Before You Say “I Do” - Part 1
Show Notes
No matter what stage of life you are in, or phase of relationship you find yourself, at one point or another, you consider making a more serious and formal commitment. In this two-part episode titled “Before You Say I Do,” we grapple with some of the more nuanced conversations you might want to have with your potential partner.
In this episode we cover:
Finding alignment on core values
Compromises in individuality and partnership
Polarizing Discussions - Medical History and Politics
Dealing with family and in-laws
Talking about Religion and belief systems
Transcript
Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (00:00):
Yeah, assuming that you like to travel, I know some people who don't like to travel at all.
Meredith Shirey (00:03):
See that wouldn't work for me.
Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (00:05):
Yea me neither.
Meredith Shirey (00:06):
You've got to have a passport.
Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (00:07):
I agree. I me neither you gotta be able to like, just get up and go,
Meredith Shirey (00:20):
Hey, everyone, I'm Meredith Shirey. I'm a licensed psychotherapist, specializing in relationship issues.
Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (00:25):
and I'm Isaiah Vallejo-Juste, a divorce attorney.
Meredith Shirey (00:28):
This is a podcast about filling in the gaps of our relationships, the deeply personal choices we make for our families and ourselves,
Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (00:35):
And the impact that our actions have on the rest of our lives. This is Love Me or Leave Me.
Meredith Shirey (00:45):
We're finally, at episode five, I can't believe it. Yeah. Been fun so far. So we've been talking quite a bit about what it's been like throughout this pandemic and communication. And one of the things we said in our first couple episodes was that we noticed that people seem to be either on the fast track to break up or to commit. So we thought it would be really helpful for people to know what are the conversations you have before you commit?
Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (01:10):
I mean, that's a great point, right before you get married right before you say the magic words. I do. You want to make sure that you know, the person well enough and you have a reasonable expectation of what's going to happen in the future, and what's going to happen during your marriage. Not that you can predict everything, right? Lifelike throw wrenches at you, but you should have a general idea this, is not jumping the broom and moving forward with life without knowing how what's going to happen.
Meredith Shirey (01:33):
Right, exactly. We don't have crystal balls. Nobody does. So it's not about trying to be predictive, but it's, it's kind of like having an open playbook, right? That's penciled in where you can be flexible, but the idea is really, do you have enough experience? Have you done enough life with this person to be able to reasonably anticipate how they're going to handle stress, how they're going to handle a pandemic, how they're going to handle dealing with children. Do you have an idea of what their family's like careers, all of these things, it's about having enough experience and having gone through enough life that you have a reasonable assessment of how well you guys are going to be able to ebb and flow together with whatever life throws.
Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (02:09):
Yeah, Absolutely. I mean, and also, you know, you don't want to be too restrictive at the same time. I'm a divorce. It's many, but believe it or not, I believe in love. And how love kind of conquers all, you know, to me, when I got married, it was just like, let's go, you know, we set the date October 20 of 2006. We didn't even know how we were going to afford the wedding, it was just going to happen. And then it was like reckless abandoned. Don't ask me how we paid for ripping open gifts in the wedding. He goes to pay for the thing, but it's fantastic. It was great. But at the same time, I felt like I knew, like I felt like that was my best friend. I felt like my soul has found this counterpart in another, but at the same time, I didn't know what her values were. Right. Like I didn't know what she thought or what she wanted. And we did that obviously through conversations, which were, you know, kind of very natural, but we had them.
Meredith Shirey (02:54):
Right. Well, and if I can be so bold, I think you and your wife got married when you were young-ish, not terribly young, but on the younger side, you know, in your mid twenties. And there's an interesting difference too. When people get married a little bit younger, your values and those personal traits might not be as crystallized. So it's almost what they call a cornerstone model, right? Because you're building your life together and there's flexibility to do that. Versus if you're a little older, when you're getting married, you probably have a much more crystallized idea of who you are and what your values are, but you might also be a little less flexible when you're adding another person. So that's called kind of like a capstone model. So it's not that either one is right or wrong, good or bad, it's just different circumstances are going to give you different challenges, but also different opportunities.
Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (03:38):
Yea absolutely. And, in that way, you know, every relationship and every marriage is different and every person is different. But as people, we all act usually within the same two poles, we all act with relative sanity and have relatively similar experiences and ideas and things of that nature. So while things may be different for each person, for each couple, there are kind of, I think like broad ideas and broad things that you can discuss so that you can understand that either your spouse or a mate, or as soon as the spouse is in line with that, or you're willing to be a little flexible, right? One of the things that's a hot button issue right now, right? It's politics, everybody sees what's going on and it's all crazy. And the question is, well, what happens if one is a Republican and one is a Democrat,
Meredith Shirey (04:18):
Oh God,
Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (04:20):
Which is interesting. Right? You think that will never work, but then look at Kellyanne Conway and look at George Conway. Right. I guess, I guess they make it work anyway, you get the point.
Meredith Shirey (04:27):
Well, okay. To that point though, I think it depends on how can you navigate the differences. It's not having a difference because unless you have a clone of yourself, which God wouldn't that be boring, right. They're not going to share the same brain as you. They're not going to think about things the same way. And so it's okay for you to have differences, but it's about how you navigate the differences. That really makes a relationship.
Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (04:51):
I just want to go on a the record my clone would be awesome. So yeah. So it's, it's very true. You know, you've got to discuss these things, right. Um, politics is one medical history maybe is another.
Meredith Shirey (05:01):
Yea, if you're going to clone yourself, apparently,
Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (05:02):
Apparently, if you're going to, you should have that conversation because it may actually happen in the future. Right? No, but not just that, but right. Maybe you have a genetic condition or something that you know about, and maybe you want to disclose that and you know, your partner maybe wants to consider that and in getting married, right. That's just, that seems kind of fair. Or maybe you want to talk about, you know, your past relationship, not upfront, but your past relationships, what your expectations are, what your ideas are with respect to marriage to begin with. Right? Because everybody's ideas and just make sure you're aligned.
Meredith Shirey (05:31):
Medical history is one that I think people overlook quite a bit because it's not just about, you know, in sickness and health for now, because when we're, we're in a new relationship or we're looking at commitment in the here and now, if neither one of us had experienced any kind of serious illness, right. We're both, able-bodied, we're both cognitively sound, right? We probably don't think too much about that, but are you pre genetically disposed to potentially something or do you know that maybe you even haven't conditioned, but right now it's manageable. Is there a potential for it to become unmanageable? So I think it's really about understanding that if we're taking the vow in sickness and in health, what happens if it is one of us is in sickness and the other is not, am I ready to be a caregiver for this person? Or am I ready to be the sole parent? If my partner becomes disabled in a way where I couldn't do that, and those are conversations and things to navigate, if someone is the quote unquote breadwinner and they become terminally ill or disabled or something, and the other person hasn't worked, how are we actually going to have medical insurance and to pay for all of this? You know, those are things that I think you need to have at least again, like a very skeleton plan. It doesn't have to be anything fully fleshed out or set in stone. We're not talking about the 10 commandments here, but at least having some idea of what your baseline expectations are.
Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (06:45):
You know, I've seen it, that things don't go the way, the way it's planned. And then people end up, unfortunately, maybe even getting divorced over some of those issues it happens. And that doesn't mean that you should have never gotten married just because of the divorce happens. Doesn't mean that the couple never should have gotten married to begin with, but it really, maybe it's just something that you should bring up. And another one I see that's a big one is careers. What are you going to do with your jobs? Because things change. And sometimes things stay the same. It's a mistake. I think to get married, thinking things are going to stay the same and it's a mistake to get married saying things are going to change.
Meredith Shirey (07:16):
You can probably attest to, that's not the case like ever.
Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (07:19):
Right? Neither one, neither one is the case that everything is going to be different. But if you know what a person's values are when it comes to their career, that was something that was very important to me because my mom always worked. I wanted to marry, you know, a woman who worked though. Um, and my wife works, but now we've got, we, you know, in it right in the middle of this, you know, I wouldn't mind if she didn't work. That's what I've discovered about myself. It changes. And so just having a general discussion, as to how that works because you know, your career, that's something that you spend a lot of time out, away from home, or at least you used to maybe one day again, we will go back to our offices. But right now we're all in our case,
Meredith Shirey (07:53):
maybe one day.
Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (07:54):
Yeah. But you know, you used to spend a lot of time away from home in your career and you should have a general idea of what that kind of looks like. The person that you're marrying, if the person that you're marrying is an attorney like me, I mean, that could be very long hours or even worse a doctor, God forbid, right. That's, you know, somebody going through their residency, it's 20 hours a day. Um, that could be very tough.
Meredith Shirey (08:14):
So true. And I think, especially in a very career focused city, like New York, you know, when you're going on dates and stuff, that's something that people ask you, you know, what do you do for work? Because people put a lot of their value and a lot of who they are as a person and their identity into their career fields. So it's very, very meaningful and personal. Right. And I think that that's a very good point. How many hours are you willing to spend at work? And then how many hours are you expecting your partner to? Because if you're someone who's maybe career is not the first thing on your mind, it's not your top priority. And it's okay. There's no judgment, right? Wherever it falls on your list is okay. But if it's your top priority and then partner up with someone who maybe it's their fifth priority, that could actually be a potential problem area to navigate later on, because they might start becoming resentful for the fact that they're not your number one, right? Your career's number one and the counter argument, and that might be like, well, you married me. Right? You knew this going in. So that's why I think it's important to talk about this. Not just in terms of, okay, this is how it is, and it is forever, but really talking about your core values because that's, what's really coming through there. You and I are both entrepreneurs, like you were saying about the long hours. And I would imagine that even that's a conversation, if there's a career shift, that is something that you need to be able to navigate with your partner.
Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (09:30):
Yeah, absolutely. There's no way I could have opened my own firm without the support of my, of my wife. And there's no way I think that any married person could started their own business without the support of their spouse. So, I mean, not that you're going to be able to do it before you get married, talk about all these things and get that from the answers. And then take a picture or a video of the conversation for safekeeping later and say, ha! you see, you said you would support this and now you're not supporting this
Meredith Shirey (09:55):
As a couple's therapist. I can't tell you how many times that's happened in my office. And I almost want to press pause and be like, no, no, no, don't do this because you can just see the temperature in the room rising like 40 degrees. And you're like, Oh no, here we go. And every single time that's happened, it's led to blow up fight. So, yeah, please don't ever try to use like photo or video evidence for like one time your partner said, one thing I can guarantee you, that's going to lead to you guys going to bed angry for at least two nights, maybe more.
Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (10:24):
Well, you know just kind of have that broad, general discussion. So everybody knows what could happen in the future. And then guess what? Once you get married, obviously conversations don't stop. So keep the conversation going. But definitely in the beginning before you get, when you're considering it, I mean, I certainly did it. I would have, you know, a lot of conversations about your career, about your lifestyle. Do you like to travel? Like you're not, to me, that's a big thing. Where do you want to live? All those things you shouldn't really talk about.
Meredith Shirey (10:49):
Absolutely. And a lot of that comes from, again, the experience of being with someone. So you need to be able to have done some life with somebody before, you know, if you can make a lifelong commitment. So I think traveling is a huge thing, right? Because there's a lot of travel where you see people out of their element, you know, how, how many times have we been in an airport and we've been stressed out, or like your flight gets delayed, or you don't know where the gate is. You want to see like how somebody goes through security and, and that's the thing, right? It, when you travel with other people, or at least I found this, you realize like, man, this is a good travel buddy. Or like, I will never go on a trip with this person again, because I realize I can't stand the way they chew or you know, that they took 47 minutes to request the Pat down when I had pre-check. I mean, these are, these are me issues clearly, but those are the things that you really need to know, like, okay, can I do 50 years worth of travel where I'm going to want to kill you by the end of this trip every time that's probably not going to bode well for your overall relations Satisfaction.
Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (11:45):
Yeah. Assuming that you like to travel, that I know some people who don't like to travel at all right.
Meredith Shirey (11:50):
That wouldn't work for me.
Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (11:52):
Yea me neither.
Meredith Shirey (11:53):
You got to have a passport.
Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (11:54):
I agree. Me neither, gotta be able to like, just get up and go. But there's some people who don't like that. There's some people who kind of want to stay home more. So maybe that's something to consider as well, or maybe they'll work around today as that one person travels and the other person, doesn't nothing wrong with that either. But as long as you guys are good with that, right, you want to do you guys just want to, you know, if you're a couple and you're thinking about getting married, you know, you said you make your own rules. Right. But in making a rules actually make them, right. Like you have the discussion about it and see what's, you know, what's what, and what's going on. You know, the other thing that we have spoken about obviously is, um, sex. Right? You have to have communication, I think, in that regard as well.
Meredith Shirey (12:32):
Oh my gosh. Yes. So, you know, it's fascinating because again, me being a couples therapist, sex is the thing. People think they want to talk about the most, but then when we get to the conversation, it's the thing they want to talk about the least. And it's like, I'm having to pull teeth like guys, it's okay to say these words. It's all right. We're adults, you guys sleep with each other. We both know this. It's all right. And it's the funniest thing, but the thing about sex you're right, and, and sexual compatibility is very important. How important it is. Just depends on you personally. And the relationship, if I have a wonderful friendship with this person and sexual compatibility is not great. Is that something that you'd be okay with maybe giving up? I don't know. You know, Dan Savage has this really great concept. He calls the cost of admission, right? So if, if it costs so much to get into this theme park, right, am I going to be able to enjoy the rides or am I only going to focus on how much it costs to get into stupid theme park then I'm just going to complain the entire time? So it's like roughly 85% of my partner's great. What's the 15% that I can deal with. So for some people, maybe that could be sexual compatibility for other people. It's not, when you actually look at relational satisfaction within couples, when sex is an issue, it's usually like the top issue. But when the couple is overall happy with everything else in the relationship, basically the importance of sex or how they prioritize it, it's like it falls later, it falls much further down. So that's where it becomes this very interesting polarized, either a top complaint or like, it's not that really, that big of a deal.
Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (13:56):
Yea I'd be interested to see why that kind of is like, maybe if the sex is compatible right, or the sex is good, rather, maybe that's why it's not that top of an issue. Whereas if it's not, then it is. But I would also say, because it's also a form of communication. Communication is not just verbal, it could also be physical. And so if there's a disconnect there, that could be a disconnect in the actual marriage. Now it's not like, I'm a proponent of saying, well, you have to have sex before marriage because people have their own views with respect to that, with respect to religion. But I think that discussions about sex are important.
Meredith Shirey (14:28):
I think you're right. That there's obviously the huge, non-verbal part of it where it's it's touch and it's, it's the connection. But also part of that is the verbal communication of what are your expectations? What are your boundaries? What's okay with you and what's not okay with you. And I think people can get very uncomfortable sometimes thinking, okay, I don't want to either kill the mood or when is the right time to talk about it. But if there are things that are going to make a difference, you, so let's say that you've been a very sexually active person and then you're dating someone who plans to wait until they get married. That's obviously an expectation that you're going to have to talk about because you have to navigate and decide, do I want to wait and potentially marry this person? And do I want to marry this person without having had that sexual contact with them? So that's why it's important to again, talk about your values and knowing what yours are and being okay with being really, really honest and transparent with your partner about them, because let's be honest. And you know, this having been in a marriage for over a decade, there are no more secrets, right? It's going to come out so much better. If you're honest about that in the beginning, before you go through this whole legal binding yourselves together bit.
Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (15:33):
That's the truth. It certainly all comes out. We also have to give yourself room to change and for things to grow and to evolve. And however you are today, I guarantee you seven years from now you're not going to be the same 15 years from now. You're not going to be the same. They say that within seven years, every cell in your body changes, right? So you're physically a different person. Everything just is always subject to change and improving or not improving, but it's important that you do it together, right? So you leave yourself open enough so that you have room to grow together and whatever that looks like. And you know, that's a very personal thing I think. And I think that all these decisions are very personal things for the each individual couple and so long as you and your partner and spouse have good with it, then that's it. That's all that matters.
Meredith Shirey (16:17):
Deciding how you decide, who has that influence in your marriage, right? Is it just you and your partner who decide because that's actually a very Western value. And we know that, especially here in the United States, we have this kaleidoscope of so many different cultures and, and so many varied levels of acculturation specifically here in New York, too. So if you are with a partner who is from a collectivist culture and from a culture that perhaps has more of an impetus on having the family input, that's something you need to talk about so that you both have a good understanding of what that's going to look like. And especially if you're going to have children, that's going to change all the more I've seen that become a clash between people more so when they don't have an understanding of it, or when they feel like they're kind of like, well, I thought that would change once we got married. It's like, no, you need to talk about what's going to change and what's not going to change. So if you're from a culture where you're expected that the in-laws are going to have an extreme influence, right? It's almost like the parents never really leave in and leave the role of parenting. Then you need to understand that your spouse might not always take your side first. Right? They probably aren't going to consult their parents. And that I've seen becoming a contentious issue because the Western ideal is that, well, if I'm your partner, I matter more than everybody, right? I'm your number one. I'm your ride or die. That becomes a real pain point when it's like, but why are you asking your mother about the color of the curtains? Your mama doesn't need to know about this, ask me.
Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (17:39):
That's very true. And you should have an expectation of how that's going to look going forward. I come from a very Western mindset when it comes to that, where it's the couple that matters and everything else extra because from the couple of the children and everything else comes from the couple and every, everybody else has kinda got to fallback. And my number one is the spouse. And I'm her number one. And that's it. It doesn't mean that we ignore our families, but it means that's how we view things. Not, not everybody's that way. Could I have married somebody whose not that way? Probably not, but can other people. Yeah, but you just have to be open and honest about that, what you don't want to happen. It's like everybody loves Raymond situation. When you wake up and your mother-in-law's next door, you didn't want that right now, if you wanted that, that's a different thing. But if you didn't want that, then now you've got a problem. So you want to make sure that not even make sure you just want to have a general idea of what it's going to look like, what the holidays, the holidays was such a big deal, especially for younger couples. Like for us, when we first got married it was such a big deal. Who's going, where are we going for Thanksgiving? We're going for Christmas. What are you going for new year's? And you know what? Sometimes you communicate, sometimes those communications aren't fun or nice or easy, and in marriage there is always going to be conflict. And these are some of the things that you'll have conflict over, but you want to have it. So at least that you have the same general boundaries, so you can surmount the conflict so you can get over it. You know? So you don't want to, you don't want Christmas time to become the undoing of your marriage. That doesn't make any sense.
Meredith Shirey (18:59):
That is a big part of moving from that. I get all my individual wants and needs met to moving to the, we where our relationship. Our family together matters more than what I want individually, which means I'm going to have to give up some of those things. And that also means that I'm going to have to give up some of that time with my family of origin and that my family of origin and is also going to have to be okay with, yeah, I'm not going to be around for every holiday. And again, depending on what your culture is and what your religion is, what holidays are we going to celebrate? What holidays are we not going to celebrate? If we have children, how does that work? And, and this is a big thing too, where your family of influence is usually where you get your religion. They might have some strong feelings about how you raise your children, whether you raise them in your religion, from your own family, from your partners, some combination, neither, these are all areas of hot contention. And so that's why it's really important for you and your partner to have an understanding of not only what matters to you, but how important is this and where does that fit with the things where I want to bend and be flexible and the things where I really can't bend and be flexible.
Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (20:08):
You definitely need to have an expectation of that. And that frankly is something that should really come up. If it's going to be an issue, because where you're getting married sometimes dictated by what is your religion? And so that's a conversation, obviously you should have before you get married, because I mean, it's just not going to show up at a temple or charge and say, Oh, I guess we're getting married here today. So you would have had the conversation, you know, you have that conversation going forward. Examples of what I've seen work is, you know, where two people are different religions, but they chose a dominant one, or they basically chose to be areligious or one person converts to a religion in order to get married. I've seen Jewish people become Christian, I've seen Christian people become Jewish. But again, it's just really kind of what you want to do in your life, in combination with the other person
Meredith Shirey (20:56):
That ends part of joining those families is changing your last name, because interestingly, I've actually seen more men having a problem with the female partner, not wanting to take his name and that becoming this point of contention. And it's an interesting thing to watch couples navigate that, right? Because you know, there are some areas of compromise. Even religion might be one where we decide, okay, we're either both or neither, whatever, right? But if it's changing your last name or not changing your last name, right, or where you want to live, do I want to live on the East coast or the West coast? We can't be in two places at once. And this is not one of those where we can have half. How do you then come to a compromise on things where it's not really a compromise one person is going to have to concede.
Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (21:41):
I don't know if that would bode well for your relationship. If you can't figure out whether or not you're going to change your last name or not change your last name, that might be a problem going forward. I mean, at least in my opinion, I mean, but if it's that big a deal and you can give on that, then I think you have some serious discussions to be had. I'm usually, usually it's the woman changing the name, but I've seen it the opposite I've seen, I've seen in heterosexual relationships where both parties changed their names and there's nothing wrong with that. And I've seen it where neither party changes their names and nothing wrong with that. And the usual norm is that the wife changes her name. And there's nothing wrong with that either as long as you all agree, if you can't agree on that, then you should talk about how you're going to agree on, like, where are you going to live and children and all that type of stuff. There's a lot larger and more complicated and difficult discussions to be had. Other than that one.
Meredith Shirey (22:26):
We're not going to get to every topic in this episode. So we are going to have a follow-up, where we're going to go way more into detail into things about money and children. Because obviously, especially when we talked about divorce, those were, I remember you saying two of the areas that become the most contentious. And so it's really important to have conversations about those specific topics to when you're going into potential commitments. So like you were saying there, that is a red flag. If you can't decide something like, okay, am I going to be okay with the fact that my female partner does not want to take my last name, then that might not be something where you're going to be able to find compromise on other areas. And you could probably speak to this much better than I could, but it's so much about being willing to give, being willing to ebb and flow. And knowing that I need to think about what is not in my individual interests, but what is in the interest of my relationship. Sometimes that meets my individual need to, and it does great, but I need to accept that I am not going to have everything that I want met. And my partner is not going to meet all my expectations.
Isaiah Vallejo-Juste (23:32):
But you love this person. Obviously, if you're thinking about getting married, you love this person. So who else to give yourself to then the person that you love, if you're thinking about getting married and all these sacrifices you're making, I think that's because that's what marriage looks like, but don't just focus on what you're giving, but also what you're getting, which you potentially getting, which is a life mate and which hopefully that's the rest of your life.
Meredith Shirey (23:55):
Exactly.
Rich Hackman [Producer] (24:05):
Love me, or leave me as a podcast production of The Bored Brand. This podcast is for informational purposes. Only it does not constitute medical or legal advice and is not a substitute for professional consultation, diagnosis or treatment. Always follow up with a licensed attorney or healthcare professional who can address your specific needs. Thanks for listening.
