When a Button is Pushed, and Self Care
Focus on the Family Strengthening Marriage Podcast
Focus on the Family
4.7 • 1.7K Ratings
🗓️ 16 September 2025
⏱️ 13 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
How do you respond well when one of your buttons gets pushed in marriage? Dr. Bob Paul and Tara Lalonde talk with Jim Daly about examining the reasons why your buttons get pushed. Also, John Fuller asks Erin Smalley about how couples can practice effective types of self-care.
Find us online at focusonthefamily.com/marriagepodcast or call 1-800-A-FAMILY.
Receive the book Loving the Spouse God Gave You for your donation of any amount!
Empowered to Love: Discovering Your God-Given Power to Create a Marriage You Both Love
Take the Reactive Cycle Assessment
If you enjoyed listening to the Focus on Marriage Podcast, please give us your feedback.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | God is at work and he's calling his people to rise in truth. Truth Rising is a powerful new documentary from Focus on the Family and the Colson Center. See how ordinary Christians choose courage in a culture that needs truth. Watch Truth Rising today and find out how you can become an agent of restoration and hope. |
| 0:24.1 | Visit truthrising.com today. That's truthrising.com. |
| 0:30.7 | How do you respond when your spouse pushes one of your buttons and you feel triggered? First, it's not easy to be aware of being triggered. And then second, it's really hard to handle those moments with some grace and understanding. But that's one of the keys to having a really successful marriage. I'm John Fuller, along with Dr. Greg Smalley and his wife, Aaron Smalley, |
| 0:55.7 | who lead the marriage team here at the ministry. I guess we could say Aaron doctoral, |
| 1:00.9 | what's the word? Candidate. Doctoral candidate, Aaron Smalley. Getting there months away, right? |
| 1:06.1 | Getting there, yes. That's exciting. We're so happy for you. And we're going to turn now to a clip from Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. |
| 1:14.2 | Jim spoke to Dr. Bob Paul and also Tara Lalonde. |
| 1:17.4 | And they both work in our Hope Restored Marriage Intensives. |
| 1:20.3 | And they're going to speak today about responding well when you're triggered. |
| 1:24.7 | Now, let me ask this. |
| 1:25.5 | I mean, this to me sounds like most of the antecedents |
| 1:28.6 | in a difficult marriage, which lead to the big issues, like infidelity and other things. |
| 1:35.1 | Oh, yeah. These things, these button-pushing things are probably the things that are weakening |
| 1:39.3 | the relationship to the point where the other things happen. Is that fair? |
| 1:46.1 | I think that that's going on constantly. |
| 1:51.1 | There's a variety of things that can get people to that point. Sometimes just in attention can get people there. But yeah, there's a bunch of things that can affect it, but this certainly has a big |
| 1:56.2 | influence. Well, I guess for me, it's rationalizing, okay, what do I need to concentrate on? |
| 2:00.8 | Back to your example of that couple. If I could concentrate just on this, does that solve 80% of my |
| 2:06.1 | problems in my marriage? I don't know that it's that clean, but you can tell them a numbers guy. |
| 2:11.3 | I would, I am not a numbers person, so I can't talk numbers, but I would say for sure. |
| 2:16.3 | Work on this. Even more maybe than 80%. |
| 2:19.4 | Like if you can start recognizing what your buttons are, what gets you going and resolve |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Focus on the Family, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Focus on the Family and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.