Speaker 1: Accountability. It's not an easy subject for a lot of people.
Speaker 1: Why do I feel like a lot of people is
Speaker 1: I didn't even say that? See that's the problem accountability?
Speaker 1: Or am I blaming myself? Hey, I'm Cadine and we're
Speaker 1: the Ellises. You may know us from posting funny videos
Speaker 1: without boys and reading each other publicly as a form
Speaker 1: of therapy. Wait, I'll make you need therapy most days. Wow.
Speaker 1: And one more important thing to mention, we're married. We are.
Speaker 1: We created this podcast to open dialogue about some of
Speaker 1: life's most taboo topics, things most folks don't want to
Speaker 1: talk about through the lens of a millennium married couple.
Speaker 1: Dead ass is the term that we say every day.
Speaker 1: So when we say dead ass, we're actually saying facts,
Speaker 1: the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
Speaker 1: Were about to think philows off to a whole new level.
Speaker 1: M dead ass starts right now. I'm gonna bring us
Speaker 1: back too. A couple of weeks ago, all right, Kadine
Speaker 1: and I have been very diligent about not getting COVID,
Speaker 1: not spreading COVID, very very diligent about this. Right. We
Speaker 1: had visitors over long story short, someone brought COVID into
Speaker 1: the crib. They brought COVID. I was pissed. The first
Speaker 1: person to test positive for COVID was Jackson, And if
Speaker 1: you guys listen to us, you know Jackson is a
Speaker 1: very sensitive, empathetic child. So I take Jackson to the doctor.
Speaker 1: He tests positive. I test negative. So he finds out
Speaker 1: that he's the only one so far in the family
Speaker 1: that has COVID. Instantly, he's crying, you know, I can't
Speaker 1: believe I got COVID. Everybody's gonn be mad at me.
Speaker 1: I got COVID. And I'm trying to talk him off
Speaker 1: the ledge because I'm like, you know, you you tend
Speaker 1: things happen. That's with the time. He was nine. So
Speaker 1: he's like, I just don't want to die. I don't
Speaker 1: And he's worried about everything, you see, because he's been
Speaker 1: watching the news as well. People are dying of COVID.
Speaker 1: So he's just nervous. So I'm like, listen, no, you know,
Speaker 1: everything's gonna be fine. And Mommy is gonna be mad
Speaker 1: because now we can't go to Jamaica. We can't do this,
Speaker 1: we can't do that. And I'm like, hey, hey, relax,
Speaker 1: Mommy is not going to be upset. Everybody's gonna be fine.
Speaker 1: We invited somebody by the house. They had COVID. There
Speaker 1: was no reason for you to have it. So finally
Speaker 1: he stops crying. We get to the house. We opened
Speaker 1: the door. Kay go, so, I said, Jackson has COVID.
Speaker 1: The first thing that comes out of Kay's mouth is
Speaker 1: you see all them times I tell you stop putting
Speaker 1: your hands in your mouth and putting your hands in
Speaker 1: your eyes. Jackson immediately looks at me, and you didn't
Speaker 1: say it like that. Finish your story, no, show them
Speaker 1: how you said it. Said that, I said, yea. I
Speaker 1: first came in the door. Oh my god. I wonder
Speaker 1: if it was the time I took him to the
Speaker 1: coke factory, because he was touching his eyes and his
Speaker 1: face a lot. And I was like, Jackson, do you
Speaker 1: remember when I was telling you stop touching your eyes
Speaker 1: in your face. I'm wondering if that was it because
Speaker 1: me that I was trying to do. Yeah, I was.
Speaker 1: I was not. I was not yelling at him or
Speaker 1: be rating him. At that point. The berating happened when
Speaker 1: the vau start yelling at me, and I was yelling
Speaker 1: at him, go ahead. Anyway, We walked into We walked
Speaker 1: in the house, and Kadin said, oh my god, Jackson,
Speaker 1: you have COVID. I wonder if it happened at the
Speaker 1: Coca Cola factor himsells hard. So that's that's how she claims.
Speaker 1: She said, whatever, go ahead, tell your story, right. So
Speaker 1: Jackson immediately looks at me and I see his eyes
Speaker 1: welling up, and I go and dad more. I'm trying
Speaker 1: to protect my son. I'm like, yo, Jackson, go upstairs.
Speaker 1: Jackson goes upstairs. I get mad. I lose it. Okay,
Speaker 1: I was like, I lose it. I'm like, why would
Speaker 1: you instantly go to a place where he feels like
Speaker 1: he's the reason why you have it? And I didn't
Speaker 1: know about the conversations they were having in the car
Speaker 1: prior to so exactly. She didn't know about that, So
Speaker 1: I'm losing it. I'm like, he's an empathetic kid. He's
Speaker 1: worried about dying. He thinks everyone's gonna blame him. And
Speaker 1: the first thing you do is blame him forgetting it,
Speaker 1: even though someone brought it into our house, who was positive, like,
Speaker 1: there's no reason to sit here and go over with him?
Speaker 1: How he might have gotten it because we know someone
Speaker 1: who was positive came in the house and we all
Speaker 1: ended up getting it. So I started losing it. I'm screaming,
Speaker 1: I'm hollering, screaming, screaming, and Codeine is just like, yo,
Speaker 1: don't scream at me. And at this point I'm like
Speaker 1: and dad more trying to protect my son, and I'm
Speaker 1: actink crazy out of character right. Me and Conde ended
Speaker 1: up going separate ways. She left in the car, was
Speaker 1: going for three or four hours, came back. When she
Speaker 1: came back, I wanted to discuss with her how what
Speaker 1: we did wasn't good. In the minute I started talking,
Speaker 1: Codein gets pissed, It's like I'm not talking about this
Speaker 1: and walks away. We end up having a conversation I
Speaker 1: think a day later, and we solved that everything was fine.
Speaker 1: I hear Jackson two days later downstairs on his PlayStation,
Speaker 1: him and Kyro having a discussion. Then I hear him
Speaker 1: screaming at Kiro, just screaming, screaming, screaming. I said, Jackson,
Speaker 1: come upstairs, what makes you think it's okay for you
Speaker 1: to scream at your brother like that? And he didn't
Speaker 1: say nothing. I said Hello, I'm asking you a question,
Speaker 1: and he said, well, you screamed that Mommy like that,
Speaker 1: and at that point I had to be accountable. Let's
Speaker 1: play the blame game. I love you more. Let's play
Speaker 1: the blame game for sure. Let's call out names, names,
Speaker 1: hate more. Let's tell all out names names for sure.
Speaker 1: This podcast is about accountability or lack thereof, lack thereof, UM,
Speaker 1: knowing when you're wrong, to admit fault or do you
Speaker 1: deflect like some people um. In the story time, we
Speaker 1: talked about the approach to the door codein says Can
Speaker 1: I can. I's normally with the story, it's like your
Speaker 1: side of my side, I feel like because that would
Speaker 1: be some only his stories and be like a little
Speaker 1: of some sides. So, prior to knowing what happened in
Speaker 1: the car, the conversation that he was having with Jackson
Speaker 1: and Jackson being like on the edge, UM when they
Speaker 1: got to the door, I was just surprised that Jackson
Speaker 1: tested positive first, because Jackson had the least interaction with
Speaker 1: this person that was here, right, so for him to
Speaker 1: be positive first. I'm thinking now where everything they're going through?
Speaker 1: My mind is like, where did I go wrong? As
Speaker 1: a mom, and did I ever put him in an
Speaker 1: environment where he was unsafe, where he may have been
Speaker 1: exposed to All these things are going through my head,
Speaker 1: and naturally, as a mom, I will say women, we
Speaker 1: I get a little bit more worked up off the bat, right.
Speaker 1: So when they get to the doorway, DeVos just like, yeah,
Speaker 1: he's positive, and Jackson's like, Mom, I have COVID, and
Speaker 1: I'm just like, oh my god, I'm wondering if it's
Speaker 1: when I took you to the world of cope, because
Speaker 1: I said, remember, Jackson, you were touching that machine and
Speaker 1: I told you not to touch your eye, like I'm
Speaker 1: warning if that's when it happened. And Deval was just like,
Speaker 1: that's when he just blew it. So according to the
Speaker 1: I was yelling at the top of my lungs. I
Speaker 1: was not yelling at the top of my lungs at
Speaker 1: that point. I was just like more frantic, if anything,
Speaker 1: trying to figure out why did my son test positive
Speaker 1: when everybody knows I was wearing a mask on the
Speaker 1: plane before COVID that I am the biggest German folk
Speaker 1: and we've been so hyper vigilant, and it just made
Speaker 1: me so annoying in that moment, because I was just like,
Speaker 1: why would he be the first one to test positive?
Speaker 1: I should have or like you should have, like somebody
Speaker 1: who had more contact with the person should have. But
Speaker 1: the personal symptomatic, so we didn't know. I understand that.
Speaker 1: But here's where accountability comes in. Okay. Codeine has been
Speaker 1: told by numerous family members that she snaps at people.
Speaker 1: Have you not your brother, your sister, your mom, the kids? Me? Right?
Speaker 1: When I tell her that she raised a voice of Jackson,
Speaker 1: the first thing is said, no, I didn't. So many
Speaker 1: times she says no, she doesn't until someone else says, yeah, K,
Speaker 1: you did snap, and she's like, well, I didn't realize.
Speaker 1: I'm telling you you snapped at him, and you're sitting
Speaker 1: here telling me that you didn't. There's no accountability there.
Speaker 1: I will be accountable. And I did say that, and
Speaker 1: I spoke to Jackson after the fact and we had
Speaker 1: a whole discussion. I had a discussion with my son
Speaker 1: about how I may have reacted to it or how
Speaker 1: he may have received it. The thing is, in that moment,
Speaker 1: I don't know if he received it that way, but
Speaker 1: I think what amplified it was your reaction to me
Speaker 1: and that just took things more over the edge. I
Speaker 1: sat in the car with him for you. You think that,
Speaker 1: but I sat in the car with him for thirty
Speaker 1: minutes while he was sobbing, crying, thinking that he was
Speaker 1: gonna die, Mimi was gonna die, and everybody's married. So
Speaker 1: him feeling the brunt of you saying, remember when I
Speaker 1: told you not to put your hands in your mouth.
Speaker 1: He was in the car saying, people are gonna be
Speaker 1: mad at me for COVID. You imagine thinking about me
Speaker 1: saying that that's not going to happen. And the first
Speaker 1: thing your mom brings up is the time she took you.
Speaker 1: And here's my thing. You keep saying, he always puts
Speaker 1: his hands in his mouth. So then who takes a
Speaker 1: nine year old to the Coca cola factory during a
Speaker 1: pandemic where you have to literally pull the mask down
Speaker 1: and drink, But then you you putting it on him?
Speaker 1: There's no accountability there. It's not I hear what you're saying,
Speaker 1: and I did admit that that was a fault on
Speaker 1: my part. What I'm saying was that I feel like
Speaker 1: things got escalated even more when you were irate and
Speaker 1: yelling at me. At the top of my lungs, so
Speaker 1: that that much more where I could have just spoken
Speaker 1: to him directly as my son and had that I
Speaker 1: shouldn't have took him out of the house. But also too,
Speaker 1: I feel bad, like how am I going to be
Speaker 1: balancing life with my children? They've been locked up in
Speaker 1: a house like a first. In that moment, I felt
Speaker 1: badly because you know what I mean, I'm then blaming
Speaker 1: my self, like how did I expose my child to this,
Speaker 1: no matter how much whites I walked with, no matter
Speaker 1: how much hand sanitizer lightsauce, right, And it was even
Speaker 1: my friend who I went with laughed at me and
Speaker 1: she was like, oh my god, you're being that mom.
Speaker 1: But this is the point, because it's not blame. You
Speaker 1: made a choice as a mom, right, Whatever happens from
Speaker 1: that choice happens. There's no blames, there's no like and
Speaker 1: and to me, that's why when it first happened and
Speaker 1: when they all got sick, I didn't say, well you
Speaker 1: took him to the Coca Cola factory, because there's no blame.
Speaker 1: You made the choice as a mom. You asked me
Speaker 1: what I thought, what I say, you want to go
Speaker 1: take him there's no blame if he gets COVID from there,
Speaker 1: he gets COVID, we gotta deal with the consequences. There's
Speaker 1: no blame at that point. But when But but I
Speaker 1: do think sometimes is you and I don't want to
Speaker 1: say moms, but look to blame somebody or take on
Speaker 1: blame when there's no blame to go around. It's just
Speaker 1: what happens. Like, there's no blame. He took him to
Speaker 1: the CoA colda factory. If he got it from there,
Speaker 1: I don't think he got it from him because someone
Speaker 1: with COVID came to our house. I was like, so,
Speaker 1: my thing is, since we know that someone from COVID
Speaker 1: came to our house, it makes no even sense to
Speaker 1: go there but to blame him or possibly blame yourself,
Speaker 1: there's no point doing that. Well, that's your logic in
Speaker 1: that moment. I was frantic, like you said, as a mom,
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh my god, what did I do wrong?
Speaker 1: I should have never took him out of the house.
Speaker 1: And yes, chances are he probably didn't get it from there.
Speaker 1: He probably definitely got it because we had somebody with
Speaker 1: COVID in our house. So in my mind, I'm like thinking,
Speaker 1: so many different things at once that I'm just like speaking,
Speaker 1: I'm like what is it? What was it? Then I'm
Speaker 1: just looking to you know what I mean myself, and
Speaker 1: then you don't realize how okay? All right? I feel
Speaker 1: like this went completely far, far left of what the
Speaker 1: topic was the day, accountability, but also proves that when
Speaker 1: you try to be accountable, people get uncomfortable being accountable.
Speaker 1: Like for me personally, I shouldn't have been screaming that day.
Speaker 1: I shouldn't. I got emotional because I saw my son.
Speaker 1: I thought he was going to be hurt and affected emotionally,
Speaker 1: especially in with COVID that I started screaming, and I
Speaker 1: was screaming at you because you said what you said
Speaker 1: to him, So I was screaming. Should I have been
Speaker 1: screaming at that point? No, I shouldn't have been screaming.
Speaker 1: And I'm willing to say I screamed at you. I shouldn't.
Speaker 1: I was wrong. I apologize. When Jackson said to me,
Speaker 1: you scream at mommy, I instantly said to him, you
Speaker 1: know what you write, and I gotta be better, same
Speaker 1: way you gotta be better. I can't scream at your mother.
Speaker 1: You can't scream at your brother. So you gotta check
Speaker 1: me and I gotta check you. But that's me holding
Speaker 1: him accountable and holding my account accountability myself. The problem
Speaker 1: with accountability for most people is the minute someone check
Speaker 1: them or something they do, you know what they do,
Speaker 1: They get uncomfortable and deflect. And that's what the whole
Speaker 1: topic of it today is. You can't be uncomfortable and
Speaker 1: deflect accountability just because you're the one that has to
Speaker 1: be accountable. We all have to learn how to be
Speaker 1: accountable and accept and say, listen, I messed that up
Speaker 1: because we're all human, Like, you're gonna make mistakes. Nobody
Speaker 1: walks through here perfect. That goes for you and that
Speaker 1: goes for me. And if we continue to think that
Speaker 1: we can be perfect in any relationship, then we're going
Speaker 1: to continue to disappoint ourselves. I'm not doing that, Like
Speaker 1: I'm not. I'm gonna make mistakes, especially when it comes
Speaker 1: to parenting or even communicating with you, because I'm an
Speaker 1: emotional person. You know what I'm saying a little bit,
Speaker 1: A little bit, I'm a little emotional a little bit, Okay,
Speaker 1: aries man, we got a lot of fire signs up
Speaker 1: in this house too. So because and you you'll be
Speaker 1: giving it as much as you do. You think you
Speaker 1: get it, you'll be giving it. We have two aries
Speaker 1: to Sagittarius, and Cairo's the only virgo, and and you're
Speaker 1: the only woman in the house other than Mimi. So
Speaker 1: the boys be like, like, when you come at them,
Speaker 1: it's different than when I come at them. I feel like,
Speaker 1: for them, it's like Dad, it's going to be dad,
Speaker 1: But when you come at them, it's like hurt. Because
Speaker 1: I watched them when you talk to them, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, Even when you're trying to be calm
Speaker 1: as a mom, you have a earnest that it like
Speaker 1: rocks them. And I think also they have they have
Speaker 1: a bit of like a They worry that they're going
Speaker 1: to disappoint I think, but both of us, and they
Speaker 1: worry a lot about what we think, which is I
Speaker 1: like that. I'm okay with that, but I don't have
Speaker 1: to have to know how to straddle defense with it.
Speaker 1: I don't want them to fear me, but I also
Speaker 1: want them to have that respect and know that man,
Speaker 1: I don't want to disappoint my mom and dad. So yeah,
Speaker 1: which which I think they need as kids, But they
Speaker 1: also need to learn how to be accountable, because look
Speaker 1: at look at the way we bring them up, right,
Speaker 1: look at the way you and I were brought up.
Speaker 1: You the firstborn daughter, but you're a pageant girl. Your
Speaker 1: your dad coddled you a lot. Well, he caught us
Speaker 1: all of y'all like, that's just my dad's just not
Speaker 1: easy going. And he's yeah, he's easy going whatever. You know,
Speaker 1: if something is wrong, he's going to try and make
Speaker 1: it easy or fix it or whatever. Your mom does
Speaker 1: not coddle you at all. Your mom is all about accountability.
Speaker 1: And you see the way for you and your sister,
Speaker 1: my sister, Yeah, but not the same way with your brother.
Speaker 1: You look at my family, My both my parents are
Speaker 1: accountable for me and my brother. When it comes to
Speaker 1: my sister not so much. And I can see how
Speaker 1: we all approach life differently because of the way we've
Speaker 1: been right, you know what I'm saying, accountable or not accountable, right,
Speaker 1: and they have made us who we are. Um and yeah,
Speaker 1: so so accountability. Let's let's dial it back for people. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, I like to pull up definitions and whatnot,
Speaker 1: So thank you triple for pulling up the definition of accountability.
Speaker 1: According to Webster website. Anybody still have a website dictionary?
Speaker 1: I got Jackson the actual dictionary set, like the book,
Speaker 1: like look up the word. If you're reading and you
Speaker 1: don't know it, you can google a son a website diction.
Speaker 1: He definitely has it opened his room because I was like,
Speaker 1: that way, it's less screen time. You don't have to
Speaker 1: look it up on Google. You can just open up
Speaker 1: here and gave it to him as if it was
Speaker 1: like something great, like look right. So he's excited, right,
Speaker 1: So you're just like, what's up? And She's just like,
Speaker 1: this is dictionary? And Jackson is like and I was like,
Speaker 1: so it goes from A to Z that excitement because
Speaker 1: I was that kid back in there. I was spelling
Speaker 1: bee champ. I was big on vocabulary. I still lamped
Speaker 1: to this day. So he gonna know some words, all right?
Speaker 1: Then s A T joints any who. Um. Accountability is
Speaker 1: the obligation or willingness to accept responsibility for one's action.
Speaker 1: Some call it cancel culture, which is a big thing now, um,
Speaker 1: but the fact is that you don't always need permission
Speaker 1: to be held accountable for your actions. And we and
Speaker 1: as we explore the different ways Accountability can manifest itself
Speaker 1: in our lives, whether we're holding ourselves accountable for our
Speaker 1: own goals, or we're holding our loved ones accountable for
Speaker 1: the harm that they've caused, or even as we fight
Speaker 1: to uphold the system accountable for systemic injustice, we realized
Speaker 1: that the common thread is that accountability cannot be a
Speaker 1: one time thing. It is an on going process that
Speaker 1: results in real, actual, sustainable, tangible change. And if we
Speaker 1: want to create a better world for generations to come,
Speaker 1: freaking be accountable, whether it feels good or not. Can
Speaker 1: I be honest? It's necessary? Sounds easy, right? Can bet?
Speaker 1: I think the world nowadays lacks accountability as I look
Speaker 1: at the way we raise kids. Right, but everybody gets
Speaker 1: a trophy. Everybody gets a trophy. You're not allowed to
Speaker 1: uh punish kids even verbally frustrate or give them push ups.
Speaker 1: Those type of punishments are now illegal with sports, so
Speaker 1: kids are not held accountable. And teachers they're trying to
Speaker 1: take away grades now for from for some reason in
Speaker 1: a certain schools. You can't grade papers now, you can't
Speaker 1: write with a red pen. I used to look forward
Speaker 1: to the person I used to look forward to that
Speaker 1: because that for me was just like, Okay, I've helped
Speaker 1: I feel accountable by studying, and there's my reward. Words
Speaker 1: like word system. But you know what's funny you talked
Speaker 1: about counsel cancel culture. Right, we've pulled back on the
Speaker 1: accountability that we give to people, but then want to
Speaker 1: cancel them for make a mistake, for making one mistake X.
Speaker 1: Make that makes sense. Make it makes sense. From the
Speaker 1: time they're young to adults, we don't want to hold
Speaker 1: them responsible for nothing. But then if if we say
Speaker 1: that they do something wrong, oh they that's it. How
Speaker 1: do how does anyone even learn accountability or redemption if
Speaker 1: we don't hold them accountable? From me? And I think
Speaker 1: we should bring somebody in to talk about it. What
Speaker 1: you think somebody understands and knows this, we definitely will.
Speaker 1: But I want you to talk a little bit about
Speaker 1: your upbringing. Why because I was like we were going
Speaker 1: with this ahead. No, I want you to talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about your upbringing and how you're upbringing has
Speaker 1: helped you or not helps you with accountability. Well, um,
Speaker 1: I've said before in previous podcasts that I come from
Speaker 1: a family of not a lot of communication. When things.
Speaker 1: You know, you felt a certain kind of way, or
Speaker 1: you were unhappy you with something, it was kind of
Speaker 1: just like, oh, you just kind of deal with it.
Speaker 1: Or if you were unhappy with something your sibling did
Speaker 1: or your parent did, it's kind of just like, well,
Speaker 1: you know, sweep it under rug and it'll go away.
Speaker 1: There was we call it the Ostrich technique in my
Speaker 1: family would be kind of just kind of duck and
Speaker 1: just like I think that it will eventually go away.
Speaker 1: So coming from that UM and that environment, that did
Speaker 1: not really encourage communication. UM. And not to say we
Speaker 1: didn't encourage in communication because we were, we were silenced.
Speaker 1: It was just more like it just wasn't encouraged. It's
Speaker 1: just like, oh, that's how people are. That's how your
Speaker 1: mom is, that's how your dad is, that's how your
Speaker 1: brother and sister is. So that's just what it is. UM.
Speaker 1: It was particularly difficult when I became UM, but we
Speaker 1: got into a relationship because you came from the opposite.
Speaker 1: So that being said, being able to open up to
Speaker 1: being able to be accountable. I've never had somebody approached
Speaker 1: me and say, Codeine, I don't like the way you're
Speaker 1: doing X y Z, whether it be a sibling or
Speaker 1: a parent. So I was used to kind of just
Speaker 1: existing in a space where I did quique each other
Speaker 1: like that. No, we just kind I did our best
Speaker 1: and we were just like all right, well, you know,
Speaker 1: so hearing any feedback when we got together, you wanted
Speaker 1: to have those conversations. You wanted to say, well, Katine,
Speaker 1: you did this wrong. It then required me to then
Speaker 1: say I did something wrong. Oh my god, but I
Speaker 1: thought I was doing my best. She was just passive
Speaker 1: aggressive with her critique. She was never direct. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was kind of like that, you know, um, and
Speaker 1: there was that I want to want to say. There
Speaker 1: wasn't any real substance to those those situations, but it
Speaker 1: was very sparse. It was kind of just like, you know,
Speaker 1: in passing, like Katine, you should do this, or I
Speaker 1: think you should do that, and just me, you know,
Speaker 1: listening to my mom. I would try to say, okay, mom,
Speaker 1: I get it, you know, or just be like, oh,
Speaker 1: here's my mom being my mom. So not really taking
Speaker 1: it with any value. But at the same time, you know,
Speaker 1: then coming meeting somebody who was so extra vocal, then
Speaker 1: it felt like I was I was then at a
Speaker 1: deficit all the time, or I felt like I was
Speaker 1: at um, I was an inadequate in certain spaces because
Speaker 1: I'm like, wow, somebody's like critiquing me on how I'm existing,
Speaker 1: you know, And this is why I was taking a bag.
Speaker 1: I was taken it back by it because I was like, wow,
Speaker 1: I felt like it was just being very you're being
Speaker 1: very nitpicky. At certain points, I felt like, damn, I
Speaker 1: can't do anything right. Um. It was a lot of
Speaker 1: me feeling like my ego was bruised because here I
Speaker 1: was thinking I was being a grand girlfriend or a
Speaker 1: grandwife at that time, only for you to say like
Speaker 1: nazis you you're not actually um. So that was just
Speaker 1: particularly hard for me too to swallow. And I felt like,
Speaker 1: you know, I was just being blamed for a lot
Speaker 1: of things. So for me, I think there's a very
Speaker 1: like thin line between how do you be accountable? Um,
Speaker 1: are you being blamed? And then do you get defensive?
Speaker 1: Because you always say get defensive And for me, it's
Speaker 1: just like, well, if I arrived at this particular destination,
Speaker 1: I'm not defending it. I'm just letting you know how
Speaker 1: I got there, and you hate that. So sometimes I
Speaker 1: don't even know how to exist in the debate or
Speaker 1: in an argument with you, because I feel like, damn,
Speaker 1: if I can't tell you my mindset or how I
Speaker 1: got there, then what should I do? Just be accountable
Speaker 1: and just say okay. So now you see why we
Speaker 1: have arguments all the time because my backround is completely different.
Speaker 1: In my household, we had family caucuses and family discussions
Speaker 1: where my parents sat us down and told us everything
Speaker 1: we was doing wrong all the time. Never happened with
Speaker 1: me your whole life. Your parents never sat you down
Speaker 1: and said, you know, I can't I cannot recall my
Speaker 1: parents sitting down with like me, my brother, and my sister. Bro.
Speaker 1: This was like early on growing up. Now we do
Speaker 1: that often, but early on never happened. This was like
Speaker 1: a weekly thing in my house. So like every Friday
Speaker 1: or every time it's time to clean up something, my
Speaker 1: mother would come down and just read everybody to riot
Speaker 1: at and then my father would you know, you heard
Speaker 1: what your mother said? So I was used to That's
Speaker 1: that's the type of communication I'm used to. I'm also
Speaker 1: used to having my being able to express my opinion
Speaker 1: because my parents used to allow what's to say our peace.
Speaker 1: So take that on top of the fact that I've
Speaker 1: been an athlete. I did martial arts for five years,
Speaker 1: then I was playing basketball, then football, then college, then
Speaker 1: in the NFL. Right in those environments, they literally put
Speaker 1: you down in front of a TV and point out
Speaker 1: all of your mistakes and you can't say anything like.
Speaker 1: They don't want to hear excuses. They just want to
Speaker 1: this is what you did wrong. They don't want to
Speaker 1: hear why you did it. They just want you to
Speaker 1: correct it. That's become what I'm used to. I'm used
Speaker 1: to communicating with people like that, like I'm used to
Speaker 1: being able to be because that, in my mind, made
Speaker 1: me the person I am today. And it's lost you
Speaker 1: a lot of friends of friends. But a lot of
Speaker 1: people can't handle that if they're not accustomed to it.
Speaker 1: It did. It did lose me a lot of friends.
Speaker 1: I will say that, but UM to be honest, I
Speaker 1: don't value friendships where I can't be transparent. If our
Speaker 1: friendships are dependent upon me telling you what you want
Speaker 1: to hear, as opposed to me telling you something that's
Speaker 1: going to make you better than we're not gonna be
Speaker 1: friends because we're gonna be moving in two different directions.
Speaker 1: I said to say, some people are sensitive to the
Speaker 1: way things are delivered or the ways you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, I get it, and that's why Codein and
Speaker 1: I have like arguments, or when you see us and
Speaker 1: we're talking about something, it can go left, like the
Speaker 1: beginning of this podcast to her was going left because
Speaker 1: I was just pointing out what I saw was wrong.
Speaker 1: And then she felt like I was attacking her while
Speaker 1: I was blaming her when I'm like, I'm not blaming you.
Speaker 1: I'm just telling you what I saw. But if you
Speaker 1: felt like blame, I mean, it is what it is.
Speaker 1: Because in my mind, when I did something wrong on
Speaker 1: the football field, and I'll be honest, you could be
Speaker 1: running the route and the coaches said, run a hitch.
Speaker 1: The hitch is supposed to be seven yards, you turn around,
Speaker 1: catch the ball, you run your hits, you turn around
Speaker 1: the ball. Don't come coach, say what happened? You didn't
Speaker 1: get your depth. The depth is the yard is. And
Speaker 1: you're like, coach, I got my depth. I got my
Speaker 1: depth to you too. Argument this has happened to men
Speaker 1: for you and the coach are going to feel it's fine,
Speaker 1: wait till we see it on film. Then you get
Speaker 1: to watch the film and you see that you only
Speaker 1: win five yards, and now you feel like an asshole
Speaker 1: because you out there because it out no. But I've learned.
Speaker 1: I've learned though, that when you think you're right because
Speaker 1: you see things from your perspective, the eye in the
Speaker 1: sky don't lie. So when you get to see yourself
Speaker 1: from someone else perspective and you were like, damn, I
Speaker 1: didn't even go seven yards, you learn how to shut
Speaker 1: up and just take the criticism. And that's when it
Speaker 1: comes to us. When you want to point out something
Speaker 1: to me, I'll be like, all right, all right, I
Speaker 1: got it. But then when I try to point out
Speaker 1: something for you, you want to give me all the
Speaker 1: reasons why you did it that way. And all I'm
Speaker 1: trying to say is you've given me reasons why you
Speaker 1: did it that way. Don't change the fact that what
Speaker 1: you did hurt me. You understand what I'm saying, and
Speaker 1: to me, that's the accountability. You can give me a
Speaker 1: thousand reasons why you did it that way still hurt me.
Speaker 1: Do you plan on changing the way you did it
Speaker 1: because it hurt me? Or you just be like, I
Speaker 1: did it that way because and then we're going to
Speaker 1: continue to do it that way because that's the way
Speaker 1: I do it. And I think that's different because something
Speaker 1: to hurt me. I want to know why, Like what
Speaker 1: was your mind set there? Whereas you don't care about
Speaker 1: the mindset. You're just like, well I'm hurt, so that's it,
Speaker 1: you know, Well no, but I'm going to change the
Speaker 1: behavior if you say to me, if you say to me,
Speaker 1: moving forward, Yeah, moving forward, And that's that's always been
Speaker 1: my thing. If you said to me, right, if you
Speaker 1: said to me the value you did X y Z,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm gonna do, all right, all right,
Speaker 1: you don't like that. I'm not going to give you
Speaker 1: a bunch of excuses and reasons why I did it.
Speaker 1: Clearly you don't like that. Let me just see if
Speaker 1: I can maneuver to do it in a way where
Speaker 1: you find it accepting or we can meet on the
Speaker 1: same page. And and that's just approach. That's your family traumas,
Speaker 1: my family traumas. You're upbringing my upbringing. And to this
Speaker 1: day we still have arguments because can we bring in
Speaker 1: my expert now, because this is like, this is like, man,
Speaker 1: this is a lot so I feel like we need
Speaker 1: to talk to somebody though. Let's talk to some money
Speaker 1: and see they can give us some advice on this,
Speaker 1: if that's what you want to do. Baby, See how
Speaker 1: I go to See how I go to the husband. Boys,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be a long episode. I was long winded
Speaker 1: this one. Yes, you were You wasn't talking. He wasn't talking,
Speaker 1: he was going in. Let me ask you, Kadine about No,
Speaker 1: let's leave it to the therapist who we got on
Speaker 1: here today today, y'all go back and see what was talking,
Speaker 1: and then y'all let Kadino head over to the expert.
Speaker 1: I've been trying to get to Delana for that long now, Delena,
Speaker 1: I hope you stilly assist us. All right, So today
Speaker 1: we brought Delana Zimmerman on to help us understand what
Speaker 1: exactly is this thing called accountability and to help us
Speaker 1: better approach it in all spec aspects of our life
Speaker 1: and relationship. So Delna Zimmerman, Hello, Delena, how are you him? Great?
Speaker 1: I'm gonna tell I'm gonna tell our people a little
Speaker 1: bit about you. So Delana Zimmerman is a trauma recovery coach,
Speaker 1: a motivational speaker, and a license marriage and family therapist.
Speaker 1: She's also a television personality, best known for her psychotherapy
Speaker 1: cameos on v H one's Basketball Wives of l A.
Speaker 1: As a motivation speaker, Delna brings more than twenty years
Speaker 1: of experience and tools engaging audiences locally, nationally, and internationally.
Speaker 1: Do you have quite the resume? Missting like that? Like that? So?
Speaker 1: How are you today? First and foremost? Has everything been
Speaker 1: so far shaping out all right for you? So far?
Speaker 1: It's good. It's challenged me to stretch and grow. I'm
Speaker 1: not always knowing what obstacles it is I have to
Speaker 1: leave and who does right? I supposed you have to
Speaker 1: leave right in order to go to the next level?
Speaker 1: Got me ready? But I'm moving now, I'm in action,
Speaker 1: So I'm decided. Good, that's here, Delena. It's um, it's glad.
Speaker 1: I'm glad to have you on because Codein and I
Speaker 1: have built pretty much built a platform on being transparent
Speaker 1: with each other. And the one thing I've learned about
Speaker 1: being transparent with my wife in the public eye is
Speaker 1: how uncomfortable transparency between two people's make the rest of
Speaker 1: the world. Um, But I will have to say this
Speaker 1: that Codeina and I were able to become more transparent
Speaker 1: with each other when we started to understand each other's
Speaker 1: family dynamic, her nuclear family she grew up in, and
Speaker 1: my nuclear family and I grew up in. And I
Speaker 1: started to realize my flaws and issues I've had with
Speaker 1: communication because I thought the way that my family communicated
Speaker 1: was the only way someone can communicate. UM, can you
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about understanding your own personal family
Speaker 1: trauma and what you bring to a relationship when you
Speaker 1: don't deal with that trauma. Oh wow, that's a beautiful question,
Speaker 1: and I'm so glad you asked it. Um. Many people
Speaker 1: get into relationships and the delusion that they're going to
Speaker 1: meet someone who's going to meet their needs and their
Speaker 1: emotional needs, you know. And nobody got out of their
Speaker 1: family system unscathed, no one, did, you know, Like everyone was,
Speaker 1: UM has some residue of their experience with their parents
Speaker 1: or with the sibling system. And UM, and unless those
Speaker 1: things are addressed, than partners believe that the other partners
Speaker 1: responsible to make them feel whole in the areas that
Speaker 1: they don't feel whole. And so it is a lie
Speaker 1: that really Loved Songs told us this lie they told
Speaker 1: us that, you know, you would need someone to meet
Speaker 1: your all your needs. Disney told us that, but the
Speaker 1: work has to happen on the inside. And since we're
Speaker 1: talking about accountability, individuals are responsible for their individual healing,
Speaker 1: and so you can bring a whole self to a
Speaker 1: relationship and then you can participate in the relationship, you know,
Speaker 1: with less um danger because everyone's looking for safe. So
Speaker 1: I have a question, how what is the easiest way?
Speaker 1: And I try to say easiest way because a lot
Speaker 1: of people are taken back by our approach where we
Speaker 1: just pretty much tell each other how it is. What
Speaker 1: is the easiest way to tell our listeners to talk
Speaker 1: to their partner about dealing with their own family traumas
Speaker 1: before trying to come into a relationship, because that's that
Speaker 1: was something could I was. The first five years of
Speaker 1: our marriage, we were like at odds because she dealt
Speaker 1: with things her way and I dealt with things my way.
Speaker 1: She thought she was right, I thought I was right,
Speaker 1: and we both were wrong, you know. But it got
Speaker 1: to a point where we just like, you know what effort.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't like the way you do this
Speaker 1: because your family, and I started calling out her family.
Speaker 1: She started calling out my family and it worked for us,
Speaker 1: but that don't work for everybody. So what's an easy
Speaker 1: way or a healthy way to speak to your partner
Speaker 1: about dealing with their family trauma. Um, First of all,
Speaker 1: you have to first admit that we're just humans. Nobody
Speaker 1: knows what they're doing. You know, we're raising you guys
Speaker 1: are raising kids like every day is an experiment, right,
Speaker 1: every single day as an experiment, And and what happened
Speaker 1: last Tuesday is not gonna happen this Tuesday. And so
Speaker 1: what I think is important in a relationship is to
Speaker 1: agree that we're just humans, right, and that that takes
Speaker 1: the ego out of it that I really don't I've
Speaker 1: never done this before. I've never in this age before,
Speaker 1: I've never had these responsibilities before, I never bid this
Speaker 1: person before. And so to answer your question specifically, I
Speaker 1: think it's important for couples to understand that relationships need
Speaker 1: room room space for you to grow and develop and
Speaker 1: learn from your mistakes. And if we're in a relationship,
Speaker 1: that means that your real promise to me is that
Speaker 1: you're gonna work it out with me while I make
Speaker 1: my mistakes in front of you, while I grow up
Speaker 1: in front of you while I be come in front
Speaker 1: of you. And if there ain't no room for that
Speaker 1: the relationship, yeah, you need space along with the grace
Speaker 1: to go with it, you know what I mean to me,
Speaker 1: It just sounds so cliche and simple that when you
Speaker 1: say that, but then people always have a torture. I
Speaker 1: ain't giving nobody grace. I'm not letting nobody cheat on me.
Speaker 1: I ain't letting nobody walk all over and nobody talk
Speaker 1: to me on how And it's like, no one's telling
Speaker 1: you to let anybody do anything but giving someone grace,
Speaker 1: what exactly is giving someone healthy grace? I think we
Speaker 1: should take it back to the first to the topic,
Speaker 1: which is accountability and what is the difference delana between
Speaker 1: someone being blamed for something and then accountability, because I
Speaker 1: think that's like where it starts. You know, you can't
Speaker 1: be held accountable until, like you said, you admit or
Speaker 1: you're aware, there's a self awareness that there is something
Speaker 1: that's wrong per se or something that needs to be addressed.
Speaker 1: So how do we know when we're blaming someone versus
Speaker 1: just requesting that they take a front ability? Um, So
Speaker 1: a lot of the family system comes with blame, and
Speaker 1: I know that's how it is culturally. You know, the
Speaker 1: face gets broke, who broke it right? And then it
Speaker 1: has to be blame and punishment. So we come from
Speaker 1: a pattern of that blame and punishment. I mean, if
Speaker 1: we just look at our history, it's just that's what happened.
Speaker 1: Somebody has to take responsibility. There has to be justice
Speaker 1: per se in the relationship. I come from a stance
Speaker 1: or I believe deeply that our problems, my problem, your
Speaker 1: problem begins and ends with you. So if you're cheating,
Speaker 1: we need to look at that. Like, there's no way
Speaker 1: we can't look at that's something that needs to be
Speaker 1: resolved in you. I'm not responsible for your cheating. You're
Speaker 1: responsible for your cheating if it's if it's a deal
Speaker 1: breaker for me, If you're outside of the agreements of
Speaker 1: our relationship, then we need to look at the accountability
Speaker 1: to our agreements. So that's the difference between blaming and
Speaker 1: taking accountability. Relationships should have agreements, we should agree, but
Speaker 1: what are the what are the what's the circumference of
Speaker 1: our relationship? What is included in our relationship? One of
Speaker 1: the agreements you have is transparency. So when you're outside
Speaker 1: of that, then you have to have accountability for what
Speaker 1: you've agreed to. Well, mostly people don't know to have
Speaker 1: agreements and relationships. They just get in pretending they know
Speaker 1: what to do and hopefully the other person does too.
Speaker 1: And if you break what is a rule that everybody knows,
Speaker 1: or you break my family constitute or the sins that
Speaker 1: I hold against people, then I begin to blame you
Speaker 1: for how I feel. But you're not responsible for how
Speaker 1: I feel. I'm responsible for how I feel because I
Speaker 1: feel from the filter or the perspective of my life.
Speaker 1: If I've been a victim of my life, then I'll
Speaker 1: be a victim in this relationship. Ah So, so one
Speaker 1: thing that Canine and I struggle with till this day
Speaker 1: is even outside of just our family units and our
Speaker 1: sibling structure. Right, I was a Division one athlete and
Speaker 1: a professional athlete. They held you accountable by putting you
Speaker 1: in front of a camera and pointing out all of
Speaker 1: your flaws. So I became comfortable with that. So when
Speaker 1: I sit down and talk to k sometimes that's the
Speaker 1: only way I know how to point out accountability is
Speaker 1: to say, Babe, you did this wrong, and for her,
Speaker 1: she feels like, well, you're always blaming me or you're
Speaker 1: always like knitpicking, like there's a laundry list of things
Speaker 1: that he down is like he's giving me specific So
Speaker 1: which specifics help? Because sometimes you'll just say, well, you
Speaker 1: don't do this, and and I'll retort with well when
Speaker 1: when you know, give me a specific scenario. So, so
Speaker 1: my my question is is there a healthy and unhealthy
Speaker 1: way to hold your partner accountable? And what are some
Speaker 1: tools people can take home and say, you know what,
Speaker 1: I want to hold my partner accountable, but I don't
Speaker 1: want her or him to feel blamed and I don't
Speaker 1: want to feel like I'm attacking them, you know, m um.
Speaker 1: So the point I made and the last question was
Speaker 1: about so if if if your partners sensitive from their
Speaker 1: childhood experience. Right. So, in my relationship, I'm an only
Speaker 1: child and my partners is comes from a family of seven,
Speaker 1: so he has tougher skin than I. Right, So he
Speaker 1: says things in a way that make me feel uncomfortable,
Speaker 1: But the truth is he doesn't make me feel anything.
Speaker 1: I bring that predisposition to sensitivity to the relationship and
Speaker 1: he brings a tougher thing to the relationship. We're not
Speaker 1: making each other anything. I that's how I process and
Speaker 1: experience conflict. That's how our process and experience right when
Speaker 1: someone brings me something, that is a constructive criticism. Right,
Speaker 1: So the relationship again has to have space for and
Speaker 1: he I'd like to talk to you about how we're
Speaker 1: handling the dishes, and then there can be a conversation
Speaker 1: about how we're handling the dishes. I need the spoons
Speaker 1: to be up, not down, because they get spots on
Speaker 1: them and it seems like something minor. But you can
Speaker 1: say the dishes, I mean the spoon is down again,
Speaker 1: and then I feel not good enough in the relationship
Speaker 1: because I've made an error. But I bring that to
Speaker 1: the relationship that's not new to you. You don't place
Speaker 1: it in me, so you're not responsible for At the
Speaker 1: point I'm trying to make is you're not responsible. You
Speaker 1: didn't put that in me. And when I feel it,
Speaker 1: I want you to stick your hand down my throat
Speaker 1: and turn the switch so I can stop feeling it.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm gonna tell you why. That's that's so
Speaker 1: crystal clear to me. I've been trained and nurtured as
Speaker 1: a young man to not feel you know I've been
Speaker 1: you fall, get up, don't cry. Being the first born
Speaker 1: in my family, my parents were always on me and
Speaker 1: I couldn't respond with an emotional response because that was
Speaker 1: not acceptable as a young man. Then being an athlete,
Speaker 1: They're gonna tell you and curse you. I'll call you
Speaker 1: all sorts of name. Do not respond, listen to what
Speaker 1: I'm saying, be accountable and fix it. But as a
Speaker 1: young woman, Cadeine was raised differently. She was raised to,
Speaker 1: you know, be emotional and have emotional I was emotional
Speaker 1: clarity or what what's the word I'm thinking of, where um,
Speaker 1: you're allowed to have emotional responses and be aware of
Speaker 1: how you feel like She's always it was encouraged in
Speaker 1: her as a young lady. So sometimes when I say
Speaker 1: things to her, I don't understand how she could feel
Speaker 1: a way about me saying something simple because when it
Speaker 1: said to me the same way, it doesn't make me
Speaker 1: feel that way. And that's where we were different. We
Speaker 1: were struggling because I literally was like, I don't understand
Speaker 1: how me saying this to you made you feel that
Speaker 1: way when if you say the exact same thing to me,
Speaker 1: I'm able to process it and it doesn't hurt. But
Speaker 1: when you explain it that way, she comes with that.
Speaker 1: I come with this, so nobody made me feel like this.
Speaker 1: It makes sense. But yeah, I totally get that, and
Speaker 1: it makes so much sense to Leana. But at one
Speaker 1: point do we as adults stop leaning on or blaming
Speaker 1: how we were raised, generational traumas things like that. At
Speaker 1: what point, Like, of course we know that makes us
Speaker 1: as a person, But at what point do we as
Speaker 1: an adult say, you know what, I understand that I
Speaker 1: was raised this way or this is what I'm accustomed to.
Speaker 1: But then how do I break free of that because
Speaker 1: I know better? Do you see that people are able
Speaker 1: to easily do that? Or no? No? Um, it's important
Speaker 1: to know, you know, it's important to know, which means
Speaker 1: that you can take responsibility for yourself right and to
Speaker 1: practice something different. Learning how to metabolize your emotions is
Speaker 1: being accountable right, that that's self accountability. I have this emotion,
Speaker 1: I feel it in my stomach, and whenever I feel
Speaker 1: that feeling in my stomach, I at the same way,
Speaker 1: the same way I acted at eight when I felt
Speaker 1: it in my stomach, I act the same way I
Speaker 1: acted at quill when I feel that same feeling in
Speaker 1: my stomach, right, Like, I have to take accountability for that,
Speaker 1: and so I don't have to blame my trauma, but
Speaker 1: I have to recognize that I've been shaped in a
Speaker 1: particular way. So if I if my childhood shaped me
Speaker 1: in a triangle, I can't expect to be a circle.
Speaker 1: If that makes sense, I'm gonna try and go on.
Speaker 1: I have sharp edges, and so I need to honor
Speaker 1: that about myself and I need to make room. So
Speaker 1: if I feel triggered, right, I don't continue in the argument.
Speaker 1: We have agreements in our relationship, in our conflict where
Speaker 1: I say, you know what I'm feeling triggered, hond you
Speaker 1: give me a little bit, Let's step away from this
Speaker 1: conversation and for a while, because I want to be
Speaker 1: responsible in the relationship. That's accountability, emotional responsibility. M hmm.
Speaker 1: See that that makes sense, But but it makes me wonder, though,
Speaker 1: how do you raise your children to be emotionally intelligent
Speaker 1: so that they're not they don't put themselves in the
Speaker 1: box of just being a triangle or a circle, like
Speaker 1: I feel like even emotionally malleable to is that even
Speaker 1: possible to to make to you children. Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 1: You give give your children language around feelings, teach them
Speaker 1: how to say how they feel, give them space to
Speaker 1: feel that it's safe. They need to feel safe with you.
Speaker 1: You have to be the safe place for them to emote.
Speaker 1: Like you said, you know, continued that that well developed,
Speaker 1: that you didn't have safety to emote. You were told
Speaker 1: it wasn't okay. So if you have sons, then it's
Speaker 1: important for them to know that it's not weak to say,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm afraid too before the game. It's okay
Speaker 1: to say I have jitters. It's okay to say that
Speaker 1: and still run and get you some touchdowns. But it's
Speaker 1: okay to say, you know, I'm concerned about my relationships
Speaker 1: at school. That they need to be able to say
Speaker 1: that to you, because I really believe that is the
Speaker 1: the the breaking down and development from age five to twelve.
Speaker 1: That's where the inferiority complex is built in children. The
Speaker 1: inferiority slash superiority complex is built in children. So if
Speaker 1: they don't have a safe place in relationships where they
Speaker 1: feel competent emotionally, that's where the trauma occurs developmentally and
Speaker 1: it manifests itself in its relationships exactly when we're dealing
Speaker 1: with I know, but I think we've been doing a
Speaker 1: great job because Jelena, we've been dealing with this. We
Speaker 1: have three boys. Our oldest jackson, who's ten. We've been
Speaker 1: dealing with this recently with him having like performing anxiety
Speaker 1: or little things like that. So Deval has been trying
Speaker 1: to and and me as well. We've been trying to
Speaker 1: make sure that he's vocal about the way he feels
Speaker 1: and he doesn't bottle it up because he's a total empeth.
Speaker 1: He totally like takes people's emotions and everything on him,
Speaker 1: so in that we want him to be expressive. So
Speaker 1: I think we've been trying to work with him. I've
Speaker 1: been trying to find a bout. I've been spending a
Speaker 1: lot more time with him, Like he and I do
Speaker 1: a lot more one on one stuff, and um, it's
Speaker 1: a thing where you know, I can tell when he's
Speaker 1: getting nervous and I say, Bro, you're nervous, right, And
Speaker 1: he was like yeah, And I'm like, you know that's okay,
Speaker 1: Like he's okay to be nervous. I used to be nervous.
Speaker 1: And I'll see him light up and he's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: so I'm nervous, So what do I do? I say,
Speaker 1: the way you work through your nervousness is you continue
Speaker 1: practicing while nervous, and that muscle movement becomes muscle memory
Speaker 1: and you'll be able to recall on it even when
Speaker 1: you're nervous, and you can still perform. And I've watched
Speaker 1: him like grow in doing that. Um, But I also
Speaker 1: was fearful of being a crutch and that if he
Speaker 1: doesn't have his dad before a game, will he learned
Speaker 1: how to do that on his own. And I've been
Speaker 1: trying to work out a lot will Okay, this this
Speaker 1: gives me hope because I, um, you know he's tending,
Speaker 1: so you don't want to put too much pressure on
Speaker 1: the tenuo. But I also want him to be great
Speaker 1: in anything. I don't care if it's sports, I don't
Speaker 1: care if it's acting or being a CEO. I just
Speaker 1: want him to be great, but also be emotionally intelligent.
Speaker 1: So when he deals with with a woman and he's
Speaker 1: able to notice what she's going through and be able
Speaker 1: to be sensitive but also respect his own boundaries and
Speaker 1: be aware so that he's like, I don't have to
Speaker 1: take everything that comes with this. And that's what Codeine
Speaker 1: and I have learned over the last five years. I've
Speaker 1: learned um. I used. I say this to Condina all
Speaker 1: the time when we argue the Lena. I said, you know,
Speaker 1: you live in an alternate universe and she and hat
Speaker 1: and you love it here because you have a whole
Speaker 1: spaceship out in here. But you here said that is true,
Speaker 1: that is true, that is true. But what you said
Speaker 1: made me realize that it doesn't matter what I say,
Speaker 1: how I say it, how loud I said, how quiet quiet?
Speaker 1: I say, She's going to receive it and feel the
Speaker 1: way she feels because of what she's been through. So
Speaker 1: I also can't get on myself about how she I
Speaker 1: just have to learn and make a decision of whether
Speaker 1: I want to be here or not, which I do
Speaker 1: all the time. And Delanna, I think for me, one
Speaker 1: word you mentioned earlier on that I rings true is
Speaker 1: um the ego word. So in dealing with accountability, blaming, punishment,
Speaker 1: that whole system, leaving the ego out of it. And
Speaker 1: I think the harder part from me was the admittance.
Speaker 1: Is that a word? Me admitting that maybe there was
Speaker 1: a deficit maybe I did do something wrong, maybe I
Speaker 1: was lacking something. And it was hard for me because
Speaker 1: being a person who was always striving to just be
Speaker 1: perfect and to be liked, because I was also raised
Speaker 1: you know, you want people to like you. You want
Speaker 1: people to you know, enjoy your company. So in being
Speaker 1: like that, um and having that ego, I had to
Speaker 1: learn how to put the ego aside to then say, Okay,
Speaker 1: I can now get that accountability, accountability going to not
Speaker 1: be as defensive. He always just like, you're so defensive.
Speaker 1: You're so defensive, and he's like, why can't you just
Speaker 1: hold yourself accountable? And it sounds easy, but for me,
Speaker 1: it was me having to admit that there was a
Speaker 1: deficit some there somewhere there. So for somebody who's like
Speaker 1: me that may not know how to put that ego aside, Um,
Speaker 1: how do you think they should approach being able to
Speaker 1: be aware that they need to be accountable? Um, we
Speaker 1: have a responsibility in relationships, period, Like that's what makes
Speaker 1: them so hard is that I have to take ownership
Speaker 1: of my role, my position in the relationship like I
Speaker 1: have to and that feeling of it's really I've named
Speaker 1: the feeling not being good enough, you know, from age
Speaker 1: five to twelve is where that inferiority complex is like
Speaker 1: like built you you hit that, you hit that button,
Speaker 1: you touch that, And I hate that feeling of not
Speaker 1: feeling good enough, so I become defensive or I become
Speaker 1: afraid that you won't left. Just described. You just described
Speaker 1: my wife like to a t like literally described. I
Speaker 1: can accept that in my old age, so in the
Speaker 1: acceptance of it, write what you said. In the acceptance
Speaker 1: of it. So every time it comes up, I know
Speaker 1: that's mine. I gotta breathe through that. I gotta I
Speaker 1: feel the feeling. The feeling is not gonna kill me.
Speaker 1: It never has. So I have to learn how to breathe,
Speaker 1: breathe and almost oxygenate those chemicals that have been released
Speaker 1: in my body that have that strong feeling in my
Speaker 1: stomach I'm responsible for. And then when I can get
Speaker 1: back to my logical mind, because I get hijacked by
Speaker 1: that feeling. It always hijacks me. So when I can
Speaker 1: get back to my logical mind and I can say
Speaker 1: thank you, honey for pointing that out in me, I
Speaker 1: want to be the best wife I can be. And oh,
Speaker 1: I felt it in my stomach. You know it's okay
Speaker 1: to say that since you all are transparent with you
Speaker 1: you know, I felt that in my stomach right, But
Speaker 1: I understand that I want to be this version in
Speaker 1: this marriage. I want to be this version. I want
Speaker 1: to thank you for not letting me stay in a
Speaker 1: weakness that's accountability as well to each other, but from
Speaker 1: a place of love. No, I love that. I love
Speaker 1: that too, because you've given you've You've given me. I
Speaker 1: don't want to say, a tool, but you've given me
Speaker 1: some awareness to see when I just need to stop
Speaker 1: saying what I'm saying and let her process what's going on,
Speaker 1: because it doesn't matter how I say it, because we've
Speaker 1: had arguments before where you know, the old adages is
Speaker 1: not what you say, is how you say it. So
Speaker 1: I've tried that. I've tried to be you know, quiet
Speaker 1: and be like, hey, babe, I just want to point
Speaker 1: out that, and then I get this big response back,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, I'm like and to me, it almost
Speaker 1: comes across as if he's patronizing me, and like, why
Speaker 1: are you coming over to me whispering? I get you're
Speaker 1: trying to do this approach thing, but at the same time,
Speaker 1: it just sounds like you're patronizing me. But at least,
Speaker 1: but at least I'm know now I'm aware to say,
Speaker 1: you know what, it doesn't matter how I say this,
Speaker 1: it's going to hit her because she's afraid of that
Speaker 1: accountability thing. So let me let her process that and
Speaker 1: she can go through her her way of process again
Speaker 1: and then come back when she's available. That at least
Speaker 1: that gives me some some you know, some ways to
Speaker 1: to work on that. Both have like grown out of
Speaker 1: whatever we were conditioned to in to an extent, you know,
Speaker 1: with our families and stuff like that, we're able to
Speaker 1: now know how to communicate as a couple because I
Speaker 1: can't always blame how I was raised. I just kind
Speaker 1: of feel like that's that's me using a crutch at
Speaker 1: this point, like, well, that's not the way I was raised,
Speaker 1: you know, me being at the point I am in
Speaker 1: my life with you, um and us being this far
Speaker 1: entire relationship. We're going on almost nineteen years, Delena, so
Speaker 1: we've had to learn how to be emotionally malleable at
Speaker 1: this point with each other. No, absolutely, But you know, Dena,
Speaker 1: what I've heard from a lot of a lot of
Speaker 1: men and older men in my community. I've heard this
Speaker 1: a lot, is that women don't like to be accountable, right,
Speaker 1: It's like they're just emotional. They don't think logically, remember
Speaker 1: you say, get back to the logical mind. They don't
Speaker 1: think lodge ly. Where I've I've actually found the opposite,
Speaker 1: especially in this day and age, with women who have
Speaker 1: who have had to exist in corporate America. A lot
Speaker 1: more women are athletes. Now I've actually found the opposite.
Speaker 1: But I have found that I can. I find that
Speaker 1: in women who do exist in the corporate culture and
Speaker 1: who do exist in athletes, and women who don't typically
Speaker 1: are a little bit more um like a little bit
Speaker 1: more fearful of accountabilitycause they feel attacked. But I also
Speaker 1: understand where that comes from. In the patriarchy. There's women
Speaker 1: who are held to a standard where you have to
Speaker 1: be this to be considered good enough to be a mate.
Speaker 1: And I get where that comes from. And my my
Speaker 1: question is, as a man raising sons, right, how then
Speaker 1: this dating process, because we have a lot of listeners
Speaker 1: who date, and how do I teach my sons to
Speaker 1: be aware of those flaws or the things they find
Speaker 1: in women, or how to not only be malleable emotionally,
Speaker 1: but accept people in their their flaws as dating because
Speaker 1: a lot of people nowadays, if you're not exactly what
Speaker 1: I want on the first second date, then moving on.
Speaker 1: But you can't build anything like that. Now, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. So how do I teach my sons
Speaker 1: to be to be aware of the stuff they're looking
Speaker 1: for emotionally in people. I'll tell you what you teach
Speaker 1: your sons every day. They won't do what you say.
Speaker 1: They're gonna do what they see. I'm gonna tell you that. Now.
Speaker 1: My mother used to say to me, don't do as
Speaker 1: I write, don't do as I do, do as I say,
Speaker 1: And it was impossible. I could only become what she
Speaker 1: was right. So I would just want to say that.
Speaker 1: So we're talking about the family system. Remember you are one.
Speaker 1: So your sons are going to treat women the way
Speaker 1: they see you treat your wife, and they're going to
Speaker 1: love women based on the relationship that they have with
Speaker 1: their mother. Now, I know we're in this drive through
Speaker 1: world now and everything's a swipe to the left, a
Speaker 1: swipe to the right. I get it. There's a reservoir
Speaker 1: of human beings. Now you know, I got it. So,
Speaker 1: uh sometimes a very murky reservoir. Yeah, you know, it's
Speaker 1: it's very interesting how um things have been kind of
Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't like it's water down, but
Speaker 1: I get it. Okay. So to answer your question, your
Speaker 1: son's I feel deeply about what I'm about to say.
Speaker 1: I feel that young men are not taught the responsibility
Speaker 1: they have to be a man just to have a penis.
Speaker 1: It's like a very it's such a responsibility because if
Speaker 1: you don't know the power that's in your hand, you
Speaker 1: won't treat it effectively. You won't be responsible with me,
Speaker 1: your weaponize yourself. You and and and women suffer at
Speaker 1: the end of the irresponsible man. I know, we could
Speaker 1: say a whole lot about women, but understand, if the
Speaker 1: man is not in the home, the man is not
Speaker 1: in the home right and the mother is forced to
Speaker 1: try to raise a daughter and try to raise a son.
Speaker 1: But if the man is in the home, that we
Speaker 1: have a more balanced and intact experience. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1: Makes If the man is missing and we know our
Speaker 1: history where the man is missing, okay, and you have
Speaker 1: an imbalance in the development of children, period Okay, so
Speaker 1: think your son has your sons like my children. No,
Speaker 1: my son knows that girls who didn't grow up in
Speaker 1: a particular environment or who present in a particular way
Speaker 1: potentially have this foundation. And you have to decide if
Speaker 1: that's what you want to invest in, or do you
Speaker 1: want to invest in something that's more principled. So I
Speaker 1: would encourage you to teach your sons to see women
Speaker 1: as humans and powerful and precious and potentially your wife
Speaker 1: or your daughter there are someone's daughter, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, So that they're careful with them and that
Speaker 1: they see into the humanity of them and not just
Speaker 1: the exterior of them. Right, you can teach them that
Speaker 1: that body is gonna change, right, that's everything's gonna change.
Speaker 1: But if the inside of them, if they are lovable, right,
Speaker 1: if they are peaceful people, if they are willing to
Speaker 1: grow and change and evolve, that's that's how that's the
Speaker 1: type of woman that you want to engage in. That's
Speaker 1: who you want to grow with. But if you don't
Speaker 1: take time to get to know that, then you are
Speaker 1: just looking for an exterior thing that is temporary and
Speaker 1: it's going to change. I also want to add spiritual
Speaker 1: people who have a basis or belief that they belong
Speaker 1: right to the bigger picture, to add to the creator,
Speaker 1: to the universe. They evolve better, they evolved stronger, They
Speaker 1: have faith for the future, and you can build with that. Well,
Speaker 1: you know what I struggle with two is um even
Speaker 1: we don't have a daughter yet. I'm always put out
Speaker 1: thea that on pushing child and have a have a daughter,
Speaker 1: but I do struggle with how to raise a daughter
Speaker 1: in this world where, like you said, there is a
Speaker 1: purpose and the privilege of being a man and having
Speaker 1: a penis right, but also understanding that men have been
Speaker 1: discarded in this current climate. Everything that you do that's masculine,
Speaker 1: even though you'll say be a man. Everything a man
Speaker 1: does that's masculine. They call a toxic. So if you're
Speaker 1: raising a young girl, what type of person do you
Speaker 1: you raise her to be? As far as accepting a
Speaker 1: man in her life and understanding the privileges that men have,
Speaker 1: but also saying you also have to let a man
Speaker 1: be a man because men are needed in the homes.
Speaker 1: It's almost like messages are opposite. You know, we need
Speaker 1: men in the homes, we need men to be men.
Speaker 1: But then when a man tries to be a man,
Speaker 1: it's like everything you do that's masculine is toxic. So
Speaker 1: it's like like where where's the balance, where's the happy medium?
Speaker 1: Because we we even see what Kadine and I if
Speaker 1: I will hear women will say all the time. You know,
Speaker 1: men need to you know, pay the bills, prevent, protect, provide,
Speaker 1: da dada. So I we had a podcast where I
Speaker 1: talked about what my responsibilities and I said that I
Speaker 1: love to provide and protect and some women took it as, oh,
Speaker 1: he's sexist. He doesn't because I said I don't want
Speaker 1: Cadine to pay chicken as me being submissive, and he
Speaker 1: was just like I just thought that that was my role,
Speaker 1: that's as a as a man, Like that's what I
Speaker 1: do as a man. But it's kind of difficult in
Speaker 1: this day and age to find these, you know, find
Speaker 1: where exactly what is toxic, what's not toxic when it
Speaker 1: comes to masculinity, what is acceptable or not acceptable from
Speaker 1: a woman, you know, being with a man. So my
Speaker 1: question is having a daughter, If we have a daughter,
Speaker 1: I'm praying on it as much responsibility as we have
Speaker 1: to put on men. Right, what tips do you have
Speaker 1: for me in having a daughter, to raise a daughter.
Speaker 1: That's you know, I know that this answer is going
Speaker 1: to be censored. I just want to say that now.
Speaker 1: But I am going to be as honest as I
Speaker 1: can about this. I have a daughter, Okay, she said,
Speaker 1: team Um and um, the definitions are changing. It seems
Speaker 1: like to me like I am frustrated with it. And um,
Speaker 1: so you talked about that that corporate America woman, right,
Speaker 1: she has this psychological independence and um, she really is
Speaker 1: a man. So she and she gonna struggle in a
Speaker 1: relationship with a man period. Okay. Um. So the idea
Speaker 1: about submission and I had to learn this myself. Um,
Speaker 1: submission is submitting to myself as a woman. So that's
Speaker 1: what I teach to my daughter. You submit to yourself
Speaker 1: as a woman, but you have to understand what it
Speaker 1: is to be a woman in what your feminine energy
Speaker 1: is and what power is in that and not giving
Speaker 1: up and retarded for a role as a man. We're
Speaker 1: often in our masculine energy because we're producing. I'm always producing.
Speaker 1: I'm working all day. I'm because you know, I'm in
Speaker 1: the flow. I'm logical, I'm you know, doing this all
Speaker 1: day with my man. I need to be in my
Speaker 1: feminine energy. I need to be uh soft, and I
Speaker 1: need to be kind, and I need to be nurturing.
Speaker 1: I need to be a place of peace. And so
Speaker 1: I have to understand that that is what makes me
Speaker 1: so powerful that I have the ability to be that
Speaker 1: right the safe place for him as he has been
Speaker 1: in the world being his black face and his powerful
Speaker 1: self right and and and his male energy. Where where's
Speaker 1: his piece? If it's not with me, If I'm not
Speaker 1: the holder of the hearts, I have to be the
Speaker 1: holder of the hearts. You have to hold all those hearts,
Speaker 1: all those men's hearts in your family. Have to be
Speaker 1: the ceature of it. And that's the responsibility the woman.
Speaker 1: I hear, my daughter, she has a brother right here,
Speaker 1: are talking crazy to a moon? Right And so I say,
Speaker 1: after that, I come here and I said, babe, I
Speaker 1: need you to develop I need you to break that habit.
Speaker 1: Where does she learn it? Where did I learn it? Okay?
Speaker 1: I asked my daughter to change and practice that tone
Speaker 1: of voice, like break that because you are not going
Speaker 1: to be able to be effective in your relationship for
Speaker 1: the long haul with your husband. He can't respond effectively
Speaker 1: to that tone of voice. Mm hmm, you see that,
Speaker 1: And that's I think is what's triggering two women, especially
Speaker 1: existing in the patriarchy, where they feel like they have
Speaker 1: to submit themselves to a man in order to exist.
Speaker 1: But to me, I think it's the contrary, because I
Speaker 1: think me we as men, have to be accountable to say,
Speaker 1: your wife or the woman you're dating is not going
Speaker 1: to be able to respond if you approach her with
Speaker 1: the level of of being insensitive or a level of
Speaker 1: condescen mention or feeling like you're superior. I feel like
Speaker 1: both have and we talk about this all the time,
Speaker 1: being accountable for ourselves to serve each other. So it's
Speaker 1: not just about a woman serving a man. It's also
Speaker 1: about me as a man serving my woman. You know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, And we hear it all the time.
Speaker 1: Any time I post anything about serving my wife, men
Speaker 1: call me a simple any time she posts anything about
Speaker 1: serving me, women say she's too submissive. But for me,
Speaker 1: it's just I think it's like you said, I want
Speaker 1: to be the place that he comes to to decompress
Speaker 1: and to be, you know, being a black man, especially
Speaker 1: in this world today, and we're raising three black sons.
Speaker 1: I need to be that safe haven of peace for
Speaker 1: them to be able to let the of the entire world.
Speaker 1: You know, if we're not that for each other, then
Speaker 1: what are we doing rommating and having sex? Like otherwise?
Speaker 1: What is this but that? But that's that's exactly what
Speaker 1: people think relationships are. I'm so I'm never supposed to submit.
Speaker 1: She's never supposed to submit. I'm supposed to get everything
Speaker 1: I want from her, and I'm not supposed to I'm
Speaker 1: not supposed to sacrifice anything. She's supposed to do the
Speaker 1: same thing. And we're supposed to live happily ever after
Speaker 1: when the marriage. People who have been in successful marriages
Speaker 1: know that it's not possible, and then there's buzzwords that
Speaker 1: trigger people to be like, that's why I'll never be
Speaker 1: in a relationship because I'm never gonna submit or I'm
Speaker 1: never gonna sacrifice. Why I gotta sacrifice what I want
Speaker 1: to make him feel better? Why I gotta sacrifice what
Speaker 1: I want to make her feel better. That's what a
Speaker 1: relationship is, and it's being accountable, like like me as
Speaker 1: a man. That's one thing I will tell you, Delna.
Speaker 1: I had to learn to be accountable to myself to
Speaker 1: stop being selfish, stop with my ego, and listen. I
Speaker 1: had to learn that, and I had to learn to
Speaker 1: accept that people are gonna view me as less than
Speaker 1: the masculine man because I'm working to serve my wife
Speaker 1: and to be honest my my relationship. And I got
Speaker 1: happier when I did that. I was accountable to know
Speaker 1: what it was going to be because at this point,
Speaker 1: I'm not serving all the other people in my marriage.
Speaker 1: I'm not serving what their expectations are of me. I'm
Speaker 1: serving this woman. And for me, it was a lot
Speaker 1: of unlearning of things that I thought needed to exist
Speaker 1: in a relationship, thought needed to happen in a relationship,
Speaker 1: looking at relationships around me and saying, oh, I don't
Speaker 1: want to be like them or them over there, and
Speaker 1: not so much. I had to unlearn a lot to
Speaker 1: then be able to be more tuned into my husband
Speaker 1: and just realized that at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: we have to lay next to each other at night,
Speaker 1: forget what everybody else says, like literally literally had to
Speaker 1: come down for us to then say, you know, we
Speaker 1: got this, your adult lanny. Because I've learned some things,
Speaker 1: especially I've learned, you know, at least how we communicate,
Speaker 1: and also understanding that it's not what I say or
Speaker 1: how I say, it's understanding how she's going to receive it,
Speaker 1: regardless of what the messages. That's one thing I have
Speaker 1: never thought about until today. So thank you. Yes, it
Speaker 1: was such a pleasure chatting with you. I feel like
Speaker 1: we should have you back on a future episode. So
Speaker 1: many other things, making your resume and things that we've
Speaker 1: scratched the surface with you that we can always talk
Speaker 1: about some more. So we'd love to have you back.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for your time today. Tell everybody
Speaker 1: where they can find you your Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, websites.
Speaker 1: My Instagram is at de Lana's Immerment Therapy and I
Speaker 1: have a website also, or you can look at my
Speaker 1: services Delna's Enferment Therapy Dot. All right, So we decided
Speaker 1: to keep Delna around for our listener letters segment because
Speaker 1: you know, I like to be nosey and meeting all
Speaker 1: y'all business. But I figured, once we have an expert
Speaker 1: in the house today, we might as well lean on
Speaker 1: her expertise and see if she can give us some coins,
Speaker 1: some some some jam right now, Okay, so I'm gonna
Speaker 1: go ahead and read um the first one de Lena
Speaker 1: for you, And this is from a listener that says
Speaker 1: I'm a huge fan of both of you, and you
Speaker 1: guys are truly an inspiration. Thank you. I'm writing you
Speaker 1: guys for advice, even if you don't mention it on
Speaker 1: your podcast. I would just love to have your honest feedback.
Speaker 1: I've been with my boyfriend going on eight years. We
Speaker 1: have a four year old daughter. I just recently found
Speaker 1: out my boyfriend has been cheating on me for two
Speaker 1: years with a girl from his job. He never told
Speaker 1: me she did. When he finally decided to end things
Speaker 1: with her, he stated that there was reasons for him cheating,
Speaker 1: such as the lack of sex, me not cooking as much,
Speaker 1: not asking him how his day was, and simply just
Speaker 1: showing concern. At that time, we had just moved into
Speaker 1: an apartment together, our daughter was one, and I was
Speaker 1: trying to balance everything. Most importantly, he wasn't helping me
Speaker 1: around the house, giving me the attention or companionship. I
Speaker 1: felt like things were being forced. I have never cheated
Speaker 1: on this man, and I'm truly heartbroken from the situation.
Speaker 1: He told me pieces of the story. But I feel
Speaker 1: like he doesn't want to tell me everything, even though
Speaker 1: I asked him to be to tell me the whole truth,
Speaker 1: just to assist in my healing process. What advice can
Speaker 1: you guys give me on moving forward? Oh? Yeah, that work?
Speaker 1: Love is something else. Um, we we get listening to
Speaker 1: let us like this all the time, just like it's
Speaker 1: like the same story in every relationship. So if we
Speaker 1: listen to the story, and it fits right into the
Speaker 1: things that we've talked about today. And it's that neither
Speaker 1: one of them knew their responsibility and the relationship even
Speaker 1: though they had been in the relationship and we're making
Speaker 1: babies right so Um, she was overwhelmed, um, and he
Speaker 1: wasn't supportive. That's you know, the way she presents it.
Speaker 1: What I want to talk about infidelibility is that it
Speaker 1: is not her fault that he at this relationship with
Speaker 1: the other woman. It is how he works out his insecurity,
Speaker 1: his inferiority complex within himself. So it's okay to not
Speaker 1: feel that you're getting what you need in a relationship,
Speaker 1: that's fine, But to work that out outside of the
Speaker 1: relationship where you can get validation is his problem. It
Speaker 1: is not an indication of her not being good enough
Speaker 1: in the relationship. It's him not feeling good enough, So
Speaker 1: him seeking outside of himself, him being out of integrity,
Speaker 1: out of character, out of his promise, right out of
Speaker 1: his commitment. That is something that he has to work out.
Speaker 1: I'm sure in the past sex and attention has made
Speaker 1: him feel whole. That's why we have to be accountable
Speaker 1: for our own healing and our own wholeness right, and
Speaker 1: our own self actualization, so that we don't have to
Speaker 1: get it from other people, not even our partners, right,
Speaker 1: we have to giv it to ourselves and then again
Speaker 1: participate in the relationship ship with a healed or whole
Speaker 1: self or working on whole in itself. And so how
Speaker 1: she moves forward, if she continues it's going to stay
Speaker 1: in the relationship, he has to do his work, Like
Speaker 1: if she's gonna stay well, he has to maybe talk
Speaker 1: to her therapist about his um need for validation and
Speaker 1: how he has sought it out in the past and
Speaker 1: how he is going to curb that currently. And if
Speaker 1: she's gonna stay in relationship, she has to take care
Speaker 1: of herself just to love herself, develop a self love
Speaker 1: practice so that she can look in the mirror and
Speaker 1: being integrity with herself. Does that make sense? That makes sense.
Speaker 1: It makes sense. And a lot of times with these,
Speaker 1: with these scenarios, it's always the same thing. These two people,
Speaker 1: like you said, got into a relationship and there was
Speaker 1: no complete contract on what was decided on who was
Speaker 1: going to provide what or who was going to do
Speaker 1: what for whom. One person starts to lack because they
Speaker 1: feel overwhelmed, so they stopped doing something. The other one
Speaker 1: stops doing. Then they they're no longer intimate with each other,
Speaker 1: and then one person seeks outside forces to feel as
Speaker 1: if they wanted to, you know, they can vie a
Speaker 1: hole again. And and to be honest, when we look
Speaker 1: at these, it's not always a man and woman thing.
Speaker 1: It's been it's vice versa sometimes, like I've I've had
Speaker 1: I've had a homeboy. I'm not going to out him
Speaker 1: at all, but his wife cheated on him. And he
Speaker 1: was just like, bro, you know what I'm saying. I
Speaker 1: I provide, I do this, I do that, I go
Speaker 1: in and out of the house and make sure we
Speaker 1: have everything. And she stepped out, and I said to him,
Speaker 1: being a man's accountable. I said, what were you not
Speaker 1: doing that? She felt she had to step out and
Speaker 1: he was like, what do you What do you mean
Speaker 1: I provide I do? I said, Okay, when's the last
Speaker 1: time you hugged your wife? When's the last time you've
Speaker 1: kissed your wife? When's the last time you've asked her
Speaker 1: what she wants to do and took her to do
Speaker 1: something she wants to do? And he was like, I
Speaker 1: was too busy trying to do all these other things.
Speaker 1: I said, yeah, you were doing all these other things
Speaker 1: that you wanted to do to feel like you were
Speaker 1: a man in the house and not doing anything that
Speaker 1: she needed. And she stepped out, and she won't stepping
Speaker 1: out absolutely, and she stepped out for the exact reasons
Speaker 1: you said. She felt like she wanted to feel like
Speaker 1: someone wanted her again. She needed validation, she thought, and
Speaker 1: then she admitted to him, I thought you were cheating,
Speaker 1: So I cheated. You know what's powerful about it? You
Speaker 1: can step out or you can step in. I like that.
Speaker 1: I like that I'm just existing and allowing things to
Speaker 1: happen because leaning into the relationship. That's why I laying
Speaker 1: into it. This is what I need. This is what
Speaker 1: I'm looking for. These are Can we make some agreements?
Speaker 1: Can we create a structure? Is the relationship more important
Speaker 1: than my individual concerns? If my individual's concerns become more
Speaker 1: important than the unity of the universe of the relationship,
Speaker 1: I'm going to do what the hell I want to do.
Speaker 1: But if I remember that the relationship is important, more
Speaker 1: important than my individual need in the moment because it's temporary, right,
Speaker 1: then then I will lean into the relationship and I
Speaker 1: will be able to be influenced by you, and I
Speaker 1: will be open right hopefully you will be open to
Speaker 1: be influenced by me. Step you can step out and
Speaker 1: step out, or you could step in like I like that,
Speaker 1: you can step by the step because that's that's literally
Speaker 1: what me and Codeine decided to do, because we both
Speaker 1: had our transgressions and at that point it was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: are we gonna go out this way or am I
Speaker 1: gonna focus more on this person right here? And ever
Speaker 1: since we decided to do that, things have been like
Speaker 1: it's been it's been up. Wow, that's you. We don't
Speaker 1: even have time for another list, But I honestly feel
Speaker 1: like the second listener letter would probably be the same
Speaker 1: thing a similar situation. What's your points were was so small?
Speaker 1: You were going to say something ahead, Lana, I was
Speaker 1: thinking about it's something in that letter that that she asked, UM,
Speaker 1: go ahead, I don't know. Can you see what she asked? Um?
Speaker 1: Was it a question she asked or was it him?
Speaker 1: Him describing what was the room was wrong? She wanted
Speaker 1: him to give details about everything. That. Yes, that's it,
Speaker 1: that's it. She don't need the details. It's none of
Speaker 1: her business. It's it's irrelevant. I think people need to
Speaker 1: hear that too, because they're hearing the details. It's torture.
Speaker 1: There are glutton for punishment, and they're looking for the
Speaker 1: points where they were not good enough. Remember everybody's inferiority
Speaker 1: complex was built between age five prist Well, so she's
Speaker 1: looking for the details of where she's not good enough
Speaker 1: because she thinks it's her fault that he did it. Uh.
Speaker 1: So she feels like if she if he tells the details,
Speaker 1: it's like, oh she did that. Shoot, I wasn't doing that.
Speaker 1: So they were for deficit there ah, Now the deficit
Speaker 1: within him. That's that's important too, Like you can hold
Speaker 1: your partner accountable without having to punish them with all
Speaker 1: the details like that, like to be honest, like you
Speaker 1: don't have to say, well you you weren't doing all
Speaker 1: of this, that's why I did this. No, let's let's
Speaker 1: hold ourselves accountable. Yes I stepped out or yes you
Speaker 1: step doubt how do we get to that point because
Speaker 1: it's never a one person thing. It's always a collective
Speaker 1: thing for people to get to a point. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's always collective. And really each other are feeding off
Speaker 1: of each other's inferiority and insecurity. I have to develop
Speaker 1: security in myself. I have to be a safe person
Speaker 1: emotionally and then I can be a safe person physically.
Speaker 1: In the relationship, I can come to you when I
Speaker 1: you know, and when when I don't feel like we're
Speaker 1: in our roles. I can come to you when I
Speaker 1: feel disconnected from you, as opposed to finding connection in
Speaker 1: other places, she said. She said people are constantly Yes,
Speaker 1: people are constantly feeding off of each other's insecurities and
Speaker 1: looking to feed their own insecurities. In the minute their
Speaker 1: insecurity isn't fair, they just go elsewhere. That's seems like
Speaker 1: the dating process. Yeah, that that seems like the dating process.
Speaker 1: I'm insecure about this. Let me find someone who's gonna
Speaker 1: feed that aspect of me, and the minute they don't,
Speaker 1: I'm gone. But no one is responsible. But that that
Speaker 1: sounded like me when we first were dating. We just
Speaker 1: recently talked about this on an interview, and I talked
Speaker 1: about so many things that I was dating with my ego.
Speaker 1: I was dating with my ego and trying to feed
Speaker 1: myself because I wasn't sure about myself. And when we
Speaker 1: started dating, I was expecting Kay to do all these
Speaker 1: things to make me feel better, and every time she
Speaker 1: didn't do it, I felt like, Oh, she doesn't love
Speaker 1: me enough. Meanwhile, we were you know, year old kids
Speaker 1: who talk about knowing somebody else. You know, Okay, so
Speaker 1: I want I want to leave you with this, and
Speaker 1: this is earlier. I stated that the world's love songs
Speaker 1: Disney have told us that someone's gonna come into our
Speaker 1: life and gonna meet our needs. But children who did
Speaker 1: not get their emotional needs met become adolescents who didn't
Speaker 1: get their emotional needs met become adults that didn't get
Speaker 1: their emotional needs met. And I'm here to say that
Speaker 1: there is no other adult on the planet that has
Speaker 1: the assignment of needing any adults emotional needs. It is
Speaker 1: the individual's responsibility to meet their emotional needs. Now your
Speaker 1: physical needs and you know I need your help, honey,
Speaker 1: and you know I need you to hug me all
Speaker 1: these things. That's different, but your emotional needs must be
Speaker 1: met by you. There's no the parenting is done in
Speaker 1: your life. You if you if there's some weaknesses or
Speaker 1: there's some breaking down and your emotional needs, you have
Speaker 1: to yourself effectively. That's accountability. And then you bring that
Speaker 1: version of yourself to a relationship, and the relationship will
Speaker 1: show you the new areas in which you need to heal.
Speaker 1: That's the purpose of relationships. They're gonna mirror for you
Speaker 1: what you think and believe, and you take responsibility individually
Speaker 1: the things that have come up because the relationship is
Speaker 1: more important. Wow, she you really do a great job
Speaker 1: of articulating things that you feel that you don't know
Speaker 1: how to say. Well, she's a homeless therapist. And let
Speaker 1: me scroll back up. I definitely feel a whole lot
Speaker 1: better and I didn't even know I had a problem
Speaker 1: coming in here. We appreciate you so much and we
Speaker 1: know we have to let you go because good. But
Speaker 1: we thank you so much and we have to have
Speaker 1: you back home. Yeah, and we hope that people really
Speaker 1: tune in and listen to some of the advice that
Speaker 1: you've given to me. I think it's very sound advice
Speaker 1: for people who are aware that they do want to
Speaker 1: exist in a relationship. Because there are people who decide,
Speaker 1: you know, what, relationships aren't for me, and I respect that.
Speaker 1: At least you know you want to be single and
Speaker 1: and mingling for the rest of your life. That's all good.
Speaker 1: But it's the people who aspire to being a relationship
Speaker 1: or who are in relationships that I think will definitely
Speaker 1: get some some really good, valuable information. And so thank
Speaker 1: you again, thank you for sitting with us and all
Speaker 1: the best. Okay, So, if you'd like to be featured
Speaker 1: as our listener letter or one of our listener letters,
Speaker 1: email us at dead as Advice at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: That's D E A D A S S A D
Speaker 1: V I C at gmail dot com. All right, moment
Speaker 1: of truth time, I know what mine is. The moment
Speaker 1: of truth. Moment of truth. First of all, I want
Speaker 1: to apologize publicly for screaming at you that day when
Speaker 1: me and Jackson walked in the house, and I apologize
Speaker 1: for my frustration and raising my voice because, like you said,
Speaker 1: sometimes I'm not aware of my tone. Um. But just
Speaker 1: so the record shows, I spoke to my son immediately
Speaker 1: after everything happened, and we were able to reconcile, and
Speaker 1: I was able to speak to him about how he
Speaker 1: felt about everything, and I made sure that he knew
Speaker 1: that I wasn't coming from a place of a disappointment
Speaker 1: or a place of being upset, but I was just
Speaker 1: more so concerned, and me being his mom, I need
Speaker 1: to hold myself responsible to for putting him in situations
Speaker 1: where he could be at harm. That being said, my
Speaker 1: kids are never leaving the house ever again. Life should
Speaker 1: go back to my mode. Nobody's coming over either nobody.
Speaker 1: Everybody will come over now that we move, But now
Speaker 1: keep the same energy ILL kept when I lived in
Speaker 1: Brooklyn for ten years. She's gonna bubble wrap all the kids.
Speaker 1: That being said, I will be my moment of truth.
Speaker 1: Is this Accountability of course starts with yourself, right. You
Speaker 1: gotta be accountable, and that's fine, but you also have
Speaker 1: to know when you're in a relationship, when you're trying
Speaker 1: to help your partner be accountable that they have past
Speaker 1: traumas that may affect your message no matter how it's delivered.
Speaker 1: So it doesn't matter if I'm screaming, it doesn't matter
Speaker 1: if I'm talking softly, it doesn't matter if I'm being direct.
Speaker 1: If you have past traumas, that's going to affect the
Speaker 1: way my message is delivered to you, You're always going
Speaker 1: to feel away. And listening to Delena made me realize
Speaker 1: that that's valid, Like you are entitled to feel that way,
Speaker 1: and my message is going to be what it is
Speaker 1: and you're gonna take it however you want to take
Speaker 1: it because you brought that with the relationship. So my
Speaker 1: moment of truth is understanding that your partner it's going
Speaker 1: to receive what it is you're giving to them no
Speaker 1: matter how you say it. That's called you felt that
Speaker 1: to the core. I did, because I've tried all the
Speaker 1: approaches and don't none of them work. No matter what
Speaker 1: I say, how I say it, I always get the neck,
Speaker 1: the snap all that. I guess. My moment of truth
Speaker 1: kind of stemming from from yours, is not blaming or
Speaker 1: allowing the way I was raised or past generational traumas
Speaker 1: for example, to dictate how I exist in a space
Speaker 1: with you now, in my relationship with other relationships that
Speaker 1: I exist in, because I also to need to hold
Speaker 1: myself accountable and not place blame on other aspects of
Speaker 1: my life, um that may contribute to who I am now.
Speaker 1: So that being said, making sure that I say, Conneine,
Speaker 1: you may have been raised this way or you may
Speaker 1: have not been encouraged to do this as a child. However, you,
Speaker 1: being a grown woman, should know that you owe it
Speaker 1: to yourself and the other party in this relationship to
Speaker 1: be accountable, to not always place blame, to be willing
Speaker 1: to be emotionally malleable, as we've been saying today. So
Speaker 1: that's part of it. And I still like this little
Speaker 1: term that um Delana said. If you're on the verge
Speaker 1: of stepping out, step in, you know, step in leading
Speaker 1: into those relationships more so you can see, um where
Speaker 1: there's not necessarily a deficit, but there's a way for
Speaker 1: you to be accountable. So that I appreciate your moment
Speaker 1: of truth. Thank you, You're welcome, but I feel like
Speaker 1: you're looking at me funny. Be sure to find us
Speaker 1: on social media at dead As to podcasts, y'all know
Speaker 1: where to find me, Caine, I am, and you can
Speaker 1: find me in my house because you're not going nowhere
Speaker 1: and nobody coming either. I'm gonna let the kids out though,
Speaker 1: because they need to breathe. They can't be in here
Speaker 1: with the two of us holding time in the backyard.
Speaker 1: I am devout and if you're listening to Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: be sure to rate, review, and subscribe. Dead Ass is
Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Media podcast Network and is
Speaker 1: produced by the Norapinia and Triple Follow the podcast on
Speaker 1: social media at dead as to podcasts and never miss
Speaker 1: a Thing.