April 3, 2025 • 28 mins
I share the emotional journey of being separated from my Brazilian wife for nine months after marriage and how we finally reunited when her visa was approved. The perfect timing of my new work-from-home consulting position allowed me to be present as she adjusted to life in America while also regaining shared custody of my children.
Please start with Episode 1. Go to my site BrandonHeld.com
• The hardships of international marriage created a foundation for our relationship that made us stronger
• Sometimes not knowing how difficult something will be is what allows us to pursue it
• You can't control another person's actions, but you can influence how they feel about you
• Learning to walk away from heated arguments before saying hurtful things and save a marriage
• Words spoken in anger leave permanent wounds that can't be taken back
• Personal growth requires recognizing toxic patterns in yourself
• Therapy can be a valuable tool for becoming a better person and partner
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Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_00 (00:01):
Welcome back to Brandon Held Life is Crazy,
episode 24.
And as I'm getting towards theend of talking about the journey
of my life, remember to checkout brandonheld.com.
(00:23):
And if this is the first episodeyou're receiving, go back and
start from episode one.
because it's a life journey, andit really doesn't make sense if
you don't listen to it from thebeginning.
I don't know how many episodesare left.
I have an outline put together,but I don't really know how much
(00:47):
I'll get through the outlineuntil the episode ends.
So it could be one more, itcould be two more, I'm not sure.
But the last I left off, my...
wife was still in Brazil and wewere married for nine months at
this point and still haven'tlived together after nine months
(01:12):
of being married.
We were together for over ayear, 13 months at this point,
living apart and Just absolutelybeing tortured, I guess, is the
best word when you have to stayapart from someone you love that
much for that long.
(01:32):
And just having eight day visitsonce every four to five months.
So now we were excited.
She got approved for the visaand now it was just a matter of
booking her flight and hersaying her goodbyes in Brazil.
(01:53):
And bringing what she can bringto America, which is essentially
mostly just clothes, jewelry,stuff like that.
Nothing big could come.
And starting her life all overagain in America with me.
And the way everything lined up,it went from being in this
(02:16):
situation where I was driving towork every day.
sitting in an office at a deskwhere not a lot was going on
because the electronichealthcare record system had
gone live.
I would make minimal changesdaily.
And I'm sure there are peopleout there just like me who some
(02:41):
days at work think, why the helldo I have to be here when the
majority of the day is fillingspace, filling time, because the
actual work that needs to bedone doesn't even take one third
of the hours you're designatedto be there for.
I get it.
(03:01):
I was there for the just incase.
And sometimes those just in casepopped up.
But that was all done by email.
And I responded by email.
And any quote unquote fire wouldbe put out Could have been put
out from far away.
(03:22):
So whatever.
It is what it is.
I digress.
So I was getting my new role asa consultant where I would be
able to work from home for theVA.
And now my wife was finallycoming to live with me.
And it just so happened that thesame Saturday she would arrive
(03:46):
to be here.
The Monday after, two dayslater, would be the day I would
start my new role.
So it was all coming togethernicely.
So she would arrive, I would getto spend the weekend with her,
and then I would wake up Mondaymorning and I wouldn't have to
(04:06):
drive across the city into abuilding and be away.
I could be at home all dayworking while getting She was
there in a new country all byherself, ideally in a perfect
world.
I would have had time to takeoff so I could spend time with
her and help her get accustomedto the new way of life and spend
(04:30):
time together.
But obviously I had beenspending my PTO going to see
her, which was irrelevant inthis case because I was taking
on a new job, new role.
And I had to earn the time off.
So it was perfect that I got towork from home.
(04:52):
So now I had my wife.
Now I got to work from home.
And now I could start takingback custody of my sons 50-50
because I had the ability now toget them to school and pick them
up from school.
And life was just...
(05:14):
back to another great placeagain after about, I don't know,
two years of anxiety and missingmy kids and a little over a year
of having someone that I loveand not being with her.
And it was a tough time.
(05:37):
It was a really tough time.
My wife and I, after the facts,when she arrived, even sometimes
a little before us, But afterthe fact, we made jokes that if
we had known everything we hadto go through to be together
with someone from anothercountry that we were going to
(05:58):
have to go through, we probablynever would have went on a site
to begin with in the first placeto meet someone from another
country.
And there's some joke to that,but there's some truth to that.
There's some joke in maybe whenyou know how hard something's
going to be before you start it,you just decide not to start it
(06:20):
at all.
I get it.
I've certainly done that inother areas of my life.
I thought about going back toschool to get a doctorate.
And then when I hear it's threeyears of classes and then a
thesis after the fact, and someof my friends that have
doctorates, I've seen whatthey've gone through in the
(06:41):
thesis process.
That knowledge of knowing whatthat thesis process is and what
people have gone through is thepart that cripples me.
It's the part that stops me fromgetting a doctorate.
Because if I was blindlyignorant like I was when I
started an online dating app tomeet someone in a different
(07:05):
country, I probably would havegone for it.
I probably would have said, oh,three years of classes, easy
peasy.
I'll knock those out and thenI'll get the thesis done ASAP.
But I learned just how much outof your hands that thesis
process is and just how luckyyou need to be with the people
(07:29):
that are making the decisions onif your thesis is headed in the
right direction and are youdoing the right things and is it
good enough to go before theboard and be defended.
And that's just, it's a toughprocess.
It's a hard process.
And frankly, it scared me away.
(07:49):
So this probably would not havebeen any different for both of
us.
Now, having gone through it,having finished it and getting
out the other side, are we gladwe did it?
Hell yeah, absolutely.
My wife is the love of my life.
I have never loved anyone else.
(08:11):
as much as I love her.
It blows my mind because Ididn't even know that I could
find that.
I didn't think that was possibleto have this kind of love for a
wife, let alone someone that Ididn't call kid because prior to
this point, my three sons wereby far the people that I loved
(08:35):
the most in this world.
And now I had a wife that Icould put up in that
stratosphere with them.
And I never had that before.
So hell yeah, the end productwas worth the struggles getting
(08:56):
to that point.
And maybe I would feel the sameway about a doctorate.
I don't know.
But what scares me even worse ismaybe I won't.
Maybe I'll go through all thatstruggle, all the costs, right?
Because it's not free.
You got to pay for it.
And in the end, I'll feel likeit wasn't worth it.
(09:17):
So I don't know.
But anyway, in this case, welived through it together.
I think it made us stronger as acouple.
I think as we went through upsand downs and had our
difficulties and we did, we wentthrough some ups and downs and
had our difficulties, both apartand when she got here because
(09:42):
it's all an adjustment it's allan adjustment but all the
struggle that we had to get tothat point was power it was
faith building in building asolid foundation that yeah we're
gonna we're gonna run into someshit but we're gonna overcome
(10:04):
that shit because we hadovercome so much just to be
together.
And that's what you need in apartner, right?
That's what you need when youare looking for someone to be
with.
You need someone because theonly thing you can count on at
(10:25):
the end of the day in life iswhat you are going to do, right?
You can only know your actions,your behavior, your What you're
willing to put up with, how faryou're willing to go, how much
loyalty or how you're notwilling to give up or all those
(10:48):
things, only you really knowwhat you can do.
And sometimes you may surpriseyourself and realize you could
do more than you thought youcould, or maybe you can't do
quite as much as you thought youcould.
But either way, that's the onlypart that you're in control of.
When you have a partner, nomatter how well you think you
(11:10):
know them, no matter how muchyou think you got a good read on
who they are as a person, youabsolutely have no control when
they decide, I don't want to bein this anymore.
I give up.
I quit.
I tap out.
It's...
(11:31):
It's not something that you havecontrol over and that's the
scariest part of love.
It's the scariest part of givingyour heart to someone and
potentially having it ripped outand stomped on because you don't
have any control of that otherperson and how they're going to
feel and how they're going toreact to situations and what the
(11:56):
final outcome will be.
You can only do as much as youcan do.
Now, having said that, can youdo things that will help your
partner be someone that you cancount on and you believe will be
there for you?
Absolutely.
We have to be able to adapt andadjust as people.
(12:18):
And some of the people that Isee in life who just feel like,
oh, I'm so down on my luck.
Love isn't for me, blah, blah,blah.
It's because they just are whothey are and they don't want to
make any changes, right?
There's this woman, Natalie,who's on 90 Day Fiance, and
(12:39):
she's a pretty Russian woman.
She's got blonde hair, blueeyes.
I don't know.
She might be from Ukraine.
I'm not sure which area she'sfrom, so I apologize.
I've seen her go throughrelationships where, for
whatever reason, guys love her.
(12:59):
But she's so difficult and sohard to get along with.
And in the most recent episodes,she's just, maybe love just
isn't in the cards for me.
No, it's not that at all.
You're just not someone who willchill down and tone yourself
(13:21):
down.
And she's so, when she gets madat you and she gets upset with
you, she wants nothing to dowith you.
You're nobody to her.
It's just she's the worst of theworst when it's like she becomes
this just cold human beingwithout a heart.
And that's how she is whenthere's trouble in the
(13:44):
relationship.
And people can only put up withso much of that, right?
And you have to grow as a humanbeing.
You have to get better as ahuman being.
And if this is you, if you'resomeone like this, if you're
someone that when you get mad,you're out of control in
whatever form or fashion thatis, whether it's physical,
(14:06):
whether it's emotional, whetherit's with your mouth and your
words, which is that's where Icould cut like a knife is with
my mouth and words.
You have to get that stuff undercontrol.
And if you don't get that stuffunder control, you are pushing
people away.
No matter how many times theyforgive you or how many times
(14:30):
they overlook it or whatever thecase is, it wears on you and it
eventually reaches a point whereyou just can't put up with it
anymore.
You don't want to do it anymore,right?
So you have that control in arelationship to ingratiate
(14:51):
yourself with someone who Sothat even when the times are
tough, you're not making themworse with your behavior.
You're not making them worse byshowing your ugliest sides.
And you can tone that down andyou can make adjustments.
And by God, if you're withsomeone that you want to spend
(15:15):
the rest of your life with andyou have those behaviors, you
better make those adjustments.
Because nobody worth a salt,worth having is going to stick
around because they know theirworth.
They know their value, right?
And so while you can't controlother people's reactions and
(15:42):
behaviors and what they're goingto do, and you are putting your
heart on the line becausepotentially someone could break
it.
you can control what you do anddefinitely set the tone of how
likely or unlikely that will beto happen and in the end you'll
(16:05):
find out that it's worth a truedeep love of someone you can
share your every fantasy withyour every thought your
positives your negatives andthey just know who you are
inside and out because you justshare everything with them and
they share everything with you.
And you're just on the same pageabout relationships and marriage
(16:32):
and the do's and don'ts and allthose things.
And it's just so rewarding.
It's so valuable and sorewarding that it's just worth
it.
My wife makes me a betterperson.
I can truly say that she makesme a better person.
(16:54):
I don't know if I could say thatabout any wife that I had before
her.
As a matter of fact, I wouldargue that I couldn't, that they
probably made me a worse personbecause they brought the worst
out in me.
And the younger I was, the worseI probably was because I
probably had less control.
(17:17):
I probably had lessunderstanding of the long-term
ramifications of a short-termbehavior.
I just didn't get some of thosethings.
So it took some heartache.
It took some real personalgrowth and looking inside to see
what was I doing wrong?
(17:38):
What can I do differently?
How I can be different.
And that's how I can bedifferent.
I have a sharp tongue.
And I can cut like a knife withthat tongue.
But if I love someone and Idon't want someone to do away
with me and have me not be apart of their life anymore, I
(17:59):
can't cut like that with thattongue.
I have to find a way in me,whatever steps that takes to be
able to curb that and take thatback.
And one of the things I do withmy wife now, because we have had
some fights where I did cut likea knife with my tongue.
(18:22):
And I did say things that hurther.
And I regret that.
I feel horrible about that.
And if I could turn back timeand I could redo it and I could
just get those things out of herhead.
And if she had never heard thatfrom me, I would do that.
I absolutely would, but I can'tdo that.
(18:45):
And I also had to recognize thatif I keep behaving that way, I'm
going to be divorced four times.
And I definitely didn't wantthat because this is the woman
of my dreams.
This is who I want to be withuntil I die.
And so I had to make adifference.
I had to make a change.
(19:07):
And one of the ways I did thatwas by recognizing that That
when I reach a certain point ofanger, whereas before I would
just keep fighting and arguingand be willing to say whatever
came out of my mouth, I have towalk away and she has to let me
walk away.
(19:28):
Even if she wants to keeparguing or keep discussing the
issue or whatever the case is,if either one of us recognizes
it's only going to get ugly fromhere.
The other person has to let themwalk away.
You have to let them do it.
No value comes from continuingthat.
(19:51):
No good value.
It's just bad from that pointon.
And so that's how you can make adifference.
That's how you can make achange.
And that was one of the thingsthat I have done.
And I'm proud of myself fordoing it.
I'm proud of myself forrecognizing that.
(20:12):
the steps that I need to takeand what I need to do, but also
a little bit sad with myselfthat it took me till 50 years
old to figure that out.
And it did.
It took me that long to figureout why, because I didn't have
someone telling me exactly whatI'd been telling you.
(20:35):
I didn't have anyone, anytrusted father figure, mother
figure, anyone to give me thiskind of guidance in life.
I just didn't have it.
I've known some good people.
I didn't open up to them enoughto share this kind of behavior
(20:58):
because it's embarrassing.
It's embarrassing to say I'vesaid things to my wife that I
regret, not just this wife, myprevious wives.
And they've said and done thingsto me that I'm sure they regret
that they probably wouldn't wantto be public knowledge.
But the only thing you can do isstop doing it.
(21:23):
Be different.
Learn from other people'smistakes.
And hopefully I can be thatmistake that you're learning
from.
If I had my way, I wouldn't be.
I would be able to give you thisadvice based off the advice that
Someone gave me, but that's notthe situation I'm in.
(21:47):
This is the situation I'm in.
Continuing that thought process,was able to make some changes
and through making thosechanges, I feel much more
confident and secure in what Ihave as a partner and that it
(22:10):
can be lifelong and another partof me is I'm a runner I'm a
runner when things fall apart Iwant to run I want to get out of
the situation and I want to bedone with it as soon as possible
because I don't likeconfrontation I don't like the
(22:34):
stress of hard times andSometimes you reach a boiling
point in a situation and you'retired of it and you're sick of
it and you realize it's notgetting better.
You're not gaining any headway.
So the only way to stop thissituation is to run away from
(22:54):
it, to absolve it and do awaywith it.
And that was another part of mypersonality I had to grasp and
get control of and is you can'tdo that to someone that you love
and you want to respect you andcherish and have a quality
(23:19):
loving relationship with becausejust because you said or behaved
a certain way in an argument,which used to always be my get
out of jail free card while Isaid it in an argument so it
doesn't count.
That's not how it works, right?
That's like saying, oh, I shotthat person with a gun when I
(23:42):
was mad and I take it back.
No, the bullet has been fired.
The bullet has hit the body,right?
The words have hit the brain andthey can't be taken back.
What's done is done.
And so you have to get a graspon that.
(24:03):
I've always had the grasp on.
physical abuse, right?
For me, that was just clearlyapparent as even a teenager that
you can't physically abuse awoman.
You can't do that.
That's wrong.
No excuses for it, right?
Men are bigger, stronger,better.
(24:26):
If a woman's attacking you,which I have been attacked, you
don't have to attack back.
You can sedate them in a way bygrabbing them and calming them
down like you you can do otherthings to protect yourself
without actually beingaggressive towards her that was
(24:46):
always obvious to me but whatwasn't obvious to me is the pain
that your words can cause evenin a fight the pain That telling
someone you don't want themanymore just because you're mad
and you want to be out of asituation causes, right?
(25:07):
To me, that was like a big deal.
I'm not punching you in theface.
I'm not kicking you.
I'm not physically hurting you.
These are just words.
That's literally how I used tojustify it, that I would say
words.
This is nothing compared to whatI could be doing to you, right?
Because I'm a man and that'swhat men do when they lose
(25:28):
control.
But I have enough control tonever do that.
So I just use words wrong.
Words are painful.
Words hurt just as muchsometimes, if not more, than a
physical beating.
And you have to get that undercontrol.
You have to figure that out.
(25:50):
or the only person who's reallygoing to suffer for that in the
end is you, not the only, right?
Because any lost love is a loss,right?
If you loved someone and youlost them and you've gone on
with your life and maybe betterthings, maybe happier things, a
(26:14):
love lost is still a love lost.
And That may sound silly ortrivial.
It's not easy losing someone youlove, no matter what the
situation.
So get it together.
If this is who you are and thisis speaking to you and this
(26:38):
somehow resonates with you, makethat change.
Do whatever it takes.
Maybe you don't know.
that this is who you are.
Maybe you don't know the thingsthat are your triggers or the
buttons that push you to getthat way.
It doesn't matter when you getto that point.
(26:59):
That's where you have to put astop to it and you have to be
open and you have to make itclear and you can get help.
There's nothing wrong withtherapy and seeing a therapist.
I've been to multipletherapists, both individually
And marriage.
(27:20):
And it's helpful.
It's beneficial.
It can get you through sometough times.
It can help you grow as a humanbeing.
I'm not saying they're all greatand they're all right because
they're not.
But when they can give youinformation that is helpful and
beneficial for you, take it.
(27:40):
Use it.
Help become a better person.
All right.
I went off on a tangent there,but that's where I'm going to
end this episode.
Thanks for joining.
And as always, go to my site.
Talk in the comments.
Let me know what you think ofthis topic and what I had to
(28:03):
say.
And I will talk to you nexttime.
Welcome back to Brandon Held Life is Crazy,
episode 24.
And as I'm getting towards theend of talking about the journey
of my life, remember to checkout brandonheld.com.
(00:23):
And if this is the first episodeyou're receiving, go back and
start from episode one.
because it's a life journey, andit really doesn't make sense if
you don't listen to it from thebeginning.
I don't know how many episodesare left.
I have an outline put together,but I don't really know how much
(00:47):
I'll get through the outlineuntil the episode ends.
So it could be one more, itcould be two more, I'm not sure.
But the last I left off, my...
wife was still in Brazil and wewere married for nine months at
this point and still haven'tlived together after nine months
(01:12):
of being married.
We were together for over ayear, 13 months at this point,
living apart and Just absolutelybeing tortured, I guess, is the
best word when you have to stayapart from someone you love that
much for that long.
(01:32):
And just having eight day visitsonce every four to five months.
So now we were excited.
She got approved for the visaand now it was just a matter of
booking her flight and hersaying her goodbyes in Brazil.
(01:53):
And bringing what she can bringto America, which is essentially
mostly just clothes, jewelry,stuff like that.
Nothing big could come.
And starting her life all overagain in America with me.
And the way everything lined up,it went from being in this
(02:16):
situation where I was driving towork every day.
sitting in an office at a deskwhere not a lot was going on
because the electronichealthcare record system had
gone live.
I would make minimal changesdaily.
And I'm sure there are peopleout there just like me who some
(02:41):
days at work think, why the helldo I have to be here when the
majority of the day is fillingspace, filling time, because the
actual work that needs to bedone doesn't even take one third
of the hours you're designatedto be there for.
I get it.
(03:01):
I was there for the just incase.
And sometimes those just in casepopped up.
But that was all done by email.
And I responded by email.
And any quote unquote fire wouldbe put out Could have been put
out from far away.
(03:22):
So whatever.
It is what it is.
I digress.
So I was getting my new role asa consultant where I would be
able to work from home for theVA.
And now my wife was finallycoming to live with me.
And it just so happened that thesame Saturday she would arrive
(03:46):
to be here.
The Monday after, two dayslater, would be the day I would
start my new role.
So it was all coming togethernicely.
So she would arrive, I would getto spend the weekend with her,
and then I would wake up Mondaymorning and I wouldn't have to
(04:06):
drive across the city into abuilding and be away.
I could be at home all dayworking while getting She was
there in a new country all byherself, ideally in a perfect
world.
I would have had time to takeoff so I could spend time with
her and help her get accustomedto the new way of life and spend
(04:30):
time together.
But obviously I had beenspending my PTO going to see
her, which was irrelevant inthis case because I was taking
on a new job, new role.
And I had to earn the time off.
So it was perfect that I got towork from home.
(04:52):
So now I had my wife.
Now I got to work from home.
And now I could start takingback custody of my sons 50-50
because I had the ability now toget them to school and pick them
up from school.
And life was just...
(05:14):
back to another great placeagain after about, I don't know,
two years of anxiety and missingmy kids and a little over a year
of having someone that I loveand not being with her.
And it was a tough time.
(05:37):
It was a really tough time.
My wife and I, after the facts,when she arrived, even sometimes
a little before us, But afterthe fact, we made jokes that if
we had known everything we hadto go through to be together
with someone from anothercountry that we were going to
(05:58):
have to go through, we probablynever would have went on a site
to begin with in the first placeto meet someone from another
country.
And there's some joke to that,but there's some truth to that.
There's some joke in maybe whenyou know how hard something's
going to be before you start it,you just decide not to start it
(06:20):
at all.
I get it.
I've certainly done that inother areas of my life.
I thought about going back toschool to get a doctorate.
And then when I hear it's threeyears of classes and then a
thesis after the fact, and someof my friends that have
doctorates, I've seen whatthey've gone through in the
(06:41):
thesis process.
That knowledge of knowing whatthat thesis process is and what
people have gone through is thepart that cripples me.
It's the part that stops me fromgetting a doctorate.
Because if I was blindlyignorant like I was when I
started an online dating app tomeet someone in a different
(07:05):
country, I probably would havegone for it.
I probably would have said, oh,three years of classes, easy
peasy.
I'll knock those out and thenI'll get the thesis done ASAP.
But I learned just how much outof your hands that thesis
process is and just how luckyyou need to be with the people
(07:29):
that are making the decisions onif your thesis is headed in the
right direction and are youdoing the right things and is it
good enough to go before theboard and be defended.
And that's just, it's a toughprocess.
It's a hard process.
And frankly, it scared me away.
(07:49):
So this probably would not havebeen any different for both of
us.
Now, having gone through it,having finished it and getting
out the other side, are we gladwe did it?
Hell yeah, absolutely.
My wife is the love of my life.
I have never loved anyone else.
(08:11):
as much as I love her.
It blows my mind because Ididn't even know that I could
find that.
I didn't think that was possibleto have this kind of love for a
wife, let alone someone that Ididn't call kid because prior to
this point, my three sons wereby far the people that I loved
(08:35):
the most in this world.
And now I had a wife that Icould put up in that
stratosphere with them.
And I never had that before.
So hell yeah, the end productwas worth the struggles getting
(08:56):
to that point.
And maybe I would feel the sameway about a doctorate.
I don't know.
But what scares me even worse ismaybe I won't.
Maybe I'll go through all thatstruggle, all the costs, right?
Because it's not free.
You got to pay for it.
And in the end, I'll feel likeit wasn't worth it.
(09:17):
So I don't know.
But anyway, in this case, welived through it together.
I think it made us stronger as acouple.
I think as we went through upsand downs and had our
difficulties and we did, we wentthrough some ups and downs and
had our difficulties, both apartand when she got here because
(09:42):
it's all an adjustment it's allan adjustment but all the
struggle that we had to get tothat point was power it was
faith building in building asolid foundation that yeah we're
gonna we're gonna run into someshit but we're gonna overcome
(10:04):
that shit because we hadovercome so much just to be
together.
And that's what you need in apartner, right?
That's what you need when youare looking for someone to be
with.
You need someone because theonly thing you can count on at
(10:25):
the end of the day in life iswhat you are going to do, right?
You can only know your actions,your behavior, your What you're
willing to put up with, how faryou're willing to go, how much
loyalty or how you're notwilling to give up or all those
(10:48):
things, only you really knowwhat you can do.
And sometimes you may surpriseyourself and realize you could
do more than you thought youcould, or maybe you can't do
quite as much as you thought youcould.
But either way, that's the onlypart that you're in control of.
When you have a partner, nomatter how well you think you
(11:10):
know them, no matter how muchyou think you got a good read on
who they are as a person, youabsolutely have no control when
they decide, I don't want to bein this anymore.
I give up.
I quit.
I tap out.
It's...
(11:31):
It's not something that you havecontrol over and that's the
scariest part of love.
It's the scariest part of givingyour heart to someone and
potentially having it ripped outand stomped on because you don't
have any control of that otherperson and how they're going to
feel and how they're going toreact to situations and what the
(11:56):
final outcome will be.
You can only do as much as youcan do.
Now, having said that, can youdo things that will help your
partner be someone that you cancount on and you believe will be
there for you?
Absolutely.
We have to be able to adapt andadjust as people.
(12:18):
And some of the people that Isee in life who just feel like,
oh, I'm so down on my luck.
Love isn't for me, blah, blah,blah.
It's because they just are whothey are and they don't want to
make any changes, right?
There's this woman, Natalie,who's on 90 Day Fiance, and
(12:39):
she's a pretty Russian woman.
She's got blonde hair, blueeyes.
I don't know.
She might be from Ukraine.
I'm not sure which area she'sfrom, so I apologize.
I've seen her go throughrelationships where, for
whatever reason, guys love her.
(12:59):
But she's so difficult and sohard to get along with.
And in the most recent episodes,she's just, maybe love just
isn't in the cards for me.
No, it's not that at all.
You're just not someone who willchill down and tone yourself
(13:21):
down.
And she's so, when she gets madat you and she gets upset with
you, she wants nothing to dowith you.
You're nobody to her.
It's just she's the worst of theworst when it's like she becomes
this just cold human beingwithout a heart.
And that's how she is whenthere's trouble in the
(13:44):
relationship.
And people can only put up withso much of that, right?
And you have to grow as a humanbeing.
You have to get better as ahuman being.
And if this is you, if you'resomeone like this, if you're
someone that when you get mad,you're out of control in
whatever form or fashion thatis, whether it's physical,
(14:06):
whether it's emotional, whetherit's with your mouth and your
words, which is that's where Icould cut like a knife is with
my mouth and words.
You have to get that stuff undercontrol.
And if you don't get that stuffunder control, you are pushing
people away.
No matter how many times theyforgive you or how many times
(14:30):
they overlook it or whatever thecase is, it wears on you and it
eventually reaches a point whereyou just can't put up with it
anymore.
You don't want to do it anymore,right?
So you have that control in arelationship to ingratiate
(14:51):
yourself with someone who Sothat even when the times are
tough, you're not making themworse with your behavior.
You're not making them worse byshowing your ugliest sides.
And you can tone that down andyou can make adjustments.
And by God, if you're withsomeone that you want to spend
(15:15):
the rest of your life with andyou have those behaviors, you
better make those adjustments.
Because nobody worth a salt,worth having is going to stick
around because they know theirworth.
They know their value, right?
And so while you can't controlother people's reactions and
(15:42):
behaviors and what they're goingto do, and you are putting your
heart on the line becausepotentially someone could break
it.
you can control what you do anddefinitely set the tone of how
likely or unlikely that will beto happen and in the end you'll
(16:05):
find out that it's worth a truedeep love of someone you can
share your every fantasy withyour every thought your
positives your negatives andthey just know who you are
inside and out because you justshare everything with them and
they share everything with you.
And you're just on the same pageabout relationships and marriage
(16:32):
and the do's and don'ts and allthose things.
And it's just so rewarding.
It's so valuable and sorewarding that it's just worth
it.
My wife makes me a betterperson.
I can truly say that she makesme a better person.
(16:54):
I don't know if I could say thatabout any wife that I had before
her.
As a matter of fact, I wouldargue that I couldn't, that they
probably made me a worse personbecause they brought the worst
out in me.
And the younger I was, the worseI probably was because I
probably had less control.
(17:17):
I probably had lessunderstanding of the long-term
ramifications of a short-termbehavior.
I just didn't get some of thosethings.
So it took some heartache.
It took some real personalgrowth and looking inside to see
what was I doing wrong?
(17:38):
What can I do differently?
How I can be different.
And that's how I can bedifferent.
I have a sharp tongue.
And I can cut like a knife withthat tongue.
But if I love someone and Idon't want someone to do away
with me and have me not be apart of their life anymore, I
(17:59):
can't cut like that with thattongue.
I have to find a way in me,whatever steps that takes to be
able to curb that and take thatback.
And one of the things I do withmy wife now, because we have had
some fights where I did cut likea knife with my tongue.
(18:22):
And I did say things that hurther.
And I regret that.
I feel horrible about that.
And if I could turn back timeand I could redo it and I could
just get those things out of herhead.
And if she had never heard thatfrom me, I would do that.
I absolutely would, but I can'tdo that.
(18:45):
And I also had to recognize thatif I keep behaving that way, I'm
going to be divorced four times.
And I definitely didn't wantthat because this is the woman
of my dreams.
This is who I want to be withuntil I die.
And so I had to make adifference.
I had to make a change.
(19:07):
And one of the ways I did thatwas by recognizing that That
when I reach a certain point ofanger, whereas before I would
just keep fighting and arguingand be willing to say whatever
came out of my mouth, I have towalk away and she has to let me
walk away.
(19:28):
Even if she wants to keeparguing or keep discussing the
issue or whatever the case is,if either one of us recognizes
it's only going to get ugly fromhere.
The other person has to let themwalk away.
You have to let them do it.
No value comes from continuingthat.
(19:51):
No good value.
It's just bad from that pointon.
And so that's how you can make adifference.
That's how you can make achange.
And that was one of the thingsthat I have done.
And I'm proud of myself fordoing it.
I'm proud of myself forrecognizing that.
(20:12):
the steps that I need to takeand what I need to do, but also
a little bit sad with myselfthat it took me till 50 years
old to figure that out.
And it did.
It took me that long to figureout why, because I didn't have
someone telling me exactly whatI'd been telling you.
(20:35):
I didn't have anyone, anytrusted father figure, mother
figure, anyone to give me thiskind of guidance in life.
I just didn't have it.
I've known some good people.
I didn't open up to them enoughto share this kind of behavior
(20:58):
because it's embarrassing.
It's embarrassing to say I'vesaid things to my wife that I
regret, not just this wife, myprevious wives.
And they've said and done thingsto me that I'm sure they regret
that they probably wouldn't wantto be public knowledge.
But the only thing you can do isstop doing it.
(21:23):
Be different.
Learn from other people'smistakes.
And hopefully I can be thatmistake that you're learning
from.
If I had my way, I wouldn't be.
I would be able to give you thisadvice based off the advice that
Someone gave me, but that's notthe situation I'm in.
(21:47):
This is the situation I'm in.
Continuing that thought process,was able to make some changes
and through making thosechanges, I feel much more
confident and secure in what Ihave as a partner and that it
(22:10):
can be lifelong and another partof me is I'm a runner I'm a
runner when things fall apart Iwant to run I want to get out of
the situation and I want to bedone with it as soon as possible
because I don't likeconfrontation I don't like the
(22:34):
stress of hard times andSometimes you reach a boiling
point in a situation and you'retired of it and you're sick of
it and you realize it's notgetting better.
You're not gaining any headway.
So the only way to stop thissituation is to run away from
(22:54):
it, to absolve it and do awaywith it.
And that was another part of mypersonality I had to grasp and
get control of and is you can'tdo that to someone that you love
and you want to respect you andcherish and have a quality
(23:19):
loving relationship with becausejust because you said or behaved
a certain way in an argument,which used to always be my get
out of jail free card while Isaid it in an argument so it
doesn't count.
That's not how it works, right?
That's like saying, oh, I shotthat person with a gun when I
(23:42):
was mad and I take it back.
No, the bullet has been fired.
The bullet has hit the body,right?
The words have hit the brain andthey can't be taken back.
What's done is done.
And so you have to get a graspon that.
(24:03):
I've always had the grasp on.
physical abuse, right?
For me, that was just clearlyapparent as even a teenager that
you can't physically abuse awoman.
You can't do that.
That's wrong.
No excuses for it, right?
Men are bigger, stronger,better.
(24:26):
If a woman's attacking you,which I have been attacked, you
don't have to attack back.
You can sedate them in a way bygrabbing them and calming them
down like you you can do otherthings to protect yourself
without actually beingaggressive towards her that was
(24:46):
always obvious to me but whatwasn't obvious to me is the pain
that your words can cause evenin a fight the pain That telling
someone you don't want themanymore just because you're mad
and you want to be out of asituation causes, right?
(25:07):
To me, that was like a big deal.
I'm not punching you in theface.
I'm not kicking you.
I'm not physically hurting you.
These are just words.
That's literally how I used tojustify it, that I would say
words.
This is nothing compared to whatI could be doing to you, right?
Because I'm a man and that'swhat men do when they lose
(25:28):
control.
But I have enough control tonever do that.
So I just use words wrong.
Words are painful.
Words hurt just as muchsometimes, if not more, than a
physical beating.
And you have to get that undercontrol.
You have to figure that out.
(25:50):
or the only person who's reallygoing to suffer for that in the
end is you, not the only, right?
Because any lost love is a loss,right?
If you loved someone and youlost them and you've gone on
with your life and maybe betterthings, maybe happier things, a
(26:14):
love lost is still a love lost.
And That may sound silly ortrivial.
It's not easy losing someone youlove, no matter what the
situation.
So get it together.
If this is who you are and thisis speaking to you and this
(26:38):
somehow resonates with you, makethat change.
Do whatever it takes.
Maybe you don't know.
that this is who you are.
Maybe you don't know the thingsthat are your triggers or the
buttons that push you to getthat way.
It doesn't matter when you getto that point.
(26:59):
That's where you have to put astop to it and you have to be
open and you have to make itclear and you can get help.
There's nothing wrong withtherapy and seeing a therapist.
I've been to multipletherapists, both individually
And marriage.
(27:20):
And it's helpful.
It's beneficial.
It can get you through sometough times.
It can help you grow as a humanbeing.
I'm not saying they're all greatand they're all right because
they're not.
But when they can give youinformation that is helpful and
beneficial for you, take it.
(27:40):
Use it.
Help become a better person.
All right.
I went off on a tangent there,but that's where I'm going to
end this episode.
Thanks for joining.
And as always, go to my site.
Talk in the comments.
Let me know what you think ofthis topic and what I had to
(28:03):
say.
And I will talk to you nexttime.
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An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.