Pry Into Our Personal Life
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Hey guys, welcome back to Friends Anonymous. My name's Lindsay. I'm your host today. And who do I have with me? Jared. I'm back. He's back. Been gone for a bit. Been gone for a bit. Honestly, the holidays were just really busy for us. And I had quite a few guests the last season and even this season. We've got...

Lots of fun guests, but I always love having my husband here because you guys seem to like these episodes. So I asked you guys not long ago on my Instagram if you had any relationship related questions for us. So we're doing a little relationship AMA today. Yeah, I'm answering all these blind. So forgive me. I am too. I mean, I've only looked through a few of them, but we're just going to dive right in. That's okay with you guys.

Ready? Let's do it. The first question, because I think a lot of people are coming in, you know, maybe haven't gone through season one or season two, because I feel like we've explained this one a few times, but I know that there's new people. How did we meet? I say that we just rapid fire through it. We don't got to linger. Yeah. Yeah. We, it was during college. We're in a college town. It was pretty normal to find your roommates and stuff on Craigslist. Me and my roommate had our third meeting.

move out kind of suddenly. So we were trying to find just anybody to fill the spot. And I think you had a similar situation where your people weren't able to...

Yeah. In the spot that she thought. And so you need to add something to this. Because Jalyn, my best friend, reminded me and I really did forget this this key piece of information. So whenever I was moving in with you guys right before I was supposed to move in with my best friends at the time, my best friend Jalyn and another roommate at the time. And during that time, like briefly, I thought I was going to move to Dallas for modeling.

And I totally forgot this piece of the puzzle because it was such like a dropped, I'm going to move to Dallas for modeling. And then I was like, actually, I'm not moving to Dallas for modeling. And by the time I came back, A, the house was too expensive for me. And B, they already needed to fill the place. So, because she reminded me of that recently. And I was like, I forgot that little piece of information. But regardless. Yeah, because she moved to those like newer apartments up north of town. Yes, they were just...

I was a little broke girl. I couldn't afford it. So I was like, damn it. So anyway, that's a little key piece of information. I was also looking for a roommate at this time now because can't move in with them. And I was thinking to myself, it'd be one semester, one semester. I can move in with whoever it's, it doesn't really matter. However, at the same time I was leaving one of my, I was leaving my ex and I was really trying to stay away from him. This was somebody that I dated on and off since I was in eighth grade and

So it was a long time boyfriend that I was just really trying to stay away from for many reasons. And I thought to myself, what would happen if I moved in with two guys? What would happen? Honestly, he wouldn't want to date me. He would probably be pissed. And so I started looking on Craigslist. So I didn't, I didn't, wasn't specifically looking to move in with guys, but I was like, not going to

I wasn't going to like write it off. So I came across three houses that I really liked one with a couple horse girls. I remember they were very into horses. Um, another house had guy roommates, but low key gave me serial killer vibes. And then the last house had Logan. You were not there. I went to view the house with Logan, the other roommate. Um, and it seemed to, I was like, you know what? I can do anything for a semester. Like it's going to be fine. Moved in.

Couple weeks later, Jared had approved of it too. I was actually talking to Jared via email trying to get this roommate spot. And I wish we still had those emails now. I know. The lore. The lore. So I moved in. Two weeks later, Jared comes home and I'm sitting on the couch when he walks through the door with his backpack on. He had just got back from a missions trip. And I was like, oh, hard eyes. Yeah.

We had our first zing, I like to say. Yeah, I mean, there was definitely, I knew it was trouble whenever I walked in the door and met you. I knew you were trouble when you walked in. Yeah, I think it was kind of a, we were both interested immediately. And then there was the awkward like roommates, but you like each other phase. Tension, tension.

All that. And here we are. And here we are. Yeah. So long story short, we were Jess and Nick from New Girl, even though you hate Nick. Pretty much. I hate Nick. Our dog's name is even Schmidt. So yeah, long story short, that's how we met. We began dating very quickly after that, got engaged quickly after that, got married quickly after that. And here we are 10 years later, married 11 years together. Yeah.

Yeah. Insane. Bit of a whirlwind. Bit of a whirlwind. Another question I saw on here just to keep this timeline was how did you propose? I have to drop this in. Sorry. I asked you a question and then I'm like, wait, I want to talk. I moved in in like June or July. I can't remember which month, June or July of 2013. I think it was July. We began dating September of September, like second of 2013. Yeah.

Jared proposed January 2nd of 2014. So just a few months later. Yeah. It's weird. It didn't, it didn't sound so crazy at the time, but like being older now and looking back on it, I don't know what my hurry was. I don't know what our hurry was. It's just a,

the area we lived in. I thought it was very normal at the time, honestly. Like if you were going, first of all, we both come from religious families, which we've talked about on here. And with that came a certain standard of expectations. Like it was okay, quote unquote, for us to live together when we were roommates because we weren't dating or anything. But when we were dating, our families both were kind of like, whoa, you know? And so that's at the time, that's how we felt too. So I think we felt pressured to get married quickly. Yeah.

Yeah. And I think there was a certain amount of, we both just wanted to, we both knew we wanted to get away and like, we were both kind of wanted to be a little bit more nomadic. And, um, I think in our eyes that was like a big step towards being adults or, you know, something like that. Um, I think that we just kind of wanted to prove ourselves and, and make it better, uh,

appearances to be a little bit better. It looked better if we were at least engaged and living together. So we, uh, how did you propose?

Nothing too exciting. Took you to Bricktown. Yes. That's in Oklahoma City, if you didn't know. We went out to the Cheesecake Factory. We went to the Cheesecake Factory. Classic. And then you took me to these. It was right after Christmas, right after the New Year, so the lights were still up. Yeah. It was right next to a Native American statue of some sort. Yeah. I don't know who he is, actually. We probably should. It would probably be important. But the best part is, the one thing I wanted from a proposal was...

proof photos. And his sister, uh,

um was is a photographer and she was hiding behind the bridge there was like a bridge over there she was hiding behind it taking pictures because after he proposed i was so ecstatic but i was like damn i really wanted pictures and then i look over and his sister's running up to us like to congratulate us so that was like my favorite moment of it yeah but also it just shows like how how young we were oh yeah yeah i mean absolutely babies i i see why uh

I get why a lot of people wait just because you're more, you have a better foundation. You're more financially set. You can do a little bit more stuff with everything. But it's still, it's a fun story just because we were so poor and just trying to figure things out. Oh, yeah. I say all the time too, our wedding wasn't my dream wedding at all.

It was like everyone else's wedding in our wedding is how I felt. Like there was other people's opinions and I just said, okay. Cause I was scared to have a thought of my own at that time. But now like I do think even though we just had our tenure, maybe like our 11 or 12 years, some random year, we should redo our vows and do what we want to do. Yeah. And I think a lot of couples probably say this, but like looking back, um,

I think maybe a destination. I don't know about be eloped. I liked that my family was there, but yeah, a destination wedding. Cause it's really just for you. All I really cared about was me and my immediate family seeing it. Right. Yeah. That's beyond that. You're just kind of giving people who, who, you know, they're kind of like tangential to your life. Um, they don't remember any of it. I don't think any of them remember any of it. They don't remember the food, the vows, anything like that.

I barely do. You feel, yeah, but you feel like it's what you're supposed to do. So a lot of people do it, but yeah, I think a destination wedding with just your closest friends and families would be the way to go. Yeah. I would take that. I, I would still do elopement, but with like elopement of the ceremony you and me, but then like a reception with loved ones, that's how I would do it personally. Um, okay. But moving on, how do you keep the spark? Cause it's been 11 years now. Um,

uh how do you define the spark what is the spark i guess we have to decide what that is i would think like the romance p.s i'm so sorry if you guys hear cars in the background it's so difficult to find a like studio of any kind that is soundproof here that i'm you know anyway we're in our apartment so you can probably hear car noise and i'm very sorry every fifth person has a lamborghini that's so annoying or a motorcycle um how do you keep the spark i would think like

you know, the love, the butterflies or like the, the attraction, the romance, the, how are, how are we still into each other? 11 years later? I mean, I think we, we both pursue each other. We both continuously, uh,

improve ourselves. And I think both of us make real efforts to continue being impressive to each other. Um, and like, I guess trying to make each other proud. And I think that's a big part of it. Just showing that you're not just putting forth minimal effort to sustain a relationship. You're really both of us value and, and find attraction in, uh,

self-improvement, you know, improvement of your, your situation. Both of us are, um, attempting audacious things. And so I think that's something that both of us find attractive. And then, like I said, pursuing each other, we, we still go on dates, you know, very often we, we still do little surprises for each other. We build each other up. You know, there's a lot of little things that kind of keep the spark alive, but I think one of the biggest ones for us is,

Both of us are striving for more. And I know we both highly value that. Yeah. Yeah, I agree with that. I think that we don't forget the little things with each other. You know, making a pot of coffee. It's like one of my favorite things that you do is like you make our coffee every night. And I know it might seem like a chore sometimes. But to me, I'm like, oh, like it's like little acts of love or kindness sometimes.

To each other. I think something else that we do is we are very honest with each other in a friendship manner. Like I'm honest with you. Like I am with my best girlfriends because that's how I value us is we're

At the base of our relationship, it's friendship. And I think that if you're not friends with your spouse, it's going to be really hard to keep the spark. But on the flip side of that, if you're just friends with your spouse, it could turn into roommate feelings. Yeah. And that brings me to the next question, which is, have we ever had a roommate relationship?

Like time, like a time where we felt like we were living like roommates versus like spouses. And it's true. And the answer is yes, we have. Yeah, sure. I want to say it was like, I don't, I don't remember the exact year, but like year three or four of marriage. I think we were both in nursing school. So I think that was part of it. I just remember us feeling like we just passed each other by, you know, like every other day, like it just, it didn't feel like there was a connection.

Yeah, I think both of us were struggling with, you know, the distant horizon of our lives. Like we were about to settle into our careers. We were in the house that we were ostensibly going to be in for, you know, the next whatever decade or more. We had all of our debt and it was stepped out and we knew exactly how much we could put towards it each month. And so I think there was a lot of that type of stuff where, yeah,

We saw the next 30 years of our lives and neither one of us wanted to say it, but we weren't just super excited about it. Excited about each other. I mean, we were still had a good relationship at the time, but I think that there was a little bit of, you know, like quiet desperation setting in about the life that was laid out before us. And so I think that was a big part of it.

And I think that's what drove us to travel nursing and a lot of the things we did after that. Yeah. Yeah. I definitely think if you are going through something like that, where you feel like you're living like roommates versus lovers, I think honestly, setting, sitting down with your partner is the best thing to do because I think that's what we did. Like, I think maybe I don't remember the exact specifics of it, but we talked about it. And that's again, like one of the basis points.

one of the foundations of our relationship is communication. And I find it to be really important to communicate with your spouse. If you feel like your roommates talk to them about it and they should be able to calmly and kindly listen to you and, um, you know, converse, have a conversation about it. Um, and,

I think that if you're not able to talk to them about it, that's a red flag. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think, and I imagine there'll be a question about this later, but I think how you handle, I know that's not directly conflict, but it's kind of in that realm.

How you handle conflict and especially how you fight says more about your relationship than almost anything else. Oh, yeah. Because it's how you behave at your worst. Of course, it's easy to be in a relationship when you're both happy. You know, that's the easy mode. It's when you're upset, when you're at your shittiest and smallest moments.

how do you treat each other? And, um, I mean, you're right. Cause the next question I was going to ask is what helped you get through hard times or what made you grow and stay together? And I feel like you have now, first of all, when we first got together, we fought much different than now. And by we, I mean me, I think you still fight like, like, like when we first got together, I mean, but in a better way, uh, I was very much like a

temper tantrum type person. That's the best way to put it. Like I would throw things not at him, but towards him. I was like, that's what I was raised in was a bunch of chaos. And so that's what I reciprocated as an adult, as an adult in a relationship is I would throw things or scream or get very loud, which I feel like a lot of people expect that to be the man that's doing that. But it was, and I had my own, like, I think I've always, um,

been like just clever enough or just quick on my feet enough to be a little dickhead sometimes. And I, mine's not more physical. It's more like making little comments that are not at all necessary. And then you get more frustrated. And, and so I've definitely learned to like tone down.

the way I say things. - I think so too, but when we first got together, I would say you were more silent treatment. And I was more, "Yip, yap, we gotta talk about our right frickin' now." But we've grown, they're asking like, "How did we grow and stay together?" Because like, I was 21 when we started dating. No, I was 20 when we started dating and turned 21 later that month. Then I was barely 22 when we got married. So like, I was a baby.

And so were you. You were 25. Honestly, we're adults, but how? I don't really know. So I think we really, once again, we valued each other enough that when Jared sat me down and was like, listen, I love you, but I'm not going to deal with you throwing shit when you're mad. I'm not going to deal with you

raising your voice at me the way you do um i knew he was serious and i knew that he was one of the best things that happened to me so i was like okay i gotta get my shit together and like same for him whenever i was like well you can't you can't give me the silent treatment just because you don't want to talk right now that's not fair to me either so we both had to like give and take a little bit and be honest with ourselves which is not fun in a relationship it's not fun being the one uh

In the wrong. In any situation. But especially your relationship. So I think you have to like set. Lay down your ground rules. And just your expectations of one another. Yeah. And give chances. And I think from the beginning. It was not like.

um, us against each other. It was like, we piled all of our resources together immediately. You know, I'm not saying that's the way to go. It's just what we did piled all of our resources together. And it was like us against the poverty, poverty, I guess it was us fighting against poverty, trying to make money and just figure things out as we go. And so, I mean, the first several years of our marriage, we were, you know, we were just kind of scraping and doing everything we could to, to improve our situation. Yeah. Yeah.

It's two little waiters floating through life. Um,

Did you discuss? So there, one question is, are you guys going to have kids? No. Did you discuss no kids before marriage? I see, I see many couples that don't till it's too late. I don't think we did. I don't, I don't think we, I think it was something that developed after we were together. Cause like if you asked me in high school, I mean, yeah, that's just kind of the track. Right. Um, you know, you get a, get out of, go to college, get a good job, get a, have kids, you know, the whole thing.

But I think as we got married, we were busy just trying to establish our lives. And then we got a little bit more established. And then we had a little bit more money and we went and did some of the travel things we wanted to do. And as we kind of went down that path, we...

We would revisit the kids question. And I think for a while it was like, you know, let's let's get to this milestone and then we'll talk about it. And then we get to that milestone. It's like, well, let's get financially secure and then we'll talk about it. And then I think there came a point where we were just both like, is this something you want? Like, do you do you want to be a parent? And yeah.

I don't think either, you know, both of us were kind of like, nah, I don't, you know, that doesn't really sound fun to me. Right. And, uh, and, and ours was one of those situations where we, neither one of us wanted kids when it came down to it. And I don't think that's how it always goes. But, um, so we were kind of fortunate there. There was no real conflict there. Yeah. I was going to say like, if that's you and your relationship, you definitely should talk about it before marriage. However, I think people grow, uh,

They turn into different versions of themselves throughout marriage. So if your mind has changed, talk to your partner. Because we'll still revisit it every year or so. I'm like, do you want to be a dad? He'll ask, do you want to be a mom? I'm like, oh, God, no. It just really is not in my DNA for some reason. But we like to check in with each other. Has this changed for you? Because it's such a big...

It's such a huge part of your life if you choose to or not to. So we'd like to make sure that we're both still on the same page. You should definitely do it before marriage, but it's okay if your mind has changed after marriage. Yeah, and I think that's one thing that everybody says, like, you know, have the talk. That should be one of the first talks when you're dating. Do you want kids? And I get that. Yeah, it's good to see if you're on the same page early on, but...

Yeah. You could say, I don't want kids. And then six years down the road, you know, your life circumstances and you as a person change enough to where you do want a kid. Right. And,

I think that like, if I think back 10 years, whenever we first got married, I could not be a more different person. Yeah. And I think that's why you have to check in with each other and don't assume that, you know, your partner, just because you know who you married, you know, that's why you have to continuously learn about them, check back in, see who they are, you know, every year, every two years, because they're going to be different people and they're going to want different things. And I think it's important to keep a running log of that.

But I, and I know that's a tough situation if like one person doesn't want kids and they still don't want kids. And the other one happens to change their mind. That's something that you've got to work through. And we've been fortunate that our, we've been aligned the entire time. Yeah. Um, but yeah, I think just keeping up with who they are is, is extremely important. That's something that we've done a good job with. We, you know, we even have like a yearly check-in that we revisit our values and how our values change that year. Um,

that we would like to have or behaviors that we would like to have in the coming year. Yeah. And I think that's super valuable. But last thing I wanted to add on the no kids thing is they're asking like, why do we, do you not want kids? It doesn't sound fun. It doesn't sound very fun. I'll be quite honest. Like,

When I sit down and think about me being responsible for another human being, absolutely fucking not. I am in my selfish era and I'm totally okay with that. I don't give a fuck. I don't want children. I don't want to be responsible for another life beyond my dogs, beyond my animals. I don't want to experience pregnancy. I don't want to experience labor. I have no want. And that doesn't make me any less of a woman anymore.

Um, I like the thought of being an independent woman, independent besides you, of course. They're like, I like that I've turned into this woman that doesn't need to follow gender norms and doesn't need to follow societal expectations. I don't want to be a mom. And even when I look back to being a kid, I didn't want kids to,

I didn't want kids. I was not the kid playing with a baby. I was playing with animals. My stuff was animals a lot of the time. I was never playing with a baby. Even my friends growing up, they'd be like, I can't wait to grow up and be a mom. I would kind of be like, yeah, me too. But I never really felt that.

Yeah. That like want, and some people feel that and you should pursue it. Yeah. I don't, I don't think I ever felt that. I think that I, I like said and wrote down that I, that I wanted kids just cause it's like, that's all I knew. Yeah. You know, um, I came from a big family and that's just kind of the thing. Um, but yeah,

I don't, I don't think there was ever like, I want, and then they, you know, as you're growing up, the it's like common wisdom that, uh, you know, the, the guy, you know, you don't ever feel like a dad until the baby's there, you know, just hold out until the baby's there. And then you'll feel like a father. Well, of course, you know, if the baby shows up, I'm not a, I'm not a psychopath. I'm going to be a good dad. I just like the, it's, it's not something that appeals to me. Um, I, you can call it selfish or whatever, but I, I like, you know, yesterday I was

Woke up early, went and worked out, played around a golf, chilled, had a coffee, you know, just did whatever. And it's great. And you can work on personal endeavors, professional endeavors. There's just a lot of things that I want to see and do. And for me personally, a child doesn't fit into that. Yeah, that's exactly how I feel.

Child of divorce here. How to not let familial pasts and trauma hurt the relationship? How to not let it influence their future relationships? That's a good question. Yeah, I don't...

My parents are still together, have been the whole time. I don't know that I have just a ton of perspective on this. Do you want to? Yeah. Um, which I think it is an interesting dynamic that your parents are still happily married together and mine are not. Um, my mom's been divorced many times in her life and I'm definitely a child of a divorce and I grew up in a blended family. Um,

And I have a lot of trauma with that, with growing up. How to not let it hurt your future relationship though. You have to work on yourself. And that's taken me years and I'm still working on myself. This did not happen overnight. It won't happen overnight.

But you also need to be with someone. Your partner should be someone that is rooting for you, is your support system, and is patient. Because, again, it's not going to happen overnight. Depending on your trauma, it's not going to happen in a year. Like I said, I've been working on myself, I would say, now for four years, going on five. I like to think of it when I started therapy. Mm-hmm.

But if it's when I started my mental health journey, it would be January of 2020 is when I started my mental health journey. And I would say like I'm so much different of a person now than I was then. Yeah.

But it would have been so much more difficult if I had a spouse that wasn't rooting for me, a spouse that wasn't supportive, a spouse that didn't care. That would have been so much more difficult. And I think a lot of people deal with that. I know I have friends that deal with that, where their spouse just couldn't give a shit about them. And that's sad. I think we've seen a few...

through the years, several relationships where it's both partners are kind of running their own separate races and very much see it that way. And they're kind of focused on their thing and what they're doing. And I think there has to be a lot of like, we're doing this together. You have your separate lives and we'll probably get into that later that it's very important to have your separate lives, but you need to be

united on the relationship itself and growing the relationship. And I think that's something where people not purposefully, but they, you, you kind of, we're all naturally a little bit self-centered and you're getting into your own stuff and, and you're the main character in your own story and you kind of get focused on that and it's easy to drift apart. But if you don't want to go into your relationship with your baggage, um, I think that's kind of

I think it's kind of silly when people say like, don't bring your baggage with you.

you know, like there's like some saying with, with baggage. I can't think of it right now. Yeah. Like I have too much baggage to be in a relationship. Right. Or someone doesn't want to date you because of your baggage. I think that's some bullshit because everyone has baggage. Even if you didn't come from a family of divorce or a family of trauma, like you have your own shit that you got to work on that you grew up with, whatever it may be that's haunted you. So I feel like that's not really a fair statement, but I feel like,

You have to work on you, whatever that may be. If you can't afford therapy, TikTok and YouTube is free. And there are tons of free resources of like therapeutic responses on TikTok on YouTube. If you can afford therapy, please go to therapy. I think everyone can benefit from therapy, whether you've been through some trauma or not.

Also, once again, being completely honest with your spouse. There are days where I don't like being completely honest, telling Jared how I feel, telling him that, oh, again, I feel really depressed today. Again, it's not a great feeling. But again, being honest with him is how he knows how to show up for me. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

And last thing on that is if your trauma is from a relationship, don't automatically assume your future partner is going to be that way. Even if they do something similar to your past relationship, it doesn't mean that they're not your last relationship. You have to give them the benefit of the doubt. Now, I'm not saying ignore red flags. Do not ignore red flags. And you usually know what those are in your gut and your mind.

in your soul. You can just feel it. Don't ignore stuff like that. But just because they're doing something that was similar to your ex doesn't mean that they're your ex. Yeah. That makes sense. How do you and Jared handle other female coworkers being married? Us being married. How do we handle female coworkers? Is that what they're saying? Yeah, I believe so. Um, cause I probably, they know we're both nurses and it's a, it's a 90% female. Sure. But I don't know. That's you. You answer. I, uh,

Catch me outside. How about that? No, just be professional at work. Yeah. It's like other people hasn't really been so much of an issue in our relationship. I only remember one time and it was when we were waiting tables at fucking Chili's.

Chili's. We were freshly engaged. We weren't even married yet. We were freshly engaged and this girl was out to get my man. And I didn't say a word to her. I let her act out anything she was telling me. She was telling me, the new girl working at Chili's, she was telling me about how cute this boy was. And I was like, who? And she pointed to you. And I was like, oh my God, tell me more. I was like, tell me everything. And then when she was done, I was like, that's my fiance. And she was like, oh my God!

yeah but we've really never had an issue but i think it's because neither of us give off um i'm here i'm here to flirt i'm here to we're at work to fucking work yeah and i like there's just some like ground rules like i i always find a way to mention you very early in any conversations uh i'm at work you just be professional at work um yeah it just hasn't

hasn't really become an issue yeah we haven't had any issues at work is the point um i would say the other time is that one beach that might be listening to this podcast right now that one girl in vegas where you had still mentioned me you had still told her about me i was on a flight to come meet him the next day i was doing something else that particular day but then she slid into his dms regardless follows me slid into his dms and was like

COVID actually and kind of need a quarantine buddy. Oh my God. He showed me it and I'm like this girl out to she's out. She's on the prowl. You know, people are now that kind of shit's different. Like you already know that's so crazy. Yeah, you get crazy behavior. You get some wild stuff in your DMs wild more public figure, but we've never had any issues at work. But again, I think it's because we just we don't give off the

Like I'm here to date or like I'm single. I don't give off a single vibe. I feel like, um, how to proceed if you're significant other and you have different love languages and you feel it hasn't or isn't improving. I have, I have beef with the love languages in the first place. Tell us why though. Cause I think it's interesting. I think for not just men, I think, I think,

in couples more often than not, it's not used as a tool to improve your relationship. It's used as a manipulation tactic to get the things that you ultimately want. I just don't like, come on, babe, you know, my love language is physical touch and we let's just do this tonight. And you know what I mean? It's just so like, because I think most men that play that most men that take that test, what is their love language?

Yeah, physical touch. And then if you want to turn around, you know, the somebody wants to go one partner wants to go and do something. Other ones like, you know, my love language is quality time. I can't believe you're doing this right now. And it's like more often than not, when you hear about love languages, they're using it to get something true and not not as a.

Hey, you know, this is a characteristic that defines me. And they use it as a way to love each other better. Yeah, I just, I don't know. I think I live by the motto, if he wanted to, he would. If she wanted to, she would. If your partner wanted to, not seek you, what's like a, if they wanted to,

Pursue. Pursue. If your partner wanted to pursue you, they would. However, sometimes I do think we just get lost in our day-to-day lives. It depends on how long you've been together, et cetera. Do you guys have kids, et cetera? What's on your guys' minds? Is there a lot going on? Are both your plates overloaded with other things besides each other? That is understandable. So once again, you have to sit your partner down and be serious with them and tell them,

We can't read each other's minds. As much as I like to be a little bitch, sometimes I'm like, I know he knows what I want. No, he doesn't. He can't read my mind. I can't read his mind. You have to sit down and talk to your partner. If your needs are not being met, tell them what the needs are. Sometimes we just don't realize it. It's not on purpose a lot of times. And sometimes it is. Sometimes it is. Like sometimes I think people don't pursue each other on purpose. They don't even like their partner. Why are they with them? Yeah.

But most of the times I feel like if you are not sitting down talking to them, that's on you. Yeah. Sit down and talk to them first. Yeah. And just say, say what you want from them. Like,

Hey, you know, it's really important to me and I feel really special whenever we spend time and whenever you take time out of your day to spend time with me directly. Like, I think that's just way easier and way quicker than the extra five steps of, well, this is, you know, my these are my love language. Do you remember my love languages? Yes.

Do you remember what they are? I remember. Just say it. Just say what you want to say. No, on the flip side of this, this one says hasn't and isn't improving. If you've already spoken to your spouse about this, I would say two times. Two times. Something's got to change. Do you need counseling? In regards to two times about what? I would sit and talk to you twice about what I'm missing. If I was missing something from us, like...

Words about you. She said love language. So quality time. Let's play with that one. If I wanted you to spend more time with me one-on-one or really engage with me or we sit down and you're on your phone and you pretend that's quality. Like if there was an issue with the two times I've sat down to explain to you exactly what I need from you, I would then give you an ultimatum. I don't, I'm not going to be with anyone who doesn't want to be with me and respect me and pursue me. Just like you shouldn't be with someone who's not pursuing you. Mm-hmm.

I would be like, hey, so I've talked to you about this twice.

What's what's going on? Is it me? Do you not want to be with me? I need to know. And like, that's not going to be a fun conversation for most people, because I think sometimes you're going to get the heartbreak of actually, I'm not in it. I'm not here anymore. I don't want to be here. That fucking sucks. But I don't know. Something about me is my self-worth is more than that. I need to know. Do you want to be with me? What's the problem here? And OK, let's say you do want to be with me.

How come you can't, we aren't, we aren't on the same level still. How come you're not wanting to talk to me? How come you're not wanting to spend quality time with me? How come we can't be intimate in the bedroom? What's going on? Yeah. Lay it out for each other. Figure out what the disconnect is. Yeah. Um, and on the flip side of that, I think, uh, another question in here is, do you guys have sex and how often? And like, which I'm just jumping into this because we're talking about, um,

or physical touch. Yes, we have sex. I would say normally multiple times a week except around my period. Well, there'll be, and I think it's that way with a lot of relationships. Like there'll be, there'll be weeks that, you know, it'll be,

four or five times. And then there'll be weeks that we go the entire week without, you know, sometimes we just get busy or somebody doesn't feel good or, or like we're not sleeping well that week. And we ended up, you know, falling asleep earlier than usual, uh, periods, you know, there's, you know, so it'll be like,

I don't know. It just kind of happens with it. Like if you need to average, I don't know, two, two times a week. Yeah. I would say multiple times a week, sometimes more, sometimes less. On a good week. Yeah. But it doesn't mean it's like that every week, like you said, and also every relationship is different. Some people don't like being touched. It's what I've learned. And like, we're going to have a whole separate episode on this because I think it's really interesting and people need to hear that they're not alone with like the way their sex life is. But with us, it's typically a couple of times a week around that. Yeah.

But like you said, like we can just have off weeks too. Yeah. I mean, we're, and we're both busy people. Sometimes like your, your brain is just worn out. Like you just extra busy week at work. Um, and you're just like overloaded. Yeah. That can happen sometimes. Not to mention some people have children. I can't imagine.

Imagine adding that into our lives and then trying to have sex without them knowing. Or, you know, I don't know if they care. I don't know. But I think, once again, you just really need to be honest with your partner about what you're needing. However, if you are the one who needs a physical touch, you can't just be like, oh, why don't they want to have sex with me? What could you do to lighten the load of your partner's sex?

I don't know what I'm trying to say. Like the expectation. Yeah, I get what you're saying. You're saying like you like...

turned your back to him and you like wiggled your butt whenever you turned around and the next morning you're like I gave you a sign like no it looks like you're just getting comfortable I didn't know that you that that was a sign yeah but also like some people yeah we're gonna have a whole episode on this so stay tuned because I would say what you want say what you want also schedule it sometimes there are some times that we have scheduled our sex like where I'm like what are you doing tomorrow at 3 p.m. and

And he's like, nothing. I'm like scheduled in sex time, which Jenna, I hope you're not listening. Cause I'm going to throw this out there real quick. We realized we realized. So every now and then we'll be funny with each other and schedule a sex time, sexy time together. Um, and literally we'll, we'll go at, okay. It says 3 PM. Get up, stop, stop work. We're going to shower. We're getting things on in the bedroom. We'll do that. Right.

one day he gets a text from his mom and she's like, Hey, um, I keep getting notifications about like your appointments, like doctor appointment or like dentist appointment. What had happened? I, I,

I put her as our family so that she could have YouTube premium because I have the family plan and I have names I haven't used. And I guess to Google that throws you into the calendar and everything. So we didn't know. Yeah. So we would and we would use like some choice words whenever we schedule our relations.

And yeah, and then I get the text from my mom that she's like, hey, I saw something for your appointment. And I wonder if this was like her soft launching that she can see all this. 100%. That was her telling us. Yeah. Mom, sorry if you saw that. Sorry about that. It was an accident, I swear. But I was like dying once I saw that. I was like, no. Yeah. Anyway, future episode on sex. Stay tuned. Jana, don't stay tuned. If you redid your vows today with a big budget, what would your wedding vibes be?

Oh, our wedding vibes would be tropical. Tropical? No, I don't. Like we said earlier, it would be like a destination type thing. It would. I don't know where. Honestly, what I would love to do, fuck the wedding, okay? I want a beautiful gown with you all done up in a tux or a suit. You're going to say photo shoot. Yes, photo shoot at multiple locations, like the Redwoods, Tokyo, Japan.

Oh my gosh. Like everywhere that I've ever wanted to be. Italy. And we have a photo shoot. Not even a photo shoot, but just like a couple pictures of us all. This isn't like Game of Thrones. We can't do a world tour to do all this. She said, with a big budget, I want wedding pictures in all of my favorite places. Hawaii. I got you. Costa Rica.

I don't think they say it like that, but you know what I mean? How fucking cool would that be? Oh, is this your wedding? Not a big deal or anything. No flex, but all of this are different wedding gowns in different locations. I just think that'd be so fucking cool. Skip the wedding. How many? Oh, I see. I see. I read two of them. Sometimes I do think I might be dyslexic. How many loves did you have before your hubby and vice versa?

This is where it gets weird to me because we've talked about this before. Like love as a younger adult slash minor is different than the love I have for you. Yeah. I think that like looking back after, after 10 years of, of,

and shared experience. Of course, you know, who I dated in high school and in college looks nothing like that. You know, I wouldn't even call it love. I mean, I think it was more like, it's like puppy love. Yeah. Yeah. Infatuation or even like convenience. They're, they're kind of doing the same things in life that you're doing. Um,

that's such a word convenience is crazy it was for both of us now i get what you mean yeah she dumped me so it's uh yeah it was still upset about it no i'm just kidding i totally get what you're saying yeah it's like whenever whenever you're looking back on it and and we have 10 years of of relationship under our belt and and the like depth of of trust and shared experience and and how we know each other now yeah i've

It would be real hard to say that I've had actual love. How many would you think that even with that? Zero. Zero. Yeah. But you thought you loved them. Sure. Okay. Well, I'm getting to the point because her next part is, have you heard of the three love theory, which I haven't, but I would say I had two before you. So you'd be my third. But again, those, those loves are like,

puppy love. It wasn't the same and we wouldn't have worked out. Let me put it. Let me preface with that. Had we stayed together, we wouldn't have worked out. Yeah. I mean, if you're talking about like people I was in a relationship with and we said, I love you. You thought at the time you were in love with them. Sure. Yeah. How many? Oh, um, three before you four. Fuck them. No, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. Well, he doesn't fit the theory girl that I don't even know what the theory is. So

How did you know you were ready for marriage and that he's the one? Well, we already talked about a bit about our marriage, but I will say, or like how we got married early on. I will say, I don't know how to explain this. And a lot of people I talk to, they were the same way. When we met, I knew in my soul, I was going to marry him. And I'm not just saying that. I called my mom and told her,

um i met you and i was gonna marry you and she was like whoa slow down what are you talking about but i was serious i was like i think i'm gonna marry him we had not spoken about dating we had not kissed yet there was something about when i met jared and i i call it our zing from hotel transylvania but that is how i felt when we met heart eyes and like i was like whoa who's this not to mention

You ended up checking off the boxes I had in my head. You ticked my boxes. Because after my previous relationship before Jared, it was very toxic all around. And I remember I had told myself I'd wrote down things I was looking for in a future husband and a future spouse. And these are going to sound silly to some people, but this just shows you what my last relationship was.

Kind to animals. I wanted someone who loved animals as much as I did. Animals are a huge part of my life. So I wanted someone who was kind to animals. I wanted someone who respected me. And someone asked me, isn't this stuff the bare minimum? To some, maybe so. But me at the time, a 20-year-old girl, I wanted someone to fucking respect me for who I was. I wanted someone who pursued me and only me. Yeah.

And I can't remember what some of the other checks were, but Jared just continued to tick off those boxes. And I was like, okay, someone who's ambitious, you know, all these things. But I beat Pokemon Blue 35 times. Was that on there? It wasn't, but it should have been. I wanted someone who could pay their rent by playing World of Warcraft. It was Diablo. Diablo. Yeah.

I wanted to hustle a baby. No, but you have to know what you want in your relationship, in my opinion, to not settle and whatnot. What about you? How did you know I was the one? The fuck? I knew pretty early on after meeting you that something was different. Not the day, though. I'm just kidding. I think guys just, or I just work different. I think you're so...

Especially when you're that age, you're like so against settling down and like, oh, I'm not going to settle down. I've got so much more to do. We were a little playa playa at the time. But I remember thinking very early on that this was something different. Like I remember us meeting very vividly and I don't really remember that with anybody else.

ever or names or anything like that damn i know it's like in one ear and out the other that's crazy but yeah i i knew pretty early on i don't know that uh it was the same path as yours but yeah

This one's kind of random. Shows you watch together. So if you don't follow me on Instagram, you should. I have a TV Rex slash movie Rex highlight and I've been posting on there pretty frequently recently. A show we're watching right now is The Silo. It's great. It's on Apple TV. It's so fucking good. Apparently it's a book series, so I need to get those ASAP. But The Silo is really good. It's like post-apocalyptic. Is it apocalyptic? Is that the right word? Futuristic.

This community lives in a silo and they're not allowed to go outside. They don't know what happened before the silo. It's just really fucking good. From? From. Also kind of post-apocalyptic in a sense. That's on MGM or something. I don't know what it's on. It was on Amazon at one point. But I have a whole list of recommendations on my Instagram.

How do you all balance your individual me time? I think that was something that was important early on and was kind of a point of contention a little bit earlier in our relationship. I've always been fairly independent. I don't prefer it, but I don't mind being alone. Sure. There's days that I like being alone. And so I think that...

throughout our relationship we've we've made efforts to carve out individual time um i think that's something that you've been working on working on more and more um when we first got together um

Post-therapy me now knows I have abandonment issues. So I was very like, I don't like the word clingy because it sounds like I was annoying. I didn't understand me time for me or you. I didn't understand why would someone want to be by themselves? Why would someone not want to be with their partner 24-7? You know, like these like when you ask those questions, it sounds really stupid. But, you know, deep down somewhere inside, I was scared to be alone. Sure. Yeah.

So I learned through therapy that I have a abandonment issues or attachment issues. And my therapist told me it was like 2021. I think she said like one of my pieces of homework was to go do something without Jared, something big without Jared by myself. And this was,

pretty much by myself, but I ended up going on a backpacking trip with one of my old friends. It was just us two. We went and backpacked for six days from through mammoth through Yosemite, 80 something miles. And it showed me I can do things by myself and by like, again, without Jared, I can do, I can figure things out on my own. Um, but I had, I struggled with that. Um,

early on in our relationship. And, and in fact, I think I, I caused quite a few fights because of it. Cause I was like, wait, why, why do you, why do you not want to be with me all the time? You know, like, Oh, like let, let me just strangle you over here. Um,

But yeah, I had to deal with that through therapy and I'm still working on it. But I think I'm way better now. Actually now I love me time. I love, I could unfortunately stay in the house for like six days without leaving. And that's kind of concerning on the other end. But my next piece of homework from therapy is to go do something for real by myself, like a trip by myself, not like across the world or anything, but do something by myself for at least 24 hours.

Yeah, and I think us having, we have separate hobbies. We have separate professional lives. They overlap, obviously. Yeah, Jared likes to golf. Yeah, having our hobbies and things that we're working towards individually, and then we still come together for several things. Yeah. What is your secret to a lasting marriage? I've been with my husband for three years so far. That's a cute question.

Yeah, I think it's, we kind of touched on it earlier, but I really think

communication and it sounds so cliche, but it's so much deeper than just saying communicate with each other. It's the, what we talked about earlier, like checking in with each other. Um, you guys have been married for three years. There's a good chance that you're very different people than you were whenever you got married. Hopefully you're different people. You know, it's a, we're, we're constantly evolving. You know, we, we don't, uh, if you're not moving, it kind of feels like you're dying. You know, you, you, you want to continue to develop and, and become different. Um,

So always check in with each other, communicate your needs and wants from each other. You know, all the love language stuff. Just just tell them what you want.

communicate everywhere. Sex, communicate with sex. I promise it'll be way better. Say what you want. They're not going to figure it out. Try new things with each other as well. This isn't just with sex, but with sex too. Try new things with each other. Not everything, and I understand some people have trauma when it comes to sex. That's something you have to figure out with yourself, with your therapist, with your spouse, and be very open about it. But

Beyond that, you need to try new things with each other. Try new restaurants. Try new hobbies. Jared tried golf and he fell in love with it. I tried surfing when we were in California. I fell in love with it. Trying new things, I feel like, keeps your relationship alive in forms of like you have stuff to talk about when you come home. Like, oh my God, guess what? When I was out surfing, I saw a dolphin and this stuff happened. When you were golfing,

you hit a hole in one, you know, like, or whatever. There's stuff to talk about with it. And there's also like struggles with new hobbies that you can talk with your spouse about, you know, what do you think about this? I mean, I just feel like, um, trying new things is really important in a relationship. Yeah. And I think, um, fighting fair is a big one. That's another like kind of buzzword, but,

But trying your hardest, and this is the hardest time to be level-headed whenever you're elevated and you're angry at the person. But remember that it's not...

There's no winner that comes out of it. It's both of you against the problem. You know, it's not head to head and see who can push further. Yeah. You're both trying to solve an issue and it's not about being right or winning the argument. It's about overcoming the obstacle, which is a third party thing that both of you are working towards. I'm seeing green flags all around you right now. Let's see. Would you ever give each other a free pass?

No. What a weird concept. I honestly, I think a hall pass is so fucking lame. I think free passes are lame and I don't care if people are like, oh, okay guys, like whatever. I'm dead serious. I think, first of all, I am in a monogamous relationship. That is what I signed up for was a monogamous relationship. One person. If you are poly, that's totally fine.

That is not us. That's a completely different conversation. It is, but at the same time, it's not. Like, I signed up for monogamy. So if he were to come to me and be like, hey, this one time, can I have sex with Anna Kendrick? Like, it's always a celebrity. I don't know. I just threw her out because I was saw me with her. That wouldn't even be who you pick probably. But whoever. It doesn't matter. No, no.

A, it's so funny to me that the guys even have hall passes for celebrities as if you're ever going to have the chance to have a sex with this person. It's so strange to me. It's a strange concept. And number two, it's disrespectful. I mean, it's just... It's so disrespectful to me. I think it's just funny because it's... I see it the same as like...

somebody who says they're going to do something. They tell everybody like starting a business. If you, if you say, Hey, I'm starting a business. You tell all your friends like, this is going to be my logo. These are going to be the colors of the business. Uh, you know, I'm starting this business. It's going to be huge. You, you get a little bit, whatever, 10, 15% of the dopamine hit of actually doing the thing. Um,

And so it feels good to talk about doing the thing. And I think this is the same, a hall pass, you get some tiny percentage of the dopamine hit of novel sex. And I think that's why most people do it. It's super weird. Um,

Um, maybe you're approaching a little bit pathetic. I don't, I'm not a fan of it all. Like if you're pursuing each other and you're in a really high quality relationship, it never crosses your mind in a monogamous relationship. Polly people, um, that's a different conversation. No, yeah, I just, it's just not my thing. I'm so glad it's not my husband's thing. Cause honestly, it seems to be more of a man thing.

I don't ever hear the woman first say, I got a hall pass. Even in just girl groups, even in just girl chats, I rarely hear my girlfriends be like, you know who my hall pass is? It's a guy thing. It's locker room shit. And I think it's like, you're a little boy. You're an easy little boy. I just feel like I wouldn't deal with it. And I realize it's not even real. A hall pass is typically somebody who they're never going to encounter. But it's just one of those things I'm like,

And that's not to say like we don't, we obviously can understand that there is attraction with celebrities. Yeah, that's exactly what I was going to say. That's not like head in the sand. No. We're the only two attractive people on the face of the earth. We understand there's attractive people out there and I have no doubt there's people that Lindsay finds attractive. And vice versa. Yeah, it's not the end of the world, but there is like a mutual respect thing.

And I think the whole idea of the hall pass kind of steps on the toes of that. Absolutely. That's a great way to put it. Were you both nurses before you met or did that come later? So we already talked about how we met, but both of us were in college when we met and it was not for nursing. Jared was trying to get into med school.

Yeah. Which we've talked about before. And I was floating through college, not really sure what the hell I was doing. I think at the time I was in prereqs for dental hygiene, maybe. I don't remember actually where I was in that moment. But it was right before I took a break from school and Jared had his bachelor's degree.

We both were just trying to figure out what we wanted. We had family members that were nurses. My mom worked at a bank and she, I remember she told me that she worked with quite a few nurses helping them get homes and stuff and she would see their salaries. So she was like, it's not a bad salary. Now being in it, I understand we definitely should make more for what we have to deal with, et cetera. But yeah,

We met before then. We both applied to nursing school. Jared got in a year before I did. I was rejected the year I applied to go with him. And we went to the same nursing school. He was just a year ahead of me.

Yeah. And we, I think travel nursing was a big driver for us going to nursing school. Um, it fit the, we liked the nursing, the three day a week lifestyle and then travel nursing, being able to pick your schedule, this and that, especially whenever you're, uh, young and don't need to worry as much about benefits. It was all very appealing to us. Yeah. Last question for this one. Cause there's a, there's a ton of questions on this AMA and I want to do a specific one about like

Sex life type thing, because there's a lot of questions in here regarding that. What has been the biggest challenge you have faced? I don't know if it's together or separate. What what comes to mind? We didn't get the seven year itch. Yeah, I think I think a lot of the the main stuff that, you know, most people fight about finances, finances.

Infidelity. Kids. Kids. Yeah, those are the three. We spoke earlier, like the whole infidelity, other people thing, it hasn't really cropped up for us. Finances were tough early on. They were. Especially while we were just trying to find our way. You know, I was in and out of a few jobs. I was a restaurant manager for like eight hours and quit. Yeah.

So there was, there was a lot of different stuff in there and just kind of feeling, uh, like we're both lost and we don't know where we want to go or what we want to do. I think that got a little bit tough cause we were both trying to figure out our professional lives and then, um, foster relationship on top of all that. And that led to some, some tough times. I think it's also because feeling lost can feel, I don't know the right word. Maybe you can help me, but it,

It was even beyond that. It was feeling like doom. Yeah.

For me, like in the sense of like, this isn't what I thought growing up would be. This isn't what I thought life would be. This isn't what I thought adulthood was. You get out of college, you did all the right stuff and you're like, this sucks. This fucking sucks. What are we doing? I'm broke. I can barely make my rent or I can't, you know, and just going through like little life lessons, like breakups.

breaking leases we did that um being fucking idiots when we were young owing people money because we're fucking idiots you know like and i mean that specific apartment like going to going to work as a waiter and not knowing how much you're gonna make and you usually make about 70 then you can put 30 of that in gas but you only make 36 that night so you have to put 11 in gas you gotta finish off paying one of your bills and

This one ticks over into 90 days and gets sent to collections on this date. And so, you know, there's a, it's just, yeah. It's just, it's hard. It's hard. Money problems. So like you said, like there's three main issues people typically fight about.

Now where we are in our life, we don't have to deal with any of them. Thank God. We're very grateful. We worked really hard to get to where we are and we're not blind by any type of privilege either, but we worked hard to get here. And so luckily we don't have money issues anymore. As of right now, we don't have children and we don't, neither of us cheat on each other. Yeah. I think there's a, at least I can't speak for you, but from my end, there's, and this kind of ties in with,

continuously improving yourself is, uh, you know, I feel privileged to be with you. And, and I think that's a big driver of like why I want to continue to progress in business and in my personal life and whatever random hobbies stay healthy, um, things like that. And I think that's a big part of why we've done so well. Uh, I think that there's

I think it's mutual. It is mutual. But an infatuation with each other that has carried through the decade. I didn't cry, but you definitely made me tear up. Thank you for saying that. That's very sweet. Yeah, I think that Jared and I just are really good at putting each other first in our lives. Like, you're the first person I think about when I wake up. You're the first person I think about when I'm going to sleep. You're the last person I think about when I'm going to sleep.

I really do love Jared and he loves me. And we work on what it means to be loved. We work on what it means to love each other every single day. And I think you just have to be honest with your spouse. Like you're not going... If your spouse...

If you're settling for someone, you're not going to feel this way about them. I don't, I really don't think so. Like, I don't feel like I settled with you at all. I feel like when we first got together, I feel like I felt like I didn't deserve you. You know, what did I do to deserve this man with through therapy? I know I deserve you, but I just never expected to hit the lottery with you. You know what I mean? Like,

And I will work on myself every day to be the best wife I can be and the best friend I can be and the best person I can be with you. And not every day is perfect, but I just think it means like pursuing each other. Yeah. It's like really important. I think something that ties in with that and that's maybe a bit unconventional is that we both very much, we don't totally ascribe to the whole like,

one true love type thing that you can only build a life with one person. Um, I think we both come into this relationship as whole people. Um, now I'm not saying it was always like that. You don't have to be perfect to come into a relationship, but we both come into this as, as whole people who can function and be happy by themselves. Yeah. And I think that's the only foundation that you can build happiness as a couple on. Yeah. That's really good.

I think that we're going to end the episode on that. That was really good. Very sweet. I loved it. I want to write all this stuff down so I can read it every day. Thank you guys so much for sending in your questions. I do have a ton more questions, but we have a few things to do after this episode. So we will do another Relationship AMA if you guys liked this. And that's all I got. Yeah. Thanks, guys. Until next time. Bye, guys.

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