100. Marriage 101 Pt 2: My Marriage Changed Me

Meet the Host

Five years ago, after achieving my degrees and teaching as a professor, I was feeling proud that I had checked everything off my life list. But, I wasn’t satisfied in my marriage.

Today, I’m a relationship coach on a mission to resurrect the side of you that got lost in your relationship and responsibilities teaching you how to stop arguing and have more sex. Millions of people around the world soak up my content for advice on how to have a more satisfying relationship.

Welcome to our new podcast series - Marriage 101. In this 4 part series, I break down the history of my marriage, from my perspective.

In Part 2, I tell the story of how my husband and I met, and the very things that caused me to change as a person.

I share 3 lessons I’ve learned over the 12 years I’ve been married, and how they changed me.

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Episode Transcript:  

Karina: Amigos, como están? Welcome back to Relationships You Understand? with me, your host, Karina F. Daves, relationship expert, speaker and podcast host of this dope podcast. Today we continue our series called Marriage 101. Today is my hundredth episode of this podcast and it is called My Marriage Changed Me.

So on today's episode, I'm going to literally break down the story for you on how Terrence and I, my husband met and the very things that caused me to change as a person. And I want you to know something about change. Change doesn't happen because you pressure your partner to change. Change happens because your partner, the person wants to change. People are selfish in nature and I know that selfish can seem very negative, but when it comes to change, are selfish with change. We only change when we see the benefit that it can do for us and the people around us. So we don't necessarily always change. I always say that when you pressure somebody to change, it's not sustainable. Eventually they go back to who they want to be. So if you want your partner to change,

Just know that that change has to be their decision, not yours. You understand? Okay, so as you know, I drop off my kids on Mondays and Fridays. So this is always a fun and quick episode. So here we go. Marriage 101, My Marriage Changed Me, episode 100. My God, even just saying that is so cool. I started this podcast in March or April of 2020. It's been four years and yes,

It took me four years to get a hundred episodes, but I'll tell you something. I don't regret it. I don't regret the pauses. I don't regret the reboots, the restarts, the rebrands. I don't regret any of that because at the end of the day, I could either be here four years later with a hundred episodes or I could be here for four years later with just still an idea to have a podcast. So praise God for giving me this platform because this podcast eventually turned into the coaching business that I have today that the Lord allows me to help people, couples. And it's just been a marvelous ride.

I have so much to say, but anyways, let's start with why we're here. We have 10 minutes. Okay, so let's take it back to the year 2000. I met Terrence Daves at Union High School. We actually went to eighth grade together, but we don't have many memories of that period.

I moved to Union, New Jersey in about seventh or eighth grade, and we lived in a town called Vauxhall. And if you know anything about New Jersey, Vauxhall and Union are right next to each other. And I went to Union High School at a time where my mom was restart. She was restarting. She had already divorced my dad. She was on her second marriage. My sister was young or seven years apart. And it just felt like a restart, right? Like we were finally restarting our lives. And when one day in Union High School, I see this guy wearing an ROTC outfit. And I'm like, that guy is hot. And there's no cell phones, there's no texting, there's only like notes or face -to -face interaction. So I see Terrence walking down the hallway and I approach him and I'm like, hey, I'm Karina. I think you're really cute. And he basically said the same

And from that moment on, we were boyfriend and girlfriend. We had very strict parents. so we would after school make out under I don't know if it was my North face or his North face. And then he would grab his backpack and like grab the ends of the backpack and tighten them on his shoulders and just run because he had to go to work after school. And I just needed to be home in time for my mom to call me. And

What ended up happening was that one day I was walking home from school and I was wearing Timbs in September, which horrible, horrible idea. Anyways, I started to get blisters. When I got blisters, I decided that it was gonna take me a really long time to get home. So what I did was I had a dollar and I walked across the street to the pizza shop to get quarters to then use the payphone back on the other side of the street. I was listening to JLo's first album that had just dropped on my CD player. And when I came out of the pizza shop, I looked left, I looked right, and I might've looked left again, I don't remember, but I remember seeing the light turn yellow. And me thinking to myself as a 13 year old, yellow means slow down and stop. Well, I ended up crossing the street with my headphones and next thing I know, I literally get hit by a car.

And I remember my body hitting the car and then I remember just hearing my huge Missy Elliott bubble jacket slide across the street. The next thing I remember is opening up my eyes and seeing this woman that was gonna go into her house just run towards me and ask me if I was okay. And I just kept saying, I can't feel my legs. can't feel my legs.

Now from Terrence's perspective, the bus had there was a school bus that had passed by and that school bus was yelling like, steal her Tims all this other crazy stuff. And whoever was on that school bus ends up telling Terrence that I that they saw me and I got hit by a car. So later that week, it's interesting what happens. There's no telephone. Basically, starting the next day, I had multiple people visit me from school and I have I had a couple of guy friends. And so one of those guy friends, actually, Terrence ends up coming and he ends up giving me a plastic pink rose. And he says, the reason why I'm giving you a plastic pink rose is because my love for you will never die. And I'm like, we're 13. That's so cute. And he ends up telling me you have the prettiest feet I've ever seen. I'm like, whoa, I didn't even know feet was like a thing. That guy is found attractive. Anyways, he leaves. Another friend comes. When that friend leaves to say goodbye, they turn to actually kiss me on the lips.

And so in my 13 year old mind, I had cheated. So the next day at school, I go up to Terrence and I'm like, hey, I just wanna let you know this person came to my house, we kissed, I cheated on you, I'm so sorry, I guess now we have to break up. And I literally walk away. I leave Terrence pretty confused, but a couple of weeks later, we lose our house. Now the reason, I just wanna backtrack, we went to a very big high school. Our freshman class was a thousand kids alone. So it was very easy to lose each other. Well, when I get home a couple of weeks later, we ended up moving. Now I don't speak to Terrence, don't keep in touch or anything till high school when Facebook is invented and I have a picture of me and my stepdad and my profile picture and Terrence DMs me and says, is that your boyfriend? And I'm like, ew, that's my stepdad, never my boyfriend. So.

Anyways, we meet up and he tells me that he, you know, is thinking about me and would really love to date me. And I believe at the time he had his daughter, his first daughter, Serenity at the moment, and he was big into skating. And so he was skating like around going to rings around my college. And I said, listen, like, I really love you. And for me, if we ever had a relationship, I know that I would get knocked up. So it's not something that I want to be doing. So then he says, OK, well,

Then fast forward till about the beginning of graduate school. He comes back into the picture and he says, hey, can we date seriously now? And I'm like, I'm actually going to graduate school. So I actually can't get pregnant now. I was very big on not getting pregnant y 'all. And we go to this bar and we drink pink Cadillacs and Terrence is decked out in like true religion jeans with like this huge shiny blingy cross and earrings and all his tattoos. And I think he's just the most handsome guy. I've always thought Terrence was so handsome. And now when I look at my boys, I'm like, my God, they look just like him. And he asks me again at the bar and I said, listen, like he had had another daughter and I said, listen, I know what it takes to be with somebody that has kids. I'm not mature enough to be with somebody that has kids. And I don't want to ruin that.

I've had, I have step parents and I know that it takes somebody with the right heart, heart posture and I'm not there yet. Well, we ended up dancing the whole night. Some guy bumps into us, literally grabs us and says, you guys need to be married. I don't know what it is, but watching you all, you have to get married. And we were like, okay, we let it go. 

And a couple of years later, I am going on a missions trip and sync my Instagram to contacts. This is when everybody was sharing photos on Instagram. And it says, would you like to be Terrence Daves’ friend? I'm like, yes, 973. I know his whole number. I'm like, yes. Well, I come back 10 days later from my mission strip and Terrence doesn't accept my friend requests. So I immediately text him and I'm like, hey stranger, it's a Sunday. He says, hey, and I said, I would love to see you. Are you free this Wednesday?

And he says, yes. I said, all right, meet me at Clyde's in New Brunswick. And I knew it was his birthday. So what I did was I got a muffin. I covered it in chocolate frosting. I don't know why I did a muffin. I brought a candle and a light and I wrote a card. And the card is actually in my office. And the card says something along the lines of like, I know our relationship is always back and forth, but I want you to know you always hold a special place in my heart, which was the truth and still is. That night I sang him happy birthday. That was June 12, 2012, four months later we got married. Four months later we got married, that October. And it has been almost 12 years that I've been married to my husband. And I'm trying not to get emotional about this. We were young when we got married. And that's not an excuse, but I'm giving you a reason. We were about 24, 25 years old when we got married.

And I remember trying to justify why we got married because I didn't really understand. Like I just knew it was a feeling. I knew it was like the Holy Spirit, but I didn't know how to tell people that it was God. And so I remember when we decided to get married, we were having this conversation about his back problems. And I was like, well, you if we got married, you could, you know, use my insurance. And as a joke,

He was like, yeah. And then I was like, all right, well, do you really want to get married? And he said, yeah, because let me just talk to my mom real quick. And I know what you're thinking. He had to talk to his mom. It's OK. His mom is a very beautiful, nice woman. And his mom said, of course, and his grandma said, boy, you would be stupid if you don't marry her. And so we ended up getting married. And I wanted to say one more thing about getting married at the age that we did.

And so I remember people asking us, like, how did you decide? And I remember giving the insurance story of like, yeah, we were just talking about insurance and we just felt like logically we should just get married. And it wasn't until sometime later that I realized, like, I cannot be ashamed or embarrassed of telling the truth, which is that this was really a God led decision. This was my first, like one of my very first big God led decisions. And it was difficult to explain that to people.

But here's what I wanna tell you over the next 12 years that I learned and how my marriage changed me. I learned that I'm not always right. I learned that I don't always have the answers. I learned that, number two, I learned that love isn't a telenovela. Love isn't supposed to be dramatic. Love isn't supposed to have these extreme fights, Cursing each other out and slamming doors and just treating each other like trash and then wanting to cuddle 10 minutes later. Love isn't a telenovela. And number three, I learned that forgiveness leads to friendship. You see, I come from a family that while it's full of love, it's also full of drama. While it's full of love, it's also full of strife, and I never really got taught to let things go. I never really learned how to forgive. I was raised again in a very loving household, but was forced to grow up very fast and understand things that I shouldn't have understood at that young age. And so when I got married, my marriage put a mirror to my face. It made me realize I'm not all that, that I still got a lot of work to do, that I don't have all the answers, that I'm not the source, that God is the source. I learned that forgiveness is the very thing that's going to build a strong foundation within my marriage. Constant forgiveness and letting things go, not sweeping things under the rug, but maybe the dishes aren't really a big deal. Maybe forgetting isn't that big of a deal. Maybe I can take those moments to be open with each other, to teach each other. I learned in my marriage, and my husband taught me that there are so many moments in your relationship which are pivotal, but you don't think they are. There's so many moments God has given you the opportunity to either work together or become divided.

God has given you so many opportunities to either work together or become divided. But God also gives you the free will to choose which route to take with your partner. So if you're listening to this episode right now, I want you to understand that there is a purpose for your relationship, but you get to decide how you wanna show up. And so my marriage has taught me that I don't have all the answers and I'm not always right. It has taught me that love isn't this huge telenovela and that forgiveness not only leads to friendship, but that miracles are on the other side of forgiveness. You understand?

I pray, I pray that God gives you…Lord, give me the words…I pray that God gives you the discernment to figure out what to do in your relationship. I pray that God gives you angels of support that you can lean on and trust during this difficult time.

I pray that you see how strong you are and how strong you can be. And I pray that you not only focus on your weaknesses, but you focus on your strength to get through to this.

I pray that the children that you have, you never see as a mistake. I pray that you never even see your life as a mistake. In Jesus' name, Amen.

Okay, listen, if this resonated with you, I wanna work with you. I wanna help you figure out the exact communication strategies it's going to take for you and your partner to be on the same page so that you can start forgiving each other, so that you can start being teammates again, and so that you can start understanding each other. Don't ever forget to use God as your third knot. You understand me? Don't ever.

If your relationship feels empty, I promise you, it's missing God. All right, I gotta take my kids to school. Listen, if you enjoyed this episode, send me a DM and just tell me I enjoyed this episode. I have very little opportunity to interact with people who listen to this episode. So if this episode resonated with you, tell me that you liked it, subscribe to it, share it with your amigos.

I have so much love for you and I don't even know you. All right. My name is Karina F. Daves. I'm a relationship expert, speaker and podcast host of this dope podcast. Thank you for coming. Thank you for coming back and listening to my 100th episode.

Lord, I thank you for giving me the vision that this room would be a lab to help many. I now know what a lab means and I now know that you created a platform for people to seek refuge. Thank you for making my home a place where people can seek refuge and how crazy you make a podcast be that platform. Thank you, Jesus. All the glory and all the praise goes to you. All right. Have an amazing Friday. Bye.