Episode 8: The Transformative Years: From Military Spouse to Single College Student

Brandon reflects on his journey through college after the Air Force, exploring the complex choices around dating, fatherhood, and personal transformation that shaped his character during a pivotal time in his life.

Please start with Episode 1. Go to my site BrandonHeld.com

• Remaining in a failing marriage while attending college partly for practical benefits
• Dating three women simultaneously and the moral boundary crossed when discovering one was married
• Making the difficult decision to transfer to Wright State University to be near his son Ethan
• Attempting to reconcile with his ex-wife before creating a new independent life
• Developing friendships with fraternity members without officially joining
• Transforming physically through weightlifting, gaining 25-30 pounds of muscle
• Maintaining strict personal standards in dating, refusing relationships with women who used drugs despite their attractiveness
• Building the courage to approach an intimidating woman at the gym

Join me for episode nine to find out what happened when I finally approached the redhead from the gym!

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:35

Welcome back to Brandon Held, Life is Crazy, Episode 8. I have gotten you through most of my childhood, my time in the Air Force, my first marriage, and the birth of my son, Ethan. I didn't get divorced for about two or three years after I got out of the Air Force. I wasn't into the relationship much anymore, but... I was a poor college student and had a place to live, food, access to the gym, and all the amenities that came with being in the military I still received as a dependent spouse. I could play intramural sports on base. I still played basketball. I still played volleyball. It was just with the medical group. I won a base championship in volleyball. I won a base championship in flag football. These were as a civilian and they were good times. I had a great time, made some good friends. I started at Midtown State in my broadcasting and journalism degree. And I started off light with gen eds in early communication classes. It was great because I I was doing all right. I was doing pretty well. I was generally getting B's and some A's. It was building my confidence that I could do this college thing because I was doing it almost full time. At some point, though, I had gotten a job to be a server at Applebee's mostly on the weekends while I was going to college and I was still married. But eventually my marriage came to an end. And in that time, I was dating the three women, as I discussed. One was a college student. I met her in college. One was a girl I saw at the pool when I was swimming. And then the third was this blonde that was interested in me. This is significant because it helped me cross a line that you can't uncross And it changes you. I lost one of my best friends in a divorce because he had interests in my wife that I wasn't aware of. I start seeing this girl that I think is cute and is interested in me. We get together and hook up. After we've been together a few times, she springs on me that she is married and has a husband in the Air Force. Had I known that, I would not have been given her at the time of day. I wasn't that kind of person and I would have never helped someone have an affair. I would have not been a part of that consciously. At this point, I had been with her and knew I enjoyed her company. And then after she told me that line has been crossed. So what can I do? I can't go backwards. So I What's done is done. I crossed the moral threshold that I thought I would not ever cross, but here I am. I was with two other girls at the same time as her. The girl I was in college with, as far as I know, she wasn't seeing anyone else. She was only seeing me. But the girl I met from the pool was also seeing someone else, but she wasn't being open and honest about that. Eventually that came to a head because I confronted her You know, she said, you can't say anything to me. You're seeing other girls. You know, I said, at least I was honest with you. You were hiding that from me. And then the married girl, that had to end too. I could only go with it for so long. So after seeing all three, I just ended up dating the one girl I was going to college with. And so she was the one I was seeing exclusively with. because I had become a competition between the three of them. I had seen how they were each trying to get more of my time and pull me away from the other two. I saw that happening. But at the end of the day, there was only one that really deserved it, and it was the one that, as far as I knew, wasn't seeing anyone else. So that's the one I decided to date exclusively. But then the birth of Ethan happened within a month after he was born. His mom got stationed at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. And I realized that when she left, I only had a year of college left, but young, impatient, can't see the future, don't have any guidance. I thought, I can't wait a year. to see my son he won't even know who I am in a year so I decided I needed to transfer to Wright State in Dayton so I could be close to my son which was cool as far as being close to Ethan but let's be honest if I was going to go back to Ohio and go to school I wanted to go to Ohio State But I couldn't do that because that wasn't where Ethan lived and I would have never seen him. So what ended up happening was I called Ethan's mom. I knew she held a candle for me. I knew she was interested in me. A lot of stuff happened while I was dating these other women where she was still trying to be involved. So I called her and I said, hey. I want to move to Dayton to be by Ethan and be a father. How do you feel about me staying with you? I was a poor college student. I had no money. I didn't have a job. And I knew that was the only way I was going to get there. And she at first was hesitant, but then she was like, what does that mean? Does it mean nothing? We're going to be together. What does that mean? I don't want you coming here, living with me and bringing girls back to my house. And I was like, no, I won't do that to you. We could reconsider for the sake of our son. We can discuss all that when I get there, but I promise you, I won't be bringing him back to your house. And so she agreed. I didn't even have the money to pack up a U-Haul and drive the stuff that I had. So I had to call on the one person I could always call on, my grandmother. She gave me some money, enough that I could do that and make that happen. Thank you, mamaw. I know you're in heaven now, but you did so much for me. There's no way I could ever repay you. Moved to Dayton. I moved in with Ethan's mom and with Ethan. And I was going to college. and living with my ex again and being with my son. Everything was cool. Everything was amicable. Outside of the way some things went down while she was pregnant and giving birth, I had no reason to be upset or disgruntled with her. So we decided let's give this a try again. We'll take it slow. We're not just going to jump back in and be remarried or anything like that. We'll just see how it goes. A lot of things have happened. But our son deserves this opportunity for us to try. I was going to college at Wright State, and this transfer cost me a year of credits. Had I stayed at Minot and went to Minot State, I would have been in my senior year and graduated with a broadcasting journalism degree. When I transferred to Wright State, they didn't have an identical program. degree with identical courses. They dropped some of my courses and said, these don't count. And that essentially put me where now I needed to go to college for two more years to graduate. I had to tack another year on to my college education and I wouldn't end up graduating with a broadcasting journalism degree. It would be a mass communications degree, which is what I ended up with. For the love of my son, I thought that was worth it. It's not the exact degree I wanted. I have to go to school a year longer, more struggling, more student loans, but he's worth it. I'll do it. So I'm on that path just a few months, three, four months. I don't remember the time, but it was fast. My mother, sister, and maybe my grandmother came down to visit and meet Ethan for the first time. Dayton was only about three hours away. You know, my sister went out with Ethan's mom that night, Dana. My sister was single, checking out dudes. Dana was caught up in the moment or what, but she was like, oh, that dude right there, he's really cute. And my sister went over to that guy and goes, see that girl right there? She thinks you're really cute. So that guy comes over and starts talking to her and she's receptive to it. She lets him buy her a drink, dancing, hanging out together. And then they get home late at night. The next day, my sister tells me this story. She tells me all of it. I'm pissed at my sister and Dana at the same time. I'm pissed at my sister because she was a part of that. She helped set that up. What was your motivation? What are you thinking? We're trying to do something here for the sake of this little boy. And you're just throwing gas on a fire. And then I got mad at Dana because she accepted that gas and ran with it. And I felt betrayed by two people in one moment. I asked her about it and she was like, look, you already hurt me once really bad. I don't know if I can take that kind of pain again. It was like her defense mechanism. But I just was like, yeah, this just isn't going to work. So I had to find a place to live. Luckily, I found a guy who needed a roommate and I jumped in. It's college. People come and go. I just jumped in with this guy. I didn't know. His story was intriguing. He had previously attended Ohio State. Full ride paid for by his father. But he was too busy partying and failed out. He had to get a full-time job working nights at FedEx, loading airplanes. He decided he wanted to go back to school. And his dad was like, sorry, buddy. You had your chance. You blew it. If you want to go back to school, you got to figure it out. So this guy was going to Wright State and working the night shift at FedEx. And then after work, going to school during the day, And trying to squeeze a few hours in after school and before work to do it all over again. And so I just saw what he was going through. And it was also another eye-opening experience for me. I may not have loved my current situation, but at least I was not surviving off four or five hours of sleep a night and trying to work and do school. I was going to college. Wright State, and everything was cool. I met some cool people there. Several guys at the gym were part of the Phi Tau fraternity. At this point, I had been lifting weights. I started lifting weights in college at Minot State. I was tired of being six foot one and skinny, 175 pounds. I decided I wanted to put on some muscle, pack on some weight and get strong. I started lifting at the gym. And I met some really cool dudes and we became friends. They kept asking me to rush for this fraternity. I was older than everyone else because I had done four years in the Air Force before college. And then I was like, there's no way I'm going to let people younger than me haze me. I'm not joining a fraternity. But we were all friends. So I just ended up hanging out with them, doing everything they did and going to the events without fear. being in the fraternity. I was never officially a FITOL, but I lived their FITOL life, went to all their events, parties, eventually became really good friends with the president of FITOL. His name was Jeff Ratliff. And I ended up moving in with him. I was just living my life, going to school after everything I had gone through. But at the end of the day, I'm a 25 year old young man with all the raging hormones that come with that and i'm not blind right just trying to play sports and go to school and hang out with my buddies but of course you're going to come across women in college that you find attractive i dated one girl who genuinely was so pretty when we went out together Like at a college party, dudes would come up to me and just shake my hand and be like, oh my God, how did you get that girl? She's so hot. You're so lucky. They would say stuff like that, right? We were new in dating. I didn't really know her that well. I guess I was just one of the few brave enough to let her know that I was interested and she was interested back. So we started dating. But it was so innocent. We never kissed. I may have had my arm around her and we held hands. And that was as intimate as that relationship got, except for the last night we were together. I was at home in my apartment and she was back in the dorms where she lived. One of her friends calls me and says, Missy's here and she really wants you to get over here right now. It was late, like midnight. Her friend was like, she just needs you to be here. So I went and I get there. This girl and I have even so much as kissed. And her friends are telling me I need to get there. So I get there and find out she took ecstasy. For someone like me, who I'm 25, I've never drank. I've never smoked. I've never done any drugs. And that's still true for me today at 51. I didn't want to be with anyone who did those things either. Okay, drinking alcohol occasionally, that's acceptable. People do that socially, totally understand. But I didn't want to be around an alcoholic, any type of drug user, and I didn't want to be around anyone that smoked because smoking was disgusting to me. And so she took that ecstasy and she was trying to get me to have sex with her, and I wouldn't do it. I didn't want to take advantage of her. I stayed with her for the night, made sure she was okay, and I ended up falling asleep with her. The next day, I got up, and that was it for me. I never called her again. She didn't call me. I texted her and said, hey, this isn't going to work out. She just responded, I understand, and that was it. When I was Seeing people on campus after that, they were like, what happened to that girl you were with? And I was like, it didn't work out. I broke up with her and they would be like, oh my God, she dumped you. And then I would be like, no, that's not what happened. She didn't dump me. People would flat out just be like, I don't believe you. There's no way you would dump that girl. But it was true. I did. Just another example. experience in life that i learned about myself that no matter what the circumstance i have standards there's no disrespect to her maybe she was just in an experimentation phase in college i don't know how she went on to live her life it just wasn't for me at that time there was another girl blonde really pretty everyone called her hot heather We ended up working at a tanning bed together and she expressed interest in me. She expressed that she wanted to be with me, but I knew she used cocaine. I heard it straight out of her mouth and I was just like, I want no part of that. I don't want to be with someone using cocaine. So I also didn't date her. While I was at the gym with my roommate, we became everyday workout partners. I had gotten much bigger and stronger. I was taking protein shakes. I was taking creatine. I packed on 25, 30 pounds. My chest grew really fast. My back grew. I already had strong legs and they had gotten stronger. I was a completely different frame. And there was this really beautiful redhead that would come in and work out. Now, she wasn't a natural redhead. It was clearly a dye job. But it was a nice dye job. She looked pretty. And she was really fit. She was in amazing shape. And I kept seeing her there and talking about her to my buddy Jeff. And then one day, he's like, I'm tired of hearing you talk about it. Go talk to her. I felt called out and challenged, but I was intimidated by her. So I was like, all right, you know what? I'm not going to let my roommate call me a pussy. So I'm going to do that. I'm going to go ask her out when I see her. And the next day I went to the gym. I saw her. She was on a warmup bike, riding it. By herself, I was like, that's my shot. There's no one around her. That's my shot. I can do it. I can ask her out. So I approached her, and that's where this episode's going to end. I will tell you next time what happened when I approached her. Thank you for joining me, and I'll talk to you again in Episode 9.