Know Your Fight Cycles with Christopher Edmonston

Have you ever realized the fights you have with your partner have a pattern? Taking a 30,000 foot view to look at stressful seasons in our lives and how that impacts our fights has changed our marriage. This week we asked our marriage coach, Dr. Christopher Edmonston, to join us on navigating fight cycles and patterns including how to approach and resolve them.

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About the Holderness Family
: Penn, Kim, Lola, and Penn Charles Holderness create original music, parodies, and Vlogs for YouTube and Facebook to poke fun of themselves and celebrate the absurdity in circumstances most families face in their day to day life. They published "Christmas Jammies" in December 2013 and life hasn't been the same. Since then, their popular parodies, "All About That Baste", "Baby Got Class," and original music "Snow Day" have received national news coverage. Penn, the Dad, took a chance and left his job as a news anchor to join his wife Kim, the Mom, at their video production and digital marketing company, Greenroom Communications, LLC. Lola and Penn Charles are always happy, respectful and eat all of their vegetables (that last sentence is a lie).

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Epiphanies

Penn and Kim,
Hoping that this doesn't get too incredibly personal for you, but it has been on my heart for weeks now. In my conversations with God, He always reminds me to thank those that I feel He has put in my life to help keep me sane, which is No Small Feat. But He is the Almighty and can handle all. Tangent. Rabbit hole. Apologies.

Brent and I married right before my graduation from Abilene Christian University (undergrad). 29 years and three lovely, amazing and Godly daughters later, we are staring down the barrel of divorce. You guessed it, youngest is a senior in High School. I have panic attacks as well from a literal lifetime of trauma and all of the sudden it was, "We have only focused on the girls for 26 years. We dont trust or like each other! What the bleep are we going to do when she goes off to college later this year?" Panic. Betrayal. Mass Hysteria. Dogs and cats literally living together. My cage feels way to small.

This is so long! Again apologies, but one of my gifts is telling people they are loved and appreciated and I generally dont care if it is uncomfortable. Brent could always make me laugh (like pee yourself laugh). Now nothing. Picture me missing a graduate class because I had to go home and change clothes. These days, crickets. Irritated crickets. Penn you remind me so much of him, except he hasn't learned to embrace his ADHD as gloriously as you have and Kim, you and I would either be the best of friends or waay to similar to be in the same room.

I have had pneumonia since Christmas, so picture the Grinch, literally on steroids. My oldest sends me one of your videos."Mom! This couple is you and dad....if you liked one another." Tears. I watch and laugh (and cough), for the last month. I show them to Brent. He laughs, dances around the room and says, "Hey that dude knows what it's like to be married to you when you arent angry all the time!" Anger, then tears then realization of truths. They are right.

You two have struck such a chord. Still dont know what will happen, but shared one of your videos with our marriage therapist. she has known us 27 years and yells,"THAT IS BRENT AND SHERI!" Tears stream down her face from laughter.

Short story very long, I see a healthier, more functional us in you. And God put you in our lives to help us survive this. We see you and we are once again able to laugh at ourselves. I am able to laugh and Brent's ridiculous impressions and horrible dad jokes. (Yours are very good Penn😁). The point ....God is using you to bring laughter and the memory, at least, of joy back into our lives. Your absolute authenticity is doing more than we ever asked or imagined. You gave us the gift of the real people you are, and it is changing us for the better. What a courageous gift you share, to be real in this judgemental world is not for the faint of heart.(Am I right Kim?) We thank God for you each night now. I have to tell people they are important to me (us) as our time is so short. We have never met and probably wont (still in Texas...yee ha) but to quote a favorite line from Wicked, "because I knew you...I have been changed for good". Bless you, did you know you were ministering to others? Now you do.
Gratefully,
Sheri Bell
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