The Q&A Files
The Q&A Files drops A Wellness Explosion
💥 BOOM! Attention Wellness Warriors. The game changer you have been waiting for is finally here. Say hello to “The Q&A Files,” where wellness meets revolution and your questions lead to new discoveries. Spearheaded by Trisha Jamison, your host, a Board Certified Functional Nutritionist. Cohost Dr. Jeff Jamison, a Board Certified Family Physician, and featured guest, Tony Overbay, a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. This podcast blends three diverse perspectives to tackle your questions on health, nutrition, medicine, mental wellness, and relationships. Dive into a world of expert insights and actionable advice, all sparked by your curiosity. Tune in, ignite your wellness journey, and join the Wellness Warrior community.
The Q&A Files
64. Second Time's the Charm: Rebuilding Life and Love After Divorce
What makes love work the second time around? Tiffany and Craig Sherle join us to share their remarkable journey of finding each other after experiencing divorce from their long-term marriages of 32 and 29 years respectively.
Fresh off their wedding just five weeks ago, this newly married couple opens up about navigating the vulnerable world of online dating, overcoming the fear of rejection, and recognizing when something special is worth pursuing. Their story unfolds with refreshing honesty—from Craig's initial reluctance to date again after his divorce to Tiffany's "dating fast and furious" approach that eventually led them to each other on a religious dating app.
The conversation dives deep into what makes relationships work after previous heartbreak. Both had to rediscover themselves first, with Tiffany embracing independence and Craig reconnecting with the authentic self he'd lost in his previous marriage. What began as casual dating transformed through hours-long phone conversations where they discovered a shared foundation despite seeming differences on the surface.
Their journey illustrates beautiful truths about second chances: that confidence means being comfortable where you are, that vulnerability is necessary despite the risk of rejection, and that finding someone with similar values and upbringing creates the strongest foundation for lasting love. Far from a clichéd romantic story, Tiffany and Craig share the real, sometimes messy process of two people with baggage learning to trust again.
Whether you're navigating life after divorce, wondering if love might find you again, or simply appreciating stories of resilience and new beginnings, this conversation offers both hope and practical wisdom for the journey ahead. Subscribe to hear the second part of our conversation where we'll explore how they've created a strong foundation for lasting love.
Questions: Email us at trishajamisoncoaching@gmail.com
Are you and your spouse nearing that point where throwing in the towel is a real possibility? If you still have hope for your marriage to work, but you need help, Contact Trisha. Dr. Jeff calls her "the marriage whisperer." Let her whisper wisdom into your life/love/marriage. Email her at trishajamisoncoaching@gmail.com today!
Hello and welcome to the Q&A File, the ultimate health and wellness playground. I'm your host, tricia Jamieson, a board-certified functional nutritionist and lifestyle practitioner, ready to lead you through a world of health discoveries. Here we dive into a tapestry of disease prevention, to nutrition, exercise, mental health and building strong relationships, all spiced with diverse perspectives. It's not just a podcast, it's a celebration of health, packed with insights and a twist of fun. Welcome aboard the Q&A Files, where your questions ignite our vibrant discussions and lead to a brighter you. Welcome back, friends, to another episode of the Q&A Files. I'm your host, trisha Jameson, a functional nutritionist and lifestyle practitioner and a life coach, and, as always, I'm joined by my two awesome co-hosts, dr Jeff Jameson, a board-certified family physician, and Tony Overbay, a licensed marriage and family therapist. So glad to have you both here with me today.
Speaker 2:Hi everybody.
Speaker 1:Hey. So normally we start with celebrations, but today I want to switch things out a little bit, like I love to do. Since we're talking about love, second chances and relationships that last, I have a question for both of you In your experience, whether in medicine, therapy or life, what do you think makes love work the second time around, and what do you see that makes a relationship stronger after someone has been through a divorce?
Speaker 2:Well, Tony, this is your bailiwick, so I'm going to let you take the first stab at it, if you don't mind, and then I'm going to think about it while you're talking.
Speaker 3:I was going to suggest you do it so I could think about it while you were talking. But I also wasn't even sure if, when Tricia said you two, if we were talking about our guests or if it was us Not.
Speaker 1:Yet we're getting there.
Speaker 3:Okay. So I had a lot of thoughts going on there. Okay, now I'm in. I love this question and I think it's Esther Perel Maybe we've quoted her before, I don't even probably get the quote right but that you'll be married maybe three times in your life, maybe to the first person or maybe to the same person.
Speaker 3:As the quote, and, as a marriage therapist, what I love about that is people don't just go to therapy just to check in as much as you would like for them to, because I don't think they really realize that they need anything different or new until things are pretty I don't want to say bad, but there are a lot of challenges in the relationship, and so then what that really speaks to is somebody that knows what bad or unhealthy relationship looks like, and then they come, try to get the tools, and then sometimes, as a therapist, you get to watch people get tools and get better and they didn't know what they didn't know, and they were, I always said, both immature and and so it's. It's basically like they rediscover who, who they are, what the relationship looks like. So I get that Esther Perel quote. So it's like welcome to the second marriage. But a lot of times you, you have somebody coming into therapy and one person is checking the box fine, I'll go, and so they aren't really invested in it or engaged in it, and then that shows the person that is even more so. Hey, I really deserve or want to be with somebody that is curious or wants to continue to explore or grow or is okay with the fact that we, we, we've changed.
Speaker 3:And so at that point, if the other partner is not willing, then we find somebody getting into a new relationship and and and I often find that if somebody does that the right way that then that relationship is amazing, because they know what they want, they know what bad looks like and they have a good idea of what good looks like, and so that's so now we can see that, okay, it can still happen in your first marriage, but both people have to really be willing to dig deep and accept that they have changed and they didn't know what they didn't know and they were both immature and they don't have the tools. And then they have to practice the tools and that's uncomfortable. So you can see there's a lot of work there, but so I know that that can work for anybody listening, that can, but then it may not. And then, if it doesn't, then the new relationship can be amazing, because now you know what you want, how to show up differently. Okay, dr Jeff, did I give you enough time?
Speaker 2:Yeah, plenty, okay, good, yeah, Way way, plenty, thanks a lot. Appreciate it. Plenty, okay, good, yeah, way plenty, Thanks a lot, appreciate it, okay. So my first thought about this is that people don't change until it hurts too much not to change, and so when a person or when a couple goes through the agony of divorce, then you tend to find some problem areas in yourself, and if you don't, then you really are in the narcissistic category, I think. So the thing that people find is that I really want to change and make myself better so that when the next relationship comes around, that I'm a better partner, and I think that learning how to identify your own weaknesses and then make them strengths in whatever way you can, that adds to the improvement of the next relationship. Whether that relationship is an improvement on the original one, it really doesn't matter, because I see what you're saying about. It doesn't have to be a divorce to make a new relationship out of an old one.
Speaker 2:And so this is something that I think it really comes down to learning what you don't know about yourself, figuring out how to change the things that are not going well with yourself, and then being able to have a partner that listens and become a partner that listens, and learning how to communicate. That's what I think makes the lasting love. I mean, everybody can have the original first few months of butterflies and being Twitter painted over somebody, but that will not last. Being Twitterpated over somebody, but that will not last. And so making a communication program, if you will, a pattern of communication that will breed lasting relationships, in my opinion.
Speaker 1:Okay, perfect, that's awesome. Thank you both of you. So that brings us to our incredible guest today, tiffany and Craig Shirley, we recently had on our show a newlywed couple, hannah and Cody Benefiel, and we had so much fun talking to them about their awesome experiences at first, falling in love as a young couple and getting married. So we loved it and we loved them. And today we are going to focus on second chances and getting married later in life and what that looks like. So Tiffany and Craig are proof that love can find you at any stage. Both were married for many years to someone else, experienced divorce and then found each other. Their journey is one of resilience, healing and a beautiful new beginning. Tiffany and Craig, welcome to the Q&A Files, thank you. Thank you for having us. The.
Speaker 4:Q&A Files. Thank you, thank you for having us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're so glad to have you here today. So now, how long have you both been married To each other? Have you emphasized that really quick?
Speaker 4:Yeah, we're about five weeks.
Speaker 5:Five weeks that is so exciting, January 31st yeah that's fantastic.
Speaker 1:I love this. This is so exciting. January 31st, that's fantastic. I love this. This is so fun. So I'd love for you to start with your love story. How did you two first meet and what were your first impressions of each other?
Speaker 4:Well, that's going to be a good one. I'll let Tiffany start with that one.
Speaker 3:I have to say, what's funny about that is now we'll learn is Craig doing the whole? I don't know what the right answer is, so we're going to let Tiffany go and he's like that's exactly like he'll give his own story.
Speaker 5:He'll give his own version. Okay, I had been divorced for I don't know a little while let's see in November of 2023. Yeah, and I started getting on dating sites in January of 2024 and decided I came to Boise because I was living in Utah at that time and dating and then I moved and he's looking at me dating fast and furious, I remember. I remember I was having fun and I was enjoying getting to know people and my girl, single girlfriends and just friends in general doing different things, first time ever living alone. My son had went off to college, so I had a span of living alone.
Speaker 5:And then I came to Boise and my brother-in-law's like come on, there's got to be better looking guys our age out there and I kind of started laughing and I was like so he's swiping through it and he's like, okay, try a different dating site. So I was on two other ones. So I went on to mutual, which is based on our religion it's a more religious one, lds and so I got on there and I reached out to I don't know, maybe a handful, and I just said Hi and I'd say their name. They responded. Then I tried to carry a conversation with them and Craig's was kind of funny response. He can tell you about that, okay. And I was like, hmm, okay, funny response, you know, kind of that was my response to him.
Speaker 5:And then I didn't answer for a couple of days and so I went back to Utah and then was going to come back up and had kind of had called it off with another person. We had decided that it wasn't going to be what it was and I went out with Craig on a Thursday and went out with another guy on another night the next night and Boise and we had a family reunion. And so I had told him I was like we have a family reunion, but we met up Thursday and I had I don't know schedules were crazy. Oh, he was coming from out of Oregon but he lives in Boise too from a work thing, and so we were trying to decide where we can meet, what time, what would work. And so we met at a restaurant in Nampa and it was really busy, crazy. And he asked me if I was real.
Speaker 5:Yeah crazy and he asked me if I was real. Yeah, so I had that question often if I was really my age and if. I was real, or if I was, what do they call it? Catfishing people? Yeah, oh, uh, which is funny. And so when he saw me he's like, okay, you look good. And um, I felt he was really cocky, not necessarily my type.
Speaker 5:I had a type right that I was wanting, but I had definitely dated more of not my box that I had thought you know, but really nice guys and so Wait a second.
Speaker 1:I want to stop you for a sec.
Speaker 4:What was your type? You'll have to dive into that.
Speaker 5:So I wanted somebody who had, I said, a job on my profile, but a career, and that they were fun, could be okay in their own skin, be able to have conversation and be different. Music could move their soul, be able to laugh, and I didn't put this in my profile, but they had to have a full head of hair.
Speaker 3:I was going to say come on. I mean, at least you're honest with yourself yeah, that's what I had to overcome.
Speaker 5:Right, I'm impressed, greg, come on. Yeah, um, I dated more guys that were bald than were, had less of hair than had more of hair. Um, that comes in our age group, you know. But was fun, loving and enjoyed. Family was important to me and so pretty much when I met him, I laid a lot of stuff out online and I was coming in with a pretty hard hammer because of what had just happened, and so he was like yep, a no go. And so I reached out to him. So we met on Thursday and I reached out to him on Sunday when I was getting ready to head home and I says, hey, thanks for Monday. And I said, hey, thanks for going out. And he says, hey, would you like to go play pickleball? And I says, oh, I'm actually heading back to Ogden. And so he says okay, and I says, hey, can you talk? And so all the way to Ogden, from Boise to Ogden, we talked. But my first impression was him was, it was a no-go, he was going to be in the friend zone.
Speaker 3:Um how come? What was that?
Speaker 5:um, because he was cocky. He was cocky, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:He was very overly confident in who he was and I was thinking, uh wasn't that one of your check boxes is to be comfortable in your own skin there was a different confidence.
Speaker 5:Thank you, dr jeff. Yeah, and so, yeah, a little more bold than what I thought. But I was like I don't know if I'm moving back to Boise, I don't want to open up another door. I had kind of hadn't made a hundred percent decision, but then I was like, okay, so I ended up moving in with my son in the end of June and Craig ended up coming to Ogden multiple times to help me and delivered flowers spontaneous. Oh, he'd be on the doorstep Girls heart. Yeah, he was. He was a pursuer.
Speaker 4:I pursued yeah he pursued.
Speaker 5:Yeah, so that was the beginning. That was our first meet up was? We went to dinner and then just walked around had some ice cream. I think I was pretty cocky too. I'm a little bold about some things, you, tiffany Bold.
Speaker 3:No, you don't think Okay, Well can. I say what I think is interesting and maybe we can dive into this later in the interview. But saying I want somebody that's confident, I do. I got to pull full therapist card here and say what I think looks like confidence. But then if somebody is confident in their own way, then I do know that there can often be people that it's almost like they're saying I didn't think that like that looked like confidence. It wasn't the good kind of confidence, maybe in previous relationships.
Speaker 5:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 5:A lot of comparisons, so yeah, right, okay. Yeah, yeah, and not just to the kid's dad, but to people I had dated to for sure.
Speaker 5:And now there was to measure. There was more to measure that it just one person, cause I can't really compare before I got married, cause I got married at 19. Right, and so almost 32 years of marriage. You don't have a lot to compare to when you're really committed in that relationship, cause you're not looking out outside of the box. So yeah, the dating. Then there have a lot to compare to when you're really committed in that relationship, because you're not looking out outside of the box. So yeah, the dating. Then there was a lot to compare to. So, yeah, and he didn't have so much comparison, so his is a little bit. On the other side, I, serious, was dating fast and furious, we joke. My food bill was very little for about three months.
Speaker 4:Yes, you have to pay for food for three months. It's like that is home dinner and stuff like that.
Speaker 5:Yeah, yeah, I think I think, it's I do the same thing if I can save money yeah, we just did our food bill in january when we were going out before we were married, january before we got married and oh, oh you're, you're not going to go there. And he's like. You know how much I spent on dating. We're making a lot of money now being married.
Speaker 4:I'm saving so much money.
Speaker 1:Oh, I believe it.
Speaker 4:Between gas and eating out, Gas eating out. It's fantastic Marriage has been great for me.
Speaker 3:Hey Tiffany, can I ask you, do you know like? What did confident look like to you when you were saying I want?
Speaker 5:more like confident and caring, like they could carry conversations and share without holding back. And yet they didn't come in like a big negative, you know, but they were confident in the space they were in at that point after being divorced.
Speaker 5:I like my job, I like what I'm doing, I like the place I'm at. You know cause I I had to get comfortable with liking being in the space I was in, like I'm okay being alone. Now I don't need someone to fulfill that spot and I don't need someone. I'm not going to get married just to fill a spot of needing to be married. Financially I was doing okay, you know I wasn't rich by any shape, but I was paying my bills and so that's the confidence, like I'm good, right where I'm at. I enjoy life, I enjoy activities, I want to be involved. I'm not going to sit on the couch and feel bad for myself. You know that the world around me is spinning and I'm I'm the the poor soul here that nobody wants to be around, not the victim energy, yeah, I couldn't do that.
Speaker 5:So if any of that ever popped up as like red flag, I was like my kids don't love me, I'm not supported.
Speaker 1:Yeah, hate my job I hate where I'm at, that's the.
Speaker 5:That's the opposite of what I was looking for. So if someone came in confidence like I like where I'm at, I'm moving forward, I'm you know this is a decision I made, which is too much of that.
Speaker 4:Yeah, he was too much, too much. I wish it was too much of that.
Speaker 5:Yeah yeah. So he can explain himself. So, yeah, it brings a lot of.
Speaker 1:So the cocky part though, when you talk about that, just going along with Tony's question, what did you feel from him that there was kind of a little bit of a red flag there?
Speaker 4:I like this question.
Speaker 5:I, I like this question, I know, uh, like I can answer, but go ahead. Yeah, so he has. Craig loves to like, here, let me like he'd open up a door and it's a okay, get in. And I'm like, obviously you're opening the door, I need to get in. But his confidence was like, okay, here, you know, like pursuing and so that kind of thing you know. Like, oh, he'd pull a chair up okay, you can sit down, it's like you know. But he's confident in telling you know, like, here, this is what I'd like. Okay, you can sit down, it's like you know. But he's confident in telling you know, like, here, this is what I'd like you to do. And so to me it was like you're kind of taking over that. But for him it was like, oh, I want you to know I was doing something for you and wanted you to be do you feel like he was leading too much?
Speaker 2:yes, yes, okay, interesting because I think a lot of women want to be led you know, with their, with a man's masculine you know way but I think there's a way of being pushy about it.
Speaker 3:That's right, yeah, or like, or being led with like a what? What's the angle? That there's going to be something diamond at the required of you. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5:That's me, that's I'm always looking for the angle and he's learned that like, if you open a door, I know I'm need to get in, so you don't need to tell me you know like, and so he doesn't do that anymore. Like we've talked about it.
Speaker 4:No, she gets her own door.
Speaker 5:Fine, get your own door.
Speaker 3:I'll never ask again. No, a lot all the time, so but but I think, though, this is good, being like very real. I see so often when people are at that spot where the relationship is not very healthy, where, if the let's just say, the wife is saying I feel like he doesn't, uh, he's not showing up or he doesn't care, he's not being honest, and he's like, yeah, but look at all the things I right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I opened doors, I go to work, I do things as if it was like a tit for tat or transactional, or yeah.
Speaker 4:Maybe this is a question for a little bit later, but that Tiffany actually struggled with all the little things that I do, okay, oh, I'm sure she was like is this guy real or is he just putting on a? Uh for? Sure Show when it took her mom. When is that other sheet going to drop?
Speaker 5:Yeah, or what's the expectation behind doing something nice for me?
Speaker 4:Yeah, looking for something.
Speaker 1:Again transactional. Yeah, yeah, a hundred percent, and I would normalize there.
Speaker 3:So I mean I talk often about that especially the feminine is going to test for safety and I think that's fair, because if she has not felt emotionally safe and are financially safe or physically safe in her previous relationship, then I mean I tried to help a guy understand that that's what an honor in a sense to be able to show consistency even when she's pushing for safety.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I think that's so beautiful, awesome, thank you, okay. So, craig, I want to hear your story.
Speaker 4:All right, how to follow you, Okay. So, Craig, I want to hear your story. All right, how to follow that? Okay. So when I got to the point where I was separated to moving toward divorce, it was, you know, for me I was like I'm not going to date ever again. You know I'm not going to. I just didn't feel the worth.
Speaker 1:How long had you been divorced or when did the divorce go through?
Speaker 4:Okay, so for me that's a good question. So Mary Mary, 29 years and January 8th of 2024, she and I decided we sat in a car and we're like, hey, it's time we did our best. Right Moved out February 3rd, right Told the kids it was hard and then at that point, just started living my life. Okay, so, that was hard and then, at that point, just started living my life okay, so that was last year. Sorry, I'm a crier no, this is great, so anyway.
Speaker 4:So so it's like I'm gonna put my head down and I'm just gonna be the best grandpa, I'm going to just work and I'm gonna build up my. You know, I had this plan, I'm a planner, so I had this plan. I'm a planner, so I had this plan. So I used plans to kind of like this is to keep me on track, right, so anyway. So at that point I'm just like you know, I got, I got to figure some things out. But one thing that I did decide to do is I was going to be. I lost me in my marriage, my last marriage. I lost who I was. Marriage, I lost who I was right my kids. They hadn't seen it. So I was like, hey, I'm going to.
Speaker 5:I'm going to be me Right, goofy, I have a lot of bad jokes.
Speaker 2:Is that bad jokes or dad jokes they kind of go hand in hand.
Speaker 4:I've heard a couple of Tony's jokes.
Speaker 3:Yeah, okay, I appreciate that, craig. I feel you, tony.
Speaker 2:I'm on the dad joke train too, You're on the dad joke too, tripp, oh yeah.
Speaker 4:I lead a team at an institution and every Monday I have five bad jokes or five dad jokes that we have to tell before we start the day. Right, it's pretty cool, so anyway. So yeah. So I basically decided, hey, I'm just going to focus on my kids, my grandkids, I'm going to work. I wasn't interested in dating or anything like that.
Speaker 4:So it didn't take me long. It took literally three weeks. And Friday, saturday, saturday night was quiet, you know. The rest of the week was fine, you know. But Friday and Saturday night I was like, oh man, and all my friends you know my married friends and stuff like that they're still in shock about what happened. And so I'm like, okay, so what do I do? The kids are busy, all my kids are adult kids, they're off, living their lives and stuff like that. So I dabbled in a dating site, right? So I did a little google search and got on mutual. After three weeks keep in mind, you know, I've only been three weeks out I wasn't sure. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do. I literally, by the time I met Tiffany, I'd been on it and off it like six times. Okay, and that was in a matter of what made you nervous was, was I ready?
Speaker 4:Did I want to do it? Yeah, that type of thing, and so, um, but one thing that I did know and it was funny as I was talking to someone and my son is like, hey, you gotta be comfortable being alone. I'm like, well, I am comfortable, except on Friday and Saturday nights, and, uh, and you gotta know who you are. And I've spent actually the last couple of years figuring out who I am, right, I've actually done a lot of self-evaluations the good about me, the bad about me, and then and then that's part of the reason why I was like, hmm, am I marriage material, right? But so so I started dating someone, just a little bit, just having lunches, and through those conversations I started to recognize that, hey, I have, I have worth, right, I've got some self-worth.
Speaker 2:And then I started, you know, I started remembering all this stuff that I remember about myself and I'm like yeah, you know what, you have something to offer, you know but I was just looking for someone just a date to go to a movie with and not be serious.
Speaker 4:And even when I met Tiffany, it was for someone just to date to go to a movie with and not be serious. And even when I met Tiffany, it was I just want to go play pickleball with someone. I want to go to a movie, I just don't want anything serious.
Speaker 5:But during this whole. It was like a 12-week period of time and he was giving me advice, while talking on the phone, about who I was dating and what kind of man I should date.
Speaker 4:Oh, funny we'll get in that we can dive into that. That's an episode all on its own yeah, that's funny but uh, but you know what it was like. Okay, you know what I'm going to be myself. I'm going to be who I am, and if they like me, they like me, if they don't.
Speaker 4:And so one of the things is and I'm gonna, I've always had my voice has always been held back so I'm going forward, I'm going to be me, I'm going to be kind, I'm going to, I'm going to, you know, share my thoughts and stuff, like that. And and so that's what I did. I figured out that, hey, I've got something to offer here, and so got off the dating site, got back on it and I made up my mind that I wasn't going to reach out to anybody. If they reached out to me, then I would respond, right, and it's just because I was still in and out.
Speaker 4:And Tiffany reached out and like, ok, she's in Ogden, why is this person reaching out to me? So I sent her, I swiped and I responded and I said I'm assuming you were walking up the steps holding your phone and my picture popped up. You were walking up the steps holding your phone and my picture popped up, and as you were falling, you accidentally swiped, as you're catching yourself, you know. And she responds with aha, that's funny. And so I'm like, okay, so that's pretty much how our dialogue went for about 12 days. I would send her something and I would get a thumbs up or I would get like, uh, oh, that sounds great, you know. And so there wasn't a lot of communication coming back, so that's why I didn't think she was real.
Speaker 4:I was like real or you're not gonna ask you how long you've been divorced and you know the basic like I'd wait a couple days to hear from her, you know, and so forth. Now I know why, right now? I know why because Right Now I know why? Because you didn't have hair Right no.
Speaker 2:And she was dating so many other guys. She didn't know what else to do 30 other people.
Speaker 4:It has to be exhausting, anyway, seriously had to be exhausting. But you know what, to her credit, she's the one that reached out. Right, I wasn't going to, so anyway, yeah, so I had gone through this process of, you know, having these, this dating for like 12 weeks, and I just like, okay, I can do this, and you know what, I'm actually enjoying this and I'm going to just be myself and I'm going to, I'm just going to have fun with it, right? And then Tiffany tells me she's going to be in Boise and so we set up a meet. We go to have dinner on a Thursday, right after she left one of her calls with you, tricia.
Speaker 5:Oh, I was on a call with you, yeah.
Speaker 4:Cool, it was like she was a little bit late and there, just by having to be this huge event going in downtown Nampa, right, bands, police, fire department, department, stuff like that you know, and uh, so we had, we had our dinner and um, for me I was all about listen, more talk, less, right. So I was asking questions and stuff like that, and tiffany was going through some stuff at that time. She had just got off that call with you and so she was just, she was, she was letting a lot out. Yeah, within the first half hour is like all right, she's a little cray cray, you know, and I'm just, and so I just so I let her keep talking and we went, we went for a walk, we walked around downtown and I kept letting her talk and I'd ask her questions and she had a lot on her mind and it was letting it go and I was just like, nah, she's, yeah, I don't know, this is not for me.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 4:And so, and I and I figured that out or I thought about that, you know right about when dinner was done and we're walking around, and then we went and had ice cream and stuff like that. So I had no intention of calling her back at all. I was like, okay, we had our date, took her to her car hugged and left and uh, so I was just moving on with life. But then she, she reached out, she sent, she sent me a text. I responded, I was like, well, I looked at the text and then I thought for a little bit, okay, what am I going to do here? You know, I thought I'd okay, let's, I invite her to pickleball, just maybe, maybe let's see if there's something there, right? And then she asked to get on the phone and we talked three, four hours and then the next night three to four hours, and then the next night three hours and next.
Speaker 4:Oh, we had this pattern of just and they were really good conversation, but they were also. They were also very direct and just kind of like hey, one of the things I put on my profile was is, I can tell you all this great things about me, you know, like we put on our profiles, but I'd rather you just get to know me and just to make your own, develop your own opinion about me, Right, because I'm just going to be me. I had spent too many years not being me.
Speaker 1:Was it scary to go on these sites for both of you? Was that just? I mean you had to be very vulnerable.
Speaker 5:A hundred percent. It is because you're going to talk about someone else, you're going to learn about someone else's experiences and honestly, that really helped me get through a lot of stuff. But I'd also started life coaching health coaching was in a group before I ever started dating. I'd been doing stuff with you, trisha, stuff with Tony yeah.
Speaker 5:I had eight years of trying to figure out if I wanted to stay in a marriage and really fight hard with it, pay a coach to help me do infidelity coaching you know I and not physical, but anyways, my marriage was. I thought I needed to stay in it for a covenant and was willing to sacrifice a lot of stuff.
Speaker 4:I was on and off so many times before, Tiffany, you know, and so yeah it was, it was scary, you know, just kind of putting yourself back out there and. And getting denied Like that's why I didn't, that's why I didn't swipe on it. I was like I mean yeah.
Speaker 3:Talk about that being denied. I mean cause. I think that the, the the rejection part of that's pretty intense.
Speaker 5:Like Craig hasn't been divorced a year yet. He'll be divorced a year in April and we're already married, right For me, I've been divorced for over a year, separated since August of 2023. Not really a long time. A lot of people I mean that are our age go to four, seven years, 10 years of being divorced, right, so you have to put your that guard down, like either someone's going to accept me or they're not.
Speaker 5:And the fear of rejection when you like someone more is there because you don't get to choose what they think and you're not in a relationship to to make them or to keep showing up and they're cause you're married. You're there, right. So now you get that, that vulnerability of being rejected and seeing your lows and hearing someone say, hey, I don't like that stuff about you. Oh, you got. And when you hear that stuff, I'm like Whoa. And yet you get other calls where people are like I love your friendliness, I love your happiness, I love how you know you see life this way, your smile, you're contagious. And then some people are like, boy, your, your relationship did a lot of stuff too, and so I would tell Craig, like I got a lot of baggage, so I just tell people that, like I got a lot of baggage and I'm sure you do too, I think guys compartmentalize it. That's what we use a lot more, so they try to bury it, and Craig and I have had lots of conversations.
Speaker 4:We've had a lot of like. We've had a lot of unpacking, yeah.
Speaker 5:And so this weekend matter of fact, today will be the first time I'm going to be physically in a room with the kid's dad for multiple hours, because our oldest son got a divorce, was going through a divorce the same time, the kid's dad and I were going through one, and so he had a lot of baggage and he met this girl and so now they're getting married. So today is a wedding day, so the kid's dad will get to see for the first time how Craig interacts with my family and the grandkids. And so you get like the like you were going to say, the family dynamics in this whole second chance thing, right? So that was my thing with Craig. Like I want somebody.
Speaker 5:My kids are a lot, my kids are big and bold and loud because of experiences, right. And so I had to have someone who wouldn't coward necessarily to them and feel like, oh, you have this relationship with your kids because this is how it was in my previous marriage. Our kids love you more than they love me. The kids need you more, you know, like they want you more. And so I had to be marrying someone who didn't feel that jealousy of my relationship with my children.
Speaker 1:So we're going to really dive deeper into the blending families in just a little bit. So I kind of want to stop you for just a minute because there's some awesome pieces that I want to kind of slide into first before we get to that place. But definitely this is so part of the experience is the blended pieces and how they go together, and I also want you to be thinking before we get there, what's some advice that you could give someone else in your situation? But before we get to that place, I want to ask you what was the moment you knew the relationship was something different, something worth saying yes to. So you kind of shared a lot of all these different struggles and stuff and how that has shown up even in your relationship together. So when did you know that this was different and it was worth saying yes to?
Speaker 4:wow, you want me to tackle that one? First go ahead, okay, I actually, uh, I actually knew well before tiffany I actually did. Those conversations we had were very, very open, very honest, and they went on, for you know, they were every single night and it was basically both of us learning as much as we can and being open with each other. Right, and at first I didn't think we had a lot in common. Right, she looked at the world in a certain lens and I looked at it a different way. But as we kept having these conversations, we had more and more in common and even today it's amazing we have a lot of the same behaviors that are identical. But for me, as I'm having these conversations, what I was drawn to was not so much about you know where she is today and stuff like that, but it was like her upbringing for me. What is with me, with tears, anyway. So like her upbringing was very similar to me Because you're real.
Speaker 2:This is awesome Pretty real.
Speaker 4:I wanted someone that had the same type of foundation, same type of background and I figured like there's so much noise out there with everything else, but if our foundation is very similar and we can align and I saw that early on, I saw that in the first month and then, as we kept having these conversations, I kept seeing that and for me, a lot of it stemmed back to both of us struggles with growing up. Right, we're both hard workers, we both don't make excuses, we try to find the positivity in situations and I'm like that's what I want in my life, that's what I want going forward. So so with that, that foundation, as soon as I was able to see that foundation and see that it could be really solid with Tiffany, then for me it was just all right, let's go. So what is? What is the rest of it? Full speed ahead.
Speaker 5:Oh, he's a full speeder guy, yeah.
Speaker 4:I mean, I mean, but the foundation is very important for me, right and uh, and it's played out. It is played out Like even when Tiffany and I had conversations, she didn't see it and I and I was telling her I can see us doing this, I can see us this and uh, when we work together, like literally work together doing projects, yeah.
Speaker 4:We are so in tuned and we think through things. When we're helping people who break down on their snowmobiles, we are just we're selling to me and I saw that through our conversations. But our conversations were were direct, they, they weren't surface. And so there were a lot of tough conversations we had in the first three months of dating and stuff like that, because I'm no spring chicken right, and if I'm going to actually let my walls drop down to someone, I really want to get to know them and so for me, that's I knew about in like two to three months and that's when I started to fall for it. I was like, okay, the foundation.
Speaker 3:Can I add, before we even get too far away from when we when, tiffany, you were talking about the rejection piece that I think that what I appreciate and I like, craig, you're talking about this foundation, because the problem I have are working with people that are going through the, especially the online dating world these days is there isn't a whole lot of data put into the profile and so so there's a, it's a, it's a.
Speaker 3:It is a magnet for emotional immaturity, and I will have people that will say I can think of one woman in particular that she read through a whole text chain of the guy basically saying you know, just tell me what you need me to do, tell me who you want me to be, which is the wrong thing to do, and the fact that he even thought that that was okay was was a huge red flag. But I also understand that if that's who that guy is or never saw a healthy relationship model, that he really is saying, look, I don't know what I'm supposed to say, versus this is what I'm saying or this is who I am, but then that does risk that potential for the other person to not choose you. And so I like what you say about the foundation, craig, because when you're saying we didn't have a lot in common, I start thinking, okay, well, we really don't have to have things necessarily in common, because that's where the curiosity can develop the intimacy. But I really liked the foundation concept.
Speaker 4:A hundred percent, but for me I knew what I wanted. That.
Speaker 4:I helped me have that success For sure, or a successful second marriage if I was going to do it Cause I don't, I don't even want to think about like anything beyond that, I want to with Tiff all the way Right. And so we had to have that and and I was surprised to find out that it was basically for me, it was our childhood upbringings. We saw, I mean, money didn't matter to us. We both worked through our struggles. You know, we put our heads down. We're both givers, you know, and uh, you know, once, once I was able to like kind of establish that and be and say okay. And once, once I was able to like kind of establish that and be and say okay, she'll stick in there with me as we go through whatever, because she has that foundation.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I had that comfort level and then I was, and then my wall started to drop. Hers took a little bit longer, right, yeah, and maybe, as she's talked about, I can be fairly direct because this is, this is me, this is who I am. I want to share my thoughts and stuff like that so she can take that data and make her own decisions, right.
Speaker 1:Nice, so good. Okay, we are having so much fun with Tiffany and Craig and their story is already so inspiring Finding love again, second chances, embracing new beginnings. It's such a powerful message and we're just getting started. In this next episode, we're going to dive even deeper into what makes this marriage different, the biggest lessons they've learned and how they've created a strong foundation for a lasting relationship.
Speaker 1:But before we go, I want to speak directly to the couples who feel like they've tried everything, who are exhausted from the same fights, the same distance and the same feelings of hopelessness. If you're at that point where you're questioning whether your marriage can survive, hear me when I say this there is a way forward and it's not too late. I know because I've been there After 37 years of marriage, through the struggles, the pain and the moments where I wondered if we would even make it. I've taken everything I've learned, combined it with powerful tools, techniques and exercises, and created my Healing Hearts coaching program. This program is for couples who feel like they're at a breaking point but still have a tiny spark of hope that things could be different. If you're ready to fight for marriage, I will fight alongside you, so let's turn things around together. Email me at trishajamesoncoaching at gmailcom to learn more To our listeners.
Speaker 1:Please be sure to subscribe so you don't miss part two. And if you're loving this conversation, please leave us a review and share it with your friends and family, who may need to hear this episode. As always, if you have a question for us, please send it to trishajamesoncoaching at gmailcom. We'd absolutely love to hear from you. We'll see you in part two. Thanks for tuning in to the Q&A Files, Delighted to share today's gems of wisdom with you. Your questions light up our show, fueling the engaging dialogues that make our community extra special. Keep sending your questions to trishajamesoncoaching at gmailcom. Your curiosity is our compass. Please hit, subscribe, spread the word and let's grow the circle of insight and community together. I'm Trisha Jameson, signing off. Stay curious, keep thriving and keep smiling, and I'll catch you on the next episode.
