00:00:00.000classes in session hey guys welcome to unlearn 16 classes in session and today
00:00:09.040the day after valentine's day you just get me just me and you going to chat a little bit about
00:00:15.680going to adjust that a little bit about the nature of relationships guys guys i get a lot
00:00:22.080I get a lot of questions, comments, asking for advice when it comes to relationships,
00:00:30.620predominantly on TikTok, but sometimes on here.
00:00:34.040And I thought, what better day, what better time than to give you guys my two cents.
00:00:43.540We all know I'm going to give 10 cents, but my 25 cents at the most about relationships,
00:00:48.960what it takes to make a good one, what it takes to keep one, what horrific mistakes I've made
00:00:54.780and how I've learned from all of them. Because guys, I'm 46. So at 46, I've made a few mistakes,
00:01:02.920a few hundred mistakes. And I think I've learned. I think I really have gotten a hold of a lot of
00:01:12.020big issues. And I think I can kind of give you a, let's say a synopsis, a general overview of what
00:01:21.100it is to sort of navigate yourself in this crazy world of finding whatever your soulmate, your
00:01:27.580person, you know, very Christina Yang and Meredith Gray. But I think it's really important to sort of
00:01:35.100talk about it and talk about the mistakes that I've made. Because I think a lot of people love
00:01:38.580to give advice and then not talk about the absolute disasters that they found themselves
00:01:42.760in. So I'm going to start at the beginning. I'm going to go way back. And between us,
00:01:49.100guys, I used to date guys. I dated men, boys, and then men up until I was about 24 years old,
00:01:56.860when I finally came out, when I finally had that epiphany. And so I made a whole host of mistakes
00:02:02.960then i like to sometimes i joke because i wasn't necessarily the nicest to the guys i dated and
00:02:09.520that's probably because i wasn't invested i'm going to talk about that and why i wasn't invested
00:02:14.560and what that meant for me but i think i got a guy it's like karma i know karma is the next life and
00:02:21.280you know whatever it doesn't but i feel like it just kind of like you dated guys treat them like0.99
00:02:25.760crap you treated them like clapped dated girls bam just knocked on my butt i'm going to talk0.98
00:02:31.680about that i'm going to tell you all about that because i'm not going to hide anything so when i0.99
00:02:35.600first started dating i was relatively prolific not dodgy prolific just prolific i dated a lot of guys
00:02:43.200in in you know high school a lot of people you know would would would say that they they've
00:02:50.160dated me and i i would date them and i'd be super interested for about a month and then it would
00:02:56.240just fade um i still have guys that i dated in high school uh quite a few actually it would be
00:03:02.240awesome like i still talk to them it'd be great to have them on here to actually talk about that
00:03:07.200um but i had guys that would just constantly want a shot like or another shot and i think
00:03:13.600what it was especially back then was my my lack of giving a crap for the most part i cared about
00:03:20.800volleyball i cared about doing pretty well in school and i cared about my tv schedule and going0.57
00:03:25.840to bed by 10 like i i wasn't like boy crazy even though i dated a lot of guys i was heavily invested
00:03:34.560in sort of the competition of it i know that sounds dodgy right in in getting the guy you
00:03:39.280get the guy you wear his jacket and then all of a sudden i'm like i'm done with this right
00:03:44.080so i did that all the way through high school um even to the point there was my mom needed help
00:03:50.640painting our house and i was actually away on march break and three of my ex-boyfriends all
00:03:56.560came over and helped my mom paint uh i don't even know did my mom call them i don't even know how
00:04:02.400that transpired but they all came over to help my mom paint inside the house and on the inside of
00:04:07.280the door and i wish i would have a photo of it because i don't they painted the joanna johnson
00:04:11.840club and they each signed their name at least one of those guys i can bring on this podcast the other
00:04:19.440two might be a little iffy uh but i dated lovely guys so when a lot of people say joanna you know
00:04:26.720people why are you gay did you turn gay did you have but no i dated very nice cute respectful guys
00:04:36.960um what i didn't get out of that is i never got that feeling in your chest you know that people
00:04:43.040they say that's feeling in your gut i don't think it's in your gut i think it's in your chest
00:04:46.480I think it's the, your heart's going to pound out of your chest. I might die feeling.
00:04:54.460All of that is fake because it doesn't last forever. But that feeling, I never got that
00:05:00.980with guys. And then the more I got to know them, the more you're supposed to attain a level of
00:05:05.400intimacy, right? And I don't mean that in a sexual way. It's not what I'm talking about.
00:05:09.860I mean, intimacy in a connectivity kind of way. You're supposed to gain more trust. You're
00:05:16.360supposed to gain deeper conversations. You're supposed to feel more at home with that person.
00:05:22.240I think that's a fair assessment. And what I noticed with guys, and I literally thought I
00:05:26.580was just broken, was that when I stayed with them, that feeling that I was supposed to be getting,
00:05:33.900that connection was just evaporating. So I thought I had at the beginning and then it would
00:05:38.360evaporate, to such an incredible lack of connection and lack of intimacy, I felt hollow.
00:05:47.120And the more time I would spend with these guys, again, lovely, no fault of their own,
00:05:51.840I would feel more and more empty. And that empty feeling would just make me shut down. I didn't
00:05:58.160have any emotion about it. I wasn't sad about it. I wasn't anything. I pretty much maybe at,
00:06:04.340or was disconnected enough at some point for the guys to say, listen, we're not, you're not into
00:06:09.640this. Uh, I'm going to break up with you. And I'd be like, okay, see you later. And that's a horrible
00:06:14.060way of dealing with things. And, and I really, every time I started, I really thought I was
00:06:20.640broken. I really thought, you know, we could talk about my mom and dad got a divorce when I was
00:06:26.060young. We can talk about that, but I really felt like I was broken and I wasn't, I just wasn't
00:06:32.240capable of feeling what everybody else was talking about or what the girls were you know those girls
00:06:37.600in the high school hallways when they were like crying in the bathroom or whatever and they would
00:06:42.000all go i i didn't know what that meant i didn't get it so i just kind of resigned myself to being
00:06:50.080like this is the depth of emotion i feel this is the depth that i can process and that's just who
00:06:56.320who I am. And all of this went on for quite some time until I was about 24 in university or 23,
00:07:02.640I guess. And I was dating a guy at the time, lovely guy. And we'd had our ups and downs. And
00:07:08.700my dad had passed the previous year when I first got together with him. And I was an emotional,
00:07:16.280just a wreck. So the kind of attention and neediness that I never had before I had after
00:07:24.100my dad passed. And this particular boyfriend who I'd known all through high school was just
00:07:28.820lovely at taking care of me. And I loved him taking care of me. And I just fed that for a
00:07:34.280while. And then we both went away to university and that feeling subsided, that need subsided.
00:07:40.220And that was it, right? It was gone. And so when he came back from school, it was clear
00:07:44.980that that wasn't there, but that didn't stop us from staying together thinking, oh no,
00:07:49.820this is going to get better. And then I went away to York University and my master's and I ended up
00:07:55.940meeting a girl. Nothing happened at all before I broke up with my boyfriend, because all that
00:08:05.280I needed to have happen was meet this person and feel, I didn't even know her guys, feel,
00:08:14.700and I it's not intimacy but feel that connection in that moment of meeting that one person and
00:08:22.080trust me she made me cry a lot I understood what the crying in the bathroom was about0.95
00:08:26.680so I broke up with my boyfriend I had dated my first girlfriend she treated me horribly
00:08:31.640cheated on me within the first I don't know 30 seconds of us dating and then it progressed right
00:08:37.880then I'm 24 and 25 years old and I start dating and I date different people. And guys, the world
00:08:45.280of the lesbian drama is prolific. And maybe I'll do a whole other separate podcast on that because
00:08:52.280that's not really what I want to get to today. But every step of the way, I, you know, sure,
00:08:59.240sometimes I maybe hurt people, but for the most part, I had my, my heart ripped out every five
00:09:05.160seconds, right up until I got married with that person for a very long time. Again, heart out of
00:09:14.020chest, ripped, destroyed. And I thought, you know, I'm just done. I'm done with dating. And I'd never
00:09:21.040really self-reflected before. Because as a kid, and obviously I was a kid till well into my 30s,
00:09:27.960and I admit that, as a kid, you end a relationship, you run right back into a new one,
00:09:34.520and you get all those good feelings and you ever deal with the crap of this previous relationship
00:09:39.340because you just think, well, they weren't right. They weren't the right one for me.
00:09:44.320They, it was they, they, they, nothing to do with me. And then you roll into the next relationship.
00:09:49.980A lot of the times you, you know, you look back or you start to see you duplicating trend after
00:09:55.180trend after trend, and you never give yourself time to look inward, especially when somebody
00:10:03.280hurts you because it's so much easier to blame, right? They cheated. It's their fault. They lied
00:10:09.140to me. It's their fault. They, they, they, they. After my divorce, ironically, which is so funny
00:10:18.420because it was they, they, they, 100%. I wanted nothing to do with it. After my divorce, COVID hit.
00:10:27.620And so I go through this horrible experience. And in that time, guys, in that time where I would
00:10:33.160just rolled right back into it i couldn't it was too big it was too much and and so i couldn't jump
00:10:39.160right back and then i was hit by quarantine not quarantine but we were all locked down
00:10:44.440so as i was hit with that i all of a sudden and i was going to therapy like every five minutes
00:10:51.320and i was all of a sudden hit with the not they not her but all of a sudden i had to i had to
00:10:59.400deal with me i had to think what did i do what what could i have done differently who and here's
00:11:07.160the real kick in the pants guys and i'm going to start here who am i in that relationship and who
00:11:13.240am i right now i used to think i had such a firm grasp on me i used to walk around i was i i always
00:11:20.840felt like i was a relatively confident person i liked my i was good at my job i liked my job i
00:11:26.040had great friends i always you know and being confident and knowing yourself are two very
00:11:33.080different things because i think i avoided myself in a lot of ways i'm going to explain what that
00:11:38.520means in a second i avoided myself in a lot of ways by investing all this other energy in other
00:11:44.600people why well i'm a saver i should get a cape call myself superwoman and be on my day because
00:11:50.360that's what i did swoop in try to save you try to fix you try to help you and then when you're
00:11:55.960all healed and ready to go off you go and i'm left they're going what the heck just happened
00:12:01.080but this time i didn't have any of those options i didn't have any of those choices i was locked
00:12:06.760into well this is where i'm sitting because i don't have i can't go anywhere i can't do anything
00:12:11.960so i had therapy i had my friends who are also therapy and then i sat in solitude
00:12:17.720and i really started to think about who i am and what i lost over those 12 years of that last
00:12:25.560relationship and marriage and then i realized what the pattern was
00:12:31.960now did i pick the wrong person sure can i talk about all their faults sure but i'm not gonna
00:12:36.360i'm not boring anybody with that now because i want you can't control that the only thing
00:12:41.080you control is you the only thing i can control is me so in that moment i started reflecting
00:12:47.240who am i to keep putting myself in that same position and i would have stayed in that very
00:12:56.740very broken marriage forever because i would have constantly tried to fix her i thought that was my
00:13:04.920mission if i love her enough i'll heal her she'll be great will be great i just have to prove to her
00:13:11.780right and instead of and this is true every single relationship instead of me saving i was pulled
00:13:18.820into that trauma i was pulled into that fractured sense of self i was pulled into that brokenness
00:13:29.060and i think over the last that 12 year but i started sort of degenerating because it was such
00:13:34.500a long period of time that person didn't walk away quite as quickly as let's say some other
00:13:38.660people would have walked away so it was a longer period like kind of like the frog in boiling water
00:13:43.060right you put him in warm water not boiling and you just gradually raise the temperature
00:13:47.700and at the end i'm boiling i don't even know i'm boiling but i'm still sitting there trying
00:13:51.460to save the other frogs so at the end of all of that i start looking at myself and why do i do
00:13:58.180that and how do i do that and i remember sitting with my therapist and she handed me some papers
00:14:03.620at some point to describe maybe some of the issues that my partner had she was joanna i'm
00:14:08.260showing this to you not to save her. You can't save her. I'm showing this to you so you can
00:14:15.340understand what you are into, what you are a part of, and how you need to let go and how you need
00:14:21.480to create boundaries for yourself going forward. I read over all of this documentation kind of
00:14:28.960thing and description. I think revelations happen in moments. That was one. You don't get a
00:14:37.020revelation I also think people think they get a revelation all in one sitting you don't I think
00:14:42.400it comes in flashes you just need to make sure that you put the flashes together because a flash
00:14:47.440could happen when you're 17 and then not to your 22 and then not again to your 37 so like you you
00:14:53.940have to remember the flashes and I think that's you know I had a bunch of them very quickly and
00:14:59.460again it was all because of that sort of isolation that I I wouldn't have endured if I could have
00:15:04.740avoided it, but I had to COVID. So weirdly, thank for COVID. Nobody ever says that. And so I sat here
00:15:13.340and I started obviously doing TikTok. And when I started doing TikTok, there was a piece of me I
00:15:19.600didn't even know I lost. Not so much, sure, a little performative, sure, a little, but it was
00:15:25.940very, very much a connectivity and a socialization and a social being that, that I really missed.
00:15:36.220And I gave up for, for, for me to be in a relationship with somebody where I just
00:15:41.980constantly dimmed, constantly minimized. I kept everything about me was dim to the point where
00:15:49.340I barely existed just to lift somebody else up. And that's how I loved.
00:15:55.940But that's how I love. That's what I thought love looked like. That's what my love map was. And is this partially because of my mom? Absolutely. We all look back to our parents. Did it have as much to do with my dad? I don't think so. Because I didn't really see that relationship.
00:16:12.400but I saw my mom with her family and the way she loved family, which was all in, right? All in,
00:16:19.060no boundaries. You need me. I'm dropping everything. I'll be there. And I, she did that
00:16:23.380for me guys, all about no, anything I needed, I would have. And so to me, that's what love was
00:16:31.320now in a partnership, especially with somebody who has their own trauma and doesn't, and maybe
00:16:37.960will take more of that. I just didn't get that. So I was consistently drawn to people who I wanted
00:16:44.140to fix and they would consistently just take, take, take, take, take, take. And not even because
00:16:49.260they're bad people, but because that was their damage and that was their trauma and that was
00:16:53.200what they have to fix. So all of this is going on and I'm slowly starting to become aware of what a
00:17:00.380healthy or what a good me looks like. And here's my first point. My first point, and I know it took
00:17:07.860me a long time to get to my first point but my first point of a healthy relationship and actually
00:17:12.260the most important part of a healthy relationship has nothing to do with anyone else it has
00:17:19.300everything to do with you who i am who i want to be what is important to me what i hold up as having
00:17:28.980value in and what i revere and what i want to chase and what i think i can all of those things
00:17:37.860about who I am. Those need to be so incredibly deeply understood and firmly entrenched
00:17:46.400because then when you meet somebody, you're not willing to adjust that.
00:17:55.640Look, relationship or compromise, yeah, yeah, yeah, sure. We compromise in the movies we watch,
00:18:01.280the color of paint we put on the wall, what kind of car we buy. None of that matters.
00:18:05.420none of those compromises matter right that's what sure marriage is about you do all of those
00:18:12.700things that's not what i'm talking about i'm talking about your core values i'm talking about
00:18:16.800who you are and i don't just mean like values like what my morals are or whatever i mean
00:18:23.420who i am in my heart in my soul and how can i express that in a bigger way and you have to be
00:18:32.140so sure of that. Because if you're not sure of that, somebody with a stronger personality or
00:18:35.880somebody with bigger goals or bigger demands, they're just going to outshine that. So I realized
00:18:41.400that about myself. And I'm saying to all of you, no matter what stage you're in, whether you haven't
00:18:47.980had a relationship, you're in one you want out, you're just out of one that you've been in for
00:18:51.740a long time, it doesn't matter where you are. You really need to figure out you. You want to be a
00:18:57.080painter? Figure it the hell out. You want to be a singer? Figure it out. A teacher, a doctor,
00:19:00.920a lawyer i don't care figure out what drives your heart what drives your soul and then stick to that
00:19:08.120because then when you meet somebody the idea is this you don't have to put up any boundaries
00:19:13.640they don't have to be big boundaries you just know what you're worth and and i don't mean that
00:19:18.840and i'm worth more than you just like i know what i need to prioritize so if i'm prioritizing a b
00:19:24.920and c and it doesn't suit you i can't adjust it's not even a choice i can't adjust a b and c because
00:19:32.920that's who i am so i think that's the first thing and here's the second thing and here's the really
00:19:40.360really hard part because we're always figuring ourselves out but the really hard part is then
00:19:46.520meeting somebody else who is equally authentic and it's really hard to tell right because a lot
00:19:53.960of people fake authenticity so long you have no idea and they think they they want to be this
00:20:01.320person so that makes it authentic or they think that they're going to be that person or they think
00:20:05.880if they ignore this trauma or if they ignore that trauma anybody that says i refuse to go to therapy
00:20:11.000you should be nervous of immediately why why are you you're the only reason outside of money
00:20:18.360because therapy is ridiculously expensive the only reason anyone is afraid of therapies because they
00:20:23.160are not ready to confront, to own, to be their authentic self. And they know that therapy is
00:20:29.620just going to be a window to that. So you got to meet somebody who's authentically them.
00:20:36.160And I lucked out. And I say this to Anne all the time, because if I would have met somebody,
00:20:41.660right, because I met Anne pretty close after, you know, within six months after my marriage ended.
00:20:48.200and if I would have met somebody else that was willing to sort of siphon my light or direct me
00:20:54.220or whatever, I could have fallen back into bad behavior very quickly. Instead, I met a person
00:21:01.260whose favorite movie was Dirty Dancing Havana Nights, and she wasn't afraid to say that.
00:21:06.600I met a person who ate the same meal for breakfast every single day, who loved Barry Manilow, who has
00:21:12.740a cardboard cutout of Justin Bieber, not ashamed. You want to know authenticity?
00:21:20.620Find yourself somebody who's not willing to sit in the comfortable social norms,
00:21:26.560but they do it with pride and they do it with confidence. There's authenticity, right? The
00:21:33.480person, and that's why I joke all the time about people's favorite movies, you know, when they say
00:21:37.600some really important movie like, I don't know, Casablanca, Schindler's List, or you get a lot
00:21:44.580of these very important movies that are amazing. Is it your favorite though? Is it your favorite?
00:21:50.800Does it say something about you? Or are you saying it because of its gravitas? I love that word,
00:21:56.020by the way, gravitas. I should use it more often. So authenticity is number one. And I really think
00:22:02.520it's the hardest thing to really watch but another key way to watch it i think does that person change
00:22:13.800when they're around you your friends their friends your family their family do their ideals change
00:22:22.920does their core change everybody has maybe a different tone nobody hangs out with their mom
00:22:28.040the same way they hang out with their friends that's not what i'm talking about i'm talking
00:22:31.960about the core of who they are are they all of a sudden trying to impress this group but never try
00:22:36.280to impress this group are they changing that favorite movie that's what i'm talking about
00:22:41.640and with anna what i was astounded by was it it doesn't matter you could sit her in front of the
00:22:47.640president of the united states and she would be the same person talking about you know speed skating
00:22:54.920And why hasn't he watched, you know, high school musical, like a hundred percent, she is not
00:23:01.560changing at all. So that's the person authenticity. Number two, passion. And it goes with authenticity,
00:23:08.960because if you're truly you, you figured out what moves your soul. If you figured out what
00:23:12.860moves your soul, you better be sure you're doing it. And I think that's incredibly important,
00:23:19.020you know, and for me, it's teaching a hundred percent. There's no question. I never had a
00:23:23.160question, I didn't find my passion. But sometimes that passion to somebody who doesn't have their
00:23:28.500own is overwhelming. All right. All of the confidence I get from it, the acolytes I get
00:23:35.900from it, the connections that I get from it, that challenges all that other. It never challenged
00:23:41.620Anna. Anna always was just incredibly supportive. And then I watched what she did, which was
00:23:47.540teach dance. And it wasn't just teach dance because as we know, she is a dancer and a singer
00:23:52.640and a performer, but it's that. Her soul is dancing. Her soul is performing. So what has
00:23:58.640she done? She's figured out every single way she can bolster her soul doing what she is passionate
00:24:06.280about. And I don't think a lot of people get to do that. I think that's also one of those big
00:24:14.640things that sort of limits a lot of people is for whatever reason. And sometimes for very valid
00:24:20.500reasons, they're put in positions where they don't get to feel, they don't get to feed that soul
00:24:24.940part. I'm not saying everybody has that as an option. Not everybody gets to do their pure joy
00:24:32.220every day is their job, but you better have it in your life in a significant way. You better include
00:24:37.440it in a significant way. It better inspire you in a significant way. Otherwise you weather and die
00:24:42.580and you're not good for any relationship. And the third thing with Anna was family.
00:24:49.720She had a solid relationship with her family. Very, very connected. Very, you know, at night,
00:24:55.960every night. Good night. I love you. Like very, you know, just a nice sort of underpinning with
00:25:02.420her family, even though they live far. But when Anna stepped into my world, my mom
00:25:07.080just found out that she had cancer. And my world was blowing up like that. Like a few months after
00:25:15.680Anna and I got together, we got together in May, like by August, September, I guess.
00:25:22.160And nine times out of 10, guys, that new person in that relationship, all of a sudden sees,
00:25:28.940you know, because I take care of my mom, I take care of my grandmother, and all of a sudden sees
00:25:32.420what my expectations are going to be. She doesn't shy from those. She jumps in. She drives my mom
00:25:41.620to the hospital. She takes care of the dog who's a lovable nightmare. She jumped right in and1.00
00:25:49.160started helping with all of those things. Not only that, but then she started helping with
00:25:55.480my heart and my mind surrounding this, because as you guys know, um, cancer is not just about
00:26:02.820a fight. You know, my mom's fight about a disease. It's also very mental. And, and if it gets you
00:26:09.380here, then, which is in your head, I'm sorry, I'm pointing. Some people are just listening.
00:26:14.000If it gets you in your head, if it gets in your head and, and it can beat you there,
00:26:19.320then your body's not far behind. So Anna, who's very much on meditation and crystals and positive
00:26:25.960effort, all of that kind of stuff that I've never, ever done, my mom never done, the way Anna brought
00:26:32.400it to the table softly and the way she just gradually just kept pushing, just focus on this.
00:26:39.700Just maybe listen to this before you go to bed. Just maybe try to turn your thoughts a little bit
00:26:44.740this way. And I noticed that for my mom and then for me, just those pieces and that subtle love,
00:26:56.860you know, I'm a knock you over the head kind of person with love. If there's a problem,
00:27:01.740I'm going to come bowling in to fix it. Even if I can't fix it, it's not something I could
00:27:06.600possibly fix i'm gonna come bowling in anyways where anna came in soft she came in because she
00:27:15.080knew this was going to be a hard sell for us because my mom and i were not outside of the
00:27:20.840box thinkers right problem cause effect science whatever's in that sort of parameters whereas
00:27:29.240anna thinks very much outside the box she never thinks inside the box she doesn't even know the
00:27:32.840the box is, right? And that's incredibly important. I mean, that's about my family. She knows the
00:27:41.580things that are important to me. She knows that my family is incredibly important to me. She also
00:27:46.420knows my friends are incredibly important to me. So she always made time for them. She always made
00:27:51.260sure like anytime I wanted to be with them, I was never once held back. Never once. Well,
00:27:58.200can't we just spend time alone? Or, or why do you have, don't go over there. I'd rather just,
00:28:03.300you know, or, or don't go over there without me. I want to be, but again, you know what this all
00:28:09.520goes back to? It all goes back to her level of security, her level of confidence, her level of
00:28:17.600identity. And I lucked out with all of that because I didn't know. I mean, she's gorgeous.
00:28:23.780sure. So she DMs me, I'm in. But you don't know any of those other things, right? And I say to
00:28:31.100her often, I lucked out. I lucked out because if I didn't get you with your mentality and your way
00:28:38.940of looking at life and your position and all of that kind of stuff, I would have rolled right
00:28:42.940back into something probably relatively destructive because I wasn't ready. And then what's been
00:28:48.740amazing about her, and this is another thing about a relationship that you guys have to look for,
00:28:53.780is that instead of stunting my growth, instead of minimizing my light, all she does is push it,
00:29:06.020water it, help it grow all the time. I only ever feel bigger every day. I only ever feel
00:29:14.820smarter. I only ever feel more powerful. I only ever feel more myself because she has zero desire
00:29:23.660to get in the way of that, because she respects who I am, and I respect who she is, and we don't
00:29:27.900get in each other's way. Now, all of that seems like a hell of a lot to do. Look, guys, I'm 46.
00:29:35.580If I tell you how many relationships I had, and you can comment down below if you want to hear1.00
00:29:41.900all the crazy drama of the lesbian community, I deserve this. But the reason why I got it,1.00
00:29:50.340really i lucked out with anna but really that first step is about you and we don't give time
00:30:00.120to kids we we don't give time every says be yourself be independent be a leader we don't
00:30:07.620we don't teach kids that we don't we say that and then we tell them what to wear when to eat
00:30:13.720what classes to take what university to go to when to get married when to have kids what it is to be
00:30:18.760an adult, how much money you should have in RRSP by the time. We don't do anything about building
00:30:24.360independent critical thinkers. We don't. We don't have that system. And then in their 20s,
00:30:31.540we wonder why they don't know who they are. But by their 20s, they don't have time to worry about
00:30:35.520it anyway, because you should be graduating university. And by the way, that's the time
00:30:38.500you're supposed to find your partner in order to start having kids. And you have to buy a house
00:30:42.280somewhere in and of there, or else you're not an actually successful human.
00:30:45.320all of that all of that we put on our youth so by the time they're married and have kids
00:30:55.980and have a career and have expectations and and bills and dinners on sundays with her family
00:31:03.340than my family they haven't had a clear minute to figure out who they are that's and that's why0.98
00:31:11.460you have so many divorces. I know that I had one. We have so many divorces coming in your,
00:31:18.420depending on when you get married, you know, 10, 15 years into it, because at some point,
00:31:24.760who you are is going to fracture the fakeness of what you're pretending to be. It just will.
00:31:33.680You might not even still realize who you are. I'm not saying everybody who gets divorced figures it
00:31:37.640out because that's not the case. Because usually you don't figure it out. You just roll right into
00:31:40.680the next thing, boom, you're just duplicating. But we don't give any time to people, to young
00:31:48.620people to figure out truly who they are, what they're passionate about, what they're driven
00:31:52.820for. Everything is go, go, go, go. You got to do this in grade 10. You got to do this in grade 11.
00:31:57.560Oh my God, by grade 12, you have to have done this. Oh, you don't have time to do that. You
00:32:00.700got to make sure. And all of that. And then they get married and we wonder why it fractures.
00:32:08.300and infidelity sure is a symptom it's not a cause guys it's not a cause it's a symptom
00:32:16.060of looking for something outside of you to make you feel better or make you feel more complete
00:32:22.920or make you feel less hurt or make you feel less broken you know we all and i say this people say
00:32:32.080what's the one thing you suggest everybody does like to a kid i say get therapy and i don't mean
00:32:36.780that to fix you. I don't mean that to change you. I mean that to understand you. And I understand
00:32:42.440it. I mean, not everybody can do it. Not a lot of people can do it. It's horribly expensive,
00:32:45.720but there's different ways to gain self-awareness. There's different things you can do. There's
00:32:50.460different roads you can take. You got to carve out time in your day and in your life to figure
00:32:56.920those things out. And so here I sit in a incredibly healthy relationship in which we don't agree on
00:33:06.660absolutely anything. Guys, nothing. Everybody says you need to have common interests. No,
00:33:12.740you don't. No, you don't. Because her interests bring such a different perspective to my world
00:33:18.760and mine do to hers. You need to have, in fact, I think it's that diversity that makes it so
00:33:25.420interesting and makes it so powerful. If I was enough, like I am enough just for me. Sure,
00:33:32.940I could be single my whole life, but if I'm going to have a partner, why would I want a duplicate?
00:33:38.640Why would I want somebody that just is my little, what, mini echo chamber?
00:33:43.700What a waste. A partner should challenge and levitate everything, not pair it. So that's
00:33:54.120also something you need to find, but you need to find somebody that does it with respect and with
00:33:57.720the best of intentions and still in the back of their head, always, always lifting you
00:34:02.800up, never competing, never pushing you down for them to get bigger.
00:34:09.000So there's my Valentine's Day list of how to build a good relationship.