Relationships Talk

Love is at the center of Debra Fileta’s life and career. According to her bio, her love for Jesus Christ grounds her personal relationships, and her Christian faith motivates her to help others in her professional work.

As a licensed counselor, blogger, and author, Debra is all about sharing the love and rejoicing in married life. She is a happily married woman with three beautiful children, so she can speak from personal experience about the blessings of cultivating a healthy relationship.

After writing an insightful book called “True Love Dates,” Debra started the TrueLoveDates blog to share her marriage advice with couples the world over. She now uses this platform to dole out values-driven dating and relationship advice to a primarily Christian audience.

Debra also travels across the country to promote a marriage-positive message at churches, colleges, conferences, and other events. She views herself as part of an online ministry for love, and she is always looking for ways to spread the word.

Recently, Debra published her second book to drive home the point that a happy marriage starts with you. “Choosing Marriage: Why It Has to Start With We > Me” is an inspirational guide for any couples feeling burnt out or stuck in a rut. Debra’s down-to-earth advice has resonated with millions of people from all walks of life.

This marriage expert knows that love may not always come easy, but she encourages couples to stick it out, take responsibility, and do the work it takes to turn a “me” into a “we.”

“My main hope, and the drive behind my entire message through my books, articles, courses and podcast is to teach people that healthy people make healthy relationships,” she said.

How a Viral Blog Post Became a Bestselling Book

Debra’s blog reaches millions of people worldwide, and her audience grows bigger every day as she creates more resources and materials for couples. Thanks to her tireless effort and outreach, Debra has become an authority on marriage and healthy relationships.

“Choosing Marriage” empowers readers to make the decisions that will lead to love.

In May 2018, Debra released a book titled “Choosing Marriage: Why It Has To Start With We > Me” to highlight the core principles of a committed relationship. She based this book off one of her more popular articles, “Marriage Is Not About Your Happiness,” which was read by over 3 million people. Debra uses a combination of survey results (taken from 1,000 couples) and personal experience to reveal the trade secrets of successfully married couples.

“The premise of the book is the idea that we go into marriage so unprepared and uneducated about how to do it well,” she said. “We get more driver’s ed training than we do marriage preparation, which is absolutely insane considering how big the decision of marriage is and how much it impacts every facet of our lives.”

Debra closes the knowledge gap in the dating scene by outlining eight core values necessary to a happy, healthy marriage. She urges readers to choose love and commitment over loneliness and conflict. The book addresses people at all relationship stages — even those who aren’t in a relationship at all — and provides them with the foundational tools to transform their love lives.

So far, the book has received praise from all corners of the industry. In fact, 95% of its Amazon customer reviews gave it 5 out of 5 stars. Debra told us she has received thank-you messages from readers who embarked on transformational journeys after taking her advice.

“I’ve heard from people who said it saved their marriage, and others who’ve said it’s completely changed their perspective on marriage,” she said. “It thrills me to hear all this, and I’m praying this book will continue to infuse hope and healing to this generation.”

A Podcast Featuring Real Questions From Real Daters

In addition to her book, Debra tackled another big project this year by becoming a regular podcaster. She launched the Love + Relationships Podcast to grow her authority and expand her audience, and, so far, it has been tremendously successful at doing both.

Debra gives thoughtful advice to help people enrich their relationships.

Singles and couples call in to ask for Debra’s advice, and the professional counselor recommends proven strategies to remove conflict and build healthy relationships. ” It’s just been so much fun getting to interact with my callers in such a candid and unscripted way,” she said, “and the feedback I’ve received about this new podcast is just fueling my excitement for future episodes.”

Debra’s down-to-earth and easy manner keeps people listening, and she isn’t afraid to dive into complex or sensitive topics in episodes that run up to 45 minutes long.

Whether she’s discussing trust issues or the human sex drive, Debra offers an honest assessment of modern relationships and practical tips to bring more love into life. This educational yet entertaining podcast is available on Stitcher and iTunes.

Debra told us the podcast seemed like a natural way to expand her blog, which focuses on creating a dialogue about marriage, because she can speak directly to her audience and deliver more long-form advice in an engaging way. She said the podcast has also paired well with her social media presence.

“One of my favorite things about my blog and social media is how much interaction I get to have with my readers and how much interaction they have with one another,” she said.

Debra Shares a Wholesome Message With Millions of People

Since she wrote her first book in 2013, Debra has counseled millions of singles and couples to find true love. Her core values as a Christian, a wife, and a mother have shaped her advice and her perspective. She speaks with moral authority and compassion about the relationship challenges facing today’s dating population, and she does everything she can to reach out to people feeling lost — because she knows she can help them find their way.

Debra is a passionate supporter of marriage, and her books, podcasts, and blog posts lovingly guide people to create relationships that last a lifetime. Her new book emphasizes that love doesn’t just happen — it starts with you and the choices you make in your life.

“Learning how to get healthy is the best thing you can do for your future dating relationships as well as your future marriage,” she said, “because you attract people who are on your same level of emotional, psychological, and spiritual health.”

Divorce is contagious, studies suggest, and having a close friend who is divorced increases your risk of ending your marriage. But that doesn’t mean that happily married people are vulnerable to some sort of airborne irreconcilable differences. It means that, for people are already struggling in their marriages, a happy, divorced friend could be all it takes to send them over the edge.

“If divorce has had the effect of moving friends forward in their lives, then they are particularly likely to view divorce not as an unfortunate end but as a solution,” Craig S. Pedersen, an attorney and partner at the Meyer, Olson, Lowy and Meyers law firm, told Fatherly. It is not that misery loves company, but a successful, particularly amicable divorce can look appealing to an outsider.

Having a divorced, close friend raises a person’s divorce risk by 75 percent, according to one study of 5,209 men and women. Results also revealed that people are 147 percent more likely to divorce if they have multiple divorced friends in their social network, compared to married people with mostly married friends. Divorced siblings render people 22 percent more prone to split. Even having divorced coworkers comes with a 50 percent increase in divorce risk.

The study makes a compelling case for divorce contagion, but one of the main limitations is that every stage of marriage is heavily influenced by peer pressure. There’s evidence that people are significantly more likely to have babies within two years of their friends starting families, and that we tend to marry when we sense that our peer groups are getting hitched. Divorce may be contagious, but it may well be the result of a lot of people getting married or having kids for the wrong reasons, Jessica Markham, a divorce attorney, says.  “A lot of people get married and have kids that shouldn’t marry anyone and probably shouldn’t have kids,” Markham told Fatherly.

For couples already experiencing problems and considering divorce, a close friend’s choice to end their relationship is often the final straw. Having a divorced friend “can provide the shot of courage that one has been looking for in advance of taking that daunting first step toward ending a bad marriage,” Pedersen says. But it does not have to be. The key to ensuring that your friend’s problems don’t bleed into your own marriage is understanding that friends are good at listening, but they’re generally terrible at giving neutral advice. And the closer friends are, the more influence and less perspective they tend to have, psychotherapist Brooke Sprowl warns.

“They often project their own experiences and preferences onto one another when giving advice,” Sprowl told Fatherly. “If a friend sees divorce as the only way to work through relationship problems, they are likely to advise you to to take that route.”

This article was originally posted on Fatherly.

Once again, Laura Mazza says it how it is and she is 100 percent CORRECT.

It wasn’t until Bud Grant proposed marriage to Marsha Rochelle that she conceded to go on a date with him.

Bud had come to her rescue the first time they met. Marsha, who did barrel racing, was unloading her horse from a trailer in Simonton, Texas, in 1969 when the horse’s hoof got tangled in a mat.

“I happened to be parked by them,” Bud says. “That horse came out of that trailer and turned a backflip and got away and ran off from her, and I caught it. She came up to get it and I went, ‘Man, that’s a pretty girl.'”

Marsha was grateful to be holding the reins again, but she wasn’t interested in the cute guy who had brought them back.

“All I wanted was my horse, my vehicle and a trailer and a rodeo,” she says.

She saw him almost every weekend after that at one rodeo or another. Sometimes they would chat a little, and he asked her a few times to “ribbon rope” for him.

“The guy would run out and rope a calf and it would have a ribbon on its tail and the girl would run out and grab the ribbon off the calf’s tail and run back across the line,” Bud explains. This was all timed. “Marsha ran the ribbon for a bunch of guys and she was the fastest thing I saw so I asked her if she would ribbon rope with me, so we started doing ribbon roping at rodeos.”

He got acquainted with her family on those occasions.

“I always liked her mom and dad and brother,” Bud says. “I always thought they were good people and I always made a point to visit with them.”

Bud asked Marsha to go out with him a couple of times, but she said no.

He did go out with one of her friends, however, and that date set things in motion.

The girl told Marsha on a Friday morning that the night before, she had gone out with the nicest guy — so nice, in fact, that she thought he might be “the one.” Marsha asked who this fellow was, and the friend told her it was Bud Grant. Marsha went to the rodeo that Friday night, in search of Bud.

“Me and my buddy didn’t go to that rodeo that night, we went to a different one,” Bud says. “When I got back from that one Saturday morning a buddy of mine called me and he said, ‘Boy, you’ll never guess who was at the rodeo last night looking for you?’ I said, ‘Oh, really?’ That kind of gave me a hint she was after me.”

He found her that night at the rodeo.

“I rode up next to her and we were riding around talking and I said, ‘Marsha?’ and she said, ‘What?’ And I said, ‘Why don’t we get married?’ and she said, ‘OK,'” Bud says.

Marsha registered no surprise, he remembers.

“I had no idea how it would turn out,” she says. “I didn’t really know him. I guess it just felt right.”

When they left the rodeo, she was in a vehicle ahead of his with her family. He pulled up next to her and she rolled down the window.

“She said, ‘We live right up here. Why don’t y’all stop and drink a Coke?'” he says.

He and his roommate stopped at her house and spent the next few hours talking with her and her family.

Their first date, which happened post-proposal, was to see the R-rated Woodstock at the drive-in movie theater.

“That was our first date and I took her to a movie where they were saying bad words,” Bud says.

They had only had two or three more dates by the beginning of October.

“I was working at an electrical company and I got laid off and the Loretta Lynn Rodeo Company that put on rodeos over on the East Coast, their superintendent called and wanted me to go to work for them setting up rodeos and working for them during the fall circuit,” he says.

He and Marsha had been planning for a June 1971 wedding, but after this news Marsha insisted they move up their wedding date.

They exchanged their vows on Oct. 11, 1970, in a Presbyterian church in Hooks, Texas.

Bud’s family had met — and loved — Marsha but they weren’t able to make it to the wedding because they had already committed to work on a rodeo that day. The newlyweds stopped by to see them the next day, on their way to Hampton, Va., where the first Loretta Lynn event was to take place.

In 1972, Marsha and Bud moved to Benton and started a company erecting metal buildings. A few years later, they opened another company, American Building Systems. Their son, B.J., also works with them.

They’re no longer involved in rodeos, but Bud likes to hunt and fish and sometimes he convinces Marsha to do those things with him.

“We’re still together almost all the time,” she says.

“It’s worked out pretty good,” Ed says. “We’ve been married 48 years.”

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High Profile on 10/14/2018