August 15, 2022 • 13 mins
Dear Steve and Shirley, I’ve been dating a man for six years and we live with his parents in a two-bedroom house. We had to move in with them in 2020 after he lost his job. I don’t have any family in this town, so I agreed to stay there temporarily, but he just started working 4 months ago. He couldn’t find a job in his field for a long time so I was relieved when he started working full-time because I thought we would finally get our own place. Their house is small and our bedroom is directly across from his parent’s bedroom................................
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
All right, it is time now for today's Strawberry Letter.
And if you need advice on relationships, work, sex, parenting
or more, please submit your Strawberry Letter at Steve Harvey
FM dot com. All you have to do is click
submit Strawberry Letter. We could be reading your letter live
on the air, just like we're gonna read this one
right here, right now, and you never know it could
be yours. Yeah, this one right here, this one right here.
(00:24):
Buckle up and hold on tight. We got it for
you here. It is Strawberry Letter. Thank enough you subject.
Can I change his mindset? Dear Stephen Shirley, I've been
dating a man for six years and we live with
his parents in a two bedroom house. We had to
move in with them in twenty twenty after he lost
his job. I don't have any family in this town,
(00:45):
so I agreed to stay there temporarily. But he just
started working four months ago. He couldn't find a job
in his field for a long time, so I was
relieved when he started working full time because I thought
he would finally get our own place. Their house is
small and our bedroom is directly across from his parents' bedroom.
(01:06):
His mom uses the dining chair as the dining room,
excuse me as her sewing room, and that's where she
smokes her cigarettes, and you can smell the smoke all
over the house. It's a madhouse. They're in their room
having sex and we're in our room having sex in
our full sized bed. There is one bathroom and the
shower does not work, so we all have to take baths.
(01:29):
This is sheer torture for me, but I love this man.
I often ask myself, why do I put up with this.
I'm twenty nine and can do better. I can find
a man with his own place, a great job, and
sane parents. I have invested six years into this and
I want him to stop being complacent and get us
(01:49):
out of here. He's happy with the home cooked meals,
watching movies with his parents, holidays with them, etc. But
I want out. My mother came to visit me and
got a hotel room. I stayed with her for two nights,
and it was nice to take a shower, have a
bed to myself, and not have to talk to his mother.
My mother told me to be patient with him and
(02:11):
things will work out. Should I move out and break
up with him, or should I follow my mother's advice.
Can I change his mindset? Or is he too far gone?
Please advise you guys have been living with his parents
long enough, and do you want to die from secondhand smoke?
I mean, really, that's kind of what this is coming
(02:33):
down to. There's so many things wrong with this letter
that we don't really have the time to go into it.
We really really don't. The thing about it is is
I don't know why you have him. Figured this out
on your own. You can't continue to stay here. This
was supposed to be a temporary situation until he got
(02:55):
a new job. Thank god he's working again. Now after
six years with him, you're going backwards. He's becoming very comfortable,
too comfortable with mom and dad watching movies and the
home cooked meals and all that. You've been with him
six years. He hasn't even proposed to you, and you
know you can't change him. You can't change his mindset.
(03:15):
He'll only change if he wants to change for you,
and so far that hasn't happened. When I finished reading
this letter, initially I had to go back up to
the top line because I wanted to make sure you
said that you know you were not married and you
were just dating him. You're just dating him. You've just
been dating him for six years. Any plans for the future,
(03:37):
do you guys talk about it? Are you just content
being with him for another ten years? Six years? I
think you should get your own apartment by yourself. Let
him stay with his parents, since he's loving it there
so much. If there's any hope of you, guys ever
being together, you being gone should help him make up
his mind. If this is not what you want, why
(03:58):
are you putting up with it? You even ask yourself
that again, you need to find an apartment and move
out today, Tommy, what you got? Can I change his mindset?
That's the question? Now? My pruestion to you is the
problem is change your own mindset? That seemed to be
(04:19):
the problem. Do you worry about his mindset? I'm worried.
I'm concerned with your mindset because you're the one and
set your man on doing this, this, this and that
and here's what I what I really don't like that
I'm here? What I'm not here? Where is your job?
Why are you not working? Why are you not taking
care of at least yourself? And so you dependent on him?
(04:41):
Now you're up in his ragged ass house with his
mom and his dad all this this, this got to
be the worst sex in the world across the hall
from somebody to mom and dadd and this got to
be straight ignorant. Okay, that's who want to do that?
I can't. I can't hill Mama, that's my mama over
the hall like that. I can't. I'm sorry, I just
(05:03):
can't hand that kind of set my MoMA over that
highland while I mean you over here highland. That just
don't work for me. Let's change your mindset. So basically,
you went about your relationship completely wrong. You moved in
and moved in with him, all right, that didn't work,
so y'all lost efferything. Now you didn't moved in with
him and his mom, y'all not married. Everything you've done
is completely out of order. So you need to get
(05:24):
yourself together, won't you get you like Shirley saying, get
your own apartment. But let's get you a job. I
don't hear that you have a job. You need a job.
Get you a job so you can take care of you.
You twenty something years old, so anybody in there twenties.
I'm big on this be able to take care of
yourself first. Then we can figure out what we're doing
(05:45):
and how we move forward. But right now I'm dealing
with your mindset. I think it's your mind that we
need to be talking about. If he is who the
way he is, and he's like the way he is,
so be it. Get your mindset together, and then you'll
find you a man that's good and got the mindset
that you want in the head. That's right, that's right.
Why are we all always trying to change these men?
(06:08):
Why are we doing it? It's not gonna happen. They
do it on their own. Six years. Oh here and
mama holla and go at it with daddy, and then
mama now smoking and making clue? What kind of closes you?
What did you sew in? What is you making in
this damn room? And everything you make it? This? I
made you a jumpsuit. Don't damn thing smell like bench
in the head mentor like one hundred in the soft back?
(06:30):
I don't want that. That's a soft back. All right?
All right, hold on, we're gonna hear from Junior coming
up with part two of the Strawberry Letter for Today
at twenty three minutes after the hour. The subject is
can I change his mindsets? Well, get back, mama, daddy,
(06:53):
what you're listening to? Morning show? All right, we gotta
recap today's strawberry letter. The subject is can I change
his mindset? Twenty nine year old woman wrote this letter.
She is in a relationship with a man that she's
been dating. They've been together for six years. He lost
his job. They had to move in with his parents
(07:13):
in their two bedroom house. This happened back in twenty twenty.
Her boyfriend lost his job. He's back working now, so
she's thinking that, you know, since he's back working, they're
getting ready to move out and moving to their own place.
Not the situation. Not the case here at all. The
boyfriend is loving living with his parents. Why because he's
(07:34):
getting home cooked meals, he gets to watch movies with
his parents. It's been holidays with them. But she wants out.
She's depending on this man to get them a house,
to move them out, to do all these things. They
live in this house. The shower is broken in the bathroom.
They have one bathroom. They all have to take baths
and this one bath The mom is a seamstress. She
(07:57):
sews in the dining room. She smokes all over the house.
It's just a mess. She's miserable in this place. But
she's looking to her man, trying to change his mind
to get him out of there, and that's not happening.
She says she can do better, but she's not. That's
basically the gist of the letter. Her mom came to
visit her. She stayed with her mom in a hotel,
(08:18):
got her own shower, her own bed. She liked that,
but her mother told her not to break up with
the man and to give it a little more time,
be patient, and things will work out. What she wants
to know is can she change his mindset or is
he too far gone? Junior? What say you? What you got? Junior?
I've I've seen these houses with these two bedrooms one bathroom.
(08:42):
I know what this house set up looks like. I've
been in there. I know what this is. First of all, yea,
they have a sex and they house. That's fine. But
the problem I see how you lady took a shower
in over two years, so your crazy look sitting your
ass and that little last time up in that bathroom
with your knees in your chests, trying to wipe yourself
(09:04):
down this. Look ah, y'all in hill bathing. I know
what this looks like. You ain't here crying because you
know that shower head is rusted and it ain't working.
I know you tired of this. You gotta be tired
of a lot of things, changing mindset. You need to
change locations. It's what you don't care what you need
to do. If you get you a better man with
his own place, go out there and get him because
(09:26):
you don't have to hit this. Aren't you tired of
these old lass conversations with his mama without a cigarette,
hanging out on I know, sitting that there man about this?
You know when I when I first met Cldis Johnson,
it was nineteen forty five. Yeah, you gotta be tired
of these old lass conversations. Do you just stat that
window that's over that kitchen's sake and just hold for
(09:47):
a better future with that curtain? Rod all? It ain't
you tired of looking up there on that wall and
saying King and Kennedy just hanging up there because you
wouldn't the little lass house. I know you got to
be tired of this. How many times you watching the
times and you living in good time? How is watching
this as doing them? How is you doing this? How
(10:10):
is you in here with his parents? How long is
you what sitting there with his mama watching the lady
sings the blue, watching the ladies sings the blue with
him MoMA and daddy and they just rubbing their feet
together on the end of that cow. And these cigarettes
won't stop. Ain't you tiling that that ass tray with
twenty two butts in it? Just sitting up there on
the town. You got to be tired of this? Can
(10:32):
you change your location? It's what I'm saying. Can you
just change your location? Do you have any money for
a studio with a working shower? Just a studio? Just see?
Can you just give it a Stadi even heard the
word ass tray as the scene one. But she's slowing
(10:52):
and stacking them up, and then they got the nerve
to be over there, just cross the hall, giving it all,
give it all across the hall, and you just got
the dirt. You couldn't touch me, So we're across the hall,
having six You couldn't touch me in this house. Ain't
you tired of that quilp that she saw that you
sleep on. Yeah, that quill that you're sleeping though. You
(11:14):
got to be tired of that quill. No change that
stuff like smoke like tim and said everything she's sawing
smell like smoke. You gotta be tired of talking to
the postman every day because they're coming right up to
the bell box and you're everybody saying, how you doing?
Mister Williams? You know, you know, mister Williams, why don't
you just get out here? Forget mindset, change your location shirt?
(11:36):
That's all I got. Fuck, you ain't got to take this.
I didn't like my mama the town every weekend so
I could shower shout. But you know what, you know
what Mama told her to stay and ride something. What's
so crazy about this? Ain't you tired of pulling them
tied out? That cat in that bathroom with them broken
(11:59):
shad and the dish rag you bathing with? How do this?
How could you do that? All the holes in the rag,
the tiles got rag. You ought to be tiling at
the hot water about on the back of that dough
and that bad y'all tiling. That moon moves, the moon
moving everywhere every day. She got a brand new moon moved.
You ought to be tired of seeing this. No, just
(12:22):
don't make no sense. I can't do this. No, don't
call it asks us. You're too grown. You're twenty nine,
twenty people using one toilet. People go, oh man, I
know walked everybody. Don't lock that doing that bath room.
I know you just walked in and then seeing this.
Mama was sitting on that toilet. I know you're just
seeing that. I know what you need. Now, baby girl, don't,
(12:47):
baby girl me put your clothes off. She's she's twenty
nine and she can do better. So do better, better, better? Yeah, leave,
do get your own apartment. Spenders a white shirt, sad Patty?
All right? Listen. Wallowed this up on Instagram at Steve
(13:10):
Harvey ethan to a comment on today's Strawberry Letter. You
can also check out the Strawberry Letter podcast on demand.
Coming up next, it is Junior and Sports Talk. Right
after this, you're listening to the Stave Harvey Morning Show
All right, it is time now for today's Strawberry Letter.
And if you need advice on relationships, work, sex, parenting
or more, please submit your Strawberry Letter at Steve Harvey
FM dot com. All you have to do is click
submit Strawberry Letter. We could be reading your letter live
on the air, just like we're gonna read this one
right here, right now, and you never know it could
be yours. Yeah, this one right here, this one right here.
(00:24):
Buckle up and hold on tight. We got it for
you here. It is Strawberry Letter. Thank enough you subject.
Can I change his mindset? Dear Stephen Shirley, I've been
dating a man for six years and we live with
his parents in a two bedroom house. We had to
move in with them in twenty twenty after he lost
his job. I don't have any family in this town,
(00:45):
so I agreed to stay there temporarily. But he just
started working four months ago. He couldn't find a job
in his field for a long time, so I was
relieved when he started working full time because I thought
he would finally get our own place. Their house is
small and our bedroom is directly across from his parents' bedroom.
(01:06):
His mom uses the dining chair as the dining room,
excuse me as her sewing room, and that's where she
smokes her cigarettes, and you can smell the smoke all
over the house. It's a madhouse. They're in their room
having sex and we're in our room having sex in
our full sized bed. There is one bathroom and the
shower does not work, so we all have to take baths.
(01:29):
This is sheer torture for me, but I love this man.
I often ask myself, why do I put up with this.
I'm twenty nine and can do better. I can find
a man with his own place, a great job, and
sane parents. I have invested six years into this and
I want him to stop being complacent and get us
(01:49):
out of here. He's happy with the home cooked meals,
watching movies with his parents, holidays with them, etc. But
I want out. My mother came to visit me and
got a hotel room. I stayed with her for two nights,
and it was nice to take a shower, have a
bed to myself, and not have to talk to his mother.
My mother told me to be patient with him and
(02:11):
things will work out. Should I move out and break
up with him, or should I follow my mother's advice.
Can I change his mindset? Or is he too far gone?
Please advise you guys have been living with his parents
long enough, and do you want to die from secondhand smoke?
I mean, really, that's kind of what this is coming
(02:33):
down to. There's so many things wrong with this letter
that we don't really have the time to go into it.
We really really don't. The thing about it is is
I don't know why you have him. Figured this out
on your own. You can't continue to stay here. This
was supposed to be a temporary situation until he got
(02:55):
a new job. Thank god he's working again. Now after
six years with him, you're going backwards. He's becoming very comfortable,
too comfortable with mom and dad watching movies and the
home cooked meals and all that. You've been with him
six years. He hasn't even proposed to you, and you
know you can't change him. You can't change his mindset.
(03:15):
He'll only change if he wants to change for you,
and so far that hasn't happened. When I finished reading
this letter, initially I had to go back up to
the top line because I wanted to make sure you
said that you know you were not married and you
were just dating him. You're just dating him. You've just
been dating him for six years. Any plans for the future,
(03:37):
do you guys talk about it? Are you just content
being with him for another ten years? Six years? I
think you should get your own apartment by yourself. Let
him stay with his parents, since he's loving it there
so much. If there's any hope of you, guys ever
being together, you being gone should help him make up
his mind. If this is not what you want, why
(03:58):
are you putting up with it? You even ask yourself
that again, you need to find an apartment and move
out today, Tommy, what you got? Can I change his mindset?
That's the question? Now? My pruestion to you is the
problem is change your own mindset? That seemed to be
(04:19):
the problem. Do you worry about his mindset? I'm worried.
I'm concerned with your mindset because you're the one and
set your man on doing this, this, this and that
and here's what I what I really don't like that
I'm here? What I'm not here? Where is your job?
Why are you not working? Why are you not taking
care of at least yourself? And so you dependent on him?
(04:41):
Now you're up in his ragged ass house with his
mom and his dad all this this, this got to
be the worst sex in the world across the hall
from somebody to mom and dadd and this got to
be straight ignorant. Okay, that's who want to do that?
I can't. I can't hill Mama, that's my mama over
the hall like that. I can't. I'm sorry, I just
(05:03):
can't hand that kind of set my MoMA over that
highland while I mean you over here highland. That just
don't work for me. Let's change your mindset. So basically,
you went about your relationship completely wrong. You moved in
and moved in with him, all right, that didn't work,
so y'all lost efferything. Now you didn't moved in with
him and his mom, y'all not married. Everything you've done
is completely out of order. So you need to get
(05:24):
yourself together, won't you get you like Shirley saying, get
your own apartment. But let's get you a job. I
don't hear that you have a job. You need a job.
Get you a job so you can take care of you.
You twenty something years old, so anybody in there twenties.
I'm big on this be able to take care of
yourself first. Then we can figure out what we're doing
(05:45):
and how we move forward. But right now I'm dealing
with your mindset. I think it's your mind that we
need to be talking about. If he is who the
way he is, and he's like the way he is,
so be it. Get your mindset together, and then you'll
find you a man that's good and got the mindset
that you want in the head. That's right, that's right.
Why are we all always trying to change these men?
(06:08):
Why are we doing it? It's not gonna happen. They
do it on their own. Six years. Oh here and
mama holla and go at it with daddy, and then
mama now smoking and making clue? What kind of closes you?
What did you sew in? What is you making in
this damn room? And everything you make it? This? I
made you a jumpsuit. Don't damn thing smell like bench
in the head mentor like one hundred in the soft back?
(06:30):
I don't want that. That's a soft back. All right?
All right, hold on, we're gonna hear from Junior coming
up with part two of the Strawberry Letter for Today
at twenty three minutes after the hour. The subject is
can I change his mindsets? Well, get back, mama, daddy,
(06:53):
what you're listening to? Morning show? All right, we gotta
recap today's strawberry letter. The subject is can I change
his mindset? Twenty nine year old woman wrote this letter.
She is in a relationship with a man that she's
been dating. They've been together for six years. He lost
his job. They had to move in with his parents
(07:13):
in their two bedroom house. This happened back in twenty twenty.
Her boyfriend lost his job. He's back working now, so
she's thinking that, you know, since he's back working, they're
getting ready to move out and moving to their own place.
Not the situation. Not the case here at all. The
boyfriend is loving living with his parents. Why because he's
(07:34):
getting home cooked meals, he gets to watch movies with
his parents. It's been holidays with them. But she wants out.
She's depending on this man to get them a house,
to move them out, to do all these things. They
live in this house. The shower is broken in the bathroom.
They have one bathroom. They all have to take baths
and this one bath The mom is a seamstress. She
(07:57):
sews in the dining room. She smokes all over the house.
It's just a mess. She's miserable in this place. But
she's looking to her man, trying to change his mind
to get him out of there, and that's not happening.
She says she can do better, but she's not. That's
basically the gist of the letter. Her mom came to
visit her. She stayed with her mom in a hotel,
(08:18):
got her own shower, her own bed. She liked that,
but her mother told her not to break up with
the man and to give it a little more time,
be patient, and things will work out. What she wants
to know is can she change his mindset or is
he too far gone? Junior? What say you? What you got? Junior?
I've I've seen these houses with these two bedrooms one bathroom.
(08:42):
I know what this house set up looks like. I've
been in there. I know what this is. First of all, yea,
they have a sex and they house. That's fine. But
the problem I see how you lady took a shower
in over two years, so your crazy look sitting your
ass and that little last time up in that bathroom
with your knees in your chests, trying to wipe yourself
(09:04):
down this. Look ah, y'all in hill bathing. I know
what this looks like. You ain't here crying because you
know that shower head is rusted and it ain't working.
I know you tired of this. You gotta be tired
of a lot of things, changing mindset. You need to
change locations. It's what you don't care what you need
to do. If you get you a better man with
his own place, go out there and get him because
(09:26):
you don't have to hit this. Aren't you tired of
these old lass conversations with his mama without a cigarette,
hanging out on I know, sitting that there man about this?
You know when I when I first met Cldis Johnson,
it was nineteen forty five. Yeah, you gotta be tired
of these old lass conversations. Do you just stat that
window that's over that kitchen's sake and just hold for
(09:47):
a better future with that curtain? Rod all? It ain't
you tired of looking up there on that wall and
saying King and Kennedy just hanging up there because you
wouldn't the little lass house. I know you got to
be tired of this. How many times you watching the
times and you living in good time? How is watching
this as doing them? How is you doing this? How
(10:10):
is you in here with his parents? How long is
you what sitting there with his mama watching the lady
sings the blue, watching the ladies sings the blue with
him MoMA and daddy and they just rubbing their feet
together on the end of that cow. And these cigarettes
won't stop. Ain't you tiling that that ass tray with
twenty two butts in it? Just sitting up there on
the town. You got to be tired of this? Can
(10:32):
you change your location? It's what I'm saying. Can you
just change your location? Do you have any money for
a studio with a working shower? Just a studio? Just see?
Can you just give it a Stadi even heard the
word ass tray as the scene one. But she's slowing
(10:52):
and stacking them up, and then they got the nerve
to be over there, just cross the hall, giving it all,
give it all across the hall, and you just got
the dirt. You couldn't touch me, So we're across the hall,
having six You couldn't touch me in this house. Ain't
you tired of that quilp that she saw that you
sleep on. Yeah, that quill that you're sleeping though. You
(11:14):
got to be tired of that quill. No change that
stuff like smoke like tim and said everything she's sawing
smell like smoke. You gotta be tired of talking to
the postman every day because they're coming right up to
the bell box and you're everybody saying, how you doing?
Mister Williams? You know, you know, mister Williams, why don't
you just get out here? Forget mindset, change your location shirt?
(11:36):
That's all I got. Fuck, you ain't got to take this.
I didn't like my mama the town every weekend so
I could shower shout. But you know what, you know
what Mama told her to stay and ride something. What's
so crazy about this? Ain't you tired of pulling them
tied out? That cat in that bathroom with them broken
(11:59):
shad and the dish rag you bathing with? How do this?
How could you do that? All the holes in the rag,
the tiles got rag. You ought to be tiling at
the hot water about on the back of that dough
and that bad y'all tiling. That moon moves, the moon
moving everywhere every day. She got a brand new moon moved.
You ought to be tired of seeing this. No, just
(12:22):
don't make no sense. I can't do this. No, don't
call it asks us. You're too grown. You're twenty nine,
twenty people using one toilet. People go, oh man, I
know walked everybody. Don't lock that doing that bath room.
I know you just walked in and then seeing this.
Mama was sitting on that toilet. I know you're just
seeing that. I know what you need. Now, baby girl, don't,
(12:47):
baby girl me put your clothes off. She's she's twenty
nine and she can do better. So do better, better, better? Yeah, leave,
do get your own apartment. Spenders a white shirt, sad Patty?
All right? Listen. Wallowed this up on Instagram at Steve
(13:10):
Harvey ethan to a comment on today's Strawberry Letter. You
can also check out the Strawberry Letter podcast on demand.
Coming up next, it is Junior and Sports Talk. Right
after this, you're listening to the Stave Harvey Morning Show
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