growNman
growNman
I am growNman 126 Mastering Marriage: Lessons From 17 Years
Who actually qualifies to give relationship advice? Drawing from nearly 17 years of marriage, I tackle this question head-on, challenging the common practice of taking relationship guidance from people with little successful experience. Real wisdom comes from those who've weathered the storms and emerged stronger.
My journey from immaturity to becoming the husband my wife deserves wasn't straightforward. Growing up in a broken home with no model for healthy relationships, I had to learn what makes a house a home. Initially resisting my wife's efforts to create a warm, inviting space, I eventually recognized the importance of these seemingly small touches in building our life together. Our relationship evolved from a simplistic notion of gender roles into a dynamic partnership where responsibilities shift according to needs – sometimes 90-10, other times 10-90.
The hard truth I've learned is that men must take full accountability for relationship struggles. Either you've chosen an incompatible partner or you don't understand what's needed for success. This perspective isn't about blame but empowerment – recognizing that growth is always possible. For years, I defended poor communication with "this is just who I am," until I realized I could and should improve for my wife's sake. That transformation required intention, research, and a willingness to be uncomfortable.
Want relationship success? Start asking deeper questions early. Move beyond superficial attractions to understand family dynamics, past relationships, and expectations. These foundations determine how you'll navigate challenges together. And remember that maturity is non-negotiable – without emotional intelligence, even promising partnerships will falter. Sex, despite its cultural emphasis, proves far less important than mutual respect, communication, and commitment to growth. If you're seeking lasting love, focus on becoming someone capable of sustaining it.
what up, though, and welcome back to I'm growing man. It's your man, john d, in the building. Um those of you don't know um, editing got downsized my team because I just couldn't afford it. So now you guys are watching my editing and hopefully I'll be able to get it up to par in the next few weeks. But and I know this room looks pretty bad right now, but it'll be hopefully in order in the next couple weeks to a month. Uh, finishing last year, I mean the last end of the school year, we're in the last quarter, so I just want to make sure that I do what I need to. So, if this is kind of at a hindrance until I can get some time, but today, uh, I specifically let me see what else.
Speaker 1:Oh, there was a podcast I was listening to. It gave some really good information about who should be able to give advice or critique someone. I think I heard I don't want to say who, but I heard him say they have no idea what it takes to get to this level. They believe that they have the right to. Well, they do. They have the right to critique, but what they're saying is not heavy. It's not as heavily it's not. It shouldn't be weighted as heavily so, meaning watching the game of basketball. I love basketball. For those of you that don't know, there are a lot of analysts that have no idea what it takes to get to a certain level. Not saying they can't critique the game, but some of their comments doesn't allow them to be as important as they are.
Speaker 1:And that led me to start thinking about relationships, marriage. When I'm watching different podcasts and I see all of this advice being given and I started thinking about like they're not even in a relationship or in a long enough relationship to give advice. They can just say what didn't work for them. But when you remain in a relationship for a long period of time, you can give honest feedback and say hey, this is what works. A lot of times, everybody say what doesn't work, oh, this doesn't work for me. There are things that work for everybody, every single person. You may not be in favor of it, but it will work for you, and the only reason why a lot of people are not in favor of some of the things that I may present today is because they didn't think that it was necessary or they never thought that they needed to do those things. So me being married 17 years in June and I can tell you a lot, but I'm going to give you the main reasons why she and I work Now. There were different people. She and I were definitely responsible for different parts of the relationship to get to where we are, but overall, I believe she and I are qualified to give important feedback so that people can find a way to make it work.
Speaker 1:Some people, a lot of people, feel like they understand what it takes to be in a relationship because they've seen one, they've watched the movies, their friend's been in one. But in order to really know, you have to go through the experience and unfortunately, the experience only lasts for so long for some people because they don't know that it's levels to it. You could say I've done everything I can, but that's not the case, because if you did everything you could, it would work. Now it does take two people Now, depending on if you're the male or the female in a relationship and I'm going to be general as possible. Okay, I do believe women are supposed to complement men in a relationship, but it looks different. It's not just cleaning the house, raising the kids, them going to work and earning their keep and doing all of these other things in the household. There's so many different things that we can do.
Speaker 1:I read something recently. It said that a relationship could be 50-50. Sometimes it's going to be 90-10. Other times it's going to be 10-90. And that's what I was mentioning earlier. Like different parts of our relationship, one or the other worked harder than they were supposed to, not saying that the other person didn't know they were working hard, but they were just overwhelmed with whatever was going on in their life. Or for me, as an example, I just thought I was doing what I was supposed to be doing. I didn't realize I could do more.
Speaker 1:As this relationship matured and I learned the responsibilities of being her husband and when I say her husband, because I am her husband and my job is to be an example, to compliment my wife in ways that no other man can, and that's the job I accepted. I didn't realize what it took to do it. When we originally got married, I was like I'm working, I'm going to do everything I can, but I didn't realize the small things that make a house a home. She made our house a home throughout our marriage and I didn't know how to do that because I grew up in an apartment, so just imagine growing up in an apartment and you have no idea what it takes to actually live in a house or what it takes to run a house. Not only that, I grew up in a broken household and my father was the nurturer. So imagine an abusive man that's doing the best he can, but he's the nurturer that's physically and verbally abusive. Very different experience for me to grow up into an adult and be able to compliment my wife.
Speaker 1:A lot of the things I did to compliment her was pretty much what is it called? It was called like fluff from other people's ideas or relationships. And when I say that I mean like just like men, we get this message that we're supposed to protect our family, we're supposed to earn the money for the family, but if that's all that a man is going to do, that, that relationship will not work. I don't care who that woman is. That woman will eventually get burnt out. And the reason why I know this is because I've spoken to a lot of women and a lot of times they say they're in a good relationship, but it can always get better. But the only way it could get better is if their partner decides to improve. Because most of the time women are stretched out thin from the amount of things that they have to do to make a house a home. And I'm not saying that there aren't men out there that know what a home looks like, but from my experience, women have a better idea of what it should look like, feel like. And, yeah, I guess I can just say that they know what it feels and looks like.
Speaker 1:And sometimes I remember me and my wife. I used to think certain things where it wasn't necessary and then I look, I'm like I'm glad she did it, because if she didn't do it I would have never done it, because I grew up financially poor, so everything had something to do with money. So whenever I needed something, I have to automatically think is this going to cut into something? So, in order to make a house a home, you have to buy things in the house. And I feel like if we're not in a certain place, why are we buying these things? I didn't understand. In my mind we were just going to save and then we're going to buy things, but I didn't know it should. It's more so like over the course of time you should add things because it makes you feel like like it's yours.
Speaker 1:I grew up I never painted a wall until I moved in with my wife in 2007. We bought a townhouse in Atlanta and we painted a wall. That was the first time. I was 27, seven, I just turned 27 when we painted the wall. Now, like all the rooms have something on them and you know, and like that's the reason why this room looks like this, because growing up in an abusive household, you get in trouble. So I just didn't think you were supposed to paint. But now I'm making this my place and over the course of time I'm going to have different things that show to reflect me and that's it. I kind of got off the track.
Speaker 1:But people that can give advice on relationships I feel like you should be in a relationship for a minimum of five to seven years and if you're not extremely happy, you probably shouldn't be given no advice. Given any advice, because a lot of times when you're not happy, you make a relationship more difficult than it is, and I've noticed since I've gotten to this point in my life that I'm not happy all the time. There are moments where I might not be happy, but overall I'm extremely happy and I have to give thanks to my wife for that, because she was patient enough for me to mature so that I could grow up and become the husband that she needed to live the rest of her life with. Because I do want to say there were moments, there were times where she thought that it would probably be in our best interest to separate and go our separate ways. We'd just be co-parenting and that was never my idea, but it was only hers because I didn't know how to be a husband. Well, I didn't know how to be the husband that she needed.
Speaker 1:So over the course of time, when I realized this, I decided to do a lot of research on other men who have been successful. So sometimes you just got to read a book of relationships and see what they're talking about. If people are buying books from people, it's worth reading. Now, I know a lot of people don't want to go that route, so they'll listen to podcasts that are entertaining, but some podcasts give bad information that is discouraging for a lot of people to get in relationships. I will say that, being a man, I do believe that men control everything. If a man is initiating some type of contact with a woman, like he's choosing to do so. She could decide to stay there or leave also. She has that choice. But the man is initially putting in this effort and if it gets to a point where it don't work it's because not enough questions were asked in the beginning.
Speaker 1:When I say enough questions, I mean questions like you know, like how are your siblings? Like? How is the relationship between your siblings? How's the relationship between your mother and your father? Are they still together? Did they like? What happened? What did you look at? What did you? What did you see that you wanted? Did you even want to be one? These questions are so important because they come up later and a lot of times the thrill of newness will make you forget to ask these questions because you're mesmerized by the way they look, or because they sound very educated or they're inspirational. And I'm not saying these aren't good things to have. But if you don't know the parts that could break the relationship, because a lot of times we're dealing with trauma that we've never dealt with and if you get in that situation where you haven't dealt with your trauma, it's going to come out in the relationship and it's not going to always look the best.
Speaker 1:I'll say like with me. The way that I talked to my wife and my kids at a younger age, it was just real nasty and I didn't know I was being nasty, nor did I know I could improve. But looking back I could see how a woman wouldn't want to be spoken to like that. I remember I used to tell her you know who you married, this is who I am, and how it's embarrassing as a man like I couldn't, like she didn't deserve that treatment, so why am I giving it to her? But I wasn't looking at it like that. I was looking at it like this is who I am and this is, this is what you marry, not thinking that I can improve that. So, being in this relationship almost 17 years and another couple of months, 17, and the relationship has just exponentially gotten better for me. She says that she's happy and I believe her. But she's definitely been happier in the past, not saying she's not happy now, but she was in a glee state about me, like she really enjoyed. She loved me in a different way that I can't even explain because it's almost like fairytale type stuff. But now my intentions on making her happy it's like my, it's like an everyday routine. I'll show you this.
Speaker 1:When I first moved back from Abu Dhabi, my family had already been here back for like a year and a half, so they were already settled in and at this time, gone for a long period of time, only coming back on breaks. I'm trying to create this relationship that I want with my wife and she really wasn't feeling me because she didn't know that I was really on this journey of just trying to improve any and everything that somebody could say is negative or they don't want to deal with, especially my wife. So when I came back, I am doing everything I can, but she's kind of like standoffish to a degree, and I decided to say, hey, I'm going to massage your feet every day for the rest of your life. And when I started that I've really had a good thing going on. It lasted for maybe like three or four months but I got sick, got out of the routine and my son recently said father, why don't you massage your mother's feet anymore? And I was like you know what? I just mentioned this to her. The whole intent of me massaging her feet was I know that she likes her feet massaged, she likes her feet cared for, but I was just going to get that conversation. If I'm doing this in my mind, I'm going to ask questions.
Speaker 1:It created a lot of conflict because we had conversations that we just never had before and through that time it worked out like we got to really know each other and, like I said, I did stop. But recently, like I said, I told her that I want to go back to at least doing it a couple of times after week, because she deserves it and I want to show her how much I appreciate her. She makes me feel exceptional. I want to show her how much I appreciate her. She makes me feel exceptional when I say that I know there's people that's married, but she and I have a relationship where we genuinely enjoy each other's energy, and I wouldn't have gotten that if she didn't have the patience for me to mature and grow up. If she and I didn't work, I would have probably gone crazy, thinking I was doing everything I was supposed to do. Why didn't I get this information? So now I'm just all about trying to give the best information for people to succeed.
Speaker 1:If you're a man in a relationship and it's not working, it's your fault, that's it. You either don't know how to pick the woman or you don't know what it takes for the relationship to succeed. That's the only options. That's, if you, in my mind, are alpha male, where you want to win, you have to accept all accountability on why it's not working. If this person is your person, you got to make sure you ask her enough questions. Ask them enough questions where you can feel like you know enough that you're willing to deal with their baggage. If you don't know about their baggage, their baggage is going to come up, and I recognize a lot of people always Was she keeping it away from you and I'll say this Sometimes you'll run into people that will keep information from you. But overall, if you ask enough questions, it's going to come out, and if you don't ask enough questions, you're going to just hope that you're willing to deal with whatever she got, and vice versa, because if you're not asking those questions, she's probably not asking those questions and neither one of you know about your baggage. So you have to intentionally ask questions that can give you enough information to say I know why I went forward, because a lot of times men are just strictly driven by appearance in a conversation or how much money they make.
Speaker 1:It's not about the piece of just having dialogue that you look forward to Like. When I have conversations with my wife, I look forward to how she's going to respond, because I know that we're two different people. But if you don't look forward to that, you're only looking forward to things. That doesn't hold enough weight. I know, as we've gotten older, our kids are going to be leaving soon and it's just going to be us, but we have this routine where we enjoy each other's company and we continuously ask questions because we want to know how each other feels, so that we don't cross a boundary we don't know about.
Speaker 1:Your partner only knows so much and if you haven't revealed it to them, they haven't asked a question. They don't know. And a lot of times our responses can catch people off guard. If we've never asked it before and you've never dealt with it, it could sound very defensive and negative and your partner doesn't deserve that. But if you recognize that, you should be willing to apologize or be willing to talk about it. I know that now, me and my wife, like I said, we got these boundaries, these rules that you can't cross and if you do, you have to do these steps.
Speaker 1:There's been times where we was like, okay, we're not talking anymore right now and we have 48 hours to figure it out. In the beginning it was longer and then we was like there's no reason why we should be married and having two days of not talking. That doesn't even make sense. These last few years we haven't had more than a couple of hours because we're not doing it on purpose. We're responding emotionally from bad habits that we learned from our childhood and it's up to us to unlayer those together, unless you go to a therapist. But we have these conversations.
Speaker 1:A lot of you guys watch our podcast our podcast doing too much, and we just talk about how we got to this point. And that's the reason why I'm talking about this today, because I feel like there's so much bad information out there that if you listen to the wrong information, you may get discouraged and not take your shot and get in a relationship or get married, and if you do that, you're going to cheat yourself. So many different experiences. You can get enough experience and watch people be single and I'll tell you this as they get older, they don't want to be alone and if you don't have a partner to share things with, I know a lot of people. Like you know I got friends you do but it's somebody new every day or it may not even be anybody there. Somebody should be there where you guys can be and enjoy each other's company and watching my friends who are older living a single life.
Speaker 1:It looks like you need to sit down, like literally like you know how I guess when we were younger you would like seeing some sugar daddies. It's like man, I need to go sit down somewhere. I wish my friends could sit down somewhere with somebody that could give them that reason to sit down. But insecurities from childhood has casted a shadow or a coat from preventing you from breaking the ceiling and you'll end up standing in this bubble that you don't even deserve. But if you're afraid to experience new things, you'll remain in the bubble and complain about things that you don't have, and you may not complain out loud. But I do know you deserve a level of happiness that you are not allowed to get because some bad information you've got prevented you from taking that walk.
Speaker 1:And if it's anything that I recommend, it's only for mature people. Relationships are for mature people. If you are not mature, there's no way it's going to work and a lot of times somebody's not mature, at least for the other person. So watch the information you receive and understand it's going to take an effort you haven't seen before. Even if your parents are in a great relationship, you didn't see them day to day interact Like you grew up and you left. But even when you were home you did not see them interact without you around, and you're only around for so long after you're a little kid and looking.
Speaker 1:Now I'm looking for any interaction with my wife so that she can truly appreciate life with me, like she could be single, she could be with somebody else, but being that she's not, I want her to eventually have this feeling that I'm so happy to be married and I'm so happy to be married to me, to John, me, him. I want her to feel that and I know, like I know, she says it, but I know that she deserves even more than that. So I am continuously finding ways to improve and compliment her in a way that my kids can say I want to be like that or I want to find a man like that, because if she's happy she creates a different product and if I could be a part of that happiness, it'll be a beautiful process. So before I go, make sure you guys watch and be careful of the information you receive. And I will say this before I go Sex is a distraction.
Speaker 1:It's overrated, it's not as important as people say in successful relationships. If you have to have sex with somebody before you get in a relationship, you probably don't need to be in a relationship, because giving somebody that type of energy and they don't deserve it and they could give you some energy you don't deserve. Be careful, because in the era I grew up, experimentation, exploration with other people was necessary and guess what? It caused a lot of heartache, pain, unnecessary kids and poor parenting practices. Nobody wants. Y'all. 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, boom. Thank you.