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July 22, 2025 15 mins

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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good morning.

(00:00):
This is Brad and I'm with mywife, tiffany, and we are the
authors of the Hustle Flowpodcast Coming to you today.
We're doing a series of summershorts.
It's going to be some 10, 12minutes, something like that.
We're going to talk about somesubjects, just simple things
that we're going to try todevelop one idea.
Good morning, tiffany.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Good morning.

Speaker 1 (00:19):
Hey, we're going to talk this morning about being
married but single, and when Isay that, people's like that
doesn't make any sense.
If you're married, you're notsingle.
But we're going to submit toyou this morning that you can be
married but feel like you'resingle.
How do you feel about that?

Speaker 2 (00:39):
Tiff.
I mean, I think it does makesense.
I think that there are peoplethat will hear it and think,
yeah, that's exactly how I feel.
Sometimes I feel like I'msingle, that I might as well be,
because that's what it feelslike sometimes.

Speaker 1 (00:53):
Well, what does that look like?
I mean, just off the cuff, giveme an example.
I mean I'm thinking, let's justuse a wife, for example, and
she goes to work.
Say she has a full-time job,they have 2.5 kids, so she goes
to work, she comes home,dinner's expected, you got to

(01:13):
take care of the house, you gotto take care of the kids, and
then you don't feel like maybeyou're getting a good
contribution from your spouseand it feels like you're a
single mother and uh, that canjust be build a lot of
frustration.
It can make you just kind ofthink why am I even married

(01:33):
anyway if I'm not getting acontribution from my spouse?
So that's one example that Ithink is there.
Is there something else?
Maybe that pops into your mindwhen, when you think of those
things.

Speaker 2 (01:44):
Yeah, there's other things.
I think.
That is one that I hear often,though, when we're talking to
married couples that are youngeris feeling like the weight is
not evenly distributed and maybethey're single.
It feels like a lot of timeswhen they have more weight of

(02:07):
taking care of the kids andrunning the household and those
kind of things I think.
Another thought that pops in mymind is when people become
empty nesters, that because wehaven't maybe had shared

(02:27):
interest over the years, nowthat the kids are gone, that was
our shared interest, that wasthe thing that would bring us
together, maybe ball games ordifferent things that the kids
are involved in, dance, orthings that we had to be present
, both present for so we mighttalk while the kids are doing
whatever it was that they did,and now that the kids are gone,

(02:51):
we haven't maybe had thoseshared interests.
And so you go play golf duringthe week, all weekend long, I go
play pickleball, and we don'tdo either of those things.
But you know, and we're justliving single.
We come in and we may eattogether or we may not, right
Depending on the differentthings that we do.

(03:11):
Maybe even maybe, we jump intoour jobs more, maybe I, maybe
I'm a realtor, which I'm notanymore, and I'm showing houses
all day, all night.
I go meet my realtor friendsafter work and you do whatever
it is you do, and we're justkind of coexisting and living
single.

Speaker 1 (03:32):
I like that example and I especially like it from a
empty nester standpoint, becausethat's that's where we are.
We've been that way for severalyears and I think that it is
easy, especially when your kidsare your only real shared
interest as you're going throughthe formative years of marriage

(03:52):
, because when they move out,that really changes things and I
think that's a good point tostart at.
To go backwards is that you, asa husband and wife, it's
important that you developsomething that you do together,
that you do have some kind ofshared interest.

Speaker 2 (04:07):
And that's hard sometimes because I know we're.
You know we spend a lot of timetogether and we'll talk later
about probably quality timeversus quantity time but we're
constantly trying to find stuffthat we can do together,

(04:27):
constantly trying to find stuffthat we can do together and it's
and just being honest, that isharder than it would seem
sometimes because we, as anexample, are so completely
different.
I am perfect, perfectly contentto go out.
If we're going to go runtogether, for example, and run a
very slow 5K and talk the wholetime, well, you want to go out

(04:47):
and run a 50K and not talk thewhole time.
So even running together is noteven that simple.
But we've tried differentthings to find something to do
together, and so I understandfor people to find a common
interest.
Sometimes it can be hard to dothat.

Speaker 1 (05:06):
And it is extremely difficult because if you're
married for any length of time,you will discover that you and
your spouse are not the same,and I think the older I get, the
more I recognize we're not thesame people at all.

(05:27):
Like it's, it's and it used tofrustrate me.
I will.
I will say that it used tofrustrate me.
I wanted you to be more like me, and cause I kept thinking,
well, that's just stupid, likethat, and why wouldn't you just
do this?
This makes sense to me becauseI was thinking, in the patterns
of my mind and how I operate, inthe things that I do, and I

(05:47):
wanted you to be like me,instead of realizing that you
are your own person and you dohave your own separate identity
and you do have ideas, and youdo have ideas and you do have
dreams and you do have thingsthat you enjoy as well, and I
can't make you like me.
So that's where it getsdifficult to find that common
interest.
Because you're right, yeah,there are days I enjoy going and

(06:08):
running and just talking, butfor the most part, I'm just
built to try to.
I want to do stuff.
That's hard and I'd rather goout and do something that just
absolutely gasses me than I hadgoing and just having a casual
conversation.
But, that being said, we stillhave to work to find common

(06:31):
interest and we deal.
We cannot afford.
We've been together 35 years.
We can't afford to becomesingle at this point in our
marriage, because you need meand I need you.
You make me better.

Speaker 2 (06:48):
Yeah, because I mean, for example, for me, I did not
get married to be single.

Speaker 1 (06:53):
No.

Speaker 2 (06:53):
I got married because I wanted somebody to go to TJ
Maxx with, to go eat with me.
I hate eating by myself.

Speaker 1 (06:59):
That is weird to me, but that's always been your
thing.

Speaker 2 (07:02):
I despise going somewhere eating by myself
because I feel like everybody'slooking at me saying what a
loser that nobody will eat withthem.
I can't stand it.
But yeah, I married somebody totake a road trip with me and
just to be able to talk to andto have a built-in best friend.
People say you know their kidsare built-in best friends, and
yes they are.

(07:23):
But you know, and I needsomebody, and some, and learn to
share your you know, share your, your heart and learn to lay
down selfishness.
You can find yourself beingvery lonely and start to have

(07:44):
those thoughts of am I justliving single?
And some, some people may evenhave the shared interest, the
shared goals, but somethinghappens and there's resentment
there that builds up and becauseof something happened that got
unresolved, you can findyourself in that place of
feeling lonely.
I was thinking about a couple.

(08:06):
Something did happen and itnever really got resolved and it
wasn't an affair, it was just abreakdown in communication and
then a breakdown of involvement,of the other person wanting to
be involved anymore.
And so now I can't remember howmany years, but I I think it's
something like now they'vethey've been going on 10 years
of marriage, of living togetheras roommates, basically no, no

(08:29):
physical intimacy anymore.
No, any kind of intimacy, nocelebration of anniversaries, no
romanticism, nothing, justgoing their own separate ways.
And you know, I've I've heardthe wife talk about how it
really does just get lonely, andthat is, that is the prime
example of kind of what we'retalking about, of married but

(08:52):
living single, and that's it's,it's sad existence and I hate
that because, yeah, you knowI've said it before you can
become conjugal roommates.

Speaker 1 (09:06):
Make sure you pay your half of the bills.
Hey, can you Venmo me Because Iwent ahead and took care of the
mortgage.
I need you to Venmo me yourhalf.
And then occasionally, you know, you may get that urge.
You know what I'm talking aboutif you're married and you want
to have sex one night.
But you had just said thiscouple has evolved to the point

(09:26):
that they're not even intimateanymore at all, that they are
existing and that they'rebasically two single people
cohabitating in a house togetherwith a marriage band on, and
that's a hard existence.
I know you said that youmarried somebody to be road
tripping with, to go to TJ Maxxand Target and to be intimate

(09:50):
with not necessarily just sexual, but intimate in the fact that
you can share your heart, youcan share your feelings, you can
share your emotions, and thatit was maybe a built-in best
friend.
And I think that friendshipevolves over time, that it was
maybe a built-in best friend andI think that that friendship
evolves over time and becomingbest friends is is part of
intimacy and exposing yourselfto the other person and you can

(10:13):
isolate yourself, uh, to a pointthat that you will become
lonely, and it's one of thosethings that it's just a weird
thing to be married but singleand some of you listening to
this today you know what we'retalking about.
You come home and, yeah, youmay have a ring on your finger,
you may still have loyalty andfidelity in your heart that

(10:36):
you've not committed adulterywith somebody else, but you come
home and there is nothing thereand we just want to encourage
you today that you can bemarried and married, that you
don't have to be married andsingle, that you can be married
and married and you can decide.
Even where you're at today, ifyou feel like your marriage is

(10:57):
maybe on the rocks, if you feellike you're having some
situations, that this resonateswith you, it's a conversation
that you need to have.
You need to look at your spouseand say, hey, Tiff, I just I
feel like lately that maybewe've been drifting apart, that
maybe you know you have yourgoals and there's some things
you're doing here, or you know,I've kind of feel like I've

(11:19):
drifted a little bit and havethat conversation and you have
to make that choice to try tocome back together and listen to
it.
I'm not here to tell you thatthat's easy, because it is not,
Would you agree?
It is not easy, once thosepaths have diverged, to bring
them back together.

Speaker 2 (11:40):
Yeah, I think it's hard.
I think, first of all, you knowyou need to evaluate exactly
where you're at, make sure yourexpectations are are realistic
and that you're not basing yourexpectations off of movies and
books and all those things.
But it's a realisticexpectation and then, if it's

(12:01):
not, if it's not too far deep ortoo far gone, then you sit down
and have some honestconversations and you prioritize
things like quality time.
Quality time is important to me.
You and I are together a lotbecause we work together and we
do go to the gym together.
We do all those things.
But that I don't.
I mean that doesn't, thatdoesn't do much for me.

(12:22):
I, I and I this is, you know,know, it's something I bring up
a lot Like.
I need some quality time, Ineed an actual date.
I need you to take me somewhere.
You you loved to wine and dineme not necessarily wine me,
because we were underage, butyou were, you know.
Maybe a little, I don't know youshowed me lots of attention and

(12:43):
time when we were dating and soI still want that 35 years
later.
Um, and then just of coursethink, okay, how can I be better
?
Have I been selfish in someareas?
What can I give up, what can Iset aside?
And then just try hard toreconnect and then, if none of
that works and it's too far gonefor that, then then find, find

(13:07):
a good marriage counselor, getout there and really put the
work and the effort in toreconnect so that you're you
know, remember why you gotmarried in the first place.

Speaker 1 (13:17):
Yeah, and that's that's a good point, and that's
a great place to stop there, andI think it's this way.
You got to remember it's us,not me, it's us and there's two
people in this marriage and, asmuch as you may be hurting, or

(13:38):
maybe you feel lonely, yourspouse may feel the same way.

Speaker 2 (13:42):
Right.

Speaker 1 (13:42):
And it's important to have conversations and not just
isolate yourself and think youknow what.
This is, how it is and this ishow it's always going to be.
I will tell you that there's a100% chance that your marriage
can change if you allow yourselfthe space to spend time with
your spouse, to reconnect and tomake it about us and not about

(14:05):
me.
So we just want to encourageyou today Married but single is
a lonely existence and we wantto encourage you to have that
hard discussion with your spouseeven tonight.
Set aside some time, maybe geta babysitter this weekend or
whatever it takes to have thatconversation and say listen, I
love you and I don't want to bethis way.

(14:25):
I don't want to feel this wayanymore.
I want to reconnect with youand I tell you romance is there,
it's there.
You just have to rekindle thefire and we love you.
We just want to encourage youtoday.
There's two kinds of people.
There's kinds that talk thetalk.
There's kinds that walk thewalk.
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