All right. Hello everyone.
All right.
All right. I want to remind all of you that if you're doing anything distracting in your video besides just sitting there listening let's make sure that we turn our videos off, because it is very distracting.
So if you're walking if you're outside if you're exercising if you're eating even go ahead and turn off your video until you're done doing that and then you can put your video back on later.
All right. And sometimes our hosts will go ahead and turn your video off for you. If you are being distracting. All right, we love you, but we want everyone to be able to focus.
And in the zoom call, it's very difficult to focus if there's a lot of activity going on. Right, lots of people off camera tonight, nobody wants to show their face on the love seat.
All right.
Okay, hold on one sec.
All right, I want to give a hard start for everyone so welcome tonight to love seats. If you've never been to a love seat before because maybe you're new to phase three or you're new to the men's group.
I want to tell you that love seat is a place where we talk about love. We talk about relationships. And if you're brave, you can jump into the hot seats.
The love seat and talk about a scenario that's going on in your life. Maybe something that happened on a data gap, maybe something that's happening in real time with a person that you're beginning to talk to, or you're beginning to date, and we can definitely help you and give you advice in those scenarios and then everybody else gets to hear as well, and they get to learn.
So tonight we're going to do a hybrid of regular love seat with part two of relationship expectations. I know that a lot of you had a lot of questions based on our last path session. If you didn't get to watch last Thursday's session of relationship expectation based on the relationship stages, the levels, one, two, three, four, five, then we want you to watch that.
And we're going to go ahead and continue that discussion tonight. Sound good, everybody.
I know I'm excited. We have a lot of new men that have joined our group just recently so want to welcome them I see some of them here right now I see James and Thomas here on the homepage that I can see I'm on my iPad.
So I'll have to scroll through to see who else is here. Joshua's in the house he's new so ladies make sure you make all these men feel welcome.
It's kind of like the Hunger Games may the odds forever be in your favor because on tonight, the odds are in these men's favor.
Mike's here tonight because there's probably 30 of you for every one of them. So, happy hunting, gentlemen.
Okay, good stuff. And then of course Paul's here I see Paul he's an OG though.
Alright, so we're gonna kick off with love seats but first I want to say something at the very beginning. Some of you want customized advice. So you might post in a group you might post on a roll call you might ask for advice on your situation.
I just want to tell you ahead of time the advice is not always going to be what you want to hear.
You know, I love to tell people what they want to hear I love to be the person that says yes and be the confirmation for you and say yes go for it it's great it's wonderful green flags are waving all the lights are green go go go go go let's go.
I love to be that person. And a lot of times when someone posts a question or maybe they book a one on one call with me or another coach, and they put in the, the little customized sheet what they want to talk about.
I can already tell that it's not going to be a great conversation that there's going to be some hard truths that are going to be that are going to be shared, and that it's probably not going to be what they want to hear.
Because let's be honest with ourselves, a lot of times we show up. And we asked for advice, but all we're really asking for is for someone to give us permission to go ahead and do something that we already deep down inside know is not the right thing.
Anybody else.
And we'll paint those questions in a way, or we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll say those questions in a way to try to make it seem favorable to hopefully not let them see the disorder and the dysfunction in the situation.
So, yeah, that sounds great. Sure. Thumbs up. Go for it. You know, go ahead.
But Holy Spirit has given me training to be a matchbreaker, not just a matchmaker.
And so if there's something unhealthy that's going on there, I'm going to call it out.
And if you get offended at me, I'm still going to call it out.
All right. That's part of the God defense system. I want you to be God defended.
The last thing that I want is for you to show up two years down the line and say,
Hey, you know, Jackie, why didn't you, why didn't you tell me that this seemed unhealthy?
Just because I wanted you to be happy, right? No, I'd rather you be happy long-term longevity
happiness than happy right now, but headed your little car headed towards the cliff.
This right here is where my daughter is getting married.
Marfa. Okay. I just saw that in the camera and I'm like, Oh, I got my Marfa cup.
All right. So please do not shoot the messenger. Don't shoot the messenger.
Put your gun down. All right. So that goes for tonight. If you jump in the love seat
and you don't like the advice, no one made you get in the love seat.
And that's pretty much all I have to say about that.
All right. So on that note, who wants to go first?
I feel like a panda without my spots y'all. Cause I don't have any,
I don't have my glasses on. I don't have my mask on. I'm like panda. I'm a savage.
I'm not though. I'll go.
Lily. All right. We got a Brunette Lily. We've got a redheaded Lily going on here. Go ahead.
Trying to go to my natural color. Right away from the lawn. Thank you. Appreciate that.
I have a question. So I am in a level three relationship. It's been great. However,
he has been married four times. He's been single nine years, done a lot of healing,
a lot of therapy, all those kinds of things. Has a master's degree in marriage and family
counseling from Liberty diversity that he just received recently. Spent a lot of time on that,
but he seems a little shy about marriage, you know, and rightfully so. What is,
what is a normal timeframe to expect the relationship to be?
To expect the relationship to go to level three, I'm sorry, level four and five
for that kind of situation. So a lot of good, a lot of good things in Lily's question in the
love seat here. Number one, I want to make sure that it's not lost on any of us, especially the
new people that Lily who has not been in this program for very long. She came into this program
with very low hope that this was going to happen for her. She was here by divine appointment. She
was being obedient and coming in, but a lot of her posts started with, you know, this isn't
going to happen for me. Men don't like me where I'm in. I don't understand. I don't, you know,
so much. And you see that she's now in a level three relationship with someone that she really
likes. And so for all of you that believe that this cannot happen for you, Lily is proving you
wrong. Okay. She's had, and she's had such a makeover, not just the outside, but the inside.
And this is just really a testing to what heartwork can do when you let it work hard and
heartwork will work if you let it work. And so she so first of all, I've had former clients,
both men and women that have been much married. And so this guy's been married four times.
And so that is not a deterrent for me. A lot of you be like, Whoa, you know, you might get a do
over. You might get a second chance, but not a third chance, not a fourth chance on a fifth
chance. But the most important thing is that what did you learn from the failure of those marriages?
What did you learn from the failure of this marriage? So Lily, you don't have to answer
any of these questions. If you know the answers, you don't have to share them. But number one,
if someone has been divorced and you get to level three with them, I don't care if it's one divorce
two, three, four, five, whatever, you know, one of the questions that you need to ask them as
not right out the gate, but in those higher levels of two, where you're becoming more exclusive,
the other people are fading away. You're not dating anyone else. And then you become boyfriend,
girlfriend in a courtship. You want to know what did they learn and what part did they play in
their divorces? What part did they play? And if the part that they played in their divorces was
infidelity, if they, if they had, if they committed adultery, if they cheated on their
former spouse, you got to have more information about that. All right. How many times did they
cheat? How many years did they cheat?
We'll never forget.
I will never forget y'all.
We had a couple in Simbis and he was divorced.
He had been divorced for many years, had not remarried.
I can't even remember how many years he'd been divorced.
Oh, actually, I'm sorry.
His wife passed away.
Okay, they weren't divorced.
She had passed away.
I can't really remember how many years
she had been passed away.
And he was in Simbis with one of our ladies
and they were considering getting engaged
and getting married.
And so working through all the hard questions.
And I remember being on a one-on-one with them
because there was some deeper things
that had to be discussed outside of Simbis.
And I remember asking,
were you happily married to your first wife?
Yeah, we were happily married,
but I was unfaithful, that I was unfaithful.
She forgave me, we stayed together, yada, yada.
Okay, great.
So how many times were you unfaithful?
For how long were you unfaithful?
And then ended up coming out that he was unfaithful
for a majority of the marriage.
Yeah, she's passed away
and they were married for a long time, y'all.
And so then the question became this,
how long were you faithful for?
How long after you got caught and you were forgiven
were you faithful for before she died?
Like how much of the marriage
were you actually a one-woman man?
Because these are important questions.
And gentlemen, it goes the same way.
Women cheat too.
And it's not just about infidelity,
but if infidelity comes up,
you gotta find out what someone has learned from that.
Because as soon as someone gets unhappy in a marriage,
if their MO is to go try to find something better,
but not leave the marriage,
go try to scratch their itch
or go try to find someone to tell them
that they're pretty, that's a problem.
And we wanna make sure
that that's no longer a problem currently.
And so Lily said something important.
He's been, this last marriage,
he's been out of it for nine years.
He hasn't been in a relationship.
Well, you didn't say that,
but he's been single for nine years.
Hasn't obviously gotten remarried in nine years.
Don't know if there was any serious relationships
in those nine years, but he went, got therapy
and even went and became a therapist himself
in the area of marriage and family.
So he definitely learned some things for sure,
right there, right?
But he is not necessarily sold on himself
being married again.
But Lily, have you ever been married before?
Yes, I've had two marriages.
One for 11 months when I was 19 years old
and one for 23 years
that I've been single seven years now, divorced.
Okay, so you know what it's like to be married
and to be out of a marriage
and the aftermath and the healing and all of those things.
And so we can understand that this man
would be a little hesitant to get remarried
because of the things that he's experienced,
whether that was on him or on them or on both,
which is usually the story.
And so-
I would say that-
He tells me he's looking for his last wife.
So he says he is marriage-minded,
but he also says to me,
he has to date someone at least a year
before he would even consider marrying someone.
I don't have a problem with that.
Okay. I don't have a problem
with that.
How long have you guys been dating?
About six weeks and he wanted to be exclusive.
So kind of right off the box.
Right.
So here's my questions that I would ask him if I were you.
So you're looking for your last first date.
You're looking for your final wife.
You've learned enough, you know better.
And you have now gotten me into an exclusive relationship.
So you must think I'm her.
You know, and I wouldn't have any problem
with you guys seeing each other in every season,
you know, spring, summer, fall, winter,
before saying I do.
You guys, there's nothing wrong with that.
In fact, the first brand of married in 12 months or less,
that's what it meant.
It meant, you know, being together for, you know,
12 months and then getting married.
Some people date for two years, three years,
four years, five years.
I'm not in, I'm not on that train.
If you don't know after a year, gentlemen,
that she's the one that you want to propose to
and you want to make your wife,
then you're not gonna know.
There's something else going on, something deeper.
There's inner healing that's needed.
There's, you know, all kinds of different things
that are happening that are keeping you
from being able to make that decision,
especially at these ages
that we are representing in this group.
And so I would be okay with that.
Now, here's the thing.
If you feel like, and it might not take him a year,
you know, he might know after six months
as you guys continue to grow and progress together.
But if you feel also like he's husband material
and you want to grow with him,
obviously you do,
because you said yes to being his girlfriend.
But in the first, you know, couple months,
months of this arrangement where your boyfriend and girlfriend, if you do not see progress,
um, then there needs to be further conversations. If there, if you don't see progress, if you don't
see him becoming more vulnerable, letting you in, if you're not learning more about the failed
marriages and what happened in those things and how this is going to be different relationship
in his life, then, you know, he doesn't have enough healing to go all the way to the finish
line. All right. So he should start letting you in as you go forward. And so we, the jury's
completely out on this, but guys in all relationships where you've made it to level
three, one of your expectations should be that you're growing together in intimacy into me,
see meaning vulnerability, finding out about this person, what makes them take what they want in
the future. You should also see, um, them becoming a better version of themselves. Spirit mates will
draw people. They will draw each other higher spiritually, relationally, mentally, physically,
emotionally. Um, you should be coming better and closer to God, not becoming worse and further
away from God. That's what I'm finding. And this will be my first Christian relationship. So that's
what I'm finding with this man is that spiritually it is like on fire. Wait, it's amazing. So thank
you for your answering that check. I appreciate that. That's awesome. All right. Well, we're
rooting for you. So keep us posted. Thank you. All right, Mandy, you're up.
Okay. So I have been in a level three relationship for about four months, three,
four months going out and close to four months now. And, um, it's long distance. So that's been
a little bit of a challenge, but, uh, with his job, his name is Sean. He can move and he would,
would love to move. He's actually coming up here to Michigan in may to meet my kids. Um,
and I guess that's my question is, um, well, I have two questions. One,
what does that look like? Um, for the meeting of my kids, my kids are all like one second.
How old are your kids? Um, the oldest is 27 and the twins are 15. So there's six of them
from 27 to 15. Um, and they have like kind of met him on FaceTime. You know what I mean? Like
they've done that. They really like him. Um, he's super excited, uh, to be a part of my family.
Like he's very marriage minded. And I thought that he had the three M's like he was masculine.
He was marriage minded and he was very mature. And then, um, just a couple of days ago, he, um,
I think he's an Enneagram three. I don't know if you know what Enneagram is, but, um, so he's like
super goal oriented and he likes to be the best at everything he does and all that goes with being a
three. And, um, he was raised in a very strict Lutheran home and he's recovering from that.
Uh, he was adopted from Korea by some pastors and had a pretty violent rough upbringing. Um, anyway,
so he's recovering from all of that, but, um, he recently chose to leave. He had two positions, um,
in like C-suite positions with two different companies. And he told, he chose to leave one
that he has more time for relationship and family and whatever comes down the Pike.
So I feel like he's being, um, intentional about making room in his life, but because that
toxic situation that he left, they didn't like run after him and offer him more money and like
beg him to stay and whatever really took a hit to his ego. And so I, he didn't like spiral,
spiral, but I sort of saw him like really get knocked off his pedestal, I guess, or whatever.
And it scared me because my ex-husband of 20 years. Okay. So we need, we need like
details of what it is that you saw. What are the like, he was like, um, so I'm supposed to go
visit. I stay with, um, his, um, his small group leaders when I visit him in Tennessee. Um,
and I'm supposed to go down and visit this weekend for several days. And he was like,
maybe you shouldn't come. I just really have to get like, you deserve someone better, blah, blah,
blah. And I was like, where is this coming from? It was, I don't, I don't even know.
And so we had a conversation, we talked it all through. Um, but I'm like, I need,
I'm kind of a go-getter, right? Like I can't have some, I don't know, I need a masculine man.
And so I can't.
I have like a sissy or somebody who's like super, I will literally walk all over somebody.
I have a strong personality and so I can't, I need someone that also has a strong personality.
And so this was like the first time that I saw him sort of get rocked a little bit and
we worked through it and it, and we're good now, but just his initial, like his gut reaction
of this, like victim mindset, self-deprecating, you know, how he was talking poorly about
himself like that to me is a lot of it.
It's very, it turns me off.
I want any part of that.
All right.
So here's the thing, everybody, all right, nobody's perfect.
Okay.
Nobody's perfect.
Everybody has what yellow flags.
If you're new here, you're going to hear me say that a lot and it's important that you
write that down because it's true.
Everybody has yellow flags.
No one is going to have everything that you want.
Okay.
This is not build a bear.
Write that down.
It's not build a bear.
All right.
You don't get to go.
It's not build a man, Mandy.
All right.
It's not build a woman.
You know, I heard a comedian say it differently and it's not, it's not good what he said,
but it's not that either.
Okay.
And so, all right.
So this guy, he, he went through a little thing and he's going to go through things.
If you end up marrying him, there's going to be stuff because you guys, the mountaintop
is great.
If you want to see far and it's great, but we spend a lot of time in the Valley because
that's where you grow the fruit, grow the fruit in the Valley.
And so you're going to spend time in the Valley in marriage and it's important that your support
each other there and help each other there.
Okay.
I will say this.
Anytime I hear the code word, you deserve someone better.
It's usually because that person is breaking up with us for other reasons.
Not necessarily the reasons that we think it is.
And if someone wants to be the good guy or the good girl and they don't want to hurt
your feelings, they might make it be like, Oh, it's not you.
It's me.
But maybe they've met someone else or maybe something else is happening that you don't
know.
And in long distance relationships, I'm going to tell you right now, there's a lot of stuff
that we don't know about that person because we're not doing life with them.
So definitely keep your eyes open, not trying to be the bearer of bad news, but keep your
eyes open for that.
When it comes to your original question about introducing him to the kids, like you said,
they've met him over FaceTime.
All of your children are older, 15 year old twins being the youngest and then going up
to 27.
And so being real with your kids is important.
So if he does come to visit, if they are going to meet him in person, you know, the kids
that live at home still, the kids that don't live at home, just having a conversation and
saying, Hey, look, you know, mom wants to get remarried.
I don't know if this is him, but the only way that I'm going to find out is by dating.
You know, there isn't any reason that any of us should become overly attached to him
until we know that he's the guy, but he is someone that I care about and that I'm walking
through this process with.
And just be honest.
Now, if your kids are littler, we have a whole different conversation because a lot of times
kids that are little will latch on to someone of the opposite sex, especially if they do
not have a strong relationship with their biological mother or father.
You know, the, the person that's missing from the equation.
So if you're the woman, you bring a man in, they're going to latch onto him.
In fact, we've had one girl, she got married to him, thank goodness.
But from the very first moment that her toddlers met him, they started calling him daddy.
Okay.
So that happens.
And then of course, the same way, guys, if you have children and they don't have a strong
mother figure, you bring a mom around a mom, a woman around, and they're, they're liable
to either repel or latch one or the other.
So Mandy have just a heart to heart with your kids.
Let them know that you're not sure if this is going to go all the way that you're optimistic
that it could.
And that's why you guys are going to this level of introductions, but that all of you
should guard your hearts.
And I wouldn't hold this thing against him.
See what else is possibly behind this whole, you know, all of a sudden, you know, Superman
has kryptonite.
We'll see.
Just keep your eyes open and take a look and see what's up.
I do agree.
All of you strong ladies out there, if you do get with a passive man, you can do it.
It is possible.
Dave is definitely more passive than I am.
But he also is very masculine.
And you know, while he's laid back, I don't even think the word is passive is right.
He, while he's laid back, he can become very vocal when something needs to happen.
Right.
And so that's really the balance that you want.
You don't need an aggressive like alpha man.
You need a man who is meek, which is power under control.
But while he might not be the person
making the day-to-day decisions,
he might be okay with you making
the day-to-day household decisions,
but when there's something that he feels strongly about,
he will use his wisdom and he will use his voice
to let you know, hey, I'm not comfortable with that.
You don't want someone who's just gonna let you do
whatever you wanna do with no, just have full license.
That's definitely not a partnership.
And some of y'all boss babes know what I'm talking about.
You don't need to have a yes man in your life.
You need to be told no.
Guys, I heard my husband say to someone once,
he said, yeah, it's like, I usually tell Jackie yes,
but every once in a while, no matter what it is,
I'll just say no.
You know, it doesn't matter what it is.
I'll just throw in a no, just for good measure.
He's like, yes, yes, no, but babe, it's just ice cream.
No, babe, no, we're not getting ice cream.
The answer's no.
I was like, what?
Anyway, that's funny.
Okay, you do need the no's, it's important.
All right, good stuff.
Okay, what else we got?
Come on, the love seat's open.
Okay, so let's throw an expectation in there.
So she's at level three with this guy, right?
Your exclusive boyfriend, girlfriend.
And so your expectation at this level
is that someone would let you in
when they're going through a hard time at level three.
They're gonna let you in.
They're not gonna block you out.
They're gonna be vulnerable with you.
They're gonna tell you what's going on in their heart.
If they lost their job, if they lost a pet or a parent,
that they're going to invite you
into their suffering with them.
That's what the word compassion means.
It means to enter the suffering of another.
And so we need to be able to have compassion
for one another.
And you can't do that if they won't share with you
how they're hurting.
And so you can expect at level three
that this person is letting you in to the deeper places.
All right, Nitin, you're up.
I think Gabriela was before me, Jackie.
So I'm gonna give-
Oh, okay.
Yes, ladies first, Nitin.
Gabriela, go ahead.
Thank you.
So I'm in a level two, only one date with a gentleman
that says he's been divorced for a year.
And he overshared on the first date about his ex-wife
leaving him after five years
after he finished remodeling their home.
So, and he said that he's since learned
about attachment styles
and that she was a dismissive avoidant
and that he's an anxious attachment style
and that he was trying to lean in and fix things.
And it was just repulsing her.
So I got a little bit of a picture
of their relationship,
but he is not sure if he will ever want to get married again
after he went through that.
So should I still continue getting to know him?
And the other thing that came up is I tried,
I'm very experienced like with public records research.
So I tried to find his divorce records
and I couldn't find them.
So should I ask him like for a copy of his divorce decree
to verify?
I just thought it was really strange.
Like I looked in every possible county
like surrounding counties and I could not find it.
Okay.
So you're entering into this acquaintance
with a whole lot of distrust.
Okay.
So I want to help you see where you are.
Okay.
Because in order to build a relationship, you guys,
there is a certain amount of trust
that has to be given at the very beginning, right?
That I'm sitting across from this stranger.
I don't know them.
They don't know me.
I don't know anyone that knows them.
Unfortunately, this is where we are
in the modern dating world.
We date strangers off the internet and I get it.
And it's, you know, it is what it is.
And, but there's a certain amount of trust
that has to be given to this person
that whoever they're telling me that they are
when I'm getting to know them, that that is who they are.
You know, if after just one date,
I'm scouring the internet trying to look for proof
that what they have said is true,
then that means that either I don't trust them
because my gut told me on the first date
that there was something off about them.
And so I'm already entering into distrust
because I have some intuition that something's wrong
and, or I'm just an untrustful person,
like a non-trusting person that's not able
to even get off first base with letting someone,
you know, have the benefit of the doubt.
So both of those scenarios are not good, Gabriella.
So either you are in a place
where you just don't trust anybody
and you're just gonna have to,
it's like they're guilty.
until proven innocent, or something in your gut told you,
hmm, I don't know, this seems kind of sketch,
I'm gonna check it out.
It's hard to say, because I do have,
I have a history of trauma,
and it's hard for me to trust people, so I'm guarded,
but he's also long distance.
And he, I don't know, his communication kind of shifted
to shorter texts, it left me feeling anxious,
he's triggering my anxiety for some reason,
and normally I'm more avoidant,
so I don't know why I'm getting anxious about this guy.
We had a great first date,
but he did not set up a second date.
He talked about possibly planning one,
but he has a lot going on with work,
and he's gonna be taking a trip to Tennessee,
and I noticed that he was changing his location
on the dating profile as well,
to Tennessee and different areas of the state where he was.
And he works for-
There you go, so you have your answer.
Yeah.
So he's definitely not putting all his eggs
in the Gabriela basket.
You might've had a great first connection,
but he's on the prowl, so to speak, right?
Changing his- Right, which is,
I mean, after one date- And the fact that you know that,
and the fact that you know that about him
shows a lot of anxious, like anxious,
I wouldn't even say attachment,
because there's no attachment here,
but it shows a lot of anxiety in the situation
of kind of checking up on him,
seeing if his divorce is valid, if it's real,
seeing what he's doing on the app.
All of that is kind of a recipe for not good stuff.
Yeah, and I'm normally not like that at all,
so I don't know what triggered that in me.
Well, it shows that for whatever reason,
you don't trust this guy.
And so if I were you, I would just move on.
Okay, thank you. But also,
we got to do some hard work, right?
Because we want to get you to a place
where unless your spidey sense is going off,
and Holy Spirit's like, danger, danger, danger,
that we give people the benefit of the doubt
when we first meet them.
But in this scenario, it sounds like your gut is,
you're feeling off about him,
and it does sound like it's off.
So let's go ahead and move on.
Okay, thanks. Awesome.
You guys, cutting your losses pretty quickly
doesn't have to be a loss, it can be a win.
Cutting off the connection really quickly can be a win
if there are immediate, remember it's a yes
until it's a no, and sometimes it's an immediate no.
It's an immediate no.
Because why?
Because there's just something about the person that,
you know, it isn't a hard work issue,
you've done your hard work,
you're giving them the benefit of the doubt,
but there's something about them that's just sketchy.
You know, you want to enjoy the conversation
or you want to enjoy the date,
but there's just things about them
that just don't sit right in your spirit, in your spirit.
And we don't want to ignore that.
And so cutting off that connection quickly
before you get involved in any kind of cuckoo stuff,
that's really in your, it's really in your benefit.
Nitin, what do you got?
Jaggi, what does vulnerability look like in stage three,
four, five, as in what is permissible to be shared?
How much?
So if you can kind of elaborate on that,
that would be appreciated.
Okay, so he's talking about three, four, and five,
so that's exclusivity, three, that's courtship,
and then four is engagement, five is marriage.
But I want to say that vulnerability
really needs to start in two in order to make it to three.
I don't feel like anyone is going to say yes
to being exclusive with someone
that has not been somewhat vulnerable with them, right?
Don't we need something to build on
in order to get to boyfriend, girlfriend?
We do.
And so I feel like when you start,
we never want to interrogate someone.
We don't want to sit them down on the first couple of days
and try to find out everything about their lives.
People do that because of fear.
People do that because of what Gabrielle
was just expressing.
I want to find out if there is any danger in this person
that I need to be aware of.
And so how do I do that?
By talking to them and asking them questions.
She didn't do that because this guy overshared,
but in people's oversharing,
that's when we start to see a lot of things as well, right?
That's why we do it to keep ourselves safe.
It's definitely a self-defense mechanism
to try to find out as much as we can as soon as possible.
Okay, I don't want to waste our time
and also don't want to be in danger.
That makes sense, right?
So it takes a lot.
ought to just pull back from that
and allow things to unfold a little bit more slowly.
But if we're seeing this person
and we're seeing them a lot,
going on date after date, having phone conversations,
some of you, I just talked to a guy two days ago,
right out of the gate,
they're having three, four hour conversations
because they're long distance.
When that happens, obviously,
we're gonna start sharing things about ourselves
and about our past and about our hopes and dreams
and failures and future, okay?
And so in order to get to level three,
we're gonna share some of that stuff
as we're getting to know someone better, okay?
Don't pry, let it kind of unfold naturally
in the conversation.
And then when we get to level three and we're like,
yes, I'll be exclusive with you.
Yes, I see that you and I could have a future together.
I'm saying yes to being your boyfriend, girlfriend,
to seeing where this goes.
Then it's appropriate, Nitin,
for us to begin to share organically
as much as possible, deeper things.
You're like, how organically?
Well, maybe you're watching a movie
and the person's parent dies in the movie.
And that's a perfect opportunity
for you to talk about the death of your parent
and how it made you feel
or what your relationship was like.
There's all kinds of opportunities within relationship
to organically talk about things.
You guys know that, right?
Maybe something comes up in the news
and it has to do with something that doesn't involve you,
but it's something that maybe you experienced as well.
And so maybe it's like some racism stuff
and then you share with the person
that you're exclusively dating,
hey, I was a victim of racism.
This is what happened to me.
This is how this made me feel.
And this has been the aftermath kind of of that in my life.
Just these deeper things in our lives that have happened.
You can expect, Nitin, by engagement
that you know most of the big things,
the important things to know about this person,
including their weaknesses.
I would never get engaged to someone
who I didn't have kind of a clear understanding
of where they need to grow.
What are their yellow flags?
You should know their yellow flags
by the time you say yes to marrying them, okay?
And then within that engagement period,
I like either a long courtship, short engagement,
or a short courtship, long engagement.
Either way, whatever you want to do.
Guys, hold on a second
because the IT department is not here tonight
and I need to make sure that my device is still dead
because I noticed that it just came on.
So let me see.
Perfect, all right.
So long courtship, short engagement, or short courtship,
that's level three, and then long level four.
We want to make sure before we say I do to this person
that we know where all the bodies are buried.
You got to know where all the bodies are buried
before you say I do, okay?
All right, now does that mean that during marriage,
deeper layers of that pain don't come to the surface?
Yes, but you should at least know that there's a wound there.
And how are you going to do that?
By communicating, by taking classes like SIMBAS,
save your marriage before it starts.
Why is that important?
Because that actually forces conversations
about very intimate and important things
about what's your sex life going to look like.
What kind of hangups do you have there, right?
What kind of woundings and trauma do you have?
What's your financial life going to look like?
What kind of, you know,
I can't tell you how many times in SIMBAS
people find out about how much debt this person has
because you didn't know that
because it just never came up in other conversations.
You know, these are important conversations.
What's blending your family going to look like?
Right now I have at least two families
that are really struggling,
that are success stories from here,
that are blends, that have children from other marriages.
And now in the relationship,
they're running into lots of difficulties
with behavior problems with kids.
And what does it look like to parent someone else's child
and all the different things.
But going through a premarital course,
and I suggest that you do that even in higher level three
before you're even engaged,
because maybe you don't get engaged
based on what happens during a course like that.
You know what I'm saying?
Yes.
So hopefully this answers your question.
And one last thing, do you do premarital counseling
like you were mentioning in stage three?
I do not do counseling because I'm not a counselor,
but I do premarital coaching.
Okay, coaching. Thank you.
Yeah.
And you guys, besides degrees and education,
the difference between coaching and counseling
is that-
Counselors, a lot of times,
for those of you that have gone to counseling,
they are trained to listen, right?
Coaches are trained to teach.
So yeah, I do listen,
but I do a lot of teaching in those sessions
and helping people to build.
Counselors, for the most part,
they will listen and they will mirror back to you
what you're saying,
and by that mirroring,
help you kind of find your own solution.
But they're not really counselors.
A lot of times you're not trained to give advice.
That's more of therapy.
And so there's all different levels of things.
Okay, all right.
Who's next?
Laura or Belinda, I don't know who was next.
I think it was Laura.
All right, Laura, go.
Oh, I think you raised your hand first,
so it doesn't matter.
All right, just short, brief, and powerful questions,
ladies.
Who wants to go?
Laura, go ahead.
Okay, so I've been talking to this guy
that I had a video date with since,
I had a video date with him like Friday,
and he lives in a different state.
So that's either here nor there.
But he says he's Jewish,
but he's not like practicing Jewish.
And so he's talking about celebrating Passover,
which is this week with his family.
But he has also mentioned,
because we were talking about holidays,
and he said they don't celebrate Christmas or Easter.
So I'm like, so I don't know how to,
I don't know if we're gonna have another video date
or call this week or not, he hasn't said.
So I don't know if I should ask if that,
ask him how to ask him, do you believe in Jesus?
Do you believe in God, that type of thing?
Because it might be a deal breaker for me if he doesn't.
He says he's-
First of all, if he's Jewish
and doesn't celebrate Christmas or Easter,
that's because those are Jesus holidays for the most part.
They have become secular for sure.
But I'm also Jewish and not obviously a practicing,
for the most part, the Jewish faith,
but I am practicing Christianity.
So it doesn't sound like he's a Christian.
It doesn't actually sound like he's doing much
with his own background either, with his own heritage.
So yeah, I think that, okay, so in this situation, friends,
when you're meeting someone long distance
and you think that there might,
remember it's a yes until it's a no,
and you think that they might be sharing a no with you,
like, hey, I'm not a Christ follower.
I'm not interested in that.
In fact, I'm Jewish.
I don't believe in Jesus kind of thing.
That would be important to just ask right out.
Say, hey, my faith's important to me.
I'm a Christian.
You know, practicing my faith,
following Christ is an important part of my life.
Is your faith important part of your life?
And what is your faith?
And that's permissible, Laura, right there
for you to go ahead and have that conversation.
Okay, I don't know when we'll,
if we'll have another video date this week
or call or whatever, but I will ask him that.
Yeah, and you guys, I saw some chat,
some chatter in the chat.
I am a certified Symbus instructor.
We do have a premarital course
that we're working on as well.
I like Symbus, Symbus is good.
And it does have a, you know, a save your second marriage.
There is a lot of information for divorced people also.
And there's also one,
there's also one that I'm certified in
that's for married people.
So kind of save your marriage while you're in it, right?
And so we have, I think that our premarital coaching,
regardless of what curriculum we're using,
it doesn't matter if we're using Symbus,
we make it our own.
You know, the coaches that coach
in our premarital coaching are phenomenal,
including myself and my husband.
And so if you get into a level four relationship
or a higher level three within this program,
I really wanna encourage you to take advantage
of coaching with us, all right?
Okay, Belinda, go ahead.
Okay, so I met a guy on Facebook dating.
We've been on now four dates.
Going with the whole, it's a yes until it's a no thing.
He's been great.
He's 10 years older than me,
but we have similar stage of life.
His kids, he's got five ranging from 15 to 28.
Boys are 14 and 19, so our kids are similar ages.
So I've kind of been,
I've never dated someone this much older,
but I'm same season of life.
So I'm like, it's good, right?
After the third date,
he asked if we could kind of say no to everything else
while we're seeing as to this.
And I said, yes.
And after the fourth date,
we talked a little bit more about his divorce.
So he was married for over 20 years
and he said that she came out of the closet.
She decided that she was a lesbian.
And so that's why their divorce ended
or why their marriage ended.
And so-
That could put a damper on your marriage for sure.
Yeah.
So the complicated part, I guess,
is he asked me how I felt about that being a Christian.
And I shared as much with truth and love as I could,
how I feel about that.
And he said, I appreciate your response
because my two older children are very sensitive to that.
They're very, one of them is actually an atheist.
They, you know, and so after the date,
I started really thinking about long-term.
And even though our kids are older,
like a blended family and the kind of complicated nature
this might add,
and I'm not sure really how to evaluate it
or what are the things I should be thinking about.
It's such a good question, Linda.
Thanks for asking.
So you guys, here's the thing.
You're not going to find anyone without brokenness
in their family, okay?
Whether it's their origin family,
whether it's the family that they built
with their first spouse, you know, you're not going to.
Everybody suffers.
And we're living in an age,
remember God matched you at this age.
He put you in this timeline.
You could have been born in any history of the earth,
but you were born now during the time
that we're living in full of brokenness,
full of, you know, trauma,
full of all the different things
that we're experiencing here.
And so he knows that you can show up with grace
and with love, with mercy.
As Christ followers, that is what we're called to do.
So it makes perfect sense to me
that his grown children would have some beef with God
because I'm sure they love their mother,
and I'm sure they also know that God hates homos, right?
Because that's what they've been told.
And so why would they love God
if he wants to send the person that they love
to some fiery death?
And so these are issues,
and I see this a lot in the children of parents
who have, you know, professed homosexuality,
that have gone transgender within the marriage.
You guys, we've had so many people come through here
that are divorced because their former spouse
professed that they were gay
or professed that they were a different gender
trapped in another gender's body,
and then, you know, transitioned.
And so that is not something that we haven't seen here.
We've seen a lot of it.
And always, the close family members to that person
have trouble with Christianity because of that.
Because let's just face it,
the televised Christianity, the vocal Christianity,
that mainstream media Christianity has been very,
just, you know, really out to get, you know,
that subject, right?
I don't believe that Jesus would have acted like that.
I don't.
I believe that he would have had a lot of grace and mercy,
and he would have had a lot of insight
of the why behind the what.
And so I believe that we are called to that.
That is what we're called to.
So I wanna encourage all of you
that these don't have to be deal breakers.
You know, partnering with someone
whose family is going through things like this
or other things, it doesn't have to be a deal breaker.
We don't have to choose the easy road.
You know, somebody has to volunteer
to help bring restoration to a family
that has been, you know, broken in these ways.
And so it's something that I don't think
you have to decide right away.
I think that, and this is why it's really important,
you guys, here's another expectation
based on Belinda's question.
When you're getting to know someone,
do not give them information about your current life
and your children or things that you're dealing with
with your former spouse that's above their pay grade.
Don't give them that information.
And what I mean by that is,
let them genuinely develop an affection for you
before you start telling them all the reasons
why they should have a deal breaker with you.
All right, don't start with that, okay?
Don't start with a list of all the things
that they're gonna have to deal with
if they decide to love you, don't.
Don't show up to the second date
with, you know, a list of all your health conditions.
Well, I have an autoimmune disorder
and I have the, nobody needs to know that.
Okay. It doesn't need to be something that somebody finds out about you until they should.
Okay. So Belinda, how many dates have you been on with this guy before he's talked to you about this?
Four.
Yeah. So a lot of times people will show up and kind of try to put their dirty laundry on the table early in an acquaintance, in a dating relationship, because they want, if you're going to cut and run, they just want you to do it now.
Right? They don't want to get to a situation where they're going to catch feelings for you and then you're going to catch the door.
Okay, because you decide that you don't want to deal with all their baggage.
Okay. God has people. And for those of you that have some pretty squirrely situations in your relationships with your kids and your former spouses and things that are going on there, I want to encourage you by telling you that God does have someone who will love you enough to help heal a heart that he didn't break, that they didn't break.
They will love you enough to let God work through them, to help bring healing to your family and to your children, to be a kinsman redeemer for you.
I have that. I have been that for David, for my husband and his children, and he has been that for me and my child.
So let's not share that stuff too soon. Let's not share that stuff too soon. Let's be really prayerful about when and how to share some things that someone who doesn't know us a lot, you know, doesn't know us really well and doesn't know the good things about us, that might tip the scale.
In fact, do it like this. Think of it as a bank account. Don't make withdrawals unless you have deposits to cover them. Right? So let's deposit into the friendship, into the dating relationship. Let's make deposits. Let's put our best foot forward. That's not being fake. That's not being wrong. That's not being deceitful or deceptive.
Okay. Let's put our best foot forward. Let's let them see the good things about us. And then we can start making withdrawals based on the amount of deposits that we've put in. Does that make sense? Because otherwise you're going to overdraw that account, aren't you?
If I only have one date with you and it goes really great and that's just a deposit, but then on the next date I want to tell you every bad thing that's ever going to be a part of our lives that I'm still connected to because of my former marriage, what's going to happen?
You ain't going to hear from that person again unless they're crazy. Right? Unless they have anxious attachment and they're like, oh, I'll save you. I'll be your knight in shining armor.
James, what do you got?
Yeah. Hi. I got a question on behalf of me and Leah. So she's on this call too. So she can correct me if I speak out of turn here.
Hi, Leah.
Hold on. So there are so many new people here. So James and Leah are both students in this program. They both came in separately at separate times. They didn't know each other, but they met here and they fell in love here.
And now they are in a level three, high level three, expecting to hear great news any day, high level three relationship. So just so you guys know who, and they're long distance. She lives in Wisconsin and he lives in New York City. So now go ahead, James.
Yeah, I think what I want to find out is like, what can we do when we normally get got to see each other every three to four weeks. But what happened recently is I had to go on a missions trip for a while with my church. And then she had to do some stuff with her family, some emergencies that came up that required her to go to Minnesota and be with them for a while.
So we couldn't see each other. So she's going to actually, I'm actually going to see her tomorrow night, right? I'm going to meet up with her at the airport, leave work a little early and greet her like an outstanding gentleman. But we will have not seen each other in nine weeks. And emotionally, that presented a lot of challenges.
So what I want to know is what can we do, us or any couple like us in that situation where there's going to be some time where we just can't see each other for an extended period? And how do we deal with the emotional challenge of that?
Get married.
Seriously, get married.
So they've been together for a minute now. And so that is my best advice. You guys remember, long courtship, short engagement. Okay, short courtship, long engagement. But let's make sure that, you know, we are, you know, doing what we need to do in order to find the answers that we need to find in order to give us the peace that we need to have.
in order to go ahead and get married.
It's important because there's so many,
I want to really say this right now.
There are so many things that you probably would want
tied up with a neat little bow before you say I do
that just simply won't be.
They're not going to be tied up with a neat little bow
before you say I do.
And if you're one of those people
that just really needs that,
then you're going to just,
you're gonna stretch it out and stretch it out
and stretch it out and stretch it out.
Not that they're doing this,
because there's some things
that are not going to ever be resolved
until sometime in the marriage.
Sometime in the marriage,
that's when that's going to be resolved.
And so you have to just understand,
this is why back in the olden days,
people got married young.
And they got married young because they already knew
it was a no brainer
that they were going to grow together, right?
That's what was going to happen.
They were going to kind of grow up together
and hopefully grow together and not grow apart.
And the only reason that people have grown apart
over the generations where getting married young
is not necessarily the best thing to do anymore
is because people become more and more immature,
more entitled, there's more brokenness,
there's more family trauma, inherited trauma,
there's more than there's ever been
in the whole history of the earth, right?
And so getting married young
is not necessarily the best thing to do anymore.
But I'm just saying that back in the day,
it was just a given
that you were going to work that stuff out
as you got married.
Boy meets girl, boy falls in love with girl,
boy marries girl.
Most old fashioned marriages actually happened
in four months or less.
The marriages from like the fifties and stuff,
that's when they, that's how that worked, okay?
No big, long drawn out situation.
So for those of you in this day and age
that are going to be dating long distance,
it's not for the faint of heart, it is very difficult.
It is, and it's going to be exhausting
and you're going to probably want to give up at some point.
It is important if you can to relocate
as soon as you know that,
you're headed towards a level four and five,
it's higher level three,
you're in love with each other,
you're telling each other, I love you,
you're making promises that you're going to get married,
you're planning your future together.
Someone's going to have to move.
Somebody has to move, even temporarily, they have to move.
And where there's a will, there's a way,
where there's God's will, there's obviously a way.
And so what you have to do is you have to be willing
to lean into community.
And so I want to let you guys know,
James lives in New York City.
He goes to one of the greatest churches there,
in my opinion, Life Center, New York City.
I've spoke there three years in a row.
I love the heart of that community.
It's probably going to happen
that Leah moves to New York City.
He's got a good job there, he's embedded there,
at least for the near future, their first time,
their newlywed time of being married,
it looks like they're going to be in New York City.
She has a need to relocate.
And so if you live in the New York City area
and you are a woman and you have an extra space
in your home where you could help her get relocated
to New York City in order for them to do life together
up until when they get engaged and get married,
obviously, I'm sure she would pay you rent.
I'm sure there could be some kind of financial arrangement.
I'm going to post this in single city, New York City as well.
Guys, that's what community-based matchmaking is all about.
And that's what this community is about.
This community is like 1200, 1300 people strong.
There isn't any reason why we can't help each other
in this way.
We've definitely have helped each other
in the past in this way.
Lots of people have done this for each other.
See, there's other, and if you have friends,
Elizabeth said, I have some strong believer friends
in that area.
So you guys, if you have a contact for James and Leah
for this, please email us at admin at JackieDorman.com
so that we can get them connected to that.
And so that's another thing you have to lean
into community, y'all.
That's one thing.
Don't be afraid to ask favors.
Don't be afraid to ask.
You guys, don't be afraid to ask.
What's that saying say?
It's no 100% of the time.
If you just go ahead, you fail to ask, right?
But if you ask, that's how you get the yeses.
So that can go for asking them on the date,
ladies dropping the hanky.
That can go for asking if anybody knows someone
to set you up with.
That can go for, hey, does anyone have a extra space
or know someone from your church that can put me up
so that I can spend time with my person
in the area that they live in?
And so you guys, we have to work together.
It takes a village to raise these marriages
and we are the village.
Don't make me cry.
Okay, so got to do it.
So that's my advice.
My advice would be to utilize your resources.
We are the biggest family on earth.
The family of God is the biggest family on earth.
Somebody knows somebody who knows your spirit mate.
And so you have to start utilizing your connections.
You have to be bold.
You have to be bold for everything that you need
in this scenario.
We were not meant to do this alone,
including the resources that you need
to pursue a relationship that's long distance.
And so if you can't see each other,
back to James' initial question,
if you can't see each other and you gotta get creative,
with those creative long distance dates,
it gets really boring if you don't do something,
if you don't do something besides just,
you guys just use games now.
Have you seen these card games that you play
to like learn about another person?
They're card games that you get.
You can ask each other all kinds of crazy questions
like what would you do if this happened?
So get one of those, not even just for long distance,
but just in person.
For those of you that want to go on some fun dates
in person, we have, look at my daughter.
I wanna show you this.
So her little sign says no more long distance.
So her and her boyfriend, her now fiance,
cause they're engaged, I'm sorry.
They have been long distance for nine months
cause she's been away at Bible college.
And so he showed up at the airport to come
and she's about to graduate in two weeks to get her
and to bring her back to Austin.
But try to visit as much as you can.
Try to have as many meaningful conversations
as you can play games together, watch movies together.
There's apps where you can watch movies together
and do life together.
If for some reason you can't communicate at all
because you're on some nine weeks missions trip
and you're in a different country,
then that's nine weeks of sacrifice
that you put into building the kingdom.
And you guys, if you're going to sacrifice,
make sure it's a mutual thing.
Don't just be like, oh, well, I gotta do this.
I hope you're okay with it.
Let's talk this stuff out.
They talked about it.
They agreed that he should do that
and he should go on that and do that.
You guys, just so you know this,
with long distance, you're eventually gonna be together
and then you're gonna be together
for the rest of your lives.
And this time is gonna be worth it.
It really is.
And you're gonna look back and you're gonna know
that God was really doing some amazing fruit building
in your life of patience during that time.
Thank you.
That's really good.
Thank you, Jackie.
Yes.
I feel like we got some leads tonight for y'all too.
I do, I'm feeling it.
I'm feeling it.
Someone, someone knows someone
that's gonna house Leah in New York City.
Okay.
Leah, Leah, I always say it wrong.
Okay.
Busola, because I'm sounding it out.
Yes.
What is it?
This is Olua Busola, but yeah, I'm using my work computer
and that's why it's like Busola.
Okay.
So yeah, that's the right sound.
So I did make a post on the Facebook group
and I was just kind of like talking about the experience
where the person, okay, I met a guy in person.
I met him offline.
I'm trying to like, I've been talking all day.
Listen, don't pull any punches.
She's like, I met a guy.
Okay, just go for it.
What do you got?
Okay, yes.
I did meet a guy offline and afterwards we met in person
about three other times.
He lives in the East Coast.
So he went back and we kept conversations afterwards.
He asked me to be his girlfriend, which I declined
because I'm like, nope, I don't know you that well.
And that seemed a bit of a rush.
I continued in conversations with him and I got to know him.
So he's nice, he's kind, his journey with God is amazing.
I see the efforts and all that.
And I would say that I think it's a point of context
in how God has changed my heart or softened my heart
concerning dating or going out with a new believer.
Like you usually said, I'm probably here behind my computer
like, oh no, that can never be me.
I'm not gonna teach anybody
or like just be with a new believer.
But like with him, I think that, yeah,
I might be open to that if I like, yeah.
Now the basis of probably me commenting is I think,
not that I think, we share the same goals.
We share the same values, political values.
co-moral and all that.
However, he only has an high school diploma.
That is a new, like a new thing to me.
If I must say, I did share the information
with my brother-in-law and a childhood friend.
And their response was basically what I expected.
And I'm trying to like ask, how do I move on from there?
And because-
Let me ask you this, what's your level of education?
I have a graduate degree, like grad school.
Yeah.
So you have a graduate degree.
So you value education.
And a lot of people, you guys, they do,
they value education.
They come from families and cultures that value education.
And, you know, that's great.
And it's wonderful.
We do know here in America, especially,
and maybe different in other countries, I don't know,
cause I don't live in another country,
but a lot of times the degrees that we get
are not worth the paper that they're written on, right?
It's true.
And so the debt that we get into going to higher education
is substantial.
You know, my son-in-law-to-be owes $100,000
in student loans.
Okay, $100,000 in student loans.
And he already paid off 40,000 of it.
So he owed $140,000 in student loans.
And so my daughter and him are gonna be going
into a marriage very highly in debt from an education
that is based on a skillset
that he could have done freelance.
He's a designer and probably, you know,
made the same amount of money
because it's about your portfolio.
And so when it comes to higher education, you guys,
what I've always taught my children
and the advice that I give others is yes, definitely get,
first of all, always get a degree
if God's leading you to get a degree.
Always go to college
if God's leading you to go to college.
If your career choice
and what you feel led to do with your life
have to have a college degree in education,
like you wanna be a doctor or a brain surgeon,
you wanna be a lawyer,
you wanna be something that you cannot do
without, you know, the degree,
then you have to go get it.
But I think that we all learned,
especially through COVID,
that jobs are, you know, very expendable.
Even people that didn't think they were expendable,
they ended up becoming non-necessary employees
with the day and age that we live in,
non-necessary people to their companies.
A lot of people never recovered from the financial losses,
even with their degrees of those days.
And so when it comes to choosing someone
based on, you know, to partner with,
I want you to think about this.
If you somehow have a prejudice in your heart
that people that have not gone to higher education
are not ambitious, or, you know, they're not as driven,
or they won't be good partners,
or they won't make enough money,
that 100% is not true.
First of all, I was born an entrepreneur.
I have a GED,
because you guys know I was a foster kid, right?
I have a GED, so I didn't even graduate from high school.
And you know why I dropped out of high school?
Because I had nowhere to live.
I was homeless in 11th grade.
And so I dropped out in 11th grade
because I didn't have a, you know,
secure, safe place to live.
I did go to college for a little while to be a psychologist.
And then I realized that what I wanted to do with my life
did not need a college education.
And I have built several companies.
I have done lots of consultant work.
I've done lots of ministry work.
So it's important for us not to judge a book
by the piece of paper that is the degree from college, okay?
So, Basola, I want you to look at,
do you match, do you guys match seasons, first of all?
Do you, you said you guys share goals.
That's great.
Do you share ambitions?
Do you share drive?
You know, is this someone who has done well for themselves
even without going to college?
Because you guys, there's two groups of people.
There are people that don't pursue higher education.
Okay, hold on a second.
Let's just go.
I don't think-
There are people that don't pursue higher education.
Make sure you stay muted, y'all,
especially if you have kids.
Because they don't pursue education
because, you know, there's a laziness of mind and of body.
They don't, they're not ambitious.
They don't care.
They might even have a poverty mentality
or an entitled mentality where they're gonna live off of,
you know, the hard work of other people.
You obviously don't wanna partner with someone like that.
But if someone has found a way
to use their gifts and talents from the Lord
in ways that they continue to grow
and they continue to prosper
just because they don't have a higher education degree
does not mean that they would not make a good partner.
So those are the things that you wanna focus on.
Yeah, thank you.
Another concern of mine,
and I think that was why I shared it with my brother.
mother-in-law, as well as my childhood friend is, I would love, or yeah, not I would love,
I want to be with a man that my family respects, that I don't have to, you know, try to persuade
them to respect, if that makes sense. And I would say my family is big on educational
values. The least, the least dedication in my family, my siblings have their PhDs and stuff
like that. So me, that's, that's just my thoughts. Yeah, you definitely have to make a decision
about who's marrying this man, you or your family. And I'm not talking about you marrying him,
because obviously you don't know him very well, and you just met him. But you guys, for all of
you, I've had so many success stories come through here that they were stuck in their singleness
because of very strong opinions of their families about who they should marry and what that should
look like. And, you know, who's marrying them? Are they marrying them? Are you marrying them?
You know, you could be missing out on an amazing treasure of a person just because your family
would be against you marrying out of your race. Are you marrying someone who has less education
as you or less money than you or this or that? You know, I will tell you, you know, if I use any
of those indicators to judge my current husband, when I first met him, I would not have married him
because he was not financially viable. He went through a bankruptcy, which means he had no credit
at the time he was living in a rental at almost 40 years old. He had a cash car that he had paid
for that was literally falling apart. It caught fire when I drove it one day. I mean, you know,
he on paper did not look like the kind of person who would be able to build with me because, like
I said, I was born an entrepreneur, but he was. And God showed me the gold in him. So you guys,
you know, if you look for dirt in people, you're going to find it. If you look for gold in people,
you're going to find it. If we allow our families to give us non-negotiables that are not from
heaven, then we could miss out on something great. All right. So it matters that you respect the
person, not that your family respects them, especially if that's not your non-negotiable
from heaven. So I want to answer our sister and all of you make sure that your deal breakers and
your non-negotiables are from heaven and not your family. OK, super important. Michelle, you're up.
Thank you. You're welcome.
Hey, thanks. Two questions. I, you just mentioned about Leah and James. Leah needing a place. I'm
getting ready to relocate. Is it appropriate to post on the Facebook group? Hey, I'm moving to
Colorado. I'm going to be in this area. Would love to connect with people from. Yeah. And then yeah.
And then yeah. And then the second. I mean, we have we have single city groups that you can post
that in to the area that you're moving to. So I think there's a Colorado Springs one that's
opening. So yes, that was my second question. Since I joined in January, it's been coming soon
and I just wondered what is the. Do you know what the holdup is or the process?
OK, I don't. So it'll just be it'll change from coming soon to active and just keep an eye on
that. I think if I'm not mistaken, I think that it just got so close to the app being done and
because it's going to be moved to the app anyway, that it seemed redundant to start it on Facebook
when it's going to be over there. Gotcha. Thanks. Yeah. Yep. All right. Katie, what do you got?
Yeah, so I'm in a level three relationship and it's been about four months that we've been
together and we're both introverts, but I'm more extroverted than him. And a few months ago was
my birthday. I invited him to a birthday party and he politely declined because he was like,
that's just a lot really quick. And that's fine. I left it alone like that. But now we're four
months in and I've never really seen him around his people or him around mine. Katie, are you
long distance? No, we only live about 30 minutes away from each other. OK, yeah, that's that's
got to change. Yeah. Four months in, you don't know his people. He doesn't know your people.
You're not cross pollinating your lives. Now, four months and that's a long time to be dating
someone also in an exclusive relationship. So it's time to do that. Yeah. So I've asked him
several times recently of like, hey, how do you feel about meeting each other's people?
Like or at least like a small.
double date. And he's like, I just really like being in our
bubble right now. He's like, I'm not afraid of it. But I just
don't know how to approach it. Because I'm like, okay, I've
made it smaller. Because I know he's really introverted. Like he
comes home and he's just like, he's just so dead. Like he has
an HR job. So he's constantly with people. So he's just
completely wiped out by the end of the day. But I'm like, I need
to see you with your people. And how, how you interact. And
well, here's the thing, Katie, this is why that's BS. All
right. Because he goes places outside of his job. Does he go
to church? Okay, so he's gonna be there anyway. So why can't
you go there with him? Yeah, exactly. So there's more to this
story. And I don't think I like what the more to the story is.
So I think that this has to be without it becoming an
ultimatum. It has to be a situation where at this point,
yeah, you gotta see who this person really is. Okay, you
have to because we don't want you to get any further in guys,
I had a woman she's married now. Okay. She's a student in this
program. It's one of my OGs. She's married now. But she's not
married to the guy that she was dating when she came into this
program. So she came to this program with a boyfriend. I know
that Katie's met this guy since she's been in the program, but
she came in with a boyfriend, because she wanted to find out
whether or not you know, he was the one. And she had been she
had been dating him for a year. When she came into this program.
My first back then I did all one on one because you know, the
group was really small. My first one on one call with her I found
out just like Katie right here that she had never met any of
his people. She'd been dating him for a year, but she had
never met his family. He had never posted her on social
media. He, she had never met her family, you know, and I told
her just right off the bat, I was like, you know, this guy,
first of all, is not marriage minded. And second of all, the,
you know, we're best case scenarios, he's just not
marriage minded. And he doesn't want to muddy the water with
bringing you around his people. And then worst case scenario,
he's in a relationship with somebody else. Right? He's
hiding something, he's got another relationship, he's
married, you know, God knows what. And so it turned out that
he the first thing was true. He just wasn't marriage minded. He
wasn't serious about the relationship. He liked the
relationship, one is cake and eat it too. And so through the
training and coaching here, she was able to kind of figure out
that he was never going to move forward. And she was able to
break up with him and get free from that so that she could meet
her now husband and she's married. So praise God. So
Katie, four months is a long time to be with someone and not
have met even one person that they care about. Not even one
person. So if he attends church, he attends church regularly,
you're his girlfriend, he's serious about you, you're in
level three, you guys, here's expectations, expectations at
level three, exclusivity, we are boyfriend and girlfriend is that
you meet their people. You don't necessarily have to meet
their parents right from the jump. But their people who are
their people, their friends, the people that they go to church
with the people that they do life with. Okay, you don't have
to meet their parents or their children right from the
beginning of level three, but there needs to be a plan of
meeting their parents and their children as you as you go deeper
into level three, okay. And also back to the solace question, an
expectation that you can have for someone, especially at this
age range, if you're going to get into a serious courtship
with them, is that they are fiscally financially mature.
Everyone goes through hard times, my husband went through
a divorce, I didn't judge him based on what he had when I met
him, because it wasn't his mo. It wasn't because he was
irresponsible. It wasn't because he was lazy. It wasn't because
you know, he had some kind of life controlling problem where
he wasn't working, you know, some kind of addiction or
gambling problem or whatever. No, it was because he went
through a divorce. And I met him on the other side of that where
he was rebuilding, people go through rebuilding stages, like
COVID happened, a lot of people lost their jobs rebuilding. So
as long as this is not a pattern of their life, then it's not a
red flag. Okay. For those of you that are older in, you know,
older than like towards retirement, it's important that
you see what this person is bringing to the table, right? In
order for you to partner with them, you know, how have they
manage their money during their during their working years,
what's going to look like for them to be retired, right? That's
all very important stuff.
and it is a natural expectation
that you would be with someone
who is taking responsibility for their financial future.
They don't have to have done everything perfectly,
but they need to be taking responsibility
and have a plan for their future.
That is an expectation, okay?
So Katie, what are you gonna do?
Ask to meet as people as soon as possible.
Yeah, and you know, like I said,
you're not asking him to do anything extra.
This is what he already does.
Yeah.
Yeah, I know he's told me,
he's talked to his family and his friends about me,
but it's not the same, so.
No, it's not.
And like I said, nothing extra.
If he's already going there,
he's already gonna be there,
there isn't any reason why you can't tag along.
Okay.
Yep, cool.
All right, Hunter, what do you got?
You guys, let's wait.
We have eight minutes,
so short, brief and powerful from here on out.
So Hunter, you're muted, you're talking,
but I can't hear you.
Well, I was at work and delivering an Amazon
and I got the package out with a customer who was married.
And then once I got it out into the driveway,
he basically said, hold up,
I got to check the box to make,
cause this package was delivering was for his wife.
And I end up, and he says, you're not,
he became the delivery guy, couldn't leave.
Cause he unpacked everything
to make sure all the cushions are in.
And he said, if they're not, there's something's wrong.
And he unpacked and we got every,
it was everything was good because,
and he said that she's the boss of the house,
cause I have to make sure because she's the boss.
I'm figuring, so when I left,
I got this pondering in my head.
If I meet my spirit mate and I'm the,
and the role of the guy is to be the head of the household,
where did he get the idea of becoming the,
that she's being, she's now the boss.
Is that the underminer is just contradicting
my guy as the leader?
Well, that's a loaded question, Hunter.
So first of all, you know,
I don't know these people or their backgrounds, you know,
so maybe they weren't raised that way.
Who knows what's up, but you guys,
when it comes to biblically, what does a family look like?
First of all, I believe in dividing and conquering.
I believe that when we come together,
we come together as partners.
And so whatever we naturally are good at
and bring to the table,
I like for that person to kind of be in charge of that.
Right?
So David does not necessarily, you know,
like certain things that, you know,
maybe would have been, it's really funny.
There's a, there's a, there's a comedian.
His name is Nate Bregazzi.
And if you've never seen him, go watch him.
He's clean.
He's very funny,
but his wife likes to mow the lawn.
This is a perfect example.
And he said, okay, fine.
You can mow the lawn,
but first you have to go to every single neighbor
and let them know that I'm not making you do this,
that you want to do it.
Cause I don't want to be that guy
who's making his wife mow the lawn, right?
He doesn't want to be that guy because why?
Because outdoor chores have been considered
to be masculine chores,
like mowing the lawn or taking out the garbage
or whatever, you know,
if someone's not home and the garbage stinks,
whoever's home should take it out.
You know, you don't want to just sit stinky garbage
in the house because it's the man's job.
Now this does not apply to pumping gas.
I believe that's a hundred percent of man's job.
I will never pump the gas.
I will run out of gas on the side of the road
before I'll pump the gas.
And if I get in the car and there is no gas,
then I'm going to call my husband,
boop, boop, boop, boop, boop.
And I'm going to be like, what have you done to me?
Why have you done this to me?
It's going to be not good.
All right.
Seriously though, I have pumped my own gas,
but I am a passenger princess
and I would prefer not to drive at all
if I don't have to.
And it really worked for a long time
because we only had one car.
And so if we went anywhere, we usually went together.
So divide and conquer in a partnership, Hunter.
Divide and conquer, who's better?
If the man's the better cook,
then why would you eat burnt dinners
just because the woman has to cook?
That's dumb.
You know, let's go ahead and let the man cook
if he enjoys cooking and he likes it.
And he's like, you know, a little chef.
So let that happen.
As far as it comes to raising the children,
the days are bygone.
Because here's the thing, friends, women work now.
Now, if you got it like that
and you get to stay at home and be a stay-at-home mom,
that's wonderful.
And if that's what you want to do, that's wonderful.
And I feel like if you have the ability financially
to stay at home and raise the children, you should.
I did that.
I didn't do it because I'm not an empowered modern woman.
I'm an empowered modern woman,
but my kids needed to have someone in the home.
We were a blended family.
I felt like God asked me if I would focus on them for...
or at the time that they were being raised, and I did.
And I'm thankful that I got to do that
because they are incredible human beings, okay?
And so that legacy will live on.
And so I'm very thankful.
And guess what?
I'm young enough to still do what I want.
So it's good.
So if you get the chance to stay at home with your kids,
stay at home with your kids.
And really just be that, especially in this day and age,
be that voice in their lives.
It's really important.
And so for child rearing, once again, women work.
A lot of times people do not have it financially
so that both people, one person can stay home.
And so then you should divide the chores, shouldn't you?
And we go over this in SIMBAS.
We talk about who's gonna do what,
what are the expectations?
And there's a whole list of like,
who's gonna do the bills?
Who's gonna do this?
Who's gonna manage the money?
Who's gonna take the garbage out?
Who's gonna, yeah, it's a partnership.
It's a partnership.
And now, so when it comes to spiritual things,
let's talk about what Hunter said
about the head of the household.
You guys, that is spiritual terminology.
That's not natural terminology.
That's not, I'm the man, what I say goes.
That is not what the Bible is talking about.
It's talking about where the buck stops spiritually.
And that is important for us to understand
because men, the onus of protecting
and providing spiritual leadership
for your family is on you, okay?
You're the covering, okay?
Christ, man, woman, child.
It's important for you to understand
that that's what that's talking about.
And that is a very big assignment
and it cannot be taken lightly.
So that's what it's talking about, Hunter.
It's not talking about who wears the pants
and who makes the decisions.
Once again, you're probably going to divide that
based on who is good at what,
who has wisdom in what area.
My husband is really good with finances
and spreadsheets and different things.
And he takes care of all that.
I will tell you that in our family,
nobody makes any big decision unless there's agreement.
If there's not agreement in our family,
then we don't make a big decision.
And I will tell you, my friends,
that the three times, four times in our marriage
for the last 17 years, where we made a big decision,
where both of us were not 100% on board.
We both didn't have confirmation
or peace about the decision,
but we made it anyway based on some kind of pressure
from the outside to go ahead and make a decision.
Or one of us just really didn't feel one way or another.
So we took that as, oh yeah, maybe it's okay.
All four of those times, it was a disaster.
It was a disaster.
And so leaning into the wisdom of each other,
praying together, asking God for confirmations
when you make big decisions, really important.
And when it comes to spending in our family,
we also do not make any kind of purchases
beyond a certain marker
unless there is agreement on that as well.
So you guys, you wanna have partnership.
You wanna have agreement in your home for sure.
All right, we ran out of time here.
So I wanna go ahead and take a look here at the comments
before we go.
And you guys, back to expectations,
because this was part two of expectations.
We might have to have a part three of expectations
in the levels of relationship.
You can expect that someone
that you're in a level three relationship,
this is where you need to be finding out
what do they think about gender roles.
Before you get to engagement,
it's important for you to find out
what they think about gender roles.
If they have some kind of antiquated idea
that women should be seen and not heard,
you might not wanna marry that man, okay?
If they have some kind of idea
that women are lesser than and not equal to
as far as in Christ with men,
it's important that you know that stuff now.
It's really important that you know that stuff now.
And if you're the kind of person that believes that as well,
like women shouldn't speak in the church,
if you have the twisted theology
and have misinterpreted scriptures,
especially the Pauline scriptures,
to believe that women are subservient
or inferior in the body of Christ,
then you're gonna wanna know that
before you partner with that person, okay?
That's all really important stuff.
Women are not to lord over men
and men are not to lord over women.
We are to submit to one another in love.
And when it comes to the family,
the man's role as the covering
and as the head of the provision
and the protection is a very important role.
And ladies, don't get married
unless you are able to be feminine enough
to submit to the protection and covering of a man.
That's super important, all right?
be bucking him and pushing against him at every turn
and not allowing him to look out for you,
then that is not gonna be a good union, all right?
So these are the things that we have to find out
as soon as we can in that level three courtship
because that may be the deal breaker
that keeps us from being able to go forward into level four.
All right, Father God, we thank you for each and every
one of your sons and daughters that are here tonight.
We thank you for their love stories.
You're making matches like never before, Lord.
So we thank you, God, that you're making
divine appointments for people
and they are falling in love when they least expect it
and that is happening in droves in these communities.
And so, Lord, we thank you, God,
that you have them highlighted from heaven
and that you're gonna continue to show them
the things that they need to do in order to be ready
to step into these opportunities when they come.
In Jesus' name, amen.
All right.