 for any of that anymore. Please keep in mind that neither myself nor this man had ever been married or had children. I found it odd that he was in his mid-40s and had never been married or had any kids, but it appeared that he had spent a large portion of his life working on his careers. Yes, two careers. He had one bachelor's, one master's, and he was in school obtaining a second master's degree throughout the entirety of our relationship. Anyways, we met online in July of 2021 and instantly started regularly dating slash courting. He asked me to be his girlfriend after two to three weeks, and I said yes. One of the things I really liked about him was that he made it very clear in the courting phase that he wanted to be married and started family in the near future. I asked him how soon did he consider the near future, and he said I could honestly see myself proposing to a woman within six months to a year in my next relationship. I thought six months sounded like a bit of a rush, but the fact that he had a timeline in his head was something I could at least appreciate. Things started out great, but around the five to six month mark, things got really rocky and we had a horrible rough patch where I felt incredibly disrespected and a lot of hurtful things transpired. He had just bought a new home and was under a lot of stress, so I'm not sure if that caused his emotions to shift, but regardless, he had a few anger outburst that freaked me out. I caught him in two lies. One was huge and he became very nasty and rude to me at times. I left him, but after several weeks of him apologizing and trying to get me back, I gave him a second chance. One of the lies I caught him in was that he actually used to be married. This turned into a humongous fight, and I'll be honest, I never truly forgave him for this lie, even after I took him back. I tried, but he betrayed my trust in such a major way that it always subsided in the back of my mind. After I took him back, things honestly were great. We never had any issues after that rough patch and he went back to treating me like the kind and respectful man I had met. Sometimes we would have petty disagreements, but nothing major. Then in February 2022, my mom asked me if I would be interested in moving back to Florida to help out with some major familiar, familiar issues. My grandma was dying on hospice, and later my mom found out she was diagnosed with cancer. I decided to move back to Florida a few months later to help my family out. And even though I told him I thought it would be best to end the relationship due to the distance, he said he wanted to stay together and make it work. I moved and our relationship went long distance. This was at the nine month mark. We both agreed that I would only move back to Texas if we got engaged. I honestly like living in South Florida more than Texas. But of course, I would move back for love. The only issues we had once I moved was that sometimes his communication was lacking. But that was really it. He visited every few weeks, usually every two months. We went on vacations and our relationship got even stronger. We regularly talked and he became extremely supportive and loving as time passed. He met my mother and grandma on one of his visits and he had my mom and he and my mom built a nice rapport with one another. He would send me money if I needed it. And he became my emotional rock during these hard times. I also decided to get back in school during this time and he was very supportive and proud of me for that. Unfortunately, all the stress I was enduring caused me a lot of emotional issues and I ended up neglecting my mental health so badly that I ended up in the hospital. I know you don't like dealing with mental health diagnosis, but I wanted to at least mention it as it's part of my story. I ended up getting prescribed anti-depressants and anxiety meds. Fast forward a few months later, and although we had been doing well, I just didn't want to be in the relationship anymore. I grew tired of the distance. I became bored with him and I just felt really alone and isolated. He was an amazing boyfriend from afar, but I still felt alone. I don't have many friends in Florida so other than spending time with my mom and grandmother, all I did was work and go to the gym. I also was beginning to grow frustrated with him as we were coming up on 15 months and there was no sight or conversation of a proposal at all. When the topic of marriage would come up, he would sometimes act nervous and deflect and I started to feel as though he didn't truly see me as his wife. I also couldn't get past the fact that he lied to me about his previous marriage in the past. There were a few times where I asked him to please explain his previous marriage to me. I just wanted some clarity on why he lied when he got married, when he got married and why he got divorced and he would respond with irritation and become defensive with me for asking him about it. Still to this day, he has never sat me down and addressed that situation. He would always shut me down and tell me he didn't want to talk about it. The audacity. As of October 2022, three weeks before my birthday, I ended the relationship and walked away for good. We had a pretty bad breakup full of emotions and I let him know that although I loved him, I felt the relationship had run its course. I was no longer happy in it due to the distance and because he seemed hesitant on marriage, I would need to move on. I also informed him that I had really built up a lot of anger and resentment towards him regarding the lie about his first marriage and I just couldn't forgive him for that. He begged for weeks to give the relationship another chance and eventually I went off on him, asked him to please let me move on in peace and I blocked him everywhere. He sent me money on my birthday and I unblocked him to say thank you but that's the last time we really spoke. Initially, he had a birthday trip planned for my birthday but we canceled everything when I ended the relationship with him. I've been mourning the relationship ever since and I just don't know what to make of it. It's still going but I just want to read a little quick second. On one hand, our relationship had honestly grown into a very healthy, loving and gentle place and I know he loved me a lot due to how patient and sacrificial he became towards me. When I was at my lowest with my depression, he would send me the bouquets of flowers and chocolates. He would spend hours on the phone with me letting me cry and vent to him and he would speak life and positive words into my heart. Him and my mom would even talk on the phone about me sometimes and he's just like checking in with her and making sure I was in a good space. During one of my summer courses, he dedicated six weeks of his time tutoring me in an extremely difficult statistics course and because of him, I passed the course with a 93. He sacrificed so much for me because I was juggling so much, I only worked part-time and he happily paid a portion of my bills just to help me out. I was helping my mom with my grandmother working, taking courses and then once my mom developed cancer, I helped her with a lot too. He was always there for me as my supportive boyfriend and although he couldn't be here in person, he helped me out in any way he could and I do mean in any way. He flew me in town for his birthday in August and we celebrated his incredible birthday weekend together. But on the other hand, I still felt so betrayed due to the lies, the deceit and the deceit that took place in the early portion of our relationship and I was never able to fully forgive him for how much he disrespected me. I cannot believe he lied to me for six months straight and told me he had never been married when he actually had and he never ever gave me any explanation or closure to that lie. A part of me always wondered if maybe he was still secretly married but I doubt it. Before I left Texas, I spent almost every single night for six months straight at his apartment slash home and his place honestly reflected the messy home of a single man. We spent so much time together and I was introduced to all of his friends so I just don't think he had any time to hide an entire wife. He always worked a ton due to his career and remember he was in school working on another degree. I don't think he had enough time to hide his spouse. In the back of my head there was always a little voice that told me he wasn't the one due to the way he lied and hurt me in the beginning of the relationship. He always made comments about how he wanted to start a family with me but his energy never really felt honest when he would say that. What do you make of this situation? Was this a confused man? Was he a Decepticon? Was this situation where he had love for me but wasn't in love with me? Was this a situation where he had love for me but wasn't in love with me? Did he not see me as his wife? In English, can you please decode his behavior? Thank you for taking the time to read this email. Many blessings to you and your family and although I know how you grow tired of the work you do, please know that it does make a true difference in the community. Thank you. Best in business. Best in the business. This was a good one. This was a long one. Great, great amount of info here. Now, my initial feeling, I will be honest with you. My initial feeling is that you sabotaged the relationship. That's my initial feeling and my other feeling is that your mental health struggles got in the way and I can relate to it. I can relate to it. I too have mental health struggles and what I mean by that is when we have one of those minds that is overactive and we overthink and we panic and we may get anxiety or we may worry and we internalize a lot of things and we we become very needy. It's almost like we need weekly therapy or coaching and we become very burdensome and very heavy on whoever we are loving or whoever is loving us and it's because we take on so much of the world that our shoulders are so full that we find somebody else to lean on not realizing that their shoulders are also full with the burdens that they are carrying because every human is carrying some type of burden. So here you have this man who was not perfect and you are not going to meet a perfect man but at the same time what he did wasn't malicious so it's not like you found a marriage certificate with him still being married and having kids with that woman living in another house up the street or around the corner or in another state that he still was dealing with as you said you stayed with him for six months straight and you're with him every day you met all of his friends and so you're right there immersed in his life so yes whatever he had is done but he also is a lover to a certain degree of course there's no way to know a person fully through an email but i can pick up clues about men the fact that you even said that this man now being 45 years old he has been married he doesn't have kids to your knowledge but 45 years old and single you know and available as a man sometimes can get a little sketchy and it's the same for women because sometimes we don't know with women men ask that same question and women have heard that are you crazy for men it's are you crazy or do you like men we don't really ask women often over 40 who are single and available do they like women but people know that the nature of a man and how men pursue women so it gets a little questionable at times and here's what we have to think about now you got this guy he's 45 years old the fact that you said this guy would spend hours on the phone letting you cry and vent it's like that right there that says a lot to me because listen child ain't got time i ain't got the time and i'm a good man i'm a good man i ain't got the time now for my wife yeah a woman i'm dating and i'm just i'm just keeping the real with you now i'm just keeping the real with you and i ain't necessarily saying me me in the sense but i'm also saying me meaning that your your typical man and as you notice in our society we don't have a lot of exceptional men but it's gonna be hard for men to just sit on the phone for hours and listen till you cry and vent that's a good man it that when you look at the podcast when you listen to the stories of friends and family you don't hear men doing that often like my wife just got on to me two days ago about not putting my phone down while she's talking to me and so think about that now and i teach on relationships i teach on relationships and i realized man i was scrolling baby hey i'm sorry baby what okay say what you were saying again i'm putting my phone down and i'm gonna actively listen to you but the comments was so juicy baby this real to went viral the comments is going crazy i commented on somebody else post and it's so many replies to that comment i made i'm so sorry i just got stuck reading these comments but what you were saying going in going on 16 years of marriage i still am learning and that's just me being transparent with you not being the knight in shining armor so imagine this man he long distance you ain't doing nothing for him you're not adding anything to his life he's sending you money he's checking in with you he's listening to you for hours he's checking in with your mama she's not his mother-in-law he's checking in with your mama you taking care you there for you you move back for your grandma and you move back for your mama none of this has anything to do with him then we're in 2022 we're in 2022 and y'all 15 months in and you getting frustrated because there's no talk over proposal but it's only been 15 months and when you 15 months and you long distance that's kind of hard for a man to want to propose because he can't see you he can't touch you you could have a whole nother man he don't know he can have a whole nother woman you don't know it don't sound like he got a whole nother woman because you said he was studying with you he on the phone with you he giving you hours so even if he had another woman in Texas she really getting treated like the limp between his toes and we don't know if you had another man I don't know if you would admit to that don't sound like you had time for one but still this man here studying with you helping you get through statistics I don't heard horror stories about statistics class I never took that class but studying with you you credit him with your 93 and then all else he's doing with you doing for you and essentially this was the thing it was your mental and I could relate to this a lot because it's so many times that I look at something me and my wife went through and I just randomly be thinking about it and it'll it'll bother me all over again and I want to bring it up all over again now you remember that time all over again that is those of that is for those of us with mental health issues and I learned one time that sometimes when somebody is sleeping and they having a dream like they could be at a soccer game and they could be in their head they could be saying yes go yeah pass it pass it pass it but when somebody's sleep that's going to sound like and so it could sound like the person is having sex my wife be having active dreams our son who is a lot like her has very active dreams her mom has very active dreams like they talk in their sleep and I've heard her talking her sleep and a lot of times she'd be making the noises almost like she's talking but it's not coming out her mouth it sounds like she having sex because of how my mental is I don't woke her up a time or two hey what's you a what's going on over there now now who what is this and that's my mind and she'll be like listen I don't even dream she'd be knocked out she don't even realize she dreaming I don't even dream what are you talking about I'm not having no sex this is a mental thing that those of us who have those issues that we have to overcome that and guess what what I do sometimes if I hear her move I take and pretend I'm having sex and in my sleep I did this and I'll be like and to see if she's going to wake me up she don't wake me up she wide awake I know she right there I'm wide awake and I'm pretending to make noise in my sleep to see if she got mental issues too and guess what she don't she has control her mind we'll go through we've gone through in 16 years of marriage you obviously know we've gone through a lot but she doesn't bring anything up if she barely mentions it so we had an awkward situation in Cancun where I asked the guy who was trying to sell us on a timeshare is this hotel started by the cartel and being in Mexico and being in this five diamond five star whatever it was super nice hotel and resort in Cancun that was an offensive question because he like what because he Mexican he like man you basically he's like man you trying me so so we can't have money over here in Mexico only money come from the cartel not truthfully nine or ten times it started from the cartel but I wasn't offended by that because it's like a lot of black businesses come from dope money a lot of Hispanic businesses come from dope money in Miami a cocaine cowboys built up so many high raises high rises in Miami so because I used to be in the streets I was asking a very real and direct question and I'm a real and direct person my wife is not that way my son my 15 year old is not that way they were so embarrassed so last night we was looking at a commercial on tv we was looking at something oh this guy passed away and he has 75 classic cars that's about to get auctioned off and he is a minority and I was like I wonder if he from the cartel or if he just got over here and just grind it and just hustle because who got 75 cars now I know a guy living who is another minority got 75 cars and he went to prison he used to be in the streets this guy he looked like he could have used to be in the streets he died at like 84 and so when I said that all my wife said she didn't go into the argument the blow-up that we had when I asked that question in Cancun she just said yeah let's not ask that cartel question and she moved on me I would have turned into a 30 minute conversation so I share that to say some of us have mental health issues in the sense of we overthink we have anxiety and we don't have control over those things and we have to do the work to do that otherwise we will sabotage every good situation things will be going great and we will sabotage it because of the way our mind works because we always are looking for the bad we always looking for somebody to scam us somebody to get over on us and so we'll make something a thing that's not a thing and this is what it sounds like with the stress that you have in your life you the money he's sending you he's this man was sending you money you should have been on my mentor.life my mentor.life spending $25 to talk to a coach and dumping on the professional dumping on the professional that's what we fail to do a lot of times as humans there are professionals who are garbage collectors who are landfills who are there to just accept our junk but we don't dump on the professional we dump on our friend we dump on our family member we dump on our lover and they're not licensed or trained or passionate about holding our crap and that's what he was doing for you instead of a professional doing that for you and for you to have mental health issues to the point you had to go to the hospital because a lot of times I consider myself to have mental health issues I've never felt that I need to go to a hospital for you to have to go to a hospital that lets you know the depths of this and that should also give you the awareness of hey I'm not dealing with things like everybody else I have a unique mind so I have to be cognizant of the fact that I could be overthinking that I could be self sabotaging that I could be overreacting and what this man did has nothing to do with me he was married in his past he did not tell me that why wouldn't someone say that they don't say it because they're ashamed of it they don't count it as real it was a glitch in the matrix it was a mistake an accident it was young, dumb and full of wrong and it was something they did it's kind of like the body count it's a lot of women who have slept with 10, 15, 20 men 30 men, 40 men but may only count five of them because those were the five that they were coherent they were fully engaged the others they could be like oh it was a drunk night in college I'm not gonna count that I was drunk or oh I was young I was dumb it's a lot of bodies on the body count that some people don't count same thing happened with marriage yes a big deal but at the end of the day marriage is also a piece of paper marriage is also standing under arch in Vegas marriage is also so somebody could have citizenship marriage is also for economic stability or peer pressure like family pressure like marriage is not always about love in our society it's not always about this well thought out thing so this man could have just felt the pressure like you putting pressure on him 15 months in he could have felt the pressure from the woman and didn't know how to deal with the pressure and gave her what she wanted but it wasn't what he wanted so they got married and got divorced and he just looked at it like man this thing lasted a month this thing lasted six months like I'm not gonna count that yes on paper legally that it happened but I don't count that spiritually emotionally mentally so you have to realize that you're getting mad about a lie but sometimes a lie is because a person is afraid to lose something special sometimes a lie is a person acting out of a defense mechanism or trying to protect something or preserve something not all lies have mal intent we make we lie to our kids sometimes because they can't handle the truth in that moment we lie to ourselves sometimes we lie to friends and family like we lie to God and and knowing that our creator can see all so you got to understand it wasn't like he was still married and still taking care of her you didn't find any of that out now if you found that out that's totally different but he was basically erasing something in his past and not bringing it to the present and not to justify the lie but you have to understand the severity of it and understand that it has no bearing on you and him it'd be different if you had kids that's a whole responsibility that's going to have to come out of y'all join account paying child support take care of them kids but the marriage is over and done with it has no bearing on the relationship so you have an overthinking mind and you're getting mad in the present over the past and the past has nothing to do with you the past was before you and this is a problem that a lot of us have and this is how we ruin a lot of good things because we bring the past into the present and so a lot of times we could literally be it's times I could think about and I've seen men and women say this that we will take and think about the fact that our person had somebody before us and we'll get mad about it I can't believe you dated somebody before me I cannot how did you not know I was coming into your life why would you sleep with somebody before you met me and we literally will kind of go through that thought process and that is just insane but that's what we'll do and that's what you did so to be honest with you I think breaking up with this guy was a mistake because most men won't even do long distance and not only was this man doing long distance but he was doing it exceptionally well so I think you made a mistake I think you made a mistake by cutting this off I think you rushed to this decision I think you were overthinking this decision and I think you sabotaged this situation and I also believe it's going to be a lot of women that are just ticked off with you because they're sitting and praying and crying and waiting and hoping for a man to listen to them and to hear them and to be there for them and to care about them he's sending you wrote flowers and stuff sending you money you're not even his wife he's sending you money he's studying with you like he's going over above and beyond and what I also want you all to recognize in this moment is that this right here take this take on this situation is proof scream cord this pull it back a few minutes this proof that I do not pander to women I do not take sides I call it down the middle as I see it and in this case as the woman I feel like you're wrong and because it's men that's way way worse and so we got to realize and understand that so now here's the thing when you make a decision you got to live with that decision now but what I would say if this man is coming to you now and saying hey can we give this another shot like even though you kicked him to the curb I will hear him out I will hear him out because it sounds like for the most part he's a decent guy and that can even be better and that's every man you're gonna deal with some of us a hot mess and we can't get right but he sounds like he's a decent guy that can do the right thing so hey I think you're wrong on this one breaking up with him think you made a mistake I wouldn't say go back and chase him but if it just so happens to where if you sit and think about him all day he's gonna be thinking about you too just kind of way our brain patterns work so you'll notice when you're thinking about somebody and then they shoot you a text it's like we just connected on that that wavelength just how our minds are before telephones we just thought about each other and then met up in the courtyard in the city and so you got to think about if you want him to come back sometimes you're just thinking about him and he's gonna be thinking about you and then he's gonna hit you up hey just want to check on you and your mom see how y'all doing and then in that moment don't be cold say hey thank you so much how are you you know give me a call when you're free and then just start back the conversation and just see where he's at see where you are and go from there so hey thank y'all for listening again talks with Tony if you need to send an email in not sure I'll get to it but the subject line is intriguing it might jump out to me and you might get to skip the line the email address is inbox at TonyGaskin.com inbox at TonyGaskin.com make sure that you hit the like and subscribe button and the notification bell so you'll know when the next episode releases I try to batch record these so y'all understand that because I don't want to hit oh Tony got on the same hat and shirt yeah this is the business got to record and I am not gonna be switching clothes every episode so hey god bless you we'll talk soon