Episode 4 – Eye Contact & Headwraps

Welcome to Marriage Mixed with Spencer and Shirley.

Marriage Mixed is a resource that opens the door on interracial marriage.

We share our real experiences from our interracial marriage, and let me tell you, it has not been easy, but it is rewarding.

We talk about our differences, what has worked for us, and what is still difficult.

We also share our views on important topics like food, from a white guy's perspective, and from a Haitian girl's perspective.

What is our goal?

Our goal is to reach people like you, who may be struggling in an interracial marriage, and through the sharing of our own story, prove to you that you are not alone.

The battle for your marriage is real, and thankfully, you have reinforcements.

Our hope is that by using this resource, you will grow in love and grace for your spouse, and ultimately find hope, help, and healing for your marriage.

Sometimes, it will be tense, and other times you'll be laughing with us as we discover new things about each other.

In this series, Into the Mix, we wanted to give you the opportunity to get to know us better.

Chances are you'll find yourself relating to our experience so far.

Thanks for joining us.

Hello everyone, welcome to this episode of Marriage Mixed.

Today we're gonna be talking about the things we learned in this past four years of being married.

So we recently had our four year anniversary.

So I think we learned, we have learned a lot in these past four years of our marriage, and we wanted to share with you guys.

One thing we learned recently is, like, what are you holding?

Like, understanding what the other person is coming, like coming home with or coming to a situation with, like just how they're doing and whatever they're holding.

For us, usually when we're doing this podcast, it's the end of the night, so we sound pretty tired.

We also have our two kids that are sleeping in another room, so we're kind of trying to be quiet.

And here is my co-host.

Hello, everyone.

Yeah, it seemed worthwhile to bring out that we're usually pretty tired, because when we listen to our podcast, we were kind of shocked with how low-energy we sound, but it is actually usually around 10, 30 or 11 at night at the end of a long day.

So, it's good for you to know that, that that's what we're coming with.

What are you coming with to this podcast?

Just think about it for a minute.

And then, if you're-

What are you holding?

Yeah, what are you holding?

This needs to be a shout out for our counselor.

But I think you already mentioned that.

He's the one who taught us that.

So yeah, think about what you're holding, and then maybe think about if your spouse is with you, or more than likely, they probably aren't.

Just think about what they may be holding, like right now.

As you listen to this, maybe you're at work, or maybe you're at home and have a quiet moment.

Just think about what they may be holding in their day.

Was it a stressful day, a good day, a bad day, a hard day?

Have they had issues in their family?

Just thinking about that has really helped us have grace for each other and not unload our daily burdens.

I should speak for myself, not unload everything that I'm feeling on Shirley when I know, for example, when I come home, she's been dealing with our two kids.

We have some very high-energy children, high-need children, as I mean, probably any kid is, but that can be really challenging for her.

And she may need some help sometime.

She doesn't necessarily, it may not be the place for me to come in and have me share about all my issues at work.

We learned this thing that we're talking about only like two weeks ago, and he probably taught it to us before that too, but.

Takes a while to learn stuff.

Less than two weeks ago, it was like kind of more of a new concept, but been thinking about it ever since.

So, I guess I can go into our first piece of advice.

If you're not married yet, I would say have a premarital counselor, Christian counselor, a good, legit counselor.

You know, someone who has your best intentions.

A Christian counselor.

Why is Christian important?

Because they like having someone who lines up with your morals, if you are a Christian, I guess.

And who, I don't know, you don't want to be like going to the counselor who's like, yeah, leave him, you know, or something.

You know, that's not really the advice you want.

I agree.

Yeah, I like, I am a Christian, so of course, I want somebody who believes the same things that I do.

But what I particularly like about Christian counselors is that they're going to fight for your marriage 100% of the time.

You know, there might be rare cases where they'll have to talk about other, you know, solutions that's like separating or things like that, but by and large, they believe in marriage, so.

So that's your first piece of advice you would give, is how is that significant for you when we did that?

Had a counselor before we married?

Yeah.

I mean, we were going through tough things in our dating relationship, and it was good to have somebody to help us.

But also, growing up, I always thought of like pre-marital counseling, because that's something I heard about.

Then I think the part of counseling that has been the most beneficial to us is probably post-marriage, because we continue going to counseling after we were married.

We have had some real problems, and we've been able to grow a lot and get a lot of help and learn a lot of stuff.

I've been able to learn a lot of stuff myself.

You went to counseling before we were ever dating or anything, but I never did until we were dating and going together.

Yeah.

No, I would agree.

I think the premarital, that's why I was asking.

I was curious what you felt like you had benefited from.

I don't think it was bad doing the premarital, but I agree with you that the post-marriage counseling has had the greatest benefit for us.

There's just a different level once you're married of the things that you're sharing, and this person who's in your life all the time with their own issues up against your own issues, and things get way more tense, and having a third party that can sit down and hear you and care about both of you and not be on either one side is super helpful, has been my experience, especially for unique marriages, interracial marriages, I think, because you're both coming from two places that are like so different, it'd be easy to take a side.

But having someone there who's trained not to take sides is really helpful.

I think it is, our relationship is pretty unique because we're interracial, or however you say it, we're two different races.

I don't know if we really realized how big of a thing that was before we were married, but man, it can cause a lot of issues because there's just so many things that you see differently, so many things that you do differently.

I think, let's say, if you were black and you married another black person, maybe you guys both grew up doing certain things the same way in your households, even if you're in two different states or whatever.

But coming from two totally different places, yeah, things are just very different.

Like one of the arguments in our marriage in the beginning was like using the dishwasher, because Spencer grew up using the dishwasher.

I didn't even have a dishwasher at my house.

So I didn't want to use the dishwasher.

I never used it in college, even though I had the dishwasher in every apartment I lived in.

Yeah, there's just so many things, that's like a little thing, but there's so many conversational things that might go over your head.

Like there's like, Spencer usually says a statement or sometimes says a statement, but he's actually asking a question.

So I think he's like saying, telling me something, but he's actually asking me something.

So that can lead to issue because I'm like, why are you telling me this?

You didn't even ask.

You're just telling me this.

I'm like, okay.

But he's actually waiting for answer.

Whereas me, I'm like, if I'm asking a question, it's going to end in a question mark and you're going to know it.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's definitely a difference.

Because I grew up being like, I'm going to go to the store and then wait, look at the other person.

And yeah, it's like a question.

But that is not at all your experience.

And in my Haitian household, you don't look at grownups in the eye.

There's not really even eye contact.

Whereas white people, like they do a lot of eye contact.

So to this day, I still don't really get people eye contact, really.

As she says that, turns and looks at me because she hasn't been.

I looked at you looking at me doing some of that.

You did, but yeah.

I think that what you're saying is great, or important, and it made me think of something that we talked about before this, which was just like the expectations going in to marriage is a huge thing that I think we've learned.

It's not like something that we talk about every day, but I think we've probably just learned it through time, just that we have came into this with really different expectations and are still realizing things that are different.

So like what marriage looks like, you know, the roles that we have, like, is one of us going to stay home?

Are we both going to work?

Or when we have kids, how are we going to raise the kid?

Like, how long are we going to do this?

What kind of discipline will we do?

Like everything is different.

And I know that it's different for regular couples, but I'm doing a shout out to all you who are interracially married because I really feel, and this isn't trying to be wine or anything, I just believe that it's very different for an interracial couple of those conversations.

Because you grew up not only with a different experience, but those parents had a different, it's like, it's generational.

It's like a huge hurdle to overcome.

What do you think?

Um, I think as far as what?

The expectations and all that.

Um, I think you come from two different places and two different cultures might do things totally different.

Because like your family growing up, your mom was a stay at home mom.

My family, my mom was a stay at home mom.

She worked, both of them worked.

I didn't really know any stay at home moms.

I guess I can probably think of one.

I'm sure there's like two.

But in the white culture, the white culture, it's like very common.

It depends on the part of the country, but it's more common for sure.

It's very common.

I know a lot of stay at home moms.

Keep in mind, you're in Christian circles.

I was in a Christian circle when I was growing up, and most of the women worked.

I mean, I don't know how it would have been different if I was born in Haiti, if there was more stay at home moms, but even that is different because they probably worked on the land or whatever.

So I don't know.

Anyway, there's...

Yeah, what do you want to say?

I was just saying that there are, but it's not like...

Even in white culture, to have a woman stay at home, even though it might be more common, it's not necessarily the norm to do that.

In Christian circles, it's much more common.

Or like if you're in the Midwest, where I'm from, it's pretty common.

But like here in the South, a lot of women work.

So what expectations did you expect that was different or like was something that comes up for you?

When you talk about that?

This thing in particular?

No, you were talking about expectations.

Oh man, there's like, that's why I said it's not something that we bring up every day, but just a whole bunch of little things.

Like, okay, so for me, I'm a white guy, right?

I didn't understand like black hair, for example, and how that worked.

Like, you know, I thought that the straight hair was possible with black people.

And maybe there's a few who actually have straight hair, but by and large, curly hair is what black people have.

And I didn't realize like black women, when they're at home, wear a headwrap.

And I thought headwraps looked kind of ratchet.

I mean, I guess if it's out in public, it's not really the norm to wear like a bandana or like sleep cap in public.

But some people do.

Yeah.

I didn't think that that was like a thing.

And so I remember early on when you were wearing it.

It's not ratchet at home.

No.

It's home.

I know, but I'm saying from my perspective going into it, when you were wearing one, I was like, oh no, she's not gonna wear this at home.

I don't like that.

Oh, I remember you taking it off of my head when we were, at the beginning of our marriage, and I would get mad, like, why are you always taking this off?

Mm-hmm.

I just really didn't know that.

Now I'm like...

Wow.

So that's one example of something that's dramatically changed for me and my expectations.

There's other things, too, like, a harder conversation was you wanting to work.

That was really, really difficult.

That was before we were married.

Yeah, a little bit into marriage, but yeah, it was before.

But there's, I mean, there's countless different things.

The dishwasher, yeah, there's just tons of stuff.

Interacting with parents, countless.

So, but I don't want to spend the whole night on that topic unless you had more to talk about it, to talk about.

What's the first topic that you would like to bring up, or second, rather?

You can say something else.

So I started with expectations.

The next piece of advice I have is just knowing that you're not alone.

This has been huge for me.

I think it crosses borders into almost everything in life.

I'm a Christian, and I believe that Satan can have a stronghold when he's got you in the dark somehow.

And sin hates the light.

And so if he can keep you believing that the issues you're having are unique and unsolvable and that nobody's gone through them, that your situation truly is different and requires, you know, something outside the scope of any kind of resource that's out there.

If he can keep you down with those lies, then he can steal away your hope.

And if you don't have hope, you just collapse and you can't keep going.

So I think that that's a really big thing, realizing that you're not alone.

And that's really the huge heart behind this ministry is to help people know that they're not alone in their struggle because we thought we were alone and we're not.

A lot of other interracial couples that we know are struggling.

Or any marriage, honestly.

Marriage is really, really, really hard.

It is.

Neither of us would agree that we never expected it to be so hard.

We weren't dumb either.

We both had heard that it was difficult.

I don't really remember what I heard.

I'm sure I don't really remember what I heard.

I just never expected it to be as hard as it has been.

I think just knowing that if you feel like your marriage is the hardest thing in the world...

It might be.

You're not crazy.

Yeah, it's really hard.

Other people are having a hard time too, but there's another side to it with time and healing.

Just work on your...

Like I heard a pastor say, the grass is not greener on the other side.

Water your own grass basically.

Don't compare your marriage to someone else's.

Just because you can see the outside of their marriage and think it's all fine and dandy, but you don't see everything that's going on in the inside.

Don't compare this and that to someone else's relationship.

Yeah, just focus on yourself and water your own marriage and water your own grass.

Yeah.

I think that's good.

Sounds like you have something.

Another piece of advice from me would be to know that there is a real enemy fighting for your marriage and the enemy is Satan.

Your spouse is not your enemy.

That's something that we learned early on when we went to family life's weekend to remember.

Your spouse is not your enemy.

The devil is the enemy of your marriage.

He doesn't want your marriage to succeed.

The devil hates your marriage.

He wants you guys to be separated.

He wants you guys to be hurt and broken, and there to be no reconciliation.

Yeah.

But the Bible says, God has joined together.

Let no man separate.

There's this poem by Preston and Perry and Ezekiel A.

Sorry, I can't pronounce the name.

They put a spin to that verse.

They say, let no man, not even ourselves, separate.

Yeah, let no man separate what God has joined together.

Basically, the enemy of your marriage is not your spouse.

You guys just have to remember that you're on the same team.

Don't fight for yourself.

Fight for each other.

Yeah, your spouse isn't your enemy.

That's basically it.

That's really good.

It's really hard to remember in the moment, especially when it feels like you're being attacked or they're purposely trying to hurt you, because I know we've both felt that way.

And we both get lost.

Sometimes we really are trying to hurt each other, I think, when things are really bad.

Not all the time, but I know I've done that.

So that's definitely something that I want to remember.

Not to make you the enemy.

I feel like this connects.

Something I would add is your perspective on your marriage.

And this, for me, has helped me be like, okay, Shirley's not the enemy.

If I can remember that God has a plan for us, and that He wants us to be together, and that if He is who He says He is, if He did put us together and it's not a mistake, then it's going to turn out okay.

If I can hold on to that hope and that perspective, then it changes the experience.

So, for example, thinking about some of the rough times that we've gone through recently, those times were really hard for me because I couldn't figure out why, like how could any of this be good, what we were experiencing.

It was painful for both of us.

We were both unhappy.

We were suffering.

I never thought that that suffering could be used to relate us to other people or could be used to reach other people and encourage them that they're not alone, which is what this ministry is doing.

Now, on the other side of that, having this ministry, I can see where, oh wow, the struggles that we've been going through can connect us to the heartbeat of other couples who are feeling the same thing and give them hope.

Wow, now it's like, you know, it's worth it.

So, just keeping that perspective that God has a plan and that when we're in the middle of it, it may not make sense or feel good.

And you can see that all through the Bible and people's stories when they're in the middle.

Like, just look at Joseph when he's in prison, you know, and just getting abuse after abuse, just wondering, like, why did God give me this promise that I'm dealing with all this stuff?

But what other people meant for evil, God meant for good, was his own words.

And it will be the same for your marriage if you both love the Lord and you're trusting him.

You can have that hope and that perspective and know that it will be validated and that anything else is a lie.

So, that would be my advice.

Yeah, if you're going through a hard time, like, don't give up.

Get help from a counselor, from your pastor.

I think another thing that we learned from our counselor is repeating back what was said.

So, like, if Spencer says, I feel hurt because of this, and this and this and this, I could repeat back, I hear that you're saying, you feel hurt because of this and this.

Like, did I miss anything?

He can, like, fill me in on what I might have missed.

So, repeating back what you said is really helpful because it helps, because we have, like, struggles with our communication where we think we're saying one thing, but the other, or we are saying one thing, but the other person is interpreting it completely different than how we intended it to be interpreted.

So, it helps to clarify, like, what we're saying, and it helps to make you feel heard, to repeat back the, like, what you heard them say.

That's good.

Another piece of advice would be family life's weekend to remember.

They have weekend to remembers, weekend to remembers across the United States.

It's really, really good.

We want, during our first year of marriage, when we were having a tough time, and learned some really good things during that.

Thank you to the people who sponsored us to go there.

If you have the means, sponsor someone.

If you see someone struggling in their marriage, say, hey, are you open to go until weekend to remember?

We'll sponsor you.

Any other piece of advice?

I thought you might have something.

I don't know if I have anything.

I don't think so.

There's stuff like, though, are you pressed a certain time at night?

It's hard to, yeah, you're tired.

If you're hungry, it's probably not a good time either.

I think as you get to know each other better, as we've gotten to know each other better, it's just very clear when there's certain times that it's pointless to talk about stuff for both of us.

And I think we're getting better and better with that as we grow.

I would say it sounds silly, but try not to argue.

Like, in an argument where it just spirals down and down, those kind, where you're just throwing shots at each other and getting angrier and angrier, like, just avoid.

If you sense that happening, just take a step back and reevaluate.

You know, if I start being unkind, then I'm like, alright, something's off.

Or if you do that, like, we, you, one of us can just step away.

Like, we don't have to put up with that.

We can revisit and talk about it when we're both level headed.

Our counselor helped us see that there's like, basically, you kind of lock into a fight or flight sometimes during an argument, and your brain goes to, it's called like the limbic system, where it's like just survival, and you can't actually rationalize thoughts, really.

You're just going to what your body learned, and how to survive.

And once you're there, you know, there's different ways to describe it, like seeing red or, you know, like once you're there, there's no point.

It's actually scriptural truth to Proverbs.

Sometimes it's better to just like toss dice, like roll the dice, to make a decision, and then get into an argument that never ends, because it's like a bottomless pit or something.

I have to look up the verse.

But that's been our experience, I think.

It's that there's no point sometimes if we're both in a bad state of mind, or even one of us.

Would you agree?

I think this is something you're learning about me, because I don't even understand the limbic system thing.

So, you know, it's like, he taught us that.

So, I think I know the firefight stuff from the book I read.

I know I can think of some stuff that you're talking about, but there's just probably some stuff that you picked up on that I didn't have yet.

I can do some rapid fire stuff.

So, I would say the...

The Five Love Languages book by Gary Chapman is really good.

I read it before we were married, and then I also listened to it, like the audio version, probably twice.

Basically, the love languages is how you feel loved.

So, learning your spouse's love language is really helpful because it will teach you how to express love to your spouse.

So, usually someone will do things like express love in the way that they feel loved.

So, like let's say I feel loved by when someone gives me a gift or something.

Or like let's say I feel loved with words of affirmation.

So, I'm always saying, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you.

Like that might not get into the soul of the other person because that's not how they feel loved.

They feel loved differently than that.

So, learning your spouse's love language will help you learn how to communicate love to them in a way that they understand.

If you guys both have the same love language, that's awesome, but that's probably not very likely.

Yeah, it's very unlikely.

Yeah, so just learning how to love your spouse in a way that they feel loved.

If they feel loved by physical touch, like hugging them, like rubbing their back, like holding their hand in the car or whatever.

If they feel loved by gifts, get them a half birthday card or something.

Another one would be...

Oh yeah, there's a one-minute love language devotional by Gary Chapman, too, and it has been really helpful.

I've been reading it since we've been married over and over, but it has a lot of really good gems in there.

Another one would be The Natural Baby Sleep Solution by Paulie Moore.

That's a book that talks about baby sleep and kind of the science behind it and stuff like that.

If you guys are sleep deprived because you have a six-month-old who won't sleep and it's your first time being a parent or second, whatever, and you haven't really figured out baby sleep, that book is really good because it starts off slow, but it has a lot of good information to help you learn about baby sleep and to help you teach them how to sleep.

Because if you guys are both sleep deprived, your marriage is probably not going to go very well because like, yeah, you're sleep deprived.

Even if you're sleep deprived for like two days, it's hard to function.

So try being sleep deprived for six months.

You can probably speak into that because that was like a pretty miserable time for you.

It was like hard for both of us, but I think it was like especially hard for you.

Yeah, yeah, that was terrible.

Trying to work, can't even think.

And my attitude declined.

Had some of the worst ideas ever during that time that I didn't act on.

But yeah, that was awful.

Anything else?

There is the window of tolerance thing.

If you feel yourself going outside of your window of tolerance when you guys are having a discussion, it's time to take a break.

That's probably the same thing that I was saying, like the limbic thing.

Like once you're outside your window of tolerance, that's what counselors call like you're in your limbic system.

Like, you know, now you're fight or flight.

You're just, you're gone.

I didn't mean to cut you off though.

You can only tolerate so much before you break.

And if your spouse breaks or you break, and you recognize it, stop.

Do not keep going.

If you can't talk rationally, like gently with each other, there's probably not much good that's going to come out of it from our experience.

What do you agree?

I was kind of thinking of the next thing.

What's the next thing?

Just thinking of what else to share.

Pray, be involved in the church, be in a church group with different people in Christian marriages.

You can learn from them, and you can see their dynamics and learn about different things.

See other couples and be like, oh, I see this in my spouse.

In this opposite gender.

Versus thinking it's just maleness.

Have people who are rooting for your marriage.

Don't bad mouth your marriage.

Don't talk negative.

I mean, be honest with people.

Or people, trustworthy people.

But, you know, don't be like, my husband's six.

You know?

Yeah, that's not good.

Yeah, I should speak on that, because that's something that God's been teaching me.

What I put into myself is what I'm going to get out.

And when I'm in a dark place in our marriage, or it's really tough, I get a super negative tract going in my mind that just breeds more negativity.

But if I make an effort to start my day connecting with guys I know, reading positive material, writing out things I'm grateful for, reading a devotional, reading my Bible, putting positive things into me from the second I wake up, makes a huge difference in how I look at the day.

I don't think I have anything else to share.

Thank you for listening to the segment of Marriage Mixed.

I wanted to invite you all, if you're enjoying the show, or if it's helping you in any way, feel free to go to our Contact Us page and reach out.

We'd love to hear from you all.

When you do that, we'd be able to reach back out to you guys to let you know when a new episode is going to drop.

But we'd love to hear your experience and just kind of get an idea of this is reaching people and helping them.

And that encourages us, because we're not above encouragement by any means.

Thank you so much for joining us.

Would you like to add anything, Shirley?

If this is...

If you like this episode and you feel like it might benefit another couple, share it with them.

If you know a New York cookie couple or Oreo couple, or...

Cookie couple?

You know the black and white cookies?

Or what other fruit is mixed?

Fruit.

We went from cookies to...

Cookies is mixed.

What other food is mixed?

It's like...

What other food is mixed?

Oh, and let's do a fun fact before we go out.

Okay, Shirley's fun fact.

I don't know.

I like dessert.

But we already talked about this in another episode.

Do you want to tell us about vanilla?

About vanilla?

Yeah.

Well, here's something good.

I tend to like vanilla, like vanilla ice cream or whatever.

Spencer tends to like chocolate, like dark chocolate ice cream, darker stuff, which is interesting because he's white, and I like vanilla.

And I'm black and he likes chocolate.

All right, thanks for joining this.