The Best Advice Before Saying I Do

Some lessons I learned from a famous person filing for divorce

I’ve never read DeVon Franklin and Meagan Good’s book The Wait. The New York Times 2016 bestselling book trumpeted the benefits of waiting to have sex until getting married to get to know the person you’re choosing to marry.

But when my wife told me that Franklin filed for divorce in a Los Angeles court on December 20 to end their nine-year marriage, my immediate thought was, Don’t make abstaining from sex the reason you choose to get married. There are a lot more values that need to align between two people.

I’m not the kind of person to critique another person’s marriage. As a person who has been married for 21 years, I realize marriage isn’t easy. It brings two imperfect people together, and it isn’t the storybook tale you see in movies.

But I thought I’d write something because I see a key relationship lesson in Franklin and Good’s divorce for those who are considering getting married.

Maybe, they should have paid more attention to whether their values aligned while dating than focusing primarily on waiting to have sex. I’m sure they did this to a certain extent, but, maybe they overlooked some major differences.

Was celibacy a shared value?

I recently watched the interview Franklin and Good did with Oprah Winfrey a few years ago to promote their book and a video from a Christian conference that went viral where a woman criticized Good for her very revealing outfits.

The thing that stood out in Oprah’s interview is that celibacy had been a ten-year commitment for Franklin. Good, on the other hand, said she’d recently become celibate before meeting Franklin after ending a bad relationship and a history where sex had got in the way of her first getting to know the person.

In the interview, Good told Oprah a friend asked her if she knew Franklin was a minister and celibate. She replied, “I was like, I just became celibate too.” To which her friend said, “No girl, he’s like for real celibate.” They all laughed.

“You were for play celibate?” Oprah asked Good.

“I was a new celibate,” Good said. “Still making mistakes celibate before I got it right, and it was just before him [DeVon] and I got together.”

Franklin’s celibacy was an essential expression of his faith while Good became celibate more to heal from past wounds in relationships — and celibacy seems like it was a permanent value for Franklin while a temporary one for Good.

Fully aligned values?

The ending to this Hollywood-like script could have been written before they ever met because it looks like a clear case that their values never fully aligned on the more important matters than just abstaining from sex before marriage.

Franklin is known for being a Hollywood producer of faith-based films. He produced movies such as Breakthrough, Miracles from Heaven, and The Star. He is an ordained minister who had been celibate for ten years before meeting Good. Good is an actress known for wearing sexy attire on and off the screen.

You may have seen the viral video involving Good and Franklin. I just watched it for the first time, and it seems like an example of how Franklin and Good’s Christian values didn’t fully align and it put Devon in an awkward situation.

Franklin and Good were interviewed at a Christian conference, and they were taking questions from the audience when a woman criticized Good for her breasts showing on a magazine cover that she saw waiting in a grocery line.

The woman, not sure how to ask her question, beat around the bush before she finally asked, “We’re going to cover up, right?” She was trying to be diplomatic in letting Good know her actions didn’t match her Christian values, but Franklin spoke into his microphone right away to support his wife and to shut the woman down, seeing her as a judgmental.

“Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute,” Franklin said. “No, no, no, no, no, no. No, that is not, that’s not what we’re here for. She is not going to cover up. She is going to wear what she wants to wear. In the name of Jesus. Amen. Amen. Amen. She is going to wear what she wants to wear. Yes, she will. Yes, she will. Yes, she will.” -DeVon Franklin

Then Franklin kissed Good several times to let her know he supported her. I felt for Meagan because she was new to the Christian scene. But I also felt for the woman who asked the question because she seemed to sincerely want to know now that Good called herself a Christian would she dress less revealing.

Maybe, the woman had a point

I get that Franklin needed to defend his wife from public criticism, but his response overlooked that the woman made a very valid point from a Christian standpoint. She expected to see a person’s actions line up with their beliefs.

The woman probably had in mind the scripture in the Bible where Paul instructed Timothy on how to encourage Christian women to dress:

“I also want women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or expensive clothes, but with good deeds, appropriate for women who profess to worship God." 1 Timothy 2: 9 -10

I think DeVon felt he had to defend his wife, and what he said may not have reflected his Christian values …. and he found himself in an awkward moment where he felt his only option was to shut the woman down.

But, maybe, this is an example where he and Good overlooked contrasting values when they were focused on abstaining from sex. If the goal was to get to know each other better, maybe, they missed seeing some key differences.

More misaligned values?

Meagan Good’s sex scenes in movies are another example of where Franklin and Good’s values seem like they would clash. Not many ministers have wives who kiss and roll around in a bed with another man pretending to have sex.

In an interview Good did on The D.L. Hughley Show, she was asked by the co-host, “So, being married to a preacher, how do you prepare for a sex scene?” and Good said this:

“You know what’s interesting about him? It’s like I’ll call him, and I’ll be like, okay, honey, I’m getting ready to do the sex scene, and he’ll be like okay, well, just make it look real because you want the audience to root for you.”

-Meagan Good

She went on to explain that the amazing thing about her husband is he didn’t try to change her or dissuade her from sex scenes. It sounds like DeVon just wanted to be a supportive husband, not wanting to get in the way of his wife’s career — and he probably didn’t want to come off as a judgmental Christian.

But I wonder what he really felt when she kissed or got close to an actor in a sex scene? I’ve heard Christian actor Kirk Cameron refused to kiss the actress playing his wife in the movie “Fireproof.” Instead, the filmmaker inserted Cameron’s wife into a scene shot in silhouette to get around this values issue.

“I have a commitment not to kiss any other woman,” the former child star of “Growing Pains,” told Hoda Kotb and Kathie Lee Gifford Monday on TODAY in New York.

— Kirk Cameron

DeVon is a positive person who’s known to go live on Instagram answering life questions and praying for his 1.5 million followers. His positive attitude may be the reason he maybe neglected to be concerned with his contrasting values with Good. He just wanted to support her growth as a person, but maybe he could have shown more guidance as the stronger one in his Christian faith.

A marriage lesson

I think there is a relationship lesson in Franklin and Good’s divorce for those who are considering marriage, and those like me who are already married.

Abstaining from sex in a dating relationship can allow for time to get to know a person and their core values, but I think it’s still possible that anyone can ignore if their values are not fully aligned if you’re in a rush to get married.

And just because you abstain from sex doesn’t mean a person is right for you.

And for those who are married I think the lesson is to make sure both partners are steering the boat in the same direction — and that each one is lifting their paddles out of the water and fitting their strokes to each other to be in sync.

A husband and wife do not have to agree on everything, but when it comes to their most important values, it’s helpful when they’re aligned in their beliefs.

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