August 18, 2025 • 19 mins
In this episode of Couch Conversations, we break down the key signs that let you know you might already be with your future husband or wife. From our own story of meeting, moving in together, and even starting a business within our first year, we share how to spot the traits that point toward a lifelong partnership.
We cover everything from trust and accountability to shared values and enjoying each other’s company. If you’ve ever wondered, “Is this the one?” — this conversation is for you.
CHAPTERS:
00:00 Introduction to Couch Conversations
00:11 Our Relationship Journey
00:48 Sign 1: No Games in Commitment
03:18 Sign 2: Attracted to the Essence
05:28 Sign 3: Accountability and Solutions
07:50 Sign 4: Speaking as a Team
10:20 Sign 5: Enjoying Each Other's Company
11:05 Sign 6: Complete Trust
13:24 Sign 7: Aligning Values and Goals
18:46 Conclusion
Join Our Relationship Community: https://www.instagram.com/channel/AbY...
Follow Us:
@breannaaponte - / breannaaponte
@itsdresmith - / smithsondemand
@smithsondemand - / smithsondemand
@relationshiprestored - / relationshiprestored
We cover everything from trust and accountability to shared values and enjoying each other’s company. If you’ve ever wondered, “Is this the one?” — this conversation is for you.
CHAPTERS:
00:00 Introduction to Couch Conversations
00:11 Our Relationship Journey
00:48 Sign 1: No Games in Commitment
03:18 Sign 2: Attracted to the Essence
05:28 Sign 3: Accountability and Solutions
07:50 Sign 4: Speaking as a Team
10:20 Sign 5: Enjoying Each Other's Company
11:05 Sign 6: Complete Trust
13:24 Sign 7: Aligning Values and Goals
18:46 Conclusion
Join Our Relationship Community: https://www.instagram.com/channel/AbY...
Follow Us:
@breannaaponte - / breannaaponte
@itsdresmith - / smithsondemand
@smithsondemand - / smithsondemand
@relationshiprestored - / relationshiprestored
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back to Smiths on Demand. This is another episode
of Couch Conversations, and today we are talking about seven
signs to know that you're dating your husband or wife.
Dre and I have been together eight years to this day,
married for four.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
We made it official at of three months of meeting,
then we moved in together three months later. Then we
started business together and merged our income three months after that.
And this happened all within the first year of us dating,
so we had to know.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Yeah, and it wasn't just a side business, y'all. Okay,
it was a full time He quit his job, it
was my only job. It was our full time income
twenty four to seven, that's where we were. So we
definitely knew very early on that we were dating the
person that we wanted to marry, and so we're excited
to share these seven signs with you.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
So Number one is that there are no games when
it comes to commitment. This is something that's real because
we always see single people and they like, I don't
know if the person want me or not, and it's like,
it shouldn't be that hard to know if somebody really
wants you. And I always have a very popular saying
that if you want to get a good grade in class,
(01:08):
you got to show up to class, Like I'm not
doing tutoring sessions, I'm not doing office hours, I'm not
doing all these things. If you're not even showing up
to class, if you show up to class every single
day and you're struggling, then we can still take the
time to work on things. But you have to show
the commitment first. And there are so many problems and
relationships that you have to go through and deal with,
(01:30):
but knowing if that person is actually there for you
and committed to you should not be one of those questions.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Yeah, I'm just gonna give you guys a quick example.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
When Dre and I got together, he asked me to
be his girlfriend.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
The literal day that I got off.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
The moving truck to DC, and the first thing that
came to my mind was like, Wow, you're not even
gonna let.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
Me see what these DC streets is hitting phone. But
in that moment, I was like, this is my.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Opportunity to either commit or not. And if I wasn't
serious about him, if I wasn't worried about losing him,
I would.
Speaker 3 (02:04):
Have said no.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
But to me, I was like saying no is not
worth missing out on my potential husband just because I
want to have some time to date and explore. When
if I know that this is my person, why am
I going to play around? Second example was I had
to cut off all my woes. And I say woes
because they were not hoes. I was not sleeping with
men or doing anything like that.
Speaker 4 (02:25):
But I did have guys in my phone who I
could hit up for money or for experiences, for favors,
for whatever. And I was like, dang, if I'm committing
to you, that means I have to de attach myself
from all these other men.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
And I did. It was tough, and I talked to
him about it too.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
I was like, ah, Okay, this is different, this is different.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
I'm for real about you.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
And so he did not have to question because my
commitment never waivered and vice versa.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Yeah, and we were twenty two and twenty three when
we first met, so we had a slew of issues
that we had to work through, but the commitment to
each other is never one of those things. So if
that person is not playing games, and you know for sure,
that's a good sign that maybe this is somebody long term.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Really good sign and if they're not, you need to
have a conversation because it should it should not be
that difficult. Number two, the essence of who you are
attracts them.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
This is a big thing in a relationship because I
feel like the essence of somebody is like their light,
and you don't want to dim somebody's light in a relationship,
and you don't want your light them like.
Speaker 5 (03:34):
One of the things that attracted me to Breathe.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
Of course, physically, you have to be attracted to the
person that you want to be with. But one of
the things that attracted me to her was just how
she moved in a space, like she had this big
personality and big light. And when I first met her,
she was still in hustle mode, and I remember her
going into a restaurant and just talking to every single
woman in there to try to get them to be
(03:56):
a part of her shameless group and do dance classes
and things of that, and I was just looking like,
I've never met somebody liked this, And to this day,
that's the core of who she is.
Speaker 5 (04:07):
She's just a bright, open, friendly person.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Obviously, we have things in relationships that we say are
part of who we are, but they're like bad habits
we picked up growing up that we probably need to change.
But there are things that are the essence of somebody
and who they are, and if they're attracted to that,
the thing that makes you you, then that's a really
good sign. I think who I am and the essence
of who I am attracts breed too.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Yeah, and there's our situation was very different because when
I met Dre, he had it all figured out. Like
as a man, he was very secure, he was very confident,
he was very calm and level headed, and he.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
Was a problem solver.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
He just was like this provider and I.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
Was the complete opposite of that. I was a show
on wheels.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
And I was like, are you sure you know all
this baggage? But again, and he was like, I'm not
looking at what you've been through. I'm looking at what
we could build and be together. And so if you
are like, while this person's heart, this person's intentions, the
core of who they are is so attractive to me.
All the other things like money and what they do
(05:18):
for a living, and you know, just the things, the
material stuff of the world. Those things can be changed, fixed.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
And worked on. But if they're good at the core.
That is a really good sign, all right.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Number three is they take accountability and work towards solutions.
This is big in a relationship because you're always gonna
have issues. We are almost ten years in and we
still have arguments to this day about things. But the
thing that matters the most is not the absence of arguments.
It's about how you handle those things. And that's something
(05:50):
that early on, even when we met at twenty two
and twenty three, that no matter how bad it got
we had some really bad nights early on, we would
come back to the table and say, I'm sorry, I
should have handled this differently.
Speaker 5 (06:02):
I'm sorry I shouldn't have said that to you, and.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Then we would try to find ways to make it
not happen again, even if we were unsuccessful for those times.
Moving forward, we would work to try to figure this out.
And that's just a sign that it's like, oh, this
person's in it for the long haul with me. They're
not trying to leave every time something bad goes wrong.
That was one of the ways that I knew that
(06:26):
Breed was my wife and somebody I wanted to spend
the rest of my life with, because in past situations.
Whenever bad things will happen, I'll just be like, yeah,
not the relationship for me, I'm out. But for this one,
every time we went through something, I would be like,
we need to figure this out, we need to work
this out, we need to talk about it.
Speaker 5 (06:42):
And I was like, oh, this is different.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
You know, in dating, I do think there is two sides, right.
There's either that someone is just bad with conflict resolution
or someone just doesn't care about you enough to handle
it the right way. And I've witnessed a lot of
women who get into these love bombing situations where everything
is like so grand and amazing, but then a conflict
(07:05):
happens and now they're in a position where they're super
confused because the person switches up, they're placing blame, and
so I think it is important to understand that someone
can be bad at resolving conflict and that can be
worked on.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
If they're like, this.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
Is something I learned from my upbringing, or this is
what I've done in the past, but I want to
do better, that is a good sign because that means
that they're aware that how they've dealt with.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
Things haven't been the best.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
And they do want to make change for you and
for the betterment of your relationship. Now, if someone is
coming into situations where they're not hearing you out they
just want to be right instead of like getting to
a solution, that is not a good sign. Or if
people are just completely avoiding the conflict, that's also a
bad sign because that just genuinely means they probably don't care.
(07:50):
Number four, they speak as if you are already a team.
This was something that honestly scared me a little bit
when I first got with Dre because he was always we,
we we and no he is not French. So I
had this experience where he was seeing all of these
you know l's that I was taking.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
He saw front.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Row seat what debts I had, and just different things
that weren't ideal in a relationship. And he never once said,
well you have debt or will you have this problem?
Speaker 3 (08:21):
It was always we. It was very clear that he was.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
Already navigating from a space of unity and partnership and
was basically treating me like I already was his wife.
And so that was major for me. And you talk
more about that because as a man, I think that
that is such a bold thing to do. But like
I don't know how early someone should do that or not,
so please speak more onto that.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Yeah, I think that we talked about point one where
we said there aren't games, right, and I think it's
just a natural progression, Like if you see yourself with
somebody long term, the way that you talk, the way
that you think is in that way. So it's not
even a conscious thing of like game to say we
versus eyes just no. I genuinely am thinking about my
(09:07):
future with you involved, so naturally when I'm talking about something,
I will say we we have to figure this out.
We have to understand how to get through this next
chapter of our relationship to prepare us for you know,
what marriage is going to be, And I think that's
a big thing. It's like when you are dating, you're
(09:28):
trying to figure out if this person is the person
you want to spend the rest of your life with.
So what we're doing in a dating phase is preparing
us for marriage. So I don't want to wait until
the ring is on your finger to start preparing for.
Speaker 5 (09:41):
The rest of our lives.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
If I know and have a feeling that you're the
person I want to be with, then I'm going to
start preparing for that now. And that's one thing my
pops told me. He was like, I knew that breed
was going to be different for you because you took
responsibility for her early on, Like you took accountability for
for her to make sure she was fine when she
(10:03):
first moved here. I like gave her money towards movers,
I like bought her stuff for her apartment, like toilet paper,
paper towels, And it was just like a certain level
of like I need to make sure that you're good.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
Yeah, yep, so listen up for that word we.
Speaker 5 (10:21):
Number five. You genuinely enjoy being together.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
This is kind of the most important part of a relationship.
It's kind of like everything should be a net positive.
Like you don't know how many people we talked to
and it's like they say all these things about this person,
and then we'll ask like are.
Speaker 5 (10:37):
You happy and they're like no.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
We're like, so what's the point, Like why are you
putting up with all of this stuff if the person
you don't even enjoy your time with that person? It's like,
that's what relationships are all about. Always say that relationships
are about who you want to go through crap with, right, Yeah,
it's for us. It's so great because we like no
(11:00):
matter if you know, we're on a beach on a boat,
which we prefer to be on versus like just being
in the house or doing so many other things. Like
we literally enjoy just being in each other's presence, even
if it's like bad experiences. We want to experience like
the bad experience together. Like we've had times where we
was like, I remember we went somewhere we was like, yep,
(11:23):
can't shower on this trip because this toilet, I mean,
this tub is disgusted, it's brown.
Speaker 5 (11:29):
Stuff coming out the faucets.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
But it was like we just enjoy our experience and
figure it out and bird bath together. It's like you
enjoy your time and your moments with that person and
don't need caveats or certain things to be in place,
like to be in a certain location to really enjoy yourself.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
That's also why we were able to wait for marriage,
because we just genuinely enjoyed each other's company that we
didn't really feel like we were missing anything.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
So yeah, that's a big one.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
Number six is that you trust them completely. Drey and
I have had each other's past coode from I mean,
very very early on. I had been in so many
relationships where I would wait until my boyfriend was sleeping
to go looking through his phone to see who he's
talking to. And every relationship I have been in I
had trust issues. This was the first relationship where I
(12:18):
had the man's past code and literally never had to
look through his phone, never even crosses my mind to
do so, because the trust is there. It is one
thing to be with somebody and enjoy them and feel
good with them, but then the moment that they're around
you kind of worrying or wondering what they're doing, who
they're talking to, or how they're moving or behaving. And
(12:39):
it is another thing to just know fullheartedly that somebody
is your person.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
They are out there.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
In the world and they are a reflection of you,
and they respect you and your relationship and the boundaries
that you have put in place.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
To protect that. So I think trust is major.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
And girls, we know we have that intuition, We know
when a man is doing what he's sayings and when
he's not, so follow that.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Yeah, and that's one of the foundations for leadership and
submission and all these things that people talk about in relationship.
Speaker 5 (13:09):
It's really all just about trust.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
But it's not even just the trust of like being faithful,
which is super important if you want to know if
this person is going to be your husband or wife.
It's also about trusting that they would be a good father,
or that they would be a good mother, or that
they would be a good sibling or brother in law
or son in law, or trusting them in environments to
(13:31):
where you're like, hey, I need you to get this done.
Will you get it done for us? Like you handle
the finances, I'll handle this, Like will they be able
to do those things? So the trust in a relationship
is not just about being faithful, it's about trusting somebody
in every aspect because this is one of the biggest
decisions that you're going to make in your life. And
like I said, this person could be the mother or
(13:53):
father of your child.
Speaker 5 (13:54):
Right.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
The question you should ask yourself is like if they
turn if our child turned out like this person, would
I be happy about that?
Speaker 5 (14:02):
Right? So that type of trust is important and it's
like a full circle trust.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
A good way to test that is to not listen
to what someone does, but watch what they do, because
their actions will tell you everything that you need to know.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Number seven is your values and goals aligned for the
long haul. This is probably one of the most obvious
ones because you need to be compatible in that way
in order for the relationship to truly work, and your
alignment on your morals and goals are what makes your
character and who you are and ultimately drive a lot
(14:36):
of decisions in your relationship. So making sure that you
guys align on that is important. But I also think too,
is that you should look at how flexible somebody is
when it comes to those things, because you're not just
making decisions for you all right now. This decision of
marriage is also making decisions for thirty years down the
road for you, right So understanding like in a situation,
(15:00):
I may have had a goal, but then I might
have changed my goal based off of new circumstances. Look
to see how that person reacts to you changing your
mind or changing your goals. Are they receptive to that?
Are they just like, no, we said we were going
to do this, and hold you to that. Because you're
going to change your mind in a relationship, You're going
to feel different, you're going to mature, you're going to grow,
(15:21):
So you need somebody that's going to be flexible, but
making sure you aligned with the goals are going to
be important. And one thing for me I know coming
in that was a little different was that Bree told
me from early on that she wanted to adopt kids,
and that was something. Now the kids that she wanted
to adopt change throughout the time, but that was always
something that was dear to her heart. So that was
(15:43):
something early on I had to say, is this something
that I could see from my life? It's just something
that I want from my life. We also had a
heart of entrepreneurship, which comes with this own challenges, inconsistency
and income like some spontaneous things that might happen, but
we had to align and say like, oh, this is
what we want for our lives and feel good about
(16:04):
it moving forward.
Speaker 5 (16:05):
Also our relationship with God, Like.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
There's so many things we had to align on to
know like, all right, this is some way I want
to be with for the rest of my life.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
Yeah. And I think sometimes people struggle with knowing when
to have the conversations, like the conversations of how many
kids do you want? And just like the lifelong things.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
And I think if.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
Those conversations aren't had within three months, something is wrong.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
But even for me, it was like I think one of.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
Our very first walks we ever took, which was like
in the first few weeks of us meeting and starting
that courtship, I was like, I want five children.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
That or at least that's the goal.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
I really want to adopt, and I'm very open and
honest and transparent, and I want to be able to
share my life.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
With social media. You have to be okay with these things,
because if you're not, then we're not aligned.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
Like how can I do life with someone who doesn't
want core things that really matter to me? And that
was something that you know, like I said very early on,
because it's either for someone or they could say, yeah,
I'm not set either way, but like I'm open, And
that's the exact response that he gave was like, never
really thought about it, but if that's something that's important
(17:11):
to you, I am open to it. And so I
do think, like the important conversation should be had within
three months.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
Otherwise ma'am, we are wasting our time.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Yeah, So it's all about balance, and one I forgot
to mention. The biggest thing is that we decided to
wait for marriage. But that was a decision that I
made separately to wait for marriage. So that was another
standpoint of like do I really want to do this
or that, and we had to align on our goals.
But the thing that's nice, I think, or something that's
(17:40):
important in your relationship is that you want to typically
have the same goals. Now you may differ on the
way to get to those goals, and that's where you
have the discussion and balance those things out. But the
goals and where you alsomately want to go in life,
you guys should be heading generally in the same direction.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
Example of this is like if you're someone who said
I always wanted to live on a farm and have
animals and like not have neighbors and really just be
in the middle of nowhere, and then your partner is
someone who's like, I really want a penthouse condo in
a major city. I never would want to move or
live on a farm. Something like that is two core
(18:21):
differences and that is just not alignment on like what
your future would look like together. So something like that
would have to be talked about. So it's definitely important
to kind of know what your negotiables and non negotiables
are and making sure that even you are being flexible
with that because remember, there are a lot of people
in the world, but we all been in any streets.
Speaker 5 (18:40):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
It's not a fun playground, and so you do have
to be willing to make sure that you're giving grace
in order to receive it, because at the end of
the day, your person is out there, but there are
going to be things that you're going.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
To have to be lenient on and you know, compromise on.
So just make sure at the end of the day
that you are also being just open minded, lean into
your differences.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
One example that I could talk about with Bree is
that I wanted to get married here, possibly at a
church or something like that. She wanted to get married
in the Dominican Republic, and we had conversations about it.
I was against it, but then she showed me the
experience and what that could mean, and I was like, actually,
I do like this and I think it can work,
and it's just some idea that never crossed my mind.
(19:21):
So it's like, when you have that flexibility and you
have those conversations, it's not necessarily a red flag that
means thrown to the side. But one important thing is
that your yeses have to mean yes and your nose
have to mean no because we don't want resentment to
build up in your relationship.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Yep. So, hopefully these seven signs have helped you determine
if the person you're dating is your husband or wife.
Make sure to like, subscribe, follow us on social do
all the things, and until next time, see ya,
Welcome back to Smiths on Demand. This is another episode
of Couch Conversations, and today we are talking about seven
signs to know that you're dating your husband or wife.
Dre and I have been together eight years to this day,
married for four.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
We made it official at of three months of meeting,
then we moved in together three months later. Then we
started business together and merged our income three months after that.
And this happened all within the first year of us dating,
so we had to know.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Yeah, and it wasn't just a side business, y'all. Okay,
it was a full time He quit his job, it
was my only job. It was our full time income
twenty four to seven, that's where we were. So we
definitely knew very early on that we were dating the
person that we wanted to marry, and so we're excited
to share these seven signs with you.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
So Number one is that there are no games when
it comes to commitment. This is something that's real because
we always see single people and they like, I don't
know if the person want me or not, and it's like,
it shouldn't be that hard to know if somebody really
wants you. And I always have a very popular saying
that if you want to get a good grade in class,
(01:08):
you got to show up to class, Like I'm not
doing tutoring sessions, I'm not doing office hours, I'm not
doing all these things. If you're not even showing up
to class, if you show up to class every single
day and you're struggling, then we can still take the
time to work on things. But you have to show
the commitment first. And there are so many problems and
relationships that you have to go through and deal with,
(01:30):
but knowing if that person is actually there for you
and committed to you should not be one of those questions.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Yeah, I'm just gonna give you guys a quick example.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
When Dre and I got together, he asked me to
be his girlfriend.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
The literal day that I got off.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
The moving truck to DC, and the first thing that
came to my mind was like, Wow, you're not even
gonna let.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
Me see what these DC streets is hitting phone. But
in that moment, I was like, this is my.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Opportunity to either commit or not. And if I wasn't
serious about him, if I wasn't worried about losing him,
I would.
Speaker 3 (02:04):
Have said no.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
But to me, I was like saying no is not
worth missing out on my potential husband just because I
want to have some time to date and explore. When
if I know that this is my person, why am
I going to play around? Second example was I had
to cut off all my woes. And I say woes
because they were not hoes. I was not sleeping with
men or doing anything like that.
Speaker 4 (02:25):
But I did have guys in my phone who I
could hit up for money or for experiences, for favors,
for whatever. And I was like, dang, if I'm committing
to you, that means I have to de attach myself
from all these other men.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
And I did. It was tough, and I talked to
him about it too.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
I was like, ah, Okay, this is different, this is different.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
I'm for real about you.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
And so he did not have to question because my
commitment never waivered and vice versa.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Yeah, and we were twenty two and twenty three when
we first met, so we had a slew of issues
that we had to work through, but the commitment to
each other is never one of those things. So if
that person is not playing games, and you know for sure,
that's a good sign that maybe this is somebody long term.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Really good sign and if they're not, you need to
have a conversation because it should it should not be
that difficult. Number two, the essence of who you are
attracts them.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
This is a big thing in a relationship because I
feel like the essence of somebody is like their light,
and you don't want to dim somebody's light in a relationship,
and you don't want your light them like.
Speaker 5 (03:34):
One of the things that attracted me to Breathe.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
Of course, physically, you have to be attracted to the
person that you want to be with. But one of
the things that attracted me to her was just how
she moved in a space, like she had this big
personality and big light. And when I first met her,
she was still in hustle mode, and I remember her
going into a restaurant and just talking to every single
woman in there to try to get them to be
(03:56):
a part of her shameless group and do dance classes
and things of that, and I was just looking like,
I've never met somebody liked this, And to this day,
that's the core of who she is.
Speaker 5 (04:07):
She's just a bright, open, friendly person.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Obviously, we have things in relationships that we say are
part of who we are, but they're like bad habits
we picked up growing up that we probably need to change.
But there are things that are the essence of somebody
and who they are, and if they're attracted to that,
the thing that makes you you, then that's a really
good sign. I think who I am and the essence
of who I am attracts breed too.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Yeah, and there's our situation was very different because when
I met Dre, he had it all figured out. Like
as a man, he was very secure, he was very confident,
he was very calm and level headed, and he.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
Was a problem solver.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
He just was like this provider and I.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
Was the complete opposite of that. I was a show
on wheels.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
And I was like, are you sure you know all
this baggage? But again, and he was like, I'm not
looking at what you've been through. I'm looking at what
we could build and be together. And so if you
are like, while this person's heart, this person's intentions, the
core of who they are is so attractive to me.
All the other things like money and what they do
(05:18):
for a living, and you know, just the things, the
material stuff of the world. Those things can be changed, fixed.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
And worked on. But if they're good at the core.
That is a really good sign, all right.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Number three is they take accountability and work towards solutions.
This is big in a relationship because you're always gonna
have issues. We are almost ten years in and we
still have arguments to this day about things. But the
thing that matters the most is not the absence of arguments.
It's about how you handle those things. And that's something
(05:50):
that early on, even when we met at twenty two
and twenty three, that no matter how bad it got
we had some really bad nights early on, we would
come back to the table and say, I'm sorry, I
should have handled this differently.
Speaker 5 (06:02):
I'm sorry I shouldn't have said that to you, and.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Then we would try to find ways to make it
not happen again, even if we were unsuccessful for those times.
Moving forward, we would work to try to figure this out.
And that's just a sign that it's like, oh, this
person's in it for the long haul with me. They're
not trying to leave every time something bad goes wrong.
That was one of the ways that I knew that
(06:26):
Breed was my wife and somebody I wanted to spend
the rest of my life with, because in past situations.
Whenever bad things will happen, I'll just be like, yeah,
not the relationship for me, I'm out. But for this one,
every time we went through something, I would be like,
we need to figure this out, we need to work
this out, we need to talk about it.
Speaker 5 (06:42):
And I was like, oh, this is different.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
You know, in dating, I do think there is two sides, right.
There's either that someone is just bad with conflict resolution
or someone just doesn't care about you enough to handle
it the right way. And I've witnessed a lot of
women who get into these love bombing situations where everything
is like so grand and amazing, but then a conflict
(07:05):
happens and now they're in a position where they're super
confused because the person switches up, they're placing blame, and
so I think it is important to understand that someone
can be bad at resolving conflict and that can be
worked on.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
If they're like, this.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
Is something I learned from my upbringing, or this is
what I've done in the past, but I want to
do better, that is a good sign because that means
that they're aware that how they've dealt with.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
Things haven't been the best.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
And they do want to make change for you and
for the betterment of your relationship. Now, if someone is
coming into situations where they're not hearing you out they
just want to be right instead of like getting to
a solution, that is not a good sign. Or if
people are just completely avoiding the conflict, that's also a
bad sign because that just genuinely means they probably don't care.
(07:50):
Number four, they speak as if you are already a team.
This was something that honestly scared me a little bit
when I first got with Dre because he was always we,
we we and no he is not French. So I
had this experience where he was seeing all of these
you know l's that I was taking.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
He saw front.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Row seat what debts I had, and just different things
that weren't ideal in a relationship. And he never once said,
well you have debt or will you have this problem?
Speaker 3 (08:21):
It was always we. It was very clear that he was.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
Already navigating from a space of unity and partnership and
was basically treating me like I already was his wife.
And so that was major for me. And you talk
more about that because as a man, I think that
that is such a bold thing to do. But like
I don't know how early someone should do that or not,
so please speak more onto that.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Yeah, I think that we talked about point one where
we said there aren't games, right, and I think it's
just a natural progression, Like if you see yourself with
somebody long term, the way that you talk, the way
that you think is in that way. So it's not
even a conscious thing of like game to say we
versus eyes just no. I genuinely am thinking about my
(09:07):
future with you involved, so naturally when I'm talking about something,
I will say we we have to figure this out.
We have to understand how to get through this next
chapter of our relationship to prepare us for you know,
what marriage is going to be, And I think that's
a big thing. It's like when you are dating, you're
(09:28):
trying to figure out if this person is the person
you want to spend the rest of your life with.
So what we're doing in a dating phase is preparing
us for marriage. So I don't want to wait until
the ring is on your finger to start preparing for.
Speaker 5 (09:41):
The rest of our lives.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
If I know and have a feeling that you're the
person I want to be with, then I'm going to
start preparing for that now. And that's one thing my
pops told me. He was like, I knew that breed
was going to be different for you because you took
responsibility for her early on, Like you took accountability for
for her to make sure she was fine when she
(10:03):
first moved here. I like gave her money towards movers,
I like bought her stuff for her apartment, like toilet paper,
paper towels, And it was just like a certain level
of like I need to make sure that you're good.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
Yeah, yep, so listen up for that word we.
Speaker 5 (10:21):
Number five. You genuinely enjoy being together.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
This is kind of the most important part of a relationship.
It's kind of like everything should be a net positive.
Like you don't know how many people we talked to
and it's like they say all these things about this person,
and then we'll ask like are.
Speaker 5 (10:37):
You happy and they're like no.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
We're like, so what's the point, Like why are you
putting up with all of this stuff if the person
you don't even enjoy your time with that person? It's like,
that's what relationships are all about. Always say that relationships
are about who you want to go through crap with, right, Yeah,
it's for us. It's so great because we like no
(11:00):
matter if you know, we're on a beach on a boat,
which we prefer to be on versus like just being
in the house or doing so many other things. Like
we literally enjoy just being in each other's presence, even
if it's like bad experiences. We want to experience like
the bad experience together. Like we've had times where we
was like, I remember we went somewhere we was like, yep,
(11:23):
can't shower on this trip because this toilet, I mean,
this tub is disgusted, it's brown.
Speaker 5 (11:29):
Stuff coming out the faucets.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
But it was like we just enjoy our experience and
figure it out and bird bath together. It's like you
enjoy your time and your moments with that person and
don't need caveats or certain things to be in place,
like to be in a certain location to really enjoy yourself.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
That's also why we were able to wait for marriage,
because we just genuinely enjoyed each other's company that we
didn't really feel like we were missing anything.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
So yeah, that's a big one.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
Number six is that you trust them completely. Drey and
I have had each other's past coode from I mean,
very very early on. I had been in so many
relationships where I would wait until my boyfriend was sleeping
to go looking through his phone to see who he's
talking to. And every relationship I have been in I
had trust issues. This was the first relationship where I
(12:18):
had the man's past code and literally never had to
look through his phone, never even crosses my mind to
do so, because the trust is there. It is one
thing to be with somebody and enjoy them and feel
good with them, but then the moment that they're around
you kind of worrying or wondering what they're doing, who
they're talking to, or how they're moving or behaving. And
(12:39):
it is another thing to just know fullheartedly that somebody
is your person.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
They are out there.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
In the world and they are a reflection of you,
and they respect you and your relationship and the boundaries
that you have put in place.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
To protect that. So I think trust is major.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
And girls, we know we have that intuition, We know
when a man is doing what he's sayings and when
he's not, so follow that.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Yeah, and that's one of the foundations for leadership and
submission and all these things that people talk about in relationship.
Speaker 5 (13:09):
It's really all just about trust.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
But it's not even just the trust of like being faithful,
which is super important if you want to know if
this person is going to be your husband or wife.
It's also about trusting that they would be a good father,
or that they would be a good mother, or that
they would be a good sibling or brother in law
or son in law, or trusting them in environments to
(13:31):
where you're like, hey, I need you to get this done.
Will you get it done for us? Like you handle
the finances, I'll handle this, Like will they be able
to do those things? So the trust in a relationship
is not just about being faithful, it's about trusting somebody
in every aspect because this is one of the biggest
decisions that you're going to make in your life. And
like I said, this person could be the mother or
(13:53):
father of your child.
Speaker 5 (13:54):
Right.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
The question you should ask yourself is like if they
turn if our child turned out like this person, would
I be happy about that?
Speaker 5 (14:02):
Right? So that type of trust is important and it's
like a full circle trust.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
A good way to test that is to not listen
to what someone does, but watch what they do, because
their actions will tell you everything that you need to know.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Number seven is your values and goals aligned for the
long haul. This is probably one of the most obvious
ones because you need to be compatible in that way
in order for the relationship to truly work, and your
alignment on your morals and goals are what makes your
character and who you are and ultimately drive a lot
(14:36):
of decisions in your relationship. So making sure that you
guys align on that is important. But I also think too,
is that you should look at how flexible somebody is
when it comes to those things, because you're not just
making decisions for you all right now. This decision of
marriage is also making decisions for thirty years down the
road for you, right So understanding like in a situation,
(15:00):
I may have had a goal, but then I might
have changed my goal based off of new circumstances. Look
to see how that person reacts to you changing your
mind or changing your goals. Are they receptive to that?
Are they just like, no, we said we were going
to do this, and hold you to that. Because you're
going to change your mind in a relationship, You're going
to feel different, you're going to mature, you're going to grow,
(15:21):
So you need somebody that's going to be flexible, but
making sure you aligned with the goals are going to
be important. And one thing for me I know coming
in that was a little different was that Bree told
me from early on that she wanted to adopt kids,
and that was something. Now the kids that she wanted
to adopt change throughout the time, but that was always
something that was dear to her heart. So that was
(15:43):
something early on I had to say, is this something
that I could see from my life? It's just something
that I want from my life. We also had a
heart of entrepreneurship, which comes with this own challenges, inconsistency
and income like some spontaneous things that might happen, but
we had to align and say like, oh, this is
what we want for our lives and feel good about
(16:04):
it moving forward.
Speaker 5 (16:05):
Also our relationship with God, Like.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
There's so many things we had to align on to
know like, all right, this is some way I want
to be with for the rest of my life.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
Yeah. And I think sometimes people struggle with knowing when
to have the conversations, like the conversations of how many
kids do you want? And just like the lifelong things.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
And I think if.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
Those conversations aren't had within three months, something is wrong.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
But even for me, it was like I think one of.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
Our very first walks we ever took, which was like
in the first few weeks of us meeting and starting
that courtship, I was like, I want five children.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
That or at least that's the goal.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
I really want to adopt, and I'm very open and
honest and transparent, and I want to be able to
share my life.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
With social media. You have to be okay with these things,
because if you're not, then we're not aligned.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
Like how can I do life with someone who doesn't
want core things that really matter to me? And that
was something that you know, like I said very early on,
because it's either for someone or they could say, yeah,
I'm not set either way, but like I'm open, And
that's the exact response that he gave was like, never
really thought about it, but if that's something that's important
(17:11):
to you, I am open to it. And so I
do think, like the important conversation should be had within
three months.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
Otherwise ma'am, we are wasting our time.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Yeah, So it's all about balance, and one I forgot
to mention. The biggest thing is that we decided to
wait for marriage. But that was a decision that I
made separately to wait for marriage. So that was another
standpoint of like do I really want to do this
or that, and we had to align on our goals.
But the thing that's nice, I think, or something that's
(17:40):
important in your relationship is that you want to typically
have the same goals. Now you may differ on the
way to get to those goals, and that's where you
have the discussion and balance those things out. But the
goals and where you alsomately want to go in life,
you guys should be heading generally in the same direction.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
Example of this is like if you're someone who said
I always wanted to live on a farm and have
animals and like not have neighbors and really just be
in the middle of nowhere, and then your partner is
someone who's like, I really want a penthouse condo in
a major city. I never would want to move or
live on a farm. Something like that is two core
(18:21):
differences and that is just not alignment on like what
your future would look like together. So something like that
would have to be talked about. So it's definitely important
to kind of know what your negotiables and non negotiables
are and making sure that even you are being flexible
with that because remember, there are a lot of people
in the world, but we all been in any streets.
Speaker 5 (18:40):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
It's not a fun playground, and so you do have
to be willing to make sure that you're giving grace
in order to receive it, because at the end of
the day, your person is out there, but there are
going to be things that you're going.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
To have to be lenient on and you know, compromise on.
So just make sure at the end of the day
that you are also being just open minded, lean into
your differences.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
One example that I could talk about with Bree is
that I wanted to get married here, possibly at a
church or something like that. She wanted to get married
in the Dominican Republic, and we had conversations about it.
I was against it, but then she showed me the
experience and what that could mean, and I was like, actually,
I do like this and I think it can work,
and it's just some idea that never crossed my mind.
(19:21):
So it's like, when you have that flexibility and you
have those conversations, it's not necessarily a red flag that
means thrown to the side. But one important thing is
that your yeses have to mean yes and your nose
have to mean no because we don't want resentment to
build up in your relationship.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Yep. So, hopefully these seven signs have helped you determine
if the person you're dating is your husband or wife.
Make sure to like, subscribe, follow us on social do
all the things, and until next time, see ya,
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