Welcome to the Christian Dad Podcast, your place to find sound encouragement and practical advice so you can win as a Dad. Whether you have toddlers or teens, I want to help you enjoy, not endure your family. Learn how to make the most of these parenting years and be the Dad your kids really need.
#70 You Can Be Right and Still Lose Her: How to Fight Fair
You win the argument. She goes quiet. The kids hear the tone. And somehow the house feels worse than before you proved your point.
A listener wrote in because he and his wife fight, and he wants to fight fair. James and Arlene Pellicane have been married 27 years. They still disagree. They have learned which blows land below the belt, and which ones actually build the marriage.
Proverbs is blunt: a simple dinner with love beats a feast with hatred. A corner of the roof beats a house with a quarrelsome spouse. The cop-out is “I married the wrong person.” The harder line is “I might be the contentious one, and I can still mature.” A fool’s wrath shows up immediately. A wise man does not say everything he sees.
Timeline:
0:42 Better a simple table than a feast with hatred
2:43 Just because you see it does not mean you say it
4:43 Facts, feelings, opinions, and beliefs
6:40 You can win the fight and lose the goodwill
8:16 Cross the street before you answer
9:19 Turn the judgment down and the curiosity up
12:07 Quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger1
3:52 Stop fixing and stop shifting the story1
6:32 Love suffers long while you try to understand
17:20 The Sex "talk"
23:00 "It seems like you do not desire me anymore?"
28:20 The Marriage Course
30:57 Read a book together, even if it is not about marriage
32:08 Do not fight in public or in front of the kids
34:44 The divorce math
39:27 Become a good finder again
40:55 Go back to the first things you did
41:55 Coaching if you want a guide
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/jo/podcast/70-you-can-be-right-and-still-lose-her-how-to-fight-fair/id295386637?i=1000793002790
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/7uNcZ11crqTUeXkGc9yFhB?si=ownbaEkYS0GJsr3Y9NcQAA
Youtube: https://youtu.be/TSVyNZJI0x4
For more information about James happyhomeuniversity.com/coaching
19 Sept 2026
#69 Most fights about the kids aren’t about the kids.
Most fights between husbands and wives about the kids aren’t really about chores, bedtime, or screen time. They’re about grace versus truth.
James and Arlene Pellicane unpack the three ingredients every child needs to become a capable adult: grace (nourishment), truth (resistance), and time. Too much grace produces entitlement and later disillusionment. Too much truth produces performance anxiety and often rebellion. The goal isn’t one parent as the soft one and the other as the hard one. Both spouses carry both.
They walk through how the mix changes from infancy to the teen years, what to do when an adult child comes home after a setback, how Jesus modeled grace and truth together (John 1 and John 8), and why a unified front beats good-cop, bad-cop every time.
Timeline:0:28 The three ingredients kids need
3:19 Too much grace: entitlement & disillusionment
5:12 Too much truth: performance anxiety & rebellion
6:28 Why husbands and wives fight about this
10:31 Don’t provoke your children (Ephesians 6:4)
18:52 How the mix changes from baby to teen
21:00 Uncomfortable truths and an uncomfortable future
24:34 When an adult child comes back home
28:58 Q: My wife is into gentle parenting
32:43 Q: I grew up harsh — how do I not swing the other way?
38:13 Time: the ingredient everyone forgets
40:06 Action step: ask your wife which way you lean
For more information about James Pellicanehttps://www.happyhomeuniversity.com/coaching
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/jo/podcast/most-fights-about-the-kids-arent-about-the-kids/id295386637?i=1000790699383
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zp7p5ebXbDk
28 Aug 2026
#68 The Gravitational Pull of Dad's Faith
James and Arlene Pellicane talk about faith as a powerful anchor in a child’s life. Some things are taught. Most things are caught. Kids get a front-row seat, and a household of faith and optimism can quietly defines what normal looks like.
Faith is not passive belief. Hebrews 11 calls it the substance of things hoped for. It looks like action: Noah prepared an ark, Abraham left without knowing where he was going, Sarah received strength to conceive. For a dad, it can look like potty training when nobody else is home, running behind a bike and Saturday flashcards.
The gift gets stronger when they fail. That is where patience and long-suffering show up, and where kids learn grit: worthwhile things are hard, and big problems don't always need a fancy solution. James points to a review of studies on about 46,000 youth linking optimism with better mental health, more grit, family cohesion, and a better quality of life.
Timeline:
0:37 Faith as a powerful anchor
1:00 Some things are taught, most are caught
4:26 What dads do by faith
6:15 When they fall
7:17 The optimism study
11:32 Enemies of a dad’s faith
23:51 Faith with teens and adult kids
28:09 What you sow gets passed on
Youtube: https://youtu.be/XSP7p7I5WWI
Itunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/jo/podcast/68-the-gravitational-pull-of-dads-faith/id295386637?i=1000786573051
For more information about James Pellicane
https://www.happyhomeuniversity.com/coaching
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Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.
Apple Podcasts (US)
4.6 / 5
12 ratings
Spotify
5.0 / 5
2 ratings
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