Who Are You Without a Man? | Love, Marriage & Self-Worth | EP. 113

In this powerful and hilarious episode of the Cup of Conversation Podcast, Tee and Coco welcome a very special guest to the couch—Coco's mom—for a candid conversation filled with real-life lessons, relationship wisdom, personal growth, and generational perspective.

This episode dives deep into a question many women struggle to answer:

Who are you without a relationship?

Together, the ladies unpack the pressure women face to build their lives around finding a man, getting married, and meeting society's expectations. From dating, self-worth, independence, femininity, marriage, and personal identity to healing, boundaries, and learning yourself before loving someone else, this conversation is packed with gems for women in every season of life.

Whether you're single, dating, engaged, married, divorced, or simply focused on becoming the best version of yourself, this episode offers the kind of honest advice and seasoned wisdom that only comes from experience.

In This Episode:

☕ Who are you outside of a relationship?
 ☕ Are women taught to prioritize men too early in life?
 ☕ The dangers of attaching your identity to having a partner
 ☕ Independence vs. vulnerability in modern women
 ☕ Why self-development attracts healthier relationships
 ☕ Marriage, boundaries, and maintaining individuality
 ☕ The truth about "fixing" a man
 ☕ Learning yourself before your next relationship
 ☕ Generational dating advice from a mother and daughter perspective
 ☕ Why your purpose should never be placed on hold for love

This episode is equal parts laughter, tough love, accountability, and inspiration as three women from different generations share their experiences navigating womanhood, relationships, marriage, and self-discovery.

If you've ever questioned your worth outside of a relationship, struggled with dating expectations, or wondered how to maintain your identity while loving someone else, this conversation is for you.

🎙️ Subscribe to Cup of Conversation Podcast for weekly discussions on relationships, self-growth, culture, mental health, womanhood, personal development, and conversations worth having.

#CupOfConversationPodcast #WhoAreYouWithoutAMan #DatingAdviceForWomen #RelationshipPodcast #WomenEmpowerment #SelfWorth #MarriageAdvice #ModernWomen #SingleWomen #DatingAndRelationships #FeminineEnergy #PersonalGrowth #SelfLoveJourney #WomenSupportingWomen #BlackWomenPodcast #HoustonPodcast #RelationshipAdvice #WomenAndDating #MarriageAndIdentity #SeasonedWisdom

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the porch podcast, y'all.

SPEAKER_02 0:02

A little bit of my attitude. Like, I just want him to be in my veins. Like, I want to be right. On the stage in a leotard at that. I was on the stage in a leotard. If you don't have a man, that means that you're not desirable. That's why they be on them nurses.

SPEAKER_01 0:16

If you take care of your business, you're becoming self-sufficient. So when he comes, he don't have to look for somebody that's already begging.

SPEAKER_02 0:22

I don't want you to feel like, damn, I I I gotta work 10 times harder because I know my mama, she ain't got it.

SPEAKER_00 0:27

Well, especially once I got out here and seen real life.

SPEAKER_02 0:29

Because at first I was, oh, I'm gonna win man. Don't think about nobody. You gotta be uh at a point in your life when you kind of selfish.

SPEAKER_01 0:37

So I'm not gonna have my daughter worrying about a little boy at the age of three when he's not gonna be worrying about her until probably 30.

SPEAKER_00 0:45

He ain't never had nothing like this before.

SPEAKER_02 1:04

Hey y'all, welcome back to another couple conversations. Where we have conversations worth having. I'm your girl, Coco. And I'm your girl T. And this week, I'm in the next. No, I'm really not. Really not, because this is my girl. We got my girl on the couch, we got my mama on the couch, y'all. Pam, pam, pam, pam, pam. C to the why to the. Hey, C Y.

SPEAKER_00 1:23

Hey girl. Welcome to the Porch Podcast, y'all. This is the Porch Podcast uh Couple Conversation Edition because this really been happening. Really, this been happening. I've been telling y'all to set up a camera at y'all house for I don't know how long. Yes. Coco don't never, I don't know if she told you I'd be saying that. Like, y'all need a camera now.

SPEAKER_02 1:41

We've been saying it too. We we know reality TV type. Yeah, like me, my mama, my daddy, Carrie, my husband, like we always have good conversation, but like really, even before all of that, like me and my mama, we have always had really good conversations. You know how you be like, you ain't I ain't one of your little friends. Probably around the time that I my end of my college career towards the end to you became one of my little friends. She don't want to be meeting y'all, but she one of my little friends. And so we've been kind of talking, just more so like just life and just yeah, just trying to learn how to be a woman, how to respond as a woman, how to really like they say, communication rules the nation.

SPEAKER_00 2:18

That's why I always like admired your household because regardless of how deep or how funny or how you know, whatever the conversation is, it's being converse around here. Like people are talking their feelings or they working things out in real time, just talking, baby. And that's what we that's what we're good for, and that's what we're here for. Exactly. We're here for a good time, not alone. Not a long time.

SPEAKER_02 2:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:43

Okay, so I just want to roll right into it. Okay. And I really put this, this is the first thing I put on here. I said the first thing is um the conversation about how many women go lesbian or whatever, yeah, strictly after dealing with men for so many years, needs to be studied. Because why don't we see these things in ourselves first before you you start thinking, uh-uh, he done ruined everything that I got. Like he didn't ruin the person that I'm trying to be.

SPEAKER_02 3:14

Why did we give him so much power from the world?

SPEAKER_00 3:16

Yes, yes. Like if you were driving down this path and you let somebody get in a car and you you were still trying to go down this path, would you let him get take the wheel for like if you just you already see the direction ain't clear. Right, right. He ain't got the direction for you. But on a serious note, um, my first question to start off the segment is if your dream man showed up right now, saying y'all ain't married, I know y'all married. Right, right. But say if your dream man showed up tomorrow, will he be meeting the real you or the version that you was taught to be waiting on a man? Like the waiting in the waiting room version of a woman.

SPEAKER_02 3:52

So I'm gonna go ahead and go first, Ma, because I know I can speak to the fact that I ain't never waited on a man to get nowhere. Like, I never like, and I know y'all say I T and everybody else, they cocoa ain't lived enough. But like literally, I've never waited on a man to come into my life to be whatever I needed to be. I feel like I was always building myself, and me and mama said it before the show started, but from the beginning, it always has been get you. Like my mama always taught me, anytime I mention a man, a boy, but what you got yourself together, you got you, you got your degree, you got your this, you got your that, yeah, you got who you are as a woman, it has always been that. So I, from experience, I have never personally have never been the person like I'm waiting on a man to do this or I. Only thing I ever waited on a man was for to when he came to marry me and to have his kids. That's probably about it. But like outside of that, like I feel like I've always been on a journey to better myself from the start. Like, even out of college, I'm getting my job. Even when I was with Carrie, like, okay, I'm about to be a teacher. I need the money, I need to be like, I wasn't waiting on him to be like what he was about to do or whatever the whatever else.

SPEAKER_00 4:59

Were you teaching this off of like instinct, or were you teaching this from failed attempts of what you did?

SPEAKER_01 5:06

I was actually teaching this because what uh was being taught to me, and I guess before me, was that get you a man, get you a man, get you a man. And that's not what I wanted for myself, and that's not what I wanted my daughters to do if I ever had daughters. So that's just I went on my own whim, I guess. Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_00 5:32

Cause a lot of people learn like you either see what your family do and you follow that path, or you see what they do, recognize the bad in it, and then you create a 360, like or a 180. Yeah, because you do a 360, you're back to where you start. Right, right, right. But a 180, you get out of that circumstance or that. So I don't think that me personally, my mama didn't necessarily vocally teach me about um whether I should want a man or be or getting my my stuff together, but her actions kind of told me what I needed to be doing. Like her actions were showing me, okay, I'm getting a degree, I'm making sure my kids are straight. Whether a man is involved or not, that regardless, that part I feel like she modeled to a good example. Right. Um, the vulnerability part, that's kind of where she lacked a little bit because I still feel like even as an independent woman, you still need some kind of soft touch to you gotta have that womaness lady-like to you. You know what I mean? That nurturing feel to you. So I feel like she, that was the only part of that she let the independence kind of mask her vulnerability or mask what she was going through instead of speaking on those subjects like we were talking about earlier. When people don't speak on certain things, your kids or your the younger generation just learns off of what they can uh interpretate from what they say. Let's see, right? So it ain't always exactly how that went, but I just had to go off my interpretation because you don't want to talk about it.

SPEAKER_02 7:03

Right. You know, I um I will say too, I didn't have, I don't think my mama showed like the vulnerable part, especially not from a lens of an adult. Maybe from a kid, I feel like my mom and my daddy, they lived in the same house. I didn't see them like fight or anything. So I'm like, okay, they love each other, they married, they gotta love each other. Right. But from uh my adult lens, I would say that um just the way I grew up, I I wanted what I did want from a man that a man that I'm I'm I'm thinking through this too. So what I did want from a man, um, and I didn't know this, unconsciously, what I wanted from a man was to be able to say because I've always been I'm for the first child as far as it could come concerned, my mom and my daddy, but I was the um oldest sibling, so I've always been like not a mother to my brothers, but like I've always wanted to have to think about it. Yeah, I have to think about what I do. I know, and then my second brother came along and just totally wrecked shot of the whole situation. So I always been a very observant on how can I, and I and I talked about how this could contribute to my people pleasing, but always been of like, how can I fix this? How can I make it not look so bad for my parents, or how can I out, you know, just naturally instinct from a child perspective, like trying to make up for anybody else's m failures or whatever the case may be. So I've always unconsciously didn't know this, but when I got a man, I wanted to be able to sit back and be, you know, I want and it and we always talk about I want to be kept because I feel like I'm always keeping, even when it comes to like my siblings, caring about how my mother feels about how she has done as far as me is concerned, my dad, how I look. I don't want to look like a promiscuous woman because I don't want, you know, just all of the things that you try to save your parents from feeling embarrassed about you. If you make this mistake, you gotta worry about how it's gonna look on them. All of those things, I've always wanted to just not be those that have that worry anymore. So unconsciously, that is one thing that I wanted from a man. Um, and I waited for like to be my savior. Like my therapist says, You want him to be your savior, you want him to be your knight in shining armor. And I do. And some of that is too much. I know I'm learning, but some of it it comes from just that, you know, just being everything for everybody that you want somebody to be everything for you now. Yeah. Like, you know, so that's what I will say.

SPEAKER_00 9:25

I feel like it's kind of divine that we meet because I I have the total opposite. Like, where I'm not gonna say I don't expect nothing out of a man, but like I, my mama always told me to, like you said, get it first. Like, make sure you can get it. Like, and don't my I d I never really seen her ask people for nothing. People were always asking her for stuff. Like, I've never seen her with her hand out or expecting anything from anybody. So I'm not gonna say I didn't want it. I just didn't have the expectation of it. Like, if it don't happen, I don't want to be disappointed. So I'm not even gonna say I really want it. Like, I'm even though I do really, you know, that'll be nice to have. Yeah. But you know, I'm like, I don't even want to say it. Because if it don't happen, I don't want to be mad. I don't want to be pissed. Uh, you know, I don't wanna.

SPEAKER_02 10:10

And here I am over here fighting. I feel like I fight tooth and nail. You better, you gonna give it to me.

SPEAKER_00 10:15

That's what I and when you start doing, I be like, boy, Carrie just bless his heart. He just bless his heart because he does like, just the other day, I was thinking about him dropping you off at the thing and then going do his own thing. It's like a way that he can still help you out and y'all can still have your individuality. Like, maybe he don't want to eat this, cause but this place that we eating at. The way I would have thought about it is shit, if Bubba don't want to eat here, then I drive myself. You know what I mean? Right now. It's just two different ways of thinking. Like, it's just, it's not that he went out of his way to drop you off at this place before he went to wherever he wants to go. And it ain't like he had to cancel his plans, plans from doing what he wants to do. Right. You just added that little, like, well, what about me? You know what I'm saying? What am I gonna do? I ain't I can't drive a car. Right.

SPEAKER_02 11:04

You know that little dazzle. And literally, that's what it really was. I just feel like I didn't want to drive. I just wanted it's Sunday. I've got to go back to work tomorrow. I'm like, I kind of want to be with my man, but then I don't want to be, I don't want my man to invade on my girl time, but I'm gonna find a way to do it. And I want you to get into your topic so we can really get to it because I have something to speak today about.

SPEAKER_00 11:25

Okay, well, let's, you know, what we came here today uh for is to speak on who I am without a man. Right. And like to self-reflect and kind of work through this topic, I want us to all like tell what was what we felt like life was like before uh we had a man. Because everybody sitting on this couch got a man. Got a man, okay. So it's something y'all can listen to over here, baby. Got a man, got a man, okay? What's something you feel like you can remember from life before being someone's wife?

SPEAKER_01 11:58

My independence, and I wanted to keep that if I got married. Okay. So that was one of your non-negotiables. Like that that ain't I didn't want to have to choose because I was very young when I got uh started dating my husband. So at that age, I didn't want to choose between my good, good girlfriends and my husband. I mean my boyfriend, yeah, my man. Yeah. Um, I wanted to be, and I'm really uh big on being with my man, but I'm really big on not leaving my girls behind either because I had them before I got choosed. Right, right. My independence was the main thing. It was the main thing. What about you?

SPEAKER_02 12:37

Um I'm my mama's daughter. Um I just I just didn't want to leave behind who I am in my core. Okay. Um I didn't wanna I didn't want to, I always thought of not getting to getting 20 years into marriage and thinking like, man, I never really did. I never really had. I never really got to say. I really so I always wanted a man, and and we say this, but I don't think we mean it sometime as women. But I wanted a man that was gonna accept me for who I was, what I liked, how I am, you know, and and at that time at that time, probably some of the bad stuff that I shouldn't want somebody to accept, but I'm growing past that part. But you know, just take me for who I am. If I'm loud, if I like to go dance, if I like to get in the middle of the flow and hit a boom, hit a one-two, don't be saying women are to be us, uh, or whatever the saying is. I don't even know it because I don't want to. Seen, not heard. Yeah, whatever. I I didn't want nobody that was gonna make me feel like I had to be somebody that I wasn't.

SPEAKER_00 13:37

Yeah, I can attest to both of those things. Because I think for me, it was just about since I was, since I'm growing like in age in real time as we're in this relationship, some of the things that um you would attest to being a girlfriend or like being more modest when you with somebody were kind of coming into play and they needed to. But other things as far as just like dimming my personality or trying to be what would be considered as a good girl, he found me on PV at the stage. I was on the stage. I wasn't in the crowd, I was on the stage. Right. He knows who I am, right? Like it is nothing about that that was hitting. You know what I mean? On the stage in the Leotard at that. I was on the stage in the Leotard. This was a Halloween, and I was a lipper.

SPEAKER_02 14:28

Baby, I'm like in a cancel. Yeah, in the cancel. Yeah, like yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:32

You and see why I got something caught. Love to get them. Love a cancel bookie. Then I take them out of here and take it. And that's how like I didn't want to lose a little bit of my identity. So I had to start learning. Because at first I did go in, like, all right, now I'm in a relationship, shut all that off. Right. You don't need to be doing none of that, none of that, none of that. You know what I'm saying? But I find kind of like you said, I had to find a healthy balance because I like being with my man, but I like going out and I like having fun. Yeah, yeah. But there is like limits to it, which I can respect. Yeah. Because I need to respect myself as a woman in that nature. So that's why the it's not because, oh, he made me and he's saying this is not what you should be doing. It's more so like, mmm.

SPEAKER_02 15:16

Fine-tuning yourself.

SPEAKER_00 15:17

Yeah, if this was to go back to him, like, would I would it look good or would it sound good? How would I explain that? Or what you know, so I didn't I just didn't want to be that that out there at that point. I got you. Um, what what was one thing you specifically remember doing that you don't really do that much no more?

SPEAKER_01 15:38

I had to think about that. What you think? Um one thing that I used to do.

SPEAKER_00 15:44

I mean, I used to be a twerkaholic. I used to go to twerk classes. I used to, um, he even told me the other day, like, you ain't got it like you used to. Cause I used to just dance all the time. Like, dance everywhere, go to dance classes, even hip-hop classes. Like, you know how you see the little Chinese kids up in there? Yeah. I was doing that. Like, I was very, very much into myself. Very much into like, I guess you could call it conceited in a way, because I was always in the gym. Like, that was one thing. I was uh very concerned about my appearance and how people thought of me. But then I started thinking, like, who am I doing it for? Like, am I doing it for me? Am I doing it for other people? And that's when I got to start narrowing down what I really liked and what I really didn't. Go ahead, Monsieur.

SPEAKER_02 16:30

No, I wasn't finna say. Okay, uh, one thing I couldn't say, I was very like, when when I'm I'm trying to think about when before I was with Carrie. So I was still in college before I was with him. And like me and my friends, we used to always have a lot, like it would be me and my friend, like me and Bree. Yeah. And nothing but dudes. Like, just we always find it just I don't know why, but it was just like all of us, we would have friends that was dudes, like real dudes, people we never slept with. Like just friends that was dudes. And so now I don't really have friends that's dudes no more like that, and that I just hang out with and all that.

SPEAKER_00 17:05

I can agree to that too.

SPEAKER_02 17:06

That's probably one thing that I'm just not doing now. Not because you don't want to or because you feel like it's not right? Just because, like, I don't know how that would be cultivated, like as far as a friendship with a man. Like, how where would I meet you if I met you somewhere? How could, you know, like in school, men friendships that came naturally. Like, we might have met at the rack. We might have had a class together, we had a group project one time and then we bonded out for that. Like now it's like outside of work, why would I be really even, you know? So it just don't happen as natural as possible.

SPEAKER_00 17:39

And I don't hang with co-workers, yeah, exactly. So I don't hang with co-workers, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:43

It just don't happen as natural.

SPEAKER_00 17:45

You got anything you remember doing differently?

SPEAKER_01 17:47

I I think what I did differently was I kind of cut back on hanging out with the good good girlfriend so much. So um it comes a time that you uh outgrow things as you're growing. Like I say, you start relationships at 20, you know, you're gonna go through cycles from 20, 30, 40, 50 if you're still with the same person. So I think yeah, I our over time that kind of diminished a little. And when I said independent, I didn't mean just for good good to have good good girlfriends. I meant to just basically what you said, to have your identity. I didn't want my identity taken because I was marrying somebody.

SPEAKER_00 18:30

Right, right, right.

SPEAKER_02 18:31

Right. Well, now you kind of manage it. I feel like you you're doing a little bit better with managing wife, Carla, and then friend. Because like you you make a point to playing things with your friends and make sure you follow through with them. And it's not like, oh, I'm only with my man. It's like, no, I have friends.

SPEAKER_00 18:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:50

You know, and then you know, too, I I feel like you have to, as women, do that because I feel like men, they don't stop being friends with their friends. No, they don't. They don't stop going on their trips, they don't stop going on their outings, they don't stop, and and I think it's sometimes it's naturally, natural, especially when you love your man, you've been wanting to be in your man's skin. I I I seen a bit of a uh meme, and it was like, I want to be his veins. But at this point, I I can agree, sis. I just want to and having a time a little bit of my attitude. I had the, I was talking to my therapist, I said a little bit of my attitude, like, I just want him to be in my veins. Like I want to be. Right, right, right, right, right. And they just don't work like that. And it's just sometimes they love us and it don't take away from how much they care about us, but they don't have that type of attachment to us like that we have to them.

SPEAKER_00 19:33

And speaking of attachment, I don't think that I'm not gonna say this is for all women, but I don't think a good majority of women actually build their identity around men. I think that, like you said, it's when they get with them. It's like you you just started, that's just how it started happening. Like, like you said, I want to be around my man. That's why I'm with them. Yeah, first thing. Yes. When you ready to move in. Yes. I got that bad. I need to stop. Laura, y'all don't listen to me on that part.

SPEAKER_02 20:01

Like, why you don't want to marry me?

SPEAKER_00 20:03

Who's the first one to say I love you? It's crazy. Because I be like, I know. I know it was you.

SPEAKER_02 20:09

It was probably me.

SPEAKER_00 20:10

You probably look, and you deny show.

SPEAKER_02 20:14

Like, I'm thinking about back when we before we got married, because why would you want to marry me? What's stopping you? Like, I'm asking all the questions.

SPEAKER_00 20:20

Like, so you think women, do you think women build their identity around preparing for a relationship instead of like being their full selves, going to college, getting a degree they want, getting a job, you know? Because I think I think our main reason for doing that is women who desire children, it's our time clock, so they say. That's one reason women want to jump in today. I gotta have a baby before this time, or I gotta do this and do that before this time. But I feel like we the only ones held to that standard in this one lane without saying you can still drive past this and go get the degree and work the job you wanna and have the friends you want to have and do what you want to do without parking at this rest place for so long.

SPEAKER_01 21:04

I think that's how you get a man, though. We wonder how to get a man, it's you doing you.

SPEAKER_00 21:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:10

And on the way to you doing you, somebody's gonna see that, and that's gonna be what concrieves them about you.

SPEAKER_00 21:21

Yeah, I wish more women realized that because I feel like they park at the rest place and they flagging them down. Look at me, look at me, look at me. I gotta be booting, yes, he's gonna stop.

SPEAKER_01 21:30

That's not what stops a man. Yes, not a real one anyway. And if it does stop him, he's gonna rest there and keep on going. Not a one that might be ready to marry you in due time. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:40

Um, I was just about to say something. Oh, and I think I don't think, I think some of it is a biological time clock, women be worried about that. Yeah, but a lot of times I feel like women be worried about what it looks like to have a married be married. What it speaks to. I think people, women in particular, they equate having. A successful relationship, a marriage, or not even successful, just a marriage in a relationship, period to success. They have reached that peak. That's that is a lot of women's goal. Like that's their ceiling. They they have they they re they think they don't think about their self in terms of where do I want to be in life. They think about if I'm here, if I have a man, if I have a ring, if I have a family, this is what, this is the this is it.

SPEAKER_00 22:23

This is the end all the be all right here. And that's like us, uh, like we talked about a couple weeks ago. That's us trying to keep up with um the societal norms. Women are the ones who are like pressed to, oh, you gotta do this right, you gotta do this right. Men don't mind, you know, diverting from the plan. They fuck up, they might go to prison and have a baby mom and if they don't really, they pass that bitch up, go to the next. I will still get married. I will still find the person that I like. I was still like they don't mind to divert from their plan. And women, I feel like we have a such of a pressure to do everything right the first time. Yes. Like, get it right. Or you, you know, you must have been taught, you ain't got no daddy, you ain't this, you ain't that. It's like we're allowed to have those same little hiccups.

SPEAKER_02 23:05

We're allowed to. I had written this down and I really was thinking about this last night because I was like, some women feel like having a man means they're desirable. They if you don't have a man, that means that you're not desirable in some women's eyes. They feel like um that means that they're healed, they're mature, that they're feminine, that, that they're winning in life. So whenever it's whenever like they don't have that, that means that you have failed. And you know, we talked about um having like the the guilt versus the shame. People wear that I don't have a man. I'm I'm ashamed. Yeah, they gotta, they're gonna think something's wrong with me, because who don't who don't have a man? So I think a lot of times that's what women are up against. The shame that if they feel not having a man. That's true. They think that they have to, that completes you. And you you saw my post from years ago. I let it be very clear. You did not complete me, Carrie Jones.

SPEAKER_00 23:55

Oh my god. You met me. I was like, why she had to say that in the this is supposed to be a loving caption of an anniversary post. She said, I was complete when you met me, but I'm glad you came. Yeah. What the hell? Yeah, let you, I let these. She ain't gonna let nobody have it, not even a little bit. Like, this girl don't play. I had to point that out to her because I'm like, girl, you ain't let them, you ain't say you was my other half or nothing. Like, but that's good though. Already whole. You gotta be. That's good though. Yeah, because it's no point to like, like you said, that's the way you get them. If you ain't got your eye on, I mean you the one who just you got your eye on yourself, you doing your best, that is when they really want you. And I'm telling you, they'll be on your road. Why do you think they be on them nurses like that? Yeah, that's why they be on them nurses.

SPEAKER_01 24:42

You taking care of your business, you becoming self-sufficient. So when he comes, he don't have to look for somebody that's already begging, yeah. You know, saying what's I don't say that.

SPEAKER_00 24:51

They the girls are. No, no, say that. That's what they're doing at this point. They're not doing it the way that we talking about it.

SPEAKER_01 25:03

Now they on your phone crying and Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:07

Yeah. Yeah. That's where we get these TikTok stories times from. Yeah. From from people who who just, you know, oh he was he had a nice amount of like that's that, and I hate that that's what's being taught to the young girls right now, because I see a bunch of them in the future getting into stuff that they ain't gonna be able to work their way up out of and unless, you know, they have something real. Trying to get somebody.

SPEAKER_01 25:32

Yes. By by somebody else hard working hands, you know.

SPEAKER_00 25:36

Right, right. Yeah, even though you're a woman and you dainty, like you like to have your little dainty, you know, that don't mean it's dainty shit for women to do out here. You know what I'm saying? You could be a teacher, that's dainty. You could be a nurses, is that ain't that's in the field, bitch. You you're a survivor. They do, they do.

SPEAKER_02 25:55

But they is they But I don't even think it's necessarily like hard work. I think that because everything that's like that look like you say, that's getting in the field. Some nurses look at that, it's like they can stick a needle, baby. I'm gone with the wind. Like, you know, so they make everything it's about what you really want, what's good, what fits into your life. What do you see yourself doing long term? And me, for me, I knew right on, yeah, I want this man to be all this thing. Even me knowing that unconsciously, I want this man, but I also want to be able to be that woman. Yeah, I want to be able to say, baby, you don't got it. Oh, here you go. Boom. I didn't win and I got my degree. I'm working hard too. And I want to be able to, I don't want to be looked as needed.

SPEAKER_01 26:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:37

I want to be, I want to be able to be taken care of, but I don't want you to feel like, damn, I I I gotta work 10 times harder because I know my woman, she ain't got it. She can't do it.

SPEAKER_00 26:45

And not even that, like, don't overly compensate either. Don't, don't do so much to where you telling a man, I don't really need nothing for you. We can go have for the rest of our life. What? No.

SPEAKER_01 26:56

You know, the Bible says just be a helpmate. Yes, don't do this than the assignment requires.

SPEAKER_00 27:02

Don't over, don't overdo it. And that's, I think that's a lot of the independent woman problems. Yeah. I can't I can't speak for my mama, but I can kind of see that she had a little problem relinquishing that little part of the control. Like, you ain't finna, I'm not finna give you that. Never wanted that much control. I love control. But not that one. I don't either. I ain't gonna lie to you. Especially once I got out here and seen real life, because at first I was, oh mama went mad. I was ready. I was ready to march with her, soldier. Yeah. Like, but when I got out here and I got the PV, and then she was like, Can you help on this rent? I started working at Denny's. This check ain't it. Yeah um I started trying to hang out with my friends and sell a little stuff here. We we scam and shit and selling shit here and doing like this, ain't it either. This money goes quicker than it comes. Like, what am I gonna do? Stripper it is. But no. Like that. Look, I stripped for two nights, was it one or two nights? I think I made it too. Nah, I don't I don't think I made it. That man came back from the baby, the the man that owned the club Horseman, he came back from the back with this little little G string and this little top was like, huh, baby, you can have this. I said, What am I finna put that around my ankles? Uh-uh, this ain't it, it's time to go. But that that part of trying to overcompensate, like all I needed to do was do what I was supposed to be doing, was going to school. Yeah. Was doing doing what I and then I would have found that man that looked like, oh, she doing her thing. Like, and it was a couple men that was already looking at me like that, and I was barely doing it. Like, I was up in there, I'm living um off campus, I got my own apartment and stuff. You know how that look already. Yeah, their parents taking care of them, they they able to live off campus. I'm going to school, doing this. Once you get kicked out of your your uh apartment, yeah, you can come stay on the couch. You know, I'm I'm making the way, I'm doing things. Like, if I would have just stayed on the right path and ignored the bullshit, somebody would have been like, oh yeah, that's a good woman. That's a wife.

SPEAKER_01 29:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:07

But I deterred myself from that plan. Y'all, that when y'all deter yourself from that plan, you really just slowing shit down. Yeah. Yeah, you're just slowing down the end.

SPEAKER_02 29:16

Don't get it done. Yeah. Don't get it done.

SPEAKER_00 29:17

Because if you would have thought about that, like you were 30 now thinking, dang, I should have done X, Y, and Z, blah, blah, blah. If I would have thought about that, it I graduated at 17 and went straight to college. Wow. If I would have thought about that then, like, think about all the stuff I didn't have to go through. Yeah. If you just put yourself on the right path.

SPEAKER_02 29:34

And put your head down. I feel like too, like, I I feel like you find the best man when your head is literally down doing what you're supposed to be doing, like, no matter how hard it feels at the time, like just knowing that it's all of this about to pay off. Like, it was times where because I was a December graduate as far as college is concerned. So, you know, you graduated in May. I didn't graduate in May, I was a December graduate. Yeah. So it was times that I felt like I wanted to give up. Like, man, this is too much. It's not gonna, I could just go get a job by now, and this isn't it. But you really have to stick through the hard things and like put your head down and do what you gonna do for you. Don't think about nobody. You gotta be uh at a point in your life where you kind of selfish. It's kind of hard, it's bad to say, but it's really not. You have to be selfish in order to get yourself, get yours, get your stuff accomplished. Yeah, like you gotta only think about yourself. How if I don't have a man ever in my life, what what would I do? Well how would I book how would they look for me?

SPEAKER_01 30:28

And and and and and we bring men in the equation at a very young age. Do you realize how young people are telling little girls what's your boyfriend name? Uh-huh. You got a boyfriend? Mm-hmm. At a very young age. Yeah. And I've never liked. And everything will come in the five.

SPEAKER_00 30:56

You're right about that. So many people are so okay with. I mean, I ain't gonna say it's better for little boys, but if you do that with little boys, that's I feel like that's one thing. No, no, neither one of them. You should you be actually what you want to do.

SPEAKER_01 31:09

I mean, really, about no girlfriend. They're be talking about sports. What's that? Yeah, yeah. What you want to know about. So they're not driving them in the same direction. We driving our girls. So I'm not gonna have my daughter worrying about a little boy at the age of three when he's not gonna be worrying about her until probably 30. Exactly. Look, yeah and we get involved with uh young men at 20, 18, 17. We just had a situation where a 17-year-old girl shot and killed her 20-year-old boyfriend.

SPEAKER_00 31:37

Yeah, I've seen that.

SPEAKER_01 31:38

So we're getting them involved in each other at a young age when boys cannot be emotionally connected to us like we can to them.

SPEAKER_00 31:46

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:47

So and then they even if they can, they don't wanna be. They don't want to be.

SPEAKER_00 31:51

Yeah, they want to try.

SPEAKER_01 31:52

And that's not how they raise, they raised to do the opposite of what we're telling y'all. So that's why I made the decision. I'm not teaching my daughter to be worrying about no little boy and who she's gonna marry. I mean, that'll come. And she's gonna be somebody worthy to be married to. Right, right, right.

SPEAKER_00 32:09

Because you're telling her to worry about herself. Teaching her how to putting herself on the right path. And I feel like that, like, I don't even know. Did you hear that little boy song where he was talking about the little boy that's going viral with a nine-year-old boy? Mm-mm. Well, he got a song called Miss Jackson. It's basically a nine-year-old boy, and he's going viral. And like, the basis of the song is talking about how a girl, a young girl broke his heart, and now he's like focusing on other stuff. And like, that kind of is men villain story, but they always worry about themselves all the way through. Like, women, that happened to us, and we feel like we could the next one we know what to do better. We're gonna try it again and we know what to do better this time.

SPEAKER_02 32:47

That's their attitude. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:49

I don't know why that's why I know we're nourishing, but I don't know why we place that kind of responsibility on ourselves.

SPEAKER_02 32:56

Like because we want to, because that we have connected our identity to having a man. If I have a man, I am complete. We we all really believe that. Well, a lot of women really believe that. That I have to, I I gotta get you right. Because if I don't get you right, then I'm not gonna have you. And if I don't have you, then that you get what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_00 33:16

Yeah, yeah. And I just watched uh, you know, I said I'll be watching the Karama show. I just watched the episode where he literally had to tell the lady, no, don't say nothing else about him. She's like, I wanna do this because he, he, and I only do this because he, he, she, he had to say, I don't want for the next two, three minutes you're on this stage, I don't want you to say anything else about him and notice the broken parts of you that's allowing him to do it. To do this. Like, and that's I think that kind of self-reflection for women is imperative to how you get through life. If you don't self-reflect on the what what what that inner child for you asking for, you know what I'm saying? Did if you did you need your your mama or your daddy to say something specific to you so you wouldn't be hoping he said that? Right. And you can focus on school and whatever, if it ain't school, if it's a trade or getting a job or whatever you need to focus on to better yourself, you need to kind of think about that and really assess that. So back to us. If um a relationship never came along, what would your life still um feel meaningful? If you never got married.

SPEAKER_01 34:26

For me it would, but I'm kinda different. I didn't grow up saying I want to get married and have kids. That wasn't my story. My story was I looked up to a big cousin who was successful, went to graduated from high school, went to college, and got employed by an oil company in in Houston. Drove a car that was nice. So that's what I was looking for. Uh I was in college when I met my husband. So I got tricked out of my spot.

SPEAKER_00 34:59

You want to be in a badly truck, huh? You want the, yeah, I feel that. What about you? What's the question again? Um, if a relationship never came along, would you still feel like your life is meaningful?

SPEAKER_02 35:10

Oh, definitely. I still feel like my life, I feel like I'm able to live my life how I want to live my life now. But I also think that I set this up because I I when I was looking at your show notes, and the reason I said this is good is because it reminded me that I'm doing everything that I I need to do in life, and I wanted to do in life. And and I say that because a lot of times uh married people, married women my age, they are miserable. I don't I never put a lot of responsibility on me being a woman and being a wife and being a mom. I deal with my child, how I want to deal with her. Not saying that I hope they don't come out wrong, but I deal with her in a way that. She got a daddy too. It's 50-50. So that's how I set my life up. I never made him feel like I gotta, I never, I'm not doing, I, and I I learned this from uh older women. You don't start nothing, you can't finish. I'm not starting nothing that with you that I can't finish. And that's how I feel about my relationship. I don't tell Carrie when I'm leaving the house. If I'm going to the store, if I'm going out or say he there and he ain't looking like he making a move to leave, it ain't nothing I need to tell you.

SPEAKER_00 36:14

Right.

SPEAKER_02 36:14

Because this you won't tell me. You ain't, you know what I'm saying? I ain't practicing. Well, can you watch? I'm not asking you to watch your child. I'm not asking you to take your child no bath. The same doctor's appointments. Carrie know how to make Corey a doctor's appointment. Yeah. He takes her to the dentist. Corey probably, Carrie probably, I ain't gonna lie, he probably do more motherly than me. Yeah. And my mama sitting right here, she probably agreed that Carrie is gonna, but I set that up because I didn't want to be this older, married woman and feel like I was beat down mentally, beat down with the the um the invisible task of being a a wife, a mom, and all those things. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 36:49

The constraints you put on yourself in your mind, because this is not nothing that he said, oh, you gotta do. And if he is, that ain't the man you need to be with. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 36:56

But don't definitely be the one I need to be with. Right.

SPEAKER_00 36:59

Because I need some freedom around here. Yeah, if a man telling you you gotta you gotta watch kids, because I don't watch, like, I don't know who they was that celebrity with Nelly. You're talking about he don't change diapers.

SPEAKER_02 37:09

Oh, yeah, you change them.

SPEAKER_00 37:10

Baby look you changed them. But you don't want no kids.

SPEAKER_02 37:12

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 37:13

You don't want no kid. Look, you don't want no kids. I don't know what else to say to you, baby. You gonna change some diapers. Like so, like you said, that mental constraint you kind of put on yourself, that would you weigh yourself down by not just saying what you want up front. Yeah. Because that's as simple as it's.

SPEAKER_02 37:28

My friend, she always says this, and she's recently divorced, and I be on her when she be like, marriages only benefit the men. I don't feel that way. I feel like it only benefits the women, man when you with a self-centered man, when you with a man that you can't live who you are with, you can't, he don't want to do nothing. You you only the only thing you can say that you don't have to do is not go to work because he makes all the rules and he make he make all the money. I don't live that type of life. I don't think that my husband benefits more. I think my husband actually benefits more. Um, I benefit more from this situation, actually. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:00

And if you go in with the right boundaries, hell, you ain't gotta be the one that's gonna be.

SPEAKER_02 38:04

Yeah, and we really benefit now that I think that we benefit equally.

SPEAKER_00 38:07

Right.

SPEAKER_02 38:08

You able to live your life, I'm able to live the life that I want. You actually do it. Carrie actually told um, I can't remember who he was talking to. He actually just told somebody that, oh, we were just talking. He was like, I live the life that I want to live. I'm able to go take my child. He's he said it compared to his childhood growing up, not seeing his family because they're working, his mom because they have, yeah, she has to work and provide for them. He able to do both. He able to provide, and he he really thanks God for the relationship that he had with his daughter. He able to take his daughter to school, he able to have conversations that nobody was able to have with him with his daughter on the way to school. I helped that nigga do that. Because I ain't taking her. No, I just no, like I motivated this life for both of us. Like, I want both of us to live a stress-free life. You gonna take her to this? Okay, well, on this day I have to take her to here. I have to like we working together.

SPEAKER_00 38:54

Yeah, yeah. We ain't working against each other, yeah. Or something working alone. Yeah, ain't nobody working alone. Everybody pulling their weight. Okay, so for our last sip, these are just like rapid fire questions that y'all can give me y'all answers to. Okay. So, what's the biggest lie women tell themselves while dating? He's gonna change.

SPEAKER_01 39:12

He's not gonna cheat again. Oh, yeah. That's what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_03 39:17

He's gonna cheat again, mom.

SPEAKER_02 39:18

If he cheats once, he's gonna do it again.

SPEAKER_00 39:24

Pretty much. Yeah. Pretty much. Okay. A man is in trouble when she starts to. You ain't give us one for the first time. Oh. The biggest lie women tell themselves by that. Yeah, he's gonna change. Oh, or or I can fix him. I when I said this the other day on somebody's post that women think that they got some kind of magical coochie. Yeah, you know, like this is nothing. He ain't never had nothing like this before. You know, he ain't coochie. The coochie is the same.

SPEAKER_01 39:54

That nigga won't. I used to say that uh if you think that's what's gonna keep a man, that and a baby, they think good coochie and a baby will keep a man and it wine.

SPEAKER_00 40:02

They they really think it's different from one of us to the next. No, girl, that is a body part.

SPEAKER_02 40:07

And that's why I told y'all the other time we was on the show. You was like, uh, what would you uh trade in? And I'm like, I could get another that another wine. I could get one, I can teach you what to do and everything. Like, it ain't nothing to it ain't nothing to switch about.

SPEAKER_00 40:21

We everybody got one of them. Yeah, everybody got that. Okay, a man is in trouble when she starts to stop asking questions. Oh I had something for this one. I'ma say when she starts to um check out and start doing her own. I know. Oh, a man is in trouble when she starts to live her life again.

SPEAKER_02 40:48

Oh, yeah. Because I feel like a lot of times women do put their lives on hard. Not me, but a lot of women do put their lives on hard for men. So when she starts going out with the girls again, there you go. Yeah, she going outside again, yeah, it's over for you niggas.

SPEAKER_00 41:02

Yeah, and she ain't communicating with you, yeah. You might want to start. Yeah, you might as well follow the bitch. Look, she she is checked out.

SPEAKER_02 41:12

When she starts taking a bath as soon as she gets home, I got a list.

SPEAKER_00 41:16

When she starts, no, let me stop. I know for real, it can go on, it can go off. What's the one lesson you wish every woman could learn before her next relationship? Do you and do you hard?

SPEAKER_01 41:30

Do you and do you hard. Learn you. Ooh. Yeah.

unknown 41:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:36

Learn you. Yeah. Because before you get the asking from somebody else. And then that's another thing, women. Y'all be having them jumping through all these loops and holes, and you don't even want that after he got it for you. Yeah. You don't even so, like you said, learn. That's a good one. That's a good one. Yeah. I'ma I'ma agree with that one. Learn you because you gotta know what you're asking for before you get to asking everybody for everything.

SPEAKER_01 42:00

And sometimes that means you got to be by yourself for some season. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's not no quick fix.

SPEAKER_00 42:06

Yes, God requires that for you to go alone sometimes and have your little family, friends. You know, you gotta stop asking everybody what you think about this. What you just go by yourself and see what you think about it.

SPEAKER_02 42:17

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 42:18

Go see what you think about it. If you sit there long enough, I promise you what God will give you an answer. You will accumulate the answer about what you think about it.

SPEAKER_02 42:25

He'll give you a revelation confirmation.

SPEAKER_00 42:28

It's gonna it's gonna pop up. Yeah, it's gonna pop up.

SPEAKER_02 42:30

Because he definitely gave me this off topic, but he definitely gave me confirmation with what she said. That scripture, and that scripture be in the scripture we read this morning. Go, yeah, make you a great name.

SPEAKER_01 42:40

Yes, and then the season that I'm in, confirmations come more than we realize. Yes, because we're not always in tune. Yes. But confirmation, you I feel like they everywhere.

SPEAKER_00 42:50

I just don't be wanting to say, I don't want to be the one that's dramatic. Like I uh I turn on a song and that motherfucker say, uh, leave your nigga if he don't do it. I don't want to be that irrational, but it be like that, like it be like that. You heard this song a million times, but now that lyrics everything go about to knock on my head. She still enough. She still in the city. Look, I know, nigga. I'm telling you, I be telling, look, you ain't gotta kill a nigga or nothing, but let me know. For real. This was good though, y'all. We gotta bring the Porsche podcast up to the real seats every now and then.

SPEAKER_02 43:31

Yeah, we gotta make this a regular thing.

SPEAKER_00 43:33

Yes, yes. Y'all done got the meeting.

SPEAKER_02 43:35

She was a little quiet today, but she got but she threw them in there.

SPEAKER_00 43:39

Yeah. She threw them in there when she needed to. She threw them right in there. I was like, yeah, that's why we gotta move that's what we gotta for. That's what we gotta for. Well, y'all, I hope y'all enjoyed this week's cup. Hope we filled it up. See y'all next week.

SPEAKER_02 43:53

Next time. Bye, y'all.