3 RED FLAGS | BEFORE YOU SAY "I DO" - PREMARITAL

3 RED FLAGS BEFORE YOU SAY "I DO"

This episode is for any single, dating, or engaged person who wants to ensure they end up in a fruitful marriage. Do you have any of these RED FLAGS in your relationship??

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

What's up, guys? Welcome to Counterculture with Caleb and Stephanie. We are still on our anniversary trip. So we're filming again, but we had this great idea. Steph did. I didn't have it. She did.

SPEAKER_00 0:13

We are doing an episode on premarital red flags. The top three red flags to look out for. If you are engaged right now, you need to listen to this video.

SPEAKER_01 0:24

Yeah, this would be a really good one, I think, because honestly, there's a lot of content out there, I feel like, for married couples. Right. And hopefully we're gonna start putting out some more stuff, maybe. Yeah, we'll see. But but the thing is, is there's not, I feel like a lot for premarital.

SPEAKER_00 0:40

Right.

SPEAKER_01 0:40

And so we're like, Steph was like, we should do a couple of tips for the premarital people.

SPEAKER_00 0:46

Well, and we are also marriage coaches at our church. And one of the things that we do is premarital counseling. We we do premarital coaching for couples that are engaged, getting ready to get married. And we have seen red flags in different areas that are wild. So these are the top three red flags to look out for if you're engaged, getting ready to get married. These are also applicable if you're married. So if you're like, oh, I'm not in this category, that's okay. You can apply this to your marriage. And if you're single, you can also look at this as ooh, that's good to look out for in the future.

SPEAKER_01 1:21

Yeah, for married couples, it's more like things that you need to work on. Not get, don't, don't get divorced over this, right? But these are things, these would be for you more like check marks of okay, these are things we need to work out, work through, things like that. Okay, so you ready to jump straight in?

SPEAKER_00 1:38

Red flag number one. If you are engaged, getting ready to get married to someone, and you are unequally yoked, that is a major red flag.

SPEAKER_01 1:49

Yeah, super big, uh, big thing, right? So the Bible tells us in 2 Corinthians 6, 14 through 15, don't team up with those who are unbelievers. How can righteousness be a partner with wickedness? How can light live with darkness? What harmony can there be between Christ and the devil? How can a believer be a partner with an unbeliever? So it's not that you can't, right? But it's like light and dark don't mix, guys. Like we shouldn't be doing that. So you shouldn't you really need to be having those conversations with your partner and like know where they're at, even before you start dating, to be honest. It's really not a smart idea to start dating a non-Christian and be like the one that's like, I'm gonna win them to Jesus. And it's like, yeah, that doesn't work out a lot of times like you plan, right? Like that's that's not a healthy recipe for a relationship because that's almost like trying to for here's why it's not healthy. It's not healthy because you are essentially kind of forcing them into something potentially that they're not even ready for. You're not the one that does the saving. Holy Spirit does. Don't try and be the hero, it's not a good idea. You guys need to come together as two whole people in Christ, and then at that point, your your marriage, your relationship can flourish.

SPEAKER_00 3:14

Absolutely. And also, if you are dating, if you're engaged with somebody and they're not saved, you should not just blow past that and think like it's okay, it's like it's fine, it'll work out eventually, like whatever. Because what's gonna happen is you're gonna end up getting pregnant, you're gonna have a kid, and now you're gonna want to raise that kid with Christian values, and they're gonna have a parent that they look up to that is going to be telling them worldly wisdom that contradicts godly wisdom, and you are going to end up having major marital trouble because you are not seeing eye to eye. And trust me, when you have kids, arguing over the belief systems that you're raising your kids in becomes a big argument in a marriage. It is not a light thing, like, oh, it'll be fine later. It's not something to brush by. It is something to stop you dead in your tracks, cancel the wedding over.

SPEAKER_01 4:12

Right. Because guys, here's the other thing too. Even if you're dating, you have to realize, like, okay, I have to think long term here. Like, if I'm not dating just for the sake of having fun, right? Um, which dating is fun. There's nothing wrong with having fun dating. However, date with intention. And if you're dating with intention, it's like, well, it doesn't really make sense to go date with somebody because when you that that doesn't believe the same way as you, because if you do that and you play it out, what happens? Like, what happens down the line? Well, I don't want to think about that. I want to live in the moment. Too bad. That's not a good, that's not a good model. The model should be, okay, let's like, let's play this forward a little bit. What if they never come to Christ? Like, God forbid, right? God forbid. But if they never did, just like Steph just said, your your life looks a whole lot different than what you came up with in your mind that you were like, oh, this is how it's gonna be. And it's like, you can't bank on that. Like, be friends with somebody, you know, help grow them, not with the expectation that, like, okay, I need you to get saved so we can date. Like, that's not healthy, right? At the end of the day, it's not healthy to try and like we that me and Steph were talking about this earlier today, but like trying to date the version of somebody in the future because your version might not come out the way that it's supposed to.

SPEAKER_00 5:40

Oh, that's a good one. That one definitely speaks to my uh experience.

SPEAKER_01 5:45

Um, that's so funny.

SPEAKER_00 5:48

Red flag number two.

SPEAKER_01 5:50

Financial, financial red flags. Like, if you are dating somebody or you're engaged to somebody and they spinning like they got all the money in the world, and you're like, I know they aren't bringing in that kind of money. Red flag, bro. Red flag. Because right now you don't have access to their bank accounts, you don't have access to those credit card reports. You don't know what that, you know, we're on this $4,000 vacation right now, but you know, I guess he's just really doing well at his job. Like, bruh, you put your thinking cap on, okay? Or even if it's the woman, like the woman doing stuff and like buying stuff, buying all this expensive jewelry, doing all this stuff. She could just be racking up the credit cards, bruv. Like, you can't you can't sit back and just let the let that like oh, it's just gonna roll past. Like, it's no big deal. It's not when when we get married, it'll be easier. You know? We won't spend like that when we're married. No, bro. When you create bad habits now, they infiltrate the marriage later.

SPEAKER_00 6:50

Yeah, and they cause marital drama in your marriage.

SPEAKER_01 6:53

100%.

SPEAKER_00 6:54

So financial things are a big red flag. Ultimately, you're gonna want to share a bank account, you're gonna want full access to their finances.

SPEAKER_01 7:03

And you should.

SPEAKER_00 7:04

You should a hundred percent.

SPEAKER_01 7:06

We just we in our marriage podcast that we're gonna be dropping, we talk about how two become one.

SPEAKER_00 7:14

Right.

SPEAKER_01 7:15

And you really should do that with everything, guys. Don't be having separate check-in accounts. Like, it's one thing if right you have a business, right? You have a business and it's like you know, having a joint checking for your business. I don't know. Maybe your wife has her own, you know, for that. And it's like that's that's a little bit different. But your personal finances that you know your business pays you into or whatever, and if you guys have separate businesses, it's like whatever account is being the money's coming into, you guys both need to be on that thing.

SPEAKER_00 7:44

Yeah. And if you have a concept, like if you're in uh an engaged relationship and the person that you're getting ready to marry has this concept of, okay, but you need to pay your part and you need to do this, and you need to, that's a big red flag because that kind of mindset is called a tit for tat mindset. And when you bring a tit for tat mindset into a marriage, it is a recipe for disaster.

SPEAKER_01 8:12

And guess what? That all gets solved if you uh have the same bank account. So honestly, like people that are doing that are doing that because there's a possibility that they've lived with each other before marriage, so they're not sharing accounts, you know, and so it's like they they kind of carry that same model. Um, also not a good thing. Don't be living with each other, okay? That's another thing. In contradiction with the Bible. Okay, but however, um everybody, if you are married, you should have access. You should have access.

SPEAKER_00 8:43

You should have access. But you also like even in the different okay, say it's a different situation than that. Okay, the tit for tat thing. Like, if for example, say she makes all the money or he makes all the money, but then there's an expectation that the other person needs to like pay their share, red flag. Yeah, because in marriage, it's all about servitude. Right. And like we talked about in our marriage episode, check it out if you're getting ready to get married, because it's also gonna help you. But in our episode, we talk about how Caleb is the breadwinner, but he doesn't have an expectation that I have to put out and do all these different things because he makes the money.

SPEAKER_01 9:22

My money, her money, her money, my money. Like I don't, I don't, I just it's so stupid to look at it any other way, guys. Like you, your two becoming one, that's just that that your finances become one.

SPEAKER_00 9:34

Like, well, and I feel like because you have that mindset, it leaves so much room for just a healthy, happy marriage. And I feel like if you have a tit for tat mindset or you have expectations that this person has to be like giving a certain amount of money financially or contributing in a certain way, that is gonna carry out in every other aspect of your life and it's gonna cause a lot of drama. So it's a good time now to have those conversations because yes, it may not mean cancel your wedding, but it does mean put a big fat stop sign in the way that you need to work through this and you need to manage expectations and have healthy conversations where you establish, okay, this works for us. Now let's move forward.

SPEAKER_01 10:18

Right. I think that's great.

SPEAKER_00 10:20

Red flag number three.

SPEAKER_01 10:22

Boom. How they treat people. Okay, because here's the thing when you're in the dating phase, right, when you're trying to trying to get married, right? There is sometimes the type of people that will treat you well one way, like while you're dating, and then when it comes time for marriage, it's like something switches. It's like they've they've arrived and now they can just do whatever they want or like treat you however you however they want. So it's important to pay attention to how they treat other people, service workers, you know, people, people at Publix, their mom, their sister, like all that stuff is really important.

SPEAKER_00 11:08

One of the things that I love about Caleb is that he is so kind-hearted towards everybody, and he just is so loving, and yet that has carried through to our marriage. But if you have somebody that is treating your waitress like junk, I can guarantee you that is gonna carry forth to your marriage because what happens is when the honeymoon phase wears off, that person loses a little bit of respect for you. And the way that they're treating that waitress that they don't have respect for is going to carry forth and you are gonna be the brunt of that. And there's not much that you can do to get out of that. You can't work or earn your way to make someone respect you when they're not worthy of you. So it's important to recognize that red flag before you get married. If they treat other people terribly, if they talk badly about them behind their back, if they are just like really, really bad about that kind of stuff, you need to pay close attention, take the lens off of your eyes. And that is a possible cancel the wedding kind of red flag because that is going to be a recipe for marital conflict later.

SPEAKER_01 12:20

Yeah. Well, and it's also something to, you know, obviously premarital counseling is really important. So if it's something that you notice in the relationship on either party, have the conversation about it with them, like approach them about it, but then talk about it in your counseling sessions because it's it's really important because sometimes these are blind blind spots for people. You know, the the person that's on the other end of it might not even realize that they're doing it. Maybe they are, but maybe they're not, you know, and sometimes it's more of just like a out of sight, out of mind. They're not really thinking about it, but they need to be made aware so that they can change it for the future.

SPEAKER_00 13:02

Right.

SPEAKER_01 13:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:03

So I feel like in our situation, I was so thankful that you didn't view the way that I treated my mom as a red flag to stop the marriage. But that was also a risky thing that the Lord ended up changing my heart and working in me on. And so it ended up working out for us, but our story contradicts like everything that we would advise for other people to do.

SPEAKER_01 13:29

Well, the thing that you mentioned with your mom, but the one thing that I did do a lot was when I would hear you guys have arguments, I would call her out on like stuff that you that I was like. Yeah, you out. Like that that wasn't respectful. Like you shouldn't have talked to your mom like that. And so, like, there were checks, like, don't be afraid. Like, you're about to marry this person, right? So don't be afraid to to call things out in people. Like, iron is supposed to sharpen iron, right? So as another person sharpens another, like that's that's it's biblical. Um, it should be done in love, but it is something that you know, I saw it and I was like, that's not right. You shouldn't talk to somebody like that.

SPEAKER_00 14:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:10

Even if there is hurt, and there was, I mean, we talked about in previous episodes, like there hurt and resentment and stuff like that lived in that relationship. Um, however, it's still, I was like, okay, this is something that I gotta, as as somebody that's hoping to marry this woman, like these these are things that I need to bring up and talk about with you. Yeah. And then at the end of it, like you and your mom had a better relationship. Yeah, absolutely ultimately.

SPEAKER_00 14:36

Those are just three red flags that we are talking about. We have so many more red flags. So if you like this episode and you want more content like this, comment below, subscribe, let us know, and we would be happy to talk more about this and open up the doors of what we talk to our couples about in premarital counseling.

SPEAKER_01 14:54

Yeah, 100%. Let us know if there's any topics that are like burning within you because um, yeah, the Lord may stir us to make a video about it. So yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:03

Anyways, marriage is the best gift, by the way. If you are engaged, we're so excited for you. We are in your court because a godly marriage is a thriving marriage, absolutely, is the best thing ever. And we're now celebrating our 10-year wedding anniversary, and it just keeps getting better. So let us be the first to encourage you to be so excited for your marriage because it is the best gift outside of kids from the Lord.

SPEAKER_01 15:30

And the benefits are pretty great, if you know what I'm saying. So just say it. But hey, we love you guys. It's been Counterculture with Caleb and Stephanie Relationship Marriage Edition. Love you guys.

SPEAKER_00 15:41

Premarital, premarital, close enough.