Speaker 1: This is How Men Think with brooks Like and Gavin
Speaker 1: to Grab and I heard radio podcast. Welcome to another
Speaker 1: episode of How Men Think. My name is brooks Like
Speaker 1: and we are in studio at I Hearts and we
Speaker 1: are Yeah. I love how you guys always clap for yourself.
Speaker 1: I love clapping. I know it makes the room light.
Speaker 1: People feel good when we call you start some really
Speaker 1: good clapping thing, Like as soon as you clap, we
Speaker 1: all respond, like, I know, I know. It's fun at fun.
Speaker 1: We're running a couple of people short right now. They're
Speaker 1: on their way, they're on they're all on their way.
Speaker 1: Gavin's going to get in and complain that he's stuck
Speaker 1: on a public airplane what he calls like a greyhound
Speaker 1: bus or something. Rick just landed in Burbank, so he's
Speaker 1: driving here literally and it's like eight minutes away, so
Speaker 1: he'll be here in a second. And then Gavin's coming
Speaker 1: from I don't want to reveal where he stays, but
Speaker 1: from where they're on their way. We're the only ones
Speaker 1: really committed to this podcasting. Yeah, but we're the only ones.
Speaker 1: Dmitries here, what's up, buddy, what's up? How's it going?
Speaker 1: It's going great, Buddy. I always love seeing you. You're
Speaker 1: You're like the one work horse I can cow on
Speaker 1: this show. I actually really love this podcast, so I
Speaker 1: get here even on days we don't have it. I
Speaker 1: just come here and sit here. I love it too, man,
Speaker 1: I'm in here. Ask Amy when we have Amy, our
Speaker 1: producer Amy here with us. Amy. You're texting right now.
Speaker 1: We're doing a show. We're live on the show. People
Speaker 1: are calling. I hope they're sponsors. You know what I do.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I listen back to the podcast and I talk
Speaker 1: as if I it's live again, and I give different perspectives,
Speaker 1: and I talked to you and I have great conversations
Speaker 1: on the replace right on, Buddy, I knew we were
Speaker 1: good friends. There's something energetic there. I will say this
Speaker 1: about you though you you usually always beat me in here.
Speaker 1: I come early. Well today, I actually that's wrong. Today
Speaker 1: I was fifteen minutes later. Most days i'm here very early,
Speaker 1: and you usually beat me here and we talk I
Speaker 1: think a lot, like through text. How much we really
Speaker 1: enjoy doing the podcast, and I disliked. So that's one
Speaker 1: thing is I love it here, so I do. I
Speaker 1: do love to get here, but I also don't like
Speaker 1: being late to things. I don't either, always earlier to things. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't either. I am always fifteen minutes late, always
Speaker 1: really yeah, I mean ways, it's I don't know the
Speaker 1: same with me. I punctuality. I value punctuality in myself.
Speaker 1: Today except today was today. I was late for a
Speaker 1: couple of things. Today. It's been it's been a tough day.
Speaker 1: It's been a great day. It's been, but things, things
Speaker 1: have been creating and happening, and so I wanted to
Speaker 1: stay with them in the element when they were um.
Speaker 1: And then the schedule kept up, and I was like, OK, really,
Speaker 1: it sounds like you're going real deep to disguise the
Speaker 1: fact that you were just like You're like, I just
Speaker 1: wanted to just really soak in the moment that I
Speaker 1: was in. You were just late, yea, I was just
Speaker 1: heading by the pool man. I didn't I wasn't doing
Speaker 1: anything today. I ever had a bad mood Brooks like
Speaker 1: where you just pissed. Yeah really yeah, And it's fun.
Speaker 1: It's fun to be in a piste off mood because
Speaker 1: like that was a lot of that was hockey playing.
Speaker 1: It's fun. I used to love having enemies that's a
Speaker 1: fun because you get to it's so much enemies, but
Speaker 1: you get to really it's another way of releasing emotion.
Speaker 1: Like it's a big pendulum swing of emotion. Like rage
Speaker 1: is fun, anger is fun to feel, it's driving, it's motivating.
Speaker 1: It's not where I want to live and spend my life.
Speaker 1: But to swing the pendulum that way is sometimes very
Speaker 1: I actually would love to have a therapist come in
Speaker 1: again because I think that when I should be mad,
Speaker 1: I feel sad, and I think it feels your stake
Speaker 1: being mad. I don't have I rarely get mad. I
Speaker 1: get sad. Let's just let's hang like a punching bag
Speaker 1: in your apartment or condo, and let's just turn that
Speaker 1: sadness into anytime you feel sad, you just go an
Speaker 1: unleash on this punching bag. Thinks we need to explore
Speaker 1: because maybe men are more comfortable with anger and women
Speaker 1: get sad. That would be a great down a therapist
Speaker 1: in here. There's gonna be a whole lot of yelling
Speaker 1: and crying. It's gonna be great. I don't like it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that would be a great topic for a show because
Speaker 1: I really don't get sad. I get frustrated or angry.
Speaker 1: I never do. I'm always crying. I cried almost every day, Wow,
Speaker 1: almost every day for a minute here, a minute there,
Speaker 1: or like watching TV or like today about tickets to
Speaker 1: see Oprah. I cried, but it was a happy cry,
Speaker 1: like or did you cry because they were? They were?
Speaker 1: But last night I was a counterfeit. The last night
Speaker 1: I watched that show on Hulu, four Weddings in a Funeral.
Speaker 1: Just wow, Okay, cry every day, Okay, I'm I'm with you, Brooks.
Speaker 1: And I like to get mad. Um. I don't like
Speaker 1: to like get mad and rage at people like something
Speaker 1: that's real. So I usually like to yell at people
Speaker 1: in other cars, but something that I have no idea,
Speaker 1: Like you can't see someone in a car, so i'd
Speaker 1: be like you, skinny bastard, But I have no idea
Speaker 1: what they look like. Oh I have zero road rage you.
Speaker 1: Uh No, I don't have a lot of road rage.
Speaker 1: I don't think, um. But I tap into like rage
Speaker 1: when I need to, like like when lifting, when working
Speaker 1: out a lot of times, like I'll tap into the
Speaker 1: emotion that came up when I was competing against another
Speaker 1: guy because hockey there was face to face. There was
Speaker 1: there was blunt, forced physical conflict in hockey, and so
Speaker 1: that taught me to level up my intensity and emotion
Speaker 1: and also rage. Sometimes sometimes a guy would get the
Speaker 1: best of you and provoke a bear in you that
Speaker 1: maybe you didn't even know you had. And so I
Speaker 1: learned to harness that over years of professional sport. And
Speaker 1: now if I want, I have it on access where
Speaker 1: I can access it. If I want to tap into
Speaker 1: something that's more powerful than maybe my current state, Like
Speaker 1: I look forward to the day Ryan pushes you too far,
Speaker 1: I'll come right over this. Ryan's gonna say something one
Speaker 1: day and I'll come right over this studio. Count I
Speaker 1: think we explore this in a couple of weeks. Sure, um,
Speaker 1: it'd be a great episode. Speaking of episodes, though, last
Speaker 1: week we did Life After Loss and Mitch's story was
Speaker 1: exceptional and we've got so much an amazing feedback from
Speaker 1: you guys reading the emails and the direct messages on Instagram.
Speaker 1: The feedback from our community has been exceptional about Life
Speaker 1: After Loss. How many people have related to it, uh,
Speaker 1: and how many people are inspired by Mitch's story. And
Speaker 1: this week we're gonna go into something close but not
Speaker 1: quite as severe maybe, but um, life their divorce and
Speaker 1: we're gonna speak with a couple of people that have
Speaker 1: a great divorce. Um, and I just want to ask
Speaker 1: you guys, like, are you are your parents still married? No?
Speaker 1: My my parents separated when I was four, and it
Speaker 1: was pretty nasty. Um. Do you have a recollection of it? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was bad for a long time. And it wasn't
Speaker 1: until I think maybe I was in college, that they
Speaker 1: actually something happened in the family and they started getting
Speaker 1: like they started speaking again. Like, it was pretty bad
Speaker 1: for years. It's almost like fourteen almost fifteen years you're
Speaker 1: in college, so it's happened when you're four fifteen eighteen
Speaker 1: years later they started speaking again. Yeah, And it was
Speaker 1: like like if if they called, because he didn't have
Speaker 1: cell phones back then, if if somebody called the house
Speaker 1: to talk to the kids, the other one to be
Speaker 1: like like it was like hold on, Like they wouldn't
Speaker 1: even talk. Yeah, I mean it was pretty nasty for years.
Speaker 1: Did you ever like have triggers or issues in your
Speaker 1: own marriage from their divorce? No? Actually, I think I
Speaker 1: learned a lot from going through all of that that
Speaker 1: I was more aware of kind of stuff that they
Speaker 1: did wrong and how they handled it, and think, so
Speaker 1: I think it was I think it probably you know,
Speaker 1: it was tough to go through, but I think it
Speaker 1: educated me in the long run, and it also just
Speaker 1: if so we for keeping score. It wasn't my fault.
Speaker 1: My parents got divorce when I was in college. And
Speaker 1: I'm not saying it was like unicorns and rainbows, but
Speaker 1: I do have one of those situations where it's like
Speaker 1: unicorns and rainbows, Like everybody has Christmas together, everybody has
Speaker 1: Thanksgiving together, everybody's together all the time. Like there's times
Speaker 1: when my mom has my dad his wife over, my
Speaker 1: aum uncle on my dad's side, like at our house. Yeah,
Speaker 1: everybody's pretty so it's a pretty amicable beyond. Like there
Speaker 1: was a party my mom and dad had to go
Speaker 1: to but my dad's wife couldn't go, and my mom
Speaker 1: was like, oh, I gotta go be with daddy. He
Speaker 1: doesn't have anybody to hang out with. Like everybody's just
Speaker 1: really yeah. I had like the opposite, so my real quick.
Speaker 1: My mom, you know, married my dad, and then her
Speaker 1: brother fell in love with my dad's sister and they
Speaker 1: got married. So it was like brother and sister married
Speaker 1: brother and not really you know what I mean. Um.
Speaker 1: So then when my parents split, my aunt and uncle didn't,
Speaker 1: so it made it very awkward at family events. And
Speaker 1: I actually had a birthday party where I insisted when
Speaker 1: I was little, I was like, I really want mom
Speaker 1: and dad here. Man, was that a mistake? That place
Speaker 1: blew up? I ended up sitting on the curb with
Speaker 1: my cousins. What what what birthday? Thirty? No, I'm kidding.
Speaker 1: It was probably like yeah, probably like eight or something.
Speaker 1: Are your parents both alive now? No? My father passed.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I'm sorry. No thanks. Um did they ever
Speaker 1: get along again? Yeah? Yeah, yeah so they Um, it
Speaker 1: was around the time their first grandchild was born. Um,
Speaker 1: that's when it kind of started. Was that your first child?
Speaker 1: My brothers? Um? And uh, they started kind of. I
Speaker 1: remember being at the hospital with both of them in
Speaker 1: the waiting room waiting for my niece when she was born,
Speaker 1: and I sarcastic, like I am I turning, I go,
Speaker 1: is this the first time you guys were in the
Speaker 1: hospital together since I was born? Or like the waiting
Speaker 1: room and they were just and it kind of kind
Speaker 1: of broke the rotten Yeah, and um, and so it
Speaker 1: started then and then and then over the years from
Speaker 1: there they started getting along better, like they could then
Speaker 1: go together again. Yeah. This that's It's such a fascinating
Speaker 1: world to me because my parents just celebrated their forty
Speaker 1: five and winning anniversary a couple of weeks ago, which
Speaker 1: is amazing. And so I don't have experience with divorce. Um,
Speaker 1: my wife's parents are divorced. They're both happily remarried. But
Speaker 1: that's my closest experience with it. I have friends that
Speaker 1: have had parents divorced, but I can't I cannot begin
Speaker 1: to imagine what it does to a life at the
Speaker 1: age of four, at the age of twenty, whatever age
Speaker 1: you are where your parents divorced. I I just I
Speaker 1: can't imagine what those emotions are. I think it messes
Speaker 1: you up and then you're fine. I will say this.
Speaker 1: When I was younger, I used to want that. We
Speaker 1: used to want them back together, and I used to
Speaker 1: want that whole family, Christmas and the whole thing. And
Speaker 1: as I got older and I saw who they were,
Speaker 1: individual and stuff, I'm actually glad that they got to
Speaker 1: I'm not glad that it was it went down the
Speaker 1: way it went down, like kind of them not getting along.
Speaker 1: But I think I'm better off in my life having
Speaker 1: experience with them living their lives the way they wanted
Speaker 1: to and not trying to make it work together. I'm
Speaker 1: okay with it now. When I when it first happened,
Speaker 1: I remember someone saying to me, I know, this seems
Speaker 1: like the worst thing ever, and that you'll never get
Speaker 1: over it. And he said in six months you won't remember.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't quite that, but the words were pretty true,
Speaker 1: like it's so major and then you, yeah, it's okay,
Speaker 1: Well it's not my fault. Oh sorry. Kevin and I
Speaker 1: did an interview the other day and Kevin said, it's
Speaker 1: a hard conversation to have with somebody when you have
Speaker 1: to say it's not me, it's you. I was just
Speaker 1: laughing at us, like, oh buddy, we got we got
Speaker 1: some things we need to talk about. But that's what
Speaker 1: we're going to get into today. We have two uh
Speaker 1: special guests that have a very happy and enjoyable now.
Speaker 1: Now it's a process. I'll say that it's a process.
Speaker 1: We'll get into their story after. But um, for people
Speaker 1: that are divorced, there's hope that there is an amicable
Speaker 1: cordial and even friendly life after divorce. And just so
Speaker 1: you know, their divorce is not my fault either. Nobody's
Speaker 1: keeping score here, buddy, Gavin will probably blame me. So
Speaker 1: in the house with us right now we have Nikki
Speaker 1: de Bartelow and Benjamin health one. Okay, come on, how
Speaker 1: are you guys doing today? Thank you for coming in
Speaker 1: to our studio. I appreciate that. How are you guys doing?
Speaker 1: Thank you? Thank you for having us doing well. Everything's good.
Speaker 1: Thank you for having us real studio, like real studio
Speaker 1: is we're trying to We're trying to tap it at
Speaker 1: Gavin's house one day, but for the time, we'll have
Speaker 1: to get it cleaned first, like not not like a
Speaker 1: garage podcast set up and you know, a couple of
Speaker 1: mics and the computer. It's a really this is real.
Speaker 1: This is why we all got paid because Aby blows
Speaker 1: all our budget on the studio. We're paying the mortgage. Um,
Speaker 1: So I want to bring in or I want to
Speaker 1: get your guys this story now. Benjamin you want to
Speaker 1: go first, Mickey, you want to go first. So so
Speaker 1: it is. It's it's a journey into finding a different
Speaker 1: kind of love and Nick and I were married, Uh,
Speaker 1: seven years. Um, we had a beautiful son together. Um,
Speaker 1: we end up getting a divorce, and it serves our
Speaker 1: journey into how we got to where we are today
Speaker 1: twelve years later. Um, she's remarried, I'm remarried. We have
Speaker 1: this you know, lack of a better word, modern family. Um,
Speaker 1: and it's it didn't just start off like that. There
Speaker 1: was there's a there's a lot of intricacies and a
Speaker 1: lot of as when people get divorced, a lot of
Speaker 1: resentment and anger and fear and everything that goes through.
Speaker 1: But we were able to simply just put our put
Speaker 1: ours on first was our sort of guiding light. And
Speaker 1: every decision we made, whether that be romance, finance, all
Speaker 1: that sort of things that spiral divorces. Um, we just
Speaker 1: every decision had to answer that question. And that was
Speaker 1: right from the start. No, no, hod okay. Right from
Speaker 1: the start, it was dropping him off at each other's
Speaker 1: house with like a babysitter and not seeing each other
Speaker 1: and not talking to each other. And realized the only
Speaker 1: thing we were doing was hurting him and eventually it
Speaker 1: would have been I mean, it would have ended up
Speaker 1: ruining his life if we would have kept on the
Speaker 1: path that we were going on. And he was seven
Speaker 1: at the time, he was three four, three and a half.
Speaker 1: And you know, one of the things that I've blessed
Speaker 1: about that we talked about in the book is is
Speaker 1: and I say blessed because I had to go through
Speaker 1: this as as with my own parents divorce, and it
Speaker 1: was not the greatest divorce. And you know, I was
Speaker 1: more or less weaponized. Uh, not so drastically, but you know,
Speaker 1: we were sort of port in the middle of it.
Speaker 1: And for a while there, I was filled with all
Speaker 1: that stuff I talked about, and I was gonna, you know,
Speaker 1: make her it was her fault. She everything ending in
Speaker 1: the marriage was her fault. Everything, you know, just pointing
Speaker 1: finger at her. And uh. I had hired this lawyer
Speaker 1: who sort of sparked or at it, uh fire to
Speaker 1: the to the fire, and was you know, he was
Speaker 1: telling me what I wanted to hear. It's her fault,
Speaker 1: will get her and all this stuff. And I spent
Speaker 1: a bunch of money and he wrote up this, uh,
Speaker 1: I guess action plan, you know, business plan if you will,
Speaker 1: on like how to go after how we're gonna you know,
Speaker 1: embarrass her and do all this and make it a
Speaker 1: big public deal. Sound like a lawyer. Oh no, not
Speaker 1: at all. Right, Yeah, he had no incentive to have
Speaker 1: a long, ugly divorce. So uh. He had written this
Speaker 1: thing up and I kept it and I didn't read it,
Speaker 1: and there was something inside of me, and I don't
Speaker 1: know what it was, but I kept in my backpack
Speaker 1: that I always carry around for like six weeks and
Speaker 1: I never opened it up. And for some I was
Speaker 1: flying back from l a uh on a trip and
Speaker 1: I opened it up and I read the first two pages.
Speaker 1: And it was at that moment that you know, I
Speaker 1: could see things clearly. It was like I had all
Speaker 1: that other resembment and all that other stuff was gone,
Speaker 1: and I saw that if I go down this route,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna cause the same damage to my son that happened.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna we're nick and I are going to rack
Speaker 1: up a huge emotional bill and they can't pay for
Speaker 1: it for something he had no choice. So at that point, um,
Speaker 1: you know, I think Nicky was doing her own work
Speaker 1: on herself and I was doing I I called her
Speaker 1: and I said, look, we can't talk about this right now.
Speaker 1: Like I have to do some things in my life
Speaker 1: to get myself right before we can even, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: start talking about the divorce. And and so I just
Speaker 1: worked with some guy I knew, and we went through
Speaker 1: and it was only about my part. We never we
Speaker 1: never talked about what she did or what, you know,
Speaker 1: her fault, and it was it was all about finding
Speaker 1: my you know, mistakes and the divorce and and what
Speaker 1: I came to realize that it takes two to make it,
Speaker 1: and it takes you to break it, and you no
Speaker 1: matter what she had done, no matter what I, you know, did,
Speaker 1: all I could focus on myself. So so at what point,
Speaker 1: how many months or years after the separation is this
Speaker 1: when you have this realization and you start doing this work.
Speaker 1: It was about four months maybe, so it's it's relatively new,
Speaker 1: it's relatively new. Maybe a little bit longer. I think
Speaker 1: it was about four months, yeah, now maybe yeah, because
Speaker 1: I know that I I decided to take three months.
Speaker 1: It was sort of my goal was to take three
Speaker 1: months and do what I needed to do and and
Speaker 1: and at the end of the whole work is sort
Speaker 1: of another burning bush or clarity moment. I like looked
Speaker 1: at this stuff and I was like, you know what
Speaker 1: I wouldn't want to be married to me either. You know,
Speaker 1: I was a terrible, miserable person. And you know that
Speaker 1: introspection or that you know, that that clarity of like, God,
Speaker 1: you were just a bad, bad guy, you know, bad husband,
Speaker 1: bad father, bad everything, and again nothing to what she did.
Speaker 1: You know, it was and about her at that point,
Speaker 1: it's about me. Kudos to you, man, because that's some
Speaker 1: that's some hard self reflection, and that's some work that
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people are not willing to do.
Speaker 1: It doesn't it doesn't have to be even just in
Speaker 1: a relationship or coming out of a relationship, just in
Speaker 1: their own life. Like to take a reflection of who
Speaker 1: I am as an individual, how I show up in
Speaker 1: the world, and how does my presence and my actions
Speaker 1: impact people around me, and then to look at yourself
Speaker 1: and say, wow, I'm not proud of who I am.
Speaker 1: This is not who I want to be. I own
Speaker 1: these faults. Good for you, man. And then the other
Speaker 1: part of that was forgiving myself. Right, So the first
Speaker 1: step was to go through it and to look at
Speaker 1: it and you know, come to that realization and then
Speaker 1: forgive myself and then call Nikki. And I was getting
Speaker 1: messed up when I say this, but all the time,
Speaker 1: I'm really soft. Yeah, me too, good, Okay, I can
Speaker 1: cry together. You got a shoulder. We're a little farther.
Speaker 1: But so I called Nikki for coffee, and the first
Speaker 1: thing I told her was I was sorry, you know,
Speaker 1: and I loved her, and you know, I'm sorry for
Speaker 1: everything I did to cause the end of our marriage.
Speaker 1: And she then in turn apologized to me and told
Speaker 1: me it's very hard for me to do right, which
Speaker 1: we joked. I don't think it was the only time,
Speaker 1: the only time, the only time we ever apologized to
Speaker 1: each other. But but at that moment there was space
Speaker 1: to move like. It wasn't about pointing finger at her.
Speaker 1: It wasn't about pointing finger. That's what started, I mean,
Speaker 1: that's what made this. That was a turning point for sure.
Speaker 1: Was his apology to you, is what. Yes, that's what started.
Speaker 1: Did it surprise you? He did surprise me because I
Speaker 1: somehow knew about some of the other stuff he was doing,
Speaker 1: like working on behind my back. N So I I
Speaker 1: didn't know that. No, I did not. I did not.
Speaker 1: I just happened to know enough people that told me
Speaker 1: things right. But as long as we passed all that anything.
Speaker 1: So he he apologized to you sort of somewhat surprising.
Speaker 1: Let's say, and how how does that make you feel?
Speaker 1: That he he doesn't blame you, He doesn't. He's like,
Speaker 1: I own this, this is my fault, and I just
Speaker 1: want to say sorry. How does that make you feel?
Speaker 1: Because I think that's a noble act. No, that's that
Speaker 1: is what made me go, Okay, it's time, like it's
Speaker 1: time for us to sit down and figure this out,
Speaker 1: like we can't keep going down this path. Yeah, let
Speaker 1: me ask this. So he apologized, said he did all
Speaker 1: these things wrong, and then he said that you also apologize.
Speaker 1: Now was that did you just apologize because hey, he
Speaker 1: apologize or did you really feel like you had done
Speaker 1: something that you could apologize for. No. I definitely did
Speaker 1: things throughout the marriage that I you know, I was
Speaker 1: a huge part. I was the other half of what
Speaker 1: made this fail. So ye, man, yeah, sorry, that's what
Speaker 1: I like that. I like that I did not spend
Speaker 1: those four months trying to right, four months going like
Speaker 1: what the hell am I gonna do? Like? Here is
Speaker 1: this woman with it? Has this child? I mean, yes,
Speaker 1: I have a family that I'm really close to you,
Speaker 1: But what am I gonna do? Like that's the last
Speaker 1: I mean, that's how old was I don't know, thirty,
Speaker 1: I don't know, but I mean that's the last thing
Speaker 1: any woman wants to be be in Tampa with a
Speaker 1: child by yourself. So that was frightening, and so I
Speaker 1: went through four months of being scared understandably. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a failure, you know, I mean, nobody gets into it,
Speaker 1: and there's a lot of sham or at least there
Speaker 1: was a lot of shame for me about the failure
Speaker 1: and guilt about your son, and you know, we were
Speaker 1: easily could have fallen into that category and repeating the
Speaker 1: cycle of what my parents did? You know? And from
Speaker 1: that moment of apology, the next question I had asked
Speaker 1: or was do you have any problem with joint custody? Joint?
Speaker 1: And she said absolutely not. She goes, you're the father
Speaker 1: of our son, and I go I looked at her
Speaker 1: and I said, you know, everything else can we worked out?
Speaker 1: Like the other stuff is trivial, Like that's the important
Speaker 1: thing is we can't burden him with our choices. Like
Speaker 1: we chose to get married, we chose to get pregnant,
Speaker 1: we chose to get divorced, and here's this innocent being
Speaker 1: who had no choice in it, but we're gonna stick
Speaker 1: them with you know this nonsense. Yeah, So I have
Speaker 1: a quick question, Ben Nicky, and so thanks for coming
Speaker 1: in the uh so, how did you navigate that with
Speaker 1: your son at the time as you were kind of
Speaker 1: getting said sorry to each other and you know, and
Speaker 1: you weren't dropping him off at babysitters and each other's
Speaker 1: homes and you weren't seeing each other or whatever, like,
Speaker 1: how did you kind of did you did you bridge
Speaker 1: that gap with your son at the same time and
Speaker 1: say to him, hey, look, we're sorry. What what's going
Speaker 1: on right now? You know, you know, we want to
Speaker 1: sit you down and talk to you and and and
Speaker 1: he's so yeah, yeah, I mean, I guess it's kind
Speaker 1: of hard when he's three, but you know, he obviously
Speaker 1: got older. He was he was really young, but really smart.
Speaker 1: Like I don't know where he got it, but he's
Speaker 1: really smart. So there were certain things that like if
Speaker 1: you look back, he'll say he'll even tell us that
Speaker 1: he remember seeing boxes, Like I don't know how he
Speaker 1: ever saw a box because we never but there's certain
Speaker 1: things he remembers about him leaving, So there was I mean,
Speaker 1: we knew that we had to be as honest with
Speaker 1: him as we possibly could because he got it. And that,
Speaker 1: to me is what is also what started this because
Speaker 1: I mean, he's four years old and he got it,
Speaker 1: like he knew. So you can't hide this stuff from kids, right,
Speaker 1: It's interesting is you can't. And we thought for a
Speaker 1: while there we wanted to protect him, right, so I
Speaker 1: would I was staying at a hotel and I would
Speaker 1: drive every morning home before he got up to have breakfast,
Speaker 1: you know, to pretend like I was there at night.
Speaker 1: And one day he looked at me and he said,
Speaker 1: where did you sleep last night, daddy? And this is
Speaker 1: a four year old kid, and I'm like, I slept
Speaker 1: in the bed. He goes, well, you didn't make must
Speaker 1: much of a mess in your bed or something like
Speaker 1: he had noticed that nikky side of the bed. So like,
Speaker 1: we gotta give our kids more credit, no matter what
Speaker 1: their age is, for being aware and mindful of what's
Speaker 1: going on, and that's something we had done wrong. But
Speaker 1: but after that it was um, it was just something
Speaker 1: that we when we're around him, we tried to keep
Speaker 1: even I think when it was bad, we tried to
Speaker 1: keep at least a unified front of everything's fine, but kids,
Speaker 1: you know, like I said, And after you guys made
Speaker 1: those apologies together, then that unified front started to form
Speaker 1: a little bit better, I'm sure. And then that that
Speaker 1: helped him out a lot a lot more it did.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that was our turning point is the fact
Speaker 1: that I went to We went to school. This is
Speaker 1: what made us realize, Okay, we're doing something right. We
Speaker 1: went to school for like parents, like whatever your parent
Speaker 1: teachers for four year old open house. Yes, And we
Speaker 1: said to her we've recently split up, and she looked
Speaker 1: at us and said, really, this kid hasn't skipped a beat.
Speaker 1: So that made us. That was like, okay, we are
Speaker 1: doing something right because this child is not missing anything.
Speaker 1: So we're doing it right. Like whatever we're doing, we've
Speaker 1: got to keep doing. It would have been horrible if
Speaker 1: she was like, yeah, I know, and he tells me.
Speaker 1: He would tell anybody. He tells people everything, so it
Speaker 1: wasn't like he was keep the So this is a
Speaker 1: four months you you sort of mend this, or begin
Speaker 1: to mend this. At least you set down the weapons.
Speaker 1: What what's the path? Then what follows after that? Um,
Speaker 1: you just begin working together, collaborating together, almost same team
Speaker 1: in a different way than being married, but same team
Speaker 1: that you're both on board for what's best for your son.
Speaker 1: And then does you like your book now is called
Speaker 1: Our Happy Divorce, does it start to become happier between
Speaker 1: you two after that? I wish I could say that,
Speaker 1: you know, we clicked our snapped our fingers and everything
Speaker 1: was perfect, right, but we had a commitment now or
Speaker 1: a mission said whatever you want to say, that it
Speaker 1: was about asher, right, and there's so much more room. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's so much more room to move at that point.
Speaker 1: And so I've been looking online about this thing called
Speaker 1: collaborative divorce, and it was relatively new in Florida. It's
Speaker 1: now a really big It's in a lot of statutes
Speaker 1: of states, and there's a there's a process for it.
Speaker 1: But basically what it is is the difference is instead
Speaker 1: of me calling my lawyer, my lawyer calling Nikki's lawyer,
Speaker 1: Nicky's lawyer calling her her telling you know, the game
Speaker 1: and telephone and you know how that that gets screwed
Speaker 1: up after like the second person, right, So, uh is
Speaker 1: everybody's in the room together, and everybody's talking together. But
Speaker 1: we actually went one step further, um, and I think
Speaker 1: I told her we agreed, let's just see if we
Speaker 1: agree on what we agree upon, let's treat this like
Speaker 1: almost like a business thing, and see, let the business
Speaker 1: people make the business decisions and then give it to
Speaker 1: the lawyers. Because I because of my experience with the
Speaker 1: other lawyer, it was like, not they're not all bad,
Speaker 1: you know, but this guy was like, you know, feeding
Speaker 1: me my own bs, like, you know, because he saw
Speaker 1: the big shiny, you know, two year divorce and whatever
Speaker 1: that costs. And so we just sat down at the
Speaker 1: same coffee shop where we had apologize to each other,
Speaker 1: and we just worked it out. And it was amazingly easy.
Speaker 1: When we had that what's best for asher finances fell
Speaker 1: into place, that you know, timeshare fell into place. Everything
Speaker 1: just sort of fell in place. So then we did
Speaker 1: it ourselves, gave it to a lawyer and said draw
Speaker 1: it up. My lawyer was pissed. I paid the other
Speaker 1: guy three times as much to write that game plan
Speaker 1: or whatever on how to get out of the whole deal,
Speaker 1: and and you know, to make it embarrassing and so
Speaker 1: she was pissed. She kept going to be sure you're
Speaker 1: okay with I'm like, yeah, draw it up. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: how did you feel with that? You were the same,
Speaker 1: you were excited that, like you're not faking it. Obviously
Speaker 1: you're both on board with this. You're we're definitely not
Speaker 1: We definitely couldn't fake this. Ll No. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: it just was so much easier. I mean, like the
Speaker 1: heartache of going through it just was sort of I mean,
Speaker 1: it's still there, but it's just taken away, Like there's
Speaker 1: just the pain is the pain went, and the pain went,
Speaker 1: but like you said, like it didn't just all of
Speaker 1: a sudden get better, like this is twelve years in
Speaker 1: the making, Like this is not. It was like progress
Speaker 1: every day. We weren't looking for perfection. You guys make
Speaker 1: me want to get a divorce so bad. Now. There's
Speaker 1: a difference between are happy divorce and happily divorced, right,
Speaker 1: there's a big difference. Some people are happily divorce because
Speaker 1: they don't have to be with the others are happy.
Speaker 1: But it was there was a lot of faking, like
Speaker 1: you brought up, there was a there was some faking it,
Speaker 1: Like we joke around. We faked until we made it. Like,
Speaker 1: you know, she started dating somebody who's here, who's a
Speaker 1: great guy that that I had known, that we had
Speaker 1: known before. And you know, when when he would come
Speaker 1: the Asher's baseball games, like I had to go over
Speaker 1: there and put all my big boy pants and swallow
Speaker 1: my ego and you know, pretend like everything was okay.
Speaker 1: My insides were being torn apart, you know all that,
Speaker 1: you know, fear or anger and you know, my manhood
Speaker 1: and here's another guy with my ex wife and with
Speaker 1: my son. And but I put on a you know,
Speaker 1: a smile and sort of just developed into okay, you
Speaker 1: know what, she's gonna be with somebody eventually. Why not
Speaker 1: make it somebody who was a good guy who loves
Speaker 1: my son like I do, and is good. Is a
Speaker 1: good influence, It makes her happy. I don't want a
Speaker 1: miserable ex wife. I didn't want a miserable wife, much
Speaker 1: less a miserable ex wife. You know, I want a
Speaker 1: happy with ex wife. Let's not leave on handsome, great hair.
Speaker 1: I thought, what do I have? Right? I thought to
Speaker 1: ask you guys, and I don't want to mess this up,
Speaker 1: But don't you all live like within a block of
Speaker 1: each other. Can you tell the guys about that. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna explain that because we chat at night, we're looking
Speaker 1: for a piece of property to buy that we were like, oh,
Speaker 1: let's let's make an investment. So we buy this piece
Speaker 1: of property down the street from our house. Yes, it
Speaker 1: would be a really good investment for us. We're gonna
Speaker 1: hold on to it. Two days later, we sold it
Speaker 1: to you for the exact price we bought it. No, No,
Speaker 1: you called me because I was with Asher at that
Speaker 1: golf camp. You called because we were looking for a
Speaker 1: place to build the house. She called me and said,
Speaker 1: I bought you a piece of land. I was like, Nikki,
Speaker 1: what happens if I don't want like it? Like you
Speaker 1: just bought it. She's like, well, if you don't buy
Speaker 1: a chat and I'll do an investment or something. But
Speaker 1: I bought you a piece of land. So she turned
Speaker 1: around and sold to me for two and it's five
Speaker 1: houses down uh from so Asher, we the streets names Longfellow.
Speaker 1: We call him the long Fellow creeper because he goes.
Speaker 1: He loves the fish and it's on the water. So
Speaker 1: he'll be at my house and he'll creep over to
Speaker 1: Nikki's house and so we don't even know something like
Speaker 1: call Nick goes her son over there and she looks
Speaker 1: out the winning ice fishing outside. So I just want
Speaker 1: to applaud you too, because I don't think I could
Speaker 1: do that. I don't think like I have zero contact
Speaker 1: with anybody that was formerly in my life. I can't.
Speaker 1: I don't know. You were far more emotionally advanced than I.
Speaker 1: I think, in fact, most of us, most of us,
Speaker 1: if we knew that our ex or whatever was trying
Speaker 1: to buy a piece of properly, tried to buy it
Speaker 1: round underneath them, or you could just egg their house
Speaker 1: every ten but they but like the deal is if
Speaker 1: you look, and that's what I just tried to explain
Speaker 1: to people who look at this forum. And you know,
Speaker 1: we just got off a trip, uh, just the three
Speaker 1: of us, Nikki Asher and myself to Africana Safari without Chad,
Speaker 1: her husband, and without my wife and two kids. And
Speaker 1: it was so that this is the sort of combination.
Speaker 1: So you fast forward twelve years as sure when he
Speaker 1: was a kid was everybody has kids, you know, they're upset,
Speaker 1: they get obsessed with one thing, if it whether it's
Speaker 1: like my little ones obsessed with Spider Man or dinosaurs
Speaker 1: or and Ash was animals. He was like an animal encyclopedia.
Speaker 1: He would read animal encyclopedias. And so we always wanted
Speaker 1: we always knew we were gonna take him to Africa,
Speaker 1: or he wanted to go to Africa. But with the
Speaker 1: shots and everything you need to do, well, there's that sus.
Speaker 1: You guys are great parents, because the zoo sucks. If
Speaker 1: you go to Africa, you see the authentic, real thing,
Speaker 1: the real zews when you see them in the wild.
Speaker 1: So the thing is that if anyone really well really
Speaker 1: would have set us the divorce, south wouldn't have been
Speaker 1: the romance, finance and all the other nonsense that it
Speaker 1: would have been if the other one had taken the
Speaker 1: other one or Asher to Africa without the other one.
Speaker 1: So that's the kicker. But that's where our life is. Is.
Speaker 1: I tell my wife, Yeah, I tell my wife, now,
Speaker 1: I'm going to Africa with Nikki and Asher. And she
Speaker 1: doesn't say, oh, hell no, you're not going to Africa
Speaker 1: with your ex wife. Are you crazy sleeping alone in
Speaker 1: the bush or whatever, And instead she goes, that's great,
Speaker 1: ashe would love it. I don't know if I could
Speaker 1: do that. Man. That's what makes this crazy is because
Speaker 1: you've we have two more like there's a wife and
Speaker 1: there's a husband, so it all has to work. It's
Speaker 1: all like you know, that's the thing. How do they
Speaker 1: have that patience or how do they have that composure?
Speaker 1: Because I'm like, I'm listening to this and hopefully I'm like,
Speaker 1: I love my wife and I hope to never get divorced.
Speaker 1: But I'm sure there's people out there listening to this
Speaker 1: saying no, that would never happen. I never allow that.
Speaker 1: I never like, how how do your significant what are
Speaker 1: you Chad right here when that came to him? Like,
Speaker 1: what was your respond to that? When they said, hey,
Speaker 1: by the way, Africa, this is where the story gets interesting.
Speaker 1: I don't even like, I really don't like that, and
Speaker 1: I hunt, I don't even like animals. You brought it
Speaker 1: up about you don't have any contact with anyone in
Speaker 1: your in your past life, but you don't share a
Speaker 1: child with that persons. You know, that's where the differences,
Speaker 1: and I think that's where these two are to be
Speaker 1: commended is because they made it all about the child,
Speaker 1: this happy divorce, This modern family is all about the kids.
Speaker 1: Ben's two kids. You know, work close to them. They
Speaker 1: think I'm their stepfather. You know, they come to our
Speaker 1: sometimes stay a little too, but in our house all
Speaker 1: the time, we go trick or treating together, you know,
Speaker 1: we go on vacation together. So the part I think
Speaker 1: that's hard to understand is once you introduced to children
Speaker 1: into it, without the children, yours act the right. I
Speaker 1: don't think any of us would argue with you. You know,
Speaker 1: good written's good luck with moving forward. That's the that's
Speaker 1: the the nicest I'm gonna be have a good day.
Speaker 1: And that's not what this was about. It was about
Speaker 1: moving forward. Uh, you know, for for ashs sake. First,
Speaker 1: it actually makes listen to you talk too. It actually
Speaker 1: makes sense to me now because how cool for him
Speaker 1: to be in Africa with his mom and his dad.
Speaker 1: That's how the how Africa trip is unique. But to
Speaker 1: share it with just his parents, not the step kids,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, not not their step not a stepparents,
Speaker 1: but just those two that's priceless. So that's what I
Speaker 1: was gonna ask. That was set up just to be
Speaker 1: the two of you, Like, there was never a point
Speaker 1: where it was like, Oh, Chad, do you want to come?
Speaker 1: It was we were invited to go. Number one, I
Speaker 1: wasn't gonna travel twenty nine hours on a plane to go.
Speaker 1: I had, you know, I work in Tampa. I couldn't
Speaker 1: take that much time off and it just wasn't gonna work.
Speaker 1: But more importantly, I felt it was time that he
Speaker 1: should spend with those two. You know, you bring in
Speaker 1: a different dynamic. We do enough of that. It needed
Speaker 1: to be just the three of them. That's that's something
Speaker 1: that we've talked about since he was a little kid,
Speaker 1: obsessed with every every animal that's that's known to be
Speaker 1: uh uh from from Africa. And I didn't want to
Speaker 1: take that from you. Just didn't want to get the
Speaker 1: shots because if it was, you'd be there. I didn't.
Speaker 1: You were like, You're like, why would I go somewhere
Speaker 1: hotter than Tampa that doesn't have air conditioning? First of all,
Speaker 1: drink yellow water. Trip. How did the trip go? It
Speaker 1: was amazing. Nobody died, right, nobody accidentally. I don't even
Speaker 1: think we got enough fight while we were gone. There
Speaker 1: was one uh well, there was one that you were
Speaker 1: more yelling at ash Or and I for being you know,
Speaker 1: whatever we were doing. But but no, it went great.
Speaker 1: I mean, nobody there, Like I said, there was no
Speaker 1: accidental slips off of the Safari into the line ride
Speaker 1: or there was no uh. But the funny thing is
Speaker 1: this conversation phones didn't work anywhere but in their rooms,
Speaker 1: so that made it, I mean like we were forced
Speaker 1: to talk. But the other thing is that the we
Speaker 1: see people's faces was priceless and I wish I had
Speaker 1: more video of it. But like we were obviously staying
Speaker 1: in separate tents or cabins and so but people would
Speaker 1: like look and I go asture slept with her because
Speaker 1: you really in the middle of the elephants were walking by,
Speaker 1: really in the middle of it, and so they would
Speaker 1: look and they walked past me and to get dropped off,
Speaker 1: and she was going to the other one, and we'd
Speaker 1: have to explain, oh, she's my ex wife, you know,
Speaker 1: and then they would even get what yeah, because we
Speaker 1: weren't staying in the same at the same time. But
Speaker 1: it was great, I mean it was it was first
Speaker 1: of all that story. It was amazing that we did
Speaker 1: it like that. But but being in Africa is just
Speaker 1: a hole that you said, you know, it's just an amazing,
Speaker 1: life changing experience. Country where Buttswana? I want to go there.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was just you can't even explain it.
Speaker 1: I don't even have enough vocabularity explain how amazing and
Speaker 1: humbling it was. So I gotta, I gotta. I guess
Speaker 1: I'll be the guy to asked this. No we didn't
Speaker 1: sleep together, No, no, no. But while all this was
Speaker 1: going on, while you guys were figuring out how to
Speaker 1: be happily divorced, was there ever a moment you're like, well,
Speaker 1: maybe we could have made this work. No, no, no
Speaker 1: unanimous consent. No, no, there there there was. There was
Speaker 1: a reason we were married. That child, he asher was
Speaker 1: meant to be here. He's he's beyond special. And I
Speaker 1: mean obviously his mother, I'm must say that, but he
Speaker 1: was meant to be here. And I think that's I mean,
Speaker 1: don't you agree I agree to play? I mean there
Speaker 1: was you know when I looked at my part, you know,
Speaker 1: through that whole exercises, there walked through every red light,
Speaker 1: you know, and and it's nothing that you know, every
Speaker 1: warning sign. I remember, Yeah, she was sick on the
Speaker 1: wedding day, went down, took my dress off, and had
Speaker 1: to go put something else and they was sick. You
Speaker 1: mean like that she just carried me like food point
Speaker 1: is not like allergic to me, Like I can't believe
Speaker 1: I'd married that dude. No, it's and I remember looking
Speaker 1: at the mirror, uh, you know, my tuxedo on and
Speaker 1: getting my hair done, going, this isn't right. I mean,
Speaker 1: if I'm being honest with myself, like I I remember
Speaker 1: that day, like yesterday, that this just wasn't like all
Speaker 1: the red lights have gone with a double breast of jacket. No,
Speaker 1: you're right, I messed it up. But but again everything
Speaker 1: is I wouldn't go back and change one single thing.
Speaker 1: And that's the thing that I think the story with
Speaker 1: the messages is like I am so grateful for my
Speaker 1: life today and you look back on it can't be
Speaker 1: selectively grateful, right, Like I can't say I'm grateful for this,
Speaker 1: but I'm not grateful for that. So it's it's like
Speaker 1: it's like the painting, right, each one's broad stroke and
Speaker 1: it only works if everything's together. So you know, I've
Speaker 1: suffered from drug addiction, alcoholism. I've been sober twenty five years.
Speaker 1: You know, I had this terrible low one in my
Speaker 1: life with the divorce, and but I'm grateful for it all.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm grateful for this stuff I had to
Speaker 1: go through as a kid with my parents, you know,
Speaker 1: because if I didn't go through that, who knows if
Speaker 1: I would have changed actor's outcome. So so you know,
Speaker 1: it's I'm happy that it all happened. I'm grateful at all.
Speaker 1: And also we wouldn't have the lives we have today
Speaker 1: going through that or find And that's the thing that
Speaker 1: like when you see divorce couples who are remarried, have
Speaker 1: kids or moved on with their life, and yet they
Speaker 1: still hold on to that anger and that bitterness and
Speaker 1: all that other negative stuff towards their X and they
Speaker 1: can't just take a step back and go, wait a second,
Speaker 1: if this didn't happen, I didn't get there, I wouldn't
Speaker 1: have the life I have today. So it all, you know,
Speaker 1: it's sort of a just you know, just show up
Speaker 1: and it happens all for a reason. Can I ask
Speaker 1: you a question, do you and I think I already
Speaker 1: know the answer, but do you both genuinely wish the
Speaker 1: absolute best for each other? That's amazing. So that's amazing.
Speaker 1: That's except because how many people leave a divorce, enter
Speaker 1: a divorce and just have bitterness, resentment and want the
Speaker 1: other person to suffer the rest of their life or
Speaker 1: you know, and it's still that capacity. I applaud you.
Speaker 1: And not only that is you know Nikki uh so,
Speaker 1: I Naddy and my wife, um and I sort of
Speaker 1: had this tumultuous relationship because I was because I was
Speaker 1: a douche bag, right, I mean I I really wasn't.
Speaker 1: Although I had done all this work on myself, I
Speaker 1: just wasn't ready to commit again or to get married
Speaker 1: again because I still had this idea of marriage and
Speaker 1: parents my own marriage failure. I have done my work
Speaker 1: around the marriage part and how I have you marriage?
Speaker 1: Um and so, but Nadi wanted to get married, and
Speaker 1: she wanted to have all the things that I already
Speaker 1: had I wanted. I was just happy with her being
Speaker 1: my girlfriend for the rest of my life, right, and
Speaker 1: so she left for the last time before you you know,
Speaker 1: I got engaged. But it was Nikki, who you know,
Speaker 1: called me on my bs and she's like, you're not
Speaker 1: going to find a better woman that what are you doing?
Speaker 1: You're gonna end up old and lonely. You know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be revolving. Yeah, you're gonn allowing for the
Speaker 1: rest of your life. And it was her. You're you're
Speaker 1: letting the bath. You're letting a really good thing. Go
Speaker 1: step up and marry that woman. So Max wife, So yes,
Speaker 1: does she genuinely? Yeah? What a gift? Yeah? What advice
Speaker 1: would you have for people in our community? Are listeners
Speaker 1: that are in a divorce maybe you're in a bad
Speaker 1: relationship with this ex husband or wife would just want
Speaker 1: to open the mic to you guys too. To give
Speaker 1: any advice to our community as you see fit, you
Speaker 1: have to forgive yourself first. Can you unpack that a
Speaker 1: little more? You have to realize how much, no matter
Speaker 1: what happened in this marriage and who did what whatever,
Speaker 1: you had a part in it. A huge pardon it.
Speaker 1: You have to learn how to forgive yourself before you
Speaker 1: can forgive somebody else. Wow, So take ownership of your role. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And the other thing is, like, I think the message
Speaker 1: that we right to get across in the book and
Speaker 1: hopefully people can still hold no matter how you know,
Speaker 1: what the other person did or no matter what the
Speaker 1: situation is. Obviously, you know, let's make a caveat for
Speaker 1: some you know, physical abuse and you know some some
Speaker 1: uh nonstarters, right, but you know, uh, everybody who's gone
Speaker 1: is going through that bad divorce and hates their X
Speaker 1: and which is all that ill and everything. If I
Speaker 1: were to ask them when they lay in front of
Speaker 1: a bus for their kids, I'm almost certain that everybody
Speaker 1: would say yes, right, but you don't understand that what
Speaker 1: you're doing is basically stepping out of the way and
Speaker 1: letting your kids get hit by the bus, you know, unintentionally,
Speaker 1: but through all the all the resentment, all the anger,
Speaker 1: and so just take a step back from somebody who's
Speaker 1: been through it, right, who had to go through it
Speaker 1: is It is a tough place to be when your
Speaker 1: two parents, who you love equally are you know, talking
Speaker 1: about each other or whatever, and you have to sit
Speaker 1: there and you have to take it right and instead,
Speaker 1: if it's somebody else where to talk about your parents
Speaker 1: like that, you probably punched him in the face. You know,
Speaker 1: you're a hockey guy, you understand it, right, so, uh
Speaker 1: you know, so so you know you But but as
Speaker 1: a thirteen year old, I had to sit there and
Speaker 1: I had to take it, you know, and just swallow
Speaker 1: it because and well, you know, love my dad, I
Speaker 1: love my mom, and and they were parenting from a
Speaker 1: place of not parent of the year, but favorite parents, right,
Speaker 1: And it's just it's unintentional. They didn't mean to do it.
Speaker 1: You know, my mom read the book and she called
Speaker 1: me and she said she was sorry, you know, for everything,
Speaker 1: And I go, Mom, you know, you know, I told
Speaker 1: her the whole grateful thing. Maybe who I am, so
Speaker 1: I don't have to repeat those mistakes. And that's so
Speaker 1: so anybody out there just like put the kids first,
Speaker 1: like you signed up for, you did it. And I
Speaker 1: hope I don't want to sound preachy, but like I am,
Speaker 1: you're speaking, but I want to know what you're Nicki
Speaker 1: and Ben, what your take is on couples that are
Speaker 1: let's say, not happy. It's not a disaster, but they're
Speaker 1: in a marriage. It's not great and they know that,
Speaker 1: but they stayed together for the kids. This seems to
Speaker 1: be the eternal debate on whether that is a good
Speaker 1: idea or a terrible idea. I mean, my opinion is
Speaker 1: I think it's a terrible idea because we were like that,
Speaker 1: We weren't in a bad place. We weren't. I mean,
Speaker 1: we were like two ships passing in the night like
Speaker 1: we were friends. It wasn't like we didn't fight with it,
Speaker 1: just we thought sometimes but not not terribly, you know,
Speaker 1: but not get yelled at friend and you didn't deserve.
Speaker 1: But but what a beautiful thing I could say. That's
Speaker 1: my ex wife with her husband standing or not getting
Speaker 1: knocked out, right, you know. But it wasn't like right,
Speaker 1: I mean it's but I mean it is everybody. Everybody
Speaker 1: wants to be a princess, every little girl wants to
Speaker 1: be a princess. And Ryan shot across the battle of
Speaker 1: that cont Nikki. Don't just disregarding we, we all disregard him.
Speaker 1: So please good hair, Thank you good. I've been admiring
Speaker 1: your current husband Chads too. It's freaking look game recognizing game.
Speaker 1: This is an important question. So get back to my hair.
Speaker 1: H How are is eyebrows? That's what I really want? Nice,
Speaker 1: so shapely, perfectly? Enough about me, let's talk about me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't even I don't even question. Is it should
Speaker 1: couples that are moderately unhappy stay together for the kids
Speaker 1: or is that a bad idea? Like there's couples that
Speaker 1: are just like looking at their watch. Until the kids
Speaker 1: go to college and to see a dinner that are
Speaker 1: all on their phones and nobody's talking to each other. No,
Speaker 1: because the kids are gonna end up feeling it. They
Speaker 1: feel I mean, kids aren't stupid. They feel when there's
Speaker 1: not love between two people. They I mean, they get it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and they and I'm I'm like, we're not marriage counselors,
Speaker 1: or we don't pretend to be. You know, we don't
Speaker 1: have a bunch of initials behind our names. You know,
Speaker 1: we're just like to ordinary people who did an extra order,
Speaker 1: imagine how much can be if they were in love
Speaker 1: with somebody? Can I propose a question? Proposes before? But
Speaker 1: all right, when you get married, you say I do
Speaker 1: to the concept of forever. Get divorced, you say I
Speaker 1: do again to the concept of forever. Should there be
Speaker 1: a statute that says there is a limited amount of
Speaker 1: times you were permitted to say forever legally. Therefore, how
Speaker 1: many times you're permitted to get married and say I
Speaker 1: do forever? Because the way I'm seeing the concept of
Speaker 1: marriage in these modern times, it's sort of like forever
Speaker 1: for now, forever, forever temporarily. What is it. I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't understand, like you know, I understand getting divorced,
Speaker 1: getting remarried. I get it. Now what say I'm not
Speaker 1: saying it's going to happen. Let's see you guys get divorced.
Speaker 1: Are you gonna get married and say forever again? Do
Speaker 1: you think what kind of that? I'm asking a normal
Speaker 1: marriage question where people get married and remarried. I get
Speaker 1: it because so much like, alright, that went wrong? I
Speaker 1: think maybe I got married young, maybe something's went wrong.
Speaker 1: I needed some self correction, it was the wrong timing
Speaker 1: for us, blah blah blah blah blah. But should there
Speaker 1: be let's say, government intervention. I wonder what of how
Speaker 1: many times you're permitted to say for every when it
Speaker 1: comes to marriage. I think maybe two should be the permanential,
Speaker 1: and because otherwise three it's kind of like, oh, let's
Speaker 1: see this forever again thing, and they'll let people some
Speaker 1: people getting right four or five times six at some
Speaker 1: points again at something mother at that point, at some point,
Speaker 1: it's kind of like, well, when you were saying, well,
Speaker 1: I feel like I could have been dating forever just
Speaker 1: boyfriend girlfriend. Well, I'm not anti marriage at all, but
Speaker 1: I am a little bit anti five marriages and forever again,
Speaker 1: five times ever, and it's like doing the same thing over.
Speaker 1: I've seen a lot. I've seen a lot more relationships
Speaker 1: with friends of mine in Europe who don't get married
Speaker 1: that lasts way longer than a lot of the marriages
Speaker 1: I've seen with friends of mine in the United States.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying, and and you know the
Speaker 1: next I mean, there's a lot of knock against the millennials,
Speaker 1: right the quote unquote millennials, but they got it right.
Speaker 1: And then the reason the divorce rates going down is
Speaker 1: because they're waiting. They're not getting married four when I
Speaker 1: got married. Here's a question, what is because I believe
Speaker 1: the status that fifty of all marriages end in divorce,
Speaker 1: what is the percent of second marriages that end? I
Speaker 1: don't know, but I wonder if it's like last it's
Speaker 1: not the bit I don't know the answer that must be,
Speaker 1: but it's it's true, like he's gonna, he's gonna, let
Speaker 1: us know. Googling this wondering proposed law, I think a
Speaker 1: lot of people would hold on the second marriage wouldn't better.
Speaker 1: You like it, and you can't time from you and
Speaker 1: you've said some dumb things over the course of podcast,
Speaker 1: but because I was quoting you all those other times.
Speaker 1: All right, here we go. Fifty percent of first marriages,
Speaker 1: sixty seven percent of second, seventy four percent of third marriages,
Speaker 1: and in divorce. Second marriages have difficulty for a number
Speaker 1: of reasons. See once the person. Once a person discovers
Speaker 1: that he or she can manage divorce, they are less
Speaker 1: scared of going through it again. It makes sense, right,
Speaker 1: because it's it's and then you're sitting up. But you're
Speaker 1: sitting up at the altar the third time. You're like, hey,
Speaker 1: if this doesn't work, I've gotten rid of two more.
Speaker 1: It's an easy thing you do, right, And you're thinking
Speaker 1: it's just a car wash, and you're just sometimes people
Speaker 1: get married the second time to not be alone, right,
Speaker 1: short suit and that and that doesn't last very long. Um, well,
Speaker 1: you guys are as four or five weddings in your
Speaker 1: first week recycling White Peter. Okay, let's talk about the book.
Speaker 1: The book is called Our Happy Divorce, How Ending our
Speaker 1: marriage brought us together? Um, what can people find in
Speaker 1: this book? And then where can they find this book?
Speaker 1: Your story? Yeah, it's basically our story, and we sort
Speaker 1: of took a attack of this sort of if you've
Speaker 1: ever watched the show The Affairs where we alternate chapters
Speaker 1: and it's a lot of it's around like the coffee
Speaker 1: shop meeting, it would be my perspective and what I
Speaker 1: did before. And then then Nikki kind of chimes in
Speaker 1: on what she was expecting, what she was feeling when
Speaker 1: I called her and asked her for coffee. Um, and
Speaker 1: then the beautiful thing is, look, this thing is four
Speaker 1: years in the making, right we start. I got her convinced.
Speaker 1: I convinced her to write this book four years in
Speaker 1: the making, and plenty of times I told him to stop.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean she she could. There was those
Speaker 1: of us who might buy one. You didn't put it
Speaker 1: up your but we would get in a fight, and
Speaker 1: she said, I'm not doing your f and book and
Speaker 1: you can shove it up you know where. So as
Speaker 1: soon as it got out of you know where, we
Speaker 1: finally wrote it. And then at that time, actually the
Speaker 1: relationship gotten better and the modern family sort of evolved.
Speaker 1: So we brought Chad and uh not into it, and
Speaker 1: they wrote a chapter two and so they have a
Speaker 1: chapter and then Asher put the ball on it at
Speaker 1: the end, which just a beauty And actually it is
Speaker 1: his essay, uh that he wrote, I'm crying what guys,
Speaker 1: cherryot come I used to cry that. Come on? He
Speaker 1: wrote on our family thank you you could say so
Speaker 1: he wrote it was about people you admire and he
Speaker 1: or person that your meire and so he wrote his
Speaker 1: unevoked you know, we didn't convince him to do it.
Speaker 1: He wrote it on his own. And he said his
Speaker 1: parents for what they did so so cool. He was
Speaker 1: like my dad's first attorney. So where can people find
Speaker 1: the book? When does the book come out? We can
Speaker 1: pre order on Amazon. Uh, it's called Our Happy Divorce
Speaker 1: or Mascot books dot Com under our Happy Divorce. And
Speaker 1: it's probably easier because everybody does the prime and uh,
Speaker 1: you know social media everything in Amazon are Happy Divorce
Speaker 1: dot Com. Because what we're really trying to do is
Speaker 1: this isn't about us. You know, we understand, we're humble
Speaker 1: enough to realize that we're not the only people in
Speaker 1: this world that are doing the thing right. But hopefully,
Speaker 1: and and and what I see today on social media
Speaker 1: is that there there are plenty of people doing this.
Speaker 1: So let's let's let's try to change the conversation. Well,
Speaker 1: let's try to you know, we know that our way
Speaker 1: wasn't the only way. Like you know, there are people
Speaker 1: who done did it other ways, but they evolved approach
Speaker 1: to it. Yeah, I mean it's not like we understand,
Speaker 1: we're not experts and that not not everybody's gonna end up.
Speaker 1: And also reality and everybody's gonna end up going to
Speaker 1: Africa with their ex wife for you know, hang out,
Speaker 1: go to UFCS with her husband, fights with her husband,
Speaker 1: and you know, Nadia and Nikki are best friends. You know,
Speaker 1: they call each other. It started off as ex wife
Speaker 1: call each other ex wife, then evolved his sister wives
Speaker 1: and now they just call each other wives. You know.
Speaker 1: So we know that not everybody's gonna end up like that,
Speaker 1: but there are different degrees of that. And as long
Speaker 1: as you can put the kids first, and you can
Speaker 1: put all your nonsense and check your ego and all
Speaker 1: that other stuff, put on your big boy pants, you
Speaker 1: know it's time. You know, thank you guys so much.
Speaker 1: Anything to add now Van seems to take over the
Speaker 1: mic times it's hard to get a word and edge
Speaker 1: with Ben never saw Mike I didn't like no. I
Speaker 1: wrote a song for this particularly. I can't see why
Speaker 1: you two didn't work out alright, Thank you both so much.
Speaker 1: The book is called Our Happy Divorce by Nikki to
Speaker 1: Bartolo and Benjamin health fond. Thank you guys so much
Speaker 1: for sharing your thank you. Thank you Wow, that was awesome,
Speaker 1: Nicki and ben what a what an evolution? What what
Speaker 1: a the grace and poised to have a happy divorce?
Speaker 1: Pick up the book Our Happy Divorce even hanging with
Speaker 1: the new husband and the new husband here to Chad here.
Speaker 1: I don't know that I could have ever get if
Speaker 1: I was in that situation. Hopefully I'm not, but ever
Speaker 1: get to that. So kudos to those two. Um, anybody
Speaker 1: listening in our in our community. That is an exceptional
Speaker 1: model for peace, peaceful agreement after divorce. And you brought
Speaker 1: up something during their interview that I wanted to ask
Speaker 1: all of you about that I thought was kind of interesting.
Speaker 1: You said you are not in touch with any of
Speaker 1: your exes. I don't have any excess amy, he has
Speaker 1: zero history. Because I thought I'm in touch with I
Speaker 1: thought you're gonna so I don't think I have Let's
Speaker 1: say I have let's say have ten and the couple
Speaker 1: that I don't talk to on a regular basis, it
Speaker 1: kills me that I don't talk to them. I don't know.
Speaker 1: That's why I wanted to talk to you guys about it.
Speaker 1: And the ex is that I am close with. I
Speaker 1: probably talked to you every week, maybe once a month.
Speaker 1: Handled your contact with all your excess? No issue? So
Speaker 1: that's why I wanted to ask you guys, like, are
Speaker 1: you sure there's no issue? Positive? Pause a tip positive?
Speaker 1: So she's so I want to do all of you
Speaker 1: not But I'm not married, So I wanted to see
Speaker 1: you do not keep in touch with any excess. I
Speaker 1: think because the fact that you're not married means that,
Speaker 1: of course, like you're not date, you're not in a
Speaker 1: relationship too, So who's who? Thank you? Y, that's not true.
Speaker 1: Who's gonna gets in a relationship? Not in a relationship.
Speaker 1: If I'm in a relationship, I still talk to the excess.
Speaker 1: I've been in many relationships where I'm still talking to excess.
Speaker 1: So how dare you? But second of all, you have
Speaker 1: you ever been in a relationship? Have you ever been
Speaker 1: a relationship that made you feel like you just didn't
Speaker 1: want to talk to any of your other exes, and
Speaker 1: since you haven't been in a relationship that made you
Speaker 1: not want to talk to any of them, was that,
Speaker 1: in essence, your heart telling you that you weren't being fulfilled? No, okay,
Speaker 1: great question, Thank you. I believe that you. And again,
Speaker 1: I'm not married to all the married people can like
Speaker 1: yell at me, but I feel super fulfilled in a
Speaker 1: relationship and I am like all in everything and I'm
Speaker 1: super happy. But I think the rest of my life
Speaker 1: is also fulfills me too, and I'm not willing to
Speaker 1: no matter how much I love someone, I'm still those
Speaker 1: friendships are really important to me, really, and I don't
Speaker 1: feel bad about that. I'm I'm friends Like my wife
Speaker 1: and I we both were both friends with our ex
Speaker 1: is like on Facebook and stuff, and like I don't
Speaker 1: call him and talk every week at all, but she doesn't, like,
Speaker 1: do you the same? But we're friends with him on Facebook?
Speaker 1: Like it doesn't. I'm extremely secure in our relationship. Listen,
Speaker 1: if if one of us wanted to be with one
Speaker 1: of them, then we would have been. So I have
Speaker 1: no problem keeping a you know, a like a friendship
Speaker 1: like that open. I don't think there's anything wrong. You
Speaker 1: ever bought your wife's acts a plot of land five
Speaker 1: houses down and I was gonna I've been married so long.
Speaker 1: I don't even know who my ex is. It's actually
Speaker 1: not joking, like, do you have any I don't think so.
Speaker 1: I don't know where they are, so I I can't
Speaker 1: like so I would say, I would say, like, and
Speaker 1: I'm just well, maybe people can email us men at
Speaker 1: iHeart Radio because I'm so curious about this. So, especially
Speaker 1: when I'm having a hard time in a relationship, I
Speaker 1: really do lean on those x is for advice, and
Speaker 1: a lot of people are like about that. Maybe that's
Speaker 1: why you always call me and you're like, this is
Speaker 1: going on in my life. I'm a tragic mass because
Speaker 1: you've got ten exes in your life, giving you ten
Speaker 1: different Back to the Amy Show, but I just wanted
Speaker 1: to I think those are the conversations you need to
Speaker 1: be having with your current boyfriend, calling your ten x
Speaker 1: is and asking their advice on what you should say
Speaker 1: to your current boyfriend. You need to have the conversation
Speaker 1: directly with that person, and that's the route I think
Speaker 1: you should call me. I'll tell you what to say.
Speaker 1: That's also an option. I don't I can't even honestly,
Speaker 1: I can't even understand or fathom this. And this is
Speaker 1: just me. This isn't saying this is right or wrong.
Speaker 1: And I'm not giving advice to anybody but myself. I
Speaker 1: don't feel like having that be a current part of
Speaker 1: my life anymore while I'm married to my wife. I
Speaker 1: don't see value in it. That's just me, and that's
Speaker 1: that's She's not requested that. She hasn't said you can't
Speaker 1: talk to anybody. That's just me personally. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: it's interesting conversation. But you do have female friends. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I have female friends. That's actually one thing that I
Speaker 1: love about being married is that my friendships with with
Speaker 1: females has grown immensely. Because sometimes I would be friends
Speaker 1: with a girl and she would think that I was
Speaker 1: interested in her, and then it would get awkward or
Speaker 1: something in her. But now that i'm may read, everybody
Speaker 1: knows that I'm married. I love my wife, and so
Speaker 1: my friendships with women, with women in my life, like
Speaker 1: friends in my life, have blossomed well. And I'm sure
Speaker 1: you could probably be more open to them in having
Speaker 1: whatever you're talking about, you know, and because you're already
Speaker 1: securing your relationship with your wife, makes that relationship more
Speaker 1: valuable and more open. Ryan, do you have friends that
Speaker 1: are women other than me? He's in a hair club.
Speaker 1: I'm not allowed. Of course I didn't. Yeah, I'm not allowed.
Speaker 1: But the salon all the time. I get me with
Speaker 1: this man here with those dryers over your head, stick
Speaker 1: to box jumps and let the comedy come from us
Speaker 1: where No. I actually, as much as I hate to
Speaker 1: admit it, I agree with Brooks in the sense that
Speaker 1: I my X before my wife, that chapter was that chapter,
Speaker 1: and when I met my wife it was I didn't
Speaker 1: want there to be any potential sign of disrespect by
Speaker 1: me continuing to speak to someone so as to convey
Speaker 1: that I'm not all in on this. And by the way,
Speaker 1: what also what also comes into play here is how
Speaker 1: things ended with your ex if it if it ended amicably,
Speaker 1: and it was a mutual thing. In my ex's case,
Speaker 1: it did not amicably, So it was a no brainer.
Speaker 1: I was not going to continue a conversation. So here's
Speaker 1: my question on that. And maybe Gavin has an opinion
Speaker 1: because he seems to take my side a lot. So
Speaker 1: I literally was in love with someone for a year,
Speaker 1: maybe even little more. Every day. They were my number
Speaker 1: one top priority every day everything. But I still talked
Speaker 1: to my ex who I'm super close with, all the time.
Speaker 1: I wasn't attracted to him. I wasn't like anything attraction
Speaker 1: off like that like a switch. Interesting question. I can
Speaker 1: only be attracted to one person at a time, and
Speaker 1: when I'm into that one person, it's like I don't
Speaker 1: see anybody else. And then when it's when that ends
Speaker 1: or whatever, and it's someone else, then it's them. And
Speaker 1: the other day even was like looking at this someone
Speaker 1: I used to think, was like I was so attracted
Speaker 1: to him, I was like, could I just be attracted
Speaker 1: to him again? Can I just be attracted to him again?
Speaker 1: So let me ask you this question very simply, why
Speaker 1: do you need to have contact with your exes? What
Speaker 1: purpose in your life does that fulfill? I'm not saying
Speaker 1: it's wrong, just asking why. Tons I mean I have
Speaker 1: when I talked to all the time, work stuff, friendship,
Speaker 1: advice can tap into friendship. This is my new shot question.
Speaker 1: What constitutes an ex Exactly? How much time are you
Speaker 1: with them for it to be considered legitimate enough to
Speaker 1: keep in touch? With an X how much time years?
Speaker 1: But I want to say like a month, a little
Speaker 1: bit of a it wasn't a mic drop, it was
Speaker 1: a good job. Brother. Maybe you're still in the hot seat.
Speaker 1: Get that mike back. So his question is very valid,
Speaker 1: like what constitutes an X? How much time did you
Speaker 1: have to date? And then how much time apart I
Speaker 1: need to I mean, I think like a true X,
Speaker 1: if you're saying that's my ex girlfriend or boyfriend, I
Speaker 1: think that definitely has to be one year, you know,
Speaker 1: I think six months. You could do that also, but
Speaker 1: then it's like six months, isn't you know it's your
Speaker 1: X but not an x X. I think four if
Speaker 1: it includes a holiday season, but maybe eight if you're
Speaker 1: not hitting any real holidays. I always counted if if
Speaker 1: we just brushed our hands against each other, that was
Speaker 1: I have a very hard time, Okay, I canna answer
Speaker 1: your question, you guys. I have a hard time if
Speaker 1: someone comes into my life and they're important, whatever that means,
Speaker 1: they're important in some way letting that go. I almost
Speaker 1: cannot do it. Well. See, I think you're a very
Speaker 1: loyal person. Amy's a very loyal person. Friendship and all
Speaker 1: of that. So I I understand what you're saying. You're
Speaker 1: you're you know, you don't just like have a bunch
Speaker 1: of friends that you're not loyalty. So when you have
Speaker 1: an X, I understand you wanting to keep them in
Speaker 1: your life because they're still important to you, just because
Speaker 1: you've moved on, whether it be being attracted to them
Speaker 1: or whatever, emotionally or physically. I can see why you
Speaker 1: still want them. I can't do it. It's like letting
Speaker 1: that person go is just have you have has your
Speaker 1: current or past boyfriends ever brought that up and say,
Speaker 1: I think it's a little weird amy that you're talking
Speaker 1: to that guy that you dated for six months. Have
Speaker 1: any of the ex still happens? Weird that you're contacting
Speaker 1: them while you're dating somebody because I still have feelings
Speaker 1: about the girlfriend or something like they're maybe they're married
Speaker 1: and they're like there their spouses, Like why is this
Speaker 1: ex still contact? Did you ever get an email that
Speaker 1: was like, hey, stop talking to my boyfriend. Never just
Speaker 1: said don't come to this pediatrician anymore? This is really
Speaker 1: do you always tell your current boyfriend how much? Like
Speaker 1: truly the questions truly how much you do talk to
Speaker 1: your axes or do you keep that from him? I
Speaker 1: don't keep anything from like if I'm dating someone, I
Speaker 1: don't keep anything. I might not like volunteer so much
Speaker 1: because I can be a little bit of like too much,
Speaker 1: too fast, you know what I mean. So I try
Speaker 1: to like chill a little nice to me. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: I have ten axes, but they're not an issue. So
Speaker 1: you will come you will come home, and you're like
Speaker 1: I talked to Ricky, Danny and Bobby today and they
Speaker 1: all said that I was writing they don't do that.
Speaker 1: Maybe can I ask you this question? This is serious question, Um,
Speaker 1: do you believe that in your life you have enough
Speaker 1: space for all of these people to have them? You
Speaker 1: really do have to have a love of your life
Speaker 1: and then ten even just call it five, but ten ten,
Speaker 1: it's probably it's like three. Let's three. But because I
Speaker 1: don't believe that I have, I believe in my life
Speaker 1: I only have a certain amount of space. I actually
Speaker 1: respect that, but totally disagree with it, because that's like
Speaker 1: saying Dmitri only has love for three kids. He has four,
Speaker 1: and he loves them all the same. Your heart just
Speaker 1: like grows. He just loves each one a little less.
Speaker 1: That's how you make me. No, that's not the issue.
Speaker 1: I have the space and the love knowing you. I
Speaker 1: see that you have space for more people. You have
Speaker 1: a capacity to handle more people in your life and
Speaker 1: be engaged in those relationships than I do. When I
Speaker 1: meet somebody or have somebody that makes an impact or
Speaker 1: they're important and I lose them, that whole is so brutal. Why,
Speaker 1: I don't know, is it? Do you feel like you failed? Yes,
Speaker 1: you didn't. Though sometimes sometimes things are just single s
Speaker 1: like they're serving for a period of time and then
Speaker 1: you move on to another period. I mean, I hear
Speaker 1: people say that I cannot handle that. M you want
Speaker 1: a pet Buddy. He has a dog named Buddy in
Speaker 1: the studio. I know I can like handle it and
Speaker 1: like like I don't get better, but yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: like guts me. I actually admire that because I feel like,
Speaker 1: because I feel like this is there's things that happened
Speaker 1: for a reason, and even if like for example, so
Speaker 1: let's say I'm in love with somebody and then it changes,
Speaker 1: it doesn't work out how I originally wanted it. I'll
Speaker 1: do everything I can because I still think that person
Speaker 1: came to me for a reason. So even if it's like, okay,
Speaker 1: I have to like I hate this word, but like
Speaker 1: pivot the relationship to being just friends. I will do
Speaker 1: that because the person is more important to me than
Speaker 1: what I wanted from it. Do you also believe in
Speaker 1: just letting go? No, like just also just love, Like
Speaker 1: sometimes it needs to be a mindset. No, I didn't
Speaker 1: say past now I was gonna say I think one
Speaker 1: one thing, Amy, Like, do you ever feel like you're
Speaker 1: investing too much in yourself too quickly, too early in
Speaker 1: in any relationship. I mean, like, I know you love
Speaker 1: to have all these people in your life, whether it's
Speaker 1: whether it's physical or there's attraction or not an attraction,
Speaker 1: but like you're so far invested into Brooks's point. I
Speaker 1: think it's a good quality that you have, but I
Speaker 1: think it's sometimes you get put into this spot or
Speaker 1: you're putting yourself into the spot where you get hurt,
Speaker 1: you know, And I think that you invest so much
Speaker 1: into that person or relationship that whether it happens after
Speaker 1: six months, a year, or like a week and a half,
Speaker 1: in time, you're walking away from that, are pivoting and
Speaker 1: you're like completely shattered. And but I don't think she
Speaker 1: has to change that because I'd rather have the hurt.
Speaker 1: That's that's happen. Eventually, Eventually she will give because look,
Speaker 1: if she dials that back how much she gives to people,
Speaker 1: then she may miss the person that's the correct person
Speaker 1: to receive that. She'll say, I gotta not give so much,
Speaker 1: and it's some guy that really needs that much or
Speaker 1: wants that much will be like, oh, well, she you know,
Speaker 1: and then it's not going to connect there. I guess
Speaker 1: what I'm saying also is like treading lightly into a relationship,
Speaker 1: you know, and not just jumping full bore into it.
Speaker 1: It's not her personality type, Yes it's not. I'm still
Speaker 1: treading around with all of you guys, except maybe Dmitri
Speaker 1: where he and I, you know, I mean we're pretty close.
Speaker 1: But he seemed very direct when you asked to take
Speaker 1: a shower with me. When was that, dude, I don't remember,
Speaker 1: but it was down at the dog or is that
Speaker 1: what you maybe dreamt of wanted to happen? My speedo
Speaker 1: not to just talk about I know, I want to
Speaker 1: talk about Rick and av and shower, but I think
Speaker 1: about Gavin a lot because I think that Gavin, because
Speaker 1: she has his music, he has that outlet and that
Speaker 1: connection with that. So the sometimes I think that people
Speaker 1: really crave that, and I feel jealous of Gavin because
Speaker 1: he has that that passion in that connection and that
Speaker 1: puss him up, whereas like sometimes I'm looking for that
Speaker 1: with someone else. Let's go to karaoke night. We need
Speaker 1: to carry over. I love it, Hotel California. Yeah, let's
Speaker 1: go karaoke with a rock star. That's why don't we
Speaker 1: just play hockey while we sports cars and shoot guns.
Speaker 1: So new mission, guys. We're also going to do a
Speaker 1: speed dating in Vegas for Amy. The likelihood of that
Speaker 1: is so much less than the likelihood of Gavin doing it.
Speaker 1: So I'm basically saying he that will never happen. A
Speaker 1: chance can happen in here. I don't think we should
Speaker 1: be kids. You'll cry after everybody, after each one. I
Speaker 1: looktracted to people all the time, and it's like, it's
Speaker 1: so rare. It's so rare when I have that connection,
Speaker 1: and I think that's why I like hold onto it.
Speaker 1: We'll just telling me listen, good news, bad news. She's
Speaker 1: not picking you, but you are now considered an X
Speaker 1: and she will keep in touch forever past I'd like
Speaker 1: to hear what our listeners think on this to hurry, yeah,
Speaker 1: send this email. Because I'm on the other side, I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 1: that was a chapter of my life. It served me.
Speaker 1: It got me to where I am now moving on,
Speaker 1: you know, but you still have I love that you're
Speaker 1: like that because I am literally the opposite. It's like,
Speaker 1: there's a reason for this. I gotta fix this. I
Speaker 1: gotta fix this. What can I do? What can I do?
Speaker 1: I gotta fix this. Do you think in two months
Speaker 1: I can fix this? Maybe in six months, in a year,
Speaker 1: do you think maybe in five years? Like? Oh, does
Speaker 1: anybody ever get the feeling that if this podcast ever ends,
Speaker 1: Brooks will never talk to any of us. They'll just
Speaker 1: cut us out of his life. No, brother, come on, man,
Speaker 1: I talked to my I talked to my old teammates.
Speaker 1: Brooks and I FaceTime like every Thursday. I don't think
Speaker 1: it'd be the worst thing in the world. I knew
Speaker 1: he was going to come in with something over there,
Speaker 1: and I was gonna say, just just Ryan. I don't
Speaker 1: think it'd be the worst thing in the world. All
Speaker 1: Ryan um, well, a little free flow send us, send
Speaker 1: us what you think on this topic, men at iHeart
Speaker 1: radio dot com or on Instagram How Men Think Podcast.
Speaker 1: Would you love to hear what you think? And if
Speaker 1: anybody has any advice for Amy, how can we help
Speaker 1: Amy therapists new number because clearly I need some help. Well,
Speaker 1: you have five unqualified therapists in here trying their heart
Speaker 1: and an extra microphone. That's it for this episode, guys.
Speaker 1: Thanks job, great job, gentlemen at a blast today, A
Speaker 1: lot of smiles, a lot of laughs. Thank you guys
Speaker 1: for listening at home, in your vehicle, wherever you're at.
Speaker 1: Till next time. Here comes the tagline, Brooks deliver no
Speaker 1: never you go, buddy, Take care of one another, love
Speaker 1: one another, and we'll see you right back here next
Speaker 1: week for another episode of How Men Think. Ryan Right hey, guys,
Speaker 1: it's Brooks and one last thing before we let you go.
Speaker 1: If you like today's episode, we would love to get
Speaker 1: a five star review from you on iTunes and if
Speaker 1: you could possibly share it with a friend, that would
Speaker 1: be amazing as well. We always look forward to your questions,
Speaker 1: comments or insights, so you can send us an email
Speaker 1: at men at i heeart Radio dot com, and also
Speaker 1: follow along with us on Instagram at how Men Think
Speaker 1: Podcast