His & Hers Podcast - Reigniting Courtship: Intentional Ways To Love Your Spouse **Blast From The Past**

Our team thought it was a great idea to start rewinding previous (but timely) episodes of our show during the times that Mista Yu is away from the microphone. All of these beautiful Blasts from the Past were previously broadcast, but we are sharing them with you at a time when you might need them most. Hope you enjoy the review!

Tired of feeling “busy” yet strangely disconnected from the person you love most? We dig into the difference between casual dating and purposeful courtship and share how re-courtship inside marriage can restore warmth, clarity, and trust without gimmicks or grand gestures.

We open up about our first date and why accountability shaped every choice we made early on. From there, we get practical: weekly no-work boundaries, dinner-at-the-table conversations, shared reading, and turning errands into easy dates. We talk about the seasons where the calendar owned us—kids’ activities, work, ministry—and how planning like teammates, meal-prepping for hard weeks, and praying together kept us steady. You’ll hear why assumptions drain intimacy, how to audit your commitments with an urgent vs important filter, and what to do when you “don’t have time” but can’t afford to keep drifting.

Faith undergirds everything here. We name how the enemy sneaks in through pride, busyness, and unspoken expectations, and we offer tools to push back: honest check-ins, recalibrating values as you grow, delaying wants for shared needs, and looking for the root beneath recurring friction. Whether you’re newly married or approaching three decades together, the message is the same—be intentional, stay curious, and fiercely defend the covenant you vowed to protect.

If this conversation sparks something for you, share it with a friend, subscribe for more real talk on marriage and growth, and leave a review with the one habit you’ll try this week. Your story may be the nudge another couple needs.

Our team will choose random (but timely) episodes from our previous three seasons (which are our most popular ever!) to share with our listeners during the slower parts of a long podcast season. We think you will enjoy them! Thanks for listening!

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Transcript

Married and Dating

SPEAKER_00 0:44

Hey friends and fam, it's Mr. You. Now, I team wanna try something fresh and something different, especially during our slower months of the season. So, starting this season, we're gonna release random but timely episodes from our first few seasons, which I gotta tell you are the most popular seasons of our entire podcast brand history. I think when you hear them, you'll know why they're so popular. It's gonna be great for new listeners and great also for longtime listeners who've been following us for a while. So stay tuned. I thank you for watching us and for listening. Hope you enjoy this new experience. We're going into the archives. Here's a blast from the past right now. I think you'll enjoy. Have fun. I'm Mr. U, and the Queen is in the house this morning. Hello. Good morning, good morning. We are in the house, so we're excited about being back with you. Hope you enjoyed the last two episodes that we dropped on all our social media platforms. Hope you enjoyed those. They were really fun to do. We learned a lot about ourselves in the process, as always, and we learned a lot about what you guys think and what you need in life and where you are, and it's been really good. But we ready to get into this new episode, and we we know we're entering up on the end of the year, which is always comes with a lot of expectations and a lot of wanting to renew some areas and get some things straight. Uh, maybe discard some old ideals and some old concepts and behaviors and kind of start into anew. So that's kind of where we are right now, uh, along with the the rigors of the holiday season. So good times.

SPEAKER_02 2:56

Yes, very good times. It's been a busy, busy season this time.

SPEAKER_00 3:00

Absolutely. It could be the busiest one we've had in uh in many years. Yes. For a lot of different reasons. But uh today we're going to talk a little bit about something that we promised about three months ago, and we finally got a chance to get it on the books. But talk about married and dating. Weird concept, I guess, to some maybe. People who are generally married, they don't think about the idea of dating or excuse me, or having a recourtship or reigniting the spark in their relationship. There's a lot of reasons why that happens. It's not always uh sinister. There's a lot of reasons why life can kind of creep up on you and cause you to forget about taking the time to slow down. Uh it's it's really interesting how that tends to happen. But we're gonna attempt today to try to help all of our listeners maintain the fire in their relationship. Not because we're experts, but just because we figure some stuff out and we see some areas that could uh have some that could that could take some improvement. And we want to share that with you guys, like we always do, and we always hear back from you, it's always positive. You you get something out of our discussions and you learn something about yourselves in the process, and guess what? You learn something about us as well, too. So you get to know us in a deeper way. So we're gonna have fun with this today, and then we uh we're gonna let's go ahead and jump into this. So, married but dating. Let's start with this. Now, when I hear dating, I in today's time, in today's vernacular, I got we have some friends of ours, uh, business associates that we used to uh work with that utilize dating apps to meet people. And in today's world, dating has a certain stigma attached to it.

unknown 4:58

Right.

SPEAKER_00 4:58

So I wanted to do what I did was I took the time to look up what it means to date and what it means versus a courtship. So dating is considered more casual, exploring different opportunities with people, meeting different people. No strong commitment level there as it as it pertains to dating. As it pertains to courtship, it's a more serious intentional process. I know some might consider that to be outdated and primitive, but that's really how the best way to get it done if you're thinking about having a committed relationship with somebody. So it's a serious, intentional process with goal, with the goal of marriage as your primary goal, as your primary intention. Comes with a lot of social guidelines, also involves uh your family or your support system in life. So there's a lot of different moving parts there, but as you can see, a difference. One's casual and one's serious. Alright, so excuse me. So when it comes to that, uh, we talk about the concept of dating your spouse. I don't want to give the impression, that's why I read the definition. I'm gonna give the impression that we're talking about something casual, something that's kind of haphazard, you kind of do it whenever. I want to give that impression because that's what dating looks like nowadays. So I want to get that image in your mind. I'm thinking more about re-courtship than I am about dating, because the courtship is more intentional. You're involving your family, you're involving your support system, you're you're more intent on making your covenant and your marriage stronger than it was, and kind of build upon that. So that's gonna be the context of our conversation. But do you want to share about our first date that we had?

SPEAKER_02 6:44

Yes, um, our first date was uh church. At church one Sunday. Um, you said follow me to church. He drove his car, I drove mine. Um, he followed me to church, and we um afterwards, when I let enough people know about who I'm around and you call that a date? I well, we went to lunch. That's that's the date.

SPEAKER_00 7:11

All right, because we didn't have no lunch at church for it.

SPEAKER_02 7:13

No, we went to church and then we um you followed me to my apartment, and I got in your truck and we went to um Quincy's.

SPEAKER_00 7:25

Gosh, I haven't heard that name in years.

SPEAKER_02 7:27

We went to Quincy's to have lunch, and but we didn't eat because we sit there and cry the whole time. Uh that was a real different time, but we cried and it was like, I don't know why I'm crying. I don't either.

SPEAKER_00 7:43

Why are you telling everybody the story that I was crying over?

SPEAKER_02 7:48

But you was asking questions like, um, just men supposed to hug you at church? And you was asking questions like, um, why was everybody just come in to talk to me? You know, that was a different experience for you.

SPEAKER_00 8:03

For real.

SPEAKER_02 8:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:04

So it was more than just crying at the table. I was asking questions and communicating. Okay. Yeah, you was asking. Thank you. Thank you, Scripture. It sounds real weird if I was just crying the whole time.

SPEAKER_02 8:13

No, but um, I went, I wanted to go to a place where I've I just felt like in my life and the things that I had experienced and being a single parent at that time, um, I needed to be accountable and have somebody to hold me accountable. So um that's why you went to church with me. And we also went out to eat where I knew that the people that worked there, they, you know, I knew them and they knew me. So I just wanted to cover myself, you know, in the dating because being a Christian or being a believer, um, I just wanted to do everything, you know, um that that would be pleasing to in God's sight, you know. I didn't want to blur any lines, I didn't want to give um, you know, I didn't want to do anything that would make me feel guilty later, you know, because I I was being accountable because I was a teacher at church, I was a um part of the worship team, and I just wanted to set the example that I believed that God would want me to at that time. So that's why we did things the way we did, and you agreed.

SPEAKER_00 9:29

Yeah, I didn't have a problem with that. I was I was pretty open. Uh, I think when you when you feel confident that somebody has your best interest at heart, you're open to ideas.

SPEAKER_03 9:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:41

So that's kind of how I felt about that situation. Uh for me, I didn't really have a context for dating. So at that age, I I think we were, I think I was 24, 25. I should have had plenty of context for dating. I know people might say, oh, no, you must be some kind of prude or something. But I didn't have any context for dating really. For me, dating wasn't what it is right now. It was a lot different. It was, I mean, it was casual, but it was like it was almost like a we just ate. Ate and talked. There were there wasn't really any uh there wasn't any real uh deep communication, any deep discussion. So I don't know, I'm not quite sure if it had a real context for dating. So for me, that was a first to have something like that happen. And to have it with somebody who you felt like, you know, what you were connecting with, like really connecting. Not just somebody you're gonna sleep with, but somebody you really connected with.

SPEAKER_03 10:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:46

And that was a that was a big difference from a big difference from what I was accustomed to.

SPEAKER_03 10:51

Yeah.

Building and Maintaining Strong Marriages

SPEAKER_00 10:52

Because for me, dating was like, okay, you're spending your money on somebody, you know, you expecting something in return. I mean, that's the culture that I grew up in, just to be honest about it. So this was so different. It was like, okay, now I gotta communicate and talk and share my feelings and and be transparent. I was like not ready for anything. Not ready for this whatsoever. I'll be even more transparent, man. Even, I mean, we've been married almost 29 years now. And in my early years of our marriage, I was still trying to figure out how much to communicate, how much to say, what's gonna cause a backlash in this house, or what's gonna cause a problem or create a wedge. So I was careful about what I shared. And I'm like, this is my best friend, this is my partner in life. I'm like, can I share this? Is this gonna go over well? Should I keep that one in myself and put kind of put that one in the prayer closet with me and God, you know? So that was that was funny. But our courtship was so funny because I feel like the courtship definitely came before the for the before the date in my mind. I feel like the the courtship even pushed the dating to the side. Because I feel like the true definition of courtship, like I just read earlier in the episode, it's that's exactly what was happening. I was serious about it. It wasn't a joke to me. I'm like, okay, I'm feeling something I never felt before. I'm thinking stuff I never thought before. I'm making plans. I never had an idea I'll be planning for. So I'm like, this isn't, I'm being serious, I'm being a serious adult here. I'm being an intentional person as it pertains to this woman. So I'm like, so this three, it was the it was a big deal, but the courtship was really short. We tell a story all the time. Every time we get in in public circles sometime, it always comes out. We knew each other for three months. Three months, yes, three months, and then we decide to get married. Now, this is not some kind of uh PSA, we're not telling you to do that because there's a lot of things that happened that are are part of it, probably can't get into all that today, but it was a big part of why three months was enough. Uh but we were convinced that we were supposed to be together, and I believe it bared out over time. We can see that. We're going almost into three decades of marriage. We we can see that it it was the right thing, but the short courtship was weird because three months doesn't take a lot of time to get to know somebody, to meet their family, to have certain levels of approval in the family, to be comfortable with each other, and also be comfortable in our own skin as single people before we come together as and and the two become one. So there was a lot of that course that was just really funny and weird to me.

SPEAKER_02 13:40

Yes, I even with myself, you know, I I was so shocked that you wanted me to meet your mom, your grandmama, and your sister. I was like, oh my gosh. Um, but we we went to New York and we stayed there a week and fell in love with mom and grandma and Amina, and it was beautiful. Um, I enjoyed the time there, the conversations. Um, you know, mom didn't have a lot of questions for me, but um, you know, we were able to talk. Um, Youssef and I, you know, um, the way that he showed me attention even around his mom, the way he cared for his mom meant so much to me because, you know, um I know he wasn't just trying to put on something for me. I saw their relationship. You know, I saw grandma and um Yousef interaction and how he interacted with his sister, and you know, it just meant a big deal to me to see that if he could do that for them, and that's his first example of how to communicate with a woman, you know, that we can work through stuff, you know, we can talk out things. So that was a blessing to me.

SPEAKER_00 15:02

Yeah, that was really, really good. So we heard now we are in a long marriage, and I know many of you may be able to say the same, maybe even longer. Or you just kind of start now, you're within five years or within ten years, and you're still figuring some things out in life. Maybe it's even earlier than that, and you're in the first few years, and you're like, wow, a lot of stuff is happening. Those first three to five years are critical, they are essentially the make and break period of the marriage. But what we're learning, and we wanted to kind of share with you in hopes that it encourages you today, is just to learn how to reignite the fire in a relationship. I'm not talking about just only sexually either, just to be clear. I'm talking about kind of revisiting the things that made you like each other in the first place, the things that made you uh enjoy each other's company, the things that made being around each other fun and enjoyable. You know, I I know that I'm not the only one, I'm sure the Queen can concur, but busyness has a way of attacking.

SPEAKER_02 16:08

Oh, yes.

SPEAKER_00 16:09

And when if you're trying to, if you have the intention of building a family of any sort, that that alone right there is enough of a barrier that you have to work around that and you have to still continue to build, but not lose sight of what's most important. Because in building a family, at the end of the day, and this is something that we learned the the right way and the long way and the hard way, that when your kids get to be 17, 18 years old, in most situations they're gonna end up leaving home. So all you're doing is just preparing the training ground for them to learn how to adapt, if I can use that word, and function in this world without you being over their shoulder. You can offer advice to be part of their support system, but you won't be there while they're living life. And that's all you're really doing. So when that happens, guess what happens? You're back to being an empty nester, like you were before the children were born, and you're back there with your spouse, just you and your spouse. And that relationship has to be strong, it has to be solid. We had ups and downs with that, but we realized that we had to take the time to be married, yeah, and and court each other again and and spend time taking care of each other and hearing each other and communicating with each other because when the kids are gone, guess what? There's no more darkness to change, there's no more battles to fight, there's no more kids to take the school. It's just you and your spouse. And you can't neglect that relationship for 18 years while the kids grow. You need to embrace it, enjoy it, take the intentional time to re-engage in all the important areas in life, right?

SPEAKER_02 17:52

Yes, because uh during that time we did go excuse me through a lot of busy seasons. Um the girls were in they were really active in school. R O T C basketball, dance, I mean, some of everything. And then you were um working and going to school and doing ministry, and I was doing ministry, and I worked at home, and I was doing the um Uber for the for the family, because then I were we had one vehicle for a while, and then I you worked like 45 minutes away um from home, and I had to get you to work, get back home, take um the three kids to school at two different schools, and it was a lot, but I'm so glad we made the time to do something on the weekends. It was family weekend, and then it was you and my time, you know. Um, we still made sure that we took care of us, you know. Um, even if it was just to talk to some things. And some of the times if we brought up work, he was like, nope, we're not allowed to talk to work on the weekend. That was out of the question. So um there would be times that we would get a book and we would read it together, we would discuss it, um, we would see where our life was compared to those things that was in the book, you know. It was different little tools that we used to be able to make time to look at us as husband and wife and as partners.

SPEAKER_00 19:33

Yeah. I mean, it's it sounds so elementary, but in the in the course of everyday life, I feel like, especially as believers, I feel like we don't do it. Yeah, we know it, but we don't do it. And the Bible says if we know to do a thing and we don't do it, to us is sin and we don't do it. We know that praying together is important. We know worshiping together is important. We know reading books, like you stated, is important. We know connecting and even maybe watching a program together or taking a ride together, taking a drive together. We know that stuff is important. Eating together, cooking dinner together. Have cooking, having date nights and cooking dinner together. We know it's important, but for some reason, we allow business to get in the way of what we know we should be doing to maintain and to continue to forge and reforge this very important relationship, probably the most important relationship in our life. You know, we gotta learn how to build family without building walls. And I feel like we don't always understand that.

SPEAKER_02 20:30

I like that.

SPEAKER_00 20:31

I like it too. No, and we don't always do that. We try to talk about we're gonna build a family and do but we end up building walls instead, and we have all these barriers that we gotta try to work through and fight through. It's like it's not we gotta. Make the the first thing the first thing and make sure we keep the first thing the first thing. We gotta prioritize the things that matter. Re-engage on what our values are. Because in life over years, I mean, I would if I asked Queen from 1998 her value system compared to now, I bet you it's different. I bet you you see things differently. We had to learn how to re-engage that. Yeah. Not assuming, you know what, the queen from 1997 is the same one right now. The person that I married is the exact same person right now. That's a mistake. At the core of that person, I'm sure they're the same. We're the same. But things have changed. You're evolving, you're growing. We gotta take time to connect and re-engage and make sure things is good. You know? I mean, it's like say you have an appliance that's really, really old and you hit you got it 10 years ago, right? You'd be foolish to not ignore the sounds that they're making. You know, it's like, what is that? Oh, it's good. It's been around for eight years, it'd be fine. You know, it's it's a it's it's foolish to not to ignore the flashing lights or the blinking lights. It's not it's not wise. So, in the same way that we wouldn't do that there, we would get it evaluated or get a new appliance. We have to do the same thing with our spouse, not go get a new spouse, but evaluate where the spouse is. You can't expect them to do the same same thing the same way because you're all growing, you're walking through seasons together, and things are changing. What do you believe? What's changed? What do you like? What do you don't like now? What's lower or higher on your priority list? Those kind of things we have to engage about and take the time to figure out. There's an old saying I always share, and it's like we make time for what we care about, we make time for who we care about. And busyness is gonna come. Can't avoid that. I know people who are busy in life so much that their marriage is the third, fourth priority in their life. They got ministry, they got work, they got school, they got girlfriend time or hanging out with the guys' time, and marriage is not even in the top three. And it's a real situation. But we make time for what we care about. We make time for who we care about. And I think if nothing else comes out of this episode today, it's intentionality. Yes, you gotta be intentional about what we know we need to do to reignite the fire and maintain the level of relationship that we know we need to to keep a happy marriage and to keep a fruitful marriage and even to be role model for those that are not married or desire to be married, right?

SPEAKER_02 23:24

Yes, because one of the things that, you know, you and I have noticed, you know, since COVID, um, and just being home every day and doing business and being together all the time, you know, we are busy doing things, but we have to take the time out to say, how are you doing?

SPEAKER_03 23:44

Yeah.

Strengthening Marriage During Busy Seasons

SPEAKER_02 23:44

You know, I I come and check on you. You said, How are you? Where do you what are you thinking about now in the season that we're in? And how are we gonna go to the next season? Do you have any input? You know, listening to you, letting you share what you think about this, and then you doing that for me in return, and then us praying through that situation. Because if it's something that we don't understand or we can't see why or how this is taking place, the best thing to do is go to God and find that out so that it won't become friction between the two of us. So that's been something that we have learned because we're taking the time out to be intentional to check on one another.

SPEAKER_00 24:29

Yeah, we've done a lot of things to, and I think almost 29 years is a good, it's a good sample size to for a couple of figure things out within. A lot of opportunity to learn from your mistakes and see where you went wrong and see where you can do better. For those that are one year, three years in, five years in, don't be discouraged by how it looks. Something get worked out with time. I'm not gonna say that time heals all wounds. I don't believe in that. I believe Jesus heals all wounds, but no, but time can help you figure some things out when you are willing to adjust and grow. And we learned how to, you know, just enjoy each other. Our dinner tables were the place where we ate and talked and communicated. And it's not quite like the uh TV show Blue Bloods, but it's it was it was pretty close. We did not just on a Sunday, we did it every day. We sat and ate dinner together, and I think that was something that was really important to us.

SPEAKER_02 25:28

And we still do.

SPEAKER_00 25:29

Yeah, we still do that now. Even if the kids are not living here, we still do that. Uh, you know, but we learn how to eat together, be active together, you know, whether we're running errands, we turn errands into dates, which is pretty cool. We run up, we run a couple of errands, you know what? Let's it'll just turn into a date and we'll make it into that. It's like, wow, that was pretty cool how that happened. But, you know, but I have a question, because I know that we talked about, you know, building blocks and you know, reigniting a fire and engaging each other and making sure each other's okay and that stuff. But what's the next step when you don't have the time? Because people always say, you know, and this is something that I do critique people off just because I know it's not coming from a genuine place a lot of the time. People say, Oh, I didn't get back to you because I was busy. Sometimes that's not really the truth. Sometimes it wasn't a priority for you. You didn't calendarize it, you didn't make it a point of emphasis. You just kind of just said it while you was in front of us. I'm gonna do this, or I'll call you at this time, or call me at this time, and you just forgot, or it wasn't important enough for you to make a note and be where you're supposed to be. Whether you're a business owner or you're not an entrepreneur, that should still be a point of emphasis for everyone that gives their word to somebody. But sometimes people don't have time for real.

SPEAKER_01 26:49

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 26:50

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SPEAKER_01 27:54

We communicate that we don't have the time. Um and we begin to evaluate the priorities in our life.

Reevaluating Priorities in Marriage

SPEAKER_02 28:07

Because we have to stay connected. That's one of our that should be one of our first priorities, you know, to stay connected and have that communication because what I do is it's a reflection of you, and what you do is a reflection of me. Because we are as one, like the Bible tells us. And us being as one and being busy, sometimes I have to work on when you're really busy, and there's times that I've had to work on me while you're working on that thing that you're working on, so that when we come back together, I'm able to understand, you know, why we had to do the projects or take care of the things that we had to. I'm not just sitting around moping saying, you know, um, I'll be glad when you're done, or you don't take time out for me. You know, um, because as I'm working on myself and you're working on you or doing the chores that we're doing, when we come back together, that makes us stronger.

SPEAKER_00 29:15

Right, right.

SPEAKER_02 29:15

And I think that's really important because if I'm not doing any work on me, I can get um in a mood where I just feel like I'm being neglected. But those seasons do come up and we have to handle them as mature adults, you know, because the more that we work on us, the better we can build together.

SPEAKER_00 29:34

I love that. We had a week recently, well, it was probably more like about eight or nine, a span of eight or nine days. Might have been the busiest eight or nine days that we've had in almost 29 years.

SPEAKER_02 29:48

Yes, Lord.

SPEAKER_00 29:49

Uh, not busy with just stuff with items on the calendar and agendas and stuff, but just busy and taxing. And it was uh things that required a lot of us mentally and physically and spiritually, and it took a toll on us. The reason why I believe, even though we were tired and exhausted and we never sleep in for the most part, we get up early in the morning to pray. It's kind of our routine. We were basked for all of these eight to nine days. The reason why I believe we survived it and it didn't turn into something else, is because we planned. Yes. It's because we communicated. This is what's happening on this day. This is where we can be able to get wherever this task is done here, put this other task off until next week because we don't have the capacity for it. We're gonna rest here, we're gonna go ahead and push in here and commit to doing this. And when we did that, I believe we came out of it better and stronger because we learned how to communicate even better than we have in all the years we've been married. And I credit and I credit God for that. But I'm excited about that because I it I didn't know how we were gonna do that.

SPEAKER_03 31:04

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 31:04

And it really turned out really, really a lot better than I thought. But to speak to your the answer to the question, what's the next steps when you don't have the time? For me, the first thing I'm thinking about is why don't I have the time? If the queen is the most important relationship in my life, why don't I have the time? What am I doing? The analytical person in me is gonna go go and write stuff down. I'm gonna go sit somewhere and make it and make a list. What's what am I doing? All the things I'm doing and write them down, okay, and I'm like, okay, so where does this all fit? There's a uh book by Stephen Covey, a book that I always talk about on the podcast, Seven Habits of Highly Successful People. And it teaches you how to prioritize the things in your life. What's urgent, what's not urgent, what's important, what's not important, what's an emergency, what's not, excuse me. And put that into its proper perspective. When I start writing stuff out, I'm like, wait a minute. I am busy, but why am I doing this? And do I have the capacity to even see this all the way through if I start doing this? Perhaps this is the uh something I do three months down the line. I even find some things I shouldn't be doing at all. Like, this is a waste of time. This is this is this is ego and pride. Why am I even doing this? I don't need to do this, you know? And once you start scaling it down, which is what I'm always gonna do first, then you realize that you know what you may be busy, but maybe you're too busy because you got too many things in your life that you shouldn't be doing. That's not something people like to hear. I know people don't like to hear that because they feel like all their routines have been going on so long and they've been doing it, they've been going up for they've been working from seven to seven, and it's what they've been doing for so many years now, and they think it's what they're supposed to be doing. But I but I challenge you to re-evaluate all the things that are on your list that make you busy. Think about it. Because if your marriage is having to take a back seat to all the busyness, might be a problem there. Because you can be married and still do ministry. You can be married and still take care of your children, you can be married and still go to school, you can be married and still hold down a full-time job, you can be married and still do all the things in the community that you want to do. You don't have to give that up. You can be married and still function and accomplish those things. But when you're married to the backseat and somebody's being neglected, it's you're just trying to question what is in your list and why you're doing it.

SPEAKER_02 33:35

Yeah, that's just like the eight to nine days you were saying that how busy we were. And a lot of the things we had to do, we had to do together, but a lot, some of them were separate. So we planned to spend time together by preparing food for the days that we were going to be busy. So that was something that we did together. We took the time out to pray together for some of the things that we had to accomplish that day or that week or those nine, eight to nine days. We took time out to make sure we came together and did something for us to be able to say we were doing this together so that we can be on the same page. And then we went our separate ways and did the things we had to do, but we didn't neglect one another. So that was, you know, that was really good for us.

SPEAKER_00 34:25

Yeah, absolutely. I thought it was too. Could ask ourselves, what are we busy doing?

SPEAKER_01 34:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:30

Is there a smarter approach? I mean, there's times where people have asked me for some advice as friends, or maybe I have to put on the hat of a mentor in that moment, and they ask me, like, what I'm dealing with this, I'm challenged, but this level of commitment in these areas, what can I do? And I'm always asking, is there a smarter approach? Is there a wiser approach? Yeah, you've been doing it for a long time, and maybe you think it's working. Maybe you don't see the cracks or the chinks in the armor. Even in your own house, maybe you don't realize that the kids are clamoring for more of mommy's time or daddy's time, and you don't see it because you're so you're so uh eagle eye focused on taking care of this plan the way you have it set up. Maybe it's not, maybe it's not the best plan. Maybe there's a smarter route, maybe there's a wiser approach to this. You know, when you're talking about marriage and committing your time to taking care of that relationship, a lot of stuff's gonna get in the way. We're gonna come to that in a little bit. But you know, you know, we got to be really intentional about every single brick. We can't brick, we can't build this house quickly.

SPEAKER_03 35:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:35

It takes time. Yeah, we had a three-month courtship, but we can't build this house in three months. We're in almost in year 29, and we are still figuring out how to build this house.

SPEAKER_02 35:47

Because life has changed, though. You know, some of the things that we had planned for our future and thought we would be doing now that all got upside down.

SPEAKER_00 35:57

Oh, that got smashed.

SPEAKER_02 35:58

Yes, especially when COVID happened, and then, you know, we were in an accident, and that changed a lot of things in life, and you know, just it just changed a lot. And so we had to come back to the drawing board and say, okay, so what do we see our future as now, you know, and what do we have planned? How today, what can we do to help start that building process again for the future, you know? So we had to go and regroup.

SPEAKER_00 36:31

No doubt. Before we end up on the back end of this episode, I would I'd be remiss if I don't bring this up. And I want to ask you a question about this too, Queen. You know, there is this there seems to be a what's the word I want here? There seems to be a bit of a habit that we have as believers. It's not a good habit, by the way. But for lack of a better word, it seemed to be a habit that we forget the enemy in the situation.

SPEAKER_03 37:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:06

We go through life and we deal with conflicts and all kinds of stuff, and we just forget that there's an enemy, we have an adversary that's against us, against our very existence. And we go around doing our life, on our schedule, doing our agenda, and we don't even recognize him in the midst of us. And I don't want to get too deep with this, but I want to definitely put this out here and ask you when you look at marriage and the idea of keeping the flame or the spark ignited, what areas have you seen the enemy work? Even if you haven't didn't figure it out at first, what areas do you see that where the enemy has crept in unawares and hinder the spark from being ignited?

SPEAKER_02 37:57

I think one of the things is that busyness. That has been one of the things because some of the times we'll say yes to some things, and like you said, it's not really important, you know. Um, especially when we've done that same thing over and over again and we don't see it going anywhere. It don't benefit us as a couple. It don't benefit us as believers. It's just a selfishness, you know, and that's one of the things. The other thing is um not dealing with issues and having those conversations, you know, that we need to have about planning ahead of time. Whether we know, like I might want something now, but in a couple months, we might need to take those finances and do something like pay a tax or um an insurance or something like that. And we didn't communicate with that about that, because I just wanted to be selfish. You know, we have to look at everything as it's a team effort, you know, and I think that that's one of the pitfalls that we can get ourselves into when we don't look at ourselves as one taking care of our responsibilities, you know, because um, you know, sometimes you got to delay the that thing that you want, you know, for the thing that we need. And I think the needs are more important, you know, and then we have those times for some of our ones.

SPEAKER_00 39:33

What's up, everybody? It's Mr. You. You know, I love hearing from all of our viewers and listeners. You guys have some great questions. I love it. On every episode of the podcast, they call me Mr. You, right at the top of our show notes is a way you can text me directly. It's called fan mail. Send a text to me anytime in or out of our shows with questions, feedback, topic ideas, or some kind of encouragement for the coach. And I'll respond back to you at the very next episode of our show. I'm making you a part of our show. So send a text, show some love, ask a question, fan mail. Thanks for supporting us again. We love you, we appreciate you. Have a great day. Enjoy the music, coach out. I like that, I like that. I I've seen that. I mean, I I I feel like we have to almost constantly be on watch to not fall into these areas.

SPEAKER_03 40:31

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 40:32

And that's gonna require a lot of recognition, a lot of awareness and alertness about our life and what we invite in, and what we let seep out. And like You said business ventures and stuff play a big part in in our history. There could be a love of money attached to that. And that's something where the enemy can be uh at work and at play. I think a lot of it in the communications realm, because that's something that we talk about a lot on the his and hers podcast. I think assumption plays a big part there too. I think that's that's the enemy that we need to be dealing with as well.

SPEAKER_03 41:07

Definitely.

SPEAKER_00 41:08

Excuse me. We assume that the other person is gonna be good with this. We assume that they they would get they would get it if you decide to go this route and you don't communicate it to find out whether that's so. And it can cause so many challenges in marriage to assume. And then the pride factor that plays a part too. Because you feel like, you know what? I'm young, I can go hard and have this 16-hour schedule. I'll be alright. Couple cups of coffee, and I can keep on rolling, you know. And then we have health issues, we have areas where we uh invite sickness into our life because we're not doing well, we're not eating right, we're not taking the right uh the right uh intake of vitamins and minerals and supplements and whatever. Excuse me. And we just don't take care of our bodies out of pride. And those are enemies that they can really mess up a marriage. Yeah, they can really mess up uh that relate that core relationship. I mean, there's so many enemies that I probably can pick out, but that's just a few of them. But there's just so many of them. I think, you know, the one I've seen recently in other people's marriages, and I definitely work hard for it to not be in ours, but I see it when people come to us and want to talk about where they are in their marriage, and I guess that's their way of asking for counsel, I guess. But when they feel as though the other person already knows that they love them, so they don't have to do anything to show it. What do you think about that one?

Fiercely Defending the Covenant

SPEAKER_02 42:41

Wow, that's a big one. Um you know, when you think about the dating part of your first meeting with the person, the way that you pursued them, the way that you responded to them, that's still who you married, you know. Um sometimes you have to go back to that, you know, and we forget about that part. You know, I'm not saying that if you gave candy and flowers every day, you got to do that every day on the marriage. Um, but there is a part of who you were when you first met them that they still look for that part of the person. You know, if Yusuf married me and I was a happy, go-lucky person, he still is looking for that person, you know. If I'm bitter and mean and withdrawn and selfish, that's not who he married, you know. And there was a time in our marriage when he said, you know, you're not like you used to be. And I had to do an evaluation of myself. And I saw that the cares of life and the busyness, it did make me mean and sharp every time I opened my mouth because, you know, I felt like I'm carrying the weight of a lot of things. But he wanted to carry it, but I didn't think he would do it the way that I would do it. So it became like a little selfish, prideful thing for me. And it was almost like a badge that I would wear that I'm doing everything, and I had to repent. I had to ask for forgiveness and let him do a part of the work too, and be okay with how it turned out because you said it's not me and I'm not him.

SPEAKER_00 44:32

So Amen to that. But did I answer your question? I believe you did, yeah. No, there's a uh that goes that goes into a lot of places. But we we're figuring out that we gotta fiercely defend the covenant. Yes, and it's not something that we can uh drag our feet about. I hope that you got some help in the whole marriage, dating, courtship idea. We had some plans we're gonna talk about, and we just kind of just went a different direction. Yes. But I I'm I'm excited about it, and we've been reading through the old testament, and when you hear about the covenants that's made and the and the things that are considered holy and important, they were fiercely defended. And when they weren't, bad things happened every time. Yeah, other elements creeped in every single time. So that means we had to be on the defense for something that we say is important, that we believe it matters. And in this context, we're talking about marriage, we're talking about the relationship. We gotta fiercely defend it. We know that the Bible teaches us that what God has brought together no man can put asunder. And we fight for that. We fight for it because we know that we can't allow it to take place. Anything outside of what we know God is set in position. So we gotta fight for it and defend it, and it requires you to be on alert. Not looking for an enemy under every corner, but being watchful and alert to areas that could be a problem. It could be a problem in your soul, it could be a problem in your mind, it could be a problem in your attitude and your behavior, it could be a bad habit that got carried over from years ago that you still are doing now. There's a lot of little things that's gonna contribute to that. But I think this has been a great conversation. I'm excited to have more of these in uh the months to come. But hopefully you got something out of that. Anything you want to share, Queen, that you think would be a good takeaway from today?

SPEAKER_02 46:41

Yes, I just wanted to say that, you know, sometimes we're going through things and it's not the root cause of why we're dealing with that thing.

SPEAKER_03 46:49

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 46:50

Sometimes we need to take the time out to see what the root cause is. And that would help the problem that we're dealing with or the issue that we have. You know, if um I'm always got an attitude about something, or I always want to spend money on things that are not necessary. You know, there might be a root cause. That might be the way that I deal with um pressure or I deal with um change. And I really need to deal with that root cause of why I'm responding the way that I do. I think that's in every every relationship. Let's get to the root of this thing. Because if we say that we are believers, and if there is something in us, like you said, in our soul or in our spirit, in our mind, or whatever, um, that's not the way God says it should be, or according to the word, that we can deal with that root. And we can deal with it by God's word, and so that we can not give the enemy a place.

SPEAKER_00 47:52

I love it. A couple of closing scriptures, and then we're gonna go ahead and shut the episode down for today. Mark 10, verse 9. Therefore, what God is joined together, let no one separate. In Ecclesiastes 4 and 12. And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him. A three-fold cord is not quickly broken. We thank you so much for joining us on this journey, talking about marriage and married and dating. Hope you got some uh good intentional ideals out of this. Be intentional, check in on each other, make sure that you're listening and communicating, recognize the enemy, and definitely continue to fiercely defend your marriage and your relationship. Have a great day. We enjoy sharing this with you. Hope you enjoyed hearing it. We're out.