Another thing we do each night is read scriptures and have a family prayer. Before we do that, we often have a little teaser or life lesson message. So Corey is a software developer. And as he does his programming stuff, he sometimes likes to listen to things to keep his mind awake and alert. His adventures into the far corners of youtube have turned into good life lesson messages for our kids - things such as Nanny 911, Unreported World, and lots of Dr. Phil. Corey has been code binging on a new reality show lately called 90 Day Fiancé. We know that we live in a pretty idyllic neighborhood, and our kids might not know of the struggles that are ahead for them, since all they see us in our happy and pretty functional family (our house is currently a mess, so that's why I'm saying we're just "pretty" functional), and most of our neighbors in their happy families as well. So, to inoculate them a little bit, so that they aren't shocked by the realities of life when they leave our happy bubble of a home, Corey has decided that showing them some of 90 Day Fiancé is required relationship prep homework.
For example, we watched this episode together with the kids. And this is the one that got me interested - meet Corey from the US and Evelin from Ecuador.
I screamed when I saw that bug worm thingy... sooo gross. I like my monarch caterpillars, but I would not touch that thing ever, let along eat it, ughghgh! We watched a few more of them, and had the kids show by a raise of hands if they thought they were a good couple and if they were going to be able to have a successful marriage. We called it right for most of them. So some of our lesson take-aways have been (not in order of importance or anything):
1) Marry someone who understands and respects your culture. That was working against Corey and Evelin in our opinion. Poor guy, his girlfriend as sister in law being so embarrased by him not wanting to eat that worm and calling him dramatic and ridiculous. Where all of us totally understood and agreed with him. And sure, it's an edited reality tv show so they probably spun it that way on purpose, but still, date someone who understands and respects where you're coming from.
2) Keep the law of chastity. Many of these people probably don't know about the law of chastity as taught by the Church of Jesus Christ. But we'd say that following it would probably have helped these couples avoid a big chunk of the problems they were facing. So just a quick plug there for chastity - go find the Missionaries - they'll teach you about it!
3) It helps to date/marry someone who shares your religious beliefs. Alan (California) and Kirlyam (Brazil) are one of the couples that we showed the kids that didn't have much drama and appear to have a happy marriage, so yay! Spouses from different cultures can work.
4) Marry someone who has similar interests as you. We'd say that not having that in common was the biggest factor that made us vote against Nicole (Florida) and Azan (Morocco) being able to create a successful relationship. "I'm attracted to her but just like 55%"
5) Before you propose marriage to someone, go on lots of dates with them and give yourself the chance to see them in a large variety of circumstances and so you can understand them, what they life, what their expectations in life are. Following this relationship rule would have helped Colt (Las Vegas) and Larissa (Brazil) - (She wants flowers!) (Also, Colt, not a good idea to propose to someone 5 days after meeting them on a vacation trip to Cancun. Of course it would be easy to fall in love there vs. in the heat of Las Vegas. That was not a real life setting to know what the person is like. You want to know them and see them in various circumstances of life to really get to know them.
6) Get the honest opinion of your family. They usually want what's best for you and so having their opinion can help you from making a mistake. They can probably see things you cannot. Getting that advice early on and listening could have helped Jenny (California) and Sumit (India).
7) You probably both want to speak the same language. There was one couple we saw who had to use Google translate audio for each sentence they said to each other. This could probably also have helped Rebecca (Georgia) and Zied (Tunisia) (the boys likes Zied) - Her make him so angry, "so much angry" but I think for Rebecca and Zied the main problem for them was probably more #5 than just language.
So yeah, it's been interesting and funny and sad. We're telling the kids that these are probably going to be like a lot of the people they will teach on their missions. It's good to be aware that there are lots of different ways to live and lots of struggles out there! But living the Gospel of Jesus Christ is a great way to avoid most of the big problems.
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