Against My Better Judgement | Gina’s Story Part 1
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True Story Media. Life wasn't bad, but I just wasn't happy. I had become a very passive participant in my life and just kind of let everything happen to me. The universe never lets us stay passive for long. It was just one of those things where it was like everything just kind of came to a head. And as someone who tends to be more type A, some say I have issues with control. I like control. Yeah.

I'm Brittany Yard. You probably think this story is about you, but this story is Gina's.

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When I first met Gina, everything she was doing seemed calm and intentional and with confidence. But as I got to know her more, I realized that she was at a big crossroads in her life. I'm in this weird space within about a month where I just sold my house. I just split from my ex and I don't have a job.

This is the universe telling me that it is time for change. These changes would alter her next steps in life, ultimately leading her back to a relationship that had her flee the state of Colorado 20 years before. I only know this whole story because in 2023, her dog attacked mine in our apartment hallway. Don't worry, all dogs and humans were okay.

My name is Gina. I am 42, live in Seattle, born and raised in Germany. In July, I moved into the apartment. In August, you moved in. Went from house living with three dogs to apartment living with three dogs. And one of my pups in particular was really struggling. One of Gina's dogs got out of his harness and attacked my dog. I froze. Gina literally leaped into action.

At one point, Gina said to me, "Run." And that's when I like snapped out of it and ran down the hallway. After that very dramatic meet cute, Gina and I exchanged numbers and started texting each other when we were taking our dogs out for a walk to make sure that there wasn't another unexpected encounter.

I knew after I saw Gina wrestling that dog that she was somebody that I wanted to be friends with. And as we were texting, we started talking about more and more things. And we quickly realized that we were both going through a whole lot of shit. You and I connecting was two souls finding each other. We're like, we have commonalities that just kind of, we pull to each other.

I mean, I feel like I won the victim lottery. I was like, my dog just attacked her dog and I'm hanging out with her. Like, what? It wasn't until much later that I learned that she was in this yes era of her life where she just said yes. When I started saying yes, I didn't give a shit about anybody else but me. And that was like the first time in a long time for me.

It's ingrained in me to say no. I'm a very cautious person. Me before was, honestly, if I look back now, it's really hard for me to think about it because I was so different. If you ask my niece, she's like, for a while, I really thought you were just grumpy all the time. You're always annoyed. She's like, every time I saw you, you were just, you seemed like something was bugging you. Life wasn't bad, but I just wasn't happy.

The first change seemed almost insignificant.

We've been talking about selling this house for like the past five years of having the house. So let's do it. So we went ahead and started going down the path of selling the house. And then a week into moving, we broke up. Then the months leading up, it was more obvious that that was going to happen. Married for five years, dating for five, so together 10 total. But it wasn't bad. It just wasn't

We kind of just became roommates like many others. I wasn't angry or miserable every day of my life. I was like, oh, I guess this is going to be my life for the rest of my life. I've been divorced twice, and I know how complicated it is to keep fighting for a relationship that isn't bringing you joy. And eventually you realize that something has to change.

We're both very loyal people, and so we were both so committed to being committed to each other. We weren't committed to the connection. We weren't honoring the connection through most of our relationship. When I think back, I'm like, it was a 10-year relationship that probably should have lasted two years. And then Gina got laid off from her career of 20 years. Because I'd been for years talking about leaving that company, I was not happy. For the first time in my life, and my adult life at least...

After this whirlwind month, she knew she could no longer remain passive in her life. I also was lucky enough to be in a situation where I was financially stable. And so I was like,

I'm not going to go to work right away and just find something else that's the same thing to just keep doing. I'm not going to jump into another relationship with another person that I'm, you know, just to be in a relationship.

I want to be happy. I want to be happy. And so, you know, part of the control thing and being a rule follower, I'm a big no person, you know, and I know that, you know, people are excited to hear that. But I say no to a lot of things or I have. It's so funny because I don't know you as a no person. Everything I know about you is like, fuck yeah, let's go do that. And you don't know me as like,

Betty Crocker mom. No. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but no, it's not the Brit that I met. Right. It's really insane to me how we met at these times in our lives. You were another piece of the universe being like, this is a person who's going to help you on your journey. And honestly, for that next like year, year and a half, a year and three quarter, two and a quarter, year and a quarter. I don't think I would be where I am today if it wasn't for that.

Her next big yes was taking a solo trip to Bali. Did things that I would never do as a no person because I'm very clumsy, naturally hand-eye coordination, not the best. I will trip, I will walking, I will fall. So, you know, surfing. No. But in Bali, it was a yes.

I wasn't good at it, but I loved every second and I was able to stay up twice. We hiked a volcano at sunrise, before sunrise in the pitch black. There's probably no time in my adult life where I'm going to get an opportunity to just live until retirement. So I was like, I'm going to do it. I'm going to live. I only knew her as someone that was fearless. And it took me a long time to realize how remarkable her efforts to change her path had been.

She used the time during that trip to really dig in to who she was and what she wanted. Growing up, I had a lot of shame when it came to sex, sexuality, sensuality. It was...

Always something that, you know, you as a woman, as a girl or a woman, if I'm being honest, like you're not supposed to want it. When I go back and think about my sexual history, all through high school, dated boys. As soon as I graduated, started dating women, only dated women for about seven years straight. And then I moved from Colorado to Seattle and had no luck.

And I say I had no game because I don't see it as a game, but I am not smooth. And I could not, no women were interested in me at all. Now, most of my friends were gay men, so we often hung out at gay clubs where there was a lot of other men. I was not having the luck with women, so I started dating men occasionally again and dated a bit here and there. But I definitely was the person who very regularly...

If I was dating someone and they liked me and they wanted to be in a relationship, I was like, okay, I guess this is what I'm doing now. I was very accommodating in previous relationships. Eventually, over the years, I end up meeting my ex-husband and things were very easy with him.

And he very quickly was like, you're it. I want to do this. And I was like, OK, so I guess we're doing this. And then in the relationship, intimacy was not a strength for either. Like we just it got very awkward, very quick. Gina wasn't just being passive in her life. She was avoiding listening to those voices deep inside. Towards the end, we weren't intimate, barely ever.

It was something that for many years I was willing to accept. I was like, OK, this is if this is the only like it's not the only. But if this was the thing that's like not great, I could I could do this. I could do this for the rest of my life. I know how to masturbate. I can do this. That was Gina then. But this is Gina in the driver's seat. I want to have sex. I want to have sex. I don't want to. I don't want a boyfriend. I don't want a girlfriend. I just want to have sex.

Relationship-wise, I didn't want to be in one. I was pretty adamant. I was in a space where I had just gotten out of a 10-year relationship. Again, it wasn't a bad relationship, but neither of us were fulfilled. I was like, I want to date. And I want to date a lot.

Like me, Gina had been out of the dating world for at least 10 years. I think there was plenty of fish. Like there were websites. Websites were big. Websites, yeah. Websites were big when I was dating, not apps. So apps was a whole new world. I helped her set up her profile, showed her how to do a background check. We set her up with a Google voice number and started sharing our locations.

After my tumultuous dating experience on the apps, I wanted to make sure that Gina got the experience she wanted safely. And you were like, oh, no, no, no. Here's what we're going to do. We're going to set you up to where you're not going to die. And decided that Tinder was the best choice. Because if what you want is sex, like that's where you go. We learned very quickly that we have similar tastes in men. Yeah.

And so we would routinely match with the same guys. Yeah. And then it's like we started screenshotting our matches. We had to. Yeah. Because we're like, hold on, are you getting him? Are you taking him home? Yeah. Are you talking to him? Where are we at? There were a couple that we were like, we both could. And then both bring him to the same floor on different days and see if he notices. It was an interesting experience. I don't want to call it a roster. Yeah.

But yours was impressive. I'm also an introvert, which makes, you know, peopling not always the easiest for me. In order to get into that zone, Gina had a recipe. Three shots of tequila, power pose. I had a playlist I would have playing on my TV. It was like all like 90s, 2000s R&B. I was like, I got to get in the zone in order to like find my sexy part.

And it was really hard at first because the idea of just sleeping with someone just seemed so foreign to me. I want to take a minute and talk about hormone harmony. It isn't just for menopause, even though I was...

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I've never seen anything like it. And a new chapter begins. Carrie Underwood joins Lionel Richie, Luke Bryan, and Ryan Seacrest on American Idol. New Sundays, 8, 7 central on ABC and stream on Hulu. Gina and I had very similar experiences after our marriages ended.

We intentionally went into the next steps of our life knowing that we wanted to make that experience ours. And we were unwilling to sacrifice who we were to placate our partners. Being in my 40s and newly single and deciding to change up the game for myself a bit and just go into...

These interactions with sex in my... Like, that is it. I don't want to be your girlfriend. I don't want to necessarily know about your life that I don't... You know, I've met some great guys and they shared. Like, you naturally just have conversations. But I was like, I don't want to know about how your day is going. I don't... I don't... I don't care. I've done that for 10 years. Like, I want...

experiences that are going to help me understand what I'm into and what I'm not into because it had been so long since I really felt sex as a freeing experience to where I was like, I don't know what I want. I don't know what I like. I don't know if I want you to pull my hair. I might hit you. I don't know if I want to get choked. Maybe.

A friend of mine, he was one of the first guys to pop in and say, hey, I'm willing to help out. Having him kind of kick things off for me, it helped build my confidence. It helped me start to figure out what I wanted.

The sexual experiences with him were very nuanced. They were definitely more aggressive, more assertive. And so I kind of got to figure out like what my boundaries are. What is too far? What is not? What do I like? I had another guy that I like to call coffee shop date. He was charismatic. He was fun. There was another guy that was my blanket. I called him blanket. He was my snuggler. He was the guy that would come over. We'd watch Nicolas Cage movies, cuddle on the couch and then hook up.

And it just, it worked out. Women are now getting divorced without shame. And there's this whole army of women that are no longer tolerating a lack of understanding in their relationships. For Gina and I, getting married just seemed like the next step in that relationship we were in.

But I look at the younger generation, my daughter and her friends, and they aren't taking that next step unless it serves them. Sometimes saying yes took Gina to places she never would have expected. I have an older friend that I've known for years through work who had for so many years while I was married was like, "Hey, do you want to come to this club? Do you want to come to this club?"

And I was like, sounds like a great experience. But I was like, nah, I'm married. So when I was single, he's like, hey, do you want to check out the club? I went to this club experience. Now, I feel very naive when I look back because I'm like, I should have known this was a sex club. And I call it a sex club. It's actually a swingers club. But somehow I walked into this club thinking, I'm going to learn about BDSM tonight. You know, I'm going to see women in lingerie.

That was the extent. What ended up happening is I was introduced to a lot of naked people. There was definitely sex. There was there was sex going on. I was so confused and I wasn't offended, but I just was not prepared. I mean, full disclosure, I didn't even shave. I had no intentions of having sex. I had no clue what I was doing there.

Honestly, I was the weird chick, because it was weird, who ate all the, because they have free food. So I was sitting there with multiple plates of ravioli. I'm fully clothed eating ravioli while people are banging in the rooms next to me. So that was my first experience. So I'm telling this other friend when we're at dinner, I'm like, oh my gosh, I went to a sex club and completely didn't realize it was a sex club. I went to a sex club and ate ravioli. Yes, and ate ravioli. I mean, the ravioli was good. Yeah.

And this other friend is on their journey and they were like, hey, I've been interested. I would like to learn about this. You know, if you're game, I would love to go again. And it was such a safe and inviting experience the first time around. Even for someone who wasn't doing anything, everybody was so friendly, so nice, like happy to educate me that I was absolutely, I was like, let's do it. We ended up going and...

Because I knew what I was getting into, because it felt like a very safe, it just felt comfortable. Now, mind you, I did have my normal shots, like I always do. I ended up having sex a few times, very publicly in the back rooms. And something that felt very scary and like, why would I? I would never. The shame that would come with that. I would never. It was crazy how easy it became.

It like the noises, the scenery, like looking over and seeing someone give another person head and not even flinching and just continuing about your own business. It felt so freeing. It was one of the coolest experiences I've ever had. Not necessarily something you're going to catch me doing on the weekends, but it was I'm happy I did it. And I have no regrets because in this journey of me

getting okay with myself and my wants and my needs, I think it was a pivotal part in that. It showed me again, it was like Bali. That was my surfing of Bali. It was sex club. I got a new groove and it felt empowering. It felt good. I was no longer the shy, nervous,

young, immature woman that I was in my 20s. And that's not to say that I don't still get shy or get nervous or am immature today, but not to the extent I was in my 20s. But I was no longer that same person. That was a completely different Gina. Sometimes when we move forward, we can't help but look back.

When I first became single, you know, you pop into the Rolodex. I'm like, who can I potentially look into that, you know, might be from my past? Oh, haven't talked to you in a while. And very quickly, Patrick, my best friend, was like, you can talk to everyone and anyone from your past, but don't you dare reach out to Viv. Don't you dare. Don't even, that shouldn't even be a thought. And so that, like, was off-limits.

I might have checked out their profiles a bit more frequently once I became single, but I was not reaching out because I was not, that was just not something that was in my best judgment. I was nervous. Yes. Because I had heard the stories. The horror stories.

It was super complicated. There were I love you's. It was just the iconic situationship, but in the early to mid 2000s. Very young, very lustful love. We had an amazing sex life, but neither of us were equipped to deal with all the baggage that we carried with us from our childhood. I spiraled for months and...

It was to a point where I had a job opportunity to come out to Seattle. I took a look at my life and I was like, every weekend I'm crying over this chick. Like, if I don't go, I'm going to be stuck in my life. And so that, like, was off limits. It was a hard pass. I mean, I left the state to get away from this person. So the idea of reconnecting seems completely crazy.

Not just crazy. None of us thought that she should reach out to Viv. I mean, yeah, and you and everyone else. But they kept popping up on my feed out of the blue, like two, three times a week. And I was like, I mean, full disclosure, I was like, OK, they still look good. But I was like, you know, what's the harm in checking in? And though I was told I am not, I'm saying yes to things. I'm saying yes. So that's when I reached out.

I do want to call out though, okay? The message starts with, against my better judgment, I'm reaching out. I was probably the better judgment. I was probably the one that was like, why are you doing that? That's next time on You Probably Think This Story's About You.

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