Hey Readers! We wanted to provide a quick explanation of our “why” behind Where I Come From. Over the course of dating and marriage, we started a list of quotes, ideas, and insights about our relationship. Jerime instituted a weekly family meeting where we touch base on how things are going in our marriage as well as household “business”. During one of these meetings we started talking about how we’ve really missed community with other couples during the pandemic. We’ve been fortunate to find a group of friends within our church community that we’ve been able to do life with, but this wasn’t always the case. When we first started dating we spent a lot of time reading and looking for other couples like us to help us navigate the wonderfully complex journey of doing life together. We started to notice that the content we found was often condensed to one perspective and much of it seemed to be aimed at women (arguably because more women may be seeking relationship advice).
One of our biggest takeaways since getting married is that we have very different approaches and perspectives to almost everything. Not quite “opposites attract”, but maybe close. As you may already know, before the pandemic, 50% of all marriages ended in divorce and now that number is rising. We have close friends and family who have been divorced one or multiple times. We have even more single friends or friends in relationships who aren’t exactly running to the altar. Who can blame them? Statistics support that the odds aren’t in our favor. One of the top reasons consistently cited for divorce is communication issues. If there’s one thing Jerime and I, as well as many other couples in the world, have experienced, it’s miscommunication. That’s how Where I Come From was born.
Have you ever heard someone say something like “Where I come from, we respect our parents” or some other type of passive aggressive jab intending to show that their position is the right position. We decided to turn that in on itself and show readers each of our perspectives and what happens when “where I come” from is completely different from the other person. For example, where Jerime comes from- it’s normal to argue and debate about almost everything. Where Devan comes from, emotions are suppressed, things are swept under the rug and you avoid conflict at all costs. This type of dichotomy comes up often, but we are committed to finding a way to blend our perspectives to reach the healthiest path. In this blog we plan to discuss the issues we faced during dating, engagement, our wedding, and continue to face in marriage. We will each share our default (where I come from) and what we are doing to overcome the hurdles to a healthier, happier marriage (where we want to go). The initial content will provide context about who we are as individuals, how we met, and who we are. So with that, we hope you’ll enjoy getting to know us. More than that, we hope that our journey is encouraging and can be one tool God uses to lower the divorce statistics.