Marriage & Communication: Balancing Work, Love, and Communication

In this episode, Jill is joined by her guest, Melissa Cancel, to dive into the complexities of communication in marriage, especially for high-achieving women who excel in the workplace but struggle to voice their needs at home. 

They discuss how communication at work differs from marriage, why emotional vulnerability matters, and how men and women handle conflict differently. 

Through insights on setting expectations, embracing partnership, and strengthening relationships through faith, this conversation provides practical strategies to help you communicate more effectively and build a marriage rooted in clarity, respect, and connection. 

Learn More about Melissa Cancel or Join Conflict to Connection  hosted by Melissa Cancel

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Transcript

Jill O'Boyle (00:02.648)
Well, hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of Your Life, Your Story. Rise up. I am so excited to be here with you all today. If you are new, welcome. If you have been around for a while, thank you so much for continuing to follow the podcast, continuing to be a fan. truly matters and so appreciative of you all. So today I'm super excited about the topic we're gonna talk about.

I'm honored to welcome my guest, Melissa, also known as the communication doc. So with a PhD in communication, 30 years of teaching experience and a thriving 18 year marriage, Melissa has made it her mission to help couples improve communication, cut conflict and create fulfilling relationships. On top of all that, she and her husband have a very full life with six kids and

six grandchildren, right? So I can't wait to dive in today's conversation about how communication in marriage can look so different from communication at work and why this matters for women who feel like they're succeeding professionally but just struggling personally and in relationships. And so I'll admit this topic really hits home for me.

This was an area that I struggled with for years. I was very confident and vocal in my professional life. But yet when it came to my marriage, I often just struggled to voice my thoughts, share my concerns, or stand up at times for what I really truly wanted. And so it's something I believe, not only I have struggled with this, but I believe many other high achieving women might relate to that as well. And so I'm super eager to...

to hear Melissa's insight and expertise on this topic as well. So without further ado, let me introduce and welcome Melissa to the show.

Melissa Cancel (02:06.025)
Thank you, Jill. I'm so glad to be here. When we were discussing this question, it got me thinking, what is it that makes that so different? And quite frankly, that was not something I had really thought about a lot. I am in the professional world, but I've never really worked in a

Jill O'Boyle (02:22.392)
Yeah.

Melissa Cancel (02:27.561)
business type setting that was an all-encompassing type nine to five job. I've been a college professor most of my life. So I've had a lot more flexibility and I would say that academia is a little bit of a different environment. So as I thought about some differences between how we communicate at work or the typical workplace communication and how we communicate at home in our marriages, I was thinking about that the typical work

place environment is really structured, especially here in America, is really structured around a typically male style of communication. That is, you have goals, you have tasks, you're going to work to accomplish those goals and tasks, and really, emotions are supposed to be left out of all of it. So it's very structured.

Jill O'Boyle (03:08.12)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Jill O'Boyle (03:21.973)
Mmm. Mm-hmm.

Melissa Cancel (03:25.927)
It's very specific as to the style of communication that's expected. And it's challenging in the sense of being... It requires mental energy. It requires physical effort to perform well, but it really doesn't require a lot emotionally. Now, I'm not saying that emotions aren't involved at all at work. They can be, obviously, you can have conflict.

Jill O'Boyle (03:30.947)
Mm-hmm.

Jill O'Boyle (03:48.62)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Melissa Cancel (03:54.058)
there can still be personal issues at work, but that's really not necessary for a work relationship or a work situation to function. And in most cases, if we keep our personal lives out of work, it's going to be probably easier and better. However,

Jill O'Boyle (04:04.92)
Yeah.

Jill O'Boyle (04:13.538)
Mm-hmm.

Melissa Cancel (04:16.561)
That part that you don't need at work and is really not desired is exactly the component that you need at home in a marriage for it to be successful. That emotional connection. And in order to have that, it requires emotional vulnerability, risk, and trust.

Jill O'Boyle (04:27.564)
Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Melissa Cancel (04:43.612)
And for a lot of people, that's really hard, especially if you have a background where you trusted people, you were emotionally vulnerable and you were hurt. You may find it easier to function in an environment where you can stay closed off emotionally and not have to open up.

Jill O'Boyle (04:58.126)
Mm-hmm.

Melissa Cancel (05:08.915)
But if you do that in your marriage, and quite frankly, we all do, right? I mean, when we live our daily lives, we still have our goals at home, we have our tasks at home. But if that's all we do, if all we do is accomplish our goals, accomplish our tasks, do the things we're supposed to do, and we never open up emotionally with our spouses, we never have the kind of connection that God wants us to have that's supposed to be unique to marriage.

Jill O'Boyle (05:37.994)
Yeah, yeah.

Melissa Cancel (05:38.942)
So there's a model of self-disclosure called social penetration theory that was developed in the seventies. And the picture they use to describe self-disclosure is an onion. So if you've seen the movie Shrek, Shrek compares himself to an onion and he talks about how if you start peeling away too much, you're going to get to the stinky core. And

Jill O'Boyle (05:52.856)
Hmm.

Jill O'Boyle (06:03.138)
Ha ha!

Melissa Cancel (06:04.295)
Yeah, it's a great analogy and they actually got that from that theory from the 70s. the idea of self-disclosure is in order for us to build intimacy, have to be willing to share of ourselves and peel away those layers. Well, you can go in depth, like you could think of cutting a wedge out of the onion in a specific area, for example, work.

Jill O'Boyle (06:09.74)
Yeah.

Jill O'Boyle (06:23.074)
Mm-hmm.

Melissa Cancel (06:34.026)
So in your workplace scenarios, you could share fairly in-depth information. You don't have to be superficial, right? You can share your past work experiences. You can share your opinions, your feelings about your coworkers, about your bosses. You could share a lot of in-depth information in that one area, but stay closed in all of the other areas. But in our marriages, it really requires that we peel away the

Jill O'Boyle (06:34.189)
Yeah.

Jill O'Boyle (06:40.739)
Mm-hmm.

Jill O'Boyle (06:58.158)
Mm-hmm.

Melissa Cancel (07:03.911)
entire layers of who we are all the way around. So we get down to that really core part of us that is often, it's the most vulnerable, but it's often the most, if you want to use the term stinky like an onion, it's, it's a part of the part of us, the things that we, don't want everybody to know that we don't like about ourselves that we struggle with. And those are the things that

Jill O'Boyle (07:21.869)
Yeah.

Jill O'Boyle (07:26.732)
Mm-hmm.

Right. Yeah.

Melissa Cancel (07:32.502)
really have to be exposed in a marriage for you to be able to have that true genuine connection and be able to support and build each other up and compliment each other as God designs our marriage to be. So we could talk about some different aspects too. If you're in a position of leadership and you're used to making decisions at work,

Jill O'Boyle (07:46.061)
Yeah.

Melissa Cancel (07:56.712)
you come home, you might start making all the decisions and be like, wait a minute, you know, your husband's like, I'm involved in this too. And so there's other aspects that can be specific to your work situation. But as I thought about all of those different aspects, the one thing I kept coming back to was the emotional vulnerability that is necessary in marriage.

Jill O'Boyle (07:56.93)
Mm-hmm.

Jill O'Boyle (08:03.98)
Right.

Jill O'Boyle (08:14.114)
Yes. Yes. I love that you bring that up because you're spot on. And I think with high achieving women, or at least in my situation that I was in, you kind of touched on this too, the difference between men and women in the workplace. And high achievers tend to side with that more dominant side, like that male dominant where...

where the end result is let's accomplish the goal, right? Let's get to the finish line. We don't have time for fluff. Let's just meet these deadlines. And you're right, we leave out that emotional side. And so as high achieving women where I found myself in a very robust type industry, a fast paced industry, it was almost like that, my industry was a male dominated industry for most of people that worked there. And it was very much of like, let's,

let's get to the solution, the resolution and move on. And emotions were kind of pushed aside. Saying all that though, as women, I feel like in the workplace, we have to have that. Like we have to have that vulnerability, that authenticity. And so there was like this, I think I was on a wave of emotions when I worked there, because it's part of me, right? It's who God created us to Our mind, will, emotions, all of that needs to function.

but I think you're right. I think that's the part that, that a, you have to have that in your, in your personal relationships. And sometimes we, miss that part in our work. I'm not saying that's a good thing. I'm saying, think authentic leadership vulnerability in the workplace on a level, right? We don't need to get into all of our personal stuff, but, I think there's, you know, there's empathy for, or, you can see compassionate empathetic leaders when they do, when they do show up as being more authentic.

and compassionate versus just let's get to the end result here. So I know you talk a little bit about this, as it refers to bridging this gender gap in the workplace. You talk about the idea of Mars and Venus and bridging that gender gap in our thinking and communication. so as we think about that, what would you say are some maybe more practical ways where

Jill O'Boyle (10:37.632)
we can talk about that in our couples and relationships that how we can navigate these differences to avoid misunderstanding and build this connection, right? So at work, it's all about processes, improvements, like let's get to the bottom line. And then, I was go, go, go all the time, making decisions all the time where there were so many times where I felt like when I came home, I don't know if women can relate to this, it's like.

I was so tired of making decisions. I was so tired of talking really. I was so tired of people coming into my office and leaning on me as the, so it's like almost for me, I was just like, I just shut down and the stress and the overwhelm. But that's no excuse, right? Like we have to be open to have communication. We have to be able to constantly build those connections. So I know you work with couples. This is your like bread and butter, like.

jam per se. So what's some thoughts? Maybe you've even seen that in some of the couples that you work with is to just not opening up the communication gap that happens.

Melissa Cancel (11:42.558)
Yeah. Well, and traditionally, like I said, the workplace is really designed more around a male style of communication. So men are typically the ones who are not comfortable with their emotions. are able to, because they think in compartments or boxes, they're easily able to wall off certain areas of their lives. And if they're in a particular

Jill O'Boyle (11:56.385)
Mm-hmm.

Melissa Cancel (12:10.229)
box, they don't have to think about anything else. And so, and what you described about coming home and being tired of making decisions is exactly what men experience as well. Excuse me, when they're, you know, they're at work, they're making all these decisions, they come home. And you, you have the typical situation where let's say you have a man who's at work and a stay at home mom.

where she's been dealing with the kids all day, you know, and he comes home and now she wants him to make all these decisions and deal with all these issues from the home that she's had to deal with and he's exhausted and he's tired. So then you add to that if both of you are working and you both come home and now you both want to shut down and not make decisions and not have to function and, and you've got a mess at home. And so,

Jill O'Boyle (12:54.348)
Right.

Jill O'Boyle (12:59.951)
huh.

Melissa Cancel (13:01.013)
I think that's one of those areas where we really have to learn to, in a sense, as women, have to learn to compartmentalize our work life so that we can also keep the priority on our home life and on our marriages. Because ultimately, while work is necessary, and yes, it can be very fulfilling, our primary focus really needs to be on our

Jill O'Boyle (13:21.068)
Hmm.

Melissa Cancel (13:30.397)
marriages because those are the relationships that are the foundation for our families. And families are the foundation of a healthy society, you know, so healthy marriages lead to healthy families, which lead to healthy societies, which enable us to have, you know, work and all of that. If we get those priorities out of whack and work becomes the focus, well, now we're not going to have healthy marriages, healthy families, a healthy society. So the

Jill O'Boyle (13:39.288)
Mm-hmm.

Jill O'Boyle (13:43.79)
Hmm.

Jill O'Boyle (13:56.81)
Yes.

Melissa Cancel (13:59.958)
I talk about a number of differences, typical differences between men and women and how we can overcome them. One of those being in thinking, like I mentioned, how men kind of think in those boxes. So it's a little easier for them to compartmentalize work from home life, as opposed to we as women, we tend to think more like spaghetti or with everything being interconnected. And so as a result, it's very difficult for us to

Jill O'Boyle (14:24.718)
Right.

Melissa Cancel (14:28.239)
segment parts of our lives. So let's say you have a conflict at home. That's not to say you're not going to be able to go to work and function, you can, but you're still going to keep thinking about that conflict at home because various things at work are going to interconnect with that strand of your conflict at home and are going to keep causing you to come back to it, be distracted by it, create an issue for you. So that's

Jill O'Boyle (14:30.55)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Melissa Cancel (14:56.902)
One reason why I try to encourage us as women specifically to deal with issues at home as quickly as possible. Now, timing can be an issue and that's something I don't think we should rush in, but for us specifically, the faster we can get issues resolved, the less those issues are going to be on our minds and distracting us from other things that we need to accomplish. Now, that's not to say that's not important for a man, it is, but

Jill O'Boyle (14:57.505)
Yeah.

Jill O'Boyle (15:06.294)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Jill O'Boyle (15:24.835)
Yes.

Melissa Cancel (15:26.717)
because men are more able to compartmentalize the conflict won't really bother a man until he's in your compartment or whatever the compartment is that has to do with the conflict at home. He can ignore it otherwise. Yeah. Yeah. So I can't tell you how many times my husband and I've had a conflict and he's gone to bed and sleeps soundly like a baby.

Jill O'Boyle (15:37.858)
Mm-hmm.

Right. Put it on a shelf. Yeah. Okay. That makes sense.

Melissa Cancel (15:55.198)
and I lay awake thinking about the conflict. And usually I become more upset with him while I'm laying there awake thinking about the conflict that he is sleeping. And yet I know it's because he's moved into a different compartment and he's not thinking about the conflict at all. And I think, I wish I could do that. And I can't.

Jill O'Boyle (16:13.174)
Right, yeah, yes. So how do we deal with things like that? So like you have, you know, there's a burning conflict that is happening right now, but yeah, it's in the middle of a work day, right, where, you know, either your husband is at work, he is focused on the priority at hand, which is I've gotta get this goal completed right now, I don't have time to deal with that, but you're over here.

stewing, festering on it, what is the best way to handle those kind of things? Understanding, right? There's work and there's home life and how do you not let it just go silent? So I find this conversation interesting because I feel like I'm more on the male side of this because that was me. I never wanted to deal with, I just would, I would bury myself in work to avoid

the bigger conflict at home, right? So I would go to the first distraction that gave me the feeling of, I'm really good at this. I'm respected here. This is this back then, this was number one to me. So I'm just going to go to work and I will deal with that when I can deal with that. But the problem with me is I never wanted to deal with that. Right. So then, of course, that just kept that that was the big elephant that just kept spiraling. So

Maybe somebody listening can be like, yeah, I relate to that. That's how I am. Or my husband is like that. What's some advice or tips? You talked about priorities and compartmentalizing our work life, but how? How do we do that?

Melissa Cancel (17:43.839)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Melissa Cancel (17:56.948)
Let me back up real quickly and just say in comment to what you said about you being more like thinking more like a male. So these are generalizations, number one, but number two, there can be specific situations and how you were raised and things that happen to you that can cause you to shift how you typically think and communicate. Just a quick example, my husband, his dad left when he was seven and he was raised with three women.

Jill O'Boyle (18:03.906)
Mm-hmm.

Jill O'Boyle (18:07.63)
Sure.

Melissa Cancel (18:24.999)
So whereas most men when they talk tend to be more brief, more fact oriented, not to give a lot of details, not to ramble, he is the opposite. He communicates in that regard more like a woman and gives a lot of details, a lot of aspects of the situation that aren't specifically related to what you need to know.

Interestingly though, even though he speaks that way, he still listens like a man, which is he wants just the facts. So he'll give all these details, but then one of our daughters will go to talk to him and he'll say, I don't need all the details, just tell me to ask. And so we find that really interesting. So there can be situations that alter that, but back to your question. So

Jill O'Boyle (19:01.678)
Yeah.

That's funny. Yeah. Yeah.

Melissa Cancel (19:11.825)
It's important to think about the timing of when we deal with conflict. Typically, people either tend to blow up or clam up. Those are the two extremes. So you've got the people who blow up and want to deal with the conflict right away. And that may not be good because of a number of factors. Number one, if something happens, let's say you have a conversation with your spouse over text.

Jill O'Boyle (19:18.862)
Mm.

Melissa Cancel (19:36.542)
regarding something at work and it creates a conflict and you don't have the opportunity to really address it by any means other than text, well, text is not a good way to deal with conflict. That's not a good channel. If you're both emotional, that's not a good time to deal with conflict. If you're stressed, you know, you've got a deadline at work, that's not a good time to deal with conflict.

Jill O'Boyle (19:45.804)
right.

Melissa Cancel (19:56.918)
You want to try to deal with conflict as quickly as possible, but you want to also do it, set it up in a situation where you're going to be able to be, both of you will be able to be successful in dealing with the conflict. And so that does require some thought and planning. So again, you have the conflict at work. What it may mean is we need to talk about this conflict. Let's set a time when we get home that we're going to talk about this. You know, the kids go to bed at

Jill O'Boyle (20:09.474)
Mm-hmm.

Melissa Cancel (20:26.485)
eight. So at 8 15, we're going we need to discuss this conflict. So we plan a time and that way we know that we haven't procrastinated it, we're not going to leave it indefinitely. And then I think too, for us as women to try to get the thinking about the conflict off our minds so that it's not distracting to us. One thing you can do is to write things down.

Jill O'Boyle (20:48.426)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Melissa Cancel (20:53.704)
So I always encourage before you go into conflict, you need to identify what is the source of the conflict. It is not typically a character personality trait. We like to think it is like, you know, it's my husband is lazy or my husband is inconsiderate. It's usually a behavior, right? I'm thinking my husband is lazy because he didn't set out

Jill O'Boyle (20:53.94)
Mm. Yeah.

Jill O'Boyle (21:13.528)
Yeah.

you

Melissa Cancel (21:23.827)
the food that we needed to have set out so it could defrost for dinner, right? So it's a specific action that is the source of the conflict that now, because I'm emotional, I am then blaming aspects of his personality for. So we need to identify what is the specific source of the conflict. So, and then write that down, right? Write that down.

Jill O'Boyle (21:28.814)
Mm-hmm.

Jill O'Boyle (21:41.036)
Yeah, makes sense.

Jill O'Boyle (21:46.346)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Right.

Melissa Cancel (21:51.15)
you can also write down some of those other thoughts you have, you know, he's lazy, he, whatever. as you start to look at those, you can then see, okay, you know, is he really lazy? Well, in my, my case, my husband does struggle with procrastination. And so one thing he's done to help him with that is he sets alarms for everything. Right? So if he's supposed to do something and he doesn't do it, it's probably that he doesn't have an alarm set.

Jill O'Boyle (22:17.781)
Mm-hmm.

Melissa Cancel (22:19.861)
And so our resolution to this conflict could be, all right, now make sure you set the alarm so that you remember to do this in the future. So we don't end up having an issue that we have to try to deal with afterwards because this wasn't done, right? The other thing, especially when you're dealing with a man because respect is paramount to a man.

Jill O'Boyle (22:37.366)
Right, right.

Jill O'Boyle (22:46.126)
Mm-hmm. Mm.

Melissa Cancel (22:46.422)
I think it's important to us as women too. And as you said, you know, we can go to work and we can feel respected and feel admired and those types of things. So it is important to us as well, but it's even more important to men, I think. And so a lot of times when we're dealing with conflict, you know, I may be the one to raise the conflict and say, okay, this was the issue, this is what happened. How can we deal with this?

Jill O'Boyle (22:58.763)
More. Yeah.

Melissa Cancel (23:12.509)
And if you're in the workplace and you're the one who's usually giving the solutions, you might be inclined to give the solutions. But I find, especially if it's something that predominantly my husband needs to work on, if I say, what can we do to fix this? And he comes up with the solutions. He's much more likely to implement solutions he comes up with than solutions that I suggest.

Jill O'Boyle (23:29.025)
Mm-hmm.

Jill O'Boyle (23:35.438)
Yes, I love that. Yes.

Melissa Cancel (23:39.368)
So then I will say to him, okay, that's a great solution. That sounds like that's gonna work. What is there anything I can do to help you with that? So again, I said he procrastinates, he'll set reminders that he needs to do something. And sometimes he'll say to me, okay, if I don't do this when my alarm goes off, please remind me that, you know, I need to get this done.

Jill O'Boyle (23:51.67)
Mm-hmm

Melissa Cancel (24:07.667)
because if I'm turning my alarm off, it's because I don't feel like doing it and I still need to do it. And so then I'll say to him, okay, you asked me to do this, but I don't want this to be something that you think I'm nagging you. So what can I say that you will know it's the reminder you asked for? And he might say,

Jill O'Boyle (24:16.622)
Right.

Jill O'Boyle (24:22.807)
Mm-hmm

Melissa Cancel (24:32.768)
tell me you have to do the yard, it's important. Like, okay, so I'm going to say to you, you have to do the yard, it's important. And you're going to know that's what you wanted me to say. Yes. Okay. Got it. Right. Now that sounds very, it sounds very elementary, but it keeps a lot of conflicts from happening in the future because he has figured out his solution. I've asked if I can help.

Jill O'Boyle (24:44.054)
Right. Okay. Yeah. Yep.

Jill O'Boyle (24:55.8)
Mm-hmm.

Melissa Cancel (25:01.875)
He's given me a way I can help that he cannot become angry or upset with me for doing. And then I do it, you know, and, if he still chooses not to follow through, you know, it's like, I'm just too tired to do it. think, okay, I did what he asked. And that's where I have to take my hands off of trying to control the situation. And I think that's something else we as women struggle with, especially when you're used to being in the workplace, when you have control.

Jill O'Boyle (25:07.853)
Right.

Melissa Cancel (25:31.162)
over people. Your employees, to a certain extent, coworkers, depending on the situation, if you're in a position of leadership, you have a certain amount of control. And you can exert that control to have consequences, to impact reviews, those types of things. We don't really have that control in our marriages, right? It's a partnership.

Jill O'Boyle (25:32.952)
Mm-hmm.

Jill O'Boyle (25:52.216)
Yeah.

Jill O'Boyle (25:56.504)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Right.

Melissa Cancel (25:58.416)
And so as soon as I start trying to dominate, to manipulate, to nag, my mother-in-law has always said, if you say it more than once, it's nagging. And I try to follow that principle so that I don't say it more than once. And then I just have to let go and let things be and we'll deal with the effects as we need to do that.

Jill O'Boyle (26:08.75)
Yeah.

Jill O'Boyle (26:12.8)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's good.

Jill O'Boyle (26:19.778)
Yeah. Yeah.

Melissa Cancel (26:28.159)
Part of that is, you know, I have a desire, I'm a peacemaker, I have a desire to create peace, I have a desire to change people, to change situations. you know, when it comes to my marriage, I can't change my husband.

Jill O'Boyle (26:28.792)
now.

Jill O'Boyle (26:36.269)
Mm-hmm.

Jill O'Boyle (26:40.759)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. No, that's so good. You know, I was thinking about that as like if you're a person, you know, in leadership or any kind of role in your office and you have a sense of authority, right, or leadership or power, there can sometimes come with a little bit of control, right? You have this power per se. And I love how you said that. Like we don't necessarily have

Control like right. We're not gonna control our our significant others But what I hear you say is we have an opportunity to respect and honor boundaries in our marriage. We have an opportunity to have expectations of What we want in our marriage, right? So the examples like you gave right? The expectation is, you know, we want dinner on time, right? We want this to be laid out. We

you need a reminder for that. And he knows that, right? He's given you that permission to say, hey, remind me to set the alarm so that I get up and do this or whatever. So I love that. So it's more about expectations. And what I also see in that whole, those examples you use is really accountability. Like we're holding each other accountable for what we both need and want in our marriage, right? To have a healthy marriage.

Melissa Cancel (28:10.803)
Yes, exactly. I did a masterclass back in, I guess it was September, about four thoughts that can destroy your marriage. And they're very common thoughts we have in marriage that have to do with expectations, with trying to change our spouses, with the whole balancing of who does what in a marriage. And I'm doing my part, but my spouse isn't doing theirs. And then the fourth thought had to do with

Jill O'Boyle (28:10.882)
I love that.

Jill O'Boyle (28:23.49)
Mm-hmm.

Melissa Cancel (28:38.866)
mind reading our spouses thinking we know why they do what they do. And I in the masterclass and in the associated workbook, I give specific steps as to, okay, we can't have unrealistic expectations, but yet we do need to have expectations on our marriage. So how do we go about identifying what are the expectations we should have? What are the expectations that are unrealistic?

Jill O'Boyle (28:41.15)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Jill O'Boyle (28:59.618)
Yeah.

Melissa Cancel (29:04.467)
And then how do we communicate about those expectations in a way that both of us are able to then work on improving our marriage without it becoming a blame game. And so that's something that is free. The masterclass and the resource are both free on my website, which I know we'll give later, but that may be something that interests some of your listeners because it's a step-by-step guide to work through some of those issues.

Jill O'Boyle (29:25.719)
Yes.

Jill O'Boyle (29:32.48)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, no, I love that. I love that. And you're right. I mean, there's so many times I think we think we can read minds and we just can't, right? We have no idea what people are thinking. And so, you know, I think that goes for both in work and in our marriage, right? Like we think one thing about our employees or our clients and it's completely opposite. So I love that. Just, you know, having those expectations.

Melissa Cancel (29:56.424)
Yes.

Jill O'Boyle (30:00.992)
I also want to go back to earlier you were talking about how communication, the ways that we communicate can really stem from our upbringing and how we were raised. And you give the example of your husband with women, growing up with women. And I found that interesting because I can relate to that, especially as it relates to conflict. And so one of my biggest...

challenges that I had was when conflict would arise, I would mute my voice, right? I would run, right? What is that? The flight, flight, freeze, right? So it was like, I would just run from any of it. And so growing up in my household, right? There was some, you my brother and I very different and there was some challenges growing up. And so when I would hear

Melissa Cancel (30:40.735)
Mm-hmm.

Jill O'Boyle (30:56.856)
Conflict or or that my brother and my parents like getting an argument or something. I was five years younger So I would always go to my bedroom and I would put headphones on and just to numb numb it like I didn't want to hear it I didn't want to be involved in it I would go resort to like music or coloring or reading book like just trying to distract myself from that So I thought that was interesting how you talked about that because I can see now how that those you know

experiences that happened in my childhood also play a part in some of the issues that I had in my adult life that when conflict would arise, I would just mute my voice. I would not engage. I, or I would need a lot of time to process. And so something like that I finally realized like when my husband and I went through some of our challenging times in our marriage,

you were so spot on, like I had to be very open about my expectations. Like, so when you raise your voice like that, it will cause me to freeze. It will cause me to mute my voice. So I'm not trying to avoid you, but what I do need is some time to process what just happened so that I can come out better and respond to you once I have more time. Like I can't be approached with a conflict and need an immediate answer right then. Like it will spiral for me.

Melissa Cancel (32:09.599)
Mm-hmm.

Melissa Cancel (32:20.361)
Yes.

Jill O'Boyle (32:22.818)
And I don't mean to be like that. It's not like I'm trying to run from you. I just need time to, well, what just happened? Give me a minute. Let me process this and then I will come back to you. Now, what I had to do was come back to it. I like to just keep going away from it, but I've had to, we had to talk this out and I'm like, I promise I will come and talk to you about this at this time, which goes back to what you were just saying, right? That expectation and holding me accountable that, okay, I said, we're going to talk about this tonight. I can't talk about this right now.

Melissa Cancel (32:28.265)
Mm-hmm.

Melissa Cancel (32:35.101)
Yes.

Jill O'Boyle (32:51.608)
but I will come back and we'll talk this out. So any thoughts on that, just about that childhood, people that might be listening, maybe something spurred in their mind, you know, a lot of it does have to do with our childhood, our upbringing. I mean, so many things.

Melissa Cancel (33:07.509)
actually working on a conflict workshop right now. And that's kind of my basis for it, because what I've noticed is that we, we don't really learn to manage conflict in the home like we should. There are typically two extremes. You either have the parents who have conflict, but deal with it behind closed doors so that the kids never see them dealing with conflict and never learn how to deal with it themselves. And then when they get married, they think,

Jill O'Boyle (33:36.27)
you

Melissa Cancel (33:36.884)
You know, we're fighting all the time. Why? My parents never fought. Well, our parents did fight. We just never saw them do it. And so we never learned how to actually deal with conflict. Or you have the opposite extreme where you've got these all out arguments, yelling, screaming, you know, wars going on.

Jill O'Boyle (33:46.242)
Yes.

Melissa Cancel (33:59.254)
those are obvious to kids and kids either learn that, okay, that's how you deal with conflict or like you, they want to get away from it. They want to avoid it. And so part of what I'm emphasizing in this conflict training is the whole idea that we need to learn how to deal with conflict correctly so we can model it and teach it to our children. And that's something my husband and I have been doing. Our youngest is 16 and I've seen him now

Jill O'Boyle (34:07.574)
Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

Melissa Cancel (34:29.893)
start to do some of the things that he's seen us do. So just recently there was a conflict between him and my husband and my husband thought it was resolved, but my son was still upset. And he came down to him and he said, Poppy, I don't want to go and keep being upset about this because I feel like it's not resolved for me. You know, can I tell you what I'm thinking about the situation? And my husband was like, sure. So he told him,

Jill O'Boyle (34:41.218)
Mm-hmm.

Melissa Cancel (34:57.91)
And my husband was like, okay, I get where you're coming from and I understand now and I appreciate you coming back and resolving the issue. And I'm sitting there thinking, this is a teenage boy and this is great. He is learning how to deal with conflict because he sees us do it. He sees us address conflict not only with him, but with each other. Now we don't address every conflict in front of him, obviously.

Jill O'Boyle (35:11.086)
Mmm. It's so good.

Jill O'Boyle (35:18.379)
Yes.

Melissa Cancel (35:27.573)
But we do address some conflicts in front of him so that he can see how we work together. One of the things we're trying to do as a family is to not assume about things. That's kind of one of our goals for this year. So we keep catching each other. You just made an assumption about what I was going to say. Oh, OK. And my husband and I are doing this with each other, and we're doing it with our son, so that he has the right to say, mom, you just assumed what I was going to say. And I was like,

Jill O'Boyle (35:27.681)
Yeah.

Jill O'Boyle (35:31.5)
Yeah.

Yes.

Jill O'Boyle (35:40.076)
Mm-hmm.

Jill O'Boyle (35:50.925)
Yeah.

Melissa Cancel (35:57.514)
You're right, I did. You know, so that's helping us trying to catch ourselves assuming is helping us to avoid conflicts that are going to come about as a result because of those assumptions.

Jill O'Boyle (35:57.902)
No. Yes.

Jill O'Boyle (36:04.161)
Mm-hmm.

Jill O'Boyle (36:09.088)
Yeah, that's good. That's really good. It's really it is. It's a healthy balance. And I never really thought of it in that way that, you know, sometimes as parents, we can go into this protection mode and we try to protect and keep our kids safe from everything. But it is OK to have them see some of that so they can experience, you know, that they don't have this false reality that, know, they're growing up and everything's going to be just peaches and cream. Yeah, that's so good. I know we're getting close on time, but I really want to bring up

know, faith in our marriage. Communication was a big thing for me and Jack and when we worked through our marriage, like I said, I realized there were some things that was happening. My upbringing, just the way that I handle conflict, the priorities, like you talked about, right, priorities. What is a priority in my life? Values, you know, what are my values? How are my values showing up?

boundaries. Like there were so many things that was impacted for sure in helping us, you know, navigate some of our challenges in our marriage. But I would be remiss without saying that God had a huge part in restoring our marriage, restoring our, the way that, you know, just everything, how we're upbringing our children, so many things.

So I'm just curious, know, you how have you seen that play out in your life? Like how has you know faith played a role and how you and your husband communicate how you navigate challenges in your marriage? Any thoughts on that?

Melissa Cancel (37:47.136)
Yeah. Well, I would say, you know, just a real brief background. So we were both brought up in Christian homes and made professions of faith when we were young. My family was intact. We were in church all the time. My parents are still married. They're getting ready to celebrate 60 years of marriage. My husband's

father left when he was very young. His father was abusive before that. He was raised with his mom and two sisters. And while she was very consistent in having them in church, they struggled a lot. She could barely make ends meet. And so he grew up with a lot of bitterness and anger. And we actually first met when we were in ninth grade. We were both attending a Christian school. He had a crush on me, but

I knew even back then he was very rebellious at heart. And so while we were friends, nothing ever happened. he ended up dating a friend of mine and, they ended up having two kids and, that relationship fell apart. He got involved with another woman, had three kids, that relationship fell apart. And finally God brought him to the end of himself and back to himself, meaning God. And,

He rededicated his life. He was like, I'm tired of trying to live my life the way I want to live it. I've made a mess of my life. I'm going to get things right with God and I'm just going to focus on my kids. And in the meantime, I had always wanted to get married and I'm not finding anybody, but I'm getting an undergrad degree, a master's degree, a PhD. I come back still interested in getting married and we end up at his cousin's wedding together.

and start rekindling just a friendship. was all it was ever going to be. And God moves in mysterious ways. So, you know, if it hadn't been for God working in my husband's life, we would have never be together, first of all. And God has been able to take the baggage, the hurt of my husband's previous relationships and

Jill O'Boyle (39:51.436)
Mm-hmm.

Melissa Cancel (40:04.713)
The fact that I had my degrees in communicating and relationships has helped us be able to work together for him to be able to learn how to communicate more effectively. Not that I'm a perfect communicator, but boy, God took everything that I learned and I had to put it into practice, right? And so, yeah, our marriage hasn't been perfect, but the fact that we both have God at the center, I've seen the picture that...

Jill O'Boyle (40:22.158)
That is amazing.

Melissa Cancel (40:32.494)
you know, when you're married and you both know God, it's kind of like, you know, you have this triangle with God at the top. And as you each grow closer to God, you necessarily grow closer to other. And I've seen that as we each are pursuing our own relationship with God, it draws us closer together. If we are not doing that, there are going to be more conflicts and struggles. We also have the example that God has set for us of

Jill O'Boyle (40:36.629)
Mm-hmm.

Jill O'Boyle (40:50.968)
Yeah.

Melissa Cancel (41:01.298)
the ultimate kind of love, agape love, which is selfless. There is nothing that we can do to earn God's love. He has chosen to love us, and he has chosen to sacrifice based on that love, and he calls us to have the same kind of love for our spouses. And so those times when I don't feel like loving my husband, I don't even like him very much.

Jill O'Boyle (41:05.294)
Yes.

Jill O'Boyle (41:14.36)
Mm-hmm.

Melissa Cancel (41:31.087)
I realize the depth of love God has for me and that it's not earned. It's not deserved. It's given. And I am called to give that same kind of love to my husband, regardless of, you know, what he's doing at the time. And there have been many, many times where he or I have, you know, through God's strength, chosen to demonstrate that selfless love at a time when the other person was very unlovely.

Jill O'Boyle (41:35.662)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Melissa Cancel (42:00.238)
and that has made a major difference in helping our marriage to continue. I think also the fact that, you know, God wants our marriage to be healthy. He wants it to fulfill his desire for marriage, which is connection and oneness. But at the same time, I don't need my marriage to be whole. I need God to be whole.

And so when our marriage is struggling and my husband, let's say he's stressed at work and he's not able to meet my needs as a spouse, God is there to meet my needs. don't have to have him. I don't have to have my spouse to make me feel whole. And a lot of relationships struggle with that. You know, if you don't have something, if you don't have God, if you don't have something else in your life that, that

Jill O'Boyle (42:25.944)
Yeah.

Jill O'Boyle (42:45.443)
bright.

Yeah.

Melissa Cancel (42:54.962)
is meeting your needs and in a positive way, you know, obviously some people rely on drugs, alcohol, other things to meet, to fill that gap, to meet their needs. Or they rely on people. And when your spouse is not meeting that need, you're really struggling because now you're less than whole. Well, regardless of what my spouse does, with God, I'm never less than whole. So,

Jill O'Boyle (42:57.805)
Mm-hmm.

Jill O'Boyle (43:15.064)
Mm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yes, yes.

Melissa Cancel (43:23.419)
know, it's, it's really, it's essential in all of those aspects of, of my marriage.

Jill O'Boyle (43:28.892)
yeah. Yep. Yep. He completes it all. Right. I mean, he really does. And I love how, I love how you said that, you know, your husband, you know, got, got kind of had to move, right. To make this make a, come into the center of his life. Right. And, and then to bring out that healing. And I relate to that so much. I, that's exactly what happened in my story as well. I remember, you know, so many times I think as individuals, we can, we look at external things. We can point out, we can so easily.

point our fingers at what is not working well because of this person or X, Y, Z or this situation or he didn't do that. And I was in that zone for so long. I remember sitting down and I was just praying. I'm like, well, God, you know, what about this? Like, how are you going to fix this with him and how are you going to fix that? And I like very clearly he said, I'll get to all that, but we got to get to you first. And I was like, ooh.

Melissa Cancel (44:22.997)
You

Jill O'Boyle (44:25.002)
Okay, yes sir. But you know, God really did. He humbled me. I had some really bad habits. I had a lot of things going on in my, all my life. A lot of noise, a lot of clutter that had to get out. I had to have, God had to be a priority in my life. And once I could get all the junk out, all the noise out, could see what, I mean, he was working all things together for the good. I mean, he was working in me for so long.

But yeah, he had to become center and then I had to change some ways and then he just continues to just, everything else that I'm worried about, it just naturally then works out, you know? Like we get ahead of ourselves as people.

Melissa Cancel (45:09.875)
Yeah. Well, and often we think that if we change our circumstances or we change the people around us, our situation is going to change. really it's us. We're the common factor. My husband came to that realization and he was like, it wasn't my first wife. It wasn't my second wife. They were two completely different people. It was two completely different situations. The one common factor was me. I was the one that needed to change. And there's a great quote by Charles Stanley.

Jill O'Boyle (45:17.997)
Right.

Jill O'Boyle (45:32.29)
Yep, yep, yep.

Melissa Cancel (45:39.829)
I never say it exactly as he does, but it's basically that 10 % of what happens in life is our circumstances and is beyond our control. The other 90 % is our attitude or response to it.

Jill O'Boyle (45:55.832)
So true, so true. Yep, my pastor always says, we all have issues, right? And he's like, me too, we all have issues. And if you think you don't have the issue, well, that's your issue, right? Like you're the only person holding yourself back, like because you are the issue. So yeah, so good. Well, thank you so much for this time together. You know, I want to be sure that I give you an opportunity to also share, I know you have some.

Melissa Cancel (46:06.579)
Yeah, exactly.

Melissa Cancel (46:16.692)
Okay.

Jill O'Boyle (46:25.016)
some programs in place, some actionable things that somebody could, listening, right, that resonates, like they're struggling in different areas of communication that you have some things in place that probably could certainly help them. That could be a small next step that they could do. So share a little bit about your programs, your business, and where they can learn more about you, Melissa.

Melissa Cancel (46:47.808)
Sure. So my website is the communication doc, D-O-C, so thecommunicationdoc.com. And so you can learn what I have offering there. Right now, as I said, you can access the free masterclass with the downloadable PDF. You'll see a button for that right up at the top of the page. I am shortly going to be doing the conflict workshop that I mentioned. And so that information will also be

Jill O'Boyle (47:09.166)
Mm-hmm.

Melissa Cancel (47:16.305)
available on the website when it's ready. And I just decided to start something and I'm super excited about this. I hope it really works. But I decided to do a, I'm calling it Tea Time with Doc. I know some people who do coffee chats and I'm not a coffee drinker. So, but I'm also using the word tea as kind of a dual meaning as in the letter, like spill the tea.

Jill O'Boyle (47:36.556)
I love it.

Melissa Cancel (47:44.054)
So what I'm planning is on Wednesdays starting the first Wednesday in February at 2 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. I'm going to have a free open session for married women to come and ask questions about communication marriage. Now this particular session is going to be faith based. So if you are already a Christian or if you have an interest and you want to know about things more from that perspective, this would be for you.

Jill O'Boyle (47:44.302)
Hmm.

Melissa Cancel (48:13.871)
And my goal is to really help Christian women to fulfill their God given roles in their marriages. And so I'll have some things that I'll talk about if nobody has questions, but really the goal is just to, like we did, address some specific questions about communication and marriage. I'll give you, if it's not specifically biblical advice, it's always going to be consistent with biblical advice and it's free.

There will never be a charge. There's not going to be any like, you know, if you come, you have to then buy into this program. just, I want, I want to be a blessing. My mom picks a word every year for her new year and she decided her words, she has two words this year. It's blessed and blessing. So she wants to focus on how she is blessed and then take that to be a blessing to others. And that really got me thinking, yes, I have a business and I want my business to be successful, but more than that, I want to be a blessing.

Jill O'Boyle (48:50.092)
Hahaha

Jill O'Boyle (48:53.773)
Yes.

Melissa Cancel (49:13.381)
So to participate in that, just need to go to my website and down at the bottom of the page, there's an area to sign up for my weekly newsletter. When you do that, then you'll get the information about Tea Time with Doc and you can then use the link and start attending.

Jill O'Boyle (49:13.759)
I love that. I love that.

Jill O'Boyle (49:30.126)
I love that. Thank you for sharing that. I really encourage anyone listening if you are struggling. There's so many things in my own journey, but the biggest thing I feel like with struggling with anything in life is we cannot do it alone. so Melissa's offering up a free community.

Melissa Cancel (49:32.031)
Yeah, I'm excited.

Jill O'Boyle (49:56.282)
And there is so much power when we can get, especially in a faith-based community with like-minded women, to actually open up about some of the real struggles that we're having and to gain advice from somebody who has 18 years marriage. And this is something that God has led her into. Take advantage of those opportunities because what I have found is when you are, A, two or more, right?

You know, Jesus says that when there's two or more, so there is he. And so he will be with you in that. And there's always breakthrough on the other side when you can share stories, when you can be in a community, when you can realize, hey, there's other people that are going through this. I don't have to go through it alone. So really encourage you to look into that. I will include those links in our show notes below as well. So.

You are a blessing already to me, Melissa. I thank you for just your words of wisdom today and appreciate our divine connection and excited to continue collaborating with you and connecting and helping one another be a blessing to each of us. So thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Melissa Cancel (50:57.694)
Yes.

Melissa Cancel (51:08.265)
Thank you for the opportunity.

Jill O'Boyle (51:10.474)
Yep. Take care.

Melissa Cancel (51:11.967)
You too.