Podcast appearance
Building a United Front in Marriage with Pesa Shayo
Confidence Igberase and Pesa Shayo discuss the outside pressures that create distance inside marriage and how healthy boundaries support unity.
- Podcast
- Tender Space
- Host
- Confidence Igberase
- Published
- Guest
- Pesa Shayo
Listen
Tender Space
Episode overview
About this conversation
Confidence Igberase and Pesa Shayo discuss the outside pressures that create distance inside marriage and how healthy boundaries support unity.
The conversation covers naming outside pressure, why loving couples end up on opposite sides, healthy family boundaries, protecting marriage without rejecting family, culture, faith, and communication, facing the real challenge together.
Key takeaways
Marriage principles discussed
- Naming outside pressure.
- Why loving couples end up on opposite sides.
- Healthy family boundaries.
- Protecting marriage without rejecting family.
- Culture, faith, and communication.
- Facing the real challenge together.
Chapters
Conversation chapters
Full transcript
Tender Space 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
Hello everyone, welcome to Pretender Space. It's a soft place for honest conversations and heavy feelings.
Today's guest is Pesa Shayo. May I pronounce the song name well?
Yes.
Alright that's good thank you very much.
Today's guest is Pesa Shayo, an author and co-founder of Live Your Best Marriage where he helps cross-cultural Christian couples navigate some of the pressures
and the pressures that can quietly create distance in marriage.
In many relationships, the problem isn't that two people don't love each other.
Sometimes it's the pressure coming from outside relationship.
From outside the relationship, family expectations,
in-law dynamics, cultural differences,
loyalty, conflict, and feelings that you have to choose between your spouse
and the people you come from. Pesa's work focuses on helping couples stop seeing each other as
the enemy when those pressure arises, and instead learn how to stand together as one team.
His perspective is also deeply personal. Through his own cross-cultural marriage with Whitney,
Pesa understands that love can bring two people together while they are different backgrounds.
expectations and cultural experiences can still create complicated challenges. Through his book,
podcast and marriage resources he gives couples practical language for communication, boundaries,
unity and navigating difficult family dynamics without allowing those pressures to divide their
home so we're going to be talking sorry so today we're gonna have an honest conversation about
cultural, family boundaries, loyalty and what it really means to build a united front with the people,
with the person you're choosing to spend your life with. Pesa, welcome to Intendar Space.
Thank you very much, Confidence. I love the introduction and I'm really thankful for
you having me here. Thank you very much. Before we start can you tell us a bit about yourself?
Thank you. So a little bit about myself, I'm originally from Kenya in Africa and
my wife is from America and we have been married for more than 20 years and
through those 20 years, more than 20 years, we've had basically had to learn the hard
and the hard way that when you bring two cultures into one home, raising four daughters, having a great marriage,
we had to learn to take…to realize that all these false assumptions that I was having in my mind
that this is how things are supposed to be done. I had to learn to change that.
was a lot of issues when we are navigating a lot of family pressures.
My family, half-family cultures, boundaries, issues with money, loyalty, oh my goodness,
loyalty that was a big one and just communication.
What do you really mean when you say something?
All that we had to learn how to deal with and thank God right now we feel like we are
and thriving but it was not always that way.
And absolutely wonderful response, Pesa.
Yes.
Now your work centers around the idea of creating a united front.
What does that actually mean in everyday marriage?
And how is it different from simply telling yourself I'm on your side?
03:53Naming outside pressure
Okay, so when we say United Front, yes it builds up on the fact that we are on the same side.
But what we mean is we have the conversation first before other people get to hear our opinion
or what we really mean.
So for example, we've had a lot of situations where, and this even happened in my marriage,
my wife would tell something to my mom.
And my mom would say, no it's okay I'll wait for my son.
And then my son will tell me.
You know that just basically what that meant was she knew that me and my wife were not on
the same page.
As long as she waited for me, she is going to get a different answer.
We are saying that, it's not just saying, oh you know what?
we're on the same page but we talk
so even if she goes and talks to my wife
and comes back and talks to me
she's going to get the same answer
not two different answers
Now that sounds easy
to say but is very hard
because especially if you're coming from a family where
whatever your parent says is the rules
and saying no to your parent is something very hard.
If you're coming from a family like that, now it becomes very hard.
You don't want to disappoint them because disappointing your parent might be seen as you are being rude
and you are being a bad child.
Most of us don't wanna be known as the bad kid.
So that is where it becomes very interesting because you are honoring your parents
but at the same time you're on the same page with your spouse.
and I'm smoothly inside to respond to that.
Yes.
Now, when you're in a cross-cultural marriage,
two people aren't just putting their personalities together.
They are bringing family traditions, beliefs, expectations, communication styles
and ideas about the marriage.
What are some of the cultural differences,
couples often underestimate on team?
They are already married.
Yes, oh man, some of the things that you might take for granted might be even just food.
Most of us just assume the way we like a certain type of food, the other person will like it.
So for example my wife where she comes from they love chocolate and it might sound crazy but I just can't stand it.
I've tried it, it's just not my thing. Now at first she was feeling offended because this is something really good for her
Something like mac and cheese
Mac and cheese is something that I just don't
I'm not a big fan of it
But this is something she grew up with and she thought that everybody will eat it
So if she's cooking it, I'm thinking I don't want to eat that
but at the same time I have some special food
07:46Why loving couples end up on opposite sides
and a great time with your family, uncles and cousins just very happy eating this food, goat meat, stuff like that.
But when you come to your marriage now it's like oh we don't like that so you might get really offended.
That's something very simple now but at that time it was very offensive to me.
Just also another thing like just the meaning of words. Somebody might, I might say family
and she's saying family but we are talking about two different things. She might just mean husband,
wife and a child and children. I'm talking about cousins, uncles, nephews, nieces,
a friend that I met somewhere now they are my brother all these people I call them family
and there might be a big difference in just the wide family.
So unless we are very clear from the get-go
what these things mean,
we may be having a lot of problems later
because I might be bringing a friend,
somebody I just met from the same town where I came from
and I'm calling them brother
but she might be saying,
hold on this is not a brother?
How come I've never heard about this brother?
But we are meaning two different things, you see?
Yeah. Now let's talk about in-laws because this can be such a sensitive subject. Yes. How
can a couple establish healthy boundaries with their families without making their parents or
relatives feel rejected, disrespected or pushed out of their lives? Perfect that's a very very good
question because this is what we deal with a lot when it comes to in-laws we always remind the couples
and the same way we work with that if you're having a problem with maybe your mother-in-law
all the time, we believe that's just a symptom of the problem.
That is not really the problem.
The problem is you and your husband or you and your wife are not united because if you
You are united and you are on the same page, 100%.
It's very easy to set a boundary respectively.
It's very easy to say, you know what, mom?
We don't believe in that.
But as long as one person still believes they should not talk to their parents that way,
there will always be an issue.
For example, we were dealing with a couple and the issue with them was their father, their
dad would be coming often without being invited.
And that, the husband was saying you know what this is my house he should call ahead of time
because I just don't like the fact he's coming all the time without notifying us.
The daughter was having a hard time going and talking to her dad
because she still felt like, yeah, yes it's a problem but how am I gonna tell my dad?
So he is expecting her to set a boundary
But she cannot set a boundary because she just can't see how it's possible
Now they are already divided, now they're fighting against each other
The problem is not the problem anymore
They found out the best thing to do is first of all, they both agree that he needs to call.
11:39Healthy family boundaries
They found out the best thing to do is for her to talk to her mum and by talking to the
mum she was able to talk to her husband because it's much easier for the mum to talk to her
It does absolutely amazing response, Pesa.
Yes.
No, sometimes the conflict isn't really about the in-laws or the cultural expectation itself.
It's about one's past feeling like you choose them over me.
Why can that feeling be so painful and what can couples do when one partner feels emotionally
abandoned in those moments?
Wow!
You have like really good questions.
That's very good.
because this issue is something that took me a long time to even understand what was happening.
I finally realized that there's something called loyalty, who are you loyal to?
So we learned that the Bible says oh you need to live and cleave or two become one so you're
You're basically creating a new family.
But if your loyalty, if you are loyal is still in your old family, your mom and dad, you haven't
transferred your loyalty to this new family that you are building, you will always have
these problems because now you still believe the old family is still quote-unquote family.
That's why some people will tell me, you know, blood is thicker than water.
You know, blood is thicker than water so I have to really stick with my family of origin.
That means they are just telling me that they haven't really transferred that loyalty from
their family of origin to this new family that they're building here and this can be
very painful because somebody feels like even I've had women say that they feel like it's
It's like they're being cheated on because they are saying, being seen as…
Like when every time he is choosing his family of origin or her, she feels like it's like
she's being betrayed.
And this is very painful because the most important thing is we can talk to him, we can help him
Not to the amazing response, but to you. You've experienced a cross-cultural relationship
15:31Protecting marriage without rejecting family
relationship. Sorry? You've experienced a cross-cultural marriage yourself.
Yes.
Well, there are moments when you and Whitney realized that love alone wasn't going to solve
certain differences and that you actually needed to learn how to work as a team.
Yes. Yes. That after we started, after we got married, living together, we realized pretty
very quick that love alone was not gonna solve everything because you see once when you're
dating, everything seems so easy but when everything settles down and now you are married all of
a sudden things that used to just you'd brush them off now they are really annoying.
Now, we had to realize that eventually.
I think this happened after the birth of our third daughter
That unless we start working together as a team
And not looking for reasons why the other person is a problem
Or she's a problem
And also not going and getting advice
I was getting a lot of advice from my friends and my friends would remind me how she's ungrateful,
how she's ungrateful.
She doesn't respect or all these things which basically at the end of the day you get all
this advice but it's not really helping your marriage.
It's basically they are just giving you advice but they're not help building your marriage.
They are just basically figuring out a way to destroy your marriage.
Actually, she wasn't ungrateful. She also had her own problems of figuring out the best way to handle this situation
And we ended up creating a…we call it Tim Shire
Which is, it's not my culture, it's not her culture
We've created another culture in our marriage called Tim Shire
and that is what we are using to move forward
because we are taking a little bit from her side, a little bit from my side,
and come up with our own culture that we are showing like raising our kids with.
And for example, my kids are able to speak my language but that will not have been possible if
see if my wife wasn't supportive of that that would not be possible because she can also
and also be against that, you see?
But the fact that we are working as a team,
now that seems like a normal thing for me to teach my kids
my language so now they're bilingual.
So it makes it just so easy when they're talking
to their cousins, they can talk in my language.
That has only happened when we started working as a team
Fates can bring couples together but even between Christian marriages, people can have very different
19:24Culture, faith, and communication
interpretations of roles, submission, family responsibilities and what a godly marriage is
How can couples use faith to create unity rather than using it as a weapon during disagreement?
The children, now it becomes the issue.
Where are the children going to church?
The in-laws are saying they need to come to our side.
Some people are saying they need to go to the mosque.
So now it becomes this big fight.
But it doesn't have to be a big fight because there's always ways to compromise.
I think that's one of the biggest words that couples can use.
Figuring out the best way to compromise and it always starts with friendship
If you still view your spouse as a friend, you will always find a way to make it work
But sometimes these things are framed as they're my enemy
So they're my enemy and now we are fighting
The kids need to go to the mosque or the kids needs to go to church
Now it's like this constant fight
But there is always a solution
But you'll never get to that solution
Unless you view them as a friend
Let's figure this out, let's walk through this
The same way we were dating
And we used to figure out all these problems
Let's do it again
But it has to come from that aspect of friends
We are friends
and sometimes in-laws can make it worse because they might not find a way to…
Like, they are stuck with their position.
They're like, okay the kids have to go to discharge or the kids have to come with us.
No! Let's figure out the best way forward or maybe they don't need to go.
See?
But it takes a lot of conversation and a lot of just remembering like hey
We started this and let's make it work.
Okay, and that this can be very hard because when
and when you are fighting, and sometimes it's very hard to pause.
To pause we talk about pausing just pause slow down stop before you continue answering because
sometimes when you are in that anger and you forget that this person that you are with is
the same person that you are dating and you decided to get married to you continue
and you're making very bad decisions.
And sometimes, you don't feel hard
and that way you continue being angry.
23:17Facing the real challenge together
Some people even say when you hurt,
when you feel hurt,
you are more likely to hurt other people.
But another thing we found out,
especially when you don't feel hard,
you might be going and asking friends,
family like maybe you have a WhatsApp group
where you are on the side where you talk.
But if every time you go to that WhatsApp group
and you're venting, you're saying how bad your husband is
or how bad your wife is
and he's not listening to me or how she's not listening to me.
The way you frame that conversation…
Most people are not going to give you good advice
when you're telling them how bad their person is.
they will just continue saying how yeah leave them alone, leave them you don't have to take that and
they continue giving you bad advice. So knowing that even if you're not being hard pause and try
to see is there something I could have done differently? Again we are not saying stay in
if you are being abused physically abused but most people we work with it's not that they
and
Also try not to be on the phone, like at that time you're just texting or like
just talking to somebody else on the phone because that also just brings more anger to the conversation
There's no one thing, there's just no one way to solve this problem but I always say the best
thing is to pause and come back when you are more calm down and at that time do not go and look for
Marish doesn't mean that two people suddenly stop coming from different families, cultures, religions and experiences. Don't disappear when you say I do.
and sometimes the hardest part is in loving each other.
It's learning how to protect that love when our side voices become loud.
It's a reminder that a marriage doesn't have to be a battlefield where one person wins
and the other loses, there's no doubt possibility.
Two people can look at the pressure around them, turn towards each other and say we're
on the same team because sometimes the relationship doesn't need another argument, it needs two
to people remembering that there's supposed to be a face-to-face problem together.
And an absolutely wonderful conversation, better.
Yes.
So for anyone listening right now, who this conversation has with me, and they want to learn
more about your work, very kindly thank you.
Okay, they can definitely find me at liveyourbestmarriage.com.
So that is L-I-V-E, Your Best Marriage dot com
And when they get there, they can take a free United Front quiz
This is a free quiz and it's going to help them be able to know where they stand
Especially when it comes to loyalty issues, in-laws, what's really happening in their marriage
It's free and it's going to help them be able to now know what they need to work on.
So again, also another thing is I want them to remember that your spouse is not at your
enemy and you can always find ways to make it work.
Absolutely wonderful, Pesa.
Thank you so much for coming on my podcast today.
I really appreciate it.
Thank you very much Confidence for having me and I really appreciate the opportunity.
And thank you for listening to tennis page and to not only be comfortable with yourself.
Thank You.
Credits and links
About this podcast appearance
Tender Space is hosted by Confidence Igberase. 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.