Brandon Held - Divorce Lessons Pt 1 - Episode 28

In this episode of "Life is Crazy", the host Brandon Hell reflects on his experiences with divorce. He shares that he has been divorced three times and is now on his fourth marriage. He emphasizes that failures in life teach us the most and encourages listeners to reflect on their own failures. Brandon gives a recap of his three divorces, highlighting the reasons behind each one. He also discusses the importance of self-awareness and recognizing red flags in relationships. He shares personal examples, such as his love for watching football causing issues in his marriages. Brandon concludes by discussing how he learned from his mistakes and made changes in his current marriage to prioritize his wife's needs. He hopes that listeners understand that his passion for football doesn't define him as a person. Welcome back to Brandon Hell's Life is Crazy, episode 28, we're on 28 of this thing. I appreciate you listening. If you don't already know from previous podcasts, I tell my life story in podcasts 1 through 25. So please start from episode 1, check it out so you know the background, you know who I am, and you know what I'm about, what I've gone through, all those things. Also please go to BrandonHell.com, the podcasts are listed there and so are other things that I do such as life coaching, offering a life coaching class, and a blog that I write occasionally and hoping listeners will start participating and collaborating on the blog. So BrandonHell.com, check it out. So today I'm going to be talking about lessons from divorce. So you know I have plenty of experience, unfortunately, because I have been divorced three times and I am on my fourth marriage. But we all learn the most in life from what? Who knows, I'll give you a chance. That's right, our failures. Our failures are really what teaches us the most. When we take time to reflect and learn and understand why we failed at what we failed before, it helps us learn. And you say, well Brandon, you're a slow learner, you got divorced three times. Kind of, yeah, I mean you can look at it that way. But also, all three of my marriages were very unique. My first marriage was incredibly young, 19 years old, in the Air Force at North Dakota. I'll just do a quick recap. And you know, it was lonely there. It's an eight guys to one girl ratio. And the living conditions were a thousand times better if you got married. And so that was a large driving force behind why I got married at 19 years old. It wasn't, oh, this is the woman I'm going to spend the rest of my life with feeling. So you know, that fizzled out and faded, but I still learned from it at some point, and I'll cover that. Second marriage, I knew I didn't want to get married. But we had been together five years, and she was giving me an ultimatum. And I wasn't ready to end the relationship. So I gave in to the ultimatum, and we got divorced or separated within about six months. I think it was like a year before the actual divorce took place, maybe longer. But it just didn't last long at all. But I knew I didn't even want to get married the second time. The third time was the time I thought was my forever marriage, but I made a huge mistake. I was 30, 31 with a 19-year-old girl, and she was infatuated with me in the beginning initially. And I kind of just thought, well, this will last forever because she's so infatuated with me. She loves me so much that, you know, she's not going to leave. No matter what we go through, no matter what ups and downs we have, she's going to be there. And it turns out 12 years later, that wasn't true. She wasn't that same young girl, and that was a mistake I made, thinking she would always stay that person. And, you know, taking things for granted and also just not picking the right person. She wasn't the right person for me. I got married for the wrong reasons, but that's a hindsight thing, and that's something you learn. So those are the recaps of my three divorces. So what did I learn from every divorce, every one of them? So, you know, I learned a little bit more self-awareness. Each person I was with, and with for an extended period of time, we're talking 6 years, almost 6 years, and 12 years. They had personality traits that you realize, some that you enjoy, some that you would like, and some that you want in your next partner. But then there are others you just absolutely don't want any part of. And when you come across those red flags and you're dating someone, and only you can decide what those things are for you. I can't sit here and tell you what is a red flag, because what's a red flag for me might not be a red flag for you. And I read these articles all the time, oh, 10 red flags you shouldn't ignore. And, you know, they're always a joke. They're always ridiculous. Like, yeah, some of them are true, but for me, some of them are just not true. So if you decide what your red flags are, the things that you absolutely must have in a relationship, you know, you have to adhere to those. You can't ignore those. I did make that mistake. I did ignore those, and it did cause me heartache in relationships. I'll give you a prime example. Every marriage I've been in, my love for watching football has been an issue, including my current one. And it's much less so in my current one. But, you know, in my first marriage at 19 years old, I just did my own thing, you know, watching a lot of sports, playing a lot of sports, working, doing what I wanted to do, because I was very young and immature and selfish to a degree. And, yeah, I would spend my whole weekends during football season just watching football exclusively. And, of course, she got mad. Who wouldn't get mad about that? You know, we're living life during the week, or at least she is, because my job as a cop was a rotational thing, and, you know, maybe I had to work weekends. So it's not like I was always home on the weekends. But, anyway, I was not contributing to the relationship at all, because I just lived in front of the TV watching football and sports in general. And so I thought, well, I'm not going to make that mistake again. So my second marriage, the one that I was with, you know, for five years by the time we got married, she didn't even once give me a hard time about watching football on the weekends. Granted, I didn't watch it as much, because I learned from the first time around, but I did watch a significant amount, and she just kind of did her own thing. That was the thing. She had her own, you know, life, her own things that she liked to do. And, you know, all in all, probably not good for the relationship, constantly being split up, doing our own thing. But, you know, it wasn't really that difficult until we actually did get married. And then she started complaining about the football watching, which, you know, just goes to show you, it doesn't matter how long you're with someone, they can change in the snap of a finger. And my next marriage is even more of a proof of that, a sample of that, because I told her directly going in, like, as a dating couple, I'm going to watch football on the weekends. If you can't accept that, then you can't accept me. You know, I said, all day Saturday, I'm going to watch college. All day Sunday, I'm going to watch college. And you have to accept that. That's four months out of the year for those weekends. You've lost me. That's what I'm going to be doing. And she told me she would accept it. And to some extent, she did, right? In the beginning, dating for two years, married for ten, I would say seven, eight of those years, I got away with it without it causing fights. Could I tell she was perturbed or a little annoyed? Yeah, I absolutely could. But I just felt justified. I felt like the deal was is I told you what was going to happen before we got married and what you needed to accept, and you decided to accept that. So that's on you. But the last few years, two, three years, she wasn't accepting it anymore. She was fighting with me and making it a problem and just simply not okay with it, even though she had been okay with it for a long time. And it did cause a problem. And so, you know, that was my worst divorce. That divorce hit me the hardest. And so I had a lot of time to reflect on that before I got married again. And I thought to myself that it was too selfish of me to require entire weekends for four months out of the year, you know, plus playoffs and whatever. And so I decided I was going to reduce my football watching down to college football, and I eliminated NFL football from my TV viewing. And I explained all of this to my current wife when we were dating, and I even explained how, you know, best case scenario, she would move here to America with me because she's from Brazil, if you don't know. And she would learn to love college football with me, that she would be with me on Saturdays, and she would love the game with me, and this would be a passion we could have together. That was a big dream on my part. I mean, she definitely tried, but she's just not a sports person. She's from Brazil, and she barely watches soccer. Yeah, she roots for the Brazilian national team and the World Cup or the Olympics, of course. When I say roots, I don't mean sits there and watches every game. She just hopes they win. So she tried, and she just couldn't get into it. Football's a lot to understand if you've never watched it at all. And she just couldn't get into it like I had hoped. She did slash does, however, accept it for the most part. You know, there's been rumblings on some days about my college football watching, but she does watch every Ohio State football game with me. I think she's only missed one in the three years that she's been here, and so that I just can't complain about. You know, she knows how much I love Ohio State football. I was an athlete growing up. You know, I played four sports, so I gave up watching all of them except for college football. It's the last thing I have to hold on to. So, yeah, I contribute significant time of my life to watching and reading news about Ohio State football. Now, I'm sorry if that alienates some viewers. I hope you won't hold that against me if you're not a Buckeye fan. It doesn't change who I am or what I'm about. That's just my team. That's who I like. So that was a big thing that I had to learn along the way, and it was a hard lesson. Also true for video gaming. You know, I've always been a video gamer my whole life, loved playing video games, and I've had stretches where I didn't play. As a matter of fact, I didn't really play much during my first marriage. I think, like, maybe the original Sony PlayStation 1 was out, and I would play it every now and then. Or, no, even Super Nintendo, I think it was. Yeah, it was Super Nintendo. And I played Mario Kart, but I got to do that a lot out in the missile field at work with my friends. So when I was home and off, I didn't really spend time playing video games, so it wasn't as much of an interruption or an issue. But by the time my second marriage rolled around, the original Xbox was new, and I was into it, and I loved Halo and, you know, playing football and stuff like that. And so I did get on a clip there where I like to play a lot of video games, and, you know, at times that was an issue for sure. It caused problems between us because she wanted to go do something or watch TV, and I think we had one TV in the entire house, and I wanted to play Xbox. So we would have some issues during that time. And then the third time, 100%, a huge, huge selfish part on my part of my video game playing. I had taken a break from playing any video games, really. And then I got an Xbox 360 when it was new, like the point where they weren't available and you had to be waiting in line for them. Yeah, I was that guy. I was that guy that went to the local Walmart and camped out at midnight the night before when it was going to open at like 5 a.m. or 6 a.m. to get an Xbox. And I was the first one in the door because the rest of the people started showing up like 3, 4 o'clock in the morning. So I was insanely early compared to everyone else, but that's just how much I wanted it. And then when the 360 came out with Gears of War, I just loved the original Gears of War. I was so into that game, I was addicted to it, straight up. I was addicted to it. It didn't ruin my life from the aspect of I wasn't providing for my family because I was. I was working. You know, I had a great job, great pay. But when I got off work and I came in the door, you know, I said my hi's, how you doing? Got out of my, what I call monkey suit, my shirt and tie and dress pants that I wore to work every day. Threw on some gym clothes, went into my man cave, and I started playing Gears of War. And once I started, there was no stopping until I had to go to bed, I had to go to sleep. And we had a lot of fights and a lot of problems because of my Gears of War video game playing. And it lasted years. So that was another thing I had to learn about myself was my selfishness in video game playing. And that taught me to grow, and it taught me to be better, and it taught me to learn for this fourth time around. So those are kind of some of the examples that I use where one's a red flag for me, right? I'm not going to back down on the college football thing. I adjusted, I adapted, I did something more reasonable, but I also have a part of that that I'm not giving up. And the other thing is the video game playing. Yeah, I still play video games on occasion with my current wife. But I know when to say when, and I stop when I need to stop, and I spend time with her and give her time every day. I can't even say that I ever did that in a marriage before where my wife and I set aside time every day to spend together. I would have days with exes where I wouldn't spend any time with them. Yeah, it's no surprise we didn't stay connected and we drifted apart or had whatever issues we had. But, you know, I'm going to give you the cliche, you know, communication is important and it's huge. And you can't do that when you're not connecting on a daily basis consistently. Yeah, you know, you may have, she's gone to Brazil to see her family. I've had to go on work trips. You know, you have your times apart. We still talk every day. We still even video call for that matter. But consistently communication is key. That's so cliche, but it's true. And the reason that it's true is because with every relationship comes trust. And to me, you're a fool if you just blind trust someone. Like my wife, she's an amazingly good human being. She really is. And Brandon, prior to three marriages, would have just blindly trusted her because she has, she's more trustworthy than anyone I have ever been with. But, you know, Brandon who's been married three times and been bitten by giving trust because he thought people were trustworthy and they burned him anyway. You know, I can't give her that same trust that I used to give people, and that's not even her fault. It's not. It's just who I am now. It's part of my personality now that I just don't believe in blind trust anymore. I don't believe in it. And that's okay. That doesn't mean trust doesn't exist because you hear everyone say, oh, you can't have a relationship if you don't have trust. That's true. You do have to have levels of trust. But that doesn't mean you need to blindly trust, right? If my wife doesn't have the option to open my phone and look at my phone or look at my social media or open my emails, literally anything. If that option is not there for her, why should she trust me? I could be hiding anything from her and she would never know because she can't access it and I won't let her access it. And to me, that's shady behavior. To me, you only do that when you have something to hide. And I know people will stand on this hill forever to the end of time. People find it invasive, whatever they want to call it, whatever they want to say. And I say to you, if you believe that, if that's true, you're either, A, hiding something you don't want to be found or, B, you're not ready for a serious relationship, a.k.a. marriage. You're not ready because marriage should be an open book. It should be an open book where you two know what each other does at any given time. No secrets should be kept. Obviously, things like buying Christmas presents or birthday presents or any kind of surprise that's going to equal a good surprise gives you the out to have some type of temporary secret that you can hang on to for a while until that comes to light. But no secrets should be kept. You shouldn't be doing things in your life that you don't want your significant other to know about. And that was a lesson I had to learn myself as well. I didn't want people accessing my stuff before. And did I do some questionable, flirtatious, maybe not good things in the past? Absolutely. I definitely did that. Why did I do that? Because I knew that I could without getting caught. Right? But that's not a part of my life anymore. And because of that, I'm a better man for it. Believe that. I'm a better man. Knowing I can't do anything out of line because if I do, my wife has access to it and she can see it. And that makes me a better man. So think about that. Consider that. Both sides of the coin. Better man, better woman. If you don't want people to see your significant other to see any aspect of your life that you're doing, you're hiding something. Point blank, period. I'm not even going to argue with anyone about it. I'm not even going to waste my breath on it. That's how I feel about it. And you're never, ever going to convince me otherwise, ever. So if you're just with a bad, shitty, abusive partner, that's a totally different story. That's just not you. Like I've heard people justify that because of the way their partner, specifically boyfriend or husband, overreacts because they did something that they consider innocent. Well, two things. One, if you consider it innocent and he doesn't, you're already wrong, right, because you chose to be with that man. And what he considers not innocent, you should also be considering not innocent because you should respect how he feels about things and vice versa because you would want that same treatment, right? If he's talking to a girl and he's talking to her in a type of way that he's telling you is innocent and you completely disagree and you don't feel like it's innocent and you feel like you've been disrespected, are you wrong? So you have to respect that and you have to honor it even if you're not exactly the same way. My wife is young and beautiful, and you can see her on my website. That's my opinion, right? Not everyone sees beauty the same way, but I do see her as beautiful, and I am more jealous than she is, right? I am more particular about the way a man tries to approach her or talk to her or any of that because I'm wired that way. I've gone through some shit. She hasn't gone through the shit I've gone through, so she's a little more laid back. She's a little more confident in the security of who I am and the trust that she has in me. So we just have different points of view, but she respects my point of view, and just because her point of view is more lax or easygoing, I don't take advantage of that. I treat her exactly the way I'd want to be treated. So that's another part of marriage, which is what I call the golden rule, right? Everyone calls it that. I didn't make it up, and that is treat your wife the way you would want her to treat you, right, or vice versa. Treat your husband the way you would want him to treat you. It's not a rock-solid, never-have-problem rule, right, because everyone has a different point of view on things, and you're not always eye-to-eye on everything, and those are things you have to learn. Those are things you have to work through to get together and be on the same page as a couple, but it's a damn good start. It's a damn good start that if you are going to do something or behave a certain type of way, you look and you think to yourself, all right, if he did this or she did this, how would I feel about it? Would it upset me? Would it bother me? Would I feel violated? Would I feel disrespected? That's a good start. If you can start there and you can answer yes, then you know it's something you shouldn't do. It's not the way you should behave and treat your significant other. Now, sometimes the answer might be no for you, but it might be yes for your partner, and if you learn that that's true and you love that person and you feel like their yeses are worth adapting to and worth adjusting to because all of their other qualities are so good, then you adapt. You adjust. We all have to do that. My wife's made adjustments for me. I've made adjustments for her. Why? Because at the end of the day, we're both really good people. We love each other very much. We treat each other very well, and we've had to make some slight modifications on maybe things we would do if we weren't together, but overall, that's worth it. It's worth it. It's a pie-in-the-sky belief that you think you should just be able to be who you are all the time without any compromises, and someone else should just love you for that raw human being you are. That's just not how life works. It's not how relationships work, and it's unrealistic for anyone to believe that that's true. And I know I'm going to hear from some people that say, oh, my husband or my wife accepts me for exactly who I am. Good for you because you're like 1% of successful relationships. I'm not saying it doesn't exist. I'm just saying it's unrealistic to shoot for. So that's where I'm going to stop here today. I guess I'm going to have a part two of this because I barely cracked into what I wanted to talk about. And thanks for joining, and don't forget to go to BrandonHeld.com if you haven't already, and I'll talk to you next time.