Speaker 1: If I were to asked y'all, what was the hardest
Speaker 1: thing y'all had to deal with in your marriage?
Speaker 2: What would that be?
Speaker 3: I would probably say for me, it was when we
Speaker 3: lost the baby.
Speaker 4: Yes, sat grief is a.
Speaker 3: Weird thing when you're not angry.
Speaker 4: At God, we lost this child. But this happened to
Speaker 4: her like they had to go in and cut her
Speaker 4: tube oth and then us realizing that they didn't just
Speaker 4: cut a part of her too, but it cut her
Speaker 4: whole right too, And nobody told us that.
Speaker 3: And that's why it was so difficult for us to
Speaker 3: get pregnant. Doc is my bonus mom. I called Doc
Speaker 3: and I'm telling her what happened, and she's like, mm hmm, okay, well,
Speaker 3: I'm just gonna tell you this. You talking like you
Speaker 3: don't know who God is there it is, so at
Speaker 3: the end of the day, you gonna get pregnant and
Speaker 3: watch it be on the right side. I don't care
Speaker 3: what they say. By the time my da I was
Speaker 3: supposed to come on, I was like, where's that. Oh
Speaker 3: my god, I'm pregnant. They said, let's do an ultra
Speaker 3: sound to make sure it's in the right placement this time.
Speaker 4: So she goes to the left and there's nothing, like,
Speaker 4: you don't see anything on the left side.
Speaker 3: First of all, I was worried about the left over
Speaker 3: it and the blood flow. She was like, no, it came
Speaker 3: from over here. And then she goes she said, oh,
Speaker 3: you don't have a tube over here.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I don't know how if y'all were to name this
Speaker 1: episode based on what y'all shared today, what would.
Speaker 2: Be the name of this episode?
Speaker 4: Love after Loss?
Speaker 2: Welcome to Dear Future WIFEI podcast the Blacks.
Speaker 3: How y'all doing, Hey, Hey, you're doing good? Thank you
Speaker 3: for having us. I was not taught to be a wife.
Speaker 3: My mom was a single mom before, so I watched
Speaker 3: her do everything, and then when being in relationships, I'm
Speaker 3: still watching her carry it all.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I didn't ever expect that I would have the marriage
Speaker 3: that I have today.
Speaker 4: I didn't know anything about marriage or how a husband
Speaker 4: was supposed to act to a wife. But I knew
Speaker 4: how I was supposed to act as a person, So
Speaker 4: I knew that I was going to treat her the
Speaker 4: best way I knew how.
Speaker 3: I started to realize, I'm like, what do I want
Speaker 3: in a partner? I want you to be able to
Speaker 3: trust me. I want you to be able to be
Speaker 3: vulnerable with me, So how can I desire those things
Speaker 3: for myself? But I'm not willing to give that to you.
Speaker 3: I'm afraid of vulnerability while I'm asking you to be
Speaker 3: vulnerable to me.
Speaker 5: What made you know that she was the one that
Speaker 5: you wanted to commit to for the first time?
Speaker 6: So what started as a search for understanding became a
Speaker 6: journey of transformation. Every letter that I wrote led me
Speaker 6: to this day, the day.
Speaker 1: I got married November twenty second, twenty twenty five.
Speaker 5: Dear my forever, Forever is a long time. That's how
Speaker 5: long I'll love you. Those lyrics echo through every fiber
Speaker 5: of my soul at the very thought of you.
Speaker 1: This journey has culminated with you as both the award
Speaker 1: and the reward of my pursuit of love.
Speaker 2: You are the award, the.
Speaker 1: Honor God placed before me, the recognition of growth, healing,
Speaker 1: and becoming the man I needed to be.
Speaker 5: And you are the reward, the blessing given after endurance,
Speaker 5: the gift promised to those who refuse to faint.
Speaker 6: This isn't just our story, this is for all of us.
Speaker 6: I'm the terrassaar Whitfield.
Speaker 3: Ashley are wet Fielder. Welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Dear Future Wife Podcast. I'm your host
Speaker 1: of Tarissar Whitfield and.
Speaker 5: I'm Ashley our Whitfield.
Speaker 1: Listen, are you still shacking up with us? If you're
Speaker 1: still shacking up with us, come on, can we get
Speaker 1: a commitment? Hit that subscription button and subscribe. Make sure
Speaker 1: you tun on your notification bell should be notified about
Speaker 1: upcoming episodes. Let me tell you why it's so important
Speaker 1: for you to subscribe to the podcast. Well, a lot
Speaker 1: of advertisers, a lot of brands, when they're deciding how
Speaker 1: to allocate their funds, they want to check and see
Speaker 1: what kind of built in audience these platforms have. And
Speaker 1: also I get a lot of y'all that complain that
Speaker 1: we've had a live event or we went live on
Speaker 1: YouTube and y'all didn't know about it. Well, that's how
Speaker 1: you learned about it is to be subscribed and to
Speaker 1: make sure that you turn on your notification bell. Remember,
Speaker 1: the mission of the Dear Future wifeie podcast is to
Speaker 1: increase marriage rates and decrease divorced statistics while providing these
Speaker 1: tools so that we can do relationships a whole lot better.
Speaker 1: So each guest is curated for that purpose. I know
Speaker 1: a lot of y'all make question while we get certain
Speaker 1: guests on the podcast, either you learn something from them
Speaker 1: or what not to do, or you learn what to
Speaker 1: do or give you hope.
Speaker 2: On this thing called love.
Speaker 1: I want to personally invite you to the one voyage
Speaker 1: cruise that set sell October the twenty sixth through November
Speaker 1: the first. Make sure that you use the code wifey.
Speaker 1: We're going to be doing the Dear Future Wife podcast
Speaker 1: live on the ship again. Those that joined us last year,
Speaker 1: y'all knew how amazing it was.
Speaker 2: At that time, Ashley.
Speaker 5: Was your manager.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she was my manager.
Speaker 1: So when people saw us on the cruise ship, even
Speaker 1: though we were keeping our relationship private, they were like,
Speaker 1: I know you ain't on a cruise with some with
Speaker 1: another woman. That's got to be her, Like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: is it is?
Speaker 2: It? Is it?
Speaker 1: And so this time she gets to walk around full
Speaker 1: glory and actually join me as a co host of
Speaker 1: their Future Wifey. So it's going to be an amazing event.
Speaker 1: Make sure you click the link in the description. Well,
Speaker 1: today's episode is gonna be fun. This past week's episode.
Speaker 1: We did it live at BCI and they were a
Speaker 1: part of the panel, and I want to get more
Speaker 1: information out of them about their story because they have
Speaker 1: an extremely impactful story, and so I invited them to
Speaker 1: come on the podcast for their solo episode.
Speaker 2: So, without further ado, well to Dear Future Wife podcast.
Speaker 2: My homies, the Blacks, how y'all doing good? Thank you
Speaker 2: for having us call you this money.
Speaker 4: You can call me money. You came, mister blak. Come
Speaker 4: when they're just don't call me late for dinner, whatever
Speaker 4: you want to do, because.
Speaker 1: I've noticed every time I looked at my in my comments,
Speaker 1: they'd be like money, money, Money, and I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: I've been calling them by his government name, Mindarius, and
Speaker 1: you like, no, just call me money. So as long
Speaker 1: as I don't call you late for dinner and Hayley,
Speaker 1: so listen man, Thank y'all so much for coming on
Speaker 1: the Deer Future Wifey podcast. Actually, now you get a
Speaker 1: chance to have a conversation with them and hear how
Speaker 1: dynamic their story is.
Speaker 5: That's right, you said, my homebies, but they're really our home.
Speaker 2: Our home is now.
Speaker 1: Because before we started recording, they was swapping skincare.
Speaker 7: Routines, and I got you those kind of essentials that
Speaker 7: you need to be able to get.
Speaker 3: You know, ready quickly, Look, you can't keep the good stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So my dares looking like they just they just
Speaker 1: the whole conversation sharing about micro blade and then.
Speaker 3: Their tips is waking up. Put water in a rag on.
Speaker 4: I face all. We need to do whatever works well.
Speaker 1: We want to celebrate you, because today, what did you
Speaker 1: just do?
Speaker 3: Y'all? I've paid off my student loans today I'm done
Speaker 3: with South Yes, we.
Speaker 2: Made was the was the was the other woman in
Speaker 2: y'all relationship.
Speaker 3: She was doing too much for one of us my money.
Speaker 3: You need to handle that, Okay, we can.
Speaker 2: Okay. So y'all have been married for how many years?
Speaker 5: Now?
Speaker 3: Three?
Speaker 4: Three?
Speaker 2: Three years? What's the date? Which one?
Speaker 4: Yeah? I was about to say, y'all.
Speaker 2: Had two dates.
Speaker 1: Y'all had a date that y'all got married that no
Speaker 1: one else knew, and then the date that your family and.
Speaker 2: Friends knew about.
Speaker 4: So the May twentieth is when we got married in
Speaker 4: the States, and then July twenty eighth is when we
Speaker 4: got married in Greece.
Speaker 2: But y'all celebrate both days.
Speaker 4: So we celebrate. July is what we celebrate.
Speaker 1: Yes, so that's what y'all consider y'all got. But the license,
Speaker 1: what does that say? The twentieth the twentieth May?
Speaker 3: Okay, like on the twentieth of May, it's like, oh,
Speaker 3: happy anniversary. But this so what we're doing, right.
Speaker 5: So what made y'all do it that way?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 4: As far as getting married in Greece, yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, the two separate dates, I'll say this. When
Speaker 3: it came to getting married in May, one part was
Speaker 3: I realized once we were going like through the paperwork
Speaker 3: trying to figure everything out, that they wanted us to
Speaker 3: melt something. At one point, I said, I don't need
Speaker 3: to find out ten years later that we're not legally
Speaker 3: married because something got lost somewhere. So I was like,
Speaker 3: let's legally do it in the States. But we didn't
Speaker 3: tell anybody at the time because a lot of people
Speaker 3: already felt some type of way about us getting married
Speaker 3: in Greece, and we didn't plan on doing anything either
Speaker 3: than actually, let's go get married and then we're gonna
Speaker 3: like we got married with my pastor and then we
Speaker 3: went back home. And so we didn't want people to
Speaker 3: be offended that they weren't invited to that, but we
Speaker 3: wanted it to be private between the two of us,
Speaker 3: so we kept that one a secret, and for the longest,
Speaker 3: everybody just thought Greece was it. And I want to say,
Speaker 3: last year, I think is when a lot of people
Speaker 3: found out.
Speaker 4: It's like, oh, maybe right now, a lot of people
Speaker 4: right now, there's a lot of y'all that didn't know that.
Speaker 4: Ny twentieth is when we got married. It really don't matter, y'all,
Speaker 4: because it's the day we celebrate or don't celebrate. Actually
Speaker 4: do July twenty eighth, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Y'all celebrate July twenty eighth. And so the day we're
Speaker 1: recording this episode of July, what's.
Speaker 2: The day's day?
Speaker 3: Sixteen sixteen sixteenth.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so y'all be celebrating y'all's four years. It would
Speaker 1: be four years, right, or.
Speaker 2: Be three?
Speaker 1: So y'all's been saying, y'all have been married for three
Speaker 1: years because of the main because of the may. Okay, so.
Speaker 4: We all hear.
Speaker 5: We all hear that you for getting us up to speed.
Speaker 1: So what's the thing that I'm asking both of y'all this,
Speaker 1: What has Mariage taught you about yourself in these last
Speaker 1: three years.
Speaker 3: Ooh I said this online and they ate me up
Speaker 3: for it. Really, yeah, I don't like apologize now I'm
Speaker 3: gonna do it, but it really made it made me
Speaker 3: realize how prideful I could be, for sure, because I
Speaker 3: can know I'm wrong and i'd be like, ah, but
Speaker 3: when I got married. When I got married, it was
Speaker 3: one of those things that I'm like, okay, look or
Speaker 3: really not even just got married, because it was one
Speaker 3: of those things that show up just being in a relationship.
Speaker 3: But I started thinking to myself, for starters, the Holy
Speaker 3: Spirit was sining conviction quickly, and I mean we just
Speaker 3: had this conversation and maybe ten minutes later, it's like, now,
Speaker 3: go fix it. And I'm sitting here like now from
Speaker 3: the time that the Holy Spirit is given, like, go
Speaker 3: fix it. I might have said so maybe two hours later,
Speaker 3: but because I'm the whole time, I'm sitting here like,
Speaker 3: oh my god, I gotta go in here and tell
Speaker 3: this man and I was wrong.
Speaker 8: I gotta say I'm sorry.
Speaker 3: He is so patient too, so that makes matters worse
Speaker 3: because I'm just like and he just sit there and
Speaker 3: was like okay, So I gotta come back and come
Speaker 3: find you. Mm hmmmmm. He because he I'll say this.
Speaker 2: I remember.
Speaker 3: I remember one incident specifically where we standing in the
Speaker 3: kitchen and it was something I think I had to
Speaker 3: do with like travel, and I wanted to go on
Speaker 3: like these particular dates because I was like, this is
Speaker 3: when it's supposed to be. And I can't remember what
Speaker 3: was going on, but I had the dates completely wrong.
Speaker 3: But I was going so hard about these dates and
Speaker 3: we don't like. He doesn't argue, so he's just like,
Speaker 3: are you sure I don't think that's the case, and
Speaker 3: I'm like, I think it is. He's like, okay, Haley.
Speaker 3: And then I had to go to the store. I'm
Speaker 3: driving a Dollar General and then I like, on my
Speaker 3: way there, I'm like it hits me. I'm like, actually, let.
Speaker 2: Me go check.
Speaker 3: So I go look and immediately I feel so guilty
Speaker 3: because I was like, no, I'm telling you, like you're
Speaker 3: always forgetting stuff. This is what it is. I came
Speaker 3: back home. I walked in the house. I see him
Speaker 3: he's washing dishes. I go into the room. I come
Speaker 3: back out and I'm looking and I'm like, okay, I
Speaker 3: got to tell him I'm sorry. I go to him
Speaker 3: and I'm like, hey, because I try to give like
Speaker 3: a real apology though I wanted to be thoughtful, so
Speaker 3: I was first thing I started. I was apologizing. I
Speaker 3: shouldn't have said this the way that I did, and
Speaker 3: I understand that, like my tone of voice was not it.
Speaker 3: I was talking down and I was wrong. I went
Speaker 3: back and I looked, and you were right, And he's
Speaker 3: just sitting there like thank you, and he came with me.
Speaker 3: He'll give me a hug. But I don't like apologizing,
Speaker 3: he said, live yeah, I'm made a video about it.
Speaker 3: Like the next day, I said, y'all know one thing
Speaker 3: that I realized, I hate apologizing, Like it eats me up.
Speaker 3: Now I'm gonna do it because I love my man
Speaker 3: and I like a healthy marriage, but it's eating me
Speaker 3: up from the time that I do it, and then
Speaker 3: afterwards I feel good, but like leading up to it,
Speaker 3: I do not like it.
Speaker 2: They say back, Oh.
Speaker 3: My gosh, this is so toxic. I can't believe it.
Speaker 3: Anybody who loves their person, they just wouldn't be this
Speaker 3: hard to apologize. I'm like, okay, y'all, y'all st I'm like,
Speaker 3: I'm I'm being transparent. Me and pride, we talk. We
Speaker 3: be tussling, but you know what, I'm not gonna let
Speaker 3: it win. I ain't gonna let it win. But we
Speaker 3: do be tussling long time.
Speaker 4: They not even apologizing for comment right now, I don't
Speaker 4: have nobody to apologize too.
Speaker 2: So it's a little something that taught you.
Speaker 4: So I'll say for me, I guess I would say
Speaker 4: I was too patient. So whenever we would have conflict
Speaker 4: a lot of times early on before marriage, I would
Speaker 4: be like, Okay, let me think about it. And then
Speaker 4: it will be next week and she would be like,
Speaker 4: have you thought about it? Like, oh no, let me
Speaker 4: think about it, and then another week would come and
Speaker 4: now she is so mad about it. But I'm I'm
Speaker 4: a person who was like, oh, it'll die down. Like
Speaker 4: it'll die down, we won't worry about it. We've had
Speaker 4: good days, It'll be okay. And then we had to
Speaker 4: come to a compromise. We'd be like, Okay, if you
Speaker 4: say you're gonna think about it, you have to think
Speaker 4: about it within the next hour or two, and then
Speaker 4: we will talk about it. So now I've gotten to
Speaker 4: the point where if they're if I feel a way
Speaker 4: or I feel like she feels a way. Let's talk
Speaker 4: about this right now. Let's let's go ahead and get
Speaker 4: this off our chest. Now. I don't like to go
Speaker 4: to sleep mad at each other, like we we got
Speaker 4: on that early on. I feel like I was like
Speaker 4: because the first time I did that, when I was
Speaker 4: pushing dates back, I was like, I don't like how
Speaker 4: this feels. I don't like going to sleep and either
Speaker 4: like if you're in Winston and I was in north
Speaker 4: and I was in Shelby, we're not calling and staying
Speaker 4: on the phone the whole time or whatever, and I'm like,
Speaker 4: just what if something happens And the last thing I
Speaker 4: remember is us having this back and forth about nothing.
Speaker 4: And I didn't even want to face it. So early on,
Speaker 4: I was like, yeah, let's just make sure that we
Speaker 4: don't even go to sleep angry at each other.
Speaker 1: And so you would avoid it, Yes, I was very avoidant,
Speaker 1: but you always liked that growing up.
Speaker 4: I would say with conflict, yeah, maybe so I would,
Speaker 4: I think, so, Maybe I don't. I really don't have
Speaker 4: a lot of conflict. I don't. I don't have a
Speaker 4: lot of people who are like mad at me or like,
Speaker 4: I don't know I haven't been a person who like
Speaker 4: gets in trouble or anything like that.
Speaker 2: So he was a good kids.
Speaker 4: Let's say.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the most I can say I can say from
Speaker 3: the outside, like looking in, he is somebody with his friends.
Speaker 3: He dresses addresses things like very quickly.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 3: But I can see with like like family dynamics, maybe
Speaker 3: a little bit difference like okay, because I don't want
Speaker 3: it to be like a big bigger deal than what
Speaker 3: it like.
Speaker 4: What it is, knowing too, because this is my first
Speaker 4: like she was my first girlfriend, first wife, first, all
Speaker 4: of that. Like, So I'm like, she was your first girlfriend,
Speaker 4: first girlfriend for sure? Now age what age where we met?
Speaker 4: Twenty I was twenty two?
Speaker 1: Maybe so you went to college play basketball. This is
Speaker 1: the first girlfriend you ever had?
Speaker 4: Girlfriend?
Speaker 3: Yes, girl, girlfriend, I'm not saying what I normally say,
Speaker 3: but she is.
Speaker 4: The first girl to ever have a title for me
Speaker 4: for sure? For sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, girlfriend, I'm like, first I committed to.
Speaker 4: Yes, for sure, deadly the first person I committed to.
Speaker 2: You know what, how did you feel about that? Did
Speaker 2: you feel special?
Speaker 3: I suppose so, like because after the fact, because we
Speaker 3: were friends first, when we became friends, always thought it
Speaker 3: was weird. I was like, you ain't never had a girlfriend?
Speaker 3: And I was like, and know when because we were friends,
Speaker 3: I knew some things. I was like, and you don't
Speaker 3: nobody I remember. I used to say this all the
Speaker 3: time when we met. I said, there's this one individual.
Speaker 3: I thought she was bad. I said, why not? He
Speaker 3: was like, he said, I'm not ready? What did you say?
Speaker 3: He said, until I'm ready to commit, That's what it is.
Speaker 3: Until I know that I can be faithful to a person,
Speaker 3: I'm not going to get in a relationship.
Speaker 2: That's good. I respect that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's good.
Speaker 1: And so how did you feel about her co signing
Speaker 1: on this other girl? Did it make you want her more?
Speaker 1: Or did you still don't care about the girl when
Speaker 1: she said yeah, because he said she was trying to
Speaker 1: basically run run the play and be like, look, I'm
Speaker 1: shaking head.
Speaker 4: Nah. I think I was at that point stuck in
Speaker 4: my ways. And we talk about a lot how I
Speaker 4: don't have a lot of males in my life who
Speaker 4: have shown me what a healthy relationship looks like. I've
Speaker 4: seen a lot of single women or women who have
Speaker 4: men in their life that they have more bad days
Speaker 4: and good And I didn't want to be a person
Speaker 4: who was like that. Yes, I still took away some
Speaker 4: of those things, as in I was doing things I
Speaker 4: probably shouldn't have been. But at the same time, I
Speaker 4: don't want to give them no empty promises. I don't
Speaker 4: want to be hurting anybody's feelings or like telling any
Speaker 4: lies to anybody in any aspect. So even if it's
Speaker 4: a thing of if somebody finds out that I'm doing
Speaker 4: something with somebody else, yes I am. I will tell
Speaker 4: you straight up. I was not holding anything back and
Speaker 4: never I always wanted to be a person where I
Speaker 4: was up front because I saw it hurt so many women.
Speaker 2: In my life. Yeah, that's real.
Speaker 1: And so did you appreciate that transparency and that honesty
Speaker 1: as you know by you being his friend?
Speaker 3: Oh I did, I really did. I will say, especially
Speaker 3: in college, everybody out here in these streets and they
Speaker 3: keeping it a secret and they hit people on. So
Speaker 3: the one thing I used to say is, well, at
Speaker 3: least you ain't leave nobody on. I guess they know
Speaker 3: what it is and this is what they si. I
Speaker 3: don't know for you know, you do? You have fun?
Speaker 5: So what made you know that she was the one
Speaker 5: that you wanted to commit to for.
Speaker 4: The time, So what made me know? And it's crazy though, because.
Speaker 2: It's crazy.
Speaker 4: We're talking to our friends about this because they made
Speaker 4: a comment saying that one of their one of them
Speaker 4: did something and was like, you are the perfect mate,
Speaker 4: but just not for me. And at that point in time,
Speaker 4: I was still this guy who she was trying to
Speaker 4: get to get with, this other person who was not
Speaker 4: ready for comedic relationship. And I'm like, you are the
Speaker 4: person like you you are right here in my face,
Speaker 4: but I just don't know what to do with that
Speaker 4: because I had never been in a relationship. I never
Speaker 4: had these feelings for anybody, and I didn't know how
Speaker 4: to approach those feelings. And I told her this while
Speaker 4: we were friends. I was like, am I told her
Speaker 4: straight up, like I have these feelings for you, Like
Speaker 4: I definitely could see myself with you, but I don't know.
Speaker 4: I don't know how to do this right now. And
Speaker 4: I was like, you can you can answer me right now,
Speaker 4: or you don't have to say anything. And we were
Speaker 4: coming back from where she's from our drive back quiet,
Speaker 4: I turned.
Speaker 3: Radio hour because okay, I'm gonna say this. He was
Speaker 3: acting weird in the car, and I thought because I
Speaker 3: told him we was going to my grandmama's house and
Speaker 3: she lived in the hood, and I told him. I says,
Speaker 3: they're in the car. He adin't stay in the car. So, like,
Speaker 3: when we get back in the car and we leave it,
Speaker 3: I'm seeing her thinking he's judging me. I'm like, why
Speaker 3: are you looking at me like this?
Speaker 4: Mind you, neither of us know each other's home life,
Speaker 4: so she don't even know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're from that.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So I'm sitting here thinking like you judging me?
Speaker 3: And this, that and the third I'm like, goodness, And
Speaker 3: so he was looking at me. I'm like, what's up?
Speaker 3: He tells me all of this, all of that, just
Speaker 3: lets it all out, and then he goes on to say,
Speaker 3: but I can't really do nothing about it because I'm
Speaker 3: not ready for a relationship. And you don't have to
Speaker 3: say anything if you don't want to. So I turned
Speaker 3: the radio, y'all, and I added I added this song
Speaker 3: to my playlist in case you didn't know, which is
Speaker 3: a country song. It's a man telling this woman in
Speaker 3: case you don't know, I love you.
Speaker 6: Yes.
Speaker 3: I thought it was the funniest thing. It's on my
Speaker 3: playlist to this day.
Speaker 2: After that was.
Speaker 3: Off, after we got to get I'm like, there was
Speaker 3: no point in me knowing this information. So what I
Speaker 3: did was I just started dating. I'm like, not that
Speaker 3: I wasn't dating before, but I wasn't so openly dating
Speaker 3: a lot because like we didn't have anything going on.
Speaker 3: So I'm like, I need you to see what you're
Speaker 3: missing out on and let's go, because why are you.
Speaker 2: Telling me so you was crushing on him? Then?
Speaker 3: I look, I was now, I was freshly. It was
Speaker 3: my first time being single in my dual life. I
Speaker 3: was specially out of a relationship at the time, and
Speaker 3: I kept thinking, like, he is kind of cute, but
Speaker 3: I also know what you're about.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I don't know.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 5: Are you guys the same age?
Speaker 4: Two years older?
Speaker 5: Okay?
Speaker 4: So you were too, You be twenty eight this year.
Speaker 4: Let's relax.
Speaker 5: So he was twenty two, you were twenty yes, okay.
Speaker 1: Okay, So, and so in your mind, you was just like,
Speaker 1: all right, Oftenna, you was doing it to make him jealous?
Speaker 3: Yeah, A part of it was definitely was jealousy. Then
Speaker 3: I was like, okay, fine, there was no point in
Speaker 3: you telling me this, but now I'm about to make
Speaker 3: you feel some type of way.
Speaker 2: Let you feel that type of way.
Speaker 4: I'll say early on, early on, No, because I set
Speaker 4: her up on one of her days because we were friends.
Speaker 4: We were friends.
Speaker 1: So you mean even after you done poured your heart
Speaker 1: out sort of kind of ish, then you said, all right,
Speaker 1: I don't know what to do with it. So I'm
Speaker 1: gonna find you somebody else that knows what to do
Speaker 1: with how I feel about you.
Speaker 3: So I saw this person after a basketball game and
Speaker 3: I was walking like, okay, we're at a basketball game.
Speaker 3: We're leaving. We had all driven there together, and I
Speaker 3: go up to find money. I'm like, we're about to leave,
Speaker 3: and he was at the trunk with car with another individual,
Speaker 3: and so I walk up and I'm about to tell money.
Speaker 3: I'm like, hey, we're about to leave. This guy steps
Speaker 3: in front of money and says, hey, my name is whatever.
Speaker 3: I said, my name is Haley. The next day, I
Speaker 3: FaceTime money is in the morning and he did. He
Speaker 3: didn't have his headphones in and I didn't know who
Speaker 3: he was with, but I said, buddy from last night
Speaker 3: was fine, like, can you hook can you hook me up?
Speaker 3: He turns the camera around yes, and he heard it
Speaker 3: and he was like, so he sent me his number
Speaker 3: and I was.
Speaker 4: Like, okay, more the story didn't work out.
Speaker 3: This is where it really dawned on me my feels
Speaker 3: for him. When I was out on the date with
Speaker 3: this guy. The whole time I was thinking, if I
Speaker 3: kissed this man or it goes anywhere with this man,
Speaker 3: I would not have a chance with him.
Speaker 2: Is that true? For really?
Speaker 4: For sure? Why me and him were teammates. We played
Speaker 4: on the same basketball team together, Like you said, we
Speaker 4: was hanging out with me and him working. So if that,
Speaker 4: if they would have went any step further, they would
Speaker 4: have this wouldn't be it.
Speaker 1: So in your mind you already so even when you
Speaker 1: gave her the then you you literally said, if what
Speaker 1: she conducts herself in this lets.
Speaker 2: Me know what you've done.
Speaker 4: Lay you get fouled and hit two free throws. Either
Speaker 4: way it goes.
Speaker 3: You try to sabotize the day.
Speaker 4: Though I didn't try to sabotize.
Speaker 5: The day, but he tried to sabize.
Speaker 4: So I'll say it from my point of view the
Speaker 4: way Hailey says it is so like Haley said, we
Speaker 4: all hung out together all the time, not this guy. No, no, no.
Speaker 4: We had a group. It was four of us and
Speaker 4: we always hung out together. And on this particular day,
Speaker 4: which was today, she was going out on the date
Speaker 4: with the guy. Haley is am I the whole day,
Speaker 4: though not not just the night, she is the whole day.
Speaker 4: So me, I forgot that because she told me weeks
Speaker 4: before that they were going on the date. So it's
Speaker 4: maybe two weeks later. I don't forgot this ain't my date, right.
Speaker 4: So I'm with the other two people in our group
Speaker 4: and they're asking where Haley is. They're calling her. I'm
Speaker 4: calling her. She's not answer my phone call, she's not
Speaker 4: texting back. Even though she knows that I'm supposed to
Speaker 4: know where she's at, she's still not even telling me, like, hey,
Speaker 4: I'm with such and sing say nothing. So it dawned
Speaker 4: on me maybe like right before she was about to
Speaker 4: come back, and I was like, oh, I know where
Speaker 4: she's at. And I said it out loud to the
Speaker 4: other two in the group, and I was like, I
Speaker 4: wasn't supposed to tell y'all. Though I didn't say it
Speaker 4: to them, but I was like, I was not supposed
Speaker 4: to say it to y'all. And one of our friends
Speaker 4: called Haley calling her text in there you better not
Speaker 4: be with that man. You better not like she going in,
Speaker 4: I'm wow, why she hating?
Speaker 2: Let's just say this.
Speaker 3: There's time I went out with someone that was not black,
Speaker 3: and so she was like, ain't no way.
Speaker 1: And I'm.
Speaker 3: No, like, hold on, let me see. You weren'tupposed to
Speaker 3: know yet.
Speaker 2: It's a secret.
Speaker 4: Which that wasn't me though, it was God. And he
Speaker 4: brought us here. He brought us here, He brought us here.
Speaker 3: We wouldn't be here today anyway.
Speaker 1: I was just he said, you just said the name loud.
Speaker 2: Ye let me just calling. Oh that's hilarious.
Speaker 1: And so from that point on, how did it transition
Speaker 1: from that we friends? Straight platonic friends? Or were y'all
Speaker 1: kissing cousins? Okay, y'all just straight platonic friends? And then
Speaker 1: how did that? How did it transition?
Speaker 3: So fall of.
Speaker 1: Twenty nineteen, so how long is this from the from
Speaker 1: that conversation that he had how many months later?
Speaker 3: A couple of months because like it was right before summer.
Speaker 5: Yeah, didn't you tell him how the date went?
Speaker 3: I did. I did tell him how the date went.
Speaker 3: I think I went on a date like right after that,
Speaker 3: and I.
Speaker 4: Was like, yeah, because Haley. Haley was dating, but it
Speaker 4: was a It wasn't a thing of like how modern
Speaker 4: dating is now. You know, people go on dates. They
Speaker 4: you spend this money on me. I got to come
Speaker 4: back to.
Speaker 2: Your own though.
Speaker 4: Haley was send a long dissertation about what we are
Speaker 4: and are not doing and if you try to do
Speaker 4: these things, I'm going home.
Speaker 3: Because Okay.
Speaker 4: When she told me the message, I was like.
Speaker 5: The dat.
Speaker 3: I thought it was the craziest thing people out here thinking, Oh,
Speaker 3: you take me out on the date, you buy a cheeseburger,
Speaker 3: and you about to get something. I'm like, what is that?
Speaker 3: First of all? That right, it's crazy to me. So
Speaker 3: I'm like okay, And of course I'm like, of course,
Speaker 3: I'm sitting here like okay. I don't want there to
Speaker 3: be a misunderstanding when we go out. So one, I
Speaker 3: am expecting that you were coming to pick me up
Speaker 3: and you are paying for the date. That is like
Speaker 3: my thought process. So I want you to know when
Speaker 3: that is what my expectation is. But if you are
Speaker 3: expecting anything, I'm not even kissing you on the first day.
Speaker 3: I don't know where your lips been. I don't know
Speaker 3: you could have some stuff. I was so serious about it,
Speaker 3: so I always send a message if a guy asked
Speaker 3: me out. And it actually got to the point of like,
Speaker 3: this is the date that I want to come, this
Speaker 3: is what we want to do, I'm like, okay, I
Speaker 3: just need you to know these are my expectations and
Speaker 3: this is what I am not doing. So if that
Speaker 3: makes you uncomfortable, I don't then don't come. The ball
Speaker 3: is in your court, but it's for you to decide.
Speaker 3: And then I also put something in there. I do
Speaker 3: not care how great you think the date is going.
Speaker 3: Do not try me. Yes, I was, because that's how
Speaker 3: I fuck, and especially now, I think it'd be even
Speaker 3: worse today the way social media. But you literally told
Speaker 3: guys that they pay for your That was my expectation
Speaker 3: for sure.
Speaker 2: I'm not.
Speaker 3: I was. Look, I was always taught when it came
Speaker 3: to dating, Like the guy is coming to pick you up,
Speaker 3: he's not honking his horn. Now if they came and
Speaker 3: picked me up from like school, you can't come to
Speaker 3: my dorm room. So like, okay, you text me let
Speaker 3: me know you're there, but you're opening my car door.
Speaker 3: You are setting the date, you are telling me where
Speaker 3: we are going. You can ask me my interest, but
Speaker 3: you figure that out like that. Ain't got nothing to
Speaker 3: do with me. So what I need to figure out
Speaker 3: is what I'm wearing and I'm gonna just show up
Speaker 3: and have a good time.
Speaker 2: Who taught you to do that?
Speaker 3: I think I had everything to do with like the
Speaker 3: women of the church that I was going to at
Speaker 3: the time, because I remember like vividly, I was having
Speaker 3: a conversation one day with I call him Uncle John,
Speaker 3: and he was like, he said, whatever you do, don't
Speaker 3: date a boom, And so he started talking about like
Speaker 3: what a guy like which you should expect from a guy,
Speaker 3: but then his wife and his wife's sister and so on.
Speaker 3: We were like having more conversations. And this started when
Speaker 3: I was like my freshman year in high school. So
Speaker 3: I started being around more women who set expectations of
Speaker 3: what you should expect from a man, and more so
Speaker 3: along the lines of if you don't have these things
Speaker 3: and you don't have like a standard, there's not a
Speaker 3: goal anywhere, so they think they can give you just anything.
Speaker 3: So I was like, okay, so let's I could do that.
Speaker 3: I could do that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's good.
Speaker 1: And so you create these standards and guys will still
Speaker 1: trying to push the boundaries.
Speaker 2: And then and then how would you respond on the day?
Speaker 3: Oh no, you can get me home, Like did anyone
Speaker 3: ever not pay? Oh yes, yes, Oh my goodness, even
Speaker 3: though you told him what this This was the summer
Speaker 3: twenty nineteen. He wanted to go see the movie that
Speaker 3: just came out. It was Aladdin and it had Will
Speaker 3: Smith in it. And we get up there and he
Speaker 3: was like one ticket. I was shook. I was like,
Speaker 3: hold hold on. And this was an individual who had
Speaker 3: been trying to holler at me. I'm in college now.
Speaker 3: They've been trying to holler at me since high school.
Speaker 3: And I was just home for the summer. So I'm like,
Speaker 3: and this is what you're doing? Yeah home?
Speaker 4: And that was her last summer single.
Speaker 3: It was my last s was single.
Speaker 1: And so why is she telling you these stories about
Speaker 1: how guys were moving?
Speaker 2: What did you think about that? I don't know.
Speaker 4: I don't think in the moment, I don't think I
Speaker 4: was thinking anything of it. But I do think the
Speaker 4: distance during the summer made me reflect on what I
Speaker 4: really wanted and what I wanted after college because we
Speaker 4: were both going into our last year and I knew
Speaker 4: if I didn't capitalize on this when we went back,
Speaker 4: then that was gonna be it. Because she lived in
Speaker 4: Georgia and I was in North Carolina. It was like,
Speaker 4: when was I You thought about that? Yes, over the
Speaker 4: summer for sure?
Speaker 2: You said when we get back to school?
Speaker 4: When?
Speaker 2: When?
Speaker 4: When did we start day out? And when we got
Speaker 4: back September? When do you go back to college in August? Ye?
Speaker 4: So this was the thing because we talked almost every
Speaker 4: day over the summer because she you studied abroad in China,
Speaker 4: and we talked almost every day even though she was
Speaker 4: what was the time difference twelve hour or something like that.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, it was twelve hour time difference. And he
Speaker 3: was working third shifts, so he would call me on
Speaker 3: his breaks because it'll be during the day for me.
Speaker 3: It's crazy. Part is like we didn't talk at the
Speaker 3: beginning of the summer at all, Right, We didn't talk
Speaker 3: until like found out that it was like a rumor
Speaker 3: about us. So I was like, guess what, guess who
Speaker 3: apparently is together? And I texted him and told him
Speaker 3: that and then from that day forward.
Speaker 4: Her being in China, meet being in North Carolina, gets together.
Speaker 2: Really, there was a whole room about y'all being together.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, Yes, that was the whole Let's give
Speaker 3: him something to talk about in September, then.
Speaker 2: Give him something, And.
Speaker 1: So September came around, and so now he puts action
Speaker 1: behind the words that he spoke a few months prior.
Speaker 1: How did you receive that? Was you like, I don't
Speaker 1: know if he's still this player, I don't know? Or
Speaker 1: you again, when I asked you earlier, the fact that
Speaker 1: he was willing to commit to you, did you find
Speaker 1: that to be special? And he was like, well no,
Speaker 1: because I knew how he was, you know, I know
Speaker 1: as a.
Speaker 2: Friend, you knew where the bodies were buried.
Speaker 1: So when he steps to you in September, why did
Speaker 1: you take him seriously?
Speaker 3: Well? First I grilled him with questions because I was like,
Speaker 3: don't play with men.
Speaker 4: First off, she was excited asking these questions. She wasn't
Speaker 4: like this, but she was very excited.
Speaker 3: She started laughing, was like, stop playing. Yep, he said, no,
Speaker 3: I'm serious, because first of all, you would have thought
Speaker 3: he was about to tell me his cat died like
Speaker 3: the way he was approaching his conversation, he seemed really sad.
Speaker 3: He was so serious. I was like, what's going on?
Speaker 3: Like people, I thought, I'm bad happen? But then when
Speaker 3: he said it, I was like, I was like for real?
Speaker 3: He said yeah. I said, okay, hold on, like legitimately,
Speaker 3: you want to start dating now the way that I
Speaker 3: look at dating, like we are not in a relationship.
Speaker 3: We are taking our time to see if we want
Speaker 3: to have a relationship, but we're dating exclusively. That's what
Speaker 3: you're saying, he said, yeah. I said, okay, So if
Speaker 3: we take a picture together and I put it on
Speaker 3: Snapchat story or Instagrams or whatever, and somebody slides up
Speaker 3: and you know the ones I'm talking about, what is
Speaker 3: your response? And he starts laughing and I'm like, okay,
Speaker 3: hold on and what if? And I just start giving
Speaker 3: like so many because I want to be clear what
Speaker 3: is happening. I love good clear communication, clarity.
Speaker 4: Maybe she was clear, but not so clear because you
Speaker 4: know how all y'all said the dating like y'all are
Speaker 4: seeing it you on each other. Yeah, No, I meant
Speaker 4: we were together.
Speaker 2: We're together.
Speaker 4: That is because I said, this is my first one.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So when I asked that, I meant like, we are together?
Speaker 2: What you said? You said?
Speaker 1: And I was like, how she talking about we're going
Speaker 1: to go back to this other process in a way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he told how I felt.
Speaker 1: He said, I don't know what to do with these emotions.
Speaker 1: He spent the summer reflecting, thinking, found watch dating other folks,
Speaker 1: and then he said, listen, this is what I want
Speaker 1: to do.
Speaker 3: And You're like, Dayton, because I did take into the
Speaker 3: consideration that, like, you've never been in a relationship with
Speaker 3: so are you sure that this is really what you want?
Speaker 2: Are you?
Speaker 3: I'm like, are you sure you want to be committed
Speaker 3: to one person? I'm sitting here. I didn't know and
Speaker 3: I didn't find out until I think it was two
Speaker 3: weeks in. Somebody he introduced me to somebody That's what
Speaker 3: it was on campus because he was everybody's ran on
Speaker 3: campus and he was like, Oh, whoever this person was,
Speaker 3: this is my girlfriend, Hailey. I said, oh, that's me.
Speaker 7: When we do that, that's what okay.
Speaker 2: Do that.
Speaker 3: I don't remember that, I said, you didn't ask me?
Speaker 3: He said, what are you talking about? I was like, no,
Speaker 3: that's not what you said.
Speaker 4: So that's another two dates we have because you'll say
Speaker 4: we got together in October, and.
Speaker 1: I'm like, we got to get September. It was September.
Speaker 1: So you was expecting will you go with me yes
Speaker 1: or no type of question because you said.
Speaker 3: Yes because I looked, I look, are we dating? Are
Speaker 3: we in a relationship? Because dating can be dating exclusively
Speaker 3: or dating multi what is happening? So that's where my
Speaker 3: questions were geared towards that evening. So when he didn't say, oh, no,
Speaker 3: I want a relationship, what did you said?
Speaker 2: Remember saying money?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 4: I do, Yeah, I do remember saying exclusively talking. I'm
Speaker 4: pretty sure that's that's what we use.
Speaker 2: Exclusively talking.
Speaker 4: Yes, And that's probably where the miscommunication came in at
Speaker 4: because when I when I said exclusively talking, I meant
Speaker 4: we are together. I ain't talk.
Speaker 1: I don't want to talk about this because I was
Speaker 1: talking to my nephew son about this yesterday.
Speaker 2: According I want to hear both of y'all's.
Speaker 1: Chronology of what exclusivity or this say from marriage. So
Speaker 1: I want y'all to go from all the way. I
Speaker 1: ain't gonna start off with the first word, but whatever
Speaker 1: that word.
Speaker 2: Is, then this and then this and then this and
Speaker 2: this and this all the way to marriage. What are
Speaker 2: those stages?
Speaker 4: So nahen would be first see what she says.
Speaker 2: I want to see what she thinks.
Speaker 3: Sorry, ideally, like if I know you friendship, dating in
Speaker 3: the marriage or relationship the marriage. I don't like the
Speaker 3: whole talking thing because what is that?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 3: Did y'all just change the word for dating?
Speaker 2: So no, no engagement then just just talking and their marriage?
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, give me every.
Speaker 3: Step okay, okay, so friendship, dating, relationship, engagement, marriage, All.
Speaker 2: Right, what do you say?
Speaker 4: So I would have said dating because I wouldn't even
Speaker 4: thought about friendship. If it's two people who don't even yeah,
Speaker 4: I would have said dating, relationship, engagement marriage.
Speaker 2: What would you say?
Speaker 1: Ooh?
Speaker 5: I would have said friendship. Then I would have I think,
Speaker 5: I say it, don't worry about them, No, definitely friendship first.
Speaker 5: Then I would say, there's this conversation that shifts the
Speaker 5: friendship to dating. So I don't want to skip that
Speaker 5: because that's a pivotal moment. I called that like a
Speaker 5: like an AHA moment. All yes, the friendship, then you
Speaker 5: got to have the aha moment. Then you you start
Speaker 5: you know, dating. Now you set your intentions hopefully in
Speaker 5: that aha moment and both parties have a greed. So
Speaker 5: now we're dating. But I for me, you know, I
Speaker 5: like it to be a relationship. So at the point
Speaker 5: that we're dating, it's just going to be me. So
Speaker 5: I don't know if that's dating and relationship because I'm
Speaker 5: processing this out loud.
Speaker 3: Let's go to you.
Speaker 1: I believe friendship, dating none exclusively, dating exclusively, engagement marriage.
Speaker 1: And so that's because I believe that in the friendship
Speaker 1: you're having a conversation is getting the chance to know
Speaker 1: whether that's somebody you want to be with.
Speaker 2: Then you're dating none exclusively, that.
Speaker 1: Person as a friend can be a part of that
Speaker 1: along with other people. Then you start saying, hey, listen,
Speaker 1: I want you now, I'm exclusive with you. I don't
Speaker 1: believe me personally, that's just how I roll. I don't
Speaker 1: believe you should get exclusive with anybody unless you feel
Speaker 1: like that's the person you want to marry. And so
Speaker 1: because you just exclusive for what you just I just
Speaker 1: took you off the market so your husband can't find you.
Speaker 4: What do you take.
Speaker 2: I said.
Speaker 1: It's this funny meme that went viral during COVID it
Speaker 1: said men be like, get dressed so I can take
Speaker 1: you for granted.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so, and that's one thing I definitely believe if
Speaker 5: it's gonna be if we're going to have the title
Speaker 5: of a relationship, it's got to have intentions, and the
Speaker 5: intention has to be we're trying to see if we
Speaker 5: can make marriage of a thing.
Speaker 1: And then I also think too based on age, because
Speaker 1: I don't expect Ladarian at seventeen years old to be
Speaker 1: talking about I'm exclusive with her.
Speaker 2: That means I'm gonna marry her. You're exclusive with her.
Speaker 1: So you ain't distracted, y'all be together, especially talking about
Speaker 1: college age and young people whatever.
Speaker 5: What age would you say that is that it shifts after.
Speaker 1: Well depends on your maturity level. But when you start
Speaker 1: learning that you desire marriage and you want to be married,
Speaker 1: then that can happen at Because I had Kaitlin and
Speaker 1: Kiro that was on the podcast, It were nineteen years
Speaker 1: old when they got married. You know, it's people that
Speaker 1: had that got married young in their twenties.
Speaker 2: They know Josh and Jalika. Josh, how was Josh twenty one?
Speaker 1: Yeah, ye, twenty one, and he like, this is what
Speaker 1: I want to do, you know, and so it just
Speaker 1: depends on when you know who you are and know
Speaker 1: what God's word is over your life, then you I
Speaker 1: need my purpose partner, because I always know that a
Speaker 1: lot of men when they prolonged marriage, it's.
Speaker 2: Like they matter of fact, I'm not gonna say that yet.
Speaker 1: We're gonna talk about it because I want to know
Speaker 1: what happened to this player that made him decide to
Speaker 1: say I want to be exclusive with this woman and
Speaker 1: then the maturation phase of marriage.
Speaker 2: So I don't want to give that out just yet,
Speaker 2: and I will cover this.
Speaker 4: I was gonna say to what you were saying that
Speaker 4: I knew I wanted to be with her, but like
Speaker 4: I said, I didn't. I hadn't any marriage, no, So
Speaker 4: I didn't even think about marriage at all. That was
Speaker 4: not nothing I thought about. It was just I knew
Speaker 4: I wanted to be with you, and as time progressed
Speaker 4: and we started growing closer together, I knew I wanted
Speaker 4: to be with you forever. So and I know how
Speaker 4: much she talked about marriage, I'm like, well, if this
Speaker 4: is something that I'm going to do, then I know
Speaker 4: that I need to be married. So that is that
Speaker 4: is kind of how early on the marriage phase came
Speaker 4: up for our relationship because I wasn't I wasn't hip
Speaker 4: to this at all. No, this wasn't something that I.
Speaker 2: Wasn't even him to commitment. No, I wouldn't think about it.
Speaker 1: That's why I said, it's a beautiful maturation that you
Speaker 1: went through because you like, no, nobody can't even say
Speaker 1: that I'm their man. And then something God woke something
Speaker 1: up in you where you said, I want to.
Speaker 2: Be with you right right, I want you to be
Speaker 2: my girlfriend.
Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: So that's a that's a hard pill to swallow. And
Speaker 1: then the fact that you said it before she said it,
Speaker 1: you introduced her as such. That's a whole different level
Speaker 1: of declaration from a man speaking a word to say,
Speaker 1: this is my girlfriend, right, you.
Speaker 2: Know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: And she looking like hold on, when if that happened?
Speaker 1: You're like, well, it happened and stuff, and she like,
Speaker 1: I don't know. But the fact that you knew what
Speaker 1: you wanted her to be and spoke about it, So
Speaker 1: what happened from that moment you had a clarifying conversation
Speaker 1: after that encounter with the person on the yard and
Speaker 1: then what happened you was like, okay, we cool, Yeah,
Speaker 1: we go together real bad.
Speaker 3: I was like, okay, okay, this is not in I
Speaker 3: will say like. I didn't tell nobody for a minute though,
Speaker 3: why because I just I think another part of me
Speaker 3: was like, are you I just need to make sure
Speaker 3: you for real, like you serious? Because so put.
Speaker 1: Context around here, because people may see this nice, safe,
Speaker 1: sanctified man right here. But he was a start for
Speaker 1: a basketball player. So let's so let's let's talk about
Speaker 1: Let's put context around.
Speaker 3: Let's talk about it. Yeah, okay, another thing, another thing
Speaker 3: I knew so being that I knew money beforehand. I
Speaker 3: knew that he was a very genuine person and I
Speaker 3: really appreciated how he carried himself. And he is somebody
Speaker 3: he cannot be pressured into anything if he does not
Speaker 3: want to do it, if he has not made his
Speaker 3: mind up about it, he will not do it, no
Speaker 3: matter who wants him to do the thing. So there
Speaker 3: was a certain level of comfort in knowing that. But
Speaker 3: then I'm also thinking back to the fact that like
Speaker 3: for starters, you've been out here in any streets. I
Speaker 3: ain't out here any streets, and on top of that,
Speaker 3: you've never been committed, so are you Are you sure
Speaker 3: this is what you want? Are you sure that you
Speaker 3: are good with cutting everything else off and it's just
Speaker 3: you and me? So I think a big portion of
Speaker 3: it had to do with the fact that, like I was,
Speaker 3: I was in it, but I was also waiting for
Speaker 3: the shoe to drop, and that was my thing. I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 3: we're going, We're gonna see it because what you're not
Speaker 3: don't don't make me look crazy out here any streets now,
Speaker 3: because like I said, that summer, there was already a
Speaker 3: rumor and I'm like, no, I'm not with this man.
Speaker 3: And now I'm with this man.
Speaker 4: So I'm like.
Speaker 9: This.
Speaker 4: And early on I posted her in October. In October
Speaker 4: actually right away, I honestly don't even know. Like thinking back,
Speaker 4: I'm like, I knew that, I knew that this was
Speaker 4: my girlfriend. Like I said, I said that early on,
Speaker 4: And a lot of things that I've seen is like
Speaker 4: people are proud of and we talked about this recently,
Speaker 4: proud of our accomplishments, things that we've done, just in everything,
Speaker 4: and whenever we are proud of them, we post them
Speaker 4: to teach. So whenever, I was like, I'm proud of
Speaker 4: who my girlfriend is. So whenever we after our first date,
Speaker 4: I posted it my girl and it was our first date.
Speaker 3: But everybody he had on his socials with North Carolina,
Speaker 3: so I was like, oh, none of my people don't
Speaker 3: see that.
Speaker 2: That's the one.
Speaker 3: I was proud. I just wanted to be sure you
Speaker 3: was gonna last.
Speaker 4: Am I still get.
Speaker 2: Change my name?
Speaker 5: And but I just understand that because I was the
Speaker 5: same way.
Speaker 3: I don't.
Speaker 5: I think when things are on social media that is
Speaker 5: very public and germanent, and so I kind of agree,
Speaker 5: like you want to make sure that what you're posting
Speaker 5: on social media is going to last, because it's definitely
Speaker 5: going to live forever.
Speaker 1: But Money said, hey, I love that you have to
Speaker 1: clean up any past residue. So when you decide to
Speaker 1: be with her, you made sure all hearts and minds
Speaker 1: were clear.
Speaker 2: Yep, and you have you have to deal with none
Speaker 2: of that foolishness.
Speaker 3: I was actually surprised because I was. I was because
Speaker 3: another thing that I was just thinking about was when
Speaker 3: it came to like communication, conflict resolution, all of these
Speaker 3: other things that they say and people tell you all
Speaker 3: the time, like oh, you don't know until you get
Speaker 3: in a relationship. Your first relationship is probably not going
Speaker 3: to be like the one you got to learn. These
Speaker 3: things have experience and you ain't got none of that.
Speaker 3: So in my head, I'm sitting here thinking like, oh
Speaker 3: my gosh, we ain't had an argument yet. We ain't
Speaker 3: had like real conflict yet. In a friendship we have,
Speaker 3: but in a relationship, I don't know how you are.
Speaker 3: So I was a little bit worried that with that
Speaker 3: lack of experience, since you already had a lack of
Speaker 3: commit with everybody, you could just walk away. Is that
Speaker 3: going to be something that you do? So I was
Speaker 3: pleasantly surprised in a lot of situations where he was
Speaker 3: just kind of willing to grow and improve, and I'm like,
Speaker 3: I ain't get no kind of push back, Like now
Speaker 3: what he was saying earlier about being avoidant, that was
Speaker 3: something that we had to discuss. I think that was
Speaker 3: probably one of the longest things for it, Like to
Speaker 3: learn in our relationship is like, look, I can give
Speaker 3: you some time, but I ain't give you two weeks
Speaker 3: of again because I need I need solutions.
Speaker 4: Oh my god, and how to talk about oh yeah,
Speaker 4: to talk to each other there, yes or something we
Speaker 4: tackled early on, I.
Speaker 3: Didn't realize like I could be so I'm somebody like
Speaker 3: I've never cussed, I never do anything like. I don't
Speaker 3: like I could debate you. I could be I could
Speaker 3: debate you down, okay, But I was like, I'm not
Speaker 3: going to do that to money. And I thought because
Speaker 3: I wasn't like this aggressive person with him, that I
Speaker 3: was good. And then one day he looked at me.
Speaker 3: Were having a conversation and he left. Actually we had
Speaker 3: a conversation, he kind of got quiet, and then later
Speaker 3: on that day we talked again and he was like,
Speaker 3: I didn't appreciate that when we were talking about this earlier,
Speaker 3: we didn't agree, and you talked to me like I
Speaker 3: was a child. And I started to notice because he
Speaker 3: this wasn't the first time, but I had never noticed
Speaker 3: it before, so I started to notice it more after that.
Speaker 3: And he was like, you do it a lot and
Speaker 3: I don't like it. And in my head I'm like, well,
Speaker 3: I'm not yelling, I'm not cussing. I'm like, I didn't realize.
Speaker 3: I didn't realize, like I take that tone of like
Speaker 3: like I'm talking to a kindergartener when I'm mad, and
Speaker 3: I'm like, oh, okay, I need to work on that. So,
Speaker 3: like he was saying, we had to learn how the
Speaker 3: person best receives or not conflict, but like criticism or
Speaker 3: if you disagree. So I'm like, okay, I gotta I
Speaker 3: got to work on my tone all right.
Speaker 4: And I had to learn that she is not one
Speaker 4: of my homeboys. So a lot of times, when you know,
Speaker 4: guys are watching the game or something, it's like the
Speaker 4: loudest person talks. So a lot of times when I
Speaker 4: would think something and she's in the middle of saying
Speaker 4: something to me, I'm just gonna spit out what I
Speaker 4: have to say, and now she isn't even finishing the thought,
Speaker 4: and it makes it seem like I'm not even listening
Speaker 4: or character listen to what she has to say. So
Speaker 4: we had to tackle that early on because I would
Speaker 4: be like, well, no, I didn't mean that. I meant this,
Speaker 4: and she hadn't even finished.
Speaker 5: I'm like, God, that's good.
Speaker 1: And it's interesting that you pointed out like how you
Speaker 1: would talk to a man, because a man never says
Speaker 1: let me finish talking like a man. You're interrupting me.
Speaker 1: A man would never say that, Man, you're not letting
Speaker 1: me finish my thoughts. We just talked over We over
Speaker 1: talk each other cool. We understand which one of the
Speaker 1: things I had to learn. I come from a family.
Speaker 1: It's seven of us, so mom and dad five, it
Speaker 1: was five kids, and we would just all talk over
Speaker 1: each other and we could all everybody get that point across.
Speaker 2: We can all talk. It'd be loud.
Speaker 1: But then being married, I recognized that if I try
Speaker 1: that with her, she'd be like, you're not letting me finish,
Speaker 1: And I'm like, just talk like we'll talk while I'm talking.
Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying. It's like, it's.
Speaker 1: You have to learn the skill set of communication, like
Speaker 1: y'all said, to allow the other person to receive it
Speaker 1: the way that's best suited for them. Instead of saying
Speaker 1: I was raised, like we all just talked together. You
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, That's just that's just how it
Speaker 1: is or whatnot. But it's good that y'all tackled that
Speaker 1: early on. Was that in y'all dating, relationship or marriage?
Speaker 3: I think I think we really honed in on it
Speaker 3: after we got engaged, because it's my premial counsel wasn't coming,
Speaker 3: Like I was excited to do premial counselor, and it
Speaker 3: was it coming until I think it was like ten
Speaker 3: weeks out from our wedding day. But we were planning
Speaker 3: for over years. I was like, what are we gonna do?
Speaker 3: We need like, let's do some stuff. So, like I
Speaker 3: started like doing so much research about conflicts and marriage,
Speaker 3: the reasons like top reasons for divorce, things like that,
Speaker 3: and I made a journal and we went to like target.
Speaker 3: He got his journal, I got mine. And one of
Speaker 3: the things that kept coming up was communication while we're researching.
Speaker 3: So it came like a bunch of subsections and one
Speaker 3: of them was the question was like how do you
Speaker 3: best receive criticism? And so we had to kind of
Speaker 3: sit there and sit with that. And when that came up,
Speaker 3: the conversation that we had previously about him not liking
Speaker 3: like how talking had already happened before, but when we
Speaker 3: started doing that, it was like, okay, he like I
Speaker 3: have to sit here and say, oh, I like it
Speaker 3: best when like if I've done something, talk to me
Speaker 3: in this way. And I had to be able to
Speaker 3: put words to it because I can't just be mad
Speaker 3: at you if I can't even articulate what I want
Speaker 3: you to do, and I'm like, okay, I got to
Speaker 3: put words to it, and him doing the same. So
Speaker 3: when we came back together and had this conversation about it,
Speaker 3: I was like, Okay, we could do this. But I
Speaker 3: do think that the reason why we probably communicated about
Speaker 3: it in a non like blowing up type of way
Speaker 3: earlier on had a lot to do with the fact
Speaker 3: that we were used to being in households where everybody
Speaker 3: is like blowing up at each other. So it's like
Speaker 3: that's the one thing that we did not want to
Speaker 3: have in our relationship, but we didn't fine tune that
Speaker 3: and really figure it out. And it's something that has
Speaker 3: continued to like change and grow though like it started
Speaker 3: with that journal, but we've had this conversation like, well
Speaker 3: after marriage and then updating things as things like have changed.
Speaker 5: That's good.
Speaker 2: That's good.
Speaker 1: So you were that intentional about So his mindset was
Speaker 1: never saw marriage, never heard the ogs talk about the
Speaker 1: value of marriage.
Speaker 2: What was your upbringing, What were you taught or not taught?
Speaker 3: I was not taught to be a wife. I was
Speaker 3: not taught to really like value men. I guess or
Speaker 3: how a man could be in my life. I was
Speaker 3: very much like, I can do bad all by myself.
Speaker 3: I need to figure it out. Ain't nobody got my
Speaker 3: back with me kind of thing. My mom was a
Speaker 3: single mom before, so I watched her do everything, and
Speaker 3: then when being in relationships, I'm still watching her carry
Speaker 3: at all. So it was one of those things like
Speaker 3: not only having to see her carry it, but I
Speaker 3: think it was a big thing where I internalized, like
Speaker 3: I'm hearing what she says about men and with her
Speaker 3: how her relationships are going, and I'm like, okay, that's
Speaker 3: shaping it. But also I'm internalizing like I can't depend y'all.
Speaker 3: Y'all really bumped out her, I can't do this, So
Speaker 3: I'm like, I gotta have me, and that's I really,
Speaker 3: I don't know. I didn't. I didn't ever expect that
Speaker 3: I would have the marriage that I have today, And
Speaker 3: I think because of what I saw it was like
Speaker 3: and a value in that like and then also coming
Speaker 3: from a family of most of the women in my
Speaker 3: family they're not married, and then like these are open
Speaker 3: conversation that we have had or they're like, this is
Speaker 3: my old lady and where it's like, Okay, you get
Speaker 3: that tide, but you'll never get this side of wife.
Speaker 3: But I'm seeing them, yes, I'm seeing everybody not I'm
Speaker 3: seeing a lot of women not being valued, not being
Speaker 3: taken care of. So it's like, I need to be
Speaker 3: able to do this. I need to have my own job.
Speaker 3: If that's two jobs, I got to have two jobs.
Speaker 3: I need to pay for my own car, my own house,
Speaker 3: and I also need to be able to hold it down,
Speaker 3: which it translated very aggressively, and I didn't realize that
Speaker 3: at first. I had a lot of like my one
Speaker 3: of my closest friends are my bonus mom doc. They
Speaker 3: would say all the time. In my first relationship, they're like,
Speaker 3: you're so mean to him, and I'm like, no, I'm not.
Speaker 3: But I also wasn't emotionally available, and I always had
Speaker 3: in my head like I can't really rely on you
Speaker 3: and I don't want you to think that I need you,
Speaker 3: so I'm not going to give that to you. And
Speaker 3: that that was that was hard. I don't think that
Speaker 3: my mindset shifted in desiring to be married until we
Speaker 3: got together and maybe like a year and a half
Speaker 3: of being like being together because I will say this,
Speaker 3: I am not like a serial dater type of person
Speaker 3: as far as relationships, like, I'm not jumping in a
Speaker 3: relationship here there in the third I want something. I
Speaker 3: want something serious. I'm not playing these games with you.
Speaker 3: But I also was not like, Okay, we're going to
Speaker 3: get married within this timeframe, by this age, we have
Speaker 3: these kids. And so when we started dating and about
Speaker 3: a year in, a year and a half in, I
Speaker 3: was like, you know.
Speaker 4: What, I changed your mind.
Speaker 3: Because after I got out of the phase of waiting
Speaker 3: for the other shoot to drop, I'm like, you know what,
Speaker 3: I can see you.
Speaker 5: So a lot of women, I think, deal with this
Speaker 5: because it's there's a trust issue. And so walk women
Speaker 5: who may be even going through this now, and just
Speaker 5: like they have their guard up, they're like, you know what,
Speaker 5: I can take care of myself, and they haven't fully
Speaker 5: submitted or surrendered to the process of being with their
Speaker 5: purpose partner. What would you say that that's good?
Speaker 3: Ooh, that is good? I would, honestly, I would start
Speaker 3: out with at some point I had to learn to
Speaker 3: trust myself and who I chose to be with. I
Speaker 3: think that is a big thing because when you grow
Speaker 3: up seeing people make decisions that you're like, why would
Speaker 3: you do this or why would you be with that person?
Speaker 3: I think a part of it comes to be like,
Speaker 3: am I making that same decision and I'm just not
Speaker 3: seeing it? Because I can see that this is a
Speaker 3: bad decision, but I'm wondering, why can't you see it?
Speaker 3: So a part of me is like, can I even
Speaker 3: trust the decisions that I'm making with the person that
Speaker 3: I'm being with? And once I kind of got past
Speaker 3: that hurdle, I started to realize, I'm like, what do
Speaker 3: I want in a partner? And with the things that
Speaker 3: I want, I want you to be able to trust me.
Speaker 3: I want you to be able to be vulnerable with me,
Speaker 3: to be able to open up to me, and I
Speaker 3: want to be that friend for you. So how can
Speaker 3: I desire those things for myself? But I'm not willing
Speaker 3: to give that to you. I'm afraid of vulnerability while
Speaker 3: I'm asking you to be vulnerable to me, And that part,
Speaker 3: I think that was probably the hardest thing for me
Speaker 3: to really get over, cause when it comes to I
Speaker 3: was scared of vulnerability, like all I'd ever seen is
Speaker 3: people take advantage of it, And so I had this mindset.
Speaker 3: At one point, I said, you know what, even if
Speaker 3: I'm vulnerable with you and you know that I love you,
Speaker 3: it is my choice to allow you to take advantage
Speaker 3: of that. So my vulnerability is not going to be
Speaker 3: my weakness. It is going to be my strength. But
Speaker 3: I had to, like I had to tell myself that,
Speaker 3: and it wasn't like an overnight thing. It wasn't like
Speaker 3: now I know this, Okay, I'm going to do it.
Speaker 3: Like it was a continuous step every step of the
Speaker 3: way of like, Okay, I can trust him with this, Oh,
Speaker 3: I can trust him with that, and slowly but surely,
Speaker 3: like I'm breaking my walls down, especially when it came
Speaker 3: to like having your guard up and not really having
Speaker 3: a consistent and strong father figure showing you what it
Speaker 3: means to really be taken care of in a way
Speaker 3: that or how you should be taken care of, how
Speaker 3: you should be loved. So like I'm trying to figure
Speaker 3: it out, like I'm putting the pieces together and I
Speaker 3: don't have the whole picture, but it's like, okay, take
Speaker 3: it step by step. So I think one of the
Speaker 3: biggest things, one of the biggest things I would say
Speaker 3: is one learn to trust yourself, but not in a
Speaker 3: way where you're fooling yourself either, because I do think
Speaker 3: it's very easy to lie to yourself. It's very easy
Speaker 3: to say, well, I've never had something this good growing up,
Speaker 3: so this has to be like, it's better than this
Speaker 3: has to be good when the reality of it is no. Like,
Speaker 3: just because it's better than what you saw does not
Speaker 3: mean it's the thing that you need to keep around,
Speaker 3: because that thing can break you. So at the end
Speaker 3: of the day, I really started taking notes about I
Speaker 3: go back to what Uncle John said he was giving, well,
Speaker 3: not even just what he was like a conversation that
Speaker 3: he was having with me, but I started watching marriages
Speaker 3: that I could tell we're good marriages, and the way
Speaker 3: that he was with his wife, the way that he
Speaker 3: was with his daughters, the way like I just was
Speaker 3: really okay, I can I can see and it wasn't
Speaker 3: in a belittling kind of way. But I also noticed
Speaker 3: that she was not tearing him down either, like they
Speaker 3: could have open disagreements in front of people, and it
Speaker 3: just looked like a simple conversation. It's like, oh, you
Speaker 3: know what, you're right Like now, I took me a
Speaker 3: minute to figure that out when I got in a relationship.
Speaker 3: But those are things, like those were nuggets that I
Speaker 3: was taking in And I'm like, you need to surround
Speaker 3: yourself with other married people that are healthy, Like you
Speaker 3: need to see something that is good, because so many
Speaker 3: people take what they see and like this is that's
Speaker 3: bad and like applied across the board when that's not
Speaker 3: the case.
Speaker 1: I want to give the definition because you touched on
Speaker 1: walking in vulnerability and you said being able to be
Speaker 1: vulnerable and if you are hurt in the process, then
Speaker 1: basically that your responsibility is vulnerability. Vulnerable means being exposed
Speaker 1: to the possible ability of being physically, emotionally or mentally harmed, attacked,
Speaker 1: or influenced. It's derived from the Latin word vulneraire, meaning
Speaker 1: to wound. It describes someone or something that lacks protection,
Speaker 1: is defenseless, or is highly susceptible to damage. And isn't
Speaker 1: that amazing that we have to allow ourselves to be vulnerable.
Speaker 1: And the fear that you had was, ooh, if you
Speaker 1: hurt me, ooh, if the shoe drops, Ooh, if you
Speaker 1: leave me, ooh if I put my heart in your
Speaker 1: hands and you do me wrong, and that's the key
Speaker 1: that we have to operate in in order for love
Speaker 1: to flourish. Jesus Christ, the Bible says that he didn't
Speaker 1: They didn't take his life.
Speaker 2: He gave his life. He became vulnerable.
Speaker 1: He just said, here, you can't just you can't kill
Speaker 1: a savior unless he allows you to kill him. He says,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be vulnerable to y'all. And that's what birthed
Speaker 1: our salvation. And so kudos, first of all, brilliant question
Speaker 1: Ashley to even ask her that question, because a lot
Speaker 1: of men may meet a woman that has been raised
Speaker 1: a certain way and be like mm hmm, she too
Speaker 1: much work, and they just give up.
Speaker 2: They be like, I'm not going to deal with that.
Speaker 1: So my question you money, is were you aware of
Speaker 1: that when you were seeing that, when you were seeing
Speaker 1: those characteristics, in those those traits that she had. What
Speaker 1: how did you internalize it the traits when she was
Speaker 1: when she was coming at you, where she felt like
Speaker 1: she got this wall up, she wouldn't let you penetrate.
Speaker 1: She's not speaking about marriage early on, she's just like, hey,
Speaker 1: i'm chilling. You probably ain't thinking about marriage either, like
Speaker 1: you said, So you're like, this is good.
Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying. So I was just I
Speaker 4: would say, I was just going with the flow, but
Speaker 4: still being the best person I knew to be, because,
Speaker 4: like I said, I didn't know anything about marriage or
Speaker 4: how a husband was supposed to act to a wife,
Speaker 4: but I knew how I was supposed to act as
Speaker 4: a person. So I knew that I was going to
Speaker 4: treat her at the best way I knew how, and
Speaker 4: I did. I feel like I did that already in
Speaker 4: our friendship as a friend, Yeah, And I feel like
Speaker 4: it just intensified whenever we got together. It was like, oh, okay,
Speaker 4: so you I know I heard you talk about wanting
Speaker 4: this beforehand when you were going out on dates. Well,
Speaker 4: I am your your partner now, so I'm going to
Speaker 4: do these things that I heard you talk about last
Speaker 4: summer and last seme that's when we were in school.
Speaker 4: So I just picked up on the things that I
Speaker 4: heard her talk about that she would wanting a partner,
Speaker 4: and I just tackled. I did all of those things
Speaker 4: that she was asking for.
Speaker 3: I didn't scare you at all.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was about saying that it didn't scare you when
Speaker 1: she started acting a certain way.
Speaker 4: You know why I don't because I think if it
Speaker 4: would have scared me, I never would have asked her
Speaker 4: in the first place to be with me, because I
Speaker 4: was I was already at a place where it's like,
Speaker 4: this is something I want and it's something I want
Speaker 4: to obtain, So I'm going to do this and whatever
Speaker 4: it takes to have her with me for the rest
Speaker 4: of my life, I'm willing to do that.
Speaker 2: Really, Yes, for sure, yea.
Speaker 4: Even with like helping her with She was trying to
Speaker 4: go to law school at first, and I'm like, well,
Speaker 4: you might as well go next year. So she got
Speaker 4: an apartment in Winston dating while we were dating, Like
Speaker 4: we got our bachelors. We got our bachelors the same year,
Speaker 4: but it was COVID, so she stayed in Georgia. I
Speaker 4: was in North Carolina, and I'm like, well, you want
Speaker 4: to get your masters, you want to go to wake
Speaker 4: for us, you might as well go ahead up there
Speaker 4: and go ahead move in. It was only two hours
Speaker 4: away from me, and she was four and a half
Speaker 4: hours away from me in George, Georgia. Yes, so then
Speaker 4: we spent a lot more time together. She would come
Speaker 4: down or I would go up and I think we
Speaker 4: kind of built a stronger connection then up until the
Speaker 4: point we got engaged, which is a day that she
Speaker 4: feels like she almost ruined anyway.
Speaker 3: But I'm gonna be honest, I don't know how like
Speaker 3: your patience, what.
Speaker 2: Happened happened, what happened on Engage.
Speaker 4: To make a long story short, I knew what I
Speaker 4: was going to do. I didn't know how to do it.
Speaker 4: As I've said before, I didn't know any drawn out
Speaker 4: like get a venue, whatever, the all the stuff. No,
Speaker 4: I just I did New Year's. My cousin has a
Speaker 4: New Year apart New Year's paraty every year. At this
Speaker 4: point in time, Haley really wasn't wanting to do anything
Speaker 4: for New Years. But I was like, you're really gonna
Speaker 4: have fun. You're gonna have fun, You're gonna love, You're
Speaker 4: gonna enjoy it. And she woke up the next day
Speaker 4: and was like, oh, we can't go because my clothes
Speaker 4: are in Winston. And I'm like, oh, okay, put some
Speaker 4: clothes on, let's go. Once is two hours away, so
Speaker 4: she's thinking, we drive the Winston two hours, we drive back,
Speaker 4: nobody's gonna want to go. We come back, so it's
Speaker 4: four hour.
Speaker 1: We spent on the road four hours just to.
Speaker 4: Get an outfit. And she's like, I'm tired. I want
Speaker 4: to take a nap. I let it take a nap.
Speaker 4: She gets up and she sees it, I'm getting ready.
Speaker 4: What are you doing? The party starts in like two hours.
Speaker 4: We went got them clothes, it's time to put them on.
Speaker 4: This whole time, she is like dreading it, like I
Speaker 4: don't want to go, Like I want to stay here.
Speaker 4: Why can't we just spend it here together? And whenever
Speaker 4: she saw me down on one knee at twelve o'clock,
Speaker 4: she just started bawling because all she could think about
Speaker 4: was how well she says is I don't I didn't
Speaker 4: really take it take offense to it because I knew
Speaker 4: what I was gonna do that night. But she just
Speaker 4: felt bad because of how she was that then. I
Speaker 4: I was just like, I know you're gonna have fun.
Speaker 4: Like every time she said something, I was like, you're
Speaker 4: gonna enjoy it. I feel like.
Speaker 3: I know this man really loved me because I was mean,
Speaker 3: that was a great that was a great version. I
Speaker 3: was mean, I know I was I did not want
Speaker 3: to I said no, it was to the point to
Speaker 3: where he was like, we're gonna have a good We're
Speaker 3: gonna have a good time. I said, I bet you
Speaker 3: I won't.
Speaker 4: She definitely said that because I'm I'm at home, but.
Speaker 3: I'm let me say at the house, I don't want
Speaker 3: you go you have fun. I'm stay here.
Speaker 2: I don't want to be around you.
Speaker 3: I bet you one hundred dollars.
Speaker 1: He said, I'm not going to enjoy myself. I don't
Speaker 1: want to told you to the party without you. So
Speaker 1: so you the type if you say I don't want
Speaker 1: to go, you don't try to handcuff.
Speaker 2: Him and staying, do you.
Speaker 3: Because he's an extrovert in the relationship, I am like,
Speaker 3: I'm okay with being at the house, but I also
Speaker 3: don't feel like I trust you, and I wouldn't be
Speaker 3: in a relationship with you if I don't trust you.
Speaker 3: So go have fun. But you're also not in questionable environments,
Speaker 3: like you don't put yourself positions to make me question you.
Speaker 3: And he's very transparent before things happen. He's like, we
Speaker 3: have a conversations, so go have fun. I'm here, I'm
Speaker 3: be sleep probably or watch it or watching something that
Speaker 3: you don't want to watch with me, but I'm gonna
Speaker 3: have a good time.
Speaker 1: You said something powerful. You say he doesn't put himself
Speaker 1: in questionable environment.
Speaker 4: That's good, Yes, And I was gonna say that. I
Speaker 4: don't even like After we got together, I stopped going out.
Speaker 4: I didn't go out to clubs or bars anymore with
Speaker 4: my friends. I just kind of stayed back behind because
Speaker 4: I felt like people are going out to try to
Speaker 4: get the different girls and mingle and do stuff. And
Speaker 4: why am I paying money to go watch a friend
Speaker 4: try to mingle with a girl like that. That just
Speaker 4: does not make sense. And I don't drink, never have drunk,
Speaker 4: So you can't even say a thing of like social
Speaker 4: drinking because I don't do it. And I can see
Speaker 4: if it was a thing where I did drink, but
Speaker 4: I don't. So it's like, what am I. I'm gonna
Speaker 4: stay at home with the person I'm with. I don't
Speaker 4: have to watch y'all do this tell me about it afterwards.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So did y'all feel like y'all are missing anything?
Speaker 4: Now I've been in a relationship, I feel like I'm
Speaker 4: glad we got a relationship when we did, because hearing
Speaker 4: stories about our friends when they're out and this girl dad,
Speaker 4: and then they find out the girl was and who
Speaker 4: they thought she was. But you met her at this
Speaker 4: club at two am. Obviously she's not gonna be who
Speaker 4: you met at two am. So it's like, obviously, I.
Speaker 3: Do think a lot of people trying to paint this
Speaker 3: picture that like if you're getting a committed relationship young
Speaker 3: and you getting married young, like you're gonna get to
Speaker 3: this place where you feel like you just missed out
Speaker 3: on all these options and all this that and the
Speaker 3: third and I'm like, y'all like.
Speaker 8: That struggle, like like there's a lot of uncertainty when
Speaker 8: it comes.
Speaker 3: I gotta guess how this person feels. People don't know
Speaker 3: how to say it, like I got It's just a
Speaker 3: lot of back and forth, like are we gonna be
Speaker 3: committed all we night? Like I'm gonna be real. I
Speaker 3: like stability, and people look, people be like, oh that's boring.
Speaker 3: They get to a place where they realize it's just boring.
Speaker 3: Give me boring, give me we rubbing our feet together
Speaker 3: our anime episode. I don't won't.
Speaker 4: And I'll say social media has messed up a lot
Speaker 4: more than we're willing to accept because I have a
Speaker 4: lot of friends who grew up in two parent households,
Speaker 4: parents together for forty fifty years, and they use examples
Speaker 4: of celebrities who have been in relationships and it didn't
Speaker 4: work out. And I'm like, why not look at your home,
Speaker 4: that part your mom and daddy's still together. Why are
Speaker 4: we looking at this man? First off, he got tens
Speaker 4: of twenties and fifties and millions of dollars. You don't.
Speaker 2: Why are you comparing yourself to man?
Speaker 4: We got to stop doing that. Social media has messed
Speaker 4: up a lot of people's perceptional reality, and I just
Speaker 4: hate it because I would I did not grow up
Speaker 4: with a two parent household, and I feel like I'm
Speaker 4: searching this and I'm trying to make sure that my
Speaker 4: kid grows up in a two parent household and it
Speaker 4: stays that way, and she sees and if we have
Speaker 4: a son or another daughter, they see what it's like
Speaker 4: to have a healthy two parent household. And I have
Speaker 4: friends who have that and they are chasing something totally different.
Speaker 4: But they will say but they will say they're looking
Speaker 4: for their wife, and I'm like, no, you're not.
Speaker 5: And that's so good about social media because it does
Speaker 5: present like this illusion of options, and so people feel like,
Speaker 5: why would I work hard here because I can just
Speaker 5: respond back to this person who is in my d MS.
Speaker 5: But the truth is that whatever you whenever you plan
Speaker 5: a seed, then you have to give it time. There
Speaker 5: will be a harvest. So wherever your time is spent,
Speaker 5: you're going to reap a harvest there. And you know
Speaker 5: it's not always easy. Like he's trying to plant the
Speaker 5: tree in our front yard right now and it keeps falling.
Speaker 4: Down because I haven't said that to them. You got
Speaker 4: to reap the harvest.
Speaker 3: The harvest it takes time.
Speaker 5: Like this tree is going to it's going to grow,
Speaker 5: but right now it's just a little shape.
Speaker 2: Okay, So this is a tree.
Speaker 1: It's a tree that my gardener playing in the yard
Speaker 1: and he didn't anchor it down well. And so it's
Speaker 1: been there for about two years. And the tree that
Speaker 1: was planning at the same time it's flourishing, it's growing.
Speaker 1: This other tree hasn't. It's probably half the size of
Speaker 1: the it's a cypress, it's an.
Speaker 2: Italian cypress, and it's leaning. It was leaning over.
Speaker 1: So yesterday I went exactly but it was leaning all
Speaker 1: the way over. So I went and got some steaks.
Speaker 1: I put in the ground and then it rained. And
Speaker 1: when it rained, because I put it where I have
Speaker 1: the flowers at where where it rained, the soil broke
Speaker 1: loose and the tree was leaning again broke loose. So
Speaker 1: then right before we came today.
Speaker 2: I put it. Well last night, I stuck it.
Speaker 1: In the harder part of the ground, and then it
Speaker 1: rained again and the wind, the wind blew it real
Speaker 1: hard and it broke.
Speaker 2: The little the little cable. It's a good lord. So
Speaker 2: I went back tied it back down to leave.
Speaker 1: Uh. And she's using a great example because what she
Speaker 1: is saying is that oftentimes, if you're spending all your
Speaker 1: time planting your seeds at the club, planting your seeds
Speaker 1: at the bars, planting your seeds online on dating apps,
Speaker 1: just running through different women, running through different men, then
Speaker 1: that's where you're gonna reap your harvest.
Speaker 2: But if you get in the.
Speaker 1: Mindset of saying, no, I want to build a foundation
Speaker 1: in something solid, then you get those same toxic people
Speaker 1: criticizing what y'all have, saying y'all got married to young
Speaker 1: and you like, how well, I mean, because you don't
Speaker 1: really know yourself yet and he don't really know hisself.
Speaker 1: What if y'all wake up one day and say, y'all
Speaker 1: want to be with each other no more?
Speaker 2: But what if that day never comes?
Speaker 1: That option is an option of that day never comes
Speaker 1: one of the most powerful things. And I couldn't write
Speaker 1: this if I wanted to. My nephew came to me.
Speaker 1: And what came to Ashley when we spent Christmas together
Speaker 1: the first time meeting her?
Speaker 2: What did they say to you? What did Deonta say
Speaker 2: to you on Christmas?
Speaker 5: That you looked calm?
Speaker 1: He said, I've never seen my uncle this calm and settled.
Speaker 1: And I said, I said, why do you say that?
Speaker 1: He said, because normally, like when we're spending Christmas or
Speaker 1: Thanksgiving at your house, you run around, you doing all this.
Speaker 2: He said, Now you just you just chilling.
Speaker 1: People will never know what that meant because they're not
Speaker 1: a part of my personal life. But in my vows,
Speaker 1: I said, I feel settled without settling.
Speaker 2: I said that in my vows.
Speaker 1: And many people may have seen it online and be like, Okay,
Speaker 1: that sound cool, or what are you trying to say that?
Speaker 2: He settled? What are you trying? You know?
Speaker 1: They have toxified comment, but my family validated the fact
Speaker 1: that my spirit is settled. I feel so at I
Speaker 1: wake up sometimes and I'd be like, this is my life.
Speaker 2: I tell her, I said, I feel so I.
Speaker 1: Feel chilled, like obstacles can come our way. And I'd
Speaker 1: be like, ain't no big deal.
Speaker 4: We got it.
Speaker 1: I don't care what happens in life. I feel in
Speaker 1: my soul. I got my partner, my teammate, and I'd
Speaker 1: be like, we're good.
Speaker 2: We're good.
Speaker 1: And that's what I want more men to get a
Speaker 1: chance to experience that you're no longer wondering and wondering.
Speaker 1: You're wondering who your spouse is, or wondering who this
Speaker 1: person is, or even if you're not even in marriage,
Speaker 1: mind that you just wondering who's the next woman you're
Speaker 1: gonna lay with? Basically, and you find yourself wandering through
Speaker 1: the wilderness. God has a promised land for you if
Speaker 1: you sell your spirit enough and say, God, who is
Speaker 1: it that you have in the.
Speaker 2: Store for me? I value marriage.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to toxify marriage by thinking, well, what
Speaker 1: if I'm married. I ask people this question all the time,
Speaker 1: would you like to get married?
Speaker 2: One day?
Speaker 1: I mean, if it's the right person, that's the obvious.
Speaker 1: I mean, if it's the right I ain't trying to
Speaker 1: get married to the wrong person. I said, do you
Speaker 1: want to get would you like to get married one day?
Speaker 1: And they'll come with the negative fear, not if it's
Speaker 1: the wrong person.
Speaker 2: I didn't ask you that.
Speaker 5: That's so much trauma, because what is speaking is your
Speaker 5: trauma is whatever that last situation that didn't work out.
Speaker 5: Your speak to that instead of getting ready for your future.
Speaker 3: I did a this was I think twenty twenty one.
Speaker 3: I posted on my story one of those little questions
Speaker 3: and I said, what is your standpoint on submission? Would
Speaker 3: you ever submit the number of people? Verbatim said, And
Speaker 3: I don't know if this was like popular on social
Speaker 3: media at the time, but why would I do that?
Speaker 3: He would lead me to hell, I said, and like
Speaker 3: the number of I'm so serious. I would shock because
Speaker 3: I'm looking at them. I'm like, I started, I start
Speaker 3: talking to one person because the other people were like,
Speaker 3: that's basically slavery. But there was this one person that
Speaker 3: said that she was actively in a relationship. So I said, okay,
Speaker 3: my question is why would you choose to be with
Speaker 3: somebody that you feel like is going to lead you
Speaker 3: to right if you submitted, because that is a cuss word.
Speaker 3: It is something that like you don't do. But people
Speaker 3: immediately went to the like negative side, and I'm like, okay,
Speaker 3: I think there is a misunderstanding which I was on
Speaker 3: the other side at one point once upon a time,
Speaker 3: of what submission looks like. But I was also that
Speaker 3: was that was during the shift of me starting to
Speaker 3: value like, oh yeah, I would think I want to
Speaker 3: be a wife. So I'm having these conversations more and
Speaker 3: I realized, like there's very much a distorted view of
Speaker 3: what marriage is, what submission is, what leading is. And
Speaker 3: I'm like, it's kind of sad, but you know.
Speaker 5: The crazy part is is that submission literally is to
Speaker 5: come under the mission or the vision. So it's interesting that,
Speaker 5: like I feel like pop culture has made it mean
Speaker 5: something that it doesn't. It just means, like, what is
Speaker 5: the mission? When you guys get together, what is the mission?
Speaker 5: And everybody. It's funny to me because you can go
Speaker 5: to school for twenty years and all these objectives or
Speaker 5: course or silibate, you can like follow everything that your
Speaker 5: professor is asking, but the moment, it's like, okay, for
Speaker 5: our household, these are our mission. Now you don't want
Speaker 5: to submit to that, which is really just saying, hey,
Speaker 5: I'm on the team and I want to do my part,
Speaker 5: but you are the person who ultimately and this is
Speaker 5: what I don't get and I'm gonna be off my
Speaker 5: high horse. But like, this is great for women because
Speaker 5: now you take the pressure God gives to you. He
Speaker 5: puts that right here on your shoulders. Don't no, but
Speaker 5: just to my ladies, it's like, now we get to
Speaker 5: be like, okay, cool.
Speaker 3: You got it, you know, and I do.
Speaker 5: Okay. I want to say one more thing. We just
Speaker 5: went to my family reunion. My cousin said to me,
Speaker 5: my older cousin, my mom's first cousin, She said, I
Speaker 5: love this version of you because she was at our wedding.
Speaker 5: But people haven't. My family hasn't gotten to see me
Speaker 5: interact with him outside of that. And they said, you
Speaker 5: just feel so light, you feel so soft, and so
Speaker 5: that's what I just for me. It made my heart
Speaker 5: smile because I said to myself, if I said, this
Speaker 5: is what resting and femininity looks like, and the sooner
Speaker 5: week because I grew up with a single momb So
Speaker 5: I know, you know, running a business, I know how
Speaker 5: to fight, I N D E, P E and D
Speaker 5: E and T.
Speaker 2: Do you know what that means?
Speaker 5: You know all of that? Like I got that, but
Speaker 5: like to be able to be like this man has
Speaker 5: me yes is a beautiful thing. So I just want
Speaker 5: to come against all the naysayers with the submission because
Speaker 5: it's actually a beautiful thing.
Speaker 2: It is.
Speaker 1: Let's jump into this. It was a moment in y'all's marriage.
Speaker 1: If I were to asked, y'all, what was the hardest
Speaker 1: thing y'all had to.
Speaker 2: Deal with in your marriage? What would that be?
Speaker 4: Oh O, in our marriage? In our marriage?
Speaker 3: Well, okay, I would probably say for me, it was
Speaker 3: when we lost the baby. Yes, It's like during that time,
Speaker 3: I was like like he was doing everything for me.
Speaker 3: I was so in such a dark place, and I remember, like,
Speaker 3: grief is a weird thing when you're not angry at God.
Speaker 3: And I think a lot of people expect you to
Speaker 3: be angry at God when things happen, and I think
Speaker 3: it would have been easier to deal with it if
Speaker 3: I was angry. But it's like I can understand, well, okay,
Speaker 3: before we lost the baby. It's like a Friday. I'm
Speaker 3: driving and we had a doctor's appointment that day, and
Speaker 3: on my way to go to one of his basketball games.
Speaker 3: I'm just talking to God like we've just been having conversations,
Speaker 3: and the Holy Spirit lays on my heart to pray.
Speaker 3: So I start praying. And as I'm praying, like the
Speaker 3: Holy Spirit lays on my heart to pray, God, you
Speaker 3: are still good even if I never meet my baby.
Speaker 2: Oh my God, and I start calling.
Speaker 3: I start crying. I'm crying. I'm crying, but I just
Speaker 3: keep saying it. I'm like, God, you were still good
Speaker 3: even if I never meet my baby. And I'm like,
Speaker 3: why am I saying this? So get to the school,
Speaker 3: go to the basketball game. I never tell money about this.
Speaker 3: We had a marriage retreat that we can did that
Speaker 3: Monday rolls around and I'm in so much pain. Later
Speaker 3: on that night, there was a look.
Speaker 5: There was blood.
Speaker 3: It was a lot. So call a friend. She says,
Speaker 3: wait till in the morning. See what happens. Next morning,
Speaker 3: same situation. We go to the hospital. I get told
Speaker 3: that we need to be rolled back for emergency surgery
Speaker 3: and that it was an ex topic pregnancy. So in
Speaker 3: that moment, like I forgot about the prayer, but like
Speaker 3: we're just praying. Money is just holding me, and I
Speaker 3: remember when I woke up that night, like we get home,
Speaker 3: we get past all that, and it's like really hitting me,
Speaker 3: like we don't have the we don't have the baby anymore.
Speaker 3: And God reminds me of what I just like four
Speaker 3: days before, and it really hits me that, like God
Speaker 3: will keep you he I mean, and he was preparing
Speaker 3: my heart for it. So though like I'm not mad
Speaker 3: at God, I still have this grief, I still have
Speaker 3: this loss. I still miss this person I never met,
Speaker 3: and I'm like, oh my God. So I'm trying to
Speaker 3: figure out what to do with the end of that process.
Speaker 3: I didn't want to do anything. I didn't want to
Speaker 3: go anywhere, and I remember I'm praying every single day.
Speaker 3: Was I remember waking up to like Money praying over me,
Speaker 3: and I'm like, Okay, God, I'm grateful for who you
Speaker 3: are and you are still good and I still trust you,
Speaker 3: and even if I never know why, you are still
Speaker 3: good God. But this hurts. This hurts so bad, and
Speaker 3: I need somewhere to put this because I can't Oh
Speaker 3: my goodness. And I just felt like I'm in bed
Speaker 3: and he's going to go to work, and then he's
Speaker 3: coming back and he's finding me in the same place.
Speaker 3: He's getting me out of bed, and he's taking me
Speaker 3: to the bathroom to brush my teeth. He's put me
Speaker 3: in the shower to take a shower, like he's doing
Speaker 3: all of these things, and I'm like, you know what, God,
Speaker 3: I'm so grateful that even I don't know what to
Speaker 3: do with this, and I know he doesn't know what
Speaker 3: to do with this either, but he's still carrying me
Speaker 3: and like, you gave me this person, and I'm so
Speaker 3: grateful for that. But there was also like after I
Speaker 3: finally came out of that, there was a lot of
Speaker 3: guilt that hit me because I'm like, did you have
Speaker 3: time to grief? Like the whole time for a good minute.
Speaker 3: I'm like, you just were doing everything I need, but
Speaker 3: I wasn't even checking on you. I wasn't really focused
Speaker 3: on you. And I think what was hard for me
Speaker 3: is not just the grief, but also realizing like I
Speaker 3: feel like I left him alone and I'm asking him
Speaker 3: now like after the fact that he's like he's like
Speaker 3: he was hurting, but he's like, I understood that this
Speaker 3: happened to you, like this happened with us, but this
Speaker 3: happened to you. And that was just a hard Like
Speaker 3: that was just a hard thing. I don't think I
Speaker 3: stopped feeling guilty about that or a little a good
Speaker 3: little minute and be honest, but that even though it
Speaker 3: was the hardest thing that we had ever experienced, I
Speaker 3: think it was also something that like it just made
Speaker 3: me realize, like, this is my person, this is my person.
Speaker 3: Because after that, we were getting people that was like
Speaker 3: my husband just was like treated like it was an
Speaker 3: everyday thing because so many women have gone through so
Speaker 3: it's not that deep. Like at least it wasn't like
Speaker 3: after she got here, after he got here, and I'm like,
Speaker 3: oh my god. And it made me that much more grateful.
Speaker 3: And I'm not saying that like it's a good thing
Speaker 3: we went through something like that, but I am saying
Speaker 3: that though it was the hardest thing, it is also
Speaker 3: something that further solidified like this is my purpose part
Speaker 3: and this is my person. And that was that was
Speaker 3: so disrespected, that was so disrespectfully difficult. I'm not gonna lie,
Speaker 3: how did you know what she needed. How did you
Speaker 3: know how to support her during that time?
Speaker 2: And so before you answer.
Speaker 1: That, I just want to give that scripture because you
Speaker 1: said it's not a good thing that happened, but it
Speaker 1: was something that happened. And the scripture says, for I know,
Speaker 1: all things work together for the good of them that
Speaker 1: loved God into the called according to his purpose. And
Speaker 1: so that's so powerful because it doesn't say that everything
Speaker 1: is going to be good that happens, but it's gonna
Speaker 1: work out for your good. So I just wanted to
Speaker 1: put that scripture in there and go ahead.
Speaker 4: And I will say I think around that time I
Speaker 4: had dealt with so much grief or loss at that
Speaker 4: point in time that I don't want to say I
Speaker 4: was just all the way numb to it, because I
Speaker 4: did feel a way because this was our first kid,
Speaker 4: and we did lose this like like she said, we
Speaker 4: lost this child, but this happened to her, like they
Speaker 4: had to go in and cut her tube open, and
Speaker 4: like she the whole process was just crazy, just cutting
Speaker 4: her tube open and then us realizing that they or
Speaker 4: they didn't just cut a part of her too, but
Speaker 4: they cut her whole right tube like and nobody told
Speaker 4: us that until last.
Speaker 3: Year or afterwards, that my entire right tube had been
Speaker 3: completely removed. And that's why it was so difficult for
Speaker 3: us to get pregnant, because we were told at the time,
Speaker 3: both before the surgery that it would only be a
Speaker 3: portion and then my six week postop that it was
Speaker 3: just a portion that was removed. The pregnant and getting
Speaker 3: pregnant shouldn't be an issue, and it was a whole thing.
Speaker 3: And I found out a year later because I was
Speaker 3: in excruciating pain. I went to my OB and she
Speaker 3: was like she She's like, are you guys trying Are
Speaker 3: you on birthnay? Ch'all said, no, we're trying to get pregnant.
Speaker 3: And she just says it must be frustrated trying to
Speaker 3: get pregnant with only one operating ovary. Wow, And like
Speaker 3: you know why she up and now And I was like,
Speaker 3: hold on, what did you just say?
Speaker 2: Wow?
Speaker 3: And like the nurse left the room and she looked
Speaker 3: up and she was like, you know, you only have
Speaker 3: like one that you're you're really able to use. And
Speaker 3: I said, what are you talking about? And she leaves
Speaker 3: the room. She comes back, she informs me that the
Speaker 3: person who did our my procedure had been fired that
Speaker 3: year year for like discrepancies with patients, issues with his surgeries,
Speaker 3: the way that he logged stuff, et cetera. But I
Speaker 3: told her, like verbatim, this is what I was told.
Speaker 3: And then I said, I leave room for misunderstanding because
Speaker 3: I was going through grief. And then at one point,
Speaker 3: like I was on, they all had me on a
Speaker 3: bunch of different drugs. But then I didn't call I
Speaker 3: didn't tell money what happened. I didn't tell my mom
Speaker 3: what happened. But I called them and I asked them
Speaker 3: because they were both there. I said, what happened when
Speaker 3: I had my extopic pregnancy went through surgery? Can you
Speaker 3: tell me what the doctor said? Can you tell me
Speaker 3: what they said? Six weeks later in post off? And
Speaker 3: it was the same thing verbatim, so my obi had
Speaker 3: She basically told me. She said, since you don't have
Speaker 3: your right to you're dependent upon your left so when
Speaker 3: you're right, when eggs drop from your right side, they
Speaker 3: don't have anywhere to travel. Yeah, but the way that
Speaker 3: God works is so crazy.
Speaker 4: Where you say that, Okay, I was gonna say sorry
Speaker 4: before she said that, I was gonna say, in dealing
Speaker 4: with a lot of loss, I know how it felt
Speaker 4: to be even surrounded by a lot of people but
Speaker 4: still feel alone, like you have no help, nobody's there
Speaker 4: for you, or nobody's actually there to help you with anything.
Speaker 4: So even though we sleeping in the same bed every night,
Speaker 4: or we're at the same house or whatever, I still
Speaker 4: wanted her to feel like she had somebody there helping
Speaker 4: her out so that she didn't have to tackle everything.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna clean the house, I'm I'm taking care of dinner.
Speaker 4: I'm making sure I'm going out and getting stuff for us.
Speaker 4: Like she said she would be in bed all day. No,
Speaker 4: let me get you up. We need to move around.
Speaker 4: I don't want you to sulk in this, and I
Speaker 4: want you to know that I'm here for you every
Speaker 4: step of the way. And that was kind of where
Speaker 4: my mindset was at during that process.
Speaker 5: That's good, that's real good. And to be able to
Speaker 5: draw on the experiences that you had to show up,
Speaker 5: because I know sometimes we hear men not knowing exactly
Speaker 5: how to show up for women like that. So I
Speaker 5: salute you for that.
Speaker 1: For me, they'll just leave the one right and be
Speaker 1: like I don't know how to deal with you right now,
Speaker 1: So go figure out my own.
Speaker 4: Life, because she was that for me when my mom
Speaker 4: pad Like I didn't know how to deal.
Speaker 2: With the feelings, and that was prior to that happened before.
Speaker 4: That happened before, and I didn't know what I was
Speaker 4: dealing with or what was going on. And she was
Speaker 4: that person for me that helped me get through this.
Speaker 4: And then literally right after that, her grandma passed away
Speaker 4: like it was twenty at the end of twenty one
Speaker 4: and then the beginning of twenty two, these having back
Speaker 4: to back and then so I just knew and us
Speaker 4: dealing with that and being that person for each other
Speaker 4: no matter what came up in life. I know that
Speaker 4: I want to be that person for you to make
Speaker 4: sure that you don't ever feel like you're alone.
Speaker 1: So your mom passed in twenty one, and then her
Speaker 1: grandma on twenty two, and y'all lost y'all child in
Speaker 1: twenty three, and where year was at twenty four?
Speaker 5: Yeah, this is what marriage is about. Like people look
Speaker 5: for the wrong thing. They are focused on the bank account,
Speaker 5: the look, but like when you go through life together
Speaker 5: like this, like that's that's what really solidified.
Speaker 1: And it solidifies the fact why y'all had to get
Speaker 1: married when y'all did, because y'all needed each other to
Speaker 1: go through it. You would have lost your because you
Speaker 1: would have lost your your your mom when you did.
Speaker 1: And you know, at the end of the day, you've
Speaker 1: just been going through it by yourself, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. But now you got your partner to help
Speaker 1: you go through it. You know she was gonna lose
Speaker 1: her grandma. She needed she needed you. It's like, that's
Speaker 1: what solidifies for I know all things work together for
Speaker 1: the good of them that loved God into the called
Speaker 1: according to his purpose. When I when that scripture just
Speaker 1: washes over y'all and you are able to see those
Speaker 1: iterations throughout your marriages, throughout your marriage and be able
Speaker 1: to see that, Wow, this right here happened and God
Speaker 1: saw through. This right here happened, and God saw through
Speaker 1: And now we're experiencing a loss together. And it's so
Speaker 1: unfortunate oftentimes where a child is lost and the mother
Speaker 1: gets all the attention, all the everything, and and the father.
Speaker 1: Because I interviewed a couple before and the guy said,
Speaker 1: no one ever checked on me. And he said that
Speaker 1: that's different from what Money said. Money said, I knew
Speaker 1: that I had to do this for her. The loss
Speaker 1: happened to us, but how you word it, happened to us,
Speaker 1: but how you how you worded.
Speaker 4: It, it happened. This was a thing that happened between us,
Speaker 4: but to.
Speaker 2: Her, yeah, between us, but to her.
Speaker 1: Other people say, I lost my child too, and no
Speaker 1: one checked on me. And everybody came and gave all
Speaker 1: attention to the mother. The wife did all this, and
Speaker 1: the man's just sitting there like as if they didn't
Speaker 1: lose their child, and yeah, and so it's it's that's
Speaker 1: the reason I'm glad that she circled back, because that
Speaker 1: was my next question I was going to ask you
Speaker 1: is how did you cope with it? How did you
Speaker 1: deal with it? Did you get the need that you
Speaker 1: get your that you grieved properly, because a lot of
Speaker 1: men don't grieve, They just bury it.
Speaker 4: And I will say people who checked on us, I
Speaker 4: will say, there was a lot of people who checked
Speaker 4: on who would come and make sure he was okay.
Speaker 4: But they will pull me to the side and they
Speaker 4: would say, hey, I want to check on you as well,
Speaker 4: because I know a lot of times the men do,
Speaker 4: like you said, they don't get checked on. And there
Speaker 4: was a lot of my family and our friends who
Speaker 4: made sure they also checked on me as well.
Speaker 2: That's good.
Speaker 1: Thank y'all to the community that actually checked on him,
Speaker 1: because men will isolate and they just build resentment and
Speaker 1: then they just they start self medicating.
Speaker 2: You said you don't drink, but then that'd be the
Speaker 2: time you started drinking. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: You start self medicating on stuff that's very unnecessary. But
Speaker 1: glory to God that y'all went through that. And then
Speaker 1: what's the praise report? So y'all went through Yeah, the
Speaker 1: praise report.
Speaker 4: So no, no right, no right to.
Speaker 3: I've just learned this information from Obi. Then I called Doc.
Speaker 3: Doc is my bonus mom. So I called Doc and
Speaker 3: I'm telling her what happened, and she's like mm hmmm
Speaker 3: mm hmmm mm hmm. Okay, Well, I'm just gonna tell
Speaker 3: you this because you talking like you don't know who
Speaker 3: God is there it is so at the end of
Speaker 3: the day, you gonna get pregnant and watch it be
Speaker 3: on the right side. I don't care what they say.
Speaker 3: I said, Okay, Doc, you're right. I'm gonna trust the Lord.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna trust the Lord, she said, on.
Speaker 10: The side that has the common Yes, I said, And
Speaker 10: I set up a point like at the end of
Speaker 10: that appointment with her, we had set up appointment for
Speaker 10: two weeks out to do eggertry well to see how
Speaker 10: healthy like the left side was right, and she was like,
Speaker 10: we need to wait till your next cycle comes out,
Speaker 10: and say, okay, cool.
Speaker 3: So by the time my next cycle was supposed to
Speaker 3: come on, I was like, where's that? And I go.
Speaker 3: I was like, I'm gonna take a pregnancy test, which
Speaker 3: it didn't make any sense because I have been late
Speaker 3: for extended periods of time, but this was like a
Speaker 3: day late. So I take a pregnant test. But I
Speaker 3: was like, I'm not gonna look at it because I'm
Speaker 3: tired of disappointment.
Speaker 2: Hours.
Speaker 3: I want to say, like maybe four or five hours,
Speaker 3: because I just left in the bathroom and I went
Speaker 3: about my business. We had we had men coming up
Speaker 3: to the house to redo the floors, so I wasn't
Speaker 3: even thinking about it. And then I dawned on me
Speaker 3: after he left for a basketball game. Oh go check.
Speaker 3: So I was like, oh my god, I'm pregnant. I was like, wait,
Speaker 3: but he's not here in the car, and then he
Speaker 3: called me on my way home, like, oh my god,
Speaker 3: So I come home. I tell him and we set
Speaker 3: up an appointment immediately because my Obi wanted to make sure.
Speaker 3: She said, your chances are an increased for etopic pregnancy
Speaker 3: after the first by like four or five percent, So
Speaker 3: we had appointment immediately. Explain atypical pregnancy is so an
Speaker 3: exopic pregnancy is when you're essentially the baby doesn't travel
Speaker 3: all the way through your filopian tube. Instead, the baby
Speaker 3: gets stuck and doesn't make it to the uterus, so
Speaker 3: they begin to grow. Now it's not a viable fetus,
Speaker 3: but it will continue to grow and sometimes it can
Speaker 3: rupture the tube and it can kill both you and
Speaker 3: the baby. So we caught it, and my Obie did
Speaker 3: explain that my twoe had ruptured and that's why they
Speaker 3: had to remove it. But it was not conveyed in
Speaker 3: the notes or anything like that. But we caught it,
Speaker 3: take care of it, got surgery and everything, and I
Speaker 3: ended up being okay. But basically there's no viable pregnancy
Speaker 3: that can come from that. But that being said, we
Speaker 3: went up they said let's do an ultra sound to
Speaker 3: make sure it's in the right placement this time. So
Speaker 3: I was like, okay, great, and as we're doing it,
Speaker 3: it's like, oh, there it is, okay great, yeah, da
Speaker 3: da da, And she said, oh my goodness, Oh do
Speaker 3: you want to see like which over it was? And
Speaker 3: she goes over to the right side and not only
Speaker 3: is it enlarge, but there's so much like blood flow.
Speaker 3: She was like, it's so healthy this, that and the
Speaker 3: third and I said, hold on. I was like, what
Speaker 3: are saying. That's not bout I ain't got.
Speaker 5: A tube over there and was like, So she goes
Speaker 5: to the left and there's nothing, like you don't see
Speaker 5: anything on the left side.
Speaker 3: I was first of all, I was worried about the
Speaker 3: left over it and the blood flow. She was like, no,
Speaker 3: it came from over here. And then she goes she said, oh,
Speaker 3: you don't have a tube over here. I don't know
Speaker 3: how like I don't know and she said, but that
Speaker 3: doctor sits them.
Speaker 4: I said, what just happened from the right ovary to
Speaker 4: the left tube?
Speaker 3: That is what happened, yes, And I said.
Speaker 4: The baby came from the right ovary.
Speaker 3: It doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 4: I said, okay, And it's crazy that doc said that,
Speaker 4: because that's exactly what happened.
Speaker 3: That's exactly what happened. And I'm talking to my doctor
Speaker 3: about it, and she's sitting here like she said, I'm
Speaker 3: gonna be honest, I have never seen this happen before.
Speaker 3: I don't know what to tell you, and I'm like,
Speaker 3: it's the Lord, it's the Lord.
Speaker 4: Ain't no explanation for it. We can't. We don't have one.
Speaker 4: Doctors don't either.
Speaker 5: Let me tell you about my guys.
Speaker 2: I know all things work together.
Speaker 9: And now six months, oh my gosh, I have to
Speaker 9: see pictures.
Speaker 2: Don't take your kid. She won't take your kids.
Speaker 5: I just I mean, Auntie Ashley could just babe like
Speaker 5: a night out. I got you. I was afore. I'm
Speaker 5: a teacher, so as I so I'm I'm safe.
Speaker 2: How did it feel giving birth to this miracle child?
Speaker 3: Oh my goodness, it was like such a sense of
Speaker 3: I can't believe her here, Like God, it is insane
Speaker 3: when they say birth is a crazy experience. I still like,
Speaker 3: once she came out, I couldn't. I couldn't put together.
Speaker 3: And he like, oh my god, you just came out
Speaker 3: of me and the whole time I was in labor forever.
Speaker 3: But it's like thirty hours unmedicated. It was, oh, I'm
Speaker 3: scared of needles.
Speaker 4: Wow, she's so scared of needles that she had a
Speaker 4: dental procedure done this year without the numbing.
Speaker 2: You lie.
Speaker 4: So scared of the numb and needles. She was like, no, y'all,
Speaker 4: just do it and said the open.
Speaker 3: He was like the whole time, he said, are you okay?
Speaker 3: And I'm surprised, but I'm like, I'm like, yeah, tears
Speaker 3: rolling now.
Speaker 2: In your mouth.
Speaker 3: This is the crazy thing I've ever done. Because he
Speaker 3: convinced me to go and try like the needle like
Speaker 3: He's like, because I had to have another procedure done,
Speaker 3: and I was like, okay, I'm gonna do it. He said,
Speaker 3: they numb it first, Haley, and they do the jail first.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna do it. And it was I said, I
Speaker 3: can't believe I did that to myself.
Speaker 2: It's crazy people drilling.
Speaker 3: I did.
Speaker 8: Like he said, he said, okay, if that's what you want,
Speaker 8: Like I think it was gonna be a procedure and
Speaker 8: he'd be like, I'm sorry, I can't do that. There's liability, No,
Speaker 8: he said, And I cried the whole time, but like
Speaker 8: I didn't flinch.
Speaker 2: I was that is crazy.
Speaker 5: Wow, he let me do it.
Speaker 3: Now. I do have a newdist now though, because some
Speaker 3: of the things and what needed to be So I'm like,
Speaker 3: that's probably why he let.
Speaker 4: Me do it, but that that is the reason why
Speaker 4: she did the natural birth, because she is so afraid of.
Speaker 3: Needles that they stick in your back. And then I
Speaker 3: didn't know you had to have a cat of the two.
Speaker 1: I said, oh uh and if they and if you
Speaker 1: move while they're doing it, you can be paralyzed.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm telling you right now today I said, oh,
Speaker 3: I'm not doing that.
Speaker 4: She did a great job and yeah, thirty hours.
Speaker 3: I didn't do it at the hospital either though, So
Speaker 3: that was the other because I didn't want to be
Speaker 3: pressured into getting it. So I went to a birthing
Speaker 3: center where it wasn't given.
Speaker 4: An option, tried the pool.
Speaker 3: She ended up. I ended up on the floor because
Speaker 3: she wasn't acting right in the pool.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's crazy. She was in the Captain Morgan position
Speaker 4: for I was the bed.
Speaker 3: The floor, the toilet, the shower, back to the pool.
Speaker 3: Leilani did not want to come out. I want her
Speaker 3: to come out in that pool, and she was acting up.
Speaker 4: He shout out, shout out a Natural Beginner's birth center though,
Speaker 4: because they did their thing.
Speaker 5: Yeah they did.
Speaker 3: I'm look, she came out on the Florida I was like, look, okay,
Speaker 3: Natural thirty hours.
Speaker 2: Women, y'all women, the superhero y'all from Superhero.
Speaker 3: But I'll say this, I heard a lot of horror
Speaker 3: stories beforehand, and I don't think it was as bad
Speaker 3: as I thought it was going to be based on
Speaker 3: the stories that I was told. But I was praying
Speaker 3: the whole time. I'm like, I'm in there.
Speaker 8: You're like, God, I can't do this because I need
Speaker 8: you to meet me.
Speaker 3: I thought I was scaring the duel and the midwif
Speaker 3: because at one point I'm going off in tons. I'm like, God,
Speaker 3: you're gonna be here with me. Your president is gonna
Speaker 3: be in this room.
Speaker 5: This.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you gave me.
Speaker 3: I can't do this if you're not here.
Speaker 2: Teach.
Speaker 3: Look, and that's the only way we got through that.
Speaker 4: That's good.
Speaker 1: I want to touch on this before we wrap up
Speaker 1: because we always talk about purpose partners and people see
Speaker 1: y'all have this phenomenal social media presence. Y'all have eight
Speaker 1: hundred and how much? Eight hundred and what thousand? On Instagram?
Speaker 4: Seventy eight eight seventy I think.
Speaker 2: Eight seventy something. What do y'all have on TikTok?
Speaker 4: One point seven mil? Just hit one point seven one point.
Speaker 5: Seven that's dope. Y'all been working exactly.
Speaker 3: Look, I got a crazy boss.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this started what two years ago?
Speaker 4: Uh, basically three, because it would have been twenty twenty
Speaker 4: three at the end.
Speaker 3: Like right after we got there December of twenty three.
Speaker 4: That we were still working our jobs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then how did this come to Besso?
Speaker 2: Yes, to start doing content?
Speaker 4: I encouraged her, Yeah, she well, I saw everybody just
Speaker 4: making videos like I didn't. We didn't have TikTok at first.
Speaker 4: So when everybody was getting TikTok in like twenty twenty COVID,
Speaker 4: we didn't have it, and then we got it like
Speaker 4: twenty twenty one, and I'm seeing the stuff and I'm like,
Speaker 4: we can do this, like this is this is not
Speaker 4: hard stuff, and she's like, no, I don't want to
Speaker 4: do it. So then I made videos by myself, but
Speaker 4: it was just like random sounds. That was like no
Speaker 4: strategy to it at all. I was just doing bs
Speaker 4: stuff like you're talking about nothing. I literally just did
Speaker 4: sounds sound like I would do sounds and put words
Speaker 4: over the.
Speaker 2: Sounds like sounds.
Speaker 4: It was nothing, literally, and I don't know how, but
Speaker 4: I got ten thousand followers off of it in like
Speaker 4: a year. But then when I encouraged her to do it,
Speaker 4: after I got ten thousand, within like two or three months,
Speaker 4: she got one hundred thousand followers.
Speaker 2: And I'm like, in two or three months, yes, what
Speaker 2: was your content?
Speaker 3: My content? I was doing my skincare because I was
Speaker 3: learning good skincare, but I was also telling stories. I
Speaker 3: started talking about like I did a series about my
Speaker 3: mom and the way that she grew up and everybody
Speaker 3: love a good ghetto series.
Speaker 4: And then after you grew, after you grew, you did
Speaker 4: the Biblical baddies.
Speaker 3: Oh, yes, I did. I did Biblical Baddies. It was
Speaker 3: coming from me for that.
Speaker 2: What was that about?
Speaker 3: Episode? Everybody? I said, Sarah had to be fine because
Speaker 3: Abraham over here lying not once, but twice about this girl.
Speaker 3: Because think you won't kill me?
Speaker 2: Fuck?
Speaker 3: I said, she was older age. I said, oh, I
Speaker 3: want to be that fine, that's how bad I want
Speaker 3: to be. And like I'm telling the story but in
Speaker 3: a kind of like a funny way. Yes, And if
Speaker 3: we talked about Leah and Rachel, like imagine being so bad.
Speaker 3: He worked fourteen years for you, I mean, and you
Speaker 3: don't get nothing before then.
Speaker 4: Nothing.
Speaker 3: Like I said, that's what I need to look like,
Speaker 3: what I gotta do? What's the workout?
Speaker 2: Richard?
Speaker 5: About es I did?
Speaker 3: I was going in. I talked about Elsa. I talked
Speaker 3: about Ruth like the Kin's memory, Dame, I said, listen.
Speaker 4: So that was a method to her. Man there was
Speaker 4: he was just making sound and I was just making sounds.
Speaker 4: And then in twenty twenty three, after we got married
Speaker 4: in November, we did like three actual couple videos. All
Speaker 4: three of them took off, and I was like, wait
Speaker 4: a minute, let me change this talk about that. This
Speaker 4: one was like one of them was like we're married,
Speaker 4: and it was like the trend where it's like we're married,
Speaker 4: so of course whatever whatever, And we went back and
Speaker 4: forth doing that, and then we did when the target
Speaker 4: videos was like a random woman walking up in Target.
Speaker 3: Like hitting on you, Howard, You that.
Speaker 4: Is really what took us off because we did those
Speaker 4: like every week after that, and we were getting one
Speaker 4: hundred thousand followers every month, every hundred thousand followers every
Speaker 4: month for the first eight months. It was eight or
Speaker 4: nine months from November to December January. It just kept
Speaker 4: coming hundred thousand.
Speaker 2: I was like, and what was your frequency, y'all posting
Speaker 2: every week?
Speaker 4: I was trying to post like every day. Yeah, two
Speaker 4: three times a day.
Speaker 3: It was crazy, really, I mean, and we both working
Speaker 3: full time. Come he's coming home at eleven o'clock after
Speaker 3: because he was a coach after a basketball game out
Speaker 3: of town. Like, okay, let's run these three videos before
Speaker 3: I take a shower, Like, come on, let's go in the.
Speaker 4: Next day while I was at work on my lunch,
Speaker 4: I would post one at twelve, I'll post one after
Speaker 4: like three, and then I would post one after practice
Speaker 4: every single day, every single day, Saturday, Sundays and Saturday too,
Speaker 4: because that would be the days we don't so we
Speaker 4: did the target videos. We don't have a target in
Speaker 4: our city, so we would have to drive to Gastonia
Speaker 4: was like thirty minutes away, and we would do the
Speaker 4: videos then when we had time.
Speaker 3: Because I don't know why those type of videos didn't
Speaker 3: work in any store of Target.
Speaker 9: It was like.
Speaker 2: We did.
Speaker 10: Everywhere.
Speaker 3: I said, oh but that one Target one went craz
Speaker 3: keep going on.
Speaker 2: Video every time.
Speaker 4: Oh my god. We got at least ten of those
Speaker 4: videos at least.
Speaker 3: I didn't like that, and I felt bad because we
Speaker 3: didn't even shop at Target.
Speaker 4: We didn't even shop.
Speaker 3: We were just making videos like it was our studio.
Speaker 3: We was clocking in at and you got people in
Speaker 3: the conversation that y'all had Target.
Speaker 5: Y'all don't feel bad. You promoted them.
Speaker 1: With y'all no lord, and y'all was getting So a
Speaker 1: video that y'all have with Target, what do you think
Speaker 1: has the most views?
Speaker 4: Like, I mean, one of those videos probably about twelve million.
Speaker 4: All of them had over a million, like ten digits
Speaker 4: double d. At least three of them had ten million
Speaker 4: plus and then some of them have eight million, six million,
Speaker 4: like the lowest on those were probably like eight hundred thousand.
Speaker 4: And that was and that's why we kept doing them.
Speaker 2: Y'all would get one hundred thousand followers a month.
Speaker 3: It was insane. It was to the point where, like
Speaker 3: when we started meeting other creators who had been in
Speaker 3: the game a lot longer than us. They were like,
Speaker 3: how did y'all do it wrong? I don't know nothing
Speaker 3: about it. I can't even tell you. I can't even
Speaker 3: tell you now how to replicate that again, because like
Speaker 3: after we hit the eight or nine month, it was
Speaker 3: like eight hundred nine hundred thousand. Once we hit that range,
Speaker 3: it wasn't like it maybe went down to like fifty
Speaker 3: thousand in the month and then maybe thirty and then
Speaker 3: it was real. It got real slow after that.
Speaker 4: And then we were thinking, like, what are we doing wrong?
Speaker 1: But it was like, yeah, I bet y'all was I
Speaker 1: bet y'all was like, please don't close down TikTok. When
Speaker 1: that whole thing was going, was talking about TikTok you
Speaker 1: was like, Trump, don't you mess this up.
Speaker 3: I immediately said, Okay, I need to start posting on Instagram.
Speaker 3: Let me let me go over there, let me go
Speaker 3: in the establish an audience over there.
Speaker 5: But it's I think, like, obviously you guys did a
Speaker 5: lot right, But it really is like the you guys
Speaker 5: factor because you're so relatable, you make content that clearly
Speaker 5: speaks to people, and you guys are just like real
Speaker 5: and transparent. But like, don't take yourselves too seriously, and
Speaker 5: so what is there not to love about following you
Speaker 5: guys and watching your.
Speaker 1: Content and what do y'all have like and creating content?
Speaker 1: Do y'all have any boundaries of what y'all won't share
Speaker 1: publicly Christian?
Speaker 4: Yeah, my daughter daughter right now? Yeah, well her face,
Speaker 4: so her face okay, yeah, not like the head. Yeah,
Speaker 4: but we.
Speaker 3: Also don't make content really surrounded by her either, like
Speaker 3: she may be in like a vog or something, or
Speaker 3: I will be on my page and talk about her
Speaker 3: or talk about motherhood, but like, she didn't sign up
Speaker 3: for this, and I have patients, but like, I don't
Speaker 3: care what you think about what I got going on
Speaker 3: when it comes to my child, and I don't want
Speaker 3: her on social media because people are very ruthless when
Speaker 3: it comes to kids, and I don't just want to
Speaker 3: that crazy.
Speaker 2: Well, we have an exclusive picture of their daughter right now.
Speaker 2: Dropped the picture. This is when she's teething. This look
Speaker 2: at this picture.
Speaker 1: But yeah, that is cool that y'all have those boundaries, like, hey, listen,
Speaker 1: we're gonna we're gonna keep our kid, you know, anonymous.
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna ask you all this question again, now,
Speaker 1: since we've come all the way around full circle, why
Speaker 1: did God allow you to marry her and him?
Speaker 2: Why did he choose this.
Speaker 1: Partner for y'all to be married hindsight being twenty twenty
Speaker 1: as you look across his journey.
Speaker 4: Why, I'm gonna say, for me, it gave me a
Speaker 4: different perception of life, because I will say we have
Speaker 4: similar backgrounds, but we perceived life a different way because
Speaker 4: Haley was a person where she had not seen a
Speaker 4: lot of things. I hadn't seen the people traveling, I
Speaker 4: hadn't seen the marriage. I hadn't seen all this stuff.
Speaker 4: So I wanted I was a person who was I
Speaker 4: have not seen these things. So I'm okay with not
Speaker 4: having it. So even in taking our first trip, which
Speaker 4: was to the dr but it was a group trip,
Speaker 4: and I'm telling her, like, we don't do that, like
Speaker 4: that's not that's not what we do, and everybody know
Speaker 4: who he is. But I was but like, like I said,
Speaker 4: I just felt like, and now I'm trying to go
Speaker 4: out to the country once a year. But she just
Speaker 4: opened my eyes up to just to life in general.
Speaker 4: Like she has brought a whole different perception of life
Speaker 4: for me in the way I view people, the way
Speaker 4: that I view myself, the way that I view her
Speaker 4: in just different situations. And I feel like she was
Speaker 4: putting my life to just change my sense of reality
Speaker 4: that Hayley, Oh that's.
Speaker 1: Not I don't Why did y'all choose money to be
Speaker 1: your husband?
Speaker 2: Could have been anybody else?
Speaker 1: Why any of them dates?
Speaker 3: There was never I think God knew I needed somebody
Speaker 3: that could help me heal certain parts of things when
Speaker 3: it came to how I viewed men, how I viewed
Speaker 3: a husband, how I viewed a father, and when it
Speaker 3: comes to being with money.
Speaker 4: There's so.
Speaker 3: Many things that I realized I've healed through in being
Speaker 3: married to him, being able at I just tell him
Speaker 3: not a long story, but we had my niece for
Speaker 3: like two weeks. We got her to like two weeks
Speaker 3: at the time. She's in Georgia, right, and I was
Speaker 3: spelling some time with a whole time that we had her.
Speaker 3: And she leaves second home and I'm washing dishes, money
Speaker 3: comes out the room and I was like, I just
Speaker 3: need you to know. I need to talk to you,
Speaker 3: and I don't want you to be upset, but I
Speaker 3: need to say this. The entire time that my niece
Speaker 3: was here, I felt like I was on edge and
Speaker 3: I felt like, there is no way somebody can be
Speaker 3: this caring, this supportive, this loving, and this attentive without
Speaker 3: some twisted ulterior motive. And I'm not talking about it
Speaker 3: from a standpoint of you have a questionable character. I'm
Speaker 3: realizing that in you, God is healing what I didn't
Speaker 3: think could be possible. And he walks over to He
Speaker 3: didn't say anything, he like, he just walks over to
Speaker 3: me and he hugs me, and he says, I'm so
Speaker 3: sorry that you had to experience that, but you don't
Speaker 3: have to worry. And it's like that, I'm seeing with
Speaker 3: like him becoming a father, and I'm seeing what it
Speaker 3: means for somebody to really like I want to be
Speaker 3: a dad and I love being a dad. I want
Speaker 3: to be a husband and I love being a husband.
Speaker 3: I want to love you, even when you're not the
Speaker 3: easiest to love. That is he goes so much when
Speaker 3: you see people so quickly ready to leave, so quickly,
Speaker 3: ready to throw on a towel that you're not worth it,
Speaker 3: And have somebody sit here and be like, yo, this
Speaker 3: is what I signed up for. And like truly be
Speaker 3: patient and love you through it like that, Oh my
Speaker 3: gosh that and it just kind of dawned on me.
Speaker 4: In May.
Speaker 3: We were sitting in church and I'm holding Leilani and
Speaker 3: I'm looking down at her, and it was like, I see,
Speaker 3: like and that was this year.
Speaker 2: I'm like, God, I.
Speaker 3: See why you gave me this man.
Speaker 11: I see why you put me with him, specifically, the
Speaker 11: way that he talks to me, the way that he
Speaker 11: has patience even when I have an attitude, the way
Speaker 11: that he will not He's never ever raised his voice.
Speaker 3: At me being angry. There's never been like a knockout,
Speaker 3: drag out type of thing. You gave me somebody who
Speaker 3: could show me the exact opposite of what I expected
Speaker 3: to get when it came to a relationship, a husband
Speaker 3: and a father, what I expected to get in a
Speaker 3: man that has healed me on so many levels. I
Speaker 3: know I needed that, and like, I love you, I
Speaker 3: love you. I'm trying not to let no tears drop
Speaker 3: because I did my makeup.
Speaker 4: You won't cry for me, he.
Speaker 2: Said, you won't. You want to mess up your bakeup
Speaker 2: for him, right?
Speaker 3: But no, I was like I needed that. I genuinely. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you're a great man, you're a great woman.
Speaker 1: But it's a great opportunity for y'all to grab that box.
Speaker 1: Do you have any other questions asked before we write?
Speaker 2: To keep the love that was?
Speaker 5: That was very beautiful, beautiful, and.
Speaker 1: Yeah what I love about. Y'all can grab the box
Speaker 1: and I'll talk while y'all grabbed the box.
Speaker 4: There to start.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you go get the pin out.
Speaker 1: Each one of y'all get your own yeah key and
Speaker 1: then you write a sentence phrase, word whatever you want
Speaker 1: to write your key to love, and sign your name
Speaker 1: no cheating.
Speaker 5: So what did you think about this episode?
Speaker 1: I thought this episode was absolutely beautiful. I talk about
Speaker 1: marrying young in chapter see the eleven or thirty eleven
Speaker 1: or something in Student of Love, and I love when
Speaker 1: I see.
Speaker 2: The fruit of that, when I see.
Speaker 1: When you marry young, it's not going to be easy
Speaker 1: no matter what age you get married, because we can
Speaker 1: argue getting married in your thirties or forties or fifties.
Speaker 2: Those couples are said in their ways.
Speaker 1: They may come together with different assets, They may have
Speaker 1: gone through divorce, they may have gone through having kids
Speaker 1: prior to meeting each other. They may have all these
Speaker 1: things that they bring into the marriage prior to they
Speaker 1: have those obstacles to go and you know, journey through.
Speaker 1: And then you get these other people that get married
Speaker 1: young and then they have the maturation phase and mature through.
Speaker 1: But that's the beauty of marriage. And so I just
Speaker 1: loved hearing their story, hearing their journey, hearing their you know,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm a fan of going from friend of fiance.
Speaker 1: I love the fact that Gods did an okie dokee
Speaker 1: on money because he was like, I ain't even think
Speaker 1: about marriage, and here he is talking about when you
Speaker 1: beat my girlfriend. So for yes or no, you go
Speaker 1: from that moment to hey, I'm gonna propose to you
Speaker 1: right here in this apartment, Like what's up?
Speaker 2: Will you be my wife? You know to know that,
Speaker 2: And a lot of.
Speaker 1: Guys use and it's a real it's a real excuse
Speaker 1: when they say, I've never seen it, so how do
Speaker 1: you expect me to ever have it as real?
Speaker 2: But you can also be what was never shown to you, yep.
Speaker 1: And I love that he was mad enough that he
Speaker 1: knew God enough to say I don't have to see
Speaker 1: it to be it. And as young kids, we were
Speaker 1: always taught. If you can see it, you can achieve it.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying, which is true, But also
Speaker 1: what happens if you don't have it. Then you can
Speaker 1: look to the heels with for what's coming, Your help,
Speaker 1: your health coming from the Lord. So you can look
Speaker 1: at God and say, God, teach me how to be
Speaker 1: a husband, teach me how to be a man, and
Speaker 1: teach me how to be a father. And I bet
Speaker 1: your money had no idea that the way he was
Speaker 1: fashioned would be healing. Haley in the in the in
Speaker 1: the Bible says, and as they went, they were healed.
Speaker 1: And so as y'all were going thro y'all's journey of love,
Speaker 1: y'all were finding healing for both y'all.
Speaker 2: It's reciprocal.
Speaker 1: He was finding healing in his mindset of not believing
Speaker 1: that it was attainable.
Speaker 2: So what was your takeaway? What do you like about
Speaker 2: this episode?
Speaker 7: Well?
Speaker 5: I loved what you said, and then I think one
Speaker 5: of the parts that I love the most was how
Speaker 5: Haley was talking about communication and just how intentional they
Speaker 5: have been in terms of learning what the other person
Speaker 5: needs when communicating, because they saw that as a challenge.
Speaker 5: And I love that they met that challenge head on
Speaker 5: and just said, we're not gonna let the things that
Speaker 5: cause other people to stumble affect us. And so I
Speaker 5: think that takes like both people to do that work.
Speaker 5: And I just thought the way that she described it
Speaker 5: was so beautiful and her temperament matching. I mean, I
Speaker 5: could just keep going on, but her being like I
Speaker 5: was a little bit difficult in him being like, I'm
Speaker 5: not gonna argue, and then I'm gonna have to come,
Speaker 5: you know, and meet you and have these conversations. Like
Speaker 5: the whole just the whole transparency of it all. I
Speaker 5: think it is really healing.
Speaker 1: So and I love that. I love that about y'all
Speaker 1: is that a lot of men are very they'll just
Speaker 1: walk away, you know what I'm saying. It's like we're
Speaker 1: trained that if a woman has been difficult, challenging, argumentative, whatever,
Speaker 1: we just walk away.
Speaker 2: And then men just keep doing that.
Speaker 1: And I would watch that on TV shows where they'll
Speaker 1: have an argument and what the dude do getting the
Speaker 1: car and drive off, take a long drive down the.
Speaker 2: Street, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: I'd be like, what happens if you get in a
Speaker 1: car accident?
Speaker 2: And die, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: And it's good that you remove yourself out of that situation,
Speaker 1: but that can't be a coping mechanism that anytime there's
Speaker 1: a conflict you get in a car and drive off,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, because that can lead to
Speaker 1: a different level of insecurity with that woman to be like, well,
Speaker 1: where he goes he about to go be with another woman?
Speaker 1: What was he doing is he's on the phone talking
Speaker 1: because you're avoiding the situation. And so I love the
Speaker 1: fact that you were fearful because that was motivated by
Speaker 1: fear when you were like, I'm gonna go read to
Speaker 1: make sure it don't work out. But it was also
Speaker 1: wisdom because you said, I'm gonna read these books to
Speaker 1: figure out what causes marriage is to break down. Because
Speaker 1: your mindset was always like I'm waiting for the shooter drop.
Speaker 2: I'm waiting this it's too good to be true. It's
Speaker 2: it's too good to be true, is too good to
Speaker 2: be true?
Speaker 1: But it caused you to start being proactive and start saying, well,
Speaker 1: let me make sure that it doesn't you know, So
Speaker 1: that's great when.
Speaker 4: You write for your Key to Love, I said, be
Speaker 4: willing to grow and change. If you always do what
Speaker 4: you always did, you'll always be what you've always been.
Speaker 1: That's good, that's good. Look at her now, she's like,
Speaker 1: I don't want to remind.
Speaker 3: I want to say I wrote mine first. I need
Speaker 3: y'all to know I wrote I put willingness to grow,
Speaker 3: improve and love through the ups and downs.
Speaker 2: That's good.
Speaker 4: Trying to be like me so bad that you change
Speaker 4: the last name. First, first she moved to my state,
Speaker 4: then my city, changed the last name, and now she's
Speaker 4: right now in the same things as me.
Speaker 2: You know, you gotta looking.
Speaker 6: Look.
Speaker 3: Look, I can't say I put it if it is
Speaker 3: on willingness, because something.
Speaker 5: If you're willing get work, you're willing willing heart.
Speaker 2: That's what the bouble talks about.
Speaker 1: Listen, take a stand, go hang those both on the
Speaker 1: same hook.
Speaker 2: Find a hook up there, and you gotta go herself.
Speaker 2: Y'all both gotta go do the way.
Speaker 5: And while they're doing that, ask me the question again
Speaker 5: so I can redeem myself. No question was great, No, no, no,
Speaker 5: the question what did.
Speaker 3: You say about the phases?
Speaker 4: I order?
Speaker 2: All right, so we're going to ask this question again. Okay,
Speaker 2: So what.
Speaker 1: Are the phases of a relationship romantic relationship.
Speaker 5: Okay, there's the friendship first. Then there's a defining moment,
Speaker 5: which is a conversation, it's the aha moment. But I thought,
Speaker 5: I think defining is like a better way to describe it.
Speaker 5: So it's something defining, and then you can decide how
Speaker 5: you want to date, if you want to just you know,
Speaker 5: not be exclusive, or if you want to say, let's
Speaker 5: just lock in with each other because I really want
Speaker 5: to prioritize this. So then that would be like the
Speaker 5: third and fourth phase. And then but but again, I
Speaker 5: don't think you should get committed unless you're like very
Speaker 5: intentional and you think that this could be or forever,
Speaker 5: and then then you get engaged and then uh, and
Speaker 5: then you get married. Bam.
Speaker 2: Did we go through those phases?
Speaker 3: We did?
Speaker 2: Okay, So how how was our phase?
Speaker 3: It was?
Speaker 5: It was friendship defining moment?
Speaker 2: What was the defining moment?
Speaker 5: Well, you called me and you were like.
Speaker 2: Hey, what I say?
Speaker 5: I could cover you better than all them other in
Speaker 5: words defining and he meant it, this was my friend
Speaker 5: and he was like, I gotta tell you something, I
Speaker 5: could cover you better than all them others. I said, oh, okay,
Speaker 5: I'm listening, so defining right, yeah, and then and then dating, yeah,
Speaker 5: March eighteenth, or courting is better. It's courting better where
Speaker 5: if you want to go all biblical and all saved
Speaker 5: and sanctified according engagement marriage, that's my order and I'm
Speaker 5: sticking to it.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 5: Back to Yeah, I.
Speaker 1: Like it, but it's the same thing as friends watching
Speaker 1: each other date other people. And it was like, and
Speaker 1: like you said, I'm seeing what these other people keep
Speaker 1: feeling at I hear what your needs are because I
Speaker 1: remember one time I just got frustrated when she talking me.
Speaker 2: I got frustrated.
Speaker 1: I was like, I'm hearing what you desire. I see
Speaker 1: the type of woman that you are. How are these
Speaker 1: guys mishandling you?
Speaker 2: Like? I know how I know how to serve you.
Speaker 4: And it's not hard things.
Speaker 3: I can do that.
Speaker 2: Do that.
Speaker 4: That's a challenge to.
Speaker 5: What he's like, I'm excel in that.
Speaker 3: As a matter of fact.
Speaker 2: As a matter of fact, here's my resume. I can
Speaker 2: do that. Well.
Speaker 1: Listen, it was a pleasure talking to y'all. Y'all were
Speaker 1: so vulnerable. That's gonna be the word of I made call.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you this. I used to say this
Speaker 1: in the earlier season of Dear Future Wife. If y'all
Speaker 1: were to name this episode based on what y'all shared today,
Speaker 1: what would be the name of this episode? You can
Speaker 1: put your microphone close to your money. Both y'all can talk.
Speaker 1: Y'all can have two different titles you want to. I
Speaker 1: just want to hear what y'all think about this story,
Speaker 1: y'all journey, y'all love journey. If it was a lifetime movie,
Speaker 1: what would it be called?
Speaker 2: Love after loss? Love after loss? What would you call it?
Speaker 3: I'll probably stick with the vulnerability topic and say you'll
Speaker 3: find vulnerable, You'll find strength in your vulnerability.
Speaker 2: You'll find strength in your vulnerability. That's good. Listen, may
Speaker 2: the love you shared today?
Speaker 1: No, let me ask you this for our close anything
Speaker 1: that we can support, y'all got anything coming up? What
Speaker 1: should we tell our listeners a lookout for?
Speaker 3: Come on, you guys are looking at the founders of
Speaker 3: Black Collective, so be on the lookout this year. There
Speaker 3: will be an update this fall of what you can expect.
Speaker 3: You'll already know a couple of conversations about journals and
Speaker 3: merch and things that we've been working on as a
Speaker 3: young married couple, because marriage is not just for people
Speaker 3: who are older. You can have a happy, healthy marriage,
Speaker 3: and you can be proactive. You don't have to be
Speaker 3: erotic dot and go through the streets and struggle first.
Speaker 3: I promise you, yes, but be on the lookout for
Speaker 3: that this fall.
Speaker 2: The Black collective, the Black Collective. I love it. I
Speaker 2: love it. May the love you share today outlive the
Speaker 2: season you're.
Speaker 5: In, may carry you through the days when words are
Speaker 5: few and faith has to do the talking.
Speaker 2: Y'all give it up for the black y'all. I'm glad
Speaker 2: because I know I'll do it. What they said, what
Speaker 2: they said.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but the love you share today, outlive the season
Speaker 1: you're in.
Speaker 5: May carry you through the days when words are few
Speaker 5: and it has to do the talking.
Speaker 3: And you know it.
Speaker 4: We go, okay, let's do it, amen.
Speaker 1: Ladarian thrust it suddenly into child protective Services. In twenty fifteen,
Speaker 1: my nephew, black a boy. The likelihood have been adopted
Speaker 1: outside of kinship slim to none Rmione, sixteen years old,
Speaker 1: black a boy with five years in the foster care
Speaker 1: system before I even knew his name. The likelihood have
Speaker 1: ever been adopted Yep, you guessed it. Slim to none.
Speaker 1: While Ladarian and our MONI were trying to survive and
Speaker 1: barely thrive in an overpopulated and underfunded Falseter care system,
Speaker 1: I was living my own life, doing well professionally, having
Speaker 1: been a single father with a daughter who at that
Speaker 1: point was doing well in college. It was my time
Speaker 1: to live my life right.
Speaker 10: Wrong.
Speaker 1: I felt unsettled, tireless, agitated. There are just too many
Speaker 1: of our Black children stuck in ambiguity and in the
Speaker 1: limbo of the Falter care system. In twenty seventeen, I
Speaker 1: legally adopted my nephew Ladarian.
Speaker 2: Fast forward to twenty nineteen.
Speaker 1: I had no ties to this other young king, but
Speaker 1: I felt God instructed me to adopt them also in
Speaker 1: I obabe starting over with parenting should have been enough. Right,
Speaker 1: Working with various foster care and adoption agencies to help
Speaker 1: bring awareness to the countless young Black Kings and the
Speaker 1: Falter care system should have decreased my agitation.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Joining the board of directors of Advantage of Adoption, in
Speaker 1: organization that helps find permanent adoptive homes for children in
Speaker 1: Falsil care should have led to some type of resolve right, No,
Speaker 1: not at all. None of it felt like I had
Speaker 1: done enough. I now realized that every one of those
Speaker 1: experiences was land the fundamental foundation for my life's mission.
Speaker 1: Kingdom Royal. Kingdom Royal would be a luxury, state of
Speaker 1: the art home for foster boys. Our first location will
Speaker 1: be in the Dallas Fort Worth Metroplex. We will utilize
Speaker 1: the whole person approach that instills identity, empowers them to
Speaker 1: advocate for themselves, and enlightens them regarding new perspectives and
Speaker 1: limitless options that they thought were impossible.
Speaker 2: Though.
Speaker 1: The young Kings will attend the local public schools that
Speaker 1: are in proximity to Kingdom Royal. Our at home curriculum
Speaker 1: will broaden their worldview through participating in the arts, attending
Speaker 1: various cultural events, learning about and engaging in multifaceted discussions
Speaker 1: about current events and even in relevant historical contexts, introducing
Speaker 1: them to gardening and landscaping, and even caring for our
Speaker 1: animals on our form and on site stables. We just
Speaker 1: launched our startup capital campaign with the goal of raising
Speaker 1: two point eight million dollars. Now why two point eight
Speaker 1: million dollars? Well, in twenty seventeen, I created a web
Speaker 1: series in which I performed random acts of kindness for
Speaker 1: targeting the homeless community. One of the most notable successes
Speaker 1: was that one of the videos went viral, garnering twenty
Speaker 1: eight million views. However, one of my biggest regrets is
Speaker 1: that I didn't raise a single dollar to help in
Speaker 1: implementing a more sustainable plan for the homeless community. So,
Speaker 1: throughout the years, with much remorse, I reflect and I'm
Speaker 1: not maximizing that moment.
Speaker 2: I knew if at.
Speaker 1: That time just ten percent of the viewers donated one dollar,
Speaker 1: we would have raised at least two point eight million
Speaker 1: dollars that could have really established long term support for
Speaker 1: the homeless community, or at least started a long term.
Speaker 2: Initial to do.
Speaker 1: So this is my do over, this is our new beginning. Together,
Speaker 1: we can attack this at the route by specifically helping
Speaker 1: our homeless Black boys who are already disproportionately represented in
Speaker 1: the American fossil care system.
Speaker 2: I'm a terisarwhee Field.
Speaker 1: I've been nominated for three regional Emmys documenting my work
Speaker 1: with the homeless as well as my personal adoption journey.
Speaker 1: Despite those accolades, the greatest award for me is truly
Speaker 1: providing the infrastructure for a transformed life. Visit Kingdomroyal dot
Speaker 1: com for more details, crown a king and make a
Speaker 1: donation today.
Speaker 6: I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Dear Future
Speaker 6: WIFEI podcast.
Speaker 1: Remember belt live intentionally and transparently, and don't stop loving.
Speaker 2: Make sure to subscribe to our Dear Future WIFEI YouTube channel,
Speaker 2: available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and Stitcher. We
Speaker 2: welcome your support. Simply share our podcasts with your friends
Speaker 2: and family.