Know Someone in All Four Seasons of Their Personality Before Marriage

Before you say “yes” to forever, do you truly know who your partner is in every season of life? In this powerful bonus episode, A’laila explore the concept of understanding a person through the four emotional seasons of their personality—how they show up when they’re happy (spring), angry (summer), afraid (fall), and struggling or withdrawn (winter).
It’s easy to fall in love with someone at their best, but lasting relationships are built on how well you understand and navigate each other at your most vulnerable. This episode guides you through what to observe, what to ask, and what to reflect on as you evaluate emotional patterns, coping mechanisms, communication styles, and resilience.
You’ll learn how to avoid making lifelong commitments based on incomplete information and instead build a foundation rooted in truth, emotional awareness, and compatibility. If you’re serious about choosing the right partner, this episode will shift how you evaluate love, commitment, and readiness for marriage.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome back to Improving Your Thoughts by Freeing Yourself. I'm your host, Alayla Carroll. Today's topic is a bonus episode. I'd love to put in bonus episode just to add a little flavor to my season. Yeah, that's what I said. Add a little flavor to my seasons. Okay, so this bonus episode is titled Know Someone in All Four Seasons of Their Personality Before Marriage. Because you've already date and you know exactly what you like in this person, and you know the things about this person that make you say, Hmm, I would like to commit. So you didn't walk away, you are still in it. But you know you want to get married. But before you get married, you need to know what you're going to be marrying before you do. Say I did. Alright. This is a special bonus season to close out season 10, where we have learned how to date properly and intentionally. Throughout this season, we've talked about

Bonus Episode And Big Premise

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red flags, background checks, recognizing charmers and manipulators, protecting your finances and assets, communication for the first through the tenth date, knowing when to move forward or to walk away. But there is one more lesson that is extremely important before marriage, and that lesson is you should know a person in all four seasons of their personality before committing your life to them. Those four emotional seasons are spring when they are happy, summer when they are angry, fall when they are afraid, winter, when they are sad.

The Four Emotional Seasons

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Anyone can appear wonderful during the good moments, but marriage is not only about good moments. Life includes stress, loss of loved ones, loss of job, loss of body parts. It's a loss, you know. Disappointments, fear, and conflict. So, what I have done here, I used to say this for years. I used to say you need to know a person all four seasons before you marry them. And I didn't take my own advice when I married my second husband because I knew his summer personality before I married him, and yet I still married him because I was being love-bombed a lot of the time, and I was going off of those emotions instead of and I also was lonely. I remember wanting to be in a relationship, and I was heartbroken, so I was also on a rebound. So I had a lot of things working against me when I should have just stayed single and stayed to myself and healed because I let my logic be overridden by all those things that I was going through. So that's why I am so adamant about teaching you guys to not be like I was. I want you to do better, and I want to teach you how to do this because I knew how to do it because I was doing it before I met my second husband. I just felt weak and I allowed myself to get into this um narcissistic marriage and abusive marriage on top of that. So that's why I'm like, you know what? I need to teach them what I used to do that I should have kept doing. So I'm gonna teach you guys, okay? So if you only know someone during their spring season, you do not truly know them at all. Today, we're going to be talking about what each emotional seasons reveal about a person, how they treat you during these seasons of their lives, warning signs to watch out for, and why understanding these seasons protect your future. So let's begin. So let's talk about the spring. Yeah, let's talk about spring, all right? When they are happy, yeah. Spring represents a time of joy, growth, and happiness. This is the season when everything in life seems to be going well. Maybe they receive good news, maybe their career is thriving, you know. They got the promotion, they got the job that they wanted, money, gotta raise, all those things. Maybe life simply feels easy for them during this season. People often, people are often optimistic, energetic, excited about the future. Oh, yeah, be careful with that though. Mm-hmm. But even during happy times, you can learn a lot about their character. Ask yourself questions like I need you

Spring Personality During Success

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to always ask yourself questions. You must ask yourself these questions and answer the question, find the answer to the questions you are going to be asking yourself. So let's get a pen, paper, let's write these questions down. If you're driving, come back to this later and write these questions down, alright? So, what you're gonna do is you want to ask yourself when they are happy, how do they treat me? You want to know the answer to that. You're also gonna ask yourself, do they share their joy with me or do they share it with other people? You know, some people will share their joy with their friends, their family, but they don't include you into it, and you like, okay, you got this raised and you went out to go celebrate, but you didn't invite me. What's that about? Yeah, pay attention to that. It's a spring season for them, all right? It's a joyous occasion, you should be included. You also want to ask yourself, do they express gratitude? Are they thankful for their season during this time? Mm-hmm. Or do they become self-centered? Because some people be arrogant and some some guns. Some people become arrogant when they are doing well, like they think that they stuff don't stink. Mm-hmm. But they boo-boo don't smell like roses, but in their mind it does, so you gotta pay attention to that. Do they do any of these things? Answer the question. They may dismiss others, brag excessively, it's okay to be a little bit, but too much is not good. Become less sus I mean, less considerate of you and how you're feeling because you might not be in your spring season, you could be in another season. Not saying that they can't enjoy their spring season because you're not in yours. You might be in your winter season, you're feeling sad, but you gotta understand that y'all's season are not gonna always be the same all the time. Your season and their season is not gonna always be the same, but you still need to pay attention to what their season is like. But emotional, healthy people remain kind and humble, even doing success. Spring reveals whether someone, whether your partner or not, their happiness brings people closer. That's what it's supposed to do when they're in their spring season, their happiness is supposed to bring y'all closer, and you shouldn't be jealous of their happiness either. You should not have envy in your heart towards their spring season. You should be celebrating with them and really genuinely happy that they are in their spring season because it's gonna help you to find that spring season for yourself, and it also sometimes it could reveal whether it make them forget about others because sometimes people do forget about others when they are in their good moments. You know how they say, Oh, when you was all you were stepping on people as you was climbing up, but you forget that you're gonna see those same people when you're coming down. So let's see what they're like during the spring season. This matters in marriages because happiness should create connection, not distance. Alright, now let's talk about summer. Summer is when they are angry. Summer represents heat and intense in intensity. I mean, it's like so tense and hot. Emotionally, summer is when someone feels anger or frustration. You need to see this part. This is very important to be able to see in your partner, especially before you marry this person. Everyone experience anger, there's nothing wrong with it. Anger itself is not the problem. Alright, the real question is how do they behave when they are angry? That's what you're looking for. This season reveals some of the most important aspects of someone's character. Pay attention, play, pay close, very close attention to how they treat you during conflict. I want you to ask yourself when they're having a conflict moment, when y'all two are having a conflict moment, ask yourself,

Summer Personality During Anger

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do they speak respectful to me, respectfully to me? Or even if they have a conflicting moment with someone else, are they respectful to that person? Because the same way they act with them is gonna, it's the same way how they're gonna act with you. Because anger changes people when they have this I don't care attitude when they're angry. And you can ask yourself, or do they insult me when they're angry? Call me out my name, say things that hurt my feelings. Ask yourself, do they listen when I express my feelings? Because that's one of the biggest things I had in my marriage with my second husband. I could not express myself to him, he wouldn't listen. And I would tell him how I feel he couldn't, he would not care. It was one of those things that he would not listen and he would not care. And matter of fact, it made him even angrier because I'm expressing my feelings. That's a problem. Or do they demonstrate communication well? Mm-hmm. Do they dominate the conversation? You gotta think about that too. Ask yourself that question. Do they dominate the conversation when I'm talking? That is a hard thing to do to deal with when someone is talking, you're trying to talk, they don't let you talk. They always taking control of the conversation and it just never go well. There's times when I remember being married to my second husband, that we will be talking and he will be like, Let me finish. Okay, I'll let you finish, but then it would never finish. And I'm like, Are you still talking? Can I get a chance to say something? Oh, I'm not finished yet. I'm not finished yet. Oh man, you've been talking for 30 minutes, and you still ain't finished. And it used to go on and on and on and on and on. So where I used to start drowning him out, like, okay, I cannot no more. You know, you you remind me of my mother right now. You won't stop. Mm-hmm. Here's another question to ask yourself during your conflict times. Do they respect, do they take responsibility when they are wrong? Accountability is very important. Because that's what's gonna be the health, the lifesaver of your relationship. That's the lifesaver that you throw out there when someone is drowning. Do they take responsibility when they're wrong? When they're wrong. Or do they blame someone else? It's always someone else's fault. Some warning signs during the summer seasons include yelling or explosive reactions, name calling or insults, threats or intimidation, blaming others for everything, never taking accountability, refusing to communicate. You want to talk, you want to have a conversation, a civilized conversation, and they don't want to do it. These behaviors are created. What they do, they create an unsafe emotional environment in your relationship. And this is when danger starts to brew and start to develop. This is why you gotta know this person in their summer personality when they are angry. Healthy partners handle handle anger differently. They may seem to feel very frustrated, which is okay, but they communicate calmly, they don't explode and go all crazy and cuckoo and stuff. They express their feelings honestly, they tell you exactly how they're feeling. They work towards a solution. That is the number one thing right there. That working towards a solution is how you know you have a healthy relationship with the person when they're angry. If they're looking for a solution to solve that problem, they ain't trying to stay in the moment, all right? They ain't dwelling on it. Marriage will bring disagreement. Yeah, you're gonna have that. So the question that you must ask yourself is Is this person someone who resolves conflict or someone who creates chaos? Because that's a dry cut answer right there in your face. You will know the answer to that, and that's your answer to say I do or I don't when they ask you to marry them, or if you decide I don't want to continue with the relationship, so I don't want to deal with this, I'm out. That's the way you can decide to this is how you use your logic instead of your emotions. You ask these questions to yourself and you answer them. You find the answer. Find the answer in their behavior, the things they do, pay attention, and you get your answer. There's no cut, there's nothing that you need to cut out, you just need to just pay attention. Now let's talk about the fall personality when they're in their fall season. When they are afraid, everyone has fear of something, even though God does not give us the spirit of fear, but of love, power, and of a sound mind. You still have it in you in some way. That's the human part of you. Fall represents a season of change and uncertainty. Emotionally, fall is when someone experiences fear or insecurity. Fear can appear in many ways, such as financial stress, career uncertainty, healthy mean not healthy, but health challenges, such as you find out you have a internal illness or something like that. Also major life transition. Things changed in your life. You lost your job or you retired or whatever the thing is. And yes, people can retire early at young ages. You know, might have been a basketball player and you're no longer a basketball player, you're not in the NBA no more, whatever. You know, that's retirement at a young young age, those type of things. During these moments, people people often feel vulnerable. So watch how your partner behaves when life feels uncertain to them. You're gonna ask yourself, and notice that you're asking yourself these questions. You're not asking them any more questions, you're asking yourself these questions that I'm giving to you, and you're going to find the answer by paying attention to their behavior. Alright. So you're gonna ask yourself, when they are afraid, do they become controlling? Because some people do. My husband, I noticed when I told him I wanted to go to Africa, and all the stuff started

Fall Personality During Fear

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happening with the bombing and stuff like that. He immediately said, You're not going to Africa. And I looked at him, I said, Yes, we are. And he was like, Oh, there you go. I said, No, you're not gonna take that from me. I'm gonna find out if where we're going is safe enough to go. And if not, we're gonna find another safe place in Africa to go. Because Africa is a huge continent. Okay, so we can find somewhere in Africa to go. And he was like, Please, please, just make sure wherever you're gonna go, it is safe. Because you know he can't stop me. But I noticed that he was starting to get that controlling, which he don't even do. But because he was afraid, it started showing up. And I'm like, babe, calm down. It's not gonna be that hard, it's not gonna be bad like that. We're gonna be okay. And if I find out that it's not safe, then we're just gonna cancel the trip. We still got time, you know, to make the decision. So, or do they become controlling? You need to ask yourself that question. Another question you want to ask yourself is do they try to control my choices? Because you got controlling of situations and then you got controlling of your decisions. Mm-hmm. Those things. Then you want to ask yourself, do they become suspicious or jealous? They're afraid, so insecurity come in. Mm-hmm. Or do they communicate openly about their feelings and about the fear that they have? So my husband, he communicated openly about his fear. He told me, you know, I just don't want something to happen. Y'all and y'all out there, and I'm not there to protect you. And I said, then why don't you come with me? He's like, I don't know what's gonna be happening during that time. You know, I got the basketball stuff, and I'm like, Yeah, that's true, that's true. So I had to take his feelings in consideration. So I said, Hey, I'm going to definitely make sure I look into the level of threats. I'm gonna ask some of the flight attendants who's going out there. What was it like for them? I'm gonna talk to some of the pilots, find out what it was like for them because a lot of them do go over there, and that's what I wanted. What part of Africa do you travel to? And was it Safe. I'm gonna ask these questions. Alright. Yeah. Emotionally healthy people are able to say things like I'm worried about this situation. They're able to open up to you and say things like, I feel uncertain about what's coming next for me. They're able to say those things. Honesty about fear builds trust. But unhealthy reactions to fear might include controlling behaviors, isolation, blaming others, avoiding responsibility. When the person is doing these things, they need some time to themselves. They really do. It's time for you to step back from the relationship and give them some time to themselves to sort out what's really happening. What is really the big picture? What is the fear really evolving? What's really going on with this person? Fear reveals how some people how some people handle life unknown moments. That's exactly what it does. And marriage will include many seasons of uncertainties because you're gonna spend the rest of your life together. You're gonna have these moments because life keeps on life, okay? And you just don't know which part of life is gonna happen. So it's important to know whether your partner faces fear with honesty and courage or with control and withdrawal. That's what you need to know in that season. Now we're gonna talk about winter. Yes, we are in the fourth season of the personality when they are sad. All right, winter represents a time of sadness, loss, and emotional heaviness. Someone in their life has passed away that they love, or they lost a job, those type of things, okay? Everyone eventually experienced difficult seasons, such as loss, disappointment. They said that something didn't work out for them, failure, grief. These moments reveal emotional depth and resilience. Because do they bounce back from what they went through? Resilience, the ability to bounce back, or emotional depth, they just keep getting deeper and deeper and deeper into their grief, depression. When someone is going through sadness, I want you to observe how they treat you, your your partner, when he or she is going through sadness, observe how they treat you. I want you to ask these questions to yourself when they're going through this. Do they allow you to support them? Because you might want to be there for them and they don't want your support, they don't need you to move around, they don't care for it. You trying though, but they keep pushing you away, and all you want to do is be there to help them through the difficult times, and they just keep pushing you away. Ask yourself and find an answer for that. This is before you get married, alright? Ask yourself this question too. Do they communicate their feelings?

Winter Personality During Sadness

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Are they opening up to me and letting me know what's going on? Or do they push everyone away? Because that's another thing. They might not just be pushing you away, they want to push everybody away. Some people like to be in isolation by themselves when they're going through, and that's not really a bad thing. It's only bad when they stay isolated for too long. Because I don't mind this devil's workshop. You gotta be able to have a little light shining on you when you're going through your grief so that way you know how to find your way out of the darkness. And if they're pushing everybody away, be that light for them. But don't be a light to where you dim yours because you still need to keep yourself charged too. But you want to try to see how far and how deep they're gonna go with this sadness, okay? Pay attention to that because if it takes its toll, it can also start taking its toll on you. So some people respond to sadness by becoming distant or cold, and that isn't good. I don't care how sad you are, you should not be cold to nobody. Just let the person know, look, I'm not happy, I just want some time alone. Can you give me that space? And then hey, respect it and give them that space. But if they get the going off and doing all, oh, that's a little too much because they don't you don't deserve that, especially when you're trying to support them, okay. Then you got some people, your spouse might become emotionally overwhelming or dependent upon you. That can be a problem too when they overly doing it. When you when you're giving your them support and they just keep coming at you with more support. I need more, I need more, I need more from you. Oh, that's training, it's overwhelming, and you probably can't handle it, all right? You end up being depleted, and now you need someone to charge your battery to charge you back up to help you get back up because now you are in your winter season because they then drain you, all right? So be careful with that. You want to pay attention to how much are they actually putting you through during this winter season. It's not really about you when they're in their winter season, it's about them, but what part you play it at in this season in their life is how they treat you during this time, all right? So healthy partners allow support without abandoning communication, they still talk. They may say things like I'm having a hard time right now, I need space to sort out my feelings. That's that's good. Now you know what's going on with them. Or they may say, I appreciate you being here for me. They're happy that you're there. That that's that's good. It helps you to see that what you're doing is working. Mm-hmm. There you go. Winter season shows whether your partner can experience pain without demanding the relationship, without damaging the relationship that they have around them. And it's not just with you, it's with everyone that they have a relationship with, okay? So you want to pay attention to how they are with other people too, during their winter seasons. If they shed off their phone, they don't want to talk to nobody. It's okay, but how long are they doing that for? Okay? How long? It's months, that's bad. Weeks, that's bad. One week, that's cool. Two weeks, borderline. Cause life keeps on going and it keeps on life. So you shouldn't dwell too long in the winter season. They shouldn't dwell too long. And and I say that because some people might lose their parents. And see, I can't say I know what that's like, because I don't. And some people get very depressed because their parents was their rock, or they lose their spouse. And I do know what that feels like. Even though I divorced my second husband, my love was never dead. It was still alive and kicking for him. And I went through a winter season. I did. I went through a winter season. It took me time to just actually accept the fact that he was dead first off. And then the things that I went through going through with the fact that I went through a bunch of bullshit with him. I started getting angry. And the hurt that came into that with that marriage, and I put my heart and my time into this man. Only for it to end the way it did. That was so painful. Because the way we ended, it should have never been like that. When we got into that fight, and he hit me in my face, and he threw them keys and bust my lip. Every time I look myself in the mirror, I see that that scar on my lip. I have a scar on my lip because of that. So when I don't have lipstick on, I can see the scar. And I'm reminded of that. And I'm like, man, why my face though? Why you have to hit me in my face, man? You couldn't hit me somewhere else. Why gotta be the face? And I was angry. So that's what I'm trying to say to you. You have to make sure that you need to know what you what you're gonna be dealing with in your marriage, okay? Now I didn't take it out on my husband and like that. Matter of fact, I hid it from him because I didn't want him to know how seriously hurt I was behind my second husband dying. Because I felt like I did not get no closure. Even to this day, I still don't have closure, but I have acceptance. I've finally accepted that he's dead. I finally accepted that because I needed to in order to move on with my life, accept the fact that that man is no longer here. I can't go and ask him why he treated me like shit. I can't ask that question no more. It's over with. And guess what? I'm okay with that. Because now I know I'm not gonna let no one do me like that ever again. But I also know I'm teaching you guys. This is therapy for me. Me teaching you guys, I'm healing myself by talking to you guys about how I really truly feel. This is therapy for me. Mm-hmm. Yes, it is. Yes, it is. So, what I want you to know is that in a marriage, both partners will face difficult seasons at different times. It won't be at the same time that y'all be always having the same season. Sometimes you will, but not a lot of the times. So, why seeing all four seasons matter before committing to marriage? It's wise to observe your partner, your future husband, or wife in all four seasons of their personality, in the spring when they are happy, and I'm not talking about spring like for real spring, I'm talking about the spring of their personality. All right, these are metaphors in summer when they are angry, in fall when they are afraid, and in winter when they are sad, because marriage is not just about loving someone while life is easy, and most of the time you're gonna have more hard days than you have easy days. That's the way life be life most of the time, so it's about walking together through every emotional season when you understand how your partner behaves during each time of these seasons, you would gain a much clearer picture of who they are and who they truly are. Now you can say, I know him, I know her, and that understanding allows you to make decisions with wisdom instead of guesswork. You don't have to guess, you just know. All right, thank you for joining me for this bonus episode of improving your thoughts by freeing yourself. And remember, healthy love grows stronger when it is built on trust, patience, and deep understanding. Not just understanding,

Why Seasons Matter Before Marriage

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but deep understanding. I will see you in the next season. Now, my next episode, I'm gonna talk to you guys about sex. I want to give you some insight on why I was telling you guys not to have sex while you're making a decision, should you commit or not, because sex does change the not the dynamics of your decision when you are trying to figure out if I should be committed to this person or should I walk away from this person. Without the sex being there, you don't have to worry about the complication. Sex complicates things, especially in those times in the early early stages of your dating. The first 10 days are the early stages of your dating. Okay, so we're gonna talk a little bit about that. And until next time, signing out, Alayla.