Dear Future Wifey S3, E316: Love, Cherish, & Obey (Carrington & Ashley Brown)

marriage changes every area of your life yes and you know i talked about earlier on one of my calls but it's like in a lot of cases marriage is like a life or death decision in the sense of if you choose to settle for a marriage that doesn't reflect god then you're going to be settling for the rest of your life you choose to say that mean you're neglecting yourself rejecting yourself not prioritizing yourself creating insecurities creating lack of value creating low self-esteem and you're you're experiencing and living your life for this ease which is going to create disease in your body and now you attacking you because of the situation that you chose to be in that you knew wasn't in alignment with the excellence that god ordained for you yeah i made vows i broke them hindsight i didn't comprehend the gravity of the exchange of this solemn promise a vow before god and man it's time to unpack these sacred words so that i never take this oath lightly ever again i'm the pterosaur whitfield and this is the marriage vows series on the dear future wifey podcast welcome to the deer future wifey podcast i'm your host letter star whitfield hey listen are you still shacking up with us come on y'all let's make a commitment hit that subscription button and subscribe go ahead and turn on your notification bell so you'll be notified about our upcoming episodes listen i'm so excited about the marriage vow series god has been doing an amazing work i've been getting tons of emails and inbox messages and dms about how transformative these episodes have been in your life so listen i totally take it as an honor you know what i am so happy to have today's guests on the podcast man i look at a lot of their videos i just love what they're doing as a couple they're purpose partners y'all hear me talk about that a lot i said i don't want a wife i want a purpose partner somebody that walks alongside of me and we do god's purpose together and this couple exudes exactly that so without further ado welcome to the dear future wifey podcast my new homies ashley and keratin brown how y'all doing man about yourself man i'm i'm excited to talk to y'all i know y'all see them in their little matching outfits and all that type of stuff i know this wasn't by accident y'all y'all wouldn't have this custom-made huh uh-huh what happened was what karen what had happened was i woke up and got dressed and i came out to office after the car with a client and she had on the same thing but why we're matching is we had a family photo shoot so the kids had oh everybody had them everybody yeah yeah that's cute that's nice can't wait to see those photos and that's what's so great about y'all is y'all make marriage and family look fun y'all make it look fun uh i know every day isn't sunshine and and roses and butterflies i know that y'all have y'all's uh issues and carrington told me that y'all got married at a very young age and as we go deeper into the marriage vow series today's episode is entitled to love cherish and obey see they've omitted the word obey out of the marriage vows because a lot of people didn't quite like that a lot of people of the female persuasion didn't quite like that that that that word obey and so we're going to unpack that so um y'all got married at what age so i was 25 and i was 22. mm-hmm look at the 22 got my older woman yeah robbed the cradle he robbed the cradle so was it did he have to prove himself a lot because he told me that when he met you you were a boss lady like you had your stuff going on you had your own house you had your own stuff you had your career going um and here you are dating a younger guy what did you have any apprehension towards that yeah so when we met he was 21 at the time i was 24 and looking back i mean it's a compliment that he said i was i had it going on i mean i was i was working i had a good job i was getting my master's degree and at the time at that time in my life i was open to whoever god had for me so carrington caught me at the right time because if it would have been a year prior i would have never even considered dating someone younger than me but he caught me at the right time because i was in a season where i was learning that who god has for you may not necessarily look or come in the package that you expect talk about so he didn't have to prove anything so i remember because first off we met on instagram so shout out to the instagram algorithm and making that shake but when he when we first started talking i saw him on social media and then i looked him up on facebook because you know that's where facebook you tell all your backgrounds exactly yeah who you connected to and i thought we had mutual friends but then when i saw the year he was born i was like uh like i instantly was like oh never mind but then something told me ashley just give it a chance and so once i made up my mind that i wasn't going to continue to you know make his age a big deal he'd have nothing to prove so how long did it take you to well let me ask you this carrington how long did y'all date or get to know each other before you knew how long god this is the one that i believe you have for me so i propose after eight months if i'm not mistaken so we started dating officially august 1st 2013. i proposed march 28th day before my birthday yeah so i proposed march 28th of the same year that we got married uh august 1st the next year and so we dated for what eight months then we're engaged and we're married after a year one day and we've been married going on eight years yeah and so that was the journey of that but when you talk about understanding and being like hey like this is the one yeah and that happened after about probably what was that three or four months maybe um but it was a situation i love telling the story i think yeah sometimes i actually i feel like she was like don't tell that story so what happened was so one of the mistakes that ashley and i didn't make that mean that we made uh when we first started dating was we didn't implement standards and expectations all around and so we didn't have the conversation about the value and necessity of sexual abstinence so one day we were at our apartment i ain't gonna say we slipped up but we had so there wasn't yeah it was intentional exactly yeah acts of purpose um there's an accident on purpose anyway um so that happened and then following that situation ashley came out and she said character you gotta go and i in my mind i'm like wait a minute like we both should be in trouble we both did this and she was like hey you got to go she said karen i really like you but my relation with god is more valuable and more important to me than my relation with you so if you can't be the man of god that i need you to be then we won't be being the man that i am i respected it left went to the bottom of her stairs and cried right yeah so cried prayed the next day i was at chipotle in my feelings man and my um my high school counselor came in and i told her about the situation don't know why but we just started talking about it and after that conversation um i received a text from ashley and it was a forwarded message from a friend of hers and it said hey ashley god told me to tell you that the devil is going to attack your relationship in the area of sex intimacy because he doesn't want your mission and your ministry to come to fruition to flourish and so after i read that all i heard was hold on this is your wife um and so i said okay good i'm good let's rock i said i'm good let's go and so when you called up then what did you say you just apologized to it and i apologized and i was like hey we gotta we if we want to do this thing because we both desire to do it right yeah we're gonna have to implement stands and expectations that glorify god during our dating and if you know now i believe 100 that you my wife we need to be intentional about glorifying him and our dating so that he could glorify us in marriage why was that important for you man because every relationship where there weren't standards in place where sex was the foundation it all failed it was all toxic and i was fresh out of a breakup that left me heartbroken i just relocated to dallas from houston and i was like i don't ever want to feel the way i felt than ever again so i said i need to change because if nothing changes nothing changes so one of the areas that i believe deep down needed to change was me not prioritizing sex in a relationship and having god be the foundation and it's hard especially when you're young i mean i was 24 years old you know i also didn't grow up in church so i'm still like oh can i go to the club you know drinking like and i'm not i wasn't at the time even in a friend group who had the same value so i was really struggling but i i knew deep down that's what we needed to be doing so at that age is that where you found christ so i was 24 when i met karen and it's interesting so 21 is when i started to actually build a relationship with christ so that's why me telling carrington this whole abstinence thing we got to get this together because i had been three and a half years of building a relationship because i knew better it's not like i wasn't edu like i knew i was attending the singles conferences i was reading the books i was following these people who are encouraging it so i felt so convicted and ashamed um but yeah so around that age is when i really started growing so when he told you that hey we got to get intentional about what what y'all are doing in relationship and he sounded like he was like hey let's get married how did you respond to that well were you ready for it yes i was because honestly we talked about marriage early on so it was a part of our conversation 24 years early on 24 and 21. talking about marriage talking about marriage and we knew well i let me say this so he communicated it but then i also communicated that i believe that god was calling me to really share in this area of relationships in marriage and so i was like are you on board with that like do you want like and he's like yeah that's cool you know like not knowing what it would look like yeah but when he started to talk about it more seriously one i was happy because i'm like okay he's not playing games because a lot of the guys that i was talking about they're gonna say whatever you need to hear yeah but he was actually putting action uh pursuing me we did pre what was it called like it was like pre-engagement before we got engagement we met with the pastor just talking to them about some of the things that we wanted to deal with so it was just great to see him actually pursuing me and taking the steps that would actually one day lead to us getting increased engagement counseling and how that happened was around this that whole time that same time of us slipping or you know having sex i went to work one day and i was working in corporate america and there was a woman who and this was this is how you know it was god because that was early this day i remember it was from the weekend i was early and her name was miss jackie she actually lives in the desoto area but anyway so miss jackie was there she was like you know hey baby you know she's older she's like hey baby how was your week weekend and i started crying because i was like i feel so bad you know i met this guy so i started talking to her and she said why don't you and him come to my church and have a talk with me and that's how it all started so we didn't go and mind you i'm not like super ah you know i'm just like it was her idea to meet so that's why we call it pre-engagement counseling but it wasn't like oh let's do pre-engagement counseling like it wasn't nothing like that she just genuinely was like let let me sit down and talk to you guys so and that turned into us meeting with her a few times she ended up doing our pre-marital counseling ended up marrying us as well but um that's how it happened so so uh carrington you had some uh some advice not to go down that that road so early yeah in your life and where'd that advice come from we talk about this a lot about uh things that our father tells us our fathers tell us uh the last three episodes was influenced every man talked about the influence of a father so um what kind of influence did you get so when i brought to my pops that hey man i'm i'm thinking about proposing to ashley i'm thinking about you know hitting that knee his response was i don't think you should do it and so like the specific wording he gave me was there are experiences of life that i want you to have that i believe that you'll miss out on getting married and so my response at 21 was i definitely understand that but when i think about the desires that i have for life i can do it marriage right and so knowing the story and the background hold on you can't just you can't just drop that like that and think that's just gonna you just i'ma let you just slide by with it you said the experiences of life that you know that you want to have you can experience it in marriage 100 right so what were you thinking of when he said that so when i was thinking that i'm thinking okay carrickton when you think about your desires and what you want even though at this time i didn't have 100 clarity about what i wanted i knew i wanted a family right i knew i desired marriage i knew i wanted to travel i knew i wanted to impact people i knew i wanted to love people and serve people and help people and so for everything concrete in my life that i desired to do i said yo i can do all of that with my boo right so what do you think he was insinuating so he was insinuating exactly exactly right show your wildest right exactly be out here in these streets yeah and it's like when i think about my pops love them to life when i think about my pops from a relational perspective you know he's just not for me the best example of how to pursue dating and relationships right and it's a lot that goes into that just from his background uh him not knowing his pops for as long as he did just yeah all of those intricacies but when it comes down to it that was you know it's interesting i've come to realize that like god develops and grows us through tough conversations yes and tough decisions like when you start having tough decisions tough conversations like hey this is me preparing you in this season and equipping you with the skills necessary for the next season yes because when i think about the conversation with my past when i think about the way i handled the conversation with ashley when she kicked me out the house all of this was two couple months following me like quitting football in college which was like one of the hardest things for god right and it's funny when i say that to people they're like wait a minute what my god don't like football i know i love football in texas now you ain't gonna leave me to believe exactly god ain't the god of the dallas cowboys and so my situation was like this in regards to that so i grew up in the church baptist church on the step team choir all that right grandma used to be on the usher boy sitting on the back row so i grew up in it but i didn't know what a relationship was with jesus until my sophomore year of high school i mean sophomore year at college um and just walking through the student center one day on the way to practice ran into some ladies and young lady called me over and in my mind i'm like man she's about to shoot a shot i'ma reject her she's not gonna give my number and i'm gonna feel bad she called me over said hey what's your name i said i'm carrington how are you doing she said i'm good said question what is your relationship like with jesus right out the gate huh i'm like we're in college what you talking about what you mean what is your relationship like with jesus i said that's my guy like we good and she said jesus requires more of your time and desires to have a better relationship with you so i'm like all right cool so went over my business that night one of my teammates was like man met these ladies bro i want you to kind of bible study with me i'm like i got you let's go went to bible study same ladies so we're sitting at a table going through bible study go read matthew 7 and she just stops looks at me and says being a good person won't get you into heaven and so when i tell the story i tell people like the that conversation like scared the hell out of me like i went to my apartment crying i walk in love y'all love my roommate my roommates high i get to tell them about what and that started to just change everything which transitioned into me joining a campus ministry being like the leader of the men ended up getting into a relationship before ashley that god when i met them when i looked her in her face god said don't do what that ain't me like don't do it anyway i'm like this gotta be me this gotta be you guys i'm like my preference this is her right when i when i'm talking to you about wife god this is her yeah because she looked like preference yeah but i was just on the car the other day i was telling my clients hey like preference is lust because when you think about what you prefer it's all about you and let's be honest like what makes you horny what you're attracted to yeah what's your desire to so preference is really less yeah whole of the conversation and so got in the relationship went through nine months got out of that relationship and during the time i was still playing football but started to feel a pull away from it and so i stopped going to the campus ministry because of my last injury which is separating my shoulder went to a bible went to a sunday like a sunday bible study in that conversation president of the campus manager said carrington uh do you trust god i say yes talk talk talk got to the point of her saying carrington i hear what you're saying but your actions don't align with it if you believe that god is who he say is and you believe god telling you to let go of football if you're supposed to be playing football got to bring it back to you broke down crying drove to dallas i had locks cut my locks off the next morning then go to practice went to my coach and said hey like i'm done coach like god is calling me to something different what do you say he was like what like so my d coordinator was like i played linebacker he was like what like okay and then i had a conversation with my head coach he was like hey you know i understand it happens right you know i knew you were different from the time i met you because we had a new coaching staff and he was like i knew you were different and i knew you were led by something bigger than just you so he was like i respected um and so it's funny because like like i was saying like that conversation that uncomfortable conversation led me to meeting ashley her uncomfortable conversation yeah that led me to the conversation with pops which was an uncomfortable conversation and then it's like look at we look at where we are now now y'all on y'all have your own platform having uncomfortable conversations yes exactly your whole platform is uncomfortable conversation exactly so i know you probably heard this story time and time again how do you feel when you hear that story i think it's i think it's all divine timing because shortly after that happened i think it was like three months later we met one another so i'm just like man what if you he would have stayed in that relationship or continued to play you know so it just it was all in alignment so when y'all took the marriage vow love cherish and obey i mean y'all may have not said that term because like i said that word was omitted when you hear the word we're going to unpack this little by little when you hear the word love how did how do you feel like your marriage was tested or y'all endured the challenge of love and when i talk about love i'm talking about first corinthians 13. like that level of love so i think the initial response is not being educated about what love actually is there it is now let's talk now we can talk yeah so when we look at love especially culture now it has nothing to do with the true meaning of it and everything to do with feelings yes i feel like this because i have these feelings this must be love when in actuality if we go through first corinthians 13 and we observe god jesus christ on the planet and how he moved it wasn't about feelings it was all about commitment and sacrifice and choosing you and you know when we talk about the feelings i let people know hey i understand what you're saying with these butterflies and you know a lot of times when love happens we feel that but love lust and infatuation all have that feeling and a lot of a lot of people are making covenant decisions off of those temporary feelings yeah you you using these butterflies and this excitement you feel as the the motivator or the push to get married when that ain't got nothing to do with love that's just a temporary feeling talk about it right love happens after that yeah right because because those feelings can get you to that i do but what's going to keep you in now i do and waking up saying that every day not just with your words but your actions because love is hard and that's what people don't understand and that's what people don't want to accept like it's challenging so so let's let's read this first corinthians 13 it says love is patient love is kind it does not envy it does not boast it is not proud it does not dishonor others it is not self-seeking it is not easily angered it keeps no record of wrong so we're going to come back to that love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth it always protects always trust always hopes always perseveres and verse 8 says love never fails have you ever dealt with situations in your marriage whereas because the hardest thing is keeps no records wrong how is that even possible yeah yeah your spouse does something one day and and they ask for forgiveness and then a couple of days later you know you'd be like see just yesterday now you you said you wasn't gonna let's talk about that yeah no 100 and a revelation that i received the past couple of years that we've been married is one of i had trust issues not because of fidelity or anything like that but because carrington he would say he was going to do something and not do it or even dreams and goals right you're pursuing things that you say you're gonna do but you give up on it so it's like i don't have so now when you bring another idea i'm not i don't have that much faith and trust and it's hard to be a help me to someone who you're like okay how long have you gone home how long you know okay you have this idea you put you motivated to do it then you switch to a different one and so i had to one day we went on a walk remember that evening we went on a walk and i was like you know what i'm gonna forget all of these extra things that you said you're gonna do and i'll just like focus on the present because i was keeping a record of it and it's a different kind of it's not necessarily a wrong but it was wrong to you because because the type of woman that you are you're a mover and shaker so you're you're the type of person i've seen your instagram stuff you you literally write the vision make it plain and you accomplish it exactly so when someone else does something that's inconsistent it's like hold on because that's totally against your whole thought process exactly exactly yeah yeah yeah and so and so i would say that's where i've struggled 100 and so just to piggyback on that and i think when we talk about the uh obey piece we can get into that a little bit more because that affects it but i think that you know for me one of the challenges for me has been in my mind thinking or feeling that everybody is like me and thinks like me right i'm a very loving caring nurturing doing thoughtful individual so like everything i'm not just thinking about me i'm thinking about everybody else right and my decision making right and so ashley would do some things make some decisions hurt my feelings and i'm like really like like like really do that give an example yeah so here so here this has been my biggest challenge with ashley in our relationship right the tone that she come at me with sometimes right so ashley grew up primarily a single mom it's her and her three sisters yeah yeah so all day dynamic the first time i met her sisters one of them was outside on the porch but i walked down i walked in the house downstairs the other one yeah i missed that another i know you heard about me the other one oh everybody's just yelling and loud and i'm like for me that's my norm but i don't like that yeah like i don't want that yeah because i grew up single-parent household and i love my mama like yeah we had the same birthday so like yeah that's my dude but mama on from the hood and she she'll cut you out in a second and get louder so for me i'm like i don't want i want that i want a minute so when ashley would come in with that tone that she adopted as a result of growing her up in her house so i'm like yo you better watch your tongue yeah and my my real battle is i grew up having anger issues so i was the punch a hole in the wall type of guy i'm angry like i'm pissed so i'm about to express it like this yeah and my thing in marriage has been how do i express myself transparently in this marriage without doing it like that and a big piece of that was really getting understanding yeah about me who i am how i'm wired but then her who she is and how she wired talk about a lot of times if she would come at me with a specific tone or even come in with criticism i would get offended because i'm like yo why are you criticizing me judging me but what i had to realize is that carrington this is your teammate we're on the same team so she's not judging you or criticizing you she's criticizing your process gonna stop hold on hold on hold on let's just marinate real quick cause that's speaking to me i knew that was a that was one of my biggest flaws in my past marriage okay is that my wife would tell me like i'm trying to help you she said she used to tell me you receive help from everybody else except me and you know the difference was is because again she was four years older than me and i felt like i had something to prove to her you know i felt like i felt like i you know i had to show her that i could take care of i had to show her all this stuff and so and it played a very negative effect on my life once before i ever got married i was touring shows across the country and once i got to a certain level financially i said now i deserve a wife and then i got my wife who i was dating at the time got her and then when financial uh hardship hit i was like i don't deserve to be married no more because my value of taking on a wife was focused on the provider aspect versus the the covering the spiritual covering and everything that that entails yeah but so when she would try to help me she'd be like i want to give you some advice i'll be like i got it i got it yeah i got it i got it i'm with you and then and then when someone else will tell me hey why don't you do this what i said yeah yeah we yeah that makes it good and she was just watching me she's like why is it that i could tell you something and then somebody else and i just be like i don't know what you're talking about yeah but it makes a lot of sense though because as men it's like we want to be the leader we want to be the hands we want to be directed and guided cast and vision and making these decisions and so in moments where it's like hey you're giving me advice a lot of times in our mind it's like now she's going to see me as less than there it is because i needed some help from her yes because of the ideologies that us as men especially black men with being installed in our mind which is all negative and lies and it's just tough it out figure it out real man would know how to figure this out exactly and so because of all of that that just places the limiting beliefs and you know what you said was so big and i hope people caught it because it's a real eye-opener to the necessity of valuing the preparation for marriage over the marriage there it is like if you're not if you're more intentional in your desire for marriage than actually preparing for it you're not you're not ready for marriage not at all because in order to marriage is listen it's the hardest thing you can do in life listen and it's just because of the consistency of it right and you know science says naturally we're growing apart yeah which means that in order for us to stay close we have to work yeah but not that's good i didn't say i have to work we we have to work right so how can two walk together unless they agree if we're not in alignment on the same page and both in the position where we're here comes the word submitted mutually and willing to do the work throw in the tile it's not going to happen yeah ask what you got to say no i'm about to defend yeah he said it all and he said it best but one thing that carrington did say i love is the consistency the consistency of marriage because because you mentioned it like one of your initial questions about love like in that in the beginning you have that feeling and then once you get four five six seven eight years you know once you get married it's the consistency and that intentionality that keeps you liking one another and wanting to be around each other and i believe that marriage is a gift it comes with many blessings it should be enjoyed you know and one of i think one of the reasons why carrington and i do work so well together is because we are both on we are both committed to one making marriage look great again be great again being an example for this generation that you what you see in the media is not facts there it is because if cameras were to follow me and carrington around we it would be so boring you know when you when you're happily married and there's not a lot of drama it's very boring so it so it's just it's really that consistency and understanding that man love is consistent and it's just it really you said it really well and just one thing i want to add so when she says like it's boring i know you about that i'm saying not in the sense of we don't enjoy it yeah but it's just that you don't see a whole lot of antics and craziness going on that you would see on the reality show look uh love and hip-hop and yeah them why we don't look like that yeah we don't look like like we actually like each other exactly like that like we like each other yeah we ain't gonna just be fighting for nothing yeah maybe stirring up stuff now we're gonna go to the word cherish cherish means to hold dear feel or show affection for uh to keep or cultivate with care and affection um nurture they say they're using a marriage in this term nurture cherishes his marriage uh to entertain or harbor in the mind deeply and resolutely i like that to entertain or harbor in the mind deeply and resolutely how does that apply to y'all and how do you feel about that when it pertains to your marriage can you say that last line one more time to entertain or harbor in the mind deeply and resolutely okay and i love that it mentioned the mind yes because i i think when you are married you should have a good perception of your spouse in your mind and when you have the proper perspective of your spouse it's easy to cherish them but if i'm showing up in public act in some type of way just because i want to be respectful but in my mind i'm like oh he don't know what he's doing it's going to affect your behavior so i think you have the right perspective in your mind it's easy to cherish 100 and so when i hear the definition of terrorists two things pop in my head producer mindset and love languages so the producer mindset is the mindset that you have to have in order to thrive in relationships and really in life in general right you don't go into interaction and connection with the perspective of hey what can you do for me but you ask yourself what can i do from you but i tell all my clients hey when you when it comes to people the foundational expectation that you should have is to learn something the only thing you should expect from people is to teach you something because you don't have to even talk or interact with somebody for you to learn something there it is and so i think that when we talk about cherishing somebody it's about adopting a producer mindset and living in a relationship from the perspective of how can i serve them how can i love them today right the other day um i bought my boo um edible arrangements because what was that i think last valentine's day i bought him and she loved him cause i and i she was like oh that's so nice thinking i was like you know baby i just like i just don't feel like i've been appreciating you expressively enough verbally yes but like and i know gifts isn't your primary love language but like i know you said you enjoyed it so let me do it because she's on my mind as you talked about okay so let me ask you before he did that were you feeling that you weren't being cherished at the moment i was feeling annoyed because our schedules have been conflicting and i'm i really like i love him around all the time but now like he got three or four evenings where he's gone and i'm just like man you've been i haven't been seeing you and so that's how i felt deep down but on the outside i was probably having a little attitude walking around the house could you sense it i felt it in my spirit yeah yes i had a little a little saltiness and so but when he when i woke up and i saw i was like okay well yeah i can tell you why i've been feeling though and look i'm happy that she gets upset when i'm not around because there's some married people that's like i love when you're gone right and look yeah and i made a pivot in my life to clear up another evening two of them things just like i gotta have ease yeah but it's like i've removed something because i'm like yo like nothing matters more than this than the habit of my wife if my wife's not good i don't care about none of y'all yep and that's just how i am yeah and so just the part two what i was saying with the definition the love language right so when we talk about cherishing somebody i just think about loving them how they receive love yes right so even though i gave her a gift her primary love language is acts of service and so i'm i've always been so when we talk about gender roles i'm good on that right like yeah we're a team we're a partnership if something to get done let's get it done exactly so i'm an advocate of like waking up and you know i just this i straightened up the room this morning picked up all that all that type of stuff because that's how i am but when i found out that you know when we took the test and i found out her primary love language was acts of service i became more intentional about hey how can you take something off her plate yeah how can you make her day easier and after having kids my love language changed yeah so i think that's important too you know people who are familiar with love languages to take it more than once because they can change so what was it before um quality time it was my number one and she was like you think you want to after having kids he was like i need somebody to help me with these kids [Music] so how long did you find out that it shifted like where you know because that's interesting because if you had a kid and the kid is four years old and it shifted three years prior and he's still trying to serve you in the in the in the wrong love language which you may not be receptive of but he don't know he's like well we took to test why is she tripping on this i'm doing this for her and she's not receiving it did you ever find when you you know hindsight is 20 20 can you think back and go yeah i realized that it started shifting around about year two of our first child or whatever yeah well no i know probably instant when we started having kids yeah yeah definitely but i didn't realize it until we took the test again and i was surprised but i'm like but this is actually really accurate so and so i would if i'd be advised a couple years every six 12 months y'all need to take that yeah because with season changing love language as well and the reason why it's so important to continue to take it because if i assume this is your love language and i'm loving you like that but you're not receiving that yes i'm going to feel like you don't value me that's what i'm saying you don't appreciate the effort yeah yeah so and then it's like it's not a matter of unappreciating it she just changed and that's okay it's interesting so my mother-in-law isn't ma i love my mother-in-law she's so awesome and for me i think she should be on stage traveling the world speaking and investing in people she's very introverted she is she ain't trying to talk to nobody but if you do talk to her she'll talk she got stories for days but one of the interesting interesting things she said one day is she said i believe that married couples should have a meeting once a year and ask each other are you okay with the way that i've changed that's exactly what i said i had wrote that in my journal because i've been taking notes about what i i said it's crazy because corporations they'll sit down and uh they'll talk about they'll have these team meetings and talk about uh the vision for the company and all that type of stuff and find out well they'll have i said it's gonna be really funny because i said in the dating process you should do those um um what is it called the annual reviews reviews yeah annual reviews or whatever and sit down and be like so uh and then each couple the the each partner gives the couple these are areas of growth that we need to see another person says yeah i think that you know from a communication standpoint every time i talk to you shut down uh that that i feel a certain way about that can you work on that uh you're not spending enough time with me can you work on that and just literally write it down ain't talking about just having a conversation literally write it down spend time writing it down hand it to the other person they review it and they go okay i'll work on this area of need but also put the things that you like about them i love the fact that you do this on my birthday you surprised me that was so beautiful when you did that i love how you took care of my mom for this just write down all that stuff just like you were doing the job and then give them that and then check back six months or a year and see if those uh areas has seen growth love that idea it's like it's like i wrote that down uh probably about four months ago and i said that's how i'm gonna treat my next marriage my next relationship we're gonna sit down in the whole dating process and look at all that because we give more attention to our jobs and everything that they do isn't just by happenstance it's a structure and they go this is how it and then you'll watch the company grow when you get all members on the same uh same playing field somebody's gonna hear you say that and have the thought he that's doing too much like that's what you're gonna say yo he doing too much but in actuality like that's the type of investment that you need to make one thing ash and i used to do is um probably we didn't need to bring it back but we used to do marriage recaps so every sunday we would rate on an abcdf scale intimacy intimacy communication time with just different areas that's good and then we would say okay what do what do you need me to work on what is like the one thing that you want me to do better be intentional about this week and it's like that stuff is necessary oh my god because when we talk about year review i heard somebody talking about like casinos and it's like casinos they checking numbers and doing reviews three four five times a night yeah cause if they don't they're gonna lose they're gonna lose exactly they need to find out when to shut this thing down and so it's like you need to treat your marriage marriage like that business yeah like that thriving corporations yeah if you don't check it on a consistent basis do a risk analysis there it is on a consistent basis yeah you about to drive off the cliff and don't even know and that's what happens that's when you hear a couple say we just grew apart that means that you didn't give enough attention to that marriage from a daily or weekly or monthly uh you can't just a company just don't say we just don't know why we just can't keep our employees no more they have this thing called employee retention right and they go they'll ask people are they happy here well you know they'll find out all this stuff in which they found out a lot during covet is that people preferred working from home and they got greater productivity yeah at first they said if we have people at home ain't no way they're gonna be working yeah but then they said aha so a lot of companies said we're gonna just leave people at home because we're getting better productivity out of them at home wow who'd have thought that and um and our company is seeing growth and so in a marriage it's the same way as saying that why are we all why are we miserable because if you get a couple that's miserable it didn't happen in year seven you know um um year seven they talk about has been the seven year itch that's the time when people decide to say you know what i'm most divorces happened around year seven yeah and and but what about six what about five what about four and three it's something that started happening and then you begin to say all right this is just how our marriage is gonna be and the men you accept that like a company don't say oh you just come late you're just gonna be late every day we don't care you just come late you take four hour lunches that's yeah that's just how it is you know they're gonna be like hold on we go first of all we're gonna put you on probation you know and we're going we're going to go ahead and walk you out the door and and marriage can be protected more if we had a handle on it and actually you know watched it closely 100 yeah interesting you brought up that seventh year and i watched a movie on hulu about two months ago and it was about a woman who was doing a documentary trying to prove that marriage should be a seven year contract in which when you get married you get married for seven years and then after seven years you come together you say hey do i want it to be over i want to keep going that's a movie that's a movie i'm gonna have to find the name of it and let you check it out because that's exactly what she did wow all right but it resulted her challenge resulted in all the couples that she were interviewing and checking out and trying to force the quit they all were like no i'm not going anywhere this is who i want to be with so it backfired in the face but it was like the same seven year yeah wow yeah i'll tell you a little bit about where that came from uh after we get finished recording this uh but yeah so that's that that's powerful now when we look at the the val obey um i was reading the article in time magazine where uh meghan markle and and her husband when they got married they you know according to the british culture they will make sure they remove that out um of the vow and they elected to write their own vow in that place but obey has always been a negative thing when you hear that first of all let me ask you that i'm gonna say it to you ashley uh did you make a vow to love cherish and obey carrington that's what she said wasn't it when she married us i think she might have she might just know about the video yeah we're gonna have to um listen to it again but if she did or didn't i would say yes either way why would that word obey obey isn't intimidating to me it's not especially if you're so i know the type of person the type of man that i married he is not controlling and so if there's an area where he's like very firm in something i'm like really leaning in because usually you know he's like you know he's he's kind of go with the flow a little bit but for me obey submission it's not intimidating which is very interesting because i am a very you know leadership minded person especially running a company like i that's i don't know it's just it's different being married to someone who who doesn't have the characteristics of someone who is super controlling my way or the highway we're both very agreeable do you see why a lot of women and how they omitted that out of the original marriage vows um as time progressed do you see why they did that yeah i understand and i i understand the mindset women have who who that word obey it's like a slap in the face like why do i have to obey you type of attitude you know and so i understand the culture that we're in but if you're yolked up with the right person it's not going to be as harsh i remember fantasia went viral when she was talking to her her and her husband she talked about submission it was saying that if women knew how to submit more then they could get married and get a husband all that type of stuff and people oh my god i mean people was oh it was like oh did you just it went crazy but the way she spoke about it uh was so powerful and i do believe that most i'm gonna say most i hate using terms like this i do believe that some men have abused that word submission um and and you know especially when you go back to the beginning of time women had no rights they couldn't even own property and so a man knew that so he knew that he could control you um and control your livelihood yeah uh just by if he decided to divorce you you're destitute like he like you're done and then you're like you're so when we talk we listen you know we read the book about the bible and we read about ruth and you know boaz or whatever she was destitute she didn't she didn't have nothing so so it's a whole different type of ideology so when you look at the word submission a lot of women see it from an abusive standpoint and say i hate that um carrington when you hear the word submission and and uh maybe you've dealt with anything you know like i said you you married a very powerful woman she's three years your senior uh you said she had all that stuff together uh had a had a house together had a good job you had a house at 24. no apartment yeah yeah yeah so you had your own place yeah yeah you're doing well corporate america job and all that good stuff um that you run in any issues dealing with a woman um that has a leadership mindset a lot of them a lot of them um because of what i lacked right so one of the things that my my pop said in that exact same conversation was carrington understand that if you get married to this woman she's going to have an expectation of you three years beyond where you are right so his perspective was you're 21 she's 24 she's going to have a 24 year old expectation from you and so i took that perspective in and i just used to just go go like i was just always moving because it's like okay i gotta like you express like fool myself yeah and um that was challenging i beat myself up toe myself down and so me now i understand submission and i understand why women run from it and avoid it but it's because society is painted as slavery yes in society's mind submission looks like coming to america yeah right whatever you like right yeah walk like a dog yeah that's the perception right when submission is really you entrusting somebody to lead god and direct you that's what it is now here here's here's some controversy right here um for my kids i've come to realize that if a woman isn't submitted to you that's not her fault there it is it's your fault there it is because the bible says that mutual submission brings reference to god which means we're supposed to submit to each other more controversy me and being the leader king you're supposed to submit first not to her but to god because by you submitting to god and her watching the fruit that comes from you submitted to god that's going to inspire and persuade her but then teach her how to submit to you talk about it so if she's not submitting you the issue king you're not giving her anything to submit to two you better boy rihanna about to catch the holy ghost over there rihanna rihanna rihanna is uh yeah yeah rihanna rihanna's doing the live switch and shout out to rihanna she's about to she's about to tear the whole studio up she felt the holy spirit at that point i'm about to run around this thing because in the letter that each episode ends with me writing a letter to my future wifey and you just nailed exactly what i wrote in my in my in my letter and it's saying that like i said they'll see it at the end of this episode but but the reality is exactly that that as men as leaders the bible says and the bible says submit ye one to another yeah and so the powerful thing about that is for a great leader they said what makes a great leader is him being a great follower so if he's able to look at his wife and go i'm gonna submit to this it's not it's not saying i'm submitting to her in every way and all that she's the leader and saying i can submit submit you one to another meaning that there will be instances thank you holy spirit because i never looked at it like this that there will be instances where you will have to submit what you think is right to what is actually right 100 because you're hearing from god you'll be like you know what you actually are writing that yeah i'm not writing this so i submit what i thought was right to what i believe is really right and god is leading you in this one thing that's powerful about a woman is that she's a visionary um a woman um i would never forget this pastor gordon banks when he married me and my ex-wife he said a woman comes into a house and make it a home and and the woman has that powerful thing i used to watch my mom go into the kitchen if she sent me in the kitchen to say you know go fix your something to eat i would walk in there be like ain't nothing in here there ain't nothing in here she's like move out the way she'll come up the back how did you okay are you jesus did you get like how did this stuff appear they know how to go and grab some stuff out of the refrigerator out the pantry and create a whole meal to feed all seven of us you know and i was just like i don't and i remember at a young age seeing that and saying i think mamas are magical like they are magical they know how to do stuff with very little resources and create something that's powerful um and if we're too prideful to see our our wives our help mates our teammates as such then you've you you screwed up 100 one of the best books that made the biggest impact on me as a man is uh kingdom man tony tony evans right that's my count that book i said every time we have an episode look that book blessed my soul as a man because it really gave me the understanding and the wisdom that hey carrington when you look at the world 99 of the problems that you see in a result of a man choosing not to be a man and it forced me to go find out what a man was because my definition was wasn't it like my definition was not right and so i had to go understand what a man is and the challenge even with that is the the true definition and the true image of man yes male i'm gonna say grown males adult males nowadays yes we'll reject that oh you weak oh you soft oh you ain't right you cooking what you when in actuality it's like well wait a minute yes if i'm a christian i follow christ he's my example of man i'm supposed to walk in the line with him he was a servant he was a nurse like he was the first nurturer women are nurturing but he was the foundational nurturer and see they don't want to talk about like serving serving seems like again slavery you know it's like i'm gonna serve you i'm a certain i'm gonna serve my wife for no i'ma sit here you serve me go go go fix me a plate to eat i need you to go give me this go get my remote control go get me go get me a magazine go get me and that's what servitude looks like instead of saying baby okay you need anything i'm gonna get ready to go do this you before i go do this you need anything for our girls on your way back home you need to grab something from the store you need me to stop by 711 grabbing some rolos just simple yeah and we and it's crazy because the person that's uh supposed to be walking alongside of us we're in competition with and we don't even realize like why are you trying to make my life the beauty of a marriage is that you now have a partner that should be concerned about your well-being and their main priority is saying how can i make your life easier but as men how am i supposed to receive that if i was raised to believe that i don't matter my feelings talk about the matter my tears don't matter i can't cry because if i cry i'm a punk and i'm soft like how am i supposed to believe that somebody actually wants the truth of me and the transparency of me when i've been raised to believe this and that's one of the things that we ran into we i don't even remember the situation but we were on our way back from wichita because that's where ashley's from and she was like i don't know how we on the top of it she was like you know like why don't you talk to me why don't you share stuff with me and i was like yo i don't feel like you i don't believe you care like you don't in my mind you do not care and she was like yo i do like i want to know and so that's a danger the follow-up to that conversation is dangerous because a lot of women desire men to be transparent but they not ready for them to be transparent talk about it because i tell a woman all the time look if you want your if you have an issue with the communication of your man you have to create a safe space for him to be communicating for him to be transparent but then you also have to let him know hey i'm on your team we good yeah and then the challenge comes in when he chooses to be transparent how do do you respond or you react because if you go just tell them i'll suck it up deal with like everybody else yo hold on hold on hold on do you respond or do you react exactly because see people don't understand what that mean characters you gotta take them slow what's the difference between responding and reacting so when we react to a situation it's all feelings yes obviously all the emotions process when we respond i'm using logic wisdom processing and then i and there's the thing reacting and responding there's not a big difference in the time yeah it's a proactive thing you have to equip yourself before the situation whether or not you're going to react and respond because if i'm mentally if i'm mentally weak and emotionally immature i'm always going to respond if i'm going to react if i'm mentally tough and emotionally mature i'm going to respond because i'm built like this yeah i'm built like this and so women have to be careful in those situations because that might be that could be the only time he ever does it so let me tell you something it's interesting because in our last episode um and for better for worse that's what my boy jewel said he said in his moment of vulnerability he shared and he never disclosed what he shared but he shared something with his uh with his wife and clearly she reacted and he said i shut down and i said i'll never ever be vulnerable again and people don't understand men are very we're fragile oh we are extremely fragile and sensitive and we will keep a secret until we die and when you have a man open up and share something with you and and even if you can't respond immediately because if you're not equipped to respond to me take a moment and go yeah be quiet just be quiet and take it in and he was like did you hear me yeah i'm just want to make sure that i respond correctly those thank you thank you for sharing that with me thank you shane is a savage man and look shane will persuade you to disconnect yourself and divorce yourself from your destiny shame will tell you because of what you've been through because of what you've done you don't deserve none of that when god says jesus says hey because i died for you before you even hear i pre-qualified you for every blessing that i have ordained for you whoo let's go here to uh ephesians five because this you know and you don't got all into the word so we're gonna just stay there so ephesians 5 and 21 says submit you to one another out of reverence for christ i've never looked at that scripture like that i always heard submit you one to another but it says out of reverence for christ wives submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the lord for the husband is the head of the wife as christ is the head of the church his body of which he is the savior now as the church submits to christ so also wives should submit to their husbands and everything husbands love your wives just as christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy cleansing her by the washing with the water through the word and to present her to himself as a radiant church without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish but holy and blameless i want to stop right here because the bible doesn't even speak about a wife loving her husband because most of the time that's just kind of automatic but it was specific in saying husband love your wife because again back in those days wives were viewed as property you know and a man just like i married her whatever and there's no it's no big she's gonna give me some kids what you couldn't give me a son oh get rid of her let me give me somebody to give me a son like it was just it was so sad that the lord had to put in the bible husbands love your wife like just love her as as as christ loved the church so when you hear that um when you hear that what do you what do you think about ashley when you when the bible says husbands love your wife as christ loved the church i think that's the ideal situation but it also the whole scripture makes me initially think about choosing wisely from the jump you know if when you when the bible clearly tells wives to submit to their husband don't you want to make sure it's the right type of person that you submitted to yes so initially i'm just like man you got to choose this works if you choose the right person but it backfires if you don't yeah yes absolutely yes karen want to say something look at me itching itching i just think that's just so big or she says about choosing um because choosing marriage changes every area of your life yes and you know i talked about earlier on one of my calls but it's like in a lot of cases marriage is like a life-or-death decision in the sense of if you choose to settle for a marriage that doesn't reflect god then you're going to be settling for the rest of your life you choose to say that mean you neglected yourself rejecting yourself not prioritizing yourself creating insecurities creating lack of value creating low self-esteem and you're you're experiencing and living a life of dis-ease which is going to create disease in your body and now you attacking you because of the situation that you chose to be in that you knew wasn't in alignment with the excellence that god ordained for you yeah and i feel like excellence is the perfect word yes having your husband love you like christ loved the church that's an excellent way of doing marriage and it's the only way to do marriage because marriage is a reflection of the relationship between christ and the church yes which is why one of the primary invite pieces advice i give engaged men and husbands king you gotta die yes if you ain't dying you ain't doing it right like you need to be dying every day and just like we as the church trip out of line disrespectful go against god all this type of stuff it's okay for your wife to act like that because she a reflection of you in jesus eyes so for me it's like and here's what i i told a friend this about a month and a half ago even if your wife is being a bad wife like not based on your stance yeah but the expectation given by god that doesn't give you permission to be a bad husband because you didn't create covenant with just her yeah you created covenant with god and because you made a covenant to be a reflection of the sacrifice and the love of his son jesus christ you can't jesus didn't change his love for us when we got the trip because his life is unconditional you're preaching you're preaching you preaching ephesians 5 28 we're going to go a little deeper it says in this same way husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies he who loves his wife loves himself what does that mean to you karen oh this is what i mean by that i'm so glad you said you just started working out again how how i take care of me is going to be a reflection of how i take care of my wife right when we look at when we look at matthew 22 right expert in the law comes to jesus hey what's the most important commandment most important law jesus response was to love god with all your heart my soul spirit and mind strength just as important as this equal love your neighbor as you love yourself exactly right my wife is my neighbor because she's not me therefore in order for me to love her properly i got to love me properly so how am i taking care of me how am i prioritizing me yeah and how am i valuing me and here's the tricky part about it we can be i can put my wife before me all day long but if the source of it is not a healed and healthy place i'm wrong if i'm doing it from a place of insecurity if i'm doing it from a place of feeling lack if i'm doing it from a place of because of the rejection of the neglect that i've gone through i need to feel needed so let me do do do do do you're not loving her properly because it's conditional when i tell you boys i'm getting emotional right now i don't know what you're saying right now that's making me get emotional this is so freaking good thank you karen the holy spirit just followed you up in here and you just you cutting up so here's the thing you didn't hear my prayer anytime i have grateful honor at this opportunity anytime i'm blessed with an opportunity to invest in people whether it be one-on-one clients group or even like this i always pray god minimize me to zero percent maximize you to 100. because carrying to brown is ignorant look i'm gonna put holes in the water look born and raised in oak cliff texas i don't know that's different yeah and so i don't have what people need but god does and the holy spirit does yeah and once i give him permission to take over me i've realized it's just my responsibility to get a position and then give him permission to take over and everything else to be taken care of oh jesus lord jesus oh boy yeah okay oh yeah all right after all no one in verse 29 after all no one ever hated their own body but they feed and care for their body just as christ does a church for we are members of his body and you just touched on that for this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife and the two will become one flesh this is a profound mystery but i am talking about christ in the church so we talk about becoming one flesh what does that look like what does that mean to you ashley man so i remember our the pre-marital counseling that we received they expressed the importance of that first year in cleaving to one another and they say leaving and cleveland yeah leaving and cleaving and to me becoming one flesh is once one staying on one accord having that intentionality of pouring into our relationship so we can stay connected because you mentioned you know that term of growing apart but we want to stay in that place of oneness but i just feel like it's it's such a beautiful place to be in as a couple where you can really say we're one matter of fact when we pulled up today because we drove separate cars he said did you get something to eat i said no he said well you didn't eat nothing i said i ate two bananas and some trail mix he said i ate the same exact thing on the way here so it's just like even those those little moments i'm like see we won yeah yeah and so what i would add to that is this a piece of that is becoming one flesh sex being intimate right because my man td jake said sex was not created for a man and a woman it wasn't created for a man and a man it wasn't created for a woman and a woman it was created for a husband and a wife and so when we talk about that marriage is that from that aspect is being physically intimate becoming one which is why a sexual abstinent is is so valuable yeah but then along with that could you just read that part of the verse as well it said that um i'm gonna go up a little bit so after all no one ever hated their own body but they feed and care for their body just as christ does the church for we are members of his body for this reason the man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife and the two will become one flesh so the sex piece are hunted yeah look i thought that out there yeah but then that cleveland piece is so important because to cleave means to be cemented together yeah and the reason why it's so valuable and it's i think it's funny that it tells the man to leave yeah because we be the ones that be trying to hold on a lot of times and you can't be cleaved to your mama and be clear to your wife it don't work like this ain't gonna work like wifey number one yeah and so like in my book i tell me like that conversation is your responsibility like you need to initiate the conversation with your parents and with your family that hey here's his boundaries boundaries are in place because i'm the if i be me choosing to get married to ashley my mom and them didn't change i changed that's true i made a decision yeah right so because i changed and i've made a decision it's my responsibility to make sure that i implement the boundaries standards expectations necessary that align with that it's not her responsibility to talk to my family and say hey me and cairns are getting married these are the boundaries what it's my responsibility and it's necessary because when we talk about marriage reflecting christ in the church that's all about choosing one another in oneness marriage is about choosing one another in oneness right richer for poor better or worse sickness and all of that yeah all of that who lord jesus oh lord i'm so man i'm i'm so full right now lord jesus uh i love when it says this is a profound mystery a profound mystery and that's why i say a lot of people don't really get marriage because people look at marriage as being such a negative thing sometimes and the way the culture is women are like i don't need to give have a man to have a child i can just go you know get artificial insemination and i can have my own kid i can be we start finding these uh these these loopholes and i call it hacks life hacks yeah and be like i'm gonna find this i can get a kid this way i can do this and it's all this crazy stuff and i'll be like well how's that working out for you because if you really got it the right way and it was done in the order that god it's nothing you can't beat that you know and the reason why you don't do it that way is because you say well that there's no guarantee that that will work either so you go i can go and fix it and make you know do whatever i want to do yeah and it's like so how's that working out for you you know what i'm saying because now your kid growing up oh who's my daddy i don't know you just came from a test tube that's just what it was and it's like that's not that's not cool uh i want to add this however each one of you must also love his wife as he loves himself and the wife must respect her husband i love how that ends on 33 because the number one need for a man is respect and man looks at respect as love and so the way you love a man is by respect uh man i'll be like i just want you to love me more i want you to love me more they say i want you to respect me very rarely when you hear a man say just love me love they just don't want to say well you love me a man said respect me uh so when you hear that ashley empowers then when you hear that as um the number one need for a man of course that's no aha moment for you is respect how do you feel that you respecting your husband has cultivated the best version of himself because what we're looking at uh carrington going in like he's going in is because you're providing the space that that you provided him to flourish so so so how do you feel that your respect has uh fostered this type of environment in your marriage that's such a great question honestly respect to me goes back because we were touching on well is this do we touch on honor kind of goes hand in hand yeah yeah yeah but i feel like one i haven't always been perfect at being the most respectful wife but what i just get so many revelations on how i can become a better one right and for me growing up with not a present male father figure in my life on a consistent basis i notice that sometimes my lack of respect for men or certain types of men hinders my ability to receive from them so if i don't respect you i'm literally not i can't even hear you pick a i can't hear you and so with my husband i am intentional about if if there's anything that will hinder my respect because i know how respect will change my posture lack of respect yes i'm very i'll communicate hey you doing stuff like this and as my vision of a man or you know x y and z i'm very good at communicating it which helps me get a better understanding and increases my level of respect and so again i it keeps going back to choosing wisely yes before you marry someone you can see the fruit of the type of person they are carrington i said we met on instagram searched them on facebook i remember pulling up a post on facebook and i'm like you know doing a little snooping i'm looking at the comments and he's ministering to people in the comments so i'm like okay this is interesting so carrington his words his actions it all aligned lines up so it's very easy to respect him but if someone is struggling with respecting someone especially in the dating phase it you have to understand that's on that lack of respect is just going to grow in your marriage but i would say choose wisely and understanding that if there's things that would cause you to lose respect that you communicate it quickly so it's not something that's growing to infect the marriage over time in a negative way go and jump in on this character before we close up well that communication piece is so big because like i've you know we talked about earlier when with the submission piece about you know i haven't been the perfect husband made all the best decisions which played a role in submission you know and we talk about respect it's the same thing and so we look at choosing your spouse as a woman you need to be intentional about choosing a man who you can have that tough conversation with if he's not doing what he needs to be doing in order to to assist you in providing your respect and giving your respect to the extent that you want to you might need to second guess that but you know as you touched on respect is love yes and i and i just want to i'm not going i'm a backpack a little bit because i want to touch on something you said a second ago about the myth this is the mystery of marriage yes i think it's so interesting that it says it because one it's a reminder and an indicator that hey all mysteries aren't hidden but the real the real the real truth that makes a mystery a mystery is not that it's hidden but more so an individual's ability to understand and accept it and so when we talk no no hold on you got to look yeah they're taking us too fast yeah let it breathe just marinate a little bit all right continue so the real key and the real piece to a mystery of being a mystery is an individual's ability to comprehend it to understand it and be open-minded enough and mentally mature enough to be able to say okay i'm wrong yes let me adjust my perspective and my beliefs to what i realize is true and right yeah and now let me walk in this no matter how uncomfortable it is for me and no matter who's going to say something about it oh there it is you know what you know i can talk to y'all all day y'all just pouring into me is blessing me i'm getting emotional i don't know why i'm getting emotional i'm going to talk to god about that but why am i about to cry while i'm listening to this episode um well i know what it is it's because i got married the first time i was married two weeks shy of 10 years but i never understood the gravity of what marriage was supposed to spring forth i never understood what these vows meant so it's so intentional that god would say hey as you're on this journey to discover uncover and recover love for yourself i want you to take a couple of steps back i want you to unpack what these marriage vows actually mean and then most couples that are brought on here they you know they'd be like i've we said these vows but we really didn't understand what they meant they never looked at the uh where these marriage vows derive from you know they're just like okay it was just great and most people they wrote their own or whatnot uh but they never understood that this is an oath that they're taking and and an oath that's not to be taken lightly you know and it is supposed to be till death do us part but oftentimes because we have you know the way the laws are set up if i don't want to be with you anymore i can say all right i'm divorcing you irreconcilable differences it don't have to be no infidelity just i just don't like you i just don't like you irreconcilable differences instead of saying if you don't like them like okay but you liked them before can we go back to what made you marry them in the first place let's unpack that let's heal that no i ain't got time for all that this is other i just i don't have time for this let's get a divorce um and so that's why god has been so intentional to unpack these marriage vows and really get to the heart of what this truly means what god's word has to say about it and when i say y'all i just want to thank y'all because y'all ugh i'm full right now i'm gonna watch this episode about two three times just to take notes myself because this was so powerful so uh listen y'all have a very thriving youtube channel how can people find y'all so i'm at ashley empowers on everything and i'm at the carrington brown d carrington brown i want y'all to do y'all y'all the intro y'all be doing on y'all videos do it dude the i mean which one you want the 802 yeah yeah we started off with the 802 game time so we'll do that yeah what's happening beautiful people and welcome back to my wife's channel ashley and powers i'm ashley and i'm carrickton and you tuned in to another episode of 802 game time i'll be like when i watch y'all like that's just the perfect little youtube couple they just they're just so youtube-ish you know it's like this youtube thing that people have it is so dope so i love it i love it i love it i love it i love it uh listen so um youtube channel y'all have y'all still just have the one channel have you spun off and did your own channel so i have a channel it's carried to brown and i'm talking about dating relationships and then a lot of mental health stuff as well good that's my lane i like well i'm gonna put i'll put links to both of y'all sites and yours is ashley and powers and so i'm gonna put the links on uh in the description for both of the youtube channel and social media handles great couple to follow great individuals to get to know um man i just thank y'all so much for blessing the the viewers and the listeners on the dear future wifey podcast thank y'all so much y'all give it up for my new homies yo y'all my new homies y'all like y'all um my new homies carrington and ashley thank you guys appreciate it thank you y'all be blessed man i hope you found value in this episode man the browns were absolutely phenomenal i mean gosh i just thank god for providing these amazing guests that are pouring in into me i just thank god for that hey listen you'll see this shirt that i got on god is my publicist make sure that you purchase this shirt at dearfuturewifey.com y'all hear me refer to that slogan a lot saying that god is my publicist god is the one that grew this podcast to almost 60 000 subscribers and a little over a year because he's my publicist and if you believe god is your publicist then go ahead and represent it to the world here's my favorite part of the podcast where i speak to my future wifey that's what's up dear future wifey i will never abuse my position as head of our household i will handle you with care and provide the love stability and covering only god can instruct me to furnish for our family ministry begins with you the manifestation of my pre-work and healing is you you are god's promise to me i will love and cherish you the bible says whatever is true whatever is noble whatever is right whatever is pure whatever is lovely whatever is admirable if anything is excellent or praiseworthy think about such things that's how i will cherish you i will harbor you in my mind deeply and resolutely this marriage vow series is god loving me through research is god loving us by helping me build a foundation on its principles before our i do's so we'll have reference to withstand the test of times i love you your future hubby thank you for listening to the dear future wifey podcast remember be lit live intentionally and transparently and don't stop loving make sure to subscribe to our dear future wifey youtube channel we're available on apple podcast google podcast spotify and stitcher we welcome your support simply share our podcast with your friends and family

Channel: Dear Future Wifey

Views: 23,393

Rating: 4.9647264 out of 5

Keywords: dallas, love, podcast, relationships, black love matters, black men, Christianity, healing, weddings, marriage

Id: ByNFWcQhkz8

Length: 80min 35sec (4835 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 15 2021