We Over Me

we're married. We all. 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 millennium married couple. Dead adds 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. We're about to take philow talk to a whole new level. Dead ass starts right now.

So last year, around April, coming up on my birthday, we were approached with an opportunity to co author a book, Kaudine and I, and at first we were like, I really want to write no book. Like we have our podcasts, we do so much content on social media. I like writing my little uh notes to k underneath my captions and stuff like that. I felt like that was my space. I felt like that's what I wanted to do. Plus, UM,

I feel like you all. Honestly, I feel like relationship books be cheesy because I feel like there's no one way to design a perfect relationship, you know. So I was kind of like, now I don't really want to write a book in and k I was like, you don't really want to write a book neither. So then we sat down with the publishing company. We sat down

with Penguin Random House. Um, we sat down with the literary agent at CIA, and we actually discussed what a book would look like if we co wrote a book, and can I decided that the only way we're going to write a book is if we can write this book differently than any other relationshipship book has ever been written. So they were like, what do you mean? I said, so first, if we're gonna do a relationship book, it's not going to be a collective thought that Codein and

I said, these are the pillars that make a perfect relationship. No, I want to write from my voice and Codein wants to write from her voice, and what we want we want people to read the book understanding that every story has two different perspectives, and understand that you can learn more about our relationship hearing Cadein's perspective about how we met, and then hearing my perspective about how we met, and then hearing a collective respective perspective about how we got

through those moments. So they was like, Wow, that's never been done before. So we chose to move forward and write the book. And I guarantee you, guys, when you sit down and read this book, it's not gonna be like any relationship book you ever read in your life. To goodbye, I need to get bye. Uh. Then I come out of nowhere short of young man for you. Anytime you need me, you're really going in your world.

Believe me. Nothing to make a man feel better than a man queen with a ground that be down for whatever. There's a few things that's forever, My lady. We could make warring made babies back when I was nothing. You made a brother feel like he was something. That's why I'm with you till his day. Boom, No front that is that is us not to mention both the artists from New York Shouling the showering temple. Shoutout Wu tang met the man from Stotton Island. Yes, Mary is from

Mount Vernon. That's a good one. That was the name of our book. It was what was your role? I need? I love that all right, y'all. But all we need to do is pay some bills. So we're gonna do that and come back and we're gonna dive more into We over me, y'all. We're gonna tell you all about this whole book writing process. Babies, stay tuned, all right, guys, we're back. We are back. We over me, y'all. The counter intuitive approach to getting what you want out of

your relationship. Man, let me tell you all. First of all, I had like me. Yeah, I know me by now. I'm cool with de valve Well, I'm cool with devl A, but I'm cool with him for example, filming me like looking tattered and tired around the house and like fresh up in the morning makeup. I know you don't look to at it in tired. Maybe not in the beginning,

maybe in the end. Maybe it's been a long twenty years, y'all, um, but yeah, you used to me doing the videos like that, which I'm totally cool with that you've seen you know, of course, like the Slidelight shoots and like all the fun things like that to me is fun and and great and I'm all for it. But let me tell you all about the anxiety that I had around this book. I don't know what it was for me with this process.

First of all, I will say the process was far less daunting than I thought it was going to be, because if it required me to just put fingers to keyboard and type out a book, it was never gonna happen. But what I did love about the process is that we partnered with our writer. We actually had an interview process with a couple of different people, and then we sat down with a writer who we selected that we felt like knew enough about our history UM and you know,

and had some work on her bell. She understood our voice, so it was perfect to have these touch based sessions with her. UM. But we would kind of just through a zoom sit down and she would ask us a variety of questions about particular portions of our life. Well, what we have to tell them? First? How she got to the questions? So the first thing is we we told her our love story, and we told her exactly how we wanted the story to be told, and she did her research too by watching a lot of our

footage and things like that. I think she had already been like kind of you know, following the yeah, but um. When when we first agreed to do this book, I told him, I said, I do not want to do a Pillars book, you know, the Five Pillars to Love by the Eldest is. No. I didn't want to do nothing like that. I wanted it to be like The Notebook.

Kadeina and I fell in love with this movie called The Notebook, and it's a story about a young couple and it starts from their courting process until their old sixty year old people and they actually fall in love and die holding hands in the nursing home together. And the way we learned about their love story was through their memoirs. As she, I believe, was going through Alzheimer's so she couldn't remember, so she was reading some notes and stuff, and that's how we learned about their love

story through the Notebook. So the concept us for us to create our version of the Notebook, and it was going to be our memoirs. Memoirs through the years of when we first met at eighteen, all the way up until we became adults. But the difference is we weren't going to write it from one perspective. We were going to write it from both Cadean's perspective and my perspective. So it was kind of like, how are we going

to do this? You know? We first wrestled with doing a double sided front cover, which means if you look at the book one way, it would be devals version, and if you flipped and turn it the other way,

it was Cadean's version. And we wrestled with that, and we were kind of like, I don't want to do that because I don't want anyone to read my whole story first create their whole idea narrative about what's right or wrong, and then read Cadean's or vice versus right, because we never wanted it to be like, oh, I side with the valor side with Dean kind of a thing.

It's just like, wow, here, here's how two individuals work together, and you get the different perspectives simultaneously about the same situation, and how we both kind of unpacked and arrived at certain you know, um destinations. Yes, you know It's very similar to like the podcast. I tell a story, Codeine gives her version of the story. I tell how her ideas of what she thought and the story made me feel.

She does the same thing, and then we come to an ultimate conclusion of how that story made us better moving forward. The book is about that. Um. We chose a series of stories from the time we were eighteen up until we had children that were really UM dynamic in our relationship. I said, those would be the stories that when you think about moments that created the version of Codein and the value see today, it's like, I remember that and I see why they moved. They were

the way they moved today. For sure. Definitely, I think a lot of pivotal moments in our relationships, moments that would have caused a make or break situation UM, and sometimes broke us. But it was the way that we were able to kind of rebuild from that or recover from those moments. UM. So yeah, we sat down with with Leah and we had these conversations, and then after having these conversations, she would formulate questions for us too

then answer UM. And the easiest way for both of us, since we're always on the goal was to just voice noted right. So I mean some of my voice notes for particular questions ranged from you know, fifteen minutes to sometimes thirty five minutes, you know, depending on how long my answer had to be. And then she had the task of transcribing and then putting it together and making

sure that it was authentic to our voice. And then there were several different back and forth sessions where you know, she and the editors would work on it, send it back to de Val and I and then that's when we were able to kind of go in and fill in the gaps now because but it wasn't just about filling the gaps. First got the notes back and said, this doesn't sound exactly like me. So Codine went through being the nerd that she is and changed everything to

where it sounds exactly like her. You know how controlling I am, so I had to do the it really the same thing. But I will say this, though you think you're gonna learn a lot about us by reading this book, I learned a lot about codeem because for the first time in twenty years, I sat down and read all of her thoughts on what we were doing and where we were going. In those certain moments, and

I learned more about her. And I think a lot of people are looking at us now and if you look at something like they seem to be more happy now than they were when we first started listening to this podcast. And I honestly believe writing this book helped me understand my wife's perspective. I also learned a lot about her family. That's a really good point when you say that, because why we always talk about communicating right, And one thing I struggled with over the course of

our relationship is how to communicate effectively with you. And sometimes my thoughts get jumbled or I may not be able to eloquently expressed to you in real time through a conversation verbal how I feel. But I always been a writer, you know that, like that, that was always my thing. English was always my strongest subject. To this day, I'm like grammar police. The kids already know what time

it is when I come with my highlighter. Right absolutely, I'm like browing the captions off your apostrophes in the

wrong spot. Like so for me, I feel like I was really in my element because instead of now having anxiety over the book now, once I got kind of the skeleton that Leah gave us from transcribing the voice notes, I was then able to not go in and just add the meat to it, right, And I felt like I was really in a moment where I can just read reread, and you reading those portions of it was almost like therapy sessions again, right, because you're able to see, yeah.

And we had moments where both of both of us would walk in on each other, you know, like, oh, baby, I know you're working on the book downstairs and by yourself and not popping to just check on him, see if he's good, needs anything, And he would almost be

terry eyed. And then he did the same thing with me, and I'd be like, oh my god, like I'm really sitting in these moments again and just pulling on my memory and pulling on how I felt certain moments, and it was so tangible that it was like reliving those moments all over again. Some not so good, you know, there were some moments that I, you know, what's funny, there were some moments that was so traumatic for us that you put them away and you locked the door

and you throw away the key. In your mind, you like this never happened until you're asked a direct question and you have to answer it and it unlock, It unloads all of this emotion onto the page. And then I'm reading your version and I'm just like, that's what she was thinking that whole time, because sometimes you can't express eloquently how you feel in the moment because you're

too emotional. So even when we were going through those moments, some happy and some sad moments, some scary moments, you know, I never really fully understood what you were going through. Reading the book now made me be like, oh my god, Like at that moment, you weren't my wife, and you made that choice for me, Like wow, like it. It gave me a greater respect for the courage it takes to believe in someone with no direct knowledge that that person is going to believe in you the same way.

You know what I'm saying, Because we were we were still kids in a way. We were in our early twenties some late teens, and we were making adult decisions, and those adult decisions took trust, and it was just like, man, she trusted me in that moment to make that decision, and it would made me be like why why did she trust me like that? Right? It was actually like

why would you trust him? Like super baffling. And for me, I'm thinking about ship, like I encountered year old kids to this day, and I'm just like, we were in a space that we were still babies, still kids, but then had the mindset and had the want and the desire to like just be so roped into each other and so invested in each other so early on, where I can see why it was so confusing for our family, for example, to be like, guys, y'all that just year olds,

and y'all are so invested in each other, like you don't even know who the hell you are, but we were just so locked in. It also made me realize the strength in faith in love, because when you're twenty two one, you feel like you got everything figured out, like you just know everything's figured out. And then when you get closer to forty and you look back a year olds at a half year age, you sit back

and these motherfucker's don't know shit about ship. And it made me realize that we were making adult decisions at a time where we really didn't know anything, and we were only we only had faith in God. And each other, and reading the book kind of also made me. It was inspiring to me to be like, Wow, she had that type of faith in me at nineteen, and I was like, dang, I really put all of that into

that young lady at nineteen. What was I thinking? But I was like I saw something, I saw thing in her, and it inspired me to continue that love moving forward because right now we're only getting closer to forty. When we look back when we're eighty, we're gonna be like we made those decisions in our forty you know what I'm saying. But it made me feel confident that I

could have faith in a person. And ultimately, when people read the book, I want you guys to take away that you can have faith in humanity because right now, because of social media, I think people tend to lose faith in humanity because clickbait is king right now. So the easiest way to get people to click on something is to show fights, show something negative, you know, show

humanity at its worst. Right We've seen you know, you've seen people die on social media because an easy way to get clicks when you show love, or you show happiness, or you show peace, it doesn't have the same type of response. So we're getting fed a lot of negativity. Rewrite. Writing this book and reading your examples of why you chose to make this as you made for me gave me a reassurance in humanity, you know what I'm saying. And hope people when they read the book feel the

same way. Yeah, that's right, That's that's right, because you know you, you do. You hear a lot of stories now about how hopeless people feel when it comes to just dating and finding their person. You know what's in store for them when it comes to relationships, and um, we're hoping is that it'll it'll give people some hope to say, you know what, there is somebody out there designed for meum. And timing is never what we think is going to because neither of us was looking for

forever love at eighteen and nineteen years old. I think that's one thing they'll know. As a matter of fact, wrote these questions to consider, right, so I want to interview you, you can interview me. We can ask each other these questions. Okay. Number one, what makes your approach counterintuitive? Because the byeline for the book is the counterintuitive approach to getting everything you want out of the relationship behind.

So I kind of feel like it gives a little bit oxymoron vibes, right, because if you're writing a relationship book with two people on the cover, it says we over me, I'm on devource back. It's like, hey, here's like how we have the perfect relationship. But I think once you dive into the book, you see how imperfect

we were in so many moments. So that counterintuitive. The counter intuitivity, if that's a word, um is really like what you think you're going to see and what you think requires is required in a relationship, we're showing that it's actually quite the opposite. And how in these moments that are not conventional for some couples, and these moments that weren't you know, traditional for us, we were still able to thrive and be the couple that we are

to day because of those moments. Absolutely, And I also want to add to that the countertuitivity, the word that my wife just reloquently created, because I'm pretty sure that's not a word, but for me, it was getting everything out of the relationship you want. Typically, when people say get everything out of relationship you want, what do people start with? Lists let's list the things that you want. Our book has nothing to do with lists. We don't

talk about the things we want. So the counterintuitive part is the fact that I invested and being everything I could be from my partner to get everything I wanted, as opposed to listing everything I wanted and expecting my partner to be everything on my list. You see what I'm saying, And I think when people read it, they'll be like, wait a minute. There was at no point in this book did these two say this is what I want and Codeine has to follow these rules or

devol this is what I wanted he has. It was the exact opposite. So when you when you read the counterintuitive part, I want you guys to think about realistically what we're asking people and what we're asking people to do. See what I'm saying, that's that's that's yeah, that's perfect.

And I think about to the title week over me right could be a little bit off putting because at first, when we were thinking about you're all I need, some of the feedback that we were getting from like the editors and like the publishers and stuff like that was like, oh, you know, you're all I need. Kind of gives the implication that like, there's no individuality here, replacing all of what you need in one person, where that was not

necessarily the message that we were going. It wasn't and it wasn't the message, And at first we were kind of, you know, giving a little pushback, like thinking of the song and just thinking about how that inspires us and how it's kind of written for us in a sense.

We were just like, this makes so much sense, and they're like, no, if you literally break it down, you're not telling people that you're putting your all into someone instead for the purpose of we togetherness, the relationship, I'm putting that above myself because we believe in being of service to the person that it's all about being a service. So that's where the we over me came from, and also came from my brain because I came up with

the title shout out to myself. Yeah, that was definitely, uh, definitely that was all him. Y'all. Let me tell you something, I'm gonna celebrate myself. You better. You know you better, I'm gonna celebrate you too. I'm gonna be some celebration because you'll be celebrating cadeem all the time, I'll be Celebraica all the time. Man If I'll be feeling away, y'all like I do, don't celebrate me on as a team before example, celebrate it, Crystal. I had nothing to

do with that. Okay, this is the funniest part. It was when I was honored. I was while I was asked by the NFL to speak and I took Jackson with me to speak at Stanford to do a course with former NFL players about building a business to the second level and second career transitions. And the comments were like, congratulations to Codein and Devout. I'm like, Codeine never played in the NFL Coadean wasn't even invited here. Coudin is not even on this trip, and it was congratulations to

Conde and Devot. But I will tell you this though, that's another example of how it's we over me because when people view us, they can no longer view us individually. They always view us as always Codeine and Devout. It is that and yeah, and it's a struggle like we wanted earlier on, we didn't even see the value in being individuals because we were so wrapped into each other so already on that now we're wanting some individuality, but people can't see it because it's like it's always been.

V Ellis is like, that's the hashtag, that's everybody together. But I mean, you know the NFL, that's everything you did. I did not play it down. I did not catch a pass, I did not take a hit. But I was back in though I was rubbing, making sure he was fed. Yeah, I mean, I don't think, to be honest, I don't think I would have been able to make it to that level if I didn't have that support taking care of me after games. I'm not really good to take care of myself. I don't eat in the

morning unless K wakes up and makes it breakfast. I'll grab a protein shake. But Codeine used to be on top of making sure, Like, yo, you're trying to gain five pounds before pro day, you have to eat this peanut butter and jelly sandwich bro in between classes, making sure I eat, coming home at night, making sure I eat when I was going over the playbook. When I first got to the Lions, Codeine would sit there in the huddle right and I wouldn't know what the hell

I was saying. She I would be like you would have to read off the play and I would have to hear the play. I would run out to my position and then I would She would say what does the Y do? And I would describe on the paper what the Y does. I would describe what the excellency does. And part of the reason why I made the team is because when other receivers only knew one position, I

knew all four positions. And part of the reason why it's easy for me to know all four positions because my wife, my fiance or my girlfriend at the time, I used to make flash cards with all of the plays narrative when it came in handy and turn it over and we have all the written diagrams on the other side. So no, you didn't catch any passes, but it was always a wee over me type of thing. Like you were invested. And this is one thing I

learned about myself right in this book. You were invested in my individual career just as much as you were invested in yours. And I was invested in your individual

career as much as sometimes even more than mine. Like devout was just like girl like you, you can be the next biggest thing you know and I'm just like me, like I still feel like and he still feels like that's the He's just like girl now just about to get your win back and you don't have any kids like this guy's the limit and sometimes you need that. And the way over me approach is just even better because we just it's like having someone alongside you to

do this together with it. There's nothing like it, b There's nothing like It's really nothing like it. It really is nothing like that. So what challenges did you face while writing the book, Babe Man. One of one of the challenges I faced, I was trying to figure out exactly what I wanted to share. I'm not gonna lie.

We're We're pretty a pretty open book. But I struggled with some stories because some stories were dark, you know, some stories were things that I wanted to put away because I didn't like to think about you or I or us collectively in a vulnerable position. And I'm at the point in my life now I don't care what other people think, but I don't want to be reminded of it, you know what I'm saying, Like, I don't want to think about the times you were in pain.

I don't want to think about the times and I was in pain, so I have to sit down and to write about being in pain or watching you in pain and what I was thinking about, and then having to read what you were thinking about during those moments brought back all of those emotions that I spent all of these years burying for a reason. So for me, that was the the hardest part, because you want to share so that you can give people a full perspective of why we rock so hard. So you can't have

a book like that without those moments. But it's like you don't always want to keep talking about those moments. Moments. Yeah,

now I agree, I can, I can have. I can definitely say that I felt very similar in that um knowing what to share, and still to this day, like there's certain things that we're still not sharing just because we just don't feel too because we feel like we share so much that, you know, we want to continue to be able to have, you know, moments for ourselves, sacred moments that good or bad, you know, and then also still be true to who we are because we think we owe it to people who support us and

people who followed our journey to show that it was never always just the bells and the whistles and the cherry on top situations. There were a lot of moments that, um, really were on the verge of breaking us. Um. I think my challenge with writing the book was, um, it's a piece of art, right when you look at a book something that you know, it's like a creative piece.

Where any moment that I would walk away from the book and then I sit with it again, something new would come to my mind, or a new perspective or a memory got you know, kind of jogged by being in that moment. So I had a hard time actually walking away from this book, y'all because I kind of felt like I always wanted to kind of tweak something or add something. I felt like it was never done.

And I'm sure if now that the book is already in production, in the final script is out, if I sat with it again, I'll find more shipped to like you know, add and finagle. So that just made me feel like, you know, is there another book that might come after this one? I guess we'll see, because remember I studied art. I studied art from time I was in middle school to high school and art history in college.

But they say that a work of art is never complete you just stopped working on it, you know, because a painter can always go back and fix a couple of shokes. Even a musician when they're writing a sympathy, right, not a symphony, they always continuously go back and say, I can change this note here, Well, I can extend this here. The same thing with a book, you know, I can add a little bit more to this story. And if you keep doing that, you'll never be able

to put it out. So at some point you have to just stop working on it and accept it even in its flaws, because that's what life is. Yeah, there's never a perfect piece. I guess I'm I'm the person that's like going back thinking like damn, what if you know, what if this wasn't received properly or what if I

didn't write this the right way? Because for me, the anxiety was that, like this is pages to paper, like this is ship that lasts, you know what I mean, Like the Internet will come and go, the iCloud main crash whatever means we lose this and the abyss that is you know, the Internet, but like a book, like you know, you have books from like thousands of years ago that was here to this day. That's why authors

write multiple books. Because we wrote We Over Me two, if we write we Over Me is going to be a completely different book. So what you also have to remember is where were they in this time when they were writing this book. And that's also part of the story. So that when the next one comes out, or the book by yourself that's not with me, or my book that's next, or your biography and my biography, you have to understand that each piece is not just created in

a utopia or in a vacuum. It's created during the time when it was written, and that's also part of the story. That's what makes it so great. That's actually very true. It's pretty dope. So let me ask you, why do you think it was important for you specifically to write this book. M hmm. There's a couple of things. Um. I think it's a challenge for me. It was a space that I'm just not used to being in and in us finding different ways to express ourselves, um for

us being creatives, um, for us being artists. I felt like this was just another way for me to express myself in a area that I felt like was strong for me in the past, and I just was like, you know what, this would be a nice little challenge for me to sit down and be in this space which I genuinely love. I used to love writing so much that this was um important for me to do

that also too. I feel like we share a lot via social media, via the podcast, UM, but there's also moments to that are you know, shareable that we haven't spoken about. And I feel like we want to continue to give people who support us even more insight into how things work, particularly because um, you know, our support system is growing publicly. We also have different different ventures that we're trying to do, you know, different um works

that you're trying to do. So I think that this was a really good space for us to just have something different, something that's not digital, something that's not I

mean we probably do an audiobook or something. Definitely. It just gave us a different space to be in where we can just share more, um because not everybody consumes information the same way like they may have a whole another realm of people that we're going to be exposed to now because they don't podcast, they don't follow social media, they don't have a Facebook account, you know, um, so I think that that's just another way for other people to be touched by our story. For me, it was simple,

literature is the only medium that's timeless. Right, Books don't go out of style, right. You You hear about all these different mediums. At one point it was radio. The people stopped listening to radio and started watching TV. We'll stop stop listening to radio and started going to the theater. Then it was they stopped going to the theater, and then they started going to movies, and it was movies and now everyone's own devices. But the one thing that's

consistent is literature. The Bible is one of the oldest books ever written, and it's still one of the most powerful books. So I feel like literature is a way to remain timeless. One of my favorite movies of all time is Troy because Achilles said he always wants his name to be and I always wanted I always want my for my name to be remembered. I want when I leave this earth people say, hey, devou contributed to

the earth and humanity in this way. And I feel like the best way to do that is through literature, because that can be carried from generation to generation and forward and forward, So it was important for me for that reason. What did you learn about yourself or each other while recounting the stories for the book, So you kind of touched on this a little bit, But was there anything else that you can think? Absolutely I have. I now have a greater respect for both sets of

our parents when you when reading the book. We are extremely hard on our parents because we had to hold ourselves accountable for our behavior early in our relationships, but learning that our behavior was learned behavior from our parents.

So it's it's almost like when you go to therapy and you realize that the traumas you face growing up in a certain house create the person that you are, and now you're trying to share this person with another person who had their own traumas in their own house. Writing these stories and listening to how you perceived them after knowing your family made sense to me. It was like she perceived it like that, or she thought that way because that's how her parents are. I thought things

because that's how my parents are. And it also made me realize that as much as we complain about our parents and the traumas they gave us, we have to congratulate our parents on creating dope humans because I felt like I wanted to be of service to you because you were so dope, which means I have to applaud your parents for me. Yes. So for me, it was like I can find fault in what my parents did because I could look at my traumas and look at

my insecurities. Right, but I also fell in love with a very flawed woman, And I can look at your parents and be like, you have extremely flawed, beautiful, loving person because of who your parents created, and I have to give them their flowers. But from your perspective, you're like, I'm so flawed because of who my parents, but you fell in love with me, and you will give my

family my parents flowers. So I learned so much about this process and about your family, and I just have a greater respect for both of our parents because they did what they could with what they had during that time. No, absolutely, I think that's important. We even dedicated the book to our parents and first our children and stuff. But it's super important because we always like to harp on like, damn, my parents didn't do X y Z, and you know

they because of them that not doing this? Then I but I'm just like, shoot, look at now, look at look at us, look at you and I um And one thing I learned about our you know, our story are is to really we sometimes harp on the bad and the moment a lot or things that aren't going right or levels that we haven't reached yet, but just looking at like the things that we've encounter that we've you know, survived, the things that we've you know, had

to laugh through and cry through together, Like we have a pretty dope ass love story. Yes there was another possible title, like a Brooklyn love You just think about a story of two kids in Brooklyn, you know, coming from our humble backgrounds and just having dreams, like just having dreams and having each other and finding a way to make that ship work and to make it come to fruition. And like I said on a different episode, like almost twenty years exactly to the date since we

sat in your dorm room. You were now living a dream at the time. But it's something that you worked for for twenty years. We worked for Seriously, we we the first date that Codeine and I had, I told Codeine what my life plan was. I told her what I wanted to do. I told her verbem that I wanted to graduate from school, I'll probably be free agent, tryout or no. I said, when graduate from school, I probably work on Wall Street. If I can make it to the NFL and being a practice squad, I'll buy

a Brownstone if nance major, I think exactly. Then he met me and the whole plane coming to your class. I definitely was coming to your class, that's not even a question. But I had this whole plan for myself. And when I spoke to her about what I wanted to do, she was just like, Okay, so how are we gonna do it? And she didn't laugh at me, but she also had this like this air like she felt comfortable saying how are we going to do this? Yeah,

at first it was a flirting tactic. I'm not even gonna lie because just like I mean, here we are sitting out and chatting for the first time, and you tell me like your life plan, and I'm inserting myself into your life plan by saying, so how we can do that? You know? And it was just like oh, ship, like here I am brought into your dream. But it also is a testament to how passionate you were early on, Like I could just feel that early on, and I just knew, like, man, this guy, like he really got

this ship together. Like how many eighteen year olds do you meet that really Like, No, A lot of people are like, I'm undecided major, I don't really try to figure things out. Might work for my dad's company, that's if you're that even has a company. You know, I might pick up a trade, you know. I don't know if college is even for me. Really, I'm just here because I'm here for a good time, not a long time.

Like there's so many different viewpoints that you can have an eighteen that you don't even know where the fun you know. So when I saw that you had that from early on, I was like wow, and that was always my mindset to. I was just like, man, like, now I'm finally in college. I was inspired by the fact that I was like about to be at my parents house. It's like, Okay, how am I going to adult? Like what does adults are gonna look like? For me? Um? And then ship we realized some days it's like I

don't want to be an adult no more. You know. We realized that over time, but in those moments, UM, they were just like really really just priceless, inspiring moments. What do you hope leaders take away from the book. I just hope that you guys are able to will a if you're dealing with any particular strifes in your relationship or just in life as an individual, because we want we don't want this to be just geared towards married poles, people in relationships, um, people who aspire to

being relationships. This is actually for somebody to who knows that. You know, I don't think I want to be in a relationship. And I know that because I watched de Valancotine or I've read this book and the things that they're doing for each other, I just know I don't have the capacity to do for another human being, you know, inspire people. Yeah, And it's like you don't have to

agree with everything that we've said in here. Some things in there I know off the bats and people gonna be like, what, like I didn't see that coming, or oh they did that, I don't know if I worked with them, no more. And that's fine, that's fine. You

could feel the way you want to feel. But this is our truth and we're living in it, and we're living comfortably in it, and I enjoy the fact that I'm able to do that, and I hope that it inspires others to live comfortably in who you are, you know, and and not show up Like I've said, you know, a little tidbit in the book is like not to continue to show up as this representative of yourself. Like I want people to as an individual, as a human,

live in who you are. And it's better for everybody that way, because you don't have a facade to keep up. And then whoever you're introducing yourself too, says all right, I know who I'm dealing with, and there's no surprises. Let's take some of the guessing out of it and just give people the ability to make choices to want to be in your orbit or not. You know, that's one thing the book is about. The book is about

a lot of choices. You and I made a lot of choice over these last twenty and you know what, we're all like you talked about art being unfinished. We're art, Yes, we are art. So how are you continuing to like add that paint stroke to your life to make you that much better? You know? What are you doing to alter your career path? What are you doing to alter your path or your relationship with a family member. Um, how is that looking like? I'm glad you? What does

that look like? Right? That's that's actually a perfect segue because remember how you said life is a work of art. Right? What makes works of art valuable is the individuality? Right, It's one of a kind. So can you create a valuable life trying to copy someone else's version of their life? Think about it. How much value does your relationship have if you spend time trying to copy someone else's version of relationship that you think is perfect. It's the authentic

Is the authenticity versus a replicass? Right? Yes? How much less is the replica? And value way less? Write? Anything that's a knockoff has no value. It's a knockoff the original, even as flawed as it is. The reason why it's value is because it has the flaws, and that's how

we can tell us the original. One of the main things we talked about in the book is that we hate the idea of couple of goals, and we hate the idea of people pulling pillars up and saying, if you follow these pillars, you can create a life you want with yourself. We actually despise that, and we actually despise being called a couple of goals because we don't inspire to be like any other couple, like when people ask all the time, what couples inspire you? Right, I

don't even look up to my parents. I don't look up to your parents. I don't look up to anybody. I feel like in order for me to create the type of relationship I want that's gonna last and has value, I have to work within the person that i'm with, the couple that I'm with. I have to work within this union to create our own version. So I don't look at any other people, and I don't want other

people to look at us. That's the first thing I hope that they walk away with is that you can't and you should never want to be deval in cadem You shouldn't. You can be inspired by their love story, you know, because we've had success in life loving on each other, but don't try to be like anyone else. That's the first thing. The second thing I want people to learn is how to have empathy and compassion for each other. Right, I want people to walk away feeling

inspired by love and believing in humanity. Because when I read the book over and over and over again, the thing that's stuck with me is how much you have to believe in the power of love for us to make the decisions we made blindly at the age we made and to have the success we have. That's faith. That's that's There's nothing that you can write to describe

what that feeling is or how to tell people. How do you know when you found the right person you don't have faith in humanity, have empathy and compassion and learn to love out loud and it's okay to learn and love people differently than everyone else thinks that they should be loved. That's what I want people to walk away from. I love that it's you. I'm getting warm and fuzzies thinking about this book. I'm excited, y'all. Seven February seventh is when the book will be out in Stories.

Pre Orders are available now, but pre order now now. Holidays are coming up, you know, and we think it would be great, Like we said, not just for the person who aspires to be in a relationship or someone who is currently in a relationship, but it can be for anybody. Um And that's what we're hoping that you guys, will um, we'll see all right, let's take a quick break. We'll pay some bills and come back with listen letters.

All right, guys, we're back. The valent Conneine, authors of We Over Me You're giving Me Eyes over there, Webby Award podcast hosts so Cute, Next Steps Times bestseller Taking into Existence. That's what we do, was talking. We talk it, we live it, we dream it, we manifested, and that's what we do in accounting. Yes, all right for a baby. Hey, they're Condin and Deval. I am such a fan of you guys in the podcast and love listening to your

takes on various relationship issues. So here's my dilemma. I am thirty one years old and currently in a happy relationship. That don't sound like a dilemma to me, approaching our second anniversary. I have discussed marriage, but are working. Or we have discussed marriage, but are working on saving some funds and achieving certain professional goals in the meantime. I am in a stable nine to five and make good money. He is an entrepreneur working on building his brand and

business with the goal of achieving financial freedom. I'm an only child and take care of my mom, who has a physical disability. This means covering our household dispenses, her medical insurance and other medical bills. I am considering buying an income property example of duplex or triplex or triplex um, moving my mom in with me there, and putting our family home on rent. My boyfriend thinks it's a bad idea and we should wait a few years until we

can do this together. Uh save a significant down payment to limit our debt and the time to pay off the mortgage instead of the minimum down payment which I have saved. Oh, I see while I see his vision, my family home is not the best area and I want to move and move on now that I am

finally financially able. However, he is adamant that as we are moving towards marriage, though no timeline has been said yet, we should only make moves together and disregard and disregarding his opinion on this would prove I am not a team player. I would and then making plans for my future without our relationship in mind. I am torn. How much should a significant other's opinion play into big decisions when marriage isn't a part of the equation yet that's

a whole episode. That's a good question, Like, wow, m and it's a two year anniversary. She's in a happy relationship and it's only two years in. Not to say that you can't be happy in the course of two years, but that's still very new to them all. Then be making these big financial you know, um commitments. I'll say this, This is why this is a perfect question. Right, we're just talking about the book. Everything we did in our book is like the antithesis of what people said you

should do in relationships. We moved in together very early when we were young, when I was in Detroit playing ball, I moved you in with me. We bought a house, right we weren't married. Well, I proposed, I bought the house together. I didn't put your name on the mortgage. Then I proposed. Then we moved back here into an apartment. So we pretty much did everything the way people would tell you don't do it, and we are thriving and working fine. This is what I will say to you,

young lady. Um, you're two years in into a relationship. You guys haven't settled into understanding if you're gonna get married or not yet. You individually have to do what's best financially for you and your family period um. He may have a point, though, if you're not ready to listen to him, that proves that you're not ready to be a team player and being a marriage. And that's okay. You don't have to be committed to being his wife

right now while you're still learning each other. You're in a happy relationship, but that doesn't mean you stop putting your business on hold to make him feel more comfortable because he doesn't have the funds to provide right now. You see what I'm giving. I was gonna say, it's giving a little bit like he can't do it in

this moment, so he wants you to wait. And it's just like, since you have the down payment, which you said you saved already the minimum down payment, right and if you're in a bad area and your mom, you know, is your your soul caretaker, you have to do what's best for the quality of life for yourself and your mom um. And then having a rental income is always, you know, is always a plus. You know. I will say this though, him saying my idea is that we wait a few years and do it together, is proved

to you that he is thinking long term. Even though he hasn't said marriage, it is clear that this man is thinking financially long term. So now the ball is in your court. Do you say, you know what? He hasn't said anything about marriage, but he's proven to me that he wants to work together. Because that's literally what happened with Codeine and I. I brought a home in Michigan to let her know, you're moving in here to live into my home, my home, You're gonna be my wife.

But Codein did say to me at that time, I don't want to be a living girlfriend. And that's when I decided to propose. So I understand a woman's perspective. Until you have that open conversation about marriage and there's some commitment about marriage, it's very difficult for a woman to It's difficult for anyone to say we're gonna wait and do things together, like we also said to The male perspective is, Okay, I met this woman, We're two years in, I'm in a happy relationship. I see a

future with her. Let me get my ducks in a row. And it sounds like he's like in that getting in a row phase, right, So I think you both have hearts in the right place because you're both thinking about how they've been confirmed. The communicate about it, talk about it. That's way some pros and cons. If it makes sense in the financial market that we're in in real estate for you to make this move now, I'd be like, Babe,

I've researched it. I think we should pull the trigger on this now because we are working towards a legacy we want to build together, because we're thinking long term. But now is the perfect opportunity to buy because the

market is down or the interest rate is down. Like, if you come and have a conversation with actual facts about the facts that support the choice she want to make, then it may make more sense to him versus just him thinking like, all right, well, I just don't want her to make a move without me, because you know I may not be in this position to do it right in this moment. If it can benefit you in the long run, you pull the trigger on it now. That can be a case that you can present to him.

I agree, I will couple this. Y'all may sit down and come with all the facts and it still may get sucked up. Give you an example, Kadeen and I. I brought this property in Michigan because it was the right thing to do. I needed the tax right off. I was playing in the NFL right. I brought the property not only because I wanted to prove to Gdan that I was thinking long term, but I needed a tax right off, and financially it made the most sense. The recession happens two months later and I get cut.

So even though it was the right decision in the moment I made it, two months later it didn't seem like the right decision because not all the capital I had saved to buy the house was now invested in the property. I didn't have capital for us to survive, and I lost my job. And what could I have done been like, see, I can tell you about this property.

Nobody asked for this, and we didn't do that same way when we we had a discussion about what do you want to stay in Michigan because I just got a job as a learning coordinator at the University of Michigan. Conde was working at Makeup in the mall, but Codein said, listen, I want to move back home to Brooklyn because our families closed to Brooklyn. I want to spend more time in Brooklyn. So we decided to run out the house

and move back to Brooklyn. All of these decisions hindsight, we can look back now and say there was a better decision, But in the moment, we got together collectively made a decision for us, and whatever the consequences were,

we rocked with it. There was no blame game. We were upset at times and we were just like because I remember when the house thing came and I was just like, man, we had a big wedding, we should have bought a house, and we had that whole debate, but we never held that over each other and said we're not gonna love each other because of those decisions. There's no wrong decision in life. It's just you have to deal with the consequences that come with each decision

and understand that, have the conversation, make a decision. If y'all love each and move on accordingly. All right, sounds good Good luck to you, Sis number two. Okay, So as I said, and I would like to remain anonymous. All right, Sis, off the bed, be anonymous. But first off, I love you guys and your relationship and just the way that you're realistic about your journey together and the maturity growth that you guys both went through. Um. So, me and my boyfriend have been together for almost a

year and we argue. He says that to him it's not arguing, but to me it is because I guess I take it in more internally than he does. To me, he comes across as not caring about my feelings or how he says things to me, even when I tell him an express to him that he's hello rude and harsh and how he speaks right in his mind. As long as he's telling the truth, then whatever I take it as it is on me, in my opinion, that

comes across like you don't care about my feeling. So my question is should this be a deal breaker because we've talked about it several times and I'm I'm not sure if he cares to change that about him. Thanks in Advanced for y'all's time. Love y'all man. These arguments styles, debate styles, conversation style. Yes, they should have a book on argument styles. No, for sure, absolutely, because what tends to happen. You know, we have the term that I've

used to say that what everyone talks about brutal honesty. Right. I used to say, like, devolution is brutally honest, brutely honest, And then I heard someone recently say, like this honesty have to be brutal? Can it just be honesty? But I think it all depends on the way it's delivered,

and then of course on the way it's received. You and I have had You and I have had a lot of moments where we've been in these arguments, and a lot of time the argument shifts away from what we were even talking about to the way things were said or how it landed, or the way it was delivered, and we argued in term more about that than the actual argument. And I think that's because people don't realize that when you're arguing with someone, you're arguing with their

whole family. And when I say that, I say this, first of all, every conversation is not an argument. Kadina and I have had to have this argument. Right every time I used to speak to her about something that I wanted to focus on or change, even if it was once a week, She's like, every week you want to argue. I'm like, it's not an argument. I have I feel a way about something and I want to

express it to you. If you're going to receive it as an argument, you're already coming with a negative connotation about what I'm saying. That's the first thing, just because you want to speak about something. And I'm going to say this to all couples, right there is twenty four hours in a day. If I want to speak to my wife one of those hours about things I think we can do better, that's still less than five percent

of the time. So when people say you argue all the time, if you argue for an hour every day, that's still less than five percent of the time of the time, everything is fine. But if you spend five percent wanting to get better, that's not an argument. That's how people get better. I'm not gonna say it's not tiring. I'm not gonna say it's not tiring. But we also have to understand the reality or the work that has, the work that goes into it. And people don't argue

every day. So if you argue once a week, right now, you can divide that five percent into seven because now we don't even argue every day. So a five percent divided by seven is less than one percent of the time. I want to have a conversation and you find a problem with it, that's a problem. The only way we can get better is by having discussions. That's the first thing. So every time someone has a discussion is not an argument.

Number two. When I say when you argue with someone, you argue with your family, I'm not talking about you literally arguing with their family. I'm I'm speaking about the way they learn to communicate comes from a lifetime of communicating in their home or not communicating. One thing you'll learn about Cadine and I is that, especially from reading the book, we struggle the first ten years of our relationship five years of our marriage because we had to

unpack how we discussed things with each other. Codeine's family was very reserved. The Vows family has family caucuses. So every time I go to speak to Cadeine and she used to feel attacked because she wasn't used to having these conversations. She thought it was brutal honesty because I was just being upfront about how I felt. I thought it was brutal silence because you didn't want to talk to me. It's like we're having an issue and I'm

talking and you're just staring at me. We both thought the other person was being brutal, and it's because we never took the time to unpack how we communicate and how our families communicated. One thing I've learned over the past couple of years is that if you really want to get to know someone, get to know their family

and don't take everything they do with disrespect. Because if that person is trying to communicate, even as brutal as it may seem, that communication style maybe their way of loving. That's true. Or think about the person or the friend or the individual that you know that's just our castic and this person just everything is in jest or they their truth sometimes lands and jests which you may not find it's funny, but that's just how that's that's their love.

That's a conversation style. Yes, that's what they liked, that's how they like to do. But it's like they don't mean any harm, but the way you receive it is with harm, you know, So I think you have to also know who you're dealing with in this moment. Like so, so my question to her is like, is what he when he does deliver these you know, facts or these points to you, is it harsh, And is it rude

because it's honest? Is he telling you something about yourself that you don't like and you don't know how to be accountable, so then you see it as rude or is he just really just out there being rude to hurt your feelings? And I'll speak in her defense and this because that's a great question. Just because you're used to being sarcastic with your family doesn't mean that someone

else has to accept your sarcasm. But we have to learn how to stop doing in relationship is telling other people And we did a podcast about this core Get out feelings. Stop telling people how they're supposed to feel about the word you used to express your feelings to them. If what you said to someone, whether it was sarcastic or kind or nice or hurtful, made them feel a way that person didn't just choose to want to feel a way, you made them feel a way, acknowledge that.

And if you really want your message to get through, if you love this person, you'll try to change the way you communicate so they can land on them while learning about them. And that's what I think these two have to learn how to do. Yeah, that's when the delivery matters. It's like am I speaking to you with compassion and just saying, hey, you know you did x y Z. I didn't like that. There's ways that we

can kind of get past this. Or are you just you know, placed in pointing the finger in place to believe and just you know, trying to be mean? Is It's a big difference here. So and I appreciate your point about saying is he brutal because he's honest and you don't want to hear the honesty. That's a lot of times that's why people get offended. That's why cancel

culture is happening the way it's happening a lot. Because of course, certain things are offensive and anything that promotes hate or violence against a group of people shouldn't be tolerated. But if someone is speaking their truth and you're offended by their truth, that says more about you because it's true. You know what I'm saying. If a person is not speaking violence, not speaking hatred on anyone, but their truth makes you feel a way, sometimes you need to look

in the mirror. I've been I've been there with let's do right here. Just like man, he just totally read me read me everything, handing me my ass on the platter, and he did it so directly, um, and not rude, but just direct. So I'm feeling some kind of way. I'm feeling like it's rude, but it's not really rude because he's right, and I think he circled back with a little bit of loving around. It gives the advice

of them nurtures behind UM. You know, it's like, I'm gonna read you all your rights and then love you after. Um is the way to do it. She doesn't say anything, She just lets me do and then spasses out and be like, you know, you're just be doing to fucking much and yeah, And I've learned not to take that as she's attacking me. I've learned to understand that, you know what, she's not used to communicating with this man. And it's been an hour of us having the same

discussion and she's fatigued. So we we've learned now to laugh. When we first started, it wasn't laughing. There was a lot of insults thrown after that because we get upset at each other then, and then the conversation then becomes a debate, and then after debate becomes an argument and after the argument it becomes toxic and then radioactive. And we've been through that aspect as well. So don't feel

like because you're there right. So for her question, is that should just be a deal breaker, I don't think it's not at all. How are you having conversations? Keep having conversations, um, if it matters that much. And remember this, this is something I tell Jackson. Becoming a master at something takes thousands and thousands of hours of muscle memory and muscle movement, right, And it takes thousands and thousands hours of doing the same movement over and over again

to become muscle memory. So for your whole life, you've argued with your family and your your friends a certain way, that's become your muscle memory. When you meet somebody and you get into a disagreement, you're gonna resort back to how you did things with All the people you're comfortable with. You slip right into a comfort zone and it's been comfortable with them, but now that you're with a new

person is uncomfortable. When you're trying to change, it's going to take thousands and thousands of hours of muscle movement to become muscle memory. So just because you have one conversation about how you feel and that person claims they understand, doesn't mean the next time you have an argument they're not going to resort back to what their original muscle memory. So give each other grace and time to learn through it. Absolutely. All right, We hope that helped both of our couples today.

And if you want to be featured as a listener letter, if you want to write in you have a story you want to hear a little two cents um, be sure to email us at dead ass Advice at gmail dot com. That's D E A D A S S A D V I C E at gmail dot com. All right, moment of truth, we over me the counterintuitive approach to getting the life and the love and the

relationship you won't. My moment of truth is this order we over me, the counter intuitive approach to getting the relationship you want with the man you love with the woman you love. Right now, pre orders available. You get your book February seven. That's my whole moment of truth because everything that I want to say about it is in the book in the bok. That's that's really really good. Also, and you can look forward to us going on tour again. Yes, sir,

you heard it here first. So once the book drives, you know, we had our dead Ass live shows over the summer which we're amazing, sold out, wild ass energy, and we cannot wait to be on tour with y'all when you have your copy in hands. What we're doing book signings, tours, live shows, all that good stuff. So the top of the year is about to be lit, y'all. Make sure that if you have a friend, a family members can use a copy, go ahead and order it

for the holidays and they'll get it right before Valentine's Day. Absolutely, and here's a fact um. We're going to do a book tour of course, yes, but during the dead As Podcast tour. If your book is purchased when we do the meet in Greece, we will sign everybody who has a book on the Dead As Podcast tour. We plan on doing a twenty city tour starting February Valentine's Day

ending in April. We plan on going from the West coast all the way down to the South and back up through Atlanta, So we'll see you guys shortly for sure. And of course don't forget my East coasters. Oh definitely, I said south, throw up through Atlanta, we go all the way through Florida, come up through through the Mason Dixon, all the way through there. Because we started in New York last time and went down, so we go from the west coast all the way down around and come up.

And we're not going to forget about the North, the north and the Northwest, but the Northwest. We're gonna do another podcast tour probably the following year, because the weather in the Northwest during that February March ain't the nicest people you know living in Michigan for all them years and nobody trying to go to Michigan and everywhere, and nobody trying to deal with that. And we did think about, definitely thought about the Northeast. But the weather is an

issue because of travel. What we don't want to have to do is canceled days or get date dates affected because of weather and snow and things of that nature. So there's a resigning out the details. But there's a reason we went through this out frog know to expect that. All right, y'all be sure to find us on social media dead ask the podcast. We're gonna still be dropping more reminders about the book on our social media pages for the podcast and as well as her me at Cadena.

I am and I Am Devout And if you're listening on Apple podcasts, be sure to rate, review and subscribe. Look at Chickpeas. Dead Ass is a production of I Heart Media podcast Network and is produced by the Noorrapinia and Triple Follow the podcast on social media at dead as the podcasts and never miss a Thing, Must Do