How to prepare for marriage

So then she may ask him, “Well, how were you raised? What, what were you, what was like, how was, what was the household like? When, when you were raised was your mom, there was your dad there were both of them there. What was it like? Who worked, who cleaned? Who did the grocery shopping? Like who? Who washed the clothes?cWho folded the laundry?”

All of these particular questions.

What were you taught about having children?

What were you taught about how to discipline children?

First of all, just what were they raised in? What was it?

And then asking the questions of, so here’s how you were raised, what do you wanna keep doing according to how you were raised?

And what is it that you wanna do differently according to how you were raised, as it pertains to gender roles?

What do you feel like it’s a woman’s responsibility to do inside the home?

And what do you feel like it’s the man’s responsibility to do?

What are your thoughts on one person being at home and one working or both working?

What are your expectations if both people are working?

Like who’s gonna come home and cook? Who’s gonna grocery shop? 

What are your expectations about children?

What are your expectations on how you discipline children?

 How were you disciplined as a kid?

What did you love and not love?

These are not sexy conversations, questions, or what have you.

But it really helps you understand your partner.

When I think about my previous marriage, we didn’t do this.

I didn’t really know that this is something that people do or that we should do.

But now that I’ve gone through so much therapy, I mean, I do therapy all the time. I love therapy.

The more that I ask myself hard questions on a regular basis.

I’ve already said to myself, “I know all of this about me. And if I’m gonna combine this life with somebody, I’ve gotta know what is going over there with him.”

What is he thinking? What is he feeling like? What is he expecting?

Because I don’t know what that is before I choose to say, yes, we can spend our lives together.

Because it could be that he says, I want my wife to be at home cooking and cleaning.

I’m like, I don’t mind cooking, cleaning, but I also run a business, does that mean that I can’t run my business?

I met a couple who said that he wanted his wife to always have her hair a certain way, her body a certain way, and everything needed to stay the same.

And I said it myself, “That sounds good today, but what happens if that can’t happen or whatever.”

So it’s like having those conversations to understand where it is that he’s thinking.

Not to mention I’m 41 years old and when I meet someone, I’ll have to say, “What is your desire for children? Do you want to have children? Do you have to have children?”

Because if your answer is you have to have children, I may not be your girl. 

I may be able to have kids.

 I’m not sure cuz I’m 41 and I don’t know. Hopefully that could happen.

But I need to make sure that his life wouldn’t be ruined if my body doesn’t produce a child.

Like how do you feel about adoption? You see what I’m saying?

Not to mention if we choose to have kids, what are your thoughts on discipline?

How were you raised? Like we were beat when we were growing up?

We were beat and because of that I’ve been through so much therapy, I realize that’s actually trauma and I’m like, okay, that’s bad.

That’s not a good way to discipline a child.

But I don’t know if he’s gone through therapy or what he believes about being beat as a kid or if he’s someone who’s willing to have these hard conversations with a child. Child’s level, time out.

If he’s willing to do those things.

These are the things that I am strongly encouraging you to do.

Again, it’s not sexy, it’s not fun, and not everybody’s gonna encourage you to do these really hard things.

But the truth is that a lot of people are not doing these hard things and then they are getting married and then everything just–Kaboom!

And people are like, “What in the world? This is not what I signed up for!”

A lot of times it’s because there was no communication.

I remember in our marriage, I worked from home, I had my business and my husband had this unspoken expectation that I was always gonna want be the one doing the laundry, folding everything, putting everything away, doing the grocery shopping, cooking and running by business and cleaning, you know, all of this stuff.

 And I was like, “What?” you know what I’m saying?

Not to mention like if you’re someone and you have been abstaining from sex.

Let’s just say if you’re a virgin, like when I met my ex-husband, I was inexperienced.

There was just so much that I did not know.

And he was frustrated at times and I was like, I didn’t, you know, and the Holy Spirit had to go to him on his own and say, “Hey, uh, you should be grateful that she’s inexperienced because you’re her first teacher.”

And he had to come to me and he had to apologize, which is very painful.

But anyway, it’s just like a tangent.

It’s just having these really, really hard conversations.

Because just think about it.

When you have really hard conversations with a person you’re gonna spend the rest of your life with, and you learn how to navigate things, you learn what their expectations are. 

You expect that we’re gonna engage in sexual seven days a week.

Okay. All right. That’s great.

So that means that we have to make sure that our lives are not to the point of stress where we’re just exhausted when we get home.

Because if one person has the expectation of seven and one has the temptation of one, then it’s like, you know what I mean?

I know it sounds kind of dramatic, but I’m just saying I know a couple who is six days a week, sometimes seven, which is awesome,

But they have set up their lives in a way to make sure that like from the moment that they wake up, they’re constantly just loving on each other.

It could just be through a text message.

It could be just through your coffee or whatever.

They’re just always just kind of setting up for what it is they want at the end of night.

They also set up their expectations on sleep, like the time that they normally get it on is at night.

But he normally goes to bed earlier than she does.

So they have it set up like, right around this time our lives start coming down.

We have dinner. You too. We take a shower, we go get it on. We watch a little bit of tv. He’s gonna go to bed a little bit earlier than she is and then she’s going to bed.

But they have this routine so that way, what they both want is being met.

She wants to watch her reality TV. He wants to get it on six, seven days a week. Great.

They’re both happy with it. but they’re just setting that up.

So I just wanted to share that. That’s one of the things that you could be doing to prepare yourself for marriage is cuz remember it’s just y’all two.

I don’t care who your mama, daddy, cousin, grandma is, it’s just y’all two.

When y’all in the house, y’all got bills, y’all got responsibilities, stuff hits the fan. It’s just y’all.

And if y’all learn how to communicate before you get married, set expectations and all those different things.

Then when y’all decide to get married, y’all are on the same page, y’all are literally on the same page no matter what’s going on with everybody else.