The Journey of Love Series: Conversations on Marriage and Relationship Building

Speaker 1: 0:06

What's up, guys? Welcome to Demo with Moe. I'm your host, monique Simmons. We'll be discussing dating, engaged and married objectives from a young Christian's perspective. Are you guys ready? Let's dive in. Hey, what's up, guys? Welcome to a new episode of Demo with Moe. I am your host, monique Simmons, and today we are continuing our series called the Journey of Love, and today I have some very special guests who will be joining me. You guys have heard me mention our relationship community on multiple episodes the dating, engaged and married objectives community. They're on Facebook and I will go ahead and plug this quickly. If you are not a part of their community, start what you're doing right now. Head on over to Facebook and join us over there right now, where we are having a great time. But I have invited our admins of the group to join us on this special episode on today Mrs Heather Haley and Ms Alexandra Lane, better known as Ally. So I'm going to go ahead and introduce these ladies before we jump into the episode. Ms Ally she lives in Starkville, mississippi. She's a small business, owner of a Faith Creations LLC, married to Mr Tommy Lane for 10 years, but they have been together for 14 years. They have a daughter who's 12 years old. Her name is Ms Amanda Rose, ms Heather. She's a 45-year-old wife and mother. She's been married to her second husband, mr Run, for 23 years. Together they have six kids, with one team still home. She has been an autoimmune patient since she was 14 years old. God, her husband and her kids are the most important things in her life. I am honored to share these ladies with you on today and I'm sure by the end of this episode you guys will feel the same way. So, with our further ado, I would like to introduce to you Ms Ally and Ms Heather. Welcome, ladies.

Speaker 2: 2:35

Hello, Thank you for having us Mo.

Speaker 1: 2:37

Thank you, Thank you for joining me. Thank you, ladies. Okay, so with our further ado, we're going to go ahead and jump into the episode. So I wanted to ask you guys with this first question did you guys always want to be married?

Speaker 3: 2:58

I'll go ahead because it looks like you're thinking Ally. I think I always did. My parents have always been married. Now it's a second marriage for both of them. They were together before I was born. My dad adopted my three older siblings and my mom actually had a tubal reversal to have me, and so I was very much wanted. There was no accident in that, and a lot can be said, for I never saw them fight, which is good in some ways, but not good in some ways, because I never learned how to work through fights with the spouse. Yeah, but I think I always had the idea that I wanted to be married and have kids of my own, because we always had extra kids, foster kids, neighborhood kids. We just always had a full house and I love that feeling of always having people around to love and play with and get along, and I wanted my kids to have that same feeling.

Speaker 1: 4:02

Oh, my goodness. Okay, so I'm sure we're going to get into this a little bit later. But, heather, I've been knowing you for a long time and I just learned something new about you. I didn't realize that your parents had been married before and that your siblings were adopted. I did not know that.

Speaker 3: 4:27

Well, my three older siblings were my moms by birth, but my dad adopted all of them and it's actually kind of funny because my dad is six years younger than my mom. So my older sister's birth certificate it shows he was 12 when she was born, and so that has been questions throughout the years with some people. Oh my goodness, never a question of if he loved them or not. And, matter of fact, my brother, who has been gone now for almost 10 years. People would say, oh, you look so much like your dad and there were no blood. But he'd be like yeah, I know I do. Thank you, yeah, it was great. That's so cool. I just learned something new.

Speaker 1: 5:15

Thank you, Heather. Allie, what about you? Did you always want to be married? Yeah, I always wanted to be married and I said I want to have two kids my parents.

Speaker 2: 5:24

Of course they were married, but they divorced when I was about two years old. But still, for me, the goal was always marriage.

Speaker 1: 5:35

Got you Okay, thank you Okay ladies, how did you meet your partner and how old were you guys when you met? Okay, you want my current partner and my first husband and my second husband.

Speaker 3: 5:48

Let's do your current husband.

Speaker 1: 5:51

Let's do, ron, okay.

Speaker 3: 5:56

Ron and I actually met online in a random chat room. Okay, and you just loved my quick wit and comebacks, like I didn't let any of the guys trample over me, but I have been a firefighter and EMT, a deputy 911 dispatcher, so I've dealt with men and some pretty raunchy men sometimes throughout my life and I don't take it from nobody. And he was like you give as good as you can get. I'd like to be your friend. And so we started talking and found out that we lived about three hours from each other at the time. I lived just around St Louis and he lived in Southern Illinois and so we just kept talking and we talked for about a month and a half and then decided to meet downtown St Louis in a very public, very lots of people area because I'm not stupid, yeah, I mean we can meet very publicly and we met at like lunchtime and we closed the place down. We we met at Union Station, so there's all kinds of little shops in different places and we walked around and at the time there was a KB toy store in there and walked around and talked about what our favorite toys were as kids, what our kids' favorite toys were at the time and just little stuff like that, just learning. And having talked online and on the phone up to that point, we had a lot of time to talk about things that you might not talk about at first because that was physical thing, wasn't there. At first it was all communication and then after we met it was like, oh yeah, we click in person, we really like each other. We met face to face in July, december he proposed the next August. We were married.

Speaker 1: 7:46

Oh wow, oh wow, and how old were you guys.

Speaker 3: 7:50

I was 20 when we met, turned 21 a month after we got married.

Speaker 1: 7:55

Okay, I love that, I love that. And what about you Allie?

Speaker 2: 8:00

So I promise I was listening to you, heather I had to bring I'm the receipt queen, that's what my husband calls me, the receipt queen. So I don't know if y'all can see this, but this is the ticket from the event that we actually had. Oh, my goodness, I still have it in our course because, you know, things can change. I wanted to keep it, have a digital form of it as well. But anyway, sisters on the move you, allie, now hear the name sisters on the move. So why was he there? Right, right, we were. So I was 16, we were 16. Okay, and it was an abstinence youth rally for girls and his friend was dating a classmate of mine and had actually tricked him into coming to the event. The friend knew he was coming to the event, that was all girls, but he did not. Until he showed up there. Oh, my goodness. And they just so happened to sit in front of us. There were, it was three seats in front of us, the only three seats. That was on that side where the conference were, and they walked in and sat in front of us and he just went from there.

Speaker 1: 9:07

Oh my goodness. Well, good thing his friend did trick him, or he would never met his wife, right? Oh my goodness, I love both of y'all stories Like you can't make this stuff up. Oh my goodness, okay. What was it about your partner that made you feel that they were the one Like? What was it about them that made you feel like, okay, I can see myself really being with him? What was it about him? Alley, you want to go? I see you over there blushing hard.

Speaker 2: 9:46

I was just laughing and then trying to decide we want to keep going. Heavy than me, heavy than me, but it's just money to me, because actually when I met him I was not interested in him and I got told him it had absolutely nothing to do with him. It was just the fact that of course, I was 1617 and I had just really had my first big heartbreak, so I wasn't thinking about any boys. I was like, forget it, whatever. You know, that was my boo basically, and now we're not together. So let me just just leave me alone, let me, let me heal. I'm just gonna focus on what I'm focused on. And so then he came along and of course I said it's not interested initially because of that, and we actually lost contact for a little while after this conference and our schools just so happened to both go to the state championship game. We were in different divisions, and so that's how we saw each other again and got back in contact with each other. But I don't know, it was something about him that was just different compared to everybody else. Like I've told you before, my mom is a minister, most people in my family ministers past the kids and all this stuff. And so here I am. I'm like I don't want to. You know, I mean I don't want to date a preacher's kid because I have done that before. I like I want to steer clear, and to me he checked off all the boxes of that. He was a little rough around the edges and so you kind of know how that goes. You know, you say the good girl needs to get used to football player. So I'm like, ok, let me, let me entertain these and see what it's going to go. He was a. He's a gentleman as well, ok.

Speaker 1: 11:27

Kevin, what about you I?

Speaker 3: 11:30

think the biggest thing was I felt comfortable talking to him but I feel like any topic was off the table and because we did have those conversations first off, like the hard stuff, we both been married before, we both knew what we didn't want and I was in a very abusive relationship and I told him you know, I don't want to get back in that kind of a relationship again and I, my next sibling, is 11 years, and then it goes 13, then 15. So I've always been around older people, very mature for my age, and Ron is 15 years older than me, but we talked on the same level like we could have very intellectual conversations or we could crack each other up and be in tears the next second. So it was all of the emotions along the way and I didn't feel like there was ever that big wall, like we didn't know what to say or I felt like I had to be guarded on what I said to him. The intelligent conversation was a big thing because there was a lot of guys my age that I was dating before in between and it's like really you don't know nothing that's going on in the world. You don't know what you want to do with your life. I'm like dude, I got a kid. I got to know that. I've got someone that you know is there with me, that wants to plan the rest of our life, that has ambitions for what they want to do with their life. Things change once you have that mindset of a parent that you can't just go willy-nilly and you know, ok, you're a cook this week and then next week you're back in groceries. No, thank you, I don't need that. I need someone that's either already in college doing what they're wanting to do better in themselves, or already established.

Speaker 1: 13:31

Yeah, gotcha. Ok, was there a proposal, or did you guys have a conversation about getting married?

Speaker 3: 13:44

He surprised me. We had furthering our relationship, but I didn't think six months into it there's a rain. But we were home alone and I was doing something and turned around and he had the ring popped out and he goes. When you think about this, and I was real pretty like I didn't have a clue. He was trying to propose to me at the time. He said you wear it for the rest of your life. And I'm like wait, wait, are you proposing to me? He goes well, I'm trying if you would play along and I'm like yes, yes, absolutely yes.

Speaker 1: 14:29

So even in the middle of your proposal, you didn't know it was a proposal I was blue, if I didn't think it was a map. Allie, what about you? Was there a proposal or did you guys just talk about you guys wanted to wanting to get married?

Speaker 2: 14:49

So, like Heather, I was also surprised as well. Ok, I was a freshman in college and he was in his senior year of high school, mind you, and we had just been hanging out on a Saturday, hanging out with the family his family and we went to eat, and we went to eat our favorite restaurant at that time that was Ryan's and so we're eating. And then I come back from the buffet and we're in the family in the group room, because he has a big family, and so he comes up to me. He was like I want to ask you to marry me. He's on his knees at this point. He's like I want to ask you to marry me. And so I look at him. I look at him and I'm like well, ask me then. So then he did, you know, formally asked me to marry him. Of course I say yes, now, keep in mind you, I'm a freshman in college. He's still a senior in high school, but we knew it would be a long term engagement, but he did ask me. He got to.

Speaker 1: 15:49

Oh, wow, ok. So let's fast forward a little bit so you guys both experience the proposal and engagement. Let's fast forward to your wedding day. Describe your wedding day. How did you feel? What memory stand out the most?

Speaker 3: 16:09

I'll start out like it looks like you're still thinking. And, like I said, he proposed in July and then proposed in December and the next August we were married, so we didn't have a whole lot of time to plan, but we knew the second marriage for both of us. We didn't want anything big and we were paying for it for ourselves, ok. So we, there was a park by where we used to live that had a beautiful gazebo with like a pond behind it, and so we thought that would be a good place and we borrowed some chairs from his work and the gal that he worked with her husband was a minister and she's like he'll do it. Just, you know, just get us a gift card so we can have a dinner together. We're like, ok, that works. And then we actually rented the flowers that we decorated the gazebo with. We only paid for my bouquet and the rose petals that Hannah threw out. And then it was our flower girl and his son, kyle, who was 12 at the time, was his best man. It was very small, our parents, a few real close family and a couple real close friends, and it was just pretty and beautiful. And his one cousin, who I just get along great with. She signed for us because the kids obviously weren't old enough to sign the marriage certificate as witnesses. And as she signed and she turns and looks at Ron and she goes if you mess this up, I will kill you. You're my family. She goes, but I love her. Yes, we went to Ryan's for dinner and we had brought our cake and we called him ahead of time and asked and everything, and they're like yeah, sure. So they put us in a back room, had a room to ourselves and some friends of ours played in a band and so we went and saw them that night. Just very low money, but we had a great time, great memories.

Speaker 1: 18:14

I don't regret it, I love it. I love it. That's awesome.

Speaker 2: 18:21

Ellie, so kind of very similar to Heather Almost. Ours was just a very intimate ceremony after church service. Honestly, when church was over, the pastor told people that we were going to be getting married and that they could stay or they could leave, and they all chose to stay. So we ended up with a congregation as our audience and, of course, his family, my family, my mom, my sister, a couple of my friends. And I can remember the dress that I had. It was like a white sheer top at the top and black at the bottom. It was a dress, a little inexpensive dress, that I had gotten from Belk. I had a little artificial bouquet and a man of rose was getting ready to turn to. So we dressed her as our flower girl and afterwards we had a reception, if you will, at his relatives house and I was surprised because when we got there they had decorated and everything I was just expecting to eat and they hadn't gone the whole night and had decorated it. We had a cake that we got from Kroger, just very small, intimate, simple and, like Heather said, even if I could go back with all the money in the world, I wouldn't change the way that they happen.

Speaker 1: 19:43

Yeah, I love it, I love it Okay.

Speaker 3: 19:48

Let's get an add to Allie's. I got my dress through JC Penny's from a catalog, so yeah, there ain't nothing wrong with getting a cheaper dress and being happy with it.

Speaker 1: 20:00

No right, nothing at all, nothing at all. So we've talked about the proposal, the engagement and the wedding day. So now we're going to jump into our marriages. So in the first years of marriage, what were your hardest adjustments?

Speaker 3: 20:19

My biggest adjustment was not having a reaction or fear reaction every time we disagreed about something. That was a hard one to get over when you go from being in a relationship where you're hit or emotionally abused or any type of mental abuse that sticks with you until you can kind of unlearn that.

Speaker 1: 20:45

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 20:46

And it broke his heart every time. I flinched when he would move and I could see that. But it took a while to unlearn it and, of course, just learning. Like I said, I never really learned how to fight fair or argue properly, and so he had done a lot of counseling after his first marriage to work on himself. He said he had a lot of anger issues in his first marriage and they both did wrong to each other, but he wanted to not take that into his second marriage and so we learned through tips that he learned that he shared with me about when you are arguing about something, to both step away, get your train of thought If you have to write down what you want to say to the other person so that you feel like you're completely being heard. If you don't feel like you're being heard enough, then you can go through your checklist of what you want to be said in that argument or discussion after the argument and allow the other person time to cool off and collect their thoughts. My personality is I don't like nobody being mad at me, like I want to make things right right away. I don't want you to be mad at me, and he's one of those that kind of has to cool off and come back and talk about it five, 10 minutes, even just give him some time to collect his thoughts. And at first that was hard for me to comprehend, like I don't want you mad at me, come back here, let's talk. Well, now it's like okay, if I just give him a little bit of time where he can collect thoughts and be fair about it, then we don't have name calling, we don't have screaming, we don't and now we very rarely even disagree, more or less have an argument, and if we do disagree about something, it's a okay, let's sit down, we are both adults. Let's discuss what the issue is and what we think can be done to fix it and move on where we're not continuing to hurt the other person.

Speaker 1: 22:53

Wow, that's really good stuff. That's really good stuff. Ali, what was your hardest adjustment in the first years of marriage?

Speaker 2: 23:04

I think, first off, just learning to live with someone first of all, and then we come from different backgrounds as well, different environments, and that's not always a bad thing. But when you try and submerge the two and choose the better of the two, situations and maybe the other person doesn't want to go that way and for so, like I said, my parents divorced when I was two and my husband's parents never married. So his example of marriage was his grandparents, and, of course, his grandfather was a little old fashioned with some things and he was coming into 2013 trying to tell me you're not going to wash no dishes, baby, this ain't bad. You go wash some dishes. You're going to make a grilled cheese or something you know. So we had to level that out and, like man, we laugh about it now. We were actually just laughing about this the other night Because, like I left so many times in that first year, when I mean, when I say left, not like, oh, we getting divorced and leave, but I would go to my mom, I understand, up and go, you know, because we're both in school, you know. So we got that part, and then Amanda Rose is just turning two. So it was all of those little new, you know those little small things, and I was like you know what? I'm just gonna go to my mom's house and so you can get it, so you can figure out, this is what you want to do. You're gonna learn how to wash some dishes and sweep the floor, because that's really all I'm asking, you know. And so we laugh about it. Now he was like because you remember what I told you the last time? He said the last time you left what I tell you I said the last time that I left, you said that if you was gonna be gone, gone this time, that was it. So now we just what it. You know, even after so it took, I would say after year three was kind of like coasting through at that point because, yeah, every week disagreed about something. I'm a person I want to talk about it, but I don't want to exactly talk about it face to face. I like to write stuff out, yeah right, and you read it and then we come together and talk about it. So that's how we worked out our differences and stuff during the first few years and things will look. You know, just trying to get on the same page.

Speaker 1: 25:24

Yeah, and there are going to be so many people. I'm just too good right now because there are going to be so many of my listeners, especially my listeners, because I can relate to what you're saying right now, because you guys got married young. How were you when you guys got married?

Speaker 2: 25:43

21. 21.

Speaker 1: 25:45

I was 21 when I got married.

Speaker 2: 25:46

I also got my driver's license at the same time. We joke about that too, because I cannot drive. He taught me how to him, and a friend of mine taught me how to drive, so I got married and got my driver's license the same year.

Speaker 1: 26:01

But I was 21 when I got married. So there are going to be so many people who are going to listen to this, who are going to be able to relate to what you're saying, especially my listeners who got married at a young age. Because when you're going through things that right now, we're able to laugh about it Because we realize how minor, how finite, how small it is, significant those things are now. But when you're young and you really don't know how to maneuver through those things, they don't seem as significant. In that moment they seem like a big deal. Why are you not washing dishes? Why are you not able to help me around the house? Why are you not able to communicate your feelings with me? In the moment it don't seem small, but now that we're older and mature and we grow in wisdom in our relationships, we realize how small they are. But there are so many people who are going to hear this and I just want to encourage you, girl, you ain't alone. I love my husband. So many times in the beginning of our marriage I'm going back to my daddy.

Speaker 3: 27:15

I was just going to say I moved away from my parents, like three hours away, and it's probably a good thing, or we still wouldn't be married 23 years, because I didn't have the option to leave and go home and I'm on my daddy and look if it was not for my daddy being so wise.

Speaker 1: 27:31

My daddy said that's your husband, don't I love you? If you ever need me for real, I got you, but that's your husband. My daddy was a wise man. Don't, don't come running to me. That is your husband. I'm not getting your marriage. You two are going to have to figure it out. Everybody don't have this. Some people have parents who will get all in a marriage and miss it all, but my daddy won't have any. He was just like you better get on home and figure it out. So yeah, I'm tickled because you girl, you ain't alone.

Speaker 2: 28:08

You ain't alone. My mama let me come, but she was like she was telling that son-in-law, don't you, don't you lose your family over something this small. I'm a little stanker, that's my daughter. But she said don't you lose your family over something this small Mm-mm.

Speaker 1: 28:22

Mm-mm girl. Yes, I'm tickled, okay. So what? Oh, this is good, yeah, okay, I really want to hear your answers on this. What was the worst advice you've ever received about marriage and what was the basic advice you've received?

Speaker 3: 28:40

I think the worst advice that I ever received was you can just get divorced and try again. Oh that's good, like no, that's not an option this time. And we said when we first decided to get married look, this is it for us Either we going in the grave married or we don't. Like we can do this no more. But I think the best advice came from my dad and he said if you really love him, there is nothing you can't work through, whether it's infidelity, money problems, whatever. He said. I don't agree with infidelity and I'm not saying it's right. He said and hopefully it never gets to that but if you guys really love each other, there are ways to work through everything. You just got to be willing to put in the work and work it will be.

Speaker 1: 29:42

Yeah, good stuff, good stuff, allie. What about you?

Speaker 2: 29:49

I can't think of any like worst advice that I've ever like specifically gotten, but just in general, just when people you know, family or whatever might know you're having a little spat and people who have never been married, couldn't be faithful to nothing, but want to give advice like just don't bother, you know. But I think some of the best advice that really that within the marriage that is just me, him and God at the end of the day, yeah, Okay, so remind me how long have you guys been married, heather, how long have you been running, been married?

Speaker 3: 30:31

We celebrated 23 years in August.

Speaker 1: 30:34

Okay, and Allie, how long have you and Tommy been married?

Speaker 2: 30:38

10 years as of February of this year.

Speaker 1: 30:42

Okay, so both of you guys have been married for wow, okay. What has sustained you guys all these years? What do you think has kept you guys married? Because if you've been married for these amount of years, you don't even have to tell me, we don't even have to talk about it. I'm sure you guys have went through some things. What has sustained you and kept you all these years?

Speaker 3: 31:08

I want to say love is a romantic. No, the want to stay married, but I mean my first marriage. I should have left. There was a good reason why divorce abuse is never a good way to stay. No, but I knew that I didn't want to be a two-time divorcee, and maybe that's a little selfish on my part to say. But I told him look, when I say I do, I mean forever, and we either going to work through it or we don't get married. So either put on your big boy pants and let's go for this ride together, or let's don't move it.

Speaker 1: 31:53

Got you. So what has kept you or sustained you guys all these years is you made the decision that you want to be married.

Speaker 3: 32:04

Right, you're in this for the long Work I mean. It takes work to stay married to someone because you've got two different personalities, two different thought processes. Marriage is not easy by any stretch of the imagination. Even 23 years into it, it's still there's times that I'm like who that came out of left here. Where did that come from? Yeah, it's the want to stay married, that we don't ever throw divorce around as an option. It is a. Ok, do we work through this now? Do we sleep on it and come back where we have level heads again? Or you know, it's a. How are we going to work on it? Not OK, let's give up. Give up, not an option. We took it off the table in the beginning.

Speaker 1: 32:54

I love that. I absolutely love that. Ok, allie, what about you? What has sustained you all these years?

Speaker 2: 33:06

I would have to say just, first of all, just being friends. You have to be friends with the person that you're with. At the end of the day, you have to like them. It's more than just love, because loving yourself is not going to sustain. And I would also have to say, like you know, divorce just I mean, while it is an option, it's not an option for us. It has to be something way out in left field for divorce to be an option for us. And I jokingly tell him all the time that it's cheaper to keep. We joke a lot, I'm the jokester, so yeah. And then to just the history like we've been through a lot. I know that Heather has an autoimmune disease, and I do as well, and that my health played a role early on in our marriage. We got married in 2013 and I started getting sick in 2015. I say started getting sick because we didn't know what it was. I didn't get a diagnosis to 2016. So he's seen me when you talk about lowest of the lows, he's seen me at the lowest of the lows and highest of the highs, as far as you know, with this illness. So that plays a role as well, because your spouse goes from you know, from being, you know, your spouse, just that person that you're with, to being a caregiver as well. So they have to like you and want to do that in order to stay, especially when you're so young, because he could have left. He was 23 years old. And he's just not like to live at 23. I'm just saying you ain't trying to stay stuck behind no hospital walls at 23. If you're not in love with the person you with.

Speaker 1: 34:47

I'm just saying you can't stay, girl. That's when the vows become real, because you know, we stand before the altar and we say this stuff but a lot of people just saying words that they really don't mean. And when the rubber meets the road, you find out if our partners if not even just our partners, but if we really mean what we say we mean in sickness and in health, as you both have expressed with your autoimmune issues like your partners, they meant those vows. You know you guys meant those vows in sickness and in health.

Speaker 2: 35:25

You know, okay, I have to give Mr Lane his kudos because he those part of the vows. Some people will fold at that part, but he had. So I see it. I see it. And we actually we, we laughed about this too. A week after we got married, we actually both got sick. I got, so we know it of course now, but we both ended up with the stomach virus. I got it first and while he was out at the store getting me stuff in the store, he got sick with the stomach. So it's just just one of those things. I just feel like you know, it's just God and we're just destined to be.

Speaker 3: 36:06

Yeah, that was one thing that I forgot to say when you were talking about dating. And how did we know? Each other was the one I felt I diagnosed with lupus at 14. And when I started telling him, look, you know, I've got lupus, and just kind of briefly stand over what it was, the next time we talked he said, well, I googled what lupus is, this is what the internet, how much of this is true and how much do you want to add to it? And I was like shoo Lord. He googled and stuff about what I'm sick with man man.

Speaker 1: 36:50

Listeners, don't settle. Don't settle. It's people out here who will really love you, Like for real. Like will really love you. Okay, they say hindsight is 2020. Knowing what you know now, if anything, what would you do differently earlier on in your marriage? So, being the wife, the partner you are now, if you could go back, because y'all I yeah, I get tickled sometimes, like the person I am now, I cringe at some of the things that I said, that I did, that I thought when I first got married, like who was she? What would you do differently? If you could go back to that wife when you first got married, what would you do differently?

Speaker 2: 37:49

I would probably say probably, just let some things go. That I stood so strongly on there at the end of the day really didn't matter. So I think that's what I would do, that, ellie, that's good, that's good, that's really good.

Speaker 1: 38:04

I would actually get on that for myself. Tell me, what about you?

Speaker 3: 38:08

I have a great answer, especially being both of us being so young when we got married, when you know, I was a month shy of turning 21 when I married Ron, and when you are that young, you think you know it all and there ain't no one that can tell you none. I did finally listen a little more to what he was saying about when he went to counseling and this is what she said would help in a relationship and this is how you should talk. And we finally did. I finally did listen, but I've been married once before. I know what don't work for me, and he never said it, but you could just tell it was like woman, would you just hush and listen. But some trips are stuff that you stand so hard on and you're like, if I would have just even gave an inch, we wouldn't have had that argument at all. And now, looking back, 23 years later, I'm like why? Why did I even? It didn't? It doesn't matter now, it's not like in our future, our future. So why was I so hard on standing on that in the first place?

Speaker 1: 39:22

Yes, I think we all agree on that one, and I'm tickled because we all were the same age to get married. Ok, ladies, this is our last one before we close out. I can't believe we got here so fast. Like I enjoyed you guys so much, like the time just rolled by so fast. No, it seemed like we did start it, I know. Ok. So what advice or encouragement would you offer to the couple who are tempted to walk away from their marriage? There may be in a hard season and they feel like it's not going to get better, because you know how it is. We've already discussed you guys. All of us have been married for a good little while now and sometimes, when you're in the middle of a hard season, it does feel like you're just in this hard season and it's not going to get better, it's not going to change. Maybe things won't work out. What encouragement would you offer to this couple that feel like this, is it?

Speaker 3: 40:34

I would say, even though you think your house is built, sometimes God allows those bricks to come tumbling down so that he can rebuild it the way he wanted it to be built. And sometimes those hard times have to come. So you know, one, where your relationship stands, know that person's always going to have your back through the hard times. And two, so that you focus on where you need to be God, your spouse, then your children, the rest of your family. Until you go through those hard times and you don't test where you stand, you're on sandy ground. You know that old song we used to sing in Sunday school on the solid rock I stand. Or the wise man built his house upon the rock, the full of man built his house upon the sand. Until the wind, head and rain has come, you don't really know. Until you're tested you don't know. And then sometimes God has to throw out those bricks to come tumbling down to rebuild that house the way it's supposed to be built. But it is so worth it and being with someone that you just have the shorthand with. You just got to look across the room and that person goes oh, I need to get her out of here now. That person is bugging her. I need to go, step in in the middle of that conversation, not even having to talk, but they just know your look, or they know, or they know. When you don't feel good and they're like you just stay in bed and rest. I got everything else handled. There is so much to be said for that.

Speaker 1: 42:09

Thank you, heather Allie. What would you say, what would you offer this couple?

Speaker 2: 42:18

At the end of the day, like you, just remember that it's a three-stranded court it's you all and it's God, and I mean that can sound cliche, but that's the truth. At the end of the day, the testing trials they have to come, because so much of what I'm saying I feel like it's going to get off of what Heather said. But at the end of the day, the testing trials are going to come because you have to know what your marriage can withstand. And it's growing pains as well. Growing pains because you're not that same person you were when you first married. Neither of you are. You're going to evolve over time. We certainly evolved from 21-year-olds up until now. I mean we were 16, 17 when we met. So I would hope that we've evolved since 16, 17 and then 21 when getting married and then now it's just. Marriage is one of those things. It's hard work, it's not easy, there's going to be testing trials, but at the end of the day you have to decide that that's who you want to be with, that you're still going to choose each other.

Speaker 1: 43:25

Ladies. I love it. Thank you all, so so, so much for joining me for this conversation Today. I really appreciate you guys, sound advice and wisdom and just your insight. I appreciate y'all. Before we close out, would you guys be in the admins of the relationship community? I would love for you guys if you could let the listeners know Just from your perspective, because I'm always the one telling people to come join a community and I'm a little biased you know a little biased, but from your perspective, why should they come join our community?

Speaker 3: 44:09

I think the biggest thing is is to be with like-minded folks. Iron sharpens iron, and if you get people who are in committed relationships, even if you're not married yet, if you're in a committed relationship to someone, you tend to encourage other relationships more. And we do encourage each other a lot in our group, and not necessarily even completely on relationships. I've had some some pretty difficult times here lately and the prayer and support that I've received from the people in this group has been amazing. And also we've got a wide range of kids and there's 12 years between the youngest and the next one and so much change in those 12 years with baby stuff, like all kinds of new things and different things and stuff. And I think that's older folks who've been married a long time. There's still some time, some things we can learn from the newer folks, because things change and evolve and the world changes and we shouldn't take for granted younger people or people who haven't been married as long their voices, because they might have found a trick or found something that works that may work for you too and you'd be like, oh wow, I never thought of it that way or I didn't realize that could work that way, or whatever. So whether you've been married one year or 23 years, you can still get someone, something from everybody, if you're willing to learn and listen.

Speaker 1: 45:39

That is dope Heather, thank you. What about you?

Speaker 2: 45:45

So, in the words of my pastor, to be a part, you have to take a part, and so I feel like this group. We have something for everybody dating, engaged, married, from young to old and I just truly enjoy the group. It was one of the reasons why, when Mo reached out about needing more admins, I was like, hmm, I enjoy this group so much and I'm on here throughout the day looking at posts and interacting with posts, why not become an admin? So I'm not biased because I'm an admin. That's why I chose to become an admin, because I really enjoyed the group. I was listening to the podcast. I was actually a subscriber to the podcast before joining the group, so I don't know, that's my take on it. I love the interaction. I have not been able to make it to any of the monthly date nights and stuff that we have, of course, because everybody isn't local, but to those who are local to Jackson, you will have something to do on a monthly basis.

Speaker 1: 46:45

Man, you guys should get paid for advertising. You guys are awesome For real. I just put y'all on the spot and y'all just did it like a paid infomercial, like for real. Seriously, I love y'all, I appreciate all that you do for the group, like for real, from the bottom of my heart, because it has been. I was not even planning on saying any of this, but you know the way to spear leads. But I've been doing the group by myself for over two years now and don't get me wrong, it's not a burden at all because this is ministry for me. Like when I say I absolutely love this, it just it brings me so much joy and I hope that comes off to the group but it literally brings me so much joy to interact with you guys every day Like legit. It just I can't even put it into words. I love it, I just love it. I just can put it that simple. I love it. But when you guys volunteered to come on this admin, it did my heart so good and, as I've already told y'all, it's no pressure to post and do all of the things that I do. I hope y'all, even though I said it with my mouth, I hope you feel that it's no pressure at all, but I just want y'all to know I appreciate everything y'all do, like everything that y'all do for the group and to come on and do this interview with me today. Y'all just don't know how how good y'all did my heart. Like man, y'all did my heart good. So thank y'all so much. I appreciate y'all, I love y'all and I hope you ladies have an amazing night To my listeners. I hope you guys enjoyed this episode as much as I did and I'll see you guys next week. Remember I love you, but God loves you so much more. Bye, ladies, bye, bye.

Speaker 3: 48:53

I hope you guys have enjoyed Follow me on Facebook at demo with Mo.

Speaker 1: 49:02

If you have any questions you would like answered here live on my podcast, email them to me at demo with Mo at gmailcom. That's D-E-M-O-W-I-T-H-M-O at gmailcom.