Here's a book recommendation that will help serious couples learn how to leave, cleave, and clean out their closets one question at a time!
The conversation dives into essential questions that every serious couple should consider before tying the knot. By exploring the book "101 Questions to Ask Before You Get Engaged," we share our insights and personal experiences to highlight the importance of open communication.
- Introduction to the Serious Couples Series
- Book recommendation: 101 Questions to Ask Before You Get Engaged
- Key insights from our personal experiences reading the book
- Tackling difficult conversations in relationships
- Real-life examples of essential questions that matter
- Encouragement to keep the conversation going
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Paperback: 101 Questions to Ask Before Getting Engaged by H. Norman Wright
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Serious Couples series.
We are going to recommend toyou guys a couple of books.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Big step for us in that understanding what leaving
and cleaving looks like.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
There was a lot of things that we didn't even
consider.
You are literally cleaning outyour closets in question form.
We're not perfect people.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
By any means.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
But by trusting in God we learned what it takes to
build a friendship.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
A relationship.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
And marriage that has stood the test of time.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
With a keeping it real style.
We're going to talk to youabout everything.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Everything.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
That we've been through.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Are going through.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
And have overcome All by learning how to lean on God
and each other.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
In order to help you learn how to love by faith.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
I just remembered I had a dream I was a construction
worker and I was building aroad, and that was what happened
in the dream.
It was like a whole team wewere had a dream.
I was a construction worker,okay, and I was building a road,
and that was what happened inthe dream.
It was like a whole team, wewere building a road.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
No, nothing distinctive about it.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Nope, it was definitely in Cleveland.
What kind of road Highway.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Highway.
Yeah, what was the weather like?
Speaker 2 (01:19):
It felt like a bridge , like summer.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Summer highway, yeah, morning or evening.
I don summer highway, yeah,like morning or evening.
Oh, it's daytime.
Were you the boss?
Speaker 2 (01:29):
I don't think so how many people were in the team?
I feel like my brother wasthere, okay, but that was about
as much as I can remember was ita big team?
Speaker 1 (01:35):
I don't know like.
Were there cars passing?
Speaker 2 (01:38):
dude, you're pressing all this stuff in.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
I'm trying to remember uh this is how precise
I get when I have a dream,because I need to know like is
this a spiritual, meaningfuldream?
Speaker 2 (01:46):
I feel you, I feel you.
I don't remember people passing, cars passing.
Do you remember birds?
No, I just remember daytime.
Was there music?
Sunshine?
No music, white truck, worktruck.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Was it loud Like eh.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
No.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
So it was quiet building a highway, so it was
peaceful yeah, peaceful buildinghighway with sun out my brother
surrounded by family that's mybrother, yeah I would think
that's spiritual.
Do you know which direction thehighway was going in?
No but you knew it wascleveland.
How did you know it wascleveland?
Speaker 2 (02:17):
I don't know.
It's one of those things you'relike oh yeah, we're building
this road.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
I feel like it wasn't east side or west side.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
No, I feel like it was over by, like the shoreway,
the steel yard, you know wherethat goofy interchange is
between metro and the steel yardand it goes like that way
towards like riverside yeah andall that.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
It's right there wow you're working on that road
highway you gotta pray forinterpretation of that yeah,
what's up team I didn't have anydreams thank you for asking.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
You always tell me when you have dreams.
I feel like you have dreams sorarely I do, I do.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
I'm not in deep sleep long enough.
You must go with that deepsleep that you track on your
it's not enough deep sleep forme to have a good dream on your
watch phone I have like 30minutes of deep sleep each night
someone said that, uh, fitnesswatches are just tamagotchis for
adults.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Not necessarily, and the animal you're taking care of
is yourself.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
No, because it doesn't.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
I thought that was great.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
I don't believe that because Tamagotchis or what was
the other brand, pocket Pet, no,what was the name of it?
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Man, I can't remember either.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
There's someone screaming at us right now,
telling us the name of the otherbrand.
Anyways, you had to feed it,you had to feed it, you had to
give it a bath.
Right, it would get really sickif you did not do these things.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Give it water I never had one oh, they were so fun
were they they were so for youguys don't know, they were
little, little toys.
They were about the size of uh,I don't know like like a
keychain?
Speaker 1 (03:41):
yeah, like a keychain size.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
It was just like a golf ball side, a little bit
bigger than a golf ball.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
Yeah.
And it was an animal you had totake care of.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
And you had to feed it and it had four buttons on it
and you pressed all thesebuttons.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
It's not a gigapad.
Is it Gigapad?
Is it a gigapad?
Speaker 2 (03:56):
And you'd shake it to let it play, maybe because
there was no.
Not even gigabytes weren't tilllike 2010 and later crazy, yeah
, okay and so, yeah, that was afun toy from our childhood and
it would die trendy toy dive youhave to start over the reset
button on the back of the presswith the head to press with a
paper clip it was so fun.
I want one I think I saw themlike I'm gonna get one.
(04:21):
I'm gonna bring it back have funanyways we're in a great mood
today, guys.
We are in a great mood.
Woke up, feeling it.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
New series.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
Had a great birthday weekend with Selena.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
So great, it was awesome.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
I turned 40,.
Everyone Way to go.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
I'm in my 40s.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
You made it.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
I made it, I made it, you made it.
As a kid I'm never going to be40.
No, I did not feel that, but Idid not think my life would be
this awesome at 40.
Awesome Just because of the wayI was brought up and the
mistakes that I made in my 20s.
I just felt like there's no wayI'm going to bounce back from
(04:58):
all of this mess that I made.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Praise the Lord.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
And so to be where I'm at today and to have the
people surrounding me and justthe aspirations that I have and
the motivation to keep going, Ifeel really good.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
So what are we going to talk about on the podcast?
Speaker 1 (05:13):
So I was telling you about the series title.
I don't think we had a titlefor this series, but I like the
title I came up with.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Sometimes organic is better.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
So we always talk to couples, primarily married
couples, right it's?
Speaker 2 (05:28):
kind of our thing.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
It's our thing, it's what we do, you know, and I
think because March is a shortmonth, guys just putting that
out there spring break is uponus, two weeks.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Short podcast month.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
Short podcast month Because we're going to take some
downtime with the kids duringspring break, correct, we're
taking a two-week break at theend of March, and so because we
had a short month and we wantedto make it memorable.
We always talk to marriedcouples, but there are also
couples who are not married yetright Like serious.
(06:02):
There's serious couples.
Right yet right, like serious,there's serious couples.
So I thought it would be reallycool if we took the month of
march and devoted it to theserious couples series serious
couples series couple seriesserious couple series series yes
, and so what does that meanexactly?
(06:23):
We are going to recommend to youguys a couple of books each
week.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Go ahead, keep going.
Sorry, I had a total memory,just pop back in my head, okay.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
We're going to recommend a couple of books to
you guys each week for seriouscouples to help you get more
serious and get towards thedirection of marriage, so that
you guys can learn how to loveby faith in those foundation
stages of your relationship.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
And even if you're like, all right, we've been
married 17 years.
What do we need?
A book for couples who are justtrying to figure it out,
because you can go back, lookthrough those books, work on
them together.
Maybe you never did them andthey have some really good.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
You might even have some questions in there where
you're like oh snap, we nevercovered this in our marriage.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
They have some really good takeaways that will help
you have some great discussions.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
So it's kind of like a book clubby thing, but this is
devoted for serious couples, tohelp you guys, and for married
couples to kind of go back anddo like a little bit of a
refresher, to help you guyslearn how to love by faith.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
The story that popped into my head.
Two minutes.
It was like two minutes ago.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Was for your birthday when we went out to dinner on.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Friday yes.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
We saw a couple get engaged.
Yes, it was so cute, so nice.
We went to a nice restaurantand they had an outdoor.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
It was like a lakeside thing, she was so
dressed up.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
And they were like the youngest couple in the
restaurant.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Yeah, bless them and Congrats to whoever you guys are
, if you ever find us Right.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
They were.
They just got up and they allwent out and I wasn't paying
attention.
They left, didn't think twiceabout it.
And then, out of the corner ofmy eye, I see all these like
Flash.
Patio lights come on andflashing.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
And sure enough, there's the guy on his knee.
And so I bring all that upbecause it leads us into our
book for today, this week'sepisode 101 Questions to Ask
Before you Get Engaged yes, by HNorman Wright.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
This is the book that we recommend for all serious
couples.
Anyone that I know that I havecoached individually Kyle and I,
that we have mentored togetheras a couple.
We always tell them pick upthis book, go through this book,
and we'll go ahead and put thelink in the description and.
(08:32):
I'll show you guys, the bookcover as we're talking about it
if you're watching on YouTube.
And why are we going to talkabout this book, kyle?
Speaker 2 (08:39):
So we went through this book before we got engaged
and it brought us to some reallygreat discussions.
Absolutely, and one of our, theway we did it, the whole book
was one question a day weekendsnot included to help us go slow
in our relationship, to slowdown and not rush, because we
were so in love, we were soenjoying each other's company
and knew that we wanted to dothis for life.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
You know what happened is we got to the point
where we were so happy andthought that we were so healthy
that we were starting to pursuethe idea of marriage.
Okay, and so this book kind ofcame right at that.
It was like a speed bump.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
It was like a speed bump because we thought we were
in a good place until we got tothis book and we realized there
was a lot of things that wedidn't even consider, we didn't
even cover, we didn't we talkedabout.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
I think my favorite takeaway from the book was that
we were able to talk abouteverything, yes, and that we
were able to go and to have hardtalks and to take a few days to
talk through stuff, sure, andto really disagree and agree to
disagree stuff, sure, and toreally like disagree and agree
to disagree yes how's the sayinggo agree, disagree, agreeably.
We're able to disagreeagreeably, and this book helped
(10:13):
us get through that so what kindof questions do you?
remember from the book see first, one that comes first, one that
comes to mind as a dude rightis what happens if uh intimacy
is lacking okay it's not wordfor word the way the question is
, but what happens if?
What would you do if theintimacy was lacking in the
relationship?
How would you fix that?
And we each had differentresponses to that.
(10:35):
The other question that standsout to me was um, I wrote it
down, I'm gonna look at itbecause I want you to read the
response.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
While Kyle's finding this question the structure of
the book okay.
So you have one question oneach page.
After the question you have alittle bit of an explanation as
to why the question is important.
And I want to say there wasalso some Bible verses to kind
(11:04):
of help support why thatquestion is important to ask
from a biblical perspective.
So this is a Christian book.
Definitely it is based onbiblical principles.
You are going to have Christianstandards in there, such as
remaining pure, being modestexpectations, the biblical roles
of a husband and a wife, and itreally helps you break all of
(11:26):
this down in practical terms sothat you get a feel for what you
believe in, what your opinionis, what your upbringing is,
what you want to do movingforward and how you guys can
start merging those thoughts andthose feelings and those
desires into one.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
So, kyleyle, you got it yeah, so it the like you're
talking about the format.
Yeah, it has a question rightand it gives a question.
Then there's a book response.
Book response to the questionabout why this is important, why
this is a christian value andhow this, how this, can work
together.
So when you're struggling withthis, here's a book answer to
why this is an importantquestion to discuss.
(12:06):
Yeah, so the question was inlight of the number of divorces
today, if you were to marry, whywould your marriage last and
not end up in divorce court?
And I liked Selena's answer tothis.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
I don't even remember what I wrote to this.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
So here's what we did when we were doing this.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
I made a folder in my email and I'm like I'm keeping
all these questions so I canlook at these years and years
later yes, yes and so I'm inthat folder now yes, so we did
it all through email because youknow we have jobs right at the
time, right, and so this gave usthe time to, like, save the
question, go back to thequestion and then, like kyle did
, I put mines in an old email, Ideleted my email address
(12:46):
because my name is changed andso I lost all my, you don't even
have access to that email.
I don't even I completelydeleted it wow it.
You know what it was.
Is that original email?
That's selena m rivera atgmailcom yeah it was a way for
the past to find me.
Oh, you know like I used youknow, I had past relationships.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
I had past interactions, you know, and so
they could all.
There was a way for them toalways come back and reach me.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Oh, so you were closing that door.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
I shut the door Like I used the email ex-boyfriend
Like Monsters.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
Inc.
You deleted the door, you justslammed it.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
I completely got rid of it because, it's like, if
you're going to come to me now,in my present, you're going to
come to me as the new personthat I am and that is somebody's
wife.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
There's a message in there.
Holy smokes.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
So Selena M Almodovar at Gmail, but I got rid of the
other one, so I don't have anyof that.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
Wow, so your response back to the question.
Yes, In light of number ofdivorces today, if you were to
marry, why would your marriagelast and not end up in divorce
court?
Selena says in 2012,.
My marriage would last becauseI would kill my husband before
I'd ever decide to divorce him.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
You daggone right.
I stand by that on ten toes.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
I witnessed divorce firsthand.
I know what it does to a family.
I know what effect it has oneveryone involved.
Kids feel like an outcast,broken, lost, angry, and the
list goes on.
Parents are hurt, resentful andin pain.
It is a sad and veryunfortunate thing to bring on
anyone.
I will choose to marry a manwhom I trust and love.
We will work it out using Godas our counselor.
(14:18):
I don't care if we have to lockourselves in a closet for a
week.
We won't come out untilwhatever issue we have is
resolved.
Love is forever when it is thelove of God.
Nothing I could ever do or whathe could ever do to me would
ever cause me to relive what myparents put me through.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Dang.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
Divorce is not an option.
The end.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
What date?
What is the date on that email?
Speaker 2 (14:41):
That was March 25th 2012.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
I still firmly believe in all of that.
I still stand on that, sothat's great.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
I know you've said that to me before.
If we got to lock ourselves infor a week, we'll figure it out.
I've definitely heard you saythat multiple times in our life.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
The joke behind this is Kyle heard this I'll kill him
before I divorce him and stillwas like, yeah, I'm going to
marry her.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
What she's crazy.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
I like that.
I'm going to marry that.
That's what's up.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Man, that's crazy.
I like that.
I'm going to marry that.
That's what's up.
Man, that's funny.
H Norman Wright bringing theheavy questions, my wife
bringing the death threats.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
You know it's interesting because you could do
this book however way you want.
If you're a serious couple, youcan do this over dinner or
whatever.
Whatever you can flip throughthe pages, you can pick and
choose which questions you want,but the way that we did it, I
want to recommend it to youbecause that was a very well
thought out answer.
That wasn't something Iprobably came up with on the fly
(15:47):
.
That was something that putsome time into and consideration
.
And then what happens is is ifyou do this once a day, if you
put that much time and emphasisinto these questions once a day,
then by the time you reach theweekend and by the time you're
dating right and you're going ondates because a lot of the time
(16:08):
serious couples they haveproblems with.
What do we do while trying to bepure and trying to honor God.
This is a great way for you togo in a public setting, to go on
a date and then to talk about.
You have something to talkabout.
Like your date is pretty muchmade up because now you have
these questions and now you havethese answers and you can go
into depth of like what did youmean by this answer?
(16:30):
And you want me to do what tokeep intimacy alive?
Like I didn't sign up for that.
Like you have things, you havecontacts and you have content to
now help you in this seriouscouple stage.
Because once you get serious, Ifeel like all of the
temptations just kind ofintensify.
Sure, I agree, because now youcan almost feel it.
(16:52):
It's so real You're about toget married, this is about to be
my husband, he's about to bemine.
That is real, and so temptationreally gets serious.
And so to have this book toreally keep those boundaries in
check, I think is very helpful.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
Yeah, you get.
I think it would to you know,drive your point home.
At that point in ourrelationship we got comfortable
right, we got comfortable witheach other comfortable, yeah and
your guard goes down a littlebit, and slowing down to do the
book and to ask yourself thequestions helped to refocus the
guard and refocus theintentionality behind courtship,
(17:29):
like we did.
Yeah and uh, it was great forus.
So I talked about what, uh, Italked about what.
My favorite question was amemorable question when I was
looking through my old answersyeah, yeah, what's a?
You got a question that youremember from the book.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
I do.
I vividly remember one questionthat took us a really long time
to answer.
Like I want to say, it took usalmost a week to like figure out
and we kept, we kept gettinginto disputes and we kept like
saying we're going to talk aboutthis a different time we came
back to talk about and thequestion was how we would handle
(18:02):
holiday traditions oh, okay,yeah which is so crazy because
you would think, oh, it's cool.
But really married couples, ifyou don't have a firm grasp of
how you're going to handleholidays, yeah, it turns into a
disaster during holiday season,turns into a lot of stress, a
lot of disagreement, a lot ofstrenuous, just unnecessary
(18:25):
things.
And so our problem was, youknow, I always went to my
grandma's house for Christmas.
I always I was a divorced kid,so I had to go to two families
for Thanksgiving, two familiesfor Christmas, plus grandma,
grandmas.
You know, we were trying tofigure all of this out and you
were like well, I always go tomy grandma's house for christmas
and we always do this right youknow and I want to say we tried
(18:49):
it once, appeasing everybodyman went to like six christmases
we went to like yeah, it wasridiculous, we brought home a
plate.
Some people were happy that wecame in time for dinner.
Some people were upset that wemissed dinner.
You know it didn't matter.
By the end of the day we wereexhausted.
We didn't have a really goodtime together right and the
(19:11):
thought of it when I, when wehad this question, was well,
what happens when we havechildren?
How is this gonna work?
Like I'm not gonna be haulingaround a whole baby like to all
these people's houses justbecause they want to see me for
15 minutes and I have to likeinteract, like that's strenuous,
it's straining, and so we keptarguing because we didn't know
how to figure this out.
(19:33):
We didn't want to.
We both of us didn't want to,um, sacrifice, not seeing our
family, yeah, I think.
And the other part of it was wedidn't want to disappoint our
family we wanted to honor themyou know we wanted to make
amends and I do know when wefinally came up with the answer
(19:54):
and we finally tried it thesecond year I think we were
engaged at the time and we didit the way we decided.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
There was a huge backlash okay, there was huge
backlash from the family becausethey were like what do you mean
?
Speaker 1 (20:08):
you're not coming for christmas?
What do you?
What do you mean?
You're not coming for things?
Well, you're gonna comeafterwards, right, okay?
Well, I, I see you, you'regonna go have dinner there, but
you're coming later, right.
And we were like no, that's notwhat we agreed on.
And so now, after 10 years plus, we've been doing it.
It works, everybody is happy,everybody gets it.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
Sadly, there's a few less houses to go to nowadays.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
Sure sure.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
But when we got into a good rhythm, it worked out
pretty good.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
It worked out.
And so that was one of thosequestions that was like, okay,
yeah, we're gonna talk aboutthis.
Yeah, it helped you think aboutthe future, it helped you think
about other people, it helpedyou consider you know what we
see as normal in our individualsense and how it's going to
become abnormal once we becomeone it was.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
It was a big step for us in that understanding what
leaving and cleaving looks likeyes and what two becoming one
looks like yes because it's notjust his traditions or her
traditions, now it's our right,our tradition and how we're
going to make this work for ourfamily yes and that was uh.
It helped us.
It helped build our team yes inour camaraderie and our unity
(21:20):
because we had to stand by thisdecision and we thinking through
it, we thought through ittogether and came up with that
solution together, correct, andtried it out and you know, it
changed a little bit.
Sure, you know there were yearswhere we flipped and flopped
and years where we were like,well, we got Christmas Eve, we
can do this Day.
(21:43):
We flipped and flopped.
And years where we were like,well, we got christmas eve, we
can do this day after christmas.
We'd go visit if it felt likein a good week.
Sometimes christmas is on afriday and then you go out the
day after, on saturday, or itwas good, now that the kids are
getting older, it's, it's allworking out to go to one family
on this holiday, one family onthat holiday and also we started
having holidays at our own.
We started hosting.
We got to a place where we wereable to host, and that makes it
easier.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
That makes it a lot easier too.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
Yeah, man.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
But I mean just having to put in the work for
that one question.
You know there's 101 questionsRight, and I think a lot of the
times people will look at thisbook they will see that huge
number.
They will start to compute howmuch work it's going to take and
they turn away from it.
(22:25):
They get very intimidated bydoing a book like this because,
they're like I don't know, wedon't, we don't need to do this.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
It's it's too, it's excessive, we don't have to do
this but see, this reinforces mypoint for that, this book, even
though it's for before you getengaged air quotes.
It'd still be great to gothrough as a married couple if
you never did it because younever did it yeah hey, it's
gonna help.
You have something to talkabout yes there's times where it
gets stale, where you're likewhat are we doing?
All we have to talk about iskids.
We have to talk about ourschedules yeah, and these are
(22:54):
great conversation starters,great things for you guys to go
through together, just to get toa new place does this author
have a questions book formarriage?
So he has this one.
There's before you say I do,yeah, there's another premarital
, and then there's after you sayI do, okay, it's like a
partnership, okay, it goestogether, so that you can now
(23:15):
take what you learned in beforeyou say, and say it after yeah,
and then there's also 101questions um if you're getting
remarried okay, that's importantso that you can go through and
really like unlearn some thingsand relearn some things.
Yeah, yeah and and really feelmore prepared.
Maybe you weren't as preparedthe first time, or maybe you
(23:37):
were so young, or it was so fastyeah whatever, whatever
happened.
Or maybe you were so young orit was so fast, yeah, whatever
happened.
Or maybe you made a big mistakethat caused distrust or
disconnection and now you canrelearn how to handle that.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
That's good.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
Yeah, and so H Norman Wright man highly recommended
his books, Big fan.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
So at the end of 101 questions.
So if we did this, you knowfive days a week, yeah, every
week until we finished the book.
We got through it roughly about.
It'd be 20 weeks 20 weeks,which equates to Five questions
a week 100.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
Yeah, 20 weeks like four months.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
So about a season.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
You know you think about it as a season season.
So right now it's the month ofmarch.
If you guys were to go aheadand get this book in march and
you start it, you would be doneby just by summer.
Yeah, you know, and so thinkabout this for those who are
listening and those who arewatching, if you are in a
serious relationship.
Okay yeah and if you feel likethis book is intimidating,
(24:38):
you're like, oh, that's too muchwork, I don't want to go
through it.
I'm afraid to answer some ofthe questions or I'm intimidated
by what it might unopen.
You know, it's going to open upa whole pandora's box you're
going to have to talk about someserious stuff, bro.
You're going to have to talkabout some.
I mean, we're talking aboutpast traditions, expectations,
finances, um mistakes, you knowromantic life, romantic, sexual
(25:03):
things, like all the things,medical things, all the things.
And I, even I, I I almost wantto say that there's a question
in there that tells you aboutyour medical history.
Like do?
You have anything that youmedically had that you should be
telling your partner aboutbefore they are physically
intimate with you like that.
(25:24):
There's a question in there forthat, and so I had a toe
amputated.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
I just want you to know before you see it seriously
like there's, and then imaginethat surprise on your wedding
night for real, like for real,and then like.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
There's a paragraph underneath it that says you
should.
We encourage you I have webbedfeet we encourage you to like
get a physical before you getmarried, and the reason why is
because you don't want to findout.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
You just married somebody with nine toes I'm
allergic to nail cutters, so mynails grow forever oh, oh, my
gosh Kyle, please so.
Oh, come on, have some fun here.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
There's a lot of questions there that you might
be afraid to answer.
There's a lot of humilitythat's going to come out of
answering these questions,because you are literally
cleaning out your closets inquestion form.
Right.
But ask yourself this wherewould your relationship stand if
you started doing the hard worknow?
(26:24):
Where would it be by June, ifyou actually did this book?
By June, you would have a 1trillion thousand percent idea
of whether or not the personyou're doing this book with is
the one you're going to marry.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Oh, that's great.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
Think about that.
That's huge.
That's huge Because when wefinished this book, there was no
doubt I knew I was like I heardit all.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
I'm pretty sure we got engaged the next month or
next week.
We got engaged really quickafter finishing this book.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
I heard it all, I seen it all.
I'm not afraid.
There's nothing that you havehidden from me.
There's nothing that I havehidden from you.
We are completely naked andunashamed at this point.
The only realistic next stepwould be to take that next step.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
Yep, I'm afraid of the washing machine.
So you you're gonna have to dolaundry for our whole marriage
seriously, guys.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
There's questions like that in there of like, what
is your biggest fear?
What did you know?
Speaker 2 (27:29):
roles.
The huge one was roles.
We talked about roles for along time, I remember in the
book, like what's the husband'srole in the marriage?
What's the wife's role?
Like what are you literallygonna?
Speaker 1 (27:36):
do?
What are you expecting yourwife to do?
What are you expecting yourhusband to do?
Speaker 2 (27:40):
yeah, that was a huge one.
That's a big talk there how doyou stay romantic?
Speaker 1 (27:44):
what are you gonna do to be intimate?
Speaker 2 (27:46):
and and it's funny because it also looking back on
it, I like that make me like oh,that's funny, you were so cute
back.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
There were some easy and now we're like, and there
were some hard questions thatdidn't work out that.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
That's not how that worked out at all.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
Yeah, any last things I love talking to you, man.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
This is great, great talk.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
Today we learned how to talk and that's what makes it
lovable is because we putourselves in a position where we
made ourselves talk.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
And it slowed us down in that season where we were
really where you're really likeoh man, this is the woman for me
.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
I want to rush through this.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
Let's just get married.
Let's just get it over withthis is what it's gonna be.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
But nah, dude, you might find something in that
book where it could be likethat's a deal breaker.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
This is a deal breaker absolutely like.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
I don't think I can move forward with this.
You had that type of past.
I don't think I'm comfortablewith that.
I don't think I'll ever becomfortable with that.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
I think we need to part ways wow, it's a good book
and that's the reason why youneed to have the book.
That's that's why we think it'simportant to talk about it here
on the podcast man absolutelymarried couples, engaged couples
, pre-engaged.
It's the right book to worktogether, to figure each other
out, to learn each other, towork on your communication, man.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
I think we we drove that point super home so if you
are a serious couple, whetheryou're married or not married,
go ahead and get the book.
101 Questions to Ask BeforeGetting Engaged.
Let us know if you got the book.
Let us know if you're doing thebook.
Let us know if you finished thebook.
We want to hear all of thereactions, all of the comments
(29:19):
about it, if this was a greatbook for you and how it helped
you learn how to love by faithbetter.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
Yes.
101 Questions.
H.
Norman Wright.
Let's pray for the people.
Yay.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
Let's do it, lord.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
We're grateful for this time, lord, to talk and to
share and to grow together asChristians in fellowship and in
love.
Lord, we pray for the couplesout there who are getting
serious, who are ready to jumpthe broom, as it would be, and
to take the dive into marriageand to understanding their
spouse better and understandingtheir partner better, and to
(29:52):
creating marriages that last forlife, because that's what we're
about here Married for life.
We give you glory for all of it.
We pray for that couple we sawget engaged on Selena's birthday
weekend.
We pray that they have a greatmarriage that lasts and that
you're in the center of it aswell, as you be in the center of
all the marriages who arelistening and who are getting
(30:14):
touched by our ministry, and wejust pray that you continue to
work in our marriage In Jesus'sname, amen.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
Amen.
Thank you guys so much forlistening and watching.
If you're watching us onYouTube, make sure to like,
share, subscribe.
If you guys are listening to uson Apple or Spotify iHeart any
of the other platforms pleasemake sure you give us a
five-star review and share it sothat other people like you can
learn how to love by faith.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
The Serious Couple Series.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
Serious Couple Series .
We're going to come back nextweek, which will be our final
week in March.
We'll have another great bookfor you guys to help you with
before you go about your springbreak at festivities.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
Let's go.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
And we hope to see you next time.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
Don't just think by faith, don't just read by faith,
love by faith.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
Yes, took me three months, bro, got it, nailed it.
Yes, yes, take care guys, yes.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
Good job, selena.
Bye, bro, got it nailed it.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
Yes, take care guys.
Yes, good job, selena.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
Bye I did it, you got it.
Yeah, I kind of teed that oneup really, I know really slow
very slow for me okay I thinkmaybe by the summertime I'll do
a good fast pitch.
You think you'll have it.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
I think I'll have it.
I'll keep working on trying tocatch you off guard Nailed it.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
So in the episode where we kept saying, man, what
was the word Spontaneous?
Speaker 1 (31:40):
In the spontaneous episode.
Yeah, last week what?
Speaker 2 (31:42):
was the final count.
Was it 49?
It was 54.
54.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
It was 54 times.
Yeah, it's all right.
I thought that I thought theticker count would be the end of
us saying it and you, like, twoseconds later, you said it like
three more times.
I was like, oh, I gotta keepcounting.
Wow, this, this guy, this guy,I don't know what you're doing
(32:06):
with your life right now but Igot to go, you got to go?
Speaker 2 (32:08):
Yeah, I got to go.
Where are you?
Speaker 1 (32:09):
going to go, I got to go places.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
What do you got to?
Speaker 1 (32:11):
do?
I got things to do, okay, okay,that's great.
I got to work in my office,yeah, because the kids don't
have school again next Friday.
Children are such a blessing,such a blessing.
Quivers in my bow case is thatwhat it's called quivers in?
Speaker 2 (32:32):
my arrow box, arrows in my quiver arrows in my quiver
.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
They are blessings of the lord arrows in my quiver
when you say it like that, itdoesn't sound right get out of
here.
I gotta go.
Good day.
The Serious Couples series.
We are going to recommend toyou guys a couple of books.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Big step for us in that understanding what leaving
and cleaving looks like.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
There was a lot of things that we didn't even
consider.
You are literally cleaning outyour closets in question form.
We're not perfect people.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
By any means.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
But by trusting in God we learned what it takes to
build a friendship.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
A relationship.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
And marriage that has stood the test of time.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
With a keeping it real style.
We're going to talk to youabout everything.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Everything.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
That we've been through.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Are going through.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
And have overcome All by learning how to lean on God
and each other.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
In order to help you learn how to love by faith.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
I just remembered I had a dream I was a construction
worker and I was building aroad, and that was what happened
in the dream.
It was like a whole team wewere had a dream.
I was a construction worker,okay, and I was building a road,
and that was what happened inthe dream.
It was like a whole team, wewere building a road.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
No, nothing distinctive about it.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Nope, it was definitely in Cleveland.
What kind of road Highway.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Highway.
Yeah, what was the weather like?
Speaker 2 (01:19):
It felt like a bridge , like summer.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Summer highway, yeah, morning or evening.
I don summer highway, yeah,like morning or evening.
Oh, it's daytime.
Were you the boss?
Speaker 2 (01:29):
I don't think so how many people were in the team?
I feel like my brother wasthere, okay, but that was about
as much as I can remember was ita big team?
Speaker 1 (01:35):
I don't know like.
Were there cars passing?
Speaker 2 (01:38):
dude, you're pressing all this stuff in.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
I'm trying to remember uh this is how precise
I get when I have a dream,because I need to know like is
this a spiritual, meaningfuldream?
Speaker 2 (01:46):
I feel you, I feel you.
I don't remember people passing, cars passing.
Do you remember birds?
No, I just remember daytime.
Was there music?
Sunshine?
No music, white truck, worktruck.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Was it loud Like eh.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
No.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
So it was quiet building a highway, so it was
peaceful yeah, peaceful buildinghighway with sun out my brother
surrounded by family that's mybrother, yeah I would think
that's spiritual.
Do you know which direction thehighway was going in?
No but you knew it wascleveland.
How did you know it wascleveland?
Speaker 2 (02:17):
I don't know.
It's one of those things you'relike oh yeah, we're building
this road.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
I feel like it wasn't east side or west side.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
No, I feel like it was over by, like the shoreway,
the steel yard, you know wherethat goofy interchange is
between metro and the steel yardand it goes like that way
towards like riverside yeah andall that.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
It's right there wow you're working on that road
highway you gotta pray forinterpretation of that yeah,
what's up team I didn't have anydreams thank you for asking.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
You always tell me when you have dreams.
I feel like you have dreams sorarely I do, I do.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
I'm not in deep sleep long enough.
You must go with that deepsleep that you track on your
it's not enough deep sleep forme to have a good dream on your
watch phone I have like 30minutes of deep sleep each night
someone said that, uh, fitnesswatches are just tamagotchis for
adults.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Not necessarily, and the animal you're taking care of
is yourself.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
No, because it doesn't.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
I thought that was great.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
I don't believe that because Tamagotchis or what was
the other brand, pocket Pet, no,what was the name of it?
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Man, I can't remember either.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
There's someone screaming at us right now,
telling us the name of the otherbrand.
Anyways, you had to feed it,you had to feed it, you had to
give it a bath.
Right, it would get really sickif you did not do these things.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Give it water I never had one oh, they were so fun
were they they were so for youguys don't know, they were
little, little toys.
They were about the size of uh,I don't know like like a
keychain?
Speaker 1 (03:41):
yeah, like a keychain size.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
It was just like a golf ball side, a little bit
bigger than a golf ball.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
Yeah.
And it was an animal you had totake care of.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
And you had to feed it and it had four buttons on it
and you pressed all thesebuttons.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
It's not a gigapad.
Is it Gigapad?
Is it a gigapad?
Speaker 2 (03:56):
And you'd shake it to let it play, maybe because
there was no.
Not even gigabytes weren't tilllike 2010 and later crazy, yeah
, okay and so, yeah, that was afun toy from our childhood and
it would die trendy toy dive youhave to start over the reset
button on the back of the presswith the head to press with a
paper clip it was so fun.
I want one I think I saw themlike I'm gonna get one.
(04:21):
I'm gonna bring it back have funanyways we're in a great mood
today, guys.
We are in a great mood.
Woke up, feeling it.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
New series.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
Had a great birthday weekend with Selena.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
So great, it was awesome.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
I turned 40,.
Everyone Way to go.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
I'm in my 40s.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
You made it.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
I made it, I made it, you made it.
As a kid I'm never going to be40.
No, I did not feel that, but Idid not think my life would be
this awesome at 40.
Awesome Just because of the wayI was brought up and the
mistakes that I made in my 20s.
I just felt like there's no wayI'm going to bounce back from
(04:58):
all of this mess that I made.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Praise the Lord.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
And so to be where I'm at today and to have the
people surrounding me and justthe aspirations that I have and
the motivation to keep going, Ifeel really good.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
So what are we going to talk about on the podcast?
Speaker 1 (05:13):
So I was telling you about the series title.
I don't think we had a titlefor this series, but I like the
title I came up with.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Sometimes organic is better.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
So we always talk to couples, primarily married
couples, right it's?
Speaker 2 (05:28):
kind of our thing.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
It's our thing, it's what we do, you know, and I
think because March is a shortmonth, guys just putting that
out there spring break is uponus, two weeks.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Short podcast month.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
Short podcast month Because we're going to take some
downtime with the kids duringspring break, correct, we're
taking a two-week break at theend of March, and so because we
had a short month and we wantedto make it memorable.
We always talk to marriedcouples, but there are also
couples who are not married yetright Like serious.
(06:02):
There's serious couples.
Right yet right, like serious,there's serious couples.
So I thought it would be reallycool if we took the month of
march and devoted it to theserious couples series serious
couples series couple seriesserious couple series series yes
, and so what does that meanexactly?
(06:23):
We are going to recommend to youguys a couple of books each
week.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Go ahead, keep going.
Sorry, I had a total memory,just pop back in my head, okay.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
We're going to recommend a couple of books to
you guys each week for seriouscouples to help you get more
serious and get towards thedirection of marriage, so that
you guys can learn how to loveby faith in those foundation
stages of your relationship.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
And even if you're like, all right, we've been
married 17 years.
What do we need?
A book for couples who are justtrying to figure it out,
because you can go back, lookthrough those books, work on
them together.
Maybe you never did them andthey have some really good.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
You might even have some questions in there where
you're like oh snap, we nevercovered this in our marriage.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
They have some really good takeaways that will help
you have some great discussions.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
So it's kind of like a book clubby thing, but this is
devoted for serious couples, tohelp you guys, and for married
couples to kind of go back anddo like a little bit of a
refresher, to help you guyslearn how to love by faith.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
The story that popped into my head.
Two minutes.
It was like two minutes ago.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Was for your birthday when we went out to dinner on.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Friday yes.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
We saw a couple get engaged.
Yes, it was so cute, so nice.
We went to a nice restaurantand they had an outdoor.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
It was like a lakeside thing, she was so
dressed up.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
And they were like the youngest couple in the
restaurant.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Yeah, bless them and Congrats to whoever you guys are
, if you ever find us Right.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
They were.
They just got up and they allwent out and I wasn't paying
attention.
They left, didn't think twiceabout it.
And then, out of the corner ofmy eye, I see all these like
Flash.
Patio lights come on andflashing.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
And sure enough, there's the guy on his knee.
And so I bring all that upbecause it leads us into our
book for today, this week'sepisode 101 Questions to Ask
Before you Get Engaged yes, by HNorman Wright.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
This is the book that we recommend for all serious
couples.
Anyone that I know that I havecoached individually Kyle and I,
that we have mentored togetheras a couple.
We always tell them pick upthis book, go through this book,
and we'll go ahead and put thelink in the description and.
(08:32):
I'll show you guys, the bookcover as we're talking about it
if you're watching on YouTube.
And why are we going to talkabout this book, kyle?
Speaker 2 (08:39):
So we went through this book before we got engaged
and it brought us to some reallygreat discussions.
Absolutely, and one of our, theway we did it, the whole book
was one question a day weekendsnot included to help us go slow
in our relationship, to slowdown and not rush, because we
were so in love, we were soenjoying each other's company
and knew that we wanted to dothis for life.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
You know what happened is we got to the point
where we were so happy andthought that we were so healthy
that we were starting to pursuethe idea of marriage.
Okay, and so this book kind ofcame right at that.
It was like a speed bump.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
It was like a speed bump because we thought we were
in a good place until we got tothis book and we realized there
was a lot of things that wedidn't even consider, we didn't
even cover, we didn't we talkedabout.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
I think my favorite takeaway from the book was that
we were able to talk abouteverything, yes, and that we
were able to go and to have hardtalks and to take a few days to
talk through stuff, sure, andto really disagree and agree to
disagree stuff, sure, and toreally like disagree and agree
to disagree yes how's the sayinggo agree, disagree, agreeably.
We're able to disagreeagreeably, and this book helped
(10:13):
us get through that so what kindof questions do you?
remember from the book see first, one that comes first, one that
comes to mind as a dude rightis what happens if uh intimacy
is lacking okay it's not wordfor word the way the question is
, but what happens if?
What would you do if theintimacy was lacking in the
relationship?
How would you fix that?
And we each had differentresponses to that.
(10:35):
The other question that standsout to me was um, I wrote it
down, I'm gonna look at itbecause I want you to read the
response.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
While Kyle's finding this question the structure of
the book okay.
So you have one question oneach page.
After the question you have alittle bit of an explanation as
to why the question is important.
And I want to say there wasalso some Bible verses to kind
(11:04):
of help support why thatquestion is important to ask
from a biblical perspective.
So this is a Christian book.
Definitely it is based onbiblical principles.
You are going to have Christianstandards in there, such as
remaining pure, being modestexpectations, the biblical roles
of a husband and a wife, and itreally helps you break all of
(11:26):
this down in practical terms sothat you get a feel for what you
believe in, what your opinionis, what your upbringing is,
what you want to do movingforward and how you guys can
start merging those thoughts andthose feelings and those
desires into one.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
So, kyleyle, you got it yeah, so it the like you're
talking about the format.
Yeah, it has a question rightand it gives a question.
Then there's a book response.
Book response to the questionabout why this is important, why
this is a christian value andhow this, how this, can work
together.
So when you're struggling withthis, here's a book answer to
why this is an importantquestion to discuss.
(12:06):
Yeah, so the question was inlight of the number of divorces
today, if you were to marry, whywould your marriage last and
not end up in divorce court?
And I liked Selena's answer tothis.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
I don't even remember what I wrote to this.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
So here's what we did when we were doing this.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
I made a folder in my email and I'm like I'm keeping
all these questions so I canlook at these years and years
later yes, yes and so I'm inthat folder now yes, so we did
it all through email because youknow we have jobs right at the
time, right, and so this gave usthe time to, like, save the
question, go back to thequestion and then, like kyle did
, I put mines in an old email, Ideleted my email address
(12:46):
because my name is changed andso I lost all my, you don't even
have access to that email.
I don't even I completelydeleted it wow it.
You know what it was.
Is that original email?
That's selena m rivera atgmailcom yeah it was a way for
the past to find me.
Oh, you know like I used youknow, I had past relationships.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
I had past interactions, you know, and so
they could all.
There was a way for them toalways come back and reach me.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Oh, so you were closing that door.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
I shut the door Like I used the email ex-boyfriend
Like Monsters.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
Inc.
You deleted the door, you justslammed it.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
I completely got rid of it because, it's like, if
you're going to come to me now,in my present, you're going to
come to me as the new personthat I am and that is somebody's
wife.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
There's a message in there.
Holy smokes.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
So Selena M Almodovar at Gmail, but I got rid of the
other one, so I don't have anyof that.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
Wow, so your response back to the question.
Yes, In light of number ofdivorces today, if you were to
marry, why would your marriagelast and not end up in divorce
court?
Selena says in 2012,.
My marriage would last becauseI would kill my husband before
I'd ever decide to divorce him.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
You daggone right.
I stand by that on ten toes.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
I witnessed divorce firsthand.
I know what it does to a family.
I know what effect it has oneveryone involved.
Kids feel like an outcast,broken, lost, angry, and the
list goes on.
Parents are hurt, resentful andin pain.
It is a sad and veryunfortunate thing to bring on
anyone.
I will choose to marry a manwhom I trust and love.
We will work it out using Godas our counselor.
(14:18):
I don't care if we have to lockourselves in a closet for a
week.
We won't come out untilwhatever issue we have is
resolved.
Love is forever when it is thelove of God.
Nothing I could ever do or whathe could ever do to me would
ever cause me to relive what myparents put me through.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Dang.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
Divorce is not an option.
The end.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
What date?
What is the date on that email?
Speaker 2 (14:41):
That was March 25th 2012.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
I still firmly believe in all of that.
I still stand on that, sothat's great.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
I know you've said that to me before.
If we got to lock ourselves infor a week, we'll figure it out.
I've definitely heard you saythat multiple times in our life.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
The joke behind this is Kyle heard this I'll kill him
before I divorce him and stillwas like, yeah, I'm going to
marry her.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
What she's crazy.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
I like that.
I'm going to marry that.
That's what's up.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Man, that's crazy.
I like that.
I'm going to marry that.
That's what's up.
Man, that's funny.
H Norman Wright bringing theheavy questions, my wife
bringing the death threats.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
You know it's interesting because you could do
this book however way you want.
If you're a serious couple, youcan do this over dinner or
whatever.
Whatever you can flip throughthe pages, you can pick and
choose which questions you want,but the way that we did it, I
want to recommend it to youbecause that was a very well
thought out answer.
That wasn't something Iprobably came up with on the fly
(15:47):
.
That was something that putsome time into and consideration
.
And then what happens is is ifyou do this once a day, if you
put that much time and emphasisinto these questions once a day,
then by the time you reach theweekend and by the time you're
dating right and you're going ondates because a lot of the time
(16:08):
serious couples they haveproblems with.
What do we do while trying to bepure and trying to honor God.
This is a great way for you togo in a public setting, to go on
a date and then to talk about.
You have something to talkabout.
Like your date is pretty muchmade up because now you have
these questions and now you havethese answers and you can go
into depth of like what did youmean by this answer?
(16:30):
And you want me to do what tokeep intimacy alive?
Like I didn't sign up for that.
Like you have things, you havecontacts and you have content to
now help you in this seriouscouple stage.
Because once you get serious, Ifeel like all of the
temptations just kind ofintensify.
Sure, I agree, because now youcan almost feel it.
(16:52):
It's so real You're about toget married, this is about to be
my husband, he's about to bemine.
That is real, and so temptationreally gets serious.
And so to have this book toreally keep those boundaries in
check, I think is very helpful.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
Yeah, you get.
I think it would to you know,drive your point home.
At that point in ourrelationship we got comfortable
right, we got comfortable witheach other comfortable, yeah and
your guard goes down a littlebit, and slowing down to do the
book and to ask yourself thequestions helped to refocus the
guard and refocus theintentionality behind courtship,
(17:29):
like we did.
Yeah and uh, it was great forus.
So I talked about what, uh, Italked about what.
My favorite question was amemorable question when I was
looking through my old answersyeah, yeah, what's a?
You got a question that youremember from the book.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
I do.
I vividly remember one questionthat took us a really long time
to answer.
Like I want to say, it took usalmost a week to like figure out
and we kept, we kept gettinginto disputes and we kept like
saying we're going to talk aboutthis a different time we came
back to talk about and thequestion was how we would handle
(18:02):
holiday traditions oh, okay,yeah which is so crazy because
you would think, oh, it's cool.
But really married couples, ifyou don't have a firm grasp of
how you're going to handleholidays, yeah, it turns into a
disaster during holiday season,turns into a lot of stress, a
lot of disagreement, a lot ofstrenuous, just unnecessary
(18:25):
things.
And so our problem was, youknow, I always went to my
grandma's house for Christmas.
I always I was a divorced kid,so I had to go to two families
for Thanksgiving, two familiesfor Christmas, plus grandma,
grandmas.
You know, we were trying tofigure all of this out and you
were like well, I always go tomy grandma's house for christmas
and we always do this right youknow and I want to say we tried
(18:49):
it once, appeasing everybodyman went to like six christmases
we went to like yeah, it wasridiculous, we brought home a
plate.
Some people were happy that wecame in time for dinner.
Some people were upset that wemissed dinner.
You know it didn't matter.
By the end of the day we wereexhausted.
We didn't have a really goodtime together right and the
(19:11):
thought of it when I, when wehad this question, was well,
what happens when we havechildren?
How is this gonna work?
Like I'm not gonna be haulingaround a whole baby like to all
these people's houses justbecause they want to see me for
15 minutes and I have to likeinteract, like that's strenuous,
it's straining, and so we keptarguing because we didn't know
how to figure this out.
(19:33):
We didn't want to.
We both of us didn't want to,um, sacrifice, not seeing our
family, yeah, I think.
And the other part of it was wedidn't want to disappoint our
family we wanted to honor themyou know we wanted to make
amends and I do know when wefinally came up with the answer
(19:54):
and we finally tried it thesecond year I think we were
engaged at the time and we didit the way we decided.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
There was a huge backlash okay, there was huge
backlash from the family becausethey were like what do you mean
?
Speaker 1 (20:08):
you're not coming for christmas?
What do you?
What do you mean?
You're not coming for things?
Well, you're gonna comeafterwards, right, okay?
Well, I, I see you, you'regonna go have dinner there, but
you're coming later, right.
And we were like no, that's notwhat we agreed on.
And so now, after 10 years plus, we've been doing it.
It works, everybody is happy,everybody gets it.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
Sadly, there's a few less houses to go to nowadays.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
Sure sure.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
But when we got into a good rhythm, it worked out
pretty good.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
It worked out.
And so that was one of thosequestions that was like, okay,
yeah, we're gonna talk aboutthis.
Yeah, it helped you think aboutthe future, it helped you think
about other people, it helpedyou consider you know what we
see as normal in our individualsense and how it's going to
become abnormal once we becomeone it was.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
It was a big step for us in that understanding what
leaving and cleaving looks likeyes and what two becoming one
looks like yes because it's notjust his traditions or her
traditions, now it's our right,our tradition and how we're
going to make this work for ourfamily yes and that was uh.
It helped us.
It helped build our team yes inour camaraderie and our unity
(21:20):
because we had to stand by thisdecision and we thinking through
it, we thought through ittogether and came up with that
solution together, correct, andtried it out and you know, it
changed a little bit.
Sure, you know there were yearswhere we flipped and flopped
and years where we were like,well, we got Christmas Eve, we
can do this Day.
(21:43):
We flipped and flopped.
And years where we were like,well, we got christmas eve, we
can do this day after christmas.
We'd go visit if it felt likein a good week.
Sometimes christmas is on afriday and then you go out the
day after, on saturday, or itwas good, now that the kids are
getting older, it's, it's allworking out to go to one family
on this holiday, one family onthat holiday and also we started
having holidays at our own.
We started hosting.
We got to a place where we wereable to host, and that makes it
easier.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
That makes it a lot easier too.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
Yeah, man.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
But I mean just having to put in the work for
that one question.
You know there's 101 questionsRight, and I think a lot of the
times people will look at thisbook they will see that huge
number.
They will start to compute howmuch work it's going to take and
they turn away from it.
(22:25):
They get very intimidated bydoing a book like this because,
they're like I don't know, wedon't, we don't need to do this.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
It's it's too, it's excessive, we don't have to do
this but see, this reinforces mypoint for that, this book, even
though it's for before you getengaged air quotes.
It'd still be great to gothrough as a married couple if
you never did it because younever did it yeah hey, it's
gonna help.
You have something to talkabout yes there's times where it
gets stale, where you're likewhat are we doing?
All we have to talk about iskids.
We have to talk about ourschedules yeah, and these are
(22:54):
great conversation starters,great things for you guys to go
through together, just to get toa new place does this author
have a questions book formarriage?
So he has this one.
There's before you say I do,yeah, there's another premarital
, and then there's after you sayI do, okay, it's like a
partnership, okay, it goestogether, so that you can now
(23:15):
take what you learned in beforeyou say, and say it after yeah,
and then there's also 101questions um if you're getting
remarried okay, that's importantso that you can go through and
really like unlearn some thingsand relearn some things.
Yeah, yeah and and really feelmore prepared.
Maybe you weren't as preparedthe first time, or maybe you
(23:37):
were so young, or it was so fastyeah whatever, whatever
happened.
Or maybe you were so young orit was so fast, yeah, whatever
happened.
Or maybe you made a big mistakethat caused distrust or
disconnection and now you canrelearn how to handle that.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
That's good.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
Yeah, and so H Norman Wright man highly recommended
his books, Big fan.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
So at the end of 101 questions.
So if we did this, you knowfive days a week, yeah, every
week until we finished the book.
We got through it roughly about.
It'd be 20 weeks 20 weeks,which equates to Five questions
a week 100.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
Yeah, 20 weeks like four months.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
So about a season.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
You know you think about it as a season season.
So right now it's the month ofmarch.
If you guys were to go aheadand get this book in march and
you start it, you would be doneby just by summer.
Yeah, you know, and so thinkabout this for those who are
listening and those who arewatching, if you are in a
serious relationship.
Okay yeah and if you feel likethis book is intimidating,
(24:38):
you're like, oh, that's too muchwork, I don't want to go
through it.
I'm afraid to answer some ofthe questions or I'm intimidated
by what it might unopen.
You know, it's going to open upa whole pandora's box you're
going to have to talk about someserious stuff, bro.
You're going to have to talkabout some.
I mean, we're talking aboutpast traditions, expectations,
finances, um mistakes, you knowromantic life, romantic, sexual
(25:03):
things, like all the things,medical things, all the things.
And I, even I, I I almost wantto say that there's a question
in there that tells you aboutyour medical history.
Like do?
You have anything that youmedically had that you should be
telling your partner aboutbefore they are physically
intimate with you like that.
(25:24):
There's a question in there forthat, and so I had a toe
amputated.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
I just want you to know before you see it seriously
like there's, and then imaginethat surprise on your wedding
night for real, like for real,and then like.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
There's a paragraph underneath it that says you
should.
We encourage you I have webbedfeet we encourage you to like
get a physical before you getmarried, and the reason why is
because you don't want to findout.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
You just married somebody with nine toes I'm
allergic to nail cutters, so mynails grow forever oh, oh, my
gosh Kyle, please so.
Oh, come on, have some fun here.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
There's a lot of questions there that you might
be afraid to answer.
There's a lot of humilitythat's going to come out of
answering these questions,because you are literally
cleaning out your closets inquestion form.
Right.
But ask yourself this wherewould your relationship stand if
you started doing the hard worknow?
(26:24):
Where would it be by June, ifyou actually did this book?
By June, you would have a 1trillion thousand percent idea
of whether or not the personyou're doing this book with is
the one you're going to marry.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Oh, that's great.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
Think about that.
That's huge.
That's huge Because when wefinished this book, there was no
doubt I knew I was like I heardit all.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
I'm pretty sure we got engaged the next month or
next week.
We got engaged really quickafter finishing this book.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
I heard it all, I seen it all.
I'm not afraid.
There's nothing that you havehidden from me.
There's nothing that I havehidden from you.
We are completely naked andunashamed at this point.
The only realistic next stepwould be to take that next step.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
Yep, I'm afraid of the washing machine.
So you you're gonna have to dolaundry for our whole marriage
seriously, guys.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
There's questions like that in there of like, what
is your biggest fear?
What did you know?
Speaker 2 (27:29):
roles.
The huge one was roles.
We talked about roles for along time, I remember in the
book, like what's the husband'srole in the marriage?
What's the wife's role?
Like what are you literallygonna?
Speaker 1 (27:36):
do?
What are you expecting yourwife to do?
What are you expecting yourhusband to do?
Speaker 2 (27:40):
yeah, that was a huge one.
That's a big talk there how doyou stay romantic?
Speaker 1 (27:44):
what are you gonna do to be intimate?
Speaker 2 (27:46):
and and it's funny because it also looking back on
it, I like that make me like oh,that's funny, you were so cute
back.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
There were some easy and now we're like, and there
were some hard questions thatdidn't work out that.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
That's not how that worked out at all.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
Yeah, any last things I love talking to you, man.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
This is great, great talk.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
Today we learned how to talk and that's what makes it
lovable is because we putourselves in a position where we
made ourselves talk.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
And it slowed us down in that season where we were
really where you're really likeoh man, this is the woman for me
.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
I want to rush through this.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
Let's just get married.
Let's just get it over withthis is what it's gonna be.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
But nah, dude, you might find something in that
book where it could be likethat's a deal breaker.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
This is a deal breaker absolutely like.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
I don't think I can move forward with this.
You had that type of past.
I don't think I'm comfortablewith that.
I don't think I'll ever becomfortable with that.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
I think we need to part ways wow, it's a good book
and that's the reason why youneed to have the book.
That's that's why we think it'simportant to talk about it here
on the podcast man absolutelymarried couples, engaged couples
, pre-engaged.
It's the right book to worktogether, to figure each other
out, to learn each other, towork on your communication, man.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
I think we we drove that point super home so if you
are a serious couple, whetheryou're married or not married,
go ahead and get the book.
101 Questions to Ask BeforeGetting Engaged.
Let us know if you got the book.
Let us know if you're doing thebook.
Let us know if you finished thebook.
We want to hear all of thereactions, all of the comments
(29:19):
about it, if this was a greatbook for you and how it helped
you learn how to love by faithbetter.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
Yes.
101 Questions.
H.
Norman Wright.
Let's pray for the people.
Yay.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
Let's do it, lord.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
We're grateful for this time, lord, to talk and to
share and to grow together asChristians in fellowship and in
love.
Lord, we pray for the couplesout there who are getting
serious, who are ready to jumpthe broom, as it would be, and
to take the dive into marriageand to understanding their
spouse better and understandingtheir partner better, and to
(29:52):
creating marriages that last forlife, because that's what we're
about here Married for life.
We give you glory for all of it.
We pray for that couple we sawget engaged on Selena's birthday
weekend.
We pray that they have a greatmarriage that lasts and that
you're in the center of it aswell, as you be in the center of
all the marriages who arelistening and who are getting
(30:14):
touched by our ministry, and wejust pray that you continue to
work in our marriage In Jesus'sname, amen.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
Amen.
Thank you guys so much forlistening and watching.
If you're watching us onYouTube, make sure to like,
share, subscribe.
If you guys are listening to uson Apple or Spotify iHeart any
of the other platforms pleasemake sure you give us a
five-star review and share it sothat other people like you can
learn how to love by faith.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
The Serious Couple Series.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
Serious Couple Series .
We're going to come back nextweek, which will be our final
week in March.
We'll have another great bookfor you guys to help you with
before you go about your springbreak at festivities.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
Let's go.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
And we hope to see you next time.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
Don't just think by faith, don't just read by faith,
love by faith.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
Yes, took me three months, bro, got it, nailed it.
Yes, yes, take care guys, yes.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
Good job, selena.
Bye, bro, got it nailed it.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
Yes, take care guys.
Yes, good job, selena.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
Bye I did it, you got it.
Yeah, I kind of teed that oneup really, I know really slow
very slow for me okay I thinkmaybe by the summertime I'll do
a good fast pitch.
You think you'll have it.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
I think I'll have it.
I'll keep working on trying tocatch you off guard Nailed it.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
So in the episode where we kept saying, man, what
was the word Spontaneous?
Speaker 1 (31:40):
In the spontaneous episode.
Yeah, last week what?
Speaker 2 (31:42):
was the final count.
Was it 49?
It was 54.
54.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
It was 54 times.
Yeah, it's all right.
I thought that I thought theticker count would be the end of
us saying it and you, like, twoseconds later, you said it like
three more times.
I was like, oh, I gotta keepcounting.
Wow, this, this guy, this guy,I don't know what you're doing
(32:06):
with your life right now but Igot to go, you got to go?
Speaker 2 (32:08):
Yeah, I got to go.
Where are you?
Speaker 1 (32:09):
going to go, I got to go places.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
What do you got to?
Speaker 1 (32:11):
do?
I got things to do, okay, okay,that's great.
I got to work in my office,yeah, because the kids don't
have school again next Friday.
Children are such a blessing,such a blessing.
Quivers in my bow case is thatwhat it's called quivers in?
Speaker 2 (32:32):
my arrow box, arrows in my quiver arrows in my quiver
.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
They are blessings of the lord arrows in my quiver
when you say it like that, itdoesn't sound right get out of
here.
I gotta go.
Good day.
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