WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Wherefore Art Thou, Romeo?: How I Met Your Mother (Dayton Edition)

Episode Date: December 6, 2024

Emily and Greg welcome Stephanie Schutte, Greg's wife and Emily's Mother, to the show. Join them in the first of a three part series in which Stephanie and Greg share their relationship from dating to marriage to starting a family.

Batman doesn't do ships, as in me. You complete me. I'm George, George McFly. I'm your density. It is not about the nail. No matter when, no matter who, any man has a chance to sweep any woman off her feet. You're listening to Where For Art Thou, Romeo, the show that discusses how to navigate romantic relationships and how to achieve a mean between the extremes of hookup culture and over-discerned dating.

Here's your host, Emily Shudy. Welcome to Where For Art Thel Romeo, the show where we talk about how to follow your heart without losing your mind. My name is Emily Shuddy and my co-host is licensed marriage therapist and also my dad, Greg Shuddy. We're all navigating relationships every day, but sometimes the most intimate are also the most challenging. Our goal is to help you get out of your own head when it comes to you or even your friend's relationship questions and concerns. Joining us today is my mother and Greg's lovely wife, Stephanie Shuddy. Today, Greg and Stephanie will be sharing their relationship journey with us from dating to marriage. So this will be a three-part series starting with their early dating relationship through to marriage and then to starting a family.

So welcome to the studio, both of you. It's very exciting that we can all be together. Hi, Emily. It's good to be here. It's nice to see you on this side of the computer. Yeah, so up until this point, we've been doing Zoom calls. because we don't actually live in the same area right now with me being away at school. But this is really special that they are visiting me right now, and we get to spend some time talking about their relationship.

So I just wanted to kind of start off with just you're telling us, like, where you met, and what the early stages of being enamored with each other were like, were you enamored with each other? I was. I know that. I was very enamored. Dad's always been enamored with me. Yeah. So, well, we met at the University of Dayton. That's where we both went for our undergrad. And I was in my sophomore year. And I was my freshman year. I had just gotten to campus three weeks earlier. And I was just starting kind of thinking about a relationship with a,

Other young lady, which I'm not going to mention names here. But it was someone who was part of, I was running a choir for mass. And it was for the 6.30, 6 o'clock. 7 o'clock. Well, okay, great. Like in the evening? In the evening. Oh, so like the sinner's mass.

Oh, no, no. The sinner's mass was 10 p.m., which is what we actually ended up doing. That was us. Yeah, yeah. No, it was because I agreed to run the choir for that mass. And so, yeah, that's, so I, the young lady that I was considering dating and we had been talking was part of my group. So anyway. She and I did not become friends.

No. But I was, I showed, this was before we were in the choir together, he was already running this folk choir. and I showed up for the 7 o'clock Mass not exactly early, so I was kind of standing in the back of the church. I should have known something at that point. Her forever late tendencies. So I heard him singing and thought, wow, he really like his voice. That's awesome.

I should pay attention to Mass. Oh, oh. Well, I thought the same thing too, because I was actually looking at her coming in, and I, she caught my eye and I was looking a little bit too long and realized I needed to really focus on masks. Didn't you think that she was someone else though? Well, yeah, I was getting to that. So, yeah, she, I thought she was my next door neighbor because she looked very similar to

my next door neighbor where I was housing for college. And I had had a crush on this. Are you sending a theme? Well, I had a crush. He had a type maybe. Yeah, but she was out of my league. So, but that was one of those. His neighbor was out of his league?

Yeah, she was a lot older. I don't know what that means. Yeah. Well, that was my perception. But anyway. So anyway, I had a crush. And I thought that was her coming in. So I was paying attention.

And then I got back to playing. So we go to Mass. We do our thing. went back to my dorm and I was in my room and the next thing I know, he's walking down the hall. And I saw him go past and I was like, what? And I asked one of my roommates. I was like, Kristen, Kristen, what's the girl down the hall with the red hair? What's her name? Now, a little backstory is the girl down the hall was a friend of mine from back in high school and grade school. So I'd known her for many years and we were just, she was, again, part of my choir. And he just walked her

home. I was just walking her back. We were talking. So I saw a goodbye. So I, she told me that the, the girl's name was Amy. And so I made up some bogus question to ask you back. And I went down and I don't even remember what I asked her, but I was like, oh, hi, I saw you doing music at mass. And I noticed your guitar. And I have the exact same ovation roundback guitar that you have. But I don't actually know how to play it very well. I'm just learning. Oh. Could you teach me? Yes.

Yeah. So he. So yeah. I mean, as she was asking me that, I'm thinking, oh, yeah, I'll help you out here. We can get together. But this was really cool because, you know, one of the things that I look back on and think about is, what I have ever pursued a relationship with her. I mean, these are the questions that you can't really answer and you probably shouldn't ask yourself.

But the fact that she made a point to, you know, introduce herself to me. And that's kind of being a story of our life together. You know, I always thought that I had a lot of these interpersonal skills. But mom has always been the one that has reached out to others and said hi to people and invited them over for dinner. You know, and so it's one of those things that I really enjoyed about your mom was that, you know, there was that connection. Yeah, yeah. That's really cool. And it's funny because I think of myself as more of an introvert than your dad is, but it is funny that I kind of have that characteristic of seeking people out. Kind of inviting them in and kind of inviting them into, well, now into our family and those kind of things. That's really important to me. Yeah, you've always been really good about that throughout our life. I'm like, yeah, definitely bringing people in.

Yeah, it's been so. So at that point, then your mom, Stephanie, she joined the choir. She joined my choir. And so it was, you know, we had that connection there. And then we all, the whole group of musicians were going to go to the pub on campus. And listen to a gentleman named Dan Hart play guitar. And so we all wanted to enjoy some music. And of course, you know, the first.

one that that opted out was the young lady that I had an interest with because she started to see that I was showing more interest to your mom. And so what turned out to be what was going to be a bunch of us going down there, one by one, everybody pulled out. And by the time we got down there, it was just me and your mom. Convenient. That was amazing. So we listened to the concert, and then he walked me back to the door. but he had his guitar with him because we had just had practice for choir.

And so we stopped and he pulled his guitar out. And he sang to me. I mean, this is one of those like kind of hallmarky kind of things, you know. Or he sang James Taylor, Carolina in my mind and all this. Which was our song at our wedding. It was. So, you know, this sounds kind of hallmarky a little bit at the beginning. Because we did have, we definitely had kind of that attraction right away.

dad seemed to well he was he was very quick to progress the relationship in telling me how he felt about me and such things and i was not ready for that at all i think somewhere in the back of my mind and my heart i knew he was probably the one but i had no idea i mean i was barely 18 and i hadn't ever really dated anyone seriously and i wasn't ready to have that much kind of structure and commitment in a relationship. And so the more he tried to define things, the more I was like, hang on. Slow down. Slow down.

Whereas I had dated quite a bit. Yeah, I'm not saying that to be proud. It was just one of those things that I dated back in high school, had a lot of bad, you know, relationships. But it just never they never lasted very long. And so by the time I met your mom, it was one of those where, you know, I saw someone and was talking to someone that just really drew me in. And my heart was really starting to come alive. More so the other ones, I think it's kind of that high schoolish, you know, someone was showing interest. And so, yeah, let's go on a date and blah, blah, blah.

And, you know, anyway. So you found that you were more attracted to her, like her personality, like who she was in a different way from all of the, sorry, she had a great personality. Yeah. Well, like I said, it was first her looks and, you know, those things happen because it was just like, oh, this is cool, you know. And she's Italian. Oh, okay. A little than I know what that would bring too. Yeah.

There's this really great song that I love. And the chorus goes something like, it was her beauty that caught my attention. It was her kindness that made me say. And for all my growing affection, it was her soul. I fell in love with that day, which I love that line so much.

And it makes me think of what you guys talk about, what you're saying about, like, you were attracted to her. It was like her beauty that first caught you, but then you started to fall in love with more of, like, her person and like who she was. Well, and I'll tell you, for me, the one thing I realized later on, and I often talk to a lot of people about this, even people who heard dating, is that I realized that what I loved about your mom and what I was so attracted to was she was someone that was trying to be a better person. She was trying to grow, and she was forcing me to be a better person, even in my faith.

I didn't realize how lukewarm I was in my faith until, you know, she challenged. me on several occasions and I'm like, oh, yeah, I'm quite the schlep here. I really need to, I really need to. And that's been kind of the theme in our life too. That he's the schlep. Yeah. Oh, no. Do you want to define schlep for us? Not the schlep part, not the schlep part, but it was it was this whole, you know, concept of I found myself being more lazy. And I hate to admit that, but that's just the case. I'm very lazy when it comes to my faith. And so mom really pushed that. in me. And sometimes it wasn't, meaning her pushing me, it was just that I was inspired by the fact that she was, you know, seeking that more than I was. And so it really forced me to decide what

was I going to do with that. So this is just a reminder that you are listening to Wherefore Art Thel Romeo, where we are discussing Greg and Stephanie's relationship story. I'm your host, Emily Shuddy, and my co-host is licensed marriage therapist, Greg Shudy, here on Radio Free Hillsdale 101 0.7 FM. So this is the beginning, the budding of your relationship that we've been talking about. Could you explain to me more about, like, as you guys grew deeper in your relationship, what types of things did you talk about? What was important to you guys as you were trying to decide, you know, whether you wanted to continue your relationship and make it more serious? You know, I think it was just the more time that we spent together that we enjoyed each other's company.

We were having a lot of connections, and it just got to a point where we were starting to define things. Now, I was the one who rushed things a little bit, and, you know, mom talks about that, and you guys laugh about it, which was, I still think it was four months into it. Mom said it was four weeks into it. It was definitely four weeks. Definitely. Okay, so. I remember the practice room I was in. Yeah, I actually do too.

I do too. When you go, it's a little, yeah. Anyway, I was, I don't know why I was in the practice room with you. You were listening to me. Just listening to you. I loved listening to her play piano. And I just, for some reason, felt the need to tell her that I loved her. And I was.

And she just sat there and looked at me. And I'm thinking, this would be a good point. say something, you know, respond. But this, I think this is where not only did I not have any real experience dating on an intentional, serious level, but I also had a lot of woundedness from my childhood that I had not even begun to understand. And so I was just learning what I didn't know. and as I was

there would be things that would come up in our relationship that would be triggers for me that I didn't even know what that meant at the time but meeting his family it was completely different than my family of origin and just they were very welcoming to me who Aunt Janice now his sister was always so intentional and welcoming to me and always made me feel like I was part of, that I was welcome, was a part of the family. And Uncle Jeff, just, well, Uncle Jeff and I actually were kind of like sandpaper for quite a while.

We definitely did not see eye to eye. But that was actually all kind of all part of it too. You know, their family, dad's family, functioned so differently in the way that they would talk about problems or have disagreements and arguments and how they would work through those things was completely different than what I was accustomed to growing up. My family, God rest his soul, my dad was an alcoholic and we had a lot of difficult family dynamics that I, again, I was, didn't have any idea what impact those things had on me and the way that I approached relationships. So as dad and I would run into issues in our relationship, those things started to come into focus. And I started to

realize the wounds that I had and how they were impacting our relationship. For instance, in my family growing up, whenever there was any kind of disagreement, there was explosion and lots of yelling and people really angry and it would go on and on. And then when that explosion was over, you literally didn't talk to each other, sometimes for weeks. And to have that silent treatment and that anger hanging over the house just was a made a really deep impact on me in a really, obviously a negative way. So. And I grew up in a home where we just had it out with each other. And it was loud and it was rambunctious and we would argue and when we were done we would go out for pizza and we could let it go and so when we started to run into some of these things I would always try

to force us to work through it and fix it and your mom resolve it and go out for pizza I was just so traumatized by what I was accustomed to you know if you had disagreement about something If you got upset with somebody about something, the natural end to it was to not speak to them for some extended period of time. And so I was just really prone to shutting down. I just would not even engage. And so it was really difficult to actually work through disagreements and difficulties because I couldn't see a way through to anything that was kind of a healthy resolution. I had no model for that. And what's interesting is as you were talking about my family,

one of the things that I now remember is because I really had such an interest in your mom and who she was, of course, I had to be able to work with her family. And I realize now how hard I had to work at that because it was a different dynamic than what I was used to. and with your dad. Yeah, he called me a few, he called me a few choice names here and there throughout, even into our married life. God rest his soul. But, you know, it was like, I wasn't going to let that get to me because I wasn't marrying

him. But, you know, little did I know that family dynamics kind of shape who you are. And those are some of the things early in our marriage, but we may get to that. But I think what I realized was I had to work out. I had to work at how do I connect with her dad. And so I would find the things that he liked, like gardening. And that's when I started to get into gardening because I'm like, okay, I've got to build this connection. So it turned out to be a good thing, but yeah, it was hard. And that meant a lot to me to see him making such an effort because, I mean, a lot of people would have just

kind of struck back, you know, been unkind and not tried to make connections. And really, that was something that I recognized in your dad early on was his ability to adapt. Well, and not, to not have to be right. He'd not have to have the last word because I was like the last word queen. And I had to be right. I couldn't walk a away from something without having to feel that I had won. And that's a really destructive characteristic to carry into a relationship. And honestly, it's something I've had to wrestle with my whole life because of all the things that are attached to that for me. And we've had to figure out a way to work with it because this is something that I often see in clients that I work with is one who's had more of a background like your mom.

And not wanting to necessarily be right, but sometimes that was just that, you know, really fighting to prove her point. And then the other one like me that would just give in and apologize and let's move on and realize that it didn't help anything. Right. And so that was something early on in our marriage that we had to work through and come up with a better way because it was not working. Yeah.

You've been listening to Where for Art Thel Romeo, where we are discussing Greg and Stephanie's relationship experience from dating to marriage. This is a three-part series in which we will discuss more about this next time you hear from us. I just want to remind you that relationships are a process. It takes time and effort, and we just want to help you to balance your head and your heart. This is your friendly reminder to not be discouraged because if you haven't found your Romeo or Juliet, a good canoli is a great way to get your mind off of it. If you have questions that you would like us to address, please email them to E-Shuddy, S-H-H-H-U-T-T-E at Hillsdale.edu, and we will discuss them in future shows. That's all for Wherefore Art Del Romeo. I'm Emily Shuddy. And I'm Greg Shuddy.

And I'm Stephanie Shuddy on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM.