Marriage! What I Think I Know!: The Honest Truth About Relationships

By Pettia C. Green

When I initially married, no matter how many people I talked to, no one ever seemed to give me real answers to all of my real questions or problems. It was only after experience, patience, prayer and listening to good sound, godly and practical advice that I was able to get a lot of my questions answered. As a result, I decided to share some of the things I learned with others that are looking for real relationship advice that are single, engaged, and married. I want people to know that fairy tales are for storybooks! Marriage is about fairy tale realities!

I want you to be prepared as best you can so that you not only survive but thrive in every imaginable area of marriage. Some things you will only learn through experience and time. Other things you will learn from talking to others and through observation. I can honestly tell you from my own journey that it is much easier to get the lesson for some things from watching and listening to someone else rather than experiencing a lot of things on your own. At the beginning of my marriage, I had no choice! After reading this book, you do!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 10, 2017
• ISBN: 9781483672854

Pettia C. Green

Pettia Green is a Christian and devotes lots of time and energy to her family and her purpose which she describes as "blessed to be a blessing!" Between her mom, 6 brothers and other family, she was closely supervised. As a result of her upbringing, she experienced dating in a unique way. Pettia was chaperoned for almost everything due to the credit of her strict mother until she was old enough to do things on her own. That kept her in line and allowed her not to stray too far away from what she was originally taught after becoming an adult. She learned lessons early on about dating and relationships from watching and communicating with her older brothers. She also learned about relationships on her own as she later started to date. Pettia gained even more knowledge by observing marital relationships of people she gave advice to and from the experiences she had in her own marriage of 14, almost 15 years. Learning that it is easier to get the lesson by watching and listening to someone else rather than experience lessons all on your own, Pettia Green had a desire to arm men and women everywhere with as much information as possible to make the best decisions for their relationships whether they are single and dating, engaged to be married or already married. Pettia endured typical situations and a lot of the advice she received made her believe that everything had to be perfect to have a good marriage. She later learned that there aren't any perfect marriages and that God wanted to show her things about herself in her marriage. She also learned that through prayer, experience, time and trial and error, that she would come to understand more. Considering she faced real life issues, she needed real life answers! In this book, Pettia gives singles and couples truthful, encouraging and useful information.

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Copyright © 2017 by Pettia C. Green.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2013913138

ISBN:      Hardcover      978-1-4836-7284-7

      Softcover         978-1-4836-7283-0

      ebook         978-1-4836-7285-4

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Scripture quotations are taken from The King James Version of the Bible.

The author has emphasized some words in Scripture quotations. These words are not emphasized in the original Bible version.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 02/01/2017

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CONTENTS

Marriage Is Your First Ministry

Acknowledgements

Introduction

I.   Genesis

II.   How To Recognize Real Love

III.   When Love Is Fake, Phony And Unreal

IV.   People Are Who They Say They Are

V.   People Are Who They Show You They Are

VI.   Lovemaking Starts On Your Feet Not In The Bedroom

VII.   Friends Of The Opposite Sex

VIII.   Inappropriate Behavior In A Marriage Or Relationship Period

IX.   Do Not Have Unrealistic Expectations

X.   There Are No Perfect People

XI.   Move Outside Of Your Comfort Zone

XII.   Communication

XIII.   Money And Finances

XIV.   Woo, Woo, Woo

XV.   Do Not Assassinate Each Other’s Character

XVI.   When A Relationship Or Marriage Is Over

Recipes For Love And Marriage

Marriage Is Your First Ministry

Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.

Ephesians 5:21KJV

IN MARRIAGE, YOU are responsible for ministering to one another by meeting each other’s spiritual, physical, mental, emotional, and financial needs with love and support. You show love and support in prayer, conversation, behavior and attitude. What you say, how you say it, what you do, how you do it, what you think and how you feel are all important in submitting yourselves to one another in marriage.

Acknowledgements

THANKS TO MY husband for all of your love and support in everything that I endeavor to do. Thank you for everything I have learned from you and with you during our 14, almost 15 years of marriage. Finally, thank you for not just being with me, but being for me in all things! I love you to no end!

Thanks to my son, you give mommy inspiration every day I love you and wake up to teach you. In teaching you, I also learn from you. I love you infinity times infinity!

Thanks to my mom, whom I learned from first and most about marriage by her example and from her snippets of advice that I still use today. May her soul rest in peace!

Introduction

God gave me inspiration to write this book when I asked Him for words that would bring healing, comfort, peace and understanding to people that are dating, engaged, married, divorced or seeking instruction.

When I was single and after getting married, I often watched and observed others to see how they navigated their relationships for many years. After seeing the ups and downs in their marriages and relationships, I soon learned some valuable lessons of my own.

One lesson discovered later in marriage was that there isn’t a clear cut formula on how to approach or maintain a marriage or relationship. I learned that expectations, no matter how unrealistic are how people view their relationships, but in marriage it’s not about expectations alone. Marriage is about having the right attitude, the right perception and doing what works best for you and your spouse.

My journey began before I was 20 years old. By the time I was 17, I had graduated high school and was living on my own. I worked in corporate America and I was in college all by the age of 18. By age 19, I was simply doing what I was equipped to do and that was operating in my own independence.

My independence propelled me into adulthood rather quickly and much sooner than the average boy or girl my age at the time.

I was raised with good morals and values that were all very beneficial to me and later enabled me to make some good decisions about my overall well-being. Although some of my decisions weren’t perfect, they ended up working out for my good!

Growing up, living in a house with 6 brothers, I often questioned a lot of the rules established for us. As I got older and matured, I managed to take a lot of that good parenting with me on my journey into adulthood. It all prepared me for the real world. I credit my mom’s wisdom well beyond her years and extraordinary foresight.

My childhood provided lots of valuable life-changing lessons. Structure, discipline, love and guidance were all important. I later learned that they are important in all relationships whether they’re friendships, familial relationships, working relationships, marriage, etc. They were the key to everything working out for my good.

Looking back, I now realize why it was necessary for me to move out of my family home at age 17. It’s not something I planned or even imagined myself doing that young. However, it was necessary for me to develop a strong relationship with God and a strong dependence on Him. Had I stayed home, I don’t believe my faith, dependence on God or the relationship I have with Him now would be as important to me or as strong as it is today. Making that decision allowed me to learn to depend totally and completely on God and not rely completely on myself, my family or anyone else.

My dependence on God has allowed me to hold fast to Him because of what He has developed in me.

Experience has helped shape me into God’s image of what He wants me to be and not an image of what others think I should be.

I often refer to the situations I went through as life experiences because you can only get most of what I have learned by living a life of twists and turns, ups and downs, disappointments and victories by going through several events in your life without having someone deliver you from them all.

I’ve discovered that you cannot properly learn all you need to learn by having someone rescue you from everything that goes wrong in your life.

Some lessons are lessons you shouldn’t have to learn firsthand. However, some lessons are necessary lessons.

I thank God that I was chosen to go through what I did and made it through. I am now able to freely share with you some of my life experiences that have all made me who I am today.

Many of the details in this book are based on some of the most common experiences in relationships. My prayer is that you receive a little insight to better prepare you for all relationships and marriage. I also pray that you take away helpful information on how to deal with making important decisions in your relationships and marriage that are right and best for you.

I hope you enjoy reading this book as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it!

Wedding%20Photo%20%231.jpg

My husband and I posing for wedding photos.

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My husband and I waving good-bye to our guests

at our wedding reception.

Wedding%20Photo%20%233.jpg

My husband and I walking down the

aisle while I made silly faces at one of my aunts.

Wedding%20Photo%20%234.jpg

My husband and I.

34237_1517550419595_3047825_n.jpg

My husband and I were very comfortable wearing our sneakers to our wedding ceremony.

Genesis

My husband’s proposal is the only marriage proposal I accepted after receiving five. When I was asked for my hand in marriage the first four times, I simply knew it wasn’t the right time for marriage.

The first proposal occurred after dating someone a few years that I’d known a long time. He was nice and had come from a good family. I actually liked him a lot, but I didn’t believe he was right for me. Although he was respectful and treated me nicely, there was only one problem. I didn’t view him as a potential spouse.

I actually liked his family more than I liked him. It seemed they were always pushing him to do what was best for him and they always found a way to tell him who they thought was right for him. According to them, I was right for him. I totally and completely disagreed.

I wasn’t fond of the fact that he wasn’t driven or determined enough to do what was best for himself without being pushed by his family. I also thought liking his family more than I liked him didn’t qualify as a reason to marry him.

Being pushed to be productive was a big problem for me. So, accepting his proposal would have meant that I would have married someone that needed to be pushed almost all the time to do what they needed to do. That just didn’t work for me.

I took into account that I wouldn’t have been marrying him for who he was, but I would have been marrying into his family for who they were. That wasn’t what I wanted in someone that I was going to make my husband.

In marriage, you always want the person’s family you marry into to like you and you always want to like them, but I felt nothing for him romantically. I wasn’t in love with him, however, he adored me. I didn’t think it was fair to marry him knowing I wasn’t remotely interested in marrying him.

Visits to see him became more and more about wanting to see his family. I knew that turning his marriage proposal down was the best thing for me and him. So, I had to be honest with myself and him. I tried letting him down easy and after we talked about our future apart, we agreed to remain friends.

It’s never a good idea to marry someone just to please the family whether it’s theirs, yours or someone else’s. I had to branch out and develop my own thoughts, my own ideas and my own beliefs to make my own choices for my life. You never want to be in a relationship or in any position where you’re being controlled by other people’s choices for your life. That’s no way to live.

The second marriage proposal occurred a few years later by someone I had been in relationship with that was much older than me.

I had fallen too fast, too soon. I didn’t know how to rid myself of him, so I became entangled in a few years long meaningless and unfruitful relationship that later became a problem for me.

As time progressed, I realized that I was doing what a lot of women do. I stayed too long! I dealt with him much longer than I should have. Before I could totally break free, I heard, Let’s get married?! I immediately asked, What?! and he responded, Come on. Let’s get married?!

It was an entire shock and entirely too late. Not only had the proposal come too late, but his marriage proposal sucked!

When he proceeded with his reasons for finally being ready for marriage, let’s just say that I wasn’t impressed. None of his reasons were what I wanted to hear from a man that wanted to marry me. They were all selfish reasons that only benefitted him.

I wanted a loving and caring spouse that had a heartfelt proposal. I didn’t want to hear Let’s get married?! I guess he thought after being into him for so long that I would have leaped at the idea of marrying him. Well, that’s not what happened. It was the total and complete opposite. I started to feel the way I should have felt long before he mentioned marriage.

I knew he wasn’t marriage material for me and I knew that I couldn’t trust him. I also knew that I couldn’t rely on him because he was selfish and inconsiderate. So, it took little to no effort for me to turn down his proposal because I knew I needed, wanted and deserved more.

I actually thought I would have wanted him for a future spouse prior to his proposal because he was the briefcase carrying corporate type-the kind of man I was always attracted to.

I was very much into articulate and attractive men with a side of cool that were successful. However, I knew I had to let him go.

I was young and I was still trying to figure out what true love meant, what it looked like, what it sounded like, what it acted like and what it felt like. He made me believe I knew all of those things. I found that I knew none of them until after discovering what I meant to myself.

When I said no to him, it was actually the God in me that said no. I couldn’t allow myself to accept what he was willing to give me as a commitment. In that moment, I knew the God in me became much stronger than I was. That’s the exact same moment that my perception of him changed.

Considering how I felt about him, if I was still in the same frame of mind I was in from the beginning, I would have said yes to marrying him without hesitation. Things I hadn’t considered became clearer to me after I said no. I couldn’t imagine myself being connected to someone that wasn’t thoughtful enough to plan a proper proposal among other things for the rest of my life. Sometimes, you just simply know by listening to what a person says to know they’re not the one. You don’t have to question them all the time to know where they’re coming from and I knew exactly where he was coming from. He wasn’t ready for marriage and I knew then that if I married him, I wasn’t going to be happy or fulfilled.

I learned after dealing with him for so long that just because someone comes in the packaging you want or you believe is best for you is not always what’s best for you! It’s not even what you want, what you should get or what you need all the time. It’s not good enough for someone to be wrapped up in nice packaging, tied in a bow and not have any substance or depth. I knew in my spirit, heart, mind and gut that he wasn’t right for me. Moreover, I knew that if I continued to spend time with him, that it would’ve been a waste of time. I knew my time was best spent on getting to know someone else or devoting myself fully to God. I opted to devote more time to God.

The third proposal came from someone I knew since college. We were friends for a very long time. We never considered dating until later in our friendship. We basically knew everything about each other and while we were friends, we were always in relationships with other people at different times or at the same time. We got along great and enjoyed each other’s company, but we never wanted to cross the line and mess up our friendship. Finally, we decided to give it a try and dated exclusively since we enjoyed having each other around. We went out for about a year and a half before he proposed.

The day of the proposal, I got a phone call and was told, I’m coming to get you to take you somewhere, so be ready in a few minutes. It wasn’t unusual for him to just drop by whenever we didn’t have plans, but for some reason, I just knew a proposal was coming. Nothing strange or out of the ordinary was happening; however, I could just feel that he was going to propose.

Shortly after we arrived at our destination, he took my hand, knelt down on one knee and asked me to marry him. Since I had a feeling it was coming, I didn’t want to be rude or seem disinterested, but for some reason, that’s exactly how I came off. I just said no. I wanted to answer a little differently, but it came out the way I was thinking it in my head and he looked stunned!

Although he was an intellectual, a hard worker, nice looking and supported me in whatever I wanted to do, I just knew that I didn’t want to marry him after dating him for over a year. We had a strong bond as friends before we ever dated, but I knew after developing romantic feelings for him and dating him for a while, he wasn’t the guy for me to spend the rest of my life with.

The big thing was that he was too attached to his mother’s opinions. What bothered me most was that he believed his mother’s opinions mattered more than anyone else’s including his own. That was a huge problem for me. We often had conversations about various subjects and according to him, she was always right. He thought she had all the right answers for everything.

He seemed too attached to her and her opinions even when she was wrong. I knew that would never work for me, if I married him. I also knew that I couldn’t have a husband that depended on his mother’s opinions to make decisions for him, especially concerning our household. So, after I turned his marriage proposal down, I was ready to move on.

I think it’s awesome for a man to love, respect and admire his mother. However, it’s never okay in general and especially in marriage for a man not to be able to make his own decisions without his mother’s approval. That was a huge red flag for me.

The last two proposals came from my husband. He and I became friends shortly after meeting and hitting it off almost immediately. We both knew mutual friends that produced music for his singing group years ago when he was pursuing a career in music. We also went to functions together with mutual friends and had an overall good time together.

After going on several dates, we became exclusive. During the time we were seeing each other, he possessed a lot of the qualities I wanted in a husband.

He was thoughtful, responsible, creative, had a good work ethic, desired more out of life, he was handsome, intelligent, loved his family and to top it off he adored me! Isn’t that what every girl wants in a potential spouse? Well, I certainly did! I just didn’t think he was fully prepared for marriage at that time, although he had a lot of great qualities. He needed to do a little bit more to hook me.

Later in our relationship, things began to go south. I knew I loved him and I knew he loved me. I also knew that he wanted to be with me and I wanted to be with him, but it just seemed so hard for us to see eye to eye on certain things. We spent time apart after feeling like we were growing apart. Before I knew it, after being apart for a little while, my husband popped the question. After he proposed, I didn’t think it was the right time for us to consider marriage since we had so many things to work out. So, I thought it was best to decline his marriage proposal. We tried dating a little longer just before completely breaking up, but it just seemed the timing was all wrong. So, we broke up for what we thought was for good.

When we were broken up, it was disheartening for both of us, but I always believed my husband was a good man with really good and genuine intentions for me and he always believed that I was the one for him. I just didn’t think he had put all of the pieces together yet. However, I loved him and I knew he would need to do things a little differently if he wanted to marry me.

He later told me after we had broken up that he would ride pass my house to see if I needed a ride to work. It was one of the thoughtful things he did to show me he cared and of course, he was hoping to see me again to win me over. He often did lots of thoughtful things that made him very good at putting forth effort to show me he loved me. That’s what actually made me fall in love with him in the first place. His thoughtfulness was unparalleled! He was in tune with his feelings and mine. He also knew a lot about what I wanted and needed at the time.

After we got back together, he later mentioned that he continued carrying a picture of me in his wallet every day the whole time we were broken up. He showed me the worn picture he carried every day that was still in his wallet. I actually thought that was very sweet and romantic.

My husband proposed a second time less than a year after we started dating again. It was my fifth marriage proposal.

After reuniting, I looked up one Sunday afternoon at church and noticed my husband professing his love for me in front of the entire congregation.

At the end of what I would call a long profession of love, he asked for the girl he was talking about to walk over and give him a hug because he was shy about expressing his feelings in front of everyone. No one in church knew what girl he was talking about. I could hear voices whispering all over the auditorium asking, Who is he talking about?!

At the end of his profession of love, I got out of my seat and walked over to him and gave him a huge hug. All you could hear all over the congregation from the choir stand to the pulpit and from the pulpit to the back of the church was aww! and a lot of clapping. During that long speech, my husband said he loved me simply because of who I was. That sounded more like what I wanted to hear from a man that wanted to marry me. He simply loved me just for me and I loved that!

My husband wore his heart on his sleeve and I loved his pure honesty and vulnerability with me. It’s what I found most attractive about him. A lot of men find it hard and difficult to reveal their private feelings to a woman about almost anything. My husband, however, found it quite easy with me.

Judging how closely he kept his feelings to his chest when interacting with other people, he had a lot of walls up and didn’t reveal much to them. So, I knew when he opened up to me about any and everything that he trusted me and was comfortable confiding in me. That’s the moment I discovered he loved me because he had given me his heart. Not only did he say he loved me, but he often showed me.

After getting back together, I listened and observed him more. We began attending church together although he had a church of his own that he often attended. We prayed together, had frequent discussions about God, our interests, our families, friends, work and eventually marriage. We seemed more in tune with each other and with God.

Prior to making the decision to marry, we continued receiving confirmation after confirmation. It was God’s way of letting us know that He brought us together. So, we eventually got married.

What therefore