Starting Over Again: How My Divorce from 18 years of Marriage Lead me to Find Myself in Ghana | Moreto Dela

Embark on a heartfelt odyssey as we unravel the transformative voyage of relocating to Ghana, a narrative steeped in raw emotion and stark reality. My family's leap into the unknown serves as a testament to the resilience and adaptability required when embracing a new culture and heritage. As we dissect the intricacies of acclimating to Ghanaian life, you'll witness the complexities of property ownership and the creation of a home in unfamiliar terrain. This episode is not just a story—it's a lifeline for dreamers seeking to chart a similar course, offering guidance through our own trials and trails blazed.

We probe the delicate fabric of marital relationships under the magnifying glass of societal pressures and personal growth. Discover how external adoration can challenge the strongest of bonds and how open communication serves as the keystone in the arch of love. The conversation also delves into the significance of comprehending and voicing our needs within marriage, underscoring the importance of transparency and boundaries. Thoughtfully, we explore the evolution of partnership through the lens of continuous dating and shared experiences, aiming to fortify the ties that bind.

In our final act, we shine a light on the path to self-development, inspiring you to revisit the books and passions that fuel your spirit. The discourse is an enriching blend of introspection and affirmation, inviting you to reflect on life's possibilities and the liberation found in authenticity. As we draw this episode to a close, we leave you with a powerful message of hope and empowerment, a call to invest wholeheartedly in what truly resonates within your soul. Join us on this expedition of self-discovery and connection, and may you find your own truth in the echoes of our shared journey.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

I've been going through this in silence. I'm in a 20 year marriage and I need to get out and I don't know what to do. My subscribers knew that I was married. I got married very young. I got married when I was 24 and I really didn't know what a relationship was. Honestly, I had no one to look up to and so, therefore, I missed a lot of steps.

Speaker 2: 0:17

Do you think that marriages in Ghana, especially the ones from abroad here, suffer a lot when they actually move to Ghana?

Speaker 1: 0:25

Number one business and self-development podcast. Connected Minds podcast.

Speaker 2: 0:32

You moved to Ghana in 2014. Yeah, why is that?

Speaker 1: 0:41

Really just a lifestyle change. I feel like when I was in the UK, I wasn't living. I felt like I was in this thing, that I was just being contained somehow, and I was just living day to day, day to day, another day, the same thing another day, and I just felt really bored. And, to be honest, at the time my then husband wanted to come to Ghana. I for a long time I was like, no, no, no, I'm not doing it, because I had been to Ghana on and off every other year. We used to come to Ghana when I was a child and I was just like, nah, ghana's not for me. But then, I think after I had had now three children, I felt almost ready to just do it and I was just like you know what stuff it? Let's just do it, let's, let's go and let's try and see what happens. And it was literally like that wow, there was no planning, no thought. That's, that's crazy, very irresponsible it's bold as well.

Speaker 2: 1:37

I mean, people say I was bold to do it. But you are very bold, yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:42

I mean it was a tough time. It was not the easiest time to come to Ghana either, 2014. Oh my goodness. People like be careful, because election year is coming and you know there were all sorts of things and you know you hear a lot of horror stories on the ground as well. But we were just like let's just focus and let's just see what happens, because the year before that we'd come on holiday with the children and they loved it, like seeing them run up and down outside and just enjoy the outside. I mean it was so beautiful to watch. I was like I can't just I can't not allow them to experience this. So I just wanted them to have that experience and I just put myself to the side. Really.

Speaker 2: 2:17

I mean I'm asking because you know many of our parents right they would as soon as they have kids yeah say I want to wait for the kids to get to university you know where they can be on their own yeah think of moving to ghana, right, but you just did it yeah, no, because I actually think the opposite.

Speaker 1: 2:34

I think that you should bring your children when they're younger, before they've established really strong friendships, because then it's harder for them to go. Because how do you even for me as an adult leaving my friends behind? I was crying, I was crying, I didn't want to leave them. So how much more a child? How can a child process these feelings? So for me, I just felt like if I bring them because my youngest at the time was five, so it's like if I bring them now, then what they'll know is Ghana. So why not bring them now, where they're still moldable, they can adapt to environment? This is the perfect time to bring them, not when they're old. If they want to come back to the uk, they have every option to come back, but right now let's do what you know and let them experience ghana and then at least you know, they get to learn the culture as well exactly our way of doing things.

Speaker 2: 3:15

Yeah, it's great.

Speaker 1: 3:16

Yeah, because I was, I was, I was a foreigner. When I came here, I really had no clue, even I'd come to ghana and I had no clue.

Speaker 2: 3:23

Even though I'd come to Ghana, I had no clue, I was completely just, oh, you know, I say that, you know, when you come to Ghana for holidays, right yeah, and you actually come to stay. It's two different things, two different things, two different Ghana.

Speaker 1: 3:35

Yeah, they are not comparable. When I came to Ghana, one of the first things the Light off. That was the first thing, because at that time in 2014, we're having 12 hours on, 24 hours off, and it was crazy like to deal with that. And then things like the gas running out or there being no water. I'm like, what do you mean? There's no gas? How has the they've turned off the pipes for the gas. I don't understand.

Speaker 1: 3:59

Like I just I didn't understand these things. I'd never had to experience it before, you know. And then I was staying with my dad at the time when we first came, and then he had this house help this guy, and when it rained, he would go outside with the buckets and catch the rain. I'm like, what's he catching water for? I didn't understand. I'm like he's apparently he's going to water the grass before afterwards. And I was like, really, don't you just connect it to the hose? And just like I didn't understand these things and it was just, it was just foreign to me he, yeah, you just let the water set, let all the mud get to the bottom, and then the water at the top is fresh and you can use it. I was like, oh, I really had no clue about what Ghana was like at all Completely virgin to me.

Speaker 2: 4:35

If you were to do it again, what would you have done different?

Speaker 1: 4:40

That's a great question. I should have been prepared for that. What would I have done differently? Probably not a whole lot, because I feel that the experience has made me into who I am today, and I feel like, when it comes to being able to help other people that want to move to Ghana, my experiences allow me to be able to teach as well, so I can say do this or don't do this. So I think if I had come like as an expat, perhaps, and everything had been set up for me, I probably wouldn't have much advice to give to people because everything had been done for me. But I came at the bottom and I had to climb my way up, and so I have experiences that a lot of people don't have, and they're real experiences, you know. So I wouldn't change a whole lot. Maybe the only thing I'd say is perhaps have come with a better financial plan at the beginning.

Speaker 2: 5:27

That's probably the only thing I would say, because finances here got really hard because there's somebody watching you right, thinking that, oh, you've done great since you moved to Ghana. I mean one of your statements. You said you truly began to find yourself, yes, when you came to Ghana. And then someone is thinking well, I want to be able to find myself. I want to. I want to live that life too.

Speaker 1: 5:48

That's it's easy to say, but are you prepared to go through what you go through in order to find yourself? Because you don't. It's not just an enlightening moment. You have to go through the fire to become yourself. Right, you have to go through a lot of tests, a lot of trials, tribulations before you can become yourself. Are you ready to go through that? Because a lot of people are not really ready for that, and that's, that's the process that you have to go through. So I went through a lot of that. I've had being gonna, have had so many ups and downs like I've never had a level playing field. I've been all over the place, literally, and that's how I am, how I am now well, I mean, you know what?

Speaker 2: 6:20

um, one of my big bosses said that when you look at the sinus rhythm, the way the heart beats, it's up and it's down now. If you want your life yeah to be flat, then that means you're dead right. So the problems will keep coming, yeah, but we need to rise yes, the problem, absolutely and most of the times. What happens is that there is a particular lesson that we're supposed to take from that situation, and until you learn that lesson, yeah, they will keep coming absolutely.

Speaker 1: 6:48

I fully agree that there is a particular lesson that we're supposed to take from that situation and until you learn that lesson, they will keep coming. Absolutely, I fully agree. I've learned a lot of lessons here, but I think Ghana is great for developing character. It will change you so much Like sometimes when I look at myself I don't even recognize myself because I've changed that much. People that I knew before I came to Ghana. When they see me, they're like I can't believe that's you. First of all, they can't believe I have a YouTube channel because I'm so introverted, I'm very, very quiet, and so for me to put myself out there to social media is completely out of my character. It's just not the person who I was before. But I character it's just. It's just not the person who I was before. But I love Ghana for that. That. It will refine you. If you can go for the president will refine you and it'll bring out your best qualities. It will force you to become an entrepreneur. I would never in a million years have associated myself to the world entrepreneur. Wow at all.

Speaker 1: 7:38

I know, you know, when I was in the UK. When I was in the UK, I had jobs, I worked, but I never felt comfortable in their job. I always wanted to leave. I loved it when I got the job because I was in the UK. When I was in the UK I had jobs. I worked, but I never felt comfortable in a job. I always wanted to leave.

Speaker 1: 7:47

I loved it when I got the job because I was like, oh, I can earn some money, but it didn't take long for me to get bored and I just would be so frustrated. So actually, when I started having children, I was kind of glad because then I didn't have to really go to work anymore because I was having babies, you know. So I didn't have that pressure of having to be out there in the workplace. When I came to Ghana, I just saw so much potential in things and it just there was a fire that was lit inside me and I just wanted. I wanted more for myself, I wanted to be able to do more. I realized that I could do more and it really pushed me to where I am now. I mean, I'm not even where I want to be. I feel like I've only just scratched the surface a little bit, but it just feels good.

Speaker 1: 8:25

I feel like finally life has opened up to me wow and um.

Speaker 2: 8:30

By the way, you're doing amazing on your youtube thank you thank you. I love it. I love watching those videos. It's amazing. Thank you so much. Now you're moving to Ghana, right, and most people will think they want to have a property together. They want to. You know, they want to have a property together. They want to. You know, they want to have a place where they're going. Yeah, what was the situation like for?

Speaker 1: 8:49

you right. So when we first came to Ghana, um, we rented for a bit. That was a story all in itself, because renting here if you don't know what to do, it's I mean, it's mind-boggling to begin with, how to rent a place, but then somewhere down the line, you know, we decided that we wanted to build a property. So the first, the first thing was that it wasn't the house wasn't meant to be for us to live in. We were just going to live with my dad for some time, but then figure things out. But we needed an income stream, because we were quickly realizing at the time that we were running out of money. We have no money and we need some type of income. So the plan was to actually build on my parents lands where they had a boys quarters, and make it into apartments that we could rent out for income here. And then, as I had given birth here, I was just like you know what? We need a bigger place. We could like we're being stifled here. We need space, and so then the house started to develop and it just got bigger and bigger, and so building wasn't.

Speaker 1: 9:47

Building our house wasn't something that was meant to happen now. It was meant to be a future thing, but it just sort of started to unfold. I mean, we had many things that we tried that didn't work or just got put to the side for a bit. You know, like it it life never goes the way you expect it to go right. It always throws you a curveball. And this is the path that I've been on, and I just feel like I always want to be honest with people and share my experiences in the best way that I can so that people can avoid some of the things that I've been through and not waste money, and so that's kind of like the journey that I've been on. When it comes to my YouTube channel and showing the construction of the property, the things that have happened, um, I'm a sharer and so I try to share as much as possible, but building your own house is not the easiest. You build or you buy, and neither one of them is particularly ideal. It's just about which one you can handle really yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 10:43

So would you then recommend that somebody thinking of coming to Ghana should they have their property already built or buy something before coming in, or they should go into rental?

Speaker 1: 10:55

I would say I would say, if you're first coming, go into a rental property, because you need to understand the area in which you want to live, because you're coming to Ghana. You don't know areas. It's not like the UK where most areas are pretty much okay. You can move somewhere and you'll be fine. Ghana, you have to understand there are different areas and they all almost do different things right.

Speaker 1: 11:16

So if you like a lot of hustle and bustle and a lot of noise and a lot of traffic and you like that busyness Waija is great for that Go a lot of traffic and you like that busyness WageR is great for that Go to WageR, you'll fit straight in. But if you like quiet, you like certain things and you need to be in a different area, but sometimes you won't understand your needs until you've come here, and so I'd say rent first and then look at something more permanent. But you definitely need to look at something more permanent because rental here will suck the money out of you and I think you're better off putting your money to good use if you're deciding to be, here for a long term.

Speaker 2: 11:49

Yeah, I, I think so. I mean, we did it slightly different, but you know, as you're saying, renting by building your property takes a lot of money hey, it takes heart as well yeah, yes, yes, you've got to be ready for that yeah right um.

Speaker 1: 12:06

It's not an easy ride when you start that process, the first brick you lay, you become financially challenged because after that you've got to keep going. You've got to keep bringing the money, keep bringing the money, keep bringing the money. You don't have to. You watch people go on holiday around you and you're still building, trying to get your house together, trying to get these. People are having these amazing experiences. But you know you have to stay focused. I've missed out on so many things because I'm building a house and that has to be my focus, because I can't do both Right and that's just a sacrifice I make. So when you see me on camera you think, oh, this girl's got an amazing house, she's doing this. No, no, no.

Speaker 2: 12:47

I've had to sacrifice to get that. How much are you willing to sacrifice to get what you need? Wow, wow. Now fast forward. You have a youtube channel. How did this?

Speaker 3: 12:53

you know come to become part of the family, like you, know.

Speaker 1: 12:58

So I fell into youtube. Youtube was never a plan. Like I said before I moved out, I'm an introvert, I don't. I like my own space. I like I'm happy to be in a room all by myself for the whole day, I don't mind, um.

Speaker 1: 13:10

But when I came to Ghana, I think I wanted something to do. I was getting bored because, like I said that that fire had been sparked. Someone had sparked the fire in me to do something and I didn't know what that something was. And so I thought you know what? I've got a real passion about hair. Let me do it. And I used to consume so many hair videos back in there. So I said let me just do some videos about hair. I did two videos about hair. No one watched them, no one cared. And then one day I decided I was, I was fed up about some certain things that were happening. So I came on camera and I had a rant. I was like I have bought internet, the internet is finished. Every time I buy it, five minutes later the internet's finished. I keep topping up, the internet is gone. I don't understand what's happening. It's light off again.

Speaker 1: 13:51

And I was basically went into this rant and I talked about all the things that were frustrating me in Ghana, and that's how my channel started. It really wasn't on purpose.

Speaker 2: 13:59

It started out of frustration for the system.

Speaker 1: 14:01

It did, and I didn't even know that YouTube even pays people money to be on YouTube. So I was just doing it for the fun, so I would just post here and then I'd post there, and then I had no system to what I was doing at all. I was just doing it just because, just keeping me occupied.

Speaker 2: 14:16

And you've done a great deal with it, but you have a course right on your website, mm-hmm right on your website about move to ghana guide. Yes, and I was checking, checking their content and this is quite hefty.

Speaker 1: 14:29

There's quite a lot of things in there.

Speaker 1: 14:30

Yeah, there's a lot to learn yeah yeah, I put that together because I felt like, um, as I said before, I didn't want people to fall into pitfalls that I'd fallen into, and so I felt like, if there's a shortcut way that people can take, why not take it? So I like people to be a. I feel like, whatever you do, there should always be a blueprint, right? So, no matter what your experience has been, someone can always learn from it. So why not teach?

Speaker 1: 14:55

I think sometimes we, as people, we're so selfish with our experiences. Sometimes your experience is not just for you, it's to be shared for somebody else to learn something. So you had to go for it, because you're supposed to teach someone else, not that you're supposed to go for it and then let somebody else go for it too and you watch them. No, no, no, no. So the things that I went through, I wanted other people to be able to see. This is what it's, this is what it's like, this is what you have to do. So, in putting that course together, I went right back to the beginning and had to think about all the things that I went through in order to give somebody else a shortcut, because why not help if you can help Right?

Speaker 2: 15:27

I agree, I agree, I mean, that's the ultimate purpose for all of us. Yeah, and I think that's why God created certain people with certain abilities. Yeah. Is to be able to support the ones who don't have those abilities, but any person who think they have a disability actually have an ability as well.

Speaker 3: 15:47

Yeah, yeah, you know, so it's it's supposed to work like this.

Speaker 2: 15:50

You know, we all join together and then we become a bigger force exactly fortunately, other people are using it for things. Hey, let's help the best way yeah, absolutely. I agree your statement you truly found yourself when you came to Ghana. This led onto your wellness foundation.

Speaker 1: 16:08

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 16:10

And then on your website, you say that communication, boundaries, consent, conflict resolution, preventing abuse and promoting mutual respect. Yes, let's delve into this.

Speaker 1: 16:22

Yeah, this is a very interesting one for me, so the foundation for me is very, very dear to my heart. Um, for those of you, those that have known that, know me or have been watching me for a while, you'll know that I was married for a very long time. I was married for 18 years and then we we broke up. It's been about two years now, and that led me down a path where I was forced to look at a lot of things about myself, look at a lot of things about my personal relationship, and I wanted to again share with other people some of the things that I had experienced. And so I decided to start this foundation, which would talk about what a healthy relationship was, because I got married very young. I got married when I was 24 and I really didn't know what a relationship was. Honestly, I had no one to look up to, and so, therefore, I missed a lot of steps, which was eventually part of the downfall of my marriage, because I just had no one to look to. And I think that a lot of things we don't talk about when it comes to relationships, we don't share information, especially, I'm sorry to say, us Africans. We don't share our parents don't share things with us. They don't share the hardships, the struggles, the happy moments. Even we don't get to see a lot of those things, and I really wanted to bring exposure to that. So I kind of fell into this.

Speaker 1: 17:42

So it had been a process to actually before I got to the stage of creating the foundation. So initially I had no plans to share anything. I went through my separation. I had to do a video because obviously my subscribers knew that I was married, and so I did a video six months after we split, saying announcing that I had split from my ex and we were going our separate ways. Now that video sparked so much controversy because a lot of people were like. Some people were like, okay, this is like, okay, do what you got to do. We support you whatever you're doing. And then I got a lot of negative comments as well, saying this is terrible, what you're doing, you're bad, you're this, you're that. How can you do this to your children? There was just so much and there was just a lot of noise, a lot of noise, and it was very difficult to sift through that noise, and so then eventually I went into doing a podcast where I wanted to expose more. So, rather than running away from all these comments and things, I wanted to talk about it. Let's have a real conversation about this.

Speaker 1: 18:41

So I started a podcast where I was talking about relationships and as I was doing this podcast, I was getting a lot of emails and messages from people saying I've been going through this in silence, I'm in a 20 year marriage and I need to get out and I don't know what to do. And then I realized that do you know what? I'm not the only person that's going through this. There are other people that need help. Why not teach it from the beginning? Why do we have to wait for someone to get to a point where they're crying for help? They're crying in silence for help. Why don't we teach about relationships early on, so that people actually know what they're going into? Right? That's how it works. You start from the beginning. Don't start from the point of brokenness. Start from the point where, before the person is broken, so they don't have to deal with so many traumas.

Speaker 1: 19:24

So for me, doing the foundation was it was a natural progression for me.

Speaker 1: 19:30

You know, those that are interested and want to learn more could follow me there, and you know I wanted to share more about my own experiences which I haven't fully done yet, but I will eventually and I wanted to talk to people that have also had experiences.

Speaker 1: 19:42

Now, I didn't want the whole foundation to be about abuse or all the negative things. I wanted it to have a healthy balance right. So I wanted to be able to teach people about you know, things that they should look out for, things that they themselves should be doing if you want to be part of a relationship, to make sure that you are actually ready to be in a relationship, because a lot of people are not. We're carrying a lot of traumas with us into relationships and expecting the other person to deal with it, and it can't work like that. You have to be honest, you have to be open, and so the foundation was born, and it's something I'm very, very passionate about. As you can see, as I'm talking, I'm talking quite fast, I'm going into a whole thing like I'll make this an hour long episode wow, when you're back in the uk yeah and then um, and I'll bring you back the end of the sentence is going to bring you back right and sometimes you hear the seniors have come to ghana.

Speaker 2: 20:35

It's always they come in and a lot of girls, girls yeah do you think that marriages in gh, ghana, especially the ones from abroad here, suffer a lot when they actually move to Ghana?

Speaker 1: 20:51

absolutely, absolutely I do. I think if your marriage is not very strong, if your partner is not very strong, you are prey to that. Let's be real. I'm going to be very honest here.

Speaker 1: 21:04

A lot of Ghanaian girls have wow, I look at them sometimes I'm like the body is like wow, you know, some of us we don't have that. We don't have the shape that they have. They are and okay, so please don't attack me for this but a lot of um, the girls, when they, when they they see somebody come from the west, they assume that the person has money, they assume that the person has some type of stature and they want to climb and get better. So they go after these people. I'm not saying it's always the girl. Sometimes it's the guy too. He's too relaxed, he is enjoying the attention of females, and so there's a door sometimes that is left open and definitely marriages can be put at risk. Definitely it's a door sometimes that is left open and definitely marriages can be put at risk. Definitely it's a huge problem, a huge problem here, and we don't talk about it but that's just one aspect of it, though.

Speaker 2: 21:55

You've just spoken about the fact that you think the girls in Ghana have amazing bodies. That's just one aspect yeah now the other aspect is the individuals, whether the people in the relationship, yeah, whether the male or the female, how they approach marriage yeah when they finally come to Ghana so, yeah, I think that some people just it's easy to lose yourself here.

Speaker 1: 22:25

It's easy because you. It's so hard to say what I want to say, because sometimes when I talk, people feel that I'm being negative, but I like to be as real as possible about things. So when gunins sometimes see people from abroad, they put them on a pedestal and if you have the character where you like that you begin to have stature about certain things, right, and it can affect your marriage Absolutely Because you feel like you're a boss, you know, you feel like you just have too much, you feel like almost like you're above other people, and that's wrong and it does destroy marriages. Like you just have too much, you feel like almost like you're above other people, and that's wrong and it does destroy. It does destroy marriages. Oh, it's so hard, it's hard to say, it's very difficult to say you just can read between the lines okay well, you haven't subscribed.

Speaker 2: 23:24

Please do Subscribe. Yes, but I agree with what you're saying. I think sometimes when you move into a new environment, especially in countries where men are more let's say should I say respected or hailed than women are, it can make our other halves feel a bit less of themselves. Now, the conscious effort on the man's part, especially, here, would be to also always recognize that you are just a man. Yeah, you're just a man, yeah, yes. But I guess sometimes maybe we don't realize, we don't realize, we don't realize.

Speaker 1: 24:29

Yeah, it very much depends on the people that you're talking about. Some men will rise to the occasion and they'll handle it well and they'll become a strong man. They'll provide, and other men just don't. They just don't. And other men just don't. They just don't.

Speaker 2: 24:47

I'm going to take you back to before a person gets married yeah. Right Most of the time, as men we say oh, you know, the woman get very excited about the wedding and for that reason today I realized that, oh, for that reason, there are certain things that we do not see Right. And we are still talking about the Wellness Foundation.

Speaker 1: 25:12

Yes, what's your take on that? They get lost. Yes, they get lost. It's easy to get lost in getting married and expecting all the wonderful things, but that's not marriage. That's a day you're talking about. The wedding is not the marriage. The marriage comes after you've had the wedding.

Speaker 1: 25:29

I personally don't understand why people put so much emphasis into a wedding day. Don't get me wrong. It's nice, it's lovely to celebrate, but it is just a day of celebration, right? Marriage is so much more than that. You have to know yourself, you have to know your partner. There's a lot you have to grow together. There's a lot that is packed in there, and I think sometimes women, we're very emotion, emotional and we're emotionally led when it comes to certain things, and so we can often get carried away, and I think sometimes it's partly the responsibility of the guy as well to ground us so that you can be a bit more level-headed about things, because, you can see it, people get married. A year, two years later they've divorced. Why have they divorced? Because it's bigger than the wedding day and people are just getting lost in that, and so it's about very much about the education behind a relationship.

Speaker 1: 26:17

Like before you even think about marriage, make sure your relationship is tight, make sure you really know each other. You have to do a full circle with a person before you get to marry the person. Okay, what I mean by a full circle is what's the person like when they're angry? What are you like when you're angry? How do you react to each other when something sad happens? The person how does the person react? When the person loses their job? How do they react when finances are tight? What happens? So you have to do all these things before you really get to understand a person. Because it's easy to be happy I can be happy with anybody for a few days but when it comes to the nitty gritty of it, what is going to keep you together, what solidifies your marriage, what solidifies your relationship? Those are the things that really really matter, and sometimes we don't look at that enough. We just look at the surface of things, and it's important to dive deep, delve deeper into that.

Speaker 1: 27:06

I honestly think that, before you even consider marriage, I think you both need to see a therapist, not a marriage counselor, not one of these church ones, an actual therapist, because some of us are missing things and we don't realize that we're missing them, and it's important to know that before you join yourself to someone else because that's what you're doing when you get married you're joining yourself to someone spiritually, physically, everything you have to really understand yourself and understand your partner so that you're prepared when tough times come. You're prepared for them. They say there are three things right that can break a marriage right sex, communication and finance. Ask any person who's divorced. It's usually one of those three things that has happened. There's there's a, there's a default, some there's something wrong, some type of distortion within those three things. Work on those three things first before you think about heading into marriage. Marriage is lovely, but marriage will always be there.

Speaker 2: 27:55

It can wait a year or two while you sort yourselves out what are some of the difficult conversations that you think people should have getting?

Speaker 1: 28:05

married Sex, okay, yeah, sex definitely. You have to understand each other. You have to understand your expectations from each other. I think it's definitely something people don't talk about enough. We shy away from it. I would say I'm even guilty of doing that when I got married Very, very shy about talking about things like that. It's not something I will talk about now. I can sit and talk about it all day. I'm not shy about it at all, but back then, yes, I was Definitely talk about sex. Definitely talk about anything that makes you feel uncomfortable is a thing that you should be talking about, because that's where your issue is. You know, if your issue is you don't like to apologise, why don't you like to apologise? If your issue is you don't like to apologize, why don't you like to apologize? Get to what the real issue is. We shy away from things way too much sometimes, and those are the things that we need to talk about in order to be able to move on and heal, so I don't like being pampered.

Speaker 1: 28:56

You don't like being pampered, but why?

Speaker 2: 28:57

is that being pampered, huh?

Speaker 1: 28:58

Why is that Someone's appreciating you when?

Speaker 2: 28:59

they're pampering you.

Speaker 1: 29:07

Yeah, an issue then, yeah, there is an issue. Yeah, so you say, oh, derek, well done, well done. I don't right. Yes, I okay, I can relate to that. I personally I struggle with compliments from people. I find that if someone compliments me, sometimes my my default is they're just, they're almost trying to gaslight me. They're just, they're not saying it's not genuine. That's how I feel, you know I guess my issue.

Speaker 2: 29:22

I guess for me. I just don't like receiving, but you should, because I've given so much that.

Speaker 1: 29:29

And now it's your time to receive. The person wants to appreciate you.

Speaker 2: 29:31

Yeah, it's difficult, I understand.

Speaker 1: 29:34

We all have our things. That's why I'm saying we all need to do therapy.

Speaker 2: 29:36

Yes, I need therapy Now now let's talk about communication and how it changes in the marriage when two people are married now that is huge.

Speaker 1: 29:59

Communication is huge because, especially if you marry young, you grow. You change so much. You don't necessarily envisage yourself changing, but you change so much now. That's why it's important to date your partner. If you don't date within your marriage, that's your first huge mistake because you're going through separate experiences. We're not together all the time, 24 hours a day. We don't have the same experiences. I'm going to work, you're going to work. We're learning different things. We're having different experiences. We don't always come back at the end of the day and talk about every single thing that happens. Go out, date each other, remind yourselves how much why you decided to marry in the first place.

Speaker 1: 30:36

Communication lines have to be open because you're going to change so much and if you don't, it's like having a friend and you don't speak to them. Hardly ever speak to them when you come together. It might be awkward for a bit because you know there's so much to catch up on. You don't know where to start, so you might even not even talk about a lot of things. So you've missed a huge chunk of something right. But that's something that you've missed a chunk of could be something that's defining for that person, that the person now hasn't spoken about, and so now you're almost split so you're not going together like this anymore. You've kind of split, so the lines of communication aren't open. If you're not talking about certain things, you begin to lose each other. You're having separate experiences. How do you still come together if you're both having completely separate experiences, experiences that the person knows nothing about? It makes it difficult.

Speaker 2: 31:20

Communication is really important do you know why um certain men don't like to speak about things?

Speaker 1: 31:27

because the woman will hold it against them later yes, the judgment.

Speaker 2: 31:33

It's there Because you know, to men it's always yeah, if something to ever, to be able to ever go wrong it's easy for the woman to just bring it all out.

Speaker 1: 31:47

Right, right. These are some of the things that you have to talk about. I think if you have a woman that does that, you should either already know the person's character, know that maybe it's not the time to say this because this potentially could be used against me, or maybe that's not the person for you, because I don't see why you would use somebody's weakness or something that's that could potentially go wrong against the person. It doesn't make sense to me because, let's be real, none of us is perfect. None of us is perfect. None of us is perfect. We all have flaws, right. We all do things wrong.

Speaker 1: 32:17

I might go out, I had money in my pocket. I've lost the money. Are you going to use it against me every time because I lost the money? I'm not a perfect person, so to use that against someone is wrong. Do you know what I mean? It's like the moment that the person had that weakness. You can't use that against them.

Speaker 1: 32:32

Find another way to communicate. So you might not be happy with something. That doesn't mean. Don't tell the person oh, the person's done this and you shouldn't say it. Say it, but say in a from a place of love. Find out how you can actually use that experience to make the person better, don't just bring the person down because of it. And I think sometimes you're right, us women we do do that because sometimes it's from our um, it's from our emotions, because, as I said before, women are emotionally led right. But I think as you get older you start to realize you have to control it. You know it could even be a simple thing of it's the woman time of the month, it's just bad timing and she says something that she doesn't mean, because when it's time of the month, our hormones are everywhere. We don't know, we don't have a clue what we're doing most of the time so it's about if you don't know the how, yeah, I know exactly, exactly.

Speaker 1: 33:20

So that's I mean. It's it's important to understand your partner. Ah, it's that time of the month. Okay, let's just let it go. Maybe now's not time, let's talk about it later, or whatever.

Speaker 2: 33:29

You know, you have to learn to work within each other's boundaries ah, boundaries that was one of the things you spoke about yeah now, what sort of boundaries do you think people need to set to be able to avoid going through the path of separation?

Speaker 1: 33:45

I think you definitely need to respect each other. You need to understand if we're having an argument and one person is not ready to talk yet. Give the person time. You might want to talk now. Give the person time to do what they need to do process or whatever then come back.

Speaker 1: 34:01

Respect each other's boundaries, because you're not the same. You're not twins, you weren't even twins are not exactly the same. There are differences within them. So it's important to understand those and understand what the person's boundaries are. Um, I think things like when it comes to even being male and female. There are boundaries there. Respecting your husband as a man. There is a boundary there. You can't just talk to him anyhow as you would talk to anybody else. There's a boundary. He's your husband. You have to respect him in a certain way. That's a boundary. So these are the things that sometimes we lose sight of in relationships and it's important not to do that. Respect each other. It goes both ways. Respect goes both ways. That respect goes both ways. You also have to respect your wife for who she is and the things she does. Especially, she's the mother of your child. Respect her. Give boundaries to certain things. Don't abuse her. Don't overwork her. Understand where she's coming from. Understand where you're coming from. Those are the boundaries that I'm talking about I think so far right.

Speaker 2: 34:56

You've moved to Ghana with your family. Things didn't go as planned, but they've all yeah how did you find yourself? All over again, start all over again, gosh, the hardest thing I've ever had to do.

Speaker 1: 35:12

But you know I didn't do it for me to begin with, I did it for my children. It's the hardest thing I've ever had to do, but you know, I didn't do it for me to begin with. I did it for my children. I had no choice. Every day I picked myself up and every day I took a small step and I just kept taking small steps until each step didn't feel as painful anymore, and that's how I was able to do it, although I grieved. What was what I had lost. I also saw a really bright future and I saw some changes within my household too. That also sparked me along to want to do more, to want to push, you know, like some of the things I've been able to do. Like my daughter now, when I look at her, she's like she wants to do some of the things I'm doing and that makes me feel happy. I'm like, oh my gosh, this is amazing that she's seeing some really positive things.

Speaker 1: 36:07

But it's a process. It's a really, really, really tough process. But you know, sometimes if you have to cut off your arms so that the rest of your body can live, you must do that. That's the only way that I can really put that. But it's hard, it's hard. Nothing worth having in life is easy though, and that's what you have to remember Not easy for anybody. It's not easy for Bill Gates to make his money. He doesn't just wake up and he makes money Like well, he might do now, because the interest he probably has on his bank accounts he can live off it. But everybody has to start somewhere, and it's it's a process, it's you have to keep going, for you have to keep pushing yourself, you know, but having the right people around you as well is very important, because you need people who are going to support you, because not every day you're going to feel okay, you're going to feel motivated. You have to have important people, really important people we have a question from our previous guest yeah and funny enough.

Speaker 2: 37:00

I think he's so connected with this conversation, but he said it's love one way two ways, I think, for him.

Speaker 1: 37:19

He feels like there's one way no, I think love has to be two ways, but the expression of love can be different. Men and women love differently. They don't love the same and I think sometimes that's where a lot of the pressure comes from. We expect the man to love in the same way we do as a woman. You know, women we like to maybe be over-affectionate. We like to really feel love. Men don't necessarily feel that way.

Speaker 1: 37:47

To do that for you, a man's expression of love might be to provide everything that you need make sure that you're good, make sure that you know you can go get your hair done, your nails done, to do all those things. That's his expression of love, and sometimes we don't understand that that is his expression of love and this is our expression of love. And so, therefore, we feel like the love is not reciprocated. It is. It's just done differently to how you expect it to be done. I have.

Speaker 1: 38:13

Most of my friends are male and I have conversations like this with all them all the time and I can tell you all the time it's always the same thing. This is just how I love. This is, this is what it is. I don't, you can't, expect me to love you or to love this person the way you want me to. It's impossible For starters, I'm not inside your brain to know exactly how to meet your need Right, so we have to find some type of compromise. You have to understand that the person might not love in the same way that you love, but it doesn't mean there's no love. So love has to be two way.

Speaker 2: 38:47

There you have it. That's your answer. My next question is motivation or discipline?

Speaker 1: 38:55

Both Start with motivation and it turns into discipline, because I can be motivated today to drive to Comasi, but a day from now, and as I'm still driving on the road, I'm tired, I don't feel like it, I'm hungry. I want to lie down in a bed. Now I need to be disciplined. If I want to reach that goal, I've got to be disciplined. I'm not thinking about all the negative things. This is the focus I'm going for and this is what I'm doing. So motivation, which has to turn into discipline.

Speaker 2: 39:23

Amazing. What's the best advice you ever received?

Speaker 1: 39:29

Ah sorry, best advice, I think something that I heard was allow yourself to feel. Allow yourself to feel pain, allow yourself to feel happiness, allow yourself. I think sometimes we as people we're too hard on ourselves, we expect so much from ourselves and we don't allow ourselves to feel in a particular moment, like recently my dad passed right. I have to allow myself to grieve sometimes, but then I have to allow myself to be happy sometimes because although he's passed, I'm still going to laugh, I'm still going to have moments where I'm happy. I have to allow myself to feel each emotion at each stage of my life. I have to allow myself, because when I do that I bring freedom to myself. If I keep suppressing things all the time I'm only hurting myself.

Speaker 1: 40:25

I can't do that. Allow yourself to feel. Allow yourself, be kind to yourself yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 40:30

What's your favorite personal development book?

Speaker 1: 40:34

I don't have one. Do you know what? That's one of the things I lost when I got married reading I love to read. I'm heavily into autobiographies and things that I used to read so much. I just don't have the time. Maybe the children as well. I just don't have the time, so I haven't been able to read, but I actually love to read. It's actually one of the things I put on my list this year. I wanted to get back into doing reading so important.

Speaker 1: 40:58

We're almost half into the year, I know I know and I keep looking and I'm like you haven't about your life, if you had the opportunity to. What would be a do-over for you? Okay, I don't know how I would answer that.

Speaker 2: 41:35

Yeah, very good question, I'm not even going to attempt.

Speaker 3: 41:38

I don't know how I would answer that. Yeah, very good question.

Speaker 2: 41:40

I'm not even gonna attempt I don't know. Tell her, have you got? Anything for our audience, anything to say your last words.

Speaker 1: 41:47

be kind to yourself, forgive yourself for your mistakes, forgive anybody that has hurt you, and just don't hold things. Just be the best version of you, because you know what there's only one of you and there are no second chances when it comes to this life. So just put your all into whatever you're passionate about. Follow your heart, follow whatever it is your guide, however you want to describe it. Follow that thing and you'll be exactly where you're supposed to be and doing exactly what you're supposed to be doing. Never compare yourself to someone else. Just keep pressing forward and just be authentically you, because that's really important. A way to release yourself is to just be authentic about who you are.

Speaker 2: 42:28

And this is what Connected Minds is about. Self-development yeah Right, so I hope you've enjoyed this conversation. I have development yeah right, so I hope you've enjoyed this conversation.

Speaker 1: 42:40

I have, yeah, but I even enjoyed the conversation before.

Speaker 2: 42:42

That was juicy, yeah, that was solid um, but thank you so much for your time I really appreciate it guys stay connected and be with us.