Dica #21: Relacionamento Bruno e Marrone

Hello students and friends of the Love School, Divorceproof Your Marriage and those who follow our work. Today, July 6, Cristiane and I are celebrating our twenty-one year anniversary. Twenty-one years!

Not one, not ten but twenty-one years! Youíre saying it like youíve put up with me for twenty-one years. No, Iím just happy.

We went through a lot of difficulties, but when we look back it was worth it. When you reach the goals you set for a relationship, when we think of the difficulties that came or come up, it wasnít so bad because what we have today is so good, right Renato? It was all worth it.

The difficulties were learning experiences; they were stones, and instead of tripping over them, we used them to build the foundation of our relationship. And weíre helping others with these experiences. So, you are going to benefit from these twenty-one years.

Youíll benefit from our 21 years of happiness because weíre going to begin a series of 21 videos today, talking about our experiences, what weíve learned not only in our day to day life, but in the work weíve done with the Love School, A Divorceproof Marriage. Weíre sharing because our desire is to help couples and singles who want to prepare for long-term relationships. The main thing we want to talk about is the foundation of every successful marriage and true love, which is faith.

Faith in what? Not only faith in God, without a doubt faith in God is part of it and everything else comes from that. But also, faith in each other and in the relationship, because when someone asks, what the foundation of a happy relationship is, thereís no other foundation more solid and deep than faithócertainty in one another.

Cristiane saw and liked me first, when I was just leaving a relationship. I was not looking to begin another relationship, nor did I want one. Initially, I didnít have feelings for her, but when I saw her and was informed of who she was, what happened?

I had faith in the relationship. I believed. Before I felt I believed.

And yet, when I got to know her better it became total certainty. I was certain that this relationship was going to work out. So this faith enabled me to enter into a commitment with her, to marry her.

We were married in what, 10 months? Yes, we didnít date for too long before getting married, because we had faith and the determination to commit to this faith. When there is faith you are not afraid to make the commitment you have to make, because you believe.

But when this faith does not exist, there is hesitation, fear and doubt. One says to the other ìletís waitî, ìmaybeî or ìwe can talk about this laterî. They are undecided.

Clearly, weíre not saying you should get married in two weeks or three months, ìI believe, I have faith letís get marriedî. No we are not saying that. We used an intelligent faith and first analyzed things.

Because 10 months was enough time for us to develop this certainty, does not mean you should get married in 10 months or less. In fact, considering the way things are today, we advise you to wait a year or two to get to know each other. The fact is, donít go by your feelings.

Donít get married because you say, ìI feel I like her, or, I like him. î There should be certainty and no doubts. If a person makes you doubt, behaves in a way or gives signs that make you doubt, or make you feel insecure, do not go on with the relationship.

A successful marriage and love are not built on doubt, but on faith. Why on faith? When problems arise your feelings are not going to solve your problems, but faith will.

When we had our problems, love did not sustain us, what sustained us, and does until today, is faith. During arguments, difficult situations, I believed and said, ìIím not going to give up on this relationship, I believe in this marriage, and I didnít get married to separate. So Iím going to go forward, Iím going to fight and overcome these problems.

î And I passed on this assurance to Cristiane and to myself. I was not looking for the emergency exit when problems occurred between us. For me there was no exit door.

I entered this relationship with faith to go all the way. I had faith in her and she had faith in me. So this has been the foundation of our relationship.

And when you begin a relationship because of love, which is what most people do. ìLove the feelingî When you go through times of anger, you donít remember the love, though you love him, you canít stand him. In these moments a person thinks about giving up, they get tired of love.

You love him but you canít stand being in the same place with him. This is where faith is missing. Renato, if weíre talking to a couple who began their relationship with love and didnít have faith, or this understanding, and now theyíre having problems and their love is growing cold.

How do they apply this faith weíre talking about? Faith is the following: What produces faith? An unwavering attitude Why do I faith have in God?

Because I know God does not change and He keeps His word. When I have faith in God, Iím sure in Him. He doesnít change.

He doesnít say something today and then change His mind tomorrow. He is zealous about His word. He gives me an assurance and that is why I can have faith in Him.

To pass on faith to your partner, you first have to pass on assurance. For your partner to pass on faith, she has to pass on assurance to you. Itís clear, you donít have control over the other person, but your part is to offer this assurance even if the other person is not offering it.

You should work on the source of that doubt or insecurity. Why donít I have faith or trust my husband? Because he lies to me.

Why does he lie? You have to get to the problem. Maybe he lies because he wants to avoid World War 3 because when he tells me the truth I explode and lose control.

He lies because of my temper. So you have to get at the root of your husbandís lies. Another example, you donít trust him because he was unfaithful to you.

Is he still giving you reason to distrust him, or is what he did in the past still haunting you? If itís the past, then you have to eliminate that doubt. But if heís still giving you reason to distrust him because he is involved with other women, in this case you should make a decision and stop letting things slip by.

Set limits. Do not tolerate bad things in a relationship. You should insist on assurances from the other person.

If there is no reason to doubt, but you still do because youíve gone through many relationships that didnít work out and are afraid. What may help you is to develop the habit of seeing what you believe. For example, you want to believe that this marriage will last for rest of your lives, so to develop this faith, start seeing, imagining this in your mind.

Picture yourselves growing old together, see yourself happy by his side. In other words, a habit Iíve always had, with anything I decided to do in life, not just in marriage but in all projects, I first imagined it, I had this faith, and since I was able to imagine it, it was easier, Renato, to believe more, to do more, to develop more. This is how faith works.

If you picture something before it happens, you work to make it happen. In your mind you have the goal, the vision: ìNo, weíre going to stay in this marriage until death,îso you work to construct a marriage until death. But if you think the following way: I donít know how long this marriage is going to last, like the song lyrics, (from Bruno Marrone, Brazilian duo singers) ìI donít know whether you are for me and Iím for youî.

If youíre in this situation, in a Bruno and Marrone relationship, then youíre going to act on your doubts, and sabotage your relationship. Faith is exactly this, see what doesnít exist and be certain that itís going to come true. So you work to accomplish the picture in your mind.

Itís like you always say, if youíre married to the best husband in the world, without a doubt you will become the best wife in the world. What type of wife would you be? Weíll talk about this in another video.

OK? This is the first video of the series, twenty-one videos celebrating our twenty-one year anniversary.