SPECIAL: Men In Relationships & Love Languages (Ft Stefan)

once you're married and you have kids you're making your own family so it becomes a thing where you've got to understand that you're not gonna see your mom and dad as much as you normally used to and there's nothing wrong with that because you're carving out your own family out of that knit that's the whole point of it so you've got to sit there and go when it comes down to it it's all said and done is this the person that i want to ostracize myself with and make my own little bubble with and if these things that you're chipping at are start to roll up and become a problem that's when that unconditional love kicks in and you go maybe maybe i should just keep looking what's going on everybody i hope you are doing well welcome to talking to my thoughts where we have open honest and raw conversations about well our thoughts the topics will range from anxiety life goals relationship kids money work everything that runs through our head so you know the possibilities are going to be endless so let's get straight into it you're here with craig aka mr positive yeah you're here with simon aka sj and here with stefan aka sjp so welcome stefan this is your first time on the podcast i know we're gonna have a good time sj is a good friend of all of us and what sjp oh my god but still let's get started on this today is valentine's day so i know you're having a special little day or you're not i don't know really i'm not trying to judge but um maybe people don't really know what valentine's day actually is um wikipedia says valentine's day also called saint valentine's day or the feast of saint valentine is celebrated annually on february the 14th that's it really that's what they have observances is sending greeting cards and gifts and dating and church services can i ask a question you might not know this year but if it's like a holiday about essentially a saint so it's i'm assuming it's like a catholic holiday or christian holiday yeah why where did this whole love thing come from about presents and gifts and how did that work out i don't know actually because i just thought of observances and it says it actually says gifts the day like the love thing and then it says church service and i've never heard any boys say they go in church i did not realize there's any kind of new today so we learn new things every day and and as you can see not everybody probably relates perfectly with that but i actually don't know where the whole gifts thing i guess is something that we just learned and we just saw on tv etc all i know is that this is the year leap year is when anyone can get it that's all i know because as far as i'm aware it's like i think it's like an irish tradition or something like that they used to i can't remember what the name is for it but when there's a leap year it's the year when women are allowed to legally propose to a man so you just letting you guys know i'm already married so i'm safe hold on so that means anyone any woman that proposes out of a leap year their wedding is illegal like the marriage i didn't make the rules i didn't make the rules i just checked it so it's called bachelor's day everyone can do their own google they can all check wikipedia but bachelor's day is an irish tradition on leap day allowing women to initiate dances and propose marriage oh wow we trade in places like usha so that's a bit mad like i wonder how many people actually believe that they could be proposed to by their woman the question is how many people would be would accept it as well because there's you kind of got to look at it is and i don't want to kind of go down the route of what kind of society sees but the whole proposal thing is seen as like the thing that the man does the man kind of goes down on one knee you know he's got the ring i don't feel bad saying it but i feel like i'd be a little bit demasculinated or whatever the word is like if i'm there my wife goes down on one knee and says honey would like will you marry me i'm like right this is meant to be my job you're holding a hand and she's being you're accepting you're just like raising their back up what's your thoughts like without getting yourself in trouble like if if you was in a situation let's not use your existing partner just just to keep you safe and free for in general as in your dating life if someone had ever proposed to you how would you have taken that how would you feel i think in the sense i would feel odd about it and it's not because maybe so i don't believe always because like oh it's not the way it's supposed to be it's just something i've learned so and i think i've i've acknowledged that i've learned the tradition through either through church or through our religion or through our family that it's just like all in black culture men basically are the ones that propose and do that traditional stuff but again we love to pick and choose things that are traditional because obviously back in the day it was like well men are the providers women are the ones that take care of the kids at the house olden is things that women pay them the bills and pays for the food whereas a woman will maybe make the food and do the cleaning up so it is there's a lot of things that we like to pick and choose so actually i'm not completely not i'm sorry i'm personally against like i would prefer to be the one that proposes versus actually being proposed to um however i'm not against if somebody else does it like i'm not going to start putting fingers and saying that's mad because i'm not gonna like there was memes online i was talking about some some women were willing to um count the grains of rice in a rice bag before they even think about proposing to them and i was like is it that mad but why though why is that is that it is that a situation where the woman kind of sees it as it's difficult because obviously we haven't got any females in the room right now um just to clarify that but that why why is it seen that for women that is it's it's kind of like a failure do you think for them to have to initiate it bro like i believe in equality in it like i don't think there's a problem even if you're in a relationship and you both think that you're at that place and whether you're the woman and you take it upon yourself to be like okay i'm going to make that step i don't think there's any looking down upon that for one i just think that if you if you have that feeling where you're you're comfortable enough in that relationship to do it then just do it like think if you're at that place where you can do it didn't just do it i don't i don't see anything wrong even from the man's point of view to be like well you should have done that it's like well what does it matter she proposed you proposed at the end of the day is it's a it's a sign of your love for each other and where you want to take the relationship next whoever makes that step first it shouldn't be a like an argument against that like someone took the step and now you're there in it like which i respect that because again i i always questioned before kind of like a kid that always asks why and then you have to keep explaining and then you get to a point where you can't answer anymore if you keep asking yourself why is it that marriage and marriage or proposal has to be done by the man etc stuff for that if you keep asking yourself why you're just going to come to a point where you just realize i just got taught it and that's just how it is and then you have to but then i question you and say well does that mean that everything you was taught is the way that life is supposed to be because then you actually know well we're going through especially in black culture we're kind of trying to break certain traditions and trying to re reimagine your life in your own way because you know society changed times have changed so does that actually mean that maybe the way that proposals and other things work because as simon's saying end of the day whoever propose you're getting married if you want each other that's what you wanted the whole point is that you're living your life see it's not about the statement it's not about your ego like ah who did it best in the thing it's like you just want to live your life together and that is the statement you're trying to make to each other but that's what it comes down to it comes down to judgment you know yeah comes down to judgment because i think there's people that's what it is because it comes down to it where they sit there and they're happy to get married but then it's like oh so you had to propose to him and you you know you got them aunties that she hadn't proposed to him he would never have done it you know he was never into you know this and that and that's where i think society social media all of those typical cliche things it plays such a big part on so much stuff because i i honestly think the reason why it's only a leap here that this is kind of seen as acceptable is because people are still uncomfortable with the with the kind of concept of a woman proposing to a man because a man's gonna look at her and go okay like she proposed to me she's taken away what was meant to be a man thing to do and my boy is gonna look at me like right she trapped you bro it's not that you wanted it as well but it's the thing where again society is telling you this is what a man's role is meant to be and it shouldn't really be that i know i highly agree with their sense of this society and the way that how much we allow it to influence our lives especially inside our own our own homes how we allow it to just kind of lead us like these people don't pay your bills they don't live your life they don't do the challenge that you have to do or they don't work in your relationship so why you why you be why are you scared to make certain moves or do certain things because of what society has to say however we as you know in talking to my thoughts we always do pre-recordings where we are literally talking to ourselves about the subject because the way we speak to ourselves is very different to how we speak to everybody else so let's bond society in what they have to say let's listen to ourselves and how we really speak to ourselves about these kind of subjects so we're going to kick off with simon's voice recording first listen closely and pay close close attention to details love love love love mad it's weird saying it like for me it's not something i say often to be fair and i don't know if that's just as a guy you're kind of taught to not be in tune with your feelings you're you're you're a man you're meant to be the rock of a relationship you're not meant to really show your emotions you're meant to just be that support i get it i get it though i get why it's important to say i get why it's important to love and to show you love people you love your partner you love your kids you love your parents i get it obviously getting older you learn how to be a lot more in tune with your feelings and your emotions and how to control them i guess how to manage them as a young boy you don't really you don't really get taught that it's just something that you have to learn through experience and that's whether you you're learning it from the love you receive from your parents the love you receive from your family your friends the people around you and then you use that to reflect that same kind of energy onto other people and then obviously when you get into a relationship you use that same kind of energy and put that love towards someone else and then when you have kids it's a different kind of love it's unconditional love so love is a big thing man but more so it's just when you're in a relationship it's just it's difficult man obviously at the start it's it's beautiful when this everyone says it's like the honeymoon honeymoon season honeymoon period everything's all chirpy you don't really have any problems or if you do have problems it's just a drop in the ocean it's nothing you get over it and it's just like you just want to be with that person you want to see them all the time you're excited it's new it's fun and then as the as time goes on you get to know each other and you might start living together having kids together you start learning traits and habits of that person that you didn't know about which don't like or it just they do things to frustrate you and then you get into arguments and it's like trying to coexist there's no there's no relationship that hasn't had its ups and downs i mean for me i've i've been in a few relationships and it's none of them are easy to be fair i'm in one now romantic person at all i don't know i don't know maybe i could be it's just having that that motivation and that feeling to do it and not think that you're forcing it not to say that i'm not happy in my relationship and i don't love my partner i'm not at all it's definitely not to say that i'm grateful all the time for what i have who i'm with i really am i definitely feel like i've learned through this relationship about myself for one how do i shed this shield for fully commit to something for fully commit to loving for fully commit to i don't know marriage the relationship am i ready for it am i my willing to give my complete self might be as vulnerable as i possibly can maybe i'm just protecting myself i don't know firstly it's like but i resonate with a lot of the pieces um like before we even get into like like how i feel about whatever do you genuinely do you do you feel there's a genuine fear that you hold about oh yeah 100 100 have you figured out or even close to what it could be what the fear is what i'm feared of um i don't even think it's a selfish thing to be like raw what so i'm never gonna be with anyone else again it's not even a thought of that at all it's just like i don't know i've never really really truly actually tried to process what and pinpoint what it is i just know that that commitment am i ready to do that but if you don't mind me asking is the person you're with at the moment now the mother of your kids she's the mother of my second child yeah do you feel like that kind of that changes anything for you do you feel like you factor that in and that has that has an effect on anything because i know with some people it's like sometimes it could be because the relationship with the first person didn't work out it makes them now assess relationships differently for other people it could be that when they think of relationships now it's not just about how is that affecting me but also how it affects my child as well so it's like they just analyze things differently it might not be that but as far as that no 100 it's definitely it does play a factor in it but i don't let that be the be all and end all sort of thing it's definitely something that you i guess you naturally take into consideration when you have a child and you're with someone and you're trying to think about making that commitment to the person that you're with it's like how will this affect our child if we don't make that commitment or you know i'm saying i can resonate completely with your fear that you have and i think i kind of tried to understand that a bit last year like i always try to remove all external factors and try to think okay inside of me what exactly is it that is missing or misunderstood etc and both me and you are quite self-reliant like we in the sense of our happiness our jobs our the way we make our money we're very self-reliant on how we adjust things protect our peace protect our happiness etc yeah and i came for a position where i was protecting it to the point where if you had any bad vibes you can't be in my life so actually it was a case where and at the same time it also meant that if i allow too much of you in you also have the potential to ruin what i would class as my peace yeah so i as i the my saying goes i can live a really good life on my own because god made us complete is what i believe he gave us everything that we needed we don't need anything externally yeah my main line and i think that this is like my theme for the year is let go yeah stop thinking that your ego knows exactly how your life is supposed to pan out the way that you're supposed to control your happiness the way you're supposed to do everything because yeah we built our lives that way especially us too we built our lives that way but he we didn't get put these people didn't get put in our life so they can just be the the back seaters of our own life yeah they were there to actually also lead our life and help us go to even better places you can live a good life alone but you could live a great life with somebody else and when you don't learn to just let go like i came to a point where before i got into this relationship i was i didn't want to date i didn't want to do anything because i just didn't have a long-term intention i was just scared today and i didn't know what to do i didn't i was scared of getting into a relationship and i knew that the next time i want to do it i wanted it properly but i'm actually going to let go and then i asked myself what would it take for me to just let go what exactly am i waiting for what more is there that i need from myself and i couldn't figure it out so i said didn't just let go and i did and yeah there was a lot of things that this is a long amount of list of traits i had where i would just not let go need it be how long they stay at my place um how do i integrate them into my life when my parents are around am i going to spend more time my parents or am i going to bring them with me when i'm with my parents stuff like that and there's so many things i used to hold back and i said just let go yes it's scary but life is always going to be scary in the sense that you're going to have to just face these fears and just let go you don't want to have the answer it's funny because at the same time i know one of the things that you you picked up on is you spoke about the honeymoon season and the honeymoon season is when the person does let go and go let me just follow this and see what happens yeah and then halfway through that it might it could be the smallest everything's cool everything's fine honeymoon season could last five days it could last six months it could last couple of years and then one day she turns up and she ain't creamed her foot and and suddenly you're like don't like that she does that yeah yeah yeah and do you get a meme and then suddenly you start to go oh and she ain't done this or he ain't done that or this person done this and then what you find is that your mind does that everyone has a negative part in their mind whether you listen to it or not you have it starts to kind of chip it and go and another thing you raised up on was this unconditional love and those are two things that battle each other because at the end of that honeymoon period that honeymoon season you've got that part that kind of starts to add up all of these things you're not really feeling and going can i love that unconditionally or does that bother me you know should am i am i comfortable saying look i'm gonna be with this person for the rest of my life because you i'm talking from someone who's married that and has a family you once you're married and you have kids you're making your own family yeah so it becomes a thing where you've got to understand that you're not gonna see your mom and dad as much as you normally used to and there's nothing wrong with that because you're carving out your own family out of that knit that's the whole point of it so you've got to sit there and go when it comes down to it it's all said and done is this the person that i want to ostracize myself with and make my own little bubble with and if these things that you're chipping at are are start to roll up and become a problem that's when that unconditional love kicks in and you go maybe maybe i should just keep looking and that's and that's one of the big issues i think there is so i get where you're coming from key part about that unconditional love because we share with our parents with ease however we don't try to predict what our parents are supposed to do and not do you just let them be yeah and then when it's your kids same thing you're like oh you're so stupid i've got to teach you but you let them be because they're going to surprise you no matter what when it comes to a partner there's so many things in social media and society and movies that makes us think what we know what a partner is by now because we've watched enough movies so then you're not allowing them to let them be yeah you're thinking i already know what i want i already know what it's supposed to be i think also i have that problem i'm not gonna lie i don't even like to say that i'm like with me and my partner i try to be like let her have her freedom and be herself in it not judge on any part and just do you obviously there's certain things that may happen in the relationship that we need to work on because obviously i may not be happy with certain things we all have our faults in it but i feel that when i get a lot of that judgment on me and it's like a lot of that judgment comes from oh yeah but this person is doing this can't you see that this person treats this person like that so why can't you be like that it's like what that's not me and you're almost like trying to make me into your perfect partner when you i think that we both need to just be accepting of each other and just work on us being us rather than looking externally about how this person's doing it or are you see these people on instagram more loved up and red but all you see on instagram is people's highlights you don't see the low lights so stop looking at that i'm thinking that's what it should be like but that's where it comes down to the love languages and it's and yeah yeah i said love languages um because like for myself i'm someone who's i can comfortably say that i'm quite touchy feely um i like my love language is is is physical you know and those kind of intimate moments that you might have even if it's just okay you're when we're just chilling and you rest your head on my shoulder to me that's okay cool but there's an intimacy there and i like that so i'm with that i'm like that with my wife and i think hey of course you're gonna love all of this no my wife sorry that's google trying to get involved my wife's love language is acts of service so for my wife she would if she comes home after a long day long day's work and you've cooked a meal that she hasn't had to ask you to make that you've just done it off your own head that to her is yes sold so i can sit there and i can go there and i can buy the flowers and i can give her hugs and i can give it to you don't even like chocolates so you can't even use them kind of things so all those things that work for a lot of people doesn't work for my wife and it's very easy for it to be a thing where two three months pass and i feel like i'm running things i'm repping yeah i'm a dope husband and it's like we might have an argument so yeah you haven't you ain't cooked nothing for a while you haven't you haven't taken any of these jobs off of me yeah and i have to sit there and go while i'm upset and i'm vets i'm like yeah but i've been doing this i've been doing that i've been doing this i still have to look at it and go that's not her love language yeah that was what you that was what was uh comfortable for you yeah that's what that's what was comfortable for me to do and it was something that i would like back but it wasn't her love language and that's something that a lot of people have to understand i guess let's all okay i'll share my love language is usually um kind of i have a mixture of like kind of acts of service words of affirmation and stuff because actually um as people may know i'm like mr positive so i do a lot of motivational stuff but people predict that actually mr positive is always positive but no i'm just that's just an aspect a small piece of me so when i have somebody who can support me and actually bring pull me back up when i am a bit down or just reaffirms things to me that is actually a really powerful thing for me that they're checking on me and stuff like that and then i think um like touchy feely is like one of them as well but i think it is part of access service i remember these kind of things there's such a there's a slight mixture between them but they blend in yeah and actually like the whole touchy feely thing from time to time and then also the access service ways you actually just do things for each other um and the word so that's my kind of mixture and again and in my partner i'm with now she's very a touchy feely person acts of words don't mean much to her actually um acts of service kind of does where you do stuff like she just wants to see you see things through to the end you say that you was going to do it so you do it yeah um or you say that you want her to be happy and she's told you how to so you do it yeah in a sense and i guess what you can explain yeah to be fair i'm not gonna lie i only found out what this love language thing was probably like six months ago i never heard of it before but i think it might was it my missus i said someone sent me like it might have been her pretty missus like yo yeah someone sent me a link and then we're like ah check this out i was like what is this why are you sending me this foolishness but i did it anyway and it it confirmed a lot about how she sees love what love is and how i see what love is and why we often have those those issues as you said but it's like well i've been doing this so how can you turn around and say i haven't been doing that for you i haven't i haven't appreciated you i haven't shown you any love when i've been doing this but that's not how she can and she'll read that she's very similar to you in that respect where she's quite touchy feely and quite as i said i'm not a romantic person so i don't often come home with like chocolates and flowers and just start hugging her up and but i'll do stuff around the house like i'll cook i'll clean i'll do those things and it's like trying to ease the pressure in different ways in our relationship and just making it a more wholesome place and that's how i show my love is that we're supporting each other in that way not necessarily with a huggy kissy touchy feely sort of stuff so and that's where we often have those disagreements where it's like well you don't really show me love and i'm like but i do what are you talking about of course i do yeah we have a date now we went out last week to dinner come i'm showing you that we want to just spend time together and it's like that's not enough because that's not really what she wants from love so it's difficult man and it's sometimes not the case that it's not like not enough because they know a person will always think they know they're not enough it's like it's just not placed in the right place yeah and this we have to be careful of so we're gonna get into another recording before because love language so love language is very important and you should probably research it but let's get into the second recording which is from sjp which stefan so let's get straight into it and kind of listen from another perspective love and relationships can you see your life with them this one's an easy one for me if you know me personally you know that i am married with two daughters i've been married for a year and a half i met my wife when i was 15 years old i'm 31 at the moment 31 right now and when i met my wife i knew this is someone who i can see myself growing with she's someone who i can see see spending the rest of my life with um and yeah there's loads of people who kind of go for you know i want to go who's five five with brown eyes she's this and she's that and that very superficial element to things but i think a key thing for me that people need to keep in mind when they're trying to work out if they can see their life with somebody yes the the physical attraction is important let's not be naive that is important but the wider things i think have a bigger impact on that answer which is when it comes down to us having money problems in a relationship or growing separately in regards to what we want to do in life what we want to get out of life in our careers can we still be compatible in regards to how we see ourselves raising kids we are both different met of individuals how do we have our own stance on things but also find a way to be able to raise our kids in a kind of compatible way and if you can't find a way to communicate with somebody and be able to see how you can grow and bounce off of each other even throughout these different stages in life you know you look after a kid up until they're 18 years old and there's different stages that they go through if you can't see yourself being able to do that with this person then that kind of answers your question and it's funny because i i've always been someone who says look i don't believe that people have one soulmate i do believe that there are the billions of people that are in the world to suggest that only one person can help be your partner i don't use the word complete you but accompany you to suggest that one person can do that and then i say that one person passes away you're basically saying that you will never find somebody else again so i i don't think it's fair to say you've only got one soulmate but i think many people focus too much on the pursuit of perfection probably more in regards to what society tells them is perfection more than what actually works for me as an individual and where i see my life going so yes can you see your life with somebody can you spend the rest of your life with someone you can but it's down to communication it's down to compatibility and just down to this being open to the fact that you and them will change as individuals as you continue on in life intention was actually my keyword last year i re-evaluated my life in a sense of you always think you don't have enough time you're not doing things in the right place and i actually said what am i doing with intention like is every action i take intentional is every word i say where i place my time is intentional so i started to re-evaluate what kind of people do i spend my time with why do i spend my time with them um whether i place my attention so let's focus on the relationship side to think things i was like maybe dating or seeing different people etc and when i started to feel i was running out of time or energy i was like i'm just i don't see myself with a long-term intention with these people so what's the point of doing it in the first place what's the point of dating and then we got to the other part where it was like what's the point of even having sex with them because i don't see myself with a long-term intention what am i doing if i think that i have things the goals i want to achieve what am i doing in my time the energy is just going into something and as if you was in the i don't know in stocks and trades or in a property when you invest something you're expecting that it's going to return are you expecting a return from that so i appreciate that the fact that you you kind of had that thought deep thought with yeah the whole looks and stuff that is something but can you see yourself with a long-term intention of this person can you grow with them and then when you bring kids can you can they can you both support the kids to get to that point and i thought that was really really important and something to highlight in that in that particular piece i heard i'll leave the next part for you so one thing that we haven't obviously touched on is when you talked about a soulmate that was interesting because that might get me in trouble though i don't know i can get why you would get in trouble to be there but no it's interesting because obviously what you were saying is like the pursuit of finding your perfect partner does that even exist or is it a case of you you learn to grow with that person and then they become essentially your perfect partner there's no point in trying to look for someone who's already got the the ideal model for exactly what you want for me that doesn't exist it's all about growing and as you said people change the older they get as well so the person that you meet at the time may be perfect but who's to say they're going to be perfectly on the line or they may be imperfect at the time and then they may turn into the perfect person so it kind of works hand in hand so i was interested when you started talking about well does a soulmate even exist or is it soulmates is there more than one and then that kind of delves into the question of okay well how do you then find that the person that you're with is your soulmate how do you discover that and then what that then leads you on to making that commitment to say okay i want to spend the rest of my life with you and i think that's the key thing is that there's so many i can talk from obviously the experience of first meeting my wife when i was 15 and obviously we've been together we've broken up we've had our moments we've you know and and that happens but at the same time it's that thing of the person i met when i was 15 is not the person that i'm with today it wasn't the person that i was with five years ago or 10 years ago um but the consistent thing was the feeling the consistent thing was that we clicked and that we had a common goal regarding what we think about when it comes to kids what we think about regarding our career what we think about regarding this money homes and stuff like that um and it was just for me that fact of when you start to realize even when someone's changing that it's still there you realize that's kind of dope i think there's i've met brothers who will be with a girl and they like her and everything's blessed and then there will be something small that will happen but then they will realize in the long run me and you can't work and it could be something as small as raf um her sister had a baby child only three months old and she bought her Gucci shoes and as a man he's like that's dumb you're gonna that's gonna last like a month you spend all that money on shoes that's gonna last a month and then they're gonna be i don't want someone who's gonna make those kind of decisions where we might be struggling at home but you're buying all of these outfits for for a kid that's not gonna last very long and it's something small it's not maybe the best example but it's enough for you to go is this someone who i can have five six seven kids with not to say that you want to have five six seven kids but if it's if there's stuff that you're picking up on you know at the early stage of a relationship i think that's what allows you to kind of go back to that question and go can i can i live with this person can i retire my dating life to this person i think just to link the two of yours like the what used your voice note so um simon was mentioning about kind of like difficulties of what the partner somebody expects of him or what we expect of our partners on vice versa what they expect of us and then young was basically kind of like you know that you've changed from 15 when you were 15 to 31 things have changed dramatically and i've had this conversation with a lot of people this week and something i've even had to do with is expectation is a lie in a in a sense we create an expectation of people yeah and then that person doesn't match the expectation and we think they're wrong when actually you create an expectation the first place makes you wrong and i've said this to other people is and there's no two ways about it you're in a world full of people who are also human beings on their own journey on their own way and their own personality their own way that they they interpret things have learned and you're doing the same thing they're not in your world you're not in their world you share a world together and these people already exist to current expectation is to believe that you know exactly how they're supposed to be how the world is supposed to look how the partner is supposed to be and to even expect that you even know about yourself how many mistakes have you made in the last year 10 years even the last month or day last 12 hours bro if you can't even know what you're going to do and you make mistakes how could you possibly predict how a person's supposed to be and how they're supposed to be your perfect partner and but i bet you that there are people that actually you curate their perfect partner and they do everything they said they wanted and then you've lost the person you originally loved it near the first place this is it so as you said the end the end part of your voice note was that you will change and once you can have like consistent values as to what it means to care for each other love each other be there for each other a person should be able to change as freely as possible the whole point is to be with people that allow you to be free and allow you to grow without judgment and without holding you back from where you was because otherwise if you thought you was going to be the same person 15 years ago you wouldn't have two kids you wouldn't still be married it's impossible so i that's the two things i would definitely say is expectation is going to be the one thing that ruins your entire relationship or your friendships even your family any relationship anything even at work it will ruin it don't have an expectation you either adapt or you make a standstill and say i can't stand for this so i'm going to eject myself from your life because that's what i need to do for myself again people are like no you know what i want to force myself to stay in a relationship and you're going to have to change please what what's everyone's thoughts on because i know so i probably didn't address it so let's talk about it what's your thoughts on the whole soulmate situation do you think there's only add a billion people in the world and you know this is enough to do with who you're with at the moment but what i'll do let me i'll give my point i'm i'm not saying that my wife's not my soulmate my wife is my soulmate but what i'm what i'm not gonna say is let's let's flip it if i was to pass away tomorrow i wouldn't want my wife and i wouldn't expect my wife to never find love again she'll never find someone like me and that's not because i'm me but this in general like i'm a person like i've got a certain code so you will never find another stephan but that doesn't mean you can't find somebody else who you can fall in love with who can raise your kids the right way you can give you the right love language so for to me for me to have all these billions of people in the world you're going to have more than one soulmate in some way or another who can tick at least six or seven out of the ten boxes that you require but that seems to be a controversial thing some people go like well no there can only be one soulmate and you have to be with them for the rest of your life until you're 120 like again again the stuff that we talked about is society and tv and media has taught us that so there's certain tick boxes that we think we know and you think that society knew but how many times a society don't you do it or how many times have you watched celebrities get together and they said oh this is the perfect this is couple goes and then like two years later they could divorce you're like right i was trying to follow that so what do i have now do i divorce too um people are multi multifaceted beings they have so many different aspects of them from creativity to um being very strategic and organized and love in a certain way etc etc we actually attach to people loads of people billions of people or millions of people in our lifetimes where there's certain people that will this person is good for me in this way this person good for me in this way this person good for me in this way they will never find another Stefan that does exactly the same things that they do but i do believe a person could find another partner who ticks off other boxes like oh they're creative together or maybe you're just the creative and then the other one's just to organize one i believe there are we all have different people for different things if we can step away from what we believe we learned we can actually realize there's so much about us that we don't understand which will then kind of touch and connect to other people so yeah i do believe there can be some multiple soulmates etc and then you come to a point yes the people have this controversy but if you believe this other soulmates that means you're going to start straying away no if we go back to the original thing of intention you're intentionally choosing that i have this person with me now i'm going to give you everything i have to make it work and to go far with you just because there's a potential of other people does not mean that i should have it that's ego that's telling me that i should just go for everything no one life to live you only have a certain amount of time energy etc so try to pick your person be intentional about it and you'll realize you don't need anything else the the problem obviously that we've discovered is that when you have an expectation and you have the assumption of something that's like the that's like the biggest problem you can have that's what i think for me that's what causes the most issues within a relationship as soon as you start putting those expectations on someone and you start creating assumptions of certain things without communication it's gonna be a rocky road in it so i think the issue with what we have in relationships is trying to define what the perfect relationship is meant to be and the fact of the matter is is everybody has their own definition so your definition of what a perfect relationship could be is different to what craigs definition of what it could be different to what your wife may be has you understand what i'm saying so understanding that we all have our different opinions and i think the only way that realistically you can have a relationship that that works and that grows is to have that communication and that understanding where there isn't an expectation and there isn't assumptions you just communicate and do it yours did you know what to be fair you kind of i think the moment because the moment you use the word communicate i was like that that is it i think regardless of when we talk about relationships we can be talking about how we are with our parents how we are with our work colleagues how we are with our kids it all comes down to one simple word and that's communication and you know if you're not communicating things the right way people get the wrong message and people take things the wrong way and if you look back at any of any relationship that hasn't worked well you could probably get probably say oh it's because we probably didn't speak about this or no i didn't get that that promotion maybe i should have explained that i was quite interested in it maybe i didn't tell them that i'm qualified to have that job enough so for me i feel i kind of summarize it again on that on that one word communication mine i'm gonna be a little bit different because it was a challenge i went through and i'm gonna mine is gonna be let go especially mandem but also women let go of fear for when you're not taking the step to either start dating start trying to find somebody or if you're in a relationship going all the way two feet in is what i call it i was a very a one one pinky toe person i got my life and then i'm just gonna put the pinky toe when i feel like it but i'm two feet in with like what i try to do with everything now not just my relationship so i would i would say the key thing is let go and lead your life in love not in fear if we had only two choices every choice you make you could either make it in love or in fear love for something or fear because you think it's not going to work leave the fear behind do it in love we only have one life to live so take your risks and enjoy every single moment that you have and then go for it so nice that was all of us here about valentine's day i hope you thought i having a very very special day and if you're not and you're just netflix and popcorn and chocolate brav enjoy that's your love language do it that's exactly exactly you know what we have one life so we don't know just worrying about everybody else so just enjoy yourselves and then hopefully that's couples best of luck with the year ahead and way beyond so he was here with craig here with simon aka sj and here with stephan aka sjp as you always know if you have any thoughts any feedback any what is your love language all these things we really want to know because we don't want to just talk at you you can also talk to us so have a good day peace out and enjoy