Video Transcript
Smile. You just saw beautiful proposal and I’m always just amazed how creative couples can be and how as men really rise to the occasion to ask you, will you marry me? So I’m going to help you today, but what do you need to answer before you go down that hour and actually say, I do, and here are three questions, actually the three T’s.
So the first two, you’ve probably answered timing. You know, are we in the same time at the same place wanting the same things in the future? I get it, but let’s just go a little bit more in depth with that and kind of get a roadmap to, okay, we want to have a child. We want to buy a house in a year.
Boy, how does that affect our wedding? You know, in terms of what size we do, how many people we invite, where is that? Is it destination so that we could really get the things we want. We’re building that house. I don’t know that supersized jacuzzi pool is really going to be the best thing if we want to get in a different school district.
So we have to figure out the time and things they’re logistical in nature, but they can be emotional. Like if one person wants private school and the other worst person wants public, you really need to discuss that now, because those are big things. The second teach trajectory trajectory is huge. I think of it this way. When you marry a person,
you are deciding what type of toilet paper and toothpaste you will use. You are deciding will you save 20% or 10% you were deciding, are your kids a game going to go to private or public school? There’s a lot of ways that a person impacts your life. There are a lot of ways your spouse will impact your life on decisions, big and small.
So just look at their trajectory. I know Michelle Obama said it best. Like when she Barack war and they were dating. I remember he went to the door, as the story goes to open the door for her. She thought, and he just jumped in, you know, climb to the other side. And she was like, what are all these pebbles coming up?
She was at a law firm third year making at least 80, a hundred thousand back in those days. And the days when it’s closer to one 50, he was an intern who decided to write a book. No one knew he was going to become president Obama, but she saw how he would impact the trajectory of her life. And one of the things he helped with,
she was going to pursue or pursuing the partner track, which would have been all work and no play. And so he really had a big impact. Obviously, the story is history. How will that person, your spouse impact the trajectory of your life? The final thing is perhaps the biggest T of them all. Do you trust? And what’s your trust factor?
I don’t mean are they cheating? If someone commits serial infidelity, okay, you got your answer. Question is, can you live with it? I’m not talking about that type of trust. Can you trust, can you trust that emotionally when your needs conflict, they are friends enough to come to you and figure out what the problem is and how to at least address it or acknowledge it.
That when you two have a conflict, they give you the benefit of the doubt that yeah, you just see things differently, but it doesn’t mean either you are wrong or right. Let me figure out why you see it the way you see it. Okay. And considered it from that perspective. So another thing that is important with trust in addition to giving the benefit of the doubt,
trust, determines communication. Think about it. If you are communicating with someone and you don’t trust them as a messenger, doesn’t matter how well their position is articulated it. Doesn’t, you’re not going to hear him. And the number one reason couples come into my office, they say is because we can’t communicate. I realized it’s because we don’t trust what the other person is saying.
And the last part about trust. If you want to feel like you’re in a relationship with a friend, rather than a friend of me, you’ll get somebody who you trust. Or at least you two will always work on that. Or it won’t feel like you have a friendship. When a friend tells you something, he don’t say no. What you talking about?
Willis you stop and say, tell me your why with frenemies. You just say, you’re wrong. Like Trump, you call it fake news. These are the three T’s. And the three questions that you need to ask before saying I do. I thank you for joining me today. And listening in, I invite you to go to my Facebook group.
African-American marriage counseling with Dr. Shane or click on the link and join us, become part of our supportive community. Ask your questions, get live Facebook posts, where I go live. And I talk about questions related to communication and all the things you’ll see as a couple and hear from couples. Who’ve been there, done that and got the t-shirt.
Finally, just remember, it’s never too late to live your happily ever after. I’ll see you in the group.
