Aight, so I’m thinking that a lot of you have played the game of Gossip at some point. If not, it’s when one person will come up with something to tell the individual who is sitting next to them, and then that person will repeat what was said to the individual who is next to them, and the cycle repeats itself until it gets back to the original person. The goal is for the first individual to hear back what they said verbatim.
Oftentimes, though, whether it was because people weren’t paying close attention or their objective was to jack the message up altogether, things don’t play out that way, and the first person gets back a message that sounds totally different than what came out of their mouth at the beginning.
Y’all, as you’re about to see in just a second, as “triggering” as it might be for some of you to hear (or read for yourselves once you revisit certain Scriptures in order to fact-check), a lot of what we’ve been taught about dating, courtship and marriage (a piece like this on marriage itself we’ll have to do at another time), as far as what the Bible actually says, has been like one long game of Gossip. Certain things have been altered, romanticized, or flat-out manipulated and then “rinse and repeated” for so long that folks state the alterations as (pardon the pun) gospel — when they shouldn’t be, especially if you want to apply Scripture, as it’s taught, to your own relational situations.
The last line in the Message Version of Luke 6:26 simply says, “Your task is to be true, not popular." And so, in spite of what the popular takes on dating may be in pulpits all over the world, let’s look into what it appears that the actual biblical truth is.
Could be quite a ride for some of y’all. Sit tight.
1. Relationship Can Come Before Purpose
GiphyAnyone who has heard me speak on the Bible before knows that my absolute favorite part of it is the Garden of Eden. It’s the only place where perfection is documented, and so, to me, that translates that we should still strive to live our life the way that it’s mentioned in the first two chapters of the Good Book. And when it comes to dating, if you pay very close attention, although both men and women were made in the image of the Godhead (Genesis 1:26-28),Adam came first (Genesis 2:7) — and if you read the story, just as it was told, Adam had a relationship with God and a purpose assigned by God BEFORE the Woman (Eve’s name prior to sin — Genesis 3:20) came into the picture.
This is why I don’t get all of the pressure that folks in college (for example) put on themselves when it comes to serious relationships and marriage. The time when many folks are hyper-focused on figuring out what their purpose is is when they are completing their formal education, and since a big part of “finding the one” is figuring out who complements your purpose most and best, purpose should come above all else. Know what else? You shouldn’t choose someone who tries to get you to abandon your purpose since your purpose is literally the reason why you’re here, to begin with (because that is exactly what “purpose” means).
So yeah, if you want to date the biblical way, a man who is aligned with his Creator and also knows his purpose in life should be the top things on your agenda. If those things are lacking, prepare yourself to automatically do some…struggling. Unnecessarily so. That said, if a man is consumed with getting right with God and knowing what his purpose is, don’t be, as the church mothers put it, a “stumbling block,” move out of the way. Make sure you and your own Creator are aligned and that you are walking in your purpose, too. Do that and I promise that your plate will be plenty full.
2. Men Are Hunters
GiphyI actually think I’ve touched on this one before; however, because it irks me to no end to hear folks say that “men are hunters” when it comes to dating, let me just say that ADAM WAS A GARDENER, NOT A HUNTER — and yes, I am yelling it! What in a woman says she wants to see herself as some man’s prey when it comes to relationships? Nothing. Instead, it makes a lot more sense that Adam, in the state of perfection, was a gardener because gardeners cultivate things, and cultivate means “to refine,” “to promote the growth or improvement of,” “to seek the friendship of” and “to devote oneself to.” When it comes to what a husband should do for a wife, doesn’t that make a whole lot more sense?
Besides, some biblical hunters who immediately come to my mind are Cain (who killed his brother — Genesis 4) and Esau (who was jealous of his brother — Genesis 25), and what about them, as husbands, sounds especially comforting? Besides, one more time: if a man hunted you, he can make having you in his life be all about him.
However, if he allows God to BRING YOU TO HIM (like God did for Adam in Genesis 2:22), then he has no choice but to see you as a gift from the Most High (remember, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above…” — James 1:17[NKJV]) which humbles him enough to treat you as a manifestation of God’s love instead of something that he acquired on his own.
Yeah, y’all can keep those hunting men. For me, I want a gardener. Full stop.
3. You Should Pray for Your Own “Boaz”
GiphyIf there is one thing that really gets on my nerves, it’s when people treat God like he’s Santa Claus or act like there is a formulaic prayer they can say that will suddenly make Him do whatever they want. An example of this that immediately comes to mind is when Ciara married Russel Wilson; it seemed like, for a year straight, all we heard as women wanting to know what she prayed in order to bring him into her life. C’mon people, God does not work that way. As it says in Psalm 33:15(NKJV), “He fashions their hearts individually; He considers all their works.” This means that each person has their own customized life walk and love story — this includes Ciara and a biblical character who gets treated a lot like Ciara: Ruth.
“I’m just waiting on my Boaz.” Why?Boaz is a man from thousands of years ago and somebody else’s husband. Not only that, but by the way, a lot of y’all talk about how you want to be dated/courted; you don’t want Ruth’s story anyway. Read the Book of Ruth just as it was written. With Naomi’s instruction (Ruth 3), Ruth made the first move. Ruth pursued that man (similar to how Esther pursued King Xerses). And if folks would get Disney out of their minds, it wasn’t exactly the love story that gets told. Remember that Ruth was a Moabite (Ruth 1:4) and Boaz was Hebrew.
When she went to see him in the middle of the night (by the way, one of my favorite books says that the actual Hebrew translation says that she went to his thighs, not his feet — check outThe Gospel of Ruth: Loving God Enough to Break the Rules) and he made it his mission to find the closest relative who was eligible to marry her, a part of the motive was to protect her. Back then, a Moabite (because marrying Boaz “redeemed her” more than merely following Naomi back to her hometown — Ruth 1:16-17) coming onto a Hebrew warranted stoning; he was protecting her more than it was some beautiful love affair.
One more thing: according to the Midrash (which is a highly respected Jewish commentary on divine Scripture; remember, the first language of the Bible is Hebrew), Boaz actually died on his and Ruth’s wedding night sometime after their marriage was consummated (clearly because she later birthed Obed, their son — Ruth 4:17).
Okay, so some of y’all are out here saying that you want a much older man, who you have to work pretty hard to get his attention, who you then have to take great risks to pursue, who you then have to wait while he sees if another man wants to marry you before he proposes, and who then dies before you can go on your honeymoon, leaving you to raise a baby with the help of your mother-in-law from your other husband who died as well. Do you really?
Church folks are good for saying that death and life are in the power of the tongue (Proverbs 18:21) and then will say, repeatedly, things that are common without really pondering and processing if they know the weight of what comes with it. No woman needs to wait on “her Boaz.” Trust God to lead you into your own love story — however, that turns out.
4. Finding (Automatically) Means Pursuing
GiphyFor all of you consistent churchgoers, when it comes to dating and courtship, what would you consider to be the anchor verse that is used the most often? If you said, “He who finds a wife finds a good thing, and obtains favor from the Lord” (Proverbs 18:22 — NKJV), I think that I would have to agree with you. Yet, it always tickles me how much focus is put on the word “find” more than “wife” (there sure is a lot of talk about what men need to bring to the table when if you need to be a wife before marriage, there are some serious qualities that you need to bring to the table too, sis — check out “Do You Want To Be A Wife? Or Do You Just Want To Have A Wedding?”).
Find. I already mentioned that in the state of perfection, Adam was asleep (unconscious) when God made the Woman and then BROUGHT HER to Adam. Brought is the past tense of bring and bring means “to cause to occur or exist; to cause to come into a particular position, state, or effect; to cause to come to or toward oneself; attract." If God brought the Woman, there was no “finding” to be done. Not only that, but "find" means a whole lot of things — not just “pursue.”
Find: to come upon by chance; meet with; to locate, attain, or obtain by search or effort [which is basically to pursue]; to locate or recover (something lost or misplaced); to discover or perceive after consideration; to gain or regain the use of; to ascertain by study or calculation; to feel or perceive; to become aware of, or discover (oneself), as being in a condition or location
Do you see all of those definitions? Like I say often, I can be looking for a missing tube of lip gloss and find five dollars. I didn’t pursue the “five;” I discovered it. So yeah, everyone who puts extra emphasis on “find” whenever they quote Proverbs 18:22 could stand to open up a dictionary and see that it’s a very vast word. The biggest takeaway here is to allow your steps to be ordered (Proverbs 37:23) and to be wife quality so that whether you meet your husband by chance (find), he pursues you (find), you regain each other (after some time has passed which also means “find”) — whatever the case may be, you’re ready.
5. Women Are the Prize (Uh-Oh)
GiphyIf there is one relationship-based debate that I really wish would wind itself up — quick, fast, and in a super-duper hurry, it’s if the man or woman is the prize (insert all sorts of eye rolls here). For one thing, prize literally means “anything striven for, worth striving for, or much valued” and value means “relative worth, merit, or importance.” That said, why in the world should anyone want to be in a relationship with someone who doesn’t see them as something of great value or wouldn’t want to treat their partner as something of great value? What kind of sense does that make?
Besides, even though Scripture says that a helpmate (which is what women were created for men to be — Genesis 2:18) is a lifesaver for a man (because the Hebrew word for helpmate isezer kenegdo) and that is pretty amazing, a husband ain’t no slouch either. In fact, check it:
“When they observe the pure and modest way in which you conduct yourselves, together with your reverence [for your husband; you are to feel for him all that reverence includes: to respect, defer to, revere him—to honor, esteem, appreciate, prize, and, in the human sense, to adore him, that is, to admire, praise, be devoted to, deeply love, and enjoy your husband].” (I Peter 3:2 — AMPC)
According to Scripture, the man who vows to the Lord (Ecclesiastes 5:1-7) to be your provider and protector for the rest of your life, he should be highly respected (Ephesians 5:33) and seen as a PRIZE. I really don’t get what else needs to be said about this one — so I’ll just move right along.
6. God Will Give You Whatever You Desire
GiphySomething else that church folks like to do: edit Scripture. Don’t believe me? What part of this verse do you tend to hear the most?
“Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart.” — Psalm 37:4 (NKJV)
C’mon — we all know that it’s the part that comes after the comma that folks literally beat to death. And in the context of this article, many women will proudly and boldly be on some, if I want a (pardon correlation here) “6-6-6 man” (check out “Okay, So Here's What You Need To Know About the '6-6-6' Man”), surely God will bring him to me because it’s what my heart desires.
Yeah…NAW. Again, if we’re doing strictly Scripture here, no believer should be out here professing that they follow their heart because Jeremiah 17:9-10 says that the heart is deceitful. Makes sense, too, because a definition of "heart" is “center of emotions,” and feelings can be quite fickle, which means that you can want one thing one day and something else the next, and God? He’s not erratic and unstable like that. Plus, Psalm 37 says that delighting in the Lord is what should come before your desires, and doing that consists of finding joy and pleasure in Him so that — please catch this part — His wants for you become your wants as well because that’s how much you trust Him.
Not to mention the fact that James 4:2-3(NKJV) says, “Yet you do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.” "Amiss" means “out of the right or proper course, order, or condition; improperly; wrongly; astray,” so no, you don’t get whatever (or whomever) you want “just because.” If what you desire is out of order or it’s going to lead you astray, according to Scripture, merely asking (or automatically expecting) is not what will cause God to grant it to you — because it goes against his will for you.
Yeah…I said that this was gonna hurt a bit. It’s Scriptural, though — and the truth shall set you free (John 8:31-32). Let me close out with one more.
BONUS: There Are No Boyfriends and Girlfriends in the Bible
Know why I can’t find a Scripture for what she said? It’s because there are no boyfriend/girlfriend dynamics in the Bible. NOT. A. ONE. You’re single (check out “10 Words That'll Make You Totally Rethink The Word 'Single'”), betrothed (engaged), married, divorced (and that’s rare in the Bible), or widowed. That’s it (the same goes with filing taxes; there’s no “dating” box to check).
And that’s why I say often that the way our culture dates teaches people how to divorce, NOT marry because giving your all to multiple people only for it to not work out tends to either numb or jade you to the point that when you do actually get married, you don’t see relationship as much more than a dating dynamic and so you treat divorce like it’s nothing more than a break-up — even though Scripture absolutely does not look at it through that casual type of lens (Malachi 2:16, Matthew 19:1-12, I Corinthians 7:10-11).
So, how do I think folks go from single to engaged and then married? I know people who were friends, close friends, who were also low-key attracted to one another. When both were ready for marriage, they had conversations about what merging lives would look like. They got engaged, and then they jumped the broom. Relatively smooth transitions with no drama and a big part of it is because they BOTH were ready for marriage, and their lives complemented one another. Bottom line, acting married when you’re not “programs” you to not treat marriage as sacred and special (which may be whileyour chances for divorce increase if you live together prior to saying “I do” — and that’s just how it’s designed to be seen.
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This was a lot. Believe me, I know. And I definitely encourage you to do some deep diving on the points that may have made you “feel some type of way.” Really, if I had a bottom line for all of this — study the Bible for yourself, look deeper into the Scriptures that you think you already know, and don’t apply a one-size-fits-all to love stories.
God is bigger than that. The Bible is bigger than that. Your love story is bigger than that.
Let the Church say…AMEN.
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Yeah, I’m not a fan of that because, once you’ve already “locked in” on that level, going to see a marriage counselor or life coach is pretty much only seen as a mere formality. In other words, you’re not really looking to dive deep to see if there are some potential red, orange, or even yellow flags — you’re just going to a couple of sessions because it sounds like the right thing to do.
And because of that mindset, far too many people go into marriage totally blindsided and/or thinking that they can deal with things later and/or believing that love (which usually is some emotional version, not the biblical one — I Corinthians 13) will conquer all — and because of that, divorce court ends up becoming their reality. If not semi-immediately…eventually.
That’s why I write articles like this. Wisdom says that if you want to get into something as serious as marriage and you’re going to look someone in their eyes and vow to be with them for the rest of your lives, you both should know as much as possible about what you’re getting yourselves into…beforehand.
The following eight questions can help to lead the way when it comes to this…
1. Childhood Issues
GiphyA few nights ago, I found myself getting caught up in a movie on HBO Max calledOn Chesil Beach. It drags, so I’m not (necessarily) recommending it. However, it does help to drive home this first point that I’m trying to make because it’s all about the purely excruciating wedding “night” of a couple who waited to (attempt to) consummate their marriage. Although for a lot of it, the wife was pretty annoying, you do get glimpses of her childhood that help to shed light on all of her excuses and hesitancy (and there was A LOT of both).
If you do happen to want to watch the film, I won’t give all of what happens away. What I will say is that one of the main reasons why going to premarital counseling is so important is you and your bae should talk about childhood issues.
Listen, as one of my favorite quotes says, “Adulthood is surviving childhood.” Meaning, a lot of times, marriages struggle because it’s not two healed adults who are in the relationship; it’s more like two wounded (on some level, at least) kids who are trying to make a valiant attempt at an adult dynamic.
I know many people who grew up in hella dysfunctional homes who simply said, “I will never be like my parents when I grow up,” only to turn around and be just like them. How did that happen? It’s because of something that I tell a lot of my clients: we tend to do what’s familiar, not what’s right. The main way to prevent that from happening is by being open and honest about where we come from, how it all affected/infected/impacted us, and then getting help, if needed, before jumping the broom.
2. Greatest Heartbreak
GiphyAlthough I’m not sure that there is solid data on what I’m about to say, I stand ten toes down on the fact that I don’t think that men look to “fall in love” multiple times. If anything, they have a first love, their wife, and possibly someone in between. Why? Because contrary to what social media likes to cram down our throats about men, many men when they fall, they fall very hard and are all in. Case in point, I can’t tell you how many guys have told me how much of an influence their first love has had on them — even to this day. And when something monumental happens, it can totally change you (check out “Your Soulmate Might Be The One Who Broke You”).
That’s why I also think it’s a good idea for you and your man to discuss what your greatest heartbreak was like — past (how it affected you) and present (how you feel about the experience now). It can shed great light into how you see relationships and love and why you make some of the decisions that you now do. It can also help you both to express if there are still some unresolved issues that are dormant there because I can’t tell you how many clients I’ve had who, when things got rocky in their marriage, the very first place they went to was Facebook or Instagram to see what their “long lost love” has been up to.
A writer by the name of Jodi Picoult once said, “Once you had put the pieces back together, even though you may look intact, you were never quite the same as you'd been before the fall.” Both of you discussing how this saying relates to this particular topic can, as I put it, “cover up mouseholes.” What I mean by that is, by getting it all out in the open, your partner will be able to know your wounds and weaknesses in that area and offer up some support and even protection — in ways you, he, or both may not have known was needed…until the topic was actually brought up.
3. Financial Habits
GiphyYou know, I find it very interesting how the Good Book says that the LOVE of money is the root of all evil (I Timothy 6:10), and yet, pretty much any time I tiptoe out to see what social media is yapping — sorry, I mean talking — about, “broke” comes up incessantly. Listen, should you want to be with someone who is financially savvy and stable? 1000 percent. Should you also be the kind of person who you want to be with? 10,000 percent.
That said, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been in a premarital session and asked both people what their credit score was, only for them to look at me like I asked them to strip naked or something. LOL. Well, I guess, in a way, it’s the same thing because nothing reveals someone’s financial stuff like their credit score and what they’ve got in their savings account. Yet if you’re thinking that your soon-to-be spouse isn’t going to find all of that out anyway, you’re caught up in some sort of delusion that I’m not sure any therapist can get you out of.
Personally, I think that engaged couples should hire a financial advisor and get a financial mentor (preferably a married couple) to comb through both of their finances so that they can see each other’s current state, areas of strengths and weaknesses, and so they can come up with a financial plan for their first, third and fifth year of marriage.
You know, although actually the top reason for divorce these days has a lot to do witha lack of support (emotionally and otherwise),financial stuff is still up there. A part of the reason for that is that there’s no way around the fact that marriage is a business contract (among other things). If you’re signing up to do business with someone, you need to know what their finances look like. That’s common sense 101.
4. Character Weaknesses
GiphyAnyone who knows me knows that if someone tells me that they believe that they’ve met “the one,” while they are acting like that person is an angel on earth, the marriage life coach (and “Shellie”) in me is like, “Uh-huh. What are their character flaws, though?” It’s not to break their spirit or be a Debbie Downer or anything; it’s just that I have watched too many marriages crash and burn because they didn’t ask themselves questions like that before saying, “I do.”
For instance, one of my friends (who, yes, happens to be divorced now) told me that he had met who he believed was his soulmate; when I asked him about her potential character weaknesses, one of the things that he casually said was, “I mean, she has a bit of a jealousy streak but…” Umm, sir — you are handsome and an entertainer and you’re going to marry a jealous woman? Hacked emails and tons of drama later, he admits that he wished that he hadn’t underestimated that side of her personality.
Listen, no one is perfect — not by far. In fact, if you’re mature in your thinking, a part of what marriage is designed to do is give you the kind of accountability partner that will offer a safe space for you to address, refine, and improve some things about yourself.
However, in order for you and your partner to be able to do that, you need to know what those things are — and that needs to be discussed well before your wedding day, preferably in the presence of a reputable marriage therapist, counselor, or life coach who can help you to figure out what to do with the intel that the both of you are sharing.
5. Poor Boundaries
GiphyWhen you sign up to become someone’s spouse, your wedding day, in part, is about declaring to everyone that you want to make them the top priority in your life under God himself. And in order to keep anything from affecting that, you need to have some solid boundaries. Boundaries, at the end of the day, are nothing more than limits — and yes, you need to have limits as far as how much your family can know about your relationship, what your friends can and cannot speak on, and what kind of decisions y’all will make that, quite frankly, is no one else’s business…including the internet’s (because A LOT of people out here like to be passive aggressive about their relationship online).
Does it take a village to “raise a marriage?” In some ways, yes. However, when it comes to the vow-taking process, that is between a husband and his wife, and if they are religious, God. No one else made those promises and that means no one else should be as involved or invested as those two (or three) parties are.
Poor boundaries are the cause of so much drama in marriages and honestly, relationships, in general. You do not want to take the approach of, “We’ll figure out what limits we should have as problems present themselves.” Uh-uh. Talk about what your limits should look like ASAP, and make sure that you mutually agree on them too. This point alone can save your marriage more than just about anything else on here.
(P.S. A great book for you to check out isBoundaries in Marriage: Understanding the Choices That Make or Break Loving Relationships. It’s by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend.)
6. Perspectives on Daily Lifestyle
GiphySomething else that I’ve observed while working with married folks (and talking to older couples in Cracker Barrel; believe it or not, the marriage advice in there is top-notch!) is marriages tend to end, not so much because of one “big” thing that happened — it’s more like it’s due to the culmination of a lot of little ones.
Take how a person lives, for instance. I’ve dealt with couples where the wife was appalled by her husband not wiping the toilet seat, and the same husband was disgusted by her dishes being left in the sink overnight. A couple of weeks of this, and it’s whatever. Oh, but let it be some years? You’d be surprised.
It can actually be quite sobering to take a moment to ponder and process that, at least when you sign up for a traditional marriage, you’re signing up to share a home, bed, and life — for the rest of your life. If there are certain things that are super “icks” for you, if there are certain chores that you absolutely hate, if there are little pet peeves like sleeping with the television on or your partner being a morning person when you aren’t — you had better bring all of this stuff up now.
Many people have assumed that love will supersede peace when it comes to daily living. Chile, the reality is that you can love a lot of people who you just can’t live with. Please don’t find that out after taking vows and filling out paperwork. Discuss as much as possible about the day-to-day of how you both move, just as soon as you possibly can.
7. Patterns in Past Relationships
GiphyIn interviews, some folks will ask me what I think about the whole “Does knowing someone’s body count really matter?” debate (check out “6 Things About The Whole 'Body Count' Debate That Should Be Discussed”). As it relates to this particular article, two things: one, check out TIME’s article, “How Previous Sexual Partners Affect Offspring,” when you get a chance. Secondly, let’s do it like this: if you were to find out that your boyfriend used to beat up on his girlfriends, but he hasn’t done it in a couple of years, would “That’s in the past” suffice as his rationale? BE HONEST.
No matter how nonchalant our culture chooses to be about sex, how we decide to move in that space is about more than recreation and experiencing orgasms. So yes, knowing about your past in this realm can shed light on your mindset, your perspective, and even some of your patterns — not just your sexual past, but your past, in general.
Anyone who wants to give pushback on that, I’ll just say this: it is human nature to brag about things that we’re proud of. When it comes to your sexual past, if you’re hiding or deflecting concerning it, why is that? And what would make you think that, eventually, the things that you are suppressing won’t somehow come out anyway? Real talk, a great sign that you’re over something or someone is when you can bring it or them up — not when you’re doing everything in your power to avoid it/them.
And when it comes to past relational patterns overall — have you always been the one to do most of the work? Do you tend to flee when things get too challenging? Do you ever stop to think about what you did wrong? Do you tend to handle things with ultimatums? Do you treat relationships as projects? Do you avoid things with sex? Do you not communicate your innermost feelings well?
A pattern is something that you do over and over, oftentimes very naturally. When it comes to the men of your past, what qualifies as a pattern for you? Getting married doesn’t miraculously make those patterns go away. Discussing them can help you to get to the root of those issues and if you need to break some of them on the front end.
8. Media Programming
GiphyA quote that I find myself saying often is by The Doors singer, Jim Morrison: “Whoever controls the media, controls the mind.” There is no way around the fact that media influences and impacts society on some pretty monumental levels (you can read more about thathere,here, andhere) — and so to think that what you take in when it comes to television programs that you view, movies that you watch, books that you read and social media accounts that you follow aren’t affecting you? That is some serious denial that you are in.
Case in point. I have a friend who also works in mental health. Whenever his wife is watching some trash reality television (and boy, is there A TON of it), he says that she is way more touchy to the point of almost being combative than when she isn’t. One time, he instituted a two-week fast from reality television. He said that the first week was rough for her, which caused her to realize that she was way more attached to the shows than she thought. The second week, she was calmer and far more peaceful (her words, not his). Did she totally give reality television up? I mean, we’re all a work in progress, right? LOL. She does watch it less, though, and their marriage is running smoother because of it.
As we close all of this out, definitely an underestimated influence in marriage is the media. Find out what your partner likes and why. See where the two of you are in sync, where you’re not, and what you think the compromises should be. Otherwise, you could end up with someone who is making judgment calls about your relationship based on what some random on TikTok said — you’d be amazed how many people do that. And it’s a damn shame that they do.
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There’s a reason why this article has the title that it does. Getting real — and I mean, really real — about relationships isn’t always the most comfortable thing to do; however, it is beneficial.
And what, after (genuinely) addressing things like this, you find out that you’re not as compatible as you thought? Eh. That doesn’t have to be the end of the world. Either — again, with the help of a marriage expert — figure out how to compromise or, if you ultimately can’t find enough common ground…as I oftentimes say, It’s always better to break up before marriage than divorce after it.
Words to live by. Promise you that.
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