growNman
growNman
I am growNman 89. Embracing the Depth of True Connection: Transforming Relationships through Emotional Presence and Intentional Care
Imagine stepping into a new career while reflecting deeply on the essence of love and relationships. Join me as I recount my recent transition to Lansing Public Schools and the heartfelt connections I left behind at my previous job. This episode promises to uncover the true meaning of love beyond mere financial provision, emphasizing the importance of emotional support and presence for a successful relationship. Through personal stories of my marriage, I explore how genuine care and intentional communication can transform your bond with your partner.
We'll explore why simply cohabitating and dodging conflicts isn't enough for a thriving relationship. Learn from my experiences as a husband and father about the continuous effort required to cultivate happiness and set a positive example for future generations. This episode will equip you with practical tools and strategies to navigate relationship challenges, illustrating why the journey to a fulfilling partnership, though demanding, is immensely rewarding. Tune in to discover that the path to happiness in love is paved with ongoing effort and sincere dedication.
what up dope and welcome back to I'm growing man. What's your man, john d, in the building? Uh, I hope everybody's having a wonderful day. I want to thank everybody who's been tuning in, checking us out on doing too much and who's been following up with me here at I'm Growing man. Yesterday was my last day at the school I was working for. I start my new journey on the 19th in Lansing Public Schools. Also, again, I want to thank everybody who played a role with me at the school I was working for and you know things don't always work out the way you want, but I wish everybody the best and to all the kids that I had the blessings of being around. I love you guys and you can always find me out here if you need me.
Speaker 1:I really wanted to get out here and talk about love because I think I believe that people think they understand what love is and or they come up with different ways of what it can mean. In my experience, where I am now, love is protecting the ones you care about, and it's not just when danger come. It's being aware of what could potentially hurt the ones you care for, what could potentially hurt the ones you care for and being in a relationship. Love can come in so many different ways according to how you feel. To me, love is no matter what happens, you're still going to care for this person, right? But the true love comes in where it's a peace of mind to be around that company and when they're not around, you may not think about them all of the time or any of the time when you're away, but you're in good spirits because of that relationship.
Speaker 1:My wife and I I will say I've always loved my wife. I've always thought I was giving her what she deserved and I realized there's levels to it and I was just pretty much mocking or copying the people around me, listening to what they say, how they treat their significant others, and I was just trying to get in where I fit in and I really do believe I was doing everything that I knew at the time. But I didn't realize how much it could improve and give her the emotional support that she came into the relationship wanting. I just didn't know how. I think that my conversation me being in college, working, having an idea of what I want to be kind of distracted her in doing her own research on seeing if I was really a good compliment to her and I do want to say she was by far the best compliment I could have ever came across. She was definitely the best compliment for me, but I can't. I definitely don't think I was the best compliment for her. I kind of like I personally, I guess you could say I thought I was more than I really was. I was probably the bare minimum, thinking that I had reached a place where I was a compliment for anyone. But I was only a compliment for a woman that didn't know how to properly do her vetting to see if I'm a compliment to her. We definitely had conversations about.
Speaker 1:Our relationship probably wouldn't have happened if I and I didn't even do it on purpose, if I didn't present myself the way that I did. Like if I knew, or she knew, how to determine the type of person I was, it would be different. But where we are now, it's been a journey. I think the story's better to say this way and we're trying to figure out what we can do to prevent our kids from going through the emotional heartache of finding and creating the relationship that you would have thought about when you were younger. And I think the biggest part about this is when I talk about love. People don't understand the intentional work you have to do to not even stay in love, but just to get to know your partner. Now we'll say this majority of the people that's in relationships they don't even know who their partner is. If someone can ask you a question and you don't have any idea how she would respond, or you can assume you don't know enough you should know how she would feel and I know it could change depending on the mood or whatnot but overall you should know how your partner operates and where me and my wife are. I think we're getting there. We have intentional conversations, multiple conversations throughout the day, and I think it's brought our relationship to a place where if people knew like how many conversations let's say, if it's like a hundred thousand conversations you got to do, like if people knew that there was a magic number, I think people would work toward it.
Speaker 1:Just talking to a friend of mine recently, like if you don't ask, you're assuming and that's vice versa too, and a lot of times we'll make a situation worse than it is, thinking that we know what's going on and, in all honesty, we don't do enough work to find out. And if we don't do that work. It makes us mad. It's like we try to create a fuel to make us feel like we need to walk away. And if you get into the position where you want to walk away, I just hope that you did everything you could to be able to be satisfied with that answer, because I don't know, a person is happy with the divorce that they had, especially when it would involve kids. So I'm telling you, before you make any decisions, you need to think about what happens if the worst thing happened. What kind of person are you going to be? What type of impact are you going to have on the person you're with your kids? You know, I see men walk away from relationships because they say it's not working. Are you doing everything you can do other than just making money?
Speaker 1:A lot of times we use the excuse of grinding, working hard for the dollar, making sure that my family can do whatever they can, but the real work, in all honesty, is being at home. I'm not saying you're not supposed to get the money, but your kids will benefit more from you being home than you out getting money. You do create this idea that dad goes to work. He provides for the family financially, but they don't know what it's like for a father to be inside the house. They just see the father on the outside and I know some people might look at that as crazy, but I know that I don't know a kid that wouldn't want their father in the house. Like, at some point there was like something where you just had an expectation like fathers at work. And if that's the case, just imagine what you're not, what you're missing because he's out working hard financially. And I think, as a man, we found out that it was really well. I wouldn't say easy, but it's easy to get mad when you think that's your only job is to provide money. And then you think, like, why aren't you doing this? You're doing that.
Speaker 1:In my opinion, women have majority of the jobs that are very difficult for men because they have no idea that they can do them. Also, they kind of get wrapped up in the idea that I make the money, I don't have to do that, you do that. That's a lot of work and it's a two person job. If you're interested in being married men, women you need to ask that question Like, are you prepared to do half the work at least? I don't even know what that looks like for you, but I know that in my mind I thought I was doing half the work and in all actuality, I wasn't doing nearly as much as she deserved and she was almost burnt out ready to leave. I wasn't trying to do that on purpose. And then if I burnt her, burn her out, and she's tired, guess how she's going to treat me. She's going to treat me with like, having attitudes or not having enough patience for my mistakes. And I look back and I'm like that's exactly where we were.
Speaker 1:So now I'm just on this, I'm trying to give her everything I can, just because I didn't know how to do it before. But not only that. It has made our relationship so much better Me trying to do more than I've ever done. It gives her a piece that hey, he wants to be here, he wants this to work, and I'm not going to lie, I'm telling you all I want to have the coldest relationship ever known a man, and the reason why I want to have that is because my life has gotten so much better with the work that we've been doing to create this relationship. And I feel like, since nobody's talking about it, why not. I do it. So I want to do it and I want to give my wife that feeling, because I don't hear women talking about my man does this and all of that, like now.
Speaker 1:I want you to know like I don't give her everything, like we have our our struggles, but we have a better routine on how to figure out the struggles to the solution to keep us happy and growing. Like if there's no struggle you can't grow. Just because you live together and you're not arguing Don't mean you guys are growing. You guys could just be passing through the night, ships through the night and just because the bills are paid, kids are in school. What about your relationship? What does that look like? Your relationship is going to determine how your next generation will operate in a relationship and if you're not happy, they're not going to know what happiness is, because they're thinking that that's what happiness looks like.
Speaker 1:So I challenge all of you guys to do your research and find out the person that you're with, because it's a tough situation to say you made a mistake later. It's a lot of time wasted and I don't think you want that. Nobody wants that. So stop watching your peer group. Do the research and find what it's going to take for you to truly learn how to deal with somebody who can give you what you need. I'm so blessed. Think about it.
Speaker 1:All of my podcast is all about growing, being a husband and a father. I can talk about this all day, every day, because what happens is is that I continue to work on this every single day. It's something else I learned that I feel like I have to share with the world, and I think, over the course of time, I have this library of information that says, hey, this worked for him, we should try something, because if you don't have any options to try, how can you really get better? I'm not going to talk you out of your mouth, but I do want you to know. If you want to be happy in a relationship, you're going to have to put more work than you've ever thought about because you haven't seen it before.
Speaker 1:I know some people say you're assuming I am, but I know that there are a lot of poor relationships that I don't want to look like at any point in my life. So where I am now, I feel like if people knew how I felt for real, they would really consider the things that I have to offer because I didn't know what I was doing before. But now I feel like I have a better idea because of the results I'm getting, from the way that my wife responds to me, the way that we enjoy each other's company. It's a beautiful thing. Y'all make today better than yesterday. Don't worry about anything you can't control. Gata Get after that action or that action will get after you. Be great on purpose you.