Unresolvable Conflict

According to the research of the Gottman Institute, nearly 70% of relationship conflicts are unresolvable* – meaning, there is no clear right or wrong resolution. After recently celebrating their 46th wedding anniversary, Dan and Becky Allender come together to talk about conflict, particularly within the context of marriage. Throughout any relationship, conflict is inevitable – and it can look different in different seasons or settings. 

You’ll hear Dan and Becky highlight two traps that are easy to fall into: conflict avoidance (don’t go there!) and indifferent compromise (just tell me what to do, and I’ll do it your way). You’ll also hear them talk through some of the keys to navigating moments of conflict: slowing down, naming the patterns, and caring for one another in the moment – even when there is no clear resolution.

* Source: The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work by John M. Gottman, PhD and Nan Silver, 2015

Marriage Offerings from the Allender Center:

The Allender Center offers several courses, workshops, and conferences to deepen intimacy and enrich your relationship – whether you’re in a committed relationship, dating, or have been married for several years. You can learn more at theallendercenter.org/marriage

Episode Transcript:

Dan: Well, I have the sweet honor to be with my beloved wife, Becky, thank you for joining this podcast.

Becky: So glad to be here.

Dan: And I will say that this podcast comes a short period after our anniversary. Yeah. And we, we actually come to an agreement on how many years. Yeah. Because neither of us have done this well. We said for, I think two or three years in a row, that we had been married for 45 years. We, we’ve did this on a walk. We literally did it on our fingers. So what anniversary are we at? My love?

Becky: 46.

Dan: 46. So how has it been, what level of bliss have you known for 46 years?

Becky: How did you know that I was going to choose that word? Bliss. It’s just been, yeah, real, honey.

Dan: Yes. It’s been real bliss or just real… bliss?

Becky: Both

Dan: Indeed. So what we’re going to step into today is not a circum location of our 46 years, but to say that in 46 years we have had our good share of conflict. And what we want to talk about today is the reality that the majority of conflicts that you are in, certainly in a marriage, but I think it’s important to include that even if the research has not verified this. I think anecdotally we can say that almost all conflicts and we’re going to use some of the research by John and Julie Gottman that speak to the reality that 70% of the conflicts most people face don’t have what could be called a legitimate right or wrong solution.

Becky: Yes. Who knew that would’ve been helpful in our premarital counseling, which we actually kind of did maybe or hardly just one time I think.

Dan: Yeah. It wasn’t enough.

Becky: Yeah. That would’ve been helpful information.

Dan: And I want to hear from you how would’ve been helpful?

Becky: Well, I’d put on my boxing gloves earlier, maybe. I don’t know. I don’t know. It’s still, yeah, maybe it wouldn’t have been helpful at all. Now it seems helpful.

Dan: I think it’s helpful. But what I’ve found is that when I’ve worked with couples, interacted with people about that research, I find two responses and one response is incredible relief. And that like, oh, if I knew that, that would be so helpful. Because the premise that there really is a right and a wrong way to do most of the issues regarding conflict set you up, the environment of that, sets you up to a kind of who’s got the loudest voice, who’s got the greatest intensity…

Becky: Who was on the debate team. Who has a larger vocabulary.

Dan: So when you begin to go, if 70% of what we know to be the typical places of conflict in a marriage, and Gottmans and others have done another 70% here and said 70% of the issues of conflict have to do with children or how you parent, finances, how you spend money, whether you save what you don’t, what we do with extra income, et cetera. Third, in-laws the relationship with parents in-law, parents, and the issue of sexuality. And when you actually look at those four issues and say 70% of the conflict we have had over a lifetime in those four and many other areas it would’ve been important to know, no, don’t fall into the fallacy, into the presumption that one of you has the right answer and the other is wrong. Now, the other side is that I have worked with a number of couples who are incensed at that. And often what I would argue is that many of them are really high level type A type controlling people who absolutely, to the depths of their being believe they really know what is right, what is wrong, how to live. And the moment they hear that, it is so offensive because it really does put you in the bind that look whether we go to the so-called mountains or whether we go to this so-called beach isn’t a right way to know what to do with vacations, what to do with disciplining or not disciplining your children, what you do with finances, et cetera. So we want that to be the framework, and especially for those of you who are not in a married relationship, want you to have that sense of, I think it’s equally true, good friends arguing, even political conversations. There really isn’t a absolutely clear, unquestionably, irrevocably accurate biblical, this is right, this is wrong. Now there are issues where it is clear and wrong, but the majority of matters we’re going to face bear the gray, not the black and the white. So when you think about how we have, shall we say mishandled, that reality, what comes to your mind?

Becky: Well, I think what it comes to my mind is we started this relationship in 1976 and we were different people then than we are now. So I mean, it’s for the long haul and I think we’ve changed how we deal with one another in conflict than how it began too. So it’s the whole ball of wax.

Dan: Yeah. Well, and we’re not going to just talk about the reality universally. You have to be able to go how do you and your partner, how do you deal with conflict? And I think for a lot of people, conflict has not gone well. It has created more division and therefore a lot of couples develop what I would call A DMZ, that demilitarized zone where as the ground between so-called North and South Korea has a DMZ. Nobody walks there. Anyone who does will be shot by both sides. That kind of, we won’t go there whenever we’ve talked about sex, whenever we’ve talked about money, it ends up being disastrous and we love each other. Why would we go there and we’ll just sort of either hope to ignore it, it comes up repeatedly, but when it does, it’s so ugly that we in many ways escape the conflict thinking it’s better. And then at least from my standpoint, that terrain now, a so-called no man’s land, becomes the ground evil uses to sow seed of division, of disappointment, of resentment. And in so many ways it will come back and bite your behind. Given that I know we kind of did that with regard to in-laws for most of our marriage.

Becky: Right. It still even pops up now. Yes. And it worked well that we lived in different states than our parents. So it wasn’t a pressing issue all the time. It usually just happened once we were in your parents or my parents’ home and then these accusations or we would notice, oh, Dan’s really different when he is with his parents in their home, and you would do the same with me. And then we had to backtrack and get back to even keel and caring for one another better rather than defending, oh no, I don’t change.

Dan: Yeah. Well it, it’s sad to say that probably some of the greatest conflict we have had over 46 years, I almost said 45. It has been the issue of loyalty to each of our own families. And in that incredible defensiveness accusation against the other, and it would flare up like an oil grease fire and not subside. The smell would be there. There would be clearly debris that would come, but I think we do and have had a deep love for one another. And so it was so easy just to let it go. We’ll talk later about what we think needs to be done, but at least to be able to argue, where have you created a kind of DMZ thinking it’s the better route, especially in light of the debris that comes when you do deal with it seems so much worse than the long-term effect. And that’s where I hate evil, but I think it’s brilliant in terms of how patient it is to sow those seeds that in certain desert settings, rain comes every 17 years and the flowers pop out. These are not beautiful flowers. These are weeds with foul fruit. And so when you don’t deal with conflict because it only adds more debris, know that in the long run it’s going to actually in most occasions be the very ground that brings about either such distance or as I’ve had the heartache to engage with others, a divorce. So that’s at least one very clear error. I think a second is

Becky: Well maybe how to parent children. That caused some issues and differences.

Dan: Yeah, I mean you were so much more aware having been with siblings having actually cared for young children. You knew so much more about the heart of a child than I, and I think I was so much harsher than you were. And I would see your tenderness as compromise. And I think you saw my so-called discipline, but even there, I think it’s not accurate to say I was just angry and harsh and trying to not just deal with what we’re going to do with them, but how we’re going to engage in that. At least most people would say there needs to be this intersection of tenderness and strength, but if you are the sole basis of tenderness and I’m the sole basis of strength, you’ve got a whale of a whole complex of issues.

Becky: Right. It just wow, so much to being married and dealing with loving one another. It’s just not always easy.

Dan: No. And I think what I did is the second major error if the first is creating the DMZ, the second is just kind of an indifferent compromise. And I think that’s what I often did when it was clear with our kids that I’m wrong, but I don’t think you’re right. But whatever you’re the more present parent and you are wiser in this area. Whatever. You tell me what to do and how to do it. And it looks like compromise.

Becky: There’s nothing easy about raising children for sure. You know, do one thing, something else happens. So it just looks so disorganized and not thought through… we’re just…

Dan: Flying by the seats of our proverbial pants. But to go on that other side of, there are a lot of couples who have felt like they’ve resolved this… Well the nature of conflict is that if 70 percent’s unresolvable, then all of a sudden to resolve it by what I’ve described, it’s not compromise. It’s not adjoining together to create a new way of addressing your way of being, my way of being. It’s more like one just going whatever, you’re the head of the house or you got more knowledge or this is your role in your area. You make the decision. And I think in that we’re not literally letting conflict grow our capacity for not only care, but curiosity. We’re just trying to escape it by the relinquishment of choice. So if we can say that either direction that we won’t deal with it compromise or the compromise of indifference, you do whatever you want to do, will not address this reality of 70% is likely unresolvable. So let me pick one area that I know that we’ve just gone through, and it won’t seem big and it isn’t big, but it also created some degree of upheaval. And that is COVID era. I’ve been home a universe more.

Becky: Yes.

Dan: And what’s that been like and where has that brought us into these realms of unresolvable conflict?

Becky: Oh gosh, yeah. Well, we’ve just had so many roles with the separateness before COVID, and all of a sudden you were like in the kitchen a lot and you were noticing what’s in the refrigerator a lot. And then you would leave the kitchen. And we don’t use a sponge. We do sometimes we have a dish rag that goes washed. We have a bunch of ’em. So you wash one every day, but you never would ring it out properly.

Dan: Properly.

Becky: Because you just didn’t ring it out, let’s say. And so I think I tried all sorts of things and some I’m not pleased with at all. I’m sad because there wasn’t kindness, there wasn’t curiosity, which I know we are doing much better in these latter years of loving one another. But I would like taunt you like… oh, oh, you’re just afraid of the dish rag, afraid to ring it out. I mean, I was just like, that’s so childish, but it got a rise out of you.

Dan: Well, actually this will seem, well then I’m not going… Not going to justify. But I will say actually the taunting was actually playful. It was more when I got directives, like the dish rag needs to be a lot drier. And I’m like, why? Wait, what is the deal? And again, it wasn’t just the dish rag, it was how I put utensils into the dishwasher. You have a way of doing your kitchen and my arrival to be of some more help or to because I had nothing… I wasn’t on the road, so I was going to bother you in your kitchen. Just created for both of us. A lot of that tension. We had conflict. And I could again see for both of us either this, no, there’s this right way to do it.

Becky: Well just let me back up a little bit. Just have to say this, the silverware in the dishwasher is only because the plastic has split through and we probably should order a new one, but if we keep the knives and forks from those little squares, it doesn’t clog up. We can keep opening the dishwasher. Dishwasher.

Dan: But are you better now?

Becky: I sometimes don’t think you’re so good with geometry. You wouldn’t notice that.

Dan: Well, I think that’s probably again, where we get closer to the issue

Becky: Here we are. Here we are on the air.

Dan: Yeah. Well, indeed, I am quite capable of doing things while simultaneously thinking about a podcast or thinking about somebody I just work with and I’m thinking, or I’m praying or I’m thinking about a topic, yeah. So I can be in my head a lot. And that creates conflict and conflict where I tried to almost, I remember at one point just looking at you going, give me a list of rules, get them down. We’ll laminate them, we’ll put them on the refrigerator and I will check them off each and every moment.

Becky: But you’re a rule breaker. I mean, that wouldn’t work. Oh, golly, you know if you don’t have love, how in the world would all this work?

Dan: Well, but do you see why I say this flip flop between those two sides, the commitment to love as an avoidance of conflict, can set you up for the DMZ or for the compliance. Versus what’s so much more exhausting at one level, what takes so much more time, and at least I’ve had to work through most of the time, just feels like, what? This is ridiculous. Why are we having a conversation about the

Becky: Utensils?

Dan: Well, or the dampness of the damn dish rag. And yet we are, and it matters enough that you brought it up and wouldn’t it just be better to do whatever you want. Okay, I will double check that rag every single day. But what I think we’ve found is no, there’s something always underneath the surface. And if I can differentiate this, when I say the word surface, I don’t mean the word superficial. So the things we’re talking about to some might seem like that’s the level of conflict you guys have. You’re lying. There’s got to be a lot worse. Or if there isn’t a lot worse, then this seems pretty paltry and petty. But what I’m saying is whatever the surface is, whether it’s how you squeeze the toothpaste or the reality that one in a partnership is struggling with pornography, that the surface is important irrespective of how big, small incidental it may seem. But there’s always a more something else going on underneath the surface. And that’s what conflict is meant to open the door to. The ability together to be able to say what’s going on.

Becky: Yeah. And I’m thankful that you have led us that way. And me too. I think we are becoming more and more intrigued with who the other person is and our curiosity. And I think because we have patterns and because we have a way of being, I think that goes back to our roles in our own family of origin. Of course. And could there have been any two different homes than yours who you had all the ability to kick your mother under the table when you were eating if she was saying things that you didn’t like? And that’s the very last thing I would’ve ever done under my kitchen table. I, because I didn’t have that upbringing that you had.

Dan: Well, and again, not to move from that too quickly, but to say I was responsible for how crazy my mother was and some on behalf of my dad, but mostly on behalf of all three of us. If I could container by a quick kick to stop going in a direction that I knew would only create more conflict, therefore more necessity on my part to either soothe or resolve, then that made infinite sense. But the idea of you,

Becky: Wait a minute, when did you start doing that to your mother?

Dan: Oh, I don’t remember not ever doing it to my mom.

Becky: Whoa. When your new father came into your life at age four, doing it that soon?

Dan: Again, I don’t have a, I started at age 12.

Becky: I know, I know.

Dan: Sorry. There’s a certain degree of remembrance of, oh yeah. I used to sit, I mean, had to make sure when I was younger that my chair was a little closer to my mother than exactly in the middle between the two of them.

Becky: Wow. Wow. Yes.

Dan: But she kicked me as well. I’ll just add that there was…

Becky: Oh, you two.

Dan: There was a lot of activity underneath the table. But as I think about your world, the idea of you, I mean, I’ll let you finish.

Becky: No, I would never kick my mother or my father under the table, or my sister or my brother. Yeah. We were all pretty lone ducks there.

Dan: Well, but you were appropriate and everything was

Becky: Proper. Yeah. Yes. Yes.

Dan: So the way you run a kitchen and the way you run that world.

Becky: Yeah, there you go.

Dan: Well, you say more.

Becky: Well, I don’t know why. Well, is it all on COVID or are we just more curious and actually more mindful on behalf of one another? Now, I think there’s so many things that go into why we do things the way we do. And you do make me laugh a lot, but I think I did get pretty mad with that dish rag, and I don’t think I ever… dish cloth, I never threw it at you, but that might have been fun. But you’re doing a good job these days.

Dan: But for the world to hear this, until we started talking about our different kitchen…

Becky: Family.

Dan: And family dinners,

Becky: We had different ammo.

Dan: Well, but it was, we’re fighting over the dish rag or dishcloth. But as we in one sense came to, okay, I don’t think we’re going to find the assay, how much liquids in it, and then it’s acceptable, but I’m working harder. I think you have been more generous on the other hand to not bring up each and every time. It’s beyond the moisture level that you prefer. But the reality is, we began talking about what our kitchen world, what our dinner worlds were like. Even though we’d done that work before, I think what in part came was a deepened understanding of context, which is not being used to justify or defend or even to explain as much as to open the door to what would that have been like to be at every meal where everything went in a very formal, somewhat, quiet. Obviously your parents would talk sometimes your brother, your sister, and you would interact. But for the most part, as I remember being an adult at your table, it was clearly 80% their voice. So as we began to talk about how we each came to, in one sense, want or desire or to do certain things within that kitchen, within that world, at least I found over the last six months or so, a lot of generosity. Still a little tension, but a lot more generosity.

Becky: No, and I think that does come from the curiosity and the Oh, aha. Got that. And yeah, a lot more patience too.

Dan: And I think it’s also opened a door as we’ve been able to talk more thematically as to this is how the world worked, this is where and how I function in the world. It’s opened up more the issue of triggers. And one of the things I’ve had to name is that meals were the highest volatility of tension and conflict of my whole day. So meals that most people would… food is wonderful, and especially with someone like you who is a superb chef. But I’ve had to admit, even in the last six months, I come to a meal somewhere in my body anticipating conflict and having to then attune to the reality that even as I’m trying to do stir fry or get baked potatoes in or chop something up, can I rest? Can I just rest and know that what I’ve experienced in my body at the very primal prime time of being a young person has not been true in the same way for 46 years. And how am I having in some ways the same triggering effect even daily? And again, I would say owning my own proclivity to that trigger, even with the knowledge we all have about trauma, I felt really stupid and really immature. And to some degree, even if there be a truth to that, it was still harsh and did not bear kindness.

Becky: Yes, and so probably I wasn’t attuned to the harshness that was, you were feeling inside your body. And I didn’t have that understanding, so my face, my tone could have been more generous.

Dan: Well, and knowing me, there is a degree to which if the conflict’s going to come, it’s better to get it over with.

Becky: Yes. And knowing me, I’m like, if the conflict’s going to come, maybe I’ll go see an afternoon matinee. I just avoid, sneak away. So yes.

Dan: But I think again, that’s enabled us to come to this unresolvable conflict without a sense of either abandonment, DMZ or a convenient, comfortable compromise that actually doesn’t lead to discussions like this. So I think that’s where we would come back to say the fact that conflicts, most, are unresolvable. They actually are a context to come to know not only yourself, but your partner in a way in which, yes, it’s an investment, and yes, it’s costly, but the benefits are almost untold in terms of being able, not just to resolve conflict, but to be able to use it for the advantage of growing intimacy.

Becky: It’s honor. It’s how we honor one another that allows us to love better.

Dan: Well, I think what we’ve done and it has helped to just have a little bit of a blueprint that when we’re in the middle of conflict, that there’s at least an initial, wait a minute, let’s name this. We’re not a hundred percent well with one another in this moment. And it just even slowing down not to ramp.

Becky: Yeah. You mean slow down so that our heart rate goes down so that our countenance is kind to ourselves. Yeah. I think first we got to breathe. We have to be kind to ourselves and then gaze at the other with kindness.

Dan: Well, and that word I think is so important. Gaze, meaning can we be eye to eye even if we know that there’s tension between us to be able to then articulate our intention. And this is what I’ve learned so much from Steve and Lisa Call who we are both deeply, not only embedded in friendship, but also collegially the work we’ve done with them in terms of marriage. But he’s brought back again and again, the issue of intentionality. And I think that’s helped us in the middle of that pause, look at one another and then to be able to go, what’s our intention here? Are we trying to resolve something or prove or defend or justify? And if any of that’s true, which almost always is somewhat true to be able to say, we’ve got a bigger intention.

Becky: Yes. And he does say that conflict is good, and I probably Lisa does too. So we’re trying to see the goodness in conflict because with a gaze and a curiosity and love that’s how we get through these conflicts that really don’t have a right or wrong.

Dan: But to say what I want I us to do this well and as you’ve asked me to say a number of times you know that I tend to be more verbose and intense and to be able to say, I want us to be able to do this with both of us having space to put words.

Becky: So yeah, giving space for one another. Yeah.

Dan: So that, shall we say those two words? Pause, gaze is the beginning. Letting yourself not be drawn too quickly into the trigger or into the nature of the defense or the conflict or the hurt. And especially if you’ve got a long history of a lot of debris in that DMZ… to be able just to say, look, we’ve not done well here. And so I think when we have named that particularly in really sensitive areas like our sexuality, it creates just enough safety to be able to go, okay, this is still dangerous, but we’ve got a little bit better shot at not shooting each other.

Becky: Yes. Yes. To see the holiness of it actually in the depth. That’s really important to take that in, because then we’re breathing that in. We’re thinking, we’re feeling it for ourselves. We’re looking at one another and feeling from their point of view, it’s such a swirl and it’s so scary sometimes.

Dan: So it’s going to be scary. At least we feel it after 46 years, even over a dish rag. But if there is even just a dollop of safety that’s being established by that pause, by that gaze, by an articulation of intention and what the literal articulation, I want this to bring us closer. I do not want this to devolve into what has been in the past me saying words that are just harsh and you being hurt, but withdrawing and moving away. If you can name the patterns that have been utilized to deal some of this damn debris, then it really opens up a clarity of we’ve got guardrails now. Doesn’t mean that we can’t still tragically take the car over the cliff, but at least we’ve got guardrails.

Becky: And in that we have care. We can care for one another, we can care for ourselves. And we hold this as a big caring opportunity and the ownership of times when I haven’t cared for you well and needing to come and apologize.

Dan: Well, and that’s where sometimes the safety has to include the honoring of, I, I’ve harmed you here before and this is not what my heart wishes to do. But I think part for me, as you use the word ownership, is it’s really important at times to own how important is this?

Becky: Yeah. And almost, well, it seems more important to me than ever now. And that’s why to get this earlier in your marriage is just beautiful and so helpful because I think I can be more irritated by you than ever given our aging process. And so, boy, I better know how to love and care well before you totally drive me crazy. Yeah.

Dan: Well, we’ve talked about this on the podcast that generally speaking, after about age 50, especially for women, true for men, but not quite the same, the level of oxytocin that enabled you to bear me and bear, the complexity of children and the life you are bonding by a chemical is decreased enough that you don’t have, and again, using the word patience sounds like it’s a character flaw you don’t have now. But in some ways, the patience that you may have had might have been more biochemically being driven. So now there has to be a lot more ownership. Where are we? And in that intentionality and ownership also important to underscore, how big is this issue? Are we at a big, is this on a scale of 1 to 10 one of the things that as I went through shoulder surgery and before, during and after the surgeon would often put me in the position of saying, what’s your level of pain? And I’m like, you mean 0 to 10. Yes. And I’m like, I don’t know how to calibrate that. He said, you’re making it up, but at least gives me a ground to know generally how your body is. And I said, so if I say a seven, it’s different… then he goes, look, I’m looking for,

Becky: I bet he did do that. What? Come on you. That’s you, dear husband.

Dan: So he’s like, look, I’m looking at more 1 to 3 or 4 to 7, 8 to 10. And I’m like, all right, so I’ve got really only three categories. It it’s in the moderate. And he was like, good. Alright. And that’s important. It’s been important for us to kind of use that and come back and say, look, I don’t know how important this is to you on a scale of 1 to 10.

Becky: Right? Yes. Yeah.

Dan: And if one can begin to at least say, well, this is a 7 to you, and it’s like a -4 for me, instead of trying to resolve that, that’s the place where you got to step back and go, who are you?

Becky: And hopefully with a gaze of wonder and love, I think. Yeah. Because sometimes I’m weird. Sometimes you’re weird. And so sometimes just to be all right with being weird and have you love and laugh, I don’t know. It gives goes back to kindness, doesn’t it? And then curiosity and then hilarity and hopefully, yeah, truth.

Dan: Yeah. And I think that’s where the framework of, if there is enough safety, if there is enough curiosity and enough care, even with maybe holding a pretty radical difference, it’s where if we can engage some of the deeper parts of what may be bringing us to these convictions or desires or choices, it now becomes something that I still may differ on. I still may not like, but we’ve now got ground for creativity. So people can hear this notion of care and safety creates a context for curiosity and that investment of who are you? How do you think? How is it possible that we could be in such separate different worlds and not able to somehow resolve something moderately small? It now opens up the possibility of creativity. And I think one of the things that you’ve done that again, may not sound like that huge, but it’s been so sweet. I was working on chopping vegetables and doing a stir fry, and you came up behind me and you put your hand on my shoulder and said, this is really sweet to do this together. And I’m not going to say that it brought all the memories of what happened in the kitchen in my own family of origin and made it somehow better. But there was a sense of something is standing against the themes and patterns, the structures, the role that even in that one sweet statement, it just felt like I’m being honored.

Becky: Oh, I love that.

Dan: I’m being thanked, but I’m also, and again, I don’t know how conscious you were, but I’ve got an ally standing with me against ways of being that have been so dominant in my life, and yet I don’t know how to quickly, shall we say, get rid of them.

Becky: Yeah. It’s about joy. It’s about joy. And I think because when we do the hard work and we’re getting better at it, but sometimes lackadaisical, but we should be enjoying one another and enjoying ourselves, our lives. We are at this stage where more and more joy is to be seen and taken in. Yeah.

Dan: Well, I think, again, not to overstate it, but as two 70 year olds, married 46 years, we don’t have another 46 years, and we do have whatever season God has given us. And in that, the brevity, is getting more clearer. There’s a certain degree of we need to capture both honor, awe, gratitude, delight, joy,

Becky: And so much laughter. So much.

Dan: So before we end, I haven’t asked this of you, but are you testing the dish rag at all?

Becky: I’m not.

Dan: And have you at all noticed, even in the last month or so, the quality of dampness?

Becky: I haven’t. So thank you for bringing this to my attention. Yes. I want to acknowledge that more because that’s fantastic.

Dan: Yeah. I mean, I can’t deny…

Becky: I’m so sorry. I missed that blessing, honey.

Dan: Well, it’s all right. It, let’s just say that there’s a certain defiance. You’re going to have an arid dish rag. And to the degree the other day, it was okay, and I just thought, you’re not even going to notice. I’m going to put another dry one out and see if you notice.

Becky: Oh, and we do have three new ones.

Dan: We do, so, excuse me. But there is a place for that kind of like, well, let’s just get more, where you can truly resolve some of the conflict by a simple order from Amazon. It really is a decent choice as long as you, you’re not conceding in that kind of indifferent form, nor choosing to avoid. We will have unresolved conflict to the day we die, but I think there is at least a growing sweetness that we’re getting better at being able to not let it divide, but actually letting it create a context for enjoyment.

Becky: Definitely, honey. Thank you.

Dan: Well, happy anniversary.

Becky: Thank you. Happy anniversary.