Brandon Held - Life Is Crazy - Episode 24

In this episode, Brandon Howell talks about the struggles he and his wife faced being in a long-distance relationship. After nine months of being married and living apart, his wife finally got approved for a visa to move to America. Brandon was excited to start his new role as a consultant, which allowed him to work from home. He was looking forward to spending time with his wife and having more time with his children. Despite the challenges, Brandon believes that the struggles they went through made their relationship stronger. He emphasizes the importance of being able to adapt and make changes in a relationship. Welcome back to Brandon Howell's Life is Crazy, Episode 24, and as I'm getting towards the end of talking about the journey of my life, remember to check out brandonhowell.com and if this is the first episode you're receiving, go back and start from episode 1 because it's a life journey and it really doesn't make sense if you don't listen to it from the beginning. And I don't know how many episodes are left, I have an outline put together, but I don't really know how much I'll get through the outline until the episode ends, so it could be one more, it could be two more, I'm not sure. But the last I left off, you know, my wife was still in Brazil and we were married for 9 months at this point and still haven't lived together after 9 months of being married. We were together for over a year, 13 months at this point, living apart and just absolutely being, you know, tortured I guess is the best word when you have to stay apart from someone you love that much for that long and just, you know, having 8 day visits once every 4 to 5 months. So now we were excited, she got approved for the visa and now it's just a matter of booking her flight and, you know, her saying her goodbyes in Brazil and bringing what she can bring to America, which is essentially mostly, you know, just clothes, jewelry, stuff like that, nothing big could come, and starting her life all over again in America with me. The way everything lined up, you know, it went from being in this situation where I was driving to work every day, sitting in an office at a desk where not a lot was going on because, you know, the electronic health care records system had gone live, I would make minimal changes daily and, you know, I'm sure there are people out there just like me who some days at work think why the hell do I have to be here when, you know, the majority of the day is filling space, filling time because the actual work that needs to be done doesn't even take one third of the hours you're designated to be there for, right? I get it. I was there for the just in case and sometimes those just in case popped up, but that was all done by email and I responded by email and, you know, any quote unquote fire would be put out, could have been put out from far away. So whatever, it is what it is, I digress. So I was getting my new role as a consultant where I would be able to work from home for the VA and now my wife was finally coming to live with me and it just so happened that the same Saturday she would arrive to be here, the Monday after, two days later would be the day I would start my new role. So it was all coming together nicely. So she would arrive, I would get to spend the weekend with her and then I would wake up Monday morning and I wouldn't have to drive, you know, across the city into a building and be away. I could be at home all day, you know, working while she was there in a new country all by herself, ideally in a perfect world, I would have had time to take off so I could spend time with her, you know, and help her get accustomed to the new way of life and spend time together. But obviously I had been spending my PTO going to see her, which was irrelevant in this case because I was taking on a new job, new role, and I had to earn the time off. So it was perfect that I got to work from home. So now I had my wife, now I got to work from home and now I could start taking back custody of my sons 50-50 because I had the ability now to get them to school and pick them up from school. And life was just back to another great place again after about, I don't know, two years of anxiety and missing my kids and, you know, a little over a year of having someone that I love and not being with her. And it was a tough time. It was a really tough time. My wife and I, after the facts, when she arrived, even sometimes a little before, but after the fact, you know, we made jokes that if we had known everything we had to go through to be together with someone from another country that we were going to have to go through, we probably never would have went on a site to begin with in the first place to meet someone from another country. And there's some joke to that, but there's some truth to that. You know, there's some joke in, you know, maybe when you know how hard something is going to be before you start it, you just decide not to start it at all. I get it. You know, I've certainly done that in other areas of my life. I thought about going back to school to get a doctorate. And then, you know, when I hear three years of classes and then, you know, then a thesis after the fact, and some of my friends that have doctorates, I've seen what they've gone through in the thesis process, right? That knowledge of knowing what that thesis process is and what people have gone through is the part that cripples me. It's the part that stops me from getting a doctorate because if I was blindly ignorant like I was when I started in, you know, online dating apps to meet someone in a different country, I probably would have gone for it. I probably would have said, oh, three years of classes, you know, easy peasy. I'll knock those out and then I'll get the thesis done ASAP. But I learned just how much out of your hands that thesis process is and just how lucky you need to be with the people that are, you know, making the decisions on if your thesis is headed in the right direction and are you doing the right things and is it good enough to go before the board and be defended, you know? And that's just, it's a tough process. It's a hard process and frankly, it scared me away. So this probably would not have been any different for both of us. Now, having gone through it, you know, having finished it and getting out the other side, are we glad we did it? Hell yeah, absolutely. My wife is the love of my life. I have never loved anyone as much as I love her. It blows my mind because I didn't even know that I could find that. I didn't think that that was possible to have this kind of love for a wife, you know, let alone someone that I didn't call kid because prior to this point, my three sons were by far the people that I loved the most in this world and now I had a wife that I could put up in that stratosphere with them and I never had that before. So hell yeah, the end product was worth the struggles getting to that point. And maybe I would feel the same way about a doctorate, I don't know. But what scares me even worse is maybe I won't, you know, maybe I'll go through all that struggle, all the costs, right? Because it's not free, you got to pay for it. And in the end, I'll feel like it wasn't worth it. So I don't know. But anyway, in this case, we lived through it together. I think it made us stronger as a couple. I think as we went through ups and downs and had our difficulties, and we did, we went through some ups and downs and had our difficulties both apart and when she got here because, you know, it's all an adjustment. It's all an adjustment. But all the struggle that we had to get to that point was power. It was faith building and building a solid foundation that, you know, yeah, we're going to run into some shit, but we're going to overcome that shit because we had overcome so much just to be together. And, you know, that's what you need in a partner, right? That's what you need when you are looking for someone to be with and you need someone because the only thing you can count on at the end of the day in life is what you are going to do, right? You can only know your actions, your behavior, you know, what you're willing to put up with, how far you're willing to go, you know, how much loyalty or, you know, how you're not willing to give up or all those things, only you really know what you can do. And sometimes you may surprise yourself and realize you could do more than you thought you could, or maybe you can't do quite as much as you thought you could. But either way, that's the only part that you're in control of. When you have a partner, no matter how well you think you know them, no matter how much you think you got a good read on who they are as a person, you absolutely have no control when they decide, I don't want to be in this anymore. I give up, you know, I quit, I tap out. You know, it's, it's not something that you have control over and that's the scariest part of love. It's the scariest part of giving your heart to someone and, you know, potentially having it ripped out and stomped on because you don't have any control of that other person and how they're going to feel and how they're going to react to situations and, you know, what the final outcome will be. You can only do as much as you can do. Now, having said that, can you do things that will help your partner be someone that, you know, you can count on and you believe will be there for you? Absolutely. You know, we have, we have to, we have to be able to adapt and adjust as people. And, you know, some of the people that I see in life who just feel like, oh, I'm so down on my luck, you know, love isn't for me, blah, blah, blah. It's because they just are who they are and they don't want to make any changes. Right. I mean, there's this woman, Natalie, who's on 90 Day Fiance and she's a pretty, you know, Russian woman, got blonde hair, blue eyes. I don't know. She might be from Ukraine. I'm not sure which, which area she's from. So I apologize. But, but, you know, I've seen her go through relationships where for, you know, for whatever reason, guys love her, but she's so difficult and so hard to get along with, right. And, you know, in the most recent episodes, you know, she's just like, maybe love just isn't in the cards for me. No, it's not that at all. You're just not someone who will chill, you know, chill down and tone yourself down. And, you know, she's so, when she gets mad at you and she, you know, gets upset with you, she wants nothing to do with you. You're nobody to her, you know, it's just, she's the worst of the worst when, you know, it's like she becomes this just cold human being without a heart, you know, and that's how she is when there's trouble in the relationship and, you know, people can only put up with so much of that, right. And you have to grow as a human being. You have to get better as a human being. And if this is you, if you're someone like this, if you're someone that when you get mad, you know, you're out of control in whatever form or fashion that is, whether it's physical, whether it's emotional, whether it's, you know, with your mouth and your words, which is, that's where I could cut like a knife is with my mouth and words. You have to get that stuff under control. And if you don't get that stuff under control, you are pushing people away, you know, no matter how, how many times they forgive you or how many times they, you know, overlook it or whatever the case is, you know, it wears on you, you know, and it eventually reaches a point where you just can't put up with it anymore, you don't want to do it anymore. Right. So you have that control in a relationship to, uh, ingratiate yourself with someone so that even when the times are tough, you're not making them worse with your behavior. You're not making them worse by showing your ugliest sides. And you can tone that down and you can make adjustments. And by God, if you're with someone that you want to spend the rest of your life with, and you have those behaviors, you better make those adjustments because nobody worth a salt, worth having is going to stick around because they know their worth, they know their value, right? And so while you can't control other people's reactions and behaviors and what they're going to do, and you are putting your heart on the line because potentially, you know, someone could break it, you can control what you do and definitely set the tone of how likely or unlikely that will be to happen. And in the end, you'll find out that it's worth it, right? A true, deep love of someone you can share your every fantasy with, your every thought, your, your positives, your negatives, you know, and they just know who you are inside and out because you just share everything with them and they share everything with you. And you're just on the same page about, you know, relationships and marriage and, you know, the do's and don'ts and, and all those things. And it's just so rewarding. It's so valuable and so rewarding that it's just worth it. You know, my wife makes me a better person. You know, I can truly say that she makes me a better person. Um, I don't know if I could say that about any wife that I had before her. As a matter of fact, I would argue that I couldn't, that they probably made me a worse person because they brought the worst out in me and, you know, the younger I was, the worse I probably was because I probably had less control. I probably had less understanding of the long-term ramifications of a short-term behavior. You know, I just didn't get some of those things. Um, you know, so it took some heartache. It took some real personal growth and looking inside to see what was I doing wrong, what can I do differently, how I can be different and that's how I can be different, you know, I have a sharp tongue and I can cut like a knife with that tongue, um, but if I love someone and I don't want someone to, you know, do away with me and have me not be a part of their life anymore, I can't cut like that with that tongue, I have to find a way in me, whatever steps that takes to be able to curb that and take that back. And so, you know, one of the things I do with my wife now, cause we have had some fights where I did cut like a knife with my tongue and, you know, I did say things that hurt her and I regret that. I feel horrible about that. And if I could turn back time and I could redo it and I could just get those things out of her head and, and if she had never heard that from me, I would do that. I absolutely would, uh, but I can't do that. Right. And I also had to recognize that if I keep behaving that way, I'm going to be divorced four times. And I definitely didn't want that because this is the woman of my dreams. This is who I want to be with until I die. And so I had to make a difference. I had to make a change. And, you know, one of the ways I did that was by recognizing that when I reach a certain point of anger, whereas before I would just keep fighting and arguing and be willing to say whatever came out of my mouth, I have to walk away and she has to let me walk away. Right. Even if she wants to keep arguing or keep discussing the issue or whatever the case is, if either one of us recognizes it's only going to get ugly from here, the other person has to let them walk away. You have to let them do it. No, no value comes from continuing that. No good value. It's just bad from that point on. And so that's how you can make a difference. That's how you can make a change. And that was one of the things that I have done. And I'm proud of myself for doing it. I'm proud of myself for recognizing. That, you know, I the steps that I need to take and what I need to do, but also a little bit sad with myself that it took me until, you know, 50 years old to figure that out. Right. And it did. It took me that long to figure it out. Why? Because I didn't have someone telling me exactly what I've been telling you. I didn't have anyone, any trusted, you know, father figure, mother figure, anyone to give me this kind of guidance in life. I just didn't have it. You know, I'm, I've known some good people. I didn't open up to them. Enough to share this kind of behavior because it's embarrassing. It's embarrassing to say, I've said things to my wife that I regret, not just this wife, my previous wives, and they've said and done things to me, you know, I'm sure they regret that they probably wouldn't want it to be public knowledge. Um, but the only thing you can do is stop doing it, be different, you know, learn from other people's mistakes and hopefully I can be that mistake that you're learning from, if I had my way, I wouldn't be, you know, I would be able to give you this advice based off the advice someone gave me. But it, you know, that's not the situation I'm in. This is the situation I'm in. So, uh, continuing that thought process, uh, you know, I was able to make some changes and, and through making those changes, I feel, you know, much more confident in secure in what I have as a partner and that it can be lifelong and, um, you know, another part of me is I'm a runner. Uh, I'm a runner when things fall apart, you know, I want to run, I want to get out of the situation and I want to be done with it as soon as possible because I don't want I don't, I actually don't like confrontation. I don't like the stress of hard times and sometimes you reach a boiling point in a situation and you're tired of it and you sick of it and you realize it's not getting better, you're not gaining any headway. So the only way to stop this situation is to run away from it, to absolve it and do away with it. And that was another part of my personality I had to grasp and get control of is, you know, you can't do that to someone that you love and you want to respect you and cherish and, you know, have a quality loving relationship with because just because you said or behaved a certain way in an argument, which used to always be my get out of jail free card, well, I said it in an argument so it doesn't count. That's not how it works, right? That's like saying, oh, I, you know, shot that person with a gun when I was mad and, you know, I take it back. No, the bullet has been fired. The bullet has hit the body, right? The words have hit the brain and they can't be taken back. What's done is done. And so you have to get a grasp on that. You know, I've always, always had the grasp on physical abuse, right? For me, that was just clearly apparent as even a teenager that you can't physically abuse a woman. You can't do that. That's wrong. No excuses for it, right? Men are bigger, stronger, badder. If a woman's attacking you, which I have been attacked, you don't have to attack back. You can sedate them in a way by grabbing them and calming them down. Like you, you can do other things to protect yourself without actually being aggressive towards her. That was always, always, always obvious to me. But what wasn't obvious to me is the pain that your words can cause, even in a fight. The pain that telling someone you don't want them anymore just because you're mad and you want to be out of the situation causes, right? I mean, to me, that was like a big deal. I'm not punching you in the face. I'm not kicking you. You know, I'm not physically hurting you. These are just words. That's literally how I used to justify that, that I would say, this is nothing compared to what I could be doing to you, right? Because I'm a man and that's what men do when they lose control, but I have enough control to never do that. So I just use words. Wrong. Words are painful. Words hurt. Just as much sometimes, if not more than a physical beating and you have to get that under control. You have to, you have to figure that out or the only person who's really going to suffer for that in the end is you, not the only, right? Because any lost love is a loss, right? If you loved someone and you lost them and you've gone on with your life and, you know, maybe better things, maybe happier things, a love lost is still a love lost and that may sound silly or trivial, but you know, it's not easy losing someone you love, no matter what the situation. So get it, get it together. If this is who you are and this is speaking to you and this somehow resonates with you, uh, you know, make that change, do whatever it takes. You know, maybe you don't know that this is who you are. Maybe you don't know the things that are your triggers or the buttons that push you to get that way. It doesn't matter when you get to that point, that's where you have to put a stop to it, right? And you have to be open and you have to make it clear and you can get help. There's nothing wrong with therapy and seeing a therapist. I've been to multiple therapists, both individually and marriage, and it's helpful. It's beneficial. It can get you through some tough times. It can help you grow as a human being. You know, I'm not saying they're all great and they're all right because they're not. Uh, but when they can give you, uh, information that is helpful and beneficial for you, take it, you know, use it, help become a better person. All right, I went off on a tangent there, but that's where I'm going to end this episode. Thanks for joining and, uh, as always, you know, go to my site, talk in the comments, you know, let me know what you think of this topic and what I had to say, and, uh, I will talk to you next time.