This is an iHeart Podcast.
Do we really need another podcast with a condescending finance bro trying to tell us how to spend our own money?
No, thank you.
Instead, check out Brown Ambition.
Each week I, your host, Mandy Money, gives you real talk, real advice, with a heavy dose of, I feel, uses.
Like on Fridays when I take your questions for the BAQA.
Whether you're trying to invest for your future, navigate a toxic workplace, I got you.
Listen to Brown Ambition on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
I just think the process and the journey is so delicious.
That's where all the good stuff is.
You just can't live and die by the end result.
That's comedian Phoebe Robinson.
And yeah, those are the kinds of gems you'll only hear on my podcast The Bright Side.
I'm your host, Simone Boyce.
I'm talking to the brightest minds in entertainment, health, wellness, and pop culture.
And every week, we're going places in our communities, our careers, and ourselves.
So join me every Monday and let's find the bright side together.
Listen to The Bright Side on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hey guys, it's AZ Fudd.
You may know me as a gold medalist.
You may know me as an NCAA national champion.
You may even know me as a people's princess.
Every week on my new podcast, Fud Around and Find Out.
I'll be talking to some special guests about pop culture, basketball and what it's like to be a professional athlete on and off the court.
Listen to Fud Around and Find Out a production of iHeart Women's Sports in partnership with Unanimous Media, on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
On this show.
I've been so lucky to sit down with some of the greatest experts on the planet, from when it comes to marriage, to romance chemistry compatibility, some of the therapists that are working with hundreds of clients worldwide, and people in the public eye who've opened up about their own experience.
You're going to get to hear from all of them in just a moment, so make sure you stick around.
The number one health and wellness podcast.
Jay Shetty.
Jay Shetty.
He won the only Jay Shetty.
Ha ha.
When it comes to building a lasting marriage, most people think it starts with romance or chemistry, but it's actually something else.
The real foundation to a lasting marriage is emotional resilience.
Think about this.
Nearly half of all marriages in the US still end in divorce.
The number one reason isn't a lack of love.
It's a breakdown in trust and communication.
That's where everything starts to fall apart.
In this episode we're going straight to the heart of it why people cheat and why they stay, why forever isn't a promise, it's a practice, and how redefining love might be the key to saving it.
What you'll hear isn't fluff or wishful thinking, just hard earned truths and relationship saving lessons.
Jada Pinkett Smith breaks down how marriage isn't a fixed identity.
It's a spiritual evolution.
She opens up about separation, reconciliation and the patterns from childhood that shape adult love.
The real lesson is this.
You don't just arrive in marriage.
It's not a finish line.
You keep choosing each other over and over as you both grow and change, even when life gets messy.
Especially with big life changes.
One study found that 67 of couples report being less satisfied in their marriage after having children, unless they work intentionally to reconnect.
As she describes here, you don't need a perfect partner.
You need a partner willing to grow with you.
We really look at our marriage as being the cornerstone of family.
We're both kind of coming up with different definitions of what marriage means for us.
We're still figuring all of that out.
The beautiful part is that there's been some really deep healing going on.
Yeah.
I mean, at the end of the day, that's what it's about.
Marriage is so much about growth.
Like really learning how to grow emotionally, like emotional maturity, spiritual maturity.
And there's this spiritual bond there.
I mean, we've tried our best to get away from each other.
I mean, our best. and we just don't want to.
So we are defining it the way that works for us.
And I think getting comfortable with not being concerned about what anybody else thinks about it.
We have this life partnership and every day we're trying to figure out what that means.
You've both talked about how you feel like you're a mirror for each other.
Yeah.
And when I've spoken to Will as well, it's like he feels like you're the person who knows him to his core.
Absolutely.
And he knows you to your core.
Like, you know, everything.
Yeah.
Potentially there is to know about each other.
Everything.
And you're obviously still learning.
Yeah.
What's really interesting about that is some people would say, well, why not just get divorced?
Yeah.
Everybody's always like, why don't you just get divorced?
And it's like, that's like quitting.
I don't step out. all of the different ways that they're trying to figure it out.
I know so many people who are like married, but not living together.
Married, but have decided to have other partners.
I know so many people and have for a long time that are trying marriage in so many different forms.
And my whole thing is figure it out for you.
Marriage is not a cookie cut out like a formula.
Besides, I do think that there's some staples, you know, love.
Even that, let me take that out for a second.
There's some people who are married strictly for business purposes.
I've seen that too.
As long as there's agreement between two people and how they decide they want to be together.
Stay out of it.
It has nothing to do.
I tell people all the time, don't look at my marriage as being contagious.
Whatever I'm doing doesn't mean you got to be doing that.
You got to be doing the thing that works for you.
And I feel like every partnership, two people have the right to figure that out for them.
And it's so different in norms and different cultures and different backgrounds.
I mean...
Like for me and Radhi.
We spend a lot of time apart because she likes to be back with her family in London and I travel for work.
And so we discovered and agreed very early on in our relationship That when I work she would often visit her family back in London, and she loves it.
And she wants to be with her mom and dad and her niece and nephew and her sister and brother-in-law and everyone.
And I love my purpose and I want to be traveling.
I want to be working.
I want to be moving.
And I remember so many times in our relationship, people would be like, is everything okay?
Yeah.
And then we'd go back to London.
People were like, why is your wife not with you?
Or people were like, why is Jay not with you?
And everyone starts thinking that there may be something going on and it's actually like well no, this was our agreement.
This is something we've sat and talked about and figured things out.
And actually we love distance because we get excited to see each other again.
It's refreshing.
It works for us.
And again, it may not work for anyone else.
Someone may say, I need my partner by my side every day.
Fair enough.
And someone may say, I want to travel more than you do or less.
The point was we had an agreement that worked for us.
And I think, getting to know you both, I can honestly say that I feel like you guys are both always honest and communicative with each other on what your agreements are.
Absolutely.
And that's what we have been discussing today as well.
That, you know, there's always been that that openness to do that.
Oh, yeah.
Well, I talk about it a lot in the book.
Absolutely.
And I think that a lot of people had a lot of misunderstanding, as we talked about earlier, I believe, in regards to Open relationship and being able to be with whoever you want.
No, that's not what was happening.
And I think a lot of times that people just didn't know that we had agreed to not be together as we were trying to figure out.
Are we going to be separated?
Are we going to be divorced?
Then we would reconcile and then we would break up again.
And it's all this back and forth between us that we didn't share with the world a lot.
You know what I mean?
You know, as I'm on my path and Will's figuring his thing out, we've decided to hold space for each other.
When news broke earlier this year that baby KJ, a newborn in Philadelphia, had successfully received the world's first personalized gene editing treatment, it represented a milestone for both researchers and patients.
But there's a gripping tale of discovery behind this accomplishment and its creators.
I'm Evan Ratliff and, together with biographer Walter Isaacson, we're delving into the story of Nobel Prize winner Jennifer Doudna, the woman who's helped change the trajectory of humanity.
Listen to Aunt CRISPR, the story of Jennifer Doudna with Walter Isaacson on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
The Super Secret Bestie Club Podcast Season 4 is here.
And we're locked in.
That means more juicy chisme.
Terrible love advice.
Evil spells to cast on your ex.
Hey!
No, we're not doing that this season.
Oh.
Well, this season we're leveling up.
Each episode will feature a special bestie and you're not going to want to miss it.
Get in here.
Today we have a very special guest with us.
Our new super secret bestie is the diva of the people.
The diva of the people.
I'm just like, text your ex.
Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Psychotherapist Laurie Gottlieb challenges the fantasy of a blind love.
If you can't talk about marriage, money, and the future before the proposal, you're not ready.
More than 53 of couples split because of too much conflict and arguing, while more than 70 break up because of a lack of commitment.
It's impossible to form true commitment and conflict resolution without open and honest communication.
The takeaway, it's easier not to be honest when the topic is uncomfortable.
But vulnerability requires honesty.
And ultimately, clarity is the most loving thing you can offer your partner.
Our community had a lot of questions around was what's the right amount of pressure for someone to get married or propose to you?
Because I think people get to this point where they feel like we've invested so much time, we're together, we're here, but this person is just not proposing they don't want to get married, whatever it may be.
And that gets to this point of this ultimatum of like, and now there's even a TV show called The Ultimatum, which is all about people dealing with that period in their life.
So what does someone do in that scenario where they feel there's good commitment, we're getting somewhere, but the other person isn't showing this excitement, enthusiasm or even taking action on taking this relationship to the next level?
This is like that birthday party thing where you feel like the other person should just know, but we're not communicating about it.
The fact that people don't talk about whether they want to get married before a proposal happens is insane to me.
I'm glad you said it.
It makes no sense that it shouldn't be a total surprise.
You should know that you are both on the same page and you should know that the other person is definitely going to say yes.
That you've talked about this.
So many people come to me for premarital therapy where they can talk about because they know they want to get married and maybe they're not even having any problems.
They just want to talk about their families and how they're going to blend their families and the in-laws and the siblings, and this person and this personality.
Or they want to talk about money.
Or they want to talk about whether they want to have kids and how many, how that might work, or they wanna talk about balancing their careers.
Or they wanna talk about sex and all the different things that might be hard to talk about before you get married, that are so important.
And they might not have the answers right now, but they're learning how to talk about these challenging topics.
And people say, oh, you're in therapy and you're not even married yet.
Something must be terribly wrong.
It's like, no, something's terribly right.
And so the fact that people are saying like I really want this person to propose, but I don't understand why they're not and they don't feel like they can ask the person, means you are not ready to marry that person.
If you don't feel like you can bring this up and say, where are we?
We've been together for this amount of time.
I'm feeling this.
I'm wondering where you are with this.
And the person you'll get so much information from, I do want to marry you.
I don't feel ready yet because of this, but I think I will feel ready in six months.
Right?
And then you have a choice.
Do you want to wait for that or do you not want to wait for that?
Or never.
Or they might say, actually, I don't know how I feel about getting married.
I don't know if I'm going to come around to that.
You have a choice about what you want to do with that.
I, you know, oh, I didn't realize that I thought I did want to get married, but now I'm not so sure.
Well, that's really important to know.
Why?
What's happening between us?
So that conversation is so important.
Or do you just want to sit there scheming with your friends about how you can drop hints or how you can, like analyze the behavior, because the person did this and what does that mean doesn't sound like the kind of marriage you want to be in.
Don't you want to be in the kind of marriage where you can say to the person hey, this is what I'm desiring.
This is what I'm wanting.
Where are you with this?
If that's such a basic conversation, But that's so much healthier than an ultimatum too, because I think we also get again.
It goes back to what we were talking about earlier.
You haven't given that regular check-in.
You haven't touched base.
You don't really know what that person's belief system is around marriage or whatever else it may be.
And all of a sudden, it's built up for you as this big thing.
And now you're like, okay, well, either you marry me or we're over.
And then that's not comfortable for that person either because now they feel
