The Marriage Blueprint: 5 Essential Foundations for Couples Headed to the Altar

    Hey Believers, Are you really ready for marriage? In this episode, we unpack 5 essential foundations every couple needs before heading to the altar. This is a must-watch for engaged couples, seriously dating couples, and anyone seeking a strong, healthy, god-centered marriage. learn how communication, trust, commitment, spiritual alignment, and intentional preparation can shape the future of your relationship long before the wedding day.

1. (Spiritual compatibility in marriage) - Spiritual Growth (The Foundation)

2. (Benefits of waiting for marriage) - The Wait: No Sex Before Marriage

3. (Relationship red flags to watch for) - Acknowledge the Red Flags

4. (Talking about money before marriage) - Financial Compatibility (The Security)

5. (Is premarital counseling worth it?) - The Premarital Counseling Gap (The Strategy)

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Because why are you marrying someone that you don't trust financially?

SPEAKER_01 0:03

Right.

SPEAKER_02 0:03

I mean, come on now. Like, why why are you why did y'all even get married if you do not trust them financially? Or if they already making bad financial decisions and you go ahead and marry them anyway, and now you upset and mad at them. Be mad at yourself because you've seen all of this. And I'm not saying y'all couldn't get married. What I'm saying is work on that aspect before marriage.

SPEAKER_00 0:26

Alan Eve here to help you believe that marriage is not a game. Talk to them, girl. How you feel? You look good. I like these doing this because I get to look at your face. I like recording this, I like editing. You're gorgeous. You know that? I appreciate it. You look all right.

SPEAKER_02 0:46

Thank you. What if somebody said that you wouldn't nobody was serious? You just said that. You just said I look at it. I'm talking about if somebody was serious, right?

unknown 0:56

No.

SPEAKER_00 0:57

Let's get started. Woo! What up, though, everybody? Come on in. Please. Oh, if you're new here, welcome. Welcome. This is Alan E podcast where we're talking about all things marriage, especially to our relationships. Relationship, marriage.

SPEAKER_02 1:14

Well, I mean, sometimes we talk about to the singles too.

SPEAKER_00 1:17

Yeah, that's marriage, leading them to marriage. But that ain't marriage. Everything marriage. Everything leading conversations about marriage to help y'all understand what's going on.

SPEAKER_02 1:25

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:27

Now to our please, please, ladies and gentlemen, if you're on your way to the altar, or you're on your way thinking about proposing to somebody. I'm telling you, this video is going to help you out. It's going to give you some type of wisdom or knowledge on what to look out for. Please.

SPEAKER_02 1:46

Or what to consider, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:48

Yeah. But I go, it's pretty hot.

SPEAKER_02 1:52

Well, you shouldn't be over three jackets on. That's not my problem.

SPEAKER_00 1:55

Man, I'm about to all right. For 20 minutes, can you turn that on? I'm about to be sweating like a pastor. Well, you shouldn't have put on three jackets in the house. All right. I should have got the thank you.

SPEAKER_02 2:13

As soon as I get the little bit of cold, it'll be back home.

SPEAKER_00 2:16

Please. Please. Can you go out?

SPEAKER_02 2:18

Or you could take off one of those jackets. Like, why I gotta suck it.

SPEAKER_00 2:22

Go with the aesthetics.

SPEAKER_02 2:24

Okay, I you'll be aesthetically hot. Alright.

SPEAKER_00 2:30

You'll be real aesthetically hot in there. You gotta do me like that. I thought we loved each other. We do. This episode is talking about the marriage blueprint. Five essential foundations for a couple heading to the altar. We have important steps, important information for y'all to listen out for. We have been through a marriage, a divorce, and it's difficult to go through, especially when you hear God saying different things about not going with this person, or you know, you're doing it your way. Listen to our wisdom and our understanding, please.

SPEAKER_02 3:09

And just please take heed, you know. Right. Don't say, like, be in a mindset of I gotta learn the hard way, I gotta learn myself, you know. At what point do we see somebody crossing the road getting hit by a car? And then we say, you know what? My situation is gonna be different if I cross the road the same way. No, it's not different. It's not different.

SPEAKER_00 3:33

So we do have some type of wisdom on we've been through this. We ain't just talking outside our net, getting information off the internet only. No, we have been through a tough, different, difficult situation.

SPEAKER_02 3:47

And not just that, but biblical principles too. You know, we don't just bring up statistics or, you know, we're not the channel to to do that. So if you're looking for something that's like more science-based or statistics, and we that's just not for, you know, that's not where we at with it. But we will be bring up biblical principles.

SPEAKER_00 4:06

Yeah. Whoa. First of all, I just wanted to point out, I'm so glad that you hear um me looking at your fine, beautiful face, that we here together.

SPEAKER_02 4:16

Thank you. I'm glad I'm here too. I don't know where I'm gonna do.

SPEAKER_00 4:19

No, I'm just saying, I like the last episode I do by myself, but you did? Yeah, I did it all.

SPEAKER_02 4:23

Oh, I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_00 4:24

No, that's all right. They probably miss you. They probably don't like when it's just me. They like it better when it's us together.

SPEAKER_02 4:29

They just like when I be saying whatever.

SPEAKER_00 4:31

Yeah, you give all the information. I don't really be giving them expressing my feelings.

SPEAKER_02 4:36

I I'm right there with you, you know. I'm right there saying, saying whatever too, you know. Okay, but we appreciate y'all tuning in. Yeah, okay. Let's get into it.

SPEAKER_00 4:45

So please stay for all of it, stay for all the five essentials. I promise you, this is going to bless somebody. This is going to help someone. Maybe not one or two, some something. Maybe the last one. So stick around to the end. But essential number one, we're talking about spiritual compatibility in marriage. Now we see people once they or they message us, or they people have said after they got married, we are on two different pages when it comes to spiritual growth. It is a lot of denominations out there. So you need to be aware of what the person you are connecting with and making a commitment unto God of what they believe in. If they outside of God's design for Christianity, if they believe something totally different from you, you are guy, your guys might be okay now that y'all lovey dovey, y'all think googly eyes and everything good right now, but it's gonna be different situations that they believe in.

SPEAKER_02 5:46

I mean, that's just being that's just being unequally yoked. We're not supposed to be unequally yoked. And you know, a lot of people get into the marriage and say, Oh, I I thought that it could work, but at the end of the day, you know, or the person changed or whatever. I think that people just need to, again, not rush into marriage, take to take their time, have a foundation with Christ, and have a foundation on what your belief is, you know, before just committing, especially for a wife, because now you're submitting yourself under what type of leadership and guidance spiritually.

SPEAKER_00 6:21

Yeah, yeah, that is true.

SPEAKER_02 6:23

Then once you have children, your children are under that same whatever, whoever you in the covenant with, whether it's God or the devil.

SPEAKER_00 6:30

Right. Because you might read in the Bible how you have to submit to your husband and he's not that godly, and you find yourself doing things like I don't want to listen to him. Right. Because now you've got to the point where you're like, I don't think I have to listen to this because I don't want to do that, or he's um controlling now. He's sounding more controlling.

SPEAKER_02 6:53

And they're trying to use the Bible to keep you in some type of bondage of you know, keeping you in check or line. You supposed to be submitting to me. Nobody needs to say that. You don't need to walk around telling me I need to submit to you. It's a natural uh desire for me to want to submit to you, not you just forcing me or just saying words to try to control me. Like that wouldn't work out well for you.

SPEAKER_00 7:16

Right. Uh you say it like that, it would not work out well.

SPEAKER_02 7:20

It wouldn't, you know, not with my personality.

SPEAKER_00 7:23

I so spiritual compatibility is very important, guys. Like, don't overlook this.

SPEAKER_02 7:29

Don't think like, oh, it's not that big of a deal. It is that big of a deal, or God wouldn't have put it in his word and mentioned don't be unequally yoked.

SPEAKER_00 7:37

Yeah. So on y'all dating stage, I would say, yeah. If they y'all can't come to a middle ground, y'all can't come to be on the same page with this, yeah, y'all should just separate.

SPEAKER_02 7:49

And this, let's point this out because some people say, Oh, yeah, I'm a Christian, but the thing is you need to test the spirit by the spirit, and you need to make sure that uh they bearing they're bearing the fruit because you will know them by their fruit. So if they're claiming to be a Christian, but they smoking, drinking, partying, wanting to go out, still have some less issues going on. Where's Christ at in the mix of that? Where's the Holy Spirit because conviction? Where's the solid foundation? And I'm not saying people are not going like they're gonna be perfect, but you're gonna see some type of fruit there. You know, they won't have a desire to do those things.

SPEAKER_00 8:27

Right. And the next one, number two, benefits of waiting for marriage. Now we hear all the time wait, wait, wait, do not have sex before marriage. Why? Why? Oh, you might go to hell and all this other stuff. God is against God. Of course it is. That's just the surface level information. But if you just base it off of just sex alone, then when you get into marriage because y'all having sex because y'all are new to each other, it's temptation. It's like um I don't know, it's fun. Right, it's fun. It's like sex outside of marriage.

SPEAKER_02 9:04

Yeah, sex outside of marriage is real fun.

SPEAKER_03 9:05

Yeah, yeah, we're doing it.

SPEAKER_02 9:07

Right. Rebellion is extreme. Satisfying.

SPEAKER_00 9:11

Yeah. Then when you get into marriage, you get that um feeling bad, you get that weight on your shoulders, like I disappointed God. And now you're feeling all this, and feeling all this conviction in your marriage now. Now you want to. Me and my wife have been through a couple different seasons of where we had to fast. Because of that, restart our marriage, restart our commitment with God, and just repent for all the rebellious ways we had before God. Now, people talk about, yeah, you're going to hell, but all the conviction that you will feel.

SPEAKER_02 9:43

Not just hell, diseases, babies, babies, and everything like that.

SPEAKER_00 9:47

You were going against God's design for what? This is a connection. This is what y'all connecting your bodies and your souls and everything together. Do you really want to do it with this person? Are you sure? You really have to be certain. And at a time where y'all are getting to know each other, and before y'all go down to the altar, really have a set desire and understanding. Is this the person?

SPEAKER_02 10:11

And people should not just get married because they want to have sex with somebody.

SPEAKER_00 10:14

No.

SPEAKER_02 10:15

I mean, I know in the Bible it talks about, you know, it's better to marry than to burn with lust. But don't take that out of context that you with somebody, and the only reason why you marry them is to have sex. Like, that's not, we shouldn't be doing that.

SPEAKER_00 10:28

I just want to mention that. Right. You're building a strong foundation on just physical and sex alone.

unknown 10:32

Right.

SPEAKER_00 10:32

And then when the cracks start showing, because it will in your marriage, things start falling apart, y'all disagree, and you can't just fall back on let's have a sex to fix everything because it won't fix it. You are um, somebody's gonna grow distant. Someone be like, I'm not feeling connected with you anymore. I don't want to just keep having sex, and then somebody's gonna start pulling away. Like, we used to do this, we used to have fun.

SPEAKER_02 10:56

Well, what if somebody gets sick and they can't have sex? Then what? Then what do you have left after that?

SPEAKER_00 11:01

Right.

SPEAKER_02 11:03

Okay, moving on.

SPEAKER_00 11:06

Well, very important. Please, y'all. Wait. If y'all, if y'all have are having sex, you it's time, it is time right now to just stop, repent, and get back in the presence of God. Fast, do whatever y'all need to do. Separate, don't get in those moments where y'all could have the opportunity to have sex with each other. Right.

SPEAKER_02 11:26

Don't put yourself in that position.

SPEAKER_00 11:28

We need to make y'all need to make sure that this is the right person you want to connect for the rest of your life because marriage is a lifelong commitment. Right. So, number three, relationship red flags to watch, to watch for. Just acknowledging red flags. We're not going through them. I mean, everybody understands red flags and what they see.

SPEAKER_02 11:49

Like, and everybody's red flags are gonna be a little bit different.

SPEAKER_00 11:52

Right.

SPEAKER_02 11:53

Um, I mean, you bypassed a lot of my red flags.

SPEAKER_00 11:57

You bypassed a lot of them. And what we're saying, too, is understand when you see these things, just keep it in the mental note. Like, okay, am I sure that I really want to deal with this? Me and my wife both have red flags. A lot of people before they get married, have red flag.

SPEAKER_02 12:13

I barely had any.

SPEAKER_00 12:15

Red flag. Nobody's perfect, nobody's gonna have any red flag. But is this something you want to deal with?

SPEAKER_02 12:21

Let's tell them about a few red flags. Oh, go ahead. Okay, go ahead. So, a red flag for you, or no, a red flag for me was first of all, I was irresponsible. I was getting kicked out of my house, I was like homeless at that time, like when we first started talking. That's a major red flag. Like, why would you want to be with somebody that's right in a put themselves in that position and their two children? Like, I know stuff happened, but you know, what is that person's thought process? That was a red flag. A red flag for me, for you, was like you still going on like play dates with your ex and y'all talking about y'all trying to do this so the child uh know that y'all something. I don't know. That's a totally um a red flag. Like the other person could still feel like maybe y'all gonna be together or y'all working towards it, or you need to close the doors before you try. Yeah, you shouldn't just be doing that unless you're gonna include me and my children. Now it's a whole happy family, and I doubt that that is gonna work out well. Um, okay, yeah. So that I think. To me, that was not a red flag.

SPEAKER_00 13:31

Some people that is.

SPEAKER_02 13:32

It is, but I thought that, you know, I was uh responsible for you to uh you your parents was watching your daughter at that time, you were working. It's not like you was just doing nothing with your life, living with your parents. That's something totally different. But you saving money, you making sure that your daughter was in a safe space with your parents, other, you know, besides going to like a daycare or something. So to me, that was not a red flag. But I understand.

SPEAKER_00 13:58

But right, you was almost 30. Being careless with my finances, being careless with my body, um, having children, still living with my parents, doing reckless stuff. So a lot of this red flag, somebody be like, nah, I'm good, bro. I don't want to do it. Just knowing this is the person you are going to commit, have a covenant with for the rest of your life. Let's take it serious now. If you're okay with it, then fine. It's not that big of a deal. And my wife, it wasn't a big one. It's kind of big for us, but we still try to hold on to what God was telling me and what God was showing my wife.

SPEAKER_02 14:31

I just want to say one more red flag. A red flag was, oh, me saying, yeah, I don't want to have sex before marriage. I'm a godly woman. Oh, I got a relationship with Jesus Christ. But then when we was left alone, I was the tempter. I was the sexual tempter, you know what I mean? I would do little things to um initiate something, but then try to act like, no, I'm so godly, you know. So yeah, no, he my fruit wasn't there all the way.

SPEAKER_00 15:01

Initially, you didn't have to do let's talk about the major one, man. This is huge. This is so huge. I need to be careful of this. Really, talk to people, a financial advisor, talk to your pastor, talk to millions of different wives people. But talking about money before marriage, this is so huge because me and my wife went through different seasons. I married first season. I was uh a stay-at-home dad, my wife went to work. What's so funny?

SPEAKER_02 15:33

I'm sorry, the way you said it. You the way you said it. Huh? Go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 15:37

Then my wife went into the season where she was a stay-home mom and I went to work.

SPEAKER_02 15:41

And now we in the season that we both homeschool our five kids and we both get out there and work.

SPEAKER_00 15:48

If it's better for y'all family and your marriage to both be at work, then do that. Don't listen to people on the internet say, oh, you need to be stay home. Everybody needs to stay at home, stay home. It's good. If it don't work for y'all, don't do it. Y'all both need to have finances to to take care of the kids, take care of the house. God don't want y'all to be broke out here.

SPEAKER_02 16:09

I think that too.

SPEAKER_00 16:10

This ain't the problem where we're about to tie that.

SPEAKER_02 16:12

But I think that too, people need to just do what works for them. Like, we can give advice, and if it doesn't work for you, cool. Like, we're not trying to say this is the one size fits all type of situation. We just give our opinions and we give our own experience. But at the end of the day, do what works for you and your family, okay?

SPEAKER_00 16:31

Do it. Because when the um the cracks start showing and the ship starts sinking, you think this person is really in love with you and really care about you. But a lot of times when things start going to that disaster way, everybody's looking out for themselves. And we heard many a times when like people start hiding money, people start keeping money, people start like taking money, start stealing. So, is this the person you really want to connect yourself with? Have a better understanding. Have um, if it doesn't work to have me and my wife, we share a bank account. It works for us. I trust my wife fully. We don't have arguments about money because our marriage, well, God, then our marriage, and then everything else is underneath that.

SPEAKER_02 17:19

I just make purchases and you just, you know, you okay with it. So I think that's why we don't have when he says no, I say yes, you know.

SPEAKER_00 17:28

So and I think people need to understand. Okay, if we're gonna be do the stay-home thing, one person can't be, I'm controlling the money. Oh, okay. I can't be the one because I make the money, I'm the one in charge of the money. I get to tell you, I get you allowed. You can't be. It needs to be a both party. Right. The both party need to have an understanding that this is our money together, not one person.

SPEAKER_02 17:53

And I mean, let's just like backtrack a little bit because why are you marrying someone that you don't trust financially?

SPEAKER_01 17:59

Right.

SPEAKER_02 17:59

I mean, come on on, like, why why are you why did y'all even get married if you do not trust them financially? Or if they already making bad financial decisions and you go ahead and marry them anyway, and now you upset and mad at them, be mad at yourself because you've seen all of this. And I'm not saying y'all couldn't get married. What I'm saying is work on that aspect before marriage. I'm not, we're not saying automatically just lead a person because they have flaws. It's something that you all can work on. And if they're willing to work on it and educate themselves and do better, by all means.

SPEAKER_00 18:32

If they're going in the right direction, but if they don't want to and they got some gambling debt and they got some money handling issues, issues, and they just not willing to, you know, seek financial counseling, no. Yeah. Hey, we just throwing that out there. You take it and do what you want with this information. But if you continue to stay and you see this not going right with that money, and they taking advantage of their friends, their family, and they taking money and not paying it back.

SPEAKER_02 19:01

But my thing is don't be mad at them. Hey, right because you already seen this, you already knew this. Be mad at yourself. Yeah, that's all I'm saying.

SPEAKER_00 19:08

Okay, that's that is what it is. You accepted that. So the next one. Yeah, be aware. Like when stuff starts hitting the fan, people start stealing money hiding it. A little high money. But next one, premarital counseling. That is it worth it. Uh, we would say yes, yeah, just to get that insight or another eyes on your marriage to get like, am I tripping? I need somebody to help me. Am I tripping? I we all have ways about us that's not so great. We are living in our flesh sometimes. We have worldly ways that we need to die to. Worldly thought process. Worldly thought process. The the way I'm thinking, is it right? Like, I need somebody to like help me because I'm enjoining to somebody else. I'm not thinking like a single man or my wife's not thinking like a single woman. We need to work together. How can we work? How can we work together as a team? Somebody else has to come in to show us the way. Help us, give us, give us, hey, I need a I need a a layout. What when this happened, what do I do next? When this happened, what? So y'all need premarital counsel. Do not think we all think in the beginning, it's not worth it. I'm sorry, go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 20:20

No, no, it's okay. I was trying to be as quiet as I could. I was fighting the urge. She's working on that. Yeah, I'm trying, you know. But look, I I just wanted to bring this part up because it's not just about like what you're going through right now.

SPEAKER_03 20:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:34

When you seek wise counsel or type of some type of marital, premarital counseling, they can bring up things that you didn't even consider. Things will start coming out and questions will start being asked, and then you'll see that y'all not even on the same page. Especially when you're thinking about having children. How would you want to raise this child compared to how are y'all on the same page? Do you all agree on certain subjects that will be brought up in this premarital counseling session? And it's okay to break up. It's okay to, I don't know why people feel like they are obligated once they start, like once they get into a relationship, they head down to the altar. It's not a failure. I think that it's better for you to go ahead and separate and go your separate ways than to get in a marriage and then it ultimately ends in a divorce.

SPEAKER_03 21:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:26

So some people will break up when it comes to premarital counseling. And I think that that's great. Perfect.

SPEAKER_00 21:32

Nothing.

SPEAKER_02 21:33

You know, that's great. Why would you want to be with somebody that God did not call you to be with, or now your life is in tormoral, and now you're divorced, and now you're seeking out a blended family now.

SPEAKER_00 21:43

No. Now you say we had kids, the wrong person. If you would have did your homework, if you would have talked to somebody, it's not wrong. People always say, I don't want people in my business. I want nobody in my business. You are the type of person that needs somebody in your business because you make the wrong decisions. Right. Everybody seek counseling.

SPEAKER_02 22:02

They're gonna be choosy because they say they don't want nobody in their business, but they telling certain people that they want to get advice from, which is probably the wrong people about their business. So don't say, I don't need nobody in my business. Somebody that don't even know you, that's not biased. Rather than you're telling somebody that's your friend, cousin, mama, whoever, and they just on your side, like, oh, she's so wrong. He's so wrong for that. You know, that's just not wise at all.

SPEAKER_00 22:28

So I pray that these essentials bless somebody, man. So all the husbands. Did we get to five? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:35

Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I got stuck on four. Okay, my bad.

SPEAKER_00 22:39

So all the potential husbands, listen to me, please. Because you are going to be the leader of your household. It's gonna be difficult in the beginning because people don't like me and my wife had a difficult time for her come with submitting under me, and me submitting under God in the right, and I had to show her this that I'm submitting under God, she can trust me. Some people, of course, they can trust you on certain things. They can trust you on probably five different things, or maybe the last three different things, or four different or five other different things. That's like I'm struggling with trusting you because I have seen before you have made mistakes. That's no excuse to not submitting, but you have to be understanding to your spouse of where they're at.

SPEAKER_02 23:23

Well, that's why it's important.

SPEAKER_00 23:25

I'm sorry, go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 23:26

Well, no, I was just gonna say that's why it's so important for a you know, a wife, since you're speaking to the husband, for a wife to see that this man is bearing the fruit and that you're submitting yourself spiritually under someone who can protect you, pray for you, you know? Like, why would you it's just unwise to look at somebody and say we cute together or oh, you know, the sex is good or whatever. That's just not the right thought process. If you're not thinking about what are we gonna do to advance the kingdom of God, if that's not in your your prayers or in your thought process, you need to be checking yourself and standing back and say, hey, maybe I'm not ready. Maybe God needs to do more work on me before I get into this marriage.

SPEAKER_00 24:08

Yes. Amen. Because husbands, listen, it's gonna be a daily walk. We have to daily die to our flesh and be loving to our wives like Christ loved the church. We have to die to our flesh. We might disagree, but we need to disagree in a biblical way, in a loving, caring way to each other, and just be, we have to sacrifice constantly. And it's hard because we wasn't taught all, you know, daily in our lives how to sacrifice. This world teaches us to be like me, me, me, me, me. But in a successful, healthy merit, we have to think about each other. My thought is about my wife, my wife's thoughts is about me, and um, we just constantly focus like God. Can you be in the midst of our situation and help us through this, please? We pray that if this is um this bless y'all, if you can subscribe to the channel, if y'all know anybody who would love to hear this.

SPEAKER_02 25:05

I'm sorry, you just saw a real baggie a little bit. Please, y'all, please, just subscribe.

SPEAKER_00 25:11

Please, please, guys. The way you said it, it was so funny you ain't think everything's funny. I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_02 25:16

Blessing I'll laugh and like it's better than sitting here crying all day.

SPEAKER_00 25:20

Thank god, yeah. Um, so if y'all know somebody engaged, you know somebody that needs to hear this, hey yo, um, share this with them because this can bless somebody who's about to. Y'all know, y'all know somebody who's about to go down that aisle, and they won't listen to nobody, they won't listen to you.

SPEAKER_02 25:36

Maybe they might listen to it. But we pray that people could just take the wise advice and we're not saying, oh, do exactly what we say, but just definitely test it. Sit back, don't rush into marriage, don't feel obligated to because your parents say, Oh, y'all need to get married, and all of these other people putting this pressure on you. If you are not ready, do not allow other people to pressure you. If you already was having sex and now you're pregnant, and now y'all talking about we getting married because we having a baby, but y'all really have a toxic relationship. That's not a reason to get get married. Please, just no. But I just I wanted to throw that in there.

SPEAKER_00 26:14

I like it. I like it. So we out of here. Y'all thank you for the uh thank you for tuning in to Allie Podcast. We appreciate y'all. We love y'all. We love y'all. See you next time. Marriage is not a game.