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Getting married? Pay attention to these things! · Head Shrink Inc.

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_01: Hey friends, Doc Dave here.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_01: It is the season of getting married.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_01: Let's talk about that.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_01: Hey all, um, guess what today is?
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_01: Today, um, or yesterday actually, Avengers Endgame came out, and I was thinking, oh, I could I could uh put some spoilers out there on this podcast.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um so I've I haven't decided.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: First I want to tell you something.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um so I do this podcast in my office, and so I don't have a fancy team of sound engineers and uh people that come in and and mix and match um stuff, and so there's gonna be times I so you know I could be like 10 or 15 minutes into a podcast, or I could finish a podcast, and then I go back and listen to it and think, oh crud, um the intro got messed up or something.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_01: So I recognize that there's times that you listen to this podcast and you you hear the intro is like really low or something.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I just don't have the time to go back and redo the whole podcast, and I don't have a setup where I can insert um the a full audio version of the intro.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: So I apologize for that.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: If I um got big someday and could hire someone to edit everything, then it would be much different.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: But all you got right now is me, so uh I guess you you take it or leave it.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um so Avengers okay, spoiler alert, spoiler alert here.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I only know this.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: Umert, and I only know this spoiler because I I have not seen Avengers Endgame, but I read a uh leaked plot, but now it's not a leaked plot because it's everyone has seen it, or not everyone, but people have seen it, so it's on Wikipedia now.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um I don't know, some people are just they cannot have any kind of spoiler told to them, and they get really upset.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I I'm of the mind that it's okay, I still enjoy the movie, even if I know it's gonna happen.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so two people die in the movie.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: Lots of people die, but um spoiler alert, some Avengers die in this movie.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: All right, that's all I'm gonna say.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: So don't worry about it.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: Hopefully, you're not mad at me, but I just had to share that.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: Anyways, okay, we're that's not what this podcast is about.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: So it is spring out.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: There's flowers, there's birds chirping.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: Love is in the air.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: Can you feel it?
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: Can you feel the love in the air?
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's the season where I think it probably happens in April, May.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: Weddings start happening, and people start uh maybe even proposing, and engagements happen.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, engagements happen all year long, but I think there's certain times of the year, statistically, that they happen more, and you know, you're depressed and gloom and doom during the winter, and then the sun comes out and the flowers are out, and you're just feeling alive, and oh, I'm gonna propose to that special someone.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: And so you propose, and then you go on to get married, and you don't deal with any of the problems that you should have dealt with.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: And this is actually a real thing where people will say, Oh, these are issues just now because we're not uh married, but these issues will go away.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I know a lot of times I talk about um marriage and people getting married, and I think and I do that because it's like my main a lot of my focus in my private practice is working with couples that are on the verge of divorce.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: But I also work with couples that are not married but they're living together, and so a lot of the things that I talk to or that I refer to in some of these articles that I've written, but then I turn into podcasts, I I talk about them being related to married couples, but they can they're very relevant also to couples that are uh living together.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_01: And so just because I don't say cohabitating um it does not mean it doesn't apply to cohabitating relationships.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um so what I want to talk about today is specifically related to um issues, or some people call them red flags, or we call them issues or challenges that are going on prior to someone getting married or a couple deciding that they want to cohabitate.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um it is true, there's people that say, Oh, we're just in love, and we I will overlook this thing that's annoying to me.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: And the problem is um you can overlook it for a short period of time, but love ultimately is not gonna carry you through.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: It'd be great if it did.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: I think it does in movies, right?
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: But in real life, love does not generally carry you through because there's these things over time become annoying, and so these things over time, these red flags over time, are the things that often lead people to uh get divorced, unfortunately.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: So there's a couple things that I wanted to respectfully suggest that you do if you're headed down that road of either cohabitating or um deciding to uh get engaged, or even if you're deciding to get married in the next couple months.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: And here's the thing like if if some of these things are if you haven't done some of these things and you're getting married in two months, you really need to consider things.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I know it's hard because you've sent out your invitations and you have everything booked and you have people flying in.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so if you're not willing to change anything, there's one thing that I'm gonna suggest that I that I would say go out and do tomorrow.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but we will get to that.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um so first thing that I would suggest to people that when when they're contemplating um connect you know getting married or cohabitating is be real.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_01: So that that's easier said than done.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: You know, when when people are dating, they often have an abil inability to be authentic because everyone wants to put their good foot forward, they want to be seen in the best light often.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_01: And so um this wanting to be seen in the best light doesn't often allow for authenticity in relationships and or honesty.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_01: And the honesty is about um the honesty is what forms the initial foundations of a relationship.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and and there have been lots of relationships that I've tried to help people salvage that there's an initial like lie where someone has a kid and they don't tell people.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: I know it happens.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: You would think, of course, they're gonna tell people about a kid, but no, it'd be like they have a kid with somebody that they haven't really interacted with, but then they don't tell the person, or someone has an STD and they don't tell the person, or there's any number of things that um people are scared to be honest about up front, and so then they get you know six or seven months into a relationship and then they're honest, and then all heck breaks loose and breakups happen and things like that.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas if you were just honest in the in the first place, you wouldn't have emotionally invested um your time, and the other person uh wouldn't have had to emotionally and financially invest in you either.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I know it's hard.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: Honesty is about things that you're not proud of is really hard.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: And so my encouragement to you is to be um be real, be honest, be authentic as much as you can.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um and a lot of that has to do with your family of origin, right?
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: You may have grown up in a family of origin where you just don't talk about things, but then another person grows up in a family of origin where you do talk about things, and so those two people meet, and there's gonna be challenges there for sure.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um so the the next thing I would encourage you to do if you're headed down the road of thinking of getting engaged or cohabitating is paying attention to red flags.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um there have been so many people that I've worked with that are in trouble right now in their relationship because they didn't pay attention to quote unquote red flags.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um so red flags could be anything like uh controlling behavior, your partner has continued contact with an ex, abusive language.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_01: These these are, you know, there's times when there's gonna be momentary issues, but it's consistency over time.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: And so if consistency over time, your partner has controlling behavior, or they're in contact with an ex, or they're drinking too much, or they're spending time with the bros, um, these are things that should be popping up in your head as red flags.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and again, love is not going to bring you through that.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um if they're brought into a marriage, you're gonna be struggling in your marriage.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: Marriage is not gonna make abusive language go away.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: Marriage is not gonna make controlling behavior go away.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um if anything, it's gonna make it worse because there's gonna be a lot more stressors that get brought up into your life, you know, family, stressors, debt, new kids, etc., etc.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: So pay attention to any red flags you have.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um another thing that people often don't do, and I I find this to be interesting, and it might be a Western culture thing.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think it probably is a Western culture thing, is that we tend to not listen to others, especially we tend to not listen to our family and friends, uh, or family mostly, when we get with somebody.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: And so maybe you've been in a relationship where the your family says, What are you doing?
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_01: Why are you dating this person?
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_01: Why are you interacting with this person?
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: And you immediately get defensive.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um my suggestion to you is that you don't get defensive.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: I know it's hard.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: It is definitely hard not to get defensive when someone's pointing out something that you're doing wrong that you don't think you're doing wrong.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but what I encourage people to do is actually try to listen to what they're saying and then think critically about it.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_01: Like, okay, why are they saying this?
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: Well, first of all, first off, most of the time they're saying it because they care about you.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um and they're they're have your welfare in mind.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um friends are like that, best friends are like that, family members are like that.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's usually their judgment is not clouded by emotion.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: And so if they see you being controlled, let's say, by your um partner, your future spouse or future cohabitator, um if they see you being controlled and doing things that you normally wouldn't be doing, um they're and they say something to you about it, instead of getting angry and defensive at them, you should you should respond to them in a way of like thanking them for being concerned for you, and then think critically about what they're saying.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: Is this a true thing?
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: Because again, I want to repeat, they're not um clouded by emotion.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: You are clouded by emotion.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: You are clouded by the the love and the sweeping of the feed and the love letters and all the nice um sweet little things that your partner has done.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: And so when things that are challenging come up, you're not um level-headed enough to see what's going on.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so that's why I think it's important to listen to others.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: And a lot of times um what happens when you don't listen to others and you go on and get married, and and you and a lot of times you marry this person that your family thought, oh, this guy's kind of, or this woman is a little bit sketchy, you shouldn't marry him.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: You strain those relationships and then you end up divorced.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_01: Those are the people that you end up going back to, generally speaking.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: And if you can, because a lot of times bridges are burned and you have hurt relationships with the people that care about you the most.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_01: And so my my my strong encouragement to you is don't simply um dismiss what your friends and family are pointing out to you.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_01: Take it in, take it under consideration and even ask more questions of a person that's trust that you really trust, right?
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_01: So it doesn't have to be ask questions of everyone.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe there's one or two family members that you really have connected with, or maybe you have a best friend that you've connected with.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_01: And and then ask them questions like what do you think is good about this person that I care about in our relationship?
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_01: Are there good things?
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: Are there things that worry you?
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_01: That requires so much ego, not ego in a bad way, but it requires self-confidence uh that very few people have.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um the ability to ask critical questions about yourself and or about your significant other, and then be willing to completely hear it out is a huge strength and is actually would be a great positive if all relationships were like that, because you probably would have many, many um less broken marriage, you'd have many less broken marriages out there.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um so listening to others I think is super important.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um so now you have, you know, you see this red flag, you've listened to others, and now it comes time to make a choice.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_01: Now, this is where it gets hard because, again, like I said earlier, what if you're two months away in your marriage from your wedding date, and the invitations have gone out, and the location has been booked and reserved, and money's been deposited, and you have your dress, and your bridesmaids are flying in and your groomsmen are flying in, but there's this huge red flag that comes up.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: In my experience, most people look over the red flag and go on and get married, and then are divorced in three to four years after.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I what when I see that happen, I've seen that happen in my own family a couple times.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I I view it, I look at it from like a financial perspective, and I think, how much money was just spent, you know, on this initial wedding, you know,$30,000 for this wedding that happened.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_01: And three years later, there's a divorce that happens.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I feel I feel for those parents, and I think, oh, you cannot believe you just spent that much money on this relationship that a lot of people knew was not a good relationship for that person to be in.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_01: And so ultimately you need to make a choice and you need to make a smart choice.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_01: And that's why I think if you have red flags and if you listen to others, and all the all the facts are pointing you in a direction, but your emotions are pointing you in another direction.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: My my respectful suggestion to you is that you um go with the facts and not your emotion.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: Because your emotion changes over time.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um facts generally don't change over time.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so finally, and this is I alluded to this earlier, and I had said that, you know, if none of these other things, if you're not willing to do any of these other things, and your wedding's right around the corner, and you're ashamed, embarrassed, or whatever it is you are to stop the marriage or break it off, um this this next thing is probably the most important thing you can do.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I and I and it's simply find support.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_01: And what that means to me is finding a marriage and family therapist to sit down with and talk through some of these issues.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_01: I've talked to literally hundreds of premarital couples, and the question I often ask them in the very beginning is, you know, if we find a red flag that comes up, are you going to break off of the marriage?
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_01: And inevitably, like probably 95% of people say, no, we're not going to.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_01: And internally, like my internal monologue is, are you kidding me?
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_01: Like, this is a super important decision in your life.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm not sitting there judging them for it.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: I think, okay, I need to help them and equip them with as many tools as I can so that when they are married and this topic, this specific topic comes up, they have tools to be able to manage through it well.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um and that's that's a hard place because I think I want them to make this choice where they probably need to break up.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I've and I in the past have helped uh premarital couples navigate breaking up.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um and it's not a you know, it's not a fun process, but I think it often it's the best for both people because they're they're able to recognize, oh man, this is not sustainable long term.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: And we're putting a lot of money into this.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: So I think in the midst of the decision-making process, it's definitely important to find support and to figure out a plan of action if you're both not if you're both unwilling to um break the relationship off.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_01: You know, at a minimum, you could take a you you could like s stretch out the wedding date.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: Now, again, there's a challenge there because you've put money down for the venue and stuff.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: But ultimately, if you're not going to make the choice to split up, I strongly would suggest, and and uh and please share this with your friends too.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: I would strongly suggest you find support and you get a third party to help you get tools so that you can get through these red flags as they come up as you embark on a marital relationship.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for listening in today.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's a beautiful weekend.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_01: Hopefully, it's a beautiful weekend for wherever you're at.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_01: Enjoy Avengers Endgame.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_01: If you want to complain because I gave spoilers, feel free to do so at Head Shrink Inc.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_01: That's Headshrinkin C at Gmail.com, or hop over to my Facebook page, DocDavid, and we can interact over there.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_01: Have a great weekend.