April 3, 2025 • 26 mins
Brandon shares his journey through his third divorce, which became the lowest point of his life as he simultaneously lost his job, home, and faced financial ruin while fighting for custody of his children.
Please start with Episode 1. Go to my site BrandonHeld.com
• Third marriage ended after 12 years together, 10 years married with two sons
• Ex-wife initially discussed amicable divorce but then hired attorney and prevented him seeing his children for three months
• Lost job when Raytheon discontinued contract with his employer DSI
• Declined offer to work directly for Raytheon out of loyalty to current employer
• Court ordered him to sell home, pay child support and spousal maintenance despite being unemployed
• Forced to sell home at a $500 loss (which later appreciated by $150K during COVID)
• Focused on physical fitness to maintain mental health during this difficult period
• Eventually moved in with a woman he barely knew due to financial necessity
• Attempted to help his adult son Ethan from previous marriage get his life on track
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Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_00 (00:01):
Welcome back to Brandon Held Life is Crazy,
episode 17.
And so last time I left off withthe beginning of the end of my
third marriage, my now thirddivorce.
And it was a tough one.
(00:21):
It was going to obviously be themost difficult one for multiple
reasons.
We had been together for 12years, married for 10 years.
We had two sons together.
She was the kind of person thatI had learned that when she cuts
you off, she cuts you off.
Like she had cut off her sister,who she's very close with for a
(00:46):
year because she didn't get aroom that she was supposed to
get in college.
She cut off her mother becauseshe I don't know if her mother
was against us getting marriedor something.
I don't exactly know whathappened, but she had cut her
off.
When she gets mad at people, shejust cuts them off and doesn't
(01:06):
have anything to do with them.
And I knew that's the road I washeaded with her.
And so I knew it was going to bea difficult divorce and it was
going to be difficult to be afather with this woman because I
knew she...
didn't have the maturity to dealwith that situation.
(01:29):
And it just turned out to beabsolutely true.
Initially, after all thefighting and arguing died down,
we discussed an amicable divorceand where I would get 50-50
custody and we would split.
our things in the house and wewould go our separate ways.
(01:53):
And we were, she was saying howshe felt like I needed to help
financially provide for her ontop of this because she didn't
work.
She didn't have a life or shedidn't have a career.
And I said, look, the money Imake is enough to pay for me and
the boys in my life.
(02:14):
I don't have an income to takecare of someone else.
And so I guess somewhere alongthe way, probably through
talking to people behind thescenes, she decided this divorce
wasn't going to be amicableanymore.
And she went and she hired anattorney.
So then I had to hire anattorney and it just turned into
(02:39):
this ugly, almost two year longdivorce.
She was living with me for alittle while.
We had a few month period therewhere I don't remember exactly
how long, maybe two months.
It wasn't like 100% absolutelywe are getting a divorce.
(02:59):
There was some indecision inthere where we were together in
the same house.
Were we going to get divorced?
Who knew?
We were still maintaining somekind of relationship, but it
obviously didn't Wasn't a goodone.
It's a very crappy place to bein limbo when you don't know
(03:20):
what direction you're heading.
But at some point we reached thedirection of ugly and that's the
way it went.
So she decided to move out andtake my kids.
And she, when she took my kids,she took my kids back to her
parents over an hour and a halfaway.
At first, I didn't know whereshe was or where she went.
(03:44):
And she would not let me seethem.
She just took them from me.
So she was punishing me.
And she wouldn't let me see orhave the kids.
And I didn't see my boys forover three months.
And I was angry.
I was super angry.
Like, wanted to kill her angry.
(04:07):
Not that I would, right?
It's not an action I would takebecause they were...
She was the mother of my twosons and I would never do
anything like that to thembecause A, they lose a mother,
B, they lose a father becausethen I end up in prison for the
rest of my life.
This is the part about where youlearn from other people's
(04:31):
mistakes, right?
You watch the date lines, youread the news.
Other people that couldn'tcontrol themselves in that
situation and they lost it andthey ruined lives.
And while I thought mychildren's lives were already
severely effective in a negativeway based on what was happening,
(04:52):
I certainly didn't want to ruinlives.
But I was so angry, that's how Ifelt at the time when she took
them away from me.
And we would spend almost twoyears in the court system
battling, dividing up theassets, dividing up the
properties, all that stuff.
(05:12):
That part was easy.
That wasn't hard to do.
That was material stuff.
It was the fighting for, shewanted spousal maintenance and
she wanted full custody of mysons.
So that's where the fight tooktime and got ugly.
And she a hundred percent saidthings about me that weren't
(05:35):
true.
Tried to paint a picture.
of me and say things that I didthat wasn't true.
And I was severely hurt by that.
I was offended and severely hurtby that because I thought at
least after 12 years of beingtogether and father of her two
(05:57):
children, she would have somerespect for me and some grace.
But no, she was ruthless.
She cut to the bone and accusedme of Things that I absolutely
did not do.
And so that made it ugly.
And so we had to go through thisugly divorce and ugly custody
(06:19):
battle.
And it was not a good time.
It was a bad time.
And while I was going throughthis ugly divorce and ugly
custody battle, I was approachedby DSI and I was notified that
Raytheon had decided todiscontinue their contract with
(06:42):
them because they felt like theway they were building this
supply chain tracking tool wasnot happening fast enough or
well enough to Raytheon'ssatisfaction.
So they had decided they weregoing to pull together their own
(07:02):
internal team and do what we hadspent the last three four years
doing together and yeah it waslike pouring gas on a fire so
not only was I going throughthis ugly terrible divorce now I
was also going to be laid offand be unemployed and so while I
(07:29):
thought Other times in my life,for the lowest point in my life,
I had now officially reached thelowest point in my life, right?
I was now in my early 40s,divorced for three times, laid
off again for a second time, andI just didn't really know what I
(07:54):
was going to do.
I didn't know how I was going torebound.
I...
Applied for a job with Raytheonagain during my last months with
DSI.
And I was offered a job withRaytheon, but it was a lower
grade than I had before when Iwas a Raytheon employee.
(08:17):
And it was a 20K pay cut fromwhat I was currently making.
And I felt like the job wasbeneath me.
And I also had...
The bosses at DSI asked me tostick it out with them and take
the contract to the end, and itwould be worth my while because
(08:38):
Mark had already left, Blair hadalready taken a job with
Raytheon, and I was the last manstanding.
I felt a sense of loyaltybecause loyalty is big for me.
It's an important attribute thatI think people should have for
people that do right by themwhen the going gets tough and
(09:00):
the chips are down and so I feltthat for DSI and so I turned
that job with Raytheon down andI stuck it out for those last
few months with DSI and theygave me a nice severance patch
(09:20):
it wasn't amazing they gave meThey paid me all the way up to
the end and they gave me, Idon't know, I want to say$12,000
maybe-ish.
I'm not sure.
But anyway, I thought if I livelife on the cheap, I can make
this money last until I can getanother job.
(09:45):
I can swing it.
I can get by.
I just got a job offer fromRaytheon that I turned down.
I'll find another one.
I'll rebound.
Things will turn around.
I was also forced to sell myhome at that time and move.
The judge told me that he wasn'tgoing to give me 50-50 custody
(10:06):
if I didn't live in the samearea that my now ex was going to
live in where they would go toschool.
Because how could he give me50-50 custody if I didn't live
in the same area without theability to take them to school?
So I had to sell my home.
which this was a few yearsbefore COVID.
(10:27):
And I was really distraught bythis.
A, I loved this home.
B, my kids loved this home.
And C, it was just a bad time tosell.
By the time I sold it and paidout commissions, and I had owned
this home for seven years atthis point, making payments on
(10:50):
this home, I had to write.
a$500 check to sell this home.
I had to lose money out of mypocket to sell this home after
seven years.
And fast forward to the future,the people that bought it from
me for 200,000 turned around andsold it during COVID for over
(11:14):
350,000.
So they made 150K off of my homeThat I was forced to sell
because I was going through adivorce and my ex wanted to live
in a different area.
And if I wanted to have my kids,that's what I had to do.
And so that's what I did.
Again, trying to be a good man,doing the right thing.
(11:38):
The same thing I was trying todo for Ethan when I moved to
Dayton, Ohio to be with him.
I did the same thing for my boysthis time as well, but I was now
going to be unemployed.
And so I lost my job and I wasunemployed and we were still
(12:01):
going through the divorce.
This was eight months after Ihad lost my job that the divorce
was finalized and I was stillunemployed.
I had been laid off.
And the judge decided I wouldget 50-50 custody, but I would
still have to pay child supportand I would still have to pay
(12:25):
spousal maintenance.
I was just blown away by this.
And my attorney, who I paidthousands and thousands of
dollars to, acted like he did agood job for me.
And at the end of the day, whatdid he really do?
He didn't do a good job for mebecause he It was my idea to
(12:47):
have my kids interviewed by thecourt system because she was
trying to say that I was a badfather, that I was abusive and
all this other BS that wasn'ttrue.
And so I said, hey, have thecourt system interview my kids.
My kids will tell you.
(13:08):
They'll tell you that they loveme just as much as they do their
mother, that I'm better to themthan their mother because their
mother is the one that losescontrol and can't keep her cool
with them when they push her toofar.
So I knew that would make a hugeswing in my favor and that was
my ideal.
(13:29):
That wasn't my attorney's idea.
I made that happen.
So the judge said straight upthat he makes his decision based
off what they recommend andAfter the interview, I forget
what they're called, but thatposition recommends after the
interview, that's what he does.
It's not my decision at thatpoint.
(13:51):
I do what they say.
And I said, absolutely, 100%.
That's what I'm hoping for.
Of course, they interviewed mykids.
Yeah, we love our dad.
Our dad's great.
He's good to us.
We want to spend just as muchtime with him as we do our mom.
And that's why that ended upthat way.
But He couldn't get me from notpaying spousal maintenance.
(14:15):
He couldn't get me from notpaying child support.
I had to split all the assets.
I had to write the$500 check.
I had to take all the debt thatwas acquired during our marriage
from credit cards.
I had to take on all that.
It all belonged to me.
And then my attorney acted likehe wanted to do something, that
(14:37):
he did something for me.
It was crazy to me.
I couldn't believe it.
So talk about a guy who wasclueless and out of his mind.
And so that's where I was.
I was unemployed, divorced, andnow insanely in debt between the
credit card debt that was nowall mine and all on me and now
(15:01):
spousal maintenance and childsupport that I had to pay.
And I'm unemployed.
I really just...
felt lost at the time.
So I did what I could do, what Icould control, right?
So I was married.
I had gotten a little overweightfrom working every day and
(15:21):
fighting with a wife that didn'twant to let me go to the gym.
I'm not sure what she hadagainst me working out or being
in shape, but she just didn'twant it to happen.
So I had let myself go a littlebit and then I decided I'm going
to get back in shape.
And I'm at least going to feelgood about myself physically
(15:41):
while I go through thisdifficult time.
And so I do that.
I go to the gym.
I drop weight.
I start lifting.
I get in really good shape.
And then, of course, I am nowsomeone who's divorced three
times.
And now I have three sons that Idon't get to see every day.
(16:02):
So I'm not in a hurry to bein...
a serious relationship and besomeone that wants to get
married again.
As a matter of fact, I thought Iwould never get married again.
That was my position at thattime.
I'm never getting married again.
So I just turned into a totalman whore.
(16:25):
I moved to an apartment complex.
It was a nice enough one, butnot one that was so expensive
that it was going to suck medry.
And it was A lot of singlepeople, single men, single
women.
And I was on online dating appsand I was meeting people
(16:46):
organically at the gym, stufflike that.
And I was just a straight up manwhore.
I was just hooking up with allkinds of women all the time.
I even had my fourth threesomein this time of life.
I didn't tell you about mythird, but that's out of respect
(17:08):
for the person that the thirdthreesome occurred with.
I had my fourth one during thistime and I was just out of
control.
And eventually that comes upwhere you start feeling like,
uh, it's not what I like.
It's not who I am.
I love, I believe in love.
(17:31):
I think Love is one of thegreatest things that can happen
to you in life, if not thegreatest, if you are loved by
the right person and you lovethe right person and what you
can conquer together with love,right?
Love for your children, love foryour mom, your grandparents,
(17:51):
your siblings, and yoursignificant other.
I believe in love.
I always have.
And so when you're someone likethat, And you're not ready for
that because you're not readyfor the pain that comes with
that when it doesn't workbecause let's face it, at this
point in my life, it hasn'tworked.
(18:16):
So you just go the oppositedirection and you try to turn
your emotions off and you becomea robot and you just go through
the motions with people, right?
I still was charming enough Andwas in good shape to meet people
and have connections and hookup.
But for me, it wasn't going togo any farther.
(18:40):
That's where it stopped.
That's where it ended.
And I heard some people alongthe way.
Hell, I met some people alongthe way that wanted to hook up
with me that I wouldn't hook upwith because I'm picky.
And I also didn't want to ruinfriendships.
Because...
I knew that the feelings for mewere deeper than a hookup and I
(19:04):
just didn't want to get involvedwith that because I didn't want
to hurt people that I liked orcared about.
And I knew it wouldn't beanything more than a hookup to
me.
So I was going through thistime, unemployed, struggling
with my emotions and just beinga good man.
(19:26):
In general, I was trying to findmyself again, trying to dig
myself out of a hole again in myearly 40s.
And it's a tough place to be.
It was a tough place to findmyself.
So one of the things I tried todo, it was I tried to become a
(19:49):
teacher and I tried to teach ata high school.
And like that lasted about, Idon't know, three, four months
because I It just wasn't for me.
I liked the kids, but the paywas less than half of what I was
used to getting paid in myprevious jobs.
The administration at the highschool was terrible.
(20:10):
The leadership was justterrible.
And it just wasn't somethingthat I could put up with or
wanted to deal with.
I was running out of money.
My nest egg, if you will, wascoming to an end.
And I didn't have any jobs onthe horizon.
And I had recently met a womanon the app who was single.
(20:38):
And we started talking and Iproposed that we started dating
and we did.
And then I explained mysituation to her and she offered
to let me move in with her.
And we had known each other likea month.
And I just felt like I had noother choice because I was
(20:59):
literally going to be homeless.
That's the position I was goingto be in.
So I took her up on that offerand I decided to move in with
someone that I really didn'teven know that well.
She seemed to be nice.
She seemed to be cool.
Who knows what you really.
(21:20):
going to get, right?
And she was a native Mexican whowas living here in Tucson and
she was a Latina and if Mexicansand Latinas, what I was getting
into, but guess who didn't knowwhat he was getting into?
Me.
I had no idea what I wasstepping into.
(21:40):
So I thought I was stepping intoa dating relationship with
someone I guess it would be moresignificant than that since we
were going to live together, butsomeone who was just a kind,
caring person because that's allI had seen to that point.
But man, did it not turn outthat way at all?
(22:04):
She was incredibly jaded andbroken from some of her past
relationships and the thingsthat She had gone through in
life and I just found myself ina situation where I was with
someone who was insecure andjealous and broken.
(22:27):
And I was still trying to findmy way.
I was still trying to regain mysense of being a man with my
employment and being on my owntwo feet.
And now I was stuck with thisperson and I was stuck.
because I had no income, no wayto take care of myself.
(22:49):
And now I was trying to be asquare peg and try to fit into a
round hole.
And I was trying to make thatwork.
And it just ended up being atough time.
There were some real ups anddowns in that relationship, but
it didn't go that way for alittle while.
Obviously, I moved in in thebeginning.
(23:10):
Everything was smooth.
Everything was good.
And my kids were coming and theywere spending their week at a
time with me, their 50-50 timewith me.
And I was taking them to schooland picking them up.
It was obviously easy.
I didn't have a job.
And everything was going okay inthe beginning.
(23:31):
And my older son, Ethan, who wasnow an adult at this point, he
had already graduated highschool.
He had spent some time atcollege and then he dropped out
of college because he I justwasn't working for him for
whatever reason.
And he felt he didn't want to bein college and he was struggling
to find his way in life.
(23:53):
So I had offered for Ethan tomove out to Arizona with me and
her after having a discussionwith her because she had a room
available.
And I really was figuring like,even though I'm unemployed and
not, I'm not on my feet so much,I could have help ethan he could
(24:15):
come out here to arizona and icould help him get his life
going i can invest my time inhim and my energy in him and my
knowledge in him and try to helphim get his life on track but
ethan had other ideas and he's alittle stubborn like his mom and
it just didn't go that way andIt just went a completely
(24:40):
different route.
And I guess I will get into someof the details of that on the
next episode.
And I'm going to end thisepisode for now.
And thanks for joining.
And I'll talk to you next time.
Welcome back to Brandon Held Life is Crazy,
episode 17.
And so last time I left off withthe beginning of the end of my
third marriage, my now thirddivorce.
And it was a tough one.
(00:21):
It was going to obviously be themost difficult one for multiple
reasons.
We had been together for 12years, married for 10 years.
We had two sons together.
She was the kind of person thatI had learned that when she cuts
you off, she cuts you off.
Like she had cut off her sister,who she's very close with for a
(00:46):
year because she didn't get aroom that she was supposed to
get in college.
She cut off her mother becauseshe I don't know if her mother
was against us getting marriedor something.
I don't exactly know whathappened, but she had cut her
off.
When she gets mad at people, shejust cuts them off and doesn't
(01:06):
have anything to do with them.
And I knew that's the road I washeaded with her.
And so I knew it was going to bea difficult divorce and it was
going to be difficult to be afather with this woman because I
knew she...
didn't have the maturity to dealwith that situation.
(01:29):
And it just turned out to beabsolutely true.
Initially, after all thefighting and arguing died down,
we discussed an amicable divorceand where I would get 50-50
custody and we would split.
our things in the house and wewould go our separate ways.
(01:53):
And we were, she was saying howshe felt like I needed to help
financially provide for her ontop of this because she didn't
work.
She didn't have a life or shedidn't have a career.
And I said, look, the money Imake is enough to pay for me and
the boys in my life.
(02:14):
I don't have an income to takecare of someone else.
And so I guess somewhere alongthe way, probably through
talking to people behind thescenes, she decided this divorce
wasn't going to be amicableanymore.
And she went and she hired anattorney.
So then I had to hire anattorney and it just turned into
(02:39):
this ugly, almost two year longdivorce.
She was living with me for alittle while.
We had a few month period therewhere I don't remember exactly
how long, maybe two months.
It wasn't like 100% absolutelywe are getting a divorce.
(02:59):
There was some indecision inthere where we were together in
the same house.
Were we going to get divorced?
Who knew?
We were still maintaining somekind of relationship, but it
obviously didn't Wasn't a goodone.
It's a very crappy place to bein limbo when you don't know
(03:20):
what direction you're heading.
But at some point we reached thedirection of ugly and that's the
way it went.
So she decided to move out andtake my kids.
And she, when she took my kids,she took my kids back to her
parents over an hour and a halfaway.
At first, I didn't know whereshe was or where she went.
(03:44):
And she would not let me seethem.
She just took them from me.
So she was punishing me.
And she wouldn't let me see orhave the kids.
And I didn't see my boys forover three months.
And I was angry.
I was super angry.
Like, wanted to kill her angry.
(04:07):
Not that I would, right?
It's not an action I would takebecause they were...
She was the mother of my twosons and I would never do
anything like that to thembecause A, they lose a mother,
B, they lose a father becausethen I end up in prison for the
rest of my life.
This is the part about where youlearn from other people's
(04:31):
mistakes, right?
You watch the date lines, youread the news.
Other people that couldn'tcontrol themselves in that
situation and they lost it andthey ruined lives.
And while I thought mychildren's lives were already
severely effective in a negativeway based on what was happening,
(04:52):
I certainly didn't want to ruinlives.
But I was so angry, that's how Ifelt at the time when she took
them away from me.
And we would spend almost twoyears in the court system
battling, dividing up theassets, dividing up the
properties, all that stuff.
(05:12):
That part was easy.
That wasn't hard to do.
That was material stuff.
It was the fighting for, shewanted spousal maintenance and
she wanted full custody of mysons.
So that's where the fight tooktime and got ugly.
And she a hundred percent saidthings about me that weren't
(05:35):
true.
Tried to paint a picture.
of me and say things that I didthat wasn't true.
And I was severely hurt by that.
I was offended and severely hurtby that because I thought at
least after 12 years of beingtogether and father of her two
(05:57):
children, she would have somerespect for me and some grace.
But no, she was ruthless.
She cut to the bone and accusedme of Things that I absolutely
did not do.
And so that made it ugly.
And so we had to go through thisugly divorce and ugly custody
(06:19):
battle.
And it was not a good time.
It was a bad time.
And while I was going throughthis ugly divorce and ugly
custody battle, I was approachedby DSI and I was notified that
Raytheon had decided todiscontinue their contract with
(06:42):
them because they felt like theway they were building this
supply chain tracking tool wasnot happening fast enough or
well enough to Raytheon'ssatisfaction.
So they had decided they weregoing to pull together their own
(07:02):
internal team and do what we hadspent the last three four years
doing together and yeah it waslike pouring gas on a fire so
not only was I going throughthis ugly terrible divorce now I
was also going to be laid offand be unemployed and so while I
(07:29):
thought Other times in my life,for the lowest point in my life,
I had now officially reached thelowest point in my life, right?
I was now in my early 40s,divorced for three times, laid
off again for a second time, andI just didn't really know what I
(07:54):
was going to do.
I didn't know how I was going torebound.
I...
Applied for a job with Raytheonagain during my last months with
DSI.
And I was offered a job withRaytheon, but it was a lower
grade than I had before when Iwas a Raytheon employee.
(08:17):
And it was a 20K pay cut fromwhat I was currently making.
And I felt like the job wasbeneath me.
And I also had...
The bosses at DSI asked me tostick it out with them and take
the contract to the end, and itwould be worth my while because
(08:38):
Mark had already left, Blair hadalready taken a job with
Raytheon, and I was the last manstanding.
I felt a sense of loyaltybecause loyalty is big for me.
It's an important attribute thatI think people should have for
people that do right by themwhen the going gets tough and
(09:00):
the chips are down and so I feltthat for DSI and so I turned
that job with Raytheon down andI stuck it out for those last
few months with DSI and theygave me a nice severance patch
(09:20):
it wasn't amazing they gave meThey paid me all the way up to
the end and they gave me, Idon't know, I want to say$12,000
maybe-ish.
I'm not sure.
But anyway, I thought if I livelife on the cheap, I can make
this money last until I can getanother job.
(09:45):
I can swing it.
I can get by.
I just got a job offer fromRaytheon that I turned down.
I'll find another one.
I'll rebound.
Things will turn around.
I was also forced to sell myhome at that time and move.
The judge told me that he wasn'tgoing to give me 50-50 custody
(10:06):
if I didn't live in the samearea that my now ex was going to
live in where they would go toschool.
Because how could he give me50-50 custody if I didn't live
in the same area without theability to take them to school?
So I had to sell my home.
which this was a few yearsbefore COVID.
(10:27):
And I was really distraught bythis.
A, I loved this home.
B, my kids loved this home.
And C, it was just a bad time tosell.
By the time I sold it and paidout commissions, and I had owned
this home for seven years atthis point, making payments on
(10:50):
this home, I had to write.
a$500 check to sell this home.
I had to lose money out of mypocket to sell this home after
seven years.
And fast forward to the future,the people that bought it from
me for 200,000 turned around andsold it during COVID for over
(11:14):
350,000.
So they made 150K off of my homeThat I was forced to sell
because I was going through adivorce and my ex wanted to live
in a different area.
And if I wanted to have my kids,that's what I had to do.
And so that's what I did.
Again, trying to be a good man,doing the right thing.
(11:38):
The same thing I was trying todo for Ethan when I moved to
Dayton, Ohio to be with him.
I did the same thing for my boysthis time as well, but I was now
going to be unemployed.
And so I lost my job and I wasunemployed and we were still
(12:01):
going through the divorce.
This was eight months after Ihad lost my job that the divorce
was finalized and I was stillunemployed.
I had been laid off.
And the judge decided I wouldget 50-50 custody, but I would
still have to pay child supportand I would still have to pay
(12:25):
spousal maintenance.
I was just blown away by this.
And my attorney, who I paidthousands and thousands of
dollars to, acted like he did agood job for me.
And at the end of the day, whatdid he really do?
He didn't do a good job for mebecause he It was my idea to
(12:47):
have my kids interviewed by thecourt system because she was
trying to say that I was a badfather, that I was abusive and
all this other BS that wasn'ttrue.
And so I said, hey, have thecourt system interview my kids.
My kids will tell you.
(13:08):
They'll tell you that they loveme just as much as they do their
mother, that I'm better to themthan their mother because their
mother is the one that losescontrol and can't keep her cool
with them when they push her toofar.
So I knew that would make a hugeswing in my favor and that was
my ideal.
(13:29):
That wasn't my attorney's idea.
I made that happen.
So the judge said straight upthat he makes his decision based
off what they recommend andAfter the interview, I forget
what they're called, but thatposition recommends after the
interview, that's what he does.
It's not my decision at thatpoint.
(13:51):
I do what they say.
And I said, absolutely, 100%.
That's what I'm hoping for.
Of course, they interviewed mykids.
Yeah, we love our dad.
Our dad's great.
He's good to us.
We want to spend just as muchtime with him as we do our mom.
And that's why that ended upthat way.
But He couldn't get me from notpaying spousal maintenance.
(14:15):
He couldn't get me from notpaying child support.
I had to split all the assets.
I had to write the$500 check.
I had to take all the debt thatwas acquired during our marriage
from credit cards.
I had to take on all that.
It all belonged to me.
And then my attorney acted likehe wanted to do something, that
(14:37):
he did something for me.
It was crazy to me.
I couldn't believe it.
So talk about a guy who wasclueless and out of his mind.
And so that's where I was.
I was unemployed, divorced, andnow insanely in debt between the
credit card debt that was nowall mine and all on me and now
(15:01):
spousal maintenance and childsupport that I had to pay.
And I'm unemployed.
I really just...
felt lost at the time.
So I did what I could do, what Icould control, right?
So I was married.
I had gotten a little overweightfrom working every day and
(15:21):
fighting with a wife that didn'twant to let me go to the gym.
I'm not sure what she hadagainst me working out or being
in shape, but she just didn'twant it to happen.
So I had let myself go a littlebit and then I decided I'm going
to get back in shape.
And I'm at least going to feelgood about myself physically
(15:41):
while I go through thisdifficult time.
And so I do that.
I go to the gym.
I drop weight.
I start lifting.
I get in really good shape.
And then, of course, I am nowsomeone who's divorced three
times.
And now I have three sons that Idon't get to see every day.
(16:02):
So I'm not in a hurry to bein...
a serious relationship and besomeone that wants to get
married again.
As a matter of fact, I thought Iwould never get married again.
That was my position at thattime.
I'm never getting married again.
So I just turned into a totalman whore.
(16:25):
I moved to an apartment complex.
It was a nice enough one, butnot one that was so expensive
that it was going to suck medry.
And it was A lot of singlepeople, single men, single
women.
And I was on online dating appsand I was meeting people
(16:46):
organically at the gym, stufflike that.
And I was just a straight up manwhore.
I was just hooking up with allkinds of women all the time.
I even had my fourth threesomein this time of life.
I didn't tell you about mythird, but that's out of respect
(17:08):
for the person that the thirdthreesome occurred with.
I had my fourth one during thistime and I was just out of
control.
And eventually that comes upwhere you start feeling like,
uh, it's not what I like.
It's not who I am.
I love, I believe in love.
(17:31):
I think Love is one of thegreatest things that can happen
to you in life, if not thegreatest, if you are loved by
the right person and you lovethe right person and what you
can conquer together with love,right?
Love for your children, love foryour mom, your grandparents,
(17:51):
your siblings, and yoursignificant other.
I believe in love.
I always have.
And so when you're someone likethat, And you're not ready for
that because you're not readyfor the pain that comes with
that when it doesn't workbecause let's face it, at this
point in my life, it hasn'tworked.
(18:16):
So you just go the oppositedirection and you try to turn
your emotions off and you becomea robot and you just go through
the motions with people, right?
I still was charming enough Andwas in good shape to meet people
and have connections and hookup.
But for me, it wasn't going togo any farther.
(18:40):
That's where it stopped.
That's where it ended.
And I heard some people alongthe way.
Hell, I met some people alongthe way that wanted to hook up
with me that I wouldn't hook upwith because I'm picky.
And I also didn't want to ruinfriendships.
Because...
I knew that the feelings for mewere deeper than a hookup and I
(19:04):
just didn't want to get involvedwith that because I didn't want
to hurt people that I liked orcared about.
And I knew it wouldn't beanything more than a hookup to
me.
So I was going through thistime, unemployed, struggling
with my emotions and just beinga good man.
(19:26):
In general, I was trying to findmyself again, trying to dig
myself out of a hole again in myearly 40s.
And it's a tough place to be.
It was a tough place to findmyself.
So one of the things I tried todo, it was I tried to become a
(19:49):
teacher and I tried to teach ata high school.
And like that lasted about, Idon't know, three, four months
because I It just wasn't for me.
I liked the kids, but the paywas less than half of what I was
used to getting paid in myprevious jobs.
The administration at the highschool was terrible.
(20:10):
The leadership was justterrible.
And it just wasn't somethingthat I could put up with or
wanted to deal with.
I was running out of money.
My nest egg, if you will, wascoming to an end.
And I didn't have any jobs onthe horizon.
And I had recently met a womanon the app who was single.
(20:38):
And we started talking and Iproposed that we started dating
and we did.
And then I explained mysituation to her and she offered
to let me move in with her.
And we had known each other likea month.
And I just felt like I had noother choice because I was
(20:59):
literally going to be homeless.
That's the position I was goingto be in.
So I took her up on that offerand I decided to move in with
someone that I really didn'teven know that well.
She seemed to be nice.
She seemed to be cool.
Who knows what you really.
(21:20):
going to get, right?
And she was a native Mexican whowas living here in Tucson and
she was a Latina and if Mexicansand Latinas, what I was getting
into, but guess who didn't knowwhat he was getting into?
Me.
I had no idea what I wasstepping into.
(21:40):
So I thought I was stepping intoa dating relationship with
someone I guess it would be moresignificant than that since we
were going to live together, butsomeone who was just a kind,
caring person because that's allI had seen to that point.
But man, did it not turn outthat way at all?
(22:04):
She was incredibly jaded andbroken from some of her past
relationships and the thingsthat She had gone through in
life and I just found myself ina situation where I was with
someone who was insecure andjealous and broken.
(22:27):
And I was still trying to findmy way.
I was still trying to regain mysense of being a man with my
employment and being on my owntwo feet.
And now I was stuck with thisperson and I was stuck.
because I had no income, no wayto take care of myself.
(22:49):
And now I was trying to be asquare peg and try to fit into a
round hole.
And I was trying to make thatwork.
And it just ended up being atough time.
There were some real ups anddowns in that relationship, but
it didn't go that way for alittle while.
Obviously, I moved in in thebeginning.
(23:10):
Everything was smooth.
Everything was good.
And my kids were coming and theywere spending their week at a
time with me, their 50-50 timewith me.
And I was taking them to schooland picking them up.
It was obviously easy.
I didn't have a job.
And everything was going okay inthe beginning.
(23:31):
And my older son, Ethan, who wasnow an adult at this point, he
had already graduated highschool.
He had spent some time atcollege and then he dropped out
of college because he I justwasn't working for him for
whatever reason.
And he felt he didn't want to bein college and he was struggling
to find his way in life.
(23:53):
So I had offered for Ethan tomove out to Arizona with me and
her after having a discussionwith her because she had a room
available.
And I really was figuring like,even though I'm unemployed and
not, I'm not on my feet so much,I could have help ethan he could
(24:15):
come out here to arizona and icould help him get his life
going i can invest my time inhim and my energy in him and my
knowledge in him and try to helphim get his life on track but
ethan had other ideas and he's alittle stubborn like his mom and
it just didn't go that way andIt just went a completely
(24:40):
different route.
And I guess I will get into someof the details of that on the
next episode.
And I'm going to end thisepisode for now.
And thanks for joining.
And I'll talk to you next time.
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