Speaker 1: We're back. I'm Drew mcarry and I'm David Roth and
Speaker 1: coming in September a new site we have built together
Speaker 1: called defect or Defector, and we're gonna have a new
Speaker 1: podcast to go with it, this very podcast which has
Speaker 1: the name The Distraction. It's out right now, avail ever.
Speaker 1: Rescue your podcast at Stitcher, Spotify, Apple, Go listen right
Speaker 1: now to The Distraction everywhere. It's out right now. Go
Speaker 1: listen to see by your dead ass baby. The vows
Speaker 1: be hard to live by every day, but yours will
Speaker 1: pop though. It was not a dry eye in the house,
Speaker 1: and I think I need to redo all my I dudes,
Speaker 1: what I need to redo as dead as baby. Hey,
Speaker 1: I'm Cadine and we're the Ellis. You may know us
Speaker 1: were posting funny videos without boys and reading each other
Speaker 1: publicly as a form of therapy. Wait, I'm making me
Speaker 1: derby most days. And one more important thing to mention,
Speaker 1: we're married, Yes, sir, we are. We created this podcast
Speaker 1: to open dialogue about some of the live's most taboo
Speaker 1: topics most folks don't want to talk about through the
Speaker 1: lens of a millennium married couple. Dead ass is a
Speaker 1: term that we say every day where we say dead ass,
Speaker 1: we're actually saying facts one, the truth, the whole truth,
Speaker 1: and nothing but the truth. We're about to take pillows
Speaker 1: off to a whole new levels. Starts now. So July three,
Speaker 1: two thousand and ten, I was sitting in my room
Speaker 1: and I was like, I gotta commit to forever for
Speaker 1: this woman. So I was like, you know what, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna just go up there and do what I do.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna just wing it. I'm gonna go up there
Speaker 1: that day, just wing it when it came time for vows,
Speaker 1: and then I called my brother right, and my brother
Speaker 1: I was like, yo, b I'm good, Like I could talk,
Speaker 1: I talk, I can go up there and just winging
Speaker 1: my vows right, And he was like, no, that's a
Speaker 1: long ass tom Be. I was like, yeah it is.
Speaker 1: It is a long time. So he said, you think
Speaker 1: you might want to take ten minutes and write some
Speaker 1: fucking fowls. So I was like, all right, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: do that. I sat down, I started writing, and I
Speaker 1: had to change my paper so many times because my tears.
Speaker 1: I kept going on to the paper. I'm serious, because
Speaker 1: I really started to think about how much I was
Speaker 1: in love with someone, and then I started thinking about
Speaker 1: the fact that I can't change my mind after tomorrow.
Speaker 1: It was scary, but it was also like heartwarming here
Speaker 1: and now I promised to love faithfully fun I need
Speaker 1: right now. I love you, girl, girl, girl, You're lucky.
Speaker 1: We got guests because we have guests. Dim the lights.
Speaker 1: So listen, people, you've probably heard about the laugh already.
Speaker 1: The guests are this guy laughed a couple of times,
Speaker 1: having a good time. We were supposed to bet about
Speaker 1: what's happening this week and then introduced the guests, but
Speaker 1: he introduced himselves last. Listen. No, so we're excited to
Speaker 1: have with us today. Mr and Mrs keV on stage.
Speaker 1: Y'all know them as Kevin Melissa from The Love Hour.
Speaker 1: You guys have been asking me for about a year
Speaker 1: when y'all going to get with Kevin dead has need
Speaker 1: to get with the Love Hour like you've been asking in.
Speaker 1: It's here now and it's the first of len guys.
Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you. Welcome to Los Angeles, Gas Prices.
Speaker 1: Ain't who woke? That was not over. I saw your
Speaker 1: story and I was crying. He parked his car and
Speaker 1: he's like I'm not going to nowhere of it. I'll
Speaker 1: stay right here before I buy gas. That I was mad.
Speaker 1: I was so mad. I've never seen the Vale drive
Speaker 1: so slow in my life. And I'm just like, babe,
Speaker 1: you can you can go a little fat here five
Speaker 1: And He's just like, I put my audible on my book.
Speaker 1: My book would take my audable and I was just
Speaker 1: listening to my books driving twenty four months hour not
Speaker 1: people was honking, looking down trying. I was like, we
Speaker 1: need to find another way. So y'all need to show
Speaker 1: us the way. What is the way out here? With gas? Guys,
Speaker 1: it's can pray. That's how I gonna get through long?
Speaker 1: How do it? So if y'all remember, Kevin Melissa were
Speaker 1: with us at Fest. So for those of you who
Speaker 1: were lucky enough to be there for our live show,
Speaker 1: they were on stage. It was a angela Ge and
Speaker 1: Shrews Jackson. Don't say his name right, I was my
Speaker 1: bad bro. You know it's never love but anyway, alright,
Speaker 1: so you'll know all have a good love story, right, okay,
Speaker 1: So tell me about your love story. I met Melissa
Speaker 1: on the first day of school in junior year. Mrs
Speaker 1: Chapman's US history class teach his name. Yes, I remember
Speaker 1: this like it was Yes, it was a life changing
Speaker 1: moment for me. And I remember like, man, I gotta
Speaker 1: I gotta holler at this girl. I have to. So
Speaker 1: as I'm looking at her and thinking like what am
Speaker 1: I gonna approach? How am I gonna approach her, this
Speaker 1: dude taps me on the shoulder and has a note
Speaker 1: and he's like, can you hand this to her? And
Speaker 1: it's a letter to Melissa, And I'm like, god, damn,
Speaker 1: this dude beat me to the punch. So I handed
Speaker 1: the person has the toss, she opens it, looks at
Speaker 1: it for a second, closes it, puts it down, and
Speaker 1: doesn't even look at the dude. I'm like, so you're
Speaker 1: telling me there's a chance. Like from that moment, I'm like, okay,
Speaker 1: she ain't gonna play no games. So we live in
Speaker 1: the same neighborhood, around the block from each other, brote
Speaker 1: this same bus. I mean I was on her early,
Speaker 1: but she was not trying to have it because I
Speaker 1: was trying to I was talking to various various girls.
Speaker 1: I mean, come on, you see it. Uh. So I
Speaker 1: remember like holing at her and she was like. She
Speaker 1: was like, nah, I tell my friends how her. She's
Speaker 1: like nah. She was like, you're a fisherman. You out
Speaker 1: here trying to get all these girls ain't gonna be me.
Speaker 1: So then I was like, I let these girls go.
Speaker 1: I let this girl's girl. Bro. I don't even need him.
Speaker 1: So I stopped talking to everybody I was talking to,
Speaker 1: and by the grace of God, I asked to be
Speaker 1: my girlfriend. She wasn't happening, and her cousin Tony was like, man,
Speaker 1: come on this man, give him a chance. Man k
Speaker 1: my boy because he used to hoop together. We used
Speaker 1: to share clothes and stuff, and he was like, man,
Speaker 1: give Kevi a chance. She was like okay. She grabbed
Speaker 1: my hands. Okay, Tony, you see we will I'll date him. Okay,
Speaker 1: are you happy? Then she threw my hand and that
Speaker 1: was how we started dating. She was telling her cousin, fine,
Speaker 1: I will marry you. Are you happy? No, damn? She
Speaker 1: was against is how we started there. And I was like,
Speaker 1: I'll take it. I was taken. I'll make the best
Speaker 1: out of this. Uh, And then we That was fifteen
Speaker 1: two thousand when she grabbed my hand aggressively and then
Speaker 1: through it and I never let it go. Oh my god, Cathy,
Speaker 1: that he that's what's up. That's amazing. I was in
Speaker 1: love with her from the moment I met her. She
Speaker 1: wasn't in love with me for for a lot longer.
Speaker 1: Oh so this was It was like the first because
Speaker 1: because I knew now, I felt couldn't get up. I
Speaker 1: have no beard, no nothing bear, no beard, no bed.
Speaker 1: But he was swimming though. Were the original ways? Were
Speaker 1: the original bears? No? Two three sixty three sixty No
Speaker 1: do large decision? God, man, I you don't even gotta
Speaker 1: worry about She couldn't. She couldn't help herself. That's all
Speaker 1: I saw, because then it was just like the head
Speaker 1: and then it's like little body. And I wasn't looking
Speaker 1: potential Christians. I was like, he made it to the league.
Speaker 1: People used to be like, oh, yeah, she's because he's
Speaker 1: going to the league. I was like, you think I
Speaker 1: had the forest had to see him game to go
Speaker 1: to anybody's league. You had this paper. This was me
Speaker 1: in college like this look like a potspoon, did you
Speaker 1: guys lead? We actually went to the same elementary school
Speaker 1: and we cased cats throughout. We kept just like weaving weaving.
Speaker 1: We went to rival high schools and then finally started
Speaker 1: dating um in college. Oh my goodness, on each other
Speaker 1: pretty long time. But we're talking about vows and it's
Speaker 1: great to have you guys, because you guys have been married.
Speaker 1: You have two beautiful boys. And I always want to
Speaker 1: ask other married men, like did you write your vows?
Speaker 1: Or did you win it? Because I know you you
Speaker 1: good off the cuff, like me, I didn't anything after thee.
Speaker 1: I feel like we got a lot of we were
Speaker 1: One of the things about being married so long ago
Speaker 1: is people weren't doing all the cool stuff, all the
Speaker 1: other ways we went to. It was like it was
Speaker 1: like cookie cutter. I didn't know you could even do
Speaker 1: you to have hashtags now, I'm like, man, we didn't
Speaker 1: get to do none of that stuff. You got married
Speaker 1: two thousand three four four is there? I could tell
Speaker 1: you I've been mad a long time. You don't even
Speaker 1: remember when y'all got two thousand four because our wedding,
Speaker 1: our wedding program has the wrong date on it realized
Speaker 1: that to like this year we were moving some stuff around.
Speaker 1: We're like, man, we never noticed this fifteen years. It
Speaker 1: was two thousand four years ago, fifteen years ago out.
Speaker 1: So is there anything that you both wish you prepared
Speaker 1: for before marriage, like after the fact, now that you are,
Speaker 1: you're like, man, if I had known that, I would
Speaker 1: have done X y man, there's a lot everything I
Speaker 1: feel like. So getting married so young. People always talk
Speaker 1: about how great that is, how cute that is, and
Speaker 1: all that stuff. But it's also the drawback of it
Speaker 1: is you are not fully developed like we were twenty
Speaker 1: one and twenty Yeah, super young. We're fully in love,
Speaker 1: but we didn't, Like, you don't even know that much
Speaker 1: about yourself at that age. So it's not that I
Speaker 1: would have, like, um, gotten married later. I wouldn't have
Speaker 1: been earlier. I actually pitch pitched to Melissa, let's do
Speaker 1: this now come out. You would have got married earlier.
Speaker 1: Things you show side, what do you think about tomorrow?
Speaker 1: You know, because the financial aid for married people was
Speaker 1: out of this world, and I was like, bro, we're
Speaker 1: gonna be good. Let's just come on a plane. When
Speaker 1: that first financially chicked in, kicked in post marriage, like
Speaker 1: we should have been with it a long time ago.
Speaker 1: You're talking about where I gotta get to know we
Speaker 1: could do all that together. Cut these loans down. So ladies,
Speaker 1: let me ask you all a question. You gotta say
Speaker 1: vows too. You know you heard I wrote my down
Speaker 1: cried Kevi wing did because keV just be off the
Speaker 1: top booth. How did y'all do y'all vows? You know?
Speaker 1: I was kind of like you. I sat, you know,
Speaker 1: in the wedding planning and there's like a ton of
Speaker 1: things going on. That was actually one of the last
Speaker 1: things I did, and not that it wasn't of importance.
Speaker 1: The last thing is the vows. She was like, man,
Speaker 1: I got one more, you know, it got the flowers,
Speaker 1: who got the DJs? There's a lot of logistics, so
Speaker 1: but on my to do list it's there. It was.
Speaker 1: There was the vows. And I sat the night before
Speaker 1: and I did the same thing. I was kind of
Speaker 1: just like ripping. It didn't sound good. I didn't know.
Speaker 1: I think I was so young too that I didn't
Speaker 1: know what was supposed to sound right. And my thing,
Speaker 1: the thing that I did wrong, I was writing it
Speaker 1: thinking about how it would sound to other people and
Speaker 1: not really writing it for him. Yes, so I can
Speaker 1: admit that now, like I can see that that's why
Speaker 1: I need to read personally. That's why you said you
Speaker 1: need to redo your do all my eye do what
Speaker 1: I thought you said you wanted to read like you
Speaker 1: want to get married or more. I'm about to be
Speaker 1: like you stuck. I want to do a redo. That
Speaker 1: means I need a vow renewal. Yes, so we can
Speaker 1: have all the things. Yes, all of the things, all
Speaker 1: of the face. And I'll tell you for me it's um.
Speaker 1: I want to redo for my I do because it
Speaker 1: wasn't personal and I felt like a lot of I
Speaker 1: let a lot of people and outside forces dictate to
Speaker 1: me what my wedding day was gonna look like. I'm
Speaker 1: going to look like all of it, like everything. Even now,
Speaker 1: when I look at my wedding pictures, I'd be like
Speaker 1: I could do my makeup better today. You know, I
Speaker 1: want want hashtag. Yeah, I want to have a hashtag.
Speaker 1: And I want to have a Nigerian wedding. Hello Nigerian yo.
Speaker 1: I said the same thing about Indian weddings everything. Why
Speaker 1: do they have the most lit weddings? Yes, in the world.
Speaker 1: I know we're not Nigerian. I feel like it can
Speaker 1: it be cultural appropriation if we're African American? Um at
Speaker 1: something but I wanted I'm gonna talk to some people
Speaker 1: see if I can get This is what you do. First,
Speaker 1: you go find out where your roots are. If you
Speaker 1: if you want to fist Nigerian, then you can have
Speaker 1: a Nigerian wedding. But then you gotta tell all your friends.
Speaker 1: They gotta give gifts like Nigerians give gifts, you know,
Speaker 1: because they give you gotta bring some bread hundred dollars
Speaker 1: minimum in Syning, Like yeah, that's what weddings were for
Speaker 1: at one point. It was a way for the culture
Speaker 1: to come together and get you started as a family.
Speaker 1: And here this is what you have his your nest egg.
Speaker 1: Now it's like yea, I'm gonna do this weddings and
Speaker 1: get free drinks, free drinking, and people wonder why you're
Speaker 1: not getting invited, like Brona, it's too expensive to be
Speaker 1: an outlier friend. Yeah, I don't even know you like that.
Speaker 1: We were looking at our wedding picture of the crowd.
Speaker 1: I don't remember half to not even half more than
Speaker 1: half of those people. I don't even remember them at all.
Speaker 1: A lot of it too, for it was our parents
Speaker 1: too who they wanted to invide their friends. People who
Speaker 1: have seen you grow up. I said, man, we do
Speaker 1: this viralnew it's gonna be meet you and the boys
Speaker 1: on the mountaintop. It's a circle of people. You know
Speaker 1: what I just told my homeboy's getting married. I don't
Speaker 1: want to out him because he was like the value,
Speaker 1: I don't know who to invite him? Not to invite
Speaker 1: my friends, and said, this is what you do. You
Speaker 1: take all your friends out for dinner, a lunch. Right
Speaker 1: when the check comes. Those friends that say, oh, let
Speaker 1: me see what I got. Don't invite them to your wedding.
Speaker 1: Don't because those are type of friends exactly. They won't
Speaker 1: put in no tax on nobertuity, they won't put in
Speaker 1: a seven ninety nine, and they're gonna leave first. You
Speaker 1: don't invite those people to your wedding. The friends you
Speaker 1: invite will be like, what's the total its tax include?
Speaker 1: All right, let's just split it the type of fans
Speaker 1: you invite to your women. You know what I'm saying?
Speaker 1: That was great? Yeah, I feel like it's almost switched
Speaker 1: because I hear a lot more dude talking about being
Speaker 1: married for legacy purposes, and now a lot more women
Speaker 1: are like, my legacy is not gonna be having your babies.
Speaker 1: So it almost seems like at a time it was
Speaker 1: we were brought up to be players, and y'all were
Speaker 1: brought up to be wise. And I was like, we're
Speaker 1: raising our men to try to be husbands and women
Speaker 1: are being brought up not to be wives. And it's
Speaker 1: funny to see that, you know, happen now with all
Speaker 1: the millennials, and now they were gen Z. Yeah, gen Z.
Speaker 1: Gen Z does not believe in marriage the way we
Speaker 1: were brought up to believe in marriage. What do you
Speaker 1: guys think about that? Lesten was saying that she was
Speaker 1: taught or her in the church. It was like, you
Speaker 1: should be a wife. She should be a wife, but
Speaker 1: in her in her family, and I'll let you speak
Speaker 1: to it. She wasn't taught to her nor her sisters,
Speaker 1: but we were. But there was also an aspect of
Speaker 1: be independent. My mother too, So no matter if you
Speaker 1: have a man or not, it's me and I have
Speaker 1: two younger sisters. My dad taught us how to change
Speaker 1: a tire. My dad taught us. He tried to teach
Speaker 1: us how to change the oil in our how to
Speaker 1: do but he tried to do that when we were
Speaker 1: brought up. And when he taught us how to drive,
Speaker 1: we learned in a stick shift. I took my driver's
Speaker 1: test in a stick shift. I can back up perfectly.
Speaker 1: I was always taught that. So when we got together,
Speaker 1: even today, low ki um, I still be like, don't
Speaker 1: you ever forget you? Why I am a capable woman?
Speaker 1: I don't know. I asked you to do something because
Speaker 1: I want you to do to have a dependency. But then,
Speaker 1: what's up with that pickle jar all open? Oh? When
Speaker 1: it's to get that al all type of stuff scared?
Speaker 1: Keep that same enha? What about that spot of this
Speaker 1: more in you independent? What if I wasn't there, just
Speaker 1: opened up the pickle jars because I pre loosened that
Speaker 1: you ain't enough to open it and you and also
Speaker 1: I had you in mind when I found a place
Speaker 1: with central air now, so there's no lifting eight season
Speaker 1: and out the window. No, man, you get that, you
Speaker 1: get that right. But when it's time for that garbage
Speaker 1: to go out, it's time to go out late at
Speaker 1: night to check out what that sound was. That's when
Speaker 1: the eyes get real big, and she looking at me
Speaker 1: like maybe did you hear that? Did you hear that?
Speaker 1: And I'm like, yeah, I heard. That's just because you're
Speaker 1: my best friend. We just so happened to be married,
Speaker 1: so you know, we're doing what best buddies dear. So okay,
Speaker 1: so I got so, I got a question. Right. Men
Speaker 1: are expected to do certain things in a relationship. Right.
Speaker 1: And it was a clip recently that Fantasia spoke about
Speaker 1: Yes on the Breakfast Club. Yes, And we're gonna We're
Speaker 1: gonna play the clip and then I'm want to get
Speaker 1: you guys thoughts. Okay, because this is this is a
Speaker 1: very interesting clip. Every morning at four thirty in the morning,
Speaker 1: I wake my wife up and we pray, we'll talk
Speaker 1: a salute that because we need more of that, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean? We need more men to stand
Speaker 1: up and lead the way. Most women are trying to
Speaker 1: be the leader. That's why you can't find a man.
Speaker 1: You can't be the king in the house. Fall back
Speaker 1: and be the queen and let your man lead lead
Speaker 1: the way. What does that mean? You can't be a
Speaker 1: leader because a lot of women looking like new I
Speaker 1: can lead him? How who I could do this? In
Speaker 1: my that that's now it's supposed to be. And that's
Speaker 1: why we bump heads and I feel like it's a
Speaker 1: generational thing and we can talk, we can go real
Speaker 1: deep on that, and I'm not need I don't need
Speaker 1: to start that. But it's a generational curse and how
Speaker 1: society have placed our men and women have to to
Speaker 1: stand up and be the mother and the father and
Speaker 1: the provider. And so then now you are so bad
Speaker 1: you so you can't be told nothing that when the
Speaker 1: right man come, you lose them because you're trying to
Speaker 1: be the the man. Can we be equal? Of course?
Speaker 1: Was the at the end of the day on the neck.
Speaker 1: My man's the head, so he can't make any moves
Speaker 1: without his wife. You know what I mean? It all
Speaker 1: works together, but you can't be the head of the house.
Speaker 1: You've got to let the man be the head of
Speaker 1: the house. So I want to hear you guys thoughts.
Speaker 1: I know that my wife is very vocal about these things,
Speaker 1: and I know Melissa is very vocal about it. I
Speaker 1: have my own unique idea about so we're talking submission, submission, submission,
Speaker 1: my thoughts. I think that um okay, So I have
Speaker 1: like every evolving thoughts. Number One, we grew up very
Speaker 1: churchy and Fantasia did as well, so I understand the
Speaker 1: um position from which she starts growing up in the church,
Speaker 1: and when you're in that world, um submission means, you know,
Speaker 1: let allowing your husband to lead. I believe that all
Speaker 1: submission means is to be under one mission. That's all
Speaker 1: sub meaning. Under a mission, a household mission, a house divided,
Speaker 1: it cannot stand. So if I have a mission for
Speaker 1: our family and you have a mission for our family
Speaker 1: and they don't um overlap, they don't agree, they're not congruent, congruent,
Speaker 1: then we have division in our household. I believe that
Speaker 1: all we need to do is come together. We have
Speaker 1: a conversation. And that's not to say you just make
Speaker 1: a decision without my input. We are partners in this
Speaker 1: thing together, so let me let us come together agree
Speaker 1: on how we're going to move forward. And then from there,
Speaker 1: if you want to lead, child baby, I got you.
Speaker 1: I can stand beside you, and that's it. I don't
Speaker 1: think submission has to be a thing about, um, I'm
Speaker 1: in charge and I'm behind you, or you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. It doesn't have to be this power struggle.
Speaker 1: That's what I wanted. It doesn't have to be this
Speaker 1: power struggle. To me, it literally just means having one
Speaker 1: mission from your household. Yeah, because you know what, I
Speaker 1: think the negative connotation that the word submission has is
Speaker 1: really the root of this change. For you think of submission,
Speaker 1: you're thinking of someone is ultimately the ultimate power that
Speaker 1: the ruler of all the land and everything else is
Speaker 1: the peasants, and they have to listen to I even
Speaker 1: pulled up the definition of submission. Justice is what it says,
Speaker 1: and it says the act or fact of accepting or
Speaker 1: yielding to a superior force or the will or authority
Speaker 1: of another person. So we were forced into submission in
Speaker 1: itself the triggering factor into the idea of submission, I think.
Speaker 1: I think for men, when I was taught about submission,
Speaker 1: it's you leave the household, you tell your wife what
Speaker 1: y'all are going to do, right, And I think that's
Speaker 1: the dangerous part is I'm going to tell you what
Speaker 1: you're gonna what we're gonna do, and you're gonna follow
Speaker 1: me blindly. What has worked better for us is I
Speaker 1: present a plan for our review. Right. So when we're
Speaker 1: moving to l A, this is probably the best example
Speaker 1: of submission and being in alignment ever. We're moving to
Speaker 1: l A it was my desire, my vision. I said,
Speaker 1: here's what I want to do. Here's how much money
Speaker 1: I think we need to have saved. Here's how I
Speaker 1: think we get it. Here's what I think we should
Speaker 1: do with the house. Here's the part of l A.
Speaker 1: I think we should live in, where the kids will
Speaker 1: go to school, where I'm gonna work, how long we
Speaker 1: can live on our savings. So you had you did diligence,
Speaker 1: you know, and I had Bible scriptures to reference, Like,
Speaker 1: here's where I think right now, I have a whole
Speaker 1: thing right from Washington right, no family in l A.
Speaker 1: I mean, you weren't even this far in our careers.
Speaker 1: It was just like, here's how I think it's gonna work.
Speaker 1: So I presented that to Melissa and then she gave
Speaker 1: me her thoughts on it. She was like, so, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna tell you. I'm gonna be honest with chocolate. We
Speaker 1: found part of my plan. What's to do with the house.
Speaker 1: Let it go to foreclosure. I'm gonna get that back.
Speaker 1: Don't even foreclosure. Everybody's going to foreclosure was a good
Speaker 1: bankruptcy Trump did ab times. So she was like, what
Speaker 1: do we just rented the house out? I was like,
Speaker 1: that's a great idea. Why it was either paying the
Speaker 1: mortgage or dope, you know what I'm saying. So and
Speaker 1: then in the house thing, I was like, here's the
Speaker 1: cheapest part of l A will live in North Hollywood.
Speaker 1: And she's like, because we're moving from the house to
Speaker 1: an apartment, which was already hard for because we own
Speaker 1: in our house for five six years by that time.
Speaker 1: So she's like, look, my only thing is in the house.
Speaker 1: We need a washer and dryer in the unit. Not
Speaker 1: taking I'll handle a lot keV but I won't. I
Speaker 1: was like, what about right across the hallway the house
Speaker 1: because we had small kids. Whatever, I'm not gonna be
Speaker 1: you know. So I'm like, okay, so now and we
Speaker 1: work down the line about jobs, about all that. So
Speaker 1: then as a team. So what I really as a man,
Speaker 1: what you don't want is your wife to be able
Speaker 1: to say I told you so, right, if you don't
Speaker 1: have her on your side with the plan, if you
Speaker 1: would never to be failed, if any one of your
Speaker 1: plans fans she liked, And this is what I told you.
Speaker 1: But if you work together, whether you fail or succeed,
Speaker 1: y'all did it together? Now? There's no animosity. It's like, well, shoot,
Speaker 1: I thought that was gonna work. I thought it was
Speaker 1: too it didn't, but we're good. Instead of I told
Speaker 1: you that wouldn't work, and now it didn't work, and
Speaker 1: this is why we're messed up. Well, it's great that
Speaker 1: you have an actual plan that she came with, so
Speaker 1: it's not just like throwing something around and me and like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, we'll figure out. You had a plan. Also,
Speaker 1: what you didn't do was give her the plan and
Speaker 1: say this is the plan. Less So there's a conversation,
Speaker 1: and she brought a lot to it that I haven't.
Speaker 1: And now I felt like we're moving to l A
Speaker 1: instead of I'm taking my family to l A and
Speaker 1: I have her buying. When you have your buying, things
Speaker 1: go smoothly, even if the life is rough. Absolutely, because
Speaker 1: back to New York. See my my issue with submission
Speaker 1: is it goes back to the route right now. We
Speaker 1: talked about this early in the green room that I've
Speaker 1: always had issues with religion and I've always questioned things right.
Speaker 1: So for me, it was always about even as a
Speaker 1: young kid, it's like, Okay, we pray to the Father,
Speaker 1: the Son, the Holy Spirit, there's no women when women
Speaker 1: are the creators of life. Right, So we don't pray
Speaker 1: to any women, we don't honor any women. We only
Speaker 1: pray the fathers. Then this idea that you cannot lead
Speaker 1: a household at all just because you're a women a woman,
Speaker 1: to me just just seems very antiquated in archaic, because
Speaker 1: there are men who are better followers or direction takers,
Speaker 1: then there are leaders, and there are women who are
Speaker 1: better direction givers than there are followers. So if you're
Speaker 1: a man, right and we talk about a man who
Speaker 1: finds a wife finds a good thing, if you're a
Speaker 1: man who just takes direction better, you're telling me you're
Speaker 1: not deserving of a wife because you can't lead, what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. And if you're a woman who was a
Speaker 1: better leader, you're telling me that you don't deserve a
Speaker 1: husband because you're not willing to submit. There are great
Speaker 1: partnerships in the world where the woman takes the reins
Speaker 1: and the man follows. That's that's a good that's a
Speaker 1: good marriage up. That is a great point. You see
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, But I mean it's oprah. You think
Speaker 1: you know in that relationship dynamic. Thank you, and to me,
Speaker 1: that's the whole idea. They are winning and don't he
Speaker 1: got to complaint in his life? That, to me is
Speaker 1: the whole idea behind submission. To me just doesn't seem
Speaker 1: to make sense that automatically. It's like, well, if I
Speaker 1: get married, I gotta take the lead. Some dude, just
Speaker 1: like I don't want to take the lead. My life
Speaker 1: a genius planner, you know what I'm saying. And some
Speaker 1: some women are just like, yo, I'm not listening to you, bro,
Speaker 1: but I love you. I love that. It's also listening.
Speaker 1: It's also to knowing each other's strengths and weaknesses. You
Speaker 1: have to know what you're capable of and when you
Speaker 1: need to digress, and you know, tag me in, bro,
Speaker 1: this is what you're good at. Let's have a conversation
Speaker 1: about it and you take the lead. You're not very similar.
Speaker 1: I defer to my wife a whole lot because my
Speaker 1: my ego, I have a big ego, just like you
Speaker 1: have a huge My ego is so big. My ego
Speaker 1: is so big that I know what I don't know,
Speaker 1: and I know at certain times she's gonna get me
Speaker 1: where I need to be. So Okay, what we're doing,
Speaker 1: we're what we're doing, what we're going. Just handle that, Yes,
Speaker 1: let me do whatever it is. That much of my
Speaker 1: career success is that, like what do you think? And
Speaker 1: then listening to what she thinks and then being cool
Speaker 1: with knowing what you don't know and trusting somebody that
Speaker 1: but you gotta that starts with the place of trust.
Speaker 1: You trust and value Caden's input, and therefore her opinion
Speaker 1: carries weight likelutely, that's one thing that we as men
Speaker 1: have to value, like man, this is the reason she's
Speaker 1: in my life is to help me, and I value
Speaker 1: her opinion like it's not one thing I didn't do
Speaker 1: a lot in my marriage. I would I was working
Speaker 1: on Melissa would plant the first seed as a good idea,
Speaker 1: but I wouldn't take it initially right because I felt
Speaker 1: like I needed to be the man and I gotta
Speaker 1: do my thing. So then somebody in my circle would
Speaker 1: echo her sentiment, sometimes a man, a lot of times
Speaker 1: a man. And then I'd be like, I'm gonna do that,
Speaker 1: and then she started calling me on a life bro,
Speaker 1: I've been told you, and now you do it because
Speaker 1: this person said it, or because you think it's your idea,
Speaker 1: like what about doing it when I suggested to you?
Speaker 1: Why is it? Why did somebody else have to echo
Speaker 1: that sentiment before? I think that was some residual like
Speaker 1: I can't take advice from you and lead you. But
Speaker 1: now threw all that out and like, I'm gonna just
Speaker 1: listen to you early and often. Han't got me. It
Speaker 1: hasn't stayed me wrong. It comes with the trust you, Absolutely,
Speaker 1: it comes with the trust. And I will say this
Speaker 1: though about what Fantasia said. Part of the problem with
Speaker 1: within the black community is that no one is willing
Speaker 1: to take that step back. For example, she said, you
Speaker 1: gotta let men be men. Let's think about when you're
Speaker 1: when you're brought up as a woman, right, You're brought
Speaker 1: up as a woman to find a man who's alpha male.
Speaker 1: He's a conqueror, he dominates, he does this, he does that.
Speaker 1: So if you're chasing these type of men, the men
Speaker 1: who conquer, who dominate, who win, who do all this
Speaker 1: other stuff. But then in that relationship you want to
Speaker 1: compete with him to who's the leader, that's gonna be
Speaker 1: toxic because you chase the type of man that now
Speaker 1: you want to compete with him He's not gonna let
Speaker 1: you beat him everything, So somebody has to at that
Speaker 1: point decide who was going to fall back and let them,
Speaker 1: you know, be the leader. And I think there's a
Speaker 1: lot of truth to what she said there because in
Speaker 1: our community we're not taught this dynamic because marriage is
Speaker 1: not taught anymore. Women are taught you may have to
Speaker 1: take care everything by yourself, so be prepared to do
Speaker 1: it in lead, and then men are taught man these holes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, You could do all this
Speaker 1: other stuff. So there's no dynamic of marriage together. And
Speaker 1: I think it starts from from the youth. And she
Speaker 1: say in her in her clip something about like being
Speaker 1: the neck that stabilized something like yeah, and I've heard
Speaker 1: that a long time ago before, and I think that
Speaker 1: so true. Tiffany said it, Yes, shout out. She's the
Speaker 1: one that said that. She's like, I'm like the neck
Speaker 1: of the report. He could be ahead and you can
Speaker 1: stay everything, he can rotate and look around, but just
Speaker 1: know where it centered at, you know. And I feel
Speaker 1: like first asked about where he's going in the next
Speaker 1: couple of days when his travels, like he don't know
Speaker 1: because I made all the travel plans, this one in
Speaker 1: expedient with hotel and flights. That's not what I do.
Speaker 1: But taking that taking that weight off of him, that's true,
Speaker 1: but he can go ahead and be creative and produce content.
Speaker 1: You you could spend them, definitely. But how did y'all
Speaker 1: get to that point? Because the biggest thing we like
Speaker 1: to do on dead asses talk about the problem, talk
Speaker 1: about what we went through that problem, But how what
Speaker 1: were the mechanisms that got us to a place now
Speaker 1: where we can have this conversation openly And it's different
Speaker 1: and maybe it may have been different for you guys,
Speaker 1: and it was for us. And and Mel I kind
Speaker 1: of want to hear your perspective because I like to
Speaker 1: hear women's perspective because I try to understand my wife, Yes,
Speaker 1: a lot more, you know what I'm saying. Shall we are?
Speaker 1: When keV was going through his stuff, what were you
Speaker 1: doing to try to find your place? One of the
Speaker 1: things that I think is so important is that we
Speaker 1: all recognize something that you were just talking about, is
Speaker 1: that dynamics and nuance. And so instead of going into
Speaker 1: any relationship, whether it be your marriage or friendship or
Speaker 1: work environment, whatever, try to lay aside your preconceived notions,
Speaker 1: your assumptions of what it should look like, and let
Speaker 1: it evolve based on again strengths, weaknesses, what you do best,
Speaker 1: what I do best, Like, let it evolve and become
Speaker 1: your own. I think a lot of times we have
Speaker 1: this is what a wife should do, is what a
Speaker 1: husband should do. And maybe, like you said, I'm actually
Speaker 1: not the travel planner in our relationship. Kevin is. He
Speaker 1: does all the travel planning. And that's a perfect example.
Speaker 1: You said that, because now if I talk to Kevin, like, now,
Speaker 1: let your wife do that, because she's a wife exactly,
Speaker 1: That's what I'm Meanwhile, this is the number one. He
Speaker 1: loved it, and yeah, I'm trying to put in the
Speaker 1: night one, two days vacation. In our family, I'm the
Speaker 1: balance book person, so I'm looking at the final numbook.
Speaker 1: Let's look how much this is gonna go. This was
Speaker 1: one of the one for our relationship. In my circle,
Speaker 1: every man told me you got to be the one
Speaker 1: to pay the bills and do the finances. But it
Speaker 1: wasn't my strength. So I was trying to do it
Speaker 1: just to appease them, and I'm forget mostly was just
Speaker 1: forgetting it ain't really my thing. Like I grew, I'm
Speaker 1: trying to spend this back they're gonna give me. I'm
Speaker 1: trying to spend it. So I remember deacon, like some
Speaker 1: of our marriage, me listens like I think I should
Speaker 1: take over, and I was just like, I think it's best.
Speaker 1: She's more of a saver, she's more conservative, she's more administrative,
Speaker 1: and she was better with the money than I was.
Speaker 1: She had more revision, so I was cool with that.
Speaker 1: And I remember I told her a deacon in our
Speaker 1: church and he was like, you can't be the man
Speaker 1: in your house, and like, I absolutely care. I'm still
Speaker 1: going to work. I'm putting the money to the joint account.
Speaker 1: What works for our relationship work. So part of it
Speaker 1: was me being like, bro, if that's not y'all, all
Speaker 1: of y'all, if that works for all y'all, that don't
Speaker 1: mean it works for me for my family. This plus
Speaker 1: all that stuff ain't nobody's business. That's true. That's true.
Speaker 1: So I put the money in there, she sends it
Speaker 1: out or sent it up on a hair or whatever
Speaker 1: the case. And that's what we have to do, is
Speaker 1: have those type of like conversations, put aside everything that
Speaker 1: you think it should be and have an honest dialogue
Speaker 1: with between you and your spouse and decide what works
Speaker 1: for us. Otherwise you will be in a relationship struggling
Speaker 1: try to meet a standard that was never designed with
Speaker 1: you in mind. Whole entire word. I don't know how
Speaker 1: she gets. She got long fingers, it's so loud, I
Speaker 1: bet so. I got a question for y'all. What do
Speaker 1: y'all think of the top three things people need to
Speaker 1: know after they say the vows, the things they can
Speaker 1: work on in your marriage. I'm going to go first.
Speaker 1: I know what you might say, Um, yes, and um.
Speaker 1: This is actually our number one piece of marriage advice
Speaker 1: that we give to every single person every single time
Speaker 1: we're asked we're about to get married. Do you have
Speaker 1: any advice for us? Um, expect nothing to say the same,
Speaker 1: and expect everything to change. Expect nothing to stay the same,
Speaker 1: and expect everything to change, because that's true. Grow and evolve.
Speaker 1: And actually someone said it to us this way just
Speaker 1: the other day. Who I'm married is not who I'll
Speaker 1: end up with. And so when I think about the evolution,
Speaker 1: Kevin gives us an example. All the time we got
Speaker 1: married at twenty and twenty one. He didn't like spicy food.
Speaker 1: Today he does. We got married at twenty and twenty one.
Speaker 1: I didn't like avocados. Now I love avocados. Guacamo. Would
Speaker 1: give it all to me. All of those things are
Speaker 1: evolving and changing. Yes, yes, And so to expect this
Speaker 1: person to be exactly who I'm married on the day
Speaker 1: I said I do fifteen years later, it's unrealistic to
Speaker 1: I would want you to. I would hope that you
Speaker 1: weren't the same person. People hostage to that because we
Speaker 1: don't want them to grow and evolved together. Or what's
Speaker 1: worse is we married someone and expect them to change
Speaker 1: and they don't. Now women do that a lot, I would.
Speaker 1: I would say this. I've heard from a lot of
Speaker 1: I've heard from a lot of women. They sent me demail,
Speaker 1: d M and emails and their biggest thing is I
Speaker 1: married him hoping that I can make him who I wanted.
Speaker 1: I never hear I hear men saying the opposite. I
Speaker 1: married her Now she totally different, which is funny because
Speaker 1: we go into marriage with two different things. I said
Speaker 1: this to K and that's why I touched the shoulder.
Speaker 1: We had this argument. Sting was about three weeks ago,
Speaker 1: and I was just like, man, you are not the
Speaker 1: same person that I'm married, And she was just like,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna be and either you, and I was
Speaker 1: just like, damn, be right, You're right. I have changed
Speaker 1: as well a lot of times. That so. So one
Speaker 1: of the things but liked about me when we were
Speaker 1: dating and engage is my work ethic. But at that time,
Speaker 1: my work ethic was in regards to working for someone else.
Speaker 1: I went to Berger King. When we first met, I
Speaker 1: worked row my bike, never missed a day work. Then
Speaker 1: um I worked at a daycare in a bank, and
Speaker 1: she's like, yes, because her dad was in the army,
Speaker 1: he never missed work, all that type of stuff. What
Speaker 1: she wasn't expecting is that I was always ambitious and
Speaker 1: before I met her, I had my own even at
Speaker 1: like ten, I sold candy. I used to buy candy
Speaker 1: on base and resell at a higher value. In my school,
Speaker 1: face was ghost candy industry, so I was a ghost
Speaker 1: and then I had a lot more business. So I
Speaker 1: always was like, I'm not gonna work for the man forever.
Speaker 1: But I never told her that, yeah for real, for real.
Speaker 1: So once I got fired from my job, the stable job.
Speaker 1: She was expecting me to keep that same and go
Speaker 1: to another bank, go back to Bank America whatever. And
Speaker 1: then I was just kind of like, I think I
Speaker 1: want to stand. Yeah, this is a sign from God.
Speaker 1: She's like no, no, God said go back right, and
Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, he telling us different stuff. So
Speaker 1: now she has to be used to a person who's
Speaker 1: not gonna go work that regular nine five because I
Speaker 1: did it again at Boing and I was gonna get
Speaker 1: fired again. It was just a matter of time because
Speaker 1: I'm my girl for your absolutely absolutely nobody can find
Speaker 1: that often, but that type of work ethic. Nobody with
Speaker 1: that type of work ethic gets fired that times. I didn't.
Speaker 1: And that's what I'm pointing at him, Like, how in
Speaker 1: the world did I missed? I see, I got, I got,
Speaker 1: I got family does that. I'm not gonna shout them out,
Speaker 1: but I have family who are brilliant, And I'm like,
Speaker 1: you can't keep a job. You got eighty degrees, you're
Speaker 1: fully focusing a healthier note. You can't keep a job
Speaker 1: as you don't want to do that, Like I never
Speaker 1: really wanted to do that. I just didn't see no option.
Speaker 1: And once I saw a stand up, I'm like, ah,
Speaker 1: here's my thing. And now that ambition was like, she's
Speaker 1: get to see ambitious version of me. And now that
Speaker 1: awoke in the ambitious version of her because she used
Speaker 1: to be nine to five McGhee, I'm gonna just do that.
Speaker 1: Now she's like, oh, I gotta do the conference, and
Speaker 1: I got the book club and I got this book
Speaker 1: right and these events, and now you know, our dynamic
Speaker 1: is changing. And now, to be honest, now I gotta
Speaker 1: deal with a different hurt. So at first in our relationship,
Speaker 1: she stayed at home and worked. I try with this
Speaker 1: stand up. When I came home, we cuddled with hang out.
Speaker 1: Now she started YouTube page a couple years ago with
Speaker 1: her home girl. Now they're making YouTube videos. I come home,
Speaker 1: she can't even pick it up from the airport like
Speaker 1: you can uber. I know how I feel that should
Speaker 1: hurt the woman in the bedroom. I'm in the bedroom like, oh,
Speaker 1: so you could just hang out with her? And now
Speaker 1: when I come home, I love you, but stay out there,
Speaker 1: hang out with your friends, play a little stupid game,
Speaker 1: and when I come back, you better be happy on me.
Speaker 1: I'm not hold on I sund like the black woman.
Speaker 1: That's me, Bro, that's me in my house with the kids.
Speaker 1: She walking, she walking, My clothes as a mess. I
Speaker 1: got a head tie on, I got my arms crossed.
Speaker 1: They're like, where where are you? She was out gallivin.
Speaker 1: I've always gallivant fens and my little one repeats everything,
Speaker 1: so Kyro will be like, mommy, no gallivan. She's like,
Speaker 1: you can't tell the boys that. I'm like, it would
Speaker 1: be nice. And that's why I love you. You keeping
Speaker 1: the house. When k got the makeup job and you
Speaker 1: were like happy for it, and then he was just like, god,
Speaker 1: what you was doing was it's Bruno, Bruno. I was
Speaker 1: going for an entire month. Oh my god, you did
Speaker 1: another video about being at home with the kids, because
Speaker 1: that first one went viral and it was just two.
Speaker 1: Now you had three months. I had three and I
Speaker 1: was by myself. I was she would come in the house.
Speaker 1: I would just be mad. She would come out and
Speaker 1: she was like, hey, baby, to go. I was like, don't, hey, baby,
Speaker 1: and you ain't getting nothing to wait what that was
Speaker 1: the one time when she was coming out be like
Speaker 1: I'm tired and I have a headache, and he got
Speaker 1: a headache and I'm bloated, so don't touch me. Don't
Speaker 1: touch pretty much pretty much, so great, and i'd be
Speaker 1: low key life. Thank god, going to sleep. We're going
Speaker 1: to sleep. I was going through a lot of don't
Speaker 1: judge me. I was going, guess, what's the second thing
Speaker 1: you could give us? On top of Melissa said, you're
Speaker 1: absolutely right. You took what I was gonna say. I
Speaker 1: think the most important thing we learned outside of that
Speaker 1: is to make your relationship your own. Are early, especially
Speaker 1: my early missteps, I was I was doing marriage and
Speaker 1: Richmond at church, listen to my pastor, listen to the
Speaker 1: deacons and all that stuff. But then I applied. I
Speaker 1: try to apply directly what they said directly to my wife.
Speaker 1: But my pastor was speaking from this point of view
Speaker 1: with his wife. So my wife, his wife was gifts.
Speaker 1: Was her love language? This before we read the Acts
Speaker 1: of I mean, the five love languages. So he's like,
Speaker 1: you know, you give her a giving, you get the drugs,
Speaker 1: then you get and the drugs. So I'm like, okay,
Speaker 1: so I'm giving my wife gifts and I'm not getting
Speaker 1: the drugs. Give me the gift back. He said. This
Speaker 1: was gonna work. Buff y'all made me mad because hept
Speaker 1: so then I realized that I was trying to speak
Speaker 1: his wife's love language to my wife, and I had
Speaker 1: to learn her love language and what moved her. And
Speaker 1: then the same thing with the deacon. I was trying
Speaker 1: to do his financial plan because that's what he did.
Speaker 1: And then I realized, man, let me just throw all
Speaker 1: that out. I'll take this information in and then see
Speaker 1: what works for me and Melissa. And once we decided,
Speaker 1: I decided for myself, I'm gonna do what works for
Speaker 1: us and not worry about what other people think. We
Speaker 1: all what are people are gonna say? And all that,
Speaker 1: None of that stuff matters. All we are responsible for
Speaker 1: is making this one relationship work. And when we threw
Speaker 1: out everybody else's visions and thoughts and what they worked
Speaker 1: and their expectations and throw all that out and just
Speaker 1: was like, let's see what works for us, let's try
Speaker 1: some things out. Then things started to go smoothly. And
Speaker 1: that that that made so much difference in our in
Speaker 1: our marriage. That's like a concurring theme whenever we speak
Speaker 1: to you know, married couples. Yeah, it's like a not
Speaker 1: judging other people's situations and doing what works for you.
Speaker 1: That's what you're been hearing a lot lately when it
Speaker 1: comes like that. How about legacy building with the kids.
Speaker 1: Let's round out this third topic. We can't just round out.
Speaker 1: Let you stop what people want to know about Mary sex.
Speaker 1: You guys talk about your love life. It's called the
Speaker 1: love hour bad. You've been trying to skip sex all
Speaker 1: the time. All right, You're not gonna do that to
Speaker 1: me today. You just so your kest talk about giving
Speaker 1: gifts and get in the draws in the draw. How
Speaker 1: do you guys keep your love life together because you
Speaker 1: both travel a lot, you got two kids, Like, how
Speaker 1: do you do it? You know, we talk about it,
Speaker 1: talk about it has evolved over our marriage. Like there
Speaker 1: was pre kids sex both getting to know each other.
Speaker 1: There's post one kid sex, which is totally different sex
Speaker 1: with the newborn. It's just like, bro, I mean, you
Speaker 1: take what you can take it. It's third and fifteen.
Speaker 1: You gotta check down. I just got the full We
Speaker 1: just gotta get this Fiel position. We're hoping for a turnover.
Speaker 1: Like listen, man, they covered everything, so there's a couple
Speaker 1: of years of taking with you a couple of you
Speaker 1: can get and then the kids start growing up, and
Speaker 1: then there's as your body evolved, what you change because
Speaker 1: we have the added uh pressure of Melissa was growing
Speaker 1: up in the she grew up in the purity movement.
Speaker 1: So in order to remain a virgin, everything was bad.
Speaker 1: Sex is bad, this is bad, this is bad. This
Speaker 1: is and then when you get married, it's like, okay,
Speaker 1: have sex, have as much fun as you want. And
Speaker 1: then but all those thoughts are still you know what
Speaker 1: thought about that? Yeah, that is so true. All that
Speaker 1: advice that was valuable the moment you say I do
Speaker 1: if not only invaluable, it's now harmful advice. It now
Speaker 1: counteracts everything about being free, Like you can't just flip
Speaker 1: that switch about freedom. There's a whole because you're not
Speaker 1: allowed to learn about yourself during that time. Don't do
Speaker 1: don't even touch it, don't look at it, don't look
Speaker 1: in the mirror. Let a doctor touch you. You don't
Speaker 1: tickle yourself down there, and now be free with your
Speaker 1: husband and and oh it's cool now liked you can't
Speaker 1: touch yourself. Now you got that somebody else touching? What
Speaker 1: are we doing? But hold on, this is an issue
Speaker 1: that I've never thought about. Right. We teach our daughters
Speaker 1: about right and don't do nothing down there, don't spoil,
Speaker 1: don't do nothing right. But boys just go out and
Speaker 1: show you while. So you out there having all of
Speaker 1: this freaky fun, and then you find a wife, and
Speaker 1: you want your wife to be able to have all
Speaker 1: this freaky fun that she's never had because if she
Speaker 1: was trying to be pure. How do those two people
Speaker 1: meet in the bedroom and find joying what they're doing.
Speaker 1: I never thought about this. I've never thought about, Yes,
Speaker 1: let's see what you did there? How do um? Number one,
Speaker 1: It's been an ever evolving process for me. It's the reason,
Speaker 1: honestly we started the Love Hour because that's quite literally
Speaker 1: my story. UM. But for me, what I have done
Speaker 1: number one is that I have retrained and educated myself
Speaker 1: on what it means to be a sexual being and
Speaker 1: recognizing that God created me this way. I know I'm
Speaker 1: real churchy, but God created me this way, and he
Speaker 1: um designed me the way, and it was purposed by design.
Speaker 1: That's not a mistake. I can own the fact that
Speaker 1: I am a sexual being. And then I had to
Speaker 1: recognize that I was brainwashed. Is the term that I use,
Speaker 1: and I use brainwashing because I say that brainwashing is
Speaker 1: being confronted with the truth and still holding onto the lie.
Speaker 1: So the fact that I know better today about my sexuality,
Speaker 1: I'm more in tune with my body, I'm a married woman,
Speaker 1: all of those things, but I still struggle with those
Speaker 1: old thoughts of the purity movement that residue, that shame,
Speaker 1: that guilt, that body shaming that I learned from there,
Speaker 1: I still struggle with today, fifteen years into my relationship.
Speaker 1: That's brainwashing and so trying to undo those thoughts in
Speaker 1: my mind. It's ever evolving, but I'm always educating myself
Speaker 1: and evaluating what do I think about We just had
Speaker 1: this conversation earlier? What do I think about this topic?
Speaker 1: Is it? Uh? Huh? We were talking about masturbation and
Speaker 1: so and so I go downward. I'm teaching my self
Speaker 1: to ask myself these three questions. Is there a biblical
Speaker 1: truth about this? Does the Bible speak on this? Because
Speaker 1: I'm a Christian, I want to follow the Bible. Okay,
Speaker 1: so does the Bible speak on this? Yes? Or Now?
Speaker 1: Let's say the answer is, now, do I have a
Speaker 1: personal conviction about this? Yes? Or now? Do I have
Speaker 1: a personal preference with this. Once I go through all
Speaker 1: of those questions, I have checked off the things that
Speaker 1: are important to me. What does God say about it,
Speaker 1: what do I say about it? And do I even
Speaker 1: want to do it? Go through that and then forget
Speaker 1: all the rest of y'all. I don't need all these
Speaker 1: other opinions. In the church world, we often say that, um,
Speaker 1: we bring in other people into our bedroom when it's porn. Well,
Speaker 1: I just would like to submit to you on today
Speaker 1: that when you get the opinions of other folks, you
Speaker 1: are allowing those opinions into your your bringing other people
Speaker 1: into your bedroom. Again, submission to me. One mission you
Speaker 1: and I. Let's talk about what you're comfortable with. Let's
Speaker 1: talk about your red light, your green light, your yellow light,
Speaker 1: what you want to. Let me talk about what mine are,
Speaker 1: and let's come to an agreement on what we are
Speaker 1: going to do together. I don't care now nothing about
Speaker 1: with all of these other because the other day I
Speaker 1: had a yellow light for a couple of years and
Speaker 1: then it became a red light with something he did
Speaker 1: to me, and I was like, it's a red light now,
Speaker 1: all right now? I was like he was always kind
Speaker 1: of yellow yellow, it's just red. So I don't do
Speaker 1: that no more. And I think and the thing about
Speaker 1: that devil has to honor that because if he doesn't,
Speaker 1: you lose trust in your relationship. Trust. Then now the
Speaker 1: stuff that was green is now yellow. And then everything
Speaker 1: that was yellow long yellow. You know everything, and you
Speaker 1: got to really just understand that, um, what matters to you,
Speaker 1: to all is all that matters, and it's I love
Speaker 1: that something that was yellow is now red and something
Speaker 1: that's yellow could also be a green, and it's average it.
Speaker 1: And that's why you have we used this analogy. You
Speaker 1: guys have iPhone. Guys blessed you. So when you're using
Speaker 1: an iPhone, that's a it's a lot like right. So
Speaker 1: when you have an iPhone, you get updates throughout the
Speaker 1: year ten point oh to ten point one, and then
Speaker 1: they tell you, okay, these things are changing. This is
Speaker 1: how you do this. Okay, cool, got It's gonna take
Speaker 1: a little time to get used to that. And then
Speaker 1: sometimes it goes from ten to eleven and it's a
Speaker 1: huge update. And in your marriage, you are always learning
Speaker 1: about that update. So what used to be cool ain't
Speaker 1: cool no more. The way I used to feel about you.
Speaker 1: I don't feel that way about more the way I
Speaker 1: used to feel like the one that's was crazy. Melissa
Speaker 1: had to change in herself. She was saying she used
Speaker 1: to be very vocal and and this and that, and
Speaker 1: then when she got married, she felt like she had
Speaker 1: to submit and she didn't know how to do that,
Speaker 1: so she just muted herself down. And then late last
Speaker 1: year she decided, I'm about to get back to the
Speaker 1: old me where I feel, you know, I feel confident
Speaker 1: to stand up for what I believe. People. She was
Speaker 1: talking about that you love me and keV as much
Speaker 1: as y'all love mind she was ridiculous in the thought,
Speaker 1: and she said, is a bigger corporation Disney, And she
Speaker 1: came back like I was tripping when she did that
Speaker 1: and herself. That now affected me because she had let
Speaker 1: my ego like she let me get away with saying
Speaker 1: stuff her that bothered her and she wouldn't check me
Speaker 1: on it. Now she checking me left and right. And
Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, listen, I get this the new you,
Speaker 1: But is there a nicer way you can say that?
Speaker 1: Because first of all, respect me both. Let me let
Speaker 1: me tell you something sometimes I have had to kind
Speaker 1: of stand up, like you see this bear right said,
Speaker 1: I would shave this bed off tomorrow if you don't
Speaker 1: watch your tone. I would love to say, because when
Speaker 1: they go through that, and they go through that, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm a woman now I'm gonna speak up. So and
Speaker 1: I told her to listen baby. Sometimes you know you
Speaker 1: speak to me like I'm a boy down and I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna taken respect sometimes more than love. Yes, And
Speaker 1: they'd be like, Okay, first of all, don't disrespect me.
Speaker 1: And I'm cool with your change. I cool with, but
Speaker 1: don't disrespect. Yeah. So I think that was an important
Speaker 1: thing for us, and it's people assume that at this
Speaker 1: point our marriage, it's coasting. Of course, man, I put
Speaker 1: in the over the last six seven months with this
Speaker 1: big change, I feel like I'm working much harder on
Speaker 1: loving this version of her. As a married person, you're
Speaker 1: responsible for loving the current version of your spouse at
Speaker 1: all times. Know that's the vowe. Knowing them, watching their changes,
Speaker 1: they're they're ups, there, downs their changes, and I gotta
Speaker 1: learn to the vowel bro sickness and health rich through
Speaker 1: all the changes, loving yes. And some of these versions
Speaker 1: are tough, like bro. This new version of I would
Speaker 1: say what I want like and everybody sees it's her
Speaker 1: in her interactions with everyone, not just me. So I've
Speaker 1: got to learned and some changes are Sometimes you're out
Speaker 1: your phone changes it's like, man, I don't know nothing
Speaker 1: is and you'd be looking at the same person and
Speaker 1: be like, I don't even recognize you. Like this, it
Speaker 1: is analogy, and it's good to have this conversation with
Speaker 1: other married people who've been married a long time, because
Speaker 1: when you're married, sometimes you feel like I'm the only
Speaker 1: married person going through this, you know, you feel like
Speaker 1: you're the only married couple, and you're like, what's wrong
Speaker 1: with my marriage with I feel like it's such hard work.
Speaker 1: And I hear people say all the time love shouldn't
Speaker 1: be that much harder your kids and how much it
Speaker 1: work that is to wipe their but why is their
Speaker 1: p fee them? We're going be like, that's love and
Speaker 1: unconditional love and unconditional and your kids can't do nothing
Speaker 1: for you. At least my wife can do stuff fun.
Speaker 1: They can't do nothing value to your life. And I
Speaker 1: feel like that's what people misunderstand. They feel like the
Speaker 1: longer y'all get the easier should be. And actually for
Speaker 1: us it's been the inverse. Our marriage. We didn't know
Speaker 1: anything like this is cool. But as we start evolving,
Speaker 1: because the thing is, people get married thirty five, they're
Speaker 1: more developed. Yes, they know who they are and things
Speaker 1: like that, they might to be making as many big
Speaker 1: changes years a lot. We hadn't had no kids yet
Speaker 1: we didn't and and the thing is crazy, like when
Speaker 1: you have a kid, you expect to change, but when
Speaker 1: you have an internal change that you don't see coming.
Speaker 1: So this last update of Melissa, she you know, at
Speaker 1: least we are something. You get the hey, we're gonna
Speaker 1: be making some changes. Here's what you can expect. She
Speaker 1: didn't even tell me about this. I'm like, man, this
Speaker 1: she'd been tripping lately. I'm just talking to myself, like, bro,
Speaker 1: does it feel like she's been tripping lately. So it
Speaker 1: took us months for her to even explain to me
Speaker 1: what she was going through. And now I'm like, okay,
Speaker 1: now things start to make sense. Because it's not as
Speaker 1: easy as sending the email. Sometimes you don't even aware
Speaker 1: of how that looks outside of you. When you're making
Speaker 1: that change, you don't even see it all the time.
Speaker 1: You know what I've discovered by bad, but you know
Speaker 1: what I discovered through this conversation. And it's kind of
Speaker 1: this is running into our listener letters, but I really
Speaker 1: don't care because the conversation is so good. But um,
Speaker 1: as women, right, we always tell our women from young
Speaker 1: that you always have to conform to the man you're
Speaker 1: gonna be with. Right, so in so many ways you
Speaker 1: have to suppress who you are. Then it comes in
Speaker 1: awakening at some point in the marriage where it's like,
Speaker 1: I'm not doing that anymore. And so many marriages struggle
Speaker 1: because you've been trying to suppress who you really want
Speaker 1: to be, and you want to suppress who you want
Speaker 1: to be so that I can love you, and I
Speaker 1: finally when you say I'm not doing this no more,
Speaker 1: and you become a natural self. Now we as men
Speaker 1: have to readjust to who you really want to be. Yo.
Speaker 1: That happens listening to you, listening to you, that reminds
Speaker 1: me of us. Reminds there was a point where she
Speaker 1: was like, I'm going to do this and do this
Speaker 1: and do that with my my career. I don't want
Speaker 1: to act. I'm gonna be a wife. And then she's
Speaker 1: just like, but I love performance, I love acting. And
Speaker 1: then for me, I was just like right, and I
Speaker 1: was just like, well, I didn't I didn't sign up
Speaker 1: for that. I told you from the beginning that I
Speaker 1: wanted to be an actor. I told you, I told
Speaker 1: you I wanted to be a sex symbol. I told
Speaker 1: you I want to this. So I told her, I said, hey,
Speaker 1: if you are marrying me, to understand that I want
Speaker 1: to be bigger than will Smith. So I want to
Speaker 1: do I want to save the world from alien invasions.
Speaker 1: I want to be I want to do that. She knows,
Speaker 1: That's how she knows. So I told her that. But
Speaker 1: we as men were allowed to be free what we
Speaker 1: want to do. That's what I want to do. For her.
Speaker 1: I was like, okay, baby, about just do whatever it
Speaker 1: is you need me. Now She's like, no, I was
Speaker 1: gonna say that the house. Yes, I was actually gonna
Speaker 1: say that would be because number three, I would say,
Speaker 1: number three, don't sacrifice yourself for the um for your spouse.
Speaker 1: Don't sacrifice and lose yourself for the uplifting for your
Speaker 1: spouse is maybe a better way to say, don't meet yourself.
Speaker 1: I call it taking up all of your space forever.
Speaker 1: I didn't take up all of the space that is, Melissa.
Speaker 1: I was shrinking, trying to ensure that he was okay.
Speaker 1: And one day you need to start hurting because I
Speaker 1: don't have me every day. Just please get to this
Speaker 1: woman's knees. Out of that you want that. Old videos
Speaker 1: do not hold up like that. But you know, I
Speaker 1: have a couple of friends who are single in their
Speaker 1: thirties right, and they find it very difficult to now
Speaker 1: find someone, you know, the dating scene and whatnot. Whereas
Speaker 1: couples who are you know, younger in their twenties their
Speaker 1: dating and they're doing well and they're on their path,
Speaker 1: and it's a struggle because I think you said by
Speaker 1: thirty five, you're already set in your ways, and it's
Speaker 1: harder to find somebody when you're setting your ways because
Speaker 1: there's not that willingness to kind of bend with valuable anymore.
Speaker 1: Like I don't even know if I want to make
Speaker 1: that much. That's why there's pros and cons. I mean,
Speaker 1: I feel like when you're young, the beautiful thing about
Speaker 1: being young and married is that you get to grow
Speaker 1: and evolve together together. Yeah, you know we do have
Speaker 1: very similar stories as you're talking more, but you're right.
Speaker 1: As you get in your the older you get, the
Speaker 1: more established you because yeahships and stuff. So I wouldn't
Speaker 1: want to be on a date and scene right now.
Speaker 1: I am not, but I will tell you this. The
Speaker 1: one thing I have learned also from listening to you
Speaker 1: guys today about the whole um, the sexuality thing and
Speaker 1: women being allowed to embrace their sexuality. I think it
Speaker 1: will be easier for a woman to be a wife
Speaker 1: if she's embraced her sexuality earlier and then be willing
Speaker 1: to give into her husband, as opposed to being shamed
Speaker 1: her whole life and now I got to openly give myself.
Speaker 1: I think now in this day and age, it would
Speaker 1: be easier for men and women to agree in that
Speaker 1: aspect of marriage, But in other aspects it seems a
Speaker 1: lot harder because you know, women, women are not the
Speaker 1: scene seen as the same way as they were when
Speaker 1: we were growing up. It was always like you were
Speaker 1: a accessory to a man. And that's not the case,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, And exactly a lot of splace.
Speaker 1: I don't got no women in my closett. She got
Speaker 1: to even have my clothes in our room. Well, listen,
Speaker 1: took up so much, man, I got to go into
Speaker 1: other room. Piece of that closet. She got multiple closets,
Speaker 1: our bedroom, the living room closet, the backroom, office closet. Man,
Speaker 1: the same person persons, we need you, Oh my god,
Speaker 1: so we have to come. I mean, y'all keep coming
Speaker 1: back and keep coming back. We have different topics. We're
Speaker 1: talking vows and marriage today. We can talk kids another day.
Speaker 1: You know, you can talk to absolutely being married. In
Speaker 1: the industry, you guys stick around and listen to this,
Speaker 1: because they'd be like, here are two cents. Now we
Speaker 1: got two four six. We got so when it was
Speaker 1: just us to it was two cents. But now it's
Speaker 1: for explain to me how that works. Were just mad sense.
Speaker 1: We'll be back with these cents after these ads. This
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Speaker 1: Podcasts or your favorite podcast app. All right, y'all, So okay, Melissa.
Speaker 1: People write in all the time asking us all sorts
Speaker 1: of things. So we pull listener letters, which happens to
Speaker 1: be one of my favorite parts of the show. Anyone
Speaker 1: to know what's going on out there. So, um, if
Speaker 1: y'all don't mind, we're gonna read listeners. See what advice
Speaker 1: we can give these folks out here. All right, So
Speaker 1: the first one is I'm in a long term, committed
Speaker 1: relationship of seven years. We have two children. Both of
Speaker 1: us have great careers and are very family oriented. Within
Speaker 1: the last six to seven months of our relationship, our
Speaker 1: sex life has declined, and that was in bold declined.
Speaker 1: I'd take into consideration that his job is very strenuous
Speaker 1: and he works long hours at an oil refinery operator.
Speaker 1: I've brought the issue up on multiple occasions. I've even asked,
Speaker 1: is it me or something that I'm doing that's not
Speaker 1: turning you on? He says, no, I'm just tired, but
Speaker 1: sex twice a month is really pushing it. Yikes. Nothing
Speaker 1: has changed in any other area of our relationships, so
Speaker 1: I don't think it's anyone else. I've never cheated. My
Speaker 1: main concern is if I decided to cheat, I think
Speaker 1: it will be emotionally attached, or I will be emotionally
Speaker 1: attached because it's something I'm not getting from home. To
Speaker 1: cheat or not to cheat is the questions, These type
Speaker 1: of questions we get millennial married ellis like, like somebody
Speaker 1: really gonna be like, yeah, girl for it. I just
Speaker 1: have a couple of questions. The first thing, I wonder
Speaker 1: how old they are. If it's sex, like it's just sex,
Speaker 1: you know, it could be declining his drive It sex
Speaker 1: drive could be declining healthy words. In the oil refinery,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of things and factors that could affect
Speaker 1: a man's sex drive. Is is she still attractive? Is
Speaker 1: she taking care of herself? Like? These things affect your
Speaker 1: sex life when both of them he not working out?
Speaker 1: He in the on refinery heat tired, she's not working
Speaker 1: out like they don't, you know, like right, I mean,
Speaker 1: I would never advise anybody just go out there and cheat. No, no,
Speaker 1: I don't think, yeah, you know what, cheat on him,
Speaker 1: chain on that cheap multiple. You know. Um, I totally
Speaker 1: agree with you that I feel like Um, it could
Speaker 1: be something as simple as work and how you feel
Speaker 1: about yourself. It could be like a this. It could
Speaker 1: be a dislike of your job, it could be a
Speaker 1: dislike of where your life is, and that could make
Speaker 1: you feel undesirable to her. There's a lot of different
Speaker 1: factors that it's difficult to gauge which is the one,
Speaker 1: and a lot of times it's not just one concrete things.
Speaker 1: And sometimes people don't even know what the you know,
Speaker 1: the mitigating factors are for themselves, so he might not
Speaker 1: even be able to point to it, you know. And
Speaker 1: sometimes like you said, hey, one of our boys, um
Speaker 1: Tony Baker. Early in marriage he was high desire. Later
Speaker 1: in life he like he was singing for a wise,
Speaker 1: I don't really be needing like that, you know. So
Speaker 1: there is the evolution of biology and changing men go
Speaker 1: through that. I don't think and realize that sometimes your
Speaker 1: desire is not you. Sometimes he's just going through something. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're not explaining anything. I'm gonna agree with you. Well,
Speaker 1: you see it, right, the beard grows, so do other
Speaker 1: things you wanted the beard? What comes. I can't imagine
Speaker 1: myself personally feeling like that, But also I don't know
Speaker 1: myself in ten years. You don't know what you. I
Speaker 1: can't imagine my life now, and this is what I
Speaker 1: was dreaming for, and now that it's coming to fruition,
Speaker 1: I still can't believe it. You know, it's it's tough
Speaker 1: to say, um, but sex twice a month. I think
Speaker 1: it's a conversation where a lot of times people don't
Speaker 1: share explicitly how that makes me feel. When we don't
Speaker 1: have sex, I don't feel connected to you, and I
Speaker 1: don't feel connected to you. It makes my mind start
Speaker 1: to wonder about us, about my desirability to you. It
Speaker 1: makes my mind wandered to other things, and then I
Speaker 1: don't want to feel that way. So and maybe your
Speaker 1: spouse doesn't even realize that it's having that effect. We've
Speaker 1: had that conversation to and I actually where he felt
Speaker 1: like he wasn't getting enough at whatever time, and he
Speaker 1: has said, yo, I'm thinking about other people like I
Speaker 1: am rejection, rejection from your wife straight and I'm gonna
Speaker 1: tell you I told me list of the straight up
Speaker 1: earner amerage, and I probably wouldn't word it this way
Speaker 1: ever again, but I'm like, look, man, I don't get
Speaker 1: to have sex with nobody else. You're not giving it
Speaker 1: to me. And these girls at the they're looking at
Speaker 1: your boy. So I gotta go to let me explain
Speaker 1: something to you. Bro, Let me explain something to you.
Speaker 1: Did you'll see my eyes? I told Okay, I said, listen,
Speaker 1: I'm a professional athlete. I want to have sex with you,
Speaker 1: and you're gonna tell me no. And I gotta go
Speaker 1: out here. And these chicks know who I am. I
Speaker 1: walking on the mall. You just want me to tell
Speaker 1: them no? Come home to hear no from you. I
Speaker 1: was just working in the bank. But I understand where
Speaker 1: you're coming from, because to us as men, it feel
Speaker 1: like it's not fair. You just feel like it's trying,
Speaker 1: and you're not even you're not even helping me. You
Speaker 1: out here, you're you're making it harder. You gotta make
Speaker 1: it easier. I mean, again, I wouldn't word it that
Speaker 1: way there's the truth to that honesty of like the
Speaker 1: brutal that gakes you to the core. On top of that,
Speaker 1: ya both attractive women. Yeah, you expect me to come
Speaker 1: home look at you in all your fineness. And then
Speaker 1: way Melissa does this thing. We take a shower almost
Speaker 1: every night. I don't like going to bed to sleep, right,
Speaker 1: Melissa does this thing. I mean shower, lotions cream, smell good,
Speaker 1: screwed up into me and then be like and don't
Speaker 1: try nothing. Listen, don't don't don't don't do that. Don't
Speaker 1: put me in that position because we just want to.
Speaker 1: I would love to come out, That's what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: But you're making me the bad guy. I can't do amazing.
Speaker 1: I say that like I just don't feel like being
Speaker 1: penetrated today. Just what do you? I just want to
Speaker 1: be closed. Listen, you think the gazelle, You think the gazelle.
Speaker 1: Anything in my body next to my body? Do you thing?
Speaker 1: Just gazelle runs up to the lion, covers up next
Speaker 1: to the line. He says, don't eat me. I just
Speaker 1: feel like I don't feel like being eating. That's not
Speaker 1: my friend. The line's gonna be like, listen, now you
Speaker 1: look listening seasons out in the jungle that Gazell done
Speaker 1: to you, But I'm not. I'm just not wired like that.
Speaker 1: That's hilarious, but yeah, I feel like that. That So Melissa,
Speaker 1: our ours was the flip side. Um. She was feeling like,
Speaker 1: this is a huge thing for us, this this past
Speaker 1: year of vulnerability. So as my travel schedule intentified and
Speaker 1: hers did. What used to work for us as far
Speaker 1: as connection, now it's not working anymore because we're gone
Speaker 1: so much. She's like, when we have time together, our
Speaker 1: conversations can't be just service level. We're gonna have to
Speaker 1: get deeper and deeper because I'm not feeling a connection
Speaker 1: to you and it's making it hard to have sex.
Speaker 1: So she's like, and I feel like you're not sharing
Speaker 1: your feelings with me. And I told her one day,
Speaker 1: I said, man, I'm not sharing my feelings with myself.
Speaker 1: I don't even feel my feelings enough to express to you.
Speaker 1: I just compressed them. So in order for us to
Speaker 1: go to this next level our marriage, I had to
Speaker 1: start being more honest, like about what I'm afraid of.
Speaker 1: And she was like, I need you to tell me
Speaker 1: you're scared of, Like I don't want to tell you
Speaker 1: that because if I say it out loud, now I'm
Speaker 1: acknowledging it. If I acknowledge it, that means I might
Speaker 1: be because if you're trying to go to the league,
Speaker 1: like you know, you might not make it or team.
Speaker 1: If you say that you just made it real. You
Speaker 1: can't say, of course it's a ridiculous dream, like one
Speaker 1: of thousands of NT double A athletes actually make the NFL,
Speaker 1: and less than that actually make the team. But everyone
Speaker 1: in that college got at least believe that they're there.
Speaker 1: So I have to now got to really say that
Speaker 1: it makes it real. But I had to do that
Speaker 1: in order for us to feel connected for the rest
Speaker 1: of our marriage, because what was working from literally year
Speaker 1: one through fourteen all of a sudden stops working. And
Speaker 1: that's when it's like, man, I'm really gonna have to
Speaker 1: change something about my old personality. Now you know that
Speaker 1: once again another awakening to help this young lady out,
Speaker 1: maybe she should try to get more in tune with
Speaker 1: him to find a connection Another way, I was going
Speaker 1: to suggest that that intimacy. Sexual intimacy is often a
Speaker 1: barometer for how your relationship is doing. Yeah, when the
Speaker 1: sex is down, it's often an indicator that other things
Speaker 1: are down. And so instead of um always concentrating and
Speaker 1: focusing on sex, trying to find where we can connect outside,
Speaker 1: out of the bedroom, final intimate connection outside of the
Speaker 1: bedrooms and let that overflow and carry over into room
Speaker 1: because trying to force it just in the bedroom, it's
Speaker 1: gonna feel forced. It's gone forced. We hate that. That's
Speaker 1: that's a good tip, no pun intended problems. Listen letter
Speaker 1: number two tomorrow bad. I literally think we're in a
Speaker 1: parallel if we would grew up in New York is us?
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh. I'm a single mother who has had
Speaker 1: much trouble recently co parenting with the father, so much
Speaker 1: so that the father has caused himself to lose visitation
Speaker 1: with our only child. Because of this, I believe our
Speaker 1: son is beginning to act out in undesirable ways. I've
Speaker 1: been advised to get him counseling, medication, etcetera. But he
Speaker 1: is only three and has been exposed to much trauma.
Speaker 1: Teachers and family are quick to give up on him
Speaker 1: or place a label on him a D D, A
Speaker 1: D D, etcetera. This has become overwhelming and I'm still
Speaker 1: trying to heal myself after escaping a domestically violent, violent relationship.
Speaker 1: While my question is as a single black mother, what
Speaker 1: methods can I try to help my son to be
Speaker 1: the best and most exceptional self in order to develop
Speaker 1: better coping skills as there is no male role model
Speaker 1: in his life currently. This is the first thing I have.
Speaker 1: I have a ton of history with this because I
Speaker 1: start of the mentorship program in Brooklyn and we've mentored
Speaker 1: over five hundred boys. Black boys are the number one
Speaker 1: medicated children in America. Yes, especially in the public school system.
Speaker 1: If you're a white male, white female, even a black female,
Speaker 1: if you act out to have behavioral issues, you'll get
Speaker 1: it first, second, third chance. When it comes to black males,
Speaker 1: the first thing is medication. The second thing is arrest.
Speaker 1: They arrest kids, especially in New York. We've seen they
Speaker 1: arrest kids at a high rate, especially when you're a
Speaker 1: black male. It's easy to label a black male because
Speaker 1: that puts them to from the school to prison pipeline.
Speaker 1: Once you get labeled as a d D, a d
Speaker 1: h D, or you have detention history, or you've been arrested,
Speaker 1: it's easier to put you in jail later on. So
Speaker 1: the first thing I'm gonna tell you, Mama, do not
Speaker 1: put that channel medication. He's three, Okay, if if you
Speaker 1: look at Cairo, Cairo probably has a d D a
Speaker 1: d h D. They would probably put him on medication
Speaker 1: if we you weren't there to say, listen, I know
Speaker 1: my son. He's acting out because he sees the cheerios
Speaker 1: and he wants to cheerio, not because there's something wrong,
Speaker 1: and because because he's three. See what I'm saying, three
Speaker 1: year old? Exactly are we expecting from a three year old?
Speaker 1: Like and and that's this This really comes close to
Speaker 1: my heart man, because we had a kid I don't
Speaker 1: want to say his name, but remember when we were
Speaker 1: training and he had a d h D. He was
Speaker 1: on medication since he was young. He gets the prototype
Speaker 1: and his grades were terrible, six average and he was like,
Speaker 1: you know, I wanted to be in prototype. I said,
Speaker 1: if you don't have an A D average, you can't
Speaker 1: be in prototype. Prototype is how we do our sports
Speaker 1: performance training for football. He wanted to be on part
Speaker 1: of the football team. I said, you have to learn
Speaker 1: to focus. He's like my medication and I said, well,
Speaker 1: stop taking a medication for a little bit. See if
Speaker 1: that I'll help you. Graduated with an AD plus average
Speaker 1: and he's in college. In college, he was on medication
Speaker 1: from the time he was young. His mom had completely
Speaker 1: given up coached about I don't know what to do.
Speaker 1: All we did was give him discipline, you have to
Speaker 1: be here at a certain time, you have to be accountable,
Speaker 1: and put him in the surrounding where all of his
Speaker 1: male counterparts all were striving for the same thing. So
Speaker 1: since everybody had an A D average, it was no
Speaker 1: longer okay to get sixty. The program that works for
Speaker 1: young black males put them in an environment whe their
Speaker 1: other young black males that look like them, who are
Speaker 1: all working the same way. Because the last thing a
Speaker 1: child wants is to be singled out. You know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. If we are messing up, then we are
Speaker 1: all messing up. We are robbing people, Then we all
Speaker 1: robbing people were doing the same thing. It's being different
Speaker 1: is not cool, not cool, especially that young and it's
Speaker 1: it's just it hurts me to hear this because, um,
Speaker 1: I don't know what happened with the dad, but as
Speaker 1: you guys know, having fathers a very important especially for
Speaker 1: young black men. You know, the prison industrial system still
Speaker 1: very much exists, and it starts as young as our
Speaker 1: young boys, labeling them, so it's a lot easier to
Speaker 1: pass them through the system. All right, now, Well, if
Speaker 1: you want to be featured as one of our listener letters,
Speaker 1: email us at dead ass Advice at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: We had such yea, I'm so glad we got to
Speaker 1: do this. People hit us up to like y'all had
Speaker 1: everybody else cool, but give the valid I feel like
Speaker 1: it's like two pairs like I feel like y'all would
Speaker 1: like to tell should play together. Ye we like each other.
Speaker 1: Y'all got two boys could probably be mentors to my
Speaker 1: three young boys. How old are your boys in? How eight?
Speaker 1: Three and one and a half? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, my goodness.
Speaker 1: So you usually wrap up the episode with a moment
Speaker 1: of truth, you know, and the moment of truth is
Speaker 1: pretty much whatever you pull from this entire conversation. You know,
Speaker 1: it can be anything. That can be something simple, it
Speaker 1: can be something a little bit more complex. You know.
Speaker 1: Do you have a moment of truth, babe? Well, I'll
Speaker 1: start with I guess yeah, moments of truth for today.
Speaker 1: I was thinking about a lot um of topics. It
Speaker 1: can be silly, silly, Okay, we'll go silly first. My
Speaker 1: moment of truth or my revelation is we are to
Speaker 1: say times, but I literally feel like we've lived parallel
Speaker 1: lives again, just in different dimensions. I don't know what
Speaker 1: was going over, whatever was going on in New York, Cha,
Speaker 1: the same thing was happening to at the exact same time.
Speaker 1: So the fact that our stories um so mirror each
Speaker 1: other number one again, it brings credence to You're not
Speaker 1: alone and alone. That's my same We're taking all yourself.
Speaker 1: Do we have a collective moment of truth? We can
Speaker 1: try that for the first time on the show. Unless
Speaker 1: you had a really good moment of truth. Nah, I
Speaker 1: I listen. I think that was great because I learned
Speaker 1: a lot about myself listening to you guys talk. I
Speaker 1: was going to say, I'm not crazy because when I
Speaker 1: told you all I get to have sex with you
Speaker 1: and nobody else, and these girls looking at me we
Speaker 1: talked about in the love Hour and no men ever
Speaker 1: there like you said that the only one that's like
Speaker 1: I said that too, And I'm like seeing yes, I
Speaker 1: was feeling like, you're not crazy. It's so comforted. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: because when you feel like you're just by yourself, you're like, man,
Speaker 1: maybe I wouldn't. That was gonna be my funny moment
Speaker 1: of your Everybody wants to Val and Kevin y'all clearly
Speaker 1: because now Kevi got a beard. The beard muscles everybody.
Speaker 1: I've been working on muscles because she reminds me how
Speaker 1: skinny I was. So I wake up in the morning
Speaker 1: just like YA was skinny, not normal, no spoon say
Speaker 1: my whole life. I have issues with that and it's
Speaker 1: still triggering to you. Oh my goodness. Melissa and Kevin,
Speaker 1: thank you so much, appreciate you so so very much, fantastic. Thanks.
Speaker 1: Sure to follow us on social media actually give us
Speaker 1: your handles as well, and let let everyone know where
Speaker 1: to find you in case they don't know about you,
Speaker 1: because if they don't, they were under a rock. Yeah.
Speaker 1: keV on stage everything, Miss keV on stage on everything.
Speaker 1: The podcast is the our podcast. Love our Podcasts on
Speaker 1: Instagram and Facebook. It comes out every Thursday, and come
Speaker 1: rock with us on that rock with them, trust me them,
Speaker 1: I comment, I like always both have such great I
Speaker 1: forgot to say it didn't come out I respected the
Speaker 1: valid code so much because y'all be keeping it, I
Speaker 1: mean transparent Instagram. And he said, man, me and and
Speaker 1: cadem was beefing, and I was like, man, people do
Speaker 1: not be that honest because on Instagram you think that
Speaker 1: everybody for weeks months, and we finally had a breakthrough,
Speaker 1: and that means y'all had just got through it. Because
Speaker 1: we always talk about stuff that we conquered years ago.
Speaker 1: People don't want to talk about she was gone for
Speaker 1: a month and this to this problem and here's how
Speaker 1: we solved. And I feel like that is so helpful
Speaker 1: to people who idolized, not idolized, but look up to
Speaker 1: you and to no man. Okay, you know what, maybe
Speaker 1: they beat they they have rough patches too, and that
Speaker 1: is so comforting to be like many we even too,
Speaker 1: were based all Christmas last year, on Christmas, not only
Speaker 1: on the dage, the whole time, the whole season. Yes, good,
Speaker 1: all right, but it was felt it felt good to
Speaker 1: be like all right, even them who are in the
Speaker 1: industry and blah blah blah, they are expirits of the
Speaker 1: same thing. I know. Regular people like being too. Well,
Speaker 1: we appreciate so much. I remember I am devouted. That's
Speaker 1: my handle exactly, yes, And of course if you're listening
Speaker 1: on Apple podcasts, be sure to rate, review and subscribe
Speaker 1: and tell a friend. Dead as Dead as Dead Ass
Speaker 1: is a production of Stitcher. It's produced by T Square
Speaker 1: and Dinora Penia. Our Chief content Officer is Chris Bannet.
Speaker 1: Our associate producers are Kristen Torres and Treble. Our studio
Speaker 1: engineers are Brandon Burns and Andy, Kristen's daughter. We're back.
Speaker 1: I'm Drew McCarry and I'm David Roth. We have a
Speaker 1: podcast going on right now as part of the stitchen
Speaker 1: netwhere called Abstraction that's available everywhere. Get the podcast at Stitcher, Spotify, Apple,
Speaker 1: Go listen right now to the Distraction right now, it's out.
Speaker 1: Do it please,