Pastor John Gray’s appearance on ‘Sister Circle Live’ sparks debate about what makes a healthy marriage

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Pastor John Gray has set the Internet on fire after an appearance on Sister Circle Live,
where he talked about his relationship with wife, Aventer Gray, and how they’ve interacted over the years. Pastor Gray has said that his wife has suffered more through raising him as a man than she did in giving birth to their two children. 

The viral clip sparked debate about what constitutes a healthy marriage— particularly ones that include Black women. 

Writer Candace Marie Benbow contrasted John Gray’s clíp with an interview of former FLOTUS Michelle Obama talking about her marriage with former President Barack Obama.

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This, coupled with Michelle telling ESSENCE that when she met Barack he was a fully formed individual, is what we need to hear. Emotional maturity and integrity matter. Men are fully capable of doing their own work and we are not wrong for requiring that they have done that work and we are not wrong for setting expectations accordingly. It’s hard, it really is to believe that and live into it- especially when you’re tired of being single. The fear that if you set certain expectations, love will walk out the door is real. There’s no denying that. But here’s to taking the leap to require wholeness and basking in a love that is.

A post shared by Candice Marie Benbow (@candicebenbow) on Nov 15, 2018 at 9:40pm PST

Others defended Gray, saying they saw nothing wrong with him talking about his wife— and saying that in marriage people will have to carry each other’s burdens. After the backlash, Pastor Gray and Aventer Gray took to live video to explain where they were coming from and Aventer also took to Instagram to post the following:

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Of course anything praising marriage and the truth about it would aggravate the devil’s agenda to make it seem too hard & discourage us from it. Don’t fall for it. Man…he is big mad… (excuse grammatical moments lol)

A post shared by grayceeme (@grayceeme) on Nov 15, 2018 at 5:43pm PST

Does his message make sense or does it promote harmful relationship expectations?