Decoding the Dynamics of Relationships, Divorce, and Estate Planning

What happens when a man, who was living irresponsibly, undergoes a transformation and takes on life's most serious responsibilities? How does his past influence his present and future, especially when it comes to nurturing relationships and imparting wisdom to the next generation? Let's traverse this intriguing journey with our guest for today, Fred Heyman, a legal expert who’s here to share his insights into the often overlooked adult responsibility - estate planning and living wills, and his personal journey through divorce. 

Delving into the dynamics of relationships, we oscillate between power and gender, often through the spectrum of divorce. Join us as we unmask some surprising statistics about divorce rates and discuss a few unique and ironic stories that caught our attention. We also dive into the profound influence of upbringing, role models, trauma, and heredity on the decision to divorce, highlighting the value of stability and accountability in relationships. Be prepared for a thought-provoking conversation that will make you contemplate the essence of adult responsibility.

Transcript

Byron: 0:02

Hello and welcome to our podcast series, the Father Factor Podcast. I'm your host, byron Ricks, and joining me is my co-host and good friend, josh Wombrod. The objective is to give a voice to fathers who are not able to be with their kids, mothers who are raising kids without fathers and children who, unfortunately, are growing up without fathers in their lives. Okay, we are back. You'll listen to the Father Factor. We are talking with Fred Heyman of Heyman and Hogue Law Firm in Frisco, texas, and you do living wills.

Fred: 0:59

We're estate planning and elder law attorneys. We do wills and trusts and powers of attorney and all the documents that people need. We do probate when people pass away administering their estates. We do guardianships when people can become incapacitated and then we do a little bit of Medicaid planning for people going into nursing homes.

Byron: 1:20

Okay, so part of being responsible adult a responsible mother or father, a parent, should I say is making sure that you have your house in order, your living will in order. What's going to happen if you get sick? Go to the hospital. Who has power of attorney over your medical? Who have power of attorney over your finance? If that's what you need, Fred is our man for that. We left off talking about, well, divorce and how that impacts the children. And, Brandon, I think you had a question how did divorce impact Fred's daughters?

Brandon: 2:01

Yeah, absolutely, I was just wanting to kind of.

Byron: 2:03

Before we do that, I want to say one thing real quick. You said you were divorced. You were married 15,. You was in relationship 30 something years, but you had been divorced for 15? Well, at least.

Fred: 2:16

I mean, when I really look at it, through most of the 32 years we were together, we weren't together.

Byron: 2:22

Our entire.

Fred: 2:25

I don't want to say that it was all bad because I've got two beautiful daughters out of it, but it was never functional. But when it really hit me was when I was reading that book and I thought I'd been divorced at least 15 years.

Byron: 2:36

The reason I wanted to bring that up, brett, and I'm coming right back to you for that question. I was having a conversation about relationships and I noticed that, especially in the Christian community, they look at marriage and I understand why and I'm not knocking marriage but I want people to begin to look at relationships, because what a marriage does is really consummate a relationship. Relationship starts before you get married, because I know of several situations where men who had bachelor parties are not married now because of the wife found out what happened at the bachelor party. So it's about relationships and what you're saying is that you were physically married but that relationship had ended.

Fred: 3:34

I mean we were married under the laws of Texas, Under the laws of Texas.

Brandon: 3:37

Okay, and Brandi, you had a question about the divorce and the kids. As I was listening to you, fred, talk about your story, I could tell, when you began to describe your relationship with the Lord and your faith, that there was conviction there and that a part of the reason you stayed in this union that really wasn't a union that was productive was your conviction because of what you know as a disciple and because of your daughters. And so what I'm curious about is how this now new relationship status with your ex and the mother of your children, how that is impacting their view of God and your ability to minister the word of truth to them as a result of kind of the brokenness that's happened here.

Fred: 4:41

I'm not going to lie, it's a challenge. Any time you're in a situation like this, it's a challenge, but I've had lots of challenges that I've tried to turn around. I mean, I'll start even before this. I did not live a good life before I got married, I lived the typical, what I would call the typical college boy drink as much as you can, sleep with as many women as you can lifestyle, and I'm ashamed of that now, but that's who I am, and one time my oldest.

Byron: 5:15

That's who you were. That's who I was.

Fred: 5:18

That's who I was. And so one time during my marriage my oldest daughter comes to me I think she was in her teenage years and she said dad, mom says that you were with a lot of women before you got married, and one I don't know why she would even disclose that, but she did. And I said, yeah, ashton, that's true. I said, but you know the worst part of that, ashton? And she says what's that? I said I don't remember half their names. And I said and most boys out there that are looking to go with you are exactly that way.

Fred: 5:53

They're looking for one thing and one thing only. And I could see the look on her face that she got it. She didn't look at me like I was not a good man. She looked at me like wow, I never thought of it that way and I can't take credit for it, because I truly believe God put that on my heart rate that moment to say that to her and I said you don't want a guy like I was. So when you go to choose, don't do what I did. I didn't look for a woman and I didn't seek God's guidance. When I look for a woman, I looked for who I could get in bed with or who I could. And I said and that's even how and now we're talking. I said that's how your mom and I met. Your mom and I didn't meet because I sought out God and I asked him to help me find a mate. We met in a bar and I said so when you're starting to look for your life mate, seek God and seek his guidance. Because I wish I would have Cause I think a lot of things would have been different in my life if I would have.

Fred: 6:59

Now, not, I don't think that changes the fact that I truly believe that God put me and my ex together. I think his hand was putting us together and I realized that God doesn't always put two people together to make him happy. He puts two people together for his purpose and I think his purpose was that I saved her in a way, because she was in a very bad family breakup situation. She had been dating really bad guys and she saved me from the life of drinking and carousing, and so God has purposes. So I don't regret the fact that we got married. I don't regret the. I wish it would have been better. And every day I'm sad for the relationship I never had and I wanted. And those are the kind of things I share with my daughters, because I think they need to know the truth, they need to know really where the heart of it is.

Byron: 7:56

But so your daughters. The question was how well you want to know how they could still be.

Brandon: 8:05

Yeah, so the impetus of that right is another half of that is you talking about. Let's call the brick and mortar established church right. And the view of divorce right, and we talked about how there can be a lot of I won't even call it conviction, it's more so guilt and shame that's associated with that Definitely.

Brandon: 8:29

Right and your apprehension to make that move sooner was be probably because of your own convictions, because you wanted to make sure that you're abiding by scripture and you're following the commands of Christ in that regard, but also because the stigma that exists there.

Brandon: 8:47

And so my question is it really is how do we kind of unpack some of the challenges Because we talked about after we set recording, we were talking about my generation, I think in America is the generation that's experienced the most divorce, that 80s, 90s kind of time periods when divorce kind of skyrocketed in the country. And so now you're seeing the adults, okay, of those relationships and what I have noticed that faith conversations are difficult to have because the family dynamic in God is challenging, right. So if you have a parent that is telling you God is all knowing and all powerful and Jesus is graceful and merciful and he's a God of reconciliation and restoration and he heals all things, but then they look back and they say wait a minute. Well, where does that same apply to you and mine? How is it that you're gonna tell me to follow this deity who's all powerful but yet didn't have the power enough to reconcile you and mom's relationship? I don't accept that.

Fred: 9:53

Well, and my automatic response to that is he does have the power, but he chooses not to, he chooses to. We are people of choice. God gave us free will, and so God decided to allow me to make my own choices. Now, do I think that God is happy with me getting divorced? No, I don't think he is. But do I think that he wanted me to live in the relationship that I was in? I think he wanted that, probably less than he dislikes divorce, because the dysfunction of our relationship was more harmful, I think, on my daughters than the divorce, because my daughters are now seeing things that they didn't see when we were together.

Byron: 10:39

I agree with that. I agree with that I mean, because they were in a dysfunctional home.

Byron: 10:44

Yes and I see people you know and I've been married long. I've never been divorced, so you know, but I fought for it. Yet I believe in it, in the, in the aspect or in the respect that I Much rather have two people divorce and can have a relationship and parent Than to have them in a dysfunctional situation. Brandon, how do you balance that? I mean, you got you got Disfunctional parents and they stand together because God wants them to be together, but yet the role models they are for their kids they're doing more harm than good.

Brandon: 11:21

Yeah, and I think that's you know. It's interesting is, fred, you made a comment when we were kind of chatting. You know off off, mike, that you went to counseling. Yes, you know, it seems like your ex-wife was unwilling to also Engage in any counseling as well, or did she participate in counseling too?

Fred: 11:39

So marriage counseling never, ever worked and I didn't know why we almost divorced in 2012. We separated and went through the divorce process in El Paso in 2012 and and reconciled. And I know why got we reconciled? Because God wanted me to be out here. Because, because of the reconciliation, we moved from El Paso to DFW and I gave my daughter's opportunities they never ever would have had. My daughter wouldn't be going to the US Air Force Academy if it wasn't for what she got out here. So I see why God does what God does.

Fred: 12:10

When I, when you look back, but when, when we went through that my, my, I learned that, yes, my wife had gone through counseling, but she always quit and and the reason I learned is because when I was going through counseling, I was introduced to a book called stop walking on eggshells, and in reading through that book, it talks about Issues that I believe my wife is fighting, and and one of the things it says is that those people that fight what she's fighting when they go to counseling, they either manipulate the counselor into buying into their world and it makes it worse, or, if the counselor starts addressing their issues, they quit, and that's exactly what she did every time.

Josh: 12:53

So I have a question and you can say no, right, you don't have to answer this. Okay, who?

Fred: 12:59

filed first. That's the funny part about this whole, that this kind of explains the dysfunction. So I I had decided that I wanted to get my daughter back to Alabama before I filed. I didn't want to ruin her summer and this was summer of what we're in 20, 21, I guess two years ago and so we go to Alabama. I had a real nice fifth wheel trailer. I go, we take the trailer down there, we get my daughter set up the night, we get in, they, my both daughters stay in their her apartment and that leaves my wife and I alone in our RV. My wife comes on to me, probably stronger than she hadn't in in years. We get back from that trip and I tell my attorney. I said I know the way she is. That's temporary and I'm not gonna let it stop. I'm gonna go ahead and file. So let's go ahead and file. He calls me that afternoon and he said well, the court rejected our filing because your wife filed six weeks ago.

Josh: 14:05

I asked that question because, statistically, women file more than men, and so point is is let's take, let's take God out of this. So she had so.

Brandon: 14:18

I'm gonna rub you better because you're about to go down a really cool point. No, you can't just gloss over that. What we just the irony of what he just said. Okay, he just said that she files six weeks and then came on to him.

Fred: 14:33

So it was given the man's loving she wanted was given the man some.

Brandon: 14:38

This was the. This was the last bit of loving that you're about to get from me.

Byron: 14:43

Lay this on you and it's over, but it was to me.

Josh: 14:46

It's like this right Take God out of the equation for a minute Right tend to have. We tend to be more loyal ones, because then they become real. So For you, she knew something was over. There was a shift with you, there's a check out. She tried to make them move first so that she was protected. But may I just say you know what?

Byron: 15:05

man. No, that was a covert divorce.

Brandon: 15:09

Well, you know what Josh is right? I just I just looked at some data just to support what he's saying. Women initiate divorce more often than men on average. Numerous studies have shown this, numerous studies. In fact. Nearly 70% Divorces are initiated by women.

Byron: 15:27

Wow see, because men don't divorce, they just walk away, they just leave.

Josh: 15:30

I mean a lot of times they do. Men can check out.

Byron: 15:36

You didn't start dating someone else and the next thing they get close to this woman and she finds out he's still married, cuz he didn't want me, but you think about it like this.

Josh: 15:44

So even the men that step out typically don't want divorced. There's an area in their life that's not being met by their wives, right?

Byron: 15:52

So I'm not if I'm not with my wife. I just got I gotta be a divorce for me.

Josh: 15:56

I don't know, I'm not knocking that well, I'm just saying that for certain men, right, you know they wife may check all the boxes here, but they're not checking this box, right. So if you've ever you know, you know my stored one You've ever spent time and you know, had a conversation with a, with a prostitute, you find out that not all men pay for sex. Sometimes they pay for attention, cuddle Affirmations. There's a lot of things that come in.

Byron: 16:21

How do you know this again?

Josh: 16:22

I've talked about prostitutes, you know.

Brandon: 16:24

I know that they had this man put.

Josh: 16:29

I can say I can say I can say I've never, never had to do that. I've had some friends that were prostitutes. When you live the street life you know you brown Hustlers and pimps and you know he plays the fifth amendment Okay which is and. But now I mean and that's the thing is, when you talk and you do those research on that, that it's proven as well, because it's not always because you think there's escort services that are non-sexual right because they're looking for that.

Josh: 16:58

That attention that camaraderie, the, a positive evening with a good conversation that's not fought and being fought or isn't sharp on an edge, right. So not every man getting caught up. And I have a friend also that he told me he was wet from his baptism in the back of the police car because he got busted in a prostitute scene.

Brandon: 17:22

Still wet from his baptism.

Josh: 17:24

Oh wow, and he wasn't even looking for the strange. He was just looking for a good conversation, right? Because why are you wet in the back of the car? You know saying this, yeah, so my point with that is not all, let's do it. But the point is is that men have this need to protect what's theirs, right? So we tend to stick around longer. When you add the God factor into it, it's just that much more Involved, because it really does rip apart not just the family but the community element of it. It, it, it question may. What will this do to my children's faith? The Brandon's question, right? You tend to ask yourself questions and a lot of times our imagination is more powerful than the reality that we face.

Fred: 18:07

Hmm, so and I think all of us parents were guilty of not giving our kids credit for how smart they are.

Josh: 18:14

No, that's real and and. I got a 17 year old. I yes.

Fred: 18:18

I spent time. I spent a lot of time defending myself from from false accusations when we were married and, and, and I and I look back now and I'm thinking I didn't have to defend myself, my girls weren't dumb.

Fred: 18:34

They they saw things and they tell me that now they, they, they see, and I, even my oldest daughter it's made a comment one time that she goes dad, I'm sorry, I can't believe. I believe, mom, all those years about how bad you are and and and it's just, it's very toxic and and you know, now I look at it now and I'm thinking, okay, are they listening to their mom now? No, no, because now they don't. Their mom doesn't have control over what dad is like and what they see in dad, whereas when we were in the thick of it it just wasn't good. No, it's just one friend.

Brandon: 19:14

So I jumped in this rabbit hole of Of data, so I've been pulling up just different things while we've been talking. There is a divorce magazine. Actually, you know, there's a divorce man.

Brandon: 19:25

I had no idea, yeah, so it lists several reasons why women initiate divorce and why men do not, and one of these is literally aligned with what you said. It says that women are less willing to accept unhappy relationships. Generations of men have been trained a man up and stay in unhappy relationships and perhaps to seek happiness outside their marriages to make their lives tolerable. Modern women, however, are more independent than most men think and they're unwilling to accept unhappy relationships, month after month, you after year, with no hope of change. Oftentimes men don't even realize that they are in a family relationship until their wives say I want a divorce. So they goes on to say like more and more of that. But I again I go back to Previous seasons that the modern Feminist movement I believe has has initiated a lot of this, which is the reason why my generation is the highest Divorce, has the highest of war race that 80s parents, yeah, they're parents.

Brandon: 20:30

Parents exactly that 80s, that 80s kind of timeframe. You know it's because of this. You know I'm not gonna tolerate this. I'm empowered, I can do better, but then yet they take all of the man's assets as they go to start their new life.

Josh: 20:45

Well, it's funny. It's funny. You say that, though. It's funny because think about it when, when you're looking at what Divorce you're looking at women, relationships, all of those things like you said, high divorce rate, we're children of that but oftentimes what I have seen is a Single mother raising a daughter, raises a single woman in training is a basically a single woman training, because they're taught that you don't have to Compromise, you don't have to lower your standards, you don't have to hold, have accountability in a lot of ways right, and that's one of the issues that we see, because you know when you come across a slippery slope, you know

Josh: 21:26

let's ice, that's ice skate. You know I'm saying hey, got my blades on, but the thing is, and again it's, if it's applies to you, then hey, put the shoe on if it don't kick it. But the thing is. But it's like Accountability and struggle. And all that is because a lot of times you don't want to acknowledge that there's something wrong. Because I need to be strong. In order to be strong, I need to push to the side and keep moving right. So for men, we tend to. We are ruminate over those things and keeps us up at night. It bothers us, right? Women tend to avoid. Like they have a way that they can. Like I see my wife, she can turn off a subject matter like that. That I mean. I can't turn it off that easy well, fred had a very good point.

Brandon: 22:10

You know, and I think that this is the the Motivation between time in and how God is a wiretas. You said that your daughter saw you and see you currently as the stabilizer, and I think that a lot of times men don't want to, even though, like Josh you said, men what may step out Okay and commit an act, they don't look at that act as being something that they're willing to exchange stability for. It's a momentary decision.

Josh: 22:37

Isn't that crazy, though. Isn't it crazy because of consequence? What is the consequence of stepping Well?

Brandon: 22:42

Yeah, exactly right, because that's gonna end up coming back to you and it's gonna end up making the environment unstable with the but the, the desire to, I feel like, breakup the family dynamic. Men are less inclined to want to do that, because men like.

Byron: 22:56

That speaks to what we were talking about earlier with my father. You think about it, Whoa yeah yeah, that's interesting.

Brandon: 23:03

That's interesting, it does right, and just this kind of like okay, well, I have something here that's concrete, that I've built, it's stable. Okay, I know what to expect every day. I am not going to be the one to initiate a monkey wrench.

Josh: 23:18

I'm not going to be the one to you said I'm stable, but they're stable because of me Exactly, that's what I'm saying.

Brandon: 23:25

So, yeah, so if Fred would have done that, let's say when the girls were eight or seven years old and he said you know what I'm done with this? I'm filing for a divorce, it's over, we're not doing this anymore, and now he's got a seven, eight-year-old or seven and 10-year-old daughter going from this house to that house and different schools, and that creates an environment that is destabilizing and I think that most men don't have a desire to create the kind of environment for their children.

Fred: 23:52

Well, I think we haven't even touched on what our role models are. You know, I came from a family that my parents were together 44 years when my dad died, and there were many years growing up and I wondered why the heck they stayed together. I mean, it was not. I just could not understand why they didn't get divorced. But my ex came from a horrible, dysfunctional family that had the most terrible divorce when she was about 13, 14 years old, and so that was her role model is when the things get tough, you get the heck out, and my role model was when things get tough, you still. You hung her down.

Speaker 3: 24:34

You trudge through, you still trudge through, you still trudge through.

Fred: 24:38

And I mean on top of her condition. But because of that background, I mean I probably heard I want to divorce 10,000 times before we actually got a divorce.

Brandon: 24:51

Do you think that divorce when she was 13 or 14 maybe impacted some of the issues that she's had? And, as it goes, yes, mountain of Dunlap, you see you see that and her mom Her mom has issues.

Fred: 25:00

I think some of it's hereditary. But yes, I've read a lot on this. I've kind of self-taught myself. I've read every book there is. I've gotten to listen to professionals talk about it and the consensus is it's a little bit of both. It's a combination of traumatic events during your developmental years and hereditary.

Josh: 25:21

Wow, I mean, you just said something because if you let's flip the coin For me, I know I can be at one of my flaws you know gifts and flaws right is loyalty, because loyalty can be a flaw, with loyalty to the wrong people, right? Sure, and a lot of my loyalty was birthed out of trauma, because I don't want to throw people away because of you know what's really ticking behind their eyes, right? So a lot of my loyalty came from trauma, and there's a lot of certain people's trauma has that fight or flight, right, I'm going to sit here and fight for this relationship, whereas the other person may be more likely to fight the relationship, right, and I think they both can have that trauma response as well as have it coming out of a healthy environment, you know. I mean, I guess BS does grow plants too, right, but so does you know, good soil.

Byron: 26:15

Well, that's been an interesting talk. Do we have any last?

Brandon: 26:21

We still got some time, how much time?

Byron: 26:22

Oh, we do.

Brandon: 26:25

Yeah, you try to cut Fred short here.

Byron: 26:26

By what are you doing? I thought we were.

Josh: 26:29

I know you had something you had highlighted in there. It seemed like you might want to bring up, I will.

Byron: 26:35

But speaking of divorce, my wife and I are not divorced. I'm her second husband. She has divorced, so I guess, go back to that stat, right, she fell. I remember thinking about divorce, you know, but I had my kids, my kids, so I can totally appreciate that. And there was a time that I was on countdown. You know, I'm literally. I had a calendar, I was waiting. He's going to be 18. Because he is 18. I'm out of here, you know, and so my wife and I didn't even think we'd be together after our last kid left, after Brandon left. Here we are, though, you know, somehow we're both believers and we just we worked it out.

Byron: 27:28

Man, you know, I feel blessed because I was, I did not leave my wife. I did not leave my wife because I didn't want to leave my kids, because I did not want my kids to grow up without their father. I grew up without mine. To me that was just horrible and I was willing to do and take care, do anything. In fact, brandon remembers a time when I left, and I didn't even know he was cognizant of that, and I came back to get my clothes and he didn't know that. He just welcomed his dad. You know Dad. Later he told me he knew I had left and I thought you know what? I can't do this? I mean, I know I have, I can't do this you know I've sat there and almost romanticized divorce at a point.

Josh: 28:16

I've looked at houses. I worked at my budget in a way to how do I keep my wife and kids in this big, beautiful house?

Fred: 28:22

And where do I go?

Josh: 28:23

So that I To disrupt their flow.

Byron: 28:26

the least you know that is not the work of God.

Josh: 28:30

No, of course, of course, of course.

Byron: 28:33

But what I want to show, fred, you said that you were telling we just had a guest who wrote the book A lie exposed as powerless, 52 lies. Every parent should tell their kids. And you said that you told your daughter. My wife and I didn't get together. I'm sorry, your mom and I didn't get together, you know, because I prayed for her. She prayed for me when it was in a bar. We got together, you know, and so I thought this statement that says there's no such thing as accidental kids, just accidental parents, right, and that's what made me so. Your kid was on an accident.

Fred: 29:14

Oh no, and my marriage wasn't an accident. I mean, God had a purpose for the whole thing and you know, when it says that God works good out in everything he does, and there you know, and I just, Sometimes I think as humans and even as Christians, we think that, okay, if it's not happy, if it's not good, if it's not wonderful, then God's not behind it. He uses our horribleness and our turmoil and our for His good too. And I see that in my marriage. There's a lot of it I didn't like. There's a lot of it I wish I didn't go through. I have gone through the things of I wish I'd never gone to that bar that night. You know we've gone through all that. But God had a plan in the whole thing and my job for the rest of my life is to try to figure out what was I supposed to learn from that God and how am I supposed to pay that forward and use that to glorify you.

Brandon: 30:16

So I have a question for it. So, as we kind of you know, wind down. So what is the next chapter of Fred Heyman the father?

Byron: 30:25

Okay, you took my question.

Brandon: 30:28

Well, you're not a husband man of God and father. What does that look like now that you don't have the responsibility of the title of husband anymore, but you're still Fred Heyman, right? And you still are a man of God, You're still a father. And so what is now? What does this next chapter look like for you?

Fred: 30:45

Well, I said earlier, my girls have been my life, and for a while it was three girls, now it's just two, and so my until my daughters are stable and in their own relationships and all, I still feel an obligation to them. I'm gonna be there for them and they know that. That's the one thing that I've done. Right is my girls know dad will always be there for us. He'll be there in every way. We need him and I'm not gonna stop that.

Fred: 31:16

I'm I'm kind of in a transition. I feel like I'm starting over. I'm 59 years old and having to start over and I'm not financially where I want to be. I gave away pretty much everything I had in the divorce and I did that on purpose. It wasn't like we went through a battle and my attitude is if I can't take it to heaven with me, it doesn't really matter. So I'm kind of starting over that way. So I've got to get myself financially better for, hopefully, retirement someday. But one of the biggest things is I've come to the decision that I am not gonna live in dysfunction anymore in my life.

Byron: 31:56

There we go.

Fred: 31:58

And I think too many people are comfortable in dysfunction and they live in a dysfunctional relationship or dysfunctional world because it's more comfortable than it is to change it, and I'm dealing with that a little bit in business relationships and everything else is. If it's not. I was once told you shouldn't have to work at a relationship. A relationship should work and I think that I've taken that to heart. If I'm in a relationship whether it be a friendship relationship, whether business, whatever if I'm having to work at it, then there's something wrong and I'm addressing that and I'm gonna my goal.

Fred: 32:45

I really would like to quit practicing law. I like being an attorney, but I love speaking. I think God has given me a gift. I do a lot of public speaking, I do a lot of education on a state planning and all, and that's the gift God has given to me. I'm working on a book called Every Day as a Second Chance and I would like to someday just get that to the point where I'm speaking about it and I'm going around talking to people about how God is a God of second chance and I gave you the cook up for that.

Byron: 33:15

Just start that, follow up with that.

Josh: 33:17

Really, I'll say this final thing before you wrap, in that same regard, man, because you really just said something truly incredible. You're talking about your still responsible to your girls. This is the next spot. Right, but think about it from the perspective. You said dysfunctional. And to go into accountability, we're talking about perspective, responsibility, all those different things. And when you think about that responsibility and you said dysfunction, and so many people in this culture are really generations now have embraced dysfunction and say I put the fun in dysfunctional or oh, that's just how I am.

Josh: 33:56

Oh, I get that from my mother or my father. Instead of taking accountability to take change, so many people are embracing the dysfunction and here you are trying to literally break that down, especially with that book. So I just wanna throw that out there. If you're one of those people that's embracing the dysfunction and making fun of it, Making light of it Right. Look yourself in the eyes.

Byron: 34:20

Right.

Josh: 34:21

Wow, this has been a great talk.

Byron: 34:24

Fred, appreciate you being here. You know it's funny. It's been about marriage and divorce. My wife used to get really upset with me because when we would go to church, like Valentine's Day, they'd have this mock ceremony again. You'd be marrying your wife and we went to Israel. They had this mock ceremony and I would never do it. I said no, I've done this one time, I'm not gonna make that mistake twice. I thought it was a joke. She did not laugh at that at all. She didn't think that was funny.

Byron: 35:03

She didn't think that was funny. But I know right. But you know what? That's my best friend, that's my babe right there. Okay, you've been listening to the Father Factor. I'm your host, Byron Ricks my co-hosts.

Josh: 35:16

Josh.

Byron: 35:16

Warnbrot, riding shotgun with us today. Brandon Ricks, the Father Factor why? Because fathers count. Remember dads. All your children are equally yours. Until next time, hey, thank you. This is Byron the Father Factor podcast. Thank you for listening. If you'd like what you heard, subscribe and share and tell us your thoughts. We'd like to hear from you. Perhaps you can be on our show. And to the fathers out there remember all your children are equally yours.