Relationship Killers Div II - Part 5

Transcript Teachable Woman Podcast

Relationship Series – Relationship Killers – Part 5

Reverends Michele Owes and Diana P. Cherry

[00:00:00] Rev. Michele Owes: Welcome back. Welcome back to the Teachable Woman Podcast. I am Reverend Michele Owes, and I am with Reverend Mrs. Diana P. Cherry. We are teachers of good things. We are excited to be with you today and to continue our series on relationships. Mrs. Cherry, please say hello to our guests before we do our summary.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Hello to all of you. I pray that you are doing well in the Lord and that you're excited about the retreat and this podcast that we've been dealing with regarding relationships. Today is going to be a big blessing for you, so listen up carefully as we share our hearts with you.

Rev. Michele Owes: Amen. It will absolutely be a big blessing. Well, in relationships, here is a brief summary. We discussed that our first and most important relationship is with our creator and our sustainer, our Heavenly [00:01:00] Father, and of course, our Savior, Jesus Christ. There is no other relationship that trumps that relationship.

Rev. Michele Owes: We can search high, far, and wide, and there will be no one to love and care for us the way God has even through His son, Jesus Christ. So that is the primary, the most important relationship that we want to nurture all the days of our lives. After that, we talked about the fact that we have an assignment from the Lord.

Rev. Michele Owes: That assignment is to be witnesses unto our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. We shared the story of the woman at the well who had many relationships. When she met the man that she was supposed to meet, Jesus, all the other things made sense. She recognized who she was created to be, which was a witness.

Rev. Michele Owes: And she went back to witness to her community. And she said, come see a man and brought them to Jesus. As a result of her invitation, [00:02:00] they came to see Jesus. They moved upon the heart of Jesus to stay with them for two days, and he ministered to them for two days. Then they said that they believed in him because of what he said.

Rev. Michele Owes: Ultimately, as a witness to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, we want to recognize that some of us will plant, and some of us will water, but God will give the increase. We cannot claim that we saved anybody. It's God giving the increase. She was able to ensure that the men of her community knew about Jesus Christ.

Rev. Michele Owes: And that is ultimately our role as a woman of God. We talked about some challenges that we've encountered in relationships. Mrs. Cherry blessed us by sharing that the stumbling blocks of her life became [00:03:00] stepping stones to her success. And that statement alone has really blessed us.

Rev. Michele Owes: That brings us to today. We want to talk about some relationship killers. Sometimes we can be so engrossed in a relationship and, we look up, and it's over. We don't even know what we did or if it was us who did it. There are some things that, as women, we do to kill a relationship and beat it dead.

Rev. Michele Owes: We want to go over some of those things so that if you hear yourself in some of the things that we're going to say, fix yourself, you know, work on you. Often, we cast outward and we look at what the other person is doing, and we're not even cognizant of the things that we're doing wrong.

Rev. Michele Owes: We want to share with you some of the relationship [00:04:00] killers. Mrs. Cherry, will you please start us off?

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: I certainly will. I was reading a note again in my husband's book. His teaching on relationships and he had written a statement, which I find is very profound. He said one of the biggest errors we make is not being whole before we get married. He wrote that if we're not whole before marriage, we cannot expect marriage to make us whole. Jesus teaches us in His word, or the word of God teaches us that we should strive to be complete in Jesus. And I think that one of the biggest killers of a relationship is not being honest about who we are before we enter a marital relationship. That is [00:05:00] dishonest to know things and to know that you're not complete you're going to deceive this person that you're supposed to be in love with. You're going to lead them to believe that you are what you're not. I think that's one of the big killers of a relationship. I have three things that I think will kill a relationship. Not being whole before marriage is number one. The other thing is to have things that I call unknown knowns. Things in our life that we know, and they're known to us, but they're unknown to our mate or our prospective mate. And I'm going to share something with you. This is a relative of mine. talk about unknown knowns. One day, she went to her door, and there was a [00:06:00] beautiful young lady at her door, and she asked if my father was going and called his name here. And the person said I couldn't deny it. She looked more like him than any of our children. She invited the young lady in but all things could work together for good. That young lady became one of the strongest daughters that she had. I mean, she was faithful to her; even up until now, she's still faithful to her. They named the girl a female version of the male father's name. So, there was no way that my relative could deny that, surely He was the father of this young lady. Now that's a very big unknown.

Rev. Michele Owes: Yes.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: He knew he had a daughter named after him.

[00:07:00] Rev. Michele Owes: Wow.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: But it was unknown to my relative.

Rev. Michele Owes: My, my.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: The heart of my relative and her willingness to accept this young person became a blessing. Not being made whole before we enter a marriage is a big killer. Unknown knowns are another big killer. Unknown Knowns, knowing that you have declared bankruptcy, knowing that you don't have, I don't know how raw we can get, but my daddy, this is my daddy saying, you’re so poor you don't have a pot to urinate in nor a window to throw it out of. If we know that we couldn't get a loan for 10 cents and yet we want to enter into a marriage in that state

Rev. Michele Owes: Yes. Yes.

[00:08:00] Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Anything that you know that is a potential killer for your relationship, and you don't share, that's deceit.

Rev. Michele Owes: Yes.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: And

Rev. Michele Owes: Yes, it is.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Whether it's bad credit, a child out of wedlock, or you're going through a divorce. All these things can be dealt with if we know about them, but when we treat them like unknown knowns, we're deceitful.

Rev. Michele Owes: Yes.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: It's a lie. And a lie is a killer of relationships. Another thing that will kill a relationship is unmet expectations.

Rev. Michele Owes: Yes. Mm hmm. Mm hmm.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: We think that we have merit. The most perfect person in the world chose not to get married. Thank God he had good sense, and you're not marrying a perfect person.

Rev. Michele Owes: Mm-hmm.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: All of us have shortcomings. All of us have some [00:09:00] issues. So your little unmet expectations, you cannot allow it to break up a marriage or end the marriage, but you go to counsel, talk to your pastor, and deal with these things. So, not being whole before we get married, having unknown knowns in our lives, and unmet expectations are three of the things that I wanted to share with us that will surely, without any doubt, kill a relationship. Now, back to you.

%%%Rev. Michele Owes: Absolutely. Well, just one moment. I have family here. Hello, family. Good to see you. Say hello. They've just come back from the pool.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: All right. I love the fact that we are unscripted and we have lives. Hello precious.

Rev. Michele Owes: I'm recording.

%

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Good to see you.

Rev. Michele Owes: My purse is right there on the step. My keys are right in there.

[00:10:00] Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Beautiful.

Rev. Michele Owes: Oh, thank you so much. Okay, girls. Thank you for coming to say hello. Did you have a good time at the pool? Outstanding. Is Destiny with you all? Oh, okay. Oh, I know there's a lot of boxes. Please turn that light on. Thank you so much. I have to go back to recording, okay?

Rev. Michele Owes: All right. Thank you. And that's life. Okay.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Yeah, I love that. I love that.

Rev. Michele Owes: Okay.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: We've been blessed. We've been blessed because my doggy still has not barked in the middle of a podcast.

Rev. Michele Owes: Don't act up, Bishi, just because you heard that. Don't start now.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Right.

Rev. Michele Owes: She's not

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: right.

Rev. Michele Owes: wonderful.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Right, so, so not being complete

Rev. Michele Owes: yes.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: You get married, not being whole, and then unknown knowns and unmet expectations, these three things can definitely kill a marriage or a courtship even.

Rev. Michele Owes: Yes. Yes.

Rev. Michele Owes: Absolutely true. I think that one of the biggest relationship [00:11:00] killers is an inability to be pleased. There is a constant complaint, and nothing is good enough. Others can't do anything well enough to please us. Whenever something is done, you want something more, or you could have got something better, or you could have tried harder. It is the constant, I'm going to call it nagging, of the other person, giving them the impression that they don't know how to please you.

Rev. Michele Owes: When the reality is that we don't know how to be pleased, and we don't know how to acknowledge the efforts of others in a way that can build them because a wise woman builds the house.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Yes.

Rev. Michele Owes: And in addition to the unmet expectations and the [00:12:00] inability to be pleased are these ideas and visions that we set in our mind that we never share with the person, but they're held hostage to our ideas and thoughts.

Rev. Michele Owes: Because they haven't met our idea, we've never communicated, we never shared. We just set it up, and we expect them to be able to play through the drama exactly the way that we want it. But we've never had a conversation about it. I remember growing up as a young lady and my dad taking all of his daughters out, and there were some things that he sat us down at the table and told us over a meal.

Rev. Michele Owes: I remember having to share those things with my husband because he was up against all the things my dad taught me, and he never knew it. For instance, my dad would say something like if a man is with you, he [00:13:00] wants everyone to know he's with you. He's going to walk alongside you. But if he's walking in front of you or he is walking behind you, he is not with you, and he doesn't want to be identified with you.

Rev. Michele Owes: We were going someplace once, and it was really cold, and he walked ahead of me to get the door. But my dad's words popped into my mind. Oh, he's not with you. He is not walking alongside you. But you know, you know, you should be walking alongside me.

Rev. Michele Owes: There were so many things that he instilled in us and shared with us. Like things that we should look at when we see a man. And, and, but these are all things that dad taught his daughters, and my husband had no idea about any of them. One day I just had to share those things with him [00:14:00] so that he could understand how I got offended and when I got offended.

Rev. Michele Owes: He had never heard these things before in his life. These things were important to me. They were instilled in me and I judged the situation. So, the inability to be pleased because the other person doesn't know what will please you.

Rev. Michele Owes: Sharing with my husband what my father told me, that if a man is with me, he is going to walk alongside me. He will not walk in front of me. He will not walk behind me because if so, he is not trying to be identified with me and him knowing, it just fixed it. Right. But being judged for it and not knowing it, and assuming that he should know it, that's an inability to please me.

[00:15:00] Rev. Michele Owes: I've set up something in my mind. I'm judging you by it. I'm not going to be happy if you don't do it. But you don't even know I have the expectation.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Right. Yeah, those unmet expectations. And oftentimes, we compare a person with another person or a previous relationship. You know, we've been taught at From the Heart that comparisons always breed discontent.

Rev. Michele Owes: Yes,

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: We do not have a right to judge someone else based on another person. We cannot compare our situation, our families, or our circumstances with those of another person because we will be disappointed when we do. Because, inevitably, we have an expectation that is not going to be met, cannot be met, because it's based on our comparison, what one somebody [00:16:00] else has done, or someone else has. And remember, comparisons will always breed discontent.

Rev. Michele Owes: This is so true. It was the same way with opening the door the car door. I can remember once just watching the person that I was with walk away thinking that I was there, and I sat in the car and waited until they realized that I was not there. I think that every gentleman ought to be able to open the door, right? An expectation.

Rev. Michele Owes: So there just should be some things that you sit down and discuss. An open, honest conversation can clear up a lot of things, but oftentimes women get angry or disappointed. Then, the next thing that happens [00:17:00] is a bad attitude, which I think is the number two killer in relationships.

Rev. Michele Owes: Just a bad attitude.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Yeah. Attitude is a little thing with a big result. Let me see. What does my sign here say? Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.

Rev. Michele Owes: Yes.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: That is so true. I keep that in my office. Attitude is a little thing. That makes a big difference. Women know that we can have some bad attitudes. Let me share a funny story with you. Now, my husband has never been the gentleman type. He was always driven by business. Everything was business. And so, as an adult person it didn't bother me any. I'm a woman. I can be just as strong as you are. I can open my own car door. That wasn't an issue for me. One day, now, this was not an expectation that he would open the door [00:18:00] for me. I knew he was as he was, and I was fine with it. But one day, we came home from church, and he got out of the car, as he always did, and went into the house. I sat in the car, and I said to my little judgmental self, I'm just going to wait and see how long it will take him to realize that I'm still out here. Well, it started getting hot, so this is the truth. I decided I better get my little narrow behind out of that car and get in the house because he would never recognize that he left me. But listen, I didn't tell him what my expectations were. I didn't make an issue out of the fact that he never opened the door for me.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: In fact, it became a joke in our family. I didn't [00:19:00] expect it of him. So how can I, in the middle of the game, change the rules?

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: I think that was the only time I pulled that trick. And I think I would be sitting in the car right now because John Cherry would not have even known I hadn't come into the house.

Rev. Michele Owes: You know, that is interesting. You talked about changing the rules midway. Often, women do that based on something they read, something that they saw on television, or some kind of conversation that they had with a friend. And then suddenly you find out what someone else is doing and you want that done for you.

Rev. Michele Owes: And in your mind, you're changing the rules because now we've got, as they say, rocks in our jaws because he's not doing that.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Right.

Rev. Michele Owes: So, it becomes a bad attitude. I just want to say that a [00:20:00] bad attitude has a foul odor.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: It does.

Rev. Michele Owes: And I don't mean a smell. I mean that the entire aura around us can change. We can change the entire, what, what would I call it?

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Atmosphere.

Rev. Michele Owes: We can change the atmosphere of a room just because we walked in with a bad attitude, and everybody knows you're unhappy. Everybody knows you're angry, but, in the words of Mrs. Diana P. Cherry, for years and years and years, nobody really cares. You know what? We just have to really learn to check ourselves and manage ourselves.

Rev. Michele Owes: I remember my children were saying to me one time before we went out for a Sunday service, and I was chastising one of them before the service. But when the door opened to go out, you had a smile [00:21:00] on my face. I went out to greet the people, and I had a fantastic time at the service. And one asked me after service, I just want to know how you can fuss at us one minute and then go out there with a smile on your face.

Rev. Michele Owes: I said they didn't do anything to me. You know better than what you did. You know, you deserve what you got, but I'm not going to make them pay for the fact that you're not following the instructions that you know you should be following. So no, it's not. I don't have to. If I'm with you, I don't have to be angry with everybody.

Rev. Michele Owes: Once I straighten it out with you, it's a done deal with me. We're moving on to the next thing. So don't think that everybody has to know you are upset. One of the things I taught my children is, when you are angry, you and God are the first two people that should know. And you and God [00:22:00] ought to be able to work it out, and if you can't, just hold tight until He fixes you.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Right.

Rev. Michele Owes: For many reasons we're angry, nobody else can fix that.

Rev. Michele Owes: It's our thing. You know, it's our thing. You didn't speak to me this morning. You didn't treat me right. You didn't buy me what I wanted for my birthday. We didn't do it. You know?

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: It is so true. It is so true. Well, you know, this has been a great session again. I've enjoyed it. I've learned; I just love these sessions. We have a ball.

Rev. Michele Owes: We absolutely do. And we will be back to talk more about relationship killers. But before we go, if you saw yourself anywhere in anything that we've shared, if you saw yourself as someone who is not really whole at this stage of development, maybe there is a proposal on the table. Love can [00:23:00] wait. To have a happy marriage, work on being whole first.

*Rev. Michele Owes: Be whole in Christ Jesus so that you'll be stable in the relationship, and your stability can help stabilize the relationship and your family. If you have unknown knowns, being honest and telling the truth is important in a relationship. There are few things as painful as learning that your spouse has not been honest with you.

Rev. Michele Owes: Being honest about the unknown knowns is important, and work your way through. Relationships are work. But, you make it harder when you're hiding something because you can never fully be in the relationship because you're covering something. Eventually, it's going to be exposed. And [00:24:00] then we don't have to deceive one another.

Rev. Michele Owes: That's so, it's just wrong. It's just wrong. Any way you look at it, it's just wrong. We don't want to deceive one another. So, and don't let any of these things cause us to be unable to be pleased where nothing anyone does makes us happy. We always want more. We want something different.

Rev. Michele Owes: We want something bigger. We want something better. You say you need a car, you get a new car, you get another car, but it's not the new car that you wanted. You say you want to move out of an apartment, so you get a house, but it's not the house you wanted, and it's not the neighborhood you wanted to live in.

Rev. Michele Owes: Nothing can ever please us. This must come to an end, and it is such a relationship killer for a man to be working as hard as he can to provide what he can. Surely, do not sit back and be unemployed and make no contribution to the household, and then want things done. Okay, so we're going to [00:25:00] end right here and come back and pick up Relationship Killers next week.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: Good.

Rev. Michele Owes: This is no condemnation. No condemnation. Just saying what we see, what we've experienced. We've had some moments ourselves, and God has walked us through His word. And we want to make sure that we share that with you. All right. We'll be back for more Relationship Killers.

Rev. Michele Owes: Thank you for listening. Bye.

Rev. Diana P. Cherry: God bless. God bless.