All right, we're recording.
All right, everyone, welcome to November Simba's class, S-Y-M-B-I-S, it's an acronym for Save
Your Marriage Before It Starts.
So everyone in this group is not necessarily even engaged yet, but all of you are in a
pre-marital type of relationship, meaning that you like each other enough that you're
thinking that somewhere down the line, and for some of you that might be before you even
get out of this class, you might be getting engaged and going forward into an engagement
towards a marriage, okay?
And so this is a really great class for anyone who is in a serious dating relationship, regardless
of whether you've known each other for three months or three years, but you want to take
it to the next level, and you want to really see whether or not you're compatible to take
it to the next level.
I promise you one thing, you're going to see a lot about each other that maybe you don't
know during the six weeks with me, and that is the point.
It is the point.
Some people start to kind of fuss a little bit with each other as they head into Simbas,
and I feel like it's because they're starting to put pressure on themselves in the relationship,
knowing that, hey, this is about to get real, it's about to get serious, and then maybe
triggering each other a little bit, pulling each other's triggers, and that might happen
also throughout the six weeks.
Does that mean you're not compatible?
No, it doesn't.
Does that mean you shouldn't be together?
No, it doesn't mean that either.
It just means that we're all humans, and we all have some baggage that isn't always seen.
We don't always know that it's there until something lights that fuse and that bomb goes
off.
So my job is to help you see the unseen about yourself, about each other, in order to see
whether or not those are going to be deal breakers or whether those are things that
you can work through towards building a lifelong partnership.
Guys, marriage is hard.
It is.
I wanted to start out by saying that marriage is hard, and for those of you that have been
married before, you know that, don't you?
You know that it's not easy, but it is worth it.
Marriage is the relationship that is going to stretch you more than any other relationship
on earth.
I have a private client, and I was talking to him today, and he said, I really want to
marry someone.
He's in that baby-making generation, the millennials, and a lot of the women that are his age are
itching for a baby.
So they're in their late 30s, early 40s, their little clocks are ticking, like a little ticking
time bomb, and so he's meeting a lot of women that, you know, they want to sort of skip
the courtship and get right to the baby-making, I mean, get married and get right to the baby-making
because they're worried that they're going to run out of time, and he said, yeah, I really
would just like to meet a girl who, you know, likes me more than she likes the idea of having
a baby because, he said, when I marry someone, I want them to love me 51% and the kids 49%.
He said, and I understand that maybe during the first 18 years, they love the kids 51%
and me 49%, and I thought it was really funny because a lot of people have a lot of different
agendas of why they want to get married, especially in different eras of their lives, okay?
And so we're going to unpack all that stuff.
We're going to talk about it.
You guys, there isn't anything we're not going to talk about during this class, everything.
All of the main reasons why people, you know, end up not being able to partner, end up cutting
off partnerships, divorcing, all those reasons, all those top 10 reasons why are in this SIMBAS
assessment.
Okay, so in-laws and out-laws, all the other people outside of the relationship that might
be influencing you, that's one of the reasons that a lot of people will cut off partnership.
Money issues, trust issues, we're going to talk about sex.
We have a whole module on sex, and so if you feel embarrassed to talk about sex, you might
want to be absent that day because I'm not embarrassed to talk about sex and we got to
talk about sex.
All right, it's important, but it's not all that's important.
We're going to talk about communication.
That's one of the top three reasons why people don't end up being able to go deeper in relationship
and further in relationship, and so we're going to cover all of it.
Now, a little bit about me.
If you don't know me, because some of you are not my students, some of you have come
in through a student, so your partner is a student of mine or a client of mine, but you
haven't been.
My name is Jackie Dorman.
I am the founder of something called Last Year Single.
To date, I have helped over 800 couples get married, so that's 1,600 people, and we have
so many other people in what I call.
our marriage funnel, meaning that they're headed towards
marriage, but they're not quite there yet. And we, we, we help
them in every way that we can as far as preparing them, because
I believe that when you're getting married, an ounce of
prevention is worth a pound of cure. And so we get engagement
announcements every week in my communities. And in my programs,
I'm also a matchmaker. So I directly help people get married
by introducing them to their spouses. And we do so many fun,
amazing things. But I really want to help you to have an
amazing relationship and amazing marriage. I believe in the
revival of marriage and family, I want you to believe that this
is the best relationship of your life, the most important
relationship of your life, and that you grow and partner
together to do amazing things world changers, that further the
kingdom of God. This is a Bible or biblical based premarital
coaching class, there is a whole module on spirituality. And you
don't have to be fully on the same page spiritually, meaning
having come from the same place, having been taught the exact
same things, but what's going to be necessary in order for you to
go forward together is that you have the same desire or hunger
for where you want to take your spirituality in the future.
We're gonna, we're gonna unpack all of that. So that includes
all denominations includes all backgrounds, it includes
everybody or anybody who really wants to just continue to grow
in their relationship with God. Right. And so we'll talk about
having different backgrounds and what that looks like to come
together and go forward together spiritually as well. So
spirituality, communication, the the outside relationships, the
money, okay, the gender roles, your origin, family stuff that
could be influencing the way that you think about each other
about marriage about God, about family in general, all of that
we're gonna talk about sex, we're gonna talk about intimacy
and partnership, anything and everything you can think of, we
will cover in this six weeks. So what I'm going to do tonight
during orientation is I'm just going to give you an overview of
that assessment that you took. Okay, just quickly go through
the pages, give you an overview of it, show you where the
homework sections are. And then I'm going to assign a homework
section, a session section at the end of the session, say that
really fast, I'm going to assign a homework section at the end of
this session, that you will have ready for next Monday.
Everything's always available in replay, if you have to miss a
Monday, go ahead and watch the replay, watch it together. As if
you would be live, okay, and make sure that you are, you
like, you know, we'll have some activations during these
sessions, make sure you're doing that as you're watching the
replay, make sure you do the homework, don't mail this in.
Maybe one of you wanted to do this more than the other person,
maybe one of you doesn't really think it's that necessary. It's
like, we really know each other, that's okay, I promise
you're going to find out things about each other that you didn't
know. And I also promise that you're going to either at the
end of this feel really empowered to partner and go
forward together, or you might actually break up. Okay. And we
do have couples that break up during Symbus. I'm obviously not
speaking that or wishing that over anybody. But if you're not
a good match for longevity, then it's important that you know
that now. That's why it's called saving marriage before it
starts. Okay. And so if you're not a good match for long term
relationship, you don't want the same things, you find out some
things during this time together, that are deal breakers.
Right, not just triggering your fear, but an actual deal breaker.
And we'll talk about those things and what that means.
Because I believe you should have a very short list of deal
breakers, it shouldn't be super long, because that's based on
fear, a very small, small list of deal breakers, to where you
can't go further in partnership. And those need to be from
heaven. Those those deal breakers need to be heaven deal
breakers, things that you believe God has put in your
heart that you absolutely have to have, or you absolutely
cannot have in relationship. And then anything else can be worked
out. If you want it to be anything else can be overcome.
Your marriage relationship will be an entire lifetime of
overcoming obstacles inside of yourself and outside of yourself
inside of the relationship and outside of the relationship.
Cool, capisce, everyone get it. Alright, so I am here to fight
for your relationship if it's the right one for you. But if
you do end up deciding that this is not the right partner for
you, and you guys do decide to go your separate ways, then we
will absolutely support you and help you in that as well. But if
we think that you're doing it out of fear, if we get to know
you in here, and we think you're doing it out of fear, you're
having a knee jerk reaction, you're having a level 10
reaction to a level two situation, we will probably
privately call you out on that to make sure you're making the
right decision. Okay. Cool. Good. All right. My husband,
David will be joining me for the last two sessions. The last
session is a no holds barred grab bag q&a. And we might
actually have our other symbols coaches that teach sometimes as
well.
Jump on that. So you can get a different perspective from people who've been married less amount of time than us
We are celebrating 17 years this month actually on the 17th. So I will be with you during our anniversary time and
The other couple that teaches Simba's for us. They are a success story of ours in this community
They are certified Simba's teachers and they've been married for two years
Okay, and so they're going to have some more newlywed type of things to answer especially for those of you that
Grew up in the church. Maybe you're a virgin right now gonna be getting married, you know, or thinking about getting married
What does that look like to navigate all that stuff? They would be good people to ask those questions, too
All right, so let's pray father God. I thank you for these couples
I thank you Lord that you have brought them all here to this divine
Intersection with each other with me so that we can go forward together
Let's see the clear path God and we're asking that you speak to us and through us. We're asking that everyone without
Exception learn something about themself about each other and about you during this course and those that see clear to partner Lord that they
Have the confidence to move forward in Jesus name. Amen. All right
Okay, so I'm going to if you can all see my screen, which I've been assured that you can I'm going to go through
Very quickly the Simba's assessment and then after we do that
We're gonna have a time where you are gonna introduce yourselves
Okay, I'm gonna do this first get this out of the way so that we can have a little time of sharing
Introducing yourselves how you met how long you've been together. What is the status of your relationship right now?
Are you dating? Are you engaged if you're engaged?
When's the wedding date kind of thing and I also want you to post that write this down in the Facebook group
So you're gonna briefly
Introduce yourselves tonight
But I want you to actually make a post and if you're long-distance and you can't be together for that post just post a
picture of yourselves together
Right and and then under of course with that picture, you know post the same information
Hey, you know, this is Jason and Allison. We've been dating for this amount of time. We're engaged
We're not engaged. Whatever. This is how we met
And and this is what we're hoping to get from this course. Cool
All right. Okay. So you guys this is a sample report these people are not real I haven't just
Chosen some random person's report and I'm going to show you all of their personal information
Tony and Chris are
Fake they're fake people
all right, and
we're gonna go ahead and just go through this Simba's report and then I'm gonna take all of your questions and we're gonna have a
Little time of getting to know each other
So this very first page here is just you're about us page
This is going to be a bio page of the both of you
So your age your background your religious affiliation your education status your employment status
All of the things of your family origin your parents. Are they married? How were you raised? Who were you raised by your birth family?
Your birth order in the family. They have found more and more that birth order does play a part in personality mixes
And we're gonna do some fun personality things during this time of Simba's
We'll be doing some fun personality stuff some attachment style stuff
All of that's going to be very important. Some of you have very opposite attachment styles and that's going to poke each other a lot
Okay, that is going to cause a lot of arguments because of a different type of attachment style and we're gonna talk about that because
You can mitigate that it doesn't mean that you're not right for each other
It just means that you're going to have to be very mindful of how the other person reacts in certain situations
This is it's good. It stretches you. It's good. All right number of kids in your family
Okay relationship if you have a wedding date, it would be there
What's your relationship status as far as how far are you in relationship with each other?
Have you been married before if you have children how many if you're expecting a child with each other?
Never say never we have had people take Simba's that are expecting a child with each other
No judgment length of dating relationship the stability of your dating relationship and long-distance
one of the things that I don't agree with in Simba's is that it thinks that you have a better chance of
Being a good match the longer you've been together that directly goes against the philosophy of last year single and what I teach
I don't think that it has to necessarily do with length of time
I do think that people should know each other through all four seasons before they get married that does not always happen
Some people feel the green light from God to get married within the first year of knowing each other. That's cool
That's fine. David and I actually did it and you see it worked out
You hear a little little pieces of my love story if you had don't already know it throughout our class
Okay, we were actually married in eight months or less and I have a book called
married in 12 months or
less. Okay. It's not, it's not 12 days or less.
It's not 12 weeks or less. It's 12 months or less,
which is an entire year if you do the math. Okay.
And so I do believe in people really taking the time to be intentional and get
to know each other and take courses like this so that you really can dig into
what's really going on there before you say I do at the altar. Okay.
So the length of your relationship, here's your first homework.
Do you see this blue star section here at the bottom of page one,
those throughout the assessment will be your signed homework.
As we unpack this assessment together at each Monday
that we're together.
So I will give you homework a blue star section,
and then you will come to the next Monday class. If you can't be there live,
make sure you still do the homework and you will present that homework to the
group. Okay.
The very first thing you're going to present is next Monday.
And it's going to be what are your goals personally?
And as a couple for this premarital course,
what's your goal is your goal to find out if we're compatible is your goal to
find out more about what we need to do to be prepared to get married is your
goal to find out if, you know, each, if you're the, if you're each other's one,
you know, be very honest, be very transparent about what your goals are,
discuss those things with each other,
and then bring that back next week to be part of our
share at the beginning. This is the only time we're going to share at the end
today. You're going to tell us who you are, how you met all that good stuff.
But at the beginning of every class going forward,
you're going to share at the beginning, your homework. Okay.
And each class will be about 75 ish minutes long,
right? Page two. This is your marriage momentum meter. This is,
it took all the information from your assessment and it gave you a marriage
momentum score. And so you see that this speedometer is on high for Tony and
Chris it's on that last little block, yellow block.
Does anyone have a marriage momentum meter that is either straight up
or to the left?
Anyone kind of going slow with their momentum or just kind of middling right
halfway. So everyone's either halfway or to the right. Yes.
Okay. All right. So right here, this will all make sense to you later.
But it's giving them a marriage mindset. Tony is romantic. Chris is resolute.
We're going to get into that. It's giving caution flags to Tony,
none to Chris.
That's a caution flag for me when no one has any caution flags because everybody
has things that they need to work through.
So Chris is a caution flag for not having any caution flags.
And so this is his wellbeing score.
That is about where you are in your own heartwork and where you are as a couple,
when both of your heartworks come together and are given a grade or a score
on this assessment context that,
that there's a whole bunch of different things that fall under context.
And you'll see those things in just a second. And then what is the dynamic,
the personality dynamic between these two people? All right.
The cooperating spouse and the affirming spouse are what these people have.
You guys, there is a companion book to this course.
You see it here on the bottom of page two.
We are not going to use this workbook.
If you guys want to get the workbook and just go through it together,
you absolutely can. If you want to do that extra work.
But we are not going to be using that during this time.
We'll be digging into a lot of stuff.
You guys will see that we really don't need the workbook because we're going to
dig into a lot of stuff that's even outside of this assessment. All right.
So here we see on page three, the mindset, this is where you get,
you get assigned a mindset, uh,
romantic and resolute for this couple and how those mindsets match.
How do they come together? I love complimentary opposites.
Some of you might be polar opposites and guess what? That's still workable.
You're going to have to work a little harder at understanding each other.
Complimentary opposites have a tendency to understand each other more.
And then if you're exactly the same, similar personalities,
they have a hard time as well. So we have complimentary opposites.
They usually have the easiest time. Okay.
Cause they're different, but they're complimentary.
And then we have polar opposites that sometimes it feels like working at like a
job. When you get past all the infatuation,
you don't really understand each other that well.
And so you have to work at it harder.
And then you have the people that are two alike what's happening here.
There's no iron sharpening iron over here. There's no challenge.
There's no rubbing. There's no stretching.
And so you have to create opportunities to be challenged and stretched
because the likelihood of you being challenged and stretched by each other is
lessened because you're too much alike. Does that make sense to everybody?
Please, as we're going through,
write down your questions that you're going to ask me at the end.
because I would love to answer those questions for you.
And you'll see that this page, page three,
is the first page that has this blue starred section
at the bottom of it again.
I'm not asking you to do this homework now.
I already told you what your homework was for next session,
but you will eventually be assigned
all the blue starred sections,
plus extra homework that I'll be giving you
that has to do with outside tests and quizzes
and different things that you'll be able to do
in the Facebook page.
The links will be in the Facebook page.
All right, page four, wellbeing.
Your marriage is only gonna be as healthy
as you are individually as you come together.
That's why in our program, we do heartwork.
That's the very first phase of anyone who works with me
is doing their heartwork, unpacking those boxes
so you don't have to carry that baggage
into your relationship.
So here we're assessing
these individual people's wellbeing,
and then what are they the sum total of
right here at the bottom?
And what does that say about their longevity as a couple,
their stability as a couple,
and their similarity as a couple?
And then at the bottom of page four,
you see the blue starred section again, right?
Then that first context, remember I said context.
They had a context score on that first page
in this assessment.
This is what it was scoring, okay?
So the first context is social support.
How much support do you have for your relationship?
Good marriages happen within good community.
Go ahead and write that down.
You're gonna hear me say that a lot.
Good marriages happen within good community.
It's not about you and your partner
being siloed off on your own somewhere.
It's important to understand that God wants to put you,
place you into community where both of you can grow,
grow as a couple and grow as individuals.
Gentlemen, all of you need guys in your life
that can check you before you wreck you,
men that are gonna stretch you,
men that are gonna call you up and call you out.
You have to have that.
That is going to make you a better husband.
That's gonna make you a better father.
And without it,
you're probably gonna flounder a little bit
because you're only gonna have your wife
calling you up and calling you out.
And you're gonna consider that nagging
and you're not gonna like it.
But if you don't have men doing that in your life
and causing you to become better,
your wife is gonna see,
she's gonna think it's her job
because she wants you to be a better man.
Remember, we've been created to be the helpers.
And just so you know that word,
even though it kind of sounds like a subordinate,
like second string type of person, it's not.
The actual word is a word in Hebrew that is the word easier.
And it means that we are warriors, okay?
It means that we are challengers
and we are going to help you
to become the best version of yourself.
But it's probably easier if you hear a lot of that stuff
from another man in your life,
fathers, brothers, peers, and so community.
And then ladies, the book of Titus shows us
that we need women in our lives that help us,
help us to do what?
Help us to be better mothers and better wives
and help us to stay in our divine feminine.
This whole culture wants women to be butt kickers, okay?
Which we are, we're strong,
but we wanna put on the butt kick hat
outside of the marriage, not inside of the marriage.
All right, let's divide and conquer,
but let's not try to conquer each other.
And so ladies, we wanna make sure
that we are divinely feminine in our marriages,
that we are a soft place to land,
that we are supportive and helpful,
and that we are also using our gifts and talents,
whether inside the home or outside of the home
to help the entire family to prosper and benefit, okay?
And so we have to have community.
So what kind of support do we have
from friends and family for our relationship?
Some of you may not have friends and family
that have even met your person yet.
Raise your hand if there are people close to you
that have not met your boyfriend or girlfriend yet.
People that are close to you that have not met them yet.
Okay, all right, relationship with in-laws.
Now, some of you were raised by wolves like me,
and you don't really care what your family thinks
about your potential partner because they have bad advice
or they're not safe people.
And we'll talk about what do we do
if we're marrying into a family
where the person that we're marrying doesn't talk?
They have a no contact.
Does anyone have that situation
where you have no contact with your family
because of boundaries,
because they're not safe or healthy?
Anybody?
Don't talk to a mom or dad or sibling.
Don't talk to maybe a grown child
because they're just not that healthy.
Okay, so we'll talk about how do we navigate that?
What does that look like?
Okay, has anyone raised their hand and say,
I don't have a bad relationship with my family,
but my potential partner here has not met them,
has not met both of them.
Maybe your parents are divorced
and you haven't had a chance for them
to meet both your parents.
Okay, network of mutual friends we both enjoy.
Do we have mutual friends?
Are we far enough in relationship to have them?
And if we don't have them, we want to have them.
And so that's important.
And then social support from our faith community.
Do you guys go to the same church?
Do you go to different churches?
Do you go to different denominations?
Whose church are you going to go to when you get married?
Are you going to go to one of the other churches
or are you going to find a new church together?
These are all important things to ask,
not because church, but because of spiritual community.
And so you guys, when I say the word church,
I mean spiritual community.
That could look like a home group.
It could look like a running club for Christians.
It can look like wherever it is that you show up
and you're held accountable to good works.
You're being provoked to good works.
You're being provoked to deeper relationship with God.
You're learning more about God,
whatever that looks like for you,
because it doesn't look traditional
for a lot of people anymore.
A lot of people don't have a local church.
They have a spiritual community of some other kind.
I have a business community that I meet up with,
every month, that are all Christians.
They're all spiritual entrepreneurs
and we hold each other accountable.
We pray for each other.
We have a weekly prayer call.
We do all kinds of different things.
That is more my spiritual community
than the local church that I sporadically attend.
And so it can look like anything, but do you have it?
And if not, how are you going to get it?
So that's page five, and that is a blue-starred section.
There, you'll see that there's some homework.
And then we get into some nitty gritty.
We're going to get into finances.
What is your money matrix?
What does that look like?
Are you fit financially?
Are you ready to be married?
If not, how are you going to get ready?
Money talks, we're going to do this entire section
as homework, so don't do it yet.
Don't do it until you're assigned it.
That is going to be very revealing for healing.
How do you process money?
What does money mean in your life?
Are you a wise steward of your resources?
Are you in debt?
How are you going to get out of debt?
What does that look like to come together
in the area of financial freedom?
And then the next context is expectations.
This is basically gender role stuff.
Based on what you saw in your origin family,
what do you think it's going to be like to be
partnered with this person?
Who do you expect to do what?
We don't really have a lot of people that are too off on this.
Most people see that it's a partnership,
and so we don't really have a lot of problems with that page.
And then you see there's some homework at the bottom.
And then remarriage and blending a family.
Who does this pertain to?
Who would this be a remarriage for or you're
blending a family, you already have children?
Raise them high, loud and proud.
Let's see them.
OK, quite a few of you.
All right, so this we're going to talk about.
What's your motivation to remarry,
your remarriage readiness?
I do have a bonus session you can watch about divorce
and remarriage biblically.
What does that look like?
It's really mistaught in so many religious circles.
I want you to get free from the guilt of divorce.
And also, some of you really need some encouragement
that you're even allowed to get remarried
from a spiritual point of view.
And so you'll be able to see that bonus session when
we get to here.
And then blending a family, what does that look like?
There's a reason why blended rhymes with offended.
Because there's lots of opportunity
to get offended in a blended family.
Lots, baby mama drama, got baby daddy issues,
got all kinds of stuff with in-laws and out-laws
and all the things.
And so we will talk about that during the session that
includes page 7A.
All right, going down to dynamics,
this is the personalities.
What are your similarities?
What are your differences?
How can you work together to conquer?
How can you work together to be world changers?
What is that going to look like?
That's page 8.
Page 9 is going to continue off the dynamics of the personality
types that you were assigned from this SIMBAS assessment.
And what does it look like to work together?
What strengths do you bring?
What weaknesses do you have to overcome together?
What are your styles in solving problems
and influencing each other?
What are your styles in communicating?
What's your relationship with change?
What's your relationship with making decisions?
What does that look like?
And then the next dynamic is love.
How do you view love?
How do you feel loved?
We don't all feel loved the same way.
What is it going to take for your partner
to feel loved by you?
What does that look like?
How do you define love?
We're going to talk about sex.
What's your sex life going to look like?
What are you expecting it to look like?
What do you think you need to work on in order
to have a healthy connection physically?
We're going to talk about that.
The next dynamic is attitude.
The different personalities,
what kind of attitude do you bring to the table?
What are you like when times get hard,
when you're facing a challenge?
What kind of, you know,
if all of you are familiar with the Enneagram,
do you go into, what do you go into?
to what personality you go into during when you're strong,
what personality you go into when you're triggered and weak,
places that you still need healing.
What does that look like on that spectrum?
Anyone here have a problem with the Enneagram?
You think it's from the devil?
Can I see a hand?
We can skip that quiz if you do.
You guys, just making sure.
I'm friends with a guy,
Zach Tyler on Instagram, Gospel for Enneagram.
And just, it's a really powerful tool
that you can use to really understand other people
and where they're coming from.
He's really dug into the origins of Enneagram
and where it came from
and the person that created that tool
where there's a lot of urban legend out there about that.
And so if you're one of the people
that heard those urban legends and you believed it,
I would love to share just a little report with you
so you see that.
It's just a tool like any other tool.
Nothing in and of itself is demonic.
People can use it for things that are not good, right?
Just like money can be used for not good reasons.
Any other tool could also be used for not good reasons.
And so I think that it's important for us to understand
that when we're using those tools,
we're not looking for identity
in personality tests and assessments.
We're not looking for identity.
What we are looking for is where are we right now
and how do we react to certain stimulus?
That's really all that those tools are supposed to tell us.
Cool?
Good?
Hi, how you guys doing?
Doing good?
Okay, all right.
This is page 11.
I really like this
because how do you perceive your partner
when they get stressed out?
Has anyone here not seen your partner stressed out yet?
You've never seen them in a bad mood.
You've never seen them in a funk.
You've never seen them facing a problem.
Raise your hand if you've just never seen this person
except when they're just fat, dumb and happy.
Come on, let's see it.
Not that you're fat.
That's just a saying.
Because I feel like happiness sometimes
is a little fluffy and fat.
It's all the bad food.
I don't know.
It's just a me thing.
Okay, so all of you have seen someone not at their best.
That's good.
We have a blue star section at the bottom of page 11.
So we'll definitely be assigning that homework.
Communication.
This is the lifeblood of your relationship.
How do you communicate?
How do you want to be communicated with?
What kind of self-preservation techniques
do you come into when communication is off?
And we're gonna give you an entire list of that.
We're gonna give you a quiz.
You're gonna be able to really find that out,
dig into that.
What kind of communication skills would you like to improve
or would you like your partner to improve?
Gender.
This is kind of a throwaway page for me,
except here at the bottom, your top five needs.
Kind of important to see how the genders rank their needs.
One to five.
And then conflict.
You're gonna have it.
If you haven't had it yet, you will.
You should.
You need to.
Raise your hand if you've never had any conflict
with each other yet.
Nope.
No arguments.
No disagreements.
Wow, you guys are great.
You've been arguing.
I like it.
Okay.
So what are the personal conflict challenges that you have
and what are the hot topics?
According to this assessment,
it took all your information and it gave some hot topics
of what it thinks you're gonna fight about,
specifically as a couple.
And you see for these two,
chores is the number one, all right?
Both of them have sex on the list.
Both of them have money on the list.
It's ranked differently, but it's there.
Tony has communication on the list over here.
And children is on Chris's list.
So there's some different things of the hot topics.
And we're gonna fight, but we're gonna fight fair.
Everyone's gonna fight, every couple.
But we are gonna fight fair
and we are gonna fight with honor.
And we are going to disagree with momentum
or upgrade in mind,
because I believe every disagreement,
every offense has the ability to upgrade the relationship
and bring you closer if you want it to.
All right, spirituality.
How do you feel close to God?
All of us engage God differently.
We really do.
And we need to make space for that in our marriage,
in our relationship leading to marriage.
We can't judge someone else's spirituality based on ours.
We like to get up in the morning and read the word
and have coffee with the Lord at five o'clock in the morning
and dah, dah, dah.
Well, just because your partner doesn't do that,
doesn't make them less spiritual than you.
Maybe they don't connect to God like that.
Some people like to go out
and get in a tree stand and kill Bambi.
And that's how they feel close to the Lord.
God's out there talking to them
while they're shooting his creation.
I'm only saying that
because I've had quite a few men say,
I feel close to God.
when I'm hunting, I'm like, okay, you know?
So we can't judge other people's spirituality
of how they feel like they're close to God.
So what's your spiritual life going to look like together?
Are you going to attend church together?
Are you going to go to the same church?
How are you going to discuss spiritual issues?
Are you going to,
are you going to receive communion, agree on theology?
And I'm going to add to this list.
I don't love this list.
There's a couple of parts of Symbus
that if I had created Symbus,
I would have done it differently.
And so when we get to this place,
we're going to dig in a little deeper
than just these things here, right?
And then, like I said, if you need to book a one-on-one,
where do you go from here?
After Symbus is over, if you feel like,
hey, there were just a couple of things
that I need to dig deeper into
that we want to dig deeper into,
we do have one-on-ones available
for those of you that want to dig deeper
into your assessment one-on-one with a coach,
with me or our other Symbus coach, all right?
Okay, so I'm going to stop my share.
And we are going to introduce ourselves.
So we're going to start clockwise.
I'm going to start up here in the corner
and we're going to go clockwise.
And then you guys are going to tell us who you are,
where you live, how you met, how long you've been together.
You know, what level of relationship are you at?
Okay, does that sound good?
Let's go ahead and start with Mickler and Evie.
We're going to start with you guys.
Hi everyone, my name is Mickler.
This is Yvonne.
Hi, I'm Yvonne.
We were in Los Angeles.
We met on a dating app called Holi.
We've been dating for five months now.
And I'm forgetting the other question.
Wait, did you say where you lived?
Los Angeles.
Okay, Los Angeles.
You guys met on Holi.
You've been dating for five months.
Okay, so you're dating and you're dating for five months.
And I know Mickler.
Mickler and I, we go back.
And so, yeah, so that's exciting
and I'm happy for you guys, that's fun.
And she's cute, Mickler.
So hey, he's like, yes.
He's like, yes, yes, she is.
Okay, that's fun.
Okay, so the next that we have here is Jason and Allison.
You guys are next on my screen.
Same questions.
Hi, I'm Jason.
Allison.
We met on a dating app as well.
And we've been dating for 15 months.
And we are currently engaged.
Wow.
We live in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.
Murfreesboro, my grandma lived in Murfreesboro
and my cousins live there.
So for those of you that don't know where that is,
very close to Nashville, Franklin,
very close to that whole area over there.
And awesome, well, glad to have you here.
And Allison, you were in my program, weren't you?
Oh, okay.
2022, January, yeah.
Yes, awesome.
So glad to have you here.
Okay, and then Nettie is next and whoever is your person.
Hi, I'm Nettie and Armando is actually not on.
He's with his kids at a hockey game
for his son's birthday today.
So we'll be on together hopefully in the future.
But we're in Phoenix, Mesa-Gilbert area.
We have only been dating about six, seven weeks.
So pretty, pretty new.
Yeah, and I was in Jack,
oh, we met on also on a dating app on Facebook.
Facebook dating.
Awesome.
See guys, the internet's not all bad.
The apps aren't all bad.
If you do the work, you can meet someone for sure.
I believe that.
Okay, so it's Alfonso, right?
Armando.
Armando, I'm sorry, what the heck?
Okay, Armando, and he's gonna be able to be here next week.
Make sure you let him know if he doesn't,
well, first of all, he can watch the replay,
but the homework is for you guys to come up
with your goals individually
and as a couple for this course.
Okay, awesome.
Guys, the most that you can be here live, the better.
You can always watch the replays,
but we'd love for you to be live.
All right, very important.
All right, Carrie, and then Carrie,
who's your partner on here?
My partner is Joss Smith.
We're coming up on seven months
and we met on Facebook dating
and we're in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
Okay, awesome.
And then Joss, you wanna add anything to that?
No, I would say the same thing.
We're a little bit further apart in the grapevine
or in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
I'm in grapevine, she's in Azle,
if you're familiar with the area.
But we're-
Lots of traffic.
Yeah.
Little bit, little bit.
It's like, I was just in LA for a whole week and it's like, um, I, I was talking
to someone, I was like, Hey, let's get together.
Cause I'm looking on the map and I'm like, you're only like four miles from me.
They're like, yeah, that's two hours.
And I was like, oh, um, so it's, it can get crazy with that Metroplex traffic.
And then of course, LA is the same way.
And then, yeah, so, okay, cool.
So Carrie and Josh, did you guys say seven months and how did you meet?
We were Facebook dating app.
Stop Facebook dating again.
Come on Facebook.
All right.
Okay, great.
Love it.
Okay.
And then Amy, and who are you here with Amy?
Hi, I'm here with Dave.
Um, we're in the Seattle area.
We've been dating for three months and we met on the upward dating app.
Awesome.
Look at this.
Okay.
Is Dave here?
Oh yeah.
Dave cross.
Dave, you want to add anything to that?
Dave, where's Dave?
There we go.
There he is.
Yeah, no, I have the good fortune of dating Amy.
So, uh, we met on, on upward and that's been awesome.
I just relocated from kind of the LA area, San Diego area to Seattle
to try and give this a good run.
So, oh, I love that.
Okay.
All right.
Already relocated you guys.
That's very necessary and long distance.
And so that's, that's great.
Very necessary and long distance.
And so that definitely shows intention.
So that's awesome.
Looking forward to coaching you guys.
Okay.
Joshua, you're up and who is that lovely lady with you?
I'm Josh.
Hi, and I'm Jen.
Uh, we also met online, uh, been dating, I think right about six months
and we live in Buffalo, New York.
All right.
So you guys are in the same place.
We are right.
Awesome.
Um, no one, I didn't ask you to share this, but as anyone already have children
that are coming into this mix too.
Oh, quite a few people.
Wow.
Lots of kids, lots of kids around here.
Okay, good.
That's going to be good.
Um, we are an amazing blended family.
Um, when David and I met each other, we were next door neighbors.
We actually met through our daughters that started playing together.
My daughter was almost six and his daughter was nine and he
had an 11 year old son as well.
And so six, almost six, nine, 11.
Now they're 29.
My daughter's birthday is today, 27.
And then my youngest daughter who just got married 23.
So we know some things about blended family.
Okay.
And we will help you navigate that with grace and it's going to be great.
All right.
I love blended family.
Blended family is amazing.
If you have grace and you give it time and you're connected to the truth,
grace, truth, and time Constance you're up and who is your partner?
Yes, I'm Constance and Jeff is on with us as well.
And we're in the Sacramento area and we've been dating about three months.
Okay.
And we did not meet online.
We met, we met in person at a pickleball tournament.
Come on, pick a ball.
Everyone likes the pickleball.
You guys have never played, never played pickleball.
So going to have to do that.
Well, that's exciting.
Okay.
So three months and already in Simbas.
Okay.
So you guys really, well, I'm going to hear your goals next Monday, but I'm
assuming that you guys want to, you're serious about it and you want to, you
know, get to know each other better.
Um, so that's awesome.
Okay.
Let's see.
I want us to see if I'm missing anybody here.
Uh, Lydia and Carlos, I see y'all.
Um, all right.
Yeah.
Lydia and Carlos, go ahead and unmute yourselves and tell us about you.
Okay.
There it is.
Hi, Lydia.
And we've been dating for about a year.
We live here.
We live here in Austin, Texas, and we met via Jackie.
Yes.
Woo Jackie.
Oh, you can name your first child, Jack.
Okay.
So, all right.
So yes, they're here in Austin with us.
So that's awesome.
Um, but, but Lydia, you live somewhere else.
So you relocated from.
I relocated from Nashville.
Most recent.
Yes.
I've lived in different places.
So yes.
All right.
Did I miss anyone?
I don't think I missed anyone.
Did I?
Okay.
So we have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.
And.
Nita, and I don't know what his name is,
Nita is one of my students,
they're supposed to be in this class as well.
I do not see them, but hopefully they will watch the replay.
All right, you guys, now it's Q&A time.
We have, I wanna get you guys out of here by eight central.
And so once again, all classes will be about
60 to 75 minutes long, usually 75 minutes,
except for orientation.
And I'll respect your time, respect each other's time,
try to be on time if you're gonna be here live
and ready to share homework,
because this is not the time to be shy,
because the questions that you ask
help other people ask their questions
and maybe even answer other people's questions
that are afraid to ask that same question.
And so you guys are in a group pre-marital coaching class,
and so you guys are going to help
breakthrough happen for each other as you participate, okay?
A lot of you have similar stories and you don't know it.
A lot of you are facing similar things in relationship
and you don't know it.
And so the more that you open up,
the more that others will be able to open up as well, okay?
So your breakthrough creates breakthrough for others
is basically what I'm trying to say.
So we're gonna do some Q&A right now.
Any questions that you have about logistics,
about time, about replays, anything technical,
anything that you have a question about
of what we maybe covered or said tonight,
anything and everything, let's go.
You can put it in the chat or you can unmute yourself.
I'd rather you unmute yourself.
So this isn't just the Jackie show
with me talking all night, that'd be great.
A question on logistics.
Okay.
Okay, if I'm not able to make it live,
but Yvonne is, is that okay?
And then we watch it together, is that what you recommend?
I would love for you to both be here live.
If only one of you can be here live, that's awesome.
If neither of you can be here live,
also replays are always available,
but make sure that you watch them together.
Okay, even if you're long distance, watch it together,
put it on, watch it together,
you know, go through the activations, talk to each other.
You're gonna get out of this what you put into it.
Okay, cool.
Sounds good, thank you.
Yep.
Is there anything that you would like us to do
for next week?
Yes, your homework is that first start section
at the bottom, I think it's page one.
What are your goals for this class?
Why did you sign up?
What are you hoping to learn?
Is there a question that you're hoping to answer
about the relationship?
Is there something that you need to see
in order to assess compatibility for the long run?
You know, what is it?
Is there something inside of yourself
that you wanna, you know, wanna get to the bottom of?
What?
Individually and together,
you're gonna share your goals for the six weeks.
I believe that we don't get what we expect,
we get what we inspect.
And so it's important that we inspect what we want
and we put it down and then just hold each other accountable
to getting there for those goals.
Any other questions?
Mm-hmm.
For the, let's see, who was it?
Jason and Allison are engaged.
Did you say there's a wedding date?
What's the date?
All right, don't panic, but December 4th.
No, I'm not panicked.
December 4th, got it.
Okay.
And are you guys blending a family?
Very nice.
And how old are your children?
I've got two girls, 17 and 11.
Okay.
And I have a 13-year-old boy
and almost 11-year-old girl.
Okay, so two 11-year-old girls.
That's fun, right?
And then-
My oldest just turned 12.
Okay.
Just, she turned 12 in October.
Yeah.
So yeah.
But still close enough.
It'll be 11, 12, 13, and then a 17.
So real close.
And you guys have shared parenting of your children?
Yes.
I'm gonna talk about this in the blended family,
but I'm gonna go ahead
and just give you this bonus round right now.
Get on the same schedule.
Okay.
Either have all the children or no children.
Yes.
That way you can enjoy being newlyweds.
All the children or no children.
All right.
It's really important to the success of blended families.
So get there as close as you can
to where that you have carved out some alone couple time
of getting to know each other
and being able to build that foundation with each other
without all of this kid stuff.
That's why we chose December 4th.
So we got the holiday schedules to factor in
and new years and all that.
Yes.
Yes, yes.
Both of your former spouses alive
and on board with this marriage?
Yes.
They are, surprisingly.
Like my husband is better to me now, I think,
just that I've got someone in my life.
Oh, perfect.
He doesn't feel responsible for you anymore.
Okay.
Exactly.
Yes.
Okay, good.
Awesome.
Well, that's awesome.
I'm excited for you guys, December 4th.
And it's so easy to decorate a winter wedding, you guys.
Because all the twinkle lights and all the things,
winter weddings are so easy
because Christmas month is so beautiful already.
Yes.
One thing led to another.
Yeah, my dad's gonna perform.
My dad's a pastor.
He's gonna marry us in our old historic church
that my grandfather was buried in.
My roots are deep in this city, yeah.
Oh, that's so beautiful.
I love that.
Well, enjoy it.
Because y'all have two daughters
that are gonna go into puberty here in a second.
So praise the Lord.
Okay.
All the kids on board and excited about you getting married?
They are.
Yeah.
Okay, good.
I love it.
Yeah.
I love it.
Well, hopefully we'll be able to give you some cheat codes
on how to blend that family even faster.
Sweet.
I think my 11 year old has a crush on him.
That's normal.
Yeah.
He's innocent, but I see it.
Yeah, just the doting eyes.
Yeah, I think that's normal.
And my youngest daughter, who's my biological child,
who just turned 23 and got married,
my husband, David, actually officiated that wedding.
She wanted him to do something
since he wasn't gonna be walking her down the aisle
because her dad did.
And they're peas in a pod, him and her.
And so they have a very special, very close relationship.
She loves her dad.
She has a good relationship with him,
but this is daddy David.
It's a completely different type of relationship.
And it's really very beautiful to watch.
I love it.
That's great.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's good to know.
All right.
So anyone have kids that are like real little,
like under three, babies?
Oh, we got babies.
All right, tell me about your babies real quick, Amy.
What you got?
My youngest is three.
Three years old.
And she doesn't, a girl.
Yeah.
Okay.
She doesn't know her father.
So she's excited to get to know David.
Oh, that's really sweet.
Okay, and let's see.
Amy, you guys been together for four months?
Three, yeah.
Great, three months.
And he's already relocated.
Okay, yes, that's very special.
It's very special there, Dave.
So I'm sure that, I'm sure.
Do you have any kids of your own?
I have five.
Oh, wow, okay.
But I don't have any time with them right now.
It's kind of, there's been a lot of alienation
and things that have gone on.
And I have kind of stepped away from it
to try and just give that space.
Gotcha.
So it's really, it's been really cool for me
to get to know Amy and her kids.
And they're some pretty awesome kids.
So I'm excited for the future with that.
That is exciting.
I'm excited for you.
And prayerfully, you'll be able to reconnect
with your children as well.
Because that happens a lot in divorce.
It's really unfortunate,
but there's a lot of parental alienation out there.
Doesn't mean that the parent that's being alienated
is a bad person.
It just means that there's a lot of unresolved anger
and different things in those situations
that become very manipulative with kids
caught in the crosshairs.
And so I see it a lot,
but we'll be able to give you guys some advice
on how to navigate that as well,
because we deal with that a lot.
So, and then I saw that Evie had her hand up for a baby,
babies, little baby.
Yeah, I have a baby that's 15 months old.
Wow.
Yeah.
So I have all girls and my toddler just turned four.
Okay, so all girls, how many girls?
I have three girls.
Okay, four-year-old and then?
I have my 15-month-old, my four-year-old,
and then my soon to be 11-year-old.
Okay, wow.
Houseful girls, got it.
And Mickler, do you have any kids?
Yeah, one son, he's 14, turning 15.
Okay.
January?
What day?
15th.
On my birthday, it's the 16th.
Oh, wow. Yay!
Oh, wow.
Today, my birthday is the same as your daughter's is today.
Oh, it is 11, 11.
I love it.
Happy birthday.
Thank you.
Happy birthday.
I'm sorry.
Holy 32, 32.
Yeah.
She turned 27 and you turned 32.
So fun.
That's great.
What a great birthday.
11, 11.
I love it.
Um, okay.
So yes, if you guys want to just throw up in the chat, how old your kids are,
for those of you that have children, let's just take a look at that real quick.
You have about two minutes left just so that we can see who has what, um,
these, these are some beautiful families coming together.
And I believe that when God writes our love story, it's not just our love story.
It's also our children's love story.
If we have kids already, it's their love story as well.
And so we want to make sure that we are helping them prepare.
And I'll give you tools and different things to help them prepare.
Sometimes kids, especially preteens and teenagers are not all about it.
They don't really want you to get remarried.
They want you to themselves.
They're afraid of alienation.
They're afraid of abandonment, especially if it's been a messy
divorce, we'll help you with that stuff.
For those of you that don't have any children, we're not going
to waste your time with that.
But it will be important for that when you do have children, because all of
these same, you know, rules of engagement apply to kids just in general.
So 13, three, eight, and 10, all girls.
Wow.
Uh, 12 and 13 boys.
A 12, 13, 16, 22, and 24.
Whoa.
That's a, that's a, that's a team.
That's a team.
That's a sports team of some sort right there.
Basketball, right?
Five.
That's a basketball team, except maybe not.
Almondo has an eight year old girl and 12 year old boy, a 17, 15, 13, 11, 10,
all girls with a trans oldest transitioning to a boy.
All right.
So Dave, we see that, you know, there's just been, there's a lot of
trauma going on with your kids.
And that's probably part of the alienation.
Right.
And so, um, so yeah, so we're going to be able to support you in that.
Um, yeah, you guys, these kids nowadays, Gen Z, they have it rough out there.
And so we need to be giving them as much support as we can, because they are
being bombarded on every side with all kinds of rhetoric and agenda.
And of course, um, half truths, lies, all the things.
All right.
Well, thank you for joining me.
Who's excited.
You guys excited about Simbas?
We're going to have so much fun.
Um, come back armed with your goals.
You know, make sure that you're really transparent about those, because
whatever you put into it is what you're going to get out of it.
Try to be here live as much as possible.
If not watch the replays, watch them together, dig into the questions
together, when I give you homework, do the homework together, and you will
really get a lot closer, a lot more clear in this, um, in this class about
each other and about where you guys are headed.
Okay.
All right.
Have an amazing night and we'll see you soon.
By the way, the replays are going to be in this group and they
will be in the guide section.
Right.
And they'll get put up right after it's over within just a few hours.
Okay.
See you soon.
Bye everyone.