Have you ever found yourself piecing together a family portrait that includes more than just the traditional figures? That's where Jay and I, Nia Floyd, step in with tales from the heart about the patchwork of blended families. As we cozy up in our family room, cats Samson and Sasha included, we laugh, we muse, and more importantly, we share encouragement for those threading their own stories with stepparents, half-siblings, and all the intricate relationships that come with them. Our narrative is not just about challenges, it's a celebration of the love stories that define us, urging everyone to stay authentic and embrace growth through life's trials.
Navigating blended family dynamics is like tending a garden with both perennials and wildflowers—you never know when a deer might hop in to shake things up. We explore this metaphorical landscape, drawing on personal childhood experiences marked by separation and new family bonds. From the emotional impact on children to debunking societal stereotypes, our conversation offers insights into the real-life nuances of forming a blended family. We even share a humorous interlude involving a curious deer, showing that life, much like gardening, can be unpredictable yet rewarding.
As we walk through the whirlwind of life changes—marriage, step-parenting, pregnancy—we get real about the resilience found in facing trials that shape our growth. The importance of open communication, mentorship, and seeking understanding in relationships weaves through our discussion, as vital as the threads in a tapestry. Join us as we invite you into our journey of self-improvement, setting healthy boundaries, and the spiritual fulfillment of embracing our divinely assigned roles within the family, all while balancing the laughter and sincerity that makes this adventure one to cherish.
Have you ever found yourself piecing together a family portrait that includes more than just the traditional figures? That's where Jay and I, Nia Floyd, step in with tales from the heart about the patchwork of blended families. As we cozy up in our family room, cats Samson and Sasha included, we laugh, we muse, and more importantly, we share encouragement for those threading their own stories with stepparents, half-siblings, and all the intricate relationships that come with them. Our narrative is not just about challenges, it's a celebration of the love stories that define us, urging everyone to stay authentic and embrace growth through life's trials.
Navigating blended family dynamics is like tending a garden with both perennials and wildflowers—you never know when a deer might hop in to shake things up. We explore this metaphorical landscape, drawing on personal childhood experiences marked by separation and new family bonds. From the emotional impact on children to debunking societal stereotypes, our conversation offers insights into the real-life nuances of forming a blended family. We even share a humorous interlude involving a curious deer, showing that life, much like gardening, can be unpredictable yet rewarding.
As we walk through the whirlwind of life changes—marriage, step-parenting, pregnancy—we get real about the resilience found in facing trials that shape our growth. The importance of open communication, mentorship, and seeking understanding in relationships weaves through our discussion, as vital as the threads in a tapestry. Join us as we invite you into our journey of self-improvement, setting healthy boundaries, and the spiritual fulfillment of embracing our divinely assigned roles within the family, all while balancing the laughter and sincerity that makes this adventure one to cherish.
what is good everybody good y'all, welcome to another episode of the open book open podcast. I am one of your hosts, jay floyd and I am nia floyd and we rocking, we in the family room, y'all yes, we are with the cats fluttering about last time. I don't know if y'all heard the disturbance, but the cats like I don't know what happened.
Speaker 2:They was like jumping, trying to be part of the show yeah, and here we are another day with them doing the exact same thing, so hopefully it's kept light listen audience.
Speaker 1:Y'all gotta understand. We have two cats, samson and sasha samson's two, sasha, is six months. And they love their mother right.
Speaker 2:They are always hungry. That's what it is. Let's just keep it. They know that I feed them and clean out their litter. So they stalk me because they think I'm going to provide them with food and snacks.
Speaker 1:Best facts, that is true. So I usually work in this room.
Speaker 1:This is where I'm at all day, every day, working, and they don't come in here, and then, like, as soon as she's in here to do the podcast, they won't leave, so anticipate that they're gonna be jumping around y'all. But thanks for joining us for another episode. I really hope y'all enjoyed our first one, which was about our love story. Our love story it's unique, unconventional. It's us, it's us, it's who we are. I think everybody out there, all couples out there, um, y'all got a a unique, beautiful love story too, right, even when there's some ups, some downs in it, some pain in it. God don't make no mistakes. And for anybody out there who is not married yet and hasn't found that one, that story has yet to be written.
Speaker 2:It's gonna be a unique story too right, if that is your desire if that's your desire keep fighting, keep um keeping your head up and staying true to who you are and your values, and you will be blessed yeah, stand true and be ready for what god got for you, because it's probably going to involve some challenge and some growth.
Speaker 1:Yes, you know, growth in the right direction. Not just challenge, just for challenge sake, but to make you better.
Speaker 2:And I think that's the thing right. We, we want that to be something that we are ready for and that we want to have come to us. But are you really ready for it? Like you may think that you are, but in all actuality, sometimes we're not as ready as we think. Think that you are, but in all actuality, sometimes we're not as ready as we think. Yeah and um, you know we're faced with challenges that we may not be ready for and so, you know, sometimes it takes a lot of work and, um, that's what I would say. You know, when you think that you're ready, get around some people you can sit under and really try to kind of absorb, you know what you see, to really make that determination of if you are ready.
Speaker 2:I don't think that it's a bad idea to just be under a mentee to kind of grow and see what you can learn and really find out who you are. I think you really kind of discover who you are in those settings and in those moments.
Speaker 1:That's big facts. I think that ready point, that's a really good point. You know what I mean, cause only God know what that looked like. You know, cause I know for some people. I've heard people be like I'm ready, I'm sitting here, I'm ready, I'm just waiting. And I know for others you know people like me we don't know, we just get into the storm and you adapt right, like sometimes you struggle through the readiness, yeah, because you don't even know. But God know you ready and you feel like I don't know what's going on. But at the end of the day, god knew what he was doing, you know so I want to encourage people in this scenario.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it may not always feel like I'm sitting here. I got it all. I know I'm ready, but god know when you prepared to take what's coming towards you, so rock with it, stay close to him you know, and he'll provide you with the resources that you need, even when you feel that you aren't ready yep so don't don't be a closed book look at that open yourself up.
Speaker 2:Y'all see, y'all see them skills. Allow those resources to come in y'all see them segue skills.
Speaker 1:Don't be a closed. See, I'm using that and we're gonna use that as a commercial for our show. We're gonna use that. So, yo, today we going to address a really big topic. This is something we talked about a lot, babe, over the years of you know not we, we would honestly wish more people would be more open.
Speaker 2:Yes, because we definitely did not feel like we had a sounding board or new people.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Could really relate to kind of what we were going through and we, once we opened ourselves up, we were really kind of surprised at how many people were going through the exact same thing we went through or had been through it and could provide us with some advice so, as y'all know, today's topic is blended families blended families yes I think it's kind of.
Speaker 1:I think it's kind of strange, um, that after all of these generations, right like all of us, grew up in homes of divorce and broken families and fractured this and step that and uncle who ain't really my uncle and you know, it's like we all grew up around that but yet still in 2024, it's still kind of taboo to discuss and there's not a whole lot of open transparency about it.
Speaker 2:So that's one of the reasons why we really wanted to talk about it yeah, and I mean I, I actually knew quite a few people who had both their mom and their dad in the home, um, and seemed like they were loving and and you know, and happy marriages, but mean that was not the status quo, yeah, so, yeah, I mean we are here because we want to talk about it, we want to share what we've experienced in our journey and then hopefully, you know that can help someone in theirs.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, really quick. Before we get started, let's just talk about our. I know one of one of the things we're going to talk about so much of this goes back to you know. We're talking a lot about our personal journey. So we're going to be talking about the things that we personally went through individually and together and with God, but so much of it is impacted by the way we were brought up. So, just really quick, let's just talk about our. What we knew about blended families coming into our marriage, like what did we grow up seeing and what was our you know definition of blended family and what did it normally look like?
Speaker 2:So for me, I, my mom and my dad were married. We moved out to Maple Heights from Euclid when I was about seven, six or seven, 88.
Speaker 1:88.
Speaker 2:And like not too long after that, my parents separated and I remember that there was a stint of my dad being back just shortly. It's very brief, I can't even tell you how long it was because it was that brief, shortly.
Speaker 2:It's very brief. I can't even tell you how long it was because it was that brief, but I really just remember my mom being a single parent and working multiple jobs to be able to provide us with what we needed. I don't want to say we grew up poor, because I don't think we were. I just knew that my mom was not home and that she worked a lot and that I didn't really have a relationship with my dad. We, um, didn't really go over there that often because my dad had new kids.
Speaker 1:So he just started a new family, right, he started a new family.
Speaker 2:He got um. Well, they weren't married at the time, but he started a new family, um I. I knew I had an older brother, um, also from my dad, my sister is my half sister, but I mean, we grew up together, so that's not really what we call it. You know, in our home she's my sister, and even with my brothers that are my, my father's children, I don't even call them my half brothers. It's just not something that we say you know, they're my, my, my brothers.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, we, we were definitely, you know, in a broken home and you know, my dad really wasn't present.
Speaker 1:I think it's also interesting. You said you were it's both ways right. So you were born into a blended family.
Speaker 2:I was born into a blended family, but I didn't know it to be blended. You know, it was just that's just how it was. My sister was my sister and she had a different dad and it was just kind of like oh okay, I mean, it really wasn't like talked about, it was just that's my sister and that was it. So I mean, even with my other brothers, it was just like I have other brothers. It wasn't like, oh yeah, you know it's, you guys are considered blended. I don't really think that that came into the picture until I myself got married. The language became like oh, blend it. Oh, okay, all right.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:What about you, honey?
Speaker 1:Um, so, yeah, uh, you know, uh, my parents, my, my dad, was a little bit of a um, he had this habit of stringing relationships together. I think he was one of those people, um, that didn't like to be alone, okay, so he was married uh for quite a long time, like 15 years and then he got divorced and he immediately uh got with my mom and you know they had my older brother before they got married. And then I don't know when the divorce from the first wife took place, but when they got pregnant with me they got married. So, like a couple months before I was born, they just locked it in and got married and then, like soon as I was born, they they separated, um, so my lifetime I don't know my parents being together, right, um, the divorce actually wasn't final until I was five. So five years later I don't really know parents being together, right, the divorce actually wasn't final until I was five. So five years later I don't really know what happened in that five years, because I'm too young I can remember bits and pieces of it being a little bit. You know that whole toxic back and forth. You know he got two kids over here, so maybe he gonna come here and you know, maybe he gonna paint something or fix something.
Speaker 1:All right, we're back to the regularly scheduled broadcast. Now Y'all got to pardon us. We had like gigantic deer.
Speaker 2:We had deer and I just went and watered my plants.
Speaker 1:We got to protect Bay's plants.
Speaker 2:I'm just saying you know, I get perennials. I go every year to make sure they're coming up and everything looks well. That's the whole thing about perennials. You don't have to get them every year, but sometimes you know some of them don't last and you need to go and I plant lilies, I plant all these things.
Speaker 1:And these deer come and eat all my stuff up. So I literally just went out there and watered my face. When she saw she was like look behind you.
Speaker 2:It was a humongous deer too. I thought it was jason vorhees behind me. Y'all like, oh my gosh, this is not gonna happen today, if I can help it. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt you, honey, it's all good, we back.
Speaker 1:So yeah, we was talking about my pops, right? So he, um he came back around during that five years.
Speaker 1:I don't know it was messy, um, but ultimately they end up getting divorced and he immediately got remarried and um immediately um, that five, like as soon as he got divorced, I don't know, it's like weeks, a couple of weeks, so it was. You know, it's usually like one of those things where it's already over. You're just trying to file the papers and as soon as the papers get filed, the other wife is like let's go, like this is what we wait for, right? So, um, yeah, I think it's one of them situations. So, yeah, I, you know. Then, like you said, I didn't know anything about blending, but you know how it goes.
Speaker 1:Like the whole trope of stepmother evil, right, I think that it comes from the fact that families don't do this well, right, and men, historically, that's why I think it's so much it's always the evil stepmother, right, like you never hear the wicked stepfather, but the wicked stepmother. I think so much of that comes from the fact that dudes, we just don't do this well and dudes tend to string relationships together too tightly, and that's what my father did and yeah, so my stepmother got kind of introduced to me and like it wasn't great and again then we went into the whole thing of I didn't see my dad a whole lot. My mother was kind of bitter towards him and it was like that for some decades. You know, it's like that for a minute, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it wasn't very comfortable for us when we would go visit my dad because there was the new brothers, then her son was there and I think there was just a lot of anxiety and pressure that went along with us coming over and things were just really always weird. I felt like we got blamed for a lot of things that we may or may not have done. I don't really remember, but it just wasn't a comfortable time. I mean, there were a lot of times where I could remember sitting with my suitcases out in the driveway waiting to go and then that not being the day, and then I think, as time progressed and I got older, I just made the decision that I didn't want to go over there anymore, and that was just kind of that my brother did. My brother still went for some time, probably till he was maybe mid-teens and then, he stopped going as well.
Speaker 1:That's man, that weirdness Weird is the word. Weird, I can recall. Like you know, we didn't go to my dad's very often but just calling him, I didn't even know what to say. You know, like other kids would answer his phone right and it's like so all I knew is I called him dad, so they would answer and I'd be like can I speak to dad?
Speaker 1:and you know to them they like after a while it was like okay, we know, this is Jay calling we know, we know, we know your voice now, but at first it was like what do you mean, dad, like who are you? And you got to say who you're talking well, what did they call him?
Speaker 2:did they call him dad too, or did they call him something else?
Speaker 1:no, because these were like, not necessarily. It wasn't like slim and land, you know. So it wasn't like my step brothers. These were like my nieces and nephews who were my age, so they called him granddad.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So it was a little different. Yeah, but yeah, that weirdness. And then, like you said, when you do get, have those opportunities to go, it's just so easy for things to be. That's why I think so much falls on the parents, because it's so easy for things to feel unfair. And, yeah, and for kids they don't have, like you said, you, you over there, you don't know these people. It's their home, they live there day to day. You don't you go over there and it's like if your pops don't do some extra to kind of explain to you what's going on, then you got to make, you got to write your own narrative and that never happened and I was the only girl.
Speaker 2:So I'm in the house full of all these boys, men and my step or his girlfriend at the time, and, yeah, it was just, it was weird, it was awkward, it was weird and yeah, so that was like what the examples that I had is a child and going into meeting people and, like I said, I had dated before someone who had a child and was just like, okay, this is really odd.
Speaker 2:The situation was, you know, um, a little kind of chaotic mm-hmm and I was kind of coming into kind of a chaotic situation and I was just kind of like, oh no.
Speaker 2:Very early on it was like, oh no, no, no, this ain't gonna work for me. So when I met you, you know I had already had that conversation with my coworker and so my mind frame was a little different and it actually turned me on. I was actually very intrigued by the fact that you had a child, a daughter specifically, and that you were very present, because I myself didn't have a present father, didn't have a present father. And so, you know, going into a relationship and you know as things are, you know if it possibly progresses, you obviously want someone who you can see being a good father and you know, you know if things didn't go, you know if they went left and a child did appear that they wouldn't. You know you can already kind of see how they father. So I was really excited to see that you were as present as you were. It was not a turnoff at all. I was like, wow, okay, this guy is a really good dad.
Speaker 1:And that's. That's really kind of cool, it's kind of sexy, that's awesome, yeah, yeah, that's really dope and I could feel that, right, like I could sense that. You know, know, I think the thing for me is, you know, that was my blueprint with what happened with my parents. Um, and it actually was very like it never got really good, like between the three of them, right, like my mother, father and stepmother. It never got good and my mother never healed enough to get remarried, so, yeah, so it was like that's just how it went. Um, you know, by the grace of god, me and my stepmother are good, but as far as, like my parents, that blueprint that I saw, I never learned how to make that get good. So it was just always super ugly, right, like really really nasty ugly.
Speaker 1:So for me, I went into like becoming a parent, an unmarried parent, and, you know, starting to look at the world of man, you are now going to have to get married. You know, my first thought was I'm never getting married, because it's like I thought that I was never going to get married too. It's like this just don't work for me, you know. But then it's like so when we met and I really had a struggle of. I really wanted to show up and be that new example in my family line. I want to break this curse Right. I saw so much of my father's life replaying in my life so I wanted to break it. But I have any idea how to Right and I didn't know what I needed to work on to break it. So, yeah, going into it, I was really protective of the only thing I did figure out how to do and that was this, this overcompensating relationship I had with my daughter, right where it was like when things went south with me and her mom, I just kind of put an umbrella over us and was just like I am going to just lock in here without realizing how unhealthy that could be. And now I understand that the reason I didn't realize it was unhealthy is because that's the way I was raised. That's what my mother did to me in shut the world out and just pour 200% into this parenting relationship. Right, that's what was done to me. So that was what I just instantly start enacting.
Speaker 1:And what happens is and I'm pretty sure there's a lot of dudes out here that might be listening to this that understand you know they're a good person. They don't want to be a bad father, they want to be a good father, and they were approaching this. But we make mistakes along the way, and one of those mistakes is not being accountable enough at the beginning of our new relationships, right, I think my dad might've had the same issue. There's a lot of things you got to show up and do and it takes time to understand and heal, and one of those is ingratiating your new partner, right, like we both just sat here and talked about our, our fathers, getting remarried. Coincidentally, both of our mothers did not, right? I think that is a common path, especially back in that generation. But when the father gets remarried, how does he seek to blend, like we call in these blended families, right? How is the father putting in the work?
Speaker 2:to effectively blend them. My father did not at all and still does not. I should note my stepmother and I our relationship is better, but we don't have some type of development with my dad and my stepmom and my new family and that didn't really happen. So, yeah, it's not. It would be. It would be great if that is something that talk about in marriage counseling. We have marriage counseling, and we did not bring it up. We did not bring up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you got to have a hard conversation, that's not something that we talked about at all.
Speaker 2:We really kind of skirted around that whole topic and I just want to make sure that even if you're not in a blended family, it should still be a conversation. You should still have the conversation because you just don't know what could come up from your past. I mean, maybe you're not affected by it and I don't know, but you know, if you had anything happen in your past that you know with your parents that may affect you, you want to talk about that going into. Before you jump into a marriage, you really need to be able to address that with yourself as well as your partner.
Speaker 1:Yeah, big time. And I think that speaks to an even bigger issue. Right, like one of the I believe one of the main reasons we didn't talk about is, you know, the pastor who did ours saw that it was. He just kind of avoided some of the harder things that he, I think he knew that we would struggle with. And I would have struggled in that conversation because in that time, and you may have probably would have struggled in that conversation because I do think it's something we should have been addressing and we weren't. And I know, for me, I kind of just was like I hope this goes well, right, like I just hope everything falls into place. It was a very, very, very passive approach to putting a family together.
Speaker 1:And the things I know now. Passivity is the enemy of manhood. You cannot lead being a passive man and so I was super like I really understand now. I made huge mistakes in one not introducing you to the whole situation earlier and in the right fashion, right Like in an accountable fashion, instead of just letting things all fall in and everybody just coincidentally run into each other. Being more strategic and proactive to respect everybody in the situation, to respect you more, to help you not have awkward conversations and awkward moments. But that takes work and honestly and I know I might be speaking for some other men too there, but I know I'm gonna speak for me it was work that I honestly had no idea about.
Speaker 1:I was not raised and taught how to be a man in that fashion. Like, honestly, by the time I figured it out, it was like what I can't you know, like that was the last. I was so passive and so afraid that things would end up like my mother and father and I didn't want my child to be like I was. So I let that fear put me in a little closet. I was like I'm just going to be super passive and hopefully everything will work out great.
Speaker 2:And even with the marriage counseling that we got, the pastor was in a blended family.
Speaker 2:Yes, so it would have been like a really good opportunity for us to kind of bring up some concerns. But I could feel your unease and I had unease as well. It's like I don't want to rock the boat by, you know, bringing up the fact that we're going to be a blended family and some of the things that we're currently experiencing is just like, ok, maybe we should just kind of skip over this part, but sure enough, those things came up practically immediately, like immediately after we got married. So it is very important to be vocal and to have a voice, because it's not you having a voice just for yourself, it's you having a voice for your family as well, and maybe some of the things that you're questioning or have some insight about, your partner could be struggling with those same things, and you guys could really open the door to really kind of nip some of that in the bud if one of y'all opened up and had the conversation about it.
Speaker 1:So let's talk about some of those challenges, like what was the initial adjustment of being in a blended family right, because for you, you went from being a single woman.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So for me, jay proposed to me on my 30th birthday. I graduated with my bachelor's degree just a couple months later. We started planning our wedding immediately after I graduated, in May, and we're married by August 25th.
Speaker 1:We don't wait a long time to do stuff. No, we don't. In case y'all didn't know that no, we just don't get it in.
Speaker 2:We came into it debt free, which is a huge blessing, but we didn't realize that we had other baggage that we were bringing into it, and so I immediately became a stepmom, which was fine. Juliet and I, we had a really good friendship in the beginning. Things changed shortly after I moved in, which my lease was up like a month before we got married and like right after I moved in, things kind of shifted a bit into us getting married and then shortly after that I found out I was pregnant right before Dave's birthday.
Speaker 2:I told him on his birthday that I was pregnant. So, yeah, I had a lot of things happen before, all before my 31st birthday.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I didn't feel like I had anybody that I could talk to. Um, even though we were in a marriage group and um, everybody you know, they're all married, a lot of them were freshly married I still felt like we didn't have anybody we could talk to and I didn't know who I could talk to about some of the things that I was experiencing, even though there's other women in the group that are pregnant as well, I still felt like I didn't know who I could say something to.
Speaker 2:I didn't feel comfortable. I'm private, so I didn't want to say something to someone and then my business be all out in the street.
Speaker 1:So you're growing and learning how to open.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I just kind of dealt with a lot of things internally. Um, I went to go for therapy because I didn't really kind of understand what was going on and they diagnosed me with adjustment disorder and, um yeah, what does that mean?
Speaker 1:I don't want people to be confused.
Speaker 2:Well they essentially said that I was having a hard time adjusting to all of the new things that was happening in my life, all of these things happening in a very short span of time, and they felt like, because I was pregnant and you know, I'm a new mom, I'm a new wife, I have all of these shifting things happening and um warring priorities that I just wasn't adapting to it well. So that's what they diagnosed me with adjustment disorder.
Speaker 1:So you come out of your you. Like you said, you were right before your 31st birthday, so you're not like 18 anymore getting married, right? So you had been through some years of being on your own, you carrying your own baggage of your relationship with your own parents individually. You know one of which who's remarried and has another family and everything. And then all of a sudden you're married really quickly and you're also a stepmom to this girl, who's six years old and coming over every other weekend or every week sometimes yeah, and it was.
Speaker 2:I mean, it was hard at first because it was like what happened, what changed, what shifted things? And um, I remember and I don't know if this was actually it or not, but I remember the day that I moved in, her mom also came over with her and her mom was moving stuff out and I don't, like I didn't know her mom was coming.
Speaker 2:I wasn't sure if her mom knew I was coming, but, um, you know, her mom had been moved out for a couple years at that point um, but she, you know, after that Julia just kind of really just digressed and I remember my mom telling me, like right after we got married she confided in my mom and told her like I kicked her mom out and I was like what?
Speaker 1:And you know she was like, yeah, you know her mom moved out and you know her mom had to move out because I moved in and I, you know, like I said, I don't know if that had anything to do with it, but I just remembered that our relationship took a very swift incline like right after I moved in and then it was just really trying to process and move into a different space after with her and with you Big time, because now you have also the pressure of me, who has built this umbrella relationship with my daughter, and I feel like it's going great every other weekend or every week when she comes over, and then then it becomes rocky, yeah, so I'm putting pressure on you to keep it good, putting pressure on you to keep it good, putting pressure on her to keep it good and putting a lot of pressure on myself yeah, and we weren't really talking about it.
Speaker 2:We're not talking about it was just kind of you know your stepmom. Now you're the mom of the house, so you need to figure it out and you know you need to make sure she feels welcome when she comes here and you need to figure it out. And you know, you need to make sure she feels welcome when she comes here and you need to figure it out and you know if, if you know, there was any tension between you and I, it was just kind of like put on the back burner.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And it did. It created a lot of anxiety. I was already pregnant, so I already had all of these emotions. As is already pregnant, so I already had all of these emotions, as is um, so it created a lot of anxiety for both of us. Um, with trying to figure out how to navigate the waters. Um, with being a new parent for me and then for you.
Speaker 2:Now you have this new person in in the home, that is kind of shifting the you know the temperature and and how things are kind of ran in your home yeah um, so yeah, it was very difficult and then I mean, you know, I didn't really have a relationship with her mom, but um, things, again they went kind of left like immediately, um like right after we got married. So yeah, things were just kind of like yeah what's going on? How do we, how do we fix this? And it took us a while to kind of figure it out.
Speaker 1:And I can remember in those moments during those first couple years, right, I remember doing things like if you and I had issues that we needed to talk through, like if we arguing or we know we have something that we need to work through, and it's like Thursday I would back burner it. I remember purposefully being like I don't want to go there right now because I want everything to be good for this weekend, so let's put it on hold, right. And again we go back to one of the things that I've learned just in life and growing as a man and as a leader some hallmarks of leadership. Right, you have to understand that there's always, as a leader, there's always people who are impacted by your moves, your decisions. Even if, so, you can't just be like I'm gonna do what's comfortable or what feels good, because it's not just about you.
Speaker 1:And being a leader isn't a job that people volunteer for. It's a job that you get. You get drafted into right, like, you are a leader period and so, like leading, like you said, having a household and leading it I didn't. I didn't lead it. I didn't know how to to lead a household.
Speaker 2:I was just living in a house yeah, and I was, I was kind of stepping in to do to do everything yeah, and. I felt really out of my element doing that, because I mean, a lot of it was like I shouldn't be having these conversations or. I shouldn't be saying these things, but for the sake of there needing to be a conversation, I would just gotta do it and then just take whatever fire that came from it and look, this is.
Speaker 1:I think I cannot echo this enough For one. None of this is uncommon. I know everybody listening to this knows that. I want anybody who's going through this right now to understand that it's not just you, but also.
Speaker 1:This is a more prevalent issue in our community, right Like. It goes beyond just blended family. It's about the mantle of leadership and God's design for a family. When God designed man, we're supposed to lead. We're supposed to lead Because you know what happens when we don't? God has designed women to take care of it. They're not going to let it all fall. That's just how they're built, especially black women.
Speaker 1:We've seen example after example after example. If the man bails, the woman will step up and take on every role, no matter how unhealthy it has to be, no matter how toxic it has to get. This is what has to be done. So they're going to do it. So I think I mean you could go back to Adam and Eve, right Like. If you give a man a way out, we're going to try to take it. We're going to try to blame. We're going to be passive.
Speaker 1:So I encourage any dude out there man, instead of thinking about and this person's against me or this situation is against me. Look inward, look at yourself and be like clean your own mirror, be like what can I do to get better in this? Is there some reason I'm coming? Maybe I'm coming to this unprepared. Maybe nobody ever taught me how to really be a man who leaves a family because I can admit that at 48 years old I am brave enough to admit when my family got started, I was never taught how to be a man who leaves a family. I just wasn't, and I had to learn it on the job.
Speaker 2:I mean, I think we were both learning on the job because I was not taught how to be a stepmother. My mom didn't remarry so we didn't have any other children in the home to kind of see what it looked like to have you know, to kind of work things out, so I was learning on the job as well, and our examples was hella awkward.
Speaker 2:They were. And I mean honestly, there are so many moments that I really wish that I could go back and change, but obviously that's just not how things go and I think you know, at the end of the day it kind of strengthened us into what we are now, but there were so many opportunities that I found right into it.
Speaker 2:It's like looking back at it, it's like man, I wish I could have went back and did that differently, or said this differently, or not done this. And you know, it's so interesting now to kind of see how God moves in situations like that and how, even in those uncomfortable spaces, um, he's building us. You know, he's building me, cause I'm listen, I had a lot of pressure on my plate and I am not, a, um, passive person. I'm not passive. I, if I'm uncomfortable with something, we're going to talk about it.
Speaker 2:And you know, I found that I was very fiery. I was very fiery in the very beginning of our marriage. I don't know if I still am, I'll let Jay answer that I was very fiery and in trying to make our home work, I didn't care who got that heat. I didn't. And you know, and sometimes that included Jay, sometimes that included Juliet, I didn't. I was really just trying to make things work and I guarantee you 1,000% I was not going about it the right way and, you know, just trying to figure things out too. So I think we were both just trying to walk in the situation that we had and trying to figure it out, and sometimes the figuring it out was chaotic and crazy, but we pushed through it.
Speaker 1:You know how they say the sins of the father. You know the children face it. I do believe that. I believe that there is a lot of blessings that God has for us and sometimes they get delayed because we don't do the right thing. Our children can be denied some things if we don't make certain decisions to fall in line with what God got for us. They can be delayed on some things that is there for them to fall in line with what God got for us. They can be delayed on some things that is there for them and, I do think, for us going into our marriage. God has blessed us a lot, but it's it's not.
Speaker 1:Like you know, like I love football, we didn't come out on first down and score a touchdown. You know what I'm saying. We we was behind the eight ball for one. We started from the one yard line because we got. We were set up behind to begin with, but guess what? And then we all made our own mistakes. I can own my mistakes right, like it's not even in the godly order to have a child out of wedlock. So is we made our own mistakes, but that's how good God is. He still was like I still gotta play for y'all gotta play still got one still are meant to be.
Speaker 2:Y'all are still meant to be this family that I have put together. I have puzzled together. All of the pieces fit.
Speaker 1:Y'all are just not putting them in the right places exactly and you know just like if you watch the cleveland browns be on third and 40 and they got a struggle to get that play off. To pray for a miracle. It's harder when you're behind the eight ball, but it's not impossible. So yeah, we went through some struggles but it ain't impossible, it's not.
Speaker 2:And our children didn't, that's the one thing that I want to say that you know, when Honor came and even Jason, our children did not understand what that was. You know what I'm saying, like especially Honor and Juliet.
Speaker 1:They were like from birth.
Speaker 2:from birth it has been thick as thieves. So even in the chaos that was going on with mom and dad, they did not experience that, they didn't know what that looked like. And I'm so grateful and thankful for that, because they are super strong together, even even now, with Julia coming, they are super strong as a unit and, um, you know, I just I'm I'm grateful to know that even in going back in some of those memories that we have, in some of those chaotic moments, there was still that little pocket of peace for them.
Speaker 1:So what would you give to people out there who might be going through this? Like, when it comes to communication or building relationships, what are some things you think people should try that you've learned along the way, the hard way.
Speaker 2:I think that communication is key and it's not just communicating, but it's really trying to communicate, to understand. You know, because I think a lot of the time we talk at each other man and we want our point to come across, we want to be heard, we want, you know, to feel like what we said was oh, that's it, right there.
Speaker 2:You know, and you know, even when conveying that and talking to other people, it's like you want people to validate what you know, the most important thing that you can do for your spouse and for your family and for yourself is to communicate, to listen and to really be able to understand what exactly is going on so you can get to the root cause, Because a lot of the things that we went through we weren't getting to the root cause.
Speaker 2:We actually didn't get to the root cause of all of the different things that happened in our marriage until year three. Three years we struggled, we butted heads, we talked at each other and got no resolution. Once we really sat down and had those really hard conversations and got to the I mean digging, we dug and it was uncomfortable, it was not fun, I did not like him, he did not like me, we were going through it. But once we really got to the root of things and really actually was like oh, have we had that back when it was happening? Maybe things would have went differently, but we didn't. I would say have the conversation, as uncomfortable as it may be, don't be passive about it, especially the elephant in the room.
Speaker 1:Don't let that elephant grow big.
Speaker 2:We know how big elephants can get.
Speaker 2:Don't let him explode your house. Don't let him do it. Because here's the thing there's so many people that aren't making it past year, two, year, three, because they're not having those hard conversations in advance. They're not having those hard conversations in advance, they're not having those marriage counselor conversations, they're not talking about it when they get into the marriage and really digging down deep to kind of find out what's going on so they can progress through. Everything is not going to always be peaches and creams. That is not what marriage is. Marriage is not always peaches and cream. It's not so.
Speaker 2:That was that's the main thing that I would say is to make sure that you have the conversation Communication is so key and make sure you get some mentees, a mentor that you can sit under, be a mentee as a wife. Take some marriage classes. That could never hurt. You know, you would be surprised how many people are going through the same things that you are going through if you just kind of open up and allow people to kind of see into what you're going through. We had a select few people that we talked to, that we really opened up ourselves to and, oh my gosh, it made such a world of difference. We got really godly advice.
Speaker 1:Still do.
Speaker 2:Still do a world of difference. We got really godly advice um, still do, we, still do. We were able to really kind of sit under some people, and now we have people who sit under us, and so it's really important to be able to open yourself up, to have those conversations um open up is the key, though, because a lot of us don't know how to do that.
Speaker 1:So we we got to learn and grow.
Speaker 2:And that could be a constant conversation, which it was for us. A constant conversation of hey, maybe we need to talk to somebody else, maybe we need to get a different perspective. Who can we reach out to that will hear us, that has been through this, that is in a blended family, that knows what we're going through, that can really pray over us and, you know, really help us be accountable to some of the things that we've said and done?
Speaker 1:It's so important to get yourself in a good community where that kind of stuff is normalized to, where people love on you. When you just around people doing the same thing you're doing, you can't really grow. It's just like an echo chamber. You know, you got a lot of people you can go to and be like I'm mad at my wife about this or so and so and all of that and gripe, but they're not gonna help you grow. So it's really important to get around a community of people that love you in the way that they help you grow, not just gonna big you up and make you feel good in the moment you know, that's what is that gonna really do exactly because we really and you know that's really my piece of advice, man is clean your mirrors, man.
Speaker 1:You gotta be honest enough with yourself to know that we all are work in progress. Man. You gotta you gotta be hard enough on yourself to try to get better tomorrow, but have enough compassion on yourself to not dwell on the mistakes too right and just had them open conversations. Because here's the thing. I think one of the things that really complicates blended families is the fact that all families are constantly evolving and getting better. All parents, like the first child born to any parents, they gonna get the worst version of you Because you don't know what you're doing yet. So you compound that with the whole not married thing and that blended together causes a big thing. But you got to be willing to be like look, I'm also learning how to parent yeah, I'm also trying to figure that out, right.
Speaker 1:So, and you know, like I have those kind of conversations with Juliet these days where it's like, look, I know I probably wasn't so great when you was five and that happened. How did this make you feel? Let's talk about it, because why not talk about it? If you got feelings about it, let's talk about it. I'm gonna tell you exactly where I was at, if I was wrong, if I needed, if something I grew from. Let's talk about that and let me tell you how I grew, so you can start to see. What does it look like for a parent to grow and get better? I don't, I never got that from my parents. My parents never told me, never told hey, look, you know what I'm struggling with this and here's how I got better with that. My parents never said that, but that would have went a long way, yeah.
Speaker 2:And I think it's too important that you also have some privacy in who you speak to, and that includes family. People that you're close with may not be the ones that you need to have in your marriage. Skinfolk ain't always kinfolk I mean you know, and that could be friends, that could be parents, that could be relatives. Some people need. You need to keep a stiff arm and you know who you're sharing your marriage with.
Speaker 1:Healthy boundaries.
Speaker 2:Some people ain't really excited to see you excited and happy, and I mean, that's just fact.
Speaker 1:That's fact.
Speaker 2:And sometimes you just got to keep people at a distance. I mean, obviously they're your friend and you want to hang out with them or whatever. But when it comes to things of trying to get good godly advice, sometimes they may not be the right person to talk to. Your homegirls ain't always there to make sure you good and your homeboys may not be the ones you need to be getting some really good sturdy leadership.
Speaker 1:Be real with yourself. You know when your folks is toxic like that you don't mean you got to stop loving them, but you know when you know.
Speaker 2:You just need to keep them out your business.
Speaker 1:You know what I'm saying?
Speaker 2:Right, Because you know people don't know how to forget things. You don't want something that y'all went through to come up years later and that they can't let that go because you didn't share something that you didn't need to share. And now here it is you or your husband got this cloud hanging over the head over conversations you shouldn't have with somebody that didn't need to be in your business.
Speaker 1:That's a lesson I learned a long time ago. Even when you are sharing something, you should never cast your spouse in a negative light Never, because you know what that person you're speaking to. You will forgive your spouse, but they won't yeah, they won't. They're gonna see that forever forever.
Speaker 2:And another thing that I would say is, you know, one of the things that was very difficult. I was really trying to develop a relationship, and the relationship that I was trying to develop was not always what my husband wanted it to look like. Right, and that's okay, because he's been around her longer. He wants things to be great for this person that he brought into the world and that he's been covering all of these years, and so, like now that we are older, um, you know, I've been in Juliet's life since she was four and a half four, four some really long time and, um, you know, like I said, there's been bumps and bruises along the way, but I'm so thankful to God that we've been able to put some band-aids on those bumps and bruises and they've healed out really well.
Speaker 2:And so that's one of the things that I will say is to develop a relationship, make sure that your relationship is one that is going to work for both of you, because that person, that child, should also have a say in what that looks like right, and not to force anything, because a lot of the times, especially early on, I was really trying to force it because it was like what happened.
Speaker 1:Like where do we?
Speaker 2:go left and I was really trying to kind of just. You know I'm the woman of the house, I need this respect and you know it was just all trash. To be quite honest, at the end of the day, it's really about what the foundation? What kind of foundation are you setting? And what is going to grow from out of that foundation that you put down, and if it's if it's nothing but weeds coming up, you need to go back to the drawing board, yeah, and figure that out, you know so much of.
Speaker 1:It is when we really boil down like what are we even talking about?
Speaker 1:here, right like it's. These are all blessings. Right, like we have children, those is God's children. Like he chose us, he gave. He gave us that blessing to be like take care of this for me. You know, I'm saying we have a marriage. That's God's union. God ordained that. These are not our things. God is blessing us with these things.
Speaker 1:So I think the key to figuring it all out, even when we don't so, like I said in the song, is we don't have a blueprint, but we got footprints. The key is always to look back at God and be like well, what is God even asking me to do? He gave us all roles. Well, what is God even asking me to do? He gave us all roles. You know, and I think that's something that I know we went a long way when we started to figure out why am I trying to do more than just the role I'm supposed to do here? Right, I remember the first time we sat down and you was like my first role is to be your wife. I'm going to be your support because I know you're feeling whatever anxiety and struggles through these situations. So my first thing is to show up for you. And I was like yo, and that's real Right, like even for me, even with my daughter, my job is to be her father.
Speaker 1:My job is not to be her friend, is not to be her savior, is to be her father. And the more I remember that it clears things up. I think so many times we get these ideas and we come into it with pain. Right, like my thing was I don't want to let what happened to me and my parents, I don't want that. That's not what. That's not what God told me to do. He told me to just show up and use what he put in my life to continue to be a blessing as her father period and stop carrying that old baggage around. So I think the more I can lean into that, the more clear things got for me.
Speaker 2:And I think the moment that I said how can I be here for you? Changed the trajectory of everything, because now we're on a united front. It's not us backburnering things, us putting things off, us not really dealing with situations as they come up throughout the weekend, but we're on a united front, going into it and as the weekend progresses. So there is no question, right, the support is constantly there and then, when things do arise, we are able to really be able to have that conversation and really get honest and open feedback and move forward with you know how do we tackle this together ego, you know, resentment, pride. Once all of that got pushed to the back burner, we were really able to move in that unity and that harmony that we were really trying to have in our home, that we just kept missing out on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it helped free us, you know, I think just to end it with a couple of points. For me, man, I think it's, you know, as I say in my book the driver's seat.
Speaker 2:Hey, there we go.
Speaker 1:You cannot drive your car by looking through the rearview mirror. It's the reason that rearview mirror is little. That windshield is big. You got to look forward. God is blessing you. You know how many times I literally have counted my blessings. It's been one of like the techniques that helps me with anxiety. It's been one of the techniques that helps ground me, literally count the ways that I'm blessed. There's so many things that I got in my life that other people praying for and I used to be praying for, so it's like you know, the more I can stay grounded in that it helps you move forward right. So I know a lot of us come from pain. A lot of us come from some really bad modeling of how to do a family and a blended family and that don't gotta be our story right. And the more we can get healing and get free from trying either blindly making that happen again because what's the one thing that's weird? The more I tried to make that stuff not happen the more I was making it happen.
Speaker 2:It was like you know, I ain't went nowhere, right, I'm here you gotta free yourself from that stuff, man.
Speaker 1:And then also, like my babe said, you gotta let it be what it's gonna be. God be working man. You gotta him. It may not look like what you want it to today, but sometimes that tough day be what you need. It's what you need to get forward to an even better day. If you had comfort today, y'all might just be cordial a year from now. But you have that tough day. It might be beautiful a year from now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. And the one thing that I've always done in this marriage is advocate. I've always fought, and that is advocating for my husband, advocating for my children, advocating for myself and that goes for anybody that has got a Floyd last name I'm advocating and I'm fighting for. So, even if you're not physically mine, you're mine, we're married into this, I'm married into this and you automatically become mine. So you know always having that fighting spirit, because that's one thing God did not make a mistake with and that's putting us together and I'm always going to fight for that.
Speaker 1:And just to put a bow on it y'all, just to let y'all know, juliet is graduating in a couple of weeks. She just went to prom. She looks like an absolute beautiful queen going to prom. Her mom did an amazing job.
Speaker 2:She looked absolutely stunning.
Speaker 1:Shout out to her mom. You know she do her thing. She don have a podcast, so she can't hop on here to say her piece, but we are all good right now and we have a good relationship and a healthy relationship because of all of us Right and because of God showing up and us listening to God. So shout out to everybody involved in the situation, because it takes more than just two people with a podcast. It takes a lot of people with open hearts and maturity and maturity and forgiveness, yes, yes. So big up to her, big up to Juliet, big up to our kids, big up to y'all for listening and being like what they talking about. Blended family is interesting. I'm listening, I'm listening.
Speaker 2:And, you know, don't forget to provide feedback or give your comments. We'd love to hear from you, your thoughts, what you think so far of the podcast. If you have any other topics that you want us to bring up or you want to engage with us maybe you want to pop on a show and chat with us Let us know and we got a Facebook page.
Speaker 1:Go, look for the Open Book Podcast facebook page. Hit us up. We have an instagram page. Hit us up if you have topics, questions, anything that you want us to address, just let us know. We'll call you out by name, if you want. If you want some shout outs, we'll make it like the radio station back in the day.
Speaker 2:Like yo, this one goes out too right you know, we'll personalize it for you right, because you know that's what we're here to do. It's the open book podcast you know sometimes our conversations are going to be a little uncomfortable, but the best form of communication is to make sure you have that honest transparency and, as my husband calls it, that truth pace that truth place very far, gotta hit you thanks for tuning in thanks y'all, we really appreciate y'all.
Speaker 1:Right here. On the open book y'all remember you know when, when kids are born, they open that book and everybody signs it. And, as we all know, when we go to see it, when we go to homegoings, there's an open book right there, everybody's signing it. So keep that book open throughout your days too, right in the middle. It's the key of it all, right y'all?
Speaker 2:thanksall Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 1:Listen to us again next time. We love y'all.
Speaker 2:Peace.