Thankful For Detours, Family, And A Fresh Start

What if the hardest year of your life turned into the most honest one? We open our hearts about gratitude that goes beyond highlight reels—thanking the baby boy on the way, the move that reshaped our family, and the painful detours that forced us to grow. It’s not a neat story. It’s tears, laughter, and the quiet relief of owning the truth when shortcuts stop working.

We talk about accountability without self-erasure: how secrets weigh more than consequences, why confessing can feel like freedom, and how making amends re-centers your values. There’s a candid look at ending relationships that drain you, not out of spite but to protect peace. Faith anchors the conversation—surrendering timelines, trusting God’s pacing, and finding strength when everything looks like it’s falling apart. We also get real about the move that helped our kid discover baseball, brought new love, and still left us missing the son who stayed behind, a tension we hold with care.

This is also a story of us becoming better listeners. Years ago we needed to agree to feel safe. Now we can sit with different views and still find each other. Starting this podcast pushed us through anxiety, taught us to show up even when we overthink, and gave us a ritual that’s as much mother-daughter time as it is a show. Expect warmth, vulnerability, and a few laughs about turkey comas and saying “like” too much—because growth can be tender and funny at the same time.

If this resonates, follow the show, share it with someone who needs a hopeful nudge, and leave a review to help others find this space. Tell us: what detour are you quietly grateful for today?

Transcript

Setting Up A Gratitude Talk

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Hello everybody, welcome to Tough Love and the Cates. This week we're gonna be talking about what we're thankful for in honor of Thanksgiving.

SPEAKER_02 0:19

Yes. Recovering from Turkey and family and I don't even know because it hasn't happened yet, but whatever. Pre-recorded. I just gave up all our secret sauce, but whatever. Damn it. Anywho, this episode we're just gonna talk about things that we're thankful for. So I will, I mean, I could go on for days, but I'll let you. Sorry about that.

SPEAKER_01 0:43

Um, I would like to start off with saying I'm thankful for my baby boy to come. Um, that I'm given the opportunity that to be able to bring such a beautiful life into this world, that I have such a wonderful family with in-laws and my direct family, like you and dad and everybody. Um, I mean, I have so many things to be thankful for, but mainly those. I'm really, really thankful for the love of my life, is Theban. He has shown me so much throughout this time that we've been together, and I'm I'm gonna get over.

SPEAKER_00 1:19

Love you, baby. Aww. But um, yeah, I'm thankful for a lot. Oh, she really was gonna, she just really is crying. I'm thinking, yeah, do you need a minute? Um, no, go ahead.

Finding Self After Things Fall Apart

SPEAKER_02 1:33

Should I take over while you while you feel what you need to feel? It's horrible. It's so horrible. Well, I'm thankful for all the things that didn't go the way I thought they would. Because I feel like if this year has taught me anything, it's I don't know shit. I don't know nothing. I I thought I knew so much, and it's like I had so many relationships for the longest time that I'm still so grateful for. Like there's no part of my life that has any regret. I feel like everything's taught me something and has brought me to who I am today, and I am starting to love myself again. And I feel like I lost that for a little bit, but I'm so thankful that everything falling apart has just brought me closer to who God intended me to be and to God. And I feel like it like everything silenced for a little bit so that I could connect, and now she's crying more. Trini, what are you thinking? I'm just so happy for you.

SPEAKER_00 2:44

Oh, my baby. Don't cry.

SPEAKER_01 2:50

It's just so nice to see you like finally back to who you are and just feel like you were lost for a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 2:56

I was, I was, I was, and it's such a beautiful thing to witness.

SPEAKER_00 3:00

That's all.

Accountability And Turning Toward Faith

SPEAKER_02 3:01

Well, I I hope I hope if you take anything from it, because I feel like even in me being vulnerable with I don't even think I had to be vulnerable. I think my kids have just they've taken a front seat to everything, whether I wanted it to or not, or whether I wanted to shield them from everything or not. I feel like like nobody feels me the way you guys do, and nobody knows me the way you guys do. Probably your dad. He oh yeah. He knows me, and you know, I I just feel like this last this whole year has been anybody standing outside of the glass house would be like, damn, like everything's falling apart for that shit. Like nothing's working out, everything's all fucked up. Like, will she make it? And I'm here to say I will. I know I will. Yes, she will. I know we will. I know I will because if nothing else, I'm determined. I'm I I I'm not a quitter. Even even when quitting feels like the only thing to do. There's certain things that you have to quit. And I feel like it's not even quitting, it's just acknowledging that things are coming to an end, or acknowledging that certain situations and relationships and they just don't serve you anymore. They just don't fill you with love the way they used to, or they you don't you get to see how people really see you and it's okay.

SPEAKER_01 4:40

Yeah, I mean, especially looking from the outside. Like I've seen the way people treated you, I've seen the way that people take advantage of your kindness sometimes. And obviously, like I don't want to say anything at the time, but like now that I see that, like just how much you've grown, it's like it's inspirational. I love it. I mean it's just it shows just how much, like, even though you know that I know I've always known how good your heart is, and now you you know even more just how much your heart is, and where you've always come from. Like, you've never come with hate, you never come with any bad intentions. I mean, obviously, you admit your wrongs if you're in the wrong. I do.

Moving States And Hidden Blessings

SPEAKER_02 5:18

I I I and I'm far from perfect. I've made tons of mistakes, and I feel like this year, literally, like I was tempted. Like the devil came in and he came in strong. And he was like, here, here's an easy way. Here's an easy way. Like, you can have this, but this is what you have to do. And for a minute, I bit. I'm I'm I'm a human. Like, I I bit. I said, okay, but all it did was eat me inside. It just like it brought out all the worst parts of me, all the darkness in me, all the things, and uh putting me in a position that literally it felt so awful. Like I was carrying so much guilt around that like the phone would ring and I'm like, oh my god, like you know what I mean. It was just it was a state of mind that you knew wasn't gonna last. Well, not I let me rephrase that. It was a state of mind that at some point in time I knew the bad shit I was doing was gonna be exposed. And the moment it was, it was the most liberating feeling for myself. Because all I could do was own up, take responsibility and make things right. And I did to the best that I could, whether that satisfied other people, whether, you know, I mean, somebody will want to freaking hang me on the cross for my mistakes, and that's their perspective, and that's their life, and that's their mind, and that's for them to think for. But I I know in my heart that I took a taken accountability for my mistakes, and all I've ever tried to do is do right by other people. And so I I'm so thankful that, like I said, everything had to fall apart for things to fall into place. And it's like these last few months have just been like, you know, our other podcasts, we talk about just being vulnerable and most of all being vulnerable with yourself. Because when you're able to like stop looking outside, or why is this that and why is that that and look inside and like why why did I allow certain things? Why did I tolerate certain things? Why did I feel like it was okay to be treated certain ways and stuff like that? Like, I especially for so long. But you know what? I don't I don't know. I I love you and I love I I have so many people that want to come to my defense, but I don't I don't see it that way because I'm so focused on what I'm putting out versus what's coming back in that everything I always everything I've done, I've done with love.

Growth In Our Relationship And Podcast

SPEAKER_01 7:58

Yeah. I mean, yeah, obviously like that's the way you you're gonna see, you know, but like from somebody from the outside. I don't have regret. And it's not even like to come into defense, it's more of like just an observation that I've noticed since growing up, just the way that people have taken advantage of you. And I feel like it's just I feel like just how much hate has been given and reflected onto you when there hasn't been like I don't know how to word it exactly. Which is but yeah, that's fine. Whatever. Which is fine, whatever. You live and you learn, but I don't know. I'm just I'm thankful for the fact that we moved out here. I feel like this is the best freaking decision we ever could have made. And especially like me following you guys, forget about it. I I feel like a part of me always knew I was. I've I feel like even the moment you guys said that you're moving out there, I was like, oh shit, we're moving out there. Okay. And then I was trying to make a life out there for myself, and it's just nothing was going on. And honestly, I can admit, I wasn't doing anything to try to make it anything for myself either. But now it's just I didn't want to be without you guys for a while. Like, especially Uriah being so young, I didn't want to be without him either. And then now, like, look at how, like, look at how great it's doing for both like all of us out here. Uriah is making a new friend, he's freaking falling in love with baseball. You're over here fighting yourself, I'm fighting myself. Found the love of my life. I'm having his baby, and then have gonna have a beautiful baby boy. Like, yeah, it's just there's so many blessings in disguise that were just brought from just that one little move.

SPEAKER_02 9:35

I feel like I'm I'm grateful that your dad and I said yes. Not to each other when I'm married, but we said yes to the opportunity that God put in front of us, and I will tell you, like, these three years have not been easy. They have tested uh our own strengths within ourselves, our relationship, our family dynamics, our you know, like I I hate that Darien doesn't uh want to be here um because I know in my heart he misses us just as much as we miss him, and he feels a sense of emptiness and loneliness, and that's a pain that I I hate that I can't fix for him because if I could I would, but it has to be his choice. But that's he's uh that's my that's my missing piece. He's my missing piece, and I know all I can do is just keep praying and just keep keeping the faith and just know that one day, like you know, his I I have to respect though, like his life is his. Yeah. But that's honestly, like, I'm so thankful that we're out here, but he's my only thing that keeps me from without any hesitation, like that. We're we're not together because for like we we were a family that was together, like even with my sister wife that was a part of our family, like she is like the designated, not having Milani here, not having Navea here, not being able to Josie, like little Rudy, like all the people that like here. I go with my likes again. We're gonna do a reel of just likes. Take a shot every time you have a likes, exactly. Oh yeah. Exactly. But, anyways, I just feel like that's like I I am grateful that we moved out here, and I am grateful for the craziest, literally one of the craziest years of my life. I am so thankful for it because I feel like I've grown so much, I've evolved so much, and I've gotten back. Not even gotten back, I've just I've stepped into the best version of myself that I know I want to be. And I know just knowing that the faith that I have, that things will work out, the perseverance I have to not quit when the going gets tough, like I know it's it's gonna lead us to the finish line on God's time, not mine. And that's that was one of the biggest things to surrender.

Why We Keep Showing Up Together

SPEAKER_01 12:14

I don't think about thinkful about this. This whole thing. Like, I feel like it's brought in us closer together. I feel like we talk, like how we said earlier, like we would have tried doing this years ago. I feel like there would have been like oh yeah, there would have been conflict. What do you mean? Like disagreement on disagreement, just because like I feel like we wouldn't, at least me at my perspective, I feel like we wouldn't be able to respect or like agree with each other's perspectives on certain things. But that's like from back then.

SPEAKER_02 12:42

But you know what I think the biggest growth has been is that we don't have to have the same perspective.

SPEAKER_01 12:48

Yes, that's what I'm saying. Like it's different, like we don't have to.

SPEAKER_02 12:51

Yeah, we don't have to have the same perspective. We just have to be able to listen to one another's perspective and find common ground.

SPEAKER_01 12:58

And even then though, we wouldn't like we talked about doing this for how long?

SPEAKER_02 13:02

It's been a minute.

SPEAKER_01 13:03

We talked about doing it for so long, and here we are doing it now. Well, I think now I don't even have as much anxiety when we first started shooting these, anxiety was through the roof for me. I was overthinking it way too much. I was stuttering, I didn't want to do any of the intros whatsoever. And that's just even from the last month that we did them.

unknown 13:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:18

But I feel like even just throughout this month, I'm so much more comfortable. I've like anxiety is not there no more. There's so much more sooth sailing through our podcast now that it's just something that I look forward to getting to do with you every month because this is our me time.

SPEAKER_02 13:33

Oh, you know what's so funny? Literally took the words out of my lap, my mouth. It was kind of I've had so many people tell me like the way you talk, the way you speak, like people need to hear what you have to say. And it was like when I was going to take the leap of faith of okay, who does, who doesn't, or what you know what I mean? And then you get that darkness in your mind that's like, oh, well, nobody need nobody wants to hear me. My voice is annoying. I talk out of the side of my mouth, I do this, I do that, and like everything that just beats you down. And for me, it was just like this is something I get to do with my daughter, and especially my grown daughter, that she doesn't live with me anymore, that she's not in my house every single day. That I was like, I I need this. I needed this, not even for everybody else, but just for us so that we had our time to just be together and we don't have outside noise, we don't have you right. We have Adrian.

SPEAKER_01 14:28

Adrian shows thank you. Thankful for Adrian as well.

SPEAKER_02 14:34

He's been amazing through this whole process for helping us build our confidence and helping us just keep keep going because there's there's months, there's I'm like, I don't want to do it. I'm gonna do it, and it goes from a Thursday to a Tuesday to a Tuesday to a Wednesday, and you know what I mean? And you find all the reasons not to, but then it's like, no, we have to do this because this is my time that I get with my baby.

Expecting A Boy And Holiday Wishes

SPEAKER_01 14:57

My grown baby. I'm gonna have a baby. Holy crap, I still can't wrap my head around that, guys. A little and a boy, like I was so freaking like convinced that it was a girl. Like, not once. Like going for the ultrasound. Are you sure?

SPEAKER_02 15:15

They say DNA is DNA, but whatever. I wanted to feel like there's a girl in that universe, but only time will tell.

SPEAKER_01 15:22

But I always kind of knew that I was gonna have a boy first. Like, even even before I was even talking about like when I was on the fuck them kids type of thing, and I never saw myself having a child ever. I would always be like, if I were, say, if I were, it's gonna be a boy first, and then I'll have my girl. So that way he could be his little protector of his little sister.

SPEAKER_02 15:40

Well, I'll adjust either way. Yeah. Regardless, I'll just have a new little thing to love on in the next few months. But thank you so much for chiming in with us today. I hope you guys had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend full of love and joy and laughter and happy Thanksgiving!