This is pod Popular Podcast for the People, The Great Love Debate. It's Great Love Debate, the Great Love Debate.
It's a Great Love Debase. Hi again, everyone's Brian Howie. Welcome to the Great Love Debate, the world's number one dating relationship podcast since twenty fifteen. I'm back here in the very fine studios of Pod Popular Podcasts for the People. I'm back of the one in Boca Ratone, Florida. It is peak peak season in Boca Raton, Florida. And if you've been in any part of Florida during season, you know that A there's traffic, but B traffic's probably worth
it because it's lovely. Speaking of lovely, as I record this, I think in your podcasting roster here we are up to like episode four nineties something. I don't know exactly what this is before ninety something. So we are closing in on our five hundredth episode. Now, to get technical with us, probably about thirty five or forty shows got lost in the sands of time that we did back during our Corolla digital days. Our podcast one guys, and
no offence to them, they were great. But when you back ten years ago, when you transferred feeds around or whatever. Not all of them got transferred, some of them got lost. Some are really good with some really famous people, so maybe I'll find them and release them as a best of But for practical purposes, we are closing in on our five hundredth episode, and I asked you guys to send us suggestions of what I should do for my
five hundredth episode. I can't believe the amount of people who want to do ask me to do it nude, which is crazy because you assume I'm not doing it nude already, which is dumb. So I want some ideas. I don't want to just sit here and do a retrospective of five hundredth I want to do something. If there's a guest you want, we can get just about
everybody pretty popular. If there's a subject you want. If there's something, shoot me an email, great love debate at gmail dot com and tell me what do you want to hear for episode five hundred, Because in the podcasting world, five hundred episodes is a very very rare thing. Most people don't to talk about anything for ten straight years. I will talk about this forever. So when we do
episode five thousand, five hundred is gonna seem point. I remember when I did my one hundredth live show and we had a big celebration, and I was like, people are like, oh, wow, you did a hundred live shows. That's amazing. We're like four point thirty now. So anyway, something we do not do enough in these five hundred or so shows is we don't have enough dudes on the show. We don't have enough men on the show.
And some of our highest rated shows we've ever had have involved us talking to some fellas about life experiences that people always ask me that, And there's a practical reason, and there's a personal reason. The personal reason is women just look better and smell better in the studio, so I'd rather have them around. But the practical reason is that women like to talk about this stuff, love, sex, dating, relationship a lot more than men do, or at least
that's the perception. And maybe it's because I'm not asking the questions enough of the men. And maybe it's because you know, we're not giving the men the credit for being as open and honest and vulnerablebout this stuff. You guys know me, You know I've changed a bunch over the last couple of years. So I'm bringing in somebody here today. I guess that on his podcast and it was great, and he had me ask a lot of
questions about my own journey. He is one of the co hosts of the very popular back nine podcast, and back nine is not entirely about golf, and he will get into that a second. And I was glad to have him in here today because he has a really interesting story, really into someting journey that I think not only the men will like, but I think the women will like it too. Dennis Williams, how are you.
I'm doing great, Thanks for having me in.
I want to start off this way. You were married a long time.
Yeah, got married young, twenty seven. I just turned twenty seven years old and was married almost twenty years, which beautiful daughters, and yeah for that marriage, and it.
Was great twenty You know, getting married this your late twenties is not crazy. It's not like you married I don't think she was your high school sweetheart or anything. But you got married, and you go through your late twenties, you go through your thirties, ye're into your forties, and you're pretty much like this is it right? And then suddenly twenty years in for whatever reason, you're shot back out and to the single universe. Confused, not entirely hopeful,
probably a little bit broken, like a lot of people are. Right.
Yeah, I was really broken. I actually thought I was done. I think part of it was my self esteem had been dropped so much by her and the blind side that happened from the breakup, that I really thought at forty six, forty seven years old, that I was toast, that I had no chance to meet somebody that I
didn't really understand. And it's so laughable to me now, you know, based on our podcast, your podcast and all the people you talk to and what you know, and then you're twenty seven is the sweets I realized that, man, I was a freaking unicorn, you know. I mean basically, somebody told me that, and I've used that again for my other friends that have gotten divorced or split up. I'm like, it's you have a job, you can talk, you're like normal, you haven't served time, like young enough to.
Be a dad still if your choices are like twenty one to fifty five.
The only thing that did draw the line in the stand is I wasn't gonna have more kids.
R I did. I did.
I did get that part through it. It didn't allow me to go really young. But the women at least look at you as a candidate. They don't know that until they talked to you.
Good point, yeah, good point. Yeah.
So it's one of those things where I but at the time, man, it took me a while. It took me dating apps. It took me going on dates to realize it, and and and actually it took me looking at dating apps to see what the pool was.
And you realize, okay, well, I'm gonna be okay.
Well, I mean that's the well. I mean, you could have just gone outside. You're gonna be okay, there's people outside. But that's the thing. When you got married, there were no dating apps or pretty much that. There might have been like a match dot com or something, but twenty years.
Ago even think so, no, I it was uh yeah, everything was very organic. Uh it was.
I was married in ninety seven, so so everything was very very organic, the.
Old fashioned way in the bars and that's where and so yeah, and then you go and it's like, can I have your phone number? And you'd write it on a napkin and you call her up and ask her out and pick her up and do all. It was different right now it's uh swipe, text, meet up, hangout. Yeah, was this really a date? I don't know. So you get out there and you must know. I don't want to get into why you got divorced, but obviously you said it was painful. So you're coming out of that
and you're probably like, that was my relationship? Do I have fifty years ahead of being by myself? And you know your dad and all that. There's some solace in that, but you're like, what is the first thing you're thinking? And how long does it take between the time you got divorced and the time that you're like, I gotta try something. Is that six days or is it like a long time?
It's a couple of months.
And then it's those first few uh, you know, dates, hookups.
Those kinds of I think it's the first. Honestly for a.
Guy, it's like the first hookup. If you've been faithful to somebody for twenty years, it's like, Okay, I hooked up again. I'm gonna be all right. So riding a bike, you know, it's one of those things where you got you have to hook up a few times and you're like, this hasn't changed.
This seems the sense I'm still all right.
Yeah.
So once you do that that, I mean it's shallow, but that's where guys get a lot of their confidence.
Like you know.
You're attracted to somebody. It leads to that and you're okay, Like, literally you have to go through that, you by riding a bike. You have to ride that bike a few times before you get your mojo back.
Well, what it means is somebody finds me on some level desirous. Right, everybody just think I'm gross? There's some possibility like that is really the first step because we think, I would say this is men. We think they think we're disgusting because that's the way we look at ourselves. And so you go back out there and somebody is even mildly interested in you, that's step one to getting
your confidence back. Because you're always you're trying to leave the past relationship and the pain of that in the rear view mirror. You're not trying to bring that into a relationship. You're just kind of baby stepping your way back into is there even a possibility that I could be happy again? Much less being a long term relationship.
There's that, and there's also kind of once you do take those next steps, they are also trusting and deciding whether you really want to be friends with somebody of the opposite sex again and going through all of that stuff again or is it just going.
To be physical.
Like that's the the other thing you have to navigate. I mean, for the for the first part, you know, if I was going to give any guy advice is take your freaking time, man, Like, don't don't jump right back. It's so I've seen so many guys I have a friend right now that's kind of done this that you just you almost overlap, you go, you have to go back into that like codependent jumping back into a relationship thing because that's all, you know, and the best thing
that I ever did. I did that for a little while and I realized it was bad. So I went and I vowed to not get in a relationship for a year, like one full year, no relationship. I would date, but there was gonna be nobody who I said, you're my girlfriend, that's it, and I needed that full That's.
A pretty hard it's smart, but that's a pretty hard line in the sand because then you're dating with only sort of one foot in. That's tough on them.
Absolutely is absolutely, But I think if you're transparent about it, you know it can work.
You just the word is I'm not ready.
Right, But a lot of times what we're trying to do when we run back out there is to replace the routine, replace the comfort. This is who I talk to every day, and so you have to be ready. I always tell people you have to get to a point where you go twenty four straight hours without thinking about the last person with anything that gives you any sort of emotion strong either way, if you get over that one day, like I didn't really think of them, they don't make me mad, they din't can be sided
and miss them. That is the biggest step to getting over the hump, and that could take a long time. After twenty years, I assume it takes forever, especially because you probably have to still be in contact with your ex and you're co parenting. I don't know if you're in court. I don't know what's happening with the divorce, but it's complicated.
I used anger. That's what made it for me.
I mean I had to be angry for a while and have zero forgiveness and just be mad.
That was the only way I could draw that line.
And that happens a lot, and that was the only thing I could do. It was the only way I could heal. I eventually got over that, but it started with that.
The question I asked people when they got divorced is not why did you get divorced? I don't care about that. I say, when did you know it wasn't going to last forever? Was it in year twenty? Was it that late that you're like this might not last forever?
It was pretty shocking? Yeah, I mean for me it was. I mean we got divorced at twenty. It was more like you're eighteen nineteen. Yeah, I was pretty I was pretty shocked.
That's a long way to go down the road. Mentally, yeah, physically emotionally thinking this part of my life is fine. I have my wife and my family, and this is it. I never have to think about going back out there again.
It's why I started with the conversation about how it hit me like a ton of bricks and I didn't think I would ever because I I wasn't ready for it. There's some people that are in miserable marriages. Yeah, pairing for it for ten years. A lot of people are counting down till the youngest is eighteen. Yes, I believe me. I know people that are doing that right un till they're out of the house. Yeah, we can, we can go separate ways.
How did you resist your friends or especially your friends wives, from saying I've got somebody for you, like trying to immediately find somebody for you. Did that happen a lot or people.
Just kind of distance themselves, Yeah, or I got some Yeah, I've got somebody that you can meet. Actually, that did get me into a relationship for a little while in the community I lived in California. That was that codependent thing that I wasn't ready for kind of deals. So I did kind of fall into that comfort trap for a little while. And then that was a pretty harsh breakup and was precipitated my time alone.
That was so necessary.
Yeah, it's not even about people thinking can I love again? It's people thinking can I trust again?
And that is the thing that was me.
Yeah, that's a lot of people. Once that is broken, it's really it takes a long time and you and and even that impedes a new relationship because you're not even prepared to go, And then that's unfair to that person that like, I don't trust you and has nothing to do with you. I don't trust me, I don't trust the situation. I don't want to get hurt again. And so you're dating with these restrictions on it just it's hard.
Well, the other thing about trust is trust is insecurity sometimes. So I was I was very insecure about you know, is this person gonna be faithful?
What are they gonna be like?
And all those kinds of things, And I had to get to the point where it didn't the outcome didn't matter because I'm gonna be fine.
That's what you have to get to. You trust is a lot of Am I gonna be okay? If it goes that way? Right? Like if it goes sour? Am I gonna be all right?
You really do trust more if you realize that if you're comfortable and know that you've already you've already been through the worst thing you could possibly go through, So everything else is just relative scales of that, and I'm gonna be fine. It would have hurt, right, but I'm gonna be fine. Even my new wife, like it's amazing right now, But if someday it's not like this time, I would be okay. I don't want to get though.
Yeah. See, that is the thing. It's a little bit of an advantage that the women have is the women early on have more at a younger age, more crushes, more I like this boy, and they get their heart broken more early. Men really don't. And then when it goes bad, it goes bad for the men, but they don't build that up the way the women do. The women kind of expect it to go bad a little bit. For the men. It is a total blind side, especially if there's things like in fidelity or like it is
just not something you're mentally prepared for that. I think women do prepare for that a little bit better so when it happens to a guy. And also generally when a man his friends scatter, it's not like you have the support group like women have, like let's go away for the weekend, and guys suck and they sort of rally. Men are sort of left to find this on their own. It's hard to talk about. It's hard to be vulnerable. You don't want to watch around with the broken heart.
You don't want to, you know, lead with Ti'm hurt. You don't want to be on a first date talking about your ex and so there's not a lot of outlets besides therapy. And that's a different and drink. And I was just about that's so funny A brought that. I was like, what I did? What was your vibe? I was going to be like as a video games that you're drinking?
I drank.
I what I would do in Irish boy from Massachusetts, quite Irish, Scottish, We'll go to that.
So what I would do is I couldn't be home alone, so I would plan something. I would right after work. I would plan to meet friends. I would plan to go to the golf course. I would plan to do something every night, and every single time it involved alcohol.
Like I had to be out.
I couldn't be home with my own thoughts alone, So I was always planning on being out. Yeah, and I look back and I drank a lot. What was your drinking like before though? During marriage?
Radically different from them.
It was you know, social social drinking. It wasn't like I drank every night or all the time, but it was like heavy drink socially. So it was easy for it to go even to another level when that social became every day right right, all right.
I gotta take a quick break because we gotta pay for booze around here. I'm Dennis Williams. He's from the Back nine podcast. I'm going to get into how this turn in the corner. But I took a break. We will be back right after this. And we are back. So you're dating you? Do you spend some time alone? What is the metric for? Okay? I think I'm okay. Now when do I come out of the cave? Did you?
I don't think there is one. So I was fully not expecting to get in another serious relationship when I met my current wife or back. In fact, I figured I would be single forever, Like I didn't want to get married again. I really didn't. It was it was actually my mantra. I'm like, I don't know, I don't it's sort of like what you said on our show. I don't see a reason for it, Like I don't need to get married.
A lot of divorce people. The fantasy's gone right happily, A rafter's gone.
Right right right.
So I had no intention, and you know, I met this amazing woman who's become my best friend and somebody. What it came down to for me, why I decided to finally get married, to jump ahead, and why I turned the corner was because when you vow to be with somebody, the other vows were broken. Right when you vow to be it takes the relationship to another level.
And I was right about that. I wasn't sure, and it's only been a couple of months, but I could tell right away that it changed things in a positive way. Not that we couldn't have gone through life like the way we were happy and together. Plenty of people do it, but for me, a little bit of it is faith
and spirituality. It was this momentary opportunity to tell the world, this is the person I want to be with, and to some respects, it was to also say to my kids, this is the person I want to be with, not your mom, like even though that ship is sailed, Like the found somebody that supersedes her in my life, and I need to tell the world that.
So that was something. It's all it all works.
Together, if that makes sense. Was not to pry On, that was your ex wife dating. She's married, she's remarried, but was she during during the time of your drinking in alone time, were you monitoring what she was doing or.
I'm sure matter, it didn't matter. I'm sure she was. Yeah, I'm sure she was.
So was the first serious relationship you came when you when you, like Andy dufran came out of solitary confinement and was that is that your wife? No?
No, no, no, okay, I actually lived with somebody else for a little while.
So you between you come out of that and you're like, okay, mentally I'm ready to start dating again. How quickly do you share the I went through this, I don't know if I trust, Like, are you open.
About it when you're ready to start doing I'm open. I'm open to it. And what I found was, you know, nobody cared. They wanted to be in a relationship and they wanted to I found that they wanted to fix it for me. Yeah, they wanted to fix me and fix it, and I look, I was like a I was like a project.
Well a lot of times because the women have gone through it, they do know a lot better and they want you to be if you're open about the women are like, we know you guys are screwed up, if you know, and you kind of tell us how we can work around anything. Women are very forgiving and they're very like you said, they're willing to fix what is broken. If you're like, listen, I'm gonna have trouble trusting or I went through this. I drank a lot, I had to heal and I had to do that. They like that.
Yeah, it's vulnerable too, so it gives them power. Like I was very vulnerable, Like that was the problem too, So I was.
I was.
I put up with a lot of things that I shouldn't have. I was a little bit submissive at the time because I hadn't figured it out. Does that make sense? I was really Yeah, I was really in a dark place.
I know I've been there. People who listen to this podcast, they know about my sort of estrangement from my family and dead to Me podcasts and a stranger podcast Gosten go listen to that one. And I used to be deeply ashamed of that because people do not necessarily want to get into a relationship with somebody who doesn't have a close relationship with their family. Your dad is sitting fifteen feet away from you, You're not one of those people.
And I used to just hide it. I used to just been like, oh, I guess I talked to my mom whatever. And now I lead with it because it is such a big part of me and who I am, and at my vulnert, I'm like, you need to know so I don't Seven months down the road, it's Christmas time and you're like, are we going to see your family? And I'm like, actually, I haven't talked to him in fourteen years. They don't want that right, And I'm not
ashamed of it anymore. I'm not ashamed to tell the woman i'm dating that this matters to me, that I have this part of me that is I don't even know it's healing, but it is painful. I think they women like that more. And you said, when you came out of there and you were forty seven years old, and you're you're probably forty seven, you're always thinking I'm almost fifty. They don't think of it that way. They think of as your mid forties, but you're thinking almost
fifty and almost fifty. You're like, oh my god, who's going to date that. I get a discount of Denny's. I mean, you know, that's kind of it. You go through relationships so you live with somebody your dead. When is it that got your hope back? Right? Getting in a relationship where I don't know if you said I love you or any of that stuff, but you began to trust again, the hope kicked in. Do you remember that moment where you're no longer afraid that this could work out?
I think it was the realization that I could be like with somebody regularly all the time and relatively healthy. I still in that relationship, I still wasn't healthy. I hadn't hadn't done the work, I hadn't spent time alone. So there was no light bulb moment. The light bulb moment came on after that. It really did when I when I realized, you know, you talk about family, and family is also your community, your friends that you lean on. And I mean our podcast was born from that time.
It was born from me talking to Josh, my podcast partner, and hit him and I helping each other through that period and realizing that we were both talking about stuff that guys don't talk about.
Right.
So that's really the light bulb moment for me was realizing that Okay, I can talk about this stuff. I can get through it, and I'm gonna be stronger on the other side.
Yeah, and you had to get sober a little bit to do that. You had to just slow down. So did the the awakening happen and the drinking slow down or the drinking slowed down and the awakening happened.
I would say the awakening happened and the drinking slowed down.
You know.
A little of that also became the realization that, you know, I'm pretty health conscious now. You get in your fifties and you're like, i gotta start taking better care of myself. I'm gonna be around here for my kids and everything else. So, you know, it was it was a little bit of that too. It was a little bit of health consciousness.
How old were your kids when you got divorced.
They were nineteen and fifteen, about to turn sixteen.
Okay, so they're they're aware of what you're going through. So are they like, Dad, you got a date or get or they don't want to?
Amazingly supportive. My oldest daughter was a freshman at U. See Santa Barbara and I have a very vivid recollection of going down and if you know, California. We were on State Street in Santa Barbara, and she took Dad shopping to show them the cool clothes wide sidewalks into Yeah.
That I needed to wear. She bought me.
She helped me buy a she's a college because she didn't buy it. She helped me pick out a cool outfit. I think I still have the jean jacket, yeah, but she helped me pick out. She was she was on board with getting Dad back out on the on the scene and helpful to that.
First time I went to you see Santa Barbara, I was like, I'm so glad I didn't go here. I would have failed out in like two seconds.
Can I tell you that was insane?
Can I tell you that when I took her there, I said, thank god my parents didn' show me this. I would have done anything I could possibly do to get into school. I would have gone to the community college beforehand. I would have done whatever it took to get into school. Anybody who ever has visited at school has to want to go there.
Right on the water, girls are in bikinis. It's insane.
It's an insane place. And if you saw where if you saw where she lived, her junior and your senior year.
The sorority houses that they they owned that are like, you know, ten million dollar properties and they're each paying nine hundred dollars is sleep nine hundred dollars a month to sleep in a garage.
And I have three other girls. It's crazy.
Shout out you see Santa Barbara Gauchos or whoever you are.
Yeah, the Gauchos as good job.
Tell me about your How do you you get out a couple of relationships? You're then back out single again, but you are different because you're more confident. You're like, Okay, eventually somebody will work out. So you're in a space now or an environment confidence wise and hope wise that your current wife can walk into that. Yeah, how did that happen?
Random meeting down in South Florida.
I was here during COVID on business in West Palm Beach and I knew her. I had known about her she's mutual friends for a while, and I knew she lived in It's kind of serendipity. I was in Delray Beach at a hotel Delray Beach, Florida, and I knew she lived in South Florida. I thought she lived closer to Lauderdale. She was a mile from my hotel, and I messaged her to tell me a little bit about South Florida. I'm thinking of moving from California. My full
family's on the East Coast. I'm getting out of California. I want to move to Florida. I'm done with California. Tell me a little bit about South Florida. I know Central Florida, know other parts of the state. So we meet out at a restaurant in Delray and it's still COVID, so it's kind of quiet, and we spent five hours having wine and laughing, and I'm like, I'm about to I'm supposed to schedule a flight for the next I'm like, i gotta stay one more day. So I stay one
more night. We go out to kind of on a more traditional date, have a blast. I will tell you what I knew right away was you don't know right away. I don't know that I believe in this whole lot. I believe it lust it first site. I don't believe in love it first sight. Here's what I do believe in. I believe a sense of humor. Match is immediate, and if you can laugh with somebody non stop for two days and have.
The same sort of silly sense of humor.
Then you're onto something and the rest of it sort of like falls into place. But the match for me has always been do you have the same humor I have?
Was she divorce?
Yes, she was married only for a couple of years, but she's been with the guy that she was married for like six years.
So at this point, though, because you've had these healing relationships in between, you're not necessarily you can focus on laughing and having fun or whatever. You're not so like leading. You're not leading with the pain anymore.
No, not at all to the point where again I I it was really just starting out as like a fun friendship relationship. Let's just have a good time and see where this goes. And then the connection just got stronger and stronger and stronger. But it was because it was really more about just like fitting together and having fun.
And so you leave the second day, you have the second day, and then you leave town. When do you start thinking I need to get back there to see her again? Is it when you're on a plane out.
Well, it's a really good story.
Actually I went to I as part of still finding myself I had scheduled a trip to Saint John in the US Virgin Islands.
For three weeks. Wow, And I had a place there.
And when I went there, my family was there hanging out with me for a week. And then I knew I was going to spend the last week alone. And rather than spend it alone, I said, do you want to it's COVID, you want to come out and just you got to get a test and just nobody's here, come, come hang out. And she came planning on being there for three days, and she changed her flight twice and stayed for a week, and then I flew back.
So you'dn't eve been out twice. And then she was willing to travel. Yeah, good for her.
Yeah, see ladies, starting it, Yes, get on the damn plane, start it.
Yes, plenty of time to say no.
Then, So the next part of it was I was supposed to go back to California for New Year's and I came down to Delray Beach for New Year's rere you'ro out on my trip, And then count of the rest was history that year.
And when did you start to change in your mind? I might be open to getting married.
That took a while, so that took a few couple of years. After that, it was sort of realizing that I wanted to, like all the things I said before, I wanted to solidify this as more than just my girlfriend.
I say that all the time. There needs to be another term, you know. I say that like I want somebody, because a lot of people don't necessarily want to get married again, but I want to be like, listen, I want a term that separates you from all of the other girlfriends besides fiance, besides wife. That is like, you're the one. I don't know what that term as yet. I would say just like like, that's the girl, and
people know what that means. But societally, we need to come up with a term that we don't want to get married but we are in.
Yeah, I don't disagree with you, but I would also say, reflect on if marriage meant something to you at one point, why did it mean something when you were with that person and it doesn't mean something to you when you're with somebody better.
Well, I could see, yeah, I can know.
What I mean that.
That to me is like, at one point it meant something to you to make that commitment and say that in front of the world and your friends. Yeah, then why wouldn't you do it again?
If you really do believe in this person what you have.
Totally agree with you. But I've never been married. Yeah, but the But that's why I do have the hope. Like the first time I say it, it's going to be unique. Like a lot of times I've been to like third marriage weddings and she's wearing the whole same dress and she's pretaring the first dud didn't happen or whatever, and I'm like, good, I guess God bless her. She could do whatever she wants and whatever works for them
or whatever she did. She was she open it because she was divorced, but she was only married a short time. Was she more like we need to get married than she.
Never said it?
Oh?
And I love that she never asked me. She never thought that I would ask. And I went on a mission to surprise her. I had had recon plan on what kind of rings she would like, never went into a ring store with her. I went a total recon plan. People were talking to her and they told me what she'd like. She was completely surprised. I was on a mission to do that too, and I.
You were completely confident she was gonna say yes, there.
I will tell you that there was like a one percent chance that I thought she'd be like, oh no, we're not ready. There was a little piece of me which actually made it even more exciting for me.
There was a little piece of.
Not being You don't want her to be like, oh, I know why we're going to Paris, right, you don't want I I just yeah.
Yeah, I know, I know why. Oh that's the ring I want, like, let's go ring shopping.
I know that one percent chance is good that I was telling her the juice is worth the squeeze.
Yeah, there you go.
One thing then that you can tell the men out there who are going through do this, that they should do to you know, get their groove back? Is it? Take take the time? Is that the number one?
The number one thing is if you, if you, if you get divorced or you have a really bad breakup, learn how to be alone.
It's hard, it's maddening because you're like, I just want this part of my life to be over. It is low.
It's the worst, right right, And you'll go through nights of not sleeping and you'll find all of these things that are so difficult, but fight through it because I thought I would never There were nights when I was like, I'm never getting through this. There were times when I was sitting out on my deck by myself in this one, better and two bedroom apartment that I had, and I was like, this is this.
I can't believe this is my life. I thought I was, yeah, and so.
I would say, but getting through to the other side and battling through all that made me more ready for the next chapter of my life.
All right, I'm gonna let you talk about the back nine a second. But this is your first time on the podcast, and you did eight for a while. So we play something called worst date or first date. So you either have to give us the worst date you've ever been on or the greatest first date you've ever been now, which could have been that date you had with your current wife, although I don't count that as a date because you didn't know it was a date.
Your choice. Either the worst date or the greatest first date of your life? Your choice.
All right, I guess I got to go with the greatest first date of my life.
So if you don't count the little encounter in when I was first here visiting Rebecca. The best first date will be when she got off the boat in Saint John and we went out to one of our favorite restaurants, the Terrorists now one of our favorite restaurants. I can remember the dress she was wearing, I can remember the conversations, I can remember what we ate. So yeah, so I would say that was and I knew that the spark
continued from that first trip. Yep, so yeah, I would have to say that that's my best first date.
I'm trying to see that's like something out of a movie. My question goes to what did she What did you eat?
There was the great ah. He seared a he tuna dish that they had there.
It was fantastic.
That's the fat guy. I mean, I don't care what she wore. I'm like, what did you eat? I just got a Playboy mansion all the time, and I would come home They're like, how was it? I'm like, they had like six inch shrimp. It was amazing a buffet. All right, tell us about the philosophy behind the back nine podcast and where they can find you and all this. I talk about how that came about.
Okay, so my one of my best friends for thirty five years. Josh Moore and I have known each other for a long time. We're former sportscasters, so we were both in media and mostly in Buffalo, New York for a long time, covering Buffalo sports and yeah, go bills, for sure, go bills. We retired from those businesses and moved on, moved on with our lives, and you know, like I said during COVID, I was going through some stuff.
He was going through some stuff. We started talking about.
Really deep guy stuff on you know, on Zoom or on FaceTime or whatever, and we realized.
This be good as a podcast, Like, let's try it. So we did a.
Couple trial ones on Zoom because I was in California and he was in Florida, and we were terrible. We sucked. I didn't like it at all. I thought, for two people who were in the broadcast business, this is bad. So what happened was again serendipity. We had a chance to meet Janine who you know, Jeanine Stella, and we had an opportunity to go into a studio and try it, and we sat across from each other in a studio
talking about what our journeys. We're just talking about a little bit, and we realized that we were onto something that we could talk about men after midlife, which is the analogy for the back nine, the metaphor, if you will, And it's about the back nine of life. It's about life after midlife and the trials and tribulation. It's not just about divorce. It's about health and wellness. We did a financial show this past week that's going to air.
We do all kinds of things that can help men understanding women on the Back nine, all different kinds of things, and we have guests every week.
We've had some great celebrity guests talking about their journey in the back nine. So, yeah, that's what it is.
I was on your show. I'm not one of those celebrities, but it was our celebrities. Oh thanks, I'll ask you more questions though, I'll come back on your show. Like we like, I just felt it was authentic and as well. And I am somebody who is not that comfortable talking to men, and part of that is because I didn't really probably trust the relationship with my father, and so part of that, Like, I really enjoyed it. I really enjoyed it. It was it's very honest and I appreciate,
so check out the Back nine podcast. Dennis, you were great. This was fun.
Thank you, It was really fun.
As far as us like, share, follow, please review this podcast and the Back nine podcasting reviews still after five hundred so episodes mean a lot in the podcasting ecosystem shoots an email Great Love Debate at gmail dot com. If you've got questions, thoughts, comments, or whatever. Check out Dead to Me podcast I got. I got some very famous people coming on that soon. But all good because, as always at the Great Love Debate, we never stopped making love. To see you next time.
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