WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Wherefore Art Thou, Romeo? Just Have Fun

Episode Date: April 1, 2025

Have you ever struggled with how serious relationships seem to be? Emily and Greg explore how to have fun in a relationship while still acknowledging the challenge. 

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 meme between the extremes of hookup culture and over-discerned dating. Here's your host, Emily Shudy. Welcome to Wherefore Art thou, 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 your or even your friend's

relationship questions and concerns. Well, before we get into our conversation about whatever it is, we're going to talk about today. I'm just going to give a little disclaimer that Greg and I are both kind of on the uptick, hopefully. Well, I might be on the down tick, but he's on the uptick from various illness that is going around the world, it seems like. Everybody seems to be. Oh, yeah. Brought it back from Florida with me. And so, but I'm actually doing better.

It's just the nasty cough that will never leave. Yeah. So, yeah. But my goal is not to cough into the microchamination. So hopefully, hopefully there will not be any, you know, hacking sessions. But regardless of that, we still want to have a good conversation today. And I was kind of inspired by Greg's, I guess, telling me last week that I needed to talk about things that were more fun and less serious. you know, I tend to be more of a serious person.

So I forget sometimes that we need to. Well, it's not just you. I mean, I think that that's the thing that when I go back to my days in college, everything was this big ordeal, you know, and because there's so much new. And then you add a relationship in there. And I think as you get older and you start looking at other people, you know, other kids in college, you just want to go, hey, lighten up. So it's just another perspective, you know.

Yeah, yeah. Well, and it's, I totally understand that because even as someone who is more serious, I've been looking around me and seeing people in relationships and wondering, why is, why is everything so hard? It seems like every time I, I ask someone about their relationship, this is not always true, but oftentimes I am finding people who are just expressing how everything is so hard and they're dealing with so many hard. and having all of these hard conversations. And I'm just wondering, do you guys ever have fun? Like, it's making me concerned about ever,

just starting a relationship because I'm wondering, is it just going to be miserable all the time? I don't know. So. Yeah, no. I think, though,

it is hard at times just because you're trying to learn a new person. You're trying to figure out, is this the right person for you? And, um, and I think the hardest part is the thing. things that go unsaid. And that's where people will get the most upset and frustrated and panicky because it's just like things aren't being said and we're filling in the blanks.

Yeah. Yeah. So I guess what I wanted to talk about then today is what are your thoughts, Greg, on how to have fun in a relationship? Do you have any tips, tricks or thoughts about how to best do that? I still go back to, and I want to be very clear, I didn't always do this very well back in my dating days. So, you know, I'd love to say, hey, I did it perfect. No, I didn't. I messed up a lot. But I did learn how important it is to really build the friendship and to really focus on that early on and for, you know, a good bit of that starting time in your, in your relationship. Because I think too many people jump to the serious and being seclusive. And, you know, it's just me and you doing everything.

And we stop spending time with friends. And it just puts so much pressure on each other to make this perfect, to get it right, to go towards marriage, to get every. And instead of just starting off by. building the best friends I'm sorry the best relationships and the best marriages really start

as a friendship because ultimately what you find in marriage is that it continues to be a great relationship when you continue to build that friendship with each other. Yeah I guess because I was just thinking

about how if you don't have a foundation of a friendship, how are you going to get through those hard conversations together? I don't know. I think if you have a really challenging conversation early on, you have no groundwork from which to resurrect from that hard conversation. It's just going to be more divisive than anything else, it seems like, to me. Yeah. And then all these things just become dramatic. Oh, my goodness, this happened. Oh, my goodness, that happened. And I get it. I, I, I want to be very clear.

I'm not trying to say if you're having struggles in your relationship that there's something wrong with you. That happens. But I think there's also something to say it in plain words, lighten up. You know, it doesn't have to be all that heavy. And so, you know, I encourage people to really spend a lot of the first six to eight months building a friendship, not being seclusive, spending time, you know, with that person, but also with other people too, doing things together because you're not only getting to know who they are

personally, but you're getting to see how they are with others. And that tells another story, good, bad, or indifferent. And, you know, sometimes that takes some of that pressure off. But really building the friendship and trying not to, and this can be very hard when we're excited and we feel these low feeling towards each other to really want to move towards the physical. So I guess then in those first six months, are you saying that we need to stick to more surface level conversations or more like, I don't know, those beginning types, I don't know, like, ice breaker type conversations or just do things together. I don't know if I'm expressing that very well, but like, should we stick with that or

can we have deeper conversations? No, I get what you're asking. And I think, yeah, it shouldn't be one of those. Oh, my goodness. I have to find out all this detail. So I know if this is the right one. If not, I need to move on because that becomes this. I think sometimes we put that pressure because we panic.

Like, if I don't find someone in college, I'll never get married. or if I don't, you know, find someone soon that I'm going to be. And I think the first thing I would say is, do we trust that God has what's best for us? And if he does, then, you know, stop putting that pressure on yourself and really spend time being curious about one another. And we do this with friendships. If you think about it, I mean, when you start to build a friendship, with someone, you want to know more about what kind of things you like and what kind of things, you know, frustrate you and what kind of things excite you.

And so that curiosity is good. But it doesn't have to be so focused on, I get to get all these things checked so I know whether to move forward with you for marriage. Yeah. Now, it's, go ahead. So it's not like how many, you shouldn't be having these conversations. conversations about, oh, how many kids do you want two weeks into the relationship? Instead, you should be asking questions like, what do you like to do for fun and how can we do that together?

Or like, what really makes you tick? Or what are you passionate about? Or what kind of talents do you have? Yeah, because this curiosity is something that really needs to continue on into marriage. and this is something that I see as a downfall of many marriages as we get so into the commonplace, going on auto drive, and we take each other for granted, and we stop being curious. And I think some people are like,

well, but we're married. We know everything. No, we don't know everything about each other. And every day you're growing and learning and when you have kids and new things happen. And so the more you can practice that curiosity and even having fun, one of the things that I'm really thankful for about myself. And I think that this was a gift from my own family is I learned to just have fun. Me and your Uncle Jeff, we spent many a day just creating games and having fun with each other, kidding around with each other.

and I think that that's something that I've learned is how do we build memories together? Yeah. Yeah. And so, and look at, don't look at everything as a waste of time. So even if you are interested in someone and that doesn't end up going anywhere, as long as you, you know, try not to be mean or hurtful in that is to maintain those friendships. because I think that there's something neat about that. And there is a time when you are building this depth of relationship where, yes, okay, now we've got to define, are we going to date? And eventually we've got to talk about some of those big ticket items.

But just be careful that you're not jumping so quick because you have expectations and you're desperate. and you need to fill a part of your life or heal a wound because I think a lot of people do that. Yeah, I think there's also something to be said for sometimes as a young person, I appreciate the tendency to have strong opinions about things that maybe you don't have a lot of experience in that realm. And so you express those strong opinions to people around you. And so all of a sudden people think that you hold those opinions. but maybe you learn more about it and your ideas change and your opinions change.

And so I think sometimes it can be dangerous to ask questions of someone and then make it a deal breaker about your relationship because then, you know, you never give someone the opportunity to change. And I think then that can just totally destroy a relationship from the get-go, which is also a danger of having those serious conversations right away when you're still. Just trying to figure out who you are on your own and who you are together as a couple. I'm here laughing because actually it's a joyful laugh because when you said that, it reminds me of so many couples that come into my office early on in their marriage because they come in with these strong feelings about this is the way it's supposed to be and this is the way we're supposed to parent and this is the way. And it's this battle versus two people really trying to live.

learn from each other and try to work together. And so that, again, goes back to that friendship thing. Do we learn? Do we grow? Are we willing to become better through it? Or are we out there? I think so many people, especially I'm just going to, okay, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say, especially people who are in college. You guys are trying to figure out who you are. You're trying to sound smart around a billion other smart people that think that they're dumb, but think everybody else is smarter. And so you're trying so hard to look the look or sound the sound instead of, you know, one of my favorite things from the Bible is just really thinking about Mary.

Because Mary, you know, she sees all this stuff. She's dealing with, I mean, she's got God in her family. she's you know and yet she doesn't she talks less and ponderes more and really draws herself into knowing those who are around her and I think yeah when you say that I think that that's something that's so important is because the relationship helping you become better or is it again something that you're just using to fill a wound an expectation a desperation Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah.

You're listening to Where For Art Thel Romeo, where we are discussing how to have fun. I'm your host, Emily Shuddy, and my co-host is licensed marriage therapist, Greg Shuddy here on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. So you mentioned Mary from the Bible. I'm guessing, I'm assuming you mean Mary the mother of God. Right, there are a few Marys, aren't there? Yeah. So I thought it might be interesting. for you to to give a little bit of your thoughts on a relationship in the Bible and what went

wrong. So I was thinking maybe we could start with Solomon and what went wrong with Solomon. I think that might be, might be a little bit of an easier one to discuss. I would say too much sexual drive. Okay. Because he had way too many wives, which didn't help. you can't have a relationship with that many people. And to me, that's an easy one. He just, you know, and if you look at some of the different relationships from Abraham to Jacob and Isaac,

I think there's, yeah, the ones that had like multiple lives, there was always one that really held their heart. And that's the way God always wanted it. So I think, you know, that's my whole thing with them is you got too many people lying for you and not enough of you. Yeah. Yeah. Now, we could always go to Samson and Delilah. That's a great downfall story. Or David and Bathsheba.

So many options. Yeah. You know, if you feel bad about your relationship, just read the Bible. you'll start to feel really good about how God can redeem it. Yeah, but then there's those beautiful relationships in the Bible like Boaz and Ruth, which there's this beautiful gift of self from both

instead of a forcing the relationship. There's also, you know, the Holy Family that shows us a lot about what a relationship should be. So, yeah. Yeah. I don't know. No, that's helpful. That's great.

You mentioned as you were talking about Solomon, how you can only have one person that really holds your heart. So as we're kind of looking for that person to hold our heart and to hold their heart. I was just reminded of how you and mom talked about when you're trying to have a good relationship, you're trying to find someone who will be attracted to you, trying to have fun and learn how to just be, you know, you're trying to figure out how to be in relationship with other people. One of the best ways that you can do that is through learning to be an interesting person yourself. And so if you want to be able to be attractive to other people, I guess, and also then be able to have a relationship that's not just all so hard,

you have to learn how to be an interesting person who does more than just talk about people and talking about, or like, I don't know, just doing mundane things. Well, yeah, I think it's partly an interesting person, but again, I want to be careful with that. Because I think it means, you know, that you're willing to try new things. You're willing to go outside of your comfort zone and, you know, always build up yourself. Because I know some people, I even say this, your grandpa, my father was very invested in his wife. And sometimes so much so that it kind of took away from some of the other things that he would do. But those other things that we bring into our life that we do together, that we learn, that we read about, that we can discuss, can add to that.

But I also want to say that it's also about not being just an interesting person, but an interested person. When you get into a relationship or any type of relationship, are you interested in others? Because, you know, nothing can really take the life out of a relationship when one person does all the talking. Yeah. And one person doesn't. Yeah. And I think a key point in what you're saying there then is like my relationship is not what is interesting about me. And so being interesting and interested, like exploring the world, having that curiosity like you were saying about the world, about the other people around you is something that it's not all tied up in the fact that you have a relationship with someone, like a romantic relationship specifically.

And so learning to have those things that you like to do outside of just being someone's boyfriend or girlfriend. Because if that's where all of your identity lies, I think that can become very boring and a cause of frustration in a relationship. Yeah. And do you see the value of some of those things in other people? I think, again, we live in a world where unless you're a, you know, an athlete or whether you're this rock musician or whether you've someone that's very successful. You know, it's like, oh, well, I'm not that interesting. I just play cello. Well, I'm not that interesting. I just, you know, do piano or ballet or I just, whatever it might be. And I think that all of those things bring about value to who we are is that interested in trying to improve

ourselves at all times. And that goes again back to are you someone that's trying to improve yourself and become better so that when you get married, you're looking to do the same versus just to grow comfortable. And I think that that's kind of that are you becoming that that interesting person that that's trying to do and become better? Yeah, I really I really like that because I think you're totally right. It's important not to like make people think that they're not interesting because we we can't measure our level of being interesting or interested based on what the world necessarily tells us. We can be very interesting in different ways. I think sometimes it's just diving into what it is that you have been given talents and interest in. And I think that's

always a beautiful thing to do. And I think that that's something that we can fall prey to even as we get older is that I'm only as valuable as my job. So if I've got a grand title and I'm doing talks, then I'm, you know, interesting. I'm, but no, there's so many people doing interesting things behind the scenes. So, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I guess everyone says your reminder to become an interesting and interested person and have a little bit more fun in your relationships. And lighten up. Sorry. And I just want to remind you that relationships are process.

They take time and effort. We just want to help you 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 yet, steal a declaration of independence. Apparently it worked for Nicholas Cage. If you haven't have questions that you would like us to address, please email them to E-S-H-E-S-H-E-T-E at Hillsdale.edu, and we will discuss them in future shows. If you would like to listen to any of our already released shows, you can find them wherever you

find your podcasts. That's all for Wherefore Art thou Romeo. I'm Emily Shuddy. And I'm Greg Shuddy. On Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM.