April 16, 2024 • 38 mins
Embarking on the journey of dating with an eye towards the altar, we often find ourselves grappling with questions about the future. This episode peels back the layers of such relationships, sharing our own leap from light-hearted dates to planning a lifetime together. We get candid about the complexities of intertwining lives—managing everything from where we lay our heads to how we balance our checkbooks, and yes, the sometimes uncomfortable conversations surrounding intimacy. It'll make you laugh, it might make you cry, but it will definitely give you a dose of reality about laying the groundwork for a marriage that lasts.
Remember when the distance between lovers felt like an insurmountable gap? We do. We'll reminisce about the trials and triumphs that came with living apart before tying the knot. The anecdotes of rented rooms and setting boundaries reveal a tapestry of community support and the power of trust over the common 'try before you buy' mentality. It's a chapter in our story that spotlights how laughter and discipline can forge a bond ready for the happily ever after—and how those sleeping habits as a married couple can become the stuff of comic legend.
We round off this heart-to-heart by contemplating the role of integrity and boundaries, not just in our relationship, but in shaping a legacy. We explore the dance of merging cultures, as a Haitian man and a Midwestern woman share the colorful blend of their worlds. It's about honoring the journey through various seasons with your partner, confirming that they are, indeed, 'the one.' Join us as we weave tales of proposals, engagement rings, and the courage it takes to navigate love across cultural lines, all while keeping an eye on the generational impact of our choices today.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right.
So we've had a lot ofconversations lately.
We talked about how we met thatwhole situation, the first date
, all that stuff we talked aboutwhen we knew we were the ones
for each other, like our lovestory.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Right.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Which you know me, I don't really care for love
stories.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
You, sure don't.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
But we talked about our love story.
But what I want to talk abouttoday is okay, once we knew we
were the ones for each other.
Dating your future spouse I sodating your future spouse I feel
like that's a big one, right?
People ask us all the time Okay, when you guys were dating,
like, did you guys live witheach other?
That's the thing, right,playing house already, calling
each other hubby and wifey,right?
(00:34):
What did you do with money?
Did you pay for all the meals?
Did you pay for all the dates?
You know you start paying forher bill or what you know.
People ask all the time Okay,when it came to intimacy, you
know how they say well, you know, sometimes you want to test the
milk before you buy the cow.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Oh my gosh, I hate that analogy Like why are we?
Speaker 1 (00:50):
cows.
So I feel like we should have aconversation about this and
talk about this.
Let's do it what.
Let's dig.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Let's dig.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
All right.
So hearing all that, how does?
Speaker 2 (01:00):
it is.
I think it's a really valuableconversation to have about
knowing the difference, causethere's dating to feel something
out and to see does this havepotential?
Is this someone that I want tospend the rest of my life with?
But dating someone alreadyknowing, you guys have gotten to
a certain point in yourrelationship where you've agreed
that like, yes, this has future, this has longevity.
(01:24):
We are building something hereand now, how do we follow like
the lines, how do we move slowenough, like for me, I was ready
to marry you.
Like the next day I am just alovesick puppy and I'm like yep,
okay, let's do it all tomorrow.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
We're not going to talk about the conversation that
we had before we we startedrecording today no, we're not
because y'all I asked dan andlee.
Oh, my word for the head countof all the guys that she's
kissed specifically to clarifyjust kissed, that's it yeah,
that's the only part that I'mserial at and that's it.
(02:01):
We're not gonna go.
I'm not going to talk aboutanything else, but let's just
say my girl she I am loving.
She's a lover.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
I'm a lover.
So once we got to a point I waslike, yeah, marry me tomorrow.
Like let's do it, I just need adress.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
I mean you guys remember I talked about the
story in what, the last episodeor maybe the one before that.
If you guys haven't caught upon episodes, go back and watch
our story.
You yawning right now.
I did, I was trying to yawn, ohmy gosh, why are you always
yawning in front of people?
Speaker 2 (02:27):
I was trying to hide it.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
You called me out, so we talked about this on our
last two episodes, our story andhow we met, and all that stuff.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
part one, part two and that homegirl me that I'm
going to have to marry you.
So then we started dating.
I fell in love with you.
I'm ready to marry you.
You're ready to marry.
But I was really like now fastforward, however many years.
(02:56):
I'm so grateful that yourstability to slow us down and
that we built so many layers toour relationship and that we can
clearly go back and have aconversation about specifically
our dating stage, specificallyour engagement stage and then
(03:17):
specifically our marriage, likewe built it slowly so that we
had a stronger foundation.
Of course, y'all know we had tostart over and we dug up
everything after 10 years ofmarriage, but there is something
to be said of like dating inphases.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Yeah, I think it's.
It's a very unique thing.
And, first of all, you saidstability.
I wasn't stable back then.
If you're trying to, if peoplehear stable, it's like, oh my
gosh, he must've had a good joband had his head on his
shoulders.
I just had my head on myshoulders.
That's what you meant by stupid.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
You had a good job, babe.
I mean, it was ministry, youknow we ministry.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
You know how that goes.
I mean, the money wasn'tflowing, but you had a good
jobacy to dating your spouse.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
Yeah, like the one that you know is going to be
your spouse.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
Yeah, we're not talking about dating around,
right.
We're not talking about thedating game.
We're not talking about, likemusical chairs, like let me go
out on a date with this person.
Like there's a season for that.
There's a phase for that, whichyou haven't heard.
Our last conversation we talkedabout that when you're dating
around looking for the rightperson.
But this chat is really whenyou've identified this is the
(04:27):
person for you.
Like you were my person, right,I knew you were the one.
Even though we were longdistance at the time, we knew
that we were going to be theones with each other.
There's still the dating phase.
For that.
I feel like we got it.
I feel like we went throughsome seasons, which was helpful.
Oh, there's a fly in the room,it's going to drive me crazy.
I feel like we went through aseason where we slowly went
(04:49):
through each process, right,some people ask okay, you just
start dating and the person thatyou want to be with you're
going to marry them.
Like how many years should youdate?
Like that's subjective, that'ssubjective, I think it's.
How many seasons should you gothrough before you know?
Like, okay, we've gone throughsome stuff.
We've had some toughconversations, right, we've
talked about money, right, let'stalk about money for a moment.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Okay, so once we started dating, I mean neither
of us were making a lot of money.
I was an assistant as ahairstylist which honestly I
really need to call the guy thatI was assistant to.
I've been thinking about him somuch lately, so, anyways,
that's a sidebar.
But so I was an assistant in ahair salon.
I wasn't making enough money.
You were in ministry.
(05:31):
You for sure weren't makingenough money at 19.
But so, like, as we starteddating and we'd always go out to
eat, we would go to movies allthe time, like that's just what
you do when you're dating, likeyou're just spending all your
time together, which usuallymeant you're spending a lot of
money.
And so we ended up kind of likesplitting it Right, like
(05:51):
eventually we would just go downthe middle.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
That was an agreement that we had.
We.
We did that, we didn't.
It wasn't like oh Pierre,you're the man you should buy
every meal.
Wait, what Like?
How do I know I'm not going tomarry some girl that don't know
how to take care of herself too?
Can you pay your own bills?
I want to know are you going tobe a contributing member?
Speaker 2 (06:08):
of this relationship, right?
So yes, it wasn't fair to thinkthat, like you'd pay for
everything, I'm like yo, we'reyoung, Like this is.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
I'm not even making good money.
You weren't making good moneyat the time.
We were just dating and we knewwe wanted to be with each other
and we knew each other's goalsand dreams.
Again, we talked about this inthe last episode about, okay,
the levels of actually sharingyour goals and dreams, because
you don't want to put yourselfout there.
But once we've identified once.
I've identified and know that,okay, you're the one that it
unlocks new levels to ourrelationship.
(06:38):
I feel like so many people likeliterally put themselves out
there on the first, second orthird date, Right.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Where they just I'm like too fast Like man.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
I didn't need.
I did not need to know aboutevery single freckle on your
body.
I did not need to know about,yeah, my, my wrist makes this
weird pop.
I'm like okay.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
No, but like going back to keeping the money, like
sharing the expenses.
But we also in that moment,though in that season, we still
had our money separated.
So I think that's a very likeimportant thing of like we
didn't put our money alltogether, but we split bills.
When we'd go out to eat, if youwere short, like I'd give you
(07:16):
some, or if you like, if I wasshort, you'd be like, no, babe,
I got it this time, like.
So it was kind of like sharingmoney, but we did not put the
money together, we did not havea joint account.
So we got married, like thatwas an official thing when we
got married.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
And we talked about it too.
We talked about okay, whatwould it look like when it's
time for us to even merge ourmoney and our income together?
Like, I feel like there needsto be a process, and that's what
we did.
There was a time where weslowly started talking about
okay, how much money do you make?
Speaker 2 (07:48):
Right.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
And we didn't need to talk about that at the
beginning.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
We didn't have to talk about it.
No, that was closer to likewhen we were getting engaged.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
And why did we not have to talk about it at the
beginning?
Because when we went on dates,when we did events, things like
that, that already gave us apulse on whether the other
person was doing wellfinancially.
Right, right, we can tell.
Right, we can tell.
Like, if someone had a car noteand paying their own car note,
you were paying your car paymentat the time.
So that says something aboutyou.
Right, right, that sayssomething about you.
(08:14):
But you didn't have to pay foryour phone bill because you was
on a package playing with yourfamily.
Right, right, I was paying formy phone bill.
Right, I was paying for my owncar insurance, even though my
car was paid off.
That says something about methat, okay, you can pay bills.
Right.
Then we slowly started talkingabout okay, debt yeah we started
talking about okay, is thereany debt?
is there anything true?
(08:34):
That that you're?
We didn't share the numbers atthe top.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
It was just starting to slowly a little bit yeah talk
about it here and there it wasa very, very gradual
conversation.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
It was a gradual and as we got closer when you pop
and we didn't really finallytalk about, like all things,
money until we were gettingclose to that.
Yo, we're going to get married.
Pop the question.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Right, like in that season?
Yeah, because then you have toknow what could we even afford
when we move in together andlike, what would finances look
like for getting married?
Speaker 1 (09:05):
Yeah, and I feel like some people always have these
mindsets of this is what weshould do with my, our money,
cause this is how someone elsedid it.
It's how other people do it.
It's going to be different forevery single.
It's going to be different forevery single couple.
I just feel like for us, whatworked was us gradually talking
about it.
There was no surprises.
So by the time we were married,there was no financial
(09:26):
surprises.
Right, there wasn't like.
Oh, by the way, you have$10,000 in debt.
Yeah, and actually I'm wanted inthree states, right, I die.
Because, yes, and there's areason why my other name is
Ignacio, Because long storyshort is the money situation.
(09:48):
Had to move things around.
Yo, there's some people thatliterally legit marry con men.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
That is true, and that is the scariest thing.
That's terrifying.
Straight up, marry con men.
Straight up, marry con men.
Okay, so that was our moneysituation while we were dating.
Um, we also.
I moved from Indiana to Floridaand I did not move in with you.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
So yeah, that's one of the hot questions people ask
when you guys were dating, didyou guys live with each other?
And the solid question umanswer to that is no, Nope, we
did not live with each other.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
I rented a room from someone that was less than a
pleasant experience for me.
It was very challenging.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
It was pretty raggedy .
Speaker 2 (10:30):
It was hard.
Yeah, I got locked in the roomfrom the outside, so someone had
to come in and let me out.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
Yeah, that's right.
Someone had to come in and letme out.
Yeah, that's right, because Italked about it one time in one
of my sermons of like you renteda room from a lady.
She had like a 12-year-old son.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Yeah, I had to share a bathroom with her son.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
So you had to share that bathroom with this kid
who's discovering himself, whichyou can.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
And she wanted me to clean the bathroom.
That's crazy and she wascharging me a lot for that room
I was like I cannot pay them andthe doorknob was broken.
Doorknob was broken, so I'mtrying to get change, while 12
year olds in the hallway.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
So she closed the door so her doorknob is broken
and she calling me, like I'msupposed to be, the knight in
shining armor, prince, likebecause I got locked in my tower
yeah, like you got locked intown.
Are you cinderella or the orthe?
Speaker 2 (11:17):
girl from shrek sh Shrek, I'm not an ogre, it's
Rapunzel's lockup.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
She wasn't an ogre during daytime, though she was
only an ogre at night.
Well, Cinderella?
Speaker 2 (11:31):
Yeah, I'm Cinderella, for sure.
Ask my family about it.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
Yeah, I had a debate Should I go get her or not?
Speaker 2 (11:37):
So I rented a room and it was really hard.
I had a lot of I kept like foodin my car because I didn't want
to go to the place you stillkeep food in your car, but go
ahead that's true.
I cried every night when Iwould leave you like to go back
to my place.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
It was really hard danley lived in um this spare
bedroom.
It was a tough situation, butwe made a commitment to each
other yeah that we would notlive with each other.
And here's the cool thing aboutthat type of commitment is,
when you live in a community andyou live with people that hold
you accountable, then they'reable to hold you to it.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Yeah, because the crazy thing is your parents
actually had room for me.
Yeah, because your sister'sroom was open.
I very easily, with allunderstanding, could have saved,
however, hundreds of dollars.
I was paying for that rent.
I think it was like $3.50.
That's a lot when you're making$8 an hour.
I could have saved a lot ofmoney and everyone would have
(12:33):
understood why I would havemoved in with you.
It was just really a core valueof ours of like.
No, we know what happens withthat.
It's a slippery slope.
It would be way too comfortable.
Like.
We just really valued theaspect of like not living
together before we got married.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
I think there are some lines that shouldn't be
crossed that can potentially seta marriage up for success.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
Right.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
And that's what we did when we set those boundaries
of like yeah, because you'reright, my parents had two spare
bedrooms.
You could have lived with usand we would have called it a
day, but what happens there is,you get comfortable.
The bar starts to drop and itdoesn't set us up for success,
it prolongs the whole process.
Then we're like yo we might aswell not get married and live
with each other.
(13:18):
And once you start living witheach other, then we start
sleeping in the same beds, whichwe did not do, nope, but then
you start sleeping in the samebed.
You already know what happensin a bed.
Only two things happen in a bed,and they both start with an S,
one of them is sleep, and theother one I'm not going to say
it because YouTube— YouTube'sgoing to flag us right.
So the only two things happened.
So we made sure that you didn'tstay with me my family because
(13:41):
I was living with my mom at thetime.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Yep, and then if there I feel like there was one
or two nights I might havestayed because of.
I remember one.
There was like a hurricane, butit was like a level one.
It ended up being tropicalstorm, but I slept in your
sister's room and you slept inyours exactly so we.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
I think setting up those lines and those boundaries
really set us up for success.
I think what it does also toy'all it sets you up where you
have something to look forwardto.
For sure.
You know the old saying wherepeople say you know, right the
whole, test the milk out beforeyou buy the cow.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
Again, I don't know why we're cows.
That's a why To me.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
I feel like when that is used towards marriage or
used towards relationships orS-E-X right used towards that, I
think it's someone that'safraid of commitment that made
up a phrase like that or uses aphrase like that in regards to
relationships, because to me,it's a commitment, it's a choice
right At the end of the day,like, okay, I don't know if
(14:39):
you're going to be a wildsleeper or not, I don't know if
you're going to sleep with yourmouth open in my face every
single time, or I don't know ifyou're going to jump when you
fall asleep every night, or youdidn't know that I like to sleep
in the middle of the bed.
I only sleep in the middle ofthe bed.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
And he does.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
Just to clarify jump as he falls asleep.
Yes, he's one of those jumpers.
That's fine.
It's fine.
It's keeping everybody on guard.
Let me take a let's.
I want to take a moment rightnow and say shout out to
everybody who's joining us onyoutube hey um if you would not
mind, just hit that like button.
Listen, you don't have to hitsubscribe yet.
I get it.
You're still dating us.
You're still feeling figuringit out, trying to figure out
(15:15):
like if we like these people ornot.
That dude, he seems really Her,she seems really weird and all
that stuff.
Whatever, chill, relax.
But if you're liking this video, just hit like.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
It's for free, just like it.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
It's for free, it helps us, it helps YouTube say
like okay, people like thisvideo, let's send it to other
people who like the video aswell.
If you're listening on ApplePodcasts, spotify, those are the
other two big ones I want toencourage you like, if you
wouldn't mind, same thing.
Maybe, hit a review.
Yeah, just hit five star.
Or just tell us how you reallyfeel.
(15:46):
Yeah.
If you feel like it's all right, it's a 3.5, that's fine, leave
it a 3.5.
You don't need to lie to us,like.
Don't lie to us.
Tell yourself the truth, allright.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
So let's keep moving.
Okay, so we talked about that.
So we basically we didn't playhouse.
Yep, we did not live together.
Uh, even though that was a hugesacrifice, it was hard, it was
hard and how do we do that again, like when you're part of a
community, that holds youaccountable.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
So we were part of a church, right, I stayed with my
parents, which that was helpfultoo as well, cause if I had my
own place, right, that wouldhave pushed it up, but I knew we
were working towards thatbecause, again, it gives us
something to look forward to.
Yeah, so you staying on yourown, I stay with my parents
because I was in an area.
Yeah, it held us accountable,so that we didn't have to play
house and hold on.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
We cannot even touch this conversation without saying
that I did live in an rvtrailer in someone's backyard
for over a year.
Y'allall, I had an airplanetoilet.
I had a water heater that youhad to turn on the switch and it
had to be warmed up for eighthours or else you would not have
warm water for a shower.
I could not blow dry my hair,and y'all know I'm a hairstylist
(16:53):
so I could not blow dry my hairin my little RV so, and it had
bugs because it was parked inthe grass and it was Florida,
there's bugs everywhere and youwere messy.
That was not why I had bugsRelax.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
It's okay, it's fine Chill.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Relax.
Anyways, stop saying relax andchill.
You say that all the time.
Yo, you were messy.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
Bugs didn't just come for fun.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
No, anyways, I'm not talking to you, I'm going to
talk to them.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
You're going to talk.
Okay, go ahead.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
I'm just going to talk to them instead.
Anyways, what I was saying waswe cannot touch the subject
without talking about that.
Although that place was a hugeblessing and it was an answer to
prayer, it was still achallenge, and so I didn't want
us to jump over that.
So we made the sacrifice forthree years two and a half years
of me living in Florida.
That like I lived in it wasn'tthat long.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
We moved down in 08.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
We were married Fall of 08.
So, like a year and a half, Ipopped the question like summer
of 09 and we got married spring2010.
You and these dates, youremember every date you in this
yawning.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
right now I need an energy drink y'all.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Where's the Celsius?
Speaker 1 (18:02):
We didn't have any, and she's straight up just
yawning the whole time.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
It's because I'm just so chill with them.
That's why.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
So we set up strong boundaries, and what I love
about that, too, is it showed methat we were able to commit in
that season.
Yeah Right, committing to notlive with each other is learning
to make strong commitments.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
True.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
Right.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
Yeah.
And things that commit tothings that are inconvenient and
challenges, yeah, like hardthings.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
Yeah, even when it comes to even levels of intimacy
.
Right, that's a challenge wherea lot of people have when it
comes to relationships, becausethey're like, oh man, I just
can't help it.
Oh man, or God got to get some,or girl just needs what she
wants.
But for us, it was a decisionthat we made, we wanted to
commit.
We drew some solid lines thatwe are not going to cross the
(18:51):
line.
We're not going to cross thatline.
We're not going to.
What are our limits?
Here's what we're not.
We're not going to do it rightnow.
Are we perfect?
Were we perfect?
No we messed up there's a fewtimes we went a little too far.
Sometimes we're like dang, okay, let's not do that again.
Yeah, right, but what I'msaying and some people are
saying like why don't they saywe can't say it because I feel
like YouTube's going to flag usand be like oh, they said those
(19:12):
words Right.
What I'm saying is we set upsome hard lines and we were like
okay, we're not going to do X,y and Z or S.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
E and.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
F Bingo yeah, and that was strong for us, and what
felt the best, too, was ourcommitment to our future.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
Yeah, it was really important to us.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
That was so important to us and we knew like carrying
the weight.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
like you were already in full-time ministry.
We knew where we were headed inthe future.
Like we knew that we'd have ourkids look to us to know like
how well did you do that, momand dad?
How did you carry yourselves?
How did you guys date?
Like we were having aconversation before we started
today about imagining ourfour-year-old Brooklyn as a, as
(19:59):
a teenager, about imagining ourfour-year-old Brooklyn as a
teenager.
So we knew that the decisionswe were making in our dating
days were going to impact ourchildren that we had in the
future.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
And that's why it was actually easier to not cross
some lines.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
Because I thought, man, what type of story do we
want to tell people in 20 years?
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
What type of story do we want to tell our kids in 10
years?
Speaker 2 (20:20):
And I think of even all the teenagers that like, or
you know, younger kids that havebeen around us in the last few
years, that we've been able tospeak into and encourage, and
knowing that we have these,these testimonies, to be like,
yeah, no, we didn't, we didn'tbudge that line.
We held it, we weren't perfect,cause I think that's where
(20:41):
church culture has gotten itreally wrong, where they they
pretend like they had it perfectand they tell you what to do
but they didn't tell how you,how you messed up, like.
I want to change that for us oflike.
Here's what we did.
We did not hold the lineperfectly, but we tried our
hardest, like we could say, witheverything inside, we did the
best that we could and when wemessed up, we repented and like
(21:04):
tried again and like we knowthat we can hold our head high
saying we honored the Lord whenwe were dating because we knew
we were each other's spouses inthe future.
It made it that much harder,but we worked that much harder
because we knew it would beworth it.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
Yeah, and also, too, for those of you that every time
you hear Danley say the Lord,we're talking about God like
he's our Lord, he's our savior,we believe in Jesus.
And so, because we say thatquite a bit, you'll hear us say
the Lord, it's.
Ultimately it's God, he's thefather, he's the creator, he's
the one that we believe in.
He's, and we don't live forourselves, we live for the Lord,
(21:39):
we live for God.
We gave our life to Christ atyoung ages and every single day
we take opportunities torecommit ourselves to him,
because we live in a fallenworld, we live in a jacked up
world, and we know that we can'tmake this life without our
savior, which is Christ.
And so, speaking of which, Iremember a story where one time,
(22:00):
when we're dating, right, weknew we wanted to be with each
other.
It was official and we were atchurch and somebody came to me
and said, hey, yo P, wifey'scalling you.
So apparently Danley wassummoning me, or she was calling
for me, and she told someone tocome find me, to go get me.
So the person comes to me andsay yo P.
(22:20):
I remember the person too.
He said, yo, wife, he's callingme, calling you.
And I look back at the guy andI said she's not my wife.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
And the guy was like oh, and other people around was
like oh snap, we're going to gotell Danny Lee that you said
that she's not.
She's not your wife.
And I paused.
I said guys, guys, guys, guys,chill, relax, Let me explain.
I said I cannot wait for her tobe my wife one day.
I cannot wait to hold her hand.
(22:52):
I cannot wait to put a ring onher finger.
I cannot wait for her to be themother of my children.
I cannot wait to sit therebefore the Lord and commit
myself to her.
But I said, as of right now,she's my girlfriend and I'm not
going to play house, I'm notgoing to defile that title, I'm
(23:13):
not going to throw around thatname and I'm not going to lower
the bar just because I want herto be my wife.
Listen, I don't know.
She could be crazy, she couldbe a cereal fill in the blank, I
don't know.
So in the meantime, I'm stilltesting this out to see.
I want her to be my wife andthat's what I felt like that
time was like people just think,oh, because you're dating the
(23:36):
person that's going to be yourfuture spouse, and that is
serious.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
They just assume it.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
That yo, I know guys.
I'm thinking of a couple rightnow that got married and was
married for a few years and whenthey finally threw in the towel
and they finally hit the word Ddivorce, I remember talking to
the guy and he said, man, Iactually never wanted to marry
her.
He said I just went in too deep,too far.
(24:02):
Everyone around me pictured ustogether.
Everyone loved us together.
We were the perfect couple.
We looked really good together.
And he said I just and he waslike I was just a coward and I
went all the way- through withit.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
So when I hear those type of stories.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
I'm like yo, thank God that we did not buy into
that stuff For sure.
And people are like, oh, youguys make the perfect couple,
you guys going to make somebeautiful looking zebra, a swirl
babies.
And I was like, uh-uh, thatstuff don't matter right now.
Right now she's my girlfriend,and one day she'll be my fiance,
and one day she'll be my wife,One day she'll be my baby mama,
(24:39):
all the above.
So I felt like speaking of God,we honored that union between a
husband and a wife and we didnot abuse it, we did not throw
it around, we did not make itcommon because I'd be like I
believe that it's a covenantthat men and women make between
God.
It's one of the firstrelationships that we see that
God created in the Bible.
He created a man and he gavehim right the wife.
(25:02):
He gave him Eve.
So I'm like yo, this is veryimportant for us.
So I'm not going to throwaround this and be like yo,
she's my wifey, Is she?
No, she's not, but one day shewill be.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
The other thing, too, was as we were building our
life slowly together, so therewere layers of how we were
building our life together.
Right, the money wasn'ttogether yet, we weren't living
together yet, and so while wewere dating, we were very
intentional with our friendshipsas well, like making sure that
(25:34):
I went out with the girls,sometimes from work, or you went
and hung out with the guys andeven though that was hard
sometimes, I mean, imagine Imoved to this town.
I don't really know anybody butyour- people.
So when it was time for you tohave guys night or whatever, I'm
like what am I supposed to do?
Speaker 1 (25:55):
In the meantime, let me say your sa passe to all my
Haitian people out there.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
You know I love you, that's my people for real.
Okay, I'm sorry, anyways.
So, but I at first, a few timesI was kind of like, well, if
you're going to do somethingwith the guys, what am I
supposed to do?
But then realizing like, ohwait, I have to make my own
friends and be intentional withthe girls I worked with and
build my own friends at thechurch and stuff like that.
So then I started eventuallyhaving girls night and I was
(26:21):
like, okay, bye, see you.
Like being intentional of likeit's not just us all the time we
were in group settings I was ingirl settings, you were in guy
settings we had like a goodbalance.
Were we together a lot, ofcourse, but we were working
separate jobs, we had separatefriends and we were together a
(26:44):
lot building a relationship, andI think that was really
important to keep that balanceand so that we had friends that
would encourage us, or we hadfriends that would give us great
advice or like so into us andencourage us.
We even had your mentor, likeyou'd hang out with him
sometimes at work so that hecould speak into you as you
became a husband.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
And here we are, 15, 14, 16 years later, and we can
still see the fruits of having awell-balanced life when it
comes to relationships withothers.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
For sure, because now we're still that in our
marriage.
I still have girls' nights.
You still go out with the guys.
We still have friendshipsoutside of our marriage, yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
Oftentimes we've seen it then Right, we lost friends
actually around that time,because there are other people
that were dating around thattime and they literally dumped
us for each other.
Right.
So now they're all bythemselves and we're over here
like yo.
This is crazy, bro.
And then somebody goes out oftown or someone's go see their
parents and now all of a suddendude is hitting us up Yo, y'all
(27:55):
want to hang out.
I'm like yo.
We've been hanging out.
I'm married too.
It's making time for others andfor us.
When you came down and we weredating each other, dating our
future spouses, and our twoworlds collided.
We figured out how do we mergethem together.
I didn't lose myself in you.
You didn't lose yourself in me.
You still kept your friends.
(28:17):
I still kept my friends.
Now we are very intentionalabout the people that was around
us, because I also knew thatboth sides we had people that in
our lives that wereanti-relationships too.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
True, that's so true, like you got to be careful how
many single friends you gotaround you.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
Facts, Yo.
You cannot be married.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
going through some marriage issues and going to
someone with marriage issues orsomeone who can't even keep a
spouse, or someone who alreadyjust got divorced, because
they're going to take you downthe same road.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
Exactly, and so when we were dating each other and we
knew we wanted to get married,we were very intentional about
the people that we let speakinto our lives.
True, that's wild.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
That is wild and, to be clear, you didn't have no
friends that were girls that youwere hanging out with and I
didn't have no guys that I wasfriends that I was hanging out
with, just to put it out there.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
Because a lot of people will debate that of like,
can a guy have a friend that'sa girl and can a girl have a guy
that's a friend and likeoutside of their relationship?
Yeah, it's weird, not unlessshe is super close with your
girl.
And even then you still gottabe intentional because you got
these girls that are stillhomewreckers.
We've had some of them pop uphere and there and try to and
try to trick us and try tohomewreck, and I was very
intentional.
I mean, you remember that onegirl, that one time Yep, I had
to pray that girl away.
I was like man, god, this don'tfeel right.
(29:37):
And you know what, as a guy,I'm like man.
Again, the intention, theattention that we get from
multiple girls right, it goes toour head, it's flattering, but
it's destruction.
And so I was very intentional.
I was like man, I care so muchfor my relationship with my wife
man, even my ex-girlfriend man.
She called me trying to figureout like, hey, so Should I wait
for you?
Should I wait for you, we're notgoing to talk about that.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
That's not.
We're not going to go there I'mlike.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
No, I am Remember.
Before we got married I toldyou I met up with her.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
Yep, and you asked me and you told me when you were
going.
You called me on the way there.
You called me when you left.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
You knew all about it .
I was like yo, I'm going totell her like yo like.
Because the thing is people arethinking like wait, why are you
talking to your ex-girlfriend?
Long story short, she was stillaround, actually.
She actually was going to ourchurch.
She was actually part of ourcommunity, so that's why.
(30:37):
So sometimes it gets awkwardbecause I'm dating Dan and Lee
now who Dan and Lee comes downto my circle and my community,
but my ex-girlfriend was stillaround.
So there was still a lot ofweirdness and I knew, again,
it's what we're talking about.
When you're dating your futurespouse, there's some things
you're going to have to clean up, some conversations you're
gonna have to have, and some ofthem are uncomfortable.
So this was all part of theprocess.
I didn't have this conversationwith my ex-girlfriend early on
(30:57):
in our dating phase.
It was when we're leading up toengagement.
Yeah, and I'm like yo, Ialready have a ring yeah it's on
layaway lay for those all thegen z's.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
Gen z's are Gen Zers are like what Lay away.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
Lay away Like after pay, but through the store Lay
away was a thing that oldergenerations used to do, because
there was a common respect, amutual respect for each other,
that when you said you was goingto come back and pick it up
because you had the money, youwas going to do it, you actually
did it.
Nowadays, lay away is part oftheft, so they don't do it
(31:32):
anymore.
Layaway was a thing where youcould come in and out of respect
.
My word is my bond.
I say yo, I'm going to put $50down or, in this case, I'm going
to put $100 down on this ringand give me 90 days to pay it
off.
I'll be back and you would chipaway and you would make
payments.
This was way before creditrepair and anything it off.
I'll be back and you would chipaway and you would make
payments.
This was way before creditrepair and anything like that.
(31:54):
You just come in.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
Shout out to you, babe, because that meant a lot
to me too, of you being able toshow like financial
responsibility, commitment andto give me a ring, because we
went we were in Bible college.
Ring by Spring was a bigprogram that a lot of people
were jumping into, but they werejumping into it with like a
gold band.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
Well, so I should probably confess right now over
YouTube.
Actually, my ex-girlfriend'sdad helped me pay for your ring.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
Did you I'm playing my face just went completely.
I was like what did you justsay to me?
Speaker 1 (32:31):
That was a joke, right yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
Dear Lord have mercy?
Speaker 1 (32:36):
That would be crazy.
That was not a funny joke.
You didn't laugh.
People are laughing.
I hope they're laughing.
Someone is laughing somewhereright now.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
My face was.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
I literally was like processing the information that
you just threw at me.
Someone is listening to this onthe treadmill and they had to
step off because they just peedtheir pants Laughing so hard.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
All right, Anyways, okay, so.
I just want to say like that waspart of it, though.
Like so, men, if y'all lookingfor a ring, just know that it
shows it doesn't have to be ahuge rock, but like it shows
your responsibility, yourcommitment to your girl.
It shows financialresponsibility, your commitment
to your girl.
It shows financialresponsibility Like it says a
lot about you.
And it also said to me thatlike okay, he can take care of
(33:17):
me.
And it wasn't a three caratring, like it's beautiful and I
love it so much, but like so itdoesn't have to be massive, but
it does have to showintentionality.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
Yeah, so we started merging our worlds together,
having tough conversations as wegot closer and closer to the
date when we started to pop thequestion, which I yeah, hey.
So you guys that know me knowthat I like to just kid around,
so I knew Dan Lee was the one,so I would pop the question a
few times.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
Oh my gosh, he was so mean.
Speaker 1 (33:50):
Yeah, I would once in a while.
You know, there's this one timeI'll never forget where it was
after church and I'm outsidewith all the youth people, I'm
hanging out with all of them and, um, I'm like everyone knew
that I was going to pop thequestion any day.
Speaker 2 (34:04):
Now it was pretty soon, like we were talking about
it, people knew that I had aring, all that stuff get I get
everybody's attention.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
I'm like yo everybody , I need everybody's attention.
Yo yo, yo, yo yo.
So now I get everybody'sattention.
I get down on one knee in frontof danny lee and everyone's
like oh my gosh, all the girlsstart screaming.
They're like so I go down to dothe classic tie your shoes and
I look up I'm like what's what'severybody?
Why is everybody?
What's all the fuss about?
oh, you are the worst there's afew other times that I did too
um but that was the worst onebecause that was in front of
(34:40):
like 50 teenagers yeah, that'scrazy that was crazy, that's
crazy that I still said yeslater on.
Well, and I think we can dothis because we knew we were the
ones for each other at thisseason.
True I think we went throughthat, we're at the next window.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
Yeah of like, oh yo, we're getting married yeah, we
knew, but we had ring shopped bythat time like you had a ring.
I didn't know you had a ring,but we had went ring shopping
yeah, and this is what we'retalking about y'all.
Speaker 1 (35:06):
This is the purpose of this episode or this
conversation is really to letyou guys into what we did when
we were just dating each other,dating our future spouses.
There's still some seasons yougot to go through.
There's some gradual steps youhave to take going into the next
season, but going through someseasons really will determine if
this person really is so truethat one and we did those
(35:29):
seasons will expose some things,yeah man?
Yeah, and I think I think too.
Lastly, I would say, whenyou're dating your future spouse
, something that we just been,we've been learning over the
last couple of years, is reallyunderstanding cultural
differences, and how does thatmerge?
(35:50):
Look like Right and the ismsand all the stuff that was put
on me growing up, that I didn'tknow until it comes out and also
put on you, you know, and theobvious thing for us is we're
very two different people.
Right, I'm this young Haitiandude from South Florida, raised
in a Haitian community, right,straight up Haitian community,
(36:12):
where you were this young whitegirl from the Midwest middle of
America, straight middle.
Kokomo, indiana, k-town, whereyou didn't even know.
You didn't know anything aboutHaitians.
You've heard of Haiti.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
What's that mean?
Speaker 1 (36:25):
But to connect the two.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
Yeah, I didn't know.
Speaker 1 (36:27):
Yeah, but I'm a Haitian man.
What's that mean Exactly?
And so you've even had sometough conversations with your
mom before you even moved downto Florida, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
So we're going to do an episode just on that one on
just on dating someone outsideof your culture, Because I think
we have a lot that we couldspeak into that.
And yeah, that conversationwith my mom was super impactful.
I actually just thanked her forit.
When we saw her last month Iwas like man, that conversation,
mom, it really stuck with me.
(37:00):
And it's 17 years later and Istill am grateful for that
conversation.
I still think about it.
So we're going to save that onefor an episode.
It'll be good.
Speaker 1 (37:08):
That's crazy.
That's crazy.
I hope you guys enjoyed thisconversation that we had.
These are real conversations,by the way.
This is not just us like saying, oh, what can we come up with.
These are real stories, and ourgoal was really to let you guys
into our personal chats, thingsthat we talk about at home,
things that really help us,things that we tools that we
want to give to our kids, to ourfriends, and so we want to
(37:28):
encourage you guys to continueto really build and develop
strong relationships, moreimportantly, your relationship
with God, because that mattersmore than anything else, and
secondly, with others and,lastly, with yourself.
I think oftentimes, a lot of usdon't have good relationships
with ourselves, in which thatcauses us to live some tough
lives, and so we love you guys.
(37:48):
I want to encourage you guys tokeep on digging and let's go
See you.
All right.
So we've had a lot ofconversations lately.
We talked about how we met thatwhole situation, the first date
, all that stuff we talked aboutwhen we knew we were the ones
for each other, like our lovestory.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Right.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Which you know me, I don't really care for love
stories.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
You, sure don't.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
But we talked about our love story.
But what I want to talk abouttoday is okay, once we knew we
were the ones for each other.
Dating your future spouse I sodating your future spouse I feel
like that's a big one, right?
People ask us all the time Okay, when you guys were dating,
like, did you guys live witheach other?
That's the thing, right,playing house already, calling
each other hubby and wifey,right?
(00:34):
What did you do with money?
Did you pay for all the meals?
Did you pay for all the dates?
You know you start paying forher bill or what you know.
People ask all the time Okay,when it came to intimacy, you
know how they say well, you know, sometimes you want to test the
milk before you buy the cow.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Oh my gosh, I hate that analogy Like why are we?
Speaker 1 (00:50):
cows.
So I feel like we should have aconversation about this and
talk about this.
Let's do it what.
Let's dig.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Let's dig.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
All right.
So hearing all that, how does?
Speaker 2 (01:00):
it is.
I think it's a really valuableconversation to have about
knowing the difference, causethere's dating to feel something
out and to see does this havepotential?
Is this someone that I want tospend the rest of my life with?
But dating someone alreadyknowing, you guys have gotten to
a certain point in yourrelationship where you've agreed
that like, yes, this has future, this has longevity.
(01:24):
We are building something hereand now, how do we follow like
the lines, how do we move slowenough, like for me, I was ready
to marry you.
Like the next day I am just alovesick puppy and I'm like yep,
okay, let's do it all tomorrow.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
We're not going to talk about the conversation that
we had before we we startedrecording today no, we're not
because y'all I asked dan andlee.
Oh, my word for the head countof all the guys that she's
kissed specifically to clarifyjust kissed, that's it yeah,
that's the only part that I'mserial at and that's it.
(02:01):
We're not gonna go.
I'm not going to talk aboutanything else, but let's just
say my girl she I am loving.
She's a lover.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
I'm a lover.
So once we got to a point I waslike, yeah, marry me tomorrow.
Like let's do it, I just need adress.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
I mean you guys remember I talked about the
story in what, the last episodeor maybe the one before that.
If you guys haven't caught upon episodes, go back and watch
our story.
You yawning right now.
I did, I was trying to yawn, ohmy gosh, why are you always
yawning in front of people?
Speaker 2 (02:27):
I was trying to hide it.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
You called me out, so we talked about this on our
last two episodes, our story andhow we met, and all that stuff.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
part one, part two and that homegirl me that I'm
going to have to marry you.
So then we started dating.
I fell in love with you.
I'm ready to marry you.
You're ready to marry.
But I was really like now fastforward, however many years.
(02:56):
I'm so grateful that yourstability to slow us down and
that we built so many layers toour relationship and that we can
clearly go back and have aconversation about specifically
our dating stage, specificallyour engagement stage and then
(03:17):
specifically our marriage, likewe built it slowly so that we
had a stronger foundation.
Of course, y'all know we had tostart over and we dug up
everything after 10 years ofmarriage, but there is something
to be said of like dating inphases.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Yeah, I think it's.
It's a very unique thing.
And, first of all, you saidstability.
I wasn't stable back then.
If you're trying to, if peoplehear stable, it's like, oh my
gosh, he must've had a good joband had his head on his
shoulders.
I just had my head on myshoulders.
That's what you meant by stupid.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
You had a good job, babe.
I mean, it was ministry, youknow we ministry.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
You know how that goes.
I mean, the money wasn'tflowing, but you had a good
jobacy to dating your spouse.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
Yeah, like the one that you know is going to be
your spouse.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
Yeah, we're not talking about dating around,
right.
We're not talking about thedating game.
We're not talking about, likemusical chairs, like let me go
out on a date with this person.
Like there's a season for that.
There's a phase for that, whichyou haven't heard.
Our last conversation we talkedabout that when you're dating
around looking for the rightperson.
But this chat is really whenyou've identified this is the
(04:27):
person for you.
Like you were my person, right,I knew you were the one.
Even though we were longdistance at the time, we knew
that we were going to be theones with each other.
There's still the dating phase.
For that.
I feel like we got it.
I feel like we went throughsome seasons, which was helpful.
Oh, there's a fly in the room,it's going to drive me crazy.
I feel like we went through aseason where we slowly went
(04:49):
through each process, right,some people ask okay, you just
start dating and the person thatyou want to be with you're
going to marry them.
Like how many years should youdate?
Like that's subjective, that'ssubjective, I think it's.
How many seasons should you gothrough before you know?
Like, okay, we've gone throughsome stuff.
We've had some toughconversations, right, we've
talked about money, right, let'stalk about money for a moment.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Okay, so once we started dating, I mean neither
of us were making a lot of money.
I was an assistant as ahairstylist which honestly I
really need to call the guy thatI was assistant to.
I've been thinking about him somuch lately, so, anyways,
that's a sidebar.
But so I was an assistant in ahair salon.
I wasn't making enough money.
You were in ministry.
(05:31):
You for sure weren't makingenough money at 19.
But so, like, as we starteddating and we'd always go out to
eat, we would go to movies allthe time, like that's just what
you do when you're dating, likeyou're just spending all your
time together, which usuallymeant you're spending a lot of
money.
And so we ended up kind of likesplitting it Right, like
(05:51):
eventually we would just go downthe middle.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
That was an agreement that we had.
We.
We did that, we didn't.
It wasn't like oh Pierre,you're the man you should buy
every meal.
Wait, what Like?
How do I know I'm not going tomarry some girl that don't know
how to take care of herself too?
Can you pay your own bills?
I want to know are you going tobe a contributing member?
Speaker 2 (06:08):
of this relationship, right?
So yes, it wasn't fair to thinkthat, like you'd pay for
everything, I'm like yo, we'reyoung, Like this is.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
I'm not even making good money.
You weren't making good moneyat the time.
We were just dating and we knewwe wanted to be with each other
and we knew each other's goalsand dreams.
Again, we talked about this inthe last episode about, okay,
the levels of actually sharingyour goals and dreams, because
you don't want to put yourselfout there.
But once we've identified once.
I've identified and know that,okay, you're the one that it
unlocks new levels to ourrelationship.
(06:38):
I feel like so many people likeliterally put themselves out
there on the first, second orthird date, Right.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Where they just I'm like too fast Like man.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
I didn't need.
I did not need to know aboutevery single freckle on your
body.
I did not need to know about,yeah, my, my wrist makes this
weird pop.
I'm like okay.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
No, but like going back to keeping the money, like
sharing the expenses.
But we also in that moment,though in that season, we still
had our money separated.
So I think that's a very likeimportant thing of like we
didn't put our money alltogether, but we split bills.
When we'd go out to eat, if youwere short, like I'd give you
(07:16):
some, or if you like, if I wasshort, you'd be like, no, babe,
I got it this time, like.
So it was kind of like sharingmoney, but we did not put the
money together, we did not havea joint account.
So we got married, like thatwas an official thing when we
got married.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
And we talked about it too.
We talked about okay, whatwould it look like when it's
time for us to even merge ourmoney and our income together?
Like, I feel like there needsto be a process, and that's what
we did.
There was a time where weslowly started talking about
okay, how much money do you make?
Speaker 2 (07:48):
Right.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
And we didn't need to talk about that at the
beginning.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
We didn't have to talk about it.
No, that was closer to likewhen we were getting engaged.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
And why did we not have to talk about it at the
beginning?
Because when we went on dates,when we did events, things like
that, that already gave us apulse on whether the other
person was doing wellfinancially.
Right, right, we can tell.
Right, we can tell.
Like, if someone had a car noteand paying their own car note,
you were paying your car paymentat the time.
So that says something aboutyou.
Right, right, that sayssomething about you.
(08:14):
But you didn't have to pay foryour phone bill because you was
on a package playing with yourfamily.
Right, right, I was paying formy phone bill.
Right, I was paying for my owncar insurance, even though my
car was paid off.
That says something about methat, okay, you can pay bills.
Right.
Then we slowly started talkingabout okay, debt yeah we started
talking about okay, is thereany debt?
is there anything true?
(08:34):
That that you're?
We didn't share the numbers atthe top.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
It was just starting to slowly a little bit yeah talk
about it here and there it wasa very, very gradual
conversation.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
It was a gradual and as we got closer when you pop
and we didn't really finallytalk about, like all things,
money until we were gettingclose to that.
Yo, we're going to get married.
Pop the question.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Right, like in that season?
Yeah, because then you have toknow what could we even afford
when we move in together andlike, what would finances look
like for getting married?
Speaker 1 (09:05):
Yeah, and I feel like some people always have these
mindsets of this is what weshould do with my, our money,
cause this is how someone elsedid it.
It's how other people do it.
It's going to be different forevery single.
It's going to be different forevery single couple.
I just feel like for us, whatworked was us gradually talking
about it.
There was no surprises.
So by the time we were married,there was no financial
(09:26):
surprises.
Right, there wasn't like.
Oh, by the way, you have$10,000 in debt.
Yeah, and actually I'm wanted inthree states, right, I die.
Because, yes, and there's areason why my other name is
Ignacio, Because long storyshort is the money situation.
(09:48):
Had to move things around.
Yo, there's some people thatliterally legit marry con men.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
That is true, and that is the scariest thing.
That's terrifying.
Straight up, marry con men.
Straight up, marry con men.
Okay, so that was our moneysituation while we were dating.
Um, we also.
I moved from Indiana to Floridaand I did not move in with you.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
So yeah, that's one of the hot questions people ask
when you guys were dating, didyou guys live with each other?
And the solid question umanswer to that is no, Nope, we
did not live with each other.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
I rented a room from someone that was less than a
pleasant experience for me.
It was very challenging.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
It was pretty raggedy .
Speaker 2 (10:30):
It was hard.
Yeah, I got locked in the roomfrom the outside, so someone had
to come in and let me out.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
Yeah, that's right.
Someone had to come in and letme out.
Yeah, that's right, because Italked about it one time in one
of my sermons of like you renteda room from a lady.
She had like a 12-year-old son.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Yeah, I had to share a bathroom with her son.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
So you had to share that bathroom with this kid
who's discovering himself, whichyou can.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
And she wanted me to clean the bathroom.
That's crazy and she wascharging me a lot for that room
I was like I cannot pay them andthe doorknob was broken.
Doorknob was broken, so I'mtrying to get change, while 12
year olds in the hallway.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
So she closed the door so her doorknob is broken
and she calling me, like I'msupposed to be, the knight in
shining armor, prince, likebecause I got locked in my tower
yeah, like you got locked intown.
Are you cinderella or the orthe?
Speaker 2 (11:17):
girl from shrek sh Shrek, I'm not an ogre, it's
Rapunzel's lockup.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
She wasn't an ogre during daytime, though she was
only an ogre at night.
Well, Cinderella?
Speaker 2 (11:31):
Yeah, I'm Cinderella, for sure.
Ask my family about it.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
Yeah, I had a debate Should I go get her or not?
Speaker 2 (11:37):
So I rented a room and it was really hard.
I had a lot of I kept like foodin my car because I didn't want
to go to the place you stillkeep food in your car, but go
ahead that's true.
I cried every night when Iwould leave you like to go back
to my place.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
It was really hard danley lived in um this spare
bedroom.
It was a tough situation, butwe made a commitment to each
other yeah that we would notlive with each other.
And here's the cool thing aboutthat type of commitment is,
when you live in a community andyou live with people that hold
you accountable, then they'reable to hold you to it.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Yeah, because the crazy thing is your parents
actually had room for me.
Yeah, because your sister'sroom was open.
I very easily, with allunderstanding, could have saved,
however, hundreds of dollars.
I was paying for that rent.
I think it was like $3.50.
That's a lot when you're making$8 an hour.
I could have saved a lot ofmoney and everyone would have
(12:33):
understood why I would havemoved in with you.
It was just really a core valueof ours of like.
No, we know what happens withthat.
It's a slippery slope.
It would be way too comfortable.
Like.
We just really valued theaspect of like not living
together before we got married.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
I think there are some lines that shouldn't be
crossed that can potentially seta marriage up for success.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
Right.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
And that's what we did when we set those boundaries
of like yeah, because you'reright, my parents had two spare
bedrooms.
You could have lived with usand we would have called it a
day, but what happens there is,you get comfortable.
The bar starts to drop and itdoesn't set us up for success,
it prolongs the whole process.
Then we're like yo we might aswell not get married and live
with each other.
(13:18):
And once you start living witheach other, then we start
sleeping in the same beds, whichwe did not do, nope, but then
you start sleeping in the samebed.
You already know what happensin a bed.
Only two things happen in a bed,and they both start with an S,
one of them is sleep, and theother one I'm not going to say
it because YouTube— YouTube'sgoing to flag us right.
So the only two things happened.
So we made sure that you didn'tstay with me my family because
(13:41):
I was living with my mom at thetime.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Yep, and then if there I feel like there was one
or two nights I might havestayed because of.
I remember one.
There was like a hurricane, butit was like a level one.
It ended up being tropicalstorm, but I slept in your
sister's room and you slept inyours exactly so we.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
I think setting up those lines and those boundaries
really set us up for success.
I think what it does also toy'all it sets you up where you
have something to look forwardto.
For sure.
You know the old saying wherepeople say you know, right the
whole, test the milk out beforeyou buy the cow.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
Again, I don't know why we're cows.
That's a why To me.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
I feel like when that is used towards marriage or
used towards relationships orS-E-X right used towards that, I
think it's someone that'safraid of commitment that made
up a phrase like that or uses aphrase like that in regards to
relationships, because to me,it's a commitment, it's a choice
right At the end of the day,like, okay, I don't know if
(14:39):
you're going to be a wildsleeper or not, I don't know if
you're going to sleep with yourmouth open in my face every
single time, or I don't know ifyou're going to jump when you
fall asleep every night, or youdidn't know that I like to sleep
in the middle of the bed.
I only sleep in the middle ofthe bed.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
And he does.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
Just to clarify jump as he falls asleep.
Yes, he's one of those jumpers.
That's fine.
It's fine.
It's keeping everybody on guard.
Let me take a let's.
I want to take a moment rightnow and say shout out to
everybody who's joining us onyoutube hey um if you would not
mind, just hit that like button.
Listen, you don't have to hitsubscribe yet.
I get it.
You're still dating us.
You're still feeling figuringit out, trying to figure out
(15:15):
like if we like these people ornot.
That dude, he seems really Her,she seems really weird and all
that stuff.
Whatever, chill, relax.
But if you're liking this video, just hit like.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
It's for free, just like it.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
It's for free, it helps us, it helps YouTube say
like okay, people like thisvideo, let's send it to other
people who like the video aswell.
If you're listening on ApplePodcasts, spotify, those are the
other two big ones I want toencourage you like, if you
wouldn't mind, same thing.
Maybe, hit a review.
Yeah, just hit five star.
Or just tell us how you reallyfeel.
(15:46):
Yeah.
If you feel like it's all right, it's a 3.5, that's fine, leave
it a 3.5.
You don't need to lie to us,like.
Don't lie to us.
Tell yourself the truth, allright.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
So let's keep moving.
Okay, so we talked about that.
So we basically we didn't playhouse.
Yep, we did not live together.
Uh, even though that was a hugesacrifice, it was hard, it was
hard and how do we do that again, like when you're part of a
community, that holds youaccountable.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
So we were part of a church, right, I stayed with my
parents, which that was helpfultoo as well, cause if I had my
own place, right, that wouldhave pushed it up, but I knew we
were working towards thatbecause, again, it gives us
something to look forward to.
Yeah, so you staying on yourown, I stay with my parents
because I was in an area.
Yeah, it held us accountable,so that we didn't have to play
house and hold on.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
We cannot even touch this conversation without saying
that I did live in an rvtrailer in someone's backyard
for over a year.
Y'allall, I had an airplanetoilet.
I had a water heater that youhad to turn on the switch and it
had to be warmed up for eighthours or else you would not have
warm water for a shower.
I could not blow dry my hair,and y'all know I'm a hairstylist
(16:53):
so I could not blow dry my hairin my little RV so, and it had
bugs because it was parked inthe grass and it was Florida,
there's bugs everywhere and youwere messy.
That was not why I had bugsRelax.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
It's okay, it's fine Chill.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Relax.
Anyways, stop saying relax andchill.
You say that all the time.
Yo, you were messy.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
Bugs didn't just come for fun.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
No, anyways, I'm not talking to you, I'm going to
talk to them.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
You're going to talk.
Okay, go ahead.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
I'm just going to talk to them instead.
Anyways, what I was saying waswe cannot touch the subject
without talking about that.
Although that place was a hugeblessing and it was an answer to
prayer, it was still achallenge, and so I didn't want
us to jump over that.
So we made the sacrifice forthree years two and a half years
of me living in Florida.
That like I lived in it wasn'tthat long.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
We moved down in 08.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
We were married Fall of 08.
So, like a year and a half, Ipopped the question like summer
of 09 and we got married spring2010.
You and these dates, youremember every date you in this
yawning.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
right now I need an energy drink y'all.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Where's the Celsius?
Speaker 1 (18:02):
We didn't have any, and she's straight up just
yawning the whole time.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
It's because I'm just so chill with them.
That's why.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
So we set up strong boundaries, and what I love
about that, too, is it showed methat we were able to commit in
that season.
Yeah Right, committing to notlive with each other is learning
to make strong commitments.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
True.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
Right.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
Yeah.
And things that commit tothings that are inconvenient and
challenges, yeah, like hardthings.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
Yeah, even when it comes to even levels of intimacy
.
Right, that's a challenge wherea lot of people have when it
comes to relationships, becausethey're like, oh man, I just
can't help it.
Oh man, or God got to get some,or girl just needs what she
wants.
But for us, it was a decisionthat we made, we wanted to
commit.
We drew some solid lines thatwe are not going to cross the
(18:51):
line.
We're not going to cross thatline.
We're not going to.
What are our limits?
Here's what we're not.
We're not going to do it rightnow.
Are we perfect?
Were we perfect?
No we messed up there's a fewtimes we went a little too far.
Sometimes we're like dang, okay, let's not do that again.
Yeah, right, but what I'msaying and some people are
saying like why don't they saywe can't say it because I feel
like YouTube's going to flag usand be like oh, they said those
(19:12):
words Right.
What I'm saying is we set upsome hard lines and we were like
okay, we're not going to do X,y and Z or S.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
E and.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
F Bingo yeah, and that was strong for us, and what
felt the best, too, was ourcommitment to our future.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
Yeah, it was really important to us.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
That was so important to us and we knew like carrying
the weight.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
like you were already in full-time ministry.
We knew where we were headed inthe future.
Like we knew that we'd have ourkids look to us to know like
how well did you do that, momand dad?
How did you carry yourselves?
How did you guys date?
Like we were having aconversation before we started
today about imagining ourfour-year-old Brooklyn as a, as
(19:59):
a teenager, about imagining ourfour-year-old Brooklyn as a
teenager.
So we knew that the decisionswe were making in our dating
days were going to impact ourchildren that we had in the
future.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
And that's why it was actually easier to not cross
some lines.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
Because I thought, man, what type of story do we
want to tell people in 20 years?
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
What type of story do we want to tell our kids in 10
years?
Speaker 2 (20:20):
And I think of even all the teenagers that like, or
you know, younger kids that havebeen around us in the last few
years, that we've been able tospeak into and encourage, and
knowing that we have these,these testimonies, to be like,
yeah, no, we didn't, we didn'tbudge that line.
We held it, we weren't perfect,cause I think that's where
(20:41):
church culture has gotten itreally wrong, where they they
pretend like they had it perfectand they tell you what to do
but they didn't tell how you,how you messed up, like.
I want to change that for us oflike.
Here's what we did.
We did not hold the lineperfectly, but we tried our
hardest, like we could say, witheverything inside, we did the
best that we could and when wemessed up, we repented and like
(21:04):
tried again and like we knowthat we can hold our head high
saying we honored the Lord whenwe were dating because we knew
we were each other's spouses inthe future.
It made it that much harder,but we worked that much harder
because we knew it would beworth it.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
Yeah, and also, too, for those of you that every time
you hear Danley say the Lord,we're talking about God like
he's our Lord, he's our savior,we believe in Jesus.
And so, because we say thatquite a bit, you'll hear us say
the Lord, it's.
Ultimately it's God, he's thefather, he's the creator, he's
the one that we believe in.
He's, and we don't live forourselves, we live for the Lord,
(21:39):
we live for God.
We gave our life to Christ atyoung ages and every single day
we take opportunities torecommit ourselves to him,
because we live in a fallenworld, we live in a jacked up
world, and we know that we can'tmake this life without our
savior, which is Christ.
And so, speaking of which, Iremember a story where one time,
(22:00):
when we're dating, right, weknew we wanted to be with each
other.
It was official and we were atchurch and somebody came to me
and said, hey, yo P, wifey'scalling you.
So apparently Danley wassummoning me, or she was calling
for me, and she told someone tocome find me, to go get me.
So the person comes to me andsay yo P.
(22:20):
I remember the person too.
He said, yo, wife, he's callingme, calling you.
And I look back at the guy andI said she's not my wife.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
And the guy was like oh, and other people around was
like oh snap, we're going to gotell Danny Lee that you said
that she's not.
She's not your wife.
And I paused.
I said guys, guys, guys, guys,chill, relax, Let me explain.
I said I cannot wait for her tobe my wife one day.
I cannot wait to hold her hand.
(22:52):
I cannot wait to put a ring onher finger.
I cannot wait for her to be themother of my children.
I cannot wait to sit therebefore the Lord and commit
myself to her.
But I said, as of right now,she's my girlfriend and I'm not
going to play house, I'm notgoing to defile that title, I'm
(23:13):
not going to throw around thatname and I'm not going to lower
the bar just because I want herto be my wife.
Listen, I don't know.
She could be crazy, she couldbe a cereal fill in the blank, I
don't know.
So in the meantime, I'm stilltesting this out to see.
I want her to be my wife andthat's what I felt like that
time was like people just think,oh, because you're dating the
(23:36):
person that's going to be yourfuture spouse, and that is
serious.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
They just assume it.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
That yo, I know guys.
I'm thinking of a couple rightnow that got married and was
married for a few years and whenthey finally threw in the towel
and they finally hit the word Ddivorce, I remember talking to
the guy and he said, man, Iactually never wanted to marry
her.
He said I just went in too deep,too far.
(24:02):
Everyone around me pictured ustogether.
Everyone loved us together.
We were the perfect couple.
We looked really good together.
And he said I just and he waslike I was just a coward and I
went all the way- through withit.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
So when I hear those type of stories.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
I'm like yo, thank God that we did not buy into
that stuff For sure.
And people are like, oh, youguys make the perfect couple,
you guys going to make somebeautiful looking zebra, a swirl
babies.
And I was like, uh-uh, thatstuff don't matter right now.
Right now she's my girlfriend,and one day she'll be my fiance,
and one day she'll be my wife,One day she'll be my baby mama,
(24:39):
all the above.
So I felt like speaking of God,we honored that union between a
husband and a wife and we didnot abuse it, we did not throw
it around, we did not make itcommon because I'd be like I
believe that it's a covenantthat men and women make between
God.
It's one of the firstrelationships that we see that
God created in the Bible.
He created a man and he gavehim right the wife.
(25:02):
He gave him Eve.
So I'm like yo, this is veryimportant for us.
So I'm not going to throwaround this and be like yo,
she's my wifey, Is she?
No, she's not, but one day shewill be.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
The other thing, too, was as we were building our
life slowly together, so therewere layers of how we were
building our life together.
Right, the money wasn'ttogether yet, we weren't living
together yet, and so while wewere dating, we were very
intentional with our friendshipsas well, like making sure that
(25:34):
I went out with the girls,sometimes from work, or you went
and hung out with the guys andeven though that was hard
sometimes, I mean, imagine Imoved to this town.
I don't really know anybody butyour- people.
So when it was time for you tohave guys night or whatever, I'm
like what am I supposed to do?
Speaker 1 (25:55):
In the meantime, let me say your sa passe to all my
Haitian people out there.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
You know I love you, that's my people for real.
Okay, I'm sorry, anyways.
So, but I at first, a few timesI was kind of like, well, if
you're going to do somethingwith the guys, what am I
supposed to do?
But then realizing like, ohwait, I have to make my own
friends and be intentional withthe girls I worked with and
build my own friends at thechurch and stuff like that.
So then I started eventuallyhaving girls night and I was
(26:21):
like, okay, bye, see you.
Like being intentional of likeit's not just us all the time we
were in group settings I was ingirl settings, you were in guy
settings we had like a goodbalance.
Were we together a lot, ofcourse, but we were working
separate jobs, we had separatefriends and we were together a
(26:44):
lot building a relationship, andI think that was really
important to keep that balanceand so that we had friends that
would encourage us, or we hadfriends that would give us great
advice or like so into us andencourage us.
We even had your mentor, likeyou'd hang out with him
sometimes at work so that hecould speak into you as you
became a husband.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
And here we are, 15, 14, 16 years later, and we can
still see the fruits of having awell-balanced life when it
comes to relationships withothers.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
For sure, because now we're still that in our
marriage.
I still have girls' nights.
You still go out with the guys.
We still have friendshipsoutside of our marriage, yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
Oftentimes we've seen it then Right, we lost friends
actually around that time,because there are other people
that were dating around thattime and they literally dumped
us for each other.
Right.
So now they're all bythemselves and we're over here
like yo.
This is crazy, bro.
And then somebody goes out oftown or someone's go see their
parents and now all of a suddendude is hitting us up Yo, y'all
(27:55):
want to hang out.
I'm like yo.
We've been hanging out.
I'm married too.
It's making time for others andfor us.
When you came down and we weredating each other, dating our
future spouses, and our twoworlds collided.
We figured out how do we mergethem together.
I didn't lose myself in you.
You didn't lose yourself in me.
You still kept your friends.
(28:17):
I still kept my friends.
Now we are very intentionalabout the people that was around
us, because I also knew thatboth sides we had people that in
our lives that wereanti-relationships too.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
True, that's so true, like you got to be careful how
many single friends you gotaround you.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
Facts, Yo.
You cannot be married.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
going through some marriage issues and going to
someone with marriage issues orsomeone who can't even keep a
spouse, or someone who alreadyjust got divorced, because
they're going to take you downthe same road.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
Exactly, and so when we were dating each other and we
knew we wanted to get married,we were very intentional about
the people that we let speakinto our lives.
True, that's wild.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
That is wild and, to be clear, you didn't have no
friends that were girls that youwere hanging out with and I
didn't have no guys that I wasfriends that I was hanging out
with, just to put it out there.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
Because a lot of people will debate that of like,
can a guy have a friend that'sa girl and can a girl have a guy
that's a friend and likeoutside of their relationship?
Yeah, it's weird, not unlessshe is super close with your
girl.
And even then you still gottabe intentional because you got
these girls that are stillhomewreckers.
We've had some of them pop uphere and there and try to and
try to trick us and try tohomewreck, and I was very
intentional.
I mean, you remember that onegirl, that one time Yep, I had
to pray that girl away.
I was like man, god, this don'tfeel right.
(29:37):
And you know what, as a guy,I'm like man.
Again, the intention, theattention that we get from
multiple girls right, it goes toour head, it's flattering, but
it's destruction.
And so I was very intentional.
I was like man, I care so muchfor my relationship with my wife
man, even my ex-girlfriend man.
She called me trying to figureout like, hey, so Should I wait
for you?
Should I wait for you, we're notgoing to talk about that.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
That's not.
We're not going to go there I'mlike.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
No, I am Remember.
Before we got married I toldyou I met up with her.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
Yep, and you asked me and you told me when you were
going.
You called me on the way there.
You called me when you left.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
You knew all about it .
I was like yo, I'm going totell her like yo like.
Because the thing is people arethinking like wait, why are you
talking to your ex-girlfriend?
Long story short, she was stillaround, actually.
She actually was going to ourchurch.
She was actually part of ourcommunity, so that's why.
(30:37):
So sometimes it gets awkwardbecause I'm dating Dan and Lee
now who Dan and Lee comes downto my circle and my community,
but my ex-girlfriend was stillaround.
So there was still a lot ofweirdness and I knew, again,
it's what we're talking about.
When you're dating your futurespouse, there's some things
you're going to have to clean up, some conversations you're
gonna have to have, and some ofthem are uncomfortable.
So this was all part of theprocess.
I didn't have this conversationwith my ex-girlfriend early on
(30:57):
in our dating phase.
It was when we're leading up toengagement.
Yeah, and I'm like yo, Ialready have a ring yeah it's on
layaway lay for those all thegen z's.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
Gen z's are Gen Zers are like what Lay away.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
Lay away Like after pay, but through the store Lay
away was a thing that oldergenerations used to do, because
there was a common respect, amutual respect for each other,
that when you said you was goingto come back and pick it up
because you had the money, youwas going to do it, you actually
did it.
Nowadays, lay away is part oftheft, so they don't do it
(31:32):
anymore.
Layaway was a thing where youcould come in and out of respect
.
My word is my bond.
I say yo, I'm going to put $50down or, in this case, I'm going
to put $100 down on this ringand give me 90 days to pay it
off.
I'll be back and you would chipaway and you would make
payments.
This was way before creditrepair and anything it off.
I'll be back and you would chipaway and you would make
payments.
This was way before creditrepair and anything like that.
(31:54):
You just come in.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
Shout out to you, babe, because that meant a lot
to me too, of you being able toshow like financial
responsibility, commitment andto give me a ring, because we
went we were in Bible college.
Ring by Spring was a bigprogram that a lot of people
were jumping into, but they werejumping into it with like a
gold band.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
Well, so I should probably confess right now over
YouTube.
Actually, my ex-girlfriend'sdad helped me pay for your ring.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
Did you I'm playing my face just went completely.
I was like what did you justsay to me?
Speaker 1 (32:31):
That was a joke, right yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
Dear Lord have mercy?
Speaker 1 (32:36):
That would be crazy.
That was not a funny joke.
You didn't laugh.
People are laughing.
I hope they're laughing.
Someone is laughing somewhereright now.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
My face was.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
I literally was like processing the information that
you just threw at me.
Someone is listening to this onthe treadmill and they had to
step off because they just peedtheir pants Laughing so hard.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
All right, Anyways, okay, so.
I just want to say like that waspart of it, though.
Like so, men, if y'all lookingfor a ring, just know that it
shows it doesn't have to be ahuge rock, but like it shows
your responsibility, yourcommitment to your girl.
It shows financialresponsibility, your commitment
to your girl.
It shows financialresponsibility Like it says a
lot about you.
And it also said to me thatlike okay, he can take care of
(33:17):
me.
And it wasn't a three caratring, like it's beautiful and I
love it so much, but like so itdoesn't have to be massive, but
it does have to showintentionality.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
Yeah, so we started merging our worlds together,
having tough conversations as wegot closer and closer to the
date when we started to pop thequestion, which I yeah, hey.
So you guys that know me knowthat I like to just kid around,
so I knew Dan Lee was the one,so I would pop the question a
few times.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
Oh my gosh, he was so mean.
Speaker 1 (33:50):
Yeah, I would once in a while.
You know, there's this one timeI'll never forget where it was
after church and I'm outsidewith all the youth people, I'm
hanging out with all of them and, um, I'm like everyone knew
that I was going to pop thequestion any day.
Speaker 2 (34:04):
Now it was pretty soon, like we were talking about
it, people knew that I had aring, all that stuff get I get
everybody's attention.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
I'm like yo everybody , I need everybody's attention.
Yo yo, yo, yo yo.
So now I get everybody'sattention.
I get down on one knee in frontof danny lee and everyone's
like oh my gosh, all the girlsstart screaming.
They're like so I go down to dothe classic tie your shoes and
I look up I'm like what's what'severybody?
Why is everybody?
What's all the fuss about?
oh, you are the worst there's afew other times that I did too
um but that was the worst onebecause that was in front of
(34:40):
like 50 teenagers yeah, that'scrazy that was crazy, that's
crazy that I still said yeslater on.
Well, and I think we can dothis because we knew we were the
ones for each other at thisseason.
True I think we went throughthat, we're at the next window.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
Yeah of like, oh yo, we're getting married yeah, we
knew, but we had ring shopped bythat time like you had a ring.
I didn't know you had a ring,but we had went ring shopping
yeah, and this is what we'retalking about y'all.
Speaker 1 (35:06):
This is the purpose of this episode or this
conversation is really to letyou guys into what we did when
we were just dating each other,dating our future spouses.
There's still some seasons yougot to go through.
There's some gradual steps youhave to take going into the next
season, but going through someseasons really will determine if
this person really is so truethat one and we did those
(35:29):
seasons will expose some things,yeah man?
Yeah, and I think I think too.
Lastly, I would say, whenyou're dating your future spouse
, something that we just been,we've been learning over the
last couple of years, is reallyunderstanding cultural
differences, and how does thatmerge?
(35:50):
Look like Right and the ismsand all the stuff that was put
on me growing up, that I didn'tknow until it comes out and also
put on you, you know, and theobvious thing for us is we're
very two different people.
Right, I'm this young Haitiandude from South Florida, raised
in a Haitian community, right,straight up Haitian community,
(36:12):
where you were this young whitegirl from the Midwest middle of
America, straight middle.
Kokomo, indiana, k-town, whereyou didn't even know.
You didn't know anything aboutHaitians.
You've heard of Haiti.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
What's that mean?
Speaker 1 (36:25):
But to connect the two.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
Yeah, I didn't know.
Speaker 1 (36:27):
Yeah, but I'm a Haitian man.
What's that mean Exactly?
And so you've even had sometough conversations with your
mom before you even moved downto Florida, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
So we're going to do an episode just on that one on
just on dating someone outsideof your culture, Because I think
we have a lot that we couldspeak into that.
And yeah, that conversationwith my mom was super impactful.
I actually just thanked her forit.
When we saw her last month Iwas like man, that conversation,
mom, it really stuck with me.
(37:00):
And it's 17 years later and Istill am grateful for that
conversation.
I still think about it.
So we're going to save that onefor an episode.
It'll be good.
Speaker 1 (37:08):
That's crazy.
That's crazy.
I hope you guys enjoyed thisconversation that we had.
These are real conversations,by the way.
This is not just us like saying, oh, what can we come up with.
These are real stories, and ourgoal was really to let you guys
into our personal chats, thingsthat we talk about at home,
things that really help us,things that we tools that we
want to give to our kids, to ourfriends, and so we want to
(37:28):
encourage you guys to continueto really build and develop
strong relationships, moreimportantly, your relationship
with God, because that mattersmore than anything else, and
secondly, with others and,lastly, with yourself.
I think oftentimes, a lot of usdon't have good relationships
with ourselves, in which thatcauses us to live some tough
lives, and so we love you guys.
(37:48):
I want to encourage you guys tokeep on digging and let's go
See you.
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