Black Marriage with Adinah Johnson: Honest Conversations on Relationships
At the time of the 2020 Census, only 30% of African Americans were married compared to 48% of all Americans. Also, 50% of African Americans had never been married compared to 34% of all Americans, with 48% of black women having never been married. Black women are also the least likely of all women to get married.
On September 23, 2018, my grandparents’ wedding anniversary, we got married. I was 40. Up until that moment all I’d known was singleness — single mom, single black woman, single and head of household on my taxes — and I put a period at the end of my own story because I was listening too hard to what couldn’t happen and forgot my faith in what could.
Excerpt from “Statistics Convinced Me I’d Never Get Married.” They Were Wrong” by Janelle Harris Dixon
So does this matter and why? Is marriage important to the Black community?
Adinah Johnson says yes to both. Well, if that’s the case, how can people seek to have strong, healthy relationships and marriages? Fret not because Adinah has answers and I’m here to get all the tea. Listen in as we chop it up and talk about our lives, loves, relationship lessons learned, and Adinah’s insights into this pressing issue facing many in our community today. In this discussion, Adinah shares with us what it takes to build strong, healthy relationships that last and why marriage can be a great resource for a long, stable, and happy life.
In this episode of the Thoughts and Talks Podcast, I‘m speaking with Marriage Counselor Adinah Johnson, author of “Butterfly Blue: The Pain of Infertility & The Power of Forgiveness” and co-host of Nik and Adinah on YouTube.
Adinah’s Bio:
Adinah was at a major crossroads in her life, she was deciding if she wanted to go to school for her master’s degree, move back to her hometown after being away for seven years or change careers. She prayed as asked for God’s direction in her life. She also asked God to send her a life partner.
After moving back to her hometown to work on her master’s degree about a year later she met Nik in a nightclub. In 1996 three weeks after they started dating, Adinah asked Nik to drive a family friend to the hospital to have a baby. They later adopted that baby because the mother was not capable of caring for the child. Nik and Adinah got married in 2000 after a three-year courtship.
In 2001 they went to weekly married enrichment seminars to build a strong foundation for their marriage. In 2003 they became certified marriage coaches so they could assist other couples in building strong healthy relationships/marriages. They have counseled and helped countless couples in the last 16 years.
Then one day, eight years into their marriage, Nik said, “Let’s have a baby!” And their world was turned upside down. Butterfly Blue: The Pain of Infertility & The Power of Forgiveness is a testimony of love, pain, betrayal, and forgiveness. It is a heart-wrenching tale that runs the gamut from the trauma of childhood abandonment to the devastation of infertility and loss.
It is a beautiful account of strength, growth, and rebirth. In Butterfly Blue: The Pain of Infertility & The Power of Forgiveness, Psychology Professor/Youth Counselor/Marriage Coach Adinah Johnson explores her familial relationships and childhood experiences and how they impacted her choices as an adult. She opens up and shares the keys to maintaining a successful marriage for nearly two decades, even through the pain of infertility and miscarriages. Adinah imparts the lessons of self-respect, self-confidence, and faith that she has learned throughout this journey called life.
Butterfly Blue: The Pain of Infertility & The Power of Forgiveness
Synopsis:
The pain of Adinah’s childhood coupled with the trauma and abuse she witnessed throughout her years as a youth counselor left her with absolutely no desire to have children. When she met Nik, and he said that he was not interested in having kids, it was a match made in heaven. For years after they got married, their family and friends repeatedly asked them when were they going to start a family. Eventually, everyone stopped asking.
