Lessons From A Failed Marriage - Fix It Together Or Get Out

00:00 In this episode of the Team Superdad podcast, today would have been my 12th wedding anniversary and I'm sharing lessons from a failed marriage role theme. Welcome to Team Super Dad. Real dads creating their best lives ever. More time, more money, more fun. You are not alone. You're on Team Super Dad. Evening, one and all. Evening, it is me, Johnny. We are live on Team Superdad and also on my personal profiles. As of next week, all the Team Super Dad live streams will be on the Team Super Dad page and in the Team Superdad group.

00:45 But today, seemed like a shame to keep this away from everybody. Today, today would have been my 12th wedding anniversary. And that is a curious thought, right? 12 years. I don't know. I've had a couple of different friends post on their stream today. Anthony and Mandy, they have been together like, well, since we were at uni. So that's some kind of 20-odd years, like 20, 45, 25, 20, 20, some sort of 25 years, right? That's pretty good going. And Barry and Marina Collins, they had their wedding anniversary this week.

01:29 Some, again, some, some not quite as long, but they are, they're remarried. So they're a second marriage and creating, creating that family together. So, you know, you can make it work, right? Sadly, I didn't make mine work. And what I want to share today, I'm just going to share my, like literally that story. Why? Why am I going to do that? Because that's pretty much the heart of what I'm up to with Team Superdad. And it's worth sharing, basically. I wrote a chapter this week for a book called Being Fine, awesome book that's coming out maybe in time for Christmas.

02:15 There's a Facebook group called Being Fine. There's about 16 different authors have written for it. And it's the classic of men, how you doing? And actually, they're not fine at all. And so it was in writing my chapter for that book that I got to reflect on quite a lot of, let's say, chapter two of my marriage, when things started to go really wrong, which came about around the time of the miscarriages and how that all got managed and how things went wrong really from that point.

02:54 But there was chapter one, chapter one, we'll raise a glass to chapter one because chapter one was wild and fun and kind of, I guess the zenith, probably the zenith was the high point probably was the wedding. But there was art. There was the honeymoon and there was moving in, like, well, see, we lived together for a year before the wedding anyway, but there was the carrying her over the doorstep as Mr. and Mrs. Jensen once we came back from our honeymoon, which was, which was pretty awesome.

03:31 So the whole thing was pretty awesome. But as I put myself back together from the divorce, I've had to learn a lot about myself, absolute lot about myself, which now I can see was part and parcel of my marriage not working out. So it's curious, you know, for some people, how this doesn't affect them, you know, or they're able to work it through. A woman I was talking to the other week, awesome woman, her and her hubby look pretty happy on Facebook, two kids, London, both professional in marketing, you know, and she and she said to me, oh, well,

04:19 we've struggled at times. It's pretty much a miracle that we've made it through. And I think that's probably the, I think when you talk to people who've been together for a long time, I think that that has to be the case for all of them. I think it's unlikely that any couple that have been together a long time would say, oh yeah, it's been really easy. How can a marriage be easy? How can having kids together be easy? How can making money, losing money, having a house, not having a house, wanting different things at different times, being different people at different times, how can you easily navigate through that without there being problems?

04:59 I don't think there's anything. they can I don't I don't think they can I think what I can see is that some couples pull together and work through it and and clearly as a couple we didn't work together and pull through it and I think looking back that that was the writing was on the wall there from from day one basically and in the breakdown of my marriage and by the way I haven't prepped this at all right so I will do my best to make a difference here I'll do my best to I guess help a couple that are struggling and you know what that help might mean that you're going to break up after this because that was pretty that's one of my experiences from from my from this journey was that we should have broken up a long time before we did but I do

05:54 hope that that some people might take something from this that they could actually rebuild and create a create a new new for their marriage and inside of team superdad I've got single dads I got men in dads in instilling relationships and what I've realized for myself is that my goals and vision for my life for my children as it is now are pretty much the same as what they were before I got married they were the same as what they always were to to fall in love to be happy to create children to have a nice house to have holidays to plan for our future to

06:33 have fun basically more than anything have fun I've lived in grown up my dad's son and witnessed him have incredible highs and lows and keep smiling throughout it all which which is something that we could all take note of basically not to ignore what's going on but to but to take it on the chin and and keep going I think as well inside of that is to particularly I think for people in in in our generation a more a more modern generation to be willing to take a bit more responsibility for what's happened and and understand how we perhaps might need to evolve and change if we're going to create a happy positive

07:22 long-lasting relationship so no one could have told me not to marry my wife and people did try not not a huge number of people but a significant number of people I'm talking but basically I would my my ex-wife and I met on a landmark education course a personal development course so part of that was very much about a straightness straightness I know that's not a word but a an honesty with each other which is really powerful and positive when you're creating friendships and relationships because there's a space in there to create anything you want to create the future that you desire and to have it look and you know how you want it to and the

08:09 possibility of creating that together so that is phenomenal and when you fall in love with someone in that kind of environment or that kind of context then it's easy to be blinded by perhaps parts of each other's personality or backstory history that might suggest you may not be that compatible i certainly was head over heels in love with an awesome woman and she was wild and sensitive and

08:45 and and i just wanted to be with her i wanted to create that create our future so when when someone said to me i i'd been for a job interview and it was i'd gone all the way to london in the middle of the summer it was hot and i'd gone to the interview and they had misread my cv so i'm sit sat there in the interview and they were asking me these questions and i said are you sure you're speaking to the right person like have you read my cv because i don't think i can i don't this is ridiculous i can't do this job and uh and so so as i as i left that interview i called my my coach and and she said well well

09:31 don't be don't be so down on yourself about it like what are you committed to what what what what drove you to go to that interview has it changed what you're committed to and i was like well no not really so she says well just keep going she said what are you committed to and in that moment all i could see and say was oh my gosh i'm committed to i'm committed to deb and our future and our children and creating a family together and and literally i rang her her up and proposed to her standing outside a chip shop in Chiswick. Epic. Could have been the best love story ever. And but people on the course said to me, I don't think this is the one. I don't think this, I don't think you're thinking this through.

10:16 And I didn't listen to those people. Like I wouldn't have. I had it in my mind that nothing was going to stop us. We were on a mission from God. This was a blessing. This was flipping. I'd won the lottery, basically. And what I'm getting to in this point is that at that moment, I was going into being engaged to someone and planning my marriage, but I was taking with me all my baggage from the past, all my fears about losing people that I'd loved, all my unknown kind of like in relationships and all the relationships I've had.

10:58 I haven't had many and I've had two or three. Let me see. I've had, let's say, four significant relationships. I pretty much had my heart broken in each one. Even when I've ended it, I'd been heartbroken afterwards because of that absolute upset of losing the thing that I loved, or losing the thing that I craved most, which was, which is to be loved and to be looked after. And, you know, even just those two things, to be loved and looked after is not really what you should expect of each other. There's a danger there of being codependent in a relationship. Like, I need her to be happy in order for me to be happy.

11:34 I need our marriage to be okay in order for me to be okay. And that coming out the other side of this is one of the biggest things that I've learned is that I put too much focus on her and everything being fine, too much focus on our marriage and everything being perfect to the detriment of myself. And you can't do that. You can't do that. There's an element in there of flexibility and adjustment as we grow and change in our lives. But there has to be our own values and our own desires and intentions that when after a prolonged period of time, that they're not being met.

12:17 And when you try and communicate and when you try and make a difference and when you try and hope things are going to be better and they don't, there has to come a point where you say, either this gets better, either we work on this, either you are in this with me and we're going to work on this, or you're not, because it's killing me. And I didn't, I was not conscious enough of how much it was impacting me that after, particularly after the first miscarriages and things started to go really wrong in our relationship and communication breakdown and not talking and

12:57 no, you know, not hugging, not holding hands, not really any intimacy, just basically a shell of a relationship is that is that if that starts to really contradict everything that you are a stand for, everything that is the picture you had for yourself and your life, that not that you suddenly, not that you walk out on your wife the flipping week after you've had a conversation like that, but that you keep coming back to what did we say we were going to create here? What are we both committed to? What does life look like for us? What does happiness look like for us? And be willing to listen to that.

13:39 You know, it's very easy in a situation where things are going wrong to blame. And that's what I did way too much of. And inside of my desperation to fix things, I was like, don't you see how much I'm trying to do here? Don't you see how much I'm working? Don't you see how much I'm looking after the kids? Don't you see how much I'm trying to make this better? And that in itself came across too much, I think, too much in my wife's illness, trying to fix her and save her, basically because I was terrified she was dying. But I do wonder in retrospect if the best thing I could have done was say, okay, well, if that's where you're at with your condition, then I'm going to let you get on with it because I need to look after the business.

14:24 I need to make her some money. I need to look after myself. I need to go and play football. I need to take care of my life so that I can take care of your life. Rather than it be the other way around, I've got to take care of all you in order for me to be okay. Because that ultimately was like, you know, sat on a branch soaring the thing off. Because when the branch broke, I crashed down. and so there's there's there's a boldness and an inner strength that men need to have that we can be that rock for our partner for our children but we have to be that rock for ourselves you know when you're on the plane and they say put your mask on first before helping others that should be true in all parts of life we can't

15:15 do anything for anyone else when we're completely broken and so in a relationship in a marriage where where it's everything to you your your children your family everything you hoped and dreamed of your home your business what I couldn't be with was the thought of all that breaking of all that destroying of all basically being a failure I couldn't I couldn't be with failing at the one thing I wanted more than anything else in life and so inside of that I started to get desperate and inside of that desperation came came frustration and even anger

15:53 and you know that's no way to leave a relationship it's certainly no way to fix a relationship right and it's far better you that's Gwyneth Poutrow a conscious uncoupling which sounds like a load of old bollocks but actually it's really really powerfully true to get to a point where you can consciously say to each other this just isn't working and it's not what I signed up for or this isn't what I signed up for and I just don't think it's working I've asked we've tried I've suggested I've encouraged I've even got upset and angry and none of it's making a difference then rather than let yourself just crumble into an

16:33 emotional wreck and for some people that'll be an affair for other people it'll be gambling or sniffing coke up their nose and spending all the money like it's it's it's it's some sort of it's a cross between a cry for help and an ejector seat like I'm gonna hide away from this pain by doing something else crazy and I don't know what mine was mine was mine was just head down let's make this work which which was as painful as as you could possibly imagine and I don't say all this to be bleak and miserable you know like really either you're gonna fix it or you're gonna break up don't be stuck in it for three four years of pain and sorrow and

17:22 misery your kids won't appreciate you for it um and and and you won't you'll be a worse person for it um and i think on reflection i i believe on reflection that that the um that the difficulty i face in creating a sensible relationship with my ex-wife now is part and parcel of that prolonged period of suffering i should have left a long time before i did um and i should have had the strength and

17:57 conviction to to to know that and to do that i said this isn't what i signed up for this is hurting me this isn't right and um and maybe in if maybe she should have done the same if she wasn't happy if i was doing things wrong she should have done the same and that subject is about taking responsibility and you have to take responsibility for yourself in the situation in the marriage it's no good blaming other people and they're not doing this or they're not doing that if they're not doing something and it really doesn't work for you then take yourself out of the situation and as for that pain or the fear of what it's going to be like when you when you've broken up

18:42 if you end up breaking up then you're going to experience it anyway and far better that you experience it with a conscious positive healthy state of mind than being utterly broken both mentally and physically as i was by the time um you know by the time i left on october the 5th 2015 you've got in this day and age where there is no stigma about divorce where there is no stigma about mental health where we can accept that people fall in love and and make a mistake or people give it their best shot and it wasn't

19:22 enough um we have to be bold enough and strong enough to know that we can separate and it will be all right because if you separate anyway you're going to have to do it so whether it's all right or not you're going to be in that hole and five years in it is a difficult hole and i know friends who are in it have been in it i know and work with men who are in the same situation. Make you married. Let's start with making the marriage work, right? Let's find out what it is that we're doing wrong. Let's read the five love languages. Let's read No More Mr. Nice Guy.

20:02 Let's get self-aware enough that we can be a great husband, that we can be great to ourselves. These are talking about modern man stuff here. We're talking about being the best version of ourselves, empathic and understanding, supportive, but also strong and bold and a leader in our family. Not that our wives can't be leaders too, but you can't be walked all over. You can't be the pussy that just wants to please because that is unattractive. And ultimately, if you are the pussy that just wants to please, you will be so downtrodden that you will eventually leave anyway.

20:42 You will eventually have that affair or do something stupid. There'll be a breaking point, right? It's going to come. So my experiences of marrying the wrong woman fundamentally are about taking responsibility for the situation myself. It was the best weekend of my life. I hope I meet someone even more awesome and I can be a better husband to them and a better husband to myself. I don't know if I'll ever get married. I like the idea of marriage. I like the idea of being a husband. There was something unbelievably warm and snuggly about waking up

21:26 as a husband. I flipping love that. And I have it on my vision board in my goals to meet someone awesome and to create that with them again. But it won't be out of desperation to be with someone. It won't be out of angst for my lost mother when I was a kid. It will be about creating something amazing with a strong, confident woman. So get clear on your values yourself. Get clear on where your marriage and relationship is at. Set some boundaries and some conditions for what your future looks like and get aligned on it.

22:06 And if you can't get aligned on it, then accept that maybe it's time to end the pain and consciously uncouple, consciously break up, stay friends, do it the right way. And accept that both of you have made mistakes. Accept that both of you started this thing off. One of you asked the other person out and the other one said yes. One of you proposed and the other one said yes. On the night you conceive your children, one of you started with the little back tickle and then it ended with a baby, right? You both got to take responsibility for this and that is not about blame. There's so much more I can say on this subject

22:51 and I gladly will if you want to ask if you're worried about your relationship. I'm not a relationship. I mean no, there's elements inside Team Super Dad which are about relationships and marriage. But we have there's that's why we have relationship coaches and experts on these subjects inside of Team Superdad. I'm the ringmaster. I'm the person that's on this journey with you. I may be a few steps ahead of some. I may be a few steps behind others. It really is about creating a space where we can thrive, where we can create the life we desire and no longer feel like we're stuck with or putting up with the life we're stuck with.

23:32 It has been 12 years since the old Team Jensen wedding. It was a brilliant day. It really was a brilliant day. We had a dinner the night before. I had family from America, friends from the course we met on right back to school days and university in the middle, family, friends, people that were my mum's best mates, Jilly, who just passed away this week. As the toast, as the moment for the toasts were coming around, she squirreled around on the floor across the whole room. There was like about 250 people there, which is a big thanks to Deb's dad.

24:18 And at this moment, as we stood up to do the toast, everybody stood up and all the napkins in the whole reception had been tied together. It was like this big trailing, trailing, I don't know what they called, like bunting, but it was the napkins and they were waving. It was just flipping epic, let alone the party after the first dance. dance. Those two songs, the two songs in my first dance, forever ruined for me. Absolutely ruined. Our green, let's stay together.

24:55 The irony. Our green, let's stay together. Oh, and by the way, Songbird, which was sung at the church, Songbird, because I later found out, I went and looked up the history of that song. She wrote it, Stevie Nicks wrote it about Fleetwood Mac breaking up. So at our wedding, in the church on our wedding day, we had a breaking up song. Don't have Songbird at your wedding, okay? So Songbird, Al Green, let's stay together and Shake Your Tail Feather. Shake Your Tail Feather. It's not Little Richard. It's not Stevie Wonder. Anyway, whoever it is, flipping epic from the Blues Brothers, which we led into that.

25:40 We led from that into the big party and stuff. Absolutely brilliant. Onwards and upwards, I'll see you in the Team Superdad lives this week over in the group or on the page. Friends and family, I'll see you soon. Love to all. Bye. This has been Team Super Dad. Find us at teamsuperdad.com.