Couple Things with Shawn and Andrew - 236 | Busting Marriage Myths

Episode Date: November 18, 2024

Today we debunked some common myths about marriage that, honestly, we really disagreed with! It was interesting to look at some misconceptions people have about what happens when you say “I Do” and share our take on them. Marriage is so special to us and although it takes work, it’s SO worth it! Let us know if you’ve heard any other marriage myths in the comments below!  Love you guys! Shawn and Andrew  Head to Future Fans here ▶ https://www.futurefans.com/?utm_source=couplethings&utm_medium=pod&utm_campaign=nov24 Follow our podcast Instagram ▶ https://www.instagram.com/shawnandandrewpods/ Subscribe to our newsletter ▶ https://www.familymade.com/newsletter Follow My Instagram ▶ https://www.instagram.com/ShawnJohnson Follow My Tik Tok ▶ https://www.tiktok.com/@shawnjohnson Shop My LTK Page ▶ https://www.shopltk.com/explore/shawnjohnson  Like the Facebook page! ▶ https://www.facebook.com/ShawnJohnson Follow Andrew’s Instagram ▶ https://www.instagram.com/AndrewDEast Andrew’s Tik Tok ▶ https://www.tiktok.com/@andrewdeast?lang=en Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When you're with Amex Platinum, you get access to exclusive dining experiences and an annual travel credit. So the best tapas in town might be in a new town altogether. That's the powerful backing of Amex. Terms and conditions apply. Learn more at Amex.ca. What's up, everybody. Welcome back to a couple things. With Sean and Andrew. Podcast all about couples.

And the things they go through. Happy early Halloween. Yeah. We had a great couple days. We got a great couple days coming up. Yes. We've had Drew's birthday. Drew's birthday party.

We've had school Halloween, Halloween parties. I feel like we are just tiptoeing into the ages of our kids of like social lives, which is wild considering they're only three and five. You would have been so proud of Drew pulling up in the school today. She was waving everybody out the window. Oh, really? Which she usually is pretty timid. But now she's like kind of coming out of her shell.

She is. She has thrived this year. It's been so fun. Jet waves to everybody. He'll have a five-minute conversation with you all about motorcycles. We sat around the campfire two weeks ago when we were on the mission trip, kind of debriefing the whole experience of building a house for this family and so there's like 15 people around the fire jet was sitting there with us and he was really

excited for his turn yeah and when it came he had to have like four turns when it came to him he told a story about motorcycles going through the snow yeah and it was adorable so he's a chit-chatter but this is a really fun phase of life i feel like we're we're like really doing a better job at planning and there's really fun things that we are planning i think i think we've settled into like what our shtick is. So Drew's birthday party went to a climbing gym. It was a bit of a drive, but it's epic setup for the kids

and they crushed it. So anyway. I will say something I am learning firsthand now as a parent is like with a soon-to-be kindergartner. So talking about that social life kind of slowly starting. It's so easy as a parent

to kids who go to school to just kind of coast and not really be involved. and I feel like that would have been my like go-to mode until I noticed that the more involved you are the more actually benefits your kids to like actively do playdates

and actively foster and invest time into your kids friends and volunteer and like the more you're invested into the school with your kids the more benefit they get and I've just really been trying to work on that. I think we're kind of in a transition with that too, where Drew, she's five.

Yeah. And so her friends are like actually, her friends before we would take the kids to school and they'd just be in a room with other babies and they don't really know their names. But now Drew has people that she loves to do certain things with. And so I need to build the practice of like asking, hey, how so and so,

and did you guys do any of this today, you know, which is new. Yeah. We also talked about this with Drew's birthday. It was the first birthday party we've had where it truly felt like her party. Yeah. I feel like when you throw little kids birthday parties to a certain extent they're for you because like you invite all your friends and your friends' kids and it's just like a giant kid play date. But this was the first year I was like, Drew, what do you want to do?

And she said exactly what she wanted to do. And I said, who do you want to invite? And she literally listed off the exact people. Yeah. And they were her school friends. and it was just cool to see like her own little life taking shape. Yeah, it was so fun to watch her.

They had this thing at the climbing gym where you climb up a series of steps and you have to jump off. It's like 25 feet. Yeah. And she got up there. I wasn't sure if she was going to be able to jump or not, but she did it.

All her little friends were like hyping her up. They're like, go, Drew. Yeah, she was the first one to go and she kind of set the tone. It's really fun. I'm proud of her. And life is really good. It feels like, it feels like we are in a new chapter of life in several different things and several different ways.

And there's changes that are happening. Some are really fun and exciting. Some are a little more challenging. But I do feel really excited about the next couple months of life. Me too, and, you know, I'm pumped too. The team made that real about us talking about marriage and how much we've been through. It really is fun. It's fun.

To be fully known and fully loved. What a blessing. So thank you. The more I know about you, the more I love it. But we're here today to talk about busting marriage myths, all right? We've been thinking a lot about what society thinks about marriage and how there are so many common misconceptions about it. Honestly, I feel like it's kind of a bummer.

Yeah. Even like with parenting too. But like it is difficult and there are challenges with marriage. but that doesn't mean it needs to be shied away from, you know. I didn't tell you about this, but I was in New York last week for work. It was one of my first solo trips in a long time. Yeah. So much so that I didn't have my license or passport because Andrew carries them

because I forget them so much. So we had to figure that out. But I got to talking to this lady who, I think, fed into a lot of these misconceptions we're going to go through because we started talking and, like, she was asking like where are you from and came out that like I was married I had three kids and she was just shocked and she's like I feel like you're like one of those that like actually really likes your husband and it was funny because I light up when I talk about you especially when we're not together sometimes stop and you're my best friend you're my teammate I absolutely adore

you and I would not want to spend life with anybody else in the entire world But to see someone be so shocked by that made me really sad because it just goes to show it's the whole reason why we started this podcast. I think the world in social media and press and everybody likes to put such a bad rap on marriage when it's actually so incredibly wonderful. I love you too, babe.

I'm really thankful for how you are so thoughtful with our family. And honestly, I just, we just voted today, pumped about that. And I just think about, if you're able to do family well, then I think society benefits. If you can have hard conversations and challenging conversations in the family and maintain an aspect of empathy and love, then it has ripple effects throughout society.

It's like you build these practice reps of working through conflict and gaining perspective. and improving and changing your habits. And like, you know, I just, anyway, I am so passionate about this. And so today we thought we'd tackle some of the misconceptions and hopes that it will give you some encouragement, whether you're married or looking at getting married or you're not sure if you want to or not.

Because although marriage takes some work, it is worth it. Again, what is more satisfying than being fully known and fully loved? It's like this beautiful sweet spot of life. And I think when you step back and look at friendships or the relationship we have with parents or siblings, like that's what makes it awesome is they know you in a really unique way and they appreciate you.

So marriage is like that to the uptenth extreme, you know. So let's get into it. Okay. First marriage misconception. These are from you guys, by the way. And some of these are hoping to set more realistic expectations for marriage, and others are to help create healthier, more fulfilling relationships. That's really what we're going for. So anyway.

Okay, first one, myth. Marriage will change your spouse. I actually don't agree with what it says the reality is here. So let's talk about it. Okay. The reality says marriage doesn't change people. It often magnifies existing qualities. So, when we were dating, kind of early on dating, Andrew asked me to read this book called The Meaning of Marriage.

I highly recommend everybody read it. And it basically just goes on to say that when you marry your spouse, you marry every person that person will become in their lifetime. and it basically says going against what this reality says is like yes your spouse will change they will go through phases of life where they are completely different than the person you married but that's also part of the adventure of life is going through these ups and downs and falling back in love with each one of those people and truly trying to support your spouse no matter where they're at in life there's like a joke I've heard a couple times where someone's like yeah I've been married to three different woman yeah you know and it's Sean before you know before kids Sean after kids and then Sean today or whatever yeah it's like that it's really being married to one person who's changed drastically several times I so I think one way to think about this is like actually the myth is more true than the reality statement here which I think marriage does change change your spouse but I don't think you should go into marriage with the expectation that they will change in a certain way you know what I'm saying yeah don't don't have this savior complex they're like oh yes they'll change or they'll grow out of this I think like you need to marry the person that's there and have discussions around what their future aiming point is like what trajectory

or path that they want to walk down not expecting that that will be really what happens but like at least you know what they're shooting for. And then what's crazy is it's a really, really profound responsibility to be the person that, in a lot of ways, is the biggest agent for change of your spouse. You know what I'm saying? It's like the habits that I, for instance, for instance, your tidiness or your health habits with eating and working out have positively changed me. Your ambition has positively changed me.

I was thinking, I've made the joke before, like we did this bachelor party trip. It was a week-long river float down this whitewater rafting experience. And I was like, I really think that I would be doing this full-time, you know, if I didn't marry Sean, but you have turned me into this version of myself. And anyway, thinking about the responsibility of like, what am I helping my spouse change into and morph into?

I think this is where faith plays a part, where it's like, having kind of like a standard to gauge against in terms of your definition of love and joy and peace and the good life, if you will. And then also the feet, like, I know I'm rambling, but like the feedback and constructive criticism you're giving needs to be used wisely. That's all I got. I loved everything you just said. And it really, Mark Ballas said this to us. He said, whenever my wife gives me feedback,

I need to consider that as being true, right? Like, you need to take that at face value because if this person that you spend more time with than anybody else is saying that you are acting a certain way, they're probably, like, they might be right. Like, maybe they're dramatic in certain areas, but it's worth assuming that they're right rather than assuming that they're not right.

So anyway, those are precious, really fragile conversations, but I think marriage does change you. You shouldn't expect it to change a person exactly how you wanted to, though. Any other thoughts? No, I think you said it beautifully. You know, Shalm, when I was little, I remember looking at paper maps

and having an interest in where every country was located, I want this same curiosity for our kids because it generally made me want to learn more about you. I agree. I love fueling our kids' curiosity with toys that actually stimulate their brain, which is why we love KiwiCo. Listen, KiwiCo recently launched KiwiCo clubs to engage kids on a journey of seriously fun learning, and our kids have been having a blast with this. With KiwiCo clubs, kids learn the fundamentals through hands-on projects and also build new skills.

It's amazing. Our kids were engineering their own robots the other day, and it literally blew me away. Drew recently did the Science Club and made her own buzz. and arrow through their archery lesson. Honestly, it was really well thought out and simple enough for her to understand. She's wanting to do the art club next. I don't blame her. As a parent, it can be hard to find creative ways

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couple. Let's get back to it. Next one. Myth. Once you're married, you'll live happily ever after. This is so hard because this is like what you are taught

from such a young age. Like think of Cinderella. Like you meet your prince charming and you just run off to the sunset, you know? And I do think it says the reality here, marriage requires continuous effort,

communication, and compromise from both sides. I think you can live happily ever after under the realistic expectation that you have to work for that every single day of your life. And I don't mean that in like a bad way, but marriage is work. When you start dating someone, you actively pursue them every single day. You're trying to impress them, woo them, figure out how to like compromise and certain ways and then all of a sudden you decide

I want to spend the rest of my life with them and you get married that's not like a finish line you literally are starting your life together so you can't just stop doing everything you did in dating as far as like wooing trying to impress trying to communicate

you actually have to do it more otherwise you become complacent and you stop thinking about each other and you start you stop working for each other and then your relationship looks so much different than what you loved so much in the dating process. Not to get too semantic about it.

I don't think you having to do those things is really helpful. I think when you get to a point, which maybe this year was the year for us that we reached this point, where you want to impress the person that you're now married to and you don't really need to, that's a really beautiful spot to be. I also think your definition of happy changes I was just reading about all this AI technology and how like there's these bots

that people are like starting to build relationships with because they're so convincing but there's no there's no pushback or like challenge you know and marriage has plenty of challenges in that sense for what we just said previously about like you've turned me into a certain person that's that's a refining

uncomfortable process for me for me that like takes a long time but like there's not that aspect of challenging or changing i think it's almost changing my definition of oh happy means that we're going to be giggly and holding hands to no this is meaningful that's one thing that's happened to me so i agree that you will live happily ever after you're going to be and but what that means to you changes and then yeah so the myth previously was like dating is the rocky turbulent time and then you get married and then life is bliss i almost think dating is just like this light filter to get you to the point where you've reached this episode is brought to you by defender with its six hundred and twenty six horsepower twin turbo v8 engine the defense

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Okay. Don't be silly. You're smart. You're driven. You're going to be late if you keep talking to the mirror. This promotion is yours. Go get them. Starbucks. It's never just coffee. Like an agreement with someone that you can do the rest of life with. And then it unlocks the ability to be really turbulent, you know, where it's like, all right, shoot. We're going to have to work through some stuff. That's not easy.

I think that's a misconception, though, that every, not everybody, a lot of people have. which is this idea that if we can get through the turbulence of dating, marriage is easy. Whereas I agree with what you said, if you can get through the turbulence of dating and agree to say, I do, you are making a vow that says, no matter how turbulent it gets,

I will stay here. And we will be here together. Right. Because marriage is way more turbulent than dating. You're going through life together. Parenting, dude. It's turbulent. You have to think, like, in dating, I don't know how to say this other than,

you're trying to put your best foot forward at all times. In marriage, you don't have that amount of energy. Like, you're in the rocky ups and downs. So if you can get through the turbulence of dating, you've got a chance. to make it through marriage. Yeah. Yeah, that's good. I think.

I hope we're being optimistic here. I think it, we're not like, oh, marriage is so fun all the time. But I think if that's what your expectations are, you will be disappointed. It's like, I don't know. Again, this is the meathead analogy, but it's like the gym. Yeah. Or like, building. If you want to live 300 pounds, you got to work every day.

Building muscles is not really fun. I know. If you realize the why behind it, I'll like, oh, man, I'll actually be healthier for a longer time and increase my quality of life. You know, like, that gives it a purpose. Yeah. It just gives me on a tangent of being so frustrated with a lot of people because the amount of people who are like, oh, like this lady in New York City who's like, that's so rare. It doesn't have to be rare to be madly in love with your husband 12 years into knowing. each other. But also mad with your husband concurrently. You know what I'm saying? You can be

madly in love and mad. I'm not mad. I know. Not right now. I'm madly in love, okay? But that's not, that shouldn't be like a wow, that's so rare thing. Because when people are like, oh, I just want to find someone like you guys have found, like, oh, I just want to find a wife like that, or oh, I just want to find a husband like that, you can. You just have to work for it. I don't think you guys realize how hard we work on our marriage. We just did, we just did like six months of marriage counseling. Intensive. It was a lot. Oh, man, I'm so glad we did, though. I am. Honestly, this podcast for us, hopefully y'all listen to this, maybe with your partner, and we'll, like, digest this together. Because for us, walking through some of these things

has been really helpful because now my understanding of Sean's perspective and her understanding of mine and then just the depth of knowledge of each other has been really good. I think it's a great representation of communication though.

There are a lot of things we probably wouldn't have talked about if it weren't for the podcast. I'm honestly so thankful that we get to do this. I do. Anyway, but yeah, the turbulence aspect when you start thinking

about the the structure of marriage with the contract with the physical aspect with the spiritual aspect like there's really so many things that go into making this a big deal and honestly in some ways difficult like way more difficult to get out of than other relationships and like that's kind of that can be a pain in the neck you know if you're in a in a really bad spot but I think it being designed that way forces you to say, okay, we're in a

turbulent spot. Instead of trying to pull the parachute, let's look to each other and try to make it through together. Next one. You got it. Two of 30.

We might need to do two parts because we need a lot. Some of these will go quicker. The myth says the feeling of love is enough for a strong marriage. Reality, successful marriages also require

trust, respect, shared values, effective communication, and mutual support. What is the feeling of love? I mean, I think the feeling of love evolves throughout a marriage. Because, like, I feel like the love you and I felt in the dating process and even on our wedding day was a very different love than we feel now.

Mm-hmm. The love I felt on our wedding day and dating was like an infatuation. Like, I loved you. but it's not even nearly as deep as I love you now but there's no way to know that without having gone through 12 years together yeah

so is the feeling of love enough no no no because we've even had conversations about friends who are in seven year long relationships where they were in love with each other but at the end of the day they had to break up

because they didn't have the same religious values and couldn't see past it and like there are other things that you have to think about. They talk about acting like you're in love will create feelings of love.

Doing the acts of love will then spark the feeling of love. Sometimes the feeling sparks the action but I think in marriage it's this really cool thing where it's like setting yourself and your pride aside maybe sacrificing in some ways and doing the act of love borrowing from the future feeling or the past feeling for that matter um so yeah i don't i don't agree that the feeling of love is enough for a strong

marriage also like feelings are so fleeting and so ambiguous and intangible it's like If you didn't eat lunch that day, you might not feel like you're in love. But that's not in love's fault. Are you talking about me? If you didn't eat lunch that day, no, no, I'm not. I'm not. I get hungry. We know this.

So it's like, no, that's not what relationships are for. No. Anyway. Next up. Let's do, let's do this. Let's do three more. What? Or four more, and then we'll do a part two.

You think? Yeah. How long are we in? I just feel like we're having a good conversation. Man, maybe five more. I was to say maybe 10 more. I think there's like 20. Yeah.

Your myth is your partner is your one and only best friend. The reality is they can be, but it's healthy to have other close friends and relationships. Relying only on your partner for all your emotional needs can be unrealistic. This has been a very big conversation. Andrew and I have talked about a lot lately, which is this idea of community and how important it is. we've even had authors here talking about books they've read of how to make friends as adults and the importance of it and I think you don't realize how important it is to have friends and community until you don't have it and you start to feel lonely and you start to put all of your needed attention and your spouse and that doesn't end well like you need to have a personal life and you need to have friends and you need to have friends and you need to need to have other people as an outlet for, I don't know, your, your well-being? How do I say that?

I feel like one benefit of having close friends is. Accountability. Yeah. But when you go to your women's group and you say, oh, I can't believe Andrew did this. And everyone says, oh, well, my husband does that too. Yeah. It takes the edge off for you, you know what I'm saying? As far as like you feeling isolated and it feeling like such a huge deal, now it's like,

oh, I guess this is normal and this is part of it. I also think there's a potential for like me to show up and say, I can't believe Sean did this. And my friends say, well, you were way out of line there. You know what I'm saying? So it balances perspectives a little bit. I think it's really encouraging. I also think like you're not my bro.

There are parts of me that are super loud and obnoxious that you don't really always appreciate. Sometimes you do. Not always. So like if I'm going to lift and hoot and holler with the boys

or compete in something, I want to compete with someone who's more welcoming of that. Well, I think that goes back to dating. People tend to fall in love with differences of themselves. Like there are things about you that like I love about you but it's hard for me to ever become a part of that hobby like you said

lifting really heavy weights or whatever but that's something that I love seeing you enjoy and if we as spouses expect each other to fill every hobby and every interest of each other's lives it would also leave nothing to talk about yeah so i think about like sending our kids to school a super like when you make the choice to not be with that person you love it's hard but to see them go and learn or to go and thrive in different ways go make friends that's kind of the same experience of like man i really do love spending all my time with you yeah and i've heard it said well sean Sean's marriage is only one aspect of her

so she has other things that she needs to explore which is like kind of true but I also just think there are I don't know if I fully we do a great job at seeing all sides of each other

I think but realizing I can only be your partner in this sense you know what I mean like my my tech fascination

you don't really deal with but you'll like we'll have conversations up to a certain point and then... And then you gotta go find your type friend. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think we've done a better job at like communicating through that stuff too.

Yeah. I think it's just like your relationship. Intimacy is probably not going to be great if you're in a hard phase of your marriage. And it's probably going to be better when you feel more connected and you feel more in tune with your spouse. Yeah.

We did a whole episode on MSC. Go check that out if you're interested. But I don't think... Sex with you is always great. I do think that. I do think that. Next, myth. Conflict is bad and a good marriage doesn't have conflict.

Reality is conflict is a natural part of any relationship. How couples handle conflict determines the health of the marriage. Yeah, I feel like this is. is a lot of what our counting was, is putting conflict in the right perspective, not seeing it as like the end of the world when Sean disagrees with me, which then I think allows me to navigate that conflict differently and still maintain like this element of peace. Summer's here and you can now get almost anything you need for your sunny days delivered with Uber eats. What do we mean by almost? Well, you can't get a well-groom lawn delivered, but you can get a

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Goldfish have short memories. Be like goldfish. Through the conflict. Mm-hmm. So I'm not, this was actually the biggest, I was brought to tears when we were working through this with the counselor where he was like, I think you, you like, hang on every one of Shepard.

John's words is what he said. You let her define your identity a little bit. And I was like, yeah, I thought that was a whole freaking part of marriage. I thought that was a whole thing where it's like, you are my reflection. You know what I'm saying? But ultimately, like, what I've grown to realize and what I'm growing to realize is that's not true. I think this is where like the relationship with God comes really important where it's like

I let him define my identity, right? And then you help mold that. And sometimes, sometimes I need to do it your way. Sometimes I don't need to, right? And it's not like this, it's not like this hands-off apathy towards your perspective,

but it's more of a balanced, like, slightly removed. Healthy detachment, I think, is how he phrased it. which I thought was good you know what are your thoughts on that I'm still digesting having heard this for the first time it made me sad

yeah I'm sorry it made you sad I don't like the idea of you being brought to tears by yeah well no it was like a reframing of what marriage is you know

well and yeah I just still don't like the idea of you being brought to tears oh it's good What do you mean? I was brought to tears multiple times and like happy tears like wow this is so beautiful the marriages like this

and thank goodness we have all these tools at our disposal yeah anyway I think conflict is good you have two completely different human beings from two completely different families

being raised completely different no matter how similar they are you are different and you're going to naturally have conflict. So I think the key is just learning how to coexist with your spouse in a way where you can deal with conflict in a healthy manner.

Yeah. Nobody wants no conflict. You ever met somebody who'd never had anybody say no to them? They're all like weirdos, you know? Those people turn out weird. you need to be that's how you form like good friendships is when people say hey let's

redirect you here you know I know that stinks for you but we should redirect you and and this is how we can continue to be really good friends let me also just say too within a marriage don't shy away from conflict

I do know people who within a marriage they're like I don't want any conflict so I'll just it's really not that big of a deal. I'll just, you know, bury it. Barry it, compartmentalize. Just keep pushing, pushing, pushing. Nothing good happens when you do that. People, when they hear about and I and how we deal with conflict and communicate and how we like bring up everything, it's so we don't have that. We don't want to dig down deep and find these storage bins of just all this stuff pent up from the past 12 years. that all of a sudden explodes someday. I think it's really good to just deal with it as it comes. Kind of, that's not really our style.

First of all, this is our style. It's not the right style. It's just Sean and I's style. We don't like bigger about every tiny little thing, but we allow like our monthly checkups. Yes. To have a time and place to be like, give it to me.

Yeah. What has bothered you? We don't want. either of us to just start storing things or saying it's not worthy of our time so Sean and I's touch points zoomed out and like just from a black and white quantitative met it's like we have daily debriefs at the end of the day weekly date nights monthly checkups when we're at our best and those are all opportunities to like give balanced feedback I would say and so I think our style is because I do have friends that bring up every small gripe with each other and their spouse.

I don't agree with that. And I think that's not fair because then you're just like, you're just at the mercy of your feelings. You're at the mercy of emotion. Again, maybe I'm just irritable and it's not you. So I think we kind of, if you can visualize like a threshold where, hey, maybe you did something to irritate me, whatever, whatever, whatever. It's not a problem until that becomes a pattern, right?

And you do it like kind of multiple times. And then maybe that's on my radar to bring up, maybe have some conflict over in one of these preset touch base daily debriefs, weekly date nights or monthly checkups. You know what I'm saying? Yes. So that's kind of how we navigate that. You want to do one more? Let's do one more. And then we'll do a part two.

I know you're going to love this one. Oh, is this we're going out with a bang? This is going to be your favorite. Am I about to go on a tangent? Yes. Okay. Myth is marriage means less freedom. Reality is healthy marriages support individual growth and independence.

To be fully known and fully loved is to be free. Wow. How about that? I don't even write that. I've been saying that. I know. What's your take on marriage means less freedom? If you want to get into the nitty-gritty, sure.

You have less freedom to... There are boundaries with marriage, right? but bear with me you'll probably say this in a better way i don't know how to like articulate it well when you are given our world is so wide open there are so many opportunities to do a million bigillion things on any given day when you put boundaries in place it almost makes it feel easier and more free to operate. I feel like you can so easily get lost and you can feel aimless and purposeless.

I think the rules and restrictions that apply to marriage actually allow you to become a more purposeful human being. Well said. That was really beautiful. Yeah, it's really great. You want me to pop off? I want you to pop off. Pop off, fam. No, I'm not about the pop off.

Here are my thoughts. To expand on what you're saying, because I fully agree with your thoughts there. We, freedom, what does that mean? Like, you get to do whatever you want. Like, you could just do whatever you want, whenever you want to do it. That's just not reality, and that's destructive.

That's anarchy. And you will be a lonely, lost person that doesn't contribute anything to society. if that's what your definition of freedom is. So like, let's just, let's just whittle down. So like, so because there's, there is, as Americans, there's a definition of freedom. But even still, that has asterisks and rules and restrictions. We have rules and restrictions that apply.

Right. It means freedom means you're going to pay taxes as you're requested to. It means that you're going to follow the laws. It means that, um, it means that like, you know, you're going to tap into these different government resources and there are expectations that are asked of you in return that maybe you vote that maybe you show up to the city council meeting

that maybe whatever you contribute in different ways and so every like the freedom I don't even know what that freaking means but like there's a goal if you're here doing something

I think then there's a there's like an endpoint goal right and so again from a country standpoint it's so that we can contribute to the thriving and flourishing of the most citizens of our country, right? Most people of the world. I think as a married couple,

it's like so that we can contribute to the flourishing of... Hit pause on whatever you're listening to and hit play on your next adventure. This fall get double points on every qualified stay. Life's the trip. Make the most of it at Best Western.

Visit bestwestern.com for complete terms and conditions. My spouse and our marriage and our family, right? That's the goal. for a football team it's like so we can win the game and win as many times as possible for like a dog it's for a house dog it's like hey let's have a really fun friendly maybe maybe their safety aspects of like protection aspects but you want them to listen and sit when you sit or tell them to sit and whatever so but the freedom is defining what that endpoint is and then letting that thing run

you know what I'm saying like let the dog do its thing and let the citizens do their thing and contribute to the flourishing and let the marriage I think there is a there is a finite goal and as humans like we are programmed I believe in a certain way that our preset end goal is defined that's how we're programmed and so there are as a result of that consequence restrictions that are applied so with football you can't go you can't go party and stay up late you have to show up and lift weights you have to show up to practice you have to listen and do film as as from I'm still going I'm popping I'm just saying freedom does not just mean you're fluctuating yeah it doesn't

just mean you're just sitting there it means that you get to you get to rev at the highest RPM towards the thing you're going to. Yeah. I know I'm using a lot of analogies here that are getting jumbled up, but like it just means you're running full speed at the thing that you want to. Mm-hmm. So that's my thought.

Can I give an analogy? Sure. Because you were talking about a dog. If you choose marriage, I feel like talking about a dog, you want a dog. If you choose to get a dog, and you're like, oh, I'm going to take away

some of his freedoms, whatever. Try getting a dog and maintaining all of their freedoms. They're going to disappear. No offense. He can have food whenever he wants. That dog is gone. He's not staying around. If you choose marriage, obviously you're giving up some freedoms,

however you want to define them. But you chose to get married. that's like it comes with the territory but I still think so why would you choose to be married though because it's freaking beautiful and like part of us why would you choose to get a dog exactly I'm saying like it is a compelling thing marriage is not just oh you chose it so you it's like no it's actually a really beautiful aspect to being human that we desire I agree I agree so I don't know think about it it's like yeah maybe that's good that you have boundaries Free-range chickens got boundaries.

They're still put in the fence. And you know why? Because they're there to lay eggs. You can feed them grass or whatever. But like, I riffed off through so many analogies there. But that's how I feel. At the end of the day, I just feel like if you want to run around our world with every freedom possible, you will be completely aimless. And it's not, health has, health has restrictions.

You know what I'm saying? Like, that's just the way it is. Yeah, I agree. You and I agree on this. And there's, I think it's from the War of Art. Not the Art of War. It's called The War of Art. Quote me on this, but he has this concept of like,

we actually don't know what to do when we have freedom. What do you do when you have free time right now? Probably, if you're the average American, you scroll through Instagram mindlessly. You're not like, you're not like pursuing your passion. maybe you know what I'm saying all the time it's like you look at the screen times statistics statistics people don't know what to do with freedom so routine is good routine contributes to your health as a human and routine inherently has

restrictions a part of it does that make sense it does to me I don't freaking trust myself to have freedom so thank you thank you for not do I don't know if that's here I haven't right what was that I appreciated that you even thought through that statement

I yeah yeah kind of don't you know we we we get asked do you are you hesitant that you'll lose spot in 80

when you're so rigid with your schedule and how you plan things out and you do date nights every Thursday and you goals every whatever it's like no no I'm not worried about sacrificing my spot

180 for meaning. I'm not worried about that. Because I think my default mode is not to be spontaneous and go on some wildlife adventure when we have free time. It's to be irresponsible. That's my default. So maybe you're like me, maybe you're not. But I love you. There you go. We'll have to come back for round two. Yeah. And speaking of dog, Sean is really pressing hard to get another dog, which we'll see. I'm not super post. but I'm really partial with golden retriever, so as long as we could find... A rescue golden retriever.

That would be great. Anyway, stay tuned for part two. We have a lot of more myths to go through. And if you like these rants, and maybe you agree with them, subscribe. Yeah. Give the show a rating. Leave it a comment.

Let us know how off-base we are. Yeah. We're not saying we're right. We're just saying this is our style. This is how we've navigated through this. this and we're just out here sling i mean we're eight years in the marriage we're 33 years old tell us some wisdom yeah but what a thing it is you live we've been together 12 years that's cool we're getting old we're doing it well that's a long time think about how weird it'll be

when we're together for more of our life than we weren't together we're not there yet how many how many more years still are there uh 10 yeah i think that's right anyway that's all we got i'm andrew we'll see you next time on couple things