The Miscarriage Dads Podcast
A podcast dedicated to humanizing the experience of miscarriage, and normalizing dads openly talking about its impact on us as men and fathers.
The Miscarriage Dads Podcast
E33: Fathers & The Emotional Scars of Miscarriage pt. 2 (ft. Alex Ortiz, Jeff Collins, Augusta Foster - Rereleased)
Welcome to episode 33!
How does society's expectation to "just get back to it" hinder men's ability to grieve? This episode of Miscarriage Dads opens with a powerful reflection on the societal pressures that often compel men to suppress their emotions during times of loss. We explore the differing ways men and women process miscarriage, featuring a poignant story of a father struggling with his expectations versus his wife's need for solitude.
Navigating the emotional labyrinth of miscarriage can take a significant toll on relationships. We reflect on the haunting echoes of past relationships and the elusive journey toward closure. A crucial focus is placed on the husband's role in supporting his wife through such trauma, emphasizing the challenge of providing care when one feels emotionally drained. By sharing these intimate experiences, we highlight the importance of empathy, mutual understanding, and effective communication in sustaining strong family bonds amidst the turmoil of loss.
Finally, we delve into the strength found in male camaraderie and support. Discussing the impact of multiple miscarriages, I share my own journey of dealing with repeated loss and the evolving ways I learned to support my wife and friends facing similar hardships. This episode underscores the transformative power of vulnerability and the need for men to reach out and connect with each other. Our conversations aim to foster a stronger sense of community, helping us all become better fathers, husbands, and individuals through the shared journey of coping with loss.
Sincerely,
Kelly
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Show Music
Many Worlds & Just Drive by Memory Theory
Like Water On A Glass Table by GLASWING
Hey there, this is Kelly from the Miscarriage Dads podcast, with a quick word about the episode that you're going to hear today. If you heard last week's episode, I am re-releasing a conversation that I had with a group of friends on another podcast, and so last week was part one of that conversation. This week will pick up from where last week's episode left off. It was a great opportunity for all four of us to get together and talk about our own experience with loss to miscarriage, and my hope is that by listening to these episodes, you too would be inspired to share your story as a man who's been impacted by loss to miscarriage. And now here's the episode.
Speaker 2:Initially, the speaking to people, it wasn't even organic. I think there were a lot of people around on both my side of the family and my ex-wife's side of the family at the time who just were mentally. All of them were on that. Just get back to it, like you'll be good, just get back to it. And you know, even the three days like coming out after that three days like all right, man, I'm in a haze, I just want to relax. But it was a lot of forced conversations. You know, what do y'all think happened? How was this? Are you okay? And it wasn't as much as support. So initially it wasn't organic.
Speaker 2:I think I was like Alex, it took a little while Like I went back to work, took some FMLA time off, about like three weeks to make sure after the DNC that you know, like my wife was good and relaxed and all right, cool, I can leave the house. And I remember going back to work and, uh, one of my partners who I was real tight with I and he, you know, hadn't texted him or nothing and he's like hey, bro, like you good, everything All right, and I was, you know, kind of hesitating at the lunch table. You know we go into the break room and he comes in and he just goes, um, he looks at me and he goes so is there still a baby shower? And I just was. You know, just, it's all dudes in the room, you know it's everybody. You know former military and all of that, and I put my head on the table. I'm just sobbing on the table and he literally just, you know, and we're two totally different backgrounds.
Speaker 2:You know, this is like a white brother from Orange County, california, whose father was a firefighter and whose mother was a doctor, like he doesn't know struggle or anything like that.
Speaker 2:Like he's like oh, all my kids have been successful. And him, with this totally different everything background, he just kind of just leaned in, just put his hand on my shoulder and I just bawled and I could feel it's still to this day one of the oddest moments. I could feel it's still to this day one of the oddest moments. I could feel like four or five hands just on my back, like no, bro, it's good, you're going to be all right. That was the first time, no-transcript. And it took me to be like in a room of former hard charging, like infantry men and nut job military vets who I worked with to be like no dog, it's going to be all right, you going to be cool man, what you need, I can help you. It took three weeks to have a real combo, and it was with one dude who I'm still tight with to this day and five guys who I just worked with.
Speaker 3:Thank you, I have to say that my experience is not too different, but it definitely has, I think, a different nuance than what you guys have shared so far. Our first pregnancy was not a viable pregnancy, but prior to that, like I was mentioning earlier, I've got to interrupt you. I have to go.
Speaker 2:My toddler is having full meltdown and screaming for me, by all means that fatherhood calls. Yeah, yeah, yeah, fatherhood calls. Thanks for this beautiful moment, guys, and, I hope, the rest of the combo goes well.
Speaker 1:Appreciate you, jeff, it was a pleasure. Take care, welcome to fatherhood, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah man.
Speaker 2:Yeah man, that baby put the bass signal up.
Speaker 3:What was I saying? Yeah, so prior to even our first attempt or our first pregnancy, you know, those words were in the back of my mind. Don't be surprised if the first pregnancy doesn't stick, and that set an expectation that maybe it will happen, maybe it won't happen. So if the first pregnancy doesn't stick, it's not a big deal, right, it's not a big deal. The second one is definitely going to stick because the first one didn't. That was the expectation. Unknowingly, that's what I was working with, that was the frame that I was working in. Great.
Speaker 3:So we get to the ultrasound, can't find a heartbeat. Doctor says pregnancy is not viable. My wife is distraught. My wife is an internal processor and so in these type of moments she turns into a cocoon. I'm an external processor, I need to talk it out. But because the first pregnancy might not have stuck and for us it didn't stick, it's not a big deal, it's not the end of the happen. I don't get it, my mind does not compute. And so while she is turning into a cocoon, I am out here like a woodpecker, pecking at her protective sphere, saying to her hey, you need to let me in so we can talk about this because, quite honestly, it's not that big a deal not understanding what she was going through, and so I didn't have the ability, I didn't have the tools necessary to acknowledge what that was for her, what that meant for her as the carrier. To my advantage, I'm not the carrier, I'm just the one who produces the sperm and releases the sperm, and my job is done For the next nine to 10 months. It's all up to you, baby girl, and that sperm making it to where it needs to be. So that level of removal, so to speak, from the process, layered with hey man, it might not stick, which gave me an easy out layered with the lack of preparation, the lack of appreciation for what it takes to conceive, layered with what I think to be the socialization of men. Layered with, layered with, layered with, layered with. Here's my wife who is going through it and I'm just like nonchalant. Of course I have to show some sense of empathy and support, but it wasn't genuine fellas, like I knew. My wife was hurting, but again, in my head, it's not that big a deal. So that's the first half, that's the first one.
Speaker 3:Shortly after that, you know, here we are, she's pregnant again and we are a lot more cautious this time and to be to be completely fair, when she told me she was pregnant pregnant the first time I was so elated. I mean she gave me a little onesie that said you're going to be a dad Dude I ran around the crib, I screamed, I yelled, I was excited, right. So that's not to say that I was not excited about the prospect of this being a pregnancy that was going to go full term. I definitely was. And when it was not a viable pregnancy I felt something, but I didn't feel that thing intensely because in the back of my mind it happens it wasn't going to. I guess this one didn't stick, and those were the words. So when the second one, we were a lot more cautious. She went in and you know that was not a viable pregnancy. So now here we are back to back.
Speaker 3:I had my hopes built up so high for this one because this was the second one. I had my hopes built so high, bro. I had a dream, one of the most vivid dreams that I've had in my life, that I was carrying a baby girl. But in the dream it was a white baby girl with the biggest, brightest blue eyes I have ever, ever seen, and my wife was in a delivery and I, just wherever I was, I just went over to this child, that she was being birthed. This is all in the dream. And I carried, I grabbed the child, that she was coming out of the birth canal and I looked at her and she looked up at me and I was just so overcome with emotions that when I woke up I almost shed a tear like literally opened my eyes and I was just like welling up to cry and I said, yo, this one is the one. So to hear, we can't find a heartbeat. I was devastated, bro, I was crushed. So wait, the first one might, may not stick, but the second one is supposed to.
Speaker 3:The second one is supposed to stick, bro. Why didn't anybody tell me that the second one may not stick either? So does it have to do with that? Does it have to do more with me? What is it about me, then, that isn't able to get my wife pregnant? Am I paying back for a life that I lived? And now, as a result of wanting this thing, God, the universe, the powers that be are like F you. You're not going to get that because this is payback for, oh, you really want this thing. Then I'm going to let you know how undeserving you are of this thing.
Speaker 3:So now I am crushed, and I finally got an insight into what my wife was feeling the first time, and now a second time, and I felt so I don't even know what the word is that I felt, but I started to feel numb. I started to feel all of the energy and essence that makes me who I am was being drained from me. It became very taxing trying to support, and so I felt guilty. In fact, that I know I felt guilty that I was feeling this way now, particularly because I was not feeling the same way in the first instance. So what gave me the right to feel that way now. How callous and cold and distant I was to my wife at first and now, because I had built a dream and a hope off of this pregnancy and it didn't come to fruition. Now I want to pretend as if this matters to me in this way. So all of these thoughts were going on in my mind. I was more able, a little bit more able to give my wife some space, but I was still like that woodpecker. Just hey, I need you to talk to me. Last time you didn't talk to me for two weeks. We're coming on two weeks and you haven't spoken to me yet. So this time? So I was still not mature enough, not empathic enough to be like take as much time as you need.
Speaker 3:What made it more complicated is the first one, nor the second one. Did I tell people beforehand that we were expecting Because she was like, especially after the first one. Did I tell people beforehand that we were expecting Because she was like, especially after the first one? Don't tell anyone until the pregnancy is confirmed. And so now here I am, intensely suffering the effects of this second loss of pregnancy in silence. I couldn't bring it to a community because I had no community to bring it to. I couldn't reach out to my boy because my boy didn't know that we were expecting in the first place. So it just felt like I was trapped. It felt like I was trapped in a way. I felt like my wife was setting me up and cutting off my avenues of release and I was mad at her. I and I was mad at her. I was mad at her for putting me in that position. Yeah, I'll stop there and let you guys reflect on that or share your own experience. Thank you. When you initially said that the person told you.
Speaker 2:You know, sometimes the first one doesn't stick.
Speaker 2:That said, like that said. So wrong in me the fact that somebody would tell you, as if you know, even though, like now you know, shout out to brother, I didn't even know that as a stat, but the fact that somebody to even come to you and to approach you and be like you know beforehand, you know this might not go through. I mean, maybe worded a different way, Cause now you know, like you said, the mindset is the whole time All right, this first time we weren't successful and a person told me that. But this second one is is, is is going to be fine. But every, every other feeling, all the emotional rollercoaster that you went through on the second one, that's about that's, that's about what it was on the on the first and on the first and only one for me, like, even even in saying that, I think now, like, I still question and it's been, I'm all to start as 12. That would be, it's been 10. It'll be 10 years in February 8th. It'll be 10 years in that time. Still, I'm like all right, Every other kid I've had, successful, been blessed 10 fingers, 10 toes, sound mind, healthy, Like what happened at one time, sound mind, healthy, Like what happened at one time, Like what the hell happened at one time. And it's all of the rollercoaster, all of the feeling how did I end up here? What did I do wrong? I'd never thought of the standpoint of even like how you said how could your wife put you in this position, Like I think I never, even I only I literally took all the weight. I only thought of it, like as me, Like, what am I doing wrong? Did I not do this? Another thing that you said I'm on board with, like was was me while I'm out in the streets, before you know, doing everything that I'd done before.
Speaker 2:But all of these women and, at times, the disrespect I've given them, Is this the get back? Is this the get back? For, oh man, you really want this child. Oh man, I remember I wanted you to do A, B, C and D, but you chose to want to while out. You chose to want to do what you wanted to do. So now this is it in return, but it's still, like I said, it's been almost 10 years and I still, my brain still hasn't settled in with like why? But now I'm to the point where it's like do I even? I don't even want the closure, I'm like I don't, like I'll always think of what, what could have been.
Speaker 2:And in the moments where I think of what could have been, like after this I'm just going to FaceTime my kids, California, hey, what y'all doing? I know it's Saturday, Y'all need to be cleaning, I need to hear some gospel music and smell some Fabuloso through the phone, Like y'all need to be, y'all need to be, y'all need to be doing something. But there's in the moments where I think of that, like, oh man, you know what could have been. You know, uh, I think the last time we were recording, like my daughter like ran in on the last time we were recording, but it's that that moment now, even like for Jeff, like I can't even get mad at that brother, like to go through it. And in the moment, hey, man, I got to go, my kid called him the blessing of the life from from, like the tragedy of death is is yeah, man, this is, this is, this is a rollercoaster, this is a lot of this is a lot of emotional.
Speaker 2:Like I said, there's a vulnerability that even in that moment that we just didn't have support systems like or at least in the moment, the the better ones that you really needed, that you truly needed in that time somebody to console you, somebody to commiserate with you, somebody to give that empathy. And it was even hard because often, as the husband, the cornerstone, the spouse, you're over here and now you're pouring into your wife because she needs to be poured into. But now you pour so much of you you won't empty. How do you get filled? Because it's hard for her to reciprocate, because she's down. She's down emotionally, she's down spiritually. And the thing that I think the real disconnect with us is we feel all that, but physically, like the fact I can tell you like I know a DNC, the fact that's a term I shouldn't even have to know. I should know what a DNC is. But now that I've lived through it and the pain that I watched her go through, now she's in here mentally, spiritually and physically beaten.
Speaker 3:It's hard for her to reciprocate anything to me in this time, because even though she could be emotionally supportive, all of that physically she can't even get out of the bed and I and I couldn't, I didn't acknowledge that for my life, I did not acknowledge the fact that she had a vacuum stuck inside of her to take that thing out. I didn't, I didn't acknowledge the fact that, even way after the fact, she was still feeling that pull, that pressure in her body weeks after.
Speaker 2:It's wild. I remember asking my ex-wife at the time, like weeks, weeks later, and her just like, randomly on the day, just going like I almost feel like I felt something kick, and I'm like it mentally. Man, it is an only speaking from a male perspective. That's why I'm like you know, you hear women who who've gone through it and they'll tell you, you know, and it's, I still feel like it's that Ness, you know, like I tell people all my uh joke around because I'm in California. You know all my, all my, my ex-wife and my youngest, my soon to be wife uh, you know, all of them are crips. You know C-sections, uh, c C-sections, all of them. And I'm like this is, this, is, this is a, this is a scar that goes with you and they, they have all those feelings, the Braxton hits, the groin pains and all of that.
Speaker 2:But to think mentally, to go in on a Tuesday to think you were having this child physically and then a couple hours later, okay, your husband going to drive you home. You woke up Tuesday expecting. Or you woke up Monday expecting you ultrasound Tuesday. You have your appointment Wednesday. You're waking up and that body that was inside of you is now gone. Like it is, it's a lot for us. I don't even the the, the amount of support that I was able to give my wife. Even now I look back I'm like man, that wasn't even enough. I was like I know it wasn't enough. I'm like cause. Just, I know I was going through, but just for the physical, the physical, not including the mental, the spiritual, everything else. Like you could try your best, but is it enough?
Speaker 1:I think one thing I took away, kelly, from what you were saying was that you know how can we be enough right, augusta, like what you're just saying? How can we be enough? The fact, kelly, that you understood how your wife suffered and how you suffer, I think is critical to understanding your partner. And so, as men, how do we get there right Like that? To me, is the breakthrough for these types of scenarios, and really for any type of scenario, good or bad. How can we as fathers, as husbands, as men in general, excel in every situation, general excel in every situation, and I feel like a big part of it is understanding how we process, understanding how our wives process. We can extend it to our children understanding how our children process. Just because our moms treated us one way doesn't mean that's how we have to treat our kids.
Speaker 1:So to me, there's a relational component to this that trying to understand where exactly where your wife is.
Speaker 1:You mentioned your wife was in a cocoon and you were the woodpecker. That's a visual that I can't get out of my head right now, because it's so clear that there's a difference, but men don't spend enough time talking to their wives prior to these items or these occurrences, to talk through those differences and to understand them better and to understand how do you process this? What do you think about this, what do you think about that? So I feel like, as men, the big thing I took away was I need to just talk to my wife about everything and then, when I have doubts, when I have feelings, when I'm sad, I'm happy, I'm confused, I'm scared, I'm hesitant, whatever it might be, I need to be bringing that out Because at some point those emotions are going to be present and if we don't sort of talk about it at the peaks of our experiences, it's going to be really hard to you know, we don't sort of talk about it in the, at the peaks of our experiences.
Speaker 3:It's going to be really hard to talk about it when we're in the valleys. You know Absolutely, dude, and you know it. It took going through these, through this experience, multiple times to get to this point of realizing what I could have done better and what you just described the type of how my wife responds to these type of difficult moments. So, since those events, whenever we've gone through anything else where I noticed that she caves in, I give her her space because she's going to come back and talk to me when she's ready We've been able to build a trust with each other. Because, again I said, this happened to us four times, bro, four times, and every time it seemed like we found a different way to support each other that was better than the time before. And I don't want to conflate the two and say and therefore, because of these things, we now I mean our marriage was rocked for four times. In that one way To go through that experience with someone just one time, it does all sorts of things to your relationship and if the foundation of that relationship is not where it needs to be, so many different outcomes could happen. Right, what I'm thankful for is that, even though I mishandled what she was feeling. She extended to me enough benefit of the doubt to allow me to grow in how I handled the grief and the process that we were experiencing, and that she was experiencing Our third miscarriage. We both kind of had a sense that it was not going to be a viable pregnancy. What was traumatic about that one is that I was getting ready to go to work one morning and she cries out to me from the bathroom downstairs and says babe, it's happening right now. So her body was to go to work.
Speaker 3:My wife is on the floor writhing in pain and discomfort. So when I come down the stairs to see her I describe it as a murder scene because there was just blood everywhere. So I had to take our toddler to take him to my in-laws house so that he would not be a part of that, which meant that I had to leave my wife on the floor by herself for a period of time, take our toddler to my in-laws, who thankfully don't live too far from where we live. Come back and I walk in and I find my wife on the floor sobbing in excruciating pain, and I can see and I can sense the the the thickness of the hurt and the pain and the shame and the guilt, and I mean the whole nine and bro.
Speaker 3:I felt so useless because I couldn't take my wife's pain away. I couldn't do anything to to help her feel better. And so I'm, I'm like grasping at straws, like hey, what? I don't even want to ask her a question because that's going to inconvenience her. She's already going through.
Speaker 3:So I'm just there and she said, can you please grab the fan and in the room and just turn it on because I'm so hot. So, man, I grabbed that fan, I plugged that fan in with so much pride and because I could do that that I could do. That gave me some sense of she, she I don't even think she knows this. That gave me some sense of I don't even think she knows this. She threw me a lifeline by asking me to do something, because now I felt useful. So I plugged that fan in and I just laid on the floor next to my wife and we cried.
Speaker 3:We both cried like little babies and we just cried and we just cried and we just cried. And it's like man, we are here for a third time, but this time is so much more intense. It is so much more. The visual of that is something that I could never forget. And after the worst of the worst had happened and she started to feel a little bit better, I just helped her get up, helped her clean up. I told her don't worry about it, go lay down, I'll clean the bathroom.
Speaker 1:You were there for her, bro, and she was there for you, man, yeah.
Speaker 3:I don't even know what else to say, bro. There's a buddy of mine who is currently experiencing a loss of pregnancy between he and his partner, and he and I were talking this week and I had to go back to these experiences to to be able to talk to him in a way that we like these conversations in an ideal world shouldn't be happening. But nevertheless we don't live in an ideal world and what that particular experience reminds me, or taught me rather, is, even though I'm not the carrier of life in the same way that my wife is, the experience of watching someone you love and you care about go through something like that is as devastating, due to the inability for me to do something for her. But then it also made me realize that I keep doing this to her. We made we, we made the decision. For sure, we both made the decision. So it's not like I took advantage of her and I I you know, she said no more, and then I told her I had a condom, but then I didn't. It was none of that.
Speaker 3:We both made the conscious decision that we wanted to keep trying to grow our family by one more in order to give our son a sibling, but I kept putting her in that predicament, I kept failing my wife. Had my sperm just been a little stronger, we wouldn't be here right now. It would be boom, boom, baby nine months. Let's come home. Snip, snip, done deal.
Speaker 3:I kept putting her in that predicament and so the guilt just kept piling up and up and up and up. And so I was saying to my friend like the fact that we're not the carriers of life in that way doesn't mean that what we're feeling is any less valid than what our partners feel. In some way we're loss of all of that and the excruciating emotional, psychological pain and toil of watching your spouse go through something and you can't, or your partner and you can't do anything about it, especially if it's someone you love, or maybe someone you once loved. Right, but at the time you love that person. Yeah, I don't even know what the hell I'm trying to say, fellas, but I'm going to just stop talking.
Speaker 1:I mean, I'll tell you this One thing that is hitting home for me is the position that you were in your sound. You almost sounded like you felt like you were hopeless and you had nothing that you could do, but you were doing probably all that she needed and wanted for you to do at the moment. I will tell you that there's so many times with my wife that I tried to do so many different things. I went out and was doing all this other stuff to try to move on and she just wanted me to sit and lay with her. She just wanted me to sit and lay with her. She just wanted me to sit and be with her, and I regret that I didn't do that in that way, immediately.
Speaker 1:And I think it's because, as men, this society pushes on us that we have to be the savior of every situation for our wives.
Speaker 1:We got to go save the princess, the damsel in distress, and where I do believe that there is a role for you know, a God-given role for men to protect the family. I don't think it aligns perfectly with some of the you know we'll mention Disney again with one of the Disney, you know vibes that you have, like, I feel like, as men, we have been pressured into solving every problem for our women, for our wives, and sometimes I think that actually makes it's a disconnect from what they really need emotionally. I was running around doing physical things and I wasn't there for my wife emotionally in the beginning. But in where you're feeling, where you kind of sounded like you were feeling helpless, I feel like you were as strong as you could be as a man and I'm sorry that you had to go through that man, but I applaud the way you went through it. I think you just you were there, you were present emotionally, right In a moment where, possibly, your wife was in maybe the whole time.
Speaker 2:You said it. I'm like, I'm just not going to cry, I'm just thinking, like here's this woman in this helpless position and all I could think of is what if he wasn't there? Like that's all I could think of, is what if he wasn't there? Like that's all I could think is what if he wasn't there? The fact, simply you being present was everything. Like it seems. It seems, bro, like you, like like helpless, and all that, how you say she threw you, like she threw you like a life jacket, ask you to do something, and even you saying that all I could think of was man, what if he wasn't there? Like what did she do if he wasn't there?
Speaker 2:And I took victory in the fact that you were, Like simply you being there was man. I can't speak for your wife, but man, you don't even like even just hearing it. You being there means so damn much In that moment to hold her, to do something as basic as the fan it seems even me saying as basic as the fan but it was what she needed. You were everything she needed, right then. And, like I said, when the whole time you're telling it, all I could imagine is her being there alone and her not having anyone there. But in this point, in this period, in this moment in time where all of this is going on, she had you to be there present, and that's yeah, man. That in itself, that in itself, man, ain't no shame in that man. That's a damn win brother. Like being able to be there. That's a win brother, that's a win.
Speaker 3:I appreciate you guys sharing that perspective and being able to be there. That's a while to accept that it's counter. It's counter my nature and, I think, in a more broader sense, our nature as men who have been socialized to, on the floor next to my life and even saying that, as a chaplain at a hospital, that's my disposition when I go and see people, to rid myself of my own stuff and just to be as neutral as possible for them because that's what they need at that moment. And at that moment, me, being that with my wife, just felt so small. It felt small and it's taken me a while to realize that it's not small. It's everything that you guys just said.
Speaker 3:Thank you, I'm going to give the last, the two of you, the last word. You want to address one of these two prompts? What is? One or two things that you have walked away with after our two-hour conversation is one prompt. The other one is after hearing all of our collective experience, how would you talk to relate to a father who is experiencing, who has experienced a recent miscarriage? How would you come alongside that father and relate to him?
Speaker 1:Augusta, you want to go first, or you want me to go.
Speaker 2:I'll go, I'll make it short and sweet, for both hands. I would just say support and support. I learned you need a good support system and I learned to really not just and I already knew it, but not just to have a good support system around you, but to be, when you've experienced this, be good support for someone else. I was going to actually message Kelly and I have a co-worker long short is co-worker female who I'm really close with. Her and her husband are going through this right now.
Speaker 2:She's been off work for almost a month and a half and I know it's not the she's explained it's mentally preparing herself and every day, even though I know her and I don't know her husband from Adam, every day that I talk to her I'm thinking, man, this brother's going through this by himself and I was like, ah, I said I'm gonna bring this brother into this group. I'm thinking, man, this brother's going through this by himself and I was like, ah, I said I'm going to bring this brother into this group. I'm going to talk because you know, and I text her before this started. I said later on today I want to talk to your husband. Like I don't know him, but I know right now. He needs yeah, he needs this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so just support, man support.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it's a beautiful thing when there is that support amongst men, right, when we support each other not just for the game, right, not just for our sports teams, but when we can get behind each other in our dark spots, in our dark situations. So, for me, I think it's taking pride in our scars. You know, life will damage us, or try to let me put it that way, life will really, you know, if you want to get into a spiritual aspect of it. You know the enemies can sometimes be on the attack, right. And I think you know, as men, when we learn to embrace our scars and share them with others, when we learn to embrace our life challenges, when we learn to embrace when we stumble, when we learn to embrace those moments, the learnings from them, and then share them with others and be like listen, let me show you something about my life that I've learned, and you show them the scar and then suddenly you create those opportunities. Wait a minute, I have that same scar. I never told anyone about it because I was hiding it, because I'm a tough guy, because I need to show that I've got my life under control, because I'm a type A. Got my life under control, because I'm a type A, you know.
Speaker 1:I think that having that empathy empathy that comes from humility, man, you know, and saying I screwed up in my life before or I had this happen to me before or I had, you know, we lost a child in our family before this is what it looked like when we're able to do that as men and share with other men, I think it's going to make for a better society. And then the other piece that I've taken away from today is how important it is, as men, to try to see things from our wives' perspective and to try to understand how they may be taking something, how they may be suffering. Are they a cocoon or are they outgoing, in terms of how they respond? To me, that visual was so powerful for your example, kelly, so to me, the take home that I have is empathy towards our wives, listening and saying I hear you, I understand, and then being willing to share our examples, our life, with other men. I think it's going to help us all out and make us better fathers, better husbands and just better people overall.
Speaker 3:I can't express how much I appreciate you guys. Again, I said this at the top and I'll say it at the bottom I can't express how much I appreciate you guys In the midst of fathering, regardless of where we are on that trajectory, these things continue to play a role in how we father and how we deal with things. So the fact that we've been able to set aside two hours in the validity of this conversation, the level of vulnerability that I think we achieved in this conversation, the things that we put on the table, all that being said, I think it's still scratching the surface of this really important conversation. But, man, if this is all we have, what a powerful example of man coming together and just laying it all out there. So I'm looking forward to our part two, whenever you know we can arrange that.
Speaker 3:I've grown. I feel like I have more of a camaraderie with you, men, augusta, although we've never seen each other in person, bro, but I've called on you to look out for one of my homeboys before you know. That's that. This is what it's all about. So I respect you, man, very much. I love you, man, very much, and all the best to you along your fatherhood journey, wherever you might be, and, yeah, until next time.
Speaker 1:You brothers, be, safe you too. And yeah, until next time, you brothers, be safe you too. Thanks, kelly. Keep doing what you're doing. Kelly, appreciate you fellas, All right.
Speaker 2:Tell Rue to answer the phone.
Speaker 3:Kelly, oh, I'll tell her. I'll tell her. All right, Peace out, peace out. Thank you, we'll see you next time.
