OUR FIRST YEAR OF MARRIAGE | fights, intimacy, our first time

Was the first time awkward? One, two, three. Welcome. We're happy you're here. Oh, good. Oh! Are you ready for this? Oh, my ab cramp feeling. Okay, you guys. Welcome back to our channel. Today, we're going to be talking about all the things that we learned in our first year of marriage. Or we're going to make it sound super dramatic and be like, we're going to open up about the first year of marriage. So last night, we're laying in bed and then out of nowhere, this question hit me. Excuse me. I don't know what he was about to say. No, do you remember what question I asked you last night? What question? Oh, is this what you expected marriage to be like? Yeah, I think that's a really good question. I think it'd be fun to open up with that. You said it was better, I think, right? Yeah. But, I mean, why? Tell the people. Talk to the people. It all kind of comes back to what you view marriage prior to stepping into it, and I think that's why he was asking the question, is this what you thought it would be? The reason I think it's better is because, I don't know if I walked in with the same viewpoint on marriage, is what it actually is. I think a lot of times we romanticize it. For me, it's just the safety. We've said this before, but what we thought would be most important inside of marriage actually isn't. And the things that we didn't even think were going to be the most important actually are. The reason I asked that is because, in my opinion, marriage is so different than what I thought it was going to be like. I don't want to say it's the opposite, because that's not fair to say, but I think I did romanticize it like she shared, where I had this kind of picture of what it was going to be like. You know, you're kind of spoon-fed it in movies, like the husband goes to work, comes home, his wife has pearls and she's vacuuming, and it's cute, and he kisses her on the cheek, and it's actually kind of like that. But, you know, it's not. It's not like that at all. I just don't think anything can really prepare you for what it feels like to be married. The person that you're with is your best friend, then it's awesome. But I think that I wasn't prepared for the way it was going to feel to be married, and the way it's changed me. Because I've changed in this past year, 100%. I've definitely changed. I can feel it, babe. I like just thinking about it, I'm like, oh man, I'm such a different person. I was so much more selfish before I got married. Man, marriage is like the ultimate reflection of the stuff inside of you that's maybe not very good. And that's not that she's reflecting bad stuff to me. She, like, in the way I love her, I can see if I'm doing a good job or a bad job because I can see it in live action. It's like a mirror. It's almost like, you know, if you're not taking good care of your skin, you can look in the mirror and you can see it. If I'm not taking good care of her, I can look at her and I can see it. I just feel like I'm becoming more of who I'm supposed to be, you know, by getting rid of the stuff that, the impurities, you know? What do you think was the biggest surprise about me? The biggest surprise about you? Gosh, I hope this doesn't come off in a bad way. You know what I mean? Be nice. I am going to be nice. As I've watched you as a single girl and then even in engagement until marriage, now that I get to intimately do life with you every day and get to know you, I had a perception that you were a lot more confident than you actually are. And I still think you're incredibly confident, but I get to see the days when you're not on stage speaking and doing like XYZ because whenever we see that, it's like, oh wow, this girl's such a powerhouse and you still are. But it made me look at you with softer eyes whenever I saw the vulnerable sides. You know what I mean? I don't know if confidence was the right word to use there, but I guess what I'm trying to say is I got to see you in your hardship. Yeah. Because even remember whenever we first started dating, I saw you had like a lot of things going bad in your life, you know, but I also saw a lot of strength there. And so I guess it's been, I think it's been really good for me to see you as a person who could use some help, could use some encouragement. Yeah. You knocked me off the pedestal, which is a good thing. Yeah. And so I didn't want that to be mean. No. I mean, like here's the thing, especially in the beginning stages of dating, you always have that person on a pedestal and you like, think that they are like this, this thing, but it's like that quote that says distance creates distortion. And it's like the closer you get and the more intimate you get, your eyes are open to new things. Dang, repeat that babe. Distance creates distortion. That's so good. So I feel like, you know, that's a huge thing even on social media and it being your highlight reel. It's like people can think I'm the most confident, wise woman who just gives advice or whatever it may be, but I have those moments and you know, the cool thing about God is, is like his strength is made perfect in your weakness. And so the only reason why I'm strong is because I know how weak I am and how much I need God. If I was just this person who, you know, never had flaws or like never had struggle, then that's not attainable. That's not relatable. I think that is one thing for sure that marriage has taught us is that like, number one, it's important and it's powerful to be vulnerable, not put on this facade that everything is always good and you're always strong because that's just not true. He is honestly the best. He knows how to handle me so well when I get frustrated or upset. Kind of like this, this is how I handle you. Yeah. So we're gonna do a quick little speed round. I'm going to ask a question. Then you ask a question. We both have to answer on three. So my question was, was our first year of marriage hard? One, two, three. Absolutely not. Nope. And that's not to knock you. We've had a hard first year because we can definitely see how it can be really difficult in some people. So there's no throwing shade. Our first year, even though there's some of the things we went through, we're kind of weird, you know? It's not that we didn't go through hard things, but marriage wasn't hard. Ooh. Was the first time awkward? One, two, three. Absolutely not. Everything worked. Lord. I am. That's awkward. But the first time wasn't awkward. And yeah, we, yeah, we'll probably, Lord, now I'm like blushing right now. A little hot, baby? We'll return in a bit. Wow. Well, that was creative. Oh my goodness. It is currently later in the day, several hours later. Just filmed the podcast with my boys. So we're back. Also, while we were gone, I also asked the Instagram followers if they had any questions for us about first year of marriage. And they came up with some very interesting ones that Chad has not read yet. So I'm going to pull some up. What is your argument languages and how do you handle conflict? What would you say? How about we answer for each other? What would you say my argument language is? Um, I mean, you're definitely a little more heated than I am. Yeah, I'm definitely hot headed. And then if he gets heated and I shut down, which is not good. So that's something we definitely have learned in our first year of marriage is how to communicate when either one of us gets upset. Yeah, I'm definitely kind of like, it's almost like a flash in a pan where I can get upset, but I can also either forgive or ask for forgiveness really quickly. And he does that. And admit where I'm wrong and say, oh my gosh, I can't believe I acted that way. Oh my gosh. Where it takes her a lot longer to get frustrated, but it also takes her a lot longer to get unfrustrated. I don't know how. Yeah. I like sit in it for a while. Yeah. You know, but in one of the pre marriage books that we were going through, one of the chapters is learning to fight. Well, I would say we fight. Okay. You know, like we were definitely not like professionals at it by any means. But also fun fact about me. I, I have like, you know, you know, people are like a resting face. Tori's resting face is like a smile where she always looks like she's smiling. Even if she's not happy, she'll like, just my, my resting face can look, I don't want to say intimidating, but it can look angry. She's editing that video right now of our one year anniversary trip. And like, there's moments where the camera's like on both of us and she looks really happy and I look like stoic or concerned or something just very like, you know, and I feel bad because like, that doesn't mean I'm unhappy. I just, this is my face right here. This is like just neutral. I'm the opposite. You find any questions? Yeah. What's something that you didn't expect out of marriage? Oh, that's a good question. We've shared about this before, but one thing I didn't expect out of marriage was to feel safe. I never really needed to feel safe. I didn't realize that. Oh, wow. Like feeling secure and my relationship actually had a profound impact on me. Probably one of the greatest impacts that marriage has had on me. And that was definitely a surprise because I think guys tend to want to be macho or like, you know, I can do it on my own. I'm fine. I'm all this stuff. But I feel very good and safe in our marriage. Bibbitt needs me. Oh, sweet Bibbitt. You need prayer Bibbitts. What about you? I pick, why don't you answer? There's so many questions. So how do you define submission as a wife according to the Bible? Hot topic. I watched a movie called The War Room, which if you are not new to this channel, you know that I love. And Beth Moore in that movie put it real well. She says, honey, sometimes submitting to your husband just means ducking so that God can hit him across the head. I think submission is a safeguard for your marriage. For me in general, I feel very secure knowing that he's the head of the household. And I like that. I like being led. I don't feel like it puts me down in any way. I don't feel like it's this thing that Chad has more authority in our relationship. But I think that he's been given that by God. And I want to honor him in that. And so I'm not going to make decisions if he's not on board with them. And like I said, that safeguards me knowing that anything I am doing, he is on board with. And that makes me feel better inside of it. That makes sense. I think people tend to get a really bad idea of the word. Because number one, the word sounds weird. Submission. It's almost like I grew up watching wrestling and you just think of like someone putting in the headlock and trying to get them to submit. And people, I feel like that submission implies that there's a wrestling match happening. There's like it's fighting for one thing or one person wants control. And I think people tend to get really weird around that topic, which is like, oh, so he just does whatever he wants or he tells you what to do or all this. Like, absolutely not. Because in the same Bible, it says, husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and Christ died for the church. He gave his life for the church. He served the church with everything he had. And what greater love do you have than one that lays down their life for someone? But my point is, is that she feels secure in my leading because the way I want to lead is to empower her and lift her up and encourage her and keep her motivated and on the right track. And she does the same thing for me. Next question. And first off, you guys on Instagram asked some good questions. I feel like I need to do an entire another video on answering more of these questions because this video would be so long. How do you do your finances? Do you share both your incomes or not? Yes. So he definitely does most of the finance stuff. And we do share a bank account. It is our money. We are a team. He wins. I win. He wins. And that's actually something that we did right before marriage because I definitely had a little bit of a pride issue where I was like, stressing about like, well, what am I bringing to the table? And I wasn't focused on us as a unit and looking at the bank account as ours. I was like, well, he's bringing this and I'm bringing this. And yeah, it was definitely like a pride issue. So like a month or two before we got married, we went ahead and combined our bank accounts as we were like paying for a bunch of wedding stuff to be like, no, this is ours. We are connected. We are a unit and we're doing this together. Oh, oh, this is really good. Bit personal. Oh, so, you know, it's juicy with the freedom of marriage. Has that lessened the desire for intimacy? Oh, that's a new one. That's a good one. I didn't check that a second ago. Yep. They're still rolling in. That's a good one. One, two, three. No, no. But I will say this. I had a different idea of what intimacy was before we got married. I had never really experienced what we experienced with marriage. So in that capacity, it has lessened desire in certain ways because a lot of previous desire was just lust. It wasn't actual intimacy. I actually, I don't think I've ever experienced a less form of intimacy because I don't even call that intimacy. And this is my first time experiencing intimacy. And so that's a trick answer. Yeah. I don't know if that applies or not. I think the safety of marriage and knowing that God is blessing that magnifies the intimacy instead of subtracts from it. Yeah, absolutely. And studies show, I mean, this is an actual statistic. Marriage affects men and women differently, both for good, by the way. But one of the key effects that it has on women is women who are faithful to one partner and just have sex with that one spouse. Actually, statistics show that they have a greater fulfillment in their sex life than women who may not be just with one partner. And that's kind of interesting. Yeah, I love that. I've heard the first year of marriage is hard. Is this true? I'm getting married in July. It's going to suck. I'm kidding. I'm sure you can kind of assume our answer on that one where, no, the first year of marriage wasn't hard, but you also have to be in a good position for it. We've had friends that we both admire that their marriages have been harder on them that first year just because of different situations that they're in. When you're kind of ready for that first year to be more difficult than others, because we didn't live together before marriage. We didn't know what it would be like living together. What is this person's habits? What is this? What is that? I definitely feel like you can prepare mentally for some things that way you don't overreact like I do sometimes. But you can be more courteous to the other person, understanding like, hey, I know this first year may be a little different as we get used to living in the same quarters. And so you're a bit more forgiving. And that helps too. Dang. I wish we could just answer these questions all day. All right. Next question. Last question probably is, do you feel like there's an end to the honeymoon stage? Why don't you go ahead and answer and I'll finish up. You want to put a little bow on it? I'll put a little bow on it. Okay. First off, no. I think I was even experiencing this a little bit yesterday and the day before. It almost surprised me how like giddy I was or how much I was checking him out. I was just like, dang, my husband looks good. All right, keep going. Sorry. Anyways, I first off, I just don't really like the term honeymoon phase because I think love grows and develops with you as a couple and intimacy grows. And the more you get to know someone's heart, the more you love them. I remember because Tori and I, we kind of wrapped this thing up fast. We started dating and then seven-ish months later, we got engaged. And then what, five months after that, we got married? Something like that. And keep in mind, we were long distance for those seven months that we dated. And then we got engaged in that eight month. And then we just had five months until we got married. And a lot of people, their biggest concern is like, oh, you guys are just in the honeymoon phase. And let me tell you from experience, I've been on a honeymoon. We were not in the honeymoon phase. She lived in Tampa, Florida. I lived in Los Angeles, California. There's things you can do on your honeymoon that you can't do when you live 3,000 miles apart. That's not a honeymoon phase. So I also disagree with the phase. I get the sentiment and what people mean by it, which is like, oh, you're infatuated with each other. Everything's new. Everything's exciting. I get the sentiment. But if your desire is to grow in love with this person and to continue to serve this person, then holy cow, you're setting yourself up for a win. But if your goal is what can you pull from this person? What can you take from them? You're going to get bored. And that's where people get tired of the honeymoon phase because guess what? They get bored. But if my goal is how can we grow together and how can I learn more about her and serve her better as she becomes the woman who she is and who she's to become? She's different now than she was a month ago. And she'll be different in six months than she is now. And that's good. And that should be celebrated. Anyways, honeymoon phase, still active. I hope it'll be active all 100 zillion years of our marriage. 100 zillion, baby? Yeah. That's a lot of questions. I don't know what all she's going to include, but thank you for sending the questions. So something to keep in mind, this has only been up for a few hours, okay? And there's questions for a day. It just keeps going. We want to be able to answer them all because there's so many good questions. So thank you for following us in that. Like, you know how we mentioned that you get to learn more about each other? I've got to learn more about her even doing this video. And so that's, again, it's another way I get to learn to love more of her. And so I encourage you on whatever relationships, whether it's friendships, you're dating somebody, or even you're in marriage to think about some of the questions we answered and ask your friends or ask your spouse or ask whoever, because you get to learn more and then you get to love more. Yeah. Well, we love you guys. And we hope this video was encouraging, whether you are single or you're in a relationship, or you're preparing for marriage, or you've been married. And if you've been married for a long time and you have advice for us, leave it in the comments below. We love hearing from you guys. And if this encouraged you in any way, feel free to shoot it to any of your friends. If you liked it, feel free to give it a thumbs up and don't forget to subscribe. Yeah. Thanks for that. We love you guys. Love you. We'll see you in the next video. Goodbye. Is that awkward? All right. Bye y'all. We love you. Okay. Honestly, we love you all. Thank you for being a part of our life. And thank you for allowing us to be part of yours. Okay. I love you. We really do love you. Okay. Bye.