February 13, 2025 • 64 mins
Welcome to “Unveiled” Where all conversations are safe, revealing and uncuffed.
Tonight’s show is partnered with – Chris’s Dishes, Jenn Chavez Photography & sponsored by WSBI, LLC – Your Resource For Success Podcast.
Here are your Hosts: Carmine and Kimberly Pesce and Chris and Jenn Chavez
What are we revealing tonight! Finding Love in your 40s, 50s and 60s.
To be a guest on the show reach out to kimberlywsbillc@gmail.com
Want more of Unveiled Podcast Shows Monetary donations to support the podcast are now accepted on 👉cash app $kmclemore, PayPal, GoodPods “tip jar”or go to the website - www.wsbillc.com
Again, we would like to thank you all for listening to us tonight. Will be back next month on a Thursday evening @ 7 pm; Be sure to follow us on iHeartRadio, Spreaker, YouTube or wherever you listen to your podcast ~ until then enjoy the rest of your evening.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/your-resource-for-success-podcast--2094412/support.
Tonight’s show is partnered with – Chris’s Dishes, Jenn Chavez Photography & sponsored by WSBI, LLC – Your Resource For Success Podcast.
Here are your Hosts: Carmine and Kimberly Pesce and Chris and Jenn Chavez
What are we revealing tonight! Finding Love in your 40s, 50s and 60s.
To be a guest on the show reach out to kimberlywsbillc@gmail.com
Want more of Unveiled Podcast Shows Monetary donations to support the podcast are now accepted on 👉cash app $kmclemore, PayPal, GoodPods “tip jar”or go to the website - www.wsbillc.com
Again, we would like to thank you all for listening to us tonight. Will be back next month on a Thursday evening @ 7 pm; Be sure to follow us on iHeartRadio, Spreaker, YouTube or wherever you listen to your podcast ~ until then enjoy the rest of your evening.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/your-resource-for-success-podcast--2094412/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Good evening, Welcome to Unveiled, where all conversations are safe, revealing,
and uncuffed. Tonight's show is partnered with Chris's Dishes, Genshava's Photography,
and sponsored by w SBI LLC, your resource for success podcast.
Here are your hosts, Carmine and Kimberly Peshi and Chris
and Genshaves. What are we revealing tonight? Well, since to
(00:26):
this month, February is the month of Love, we are
going to talk about the topic finding love in your forties, fifties,
and sixties. Now this all our hosts cover all of
the above age groups. So with that, let's talk to
(00:47):
our hosts.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Hey, it was really good car exactly grabbing the napkin.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
Whoa, it's all good.
Speaker 4 (01:01):
Swear.
Speaker 5 (01:02):
Surgery went well, all right, well hello everybody. Yes, my
husband did a fabulous job with this introduction roles.
Speaker 4 (01:16):
He did.
Speaker 5 (01:16):
Yes, like you said, we are all in that age
brackets the fifties right here with them same and then.
Speaker 4 (01:24):
We have you.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
We got the be.
Speaker 6 (01:30):
It just made it made mid high side forties high side.
Speaker 5 (01:37):
He just made just made it, just made it into
the group, just made it.
Speaker 7 (01:43):
Oh gosh.
Speaker 8 (01:44):
And for you, which one following I'm just gonna say sixties.
I'm not gonna say mid high or low. I'm just
gonna say sixties. And we're gonna leave it at that.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
Okay, But it's, uh, it's I'm sure we'll cover all
all all the nuances of those age groups and.
Speaker 9 (02:03):
What we had in the past, what we found in
the future.
Speaker 7 (02:07):
Absolutely. Absolutely, Yeah.
Speaker 4 (02:11):
You know, I got to say you, I am the
first one to own my age one because there's so
many people who don't make it right. So it's a blessing.
And I tell people all the time, like, yeah, I'm
fifty two, and it's just accepting it and growing older.
And I know we've spoken about it before, but especially
in our generation, for women, revealing your true age was
(02:34):
shunned like you shouldn't, right. And I can remember when
I was little, my mother was like, it doesn't matter
how old I am. Now I'm like, I owe my shit,
like I have fifty two. Every single one of these wrinkles, well,
I would love to both talk them away. They're not
going anywhere. They're here for a reason. The laughter caused
the laugh lines some sadness and life lessons learned cause
(02:58):
the little crow's feet from crying.
Speaker 5 (02:59):
But you know, it is what it is, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 7 (03:02):
You're right.
Speaker 5 (03:03):
It's always been an issue of women revealing, you know,
their age and who they are, and even till this day,
people are like, you don't need to know my age?
Speaker 4 (03:12):
Why be thankful? And I tell people all the time.
Speaker 5 (03:14):
And especially young folks, oh, you guys are old. You
should hope that you get to this point in life,
you know, and as well as we have high five exactly,
And you know, I always get that, oh, you're how old.
I'm like, yeah, I'm fifty eight and I'm proud and
soon to be fifty nine, you know, in a couple
of months. And it's like, it's okay, thankful that I've
(03:36):
made it this far, and I pray that I can
continue to get past another year so and to be
able to share some of the knowledge that I've gained
and understanding and realizing that what we have gone through
has helped us understand how to find love and realize
(03:56):
what true love really is about at this age bracket
and what we thought we knew prior to our forties
and thirties and twenties is definitely not the same. And
you know, our outlook is much much more different. Yeah,
so you know, I.
Speaker 6 (04:12):
Think there's less caring about trivial things.
Speaker 7 (04:16):
Absolutely, no, I think it's.
Speaker 6 (04:18):
More so about you know, waking up and going to
sleep next to the person that you love and care about.
And then it doesn't matter like how much money you
have or what you're doing, just as long as you're
doing something fun together.
Speaker 10 (04:33):
I mean, like, yesterday she made a.
Speaker 6 (04:39):
What can I call it a technical err on her
part to spend time together. But now it's turned out
into an air of determination.
Speaker 7 (04:47):
So are you talking?
Speaker 4 (04:48):
She came down what I do now?
Speaker 6 (04:51):
She came downstairs and she's like, you want to do
a puzzle?
Speaker 9 (04:56):
She has this bag.
Speaker 6 (04:58):
She goes, you want to do a puzzle? I was like, sure, whatever,
So she throws this puzzle. She throws this puzzle on
the table. I'm like, so where's the picture? As she goes,
I have no clue.
Speaker 4 (05:10):
We bought these puzzles. It was like a box of
ten puzzles, maybe nine years ago, eight years ago, because
what a good idea keep your brain going, focus attention
to detail awesome things that as you get older you
really do need to focus on. Guys. But we threw
the box out when we were moving one of the
eight thousand times and I saw the puzzles sitting at
(05:31):
the bottom of my yarn, I'm like, oh, let's go
do this. How hard could it be?
Speaker 7 (05:38):
Hour three hours into it.
Speaker 10 (05:40):
Last night we finally had the border. We're like, oh,
we're gonna this is gonna take forever?
Speaker 9 (05:45):
How many pieces?
Speaker 7 (05:47):
Oh? Yeah?
Speaker 9 (05:48):
Okay, so yeah.
Speaker 6 (05:49):
And hold on and let me tell you, Hey, Google AI,
you can't help us because I tried the picture that
little take a picture of the and it'll identify it.
Speaker 10 (06:02):
It's not Alice in Wonderland.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
The person who developed the algorithm for the AI said,
nobody's ever gonna want right.
Speaker 6 (06:11):
I figured the way out how to break the Internet
real quick. Yeah, it's it's it's it's about the the
fun things. But it's also about the things that you know,
you do to get under your significant other skin. You
know if those are fun things too, you know, at
least for me, sometimes I do things that get under
her skin, but then it breaks me joy because she's.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
Like, will you stop it?
Speaker 10 (06:33):
You know, it's those types of things.
Speaker 7 (06:35):
Kind of like you too. This morning.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
Yes, just a perfect example.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
But you know, we should start examining what we what
we as individuals did when we were looking to find
love or just falling in love or just accidentally tripping
into love when we were younger, and what we were
looking for then versus what we are doing today are
(07:01):
found today. Personally, you know, in my teens, you really
didn't know anything other than everybody or somebody you know
how a girlfriend, and you wanted a girlfriend, and you
wound up having relationships with people whose were world friends.
So the gathering of boys and girls was your pick.
(07:26):
It wasn't really, Oh I went to a club and
I hooked up, and now I'm married, right, or I
scrolled left or right and now and now I'm going
out with a totally different world today than it was yesterday.
It was it was your your parents, your grandparents, your friends,
developing what your relationship should be with a person and
(07:51):
actually commenting on, oh, you should go out with so
and so, you should go out, and it became like,
but I don't want to go out with so and
so on.
Speaker 6 (07:59):
I think that might be different for every person, because
in my family there was none of that. There was
none of that at all.
Speaker 10 (08:07):
It was very it was very hands off.
Speaker 6 (08:09):
You make your own decisions I like, you can ask
my father to this day, he will tell you that
you know, the way he raised me and my brother
is you Will you be different people?
Speaker 10 (08:19):
Will?
Speaker 6 (08:20):
I'm and I'm gonna teach you the right and wrong
and some life lessons on how to maintain you know,
your person as a person on this planet. Don't do
dumb shit, don't get thrown in jail.
Speaker 10 (08:31):
That's it. Go forth.
Speaker 6 (08:32):
Your decisions are yours and when you make the wrong decision,
you're gonna learn real quick.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
So this is this is good to talk about because
there's a there's a two decade difference between your age.
Speaker 4 (08:45):
Between you two. And I'll tell you my relationship options
were solely based on community and beliefs constructs that my
family had. I mean, I've had family that were like,
you can only date a Jewish kid because I was
a Jewish woman, Jewish girl.
Speaker 10 (09:05):
You are I am?
Speaker 4 (09:06):
Yes, I was, I am, I still have I. But
these were the things, like you know, there were different
social norms and things that were in place that I
could never Like my father told me straight out, do
not come home and tell me you're a lesbian.
Speaker 9 (09:28):
Don't.
Speaker 4 (09:29):
But this was also going back into the nineteen eighties,
where it wasn't as acceptable to have that situation as
it is today. My father was a wonderful man.
Speaker 7 (09:37):
He was great.
Speaker 4 (09:38):
He just made it emphatically clear that who I could
date and what I needed to look for was not
what it is as accepting. I would say, as as
we grew older and.
Speaker 7 (09:49):
What we looked for.
Speaker 5 (09:51):
Well, I couldn't date period, So I had no boyfriends.
You weren't allowed to date, absolutely not so you were
how old until party? So ever, had the experience of
dating in high school even when I couldn't even go
(10:12):
out to certain like things like I didn't do what
do you do when you have at the end of
the year and your in your senior I never did
prom I ended up doing deputante ball. I couldn't even
choose the person I wanted to go out for the
deputante ball.
Speaker 7 (10:28):
That was all chosen for me.
Speaker 5 (10:30):
So I had no experience whatsoever of dating. Yes, I
was a deb he's so fancy and it was a
great experience, but it was a horrible experience of not
understanding what it meant to have a boyfriend, realize what
dating was because being young and coming into the military
(10:55):
and then so called thinking I met my sweetheart at
twenty years old. Next thing I know, I'm you know,
married at twenty Next thing I know, twenty one, I'm
I'm having my first kid. By the time I was
twenty seven, I was divorced, you know, so not understanding
that role of life of.
Speaker 4 (11:14):
Dating men and then having a child.
Speaker 5 (11:17):
It's it's like your whole world is step in front
of you and then just trying to grow up and
trying to raise a kid and trying to understand what
it is to have a life of demand.
Speaker 7 (11:28):
I had no idea.
Speaker 4 (11:30):
So there's also there's that balance of you know, get
I get it.
Speaker 7 (11:35):
You're trying to protect.
Speaker 5 (11:36):
Your you know, you're one and only child daughter per se,
not only child. I mean I definitely had a brother
where my brother could go out and do all these things,
but as a female, I.
Speaker 7 (11:45):
Could not do that.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
Definitely at that time exactly that was the accepted thing
to do.
Speaker 5 (11:53):
So, you know, it's it's it's understanding that those were
those lessons back then. So I knew at twenty something
years old of trying to be that family person, I
had to learn it along the way and learn some
very very hard lessons of trying to understand what it
was about dating that I had.
Speaker 9 (12:13):
No clue of, only what you saw on TV.
Speaker 5 (12:16):
Or EVE or even not even so much even in TV,
but even within my family, I thought that, hey, you know,
this was the perfect life of having parents, you know,
having the perfect home and you know, having the two parents,
the perfect house and the dogs and you know all
the things you think that's easy to do, because I
had that. I had that in my house, right, And
(12:38):
but the reality that's just wasn't how it is because
I didn't have the experiences that the average person we
could say back then.
Speaker 7 (12:44):
Could have, right.
Speaker 4 (12:46):
And when I think about segueing from my teens into
my twenties, right, So I lost my mom when I
was fourteen. She died suddenly, and I lived with my
sister for the rest of my high school. So for
three plus years I was high school, it moved from
Jersey to New York, and watching their relationship very different
than my parents' relationship, I didn't know what I wanted.
(13:09):
I'll be the first to tell you know what I wanted.
I wanted an escape route. So who was I dating?
I was dating the people I thought my family would
let me date based on the construct of being a
kid and what they said, and then it was how
am I going to get out of where I am?
And when I went to college, it was pretty much
the same thing, although you have no holds bar when
you're really away from home. So it's like, oh, now,
(13:31):
meeting all these different people kind of like you and
Chris had that experience in the military. You're meeting all
these different people. What experiences are they bringing to the table.
And I will tell you hindsight thirty years later, those
relationships that I had during that time were meaningless. There
was no substance to it. We didn't have cell phones,
(13:53):
so we weren't engaged with each other all the time.
Speaker 7 (13:56):
There was no you know, what are you interested in?
And there was no investment.
Speaker 4 (14:02):
I think that's the best word. Like I look across
this table and I see my partner, my soulmate, my
my my guy, and I am solely invested in him
and making sure he is happy in youth.
Speaker 7 (14:15):
All right, what do you want to do. We're gonna
go to the movies.
Speaker 4 (14:18):
Cool.
Speaker 9 (14:19):
There wasn't very much to choose from at those times.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
You're crossing state lines other than going over a bridge
and you're from New York. You're in New Jersey, right,
But but but I'm going to understand what you're saying.
It's it's uh, but when you say meaningless relationships, meaningless
in what respect? Because I learned a lot from all
my relationships, however brief they were or or minimal they were,
(14:45):
because I didn't date like excessively, you know, it was
like it was socializing at the time, right, And then
you find a person and you you feel that's the one,
and then you enter into a relationship. Because the only
thing I brought from my parents is the things that
(15:05):
I did not or my parents, because my mom died
at an early age, the things I didn't want when
I went off on my own, Like the first thing
is I'm not going to have a couch with plastic
on it.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
So things like it's like all the things I don't
want to sit on plastic.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
I hear that, and I don't want.
Speaker 4 (15:25):
So I can qualify my statement because my mother died
when I was fourteen, and because I was trying to
find a way to get out from living with my
sister and her family, because my sister I had her
own life, were ten and a half years apart. She
was married, she had children, children from her husband's first
marriage that she had adopted as well, and I needed
(15:48):
to find myself. I was fully and this is this
is very revealing because I don't share this with people.
The first boy that I fell in love air quote with,
I thought he and I were going to be together forever.
Absolutely maintained a friendship with this person street into my
early forties, and we would always joke that, oh, you know,
(16:11):
if we ever never end up with anyone else, we'll
end up together. But I truly thought that he and
I would be together. He went off to Israel, I
went to college. We stayed friends, our significant others along
the way became friends and built that community of who
knows who, Our kids were best friends growing up. And
so when I think back, it's like, yeah, any relationship
(16:33):
that wasn't that relationship did not hold as much value. Yeah,
that the youth of then.
Speaker 9 (16:43):
And that I could relate to that. Right.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
I'm glad that you explained the meaningless relationships, because in
your what you explained that was a that was a
meaningful relationship, even though it wasn't a matrimonial relationship or
a long term relationship. It was a friendship and it
was it helped develop you to where you are today.
Speaker 4 (17:04):
I feel absolutely absolutely How old were you when you
started dating? Well, now, when you were in sixth grade
and held hand Susie's hand down.
Speaker 9 (17:16):
No, no girls like I went to Catholics.
Speaker 4 (17:19):
Catholic grammar, there was no holding hands.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
So there was no holding hands. And you know it.
Everybody was the same. They were all the same color,
they were all dressed the same.
Speaker 9 (17:33):
What was the question.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
My first daughter after you? Was that after you sealed?
I want to say.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
I want to say I was probably what I would
consider a meaningful relationship was probably around fifteen fourteen.
Speaker 7 (17:50):
What about you.
Speaker 6 (17:52):
Sixteen?
Speaker 4 (17:55):
You know, your construct, your mom and dad did not
put any thoughts or connotations into your brain. Who you
could date, could not date, did not matter. Nope, no parameter,
no belief.
Speaker 6 (18:04):
No, I've had you know, everything from white black Asian
type girlfriends too. You know, good bad relationships, and I
know we talked about the good bad relationships like yeah,
with me honestly looking back at it now, I should
have never been in any type of relationship or marriages
(18:25):
like prior to you. Because I'm not just saying that
people hold on Okay, let me cavea.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
This you're going to get to sleep with them.
Speaker 6 (18:37):
You have to say, is that between the ages of
between the age of from twenty two until thirty five,
I spent my time in and out of a combat
zone or training up to go to a combat zone.
Speaker 10 (18:54):
So that was my focus.
Speaker 6 (18:56):
Everything else was put on the back burner, and I
didn't really focus on any of my relationship or marriage
if marriages back then or whatever, you know. And looking
back at it now, yeah, I was probably wrong of me,
but that was who I am or who I was.
It's because at age shit, I will And this goes
back to like one top we're gonna have very soon.
(19:19):
When I was thirteen years old, my dad sat me
down and we had an interesting conversation and will something
little like this.
Speaker 10 (19:27):
You have five.
Speaker 6 (19:28):
Years and you have to make choices in your life.
And I was like, okay, I don't know where this
is going. He goes, you can either pay pay your
away for college. I will pay your way for college.
But if I'm paying away for college and you're living
here be in the house, is like you're going to
pay rent, or you figure it out on your own,
(19:48):
or you can join the military, and I was like, well,
I've been digging trenches into your backyard since the age
of like two. I think I'm going to join the military,
And that's what I did, and that's always what I wanted.
Speaker 10 (19:57):
I didn't want to focus on anything with that.
Speaker 4 (19:59):
So were you to have any successful relationships in the military, No,
were you obviously not? Okay, fair. Do you think the
military impacted that your view of relationships?
Speaker 5 (20:15):
Yes, Oh, absolutely, because during the seven years that we
were married, we were only in the same household maybe
three oh really because we were both in two different ships,
so we're both were It's just, yeah, two different environments
and it was just not a good relationship period.
Speaker 7 (20:33):
It's a lot of things going.
Speaker 6 (20:34):
Yeah, And but to say that's not it's not with everybody.
I mean, we know people that have been you know,
day one lieutenant, day one, E one private and now
they're getting ready to retire for thirty forty years and
they've been with their their high school sweetheart. Like, hey, cool, Greg,
you're wonderful you've done that.
Speaker 10 (20:51):
But it's just so big.
Speaker 4 (20:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (20:53):
But I think a lot of it too, for me,
was because I, like I said, I didn't have the experience,
so I didn't know what I was looking for. I
didn't know what I had wasn't healthy for me.
Speaker 7 (21:03):
It wasn't good for me.
Speaker 5 (21:05):
And the things that I learned going on throughout the
relationship and towards the end of the relationship, I should
have never been within period.
Speaker 4 (21:13):
So I think you just hit on a really important
topic or subtopic, I should say, which is you know
you didn't know what you were looking for, what you had.
I didn't even know who I was, right, Yeah, you
asked me who was I in my twenties. I was
a hot mess, That's who I was. And then I'll
tell you know what I was. I was very driven
to be successful financially because that was very important to me,
(21:36):
and I was tunnel visioned on my career. And yes,
I got married at twenty three, had Amanda when I
was twenty six, but I worked. I was able to
make sure that I was always the bread winner, you know,
(21:57):
her father or her father. I did learn a lesson
from that.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
One biologic.
Speaker 4 (22:09):
He was not working for a considerable period of time,
but not even the point I learned from that to
your point, Carmine, definitely what I did not want in
a marriage definitely who I was when I was not
going to be the wife to take care of somebody
who I did not have a respect for based on.
Speaker 7 (22:32):
How this individual was.
Speaker 4 (22:34):
Absolutely, but I didn't know that about myself. I was
just going through emotions right and fast forward when you
know I met Chris and how he and I met,
which separate time for that conversation. I fully respected him
like that because here is this man who dedicated himself
(22:56):
to his country to fighting for something that he truly
believed in. And I drew from that my own Well, what.
Speaker 7 (23:05):
Do I believe in?
Speaker 4 (23:08):
What do I believe in? What are not beliefs that
were bestowed upon me by you know, my parents or
my friends or the community. What are my beliefs like?
What do I want in myself and a person? And
it really took me to a whole new level of
self awareness that until you know who you are, how
do you know what you need from somebody else or
(23:29):
want from somebody?
Speaker 7 (23:30):
Exactly? Exactly? Yeah, I think that point in my first
first experience of that first marriage.
Speaker 5 (23:37):
Was it truly taught me a lot about myself and
then about having a partner. I always knew I wanted
a partner, but I also wanted to have my own
successes because after what I had went through and before
the end of that marriage, and you know, he stold
everything I had, every dime that I had. At that point,
(23:59):
I said, I would never depend on another individual to
take care of myself and my child.
Speaker 4 (24:05):
Right.
Speaker 5 (24:06):
So it was so many valuable lessons learned about the
character of the individual and then realizing that you you
have to grow up. That's when I grew up, literally
think literally grew up overnight understanding, Okay, this is not
what just marriages about. Are having a relationship. It's about okay,
(24:29):
you have to just you have to stand up on
your own two feet as well as be that partner
with the individual, but you have to know who you are.
And I started to build, started to grow.
Speaker 7 (24:38):
Who I was.
Speaker 5 (24:40):
Obviously never thinking was worried about getting married again, thought
I took the step again, end.
Speaker 7 (24:46):
Up being with another jerk down the road.
Speaker 5 (24:48):
You know, the biggest problem I had with men during
my time of relationship was that it was always the cheating.
Speaker 7 (24:55):
I was always told, oh.
Speaker 5 (24:56):
You're the you know, you're the good person, You're so good,
and you know, It's like I can't I believe I
did this to you.
Speaker 7 (25:01):
Excuse me, just like I don't want to be your
fucking friend.
Speaker 5 (25:05):
Excuse my language, right, I'm your wife, right, it's just
beyond just being your friend. And that's this type of
stuff that I would always run into. So then, you know,
I got to the point where I just wouldn't. I
never thought I would ever go down the path. You know,
I've been through horrifying relationships to the point where I
just never wanted to do this again. And then, of course,
(25:26):
almost twenty years down the road and I built my success.
I've done the things I wanted to do. I have
a phenomenal The one thing I could say that I
did right out of that first relationship was having a
beautiful child.
Speaker 7 (25:40):
My son.
Speaker 4 (25:41):
I could not thank God, Oh my God, I thank
God so much.
Speaker 9 (25:44):
For that child.
Speaker 5 (25:46):
The best thing I ever had ever done was have
this beautiful child out of all the chaos that.
Speaker 7 (25:50):
I've been through.
Speaker 5 (25:51):
And then fast forward umpteen years later, here I, you know,
after twenty years of sitting on my own, never thought
I would go down this path again, and I have
this wonderful man sitting in front of me that I
never thought I would ever step foot.
Speaker 7 (26:05):
In the word M marriage. I was like, what the
M word?
Speaker 6 (26:10):
Right?
Speaker 5 (26:11):
It's like it was nothing. It was not in my
it was not in front of me. I finally had
given it up. I was like, you know what, I've
set my path. I'm preparing myself for retirement. I've literally
had laid laid the land everything I had done and
prepared myself.
Speaker 7 (26:26):
I was like, okay, I'm getting ready. I'm going to
retire sixty two.
Speaker 4 (26:30):
I'm almost there, counted down, counted down, right, So not ever.
Speaker 5 (26:36):
Thinking about at this point in my life that you know,
here almost were coming up in almost a year of
being married, even considering it. But it's having that right person.
And the weird part about it was thinking everything that
he is and who he is and how he how
we came together. It was just so easy because I
(26:59):
thought if I had ever met anybody, it would be
a struggle for me because when you've been by yourself
almost twenty years, it's a long time that is to
have to sit back and think about sharing things again
and trusting again.
Speaker 7 (27:11):
And that was the huge part for me.
Speaker 5 (27:14):
Trusting was like, oh, you know, it's like on a chalkboard, Yes,
always on the chalkboard, but I didn't feel that way
with him. Never had to think twice about anything, which
was almost weird.
Speaker 7 (27:29):
I can't even describe it.
Speaker 5 (27:31):
And I never literally had to think from the time
that we even talked about it closely talked, never had
to think twice about.
Speaker 3 (27:38):
It on anything like this was a conversation you have
with yourself. What are you talking?
Speaker 7 (27:45):
But no, seriously, no, no, the way he's looking, he's like.
Speaker 6 (27:48):
I don't know how to take this right now that
I talked about.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
What you said, it's it's it's uh, it's something you
really have to experience, uh to Actually, it's hard to
it's hard to explain in words, right, So people say,
you know you know it when you know it, right, Yeah,
And it happened that quickly, and happened that fast, right
because uh, you know, working side by side in the
(28:17):
same office. It was never that our relationship didn't blossom
in there.
Speaker 9 (28:23):
It was outside and saying, hey, this is the person that,
this is the person.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
I want to be with, right, and then blost them
into what it did real quickly.
Speaker 6 (28:33):
That's funny that you say that, because like we've general
we've worked together and in the same office and we
can't stand it.
Speaker 3 (28:42):
The office, or we can't stand working America.
Speaker 9 (28:45):
We can't work together.
Speaker 6 (28:46):
But but we say that, but in doing our businesses,
that's something completely different. Like it's just being in that
in the environment.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
But that's a different partnership. I got, I got work
is what work is is a contest. It's a contest.
Speaker 6 (29:08):
That's the reason why, because I anybody knows me, I'm
not very competitive.
Speaker 10 (29:13):
I could care less.
Speaker 3 (29:15):
It's either I am who I am.
Speaker 6 (29:19):
But so getting back to the trust thing and everything
like that, Like with me, I think my way of
knowing that I absolutely trusted her was like she she
actually saved my life on the damn met her.
Speaker 10 (29:37):
She actually saved my life.
Speaker 6 (29:39):
And that's not being like I don't even know what
the word is traumatic. It's like it's a true statement.
Like if anybody wants to have a conversation about what
it was about, I will tell you. But she that
day that I met her, she saved my life and.
Speaker 10 (29:57):
That never looked back.
Speaker 7 (29:59):
And I understand that feeling.
Speaker 6 (30:00):
Sometimes I want to push you off a bridge, but
you know, I understand exactly your feeling because you know,
and my story is no secret.
Speaker 5 (30:09):
My story's out there are written a book about it,
you know, being abused and having a man who wanted
to kill me, who literally every day for several months
literally tried to kill me. My story is there, it's
a valid it's out there. You can even find the
police reports. All of it's out there. So having to
build rebuild that trust and understanding and having somebody in
(30:31):
your life, that's huge for me. It took me years
to rebuild myself and that confidence in even wanting to
look at another person or dater, have the conversation or
just any of that right. So I understand that that
that feeling of when you feel like you're being saved right,
(30:52):
or you feel like you can trust, to know that
you can sit down and have a conversation without feeling
like somebody is crucifying you at the same time looking
at you in a way that that that you can
look at them and know that they are saying the
right things, are their trust whether they or not bsing you.
Because I can see a Besser all the way across
the room. Literally, I know that feeling. I can It's
(31:14):
like I can instantly feeling inside of me when somebody
is not right. So to have the partner that I
have now and know that I can put my guard
down and tell you a quick story when we.
Speaker 7 (31:27):
First got together and we moved into the.
Speaker 5 (31:31):
House and had to explain to him how I couldn't
even till this day, can't keep my door and there's
the bedroom open, I have to close it because for
many years I literally felt like I'm living in jail.
I would put a chair up to the door, even
with my security on it, because I had to live
(31:51):
like that for many years of worrying about this person
coming after me to kill me. Not explained to him,
I can't feel safe with unless you're here. That door
has to be closed. I get that, So so go
ahead that No, that's I mean, that's to me. That's
like if you're giving you're not giving that up because
(32:15):
and this goes into a whole different thing that but
you're not giving up your sense of like fight or
flight because but you're fight or flight.
Speaker 10 (32:24):
Now there's a barrier there, you know. So it's like
the side of the bed do you sleep on? Do
you sleep on door side or not? Doorside?
Speaker 6 (32:30):
Me?
Speaker 9 (32:30):
Yeah, doorside, doorside.
Speaker 6 (32:31):
See there you go, that's your chair, you know, I
sleep on door side. Even if we're in a hotel
room door side.
Speaker 10 (32:38):
You know, I gotta do it. That's that's It's.
Speaker 5 (32:41):
The it's the love I have, the love I know
he has for me, The safetiness. This is my safety news, right,
I understand I don't have to fear that anymore. Where
before that was the fear that I kept carried for years.
Speaker 7 (32:55):
I'm talking years.
Speaker 5 (32:56):
This is that all that abuse and everything I went
through that happened way back.
Speaker 7 (33:02):
It's been now probably ten fifteen years ago.
Speaker 5 (33:05):
But you never when you've gone through what I actually
went through, you're never gonna forget it.
Speaker 7 (33:11):
You can continue to move on and live.
Speaker 5 (33:13):
But there's certain triggers, there's certain things that and you
understand exactly what I'm you know, you understand it. And
so it's to know that you can have somebody who
can truly love you for everything.
Speaker 4 (33:25):
That you've gone through in life.
Speaker 5 (33:26):
And he knows my crazy, He's seen it, he understands it,
and and to explain it and know that, hey, there's
just certain things I can't deal with and it's okay.
Speaker 10 (33:40):
I will say, like.
Speaker 6 (33:44):
Past relationship, there's only been one that you know, we're
we've kind of flowen off but we were really good
friends and we should never have gotten married when we
were younger.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
That was the.
Speaker 6 (33:53):
Stupidest thing both of us could have done. But the
other relationships that I have between her, I will tell
you that none of those were as strong as her
because they would have never been able to put up
with the ship she has seen me try to do
to myself, you know, even now. I mean, yeah, you
know it's been two thousand and thirty twelve was the
last time I deployed, But it still carries over and
(34:17):
to know that she's not going anywhere because of like,
oh you're doing something you want to do something too
stupid to yourself. But to me, that's like, you know,
the love part. You know, she she does and she
does the you know, the cutesy little things that she
does every day, does the coffee because she feels I
can't do it. You know, We've had that conversation, you know,
(34:39):
the laundry, We've had that conversation, you know, things like that.
Speaker 10 (34:42):
But it's about It's about those stupid little things like hey,
are you okay?
Speaker 9 (34:46):
Are you alive?
Speaker 10 (34:47):
Do you do you need anything?
Speaker 1 (34:48):
You know?
Speaker 10 (34:49):
Those are the love things that like.
Speaker 6 (34:52):
I'm I don't know she I don't buy expensive jewelry.
I don't buy you know, flowers every week. I do
it anomally on occasion, things like that, or I'll go
pick sunflowers from our garden to her, just because those
are the types of way, like, you know, for me,
that's how I showed my love to her, you know,
not not.
Speaker 9 (35:13):
Like hey, here's a new car, you cook for me.
Speaker 4 (35:15):
That's a lot.
Speaker 6 (35:15):
Of trivi grants tonight.
Speaker 4 (35:20):
I'm excited. Yeah, Carmen, you said before about your community,
how many kids.
Speaker 7 (35:29):
Were you exposed to.
Speaker 9 (35:34):
Let's see, what do you say? A dozen at the
most a dozen?
Speaker 1 (35:38):
And that was because because in my community, you know,
at a certain age, you couldn't leave the block and
it was very many years before you could even cross
the street or go around the book.
Speaker 9 (35:50):
So it was a different thing.
Speaker 1 (35:51):
So everybody that was there was you know, the kids
that we went to school with. A new kid that
moves into the neighborhood, but they were they were all.
Speaker 9 (36:01):
The same kids, the same kids, right one.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
So yeah, in the teen years, like you know, going
into high school, that whole community changed. Yeah, we were
living next to each other, but we weren't hanging out right, right,
it was we were hanging.
Speaker 9 (36:18):
Out with the kids from school, right.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
And then going to clubs. We all grew different paths, right. So,
so my best friend at the time it wasn't.
Speaker 9 (36:28):
I wasn't.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
We weren't best friends anymore because my best friends were
the kids I was hanging out in high school and
got in trouble with, right, So it was it was different.
But yeah, less than a dozen at the most.
Speaker 4 (36:41):
So I always find this interesting when you look at.
Speaker 7 (36:45):
Your path.
Speaker 4 (36:48):
I was married my first time in my twenties, second
time in my thirties, third time in my forties. Okay,
so I averaged one a decade.
Speaker 7 (36:58):
I guess.
Speaker 3 (37:02):
That seven years. So it's the seven years years.
Speaker 4 (37:11):
Same here.
Speaker 9 (37:14):
I'll give you my perspective on the settlement the second.
Speaker 4 (37:16):
So the reason I bring this up is like, so,
and it goes back to who are you exposed to
and what are you interested in? And to your point,
you know you're going to the clubs, different decade, different time era,
different people around you, the relationships that you formed during
that time frame. What did you gain lesson?
Speaker 7 (37:34):
Learned wise?
Speaker 1 (37:36):
I learned this. You really don't know who you are
in the early years. You never know who you are.
You know who you want to be or you profess
to be. So I want to be a mailman, I
don't want to be a fireman. You never get to
that because you're always evolving, you're always changing. So I
think that that's why we're in today's society, that that
(37:57):
there's the younger well, the younger generation is waiting longer
to get married, longer to enter into a marriage. They're
either living together, having children out of wedlock. And that's
not a bad thing. I'm just saying it's a good
thing because they know more what life brings them. The
path that we had, that I had, I won't speak
to everybody else here, is that you date, you get married,
(38:21):
you have a kid, you.
Speaker 9 (38:22):
Buy a house.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
Right, absolutely right, And that's not necessarily the right thing,
but that's what we grew up as. So clearly are
our idea of what that was is convoluted today. It's
you could live together, have an apartment together, buy a
house together, have a kid, and not be married.
Speaker 7 (38:42):
Right.
Speaker 9 (38:43):
These are all things.
Speaker 1 (38:44):
That you learn over the ages that we didn't have
the opportunity to learn. Right we entered into a relationship,
we knew the next step was, Oh, we've been going
out a year or two years, it's time to get married.
No time to get married is when it's right. But
we didn't know what was right. It was what we
grew up.
Speaker 6 (39:03):
Absolutely, but I think that I think, and yes, something
youngest one at the table, but still going back towards
our decades, that was a standard. Yes, that was a
little standard, like if you didn't have that done by
twenty five.
Speaker 3 (39:16):
You were done for it.
Speaker 6 (39:17):
Yeah, exactly, you were at thirty and that was going down.
I was like, oh God, just finally this they've been
blessed with something. But nowadays it's like, hey, you're, like
you said, thirty year old, forty year old for finally
figuring out getting going and it's like, hey, now you're
going to be a forty five year old with a
brand new baby. First of all, no, but good luck
(39:38):
to you all out there. So not me couldn't do that.
Speaker 4 (39:41):
You know, we already had that conversation because we had
a scare when right actually early in our relationship, and
I was like, could you imagine if we had a
baby right now?
Speaker 7 (39:52):
Right Like, no, we're not enough.
Speaker 9 (39:56):
I'm joking.
Speaker 7 (39:57):
No.
Speaker 4 (39:58):
I commend people who can start over in their fort
I do I think if that's for you, God bless you.
Speaker 6 (40:05):
But you know, hold on, wait, we all started over.
We all started over at one well okay, a little one,
but even still like if with some people, like there
has been conversations at this table about two people when
someone retired.
Speaker 10 (40:18):
Getting a dog. It's like, let me day, it's a
big thing.
Speaker 6 (40:20):
It's like having a brand new child and you're like, hey,
this little thing you can borrow.
Speaker 7 (40:26):
You know, barbecue that.
Speaker 4 (40:33):
So sweet?
Speaker 6 (40:35):
Okay, as sweet as a football, bet so. But I
mean we all started over trying to well, I don't
even know if we were starting over looking for it.
I think for everybody at this table, it was just
like it happen.
Speaker 9 (40:49):
Yeah, it just showed up, right.
Speaker 5 (40:51):
But I think a part of it too is that
when you're not looking for it, and you just allow
yourself to live in in your peace. And for I
can just say for me that God showed me and
promised me that he will bring the person when.
Speaker 7 (41:07):
His timing is right.
Speaker 5 (41:09):
And I also believe that if you have to get
yourself together before you can take care of anybody else,
and that was essential for me.
Speaker 6 (41:16):
You know, that's funny you say that, because like, as
we're sitting here and like I almost kind of like
knew where you were going with that statement.
Speaker 10 (41:23):
We have like I have a buddy, we have somebody
that we know.
Speaker 6 (41:27):
Also, like they have both have little ones under the
age of seven.
Speaker 10 (41:32):
Both of them.
Speaker 6 (41:33):
One's over forty and the other ones thirties or older thirties, right,
and they're just starting over. But now it's kind of
like every time you talk to him, it's like swipe left,
swipe right, slight swipe left, slip, swipe, ripe.
Speaker 10 (41:48):
It's like, dude, I tell them my way all the time.
Speaker 6 (41:50):
Don't worry about that shit, man, but let it happened.
Just focus on your kid.
Speaker 10 (41:56):
Yep, well kids now.
Speaker 6 (41:58):
But that's Alie story.
Speaker 4 (42:00):
I love the spiritual aspect to it, and you know
it's provided when it's provided. We were not looking to
meet each other there. I had no idea who a
Christopher Travis was walking this planet. And the funny part
about it is the day we met was not in
(42:21):
this not anywhere near where I lived. We had no
business running into each other that day, and yet we did, and.
Speaker 9 (42:30):
She wouldn't stop talking to me, and I.
Speaker 4 (42:32):
Was annoying him, and I don't know if it was
on purpose or if it was just I didn't care,
nervous were no, you know, it's so funny. So all right,
so here is the story. So it's such a funny
story in hindsight. So my girlfriend at the time, she
and I were doing Spartan races and she's like, come on,
let's go to Virginia. I'm dating this guy, you know,
(42:54):
because this is what she did, and we're going to
go to Virginia. I'm like, what the hell is in Virginia.
My quintessential New York self was like, I'm not going
to hang out in Virginia. But no, no, no, it'll
be great. So we did. We drove from New York
to Virginia and we are out in Thank You Winter
Green by the Resort and it's a beautiful resort. I mean,
(43:15):
it's so lovely. And we get there and she beats feet.
She goes off with some guy and I'm sitting in
the carling that night by myself. I'm like, all right, cool,
you know, watching TV, prepping, making sure I got everything
ready for my race in the morning because it's cool.
That morning, we get out there, I got out there.
She finally shows up there hungover.
Speaker 10 (43:36):
Yeah, what should we come to find out? That was
like a norm.
Speaker 4 (43:40):
Yeah, one of the cool kids. So anyway, so we
get out there and all of a sudden, the host
the MC and it's so funny because again about who
are you. I was personally going through stuff. I had
lost my father the year before. This was the day
after the first you're his passing and his birthday, so
(44:04):
my father was born on So we're out there and
also in the MC is like, can the soldier please
come up? The gentleman with the colors, And I'm looking around,
I'm stretching, I'm doing my Oh, let's do this. And
you're not talking about like twenty or forty people. There
are hundreds of people at these events, and the seas parted.
(44:27):
You thought Moses was coming through. All of a sudden,
this guy in full kit helmet, flag, his army uniform,
his boots comes hoofing down his vest.
Speaker 7 (44:43):
I was like, uh huh, all right, cool.
Speaker 4 (44:48):
Everyone starts singing national anthem blah blah blah. Okay, they
shoot off the gun and here we go. Oh, I'm
gonna tell the part of the story without you know,
making it sounds horrible. So my friend needed some assistance
and I was not big enough to assist her with.
Speaker 7 (45:06):
Some of these obstacles.
Speaker 4 (45:07):
And he comes along and I'm like, Hi, can you
help us? You know, my friend just needs some help.
And he's like, yeah, here and he hands me his
flag and all right, cool, and he helps her over
this thing. Thanks, appreciate you. We're out about a mile
down down the track, same situation. I'm like, sorry to
bother you again, Hey, could you help us? I can't
(45:29):
lift her up and and it was the and he
made this face and I promise you to today if
I could ever get him to repeat this face, I
would love for him to. And it was the what
the hell do you want from my life? Lady? He's
like yeah, and he has it flag. My thank you,
I appreciate it. And he just looks at me and
he like snarled or something like like an ogre.
Speaker 9 (45:51):
All right, I never heard this story before.
Speaker 4 (45:53):
You've never heard that. This is great. Chris gets so
much better.
Speaker 3 (45:57):
So it's all right.
Speaker 6 (45:58):
This past week I've been called an ogre and a
Harry Beach aside of twenty four hours by two different women.
Speaker 4 (46:05):
I was so he helps her over, and then we're
trotting on. I'm like, here, i'll help, I'll hold this
stuff so you can get over. He's like, I got it.
I'm like, just go. He does this thing and we're
trotting along and I'm talking to him and he's got
the will you just leave me alone?
Speaker 7 (46:18):
Face?
Speaker 4 (46:19):
And I was like, oh, so, what branch of the
military are you in? Because what the hell did I know?
He's like army.
Speaker 9 (46:29):
I did everything to get her away from me.
Speaker 4 (46:31):
And what party? I said, I my cousin's in the army.
Where in the army do you work? He's like party
eighty second Airborn. He's like you no, he goes, I
was part of this eighty second Airborn. I'm like, my
cousin was in the eighty second Airborn. Got better totally.
That chick who is like, he's no way in hell
gonna know who my cousin is. But I'm trying to
(46:51):
be nice. I have conversation the woman I was racing
with when trotting off with the guy she was drunk with,
and uh, guys, what's your cousin's name? And I tell
him and he went white.
Speaker 7 (47:07):
He is my senior water Oh my gosh, then you
changed your attitude.
Speaker 3 (47:13):
You know I didn't.
Speaker 4 (47:15):
So I look at him and we're having this common
I'm like, so, what the fuck is your story?
Speaker 9 (47:20):
Right?
Speaker 4 (47:21):
Why are you dressed like this? Why are you out here?
Speaker 6 (47:25):
And so the story behind it was, is that a
buddy of mine. Uh, he started doing racist where we
were commemorating our fallen comrades. Okay, so we would wear
full battle rattle and then add extra weight to that
and then do these you know, obstacle course races like
dumb asses up and down these big ass hills, stuff
(47:47):
like that. Were like, this was a good idea when
we thought about it.
Speaker 4 (47:53):
So why why do I share this story? Yes, that
was the first day we met. Were we looking to
even meet each other? Know, as he said six times,
not wanting to have anything to do with us. And
you know, at the end of the race, we all
went out for dinner, a bunch of us, and I
never thought i'd see him again. I'm like, yeah, here's
(48:13):
my number. You know if you ever want to go
to another race, well chat. Well, well, whatever it is.
And what I found so interesting is that with everything
I was going through at that point in my life,
because I was also processing a childhood trauma that I had.
Speaker 10 (48:30):
Came to the service.
Speaker 6 (48:31):
I'm sorry it came to.
Speaker 4 (48:33):
The service it did, and I hadn't remembered it my
entire life, but all of the things that I was
going through brought me to that point, brought me to
the realization that how I had been living, the men
or the relationships I've had, weren't fulfilling me because I
didn't know me. And then one day I was like,
(48:57):
this person means something. And God put him in my
path that day for a reason. Whether it was because
I saved him what he and I've told him, he
saved me too. He saved me for my own self
destruction because decisions I was making at the time were
not healthy. They were not good for my daughter, they
(49:17):
were not good for me to looking at life in
my forties and that relationship, I saw.
Speaker 7 (49:26):
What right looked like.
Speaker 4 (49:27):
Ye, and I believe to you again, and I stressed
the skin to your point. God puts that person in
your path for a reason.
Speaker 7 (49:35):
It's right, that's right. Amen.
Speaker 5 (49:40):
Amen, You me, car talk a little bit more about
your story because you you've gone through some things, and
share a little bit more about how you got to
the point where you decided that you really wanted to
live a little more, understand who you were, get out
(50:02):
of that that norm of work was your life.
Speaker 10 (50:07):
Well, guys, so can relate to this.
Speaker 9 (50:09):
Oh it looked work.
Speaker 1 (50:12):
Work became part of my life from early on when
I got into telecommunications. It became the ungodly hours you spend,
the people you hang out with and.
Speaker 9 (50:22):
All that that.
Speaker 1 (50:24):
It was a difficult I got in early. So it's
it's like I wasn't an adult at the time. I was,
you know, I want to say nineteen, and did that
for very many years, right, So it became the career became.
Speaker 9 (50:47):
A path that.
Speaker 1 (50:50):
I had to juggle marriage and those responsibilities with the career,
and that I don't want to say that that was
one of the things that that contributed to my first
marriage feeling, but it was part of it.
Speaker 9 (51:07):
I didn't know how.
Speaker 1 (51:08):
To be a partner, be a I I was struggling
with that, let's put it that way without going into
too much detail. And then work, you know. Then Virginia
came velvoir and it was more of the same because
(51:29):
now it was I wasn't in a marriage, I didn't
have a relationship. Although I thought I was looking for something.
I made work my career and that was your marriage.
That was my marriage, right, And it wasn't until I
realized what was important in life as I was getting
older to change that paradigm and but didn't know how.
(51:53):
So so some of that had to do with the
therapy sessions. Some of them had to do with just
people I was engaging with and learning it's not as important,
although it's a very difficult thing you throw away after
thirty some odd years of doing something, that you're always
the one to affect a change and make things better.
(52:13):
That it's okay to be a failure sometimes because you
learn from that. And unfortunately that cost me a lot
of years with people. And that just changed in an
instance when we met, because then I realized I was
at that point where I realized, this is not what
(52:34):
I want to do for the rest of my life,
because I was convinced that, hey, I'm just going to
work until I die, right, and that is my marriage, right,
And then I realized that then that's not what I
really want in life. It's just it was like an
epiphany that happened. It wasn't it wasn't it was there,
but I needed a smack in the face to tell me, no,
this is not what's important life.
Speaker 11 (52:55):
So so so so, I don't know if that answers
your question, but it's it's what we at the time,
what we considered.
Speaker 1 (53:09):
And I think my up. I think my early years
it was work hard, be a professional. Uh, you know,
always do the right thing. And it's if I had
to do it over again, I would have been more silly,
I would have been more reckless.
Speaker 9 (53:25):
I would have been more more a kid and learn from.
Speaker 1 (53:30):
Those mistakes when mistakes happened, like in my very first relationship,
when it when a mistake happened there it was.
Speaker 9 (53:39):
Flight.
Speaker 1 (53:40):
It wasn't addressing the issue the issue right uh. And
I always think back about that, what my life would
have been much different if I listened more and I
was more compassionate to things that happened instead of that.
You know, hey, you're wronged, get rid of it right,
find out why it went.
Speaker 10 (54:01):
But the I don't mean to cut you off because
I'll forget it.
Speaker 6 (54:05):
We we have this kind of conversation all the time,
her and I is that no matter what, everything that
you just said is led up to what you have
now because you now when you can address those things,
have a compassion, empathy, so on and so forth, because sometimes,
(54:26):
you know, it was very hard, like when her and
I first started, I.
Speaker 3 (54:28):
Was still like.
Speaker 6 (54:30):
Shut off, like no done. Now it's kind of like,
you know, okay, I got you be you know, like
you know, tweet your neck, you tweet your you broke
your foot, whatever, you know, I'm gonna take care of you.
And sometimes it's you know, that's the love part. Fifteen
years ago i'd been like, better figured it out, Jack, Yeah, And.
Speaker 5 (54:48):
I don't think that it's so much that you don't
You didn't have compassion even then. The problem is your
compassion was in everybody else.
Speaker 7 (54:54):
But but not into yourself.
Speaker 5 (54:56):
Yes, right, And even till this day, I have to
read you in sometimes and be like, look, could worry
about everybody else and take care of you first, because
it's so easy to always worry about how to bells
fills and put them on the in the front pattern,
and then you just sit back there.
Speaker 7 (55:13):
And wait it. Oh, eventually I'll get my turn. Right.
Speaker 4 (55:16):
And he is that quintessential stereotypical archetype of the caregiver.
Speaker 7 (55:22):
Right, And that's the difference.
Speaker 5 (55:24):
But like I told him, I said, you know, you
are the priority in life, because if you don't become
that priority in life, you miss out. And for thirty
some years you've missed out. And like you said, if
I wanted to, you know, I've missed that. That being
that silliness, having some of that recklessness in my life,
(55:45):
all those little.
Speaker 7 (55:46):
Things that we think that we're not useful.
Speaker 5 (55:49):
Look look at how useful they are now where we
just sit around and we laugh and we do silly
things just.
Speaker 7 (55:58):
Right right.
Speaker 5 (56:00):
So it's just having that opportunity to have compassion for yourself.
Speaker 7 (56:05):
It's a prior or love for yourself.
Speaker 5 (56:07):
It's a priority because it's okay to make yourself the
priority without having to say I'm sorry that I'm putting
myself first. You've done that for years and we all
have done that sitting at this table.
Speaker 7 (56:19):
We have always put other people first.
Speaker 5 (56:22):
And then it starting when you start to open your
mindset up and realize that, oh my gosh, what it
feels good to finally say it's okay to be to
be number one and take a break, or you know,
I want to go and do this, or I want
to spend time with my spouse without people freaking out, Oh,
you don't want to spend time with me anymore, you know,
since you've been married, excuse me, I've had twenty years
(56:45):
of time to spend with you.
Speaker 7 (56:47):
Bye myself.
Speaker 5 (56:48):
Now it's time for me to enjoy the person that
I'm married to and that I love and I want
to engage my time with and I want to go
do stupid things with if I want to go hang
out on the air and a hot loon and I'm
not hanging down here on the ground with you, Yes,
thank you, But I'm just saying, you know, it's it's
it's one of those things that yes, boy, but I'm
(57:17):
just it's just saying that, you know, we sometimes we
beat ourselves up so much about what we didn't do right,
But like you just said, you know, Chris, that.
Speaker 7 (57:27):
It's the lessons.
Speaker 5 (57:28):
It's the things that we had to learn in order
to get to this point.
Speaker 2 (57:32):
Right.
Speaker 10 (57:32):
So let me let me ask everyone this.
Speaker 6 (57:35):
Then we're gonna and this is this is probably gonna
get deep. Okay, no, really really what it has to
do with what this last segment of what we've been
talking about, can you honestly say and this is a
two part question prior to the person you're currently with, Okay,
(57:57):
not just yourself. Were you happy and loved yourself? And
are you happy and loved yourself now.
Speaker 10 (58:06):
With that person.
Speaker 9 (58:07):
It's a great question.
Speaker 6 (58:08):
So I know sometimes I don't say much, but when
I do, there it is you know, it's without going
into a whole soliloquy about it, the quest.
Speaker 1 (58:20):
The answer is, I guess I love myself more today
of who I am versus who I was, because I
look back and there were failures on my part that
I recognized today that were I wouldn't I couldn't recognize
at the time.
Speaker 9 (58:38):
And I'm a.
Speaker 1 (58:40):
Better person today than I was to myself and to
others than I was back then.
Speaker 5 (58:48):
I mean, I absolutely let myself better today than I
was back then. Like I said, the things that I
have gone through. First of all, never thought of myself
as being what everybody thought I was, or you know,
beyond the looks. And then you think about the pieces
of wanting to be successful, wanting to be the perfect
(59:10):
you know, wife, are wanting to be the perfect mother.
And then I was just saying earlier, just about putting
everybody else first. There's just so many little things that
you just start to realize that when you look in
the mirror and you realize that you think you're you
think you're as strong as you really are, and you aren't,
and you start to put all these little labels on
yourself that you don't need to put those labels on.
(59:32):
And I think that's where I've learned and what I've
done is shut the labels that I don't need in
order to be the woman that I am and finally
realize and found that there is somebody who can accept
me for every little thing that I am without those labels. Right,
We've talked about on previous UH podcasts that we've done
(59:54):
where you know, you don't have to have the perfect body.
That's a label. We've always been told you got to
have the person your body and being a woman and
being a black woman, it's always been well, you got
to look this certain way, your hair has to be
a certain way. You know, you can't have this or
you can't have so there's all those little things that, Yeah,
I feel better about who I am today because I
(01:00:14):
haven't had to shed or change who I am in
order to be with the man that I am with today,
Where before I had to change every little thing in
order to be accepted with the man that I was with.
You know, I had to have those labels that either
society has given you or how we were raised because
that's what we were told. Those labels have dropped throughout
(01:00:37):
the years. So absolutely believe I'm in love more with
myself today and then, yeah, there's still always those little struggles,
but definitely a much more happier person than who I
was before.
Speaker 4 (01:00:48):
That was awesome. This is actually really a hard question
for me. Wow, this really is because I don't think
I ever loved myself in my former exist Since I
loved what I was doing. I loved taking care of people.
I subscribed to the labels. I met the need like
(01:01:09):
it was that overachieving thing, that competitive thing. I had
to be a size zero, I had to have my
hair done, the nails of this that, and I thought
that's what I needed to be loved. So did I
love myself? No, I existed and I existed in those relationships. However,
now I can say, since I was being together, I
(01:01:31):
have absolutely found love within myself and I found that
by being able to be myself not be the labels.
Speaker 6 (01:01:41):
Dang it, I was actually gonna say the exact same thing. Yes,
like I really did not. I didn't love myself. I
didn't care about myself. I cared about one thing and
one thing only, and that was being married, in a relationship,
with my career and fulfilling something I set out to
(01:02:01):
do since I was like probably the age of three.
But now, like I went in, left one job with
a label, label, created a business with a label, and
now I'm just Chris with Jen and yeah, i think
I'm more in love with myself now than I've ever
(01:02:22):
been in my life.
Speaker 9 (01:02:25):
Excellent question asked. It's a good segue. I took a
good segue into us closing out the show. So one
of the things I do want to say.
Speaker 1 (01:02:35):
For all those listeners who are at the point in
their lives where they're looking for love and they're within
this age group or or not in this age group, right,
whatever age you are today, don't be afraid to go
back to the days when you were your team. What
you're looking for in love in the year, in the
(01:02:56):
early years versus what you're looking for today may be different.
They may be the same aim, but you'll find from
this group anyway that they were different and and I
would venture to say that you're in the same predicament.
Speaker 2 (01:03:10):
UH.
Speaker 9 (01:03:10):
So learn from what you.
Speaker 1 (01:03:13):
What what you experienced, the good and the bad in
the early years, but discover yourself for what you you love.
And that should be uh the first and foremost in
uh finding that true love or that relationship that will
take you into the later years of your life.
Speaker 9 (01:03:32):
So that was beautiful. Thank you.
Speaker 10 (01:03:35):
The words are rhythm.
Speaker 3 (01:03:40):
So with that said, thank you all for coming tonight.
Speaker 1 (01:03:45):
To my hosts and guests, thank you very much to
be a guest on the show. Contact the email on
the on the show notes. Want more of Unveiled podcast shows.
Monetary doing to support the podcast are now accepted on
cash apps, PayPal, good Pods, tip jar, or go to
(01:04:07):
the website at www dot ws B, i l LC
dot com. Again, we'd like to thank you for all
for listening to us tonight. We will be back next
month on a Thursday evening at seven pm. Be sure
to follow us on iHeartRadio, speaker, YouTube, or wherever you
listen to your podcasts. Until then, enjoy the rest of
(01:04:30):
your evening.
Speaker 3 (01:04:31):
Thank you, hye bye bye ye
Good evening, Welcome to Unveiled, where all conversations are safe, revealing,
and uncuffed. Tonight's show is partnered with Chris's Dishes, Genshava's Photography,
and sponsored by w SBI LLC, your resource for success podcast.
Here are your hosts, Carmine and Kimberly Peshi and Chris
and Genshaves. What are we revealing tonight? Well, since to
(00:26):
this month, February is the month of Love, we are
going to talk about the topic finding love in your forties, fifties,
and sixties. Now this all our hosts cover all of
the above age groups. So with that, let's talk to
(00:47):
our hosts.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Hey, it was really good car exactly grabbing the napkin.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
Whoa, it's all good.
Speaker 4 (01:01):
Swear.
Speaker 5 (01:02):
Surgery went well, all right, well hello everybody. Yes, my
husband did a fabulous job with this introduction roles.
Speaker 4 (01:16):
He did.
Speaker 5 (01:16):
Yes, like you said, we are all in that age
brackets the fifties right here with them same and then.
Speaker 4 (01:24):
We have you.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
We got the be.
Speaker 6 (01:30):
It just made it made mid high side forties high side.
Speaker 5 (01:37):
He just made just made it, just made it into
the group, just made it.
Speaker 7 (01:43):
Oh gosh.
Speaker 8 (01:44):
And for you, which one following I'm just gonna say sixties.
I'm not gonna say mid high or low. I'm just
gonna say sixties. And we're gonna leave it at that.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
Okay, But it's, uh, it's I'm sure we'll cover all
all all the nuances of those age groups and.
Speaker 9 (02:03):
What we had in the past, what we found in
the future.
Speaker 7 (02:07):
Absolutely. Absolutely, Yeah.
Speaker 4 (02:11):
You know, I got to say you, I am the
first one to own my age one because there's so
many people who don't make it right. So it's a blessing.
And I tell people all the time, like, yeah, I'm
fifty two, and it's just accepting it and growing older.
And I know we've spoken about it before, but especially
in our generation, for women, revealing your true age was
(02:34):
shunned like you shouldn't, right. And I can remember when
I was little, my mother was like, it doesn't matter
how old I am. Now I'm like, I owe my shit,
like I have fifty two. Every single one of these wrinkles, well,
I would love to both talk them away. They're not
going anywhere. They're here for a reason. The laughter caused
the laugh lines some sadness and life lessons learned cause
(02:58):
the little crow's feet from crying.
Speaker 5 (02:59):
But you know, it is what it is, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 7 (03:02):
You're right.
Speaker 5 (03:03):
It's always been an issue of women revealing, you know,
their age and who they are, and even till this day,
people are like, you don't need to know my age?
Speaker 4 (03:12):
Why be thankful? And I tell people all the time.
Speaker 5 (03:14):
And especially young folks, oh, you guys are old. You
should hope that you get to this point in life,
you know, and as well as we have high five exactly,
And you know, I always get that, oh, you're how old.
I'm like, yeah, I'm fifty eight and I'm proud and
soon to be fifty nine, you know, in a couple
of months. And it's like, it's okay, thankful that I've
(03:36):
made it this far, and I pray that I can
continue to get past another year so and to be
able to share some of the knowledge that I've gained
and understanding and realizing that what we have gone through
has helped us understand how to find love and realize
(03:56):
what true love really is about at this age bracket
and what we thought we knew prior to our forties
and thirties and twenties is definitely not the same. And
you know, our outlook is much much more different. Yeah,
so you know, I.
Speaker 6 (04:12):
Think there's less caring about trivial things.
Speaker 7 (04:16):
Absolutely, no, I think it's.
Speaker 6 (04:18):
More so about you know, waking up and going to
sleep next to the person that you love and care about.
And then it doesn't matter like how much money you
have or what you're doing, just as long as you're
doing something fun together.
Speaker 10 (04:33):
I mean, like, yesterday she made a.
Speaker 6 (04:39):
What can I call it a technical err on her
part to spend time together. But now it's turned out
into an air of determination.
Speaker 7 (04:47):
So are you talking?
Speaker 4 (04:48):
She came down what I do now?
Speaker 6 (04:51):
She came downstairs and she's like, you want to do
a puzzle?
Speaker 9 (04:56):
She has this bag.
Speaker 6 (04:58):
She goes, you want to do a puzzle? I was like, sure, whatever,
So she throws this puzzle. She throws this puzzle on
the table. I'm like, so where's the picture? As she goes,
I have no clue.
Speaker 4 (05:10):
We bought these puzzles. It was like a box of
ten puzzles, maybe nine years ago, eight years ago, because
what a good idea keep your brain going, focus attention
to detail awesome things that as you get older you
really do need to focus on. Guys. But we threw
the box out when we were moving one of the
eight thousand times and I saw the puzzles sitting at
(05:31):
the bottom of my yarn, I'm like, oh, let's go
do this. How hard could it be?
Speaker 7 (05:38):
Hour three hours into it.
Speaker 10 (05:40):
Last night we finally had the border. We're like, oh,
we're gonna this is gonna take forever?
Speaker 9 (05:45):
How many pieces?
Speaker 7 (05:47):
Oh? Yeah?
Speaker 9 (05:48):
Okay, so yeah.
Speaker 6 (05:49):
And hold on and let me tell you, Hey, Google AI,
you can't help us because I tried the picture that
little take a picture of the and it'll identify it.
Speaker 10 (06:02):
It's not Alice in Wonderland.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
The person who developed the algorithm for the AI said,
nobody's ever gonna want right.
Speaker 6 (06:11):
I figured the way out how to break the Internet
real quick. Yeah, it's it's it's it's about the the
fun things. But it's also about the things that you know,
you do to get under your significant other skin. You
know if those are fun things too, you know, at
least for me, sometimes I do things that get under
her skin, but then it breaks me joy because she's.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
Like, will you stop it?
Speaker 10 (06:33):
You know, it's those types of things.
Speaker 7 (06:35):
Kind of like you too. This morning.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
Yes, just a perfect example.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
But you know, we should start examining what we what
we as individuals did when we were looking to find
love or just falling in love or just accidentally tripping
into love when we were younger, and what we were
looking for then versus what we are doing today are
(07:01):
found today. Personally, you know, in my teens, you really
didn't know anything other than everybody or somebody you know
how a girlfriend, and you wanted a girlfriend, and you
wound up having relationships with people whose were world friends.
So the gathering of boys and girls was your pick.
(07:26):
It wasn't really, Oh I went to a club and
I hooked up, and now I'm married, right, or I
scrolled left or right and now and now I'm going
out with a totally different world today than it was yesterday.
It was it was your your parents, your grandparents, your friends,
developing what your relationship should be with a person and
(07:51):
actually commenting on, oh, you should go out with so
and so, you should go out, and it became like,
but I don't want to go out with so and
so on.
Speaker 6 (07:59):
I think that might be different for every person, because
in my family there was none of that. There was
none of that at all.
Speaker 10 (08:07):
It was very it was very hands off.
Speaker 6 (08:09):
You make your own decisions I like, you can ask
my father to this day, he will tell you that
you know, the way he raised me and my brother
is you Will you be different people?
Speaker 10 (08:19):
Will?
Speaker 6 (08:20):
I'm and I'm gonna teach you the right and wrong
and some life lessons on how to maintain you know,
your person as a person on this planet. Don't do
dumb shit, don't get thrown in jail.
Speaker 10 (08:31):
That's it. Go forth.
Speaker 6 (08:32):
Your decisions are yours and when you make the wrong decision,
you're gonna learn real quick.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
So this is this is good to talk about because
there's a there's a two decade difference between your age.
Speaker 4 (08:45):
Between you two. And I'll tell you my relationship options
were solely based on community and beliefs constructs that my
family had. I mean, I've had family that were like,
you can only date a Jewish kid because I was
a Jewish woman, Jewish girl.
Speaker 10 (09:05):
You are I am?
Speaker 4 (09:06):
Yes, I was, I am, I still have I. But
these were the things, like you know, there were different
social norms and things that were in place that I
could never Like my father told me straight out, do
not come home and tell me you're a lesbian.
Speaker 9 (09:28):
Don't.
Speaker 4 (09:29):
But this was also going back into the nineteen eighties,
where it wasn't as acceptable to have that situation as
it is today. My father was a wonderful man.
Speaker 7 (09:37):
He was great.
Speaker 4 (09:38):
He just made it emphatically clear that who I could
date and what I needed to look for was not
what it is as accepting. I would say, as as
we grew older and.
Speaker 7 (09:49):
What we looked for.
Speaker 5 (09:51):
Well, I couldn't date period, So I had no boyfriends.
You weren't allowed to date, absolutely not so you were
how old until party? So ever, had the experience of
dating in high school even when I couldn't even go
(10:12):
out to certain like things like I didn't do what
do you do when you have at the end of
the year and your in your senior I never did
prom I ended up doing deputante ball. I couldn't even
choose the person I wanted to go out for the
deputante ball.
Speaker 7 (10:28):
That was all chosen for me.
Speaker 5 (10:30):
So I had no experience whatsoever of dating. Yes, I
was a deb he's so fancy and it was a
great experience, but it was a horrible experience of not
understanding what it meant to have a boyfriend, realize what
dating was because being young and coming into the military
(10:55):
and then so called thinking I met my sweetheart at
twenty years old. Next thing I know, I'm you know,
married at twenty Next thing I know, twenty one, I'm
I'm having my first kid. By the time I was
twenty seven, I was divorced, you know, so not understanding
that role of life of.
Speaker 4 (11:14):
Dating men and then having a child.
Speaker 5 (11:17):
It's it's like your whole world is step in front
of you and then just trying to grow up and
trying to raise a kid and trying to understand what
it is to have a life of demand.
Speaker 7 (11:28):
I had no idea.
Speaker 4 (11:30):
So there's also there's that balance of you know, get
I get it.
Speaker 7 (11:35):
You're trying to protect.
Speaker 5 (11:36):
Your you know, you're one and only child daughter per se,
not only child. I mean I definitely had a brother
where my brother could go out and do all these things,
but as a female, I.
Speaker 7 (11:45):
Could not do that.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
Definitely at that time exactly that was the accepted thing
to do.
Speaker 5 (11:53):
So, you know, it's it's it's understanding that those were
those lessons back then. So I knew at twenty something
years old of trying to be that family person, I
had to learn it along the way and learn some
very very hard lessons of trying to understand what it
was about dating that I had.
Speaker 9 (12:13):
No clue of, only what you saw on TV.
Speaker 5 (12:16):
Or EVE or even not even so much even in TV,
but even within my family, I thought that, hey, you know,
this was the perfect life of having parents, you know,
having the perfect home and you know, having the two parents,
the perfect house and the dogs and you know all
the things you think that's easy to do, because I
had that. I had that in my house, right, And
(12:38):
but the reality that's just wasn't how it is because
I didn't have the experiences that the average person we
could say back then.
Speaker 7 (12:44):
Could have, right.
Speaker 4 (12:46):
And when I think about segueing from my teens into
my twenties, right, So I lost my mom when I
was fourteen. She died suddenly, and I lived with my
sister for the rest of my high school. So for
three plus years I was high school, it moved from
Jersey to New York, and watching their relationship very different
than my parents' relationship, I didn't know what I wanted.
(13:09):
I'll be the first to tell you know what I wanted.
I wanted an escape route. So who was I dating?
I was dating the people I thought my family would
let me date based on the construct of being a
kid and what they said, and then it was how
am I going to get out of where I am?
And when I went to college, it was pretty much
the same thing, although you have no holds bar when
you're really away from home. So it's like, oh, now,
(13:31):
meeting all these different people kind of like you and
Chris had that experience in the military. You're meeting all
these different people. What experiences are they bringing to the table.
And I will tell you hindsight thirty years later, those
relationships that I had during that time were meaningless. There
was no substance to it. We didn't have cell phones,
(13:53):
so we weren't engaged with each other all the time.
Speaker 7 (13:56):
There was no you know, what are you interested in?
And there was no investment.
Speaker 4 (14:02):
I think that's the best word. Like I look across
this table and I see my partner, my soulmate, my
my my guy, and I am solely invested in him
and making sure he is happy in youth.
Speaker 7 (14:15):
All right, what do you want to do. We're gonna
go to the movies.
Speaker 4 (14:18):
Cool.
Speaker 9 (14:19):
There wasn't very much to choose from at those times.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
You're crossing state lines other than going over a bridge
and you're from New York. You're in New Jersey, right,
But but but I'm going to understand what you're saying.
It's it's uh, but when you say meaningless relationships, meaningless
in what respect? Because I learned a lot from all
my relationships, however brief they were or or minimal they were,
(14:45):
because I didn't date like excessively, you know, it was
like it was socializing at the time, right, And then
you find a person and you you feel that's the one,
and then you enter into a relationship. Because the only
thing I brought from my parents is the things that
(15:05):
I did not or my parents, because my mom died
at an early age, the things I didn't want when
I went off on my own, Like the first thing
is I'm not going to have a couch with plastic
on it.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
So things like it's like all the things I don't
want to sit on plastic.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
I hear that, and I don't want.
Speaker 4 (15:25):
So I can qualify my statement because my mother died
when I was fourteen, and because I was trying to
find a way to get out from living with my
sister and her family, because my sister I had her
own life, were ten and a half years apart. She
was married, she had children, children from her husband's first
marriage that she had adopted as well, and I needed
(15:48):
to find myself. I was fully and this is this
is very revealing because I don't share this with people.
The first boy that I fell in love air quote with,
I thought he and I were going to be together forever.
Absolutely maintained a friendship with this person street into my
early forties, and we would always joke that, oh, you know,
(16:11):
if we ever never end up with anyone else, we'll
end up together. But I truly thought that he and
I would be together. He went off to Israel, I
went to college. We stayed friends, our significant others along
the way became friends and built that community of who
knows who, Our kids were best friends growing up. And
so when I think back, it's like, yeah, any relationship
(16:33):
that wasn't that relationship did not hold as much value. Yeah,
that the youth of then.
Speaker 9 (16:43):
And that I could relate to that. Right.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
I'm glad that you explained the meaningless relationships, because in
your what you explained that was a that was a
meaningful relationship, even though it wasn't a matrimonial relationship or
a long term relationship. It was a friendship and it
was it helped develop you to where you are today.
Speaker 4 (17:04):
I feel absolutely absolutely How old were you when you
started dating? Well, now, when you were in sixth grade
and held hand Susie's hand down.
Speaker 9 (17:16):
No, no girls like I went to Catholics.
Speaker 4 (17:19):
Catholic grammar, there was no holding hands.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
So there was no holding hands. And you know it.
Everybody was the same. They were all the same color,
they were all dressed the same.
Speaker 9 (17:33):
What was the question.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
My first daughter after you? Was that after you sealed?
I want to say.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
I want to say I was probably what I would
consider a meaningful relationship was probably around fifteen fourteen.
Speaker 7 (17:50):
What about you.
Speaker 6 (17:52):
Sixteen?
Speaker 4 (17:55):
You know, your construct, your mom and dad did not
put any thoughts or connotations into your brain. Who you
could date, could not date, did not matter. Nope, no parameter,
no belief.
Speaker 6 (18:04):
No, I've had you know, everything from white black Asian
type girlfriends too. You know, good bad relationships, and I
know we talked about the good bad relationships like yeah,
with me honestly looking back at it now, I should
have never been in any type of relationship or marriages
(18:25):
like prior to you. Because I'm not just saying that
people hold on Okay, let me cavea.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
This you're going to get to sleep with them.
Speaker 6 (18:37):
You have to say, is that between the ages of
between the age of from twenty two until thirty five,
I spent my time in and out of a combat
zone or training up to go to a combat zone.
Speaker 10 (18:54):
So that was my focus.
Speaker 6 (18:56):
Everything else was put on the back burner, and I
didn't really focus on any of my relationship or marriage
if marriages back then or whatever, you know. And looking
back at it now, yeah, I was probably wrong of me,
but that was who I am or who I was.
It's because at age shit, I will And this goes
back to like one top we're gonna have very soon.
(19:19):
When I was thirteen years old, my dad sat me
down and we had an interesting conversation and will something
little like this.
Speaker 10 (19:27):
You have five.
Speaker 6 (19:28):
Years and you have to make choices in your life.
And I was like, okay, I don't know where this
is going. He goes, you can either pay pay your
away for college. I will pay your way for college.
But if I'm paying away for college and you're living
here be in the house, is like you're going to
pay rent, or you figure it out on your own,
(19:48):
or you can join the military, and I was like, well,
I've been digging trenches into your backyard since the age
of like two. I think I'm going to join the military,
And that's what I did, and that's always what I wanted.
Speaker 10 (19:57):
I didn't want to focus on anything with that.
Speaker 4 (19:59):
So were you to have any successful relationships in the military, No,
were you obviously not? Okay, fair. Do you think the
military impacted that your view of relationships?
Speaker 5 (20:15):
Yes, Oh, absolutely, because during the seven years that we
were married, we were only in the same household maybe
three oh really because we were both in two different ships,
so we're both were It's just, yeah, two different environments
and it was just not a good relationship period.
Speaker 7 (20:33):
It's a lot of things going.
Speaker 6 (20:34):
Yeah, And but to say that's not it's not with everybody.
I mean, we know people that have been you know,
day one lieutenant, day one, E one private and now
they're getting ready to retire for thirty forty years and
they've been with their their high school sweetheart. Like, hey, cool, Greg,
you're wonderful you've done that.
Speaker 10 (20:51):
But it's just so big.
Speaker 4 (20:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (20:53):
But I think a lot of it too, for me,
was because I, like I said, I didn't have the experience,
so I didn't know what I was looking for. I
didn't know what I had wasn't healthy for me.
Speaker 7 (21:03):
It wasn't good for me.
Speaker 5 (21:05):
And the things that I learned going on throughout the
relationship and towards the end of the relationship, I should
have never been within period.
Speaker 4 (21:13):
So I think you just hit on a really important
topic or subtopic, I should say, which is you know
you didn't know what you were looking for, what you had.
I didn't even know who I was, right, Yeah, you
asked me who was I in my twenties. I was
a hot mess, That's who I was. And then I'll
tell you know what I was. I was very driven
to be successful financially because that was very important to me,
(21:36):
and I was tunnel visioned on my career. And yes,
I got married at twenty three, had Amanda when I
was twenty six, but I worked. I was able to
make sure that I was always the bread winner, you know,
(21:57):
her father or her father. I did learn a lesson
from that.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
One biologic.
Speaker 4 (22:09):
He was not working for a considerable period of time,
but not even the point I learned from that to
your point, Carmine, definitely what I did not want in
a marriage definitely who I was when I was not
going to be the wife to take care of somebody
who I did not have a respect for based on.
Speaker 7 (22:32):
How this individual was.
Speaker 4 (22:34):
Absolutely, but I didn't know that about myself. I was
just going through emotions right and fast forward when you
know I met Chris and how he and I met,
which separate time for that conversation. I fully respected him
like that because here is this man who dedicated himself
(22:56):
to his country to fighting for something that he truly
believed in. And I drew from that my own Well, what.
Speaker 7 (23:05):
Do I believe in?
Speaker 4 (23:08):
What do I believe in? What are not beliefs that
were bestowed upon me by you know, my parents or
my friends or the community. What are my beliefs like?
What do I want in myself and a person? And
it really took me to a whole new level of
self awareness that until you know who you are, how
do you know what you need from somebody else or
(23:29):
want from somebody?
Speaker 7 (23:30):
Exactly? Exactly? Yeah, I think that point in my first
first experience of that first marriage.
Speaker 5 (23:37):
Was it truly taught me a lot about myself and
then about having a partner. I always knew I wanted
a partner, but I also wanted to have my own
successes because after what I had went through and before
the end of that marriage, and you know, he stold
everything I had, every dime that I had. At that point,
(23:59):
I said, I would never depend on another individual to
take care of myself and my child.
Speaker 4 (24:05):
Right.
Speaker 5 (24:06):
So it was so many valuable lessons learned about the
character of the individual and then realizing that you you
have to grow up. That's when I grew up, literally
think literally grew up overnight understanding, Okay, this is not
what just marriages about. Are having a relationship. It's about okay,
(24:29):
you have to just you have to stand up on
your own two feet as well as be that partner
with the individual, but you have to know who you are.
And I started to build, started to grow.
Speaker 7 (24:38):
Who I was.
Speaker 5 (24:40):
Obviously never thinking was worried about getting married again, thought
I took the step again, end.
Speaker 7 (24:46):
Up being with another jerk down the road.
Speaker 5 (24:48):
You know, the biggest problem I had with men during
my time of relationship was that it was always the cheating.
Speaker 7 (24:55):
I was always told, oh.
Speaker 5 (24:56):
You're the you know, you're the good person, You're so good,
and you know, It's like I can't I believe I
did this to you.
Speaker 7 (25:01):
Excuse me, just like I don't want to be your
fucking friend.
Speaker 5 (25:05):
Excuse my language, right, I'm your wife, right, it's just
beyond just being your friend. And that's this type of
stuff that I would always run into. So then, you know,
I got to the point where I just wouldn't. I
never thought I would ever go down the path. You know,
I've been through horrifying relationships to the point where I
just never wanted to do this again. And then, of course,
(25:26):
almost twenty years down the road and I built my success.
I've done the things I wanted to do. I have
a phenomenal The one thing I could say that I
did right out of that first relationship was having a
beautiful child.
Speaker 7 (25:40):
My son.
Speaker 4 (25:41):
I could not thank God, Oh my God, I thank
God so much.
Speaker 9 (25:44):
For that child.
Speaker 5 (25:46):
The best thing I ever had ever done was have
this beautiful child out of all the chaos that.
Speaker 7 (25:50):
I've been through.
Speaker 5 (25:51):
And then fast forward umpteen years later, here I, you know,
after twenty years of sitting on my own, never thought
I would go down this path again, and I have
this wonderful man sitting in front of me that I
never thought I would ever step foot.
Speaker 7 (26:05):
In the word M marriage. I was like, what the
M word?
Speaker 6 (26:10):
Right?
Speaker 5 (26:11):
It's like it was nothing. It was not in my
it was not in front of me. I finally had
given it up. I was like, you know what, I've
set my path. I'm preparing myself for retirement. I've literally
had laid laid the land everything I had done and
prepared myself.
Speaker 7 (26:26):
I was like, okay, I'm getting ready. I'm going to
retire sixty two.
Speaker 4 (26:30):
I'm almost there, counted down, counted down, right, So not ever.
Speaker 5 (26:36):
Thinking about at this point in my life that you know,
here almost were coming up in almost a year of
being married, even considering it. But it's having that right person.
And the weird part about it was thinking everything that
he is and who he is and how he how
we came together. It was just so easy because I
(26:59):
thought if I had ever met anybody, it would be
a struggle for me because when you've been by yourself
almost twenty years, it's a long time that is to
have to sit back and think about sharing things again
and trusting again.
Speaker 7 (27:11):
And that was the huge part for me.
Speaker 5 (27:14):
Trusting was like, oh, you know, it's like on a chalkboard, Yes,
always on the chalkboard, but I didn't feel that way
with him. Never had to think twice about anything, which
was almost weird.
Speaker 7 (27:29):
I can't even describe it.
Speaker 5 (27:31):
And I never literally had to think from the time
that we even talked about it closely talked, never had
to think twice about.
Speaker 3 (27:38):
It on anything like this was a conversation you have
with yourself. What are you talking?
Speaker 7 (27:45):
But no, seriously, no, no, the way he's looking, he's like.
Speaker 6 (27:48):
I don't know how to take this right now that
I talked about.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
What you said, it's it's it's uh, it's something you
really have to experience, uh to Actually, it's hard to
it's hard to explain in words, right, So people say,
you know you know it when you know it, right, Yeah,
And it happened that quickly, and happened that fast, right
because uh, you know, working side by side in the
(28:17):
same office. It was never that our relationship didn't blossom
in there.
Speaker 9 (28:23):
It was outside and saying, hey, this is the person that,
this is the person.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
I want to be with, right, and then blost them
into what it did real quickly.
Speaker 6 (28:33):
That's funny that you say that, because like we've general
we've worked together and in the same office and we
can't stand it.
Speaker 3 (28:42):
The office, or we can't stand working America.
Speaker 9 (28:45):
We can't work together.
Speaker 6 (28:46):
But but we say that, but in doing our businesses,
that's something completely different. Like it's just being in that
in the environment.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
But that's a different partnership. I got, I got work
is what work is is a contest. It's a contest.
Speaker 6 (29:08):
That's the reason why, because I anybody knows me, I'm
not very competitive.
Speaker 10 (29:13):
I could care less.
Speaker 3 (29:15):
It's either I am who I am.
Speaker 6 (29:19):
But so getting back to the trust thing and everything
like that, Like with me, I think my way of
knowing that I absolutely trusted her was like she she
actually saved my life on the damn met her.
Speaker 10 (29:37):
She actually saved my life.
Speaker 6 (29:39):
And that's not being like I don't even know what
the word is traumatic. It's like it's a true statement.
Like if anybody wants to have a conversation about what
it was about, I will tell you. But she that
day that I met her, she saved my life and.
Speaker 10 (29:57):
That never looked back.
Speaker 7 (29:59):
And I understand that feeling.
Speaker 6 (30:00):
Sometimes I want to push you off a bridge, but
you know, I understand exactly your feeling because you know,
and my story is no secret.
Speaker 5 (30:09):
My story's out there are written a book about it,
you know, being abused and having a man who wanted
to kill me, who literally every day for several months
literally tried to kill me. My story is there, it's
a valid it's out there. You can even find the
police reports. All of it's out there. So having to
build rebuild that trust and understanding and having somebody in
(30:31):
your life, that's huge for me. It took me years
to rebuild myself and that confidence in even wanting to
look at another person or dater, have the conversation or
just any of that right. So I understand that that
that feeling of when you feel like you're being saved right,
(30:52):
or you feel like you can trust, to know that
you can sit down and have a conversation without feeling
like somebody is crucifying you at the same time looking
at you in a way that that that you can
look at them and know that they are saying the
right things, are their trust whether they or not bsing you.
Because I can see a Besser all the way across
the room. Literally, I know that feeling. I can It's
(31:14):
like I can instantly feeling inside of me when somebody
is not right. So to have the partner that I
have now and know that I can put my guard
down and tell you a quick story when we.
Speaker 7 (31:27):
First got together and we moved into the.
Speaker 5 (31:31):
House and had to explain to him how I couldn't
even till this day, can't keep my door and there's
the bedroom open, I have to close it because for
many years I literally felt like I'm living in jail.
I would put a chair up to the door, even
with my security on it, because I had to live
(31:51):
like that for many years of worrying about this person
coming after me to kill me. Not explained to him,
I can't feel safe with unless you're here. That door
has to be closed. I get that, So so go
ahead that No, that's I mean, that's to me. That's
like if you're giving you're not giving that up because
(32:15):
and this goes into a whole different thing that but
you're not giving up your sense of like fight or
flight because but you're fight or flight.
Speaker 10 (32:24):
Now there's a barrier there, you know. So it's like
the side of the bed do you sleep on? Do
you sleep on door side or not? Doorside?
Speaker 6 (32:30):
Me?
Speaker 9 (32:30):
Yeah, doorside, doorside.
Speaker 6 (32:31):
See there you go, that's your chair, you know, I
sleep on door side. Even if we're in a hotel
room door side.
Speaker 10 (32:38):
You know, I gotta do it. That's that's It's.
Speaker 5 (32:41):
The it's the love I have, the love I know
he has for me, The safetiness. This is my safety news, right,
I understand I don't have to fear that anymore. Where
before that was the fear that I kept carried for years.
Speaker 7 (32:55):
I'm talking years.
Speaker 5 (32:56):
This is that all that abuse and everything I went
through that happened way back.
Speaker 7 (33:02):
It's been now probably ten fifteen years ago.
Speaker 5 (33:05):
But you never when you've gone through what I actually
went through, you're never gonna forget it.
Speaker 7 (33:11):
You can continue to move on and live.
Speaker 5 (33:13):
But there's certain triggers, there's certain things that and you
understand exactly what I'm you know, you understand it. And
so it's to know that you can have somebody who
can truly love you for everything.
Speaker 4 (33:25):
That you've gone through in life.
Speaker 5 (33:26):
And he knows my crazy, He's seen it, he understands it,
and and to explain it and know that, hey, there's
just certain things I can't deal with and it's okay.
Speaker 10 (33:40):
I will say, like.
Speaker 6 (33:44):
Past relationship, there's only been one that you know, we're
we've kind of flowen off but we were really good
friends and we should never have gotten married when we
were younger.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
That was the.
Speaker 6 (33:53):
Stupidest thing both of us could have done. But the
other relationships that I have between her, I will tell
you that none of those were as strong as her
because they would have never been able to put up
with the ship she has seen me try to do
to myself, you know, even now. I mean, yeah, you
know it's been two thousand and thirty twelve was the
last time I deployed, But it still carries over and
(34:17):
to know that she's not going anywhere because of like,
oh you're doing something you want to do something too
stupid to yourself. But to me, that's like, you know,
the love part. You know, she she does and she
does the you know, the cutesy little things that she
does every day, does the coffee because she feels I
can't do it. You know, We've had that conversation, you know,
(34:39):
the laundry, We've had that conversation, you know, things like that.
Speaker 10 (34:42):
But it's about It's about those stupid little things like hey,
are you okay?
Speaker 9 (34:46):
Are you alive?
Speaker 10 (34:47):
Do you do you need anything?
Speaker 1 (34:48):
You know?
Speaker 10 (34:49):
Those are the love things that like.
Speaker 6 (34:52):
I'm I don't know she I don't buy expensive jewelry.
I don't buy you know, flowers every week. I do
it anomally on occasion, things like that, or I'll go
pick sunflowers from our garden to her, just because those
are the types of way, like, you know, for me,
that's how I showed my love to her, you know,
not not.
Speaker 9 (35:13):
Like hey, here's a new car, you cook for me.
Speaker 4 (35:15):
That's a lot.
Speaker 6 (35:15):
Of trivi grants tonight.
Speaker 4 (35:20):
I'm excited. Yeah, Carmen, you said before about your community,
how many kids.
Speaker 7 (35:29):
Were you exposed to.
Speaker 9 (35:34):
Let's see, what do you say? A dozen at the
most a dozen?
Speaker 1 (35:38):
And that was because because in my community, you know,
at a certain age, you couldn't leave the block and
it was very many years before you could even cross
the street or go around the book.
Speaker 9 (35:50):
So it was a different thing.
Speaker 1 (35:51):
So everybody that was there was you know, the kids
that we went to school with. A new kid that
moves into the neighborhood, but they were they were all.
Speaker 9 (36:01):
The same kids, the same kids, right one.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
So yeah, in the teen years, like you know, going
into high school, that whole community changed. Yeah, we were
living next to each other, but we weren't hanging out right, right,
it was we were hanging.
Speaker 9 (36:18):
Out with the kids from school, right.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
And then going to clubs. We all grew different paths, right. So,
so my best friend at the time it wasn't.
Speaker 9 (36:28):
I wasn't.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
We weren't best friends anymore because my best friends were
the kids I was hanging out in high school and
got in trouble with, right, So it was it was different.
But yeah, less than a dozen at the most.
Speaker 4 (36:41):
So I always find this interesting when you look at.
Speaker 7 (36:45):
Your path.
Speaker 4 (36:48):
I was married my first time in my twenties, second
time in my thirties, third time in my forties. Okay,
so I averaged one a decade.
Speaker 7 (36:58):
I guess.
Speaker 3 (37:02):
That seven years. So it's the seven years years.
Speaker 4 (37:11):
Same here.
Speaker 9 (37:14):
I'll give you my perspective on the settlement the second.
Speaker 4 (37:16):
So the reason I bring this up is like, so,
and it goes back to who are you exposed to
and what are you interested in? And to your point,
you know you're going to the clubs, different decade, different time era,
different people around you, the relationships that you formed during
that time frame. What did you gain lesson?
Speaker 7 (37:34):
Learned wise?
Speaker 1 (37:36):
I learned this. You really don't know who you are
in the early years. You never know who you are.
You know who you want to be or you profess
to be. So I want to be a mailman, I
don't want to be a fireman. You never get to
that because you're always evolving, you're always changing. So I
think that that's why we're in today's society, that that
(37:57):
there's the younger well, the younger generation is waiting longer
to get married, longer to enter into a marriage. They're
either living together, having children out of wedlock. And that's
not a bad thing. I'm just saying it's a good
thing because they know more what life brings them. The
path that we had, that I had, I won't speak
to everybody else here, is that you date, you get married,
(38:21):
you have a kid, you.
Speaker 9 (38:22):
Buy a house.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
Right, absolutely right, And that's not necessarily the right thing,
but that's what we grew up as. So clearly are
our idea of what that was is convoluted today. It's
you could live together, have an apartment together, buy a
house together, have a kid, and not be married.
Speaker 7 (38:42):
Right.
Speaker 9 (38:43):
These are all things.
Speaker 1 (38:44):
That you learn over the ages that we didn't have
the opportunity to learn. Right we entered into a relationship,
we knew the next step was, Oh, we've been going
out a year or two years, it's time to get married.
No time to get married is when it's right. But
we didn't know what was right. It was what we
grew up.
Speaker 6 (39:03):
Absolutely, but I think that I think, and yes, something
youngest one at the table, but still going back towards
our decades, that was a standard. Yes, that was a
little standard, like if you didn't have that done by
twenty five.
Speaker 3 (39:16):
You were done for it.
Speaker 6 (39:17):
Yeah, exactly, you were at thirty and that was going down.
I was like, oh God, just finally this they've been
blessed with something. But nowadays it's like, hey, you're, like
you said, thirty year old, forty year old for finally
figuring out getting going and it's like, hey, now you're
going to be a forty five year old with a
brand new baby. First of all, no, but good luck
(39:38):
to you all out there. So not me couldn't do that.
Speaker 4 (39:41):
You know, we already had that conversation because we had
a scare when right actually early in our relationship, and
I was like, could you imagine if we had a
baby right now?
Speaker 7 (39:52):
Right Like, no, we're not enough.
Speaker 9 (39:56):
I'm joking.
Speaker 7 (39:57):
No.
Speaker 4 (39:58):
I commend people who can start over in their fort
I do I think if that's for you, God bless you.
Speaker 6 (40:05):
But you know, hold on, wait, we all started over.
We all started over at one well okay, a little one,
but even still like if with some people, like there
has been conversations at this table about two people when
someone retired.
Speaker 10 (40:18):
Getting a dog. It's like, let me day, it's a
big thing.
Speaker 6 (40:20):
It's like having a brand new child and you're like, hey,
this little thing you can borrow.
Speaker 7 (40:26):
You know, barbecue that.
Speaker 4 (40:33):
So sweet?
Speaker 6 (40:35):
Okay, as sweet as a football, bet so. But I
mean we all started over trying to well, I don't
even know if we were starting over looking for it.
I think for everybody at this table, it was just
like it happen.
Speaker 9 (40:49):
Yeah, it just showed up, right.
Speaker 5 (40:51):
But I think a part of it too is that
when you're not looking for it, and you just allow
yourself to live in in your peace. And for I
can just say for me that God showed me and
promised me that he will bring the person when.
Speaker 7 (41:07):
His timing is right.
Speaker 5 (41:09):
And I also believe that if you have to get
yourself together before you can take care of anybody else,
and that was essential for me.
Speaker 6 (41:16):
You know, that's funny you say that, because like, as
we're sitting here and like I almost kind of like
knew where you were going with that statement.
Speaker 10 (41:23):
We have like I have a buddy, we have somebody
that we know.
Speaker 6 (41:27):
Also, like they have both have little ones under the
age of seven.
Speaker 10 (41:32):
Both of them.
Speaker 6 (41:33):
One's over forty and the other ones thirties or older thirties, right,
and they're just starting over. But now it's kind of
like every time you talk to him, it's like swipe left,
swipe right, slight swipe left, slip, swipe, ripe.
Speaker 10 (41:48):
It's like, dude, I tell them my way all the time.
Speaker 6 (41:50):
Don't worry about that shit, man, but let it happened.
Just focus on your kid.
Speaker 10 (41:56):
Yep, well kids now.
Speaker 6 (41:58):
But that's Alie story.
Speaker 4 (42:00):
I love the spiritual aspect to it, and you know
it's provided when it's provided. We were not looking to
meet each other there. I had no idea who a
Christopher Travis was walking this planet. And the funny part
about it is the day we met was not in
(42:21):
this not anywhere near where I lived. We had no
business running into each other that day, and yet we did, and.
Speaker 9 (42:30):
She wouldn't stop talking to me, and I.
Speaker 4 (42:32):
Was annoying him, and I don't know if it was
on purpose or if it was just I didn't care,
nervous were no, you know, it's so funny. So all right,
so here is the story. So it's such a funny
story in hindsight. So my girlfriend at the time, she
and I were doing Spartan races and she's like, come on,
let's go to Virginia. I'm dating this guy, you know,
(42:54):
because this is what she did, and we're going to
go to Virginia. I'm like, what the hell is in Virginia.
My quintessential New York self was like, I'm not going
to hang out in Virginia. But no, no, no, it'll
be great. So we did. We drove from New York
to Virginia and we are out in Thank You Winter
Green by the Resort and it's a beautiful resort. I mean,
(43:15):
it's so lovely. And we get there and she beats feet.
She goes off with some guy and I'm sitting in
the carling that night by myself. I'm like, all right, cool,
you know, watching TV, prepping, making sure I got everything
ready for my race in the morning because it's cool.
That morning, we get out there, I got out there.
She finally shows up there hungover.
Speaker 10 (43:36):
Yeah, what should we come to find out? That was
like a norm.
Speaker 4 (43:40):
Yeah, one of the cool kids. So anyway, so we
get out there and all of a sudden, the host
the MC and it's so funny because again about who
are you. I was personally going through stuff. I had
lost my father the year before. This was the day
after the first you're his passing and his birthday, so
(44:04):
my father was born on So we're out there and
also in the MC is like, can the soldier please
come up? The gentleman with the colors, And I'm looking around,
I'm stretching, I'm doing my Oh, let's do this. And
you're not talking about like twenty or forty people. There
are hundreds of people at these events, and the seas parted.
(44:27):
You thought Moses was coming through. All of a sudden,
this guy in full kit helmet, flag, his army uniform,
his boots comes hoofing down his vest.
Speaker 7 (44:43):
I was like, uh huh, all right, cool.
Speaker 4 (44:48):
Everyone starts singing national anthem blah blah blah. Okay, they
shoot off the gun and here we go. Oh, I'm
gonna tell the part of the story without you know,
making it sounds horrible. So my friend needed some assistance
and I was not big enough to assist her with.
Speaker 7 (45:06):
Some of these obstacles.
Speaker 4 (45:07):
And he comes along and I'm like, Hi, can you
help us? You know, my friend just needs some help.
And he's like, yeah, here and he hands me his
flag and all right, cool, and he helps her over
this thing. Thanks, appreciate you. We're out about a mile
down down the track, same situation. I'm like, sorry to
bother you again, Hey, could you help us? I can't
(45:29):
lift her up and and it was the and he
made this face and I promise you to today if
I could ever get him to repeat this face, I
would love for him to. And it was the what
the hell do you want from my life? Lady? He's
like yeah, and he has it flag. My thank you,
I appreciate it. And he just looks at me and
he like snarled or something like like an ogre.
Speaker 9 (45:51):
All right, I never heard this story before.
Speaker 4 (45:53):
You've never heard that. This is great. Chris gets so
much better.
Speaker 3 (45:57):
So it's all right.
Speaker 6 (45:58):
This past week I've been called an ogre and a
Harry Beach aside of twenty four hours by two different women.
Speaker 4 (46:05):
I was so he helps her over, and then we're
trotting on. I'm like, here, i'll help, I'll hold this
stuff so you can get over. He's like, I got it.
I'm like, just go. He does this thing and we're
trotting along and I'm talking to him and he's got
the will you just leave me alone?
Speaker 7 (46:18):
Face?
Speaker 4 (46:19):
And I was like, oh, so, what branch of the
military are you in? Because what the hell did I know?
He's like army.
Speaker 9 (46:29):
I did everything to get her away from me.
Speaker 4 (46:31):
And what party? I said, I my cousin's in the army.
Where in the army do you work? He's like party
eighty second Airborn. He's like you no, he goes, I
was part of this eighty second Airborn. I'm like, my
cousin was in the eighty second Airborn. Got better totally.
That chick who is like, he's no way in hell
gonna know who my cousin is. But I'm trying to
(46:51):
be nice. I have conversation the woman I was racing
with when trotting off with the guy she was drunk with,
and uh, guys, what's your cousin's name? And I tell
him and he went white.
Speaker 7 (47:07):
He is my senior water Oh my gosh, then you
changed your attitude.
Speaker 3 (47:13):
You know I didn't.
Speaker 4 (47:15):
So I look at him and we're having this common
I'm like, so, what the fuck is your story?
Speaker 9 (47:20):
Right?
Speaker 4 (47:21):
Why are you dressed like this? Why are you out here?
Speaker 6 (47:25):
And so the story behind it was, is that a
buddy of mine. Uh, he started doing racist where we
were commemorating our fallen comrades. Okay, so we would wear
full battle rattle and then add extra weight to that
and then do these you know, obstacle course races like
dumb asses up and down these big ass hills, stuff
(47:47):
like that. Were like, this was a good idea when
we thought about it.
Speaker 4 (47:53):
So why why do I share this story? Yes, that
was the first day we met. Were we looking to
even meet each other? Know, as he said six times,
not wanting to have anything to do with us. And
you know, at the end of the race, we all
went out for dinner, a bunch of us, and I
never thought i'd see him again. I'm like, yeah, here's
(48:13):
my number. You know if you ever want to go
to another race, well chat. Well, well, whatever it is.
And what I found so interesting is that with everything
I was going through at that point in my life,
because I was also processing a childhood trauma that I had.
Speaker 10 (48:30):
Came to the service.
Speaker 6 (48:31):
I'm sorry it came to.
Speaker 4 (48:33):
The service it did, and I hadn't remembered it my
entire life, but all of the things that I was
going through brought me to that point, brought me to
the realization that how I had been living, the men
or the relationships I've had, weren't fulfilling me because I
didn't know me. And then one day I was like,
(48:57):
this person means something. And God put him in my
path that day for a reason. Whether it was because
I saved him what he and I've told him, he
saved me too. He saved me for my own self
destruction because decisions I was making at the time were
not healthy. They were not good for my daughter, they
(49:17):
were not good for me to looking at life in
my forties and that relationship, I saw.
Speaker 7 (49:26):
What right looked like.
Speaker 4 (49:27):
Ye, and I believe to you again, and I stressed
the skin to your point. God puts that person in
your path for a reason.
Speaker 7 (49:35):
It's right, that's right. Amen.
Speaker 5 (49:40):
Amen, You me, car talk a little bit more about
your story because you you've gone through some things, and
share a little bit more about how you got to
the point where you decided that you really wanted to
live a little more, understand who you were, get out
(50:02):
of that that norm of work was your life.
Speaker 10 (50:07):
Well, guys, so can relate to this.
Speaker 9 (50:09):
Oh it looked work.
Speaker 1 (50:12):
Work became part of my life from early on when
I got into telecommunications. It became the ungodly hours you spend,
the people you hang out with and.
Speaker 9 (50:22):
All that that.
Speaker 1 (50:24):
It was a difficult I got in early. So it's
it's like I wasn't an adult at the time. I was,
you know, I want to say nineteen, and did that
for very many years, right, So it became the career became.
Speaker 9 (50:47):
A path that.
Speaker 1 (50:50):
I had to juggle marriage and those responsibilities with the career,
and that I don't want to say that that was
one of the things that that contributed to my first
marriage feeling, but it was part of it.
Speaker 9 (51:07):
I didn't know how.
Speaker 1 (51:08):
To be a partner, be a I I was struggling
with that, let's put it that way without going into
too much detail. And then work, you know. Then Virginia
came velvoir and it was more of the same because
(51:29):
now it was I wasn't in a marriage, I didn't
have a relationship. Although I thought I was looking for something.
I made work my career and that was your marriage.
That was my marriage, right, And it wasn't until I
realized what was important in life as I was getting
older to change that paradigm and but didn't know how.
(51:53):
So so some of that had to do with the
therapy sessions. Some of them had to do with just
people I was engaging with and learning it's not as important,
although it's a very difficult thing you throw away after
thirty some odd years of doing something, that you're always
the one to affect a change and make things better.
(52:13):
That it's okay to be a failure sometimes because you
learn from that. And unfortunately that cost me a lot
of years with people. And that just changed in an
instance when we met, because then I realized I was
at that point where I realized, this is not what
(52:34):
I want to do for the rest of my life,
because I was convinced that, hey, I'm just going to
work until I die, right, and that is my marriage, right,
And then I realized that then that's not what I
really want in life. It's just it was like an
epiphany that happened. It wasn't it wasn't it was there,
but I needed a smack in the face to tell me, no,
this is not what's important life.
Speaker 11 (52:55):
So so so so, I don't know if that answers
your question, but it's it's what we at the time,
what we considered.
Speaker 1 (53:09):
And I think my up. I think my early years
it was work hard, be a professional. Uh, you know,
always do the right thing. And it's if I had
to do it over again, I would have been more silly,
I would have been more reckless.
Speaker 9 (53:25):
I would have been more more a kid and learn from.
Speaker 1 (53:30):
Those mistakes when mistakes happened, like in my very first relationship,
when it when a mistake happened there it was.
Speaker 9 (53:39):
Flight.
Speaker 1 (53:40):
It wasn't addressing the issue the issue right uh. And
I always think back about that, what my life would
have been much different if I listened more and I
was more compassionate to things that happened instead of that.
You know, hey, you're wronged, get rid of it right,
find out why it went.
Speaker 10 (54:01):
But the I don't mean to cut you off because
I'll forget it.
Speaker 6 (54:05):
We we have this kind of conversation all the time,
her and I is that no matter what, everything that
you just said is led up to what you have
now because you now when you can address those things,
have a compassion, empathy, so on and so forth, because sometimes,
(54:26):
you know, it was very hard, like when her and
I first started, I.
Speaker 3 (54:28):
Was still like.
Speaker 6 (54:30):
Shut off, like no done. Now it's kind of like,
you know, okay, I got you be you know, like
you know, tweet your neck, you tweet your you broke
your foot, whatever, you know, I'm gonna take care of you.
And sometimes it's you know, that's the love part. Fifteen
years ago i'd been like, better figured it out, Jack, Yeah, And.
Speaker 5 (54:48):
I don't think that it's so much that you don't
You didn't have compassion even then. The problem is your
compassion was in everybody else.
Speaker 7 (54:54):
But but not into yourself.
Speaker 5 (54:56):
Yes, right, And even till this day, I have to
read you in sometimes and be like, look, could worry
about everybody else and take care of you first, because
it's so easy to always worry about how to bells
fills and put them on the in the front pattern,
and then you just sit back there.
Speaker 7 (55:13):
And wait it. Oh, eventually I'll get my turn. Right.
Speaker 4 (55:16):
And he is that quintessential stereotypical archetype of the caregiver.
Speaker 7 (55:22):
Right, And that's the difference.
Speaker 5 (55:24):
But like I told him, I said, you know, you
are the priority in life, because if you don't become
that priority in life, you miss out. And for thirty
some years you've missed out. And like you said, if
I wanted to, you know, I've missed that. That being
that silliness, having some of that recklessness in my life,
(55:45):
all those little.
Speaker 7 (55:46):
Things that we think that we're not useful.
Speaker 5 (55:49):
Look look at how useful they are now where we
just sit around and we laugh and we do silly
things just.
Speaker 7 (55:58):
Right right.
Speaker 5 (56:00):
So it's just having that opportunity to have compassion for yourself.
Speaker 7 (56:05):
It's a prior or love for yourself.
Speaker 5 (56:07):
It's a priority because it's okay to make yourself the
priority without having to say I'm sorry that I'm putting
myself first. You've done that for years and we all
have done that sitting at this table.
Speaker 7 (56:19):
We have always put other people first.
Speaker 5 (56:22):
And then it starting when you start to open your
mindset up and realize that, oh my gosh, what it
feels good to finally say it's okay to be to
be number one and take a break, or you know,
I want to go and do this, or I want
to spend time with my spouse without people freaking out, Oh,
you don't want to spend time with me anymore, you know,
since you've been married, excuse me, I've had twenty years
(56:45):
of time to spend with you.
Speaker 7 (56:47):
Bye myself.
Speaker 5 (56:48):
Now it's time for me to enjoy the person that
I'm married to and that I love and I want
to engage my time with and I want to go
do stupid things with if I want to go hang
out on the air and a hot loon and I'm
not hanging down here on the ground with you, Yes,
thank you, But I'm just saying, you know, it's it's
it's one of those things that yes, boy, but I'm
(57:17):
just it's just saying that, you know, we sometimes we
beat ourselves up so much about what we didn't do right,
But like you just said, you know, Chris, that.
Speaker 7 (57:27):
It's the lessons.
Speaker 5 (57:28):
It's the things that we had to learn in order
to get to this point.
Speaker 2 (57:32):
Right.
Speaker 10 (57:32):
So let me let me ask everyone this.
Speaker 6 (57:35):
Then we're gonna and this is this is probably gonna
get deep. Okay, no, really really what it has to
do with what this last segment of what we've been
talking about, can you honestly say and this is a
two part question prior to the person you're currently with, Okay,
(57:57):
not just yourself. Were you happy and loved yourself? And
are you happy and loved yourself now.
Speaker 10 (58:06):
With that person.
Speaker 9 (58:07):
It's a great question.
Speaker 6 (58:08):
So I know sometimes I don't say much, but when
I do, there it is you know, it's without going
into a whole soliloquy about it, the quest.
Speaker 1 (58:20):
The answer is, I guess I love myself more today
of who I am versus who I was, because I
look back and there were failures on my part that
I recognized today that were I wouldn't I couldn't recognize
at the time.
Speaker 9 (58:38):
And I'm a.
Speaker 1 (58:40):
Better person today than I was to myself and to
others than I was back then.
Speaker 5 (58:48):
I mean, I absolutely let myself better today than I
was back then. Like I said, the things that I
have gone through. First of all, never thought of myself
as being what everybody thought I was, or you know,
beyond the looks. And then you think about the pieces
of wanting to be successful, wanting to be the perfect
(59:10):
you know, wife, are wanting to be the perfect mother.
And then I was just saying earlier, just about putting
everybody else first. There's just so many little things that
you just start to realize that when you look in
the mirror and you realize that you think you're you
think you're as strong as you really are, and you aren't,
and you start to put all these little labels on
yourself that you don't need to put those labels on.
(59:32):
And I think that's where I've learned and what I've
done is shut the labels that I don't need in
order to be the woman that I am and finally
realize and found that there is somebody who can accept
me for every little thing that I am without those labels. Right,
We've talked about on previous UH podcasts that we've done
(59:54):
where you know, you don't have to have the perfect body.
That's a label. We've always been told you got to
have the person your body and being a woman and
being a black woman, it's always been well, you got
to look this certain way, your hair has to be
a certain way. You know, you can't have this or
you can't have so there's all those little things that, Yeah,
I feel better about who I am today because I
(01:00:14):
haven't had to shed or change who I am in
order to be with the man that I am with today,
Where before I had to change every little thing in
order to be accepted with the man that I was with.
You know, I had to have those labels that either
society has given you or how we were raised because
that's what we were told. Those labels have dropped throughout
(01:00:37):
the years. So absolutely believe I'm in love more with
myself today and then, yeah, there's still always those little struggles,
but definitely a much more happier person than who I
was before.
Speaker 4 (01:00:48):
That was awesome. This is actually really a hard question
for me. Wow, this really is because I don't think
I ever loved myself in my former exist Since I
loved what I was doing. I loved taking care of people.
I subscribed to the labels. I met the need like
(01:01:09):
it was that overachieving thing, that competitive thing. I had
to be a size zero, I had to have my
hair done, the nails of this that, and I thought
that's what I needed to be loved. So did I
love myself? No, I existed and I existed in those relationships. However,
now I can say, since I was being together, I
(01:01:31):
have absolutely found love within myself and I found that
by being able to be myself not be the labels.
Speaker 6 (01:01:41):
Dang it, I was actually gonna say the exact same thing. Yes,
like I really did not. I didn't love myself. I
didn't care about myself. I cared about one thing and
one thing only, and that was being married, in a relationship,
with my career and fulfilling something I set out to
(01:02:01):
do since I was like probably the age of three.
But now, like I went in, left one job with
a label, label, created a business with a label, and
now I'm just Chris with Jen and yeah, i think
I'm more in love with myself now than I've ever
(01:02:22):
been in my life.
Speaker 9 (01:02:25):
Excellent question asked. It's a good segue. I took a
good segue into us closing out the show. So one
of the things I do want to say.
Speaker 1 (01:02:35):
For all those listeners who are at the point in
their lives where they're looking for love and they're within
this age group or or not in this age group, right,
whatever age you are today, don't be afraid to go
back to the days when you were your team. What
you're looking for in love in the year, in the
(01:02:56):
early years versus what you're looking for today may be different.
They may be the same aim, but you'll find from
this group anyway that they were different and and I
would venture to say that you're in the same predicament.
Speaker 2 (01:03:10):
UH.
Speaker 9 (01:03:10):
So learn from what you.
Speaker 1 (01:03:13):
What what you experienced, the good and the bad in
the early years, but discover yourself for what you you love.
And that should be uh the first and foremost in
uh finding that true love or that relationship that will
take you into the later years of your life.
Speaker 9 (01:03:32):
So that was beautiful. Thank you.
Speaker 10 (01:03:35):
The words are rhythm.
Speaker 3 (01:03:40):
So with that said, thank you all for coming tonight.
Speaker 1 (01:03:45):
To my hosts and guests, thank you very much to
be a guest on the show. Contact the email on
the on the show notes. Want more of Unveiled podcast shows.
Monetary doing to support the podcast are now accepted on
cash apps, PayPal, good Pods, tip jar, or go to
(01:04:07):
the website at www dot ws B, i l LC
dot com. Again, we'd like to thank you for all
for listening to us tonight. We will be back next
month on a Thursday evening at seven pm. Be sure
to follow us on iHeartRadio, speaker, YouTube, or wherever you
listen to your podcasts. Until then, enjoy the rest of
(01:04:30):
your evening.
Speaker 3 (01:04:31):
Thank you, hye bye bye ye
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