Grey Divorce - E28

Clancy Denton  0:00  
Welcome to the loud quiet. Ooh, empty nester. Okay. What does that mean?

Rick Denton  0:06  
I think that actually probably is the theme of the empty nest. What are we doing? Let's do this. Let's do this thing. Is this Recording? yeah Okay,

Clancy Denton  0:15  
great. Sans, children just us. we need a tissue box up here to follow along on our journey and maybe you know, we can learn from others.

Rick Denton  0:23  
I don't have a clue how to be empty nesters.

Clancy Denton  0:25  
This is the loud quiet, living the empty nest.

Rick Denton  0:30  
Welcome back, everybody, Episode 28. Thank you again, for those that are listening. Thank you for those that are following sharing. And it's been fun. And here we are at episode 28. I say that too many times. But it does somewhat amaze me. Thanks.

Clancy Denton  0:46  
Y'all stuck with it.

Rick Denton  0:50  
You can't get rid of us YouTube.

Clancy Denton  0:53  
Really do it for us.

Rick Denton  0:56  
And I guess maybe, you know, generations from now we'll have this audio and video trove of oh, that's what great great granny Denton was like, when they you know, implanted in the chip in their head and just absorb it. So. And yeah, so here we are with a unique topic today.

Clancy Denton  1:13  
Well, yes. So it is interesting, because last week before we had our content, which was ample content. I had actually been I'd actually been thinking about okay, what are some topics that we haven't really covered yet that don't necessarily affect us, but could affect others? And I actually thought about, well, you know what divorce is probably one that I'd like to explore to see what I don't want to?

Rick Denton  1:50  
Well, I don't think you can I don't think

Clancy Denton  1:57  
there's not going to be like a reveal. But, you know, I wanted to see some statistics and that kind of thing. And it was so interesting. Because Sunday in church. It was the subject the subject, what of the sermon was divorced, and I was like, Okay, interesting. So, so yeah, I just thought that I would, you know, we can talk about just what, I don't know how to put this, but we will get into what I found, and also tie it back to what you know, our lives, what we've been through in certain cases and that kind of thing. So

Rick Denton  2:45  
there's an evolution to marriage that takes its natural path that takes you to an empty nest phase. So this is, this is a conversation about a lot of that, yeah, journey.

Clancy Denton  2:54  
And that's what the, you know, when our pastor Jim was doing it last week, and he put up this chart, and we were sitting there and going, Uh huh. Uh huh. And for those of you who are listening, it was a marital satisfaction along the timeline of a marriage that, you know, stays together. And you know, when you're it starts with married without children, and it's the highest it can possibly be. Yes, very happy, very low. And it goes all the way through. And you know, the one of the first kind of low is when you have your preschool children when the oldest one is five. And, yes, we were there. I mean, we were there. We were not talking divorce, but we were struggling in our marriage. At that time,

Rick Denton  3:50  
our relationship was not a warm, connected, you know, fruitful relationship to us kind of fancy words. No, we weren't separated or anything like that. But we were definitely not connected. Yeah.

Clancy Denton  4:01  
And we knew that we needed to do something. So we did. We went away and tried to figure some things out. And obviously

Rick Denton  4:09  
what didn't and wants to fix it to travel.

Clancy Denton  4:12  
common theme. Yeah. So yeah, so we thought that this was interesting, because then as you get towards empty nest, it goes. When you're in the empty does the satisfaction goes back up for that's what you would hope that it would do. Well,

Rick Denton  4:28  
but here's the key of this graph. And that was kind of the theme that Jim was bringing into this and it's for those that stick the rain with this, right so it is empty nester retirement emptiness to the death of the first spouse is an up into the right chart for most and these are there's four different studies either way, it still goes up in a general sense. His point was stick through it. And they're dark phases and early parts of marriages. They're dark phases and middle phases and Well, turns out yeah, there's there's a story to be told in the emptiness as well,

Clancy Denton  5:00  
yeah. And that's what I discovered. I didn't even realize that it has a term. And it's called Gray Divorce, which I'd never heard of either when I saw that, because I just really Googled divorce in emptiness. And this it said, Oh, that's the Gray Divorce. So yeah, we just through the definition of what they described it as a, this was some law firm or company, I don't know. But and it's just basically law couples and long lasting marriages that start to divorce after the age of 50. Right. And the divorcing people may be called Silver splitters.

Rick Denton  5:46  
Oh, I like that. Well, I don't wait. Right. We have to caveat like everything we say,

Clancy Denton  5:53  
the terms of the terms are Yeah, so super splitter

Rick Denton  5:57  
sounds like something that you might ride at Disney or six flies. Oh, did you take

Clancy Denton  6:02  
this or lighter? A dance team? I know. You know, like, Oh, my mom has seen there's some older dance group that you know, I

Rick Denton  6:12  
think I've seen performance NBA games and stuff. Right? You get the silver here the granny dancing? Yeah. So

Clancy Denton  6:17  
yeah, so we didn't even realize that. Yeah, this is a term. And when I was doing some more research, you know, it said that the the percentages for since 1990, for people over the age of 50, has doubled in divorces, the percentages and over the age of 65 has tripled. Yeah, so and we

Rick Denton  6:44  
did talk about that, it's likely coming off of a lower numeric base. So the percentages, regardless of whether it comes off at low base or not, you have a doubling and tripling there's a trend, there's a reality here. That is a challenge for

Clancy Denton  6:57  
well, and even when I think back to when we were younger, you know, if if parents were getting divorced, it was very much oh my gosh, you know, our like our friend age group. Yeah. You know, it was not a common thing.

Rick Denton  7:13  
And I don't know if it's because we weren't aware of people that had parents that would be empty nesters, because we weren't gonna know

Clancy Denton  7:18  
I'm talking about like, like our our parent like, oh, no, you were Yes. And oh, okay. This was the I was just talking about how divorce has gotten. Oh, yeah. Monks the entire age. Absolutely.

Rick Denton  7:33  
And I think what this is showing is that it's that you have this, you have this conventional wisdom, I'd say that says if you've made it to emptiness, through all the increases that you were, we are talking about here, that the conventional wisdom as you've made it, and this has proven No, you haven't made it, there's work to be done. Right.

Clancy Denton  7:53  
And I think that's what, and I heard at a podcast this week, which was a pop culture podcast that I listened to, but they had a therapist on because one of the reality shows that I watch, one of the characters are people who have been on there since the very beginning. And she's around our age, their youngest is 16. And they are getting divorce. And I thought it was interesting listening to the therapist, she said, You know, when you've been together with someone, like we have, we've been together since our early early 20s. I mean, I was barely, you know, 21. So we have now span, you know, we're going into our third decade, together right. Now fourth, I guess, actually four

Rick Denton  8:48  
decades. If you

Clancy Denton  8:49  
think you know, we both changed individually. But if you don't continue to change together as a couple, then yeah, when you don't have the kids that are binding you then you're either going to split or she said or it's going to bring you closer together, because you've already been fostering that relationship for those past four decades. You know,

Rick Denton  9:15  
and that that made when you told me that we were talking about this yesterday, before we kind of think about what we do. And when you told me that story, it really did resonate in the sense that there's so much that the kid glue can mask and that's really what that point is, is that you could be separating individually culturally entertainment Lee, even spiritually, like you could be separating, but because you still have to come together for the kids dance, to come together for the sports come together for whatever that looks like. You have this faux rhythm of togetherness that if you're separating that in a metaphorical way, once the kid glue is gone, where are you?

Clancy Denton  9:55  
Well, and I think to just not even the Activity aspect of it. But just the things that your kids go through, if we're not on the same page, and we're not backing each other up and coming together to help them as well, you know, I think that probably, you know, that, that Bond's you. Yeah, more than you know, when you're dealing with something that your kid is going through? Or that your kid is done? Yeah. We've been on both sides.

Rick Denton  10:29  
We've had some healthy bonding. Yeah. So thanks, kids. Yeah.

Clancy Denton  10:35  
Yeah, I think that can you know, sorry, lead to, like you said, make or break. So. But yeah, so this one article I found it just had. This is from a mediation company. And we will put the, the, we'll get the links in the show notes, but it's called Echo equitable mediation.com. There. It was an ad but it had some really good things because they were like, please come to try to mediate before you take things further to trial and that kind of thing. So it's probably cheaper, easier

Rick Denton  11:13  
has a higher success rate. I don't know if he does. He does. By the way, before we get into this, I cannot wait to see what your ads are going to be going forward and your social media.

Clancy Denton  11:23  
I know. I meant to do it on the laptop instead of my I know. Yeah, you're gonna get all kinds of yummy peppered with divorce attorneys. match.com. Sure, I'm gonna get it all.

Rick Denton  11:36  
Do you know what your husband is doing today? You know, those kinds of

Clancy Denton  11:41  
trackers or take your car?

Rick Denton  11:43  
How to put an apple air tag in your husband's car? Go ahead. You'll be bored. Yeah.

Clancy Denton  11:52  
I don't know where I'd put it on your truck. Okay, anyways, but yeah, so we're talking about? And I would like to say, you and I, this week, did the two things that probably a lot of couples would cause a divorce. We went furniture shopping. And we went clothes shopping. And we made it through both totally fine. We

Rick Denton  12:19  
did. We made it through furniture shopping. We even made it through furniture, shopping, and delivery and installation. And you are helping me with the installation as well. So yes, we did survive something they wouldn't IKEA, though, that might have killed

Clancy Denton  12:32  
Oh, no. But I think we've learned that I go and do the pre I narrow it down and then you come in and go, okay, okay, or no, or whatever. So. So yeah, so, but this was 10 distinct reasons that a couple pursues divorce when they have an empty nest. And this was what this group compiled an unstable marital Foundation, we've already kind of talked about that being, well, you know, what

Rick Denton  12:59  
you bring into the empty nest will only be amplified by the existence of the empty nest. And I

Clancy Denton  13:04  
thought this was an interesting point. They said, think back to when you and your spouse, were talking about having kids. Was one of you coerced into having kids more on board with having kids was there one of you who did and they said that they are seeing is causing a big divide after the kids are gone? That's interesting. Yeah.

Rick Denton  13:26  
When you told me that, and I'm telling you that that one's interesting, because I would think that after 1820 22 years of kid raising, that would be in the past and to think that there could be a kernel of that carried forward. Now.

Clancy Denton  13:39  
The second one is too many years of marital neglect, which, you know, that happens when you have kids, they absorb all of your time, especially if you are a stay at home mom, and you're out working all day, and I am caring for them all day. You know, I still remember some study I was in Bible study. I think that you know, they called it the touch tighter. Yeah. And they're like when you've had your kids all over you all day and your husband comes home and wants to kiss or hug you and you're like, yeah, so

Rick Denton  14:15  
that is an those who are watching, I think you may have seen me physically react to the it's normal to give all of your time. I think that's the important thing. And I don't know how many people are listening that are pre empty nester in your early stages of marriage. Don't give all of your time to kids. And I will say that in phases. We did a good job of that. And it helps us today, a lot of what's described here is if you've already gotten to that point, it's too late to fix the past. But these are things that if you aren't there yet,

Clancy Denton  14:46  
you have to be going on dates. You need to be taking vacation and I get it. We again we're very fortunate. We had parents that lived close. We had another set of parents that took the kids a couple of times or sometimes but You know, my parents were heavily involved in. So as we approach being grandparents way down the line, we need to be aware of offering that support to our children as well. And I think that could be what some of our listeners are starting to get into.

Rick Denton  15:23  
Yeah, that it's not just about because you just gave me a little bit of a twist. I know, we got to speed up, certainly I could talk about these forever. But in my head, I was like, oh, that's how we connect with our grandkids and all that kind of stuff. It's that also conscious choice of this is how you're supporting your children's health and marriage, not manipulating or getting involved in answering questions or trying to tell them what to do, but just being there as support as a way to help them have a healthy marriage.

Clancy Denton  15:48  
Number three, staying together for the kids we kind of already talked about.

Rick Denton  15:52  
I've done that. Yeah. Um,

Clancy Denton  15:55  
number four.

Rick Denton  15:57  
I'm laughing about a phrase and I don't know, we may put this out or not, but we handled our choice. We didn't stick together for the kids. We said, that person that suggested divorce, had to keep the kids.

Clancy Denton  16:07  
And now it's the cat. I said that to you. Last year when we walked out of divorce. I said, Okay, new one. Whoever leaves now that's checked cat, whoever suggests divorce keeps the cat. Okay, number four differing attitudes about the empty nest? Yeah. And this one really kind of talked about, you know, a lot of it revolved around. What are you doing with your kids rooms? Did you change something? Well, we converted this playroom to our podcast. Yeah, that's video that shows. And I still remember Tegan was like, Oh, well, now What are y'all doing? I said, Okay, look at you have other rooms in this house that you can go to? So but yes.

Rick Denton  16:54  
I could see that, though. If we were misaligned on that. No, you and I were not this was there was no fight or discussion here. Yeah, I could see that. But no, no, no, we need to keep the kid stuff around. No.

Clancy Denton  17:04  
And I think and it says a couple of other examples are like, Oh, does one of you want to go on exotic vacation? And the other one does it you know? So. We

Rick Denton  17:12  
did a lot of that daydreaming before even without really thinking about emptiness. I think retirement was more how we spoke of it. Exactly. That have those daydreaming conversations. And those can help you offer exposure to if you aren't aligned. Yeah,

Clancy Denton  17:27  
some of that. And I remember you would do that a lot. Like, especially on our I think on our anniversary a lot when we would be out to dinner and the kids were little and you would say, Okay, where do you see us? And so and I would be like, I don't know, I just want to focus on that. But now I am glad we've done that, because we have been able to follow that list before that. Let's get created. Number five is not letting go and that's, you know, responding to, you know, the mom or a dad that is having trouble letting go of their kids being out of the you know, do

Rick Denton  18:05  
recognizing that you're in a different stage of life and not choosing to evolve into that stage of life.

Clancy Denton  18:11  
I do like this. Did you both stay awake all night until you heard a key in the door and knew your kid got home safely? Or was one of you sound asleep while the other one anxiously stared out the window? No, we were both asleep

Rick Denton  18:31  
which are we bad parents? We can see in the morning. Yeah.

Clancy Denton  18:37  
But I did you hear? No, I didn't hear that I have done gotten up to make sure the door was closed. But yeah. Okay, loss of identity. So, you know, I think I think this probably falls more in our generation on the mom probably. And I did I felt like that I was like, okay, you know, I've been doing their laundry. I've been buying their groceries. I mean, it's not like I've stopped doing those things but a lot of my identity was probably wrapped up and being their mom. And

Rick Denton  19:22  
that is I'm gonna go back to the conventional wisdom. I think you are right. I think I underappreciated it and I think maybe others under appreciate what the stereotypical dad role well, some of my identity has gone to and that I'm no longer the dad of a ret I no longer the dad of a soccer. I'm not the dad of that it's and thankfully neither you nor I really kind of wanted our success to be our kids success. You still though recognized and proudly wore actually physically wore but also metaphorically wore the badge of I'm a soccer dad. I am a reds dad. And as that has gone away, and maybe a little bit now I'm a Arizona dad and Arizona State dad still, that's an evolution for the two. It's

Clancy Denton  20:09  
a good point that and you know, I think to you, you know, last year, sports buddy that you know, and your video game buddies. Oh, it's right. I

Rick Denton  20:20  
was supposed to them and well, they took the video games away. We're not gonna get on that path.

Clancy Denton  20:25  
So but yeah. So that one is, you know, and who

Rick Denton  20:29  
would like to sponsor an episode and give me a switch? I'd be more than happy to consider that conversation. Thank you.

Clancy Denton  20:32  
Okay, number seven biological and physiological aging related challenges. So, you know, this one, the, I would say the main point is the sex life, you know, testosterone levels drop for men, and you know, menopause, hormonal changes,

Rick Denton  20:56  
absolutely. Like there's the physical elements of sex, Ed, and everything else that can affect, I think there's twos and I can't remember there was Jim or Paul or somebody else using this phrase. And it was, you need to be attract, like your attraction, your type of woman or your type of man needs to be the person that you're married to. And they're going to evolve over time. So when your spouse is a 50 year old woman, when your spouse is a 50 year old man, that's who you're attracted to. And so I think some of that is also just the natural evolution of aging, things. Look, different things hang differently, things shaped differently. hair isn't quite as flowing as it once was. Right. And so recognizing that, and that hasn't hadn't been a challenge for me, I haven't asked you that directly. But that recognition of Know Your, what you're attracted to needs to evolve as well. And if that isn't the case, do something about that.

Clancy Denton  21:53  
Right. And, you know, we are both two very active health conscious people. So neither one of us except when I was pregnant, have gained, you know, not the weight gain is the most but you know, that, and

Rick Denton  22:11  
I don't even it has an element of attraction, I will just go, and I don't equate

Clancy Denton  22:15  
weight gain with because it happens, our bodies change as we're getting older. But if you're not being active and moving in some way, then you need to probably, you know, figure out something. Yeah, this one hasn't here laying on the couch all day and not, you know, this one

Rick Denton  22:35  
probably has a both element to it of you should I should be doing what I can to take you up there said hey, early like this was not empty nest. But yeah, it looks like you're a little softer than you once were. I forget the wording. And if that says I did do that in a loving that sort of thing. Right? Because

Clancy Denton  22:51  
but not because I wasn't let me take not because I was losing my attractiveness towards you. Because you had gone through a phase where you weren't working out. Oh, yeah. I wasn't, you know, and so I needed you to get back into Yeah, unless you wanted to actually healthier life insurance policy. Yeah, that was why I did that. Not because I lost my attract

Rick Denton  23:12  
fairpoint. What I'm saying that with this one is it's kind of a both and I

Clancy Denton  23:16  
know I just didn't want me to sound.

Rick Denton  23:20  
Yes, usually the reverse, get on the scale,

Clancy Denton  23:22  
weigh in every morning.

Rick Denton  23:28  
I'm gonna bleed twice, and y'all can know.

Clancy Denton  23:33  
Okay, number eight loss of employment. I guess this one could, you know, age discrimination

Rick Denton  23:39  
is in careers. And I can see why this would be a big deal in the empty nest. Yeah. I mean, because it can be hard. There's some folks that once you've been laid off in your 50s, it can be almost impossible to reconnect with the court. Yeah.

Clancy Denton  23:54  
And that's an you know, this one. You know, I mean, I know a lot of people know our story. But yes, I mean, we've been through this one a lot. In our marriages, yes. And so it did, I can see how I mean, I understand it puts strain on your marriage. And so I can I can understand if you're now in your 50s 60s and it happens to you. Yeah. Where's the law really worrying about that? There's a lot less hope thing. Yeah. So conflict over continuing caregiving responsibilities, and this one talked about boomerang kids coming back. And then also, like we've discussed before, now we're in the sandwich generation where we're taking still caring for the kids to some point, but we're also caring for our parents. And so that one I know can Yes, cause you know, luckily, you know, I feel like we have both been some portative with the you need to go down to Austin, go take care, you know, I've never given you any pushback now on that and very supportive, I'll be the same, you know, when, you know, we're if if we come to that with my parents and that kind of thing,

Rick Denton  25:18  
that one, we've we could talk about that one a lot more. We'll skip it for now. But we've had a lot of conversation around that, that can introduce a lot of stress. Oh,

Clancy Denton  25:27  
there's 10. Okay. It's like, where is it? Oh, this one was the one that we talked about yesterday, too much time on there, my hands. And we're like, what does that mean? You're trying to, you know, standard well, and then when we kind of read it, it's calmness, what you talked about, you know, our friend groups, when the kids were here were the reds, parents, soccer parents, you know, cheer parents. Now, some of those groups have still continued. But it just talked about how you get pulled out out of that. And if you haven't established relationships and other areas, then yeah, there's a lot of downtime, that you're gonna have that. You know, there's only so much I understand, but there's only so much TV that you can watch. I mean, I know I watch a lot of it. But I

Rick Denton  26:25  
think this is one of those, that there's an element of there's a mixture of idle hands are the devil's workshop, right? So suddenly, you have too much time on your hands. And you might find yourself focusing on the other nine. Yes. Or I wonder those kinds of things? Yeah. And I think there's an element to as we explored this, of resentment to the other person having too much time on your hands, if one is still staying completely busy in a career or something else. And the other just gets all this free time or something like that. No, no, are you saying I'm not about to drop a bomb, because you're actually still very active. But I meant, like, you know, if you truly were right, and I think there's a resentment that could come in in that pre retirement phase, or even post retirement, and then do if one person is successful at securing empty nest friend groups, and the other isn't, that can be a real challenge, because the one who hasn't secured the emptiness friends looks to the spouse to be the end all and be all of the friendship relationship. And that's not healthy. Yeah. So all of that, I think is Whoa,

Clancy Denton  27:27  
better. Yeah. And I think it said, you know, inherited that, yes. If you have a lot of time to sit around, then you start realizing, oh, maybe our marriage isn't all that. We thought it was you said a little too much time to think now. Yeah. So those were the 10 things that this group put together that they had seen in their offices, the major issues. So now we had an article that was six tips to prevent a great divorce. There we go. And this was from the Blue Moon senior counseling.com, which, you know, I don't even know if it may be on here. See? Oh, yeah, does it's the last one. So number one, keep going on dates. Yeah. And and like you addressed start them before you're in this emptiness phase. You can as

Rick Denton  28:18  
we've talked about these six though, if you haven't, so what do it now if you've got a marital disease creeping in, we'll hear things that you can do. So if you haven't dated, start it now.

Clancy Denton  28:30  
Yeah. Embrace each other's hobbies, which

Rick Denton  28:34  
I've embraced TV embrace taking.

Clancy Denton  28:38  
And, you know, we need to now that now that the weather is actually getting nicer, then we can start doing some of the other things like we still want to do Pickleball we still, you know, we went and played frisbee golf once we want to do that again. So we've got things that we want to do. Music, we started getting back into some live music. Number three, show appreciation. Again, that's just, you know, this kind of goes along with the love languages kind of thing is does

Rick Denton  29:05  
to your point, those I like how you started talking about we've been in a relationship for three decades, entering the fourth decade, it can be really easy to just go on autopilot and go straight into inertia. Or even let's say you have a healthy marriage, I think that's probably your higher risk. Because guess what, oh, we're healthy. I don't need to show you love. And it's I don't think anybody wakes up in the morning going, I'm going to screw my spouse over. But it's the it's the flip of weight because of that inertia. I need to think of how do I honor clients, right? How do I honor my spouse? Yeah.

Clancy Denton  29:41  
Number four is discuss finances. And you know, this one, again, so important, and you should be doing this along your entire marriage because I do know people now that are in our phase and some that are losing their spouses, and they know nothing about finances. So, you know, you just need to have open dialogue especially because that's the, you know, money is the I think still the number one reason for divorce across the board this

Rick Denton  30:12  
one I, I wish we had more time to talk about this. This is so important, especially when one spouse is the financial does CFO of the family. And the other spouse is a CFO or something like that, right? Well, if I were to pass away, you need to know everything about the finances. In my when my dad unexpectedly passed away, my mom was the one who was the financial person. So she knew, I cannot even imagine what would have happened if she didn't just the complexity is off the charts. Everything from tactically like, no passwords. Oh, yeah, that's yeah, if you got most of your funds in Vanguard, well, every spouse needs to know that password. So the things can be done. Yeah. Yeah.

Clancy Denton  30:54  
Because otherwise, it takes a long time to get things done. Okay, prepare for health issues is five. You know, we were starting. And we have already been down this path from one removed, you know, and so this was just, I think, being aware of still staying, you know, seeing your doctor getting things checked, you know, as you get older, there's other things that you have to add to your checks. So, and

Rick Denton  31:27  
this is whether it says it or not, this is about things like long term care insurance. This is about end of life discussion. These are, these are things that are important to have locked down secured and nailed.

Clancy Denton  31:39  
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And again, and I just saw this, you, you know, you need to be on the same page about things too. Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's another thing. So yes, I mean, have a conversation about it. Yeah. And I even like I like, does it Yes. Have a conversation about, you know, what do you do when one spouse gets sick? Do you know what the other spouse would want? We have definitely had those conversations. But I even said, we were at your mom's memory care the other day. And I just said, If I'm ever incapacitated, and I have to come to something like this. And I can't remember I said this in the last one or not, but I want neutrals, blacks, and grays.

Rick Denton  32:28  
Wasn't my my comfort my care? Do I look good?

Clancy Denton  32:35  
And then the last one was work with a counselor. And yes, we are very much pro therapy. If you cannot figure it out with each other, then find someone that you both agree on. And you know, I know there are certain cases where one or the other doesn't want to. Yeah, go by yourself and improve

Rick Denton  33:00  
yourself and work on yourself. And sometime but without I'm not a therapist, I can't possibly say anything beyond just the columns

Clancy Denton  33:07  
that we've learned the whole thing of, you know, draw a circle, draw a circle around yourself and work on everything that's inside that circle. That's at every marriage or trade that you always go to because you can't change the other person and you can't change

Rick Denton  33:21  
it. You can't kind of extend your circle around just a part of your spouse. No, no, not at all. So there you go. Yeah 1010 Reasons Why watch out man and then six on what you need to be doing. Yeah.

Clancy Denton  33:33  
So that, you know, February's wrapping up the month of love. So we figured we'd end with a divorce topic. All right. So yeah, but yeah, we do have a text this week from Tanner. And this is, you know, senior year text. So

Rick Denton  33:53  
well, I just read it first, Tanner's so many tour groups on campus today making me feel old. And it is it was because we happen to know it was Valentine's Day five years ago that we took his tour as the three of us at Arizona State. He's that wide eyed pre freshman wandering around wondering what this place looks like it now he's the grizzled, you're looking at these young guns. That's what

Clancy Denton  34:16  
you said. He said, Don't you remember were looking around like her all these old guys here and we're like now Tanner, you're one of those old guys.

Rick Denton  34:23  
It's going to really hit when we take his pictures on palm walk. That's what we saw. In those early days. People taking their pictures on color label graduation. Oh, that's so far away. Yeah.

Clancy Denton  34:35  
And when we were talking to him yesterday, you know, it's just it's flown by I mean, I just can't believe he's about to graduate from college. It's crazy. So easy. Oh. I won't be fine when we have that probably that episode, but I'm fine. So

Rick Denton  34:55  
very good. Well, Clinton, glad you up. write this one too, as inspired by some external factors come in. And I think it's so important to talk about some of the darker things that can happen so that we can help make sure they happen. And again,

Clancy Denton  35:08  
I do we do need to put a caveat on there that we do understand there are some reasons that we're not in here that oh, we are not some of

Rick Denton  35:20  
them. Yeah, if we're talking about cases of abuse, if we're talking about extreme manipulation, that's, that's how we're talking we're talking about just typical marital conflicts. That is that's not when we say push through there are categories that do not qualify for just push through right. But keep pushing through for the ones that you you do so yeah. Well, a unique or should I say it in the old NBC stuff, a very special episode of the loud quiet, living the empty nest

Transcribed by https://otter.ai