh…
So yeah, tell me.
So next time I can really know what not to do.
That will make you start having a friend.
I can tell you that.
True, I just like agree on that.
Yes.
He's actually with you better than your partner, I know this.
Yes, yes.
Yes.
I mean, I'm telling you when you tell your wife like, oh my goodness, oh man, I see what
you mean because if that happened to me, I'll be so upset.
Sure.
And now they're like, what?
Who is this?
That takes out a lot of that anger.
So remember to pause before you start defending yourself.
and a shared commitment to stand side by side.
And most importantly, even enduring our vacations, it's important to actually post and listen
to the next person.
Thank you so much for sharing your journey and thank you so much for sharing your words
of wisdom.
Now for those who want to know more about you, Sari, I reckon they actually defined you on
your work.
Yes!
They definitely can go to our website which is liveyourbestmarriage.com, which is L-I-V-E,
yourbestmarriage.com and the good thing there is they can come and do the United Front quiz
which is a free quiz and their results it's less than three minutes and their results will
will help them identify where they really are right now when it comes to family pressure,
loyalty issues, conflicts.
And then these are the things that really weaken their teamwork and then they'll have an idea
what we give them a blueprint on what to do to solve this, to work on it.
The good thing here is they don't have to do it together as a couple because we believe
Sometimes someone in the marriage who's ahead, they're having more pain and they want that to be solved
So they are the ones who are looking for their resources
It's okay for one to do it themselves
But this is not to prove to the other one that, oh you know what I'm better
No, sometimes you need to show an example
That, okay, this is what I'm doing so that the other one can join you
Because sometimes you might explain, explain, explain
Nobody really understands what you're talking about, but when they see the changes you are going through
They will like, you know what? I want to have that one too.
I also wanna be like how he's doing
How Nini is… like how he has changed
I wanna be like that too
So most people are likely to join you if they see the change in you
So again, they can go to liveyourbestmarriage.com
Which is LIV, your best marriage and they will find the United Front quiz
I will do what's actually included in my description when posting on my platforms. Thank you once more for joining us on the 1% shift, sir
Thank you very much Nei. I really enjoyed being here
Same here, sir
Now to everyone listening remember this every strong marriage is abused once more decision at a time
Choose to protect your relationship
Communicate with grace and face life challenges as one same. This is a low on Nei on the 1% shifts
Thank you so much for watching!
Credits and links
About this podcast appearance
The 1% Shift with Niyi is hosted by Oluwaniyi. 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.