I want to talk real about a topic that saddens me, concerning a marriage break up. DeVon Franklin and Meagan Good are divorcing after almost a decade of marriage, and so the question is why? Why are they divorcing now? It would be really dumb of me to really try to process why someone is getting a divorce, it’s like beating somebody when they’re down. It’s really foolish to think you can know all of the details of what is going on in someone else’s life, but there are a few things to consider if you don’t want to end up the same way.
It’s so difficult nowadays because we really want to see people make it. And so when they don’t make it, we get discouraged, we feel that people are being hypocritical. But it is important for us to understand that people are really trying out there, but a lot of times, things just don’t work out.
We all have to admit that they are a beautiful couple. They are materially successful. They seem to be very spiritual and have great personalities, and at one point it really seemed that they were meant be a married couple until infinity. This situation is depressing to me. But marriage is hard to sustain. And we have to do the things necessary to keep our marriages intact long-term. Most of us don’t know what that is. And so I want to talk a little bit about that.
For those of you who are not familiar with DeVon Franklin and Meagan Good, DeVon Franklin is in the movie business. He is a big time movie executive. He’s has worked a lot of stars such as Will Smith, Tyler Perry, and many other Hollywood artists. He is also a pastor. Meagan Good, if you’re my age, you were a big fan. Okay, when I was younger, I was a big fan of Meagan. She has starred in movies and shows such as Biker Boyz, Eve’s Bayou, and most recently Harlem.
Be REAL In Your Marriage
So what holds a marriage or relationship together? You have to be real about who you are, what your temptations are, the things that you allow for yourself to be exposed to, as an individual. And in order to have a better functioning relationship, I think that it’s important that you be real.
One reality that will always be is that we all have weaknesses and temptations. I’ll never forget when Meagan Good came to our church…real talk, I was uncomfortable. In counseling I talk to attractive women all the time, this has not been problematic. But for some reason when Meagan Good came to the church, it was a little bit of a problem for me.
The question is, do we feel comfortable speaking with our spouse about weaknesses and “problems” that we have, or do we just hold them to ourselves. Now I am not saying that every single problem needs to be spoken about in your relationship, this is something that you have to pray about. But in many cases, it is very necessary that a spouse is able to voice their “problems” in the relationship and be supported.
This is exactly what I did when Meagan Good came back to be featured in the evening services. I spoke with my wife, talked about it briefly and I opted out. Being real is understanding what you can do, where you can go, and when you need to be open. This can’t happen when the marriage or relationship does not have trust so it is important to understand what prevents realness and trust in your relationship.
Have Phone Transparency In Your Relationship
Being real is number one, and I can’t tell you if Good or Franklin were real or not in their marriage. I’m just stressing that you make sure you are being real in your marriage.
Number two is a big one, y’all. Phone transparency, yes I said it, phone transparency! So I’m on Facebook, I have email, I have a phone and all these platforms run through it. But one of the biggest things that I see when it comes to relationships is that if something is not right, one of the number one ways that you can find out that there is trouble in the camp is through that phone. You’ve got to trust me on this one.
So if you are with someone and they don’t want you around their phone, they hide it, they freak out if a phone call comes in and run out of the room. Their phone is always turned over face down. If you are experiencing this, just one of “this, ” then we’ve got an issue. Nine times out of ten there is likely a major concern and it needs to be dealt with…immediately!
As men, like it or not, we need accountability. Women need it too. The reality is that we have temptations. So we have to do what we have to do to communicate with our wives about things that may be weaknesses. We need accountability so that we can stay off the internet, stay off of porn, stay off of the things that we should not be involved in. And so when it comes to phone transparency, in my opinion, wives need access to their husband’s phones. My wife has access to everything.
I voluntarily put this system in place so that my wife doesn’t have to have any doubts about nothin. The reality is if you’re going to do something, you are going to do it anyway. But even with that being said I think that the wife should not have to feel like shady things are going on in our marriage.
Have Accountability In Your Marriage
I don’t think this is what happened with DeVon Franklin and Meagan Good, but today we are seeing marriages where partners have been married forever and then somebody just loses their mind. It only takes one person in a relationship to lose their mind and flip.
For instance in my marriage. Our marriage has been good, but let’s just say for instance that after 16 years, all then all of a sudden, I decide to lose my mind or something. I start doing things that are violating my marriage. It is important that my relationship has systems in place that make it difficult for me to violate the vows. I need my wife to be able to see that there is something going on differently.
I need her to be like, “Well, Choya, we need to pray. I mean, things are a little bit suspicious.” I need her to say, “We need to go to counseling.” I need that. Unfortunately, people are losing their marriages just because there is no accountability, no way to smell the smoke because boundaries have not been established to protect the marriage. This makes it easy for a spouse to do something stupid when they are in the heat of passion due to unresolved conflicts in their marriage.
A lack of systems and boundaries opens the door for inappropriate relationships being established on social media, on the job, by phone conversations, email, you name it. When there is no safeguard such accountability, there is no safety in the relationship.
Prioritize Your Marriage Above Your Career
When you are seeking success and extremely driven about getting there, it is often difficult for “successful people to stay married. Think about Hollywood relationships similar to DeVon Franklin and Meagan Good where individuals are hyper-focused on their profession or craft, it is rare that these relationships can be sustained. It is often extremely difficult to stay married when you have a lot of money. You know why? Time. Between the magazines, photoshoots, movies and press, when do you have the time to build your connection. When you are obsessed with your craft in your occupation, business, or in Hollywood the craft many times is who you are married to. If you are not careful, quite easily, you may find yourself worshipping the job or your business and not putting your marriage first. I’m not saying that this is always the case, but this is a danger and something that we should definitely be aware of.
Beware of the Impact of Social Media
When social media is used inappropriately, it can be a relationship killer. There are dangers when you have to look good in front of everybody all the time. I don’t have time to process this, but being up front all the time has the tendency to feed insecurity. When you have to show and tell everybody all the time what you’re doing in your personal life, this becomes problematic. It also makes it very difficult to have an authentic relationship. You honestly can not do something special for your partner without contemplating how it will look on camera. This may program you to expect and anticipate the responses of others in unhealthy ways.
Okay, number four I guess, spiritual values. This is a big one. If you’re going to get married, a lot of us can rush to marriages because it seems like this person is spiritual, this person is religious, this person goes to church, this person says the name of God. But one of the things I want to say is don’t let the faith fool you.
Don’t Be Fooled By Faith
I had an article called I was working on called Fooled by Faith, and so many, especially women, that I have seen end up in bad relationships because of a man saying that he sold out on faith. The problem has been that when you scroll through his phone, you find a lot of other things that you might not have thought that you would find. Again, this is not saying that this occurred in the relationship with Devon Franklin and Megan Good, in this situation I believe he was the one who filed for divorce. The purpose of me mentioning this concept is because it occurs very often and has been the means of hurt, shame, and avoidable regret.
Make Sure You Have The Same Spiritual Values
Know what your spiritual values are. One thing I will mention is that if I am a preacher, and my wife is performing sex scenes on the Hollywood big screen, this may be a conflict. We have to give an account for our faith but we have to also realize that none of us are perfect. This is the thing, nobody’s being critical about an individual, but rather the actions.
I’m not the judge. I could be that person next that somebody is talking about that “lost his mind.” None of us deserve to be judged. With all that being said, whenever there are conflicts such as these concerning what we believe about The Word individually or as a couple, these issues can cause major relationship concerns.
I’m very careful to not act like I have something bigger or deeper than somebody else, I’m just glad that after 16 plus years, I’m still in the game. Nobody has the 100% solution to keep all these things together. But there’s a lot of things, as far as accountability, that we have to do on our own. When we have a clash in our spiritual beliefs, you’re atheist, I’m Christian, things like that, a lot of times, that can be problematic down the road. The statistics agree. We have to make sure our spiritual values are together, and then just overall, our relationship with God. You are accountable to yourself. We all have sinned, we all fall short, we all have temptations. The marriage is so difficult to sustain without the help of God.
Pray To Make The Right Choices For Marriage
Let’s pray for DeVon Franklin and Meagan Good, pray for me, pray for all the couples you know, pray for yourself, pray for those who are dating, who want to be married because being in a relationship is a great thing, if it’s done right. But we’ve got to be real with each other. We have to have phone transparency, we need to be mindful of media, we have to have the same spiritual values, and a relationship with God. That’s a package! That’s a package.
Remember anybody who goes off course and does not stick with the script, just like that, your relationship can be a done deal. If I go off of this script, it’s a done deal. When a relationship hits the rocks it doesn’t mean that it was a terrible relationship. In the case of Meagan Good and Devon Franklin, it doesn’t mean that they were wrong about what they taught or that they were hypocrites. What it does mean is that somewhere one of them or both of them went off of their own script. The script that they decided to follow when they got married. The script that they knew inside of their heart needed to be followed in order for them to be successful.
Don’t forget the script that you vowed to. Remember the script that I have shared. Focus on what is most important in your relationship, God, yourselves, and then everyone else.
Aspire Counseling Consulting Services is here to help individuals to increase communication, but we’re branching out because we have therapists that support kids, we’re working with depression, anxiety, marriage, and relationships. We are covering a large range of counseling services in Alabama. Give us a call if we can help. Be blessed, have a blessed day, and stay married if you can help it!
