Last week we looked at how a three-fold cord cannot easily be broken. This week, we’ve talked all about effective communication. What do the two have to do with each other? One can’t happen without the other.

We have to talk to and listen to God, but we also have to speak to and listen to our spouse and other people. That’s how we build connection in all relationships. When you don’t have good communication, there’s a breakdown in the relationship, and the connection is lost.

James 1:19 reminds us to “be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger.” So much of our conflict comes from doing the opposite — speaking before we’ve truly listened.

Larry and I have something that helped us put this verse into action — it worked wonders for our relationship, especially during arguments. It’s called the Speaker/Listener Technique. Here’s how it works:

You’ll need an object — a remote, a pen, or whatever’s within reach if you’re in the heat of the moment. Whoever is holding the object is the only one allowed to speak. That person is the speaker — the one with the issue, the problem, or the need to have a serious conversation. The other person becomes the listener.

The speaker’s job is to state the problem as plainly as possible, without accusing the other person. Instead of, “You hurt me, you did this to me,” try, “When you did this, it hurt me. When you said this, it made me feel this way.” That one shift moves the conversation from attack to honesty.

The listener’s job is to actually listen — eye contact, nodding, an occasional “mm-hmm.” Once the speaker is completely finished, the object gets passed to the listener.

Now the listener asks questions for understanding and clarification — summarizing or paraphrasing what they heard. Phrases like, “This is what I heard you say — is that correct?” or “I want to make sure I understood you, so is this what you meant?” work well here. The listener isn’t allowed to accuse or turn anything back on the speaker.

Once the listener has asked their questions, the object goes back to the speaker to clarify further. This can go back and forth as many times as needed, until the speaker feels fully heard and understood.

Then, the roles switch. The listener now becomes the speaker, taking the object to share their own side or perspective on the same issue — following the exact same process. This way, both people get to be fully heard, not just one.

Through all of it, both people have to avoid gaslighting the other person or downplaying the seriousness of their feelings. And if voices start to rise or emotions run too high, that’s your cue to call a timeout — state that you need it, say how long you need, and revisit the conversation within 24 hours.

This technique takes practice — it does not come easy at first. It took Larry and me a good six months of practicing this technique, object in hand, to fully grasp it. So practice is necessary, and it has to be intentional.

Communication isn’t about winning. It’s about listening first — so you can truly understand each other.

This week, we challenge you to try the Speaker/Listener Technique with your spouse. Grab an object, pick a topic — big or small — and practice it together. You might be surprised at how much more you actually hear each other.

For more information, please check out our social media on Facebook and Instagram under Relentless Warriors Legacy. You can also email us at relentlesswarriorslegacy@gmail.com — we would love to hear from you! We hope you have a wonderful week ahead. ❤️🩵🙏

Trauma Responses — A Look Inside the McGuire Household

I don’t know about you, but it has been a really long week here in the McGuire household. Between work, baseball, planning a trip to Ohio, trying to buy a new car, and making sure my son has a reliable car too — things have been absolutely hectic. And honestly? This is exactly where our trauma responses like to creep in.

Larry and I react very differently when we are stressed and triggered. His response is normally anger, and mine is withdrawal and shutdown. And right now, I can see both of us sitting very deep in our trauma responses. I have been absolutely exhausted — taking naps every single day when I get home from work because I just cannot seem to function. Larry has been coming home exhausted too, but his exhaustion turns into anger really fast. And as any parent knows, that is not a great combination when you have children in the house.

But here is something I want you to notice — our trauma responses are not the same. And that is because our experiences, our personalities, and the way God made us are not the same. Even our children have their own trauma responses that look completely different from ours.

So let’s dive deep into that today. Let’s talk about what trauma responses actually look like inside our family, because I think a lot of you will see yourselves here.

---

Me — Fight and Flight

I can react in two different ways — fight or flight. I very rarely freeze.

When I go into fight mode, it looks like yelling and grabbing for control. I also carry a lot of physical tension in my neck and shoulders, which is my body’s way of telling me I am triggered before my mind even catches up. Then there are the times I hit flight mode, because I simply do not want to deal with it. I don’t feel like I have the mental capacity to handle what is in front of me, so I will avoid conflict at all costs and try to emotionally check out completely.

---

Larry — Fight and Freeze

Larry’s response is mainly fight, but every once in a while he will freeze.

He gets irritated very easily and becomes defensive quickly, wanting to grasp for control. He also struggles with physical tension and a tendency to place blame. But if things get to be too much, he will go completely numb — get very quiet and withdraw immediately. It is like a switch flips and he is just gone emotionally.

---

Our Boys — Freeze, Flight, and Fawn

Our boys mostly freeze and sometimes go into flight, but the most common thing you will see from them is that they get quiet, go numb, and withdraw. They do this because they just want everyone to stop. They want the house to be calm and the noise to go away.

They also exhibit what is known as the fawn response — meaning they will try to please us, try to keep the peace, and try to make themselves as agreeable as possible just so the tension in the house dies down. They learned that if they could just make us happy, things would get quiet.

None of these are healthy ways to respond. Not one of them. And I say that with a full heart, because I know exactly how we got here.

---

How We Got Here

For a very long time, our home was driven by PTSD and all of the trauma responses that came with it. The one thing our home did not have was grace. We did not extend grace to each other, we did not extend grace to our children, and honestly, we did not extend grace to ourselves either.

Because of that, we grew very far apart from one another. There was no compassion. There was no patience. And that broke the connections between each of us in ways that took years to repair.

It took Larry and I going to counseling and really digging deep into ourselves to understand that we had to change. We could not keep blowing up and saying “I’m sorry” over and over again, because that had become nothing more than lip service. Real change meant going after the actual behaviors. It meant learning to pause, becoming self aware, and growing our emotional intelligence — even when that was incredibly hard and uncomfortable.

We do that now by labeling our emotions, recognizing when a trigger has happened, and pulling ourselves away from our family when we are in the middle of a reaction so that they are not on the receiving end of it.

I will be honest with you — all of this has taken us years. We did not get here overnight, and we are still not done. But without God, and without Him showing us in a very real and biblical way what it looks like to change and grow as parents and as partners, none of this would have ever happened for us.

---

There Is Always Hope

We still have trauma responses. Larry still has them. I still have them. Our kids still have them. But we are working every single day to be better — better for each other, better for our boys, and better for the people God has called us to serve through this ministry.

If your home looks anything like ours did, please hear me when I say this — there is always hope. God is always with you. He does not ask you to be perfect. He just asks you to take one step at a time, and He will walk every single one of those steps right alongside you. 🙏💛

For more information, please check out our social media on Facebook and Instagram under Relentless Warriors Legacy. You can also email us at relentlesswarriorslegacy@gmail.com — we would love to hear from you! We hope you have a wonderful week ahead. ❤️🩵🙏

When PTSD Triggers Take Over Your Life

This week’s post is going to be a little different.

Throughout the week, we’ve talked about PTSD triggers, what they are, and how they work. If you’ve been following along on our social media, you’ve seen some of those discussions. Here on the blog, I want to share our personal experience with PTSD triggers and what they did to our marriage and family.

Larry and I have dealt with PTSD triggers for most of our marriage. The hardest part is that for nearly ten years, we didn’t even know that was what was happening. We had no idea what a trigger was, why we reacted the way we did, or how to fight back against it.

What we eventually learned was that we both had PTSD, but our triggers looked very different.

Larry’s triggers include loud noises, children (whether they are happy or upset), certain BBQ smells, crowds, prop planes, and some medical scenes. When he was triggered, it could lead to extreme anger, panic attacks, sleepless nights from night terrors, withdrawal, isolation, and hiding in distractions like his phone, hunting, fishing, or riding his motorcycle.

My biggest triggers are certain time periods throughout the year. The anniversaries of losing my parents and our twins, along with certain holidays, can hit me hard. When I am triggered, I experience extreme exhaustion, anger, insomnia, mood swings, and sometimes struggle to complete even basic tasks around the house.

For years, we lived in survival mode because of our triggers.

The triggers became our identity.

Our boys were living in survival mode too. They didn’t want to go out in public with us because they never knew what might happen. Larry could be triggered in public, and none of us knew when it was coming. Sometimes we avoided events altogether because one of us simply couldn’t handle them emotionally or physically.

Looking back now, I can see that PTSD wasn’t just affecting Larry and me. It was affecting our entire family.

One day, Larry was triggered, and things reached a point where I could no longer calm him down. I was exhausted. I was scared. I was done.

I took our boys and left.

I told Larry that I would not bring them home until he got help for his anger.

That day became a turning point in our story.

Larry started anger management and began learning what his triggers were and how to recognize them before they took over. He started processing some of the traumatic events he had carried for years. He also learned something important: just because a trigger doesn’t show up for a while doesn’t mean it’s gone.

Triggers don’t disappear simply because they have been quiet for a season.

Not long after Larry started counseling, I joined him for marriage counseling. It didn’t take long before I was diagnosed with PTSD as well. My triggers looked different, but they were just as destructive. Instead of exploding outwardly, I would sink into deep depression.

I had to learn how to recognize when I was being triggered and slowly fight my way back out.

The reality is that when two people are battling PTSD triggers inside the same marriage, things can become hopeless very quickly.

Triggers don’t just disappear.

Trust doesn’t magically rebuild itself.

Communication doesn’t automatically improve.

Those things have to be fought for.

This is what almost ended our marriage.

I was tired of the triggers. I was tired of what they were doing to our boys. Our children were becoming triggered too. They would withdraw, isolate themselves, drop their heads during conversations, and walk on eggshells around us.

Our family was broken into so many pieces that I couldn’t imagine how they could ever fit back together.

We felt completely alone.

But God never left us there.

One of the verses that carried us through those years was Psalm 23:4:

“Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for You are with me.”

God was walking through every trigger with us, even when we couldn’t see Him. As Larry and I began reaching for healing and trying to put the broken pieces of our lives back together, God provided the tools we needed to fight back against the triggers that had controlled us for so long.

He didn’t just walk with Larry and me. He walked with our boys too.

For so many years, our lives felt hopeless. We were frustrated, exhausted, and scared. We spent so much time reacting to triggers that we forgot what it felt like to truly live.

But God.

He walked with us through every trigger, every setback, every argument, and every painful memory. When we felt weak, He gave us strength. When we felt hopeless, He reminded us that He wasn’t finished with our story.

He strengthened our boys when they were hurting. He restored hope in Larry. He restored hope in me. He began restoring our marriage.

And He is still restoring our family today.

The healing didn’t happen overnight. Learning our triggers didn’t magically make them disappear. We still have triggers. We still have hard days. We still have moments when PTSD tries to pull us back into survival mode.

The difference is that PTSD no longer controls our lives.

Today, when triggers come, we have tools. We have awareness. We have communication. Most importantly, we have God.

Triggers no longer rule us.

We rule them.

Not because we are strong enough on our own, but because we are no longer fighting alone.

If PTSD has affected your marriage or your family, please hear this: there is hope. Healing is possible. It takes work, patience, and time, but God can restore what trauma has tried to destroy.

Keep walking.

The valley is not your destination.

And God is walking with you every step of the way.

For any questions, please reach out to Larry and me at relentlesswarriorslegacy@gmail.com

Also check out our Facebook and Instagram for more information on triggers.

I will have to admit, at first, I did not see the effects PTSD was having on my family. It crept in like a thief in the night, slowly stealing from our marriage, our children, and the peace in our home.

Looking back now, I can clearly see how PTSD touched every part of our lives. I can see the damage it caused in our marriage, the tension it created in our home, and the weight our children carried while living in the middle of it all.

What hurts the most is realizing that even though the battle belonged to PTSD, the entire family was fighting the effects of it. And even now, I can still see some of the things our children carry with them from growing up in a home overshadowed by trauma.

There are several ways PTSD can impact a family. We are going to look at five of the major areas that were affected in our home.

1.) Complete Breakdown in Communication
One thing I often say about PTSD is that it steals your ability to communicate. In our home, there was more yelling than talking. Larry would avoid us at all costs, and it felt like none of us had the right words to talk to each other or even to our children. Conversations turned into arguments, silence, or complete shutdown.

2.) Reactive Behavior
Larry and I both became extremely reactive in our behavior. The smallest thing could set either of us off. His anger became uncontrollable at times, and that anger spilled out everywhere. He would explode in public, and the kids and I were often embarrassed and overwhelmed by his reactions. Our home constantly felt like it was one step away from chaos.

3.) Breakdown in Trust
Because of the constant reactive behavior, trust began to break down in our family. I did not trust Larry, and our children stopped trusting us as their parents. When a home no longer feels emotionally safe, trust begins to disappear. Even today, rebuilding that trust with our children is something Larry and I are still working through.

4.) Secondary Trauma
This was something that took years for Larry and me to recognize. We could not fully see the effects PTSD was having on our children until we began learning about trauma in counseling. Our children were living in survival mode just like we were. They were carrying stress, fear, and emotional weight that children were never meant to carry.

5.) Chronic Stress
With everything happening in our home, chronic stress became normal for all of us. There was a constant heaviness and tension in the atmosphere. The kids did not know how to process what they were feeling, and Larry and I could not figure out how to get out of fight-or-flight mode. Our home felt like it was constantly at a boiling point, always ready to spill over.

When Larry and I were both in the trenches with PTSD, our entire house lived in survival mode. The kids would tiptoe around us, trying not to set either of us off. Larry and I would scream at each other, and at times, we would scream at the kids too. We were highly reactive, and our home often felt unpredictable.

That environment led our two oldest sons to shut down emotionally. They developed their own form of survival mode.

Survival mode can look different depending on the person. My survival mode looked like shutting down, sleeping too much, overeating, neglecting my own well-being, and trying to protect our boys—or at least what I thought was protecting them.

For our kids, survival mode looked different. It meant hiding in their rooms, throwing themselves into sports or video games, avoiding public situations, and constantly watching what they said and did to make sure they did not upset Larry or me. They were always reading the room, trying to stay one step ahead of the next explosion.

Please understand something important: that was never their responsibility.

Children should never have to change who they are in order to protect themselves from a parent’s explosive behavior. They should never feel responsible for managing the emotions of the adults around them. It was never our children’s job to keep the peace in our home, and it is never the child’s fault when they find themselves living in survival mode.

God did not place children on this earth to serve their parents. He entrusted children to parents as a gift. Our responsibility as parents is to love them, cherish them, protect them, and help them grow into the people God created them to be. When trauma enters a home, that purpose can become blurred, but it never changes God’s design.

I think our verse for this week really speaks to the overwhelming love of God. He walks with us through the hard times. He was with Larry and me through all the arguments, and He was with our children as they lived in an explosive home.

Every aspect of our home was broken. Larry and I were on the verge of divorce. Our marriage needed healing. Our children needed healing. Our home needed healing.

That is where God stepped in and began to slowly change everything.

God brought us a counselor who gave us practical tools to help us navigate PTSD and its effects on our family. Larry learned to use an emotion wheel to identify and label what he was feeling instead of immediately reacting in anger. I began to understand what God’s love truly looks like and how to extend that love to others, even during difficult moments.

God taught us simple but powerful skills. We learned that something as simple as counting to ten can slow down our reactions and keep us from automatically yelling. We learned the timeout rule, where one of us can say we need to walk away from an argument, but we must also set a time to come back and continue the conversation. That one rule alone has saved us from countless hurtful words.

One of the biggest things God taught me was that Larry is God’s son just as much as I am God’s daughter. That realization changed the way I viewed him. Instead of seeing him as my enemy, I began to see him through God’s eyes. It made me want to treat him with love and respect rather than respond with yelling and anger.

None of these changes happened overnight. Learning to regulate emotions is hard work. It takes time, practice, and a willingness to keep trying even when you fail. It also takes walking with God daily so that His love guides your responses instead of your emotions controlling them.

Learning emotional regulation skills is one of the most powerful things you can do to begin healing your home.

As for our children, that process has taken time as well. They have had to learn how to trust Larry and me again. Rebuilding trust does not happen quickly. Consistent change over a long period of time is what helps people believe that the change is real and lasting.

That kind of consistency is difficult. Every slip-up can feel like it sets you back. There were times when we wondered if we would ever get there.

But by the grace of God, healing is possible.

Today, our family is living proof that PTSD does not have to have the final say. There was a time when our marriage was falling apart, our children were living in survival mode, and our home felt completely broken. If you had told me back then where we would be today, I would not have believed you.

But God.

God stepped into our mess and began doing what only He can do. He restored what was broken, taught us new ways to communicate, showed us how to regulate our emotions, and helped us rebuild trust one day at a time. The process was not quick, and it was not easy, but it was worth every step.

If PTSD has impacted your family, I want you to know there is hope. The healing may take time, and the journey may be difficult, but PTSD does not have to have the final say. God is still in the business of restoring marriages, healing families, rebuilding trust, and bringing peace into homes that feel hopeless.

No matter how broken things may seem today, God can write a different ending to your story.

For any questions, please reach out to Larry and me at relentlesswarriorslegacy@gmail.com