In most cases, a man takes a woman as his wife because he’s certain (or at least he thinks that he is certain) that he’s found the one. However, former New York Mets player, Todd Dulaney, admits that he wasn’t sure if his wife of nearly six years, Kenyetta “Kenya” Dulaney, was the one when they tied the knot. As their marriage continued, things only worsened, and the couple was pretty sure that divorce was imminent. Keep reading to find out how they turned things around.
How did you meet?
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Kenya: He was singing at a conference my aunt had at her church. He came one night and sang. When I saw him, I told my cousins and aunt, “That’s my husband.” I didn’t know his name. I didn’t know him or anything like that. I just said it thinking he wasn’t going to hear it or anything like that. The next day, he came back to church, he spoke to me. They had gone back and told him what I said. I was embarrassed. But we talked that night and the next day, we had our first date. We went to Smokie Norful’s church; we went out to eat, we went to the movies and then back to church. Ever since then, we’ve been inseparable.
How long did you date before realizing you found “the one”?
Todd: We dated for almost a year before we got married. But as far as realizing we’d found “the one,” for me, it was after marriage. We weren’t sure. I knew that I liked her, but at the same time, there we so many things I thought I couldn’t deal with. I think she also began to see things and she was like, “I don’t know if I can deal with this.” It was long after we were married. We’re five years in, and I think after two years, I started to think “Wow, I’m so thankful that I married her. She’s the one.”
That is fascinating. Most people believe they’ve found the one before saying “I do.”
Todd: We didn’t do things the right way. We were having sex before marriage and we ended up getting pregnant. We had our first child, Todd Dulaney Jr., and so he kind of forced us to put things in better perspective. We had to really look at each other like, “Okay, we’re going to be in each other’s lives forever, regardless of if we’re married or not.” At that point, I began to strongly consider that this woman is going to be in my life for a really long time and I need to take her seriously. Once I began to really look at her, I began to see better things. Before, I think I was just playing games. I wasn’t completely serious. I didn’t know that I could possibly have to spend the rest of my life with her.
So you decide to get married, you experience the newlywed phase somewhat, and then things go left. You said that you were “on the brink of divorce.” How did you go from being happily married newlyweds to “I don’t know if I want to be here”?
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Kenya: When we first got married. even though we dated for a while, we were still in the get-to-know-you stage. There were a lot of things that he didn’t like about me and there were things I didn’t like about him. We were total opposites. We came from different families. He came from parents who were married. I didn’t. I didn’t know how to do things in a marriage. I didn’t have anybody to look at in a marriage. I didn’t know how to handle our marriage or handle him because I didn’t see that growing up. I had a strong personality. I wasn’t submissive, but when I learned to be submissive, that’s when I would say I became a better wife.
Todd: For me, I would say that I was expecting her to be this wife that I had seen my mom be. My mom cooked dinner every night and I’m like, “Man, my wife isn’t doing any of this stuff.” Going into the marriage, she had never cooked before. Ever. When we got married, she was like, “Okay, I’m going to try to learn.” But I’m thinking, “My wife is gonna cook. She’s gonna be the bomb cook. She’s gonna know all of this stuff.” And it was nothing like what I planned in my mind. For the whole first portion of our marriage, I was trying to make her be what I believed that my wife should be. I was like, “This is who you gotta be or this thing will never work.” That’s where I was completely wrong. That’s where we were banging heads. I wanted her to become what I had envisioned and not who she was. It was until I said, “You know what, she’s great. There are a lot of things she does well that I need to just love on,” that I started to see a shift in our marriage.
At what point did you guys look at each other and think, “We’re really in trouble.”
I think that it was the morning that we decided to just sit down and talk. We banged heads for pretty much the whole first half of our marriage. We walked around the house not talking to each other and not really communicating. She was telling me things and I wasn’t really taking them seriously. She would say like, “Baby, can you take the garbage out?” And I wouldn’t come out for like a week because if I’m going to take it out, I’m just going to take a bunch out at one time. That was my logic as a man, but what was important to her was that she asked me to do something and I didn’t do it.
When things really came to a head, I got up early one morning and I told her, “Let’s go downstairs and talk.” The kids were asleep. I was at a point where I felt like, we could just call it quits. She was feeling the same way. So we went downstairs and I just asked,”Tell me what I’m doing wrong. Tell me.” We were both crying and we were at our wit’s end. We both felt like we had tried everything but we couldn’t make each other happy. It was the first time that she really broke down and told me, “This is what do you to me: You’re out with people. You sign CDs. You smile with them. You take pictures. When you come home with me, I ask you to do something like taking the garbage out and it never gets done. It’s amazing that you’re this man with the people and everybody loves you, but when I ask you to do something, you don’t do it.” That broke my heart. I had to look at her and say, “Dag, you right.” I’m always smiling. I’m always meeting people and I’m always nice to them. I wasn’t like that with her. That was the point when we really heard each other for the first time in our marriage.
So after the talk, what steps did you take to turn things around?
Kenya: The things that he didn’t like about me or felt I wasn’t doing, I made the effort to at least try to do it. It was the same with him. We just applied the things we need to apply since that talk.
Todd: Since that talk, things have been great. It’s crazy how good our marriage has been, but it was just because of the talk. We both decided, “I’m going to let you say what you don’t like about me, and I’m not going to interrupt you.” That was so hard, when she was saying what she didn’t like about me, and I disagreed. I’m like, “I’m doing all of that. I know that I’m listening to you,” and she was feeling the same way.
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Of course, as a man, I was like, I need more sex. I had all types of crazy demands, and her thing was: “You’re not listening to me. You don’t pay attention to me.” We flat out said, “I’m going to do exactly what you tell me to do.” And after that, I realized that more sex wasn’t a problem because she was like, “You listen to me. You love me. You don’t even have to ask me for that because I’m open to you now. You actually pay attention to me.”
When marriages reach the point where you guys were at, that’s usually when papers are served. Many people don’t have those talks.
Todd: In your mind, you really start to feel like there is no other way but divorce. My mind was there. I know how people can go there. My mind told me: “There’s nothing that we can do.” I don’t even know how I managed to say, “Babe, let’s go downstairs and talk,” but I just thank God that I did. I really thought it was done. That morning was the first time I had ever really known that I was wrong. I wasn’t doing what I thought that I was doing. I thought I was giving her mad love, and the reason I thought that was because I was providing for her. As a man, I’m like, “I’m providing for you. We got a nice place to live, we got all you need. I take to you out whenever you want to go out. You can eat, you can shop. I’m the man.” But that’s not what a woman is looking for. She wants to be heard and included. That’s my thing. Now, when I’m on the road, she’s a part of everything. We talk nonstop when I’m on the road. We Facetime. We’re talking. That keeps my home sweet so when I come home, I’m not playing catch up. I’ve already been with y’all.
Changing gears, you left professional baseball to be a worship leader. What went into that decision?
That was a decision that was straight faith. Even in hindsight, I’m like, “Did you do the right thing? That was a lot of money you walked away from.” But for me, I found purpose in life for the first time. Baseball was my passion. It was fun. I was having a good time. I was on top of the world. But when I started spreading the message of Christ and I started seeing that people’s lives were really affected, I felt like I had found purpose, to the point where I felt that I could leave baseball behind and live out my purpose. People around me were like, “You are absolutely crazy.”
Lastly, tell me about the new album, A Worshipper’s Heart.
This album is my first live album. A lot of churches around the world are singing songs of praise and worship that give everybody the opportunity to participate. So this album is full of songs that allow us all to participate. I just wanted to make songs that made it easy for churches worldwide to worship God and praise God with no problem.
Todd’s new album, A Worshipper’s Heart will be released on April 15th. His album release event will take place on April 6th at Living Word Christian Center in Forest Park, Illinois.
Source: https://t-tees.com
Category: WHO
