Roller skating nights have a way of sending you spiraling back to the good old days, don't they? Let's rewind together as we chat about the pure thrill of the rink, the inadvertent comedy of menopause-induced memory gaffes, and the sometimes harsh realities of aging. But it's not all wistful nostalgia; we're also tackling the grit it takes to bounce back from injuries and how an activity jar can shake up your routine in the most delightful ways.
Relationships are a labyrinth, and we're walking it with you, from the oddities of rapid-fire romance within a cult, to how a couple keeps the spark alive 26 years in. We get raw and real about evolving communication, how we've ditched authoritarian shadows for autonomy, and the courage it takes to address parenting regrets. Plus, a young mom's leap from adversity to entrepreneurship offers an inspiring testament to the power of determination.
Finally, we'll broach the intricacies of personal growth post-religious life, the importance of balancing individuality with togetherness in relationships, and the risks that come with newfound freedom. We'll wrap it up with a conversation about how these experiences shape us, without letting them define us, and an invitation — join us, contribute to the conversation, and find a bit of yourself in these shared human experiences.
Thanks for listening!
Roller skating nights have a way of sending you spiraling back to the good old days, don't they? Let's rewind together as we chat about the pure thrill of the rink, the inadvertent comedy of menopause-induced memory gaffes, and the sometimes harsh realities of aging. But it's not all wistful nostalgia; we're also tackling the grit it takes to bounce back from injuries and how an activity jar can shake up your routine in the most delightful ways.
Relationships are a labyrinth, and we're walking it with you, from the oddities of rapid-fire romance within a cult, to how a couple keeps the spark alive 26 years in. We get raw and real about evolving communication, how we've ditched authoritarian shadows for autonomy, and the courage it takes to address parenting regrets. Plus, a young mom's leap from adversity to entrepreneurship offers an inspiring testament to the power of determination.
Finally, we'll broach the intricacies of personal growth post-religious life, the importance of balancing individuality with togetherness in relationships, and the risks that come with newfound freedom. We'll wrap it up with a conversation about how these experiences shape us, without letting them define us, and an invitation — join us, contribute to the conversation, and find a bit of yourself in these shared human experiences.
Thanks for listening!
Hi Liz, hi Rachel, like playing the Jeopardy song in my head.
Speaker 2:It just. It makes it so much easier, since we're super like low-fi and low tech. Like, if I have to go back in an edit sound, I'm like, oh my god, my day is so harder. And I'm like it's just easier if we start from like a clean slate, and it's like, yes, there's the sound, yes, yes, and I'll have to cut off like the very beginning of that, but it makes it so much simpler that way. Yes, I just use my, my Mexico chapstick, mexico chapstick Lavenda.
Speaker 1:Oh, that sounds Lavenda.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's pretty much Bert's Bees, but Lavender Anyway, cool, all right. Well, how are you?
Speaker 1:I'm good.
Speaker 2:I'm tired and sore and falling apart, but I'm getting better, I think, although um I just want to keep a 99 year old lady like jumping to the swimming pool off a diving board. It's like y'all ready to prepare for this shit, cause that's going to be me in what 40, 44 years? I'm going to be up there and be like 99, I'm going to swimming pool.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, just got to keep moving right, yes, that is, that is all I can do, you know, otherwise you stop and you die. So I will. I will keep moving, but, um, I definitely feel it. I've got to figure out how to get my, like, all of my functions working properly. And then, like I'm like I'm going to be talking to you and when you're talking, menopause is like the worst thing, and I mean until you're in it, I don't think you understand, because you hear people talk about it and you're like, okay, that sounds horrible, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm irrelevant, it is, my brain is just like gone, like I have no freaking brain lately. I'm like my. I don't know where it is, but I need to find it and put it back in because, like, I can't remember anything.
Speaker 1:But anyway, I was trying to mix something up and so I needed the beaters and I like a hand mixer yes, like a hand mixer, you know, but the little, two little things that go in the hand mixer. So, anyway, I'm like looking everywhere for them, um, and I went to make coffee and I go back to the drawer and I'm like where the hell are the, the beaters? So I pull the drawer and we live in this old house that like the drawers don't stay, so like if you pull them too far they're coming out and I dump the entire contents of the junk you like, you know spoons, spatulas, all that kind of shit on the floor, on my toe which was super painful. So then I am and like in their cussing, and he walks in. He's like what the fuck? And I said I don't know where the beaters are.
Speaker 1:I have looked everywhere and he's like freaking roommate three. He instantly like thinks that one of our kids, which roommate three, cleans my house sometimes, so she put stuff up sometimes where she thinks that goes. So instantly he thought she had put it in the wrong spot. Nope, she did not put it in the wrong spot. So basically, about two minutes later I go over to the coffee machine to get my coffee and the beaters are sitting on top of it. Yeah, so in my brain I was looking for them and grab them, but then forgot that I had grabbed them and set them down and was still looking for them. So all of that could have been eliminated if I could focus for five minutes. I mean, oh my gosh, it's just ridiculous.
Speaker 2:So I totally well, I don't fully understand because I'm not quite there yet. I'm sure it'll happen soon enough. There is news on that. I'll let you know in a bit, but that's an off air conversation that I'm a little concerned about at the moment. How's your?
Speaker 1:knee from roller skating.
Speaker 2:It's okay. I'm very certain I bruise the bone so I still cannot really weight bear on my knee, Like I can't stand on my knee, Like I can't kneel down. But again, I have full range of motion. I know these things. I'm the best PT I know. So I'm like okay, I have full range of motion. I can fully stand on it and weight bear on the leg.
Speaker 2:So, it's not structural damage and then I can fully flex and fully extend the knee. So there's nothing. I didn't tear at Ligamender, None of that. The thing I was worried about is if I fractured the actual kneecap, the patella like the bone and I may very well have, but I'm very good at healing usually.
Speaker 1:How long has it been since you went roller skating?
Speaker 2:Well, what do we go Friday night? Oh no, we went Saturday night, which was absolutely a blast. I forget how much culture Like roller skating. Oh, my. God, there is a whole thing.
Speaker 2:Like there's, you know, like when you go to a country bar and they have line dancing, like there's a whole entire like subculture of that for roller skating, which is absolutely like it's mesmerizing, it's it's, it's gleeful, it's joyous. It's like you know the TV series Glee, where it's like the choir, you know musical shit. It's just, it's fun. And next time a partner and I both really enjoyed it. We probably went for about two and a half hours and then we were both like, okay, we're kind of gas like, and that was after I played volleyball that morning for about two hours. And then we had a day and we went out and did some things and then we went and rollerskated and, yeah, about two and a half hours we were like, okay, we're done, but it was really fun. And if we go again which I think we probably will this is I don't know if I told you this, but we did, it's really fun.
Speaker 2:Actually we did a jar like a mason jar thing, like at the end of the year, and we both put a ton of like activities and stuff to do in it, like all over the place. So some of them are, like you know, mostly just things to do, so like if you're like, oh, we're sitting around, we've got a night off, we can do something. There's things that you wouldn't necessarily like. Oh, what do you want for dinner?
Speaker 2:You know that whole thing where you're just like um and so yeah, we put all those things in there and then we've been pulling them out, you know, when we're like, oh okay, hey, let's do a jar thing tonight and we pull them out and we go do them and then like the ones that we whoops mic down, the ones that we really like we're going to put in one pile, like to maybe use again later, and then like don't work out, you know, or kind of like maybe time constraints or you know something weird. You know we might, you know, ditch and put off for a you know a different time, but anyway, it's kind of a fun, easy, like personable way to like do things that are like we wouldn't have gone roller skating, like we would have been like no, maybe I don't know, you know you'd get all indecisive about it and shit, and I was just like this is really like okay, we pulled it out of the jar I had on the thing like roller skating or ice skating.
Speaker 2:I kind of left it open based on you know what's available. A lot of the ice rinks around here have, like leagues that play in them a lot, so there's more ice rinks, but there in the ice rinks that are around here, there's less available time, gotcha.
Speaker 1:So there's only, like, okay, saturdays from one to three PM is right Skate times for those, and I feel like that's the same with bowling, because there's so many like league nights and stuff, you can't just go. I'm going bowling because it could be a league night, you know. I mean you have to go on specific nights, so that's right.
Speaker 2:So the roller rink was nice. It was like open all day Saturday from like one to 10 PM. The only problem was next time we go, I'm going to go when it's adult skate only because there was like. The reason I like fell in the first place was I was trying to avoid they give these kids like this little Walker thing and it's like a triangle shape like it looks like a Walker. Only it's like a triangle like PVC pipe with wheels on it. Yeah, little kids learning, or even some adults which was fucking hilarious are rolling around the ring with like this little Walker thing, like old people, and so they get their. You know, we all live about them.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, and then the problem is that these kids will form a line across the whole thing, so then you have nowhere to go and you don't want to like knock a kid out of their little like Walker Right In and out of them a little bit and I'm like, okay, next time let's go and it's just adults, kids only yes, yes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, anyway, I fell right on my kneecap. I thought I I may have broken it, I don't know, but if it is broken it's healing. So, whatever it's not structural, I can still use it, and I just have to take it easy. How are you healing up? I am, you are Well, and then when you're going to gym, though. So right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I haven't been to the gym in two months because I had that freaking surgery.
Speaker 1:And then I hurt me for six weeks and then I just kind of pushed it a little bit more and so anyway, I went and worked out and I am kind of competitive in things like that and so in all aspects of life. So anyway, I was like, oh, I can do what I did two months ago, you know, picked up 40 pound dumbbells and I'm like I can do chest press with this, and I was like two reps in and about to freaking die. And then, of course, I pushed through to a set and then I went down to 25, because I can't do 40, but still even 25 kicked my ass. I was like, oh my gosh, I am like so sore today my armpits are, like you know under here, very sore, yep, and my chest all across, my chest Lift and then boobs, you know all the things. But anyway, and then my abs to oh God, abs haven't been worked in a while. So, yeah, my body's hurting from that, but at least it's not like from falling.
Speaker 1:I think I'm pretty much healed from that, except for my knee that's been bothering me, but my knee I am not even going to fuck with the doctor anymore because they are so nonchalant about everything. I mean I went in November. They said they would get me an MRI. It is January 30th and nothing. And I have called the office twice to see if we're getting an MRI Nothing. So I'm like you know what. I'm just going to deal with this a while longer and hopefully it just will heal itself. I think taking it easy maybe helps. I don't know Stretches. I found some stretches on the internet. So anyway, we'll just try that and see if we can get it to heal on its own. I mean I don't think it's probably. I mean it was a pop.
Speaker 2:Yeah, which is usually indicative of ligament or tendon. Yes, ccl, mcl, all those things, and you partially tore it, then it may not yeah, if it's just partial.
Speaker 2:Maybe it'll just heal. Yeah, you may not need surgery. Taking it easy, yeah. And then, yeah, you can start slow. Just take it easy, yep, yep. That's the plan. The body has a I have a booger, boogery nose. The body has a really fantastic way of healing itself, quite honestly, without a lot of intervention. Yes, a lot of times, mm, hmm, anyway. So what are we? What are we doing today?
Speaker 1:We're going to talk a little about relationships.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay, I'm on the wrong day. Cool, that's fine, let's do it. Is that cool? Yeah, I was thinking we were going to do the other one, but that's fine, let's do it. Okay, let's do it.
Speaker 1:Do it, do it, do it, do it. Define a relationship. A relationship can be with a person and object. Let's see I looked it up earlier Intentable which two or more concepts, objects or people are connected, or the state of being connected. So, like you know, you've got a relationship between you and your landlord. You've got a relationship between your bed you and your bed. Oh my God, I want a better relationship with my Food, food, yes. Relationship with food, alcohol that has been a tough one for me my entire life. The relationship with food you can relate, probably Just because we had such a bad one when we were growing up that my relationship with food has been fucked up until, I'm going to say, about four months ago, I think, I finally got it figured out, which is crazy, but anyway, yeah, relationship with alcohol, alcohol.
Speaker 1:Object Family yes, Family you can have a relationship with, but what I kind of want to talk about is relationships like your personal relationships with, like a partner or a significant other, or marriage or that.
Speaker 2:So Interpersonal relationships with us and our partners or other. Romantic, yes, romantic relationships. Yes, yeah, yeah, and you need to give that a good, solid background in terms of our yeah Right, of that growing up.
Speaker 1:So I met my husband inside of the cult. He was not in the cult very long. He came there and we met. But short, short dating life. We were married on the anniversary of our first date, One year.
Speaker 2:So one year between the first date you went on and the date yes was married. Yes, yeah, that escalated quickly. I don't know what's that?
Speaker 1:But I mean, what is your other options?
Speaker 2:if you're in a cult, yeah, but you have to describe that in itself, because for anyone who's listening and doesn't really understand it, that's it's complicated in terms of.
Speaker 1:Right, so you're not. There's no physical touch. There's no. This is in adults, as adults, as adults Over 18. Yes, no phone calls. You could talk on the phone for 20 minutes. We never followed those rules. We did, however, follow the no touching rules. If you went on a date, it was a chaperone date with a leader in the church. So if you want to move that relationship to the next level, I mean, basically You're a married marriage, just one option.
Speaker 2:Well, okay, and that is so extreme, right.
Speaker 2:It is, it's probably one of the most extreme ones that I know of. Right, like even my friends who are in or were in even the well-known IFB churches and stuff. They had some dating in high school. Yeah, like you were allowed to have a boyfriend. You really couldn't Physical contact wasn't a big, they couldn't really kiss and do anything else other than that, but they were at least allowed to have a boyfriend and start a relationship that was kind of like boyfriend-girlfriend Right, even if they weren't allowed to touch which a lot of them did anyway. It just never. They never caught because it wasn't highly policed or monitored. That's so factual.
Speaker 2:But you got to back up a step though, because part of the foundation for you and I and any romantic relationships and you've really only just had basically the one for most of your life is that. Prior to that, what was our relationship with? And both of us are heteronormative, straight. I have dabbled, but for the most part we both identify as sexually orientation-wise, straight, heteronormative. In terms of partner, yeah, male, female. But then prior to that, growing up, our dad wasn't there.
Speaker 2:So no male, I'm going to say no male role model In the nuclear family Right as defined by mom, dad. Yeah, so our only male role models for relationships outside of the nuclear family were authoritarian figures in the religious cult that we were in. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and those were really like dictator.
Speaker 1:Yeah, relationship I mean I think that's a good way to put it they were definitely all about the patriarchy of like male female.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the hierarchical structure was not longitudinal. Yes, it was very much.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was God man women.
Speaker 2:And kids, and we were under, yeah, yeah, until you were 18. Sure, sure, healthy Were they helpful?
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, no, I mean looking. Of course you're taught that that's healthy and that's normal, but looking back, you can go, wow, so not healthy and so not normal. I find that after I was married, randy said this to me one time because I would say do you care if I do this or can I do this? And he's like you're a grown ass adult. You know what I mean. I remember saying that he's like you do whatever the fuck you want. I'm like okay, I mean, I think on like big decisions, it's good to consult with your partner, but you don't need to ask permission to do something, you know so that's.
Speaker 2:I still struggle with that one, I know.
Speaker 1:That's something, though, that, like, literally, we did all the time. There's just you don't do anything without asking permission.
Speaker 2:From a man. From a man.
Speaker 1:Early on in our relationship and I was like, wow, okay. Yeah, but that's groundbreaking right, oh yeah, because of the way that we were told and taught that you don't do anything.
Speaker 2:No, I mean, you can't breathe without making sure. It was, you know, the male who is over you, and that is not healthy. That's not the way the world.
Speaker 1:I mean, and we developed some very unhealthy habits I don't want to say habits, but things that went on Behaviors. Behaviors, yes, because we were or especially me was thrown into this world where, like, there's all these rules in this structure and this is how you are as a woman to a man, and all this, and then thrown outside of that. I mean, it was only we had only been married a year when we left, so we had not been in our marriage very long and all the rules changed instantly. We thought we needed something else. We tried churches. We tried, you know, things like looking for something. We couldn't figure out what it was, finally decided church was not for us. Brandy has said we have tithed enough for the rest of our lives On parole for time served.
Speaker 1:Literally. But it was just, we changed so much from the time that we met until the time, you know, say, a year and a half after we were married. We changed so much because the rules changed, the environment changed, the, everything changed and we weren't sure how to handle it. And so lots of fighting, lots of fighting. I am literally amazed daily that we're still together. We did split up after seven years. We were married for seven years. We split up for a year and a half. We're going to file for divorce, did file for divorce, did all the things never sent the stuff in so we didn't fully go through with it. But we separated, like legally and physically.
Speaker 1:I moved away, but it's because we were fighting so much. We fought all the time in front of our kids. We fought, you know, we fought over finances, we fought over raising the kids, we fought over, you know, all of these things because we were just trying to make our way and figure out how to be humans outside of that structure. So it's very challenging, I think, when you're raised in a structured environment and then you have a dog that is like in one place, you know, in this little yard, and you take them to like a park and they just go nuts and run, pee and all over everything. You know doing all the things because we were experiencing life. I had never had a drink, you know, so we started drinking. You know smoking, like all the things that you didn't experience and changing your behaviors I didn't dirty talk things that make you walk.
Speaker 1:A dirty walk. Oh my God, I can't believe that came into your brain. We had that song. We say that song in the West.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, there's so many of those crazy stuff I can't even call myself up right now because I'm cracking my cell up, because you said something and I am I'm cracking up. I was like halfway half asleep the other day and I woke up.
Speaker 2:I said I'm, I just got to go practice being human today. I said if I were an alien or something. But I feel like that's every day, like we have to practice being human. But I think you and I grew up not being human, no, For a long time. And then when you actually get to experience being a human, it's kind of like the floodgates go out and then you're kind of like deciding who you are in fact again, Like I think you had to figure out your identity within each other and the world Absolutely.
Speaker 1:We weren't the same people we married. And the people we married, we didn't even know who we were when we got married. I mean, I for sure didn't. Randy, before we met had, you know, he went to college, had his drinking, fighting, you know all those days he had had sex before marriage?
Speaker 2:No, he had not. That's right.
Speaker 1:No, he didn't. He was scared and terrified, he told me. He had the opportunity to, though yeah, and then no. He dated, did all the other things you know, but he was scared to death of getting somebody pregnant, so he always avoided the sex. So it was our first time together, for sure, Even though he wasn't raised in that environment. He was just somebody that didn't want to have sex before marriage. So, but Did you guys talk about that beforehand?
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:And he told you, I mean I was terrified that he had had sex. I mean I assumed he had had sex and he said he didn't. I still didn't believe him for years. Cause I'm like, how do you even know how to do all the thing when you've never done it before? You know what I mean. Like literally Right. I mean it's a legit question. I support having sex before marriage. I think it's a great thing, absolutely. I think you absolutely did Try a few.
Speaker 1:Yes, well, you need to make sure you're compatible. My God, like that is so important Cause, like that's a huge part of any relationship.
Speaker 2:And there are. There's so many competing things about that, like around the world, with like arranged marriages and stuff which happened really a lot more commonly than we'd like to admit, and it's like, well, yeah, you can learn to love someone, yes, but it's, you can, it's doable. But it's also nice to like know that there's some shared values and things beforehand, absolutely, which is what you guys probably thought and you probably did, like you probably know, you still didn't share values of things.
Speaker 1:You know Little did he know how much I was not into what we were in. I mean, when I saw him and I write very openly about this in the book, but like he was my way out when I saw him come in because he came to a singles activity which I was on and we went to a baseball game and he showed up His brother was inside the cult already in a. He showed up because he had just moved to town and I was like, oh dude, first of all there was definitely an attraction there physically, and then the second attraction was this guy's not from here, this is my ticket out of here. You know, I'm not kidding. I was like instantly, I mean I told one of my girlfriends that we were on the thing with.
Speaker 1:I was like I'm going to marry that man and I fully pursued him and definitely married him. So but it was. I mean he thought that we were in it for the long haul. When, when we got out and started talking, we were like holy shit, we should have talked about this like long time ago, because we would have been out of their way before even the reason the straw that broke the camel's back for us to leave, which was why we left.
Speaker 2:But there was you may have then ended up still married, but maybe not outside the coal, and or maybe outside the coal and not Right yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, maybe not have so many issues. I don't. Who knows. You know, 20 hindsight is always 2020. But we struggled for years Just trying because we changed so much and we talked about that. We're like we're not the same people we were when we got married.
Speaker 2:Neither one of us were I mean you were also really super young. I mean, and I yeah, he's six, eight years older than you.
Speaker 1:Six years older, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I was like you're. You were still pretty young, though for both.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was 19 when we got married, right, and that's babies.
Speaker 2:I mean, you're still babies at that point, you know. And he was probably about the same. He was the same maturity level as you had. You've been a normal 19 year old. You weren't a 19 year old because you were raised in this really oppressive environment, so you were probably 16, you know, in terms of like a secular, mentally 15, you know 14. You fell in your secular education. However, he was still pretty young too. I mean, that's pretty young even in today's terms, right.
Speaker 1:Married, but he was 25 when we got married. So, oh my God, you guys were babies, I know. I look at wedding pictures now I'm like holy shit, yeah, so young, I like so young. Literally, I'm like wow.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's not only that like, because I do know there's, I do, I have met and I do not have friends who have friends who were married virgins, you know.
Speaker 1:I do.
Speaker 2:It's not. I mean, it is pretty uncommon. Yes, it's not like, oh, you were the only one, or anything. However, I would draw that back and say it's not just that you were a virgin, it's that you guys hadn't kissed, you hadn't hold hands, you hadn't really even like gone to first second base I know it was like nothing and then married and went all in and had a honeymoon baby. So that's a pretty big fucking deal. That's a big job, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, we had a honeymoon baby because we had counseling session the night before the wedding with the leader who walked us through how we were to handle ourselves, which is so laughable. Oh, my dear God, the fact that we sat through that without saying what the fuck, I don't know how you did it is mind blowing, because I mean, like, looking back at it and even we've talked about it my husband and I were just like what in the world, like it was. He was a sick bastard man.
Speaker 2:That man was sick, anyway, well, you know, we can move up to the viewer's imagination, but I imagine that that's why his son was such a pedophile, yes, pedophile, yes, that's a good Yep.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's probably a hundred percent true.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Well, but you guys, that's one of the things I really like. I mean, you guys have been together. What 25 years? No.
Speaker 1:How many? 97. Twenty six.
Speaker 2:So that's one of the things like over that time period. I mean, yeah, you guys have had ups, you've had downs, sure, but one of the I've always admired that like with you and Randy, is that you know, you have had all these problems, but you've both had the you know, and you did have the big set one big set back, I think which is really fucking normal and then, but you've always managed to work it out and I think that there's something that we have.
Speaker 1:Well, after our split up, we Made a point that we had to communicate Because I was In my brain, still back in the cult for many, many years as far as communication goes, and so it was very hard for me to communicate what I actually meant, and when I did say stuff that came across wrong, I would just break down in tears when he would say something that was like, yes, and I mean, even still now I'm super fucking sensitive, so, like it happens still, but we're able to like, talk it out and generally we communicate pretty good.
Speaker 2:I think I'm a better communicator, well, and it's about like how, how often you know the communication. You can just say, oh, we need to be better communicators, but never really define it. It's like what do you need to hear? Do you need me to listen? How often do you want me to communicate? Yes, want me to communicate about every single little thing, or are there patches of?
Speaker 1:that I think you have to communicate and, yeah, you've got to communicate when you have an issue with something. That's that's the hardest part is when something is bothering you. You have to be able to say, hey, that is bothering me and we need to figure out how to how to make it not bother me or how for you to change it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because I'm not going to be bothered by it.
Speaker 1:Right now it's like pissing me off. So we need to figure out how to not let it piss me off or how you can change, so that you know I think our biggest thing when we got back together because Randy had a lot of anger issues where he would lose his temper like pretty, pretty intensely I'll say that so you know he would punch a hole in the wall or, you know, throw something Like he had a lot of problems handling his anger. And so when we got back together I said I cannot live like that anymore because it literally makes me crazy. My mom was kind of a yeller when we were growing up.
Speaker 2:I also had a lot of violence. We had a lot of violence in our growing up and that was from corporal punishment, you know banged. We were hit, we were slapped.
Speaker 1:We were right. So I mean, some of those things trickled into me where I think, well, this is the way to handle it, and I realized over time and doing it wrong, you know that this is not the way to handle it. Yeah, when the kids got older, it was much easier for me to, for me to not do those things because there was bigger, I'm gonna say, with my kids in general. So there was more what's the right word when, like, you could take their phone away or you could do something else which was much more effective than I call that currency, currency.
Speaker 2:That's the word I was looking for. It is currency because, yes, you can't physically abuse a child or verbally abuse them and not have consequences.
Speaker 1:No, it does.
Speaker 2:And who they are as a person, but you can show them consequences with things that they value, which is taking the phone or sitting in a room without electronics.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yes, it's definitely true. I handled like disciplining or whatever, like the other ways of hitting and things like that a bit when they were young, because it's what I knew. I was thinking this is the thing to do, but it definitely was not effective. It just made things worse. And then if I were to yell, that wasn't effective either, which I knew in my brain because my mom, that was how she communicated to us. It's a lot of yelling and so I hate yelling. I hate it to this day. If somebody yells at me, I'm like nope, shut down instantly. I walk away. I'm like nope, yeah, can't do it.
Speaker 1:One time at one of my previous jobs there was my last job we were having a leadership meeting or something. It was some kind of meeting anyway and they wanted us or my boss wanted us to watch this video of this guy and I turn it on to watch it and the guy is standing from a pulpit screaming, and I was like nope, instantly shut down. And I said I'm not watching that. And he said oh no, you need to watch it. It's about gossiping. I said I don't care what it's about Not watching it.
Speaker 1:The guy's screaming at me, no, not doing it. And he was like so offended that I wouldn't watch it, and I was like, no, I don't have to sit here and listen to anybody yell at me and that is definitely not something that. And as I got older as a mom, I definitely got better at learning that your kids don't react to that kind of thing, or they don't react well and it doesn't work so you have to do stuff. But I mean, all of my kids now have noticed that I've changed so much and as the years go on I get better and better and I'm just growing as a human. But I literally was so lost I think is the right word for me.
Speaker 2:That goes back to what I was saying. I was like you were trying to figure out who you were.
Speaker 1:Yes, no, I didn't know at all. I didn't even figure it, I probably didn't know who I was until I was in my 30s.
Speaker 2:well, I'm in my 30s and you hadn't figured that out, and then you were thrown into the throes of motherhood, being a wife, and then figuring out who you were outside of that strict religious environment, and that was all coming to a head all at once, which is overwhelming, to say the least. Yeah, yes, yeah Well, and I don't really have any relationships even close to that, because I'm like, again, I've always been an admiration of you and Randy, because you guys both have committed to working through it, because it does take two, like you both have.
Speaker 1:That is the biggest thing about a religious message. Yeah, that's huge. You do have to have two people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it doesn't. It's nothing to sniff at Like in my relationship with roommate four's father who. I was briefly married to and we have a child together. So of course, you have to have a relationship with someone you have a child with, because you're still raising the child together. Whether or not they're involved or not, it's still.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's still there.
Speaker 2:Biological parent, whether they're in prison or in the picture. And that was my case and my big thing was I never really cared enough. I really didn't. I didn't want to be in that relationship. I didn't love him. I never loved him as a romantic partner. He happened to be there, he happened to get, we got pregnant together and at some point it made sense that we got married because I had money invested in a business that we had together and I felt that it was a risk for me to not get married because of that, which in hindsight I could have done it a lot of different ways. But again, I didn't know again who I was. But I also had many, many years outside the cult to try and find out a little bit more who I was. I will give the grace to that relationship and the logistics of it and the financial stability that that relationship gave me allowed me to find myself a lot more than it would have had. I tried to do it on my own and without the assistance of that relationship.
Speaker 2:So, there is something to be said. I just screwed up the video. There we go. There is something to be said for the fact that that allowed me the grace and the space and the time as I was figuring out who I was and becoming a mother, but often well beyond, because roommate three is six months older than roommate four, so Liz's youngest is six months older than mine, and so by the time you were already done and out with all yours, I was just about to have my first one, and that did give me a little bit more time, right, it gave me a little bit more to figure out who I was and to kind of start on my journey, recovering from the cult and all the tactics.
Speaker 2:So, of course, I did have a ton of relationships, but nothing of significance, right, and I think I've only had three. That three, I'm on my fourth major relationships, meaning over a year or so. So, yeah, the roommate four's dad, my baby daddy, that was the first one and that's just riddled with issues. I mean, he was not, still is not, a stable person. He did not do right by his daughter at all, which was one of the. I think most the things that I'm most proud of are maintaining her relationship with her father while raising her by myself. Basically is that I managed to keep that relationship intact at the very moments that I really felt like I couldn't. I'm proud that I actually maintain that, because I know what it's like growing up without a dad and I know how important that that relationship becomes over time and that a girl Go into a kid for sure and a girl in particular needs at certain times in her life that father figure, influence and voice in that, and so I'm really proud of that.
Speaker 2:And then, yeah, and all of my failed relationships were in search of something that I didn't have, and it was always daddy issues, daddy issues, and it was like no, no, no, actually I, in every single one of them, if I look back, every single one of them. So there were very few faults on my part. I was looking at the wrong person and those people were not full people. They were not at my level. I had done, and still do, a ton of work on myself. I have my faults, but all of them let's say the failed one, two well, I really wouldn't excuse me. I really wouldn't consider Jay, do you know what I'm talking about? I don't even consider that a relationship, because I feel like that was the friendship and still, due to this day, consider it a friendship. I think it should have always stayed that way and should have never really gone any farther, because we still are friends, I mean, I still consider friend and it should have just stayed that way.
Speaker 2:But I'm talking about D and M. Those are the two big ones. They were just not full people. They were not whole people. They had massive, massive psychological and emotional problems that they had not dealt with yet. And then those came out in the relationship with me.
Speaker 2:Because I am a person who I'm like, I am transparent, I am gonna poke and say what is this? I'm sorry, what is that? What's going on right now with you and why is that bothering you? Or this bothers me? Can we talk about this and figure it out? And if you're at a relationship level where they can sit down and talk with me about it, then I'm like I'm spinning my wheel here, trying to do my best by me as a whole person. Yes, these and I'm not even gonna say the term men they're posing as men, right, right, they're posing as men, practicing men, but not really men who can't sit down and talk about it. So if I was as valuable to them, they would have dealt with themselves and their emotional issues and their relationship faux pas that they did not deal with on their own. And, of course, I have a flaws.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I certainly would not say I don't, and I think I'm very upfront about those two and I'm also willing and able and capable of owning those and saying, yeah, it's me, yeah, I think you're really good at that, like if somebody brings something up to you, you are so good at taking accountability. Well, if it's my fault, it's my fucking fault.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, but I mean, but a lot of people just deflect or something. I think in the past few years I've gotten really better at that, even with my kids, because I mean they bring up stuff all the time of you know things that I did wrong as a great.
Speaker 2:They're great at parroting and mirroring.
Speaker 1:I know. But I'm like you know what. I am so sorry because I really am. Like some of the stuff I don't even remember. I'm like, oh my God, I'm like sorry if that happened. I honestly do not remember, but, like I, if you feel that way, I'm very sorry. You know what I mean, because I am sorry if it affected them that that largely, because I mean when you have children, you do not intend to fuck them up. I mean our goal is to raise I mean my goal was to raise children that were happy, healthy and could function in this world. You know what I mean and I don't. I mean I don't think that anybody going into being a parent wants their kids to suffer. I mean I was listening to.
Speaker 2:I mean.
Speaker 1:I know there are horrible parents out there that like there are to a child that you know they don't want and then they treat them like shit and you know, they're usually narcissistic or psychopathic in some way.
Speaker 2:But yes, was listening to a podcast yesterday and the woman who was speaking is now a prolific writer and author and she's brilliant and you know. But she had a. She had a kid when she was like 15.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's cute.
Speaker 2:And her parents decided, you know she was going to keep it and whatever, and you know the dad was out of the picture. So she basically finished high school, raised the kid, started a business, you know, and she grew up on a farm and so her parents were like, no, at 18, you got to go Like you're out, and she had medical bills from having the child, from all this stuff and a three year old Uh-huh and she, she told the story and it was so heartbreaking and so like, oh my God, I just got like goosebumps and I started almost crying and tearing up in the car listening to it.
Speaker 2:But her parents had a farm and it was mostly like grain and vegetables. It wasn't cows, but surrounding them were cow and cattle lots, feed lots. When the cows come to the feedlot like for the last three months this was years and years back they would fatten them up for slaughter. So in the feed lots they're expected that they come in. They just give them a ton of grain, they put on additional weight, they go to the feedlot, they slaughter them and then they get the weight you know for the beef. And what happens is if they come into the feedlot and there's a female right, a cow that has a baby, then there's nothing. They can't do anything for them. They can't do anything for the babies. So the babies just either like, cause the mom's gonna die, they die, the baby cows just die.
Speaker 2:So, they went around to all the farmers in the area that do the you know cattle raising and they said, hey, if you get a you know a cow in that has a baby, can you let us know? And then she said, like the first night they got a phone call and so they agreed with this with all the farmers. They got a phone call, yeah, we got one cow, and she was like I brought the cow home, it was in the back of the truck and I actually didn't even want it to be in the back of the truck because it was a week, you know. And she like put it in her lap and they got it home in the kitchen and she put it down and gave it a bottle, you know. And she said that first night was just the one. And then she was like, by the time we were done, she's like, then we got another phone call and another phone call, another phone call.
Speaker 2:By the time they were done she had like a herd of cows, of these babies from the feed lots. That was like 45, you know strong of these cows. And she went to the feed store and she was like I've got to get them, you know, big enough, I can't afford it right now and meanwhile the bills are piling up. Can't afford it right now. But I've got to get these cows to the, you know, to mature enough to where I can sell them, you know, for the beef and get my money back. So she made a deal with the grain, the store owner, you know. She said, okay, I'll give you enough grain to feed them and then, once you get the right payment from them, you can pay me back. So she took out this loan on the on the cow feed. They get up to wait.
Speaker 2:She goes in and at that time I can't remember the year exactly, but she said that year cow and beef just took a nose dive, I mean.
Speaker 2:So she was looking at losing money on these cows that she had like raised on her own, you know, with her own hands, with her own debt, you know, to try and pay off her medical debt and get herself a place in life, you know, with her daughter.
Speaker 2:So she goes into the cow lot that morning and they're getting ready to auction off the cows and you know, farmer after farmer around her is just losing their ass, you know, on their, on their lots and their herds, you know, and she walked in there and she told them all you know I've got to. I've got to sell these cows, I've got to pay off my medical debt. I've got to get out of the house. My daughter, you know, is old enough now to where I've got to get out and do my own thing. And you know, farmer after farmer comes through and just loses her cows, go up for this auction and they start bidding and farmer after farmer bids her cows and they just kept going until she just made a killing on these cows because every single farmer in there was like rooting for her.
Speaker 2:That's amazing to pay off her bills and get out and, like, start a new life with her daughter. And they all had contributed both from the birth of these cows on their cows lot to her, putting them through to this thing and giving her the opportunity. And she said, you know, to this day, you know, and she went off and got her degree and, you know, is writing and is a published author and all this stuff now. But she's like to this day, you know. I think back to that, that specific time where all these farmers from around me came and just put in their hard earned money that they were basically losing everything on you know because they knew that she had the right intention in mind and she was doing it, and that's a good parent like, that's a good enough parent, like.
Speaker 2:but then it just heartbreaking like all these guys are losing their eyes and they're just bidding up her cows so that she can have a chance in life. You know to do something, and that's all we asked for and that's all we can do as parents. Yeah, and when our kids say this stuff back to us and her dad, the whole point of that story was that her dad handed her her child and he said to her you're gonna fuck her up.
Speaker 2:He said you're gonna fuck her up. If you raise her right and you do it well, she'll find the space in her heart to forgive you. Oh my God, right, yeah, I'm about to sob listening to this whole free story because I'm like, yes, it's so true, though right, we're all going to fuck them up some way, some way or another. There's nothing we can do or we didn't do, that's not going to do that, it's just going to happen. But then, if we do it well, they will find the values that they can. You know what I mean? They can forgive and forget, and they can take some of those Yep, yep, because nobody does it right. There's no fucking manual, nobody tells us, anyway. But the relationships with men, those are a whole different story, but that's again. All men were, you know, all men had a mom. You know most men had a mom. And same thing. It's like well, you know you can blame the mom, or they can forgive their mom and move on and have a relationship with you. You know, yeah, because everyone makes mistakes.
Speaker 1:Oh, we've made many, I've made many, but yeah, so I mean I feel like relationships, like with your spouse, your kids, whatever so important I think it's important to it is work, and I think that's the biggest thing I think with a relationship is it's. It's not always easy. What kind of work Like you have to do things you don't want to do. That can cost so many ways. You want to talk specifics here? No, yes, I'm going to be specific. So like. So, for instance, you know things that drive you nuts that may not drive somebody else nuts like okay. So like when a guy shaves, let's just go here in the bathroom and leaves whiskers in the sink and it drives you fucking insane, just fucking wash them and shut up and then you wash it like it's not worth it to start a whole thing over silly stuff.
Speaker 2:You know or like, if you're not going to bother them one little.
Speaker 1:No, it's not. And you like, and if you're like constantly like blah, blah, blah, griping about it, it all it does is produce toxic. You know feelings and yeah, yep, yep and, and you know so, just like that's, just like a very, very random you know thing, but like nobody in my house has ever put toilet paper rollback on the toilet paper holder, literally the fact. I mean, honestly, I like, so I feel like I'm constantly filling it up and you know you can say something 50 times and nobody's going to change and you just have to go. Okay, I'm just going to do that.
Speaker 1:But you have to try to do things like you have to. You have to make time to like spend something. You have to like you're. It's not going to always come natural to you to like give a compliment to your significant other or to like you know, say okay, let's do this together, or something like that, because you might not want to do shit, but putting in the work. What I mean by that is just like spend the extra time, make the compliment, put a card in there somewhere. You know, do do something nice. Go out of your way to do something nice every day. I don't always do that, I do try and do that often, but you have to. It doesn't just naturally come. You don't naturally have a good relationship and if you want it to last, I feel like you have to do the little things and also let the little things go sometimes. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so yeah. Well, I defer to you on all of those things.
Speaker 1:I mean, you have a significant other. Now that you're, how long has your relationship been? I'm going to say a year. Has it been a year? 16 months, okay, 16 months Over 16 months, that's pretty impressive. We're about on a year and a half. It's really impressive for you because, well, the impressive.
Speaker 2:Well, but it's still going so great after 16 months. Yeah, and I say that I've only had Well, you know, biological father was one, but I really don't count that I wasn't in love with him. It wasn't a romantic relationship. For me, it was almost a really transactional thing, which is not a relationship.
Speaker 1:But you said even when you were married to him.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:I knew that All the time I'm not in love with him, I don't love him.
Speaker 2:I don't, I didn't, yeah, yeah, I admit to something that I didn't. And then, but I think that my standards have been so high that I haven't really delved into a lot of relationships because I dip when they show me who they are and that they're not ready to be in one with me. Then I just dip. I do have high hopes for this current one, because there is a level of shared values and there is a level of communication which I thought was just a fleeting, you know, a pipe dream, basically with men in general, and I was ready to pursue, let's, find a girlfriend.
Speaker 2:I mean, honestly, at some point you're just like, yeah, it's not that there's no good men out there, it's that the men that are out there don't know how to be a man and treat a woman right at the same time. And in this current space I'm in right now, it is very, very good, it's very rewarding and it does feel equal. And what I say when I'm that's huge is that I come to the table with all of me and ready to go, and so does he, and he is willing to sit there and sit with me and work with this and deal with grief and deal with loss and deal with problems and talk about him, and sometimes, when I know he's fucking sick of me talking about something, he'll still sit there and listen.
Speaker 1:Because you can talk about something for an hour and he can too. Okay.
Speaker 2:So there's equality there as well, but he does have the patience to sit and listen, and I also am very, very grateful to him for that. So I tell him that I'm like. I know I'm going on and on. I appreciate you listening to me for the most.
Speaker 2:I appreciate it and I realize that this is annoying and I'm so sorry, but also thank you. Those are really important things and I think the biggest thing for me is the kindness, even when you don't feel like it, like some days I'm like I don't want to see anyone, even you maybe but you know, still be kind and still show up and still be there if they need you, because you know they would do the same for you and I think that's really really important for me. Value wise is like, yeah, I'm going to show up on and be there and I know you do the same for me. You know, and the beauty of being at my age and his age and that roommate for is out of the house and he does not have, nor does want, can't have children is that we can focus on it in a different way.
Speaker 2:Yes, we don't have to raise children. We don't have to figure out who we are. We know who we are. We know exactly what we want and I'm like that's what I want, okay, here's what you want. Okay, most of those things mash Great. If you need something outside of that, then you've got friends. I've got friends. We can go do those things on our own outside of that and still be fulfilled within what we have together, and that's really really been beneficial for mental health. But it can't be everything, and we both realize that and that's really important too is that I need my work, he needs, you know, outside stuff. That all has to work too.
Speaker 1:You know you can't just obsess and be only this, and that's really key I think that's important too in a relationship for sure is to have other friends and friends, things outside because.
Speaker 2:We can't be the end all be all for one person, nope.
Speaker 1:Nope, and so that's important.
Speaker 2:Anyway, do you remember how hard of a time we gave mom when she at one point decided she may decided to date someone Because she, okay, just an audience? Our mom never dated until we were all like out of the house. Out of the house, yeah, like really didn't at all At one point.
Speaker 1:Like, not a date Nope.
Speaker 2:Well, no, she did do the one, graham. Oh yeah, graham.
Speaker 1:It was a singular.
Speaker 2:Yes, we were one time and we gave her such a hard time, we were such assholes. We were assholes. Yes, anyway, it's pretty commendable because she didn't do it, because she knew she had to raise kids, and that's a pretty tough choice to make. I mean, and I think in a certain way I did the same thing. I mean because I really didn't introduce. I mean, let's say, I dated but I wasn't in a relationship, just the two really, which didn't work out well. And you know, in some sense I did have that higher responsibility of raising my child too. That was, you know, priority to anything else, so something you didn't have to deal with. Really, nope, thankfully, anyway, well, I think we're done, ish, are we done? Did?
Speaker 1:we do. I think so. I think we did the thing. I think we talked relationships a little bit. There's so much that could be talked about.
Speaker 2:I know we always like barely such a broad subject.
Speaker 1:So you know, just giving thoughts and feelings and how we were, and also you know it makes me want to go off on the new, on the stuff that's going on with the docu series thing.
Speaker 2:We can talk about it, because we're going to be talking about it in the public realm, if we want to. Yeah, you know, people coming out of a cult are vulnerable in Absolutely so socioeconomic oftentimes because that's part of it and emotionally, psychologically and to be, you know, manipulated again and basically you know this is the.
Speaker 1:this is the docu series that we interviewed Kathy. Kathy was on. The producers are now trying to have a spin off show, Currently casting for yes for dating, which is for dating.
Speaker 2:I'm wrong when you've been in a mess up, let me. Let me pull up the wording specifically, actually because I have it the which says it all. Actually, it says everything you need to know. It's mind blowing is that it's basically Explore the world in a dating scenario after high control religion.
Speaker 1:Horrible idea.
Speaker 2:Well and we'll. We need to get into why, but we both know, because we've experienced it. We know exactly what it's like and how vulnerable you are and how exploitative you've already been, like, your existence has been up till that point. And then how exploitative that scenario is, yes, is mind blowing, and also hugely detrimental to mental health and well being. It's just, it's horrifying, to say the least.
Speaker 1:It really is. I'm like I was, so I thought the show is very pretty well done. I did too, I think it was, until they started that and I thought what the actual fuck yeah Are they doing to these people?
Speaker 2:So anyway, I don't turn in the wrong direction, but money sells, I'm sure it'll sell, and capitalism Yay, yay, anyway, all right, well, don't fall.
Speaker 1:I won't, you don't either. Be careful, those children.
Speaker 2:But yeah, it's All right, directly underneath cap on a wood floor, yeah.
Speaker 1:We'll talk at y'all next time. Yeah, need to find us on social media Facebook and Instagram and then I'll just post some stuff on my TikTok. I usually post some stuff and then sisters declassified at gmailcom. If you want to reach out, we'd love to hear from you. Fuck it out, all right. Bye. Thanks for watching. Bye.