WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Wherefore Art Thou, Romeo?: When Do You Know?

Episode Date: March 30, 2026

Greg and Emily dive into the topic, "When do you know it's time to get married?" Is there ever a right time? How long should we wait? Sometimes people have an extremely painful relationship process while others make it look so easy. Whether you get married within 6 months or 6 years of meeting, Greg and Emily look at what might be indicators of readiness. 

Batman doesn't do ships, as in me. You? Complete me. I'm George. George McFly. I'm your density. It is not about the nail. No matter when, no matter who, any man has a chance to sweep anyone off her feet.

You're listening to Where For Art Thou, Romeo? The show that discusses how to navigate romantic relationships and how to achieve a meme between the extremes of hookup culture and over-discern dating. Here's your host, Emily Shudy. Welcome to Wherefore Art The Romeo, the show where we talk about how to follow your heart without losing your mind. My name is Emily Shuddy, and my co-host is licensed marriage therapist and also my dad, Greg Shuddy.

We're all navigating relationships every day, but sometimes the most intimate are also the most challenging. Our goal is to help you get out of your own head when it comes to your or even your friend's relationship questions and concerns. How's it going, Greg? Doing well. Doing well, I think. Nobody's told me differently, so I'll go with it.

Yeah. So you said that you have a visit coming up here to some family. Yeah, yep. I'm going to be leaving next week to go see your sister Molly and our grandson and my son-in-law and her. How do you say it? The belly. That's not right. going to see that. He's expecting. She's expecting. So you know, see Molly. Yeah, so I don't get to see the baby.

You see the expecting Molly. I see the expecting Molly. Yeah. Yes, yes. There you go. I'm at a loss for words there. Very exciting. Oh, so good. So good. Well, I'm jealous because I miss, I miss Molly, Quentin and Sebastian. And I, yeah, because I got to be with them all summer. So it's, Sebastian's just gotten so much bigger since then. It's crazy. I know, and he's learning more words, and he's learning colors, and he's building things. And I know, I've got to get down there before he ends up graduating from high school years. Anyway, so I think you have something for Cupid or Stupid. Well, you know, there's just so much to work with out there.

I thought I would bring in something that's not as egregious as the last one that we heard, you know. I feel like we really need to have some Cupid moments. We tend to talk about a lot of stupid moments. Well, this is something. So this is one of the songs that I like. So I'll be curious as to if Scott listens to this. And I think he's one that likes this song anyway. But it's a song called The Things We Do for Love.

And the group is called 10CC. But it's a song that's always playing out in my head. And when you listen to the words, I'm just like, hmm, interesting. So I'm going to read the word. I'm not going to keep reading the refrain because then it just gets monotonous, but I think, you know, we can talk a little bit about the words. So it says, first verses, too many broken hearts have fallen in the river. Too many lonely souls have drifted out to sea. You lay your bets and then you pay the price, the things we do for love.

Communication is the problem to the answer. You've got her number and your hand is on the phone. The weather's turned and all the lines are down. The things we do for love. And then the chorus is like walking in the rain and the snow when there's nowhere to go and you're feeling like a part of you is dying. And you're looking for the answer in her eyes. You think you're going to break up.

Then she says she wants to make up. Ooh, you made me love you. You've gone away. You had me crawling up the wall. And then it goes with that a few. And then the third verse is, A compromise would surely help the situation. Agree to disagree, but disagree to part.

When after all, it's just a compromise the things we do for love. The things we do for love. So I just, what I think is so fascinating about this is it's kind of what's in the head of a person who's in that dating phase, trying to figure things out and like all of us I think the cool part is there's some

some things that are being said that's true communication is the answer to the problem it says is the problem to the answer what do you think that means? Right but but he's saying just the opposite that basically the problem

with problematic communication it becomes comes the problem to the answer. So we're not talking about it. So in a sense, he's saying both. Communication is the answer and poor communication is the problem. And it's this thing that we do all the time in our heads. We play it out in our heads. We think it's one thing. And then the next thing we know, we're in this midst of walking in the rain. And I have no idea what you're thinking. And I'm just waiting for you to break up with me. And then all of a sudden you surprise me. So, yeah, the stupid part in all of this is this is what we all do.

This is what, you know, I used to do when I was dating. I'd play so much out in my head. And as soon as you talk to the other person and you have a good communication about something, you're like, oh, yeah, that was a lot worse in my head. So I don't know. That's why I brought this song to play, because I just think there's some good to it. I think it's not just a schmaltzy, schmaltzy song. And it's a great, it's a great song as far as the music itself. So I strongly recommend it.

Go out and listen to the things we do for love. It'll be stuck in your head for a long time. Especially because that, the things we do for love is literally the last like two-thirds of the song. So you'll hear it quite a lot. Oh, you'll hear it over and over. What are the things that you will do for love? Anyway, you're listening to Wherefore, Arthel Romeo, where we are discussing? sing the song, The Things We Do for Love by 10CC.

And if you want to listen to this episode again or any of our other shows, look up Wherefore Arthel Romeo on Transistor, Spotify, Apple, podcasts, or wherever you get your shows. I'm your host, Emily Shuddy, and my co-host is licensed to marriage therapist to Greg Shuddy here on Radio Free Hillsdale, 101.7 FM. All right. Now that we've talked about this Cupid or Stupid moment, which is a little bit more Cupid and just like a bit of about how relationships get processed in our heads. Let's talk about something completely different. What are your thoughts on...

Sure. Anyway, you know, sorry, I don't say that all again. What are your thoughts on when do you know it's time? And when I say that, I mean, when do you know it's time to officially decide to get married? after you've been in a relationship with someone for a while, or maybe you haven't, I don't know, whatever the case may be, some people seem to know after three months, some people know after six months,

some people it takes them three years, four years, or I don't know, there's some people who date for seven, eight, nine, ten years and are engaged for all of those years and still aren't married. I don't know. What are your thoughts on this? I don't know if there's a perfect answer on this. And as soon as I say something, someone would come along and go, well, that wouldn't work for me, you know. I think it's a process, and it really comes down to what are the things that need to be addressed

in our dating situation so that we can enter into this unhindered, we can enter into this feeling confident as best that we can. Again, I love going back to John Van Nupt's, you know, RAM model, because really it's that how you pace a healthy relationship so that you predict what someone would be like in, marriage so that you get to a point where you you feel like you know this is this is a good thing i know for your mom it was actually writing out a list here's the things that i love about gregg and here are the things that i struggle with and then if you can look at that list and honestly put down the things you know the good and the bad because too too often we just want to overlook the bad and someone once

said, the good things before marriage may or may not continue on into marriage, but the bad things most often will, and they will get bigger. And some people are like, oh, but I think that what your mom did was very wise. She really took a hard look at that. And even though there were five in the bad category, and when she showed me, that was the only one I was stuck on. You know, really, her process was, can I live with that? Can I work with that? Because the reality is, and I say this now to almost every couple that I work with in marriage, or even before marriage, is that marriage is two broken people coming together to help each other in their brokenness on this journey to heaven.

and if you don't go into it with that in mind, then what often happens is we want happiness and everything to be great, and when the brokenness comes out and it gets in our way, we start beating each other up about that brokenness. And so for us to look at that brokenness and go, I understand this is about you, and I know this is going to be tough, but I can work with this,

and not work with it as I'm going to change you. It's I'm willing to walk through life in spite of this. I don't know if that's the right way to say it, but knowing this, but I'm not going to be ruled by this, but I want to help you become a better person. And someone once said it, and I think it's perfect is, you know, find the person, when you're looking for the person you want to get married to, find the person that you want to suffer through life with.

not suffer them, but life is suffering. And you have to embrace that. Life is suffering. And yes, there's joy, there's happiness at times. But can I suffer with this person and feel like they are a helpmate to me? So I think in that process, before you decide to get married, you need to look at all of it. And you need to go, can I live with this? and then in the dating phase, if you're looking at this, you know, we're not yet to the point of getting married and we're seeing things that I'm not sure I can live with.

Those are the things that we need to lean into and dig into and go, are we going to change this? Are we willing to become better people? Or does this other person just kind of enter into it with, well, that's who I am. Suck it up, deal with it, you know. Or they say, well, I'll do better and they don't. They don't change. Those are some signs. So that's kind of a start to the conversation today.

I don't know what that stirs in your mind. You know, I have been thinking about at what point would I accept someone as like, I really think I could walk through life with you? And you know, maybe that's something that you have to decide. I'd make, like, if you can say, I want to walk through life with you, like you were saying, I think then you really need to make a decision to commit to the relationship. I think, I think that's the point at which you're like, okay, we're ready to go ahead and really more intentionally pursue marriage.

Like, maybe we've been pursuing marriage this whole time, but like, the end goal should be marriage. Not everybody believes that, but that's definitely something that I think you and I both operate under that belief. And something that just really struck me is the question of, will this man, who God may put in my life someday, be able to actually support me through life's sufferings and struggles and griefs? Because we had someone in our community go through a pretty hard loss recently. And it was really tough. And everyone in the community knew about it.

was praying about it. And I saw this couple who was very closely associated with this grief in mass. And the husband was standing next to his wife. And you could tell that she was really struggling. And he literally had his arm around, like under her arm in such a way that you could see. He was like physically supporting her. And I just, I almost started crying because for me, that was just such a beautiful example of what it means to. to support someone through life in marriage. This is something I've seen, example through yours and mom's relationship,

and I have seen this in marriages throughout my life. But I don't always see it. I don't always see it. And this particular instance, I just was so struck by the beauty of that in its tragedy. It made me realize, like, that's something that I desire, that I desire to truly have someone that I can support and be supported by walking through those trials.

And so I think my inclination would be that you know you're ready, you know that you need to, you know, that it's time to really get engaged and commit to getting married when you know that that's the person that you want to do that with. Well, and you know, let's put it this way. I think you're going to reduce your headache and heartache in marriage if you can go in in that direction. It doesn't mean that, okay, well, we didn't do that back when we got married. But eventually you're going to have to face it. Because a lot of us, you know, and I had this with your mom. You know, not, I wasn't like going in blind, like stars and all of that. It was just one of those where. where I knew what it meant, what I was saying and all of that, but I didn't know everything that I was going to deal with in life. And you go in, like a lot of people, where we're going to be happy, we're going to have intercourse, we're going to have kids, we're going to have, you know, all this good stuff.

But, you know, I think if we go into marriage, I think when we can say to ourselves, I'm ready to sacrifice my life for you. And truly understand what that means. I think that's where you're going to really find that joy in marriage because you're going into it to serve. But too often we go into it to get something out or to fill a hole in ourselves.

And it can be part of that, but it can't be everything of that. And too many people, when, you know, I hear, it all the time. They come in my office and it's just like, I'm not happy. I deserve to be happy. I need to get back to happy. We need to get back to happy. And I'm like, that's a pipe dream. In fact, I just did a talk recently or I said, you want to see happy? I pulled out a bottle of bubbles and started blowing them. That's happy. But watch them disappear in front of you. You have to keep blowing to find that happiness. What we need is a foundation. And a foundation, this something that supports us when we need to lay down and cry, when we need to rest, when we want to

dance together, that foundation holds us up, the bubbles don't. So when you go into it with, I'm ready to sacrifice, and I see that you're a broken person, you see that I'm a broken person, and I want to come, you know, I want to become better together. That's where I think, I think that's a beautiful way to know, yes, we're ready to get married. Yeah. This is a reminder that you're listening to Wherefore Arthel Romeo, where we are discussing when you know it's time to get married and the element of self-sacrifice in that. If you want to listen to this episode again or any of our other shows, look up Wherefore Arthel Romeo on Transistor, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your shows. I'm your host, Emily Shody, and my co-host is licensed marriage therapist Greg Shoddy here on Radio.

for Hillsdale 101.7 FM. With that topic of sacrifice in mind, I'm wondering if you have any good suggestions on how to begin practicing that just as an individual. Well, you know, I think one of the things that I've always said is don't look for the person that's perfect. Look for the person that's trying to become better because you will not find the perfect person. But if you meet someone that's willing to work on themselves and they want to grow and they want to become better. Well, guess what? That's going to play out in marriage when things go awry. They want to become better.

But that also indicates that we shouldn't just be looking for it. We should be becoming it. We should be trying to, how can I be better? How can I look at my part in this situation versus always pointing the finger at everybody else? If you find yourself, you know, I don't like to be wrong. Well, that's going to be a difficulty in marriage. It will work against that marriage. So there's little ways that we can continue to try and grow in ourselves

and also encourage others as they grow. And, you know, the other thing is learning how to forgive. Because that's one of the things that gets marriage stuck. is when someone makes a mistake and we can't forgive. And the more we practice, the little forgiveness is it prepares us for that big forgiveness that we're going to have to give someday. Because, you know, if we mess up, we're going to want the same thing. So I would say those are some things that I would definitely recommend to kind of prepare for that of how to be more self-sacrificial. Yeah, 100%. I definitely, I have some friends that it really frustrates me when they always

they always seem to be saying, well, I told him about all these problems that he needed to fix and these things need to be fixed before we can continue or before this is going to work. And I just sat there and I was like, well, I didn't, I honestly didn't end up even saying this to that person because they didn't want to hear it. But sometimes what frustrates me in that is just the fact that I'm sure that there are problems on both sides. And there are two sides to that story. And it's really hard for me to hear someone say, well, it's.

their problem when you can very clearly see, actually, there are issues on both sides here and have you spent some time reflecting on yourself? You can't just point the finger at someone else all the time without also having some of that self-reflection. I think I totally agree with you on that, just that element of like, how can I really spend some time reflecting on my own stuff, on the things that I do poorly the ways that my heart doesn't like to love other people, how can I actually combat that in my life and prepare myself to be a better person? So with all of that in mind, we just want to remind you that relationships are a process. They take time and effort.

And we want to help you balance your head and your heart. This is your friendly reminder to not be discouraged because if you haven't found your Romeo or Julie, yet, take up calligraphy or honestly just learn cursive. If you have nice handwriting, it is very attractive. If you have questions that you would like us to address, please email them to Eshoudi at Hillsdale.edu. That's E-S-C-H-H-U-T-T-E at Hillsdale.E at Hillsdale. And we will discuss them in future shows. Please check us out on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your shows to catch anything you have missed or want to hear again. That's all for wherefore art thou Romeo. I'm Emily Shorty.

And I'm Greg Shuddy on Radio Free Hillsdale, 101.7 FM.