Making Marriage Work, I CHOOSE YOU! .. Part 2

We still talking marriage yall!

I am back again with my brother and sis in love. Over 20 years of experiences with each other in dating, marriage and family. 

Is the 7 year marriage itch a real thing? Do we settle for whatever state our marriage is in after a certain number of years?  How should a man resist the temptation to "step outside" of his marriage for physical pleasure. 

Listen up! THIS IS GOOD!!!

Transcript

0:11

Well, hello to you is you basking all of your beauty and purpose. Welcome back to my podcast. Well, damn, what next? I'm your host Cassandra. AKA tall lady C Y'all. I got my voice back. Thank you, Jesus. I'm feeling so much better. Last podcast was part one of making marriage work. I choose you. Today's episode it's a continuation, so it's gonna be part two. However, before we get into that, I wanted to interject. A few things. We ended the previous episode talking about finances and, the advice given was, okay, assess your situation, figure out what works for you, you wanna make sure everyone is comfortable and there's an agreement. Well, I wanted to, um, speak on something a little bit more specific. I believe the best way to deal with household marital finance is to split the bills based on the percentage. Of your total income. For example, I'm going to use easy numbers. If your total household income is$100,000 a year and she makes 60% of the income the husband makes 40% of the income, then I believe you should put all of your bills in a pot and say, alright, the bills. Are$3,000 a month, 60% of that 3000 needs to be paid by the wife because she makes. You know, 60% of the overall income and then 40% by the husband. And the reason I believe that works is because nowadays in a lot of situations you find that women make more money than their. Husbands or their mates. That can lead to a lot of issues and insecurity. And then, sometimes women will feel like no matter what you make, you still need to pay the mortgage or you still need to pay the majority of the bills. That also leads to a lot of confusion and, issues in the marriage. So if you split it. By proportion of income that makes the male the husband, feel like he is doing his fair share. And the same thing for the woman I. And again, hey, this is all subjective. Everybody has their own opinion. What works for one may not work for the other. And then some people might say, well, why would we take advice from someone who's not married or who's marriage wasn't successful? Well, I heard this on Tyler Perry show one of the ladies said, it's best to take advice from someone whose marriage didn't work because they've made all the mistakes. It is best to listen because sometimes you can get good advice from those people, they know what not to do. But anyway, I digress and we're gonna get into part two of making marriage work. I choose you. Would you say y'all have more of a traditional marriage? Or would you say it's 50 50 everybody does what needs to be done. I would say that it, if you want to look at the world view of traditional, I guess it is. It definitely helps out, but I have more leeway. For me to a lot of the cleaning, the cooking and, And you OCD. And then, yeah, I like it too. I like things to be, a certain way. So, yeah, I guess in that way, in that sense it is. He handles like all of the outside stuff, all the stuff with the cars. he does, make sure I got gas and stuff. He handles all of that, in the finances, like he runs that. You make sure everything's done in the house, everything you make in the house, the home and you making sure everything else is taken care of. Yes. It's working together. I would say your point that I think you nailed it saying it's in society's ideas traditionally. Right. There could be times where, hey, a woman could be, to have to work 120 hours a week and their husband could be at home and they could do the same thing. I think you've got to make it work. I think it is. Go back to again your situation. It depends on the situation and what people's jobs are, what your spouse is doing. Like you were saying, because you work from home, you have the ability because you're there a lot. Sometimes it's vice versa. Sometimes the woman is in that position and she has a power broker job. Right. She's working X amount of hours and the husband takes that role of, I'm here. I'm gonna run the kids here. I'm gonna take care of the house. Because when she get home, she exhausted, she don't have time to do that. Maybe he is the person that's cooking them. Maybe they order takeout. I just think you gotta, your situation, you gotta make sure whatever your situation is that you're doing a fair thing. Now listen, this is one of the things that I've had issues with. Do you make Nathan's plate and do you make his before you make the kids? I say majority of the time I make his plate. And majority, do you make it before? I know, I mean I know the kids are older now, but when you had to make their plates and stuff, did you make his first or did you feed the kids first? I guess it depends on the day. I don't know. It's not a Just an normal day, y'all. Sunday dinner. You cook dinner. Okay, dinner's ready. Are you making Nathan's plate, putting it on the table, then making the kid's plate? Or are you making sure the kids are fed first and then your husband? A lot of the times I bring his plate first. Okay, and you do that why? I always have, I don't know. Why? He's obviously, he's the man of the house. Yeah. So, I like to serve him in that way. I like to have served him in that way and I've done it for many years. I'm asking that question for a reason because I know a lot of women do that, and there's always been this, this thing. Do you feed your kids first or do you feed your man first? Comes into play when you have blended families. Like if you have, say you and Nathan didn't have any children together and you had like three kids, okay, your kids, it's time for dinner. Are you going to feed your man, your husband, give him his plate, then feed your kids later? It's just, that has always just been this big thing. Our parents were always like 50 50 pretty much and my mom didn't do that. My mom didn't cook and give my dad his plate. Like my dad was always like with both of my parents. The general consensus was our kids are first. Our kids are always first and that's just how I grew up and that's what I saw. And that whole making the plate thing, I'll do it every now and then. But that was never in the forefront of my mind. to make my plate for my husband. And not that he didn't deserve it. Not that he wasn't the head of the household. Sometimes we were just a product of our environment. I never saw that. I can agree with that. I, cause my, cause growing up, my mother did. Yeah. See, I saw that and she always he's the head. Even when we would sit in at the table together in the dining room and we would He, his seat was always the head, in, even now to this day, fast forward, if we do a dinner together, it's. Nate is to sit at the other head because that's your husband, he's head of y'all's house he's gonna always sit at this end And then my husband's gonna sit at this end as the men of you always saw reverence and respect Submission to a degree for your husband. Yeah, Okay. Shout out to my favorite mother in law. That makes sense. But I will add to that. And I saw this on TV the other day, Marla Gibbs had did an interview and she made a point on that because the ladies around her, they were in a round robin, I guess, questionnaire or whatever. And she made a point to say it's very important for, and I'm just giving y'all a man's perspective because it hit home and I was like, dang, I do enjoy that. She was like, That it's important for a woman to make their man's plate like, Oh, wow, she was like, because as a black man, your husband is out facing this world and everybody's beating down on him every day,. When he comes home, You want that place to be his place of securities where you build him up and just doing that, believe it or not, makes him feel like a king. And from a guy's point of view, I can tell you, it makes us feel great when you do that. She was saying, I can't stop how society treating him in the world. I can't do that. But what I can do, I can make his plate. I can make him feel like a king when he here in my house. I can do that for him. She said, that's why I do it. She was like, people always be like telling you shouldn't do that. She said, I take pleasure in doing it because I want my man to feel like that. I can't control how the world going to beat him down. I can't control if you get pulled over by the cops and they do whatever. But when he here, I can make him feel like a king by that small thing. Cause I got to pick some plates anyway. But if I give him his first, You're going to feel like a king. I was like, dang, that was good. That's awful. That was good. But let me go one. Let me go one further on that. Okay. You make Nathan's plate because he deserves it. He's a good man. He's a good, he's a great father. He's a good husband. what if you had, well, of course you, you learn from the best, but what if you had a situation where, he wasn't the spouse that you needed him to be. He barely worked, he wasn't involved in your children's lives the way he should, he wasn't necessarily trustworthy I've been, women's conferences and retreats and things like that. And they would say, You go ahead and you sew into that man even if things are not the way you want them to be. But that's hard. It's hard to be reverencing a man and fixing his plate and making him feel like a king and he hadn't had a job in a year. Not because he can't get one, but because he just too lazy. Or you just found out there's some indiscretion and fidelity there and you don't want to make his plate. You want to spit in it, you know what I mean? I'm just being real. You don't want to, you don't want to serve that man a plate. I'm transparent. When people say, Oh, you're not doing this for your man. You're not doing that and that's why this net's not working. A lot of times women don't do certain things because They know who that person really is or maybe they have a move past something that they've done or something they're not doing. It is hard to be that wife to a man who is not being that husband to you. If he were not doing all the things, maybe if he wasn't the person that he is, would you, can you honestly say you'd be doing all those things? You know me. Come on now. I know that. But I was trying to get confirmation. I know, I'm big on respect. as long as you are loving me like I need to be loved and respecting me, then I'm going to have the utmost respect for you. You know what I'm saying? And I want to treat you and I want to serve you if you're loving me and treating me like you, you should. Yeah. I agree with y'all on that though. Yeah. If the guys are making you feel covered and making you feel protected. Then, yeah, you're probably not going to want to do that. Yeah. But I'm just saying, I have heard many people say, okay, go ahead and sew into that situation. Yeah. Because maybe it will turn out to be what you desire versus what it is now. How long do you wait? And that's what I'm saying. My last situation, you're not doing what you're supposed to do. It's difficult for me to just honor you the way I should honor you submit to you the way I should submit to you because you're not loving me as Christ love the church. You're not doing the things that you are supposed to do. That's very difficult for a woman who has, even though I didn't see it, I don't mind doing it, but it has to be a good, healthy. Situation. Not saying we're not going to argue. Not saying we're not going to have spats, but if you just downright not doing what you need to be doing, you really don't need to expect anything from me. What would they have a trouble with it? Cause they look at it like a servant type. Yeah. Oh yeah. I don't look at it like that. Well you don't look at it like that because one, that's how you grew up until your husband deserves it. There's that's those are the reasons why, I mean I've seen people that have deserving husbands and still don't man like I can't get a, my home cooked meal in the refrigerator cold, you know what I'm saying? They be out there working and. They looking like, why would you not? And it may be because you didn't that woman didn't see it or maybe that she feels like it makes her small and you know what I'm saying? But to me, You have to know your worth as a woman also. Then why would I feel that way? Get your pride out of it. You know what I'm saying? Right. Because I can give you a million things that he doing for me that he does to make me feel covered and made me feel like a queen To my point, every woman don't have that testimony, what would you do now that you're 20 years in, Can you think of something that you would have done differently sooner? Like maybe things that you do now, maybe the way you resolve conflict, is there something maybe you were doing from the beginning that you like, I wish I hadn't done it that way. If I knew then what I know now, I would have automatically started out doing things this way. Oh, hindsight is always there. that's what a lot of stuff, you can go back and be like, man, But I know nothing just in general, I feel like, going in before you go on into a marriage, there should be a lot, people stress communication, but it really is that absolutely. People don't take that as serious as it should be. if I could do anything, I would definitely communicate more. I will communicate more because people don't realize conversations you have. And mind you, we dated four and a half years before we got married. Conversations you have prior to marriage about things and expectations and how you want things to look and what your vision is, Everything should be laid out on a table and there should be some type of consensus. Even if it's not completely agreed, it should be, okay, well let's meet in the middle somewhere and figure out how we're going to do it going forward. Because if you don't do that, every, all of that stuff going to show up in your marriage. What would you got to fight it the whole way. What would you say to some people communicate and agree and say they're going to do certain things just to get to that matrimony and then, it's completely different. People say that all the time. They can. They can definitely do that. But if the conversations are started from the beginning when it gets serious, you got some time because you're still dating. What I'm saying? You got some time because that's, to me, that's what, how you get to the point of marriage. You gotta show me, what I'm saying? I gotta be able to see what it is when your back is against the wall. I gotta be able to see you, when the closet door finally come open. I gotta be able to see it. How many bones? How many bones? How many skeletons we got in there? I'm just saying, you can keep it closed for a while, right? But eventually, eventually that's not gonna tip over. Right. What I'm saying? And we need to know if bodies come out. Yeah. Body parts. We got a whole body, we got body parts. This mask falling from the shelf. Like, we need to see what, who, what mask on. Oh, who you wearing? Is it the devil? Is it Lucifer? What we got, What we got going on? you guys think it's important to date a long time before you marry? Now what I think that is in subjective some people could say long time is 10 years. Four years is a long time to date before marriage. Yeah, but not, you guys were younger. When you're younger, you date four or five years. And some people meet in college and they don't marry. I mean, I think it's important, like he was saying, just because when you dated that person, because you haven't locked in yet, And you do run into a situation where you get to see how they act when they don't have a bad day. You get to see how they act when they get disappointed, you get to see how they act when they lose somebody. When the money low and when the kids act up, you see all that before you walk down the aisle and then you have a choice you can make like, ah, I don't like how they felt when that happened. Maybe you give them grace. Then it happens again. They showing you, showing you who they are. You can make a choice and say, Hey, this is not the path I want to go down. So, yeah, I think it's important, as subjective how long you want to, but I think at least. I say four or five years. That's what I think is a good sweet spot. But I mean, Hey, I think when you over 40, four or five years, it's a long time. That's why I'm saying too, it's subjective. But at time you're not young anymore. You've probably been married before. You have some idea of what to look for, what to shy away from, what you're going to put up with, what you're not going to put up with. Yeah. You don't necessarily have to go that long. Let me flip it back to that question. I would probably say for me, if I could turn back the hands of time, I would be calmer and change my temperament more when I was in my twenties to move my 40 year old temperament to my 20. I would say that too, because you used to be, I could do that. I feel like my communication because you get a yellow head, but I'll tell you killing it. Communication is key. I know people say that all the time. It sounds cliche, but it really is true. And when you don't have the right temperament, that makes that more difficult. Not saying you can't still communicate, but it's hard. It makes it more difficult. When you have the right temperament, you know how you can talk to someone. They just gonna receive it. Sometime when you say something, somebody's gonna shut their ear off if you don't say it right. It's just, they're not gonna hear you. You're talking, but you're really just talking to yourself. They ain't trying to hear you. You don't hear the nerve, you don't say something. At this point, they seeing red. Whatever you saying after that, they ain't trying to hear it. I would say for me, if I could change anything, that's my one thing I would change. Let me go back and take my 40 year old temperament and put it in. Then I think a lot of times the communication barriers will be lower, the conversations will be shorter, they will be more productive. I know you said that when you got married you took it seriously. I think for the most part, most people when they get married, they are expecting it to be long term. Okay. But then we get to four or five years and we got kids by now, we're trying to buy a house by now. Our finances may or may not be good. Maybe we spending time together, maybe we not. But when do you feel like you settled in and you were like, I'm in it. I'm, I'm staying no matter what. I don't know if you ever settle into marriage. I think you settle into marriage. I think you get to a point where it's like, I am going to be in this no matter what. I think that's settling in. cause things can happen. I don't know if I would use the word settling into marriage because You is constant, like literally every single day you wake up, it's a commitment to Sam Stan every single day. You really can't say, 10 years Oh, that's it. Because. But you don't always do that. That's my point. Sometimes in the first few years, you're ready to go. I can't do this. Everybody don't wake up in the first few years saying, I'm committed. some days they wake up for a few years and they're like, I can't do this no more. I don't know. I'll speak for myself. Never happened. Never happened. You were in the minority. Because like to me, then I have to say, where was it for real for you then? Because again, regardless of how I'm turning inside out, because I got some stuff I got to work on and you calling me on it when I'm faced with a marriage, it really is. It's bringing my stuff to the forefront and see how I feel like a lot of people don't want to face that. It started, you start getting nervous, like backing up, like, well, it ain't me, it ain't me. No, but you really do need to look, it is you, not saying it's all you, but it is you. But I'm saying they'd rather be out. They'd rather be out than have to put their work in. Yeah. That's what I said, they was never for real then. Okay. You might thought you was, oh, it look good, oh, this is cool. But that's not what it's about though, I was never in a situation where I was like, I'm running, what I, no, it's, it's now the immaturity was there for sure. And I'm like, to myself, like, I got to, you got to grow up. You got to grow up, but it was never on, no, well, I could just be out then. I'm tired of arguing. Oh, I don't, I'm not going to do this. You know, yeah. Yeah. Everybody gets mad. You go through stuff and you may say some things like, I, I, I, let's just, we can just be over, you know what I'm saying? Type of situation. That's not life. It's immature. What I'm saying? But you don't really mean it. You just mad. You immature, you're immature. You got to learn how to do that. Settling into it. It's just like that should have been from the time you walked down that road. Yeah, it should have been. And for me, I can say from a guy point of view that, I felt that way. For me, I wouldn't have gotten married if I didn't already feel that way. That's why I say, when people say love at first sight is not correct. I feel like you're going to have a passion at first sight, right? I had an inkling and then, as you date and that's time go by again, just like we just talked about, they show you who they are, you go through experiences with them or whatever. But during that whole time, like I was saying in the beginning. I felt like I don't want to see this woman hurt. I love her. I have a passion for her. I want to show her that I can be a leader. I want to show her that I can, take care of her. I felt like that before we walked down the aisle. I just feel like when you walk down the aisle and you get married, which I know I would be remiss if I didn't bring it up, you touched on it too, that you bringing God into that point. Which is a covering you need, right? Like when you get married, I think, I feel like that God's going to watch over your marriage if you're doing the right things and introduce you to stuff and bless you with stuff that you wouldn't necessarily have. I don't want to be cliche and say living in sin, but I just think that you wouldn't really necessarily have by dating, we being transparent. You date and of course you're going to be having sex, but when you're married, I feel like that's the purpose of where, okay, boom, now you really walking in your purpose and God's gonna open up many doors for you. You feel like you're going to have favor in that union. Boom. I couldn't say it that good. I love it. Just like that. you don't ever settle because for me it was work from day one. Once I figured out, okay, This is the one I'm working from that point on like they say, I'm like, I'm getting up every day, like, boom, I got to figure out how I'm gonna make this woman happy. How am I going to put us in this position? How am I going to do this? That was my thing. Okay. I'm going to do this. I want to, us to start doing this more and ain't always gotta be, a huge situation where you're just, you don't have to be a grand gesture, but you're waking up every day, trying to be, you wake up every day and choose each other. Exactly. Every single day. Every single day. And if you're not doing that, then you're not putting the work in and it's going to be hard. I'm not saying it can't work. But it's going to be harder to make it harder to work. There's much temptation out there. How do you avoid all that temptation? And then how do you, what advice would you give to the man that's thinking, the grass is green on the other side. I can have all this. she younger, she this, she that. And I'm just going to throw away what I have because my wife ain't cooking. She ain't cleaning. She don't look like she used to look. I'm just going to move past it. A lot of women, they target married men. They won't merit men. Yeah. And I'm sure a lot of that is eliminate it with y'all because you do much together. That's another reason why couples need to have that togetherness. Because when you have a man that's out by himself all the time, you opening the doors to a whole lot of stuff that you would not ordinarily have to deal with. Yeah. I'm gonna say the right things. I don't want to sleep on the couch. no, I mean you hit a nail on the head a little bit. Like I think for me, two things though. It started with the guy. It doesn't matter. I'm going to be honest. If you don't choose, if the guy doesn't make that choice to say, Hey, I don't want to step out on my marriage. It could happen. I'm just throwing stuff out. They could be at seven 11. They could be at the grocery store. They could be at Popeye's. They could be at the church. Like you go run into him. It don't matter what steps you take not to, And you're going to run into temptation no matter where you're at. So, especially now with online and media, you have to make that choice. And if the guy don't make that choice, you do it from the beginning. But if you make that choice, I say you have to supplement that with putting yourself in the right position, meaning that to your point, you don't go out and. Hang out at the club in the strip club every Friday and Saturday night because you put yourself in an environment That's conducive to you making bad decisions I'm saying that you're gonna make them but you're putting yourself in a position to make bad decisions. You're not gonna go on a guy's trip for seven days to a place where You're gonna be with just your guys and they're gonna be around a bunch of girls and your woman out there This is what you put yourself in you set yourself up for failure You're a human too. Once you make that choice, yes, you have to make a choice. But if you don't supplement it with making good decisions and putting yourself in the right environments, you still don't fail. For me, that's what I do. I made the decision because I don't want to see my wife hurt. I take my marriage seriously, try to put myself in positions where I'm not putting myself in environments where I can make bad decisions. And that's not saying you can't go anywhere. Have you gotten rid of all your single friends? No, that's what I'm saying. I'm not saying you can't go anywhere. You just use discretion. I'll give you a perfect example. Instead of going to, I'm dating myself, but instead of going to Cadaver's, on Friday night or Saturday night and hanging out until two in the morning, you could potentially go to the bar downtown and, watch a game from one to four. And go home. You're not even out at night. You're just hanging out. You still can spend time with your single friend. You just spend it in a different environment. That may be difficult for them. Right? You may lose a little bit of the connection because they may want to still be in that environment that they single. They like, shoot, I want to be here. It's more, it's better for me. I'm still trying to find somebody. That's what they're thinking. They have to make a choice to respect your marriage. That's the thing too. If they respect your union and respect what you trying to do, right? They have to understand, they're going to make room for you in their life in a new way, but you have to make those decisions because if you don't, I'm not saying that you definitely don't fail, but it's like, it's the high likelihood because like you say, I believe that sometimes people put preachers on a pedestal. Men are flesh first. Yes, 100%. First, 100%. I don't care what you're doing in this society. You're a man, flesh first. That's why I wanted to ask that question, just to take it a step further, in my mind, what helps me as well, that was one, two, this third thing that helped me I have to understand that women go through this to stay, you 19, 11, 12 years old. Even when they're in elementary school, the guys giving them notes, choose me. Yes or no guys, chase women more than they are hunters by nature. Has the fortitude and respect you, but she got her hair wrapped up at the gas station, going there to grab us a drink. And the guy trying to holla at what's up, mom, let me yell at you. If she can shut them down, you can at least have the same respect. You're a woman getting hollered at. If you hollered at five girls, if your woman wants to go out in the same spot, It's weird. 10 guys will holler at her and she has the ability to shut them down. If they really in a relationship or truly about you, they're going to shut all those guys down. Some guys get hollered at twice and they faint. Two women hollering at them, they fall right for it. Women shut down guys all the time. You have to look for me. Yes and no. In this day society, I believe there's one man to like eight women. Nowadays, women are in men's DMs. You've been out of date. They in their DMs. I mean, women these days are desperate for a man. I'm serious. And yeah, an attractive woman is going to get hit on. Absolutely. Even an unattractive woman. Some men just are hunters by nature. But what I'm saying is women nowadays, Oh, they own it. Trust and believe men are getting hit on more than women now because women are like, I want you, this is what I'm gonna do for you. I'm gonna take you from your wife. I'm taking from your girl. It's like this whole competition because they don't want to be alone and they know there's a shortage of men There's the married men, there's the DL men, there's the, gay men it takes out of the pool of their choices. They trying to get what they can get, okay guys, I'm excited that y'all came to record with me today. Thanks for having us. You guys gave us really good information and I appreciate your transparency it's my prayer that this. Podcast is going to bless somebody, whether it is someone that's in marriage, that's thinking, okay, I can't do it anymore. Maybe they'll, say, okay, I'm going to choose my partner every day, or maybe it's that person that's contemplating marriage. And you've given them the gist of it. Okay. You got to be committed. You got to be able to communicate. You got to want to spend that time together. All these things that it takes to make the marriage work is my prayer that it helps somebody. Appreciate you coming by. No problem. No problem. All right. Love you. Bye.