The Road To Marriage: Accepting The Differences Between Men and Women; Managing Conflicts Before “I Do”; The Realities of Being Engaged To A Step Parent; and Important Things To Unlearn Before Marriage
Our guest stars, the newly-engaged Megan and Nick dive into the value of true friendship between partners, the complexities of parenthood, and the influence of the church in relationships. How does pride play a role in relationships? How do you balance being an individual and being part of a team? We share our insights on these topics, underlining the importance of unlearning preconceived notions and expectations. Also, we discuss the power of decision-making and communication in relationships and how it can lead to a healthier and more fulfilling journey.
We also delve into the church's influence on relationships, examining how its teachings can affect sex and marriage. We share our personal experiences of having to shift our mindset, unlearning behaviors, and learning new ways to communicate in order to experience more fulfilling relationships. Join us as we unlearn, grow, and navigate the intricate web of relationships and marriage.
Hello everybody and welcome once again to the Unlearned Podcast. I'm your host, ruth Abigail aka RA, and this is the podcast that is designed to help you gain the curse, to change your mind so that you can experience more freedom. And we are in our series called Unlearning Marriage, and this is very, very exciting to me because I have three people in the room, which is way more than we normally have, and we're going to talk about we're going to talk from a different angle. So, for those of you that have been following podcasts, you know that I just got married at this point a week ago, and I have my husband here with me. They're so cute y'all. His name is Tarian Gardner and we are here with our friends Megan and Nick, who also just got engaged. Hurray, I'm so excited.
Speaker 3:I am very excited, me too. They are very, very excited. He's saying that with a smile on his face. She's going to be a bridesmaid in my wedding.
Speaker 1:I got my little thing today. I'm so excited. Yeah, January.
Speaker 2:I keep saying January first. That's not correct. I just said like three times, today it is January 5th 2024.
Speaker 4:That's my mom's birthday.
Speaker 2:Aww, that's so fun. Is it going to be here or yeah? Well, the ceremony. I'm still, I'm we? Oh Lord, what I said. We're so flicky at me like, please just stop now. Ceremony will for sure be here, okay. Plan A and plan B for reception.
Speaker 3:I had a. I had a I think a middle schooler correct me. Somebody was asking me when our wedding was going to be and I said the 5th of January. And then this girl goes. Normal people say January 5th or January 5th. I was like thank you, thank you for your honesty. It was just a very public place. I had a nowhere.
Speaker 1:That's great. No real people, no real people. Yeah, a middle schooler calling, calling somebody else not normal.
Speaker 3:Now I can just say well, you should talk to my fiance. She keeps saying it's the first.
Speaker 1:It's great, we, and so we, actually we we tried to get this together Like a few weeks ago, honestly, and you know, we there are, each one of us, each payer has a child, Yep, and so we just couldn't make it work. We couldn't make it work until today. So we are actually not going to be talking from the perspective of, you know, married people, because you know, we've only been married for we have nothing to say about marriage.
Speaker 4:We are just married.
Speaker 1:So, but we, we, how long have we been together before we got married?
Speaker 4:Since April of 21. 21. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So two and a half years and you guys have been, have have been together how long.
Speaker 3:That's too long. I was hoping you were going to ask that we can't figure out when we started dating.
Speaker 2:Okay, I think it was January of 2021 when, like officially, we were like dating, dating. We definitely talked and we're like going towards that in 2020, but right, I'm going to go with the boss on this one, okay. Yeah, so I'd say dating two and a half years, okay, two and a half years, okay. So about the same.
Speaker 1:Got engaged about two and a half years. Yeah, all right, literally, but at the same timeframe, oh wow, I didn't even realize it. That's crazy. Okay, cool, so we want to talk about not marriage but the road to marriage, because obviously y'all are getting married, you know. So both of us have been on this journey towards to this point, and I don't know about y'all. This is, yeah, I don't know about y'all. I have, um, I don't hear, a lot of uh perspectives on, like, um, couples in their like, mid thirties, um, you know that are uh kind of in that, in that phase, um, I think a lot of people start um the dating process, you know, with their spouse 20s, you know early 20s, things like that. Um, and I think I don't know, I just want us to talk from the perspective of just like a different, having a different, being in a different stage of life and and getting here, um, I think that could be interesting and and just talking about what, what that's been like. Um, you know, some of the things that we have to unlearn up to this point, even to get here, uh, because it's a process, even get to this point, like you're in your mid thirties.
Speaker 2:You don't live a little life and throw in.
Speaker 4:you know but that's also the beauty of it yeah.
Speaker 1:Though you know uh timing is everything.
Speaker 4:Like regardless of of. You know you can't look at nobody else's time and you know their time window and all of that, and just uh, because it it it'll throw you off, you have to focus on yourself and run your own race. Yeah, and because of 10 years ago, like I'll tell you, all the time you would have hated me. You know you do want to kill me. You know I was someone.
Speaker 1:You wouldn't have ever or someone yeah. No, I wouldn't have and you wouldn't have liked me either. I was not the type of person that anybody would have wanted to be with 10 years ago. Like I would have it was, it wouldn't have worked. So you're right. I mean timing. Life is everything.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I mean, you throw in, you know, kids into the mix too. I've always loved kids, you know. But I look back and I'm like I don't know if I would have been able to be a mom, you know. And so meeting Nick and just going through a little bit of life myself, having to grow up a little bit in certain ways, it's like it's I don't still don't think I'm fully ready, but definitely more sure of that. Honestly, sometimes now I'm like, oh, I feel like I'm more prepped to be a mom than I am a wife. Sorry, Nick.
Speaker 3:I will say the mom voice is coming in. You know nicely. Thank you. Yeah, you've got some of the tones and the undertones.
Speaker 2:I love that that's feel encouraged Fantastic.
Speaker 1:I can't so okay, so like all right. So Megan and Nick, y'all just got to engage we in Memorial Day weekend. So May 27th. Nice, nice, congrats.
Speaker 2:I'm so excited.
Speaker 1:Thanks, it's pretty cool and okay. So just kind of give a little bit of like however much you want to share, of like how you got to this point, like what's kind of the journey of y'all's you know kind of in this story, and then you know he and I will maybe maybe share a little bit of ours too.
Speaker 2:I think you should. Okay, you want to start?
Speaker 3:Sure, okay. Well, we have known each other for years.
Speaker 2:Worked in the same space.
Speaker 3:Five, six years, I guess. Now. We even did a little bit of music together a couple of times when we were both dating other people. At the time we never really talked, other than just work related things. Shoot, I didn't even have her phone number until we were kind of interested in each other actually, and at that time I wasn't even sure if it was her phone number that I had. So in my contacts for the longest time I had possibly Megan with question marks. So I was in a group text with her and I had no idea if she was. You know her. So, yeah, yeah. So we were hanging out with some friends of ours Joy and Eric, and I would spend time with them myself, and then she would spend time with them, and then our calendars started to butt heads when I was wanting to hang out with them and when she was wanting to hang out with them.
Speaker 2:So you're like, why don't we just hang out together?
Speaker 3:Oh, and we kind of just started from there.
Speaker 2:That's awesome, yep. And then you are previously married.
Speaker 3:Yes, so I gotta go way back, yeah, so yeah, I was married, now divorced from my son Mark's mother. That was many years ago. I probably met you right when I got divorced.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I kind of remember, like from a distance, hearing about the situation, I was like, oh man, that you know surely sucks. Like he was just a foreign person. But I got new who we was. I always thought he was such a good guy.
Speaker 4:And now I bring Legos like yes, single.
Speaker 2:He's ready to mingle. So I mean I regret it.
Speaker 3:But it's there forever now.
Speaker 1:It's done now, oh man, so okay, so did y'all like? I mean, you kind of found yourself around each other, more like what made it clear that you wanted to actually pursue something.
Speaker 3:Well, once I did find out that it was her phone number that I had, we just kind of would text every now and then I'm not a really big textor personally, and I don't think she really is either actually and just kind of practical stuff or coordinating things when we're hanging out with our friends, things like that. Then those texts because I'm not a great textor would turn into paragraphs, which would turn into multiple paragraphs. Yeah, it would be like little novels basically.
Speaker 2:And then I'm pretty sure I was like this was during COVID. So I was pretty sure I was like do you want to just get coffee and actually talk in person? I'm pretty sure I made the first move.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you did.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but then we couldn't because everything was shut down and so he had to just come to my apartment, and I didn't have any furniture at the time. I had just bought a new couch and everything was backed up and so it wasn't delivered for months and so our relationship, kind of everything was shut down, so all we really could do was just talk. There was nothing to do but spend literally intimate time together, and so that first four to six months kind of felt like a crash course almost. You know, like we just got to know a lot of things really quickly and just weirdly like we were invited to each other's home sooner than normal, I think, and so you just could see everything was just kind of vulnerable and quick. But Nick, I think, made it very clear his intentions with me from the very beginning. I was coming out of a different relationship at the time. It had not been immediately, but you know, a while before that and I just was in no intention of rushing. But I think, COVID, for some reason it felt like time really slowed down. I don't know if I would have maybe moved as fast if that makes sense if we didn't have such that timing of that space. Yeah, gotcha, gotcha.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, that makes sense. There's some similarities in that, I think, to us, particularly in the conversing, because you know we met online.
Speaker 2:Which still blows my mind. Blows my mind. Actually. I love that.
Speaker 4:It was a different approach for me.
Speaker 3:I didn't know that and it is currently blowing my mind.
Speaker 1:You didn't know that that kind of thing is cool.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I mean, and it was like I'd say it was different for me and we got to talking and you know like she carried the conversations like because she would always, like you know, take something back like within a question that I need to answer and I'll take it back, and she was big with emojis and all of that, so I had to get big with it. And then one time I was like, hey, just call me, just call me private, I don't care, just call me, because I couldn't keep going with the tax money like that.
Speaker 1:And we did that and yeah, and we just like we had been texting for about two days, I think, and I he was very he was just like, let's just, and so I did. I called him, but then he didn't answer. It was like later in the evening, you know, and I said I don't know you so he didn't answer and he's like. You have to call me back. And I said I'm gonna go to bed and then he called my five minutes late. He called me like, give me five minutes.
Speaker 4:I think I was cooking or something and I didn't see the phone so Sure, sure, sure. No, no, I'll never forget the first meal. It was chicken. It was baked chicken and like rice or something like that she cooked for you. No, that's what I was cooking.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay. When we were talking the phone for the first time. Yeah, for the first time. Yeah, and we and so from there, like we just talked, because that was, it was in the middle of COVID, I mean, and we, we just told we talked for hours on the phone.
Speaker 2:Like I got COVID kind of early on into us, like just talking more, yeah, and I honestly think, like the way he treated me during that time, like he would watch movies with me over, like we'd started at the same time and like either FaceTime and watch movies together like text during it, and I was like I'm having a blast, I suppose it was great. But he was just so kind and then once I, you know, kind of got better, it was like oh, I like really want to hang out with him a lot, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:That's wonderful, that's great.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 1:That's really good, that's. I do think like this idea of getting like getting to know people, like really getting to know people, yeah, through talking, is like Friendship, yes, friendship, yes, you know, and that's like and people talk about that all the time like be friends with your partner, be friends with your spouse, that kind of thing. But I don't know about y'all. There's so many couples that I don't that don't always enjoy, don't really enjoy being around each other. We talked about it all the time.
Speaker 4:Yeah, been in the situation before, right, you know like.
Speaker 2:Just kind of in it because it feels like you have to be here.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and you're just going through the motions with it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's just like, I think, the first person that I felt when and it's probably not okay all the time, but I just feel so comfortable being completely honest with him. Like I think I found myself in previous situations, maybe not like in a bad way, but just doing things I didn't want to do and like if Nick's like I don't know, I'm like no, I want to go to sleep, Like I want to go home, I want to go, you know, it's just the honesty. I just felt very comfortable being able to be myself and that's huge.
Speaker 4:That's the most important thing you know. You got the right person when you can be yourself around him.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I just like I tell him. All the time I was like you're my friend.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Which sounds lame, but it's not. It's not.
Speaker 3:You're my friend, no we say that to each other pretty often, or even text it just when I'm having the feels I'll be like you're my friend.
Speaker 2:It's almost we're going to go deep quick, but it's almost like I've said, I love you before and I do love him, but like the you're my friend part is almost a little bit more intimate than Justin, I love you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know. No, that's real, because it really is true. Once you get to the point to where you know even if it hadn't been explicitly said once you is even inside of yourself. No, this the person I'm going to do life with forever, that friendship becomes 80% of it. It's just living life, it's just being around somebody you like being around. And can you imagine well, I mean like, imagine being on a road to committing your life with somebody that you don't really like being around in just the boring parts of life? You know what I mean. Like you can be, just be bored. I mean you can sit on the couch and not talk at all, like or say three words and then go back doing what you're doing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know what I mean. I just I appreciate like the balance that can come with the friendship piece and I just lost my chair and thought, sure, so someone else can go. That's the biggest thing.
Speaker 4:The balance is everything. Yeah, like we find ourselves like doing things together, and it may be new to me or new to her or something. I haven't ever done it, she haven't ever done it, you know. But the love that we have for each other allows us to enjoy it so that we can, you know, we can, spend time together and, you know, moving the same direction, like yesterday we went to the golf tournament. The PGA tour has appeared. The FedEx Club she's never been. I don't think she's never seen the golf ball, do you?
Speaker 2:know what it looks like.
Speaker 4:But we went and we had a great time. She enjoyed it. You know things that she's she's, you know, done that I've never done.
Speaker 1:Yeah, share life. You know, like this, like the podcast.
Speaker 4:I enjoy it because it allows us to spend time together. What happened for? On another note, when it comes to the balance, like we give each other our space, but also we, you know, we spend time together and we, you know we have our boundaries, so it's just a beautiful thing. Balance is everything.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's good. The narrative of like two halves make a whole comes into play sometimes with relationships and it's like no, you really got to be a whole person.
Speaker 4:Yes.
Speaker 2:Like that, as I've gotten older and been through my own life, stuff coming in, you know, getting married in my 30s. Now it's like no, I really do have to be a whole person. Yes, and then you just compliment each other.
Speaker 1:And I think that that whole, like being at this stage of life, like to what you know what both of y'all are saying, just knowing enough about who you are to be comfortable enough with you to then allow somebody else to be them yeah, I think it's crucial and to allow each other to have our space. I think, like when you're younger, I don't know about y'all, but like I didn't really know what space was, I wouldn't have known what that is. Sure, I think you know you can easily get caught up in the when you don't fully know what that looks like for you. They become your space and it's like now you got to be together all the time.
Speaker 2:You want to do everything together and it's nothing wrong with that, but you still know Well you want to do that because it's a choice to enjoy it, not because you feel like you have to. You have to Right Right and it's not going to be perfect, like you know, and you know the partnership along the way will help you discover more of who you are. Yes, you know, like there's a piece of you as yourself and then a piece of you as a couple, um, but yeah, I think that is one thing that I've learned a lot too of. Just, I've known it, but to see it in real life of like, oh, nick is literally his own person, like that, that is something I'm like. Oh, he's, he's just isn't going to do everything I want to do and I'm not going to like everything that he likes. Is he's just his own person.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, most certainly.
Speaker 2:And it's not this like fairy tale, yeah Of you guys are just going to gel and all the things, right.
Speaker 1:Right, I'm not going to be an Atlanta Hawks fan. I'm just not. We were talking about the other day. Like I'm just not, you can take it off if you want to. He's, he's. He's slipping his ring off. No, I'm just not Now.
Speaker 4:I have, I have.
Speaker 1:I've conceded to the Bulldogs, I will, I will. I'll be a Bulldogs fan and a Braves, but I know I'm not going to be a Braves fan. Yeah, see, this is exactly.
Speaker 2:Mary life for a week.
Speaker 1:This was before marriage. We have this. I wouldn't go be there before it ends.
Speaker 4:You take the last name, you got to take everything that comes with it.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, yeah, no, we not no it's.
Speaker 4:Somebody told me that.
Speaker 1:Somebody told me that that's not true.
Speaker 4:That's not funny yeah. That's to you.
Speaker 1:But, but no, but I think like that, that it is to allow people to be them and like being a space where you can be you Like that's the most powerful thing in the world. I mean like, but again, I think, come in this stage of life, being in this, you know, being in your mid 30s, having having lived enough life to understand who you are, and you know kind of having your own rhythm, like maybe we had our own places, we did our own thing. Like you know, we have our own career paths. I mean you know that's and y'all, y'all the same. Like you you have to, and so bringing it all together. You don't want to lose that.
Speaker 2:No, and a kid in the mix of that too is you just have to be really intentional. Yeah, like I can't just do everything I want to do anymore, like I think it's with Mark, it's really important to me for him to know that like I also am choosing him.
Speaker 1:Like.
Speaker 2:I'm choosing his dad, but I'm also choosing him to, and I just like it's just really important to me for some of my stuff to shift a little so that I can be present with him. Just the balance, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, nick, how has it been? How has it been? I'm going to ask both of y'all, like being being fathers, like what has been the process that y'all have had to, what are some things you've had to unlearn about allowing somebody else to come and help parents?
Speaker 4:That's a good question, oh boy I think from my standpoint it's more so just balls down to love, right, I love you and you love him, he loves you dearly. I think he kind of loves you more than me at times and I think it just it's like everything is just like under that and you give up a little of yourself, even with me, like I don't know how your son's been living with you, but he came to us in March of last year, March of last year, and it was a shift, but it was a shift. I wanted, Like I don't have to go to the cigar lounge and smoke a cigar on Wednesdays, I can hold that up. I got my son now, Like I don't have to, you know, go on the road for weeks at a time and you know I can give that up for the better of him myself. And she did the same thing, Like she was like hey, we're in this together. Like you know, this is, he's a part of us and I'm here, I love him just as much, you know, because I love you, because I have to and I want to, and so it all falls under the love and really it was easy In a sense.
Speaker 3:Trying to think of what I've had to unlearn, have almost more feelings than actual concepts. That I've had to unlearn Looks a pretty loving, patient kid, so I was never worried about whether or not they would get along. If anything, I'm actually surprised at how much they butt heads, which is fun to watch for me, but because they'll get kind of petty with each other.
Speaker 2:It's like is it okay to talk bad to a kid?
Speaker 3:I don't know I'm about to Like. They want to get even with each other. Sometimes it's fun.
Speaker 2:I think I'm 12 for sure.
Speaker 3:I think I think I've more had to. I thought I thought I was maybe going to have to work a little bit harder to make the relationships gel. But she she's coming from a divorce family herself and her stepdad was very intentional with her when her mom and him got together and then got married. So she's she's had things modeled really, really well for what a stepparent looks like, and Megan will even be honest and say she was pretty mean to Matt, her stepdad, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I did not. I did not like him.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so it's, it's just.
Speaker 2:But he pursued me and that was important, like he won me over. And so in the moments when you know I can tell Mark is fighting something like they don't have language for their little brains but in those moments I'm the adult, like I'm going to always pursue you and if you're mad at me and I'm mad at you, like I'm always going to come back in the room and we're going to make it okay.
Speaker 1:Cause that's what we do as a family.
Speaker 2:Right, but it's hard sometimes yeah.
Speaker 3:Well, but you don't ever make it my problem per se. You know how there's. There's some people who be like, hey, your child is doing this, you better go sort that out, or whatever. If you two butt heads, you're fine to just stand there and, you know, just have that sort of emotional staring contest until until you guys can come to some sort of agreement or whatever. You know, and that sounds more drastic than it ever is. Yeah, mark and her have gone along so so well. Mark actually was the one that decided that we could tell each other that we loved each other. It was weird y'all.
Speaker 1:It really was.
Speaker 3:Yeah yeah. We were sitting in a hammock, the three of us and, unbeknownst to me, I had been sort of agonizing about when I should tell Megan that I love her Cause. That's a that's a big deal to me. I don't usually say I love you out loud to people in general.
Speaker 2:And I was thinking about it too. Yeah, so she, she was like I wonder when the right time to say this is like I don't want to rush it, I want to actually mean it, you know.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So we were just chilling in my backyard in a hammock and what did he say we were? We were eating chips. Her favorite snack is Doritos. He loves Doritos. I think they're an abomination. I'm sorry, oh man, but uh. So they're eating their chips or whatever. And he looks at me and he says tell, her tell her. Tell her you love her.
Speaker 2:Like so matter of fact? Yeah, Just just very serious.
Speaker 3:I think he might have even grabbed my face and yeah, so I said so. I looked at her and I was like Megan, I love you. And then did he turn around and tell you yeah?
Speaker 2:I mean it's literally like he's the matchmaker there. We always joke that, like we knew it would be time to get married, when Mark would be, like, can you get married? And I feel like that even happened too. He just like makes jokes about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, he did us like that. He did the exact same thing, what was?
Speaker 4:we at. They know we were at a concert. We were at a concert.
Speaker 1:We were at a concert at Levitt Shell and we were standing next to each other and he literally, we were talking about something, you asked me for something and I was. I was giving it to you. And he comes in between us and puts our hands together and says y'all two get married. Yeah, Marry each other.
Speaker 4:Marry each other, dude.
Speaker 1:I said we're working on it Like, like, so great though I mean. You said tell that to him. You haven't said anything.
Speaker 3:It was something in that.
Speaker 4:Tell that to him.
Speaker 3:So were you? Were you, were you immediately panicked or were you reassured, like, was that a go ahead, like okay, cool, Most certainly reassured.
Speaker 4:Like you know, it was just reassured, most definitely, and also it was just like another, another way of of how he feels about her and you know, and vice versa. So that was definitely reassurance.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:We're sure.
Speaker 4:Conducted.
Speaker 1:Like, right then though.
Speaker 4:I mean like right, we can't do it right now?
Speaker 2:We got away like pull the stairs and process so okay.
Speaker 1:So this has been interesting, though I mean I think the closer we've gotten to it he's kind of had some like a lot of questions and some concerns and, like you know, resistance even. I mean he told he would tell us at different times I don't want you to get married because he doesn't want things to change. You know what I mean and so like.
Speaker 3:Access control.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like he wanted, he wants. He's gotten used to life. You know, in this way and like, and he's gotten used to. I mean, he doesn't want you know me to get married. He didn't go anywhere, but he didn't. He didn't want our life to change. Yeah, you know the way that we had had it.
Speaker 2:That's fair. I mean, it is a lot of change, it's a lot of change. I think, even as an adult, one thing I'm having to unlearn is I've just become friends with disappointment, and so to actually like allow myself to feel the excitement, you know, like trying to sort of get through what is a normal, healthy fear and what is like a fear that I'm carrying over, A trained fear. Yeah, Like a trained fear that's been. I've had to do like a lot of shifting in that and work in that yeah.
Speaker 4:All right.
Speaker 2:Change is just a lot and it is for their little brains too. Yeah, it is.
Speaker 4:I mean it's big for us. Just imagine, for, you know, eight year old kids. Yes, it's even bigger.
Speaker 1:It's big.
Speaker 4:And he was even talking about boarding school. I do, no, I'm not even going to spend the money, don't even worry about that, I'm such a softy, I'd be making plans to buy a puppy.
Speaker 3:You know how do I say I'm sorry for whatever got into your head.
Speaker 2:We're going to have a pony. Bobby Gray, what did you?
Speaker 4:even hear about boarding school.
Speaker 2:That's not even like an American culture thing. I feel like you know I'm not going to school.
Speaker 1:I mean yeah, like that's, that's so. It's I mean in several times.
Speaker 4:Like he has mentioned this several times, he would tell Jill and Shannon and them like yeah, they shower at their house and board school.
Speaker 1:Oh man, it was, it was, it was hilarious, okay. So what, what, um, what do you all feel that you are in the process of unlearning during this preparation stage and, like you know what, what, what do you have to like reframe in your minds or just like what's kind of the thing that bubbles up at the top the most when you say, okay, we're, we're getting married, like all right, what do I have to be ready for?
Speaker 4:I think what I had to relearn is like um unlearn excuse me uh the selflessness selfishness um, that comes like I have to be. I have to unlearn that because you know we're going from being, you know, single to marriage and it's a difference like you know, we talk about it all the time where I would always try to, you know, fix things on my own, or you know, not ask her for help, or you know it's like Stop laughing.
Speaker 2:Let her like listen to him, don't even look at me, I look at this.
Speaker 1:He's never said this out loud. This has been fantastic.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and it's like, you know, I got a wife now. Well, I'm gonna. Well, I got a wife now, and when I was thinking about it I was gonna have a wife. That I can't remember. It was one more, it'll come to later on but that was one of the biggest things, Like the self-behavior, should I say.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I'm having to learn how to process pretty much everything out loud now she very much needs for me to, as our couples therapist would say, take space, we are couples there.
Speaker 1:Amen, that's beautiful.
Speaker 2:Proud of it.
Speaker 3:Oh, it's great. Which is like literally can't believe.
Speaker 2:The first time we did it he was like that was kind of fun. He's like when are we going again? I was like I'm so glad you liked it, I'm so thankful. Go on, sorry.
Speaker 3:I was maybe a little bit frightened of going to couples therapy. It's just my previous couples therapy was trying to fix a marriage, so the footing was oh crap, things are not right.
Speaker 2:So I think I was like knowing just our history and me growing up with a divorced family, Like I'm, like I wanted to be proactive and so I just like wasn't sure how he was going to take all of that. You know, like I just knew that that was really important to me. I wanted to have support in that way.
Speaker 4:And he was just very willing. But that speaks volumes about who y'all are. You know what Pops was saying one day when Pastor Craig came to him preaching a sermon about coming here, and he was like I got it. I got it, good world man. And he said Pastor Craig Strickland told him that God doesn't always call you when things are going bad. He can call you when things are going good as well. And that's how I look at your situation Like things are going great for y'all. Y'all are already doing counseling. Yeah thanks Ty. You know like that's big, that shows, like you know, the devotion and the you know.
Speaker 3:I mean I would say primarily the couples counseling is. All it's been doing is helping us unlearn things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:Probably the most amount of strife that we have between the two of us has been unlearning how to behave with somebody else. Even the first few fights that we ever had they were not fights, it was nothing because we were both feeling weird about each other because we thought that the other person would be upset about something. That's how ridiculous it was when we first started dating. Hold on, Nick.
Speaker 1:Cause I think what you I don't want to run past that cause. What you just said was really powerful. I think Like and I want to make sure I'm hearing what you're, I want to make sure I'm understanding what you're saying Unlearning. Unlearning, like, basically, like the idea of having to unlearn, being with different people and not bringing the past relationships and expectations of those past relationships into this one. Is that a? Is that what you're talking about?
Speaker 3:Yeah, and it doesn't even necessarily consciously feel that way. It's more things like if we had some sort of a disagreement about anything. Both of us go to like Defconn four on the inside and we're waiting to have to sort of pay for the fact that we had a disagreement and maybe there'd be a bit of a drawn out punishment Not necessarily super sinister or anything, but we would maybe pay for it in silence or awkwardness for a while. Maybe the other person would be making their feelings sort of felt, you know, taking up a lot of space in a bad way, in a negative way, but neither of us really actually do that. We just were more on the receiving end of that in previous relationships, so we both at times would be bracing for something that didn't actually exist.
Speaker 2:So I guess it was a little bit of projecting the conflict, and neither one of us like conflict. I think the main part of going to couples counseling was to how do we do conflict well, cause it's gonna happen. Both of us are afraid of it. I am more inclined to walk towards it, but I'm not excited about it, you know, and it's just been a space where you shut everything out for an hour. You just talk about something. She gives you some tools, she helps mediate, like to make sure that I'm hearing what he's actually saying and not what I'm thinking he's saying. And that is helpful to have just like that third party, literally just be a second set of ears in the room. It helps me, like learn him a little bit better in a non-threatening way. Yeah.
Speaker 1:If that makes sense. No, that makes sense and I think, and I really like, especially again when you get into, like after you've got some life behind you, you do. There are other, there are things you have to unlearn in other relationships, from other relationships, that and that could be romantic, that could be friendships, that could be parental relationships, like all of that stuff, cause there's more of that behind you. So you've been living life to a certain degree with that kind of stuff in the back of your mind. So now it's like you know, coming together. There are things you have to undo in order to make this healthy right. Like I think that's really, I think that's really key, like and to be proactive again. Be proactive and in knowing like, hey, we have to. We've got to learn how to do this together, cause there is stuff behind both of us that can very easily like just kind of creep in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then all of a sudden just big and you're like how did it get here? Yeah, and so I think we both have just decided the word like decision and choice in this relationship in particular has been, I guess, like louder for me, just the power in decisions, yeah, and so I think we've just decided that that's important to us to be able to navigate that well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, what, what? Okay, so I think we've all had significant relationships before each other to some degree, we're now in relationships that we are, that are permanent, versus the ones that aren't. The ones that we've had before weren't. So what, what? What is the most immediate differences? Like in, okay, like this is a relationship I want, forever. It's, it's healthy. It's, you know, something that I'm thriving in. What does it look like? What's different about it than past ones?
Speaker 4:I think it's a more so of the communication, that. But most importantly I feel like you're my best friend, like you know, we talk about all of that and so with that there's a lot that's come with there. I think we disagree on things like but we're not disagreeable.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 4:Yeah, you know we respect each other. We trust each other you know the communication and we, we hammer things at the at it's like the lowest, yeah, at it's lowest thing. And we've never had an argument before, yeah, never.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 4:We have agreements and that's just in milk. A novel, yes, a hundred face novel. That's the truth.
Speaker 2:That's amazing, oh, it's amazing.
Speaker 4:But you know we. I responded, you know, in a way that was the right way to do it. First is how would I did it? You know years back, or you know with other people, and you know we, we hash out all little things and you know small things, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 4:You know cause? That's what it always is.
Speaker 1:Is a being, is a small.
Speaker 4:It ends up being like what y'all was saying you know earlier. So I think it's. I think it's that yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like it's, it's not easy, like it's not like, oh, it's just this perfect little love story now, but you, just you have the tools to approach it differently. That's right, exactly. And I think one thing I have had to unlearn is I've always kind of associated love with like intensity and that, like Nick, has shown me such steadiness and it felt weird at first, cause I'm like, oh, there's not like this up and down, these super super highs and super super lows, and there's a there's space for all of it.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Right, like I. Yeah, I honor previous situations just because they meant a lot to me. None of my feelings were fake or any of those things, but Nick just showed me something a little bit different. Yeah, and I think if I were to, you know, tell someone like, don't confuse intensity for love, that's really good. That's really good.
Speaker 1:Steadiness is so have y'all, we've talked about this and like people. Because when we say like we've never, we've never argued, I mean we're just the group of people like you never argue. Like how do you really know if you know y'all can really be together if you don't argue Like you got to have a blowout. You got to have at least one blowout, you know.
Speaker 2:And it's like Do you agree with that statement? I don't.
Speaker 4:I don't.
Speaker 2:He would just. I feel like maybe I would be on the side of that, Um, because I've just always had blowouts, yeah, but I think you would say something different. I remember you being I don't know. I forgot who you were talking to.
Speaker 4:It was maybe your sister.
Speaker 2:And you're like, why can't you just be madly in love? Do you remember that? Like, do you have to have a blowout?
Speaker 3:That sounds like something I would say I don't remember. But I mean, shoot, I am having to learn and I'm clawing my way towards it inch by inch, but I'm learning how, to be okay having an argument.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And knowing that it's not just going to crash and burn, if we do have one because there's something on my insides that if we have an actual blowout, which we don't I mean I don't think we've ever even really like we've raised our voices a little bit, almost more, to just try it out- Then Then Like is this safe? Can we talk this loud? Is this okay, can we talk this loud? Yeah, but I just being able to have a conflict and maybe even something that's harder to figure out than immediately fixed, and for that to be okay and we're not like our relationship's not in jeopardy. I never had to have that thought process before and now I am learning that that's a possibility.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So feeling safe having disagreements is a newer thing for me.
Speaker 1:Nick, I think I would probably. I relate to that. He's been really good about like, when it feels like I'm on edge about something, he'd be like it's gonna be fine, like we're gonna be fine, you don't have to like we're gonna be fine, this is. You know. He'll say like I love you, you love me, we in this stop tripping, basically in his own way. You know he'll say that and it's like okay, yeah, cause there have been moments where I've and I think he can tell I think this is just about to be over because, you know, we may have had a disagreement or there's something that we just can't get eye to eye on, or whatever, or the same things have been repeated multiple times and I'm like he's just tired of it, he's tired of me and you know all this stuff, and I can feel sometimes that he feels that I mean, am I wrong?
Speaker 4:Like, do you feel that sometimes In the past, Did I feel like it being over? No, no, no, no, no, no no Like.
Speaker 1:could you feel that I was? On edge, like something was brewing in you Like something was happening in me, like because you thought, because it seemed like I thought things were would go awry, like I feel like you were able to read me on that on some level, to say like and just be like it's gonna be fine.
Speaker 3:I know right.
Speaker 2:I relate to what you're saying.
Speaker 1:Is that a yeah? No, it's okay. You can say you don't remember it. No, it's fine.
Speaker 4:I'm trying to like remember, like if it's, if it's been like that, I didn't take it like as you was, like I was gonna be over, or myself as well, yeah.
Speaker 1:That's just because it was just me.
Speaker 2:No, but that's. I mean, that's such a real example of like. Also, this is gonna sound maybe small, but I really have had to accept the fact that, like men and women are different. Yes, oh God, and I'm like, oh, he's not a woman, like nope, but I am such a like the way we are processing that I do the same thing. I'm like there's a billion things going and he's like we're on the same team and I'm like, but it's gonna die, and he's like I don't even remember that. But you remember how loud all of that was, all of it, and I'm like, oh, you're so sick of me.
Speaker 1:Yes, and I'm like, here I am crying over this again, or whatever the thing is there was a distinct moment where I text him something he was out of no, you weren't out of town, but I text him something. It was long and he didn't. He didn't call, we didn't talk, like he didn't call me most of the day, which had not happened yet. Did you just stew on that? Oh my God, for so long it was not good and I, I was so pissed, I was so upset, I was busy, I was like I was really zoned out, you know with, you know clearing the land, and I just had all these ideas.
Speaker 2:Communicate. I have to tell her I'm just kidding Ideas.
Speaker 4:I was like you know and I, you know, I text I love you, you know, I gave her that. I was zoned out like focusing on that, but I gave her that reassurance of I text I love you, you know, you know, thank you for being, you know, great better half and you know, just to you know, reassure her of that, but I was zoned out you know, and that and she sought me like a it didn't work.
Speaker 1:I was, it was here, I was all in my head.
Speaker 2:It's so hard and I was so convinced it's done.
Speaker 1:As women, it is easy to do that and and I've definitely had to I've had to unlearn how to how to, how to deal with, how not to go to the extreme. Yes, right, because I'm kind of like, like you said, nick, I'm just I don't do well with, I really don't do well with any kind of like arguments, conflicts, like I, I'm not, I don't think I'm afraid of it, but I don't like it and I do everything I can to avoid it. Yeah, like I'm going to, I'm going to do everything I can, right, and what can I do to make this not be a bad thing? And there's some times you just can't do anything about it. It just is going to be what it is. And so he's been really good about helping me to like recognize we're going to go through all that, like that's just part of the deal and and it's like okay, I'm, I'm okay with that.
Speaker 2:I've had to. I used to, like looking back and reflecting on, like oh, I used to project this onto other people, like all the commotion in my head of like, oh, that's, this must be what this means. If it's in my brain, it must be what it means. And I've, I've had to learn. I guess I'm kind of proud of myself in some ways, of like the growth in that, but I've, I've changed it to like. Here is what I am believing in this moment Like can you please tell me if this is true? Like asking a question of like is this correct? or or not? Yeah, and I don't know. You know, I'm sure that that's been harder for you, but it's like I I think I've learned to ask it. That's something that I need, Like I need to hear it and so to be able to like articulate that that's a need that I have. Wouldn't have happened 10 years ago. I wouldn't have been able to say, like I need to hear. You can take time to figure it out if you need to, but I need to hear, like some sort of answer. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3:I'm sure that my pride is a very large ingredient in that, just the pride of, oh, we're having an argument and that means something went wrong and it went wrong on my watch, kind of a thing. So there, there is definitely an element of I'll have trouble having some of the argument or processing things myself. To get back to her, because there's a part of me that's just I'm a prideful butt head and I don't want to admit that we had a problem and I was a part of that problem. That's the same here.
Speaker 4:Like I think you know I'm like that in a sense, like pride gets in the way, yeah.
Speaker 2:That's that's real. I mean, I appreciate hearing that too. Yeah, you know for sure.
Speaker 1:I want to do this. I want to bring in the speakers a little bit into just we. We all go to church and we all grew up in church environments and we've all seen, you know, we've all heard the relationship talks in church, like we've all. We've heard that. We've heard the relationship talks from sermons to other people that you know of and you see, you see all that. So what? What? Especially on this road to marriage, like what have been some of the primary frustrations that that we've seen within the church when talking about what this looks like.
Speaker 4:From my standpoint, from what I've saw, they can force it on people.
Speaker 2:Marriage.
Speaker 4:And yes.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 4:And you're not ready because the timing, like we always talk about the timing. I think, and then, and then. I don't know what the rate is, but from what I saw, it's, it's high.
Speaker 1:It's so high yeah.
Speaker 4:It's such a gamble and then you know that that's it. Yeah, that has to be the biggest yeah From what I've saw and witnessed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Marriage is is like an idol of the church, like it's the thing to arrive to, yeah, yes, and it's almost like there's not any value in singleness. In singleness, yeah, you know, but, paul, I forgot what he talked like where it is, but he's like you can do a lot for the Lord as a single person. Yes, you know, like marriage is such a beautiful thing God ordained it Like he wants it for us but it's also like singleness is a really beautiful thing and there it feels like there's not space to be comfortable being single. It's always like wanting something that you don't have Right and I don't, I really don't know. Like I hear the focus being on marriage but there really isn't a lot of content on dating. Like you just kind of go in blind and you're like don't have sex, that's the narrative, that's it. And you're like that really doesn't help me, it's not helpful, and so you're all. You end up kind of like going for advice elsewhere.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Cause the conversation doesn't really feel real or not. Everything is on the table. Yes, it's weird to talk about, you know.
Speaker 4:The elephants in the room.
Speaker 2:The elephants in the room and it's like Hutchison serve anybody well.
Speaker 3:Well, in a lot of church culture or youth group culture, the questions that you would need to ask are risky questions, and you you have to. You have to be willing to trust the people that you're talking to enough to ask questions that may expose what you know or what you don't know, or what you've done or haven't done Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you like out yourself.
Speaker 1:Right, what are, what are some? What are some questions that you're like? Give me some examples of some questions.
Speaker 4:Let's see.
Speaker 3:So even so the way. So I'm a pastor's kid, so I was in church all the time. My dad modeled space for being able to ask questions very, very well. That's one of the things that I will forever be grateful to him for. He was more of a rebel in the church circles that he worked in though in that way, so things were a lot more legalistic than I'm finding out that my my dad was as I grow older and just kind of understand things he was talking about when I was younger, so I never got pressured to ask him questions, but I never felt like I couldn't ask him anything. I did not necessarily always get that from whoever was a youth leader. There was maybe a little bit more destruction and brimstone and fire, things like that. If you do the wrong thing, if you do the sex you might, you might never recover, and those are the connotations that I'm faced with immediately. So it's just how bad everything could get, not how good everything can be. I don't. I don't recall a lot of talks or sermons as a child about how good dating can be or how a picture of what it can be to get to marriage and then how marriage is a picture of Christ.
Speaker 2:I mean, if we're going at like a healthy sex life in marriage, remember, but it's like don't have it, and then it's like the night of habit. Everything in the world you could ever imagine and I'm like that's so much pressure and it's not real and it's like it's not even possible to be real. What if you're tired after your wedding night?
Speaker 3:Yeah, you better not be. I'm just kidding.
Speaker 1:That's, but it really is like, and why is it that? Since we're here, what?
Speaker 2:is it that?
Speaker 1:sex is about the only thing that people really harp on. Yeah, why is that? I don't know.
Speaker 2:It's like someone just drank the water and it's just been what's taught for forever and there's value to having the conversation and but it's I don't know. It's hard to even talk about it in this moment because you're like, if I say something, a little bit off.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I think people are going to think about it. They're going to get completely blown out of proportion.
Speaker 2:It feels like it's just become inhuman, yeah, and it's just a hard topic to talk about Period.
Speaker 4:It is. It's just one of those things where I think the church I guess it's like one of those sins, I don't know Like they glorify that one Like. That's at the top. You know like, and not the rest of them. You know what I'm saying. You know how they can single out certain things in there. You got these things. It's focused on these things.
Speaker 3:Elevating any particular sin is a huge problem.
Speaker 4:Yes, Huge problem.
Speaker 1:You can't, it's a huge problem. And you can't because you can't play it all the way out, because it's like you know, you, you could, you could say forever, like, okay, sex before marriage is you know that, that's if you're going to have sex before marriage. If you don't, if you make sure not to do anything else, like make sure you don't do that. But then let's say you, you don't, and in you get, you get up, get married, and then in year two, you know so and so is, I don't know, ends up a thief. Well, you didn't tell me to look into that.
Speaker 4:You just told me not to.
Speaker 1:You know what I'm saying. She probably had tendencies, or she probably had tendencies kept stealing stuff I need, I need you know, like I need to. All of a sudden you're selling us no big deal. I thought I had $5 here on the dresser, but you know, maybe I'm wrong, you know and and. Are you telling on me? I ain't, You're a weekend All that money is the same.
Speaker 3:I have no real life.
Speaker 1:But you, but you're you, you. You miss other things and it's like it's very easy to miss other stuff when you're, when you're trying to prevent what I guess in a lot of people's minds is like the ultimate, you know, and I would even go so far as to say that it's not sex that people are so scared of. It's pregnancy, yeah, and it's the and so it's the image, what happens when you're pregnant and out of wedlock and all the things that come with that right and so. But we, we say it's sex and it's like it's really not, because, let's be honest, most people do not wait to have sex.
Speaker 4:Most people, including some of the ones that are telling you.
Speaker 1:And that's just the truth of the matter. Shoot.
Speaker 3:I still. I still deal with that, walking around with Mark, even here at my own church. Sometimes I'll be, I'll be thinking, gee, I wonder if they they're looking at my child and thinking I had sex before I was married.
Speaker 4:And it just, it just pops into my head Well, apparently I did, cause I've never been married.
Speaker 3:Like it, but like it, like it matters at this point you know, but I'll still. I still have a thing that I'm trying to get out of my head where oh, if I, if I did that and I was I was told it was bad. You know, now I am bad and people are looking at the consequences of my sin, or something like that, instead of me having a freaking conversation with the person standing in front of me and being proud of my son who's?
Speaker 4:you know next to me Exactly who's a great kid, you've been a great father, you know and all like. Just overshadow that. Like back to like the question with the church for some marriage. Do you think a lot of them fail? Like I said, I don't. I don't know the, the percentage, because of the church, it doesn't be open about marriage, like like the tough questions. Like you, only, when I, when I grew up, growing up, I saw it from the, from use a Navy term, the old one level, right, you know you see the, the past and the first lady and everything's joyful, and you know, you know they happy, but that's what you see. But you know, behind closed doors is worse than that. But you're, you're forcing okay, you're forcing these two. Y'all need to get married, y'all got to get married. You know you're trying to force marriage on them but at the same time, you're not telling them about marriage. You know you're not telling them how. You know what you went through, what your issues were and you know and how you you work through them Like you. You know you're not telling them. You know what to look out for and just like how to be true to each other and how to communicate, and you know work with problems. Like, do y'all think that's an issue in a sense?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I just the culture is a whole of putting things in people on pedestals, like the church. I think the church unintentionally does it. I don't think we walk in like trying to do it, but we do. We put those things on pedestals and then it's. It feels like there's not freedom to actually struggle or come forward and say like I am struggling with lustful thoughts towards another man or you know, and it that fear just goes inward instead of outward and then it just grows significantly. And if you can, if you can expose it like, then you can actually help it. Does that make?
Speaker 4:sense? Yeah For sure. So the church needs to. I think the church needs to unlearn that Like that's, that's the one thing the church needs to unlearn If you're going to push marriage, you know talk about all of it Talk about everything, yeah, and not just that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think that you know, you know you're not going to be able to do that. You know that is I think it's it's a false reality that I think a lot of people think that the church does, especially on social media and you have these huge personalities that kind of have started doing that. But most people aren't growing up in churches like that. Most people are growing up in churches that are on the corners.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I appreciate it.
Speaker 1:You know 20, 30 people in them and that's, that's the experience. And I do think that in those, in most churches, even now, even though we have all this content now with people, you know people, people are talking about it and trying to correct it, I think at some level, but it's still not personal and, and you know, you might hear it from you know a pastor online who has millions of followers, but not not the pastor you you know in your community.
Speaker 2:Right, that makes I mean cause, even Virginia, do like a class on marriage for like newlywed and stuff. And you dig, you dig deep in that setting. You know, but it's not a, you know it's not a as big like it exists, right For sure, right, but there's just like a common message that is portrayed Right Like those one officer, not fully the norm, no, they're not.
Speaker 1:You know, I mean they're not and even like our church does a great job of it. Yeah, but that's, that's our church. Yeah, it's like.
Speaker 2:It's like it's a. It's like it's a. Okay, what I'm not saying is like question God in an unholy way, but it's almost like this is what God said we should never, ever, ask a question. Yeah, and it doesn't leave room for curiosity, right, and so maybe it's unlearning some of just the beliefs of like God is relational and like he desires that kind of intimacy, like even with our parents. You know, don't do this. This is what I said. There's no room for discussion periods. Well, like, that doesn't really work in a natural world. Yeah, you know, if you're like, don't touch the light, it'll burn you, the first thing I want to do is touch the light. It's like it's so hyper focused You're like well, now, I really don't know what it is. You know like, but if you leave room for curiosity and a relationship, like now, I want to make the right choices for the Lord because I love him and I want to do things that please him. But if I don't love God and I don't love you know, then like, why are you telling me not to do something that's only going to make me want to do it more?
Speaker 3:Yeah, If you're doing it out of guilt, yeah, it's not going to grow.
Speaker 2:It's not going to grow, it's not going to grow in a good way? No, so the conversation really is like building up people that really do love the Lord and want to do right by him and have a relationship with him, and then you start to do things different and you look at things differently, instead of it just being this pedestal that feels like so much pressure.
Speaker 3:Yeah, right, yeah, the pressure is the point to me that needs resolving, because the pressure makes it so easy to lie, because if you were to make it, okay, nick.
Speaker 2:Sorry, I ruin it every time. I do that every time. I'm so sorry. Please continue.
Speaker 3:It's fine, everything's fine. The path of least resistance is a huge sand trap. That's a golf term, isn't it? Sand trap?
Speaker 1:I have no idea. Is it a golf?
Speaker 2:term. Is that a golf term.
Speaker 4:Golf. Sand trap Sand pit.
Speaker 2:Sand pit.
Speaker 3:Oh boy.
Speaker 4:I think not, I don't know. You could be right, okay.
Speaker 3:Anyway, it makes it easy to lie, and lying is a path of least resistance thing in itself. So if you let's say, let's say I've grown up in youth group and we had the sex talk, however well it went or didn't go let's say I had had sex before I was married and I can guarantee you looking at all of y'all with a straight face if somebody asked me if I was having sex and I did, I would have lied about it. I don't think I would have come clean, especially not as a pastor's kid, because that would have been double trouble right there. And again, I'm not saying that I did, but I'm saying I have. I can't think of a pre-pubescent or right around puberty time me. That would go oh, I'll tell the truth now. Like here's the moment that I'm going to do it because I'm hardwired to do the right thing all the time and that. So when lying becomes easier, then it's little things that can build up and suddenly we have pristine social media things for church and you see how well everyone's doing and you go well, shoot. I probably shouldn't say that I'm struggling with this thing or whatever, because it just would be easier if I handle it on my own and I don't ask for help. And then it becomes very hard to ask for help when you get in over your head or you're just so ashamed of the thing that maybe you're struggling with. I think if the church attacks that thing with guilt, shame and lying, if we could just unlearn self-protection, I guess that's really good man.
Speaker 1:That's really good, because I think it's when you get to a point where you start lying to yourself and it's hard to come back from that. Oh, it's hard to come back from that.
Speaker 4:Yes, it is.
Speaker 1:It's hard to come back from lying to yourself because, to your point, the pressure puts you in a position to it's like, okay, no, I am ready. No, I do love this person. No, this is right, no. And then you start making things, but they're not so that you can please really an entity, an institution, and end up imploding. That's huge Pressure does make you lie.
Speaker 2:Yes, and I never really thought about it like that before, and I'm like oh, it's just the breeding ground for it all to go.
Speaker 3:It's so much easier to lie and then try to fix it yourself, and then sometimes you might actually be successful. You might be able to lie and fix it yourself, but then you're starting to build a mental pathway to that thing. It's the same with people that like to just get. They go from nothing to mad really fast and you're like, how is this growing out of nothing? It's because they're used to getting mad so fast. That's the way their brains are wired. Lying is the same way.
Speaker 1:That's really good yes.
Speaker 2:I guess, in terms of on the road to marriage and dating, there has to be space for it to look really ugly man.
Speaker 1:And to look different.
Speaker 2:To look different. Yeah yeah, like there just has to be space for people to be able to own where they are and for us to kind of help each other Through it. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:She, megan's taught me a lot about that. Actually I have days where I do better with it than others. But for me, again, because my pride and I don't know if it's directly lying or not but she'll ask me if I'm okay and when I don't want to talk about it I'll say I'm fine, which is Even if I know I'm not fine. What I'm trying to do is not talk about it, but I know she's not gonna take that for an answer. So Sometimes I do lie and say I'm fine, and but part that's because of this thing of learning how to be safe to have an Unok moment with her or a disagreement with her. She's given me a lot of grace when she knows that I'm not okay and Letting me work through that process, even even when she knows like she's basically caught me, maybe lying about my own state of okay-ness, you know, and just being patient that way. That's that's something that's been a gift that she's given me, for sure.
Speaker 4:I think that's like typical of us men to be that way, like we always wear the okay face, like whether it's you know with, you know with health Job, you know fine, that's just like we do that. But I think that's where you know. Like I said, one of the things I had to unlearn was like you know the selfishness of myself and you know the lean on you, like oh, she's here to help me with things and and Once I start doing that like it's like things that are taking me a week to do it, it take us Been not okay with it, but I was saying I was okay and then when she finally got it out of me it was Like that quick yeah.
Speaker 2:He's saying I'm patient. I don't know if I actually am patient or not. If he's taking it that way, praise the Lord.
Speaker 4:Yeah hey, oh.
Speaker 1:For that to be an experience that you have again, like on the road to marriage, like Because it's all that's gonna do is just gonna amplify like after you get married, right so? It's like to have that experience even before. Is is a beautiful thing to allow each other to have that, to allow that to happen.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and to be able to name it go into marriage like we are not going to be perfect, people Right after we say I do, that's right, like I Am going to live in a house with two boys, like stuff's just gonna. There's just stuff that's gonna come up. You know, like this engagement season for me in general has just already revealed other layers of healing that needs to happen and you can't like there's a difference between Truly not being ready for something but then also just knowing that, like as you move through life, more and more layers will be peeled back.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I will say I think that Something I really Appreciate that someone said I think is a pastor. I believe I may have heard a few people say it is you. You say I do to everything that you know at the time. But, you're, you're, but you're also saying I do to what you don't know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's like being able to name it, going into it is gonna be able to help us draw closer together. You know, like being able to have done the work, continuing to like try to find language for something's getting to know each other like that, like it's not gonna go away. No like it just isn't. But now that I know that he needs patience from me, like now I can actually Willingly give it right. Right, you know exactly, and it's like I want to be patient, and while it is hard for me because I might not feel like I'm patient, mm-hmm, if I know it's good for him, that I want to try to learn to be patient. Yeah, you know.
Speaker 1:No, that's good and it but it. You have to know that I mean yeah, but you have to know it, you do have to know and so getting to the point, to where you know he's comfortable Sharing that and it's like, okay, like the other day he was like you know, I this idea of space and like realizing, like you know, we, we had natural space during the dating relationship as of a week ago. That is not the case, right? Oh that's crazy. So so it's, you have to. It's like okay, well, how do we kind of still maintain that? Now, right, but but from him saying that I know to be intentional about that, like the intentional when you know he's saying he's he's saying like hey, we got to figure out this this, we got to figure this out, yeah, like because we had a great, it was a great rhythm. Yeah, you know, and I have to figure out a new. You have to figure out a new rhythm.
Speaker 4:You know all about the balance and I think you know We'll figure it out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we were. So we're like preparing his house for me to move in and I was. I started to kind of deep clean the living room and oh. He was not cleaning up to my standards. He just wasn't, so I'm like going back behind him and redoing. We're cook dinner later.
Speaker 3:Oh, not only was she going behind me, she was standing there like a vulture.
Speaker 2:I would hate this if I was him but, I cannot stop, I can't, I have to watch. And so then later we're finishing dinner and I'm like okay, you know what, like I'm gonna wash the dishes. He's like I don't trust you to watch those right because you won't. Freaks and I'm like, oh, when we're actually living together like this, I don't know what's gonna come up.
Speaker 3:I'm just going to wash all the dishes. That's that's.
Speaker 1:I've already decided that you've already made it cool. I like washing dishes.
Speaker 4:Apparently, that's gonna be my.
Speaker 3:Oh okay, they do too, have there been specs? Have you seen specs? No dry plates.
Speaker 4:No, no, it's. It's more so like she's a dishwasher, like she puts everything in a dishwasher.
Speaker 2:But you like to wash in my hand?
Speaker 4:Yes, I like that.
Speaker 3:I like. I have no desire to have a dishwasher. Sorry if that's and I'm over here like we have to get a dishwasher.
Speaker 2:There's no sense and not have one if you if you are able to have one.
Speaker 4:Not dishwasher makes no sense to have one.
Speaker 1:This is unbelievable.
Speaker 2:The last thing I want to do after.
Speaker 1:I cook it, no, but like it's just, it's not. It's not an efficient way to live, because you have a ton of dishes you don't know, especially when you have to cook for multiple people and then Well. We're such a modern woman Like yeah, yeah, I know, I, just I, I'm a dishwasher, the one.
Speaker 4:I don't even. I've never turned it on like the one at my. I really forget.
Speaker 1:I've never turned, that it was there.
Speaker 3:I've never. I've never had one wherever I've lived as an adult, really never had a dishwasher.
Speaker 1:I got one, god bless it.
Speaker 3:No, no, no no, no, oh, I hated your dishwasher at your old apartment. Mm-hmm, I Would wash dishes. I would wash dishes behind your back.
Speaker 1:Dishwashers are great also. Also. The other thing we we disagree on as far as like maintenance stuff is he. He's an iron guy.
Speaker 4:And I will pop a thing in a jar, in a heart in a minute.
Speaker 1:Yep, like out, it does the trick.
Speaker 2:I am, it does just honestly terrified that like I'm gonna burn clothes at this point, like it's not even I know how I. Well, let me say this I will figure it out like I'm but the ironing board, I'm like sure which direction the shirt's supposed to go. Really don't know like it's the sleep. It's a puzzle that doesn't make sense.
Speaker 3:She does have a process. Sometimes the process takes a little bit longer on certain things.
Speaker 1:So okay, let's. So we want to do this like to end in the conversation. I want to do like this quick lightning round of just things To unlearn, like just kind of share with people who are maybe in Committed relationships on the like kind of thinking about it and or just on this road to marriage that you know Each one of us have been for over two years, like what, what are some, what are just some things to just like would be helpful to unlearn. Lightning round style quick, kind of ideas and thoughts.
Speaker 2:Unlearn Absolutes, hmm.
Speaker 1:That's good.
Speaker 3:Yeah, okay, Okay that's really good, that's really good, make my drop. I would say unlearn pride, don't be. Don't be too proud to be wrong, which sounds super cliche, but pride is sneaky.
Speaker 1:That's good.
Speaker 4:It's couple things, I don't know, but the first one is a have to earn, learn Doing things on a whim.
Speaker 2:Mmm, that's good.
Speaker 4:You know, talk about it. She doesn't operate like that. I, just like you know, I just have to unlearn the pride thing like acts, for you know she's here to, she's a part of me, I'm a part of her. You know she's here to help and just so the selfishness, you know, let's go that she's.
Speaker 1:I would say, unlearn the immediate meeting of your expectations. Unlearn when you're kind of in the process of evaluating, like, is this person, is this person somebody I want to, I want to marry, I want to be with forever? Like unlearn what society says you should be paying attention to, and unlearn, unlearn paying too much attention to things that are temporary. I think that's one of the things that I, you know, I'm grateful that I didn't. You know, I Didn't, do you know what I mean? Like they're just things that will, that can change, and so and he says all the time but I mean we were talking with time and it was just like, hey, you know, one of the things I like to focus on is focus on things that don't change, that aren't gonna change about a person. They're values. Yeah you know they're Beliefs, you know they're the core beliefs. Right, those, those things, and what are those? Are those things that you can rock with, and if so, everything else is up for grabs. Yeah, habits change, you know. Yeah, desires change. That kind of stuff is Pop, like money changes. Oh, that's some changes.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So I would say unlearn and learn that mine kind of piggybacks off here.
Speaker 2:It's just like unlearn. Arriving at a destination Like it's genuinely a journey, yeah there's not one arrival spot.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. I'd also say unlearn doing things the normal way, and I put normal in quotes. Unlearned that you have to do that, you can do it differently. Mm-hmm, it's good, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:I Know one last one. I would, I would say, unlearn the classic wedding vows that people say mm-hmm interesting. Don't just recite it like you recite the Pledge of Allegiance or the Apostles Creed. If you're a churchgoer, you can say these things because they're programmed into your mind. You can say it for memorization without really pondering, mm-hmm, what each of those things actually means. Right, that's Insignis, and in health can be. It's not just oh, what if? What if my partner gets a disease or something you need? You need to be thinking what would I hope that they would do?
Speaker 1:if it was me? If it was me, that's good man. I got a lot to think about that's. That's really no, I really do so funny. So I wouldn't that, like you know, that moment of the vows and during during our wedding. So I was so focused on just if I just make it down the aisle because I don't like tension and I want all those people and I God is my witness. It wasn't until I got up there that I was like oh god, I have to talk. Mm-hmm, like I have to say things.
Speaker 4:It's true, even a.
Speaker 1:And and and see you so oh gosh, like oh yeah, I was, I was really. I was like, oh no, no, no, I have to say things and so it. But what went to your point, nick, I I Didn't realize how sacred of a moment that was gonna be before I got up there. I just didn't even think about it and Like those are not just, those are not just words, like you are saying that out loud, so you're looking at another person and you're making a promise, that's right. Like that thing is deep and I didn't realize that until the moment, and I Think it would have been, I would have helped me to have to to like really marinating that Before you know, just to realize the significance of the moment. I said that man, I think I don't think I would have been as Like I was. I felt myself about to come unglued, which I held it together, but I felt that because I was like I hadn't really processed it yet. That's good I mean yeah, yeah, that's helpful, that's really good. Thank y'all, man.
Speaker 2:This is great. I Forsee many more oh yeah, this was great.
Speaker 1:This was really good. Um, and I Do not know how to end these. I have not figured out any kind of tagline or anything like that, so Good night. Good night, until next time, y'all. Um well, just keep on learning together, and so we Thank you once again for listening to the unlearned podcast. We would love to hear your comments and your feedback about the episode. Feel free to follow us on Facebook and Instagram and to let us know what you think. We're looking forward to the next time when we are able to unlearn together to move forward towards freedom. See you then.
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