The RelationShop crew discusses relationships seen on reality TV (90 Day Fiancé, Married at First Sight, etc.) and throughout Pop Culture in order to provide good relationship advice that works.

Be sure to send in your relationship questions to TheRelationShop@power77radio.com.

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I think this is the relation shot where we analyzed pop culture in hopes to give you relationship advice. That works. I’m Toya and I have Jason and Eric. Yeah, way have a special way Building with everybody from the eighties are going Mama shot Marussia. Oh, yeah. Not with this one. Different. About a 1,000,000,000 other $1 billion left better. Yeah, but anyway, if you have any questions, please send those into the relation shop at power 77 radio dot com And Jason what? You What kind of question we get? You know, we’ve been through some crazy times.

They’re right way were bound to at some point to get a covert question. So here it comes through. This is coming from Stacey. She’s from Dallas. Stacy says I have a medical business and I work from home due to the cove in 19. My business is starting to grow. That’s good. Yeah. Yeah, it started to take me away from my family, though, and my husband is at home now, and he’s asked me to slow down. I’m pushing back to let him know that my growth is from the virus.

And to bear with me during this time. I’m struggling right now to explain to my husband the increase in the man. Maybe you guys can give me some advice. Question? It is a good question. Eyes is Jason. I mean, me and you’re in healthcare. So you I’m gonna let you go ahead first. Man. It’s tough, cause I’m not singing increase. I’m seeing that I have nothing for you. She Oh, I take your order, please. From the from the curb. No, I mean obviously. Yet you’re blessed. Really?

If you if you got some business right now, but yeah, I mean, really, with that cash. That’s a tough situation, Teoh. And that’s when we talked about being intentional right where you have those intentional moment. She is not 24 7 working on covitz stuff. And so the times that you have, you got to make those times intentional. So maybe it’s mawr of he’s feeling feeling like ignored eso. If you got those intentional times to make sure you know he’s he had heard the commune. You guys are communicating things like that.

It’s not. It reduces the amount of time you have to spend together. But it’s quality time and that makes up for a lot of a lot of the time actually spent. So what do you guys think? Um, I would say so. I I understand a little bit, so I’m I’m a respiratory therapist. So right now, our need has increased so much. Um, but I would say that this is the important time to just sit down with your husband and you might have already done this, but I would say Sit down with him and just kind of little No, like, this is your profession.

And for the first time in a long time, there’s just a huge need and health care because of what’s going on and just say, You know, I really, really, really could use your support because you’re getting stretched at work and then you come home and your husband has expectations, and now is the time that he needs to understand and kind of give you that whatever you need. But this is what sucks about marriage is that you both have to sacrifice. So if that means you need to come home even though you’re dog tired and just sit down and have dinner with him, or just have to give him something, given what you can, then just do that.

But have that conversation so you all can at least see where you’re both coming from and set expectations through this crisis. Yes. So I got this thing that I always have used for years. And ah, it implies to this I think that you work at work in your play in place, So make sure you don’t bring your work home with you because that could be a part of you. Just talking at home. Home, way work from home. But that’s what I was saying. All right, let me rephrase.

Don’t Don’t bring the work out of the office. Exactly. Yeah. Let me explain this to the pastor work. I’m all clear. You dio they work. I mean your work. Don’t bring that to the family. How about that? Yeah, No, I think part. It goes back. We talked about before, but what are what are their values? I think marriages, seasonal. There’s going to be different seasons. Where’s Mawr? Intense. Same thing with work, with kids, all that kind of stuff. But this is either revealing. Maybe they’re not on the same page of what they value right, because if they are then and he’s for what she’s trying to do, then this is the season to sacrifice form where it says, Hey, she’s having tons of opportunities So I’m gonna pick up the slack.

I’m gonna lower my expectations of what she can do for me in the season because for whatever reason, we got opportunities opening up to us, so you got to take advantage of them. But it may be a thing where he’s not on board with what she does anyway. He already thinks she works too much or she already neglects him. And so sometimes these seasons expose what was already there. But I think like toys. So we gotta have a conversation about what’s our end goal. If this season of you getting less of me because business opportunities Air great gets us to where we’re trying to go ultimately then you make that sacrifice.

You can’t do it forever. So yeah, I think what toys said a conversation about where we trying to go away on the same page, and if so, then how do we make the best of this situation finding times going back toe whatever Jason’s little favorite quote was, but I think it was about being intentional, which I think is good. Yeah, what I work, work and play play right was close, I guess. Maybe. And for any I hope that answers your question, By the way. And so for any additional questions, be sure again to email those into the relation shop at power.

77 radio dot com. There’s a reason that Ahmad is in the building today. The topic at hand. Today is something that he needs the weigh in on because he falls in 212 Can I get his respective years? We’ll talk about today. We’re talking about the consequences of getting married too fast versus the consequences of getting married too slow. So there’s probably a sweet spot in the middle. But But what happens that we married too fast? What happens to be married to slow? And so I already know All you guys is filthy shows.

You watch everybody buried to fist. 90 day fiance is how are married the first side or marrying 1,000,000 All these people getting married too fast so that but I kind of feel bad for them because they’re forced. You know, it’s like either you’re dating, they’re they’re dating somebody online, right? They catch feelings. They meet in person. They’re tired of doing this long. I mean, long distance dating, Right? So then they’re just like I’m tired of this. Let’s be together. And America’s is like, I’m no Yeah, I got 90 days.

So there’s a good question for you, is it? If somebody just been on Skype for, let’s say, a year and then they go over and then also they get married quick. Is that getting married too fast? Is that you know, in other words, the Skype count as part of the time, that’s the guy. Semi counts. I would say it doesn’t fully count because you can hide. A lot of stuff on Skype can avoid a lot of stuff on sky. You don’t get to know their community. They don’t get to know your community.

You need it. So So I think it can count for a lot of the emotional attachment. You can tell from a crack houses. I can tell that just off to your right and left or 42 women you’re and you’re talking Teoh, get toy throwing up the email. I like dirty. I can’t smell you over Skype. Think it seems like most of those shows you guys were talking about that on most of them. When they get over there, they usually find out something the person didn’t tell him. Like, Oh, yeah, we do need my mom’s approval or Oh, yeah, I do have this going on.

So too fast category. Yeah. Well, do you remember the show marrying millions? Yeah, I guess that, you know, that could be a There was some too slow there because there was some boys with money that just wanted to play her out a little bit that didn’t really want to jump right into marriage, right? Because they wanted a trophy. Yeah, they did. So in this. Like you don’t want a trophy to take your money. So it’s like, I’m just going to continue to play with you and not commit, you know?

No. So let’s start with one. Let’s start with too fast, and then we’ll finish up with too slowly, fast. So why are some reasons so, yeah, I came up with some reasons. Five right here in no particular order. ISAT five again you know? Of course it’s okay. All right. So, yeah, the first one’s insecurity. All right, So I don’t get married. Maybe nobody else. While this may be the only person who would want right security, they’re going on. Right. So how about how about to improve my situation?

I live in this one bedroom apartment. Be nice to have a house. Sure. All right. Okay. To fill a void, You know, it’s this lonely, empty stuff out on. I’m just trying t o loneliness. I agree. Little pressure from the outside. My daddy go When you go away. My friends are getting man, Uh, and you misinterpret lust for low. That’s misinterpret. Lust. Yeah, those are decent, you know, from you. I’ll take that. I think I think ones I would add to that is people wanted to have kids and start a family.

And so it’s like, Man, I’m getting older and older. I need to hurry up and get married. So I could I could pull that off. I think people who are trying to list go Christians now who are trying to live God’s best for their life and not have sex they want they want to be able to have legal sex so they don’t feel bad and guilty. And I think this may go with your insecurity, but I think some people have a fear of losing the other person s O or they.

This is foolishness. But this is the mindset of some people. The other person is not always faithful. Well, if I marry them, they’re not. Will now make them be faithful, cause now their husband or wife not just a boyfriend that always works. Let me get married. That’ll change their character right over something. Does have some reasons people married too fast. Which, which of those would you drop in the category of a good reason to get married? May I mean, none of them is the answer Could thinking way legal sex.

Good, Good. Okay, so let let me reverse engineer that day. Okay? So what I’m saying is I’m having a hard time controlling myself, and so I don’t want to be in a position where I tented and can’t control myself. So let me resolve that by being married. Well, so here’s what I don’t want that we always talked about in the pre Merrill class because that’s all their answers all the time. It’s like, Well, why you having sex? If you know that the Bible says That’s not God’s best for your play.

Well, man, you know, sometimes just hard to control ourselves. Okay, well, let me play that scenario. So what you’re saying is the guy sitting next to you, he sometimes has a hard time keeping his hands off. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Is that the guy that that the kind of guy that you want on the road on the business trip, a guy that’s already proven he has a hard time keeping his hands on That has a hard time controlling himself. So that’s already a characteristic for me. This, like you’re telling me you lack self control less.

I would say, if you if you’re struggling with self control and singleness, it’s kind of carry into your that’s that. That’s my point. You feel good because you think they’re self control is a tied to how attractive you are, right? I’m telling you, their self control is their personal issue, right? So I think somebody who can say Yeah, I know sex is a healthy part of relationship, but that’s not going to be the driver that forces me to make decisions. That’s more the character I want to married in someone who’s just like man.

I just used hard holding ourselves back. Come on. You and I could line up a 590 to married couples where one of is having no problem controlling themselves, right? I’m good. I’m not interested. No, I’m good. So, yeah, the bad part about that is they get pressure from the Christian French are doing what? Yeah, you know, just clear it yourself in positions and you won’t quit looking at porn. Quit checking people out all. Quit filling your mind with sex and quit putting yourself in a position where your by yourselves, laying horizontally, watching a movie curled up You’re probably not gonna have too much trouble fighting off sex.

Ladies, ladies don’t think you are the one. Like like, oh, it’s just because he wasn’t with me or I’m not his wife. Because when we’re married, he’s not gonna do that to me like No, I’m is because I’m the one. No, that’s not That’s not it. It could still happen. Agree. So So what would we say? to people who are maybe getting married too fast. What would be the recommendation for them? How do we How do we help them to go? Don’t jump into fast. Why should they not do it too fast?

Why? I’m the too slow. I mean, I’m the too fast guy. Yes. So why? So what would I say? Yeah, don’t know. Here’s what. Well, you go right at the base. And everybody, if you’re wondering if you should get married too fast, is so I don’t know. I listen to people around you. That’s probably what I didn’t do. I got married quick, and I got married. Young and I didn’t listen to people around me because I thought I knew better. And those voices around me to my community around me at the time?

Uh, yeah. Didn’t listen. T get your community involved in a decision. Don’t make it an isolated, independent, private decision. Yep. That’s funny that you say that because I listen to people telling me to slow down. Oh, yeah. Wait before we transition. This is why it is so important to know what type of community you have around you like. Come on, You have to know These are people that have your best intentions at heart and that really love you that are gonna be honest with you. Tell you the truth and not just following the world, you know, like like just those types of desire.

But these were people that I thought that loved me, though I hear mind sharp guy, he knows what’s coming. He’s about to get busted way. Let’s Let’s go ahead, Ma. Won’t you tell us a little bit? About how long? Um, toy a date before you got married. Okay. Like, how long have you been dating from a woman’s perspective Or a low over data from a man? But here’s the good news. You weigh in with what you think and your wife will correct. I think we were dating for, like, a year and 1/2.

No, no, no toy. And I we, uh, knew each other for seven years. New. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We We’ve known each other for a while. What is no quote no mean about the biblical I You may be a little bit of way dated for seven years, 77 years. And so give us some perspective on why you slow? Played it. Why? That was okay. What were you thinking? Well, yeah. I mean, typically, like for me, it was like, Is she the right one for me? I was still testing the waters out.

You know, I wanted to make sure you’re seven years. Yeah, I mean, I mean you have. That’s just how it is, man. You know, you don’t want toe marriage. Like, I think the guys who and for me, marriage is a one time deal, right? So I think when you especially for me, like, I think I took my time because I really wanted toe over to be over. Sure, I guess to make sure that the woman that I was marrying is the one that I really wanted. I call Bs on that.

Yeah, I two man coming. Just saying I feel like that’s you hear that a lot. But I think there’s some other factors underneath that because I think you realistically, if dating is the process of getting to know somebody and deciding if this is a person that you want to commit your life to, right, that’s the point. That should be the point. Now some people are just dating for fun and not thinking about the other person’s hard and just themselves and selfish. But dating should be preparing yourself to move towards marriage.

If this person right one I I don’t think like there’s got to be a timeline when you know enough, you’re never going to know everything you know enough to go the and especially if you’re a Christian and you’re praying and you’re trusting God and asking him to reveal it. But there should be a point where you know enough, and I don’t think it takes seven years to figure out if you know enough. No, I don’t think it takes seven years. I’m just telling you how the mindset is, right?

So I think a guy, I think one thing that’s not spoken out loud in our culture is that men also have a certain vision for marriage as well, you know? Okay. And men aren’t are kind of looking for it in a different way than women are, you know, because that’s advertised. But I honestly believe that a man wants a certain type of woman, and if he has not been slapped with that, uh, that possibility that he keeps looking. And even though he may have a woman that he’s met that he knows is good for her, Um, he will kind of keep her at bay because he still wants to find that one that that wowed him based off that vision that he has for for what he calls ah, power wife for a career woman or whatever it is that he that he wants to rule the world with, You know what I’m saying?

And I think nine times out of 10 men don’t find that, and then they kind of look back it maybe, like an old friend or someone they’ve dated before. And they say, You know what? This is probably the woman that I should have been with, you know, the whole time. You know, we kind of have more of that type of revelation. See, I think I think he hit it. Where There Are there more factors in there? In fact, you know how many factors way ready. All right, top five.

Johnny, look. All right, so here you go. To see policy. Which one you are. All right. Here we go. You may be Oh, so So why Milk the cow when I can get the milk for free. Right? So that’s that mentality. You have that mentality that that was told that actually, that was Toya’s family would say that. So you get the parents of marriage, but you don’t have to commit the right like there was no sense of urgency. That’s good, because go keep going. Okay. I call this one twice bitten.

In other words, I’ve been hurt once. I don’t want to get hurt again. Okay, you Fowler. Alright, Toy. This is for you. I’m calling this one jelly back. Yeah, gently back. I’m too afraid to commit. That’s right. Okay. All right. Uh, let’s see. Um all right. So Ok, you know, I do the Prison Ministry thing. I call this one quiet time. What quiet time is, is when lights are out. And that’s the time where the inmates actually just get to do what they want. You they get to be right.

And so it’s that commitment thing. I don’t know that I want to share that with somebody else. I need my time and yeah, yeah. So and then the greener grass. You kind of hit on this a little bit of What? What if something else comes along? Is this the one? You know what I’m saying? So what if something better comes along? All right, I got it. Your top five have been getting better over time. This’ll, baby, This may be your gift. You know, that’s not my gift time.

I fear because I know I’m gonna get ripped. Now that’s Googling some. Like it Don’t matter where it comes come from 90 day fiance. There’s nothing new under the sun that that’s good that you had in there? Um, why commit when I’m already getting all the benefits of marriage without committing had in They’re afraid because I’ve been hurt or I’m selfish. Those air like those are a lot of That’s what I’m saying. That’s why I called BS on Ahmad. Because I think those are those are the real reason because you started not in your head and saying, yeah, yeah, when he went through the reason.

So it wasn’t that you were trying to determine? Is toy the right person? You were just operating out of years. Oh, that sounds so. I just wait, Wait to make sure it’s all right. I don’t think that’s totally off off the table, though. How long temporal decide where to go out to eat? I mean, but there’s a lot of, like, different because four hours I need, like, a immediately know but a man of the sea marriage as an immediate near true. But I would say this if going back to the whole, get the milk without perch in the guy.

I think if if you set boundaries in your relationship with the other person, you will speed up the inevitable, which is you either going to commit to me if that’s what’s in your heart and you know you can do it or you’re gonna move on down the road because I’m not willing to give you all the benefits of marriage without you giving me a marriage commitment, right? And I think that’s where the issue is because women on you know they will fall for that to kind of keep the man you call it using as a weapon.

But, you know oh, you know, yeah, tool weapon. The weapon loathe way have too fast. We have to slow. What’s the sweet spot that you would determine the sweet cause they’re way out, There’s go. Where’s that magic number where Jason was too fast? My toy was too slow, you know. Hey, I would say this and I would say this. I don’t think we were too fast. I don’t think we were too slow, but I will say we were too young. So if I had to go back like we got married a year and nine months after our first date.

So there’s almost almost two years and I feel like that was enough time to get to know each other what we’re about. We had met each other’s families. We knew all each other’s friends. We knew each other’s community. So obviously there’s some things that cause you’re kind of trying to present it. But we saw some ugly moments. We have some bad moments. We have conflict. It wasn’t perfect, but if I would go back again, I probably would have waited cause we were still in college, so waiting a couple of years would have been, but then we start going into them.

Then it’s four years right? And so is that too long again? So I think I think the timing speed was right. I just think because we met so young. We got married. Like how you navigate that? Because you can’t control when you find someone that you’re ready to bury, right? Which is why why we did it. We both felt like we knew we both felt like this. This was right, are we didn’t have anybody in our community giving us hard nose saying Stop so and then, obviously, 25 years later, we made it.

But I think if we have both been out of school, there would have been some things we had to deal with that we wouldn’t have had to deal with. You know, like you have your perfect time, you know? Okay, wait. Come on. He’s trying to sell a book. Teoh, get married on the book. If you’re looking for some help Magnetic marriages available plug? No, I think the so. If you look at the experts, some of the experts say when they when they checked divorce rates, you know they have the bell curve.

They say right in that range of of, like, 25 to 30 or low 30. Some say 27 to 31 is the people who get married in that range have lower divorce rates, just statistically existence of its because they finner school. They’ve started establishing themselves, usually in a work career. So they’re in a little better place financially, they’re gonna have as many financial fights. They know themselves a little better. So getting married earlier, you may not have fully decided who you are and what you’re about getting married later. There’s usually some baggage that is causing drag and laid that long.

So the experts say, right in that mid twenties, the 30 32 range is the right age, right? Statistical that I married the right. So that was my question. Come back. That was my question. My question way. Obviously, no getting too fast. You know, there’s some problems with that. Typically, come spot that so. But, you know, people will say it in, the longer the better. If I wait longer, I’m gonna know this person even better. But you’re saying it kind of creates some problem? What kind of problem you’re gonna get?

Well, I have found when a couple comes in for marriage counseling and I usually ask a you know, how long have you known each other? How long you been married. And when I hear Ahmad lingers well, we known each other 10 years we’ve been married 34 That’s using what they say. No, that was a day we’ve been dating. Usually I look at them and say, Correct me if I’m wrong But probably that seven years of dating had a lot of dysfunctional moments unfaithfulness, breakup, reconnecting that kind of stuff.

And almost to a t, they all nod. Yes, because there’s not a marriage commitment. There’s people still doing selfish stuff. And so, usually it’s not a highly healthy, functional 567 years of dating is usually dysfunctional relationship. And then you bring that in the marriage and you got a bunch of marriage problems. So that’s usually what I see when people take a long time is it’s because they’ve been breaking up and fighting. You’re not getting along and can’t decide. And then one day they just go. They’ve never resolved the issues.

They just one day go. Well, we’ve been dating so long, we probably should get married. Okay, So what? We’ve heard from Mr The Moderate shot here. What toys gotta say? Toy. What? What was the life for you. So OK, so it was It was pretty bad. It was pretty bad. I think we had way better when you explained it ready? I was ready. And so I started watching bridal shows. I was like, Okay, it’s time to get a house. I’m tired of throwing away money, an apartment rent like it’s time to step forward.

And so he kind of knew, like, Okay, either I need to put up or shut up. Like, I just pretty much set that tone. But I What I want to ask Ahmad is for any men that are listening that are having those doubts. Like we’ve been married almost 10 years now. So what advice would you give them, actually, if for me, I just got to go and tell you what I did. I mean, I actually found Jesus. That’s the thing that came out like that 100 for me. So my stories is uniquely different because most people in our situation toy would not make it.

Most people that that we met at a club and then we shacked in the same house for seven years, right? We should not have made it, but I just feel like our situation so unique. And it is a little bit more than the minute time left on the show for us. Really, given that kind of by. So maybe I might want to bring me back on the way. Should talk about shacked there, says Yeah, well, and you are coming back, man, because you got some interesting thoughts on a lot of I like from way definitely are.

But But what I love is at the end, you’re tying in the fact that the Jesus getting ahold of your heart and God’s grace in your life have allowed the restoration of what you were doing wrong on your own and all the damage and stuff that came with it. So for people out there who are sitting here going, man, I got married too fast or we got married too slow. Or or I think that that is an encouragement and hope to say, Listen, if you will, no matter how you started, no matter if it was slower, bad or good or or whatever, God can redeem and restore.

If you’re willing to surrender to him and put him at the center relationship and you guys are testimony that that’s a tender man. That’s what we in there right there. Yeah. Thank you for joining us. So again, if you have questions and those into the relation shop at power 77 radio dot com are also ah, link up with us on I g at the relation Shop Audio’s please.