Ep. 37 - Turning 90 and Still Saying Yes to Life

What does it look like to build a full, meaningful life when no one handed you a blueprint for it?

Dr. Sonya Friedman grew up in Brooklyn with little money and a father who wasn't present, and she turned every open door into something remarkable. She talked her way into a newspaper column she'd never written before, brought psychology into mainstream media decades before it was welcome there, worked alongside Barbara Walters, became one of the first anchors at CNN, and wrote books about women's self-worth that were ahead of their time. All of it, she says, came down to one word: yes.

The conversation with Pam moves through a lot of territory, from Sonya's early books on women's independence and relationship patterns to a jaw-dropping story about filming a Ku Klux Klan meeting in Kentucky as an ABC correspondent. What runs through all of it is a woman who never let her origin story become her ending. She talks about the moment her thinking shifted from "what was wrong with me" to "what was wrong with him," and how that single reframe changed everything.

Now approaching 90, Sonya is still seeing clients, still swimming and doing Pilates, and still thinking about what women over 50 need most from each other. Her life is a quiet argument against the idea that where you start determines where you land.

Contact Pam Feinberg-Rivkin:
Facebook: @FeinbergCare
Instagram: @FeinbergCare
LinkedIn: Feinberg Consulting Inc
YouTube: @FeinbergConsulting8059 

Looking for a practical takeaway from this conversation?
Download our complimentary companion resource, Looking Beyond the Behavior, designed to help parents and caregivers shift from asking "What's wrong with my child?" to "What might my child be communicating?" The guide explores how looking at children's emotional, behavioral, and physical health through a holistic lens can open the door to greater understanding, connection, and support.

Contact Pam Feinberg-Rivkin:
Facebook: @FeinbergCare
Instagram: @FeinbergCare
LinkedIn: Feinberg Consulting Inc
YouTube: @FeinbergConsulting8059 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Resilient Butterfly Podcast. My goal is to share inspiring stories of healing and recovery through many diverse approaches and models. Our guests bring incredible lived experiences, insights, andor professional expertise, each with their own unique path. While we highlight and celebrate these stories, our intention is to inform, inspire, and demonstrate resilience and creativity. This podcast does not endorse any one approach. We believe there is more than one way to heal, and we're here to showcase the resilience and possibilities that exist. Welcome back to Resilient Butterfly. I am your host, Pam Feinberg Rivkin. I am so pleased today to have as my guest Dr. Sonia Friedman, who I must say is turning 90 years old this month. So we're going to be celebrating her legacy and really what she has done in her life. Dr. Friedman is a PhD psychologist, author, and trailblazer in the national media long before mental health became a mainstream. Again, she'll be celebrating her 90th and so much more to her story. Welcome, Sonia. Well, thank you. So we just began we just learned about each other very, very quickly. You agreed to come on. I think you're perfect, given the fact of your your life, your resiliency, and just everything you've done in your life. I'm so impressed and um inspiring for sure for me. Welcome.

SPEAKER_02 1:44

Well, thank you so much. I mean, to me, my life is really represented by um just a few words, and and it starts with yes. And every opportunity that I've been given, I've said yes to and figured if I couldn't do it, let them tell me I'm not gonna tell them. And so I have come into the most amazing jobs and learned on the spot how to do them. And the one job that I felt that I was not doing well, I've always looked back and was proud of the fact that I was able to walk away from a great job because I didn't feel I was doing what the boss really deserved to have someone do.

SPEAKER_00 2:29

Well, there are so many more what I mean achievements that you've had, but let's start with your personal life and your childhood and why maybe you went into psychology or uh or not.

SPEAKER_02 2:44

I think if you read anything that I've written, I've really well exposed the fact. Like a lot of people, I've come from a very dysfunctional family. I'm grateful to the fact that we had a free education in Brooklyn, New York, which meant that I could go to college and I didn't have to pay for it. Otherwise, I was going in the Army. Because to get out of the house, yes, I was. Because and I think that's why a lot of people do go in the Army, because there was not the ability, financial ability, for me to go ahead and to go to school and get an education. But Brooklyn College was free. And so as a result, I was able to go to school, get my degree in speech therapy. I got married at 20, I had a child at 21, I went and got a master's degree and a PhD, and from there I became a school psychologist, and I went to the local newspaper and said, You don't have a column about psychology. And the guy said to me, Well, can you write? And of course I said, Sure, I can write.

SPEAKER_00 3:50

And you hadn't written before, right?

SPEAKER_02 3:52

No. And he said, Well, send me four columns, and if they're good enough, we'll publish them and hire you. Wow. That was the beginning. I did four columns for them. I then went on and wrote for um the Detroit Free Press newspaper. I then started writing for Town and Country and a Women's Um Ladies' Home Journal. I I then went on TV. What happened was I wrote a column that talked about female orgasm and said, if she's looking up at you and smiling, she's not. And so that was so outrageous to so many people around that I was hired by Channel 7, the ABC Channel, in Detroit, and became a psychologist for the four O and O's. So one week I went to Cleveland, one week I went to Chicago, one week I went to New York, and from there I became a uh correspondent for ABC News. And I worked with Barbara Walters. And from there, I got a CNN job and became one of the first anchors uh in the country. Incredible.

SPEAKER_00 5:00

And all of the work through the through television was psychology based, or were were there other people?

SPEAKER_02 5:07

No, no, no. I I did the same thing that you see every anchor do. I it's just that I was called Dr. Dr. Sonia. This gave me a little more stature, I guess. But I did the same interviews that everybody else did.

SPEAKER_00 5:22

Interesting.

SPEAKER_02 5:23

Yeah. And of course, I probably did them a little bit from a psychological point of view. And I I did radio. So I was the second uh national psychologist on radio, and I was the ABC talk radio psychologist for the country. So I did a lot. And then I wrote several books. I mean, I've had a wonderful career, but again, the fact that people come out of a setting that is a setting that's murky doesn't mean that they can't grow and rise, seek out the sun, and find it. Right. And I think that that is the American dream, and it can still be done. And I think that my life is a demonstration of the Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 6:07

And w we'll get into several of your books because I found I was doing some research on them, not that I've read them yet, yet, but you were one of the first self-help book publishers.

SPEAKER_02 6:25

The first book was called Men Are Just Deserts.

SPEAKER_00 6:28

And it was it was really Men Are Just Deserts.

SPEAKER_02 6:32

And the idea was that you as a woman are the main course. And the man comes after you've established who you are, how you see your life, what you see as your function, and what you see as your goal. He is not the fulfillment of your life. You are the fulfillment of your life. So that was the first one. And the second one was um Mark Cookie's Don't Crumble. And that was about women who are divorced, who come from home situations that are difficult, who have a variety of issues. Um I didn't have a father in the home. A lot of people don't have a father in the home. I look at the same television that others do and see a father cuddling and think, wouldn't that have been wonderful to have? But it didn't stop me from going on. It didn't rent space in my head to stop me from having a good life.

SPEAKER_00 7:30

It's the stories that we tell ourselves is who we are.

SPEAKER_02 7:33

Absolutely. Absolutely. And so many people feel there was a turning point in my life. And the turning point was when I went from what was wrong with me that my father didn't want me, to what was wrong with him that he could give up his only child. Absolutely. And that was a complete change in terms of how I saw the world.

SPEAKER_00 7:58

I just was watching something briefly yesterday while I was um somewhere, and it wasn't the audio wasn't on, but the words were. And one woman said, I was given up b by someone who didn't want me. And I'm thinking, it wasn't about that they didn't want you. Most of the adoptions occur because they can't take care of the child or the baby.

SPEAKER_02 8:23

And of course it's not you. Right. There is no you. Because you're a baby.

SPEAKER_00 8:27

How would you not be wanted by a baby?

SPEAKER_02 8:29

Or a baby? I think today, as I look back, you know, as you give my my age, as I look back, I am sorry to see women give up their power as readily as they do. I'm sorry to see mothers and daughters competing in the same short, short skirts and cleavage showing tops. I'm sorry that girls are willing to hook up on the first date. They don't even understand. Sex takes place inside a woman and outside a man. Once he's inside you, he's also inside your head.

SPEAKER_01 9:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:04

You start to ruminate about him, you start to think about him, he starts to become important. And women have stopped learning how to help boys become men because they accept him as boys, they give in to all the wifely stuff when they're just dating them. The mistakes that I see young women making are just so shocking to me.

SPEAKER_00 9:27

And it goes on for years until they can wake up.

SPEAKER_02 9:30

And they wonder what where are all the good guys? Well, they're not helping them become good guys.

SPEAKER_00 9:37

Well, there I for sure your books were about women and empowering women in their lives. Right. And you went into um a hero is more than just a sandwich. What was that about?

SPEAKER_02 9:53

Well, the idea was that you can look at a guy who's very attractive and you can sleep with him for a weekend. That doesn't mean he's gonna be a good husband. I think the best way to find a husband is to find a best friend and then fall in love. And so what it's about is what's inside. What's inside a man? And I'm again sorry to say that I think that women are very attracted to a number of outside features and are losing sight of the material that really makes for not just a good husband, but a good father. And fathers are needed in the home wherever possible.

SPEAKER_00 10:36

Absolutely. You um I I would assume have really provided so much guidance for women over the years, and you still do as a therapist. I'm still I'm still working. Have you ever worked with men as well? Oh, yes. And what how did they receive some of the messages that you gave to You know, it depends.

SPEAKER_02 11:01

For for men who are very macho, they can walk in and out, they don't even want therapy. First of all, they don't want to be wrong. Sure. So they don't want to have to take a look at anything that they've done. So that can make it very difficult. It's a a lot more difficult to get the husband in than to get the wife. Usually I start with the wife, but although it takes two to tango, one person has to change their behavior for the other person to be forced to change. Yeah. And I don't think people realize that. So if the woman stops screaming, if the woman stops asking for something that he hasn't been doing over the last four months, he's not going to do it tomorrow. If she starts to find other ways of dealing with issues, he will find other ways of dealing with them.

SPEAKER_00 11:54

Absolutely. I've learned that in my later years, but I didn't know that as a young girl. And boy, would I have loved to have some wisdom from you back in those days. I'm not sure I had it as a young girl either. Because I'm I'm looking at the dates of your books, and I'm like, whoa, that those are the dates that I think I would have not think I know that you would have been just uh a real key catalyst in my life. Um so on a clear day, you can see yourself. What was that about?

SPEAKER_02 12:29

Well, I think again, that we have a lot of denial in our lives. If somebody says something, we're always afraid of saying the truth to somebody about their behavior. So you might say to someone, you know, you are very sensitive to rejection. That person really didn't reject you, they just weren't able to go with you, and you've taken this whole stance that they rejected you, you're not going to see them again. Take a look at your behavior. What do you bring to the situation? So, for example, I have a young woman that I'm still seeing, and she is a professional woman, and she complains about the fact that every group she goes into, they're rejecting of her. Well, they're rejecting of her because she can be pretty nasty, because she is very critical, because she wants control, and she refuses to look at any of that. So the idea about on a clear day you can see yourself is is really being able to take a look in the mirror and say, What am what might I be doing that is creating that kind of behavior? Not everybody else. So in a therapy room, you'll hear this from a therapist all the time. Somebody will come in and just talk about their mother, their sister, their friend, and the therapist says, Who's in this room? And the person says, Well, you and me. And the therapist says, Well, then I guess it's you and and me who have to deal with the issue. But those people aren't here.

SPEAKER_00 14:01

Right. Taking responsibility for yourself in the relationships that you're in. Exactly. Yeah. I know that um many times in my earlier years I wanted to not look at I think all of us do that, not you at yourself. And um and then something changed. You know, there was um there was there were times that I then began to see, okay, this behavior can relate to that behavior. Or I tolerated it, either one. It was about my responsibility and in the action of it.

SPEAKER_02 14:40

But remember too that I've had a very good partner. I've many, many years. I'm gonna be married 70 years. Wow. And and I've had a partner who has respected that I've had a profession. I've traveled in my profession. He was there for my kids, our kids. So he I had someone who really appreciated what I was able to do and boosted that for me. Some women don't have that. Some some men who feel very competitive with a woman who is bright and who's capable of achieving something in her own right. You better examine that before you find yourself. You know, I was very interested, I don't want to get into politics, but I do know that the wife of uh our vice president was considered a very high achieving lawyer in her firm. And I've seen her s take that step back for family. That that's lovely if you want to do it on your own. Right. But not if you're doing it for someone else.

SPEAKER_00 15:48

Right. Or forced into it because of circumstances. Yeah. Yeah. There is a uh uh one of the books a little bit controversial, I would say, probably, 1994, Secret Loves.

SPEAKER_02 16:01

A lot controversial.

SPEAKER_00 16:02

So tell us about that.

SPEAKER_02 16:03

You know, actually it was before its time. Yeah. Because it's going on now. Yeah. That had to do uh secret loves had I interviewed 125 women around the world.

SPEAKER_00 16:17

How did you how did you come up with the people?

SPEAKER_02 16:19

I was able to get women who knew somebody in London, and then somebody who knew somebody in Poland, and then somebody who knew somebody in South Africa, and through friends telling me about a friend, and then calling the person and saying, if she doesn't give your name and it's confidential, and okay. So what I found out was several very interesting things. There were women who fit together with the man when they married, like at 20 or 25, and 20 years later they just went very separate ways. And so they found somebody else, but they didn't give up the marriage. And that was very interesting because the marriage gave them stability and the lover gave them the romance. And then there were women who discovered that they really preferred to be with other women 25 years into the marriage. So I'll tell you a very quick story about that. Um, I met some people while I was living in New York, and um there were four women who played bridge at their country club, women in their 60s. One of them said, I have a beautiful daughter, she's 40, she's never been married. Would somebody please find somebody for her? Several weeks later, one of the women said, This is my last card game with you, and the other said, Oh my God, where are you going? And she said, Well, I'm gonna tell you the truth, I'm getting a divorce and I'm moving to Connecticut. And they said, What's going on? I said, Well, remember when she said that she wanted her 40-year-old daughter to meet somebody? Well, she met somebody, me. And the two of us go off together. I know that is a true story.

SPEAKER_00 18:00

Well how true story is. I think it happens more often than we have. It does.

SPEAKER_02 18:03

It does. And so a lot of women are finding the fact that they can tolerate, although it doesn't always work well. I have another client whose children refuse to speak to their mother when she uh left for her tennis instructor, who was another female.

SPEAKER_00 18:23

Sure. And so it can disrupt families and family systems and um and you can imagine what all the transsexual things are doing to families and stuff. So what inspired you to write and and to seek out all those interviews and write something like that?

SPEAKER_02 18:41

Frankly, I knew a lot of people who were deciding to stay in their marriage and had outside relationships. And I wondered what was causing that and why they made that decision. And it was just doing some research.

SPEAKER_00 18:56

So it was How long were did the interviews take for you to complete?

SPEAKER_02 19:00

It took me a year to compile the interviews. Yeah, but again, it was a little before it I think it was scary when when I wrote that. It was a little bit before. Yeah, I I would think that um today, if that came out today, I think that it would be more of what's going on, people could have a better understanding of it. But I just saw it coming.

SPEAKER_00 19:21

Well, I think probably things were like that were happening. It's just that they were not discussed. Exactly. It was happening all, you know, it's been happening for ages upon ages. And men have done this as well.

unknown 19:34

Right.

SPEAKER_00 19:35

So you just wrote about the women. What was take it from here, how to get from where you are to where you want to be.

SPEAKER_02 19:41

It sounds very well that's an extension. That that's really about not making the same mistakes over and over again. And I hate to say this, but we do. You'll often find a woman who is divorced marrying a man very much like her first husband because there's something that just compels her to move in that direction because she hasn't changed. Which is why you need some space if you're going to get a divorce to take a look at what went wrong so that you don't do it again. Because it's so easy to just fall into the same pattern.

SPEAKER_00 20:16

So um many people don't take that space because they don't understand. No, they're already involved with somebody else. Right. They don't understand what has happened. Right. Um, but after uh after having the same repeated pattern, hopefully they'll they'll wake up to something different.

SPEAKER_02 20:37

Yeah, you know, the the the sex doesn't last forever. The the sex is great, and the the research shows that it lasts about two years when it's really hot, and then it becomes nice and it's cozy and warm and blah, blah. But if you don't have a good friendship, that's really the basis of a relationship. Sure.

SPEAKER_00 20:57

Now, narcissism is a big topic now in the probably in social media, everywhere. It's come out. When you first provided, started providing therapy, which was in the 60s, you became a PhD in the 60s.

SPEAKER_02 21:15

The the end of the 60s, so I first the 70s is when I started.

SPEAKER_00 21:18

Was narcissism a term? I'm sure you saw it a lot, even more so maybe even then, because women have um Tell me about it.

SPEAKER_02 21:31

Well, I think that w what you've seen is a tremendous focus on beauty, and a tremendous focus on shape, and a tremendous focus on your one's appearance and what one is wearing and all of that. I I think there has been such a um lapse of moral content, such a lapse of building inner strength, such a lapse of building resilience, such Of looking for qualities and people that are other than the outside. And the outside has everything to do with the car you drive and and what you're showing others who you are. Now, the truth is that many of the people who are, and and perhaps all, but who are narcissists are very insecure people, which is why they need all of that stuff to show off. But I think that the adults of this society have just contributed to it because everything is about the look.

SPEAKER_00 22:36

Yeah, more and more beauty supplies that are out there that, you know, got to be.

SPEAKER_02 23:30

Look, you can look lovely and dignified and still get older. Sure. You don't have to wear your skirts up to your pubis, and as I said, and wear all the low cleavage. But I think narcissism is something also when people don't say no to you, and you start to reflect that the world just circles around you and you're entitled. Yes. And we are having a lot more of that as parents are ceasing to be parents but want to be friends. Sure. So I hear the other day that a father says no. He walks out of the room, the mother walks in the room and says yes. I mean, parenting, you both better be on the same page. You're going to raise a very confused child.

SPEAKER_00 24:17

That's one of the things that you uh my marriage is a blended marriage, and my husband and I have been very good at I don't think I did this before marrying him, but I was very conscious of it and marrying him that we would have to be re united because of the blended family. We had three, three boys that were 10, 10, and 11 when we got married. So if we were not re united in what how we were going to react or say or approve or not approve, whatever, um, and my daughter was 15 at the time. So there was a we had to be united. But many times when blended families come together, they are not because of where they've come from.

SPEAKER_02 25:03

Well, the expectations are often not realistic either, to take teenage kids and think that they're going to call another person mother when they really have a mother. I mean, all of that. Those kinds of rules or suggestions really need to be done upfront in a family meeting. And the family meetings are wonderful. People used to have them all the time. I don't hear about them very much.

SPEAKER_00 25:29

No. Family meetings can occur at a family dinner. Of course they don't have that they don't have any. And they don't happen very much. Family dinners are kind of a lost um family event, so to speak. Talking about I think it was CNN potentially that you were working with, when you talked about interviewing and being on the grounds of the um of uh I don't recall exactly where, but you were there with the anti-Semitism that was going on, and you went into where there was a uh a meeting that occurred with white supremacist. Oh, I did a Ku Klux Klam meeting.

SPEAKER_02 26:20

Right. Is that the one you think?

SPEAKER_00 26:22

So I think that would be interesting for people to hear about.

SPEAKER_02 26:25

I went to Kentucky and I had um, which is funny because my grandson's marrying a young woman from Kentucky. I told her the story. She said, I think they live right across the the hill from us. So that was really funny. But I I was in Kentucky, I had a a group uh of my crew, I was a correspondent for ABC.

SPEAKER_00 26:48

Oh, ABC, okay.

SPEAKER_02 26:49

And and um we went to do the junior clan. I had seen a story about the junior clan, and so I had to have permission to meet with the Klan. And so we drove into this place in Kentucky, and I had to have a um meeting with the sheriff, and in my head, the sheriff was the head of the Klan. I mean, there was no question in my mind that the person I was meeting had the authority, what not just as the civil authority, but the authority in this particular case. So we were given permission. So that Sunday we were sitting outside in Kentucky, and people were barbecuing, and then the sun went down. It was like a beautiful day, a picnic. The sun went down, and the trunk of the cars all went up, and all of a sudden, guns started coming out of the trunks, and dogs were on leashes barking all around, and a guy approached me, and um he uh was wearing a white sheet and a cap, and he said to me, Um, ma'am, um, are you uh do you go to church every Sunday? And I said, Well, I'm this is Sunday and I'm here in the middle of this field, so obviously I'm not in church. He said, Well, are you a religious woman, ma'am? And I said, Well, I'm I'm spiritual, and that works very well for me. And he said, Well, do you believe that Jesus Christ is gonna save your soul? And I said, You know something? I have to work, and this is a wonderful conversation, but we're gonna have to have that when I'm finished because I really need to keep myself focused. So we'll talk again, okay? He says, Okay, but I'm your mind, I will be with you. And when I tell you not to shoot, don't shoot. He's meaning the camera off sleep with a gun.

SPEAKER_00 28:45

Not a gun.

SPEAKER_02 28:46

Right. So, anyhow, here we go. There's a cross. I say, oh, they're gonna burn the cross. He says, Oh, no, no, no, we don't burn a cross, we illuminate the cross, and of that the cross is set on fire. And now little kids are brought up on the stage. Well, they can't read very well. So I'm not gonna repeat the words, but I give you the hints about what they called black people and what they called Jewish people, and what they called people who might not be smart, and what they had to say about a specific individuals, and when they couldn't read a word, they passed it to an adult who read whatever that nasty word was, and they put it back over there. That was the evening. And then the next day we were invited to the junior clan classroom, which was in a garage, and all the little kids were in their little white sheets and their little hats, and there was a guy in the front teaching them to hate everybody. So we heard this hate for like three days. So now we're ready to leave. We're getting in the car and we're we're laughing. I mean, I can you imagine people talking like this, blah, blah, blah. And for reasons only out of my perverted sense of humor, I say, what if they put a little microphone in this car and they're hearing everything that we're saying, and they're standing at the top of the road waiting for us. So for one minute everybody went, oh but of course I, you know, I just had to stick it to them a little bit. And anyhow, we got out of there. But it was wild. Were you scared of any gift? I wasn't. I I should have been, but I wasn't. No, because I had four other people with me. No. But he they would not have liked the people. We had somebody who was biracial, we had somebody who was Polish, we had somebody who was Jewish, they would not have liked this group. But yet they allowed you to film. Yeah, they didn't ask a lot of questions. I slurred over my last name. Well, you gotta do what you gotta do. And it was great. Where once I wanted to I've I've hired uh little planes, I've gone into places that you can't even imagine. I've I found a guy who ran away, a runaway father who owed $20,000. I found him. I put him on the air. We burned out the ATT lines because all these other women wanted to find their runaway fathers. I had the best time.

SPEAKER_01 31:28

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 31:29

And then I got picked up by CNN and I worked uh four years in New York and four years I lived in California and flew home to Detroit every weekend.

SPEAKER_00 31:38

So it was what an incredible life. It's great. It's been great. And what is the what would you say you're the most grateful for right now in your life?

SPEAKER_02 31:47

I I'm most grateful for my health. You realize that I'm gonna be 90 years old in three weeks. And I'm just grateful to be here.

SPEAKER_00 31:58

Well, not only your your I mean everything about your health, you know, this seems to be, in my eyes, um extremely well. And I know that you work out and you swim and uh you take an aerobics class and I do Pilates twice a week, I do strength training and I do the pool. So that's that's so I want to turn this into where now are you? You I know you're still doing some therapy for um, but are you w writing another book? Are you working on a project?

SPEAKER_02 32:32

Actually, I really want to start a little woman's group over a polo. I I think I'm right there with you. I think okay. I think that the issues for women 50 and over are tremendous. They're not just going to the drugstore, going to the bathroom, and going to the doctor. Yes, there is that, and that is, believe me, none of us wants to have that as the main conversation in our lives. But the issues with family are amazing at this age. And people really don't know what to do. I'm not saying I have every answer, but I think we could have some interesting things and then maybe write about them, which I think.

SPEAKER_00 33:13

I actually have thought about that myself and how a tremendous amount of uh there's so many like you, and I would say I'm 20 years behind you and in that, and but at the same time I feel that a lot of women haven't been empowered to be on their own, and there's so many widows, too, and um be able to transition their lives at different there's so many transitions from parenthood, career to retirement to how do you become a a a parent to an adult child or a or a grandparent? Where's your role in that? Where are the roles that are defined? What is what are the boundaries that you have as a parent and grandparent?

SPEAKER_02 34:04

And there's caretaker burnout, all of these women who just need desperately to get away for a day or something because taking care of someone who's chronically ill is very, very difficult, and yet they feel so guilty. So I think there's a lot that people can really talk about at this age that is that it's one. The dating, I I can't get over the dating. The dating just knocks me out. I see people who are 90 dating people in 92, they're so in love. It's amazing. It's amazing. So I think there's a lot. So I would like to participate in that. That would be great. And if you're interested, we'll see what we can do. Absolutely. I'm so excited to do that.

SPEAKER_00 34:44

That would be wonderful. What do you have to say for the young women?

SPEAKER_02 34:49

I really think that young women have to take a look at themselves first and ask themselves what they would like their life to be like, and then who they would like to share that with instead of the other way around. They are looking at men and deciding that they want to share their life with a particular man. I want to remind every woman he can change his mind. So you better be prepared to take care of yourself.

SPEAKER_00 35:18

Absolutely. And there's so many stages. People grow and they grow out of and they grow, you know, and towards. And if you if one spouse grows in a certain way, maybe the other spouse will grow with that person. I'm not it's could be a man or woman, but if they don't, then what? You know, and where do you compromise?

SPEAKER_02 35:41

What do you do for one of the bravest couples that I ever met was a young man who felt that he was homosexual, although he loved this particular woman. They got involved because they were both part of the opera scene in Detroit. And they made, they decided to marry. And everybody was very nervous. We made a deal that they would come back and see me in a year, and that she would be prepared. That if he said that marriage with a woman was not for him, that before it went any further, before they accumulated anything, they would part. And I know that how nervous she was because I saw her during that year, the year went well. The end of the year they stayed together. There are so many different combinations that people can make that work for them. Make it work for you, but make sure it works for you.

SPEAKER_00 36:44

Sure. One last thing when you say works for you in some of the some of the relationships or things that are kind of out of the cultural norm or society norm. Judgment. How does a couple or a person handle what may be perceived as, oh, I will be judged if I do this?

SPEAKER_02 37:09

Well, there's been a lot of research about what friends think about your prospective mate, by the way. So it's always good to check in to see if they think that he's a jerk or if they think that he's really a good person. I think when people make a negative or a critical remark, it's important to step back and to ask yourself, is that coming from some secondary gain for them, or is that really coming for an interest in yourself? So for example, if a mother doesn't want a girl to get married because she wants her to stay home and take care of herself, and she says, none of the men you bring home are good, you have to say to yourself, My mother doesn't really want me to leave. That I'm not saying that's the case, but you can examine is that the case? Is that really what's going on as opposed to there's nothing wrong with these men? So I think that one looks at both sides, both sides of the issue. I think that's so critical. Absolutely. That you not only see things from your side, but you step on the other side and say, how do you think other people are seeing this? If you care. Now some people say, I don't care how people see it. And if you can live with that, God bless you.

SPEAKER_00 38:30

Well, thank you so much. I really appreciated you coming on. And I feel like we have a project in front of us together. I'd say that would be great.

SPEAKER_02 38:39

That that would be great. And if you'd like to join us, you can that would be lovely. And I think that's a good idea. I really do.

SPEAKER_00 38:46

It's so much needed for sure. Any other parting words you you might have for the listeners?

SPEAKER_02 38:54

I just think that you know you have a life.

SPEAKER_00 38:58

Live it. Yeah, for sure. Well, thank you. You have lived your life. I have indeed. And you are still living your life. I am. Thank you. You're welcome. It's been a pleasure to be here. Thank you. Thank you for joining the conversation today. If you are seeking help for yourself or a loved one, please reach out to our Feinberg Consulting Team at 248-538-5425. That's 248-538-5425, and check out our website at feinbergcare.com. I'm grateful for our guests and all who have joined us today. Make sure you follow us on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere you listen to podcasts.