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Episode 7: Attachment is the Near Enemy of Love · the Unvarnished Edit

Welcome to episode seven of the Unvarnished Edit, where two friends talk about what it's actually like to live an adversity filled life.
Be prepared to laugh, possibly cry, and swear along with us.
This is Angie, and in today's episode, we discuss finding love and healthy relationships later in life.
We hope you enjoy.
0:23
Morning.
0:25
Good morning.
0:26
How are you? I'm doing really good.
0:28
I'm doing alright.
0:29
How are you? What's up with you? I'm doing all right.
0:32
So this morning I was thinking, I was at the gym and I was like, okay, I gotta share this with the podcast.
0:38
So I have an irrational fear, and it is, it's irrational.
0:43
I know it's irrational.
0:45
I, I do the, like, the red light therapy, it's like total body whatever.
0:50
It has a vibration plate and it's a red light.
0:52
And honestly, I, I am like a regular at our gym, so much so, and I don't know exactly how I feel about it so much so that she starts the total body, like as soon as I walk in, I haven't even like clicked in.
1:07
And I used to do it like every other time, but she always like, if it's available, she automatically does it.
1:13
So now I do it every time I go in.
1:15
'cause I don't wanna tell her no.
1:17
However, this room, it's a standup bright booth kind of thing.
1:22
And the rooms have a motion sensor light that works in it.
1:29
So if the room is dark, what is the obvious understanding? Nobody's in that room because it's dark, right? But my fear, and I do it every single time, and I go to the gym four to five times a week, every single time I will go and I walk around to the back of it because I have this irrational fear that somebody's hiding behind that machine.
1:52
And the moment that what I like, close the door and lock it.
1:56
Like I cannot get into the machine unless I check.
2:02
I know what it is.
2:04
I know that it's irrational.
2:06
And I feel ridiculous every time I do it.
2:08
And I was like, you know what? I am I alone in this irrational fears kind of thing.
2:15
Like we all have them, they come from somewhere.
2:19
Yeah.
2:19
But to think of like what my equivalent of if you feel like I can't believe that I continue to do this, just know that no matter how far along in your healing, you're still gonna have things.
2:31
it.
2:32
still You're still gonna.
2:34
Yeah.
2:35
I guess That's all.
2:36
that would be like if I was still texting my partner and be like, do you still love me? Like Right.
2:42
You just like come from this place of like, something happened to me once and yeah.
2:46
probably not a good analogy, but No, that absolutely is.
2:50
I just did that, I literally just did this to Todd the other day and I'm like, are, are you mad? And he's like, I am the furthest from being mad.
3:00
He goes, I am really just enjoying today.
3:04
He's like, I'm just checking.
3:05
I'm like, will you have a little bit of a mad face on? But I think it's because it's so bright outside.
3:11
And he's like, yes, he's like, I'm just trying not to burn my retina, ma'am.
3:17
no, seriously.
3:18
He is like, I'm just trying to see.
3:20
I do often, like when we get in bed at night and we're like settling down and like I'm reading and he's on his phone, I'll be like, are you happy we're married? Like, what? Yes.
3:31
Yeah.
3:32
I think it's great that we're married, babe.
3:34
I'm like, okay, good.
3:35
Look, Yeah, checking say I, just making sure, like making sure we're still here on this same page.
3:42
Yeah.
3:43
Yeah.
3:43
Rightfully so.
3:44
And I mean, honestly pulls right into today's conversation works.
We're so good at segues on, We're so good.
3:51
I know our brains, I love it when they're on, on track, on love, and finally finding healthy relationships, which I have been giving a lot of thought about.
4:02
Of thought.
4:04
Do this since we decided, 'cause one, I was like, I've been dreading we have, yeah.
4:10
I've been And like, what does a healthy relationship even mean? Like, that's what I was thinking this morning because you know, like we still have arguments.
4:22
We still like what I thought a healthy relationship meant years ago versus what I know a healthy relationship means now are honestly so vastly different.
4:37
Right? Like I, it was like, oh, well yeah, of course you'll argue.
4:41
But no, there are times that I legitimately am like, what the heck is going on? Yeah.
4:50
Right? But knowing that I love this man with all my heart, I, him, and I'll be together till the day one of us dies.
4:58
And, and beyond that.
4:59
Because if he goes first, I am not doing this again.
5:02
I'm just not like I had already decided before him, I wasn't doing it again.
5:07
So you slipped through that? No, no one else's, like you were a special circumstance.
5:15
Um, but yeah, it's not always.
5:18
Just happy rainbows and you know, things are running smoothly all the time.
5:23
That actually is not, um, the only time it's ever been like that, I mean, would, I would say the very beginning.
5:31
Right.
5:31
But when you're actually in the relationship, it's hard and it's kind of hard work.
5:37
Um, and so yeah, like just that thought of like what is a healthy relationship? I don't even know.
5:44
I don't think there's a definition because it's so individual.
5:50
Like I Yeah.
5:51
I see other people's relationships, the ones that I have like an intimate look into, and some of them are like, yeah, I'm down with the way you guys vibe and then some of them are like, I'm like, why would you continue on this pathway? But they are legitimately happy.
6:06
Like, there's nothing harmful happening.
6:07
It's just Yes.
6:09
Sister, I could not do that.
6:11
So I think that's the tricky part of it is like what, is it for you? And you know, I, when, when we come to these, we always have our topic, but I do not do research you guys.
6:25
I, no.
6:26
wing it.
6:27
I wing it,.
6:28
I do think about it a lot when we, when we know a topic is coming, it like rumbles around in my brain.
6:33
But this time I actually did some research.
6:36
I, um, and I actually, because we were talking about this book Atlas of the Heart the other day, and there was something in there that I was trying, and I had told you, I know it's defined better in the book.
6:46
And so I had pulled it out to kind of like ground myself in this definition of, um, that maybe, you know, someday we'll get into where it's talking about emotions and the near enemy of emotion.
6:59
And it opened up to the Near Enemy of Love.
7:03
And I read it and I, for real, I read it and I was like, this, this is, this is actually what I'm, what I think in my brain and how I can, if I was gonna have a, a, like a list of like good relationship, not good relationship, I think this defines like those two sides would look like.
7:25
So.
7:26
gonna read it, but if you have Atlas of the Heart, it's on page 253 and it's near the back in the Near Enemy section.
7:33
So this is what Jack Kornfield says on love.
The near enemy of love is attachment.
7:39
Attachment masquerades as love.
7:42
It says, I will love this person because I need something from them, or I'll love you if you love me back.
7:49
I'll love you, but only if you will be the way I want.
7:53
This isn't fullness of love.
7:55
Instead there is attachment, there is clinging and there is fear.
7:59
True love allows honors and appreciates.
8:04
Attachment grasps demands, needs and aims to possess.
8:10
And when I read that, I was like, I.
8:12
Yes.
8:13
I have so often suffered from thinking I was in love, but I was attached.
8:19
Yes.
8:20
That is literally like reading that.
8:23
I was like, oh my gosh.
8:23
That is the, honestly, the difference between our past relationships Mm-hmm.
8:30
and our current one.
8:32
Right.
8:33
Is that fascinating? final, I'm just gonna repeat the final sentence.
8:38
True love, right? Which is where you and I, the relationships we're in right now.
8:43
True love allows, honors and appreciates.
8:49
that is what I have now.
8:51
Attachment grasps demands, needs and aims to possess, and that is where I have come from.
8:58
absolutely.
9:00
Yes.
9:01
Just, just absolutely.
9:03
Um, I think, you know, a little kind of background on both of us level setting is understanding that, um, so Jaelene and I had an agreement after not our current relationships, but after our last big blowups after our last big endings.
9:25
we absolutely had the agreement of, if I ever say that I am in love and that I am gonna get married, I need you to be like, no lady, we had an agreement.
9:37
We would not let each other go down this path again, because we had proven to ourselves that one, we, our pickers were, they were terrible.
9:50
And um, and two, it was just like, we just, that was part of our lives that neither one of us wanted to honestly kind of try again and was done.
10:02
yeah, like, yeah, we were just, we were just kind of done The fact that both of us were married again, you told me you were getting married.
I was like, first of all, I was in prison.
And so I was like, are you okay? Like, I mm-hmm.
thinking like I was in no place to really mount an argument to anything.
'cause Yeah.
I, I hadn't really seen, I'd only met him once.
I had only seen you guys together once.
Um, and so I was just like, I mean this is obviously just gonna have to play out, but like, dude, what are you, are you sure? Are you sure this? But now, you know, since I've been home and I've, I've obviously spent way more time getting to know you in this relationship.
Right.
Yeah, It obviously makes a lot of sense.
Absolutely.
And I remember when you started, when you went back to, um, your current husband.
I was, and I text, I messaged you on Instagram and I was like, um, should I, what do, what do we need right here? What's going on? I need a little bit more information.
messaged me and you were like at something to the effect of, should I be worried about you? Like Yes.
And so I think you were just like, is this the fact that you're going back to an old relationship? Is this a sign that you're like backtracking or regressing in your progress? And are you scared? Are you, you know, what is really going on? And I appreciate that about us.
Like I, Yeah.
If you come to me and you say, I'm concerned.
gonna listen 'cause you know me and you know what I do when I go off the rails.
And um, it's so important to have relationships like that.
People that you can yeah.
to Yeah.
that will not always agree with you or to push back or to ask you the hard questions, right? You know, both of us have in our background some solid narcissistic, um, relationships in our past in there have been, and, we know, that, um, trauma in that happens in relationships.
It just does.
Um, and healing also happens in relationships, right? That we can't kind of do it on our own.
And I think, um, I think one of the ways that helped you and I get to a point where we were, that we even could look at what a relationship was that was healthy and what wasn't, is honestly kind of based on like the relationship that you and I have, at least for me, you know, is there are not a lot of relationships I would say that didn't have some sort of attachment base to it.
Now going back to that kind of, near enemy of love, um.
They all, there was a need and that relationship was there because of that need.
Our relationship has ebbed and flowed and we could go months without talking to each other and then reconnect as if no time had passed.
And there was never any judgment on that.
Like we have always just been friends and that has just been the basis.
And no matter what has happened, no matter what has gone on.
And my, the last relationship before my husband, now, my um, my oldest came to me, he was in, I think in eighth grade, and he said, mom, could you just not have any more boyfriends until after I leave the house? And I was like.
Man, like a dagger to my heart.
And I was like, Ouch.
ouch.
And yes, you're right.
yeah, like, thank you for, you know what I mean? That he could even like come to me and say, Hey mom, could we just like, could we just like, cool it just be just Please? us.
Yeah.
Please stop.
And so I went eight years in between that relationship and my husband Yeah.
Completely single for eight years.
And you know what? I loved it.
Yeah.
I had no problem whatsoever.
I didn't care to have a relationship.
Um, I was not interested in dating when I met my husband.
Um, and so for the people on the outside, it went super fast and probably looked so odd, Yeah.
Because I was so hardcore adamant I was just good by myself.
And, um, and I really was like, I really, honestly, I, it wasn't one of those things where you say it out in public, but inside you were like, oh, I really, really wish I had a relationship.
No, I really, honestly was, was good and I had no desire to date.
And, um, I remember you telling me, like, Ange you just have to, 'cause you had met your, your husband from the dating apps and you're like, it is, it is just a game of numbers.
And I remember downloading the app and I was, I think it was like maybe two or three days and I was like, no, I, I, I can't, I I am not built this way to do it.
And if it's meant to be, it's meant to be like, I'll meet 'em while I'm at work or while I'm out or something.
I don't know how it's gonna look.
And it, and it did.
Yeah.
Which was so crazy.
out in the wild you met, which in, The wild.
this day and age is like what people dream about.
That's like the fantasy is meeting someone in real life.
And so, um, for me, it took me totally, completely, You know what's, by surprise.
Okay.
I think what I'm about to say, um, might surprise some people because I have the exterior of I'm fine by myself, However, I am a deep, deeply lover of romance.
I am a Yeah.
And so if you look at What I do versus what I say.
I read Pride and Prejudice at least twice a year, every year for the past 10 years of my life.
I read romance novels, like they, I've read every single one.
I fall for every love story.
I, my movie of choice is a romance.
My, I love love, I love love stories and so I Yeah.
this little thing inside of me, like the the little kid inside of me that has always wanted and has always believed in like one true love, right? Which is crazy.
That's not a real thing, but that's always been like in the background of my life never having, it was always such a disappointment to me.
I just would always, in the times that I was single, even the long stretches that I was single, would always yearn for why can.
can't I figure this out? Why don't Yeah.
this love in my life? Because I had friendships with women that were true unconditional love, right? And so I knew I was capable of it.
I knew that, but I could never translate it into dating.
And it wasn't until I did like serious trauma work that I finally realized that all along I had no idea what unconditional love was at all.
I was in attachment.
Was, all Hmm.
relationships were transactional, with the exception of a couple girlfriends and my children.
adult relationship I had was transactional most of the transaction was coming from me.
And it wasn't until I was with the person that I'm married to now, I, it was immediate, unconditional love.
It did not matter what I did, how I showed up, how what I said it mattered, but it didn't change the way he felt about me.
And I had never experienced that before.
That I Yeah.
things that were a little contrary and we could talk about them and argue about them, but he still felt the same about me.
And I was like, what is this sorcery? How does Yeah.
work? I don't have Yeah.
a certain way for you to love me.
And, um, the crazy thing is, is I couldn't handle it.
It Now Abso, couldn't um, yes, absolutely.
No, that's, honestly, that's part of actual the conversation.
Like I didn't, even when Todd and I first got together, it wasn't like, oh, I'm in this healthy space and I can now have a healthy relationship.
No.
We learned how to have a healthy relationship inside a container of a healthy relationship, yeah, but that container had to, like, the right container had to be there.
And then we all learned how to have a healthy relationship in it.
Because at the very beginning, I will tell you.
That I tested and pushed this man in ways that I would've left myself.
Oh And even just now, when we have things that are going on, like I think people think a healthy relationship is something that just kind of happens.
Like you get healthy enough.
And so then there's a healthy relationship.
And what I'm learning is.
The healthy relationship is actually a continuing, ongoing process that you have to actually work at to not let the past everybody's past, no matter whose it is, play a play a bigger role than the current relationship does.
Yes.
So that's a big part of it, right? I came into this relationship so many beliefs about myself, about relationships, about men, and I have at times, let those beliefs dominate and be in charge.
And, um, that does not allow things to go the way that they can go.
Right.
And, you know, I, would say that my marriage probably was where the biggest amount of damage was done.
And leaving that marriage and not getting help after allowed me to continue to get into bad relationships and to be, to be fair, I have, I have terrible taste in men, and that is just proven I just didn't let it interfere this time.
Yes.
No, it is that, that, yes, it is that allowance that something could be different, Mm-hmm.
right? Like having that initial kind of like nudge, like this may actually be different.
And of course, we're both coming from totally different spaces than we were.
I mean, yours, you know, yours is, is post-prison, which we'll go into the next, um, in our next episode, mine is post eight years of being on my own and the amount of the amount of things that I had done working on myself and, you know, being on my own, um, you know, had done, um, gotten to a really comfortable place with myself, Yeah.
which, um, you know, had never really been in that kind of, that space.
And really taking a hard look at kind of all of the, the roles that were played in the past, right? And, um, and those kind of places.
So, so at these points, um, that we, you know, that we got into the, these relationships we were totally different people Yeah.
than, than we, than we were previously.
And so, yeah, we were in a healthy, healthier space when we got there, but now we had to learn how to be in relationship with someone else in this healthier space, and that's challenging very challenging.
It's something that we still deal with every day in our relationship, day.
You know, we just had this conversation the other day.
I, you know, through EMDR, I'm really learning where I haven't had boundaries before and where I've allowed things to happen before that were not in my own best interest.
And my goal is to learn how to make myself the main character of my life, right? I wanna be the main character of my own life and do that unabashedly.
And also alongside someone else, right? To me, I'm learning that a relationship is you and I walking in the same direction together, right? Not you and I looking at each other, and this is our whole world, right? And, um.
There are a lot of things that I never learned and that I have no idea.
I'm very unskilled at romantic relationships.
I'm very unskilled Yeah.
he is unfortunately the testing ground for a lot of it.
And there are times where I fall into old habits and I don't advocate for myself or I don't say, no, I don't want to do that.
And I let it continue and continue and continue and then it blows up and, and he's the person that has to be the container for that and help me learn I should have said this three weeks ago.
And I, there's a lot of repair involved that I've never had to do before.
I've never had to do it before.
My, Yeah.
I came into my adult life thinking the way you repaired a a, um, break in a relationship is you have the break in the relationship.
You, everyone stops talking for a while and then you start talking again, but never about what happened.
That's what I came into adulthood thinking repair was.
And Yeah, doesn't work.
yeah, yeah.
Nope, Nope.
that doesn't, And now at 50, I'm just barely learning how to do an actual repair.
And it's, I don't really actually like it.
I feel like a child sometimes.
I.
it's hard.
Yeah, it's hard.
There's so many, there's so many things that, you know, you think, um, you have, that you almost have to work against yourself.
Right.
We've, we've had that conversation on the kind of safety template and understanding that yeah.
You know, I've always been told, I was always told that I was hard to be in a relationship with, to the point that I know, to the point that I believed that.
And so that's how Absolutely.
that's how I would start relationships.
When I was dating and I was on the apps and I would start seeing someone seriously, I would actually say to this person, Hey, I'm really hard to be in a relationship with.
I'm, Yeah.
I'm, I'm not good at this and I'm a very challenging person to be with, but now I'm with someone that he's like, you are the easiest person I have ever been in a relationship with.
And of that is just because we've done a lot of work and, and we do have an easy relationship in that sense, but part of it is because there are always two people in a relationship, and I am not a hard person to have a relationship with.
Yeah.
I did not know that until I was like 45 years old Yeah, absolutely.
and very often in therapy, my therapist has to remind me of that You have 45 years of training that tells you one thing, going to take more than five years to undo it.
Yeah.
that's been the hardest part.
And for me, I thought, you know, and like you said, we're, we're doing a, how did Jaelene go to prison episode soon.
Um, but I thought when I came out of that time in my life and I had done so much work on myself, I thought I had solved the relationship problem.
Oh And then I got into what is factually the worst relationship I've ever been in.
And about six months into it, I was doing the same thing I always did in relationship.
I was not telling my friends what was really going on.
I was becoming very small to make the other person just happy And I couldn't believe I was doing it again.
I could not believe it.
I was like, after all of this time and all of this work and all of this difficulty, I am not only back in a bad relationship, but it is actually way worse.
This is one of the worst relationships I've ever been in.
um, that for me was the breaking point.
I was like, I gotta go.
I left.
I can, I'm so grateful and it was a terrible breakup.
I left and I immediately got into what everyone had been telling me to do to go to trauma therapy and I was like, this is never happening again.
I will never do this again.
that Yeah.
me to being.
Back in a relationship with the person I'm married to now, it was the best choice I ever made was to get outta my brain, um, and to learn how to practice the actual skills and not just think about them.
Yeah.
And that's the thing, it's that practicing the actual skills, right, of like, um, if something, if you get hurt that you actually need to say, Hey, this hurts, Mm-hmm.
and let me tell you why, Mm-hmm.
And, um.
Having a healthy relationship means saying really hard things and allowing yourself to, like, allowing yourself to, I wanna say kind of like, look at your role.
It, you know, for so many years I blamed myself for everything that ever went wrong.
'cause I was always told that I was the problem as well, right? Of course, we work, we're too much, we're too hard to handle, we need too much we're just needy individuals, so that way, so having conversations right and being able to own up to my own part in it without shaming myself without guilting myself with honestly having compassion for myself in my, in my part for it, and also saying, this hurt, like I understand my part, but I, I need to know that your part as well was painful.
What can we do to repair this? I think a transformative thing for me was it's not me versus you.
It's you and me versus the problem.
And up until, up until I had this relationship, everything was me versus you.
Everything.
And, um, I wanted me and you versus the problem.
I just didn't know how to language that.
And so for me, I had to work on myself and have boundaries know that I could set boundaries or that at least I could stand up for myself and that I could allow someone to see every part of me yeah, yeah.
And, and I think that's, that's part of the conversation though, right? Is um.
Is being able to have the conversations and know that it's something that, um, just because I want this, just because I need this, it, it doesn't have anything to do with you.
Yes.
Like that, that doesn't mean that I love you any less.
That doesn't mean that I, you know, don't wanna be in this relationship.
That just means that there is a part in my space that this is what makes me feel safe in that place.
And I, and I've had the conversation, I mean, Todd and I have had foundational conversations of like, this is where I go sideways and letting 'em know ahead of time, right? Like, if I stop communicating with you, we're in real trouble.
Do not let me stop communicating with you.
Yeah.
whatever that kind of takes.
But knowing that if that's, if that's what I'm doing, this is, this is what is going on, It's And that.
save me from myself.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
But who will yes, me, who will save me from myself.
yes, absolutely.
Understanding relationships, like having that kind of maybe healthy relationship is really understanding that there are times that it is about you.
A lot of times it's not, not.
and not taking it personally, but being able to be supportive there.
Even if it looks like, even if it looks like it is all me and I am the reason for everything.
Um, being able to have that conversation has been an absolute game changer, Yeah.
right? Like Todd will say, your face says one thing, your mouth says another, and it's true.
Yeah.
Um, and when I get to the point, he's like, I feel like you hate me.
Like you look at me like you hate me.
And I said, I can promise you.
I don't hate you.
If I look like that, it's because I'm really, really hurt.
And so while it's still hard for him to be looked at like he's hated, he also does know that if I have that look on me, it has nothing to do with him.
Right.
Which is trying to counter all of his past relationships and all of his past issues with the whole entire thing, and realizing that I am hurt.
And so having a healthy relationship is just hard.
It's hard.
You have to, you have to talk so much and So much.
No, and you know me.
I mean, I don't, not down with talking so much.
I Yeah.
quiet.
I like very much, very, a lot of quiet.
And so having to, and I don't like having to explain myself.
And I think a lot of that comes from being not understood for so many years.
I just kind of am like, I don't wanna have to train you.
This is your problem.
You figure it out.
I get real defiant.
That has been probably one of my biggest life lessons, is I get very, very defiant when I feel backed into a corner.
And Mm-hmm.
to, that's hard to be.
So in that sense, I can be hard to be in a relationship with, but I have to talk about it a lot.
And I have Mm-hmm.
Out loud, feel very cornered right now, and can't talk about it.
You have to give me time.
And so even just recognizing the ways that I show up help me least ask for space to allow my, fight or flight calm down.
It Yeah.
doesn't take a Yeah.
it only takes years of therapy and work guys to be able to say one sentence and everything will be fine.
You know, I was thinking, um, still right, just, just mulling over like, what is it though that makes a relationship healthy.
Like we, we, you know, we continue to say like, this is a healthier relationship.
But honestly, there's no, there's no active harm.
It's active repair of all, all the time.
Yeah.
Like we're actively repairing all the time.
We're either actively loving or we're actively repairing, right? We're connecting.
Yeah.
And I think it is so hard to define because for me, I think it's the true, are no conditions.
I, if I stopped changing, if I stopped working on myself, I'm okay for him.
I, as I am right now, he doesn't require me to be different, I guess is what it is.
Yes.
Is nothing could we, could we tweak here and there? Sure.
Whatever, but in, in a big sense, there's literally no conditions on him being present for me.
There is no conditions.
It just is.
We just are.
And that knowledge that he has always believed in me and my ability to do this the only reason why I can keep working on myself Yeah, is because I don't have, because I don't have to.
It's not a requirement for him to be here for yeah, And yeah, I guess, like no matter what, he will be here for me.
And he was even when I wasn't.
yeah, I think it's the lack of conditions for me.
It is that like, just actively love no matter, even though my face says one thing and my mouth says another, like you.
actively loves who I am.
All of the pieces and kind of all of the parts in that.
Yeah.
You know, it's funny 'cause I, I've never really said out loud very often.
I don't often admit how much of a romantic I am and how much I have always yearned to have like a true love story.
And so the fact that that's what I got, even though I've never said that out, is, um, is kind of crazy.
But on our wedding day, and it was like an hour before our wedding and I was finally alone and waiting everybody was like taking their seats and there was like this.
There was like this moment, this feeling I was overcome with an actual feeling of this is the start of the rest of my life.
This is it.
I think sometimes in our relationship, because it is that a lot when I wanna self sabotage and when I want to revert back to old patterns because they feel safe in the moment is when I am, when I really am like.
Oh wait, like we, we cannot do this again.
What's actually, what's actually going on? Yeah, Going on here? And, um, and then having a conversation about it, which is really so hard, um, not good at that part, to do.
am getting so much better at it's, it's interesting when I fall back into my old habits in this relationship, they feel uncomfortable, and to me, that is the biggest piece of growth.
I'm like, when I'm doing the thing I used Yes.
I know I'm doing it because I feel uncomfortable, and that part of my brain is dying.
I know that I'm actively hurting him, and I'm like, what am I, I cannot do this.
What am I doing? And I mean, that the point is that maybe that's the reward, the Yeah.
like obviously I have this great relationship with, with a person that is, is really everything to me.
And also I'm doing it like I'm actively doing this and that, Mm-hmm.
that is the, that's the big part for me, right? Like.
doing it.
yeah, he's not yeah.
himself.
I'm participating in it and I'm half of what makes it great and Yeah.
act in an old way, I don't feel good.
And so that's like, that's what it is.
I guess maybe that's what a healthy relationship is, is we are in, we are side by side facing the same direction and moving there together.
But I am in charge of my side of the street and he is in charge of his side of the street.
And we keep them clean for each other and for ourselves.
Yes.
I love that.
And what a fantastic place to wrap up the conversation that honestly, neither one of us wanted to have.
I did not want to do this.
It's, it's, they're hard conversations.
Um, It's so vulnerable.
Because babe, if you're listening, don't tell me you heard this.
yeah, no, for sure.
I was literally thinking, what if Todd like, hears this, right.
We're still there.
We're We're still there.
We're still actively working on it.
Remind us.
It is all Yeah.
it is.
All it is.
All all as always, I love you you.
We'll see you guys next time.
Bye.
Thank you so much for joining us today.
We always appreciate you spending this time with us.
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