Speaker 1: Kay and I wrote a book. We wrote a book, y'all,
Speaker 1: So I guess you can add author to my resume.
Speaker 1: We fancy y'all and as Hey, I'm Cadine and we're
Speaker 1: the ellis Is. You may know us from posting funny
Speaker 1: videos with our boys and reading each other publicly as
Speaker 1: a form of therapy. Wait, I'll make you need therapy
Speaker 1: most days. Wow. And one more important thing to mention,
Speaker 1: we're married. We all. We created this podcast to open
Speaker 1: dialogue about some of life's most taboo topics, things most
Speaker 1: folks don't want to talk about through the lens of
Speaker 1: a millennium married couple. Dead adds is the term that
Speaker 1: we say every day. So when we say dead ass,
Speaker 1: we're actually saying facts, the truth, the whole truth, and
Speaker 1: nothing but the truth. We're about to take philow talk
Speaker 1: to a whole new level. Dead ass starts right now.
Speaker 1: So last year, around April, coming up on my birthday,
Speaker 1: we were approached with an opportunity to co author a book,
Speaker 1: Kaudine and I, and at first we were like, I
Speaker 1: really want to write no book. Like we have our podcasts,
Speaker 1: we do so much content on social media. I like
Speaker 1: writing my little uh notes to k underneath my captions
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. I felt like that was my space.
Speaker 1: I felt like that's what I wanted to do. Plus, UM,
Speaker 1: I feel like you all. Honestly, I feel like relationship
Speaker 1: books be cheesy because I feel like there's no one
Speaker 1: way to design a perfect relationship, you know. So I
Speaker 1: was kind of like, now I don't really want to
Speaker 1: write a book in and k I was like, you
Speaker 1: don't really want to write a book neither. So then
Speaker 1: we sat down with the publishing company. We sat down
Speaker 1: with Penguin Random House. Um, we sat down with the
Speaker 1: literary agent at CIA, and we actually discussed what a
Speaker 1: book would look like if we co wrote a book,
Speaker 1: and can I decided that the only way we're going
Speaker 1: to write a book is if we can write this
Speaker 1: book differently than any other relationshipship book has ever been written.
Speaker 1: So they were like, what do you mean? I said,
Speaker 1: so first, if we're gonna do a relationship book, it's
Speaker 1: not going to be a collective thought that Codein and
Speaker 1: I said, these are the pillars that make a perfect relationship. No,
Speaker 1: I want to write from my voice and Codein wants
Speaker 1: to write from her voice, and what we want we
Speaker 1: want people to read the book understanding that every story
Speaker 1: has two different perspectives, and understand that you can learn
Speaker 1: more about our relationship hearing Cadein's perspective about how we met,
Speaker 1: and then hearing my perspective about how we met, and
Speaker 1: then hearing a collective respective perspective about how we got
Speaker 1: through those moments. So they was like, Wow, that's never
Speaker 1: been done before. So we chose to move forward and
Speaker 1: write the book. And I guarantee you, guys, when you
Speaker 1: sit down and read this book, it's not gonna be
Speaker 1: like any relationship book you ever read in your life.
Speaker 1: To goodbye, I need to get bye. Uh. Then I
Speaker 1: come out of nowhere short of young man for you.
Speaker 1: Anytime you need me, you're really going in your world.
Speaker 1: Believe me. Nothing to make a man feel better than
Speaker 1: a man queen with a ground that be down for whatever.
Speaker 1: There's a few things that's forever, My lady. We could
Speaker 1: make warring made babies back when I was nothing. You
Speaker 1: made a brother feel like he was something. That's why
Speaker 1: I'm with you till his day. Boom, No front that
Speaker 1: is that is us not to mention both the artists
Speaker 1: from New York Shouling the showering temple. Shoutout Wu tang
Speaker 1: met the man from Stotton Island. Yes, Mary is from
Speaker 1: Mount Vernon. That's a good one. That was the name
Speaker 1: of our book. It was what was your role? I need?
Speaker 1: I love that all right, y'all. But all we need
Speaker 1: to do is pay some bills. So we're gonna do
Speaker 1: that and come back and we're gonna dive more into
Speaker 1: We over me, y'all. We're gonna tell you all about
Speaker 1: this whole book writing process. Babies, stay tuned, all right, guys,
Speaker 1: we're back. We are back. We over me, y'all. The
Speaker 1: counter intuitive approach to getting what you want out of
Speaker 1: your relationship. Man, let me tell you all. First of all,
Speaker 1: I had like me. Yeah, I know me by now.
Speaker 1: I'm cool with de valve Well, I'm cool with devl A,
Speaker 1: but I'm cool with him for example, filming me like
Speaker 1: looking tattered and tired around the house and like fresh
Speaker 1: up in the morning makeup. I know you don't look
Speaker 1: to at it in tired. Maybe not in the beginning,
Speaker 1: maybe in the end. Maybe it's been a long twenty years, y'all, um,
Speaker 1: but yeah, you used to me doing the videos like that,
Speaker 1: which I'm totally cool with that you've seen you know,
Speaker 1: of course, like the Slidelight shoots and like all the
Speaker 1: fun things like that to me is fun and and
Speaker 1: great and I'm all for it. But let me tell
Speaker 1: you all about the anxiety that I had around this book.
Speaker 1: I don't know what it was for me with this process.
Speaker 1: First of all, I will say the process was far
Speaker 1: less daunting than I thought it was going to be,
Speaker 1: because if it required me to just put fingers to
Speaker 1: keyboard and type out a book, it was never gonna happen.
Speaker 1: But what I did love about the process is that
Speaker 1: we partnered with our writer. We actually had an interview
Speaker 1: process with a couple of different people, and then we
Speaker 1: sat down with a writer who we selected that we
Speaker 1: felt like knew enough about our history UM and you know,
Speaker 1: and had some work on her bell. She understood our voice,
Speaker 1: so it was perfect to have these touch based sessions
Speaker 1: with her. UM. But we would kind of just through
Speaker 1: a zoom sit down and she would ask us a
Speaker 1: variety of questions about particular portions of our life. Well,
Speaker 1: what we have to tell them? First? How she got
Speaker 1: to the questions? So the first thing is we we
Speaker 1: told her our love story, and we told her exactly
Speaker 1: how we wanted the story to be told, and she
Speaker 1: did her research too by watching a lot of our
Speaker 1: footage and things like that. I think she had already
Speaker 1: been like kind of you know, following the yeah, but um.
Speaker 1: When when we first agreed to do this book, I
Speaker 1: told him, I said, I do not want to do
Speaker 1: a Pillars book, you know, the Five Pillars to Love
Speaker 1: by the Eldest is. No. I didn't want to do
Speaker 1: nothing like that. I wanted it to be like The Notebook.
Speaker 1: Kadeina and I fell in love with this movie called
Speaker 1: The Notebook, and it's a story about a young couple
Speaker 1: and it starts from their courting process until their old
Speaker 1: sixty year old people and they actually fall in love
Speaker 1: and die holding hands in the nursing home together. And
Speaker 1: the way we learned about their love story was through
Speaker 1: their memoirs. As she, I believe, was going through Alzheimer's
Speaker 1: so she couldn't remember, so she was reading some notes
Speaker 1: and stuff, and that's how we learned about their love
Speaker 1: story through the Notebook. So the concept us for us
Speaker 1: to create our version of the Notebook, and it was
Speaker 1: going to be our memoirs. Memoirs through the years of
Speaker 1: when we first met at eighteen, all the way up
Speaker 1: until we became adults. But the difference is we weren't
Speaker 1: going to write it from one perspective. We were going
Speaker 1: to write it from both Cadean's perspective and my perspective.
Speaker 1: So it was kind of like, how are we going
Speaker 1: to do this? You know? We first wrestled with doing
Speaker 1: a double sided front cover, which means if you look
Speaker 1: at the book one way, it would be devals version,
Speaker 1: and if you flipped and turn it the other way,
Speaker 1: it was Cadean's version. And we wrestled with that, and
Speaker 1: we were kind of like, I don't want to do
Speaker 1: that because I don't want anyone to read my whole
Speaker 1: story first create their whole idea narrative about what's right
Speaker 1: or wrong, and then read Cadean's or vice versus right,
Speaker 1: because we never wanted it to be like, oh, I
Speaker 1: side with the valor side with Dean kind of a thing.
Speaker 1: It's just like, wow, here, here's how two individuals work together,
Speaker 1: and you get the different perspectives simultaneously about the same situation,
Speaker 1: and how we both kind of unpacked and arrived at
Speaker 1: certain you know, um destinations. Yes, you know It's very
Speaker 1: similar to like the podcast. I tell a story, Codeine
Speaker 1: gives her version of the story. I tell how her
Speaker 1: ideas of what she thought and the story made me feel.
Speaker 1: She does the same thing, and then we come to
Speaker 1: an ultimate conclusion of how that story made us better
Speaker 1: moving forward. The book is about that. Um. We chose
Speaker 1: a series of stories from the time we were eighteen
Speaker 1: up until we had children that were really UM dynamic
Speaker 1: in our relationship. I said, those would be the stories
Speaker 1: that when you think about moments that created the version
Speaker 1: of Codein and the value see today, it's like, I
Speaker 1: remember that and I see why they moved. They were
Speaker 1: the way they moved today. For sure. Definitely, I think
Speaker 1: a lot of pivotal moments in our relationships, moments that
Speaker 1: would have caused a make or break situation UM, and
Speaker 1: sometimes broke us. But it was the way that we
Speaker 1: were able to kind of rebuild from that or recover
Speaker 1: from those moments. UM. So yeah, we sat down with
Speaker 1: with Leah and we had these conversations, and then after
Speaker 1: having these conversations, she would formulate questions for us too
Speaker 1: then answer UM. And the easiest way for both of us,
Speaker 1: since we're always on the goal was to just voice
Speaker 1: noted right. So I mean some of my voice notes
Speaker 1: for particular questions ranged from you know, fifteen minutes to
Speaker 1: sometimes thirty five minutes, you know, depending on how long
Speaker 1: my answer had to be. And then she had the
Speaker 1: task of transcribing and then putting it together and making
Speaker 1: sure that it was authentic to our voice. And then
Speaker 1: there were several different back and forth sessions where you know,
Speaker 1: she and the editors would work on it, send it
Speaker 1: back to de Val and I and then that's when
Speaker 1: we were able to kind of go in and fill
Speaker 1: in the gaps now because but it wasn't just about
Speaker 1: filling the gaps. First got the notes back and said,
Speaker 1: this doesn't sound exactly like me. So Codine went through
Speaker 1: being the nerd that she is and changed everything to
Speaker 1: where it sounds exactly like her. You know how controlling
Speaker 1: I am, so I had to do the it really
Speaker 1: the same thing. But I will say this, though you
Speaker 1: think you're gonna learn a lot about us by reading
Speaker 1: this book, I learned a lot about codeem because for
Speaker 1: the first time in twenty years, I sat down and
Speaker 1: read all of her thoughts on what we were doing
Speaker 1: and where we were going. In those certain moments, and
Speaker 1: I learned more about her. And I think a lot
Speaker 1: of people are looking at us now and if you
Speaker 1: look at something like they seem to be more happy
Speaker 1: now than they were when we first started listening to
Speaker 1: this podcast. And I honestly believe writing this book helped
Speaker 1: me understand my wife's perspective. I also learned a lot
Speaker 1: about her family. That's a really good point when you
Speaker 1: say that, because why we always talk about communicating right,
Speaker 1: And one thing I struggled with over the course of
Speaker 1: our relationship is how to communicate effectively with you. And
Speaker 1: sometimes my thoughts get jumbled or I may not be
Speaker 1: able to eloquently expressed to you in real time through
Speaker 1: a conversation verbal how I feel. But I always been
Speaker 1: a writer, you know that, like that, that was always
Speaker 1: my thing. English was always my strongest subject. To this day,
Speaker 1: I'm like grammar police. The kids already know what time
Speaker 1: it is when I come with my highlighter. Right absolutely,
Speaker 1: I'm like browing the captions off your apostrophes in the
Speaker 1: wrong spot. Like so for me, I feel like I
Speaker 1: was really in my element because instead of now having
Speaker 1: anxiety over the book now, once I got kind of
Speaker 1: the skeleton that Leah gave us from transcribing the voice notes,
Speaker 1: I was then able to not go in and just
Speaker 1: add the meat to it, right, And I felt like
Speaker 1: I was really in a moment where I can just
Speaker 1: read reread, and you reading those portions of it was
Speaker 1: almost like therapy sessions again, right, because you're able to see, yeah.
Speaker 1: And we had moments where both of both of us
Speaker 1: would walk in on each other, you know, like, oh, baby,
Speaker 1: I know you're working on the book downstairs and by
Speaker 1: yourself and not popping to just check on him, see
Speaker 1: if he's good, needs anything, And he would almost be
Speaker 1: terry eyed. And then he did the same thing with me,
Speaker 1: and I'd be like, oh my god, like I'm really
Speaker 1: sitting in these moments again and just pulling on my
Speaker 1: memory and pulling on how I felt certain moments, and
Speaker 1: it was so tangible that it was like reliving those
Speaker 1: moments all over again. Some not so good, you know,
Speaker 1: there were some moments that I, you know, what's funny,
Speaker 1: there were some moments that was so traumatic for us
Speaker 1: that you put them away and you locked the door
Speaker 1: and you throw away the key. In your mind, you
Speaker 1: like this never happened until you're asked a direct question
Speaker 1: and you have to answer it and it unlock, It
Speaker 1: unloads all of this emotion onto the page. And then
Speaker 1: I'm reading your version and I'm just like, that's what
Speaker 1: she was thinking that whole time, because sometimes you can't
Speaker 1: express eloquently how you feel in the moment because you're
Speaker 1: too emotional. So even when we were going through those moments,
Speaker 1: some happy and some sad moments, some scary moments, you know,
Speaker 1: I never really fully understood what you were going through.
Speaker 1: Reading the book now made me be like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: Like at that moment, you weren't my wife, and you
Speaker 1: made that choice for me, Like wow, like it. It
Speaker 1: gave me a greater respect for the courage it takes
Speaker 1: to believe in someone with no direct knowledge that that
Speaker 1: person is going to believe in you the same way.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying, Because we were we were
Speaker 1: still kids in a way. We were in our early
Speaker 1: twenties some late teens, and we were making adult decisions,
Speaker 1: and those adult decisions took trust, and it was just like, man,
Speaker 1: she trusted me in that moment to make that decision,
Speaker 1: and it would made me be like why why did
Speaker 1: she trust me like that? Right? It was actually like
Speaker 1: why would you trust him? Like super baffling. And for me,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about ship, like I encountered year old kids
Speaker 1: to this day, and I'm just like, we were in
Speaker 1: a space that we were still babies, still kids, but
Speaker 1: then had the mindset and had the want and the
Speaker 1: desire to like just be so roped into each other
Speaker 1: and so invested in each other so early on, where
Speaker 1: I can see why it was so confusing for our family,
Speaker 1: for example, to be like, guys, y'all that just year olds,
Speaker 1: and y'all are so invested in each other, like you
Speaker 1: don't even know who the hell you are, but we
Speaker 1: were just so locked in. It also made me realize
Speaker 1: the strength in faith in love, because when you're twenty
Speaker 1: two one, you feel like you got everything figured out,
Speaker 1: like you just know everything's figured out. And then when
Speaker 1: you get closer to forty and you look back a
Speaker 1: year olds at a half year age, you sit back
Speaker 1: and these motherfucker's don't know shit about ship. And it
Speaker 1: made me realize that we were making adult decisions at
Speaker 1: a time where we really didn't know anything, and we
Speaker 1: were only we only had faith in God. And each other,
Speaker 1: and reading the book kind of also made me. It
Speaker 1: was inspiring to me to be like, Wow, she had
Speaker 1: that type of faith in me at nineteen, and I
Speaker 1: was like, dang, I really put all of that into
Speaker 1: that young lady at nineteen. What was I thinking? But
Speaker 1: I was like I saw something, I saw thing in her,
Speaker 1: and it inspired me to continue that love moving forward
Speaker 1: because right now we're only getting closer to forty. When
Speaker 1: we look back when we're eighty, we're gonna be like
Speaker 1: we made those decisions in our forty you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. But it made me feel confident that I
Speaker 1: could have faith in a person. And ultimately, when people
Speaker 1: read the book, I want you guys to take away
Speaker 1: that you can have faith in humanity because right now,
Speaker 1: because of social media, I think people tend to lose
Speaker 1: faith in humanity because clickbait is king right now. So
Speaker 1: the easiest way to get people to click on something
Speaker 1: is to show fights, show something negative, you know, show
Speaker 1: humanity at its worst. Right We've seen you know, you've
Speaker 1: seen people die on social media because an easy way
Speaker 1: to get clicks when you show love, or you show happiness,
Speaker 1: or you show peace, it doesn't have the same type
Speaker 1: of response. So we're getting fed a lot of negativity. Rewrite.
Speaker 1: Writing this book and reading your examples of why you
Speaker 1: chose to make this as you made for me gave
Speaker 1: me a reassurance in humanity, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: And hope people when they read the book feel the
Speaker 1: same way. Yeah, that's right, That's that's right, because you
Speaker 1: know you, you do. You hear a lot of stories
Speaker 1: now about how hopeless people feel when it comes to
Speaker 1: just dating and finding their person. You know what's in
Speaker 1: store for them when it comes to relationships, and um,
Speaker 1: we're hoping is that it'll it'll give people some hope
Speaker 1: to say, you know what, there is somebody out there
Speaker 1: designed for meum. And timing is never what we think
Speaker 1: is going to because neither of us was looking for
Speaker 1: forever love at eighteen and nineteen years old. I think
Speaker 1: that's one thing they'll know. As a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: wrote these questions to consider, right, so I want to
Speaker 1: interview you, you can interview me. We can ask each
Speaker 1: other these questions. Okay. Number one, what makes your approach counterintuitive?
Speaker 1: Because the byeline for the book is the counterintuitive approach
Speaker 1: to getting everything you want out of the relationship behind.
Speaker 1: So I kind of feel like it gives a little
Speaker 1: bit oxymoron vibes, right, because if you're writing a relationship
Speaker 1: book with two people on the cover, it says we
Speaker 1: over me, I'm on devource back. It's like, hey, here's
Speaker 1: like how we have the perfect relationship. But I think
Speaker 1: once you dive into the book, you see how imperfect
Speaker 1: we were in so many moments. So that counterintuitive. The
Speaker 1: counter intuitivity, if that's a word, um is really like
Speaker 1: what you think you're going to see and what you
Speaker 1: think requires is required in a relationship, we're showing that
Speaker 1: it's actually quite the opposite. And how in these moments
Speaker 1: that are not conventional for some couples, and these moments
Speaker 1: that weren't you know, traditional for us, we were still
Speaker 1: able to thrive and be the couple that we are
Speaker 1: to day because of those moments. Absolutely, And I also
Speaker 1: want to add to that the countertuitivity, the word that
Speaker 1: my wife just reloquently created, because I'm pretty sure that's
Speaker 1: not a word, but for me, it was getting everything
Speaker 1: out of the relationship you want. Typically, when people say
Speaker 1: get everything out of relationship you want, what do people
Speaker 1: start with? Lists let's list the things that you want.
Speaker 1: Our book has nothing to do with lists. We don't
Speaker 1: talk about the things we want. So the counterintuitive part
Speaker 1: is the fact that I invested and being everything I
Speaker 1: could be from my partner to get everything I wanted,
Speaker 1: as opposed to listing everything I wanted and expecting my
Speaker 1: partner to be everything on my list. You see what
Speaker 1: I'm saying, And I think when people read it, they'll
Speaker 1: be like, wait a minute. There was at no point
Speaker 1: in this book did these two say this is what
Speaker 1: I want and Codeine has to follow these rules or
Speaker 1: devol this is what I wanted he has. It was
Speaker 1: the exact opposite. So when you when you read the
Speaker 1: counterintuitive part, I want you guys to think about realistically
Speaker 1: what we're asking people and what we're asking people to do.
Speaker 1: See what I'm saying, that's that's that's yeah, that's perfect.
Speaker 1: And I think about to the title week over me
Speaker 1: right could be a little bit off putting because at first,
Speaker 1: when we were thinking about you're all I need, some
Speaker 1: of the feedback that we were getting from like the
Speaker 1: editors and like the publishers and stuff like that was like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, you're all I need. Kind of gives the
Speaker 1: implication that like, there's no individuality here, replacing all of
Speaker 1: what you need in one person, where that was not
Speaker 1: necessarily the message that we were going. It wasn't and
Speaker 1: it wasn't the message, And at first we were kind of,
Speaker 1: you know, giving a little pushback, like thinking of the
Speaker 1: song and just thinking about how that inspires us and
Speaker 1: how it's kind of written for us in a sense.
Speaker 1: We were just like, this makes so much sense, and
Speaker 1: they're like, no, if you literally break it down, you're
Speaker 1: not telling people that you're putting your all into someone
Speaker 1: instead for the purpose of we togetherness, the relationship, I'm
Speaker 1: putting that above myself because we believe in being of
Speaker 1: service to the person that it's all about being a service.
Speaker 1: So that's where the we over me came from, and
Speaker 1: also came from my brain because I came up with
Speaker 1: the title shout out to myself. Yeah, that was definitely, uh,
Speaker 1: definitely that was all him. Y'all. Let me tell you something,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna celebrate myself. You better. You know you better,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna celebrate you too. I'm gonna be some celebration
Speaker 1: because you'll be celebrating cadeem all the time, I'll be
Speaker 1: Celebraica all the time. Man If I'll be feeling away,
Speaker 1: y'all like I do, don't celebrate me on as a
Speaker 1: team before example, celebrate it, Crystal. I had nothing to
Speaker 1: do with that. Okay, this is the funniest part. It
Speaker 1: was when I was honored. I was while I was
Speaker 1: asked by the NFL to speak and I took Jackson
Speaker 1: with me to speak at Stanford to do a course
Speaker 1: with former NFL players about building a business to the
Speaker 1: second level and second career transitions. And the comments were like,
Speaker 1: congratulations to Codein and Devout. I'm like, Codeine never played
Speaker 1: in the NFL Coadean wasn't even invited here. Coudin is
Speaker 1: not even on this trip, and it was congratulations to
Speaker 1: Conde and Devot. But I will tell you this though,
Speaker 1: that's another example of how it's we over me because
Speaker 1: when people view us, they can no longer view us individually.
Speaker 1: They always view us as always Codeine and Devout. It
Speaker 1: is that and yeah, and it's a struggle like we
Speaker 1: wanted earlier on, we didn't even see the value in
Speaker 1: being individuals because we were so wrapped into each other
Speaker 1: so already on that now we're wanting some individuality, but
Speaker 1: people can't see it because it's like it's always been.
Speaker 1: V Ellis is like, that's the hashtag, that's everybody together.
Speaker 1: But I mean, you know the NFL, that's everything you did.
Speaker 1: I did not play it down. I did not catch
Speaker 1: a pass, I did not take a hit. But I
Speaker 1: was back in though I was rubbing, making sure he
Speaker 1: was fed. Yeah, I mean, I don't think, to be honest,
Speaker 1: I don't think I would have been able to make
Speaker 1: it to that level if I didn't have that support
Speaker 1: taking care of me after games. I'm not really good
Speaker 1: to take care of myself. I don't eat in the
Speaker 1: morning unless K wakes up and makes it breakfast. I'll
Speaker 1: grab a protein shake. But Codeine used to be on
Speaker 1: top of making sure, Like, yo, you're trying to gain
Speaker 1: five pounds before pro day, you have to eat this
Speaker 1: peanut butter and jelly sandwich bro in between classes, making
Speaker 1: sure I eat, coming home at night, making sure I
Speaker 1: eat when I was going over the playbook. When I
Speaker 1: first got to the Lions, Codeine would sit there in
Speaker 1: the huddle right and I wouldn't know what the hell
Speaker 1: I was saying. She I would be like you would
Speaker 1: have to read off the play and I would have
Speaker 1: to hear the play. I would run out to my
Speaker 1: position and then I would She would say what does
Speaker 1: the Y do? And I would describe on the paper
Speaker 1: what the Y does. I would describe what the excellency does.
Speaker 1: And part of the reason why I made the team
Speaker 1: is because when other receivers only knew one position, I
Speaker 1: knew all four positions. And part of the reason why
Speaker 1: it's easy for me to know all four positions because
Speaker 1: my wife, my fiance or my girlfriend at the time,
Speaker 1: I used to make flash cards with all of the
Speaker 1: plays narrative when it came in handy and turn it
Speaker 1: over and we have all the written diagrams on the
Speaker 1: other side. So no, you didn't catch any passes, but
Speaker 1: it was always a wee over me type of thing.
Speaker 1: Like you were invested. And this is one thing I
Speaker 1: learned about myself right in this book. You were invested
Speaker 1: in my individual career just as much as you were
Speaker 1: invested in yours. And I was invested in your individual
Speaker 1: career as much as sometimes even more than mine. Like
Speaker 1: devout was just like girl like you, you can be
Speaker 1: the next biggest thing you know and I'm just like me,
Speaker 1: like I still feel like and he still feels like
Speaker 1: that's the He's just like girl now just about to
Speaker 1: get your win back and you don't have any kids
Speaker 1: like this guy's the limit and sometimes you need that.
Speaker 1: And the way over me approach is just even better
Speaker 1: because we just it's like having someone alongside you to
Speaker 1: do this together with it. There's nothing like it, b
Speaker 1: There's nothing like It's really nothing like it. It really
Speaker 1: is nothing like that. So what challenges did you face
Speaker 1: while writing the book, Babe Man. One of one of
Speaker 1: the challenges I faced, I was trying to figure out
Speaker 1: exactly what I wanted to share. I'm not gonna lie.
Speaker 1: We're We're pretty a pretty open book. But I struggled
Speaker 1: with some stories because some stories were dark, you know,
Speaker 1: some stories were things that I wanted to put away
Speaker 1: because I didn't like to think about you or I
Speaker 1: or us collectively in a vulnerable position. And I'm at
Speaker 1: the point in my life now I don't care what
Speaker 1: other people think, but I don't want to be reminded
Speaker 1: of it, you know what I'm saying, Like, I don't
Speaker 1: want to think about the times you were in pain.
Speaker 1: I don't want to think about the times and I
Speaker 1: was in pain, so I have to sit down and
Speaker 1: to write about being in pain or watching you in
Speaker 1: pain and what I was thinking about, and then having
Speaker 1: to read what you were thinking about during those moments
Speaker 1: brought back all of those emotions that I spent all
Speaker 1: of these years burying for a reason. So for me,
Speaker 1: that was the the hardest part, because you want to
Speaker 1: share so that you can give people a full perspective
Speaker 1: of why we rock so hard. So you can't have
Speaker 1: a book like that without those moments. But it's like
Speaker 1: you don't always want to keep talking about those moments. Moments. Yeah,
Speaker 1: now I agree, I can, I can have. I can
Speaker 1: definitely say that I felt very similar in that um
Speaker 1: knowing what to share, and still to this day, like
Speaker 1: there's certain things that we're still not sharing just because
Speaker 1: we just don't feel too because we feel like we
Speaker 1: share so much that, you know, we want to continue
Speaker 1: to be able to have, you know, moments for ourselves,
Speaker 1: sacred moments that good or bad, you know, and then
Speaker 1: also still be true to who we are because we
Speaker 1: think we owe it to people who support us and
Speaker 1: people who followed our journey to show that it was
Speaker 1: never always just the bells and the whistles and the
Speaker 1: cherry on top situations. There were a lot of moments that, um,
Speaker 1: really were on the verge of breaking us. Um. I
Speaker 1: think my challenge with writing the book was, um, it's
Speaker 1: a piece of art, right when you look at a
Speaker 1: book something that you know, it's like a creative piece.
Speaker 1: Where any moment that I would walk away from the
Speaker 1: book and then I sit with it again, something new
Speaker 1: would come to my mind, or a new perspective or
Speaker 1: a memory got you know, kind of jogged by being
Speaker 1: in that moment. So I had a hard time actually
Speaker 1: walking away from this book, y'all because I kind of
Speaker 1: felt like I always wanted to kind of tweak something
Speaker 1: or add something. I felt like it was never done.
Speaker 1: And I'm sure if now that the book is already
Speaker 1: in production, in the final script is out, if I
Speaker 1: sat with it again, I'll find more shipped to like
Speaker 1: you know, add and finagle. So that just made me
Speaker 1: feel like, you know, is there another book that might
Speaker 1: come after this one? I guess we'll see, because remember
Speaker 1: I studied art. I studied art from time I was
Speaker 1: in middle school to high school and art history in college.
Speaker 1: But they say that a work of art is never
Speaker 1: complete you just stopped working on it, you know, because
Speaker 1: a painter can always go back and fix a couple
Speaker 1: of shokes. Even a musician when they're writing a sympathy, right,
Speaker 1: not a symphony, they always continuously go back and say,
Speaker 1: I can change this note here, Well, I can extend
Speaker 1: this here. The same thing with a book, you know,
Speaker 1: I can add a little bit more to this story.
Speaker 1: And if you keep doing that, you'll never be able
Speaker 1: to put it out. So at some point you have
Speaker 1: to just stop working on it and accept it even
Speaker 1: in its flaws, because that's what life is. Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: never a perfect piece. I guess I'm I'm the person
Speaker 1: that's like going back thinking like damn, what if you know,
Speaker 1: what if this wasn't received properly or what if I
Speaker 1: didn't write this the right way? Because for me, the
Speaker 1: anxiety was that, like this is pages to paper, like
Speaker 1: this is ship that lasts, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: Like the Internet will come and go, the iCloud main
Speaker 1: crash whatever means we lose this and the abyss that
Speaker 1: is you know, the Internet, but like a book, like
Speaker 1: you know, you have books from like thousands of years
Speaker 1: ago that was here to this day. That's why authors
Speaker 1: write multiple books. Because we wrote We Over Me two,
Speaker 1: if we write we Over Me is going to be
Speaker 1: a completely different book. So what you also have to
Speaker 1: remember is where were they in this time when they
Speaker 1: were writing this book. And that's also part of the story.
Speaker 1: So that when the next one comes out, or the
Speaker 1: book by yourself that's not with me, or my book
Speaker 1: that's next, or your biography and my biography, you have
Speaker 1: to understand that each piece is not just created in
Speaker 1: a utopia or in a vacuum. It's created during the
Speaker 1: time when it was written, and that's also part of
Speaker 1: the story. That's what makes it so great. That's actually
Speaker 1: very true. It's pretty dope. So let me ask you,
Speaker 1: why do you think it was important for you specifically
Speaker 1: to write this book. M hmm. There's a couple of things. Um.
Speaker 1: I think it's a challenge for me. It was a
Speaker 1: space that I'm just not used to being in and
Speaker 1: in us finding different ways to express ourselves, um for
Speaker 1: us being creatives, um, for us being artists. I felt
Speaker 1: like this was just another way for me to express
Speaker 1: myself in a area that I felt like was strong
Speaker 1: for me in the past, and I just was like,
Speaker 1: you know what, this would be a nice little challenge
Speaker 1: for me to sit down and be in this space
Speaker 1: which I genuinely love. I used to love writing so
Speaker 1: much that this was um important for me to do
Speaker 1: that also too. I feel like we share a lot
Speaker 1: via social media, via the podcast, UM, but there's also
Speaker 1: moments to that are you know, shareable that we haven't
Speaker 1: spoken about. And I feel like we want to continue
Speaker 1: to give people who support us even more insight into
Speaker 1: how things work, particularly because um, you know, our support
Speaker 1: system is growing publicly. We also have different different ventures
Speaker 1: that we're trying to do, you know, different um works
Speaker 1: that you're trying to do. So I think that this
Speaker 1: was a really good space for us to just have
Speaker 1: something different, something that's not digital, something that's not I
Speaker 1: mean we probably do an audiobook or something. Definitely. It
Speaker 1: just gave us a different space to be in where
Speaker 1: we can just share more, um because not everybody consumes
Speaker 1: information the same way like they may have a whole
Speaker 1: another realm of people that we're going to be exposed
Speaker 1: to now because they don't podcast, they don't follow social media,
Speaker 1: they don't have a Facebook account, you know, um, so
Speaker 1: I think that that's just another way for other people
Speaker 1: to be touched by our story. For me, it was simple,
Speaker 1: literature is the only medium that's timeless. Right, Books don't
Speaker 1: go out of style, right. You You hear about all
Speaker 1: these different mediums. At one point it was radio. The
Speaker 1: people stopped listening to radio and started watching TV. We'll
Speaker 1: stop stop listening to radio and started going to the theater.
Speaker 1: Then it was they stopped going to the theater, and
Speaker 1: then they started going to movies, and it was movies
Speaker 1: and now everyone's own devices. But the one thing that's
Speaker 1: consistent is literature. The Bible is one of the oldest
Speaker 1: books ever written, and it's still one of the most
Speaker 1: powerful books. So I feel like literature is a way
Speaker 1: to remain timeless. One of my favorite movies of all
Speaker 1: time is Troy because Achilles said he always wants his
Speaker 1: name to be and I always wanted I always want
Speaker 1: my for my name to be remembered. I want when
Speaker 1: I leave this earth people say, hey, devou contributed to
Speaker 1: the earth and humanity in this way. And I feel
Speaker 1: like the best way to do that is through literature,
Speaker 1: because that can be carried from generation to generation and
Speaker 1: forward and forward, So it was important for me for
Speaker 1: that reason. What did you learn about yourself or each
Speaker 1: other while recounting the stories for the book, So you
Speaker 1: kind of touched on this a little bit, But was
Speaker 1: there anything else that you can think? Absolutely I have.
Speaker 1: I now have a greater respect for both sets of
Speaker 1: our parents when you when reading the book. We are
Speaker 1: extremely hard on our parents because we had to hold
Speaker 1: ourselves accountable for our behavior early in our relationships, but
Speaker 1: learning that our behavior was learned behavior from our parents.
Speaker 1: So it's it's almost like when you go to therapy
Speaker 1: and you realize that the traumas you face growing up
Speaker 1: in a certain house create the person that you are,
Speaker 1: and now you're trying to share this person with another
Speaker 1: person who had their own traumas in their own house.
Speaker 1: Writing these stories and listening to how you perceived them
Speaker 1: after knowing your family made sense to me. It was
Speaker 1: like she perceived it like that, or she thought that
Speaker 1: way because that's how her parents are. I thought things
Speaker 1: because that's how my parents are. And it also made
Speaker 1: me realize that as much as we complain about our
Speaker 1: parents and the traumas they gave us, we have to
Speaker 1: congratulate our parents on creating dope humans because I felt
Speaker 1: like I wanted to be of service to you because
Speaker 1: you were so dope, which means I have to applaud
Speaker 1: your parents for me. Yes. So for me, it was
Speaker 1: like I can find fault in what my parents did
Speaker 1: because I could look at my traumas and look at
Speaker 1: my insecurities. Right, but I also fell in love with
Speaker 1: a very flawed woman, And I can look at your
Speaker 1: parents and be like, you have extremely flawed, beautiful, loving
Speaker 1: person because of who your parents created, and I have
Speaker 1: to give them their flowers. But from your perspective, you're like,
Speaker 1: I'm so flawed because of who my parents, but you
Speaker 1: fell in love with me, and you will give my
Speaker 1: family my parents flowers. So I learned so much about
Speaker 1: this process and about your family, and I just have
Speaker 1: a greater respect for both of our parents because they
Speaker 1: did what they could with what they had during that time. No, absolutely,
Speaker 1: I think that's important. We even dedicated the book to
Speaker 1: our parents and first our children and stuff. But it's
Speaker 1: super important because we always like to harp on like, damn,
Speaker 1: my parents didn't do X y Z, and you know
Speaker 1: they because of them that not doing this? Then I
Speaker 1: but I'm just like, shoot, look at now, look at
Speaker 1: look at us, look at you and I um And
Speaker 1: one thing I learned about our you know, our story
Speaker 1: are is to really we sometimes harp on the bad
Speaker 1: and the moment a lot or things that aren't going
Speaker 1: right or levels that we haven't reached yet, but just
Speaker 1: looking at like the things that we've encounter that we've
Speaker 1: you know, survived, the things that we've you know, had
Speaker 1: to laugh through and cry through together, Like we have
Speaker 1: a pretty dope ass love story. Yes there was another
Speaker 1: possible title, like a Brooklyn love You just think about
Speaker 1: a story of two kids in Brooklyn, you know, coming
Speaker 1: from our humble backgrounds and just having dreams, like just
Speaker 1: having dreams and having each other and finding a way
Speaker 1: to make that ship work and to make it come
Speaker 1: to fruition. And like I said on a different episode,
Speaker 1: like almost twenty years exactly to the date since we
Speaker 1: sat in your dorm room. You were now living a
Speaker 1: dream at the time. But it's something that you worked
Speaker 1: for for twenty years. We worked for Seriously, we we
Speaker 1: the first date that Codeine and I had, I told
Speaker 1: Codeine what my life plan was. I told her what
Speaker 1: I wanted to do. I told her verbem that I
Speaker 1: wanted to graduate from school, I'll probably be free agent,
Speaker 1: tryout or no. I said, when graduate from school, I
Speaker 1: probably work on Wall Street. If I can make it
Speaker 1: to the NFL and being a practice squad, I'll buy
Speaker 1: a Brownstone if nance major, I think exactly. Then he
Speaker 1: met me and the whole plane coming to your class.
Speaker 1: I definitely was coming to your class, that's not even
Speaker 1: a question. But I had this whole plan for myself.
Speaker 1: And when I spoke to her about what I wanted
Speaker 1: to do, she was just like, Okay, so how are
Speaker 1: we gonna do it? And she didn't laugh at me,
Speaker 1: but she also had this like this air like she
Speaker 1: felt comfortable saying how are we going to do this? Yeah,
Speaker 1: at first it was a flirting tactic. I'm not even
Speaker 1: gonna lie because just like I mean, here we are
Speaker 1: sitting out and chatting for the first time, and you
Speaker 1: tell me like your life plan, and I'm inserting myself
Speaker 1: into your life plan by saying, so how we can
Speaker 1: do that? You know? And it was just like oh, ship,
Speaker 1: like here I am brought into your dream. But it
Speaker 1: also is a testament to how passionate you were early on,
Speaker 1: Like I could just feel that early on, and I
Speaker 1: just knew, like, man, this guy, like he really got
Speaker 1: this ship together. Like how many eighteen year olds do
Speaker 1: you meet that really Like, No, A lot of people
Speaker 1: are like, I'm undecided major, I don't really try to
Speaker 1: figure things out. Might work for my dad's company, that's
Speaker 1: if you're that even has a company. You know, I
Speaker 1: might pick up a trade, you know. I don't know
Speaker 1: if college is even for me. Really, I'm just here
Speaker 1: because I'm here for a good time, not a long time.
Speaker 1: Like there's so many different viewpoints that you can have
Speaker 1: an eighteen that you don't even know where the fun
Speaker 1: you know. So when I saw that you had that
Speaker 1: from early on, I was like wow, and that was
Speaker 1: always my mindset to. I was just like, man, like,
Speaker 1: now I'm finally in college. I was inspired by the
Speaker 1: fact that I was like about to be at my
Speaker 1: parents house. It's like, Okay, how am I going to adult?
Speaker 1: Like what does adults are gonna look like? For me? Um?
Speaker 1: And then ship we realized some days it's like I
Speaker 1: don't want to be an adult no more. You know.
Speaker 1: We realized that over time, but in those moments, UM,
Speaker 1: they were just like really really just priceless, inspiring moments.
Speaker 1: What do you hope leaders take away from the book.
Speaker 1: I just hope that you guys are able to will
Speaker 1: a if you're dealing with any particular strifes in your
Speaker 1: relationship or just in life as an individual, because we
Speaker 1: want we don't want this to be just geared towards
Speaker 1: married poles, people in relationships, um, people who aspire to
Speaker 1: being relationships. This is actually for somebody to who knows that.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't think I want to be in
Speaker 1: a relationship. And I know that because I watched de
Speaker 1: Valancotine or I've read this book and the things that
Speaker 1: they're doing for each other, I just know I don't
Speaker 1: have the capacity to do for another human being, you know,
Speaker 1: inspire people. Yeah, And it's like you don't have to
Speaker 1: agree with everything that we've said in here. Some things
Speaker 1: in there I know off the bats and people gonna
Speaker 1: be like, what, like I didn't see that coming, or
Speaker 1: oh they did that, I don't know if I worked
Speaker 1: with them, no more. And that's fine, that's fine. You
Speaker 1: could feel the way you want to feel. But this
Speaker 1: is our truth and we're living in it, and we're
Speaker 1: living comfortably in it, and I enjoy the fact that
Speaker 1: I'm able to do that, and I hope that it
Speaker 1: inspires others to live comfortably in who you are, you know,
Speaker 1: and and not show up Like I've said, you know,
Speaker 1: a little tidbit in the book is like not to
Speaker 1: continue to show up as this representative of yourself. Like
Speaker 1: I want people to as an individual, as a human,
Speaker 1: live in who you are. And it's better for everybody
Speaker 1: that way, because you don't have a facade to keep up.
Speaker 1: And then whoever you're introducing yourself too, says all right,
Speaker 1: I know who I'm dealing with, and there's no surprises.
Speaker 1: Let's take some of the guessing out of it and
Speaker 1: just give people the ability to make choices to want
Speaker 1: to be in your orbit or not. You know, that's
Speaker 1: one thing the book is about. The book is about
Speaker 1: a lot of choices. You and I made a lot
Speaker 1: of choice over these last twenty and you know what,
Speaker 1: we're all like you talked about art being unfinished. We're art, Yes,
Speaker 1: we are art. So how are you continuing to like
Speaker 1: add that paint stroke to your life to make you
Speaker 1: that much better? You know? What are you doing to
Speaker 1: alter your career path? What are you doing to alter
Speaker 1: your path or your relationship with a family member. Um,
Speaker 1: how is that looking like? I'm glad you? What does
Speaker 1: that look like? Right? That's that's actually a perfect segue
Speaker 1: because remember how you said life is a work of art. Right?
Speaker 1: What makes works of art valuable is the individuality? Right,
Speaker 1: It's one of a kind. So can you create a
Speaker 1: valuable life trying to copy someone else's version of their life?
Speaker 1: Think about it. How much value does your relationship have
Speaker 1: if you spend time trying to copy someone else's version
Speaker 1: of relationship that you think is perfect. It's the authentic
Speaker 1: Is the authenticity versus a replicass? Right? Yes? How much
Speaker 1: less is the replica? And value way less? Write? Anything
Speaker 1: that's a knockoff has no value. It's a knockoff the original,
Speaker 1: even as flawed as it is. The reason why it's
Speaker 1: value is because it has the flaws, and that's how
Speaker 1: we can tell us the original. One of the main
Speaker 1: things we talked about in the book is that we
Speaker 1: hate the idea of couple of goals, and we hate
Speaker 1: the idea of people pulling pillars up and saying, if
Speaker 1: you follow these pillars, you can create a life you
Speaker 1: want with yourself. We actually despise that, and we actually
Speaker 1: despise being called a couple of goals because we don't
Speaker 1: inspire to be like any other couple, like when people
Speaker 1: ask all the time, what couples inspire you? Right, I
Speaker 1: don't even look up to my parents. I don't look
Speaker 1: up to your parents. I don't look up to anybody.
Speaker 1: I feel like in order for me to create the
Speaker 1: type of relationship I want that's gonna last and has value,
Speaker 1: I have to work within the person that i'm with,
Speaker 1: the couple that I'm with. I have to work within
Speaker 1: this union to create our own version. So I don't
Speaker 1: look at any other people, and I don't want other
Speaker 1: people to look at us. That's the first thing I
Speaker 1: hope that they walk away with is that you can't
Speaker 1: and you should never want to be deval in cadem
Speaker 1: You shouldn't. You can be inspired by their love story,
Speaker 1: you know, because we've had success in life loving on
Speaker 1: each other, but don't try to be like anyone else.
Speaker 1: That's the first thing. The second thing I want people
Speaker 1: to learn is how to have empathy and compassion for
Speaker 1: each other. Right, I want people to walk away feeling
Speaker 1: inspired by love and believing in humanity. Because when I
Speaker 1: read the book over and over and over again, the
Speaker 1: thing that's stuck with me is how much you have
Speaker 1: to believe in the power of love for us to
Speaker 1: make the decisions we made blindly at the age we
Speaker 1: made and to have the success we have. That's faith.
Speaker 1: That's that's There's nothing that you can write to describe
Speaker 1: what that feeling is or how to tell people. How
Speaker 1: do you know when you found the right person you
Speaker 1: don't have faith in humanity, have empathy and compassion and
Speaker 1: learn to love out loud and it's okay to learn
Speaker 1: and love people differently than everyone else thinks that they
Speaker 1: should be loved. That's what I want people to walk
Speaker 1: away from. I love that it's you. I'm getting warm
Speaker 1: and fuzzies thinking about this book. I'm excited, y'all. Seven
Speaker 1: February seventh is when the book will be out in Stories.
Speaker 1: Pre Orders are available now, but pre order now now.
Speaker 1: Holidays are coming up, you know, and we think it
Speaker 1: would be great, Like we said, not just for the
Speaker 1: person who aspires to be in a relationship or someone
Speaker 1: who is currently in a relationship, but it can be
Speaker 1: for anybody. Um And that's what we're hoping that you guys,
Speaker 1: will um, we'll see all right, let's take a quick break.
Speaker 1: We'll pay some bills and come back with listen letters.
Speaker 1: All right, guys, we're back. The valent Conneine, authors of
Speaker 1: We Over Me You're giving Me Eyes over there, Webby
Speaker 1: Award podcast hosts so Cute, Next Steps Times bestseller Taking
Speaker 1: into Existence. That's what we do, was talking. We talk it,
Speaker 1: we live it, we dream it, we manifested, and that's
Speaker 1: what we do in accounting. Yes, all right for a baby. Hey,
Speaker 1: they're Condin and Deval. I am such a fan of
Speaker 1: you guys in the podcast and love listening to your
Speaker 1: takes on various relationship issues. So here's my dilemma. I
Speaker 1: am thirty one years old and currently in a happy relationship.
Speaker 1: That don't sound like a dilemma to me, approaching our
Speaker 1: second anniversary. I have discussed marriage, but are working. Or
Speaker 1: we have discussed marriage, but are working on saving some
Speaker 1: funds and achieving certain professional goals in the meantime. I
Speaker 1: am in a stable nine to five and make good money.
Speaker 1: He is an entrepreneur working on building his brand and
Speaker 1: business with the goal of achieving financial freedom. I'm an
Speaker 1: only child and take care of my mom, who has
Speaker 1: a physical disability. This means covering our household dispenses, her
Speaker 1: medical insurance and other medical bills. I am considering buying
Speaker 1: an income property example of duplex or triplex or triplex um,
Speaker 1: moving my mom in with me there, and putting our
Speaker 1: family home on rent. My boyfriend thinks it's a bad
Speaker 1: idea and we should wait a few years until we
Speaker 1: can do this together. Uh save a significant down payment
Speaker 1: to limit our debt and the time to pay off
Speaker 1: the mortgage instead of the minimum down payment which I
Speaker 1: have saved. Oh, I see while I see his vision,
Speaker 1: my family home is not the best area and I
Speaker 1: want to move and move on now that I am
Speaker 1: finally financially able. However, he is adamant that as we
Speaker 1: are moving towards marriage, though no timeline has been said yet,
Speaker 1: we should only make moves together and disregard and disregarding
Speaker 1: his opinion on this would prove I am not a
Speaker 1: team player. I would and then making plans for my
Speaker 1: future without our relationship in mind. I am torn. How
Speaker 1: much should a significant other's opinion play into big decisions
Speaker 1: when marriage isn't a part of the equation yet that's
Speaker 1: a whole episode. That's a good question, Like, wow, m
Speaker 1: and it's a two year anniversary. She's in a happy
Speaker 1: relationship and it's only two years in. Not to say
Speaker 1: that you can't be happy in the course of two years,
Speaker 1: but that's still very new to them all. Then be
Speaker 1: making these big financial you know, um commitments. I'll say this,
Speaker 1: This is why this is a perfect question. Right, we're
Speaker 1: just talking about the book. Everything we did in our
Speaker 1: book is like the antithesis of what people said you
Speaker 1: should do in relationships. We moved in together very early
Speaker 1: when we were young, when I was in Detroit playing ball,
Speaker 1: I moved you in with me. We bought a house,
Speaker 1: right we weren't married. Well, I proposed, I bought the
Speaker 1: house together. I didn't put your name on the mortgage.
Speaker 1: Then I proposed. Then we moved back here into an apartment.
Speaker 1: So we pretty much did everything the way people would
Speaker 1: tell you don't do it, and we are thriving and
Speaker 1: working fine. This is what I will say to you,
Speaker 1: young lady. Um, you're two years in into a relationship.
Speaker 1: You guys haven't settled into understanding if you're gonna get
Speaker 1: married or not yet. You individually have to do what's
Speaker 1: best financially for you and your family period um. He
Speaker 1: may have a point, though, if you're not ready to
Speaker 1: listen to him, that proves that you're not ready to
Speaker 1: be a team player and being a marriage. And that's okay.
Speaker 1: You don't have to be committed to being his wife
Speaker 1: right now while you're still learning each other. You're in
Speaker 1: a happy relationship, but that doesn't mean you stop putting
Speaker 1: your business on hold to make him feel more comfortable
Speaker 1: because he doesn't have the funds to provide right now.
Speaker 1: You see what I'm giving. I was gonna say, it's
Speaker 1: giving a little bit like he can't do it in
Speaker 1: this moment, so he wants you to wait. And it's
Speaker 1: just like, since you have the down payment, which you
Speaker 1: said you saved already the minimum down payment, right and
Speaker 1: if you're in a bad area and your mom, you know,
Speaker 1: is your your soul caretaker, you have to do what's
Speaker 1: best for the quality of life for yourself and your
Speaker 1: mom um. And then having a rental income is always,
Speaker 1: you know, is always a plus. You know. I will
Speaker 1: say this though, him saying my idea is that we
Speaker 1: wait a few years and do it together, is proved
Speaker 1: to you that he is thinking long term. Even though
Speaker 1: he hasn't said marriage, it is clear that this man
Speaker 1: is thinking financially long term. So now the ball is
Speaker 1: in your court. Do you say, you know what? He
Speaker 1: hasn't said anything about marriage, but he's proven to me
Speaker 1: that he wants to work together. Because that's literally what
Speaker 1: happened with Codeine and I. I brought a home in
Speaker 1: Michigan to let her know, you're moving in here to
Speaker 1: live into my home, my home, You're gonna be my wife.
Speaker 1: But Codein did say to me at that time, I
Speaker 1: don't want to be a living girlfriend. And that's when
Speaker 1: I decided to propose. So I understand a woman's perspective.
Speaker 1: Until you have that open conversation about marriage and there's
Speaker 1: some commitment about marriage, it's very difficult for a woman
Speaker 1: to It's difficult for anyone to say we're gonna wait
Speaker 1: and do things together, like we also said to The
Speaker 1: male perspective is, Okay, I met this woman, We're two
Speaker 1: years in, I'm in a happy relationship. I see a
Speaker 1: future with her. Let me get my ducks in a row.
Speaker 1: And it sounds like he's like in that getting in
Speaker 1: a row phase, right, So I think you both have
Speaker 1: hearts in the right place because you're both thinking about
Speaker 1: how they've been confirmed. The communicate about it, talk about it.
Speaker 1: That's way some pros and cons. If it makes sense
Speaker 1: in the financial market that we're in in real estate
Speaker 1: for you to make this move now, I'd be like, Babe,
Speaker 1: I've researched it. I think we should pull the trigger
Speaker 1: on this now because we are working towards a legacy
Speaker 1: we want to build together, because we're thinking long term.
Speaker 1: But now is the perfect opportunity to buy because the
Speaker 1: market is down or the interest rate is down. Like,
Speaker 1: if you come and have a conversation with actual facts
Speaker 1: about the facts that support the choice she want to make,
Speaker 1: then it may make more sense to him versus just
Speaker 1: him thinking like, all right, well, I just don't want
Speaker 1: her to make a move without me, because you know
Speaker 1: I may not be in this position to do it
Speaker 1: right in this moment. If it can benefit you in
Speaker 1: the long run, you pull the trigger on it now.
Speaker 1: That can be a case that you can present to him.
Speaker 1: I agree, I will couple this. Y'all may sit down
Speaker 1: and come with all the facts and it still may
Speaker 1: get sucked up. Give you an example, Kadeen and I.
Speaker 1: I brought this property in Michigan because it was the
Speaker 1: right thing to do. I needed the tax right off.
Speaker 1: I was playing in the NFL right. I brought the
Speaker 1: property not only because I wanted to prove to Gdan
Speaker 1: that I was thinking long term, but I needed a
Speaker 1: tax right off, and financially it made the most sense.
Speaker 1: The recession happens two months later and I get cut.
Speaker 1: So even though it was the right decision in the
Speaker 1: moment I made it, two months later it didn't seem
Speaker 1: like the right decision because not all the capital I
Speaker 1: had saved to buy the house was now invested in
Speaker 1: the property. I didn't have capital for us to survive,
Speaker 1: and I lost my job. And what could I have
Speaker 1: done been like, see, I can tell you about this property.
Speaker 1: Nobody asked for this, and we didn't do that same
Speaker 1: way when we we had a discussion about what do
Speaker 1: you want to stay in Michigan because I just got
Speaker 1: a job as a learning coordinator at the University of Michigan.
Speaker 1: Conde was working at Makeup in the mall, but Codein said, listen,
Speaker 1: I want to move back home to Brooklyn because our
Speaker 1: families closed to Brooklyn. I want to spend more time
Speaker 1: in Brooklyn. So we decided to run out the house
Speaker 1: and move back to Brooklyn. All of these decisions hindsight,
Speaker 1: we can look back now and say there was a
Speaker 1: better decision, But in the moment, we got together collectively
Speaker 1: made a decision for us, and whatever the consequences were,
Speaker 1: we rocked with it. There was no blame game. We
Speaker 1: were upset at times and we were just like because
Speaker 1: I remember when the house thing came and I was
Speaker 1: just like, man, we had a big wedding, we should
Speaker 1: have bought a house, and we had that whole debate,
Speaker 1: but we never held that over each other and said
Speaker 1: we're not gonna love each other because of those decisions.
Speaker 1: There's no wrong decision in life. It's just you have
Speaker 1: to deal with the consequences that come with each decision
Speaker 1: and understand that, have the conversation, make a decision. If
Speaker 1: y'all love each and move on accordingly. All right, sounds
Speaker 1: good Good luck to you, Sis number two. Okay, So
Speaker 1: as I said, and I would like to remain anonymous.
Speaker 1: All right, Sis, off the bed, be anonymous. But first off,
Speaker 1: I love you guys and your relationship and just the
Speaker 1: way that you're realistic about your journey together and the
Speaker 1: maturity growth that you guys both went through. Um. So,
Speaker 1: me and my boyfriend have been together for almost a
Speaker 1: year and we argue. He says that to him it's
Speaker 1: not arguing, but to me it is because I guess
Speaker 1: I take it in more internally than he does. To me,
Speaker 1: he comes across as not caring about my feelings or
Speaker 1: how he says things to me, even when I tell
Speaker 1: him an express to him that he's hello rude and
Speaker 1: harsh and how he speaks right in his mind. As
Speaker 1: long as he's telling the truth, then whatever I take
Speaker 1: it as it is on me, in my opinion, that
Speaker 1: comes across like you don't care about my feeling. So
Speaker 1: my question is should this be a deal breaker because
Speaker 1: we've talked about it several times and I'm I'm not
Speaker 1: sure if he cares to change that about him. Thanks
Speaker 1: in Advanced for y'all's time. Love y'all man. These arguments styles,
Speaker 1: debate styles, conversation style. Yes, they should have a book
Speaker 1: on argument styles. No, for sure, absolutely, because what tends
Speaker 1: to happen. You know, we have the term that I've
Speaker 1: used to say that what everyone talks about brutal honesty. Right.
Speaker 1: I used to say, like, devolution is brutally honest, brutely honest,
Speaker 1: And then I heard someone recently say, like this honesty
Speaker 1: have to be brutal? Can it just be honesty? But
Speaker 1: I think it all depends on the way it's delivered,
Speaker 1: and then of course on the way it's received. You
Speaker 1: and I have had You and I have had a
Speaker 1: lot of moments where we've been in these arguments, and
Speaker 1: a lot of time the argument shifts away from what
Speaker 1: we were even talking about to the way things were
Speaker 1: said or how it landed, or the way it was delivered,
Speaker 1: and we argued in term more about that than the
Speaker 1: actual argument. And I think that's because people don't realize
Speaker 1: that when you're arguing with someone, you're arguing with their
Speaker 1: whole family. And when I say that, I say this,
Speaker 1: first of all, every conversation is not an argument. Kadina
Speaker 1: and I have had to have this argument. Right every
Speaker 1: time I used to speak to her about something that
Speaker 1: I wanted to focus on or change, even if it
Speaker 1: was once a week, She's like, every week you want
Speaker 1: to argue. I'm like, it's not an argument. I have
Speaker 1: I feel a way about something and I want to
Speaker 1: express it to you. If you're going to receive it
Speaker 1: as an argument, you're already coming with a negative connotation
Speaker 1: about what I'm saying. That's the first thing, just because
Speaker 1: you want to speak about something. And I'm going to
Speaker 1: say this to all couples, right there is twenty four
Speaker 1: hours in a day. If I want to speak to
Speaker 1: my wife one of those hours about things I think
Speaker 1: we can do better, that's still less than five percent
Speaker 1: of the time. So when people say you argue all
Speaker 1: the time, if you argue for an hour every day,
Speaker 1: that's still less than five percent of the time of
Speaker 1: the time, everything is fine. But if you spend five
Speaker 1: percent wanting to get better, that's not an argument. That's
Speaker 1: how people get better. I'm not gonna say it's not tiring.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna say it's not tiring. But we also
Speaker 1: have to understand the reality or the work that has,
Speaker 1: the work that goes into it. And people don't argue
Speaker 1: every day. So if you argue once a week, right now,
Speaker 1: you can divide that five percent into seven because now
Speaker 1: we don't even argue every day. So a five percent
Speaker 1: divided by seven is less than one percent of the time.
Speaker 1: I want to have a conversation and you find a
Speaker 1: problem with it, that's a problem. The only way we
Speaker 1: can get better is by having discussions. That's the first thing.
Speaker 1: So every time someone has a discussion is not an argument.
Speaker 1: Number two. When I say when you argue with someone,
Speaker 1: you argue with your family, I'm not talking about you
Speaker 1: literally arguing with their family. I'm I'm speaking about the
Speaker 1: way they learn to communicate comes from a lifetime of
Speaker 1: communicating in their home or not communicating. One thing you'll
Speaker 1: learn about Cadine and I is that, especially from reading
Speaker 1: the book, we struggle the first ten years of our
Speaker 1: relationship five years of our marriage because we had to
Speaker 1: unpack how we discussed things with each other. Codeine's family
Speaker 1: was very reserved. The Vows family has family caucuses. So
Speaker 1: every time I go to speak to Cadeine and she
Speaker 1: used to feel attacked because she wasn't used to having
Speaker 1: these conversations. She thought it was brutal honesty because I
Speaker 1: was just being upfront about how I felt. I thought
Speaker 1: it was brutal silence because you didn't want to talk
Speaker 1: to me. It's like we're having an issue and I'm
Speaker 1: talking and you're just staring at me. We both thought
Speaker 1: the other person was being brutal, and it's because we
Speaker 1: never took the time to unpack how we communicate and
Speaker 1: how our families communicated. One thing I've learned over the
Speaker 1: past couple of years is that if you really want
Speaker 1: to get to know someone, get to know their family
Speaker 1: and don't take everything they do with disrespect. Because if
Speaker 1: that person is trying to communicate, even as brutal as
Speaker 1: it may seem, that communication style maybe their way of loving.
Speaker 1: That's true. Or think about the person or the friend
Speaker 1: or the individual that you know that's just our castic
Speaker 1: and this person just everything is in jest or they
Speaker 1: their truth sometimes lands and jests which you may not
Speaker 1: find it's funny, but that's just how that's that's their love.
Speaker 1: That's a conversation style. Yes, that's what they liked, that's
Speaker 1: how they like to do. But it's like they don't
Speaker 1: mean any harm, but the way you receive it is
Speaker 1: with harm, you know, So I think you have to
Speaker 1: also know who you're dealing with in this moment. Like so,
Speaker 1: so my question to her is like, is what he
Speaker 1: when he does deliver these you know, facts or these
Speaker 1: points to you, is it harsh, And is it rude
Speaker 1: because it's honest? Is he telling you something about yourself
Speaker 1: that you don't like and you don't know how to
Speaker 1: be accountable, so then you see it as rude or
Speaker 1: is he just really just out there being rude to
Speaker 1: hurt your feelings? And I'll speak in her defense and
Speaker 1: this because that's a great question. Just because you're used
Speaker 1: to being sarcastic with your family doesn't mean that someone
Speaker 1: else has to accept your sarcasm. But we have to
Speaker 1: learn how to stop doing in relationship is telling other
Speaker 1: people And we did a podcast about this core Get
Speaker 1: out feelings. Stop telling people how they're supposed to feel
Speaker 1: about the word you used to express your feelings to them.
Speaker 1: If what you said to someone, whether it was sarcastic
Speaker 1: or kind or nice or hurtful, made them feel a
Speaker 1: way that person didn't just choose to want to feel
Speaker 1: a way, you made them feel a way, acknowledge that.
Speaker 1: And if you really want your message to get through,
Speaker 1: if you love this person, you'll try to change the
Speaker 1: way you communicate so they can land on them while
Speaker 1: learning about them. And that's what I think these two
Speaker 1: have to learn how to do. Yeah, that's when the
Speaker 1: delivery matters. It's like am I speaking to you with
Speaker 1: compassion and just saying, hey, you know you did x
Speaker 1: y Z. I didn't like that. There's ways that we
Speaker 1: can kind of get past this. Or are you just
Speaker 1: you know, placed in pointing the finger in place to
Speaker 1: believe and just you know, trying to be mean? Is
Speaker 1: It's a big difference here. So and I appreciate your
Speaker 1: point about saying is he brutal because he's honest and
Speaker 1: you don't want to hear the honesty. That's a lot
Speaker 1: of times that's why people get offended. That's why cancel
Speaker 1: culture is happening the way it's happening a lot. Because
Speaker 1: of course, certain things are offensive and anything that promotes
Speaker 1: hate or violence against a group of people shouldn't be tolerated.
Speaker 1: But if someone is speaking their truth and you're offended
Speaker 1: by their truth, that says more about you because it's true.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. If a person is not
Speaker 1: speaking violence, not speaking hatred on anyone, but their truth
Speaker 1: makes you feel a way, sometimes you need to look
Speaker 1: in the mirror. I've been I've been there with let's
Speaker 1: do right here. Just like man, he just totally read
Speaker 1: me read me everything, handing me my ass on the platter,
Speaker 1: and he did it so directly, um, and not rude,
Speaker 1: but just direct. So I'm feeling some kind of way.
Speaker 1: I'm feeling like it's rude, but it's not really rude
Speaker 1: because he's right, and I think he circled back with
Speaker 1: a little bit of loving around. It gives the advice
Speaker 1: of them nurtures behind UM. You know, it's like, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna read you all your rights and then love you after.
Speaker 1: Um is the way to do it. She doesn't say anything,
Speaker 1: She just lets me do and then spasses out and
Speaker 1: be like, you know, you're just be doing to fucking
Speaker 1: much and yeah, And I've learned not to take that
Speaker 1: as she's attacking me. I've learned to understand that, you
Speaker 1: know what, she's not used to communicating with this man.
Speaker 1: And it's been an hour of us having the same
Speaker 1: discussion and she's fatigued. So we we've learned now to laugh.
Speaker 1: When we first started, it wasn't laughing. There was a
Speaker 1: lot of insults thrown after that because we get upset
Speaker 1: at each other then, and then the conversation then becomes
Speaker 1: a debate, and then after debate becomes an argument and
Speaker 1: after the argument it becomes toxic and then radioactive. And
Speaker 1: we've been through that aspect as well. So don't feel
Speaker 1: like because you're there right. So for her question, is
Speaker 1: that should just be a deal breaker, I don't think
Speaker 1: it's not at all. How are you having conversations? Keep
Speaker 1: having conversations, um, if it matters that much. And remember this,
Speaker 1: this is something I tell Jackson. Becoming a master at
Speaker 1: something takes thousands and thousands of hours of muscle memory
Speaker 1: and muscle movement, right, And it takes thousands and thousands
Speaker 1: hours of doing the same movement over and over again
Speaker 1: to become muscle memory. So for your whole life, you've
Speaker 1: argued with your family and your your friends a certain way,
Speaker 1: that's become your muscle memory. When you meet somebody and
Speaker 1: you get into a disagreement, you're gonna resort back to
Speaker 1: how you did things with All the people you're comfortable with.
Speaker 1: You slip right into a comfort zone and it's been
Speaker 1: comfortable with them, but now that you're with a new
Speaker 1: person is uncomfortable. When you're trying to change, it's going
Speaker 1: to take thousands and thousands of hours of muscle movement
Speaker 1: to become muscle memory. So just because you have one
Speaker 1: conversation about how you feel and that person claims they understand,
Speaker 1: doesn't mean the next time you have an argument they're
Speaker 1: not going to resort back to what their original muscle memory.
Speaker 1: So give each other grace and time to learn through it. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: All right, We hope that helped both of our couples today.
Speaker 1: And if you want to be featured as a listener letter,
Speaker 1: if you want to write in you have a story
Speaker 1: you want to hear a little two cents um, be
Speaker 1: sure to email us at dead ass Advice at gmail
Speaker 1: dot com. That's D E A D A S S
Speaker 1: A D V I C E at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: All right, moment of truth, we over me the counterintuitive
Speaker 1: approach to getting the life and the love and the
Speaker 1: relationship you won't. My moment of truth is this order
Speaker 1: we over me, the counter intuitive approach to getting the
Speaker 1: relationship you want with the man you love with the
Speaker 1: woman you love. Right now, pre orders available. You get
Speaker 1: your book February seven. That's my whole moment of truth
Speaker 1: because everything that I want to say about it is
Speaker 1: in the book in the bok. That's that's really really good. Also,
Speaker 1: and you can look forward to us going on tour again. Yes, sir,
Speaker 1: you heard it here first. So once the book drives,
Speaker 1: you know, we had our dead Ass live shows over
Speaker 1: the summer which we're amazing, sold out, wild ass energy,
Speaker 1: and we cannot wait to be on tour with y'all
Speaker 1: when you have your copy in hands. What we're doing
Speaker 1: book signings, tours, live shows, all that good stuff. So
Speaker 1: the top of the year is about to be lit, y'all.
Speaker 1: Make sure that if you have a friend, a family
Speaker 1: members can use a copy, go ahead and order it
Speaker 1: for the holidays and they'll get it right before Valentine's Day. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: and here's a fact um. We're going to do a
Speaker 1: book tour of course, yes, but during the dead As
Speaker 1: Podcast tour. If your book is purchased when we do
Speaker 1: the meet in Greece, we will sign everybody who has
Speaker 1: a book on the Dead As Podcast tour. We plan
Speaker 1: on doing a twenty city tour starting February Valentine's Day
Speaker 1: ending in April. We plan on going from the West
Speaker 1: coast all the way down to the South and back
Speaker 1: up through Atlanta, So we'll see you guys shortly for sure.
Speaker 1: And of course don't forget my East coasters. Oh definitely,
Speaker 1: I said south, throw up through Atlanta, we go all
Speaker 1: the way through Florida, come up through through the Mason Dixon,
Speaker 1: all the way through there. Because we started in New
Speaker 1: York last time and went down, so we go from
Speaker 1: the west coast all the way down around and come up.
Speaker 1: And we're not going to forget about the North, the
Speaker 1: north and the Northwest, but the Northwest. We're gonna do
Speaker 1: another podcast tour probably the following year, because the weather
Speaker 1: in the Northwest during that February March ain't the nicest
Speaker 1: people you know living in Michigan for all them years
Speaker 1: and nobody trying to go to Michigan and everywhere, and
Speaker 1: nobody trying to deal with that. And we did think about,
Speaker 1: definitely thought about the Northeast. But the weather is an
Speaker 1: issue because of travel. What we don't want to have
Speaker 1: to do is canceled days or get date dates affected
Speaker 1: because of weather and snow and things of that nature.
Speaker 1: So there's a resigning out the details. But there's a
Speaker 1: reason we went through this out frog know to expect that.
Speaker 1: All right, y'all be sure to find us on social
Speaker 1: media dead ask the podcast. We're gonna still be dropping
Speaker 1: more reminders about the book on our social media pages
Speaker 1: for the podcast and as well as her me at Cadena.
Speaker 1: I am and I Am Devout And if you're listening
Speaker 1: on Apple podcasts, be sure to rate, review and subscribe.
Speaker 1: Look at Chickpeas. Dead Ass is a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Media podcast Network and is produced by the Noorrapinia
Speaker 1: and Triple Follow the podcast on social media at dead
Speaker 1: as the podcasts and never miss a Thing, Must Do