What I Wish I'd Known Before Marriage

dr. Gary Chapman is author of number one New York Times bestseller 5 love languages I'm sure you've read it and I want to tell you a few more things about him that you might not know he is senior associate pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in winston-salem North Carolina he's director of marriage and family life consultants for 35 years he's been counseling couples I think many of them dr. Chapman have found marriage was more than anticipated I think most of us discover that marriage is more than we anticipated how many years have you been married 51 married when I was 9 years old and I want to count your grandchildren we have two grandchildren a little girl 14 and grandson 12 I see you with a picture of him here and I'm sure you're enjoying this season very much yep we we are enjoying our grandchildren you've brought us so much practical wisdom about relationships and especially marriage but this is too fun things I wish I'd known before we got married now is that the Royal we are is that you that's me you know for a long time I have wanted to write a book to singles now a lot of married couples are reading this book but I really wrote it for singles to say here are things that I know now that had I known before we got married would have made our marriage much easier because my wife and I had a lot of struggles in the early years of our marriage so what I'm trying to do is to help young people get ready you know the reality is we spend more time preparing for our vocation than we do preparing for marriage and maybe that's why we're more successful in our vocation than we are in our marriages so I'm just trying to give some practical help and saying to singles here's some things you need to learn before you get married and I'm hoping it's going to help them have less conflicts and struggles that we had in our and you know we know it's a 50% divorce rate you point out it's usually within the first seven years so these bumps in the road can really be Dee railing yeah I think people often give up before they really get started but I believe in one of the things I'm singing this book is the time to prepare for marriage it's not after you get engaged that's what we're doing mainly in the churches we take people when they get engaged and then we do premarital counseling they already have their plans and they've already got it all and they don't need it it's gonna be wonderful they think the time to start I speak on a lot of college campuses and I say the time to start preparing for marriage is now maybe you're a freshman maybe you're not even dating but you need to be getting ready if you ever hope to get married here are some things you need to learn and you can learn a lot of these things even before you're dating so I'm hoping that we'll start moving down the road and helping people prepare for marriage long before they get engaged in love we should all understand it's not an adequate foundation I didn't know romantic love had two stages I didn't know I read your book you know I think most people in her marriage they're in love you know my wife and I were in love I mean it's wonderful it's euphoric you know they're just the most wonderful person you've ever met in your life and it's gonna be wonderful you know it's gonna be wonderful you you just you love each other everything's wonderful it's been so easy and you think it's gonna be that way forever what I didn't know is that the average lifespan of the obsession is two years and my wife and I had been dating for two years before we got married so we came down off the high rather soon after the honeymoon and I was disillusioned because nobody told me that nobody told me that I would come down off the high and I would begin to see things in her I didn't like because I didn't see those before and she saw things in me she didn't like I wasn't prepared for that and I'm trying to say to young people look this is temporary it's wonderful to be in love the doctor fine that's right it's right but but there are two stages that stage is easy you're pushed along with the emotions but once you come down you have to move into the second stage of love which is much more intentional and requires much more effort I'm impressed that you kept the word romantic in there at all yeah well because I think it's important you know I think we can have a romantic relationship romance has to do with warm emotions toward each other excitement about each other and we can keep that alive but we have to learn to speak each other's love language and in that chapter I give a brief recap of the five love language which is that we all have a different love language and typically a couple represents two different sets that's right my language for example is words of affirmation if my wife will tell me good things about me I'm a happy man her language on the other hand is acts of service if I help her if I do the dishes if I vacuum the floors if I take out the trash could I quote you if I had known that taking out the garbage was sexy for my wife I would have been taking out the garbage twice a day you know it was a long ways into our marriage before we discover this concept for ourselves then what makes one person feel loved doesn't make another person feel loved and when we rant when we get married we come down off the high we still love each other and we're expressing love but we're typically speaking our own language so for me I gave my wife words of affirmation I told her how nice she looked I told her how much I appreciated what she did I probably told her a dozen times a day I love you honey I love you honey but after a while because I wasn't helping her around the house they were just words just words you know and she said to me you know you keep saying I love you I love you if you love me why don't you help me and I was blown out of the saddle you know because in my mind I was loving her in her mind if I loved her I'd be helping her it was a huge huge insight for us it points to the need to become a student of your spouse which you always emphasize now you don't just marry a wonderful partner you marry a family yeah now how many people own that before they move into life together I think most couples think we're gonna be together we're gonna ride out in the West together I'm gonna set a little house together it's just gonna be the two of us and I say I wish I'd known that I was marrying into a family she has a mother and a daddy she has brothers and sisters she may have a stepmother and a stepfather she has uncles and aunts you're marrying into that family and she is marrying into your family that's why I say two couples early on if you think there's any chance you're gonna get married spend time with each other's families get to know what's there find out about her uncle George that's always messing up every party they have you know Oh find out about this because he's gonna be there in your life and so realize that you're marrying into a family and you're gonna have to relate to them you can have a long-distance relationship with them you can have a close relationship it can be good it can be bad but you're gonna have a relationship and you ought to be thinking about that before you get married I love that you end the chapters well it's called talking it over again ideally for those contemplating marriage even if you don't have a significant other you talk about dating here if there is someone on the scene you can start to process some of this stuff with the questions that you provided another great tool yeah yeah I have a whole section at the back of the book on how to build a healthy dating relationship you're the purpose of dating is to get to know the other person and many times we don't even explore areas of life we don't explore for example the intellectual area what kind of books do you read you know and let's read a book together let's discuss some ideas and we don't discuss emotions how well do you handle your anger or how well the what do you do when you're really really happy how do you how do you process pain that you withdraw and want to suffer alone or do you want to talk about it so you know asking questions about the intellectual the emotional the spiritual you know where does your heart lie even even Christians are not all marching to the beat of the same drummer you know some are Sunday morning Christians and some are daily devotional Christians huge difference between those two so exploring the roots of the relationship the spiritual and the social the social area what do you like to do you know maybe he's into sports cars you know in the racing whole racing industry and it makes no sense to you why anybody would watch cars running around in an oval you know what is she into what does she like to do and I don't mean you have to have all the same interests but you have to be willing to enter into that because you're going to be married and so you have to you have to say okay then you know you hear a lot about golf widows for example which means he's playing golf every Saturday and she feels like she's a widow well you could have known that before you got married yeah and if that's not what you want then you know you you you negotiate and work that out I'm not telling you something you don't know dr. chaplain me that the moral compass has been demagnetized by moral relativism and some watching would feel that really the best way to make sure things are going to work out well is to live together first - it seems to be being embraced even by Christians yeah well it seems logical you know if we live together we'll get some experience and we can find out if it works but we've done research now for 20 years on people living together before they get married the divorce rate is higher for couples who live together before they get married part of the reason is you cannot simulate marriage marriage is a commitment but when you live together you both know you're not committed I've heard couples say to each other you know he said well now look we're not married like don't expect so much of me we're not married you're they know there's not a commitment there and they know that if any day either one of them can walk out of the relationship you can't simulate marriage and and so consequently what seems to be logical in reality simply doesn't work if you break God's laws they will break you holder's so much more I'm so thankful would you have another segment because these are such meaningful illustrations and you've made so many of them fun dr. Chapman thank you so let me tell you first of all things I wish I'd known before we got married is that our East or and we'll have more on tomorrow's program

Channel: 100huntley

Views: 392,093

Rating: 4.8988838 out of 5

Keywords: interview, huntleystreet, jul-22-13, HS9418, 100huntley, christian, love, marriage, relationships, communication, wisdom, singleness, divorce, dating, affirmation, family, living together, logic, divorce rate, commitment

Id: 6y4rC67RoRY

Length: 11min 45sec (705 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 23 2013