The Prepper Broadcasting Network - Raising Values: Preparedness for the Marriage

Episode Date: July 7, 2024

https://www.facebook.com/RaisingValuesPodcast/www.pbnfamily.comhttps://www.instagram.com/raisingvaluespodcast/http://www.mofpodcast.com/www.prepperbroadcasting.comhttps://rumble.com/user/Mofpodcastwww.youtube.com/user/philrabSupport the showMerch at: https://southerngalscrafts.myshopify.com/Shop at Amazon: http://amzn.to/2ora9riPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/mofpodcastWhen Phil started the Matter of Facts Podcast eight years ago and dove head first into the world of preparedness, he followed simple mantra that one must, during periods of peace, prepare for periods of hardship. When the sun shines and the store shelves are full, that is the time to put back the extra rice and beans for hard times. When there is plenty, we must prepare for times of famine. In an afternoon spent working on the family food stock, Phil's mind wandered to something near and dear to his own heart, and he began to wonder how we can apply that to our personal lives. How do we prepare friendships, families, and marriages to weather the hard times that we all inevitably face?Raising Values Podcast is live-streaming our podcast on our YouTube channel, Facebook page, and Rumble. See the links above, join in the live chat, and see the faces behind the voices.family, traditional, values, christian, marriage, dating, relationship, children, growing up, peace, wisdom, self improvement, masculinity, feminity, masculine, feminine

Welcome to the Raising Values Podcast, where the traditional family talks. You can find us on iTunes, Stitcher, and Spotify, and be sure to follow us on Facebook and Instagram. You can support the Raising Values Podcast through Patreon. Bill and Gillian are behind the mic, and we hope you enjoy the show. welcome back to raising values morning everybody so we're not the greatest at picking topics for this show and it's just bad for matter of facts honestly like you know sometimes you just you get to like saturday afternoon and you're like, oh my God, I have to do a podcast tomorrow and I have no earthly idea what to talk about.

Fortunately, I was doing chores, and that's usually a good catalyst for getting me thinking because I've got nothing better to do while my hands are moving. So I was, like I told Gillian yesterday, just to talk to the audience, I was working through one of my weekly chores. We bought some, bought a little bit extra food and I was taking stuff that basically I was bulking up our food stock. And that's a lot of like, you know, measuring and weighing and packaging and putting into the chest freezer. And while I was doing that, I, I, my brain

started kind of wandering. I started thinking about, you know, this is how we do preparedness with regards to make sure we have enough food if something weird happens and we can't go to the grocery store for a while. And, you know, there's a lot of aspects in our life because I've been really neck deep in the preparedness game for eight plus years now. really neck deep in the preparedness game for eight plus years now, there's a lot of different ways that this is just part of our daily life is it's this constant thought of, I prepare for, the sun shining today, today's the day to prepare for when the storms are coming. You know what I'm saying? And then I started thinking to myself, how do I apply that to our relationship? How do I apply it? How do we apply that, that, that methodology or that thought process to marriages, to families, to relationships? Cause I mean, you know, call it what it is. All relationships go through periods of storms. All relationships go through periods where things are hard and things suck and there's a lot of things going on.

And, you know, everybody goes through those rough patches in their lives. But how do we, is there a way to armor up a relationship to get through that? I feel like I need to put a disclaimer that I'm super, super over the top emotional today. And we'll probably cry through most of this podcast when it has nothing to do with this guy here and our marriage and relationship and anything else but i mean we've both cried on this show before just uh just so that you know we'll probably be a blubbering idiot today so no i um you presented this topic to me yesterday on the, on the patio in the backyard and I thought it was a good one. I mean, we had just done a show. Um, I stood in for Andrew this

week on matter of facts and it was, I felt like it was a really good show on preparedness and things that we, um, as a society don't teach our children anymore and how to be prepared to adult. And, um, it was very eyeopening for you because the list that we had read off was, you know, some of the most basic, um, things that you have to teach your children, such as like cooking and budgeting and money management and relationship skills and how to communicate with people and, you know, life. And the fact that the Google search. Are we going to get a little visitor? She never gets on the table.

Our cat is right here staring at us. She's very mad today. She's broody because Piper is 12, almost 18. And she has turned her bedroom into a dorm room. It really does look like a dorm room. She's downsized her bed to a twin size bed. And she now has a couch, which is basically a futon, but it looks like a couch that folds down to another twin size bed. And we told her that, you know, we were cutting it off at, you cannot have a refrigerator and a microwave in this bedroom.

So, and the other thing that we're starting to allow her to do is she can shut her door at night when she sleeps because it's summertime. She stays up a little bit later than we do. And, you know, she has all the twinkle lights and all the, all the old Christmas lights going on in her room and I need pitch black dark to sleep. And so she's been closing her bed at night, I mean, her door at night. Well, the cat is very pissed off at her for shutting off her bedroom. Vixie's always had an anxiety for closed doors, but she especially, it's almost like she tattles on Piper. She comes to me and she's like, do you know that she still has her door closed? And I'm trying to get in there. And all she wants to do is jump up on that bed with Piper. She comes to me and she's like, do you know that she still has her door closed? And I'm trying to get in there. And all she wants to do is jump up on that bed with Piper. Nina, did you see Nina's comment? Nina, I had said at the beginning, it's been a very emotional

week for me. And today has just culminated into like overflow of emotion and it has nothing to do with this episode um it's not my fault either it's nothing to do with this episode or anyone in particular it has something to do with something that happened this weekend and i just can't get over it so anyway it has nothing to do with this episode i feel like such an idiot um anyway so the door's closed and what i was gonna say was the cat was over here tattling on piper again that her door was closed and we needed to fix that so we totally got off well what i was what i was saying was you you introduced this topic to me outside yesterday and it was one of those things of, Hey, did you think of, have you thought

of a topic yet? And I was like, absolutely not. I don't, I have not thought of a topic and you brought this one up and how we had just done a really good show for matter of facts on preparedness for kids. And that went down a rabbit hole. So, um, anyway, yeah, I think, no, we can't. I've been trying since eight o'clock this morning to control the tears. And Nina says sometimes we can't control the tears. So preparedness for marriage, it sounded like you had quite some, you know, quite a few ideas about what you wanted to talk about. And I was going to let you lead this one. You're probably going to have to lead this one because it seems like every time I talk, I want to cry. That's fine.

No, I mean, I was mostly like, I was going, I would, my mind was kind of, you know, jumping around throughout our marriage, which I always have to do the math. It's not that I forgot we got married in 2008. I have to do the math. We've been married 16 years, together 19. Yeah, we've been together 19 years, married for 16. And my mind was jumping through all those, that reasonably large span of time at this point. through all those that reasonably large span of time at this point and thinking about you know times when things were just hard you know like there was first of all there was the first year of our marriage which you and i worked both of us worked full-time i was still a full-time college

student we worked opposite shifts and the only day off we had together was Monday. So, like, we literally, we would go six days straight in a week not seeing each other awake. Like, you would, by the time you would get home from work, I was already asleep because I had to get up first thing in the morning and drive to Hammond to college. And then I'd go straight from, straight from college, by the way, at like one, one 30 in the afternoon, I'd go straight to work in new Orleans and I'd work two 10 hour shifts with

four hours of sleep in the middle. Cause the facility is closed for four hours. So I slept on the couch at work. Thanks Kyle. He says he had to poop, but he's here now. And yes, I'm already crying, but it doesn't have anything to poop, but he's here now. And yes, I'm already crying, but it doesn't have anything to do with the episode.

Do I say shit happens? Shit happens. But anyway, so, you know, two 10-hour shifts back to back. I'd get home about 4 o'clock the afternoon after I left to go to school. afternoon after I left to go to work, to go to school. You know, so like I would go to school on a Tuesday morning and I wouldn't come home until Wednesday afternoon. And in the couple hours I had before I had to pass the hell out, it was eat, shower, do homework, and then get to sleep as fast as I could because I had to be at college first thing the next morning. So I was, by the time you got home from work, I was already snoring. And we did that, that little routine, I did twice in a, twice in a week. And so that was 40 hours worked from Tuesday through Friday afternoon.

And then I'd work Saturday and Sunday. So Monday was the only day we had off together. It was the only day we ever got to spend time with each other. And we made a concerted effort to not, like we didn't schedule stuff on Monday. We didn't, we didn't schedule. It was a day for us. Yeah.

We didn't schedule stuff with friends. We didn't go out. We didn't. Monday was, I am spending time with my wife. And I don't care if aliens land in the middle of Times Square. I don't care. This is my day with my wife. It's sacred.

Nothing gets to infringe upon it. So I was thinking about that time period where, like, we didn't have as much time together as we wanted, especially because we were newlyweds. We didn't have as much time together as we wanted, especially because we were newlyweds. We didn't have the optimal situation. I think either one of us would have stated, but we made a point of prioritizing the time that we did have together. That's my time with my wife. Nobody else gets that. So that was like one of the things that went through my head was, you know, one of the ways we do preparedness for a marriage is that quality time is some people, well, that's their primary love language. Like we talked about the five love languages.

Yeah, we did an episode on that. We talked about that recently. And quality time is some people's primary love language. And that makes a situation like this really, really difficult when quality time is at such a premium. You know what I'm saying? There's just, there's not, there's not a lot of it. So you have to put out the effort. You have to make the time you do have, it has to be sacred. It has to be put aside to spend with your spouse. Cause if not, then you are like, if, if I have one day off a week, I'll be damned if I'm going to go spend a goofing around with my friends or doing whatever, it's going to be

right here, you know, crammed all the way up your behind until you get tired of me. Yes. Okay. Okay. Um, what are you expecting a response? i thought she might have a response well i mean i think you said i think you said it it's exactly how it happened but well so i guess my question is what in in regards to this episode how is that preparedness for the marriage i would think that i mean that's our story but well but i i guess what the way i'm looking at is like i've been very upfront about the fact that i've kyle i'm not addressing that anyway you were anyway about like i feel like i feel like a marriage i feel like a marriage requires a lot of things to be successful i feel like it requires a lot of marriage requires a lot of things to be successful.

I feel like it requires a lot of intention and a lot of time and a lot of effort. And especially because we just recently talked about the love languages, I feel like you have to make sure you're addressing those love languages in order to make sure that that bond between husband and wife stays strong. And so I'm looking at if you have a lack of time available, then quality time is going to be, have to be something you have to, you still have to address it, even if there's not a lot of time to give. Yeah. I was talking to somebody this weekend about, sorry,

I'm burping about how, Sorry, I'm burping about how even though my religious standpoints and my spiritual standpoints have changed in this last year, that I still hold true to the idea or the notion or whatever you want to call it, that my spouse still comes first in the relationship. And the example that I gave her was because eventually Piper will leave. Eventually Piper will find her own way and direction in this life. And I will be left with this other human that I've been living with for 18, 19 years and know nothing about him and know nothing about, um, his likes and dislikes and what makes him happy and sad and things like that. And so, and also to the point of this episode, um, marriage is just, it's such a kaleidoscope of different, it's just such so many facets to it. And it's not just sleep in the same bed and eat at the dinner table together and call each other

or track each other on their phones, um, to make sure that they've made it to their destination. Or, you know, there's just so many little bitty nuances that have to be addressed and focused on just to, because those little bitty things build into bigger things. I know that there are things in our marriage that I used to fight you tooth and nail when we first started dating. And then especially when we first got married and they were little things to you, they were big things to me and I needed you. Fuck the tears. I needed you to focus on those things because they were important to me. I hate this. I should have just said no show today. They were important to me and it took you a while and it took some beating in your head to be like,

no, really, you really do need to focus on these things. They're a blip in your radar, but they are a mountain in mine. And so I think that's, again, we don't have a perfect marriage. We certainly don't have a perfect life and we don't have a perfect family. But it was in those moments when you finally were like, okay, I really do need to focus on these things. And those blips for you grew to more than just a blip. And the mountains took over for me because it was like I'm getting, I guess, really, no, the mountains decreased because now that those mountains were getting attention and the things I needed from you, they kind of, you know, leveled out and equalized and things like that. I'm using good words. I don't know how I'm using good words, but I'm hoping you're following me. Anyway, so I think it was those things in our marriage. I don't think we knew what we were

doing. I don't think most people, when they get married, know what they're doing. When they have children, they don't know what they're doing. But somehow we stumbled onto this track of realizing that we have to take care of each other's emotional needs and physical needs. And all the, you know, we have to leave ourselves behind for just a second, especially if we really do love our spouse and tend to those things. and, you know, tend to that, all of those things. And somehow, like I said, we stumbled onto that little track. And it has done wonders for our marriage. You know, we've talked in previous episodes that we've only talked about divorce one time. And that was right after Piper was born, and I was not in a good place.

We've never talked about it again, but it wasn't because needs weren't being met. It was because I wasn't the same person, and I was giving up on everything. Thank you for talking I need you to talk now and I'm glad you went that direction because I wanted to get there and it relates to that comment that Kyle had that I starred because I wanted to make sure

I didn't lose it I wanted to go back and address it like at that point in our marriage no needs are not getting that but like my perspective at that point in our marriage which you know that was very very deep into the postpartum i want to say it was about two years into it yeah it was at least a year and a half yeah so i mean it was you know i went into fatherhood maybe naively, but maybe just people didn't talk about this a lot with our generation. But like, you know, I went into this

very naively, like, well, postpartum baby blues, it lasts a couple of weeks and they bounce out of it. Like, that's what I thought. That's what you're always told. And I could go on that rant, but postpartum, it's just not talked about. And so we didn't know what we were getting ourselves into. But after a year and a half, which, you know, I'd been very supportive. I didn't understand what was going on, but I was very much in the guise of like, this is what my wife needs. She needs me to make sure that she's taken care of, our child is taken care of. I'm trying to take pressure off of her and I felt like right now what my wife needs is supportive husband and then I got to a point where I was just kind of like pulling back and looking at things and I'm

like she's not fighting she's not pushing to get better she's not not pushing. She's giving up. And that was the moment at which, yeah, I sat you down and I said, do you want this marriage or not? And I told that was the only time we ever talked about divorce. It's the thing you've heard me tell you and other people before. If you want to fight, I'll fight as hard as you will. I'm not fighting this by myself. I'm not fighting to keep this marriage by myself. Cause it wasn't even like, if you quit that I'm not fighting this by myself. I'm not fighting to keep this marriage by myself. Because it wasn't even like, if you quit, then I'm quitting in a spiteful way. It was, if you quit, the marriage is gone. There is no way one of us is going to keep this going. It's not how it works. So I don't ever want to feel like I gave you an ultimatum because it wasn't my intention. But it really was just a very simple, are you done? Because if you're done with this marriage, I've got some decisions to make. I think, too, I do like Kyle's comment, and you haven't read it yet, and I don't know if that's because you don't want to address it just yet, like you're trying to get to a point. I'm going that direction. Okay, you're getting that way, so I won't read it yet either.

I'm getting that way, so I won't read it yet either. I think it's, again, with regards to the name of this episode, Preparedness for the Marriage. If I could write a book, which maybe one day I will. I don't know. I always wanted to write so many books. And then that's just, no, I'd rather read a book in my chair instead of write a book. Writing a book is just like reading one.

Just skim a verse. Oh, that's right. You're an author. I can't slip my mind for a second. Now I've got to think about what I was going to say. Oh, I know what I was going to say. Oh, without reading Kyle's comment. But where I think our generation falls into a trap and where we are trying are general generational curses that children see in their parents' marriage or their grandparents' marriages or, you know, whatever they, there are things that

children are exposed to, um, relationship wise as they grow up. And like what I said on the matter of facts episode was um without knowing but kind of being conscious of it I was continuously taking making a list of things that I wanted in a marriage and I didn't want in a marriage based on what I was seeing from my parents um there's a meme that goes around that says, give grace to your parents because they were only doing what they knew how to do at that moment. And I look at that and I think, yes. But on the other hand, I look at that and go, no, because when I became a parent, that and go, no, because when I became a parent, there was absolutely no rule book or how to, or anything else. We kind of had to just figure it out on our own. And that's what one of the things Kyle said in the comments was that they adopted and they were both lost and he was

terrified. And I know that, I know what that feeling of being terrified is of just getting out of your bed was terrifying for me. Hearing her cry was terrifying for me. But one of the generational curses, and I'm not, I know your mom and dad watched this. And so this is not directed towards you, mom and dad. But one of the things that we saw with, um, the greatest generation and then the baby boomers and all that stuff was this disconnect of husband and wife. You know, a lot of times the husband was out of the house because they worked, mom stayed home and raised the children and all that stuff. And then there was this disconnect of, um, love and affection and needs being met. And there was

such a pressure. I mean, there were books and magazines published about how women should act and what to do in the household to treat their husband this way. And there was a list that was in a magazine of make sure that his slippers are ready and his dinner is ready and do all these things. I think it was from the 1950s. Yeah, 1950s and 60s, I'm sure. But I think our generation and this is, again, I hope what we're doing is laying it all out. is laying it all out. We're not being quiet, husband or wife,

being quiet in what our needs are and what we need from each other. And I think that if I were to write a book, that would be one of the first things I talk about, is to be completely honest and open. One, because neither male or female, or female, female, male, male, are mind readers i can i get that in writing no because right right there because you never know when it might happen and i have to test to see if maybe today's the day that you have become a mind reader. You're going to disappoint yourself quite a lot. So anyway, what I guess I'm trying to say is I think it's super important for

a spouse to be completely open and honest and not set an expectation for the other spouse to know what those needs are for that person. And that is what got us through the D word was a breakdown of me being so self-absorbed in this is my problem. You can't fix this. I was so lost in this dark hole. And all I really needed to do was build steps of what I needed from you to help me out of this hole. And it was hard for me to express those things. But once I did, we were able to walk through that together. Because now I wasn't relying on – I wasn't so much in that period. Maybe this isn't a good example to use, but in that period, I wasn't so much, um, hurt because you weren't meeting my

needs because you didn't know what my needs were. I just didn't know where to turn because everything was just so dark and, you know, I hated everything about life. But, um, that is something that I hope young people who are getting married understand is that you can't just think that your spouse is going to know. And the other thing is you change. So a person changes so much in a marriage. We kind of joke, but kind of not joke that Phil is not married to the same person that he married in 2008. In fact, it's not a joke.

It's an absolute truth. And I don't know if I would say 180 degrees different, but I'm at least 150 of the person that he married in 2008. He's not, he hasn't changed a whole lot except that he's calmed down a little bit. He's less quick to anger. Being married has taught me patience. Patience.

There you go. Yeah. Having a daughter has taught me patience twice. So where did you want to go with Kyle's comment? All right. So Kyle's comment was, do you think there's more pressure on a marriage now than ever before? And that's what I was trying to get at without taking Phil's thunder. I actually don't think so.

No? But well, but here's the reason I say that. I feel like in previous generations, there was pressure to keep the marriage together there was societal pressure there was pressure from like any any any organized religion out there is going to put pressure on that marriage to stay together most families back then put pressure on marriages to stay together like the expectation was if you get married and especially if you have kids, you two are going to sit there and figure this out because y'all ain't splitting up over stupid stuff. You know what I'm saying? And I feel like what's happened is that over the years,

that pressure has disappeared. We've become a much more secular society with less emphasis on religion or spirituality at all. We, because of family, because of the divorce rate escalating with every successful generation, like your, if your parents are divorced, you're more likely to be divorced, but that's probably also because your parents aren't going to sit there and say, Hey, you really need to work it out with your husband. They're going to be like, oh, F that guy. Yo, go get a divorce. Take him to the cleaners. And society has gone from a point where like, you know, I can remember getting pregnant out of wedlock and single motherhood. Like it was a terrifying prospect for women. And now it's almost celebrated. Yeah, it is now. I would say 20 years ago still, like 90s, because I can remember my older sister came home pregnant. And then my younger, not my younger, my twin sister came home pregnant.

And I don't know. I attribute the discussions that were had. I'm going to just put that lightly as discussions that were had, I'm going to just put that lightly as discussions that were had, were because of the way that my parents were raised, more so my mother than my father. And the people, the preachers who were brought in to discuss the salvation of my sisters because they had gotten pregnant out of wedlock. Um, and, and then, oh gosh, this is a whole nother episode. Those things were still active. That's what I'm trying to say in the nineties because Phoebe came home pregnant in 98. Well, 90, 98 because Bailey was born in 98.

And then Gabri came home pregnant in 2001 because Joshua was born in 2002. She walked across the graduation stage pregnant with a new last name. We didn't graduate sitting next to each other because she was already married at 17, which worked out for them. They're still married. They have three beautiful children and a grandchild now. But notice, I'm going to make an assumption about your twin sister's husband's family, just because I don't know for sure, but I'm going to make an assumption that there's a ton of pressure in that family to keep the marriage together and work it out no matter

what. I would think so, yeah. Divorce, just reading the tea leaves, and he's welcome to correct me if I'm wrong, I don't think divorce is a happy subject in that family. And within their religion, it is, I believe, next to unheard of. So again, within- I don't know of anyone in that religion, you know, within that family that I know that have been divorced. So I guess what I'm saying is that within that, if we take that one couple as a microcosm, there's all this pressure to keep the marriage together and that marriage will stay together.

But then in other... Go ahead. And in other married couples, if there's not that pressure to stay together, then I'm not going to say the marriage does come apart, but it's much more likely to come apart. And understand that I'm not saying that some marriages shouldn't come apart. No, I'm not saying that either. If there's abuse of some – and see, whenever we get into this subject, and I really want to get back to the topic. Well, then get back to the topic. No, no, no. We keep going down rabbit holes, but it's fine.

But like, whenever we get into a topic of abuse when it comes to marriage, I struggle because I hear some things referred to as abuse that I just don't think are abuse. And I think it's some bullcrap somebody made up to justify the fact that they just don't want to put in the effort to stay married. But that's a whole other episode. We've got to start writing this down. We've come up with two great topics just sitting here talking. What was the first one? Whichever one you talked about where you said that's a whole other topic. Generational curses maybe?

I don't know if I want that to... I don't know if I want to air Dirty Family Laundry out. Okay. I don't know if I want to air Dirty Family Laundry out. Okay. Maybe one day when we can change our names and, you know, names have been changed to protect the innocent. She cares much more than I do because I look at it as if I witnessed it, it's fair game.

I know. Everybody tells me because we have these talks outside of the podcast with people, you know, where there's no recorded evidence. But, I mean, it's no secret. I came from an abusive household, and I would like, not like, but I tend to think that the abuse is still ongoing in some aspects of my life because I freaking allow it. Yes. I know. That's a third topic.

I'm not doing very good today. But anyway, there's a lot to unpack there. I don't know if I'm ready to unpack that in such a public place. That's fair. But I guess what I'm saying is that, you know, to Kyle, to answer Kyle's question, no, I don't think there's, I think there's less pressure on marriage, but I think the problem is that the pressure used to be to work it out, to put in the effort. Like if you and your husband or wife are struggling, like the two of you need to come

together and figure out what's lacking, what's missing, what needs work. The pressure was to keep the marriage together and that pressure's gone. So now I feel like the divorce rate has gone through the ceiling because it's just quicker and easier to go to divorce court, screw the other person for whichever. Okay, so let's start off with this. The ugly truth of the matter is that usually the person who initiates divorce is in the position of making less money. Is that statistically? Statistically. Now, statistically, it's mostly women.

Why? So that they can take their husbands to court and get all their money that they feel like they're due? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Statistically, the partner making less money is usually the one that initiates divorce, and statistically, that's usually women. Okay.

So however you want to boil those statistics down is up to y'all. I'm just telling you that that's what the statistics say. You can't argue with facts. I don't think so. Going back to statistics and then also going back to the topic. I gave an example of one of our friends who, um, as a child grew up in a very poor home and, um, often went without meals and things like that. And so as she became an adult, she started to, um, get into the preparedness lifestyle so that she would not be without and her children wouldn't be without and all those things.

I can't imagine that me and my sisters are, is it the enigma? Is that the right word? We're this just special, three special people who saw what we went through as children and then broke it and said, not for me. Like, I've been there, done that. Kind of like our friend. Okay, you can't include Phoebe's active addiction years. No, I'm not including specific cases. I'm looking at, again, statistically statistically people breaking generational curses is the

exception to the rule i'm not saying it's one in a million but i am saying statistically it happens less often than okay so we are an enigma i don't want to say an enigma i'm saying that like okay give you a perfect example when you and i first got together you i don't want to say you were a hitter because it's not like you were ever hitting me i was a hitter well but not with the intention of hurting me i guess it's my point right i would like slap you for whatever reason and there was a time when we were dating where i caught your hand and i said i love you dearly you're never gonna hit me again yeah and to me and i wasn't and i wasn't even angry that you were hitting me. I mean,

let's call it what it is. I'm a big enough guy that you have to, you would have to really go out of your way to try to hurt me. But to me, I, and again, this all comes from like my perspective on dating. I never, I don't, I never dated recreationally except for a very small period of my life. Your dad would tell me that. He didn't use that word. But I remember before you came home from Iraq and I had met your parents and your dad had, we were sitting at the pool table in the living room and your dad said something to the effect, because I can't remember word for word,

but he said something like, you know, he's a one-woman guy. He's not going to go off and find another woman if he's committed to you. And I was like, I'm thinking to myself, I'm just meeting this man, and I haven't even met his son yet, and we're in this relationship, quote, unquote. And I'm like, okay, he's a one-woman guy. And yet here we are almost 20 years later. Well, your dad didn't lie. And I'm like, okay, he's a one-woman guy. And yet here we are almost 20 years later. So, you know. Well, your dad didn't lie.

Maybe he saw things for the way they were. Maybe he did. I don't know. But I guess my perspective is, you know, just like you were always auditioning to be my wife. You were always auditioning to be the mother of my children. And if you hadn't, if I didn't feel like you were going to be that person, I would have, I wouldn't put any effort into the relationship because it's time wasted at that point to me. And that's why the hitting had to me had to end because I was like, I'm not going to allow my daughter to grow up in a household or son. I'm not going to allow my child to grow up in a household where mom and dad hit each other, even in jest, because it excuses that behavior. And I looked at it again. I have that 30,000 foot perspective on a lot of things.

If this was my daughter, I don't ever want her to grow up thinking it's okay for her husband to slap her around. If it's my son, I don't ever want him to think it's okay for him to slap his wife around. It's not okay. And that's why, you know, to draw an analogy, like, when Piper was young, we never had toy guns in his house. Right, no. All guns are real guns because, like, I have firearms in the house. Piper got her first gun safety speech when she was four i think when i bought no was it no it was like three because there's that picture of you and her out at um

oh yeah out of pawpaw is where she's shooting her bb gun 22 or whatever yeah my my 22 you're 22 i was she was little bitty i have more even hold the gun up i know i was i was holding it and basically letting her pull the trigger. But regardless, like, that's within this house, it was always very strict. There are no toy guns in this house because every gun is a real gun. And for the same reason, there's never play hitting. Hitting is always hitting. And I was not willing to break to cross that line because you can't explain that to a three or a four-year-old that, well, this hitting, when I did that to mom, that was okay.

But if I rear back and slug her, that's not okay. Like kids just see hitting. But you grew up in a household where there was hitting. And so hitting didn't. Everyone hit. Mom and dad hit each other. and mom and dad hit us. And then I would hit my sisters and my sisters would hit me. I mean, there were siblings.

I think you kind of have to excuse the sibling thing. I think siblings, they hit each other. I had a twin sister and an older sister who was five years old who, really quick segue again. who was five years old, who really quick segue again, um, my older sister, who's my best friend and I love dearly used to tell me two things. And I believed her until I was probably six or seven years old. She used to tell me that, um, me, my, me and Gabriel, my twin sister were not twins. Um, we were born on the same day, but mom and dad bought me from gypsies on the side of the road and it was because um she my my nana who is sicilian she's first generation american her parents came over from sicily my nana used to tell us when she would get mad at us or upset

with us i'm going to sell you back to the gypsies. Well, my older sister took that and ran with it. And she was like, I remember her sitting me down one day and I was so mad at her. And she was mad at me. And she goes, you know, mom and dad bought you from gypsies, right? She really did. She bought you from gypsies on the side of the road. And I'm just going to tell Nana to sell you back to the gypsies. And I was devastated because I wasn't, obviously my parents weren't my parents

and my sisters weren't my sisters and I was a gypsy. And anyway, segue. Maybe there's something to that. I don't know. But anyway, my point was you grew up in a household where hitting was commonplace. And therefore, when you met me, it wasn't a blip on your radar until I was like, no, not okay. We're not doing this. And I very- But it wasn't okay. But I very simply explained to you, do you want me to hit you back? Because I'm a lot stronger

than you are. You were the first one. And Nina in the comments said that she was a hitter too with a previous boyfriend and that's why he broke up with her. Well, I can remember my first boyfriend, my first serious boyfriend boyfriend i was a hitter and i hit him and it was just it wasn't anything i do want to put a disclaimer another one out there to your parents that i do not hit your son no because i did hit him it wasn't like i gave him black i hit him it was a a slap on the arm whatever. But it was something physical that was not malicious. It wasn't. No, it wasn't malicious.

I didn't hit you because I was mad at you or anything like that. I just hit you. But yeah, it was that moment that you were like, would you want me to do that to you? And I was like, oh, no, because you probably knocked me the hell out. And conversely, I grew up in a household. Now, yeah, my brother and I fought like oh no because you probably knocked me the hell out and conversely i grew up in a household now yeah my brother and i fought like cats and dogs but show me two siblings that don't but like my i never saw my parents hitting each other my parents i mean i got spanked when i was a kid but my paintings were different yeah but my parents never like slapped me across the

face or punched me in the nose or any of that crazy stuff. I grew up in a household where like, if you're hitting somebody, it is A, because you're defending yourself and B, you're not hitting them to hurt them. You're hitting them to like cripple them. You're hitting, hitting is not an act of I'm angry at you. Hitting is you're trying to hurt me and I'm about to remove your ability to hurt me permanently if necessary. So to me, hitting was like hitting was not something done in jest. It wasn't something done for fun. It was, you know, it was, it had a, it had a different connotation than the one you grew up with, which is why I told you, I'm like, we're not doing this. No, this is not what I want.

Did you know then that I had come from an abusive home? No. I mean, the moment I knew your parents were divorced, that was a red flag to me. They were divorced when we got together? Yes. Oh, yeah, they were. That's right. Just the simple fact that your parents were divorced was a red flag to me, though.

They had just gotten divorced. Hyper-rational statistical Phil knows that, you know, the chance of getting a divorce is infinitely high, is several times higher if your parents are divorced. And then they got remarried, but they should have stayed divorced. That's another, that's a fourth episode. You know what? That needs to be an episode. Maybe it's time that I just, you know, vomit all of this trauma. But back to the topic. Back to the topic. I was actually on, um, on a, I was saying something. Oh, sorry. No. So our friend, she became

a prepper in things like food, water, ration, you know, all those, like when you think of prepper in things like food water ration you know all those like when you think of prepper that's what she became a prepper and got into this lifestyle because of the childhood that she um was raised in and i i haven't talked too much um in depth about her childhood with her but i would imagine that she wasn't in that position and her parents weren't in that position because they put themselves there. I just think that they probably grew up in a poor community. They were, they didn't make a lot of money and that's what happened. I don't, I don't know all the ins and outs of it, but I can also kind of take, so she became a prepper because of those things. I became a prepper in my marriage because of the marriage that was shown to me in my life because of the household that I grew up in and, you know, watching my parents and watching all the abuse and all that stuff, it became a tick box of things that I want and do not want.

And it's kind of strange to think back on how young I was making this list. I was probably, I probably started around seven watching the abuse. And I can, I actually remember a time in my life watching my parents thinking this isn't right this isn't how this isn't how um people who love each other are supposed to treat each other now that's not what i said to my seven-year-old self it was probably more of well prince charming doesn't treat cinderella like that why so you had an alternative example in other words maybe a disney a disney princess every you know girl born in the 80s had an alternative example we had cinderella and snow white and sleeping beauty and you know thank you

disney for setting unrealistic expectations and yes absolutely they were unrealistic expectations and i think some girls fall into that that trap but the um, giant contrast that I had, and I'm not saying that my house didn't have love. It did have love in it. There were moments of, you know, bright and cheerfulness and everyone loved each other. It was those dark moments that came that were just terrifying but i i um i did have other people damn now i'm thinking about it i'm thinking about other married couples that i saw as a child and those weren't great either so i don't know how i got to this place maybe i just looked at cinderella and prince charming and thought surely they don't hit each other. Surely they don't yell at each other.

Surely they don't pretend to go to church and, um, you know, act like the fight didn't happen in the car and somebody kicked the other one out to start walking home. And surely those things don't happen for Prince Charming and Cinderella. And I don't know, maybe I need to do a bigger self-reflection on the beginning of our marriage

and beginning of our relationship. And maybe it was you that was like, no, this isn't how this works. That is like the hitting. This isn't how this works. You don't hit me. This isn't, this isn't love of a spouse kind of thing.

Yeah. What were you saying? You were pointing to yourself. Yeah, it was me. I'm the one that taught you. It's you. You're the problem. It's you.

I didn't say you were the problem. No, I'm joking. But... I didn't hit you. I just nudged you. I didn't hit you. I don't hit you. I'm going to nudge her as soon as the camera's off.

Okay. How do we tie that whole 20 minutes back into this? Well, that's what I'm saying. I saw what I saw as a child just like our friend saw what she saw as a child and decided that this was how she was going to steer her life and prepare for a marriage or prepare for not having food and things like that. And so that is how I'm tying it into this is it's not just it's it starts way before the marriage actually happens. I got it. Go ahead.

No, that's that's what you you prepared for your marriage by learning from the mistakes actually happens. I got it. Go ahead. No, that's a what? You prepared for your marriage by learning from the mistakes of others. Yes. And maybe even learning from past mistakes we've made. Like originally you brought up. Or previous boyfriends. But originally you brought up like, you know, how. Well, but a lot of things we've talked about, though, it's been like, you know,

I wasn't necessarily meeting your needs because I didn't. I just didn't know to put a priority on those things. I'm showing Kyle because of his comment. My cup says I like his beard and Kyle's comment says none of the Prince Charmings had a beard. That's right. None of them did. Her Prince Charming is, you know, maybe part Viking. He's a woodland gnome. I don't know i mean andrew says i look like gimley would if he was full grown it's true but so there's

there's learning from other people like learning from other people's mistakes and learning from our own and that is certainly a component of preparedness because you know how many, how many times have you and I had to deal with something and then look back on it and be like, you know, if we'd have done this ahead of time, that would have made this a lot easier to deal with. Trees on house, Hurricane Ida chainsaw, that whole, that whole discussion all over again. Right. Or, you know, we look at things like, I mean, the whole idea of preparedness isn't just prepare for a bad time tomorrow, but it's also to like do self-reflection and say, I screwed this up. This could have been done better. Let's do this better next time. And I feel like that's a lot of what you just talked about.

It's, you know, you looked at other marriages around you and you said, that's good. That sucks. And you put everything into two categories. And then when you came into this marriage, you said, this is all the stuff I want. This is all the stuff I don't. And I had my own list for you. Like I was very, very, I feel like I was very direct with you about like, I want, I want a marriage where we are affectionate to each other, especially in front of my child. Because I don't want her to ever grow up in a household where, like, her parents are cold or indifferent to each other. I don't want her to grow up and see that that's normal. Right.

Because it shouldn't be. I want to be, I mean, I'm not going to lie. The other day where I was kissing you in the kitchen with my hand on your butt, and that girl rolled her eyes, walked into her bedroom, and shut the door. Happiest moment of one of the happiest moments of my life. Because I want her to be like, God, they're kissing each other again. Because I want that memory crystallized in her head that way. If she ever meets a boy that she cares about, she understands, that is the way husband and wife are supposed to act together.

I don't want her to grow up with the expectation that we're just roommates in a house together. That's done anyway. I digress. So there's that. I was very particular about the fact that we're not going to be abusive to each other physically. Period. end discussion. We're not going to try to manipulate each other because that was something I had suffered from every single one of my ex-girlfriends ahead of you. And I just was not prepared to tolerate it at all.

I was very big on honesty because I feel like honesty is the bedrock for a good relationship. And, you know, there was some lesser items, but one of the things that attracted me to you was when I saw you, I'm like, okay, here's a woman who's fairly independent. Like not so independent that like you can't allow yourself to rely on me or you can't allow yourself to lean on me when you need me. But if I have to go out of town for a week, I don't expect to come home and find the house burnt to the ground. I don't come home and expect like the child to be running around butt naked and there to be piles of laundry everywhere. Like you're capable of just handling stuff like a grown ass adult for a little while.

Even the things I normally do. You just understand that, hey, right now my husband needs me to step up. I'm going to step up. And those were all things that were super important to me that they were non-negotiable. Like these have to be this way. And I feel like you came into the marriage with a list yourself. But both of those lists were based on looking at other marriages and be like, I don't want that. Yeah. But another thing I think we can talk about when it comes to preparedness for marriages, you know, we started off talking about when we're in a period where the thing we need or the thing we need from our spouse is in short supply. You just have to do

your best to, you know, communicate that. Well, you have to do your best to, you know. Communicate that? Well, you have to do your best to communicate that, but you also have to do your best to like, as much of a limited resource as it is, you need to prioritize it. Like if it's quality time, we only have one day off together, that's going to be our one day together

because that's all I can give you. But I'm going to give it to you. I'm going to give it to you intentionally. But can we apply that if we know we're going into a period where there's going to be a storm like i've been very upfront with you and i think i don't feel like many people would fight me on this but like i believe that one of the ways to trying to think of a way to say this where it doesn't make having children sound like a war zone but quite frankly it can be um adding children to a marriage is

stress a lot of stress yes it's stress that i feel like is totally worth it i love being a father i love my daughter dearly but it's stress and there's stress and there's no way to not make it stress. But I'm also very intentional about the fact that I feel like marriages that survive that stress, a lot of times they delay having children, even just a year or two. Go on the honeymoon. Come home. Spend time together. Be able to walk around the house in your underwear.

moon, come home, spend time together, be able to walk around the house in your underwear. Just, you need that time where it's just the two of you to really bond together to make it through what's going to potentially be a few months or a few years of just hard. As a matter of fact, I was, someone was, I was doing my Reddit crawl, which I try to stay off Reddit as much as possible because it's filth, but there's a couple of communities that I keep in touch with through there, like the night vision community and so on and so forth. And, uh, there was somebody who was talking about, they had, uh, they, I think they were, they just had a child two months ago and just husband and wife fighting like cats and dogs because the child's up

every two hours and the wife's exhausted and the husband isn't getting sleep and he's working and she's staying home mom just yada yada yada and I thought to myself I'm like I remember that time when Piper was little that was that was rough she was up every couple of hours neither one of us was getting a lot of sleep and you were dealing with postpartum and it's just it was a hard time for the two of us but i think to myself i'm like i feel like we charged into that time we knew was going to be hard because we had a couple of years where it was just the two of us where there weren't as many responsibilities and we didn't have a child screaming at two o'clock in the morning she was hungry we had that time to like knit that relationship together tighter yeah i feel like there's times when like like i

know i know every year in the two weeks before school starts and in the two weeks before school ends you are going to be stressed to the max it's about to come up yeah you're gonna be stressed to the max i'm already you're you're gonna be running around like a chicken with your head cut off It's about to come up. Oh, her temper is going to be a little shorter than usual. Like I know all these things. So then what can I, what can the two of us do as a married couple to like, what can the two of us? Well, what can the two of us do as a married couple to mitigate all of your stress? And what can we do to prepare the two of us for it? You know what I'm saying? Like that's the bane I'm thinking in. Are you asking for an answer right now?

Well, I'm asking for a conversation. Oh, well, I... Okay. I was listening, I promise. But I can't... I don't know an answer to that right now because I don't know what it's going to be like in two weeks. Take me to the beach? What you're doing.

Okay. So you spend quality time ahead of time while you have the time. Mm-hmm. I mean, and just know that I'm going to be who I am in those two weeks before school starts. And once the kids come back, it's a good month before, you know, I'm able to kind of just take a deep breath. Because I guess just know that my attitude, my attitude, shut up, Phil. That those things aren't directed at you and you didn't cause those things. It's just a stressful time. I mean, I could go back to corporate and not just have a two-week or a month period of stressful time and just have a whole 12 months of stressful.

If that's what you want. No. I don't. stressful. If that's what you want. No, I don't. No, I, I honestly, I mean, I would hope that you can say that the stress that I have as a teacher is not nearly as stressful as it was, um, when I was doing nonprofits and things like that. It's not. But so what I'm hearing is like communication during, or, or, or. Because you know I shut down. I shut down and I don't speak.

And I kind of, yes, give me grace. That's what Nina said. Give me grace. I'm always looking for grace. I always need grace. I needed grace from the listeners at the beginning of this episode. Because I couldn't stop crying. So, yes, give me grace and just know that it's not create, it wasn't created by you. Although you might

actually throw some things in for the stress, uh, and it's not directed towards you. And if it is, if I do take it out on you, I'm sorry in advance. I'm preparing, keyword, our marriage for the beginning of school. That's how we end the show. If you don't see Phil in September at Prepper Camp, then it was a hard start to the school year for Gillian. Not really. It's really not going to be a hard year. This has been the most chaotic episode we've done on the show. It really has. I hope somebody got

something out of this show because this has been a really weird show. And that's me. I didn't start off in a good mindset. And I did listen to you this last time, but I kind of did just... I was thinking of something else, and I don't remember what it was now. So there's your conversation.

Anyway, say something. Something. Anyway. Get married, they said. It'll be fun, they said. Anyway. Get married, they said. It'll be fun, they said.

I am glad that my sister showed up in the comments because, Phoebe, we talked about you earlier in this episode in not a bad way. All good things. All good things. So, I don't know. I think we've done a pretty good job of talking about the topic that you brought up. Did you get all the points across that you wanted to? I think that all the points just got scattered. I did too.

We tend to go down rabbit holes a lot, which is okay. And we tend to repeat ourselves in some of the episodes, which is also okay. But this is what you get because we don't script this out. It just kind of evolves. Yeah, you didn't have any banners this time. I know. Which is fine. It just kind of evolves. Yeah, you didn't have any banners this time. I know. Which is fine. It worked. We did okay.

Anyway. Anyway. So, yeah. I think that in the same vein that I use the preparedness mindset to try to prepare our family for a period of hard times to guard against our physical needs not getting met i just think we need to find ways to to integrate that into our relationships or our marriages you know like i think we need to i think we need to look at and consider our marriage and our relationships in a lot of the same vein as like, this is a thing that I cannot allow to be harmed. So what can I do today so that it'll weather a storm tomorrow? Or there was a storm yesterday.

What do I have to do to repair it today? Where do I put this effort in to keep this thing going? Because as Kyle pointed out, I don't feel like there's near as much pressure to keep a marriage together today. I feel like quite the opposite. I feel like there's a lot of social incentive to break up marriages. That is one of the things. I don't know if you caught that comment that he said. If you'll scroll up, I can read it. And because of this comment, I agree with him. Keep going. That one right there. He said, I think with social media, marriage is harder. People only post the good things, never the bad things.

People get caught up thinking life is like that 24-7. True. When I had Piper, social media wasn't really a thing, like super big thing yet. And if it was, then I wasn't on it because I didn't have the phone capability to really be on social media. But what I did do was I read a lot of blogs and read reddits and things like that. And I had to stop reading those things because all of them together screamed at me that I was not a good mom. I was not a fit mom.

I wasn't doing the best. I wasn't breastfeeding. I wasn't doing this. And she slept in the bed with us. And, oh, my God, you know, she should be learning how to be the best mom you can be when all I really needed is someone to be like, she's alive. You're alive. You're doing great. You aced it today, mom.

You're doing great. And I agree with Kyle that those same pressures on social media do affect people's marriages because. The grass is always greener. The grass is always greener. There are so many people that maybe I'm going to say this, but this probably isn't the right thing to say. They don't have the common sense to see that this is fake. Like everything on social media is fake. The things that I post on Facebook are a snippet of our life. And most of the time it is all good

things. It is all happy things. It's all happy times in our life. It's all the fun adventures that we go on and all that stuff. I don't post the dark things. I don't post, you know, why I've been in the bathroom crying for the last two hours or, you know, why Phil and I are fighting today because we do fight or just not as much, you know, why I'm so down today because I just don't feel adequate as a mother or, you know, being a mother of a teenager. That's, that's a show. That's a series of shows. You know, so I don't, I fall into that, of that whole thing of only posting the happy moments. But I also, I also don't look at other people's social medias and think that their life is only good, that they only have these wonderful things happening

because when they're not posting, that's when life is happening. That's when all those, everyone is going through the trials and tribulations of being a conscious meat sack on this rock curdling through space. We're all going through all those things. But nobody wants to post the bad. Why would we post the bad? Because then we have to focus on the bad because then once you post the bad, then you have people commenting on the bad and then they judge you for the bad and nobody wants to be judged. And so yeah, people are going to post just the good.

And me and Phil continue to say on this, this show, we do not have a perfect marriage. We do not have a perfect, um, relationship together. We don't, we're not perfect parents. We don't have a perfect household. You have a perfect husband. And I have to mark this one explicit now. Right. I didn't say it. I just said, anyway, um, because I don't feel like, um, just like talking about my childhood. I don't want to put all those things out there. One, because they're hard to talk about. It's hard to talk about that. We don't get along 24 seven. It's hard to really talk about that. You know, when you eat andouille sausage, I don't get along 24-7. It's hard to really talk about that, you know, when you eat andouille sausage, I don't want to be 20 feet from you.

Or I took andouille sausage away from him. No, you can have it just when I go out of town for a few days. We just, people, that's just people. That's just how we do it. We just don't post the bad things. And I think. A lot of times. People don't post the bad things. Because they don't want to be reminded of the bad things.

And not everything is a bad thing. Just some things. I don't know. I think a lot of it stems more from just. People don't want to be judged. And social media is a judgy place. It is. And I. But regardless, no, Carl Ravely, I don't have the perfect wife.

And if she says she is, then. I think he was getting to the point of you saying, but you have the perfect husband. So if I have the perfect husband, you have the perfect wife. Your reaction did not indicate that you have the perfect husband, you have the perfect wife. Your reaction did not indicate that you have the perfect husband. Yes, he does have the perfect wife, Dad. Anyway, what were you saying? I was saying that we need to wrap this up. Oh, yeah, because Phil has to go record another show for Matter Facts.

It's going to be a long day. I just thought that that question, I mean, that comment needed to be addressed because, um, I agree with Kyle on that. I think the things that we, the things that we saw as children growing up and then the things we see on social media,

there's so much to filter through and, you know, we just have to be very aware of what is going to help your marriage. And if it means getting off social media completely, then you need to do that. If it means stop comparing yourselves to other couples, then you need to do that. If it means that if you have one night or one day in the week to spend quality time with your spouse, then you absolutely better take advantage of that one day and make it count. You just have to make things count. Yeah. Is that a good wrap up? I actually

wrapped up a show. I don't ever do that. Okay. All right, guys. So because Phil has other things to do and, you know, friends to be with. I'm joking. Is it going to be a live show? I don't think so. Okay. So you can't watch it, but you'll hear it on Friday. We haven't scheduled it. We don't even have a topic.

Oh, well, welcome to Raising Values. All right. So I hope you have a great rest of your weekend and your Sunday. And we'll see you back here next week, I'm pretty sure. I think. Yeah, we will. Maybe. If we can think of a topic.

All right. Bye, y'all. Thank you so much for watching. Bye, everybody. Or listening. Thank you.