Speaker 1: It wasn't until I started to share some of my
Speaker 1: own struggles that I recognized there were so many people,
Speaker 1: so many women that were like me too, girl, me too? Girl, Oh, girl,
Speaker 1: me too? And I was like, are you serious? Why
Speaker 1: is no one talking about this? Here? I am on
Speaker 1: this boat feeling like I'm alone and isolated, and there's
Speaker 1: so much shame, feeling like you're the only one going
Speaker 1: through this. And then as soon as you speak up,
Speaker 1: there's so many people on the boat with you. We
Speaker 1: just all silent and struggling, not even together. Really, what's up, everybody?
Speaker 1: I'm Gammy and this is positively gam Every week I
Speaker 1: have raw, in depth conversations with inspirational people pushing for
Speaker 1: change on everything from aging, relationships, politics, wellness, to the
Speaker 1: current issues facing the black community. In this episode, we're
Speaker 1: going to be discussing marriage and divorce. If you know
Speaker 1: anything about me, that you know that I have traveled
Speaker 1: this journey a couple of times, so I do have
Speaker 1: a little bit of experience in both areas. To say
Speaker 1: the least. Joining me today are Melissa and Kevin Fredericks
Speaker 1: from the own docuseries Black Love. Kevin and Melissa have
Speaker 1: been happily married for sixteen years and have a podcast
Speaker 1: called The Love Our Joining them is my friend and
Speaker 1: sponsors Sibillymani, who is currently single, and then, of course,
Speaker 1: the most important person in the room, my husband Rodney,
Speaker 1: is joining us today for the very first time. So
Speaker 1: welcome everybody to positively GAM Thanks Gams, so excited. Melissa
Speaker 1: and Kevin. For some of my listeners who may not
Speaker 1: be familiar with the show Black Love on Own, tell
Speaker 1: us a little bit about it. Oh yeah, Black Love
Speaker 1: is a showan owned and it kind of follows of
Speaker 1: a variety of black couples, of various spectual preferences, ages,
Speaker 1: lengths of marriage, divorce not divorce, and they kind of
Speaker 1: just talk about their love story. I'm listen. I did
Speaker 1: season three, I believe yeah, season three, that is correct.
Speaker 1: We were married fifteen years at the time, and I
Speaker 1: believe um when that aired, we're married sixteen years now.
Speaker 1: So it's a great experience to be included, great to
Speaker 1: watch all the stories and you know, just be a
Speaker 1: part of something beautiful. Yeah, I thought it was amazing.
Speaker 1: What what made you decide that you were willing to
Speaker 1: be on a show like that though? Because it is
Speaker 1: you are talking about your personal experiences. I would say,
Speaker 1: for me, I strongly believe that there's healing and help
Speaker 1: and transparency. It's just something that I kind of lived
Speaker 1: my life on. And the reason why is because a
Speaker 1: lot of our story and some of the things we've
Speaker 1: been shared on black level, I felt like I was alone. Listen,
Speaker 1: I was out here struggling in marriage, struggling and motherhood,
Speaker 1: struggling in womanhood. To be honest, like make it brought
Speaker 1: to Melissa's struggling period, and I was a mother and
Speaker 1: I was married, And it wasn't until I started to
Speaker 1: share some of my own struggles that I recognized there
Speaker 1: were so many people, so many women that were like
Speaker 1: me too, girl, me too? Girl, Oh girl, me too?
Speaker 1: And I was like, are you serious? Why is no
Speaker 1: one talking about this? Here? I am on this boat
Speaker 1: feeling like I'm alone and isolated, and there's so much shame,
Speaker 1: feeling like you're the only one going through this. And
Speaker 1: then as soon as you speak up, there's so many
Speaker 1: people on the boat with you. We just all silent
Speaker 1: and struggling, not even together really, And so I just
Speaker 1: felt like doing the show sharing, you know, the beauty
Speaker 1: of black love the beauty of our story, but also,
Speaker 1: you know, sharing some things that aren't so beautiful, but
Speaker 1: hoping that you know, we could shed light on other
Speaker 1: people's lives and say, hey, we went through that too
Speaker 1: and we were able to get on the other side.
Speaker 1: What about now, simple? Are you familiar with the show?
Speaker 1: I am not. This is my first introduction to it.
Speaker 1: I find it to be very interesting, very therapeutic. The
Speaker 1: clips that I have had an opportunity to watch. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what about you, Kevin? Because I know Rodeny you probably
Speaker 1: have not because I've asked you to watch it with me,
Speaker 1: and now we've watched it together a couple of times.
Speaker 1: Did you okay? All right? I don't. I don't. I
Speaker 1: don't remember that. No credit over here? How did you
Speaker 1: feel about being on the show, Kevin? Because it just,
Speaker 1: to be honest, it just seems like more of a
Speaker 1: woman thing. So it's always good for me when I
Speaker 1: see black men engaged in this kind of conversation too,
Speaker 1: because I think it's really really important. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: you know, Melissa and I have a podcast of our
Speaker 1: podcast where we talk about life, love, marriage, and pursue
Speaker 1: of happiness, and we you know, we often are interested
Speaker 1: in these types of stories outside of our Even before
Speaker 1: we were on the show, we watched the previous seasons.
Speaker 1: We just thought it was a great show. And you know,
Speaker 1: like many other black people, we like to see positive
Speaker 1: reflections of love. And I think one thing the show does,
Speaker 1: even you know, really well is some couples have traumatic stories,
Speaker 1: some are very positive, some have you know, went through difficulties.
Speaker 1: Some even divorced after the show, and even on their
Speaker 1: social media they've even been um positive, even in that
Speaker 1: transition from married to co parenting or whatever. And I
Speaker 1: just think it's a I can't think of another show
Speaker 1: that had so much representation of love that wasn't like
Speaker 1: a TV sitcom, and even that's only usually one family.
Speaker 1: So Melissa and I we watched pretty much every episode
Speaker 1: together of the previous seasons. We love it. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: really love it too. How did you guys meet? Depending
Speaker 1: on who you'll ask, you'll get a very different story.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you the truth, um, Melissa, Melissa. Melissa Kevin
Speaker 1: is a comedian too, so we gotta take that because
Speaker 1: he's been a lot of y'all list of lies. That's
Speaker 1: all she does when it's about this story. We met
Speaker 1: on the first day of eleventh grade and Miss Chapman's
Speaker 1: US history class, Melissa was sitting there. It was the
Speaker 1: second to last role. She was in the backseat because
Speaker 1: I know it's the truth. I know the truth. You
Speaker 1: couldn't have a lot of this clear. I came up
Speaker 1: and I sat probably about four desks in front of her.
Speaker 1: I went to her role. When I saw her beauty,
Speaker 1: I was attracted to it. I sat down. I was
Speaker 1: eyeing her, and another dude handed me a note and
Speaker 1: was like, Yo, could you hand this to that girl
Speaker 1: back there? And it was Melissa, And I was like, dang,
Speaker 1: he beat me to the punch, handed her a note.
Speaker 1: She opened it, looked at it, closed it back, and
Speaker 1: never looked at him. And I was like, oh, so
Speaker 1: you're telling me there's a chance, And I feel like
Speaker 1: I fell in love with her right then. Took me
Speaker 1: about six seven months to actually convince her to date me.
Speaker 1: I had all her home girls and all her classes
Speaker 1: petitioning for me, girls on the track team in every period.
Speaker 1: I had a whole school of black girls campaigning for me,
Speaker 1: and eventually this is the last part of the story,
Speaker 1: but it's also the truth. Her cousin was the one
Speaker 1: that put me over the edge because she still was
Speaker 1: not trying to date me. So he's like, come on, couse,
Speaker 1: cousin named Tony, come on, couse, come on man, my boy,
Speaker 1: blah blah blah, just dating me. She grabbed my hand.
Speaker 1: She's like, okay, Tony, I will date him. Are you
Speaker 1: happy now? And through my hand, And that was May
Speaker 1: thousand and we've been together ever since I was twenty
Speaker 1: years ago. That right there is just really really amazing
Speaker 1: to me because if I'm not mistaken, you guys have
Speaker 1: been together and have never like dated or experienced any nothing.
Speaker 1: No breakups, no breakups, no separations, no time off, no PTO,
Speaker 1: no vacation, no mental health days, no hall passed straight
Speaker 1: married for well, dating into engagement into married. Since that day,
Speaker 1: she tried to break over me in college. One time
Speaker 1: I was walking up to her dorm and she was
Speaker 1: talking bad about me to her roommate and the door
Speaker 1: was open, so I don't know if she was doing
Speaker 1: it on purpose, but I heard her and she was like,
Speaker 1: I was like, are you okay? She was like, well,
Speaker 1: I'm glad you're here. I'm sick of listen, sick of
Speaker 1: that you hanging out your homeboy, and I feel like
Speaker 1: you need a break. And I was like, okay, so
Speaker 1: what I'm gonna do is go back to my side
Speaker 1: of campus and I'll see you tomorrow. And that was it.
Speaker 1: I went back to my room and the next day
Speaker 1: I acted like she never said that. She never mentioned
Speaker 1: it again, and we just kept on chucking. You know, Rodney,
Speaker 1: what do you say about that? Because I mean, like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I've been married four times. Rodney is my fourth husband,
Speaker 1: but there have been numerous relationships in between over the years.
Speaker 1: So the fact that you guys have been married never day,
Speaker 1: that other people never experienced other people in any way
Speaker 1: is just like, I don't even know what to say
Speaker 1: to that. It's amazing. That's not the typical story, but
Speaker 1: it's an amazing story. I was gonna say. We are
Speaker 1: well aware more and more that this is not the norm,
Speaker 1: and we don't expect it to be the norm. It
Speaker 1: is very on the outskirts of normality. It exists mostly
Speaker 1: in Hollywood. People you know, fall in love in high
Speaker 1: school and stay together. So we are well aware, and
Speaker 1: you know, when we do our podcast, we lead with
Speaker 1: that knowing that our situation is not the norm, you know.
Speaker 1: And when you say Hollywood, you mean Hollywood like on
Speaker 1: the movie screen, you know what I mean, like Hollywood
Speaker 1: for real? No, I mean like literally movies, not actual life.
Speaker 1: I don't think most people you know have a girlfriend
Speaker 1: that they meet in in eleventh grade and they stay
Speaker 1: with him for twenty years without breaking up. Ever, what
Speaker 1: is one thing in marriage that singles need to know
Speaker 1: before they say I do? What would you say to
Speaker 1: that civil I would say singles need to recognize that
Speaker 1: life is full of valleys, and without those valleys, there
Speaker 1: can be no hills, no mole hills, and no mountains,
Speaker 1: and so perseverance and communication are key. And that's my
Speaker 1: take from a look back. I would just say that
Speaker 1: make sure you're ready for the commitment because it's work,
Speaker 1: and it's not it's not the Hollywood version. It's it's real.
Speaker 1: It's real work, and you're gonna have to learn some
Speaker 1: things about yourself that you didn't know existed, and you're
Speaker 1: gonna have to face some truths about yourself. And if
Speaker 1: you're ready to do that work, then I say go
Speaker 1: for it. But if you're not, then maybe just think
Speaker 1: about being in a relationship a little longer. Well, we
Speaker 1: were just in the kitchen. We were just in the
Speaker 1: kitchen talking to Will. That's our favorite spot and things
Speaker 1: that he said. Uh huh, I've met him before. I
Speaker 1: just wanted to put that out there. I have met
Speaker 1: Will Smith. Yeah. Just I was gonna work it into
Speaker 1: the conversation only if you brought it up, and you
Speaker 1: did so that's hilarious, Okay. Well, and what he said
Speaker 1: was marriage is a spiritual discipline to force us to
Speaker 1: heal our own wounds and learn how to love, right,
Speaker 1: he said, because most people don't actually just don't know
Speaker 1: anything about what love really is and how to love.
Speaker 1: And when he said that, I had to really think
Speaker 1: about it, because I mean, you know, you really don't.
Speaker 1: So when you think about the did you all read
Speaker 1: the five love languages symbol? You read it, right, Rodney,
Speaker 1: you read it. So what would you say, are is
Speaker 1: your love language? I'm gonna start with you, Rodney. What
Speaker 1: is or love language? Quality time? Quality time? For me?
Speaker 1: I think that words of fairly empty without demonstration, right,
Speaker 1: And that demonstration for me comes through time, spending time,
Speaker 1: sharing things together, doing things together. So yeah, for me,
Speaker 1: from that list, it would definitely be quality time. For me,
Speaker 1: it's physical touch. I'm all about the physical like that.
Speaker 1: That is really really important to me. What about you,
Speaker 1: civil I would say it's both of what you and
Speaker 1: Rodney have. For me, it's quality time because you can
Speaker 1: give lip service all day long, but there's nothing like
Speaker 1: spending the intimate time together, not necessarily physical, but that
Speaker 1: intimate connection with your partner. In addition, physical is very
Speaker 1: important to me. I can live with not having the
Speaker 1: gifts and you know, the other languages, but the physical
Speaker 1: and the quality of tea time, it's very important to me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I would. I would say the physical and intimacy. The
Speaker 1: intimacy that doesn't necessarily mean physical, right, but those two
Speaker 1: things are really important to me. What about you, Kevin
Speaker 1: and Melissa? So mine is quality time? Quality time gang
Speaker 1: over here and I would say that for me. It's
Speaker 1: so funny. We were just on some other show the
Speaker 1: other day and we were kind of going through our
Speaker 1: definition of love and one of the hosts said this
Speaker 1: to me, and I was like, that's true for me,
Speaker 1: and I didn't realize it. I define love in terms
Speaker 1: of safety. So if I feel comfortable and safe with you,
Speaker 1: to give me or to give you like my heart.
Speaker 1: Then that's when I that's love to me And the
Speaker 1: only way that I get there, I realized for me
Speaker 1: is through quality time and specifically, like let's talk. Let's
Speaker 1: have a conversation. Tell me about your fears, tell me
Speaker 1: about your dreams, tell me about what you're afraid of,
Speaker 1: what your ultimate goals are, Like, let's sit and talk
Speaker 1: all the deep down, dirty stuff. Let's have this conversation.
Speaker 1: And in that you're building trust, you're building rapport, you're
Speaker 1: building all of those things that helped me. That are
Speaker 1: my definitions of love and so you. For me, it's
Speaker 1: far and above, I mean just far and away quality time.
Speaker 1: The second one would be acts of service, which I
Speaker 1: feel like that's a very seasonal type of situation for me.
Speaker 1: I feel like when my kids were young, that's always
Speaker 1: very important, Like helped me around this house. You don't
Speaker 1: see these dishes, you don't see it as flow. You
Speaker 1: don't want to pick up a room, you won't do nothing.
Speaker 1: As I've gotten older and my kids have gotten older,
Speaker 1: the gap between the At one time they were very
Speaker 1: neck and neck, but as my kids have gotten older,
Speaker 1: the gap between those two have definitely expanded. So it's
Speaker 1: far and away. Yeah, quality time. For me, it's physical
Speaker 1: touch and words of affirmation. I feel like they're very
Speaker 1: close to each other. I need to be hugged, love kissed,
Speaker 1: hold me, touch my hand, put your foot on me,
Speaker 1: let me feel your cold tosy like, you know, let's
Speaker 1: be close. You know, I was all And that's not
Speaker 1: even just with Melissa's with my children as well. I'm
Speaker 1: the very affectionate person hugs and kisses, you know. Well
Speaker 1: with one of my sons. The other ones, his love
Speaker 1: language is not physical touch, so we we don't do
Speaker 1: that with him. Uh. But the words of affirmation, I um,
Speaker 1: I need to be verbally hugged, so to speak. Uh.
Speaker 1: Otherwise I feel like, you know, God, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I feel unloved, especially if I'm working on something that
Speaker 1: is very difficult for me, you know, like you know.
Speaker 1: One of the things Melissa and I've realized, the the
Speaker 1: benefit of being together for a long time is you
Speaker 1: know each other very well. The drawback is that when
Speaker 1: you're together for twenty years, you really, you know, imagine
Speaker 1: the person you were when you were sixteen and the
Speaker 1: person you were at thirty six. They're very different people,
Speaker 1: you know. But We've had to go through all those
Speaker 1: changes together. So that require is loving a person differently
Speaker 1: as they go through those changes. In Melissa's case, you know,
Speaker 1: no kids to one kid to two kids, to working
Speaker 1: in Corporate America to quitting Corporate America, her parents divorced.
Speaker 1: All of those instances had changes in her personality and
Speaker 1: I had to love her through those and I have
Speaker 1: to change for her as well. And when I'm doing
Speaker 1: something that's very difficult for me, if you acknowledge that
Speaker 1: and then it's more it's easier for me to continue
Speaker 1: to do that. So for the last two years or so,
Speaker 1: I've been working on being more vulnerable, uh, fighting the
Speaker 1: way I grew up, which men are strong and we
Speaker 1: don't show weakness and we don't do that and you
Speaker 1: and you don't break. And then Melissa was like, I
Speaker 1: need you to break. I need you. I need to
Speaker 1: see some fear in you. And I was like, I
Speaker 1: don't know how to show that. I didn't know how
Speaker 1: to show her that, literally because I didn't know how
Speaker 1: to show it to myself. So Agam, you were saying
Speaker 1: a little bit earlier about love is a spiritual um discipline.
Speaker 1: I think that's the phase we're in. So much of
Speaker 1: what we're doing now is the self work to combat
Speaker 1: our childhood and things like that. And we realize how
Speaker 1: if you don't do that self work, it shows up
Speaker 1: as relationship problems in your marriage if left unchecked, and
Speaker 1: it's really hard to come to combat those deepest, darkest
Speaker 1: parts of you. Uh. And they really have nothing to
Speaker 1: do with your spouse in that sense. It is completely
Speaker 1: you know. I mean, they do in the sense that,
Speaker 1: unchecked it would affect your relationship, but it's not your
Speaker 1: your spouse's fault or responsibility to do that, so, you know.
Speaker 1: And listening to you guys talk about the length of
Speaker 1: time that you all have have been together, I realized
Speaker 1: that Rodney and I have known each other for a really,
Speaker 1: really long time, because this is actually the second go
Speaker 1: round for us. We dated years ago and then broke
Speaker 1: up and I married somebody else, and that I married
Speaker 1: somebody else twice. Why didn't you really think about that?
Speaker 1: Was like, hold on, let me know what it one
Speaker 1: or two? I can't remember. I can't just just once,
Speaker 1: just once, just once. I mean, I didn't know the
Speaker 1: marriages and breakups and the folks in between have gotten
Speaker 1: the little uh muddled. We've known each other for a
Speaker 1: really long time. But when you were talking about, you know,
Speaker 1: the intimacy and being able to share with one another
Speaker 1: and and be completely comfortable and honest with one another,
Speaker 1: that is one of the most important things to me
Speaker 1: in the relationship that I have with you right now, babe,
Speaker 1: because I feel like that was one thing that I
Speaker 1: didn't have that was so important and all of my
Speaker 1: other marriages. So Rannie and I dated and then I
Speaker 1: don't know how much you guys know about me, but
Speaker 1: thirty something years a go, yeah, and I had well,
Speaker 1: we both had some you know, we both had problems
Speaker 1: with addiction, and my inability to get my ship together
Speaker 1: is one of the reasons that led us to to
Speaker 1: break up. And it's really kind of interfered with that
Speaker 1: relationship and my second marriage because of drug addiction, so,
Speaker 1: you know, and thinking about all that and recognizing that
Speaker 1: back then like now we've come to back together and
Speaker 1: we are totally different people, thank God. And people think about, well,
Speaker 1: you know, do you feel like you missed time being together,
Speaker 1: like what would have been? Do you wish that you
Speaker 1: hadn't we couldn't have been together back then? It wouldn't
Speaker 1: have been successful, right, not at all. So we met.
Speaker 1: I was in recovery and she wasn't so well. I
Speaker 1: was trying to get there, but that's a that's a
Speaker 1: recipe for disaster already from the onset, so it was
Speaker 1: destined to fail. But we tried. You know, we we
Speaker 1: cared about each other, and I cared about her struggle,
Speaker 1: and I really didn't know it first, you know, she
Speaker 1: hid it from me real well, but then when it
Speaker 1: became obvious, I tried to help her in her struggle.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it just it just didn't work. And I
Speaker 1: was starting to feel like it was wearing on my
Speaker 1: own sobriety, so we had to we had to move on.
Speaker 1: But when we came came back together some thirty years later,
Speaker 1: she was a totally different person and I was too.
Speaker 1: I mean, the people with that we were couldn't have
Speaker 1: sustained the relationship at that point anyway. So it was
Speaker 1: good that we came back together and it was like
Speaker 1: I was meeting her for the first time, but she
Speaker 1: was the person that I believe she could be thirty
Speaker 1: years ago, which was which was amazing to me. And
Speaker 1: you know, it was just my trials and tribulations had
Speaker 1: made me someone different too, So it was like we
Speaker 1: were two totally different people by that time, and it
Speaker 1: was it was, it was. It worked out really well
Speaker 1: for us, and even to yeah, even to this day,
Speaker 1: were still learning new things about each other, were still
Speaker 1: growing in the relationship some eight nine years later, and
Speaker 1: you know that's on a daily basis for us. We
Speaker 1: still talk about our stuff on a regular basis, and
Speaker 1: and that helps us to like stay fresh and and
Speaker 1: to stay grounded in the relationships. I've been married like
Speaker 1: four times. Rodney has never been married. I've never been married.
Speaker 1: I'm sixty four years old. We got married when I
Speaker 1: was sixty mm hmmm, yeah, so my parents were together
Speaker 1: for sixty something years, but it was they argued, and
Speaker 1: the marriage wasn't really what I considered loving. So I
Speaker 1: really didn't have a great iministration of what marriage was.
Speaker 1: And then most of the people that I talked to
Speaker 1: that we're married weren't really happy. So I had a
Speaker 1: very distorted concept and image of marriage. So I I
Speaker 1: didn't see that for me, and I was a bit
Speaker 1: of a selfish guy. I wanted to do what I
Speaker 1: wanted to do when I wanted to do it, and
Speaker 1: you did that for many many I did that for
Speaker 1: many many years. Yes, and you had a good old
Speaker 1: time and it worked for me. You know, I didn't.
Speaker 1: I didn't. I didn't want to drag people into my
Speaker 1: stuff and have them, you know, and be committed to
Speaker 1: someone that I wasn't really ready to honor. Right. I
Speaker 1: didn't give you props for that, but though, babe, I
Speaker 1: give you props that you you waited so long and
Speaker 1: you didn't just get married because it was the thing
Speaker 1: to do. Yeah, it was the thing to do. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Now simple was my sponsor and my my good, good, good,
Speaker 1: good good girlfriend. So you know, you and I what
Speaker 1: we're here from Melissa and Kevin that that has not
Speaker 1: been our story at all. So talk to me about
Speaker 1: you because you're actually Muslim and you've been married. Now
Speaker 1: you said you were married three and a half times.
Speaker 1: What does that mean? But really I've been married thirty
Speaker 1: five years, just to four different people. Okay. So you
Speaker 1: know when I talked about being married three and a
Speaker 1: half times, I have my first marriage, which was actually
Speaker 1: in active addiction, and I entered that marriage looking for
Speaker 1: an escape from the streets, only to be driven back
Speaker 1: out to the streets because of the domestic violence that
Speaker 1: was involved in that marriage. And as a thought of that,
Speaker 1: that is when I decided that my life needed to
Speaker 1: change and I wanted to embark on a journey of recovery,
Speaker 1: recovery from substance use. And that was over thirty one
Speaker 1: years ago. And so once I got clean. See, I
Speaker 1: like what Kevin said about how enduring a marriage and
Speaker 1: staying and it makes you face some of your own
Speaker 1: issues that have nothing to do with your partner. Your
Speaker 1: own childhood issues have nothing to do with your partner.
Speaker 1: And my childhood issue that drove me into marriage was abandonment,
Speaker 1: and I went there looking for security. So once I
Speaker 1: got clean, and that is at the same time that
Speaker 1: I embraced this lamb, I got married, you know, And
Speaker 1: I say it was a love marriage. It met most
Speaker 1: of my needs most of the time until it didn't.
Speaker 1: But there are some the issues that come along with abandonment,
Speaker 1: such as insecurity and living with a whole lot of fear.
Speaker 1: So I didn't have the the example in my life
Speaker 1: in childhood or even growing up, of couples staying together
Speaker 1: and weathering the storms, you know, going through those valleys
Speaker 1: and achieving and reaching those mountaintops. I didn't have that.
Speaker 1: So the minute something went wrong and it went wrong
Speaker 1: and real wrong, I made a decision to get out.
Speaker 1: And so that is what I did. But going back
Speaker 1: to that childhood issue of abandonment, I'm like, oh, I
Speaker 1: ain't gonna be no hope, I ain't gonna be out
Speaker 1: here doing all this stuff. Let me find me a book.
Speaker 1: And I actually sat back after doing a short period
Speaker 1: of healing from that second marriage, and I picked someone
Speaker 1: out of the crowd and I said, you know what,
Speaker 1: he's nice, he's responsible, he's attentive. I'm going to marry him.
Speaker 1: And it happened just like that. And that is the
Speaker 1: half marriage. And it became a half marriage because he
Speaker 1: was very in love with me, passionately in love with me,
Speaker 1: provided all the gifts all the time, but I was
Speaker 1: not passionately in love with him. And after about eight
Speaker 1: months I had to make a very very hard decision
Speaker 1: to own my own feelings. Because one of the things
Speaker 1: that we do want the recovery processes we get in
Speaker 1: touch with ourselves, and recovery is universal, it doesn't even
Speaker 1: it's not limited to substance use, and I prayed about it.
Speaker 1: I talked with my emam, I engaged my religious community
Speaker 1: because we were both members there, and I would be
Speaker 1: doing him I felt, this is what I felt. I
Speaker 1: would be doing him a disservice to stay married to him,
Speaker 1: because he was such a great person and he deserved
Speaker 1: so much more. And it was one of the hardest
Speaker 1: things that I had to do. I had to think about,
Speaker 1: what are people gonna say about me? We had this
Speaker 1: beautiful wedding, and now eight months later, you're gonna get
Speaker 1: out of it. You're gonna break the heart of one
Speaker 1: of the nicest guys you could meet. But it was
Speaker 1: what I had to do, right. You know what, I
Speaker 1: can relate to that civil too, because I felt like
Speaker 1: that to a certain extent with my third marriage. With
Speaker 1: the third marriage, we were together for the longest, over
Speaker 1: twenty years, but I just felt like he deserved to
Speaker 1: be loved the way he wanted to be loved. But
Speaker 1: so did I. You know what I mean. I deserve
Speaker 1: to be loved the way I needed to be loved.
Speaker 1: I never doubted that he loved me. He just didn't
Speaker 1: love me the way I needed to be loved. And
Speaker 1: after spending all that time with him and wanting to
Speaker 1: you know, wanting things to work out. You just get
Speaker 1: to the point where for me, I I just recognized
Speaker 1: that I had more years behind me than I did
Speaker 1: in front of me, and I needed to be happy.
Speaker 1: I just wasn't willing to sacrifice my own happiness, you know, anymore.
Speaker 1: And so that that's what led me to that that
Speaker 1: divorce after so many years, and I mean I had to.
Speaker 1: I you know, I was concerned about what other people
Speaker 1: would think, and you know, I was concerned about him.
Speaker 1: I knew that it wasn't what he really wanted, and
Speaker 1: I understood what that felt like. I understood what that
Speaker 1: felt like to not to want a marriage, to want
Speaker 1: to to last, and have the other person not really
Speaker 1: be interested in giving it a shot. So but anyway,
Speaker 1: go ahead, okay. And so then I entered my fourth marriage.
Speaker 1: I was very much in love with my husband. However,
Speaker 1: in looking at myself, because you know, I'm the person
Speaker 1: that was in all these marriages, I'm the one that's
Speaker 1: growing through them because I really do believe in marriage,
Speaker 1: and I believe that there are some things that you
Speaker 1: will never experience unless you are in a married relationship.
Speaker 1: You kind of you get to know yourself in a
Speaker 1: way that you would never know yourself. Based on my
Speaker 1: spiritual belief and my religious belief, I just believe that
Speaker 1: God puts some things in marriages that you cannot reach
Speaker 1: in any other type of relationship in your life. There
Speaker 1: is a depth of knowing that comes with a good marriage.
Speaker 1: There is a depth of loving that you. It surpasses
Speaker 1: any other kind of love that that you could experience
Speaker 1: with your children, your parents, are the family members, other friends.
Speaker 1: There's something about that divine connection That's really an interesting
Speaker 1: point because I wanna I want to ask you, Rodney,
Speaker 1: how you feel about that, because well, I'm just curious,
Speaker 1: after all the years that you went without marrying and
Speaker 1: not making marriage a priority, what was it that made
Speaker 1: you decide that you wanted to get married, Because you
Speaker 1: kind of made that pretty clear when we got together
Speaker 1: that marriage was something that you wanted. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: at this point in my life, I wanted something more
Speaker 1: more stable and more long, you know, with some longevity
Speaker 1: to it. You know, like civil was saying that when
Speaker 1: you're not married, the commitment is here. Right when you're married,
Speaker 1: that commitment I can't. I gotta use this hand too,
Speaker 1: So it's very Remember the audience can't see you, babe,
Speaker 1: the audience can't see you. So the commitment level isn't
Speaker 1: what it is when you're when you're in a marriage
Speaker 1: like it's I can't think of much that I wouldn't
Speaker 1: do to try to preserve this. But when you're in
Speaker 1: a relationship, just a typical relationship, and you wake up
Speaker 1: one day and feel like this isn't working for you,
Speaker 1: you can just make a decision to get out of
Speaker 1: it and just say, you know what, it's a conversation.
Speaker 1: It's not even I mean, people are gonna be hurt
Speaker 1: on both sides, but it's but you know, in this
Speaker 1: it asked of me to do work that I'm willing
Speaker 1: to do that There's not much that I can't think
Speaker 1: of that I wouldn't be willing to do to preserve
Speaker 1: this marriage and and in relationships, you know, and prior
Speaker 1: to this, I never I never felt like that. I mean,
Speaker 1: I would do work to a point, but if it
Speaker 1: got to be look, this is you know, this is
Speaker 1: getting to be a little too much. Because you didn't
Speaker 1: even you didn't even live with anybody, did you, Kevin?
Speaker 1: Did you you and Melissa lived together before you got
Speaker 1: Oh no, Dan were saved. You know we did that
Speaker 1: was the devil. So we wouldn't do none of that
Speaker 1: shocking up. You know we did this was this was
Speaker 1: holy land a man. We was, We was saved cell abate.
Speaker 1: You know, I had my own apartment. Melissa actually has
Speaker 1: never lived alone. I don't think Melissa never lived alone.
Speaker 1: She moved from her parents house. She had roommates in
Speaker 1: her first three years of college, and then she moved
Speaker 1: in with me. I had my own apartment for about
Speaker 1: a year, maybe year and a half, uh, prior to
Speaker 1: us being married. But we never lived together. That was
Speaker 1: absolutely forbidden. You know. We we did spend the night
Speaker 1: about three or four times, and I hope Melissa mom
Speaker 1: ain't listening to that, but you know, we would still
Speaker 1: say we did. We spend about four times. But other
Speaker 1: than that, other than that, we we didn't shock up.
Speaker 1: Hey man, we we we were separate. I just really
Speaker 1: find that interesting, Rodney, that you never even because that
Speaker 1: is even a level of commitment. You live with zena.
Speaker 1: But well, I lived with a couple of people it
Speaker 1: and it wasn't long. It was probably like a year
Speaker 1: and a half. For each person. Yeah, yeah, but you yeah, teenage,
Speaker 1: were not teenage to high school. We were in out twenties. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we went out twenties. But yeah, I just I just,
Speaker 1: I don't know. For some reason, having that experience earlier,
Speaker 1: I just felt like I did better when I was
Speaker 1: by myself. And that early experience, I'll tell you what
Speaker 1: happened that kind of really put me in that in
Speaker 1: that stage. In that point, the apartment was in her name,
Speaker 1: and we had we had a you know where I'm
Speaker 1: getting ready to go with this Kevin. So mad day happened.
Speaker 1: And when mad day came, you know, she asked me
Speaker 1: to leave and I had to leave. You know, I
Speaker 1: was asked to leave. She told you to get the
Speaker 1: funk out, and I'm I'm twenty one years old, so
Speaker 1: I don't have luggage. So I had those green trash bags.
Speaker 1: I had the green trash bags going down the street,
Speaker 1: put them in my car. And that was an experience
Speaker 1: I did not ever want to have again. Ronnie. It's
Speaker 1: so interesting you we call this your your marriage story.
Speaker 1: There's your finance story, your marriage story, and that's like
Speaker 1: how what happened early in your life that helped frame
Speaker 1: how you see things and your parents marriage story, like
Speaker 1: you're seeing a long term marriage that wasn't healthy. Your mindset,
Speaker 1: this is bad. I don't want that. I think that's uh,
Speaker 1: you know, there's a and this goes back to the
Speaker 1: self work, your your money story. Melissa saw her dad
Speaker 1: uh paying bills one day and being frustrated and and
Speaker 1: or a couple of times, and in her mind builds
Speaker 1: equal stress. Even though now in our life we don't
Speaker 1: have any you know, money problems, in her mind, she's all,
Speaker 1: it's kind of like who, you know, what's coming around
Speaker 1: the corner, because that she connects with that money story
Speaker 1: and even the living with that person when you were
Speaker 1: young and having that bad experience. There's there's so much
Speaker 1: of that in our lives that we we take as
Speaker 1: truth and ingraining. We don't think that it can ever
Speaker 1: not be that way. And that's why that self work
Speaker 1: is important because now you realize, well that was just
Speaker 1: one time when I was young, and I got you know,
Speaker 1: like the next person might not even treated me this way,
Speaker 1: or I would have had a nice luggage. So we
Speaker 1: if I'm walking down the street, I could roll it
Speaker 1: and I don't have to carry it, you know, but
Speaker 1: we we take those trash bag stories into our next relationship.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, literally and figuratively, you're like that, I won't
Speaker 1: even give you, you know. We so the next person,
Speaker 1: we're like, I won't even give you a chance to
Speaker 1: do that because I won't move in with you, and like,
Speaker 1: but it could have been in your name and you
Speaker 1: would by nope, nope. But we protect ourselves that way
Speaker 1: from the potential of further harm. But in a lot
Speaker 1: of times when we protect ourselves, we also prevent ourselves
Speaker 1: from feeling love fully because we have our garden and
Speaker 1: so any different ways. Which is the difference between boundaries
Speaker 1: and walls. So boundaries there's a door, walls there's no door,
Speaker 1: and a lot of times in protecting ourselves, we isolate
Speaker 1: ourselves in walls. That was really good. That's what I'm
Speaker 1: here for. That's a good one, Melissa. That that's a
Speaker 1: great visual because you could have a door there and
Speaker 1: then you know what, I'm gonna just go ahead and
Speaker 1: break this up. And now you know, you know, you've
Speaker 1: you've you've isolated yourself and your feelings from receiving love
Speaker 1: that could have been there, and I potentially did that.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to say that that wasn't, you know,
Speaker 1: a possibility at some point in my life before I
Speaker 1: was sixty m h, what opened you guys up to
Speaker 1: each other? Um to to try and again? Yeah, years later,
Speaker 1: I think it's really beautiful and impressive. But what opened
Speaker 1: you up, Rodney to to the possibility of love and
Speaker 1: marriage after deciding it wasn't for you for so long,
Speaker 1: I felt like there was always some unfinished business with
Speaker 1: me and her. So when we started talking again, it
Speaker 1: was the connection just came back like like it was yesterday.
Speaker 1: And I hadn't seen her in many years, but the
Speaker 1: connection came back like it was yesterday. And then it
Speaker 1: just kept getting better and better and better, and our
Speaker 1: communication was off the chain, so it was relatively easy
Speaker 1: for me at that point. I I knew I wanted
Speaker 1: to get married. I didn't want to be the you know,
Speaker 1: not that I wear gold chains, but I didn't want
Speaker 1: to be the old guy in the club with the
Speaker 1: gold chain on. I can say I witnessed that I'll
Speaker 1: never forget when gam moved back to Baltimore and we
Speaker 1: were out for breakfast and oh my god, you came
Speaker 1: into the restaurant and she got all nervous and ginny,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, damn years. It was like it never left,
Speaker 1: It never left. Yeah, I witnessed that, but we weren't.
Speaker 1: We weren't seeing each other then. Yeah, that we ran
Speaker 1: into each other, but even just running into you, like
Speaker 1: I kind of was all over you at gave you
Speaker 1: a great thing old hug and got a Google eyed.
Speaker 1: You came and sat at the table with us for
Speaker 1: a few minutes, and then you left, and I was
Speaker 1: no more good after that. I was like, okay, Cibil.
Speaker 1: Cibil wasn't as impressed, though. Sibyl was like, okay, we
Speaker 1: can ready to do something. We were actually supposed to
Speaker 1: be doing some step work. I think I think we
Speaker 1: were supposed to be doing some step work and I couldn't.
Speaker 1: I couldn't concentrate after like okay, you gotta go. We
Speaker 1: get ready to do something. But they happened a couple
Speaker 1: of times like we kind of ran into each other,
Speaker 1: like meetings and stuff like that. But you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: so Kevin, to answer you a question, it was I
Speaker 1: guess it was something that never left. And then seeing
Speaker 1: her and talking to her again and seeing you know,
Speaker 1: where she had evolved to and just knowing, you know,
Speaker 1: the work that I had done and where I had
Speaker 1: evolved too. It was it was almost like when those
Speaker 1: two energies came together, it was it was just unbelievable.
Speaker 1: One of the things that I was going to say
Speaker 1: about marriage, I think dam asked the question earlier, is
Speaker 1: the advice that you would give a single person is
Speaker 1: that and you kind of both just alluded to and
Speaker 1: just your own stories that you have to have a
Speaker 1: very strong sense of self in order for a we
Speaker 1: to work. And I think a lot of times, um
Speaker 1: single or not, we have this very fantasized view of
Speaker 1: what marriage is. That you can go in with all
Speaker 1: of these broken pieces or these pieces of yourself that
Speaker 1: you're not even familiar with, you can't even call or name,
Speaker 1: and then you go into this relationship where this person
Speaker 1: wants to get to know you and you don't know you. Hello,
Speaker 1: somebody make it makes sense. And so the beautiful thing
Speaker 1: even in hearing your story and going through all going
Speaker 1: through life, is that you learn about you and that's
Speaker 1: part of the journey of marriage. And then once you
Speaker 1: have a very strong sense of self, it's so much
Speaker 1: easier to bond your life with someone because you're very
Speaker 1: clear on I think Sybil was saying, this is how
Speaker 1: I need to be loved. Man, Listen, this is these
Speaker 1: are my dudes, these are my do not okay, And
Speaker 1: it's very very clear for you and you go into
Speaker 1: even in the dating phase, you'll know, off jump, this
Speaker 1: ain't gonna work. I'm gonna just let you know off jump,
Speaker 1: the way I operate, it's not gonna work with your personality.
Speaker 1: That doesn't work without that very strong centered sense of self.
Speaker 1: And then once you get into the relationship or you
Speaker 1: get into marriage, the other thing that holds, that keeps
Speaker 1: the longevity is there is just a certain conviction that
Speaker 1: is unexplained that comes with the vows and a ring
Speaker 1: of saying I do. There is just a conviction there
Speaker 1: that is not that cannot be transferred to any relationship
Speaker 1: that doesn't have that ring and that documentation. I know
Speaker 1: a lot of times people it's just a piece of paper,
Speaker 1: but it's not though. But it's not though. It's just
Speaker 1: something about it that again, it just brings a level
Speaker 1: of commitment and conviction that's just not easily explained. I
Speaker 1: even think in today's world there's a very I don't
Speaker 1: know we always think of, you know, the marriage, isn't
Speaker 1: taking a serious? Marriage isn't taking a serious And I almost,
Speaker 1: I don't know, I'm almost would argue the opposite. I'm
Speaker 1: kind of going through these thoughts right now as I'm talking,
Speaker 1: so I might change my mind as I'm talking, Okay,
Speaker 1: that I think we put marriage to on such a
Speaker 1: high esteem that when it's not right, we'd rather get
Speaker 1: out of it. And I think that's okay. I honestly do.
Speaker 1: I think that's okay. I think we have to go
Speaker 1: into marriage again with that song sense of self and
Speaker 1: what we want out of it, and then maybe you
Speaker 1: don't have the divorce later on. But at the end
Speaker 1: of the day, if you're saying I know and I
Speaker 1: respect the sanctity of marriage, and I understand that it
Speaker 1: could be something so beautiful and something that allows me
Speaker 1: to show up as a better and different person than
Speaker 1: I was before, then it's okay. And recognizing this ain't
Speaker 1: the one. I don't know where this went left and
Speaker 1: where we went a ride, but for the betterment of
Speaker 1: you and for the betterment of me, we can't. We
Speaker 1: can no longer be together. And I think that's okay.
Speaker 1: I have the analogy in my mind of like you
Speaker 1: go to a restaurant, you ask the waitress or waiter
Speaker 1: what's what's good here, and a lot of times they're like, well,
Speaker 1: what do you like? What don't you like? Do you so?
Speaker 1: If you don't like spicy food, that spicy dish might
Speaker 1: be great to someone who likes spicy food, but if
Speaker 1: you know, hey man, it doesn't matter how good it is.
Speaker 1: I don't like spicy food. I'm And that's kind of
Speaker 1: what you were saying Rodney, much earlier, like the versions
Speaker 1: of you guys, you and Gam early you're like, hey man,
Speaker 1: I don't like this spicy food, and Gam and spicy
Speaker 1: food right now you know so uh. But it doesn't
Speaker 1: mean there's something wrong with each person. Like I avocados
Speaker 1: something some people just texture wise can't get with it.
Speaker 1: Nothing wrong with avocados. And I think that's kind of
Speaker 1: how you should date if you're single, Like you need
Speaker 1: to know how like the most important thing is how
Speaker 1: I like to be loved, to be able to communicate that,
Speaker 1: and then can that person love you in that way?
Speaker 1: If that person cannot give you words of affirmation, then
Speaker 1: like if Melissa couldn't give that to me, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: have a hard time loving her or I'm gonna have
Speaker 1: a hard time being with her, because this is how
Speaker 1: I receive love. And if you can't speak that language
Speaker 1: to me, then you can buy me gifts every single day,
Speaker 1: but that doesn't make me feel loved. You're gonna be like,
Speaker 1: should I do this, this, that, and that? You know,
Speaker 1: and you don't feel loved, Like it's the last thing
Speaker 1: to say. Melissa's love language is not gifts, but she
Speaker 1: appreciates them. So I gave her, you know, some roses
Speaker 1: last week, and I bought her Ivy Park too, but
Speaker 1: that was just a gesture, yeah, you know, because she
Speaker 1: had mentioned and I felt so good game because I
Speaker 1: had already ordered it for her and she didn't know.
Speaker 1: She was like, man, it was sold out, and I
Speaker 1: was like, little do you know, it's already on the way.
Speaker 1: But to me, early in our marriage, I used to
Speaker 1: get frustrated when I gave her a gift and she
Speaker 1: didn't jump for joy and show me love. But that's
Speaker 1: before I knew that's not her love language. Now I
Speaker 1: can just yeah, now I can just give her a
Speaker 1: gift as a kind gesture and not expect her to
Speaker 1: be jumping for joy, because I know she appreciates that,
Speaker 1: but it's not how she feels love. I gotta stay
Speaker 1: up till two o'clock in the morning talking to you know,
Speaker 1: eat deep parts of our soul and not being sleepy,
Speaker 1: and that would make her feel love more than the
Speaker 1: ivy park And it's cheaper. I mean park was you know.
Speaker 1: I was like dog Beyonce. So I had my home
Speaker 1: girl buy it from me gamm and I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: just get her like seven eight things. And she got
Speaker 1: the bill. I say, girl, seven or eight things. She
Speaker 1: was like, that was seven or eight things. I was like,
Speaker 1: all Jesus this place. So, so what I'm hearing from
Speaker 1: you guys, even though you have managed to stay together
Speaker 1: all these years, you understand when people do divorce. So, Sybil,
Speaker 1: how how do you feel about the fact that you've
Speaker 1: been through a series of divorces Because I don't feel
Speaker 1: any kind of way about myself about it. But let
Speaker 1: me just be clear about that. I'm I'm good because
Speaker 1: Jada asked me, like when Rodney and I decided to
Speaker 1: get married, she was like, why why are you getting
Speaker 1: married again? Like you're not gonna have kids, Like what
Speaker 1: is what is the draw? I don't get it. You've
Speaker 1: been divorced three times? Why not just enjoy each other?
Speaker 1: But I have to agree with with Melissa on this
Speaker 1: that there's something and and Rodney had said it to
Speaker 1: me too, there's something about the level of commitment that
Speaker 1: you have when you're in a marriage that doesn't exist
Speaker 1: if you're just living together and or just dating. You know,
Speaker 1: when things get tough, you just you can easily get
Speaker 1: going and get gone, And it's not that easy. And
Speaker 1: so that willingness to commit to me and to us
Speaker 1: and to the relationship and the marriage was really really
Speaker 1: important to me. And quite frankly, I like being married.
Speaker 1: I enjoyed that relationship. I enjoyed that partnership because I
Speaker 1: feel like that's what we have. We have a partnership.
Speaker 1: Do you feel like do so? Let me ask the
Speaker 1: divorces a question. Do you think that because having being
Speaker 1: in this marriage has taught me, I feel like there's
Speaker 1: not much I wouldn't do to preserve it. So do
Speaker 1: you feel like getting a divorce? It's more about an
Speaker 1: expectation of other people that you came into the marriage with,
Speaker 1: or an expectation of yourself. Like, what do you feel
Speaker 1: like happens? And I know all experiences are different, So
Speaker 1: what do you what do you feel like happens in
Speaker 1: a divorce to make that to make you finally just
Speaker 1: go ahead and get well, my answer is quick and easy,
Speaker 1: So you go ahead, simple, go ahead and answer that well, Rodney.
Speaker 1: For me, personally, out of the marriages that I had,
Speaker 1: there was only one that looking back, that I probably
Speaker 1: would have stayed in had I had the information to
Speaker 1: support me in that. And my faith walk divorce is
Speaker 1: frowned upon, however it is allowed in certain situations. And
Speaker 1: I think that for me, I've grown through every marriage
Speaker 1: and every divorce to just get a better understanding of
Speaker 1: who I am. And so I think there's uh perseverance,
Speaker 1: a very high level of commitment. And for me, the
Speaker 1: expectation was not so much on the other person as
Speaker 1: much as it was on myself. But I love the
Speaker 1: sharing that Melissa gave when she talked about how important
Speaker 1: it is to know who you are before you enter
Speaker 1: a commitment, you know, with someone else, and gam and
Speaker 1: and answer to your question about being divorced, you know,
Speaker 1: I've learned so much through my marriages. I don't feel
Speaker 1: any kind of way about having been married and divorced.
Speaker 1: I actually filed for all four divorces, two of which
Speaker 1: we filed together at the courthouse in a very you know,
Speaker 1: very friendly type manner, and you know, still have good
Speaker 1: relationships today. So I don't feel any kind of way. However,
Speaker 1: the person that I am today, given the opportunity to
Speaker 1: connect with that right person, um more equipped to stay
Speaker 1: in a marriage than I was before. So you know,
Speaker 1: I don't feel any kind of way. I think oftentimes
Speaker 1: divorces who's gonna win, and there is no winner. There
Speaker 1: is no winner really in divorce because Rodney, you yourself
Speaker 1: mentioned at one point in the dialogue that in situations
Speaker 1: where you part you know, both parties experienced some type
Speaker 1: of hurt. Yeah. Absolutely. I think the thing that really
Speaker 1: worked for us is that coming into the relationship, I
Speaker 1: didn't really need anything from her and she didn't need
Speaker 1: anything for me from me, Like we were already who
Speaker 1: we were, you know, So it's just a matter of acceptance.
Speaker 1: And you know, I wasn't. I didn't have any expectations
Speaker 1: in terms of I need you to do this or
Speaker 1: you need me to do that, and so it made
Speaker 1: it a lot easier just to focus on the relay
Speaker 1: relationship itself because there was no there was no other expectations.
Speaker 1: And and for me, well, the first time I got
Speaker 1: divorced from I was so young, you know, I was
Speaker 1: like seventeen when I got married to Jada's dad, so
Speaker 1: like that obviously wouldn't gonna work. And the second time,
Speaker 1: I think, you know, once again my addiction was at
Speaker 1: the root of it, and the other party, just my
Speaker 1: husband at the time, just wasn't interested in doing any work.
Speaker 1: I feel like if we had been able to to,
Speaker 1: if he had agreed to go to counseling with me,
Speaker 1: that that probably would have led me into the path
Speaker 1: of recovery. And we still may not have been together.
Speaker 1: I can almost guarantee we would not have been together anyway.
Speaker 1: So but at the end of the day, you know,
Speaker 1: I wasn't going to force anybody to be in a
Speaker 1: relationship with me that didn't want to be right. And
Speaker 1: then the third time, it was just recognizing that even
Speaker 1: through all the years that we have been together, all
Speaker 1: the therapy, the individual therapy, the marriage counseling, you know,
Speaker 1: all of it that you know, we were just growing
Speaker 1: in different directions and I just I felt like, I
Speaker 1: truly felt like I had done everything that I could
Speaker 1: possibly do to try to keep the relationship together. But
Speaker 1: when people just aren't willing to are comfortable where they
Speaker 1: are and and don't want to make any kind of adjustment,
Speaker 1: then you know, I had to put my own happiness first.
Speaker 1: And so I feel like I did as much work
Speaker 1: as I as I could to keep that that that
Speaker 1: relationship together. Well, and you were gonna say something, Melissa,
Speaker 1: I was gonna say you were clean. You said during
Speaker 1: your third marriage. Yes, yes, yeah, I was clean, and
Speaker 1: that was yeah, and he was all very much a
Speaker 1: part of that. That my third husband, he you know,
Speaker 1: he was with me from the very beginning on through
Speaker 1: of that. And so I have what now, thirty years clean.
Speaker 1: But one thing that I want to talk about just this,
Speaker 1: you know, this idea of this getting married so young
Speaker 1: and like we have this expectation in the United States.
Speaker 1: It's just such a fairy tale, right, and people just
Speaker 1: I feel like still like get out of school and
Speaker 1: want to get married and have kids, and you know,
Speaker 1: it's this whole living this fairy tale that I just
Speaker 1: feel like it's very, very hard to to live up to.
Speaker 1: And maintain and the idea including monogamy. It's just so
Speaker 1: challenging I feel. And Sybil, your daughter just got married
Speaker 1: pretty pretty young. What is your feeling about that? Because
Speaker 1: they're they're together, they're doing great, she's getting ready to
Speaker 1: have another baby. How did you feel when she when
Speaker 1: she decided to get married as young as she did.
Speaker 1: She was what she was one to one, and a
Speaker 1: lot of people don't wouldn't think that that's young. They're like, well,
Speaker 1: that's what she's supposed to do. You're supposed to get
Speaker 1: married and have kids. Yeah, I'll tell you. They have
Speaker 1: been married for seven years now. And I remember when
Speaker 1: she told me, well, actually he told me they were
Speaker 1: going to get married. He asked for my blessings prior
Speaker 1: to asking her, and I want to tell you, I
Speaker 1: was very nervous. I was very nervous because I was
Speaker 1: bringing my own biases to the table. And even now
Speaker 1: at seven years, you know, there are times when I
Speaker 1: may still be a little nervous. And getting married so early,
Speaker 1: they have so many life experiences to go through. It
Speaker 1: is scary. However, when they got married, his dad and
Speaker 1: the tradition and culture that they come from, said to
Speaker 1: me that they we believe in marriage, and we air
Speaker 1: on the side of marriage versus airing on the side
Speaker 1: of divorce. And so whenever difficulties or challenges come up
Speaker 1: as a family, we will support them and and and
Speaker 1: you know, God willing, they will weather through that. And
Speaker 1: in those seven years, the families have built relationships. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm single, his parents, they come visit me, they bring gifts,
Speaker 1: you know, we do all kinds of things together to
Speaker 1: preserve the family unit, and and that in turn helps
Speaker 1: to support their marriage. I think that's rare. You know. However,
Speaker 1: growing up and then having to have to go through
Speaker 1: some life challenges, I'm better equipped to support her to
Speaker 1: to navigate her way through that, whereas I I didn't
Speaker 1: really have that, you know. So I don't know. They
Speaker 1: got married young. They support and motivate one another to excellence.
Speaker 1: They're about to have their third child. They don't lean
Speaker 1: on anyone, they don't take hand outs. They fight through
Speaker 1: their own storms, you know. And so it's a little
Speaker 1: scary sometimes because you know, I've been out there, I
Speaker 1: had life experiences. I know what can happen, you know,
Speaker 1: I know what I couldn't weather. And so we just
Speaker 1: try to look for the greater good in that because
Speaker 1: challenges are going to come. I just that always just
Speaker 1: worries me though people just getting married so young. It
Speaker 1: just seems like, because you we have this thing where
Speaker 1: we think that your partner is supposed to be your
Speaker 1: everything's supposed to be your best friend, your lover, your confidante,
Speaker 1: eat everything. It's like, oh my god, that is so
Speaker 1: much to ask of one person. And so you know,
Speaker 1: it's really unfair to ask that of one person. Whereas
Speaker 1: back in the day and the tradition that we all
Speaker 1: come from, there was the community, there was the village,
Speaker 1: there was the water hole, there were the women, you know,
Speaker 1: and so it's important and this is what we try
Speaker 1: to instill in them, that they each give each other
Speaker 1: a safe place to come back to, but we empower
Speaker 1: and motivate them to then in turn go out and explore,
Speaker 1: which achieve your own goals. You know. So they they're
Speaker 1: both educated. You know, she has her circle of friends
Speaker 1: that don't include him. They have friends that they have together,
Speaker 1: and vice versa. You know. So it's this whole society
Speaker 1: that we're living in today that wants you to put
Speaker 1: everything into your single partner, and it is unbearable. It
Speaker 1: really is unbearable. Yeah, how do you feel like that? Baby?
Speaker 1: Do you feel like I'm alive? You can be, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you certainly can be. But I think the thing, the
Speaker 1: thing that really helped us is we we became each
Speaker 1: other's best friend before we even thought about getting married
Speaker 1: at anything. Like, she became my best friend, Like I
Speaker 1: would rather be with her and hang out and do
Speaker 1: stuff than than to be with any of my male friends.
Speaker 1: Because we have a good time to get do we
Speaker 1: really enjoy. So we became each other's best friend, which
Speaker 1: made the rest of it relatively easy. And and that's
Speaker 1: still the case to the day. But you can be
Speaker 1: you can't be a bit budget times like yesterday and
Speaker 1: the day before that. And no, I'm just kidding, but listen,
Speaker 1: did you want to say something? I was gonna say that.
Speaker 1: Kevin and I got married at one as well, so
Speaker 1: we were really young. We had our oldest son by
Speaker 1: the time we were twenty three and our youngest by
Speaker 1: the time. We were so really, really really young. I
Speaker 1: don't know that I'm anti married young as much as
Speaker 1: I am pro make sure you go to marriage counseling,
Speaker 1: make sure you read all the books, make sure you
Speaker 1: understand why you're getting married, make sure you have us again,
Speaker 1: a strong sense of self. I think those are the
Speaker 1: things because regardless of whether you get married really young
Speaker 1: or even later in life, you're coming into any scenario
Speaker 1: with something. When you're younger, maybe you don't have as
Speaker 1: much something. You just have life from you know, your childhood.
Speaker 1: When you're older, you got life life, you know, So
Speaker 1: you're gonna come in with something, and being able to
Speaker 1: work through those things together, I think is the most
Speaker 1: important thing, so you don't end up as you were saying,
Speaker 1: we can depend on There's like I have so many
Speaker 1: thoughts to there's two things that can happen. You can
Speaker 1: lean on someone so much where they they crumble under
Speaker 1: the stress and strain of trying to meet and be
Speaker 1: your everything. That's simply not healthy. But you don't want
Speaker 1: to also get too far where your lives are running
Speaker 1: parallel and there's no intersection because marriage is at the intersection,
Speaker 1: relationship is at the intersection, and trying to find that
Speaker 1: balance younger old can be very difficult. I got friends,
Speaker 1: I got this, I got that. You know, the relationship
Speaker 1: is gonna be strong, strong, get forty five, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. But then when you're young, you run
Speaker 1: the risk of being so intertwined that you lose your
Speaker 1: sense of self. So I think these problems can exist regardless.
Speaker 1: It's a matter of Okay, this is what I'm feeling. Okay,
Speaker 1: this is what's going on with me, this is what
Speaker 1: I need right now in this space in my life.
Speaker 1: How do I articulate those things to my husband because
Speaker 1: or your wife, whoever your spouse, because communication problems are
Speaker 1: prevalent in relationships regardless. And so it's all about on
Speaker 1: my Instagram at one time, I posted this emotions wheel,
Speaker 1: and we have like these primary emotions that were readily
Speaker 1: able to articulate. I'm angry, I'm sad, I'm happy. But
Speaker 1: then angry can actually branch out to I'm actually feeling embarrassed,
Speaker 1: I'm actually feeling humiliated, I'm actually feeling shameful. Being able
Speaker 1: to articulate those things is actually more important than just angry,
Speaker 1: because for a long time, Kevin would be like, my
Speaker 1: wife just wakes up with attitude. I don't know why
Speaker 1: she just went to bed and woke up, and now
Speaker 1: she has an attitude, And in reality, maybe I'm feeling triggered.
Speaker 1: In reality, maybe I'm feeling isolated or I'm feeling lonely,
Speaker 1: and I don't know how to say I'm feeling really lonely,
Speaker 1: and I feel like I need to have a communication
Speaker 1: with you. We need to talk and we need to chat,
Speaker 1: and I need to feel that quality time with you.
Speaker 1: I don't know how to say that. I don't have
Speaker 1: those words yours on your phone. Even though she has
Speaker 1: her phone in her hand, she put it down point
Speaker 1: seven seconds before. She'd be like, all you do is
Speaker 1: be on your phone. Girl, were doing the same thing.
Speaker 1: I know, but I'm done now. So I need your attention.
Speaker 1: This is me, this is my truth, and so being
Speaker 1: able to those are the life skills that I feel
Speaker 1: like you need no matter what. And I think we're
Speaker 1: not often to the point earlier, we're not often equipped
Speaker 1: with those life skills. And partly because they weren't, they
Speaker 1: weren't demonstrated to us. My parents didn't. They went to
Speaker 1: bed angry, they went to bed, said, they went to
Speaker 1: bed unresolved. They went like I didn't see them have
Speaker 1: There's nothing wrong with arguments. It's a matter of how
Speaker 1: you do them. And I didn't see healthy to arguments
Speaker 1: in my family. So I don't talk to me. I'm
Speaker 1: going to bed tomorrow. We'll think about what we could do. Well,
Speaker 1: that's not healthy either. Girl. You're gonna have to make
Speaker 1: a decision now, talk about and get it through. And
Speaker 1: so those are the skills that I think we need,
Speaker 1: you know, no matter what I think, it's the point
Speaker 1: I was trying to say, trying to said a whole lot,
Speaker 1: but you get what I'm trying to set and also
Speaker 1: what Melissa and I have come up with this now
Speaker 1: I think, like for Quarantine, for example, Uh, Quarantine put
Speaker 1: a lot of couples under stress and strain because it
Speaker 1: was a very new experience to be with someone twenty
Speaker 1: four hours a day, like in any marriage. It's rare
Speaker 1: that you're you know, like Melissa went to work, I
Speaker 1: went to where kids went to school, and that time
Speaker 1: where she was getting her hair done now Neil's done,
Speaker 1: or just driving our son of soccer practice. There was
Speaker 1: so much alone time that was kind of like built
Speaker 1: into your everyday life. Uh. Then Quarantine, you know, we
Speaker 1: we like, oh we should get to spend every second,
Speaker 1: very day like this. We was you know, trying to
Speaker 1: y'all can't see. But Melissa got right up under me,
Speaker 1: and I was like, I need my space. But it
Speaker 1: was hard to say, you know, and I was a
Speaker 1: touring comedian, so I would I travel all across the country,
Speaker 1: spend the night in the hotels for the weekend, enjoy
Speaker 1: plenty of alone time. And she would do the same
Speaker 1: from home. So you never actually had to say, I
Speaker 1: need some space in our relationship. Now, you know, in
Speaker 1: March became April and April became May, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: I want to be in my room by myself, without
Speaker 1: you for for many hours. And there's nothing wrong with you.
Speaker 1: I just want to be alone. But that came across
Speaker 1: as you don't love me, you don't wanna be up
Speaker 1: under me. All you do is being up in this room.
Speaker 1: Until we realized, oh wow, we haven't had any of
Speaker 1: our time alone that you need to, you know, to
Speaker 1: feel love again too. You know, you need a difference.
Speaker 1: You know, you don't eat your same your favorite food
Speaker 1: every day for every meal. It will not it won't
Speaker 1: be good anymore. So now we know, like, hey, and
Speaker 1: even if it's just you know, in the morning, I
Speaker 1: go for a walk for an hour and a half
Speaker 1: I go hiking, and now she has an hour and
Speaker 1: a half a loon. I have an hour and a
Speaker 1: half a loon. And if we don't have nothing else
Speaker 1: but that time, that is valuable. But a lot of
Speaker 1: that is understanding what you want to convey and then
Speaker 1: conveying that clearly without being you know, rooted, disrespectful and
Speaker 1: just say hey, I just need some time by myself,
Speaker 1: you know, so that I can love you better when
Speaker 1: we come together, as opposed to here you go again,
Speaker 1: breathe in my area. You always breathe in the area
Speaker 1: my room. Breathe air in a different space. That's a
Speaker 1: good point. So what are you looking for as we
Speaker 1: as we start to wind down? What what are you
Speaker 1: looking forward to as once the pandemic is over? I
Speaker 1: would say another year and a half. Like I'm saying,
Speaker 1: what are you looking forward to, babe? As far as
Speaker 1: you and I are concerned, just getting back to what
Speaker 1: our normal was. But I have to say, I think
Speaker 1: the endemic and all of this negatives, there's been some
Speaker 1: positives too, Yeah, I mean it. It certainly makes you
Speaker 1: take a look at yourself in the relationship, how you're
Speaker 1: relating to people in general. And have a greater appreciation
Speaker 1: for those for those people around you and your family
Speaker 1: and your loved ones, and just communicate differently. I think,
Speaker 1: speaking of communication, that happens to be one of my
Speaker 1: really real an area for me, a real like I
Speaker 1: I don't communicate well, like I get I get angry,
Speaker 1: and I cut you out. You know what, though, gam
Speaker 1: even the ability to say that and know that is helpful,
Speaker 1: be like, you know what, Hey, I'm gonna be pissed.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna cuts you out just a little bit. But
Speaker 1: after I get that off, we could talk about it.
Speaker 1: I think you're exaggerating. You don't really cuss people out,
Speaker 1: but you you curse you, You use curse words. She
Speaker 1: uses words in her communication, but it's not like one
Speaker 1: after another repeatedly. It's just you can tell she's angry
Speaker 1: because she starts to use curse words, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: you're cursing. I'm not cursing at you. So we can't
Speaker 1: communicate right now until you yeah, because I'm not a
Speaker 1: person who wants to be cursed at. I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: allow people to treat me any type of way. I
Speaker 1: deserve better than that. So and I'm not going to
Speaker 1: do that to you. So we need to just put
Speaker 1: this on ice right now. But to get back to
Speaker 1: your question about the pandemic, Yeah, I'm looking forward to
Speaker 1: getting back to our normal, but I think that, you know, again,
Speaker 1: in the pandemic, there's a lot there's a lot of
Speaker 1: I noticed a lot of distractions that happened in our
Speaker 1: quote unquote normal. So yeah, there's a lot, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of distractions that happened. Like so, we don't we
Speaker 1: don't really interact the way we do now because if
Speaker 1: I don't want to be bothered, I go to the movies.
Speaker 1: I'll go shopping, you know, and you'll do the same.
Speaker 1: And we all have the ability to do all these
Speaker 1: other things. But I'm just saying we we we have
Speaker 1: the ability to do all these things that separate us
Speaker 1: from the truth, and and the pandemic has caused us
Speaker 1: to look at the truth, you know, and and the
Speaker 1: way we relate to other people, even in ourselves, like
Speaker 1: you know, because we were She's on one coach right
Speaker 1: now and I'm on the other a lot of times,
Speaker 1: and I'm spending time by myself that I really don't
Speaker 1: want to, and I'm recognizing while when I was younger,
Speaker 1: I was really good at being by myself, and I'm
Speaker 1: not as good at it anymore. And that's the truth
Speaker 1: that I'm realizing about myself. And then I, you know,
Speaker 1: we have those conversations. So it's just it's just those
Speaker 1: types of things. But the answer to your question is
Speaker 1: getting back to our normal, but also incorporating the things
Speaker 1: that I've learned from the pandemic to hopefully make things better. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So when we do get back to normal, we're taking
Speaker 1: some of the things that the good things that we've
Speaker 1: learned or and and just relating to one another better.
Speaker 1: But I do know that that is one of my
Speaker 1: areas that is very, very challenging for me. I probably
Speaker 1: need professional help. What about you for me? I I
Speaker 1: I don't want to say I'm thankful for the pandemic,
Speaker 1: but because of how much devastation and you know, life loss,
Speaker 1: but the disruption in our cycle of just going I
Speaker 1: don't want to say we just had our routine school, soccer, travel,
Speaker 1: this podcast, blah blah blah. Um. The disruption of the
Speaker 1: cycle caused us to grow together in a new way
Speaker 1: and we had to learn some new things about each other. Um.
Speaker 1: I would like when we can travel freely, just to
Speaker 1: be able to date like we used to, to go
Speaker 1: to whatever restaurant we want to, to be able to
Speaker 1: travel like those are something I love to travel with
Speaker 1: my wife. We and I'm so thankful that man being
Speaker 1: able to travel with someone who travels like you do,
Speaker 1: and it's interested in the stuff you're interested in. Who
Speaker 1: I thank god. Melissa and I love to experience new
Speaker 1: things together, so um and that's something we've missed greatly
Speaker 1: uh this year. But I'm grateful for the growth that
Speaker 1: we've had as a result of the pandemic. But then
Speaker 1: I'd be grateful to be firing first class again to
Speaker 1: Amsterdam or something like that. I I want to taste
Speaker 1: wine from another country in another country. I have a
Speaker 1: totally different question for you, because the four of us
Speaker 1: are married, and right now you are not. Are you
Speaker 1: interested in getting married again? I am? Actually I am
Speaker 1: interested in getting married again to the right person because
Speaker 1: I thrive on that partnering relationship. That's been one of
Speaker 1: the biggest challenges for me during the pandemic is being
Speaker 1: in a big house by myself. And what it has
Speaker 1: caused me to do is to strengthen relationships in other areas,
Speaker 1: such as relationships with my children and my grandchildren, because
Speaker 1: prior to COVID, I had such an engaging social life
Speaker 1: which I'm a face to face person. I want to
Speaker 1: see you, I don't want to zoom you, I don't
Speaker 1: want to talk on the phone. And so that part
Speaker 1: of my life has just been severed temporarily. And so yes,
Speaker 1: I would look forward to getting married again because, as
Speaker 1: I said, it shows me a piece of me that
Speaker 1: I can't see in any other way. So well, you
Speaker 1: know said, well, you know, I have some feelings about that.
Speaker 1: I have some feelings that you're being very resistant to
Speaker 1: the online dating situation, and I feel like it's something that,
Speaker 1: regardless of the pandemic, that you may need to open
Speaker 1: your mind and heart to Mama. I think I might
Speaker 1: need a coach for that. I think I might need
Speaker 1: a coach, you know, because I'm so skeptical, you know,
Speaker 1: and I'm very particular, and I don't engage in a
Speaker 1: lot of small talk. I like to get straight to
Speaker 1: the chase, you know, so that I can then go
Speaker 1: out and do what I have to do. And so
Speaker 1: I just need some help in that area. So if
Speaker 1: you have help for me. I'm open what you got
Speaker 1: to say with Listen when you're waving your hand and
Speaker 1: listen what you got to say. I am to say.
Speaker 1: I don't like small chat or small talk at all.
Speaker 1: Let's sit down and talk talk like, let's let's do
Speaker 1: the things. And I'm just saying I don't know that.
Speaker 1: I actually maybe I am an anti text or do
Speaker 1: you have to I think I am an anti text there.
Speaker 1: I think I prefer like, let's sit out and talk
Speaker 1: and like get to know each other for real forever.
Speaker 1: Melissa love to just talk until the middle of the
Speaker 1: night with people. I be sleepy. I want to speak
Speaker 1: your love language. I just want to speak it at
Speaker 1: three pm, not not two am. I'm just saying that
Speaker 1: I think I'm civil. I think we are the same.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, do you guys have any dating advice?
Speaker 1: And let me ask you, Rodney, did you have any
Speaker 1: dating advice for for civil because you were you were
Speaker 1: single for an awful long time, Daddy, I was. I
Speaker 1: would I think Sybil has got this. But the only
Speaker 1: thing I would say is just don't settle. Don't settle
Speaker 1: for anything less than what you feel like you deserve.
Speaker 1: At this point in your life. That's kind of one
Speaker 1: of the reasons I waited until I was sixty because
Speaker 1: I felt like, you know, a lot of times I
Speaker 1: was settling. To be quite honest, I felt like if
Speaker 1: I went into a relationship with this person, they'd be settling.
Speaker 1: I think I think online dating at this point like this,
Speaker 1: you know, we're at an age where we don't really
Speaker 1: go to a lot of places to meet people, and
Speaker 1: and that is set up to meet people. You can
Speaker 1: kind of put in your filters and just select the
Speaker 1: people that you want to meet. You can kinda talk
Speaker 1: to them before you have to actually you know, sit
Speaker 1: down and talk to him. You can talk to him
Speaker 1: online or something. I think that's that's just how it's
Speaker 1: going to be, you know, going forward. I think that's
Speaker 1: the future of dating. And you know, I don't think
Speaker 1: we should be resistant to that, you know, to RTI's point,
Speaker 1: I think the shoot the pandemic really did a number
Speaker 1: on meeting people in quote unquote real life, as if
Speaker 1: the Internet hadn't already been doing a number. But I
Speaker 1: think the idea of normal has shifted this this is
Speaker 1: shifted so far from what we were used to, you know,
Speaker 1: I believe technology is in some ways, it allows you
Speaker 1: to meet more of a person because you have, you know,
Speaker 1: the separation. All you have is communication. You don't have
Speaker 1: the you don't have the pressure of you know this
Speaker 1: got to move this fast or whatever. Like, bro, we
Speaker 1: ain't listen. We've quarantined fortune day before I even even
Speaker 1: we don't even talk about that. Text me called me
Speaker 1: voice No, let me see what your voice sounds like.
Speaker 1: I feel like there's a lot of benefits to social
Speaker 1: media that allows us to learn more about a person
Speaker 1: quicker um And honestly, I think there's some and there
Speaker 1: is the last THINGNNA say. I think there's some online
Speaker 1: dating without dating sites, if that makes sense. I think
Speaker 1: a lot of times you find community, uh in other spaces,
Speaker 1: you know, on social media, you you know, find like
Speaker 1: minded individuals. I feel like when you do it on
Speaker 1: a dating site specifically, then there's that it's got to
Speaker 1: be this or nothing, you know what I mean. I
Speaker 1: think finding community on other apps or you know, like
Speaker 1: Melissa has a book club. You know, I have a
Speaker 1: group of Patreon friends. Some people have literally found love
Speaker 1: of in the community of you know, watching our podcast
Speaker 1: and gotten married, had a whole children. But might not
Speaker 1: have met on a dating app. You know, it's because
Speaker 1: you're literally swiping a person away. That is an elite
Speaker 1: move to be like I literally moving you away from
Speaker 1: my eyes with my thumb like that. You would never
Speaker 1: do nobody like that in real Imagine you go to
Speaker 1: a bar like, hey, how are you and you just
Speaker 1: swipe your thumb away just like so so yeah, I'd
Speaker 1: say be open to the other aspects of the Internet
Speaker 1: that aren't necessarily like you know, tender and hinge and
Speaker 1: you know whatever else. All right. One asked question before
Speaker 1: we moved to Ore, wouldn't you like to know questions?
Speaker 1: And that is Kevin and Melissa. You guys have been
Speaker 1: married the longest, so far, the most successful. Do you
Speaker 1: have any advice that you would give to Rodney? Because
Speaker 1: he this is so new? So maybe I should say
Speaker 1: Rodney and I not just not just put it all,
Speaker 1: but Rodney and I. Oh, listen, man, you guys honestly
Speaker 1: have so much good uh bearings about you that that
Speaker 1: most people don't have at any era of their marriage. Um.
Speaker 1: So no, I think you guys are on your way.
Speaker 1: I think you guys are and from what I've listened
Speaker 1: to over the last hour, So I'm like, these they got,
Speaker 1: they've you know, you've learned a lot apart that you
Speaker 1: are applying together, and I think that's the most valuable part.
Speaker 1: I feel like learning that person holy, not just how
Speaker 1: they interact with you, is such an important part of
Speaker 1: learning someone. I think um uh and their family story
Speaker 1: is so valuable. Watching Melissa's mom, knowing how her mom
Speaker 1: got when the house was dirty and she just fussed
Speaker 1: at everybody and we were all enemies. Then when Melissa
Speaker 1: fusses that everybody, I'm like, that's that's your mama and you.
Speaker 1: I haven't seen that. I haven't seen that, so now
Speaker 1: I know she's not picking on me per se, She's
Speaker 1: just you. You guys should see Melissa's face. She's totally serious. Okay,
Speaker 1: moving on to our segment, wouldn't you like to know
Speaker 1: where you answer three rapid fire questions with the first
Speaker 1: phrase that comes to your mind? Kevin and Melissa, what
Speaker 1: books are you reading right now? I am reading Barack
Speaker 1: Obama's The Promised Land. Kevin, The Power of Full Engagement.
Speaker 1: The Powerful Engagement is the book I'm reading right now.
Speaker 1: It's about managing your energy, not just your time. How
Speaker 1: to manage your energy as well. Oh cool, cool, that's interesting, babe.
Speaker 1: What about you. I am looking forward to reading Barack
Speaker 1: Obama's new book. Yeah, okay, and Sybil, I am reading
Speaker 1: Comfortable Conversations with a Black Man. Yes, I love that guy. Yeah.
Speaker 1: What is his name again? His name is Emmanuel Acho. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: I saw him on Oprah. Yeah he's popping right now. Yeah. Yeah, alright,
Speaker 1: Kevin and Melissa. One thing you want to get off
Speaker 1: your chest. Mashed potatoes do not belong on the Thanksgiving spread. Oh,
Speaker 1: Rodney would disagree. One. He's not happy unless like last night,
Speaker 1: he was like, Okay, where the mashed potatoes. I was like,
Speaker 1: they're here, babe, they're here. This is the hill. She
Speaker 1: is willing to die. I will die on this hill.
Speaker 1: Mashed potatoes, double logue. Oh yeah, babe, absolutely, mashed potatoes
Speaker 1: and sweet potatoes. Sorry, Melissa, you lose, you lose. I
Speaker 1: know what I want to get black people. We can
Speaker 1: have Thanksgiving at one. It don't have to be so late.
Speaker 1: We didn't. This is the first time in a long
Speaker 1: time I have been to my grandma's house. We was
Speaker 1: eating at one. I said, this is all right. We
Speaker 1: don't have to wait till four and five. I don't.
Speaker 1: I shouldn't be about to die before I eat. It
Speaker 1: allows for adequate eating, nap, eat again, and then it's
Speaker 1: not bad time yet. That's a good one. Civil What
Speaker 1: about you? What's one thing you want to get off
Speaker 1: your chest? I just wish more people would look inside
Speaker 1: for healing as opposed to outside for blaming. I just
Speaker 1: found out that one of my siblings was blaming me
Speaker 1: for something that happened many years ago that I didn't
Speaker 1: even do. My other sister did it, and she was
Speaker 1: there and she spoke up. She was like, you've been
Speaker 1: blaming her all these years. I did that and I
Speaker 1: got the butt whipping for it. And so I just
Speaker 1: like for people to take care of themselves, go inside
Speaker 1: and of the blaming outside. Got it. That's a good one.
Speaker 1: What about you? So, what I want to get off
Speaker 1: my chest is if I'm in the store with you
Speaker 1: and you're behind me doing social distancing, six ft means
Speaker 1: six ft, Give me my damn six ft, Sybil, what's
Speaker 1: a model that you live by? Don't negotiate against yourself, Sybil,
Speaker 1: you get in your back today. I was getting ready
Speaker 1: to say, where did that come from? That's what I
Speaker 1: lived by. I learned that very early in recovery. My
Speaker 1: self esteem was so low. I thought you were always
Speaker 1: going to tell me no, and I retrained, you know,
Speaker 1: to not negotiate against myself. So the sky is the limit.
Speaker 1: It's up to you to tell me no, but it's
Speaker 1: up to me to ask. So I don't negotiate against
Speaker 1: myself anymore. I love that, damn girl. See, that's why
Speaker 1: you're my sponsor. That's why you my sponsor right there?
Speaker 1: All right, Kevin and Melissa, I live by. I can
Speaker 1: accept failure. I cannot accept not trying. Mm hmm. Yeah
Speaker 1: that's a good one too. Yeah, failure is fine. I've
Speaker 1: failed a lot. I learned a lot from feeling. But
Speaker 1: I gotta I can lay on my deathbed like man.
Speaker 1: I tried it all. I lost some stuff, but we
Speaker 1: went afterward with everything, and that's that's all I ask
Speaker 1: for myself. Yeah, yeah, Melissa, mine is I am enough
Speaker 1: as is, without change, without exception. It is absolutely my mantra.
Speaker 1: You know what. This has been an awesome conversation, Rodney.
Speaker 1: Actually Kevin. Kevin took mine, so I gotta come up
Speaker 1: with another one. Because minds was never be afraid to fail.
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna come with I'm gonna be a little
Speaker 1: philosophical here and and and say always leave with love. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's a good one too. I actually am working very
Speaker 1: hard to try to live and be in a more
Speaker 1: compassionate space than I have been previously, because that that's
Speaker 1: I'm not good with that. Yes, I am. Thank you
Speaker 1: guys for being on positively gave it was there. It
Speaker 1: was so much fun. Thank you so much. Kevin and Melissa.
Speaker 1: Why don't you share all of your where people can
Speaker 1: find you on social media and your podcast? So I
Speaker 1: am atmos keep on stage on all social media platforms.
Speaker 1: He is at keV on stage on all social media platforms,
Speaker 1: and together we host a podcast called The Love Our Podcast,
Speaker 1: where again we talked about love life in the pursuit
Speaker 1: of happiness. We give a lot of our life stories.
Speaker 1: We have tons of experts come on and it's one
Speaker 1: of my favorite passion projects. And Sibil are you on
Speaker 1: social media? I am on Facebook and it's under my
Speaker 1: name Sybil in money m hm and Rodney, I know
Speaker 1: that's all you do. You're you're not a big social
Speaker 1: media person. It's okay, big thank you guys for joining us.
Speaker 1: It's been a pleasure. Have a great day, all right. Bye.
Speaker 1: Thank you to my guests Rodney, Sybil, Melissa and Kevin
Speaker 1: for sharing their relationship stories. And these are my five takeaway.
Speaker 1: Number one, don't negotiate against yourself. Number two, you need
Speaker 1: to know who you are as an individual before you
Speaker 1: can commit to someone else. Number three, communication is key.
Speaker 1: Take the time to figure out what you're feeling and
Speaker 1: how to express it clearness. Number four, you deserve to
Speaker 1: be loved the way you want to be loved, not
Speaker 1: how someone else wants to love you. And number five,
Speaker 1: marriage takes work. Make sure you're ready, babe, you got
Speaker 1: anything you want to add? My takeaway is I'm glad
Speaker 1: I waited as long as I did to get married
Speaker 1: and I'm glad it was you, baby, Babe. I love you.
Speaker 1: We're done here, Let's go home positively. GAM is produced
Speaker 1: by Westbrook Audio. Executive producers Adrian Vanfield, Naris, Jada Pinkett Smith,
Speaker 1: Amanda Brown and Fallon jethro Co. Executive producer sim Hoti,
Speaker 1: segment producer Ash Francis, Associate producer Erica Ron, editor and
Speaker 1: mixer Calvin Bayliss. Positively. Gam is in partnership with Art
Speaker 1: nineteen