30 Comments

  1. Dear Melissa

    Your blog post “Necessary Premarital Conversations” was my first visit on your beautiful blog this year.

    I accept your point that most of us are under heavy influence of our parents regarding how we view marriage.

    The minority that’s good, and as you say for the majority, it’ll cause chaos and challenges.
    It gives your blog posts a depth when you share your personal experiences with the topic.

    I’m sure it’ll inspire your audience to see the value of sharing on all levels.

    My add to your blog post is that all that you say about marriage in this blog post could be applied to the topic of money as well.

    What do you think about that comparison?

    Does it hold?

    I’ll follow you over to Start Marriage Right and continue the comment there.

    Before I do, I’ll share this on Twitter.

    Blessings!
    Edna Davidsen

    • melissa

      Yes, Edna. I would agree that we also learn about money from our parents. Also the good and the bad. As adults it is then our responsibility to question what we learned and saw in our family of origin and how we want to continue that and/or change aspects. I think this also is true of parenting. Thank you for your in depth comment and question. God bless!

    • melissa

      As with everything, if we want to do it well we need to do it with intention and purpose. Looking at our parent’s marriage is the best way for us to see what we want our marriage to look like. Thank you for reading and sharing your thoughts. God bless!

  2. Marlie L.

    I love that we go back to how your parents handled things, so we can learn and grow from that. I thought I would never be like my mom BUT I do see certain phrases and mannerisms of her coming out of me ahhhh lol.

    • melissa

      I look quite a bit like my mom so I know I make some of the same facial expressions! Thank you for stopping by and sharing! God bless!

  3. Bailey

    I am approaching my third anniversary and it is crazy how much our parents influence our marriage. Sometimes, we see how we don’t want to be but when it’s all we know, we can fall into these default communication habits. I think marriage in general has to be an active engagement to prevent us from falling into patterns we’ve witnessed our whole lives. Every relationship is different and should be treated with care and diligence.Thank you for bringing this truth to light

    • melissa

      Happy Anniversary! Yes, every part of marriage is an active choice. When we stop being intentional we resort to habits. Thank you for stopping by and sharing your insights. God bless!

  4. These questions are good. My husband and I didn’t have any list of questions to follow 35 years ago, but we talked a lot so we covered many of the issues, but today’s youth seem to need prompts. And there are definitely topics that should be covered.

    • melissa

      Yes, I think the youth have less “good” examples of what marriage is supposed to be as society has gone further down the path of not valuing marriage. It’s quite sad. Thank you for stopping by and congratulations on 35+ years of marriage! God bless!

  5. Melissa- I think pre-marital counseling is important! My husband and I had a few months counseling with the pastor who married us, we needed to work through a workbook separately and individually.

    • melissa

      The pastor who married us had us each read Captivating and Wild at Heart to better understand ourselves and our future spouse. The books were great tools for further conversation. And that really was our starting off point on coming up with and answering these more thorough questions based off of our parent’s marriages. Thank you for stopping by and sharing your experience. God bless!

  6. People are in shock when I tell them about the conversations that Peter and I had before we got married. Kids how many? How we want our life style to be, and that adoption is plan A for us.

    • melissa

      That’s so great that you guys had such in depth, meaningful and straightforward conversations. I wish more premarital couples did that! Thank you for stopping by and sharing your experience! God bless!

  7. Having deep conversations before marriage is so important to the foundation of marriages. And then ongoing talks about the same issues is often necessary. Building a strong communication pathway before marriage, including expectations, etc is so helpful to one’s marriage!

    • melissa

      Yes, absolutely! I’m glad you brought up ongoing conversations about the same topics. It certainly can’t be one and done conversations. Thank you for sharing your thoughts. God bless!

  8. I have to say I wish we would have had this conversation before our wedding day! Not that we would have walked away from each other, but that we would have definitely learned a lot through just a couple questions. It would have helped us navigate those early years of conflict/resolution. Thank you for sharing, Melissa! This is very important!

    • melissa

      You’re certainly not alone in not having this conversation. Not many do. It’s a serious conversation and a bit uncomfortable. Most people attempt to avoid both. I’m glad that you and your husband have since worked through the early year issues. Thank you for stopping by and sharing your thoughts and experiences. God bless!

  9. It’s a wise thing to look back and contemplate why things happened the way they did. It’s a sign of maturity to be able to make the necessary changes in your life that the past doesn’t repeat itself.

    • melissa

      It is indeed a sign of maturity and critical thinking skills. Lucky for me my husband is overflowing in his analytical abilities! Thank you for stopping by and commenting! God bless!

    • melissa

      I’m so glad you found the post worthy of passing on to your friend. That’s a great encouragement. Thank you for stopping by and sharing. God bless!

  10. The examples we grow up with definitely have an impact on our relationships, both with our spouses and our children. While my hubby and I didn’t talk in depth about those issues, as our marriage has gone along, we have seen where some of our behaviors have been modeled after our parents – both good and bad. This is a great article to share with young people who are considering marriage. Thanks for sharing. – Amy
    http://stylingrannymama.com/

    • melissa

      It is amazing how we repeat aspects of our childhood – marriage, parenting, finances, etc. if we don’t actively decide not to. Thank you for stopping by and sharing your experiences. God bless!

  11. I love that you encourage this. It is so important. My husband and I had premarital counseling and it opened our eyes to some major different beliefs we had about how to resolve issues. Our parents marriage does affect us but like you said it doesn’t have to determine our marraiges.

    • melissa

      I’m so glad your premarital counseling experience was a positive and enriching time. A side from our relationship with God, our marriage is the most important relationship we enter into. It’s so important to do the work and set the foundation! Thank you for stopping by and sharing your thoughts. God bless!

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