growNman
growNman
I am growNman 107
Navigating the dynamics of marriage and parenting is no easy feat, but it's a journey filled with growth and learning. In our conversation, we highlight the role personal biases and upbringing play in empathy and shared responsibilities. Discover how effective communication and mutual understanding can transform a partnership, making it more balanced and supportive. We also dive into the nuanced world of parenting, where each child's individuality requires a unique approach. Through shared stories and insights, we celebrate the joy of evolving as parents and partners, reminding you that perseverance and collaboration are your greatest allies in this adventure.
what up, though, and welcome back to. I'm growing man. It's your man, john d, in the building. Um, I wanted to get on here and talk about relationships. Uh, I feel like there's some things part of a relationship that I need to discuss that I don't think is being communicated effectively.
Speaker 1:Gentlemen, there's an amount of work that has to go into a relationship for it to work, and most of us have no idea of what it actually takes to be in a successful relationship. You ask why? Look at our examples. I'm only talking to those who came from broken households. You come from a broken household, hey, you know it's broken. So you out here trying to fix something or trying to create something, and when you don't have an example, you look at the environment, and I do want you all to know that the environment, and I do want you all know, all to know, that the, the environment, is average at best. So a lot of them came from the same environments and those who are doing well, they may not reflect what you think it's supposed to look like, but you won't know unless you ask, and most of you guys aren't going to ask. So this is me trying to share information that I wish I would have known prior.
Speaker 1:The relationship, like I said, takes an effort. If you really into somebody and it's not for the superficial aspect of it, like you really into them you vibe with this person, you're going to have disagreements or misunderstandings because you guys are learning to communicate with each other and typically the man is going to be the poor communicator, so the woman has to give that man some grace. I do suggest ladies to come up with questions that you can ask for them to be able to answer out loud, because a lot of times you can give the information to the person who's supposed to receive it, but they may not hear it because they want to discover it for themselves. So you need to ask questions like so this is before you even get that far. Um, like, if you're into somebody, you should already know their, their, their family background. If you don't know their family background, you are hypnotized by whatever you're attracted to. But if you really want something special, you're gonna have to to find out how their parents interact. And if it came from a broken household, it's nothing against people from broken households.
Speaker 1:You just got to understand you're going to have to work a little harder because they don't have any example that's close enough for them to say this is the right way. So they're going to do it their way. And you don't know that you're going to do it their way with them if you don't communicate and some people may be like you know it's a bit harsh on how you want to choose your partner. But you got to think about how much work you want to do, and I'm not saying it can't work, you just got to work harder because they have behaviors in the very beginning. They have behaviors they don't want you to see. You know that they're showing you the best version that they want you to see and then, if you don't do enough background, you kind of like get hypnotized and then you start spending time with them and then you didn't do your research. But now you like this person, you see these bad habits and you're not trying to figure out. Like, do I have to deal with these habits? Like you know, because we are attracted to the outward, outward appearances, whether it's the shape of the body, the size of the lips, style, money, what they're driving, education, all of these things play a role and I'm not saying that they don't. But you want to know if you're going to go into a relationship, you want to know what they know and what has been guiding their perspective all of these years. And if you don't do that, there's a 50% chance it's not going to work. So I'm trying to decrease that.
Speaker 1:If men knew how much work it actually took, maybe they'd reevaluate if they want to get married. And I'm telling you this over the course of the years as I continue to polish the way that I deliver my information. The relationship that I've created with my wife is by far the best creation that I could have ever created, and I'm going to tell you why. I had no idea that relationships could be this worthwhile, this fulfilling. Um, I wasn't prepared for it and if I knew, I would have worked a lot harder to get here at a younger age. And I'm challenging all you people If you're in a relationship and you're not happy, you got to like really take your relationship seriously.
Speaker 1:You got to write notes. You got to like create, create a journal for you to be able to share your own thoughts so you can get them out. And if the person is for you, most likely it is. You know, it's very rare where the universe gives you accidents, unless you were just that shallow, but you can work it out. You have to put the work in, though, and sometimes doing more work sounds like taxing. It's worth it, though. Like just imagine if a part of your routine was just working on your relationship and you enjoyed how you felt throughout the day when you went to work and because you knew what was coming you were coming home to. It's a different gratification that I'm still trying to figure out what I can do to entice people to work harder than they are.
Speaker 1:It has to be intentional. A lot of us are just waiting for mistakes so that we can grow in a relationship. Some mistakes in relationships, so we need to communicate before we get to their point and waste our time. We should ask questions the most important. So who are your examples? Like I said, anything's possible, but it's going to change the level of effort you're going to have to put into it, and if you get into a relationship and that person's background is sketchy, you're supposed to give them. If you get into a relationship and their parent, parental background is sketchy, you got to give them that grace, because they don't even know that. They're there because they're trying to figure it out, and those of you that aren't in relationships. It's very important. If you really think that person's for you, you're going to have to work harder than you think, because there's a level of effort that will push you past a boundary that you didn't even think you would go past for that relationship, and you'll understand why you went past it, because I'm telling you, everything happens for a reason. Yes, you need to also.
Speaker 1:Typically, this is like how people speak to each other. I've seen women and men talk to each other horribly and that's just the way that I talk. You're right, that's the way that you talk, but you need to change your behavior because the way that you talk hurts my feelings and I don't like the way that you talk. And I didn't even know that I had that problem. Yeah, I didn't know how to talk to my wife. My tone was just so mean and disgusting. I didn't know that it sounded that way to her because in my mind, that's just the way that I talk, but it hurt her feelings a lot and I didn't even know she couldn't like. You know, I was one of those people like shoot, you know who I was before I got married. You know what am I changing for and I'm glad that I changed, because she didn't deserve any of that and I've realized the way that I was spoke was a defense mechanism from childhood. Like I thought I had to speak like that to back people off. And I was doing that to my wife, but I didn't know it wasn't on purpose, it was just practicing bad behaviors for so long. And nobody's telling me that you need to change this specific thing. My wife said she was trying to tell me but she couldn't explain it until the day that I got it and I'm grateful for that.
Speaker 1:Boundaries is really important too. Like you guys have to have rules in your relationship, going into a relationship, like real boundaries. Like if somebody is willing to cross your boundaries, like you have to think is this person's for you? Like if they know that that's the boundary. And I'll tell you like a lot of times we don't know how important boundaries are until somebody crosses them. But we need to. We need to communicate effectively with the person to receive the message, because a lot of times my wife was setting up boundaries with me but I crossed all of them because I never believed that it hurt her.
Speaker 1:You know she was like. You know that hurt my feelings and she was like you know, that hurt my feelings and I was like in my head I didn't believe her because I was like it wouldn't hurt my feelings. That's how narrow-minded I was. I used to think like, why would it hurt her feelings? That was nothing and I didn't really. I was just it's embarrassing to talk that I'm this old, realizing like that I was talking to my wife in a way that you shouldn't talk to anybody and I couldn't fix it for a long time because I didn't know it was a problem. I didn't know the problem.
Speaker 1:But the three things, the effort. The effort is so important, whatever you think it takes. It takes more because you're bringing your set of beliefs, she's running her set of beliefs and you're coming together and you guys have not talked about enough, you haven't had enough conversations to be able to cover everything. So when you do come to something that you disagree on, you got to have rules on how you're going to talk with each other, because somebody is going to believe that their way is better and if you know how to communicate, you can convince the other person. Hey, I think we should do it this way because I saw the benefits of this and this, opposed to like ain't how I grew up. This is how I grew up and we did it this way. Like maybe you did it, but let's look for the benefits, the betterment of our children, and let's try to apply these things and if you know how to communicate like that, it changes the dynamic of the relationship.
Speaker 1:Like me and my wife, we have like different things set up. Like if we get to this point, like sometimes we know that the the tough subjects and we know it could get out of hand, and you know like we have to think like, is this something we're willing to do today? You know, because you know we we believe strongly in some of the things we believe in, and sometimes our, our past behaviors comes up in the communication aspect of delivering a message. And it can get messy sometimes Not messy where we're cursing each other out or anything like that, just where you know somebody's not feeling like they're being heard or somebody doesn't have enough patience for them to get you know their complete thought out.
Speaker 1:Without assuming so we're all in the process of getting better, but if men knew how much effort and the reason why I'm saying men, because the men that I've spoken to been around. They really think the financial aspect and protection is the only thing that you bring to the table, like it's so many other things to the table that the women are really exhausted from being a mother Like, and a lot of the responsibilities should be on both partners, because women are overwhelmed and that's the reason why a lot of relationships fail, because men don't know the blind spots of how a relationship should grow, because they feel like they're they're doing better than their father and they're covering these aspects that you know, um, that maybe it's just covering the. The parts that they feel like are what a man's supposed to do, and if there's ever a conversation between a man and a woman about the responsibilities of today's families, the women have pages of things they have to do and be aware of that most men are oblivious to. So you're going to have to communicate effectively and know that you got to teach your partner that there's so many things he can't see and I'm only referring to people that come from broken households because no matter what your mother or your father taught you, there's an other side that you couldn't have gotten if you came from a broken household. So you got to be open and knowing that there were some things that you didn't learn and you're in the process of learning them together.
Speaker 1:Before I go, I wanted to talk, like a friend of mine was like you know, I have three daughters and I didn't know I had to raise them differently. And I was like you know what? Me and my wife we learned that a few years ago and that's what you learn with your partner, because you converse and you're like damn, we got to raise these kids differently because they have different eyes, they're being treated differently. If you try to raise them the same, you're going to create some type of resentment because everybody's not as resilient as the others, because one came first, the next one came and then it's like as you get older, you become better parents, but you still treat them differently.
Speaker 1:And I was telling him like that's the joy, the joyous, one of the joyous parts of our relationship is discovering things together and be like dang, we couldn't figure that out without each other of conversations. The relationship turns into something that they wish they would have known in the beginning, because there's no blueprint to getting there but other than just making it happen. But I'm going to let y'all go. Happy holidays. Make today better than yesterday. Don't worry about anything you can't control. G-a-t-a Get after that action or that action will get after you. Be great on purpose.