I am a Yamla. I've been very open about the fact that I was not always good at making my relationships work. I have been divorced three times, twice from the same person. In other words, I have seen a lot and failed a lot in my relationships. So I am here to share with you what I learned along the way because I did take copious notes. Welcome to the R Spot, a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership
with iHeartRadio. People think that communication is the biggest issue in relationships, and I want to offer that there's another C word that we need to really take seriously and put into practice in our relationships, and that C word is compromise. You give a little, I give a little, You take a little, I take a little. Compromise leads
to cooperation, and cooperation leads to harmony and cohesiveness. But when there is no willingness to compromise, there's going to be problems because without compromise, someone is going to have to sacrifice themselves or what's important to them in order to remain in the relationship. And sacrifice is the lowest level of compromise. It vibrates at a very low level, which means it's going to lead to resentment and bitterness,
anger and break up. Compromise has to be there because what compromise says is that your needs and your wants are as important as mine, and because you matter to me, I'm willing to work this thing out now. If you can't communicate that, you're going to have a problem. But compromise is important, and that's exactly where my caller is today. Let's take a listen. Good afternoon, beloved, Welcome to the R spot And what is your relationship challenge, issue dilemma that we can work through today?
Hello?
How are you?
I'm good good.
This is really awesome talking to you. By the way, I thought I should let you know that pose calling because I recently, well it's been about a year, have gone through a breakup, my first breakup. I'm twenty six years old. I did live with my partner. We were together for about eight months before I ended it the relationship, and I've just been having a lot of feelings of
regret just because as time went by. I guess you could say the longest we went without talking during the breakup was a month, and this last November, I made the decision to reach out to him one final time, just explaining how I felt throughout the relationship and what I could work on, what we could fix to possibly get back together. And I sent him this long I guess you could call it a letter even and he did not respond to me, and to me, I felt
like we were breaking up all over again. All the emotions came back up, and in the message, I did let him know it's not fair to me because I felt like he was being very wishy washy and I just wanted to move on from this situation. One minute he's hot, he tells me that he misses me, he loves me. The next minute he ignores plans that we make. So in the message, I let him know I will need to cut off communication with him, and I sent
him that message. I waited twenty four hours and he never responded to me and to me, you know, respond to the response. So I deleted his number, I blocked him off of social media. But I'm having such a hard time being okay with that decision because I still care about him, and I just don't know what I'm doing. It's like one minute I'm okay and I've processed the feelings and the next minute, I'm crying or I see things that remind me of him and it makes me sad.
So I just don't know what I'm doing, or I don't know why I'm so regretting. The decision that I made is my I guess, you know, questions like how do I move on from that or accept that?
Necessarily?
Well, okay, then did he move in with you? Or you move in with him?
He moves in with me at the time.
First mistake, first mistake, First mistake with you, first mistake.
I was always aver let that happen, and I did.
So. Yeah, yeah, okay, first mistake as a woman. You got to let the man build the nest. He can't build you a nest. He's not worthy of your time, energy and attention. I'm sorry, you're twenty six years old. Yeah, he's got to create the nest. That's number one. Number two, why did you break up? Why did you ask him to leave the nest?
So he moved in with a dog. Okay, you might think I'm crazy, but from where I'm from, I'm originally from the Ivory. Coats and dogs or pets are typically outside. They guard the home. They're never inside and I knew this coming in that he was moving in with a dog, and I asked myself, like, here, are you okay with that? And in my head, I was like, well, I've never
lived with a pet. I really care about this person, and I'm willing to compromise and make the adjustment because I'm kind of seeing the dog once in a while, I'm getting used to him, and just that whole time, I don't know what it is, and I thought, really crazy about it is that I was very overwhelmed by his dog. And it's just like normal dog stuff, the sniffing, the licking, the bark gate just like his presence overwhelmed me, and I let him know about it. The dog was
sleeping with us. I mean, it was to the point where I was letting the dog sleep on the bed, letting the dog get on the couch because that's what the dog was used to. And it kind of got to the point where I felt like I was sacrificing my happiness in my own home to accommodate other people. And there were times where I would spend a night over my parents just so that the dog would be I guess that you would say free to kind of roam around and not feel like he has to sleep
in a cage. So it was just overwhelming, and I don't know why I tried. I would take them on walks, I would take him to the vent. I would do things with his dog to try to get used to him, but it felt very forced, and it got to the point where I was starting to resent him. And that's when I started pulling back because I was like, this guy is a great guy. We don't have any issues. We don't have there's nothing else going on. But I
can't get used to his dog. And I basically have this thought process of who in my you know to ever tell someone, hey, you need to get rid of your pet.
No.
So I decided to remove myself because I just felt like it wasn't even fair for me to even.
Act some that.
But yeah, there was nothing wrong with him, It was just the living conditions, per se.
Boy, you really convinced yourself of that one. Why can't it simply be you don't want to live with a dog, so he needs to live over there with his dog and you need to live in your house? Yes, ma'am, why can't it be you said there were no problems between you there was a huge problem between you. Do you have any idea what that problem is.
Or? Honestly, when I say think back about it, is just I just could not I could not get used to that, and I felt like I compromised, he compromised, but I was just unhappy.
Here's the bottom line. Here's the bottom line. He chose the dog over you. And a kind of way to say that is what mattered to you didn't matter to him. I'm sorry, Yeah, what mattered to you didn't matter to him. That's a huge problem.
Yeah, But is it fair to say that when he had I mean, he had his dog prior to meeting me, Like, wouldn't it be selfish on my part to ask him that?
Well? Yeah, but you know what, Yes, you didn't have to ask him to get rid of the dog. It's another simple statement. I can't live with a dog, so you're gonna have to You and the dog are gonna have to live somewhere else. And if that means the end of us, oh well, I just I can't do it. I don't choose that for myself. And that's okay. Yeah, you don't have the thing for him. This matters to me, It matters to me and I matter, and I know you love your dog. I could never ask you to
get rid of your dog. But I can't live with a dog. But you moved in a man who was bringing something that you didn't want. Why did you do that?
I didn't know that I didn't want it necessarily because I had never experienced it. Because I have friends and you know, family members who have dogs, and I'm like, oh, if they can do it, I can do it. It's not you know, it doesn't look that bad. And it was just one of those things where I had the space. He didn't like his living conditions, and I was like, sure,
let's you know, our relationship is progressing. Obviously, if we see the future together, I'm going to have to live with your dog as so point is what my thought process was. And then it just got overwhelming to the point where I just could not stand to be in the house.
With the dog.
And what did he say about that?
The first time I brought it up, he told me it didn't matter to me that I didn't like his dog, because I wasn't mean to him, and it was just like, it's just one of those things we'll keep working on, and one of the compromises he made is that he let the dog sleek downstairs in the cage because the dog was sleeping with us, And I felt really guilty about that because I was here, I am again changing the dog's routine, I guess, if you want to say so. So there was a lot of stuff, a lot of
the adjustments he made for me I felt guilty about. Well, that's all. I was like, I need to remove myself, like I can't keep doing that to him and his dog, which he considered family, and then putting my happiness on the line. So that's why I just kind of went in ahead and just.
So he moved out, and that's what ended the relationship.
Yes, he moved out because in his mind, he just if you can't live with my dog, I come with my dog. And that's just it kind of situation.
So what matters to you doesn't matter to him. Yes, he's putting his needs first.
Yes, I never saw it like that, but yes, ma'am.
Well there you go. Is that the kind of relationship you want to be in? In relationship with a man who puts his needs first. I don't care that he's a nice guy, and you don't have to stop loving him, but you do have to vote for you. Yeah, because it could be a dog, it could be a cat, it could be a child, it could be anything. So early in your life you're learning I matter what matters to me matters, and if what matters to me doesn't matter to you, then this is not the relationship for me.
I don't have to stop loving you, but I got a place to reality that you're putting your needs above mine.
Yeah, I'm just having a hard time. I don't know, is because he was the first he was. Yeah, I'm having and I just feel like I just I'm blockie, I'm deleting numbers like and I just cannot move on from it. I'm open to dating, like I've been dating since we broke up, but it just feels it doesn't feel right, And I mean, it's just like I don't know how to move on past the decision that I that I.
Made because you're taking to responsibility. Here's the bottom line. You were You are in love with a man who chose a dog over you. That doesn't make him bad, doesn't make him wrong. That was his choice. So the question becomes, what are you choosing? Are you choosing a man who makes what he wants more important than what you want. What would have happened had you been allergic to the dog? Yeah, I mean you're emotionally allergic, but not physically. But what would have happened had you had
an allergy to the dog? Would he have insisted the dog be there? First of all, let me just say this. You're talking eight months. You're not talking eight years. You're talking eight months. And if you were pregnant and having a child, you got to carry that child for nine months. A child born at eight months would end up in the incubator, needing special care. So your relationship was in
an incubator. It needed special care, and he wasn't willing to give the care that was required to maintain the relationship. If you don't put a child born at eight months in the incubator and give it special care, it's going to die. And that's exactly what happened. Why would you want a man that makes his needs and choices more important than yours? Doesn't make him a bad person. Clearly he's not the right person.
Yeah, I think I've been carrying the weight because or the responsibility, because I was the one who ended it, and I just because I saw how he reacted to the breakup and it was like, you.
Weren't the one who ended it. I'm sorry. I can't let you do that. I can't support you in that. You were not the one who ended it. You were not. He made a choice and you made a choice, and the choices were not congruent. His choice was she got to take me and the dog. Your choice was I'm not willing to live with a dog, and those two choices were incongruent. He has equal responsibility in the ending
of the relationship. Why are you taking it all on and why are you telling yourself that he's the only one that's gonna want you.
I think I'm telling myself that. Honestly, I think it's because he's my first boyfriend. He's not. He wasn't my first.
Let's say that, but he said it.
He said it first boy friend, not a man partner, because a boy is going to insist that things be his way. You don't want a boyfriend. You want a man that's willing to to stand up for himself and for you. And I'm not making this guy wrong for his dog, but if you really mattered, he would have done something else. Including stay in his own house. If he loves a woman who is not willing or able or choosing to live with a dog, then that's on him.
Yeah.
So the lesson here, the very valuable lesson here, is I want to be sure that in my next relationship, my choices and my needs are as important as my partner's choices and my partner's needs, and that there's a willingness to compromise. You made the compromise, he did not. Did you miss that you compromise? Let me see if I can do this. I'm willing to try it. What compromise did he make?
He lets the dog sleep downstairs? Oh?
Whoopee do ye in your house? He let the dog sleep downstairs in your house?
Yeah?
Okay, I want to ask you a question, and please hear me with all loving care and compassion. Are you ready? It's okay, we'll do it right after this break. Welcome back to the r spot. Let's pick up where we left off. Are you in any way overweight?
No, I would describe I have, I guess the typical African woman body.
Okay, so you're substantial, you got some substance to you? Okay? And are you okay? With that.
You know, it's one of those things where okay, let me just answer your questions right now. Yes, okay, I've gotten back to my routine. But while I was in the relationship, I kind of let go of myself a bit, yes, ma'am.
Okay, okay, And let me tell you why I'm asking you that, because I feel so strongly a presence or a sense that and maybe because he was your first boyfriend and so that you're telling me up until twenty five you didn't have a serious boyfriend, which in an American way, that's like you're an old maid and I just want to I just want to weed out any possibility that you think you're never gonna find anybody else.
Yeah, okay.
And sometimes when we are, you know, when we move from being substantial into being overweight, you know, we're willing to compromise ourselves beyond reason because we think he's the only one that's gonna want me.
That's ma'am.
He chose a dog over you. He chose a dog over you because when you said to him, I can't deliver the dog. I've tried. It's not working for me. He could have said, Okay, let me see what I can work out here. I don't want to get rid of the dog, but you are more important to me than this dog. Right now. Let me see if I can leave him with a family man, But let me see if I can leave him with a friend. He had that possibility. Yeah, yeah, let me see if can he be here on the weekends. I'll let him go
to my mom's on the week during the week. Can he stay with us on the weekend? Be gone on some compromise. He made no compromise. He chose a dog over you. That's the reality, the the higher lesson here is this is a man who made his needs, his wants, his choice is more important than mine. I don't want that in a relationship. He's a nice guy. We had a great time. The sex was good. I loved him being here. But this is a man who chose his needs, his wants, his desire more than mine, made them more
important than me. Why do I want to be in that? That's your work.
Yeah, okay, And see that's a different standpoint than I've heard in the past. And I think I wasn't getting I guess any advice from other people that made me feel or made me hear what you're telling me now.
Because in the Western society, women are trained, programmed, conditioned, and expected to put their needs and their wants secondary to people pleasing make everybody else happy. That's that's how we do it here, that's what we're expected to do. I have two dogs and they do not sleep in my bed. M hmm, yeah, yeah they don't. And what kind of dog was it? A German shepherd?
It was a boxer.
Oh my god, that's a big dog.
Yeah, he was a big dog. I think I just have a really bad habit of trying to accommodate others.
And the club, I'll send you your membership guard.
It's like I put my happiness on standby just because I want to be there for that person. And I could be, you know, crying or unhappy, but I want to help them. Then, you know, I don't know. It's just something that I'm trying to work on.
But it's a program and a conditioning for women. And here you are early in your life. Some women don't learn it until they're fifty. Some don't learn it until they're sixty. Thank you Lord that you're learning it early. Yeah, okay, and he you know, next time it could be something else. It could be a bird. You know. I had a partner who loved cigars. He loved cigars, and I don't like cigars. The smell in my house, I don't like it. And so I said to him, I'm not going to
tell you not to smoke cigars. I know that float your boat. But how can we work this out so you're not smoking in the house. I made him a little spot outside on the patio downstairs, and go out there and smoke, or go to the cigar bar with all the other guys. You want to be an officionado, go on over there. But I don't want that. I even bought smoke candles, so when it was snowing and he wanted a cigar, he didn't have to sit outside, crack the door, sip out of the door. I don't
want that smell in my house. So he was willing to compromise. I was willing to compromise. I didn't ask him not to smoke. But he also said, you know, if I got to give him up, I'll give him up, or I'll only smoke at the cigar. You didn't smoke all day every day. But he'd like to sit down with his book and a cigar and whatever. I just couldn't take that smell in my house. But he was
willing to compromise. This guy was not. And it didn't get to the point where I had to put my foot down and say, you can't smoke that in here, because he was willing to compromise.
I hear you.
You you're a whipper snapper. He's you know, get the lesson. Don't focus on him, and you don't have to stop loving him, but you will as soon as you as soon as you find a man who's willing to honor what's important to you, a man who's willing to compromise, a man who's willing to give as well as take, and a man who can provide you with a home. I don't know what I got to do to teach women. Don't move no man into your house. If you have to keep your house and rent it out and go
live in his house, do that. It is the male bird that builds the nest. The female bird doesn't build the nest. The male bird does. And then she comes along and sees the nest and make sure it's so sturdy it's not gonna fall off the tree. Branch. The babies ain't gonna fall down and racked their head open. Once the nests is thirty, then she gives him the nookie. She don't give him the nookie until he has the nest. Bill. Ask me how I know?
Ask me how?
Go ahead, ask me, because I've watched it. I watched it. I had a bird building a nest in a little hole I have in my garage, And anytime I opened my garage door, he would fly out and he would go up in that and then as soon as I opened the garage door, he would fly back in. Okay, And so I said, oh my god, this bird is building a nest up here. And so I knew that.
And once he gets that nest, Bill, he gonna bring his girlfriend over and they gonna be making babies up in the hole in my garage wall and sold One day I came in and he was laying dead in the middle of the garage. I said, Oh my god, did he get the nest built? Where's the woman? Where's the babies. I had to get the ladder and go look up in the hole in the garage to see if the babies was in there. I didn't know if
it was the mother or the father. I didn't know who it was, but there was no eggs, so I guess he never got there. He died building his nest. Okay, let the man build a nest and teach him that your needs and your wants are as important as his. And if he doesn't know that, you may have to teach him. And the way you know he has learned the lesson is that he's willing to compromise. And don't call that boy no more. Don't call it. It's Sam
his loss, not yours. His loss. Okay, tell me something you know now that you didn't know when you called me. Oh you're so young. Oh, I'm so excited for you. Wait till you see the new kind of breakups. You're gonna bust into a Oh there's a whole list of wonderfulness just waiting for you, my love. Enjoy it, Enjoy the ride. It's a part of being a woman. Enjoy yourself. Okay, don't take everything so seriously.
That's ma'am, Thank you so much.
All right, my love, Bye, bye, Hi.
I have a nice day you too.
Oh my goodness. Twenty six years old and she's learning lessons that so many of us women didn't learn until we were forty five, and it's harder to take it in at forty five. I don't know what I would do at forty five if a man chose a dog over me. Why do we act like we don't know what we do know? That's always a very perplexing question for me. Sometimes we act like we don't know it
because we're afraid to know it. Sometimes we act like we don't know it because if we know it, we need to know what to do about it, and if we don't know what to do about it, it's easier to act like we don't know it. Sometimes we act like we don't know it because it means that we're
going to be care fronted with our greatest fear. Nothing ever, good can come out of acting like you don't know what you do know, because your higher self, your divine mind, your spiritual connection to the universe, will always let you know what you need to know, and any fear that comes up, well that's what you have to work on eliminating that fear. But acting like you don't know what you do know, it's like a boat that has a hole in it and you acting like the water isn't
coming in. That's exactly what my next caller did. She acted like she didn't know what she knew. Here's her call Greenning's beloved and welcome to the R Spot. Now, what is your relationship challenge, issue, dilemmas, situation circumstance that we can explore and examine together today.
So I'm thirty one. My husband is thirty one as well. We've been married since twenty eighteen. I have I have three girls all together. My oldest ecleven, middle is eight, and we just had a baby Valentine's Date last year. My first two are not his, but he's been in our lives since my second one was about seven months old. We divorced once in twenty twenty, remarried in twenty twenty one, and now I'm at the point again where I'm contemplating divorced.
We had two incidents where I found out he was attempting to pay for sex and the beginning when I first revealed I was pregnant. Also when I was eight and a half months pregnant, and I don't know. One day, I just woke up and a light went off and I was like, I can't do this. Anymore, But I'm stuck in between stands for the children. I'm very well that the little girl inside of me that has always wanted a family has has kept me a relationship that
I probably should have not stayed in. And I'm just really confused.
Okay, I don't think you're confused. I think you're scared. But that's just my assessment.
Yeah, I believe that.
Why did you divorce the first time?
He has a child that lived in Jacksonville, Florida, and I'm originally we're both from the I've been in Houston for a very long time. Jacksonville is where he grew up at, so his daughter was there, and he wanted to, you know, be closer to his daughter, and you know, he wanted us to get joint custody. So I picked up my children and I moved to Jacksonville for him to help him get joint custody of his daughter. And in the midst of all that, I felt like he
wasn't putting the marriage first. So I told him I was leaving and coming back home to Houston. And so I left because I didn't feel like I was a priority where we were a priority anymore. Because he was there with his daughter, and I just I felt like he gave us a back seat.
And there was no way of compromise or negotiation about what you required or what you were requesting. You just left.
I asked to go to counseling, didn't want to go to counseling, and so I said, okay, well going home, and so I took my children and I left.
So you're a run.
I would like to tell myself that I just don't take a lot of stuff.
But well, but you were married. That's a commitment, and with that commitment there comes cooperation, compromise, communication. You don't just pick up and run because things aren't going the way you want them to go.
Mhm.
Unless you know that this was a mistake from the beginning. Yeah, yeah, what.
I knew that it was a mistake of me going there in the beginning, but I still went.
Oh, okay, so there we go. Betrayal, You betrayed yourself? Yeah, uh huh. So what is it that made you remarry?
Because I want I still wanted to have a family. We got on the plane of Jacksonville, went and visited him, and we went to a hotel. We sat in the bed and we talked about all the issues we thought we had and that we were ready to move forward. So he came back to Houston in February of twenty twenty one and me to work on our family and get everything back to a norm and then we got remarried.
But you'd never really resolve the challenge that led to the divorce in the first place, which was y'all didn't have conflict resolution. Just because you talked about it doesn't mean that the problem was resolved. If he went to Jacksonville to get joint custody of his daughter, but now he's back in Houston's So what happened to the daughter?
Well, we were successful with court stuff and he came back here and then her mom was like, well, I don't want to keep putting her back and forth in plane on planes for visitation and whatnot, So I'm going to move to Houston. I'm ready to leave Jacksonville anyway. So now they're here and the daughter is with us Monday through Friday and they stay like down the street from us.
Okay, okay, But the challenge that led to the divorce in the first place, do you get that that was not resolved, which was your feeling of not being a priority.
Yeah, ma'am.
Okay. Then I heard you say tempting to pay for sex. We'll talk about that when we come back. Welcome back, I am, yam, lend this is the ur spot a tempting to pay for sex? What does that mean?
So his his.
Birthday in August of twenty twenty one, So the same week we got remarried and got back together, I was pregnant. I gave him a surprise birthday party and rebuilt the pregnancy. In the midst of the party going on, I walked in the house and saw his phone lit up, and I thought, well, Teddy raised all his brows of history and everything. But I saw that he asked a woman I guess, like how much it would cost for her to come to him. I'm not sure if he knew that.
You know, when you delete stuff in your iPhone, that doesn't mean is deleted from your watch or your iPad. So I left the party because we lived like ten minutes from where the party was, and came home and looked in his watch and I saw all the text message where he was texting numerous women asking how much they were gonna charge. I went back to the party. I didn't make us mean, I didn't do any thing. I just kind of boxed it up like I already do and moved on. And then my birthday of twenty
twenty two, which is in January. I was due in February. We woke up on my birthday. He was gonna make me breakfast, but he realized we didn't have something, and Kroger is like five minutes from our house and he left. About two hours go by, he's still not back. I checked his location and see he's at an apartment complex and here we are back again, and he came home. We argued about it. I asked, you know, what is wrong? What is the issue? Why do you feel like you
have to do this? And I kind of just boxed that up. Had my baby the next month and weeks ago. I woke up and I just was like, I don't know if I can do this anymore.
So let me ask you a question, my love. What are you acting like you don't know? Start here? I'm acting like I don't know.
Oh, that what he did was wrong, and that I.
What did he do? What did he do?
He stepped out on the marriage?
Okay, not just that he stepped out on the marriage. Yeah, okay, I'm acting like I don't know he can't be trusted. Okay, what else are you acting like? I don't know? You don't know.
I'm acting like I don't know. I deserve better?
Okay, what else? How about I don't want to be in this do you know that? How about that?
Honestly, sometimes I want to fix it and then sometimes I don't.
So you want to fix a marriage with a man who can't be trusted, who doesn't give you what you deserve, A man who may have some type of problem or issue to the degree that he feels he has to buy sex, A man who's sleeping with other women that you don't know and bringing that energy back into your home. You're acting like you don't.
Know that he said that. He actually he never did anything. He never intended And when I asked what was the reason why, he said it. Because he wanted to get back at me for leaving him in Jacksonville. That was his reason.
So you're acting like you don't know. This is a man who seeks revenge.
Yeah.
Yeah, you're acting like you don't know. This is a man you can't depend on. You're acting like you don't know this as a man who doesn't honor his word.
And I know that a lot of it has to do not wanting to tear my family apart because I never had that as a child.
It doesn't have anything to do with now. You're not a child. You're a grown woman raising two put future women to future mother to future wives. So you're setting in three Okay, you got three girls, so you're setting an example, and you're being a demonstration for them of how a woman handles herself, particularly for the eleven year old who's getting ready to go into her tween years, her princess years. But she's watching you very closely. So
let me ask you this question. Is this the man that you want to spend the rest of your life with? And please don't tell me you don't know. I don't care what the answer is, but I don't know. Means I don't want to talk about it. Is this the man that you want to spend the rest of your life with? Take a breath and whatever the answer is, will work through it.
No, Okay, got more?
And it sounds to me I could be wrong. I'm willing to be wrong. It sounds to me that you are confronted with a common issue that many women face, and that is I don't want to acknowledge, or admit or confront myself with I made a mistake. So let me just see how I can make this work. Rather than acknowledge I made a mistake.
I agree.
Oh oops, Oops, I made a mistake. Oops, And now I've brought another life into this. Oops, made a mistake. Now what do I do? And that it doesn't mean he's a bad person.
And that's the thing that makes it hard harder.
No, that's another thing that you tell yourself makes it hard. So suppose you got in a boat and you went out. It's a lovely day, You've got the girls with you, you got on your your nice boating hat, your nice boating dress, and the boat begins to leak. There's a little tiny hole and the water's coming in just a little bit, you know, not even covering what you're gonna do. You're gonna stay in the boat. Oh what you're gonna do?
Give me and my children and try to say this, okay, Why why don't you just stay in the boat and let the water come up and see maybe it'll get better.
Why don't you do that number work because I can't swim.
Okay, good answer. So you have to take care of yourself. You have to protect yourself and protect your children. Now here's the thing that I want you to really sit with and understand. It's not that he's buying sex. It's not that he can't be trusted, and not that he seeks revenge. It's not that you can't depend on him. It's not that he doesn't honor his word. It's that you made a mistake in the first place. If you
want to know the end, look at the beginning. What did you dismiss, ignore, deny, act like you didn't know in the beginning, because that's where you made the error.
That he was a liar.
Yes, oh well go look at that lie a liah pants on fire. And why did you ignore that? Why did you dismiss that, diminish that. Why did you act like you didn't know that?
I think because I wanted him to be different. I had hopes that he was different.
Okay, so you denied your intuition, you denied your GPS, what I called God's protective system. God will show us things that we need to see so that we can make the right turn. Or the right decision so that we can get out the boat before it's full of water. You ignored that, you denied that and married him anyway? Why'd you do that?
I wanted a family who was here for my children, and I wanted to be married.
Okay. You wanted somebody to choose you because the first two men for whom you had children or the man do they have the same father? Your first two? Okay, So finally you wanted somebody to choose you, and he was available. Oops, a liar chose you. Oops. You denied your intuition. Oops. You acted like you didn't know the truth. Oops. You dishonored yourself oops.
Yes.
Oops. Yeah, And as a woman who had three different three children by three different men, I know that shame, that guilt, that fear that nobody's gonna want me. So whoever shows up and acts like they want me, I'm going to ignore all the warning signs and do whatever I can to make this work so that I feel better about myself. Now, that's just my story. It don't
have to be your story. Yes, and this is not the man I want to spend the rest of my life with because he cannot be trusted isn't honor his word. I cannot depend on him. He has a tendency to seek revenge and I deserve better, and I'm acting like I don't know that.
True.
So the question isn't should I leave? The question is how do I leave in a way that honors me and who I am.
He's going back to Jacksonville. I found out last night.
Yeah, okay, oh, you found out last night. So this is your husband who's made a decision to move away from the state of your marital home. He's already made that decision.
Is that I already move in? I filled for the divorce. He was already moving, but it was going to be to an apartment close, not too far from us. But he was on the phone last night with a friend praying, and I ended up walking in and heard that he had had a job interview and that he had decided to go back to Jacksonville. And when I asked him why he didn't tell me, he said because he didn't want me to be upset, Like.
What, this is a man you can't depend on. So the daughter that you went to Jacksonville with him so he could have custody of is now living in Houston and he's going back to Jacksonville.
Yes. I don't think he's told her mom. Her mom is either, so I don't know what they're going to do.
Run for your life, do you hear me? Yes, ma'am, running for your life. Maybe his only purpose in your life was to support you in bringing forth your baby girl. Whatever, oops made a mistake. Let me get out of here, yes, ma'am. And I want to encourage you to really either get some help, spend some time focus on healing up the fear of being alone and the fear that you won't ever have the family that you desire. You have the family, you just have to build it in a different way.
Work with your therapists around creating your exit plan. You're not divorcing this man. You're standing up for yourself, yes, ma'am. And you're correcting a mistake, that's all. You're correcting a mistake. And there will be consequences. But oh well, tell me something you know now, Tell me something you know now that you didn't know when we started talking.
I'm struggling it, I think, I am.
Mm hmm, how about this. I made a mistake, and I forgive myself.
Yes, I forgive myself. Yes, ma'am.
Yeah, I'm going to course correct. I'm going to course correct. I made a mistake. I acted like I didn't know what I knew.
Yes, ma'am, thank you so much.
You are so welcome, my beloved. Let me know how you make out. Okay, okay, bye bye Wow. Life will always bring us what we need to know. Sometimes it brings it to us because it's time for us to heal or grow. And sometimes it brings us what we need to know so that we can heal all the feelings attached to knowing something, but acting like you don't know what you do know, that's a problem and it's
going to be a problem. So when you know something that you don't want to know, when you know something that frightens you, when you know something that stirs up all sorts of feelings for you, sit down, take a deep breath, and give your self permission to walk through the fear, the anger, the upset, whatever comes up, so that you can begin to know what it is that's
going on inside that's showing up on the outside. I hope this has been helpful to someone, And if you have a question about this or any other relationship issue. You can call me live at seven seven five three zero seven seven seven six eight now be sure to follow me on social media for all of the calling times, and until then, stay in peace and not pieces. The R Spot is a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership
with iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from Shondaland Audio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.