Timeless Marriage Advice from Bobi Ann and Jared Allen

Timeless Marriage Advice from Bobi Ann and Jared Allen

Marriage is a beautiful journey filled with love, challenges, and growth. Who better to offer guidance on this journey than Bobi Ann, the women's minister at Willowbrook Church, and Jared Allen, the Madison campus pastor? With their combined wisdom and faith-based insights, Bobi Ann and Jared provide invaluable advice that can help couples build strong, lasting relationships. In this blog post, we will explore their key pieces of marriage advice that can inspire and strengthen your union.

More About Bobi Ann and Jared

Bobi Ann and Jared will be married 23 years in May. Bobi Ann shared with us, "Jared & I met on the first day of our junior year in college at East Texas Baptist University in Marshall, Texas. We became fast friends but Jared was more interested in more than I was. I actually was hung up on another guy. After asking me through a friend if I liked him, I went to Jared directly and told him, “Hey, I only like you as a friend and that’s probably not gonna change.” I ended up eating those words 8 months later after I had gotten over the other guy and went back to Jared directly and said “If you’re still interested, I think we should give it a shot.” The rest is history. We were engaged 6 months later and married 11 months later."  

The Foundation of Faith

Bobi Ann and Jared Allen firmly believe that faith is the cornerstone of a successful marriage. They emphasize the importance of building a relationship on a strong spiritual foundation. By prioritizing your faith and incorporating it into your daily lives, you create a bond that is resilient and enduring. Regularly attending church services, praying together, and engaging in spiritual discussions can deepen your connection and provide a sense of purpose and direction in your marriage. 

Advice for Those Engaged

When talking with Bobi Ann and Jared, we asked them what their best advice for those engaged is. Bobi Ann shared, "Don’t ignore issues as they come up just because you’re "in love" and just because you’re too busy planning a wedding and you think you’ll figure it out after you get married. Some issues aren’t that big of a deal, but you might not know that until you deal with it. As conflicts or misunderstandings arise during the engagement season, face them and work through them. I’ve seen too many couples ignore red flags because they didn’t know how to stop the moving train or they just assumed they could deal with issues after the wedding and they found themselves with regrets and even weighty consequences that could have been avoided by facing the issue before the wedding." Adding to this, Jared shared "Above all else I tell engaged couples to do premarital counseling with a Pastor. So many couples spend thousands of dollars and dozens of hours planning for their wedding day, but very few invest even close to that amount of effort in preparing for their marriage. This doesn’t make sense. I think we all know which is more important. A great wedding day is wonderful, but a great marriage has much more lasting benefits. Premarital counseling with a Pastor (which is almost always free of charge by the way) will help you be prepared to have a strong and more God-honoring marriage."

Advice for a Happy and Healthy Marriage

We asked Bobi Ann and Jared what their advice would be for a happy and healthy marriage. Bobi Ann told us, "People write whole books on this question so a couple of sentences won’t give an exhaustive answer. However, here is one piece of advice—both of you are going to bring baggage into the marriage because every person has it. Support one another in taking responsibility for your own baggage. Get help if needed to work through past hurts, false narratives and unhealthy patterns. Jared and I are both constantly growing and changing and that’s good but it can be hard as we are learning new things about ourselves, processing pains and pushing through growth points. So we both are offering grace and support for one another to grow and heal and change. We cannot change one another, but we can be a safe place for one another to change, but only if we both acknowledge and take responsibility for our own need to continually grow and heal." Additionally, Jared shared "That’s a big question with so many valid answers, but if I had to give one word of advice to married couples it would be to invest in your marriage.

We all understand the concept of investment, most often in the context of money. We invest in our retirement by putting money in an account because we believe that investment will grow and later provide an even greater return than what we initially put in. The same should be true of our marriage. Life may be busy with work and kids and countless other things, but the strongest marriages carve out time to invest in each other because they believe the health of their marriage is worthy it. They do things like having a regular date night or date lunch. They do things like taking walks together to talk about what happened in each other days so they can know how pray for and support each other. They take the time to keep re-learning each other as life changes so they can understand what truly makes their spouse feel most loved in that particular stage of life.

Another thing you can do to invest in your marriage is to occasionally attend some type of marriage enrichment event or conference. At an event like this you will get encouragement and practical advice for some of the challenges every marriage faces. There’s actually a marriage conference coming up in just a couple months here in Huntsville. Bobi Ann is one of the main speakers at the conference. Here’s the link to the information/registration if you are interested."

Home Team Weekend Marriage Conference

Marriage is a journey that requires effort, commitment, and love. Bobi Ann and Jared Allen's timeless advice provides couples with the tools and insights needed to navigate this journey successfully. By prioritizing faith, communication, vulnerability, quality time, forgiveness, support, and gratitude, couples can build strong, lasting relationships that stand the test of time. Let Bobi Ann and Jared's wisdom inspire you to create a marriage that is filled with love, joy, and a legacy of enduring happiness.

Helpful Links

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