It Ain’t Nobody’s Business

thing to mention, we're married. We are. We created this podcast to open dialogue about some of life's most taboo topics, things most folks don't want to talk about through the lens of a millennial married couple. Dead ass is the term that we say every day. So when we say dead ass, we're actually saying facts, the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Were about to take pillow talk to a whole new level. Dead ass starts right now.

I'm going to take this story back. So when we were nineteen years old, Okay, all right, this is a time when Cadein had just moved into Hostra. You and I were all into each other, like all into each other every single day doing this, doing that. I remember telling my father when I was about nineteen, and I was like, I'm gonna get married to this girl and he laughed, I don't know you had a moment like that. Yeah,

I was nineteen. This was um summertime. You had had the allergic reaction to the medication the sofa, and I didn't know what's gonna happen. I remember that feeling like yo, like I don't know what life would be like if something happened to this girl. And I remember saying, my pops, and I think we gonna mater her and he laughed. It was like you only nineteen, you have no idea. Then, my mom, it was like, you know, don't you think? You and Devout, I mean you and Cadine, are you know,

moving too fast? You're playing house Like this isn't good for you guys. You guys need to take some space. And I remember Andrew English saying to me, oh, you guys love each other. Now, okay, we'll see in a couple of months. I pretty much remember everybody that I spoke to saying that you and I were never ever ever gonna work, and now look at us and The funny thing is they couldn't fathom this making sense because we were so young and just doing everything that people

told us we shouldn't be doing at that age. And look at where we are now, just me, you, just the two of us. We can make it if we try, just the two of us, you and hey, just the two of us. Baby, that's a tool right off into the sunset, because we we it's been sunny. It's been some dog gloomy days, doing some thunderstorms, some minsoons, some tornadoes, the hurricanes, earthquakes, fires, there's been a lot. It's been in almost twenty years, but it's been just the two

of us. All right, Well, let's take a break and then we can come back into unpacking story time and talking more about keeping social media opinions out of your relationship. No, not just social media, everybody being opinions in general of your relationship. Okay, guys, so we're back, are back, and today I can't I can't wait to talk about this

because I'm actually pretty proud of us. Yes, I'm I'm proud of us because along this this twenty year journey, there's been a lot of people who told us that it wasn't gonna work doing it the way we're doing it, Like a lot of people, we got friends, family, social media, like a lot of people out of y'all is out there betting against us, betting against saying it was never gonna work. Right, And it's okay because we understand what it is. You know what I mean. It's not seeing

certain things. No, it's not okay. It's not okay. We'll go ahead, finish what you were saying. But if I was gonna say it's okay, because people cannot foresee things when it's the road less traveled, right, because we're all inclined to do what everyone else is doing most of the time, or we're always taking approval from them asses

or from the family and friends. So in that effort to seek approval, people usually will decide not to do the things that they want to do, or will you know, hide their feelings or dampen their feelings because they feel like, you know what, I don't want to have to deal with the scrutiny or the potential ridiculing or the potential failure, because then you have the people that will hit you with the will I told you all this wasn't going to work, you know, So unless you're strong enough to

deal with that, or just don't want to deal with that, I can see how some people will succumb to that.

My my issue with with that is you exist in a relationship with the other person right when you're trying to figure out how this relationship is going to work with you, all the other people who are outside of the relationship have no dog in a fight, right, So to me, whatever advice they give you, you should take it with a grain of salt, because that person cannot teach you how to figure out your partner if they don't exist with within your relationship. What I it happens

to a lot of people is take social media for example. Right, they'll post things on social media about their relationship, and when other people say things about their relationship, then they start to second guess what they're doing in their relationship. For example, it's gonna be I'm gonna use an extreme example because it's I wanted to be extreme for a reason. Right. What if you and I were swingers, right, and we enjoyed swinging, So then we say on social media, Canina

and I enjoy swinging? So now we put out there with swinging. Of course, the vast majority of people like, oh my god, what's the point of being married if you're gonna include other people in your bedroom? What if it's out of out of that right? So then once they say that, typically people like, dang, they're right, maybe I shouldn't be swinging. So then they stopped swinging because they want to appease the people who are following them on social media, or their family or their friends. Because

sometimes it's not social media. Sometimes you know, your family finds out that just swinging, and then it's you shouldn't be doing that, blah blah blah blah, your friends find out and for the record, we're not swingers. I'm using this. I'm using this extreme example because they'll start propositioning us, don't put the close friends, but y'all being there close friends doing all sorts of crazy because people do do that.

And the funny thing is we've we've recently saw a couple through someone else's closest friends who openly have sex when they're close friends. And my first response was, if they're happy doing that and it works for them, then that's fine. There was not one thing in my mind that was just like why would they do that. It was just like, if they're enjoying it and they you know,

they like it, then that's up to them. But what happens typically is they say, for example, like I said, the extreme example that we said, we're swinging, all these people start to say that we shouldn't do it. Then we try to practice what those people say should work best for us. So now in order to appease them, we start catering and curating our relationship to their wants

as opposed to our wants. And now we're unhappy in our relationship, but we're putting on the facade to everyone else that we are in order to make them feel happy about our relationship. That makes no sense, but a lot of people do that. And one thing I'll say, I'm proud of us. I don't think that we've ever done that. We've never done that with our relationship. We don't do that. Even with our content that we put out there on social media. Is a very parallel situation.

You know, we've been asked a tons of times, like, you know, your content, where does it come from? What do you guys decide what you're going to put out there or not? Do you listen to the comments and then change your content if people don't agree with this or people are not watching that. And the response is always no, because what happens is we're going to put content out and the people that it's meant for and the people who are going to receive it, we'll receive it.

And if you don't, it just was not meant for you. And then the truth of the matter is is that's how it is with relationship. Yeah, right. People have to learn to live within their relationship and stop seeking approval from people outside of their relationships. That don't matter, whether it's social media and family and friends. So went and printed up some facts and stats. You know, I love your your Your trouble is terrible. You need to man, just stop stop. Let me do the trouble, all right.

Three powerful ways influences impact your relationships. They will either speak truth or breathe lies to you, shaping your mood, opinions towards your husband and your marital foundation. Husband or wife. Influencers will plant seeds of desires in your heart mind that will determine your actions. Will either encourage or discourage you in your dreams for your marriage. So influencers meaning people who are putting content out there like no, no, no no,

this is not just about social media. It's just influencial. So what happens is is will we'll get into any influence, any influences for example, for example, the hidden negative influences, sugarcoated goodness. Right, you know that best friend you love that always has your back, I'm going to be honest with I'm gonna be honest. If her having your back is more of her agreeing to everything you say, she is not the influence he or she is not the

influence you need. Keep her as the best friend. Sure, talk to her about challenges within your marriage. No, by her constantly agreeing with you, she is confirming lies you may you might be telling yourself, and it's obviously biased. So this is what happens. Right, for this example, you

and I both have friends. Some of us have those friends who are like yes friends, yes, friends, I'm saying, So when I'm upset at you, if I decide to go to my friends and I know we're gonna yuess me and I just tell them, this is what happened. This is what KaDee did right, regardless of whether I'm wrong or not. They're willing to just be like, yeah, bro, you need to do this, or do you have any

friends like that? Honestly though, because I feel like within our circle group, yeah, both you and I in the palm of my hand can fit my closest friends. And to say that, at least for us, we don't have that, but everyone does have a most friend. Yes. But and here's the thing with with my friends. One of the people I can fight in the most my Boidolo. Then um,

I got my brother Brian. These are two guys that I can fight in with my marriage because they'll give me an unbiased, objective opinion not only about myself but about the entire situation. And they'll both code it owns you by saying, well, you know what goes on between you and Cadeine, but from what you're telling me, So even by them saying that is letting me know that they're putting a disclaimer, Like listen, bro, you're the only

one that knows. But based on what you told me, this is what I feel and this is what I see, and they'll hold me accountable. Accountability is important. But when you have that yes friend who doesn't ever want to hold you accountable, because they're more they feel more pleased by just having you like them. That's a terrible person to seek advice about your marriage. That guest friend can tend to also be also transformed into what I like

to call that dearer self friend, the energizer friend. And when I put the battery in your back, you know y'all know about that friend is just like guess like amping up the situation. And sometimes you know, it could be a situation where you have a friend that could be jealous of your lifestyle, of your relationship. Maybe it's that single friend that has no like you said, dog in the fight, or has no idea what it's like

to even be involved in the relationship. They may feel like they know you as a person, but then they have a responsibility. I feel like to be honest with you and say, girl or bro, you know how you are. Is it possible that it may have been seen this way? So you kind of want to make sure that when you are divulging these potential issues that you have within your relationship to someone, it's someone who can see both sides or at least acknowledge that there's both sides and

not just yes to to death. Some people are okay with someone asking them to death because they feel like, all right, well I have that's what they want, what they want, And usually I think for the most part, when people see advice, I would say people seek advice for affirmation that they may be right in their stance, and not necessarily clarity or an opinion. What do you think? Yeah, I I agree with you. I feel like the vast majority of people, especially because of the social media, and

we're gonna do a whole podcast on social media. But people want likes, People want approval, right, especially people who may have some insecurities or may feel like the world is against them. They want that person that's just going to agree with them so they can feel strongly about their opinion, as opposed to finding someone who's gonna objectively tell them based on what you told me, this is how I feel, and also say I can't give you the answers, right, You have to constantly look for the

answers within your relationship from your partner. But you can also seek counsel to gain a greater perspectively right, And and that's what I don't want people to misconscrue. Right, seeking counsel to gat to gain a greater a greater prospect. It's not the same thing as seeking affirmation so that you can feel better about how you feel. You know what I'm saying about what's going on in your relationship

and the differences. Seeking counsel to create a greater perspective can also teach you to see from your partner's perspective. They don't give you the answer of how to deal with the situation, but they may say, maybe your partner is feeling like this, and once again, that person is teaching you how to once again look towards your partner for the answer, as opposed to saying, yeah, bro, you're right, you should do this because you get a lot of

that Yeah, I wouldn't. I wouldn't let my wife do that. Perfect example, we talked about finances on this podcast a lot. There was a point where we were struggling with our finances because we were learning how to work together as a team and build a foundation financially because we had different mindsets on finances. Your parents didn't talk well with you about finances. My father talked a lot to me

about finances. I felt like I was a little bit more prepared, so when it came time to work with you on it, I was just like, how do I get candeinmed to experience what I experienced. I had some friends just be like, no, this is why you need to pay half the rent, you need to pay half the mortgage, you need to do this, and I was just like that, but that's not that's not what I want to do. You know what I'm saying. That wouldn't be fulfilling to me number one, but that's not how

our relationship works. And he's like, well, at my house we do this. And then for me, I could have been like, well, let me try to do what they do in their house, but that might not have been the answer. So I chose not to do it, and we figured out our way through constantly talking about it. But I did listen to their perspective. But I didn't just say I'm going to curate my relationship to look like yours. You know what I'm saying, absolutely to sense. I think a lot of people need to learn that.

And speaking of curating relationships to look like others, the innocent comparison game, all right. I was looking at this and I was like, you don't know these people here. Social media couples, you know, the ones who offended up on vacation three days out of the year. Couples them, stop it and follow them? What good are they bringing you if you have to feel like your marriage is somehow missing out because it doesn't look like there's it's a negative influence and you need to cut that follow

cold Turkey. Now, it could be two things. I think with this. You follow those couples that are on vacation and doing their thing and whatnot, because it's it's an aspirational lifestyle that's very involved in social media, right, so you follow people that make you feel good, or you follow people that you know. You might say to yourself, you know what, I can envision myself doing this one day or doing that one day based off of what

you see. So I don't know if it's necessarily a hard unfollowed for me, but if it's a thing where you feel like, man, these people on vacation three days out the year and I'm just you know, counting down to I get my little two weeks vacation so I can go away. Don't be fooled. A lot of times this recycled content because they don't shoot thousands words of content on their one week vacation and then stretch that joint out for about three months. Mokes and mirrors, y'all,

Smokes and mirrors protect your mental health. If that's the case, if you need to one follow, do that. But I think you need to kind of take that with a grain of salt and just understand that what you see on social media is not necessarily always the reality. But but the truth of the matter is that you can't

blame those comples for posting that way. You have to you have to say to yourself, like, like you just said, if looking at this content makes me feel good and makes me inspired to get up and work harder so I can reach that point in my life, it's good. If it makes you look at your spouse and be like, we don't fucking go nowhere, then that's a horrible follow because now what you're doing is comparing your life to other people's life, and you don't know how real that

life is. And like I said, we're gonna talk in full about social media on another episode, but what I think is important that you brought up is how it makes you feel. Right if you're following people and it's constantly making you become more self loathing, more depressed, more jealous, and give you more anxiety. Look at your partner, like, you know, I wish you would do things like this person, that's a bad way to to be in a relationship. And that might just even be a person thing, a

person to person thing. And I say that because even the story about us, I think we might have told it before, where we used to go down and visit our friends who were a married couple at the time that lived in Virginia, had a huge home out there. We would drive down and go for weekends and have

a ball out there. And for us, we saw that as like motivation, like we'd go down there, it was almost like being on a resort for weekends, and then we would just take that drive back to New York feeling so inspired and feeling like, man, one day, we want to be able to live comfortably like this, where our children have space and we'll have space, and we can have space to entertain our friends and family and have them over. And for us, we didn't take that

as damn. Now I'm going back to this sucks apartment in Brooklyn, and now I'm mad at Devout because he brings me back to this. You know, Crown Heights, you know on New York Avenue, like damn, you know, instead of that being the approach for us, that was something we continue to do because we felt inspired by that. So it could be a person to person thing and how you tend to dissect Listen, it's always a person of person thing. That's why you can't blame the influences,

whether it be family or friends or social media. You have to look within right First, as a person, you have to look within and saying what influences are making me negatively feel feel negatively about my spouse. Then you have to look inwardly at the relationship and saying what can we do to create a better life for ourselves, as opposed to looking outward and saying how can our lives mimic this? Because even mimicking someone else may not

make you happy. You could spend all of your time saying I'm going to curate my life to be exactly like this person. For example, what if you're not into swinging right? You and I were not into swinging right, Say we're having a sexually, which happens in marriages, and it's like, how can I get out this rut right, as opposed to saying, let me speak to my wife and figure out my wife wants to need and figure it out. A lot of people say, well, that couple

looks like they're having fun. What are they doing? But then you asked them what are y'all doing and they say, oh, we're swinging. Now you're trying to swing with your wife, right, And it's the whole last fight. And you go to a party and it's a swinger party, and now your wife is over there sucking somebody else dick, and now you're mad. Now you're mad because you tried to act like the swingers. Your wife is enjoying herself. Ry spring,

you know what I'm saying. And all because you tried to curate your life from swinger the springer, y'all from swinging the springer. That's from from swinging the springer. You you try to curate your life somebody else. Look, we see what you used to watch? What you're supposed to be in school? How wasn't school? But when I went to my grandmother after that we used to sit, we have some tea and some heartobread and watch all this The reason all the shows shout out to my grandmother

makes you rest in shout out to Grandma Joseph. But but you know, I completely get it. When you try to curate your life like someone else's thinking that because their happiness looks so great, that you could have their happiness, and you try it and you feel pissy, that's when it's like, you see, all you have to do is speak to your partner conversation and then also to piggyback

on that whole thing we talked about un following. But then you also kind of know what boundaries are needed for you to kind of clear your mind or clear

your spaces certain things. Because if you're not a person that is able to follow these things that you tend to see or as aspirational you tend to see is feel good, if they in turn are making you not feel good, then you should be able to know, you know what I need to unfollow, I need to block I need to create this boundary with this family member or this friend who is not just putting healthy thoughts

in my mind. Absolutely so, boundaries are very very the desensitizer, which is next, This is this is more important than social media. This is our generation has been caught with this one more than social media, because social media is fairly new what you hear and see. Hollywood has such a great way of glamorizing everything, including thinking patterns, ideas, and behaviors that are dangerous for marriages. Be aware of

the shows you are watching over and over. Do not let their ideas and desires eventually become yours, especially how you treat your husband or wife. Again, there is a lot more science behind what you're allowing your brain to receive than what you realize. For example, and I'm gonna become from from a male standpoint, right, Hollywood has made us fall in love or glamorized with the night and Shining Armor. Right, you have to be this way in order to be considered a night and Shining armor. Right.

You have to be tall, dark, handsome, make money, perfect teeth, ads, and you have to find a woman who is a damsel in distress that you can save. Right. Hollywood tells us these stories. Disney Disney is yeah, you see what I'm saying. Disney has shown us and while they don't haven't done Disney movies, but they have been part of movies romantic commedies where they've saved the woman. Right, So, as a man, we've been taught in our life like I need to find a woman to save from Hollywood.

Like that's part of it, right, Women is like don't need to be said what I'm saying, and and what if? What if you you find a woman who not only doesn't need to be saved, but what if you need to be saved and you find a woman who can bring more into your life to be of service to you, to help you, and you can serve her in ways. So now you're trying to curate your relationship to based

on what you've seen in Hollywood. But you fall in love with a woman who doesn't fit the damsel in distress, or if you're a woman and you fall into a man who doesn't fit the tall, dark and handsome, but now you're like, well he's not what I expected, but I'm in of So you know what, you know what these people trying to do. They try to change their spouse or they try to talk themselves out of it.

How many times have we seen a person that is with somebody that treats them like like you know, we've you know, does everything for them, is there for them it's like all the things, but it's like Homegirls glunting for punishment because she was with the Homeboys in the past, we're treating her like shit. So now it's like, oh my god, this is the one person that just adores me, but he does not necessarily fit them all of what I thought I wanted. I'm gonna talk this, talk myself

out of this. What could be my fever person? And we are all guilty of creating an idea of our forever person based on the things that we've watched on TV. Yes, I know our generation in particular because we watched a lot of TV. There was no YouTube and Google back then, so we watched TV and said, I want my person to look like everything that I've seen. And before social media,

there's reality television. Think about all the shows where they're showing these lifestyles that are supposed to be something glamorized, which I think over time has shown to be more hot messages than anything. But but um, there's that influence out there that I think people still compare their relationships to regularly. And here's the last one. Go ahead, the

unavoidable negative influences. So we have say unavoidable in quotes right families, which I don't necessarily think it is unavoidable because we did have the episode we talked about creating ourselves to that. However, they are unavoidable to some degree. But you have to remember that within families that ground rules are necessary. Remember we talked about boundaries, right, and really talk to your husband or wife about being a

united front. Family members have a way of being able to create sparks and marriages, not the good time, not the good kind, y'all. Um, So tread lightly and look to see how the influences of your family is either positive or negative to your relationship, especially your dreams as a couple. So if you were or if I were you, I would purge out the negative influences in your marriage and only seek the positives. So you and I talked

about this. There was a point where your mom was thinking that we want to do things the right way. My mom was thinking we weren't doing things the right way. My dad was thinking we weren't doing things the right way. And we didn't purge them out of our lives because this had the unquote unavoidable because you can avoid them in some degree. Um, And we did avoid you avoid my mom mom for two years. But you and I also avoided going to my parents home four times because

we wanted to live a certain way. No exactly, Yeah, I remember the times we lived in Michigan and your your dad, Um, we would come back to New York and this is this is the grind devours gears, y'all. At this point we Devot was in the NFL and we were in Michigan living in Detroit together. Um, and they came to bought a home and everything. They came to visit us. I think it was for Thanksgiving or some holiday, and his parents came and stayed with us,

and all was well. A couple of weeks or months after, we go back to New York now to stay in New York for a couple of days or weeks or whatever, and Devo's dad pretty much tells us that we are not allowed to sleep together in the same room in his home because we're not married yet. Devout blew a whole gasket. He was just like, excuse me. First of all, you came to my house in Michigan a couple of weeks ago and stay there comfortably because you wasn't about

to pay for no hotel room. However, now that I'm in your house, and I was like, oh, it is his house. I guess it's his rule. But so you know what we did. We didn't stay at his house. We didn't stay in this house. Nope, we didn't stay in it. Was concerned about the influence we would be to his sister and all kinds of stuff. And yeah,

still not convinced. I'm not convinced to that. One thing I know about my father's she's extremely frugal, So he was he was willing to at that time bypass his morals and his moral compass to stay at our house because he was not going to pay for a hotel for a week. And my sister was there. My sister watched us live in our own house and sleep in the same bed at every night. But then when we came to live in Brooke, and it was like, oh,

I don't think it's appropriate. If you really didn't think it was that appropriate, your ass would have stayed in the hotel when you was in Michigan. Were trying to have your back, but I couldn't on this one bro And and the thing is, it's fine because it's your house. Absolutely were gonna respect it. But the point is people have been telling us our entire relationship how we should

do things, from parents to to cousins too well. Our sisters and brothers have always have been supportive of us, but friends, social media like, there's always been a group of people who've always been like, no, you should live this way, and we've ignored them. And I think in part because we've ignored them is the reason why we've had success finding our our niche within our own marriage, Because realistically, no one can tell me how to treat Cadein other than Cadein. No one can tell me what

Cadein wants and needs other than Codein. So why would I even ask someone you understand what I'm saying? No, I completely understand what you're saying. Allow me to play devil's advocate though, real quick. So we're talking about the

unavoidable negative influences that are family. What do you do in the circumstance where you see a friend, a sibling, uh, you know, a family member who may legitimately be in a toxic relationship, or maybe talking to someone who you can kind of foresee that this is a fun boy or funk girl, and you don't necessarily want them to

be with that family member. But the person may not be as receptive to your advice, or they may think that you're just hating on the relationship, or you're speaking of a place of being jaded or tainted by your own So, like, how do we decipher when it's okay to give that honest opinion? So here's here's the truth. Right, It's always okay to give that honest opinion, solicited or unsolicited,

especially if you think it could be to someone's detriment. Right, So, if you think someone could be hurt, it's always okay to say this is what I see, But it's not okay to tell someone this is what you should do. You see what I'm saying, So offering up the advice or the opinion or as my family would say, my spirit, don't really take that that person there, you know, we've always had that or to be like their energy something

about the energy. I don't know, but just be weird, right, right, And the thing is, it's fine, But when when it's not fine is when that person crossed the line and say you need to do this to that person or you need to not do this with that person because you know what, I'm saying that that person who's looking also has a very limited perspective because they're not existing within the relationship. So I'm not saying that what they see is not valid, but what they see is from

their perspective. They can give you their perspective, and you have the right to either receive it or not receive it. But when someone starts telling you how you should behave within your relationship, that's completely wrong because that person doesn't even have enough information to tell you how to move within your relationship. But they do have the right to always tell you what they see because you may have blinders on and may not be able to see what

that person sees. But that's why it's okay to take someone's perspective, lock it, and say, let me think about this. But then I still have to speak to my partner about what I want, what I need, and find out what he or she wants and needs, saying I completely get that, because I feel like, at least if you've give an opinion and you're not necessarily making moves to

then break this couple up or something like that. If it's just an opinion, that's okay, because I a story came to mind that I can't probably can't tell it because it'll just do too much. However, there's a there's somebody that I know who was in a relationship with someone still to this day in the relationship. But said family member came along and was just like, mm hmm, I don't like that person for you. I don't think I should be together. And then they were like, well,

I'm in love. This is what it is. This person gonna be around, That's what it is. Said person went back and tried to literally like find ways to break them up, and then once those failed, and then once the couple found out about these said person trying to break them up, she no longer wanted to have any relationship with this person. And then it's a family member. So how do we then go on to make things, you know, continue to be just normal. You know, how

can it be normal from here on out? It can't be. It can never be normal. It can never be normal. But it's just the fact that someone was actually going through like these drastic lengths to break up somebody relationship. You know, But that happens me while I had no relationship of their own. See, But but that happens often because then it says, well, why why was the person

going to those extremes to do that? And then you just mentioned it, right, Misery loves company, and sometimes people are are so blinded by their own misery that they're not able to see that someone else is legitimately happy. You're like, that's reality. I mean, if it's easy to say that, that's all that should matter, but people don't operate that way. Like if we existed in the utopia, where people just focused on what should really matter, we

would have no issues. But that's that's not the case, you know, And and if we're being artists. Because the world's wealth is controlled by one percent of the population, there's a lot of people in this world who are unhappy about their situation, seriously, and when people are unhappy, it's hard for them to find happiness in other people's joy.

So it's just like, you know what, there's a lot of like cynical people out there in the world, which is another reason why you can't trust your relationship in the hands of other people. Like if we if we really really think about it, if me and you are going to build a life together, the perfect life we want, what point the didn't make to ask other people or accept other or accept other people's advice or opinions about how you and I are going to build our life.

We're the only ones that have to live it. They can watch, but they really can't help. They can't. And when you start to use them as your barometer of our happiness, now you're in the place because you could be perfectly happy, but it's like, let me see if other people are happy for me. And then when they start to give their opinions about things, and then that starts to weigh on you, and their projections start to become your reality. Other people's got a bar. Other people's

projections can never become your reality. That's the bar. I'm gonna say it again. I'm gonna say other people's projections can never become your reality. And the minute you make their projections your reality, you're living in a fake space that you'll never be able to find happiness in because it's not real. It's just someone else's projection. Now you're trying to exist and make their projection your reality, you'll

never live up to that standard. Curated content at that point, y'all, exactly how does curated content do doesn't engage, but doesn't engage well, doesn't curated content doesn't engage. Well, that's the truth, though it's truth. If you curate your life the people's life, it will never work. That's a fact. Your marriage is only as strong as the influence you keep. That's pretty dope. Peel and Johnson said that it's pretty dope. And what

we do we tend to. If we wanted to seek advice or seek some sort of you know, counsel from someone, then you have the select people who you know you can do that with. We have couples who have been married longer than us together still you know, have had of course their fair share of trials and tribulations, have raised chill, drin and all that, so you tend to.

My advice, too, would be to seek the council from people who are living similarly to what you live or you aspire to be like, because I'm not going to seek parenting advice from a person kids, you know, a

vice versa. Whence the marriage and whatnot. But but it's also important to say that seeking council doesn't mean that you have to mimic their life, because ultimately that's the issue, right people try to mimic other people's happiness or they try to curate what they think is happiness, and if it's not real or if it doesn't work for you, then you'll never find it. Then you start to feel more depressed. Right. Um, James and Shonda, they've been married.

They've been married longer than us. They have three boys, but at the time we met them, we had three boys. You you've just gotten pregnant. Now we have four boys, but two of their boys are college graduates, Division one scholarship athletes. Right, so we have children who aspire to be athletes. So when it comes to seeking advice, we're seeking counsel. I'm in the seek council from someone who

lived that life already. But even when I speak to James, James never says, bro, you gotta do it like this. He says to me, you have to find ways to communicate with your spouse or your sons so that you can get the um result that you want. So when he was talking to me, I'm like this, he's really not giving me any answers. He's not giving me. He's look with it because you know your wife and your son's best and you know how to communicate with them.

The best advice I always get from people is always people who are telling me find better ways to communicate to why I can get the answers from the people who I'm trying to build a relationship with, whether it's my wife or my sons. And I'm starting to realize, like, none of these people who gave me these advice gave it to me and told me do it like this, because that's a controlling aspect too, right, When someone tells you to live this way, they want to control you.

But when someone's telling you to find ways to communicate so you can find the answer within, that's someone who truly has your best interests at heart. You know who was good for that for me? Dolo. When I used to go in there and event about the issues we had, Dolo never ever said to me, now, bro, you gotta move like this. He always pointed out the ways that

I might have messed up in our communication process. For example, I say we were going over bills, and his first thing would be like, well when you said it, devout, how did you say it? Because he knows and he knows me, And he was just like, well, she's not a child she's not a prototype mentee, she's not an employee. So if you're speaking from a place of of being condescending or authority, she's not going to receive it. Well, you know what I'm saying. So you got to now

depends on the scenario or the venue fact. But when we're talking about five days as you ain't trying to hear that of that. But I was starting to understand. His advice was never like, well you need to give her more bills. Well, you know what I'm saying. Appreciate that. I know you would appreciate that, but no, I trust me. Good advice versa goes the same for our friends that understand how you operate, and I do as well. Christina knew we had on this season. Always gave good advice,

always give good advice. So we appreciate having our little circle friends are a big circle of friends. They're a little bit big in our life. That makes sense. All right, y'all, let's go pay some bills. I think that was a good time, right, and then come back and we're gonna see what's going on with y'all this week in the listener letters. All right, so stick around, we'll be back all right, guys, we're back with listener letters. Yes, sir, ladies first today. Okay, all right, I'm gonna try my

best to keep this short. It's not thank you though. We love it though. Okay. I'm a single mother. I'm twenty eight, soon to be twenty nine. Alio. I've been seeing this guy for about two years now. I've known him since high school. I've always had a thing for him since the day I saw him. It sounds like me. Once we started seeing each other, things were great in

the first few weeks, then soon after everything changed. He started acting different, would ghost me for days, even weeks at a time, then come back like, hey, what you're doing. I've heard that people hate that what you do in text after not having a text for a long time. Okay, so maybe I'm just naive or just blinded, But during all this time, I fell in love. I'm going to explain how. We spent some time together. And it's very few people that I connect with on so many levels.

So I'm really confused on how someone treats me like I mean nothing, but he means so much to me when we're together, we have bound conversation, we've been out together, a few times. I used to love the late night car rides with music playing in the background. We would just park and talk. I made dinner for his man. He's great with my son. Oh, I made dinner for this man. So him, I thought make sure he was making dinner for everybody. I made dinner for this man.

He's great with my son and really a great person overall. He told me how he feels about me, but he sucks at showing it. I love the way he makes me feel when we're together. I feel like a woman. I feel loved, secure, the way he holds me, the way he looks at me. I feel I can be the best and worse with him. He motivates me. He makes me want to reach for every single goal that I've set for myself. Oh, this is getting really muchy.

I love it. I have so many insecurities about myself, and he tells me that I'm beautiful and he sees nothing wrong. At the same time, he makes me feel like I'm nothing and mean nothing. So he says he doesn't want a relationship right now. I told him I'd rather be your best friend and wait and just support him with his career. He's a rap artist and pretty well known in my city Tulsa, Oklahoma. Very handsome guy. And I know it's all the ends of women are

after him. I really just want to know if something's worth working on or working towards. This is something to work towards. You're squinting, baby, Why you squinting? Um? It

just sounds like he doesn't want to settle down. Says he just doesn't want to settle down, and he's making you feel all the things that he may ghost you because it's a possibility that you might be making him feel all the things too, or he just may be saying to himself, she's starting to feel a little bit more for me than I feel for her, So let me ease up so that way I don't hurt her feelings.

So I can appreciate that he's not being a douchebag about the situation, but he's also not being upfront as being up fund he said he doesn't want a relationship, and she may be one of many. Oh, he did say that, Yes, he said he was up front with that. Yet and he right. He may be a great guy. He may honestly be a really great guy and very supportive. And you're a great girl and knows you're a great girl.

But if he doesn't want a relationship, he may have other women that when he's not spending time with you, he's spending time with them. And I think he could be more forthcoming by saying, hey, we're not exclusive, so you know if there's someone else or not. But I honestly feel like if he's ghosting you for days and weeks at a time, he's there's definitely other women are the people. So I feel like when people show you who they are the first time, you believe them. He's

a great guy. He makes you feel all of the fields, but he doesn't fully give you everything that you want and need unless she's willing to commit to telling him everything he wants and needs and telling him which is gonna sound crazy, but ultimately giving him an ultimatum saying hey, I want to exist in this space with you exclusively. I don't like being ghosted. If he says, okay, cool, let's do this, then you know what you're staying. If he says now, I'm good, then you can go back to,

like you said, being his best friend. Because you said you did like being friends, you can Guys can be friends and then keep it there. But right now it seems like they're both being mature adults. I don't get the ghosting thing. I know that that's a um that's like a date thing that happens with millennials and gen zers now everyone talks about being ghosted, but um, I never got it. I think it's a part to do with the fact that we don't communicate well as a generation.

You know, people text, text, don't text, don't call text messages. Sorry, y'all, no love loss, But it do be like that. And and she I think she needs to be a friend about it exactly what she wants. Tell him you don't like being ghosted. Tell him you want to be exclusive and you wanted to be some consistency and communication. See what he says. If he says, I'm with it, let's try it. Give him grace as he tries, give yourself

grace as you learn each other. But if he says that he doesn't want to do that, you gotta be willing to say, hey, I love that sounds good. Number two, Hi Condeinian Devote. My husband and I are big fans of your show. Thank you so much, Thank you for is being so real and transparent and letting your life shine. We appreciate you, um. I really enjoy listening to you both talk about being married and how you redefine what marriage looks like for you. You two our goals. We

appreciate that. As my husband and I are vastly approaching one year of being married, I feel as if I haven't been able to fully enjoy this beautiful blessing because I feel guilty for slipping away from my family and friends. Family has always been extremely important to me. That was instilled in me as a young girl to never put

anyone or anything before your blood. I feel guilty at times for my happiness and moving different now than I'm married, and I don't want this feeling to affect my marriage moving forward. My husband has been very supportive and patient with me as I did with my emotions. I need your help. How did you overcome any feelings of leaving the families you know to create a family with each other. I look forward to seeing y'all live one day. We will definitely be live soon at Nashville as a stop.

Much love and blessings to you. I'm gonna let you take this one because you and your brother and your sister are mad close wow, close out clothes. You became my wife and there had to be not a separation but an understanding. So talk a little bit about how you so. The great thing about this, which I which I was waiting forward to see if she would say in this, is that she said her husband was very supportive and patient with her as she dealt with these emotions.

I think I can say the same for you, and that you understand how important my family, particularly that my brother and sister there are to me. So you've always made provisions to say, Okay, you miss your brother, you want him to come live with us for a little bit. My brother lived with us in Michigan when he was in the in the middle of transferring schools for four months. Right now we're here in this house. I pop up and be like, hey, Zakaria is coming to town tomorrow.

You never beat and I because at this point Zakari is like your sister. She's literally like your baby sister. So having the support of a spouse that allows you to still love on your family as needed, I think is something that's paramount and it's very very important. But sis is you and your husband talk about it. It's you and your husband when you get married. What is the saying, oh, woman leaves, a man leaves and leaves

to his woman Bible. Not when the man finds a wife of them to create a family and that becomes that becomes your family, so that in turn is your family. And I don't think according to this that your family is necessarily making you feel a way about having your husband, because it seems like according to this, because she hasn't mentioned it, that your family may be okay with it.

In your family, I'm sure understands that you are now someone's whole last wife, and you guys are going to be building a relationship together and then your own family, your own nuclear or family if you decide to have children. So let me ask this question. For her to feel guilt, that guilt has to be coming from somewhere. Guilt doesn't just come out of nowhere. I mean, yes, to know because I think about, for example, mom guilt. My kids don't necessarily say to me, Mommy, you're not doing X

y Z for me to feel mom guilt. It could just be me feeling guilt in myself because of how I want to move. But what happens, though, when you leave, the baby cries, that's how you get guilt. Mom guilt comes from a reaction to something happening that's traumatic to you that you don't like to see. Right, Sometimes people don't typically get guilty when everything is going well. People

typically get guilty when something is not going as planned. Yes, maybe mom guilt is not the right analogy, because I can tend to be like I know, for example, if I walk away from the quota, he's gonna be fine, he's gonna be happy, he's gonna smile on my way out. But I still may feel bad about going away for a weekend, for example, and leaving him behind. Recently felt that when we went to New York, you know what I mean? What was? What was? What caused that feeling?

It's just me wanting to be there and me feeling like I should have brought him along with us, just because it would have made me feel better about the situation. It could be that, but you're right, if you're gonna play devil's advocate, it could be somewhere someone's making so if someone giving underhanded, like oh so we don't see you anymore, Miss White. One of those things because that happens.

A lot that does happen. No, No No, I'm absolutely happy you don't have but you do not miss my friend. I used to see my friend. Now you don't come out with us no more. Or you show up at the door one day and it's like, look who the wind blue is. Yeah, I haven't seen you since. Let me scroll the calendar back like one of those things like that happen a lot that can be possible to And shame on them for making you feel that way

if that's the case. Um, but I think you should if anything like you are getting the support you need from your husband, see how you can schedule in those days with family. You know what I mean if it means that much to you, I don't know if it means you going to them more them coming to you. You guys going out and doing things. I don't think family needs to be forfeited once you get married, especially

for something you love and enjoy before. It doesn't need to be forfeited, but it needs to be an understanding that I'm going to consult with my life partner, not absolutely you know before anything. You know, and it's it's not checking in, it's not being submissive. It's not being a simple it's understanding that if two people agreed to be partners in life, that person may need to be involved in the decisions I make. You know what. That's what I'm saying. And what happens is other people aren't

used to you making those provisions. If you've become a spouse, right, and it typically starts when you become someone's boyfriend and girlfriend, right, it becomes the checking in. Let me check in and see if people are yeah, you know, so it's like your friends, you know we're gonna go here. Let me let me hit up someone like what are you hitting them out for? You gotta ask for permission. Typically those friends are not in relationships, so they don't understand what

that means. And you know what I'm saying, And it's not a permission thing. It's a common decency thing, especially if you live with somebody like absolutely, you know someone's gonna be out late and you you're gonna be locking the door, putting the alarm on. Let me know that you're coming in this house laid, so I don't shoot your ass, like just little things like that, or it's like you my black man husband, that might be out

with friends or castmates or whatever. At the end of the night, and I need to know that you're gonna be coming home safe and sound. So if you're gonna be making another stop, or you're gonna be running late, or you're home, I want to know to look out for you. So it's a simple, common decence, you think, absolutely, but it is also a controlled thing when your friends I want to have control over your life and say that. You know, that's a control thing. Oh you gotta ask him,

Oh just come, just come. They're trying to control you, to get you to make a decision without doing this. A lot of friends do that, and that creates guilt within people, like damn, I used to be able to just go on my own, but now you know, say, am I doing too much? Am I moving too fast? Should right there? And that's you know, sometimes friends and family can I don't want to say accidentally, but you know, unknowingly create guilt in a person by making those comments.

Remember we talked about the back handy compliments people make when you start to ascend or what's up, Hollywood, Oh it must must be nice to be you, you know, say, oh you wild lucky. Those same comments to create, you know, guilt within people. We talked about survivors remorse. This creates a sort of guilt within people who are now in relationship, like damn, am I am I moving differently in my forgetting about my family. No, you're not moving and forgetting.

You're moving the way you're supposed to. If you want to build a life and a partnership with someone, that's a fact. So there you go. Good luck to you all. All right, um, if you want to be featured in our listener letters segments, go ahead and submit an email. It's like the lottery. You know, we might pick you, we might not, but send it anyway. I'm just kidding. Send all the emails because we enjoy the love. We love reading everything. Email us at dead as Advice at

gmail dot com. That's d E A d A S s A d V I c E because Cane says, I always forget to eat, even though I think my c rolls and together, because I don't forget to eat, because it would because if I didn't say to eat, be dead ascid, vict, and I can't. I can't have you go to dead acid Vict because we want to get there. It's gonna be like usps mail, ain't never gonna get here, y'all. You're never gonna get here, So that's dead. As advice at gmail dot com. What's truth

moments have we pulled from today's episode. We went over all the things we talked about, those negative hidden influences, share your coded goodness, the innocence comparison game, the desensitizer, the unavoidable negative influences. Anything speak to you in that moment of truth time that we have. Yes, my moment of truth is very simple. Curating your relationship to other people's projections will create a false reality for you and your partner period like that. That's just That's just said.

You cannot curate your relationship to anyone else's projections or expectations because you will always fail at trying to meet someone else's expectations. The only person you should curate this relationship with is the person you are in the relationship with. The dead ass. I love that. I love that. UM. I think for me that I definitely UM agree with

what you said. UM. I think I'm going to talk about from my moment of truth, just the importance of creating boundaries, UM for yourself, sometimes for people around you, um not people not allowing people to have the comfort level that they feel sometimes to be able to project on your relationship. It could be that friend who has been with you, you know, ride to die for years

and you feel like knows. You best be very deliberate about the boundaries that you set for people penetrating your psyche to say, you know what, They may have my best interests at heart, or they may just not be equipped to advise me in this moment, so I need to turn to my spouse or my significant other and really address them directly. My friend can be the sounding board.

My friend can be that source of venting. You know, you just have to sometimes get it out, but not relying solely on what they say as bible for you. Oh God, no one else has to understand your relationship for it to be perfect to you. That is important. That's a good one. The whole world could not understand in your relationship. But if you and your partner are in bliss buck everybody else look at the moment of truth having a whole drop down. Men, you y'all a dropdown?

Add that to it. It's not just one, it's not just two. We got a lot serious, okay, serious, All right now, I love it alright, y'all. Well, that was a nice little chat that we had here. Yes, ma'am, I think y'all should follow us on social media. Um, that's a good thing to do. I mean, even though we talked about social media and boundaries. We hope that you don't have to block us one day because we love to have y'all so dead ask the podcast is

our podcast page? Where were post clips and video and all that good stuff that our team works super super hard on. So shout out to our team, Josh Pack Trible, and you can find me at Cadena. I am and I am devout And if you're listening on Apple podcasts, be sure to rate, review, and subscribe. Dead dead Ass is a production of I Heart Media podcast Network and is produced by the Nora, Pinia and Trible. Follow the podcast on social media at dead as the podcasts and never miss a thing.