Okay.
So if you're new to me, welcome to me.
I'm Jackie Dorman.
I'm the founder of something called last year single, and I recognize a lot of the female
faces here.
So these ladies have been, my students have been, my clients have been in this program
for, you know, Belinda has been here for a minute.
So she's an OG, she's an OG for sure.
Same with Megan.
Megan's an OG.
Beth, you've been here for a minute too.
And then I have two iPhones.
I don't see the names on that.
So let's see your faces when you get on here.
Margie's an OG, Margie's an OG.
Okay.
So yeah, I love it.
I love seeing all of you ladies in here with your significant others, your boyfriends.
And so some of you fiancees, some of you are engaged.
We're going to get a chance to just introduce ourselves.
Is everybody here?
Let's see.
One, two, three, four.
I think all five.
I think all five couples are here.
Let me see.
Two, three, four, five.
Yeah.
We're all here.
All right.
I was just saying for Brian that just came on, this is a very small class.
We usually have 16 to 20 couples.
And so it's such a blessing to have a smaller group.
I feel like we're going to be able to really dig in a little bit deeper together.
And I'm going to share my screen because tonight is orientation.
But before we get started, I really want to encourage you to introduce yourself in the
Facebook group.
We might go ahead and transfer you all over to the app too.
It's a lot easier in the app to watch replays and just see the different assignments.
So if we have a chance to transfer you over to the Symbus group within our last year single
app, we might do that.
But otherwise, this Facebook group is your classroom.
And we would love to have you introduce yourself to each other.
We're going to do that tonight, but go ahead and make a post, post a picture of y'all together
as a couple.
And you can go, if you're together and you want to make a little video, you can do that
too.
Introducing yourself.
That's fun.
But if you don't want to do that, just post a pic.
Tell us how you met, how long you've been dating.
If you're engaged, you know, some of you, if you are engaged, when's the wedding date?
We just want to know some stuff about you and create some camaraderie in here.
All right, before we get started, let's pray.
Father God, we're so thankful that we are able to come together with each other.
And with you, you said that when we gather together, whether it's two or three of us,
that you are with us in a special way.
And so we know that there's going to be some special moments you're in our midst here.
And so some special breakthrough and revelation during this time together, pray for each and
every one of these couples, Lord, that you would lead and guide them individually into
your greatest plan for their lives, both corporately and individually in Jesus name.
Amen.
Okay.
So Simba state stands for save your marriage before it starts.
I'm a certified Simba instructor.
I have been for four years.
It was the best premarital coaching course that I could find as a matchmaker and as a
dating coach.
I wanted to have something that prepared my premarital students that were in what we call
level three courtship relationship for marriage.
So this, this course is open for anyone who's just seriously considering commitment with
each other.
They don't have to be, you know, engaged.
They don't have to be planning a wedding.
I think the questions and the curriculum, the things, the topics, the 11 dynamics of
Simbas are important for anyone who's even just in an exclusive relationship.
We've decided to focus on each other and nobody else to see where this can go.
And if it has the potential to become a spirit mate, lifelong marriage relationship, this
curriculum is hands down the best that I have seen, especially if you have a good teacher
and guess what you do.
And so we're going to have fun, you guys, I'm an Enneagram seven.
So I prioritize fun.
It's got, if it's not fun, I don't want to do it.
Let's have fun.
Okay.
All right.
So we're going to have fun, but we're also going to learn a lot.
And I believe that we're going to have a lot of, you know, just healing, you know, I'm
the heartwork chick.
So I believe that some of these topics probably will bring some things to the surface, um,
in attachment areas of your life, um, possibly an origin, family areas of your life in expectations
of what, what does marriage look like?
Or what does it even look like to be in committed relationship as a Christian areas of your
life?
And it's all going to be good because anything that comes to the surface, I always like to
say better in, better out than in, better out than in.
All right.
So before I say, before I share the assessment, a sample assessment, don't worry, I'm not
going to share any of your assessments with the group, but before I share the sample assessment
and I go over it and I kind of answer questions about the expectations for the next six weeks,
I want y'all to introduce yourself and we'll start and go clockwise.
So Belinda.
If you guys would go first, that'd be great.
Sure.
Belinda Ponder.
My name's Eric Whaley.
I'm not sure what information you're looking for,
but we are here in California.
Yeah, I've just been dating for seven months.
We got introduced about a year and a half ago
through a mutual friend on a hike,
who said all these wonderful things about this guy
that I had to meet.
And so we met and just kind of like had friendship.
Friendship, I was doing the dating app thing or whatever.
And finally at one point, after about six months,
I was just sent, I sent him a little text.
I'm like, it's Belinda, surprise.
And he responded and we just been dating ever since.
So that's our story.
I love that.
I love it.
That's so good.
All right, so they're in California,
if you guys missed that.
Okay, Beth, you guys are up next.
Okay, my name's Beth Borda.
I'm Joe Harless.
And we're in Ohio, Canton, Ohio, North Canton, Ohio,
to be specific.
And I started the Heartwork course in August of last year,
right after, and right towards the end of the Heartwork
in October, Jackie gave,
I'm on a Supernatural Saturday,
and you just posted this on Instagram, Jackie,
cause I have another Instagram name,
but your prophetic word about people going
from the friend zone into dating.
And then people circling back around
after some time that didn't hit it off to begin with.
And then I think it was like the next day,
Joe's face came across my feed
cause we dated 14 years ago, very briefly.
And I decided just to show up at his church
cause I was getting those seven dates done.
And that was it.
There were no more dates, just Joe.
Seven, and here we are 10 months almost later.
Coincidentally, she was off my radar, obviously.
And then she popped on my radar through Facebook,
some posts she made, and I was tempted to look her up
just at that exact time.
And I sort of just blew it off.
And then like a week later, she showed up at my church.
Dropped a hanky.
I love it.
Hard, dropped it hard.
Yes, you dropped that hanky hard.
Yes.
All right.
You guys, I love it.
You just can't make this kind of stuff up, right?
It's just so beautiful.
Okay.
And then next in line here would be,
and clockwise, Megan and Brian.
Okay.
We'll try and do it simultaneously.
We're in different locations at the moment.
So I'm Megan.
I live in New York City.
And Brian, you want to introduce yourself?
What's going on, everybody?
Yeah, go.
I'm Brian from New Jersey.
And we met in the Heart of Dating Conference in Nashville.
Awesome.
Great.
All right.
And how long have you been dating?
We've been dating now seven, eight months.
Eight months since that conference.
And yeah, we're both just navigating relationship,
learning how to do relationship in a healing way.
Both of us have had different experiences
and we're trying to navigate just our different things
that we bring and how we navigate it.
And so how to, you know, it could be difficult at times
navigating different situations
and different difficult conversations
as we've kind of gone through this journey of relationships.
You know, I come with my baggage of doing things.
I always remember how you said,
like coming from the South side,
I felt like I was on like the North side of relationships
and doing it my own different way.
And so I think now with Megan is just trying to figure out
how to, you know, the right way with God being the center
and just learn different strategies and go from there.
Awesome.
Great.
Those are great explanations.
And just you guys know,
your homework tonight is going to be expectations
for the six weeks.
And so I'll talk about that.
You're gonna have homework to do as a couple
after every single session.
The good news is you have a whole week to get it done
and it's not hard.
Okay, so great.
Thank you, Brian and Megan.
And so Margie, y'all are up.
They're in the car.
Okay, yes.
Can you hear me?
We can hear you, yes.
Okay.
So this is Scott and I'm Margie and we're in Ohio.
So we're just North of that North Canton couple.
And we've been dating for about four months
and we knew each other a little bit before
and I've gone through Jackie's course
and we knew immediately that he was the one for me
and we've been engaged for just a couple months.
And.
Just, yeah, we, we got engaged fairly quickly.
Um, we know this, um, we are very, very, very happy.
And, um, I, I don't know.
I've never met anybody like her.
Um, it's something I've never felt before in my entire life and I'm
absolutely stunningly in love with her.
Oh, well, we love to hear that.
Now, listen, we're not going to judge anyone's speed or lack of speed here
because everyone comes at it differently.
You know, David and I were neighbors.
You're going to hear some of our story.
We were neighbors for four months.
He was my next door neighbor.
I married my neighbor.
We were neighbors for four months and then we, um, started dating
and we dated for four months.
And then we were engaged for 18 days and that was 17 years ago.
And I think that I'm going to keep him.
I think he's good.
I think it's going to work out.
Um, but, uh, so yeah.
And, uh, sometimes when you're old enough to know better, you know, you've had,
you know, some other relationships and stuff, then, you know, you know, what
not to, uh, not to do right.
And so we learn, hopefully we learn.
Okay.
So that's really great.
I love that.
Okay.
And then last but not least, I really can't, it says iPhone and I
can't tell who that is there.
Can y'all introduce yourselves?
Sorry.
I can't see without my glasses with my glasses on.
I can't see up close.
Is that my Jackie?
It's Bruce.
It's Bruce and Terry.
Hi, Terry.
Okay.
Gotcha.
Hi guys.
Hi.
So it was easy.
You introduced me.
Um, let's see.
So we're been together for four months, met on Facebook, uh, dating.
Uh, and pretty quickly it was together pretty much every day.
And so, um, what else are we supposed to talk about?
We're in Northern California as well.
And I've been part of the program since I think it was April of 21.
And, uh, it's funny.
It's one of those stories.
Like you talked about is when you fully surrendered over to
the Lord, what he provides.
And I had been doing some dating through those years.
And I'm like, all right, I'm done writing profiles.
Lord, this is what I want.
I put in the profile and he showed up the next day.
So when you surrender it, it's amazing.
What happens?
I love that.
That's so good.
What a great, what a great story.
Um, you guys, well, this is a great group and, uh, David will be joining
me for some of these sessions as well.
He won't be joining me for orientation tonight.
Cause it's basically just a kind of a show and tell I'm going
to show you a sample assessment.
All of you took an assessment and then you got the results of that assessment.
And hopefully you have shared those results with each other.
Like you've looked at the assessment together, right?
Um, and then, but now we're going to go over a sample of that assessment and
I'm going to tell you what to expect.
And then we're going to jump in.
So every class you can expect to be 75 to 90 minutes long.
For those of you that need an expectation, um, it won't go past 90 minutes.
Um, so 75 to 90 minutes, so an hour and 15 to an hour and 30 minutes.
Um, and then there's six.
All right.
So half of tonight is orientation.
Then we're going to jump into, um, our first kind of homework
assignment in this session tonight.
So let me go ahead and share my screen and to share a sample
assessment of Tony day and Chris query.
This is a fictitious couple.
I'm not just sharing some previous symbols, couples,
private information with you.
This is just a sample assessment so we can look at it together.
I have the it department helping me right now.
All right.
Yeah.
Good.
All right.
Can y'all see me?
And can you all see my screen?
My assessment.
All right.
Good.
Awesome.
All right.
Once again, this is Tony and Chris's assessment, um, Simba
save your marriage before it starts.
You guys marriage is hard.
I want to start out with that.
Cause it's important that, you know, this, I was talking, my daughter
got married a week and a half ago.
She's 23 years old.
She's the youngest in our family.
My middle daughter has been married for four years.
They have twin babies right out the gate.
Y'all they got pregnant with twins after being married for two years.
And they got to really see what partnership looked like with those two little, those two little babies coming right, right away like that, you know, they expected to just have a singleton birth, you know, they, they were, they were wanting to get pregnant, they got
pregnant on purpose. But because she's, you know, she's 27. And then they found out in the first, you know, 10 weeks of pregnancy that it was twins. And they told her that she could actually have twins every single time that she gets pregnant, because it's genetic. She, she, she
ovulates two eggs at a time. And so she's like, Oh, no. So how hard could it be? Right? How hard could twins be? Well, they found out early in their partnership, how much they had to work together with that. So my youngest just got married, and my oldest who's 20 gonna be 29. The only boy in our family, he is in a marriage minded courtship right now. So I told my kids, I was hanging out with them. And I said, Look, marriage isn't easy.
It's not easy. But it's one of those things in life that's just so worth it. She's so worth it. Who's ever heard of Danny silk, raise your hand if you've ever heard of Danny silk, keep your love on anyone heard of him? Okay, he's out of a church out in Reading, California called Bethel. And he's kind of like a, an emotional intelligence guy, like he teaches about emotional intelligence and relationships. Anyone heard of Dr. Henry cloud, he's kind of like him, but not a doctor. He teaches about boundaries and
relationship and all those things. And, you know, and he's just like a guy's guy. And he was at our church on Sunday, and he was talking about to the men, he's like, Can I take this whole session to talk to men? And we're like, Okay, well, this should be interesting. We'll go ahead and let you do this. You're going to talk to men, right? So he talked to many has a new book out for men, I think it's really probably a great read. But he started talking, you know, he comes from a little town in Northern California, where they shoot animals, you know, regularly, like hunters, and
all the masculine kind of stuff like that. So he's talking about hunting, and, you know, getting attacked by bears, and all these different, like, really, really, like hyper masculine things. And then he started talking about relationship. It was such a juxtaposition for him to switch from that to talking about relationship and talking about, you know, men in relationship, and what does it look like to partner with a woman. And he said something that really resonates with me. And it's part of what I teach in last year single to my
men, I have a whole men's community and how we teach our men. And that is that, first of all, we've been created for each other, and we're better together. Guys, all the way back to the beginning before the curse before the separation. Okay, before we came into our counterfeit selves, we were created for each other. It wasn't good for a man to be alone, he needed a helper that was like him, right. And, and together, they partnered. And so Danny basically was talking
about how marriage will mature you as a man. Okay, because he was just talking to the men. But all the ladies that have been in my course can attest to this, I always say that marriage and family is God's maturity plan for mankind. It's God's maturity plan for mankind,
right. And then Danny went on to say that marriage is going to kick you in the groin, gentlemen, and it's going to make you grow up. And I was like, only Danny can say that I can't say that, but he can say that,
because it's going to stretch you, it's going to change you, it's supposed to, it's going to challenge you, it's supposed to. And I'm not just talking to men. Now I'm talking to women, it's going to cause you to become better. And for men specifically, because this is the way God created men, it is going to cause you to want to grow up to want to protect want to provide to want to sacrifice yourself. Those are all divine masculine characteristics. And ladies, it's going to cause you to want to support all of that sacrifice.
It's going to cause you to want to nurture and respect and honor all of that sacrifice. You know, most of our couples here have already raised their children. If they had children to raise, they've already done that part of their life. And then we have one couple here that is probably still in that time in their life of wanting to possibly as they go forward together, if they get married, plan and have a family.
So we're going to talk about a lot of things here. Raise your hand. If you have any kids, it doesn't matter how old they are. You have children. Okay. Put your hands down, raise your hand. If you have children at home, still that are still in some adolescence, some form of adolescence. Okay. So we have one person with the hand up. All right. Raise your hand. If you have grandkids already got some grandbabies, Oh, got some grandbabies already. Okay. All right.
And so we will talk about what it looks like to blend families.
And I'm just going to say something here is that, you know, everyone here comes from a
family.
And so regardless of whether you're divorced, uh, well, let me get, let me take that poll.
Raise your hand if you're divorced.
And then also raise your hand if you've been widowed or widower, any of that.
Okay.
Got a little bit of everything going on here.
And then raise your hand if you've never been married three, three folks.
Okay.
Awesome.
All right.
So we're going to talk about everything.
Okay.
So I'm sharing my, my sample assessment.
So this very first page, you guys, it's just about you.
It's about the both of you.
It's about your background.
It's about your affiliations and your education.
It's about, you know, your present and your past, what's your employment status now, your
category.
What about your parents' marriage?
Are they divorced?
Are they still married?
Anyone here?
Both parents still married.
Raise your hand.
Both parents still married.
Look at all that.
That's quite a bit of people.
That's awesome.
And then talking about your relationship with each other.
You know, what's your relationship status?
Have you been married before?
Do you have any kids?
What's the length?
And you see here, expecting a child.
Just so you guys know, Symbus, Les and Leslie Parrott, Dr. Les and Leslie Parrott, they
are Christians, but Symbus is created for anyone to be able to take it.
So that's why these, are you living together?
Do you have, you know, expecting a child together?
All of that is on here as well.
Long distance relationship.
Is it a long distance relationship?
Okay.
Do you see this blue starred section at the bottom of page one?
The little blue asterisk section.
Those are your homework sections.
Those are the sections that will be assigned to you.
And those are the sections that you will do together as a couple.
And then some of them you will share as a group.
Okay.
And I will tell you which is which.
So just want to show you there.
All right.
So here's the homework for next week.
What are your goals together with Symbus?
You see that these two folks, okay, Chris and Tony, to obtain a clear picture of their
personal and relational momentum for marriage, to gain new insights into their personalities
and how they work together, to gain new skills, to strengthen the relationship for lifelong
love.
When we just shared just now, Brian kind of already started talking about this.
So he's the head of the curve.
He's already talking about like what, why is he here?
Right.
And so go ahead and at least come up with three as a couple.
And then you only have to share one next week.
Okay.
When we come together.
All right.
Next page is our overview of marriage momentum.
All right.
What is this?
This takes every single thing from your whole assessment and it gives you kind of a grade.
That little speedometer at the top of this page is based on your compatibility through
the entire assessment.
Does anyone's marriage momentum meter point straight up or go to the left at all?
Anybody, anybody halfway, only halfway up or less than halfway?
All right.
That's a good sign.
All right.
So if your marriage momentum meter is halfway or to the right, that's good.
That means that it took all the information from everything.
And it said that you got a lot of compatibility.
You got a lot of points to build on.
You got a good foundation in which to build on.
You guys, I have had plenty of couples who their marriage momentum meter was this way.
And yeah, and so in one case though, this gentleman had misunderstood the instructions
for an entire section and basically put the opposite of what he actually really thought.
They couldn't understand because they were so compatible in real life and the marriage
momentum meter was like, and the reason why is because he misunderstood the directions
and he actually, he opposite answered.
And so sometimes that happens too.
All right.
So you see Tony and Chris at the very beginning of this page, it takes into account their
marriage mindset, their wellbeing scores, their context scores, and this is several
different sections in the assessment.
We'll get to all of that.
And then their dynamic scores.
All right.
And then at the bottom of page two, you see there's a book.
Okay.
Les and Leslie Parrott do have a book.
We will not be using that book.
You do not need to get it unless you want to.
If you want to do extra credit and you want to do that book together, I'm sure it's a
great book.
Plenty of people have done it, but we don't require it for this course.
Trust me, you're going to do so much stuff in here that if you have time for that, God
bless you.
a lot of people don't have time for that. So the first page here, and we're going to,
as soon as I get through the whole assessment, we're going to come back here. Mindset,
resolute, rational, romantic, restless, reluctant. What is your marriage mindset? We all have a view
of marriage. What's your mindset. What's your view. All right. And then how do your mindsets
with each other mess mesh. And then you see, there's a blue star section, next place. Wellbeing,
this is talking about your personal wellbeing, and then your wellbeing as a couple,
it takes into account any, I call them yellow flags. They're not red flags,
any yellow flags that you have as a couple. And we'll talk about today, because we're going to go
over this page. What's the difference between a yellow flag in relationship and a red flag in
relationship. We're going to talk about that. Okay. And how do we get those yellow flags to
turn green? And so this page is going to go over all of that stuff and then give you a score
of relationship wellbeing based on both of your percentages. Next, we get into our context,
context sections, social support. Very important. You guys, you're not just marrying a person.
You're marrying a community, right? A community of friends, sometimes of family. Okay. In my,
in my case, you know, when my husband married me, I was no contact with my family. I come from a
very abuse, abusive and unsafe family. Anybody else come from a family that, you know, they got
some issues. They might be trying to work it out the best they can, but you know, so it might not
be your family. It might be friends or the family that you choose, right? It's not necessarily
family. That is your social support. All right. Let's see. So in-laws on there, on their network
of mutual friends, spiritual community is on there. All of that is there. And then we have
a starred section at the, at the bottom of page five. All right, next finance is so important.
You guys finances. What is our financial mindset as a couple out there? Statistics show that the,
what are the top three reasons that couples get divorced is money. Did you know that? Did you
know that one of the top three reasons that couples get divorced is money and that's Christian
couples y'all. That's not just worldly couples. The stress of debt can wreck a marriage,
the stress of not having healthy mindsets towards resources can put a lot of undue pressure on a
couple. And so we have the context of finances there. Are you a saver? Are you a spender? Do
you have a budget? Don't you have a budget? And you know, what does money mean to you?
Money's a tool and in the hands of responsible people that are good stewards, it can do amazing
things. And in the hands of irresponsible people that maybe have a bad relationship with money,
it can cause a lot of problems. And so you see this section at the bottom of page six money talks,
that's going to be a homework assignment because a lot of times your relationship with money has
been handed down generationally to you by the people that raised you.
You got a lot of poverty mindsets is what we call them. And we've got to break those things.
And there are people that have good relationship with money and money is not an issue for them.
And so we will get down to the nitty gritty on page six, page seven, the context of expectations.
And a lot of the expectations here are really kind of basic. Who's going to stay home with
the children? Who's going to pay the bills and handle the finances? Who's going to cook? Who's
going to clean? Who's going to, um, I'm going to add some stuff to this when we get here,
because I think these are really basic things. And, you know, depending on what you think about
gender roles, that's going to be pretty easy to answer. I feel like this page is a little outdated
for today's marriages. For me, today's marriages look more like West coast swing. Anyone ever
happen where both partners, you know, are just kind of like intuitively moving and creating as
they go along in our marriage, we divide and conquer with who's good at what who's good at
what if you want something done fast, I'm your girl. If you want something done correctly,
he's your guy. All right. So you wouldn't actually want me to paint something because I will get it
done fast, but there will be all kinds of issues with the paint job. All right. But if you need
something done fast, you guys, there's lots of times in life when something needs to be done
fast, quick decisions have to be made and things have to happen. I'm that person. I'm the pioneering
spouse. Okay. That actually wasn't my result on here, but I'm the visionary spouse. And my husband
is the implementer spouse. And so we make a great complimentary opposite team. We do,
but sometimes because the word opposite is in there, remember it's complimentary opposite,
but there's still an opposite.
And because there's an opposite,
first of all, he's a man, I'm a woman,
there's an opposite for you.
And the other opposite,
sometimes there's a little friction, a little conflict.
In fact, I'm just gonna tell you,
I don't trust people that tell me
that they've never had an argument in their marriage.
I'm like, oh, well,
you must not have a very deep relationship then.
Because conflict has the ability when it's done right,
and it's done respectfully and in honor
to draw you closer and to take you deeper.
Very important stuff.
So expectation sheet.
Next context, remarriage and blended family.
That's not gonna be pertinent for all of you here today.
During this group, it's not gonna be pertinent,
but we are gonna talk about motivation
to remarry, marriage readiness.
We will talk about blending families,
not just because of divorce or because of children,
but also because there are two families
that are coming together.
And for some of you,
it might not be two families coming together.
You might have my story where you don't really have
a lot of really close, deep relationship
with your origin family.
And so we'll talk about some of that during that context.
Dynamics.
This is where your personalities come into play.
The assessment assigned you a spouse personality.
So you see here, we have a cooperating spouse
and an affirming spouse.
And so how do those two personalities work together?
The blue star section is at the bottom there.
The next dynamic is going deeper
into how those two personalities,
what strengths do they bring to the table?
What weaknesses do they bring to the table?
How do their styles affect each other
in the areas of problem solving, influencing each other,
reacting to change, making decisions.
We have a blue star section at the bottom there.
The dynamics of love.
How do you define love?
What does love mean to you?
What makes you feel loved?
You guys, there's gonna be a lot of extracurricular
little quizzes that you're gonna take
that I'm gonna post in the group
that are not on this assessment
and not part of this assessment, okay?
And then we'll use these here during this.
So we talk about how do we define love?
And then we'll talk about sex.
Did y'all know that in the top three reasons
people get divorced, I said, one was money.
Who thinks one is sex?
Winner, winner, chicken dinner.
Or lack of sex or incompatibility in sex
or trauma that relates to sex or just all the things, okay?
And so that is also one of the areas
because a lot of people think intimacy and sex
are interchangeable words and they're not.
You can have sex without intimacy.
Your body can come together with someone
and your soul and spirit are not.
So we're gonna talk about what good, healthy,
covenant sex looks like as far as a place of safety,
a place of being seen, known and loved.
What does that look like to achieve that?
Because a lot of people have never experienced that,
that have already had sex because they've been married
or because they've just had sex, right?
And so blue star section at the bottom there.
Dynamics, attitude.
How does our personality affect our attitude
and how does that affect the relationship?
What does it look like?
How do our attitudes mess with each other
when facing a challenge specifically
is what this is gonna go into.
And how do you perceive your partner under stress?
You guys, there's gonna be a lot of stress.
We live in the year 2024 and no one is gonna live
in this generation, in this era
that you've been matched with.
God knew you could handle it and he puts you here.
He dropped you in the timeline here,
but you guys, do you know that school students,
students that are still in school, in secondary school,
in primary school, they are given a stress test
that back in the fifties was given to college students
and it shows what your stress levels are.
And back in the fifties, very few people tested
as stressed on that test.
Do you know that second graders are testing off that test?
Second graders are testing off those charts of stressed out.
My best friend is a first grade teacher
and she said that half of her students are medicated.
Y'all, this is the world that we live in.
We all have stress, but how do we deal with stress?
How do we deal with stress in the relationship?
During this, you're gonna be given another exercise
called self-preservation techniques.
Where do you go when you get stressed?
How do you react when you get stressed?
Are you a runner?
Are you a fight?
Are you a flight?
Are you a freeze?
Are you a fawn?
Also, do you intellectualize?
Do you justify?
Do you withdraw?
Do you stonewall?
There's like 50 different things on this sheet to-
kind of dig into and you're going to pick the ones that you go to.
Those are your go-to when you're stressed out. Now to fight, flight, freeze,
or fawn. Who, who wants to guess what mine is?
What do I seem like? Do I seem like a fight or a flight or a freeze or a fawn?
Yeah, I got a little fight in me, right? Okay.
I got a little fight in me, but my husband is a freeze.
He's a freeze.
And so when there has been conflict in our marriage and I like come out with my
dukes up and he's just frozen like a deer in the headlights,
what do you think we do next? Right?
What do we do?
We're going to talk about this here as we get down into the next place,
communication. How do these personalities communicate?
How do they need to communicate?
How would you like your partner to communicate with you?
What causes you to withdraw when your partner comes at you?
All right. I used to,
I used to be in relationship with someone who would follow me during an
argument would follow me around.
When I was just trying to leave the argument would follow me around arguing
with me. That's not a good idea. Okay.
It's not a good idea to do that to someone,
but some people are like that when it gets to a conflict,
how do you communicate? What communication skills do you need to improve?
Okay. Gender. This is kind of a throwaway page. It's always the same,
but down here, the top needs that you have. We'll go into that.
That's talking about as men, as women, what are our needs?
What's the hierarchy of needs that we need? And then of course,
down here, conflict is sort of out of order.
And so I take that page and I put it up with communication. All right.
So some of these pages we will do out of order as we get in,
but I will always assign the pages for you to read at the end of today.
I will tell you what I want you to read, what I want you to do. And you know,
the starred sections I want you to finish. And if they're out of order,
don't worry about that because I want to basically keep the main thing,
the main thing when we're discussing. All right. So conflict,
what does it look like? Personal conflict challenges?
Where do you kind of fall off when it comes to conflict?
What are going to be your hot topics in your relationship?
What are going to be the things that trigger you or hit your button
the most with each other, according to the assessment,
two blue starred sections on this sheet. And then last, but of course,
not least spirituality.
What's it look like for the two of you guys to come together and to be that
threefold core that Jesus talks about that cannot be easily broken.
What does it mean for you to be tied to Christ,
but then to be tied to each other, tied to Christ?
What does that look like practically? And how are you going to walk that out?
Cool. Does anyone have any questions at all about what we just
very quickly, 30,000 foot overview of the assessment,
anybody?
Some of y'all look like you're being held hostage. I promise you,
we're going to have fun. All right. Okay.
So I'm scrolling back up to the beginning. So let's get started guys.
Ready to get started. All right. So remember your homework,
go ahead and write it down. It's going to be the bottom of page one,
come up with three goals that you have as a couple.
By the end of the six weeks, you would like to answer these three questions.
You would like to more clarity on these three subjects, whatever it is,
write it out, make it a sentence, be prepared to share one of those goals.
With the group when we come together. All right,
let's go ahead and get started. So overview to raise your hand.
If you did not look over the assessment with each other,
if you did not discuss your results with each other yet, anybody,
all right, we're good. Then we can go ahead and get started. All right.
So you see Tony here. Remember, these are not real people.
Tony has a romantic mindset and Chris has a resolute
mindset. And then Tony has three caution flags.
Remember guys are just yellow flags are not red. They're just yellow.
And then Chris has zero caution flags.
That's a red flag.
And my book zero zero is maybe you didn't understand
the question, or maybe you think that, you know, you're over it,
but I promise you marriage will bring it out.
And so it's important to, when you're looking at this, don't answer it.
Don't answer the questions from your ideal self,
answer the questions from your real self.
Because everyone knows the difference between those two things.
There definitely is an ideal us, the person that we would like to be,
the person that we tell ourselves that we are,
but then there's the person that we really are.
And it's important when you take assessments like this,
that you take them from your real self
and not your ideal self.
And you guys, that's why I don't really like personality tests
because it's very difficult to not take personality tests
from your ideal self, from the person
that you kind of wish you were, and sometimes are,
but a lot of times aren't.
And so that's what happens here.
And this is probably what happened to Chris.
He was just trying to, if you read
the rest of the assessment, you see
that Chris is the kind of guy who just wants
to get along with everyone.
He just wants there to be peace.
He doesn't want there to be any conflict.
And so because of that, maybe that's
why he didn't answer those questions deeper, right?
Once again, Chris is not a real person,
but I just think it's important to say.
All right, so it shows their score on context.
What does that mean right here where it's all
kind of filled in?
It means that they have a lot in common.
See that?
A lot.
It's good.
And the cooperating spouse and the affirming spouse
are their personality dynamics.
So we're going to get right into mindset.
All right, let's have some fun.
OK, so I have the chat open.
If you don't want to unmute yourself, you don't have to.
You can just post in the chat.
Go ahead and put your results.
If you're together in the Zoom window, which most of you
are, except I think only Brian and Megan aren't,
go ahead and tell us who is who.
Give us your results for this.
So for instance, you would put Belinda, Rational, and you
know, I'm sorry, I forgot your name already.
What's wrong with me?
We both are Resolute Mindset.
OK, so I was just giving an example.
But yes, go ahead and put that down.
If both of you are the same thing,
then just put both of you are the same thing.
OK.
All right, so Brian is a Romantic.
We have a bunch of Romantic Mindsets during this class.
OK, so Brian tested as Romantic.
Belinda, both are Resolute.
Megan, Pioneering.
No, that's not the one.
I want your mindset, not your personality.
Margie and Scott, both are Romantic.
And Beth and Joe are both Resolute.
And then Bruce and Terry are both Resolute.
So Megan, which one do you have?
Resolute.
Sorry, I was on the wrong page.
OK, yeah, we're just on, what is this?
We're on page three.
OK.
All right, so it gives you a little synopsis
of what that means when you test out as Resolute or Rational
or Romantic.
It looks like everyone here, everyone
tested out as either Resolute or Romantic.
OK.
Resolute Mindsets, you guys, none of these
are better than the other.
They all have pros and cons, except for the Reluctant
or Restless Mindsets.
The Reluctant and Restless Mindsets
are people who are really not sure about commitment at all.
OK, and those mindsets, when people test out
as those mindsets, there's usually
a lot of other things that need to be unpacked in order for them
to be able to make a commitment.
But if you're Resolute, Rational, or Romantic,
once again, there's pros and cons.
Resolute Mindsets are the ride or dies.
They're not going to give up.
They're not going to give in.
They're not going to quit on marriage.
For them, marriage is for life.
The problem is that if you're an abusive marriage
and you think that it's for life,
then you're the kind of person that's
going to keep showing up and keep trying to make it work.
So you see how that could kind of work against you in some ways?
It could, right?
And then because the only other test result in this group
is Romantic, Romantic Mindset's great.
You can make a quick attachment, a quick connection.
Romantic people have a tendency to fall in love a lot quicker.
Not always, but a lot of times.
But the problem is that Romantic Mindset, a lot of times
when the going gets a little bit rougher, they get going.
They can't really handle a lot of times the everyday.
They think that it's all kind of supposed
to be that infatuation stage of relationship.
But I'm going to tell you, science
has proven that infatuation, the feelings of dopamine that
are connected to infatuation, cannot last more than 30
months.
They won't.
They can't.
So that's just a little over two years.
And I personally think that's long,
being in the infatuation stage, unless you're maybe
not together and sort of at a distance.
But I will tell you that that's something
that will wear off, especially when you're
cohabitating in marriage.
People are leaving the toilet seat up, right?
People are doing.
and gross stuff. And you're just like, Oh, that's gross. That
that'll definitely pop a rose colored romance bubble really
fast. When someone is stinky, or you know, their tone of voice is
yucky towards you. You know, you were you were a princess or a
prince, and now their tone of voice is like, right, because
they're being triggered. And now they're in their fear response.
And so that's what the romantic mindset has to look out for.
Okay, so for those of you that are both resolute, for those of
you that are both resolute, make sure that you're not rigid. A
lot of times a resolute mindset can be kind of like, rule based,
or, you know, right and wrong, black and white, wrong and
right, let's make sure that we're not doing that. And for
those of you that are romantic mindset, let's make sure that
we're able to deal with reality, the reality of the relationship,
relationship, all relationship, including good relationship is
going to be hard. It's going to stretch you, it's supposed to,
it's God's maturity plan, it's supposed to mature you. It's
supposed to get selfishness out of you. And so that is one of
the things that you got to watch out for with that. Okay. All
right. So how do your mindsets mesh together? So if you had
romantic and resolute as your, as your result, then you'll see
just like Tony and Chris, how those mindsets mesh. And then if
you're both resolute, as some of you are, or both romantic as one
of you are, then you'll see how those mindsets mesh. And then on
the bottom here, what do you think about your results? What
makes you feel good? And what concerns you at this stage? And
why? That's what we're going to do right now. All right. So who
wants to answer the question of what you think about your
results? Do you agree with your result? Do you think that it the
thing that it assigns you is correct about you for the most
part? Nothing's perfectly correct, but for the most part,
and then what what do you feel good about and or what might
concern you about your result? Who would like to share?
Yeah, I'll go first, just to avoid too much dead airtime. I,
for myself, I'm not going to speak for Belinda in this case,
but for myself, I definitely agree that I have a resolute
mindset. And I, based on on my relationship past, am, I'm not
and I feel good about the fact that we are, we both have the
same mindset. We're both resolute in that we are
committed to making it work. I don't have any anticipation or
expectation of any sort of abusive relationship. But in my
past, I have been with somebody that was a romantic and they
were, as you said, they, when regular life happened, that
destroyed the relationship in ways that we won't go into
today.
Yeah, you know, I think it's important to note that anybody
can be these mindsets and also be healthy, right? So you're
talking about someone with it who's unhealthy and also with a
romantic kind of mindset. And so I think that's important. So
okay, so that's a great share. Thank you for sharing. Belinda,
did you want to add anything to that? Does anyone else want to
say anything? Belinda, you can go first, though.
Um, no, I was I'm actually in agreement. I was it gave me
reassurance that we actually had the same mindset about marriage.
So I felt good about that. And I don't have any concerns or fears
at this point about it. So I would agree with Eric on that.
Good. Awesome. Anybody else want to share on this one?
Yeah.
We're both resolute. And I really feel good about that. Beth
hasn't been married, I have. And I think I also probably went
through similar scenario of an idealist. And when out of
balance, it just can create a very tumultuous relationship.
But if you're both dedicated to the idea of marriage, when
things go wrong, instead of drawing inward, I think if
you're truly dedicated to the marriage, you're going to reach
to each other and try and make it work. That gives me a lot of
hope.
Yeah, that's good. Guys, there's no ideal marriage. There's your
marriage.
There's no ideal marriage.
There's no ideal dating.
There's no ideal courtship.
There's no ideal engagement.
There's your story.
Your story is unique.
Just as unique as your fingerprint.
Just as unique as God knitting you together
in your mother's womb.
You know, each story is unique and it's different.
And that's why we do a disservice
when we compare our stories to other people's.
And we say, well, if my story doesn't have these components
and it must not be a God story,
or it must not be a spirit mate match,
I must not have that good of a marriage
because I don't have a marriage like these people.
And I love when people tell their stories
of how they met each other and how they fell in love
from platforms, from churches, on podcasts as Christians.
But the one thing that I don't like,
and this is why I'm very careful about
when I retell stories of my success stories in my groups,
is that helping people understand
that this is not a template.
What I'm telling you right now is not a template.
This is their story.
This is the way it worked for them,
but it doesn't mean that that's the way
that it's gonna look for you.
And so that's really important.
Okay, good stuff.
Anybody else wanna share on this?
Yeah, we'll start.
We'll share.
Me and Margie are both romantic mindsets.
From my perspective, I completely agree with that for me.
You know, that makes me feel good
that we're both in that same romantic mindset.
You know, concern that, you know, I have,
I think before you even mentioned it, Jackie,
was, you know, how long does that last, right?
You're in the honeymoon stage per se.
So now we, you know, we come together
and how do we keep, you know,
how do you keep that spice going?
You know, you have date nights
and we discussed that and, you know,
and we know things are gonna up and down
over the timeframe of our marriage,
but we both have the, you know,
the will and the drive to keep that mindset
in the forefront of our marriage, if that makes sense.
You?
Yeah, I agree.
Yeah, and what you're saying is important.
You're saying that, hey, we're gonna do the work.
We're gonna continue to make each other feel valued,
you know, and, you know, and important, and that's good.
But if life comes at us fast,
this is what we need to know for both romantics.
If life comes at us fast,
if something happens in the relationship
that's just not that fun,
and it's just not that sexy,
and it doesn't let us be able to go on date nights
and do that stuff,
that we're still gonna be committed
to showing each other love in other ways, right?
And you guys, we'll talk a little bit
about love languages.
There's a couple, you know, love languages
that would be very appealing to maybe a romantic mindset.
And there's other love languages
that are a little kind of practical,
sort of boring, more like everyday type of stuff.
And I am gonna give you guys
all an attachment style quiz to take.
We actually created this quiz,
and I'm gonna put it in your group,
in your Facebook group right after tonight's session.
Please take that because it's not just about
what is your mindset,
but then also coupled with that,
what is your attachment style?
Because attachment style plus mindset
are important to take a look at.
Like for instance, if I have a romantic mindset,
but I'm also an anxious attacher,
ooh, that could be trouble.
That could turn into a red flag bill
because if I'm an anxious attacher
and also a romantic idealist,
then I'm going to, you know,
probably not be able to handle
the natural withdrawal of relationship.
You can't be with someone 24 seven.
If I don't have security inside of myself,
and I'm always looking for my security in you,
you're not gonna ever be able
to pay enough attention to me
to make me feel fixed, right?
And so those dynamics kind of start to cause
there to be a little bit of dysfunction.
If I have a romantic mindset,
and then I'm a avoidant attacher,
then I have the idealism that there's one for me.
And then I might think you're the one,
but as soon as things start to go a little weird,
or I start to see different sides of it,
or I start to have an emotional hangover,
I start overthinking things,
then I might start pulling away
because I'm avoidant, right?
And now my romantic mindset is an Achilles heel for me
because of my attachment style.
And then the other way around as well,
if I'm a resolute, but I'm also an avoidant,
then I'm also not going to ever wanna make
a commitment to anyone
because I'm resolute, right?
I'm a ride or die.
Once I make a commitment, that's it.
I'm in, I'm all in a hundred percent.
And so it's gonna take me a lot longer
to make that commitment
because of my attachment style.
Do you guys get where I'm going here?
It's important to put all these pieces together.
One thing I want to make sure that I tell you on this page
is that you notice that it says marriage mindset.
Doesn't say marriage heart posture.
And the reason why I want to point that out
is because marriage is a heart game, not a mind game.
It's important in the area of romance
more than anything else,
the area of romantic relationship, romantic partnership.
Unlike any other partnership that you might have,
a business partnership, a family partnership,
a friend partnership,
you can have covenant relationships
that are not sexual or romantic.
But in a sexual romantic relationship, marriage,
you have to follow your heart, but take your head with you.
You have to follow your heart.
And that's why the heart works so important.
You have to have a healed, healthy, and whole heart
of what you're operating out of,
or at least getting there, headed that direction.
Because otherwise, you might get into an analysis paralysis.
You might get into a place
where you're never really able to move forward.
And I see this so much
in the millennial generation of my students.
They really have a hard time moving forward in relationship
because they get stuck
because of what we're talking about right now,
because of overthinking
and because of attachment style and different things.
Now, a lot of you have already been married,
so you've already basically broken the seal on that.
You know what it takes to be married.
You know what bad marriage or good marriage,
for those of you that are widowed, look like.
And so it's gonna be even more important
for you to trust your heart, follow your heart,
take your head with you.
In other areas of your life,
you might follow your head, take your heart with you,
but in this area, you must follow your heart,
take your head with you.
Makes sense to everyone?
You wanna live wholeheartedly, heart-centered.
It's gotta be a heart-centered situation.
All right, we're gonna go ahead and move on.
Let me see what time it is, right?
Gonna go ahead and move on to our wellbeing page right here.
So you see at the top,
it says your marriage can only be as healthy
as the two of you.
You're the sum total of the relationship, the two of you.
And I know I can attest for every woman here
that they have all done their heart work.
They have all been working diligently on becoming healthy.
Some of them started out, you know,
in way different place of health than others
because of the things that they've been through
and experienced.
Some of them dealing with complex PDSD.
I see several of you here, ladies,
that I know your backstories,
and I know that you've been through some things.
Gentlemen, I don't know you as well, I apologize,
but men have trauma too.
And you can actually, you know, you can actually,
a lot of people don't think that they have trauma
because their parents didn't get divorced
or, you know, fill in the blank,
whatever you think traumatized people look like,
that didn't happen to you.
I write this in the very beginning of my book,
The Heart Work, and that is everybody suffers.
Everybody suffers.
In this age and generation that we live in,
there is no one that has not experienced trauma.
You might not call it that,
you might not recognize it as that,
but one thing I wanna make sure that we know
is that trauma, maybe you had the same job
out of high school
and you really dedicated yourself to that company,
and then they started laying people off
and they laid you off
after you dedicated such long time to that place.
And it just seemed like they didn't even care about you.
Y'all, that's a trauma, right?
To feel like you're discarded and abandoned.
So it can be really simple things like that.
You know, maybe you have the loss of a child
or the loss of a parent.
Maybe you watched your parent or child suffer
with some sort of disease like cancer.
That's my story.
My mom passed away of fourth stage metastatic breast cancer.
That's rough to see someone go through
that kind of suffering.
Sometimes suffering can be by proxy.
It's not you that has the trauma,
but it is someone that you love that has the trauma,
but watching them go through that traumatized you.
Does all this make sense?
Okay, so that being said, trauma doesn't just hurt us,
it creates different versions of us.
And so that's why this wellbeing page is so important,
but it's not so important that we take a look at it
and whatever we see here,
we think that it's not overcomable.
And so the very first thing over here is self-concept
and then maturity is that middle section.
Then we have independence.
I feel like independence is a product of the curse, right?
I feel like in marriage, especially,
it's the only relationship
where the two are gonna become one.
And so talk about interdependence.
It's really important to be able to attach
and interdepend in order to be married.
And so that's that last category right there.
And then you see down here, it shows those caution flags.
Remember, it's just a caution flag.
It's just a yellow flag saying,
hey, this might be something
that you wanna dig a little deeper into
to make sure.
that you're on the same page and you understand that this is something that this person has
dealt with.
Once again, Chris has zero, zero flags and Tony has abuse between parents.
Now if you guys remember on the very first sheet where it was telling about each person,
let's look at Tony's again here.
Family of origin.
Her parents are divorced.
Chris's parents are married.
She was raised by her mother.
Chris was raised by both mother and father.
She was the third born in her family out of three kids.
She was the baby and he was the fifth born out of five kids.
So he was the baby.
So both babies of the family, but very different families, right?
She came from a single mom that was raising three kids and she was the last one to be
born.
What does that mean?
It probably means that she was the one that knew her father the least.
You guys see how we can read into this?
She was the last one to be born.
So she was the youngest when they got divorced and you notice that she wasn't raised in a
blended family.
She was just raised by mom.
So we come down here and we look at her caution flags and they make sense.
She saw abuse between her parents.
There's some kind of habit that her spouse had that her partner has that that Chris has
that's like, she's not sure about it.
It's kind of annoying to her in some way, shape or form.
I wish that they would say on this assessment, what it is, because that's just like, what
do you mean partner's annoying habit?
What does that mean?
Does he pick his nose and eat it?
Like what are we doing here?
I don't know what they mean by this.
Does he like chew with his mouth open?
Like what?
All right.
And then depression.
So she's saying that she has dealt with depression.
And of course she has, because we just saw what her home life was like, and that could
cause her to have effects of a suppressed immune system and a suppressed, you know,
post-traumatic stress kind of situation going on there.
All right.
And so, but together the, both of them 88, because Chris has 97%, they have a 91% relationship
wellbeing, right?
So if you guys want to go ahead and share what your combined percentages of your relationship
wellbeing, and then let's do our homework here when it comes to your individual, as
well as relationship wellbeing, do you have any concerns?
Are there any concerns that you have and why you guys notice in the maturity thing, they're
like, if you're over 25, the less than Leslie Parrott automatically think that that really
means that you're going to have, you know, better chance at success in marriage.
I don't agree with that.
I've, I've seen a lot of young people get married that are under, under 25 that really
are well suited for each other.
So, and I've seen people get married that are over 25 that absolutely probably are not
going to get along that well.
So I don't really agree with that.
So longevity, stability, and similarity are also things that were flagged here for Chris
and Tony.
And their longevity, the mere fact that you have dated for less than two years, puts you
into a moderate caution zone for longevity.
So that was a caution zone for this SIMBUS assessment.
As I have studied successful marriages, I have been doing what I do for a long time.
I've been a matchmaker for almost 20 years, and I have studied the longevity of marriages
and relationships.
And I will tell you that the ones that last the longest are the ones that made that commitment
and knew that they wanted to be married to each other within the first year of being
together.
You know, they, they didn't necessarily get married guys, you'll find out.
And I don't want you to think that you have to follow this template because it's not a
template.
But according to what I've seen, a longer courtship with a shorter engagement or a shorter
courtship with a longer engagement seems to give people the time that it takes to really
get to know each other and have a successful first couple of years of marriage.
You're like, what do you mean just the first couple of years?
Those are the important, those are important years.
That's where you're building your foundation of your family together.
And so those first couple of years, not being fraught with, Oh, we have to really get to
know each other because we did not do that pre-work.
Do you see what I'm saying?
We didn't take time to really get to know each other because we had a short courtship
and a short engagement.
Okay.
I get it.
Everyone wants to have sex y'all, but it's not worth not getting to know each other.
Of course.
Right. And so it's important that we definitely take that time.
Especially if we're just really have no relationship experience to just get to know each other.
But it does not, in my opinion, take people longer than 12 months to know that this is the person, regardless of when they get married, that this is the person that they really want to, you know, grow with and learn with you guys when we say I want to marry
you. What you're saying is you are the person that I want to forgive more than anyone else that I've ever forgiven in my life. You're the person that I want to show more grace and more mercy to more than anyone that I've ever showed grace and mercy to in my life.
You're the person that I want to get to know in all of your versions and all of your stages for the rest of my life. Do you see that, that's what you're saying.
You're not really marrying this version of this person you're marrying all their future versions, and you're saying, I want to help you become the best version of yourself, and I'm committed to that.
So good. All right, you guys are super shy I get it so no one's going to open up and tell me that they have any kind of.
I have a question.
Thank you, Jackie.
Our, our relationship well being score was 70%, which I kind of feel like was a little low.
Okay. And my first question is, is it basically based on page one, and how you fill that out, is that how they're coming to that percentage.
Your, your relationship well being with each other is 70%. Yes. Okay, but it's, it's average between your individual scores. Yes.
Okay, so your individual scores were kind of low.
Well mine was 76 is 83.
Right. So the average of those two is 70, that's just an average just math, math, math. Yeah, no, I understand that, but I want to know like if they're getting that if they're getting those percentages from page one.
In other words, how we filled that out. Is that how they're arriving. No, no, no, no, no that that those scores your individual well being you know you notice the caution flags and all that that's taken from all different answers throughout the assessment.
But, you know, your, your score for your individual well being you know you must have, you know, said that you know you've struggled with some things and some things about like, in order to get that score, your percentage.
So, you know, good to be honest, that you know you've seen some lives and things have happened you know whatever. And that's why it's saying that, and that's why that score is averaging together like that 70%, I don't think that that's a low score.
We come from that we come from grade school where we want to get 100% on every test right we want to get that little gold star sticker. It's more important to be honest on these assessments so we can see where we need to work individually and as a couple.
I do agree, the flags are a little vague. I can't really trace it back. You know what I mean. Oh, interesting. You don't know what your flags mean. Right.
I'm glad you brought that up because we were talking about the exact same thing, or I wasn't like, where are you guys willing to share what the flags where your flags are okay well my I have three flags, and mine were suspicions of partners past, I don't know, I can't I don't
know. Partners habits. Yeah, I mean, some of his habits irritate me I don't know if that's what that means, and unrealistic expectations which I'll own, I'll own that. And then yours.
Okay, abuse between parents and I'm not sure how that came up with that my mom did have mental health that created a divorce and addiction. And maybe it's because my dad drank.
So we were just a little confused. Yeah, I think we might have not answered. Yeah, it seems like that's if you're, you know, if you put on there that your dad drank or that your mom had issues like that I'm sure that that's where that's pulling that flag from.
Beth your flags of suspicion of partners past that can just be of, you know, like, you know, just, you know their origin family what they've come from maybe they've shared some kind of abuse with you or something about the way they grew up and that's, that's, I don't think
that that's the right wording. I think that that's weird wording because it's like you're not suspicious of it, you're just like concerned about it like oh hey how did that affect you.
You know, there's nothing suspicious is not a good word it doesn't make sense. So, maybe I'll write into them and tell them that that doesn't make sense and unrealistic expectations.
I just found the expectation page. Okay, so maybe on there you guys have some differing opinions of like what is going to happen.
as you're married. Okay. And then what about you guys, Margie, what do you guys got?
Oh, you can say now.
No, I I'm the one that really shot out at me was one for me that said problematic online
activity. And I looked at that. And I'm like, what, what, where did that come from? So
wait, wait, did it say that that's your flag or her flag?
It says that's my flag. And I was just completely 1000% shocked at that. And I have no clue
where that would have came from. And I'm looking at her going, well, I don't even like online
activity. I hate it. So I don't know what where that came from.
Well, I mean, I know that the assessment does ask you about, you know, different things
like that. So maybe it thinks that you answered a question differently. I'm not sure.
Apparently, I need to get off those sites. I'm on I don't know. So I'm making a joke.
I'm making a joke. I know you are. I already I already got I already got your sense of
humor. I get it. Okay, no, that that one just took me back a little bit. I was so you guys
noticed that at the blue star sections, it says, um, you know, how do you feel about
your results? Because you guys it is a computer graded algorithm based assessment. So there
can be things that are not true. And if at any point in time, you see something on this
assessment as you're going through it as a couple that you're like, hey, you know, I
really don't think that's accurate. Make sure you tell each other. Hey, I don't think that's
accurate. I don't know how I got that result. But that doesn't that doesn't resonate with
me. That's cool. Good. That being said, y'all, and all the ladies will test that I teach
this all the time. Everybody has yellow flags. Everybody without exception has areas in their
life where they are still in process, where they are still working, where they are not
that healthy yet, where they don't have good boundaries, where they don't have good mindsets,
where they believe something that is not completely true about God themselves, others,
life, marriage, guys, feel me, it's true. And so the only thing that is going to challenge
those areas of your life is you, with the help of Holy Spirit, admitting what those
things are, because sometimes you don't even know what they are, admitting what those things
are and being willing with the help of God and each other to work on them.
Because that is what marriage is. It's us being committed to helping the other person work on
their stuff and become a better version of themselves. So that's why vulnerability
is very necessary when it comes to marriage, vulnerability, and trust, honor, all the things.
I'm out in our studio garage and I hear something moving around. I hope it's not
a mouth shell or I'm in trouble because if I disappear, that's what happened to me.
Okay. All right. So what time is it? We're at 818. Okay. So I'm going to put up that
attachment style quiz. If you guys have some time to go ahead and bust it out tonight,
that would be great. Next week, let's go ahead and give the homework.
Next week, we're going to go over social support. Okay. We're going to talk about our networks,
our communities that we have around us. I'm going to go over that. So go ahead and look this page
over with each other. Go ahead and discuss it. Do the blue star section at the bottom.
You don't have to turn it as homework. Your homework is your goals on page one.
Okay. So go ahead and do that. And then go down to skip over finances. All right. And go down to
expectations. I want you to do this one. And you guys, I will remind you in the group, I'll put
the page numbers. So let's see. This is page five and the blue star section at the bottom of page
five. And then you're going to do the page seven and the blue star section at the bottom of page
seven. And because I don't think that we're going to spend too much time on remarriage and
blending family in this group, we'll go ahead and tack that on. So 7A as well. All right. And the
two, if it's applicable to you, do the starred sections on page 7A as well. Okay. So I will
remind you by putting that up. I'm also going to put an attachment style quiz up that I would love
for you to do before next week. If you haven't introduced yourself inside the group page,
please do that as well. And I'm going to go ahead and let you go for tonight. Father, we thank you
for this time together. We ask that everything that we need to see, that we see Lord, that we
are able to be, have revelation, have wisdom, have insight.
from heaven. We pray that during this time that we have set aside to getting to know ourselves
and you and each other better, that you would really reveal important things to us. Even give
us dreams, Lord. Give us insight that can only come from heaven. I pray that you would just help
us bring peace, shalom, in Jesus' name. Amen. And have fun. And have fun, too. Cool? All right.
Okay. Homework posted. I will see about getting you guys into the app. I'm not sure if we can
or not with Cheryl getting her gallbladder out because she's our tech guru. But if so, we will.
If not, we'll just be in the Facebook page. I'll put the new link up for next week. Please save it.
It will be the same one every week going forward. I'll put your quiz up and I'll put your homework
up. I'll see you next week. Bye, everyone. Bye. Bye-bye.