Welcome everyone to something that you've never heard before, and maybe never even heard of before, because this is going to be something brand new. It's not just a podcast, it's an interactive social experiment, and we're going to bring all of you into our world. Those of you who are looking for love, who've been burned by love, we know what you're feeling. We've walked down that road. In fact, some of us are still walking down that road. So welcome everyone to the brand new podcast called I Do
Part two. I am one of your hosts, one of four hosts, Amy Roeboch, along with my partner, the love of my life, Jay Holmes.
After that intro, I didn't feel like the level of your life. It seemed like.
I'm still on the road on my journey.
There was some journey I didn't think, ooh, we were on one together. Maybe I didn't realize you just picked me up along your journey and then I guess you'll drop me off at the next exit and continue your journey.
Perhaps, well, we're on a journey, we're on our dating journey. We'll see where the road takes us.
Good Lord, I.
Want to introduce our other esteemed hosts who have lived to tell a lot that we'll be sharing with you. The one and only Jenny Garth, who needs no introduction. Hello Jenny, Hi everybody. I am so excited. I'm fangirling.
Oh right, this is gonna be so fun. Yeah, this is something that I don't think there's ever been a podcast like this before. We are taking love to the next level, you guys, and we're really excited to be doing this with you.
Oh yes, we can't wait to hear everything that you all are feeling. We'll share what we've been going through so you can well you won't feel so alone.
Right.
Also, our fourth and you know, certainly not last, Save the best for last, right, Jana Kramer. It also needs no introduction. Actress, singer, podcast host Jana You you've lived a lot of life and you still have a lot more to go.
You know, what I've realized is that we all have. And this is what I love about this show is we all have a past. We all want one thing, right, it's love. And so I think with all of us having a podcast and sharing our stories on the podcast that we do, we want to help other people through our stories. And with this podcast, the fact that we get to be interactive. Is why I was like, sign me up.
Yes, we're all excited because look, we've all we've all I don't know if it's fair. We've been unlucky in love. We've learned a lot of lessons along the way through some loves, many loves. But this is a chance for all of you who are listening, who've had a rough patch, or who have had troubles in their love life. If it didn't work out the first time, if it didn't work out this second time, the third time, whatever, this is your opportunity to have another shot at love.
And Jenna, it's it's what first, second time, third time? What's the charge?
Why do we have to keep count? That's the thing, like, I don't why are we keeping up?
I'm with you, Janna, It's not necessary. It's so not necessary.
Is that always a part of it?
Because I know I have felt the shame that a marriage didn't work out in the second marriage, But with Jenna, to you kind of make a really good point. There's too much emphasis been on, well you didn't get it right the first time. Something's wrong with you, not the second time. Oh, something's really wrong right?
Yeah, I think where my situation because on paper it shows that I've been married four times. And I think that's the piece where for many years I was trying to defend that piece, because when I look at my past, I'm like, I didn't have like when I look ago, Okay, I really was married in my mind once. It was a six year struggle. I'm married now to the absolute love my life. But those first two I mean, I don't get to have that. I don't get to explain it.
I did when I wrote my book. But you know, when I was nineteen, I met my abuser, and I don't to me, that wasn't a marriage. No one even knew we got married. I knew him for two weeks. We went to Vegas, said I do so silly, And you know, no one knew we got married until we went to court when he tried to kill me. So he was off to jail for attempted murder. So, oh my god, there's I know, sorry not to like, but there there is a story within all of our dating lives.
And so you know, that's the asterisk that when people talk about it, I'm like, it is not fun to see my abuser's name every time they talk about my relationship history. You know, everyone's like, oh, you were married to this person. I'm like, that was my abuser, and that set the stage for my relationships after that. And you know, I married someone for the neck. The second one was a week. I'm like, I don't call those marriages.
I knew I was trying so hard, and I was, you know, early twenties, to be chosen and to be loved. And by the time that after three years of him just being like of me, saying love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, he finally said, okay, I love you. And then I realized, wait a minute, I never actually loved him. I just wanted to feel chosen and loved. So I married a man for a week. And when at my wedding, I cried in the bathroom, going, wait, this is not what I wanted, this is this was
not it. And I don't want to have a broken family. I don't want to have kids with this man and then be divorced like my parents. And so, you know, did more work and all the healing, and then I married my last ax, who you know, he had multiple multiple affairs for six years, and at that point I'm like, people, I'm like, do people honestly think that I wanted to
get divorced. I didn't want to have kids to get divorced, and I could not stay in something that was unhealthy for myself and for the kids, so I had to leave, and so on paper, it looks terrible, but I also me at a point now where I'm like, yes, I just spent the last two minutes defending my past, but also there's a piece of it where it's like I have dropped the shame because I know what the truth is in those situations, and people are always going to
look at someone's past and just see the cliff notes of it, but they don't know the story. They don't know what actually was, actually what happened, And my heart in it was I the bottom lines. We all want love, and I just went a long route to find it.
Right.
Well, that's the cool thing about this show, I think, is taking people's stories and turning them around and using it for positive reasons.
Well and hearing their stories, you know, giving them the opportunity instead of just reading the headlines, because that's what drives me nuts, and like, you have no idea those headlines are.
Well, don't have anything it's so unfair. I love what you said, Janna, because it's so easy to look at especially I think people in the public eye and say, you know, and almost laugh at it. But these are anyone who goes through. We're all human beings, and any sort of breakup with ether it's a marriage or a boyfriend or a girlfriend, it hurts the same. And to see the headlines, it doesn't even get into any of the details of what all of the parties were actually feeling.
So I think that's it's such a good point. And I think everybody, if they're honest with themselves, knows what it feels like to have a heartbreak or to have a break up.
So when you're in that heartbreak, it's like you don't think you're ever gonna feel love again, or you don't want to.
My last divorce I was because I'm like, all right, now I've been married three times. Who is going to love me? I've got two kids. I must be the common denominator. I mean, I'm bawling in my bad in mind. I'm like, no one's gonna love me. And I'm you know, three years later, I'm married and I have a baby, like and I have found the love of my life. But you truly, like you think that you are, You're done for and people are just gonna look at your past and be like, you're you're not worthy of love?
Do you still find it? Jenna?
And listening to you, do you maybe you're trying to break the habit, but you say it looks bad on paper, But when folks see it on paper, do you find yourself?
Okay?
But let me explain those first two? Do you find yourself still trying to?
I mean, I did it here, you did it here, but I.
Mean for the sake of conversation is one thing. But it's it struck me that I wonder, do you still feel like you have to explain it? Because in some way it's still on paper looks bad.
You know what?
The first time I didn't feel like I had to explain it was actually to my now husband. He was just like, I don't And I always felt like I had to with previous relationships, be like, oh, this is what happened here, and he was just like he did not care. He saw me for me and thought my past was strength as opposed to you know, He's like you you fought and you you know you you love, and I think that's that's a beautiful quality. Like you know,
people always want to talk about Jay Low. I'm like, listen, she loves you know, she's just trying. And it's like she said, she even said she had a bad picker. But it's like, you know, yes I have too, But I was also broken in those pieces too. So I mean, to answer your question, I think it's one of those things where I don't call those marriages.
I really don't.
I say, now, I've been married twice, because those are marriages. Those first ones were not marriages.
Yeah, and Jenny, do you I mean, you've obviously been in the public guye since you were young. I told you I was fangirling because I grew up with you watching alongside. We went to high school together, didn't Yeah we did, right, I feel like that. I feel like, yes, but to have you were married young, tej and I were both married very young. We both got married at twenty three. You were in the public guy from the
very beginning. What were your What was your experience getting divorced and being a mom and then finding love again.
Yeah, I mean I got married at twenty one. My situation was I had my father was sick for years and he was my hero, and I was looking for somebody to keep me safe and protect me from this insane world that I was living in, and I needed somebody to be a rock for me, and I was trying to fill that position. And I made some hasty decision on that first marriage, and also doing it so young and not having a lot of people around me
that asked me to really look at that decision. And before I knew it, it was happening, and then before I knew it, it was over. And before I knew it, I was having, you know, onto my next relationships. So I feel like that was just too young for me personally.
But I did learn from it, for sure, And I think that's the beauty of Jana, of everybody's journey here, is that the lessons we have learned, the things we've learned about ourselves that we want in a relationship, the things we learned that we don't want in a relationship. So we have gotten to get so clear about what works for us and what doesn't. And it's that's a great position to be in for people to really define what they're looking for and what's not acceptable to them.
And to really focus on that. And I hope that in this show that's what people will will learn to do while you know, having fun, dating, figuring it all out, and also learned to just cut themselves some slack because yeah, Janna, we made bad choices, things didn't work out, you know whatever, It doesn't really matter, but you're right on paper, it can be a little bit like, ooh, that's doesn't look great.
Yeah, we have been talking about that. There are four divorces between the two of us. But Annie, I even hate to use the word failure or mistake because I got two beautiful girls out of it. Out of my first marriage and the second one, all of those missteps created I am who I am today because I went through that, and I had I not gone through that, I wouldn't be where I am now. Tj I mentioned you got married at twenty three eighty.
Three, and Jenny, I was hearing you say twenty one and not being ready some of the mistakes. I can look back now and say I had to go through this, and I needed to learn this in this But how is there any way or any of the four of us could say to a young person who's in twenty twenty one, twenty two, twenty three, anything that's going to keep them from making right the mistakes that we already made, or do you have to, Jenny, just go through that.
You've got to learn it yourself. I mean, even now, I have adult women as my children who are my best friends, and I look at that a lot, and I think, Okay, two of them would already be married if if I don't know, if things were different if they had lived my life. But I look at them and I say, they're not living my life. They have to make their own choices, they have to learn their own mistakes. But and I've been asking myself this question a lot. Will I tell them the truth about how
I really feel? Or will I hold back and let them make their mistakes. I don't know the answer to that honestly yet, because I haven't.
Been through it.
I'm pretty sure I'm on the cusp. And you know, on the twenty seven, even the twenty one year old, they're in relationships, and I don't know what will happen with that, but I know it will all work out, because there's that risk, you know, as a mom, like do I tell them what I really think? Or do I hold back and let them make their mistakes.
That's tough for parents been stand by.
And yeah, because honestly, at the end of the day, I don't know, they could be making the absolute best right choice. I really don't know.
It's funny because I had joked with my daughters, and I think they've lived a lot of life with me, especially in the last two years. They're twenty one and eighteen. But I used to joke and say, if you want me to pay for your wedding, you have to be twenty eight when your adult brain has formed, because if don't, they say, at twenty seven, that's when you actually have, you know, adult capacity brain waves going through. So I
joked with them about that. But then I want to point out my brother and his wife were middle school high school sweethearts, got married at twenty two and they have one of the strongest, most beautiful marriages I've ever personally seen. And my parents got married at eighteen and had me at nineteen and are still together and just celebrated their fifty second wedding anniversaries. So a race you never know, you know, I don't think I'm not here to say, Oh, the mistake was that I got married
at twenty three. I don't think we know who we are. And my mom will say she got lucky that she married someone who had similar values, who they had similar backgrounds, and it just they grew up together and that can work. So I'm not here to say wait until you get older.
Right.
The timeline of things are is interesting because a lot of people now are like, oh, well, here you go again. You got engaged and had a baby so quick and got married so quickly after you know, meeting, And I'm like, listen, when you're in your forties, things move a little quicker too. You know it's and you know you know, so it's for us. I was like, I don't think there's a timeline. I know people that have dated for years and are
an unhappy marriage. I know people that had dated for two months and got married and are in a beautiful relationship. So I don't think that tap that timeline. I do agree on the age piece of it, because at nineteen, yeah, that was stupid to go off to Vegas with someone I didn't know. But also I look at it as a childhood stamp too, where I didn't feel like I could go to my parents to talk to them about that.
So yeah, I think it's a beautiful thing when I see some people may call it foolish or stupid, but I tend to be someone who looks at it through more of a romantic lens. I think it's a beautiful thing that you feel that passionately about somebody that you want to commit to them, and there's a real love of love in a weird way, and sometimes that creates rash decisions and maybe you're not thinking it through the
way you should. And I point to myself as well, because I only had on paper for six months between my two marriages, neither of which worked out. So I didn't, you know, take a beat.
Would you get married again? Because that was the question that people always ask me, And I'm like yes, I'm like, yes, absolutely love. I love the concept and the idea and I want That's what I've wanted for so long.
I just got it wrong.
Isn't it funny I have said the same thing. I have always wanted a life partner. I have always wanted to be married. I never wanted that single, care free thing. It wasn't something I ever aspired to do, or to live alone or any of those things. So I think that is why maybe we have been in multiple marriages, because there's been this desire to have a partner and a desire to make it work. Both of my marriages, I mean, technically I think ended up being thirteen years,
but we left after twelve years. In both of them, I tried. That's another not that you don't try if you actually I knew much earlier, much much earlier. But you stay because you want it to work. You love the idea marriage, But yes, I do want to I do want to be married, and I do love the idea of having a partner and sticking with each other through the good days.
And the bad. TJ you feel the same.
I was about to say, I'm right here, guys, Okay.
Let me just make sure this is aligned, because this is what we're going to do on the show, right, We're going to make sure people are are aligned.
Right.
We are so perfectly aligned in that regard. And I suppose I am. I'm like I talk about it. I don't like rom coms and whatnot, but I am such a fan of love. There is nothing I love more than a wedding. It's just the idea of somebody making that commitment and a new beginning and building something together. I absolutely love it.
I love weddings too, even if it's not my wedding. I always crack even.
If it's not my wedding.
I hope we get to have a wedding here.
Let's do that, you guys.
Let's have the and then we have to get That's the thing.
So whoever like they actually get married, we're all going to their wedding, are your guys?
So you have to invite at the last wedding. I'm just putting this out there that TJ and I went to. TJ gave the blessing. He also can be inefficient, so he could step up in a couple roles if we have any lucky couples that come out of this podcast.
I can only marry people in New York and in Madison, Wisconsin. I'll explain later why those are the two places.
Can I throw a question to you guys really fast about the timeline to a wedding or or engagement. Is there something where's are you guys wanting to wait a longer time? Are you wanting to or is it like do do you feel like you don't have to answer this?
If you don't want.
I'm just kind of curious, like because of you know, the divorce on both side. I remember talking to my now husband about it, and it's just is there something where you're like, all right, we've already have grown kids, We're not trying to have more, so we can wait or is it do you have to check bock is off first? Like what's kind of that journey at the stage you guys are at with where your kids are at too?
Yeah, So I just sent my baby off to college, so I am now officially an empty nester. Tej has an eleven year old who we love, and it's actually it's an amazing It actually makes me want to cry at how beautiful it all is. Like that is all we needed to get all of that in line and everybody on board, and they are. But in terms of there is no urgency in the sense that, yes, I mean, I'm fifty one years old. I don't need to rush into anything, and I think I have rushed into everything
in my life up until now. But he knows I want to get married, and I know he wants to get married, and we've both said to each other and publicly that we want to live our lives together. So we haven't put a timeline together. And I don't think we you know, we talk about it all the time. I don't think a week goes by where we don't discuss like should we should we?
We were talking about it today.
We actually we're just talking about it twenty minutes ago.
Thirty minutes ago, Jenna, no kidding. We were sitting outside of the studio where we are just having a conversation, and I said, you know what, how would this day be different if we were married?
Right? Yeah?
And does it change? Does it?
You know, like if there's no urgency, then then do you just life partner it?
Like Goldie and Kurt.
So it's so funny. I talk about Goldie and Kurt all the time because I love the idea of choosing someone every day. However that's scary is to me too at the same time, so there is a safety and there is a comfort, and there is an ease and knowing that person has publicly and legally committed to working it out with you, that they that walking away is
something that doesn't seem like such an easy option. And that's always the fear of things get tough, if things get hard, if you know, you can just walk away. That's a scary thing on one hand, but on the other hand, it's also a beautiful thing that you continue to choose each other. So I'm I do I do think that there would be I think I would feel just safer and a little bit more comfortable eventually if we married. Like that's just me being honest. I even
hate admitting that, but that's just the truth. But I don't think it would change who we are.
I think it's a beautiful thing that having that safety is. That's not a you don't need him, but that feeling of safety is with all of it is a beautiful thing. It's I don't look at that as a bad thing. I wouldn't be embarrassed.
To make sure I'm being clear here, I do want to marry Robot here. But it's a weird thing too. There are some points in my life where I wanted to get married, like I want to get married. Sure, this is the first time where I can actually say I want to marry her. It's it's a little different mentality.
People always I like to get married one day, and no, I it's it's different for me this time around, where it's marriage is not suppose to be the It doesn't feel like it's the next step or what needs to be done. It's been so long now, and no, I just want to marry her.
I feel that so much in my bones. Because I cried to my now husband. I was like, I wish I would have saved that walk just for you. Like if I am like I it hurts that I I've done it before because I was just checking that box, like, Okay, we had the I couldn't cancel the wedding because we had an Okay Magazine exclusive, you know.
What I mean.
Like I'm like, oh, I no.
I didn't even want to do it.
You know, I get it, So I get it.
This is just like I can't cancel them.
I will just divorce them a week later because that sounds better, you know, Like that's where my twenty something brain was at, you know, like how ridiculous.
But I'm like, I just want.
To walk to you, like I wish I saved that for you because I'm like, I want to marry you.
Yeah.
I think that's so funny because before you know, that's public pressure, the Okay magazine thing, which I totally get. I experienced it.
I paid half the wedding. I had to do it, Like how could cancel people's plans?
But even you know, when I was twenty three and was, you know, a budding journalist, the pressure of the invitations having gone out, the pressure of knowing people were and me knowing already that I probably didn't want to do this, but it was too afraid. I told my mom the night before, I don't know that I love this person, and yet the pressure once the wedding's on, once the invitations are sent out, once you know people are expecting you to get married, to call it off, it was
just too daunting. And I don't know if any of you all experience that, but you know, I think and everyone says, oh, it's just pre wedding jitters, but I think sometimes you know, and you just can't stop the train from leaving the station.
Jenny feels this one.
I know.
I just think that that's what's so cool about this podcast is that we are going to be able to use our wisdom's our expertise, if you will, just our history, the things that we have learned to help other people make, you know, intentional decisions that they are well thought through and they can learn from our experience hopefully, because you know, sometimes people that are close to us, like our moms or our sisters, or somebody's gonna tell us, you know,
like I was talking about before not to do it or thinking about it, or this isn't going to change. Bringing these things to their awareness, I think that's super important, and I think that I would. I would be so excited to be a person that gets to have this experience with all the four of us and actually be making decisions that I feel really good about.
Well. Also on top of that, too is and I don't want to speak for everyone, but I've done a crap ton of therapy. So just like my mom, I was helping her with her marriage the other day. She's on her second and you know, I was telling her, my right, Mom, you gotta set up these boundaries. And she's like, man, that therapy really helped you, didn't it. Jan I'm like, well, yeah, Mom, you should should also give it a try, you.
Know, like, yeah, it helps you can help people in that Harriet too, I have a question for you guys, what do you think people do wrong when they're picking a partner, like just in general, not us, but like, what do people do wrong when they're picking a partner.
I think you're basing a decision on a feeling, and feelings change, and I think you have to have I think the biggest mistake I can only speak for myself that I made is not looking for a friend first and a partner and a lover is obviously an important part of the equation, but I think you get caught up and swept up in catching feelings and you don't see things clearly. You are blinded by love or lust. Maybe it's not even love, and I think that is what can steer people in the wrong direction.
I picked wrong, a different type of wrong partner between twenty and twenty five, a different type of five. It's sometimes depends on where people are and the older. We had this conversation with a friend of ours, a grown ass woman who's doing her thing, and it was amazing to hear how she was, how she was not so sure or confident in her dating life as his grown powerful woman. But in talking to her and hearing the type of person and people she was picking, it was like,
you know better. I think folks know better at a certain stage in their life, and they make an excuse for Uh, well, okay, maybe he'll want kids later. Oh okay, maybe maybe she'll come around to this or that. I think we get to a certain point where you just don't trust those instincts.
But that's thirty five and above.
From Yeah, once you get twenty to thirty, make all the mistakes you want.
You got some time to recover from them.
And I think we think we can change people. I think we like something and we think, oh, I can I can change Maybe women think this. I don't know if men think that, but I know that I thought, well I can, I can change him. I can, And that is the biggest mistake.
Are you thinking you could do that? Now?
No, I'm not.
I'm not giving Well here's here's the deal too, though. I think it's not even so much about Yes, yes, I think we think we can change them, but we we hear what they say, not what they do. So they're saying I won't do this again. So I think we're going off of or you know they. I'm not just saying like he or she, but like the person that says like, oh the I'm not going to do this anymore, and then they do it.
And that's where I love this show.
For the idea of helping people find the red flags and someone too, because I'm very much now on Okay, are they saying what are they doing?
What they say? They walk and matching?
Yeah?
Are they are their words and actions matching? Because if not, that is the biggest flag for me moving forward in any relationship.
I think people also have an idea of what they want for their life and they try to fit it in that It's like you're putting an actor in the role, you know, And I think that sometimes we have to let go of that concept. And when it also in referencing, you know, you think you can change people. I think we all have learned. I feel like most of us have learned that we can't change people. I feel like we need to learn that we don't want to waste our time make that decision about like I don't want
to live my life trying to change someone. Because if that's how they want to live their life, go do it.
Be you.
But at the same time, you just need to really define what it is that you want. And I've fallen guilty of and I don't think it's a bad thing, like seeing potential in people and not necessarily wanting to change them. But knowing TJ what you were just talking about, we grow and we change, and our definition of what we want and what we need and what is acceptable changes as we get older.
And it's more than just the idea of them.
And Jenny playing on what Jenna was saying a second ago about red flags and helping people on this podcast identify potential red flags.
Do you all go back?
I mean all of us in our relationships we could see the red flag now in hindsight, but did we not want to see it in real time? Jenny? Do you look back at our relationships? We actually think, man, I can see that in real time? Or we did see it in real time?
We saw we saw it.
I mean my ex husband cheated within two weeks of us dating, and I'm like, it's fine, Oh.
What's nervous?
It's just nervous.
Oh he was just nervous.
You know, like he was.
He loved me so much as what he said that he just didn't know how to control that feeling.
So you know he has I'm just but like we all see it. We just go again.
We love to Jenny's point again, why is we love the idea? I loved the idea of him, you know, and so then you hear their words they'll never do it again. And that's the point again, going back to making sure, like the flags, that we can help people go okay, watch this, you know, because we want help to help people.
Do you guys think age and age difference play a part in a successful pairing because for me, for in my situation, I'm married to a man that's nine years younger than me.
Oh well TJ is four and a half years younger than me.
Wow, that half is the half, is what really?
I always say, though I my friends are usually younger than me. I am fifty one going on thirty. Like that's just I've always felt and just been a younger person. So and I've gone older and it actually the energies don't match TJ. I don't know. I think we are both really young at heart, and I think it does the age for me, the number you have, I don't
think it matters. I think it's more if you enjoy doing the same thing, if you have the same level of energy about certain activities, like we just loved doing things together and love to laugh, and so I don't I don't know, would you have been if I had been older or young, like, would that.
Have mattered to you older than you are now?
Yes?
Yes, exactly.
On the spot.
I know I never thought about your age. For the eight years that we were good friends and best friends, it was never an issue. We just were great friends, so it was never a matter. I never thought. I never had a chance to go, Okay, she's at age, and is that is that okay with me? I never got a chance to do that. So this is a non issue for us now.
But you know what bothered me at first? I kept saying to you. I was like, does it bother you that I'm older than you? Like, I've never been.
The older one in the relationship.
I just I was like, what about when my number has a six in years, isn't a five?
Like?
I don't know, Like, does that is that mentally an issue for men?
That geriatric bridge?
I don't like that I'm in my fifties and you're in your forties. That does bother me. I don't love it.
It's not it's not a it's I'm sure you all experience. You have to have someone with the same energy, you have to have someone with the same interest, but you can also be the exact same age, and somebody be severely emotionally immature compared to the other. You can be wildly no matter what the age is. That could be a huge difference. That's the big gap I usually see more often than anything, certainly in our jobs, our professions.
Sometimes people aren't on the same level career wise. It doesn't even have to be financial, but at least in terms of ambition, at least in terms of what they're doing in a career. Those things are factor into the age as well as I see.
Yeah, Jenny, what about for you, because you said you had that eight year gap, nine year, nine.
Years, because it's very important.
Yeah, I think that people, You're right, age is just a number. It's about your spirit and how you feel, and how you guys align and how you get along and what you enjoy and do together. Those are all more important than the number. But I do feel like as I age and as he ages, we're both going through different things in our lives. We're in different developmental phases, we're in different we have different needs, and it's about finding if you're able to find a common ground with
that person. Because it's very easy to be like, oh, we're in different places in our life, and you know, I've I have lived all of that up and down all around, and I don't want to have to like guide him or teach him every step of the way. I want him to develop on his own. But at the same time, I know how much people change in their forties to their fifties, and I hold on to like I look forward to watching that growth for him.
I enjoy seeing him evolve. And for me, it's a matter of, like you said, Amy, like wait, when I'm I do this in my head a lite, like when I'm sixty two, you're gonna be fifty three, And you know, like I do the math a lot, which is weird for me because I hate math, but I it does creep into the back of my mind sometimes, and I absolutely do notice differences in where we are in our lives, and then I have to do that thing where you're like, hmm, okay,
you do that eighty twenty thing where eighty I gotta find eighty percent that I love and then there's going to be that twenty percent that I have to ask myself is this acceptable? Is can I survive with these differences? And I think that that's important for people to ask themselves those questions going in because it does become part of the reality of a relationship.
Yeah, to your point, what I'm I think now this day and age of eight of dating. You know, when I was single, mom in it the last few years and I'm on the apps and swiping, I'm like, oh, there's a model after a model. I'm like, all these looks very green on the single side of things, but it is once you get into those relationships, it's everyone has their past, everyone has their stuff. So it's sometimes I think people are like, I've got a few friends, my call it must be so, you know, great to
be single and dating. I'm like, it sucks, like you know, I'm like, being single is tough. Being in a relationship is tough. Everyone has their stuff, so it's like, you know, I think it's also pointing that out where it's not always greener. Sometimes you need to put in the work too.
Jenny, you said the eighty twenty rule. I was not familiar with that. Is that a thing.
It's something that I've learned in some of the work that I've done over the years. Yeah, that's something that I think is a realistic thing to consider. Because we're we're all our own people. And I also have this concept of there's there are two circles in every equation of a relationship. There are two circles. There's one person and then person, and they are two complete in whole circles. And in the middle of those two circles is a square,
and that is the relationship. That's where the relationship lives and breathes. And the two circles have to put equal amounts into that square to make that square contain its shape and remain whole. And while doing that, those other two circles continue to be independent of the square. And I think that there's so many different ways of learning.
Like.
How to hope and how to try and how to work for a successful relationship, there are a lot of different formulas eighty twenty circle, square circle, Like I have a lot of different concepts, but I've learned that all through therapy and through work, and just like wanting so desperately to be successful in a relationship like love is very important for me. I do want to grow old with someone and I feel like it takes work. It's not for me, it's not just a magical you wear
a ring and I wear a ring and we're forever together. Like, I want our relationship to be fulfilling, so I'm willing to put in that work and fill up that square even when I don't want to, you know.
Do you guys think it's a deal breaker if someone doesn't want to go to therapy, because I have very strong opinions about therapy. I mean, It's changed me, my life, my relationships. So I would really struggle if my partner said that he wouldn't do therapy. Whether it's I'm not saying together, I'm but you know, even just for his own self right discovery and going and just talking to someone, whether it's once a month or every other month or whatever.
I think that's individual because like I think that's individual because everybody's different on that front, you know, and some people don't they don't believe in it, they don't need it, they're doing fine, whatever, Like I'm always like you do you. But for me, personally, I love to grow, and I say, if I'm not growing, I'm slow and I want to
keep growing until the last breath of my life. And for me, it's important to have a partner that recognizes that in me and loves that about me and also says that's inspiring, and I kind of want to be I want to do that too, because I see the fruits of your labor. I see how I mean, how much I've changed from the beginning of even this relationship
to where we are today. There's so much. There's a lot of change and a lot of growth that happens, and I feel like having a partner that wants to grow personally and together is really important, whether it's therapy or whether it's whatever.
What Jenna, were you saying, You.
Like, a problem doesn't necessarily have to present itself in the relationship. It's just something you recommend and you would like for your partner to do as a regular checkup.
Yeah, I mean, I think it's listen because I think we all have stuff. It's you know, they say a lot in those places like don't wait until something happens to go should always kind of be refining and growing, and you know, I think I definitely was like, it's not it's not a deal breaker, but if something was to come up and it was his decision because he's dealing with, you know, being away from his son and challenges, it's good to talk to someone, and so I strongly
encouraged it. But if someone was straight up like, no, I won't go ever, that would be like, oh man, that's that to me shows that they don't even want to try.
Are you talking about like personal therapy versus couples therapy.
I think it's a little bit about like if we have when we get into trouble or maybe some communication issues, you know, there might be a time where I'm like, hey, can we walk can we talk this out with a therapist? And if my partner was to say no, that would that would really that would really make me go, wait a minute, like this isn't this Why wouldn't you want someone to help us walk through something that we can't walk through together?
Yeah?
Yeah, Jenny, Jenna, Is there something both of you all have done or continue to do couples therapy?
No, we've never done couples therapy, but I mean he's done, He's started his own journey because he's had things that he wanted to personally work on, and that's it was his you know, I mentioned like, hey, maybe you should talk to someone, and you know the fact that he was open to it made me, you know, love him even more the fact that he was willing to go talk to someone. But I would never force someone. But if that person gave a I don't like therapy, I
would never go. That would kind of make me go, eh, I don't know if I like that.
What about you, Jenny.
I've been in that position where I didn't even at that time my development, know how beneficial therapy could be for me personally. So I wasn't like pushing for us to go to therapy or or anything like that. But when someone shows that they are too afraid to grow, and they're too afraid, afraid to look inside and find the answers within, that for me is a red flag because I don't want to be blamed for their problems, you know, I don't want to be the reason that
they're not happy. I want them to make themselves happy and for us to both be happy moving forward individually. And that's really important to me.
TJ as a guy, though, what are your thoughts? I feel I feel you bowing up a little bit. What are we feeling about therapy over there?
No quin I grew up.
I never knew people went to therapy until maybe I was in my late thirties.
I grew up.
I'm a black man in the South. We don't then know talk about. There's just some things that did not get discussed and never heard about. And you just my granddad had a third grade education and he raised seven kids on his own and all of them got college degree. So what the hell I got to complain about. It's that kind of thing.
This is why I grew up around.
So it wasn't until recent years I was the height of my professional success, but it was the lowest I'd ever been in my personal life. And I finally just hit a wall and somebody who wasn't even that close to me recognized identified. It immediately got me into therapy and it it. It's true that they say it's like dating, right, you got to go around to therapist, the therapists and fuying one that.
Work for you.
Yeah, so I had to do that little that got exhausting for a little while. But yeah, it has been helpful. It's not something I keep up, but it was helpful for some of the darkest periods of my life. So absolutely, I haven't done couples therapy with Robot yet. We've talked about doing so. We don't know why. We just want to go what's like me?
But there's something to it though, because so I think there's I think there's a little bit I think too much. So I think I had too much therapy with my last husband because we talked so much that I think it caused some more issues too.
So there's a.
Piece of that where I thought it was a where I almost am like, now we're fighting more going to therapy. But I do think there's something where it is helpful when you know we might have different communication styles where it can be helpful for someone to go, Okay, let me help you walk through this piece and or let's just get some tools. Because that's the thing too where you know, my my therapist even said to me the other week, she's like, you know, she's like, I'm not
breaking up with you. She's like, but you're not in crisis anymore. You're You're good. She's like, you don't have to come as often as you want. I'm like, no, I love coming, like I want to keep like growing and learning. And you know, she's like, but you don't need to come every you know, two weeks. She's like, let's space it out some more.
No, bless her. I love this therapist for you.
But you know, when it comes to like you know, my husband and stuff, I've I've taken a few tools that we've which i'd love to tell you know, someone when they when they we help someone on the show and they find a partner. But there was a check in that I stole from therapy from my last couple
sessions with my ex. And it was this check in that we did, and I just I sprinkled it in the other night with my husband and it's like, hey, do you mind if we do this check in just to you know, kind of feel it out, and he was like, wow, that was really helpful. So just having tools to have that healthy relationship and communication I think is great and things that we can bring to people too that you know, come on the show and help them find love with Ah.
Yeah, I mean. And I was very much like TJ where I grew up in a family where I didn't know anyone who went to therapy. Nobody went to therapy. We went to church, and it was also just buck up, suck it up, you know, stop complaining and thinking about yourself and what you need is selfish you need to give.
It to God.
And so that's just kind of how I was raised. But I first went into therapy right after I knew my first marriage was not something I wanted to be in and I didn't have the tools and how to communicate what I wanted or needed for myself, how to send boundaries I had. I learned a lot about myself
and I've been in I've been in therapy. I'm not in it right now, but I spent a year of this past two years weekly sessions just working on myself, figuring out why I made the decisions I made and why I couldn't make the decisions needed to have made. So those I think it's I'm a huge fan of it. I do think there could be too much of it, and so you know, there's a way to strike a healthy balance. But yes, TJ and I have even talked
about do we need to we have communication issues. I don't know a couple who doesn't, and I think a lot of times it's just about misunderstanding intent and the ego gets involved, and it's just a way to learn how to trust your partner, I think in a lot of ways, or how to talk to your partner in a way that they can understand, like you understand, right, but getting your significant other to understand sometimes I make
it worse when I try to explain. Sometimes when I'm trying to explain how I feel, now, we just got into a worse fight.
Well, this is why I always say to my husband when we're we're talking and walking through something, I'm like, before you respond, what did you hear me say? Because I need to see if you can if you actually heard what I said. So you're almost affirming what you heard. So I'm like, what did you know? I'm like, I'm like, don't even don't debate it, don't come back at me.
What did you hear?
And then he's like, I hear that you feel overwhelmed and you know, stressed. And I'm like, okay, so once you feel heard, then the the energy of the room starts to calm down.
That good, that's good advice. I love that, Jenna.
It's been very helpful.
I think that's amazing. But if we did that, we would not hear at all with the other person.
But Jenna, you ask your husband like, what did you hear me say? I have to ask Robot, sweetheart, do you know what you just said?
He is a literal you know, what I meant. No, I don't know what you meant. I know what you said, and I you know, I think I don't want to put all women in this category. But I mix and blend the emotion with logic, and sometimes the emotion is it overwhelms the logic and so when I communicate it, it doesn't come out in the way he can hear it.
And I think that men are more linear. Yeah, they want they're more they want to.
Hear Mine is like, well, you know what I saying. He's like, I don't, and so that's frustrating to me. I'm like, but on an emotional level, you know, we're on company. No, I do not.
That's so that's where the check in will be really good for you guys too. And and for that I do to listeners, because those that can't do or teach, you know, those that can't teach, this is what we're going to be yes, and we'll be taking that. And when I do the check in, I think you guys will really when we talk about that one, you guys really like that one.
It's really good.
I'm excited about all the people who we can potentially help. I know that we just want to let everyone know who's listening. It's going to be happening over the next couple of weeks. We're going to introduce you to our panel of celebrity experts, and then we're going to ask that you all check in with us. We want to hear from you. We want to hear your stories. We want to hear where you are in your love life and what you need, what you want, what you're looking for,
and we want you to let us help you. And you know, I I We've lived a lot of life, We've traveled a lot of roads, and we are on the same road together. Just just to be clear, Just to be.
Clear, what did you just hear? TJ? What she just said? What did you just hear? I need you to repeat that.
One.
Do you all have the same communications issues? This sound familiar to you?
Two?
Oh yes, yes. Women are so different in how they hear and process and feel. We have to really acknowledge that sometimes, and remember we're all different.
We're so different exactly. So if you guys are looking for love, call us one eight four four four. I do pod guys, this is going to be so much fun. I know, I love love. I love helping find people find like guys I set up. I'm trying to set up my ex husband right now. I've set up other you know, Like I'm always like, oh, I dated this guy, do you want to date him?
Like he's great?
Here just wasn't for me, Like this is I love to set people up.
We I do too. So my best friend I set up with one of my producers at ABC News and now they just moved in together. I'm so excited a matchmaking success. I actually set up my first ex husband as well with his wife. It was a friend of a friend and I said, do you have anyone that he can just, I don't know, hang out with? And she said, are you serious? You really want me to set your ex husband or soon to be ex husband up with one of my friends. And I said, exactly, I do.
Well when you've got kids too, that's the thing. I'm like, I want to pick someone that's going to be helping you raising my children.
That's such a good point.
No, it's true though, like not to control it, like I want to control it.
You are the potential step mom, not for me, not for me.
I was like, you are on your own, you go, you are on your own.
Yeah, I think if you get to a point like where I was in my first marriage divorce. We were friends and that was that was kind of it. So it was an easy thing to do, and I wanted the best for him, And yes, I did want to know that the person who my daughters at the time were two and five, this woman who they're gonna that she she kind of got a stamp of approval from my other friends. So it made me feel better about the whole thing. And just turns out that it worked.
So right now I have two matchmaking successes. How about you, TJ. You were working on one the other day.
I don't hook people up.
I got enough problems in my own personal life and my relationships just through somebody else.
Now what, you're taking a step into the matchmaking business.
And I got you here to make you.
We got your back. I love it. Guys.
Well, should you send us off to UH to let people know how they can find love again?
Yes, you can email us. We gave you the phone number. I'll say it again one eight four four four, I do pod pod. You can email us at I dopod at iHeartRadio dot com. You can follow us on Instagram. D m us put a message in the replies at I do Part two pod. I do Part two. That's the number two pod. Wait can you just can you just translate that for me? PJ.
You want me to tell people what you are trying to?
Please? Please do you.
Instagram and I do Part two pod. It's the digit too, Okay, I do Part two pod. As in the number, don't spell out t w O. It's two two okay, all right, So I love this. This is I'm gonna this is a fun tagline. I do Part two an iHeartRadio podcast where falling in love is the main objective.
That's kay kay, And we're here to help you through all of our mistakes, all of our lessons.
Do as we say, not as we did.