February 13, 2025 • 39 mins
Happy Valentine’s Day, More Better fam! Cupid’s on his way. …Or not. If you hate this holiday, we get it. Melissa really gets it. This week, Steph and Mel talk all things ROMANCE. They spill about cringy poetry, emotional breakthroughs over honeymoon pizza, romantic takeout eaten on the floor and the simplicity of making your partner a cup of coffee in the morning. Because when it’s the right person — it’s just about seeing one another. All together now: Awwwwwwwww! One thing’s for sure. We absolutely positively love YOU, dear listeners. Will you be our Valentines?
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
But we were just like, fuck this holiday, man's holiday makes.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
People feel bad. I don't like it all the commercialism.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
I think some damn expensive this day. Like we had
that attitude for a long time. More more, better, more better, more.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
Better more.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Hello. Welcome to More Better, a podcast where we stop
pretending to have it all together and embrace the journey
becoming a little more better every day, or at least
trying to. That's that. Oh oh and I'm Who'm Stephanie Beatrice. Nice,
(00:50):
nicely done. Welcome back to the podcast. Guys. How's it going,
how's your morning drive, how's your brushing your teeth? How's
your shower? What are you doing right now while you're
listening to this? Maybe you're at work? So interesting to
think about people sitting in a cubicle with ear buds in,
like listening while they like Yeah, because like when I
(01:12):
did temp work, or like when I worked in a
in an office, I was not We were not allowed
to do that. Also, we were answering phones, so that
would have been weird too, write you know what I mean,
Like there weren't. Also, I'm aging myself like we didn't
really we didn't have Like we didn't have power buds
buds Like I still remember the commercials with the silhouette
(01:33):
and the white earbuds and everyone was like earbuds. Oh
my god, you can put them in your ear. Yeah.
That is a high level of multitasking that I admire.
I can't. I can't. Can you imagine processing information? No?
I can't even imagine like acting doing like I watched
(01:54):
them and I'm like, why are they doing this? I
guess they're just faking it. I didn't even know that
until Okay, what have I done my day? That's more better?
What have I You know what I'm gonna say, I
am in a little bit of a more better draught,
just getting just getting through it, you know, like super
(02:17):
busy with the job, flying back and forth. How are
you feeling about the job? About that? I mean just
in Johnny, Yeah, because you weren't feeling good. Oh you know,
I got her so sick after that recording and then
is it gone? Now? Wait ye to get anual virus?
Did you peek your pants? No? I did not put
my pants, but I felt like towards the end of
(02:41):
that recording, I did start to feel like a little
Remember I was putting my robe on and off. Yeah,
and I was like, am I getting the Am I
getting caught and cold? Oh? No? And then I was exhausted,
slugging through like packing to come back to LA and
I was like, I have to go to bed. I
have to go to bed. I have to go to bed.
And I laid down, passed out in two seconds, and
(03:03):
then I woke up at four in the morning. Then
I drenched in sweat. No, but I drenched and sweat
better sweated it out. I think I sweated it out.
So I think little House on the Prairie sweated the fever.
So I appreciate you carry I meant to text you earlier.
I appreciate you carrying me through because I looking back,
(03:25):
I was like, I don't think I talked that much,
not me not noticing. Oh no. I was like, no,
maybe it's in my head. Maybe I'm overthinking it, but like,
I mean, we'll see when we listened to it. But yeah,
I was like, oh I think I might have been
a little quiet. Oh shit, like Steph had to do
some heavy lifting because I yeah, I was like feeling
(03:50):
slightly worse as we went along, and then bad that night. Bad.
Do you feel okay now? Though, do you feel Here's
the thing. I woke up and I felt fine. I
did sleep on the whole plane ride home, but like,
I feel fine. I don't even feel like I have
a cold, Like it was weird. So you're not doing
anything that's more better, but you are more better. Sorry,
(04:14):
so stupid. I'm embarrassed for myself on that one. Get out.
What have you been doing lately that's more better? Girl?
I'm getting dressed, Like, yeah, drapetis to wear my pajamas
the entire day. Yep, I'm not shooting anything right now,
so I just am. I love to wear my gym jams, like,
(04:36):
I will straight up get in my jimmies, like as
soon as I can. If I can bring my jammis
to dinner, I will. So like problem with this is
that like my kids like why are you dressed? Where
are you going? And I'm like, oh no, I have
to teach her that we like actually get dressed to
get dressed. So I'm getting dressed. I'm like, well, I'm
(04:57):
also starting to call my home clothes because I feel
like my home clothes are a mishmash of disgusting, like
and I don't feel good in them, so I want
home clothes that are like the mix of comfy and cute,
you know what I mean. I want like, I want
stuff that I'm not going to be embarrassed to run
to the drug store, you know what I mean, like
(05:18):
someone's going to be shopping for some leisure wear. I'm
really trying to uh restrain myself from shopping as much
as possible unless I'm vantage. I'm really trying unless it's
a thrift or vintage, because okay, I feel like we
could pick up some good comfies at a thrift store.
(05:39):
I think there's quite a bit of I mean this
shirt that I'm wearing right now, the sparts Yeah, who
knows sirk or what. I don't even know. It's real
cute date on it nineteen ninety. Yeah this shut is
the shirt was made in nineteen ninety, you guys. So yeah,
that's what's going on with me. I'm getting dressed and
(05:59):
getting dressed from my day and making sure that I
look okay, deecee and happy, feel comfy, and feel cute
at home. I love that. So then I'm not, you know,
wearing the one pair of sweatpants that my husband absolutely hates.
I refuse to throw them out. Also, they're really great.
(06:19):
He is just like, you know those those there was
this there was this pair of gray sweatshorts that he
had during the pandemic and I made him burn them
like actually, like you actually set them on fire, like
set them on fire. Amazing. And then he was like,
you know those gray sweatpants that you have? That the
way I feel about those. I was like, no, I
don't care, Like that's your problem. That's not my problem.
(06:45):
That's a that's a problem, sorry about it. It was like, wait,
I didn't know that way.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
Option as a reply back in the sweatshirt sweatshort days
whoops and today's episode, we're talking about a romance, so.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
You know, listen was it Did it feel a little
romantic when you set those shorts on fire? He set
them on fire and it was romantic actually, And he
showed me a video of it, and I was like,
wow that there was connection there was yeah, yeah, so
you know what we're going to talk about. You know,
it's basically the same connection that most Feratu and what's
(07:26):
your face have in that movie. I mean it's like
I haven't seen a connection of him burning his listen,
I have a lot of thoughts about it. I I
want to he was fascinated by Dave Eggers and his
interesting foray into female sexuality and what he thinks about it.
I would just love to sit down with him at
(07:47):
some point and be like, what's going on in that
big brain ears? Because like, I've seen The Witch and
I loved it. I've seen Now, I've seen No Saratu.
I'd like to see some of his work that isn't
about female sexuality and sort of hair. I think those specifically,
those two works are about female sexuality, and I'm very
(08:08):
fascinated about what he thinks about women and female sexuality,
especially in young women that are just kind of coming
into their own power, and whether or not they have
agency on their own or if they're an agent of
agency for men around them more better. Anyway, that's not
(08:29):
what this podcast is about. Romans, baby, Oh my god.
When we start talking about doing this episode, I was like,
I don't know, because I don't think of myself as
a particularly romantic person, Like, so do you not really? No?
I think I don't know. I've seen pictures of your wedding.
It was like, really, although my male is very beautiful
(08:50):
as well. Your wedding was also very beautiful and very romantic.
It was romantic. It was you got married in the
fucking round, do you Yeah? Yeah, yeah, I think getting
married in the rest theater mode. It is a true
theater nerd. Everyone has to have a good seat. But
also it's incredibly romantic because you're like literally surrounded by
(09:14):
all these people that love you. Yeah, well you like
say your vows. Oh my god, it's like dramatic and
romantic and like also remember our vows were like ten
minutes long. Like we didn't say anything. I I don't
have a no, I don't have a memory of them
being short. I have ton of them being really like
beautiful and sweet. We wrote stuff for our efficients to say,
(09:37):
We wrote stuff. We each like helped them write stuff.
Oh yeah yeah, And they spoke and then it was like, okay, Brad,
do you take.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
And the whole maybe that's everybody's like, oh shit, are
we already here?
Speaker 1 (09:48):
We're about to start partying, you know what. We did
the same thing because it was so nice because my
husband is, even though he's an actor, he's very shy. Yeah,
and so I remember when we were planning the wedding,
and I was like, do you want to? Like, you know,
I was like so young and I So what I
was going to say was, I think when I was younger,
(10:08):
I was kind of a hopeless romantic, like the more
into the like I think, more typical cliche, superficial, superficial
versions of romance. Right, So I when we were planning
our wedding, I was like, oh my god, do you
want to like write our own vowels? Like so into it?
Wanting him to say yes, and he the look on
(10:30):
his face was just like I will die. We're having
a staruge wedding.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
I cannot pour my hot heart out in front of
all those people.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
You wanted him to secretly be like, actually, yes, I've
written fifteen pages of my one hundred percent one hundred
percent And then I was like, oh, I have to
respect that, Like I can't force him to do something
that feels so vulnerabile and private in front of like
we had like amost three hundred people at all same Yeah,
(11:02):
like for the three hundred and fifty our closest friends, Yeah,
you loved me, you know what I mean? So yeah,
kudos to the ones that do I I have cried it.
I know a wedding that I've been to where they've
done that. But for us, yeah, we did the same thing.
We like wrote out what we wanted our efficient to say, yeah,
and then we just said I do, which worked, which
(11:22):
is like nice like in between yeah, yeah. I mean,
when I think about romance, I definitely had a different
idea of what it was supposed to be when I was,
you know, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, into my twenties, into my thirties.
I feel like romance changes dramatically after you have children.
But for the purposes of this conversation, breaking it down
(11:45):
into like when I was sixteen, the most romantic thing
in the world was like, you know, I'm saying a
song here, I mean you were pardon and when when
they like yell at each other across but we're talking
about Forrest Gump. You guys, there's this part where Jenny
and Forrest run at each other across the Washington mall right, Yes,
(12:07):
they're running across the water. Yes, and you're here and
she's like in her little hippie outfit and he's in
his like soldier al and it's the most beautiful, huge
grand gesture The grand gesture was everything when I was
a kid, you know, because you'd see it in movies
and you'd go, oh, that's what that's what romance is.
(12:28):
If somebody loves you, they do these big grand gestures
for you. Yes. And then somewhere along the way, I
kind of realized that it wasn't necessarily about the grand gesture,
and so I think I reverted to the absolute opposite,
which was like, I'm a cool girl. I don't need
(12:48):
a romantic gesture. In fact, I don't need any romance
at all. Like I remember specifically dating someone who I
should have known it was a red flag, but like
he really didn't want to be public about our relationship.
Oh read like he felt kind of more calm about it.
(13:09):
I don't even know, you know, I think he just
wanted to have it on the down low, you know. Yeah, yeah,
and uh. And to me, what was so romantic was
the stealing glances at each other, you know, like sneaking around, right, yeah,
which is kind of heightened and sexy in a way,
but it's not romantic, I don't think, you know, Like, ultimately,
(13:34):
there's a lot of romance that comes with honesty and vulnerability. Yes,
somebody that you really love and trust, and when ye
being sneaky and nobody knows about you being his little
you know whatever, then they can get away with a
lot of shit. And like, yeah, I think young like
young me almost went the opposite direction from what I
(13:57):
was this romantic I guess in you know, high school,
where I wanted these big grand gestures and was basing
everything off of every movie that I was seeing, And
I went the opposite in my twenties where it was like, yeah,
definitely treat me like garbage. I am such a cool
girl and I don't care, you know, Yeah, that's we
(14:19):
want to like split the dif we want to be
in the middle. You can't. First of all, you can't
let anybody treat like garbage, period, But particularly in a
romantic relationship, it's like if you're constantly feeling like shit,
that's the other thing. Remember those I don't know if
you've ever had one, but like those super volatile relationships
where people are just like everything is like a big
(14:39):
fight and everything is like life and death. Yes, yeah,
it's like people are like I hate growing. Yeah yeah, yeah,
that's also not I know it's and then you involve
alcohol and like, oh my god. When I was in
my twenties, I was dating someone significantly older than me,
(15:01):
and he had a bunch of friends that were older
than me too, and so they were in their late
twenties and I was in my really early twenties. And
I remember we went out to dinner with them or something.
It was like a holiday or something. Everyone got ripped
at dinner, just ripped. And the one of the couples
that we were with was one of those really vollattle couples.
(15:25):
And they were screaming at each other in Times Square
on the street in front of Do you remember Bluefin? Yeah? Yeah,
So they were screaming at each other outside of Blue Fin.
And I can't remember the guy's name, but the girl's
name was Liz, and he was like, Liz, I love
you more than my life. You fucking wore It was like,
(15:45):
oh my god, I couldn't. I was like, were you,
Like that's what real passion looks like. I remember like this,
these people are fucked up. Any new friends, like this
is not my friend group. This cannot be my friend group. No, no,
m mmmm no, no, no, no, ma'am, no, no, thank you.
(16:16):
Did you ever have a Volletle, like this is romance.
Oh smarter than that always? I mean, I know, I
don't think I was smarter. I think I was just lucky.
I think my I think the guy that I dated
in high school was like a really good boyfriend, really
sweet and like set me up for success, you know,
(16:38):
like mine too. I think when the first one is
like really good, you always are comparing a little bit
and and it just it just gives you like a
like a framework going forward where you're just like, oh,
that guy's a douche, like, you know, because you know
what it's like to be treated really well. Yeah. So
I think I was just lucky. But I did like
(17:00):
have a sort of toxic relationship in college and it
was name but it made name. But you know, it
wasn't ever volatile or that kind of thing. It was
more just you know, micro aggressions and you know, that
kind of thing and not growing like together. I think
(17:25):
that was always like a big one. But but yeah,
I I you know, I also like met David so
so young. Right when you meet David, you were like
I was like twenty two. What I know? That is right?
They It's crazy. I look back and I'm like girl,
what were you thinking? You were like, snatch him up,
(17:51):
snatch him up. And I remember when we first started
dating too, that, like, you know, there were sort of
the romantic things that he did that that later I
was like, you don't do romantic shit anymore, but it
was like, no, they just like changed in evault. Yeah,
(18:13):
do you know what I mean. Like we first started dating,
he used to because he wakes up early and I
do not. And that's still true to this day. He
would walk to the dunkin Donuts and get his coffee
every morning. And I just saw and I was like,
that is the roast romantic thing. It is it as
somebody whose husband makes for coffee every day, it is
(18:34):
one of the most romantic things in the life. And
that is that he still makes coffee every day. Like yeah,
So it's like but for a minute, I was like,
but he's not going outside, he's not walking down the
block order all that extra effort is. He's not in
his room getting up, He's just fucking walk into the
(18:55):
kitchen and making some coffee. Like I was like, no,
that's those are the same things that the thought is there,
The intention is the same there there, and he would
if he had to, you know what I mean, he
would if he had to, Yes, yeah, but but he did. Uh.
So when we first started dating, I had this I
painted remember when like painting one wall was really popular.
(19:16):
My god, yes, the one red wall. I had one
red wall. Yes, yes, it was like a dark red. Yes.
I thought it was so fucking cool. And then I
remember David being like, what's up with the red wall?
Like just like I'm just curious, like what it's gonna
(19:37):
really last? Like, yeah, what's going on with your And
I was like, isn't it great?
Speaker 3 (19:41):
And he was like, as I've said many times on
this pod, my husband has much better taste than I do.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
And so, uh, this is probably one of the most
romantic things he ever did for me, and I think
was the first thing that started to shift how I
defined like what romance can be or look like. He
did like a home makeover on my room and surprised
me with it, so like, he painted the whole room,
(20:08):
He got rid of the red wall, painted the whole
room this like beautiful soft green color, like a sagey green.
He got me a new bedspread, he rearranged the furniture
so like the room looked bigger, and like did painted
the base boards like you know, full thing, And I
just had no idea he was doing it and just
(20:29):
came home to this like brand new bedroom that was beautiful.
I would be fucking livid. How dare you? I mean,
but we're very different, We're very different people. I would
be fucking livid. But you have really good taste, is
so yeah, I don't, and it's not true, but I
(20:52):
can see that. That's like it looked arguably obviously better
than it did before. I guess you. I give it.
There was no argument that what it was before it
was a heinous and it now looked like a beautiful,
calm bedroom, like just gorgeous. Yeah, and I guess I had.
And I also was like, oh everyone, no one's like
(21:13):
you spent all day painting this for me, Like it's
a big deal. No one's ever done that, you know.
And so it was like this idea that romance was
like flowers and fancy dinnas and like rose petals. I
was like, oh no, it's actually like so it's just
doing something nice for someone love, Like it can be
(21:36):
big like that, but it can also just be small,
like it's about connection. It's about you know, it just
I felt myself like start to shift my definition to
what romance was because he was paying attention. He was
paying attention, he was paying attention, yes, and he was
seen like yeah, he was seeing like, oh, she's these
are her strengths, and like maybe this is something that
(21:56):
she's not she doesn't think about because she's not doesn't
it's not something that she's like drawn to thinking about.
But I know that I could help her feel better
in her space or whatever whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's
really I mean, I think Brad is a lot like
David in the way that he often does things to
(22:18):
make my life easier that I just don't have the
capability of doing, like laundry, Like I'm just like I can't.
I'm like it will pile and pile and pile and
pile until I'm like, oh no, I guess I need
to buy any underwear because I don't have anymore and
I don't have time. Like I know, David'll be David'll
be doing laundry and I'm like already and a ready
(22:39):
yeah man, yeah, Brad will do it every day every day.
I'm like, Wow, you're amazing, You're so amazing. And I
just and I sometimes feel bad because you know, I
don't always notice. Like he'll be like, did you notice
the blah blah blah, and I'm like, I didn't, I
didn't notice. Yeah, thank you. And I have told him,
(22:59):
you know, tell me when you do stuff like that,
because I don't always notice. I'm just like kind of
focused on whatever I'm doing at the time. Yeah, you know,
a million things going on. Four What would you say
is like, uh, the biggest kind of romantic thing in
(23:22):
your It doesn't have to be like so he's done anyone,
it better be him. I mean I thought about that
before we did this. I was like, what if I
got on here and was like these poems that my
boyfriend when I was twenty four, actually I was thinking
about that. I dated a guy who was very very
(23:44):
He was a total romantic. He was a like renaissance man.
He was an actor, he was the singer, he was
a writer, he played guitar. He was very very like.
He was a poet and he wrote me a lack
of poems. A stabs. Someone wrote you poetry and they
(24:05):
gave me. I got the egg on the poetry. I
was like, you know, the third poem man. I was like, bro, okay,
my body is the Wonderland. I get it. But it
did give me the egg. And I don't know, I
see it was like the time or the person or
(24:27):
what it was, because you know, when Brad read his
vows to me, it just meant so much to me
because he had never written really anything like that. Yeah,
or to me. I don't know. I mean maybe it
was just it was also like me being you know,
probably smart enough at the time, and my intuition was
(24:50):
smart enough to know, like it could have been anyone,
Like he could have been romantic with anybody. You could
have plugged another woman right into my spot and he
would have written her the same kind of of poems,
you know what I mean, right, Like sometimes somebody it's
some it's just someone's soul that is full of romance
and they just got to express it and that's okay. Yeah,
(25:10):
but it just didn't dan't boom from my you know,
like you were like maybe totally about me, yeah, like,
and some of it was way too specifically about me,
And I was like, no, no, I don't need you
to write that, don't ever. I don't I don't really
need to know what you think about that. Yeah, no, no, no,
you remember, like once I one of the most romantic things,
(25:33):
and it wasn't like an outwardly romantic move. But I
used to save things from my relationships because you know,
somebody writes you poems and it's like, that's so beautiful, right. Yeah.
But when I fell in love with Brad after a while,
and it was maybe before we were it was before
we were engaged anything, but I remember going through my
(25:55):
keepsafe boxes for some reason, I was like, oh, I
can get rid of all these things. I don't need
these yours anymore. I don't need these ornaments that you know,
have a picture of me and another person. And I
was like, somebody make you ornaments, girl. I made the
ornaments which will tell you about that relationship, you know.
I was like, I love me, but like, but I
(26:17):
threw away all that stuff, Like I threw away all
the cards and letters and things from the past because
like to me, and it's just specific to me, but
like to me, I didn't need them anymore because I
had found the person that I wanted to be to
have those expressions with, and I didn't need to look
back anymore. The memories were enough kind of like, yeah,
(26:39):
to save the stack of poems. It gave me the eck.
Yeah yeah, yeah yeah. What are your What are your
thoughts on Valentine's Day? I personally really like Valentine's Day.
I hate that it makes everything so expensive. Yes, it's
annoying that, you know, everyone's trying to outdo each other
and stuff. One of the most romantic things I ever
(27:01):
did for Brad was when we first started dating. I
got him a bouquet of meat. It was like sausages.
Oh my god, that is amazing it that is up
his alley. Yeah. He's a big he loves food. He
loves like eating and you know, speaking of like that
(27:23):
was one of the most romantic moments ever that I've
ever had with anyone. Was the two of us on
our honeymoon in Japan eating at this really really special
pizza place. And I don't think it's open anymore, but
it was this chef who all he made was like
three different kinds of pizza. Is kind of like a
sushi chef, you know, like that's what he did, and
(27:45):
they were so perfect and so good. And while we
were sitting there, he made us like a special pizza
and we were like in our cups, you know, like
drinking whiskey, like highballs and stuff. And one of the
reasons it was so romantic was because before I met Brad,
I had really hard time with my body image and food. Yeah,
and he really was the first person that I was
(28:09):
with that really opened the opened my mind to like
you can enjoy food and not like close yourself off
to the joy of eating and the joy of celebrating
through food and doesn't have to be this thing that
you're battling and fighting all the time, and like you
can have pizza and be happy. And like I remember
(28:30):
being like real drunk, but like you know, eating our
for pizza on our honeymoon and like crying and being like.
Speaker 3 (28:36):
I just never thought I would feel like this, and
you made me like see this about myself and.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
It's so beautiful, Like I'll never forget it. I know,
I'll never forget it. So dinky and dumb, just like
the two of us, like no pizza, so special and
it is it's so romantic, and that is it was.
It was very romantic and it was really special because
it's like he like he changed my life in that way,
like you change my life in that way. I know,
(29:04):
you guys are so good at going out to dinners
and like he loves to go out, so that's yeah, yeah,
but I love that. Yeah, anytime I need a review
in a new restaurant, I just have to ask you.
Let us know we're out of I mean, like to
be fair. We also my sister lives so close by
that like we have babysitter, like right right, right, Yeah,
(29:25):
we have a babysitter that's like almost on call because
she's like, yeah, hang out with my niece. I would
love to. Yeah yeah, yeah that's huge, Yeah for sure. Yeah,
not everybody has that. Yeah what about you? What's like
the most like romantic thing you've ever done for slash
has been done for you or I guess, like what's
like a really like beautiful romantic moment that you've had.
(29:48):
It doesn't have to be a Valentine's moment? Yeah, I
you know. We actually, uh, we kind of hate Valentine's
Day until until recently because the first few years that
we were dating, pretty much all of our close friends
were single and we hated that there was this day
(30:08):
that kind of made them feel crummy, left out, yeah,
and left out and so we would like sometimes try
to hang out with our friends and like do more
of a friend thing. And this is like before Gallentine's
Day was a thing, and but we were just like
fuck this holiday.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
Man, So it makes people feel bad. You don't like
it all the commercialism. I think some damn expensive this day.
Like we had that attitude for a long time.
Speaker 3 (30:35):
And then.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
Axel was born on Valentine's Day and so so now
we love it. But it's got a different you know
thing for us. But we do like for his birthday,
we decorate with hearts, and we like really lean into
the Valentine's Day of it all, which he loves and
he like loves at his birthdays on a holiday, and
(30:57):
so we have this different relationship. I'm trying to think
a romantic thing. Oh you know what, there was one
year I think it might have been an anniversary or something,
and it was like we both kind of forgot to
the last minute that it was anniversary and we were
really busy and we didn't have a child care you know,
like no babysitter available, and so I ended up ordering
(31:22):
food from Petitois. Oh so ordering all this like French
food because we both really love French food and lighting
a fire, and after he put the kids to bed,
we just literally sat on the floor like around our
coffee table in front of the fire and just ate
food and drank wine and like talked and he was
(31:45):
like I love like, thank you so much. I love this.
This is so nice. And I was like, oh, this
it doesn't again going back to like it doesn't have
to be a grand gesture. It doesn't have to be
a huge thing. Like it was so meaningful to him,
and it was like a beautiful way to spend an anniversary.
Like it was beautiful. It was so nice. Yeah, you
(32:07):
loved it, and we talked about it for years. We
would be like remember that.
Speaker 3 (32:10):
Time, like you know, and then you get busy and
you're like we should do that again, Like, yeah, we
should do that.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
We should do that again. That's also like that's the
kind of stuff that you especially when you have a
busy life. And this is anybody, but like especially when
you have a busy life and your things are hectic
and you're under a lot of stress, it's like taking
a little time aside for yourself in that way, And like,
I guess that's why I like Valentine's day because it's
(32:37):
like do it on this day, you know, because right
it kind of times forces it. Yeah, you just like
forget to do it, or you'll do it later, or
you'll do it later, and you'll do it later and
like yeah, and then later doesn't come or you don't
get a chance to or things get busier, and like
you keep putting it off, and suddenly it's like you're
looking at this person that you love and you're going
(32:59):
don't feel like connected to and I don't know why
I love you, but I get to see you all
the time or whatever it is, you know. Yeah, Yeah,
And I think that's ultimately like what all romance is
is just like connecting reconnecting, you know what I mean.
Like it can just be a random fun day at
the beach and it's a romantic like culture. Yeah, you know.
(33:21):
So it's you know, it's important to I think, remind
ourselves to not go too long without those little moments
and that they don't have to be big. They can
be really tiny too. On the flip side, I will say,
I will say, especially when I'm working a lot, yeah
I do need not necessarily a romantic gesture, but I
(33:48):
guess what I need is like, like, I I'm not
in a space to be thinking about romance most of
the time while working, you know, I'm like so in
it and the hours are long and I'm in it,
in it, and so when I come home, I'm just
like I washed my face, I take a shower. I'm like, yeah,
in bed, studying lines or whatever. And so when I have,
(34:12):
you know, multiple weeks in a row like that and
there's no break or something. Brad planned when we were
in Toronto, he planned a surprise for me and he
was like, get in the car, We're going somewhere this Saturday.
And I was like okay, And we ended up going
to the Four Seasons and he had like booked me
a massage and I was like, this is amazing. And
(34:36):
I had the massage and it was so nice and
like my body was all beat up from the show
and like and then after the massage, I went to
go you know, he was like, just meet me after
and then you know, we can pay and go back
home and like I go to the counter to pay
and they're like, oh, this is for you, and it's
a room key and like he'd got us a room
there with our credit card points because Brad, it's very smart.
(35:01):
That allowed us to have some time to like drinks
at their rooftop bar. And it was like it was
really nice because we didn't we hadn't done anything like
that in that way months. You know, good job, Brad. Yeah,
he's really he really like thinks about Yeah, really tries
(35:21):
really hard and romantic and romantic. Yeah, that's very romantic.
I think it's necessary too. However, it's showing up in
your relationship. It definitely is something that like falls by
the wayside a lot, because very easy to fall by
the way. It's very easy to fall by the wayside.
(35:43):
At this turned into like very much like you know,
how how much more of it I actually have in
my life than I think? Because I was like, oh, no,
I don't know, I don't have any that's what you do,
that's true, Yeah, I do more better? Do you feel
(36:05):
a little more better than about romance? And when we started, Oh,
I actually think I'm like kind of no, I'm not
gonna be like I'm nailing it, but I'm I'm certainly
doing better than you thought. Yeah, this is the thing
about like talking about this stuff on this podcast because
and I hope this is what people get out of
it too. It's like most of the time we're usually
doing more better than we thought. Yeah, you know, so true,
(36:28):
and like that's the important thing we kind of get
out of every episode is like just talking about it.
It's almost like a check in and it's like, oh, wait,
maybe it's not as bad as I thought. Like we're
doing okay, it's failing areas, but I'm not failing. I'm
not like totally failing at this. No, yeah, probably yeah,
(36:52):
I mean listen same anyways, this is me announcing my
divorce here on the thought that was a joke. That
was joke joke, joke, joke, joke, joke, joke, joke, joke, joke,
joke joke. At you do you feel more better about this?
But I do feel more better about this. And I
also feel like this was a reminder to like, you know,
it's been life has been hectic and chaotic and busy,
(37:14):
and like we need we need to we need to
do something soon. You should do that again, like just
surprise him with like some kind of crazy ordering and
don't yeah you're doing it. Yeah, like we need a
little something. We're both like heads down. Get through the
end of this season, he's solo parenting. I'm in Atlanta.
You know, it's a lot, and so, like you said,
you know, it falls by the wayside, especially when you're
(37:36):
so busy. So this was a good like check in
reminder for me. Yeah, Happy Valentine's Today, Happy Valentine's Day
two those who celebrate. And also, if you hate it,
that's great, that's great. We have no judgment about it
because I also kind of hate it. We get it,
except it's my son's birthday. I love that part of it,
but the other part of it, I don't like. That
(37:57):
part's cute. That part's cute. Okay, guys, we'll see you
next week. See you next week, Bye bye, More Better.
Do you have something you'd like to be more better
at that you want us to talk about in a
future episode. Can you relate to our struggles or have
you tried one of our tippe tricks? Shoot us your
thoughts and ideas at Morebetter pod at gmail dot com
(38:17):
and include a voice note if you want to be
featured on the pod. Ooh, More Better with Stephanie Melissa
is a production from Wvsound and iHeartMedia's Mikultura podcast network.
Hosted by Me, Stephanie Beatriz and Melissa Fumero. More Better
is produced by Isis Madrid and Sophie Spencer Zabos. Our
executive producers are Wilmer Valderrama and Leo Klem at Wvsound.
(38:39):
This episode was edited by Isis Madrid and engineered by
Sean Tracy and features original music by Madison Davenport and
hey Loo Boy. Our cover art is by Vincent Remis
and photography by David Abolos. For more podcasts from iHeart,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows. See you next week. Suga bye
(39:00):
mm hmmmm oo. Tokitomas Mayhor
But we were just like, fuck this holiday, man's holiday makes.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
People feel bad. I don't like it all the commercialism.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
I think some damn expensive this day. Like we had
that attitude for a long time. More more, better, more better, more.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
Better more.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Hello. Welcome to More Better, a podcast where we stop
pretending to have it all together and embrace the journey
becoming a little more better every day, or at least
trying to. That's that. Oh oh and I'm Who'm Stephanie Beatrice. Nice,
(00:50):
nicely done. Welcome back to the podcast. Guys. How's it going,
how's your morning drive, how's your brushing your teeth? How's
your shower? What are you doing right now while you're
listening to this? Maybe you're at work? So interesting to
think about people sitting in a cubicle with ear buds in,
like listening while they like Yeah, because like when I
(01:12):
did temp work, or like when I worked in a
in an office, I was not We were not allowed
to do that. Also, we were answering phones, so that
would have been weird too, write you know what I mean,
Like there weren't. Also, I'm aging myself like we didn't
really we didn't have Like we didn't have power buds
buds Like I still remember the commercials with the silhouette
(01:33):
and the white earbuds and everyone was like earbuds. Oh
my god, you can put them in your ear. Yeah.
That is a high level of multitasking that I admire.
I can't. I can't. Can you imagine processing information? No?
I can't even imagine like acting doing like I watched
(01:54):
them and I'm like, why are they doing this? I
guess they're just faking it. I didn't even know that
until Okay, what have I done my day? That's more better?
What have I You know what I'm gonna say, I
am in a little bit of a more better draught,
just getting just getting through it, you know, like super
(02:17):
busy with the job, flying back and forth. How are
you feeling about the job? About that? I mean just
in Johnny, Yeah, because you weren't feeling good. Oh you know,
I got her so sick after that recording and then
is it gone? Now? Wait ye to get anual virus?
Did you peek your pants? No? I did not put
my pants, but I felt like towards the end of
(02:41):
that recording, I did start to feel like a little
Remember I was putting my robe on and off. Yeah,
and I was like, am I getting the Am I
getting caught and cold? Oh? No? And then I was exhausted,
slugging through like packing to come back to LA and
I was like, I have to go to bed. I
have to go to bed. I have to go to bed.
And I laid down, passed out in two seconds, and
(03:03):
then I woke up at four in the morning. Then
I drenched in sweat. No, but I drenched and sweat
better sweated it out. I think I sweated it out.
So I think little House on the Prairie sweated the fever.
So I appreciate you carry I meant to text you earlier.
I appreciate you carrying me through because I looking back,
(03:25):
I was like, I don't think I talked that much,
not me not noticing. Oh no. I was like, no,
maybe it's in my head. Maybe I'm overthinking it, but like,
I mean, we'll see when we listened to it. But yeah,
I was like, oh I think I might have been
a little quiet. Oh shit, like Steph had to do
some heavy lifting because I yeah, I was like feeling
(03:50):
slightly worse as we went along, and then bad that night. Bad.
Do you feel okay now? Though, do you feel Here's
the thing. I woke up and I felt fine. I
did sleep on the whole plane ride home, but like,
I feel fine. I don't even feel like I have
a cold, Like it was weird. So you're not doing
anything that's more better, but you are more better. Sorry,
(04:14):
so stupid. I'm embarrassed for myself on that one. Get out.
What have you been doing lately that's more better? Girl?
I'm getting dressed, Like, yeah, drapetis to wear my pajamas
the entire day. Yep, I'm not shooting anything right now,
so I just am. I love to wear my gym jams, like,
(04:36):
I will straight up get in my jimmies, like as
soon as I can. If I can bring my jammis
to dinner, I will. So like problem with this is
that like my kids like why are you dressed? Where
are you going? And I'm like, oh no, I have
to teach her that we like actually get dressed to
get dressed. So I'm getting dressed. I'm like, well, I'm
(04:57):
also starting to call my home clothes because I feel
like my home clothes are a mishmash of disgusting, like
and I don't feel good in them, so I want
home clothes that are like the mix of comfy and cute,
you know what I mean. I want like, I want
stuff that I'm not going to be embarrassed to run
to the drug store, you know what I mean, like
(05:18):
someone's going to be shopping for some leisure wear. I'm
really trying to uh restrain myself from shopping as much
as possible unless I'm vantage. I'm really trying unless it's
a thrift or vintage, because okay, I feel like we
could pick up some good comfies at a thrift store.
(05:39):
I think there's quite a bit of I mean this
shirt that I'm wearing right now, the sparts Yeah, who
knows sirk or what. I don't even know. It's real
cute date on it nineteen ninety. Yeah this shut is
the shirt was made in nineteen ninety, you guys. So yeah,
that's what's going on with me. I'm getting dressed and
(05:59):
getting dressed from my day and making sure that I
look okay, deecee and happy, feel comfy, and feel cute
at home. I love that. So then I'm not, you know,
wearing the one pair of sweatpants that my husband absolutely hates.
I refuse to throw them out. Also, they're really great.
(06:19):
He is just like, you know those those there was
this there was this pair of gray sweatshorts that he
had during the pandemic and I made him burn them
like actually, like you actually set them on fire, like
set them on fire. Amazing. And then he was like,
you know those gray sweatpants that you have? That the
way I feel about those. I was like, no, I
don't care, Like that's your problem. That's not my problem.
(06:45):
That's a that's a problem, sorry about it. It was like, wait,
I didn't know that way.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
Option as a reply back in the sweatshirt sweatshort days
whoops and today's episode, we're talking about a romance, so.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
You know, listen was it Did it feel a little
romantic when you set those shorts on fire? He set
them on fire and it was romantic actually, And he
showed me a video of it, and I was like,
wow that there was connection there was yeah, yeah, so
you know what we're going to talk about. You know,
it's basically the same connection that most Feratu and what's
(07:26):
your face have in that movie. I mean it's like
I haven't seen a connection of him burning his listen,
I have a lot of thoughts about it. I I
want to he was fascinated by Dave Eggers and his
interesting foray into female sexuality and what he thinks about it.
I would just love to sit down with him at
(07:47):
some point and be like, what's going on in that
big brain ears? Because like, I've seen The Witch and
I loved it. I've seen Now, I've seen No Saratu.
I'd like to see some of his work that isn't
about female sexuality and sort of hair. I think those specifically,
those two works are about female sexuality, and I'm very
(08:08):
fascinated about what he thinks about women and female sexuality,
especially in young women that are just kind of coming
into their own power, and whether or not they have
agency on their own or if they're an agent of
agency for men around them more better. Anyway, that's not
(08:29):
what this podcast is about. Romans, baby, Oh my god.
When we start talking about doing this episode, I was like,
I don't know, because I don't think of myself as
a particularly romantic person, Like, so do you not really? No?
I think I don't know. I've seen pictures of your wedding.
It was like, really, although my male is very beautiful
(08:50):
as well. Your wedding was also very beautiful and very romantic.
It was romantic. It was you got married in the
fucking round, do you Yeah? Yeah, yeah, I think getting
married in the rest theater mode. It is a true
theater nerd. Everyone has to have a good seat. But
also it's incredibly romantic because you're like literally surrounded by
(09:14):
all these people that love you. Yeah, well you like
say your vows. Oh my god, it's like dramatic and
romantic and like also remember our vows were like ten
minutes long. Like we didn't say anything. I I don't
have a no, I don't have a memory of them
being short. I have ton of them being really like
beautiful and sweet. We wrote stuff for our efficients to say,
(09:37):
We wrote stuff. We each like helped them write stuff.
Oh yeah yeah, And they spoke and then it was like, okay, Brad,
do you take.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
And the whole maybe that's everybody's like, oh shit, are
we already here?
Speaker 1 (09:48):
We're about to start partying, you know what. We did
the same thing because it was so nice because my
husband is, even though he's an actor, he's very shy. Yeah,
and so I remember when we were planning the wedding,
and I was like, do you want to? Like, you know,
I was like so young and I So what I
was going to say was, I think when I was younger,
(10:08):
I was kind of a hopeless romantic, like the more
into the like I think, more typical cliche, superficial, superficial
versions of romance. Right, So I when we were planning
our wedding, I was like, oh my god, do you
want to like write our own vowels? Like so into it?
Wanting him to say yes, and he the look on
(10:30):
his face was just like I will die. We're having
a staruge wedding.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
I cannot pour my hot heart out in front of
all those people.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
You wanted him to secretly be like, actually, yes, I've
written fifteen pages of my one hundred percent one hundred
percent And then I was like, oh, I have to
respect that, Like I can't force him to do something
that feels so vulnerabile and private in front of like
we had like amost three hundred people at all same Yeah,
(11:02):
like for the three hundred and fifty our closest friends, Yeah,
you loved me, you know what I mean? So yeah,
kudos to the ones that do I I have cried it.
I know a wedding that I've been to where they've
done that. But for us, yeah, we did the same thing.
We like wrote out what we wanted our efficient to say, yeah,
and then we just said I do, which worked, which
(11:22):
is like nice like in between yeah, yeah. I mean,
when I think about romance, I definitely had a different
idea of what it was supposed to be when I was,
you know, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, into my twenties, into my thirties.
I feel like romance changes dramatically after you have children.
But for the purposes of this conversation, breaking it down
(11:45):
into like when I was sixteen, the most romantic thing
in the world was like, you know, I'm saying a
song here, I mean you were pardon and when when
they like yell at each other across but we're talking
about Forrest Gump. You guys, there's this part where Jenny
and Forrest run at each other across the Washington mall right, Yes,
(12:07):
they're running across the water. Yes, and you're here and
she's like in her little hippie outfit and he's in
his like soldier al and it's the most beautiful, huge
grand gesture The grand gesture was everything when I was
a kid, you know, because you'd see it in movies
and you'd go, oh, that's what that's what romance is.
(12:28):
If somebody loves you, they do these big grand gestures
for you. Yes. And then somewhere along the way, I
kind of realized that it wasn't necessarily about the grand gesture,
and so I think I reverted to the absolute opposite,
which was like, I'm a cool girl. I don't need
(12:48):
a romantic gesture. In fact, I don't need any romance
at all. Like I remember specifically dating someone who I
should have known it was a red flag, but like
he really didn't want to be public about our relationship.
Oh read like he felt kind of more calm about it.
(13:09):
I don't even know, you know, I think he just
wanted to have it on the down low, you know. Yeah, yeah,
and uh. And to me, what was so romantic was
the stealing glances at each other, you know, like sneaking around, right, yeah,
which is kind of heightened and sexy in a way,
but it's not romantic, I don't think, you know, Like, ultimately,
(13:34):
there's a lot of romance that comes with honesty and vulnerability. Yes,
somebody that you really love and trust, and when ye
being sneaky and nobody knows about you being his little
you know whatever, then they can get away with a
lot of shit. And like, yeah, I think young like
young me almost went the opposite direction from what I
(13:57):
was this romantic I guess in you know, high school,
where I wanted these big grand gestures and was basing
everything off of every movie that I was seeing, And
I went the opposite in my twenties where it was like, yeah,
definitely treat me like garbage. I am such a cool
girl and I don't care, you know, Yeah, that's we
(14:19):
want to like split the dif we want to be
in the middle. You can't. First of all, you can't
let anybody treat like garbage, period, But particularly in a
romantic relationship, it's like if you're constantly feeling like shit,
that's the other thing. Remember those I don't know if
you've ever had one, but like those super volatile relationships
where people are just like everything is like a big
(14:39):
fight and everything is like life and death. Yes, yeah,
it's like people are like I hate growing. Yeah yeah, yeah,
that's also not I know it's and then you involve
alcohol and like, oh my god. When I was in
my twenties, I was dating someone significantly older than me,
(15:01):
and he had a bunch of friends that were older
than me too, and so they were in their late
twenties and I was in my really early twenties. And
I remember we went out to dinner with them or something.
It was like a holiday or something. Everyone got ripped
at dinner, just ripped. And the one of the couples
that we were with was one of those really vollattle couples.
(15:25):
And they were screaming at each other in Times Square
on the street in front of Do you remember Bluefin? Yeah? Yeah,
So they were screaming at each other outside of Blue Fin.
And I can't remember the guy's name, but the girl's
name was Liz, and he was like, Liz, I love
you more than my life. You fucking wore It was like,
(15:45):
oh my god, I couldn't. I was like, were you,
Like that's what real passion looks like. I remember like this,
these people are fucked up. Any new friends, like this
is not my friend group. This cannot be my friend group. No, no,
m mmmm no, no, no, no, ma'am, no, no, thank you.
(16:16):
Did you ever have a Volletle, like this is romance.
Oh smarter than that always? I mean, I know, I
don't think I was smarter. I think I was just lucky.
I think my I think the guy that I dated
in high school was like a really good boyfriend, really
sweet and like set me up for success, you know,
(16:38):
like mine too. I think when the first one is
like really good, you always are comparing a little bit
and and it just it just gives you like a
like a framework going forward where you're just like, oh,
that guy's a douche, like, you know, because you know
what it's like to be treated really well. Yeah. So
I think I was just lucky. But I did like
(17:00):
have a sort of toxic relationship in college and it
was name but it made name. But you know, it
wasn't ever volatile or that kind of thing. It was
more just you know, micro aggressions and you know, that
kind of thing and not growing like together. I think
(17:25):
that was always like a big one. But but yeah,
I I you know, I also like met David so
so young. Right when you meet David, you were like
I was like twenty two. What I know? That is right?
They It's crazy. I look back and I'm like girl,
what were you thinking? You were like, snatch him up,
(17:51):
snatch him up. And I remember when we first started
dating too, that, like, you know, there were sort of
the romantic things that he did that that later I
was like, you don't do romantic shit anymore, but it
was like, no, they just like changed in evault. Yeah,
(18:13):
do you know what I mean. Like we first started dating,
he used to because he wakes up early and I
do not. And that's still true to this day. He
would walk to the dunkin Donuts and get his coffee
every morning. And I just saw and I was like,
that is the roast romantic thing. It is it as
somebody whose husband makes for coffee every day, it is
(18:34):
one of the most romantic things in the life. And
that is that he still makes coffee every day. Like yeah,
So it's like but for a minute, I was like,
but he's not going outside, he's not walking down the
block order all that extra effort is. He's not in
his room getting up, He's just fucking walk into the
(18:55):
kitchen and making some coffee. Like I was like, no,
that's those are the same things that the thought is there,
The intention is the same there there, and he would
if he had to, you know what I mean, he
would if he had to, Yes, yeah, but but he did. Uh.
So when we first started dating, I had this I
painted remember when like painting one wall was really popular.
(19:16):
My god, yes, the one red wall. I had one
red wall. Yes, yes, it was like a dark red. Yes.
I thought it was so fucking cool. And then I
remember David being like, what's up with the red wall?
Like just like I'm just curious, like what it's gonna
(19:37):
really last? Like, yeah, what's going on with your And
I was like, isn't it great?
Speaker 3 (19:41):
And he was like, as I've said many times on
this pod, my husband has much better taste than I do.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
And so, uh, this is probably one of the most
romantic things he ever did for me, and I think
was the first thing that started to shift how I
defined like what romance can be or look like. He
did like a home makeover on my room and surprised
me with it, so like, he painted the whole room,
(20:08):
He got rid of the red wall, painted the whole
room this like beautiful soft green color, like a sagey green.
He got me a new bedspread, he rearranged the furniture
so like the room looked bigger, and like did painted
the base boards like you know, full thing, And I
just had no idea he was doing it and just
(20:29):
came home to this like brand new bedroom that was beautiful.
I would be fucking livid. How dare you? I mean,
but we're very different, We're very different people. I would
be fucking livid. But you have really good taste, is
so yeah, I don't, and it's not true, but I
(20:52):
can see that. That's like it looked arguably obviously better
than it did before. I guess you. I give it.
There was no argument that what it was before it
was a heinous and it now looked like a beautiful,
calm bedroom, like just gorgeous. Yeah, and I guess I had.
And I also was like, oh everyone, no one's like
(21:13):
you spent all day painting this for me, Like it's
a big deal. No one's ever done that, you know.
And so it was like this idea that romance was
like flowers and fancy dinnas and like rose petals. I
was like, oh no, it's actually like so it's just
doing something nice for someone love, Like it can be
(21:36):
big like that, but it can also just be small,
like it's about connection. It's about you know, it just
I felt myself like start to shift my definition to
what romance was because he was paying attention. He was
paying attention, he was paying attention, yes, and he was
seen like yeah, he was seeing like, oh, she's these
are her strengths, and like maybe this is something that
(21:56):
she's not she doesn't think about because she's not doesn't
it's not something that she's like drawn to thinking about.
But I know that I could help her feel better
in her space or whatever whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's
really I mean, I think Brad is a lot like
David in the way that he often does things to
(22:18):
make my life easier that I just don't have the
capability of doing, like laundry, Like I'm just like I can't.
I'm like it will pile and pile and pile and
pile until I'm like, oh no, I guess I need
to buy any underwear because I don't have anymore and
I don't have time. Like I know, David'll be David'll
be doing laundry and I'm like already and a ready
(22:39):
yeah man, yeah, Brad will do it every day every day.
I'm like, Wow, you're amazing, You're so amazing. And I
just and I sometimes feel bad because you know, I
don't always notice. Like he'll be like, did you notice
the blah blah blah, and I'm like, I didn't, I
didn't notice. Yeah, thank you. And I have told him,
(22:59):
you know, tell me when you do stuff like that,
because I don't always notice. I'm just like kind of
focused on whatever I'm doing at the time. Yeah, you know,
a million things going on. Four What would you say
is like, uh, the biggest kind of romantic thing in
(23:22):
your It doesn't have to be like so he's done anyone,
it better be him. I mean I thought about that
before we did this. I was like, what if I
got on here and was like these poems that my
boyfriend when I was twenty four, actually I was thinking
about that. I dated a guy who was very very
(23:44):
He was a total romantic. He was a like renaissance man.
He was an actor, he was the singer, he was
a writer, he played guitar. He was very very like.
He was a poet and he wrote me a lack
of poems. A stabs. Someone wrote you poetry and they
(24:05):
gave me. I got the egg on the poetry. I
was like, you know, the third poem man. I was like, bro, okay,
my body is the Wonderland. I get it. But it
did give me the egg. And I don't know, I
see it was like the time or the person or
(24:27):
what it was, because you know, when Brad read his
vows to me, it just meant so much to me
because he had never written really anything like that. Yeah,
or to me. I don't know. I mean maybe it
was just it was also like me being you know,
probably smart enough at the time, and my intuition was
(24:50):
smart enough to know, like it could have been anyone,
Like he could have been romantic with anybody. You could
have plugged another woman right into my spot and he
would have written her the same kind of of poems,
you know what I mean, right, Like sometimes somebody it's
some it's just someone's soul that is full of romance
and they just got to express it and that's okay. Yeah,
(25:10):
but it just didn't dan't boom from my you know,
like you were like maybe totally about me, yeah, like,
and some of it was way too specifically about me,
And I was like, no, no, I don't need you
to write that, don't ever. I don't I don't really
need to know what you think about that. Yeah, no, no, no,
you remember, like once I one of the most romantic things,
(25:33):
and it wasn't like an outwardly romantic move. But I
used to save things from my relationships because you know,
somebody writes you poems and it's like, that's so beautiful, right. Yeah.
But when I fell in love with Brad after a while,
and it was maybe before we were it was before
we were engaged anything, but I remember going through my
(25:55):
keepsafe boxes for some reason, I was like, oh, I
can get rid of all these things. I don't need
these yours anymore. I don't need these ornaments that you know,
have a picture of me and another person. And I
was like, somebody make you ornaments, girl. I made the
ornaments which will tell you about that relationship, you know.
I was like, I love me, but like, but I
(26:17):
threw away all that stuff, Like I threw away all
the cards and letters and things from the past because
like to me, and it's just specific to me, but
like to me, I didn't need them anymore because I
had found the person that I wanted to be to
have those expressions with, and I didn't need to look
back anymore. The memories were enough kind of like, yeah,
(26:39):
to save the stack of poems. It gave me the eck.
Yeah yeah, yeah yeah. What are your What are your
thoughts on Valentine's Day? I personally really like Valentine's Day.
I hate that it makes everything so expensive. Yes, it's
annoying that, you know, everyone's trying to outdo each other
and stuff. One of the most romantic things I ever
(27:01):
did for Brad was when we first started dating. I
got him a bouquet of meat. It was like sausages.
Oh my god, that is amazing it that is up
his alley. Yeah. He's a big he loves food. He
loves like eating and you know, speaking of like that
(27:23):
was one of the most romantic moments ever that I've
ever had with anyone. Was the two of us on
our honeymoon in Japan eating at this really really special
pizza place. And I don't think it's open anymore, but
it was this chef who all he made was like
three different kinds of pizza. Is kind of like a
sushi chef, you know, like that's what he did, and
(27:45):
they were so perfect and so good. And while we
were sitting there, he made us like a special pizza
and we were like in our cups, you know, like
drinking whiskey, like highballs and stuff. And one of the
reasons it was so romantic was because before I met Brad,
I had really hard time with my body image and food. Yeah,
and he really was the first person that I was
(28:09):
with that really opened the opened my mind to like
you can enjoy food and not like close yourself off
to the joy of eating and the joy of celebrating
through food and doesn't have to be this thing that
you're battling and fighting all the time, and like you
can have pizza and be happy. And like I remember
(28:30):
being like real drunk, but like you know, eating our
for pizza on our honeymoon and like crying and being like.
Speaker 3 (28:36):
I just never thought I would feel like this, and
you made me like see this about myself and.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
It's so beautiful, Like I'll never forget it. I know,
I'll never forget it. So dinky and dumb, just like
the two of us, like no pizza, so special and
it is it's so romantic, and that is it was.
It was very romantic and it was really special because
it's like he like he changed my life in that way,
like you change my life in that way. I know,
(29:04):
you guys are so good at going out to dinners
and like he loves to go out, so that's yeah, yeah,
but I love that. Yeah, anytime I need a review
in a new restaurant, I just have to ask you.
Let us know we're out of I mean, like to
be fair. We also my sister lives so close by
that like we have babysitter, like right right, right, Yeah,
(29:25):
we have a babysitter that's like almost on call because
she's like, yeah, hang out with my niece. I would
love to. Yeah yeah, yeah that's huge, Yeah for sure. Yeah,
not everybody has that. Yeah what about you? What's like
the most like romantic thing you've ever done for slash
has been done for you or I guess, like what's
like a really like beautiful romantic moment that you've had.
(29:48):
It doesn't have to be a Valentine's moment? Yeah, I
you know. We actually, uh, we kind of hate Valentine's
Day until until recently because the first few years that
we were dating, pretty much all of our close friends
were single and we hated that there was this day
(30:08):
that kind of made them feel crummy, left out, yeah,
and left out and so we would like sometimes try
to hang out with our friends and like do more
of a friend thing. And this is like before Gallentine's
Day was a thing, and but we were just like
fuck this holiday.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
Man, So it makes people feel bad. You don't like
it all the commercialism. I think some damn expensive this day.
Like we had that attitude for a long time.
Speaker 3 (30:35):
And then.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
Axel was born on Valentine's Day and so so now
we love it. But it's got a different you know
thing for us. But we do like for his birthday,
we decorate with hearts, and we like really lean into
the Valentine's Day of it all, which he loves and
he like loves at his birthdays on a holiday, and
(30:57):
so we have this different relationship. I'm trying to think
a romantic thing. Oh you know what, there was one
year I think it might have been an anniversary or something,
and it was like we both kind of forgot to
the last minute that it was anniversary and we were
really busy and we didn't have a child care you know,
like no babysitter available, and so I ended up ordering
(31:22):
food from Petitois. Oh so ordering all this like French
food because we both really love French food and lighting
a fire, and after he put the kids to bed,
we just literally sat on the floor like around our
coffee table in front of the fire and just ate
food and drank wine and like talked and he was
(31:45):
like I love like, thank you so much. I love this.
This is so nice. And I was like, oh, this
it doesn't again going back to like it doesn't have
to be a grand gesture. It doesn't have to be
a huge thing. Like it was so meaningful to him,
and it was like a beautiful way to spend an anniversary.
Like it was beautiful. It was so nice. Yeah, you
(32:07):
loved it, and we talked about it for years. We
would be like remember that.
Speaker 3 (32:10):
Time, like you know, and then you get busy and
you're like we should do that again, Like, yeah, we
should do that.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
We should do that again. That's also like that's the
kind of stuff that you especially when you have a
busy life. And this is anybody, but like especially when
you have a busy life and your things are hectic
and you're under a lot of stress, it's like taking
a little time aside for yourself in that way, And like,
I guess that's why I like Valentine's day because it's
(32:37):
like do it on this day, you know, because right
it kind of times forces it. Yeah, you just like
forget to do it, or you'll do it later, or
you'll do it later, and you'll do it later and
like yeah, and then later doesn't come or you don't
get a chance to or things get busier, and like
you keep putting it off, and suddenly it's like you're
looking at this person that you love and you're going
(32:59):
don't feel like connected to and I don't know why
I love you, but I get to see you all
the time or whatever it is, you know. Yeah, Yeah,
And I think that's ultimately like what all romance is
is just like connecting reconnecting, you know what I mean.
Like it can just be a random fun day at
the beach and it's a romantic like culture. Yeah, you know.
(33:21):
So it's you know, it's important to I think, remind
ourselves to not go too long without those little moments
and that they don't have to be big. They can
be really tiny too. On the flip side, I will say,
I will say, especially when I'm working a lot, yeah
I do need not necessarily a romantic gesture, but I
(33:48):
guess what I need is like, like, I I'm not
in a space to be thinking about romance most of
the time while working, you know, I'm like so in
it and the hours are long and I'm in it,
in it, and so when I come home, I'm just
like I washed my face, I take a shower. I'm like, yeah,
in bed, studying lines or whatever. And so when I have,
(34:12):
you know, multiple weeks in a row like that and
there's no break or something. Brad planned when we were
in Toronto, he planned a surprise for me and he
was like, get in the car, We're going somewhere this Saturday.
And I was like okay, And we ended up going
to the Four Seasons and he had like booked me
a massage and I was like, this is amazing. And
(34:36):
I had the massage and it was so nice and
like my body was all beat up from the show
and like and then after the massage, I went to
go you know, he was like, just meet me after
and then you know, we can pay and go back
home and like I go to the counter to pay
and they're like, oh, this is for you, and it's
a room key and like he'd got us a room
there with our credit card points because Brad, it's very smart.
(35:01):
That allowed us to have some time to like drinks
at their rooftop bar. And it was like it was
really nice because we didn't we hadn't done anything like
that in that way months. You know, good job, Brad. Yeah,
he's really he really like thinks about Yeah, really tries
(35:21):
really hard and romantic and romantic. Yeah, that's very romantic.
I think it's necessary too. However, it's showing up in
your relationship. It definitely is something that like falls by
the wayside a lot, because very easy to fall by
the way. It's very easy to fall by the wayside.
(35:43):
At this turned into like very much like you know,
how how much more of it I actually have in
my life than I think? Because I was like, oh, no,
I don't know, I don't have any that's what you do,
that's true, Yeah, I do more better? Do you feel
(36:05):
a little more better than about romance? And when we started, Oh,
I actually think I'm like kind of no, I'm not
gonna be like I'm nailing it, but I'm I'm certainly
doing better than you thought. Yeah, this is the thing
about like talking about this stuff on this podcast because
and I hope this is what people get out of
it too. It's like most of the time we're usually
doing more better than we thought. Yeah, you know, so true,
(36:28):
and like that's the important thing we kind of get
out of every episode is like just talking about it.
It's almost like a check in and it's like, oh, wait,
maybe it's not as bad as I thought. Like we're
doing okay, it's failing areas, but I'm not failing. I'm
not like totally failing at this. No, yeah, probably yeah,
(36:52):
I mean listen same anyways, this is me announcing my
divorce here on the thought that was a joke. That
was joke joke, joke, joke, joke, joke, joke, joke, joke, joke,
joke joke. At you do you feel more better about this?
But I do feel more better about this. And I
also feel like this was a reminder to like, you know,
it's been life has been hectic and chaotic and busy,
(37:14):
and like we need we need to we need to
do something soon. You should do that again, like just
surprise him with like some kind of crazy ordering and
don't yeah you're doing it. Yeah, like we need a
little something. We're both like heads down. Get through the
end of this season, he's solo parenting. I'm in Atlanta.
You know, it's a lot, and so, like you said,
you know, it falls by the wayside, especially when you're
(37:36):
so busy. So this was a good like check in
reminder for me. Yeah, Happy Valentine's Today, Happy Valentine's Day
two those who celebrate. And also, if you hate it,
that's great, that's great. We have no judgment about it
because I also kind of hate it. We get it,
except it's my son's birthday. I love that part of it,
but the other part of it, I don't like. That
(37:57):
part's cute. That part's cute. Okay, guys, we'll see you
next week. See you next week, Bye bye, More Better.
Do you have something you'd like to be more better
at that you want us to talk about in a
future episode. Can you relate to our struggles or have
you tried one of our tippe tricks? Shoot us your
thoughts and ideas at Morebetter pod at gmail dot com
(38:17):
and include a voice note if you want to be
featured on the pod. Ooh, More Better with Stephanie Melissa
is a production from Wvsound and iHeartMedia's Mikultura podcast network.
Hosted by Me, Stephanie Beatriz and Melissa Fumero. More Better
is produced by Isis Madrid and Sophie Spencer Zabos. Our
executive producers are Wilmer Valderrama and Leo Klem at Wvsound.
(38:39):
This episode was edited by Isis Madrid and engineered by
Sean Tracy and features original music by Madison Davenport and
hey Loo Boy. Our cover art is by Vincent Remis
and photography by David Abolos. For more podcasts from iHeart,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows. See you next week. Suga bye
(39:00):
mm hmmmm oo. Tokitomas Mayhor
Hosts And Creators
Stephanie Beatriz
Melissa Fumero
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com