Brandon Held - Divorce Lessons Pt 2 - Episode 29

Brandon discusses the importance of communication in relationships, particularly in regards to expressing one's feelings and discussing topics such as finances. He shares personal experiences from his own marriages and emphasizes the need for open and honest communication to avoid misunderstandings and conflicts. He also acknowledges that nobody is perfect and that allowing each other grace and understanding is essential in maintaining a successful and lasting relationship. Welcome back to Brandon How Life is Crazy, Episode 29, essentially Part 2 of Episode 28. And I'm going to get right back into lessons from my divorces. And really quick before I do that, I've got to throw a quick reminder. If you haven't listened to any of my podcasts before, then you should start at Episode 1 and go to Episode 25. That's the story of my life. That's how you learn who I am, what I'm about, what makes me tick, what makes me who I am today. And after that, after 25, skip around, listen to whatever you'd like, but I would really appreciate it if you would do that. And also go to BrandonHeld.com, check out my site, and just see what I have to offer. And so here we are, Part 2, Lessons from Divorce. I went off on a little bit of tangent on a few things from my first divorce, but I can't just sit here and read the basics or talk about the basics. I'm trying to give you insight to personal experience, right? I'm not a psychologist or a marriage therapist. I'm not pretending to be any of those things. Have I been to marriage counseling and therapy? Yes, many times. As a matter of fact, I was just in marriage counseling yesterday with my current wife because English is her second language, and we struggle to communicate sometimes because we misunderstand each other. She says things that I take the wrong way, that she doesn't mean, but she doesn't know how to rephrase it, and it causes arguments. And I say things that she doesn't quite understand or she perceives them the wrong way or, you know, doesn't like what I have to say at all, and that also can cause arguments. So by all means, I'm not in a perfect, flawless marriage now, but I'm definitely in one where the communication is great, and I do expect it to last the rest of my life. So one of the things that I was alluding to last episode that I didn't get to about communication was just talking about simple things like your feelings. This is something I just simply didn't do in any of my previous marriages or relationships because I did have some girlfriends at times that, you know, didn't lead to marriage. But we were exclusive at points in some of my other relationships, and, you know, no one just had the self-awareness or intellectual ability to just, or I guess even just not too much pride to just wake up one day and be like, Oh, shit, I feel angry today. I feel grumpy today. I know that I am someone that if you mess with me today, we're going to fight. I'm just not in the mood for it. I just woke up on the wrong side of the bed for the, you know, old saying, right? And sometimes that's just true. And it's freaking great to let your partner know that. If you have an intelligent, understanding partner who appreciates communication, communicating those things are important, right? You don't have to say, Oh, I'm in such a great mood today because that's usually pretty evident, right? You can tell when your significant other is feeling good about something and really happy, like that shows all over the place. But sometimes it's not always so obvious where they're at in their head when they're down, you know, or even keel or whatever you just think is even keel, but maybe they got a lot more going on in there. And my wife and I are both guilty of that. We are both guilty of, you know, maybe waking up and not feeling so great because we both deal with headache issues and that we just are in a bad mood before the day even begins. And oh my God, how much relaying that to the other person has saved us so much fight and headache. Even if we start the day off well, right, and something happens throughout the day that turns for you, it makes you go from being in a good mood to a bad mood. And you know that you're touchy or sensitive or going to get angry pretty easily. Even if that shifts, let your partner know. We let each other know, right? And sometimes we've woken up on the wrong side of the bed and we have gotten better in the course of the morning or by the afternoon. And we relay that to the other person like, hey, I feel better now. Not sure what was going on this morning or I know what was going on, but I'm over it. Whatever the case is, we communicate that we're better and that's over. And, you know, we can proceed as normal, if you will. But there's absolutely nothing wrong with understanding the reality of your partner's mental health and how they're feeling and what they're going through. You know, who the hell is just happy all day, every day? I was for the most part, especially when I was younger, but that's unique. I didn't know anyone else like me. Very few people. As a matter of fact, one time I met this one girl that I worked with at Raytheon. Her name was Denise, who was always like that. And I just thought she was just fake as hell. She was just always happy and always kind. And I thought, wow, she really brings it to work. Like she just really wants to look amazing and flawless. And then I met her husband and he was like, yeah, dude, that's the way she is. That's just how she is. That's her personality. She's very rarely ever down, very rarely ever in a bad place. She's just always happy and kind. So that's just how much I find it hard to believe that anyone else is that way. Because when I met someone, I questioned them. Anyway, communication is key. Not keeping secrets. You know, letting your partner know exactly where you stand, exactly how you feel. And all those things will help you survive. Because we don't always do it right. You know, sometimes you're grumpy and sometimes you see something before you get a chance to relay your grumpiness or your bad mood and you react to that thing instead of relaying that communication about how you're feeling. Right? And the other person takes that attack and they take offense to it. They don't like it, whatever the case is. And it starts a little something. So nobody's perfect, but it certainly helps a lot to communicate as much as you can, you know, where you're at, where you're going to be, what you're doing, how you're feeling. Literally, if you can think of it, you should communicate it to your partner. If it's someone you love and respect and want to spend the rest of your life with. You know, I don't know your motivations in life. I'm not saying everyone married someone for the right reasons and that's the person they want to be with forever. You know, you're living your life. You're doing you. I'm talking about in this situation because I've certainly come across plenty of people who do their spouse dirty and they just don't even care. They just care more about what they want and how they're trying to live. And if they have to step on their spouse to do it, then so be it. So that's their journey. That's their life. I'm not talking about them. I'm not talking about you if that's not your life. But if you want something that lasts, these are great things to do that I have learned. And, you know, sometimes you can have the answers in your head, right? You can know the steps you should take, but your instinctual reactions in a moment can supersede your knowledge of knowing what you should do. So nobody's perfect and you have to allow each other grace when you're not perfect because if you don't allow them grace, they're not going to allow you grace when you do it. And you will do it because nobody's perfect. So you have to know your boundaries. You know, maybe you're not like me. Maybe your boundaries are you don't want someone to be able to get in your email or your cell phone no matter how much you love them, no matter, you know, whatever future relationship you think you're going to have. That's just never going to be something you're going to be okay with and that, you know, that's you. I personally disagree with it, but that's me personally. But if that's the life you want, then you need to be with someone who feels the same way and you need to be okay with you two having access to stuff that the other person never gets to see. And you're just going to have to believe that the behavior is high quality, that no one is doing anything the other person wouldn't approve of. So if that's one of your boundaries, then stick with it. I'm not telling you to take my boundaries in. I'm just telling you what I believe works best based off my life experience. You know, financially, right? Sometimes one of the things I never thought to discuss was finances, you know, and sometimes you wait till you get married and then you sit down to talk about it and you realize, oh, shit, we're miles apart. Or you could even sit down to talk about it and after you get married, someone flips the script on you, right? I mean, I've told you about my third marriage in the past where one of the things that I valued in her and loved about her was she wanted to get a doctorate, a Ph.D., and become a pediatric physical therapist. And I thought that was so cool and I admired her and respected her for it. And she had a bachelor's degree. She was working on a bachelor's degree while we were dating and engaged. And she didn't even complete it yet but completed it within the first year we were married and just flipped the script and said, nope, I'm going to be a stay-at-home mom now. And the reason that that's a big deal is because, you know, everybody has desires, things they want to spend money on and, you know, two-income household where at least one person's making pretty good money and the other person has enough money to support whatever other desires and needs they want, it puts you in pretty good shape. But when you're a one-income household and you don't make enough to pay for all the bills, the things you want, the things your spouse wants, the things your kids need, what does that relate to? Debt. You just end up in debt. And that happened to me in the past because I didn't discuss finances to a large degree. The first two wives, none at all. I didn't even know if we were going to have a separate account, a joint account, anything until, you know, after we were married, the second one, nothing ever happened because we were divorced so quickly, separated so quickly. But finances were not a discussion really. And the third one, you know, I discussed her career aspirations because to me that was talking about finances because I knew she was going to work for a living. But that doesn't mean anything. She could have been drowning in debt someday. I knew she wasn't at the time because she was getting everything paid for by her father and scholarships, and I knew that she was being taken care of by her dad. So I knew debt wasn't an issue. But, you know, the future, debt became an issue. She decided not to work and daddy wasn't paying the bill anymore. So finances are something you absolutely need to discuss and understand that you're on the same page about how you feel about debt, about how you feel about even purchasing cars or purchasing a home. Do you want separate checking accounts and savings accounts or do you want one where you're together and one separate so you can have your together account and then you can each have your own individual account? And, you know, that's what my wife and I do. We do the latter. It just works best for us. You know, I make the majority of the money. I pay the majority of the bills and, you know, she has access to that money. She's my wife. It's not my money. It's our money. And I don't need her money. So I let her have her own account. And that's where her paycheck goes. And we have a she's very responsible with money. So I'm not worried about it. And anytime I wanted her to open her account, if I wanted her to, she would open it and she would show me this is how much I have in checking. This is how much I have in savings. I know all that. We communicate all that. And there's she's done nothing to break my trust. So I have looked in her account. She has showed it to me, not because I said, hey, open your account for me. But she had it open in front of me. I looked at it. And I know she's saving money and she's being responsible. And so that's okay. That's how our life works. That's what we're doing. But you need to know what you want and what works best for you and make sure your soon to be spouse is going to be on the same page. It's one of the top reasons for divorce, maybe the top reason for divorce. I haven't looked up statistics in a long time. But I know the last time I looked, money was the number one reason for divorce. And for those of you, some of you, this may become a surprise or as a shock to you. But the number two reason for divorce, the second highest thing put in divorce papers is, guess what? Time's up. If you didn't guess social media, that's exactly the number two reason that people get divorced, social media. Because people misbehave, they're sliding in other people's DMs, they're doing things that are shady. And they're either getting caught or they're not giving their spouse or significant other the access. And for some people, that's enough. Just to, at the end of the day, it isn't what you do or don't do that matters as much as the perception of your significant other. I can perceive or I can believe and I can think I'm being well behaved and I'm doing the right things and I'm not doing anything wrong. But if my wife doesn't think that and she wants to divorce me because of that, whether I think that's justifiable or not, doesn't matter. She will divorce me, it will be over, even if I quote unquote did nothing wrong because the perception to her was I was doing something wrong. And I would rather just have it all out in the open so there aren't any perceptions. There aren't any misconceptions. It is simply you see what I'm doing, you know what I'm doing, you can't think anything else. So those things are important. I can't stress enough about the importance of communication. Not enough. Communication is so important. Granted, I have a bachelor's degree in communication. I've always been someone who has been fascinated by the art of communication. I've taken communication courses outside of college, on the side, just for my own knowledge to learn about communication. And you would be surprised how easy it is to take a five, six word sentence and just tell it to 10 different people and get seven, eight different thoughts of what that six word sentence means. You would be surprised because words don't mean what they mean. You heard me. Words don't mean what they mean. They mean what the person you're telling them thinks they mean. Get that again. They mean what the person you're telling thinks they mean. Now it doesn't matter what I think a word means. Let me give you a perfect example. Bitch. We use that word a lot here in America. Bitch is a pretty loosely thrown around word, right? Women call other women's bitches in just, you know, cool, friendly vibe, not meaning to be disrespectful type of way. Well, guess what? For my wife from Brazil, bitch is the worst thing you can call her. It's the worst thing you can say to her, right? So, you know, you can take the word cunt, for example, means absolutely nothing to her, right? I would say most American women would find cunt to be the worst thing you could call them, right? For her, means absolutely nothing. You call her a bitch, though, now you've pissed her off, right? So, words don't mean what they mean. They mean what the other person thinks they mean. And you don't always know what the other person thinks words mean. Think of interactions with strangers. Think of interactions with coworkers. Think of interactions even I have with people on social media and, you know, stuff like this. They don't know what I think a word means and I don't know what they think a word means. So, you can send a message thinking, well, they can't screw that up because I said that exactly how I meant. Well, you're right. You did say it exactly how you meant. But they didn't receive it how you meant it. They received it the way that they hear the message. That's the difference. They heard it the way they hear it. They didn't hear it the way you said it because they're not in your brain. They don't have the same definitions for words that you do. That's why communication is so freaking important because you have to know how your partner thinks, you know, what's going on inside their brain. You have to know what's a hot button topic. You have to know how they view things differently than you do or you're just going to be fighting all the time. And you're both going to feel like you're right. And that's, you know, that's how fights happen, right? People don't fight because, oh, I screwed up and now she's mad at me so I'm just going to fight her even though I screwed up. Now, usually when you know you're wrong, you back down and you apologize. Usually. I'm not saying everyone does all the time, but usually. But if you think you're right and she thinks she's right or he thinks he's right, that's how fights happen because nobody thinks they're wrong. And it could be neither one of you are wrong and you're just fighting because you don't understand the communication that's taking place. So you cannot underestimate the importance of communication. And it's not just a word. It's an in-depth chapter that needs to be learned. Right. And it takes time. It's almost like AI. You have to keep feeding it input until it outputs the data that you understand it. Right. That makes sense to you. That's how communication works. AI is a perfect example for that right now. You get on chat, GPT, anything, you ask it a question, it gives you some weird, freaky answer that you don't understand. So you reword the question or you do something differently and then you finally understand the output. It finally understands you, first of all, and then you get something in return that you understand. Communication with people, the exact same thing. It's the same thing. All right. I think I've beaten that dead horse to death. And so, you know, I'm just going to go into the fact that over time, when you're in a long-term relationship, people change, love changes, relationships change, your connection changes. And you and your partner together are in control of what that means. Right. You could ignore it. Right. You can take it and put it on the shelf. And what happens with anything you put on the shelf that you ignore? Over time, it just sits there. It collects dust. It loses its value. Typically, not everything, but typically, it doesn't have the same shine. It's just not what it used to be. And the same thing happens to relationships over time if you don't nurture it and you don't tend to it and you don't keep it alive. And I do that by communicating with my wife throughout the day about any and everything, even if it's just a text, even though, you know, we're both sitting two rooms apart because we both work from home. We are very lucky to do that. We acknowledge that. But we're two rooms apart. We work from home. And, you know, you don't want to necessarily go into the other person's office space. Maybe they're on a video call. Maybe they're on a work call. It doesn't matter. We still respect the workspace. So, we still text as if we were buildings apart working at office locations. Of course, we get together to eat lunch. And every now and then, we see each other in a situation we wouldn't if that was the case. But we still communicate in that way. And then, every day, we spend at least a couple hours together, every night. We wind down every night spending a couple hours together, no matter what's going on. I mean, she's – I have a full-time job. I'm doing this podcast. I'm doing life coaching. I'm trying to do some other things on the side, outside of work. That takes my time. She has her full-time job. She's going to law school. And you can best believe there are nights that would be so much better and easier for her if she didn't have a husband and she could just keep studying or doing law school until she wanted to go to sleep. But it doesn't happen. She stops. She stops at a certain point. I stop at a certain point. We make sure we give each other that valuable time every single night and on the weekends. We spend more time together, not just an hour or two, because we keep that relationship alive. We dust it off every day. We nurture it every day. And that's huge. That's important because love changes over time. Your relationship changes over time. And it can grow apart or it can grow together and become even stronger than the initial, lustful, fanatical love that you had in the beginning. So that's important. And then the last thing I'll say is this. This is what I learned from a divorce. The last time I got divorced, I was in my, I don't know, early to middish 40s. And to me, it's a joke now that I'm older. But back then, I was like, shit, I'm old. I'm old and I'm starting over again. For a fourth time. Who wants my old ass three times divorced? I have three sons. Who wants that? And it turns out that stuff is less important. What's the most important is the person you are, the person you've become, because people fall in love with you, not your statistics, right? My point is, is it's never too late to start over. And I'm so glad that I learned that lesson. I'm so glad that I didn't just give up and throw in the towel and say, F it. I'm in my mid 40s. I got three kids. I got three divorces. I'm not worth a shit. Because I didn't believe that. I didn't want to believe that. I thought I could do better and be a better man and become a better person. And I still try, even though I'm married now. I don't just quit because I'm married. I still try to do that. And I met someone beautiful inside and out who did not want to be married to someone who's been divorced three times and has three children. That was not on her list of, oh, this is what I want from a future husband. She didn't want that, but she wanted me and she loved me. So she overlooked those things. And she's glad she did. I'm glad she did. So it's never too late to start over. I hope this has helped you. And I appreciate you listening. And until next time, have a good night.