From Friends to Lovers | How to Date Your Future Spouse

Embarking on the journey of dating with an eye towards the altar, we often find ourselves grappling with questions about the future. This episode peels back the layers of such relationships, sharing our own leap from light-hearted dates to planning a lifetime together. We get candid about the complexities of intertwining lives—managing everything from where we lay our heads to how we balance our checkbooks, and yes, the sometimes uncomfortable conversations surrounding intimacy. It'll make you laugh, it might make you cry, but it will definitely give you a dose of reality about laying the groundwork for a marriage that lasts.

Remember when the distance between lovers felt like an insurmountable gap? We do. We'll reminisce about the trials and triumphs that came with living apart before tying the knot. The anecdotes of rented rooms and setting boundaries reveal a tapestry of community support and the power of trust over the common 'try before you buy' mentality. It's a chapter in our story that spotlights how laughter and discipline can forge a bond ready for the happily ever after—and how those sleeping habits as a married couple can become the stuff of comic legend.

We round off this heart-to-heart by contemplating the role of integrity and boundaries, not just in our relationship, but in shaping a legacy. We explore the dance of merging cultures, as a Haitian man and a Midwestern woman share the colorful blend of their worlds. It's about honoring the journey through various seasons with your partner, confirming that they are, indeed, 'the one.' Join us as we weave tales of proposals, engagement rings, and the courage it takes to navigate love across cultural lines, all while keeping an eye on the generational impact of our choices today.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Dating Your Future Spouse
• 9:49 Living Apart Before Marriage Success
• 20:04 Navigating Dating With Future in Mind
• 32:58 Navigating Cultural Differences in Relationships
• 36:39 Dating Outside Your Culture

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

All right. So we've had a lot of conversations lately. We talked about how we met that whole situation, the first date, all that stuff we talked about when we knew we were the ones for each other, like our love story.

Speaker 2: 0:11

Right.

Speaker 1: 0:11

Which you know me, I don't really care for love stories.

Speaker 2: 0:13

You, sure don't.

Speaker 1: 0:14

But we talked about our love story. But what I want to talk about today is okay, once we knew we were the ones for each other. Dating your future spouse I so dating your future spouse I feel like that's a big one, right? People ask us all the time Okay, when you guys were dating, like, did you guys live with each other? That's the thing, right, playing house already, calling each other hubby and wifey, right? What did you do with money? Did you pay for all the meals? Did you pay for all the dates? You know you start paying for her bill or what you know. People ask all the time Okay, when it came to intimacy, you know how they say well, you know, sometimes you want to test the milk before you buy the cow.

Speaker 2: 0:47

Oh my gosh, I hate that analogy Like why are we?

Speaker 1: 0:50

cows. So I feel like we should have a conversation about this and talk about this. Let's do it what. Let's dig.

Speaker 2: 0:55

Let's dig.

Speaker 1: 0:56

All right. So hearing all that, how does?

Speaker 2: 1:00

it is. I think it's a really valuable conversation to have about knowing the difference, cause there's dating to feel something out and to see does this have potential? Is this someone that I want to spend the rest of my life with? But dating someone already knowing, you guys have gotten to a certain point in your relationship where you've agreed that like, yes, this has future, this has longevity.

Speaker 2: 1:24

We are building something here and now, how do we follow like the lines, how do we move slow enough, like for me, I was ready to marry you. Like the next day I am just a lovesick puppy and I'm like yep, okay, let's do it all tomorrow.

Speaker 1: 1:39

We're not going to talk about the conversation that we had before we we started recording today no, we're not because y'all I asked dan and lee. Oh, my word for the head count of all the guys that she's kissed specifically to clarify just kissed, that's it yeah, that's the only part that I'm serial at and that's it. We're not gonna go. I'm not going to talk about anything else, but let's just say my girl she I am loving. She's a lover.

Speaker 2: 2:09

I'm a lover. So once we got to a point I was like, yeah, marry me tomorrow. Like let's do it, I just need a dress.

Speaker 1: 2:15

I mean you guys remember I talked about the story in what, the last episode or maybe the one before that. If you guys haven't caught up on episodes, go back and watch our story. You yawning right now. I did, I was trying to yawn, oh my gosh, why are you always yawning in front of people?

Speaker 2: 2:27

I was trying to hide it.

Speaker 1: 2:28

You called me out, so we talked about this on our last two episodes, our story and how we met, and all that stuff.

Speaker 2: 2:33

part one, part two and that homegirl me that I'm going to have to marry you. So then we started dating. I fell in love with you. I'm ready to marry you. You're ready to marry.

Speaker 2: 2:51

But I was really like now fast forward, however many years. I'm so grateful that your stability to slow us down and that we built so many layers to our relationship and that we can clearly go back and have a conversation about specifically our dating stage, specifically our engagement stage and then specifically our marriage, like we built it slowly so that we had a stronger foundation. Of course, y'all know we had to start over and we dug up everything after 10 years of marriage, but there is something to be said of like dating in phases.

Speaker 1: 3:33

Yeah, I think it's. It's a very unique thing. And, first of all, you said stability. I wasn't stable back then. If you're trying to, if people hear stable, it's like, oh my gosh, he must've had a good job and had his head on his shoulders. I just had my head on my shoulders. That's what you meant by stupid.

Speaker 2: 3:45

You had a good job, babe. I mean, it was ministry, you know we ministry.

Speaker 1: 3:49

You know how that goes. I mean, the money wasn't flowing, but you had a good jobacy to dating your spouse.

Speaker 2: 4:04

Yeah, like the one that you know is going to be your spouse.

Speaker 1: 4:07

Yeah, we're not talking about dating around, right. We're not talking about the dating game. We're not talking about, like musical chairs, like let me go out on a date with this person. Like there's a season for that. There's a phase for that, which you haven't heard. Our last conversation we talked about that when you're dating around looking for the right person. But this chat is really when you've identified this is the person for you. Like you were my person, right, I knew you were the one. Even though we were long distance at the time, we knew that we were going to be the ones with each other. There's still the dating phase. For that.

Speaker 1: 4:39

I feel like we got it. I feel like we went through some seasons, which was helpful. Oh, there's a fly in the room, it's going to drive me crazy. I feel like we went through a season where we slowly went through each process, right, some people ask okay, you just start dating and the person that you want to be with you're going to marry them. Like how many years should you date? Like that's subjective, that's subjective, I think it's. How many seasons should you go through before you know? Like, okay, we've gone through some stuff. We've had some tough conversations, right, we've talked about money, right, let's talk about money for a moment.

Speaker 2: 5:11

Okay, so once we started dating, I mean neither of us were making a lot of money. I was an assistant as a hairstylist which honestly I really need to call the guy that I was assistant to. I've been thinking about him so much lately, so, anyways, that's a sidebar. But so I was an assistant in a hair salon. I wasn't making enough money. You were in ministry. You for sure weren't making enough money at 19. But so, like, as we started dating and we'd always go out to eat, we would go to movies all the time, like that's just what you do when you're dating, like you're just spending all your time together, which usually meant you're spending a lot of money. And so we ended up kind of like splitting it Right, like eventually we would just go down the middle.

Speaker 1: 5:53

That was an agreement that we had. We. We did that, we didn't. It wasn't like oh Pierre, you're the man you should buy every meal. Wait, what Like? How do I know I'm not going to marry some girl that don't know how to take care of herself too? Can you pay your own bills? I want to know are you going to be a contributing member?

Speaker 2: 6:08

of this relationship, right? So yes, it wasn't fair to think that, like you'd pay for everything, I'm like yo, we're young, Like this is.

Speaker 1: 6:16

I'm not even making good money. You weren't making good money at the time. We were just dating and we knew we wanted to be with each other and we knew each other's goals and dreams. Again, we talked about this in the last episode about, okay, the levels of actually sharing your goals and dreams, because you don't want to put yourself out there. But once we've identified once.

Speaker 1: 6:32

I've identified and know that, okay, you're the one that it unlocks new levels to our relationship. I feel like so many people like literally put themselves out there on the first, second or third date, Right.

Speaker 2: 6:44

Where they just I'm like too fast Like man.

Speaker 1: 6:46

I didn't need. I did not need to know about every single freckle on your body. I did not need to know about, yeah, my, my wrist makes this weird pop. I'm like okay.

Speaker 2: 6:55

No, but like going back to keeping the money, like sharing the expenses. But we also in that moment, though in that season, we still had our money separated. So I think that's a very like important thing of like we didn't put our money all together, but we split bills. When we'd go out to eat, if you were short, like I'd give you some, or if you like, if I was short, you'd be like, no, babe, I got it this time, like. So it was kind of like sharing money, but we did not put the money together, we did not have a joint account. So we got married, like that was an official thing when we got married.

Speaker 1: 7:31

And we talked about it too. We talked about okay, what would it look like when it's time for us to even merge our money and our income together? Like, I feel like there needs to be a process, and that's what we did. There was a time where we slowly started talking about okay, how much money do you make?

Speaker 2: 7:48

Right.

Speaker 1: 7:48

And we didn't need to talk about that at the beginning.

Speaker 2: 7:50

We didn't have to talk about it. No, that was closer to like when we were getting engaged.

Speaker 1: 7:53

And why did we not have to talk about it at the beginning? Because when we went on dates, when we did events, things like that, that already gave us a pulse on whether the other person was doing well financially. Right, right, we can tell. Right, we can tell. Like, if someone had a car note and paying their own car note, you were paying your car payment at the time. So that says something about you. Right, right, that says something about you. But you didn't have to pay for your phone bill because you was on a package playing with your family. Right, right, I was paying for my phone bill. Right, I was paying for my own car insurance, even though my car was paid off. That says something about me that, okay, you can pay bills. Right. Then we slowly started talking about okay, debt yeah we started talking about okay, is there any debt?

Speaker 1: 8:33

is there anything true? That that you're? We didn't share the numbers at the top.

Speaker 2: 8:37

It was just starting to slowly a little bit yeah talk about it here and there it was a very, very gradual conversation.

Speaker 1: 8:43

It was a gradual and as we got closer when you pop and we didn't really finally talk about, like all things, money until we were getting close to that. Yo, we're going to get married. Pop the question.

Speaker 2: 8:55

Right, like in that season? Yeah, because then you have to know what could we even afford when we move in together and like, what would finances look like for getting married?

Speaker 1: 9:05

Yeah, and I feel like some people always have these mindsets of this is what we should do with my, our money, cause this is how someone else did it. It's how other people do it. It's going to be different for every single. It's going to be different for every single couple. I just feel like for us, what worked was us gradually talking about it. There was no surprises. So by the time we were married, there was no financial surprises. Right, there wasn't like. Oh, by the way, you have $10,000 in debt.

Speaker 1: 9:31

Yeah, and actually I'm wanted in three states, right, I die. Because, yes, and there's a reason why my other name is Ignacio, Because long story short is the money situation. Had to move things around. Yo, there's some people that literally legit marry con men.

Speaker 2: 9:53

That is true, and that is the scariest thing. That's terrifying. Straight up, marry con men. Straight up, marry con men. Okay, so that was our money situation while we were dating. Um, we also. I moved from Indiana to Florida and I did not move in with you.

Speaker 1: 10:10

So yeah, that's one of the hot questions people ask when you guys were dating, did you guys live with each other? And the solid question um answer to that is no, Nope, we did not live with each other.

Speaker 2: 10:21

I rented a room from someone that was less than a pleasant experience for me. It was very challenging.

Speaker 1: 10:29

It was pretty raggedy.

Speaker 2: 10:30

It was hard. Yeah, I got locked in the room from the outside, so someone had to come in and let me out.

Speaker 1: 10:37

Yeah, that's right. Someone had to come in and let me out. Yeah, that's right, because I talked about it one time in one of my sermons of like you rented a room from a lady. She had like a 12-year-old son.

Speaker 2: 10:47

Yeah, I had to share a bathroom with her son.

Speaker 1: 10:49

So you had to share that bathroom with this kid who's discovering himself, which you can.

Speaker 2: 10:54

And she wanted me to clean the bathroom. That's crazy and she was charging me a lot for that room I was like I cannot pay them and the doorknob was broken. Doorknob was broken, so I'm trying to get change, while 12 year olds in the hallway.

Speaker 1: 11:04

So she closed the door so her doorknob is broken and she calling me, like I'm supposed to be, the knight in shining armor, prince, like because I got locked in my tower yeah, like you got locked in town. Are you cinderella or the or the?

Speaker 2: 11:17

girl from shrek sh Shrek, I'm not an ogre, it's Rapunzel's lockup.

Speaker 1: 11:23

She wasn't an ogre during daytime, though she was only an ogre at night. Well, Cinderella?

Speaker 2: 11:31

Yeah, I'm Cinderella, for sure. Ask my family about it.

Speaker 1: 11:34

Yeah, I had a debate Should I go get her or not?

Speaker 2: 11:37

So I rented a room and it was really hard. I had a lot of I kept like food in my car because I didn't want to go to the place you still keep food in your car, but go ahead that's true. I cried every night when I would leave you like to go back to my place.

Speaker 1: 11:51

It was really hard danley lived in um this spare bedroom. It was a tough situation, but we made a commitment to each other yeah that we would not live with each other. And here's the cool thing about that type of commitment is, when you live in a community and you live with people that hold you accountable, then they're able to hold you to it.

Speaker 2: 12:11

Yeah, because the crazy thing is your parents actually had room for me. Yeah, because your sister's room was open. I very easily, with all understanding, could have saved, however, hundreds of dollars. I was paying for that rent. I think it was like $3.50. That's a lot when you're making $8 an hour. I could have saved a lot of money and everyone would have understood why I would have moved in with you. It was just really a core value of ours of like. No, we know what happens with that. It's a slippery slope. It would be way too comfortable. Like. We just really valued the aspect of like not living together before we got married.

Speaker 1: 12:49

I think there are some lines that shouldn't be crossed that can potentially set a marriage up for success.

Speaker 2: 12:57

Right.

Speaker 1: 12:58

And that's what we did when we set those boundaries of like yeah, because you're right, my parents had two spare bedrooms. You could have lived with us and we would have called it a day, but what happens there is, you get comfortable. The bar starts to drop and it doesn't set us up for success, it prolongs the whole process. Then we're like yo we might as well not get married and live with each other.

Speaker 1: 13:18

And once you start living with each other, then we start sleeping in the same beds, which we did not do, nope, but then you start sleeping in the same bed. You already know what happens in a bed.

Speaker 1: 13:26

Only two things happen in a bed, and they both start with an S, one of them is sleep, and the other one I'm not going to say it because YouTube— YouTube's going to flag us right. So the only two things happened. So we made sure that you didn't stay with me my family because I was living with my mom at the time.

Speaker 2: 13:43

Yep, and then if there I feel like there was one or two nights I might have stayed because of. I remember one. There was like a hurricane, but it was like a level one. It ended up being tropical storm, but I slept in your sister's room and you slept in yours exactly so we.

Speaker 1: 13:56

I think setting up those lines and those boundaries really set us up for success. I think what it does also to y'all it sets you up where you have something to look forward to. For sure. You know the old saying where people say you know, right the whole, test the milk out before you buy the cow.

Speaker 2: 14:14

Again, I don't know why we're cows. That's a why To me.

Speaker 1: 14:17

I feel like when that is used towards marriage or used towards relationships or S-E-X right used towards that, I think it's someone that's afraid of commitment that made up a phrase like that or uses a phrase like that in regards to relationships, because to me, it's a commitment, it's a choice right At the end of the day, like, okay, I don't know if you're going to be a wild sleeper or not, I don't know if you're going to sleep with your mouth open in my face every single time, or I don't know if you're going to jump when you fall asleep every night, or you didn't know that I like to sleep in the middle of the bed.

Speaker 1: 14:51

I only sleep in the middle of the bed.

Speaker 2: 14:52

And he does.

Speaker 1: 14:53

Just to clarify jump as he falls asleep. Yes, he's one of those jumpers. That's fine. It's fine. It's keeping everybody on guard. Let me take a let's. I want to take a moment right now and say shout out to everybody who's joining us on youtube hey um if you would not mind, just hit that like button.

Speaker 1: 15:10

Listen, you don't have to hit subscribe yet. I get it. You're still dating us. You're still feeling figuring it out, trying to figure out like if we like these people or not. That dude, he seems really Her, she seems really weird and all that stuff. Whatever, chill, relax. But if you're liking this video, just hit like.

Speaker 2: 15:24

It's for free, just like it.

Speaker 1: 15:26

It's for free, it helps us, it helps YouTube say like okay, people like this video, let's send it to other people who like the video as well. If you're listening on Apple Podcasts, spotify, those are the other two big ones I want to encourage you like, if you wouldn't mind, same thing.

Speaker 1: 15:42

Maybe, hit a review. Yeah, just hit five star. Or just tell us how you really feel. Yeah. If you feel like it's all right, it's a 3.5, that's fine, leave it a 3.5. You don't need to lie to us, like. Don't lie to us. Tell yourself the truth, all right.

Speaker 2: 16:00

So let's keep moving. Okay, so we talked about that. So we basically we didn't play house. Yep, we did not live together. Uh, even though that was a huge sacrifice, it was hard, it was hard and how do we do that again, like when you're part of a community, that holds you accountable.

Speaker 1: 16:09

So we were part of a church, right, I stayed with my parents, which that was helpful too as well, cause if I had my own place, right, that would have pushed it up, but I knew we were working towards that because, again, it gives us something to look forward to. Yeah, so you staying on your own, I stay with my parents because I was in an area. Yeah, it held us accountable, so that we didn't have to play house and hold on.

Speaker 2: 16:30

We cannot even touch this conversation without saying that I did live in an rv trailer in someone's backyard for over a year. Y'allall, I had an airplane toilet. I had a water heater that you had to turn on the switch and it had to be warmed up for eight hours or else you would not have warm water for a shower. I could not blow dry my hair, and y'all know I'm a hairstylist so I could not blow dry my hair in my little RV so, and it had bugs because it was parked in the grass and it was Florida, there's bugs everywhere and you were messy.

Speaker 2: 17:03

That was not why I had bugs Relax.

Speaker 1: 17:06

It's okay, it's fine Chill.

Speaker 2: 17:07

Relax. Anyways, stop saying relax and chill. You say that all the time. Yo, you were messy.

Speaker 1: 17:15

Bugs didn't just come for fun.

Speaker 2: 17:17

No, anyways, I'm not talking to you, I'm going to talk to them.

Speaker 1: 17:21

You're going to talk. Okay, go ahead.

Speaker 2: 17:22

I'm just going to talk to them instead. Anyways, what I was saying was we cannot touch the subject without talking about that. Although that place was a huge blessing and it was an answer to prayer, it was still a challenge, and so I didn't want us to jump over that. So we made the sacrifice for three years two and a half years of me living in Florida. That like I lived in it wasn't that long.

Speaker 1: 17:45

We moved down in 08.

Speaker 2: 17:47

We were married Fall of 08. So, like a year and a half, I popped the question like summer of 09 and we got married spring 2010. You and these dates, you remember every date you in this yawning.

Speaker 1: 17:57

right now I need an energy drink y'all.

Speaker 2: 18:00

Where's the Celsius?

Speaker 1: 18:02

We didn't have any, and she's straight up just yawning the whole time.

Speaker 2: 18:05

It's because I'm just so chill with them. That's why.

Speaker 1: 18:07

So we set up strong boundaries, and what I love about that, too, is it showed me that we were able to commit in that season. Yeah Right, committing to not live with each other is learning to make strong commitments.

Speaker 2: 18:22

True.

Speaker 1: 18:22

Right.

Speaker 2: 18:23

Yeah. And things that commit to things that are inconvenient and challenges, yeah, like hard things.

Speaker 1: 18:30

Yeah, even when it comes to even levels of intimacy. Right, that's a challenge where a lot of people have when it comes to relationships, because they're like, oh man, I just can't help it. Oh man, or God got to get some, or girl just needs what she wants. But for us, it was a decision that we made, we wanted to commit. We drew some solid lines that we are not going to cross the line. We're not going to cross that line. We're not going to. What are our limits? Here's what we're not. We're not going to do it right now. Are we perfect? Were we perfect?

Speaker 1: 19:01

No we messed up there's a few times we went a little too far. Sometimes we're like dang, okay, let's not do that again. Yeah, right, but what I'm saying and some people are saying like why don't they say we can't say it because I feel like YouTube's going to flag us and be like oh, they said those words Right. What I'm saying is we set up some hard lines and we were like okay, we're not going to do X, y and Z or S.

Speaker 2: 19:22

E and.

Speaker 1: 19:22

F Bingo yeah, and that was strong for us, and what felt the best, too, was our commitment to our future.

Speaker 2: 19:32

Yeah, it was really important to us.

Speaker 1: 19:35

That was so important to us and we knew like carrying the weight.

Speaker 2: 19:38

like you were already in full-time ministry. We knew where we were headed in the future. Like we knew that we'd have our kids look to us to know like how well did you do that, mom and dad? How did you carry yourselves? How did you guys date? Like we were having a conversation before we started today about imagining our four-year-old Brooklyn as a, as a teenager, about imagining our four-year-old Brooklyn as a teenager. So we knew that the decisions we were making in our dating days were going to impact our children that we had in the future.

Speaker 1: 20:07

And that's why it was actually easier to not cross some lines.

Speaker 2: 20:11

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 20:11

Because I thought, man, what type of story do we want to tell people in 20 years?

Speaker 2: 20:16

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 20:16

What type of story do we want to tell our kids in 10 years?

Speaker 2: 20:20

And I think of even all the teenagers that like, or you know, younger kids that have been around us in the last few years, that we've been able to speak into and encourage, and knowing that we have these, these testimonies, to be like, yeah, no, we didn't, we didn't budge that line.

Speaker 2: 20:38

We held it, we weren't perfect, cause I think that's where church culture has gotten it really wrong, where they they pretend like they had it perfect and they tell you what to do but they didn't tell how you, how you messed up, like. I want to change that for us of like. Here's what we did. We did not hold the line perfectly, but we tried our hardest, like we could say, with everything inside, we did the best that we could and when we messed up, we repented and like tried again and like we know that we can hold our head high saying we honored the Lord when we were dating because we knew we were each other's spouses in the future. It made it that much harder, but we worked that much harder because we knew it would be worth it.

Speaker 1: 21:18

Yeah, and also, too, for those of you that every time you hear Danley say the Lord, we're talking about God like he's our Lord, he's our savior, we believe in Jesus. And so, because we say that quite a bit, you'll hear us say the Lord, it's. Ultimately it's God, he's the father, he's the creator, he's the one that we believe in. He's, and we don't live for ourselves, we live for the Lord, we live for God. We gave our life to Christ at young ages and every single day we take opportunities to recommit ourselves to him, because we live in a fallen world, we live in a jacked up world, and we know that we can't make this life without our savior, which is Christ. And so, speaking of which, I remember a story where one time, when we're dating, right, we knew we wanted to be with each other.

Speaker 1: 22:03

It was official and we were at church and somebody came to me and said, hey, yo P, wifey's calling you. So apparently Danley was summoning me, or she was calling for me, and she told someone to come find me, to go get me. So the person comes to me and say yo P. I remember the person too. He said, yo, wife, he's calling me, calling you. And I look back at the guy and I said she's not my wife.

Speaker 2: 22:30

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 22:30

And the guy was like oh, and other people around was like oh snap, we're going to go tell Danny Lee that you said that she's not. She's not your wife. And I paused. I said guys, guys, guys, guys, chill, relax, Let me explain.

Speaker 1: 22:45

I said I cannot wait for her to be my wife one day. I cannot wait to hold her hand. I cannot wait to put a ring on her finger. I cannot wait for her to be the mother of my children. I cannot wait to sit there before the Lord and commit myself to her. But I said, as of right now, she's my girlfriend and I'm not going to play house, I'm not going to defile that title, I'm not going to throw around that name and I'm not going to lower the bar just because I want her to be my wife. Listen, I don't know. She could be crazy, she could be a cereal fill in the blank, I don't know. So in the meantime, I'm still testing this out to see. I want her to be my wife and that's what I felt like that time was like people just think, oh, because you're dating the person that's going to be your future spouse, and that is serious.

Speaker 2: 23:39

They just assume it.

Speaker 1: 23:40

That yo, I know guys. I'm thinking of a couple right now that got married and was married for a few years and when they finally threw in the towel and they finally hit the word D divorce, I remember talking to the guy and he said, man, I actually never wanted to marry her.

Speaker 1: 23:59

He said I just went in too deep, too far. Everyone around me pictured us together. Everyone loved us together. We were the perfect couple. We looked really good together. And he said I just and he was like I was just a coward and I went all the way- through with it.

Speaker 2: 24:14

So when I hear those type of stories.

Speaker 1: 24:16

I'm like yo, thank God that we did not buy into that stuff For sure. And people are like, oh, you guys make the perfect couple, you guys going to make some beautiful looking zebra, a swirl babies. And I was like, uh-uh, that stuff don't matter right now. Right now she's my girlfriend, and one day she'll be my fiance, and one day she'll be my wife, One day she'll be my baby mama, all the above. So I felt like speaking of God, we honored that union between a husband and a wife and we did not abuse it, we did not throw it around, we did not make it common because I'd be like I believe that it's a covenant that men and women make between God. It's one of the first relationships that we see that God created in the Bible. He created a man and he gave him right the wife. He gave him Eve. So I'm like yo, this is very important for us. So I'm not going to throw around this and be like yo, she's my wifey, Is she? No, she's not, but one day she will be.

Speaker 2: 25:12

The other thing, too, was as we were building our life slowly together, so there were layers of how we were building our life together. Right, the money wasn't together yet, we weren't living together yet, and so while we were dating, we were very intentional with our friendships as well, like making sure that I went out with the girls, sometimes from work, or you went and hung out with the guys and even though that was hard sometimes, I mean, imagine I moved to this town. I don't really know anybody but your- people.

Speaker 2: 25:47

So when it was time for you to have guys night or whatever, I'm like what am I supposed to do?

Speaker 1: 25:55

In the meantime, let me say your sa passe to all my Haitian people out there.

Speaker 2: 25:59

You know I love you, that's my people for real. Okay, I'm sorry, anyways. So, but I at first, a few times I was kind of like, well, if you're going to do something with the guys, what am I supposed to do? But then realizing like, oh wait, I have to make my own friends and be intentional with the girls I worked with and build my own friends at the church and stuff like that. So then I started eventually having girls night and I was like, okay, bye, see you.

Speaker 2: 26:23

Like being intentional of like it's not just us all the time we were in group settings I was in girl settings, you were in guy settings we had like a good balance. Were we together a lot, of course, but we were working separate jobs, we had separate friends and we were together a lot building a relationship, and I think that was really important to keep that balance and so that we had friends that would encourage us, or we had friends that would give us great advice or like so into us and encourage us. We even had your mentor, like you'd hang out with him sometimes at work so that he could speak into you as you became a husband.

Speaker 1: 27:04

And here we are, 15, 14, 16 years later, and we can still see the fruits of having a well-balanced life when it comes to relationships with others.

Speaker 2: 27:17

For sure, because now we're still that in our marriage. I still have girls' nights. You still go out with the guys. We still have friendships outside of our marriage, yeah.

Speaker 1: 27:26

Oftentimes we've seen it then Right, we lost friends actually around that time, because there are other people that were dating around that time and they literally dumped us for each other.

Speaker 1: 27:38

Right. So now they're all by themselves and we're over here like yo. This is crazy, bro. And then somebody goes out of town or someone's go see their parents and now all of a sudden dude is hitting us up Yo, y'all want to hang out. I'm like yo. We've been hanging out. I'm married too. It's making time for others and for us. When you came down and we were dating each other, dating our future spouses, and our two worlds collided. We figured out how do we merge them together. I didn't lose myself in you. You didn't lose yourself in me. You still kept your friends. I still kept my friends. Now we are very intentional about the people that was around us, because I also knew that both sides we had people that in our lives that were anti-relationships too.

Speaker 2: 28:28

True, that's so true, like you got to be careful how many single friends you got around you.

Speaker 1: 28:34

Facts, Yo. You cannot be married.

Speaker 2: 28:37

going through some marriage issues and going to someone with marriage issues or someone who can't even keep a spouse, or someone who already just got divorced, because they're going to take you down the same road.

Speaker 1: 28:47

Exactly, and so when we were dating each other and we knew we wanted to get married, we were very intentional about the people that we let speak into our lives. True, that's wild.

Speaker 2: 28:57

That is wild and, to be clear, you didn't have no friends that were girls that you were hanging out with and I didn't have no guys that I was friends that I was hanging out with, just to put it out there.

Speaker 1: 29:15

Because a lot of people will debate that of like, can a guy have a friend that's a girl and can a girl have a guy that's a friend and like outside of their relationship? Yeah, it's weird, not unless she is super close with your girl. And even then you still gotta be intentional because you got these girls that are still homewreckers. We've had some of them pop up here and there and try to and try to trick us and try to homewreck, and I was very intentional. I mean, you remember that one girl, that one time Yep, I had to pray that girl away. I was like man, god, this don't feel right. And you know what, as a guy, I'm like man. Again, the intention, the attention that we get from multiple girls right, it goes to our head, it's flattering, but it's destruction. And so I was very intentional. I was like man, I care so much for my relationship with my wife man, even my ex-girlfriend man. She called me trying to figure out like, hey, so Should I wait for you?

Speaker 1: 29:55

Should I wait for you, we're not going to talk about that.

Speaker 2: 29:57

That's not. We're not going to go there I'm like.

Speaker 1: 30:01

No, I am Remember. Before we got married I told you I met up with her.

Speaker 2: 30:08

Yep, and you asked me and you told me when you were going. You called me on the way there. You called me when you left.

Speaker 1: 30:15

You knew all about it. I was like yo, I'm going to tell her like yo like. Because the thing is people are thinking like wait, why are you talking to your ex-girlfriend? Long story short, she was still around, actually. She actually was going to our church. She was actually part of our community, so that's why. So sometimes it gets awkward because I'm dating Dan and Lee now who Dan and Lee comes down to my circle and my community, but my ex-girlfriend was still around. So there was still a lot of weirdness and I knew, again, it's what we're talking about. When you're dating your future spouse, there's some things you're going to have to clean up, some conversations you're gonna have to have, and some of them are uncomfortable. So this was all part of the process. I didn't have this conversation with my ex-girlfriend early on in our dating phase. It was when we're leading up to engagement. Yeah, and I'm like yo, I already have a ring yeah it's on layaway lay for those all the gen z's.

Speaker 2: 31:07

Gen z's are Gen Zers are like what Lay away.

Speaker 1: 31:10

Lay away Like after pay, but through the store Lay away was a thing that older generations used to do, because there was a common respect, a mutual respect for each other, that when you said you was going to come back and pick it up because you had the money, you was going to do it, you actually did it. Nowadays, lay away is part of theft, so they don't do it anymore. Layaway was a thing where you could come in and out of respect. My word is my bond. I say yo, I'm going to put $50 down or, in this case, I'm going to put $100 down on this ring and give me 90 days to pay it off. I'll be back and you would chip away and you would make payments. This was way before credit repair and anything it off. I'll be back and you would chip away and you would make payments. This was way before credit repair and anything like that. You just come in.

Speaker 2: 31:55

Shout out to you, babe, because that meant a lot to me too, of you being able to show like financial responsibility, commitment and to give me a ring, because we went we were in Bible college. Ring by Spring was a big program that a lot of people were jumping into, but they were jumping into it with like a gold band.

Speaker 1: 32:13

Well, so I should probably confess right now over YouTube. Actually, my ex-girlfriend's dad helped me pay for your ring.

Speaker 2: 32:21

Did you I'm playing my face just went completely. I was like what did you just say to me?

Speaker 1: 32:31

That was a joke, right yeah.

Speaker 2: 32:33

Dear Lord have mercy?

Speaker 1: 32:36

That would be crazy. That was not a funny joke. You didn't laugh. People are laughing. I hope they're laughing. Someone is laughing somewhere right now.

Speaker 2: 32:42

My face was.

Speaker 1: 32:44

I literally was like processing the information that you just threw at me. Someone is listening to this on the treadmill and they had to step off because they just peed their pants Laughing so hard.

Speaker 2: 32:54

All right, Anyways, okay, so.

Speaker 2: 32:56

I just want to say like that was part of it, though. Like so, men, if y'all looking for a ring, just know that it shows it doesn't have to be a huge rock, but like it shows your responsibility, your commitment to your girl. It shows financial responsibility, your commitment to your girl. It shows financial responsibility Like it says a lot about you. And it also said to me that like okay, he can take care of me. And it wasn't a three carat ring, like it's beautiful and I love it so much, but like so it doesn't have to be massive, but it does have to show intentionality.

Speaker 1: 33:28

Yeah, so we started merging our worlds together, having tough conversations as we got closer and closer to the date when we started to pop the question, which I yeah, hey. So you guys that know me know that I like to just kid around, so I knew Dan Lee was the one, so I would pop the question a few times.

Speaker 2: 33:47

Oh my gosh, he was so mean.

Speaker 1: 33:50

Yeah, I would once in a while. You know, there's this one time I'll never forget where it was after church and I'm outside with all the youth people, I'm hanging out with all of them and, um, I'm like everyone knew that I was going to pop the question any day.

Speaker 2: 34:04

Now it was pretty soon, like we were talking about it, people knew that I had a ring, all that stuff get I get everybody's attention.

Speaker 1: 34:18

I'm like yo everybody, I need everybody's attention. Yo yo, yo, yo yo. So now I get everybody's attention. I get down on one knee in front of danny lee and everyone's like oh my gosh, all the girls start screaming. They're like so I go down to do the classic tie your shoes and I look up I'm like what's what's everybody? Why is everybody? What's all the fuss about?

Speaker 1: 34:33

oh, you are the worst there's a few other times that I did too um but that was the worst one because that was in front of like 50 teenagers yeah, that's crazy that was crazy, that's crazy that I still said yes later on. Well, and I think we can do this because we knew we were the ones for each other at this season. True I think we went through that, we're at the next window.

Speaker 2: 34:54

Yeah of like, oh yo, we're getting married yeah, we knew, but we had ring shopped by that time like you had a ring. I didn't know you had a ring, but we had went ring shopping yeah, and this is what we're talking about y'all.

Speaker 1: 35:06

This is the purpose of this episode or this conversation is really to let you guys into what we did when we were just dating each other, dating our future spouses. There's still some seasons you got to go through. There's some gradual steps you have to take going into the next season, but going through some seasons really will determine if this person really is so true that one and we did those seasons will expose some things, yeah man?

Speaker 1: 35:32

Yeah, and I think I think too. Lastly, I would say, when you're dating your future spouse, something that we just been, we've been learning over the last couple of years, is really understanding cultural differences, and how does that merge? Look like Right and the isms and all the stuff that was put on me growing up, that I didn't know until it comes out and also put on you, you know, and the obvious thing for us is we're very two different people. Right, I'm this young Haitian dude from South Florida, raised in a Haitian community, right, straight up Haitian community, where you were this young white girl from the Midwest middle of America, straight middle.

Speaker 1: 36:18

Kokomo, indiana, k-town, where you didn't even know. You didn't know anything about Haitians. You've heard of Haiti.

Speaker 2: 36:24

What's that mean?

Speaker 1: 36:25

But to connect the two.

Speaker 2: 36:26

Yeah, I didn't know.

Speaker 1: 36:27

Yeah, but I'm a Haitian man. What's that mean Exactly? And so you've even had some tough conversations with your mom before you even moved down to Florida, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 36:39

So we're going to do an episode just on that one on just on dating someone outside of your culture, Because I think we have a lot that we could speak into that. And yeah, that conversation with my mom was super impactful. I actually just thanked her for it. When we saw her last month I was like man, that conversation, mom, it really stuck with me. And it's 17 years later and I still am grateful for that conversation. I still think about it. So we're going to save that one for an episode. It'll be good.

Speaker 1: 37:08

That's crazy. That's crazy. I hope you guys enjoyed this conversation that we had. These are real conversations, by the way. This is not just us like saying, oh, what can we come up with. These are real stories, and our goal was really to let you guys into our personal chats, things that we talk about at home, things that really help us, things that we tools that we want to give to our kids, to our friends, and so we want to encourage you guys to continue to really build and develop strong relationships, more importantly, your relationship with God, because that matters more than anything else, and secondly, with others and, lastly, with yourself. I think oftentimes, a lot of us don't have good relationships with ourselves, in which that causes us to live some tough lives, and so we love you guys. I want to encourage you guys to keep on digging and let's go See you.