SERIOUS COUPLES SERIES: 101 Questions to Ask Before Getting Engaged | Love By Faith with Kyle & Selina Almodovar #064

Here's a book recommendation that will help serious couples learn how to leave, cleave, and clean out their closets one question at a time!

The conversation dives into essential questions that every serious couple should consider before tying the knot. By exploring the book "101 Questions to Ask Before You Get Engaged," we share our insights and personal experiences to highlight the importance of open communication.

- Introduction to the Serious Couples Series 
- Book recommendation: 101 Questions to Ask Before You Get Engaged 
- Key insights from our personal experiences reading the book 
- Tackling difficult conversations in relationships 
- Real-life examples of essential questions that matter 
- Encouragement to keep the conversation going 

🔗 LINKS TO STUFF MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE! 🔗

Paperback: 101 Questions to Ask Before Getting Engaged by H. Norman Wright

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Serious Couples Series
• 10:00 Book Recommendation: 101 Questions to Ask Before You Get Engaged
• 20:00 Key Insights from Our Experience with the Book
• 31:08 Tackling Difficult Conversations in Relationships
• 41:08 Real
• 51:08 How to Keep the Conversations Going

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

The Serious Couples series. We are going to recommend to you guys a couple of books.

Speaker 2: 0:06

Big step for us in that understanding what leaving and cleaving looks like.

Speaker 1: 0:10

There was a lot of things that we didn't even consider. You are literally cleaning out your closets in question form. We're not perfect people.

Speaker 2: 0:20

By any means.

Speaker 1: 0:22

But by trusting in God we learned what it takes to build a friendship.

Speaker 2: 0:26

A relationship.

Speaker 1: 0:27

And marriage that has stood the test of time.

Speaker 2: 0:30

With a keeping it real style. We're going to talk to you about everything.

Speaker 1: 0:34

Everything.

Speaker 2: 0:35

That we've been through.

Speaker 1: 0:36

Are going through.

Speaker 2: 0:37

And have overcome All by learning how to lean on God and each other.

Speaker 1: 0:43

In order to help you learn how to love by faith.

Speaker 2: 1:00

I just remembered I had a dream I was a construction worker and I was building a road, and that was what happened in the dream. It was like a whole team we were had a dream. I was a construction worker, okay, and I was building a road, and that was what happened in the dream. It was like a whole team, we were building a road.

Speaker 1: 1:10

No, nothing distinctive about it.

Speaker 2: 1:13

Nope, it was definitely in Cleveland. What kind of road Highway.

Speaker 1: 1:17

Highway. Yeah, what was the weather like?

Speaker 2: 1:19

It felt like a bridge, like summer.

Speaker 1: 1:20

Summer highway, yeah, morning or evening. I don summer highway, yeah, like morning or evening. Oh, it's daytime. Were you the boss?

Speaker 2: 1:29

I don't think so how many people were in the team? I feel like my brother was there, okay, but that was about as much as I can remember was it a big team?

Speaker 1: 1:35

I don't know like. Were there cars passing?

Speaker 2: 1:38

dude, you're pressing all this stuff in.

Speaker 1: 1:39

I'm trying to remember uh this is how precise I get when I have a dream, because I need to know like is this a spiritual, meaningful dream?

Speaker 2: 1:46

I feel you, I feel you. I don't remember people passing, cars passing. Do you remember birds? No, I just remember daytime. Was there music? Sunshine? No music, white truck, work truck.

Speaker 1: 1:57

Was it loud Like eh.

Speaker 2: 1:58

No.

Speaker 1: 1:59

So it was quiet building a highway, so it was peaceful yeah, peaceful building highway with sun out my brother surrounded by family that's my brother, yeah I would think that's spiritual. Do you know which direction the highway was going in? No but you knew it was cleveland. How did you know it was cleveland?

Speaker 2: 2:17

I don't know. It's one of those things you're like oh yeah, we're building this road.

Speaker 1: 2:20

I feel like it wasn't east side or west side.

Speaker 2: 2:22

No, I feel like it was over by, like the shoreway, the steel yard, you know where that goofy interchange is between metro and the steel yard and it goes like that way towards like riverside yeah and all that.

Speaker 1: 2:35

It's right there wow you're working on that road highway you gotta pray for interpretation of that yeah, what's up team I didn't have any dreams thank you for asking.

Speaker 2: 2:44

You always tell me when you have dreams. I feel like you have dreams so rarely I do, I do.

Speaker 1: 2:50

I'm not in deep sleep long enough. You must go with that deep sleep that you track on your it's not enough deep sleep for me to have a good dream on your watch phone I have like 30 minutes of deep sleep each night someone said that, uh, fitness watches are just tamagotchis for adults.

Speaker 2: 3:03

Not necessarily, and the animal you're taking care of is yourself.

Speaker 1: 3:06

No, because it doesn't.

Speaker 2: 3:08

I thought that was great.

Speaker 1: 3:09

I don't believe that because Tamagotchis or what was the other brand, pocket Pet, no, what was the name of it?

Speaker 2: 3:17

Man, I can't remember either.

Speaker 1: 3:18

There's someone screaming at us right now, telling us the name of the other brand. Anyways, you had to feed it, you had to feed it, you had to give it a bath. Right, it would get really sick if you did not do these things.

Speaker 2: 3:29

Give it water I never had one oh, they were so fun were they they were so for you guys don't know, they were little, little toys. They were about the size of uh, I don't know like like a keychain?

Speaker 1: 3:41

yeah, like a keychain size.

Speaker 2: 3:43

It was just like a golf ball side, a little bit bigger than a golf ball.

Speaker 1: 3:45

Yeah. And it was an animal you had to take care of.

Speaker 2: 3:50

And you had to feed it and it had four buttons on it and you pressed all these buttons.

Speaker 1: 3:54

It's not a gigapad. Is it Gigapad? Is it a gigapad?

Speaker 2: 3:56

And you'd shake it to let it play, maybe because there was no. Not even gigabytes weren't till like 2010 and later crazy, yeah, okay and so, yeah, that was a fun toy from our childhood and it would die trendy toy dive you have to start over the reset button on the back of the press with the head to press with a paper clip it was so fun. I want one I think I saw them like I'm gonna get one.

Speaker 2: 4:21

I'm gonna bring it back have fun anyways we're in a great mood today, guys. We are in a great mood. Woke up, feeling it.

Speaker 1: 4:26

New series.

Speaker 2: 4:28

Had a great birthday weekend with Selena.

Speaker 1: 4:29

So great, it was awesome.

Speaker 2: 4:31

I turned 40,. Everyone Way to go.

Speaker 1: 4:33

I'm in my 40s.

Speaker 2: 4:34

You made it.

Speaker 1: 4:35

I made it, I made it, you made it. As a kid I'm never going to be 40. No, I did not feel that, but I did not think my life would be this awesome at 40. Awesome Just because of the way I was brought up and the mistakes that I made in my 20s. I just felt like there's no way I'm going to bounce back from all of this mess that I made.

Speaker 2: 5:00

Praise the Lord.

Speaker 1: 5:01

And so to be where I'm at today and to have the people surrounding me and just the aspirations that I have and the motivation to keep going, I feel really good.

Speaker 2: 5:10

So what are we going to talk about on the podcast?

Speaker 1: 5:13

So I was telling you about the series title. I don't think we had a title for this series, but I like the title I came up with.

Speaker 2: 5:19

Sometimes organic is better.

Speaker 1: 5:21

So we always talk to couples, primarily married couples, right it's?

Speaker 2: 5:28

kind of our thing.

Speaker 1: 5:28

It's our thing, it's what we do, you know, and I think because March is a short month, guys just putting that out there spring break is upon us, two weeks.

Speaker 2: 5:39

Short podcast month.

Speaker 1: 5:41

Short podcast month Because we're going to take some downtime with the kids during spring break, correct, we're taking a two-week break at the end of March, and so because we had a short month and we wanted to make it memorable. We always talk to married couples, but there are also couples who are not married yet right Like serious. There's serious couples. Right yet right, like serious, there's serious couples. So I thought it would be really cool if we took the month of march and devoted it to the serious couples series serious couples series couple series serious couple series series yes, and so what does that mean exactly?

Speaker 1: 6:23

We are going to recommend to you guys a couple of books each week.

Speaker 2: 6:28

Go ahead, keep going. Sorry, I had a total memory, just pop back in my head, okay.

Speaker 1: 6:32

We're going to recommend a couple of books to you guys each week for serious couples to help you get more serious and get towards the direction of marriage, so that you guys can learn how to love by faith in those foundation stages of your relationship.

Speaker 2: 6:46

And even if you're like, all right, we've been married 17 years. What do we need? A book for couples who are just trying to figure it out, because you can go back, look through those books, work on them together. Maybe you never did them and they have some really good.

Speaker 1: 6:58

You might even have some questions in there where you're like oh snap, we never covered this in our marriage.

Speaker 2: 7:03

They have some really good takeaways that will help you have some great discussions.

Speaker 1: 7:13

So it's kind of like a book clubby thing, but this is devoted for serious couples, to help you guys, and for married couples to kind of go back and do like a little bit of a refresher, to help you guys learn how to love by faith.

Speaker 2: 7:21

The story that popped into my head. Two minutes. It was like two minutes ago.

Speaker 1: 7:25

Okay.

Speaker 2: 7:25

Was for your birthday when we went out to dinner on.

Speaker 1: 7:28

Friday yes.

Speaker 2: 7:29

We saw a couple get engaged. Yes, it was so cute, so nice. We went to a nice restaurant and they had an outdoor.

Speaker 1: 7:34

It was like a lakeside thing, she was so dressed up.

Speaker 2: 7:37

And they were like the youngest couple in the restaurant.

Speaker 1: 7:39

Yeah, bless them and Congrats to whoever you guys are, if you ever find us Right.

Speaker 2: 7:44

They were. They just got up and they all went out and I wasn't paying attention. They left, didn't think twice about it. And then, out of the corner of my eye, I see all these like Flash. Patio lights come on and flashing.

Speaker 1: 7:55

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 7:56

And sure enough, there's the guy on his knee. And so I bring all that up because it leads us into our book for today, this week's episode 101 Questions to Ask Before you Get Engaged yes, by H Norman Wright.

Speaker 1: 8:11

This is the book that we recommend for all serious couples. Anyone that I know that I have coached individually Kyle and I, that we have mentored together as a couple. We always tell them pick up this book, go through this book, and we'll go ahead and put the link in the description and. I'll show you guys, the book cover as we're talking about it if you're watching on YouTube. And why are we going to talk about this book, kyle?

Speaker 2: 8:39

So we went through this book before we got engaged and it brought us to some really great discussions. Absolutely, and one of our, the way we did it, the whole book was one question a day weekends not included to help us go slow in our relationship, to slow down and not rush, because we were so in love, we were so enjoying each other's company and knew that we wanted to do this for life.

Speaker 1: 9:00

You know what happened is we got to the point where we were so happy and thought that we were so healthy that we were starting to pursue the idea of marriage. Okay, and so this book kind of came right at that. It was like a speed bump.

Speaker 2: 9:19

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 9:20

It was like a speed bump because we thought we were in a good place until we got to this book and we realized there was a lot of things that we didn't even consider, we didn't even cover, we didn't we talked about.

Speaker 2: 9:52

I think my favorite takeaway from the book was that we were able to talk about everything, yes, and that we were able to go and to have hard talks and to take a few days to talk through stuff, sure, and to really disagree and agree to disagree stuff, sure, and to really like disagree and agree to disagree yes how's the saying go agree, disagree, agreeably. We're able to disagree agreeably, and this book helped us get through that so what kind of questions do you?

Speaker 2: 10:16

remember from the book see first, one that comes first, one that comes to mind as a dude right is what happens if uh intimacy is lacking okay it's not word for word the way the question is, but what happens if? What would you do if the intimacy was lacking in the relationship? How would you fix that? And we each had different responses to that. The other question that stands out to me was um, I wrote it down, I'm gonna look at it because I want you to read the response.

Speaker 1: 10:43

While Kyle's finding this question the structure of the book okay. So you have one question on each page. After the question you have a little bit of an explanation as to why the question is important. And I want to say there was also some Bible verses to kind of help support why that question is important to ask from a biblical perspective. So this is a Christian book. Definitely it is based on biblical principles. You are going to have Christian standards in there, such as remaining pure, being modest expectations, the biblical roles of a husband and a wife, and it really helps you break all of this down in practical terms so that you get a feel for what you believe in, what your opinion is, what your upbringing is, what you want to do moving forward and how you guys can start merging those thoughts and those feelings and those desires into one.

Speaker 2: 11:44

So, kyleyle, you got it yeah, so it the like you're talking about the format. Yeah, it has a question right and it gives a question. Then there's a book response. Book response to the question about why this is important, why this is a christian value and how this, how this, can work together. So when you're struggling with this, here's a book answer to why this is an important question to discuss. Yeah, so the question was in light of the number of divorces today, if you were to marry, why would your marriage last and not end up in divorce court? And I liked Selena's answer to this.

Speaker 1: 12:17

I don't even remember what I wrote to this.

Speaker 2: 12:21

So here's what we did when we were doing this.

Speaker 1: 12:23

I made a folder in my email and I'm like I'm keeping all these questions so I can look at these years and years later yes, yes and so I'm in that folder now yes, so we did it all through email because you know we have jobs right at the time, right, and so this gave us the time to, like, save the question, go back to the question and then, like kyle did, I put mines in an old email, I deleted my email address because my name is changed and so I lost all my, you don't even have access to that email. I don't even I completely deleted it wow it.

Speaker 1: 12:52

You know what it was. Is that original email? That's selena m rivera at gmailcom yeah it was a way for the past to find me. Oh, you know like I used you know, I had past relationships.

Speaker 2: 13:06

Wow.

Speaker 1: 13:07

I had past interactions, you know, and so they could all. There was a way for them to always come back and reach me.

Speaker 2: 13:13

Oh, so you were closing that door.

Speaker 1: 13:15

I shut the door Like I used the email ex-boyfriend Like Monsters.

Speaker 2: 13:18

Inc. You deleted the door, you just slammed it.

Speaker 1: 13:20

I completely got rid of it because, it's like, if you're going to come to me now, in my present, you're going to come to me as the new person that I am and that is somebody's wife.

Speaker 2: 13:28

There's a message in there. Holy smokes.

Speaker 1: 13:31

So Selena M Almodovar at Gmail, but I got rid of the other one, so I don't have any of that.

Speaker 2: 13:36

Wow, so your response back to the question. Yes, In light of number of divorces today, if you were to marry, why would your marriage last and not end up in divorce court? Selena says in 2012,. My marriage would last because I would kill my husband before I'd ever decide to divorce him.

Speaker 1: 13:53

You daggone right. I stand by that on ten toes.

Speaker 2: 13:58

I witnessed divorce firsthand. I know what it does to a family. I know what effect it has on everyone involved. Kids feel like an outcast, broken, lost, angry, and the list goes on. Parents are hurt, resentful and in pain. It is a sad and very unfortunate thing to bring on anyone. I will choose to marry a man whom I trust and love. We will work it out using God as our counselor. I don't care if we have to lock ourselves in a closet for a week. We won't come out until whatever issue we have is resolved. Love is forever when it is the love of God. Nothing I could ever do or what he could ever do to me would ever cause me to relive what my parents put me through.

Speaker 1: 14:35

Dang.

Speaker 2: 14:36

Divorce is not an option. The end.

Speaker 1: 14:38

What date? What is the date on that email?

Speaker 2: 14:41

That was March 25th 2012.

Speaker 1: 14:47

Wow.

Speaker 2: 14:48

Yep.

Speaker 1: 14:49

I still firmly believe in all of that. I still stand on that, so that's great.

Speaker 2: 14:56

I know you've said that to me before. If we got to lock ourselves in for a week, we'll figure it out. I've definitely heard you say that multiple times in our life.

Speaker 1: 15:03

The joke behind this is Kyle heard this I'll kill him before I divorce him and still was like, yeah, I'm going to marry her.

Speaker 2: 15:13

What she's crazy.

Speaker 1: 15:15

I like that. I'm going to marry that. That's what's up.

Speaker 2: 15:18

Man, that's crazy. I like that. I'm going to marry that. That's what's up. Man, that's funny. H Norman Wright bringing the heavy questions, my wife bringing the death threats.

Speaker 1: 15:24

You know it's interesting because you could do this book however way you want. If you're a serious couple, you can do this over dinner or whatever. Whatever you can flip through the pages, you can pick and choose which questions you want, but the way that we did it, I want to recommend it to you because that was a very well thought out answer. That wasn't something I probably came up with on the fly. That was something that put some time into and consideration. And then what happens is is if you do this once a day, if you put that much time and emphasis into these questions once a day, then by the time you reach the weekend and by the time you're dating right and you're going on dates because a lot of the time serious couples they have problems with.

Speaker 1: 16:10

What do we do while trying to be pure and trying to honor God. This is a great way for you to go in a public setting, to go on a date and then to talk about. You have something to talk about. Like your date is pretty much made up because now you have these questions and now you have these answers and you can go into depth of like what did you mean by this answer? And you want me to do what to keep intimacy alive? Like I didn't sign up for that.

Speaker 1: 16:34

Like you have things, you have contacts and you have content to now help you in this serious couple stage. Because once you get serious, I feel like all of the temptations just kind of intensify. Sure, I agree, because now you can almost feel it. It's so real You're about to get married, this is about to be my husband, he's about to be mine. That is real, and so temptation really gets serious. And so to have this book to really keep those boundaries in check, I think is very helpful.

Speaker 2: 17:09

Yeah, you get. I think it would to you know, drive your point home.

Speaker 2: 17:13

At that point in our relationship we got comfortable right, we got comfortable with each other comfortable, yeah and your guard goes down a little bit, and slowing down to do the book and to ask yourself the questions helped to refocus the guard and refocus the intentionality behind courtship, like we did. Yeah and uh, it was great for us. So I talked about what, uh, I talked about what. My favorite question was a memorable question when I was looking through my old answers yeah, yeah, what's a? You got a question that you remember from the book.

Speaker 1: 17:42

I do. I vividly remember one question that took us a really long time to answer. Like I want to say, it took us almost a week to like figure out and we kept, we kept getting into disputes and we kept like saying we're going to talk about this a different time we came back to talk about and the question was how we would handle holiday traditions oh, okay, yeah which is so crazy because you would think, oh, it's cool.

Speaker 1: 18:09

But really married couples, if you don't have a firm grasp of how you're going to handle holidays, yeah, it turns into a disaster during holiday season, turns into a lot of stress, a lot of disagreement, a lot of strenuous, just unnecessary things. And so our problem was, you know, I always went to my grandma's house for Christmas. I always I was a divorced kid, so I had to go to two families for Thanksgiving, two families for Christmas, plus grandma, grandmas.

Speaker 1: 18:39

You know, we were trying to figure all of this out and you were like well, I always go to my grandma's house for christmas and we always do this right you know and I want to say we tried it once, appeasing everybody man went to like six christmases we went to like yeah, it was ridiculous, we brought home a plate. Some people were happy that we came in time for dinner. Some people were upset that we missed dinner. You know it didn't matter. By the end of the day we were exhausted.

Speaker 1: 19:07

We didn't have a really good time together right and the thought of it when I, when we had this question, was well, what happens when we have children? How is this gonna work? Like I'm not gonna be hauling around a whole baby like to all these people's houses just because they want to see me for 15 minutes and I have to like interact, like that's strenuous, it's straining, and so we kept arguing because we didn't know how to figure this out. We didn't want to. We both of us didn't want to, um, sacrifice, not seeing our family, yeah, I think.

Speaker 1: 19:42

And the other part of it was we didn't want to disappoint our family we wanted to honor them you know we wanted to make amends and I do know when we finally came up with the answer and we finally tried it the second year I think we were engaged at the time and we did it the way we decided.

Speaker 2: 20:01

There was a huge backlash okay, there was huge backlash from the family because they were like what do you mean?

Speaker 1: 20:08

you're not coming for christmas? What do you? What do you mean? You're not coming for things? Well, you're gonna come afterwards, right, okay? Well, I, I see you, you're gonna go have dinner there, but you're coming later, right. And we were like no, that's not what we agreed on. And so now, after 10 years plus, we've been doing it. It works, everybody is happy, everybody gets it.

Speaker 2: 21:35

Sadly, there's a few less houses to go to nowadays.

Speaker 1: 21:38

Sure sure.

Speaker 2: 21:39

But when we got into a good rhythm, it worked out pretty good.

Speaker 1: 21:44

It worked out. And so that was one of those questions that was like, okay, yeah, we're gonna talk about this. Yeah, it helped you think about the future, it helped you think about other people, it helped you consider you know what we see as normal in our individual sense and how it's going to become abnormal once we become one it was.

Speaker 2: 22:05

It was a big step for us in that understanding what leaving and cleaving looks like yes and what two becoming one looks like yes because it's not just his traditions or her traditions, now it's our right, our tradition and how we're going to make this work for our family yes and that was uh. It helped us.

Speaker 2: 22:24

It helped build our team yes in our camaraderie and our unity because we had to stand by this decision and we thinking through it, we thought through it together and came up with that solution together, correct, and tried it out and you know, it changed a little bit. Sure, you know there were years where we flipped and flopped and years where we were like, well, we got Christmas Eve, we can do this Day. We flipped and flopped. And years where we were like, well, we got christmas eve, we can do this day after christmas. We'd go visit if it felt like in a good week. Sometimes christmas is on a friday and then you go out the day after, on saturday, or it was good, now that the kids are getting older, it's, it's all working out to go to one family on this holiday, one family on that holiday and also we started having holidays at our own.

Speaker 2: 23:06

We started hosting. We got to a place where we were able to host, and that makes it easier.

Speaker 1: 23:10

That makes it a lot easier too.

Speaker 2: 23:11

Yeah, man.

Speaker 1: 23:12

But I mean just having to put in the work for that one question. You know there's 101 questions Right, and I think a lot of the times people will look at this book they will see that huge number. They will start to compute how much work it's going to take and they turn away from it. They get very intimidated by doing a book like this because, they're like I don't know, we don't, we don't need to do this.

Speaker 2: 23:40

It's it's too, it's excessive, we don't have to do this but see, this reinforces my point for that, this book, even though it's for before you get engaged air quotes. It'd still be great to go through as a married couple if you never did it because you never did it yeah hey, it's gonna help. You have something to talk about yes there's times where it gets stale, where you're like what are we doing? All we have to talk about is kids.

Speaker 2: 24:00

We have to talk about our schedules yeah, and these are great conversation starters, great things for you guys to go through together, just to get to a new place does this author have a questions book for marriage? So he has this one. There's before you say I do, yeah, there's another premarital, and then there's after you say I do, okay, it's like a partnership, okay, it goes together, so that you can now take what you learned in before you say, and say it after yeah, and then there's also 101 questions um if you're getting remarried okay, that's important so that you can go through and really like unlearn some things and relearn some things.

Speaker 2: 24:40

Yeah, yeah and and really feel more prepared. Maybe you weren't as prepared the first time, or maybe you were so young, or it was so fast yeah whatever, whatever happened. Or maybe you were so young or it was so fast, yeah, whatever happened. Or maybe you made a big mistake that caused distrust or disconnection and now you can relearn how to handle that.

Speaker 1: 24:57

That's good.

Speaker 2: 24:58

Yeah, and so H Norman Wright man highly recommended his books, Big fan.

Speaker 1: 25:02

So at the end of 101 questions. So if we did this, you know five days a week, yeah, every week until we finished the book. We got through it roughly about. It'd be 20 weeks 20 weeks, which equates to Five questions a week 100.

Speaker 2: 25:20

Yeah, 20 weeks like four months.

Speaker 1: 25:21

So about a season.

Speaker 2: 25:22

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 25:25

You know you think about it as a season season. So right now it's the month of march. If you guys were to go ahead and get this book in march and you start it, you would be done by just by summer. Yeah, you know, and so think about this for those who are listening and those who are watching, if you are in a serious relationship.

Speaker 1: 25:43

Okay yeah and if you feel like this book is intimidating, you're like, oh, that's too much work, I don't want to go through it. I'm afraid to answer some of the questions or I'm intimidated by what it might unopen. You know, it's going to open up a whole pandora's box you're going to have to talk about some serious stuff, bro. You're going to have to talk about some. I mean, we're talking about past traditions, expectations, finances, um mistakes, you know romantic life, romantic, sexual things, like all the things, medical things, all the things.

Speaker 1: 26:16

And I, even I, I I almost want to say that there's a question in there that tells you about your medical history. Like do? You have anything that you medically had that you should be telling your partner about before they are physically intimate with you like that. There's a question in there for that, and so I had a toe amputated.

Speaker 2: 26:37

I just want you to know before you see it seriously like there's, and then imagine that surprise on your wedding night for real, like for real, and then like.

Speaker 1: 26:46

There's a paragraph underneath it that says you should. We encourage you I have webbed feet we encourage you to like get a physical before you get married, and the reason why is because you don't want to find out.

Speaker 2: 26:59

You just married somebody with nine toes I'm allergic to nail cutters, so my nails grow forever oh, oh, my gosh Kyle, please so. Oh, come on, have some fun here.

Speaker 1: 27:12

There's a lot of questions there that you might be afraid to answer. There's a lot of humility that's going to come out of answering these questions, because you are literally cleaning out your closets in question form. Right. But ask yourself this where would your relationship stand if you started doing the hard work now? Where would it be by June, if you actually did this book? By June, you would have a 1 trillion thousand percent idea of whether or not the person you're doing this book with is the one you're going to marry.

Speaker 2: 27:50

Oh, that's great.

Speaker 1: 27:51

Think about that. That's huge. That's huge Because when we finished this book, there was no doubt I knew I was like I heard it all.

Speaker 2: 28:00

I'm pretty sure we got engaged the next month or next week. We got engaged really quick after finishing this book.

Speaker 1: 28:06

I heard it all, I seen it all. I'm not afraid. There's nothing that you have hidden from me. There's nothing that I have hidden from you. We are completely naked and unashamed at this point. The only realistic next step would be to take that next step.

Speaker 2: 28:23

Yep, I'm afraid of the washing machine. So you you're gonna have to do laundry for our whole marriage seriously, guys.

Speaker 1: 28:31

There's questions like that in there of like, what is your biggest fear? What did you know?

Speaker 2: 28:37

roles. The huge one was roles. We talked about roles for a long time, I remember in the book, like what's the husband's role in the marriage? What's the wife's role? Like what are you literally gonna?

Speaker 1: 28:44

do? What are you expecting your wife to do? What are you expecting your husband to do?

Speaker 2: 28:48

yeah, that was a huge one. That's a big talk there how do you stay romantic?

Speaker 1: 28:52

what are you gonna do to be intimate?

Speaker 2: 28:54

and and it's funny because it also looking back on it, I like that make me like oh, that's funny, you were so cute back.

Speaker 1: 29:00

There were some easy and now we're like, and there were some hard questions that didn't work out that.

Speaker 2: 29:05

That's not how that worked out at all.

Speaker 1: 29:07

Yeah, any last things I love talking to you, man.

Speaker 2: 29:09

This is great, great talk.

Speaker 1: 29:10

Today we learned how to talk and that's what makes it lovable is because we put ourselves in a position where we made ourselves talk.

Speaker 2: 29:19

And it slowed us down in that season where we were really where you're really like oh man, this is the woman for me.

Speaker 1: 29:28

I want to rush through this.

Speaker 2: 29:28

Let's just get married. Let's just get it over with this is what it's gonna be.

Speaker 1: 29:30

But nah, dude, you might find something in that book where it could be like that's a deal breaker.

Speaker 2: 29:34

This is a deal breaker absolutely like.

Speaker 1: 29:37

I don't think I can move forward with this. You had that type of past. I don't think I'm comfortable with that. I don't think I'll ever be comfortable with that.

Speaker 2: 29:45

I think we need to part ways wow, it's a good book and that's the reason why you need to have the book. That's that's why we think it's important to talk about it here on the podcast man absolutely married couples, engaged couples, pre-engaged. It's the right book to work together, to figure each other out, to learn each other, to work on your communication, man.

Speaker 1: 30:06

I think we we drove that point super home so if you are a serious couple, whether you're married or not married, go ahead and get the book. 101 Questions to Ask Before Getting Engaged. Let us know if you got the book. Let us know if you're doing the book. Let us know if you finished the book. We want to hear all of the reactions, all of the comments about it, if this was a great book for you and how it helped you learn how to love by faith better.

Speaker 2: 30:32

Yes. 101 Questions. H. Norman Wright. Let's pray for the people. Yay.

Speaker 1: 30:38

Let's do it, lord.

Speaker 2: 30:39

We're grateful for this time, lord, to talk and to share and to grow together as Christians in fellowship and in love. Lord, we pray for the couples out there who are getting serious, who are ready to jump the broom, as it would be, and to take the dive into marriage and to understanding their spouse better and understanding their partner better, and to creating marriages that last for life, because that's what we're about here Married for life. We give you glory for all of it. We pray for that couple we saw get engaged on Selena's birthday weekend. We pray that they have a great marriage that lasts and that you're in the center of it as well, as you be in the center of all the marriages who are listening and who are getting touched by our ministry, and we just pray that you continue to work in our marriage In Jesus's name, amen.

Speaker 1: 31:29

Amen. Thank you guys so much for listening and watching. If you're watching us on YouTube, make sure to like, share, subscribe. If you guys are listening to us on Apple or Spotify iHeart any of the other platforms please make sure you give us a five-star review and share it so that other people like you can learn how to love by faith.

Speaker 2: 31:47

The Serious Couple Series.

Speaker 1: 31:49

Serious Couple Series. We're going to come back next week, which will be our final week in March. We'll have another great book for you guys to help you with before you go about your spring break at festivities.

Speaker 2: 32:00

Let's go.

Speaker 1: 32:00

And we hope to see you next time.

Speaker 2: 32:02

Don't just think by faith, don't just read by faith, love by faith.

Speaker 1: 32:08

Yes, took me three months, bro, got it, nailed it. Yes, yes, take care guys, yes.

Speaker 2: 32:16

Good job, selena. Bye, bro, got it nailed it.

Speaker 1: 32:17

Yes, take care guys. Yes, good job, selena.

Speaker 2: 32:18

Bye I did it, you got it. Yeah, I kind of teed that one up really, I know really slow very slow for me okay I think maybe by the summertime I'll do a good fast pitch. You think you'll have it.

Speaker 1: 32:34

I think I'll have it. I'll keep working on trying to catch you off guard Nailed it.

Speaker 2: 32:41

So in the episode where we kept saying, man, what was the word Spontaneous?

Speaker 1: 32:48

In the spontaneous episode. Yeah, last week what?

Speaker 2: 32:50

was the final count. Was it 49? It was 54. 54.

Speaker 1: 32:54

It was 54 times. Yeah, it's all right. I thought that I thought the ticker count would be the end of us saying it and you, like, two seconds later, you said it like three more times. I was like, oh, I gotta keep counting. Wow, this, this guy, this guy, I don't know what you're doing with your life right now but I got to go, you got to go?

Speaker 2: 33:16

Yeah, I got to go. Where are you?

Speaker 1: 33:17

going to go, I got to go places.

Speaker 2: 33:18

What do you got to?

Speaker 1: 33:19

do? I got things to do, okay, okay, that's great. I got to work in my office, yeah, because the kids don't have school again next Friday. Children are such a blessing, such a blessing. Quivers in my bow case is that what it's called quivers in?

Speaker 2: 33:40

my arrow box, arrows in my quiver arrows in my quiver.

Speaker 1: 33:43

They are blessings of the lord arrows in my quiver when you say it like that, it doesn't sound right get out of here. I gotta go. Good day.