Dads Dating After Divorce
Dating after divorce isn’t what it used to be—especially when you’re a dad. The rules have changed, the world has changed, and now you’ve got kids in the mix. Join Dallas and Jude as they share real-world strategies and insights from their work with dads and men at BlackBoxDating.com and TheDivorcedDadvocate.com.
Dads Dating After Divorce
10 - The Man You Choose to Be Shapes Your Dating Future
Jude Sandvall and Dallas Bluth delve into the fundamental importance of identifying personal values and beliefs before re-entering the dating world after divorce. They explore how unexamined expectations can derail relationships and provide practical tools for building self-awareness.
Hello and welcome to the show and I am thrilled to be back in action with the Dad's Dating After Divorce. We are revamped and retooled here and just ready to dive right in and talk about some dating after divorce. I have a new co-host. My name is Jude Sample, I'm the founder of the Divorce Dab and my co-host is Dallas Bluth.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Dallas Bluth, with Black Box Dating. I'm a dating coach for men. I help men build real confidence, find deeper connections and ultimately have really hot sex.
Speaker 1:That's what I do deeper connections and ultimately have really hot sex. That's what I do and I wish I'd have found Dallas about 13 years ago. It would have helped me tremendously. As any of you that have listened to some of the previous podcasts that we've produced or have listened to my podcast on the Divorced Advocate I don't want to say every mistake in the book Dating After Divorce, but I've made quite a lot of them and I've been joking with Dallas a little bit that he's going to bring the expertise and I'm going to bring all of the dumb situations and mistakes and all the things not to do for him to analyze and scrutinize about my dating life, in hopes that we can share some pearls of wisdom with you all and you don't make those same difficult, challenging mistakes. On that note, we have kind of a current event situation that came up in the news this week and if any of you I'm dating myself with this reference now, because probably any of you that are younger that read this were like who is David Justice? And you probably know who Halle Berry is, she's a famous actor, an excellent, excellent actress, right? But David Justice and Halle Berry were just in the news because David Justice was on a podcast talking about. Well, the context of the whole thing was he was talking about the scrutiny of stars. And so, dallas, I went back I listened to the whole thing I don't know if you went back and listened to it but he was talking about the scrutiny of being in relationships and stardom. And for those of you who don't know, david Justice was a stud baseball player in the 90s and early 2000s for Atlanta Braves. New York Yankees won a couple of World Series, was just tremendous. Halle Berry, obviously I think she's an Academy Award-winning actress, just a tremendous actress. And they were married in, I think, the mid to late 90s. They were married in, I think, the mid to late 90s.
Speaker 1:And I'm going to read the quote because this is what he said and this is what kind of created some of this spark and outrage on social media, which is like you can say the sky is blue and you get spark and outrage, right. But so let's read it and then we're going to just dive into it a little bit. He said quote, unquote or quote because I was young and I had only honestly been in one relationship before my knowledge and my understanding, my wisdom around relationships just wasn't vast. So I'm looking at my mom and I'm a Midwest guy. So in my mind I'm thinking a wife at that time should cook, clean, traditional, you know. Then I'm thinking, okay, if we have kids, is this the woman I want to have kids with and build a family with At that time as a young guy.
Speaker 1:She don't cook, don't clean, don't really seem motherly. And then we start having issues. Okay, wow, here we go. Right, so Dallas, there's a lot to unpack in there. But give me your initial reaction to this quote. When we first talked about this topic, I don't know who David Justice was. So tell me which is okay, right, like we don't all follow baseball and we don't follow everything.
Speaker 2:What's your initial reaction just to this quote? You know a famous athlete and a famous actress, but the truth is we tend to go into relationships assuming that we have the same picture in our mind that the other person has in their mind. And in that quote he mentions the role that his mother had and what the role of a wife and a mother look like. You know, cooking, cleaning, taking care of kids. Even saying that doesn't get specific enough as far as how much of that, what the expectations are, and this is like classic miscommunication. That happens both in relationships and also in dating. You know, somebody says you know, here we're talking about relationship, but if you said you know, hey, I want to go on a hot date, I'm going to take you out for a hot date on Friday. You know, my brain as a guy has one picture what's hot, exactly yeah. And then she's got a whole different idea of what hot looks like. It might involve a whole lot more of me listening and a whole lot less of us touching, but that's hot in her mind and and the, the, it's, it's, and and.
Speaker 2:What this really comes down to is essentially projecting an image that we have onto the other person and we have to project as humans there. There's no way we can know people you know out of the gate and we can't we can't go off of zero information. We we have to from a survival point of view. We can't go off of zero information. We have to, from a survival point of view, make certain projections. The problem is, as we move forward in dating somebody or being in a relationship or courtship, towards marriage especially, we have to realize that there is a handoff going. There's like a relay race going. Where we start with projections on one side and towards the other side, we start to see what the person's actual pictures are in their mind, what do they mean when they're talking about a marriage? And we need to be very self-aware of that and we have to dispel the projections in exchange for the reality in the person's mind.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I think it's interesting because he says it too right there in his quote. He says my knowledge and my understanding, my wisdom around relationships. It just wasn't vast, and I feel like a lot of us that may not have had anybody that shared with us how to date, what to look for, all the nuances of dating and relationships, which are vast, right, they're so dynamic and relationships can be so challenging that if you don't do what you and so what I'm going to boil down everything you just said is communication, right, like taking the time to really talk about what it is that you want and you said it off the bat which is, well, those are just like tip of the iceberg things to talk about Well, who's going to clean, who's going to cook, but how many babies do you want to have? Where do you want to live? All that stuff is really important to figure out Now, before we go down that road, and how to do that. I feel like it's really important also that we have to know and understand ourselves before we can even convey that to somebody else.
Speaker 1:And so this didn't last long, but I would use an example from my life immediately. Right, I had no clue. My parents' relationship was probably the worst relationship to model for a healthy relationship. I had just whatever I had in my mind from what I didn't want from their relationship, which is all that I could have taken from it, the stuff that may have been out in society and in our culture and stuff that I felt in in in my heart, that that I wanted.
Speaker 1:And and literally, when I met my ex wife, the only the only bar to me believing that she was the one is that she was the one that I could date for the longest period of time and still get along like seven months.
Speaker 1:There was like seven months and I was like, oh, she must be the one we've gotten along for seven months. I've never dated anybody for longer than seven months and I was in my my late mid to late 20s, right, david? I think David Justice says they were in their, their mid, like 25, 26 years old. So you don't know what you don't know and if, unless somebody's guiding you, unless you've made the mistake of getting into a relationship and having the challenge and maybe having the divorce, then having to go back and reassess things, you don't know. So how does one, especially in the context of dads dating after divorce, go about reassessing and evaluating what it is that their values are and what they want, so they don't get into this situation in the next relationship. Because I've got another example of myself of what I did in in my subsequent relationship.
Speaker 2:This is maybe just going to be a therapy podcast for me, dave dallas endless questions, endless mistakes, and and I I haven't made all of them because I haven't been married yet, but I've made. I've made all all the ones you can make before getting married. For sure, actually, dallas, you don't know- but this was my whole intention around.
Speaker 1:This was yeah, just to, to get you to to help me with my relationships by doing a podcast together.
Speaker 2:Anyway, the secret's out okay gotcha, yeah, yeah, much, much, much cheaper, hourly rate understood, okay, um so, uh, yeah.
Speaker 2:So when it comes comes to trying to know your values, knowing your values is really, first of all, you never know them completely. It's an ongoing self-discovery process, and that self-discovery process comes from a few different places. Your parents we all had parents, and they modeled for us a certain set of values. Whether that relationship was healthy or not, it's still being driven by values that those people decided on. I come from two parents that got married when they were 19 and they are still married today, in their early 70s, and by the standards of today, that's considered a huge success, and it really is. It's a testament to commitment. Also, that can lead you to believe that well they've been together. That means that's a great model, turns out that's not entirely true. So the values that we're given from early childhood, the models that are set for us, that's merely a starting point, and the real trick is to develop an awareness of the values that we take for granted. We assume certain things are simply the way you do it. A concrete example growing up, we were never allowed to weaponize words with one another. We couldn't call each other names. We couldn't tell each other they're dumb. Language was not something that we could ever use against someone, even if we were angry, even if we were frustrated or even if we were hurt. That was a hard line that we were never allowed to cross.
Speaker 2:Fast forward, you know, 10, 20 years. I'm out there in the dating pool, dating women that are suddenly completely fine with calling each other names and saying stuff that they don't mean. And they tell me later oh, I didn't mean that. I'm like what do you mean? You didn't mean it For me growing up you didn't say something you didn't mean. That wasn't reality and I'm like okay, so those are my values. Do I want to keep those going forward? Yeah, for the most part I do, but I also want to realize not everybody's coming from the same place. What I found is that that can actually be rather rigid when it comes to conflict resolution with somebody, because I was expected to have a zero tolerance with language and I then expect other people to have a zero tolerance with saying things that they don't mean. That might have made me a little too strict in certain situations.
Speaker 2:So that's one particular value. It's good. I think it's a good value, but if overexercised, that can lead to strenuous situations and really cause relationships that could have gone somewhere to just die on the vine mind. So what I have to do is I have to realize, coming back to self-awareness, that we all have certain values that were just copied and pasted right into our little brains and we think it's reality. We think that that playbook of values that we've been given is the same playbook like 60% to 90% the same as what everyone else has out there. Not true. We want to become aware of what the rules are in our own playbook, what the values are that we've adopted.
Speaker 2:And then two things. One, realize that other people are going to have different values Don't assume that they have the same ones and realize there's a compare and contrast that we want to do and bring it to the surface. Coming back to the marriage that we were talking about between the celebrities, assuming that we have similar pages when we haven't actually read them off to each other, that leads to getting entwined in a very expensive Hollywood marriage that then has to be unwound later. That's one thing. The other thing is I'm aware I have these values. They're running in me by default.
Speaker 2:They might not be the best values. So, for example, somebody might feel that avoiding conflict is a high value because that's how everybody in the family did it and we don't talk about certain things and you can see nobody fights. Well, is that a good value? Depends on the situation. If it's a casual encounter on the street with a stranger, of course that's a good value. Depends on the situation. If it's a casual encounter on the street with a stranger, of course that's a good idea. A long-term relationship where you're going to be living with somebody, in my opinion, that's not going to lead to the biggest open connection that you can have with the person. So we want to check and see how the value, become aware of the values that were instilled in us, compare them to other people, but also look at the values that were in ourselves and ask ourselves do we, for ourselves, want to keep them, do we want to modify them, or do we just straight up want to trade them out for a different set of values?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I want to distill that down a little bit more in a how for the dad's listening, which is so. Maybe you're, maybe you're taking an inventory and reflecting upon the relationship, uh, and your, uh, your, your, your marriage, and what that was like. Can you write a list of all the things that you enjoyed, that you like, maybe values and beliefs that you, that you, that you, uh, that, and beliefs that you, that you, that you, that you had, that you shared, that were were positive and that were good, but then also, right, the ones and the things and the values and beliefs that were challenging? Because, whether whether we want to accept it or not, there is always a relational dynamic. Right, you and I have a relational dynamic going on right now.
Speaker 1:Right, everybody has a relational dynamic that is happening and, to your point, it stems from childhood experiences, maybe trauma, your early adult life experience, like all of your life experiences, distilled all together, put in a pot, mixed all together, and then you meet somebody and then that relational dynamic starts to form. Right, that's the, that's the best way I can, I can, I can describe it. And so when there's an unhealthy, where there are unhealthy parts of that relational dynamic, obviously there's healthy parts of that relational dynamic Otherwise you wouldn't have fallen in love, you wouldn't have gotten married, you wouldn't have had children together, started a family and done that for so many years. But that doesn't mean that there's not, at the same time, unhealthy dynamics that are present. You're just not paying attention to them. Or, like I said, like seven months I was like, yeah, this is the one right, but I didn't take enough time.
Speaker 1:And I think David Justice said after five months, halle Berry asked him to marry her and he was like, yeah, she's hot and I don't want to. He said another thing that was very telling and I would I would welcome people or encourage people to go and listen to it, because it seemed like he had a lot of really good self-reflection on on himself and he literally says near the end that honestly his quote is honestly, we probably could have made it if I knew about therapy. If we knew about therapy, we probably could have made it and we never had any major issues like that. So it was pretty self-aware and he talks about that.
Speaker 1:He didn't know and so, taking that, so give us some advice on how to identify those unhealthy parts of that relational dynamic that you had going on, and I also want to ask that you put it in the context of these unhealthy relational dynamics are typically not isolated to your romantic relationships, right? They're going to show up with your children, maybe at work, with your friendships, et cetera. So how do you first become aware of those and then what can you do with them?
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, big question, lots of answers. I'll jump into the parts that come to mind first. So when we experience relationships, whether they're romantic or, like you said, with friends, with kids, with family, members of the family we were born into, we tend to take the relationship and all the dynamics and interactions in one big lump sum. It's very hard to achieve clarity for ourselves when we do that. We tend to get lost in the back and forth in the conversation. We tend to get lost in the negotiations, and then it quickly turns into justifications and accusations that might be direct but a lot of times are actually very passive and hidden, and it turns into a big mess. The way I like to look at it is what you're trying to achieve is clarity in your interaction in a relationship, and the way you do that is you start to stratify it, just like sort of layers of sentiment in the earth, and what you want to realize is okay, I'm interacting with this other person, this is our dialogue going back and forth, back and forth. That's one part of it, and then I have my emotional side, how I'm feeling about it. That is separate from the words going back and forth. This person could have said the exact same words to somebody else and they would have a totally different emotional reaction to it. That means that those emotions, those are mine, not ours. It's mine. Obviously, what the other person says has an impact on my feelings, but the feelings are mine, so I cut it as a separate layer. That's my emotional layer Also.
Speaker 2:Then, another layer that I would stratify out is the behavior. How, when I have those emotions, when I'm getting frustrated, when I'm getting angry you know, if I have a child and I'm losing patience, when I'm getting angry, if I have a child and I'm losing patience because I've told them 12 times we have to get going and they still won't put their shoes on, that frustration, that's a feeling that's going to happen, whether I choose to yell or whether I choose to go over, get down on my knee, make eye contact with the child and show them that you have no wiggle room anymore. Those are two very different sets of behavior. So the behavior is a whole different strat of you know, a whole different layer that we have to to stratify in this. And the last one is and this is this is really, this is really the piece when it comes to values is values in a large to a large degree, values actually are what define our identity as an individual. And when it comes to behaviors, when it comes to reacting and not reacting, when it comes to good habits and bad habits, honesty, any part of our behavior is going to be driven by, ultimately, what we choose to value.
Speaker 2:And I learned a great template for this. It's a simple phrase. And you say you know, you take a step back. Okay, so you're having an interaction, you feel an emotion, you could see that you could behave one way or another. And then you ask yourself hang on, what kind of a guy am I? And that's the beginning of the template. And you say you know what and this is where the self-reflection comes in you take a step back, you go all right, I could go a few different ways here. What kind of guy am I? And then you decide and you say I'm the kind of guy that. And then you fill in the blank so I'm the kind of guy that yells at his kids after I've asked six times and they don't do it.
Speaker 2:A lot of guys. Their behavior reflects that that is their value. Now, those guys, would they actually say that? No, no self-respecting adult, especially a self-respecting dad is going to want to say I'm the kind of guy that yells at his kids in any situation. He's not. Well, the problem, though, is we're not defining what the value is. We're leaving it open to emotions, reactions, behavior, and we're not actually articulating the core value at the root.
Speaker 2:So if it said, I'm the kind of guy that takes a knee to get his child's attention when I don't have it, that would be. I don't have any children personally, but I do interact with kids. I am an uncle and I have worked with not worked with but I've interacted with kids in fairly intimate situations. Every time that I find that, when I take a knee and they have an adult's undivided attention and they can see that the adult is 100% present, the presence of the child tends to focus in on them, because one thing that children want more than anything is the attention of an adult. They really really do. It's when we say, as an adult okay, you got to get your shoes on, but it's something I said and they have 3% of my attention they're not going to take it seriously. However, if they have 95% of my attention because I've gotten down to that level, I've looked them in the eye, they can see that all of my stillness is focused on them. Whole different reaction.
Speaker 2:And again, those are the behaviors of two very different men, and both of them, along with a limitless number of other men, are living inside of the potential of myself. And I have to choose what kind of a guy I am. So I'm the kind of guy that yells at my kids, or I'm the kind of guy that takes a knee, holds my child by both hands, looks them in the eye and says we need to go now. No more you, no more putting it on them. We need to do this. And when we make statements like that about the kind of guy that I am, we're making statements about our identity and that identity has values fused into it. And from there that's like the lowest level of all the layers, from there the behavior makes sense, our emotions start to shift. And when that kind of guy I am comes all the way out in the conversation, that clears up all kinds of messes, just all on its own up all kinds of messes, just all on its own Right.
Speaker 1:So if I were to boil it down, it's the question helps you to pause and identify the emotion that you're having that is leading to the behavior, right, is that what you're saying? So this I'm the kind of guy. And then you're identifying the behavior that you're exhibiting and if it's not a behavior that you like, that you're comfortable with or being described as, then you need to look at the emotion behind what it is, because our emotions drive everything right. So this helps us to stop and be aware of what we're doing.
Speaker 2:So let me correct what I. Let me just clarify what I was saying. So emotions are there to get our attention that something is happening, something's off. Emotions do not tell us the truth of what's going on. Behavior is something we do by choice. Emotions we don't choose the emotions. For the most part, the behavior. We are 100%, as adults, responsible for our behavior, so that makes them very distinct from the emotions, the identity piece. That is what dictates the behavior.
Speaker 2:If I'm the kind of guy that does this, if I'm the kind of guy that values this, certain behaviors will automatically fall into place. Once I've defined that, the question is what? So we have all these layers just running automatically in us when we ask the question. That's where we're hitting pause. We're going okay, I'm feeling an emotion that is not the kind of vibe that I want to give off as a man or as a dad.
Speaker 2:So I'm hitting pause so that I can get back down to of vibe that I want to give off as a man or as a dad. So I'm hitting pause so that I can get back down to the root and I need to figure out what's the programming at my self-identity level, because if I'm having a negative emotion. There's a conflict inside of me about my identity and I need to go back down right and and um articulate not, you know I had. The question starts it, but then the statement completes it. The statement is what makes it clear. I'm the kind of guy that lifts up everything control, or is in control of his emotions.
Speaker 1:Right, I'm the kind of guy that's in control of his emotions. I'm not the kind of guy that is screaming, yelling at his kids, or I'm the kind of guy that's honest. I'm not the kind of guy that's going to lie about the situation, or or whatever and and um and saying something like I'm the kind of guy that's honest.
Speaker 2:That's, that's an excellent statement. However, honest again is a bit of a summary term, the more personal we can make it. I'm the kind of guy that always speaks the truth. That is a more concrete you can feel it Like if you say I'm the kind of guy that's honest. I'm the kind of guy that always speaks the truth.
Speaker 1:I'm the kind of guy that has integrity.
Speaker 2:Okay, integrity could be a lot. I'm the kind of guy that acts the, that acts the same way whether someone is looking or not. That's one way of making integrity a more concrete concept.
Speaker 1:So what's come to me in talking about this is I'm drawing a correlation between the concept of nonviolent communication that we, that you, perform with somebody else. But this is kind of like a kind of like a, an internal type of nonviolent communication with yourself. You're identifying the behavior You're talking about, how it makes you feel, how you feel what you want to do instead and taking a course correction. So it's almost. It's almost internal nonviolent communication and for those listening that it's almost internal nonviolent communication, and for those listening that aren't familiar with nonviolent communication, it is a concept of how to communicate effectively with another person and there's four or five steps to doing that. But what I'm hearing Dallas describe here is a way to have nonviolent communication with yourself. So there's a lot of positives to what you're saying. Describe here is a is a way to have nonviolent communication with yourself. So a lot, there's a lot and there's a lot of positives of what you're saying, dallas, because one it's not. You're not beating yourself up about it Like I'm I. It's the. I'm the kind of guy it might be. It might be it might shake you a little bit If you, if you do identify the fact. Well, you stopped yourself and you are screaming at your kids or you are not telling the truth or whatever. But that's exactly what we want to do, because we want to course correct on what has been causing these unhealthy relational dynamics. So I really love that I'm the kind of guy and then put in the behavior, right, be specific about what the behavior is, and then the emotion behind it. That's um, that's pretty, that's golden, my friend, I really really like that. That's uh, that is uh, that's amazing because and and I'll use another, uh, I use another example I had some as a as a young adult, had some very significant like anger, being a codependent and raised in a household where I was conditionally loved and having to give love in order to get love and by being a quote-unquote good boy. That just builds up a whole lot of resentment and anger. But I didn't have any idea, right, this is the conditioning that I had in my childhood. So one day somebody told me about how angry that I seemed and I was absolutely shocked, right? And I say that because I want the dads to hear like, some of this stuff it's going to be a revelation, and that's okay, and it's not going to all happen at one time. Also, there's no goal line here. Fellows, this is a continual journey. There's going to be stuff here. There's a reason this is all happening. Number one I know it might be hard to hear but hopefully, if you're listening now, you're maybe a little ways down the path and through some healing. But there's a reason this is happening and I can assure you, having gone through it and worked with thousands of guys that have. One of the primary reasons is some self-awareness and ability to move forward in a healthy and and better functioning way.
Speaker 1:So these revelations, this question, might shake you and you might say, yeah, that's not what I want to be. And then you can start to have that conversation with yourself about, okay, well, let me think about this value, right? And then how do we go about sorting through that? We talked about maybe making lists or or whatnot, and and let's, let's if we can't, if we can, let's define the difference between a value and a belief. And I've got, I've got, yeah, value and a belief, because we hear those kind of inner intertwined and we talked about, we talked about some values here already honesty, stuff like that.
Speaker 1:The way that I define the difference between a value and a belief is a value is something that nobody can take away from you. You can be honest. Somebody can't take honesty away from you. Integrity they can't take integrity away from you. Integrity they can't take integrity away from you Stuff like that. Beliefs are hey, I believe in the First Amendment, hey, I believe in whatever. Right, there's beliefs, but they can get taken away, they get changed, etc. So that's how I define the difference between beliefs and values. Beliefs, essentially, are much deeper and kind of a compass for how you live your life. Beliefs are things that you believe and ways in which you might live your life. If you believe in the First Amendment and free speech, you're going to live your life in a certain way, but that can get taken away if you live in a different country, right. So you can still have a belief in that and go to a different country, and that belief can be taken away from you because you're not going to have it.
Speaker 2:I love that distinction between values and beliefs. I think that's very applicable. Another way that I look at it is I tend to see values as introspective. Looking inward, they're things that have to do with my chosen defined reality within myself. Beliefs have to do largely with what I think is going on in the world around me. So I believe that this woman that I'm going to get married wants to have three kids and, you know, eventually, like over job, when those children are born, that's a belief that I have.
Speaker 2:Now, if I said you know, this is just tying it back into the original topic. If I have a value that my wife is going to be a stay at home mom during those early childhood years, that's value. I want to share that value, you know, with other people. And to childhood years, that's value. I want to share that value with other people. And, to your point, that's not something that's going to change very quickly. I would really have to learn something new about myself where I had a blind spot and now there's a better value that I'm trading it out for.
Speaker 2:The other really important thing and this has to do with it being internal versus external is that values are things, to your point, that don't change. I hold them firmly. My integrity, my honesty, my way of entering into the world and interacting with it is not going to change because that behavior is driven by values, beliefs. However, I hold those very loosely because beliefs are kind of just a cousin to projections. I don't really know what's going on. I think I do. I believe that something's going on, but I need to hold them loosely and allow the belief to be clarified over time as things come into focus. As somebody that I don't know.
Speaker 1:I get to know them better I also just want to circle back to what you said oh, go ahead.
Speaker 1:Yeah I was gonna say, which is basically the definition of how you come about in holding true to your beliefs, because I don't have the same beliefs now at this age as I did when I was 15. Right, so those beliefs change over a period of time and that is by being open. And I think the point of the point of we just don't know everything, right as much as we with our big human brains, we like to think there is an, and I think if you really look at science anymore, this can. Or if you want to look at it from a spiritual perspective, like the more we know, the more we learn, the more questions we have there's. So there's like infinite number of questions that come, of questions that come.
Speaker 1:And if we just approached more of our questions or our relationships that are with you know, this is what I believe, but I don't know, and I'm probably not going to go no in this lifetime or until I meet my maker, as to what, what is true and what's not true, then and that would like kind of loosen the grip for everybody on what we see out there, with everybody, all, me and you and them and us, and it's just insane. So I think that's a really good point in adding a perspective when our beliefs during divorce and after divorce change too, because that's a very, very challenging, challenging times. So how do we, how do we or you were going to make a point. Did you still have that point in your mind or did I just talk it out of it?
Speaker 2:No, it's fine, it's fine. I wanted to come back to what you said about nonviolent communication, and it's normally talked about as a dialogue between two people and how the process I was talking about about getting down to defining your value is essentially a nonviolent communication you have with yourself. I just wanted to add, bill, first of all, wonderful insight, absolutely brilliant right there. And I want to add to that that when we do the work well, let's put this another way, and when we do the work well, let's put this another way. When we don't do that with ourselves first, the communication we have with, much easier for me to say where I stand on a certain point or why I'm making the point that I am. When we haven't done that work individually and, like you said, it can be very shaky to do that work when we haven't done that, we're trying to sort it out inside of ourselves at the same time as sort it out with our partner or with our child. That is going to be, that is going to just turn into a messy, messy situation. So you know, in my coaching with men we have three C's. The first one is confidence. That confidence is that work, that is, you as a man, getting square with yourself and knowing where your values are. You're never done doing that. You're always discovering more. But for this particular situation, for this particular set of emotions that I'm not really cool with, I need to come back, find square one for myself. Where do I stand? And once I have that confidence piece that being square with myself then the second C is communication, and I simply make statements. This is no longer a back and forth sort of. We're both trying to sort it out, but the truth is I'm caught up in my own emotions. No, no, no, it goes all the way down to the root of what the value is. So that internal discussion, with the nonviolent communication, helps to really dispel all of the mess and stress that's happening in the conversation, all of the mess and stress that's happening in the conversation.
Speaker 2:And the last thing I want to throw in there, just to tie back into the fact that this is a difficult moment because, yeah, you're talking about shifting around foundation components inside yourself, when you're talking about defining values, and it is rough when you have to see that your behavior actually doesn't align with your values. That is an emotional place to be. I mean, it can be tears, it can be anger. It can be a lot, and that is the price we have to pay, though, in order to set ourselves straight, and a man that has set himself straight is going to be a way better dad. He's going to provide a lot more tranquility and peace for himself, going through any turmoil, including divorce, and, just because this podcast is about dating, he is going to be so much more attractive and sexy to women when he has set himself straight.
Speaker 2:When has? That's what we mean when you say you know, have you done the work? That's what the work is. The work is realizing my behaviors don't align with my values. Let's define the values and make sure my behaviors are matching up, and that process, like you mentioned earlier, is incredibly destabilizing. It's difficult, it's emotional, but that is what a man does when he's on his journey. A man is constantly reinventing himself, he's digging deeper, he's finding better values. He's always, always trading up to a better version of himself. A guy that's not doing that is getting fat and lazy, so to speak. You know, as he gets older, he's not alive, he's not on fire. You know, in the way that he needs to be.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I'll take it back to the interview with David Justice too. He had mentioned at one point. He said you know, looking back, I can't imagine how Haley felt when I went to her and said, hey, I want to be done with this. But she was truly in love with me and she didn't recognize, she didn't know any of this that was going on in my heart and I didn't bring any of it up and I didn't talk to her, I just said we're done and then I left. I didn't transition or anything, it was just done and so, uh, so I think I think that was a, a, a very poignant, um, uh point and just example of some self-awareness, some self-reflection, uh, uh, some self-reflection, and then maturity, after a period of time of looking back and having compassion for for him, for him, for her, for himself, and how he showed up as a 20 some year old you know I'm gonna say kid, right, but but a 20, 20 some year old young adult, uh, that didn't know what they were doing. And that goes to to what you're, what you're saying, which is, which is it's a progression and it's an ongoing progression and, yeah, it's going to bring up tough stuff, but I'll use a sports analogy or a gym analogy. It's hard when you get into that gym the first time, especially if there's self awareness. If you're just coming in the first time, your muscles hurt, you feel like you're going to die. It is awful. If you're running, you feel like your chest is going to. Whatever you're doing for the first time in exercising your body, it's going to hurt, but after a while you start to see results and then it's the same thing, mentally and emotionally, that it's going to hurt. There's a lot of stuff that's going to come up. I would just say we're not going to dive into this, but if you can avoid romantic relationships during this time while you're doing this work, that's probably a really good idea. I speak this from massive experience myself and making that mistake until I got the two by four upside the head multiple times post-divorce and post-failed relationship after that, because this work is very deep and it's very we call it when we talk about it in group music.
Speaker 1:You're breaking open, which is not a bad thing. That's a good thing, but you're breaking open. You want time to go through that. You talked about grief earlier. Do some healing, learn the emotions and then learn the skills that you need to then get into dating and that communicating right, like we were talking about with the nonviolent communication, or being able to communicate then somebody with somebody. You started with confidence, right. The first one is confidence. So that's that phase where I would say post that you're, you're broken open, you're doing that work and then then you're starting to learn to communicate. But there's skills in that that you still have to learn. And then there's a progression. Uh, that we're. We will talk about in the future, I'm sure on one of the podcasts of the podcasts, because there's a myriad of stuff for us to talk about through this. But yeah, I wanted to make that point Take it slow, guys. Be tender with yourself and your heart.
Speaker 2:You're going to be doing a lot of work and then there's going to be plenty of time for it you know there's going to be plenty of time for it, yeah, and when you talk about breaking it open, that that really is the feeling that you get. When you're, when you're doing it properly, when you're setting yourself square with who really is who, with who you really are deep inside, you are breaking yourself open, because what's happening is you had an identity that you've been living with for years, and when you break it open, that identity is cracking like an eggshell and it's falling out and a new version of you is emerging from inside of that shell. And that is a painful process, you know. Look at any baby bird will tell you that the hardest part of a baby bird's life is getting the out of their shell. Like that is. That is the. That is the thing, however, that you know, um, this disappears lots in nature. That struggle that we go through cracking open and emerging anew, that struggle is what creates the new level of strength that can sustain the new identity, and that is part of it.
Speaker 2:And, when it comes down to it, everything of value, this new version of yourself, everything of value, comes at a price. The price is struggle. When you go to the gym, you are struggling. When you're running, you're struggling. When you're lifting weights, you're struggling just to get your butt into the car you go to the gym, you are struggling. When you're running, you're struggling. When you're lifting weights, you're struggling just to get your butt into the car to go to it. Psychologically, everything of value comes at a price. The price is the struggle, and if anything just given to us without a struggle, the value just isn't the same.
Speaker 1:Right, there's a saying what comes easy won't last long, and what lasts long won't come easy.
Speaker 2:So that's a good mantra. I've got it up dry stone walls, you just stack them.
Speaker 2:You have to dig up the stones out of the ground with a bar, put them in a wheelbarrow, take them over to some other part of the land and start stacking them up, an incredibly slow and painful process. Great overall total body workout Totally great. The cool thing is, though, when you build that wall right, it lasts for generations, and for me it's just a reminder. Um, the oldest structures in in the world are all dry stone structures. They're just stone stacked on top of each other. Um, and when you do it right, which is a very, very slow process, you know, it's the story of the three little pigs.
Speaker 2:You're going to build your house out of straw. You're going to build it out of wood. Are you going to build it out of brick? Well, brick. You going to build it out of brick? Well, brick takes a long time to manufacture and create and then delay. I mean, it is so much more work, but that house will last multiples longer than the wooden house. Doing it. Once you start going to the gym, once you start approaching women, you know the way that you want to. Once you start embracing the struggle, you realize the struggle is where the life is Like. That's how you get the best stuff, particularly as a man.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely I, and I know that's hard for some of the dads that are listening, especially if they're still working through heartbreak and healing from some of that, but you do come out stronger. We call it Life 2.0 in the community With a Life 2.0, it's like an upgrade. I'm telling you guys, it is absolutely remarkable and amazing. You'll probably look back and you'll be talking years later and say this is what happened, this is what I went through, and people will be just amazed at how strong you are in getting through that and the person you have become in getting through it. So to that I say stay strong. And I love the stone wall building exercise that you do or I guess you call it fun. I don't know that I would call it fun, but it's fun for you.
Speaker 2:Okay, but I wanted to Out of perspective. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Whatever, yeah, no, we all have our thing right there's. I wanted to give a couple of resources to the dads that are listening and one of them is a book that is based upon that. It's called Rebuilding After your Relationship Ends and it basically goes through all of what we talked about today and it is a building block. They take a base building blocks and they talk about the emotions. It talks about how to identify the emotions and then the next layer of them like you were talking about the next layer et cetera. So I think it ties in really, really well with what we kind of talked about and also your stone wall analogy as well. But it's called Rebuilding when your Relationship Ends. That's a great book.
Speaker 1:And there's a couple others. I don't know if you've heard of these. One of them is called the Tactical Guide to Women, written by Dr Sean Smith. He's a clinical psychologist here in Denver Metro. Excellent, excellent, excellent book.
Speaker 1:First half of the book is what we talked about today, which is learning about yourself, understanding yourself, learning about your values so that you can communicate them, and it's a great, great read. I feel like, as a 15-year-old boy, I wish somebody would have given it to me and any 15-year-old. I have three girls, so I don't have 15-year-old boys, so any boy, I think, should read this to really try to understand the whole process of dating. I think it would be a great Bible, if you will, for young men that are dating. So that's a good one.
Speaker 1:And then the last one is called the Power of Commitment. It's by a professor here at Scott Stanley at Denver University Scott Stanley at Denver University, and the cool, the interesting thing that I'd like the dads to get from that book is how we talked about not knowing what your values are and how I said my criteria was seven months. This must be the one we get along. He talks about how we backslide into all of our relationships or not all of our relationships, but how we often backslide into our romantic relationships. We start dating, we don't have intentionality or clarity, we don't really know what our values are. We might move in together, we get joint checking accounts and a dog and then we're like, oh, we should just get married now. And that's the wrong way to do it, like, oh, we should just get married now, and that's the wrong way to do it.
Speaker 2:That's what they call a situationship these days. You're in a situation and it evolves, and it evolves and before you know it, somebody got pregnant and now we're married and we never really decided to do any of this.
Speaker 1:Right, right, and so maybe that'll be our next week's episode as we go on to the next step, which is learning how to communicate, sharing these things once you've taken the time to really do the work, and understanding what your values are and define what your beliefs are, et cetera. How do you bring that now then into dating in post-divorce with single moms? You're a single dad, they've got jobs. You've got jobs. They've got an ex. You've got an ex. You've got this heartbreak. They've got all their stuff, their childhood programming and traumas in your childhood. How do you then bring communication of this into dating? So maybe we're just going to put that teaser out there for next week and maybe we'll see, or maybe we'll make you guys wait a couple of weeks and you'll have to listen to us talk about some stuff.
Speaker 2:Can I jump in? I'd like both of us to share one concrete thing on this topic, though, before we wrap it up, and I'll go first. I'd like to talk about something that has shifted in my identity, and I'll talk about the woman that I was with last year. I learned something about myself dating her for a year, and I had to get through the struggle and define a new piece, and what it was was. I realized I'm the kind of guy that dates women that are kind and open, realized I'm the kind of guy that dates women that are kind and open.
Speaker 2:There was a lot of closed offness in the relationship that I had and there was a lot of attacking that was happening and it shredded me up inside. It was really, really hard for me and I realized, oh, I'm dating someone that is not the type of woman that I really date. But I had to say it and I realized I'm the kind of guy that dates women that are open and kind. Obviously, that's notivorce. I'm sure some values you know came to light and you redefined yourself. Can you share one of those with us?
Speaker 1:That incident happened, with somebody pointing that out to me probably in my early 20s, late teens, early 20s where and what the source of that was and how to handle things better and learn how to be a better man around that and show up in a different way. So that was a really big thing for me, especially the codependency thing. Right Was not having boundaries, and so I was the type of guy who was going to love and love and love and love was going to conquer everything and it didn't matter. So as long as I was giving love, I would be getting love right. So that was the kind of guy that I was, which might sound nice, right, nice guy, whatever which is.
Speaker 2:we'll get into that, I'm sure, in some, in some, in some fashion, in our, in our podcast and the fairy tale belief and I'm using the word belief very intentionally here the fairy tale belief that love conquers all. If you're doing it in a very specific way, yes, that that is true, but but you're talking about in the largest sense possible and when we're talking about love being doing things and trying to make people happy, love does not conquer all. But yeah, we will cover that in another episode.
Speaker 1:Well, and it's not even love. So, yeah, we will definitely talk about that. It'll be my next therapy session with Dallas. Join us next week. Talk about that. It'll be my next therapy session with Dallas, join us next week. All right, my friend, that was excellent, excellent, and I also want to point out.
Speaker 1:So a big takeaway, two big takeaways for me, and maybe you can share if you had any other takeaways today is your tool. I'm calling it a tool because it is a tool for us to stop and have self-awareness is the phrase. I'm the kind of guy. So stop, yeah, stop. I'm the kind of guy that and then fill in the blank with what behavior you are exhibiting and that's going to give you a real, it might give you a wake-up call, it might be, or it might help you say, okay, I'm on the right track. It could go both ways, right, but um, that is a great tool to to help you analyze and do some self-reflection.
Speaker 1:And then the other was the, the mvc, the non-violent communication with yourself. I just, I just love that. That one. I'm gonna have to do some more reflection on myself and self-reflection, uh, and and maybe work through that in my mind. That's going to take me a little bit of journaling, I think, and a little bit of time to think about it, because I've never really even thought about it from that perspective. And I love that because it's a beautiful gentle way in which you can communicate with yourself. I do it all the time outwardly with that I that I meet and my children and everything else, but I'd never thought to do it with, uh, with myself, and kind of have that internal dialogue so, um, so, that's a, that's a, that's a cool one. Anything, anything that came up, man, I'm telling you this was amazing. Your, our conversation was was gold Dallas? I appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Right back at you, jude. I love, I love all the material you're bringing and I love the audience that you have that is hungry for a new approach to dealing with conflict and dealing with themselves as men in the midst of all the turmoil. Actually, one of my takeaways is from what you just said, which was when you make that statement about your own identity that you might have to make it again. We are going to be tested. If I'm the kind of guy that always speaks the truth that doesn't make it suddenly easy to do, that's going to be tested over and over and over again and I have to restate the statement. I have to say, yes, this is the line, this is the rock, I set it down. This doesn't move inside of me until I see a really good reason that reiterating and reaffirming those components of one's identity is a huge part of it, and that work is just never done. It's never done.
Speaker 1:Amen, yep, yep. It's a journey, not a destination, for sure. So, dallas, where can anybody listening get a hold of you and get some more pearls of wisdom if they want to work and talk with you directly?
Speaker 2:If you're looking for pearls of wisdom, just real fast. Search for Dallas Bluth Dating on YouTube. That's where most of my video content is. You can also find me on Facebook and Instagram, where most of my video content is. You can also find me on Facebook and Instagram, but those are smaller versions of what's already on YouTube. I also do group coaching sessions. It's a live motivational talk and office hours every week, along with a write-up one page on a certain topic that I'm doing and some other goodies thrown in in my group coaching packages. Check out blackboxdatingcom. It's $45 a month, $35 a month if you do it by the year, and you get discounts to all kinds of other stuff. So blackboxdatingcom, that's the place to go.
Speaker 1:Awesome and I'm going to encourage everybody also to check out thedivorcedadvocatecom. That's the community that I founded and we assist dads before, during and after divorce. We've got resources for you wherever you might be at, like this with dating, but also it could be legal, mental, emotional, physical, spiritual, whatever it is. So check out the website at thedivorcedadvocatecom and we will talk with you next week. Dallas, thanks so much, always a pleasure. Thanks, jude. Talk to you next week. Bye.
