The RelationShop crew discusses relationships seen on reality TV (90 Day Fiancé, Married at First Sight, etc.) and throughout Pop Culture in order to provide good relationship advice that works.

Be sure to send in your relationship questions to TheRelationShop@power77radio.com.

New episodes Tuesday at 8 AM CST. Tune in at Power77Radio.com.

Listen to The RelationShop on Power 77 Studios | Apple | Spotify

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thing is the relation shop where we analyze pop culture to give you relationship advice that works on Toya and I have Eric and Mr Ahmad Rashad of this booth. Oh, my goodness. I am Jason today. You’re not calling me bubbles, though. Not bubbles. Whatever. You’re the producer. Road way. Yeah, doing here, man. So, what’s up? What’s up? Glad to be here. Good to have you back again. It’s kind of nice to sit like and have my own microphone. Normally, I’m sitting like on Toya’s lap, right? I have a share.

It’s okay. It’s a relationship. Good. You could do that. Oh, yeah. I don’t mind. You know, I mean, I’m pretty sure like some husbands kind of sit with their legs on their wives lapper. Oh, let’s not Let’s not go down. This is it. Okay, A little smooth s okay. Sometimes I just need to be Oh, good, Because, like, never mind, we’ll get that another day because that is a really good Write that down. Write that down s. So if anyone has questions, please send those into the relation shop at power 77 radio dot com.

And I think we’re going to take a question from the Instagram, right? You put up a question on the relation shop Instagram, you say a quick question. What advice would you give a friend who is dating a person with an addiction? So I guess you put up that question from the last week’s show. Eso you got some responses to that and I have Miss calorie a She said if this is someone you don’t have plans to marry, uh, then it’s best to just be friends. So the relationship is not a distraction to their recovery.

However, if you have plans to marry the rehab, then rehabilitation has to be a requirement. The person without the addiction should definitely be seeking counsel to ensure they remain whole and, most importantly, pray for God to show you his will for your life. Oh, thank you, miss. Nicer than I am. She is nicer than I’m dating someone. Addiction? Yeah, like that’s a one and done deal. Come see me after you recall. I give you an ultimatum, I’ll give you the ultimatum. And I think if if you’re kind of in line with that kind of stuff, if you’re wanting them to make some progress or or get clean or rehabilitate before the question is, How long?

How do you know? You know, some people feel like they’ve been good for two months. Zip it sometime, man, you might want to see a year of new patterns because we can all we can, all white knuckle something for a little while. I’m going to see a pattern, and sometimes we can white knuckle something on behalf of. I really want this relationship. I’m doing it for that. Once I get the relationship, my motivations gone. So you need to see them doing it for them for a long period of time.

That is really good, because we see couples that will, you know, that me and toy we know couples who have certain addictions and they’re holding out because they see some type of initial reward are or some type of benefit on. And then once that, like you said, once they receive that benefit, we’ve seen that cycle happened over and over again, where they go right back into that addiction. So good point. Yeah, there’s gotta be new habits, new friendships, right? Some of the new environment for sure. Good little comment though, right?

Awesome. All right. And today, I don’t know if you all know this, but we have our very own celebrity up in here. Mr uh, Mr Hair my hair celebrity over here. Let’s let’s dial that one back anyway. I mean, you could be Christian famous. There’s no such thing as Christian. I’m not even Christian famous. I’m like I’m, like, life group famous. Maybe life, like 10 people. Famous way have talked about this before, but he has his relation shots that is on YouTube that he does every week on also, what else do you have?

You have a book? Has a book that he’s written. Hey, has over. Okay, we know on your relation shots. Uh, YouTube video channel just started, but you already have in April. And you already have over 1000 stands. Stands? Yeah, 1000 things. Stand up. I’m gonna stand. Yeah, I get on there and start, uh, antagonist stern stuff. You call me out a lot? Yeah. Whenever I make a comment, Listen, I’m just trying to reply to your comment. I said we want to talk about it. You talk about it, so let’s talk and I’m transparent and I want to encourage everyone who goes to the relation shots on YouTube to be transparent.

Go ahead, make a comment and keep it really be 100. Yeah. No, the whole idea behind it was just there. Just seven toe 9 10 minute videos, just quick thoughts and shots on relationship for May I just I’m practical and logical. And sometimes I think relationship theories and advice is too complicated and you go to counseling and you get these long, drawn out speaker listener techniques and I state and it’s all great. But sometimes you’re asking people to dual Olympic levels gymnastics when they can’t even do a cartwheel. So let’s listen.

I’m just trying to be practical. So just trying to give some little practical ideas on Hey, maybe, do you think about this if you’re dating? So it’s both dating and marriage. That’s why it’s called relation shots, not married shots or something. But so whether you’re dating married, jump on there. It’s got some thoughts, right? Well, toy wants to be Gabby Douglas in the marriage. Okay, let’s get going for the gold medal, huh? All right. So one of the videos, the number one cause of unhappy marriages. Way Get into that a little bit.

Yeah, eso part of this right? The You’re just trying to bait people with titles, right? So switch No, not no switch. Get him in because they want to know what the number one cause is right. There may be lots of causes, but no, I talked about just it being a maturity at the end of the day, most of our relational issues or in maturity issues, and so identified in that video kind of five characters that show up. And so here the characters that show up in relationship are really indicators of a lack of maturity.

So you got the victim shows up, you got the scorekeeper. They’re keeping it riel in quotes person, the agitator and the escape artist. So those air five characters that are marked by a maturity that show up in all kinds of relationships because I’m the most immature s on the plane of the earth. But I was eso Let’s let’s start with you guys. Which of those five victims Scorekeeper keeping a real person agitator, escape artists. Which one would you lean towards the most in your in maturity Wow, It depends on the circumstance.

E. I would say that Ahmad is the keeping it riel person. I keep it. Want just what? Whether it hurts my feelings or not, My skin has got very, very thick over the years because he will just be really like he’s just gonna be honest all the time. I am. We’ll keep it 100 because the thing is, it’s like the reason being is Do you want to take the band Aid off slow? Do you want to rip that thing right on? Hey, maybe I don’t have a Band Aid and you’re about to give me a wound.

Know that there’s a difference. So sometimes the quote keeping it riel person. No, man, you’re rude. You’re mean and you’re selfish. You can’t control me, Paul. Manu coming in. I’m coming. You can’t control your emotions. So So I think sometimes people love to hide behind that. No, man, I just speak truth. I just keep it really know you need to shut up. Sometimes that’s biblical. Is biblical toe overlooking offenses biblical to bite your tongue, Biblical. To be quick to listen slow. There’s certain times where you do have to keep it real well, yeah, because otherwise you’re gonna beat around the bush, obviously on.

And that’s and that’s when they keep it really has to come out. Like if you beat around, Let’s look for an example. Let’s say you have someone that’s an escape artist. See, an escape artist needs someone that keeps it real. Uh, depending on how real you keep it, you may encourage their escape artist ing. Right. So if I know that I engage with you in a conversation of conflict that you’re gonna in the in the guise of keeping it riel, you’re gonna say some hurtful things you’re going to say some mean things.

You’re gonna say some unthought ful things. You’re gonna take some digs. There may be truthful, but are not Okay, Uh, that’s gonna encourage me not to engage with U. S. So I think if you want the escape, let’s go that route. Since you brought it up, you’re you’re the keeping it riel, and your spouse is the escape artist. Uh, if you do not want them to always run, then you’ve got to create an environment where they feel safe, where they feel understood, validated So you can’t be quote riel all the time.

It is hurtful. Eso Then what you’re saying is that keeping it riel will Onley work if you create the right environment thing. Yeah, well, my question would be okay, because most of time to keeping it riel person on Lee likes to keep it riel with mean negative criticism. Are you keeping it real on the other side? Like are your compliments through the roof? Are you telling them they’re beautiful? They’re awesome. I appreciate dinner. You keep the house clean. I appreciate you as a mother, father, Aunt. You’re a great friend.

You’re honest. Are you doing? Because that’s keeping it riel too. But most of the time, they save the keeping it real for the negativity. Okay, so the maturity. Okay, so there is a mature way of keeping it riel. And then So you’re going at the maturity people. Yeah, and those are the ones who don’t have. That’s because I’ve never heard somebody that’s, like, complementary and encouraging going. Hey, man, I’m just too keeping. I just keep it ruined. 100. They only say that for when I’m being critical. That Okay, so then you see that a lot with marriages or couples or whatever.

So, yeah, I mean, if your wife has gained a few pounds and she puts on some jeans, keep it around and says, How did they look? I’m going to keep it, Really? Say it. Say she said, How do I look? And you say Wide E, why? Look, how does that help? Okay, look, what does that help relationship? Okay, but the immature person keeping it riel is going to be the one who never compliments her. So we have to make that clear. He’s never complimenting her. So? So the listeners need to be aware that if you have someone that never compliments you when you’re losing weight or putting on outfits or whatever, then yes, that type of keeping it riel would be negative.

But if you have a spouse that says, baby, you know what, that looks wonderful. And I love those those pair of shoes that that you have and yada, yada, yada. And then two weeks later, you actually hate How does this outfit looks like? You say? Well, baby girl, that one is not complimenting you the way that those pair of shoes did two weeks ago. I mean, I feel like that’s okay. So when she says, How did these jeans look? I love your shoes. E eso I agree with you mob.

But then here’s what Here’s what they’re keeping it. Riel person has to dio you need to do five compliments for everyone. Negative 5 to 1 ratio. If you do that, you’re negative. Keeping it real is probably gonna be received. That that’s really awesome. That’s good advice to the person that keeps it really alright. Masa Toya called you out. Who she is. She on this list? He’s the rest of the list e I have to keep it real. E plays the victim, keep scores. She’s actually oh, LeToya decide who she is.

Honestly, honestly, this is what I was going to say. I am all of them, Except the escape artists. I was gonna say that e have a have a small percentage of all of them. A very small percentage. Okay. No. Okay. The non self awareness person, right? The not self aware person. Okay, So, like, for example, because toy does play the victim role, she does play the victim role in time and That’s when my keep it real has to come out. So but she’s the agitator. So she agitates and then plays the victim.

If you come realize, agitated me on the way here today, let’s talk about that. She went. She went to the grocery store, right? She went food shopping, and she knew we had to come to the studio. So she decided to leave. We have to be a studio. And in two hours she decided to leave to go food shopping two hours before we have to go. She comes back an hour before it’s time to leave. And she agitated me because I’m not helping her grab the groceries out of the car while I’m helping my son get ready to go to the studio.

So she agitated the situation by attacking me and then play the victim role in the process. All right. Right. So this is what she does. So I had to keep it really on. Tell her I’m taking care of our son and getting ready to go to the studio so that we don’t be on C p time. And so then I was like, you know what he did make print something to eat. And then I opened the dishwasher and I noticed that he cleared out the dishes. Eso Then I went to him and I said, Hey, babe, thanks for clearing out the dishes.

I appreciate you. And then I went back in the kitchen and I unloaded all the groceries and I did everything and I just focused on that. And he focused on himself and on Prince. So I was like, You know what? It’s all good. Well, because now the thing is, you overreacted from the agitating aside in the victim’s side, that was that was the you were starting to create an unhappy marriage. But the cool thing is with us is we actually catch it like way. Don’t let stuff like go over the moment.

We catch it in the moment, so and see. And that’s because way have you just mentioned I give her a 51 ratio Compliment her throughout the whole week. So then when I finally do have to call her on something, then you know she’ll right? That’s awesome. So you guys recognized moments of in maturity because of your relational maturity and the investment you make on the positive side. You’re able to quickly get out of that. Where? Probably five years ago. Where some couples, when that starts, they can’t stop it, right?

And what you just mentioned as agitation and misunderstanding and all that stuff that turns into a fight that turns into the whole drive here, not talking that certain turns into the next two days. We’re not talking. All right. Good job. Now, we don’t have time for the past. Now. Now, outside of my marriage, I’m probably keeping it to really toe other people, though. Yeah, just you gotta work on that. Work on. You gotta work on that. No, that’s good. My tendency is the escape artist. I love peace.

I want everybody to get along S O S. Oh, if I engage in conflict and then it gets to a place that I don’t enjoy, then I’m I’m gonna go bounce. So So how does an escape artist, you know, stop being an escape artist? Like what do you think there’s gotta be a willingness to engage in uncomfortable conversations? I think there’s gotta be, You know, you gotta believe that this goes back to investment in the relationship, right? you’ve got to believe that the relationship strong enough that you don’t always have to be happy and get along.

So it’s more about a discomfort level that you don’t like. I don’t like being uncomfortable. I’ll get along and so sometimes you’re not going to get along and that’s OK. And if we’re committed, so it’s making a decision to engage and not run at times. Goddio. I’ve never seen to escape artists together like eso. Here’s the thing to escape Artists actually works together now. I would not call it healthy, but imagine this scenario. So you got. And I’ve known couples like this been married forever. You got husband and wife.

They get in a conflict. They never really resolve it. He goes and sits on the couch and throws on ESPN. She leaves and goes to the mall and just shops and gets away. They both kinda unwind. She comes back, and what do you want to do for dinner, honey? And then they just go right back into it. And like I said, I wouldn’t call this a healthy way, but it works for them because they’re not actually carrying it. So if one wants to resolve and the others escaping.

Obviously, that’s going to cause all kinds of frustration. But sometimes if they’re both escape parts again, I’m not saying this is the healthy way, but I know couples who are able to make it work because they just kinda get mad. Don’t deal with it, sweep it under the rug and then move on down the road. Yeah, that would be interesting. Like which, which to do you think would be the best, though, If there is a to that, I think none of these because these remarks in maturity.

But I’m just saying, Like what? We could balance the other out. You know what I’m saying? The best. None of them. None of them. Absolutely. I’m just saying. I mean, none of them are healthy. So the victim is Oh, what was me? What? I mean, Okay. There’s nothing gonna make that good. Same thing with the scorekeeper. So these are all marks of in majority. This is what we do not wanna do not want to do. Okay? So talk to me real quick by the scorekeeper, the scorekeepers that you call them.

The history major to their the person never forgets anything so they may let you may think you’ve got away with something, but they’re keeping track of it. Mostly scorekeepers. Uh, I don’t think it’s strictly a wife thing. I think it’s a personality thing. Yeah, that’s on the Oh, listen, I gotta go home. We o s o the scorekeeper scorekeepers gonna probably not say anything in the moment. But when you get in an argument later, they’re going to bring up the 15 things that they remember. The O S O. I need to put my dishes away.

Well, guess what? I put your dishes away the last three days, and you haven’t picked up your socks in three weeks. And it did it. Yeah. I mean, that’s why I say they could call them the History Major. They’re gonna go back and bring up stuff you thought? Oh, well, I didn’t know. And sometimes the problem is, if they got a little escape artists in them, they haven’t. They haven’t confronted you on anything, so you may not even be aware that they’re keeping a ledger, and then you confront him on something this legitimate and their response now is Oh, yeah, well, they bring up 57 things and you’re like Hold on that, Z not fair.

You got to confront me in the moment on those because I don’t know that’s bothering you. And when I confront you, you wanna bring up 72 things. So how does the scorekeeper improve on their in maturity? Then scored. A scorekeeper has to deal with something in the moment. And in the moment I don’t mean it’s not always appropriate betting on where you are. But I’m saying close to the moment say this. This is I had a problem with this. This hurt me. Whatever it might be, just kind of bring it up, bring it up.

And then and then once there’s been talk, forgive and release, right? So that’s why you say they have a little escape artists in them. Then they may see something that they don’t like. But since they don’t want the conflict, they’ll just kind of they put it under the table, put on the table. But they’re not really forgetting it. Just keeping tabs. So, you know, the whole idea of burying the hatchet eso They may have buried the hatchet, but they know exactly where they buried it and how deep it is and where they could go find it at any minute.

And so you think they buried the hatchet, but then go back, dig it up in a hurry and bring it into the fight again? Got it, Got it. Okay. And then we need to go into the agitator because I know what that is. But for our listeners, like, what’s the agitator? Yeah, that’s the person that likes to poke and stir things up. And you know, the person who will do little jabs, Poke, poke, poke, poke, poke. See, because the agitator often goes with the victim, right? Poke, poke, poke, poke, poke.

And then you blow up and they’re like, Oh, man, I can’t believe you said that too. I can’t believe you did. What do you been poking me in the same spot 97 times? At some point, I’m gonna yell, right? See? See, I just I see. Okay, just they can’t leave well enough alone. They’re going to come in and just start poking folk folk, right? But isn’t that also, Especially if you’re dating, right? What? How can you differentiate the difference between someone who is poking just to make sure that you’re the type of person that I want to date, or am I truly agitating you?

There’s a mean, Well, so part of me would say, if you’re the kind of person that’s gonna poke to agitate me to see who I am so that you could make an evaluation that is a level of manipulation like set expectations set expectations of what kind of behavior you want from me and and be clear with if I don’t play games. But But if I’m dating you right, I’m not put out. I’m not going to show you my, my, my my hand, And there, And I’m not going to show you my I’m gonna have my deck, and I’m going to say like, Hey, I want to know who you are because I don’t want the representative.

Then we have a show on this about Are we Are we dating their representative? Yeah, but you just said I’m not going to show all my cards dating because I know you’re not showing me your card. Yeah, but you know what? I’d rather show my cards, so, you know, way already know where the games come from. We already know where the games come from because guys, when we’re dating, we don’t play the games. You just said way. Don’t want to agitate to find out who. No, I’m not saying I’m saying like men are the ones who are agitated when they’re dating because women are trying to figure out if the guy is who they want to be, so we feel like we’re as being agitated.

But what I’m asking is, Is there a difference? Is that is that game that you’re calling it right? Is that agitation or is that just a legit way that a woman does to see if that’s a good guy or not? Obviously, the agitation could have different motives. You’re saying once a motive, to find out who the person is, the other one, maybe a motive just to bug him and get a rise out of them and and annoy them because you’re frustrated. And I think if you’re dating and you’re being honest and you’re talking about real stuff and you’re setting expectations, conflict is going to rise.

You’re going to see the other person without having to create a scenario to expose them to really, man, if you’re doing relationship, really, you don’t need to agitate. Just gonna come out totally agree. And that’s really an issue in the dating round. Like a lot of the guys and ladies, because you see it on YouTube is a lot of content on YouTube. You know that That kind of give advice on how you’re supposed to date, like, dating advice, like, guys, you need to be like this Alfa guy. Women.

You need thio, you know, want a guy that’s gonna hold you by the hand and be tough and stuff like that. You know, like, you hear all this all the time when you really sit down and listen to the women advice, it is agitation, e. I mean, they don’t call it agitation, but it’s under that category, like your grooming women to be. I’m happy. Mary. Listen, anybody want to start a YouTube channel and blow it up through the roof and in in no time flat do a dating channel guided towards women?

You could blow that up easy, because you can come up with all kinds. I mean, they’re just thirsty for that information. How do you know if he’s being. Really? How do you know if if he’s into you one of these texts mean I could come up with 57 topics right now for how to blow up? A. But I don’t think you’re helping anybody. No, you’re not. But its like for, like, this show here, the relation shop in your channel, the relation shots or relation shots, right? We’re trying to combat that, you know, and it’s like that’s the reason why there’s so much, Uh, there’s so many issues and marriages.

So the divorce rate in your book, you said everyone 40 seconds Someone e I was reading it, you know, And I was saying to myself like, Are you kidding me? 40 seconds. Someone is going through a divorce crazy, you know, and your book is actually let’s go and talk about Let’s talk about the characteristics of irresistible marriage. It’s called the Magnetic Marriage. Eight characteristics of irresistible marriage. That’s what we need to hear more of. So what are the characteristics? Alright, the characteristics are and it’s funny. Well, you could get the book and read why I put him in what order.

But I have different thoughts, so intimacy with God is a characteristic. And I’m specifically talking about personal first as a couple of seconds community which we talk about on this show all the time. Mutual submission, purpose valuing differences, intentional investment, boundaries and trust and discipleship. I think those air characteristic I know your first one is Was that intimacy with God? Well, that’s chapter one. Eso Is this an order? I’m just listening. But I actually said in the book because I really wanted to put community is number one.

But I knew all the Christians to be mad at me, so I had to put intimacy with God first. Okay, but make your family feel good, but yeah, but the idea behind it was just And and this is from council a bunch of Christians. How? What percentage of the time would you say is a Christian? You’re walking Quote in the spirit, maybe about 2%. Which is why I think community is almost more important because intimacy with God, I’m depending on my spouse to be listening to and be obedient to the Holy Spirit in their life, which a lot of people are not.

And so that’s why I’m like, Well, when they ain’t listening. The Holy Spirit is good to have some community that can knock on their door and say, Hey, you ignored the Holy Spirit. But you ignore me, bro. I’m here s so that that’s why I put community is chapter two. But I really think it’s number one. You know, I thought it was interesting that you have discipleship Aziz. One of the eight characteristics. Why why would you say discipleship? And I kind of put him in the book.

I I kind of categorized them as as, like, some foundational stuff, you know, some categories that will help you flourish. And then discipleship kind of comes at the end. And I think that’s more. Now that you have a purpose in your marriage and your thinking about how do we pass it on to the next generation? How do we help other people strengthen their marriages? Because, as you help others in their marriage, it helps your marriage. And I know you, you know, toy and mod. I know you guys walk with couples and help couples and mentor couples, and you notice that when you’re doing that actually strengthens your relationship.

So I think healthy couples because that’s part of the mandate of a Christian writers to make disciples. I think healthy couples air disciple making couples to where they’re saying, Hey, we’ve learned some stuff we’ve made some mistakes were not perfect You’ve never arrived but were willing to get in the mess with other couples and try to help them along. I just think that’s a healthy characteristic because it’s not be focused anymore is like What can we do? Is a couple to help somebody else. So now that’s pretty good.

So So basically the book is on Amazon. You can go and get it on Amazon. I downloaded my copy on Kindle so you could get a digital version of it or you get the paper back And, uh, yeah, you know, So one thing that I that I got from your book was just would you just mentioned this purpose is growing that intimacy with God and then finding a purpose for your marriage. And then whatever you find that purpose, you pass it on to someone else. Like That’s yeah, and you need something because, you know, we talked about we’ve talked about on these shows things like addiction and how pain in our life will will cause us toe make unhealthy decisions.

And so if the pain of your marriage it becomes greater than the purpose you have is a couple. A lot of couples want to get out because it’s like this is too painful. But if you’ve got a bigger purpose since you’re going after, I think you can overlook things. You could move past things and just like you guys, you Now, this wasn’t a quote big purpose for the marriage. But you had a purpose today, which was to get here to do the show s so you didn’t have time to start really fighting about your frustrations about going to the store and not doing that.

It was like, This is insignificant. Based on what? We’ve got to get Thio overlooked this right now. But if you don’t have something bigger ever, it’s like everything’s gonna bug you The way you talk to me, the way you don’t do this the way you don’t And so, yeah, that’s why I think purpose is huge and we got to be willing, right? We don’t have time for the buffoonery in the shot house. Yeah, exactly so. And the cool thing is in the book at the end of every chapter, we have a little section called Making It Stick where there’s questions and you can rank yourself is a couple.

If you’re doing it with your spouse, there’s questions to talk more in depth about. Hey, man, how are we doing in this area where we need to take action? How do we need to grow it? So it could be a little I know there’s been a few couples that have talked about, or a few people have told me. They’re using it in the context of their small group. So the whole small groups going through and reading it and talking about it, yeah, internationally unknown, locally unrecognized. That’s me.

Thank you all so much for joining us today. And if you have any questions in those into the relation shop at power 77 radio dot com talking funny. Oh, see you next time