Course Overview
Why this course exists
Every person who enters a relationship brings an invisible set of beliefs about what marriage is, what it requires, and what it is supposed to produce. These beliefs are rarely examined. They are absorbed — from watching parents, from cultural messaging, from peer experience, from entertainment — and they operate quietly beneath the surface of every decision, every conflict, every expectation, and every disappointment.
The research on marital success is consistent on one point: it is not the absence of problems that predicts whether a marriage will thrive. It is the beliefs people bring to the problems. Two couples can face an identical challenge — financial pressure, a season of emotional distance, a significant conflict — and one will grow through it while the other deteriorates. The difference, more often than not, is the mindset each partner brings into the room.
This course examines the beliefs and assumptions that the 21st century has handed most people about marriage — many of them quietly destructive — and replaces them with a framework grounded in evidence, human flourishing, and the design principles that have sustained healthy marriages across generations.
The companion book by Drs. Anthony and Tolu, co-founders of OA Dynasty, provides extended treatment of each mindset covered in this course, including personal case studies and deeper application tools. Specific chapters are assigned at the beginning of relevant modules.
What learners will be able to do by the end
- Identify the dominant cultural mindsets that most undermine modern marriages — and name where each came from
- Understand how family of origin shapes relationship beliefs — and how to examine and revise those blueprints
- Replace transactional thinking with a covenant mindset in practical, everyday situations
- Develop a resilience framework for navigating hard seasons without interpreting them as evidence of failure
- Build immunity to social comparison and unrealistic cultural narratives about what marriage should look like
- Produce a shared ‘we believe’ statement — a written articulation of the mindset the couple commits to operating from
