Marriage in Real Life
Marriage in Real Life
Questions Answered...What Happens After "I Do"?
Marriage doesn't come with a manual, but our season three finale delivers something just as valuable: raw, honest answers to your most pressing relationship questions.
What does it truly mean to keep God at the center of your marriage beyond Sunday service? We explore practical approaches like praying together, studying scripture as a team, and serving others—creating a spiritual foundation that withstands life's inevitable challenges. For couples navigating parenthood, we offer counter-intuitive wisdom: scheduling one-on-one time with each child actually creates more space for your marriage to flourish. The tactical advice ranges from utilizing bedtime routines to finding trusted childcare so you can nurture your relationship without guilt.
Relationship routines can slowly suffocate even the strongest marriages. We discuss why intentional spontaneity matters and how to break patterns before stagnation sets in. Drawing from 33 years of experience, we share how faith shapes conflict resolution, teaching us patience and forgiveness when disagreements arise. Our conversation takes a thoughtful turn when examining what we learned from marriages we witnessed growing up—and how those observations shaped our own relationship journey.
When discussing advice for newlyweds, we don't sugarcoat the reality: marriage requires commitment beyond the wedding day. As one viewer perfectly stated, "Accept that you made the decision, now work on making it the right decision." Our candid discussion of Tyler Perry's film "Straw" highlights the struggles of single parents and the importance of community support, especially for women carrying heavy burdens alone.
Join us for this intimate conversation, and stay tuned for our upcoming projects: Lady P's new podcast "Let's Talk About It" launches June 23rd, focusing on women's perspectives regardless of relationship status. Like, share, and subscribe as we prepare for season four with more authentic conversations about navigating marriage in real life.
Watch the live show on Youtube.
Follow us on Facebook & Instagram at @marriageinreallifepodcast
Well, welcome to Marriage and Real Life, welcome, welcome. We're so glad that you could join us. This is our last, last one for season three, the finale. Yes yes, yes, yes. Well, hey, what's been happening these last two weeks? What's been happening these last two weeks?
Speaker 3:Finally, the last day of school came. I think I was more excited than the children. Wow, I was ready to get out of there, jesus, oh man, I was so ready for it to be over, but now I'm kind of just waving around. You know, doing my thing. Sometimes I don't even comb my hair.
Speaker 1:Wow yeah.
Speaker 1:No makeup around. You know, doing my things, sometimes I don't even comb my hair. Wow, yeah, yeah, no makeup, right right, right right. Excited about that. Okay, all right, all right, cool. Yeah, hey, you know, got a little bad news for myself, but I think I'm gonna be. I'm gonna be all right, you know, I thank god. You know that I'm still alive, right? Yeah, I'm still alive. So, you know, these last two weeks it's been great. Not even two weeks, it's been more than two weeks, hasn't it? Since school has been out? No, not since school has been out, since we've been podcasting.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, it's been quite a minute yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's been a minute yeah yeah yeah, so well, thank God that we're back. Hey, we wanted to make sure that you like and share, like and share, you know, like and share this podcast. We want to just answer some questions tonight. We thank each and every person who sent in questions. We got a number of questions tonight that we're going to answer tonight, and so you know, hey, please tell us where you're watching from. Tell us where you're know. Hey, please, um, tell us where you're watching from. Uh, tell us. Wait, tell us where you're watching from. Please tell us where you're watching from here. Uh, give it so we can give you a shout out. Right? We want to be able to give people a shout out. You know there's about nine of them watching with us, and so we want to make sure you know we give, give everybody a shout out, right?
Speaker 1:absolutely, yeah, yeah, yeah we're just gonna get used to being in our little new studio. All right, new studio, yeah, all right, all right. Well, hey, I'm ready to get started. What you got.
Speaker 3:You ready to get started?
Speaker 1:Yeah, Are you ready to get started, or you want to wait a little bit? What's your deal? Yeah, are you ready to get started, or are you what you want? You want to wait a little bit? What's your deal?
Speaker 3:I'm fine, let's let's get this party started. It's this way. This time we'll have enough time to get through everything.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, hey, I do want to talk about that movie we saw today though.
Speaker 1:Okay today though okay, I do want to talk about that. I think we talk about it at the end. Okay, we'll talk about at the end when we know uh, you see that I'm a liker, um, my like is here. Hey, ferg is here, all right. All right, please make sure you like and share. Please make sure you like and share um you. Hey, rob Rob is here. Hey, rob Rob, watching from Orlando. All right, let me get we're from North Carolina A lot of them from Tamarack, tamarack, our old stomping ground.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's an old stomping ground right there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, all right. So again, we got some questions in and we're going to just go through these questions and you know and see I'll chime in, let us know. Yeah, let us know. If you got some more questions, you can put it in the chat and we would love to answer those questions. All right, All right. So I'm not going to say who the questions are from. Questions, all right, all right. So I'm not going to say who the questions are from, okay, all right. I'm just going to say you know that this is the question. Okay.
Speaker 1:Right, and so they know who asked the question. Okay, all right. So the first question is this. The first question is this how do you intentionally keep God first in a marriage as a married couple? And it is, it is he said. The person says they're not a broad question, but for it to not be only go to church or on some weekends type of marriage, right? So I guess that means how do you keep God first? And you know, just hey, just go to church. You know some people say, hey, just go to church, and that's keeping God first, right. And so I guess so you want to say how do you intentionally keep God first in the marriage as a married couple? All right, that's the first question. All right, what you got, what do you think?
Speaker 3:I think about making it a priority to pray together. Okay. To you know everybody studies differently. But throw a scripture out. This is a scripture for this week. We concentrate on that scripture or, individually, we read that scripture. Okay, and maybe at dinner time, talk about what did you get from that scripture. Okay.
Speaker 3:You know, and how did you? What was God saying to you doing that scripture? Because sometimes we can read the same scripture and get something totally different from it. Right, right, right right. So I think by connecting that way, intentionally doing those things, will bring out that you know, okay, we, we, we, we. We hit it in the right direction.
Speaker 1:Oh, man, that's good, right there, I got to give you. Yeah, yeah, I think that's good, right there, I got to give you. Yeah, yeah, I think that's it. That's how you keep God first, keep him in the center. That make every decision, that you make every major decision like you said, major decision you communicate with him and let him know that he's first Right by praying, reading the word, know and doing those things and serving yeah, definitely, yeah.
Speaker 3:That's something that I love about serving serving together.
Speaker 1:Serving together, right yeah, serving together maybe an usher or maybe a deacon I mean you know, just I mean, even if you're just in the capacity where maybe you can um talk to you yeah, you don't have to be in the church, you know, and you don't have to be, that's right, you don't have to be at the church, you know teenagers, especially the teenagers.
Speaker 1:Yes, they need us more than ever they need to see a married couple right, because what a lot of them see is seen, have seen is broken homes, right they've. They've seen the mother, you know, just taking running with you know, run with it, you know, and a lot of them haven't seen the father in it. They haven't seen marriages. And so what happens is, I think they grow up and because they haven't seen marriages, when they talk about getting married they don't know nothing about it because they haven't seen it right. So, for marriage, for married couples, if you want to, you know, again, keep God first. You know, serve and let them see what a true married couple is. All right, cool. I hope that answered your question. I hope that answered your question. We got some more questions here and we got some good ones. My baby, I'm telling you you got to be up on it now. All right, All right. So this is another question how do you make time for each other when you have kids? How do you make time for each other when you have kids?
Speaker 3:Hmm, hmm, how do you make time for each other? When you have kids. It depends. Okay, if you have babies, then downtime when you put them down at night. That's the time when you could, you know, do what you have to do spend time with each other.
Speaker 3:Right, right, right Go watch a movie, yeah, but then when you have older kids, you have to set a schedule. That's what we did. Okay, you know, we had where everybody had their time. So we had where everybody had their time. Well, you know, especially with me, because Eric was, you know, active duty, so he was a lot of the times out of the home. So what I would do is I would set up a schedule for me to spend time with each one of the children.
Speaker 3:Now, the baby always got the end of the schedule, because I could put him in the bed with me and let him talk about whatever he want to talk about.
Speaker 3:I could put him in the bed with me and let him talk about whatever he wanted to talk about. But I would schedule that quality time with each one of the children. I think I started with the oldest and I went down to the baby, so Peaches had her time with me, whether I might be in the kitchen cooking dinner or sitting in the living room or sitting in the den watching a movie or watching tv right and the other kids can interrupt that time and then I think I spent a lot, most of the time with nat whenever she was in the bathtub, okay, or if I'm in the in the bathroom, she would come into the in the bathroom and sit on the toilet and talk to me while I shower and she had a time.
Speaker 3:So I should try to map out that time with each child. Right Give them their quality time. Right, right. Believe it or not, it's so important for them to have their time, because once they have their time then you ain't got to worry about no chaos going on. So when you get ready to snuggle up with your honey bear, All right no interrupting because they already got. They already got their time, you know I think that's how we, we did that.
Speaker 3:And again, when it's when you have a little one, it's different because they're moody and sometimes they might participate. They might be okay to do this, you know, to settle down right and then it's times and they be like oh no, I'm up for the night so y'all get with the program. Right, right, right you know.
Speaker 3:also, when you do that, you know find you a good little babysitter in the community. You know even the Red Cross. You can call them and they have trained babysitters and get you a babysitter and take a walk, walk around the block, hold hands, you know, get in that quality time. It's so important.
Speaker 1:Look at what Ferg says. Ferg says understand that y'all were first, I mean the couple, so you have to lovingly ignore them, kids.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. I agree with that. I agree with that. I tell people all the time like those kids are going to grow up and move on. They're going to have their own family, their own relationship, and what you're going to be doing is sitting down trying to figure out who your husband is and who your wife is Right, right, right I totally agree with that, because sometimes you've got to be like hey, y'all go, sit down, we're going to take a nap.
Speaker 1:You've got to take those naps. We're going to take a nap. You got to take those naps.
Speaker 3:We're going to take a nap.
Speaker 1:You got to take those naps. So yeah, so that's that, so you know again. I think that's good advice. And and the person went on to say what does quality time looks like?
Speaker 3:Oh, quality time can be anything. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, quality time can be anything. Yeah, it could be a Sunday drive, just being in the presence of each other and sharing.
Speaker 1:Right right.
Speaker 3:Maybe, if it's on a Sunday, what I got to do next week. What's coming up at work? You know anything Doing a picnic in the living room. It don't have to be expensive, although we do like to get taken out on dates, but vice versa, because I take Eric on dates as well.
Speaker 1:Yes, she does, yes, she does.
Speaker 3:Oh, you know she treat a man good, you know that time and I think the most important point in quality time is communication okay open and honest and letting a person you know. Let them know how you feel, let them know what's going on in there in your life. You have to realize and I think I've said it so many times before we can't read each other minds right the lord has truly blessed us all with talents, but he did not give that.
Speaker 3:What he didn't do you know that, that that he gave us the choice to make to serve him so he, he's not going to give us that. You know, eric is feeling like this past you know no right right right tell him if you, if we don't share it one another, we don't communicate with one another.
Speaker 3:We don't, we don't know right we just don't know, and I think a lot of marriages um struggle because I don't want to hurt your feelings or I don't want to. You know, I don't. I don't want you to be upset with me if I tell you that I feel this way or you're going to act a certain way if I tell you that I'm feeling like this you know, and and sometimes you do get a little shady. Now, no, I'm not going say that, sometimes be like I can't believe you said that all right, you know.
Speaker 3:And then other times he'll be like he'll shut down on me, so then. So now I'm at this point where, okay, I ain't gonna say nothing, I'm just gonna let the chips fall where they may all right, all right and when they fall where they may, I'd be like didn't I tell you that was going to happen? I knew it, you know, I felt it in my spirit, but I didn't want to say anything because I didn't want the silent treatment. I didn't want the you know the what do they?
Speaker 3:call it Backlash of it. So yeah, so it's important. You know that quality time is so important. So yeah, so it's important. You know that quality time is so important. Even if you can't say everything that you feel, write it down, write a note, write a letter. Do a sticky note, Because your spouse does not know if you don't tell them.
Speaker 1:Right, right, right, another question, okay, um, another question, okay, another. Another question is how to break from routines. How can a married couple break from routines? You know, yeah, I mean you just have to be disciplined to do it and you have to make up your mind that you're going to do it right.
Speaker 1:If you know a routine is you get up in the morning, uh, you do this and you know it's just like. You have a routine. You gotta, the night before you gotta say, okay, when I get up in the morning, I'm not gonna do this, I'm going to break the routine. You know how they used to tell us, um, like when, when are all over the place? They say make sure you know different routes to get home, right, because somebody may be following you. So that means you go different routes to get home.
Speaker 1:So you don't have a routine, because once somebody knows your routine, you get in trouble, right, they know, okay, that person's going to be here, that person's going to be there, that person's going to be there, that person's going to be there, and you, you know they could just follow you by your routine and you don't want nobody to follow you by your routine. In a sense, you do. In a sense you don't. But as a married couple you want to not have a routine that, okay, every day I know they're going to be here at this time or they're going to be there at that time. Sometimes you got to do. You got to have spontaneity, spontaneity in your marriage. That's what you got to have. Without spontaneity in your marriage, it gets dull.
Speaker 3:And boring and boring. You know my girl used to tell us that all the time you don't take the same route, all the time Change it up, do something different.
Speaker 1:She was wise.
Speaker 3:And I was like it's going to take me an extra few minutes to go around the whole route when I can just shoot right through there. But I get it now because you know to make a change, to be spontaneous.
Speaker 1:Right right.
Speaker 3:It's hard, though, when you're working and you got your careers and you got to get up in the morning, walk the dogs, feed the dogs. You know you get complacent Is that the word. And it's hard to break out of that. You know, because you know you got to feed your kids, you got to feed the dog.
Speaker 3:You got to feed the dog, you got to get everything taken care of before you head out the door. So you know, I would say maybe later. I would say, you know, break up the routine like Tuesday, thursday and Saturday.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 3:Something different. Mm-hmm. You know, and then the next week do Monday, wednesday and Friday. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 3:Just to change things up, add something to the routine. You know, I used to Tell me Grace, before I would leave for work I'd wake Eric up and dance with me, like straight up out of his sleep. Like come on, baby. I like this son come dance with me. And he's like half asleep because he didn't work all night. But I just wanted to break, you know, break, break up that whole schedule thing and see how it was gonna turn out.
Speaker 3:Well, I stopped waking him up thank god I did stop waking him up, but just the fact that he was willing to get up, although he had worked, worked on. I had just gotten in about six 30.
Speaker 1:I was just getting up and getting messed up making memories and enjoying time with each other, like you, each reading your own book but in the same room, or listen to some old school, all right. When it comes down to spontaneity and routines, he says switch roles once a week. Wow, kids, be the parents, husband be the wife, and so on, so on that sounds like fun oh man yeah that is fun.
Speaker 3:Can you imagine your kids acting like you? Are you acting like them? Oh boy they'll really feel oh god, I don't want no kids. Y'all just don't listen, you know yeah, yeah, yeah but that is so true.
Speaker 1:I never really thought about being being the husband yeah yeah I think I do pretty good at that you just don't know what people are thinking and what uh is going on in in their lives. You try to have empathy for each other and try to understand. You know what each other go to by switching roles. Yeah, you know, I wish we could switch the roles in the work space as well. But yeah, yeah, that's. That's. That's pretty good. I like that.
Speaker 3:If I did your job, they'll fire me.
Speaker 2:I'm not a computer person at all what you wanted me to attach this to that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was just checking my email, uh-huh but. I can give you six hours with my baby boy.
Speaker 1:Look at here, I don't know about that. You know, I don't like all that crying when I be, when don't cry, they fight I know, but when they?
Speaker 3:At the end of the year, when they start crying. They cry a lot. Yeah. After about two weeks they in there now. They telling you off.
Speaker 1:They telling me off, mm-hmm what they say you.
Speaker 3:Like this little girl here. Like you know, I really feel like she said something to me in Spanish.
Speaker 1:In Spanish, she probably did, she probably did. Well, you'll see her next year, right, I'll see her next year She'll be too.
Speaker 1:Oh man, She'll probably be talking more. You know that she will be talking more. Now it's 12 of y'all watching with us. Please make sure you like and share, Make sure you in the votes. We only got six votes so far, so it should be more voting and more liking, All right, we need to make sure that you are liking, liking, liking, liking and sharing, All right. And yeah, what Ferg said we are not switching roles during childbirth. I hear you, Ferg.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that should be the main one no sir, no sir, we ain't switching roles caring, nor during childbirth, no sir we probably couldn't no, y'all could, we probably couldn't nobody knows oh boy, nobody knows the trouble like a woman. Nobody knows. All right, okay, all right. So let's go, let's get back to some more questions and get some more nice questions all right, here we go, I'm gonna give, you'm ready.
Speaker 1:Okay, you've been answering a lot of them, so you're good, all right. So the question was how has your faith shaped the way you approach marriage and handle conflict? How has your faith shaped the way you approach marriage and handle conflict? How about that one? Hmm, hmm.
Speaker 3:You can paint that one.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, well, I think you know, by my faith of knowing who God is, what he has done for me, right, I can be more forgiving because I know he forgave me right. So my faith really helps that, even in conflict, like when I said, oh, you're wrong about this, you're wrong about that. No, that's not how God does it. Right, god is patient, god is loving, he is kind, Right, he loves us regardless. So, even though I may not like what you did or like what you said, right, I still love you Right.
Speaker 1:And so I think that's why I think my faith has, has prepared me and shaped the way I approach conflict and marriage, because God is so loving, right, and he's forgiving and he's understanding, and so he don't try to push himself on you, he doesn't do all of those kinds of things. He's weights and so, and he really he don't try to push himself on you, he doesn't do all of those kinds of things, he's weights and so, and he really he don't argue with you. You just do what you know, you don't. God ain't got time to be arguing with us.
Speaker 1:He really don't yeah he really don't what you got.
Speaker 3:I think the way faith has shaped our marriage is. You know, I've learned to trust God through everything, mm-hmm, especially the hard times. You know. I have to keep reminding myself that you know, if God has bought us out of so many situations, there's no way. Right. There's no way he's going to let this marriage fail. Right. Even in the midst of our conflict, I have faith that God's going to give one of us a word, or give one of us something encouraging to say to the other. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 3:You know, we don't have a problem apologizing when we're wrong. You know, and I think that's because of the relationship don't have a problem apologizing when we're wrong. You know, and I think that's because of the relationship that we have with Christ and that you know we've built so much over the years that it's, you know, it's really easy. It's easy for me to have faith in God. It hasn't always been that way, but I've seen his hand move so many times in our marriage. Don't forget. You know I was getting ready to pack up. I'm about to bounce.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're about to bounce. You're about to go On the giddy up.
Speaker 3:I'm finna take joy, and then we finna go live in the country until I move to Charleston, because I wasn't going to stay out there too long with that wild life, but you know. I was about to go and you know God just kept reminding me that he's in control of this and what he put together, you know, no man can put asunder. So you know to have faith that things are going to work out in our favor and we wouldn't end up divorced or separated. Right.
Speaker 3:Or you know anything like that. So I think that built my faith and that helped strengthen. I think with the faith it helps strengthen the marriage.
Speaker 1:Right, right, right, you know putting God first. All right, cool, all right. I like that.
Speaker 1:I like that. Yes, you do, you get a hand clap. All right, what? This is a good one here. This is a good question right here.
Speaker 1:What lessons did you learn about love and commitment from the marriages you saw growing up? What lessons did you learn about love and commitment from the marriages that you saw up? I would say this you know, like I said before, a lot of people didn't grow up when they, you know, with marriages. What I saw with my, with my dad and my mom, was that, you know, my dad would always, um, I, I, I'm gonna be honest, I can't, I can't remember the? I. There's times that I would see them pick or kiss, right, I can't remember that, but I knew that he loved, you know, cause my dad was Jamaican and they just had their ways of showing that they love.
Speaker 1:Even though they may not say it, they just believe back. You know back then, that they. You know, if I'm taking care of you, if I'm doing this, I'm doing that. You know that, that. You know that I love you. And one thing that I you know that I did admire about my dad one of the things I did admire about him was that, you know, my mom didn't have to ask for like dresses or something like that. He would just come in and say, hey, go buy your frock you know, right, just go and buy your frock.
Speaker 1:He just saw that and he just saw the need or the want and she didn't have to come out because she was making her own money. But he would say, go ahead and buy your frock. You know, just go ahead, buy your frock. You know, just go ahead.
Speaker 3:You know, buy that stuff, and and now she was a clean woman going to church now, yes, she was, and he and he was clean going to church too.
Speaker 1:So I, you know, that's what I saw in in that, you know, and again, sometimes we see in marriages some things that, um, we want to do better. You know, and I, you know, again, I saw a lot of the marriages because where I was in Pahokee it was a lot of people that was married. You know, I didn't even remember single mothers in Pahokee. I remember married couples, you know, but all of them were older. So you know, that's what I saw. What about you?
Speaker 3:Well, you know, my family didn't have a lot of marriages, so it was really nothing for me to piggyback off of. My mom married my stepdad, but they divorced when I was like 13. Okay, I don't know. I don't remember seeing much affection there. You know, mom cooked, she cleaned, she worked, she took care of the kids Dad he drove trucks, so he would be on the road a lot. Right.
Speaker 3:So I didn't get to see the intimate relationship with them caring for each other. But when he came home, mom made sure he had some food. She made sure his clothes was clean. She did her wifely duties, whatever duties home. Mom made sure he had some food, she made sure his clothes was clean. She did, um, like her wifely duties whatever duties that a wife should be doing, uh-huh. Um, I did have an aunt that that got married and she moved to minnesota. So and for, young people to see married couples.
Speaker 1:If it's in the church or it's outside the church. It's very important that you know they see those couples. All right, all right, all right, cool. Okay.
Speaker 1:We answered some questions tonight. Boy, they coming, they coming. So what has been your biggest challenge in marriage and how did prayer or scripture help you overcome it? What has been your biggest challenge in marriage and how did prayer or scripture help you overcome it? Hmm, what has been your biggest challenge in marriage and how has prayer or scripture helped you overcome it? What is your biggest challenge? The biggest challenge is communication with me. Is that it?
Speaker 3:I think one of my biggest challenges no well I can.
Speaker 3:I mean, I guess I can say sometimes I feel like you don't hear me. Sometimes I feel like don't hear me. Sometimes I feel like like you brush my opinion aside, so I'm reluctant to share certain things with you. However, um, I just pray and I'm like in the past. In the past, when I felt this way, I just prayed about it Lord, what's going on here and I just kind of placed it at the master's feet and I started to see the change. I don't apply scripture to a lot of stuff when it comes down to our relationship, unless we're together studying something biblically. But most of the time when I feel like I'm having an issue, I just take it to the Lord in prayer. Okay.
Speaker 3:Because I don't want to, as my grandmother would say, shoot from the hip. Okay, I don't want to shoot from the hip and then stir up a whole bunch of other stuff that you know cause a whole how would I say a whole flood when it's just a sprinkle?
Speaker 1:Right right, we got King here, we got King out there. Don't worry, we're going to feed you king. You got food, okay, yeah.
Speaker 1:All right, cool, cool. Yeah, I mean, prayer is like you said is. I mean oftentimes you tell, especially you tell people, when you're trying to get something done, when your wife don't see it or when your husband don't see it, you go to God in prayer, you know, and you go to. You know, go to God in prayer and and you know, and, and that's how you do it, because only god can change people, because when you try to change people, it will never work, right, it would never work.
Speaker 1:So you got to make sure you go to god in prayer, right, that's what you want to do, absolutely all right. So that's, if you, if you're having trouble and maybe your spouse is not listening to you or whatever, go to prayer, go and go and say you know I'm going to prayer and you know, I said, you know Lord, just uh, help, help my spouse, listen to me, you know, and and make them understand where I'm coming from. And you know, let let God do his work. Yeah, you know, let God do his work, because the Holy Spirit, man, I'm telling you it will get you. Change things.
Speaker 1:It will change things.
Speaker 3:That's right. I would say, like, if the challenges become abusive, maybe verbally or physically, if it gets to a point where it's definitely, you know, pray for somewhere else to be, I can't push that enough because you know your mental health, your physical health, is so important. It is it's very important and it's no scripture gonna back up.
Speaker 1:It's okay for you to stay if you're not, if you're being abused right right so yeah, prayer prayer, yeah, prayer, yeah, you, you gotta pray, you gotta pray about it and, um, you know, once you, once you pray about it, I think, hey, michelle, hey Michelle, all right, what did you say? She can't wait, what Can't wait for the single stuff? All right, hey, ask the question about the single stuff. We will, we'll, we'll make it happen, we'll make it happen, all right, all right, I know, I know, one question was you know, what was it that you know that made us say that you know it's marriage time instead.
Speaker 1:Of dating time. Why are you laughing?
Speaker 3:Because you didn't date me, we did date.
Speaker 1:Oh, come on. But when it came down to marriage, I just told you, I said, hey, the next time you come out to Quantico we're going to get married.
Speaker 3:I'll hear that proposal Say that again.
Speaker 1:But I had already asked your mom, though. I had already asked your mom and I said the next time you come out, we're going to get married. And what did you say? Okay, okay.
Speaker 3:I should have said well, dang no, ring no. Get down on your knees and say make me the happiest man on this earth and be my wife. None of that.
Speaker 1:That's why, on our 27, on 27, that was it boy, wasn't it? You know, the boy did it.
Speaker 3:No, I ain't saying that, but I think at that point it was more or less. You know, eric and I had done all of the clubbing and hanging out, and you know this, it was time, and I think you know when it's time and I love this story and I use it all the time. You know when it's time and I love the story and I and I use it all the time, you you know, and I am with Jordan. I said to Jordan I was like Jordan, you never date, you never dated anybody else. You don't you sure you don't want to. You're going to college. Right, right.
Speaker 3:A whole bunch of girls out there.
Speaker 1:Right, right.
Speaker 3:Right, you know, jordan, I'm like really trying to boost him out Now that I you know, I'm like, come on, you don't want to marry the first girl you fall in love with. And he say mom, when you know, you know and that's it. And we looking at what? Six years now?
Speaker 1:Yep, shout out to you, I'm a lucky.
Speaker 3:So you know when it's time you can't lean to your own understanding. You definitely want to take that to the Lord in prayer because you don't want to jump out there. There's so many marriages divorce, but they had an extravagant wedding. Yes. Oh, the angels was hanging from the ceiling.
Speaker 1:Oh Jesus.
Speaker 3:And 90 days later they trying to figure out why in the world that we marry each other. So you know me. Go to the courthouse and have a nice backyard barbecue. Go to the courthouse and then later in life, if you want to do, you can do. Yeah, but I think the most important thing is you know date. You have to date. You have to get to know one another. You can't just go off of feeling right.
Speaker 3:Feelings come and go right you know you got to be in your head like this is a person that I'm going to spend the rest of my life with not no, I'm gonna marry him, but my next husband, no, no, no, no, you don't go in it with the second thought yeah you're going with going it with concrete commitment, that's right, loyalty, that's right I'm gonna be loyal to dev.
Speaker 3:Do us part. If he gets sick, I'm gonna bathe him and change his diaper. If she gets sick, I'm gonna bathe her, change you in this thing for the long haul. You have to truly, truly know what you're getting into, because I say it all the time, marriage is not for the week it's not it is not for the week.
Speaker 3:You can you sometimes you give 80, they give 20, sometimes you give, they give 80, you give 20 but that's the balance of it being able to pick up the, pick up the um, like I said, be able to tag him in and say I can't do this no more right, right and he'd be able to tag you in and say I can't't. You know, it's a commitment, it's a unity, and I always say that you have to be willing to sacrifice even when you don't want to. That's right.
Speaker 3:And when you finally get married if you can don't have no kids right away enjoy each other, learn, travel, do some stuff you know. You see, joining them made us wait a whole two years, but I but I respect that because they were learning and growing with each other. Now they're no longer college students and in separate colleges, now they're a married couple together. So they enjoy that time to get to know one another and I'm so looking forward to the rest of their journey yeah, you know, it will first say first says y'all approve that the big and expensive weddings don't guarantee happiness and longevity you better give him a clap, that's right, thank you for, thank you for.
Speaker 1:And then he only says you know him and donna went to the jesters of the peace and lasted a good 32 years yeah, and see, that's what I'm saying, because you, you, your mind was made up that this is what I want right right nothing's gonna sway, nothing's gonna sway me to the left.
Speaker 3:I'm in love with it, you know not, not no I.
Speaker 1:I guess the point we want to say is that we're not saying that you're not supposed to have a wedding. If you want to have a wedding and you can do it, then do it, but again, don't spend $30,000 on a wedding.
Speaker 3:Well, if he's the one, and he's a commitment and a loyalty, well, if you got $30,000 to spend, then that's on you.
Speaker 1:I mean what I'm just saying don't put so much on the wedding, because you still got life. You still got life and you know, don't think marriage is all about the wedding.
Speaker 3:Right, you know Pastor Barr said that so many people focus so much on the wedding they forget about the focus of the marriage. Yeah, they focus on the wedding more than forget about the focus of the marriage.
Speaker 1:Marriage yeah, they focus on the wedding more than the marriage.
Speaker 3:That marriage thing is no joke. Yeah, it's a rollercoaster ride.
Speaker 1:Because it makes no sense to wind up going through life three years, four years and get divorced and say I mean what can you say, okay, you go two years, three years and get divorced and say what can you say, okay, you go two years, three years and get divorced and say, oh, I, but I had a bad wedding, though, but I had a bad wedding. Hey, no, no, no, no. You don't want to be remembered for your wedding, you want to be remembered for your marriage for what people see on the outside.
Speaker 3:you know it's so funny because people will say, oh, my goodness, I want what you guys have, y'all been together forever. But you know what it's been trial and error. It hasn't been perfect and it still ain't perfect.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 3:You know, but it's because we decided that this is what we're going to stick with, that we're going to love one another and we're going to be there for one another, no matter what. That's loyalty, that's commitment, that's unity, that's tag teaming, you know. So I mean hey.
Speaker 1:Hey, that's what you got to do, you know. I mean, you got to you know, you just got to you. Just, man, I'm telling you I love you baby, I really do. Thank you All right? All right, we're getting ready to wrap it up a little bit, cause we do want to talk about that movie. All right, all right. And what ways have you seen God work, through your marriage, to bless others?
Speaker 3:Wow, you know I often say I can't believe. People actually want to hear what my opinion is about certain things.
Speaker 1:Right, right right.
Speaker 3:I'd be like why do they think that what I have to say is important? They think that what I have to say is important. But God showed me the other day. He said you know, the verse that I put in your mouth are not for you. He say you have a I can't remember what exact verse, but he says I draw people to me and people are willing to hear, and so when he's speaking through me, he gives me the verse to say and that's why people think that I have something to say.
Speaker 3:So I see him moving in me, I see him changing me, the patience and understanding and empathy and compassion for people you know, for people, and he says just like you are with those babies, wow, that's the same way you have to be with the ladies. You have to be open, you have to be patient, you have to understand where they're coming from. You know, I guess I shouldn't be slick at the mouth, but yeah, you shouldn't be slick at the mouth but you know, I just want to keep things real with people.
Speaker 3:I don't want them to think that. You know, I don't want to bible beat people, but I also want them to know the lord and and seek him for themselves. Don't take me at my word for it. Get out there and feel it out, feel it, feel him for yourself.
Speaker 1:Right right.
Speaker 3:You know. So I think in that aspect I can see a change in me, um to the point where I'm getting ready to do this podcast and I'm so nervous about yes, yes. But I'm excited about, about, you know, um, um, talking about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let's talk about it late. The women's edition? Yeah, let's talk about it. Let's talk about it. Yeah, it's coming. It's coming this summer. Um, good, gives plug right in the middle. Coming this summer. Let's talk about it with lady p, all right, and uh, we'll be putting out the information of when the date is going to come in. Is it's for? You know she's going to be talking to the ladies, you know, if you have an issue you want to talk about, you know, just send it to her and uh, she's just gonna rather single or married, right? Single married, single married widow divorce, all right?
Speaker 3:we going to talk about everything.
Speaker 1:So you know, I'm looking at June 23rd, looking at June 23rd, we're looking at, we're ready to start at June 23rd, all right. So let's say we're here to support her. She'll be right here on this channel. Mm-hmm. And let's talk about it All, and let's talk about it All right. All right, now we got, we got one more, one more. All right, here we go. If you could give one piece of advice to a newlywed Christian couple, what would it be and why?
Speaker 3:Learn each other. Ok, grow together, grow up together right right, right right up together because we're never finished growing up.
Speaker 3:We learn something new every day and, like I've said in the past, I mean 33 years with eric and I still learn something new about him almost every day. Almost every day I'll be like you know, I didn't know that, you know. So, um, be open, be be willing to learn, be willing to take corrective criticism right. Don't get mad when somebody say you know, why are you wearing them shoes? Why are you wearing them shoes with that? Are you wearing them shoes with that? That don't work.
Speaker 3:Although they're your favorite shoes and you've been dying to wear them. If a person come and they say this, or if they say whenever I come to talk to you, you seem like I'm annoying you. You know. Learn to communicate Date Right. Don't have kids early on. Mm, hmm. At least give yourself a year or two to get to know each other. Okay. If I had to turn back the hand of time, I think I would give myself about five or six years before I start having kids. That long Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:Five or six years. Five or six years, okay.
Speaker 3:That's just my opinion, but of course, with six children now it's kind of late but of course, with six children now right late, but I just see I see so, I see so many marriages so stressed out, because, you know, we just, we just got married, we got to learn to live together, we got to learn to grow together and then, oh no, babe, guess what?
Speaker 3:pregnant yeah now six months in the game. Now it's going full into parenthood, right, right, but the marriage didn't get a chance to really settle before the kid came along right, so I think it's important okay okay, all right yeah, I think.
Speaker 1:I think it's very, very important, you know, to just wait and settle down and get to know each other. Uh, like, like you said, you know we can wait on kids Then then didn't do that. Um, if you have them, you know, we just we talked about them earlier. You know, how does you know? Um, cause, one thing you always say you know, uh, and I think we, we try to make sure your kids are going to get 18 and they're going to leave, they get 19,.
Speaker 1:They're going to leave, they're going to go, but you and your spouse is going to be together and you don't want to be. You don't want to stay together for the kids and you do not want to just put all your energy into the kids, because when they're gone, you don't want to be asking your spouse, hey, what do you like? You know, because you don't spend all your time thinking about the kids and what they do is put all the energy in the kids till you haven't put no energy into your marriage and it's going to be, you know, going 18 years and 19 years without putting energy into your marriage, your marriage, it's not going to be good. It's not going to be good. It's not going to be good. So you know, like, even like Ferg was saying, you know, hey, the kids are going to be, they're going to be all right. You know, like you said earlier, you know the kids are young. Find a good babysitter, you know, and so you can spend some quality time together.
Speaker 3:Let me read you a first. All right. My advice to newlyweds is accept that you made the decision. Now work on making it the right decision. Wow, he is the one, the one I love that need to be on a t-shirt.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he's the one, she's the one.
Speaker 3:I love the part where you know, you, know, you, you, you, except you made the decision. Now work on making the right decision and you know what, when you work on it, it's worth it yeah, when you work on it when you work on it and don't get all fuzzled and be ready to walk away at the drop of a dime anytime something's just not working out in your, in your way.
Speaker 3:But again, if it's any type of physical, mental, verbal abuse, I'm I'm holding it to the fire you got to walk yeah yeah, I tell the ladies at church all the time I say, pastor, come over here with a knot on his head and sunglasses. Y'all know we got. They don't even see me in there. But you know, I'm grateful that I have someone that cherish me. I don't have to deal with something like that. Thank you, lord.
Speaker 1:Please make sure you like and share. Make sure you like and share, I'll make sure you like. You know we had we still got nine votes of people liking or voting, so we want to make sure you like. If you just stop what you're doing now and like this live stream, that's where we can get it out. If you want to do a super chat, as I did, super chat, or a you want to give a donation, you can all those it comes. You know it'll make us so we can have a better studio, better lighting and all that kind of stuff. We want to make sure that a lady P let's talk about it, lady P goes off without a hitch, right, without a hitch All right.
Speaker 1:So you know all of those, so you know all of those. Those funds go to that. And also, you know help with the marriage retreat, you know so, um, yeah, yeah, so, so, please, please, if you want to donate, uh, please do that. Please do that. All right, but we look you got king looking at us like hey, y'all taking too long y'all ain't finished yet.
Speaker 3:Look at him.
Speaker 1:He's like y'all ain't finished yet. I left, I came back, I growled a little bit and y'all still ain't finished. Come on now Right, pass my dinner time, all right, so, hey, so, hey. So we thank God for the questions.
Speaker 3:Yes, thank you. It kind of really made me think. You know, and again, just the way the Lord is using us with the marriage retreat is simply amazing. I never thought that it would grow like it's grown. Right right and I'm happy to be with the couples and I enjoy their company. I wish we could do it for a longer amount of time. Right, right I don't want it to get boring.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we don't want to get on nobody's nerves.
Speaker 3:It's amazing.
Speaker 1:Right, it is amazing. It's a movie that everybody's talking about, I think. I personally think it's one of the better Tyler Perry movies. What is it called? Straw? Straw, it's called Straw. And you know, just watching it today, man, it had me. I don't know about any other guy, you know I let you go with my feelings. I was crying a little bit. I mean, I had tears coming, man, just to see what this lady went through and we were talking about it. To see what this lady went through and we were talking about it. You never know what somebody's going through. Nope, you never know. So you know somebody may snap at you or curse you out or whatever. You don't know what kind of day that they had, and sometimes you just got to say, okay, you must be had a bad day. When you say it in your mind, you must be had a bad day. I'm just going to step off because you never know what somebody is going to do. And he has so, so many subliminal God, I can't say that word, you know messages in it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so many hidden.
Speaker 1:So many hidden messages. You know people that could have watched and said something and help her to avoid what she was getting ready to do. Right, you had the teacher or the principal, whatever that was. I don't want to tell the whole movie, but you, you know, you had all of those things that was going on that could have have, you know, stopped her from even doing what she was getting ready to do.
Speaker 2:And so I I just want to say she watched it last night.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I watched it twice.
Speaker 3:I truly enjoyed it and one of the I was telling Eric I say, eric, you know, something she said on that just really stood out to me. Out of the entire movie, this is what stood out to me the most when she said black women always got something. They got to get over. And I was like huh.
Speaker 3:And then, when I thought about that, is because people expect us to be so strong all the time and and we rise, you know, we rise above some things, but sometimes some people they don't make it to that point. They may snap, snap, they may snap. So we just, you know, I was telling Eric, I said you know, we got to be a little bit more discerned when people are around, and especially people that you know, just kind of notice, you know, we get it. We do have our breaking point. We're going to always be the strong person, and especially when it comes down to single moms raising their kids on their own, I know quite a few. So, yeah, so I was like yeah, I told Eric, I said you ought to watch this movie.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I watched it. And I would go farther and say I know she said black women, but black people period. Because people have been saying for years and years that we should get over slavery. They say it in the church, they say it outside the church. Y'all need to get over slavery. That happened over 400 years ago, that happened this year, that happened two years ago. Y'all need to get over it. You know, y'all keep bringing it up. That's why people right now are trying to change history, because they want us to forget about it and they don't want our children and our grandchildren and our great grandchildren to know about it. So that's why we have, as parents and grandparents, we have to teach our children about what real history is and know that American history is not about black history, but what you got.
Speaker 3:Oh, I got to read these. I mean, ms Shay says it's so many of us single mothers know all too well that struggle. Um, that's so true. Um, and, like I said, you know, she definitely shared it here. Um, and first is, the shame of that movie is that so many women had empathy with her and so many of the so many of them had an absent man in their lives. Men, where are we for our women and our children? You dropped the mic on that, bro. Where where are they? You know? And if she even said something that she said to the lady to the bank, and she said you got to be careful who you have children with, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And the first time I heard that.
Speaker 3:We've been saying that for years. You got to be careful who you choose.
Speaker 1:And the first time I heard somebody told me, a young lady told me that you got to be careful. What did Michelle say?
Speaker 3:I thank God for you and your family when it came to the virus.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we tried to be there for the virus Snickerdoodle, snickerdoodle, but he's going to get you I told him I'll never call him that in public, ever again. Well, you just call him on a podcast on YouTube. They don't know who it is.
Speaker 3:They don't know who it is, but it's so true, you know who it is, but it's so true, you know. It's so many, it's so many women out there and um and single men, not single men taking care of their, their, children too. Now it's not a lot. It's not okay, I'm not. I'm not not saying that there aren't any guys out there that's not doing it in this day and time. It's hard by yourself.
Speaker 1:It's hard when you're by yourself, yeah it's hard because you got social media you got to mess around with, you got you know all of these. You know I mean it is, it is uh tv.
Speaker 1:You got all of that stuff that you got to deal with, that you gotta, you know, watch your kids and make sure they don't go to the wrong site you know they could be watching, and or they they could be watching a cartoon on youtube and then all of a sudden he goes, something that you, that you don't even want to talk to him about yet, but they learning it from a young age, so you know, you gotta thank god let me read this what Malika just wrote.
Speaker 3:I love this. She said there was also a message about women standing with other women and having empathy for each other. Some of her harshest critics were women and they were the landlord, the late girl at the bank, oh man, everybody, that girl at the bank you know, oh man, everybody, that girl at the bank she getting drunk, Because you know hey, all she wanted was $521.
Speaker 1:That's all the boss, man, the boss, you know.
Speaker 3:So yeah, yeah, yeah I think I would have shot him too.
Speaker 1:Remember I told you I I said why don't you get one of that broomstick and beat him? You know that was before. You know, while he was talking to this is what Michelle says she cried many days to Lady P. She was an exception motivator to me to keep me, keep pushing to succeed aww, now stop that.
Speaker 3:Don't get me crying on here get a cry, get a cry. I will take them off.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, yes. Then they come off one time while you're in church.
Speaker 3:I took my seat Hold up. I can't see. You know I do appreciate you as well, michelle. You know you were my go-to. Now you're in Georgia. Now I got to take aia. Now I gotta take a trip.
Speaker 1:I take a trip to make it. It's in making right. Making is a nice place, though I've been there yeah, making is a nice because that's that's on the way to atlanta. Right, making, yeah, making it. I think it's on the way to atlanta. Yeah, I believe. So it's right there off. Uh 75, I believe, I believe you know I'll stop down there. We got to go to go to Atlanta anyway. So when we go to Atlanta, we fly, we will drive.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:All right.
Speaker 3:Oh, thank you I love you.
Speaker 1:Speaking of facts, well, hey, so we're excited, I'm excited about the new podcast. We're going to make sure we blow it up it. You know, do all we can, you know, take some pictures for it, and you know, just make sure you know I'll do that and then you know, but hopefully maybe I'll do a man edition.
Speaker 3:you know where it's, just number me let me get mine going, let me hey we're gonna have both of them going in the summertime.
Speaker 1:We do it in the summertime, you know, I mean especially in the daytime. I could be on, but, yeah, yeah, you know, um, we're looking forward to your podcast. We want to make sure this podcast is on point. So, uh, once you get the notice, make sure you share with your friends, make sure you be live and make sure you go to, uh, apple and all that kind of stuff, because it's going to be there too. So we're excited about it, babe. Yeah, we are. We're going to be excited about it.
Speaker 1:All, right, well, this is season three. This is a wrap up for season three. All right, we did it, baby, we made it through, we made it, we made it through. So you know, I'm excited about that. That. We made it through. Me too. I'm so excited. So we thank our audience, we love you all, we thank you all for supporting us for three seasons and you be with us. You know, online You've been going through the podcast, you've been downloading the podcast, and so we thank you for doing that and loving on us, and we love you all. Yeah, so we want to say goodnight and we'll see you next, season four God bless. God bless.
