My Love Journey

Hey, girl. Welcome to the get yout Guy coaching podcast. My name is Anwar White, but you can just call me your own personal dating and relationship coach. Each week, you'll hear actionable advice, tips, and strategies that you can implement in your own love life. I'm talking about healing your heart, dating effectively, and understanding men so that you can, you guessed it, get your guy. Are you ready to level up your love life? All right, let's go.

Hello, my loves. Thank you so much for joining me on the getyourguy coaching podcast. I am so happy that you tuned in today to listen to me talk about my own love journey, which I'm not actually in the practice of doing. But, you know, I always teaching my loves, my clients to be vulnerable, and this is a way for me to also be vulnerable. I think it's important to be very open about your love life to the people that you love because they will support you when you're on a high, and they will support you when you're on a low, and you will need that. You know, this love journey goes in so many different directions, and support is paramount to success when it comes to love, dating, relationships, and men. So I'm going to be sharing with you a little bit about what love looked like for me and how I became partnered with three children, living my best life. So I guess I will start when I was growing up. You know, I grew up in a family of all women, and, you know, my father abandoned me when I was 8 years old, so roughly in third grade. And I mention this because even though at the time I didn't really make anything of, actually had a very profound effect on the way that I related to men. Ultimately, I didn't trust them. Pair that with also seeing all of the horrible relationships that all of the amazing black women in my life were having. There was no way that men were being trusted when it came to me. So I always kind of was at a dist when it came to them. And also couple that with my own sexuality and feeling like no heterosexual man will ever accept me, I felt like I should just be pushing all kinds of men aside. The saving grace to kind of all of that, though, was that before my father left us, or I keep on saying he left us, he left us because we had to move away from him because he was abusive. And I share that because that's another reason why I wanted to create distance between me and men, because I felt like they were dangerous and unsafe. So before we parted ways, my father and I, I think he knew That I was gay and he wanted to toughen me up. So he always put me in two or three sports at one time, thinking that that would toughen me up. So I was playing baseball, I was playing basketball, I was playing tennis, I was playing all of these different sports all the time. And later on, what that did for me was obviously it made me competitive and athletic, but it gave me a space and opportunity to be in close proximity with men, boys and then men later on in my life, where I was able to learn how to interact with them, understand how they think, understand what they need, deserve, yearn for. I'm saying this because sports was a very big, important part of my life in helping me to trust men again. And so there may be parts of your life where you're feeling like men are very untrustworthy. And I want to encourage you to find ways in which you can be in a safe space with certain men to start to find trust in men with capital letters again. Right. Whether that be in your professional world, whether that be at your local gym. I think these are all really important things when you're thinking about or trying to fill that void when it comes to trust with men. Some big parts when it comes to love. And my own love journey was that, you know, growing up, I felt like I had to be a surrogate for so many people in my family. So for my siblings, I became almost like a surrogate father for my single mother, I did become a surrogate partner for her. And ultimately what that does is it ensures that I'm thinking about other people first and myself last, which in Most cases, like 95% of cases, will actually hurt you, especially as it pertains to your love life. And so, you know, growing up with that and that being the mainstay of how I connect and how I love, it was really hard for me to really create meaningful, deep relationships because I was always focused on the other person, that I never gave the other people a really good glimpse into who I was and who I am. So now I want to kind of fast forward to high school and college where, you know, I went to a private boarding school for high school and nobody was checking for this low income black gay boy. So that part of my life was just completely shut off. Off. Right. So I never got a chance to really explore who I was when it came to dating and love and relationships. And I'm pointing this out because I think that is often the case for a lot of women of color in high school and in college, especially if you attend pwi. I have a past episode about finding love after a pwi. You shut that side of yourself off. And you also don't think of yourself as a attractive or desirable. And that was exactly where I was as well. Right. So I was not a sexual being. And, you know, like many other LGBT individuals, I was needed to play catch up in my 20s, and I think that's the same for a lot of women of color as well. So, you know, in high school, it was very competitive. In college, it was very competitive academically. So my focus was on getting the best grades in college. I didn't really date at all. I went to Carnegie Mellon, and I thought I was going to be an engineer because that's what. What my mom wanted me to be. But in reality, I just wanted to kind of do fashion. And I wanted to do fashion because fashion represented me being able to express my full self. Right? And I loved the thought of being able to do that for other people. But I did engineering because I was people pleasing, especially for my mother. And I'm saying this because I want you to think about the ways that you, in your life, have tried to be pleasing to your parent and doing the things that they want instead of what you want. Again, focusing on other people and not yourself. A week after I graduated college, I flew to Berlin, Germany, and was living there for two years. And this is a really big, important part of my life because this was the first decision that I made for myself. I decided I wanted to experience my life. I wanted to explore myself, my sexuality, and all of that. And I felt like I needed to get out of America to do that. And that's what I did. And I lived.

When I tell you I lived in Germany, I lived. And why do I sell? I say this because I dated a lot. I met a lot of men online. So when my clients come to me at random parts of the day and are always asking me, okay, well, what should I say now? What should I do now? Girl, I have said it all before. I've done it all before. I have been on these dating apps and dating chat sites since I was 16 years old, talking to people from all over the world. So I've been in so many of these situations, and Germany was one of those times in my life where I was chatting with so many men all the time and dating all of the time and engaging with some of the most attractive, interesting men that I've ever met in my entire life. And I'm mentioning this because Germans are generally colder, more distant people, and that forced me to have to get out of my shell and actually go out. And these men talk to these men, engage, initiate. I'm saying this because I want you all to do this now, especially in a post me too society and a kind of quasi post pandemic society as well. So at that time, in those two years when I was doing consulting in Germany, I met, like I was saying before, a lot of men. And I was actually proposed to three times. One man, his name was Michael, I was with for a year out of the two years that I was in Germany. And it did not work out because he was not ready to be in a relationship. After a year, I realized that he had some psychological issues. He got onto drugs. He was a man of many dreams. And I fell for the dreams because I was and am a planner. And I love thinking about the future. And we would talk about that so, so much, but he wouldn't take care of the present. And he stole money from me. I mean, this was like, ugh, it was horrible. And I gave everything to this relationship because that's who I am. I was a giver. I gave to other people, trusting and believing in them. And he stole my money, girl. I had nothing in an international country. I had to call my best friend to get my plane ticket home. At which point I then lived with my grandmother for a year, got an entry level job at another consulting firm before I moved on and worked in tech in San Francisco. But when I tell you that that situation broke any sort of potential love that I thought I could ever have, like, after that, I just felt like I'm never going to meet anyone again. I'm never going to. To find someone that is going to actually love me. And so I just cut myself off from that entire aspect of my life. I just were focused on the job situation again, working hard on the job and continuing to level up professionally. This was a time where I met a lot of amazing other gay men. And I had never really had a lot of friends in the gay community. I always just hung out with straight women. So this was an amazing time where I was playing basketball with gay men who were athletic like me and competitive. And we thought the same way and it was amazing. And we would go out four or five times a night and we were just living, living it up, girl. Living it up. And why am I saying this? I'm saying this because I was numbing out. I was doing all of this because obviously I was having fun with friends. But at the same time, there was a void in my life around love and true relationships. It's interesting. We went out all the time. We played basketball all the time. We never talked about each other's love lives, though. And I want you to realize, when you're thinking about your friendships, do you talk about your love life with those friends or not? If not, I want you to ask yourself why. This is a very important question, right? Because if you can't talk about love with your friends, how close are y' all really? Okay. So, you know, at that time, I was all about being the matchmaker, helping my friends get with that hot guy, having stories to tell during brunch the next morning. And I put myself in this role because I had completely given up on love. I was not afraid of rejection because I was not even in the love game. So that's why I could put myself out there, talk my shit to these guys, and not think twice about it the next day. I was never butthurt. I was never hurt because I didn't really date. I chatted with guys. I would make out with them on occasion, and then I would help my friends hook up and have a good time and just, you know, compare stories the next morning. That was really it. That it wasn't something that was serious for me at that time. I was working in tech, like I was saying before, and I applied to this pre MBA program and I was working hard on that while working full time and studying for the gmat and writing essays and all of that to get into top business schools. And I ended up getting into Columbia, and this random boy from Southern California got into this amazing top business school. I didn't think that I belonged there. I was like all of these other people that have done the traditional path of consulting or investment banking. I didn't think that I belonged. I didn't think that I was good enough. And so my focus in business school was not to connect with other individuals where it was for so many other people that were going to these happy hours and drinking all the time and networking all, like every evening. Evening. I was focused on leveling up my career. So I was working, having amazing internships while I was in school. So my experience was much different than everyone else's because I was trying to prove myself, because I wanted people to see me as being worthy of being there and being worthy as an individual, even though I was already worthy because I was already there. I had completely missed it. And I missed a lot of the opportunity to really connect with my classmates. I went abroad. I studied in Italy during That time I worked for the Tom Ford collection because I went to business school to get into fashion, which, you know, working for Tom Ford next to him is the pinnacle of the industry. So within a year of wanting to go into fashion, I basically been working with the person that was at the top of the industry. While in Italy, again, I lived my life.

Why do I say this? I say this because I felt a certain level of freedom internationally that I did not feel at home. I also felt a certain level of love and attention that I did not receive at home, whether in Germany or in Italy. And so I'm saying all of this because when I was living in Italy, that's the realization that I knew that I was. I was going to be with someone that was not going to be American. I realized it when I was there. I was like, this is what I deserve. I'm everything. If American men can't see that, that's on them. But I'm only going to be giving life and attention to men that are giving me ultimate life. And so after that, I just really focused on men that were non American. I know it's so bad because I tell all of my clients to be so open minded, but that's where my head was at at the moment. By this time, I actually met a guy. His name was Roberto. And I was with him for six months. And he was very emotional, like most Italian men are, where I had to feel like I was the adult surrogate parent, which I felt really uncomfortable with after a while. And that's one of the reasons why we broke up. But I mention him because the feeling of going to all of these parties with your boyfriend and people asking about your boyfriend and there was this feeling of like, I felt like I was being seen. I felt like for the first time I was public with someone and I was really accepted by a lot of my peers. And it was like a really great feeling. I hadn't really had that before. And I'm mentioning this because I know I have a lot of listeners out there that haven't been in a relationship, haven't dated a lot, and don't know what that feeling kind of feels like. And I didn't know at the time what it would feel like. But I really did enjoy having someone by my side, however superficial that sounds. I want to keep it 100% real with you and just kind of let you know where I was at that moment. And he was hot.

The other reason why I'm mentioning him is that even though he was hot and even Though I felt good about being in a relationship, finally I had to choose myself, the life that I envisioned for myself and figuring out if this man was actually going to fit into it or not. And I knew that he wasn't because I knew that he actually would be holding me down from what I wanted to accomplish. So that's when I broke up with him. I learned a lot about patience, listening, communication. I also learned a lot of Italian.

I am, just FYI, I'm fluent in five languages. I can flirt in probably 13 languages and it works well when I'm traveling, or it used to when I was single. But if you ever want to learn a language, do what I did and have three to five boyfriends at all times, or three to five men that you're dating in whatever country where you want to learn the language and you will be fluent before you know it.

I went to Southern California and I worked in a strategic planning department for a top fashion retailer and brand. And I had the most narcissistic and toxic boss that I've ever had in my entire life. I mention this because being broken down like that on a daily basis actually killed my entire spirit and made me feel like I couldn't do anything. And it affected my love life too. Again, I numbed out and I partied five times a week. During this time in LA when I was in this horrible work situation, I met a lot of great guys and I wasn't ready to be with them. I didn't even engage with getting into a relationship with them, even though they were all great guys. I was struggling at work, I didn't have the confidence to be in a relationship. And if I'm being 100% honest, I felt like I was better than them.

I had gotten my mba, I was making all of this money, my life was together. I had this beautiful Benz. Why am I saying all of this to you? Because I know y' all are like this asshole. I'm saying this because I think that a lot of times in dating we can feel that we're either better than other people or not as good as other people. And it is only until we accept that we are all equal that you can start to see some success in your dating and love life. I had to learn that the super hard way. I don't want you to. And then I just took a break. I was like, this work is too much, she's too much. I'm gonna take a little bit of time off. And I went on short term disability for a couple of months. Just to kind of get my head on right. And I'm mentioning this because it was the time that I needed to actually focus on myself, Meaning that I had to. I had to choose myself for once and really just take care of myself, which I really hadn't done ever, when I think about it, like, journaling every day, meditating every day, working out every day, spending money on myself. I was the friend that was always paying for everyone's meals. Because I came to the realization that during this time when I was on short term disability, that I was doing this because I felt like I had to do this for people to like me and to love me, and that if I didn't do this, they wouldn't love me, they wouldn't be around me. And that's when I just. I decided that if they don't, that's fine, and I'm gonna use this money for myself and the things that I want to do. And so I took a trip to Chicago, went to a basketball tournament there, and had the time of my life. And that's when I also moved back to San Francisco, where I met all of my amazing friends. Because I was like, I choose love in whatever form that looks like. Like.

It was in during that time that I met my current partner online, mind you. So I was completely disillusioned with these American guys in LA who in my mind were fake and everybody wanted to be a star. And I was like, okay, I'm just gonna meet my guys internationally. So I started, like, setting my profile internationally to other places. So Barcelona, Berlin, Paris, London, Toronto, Montreal. I met my current partner online 10, 11 years ago. We were chatting every day, and then I was like, okay, let's get on the phone. And he didn't want to get on the phone. And for me, that was like a huge red flag. I was like, okay, I don't have time with this. This catfish situation. That's not my gig. So I just told him, you know, it's not going to work for me. Best of luck. Have a good life, right? Later. Did I know that the reason why he didn't want to get on the phone with me was because of his English, and that it wasn't as good as it needed to be to be understandable, and that he was using a translator when he was texting with me, but it was still kind of working out in terms of being able to understand each other. But I didn't know that at the time, so I just kind of kept it moving. I also got two dogs, and in that time I got pets because I knew I had a lot of love to give and not people that I could trust to give it to. So if you've gotten a pet and you felt that way, I hear you. I have been there. I understand. And yeah, and at that time, I decided that I wanted to have children. And so I started the surrogacy process. And while I was, like, kind of doing the surrogacy process, I was living my best life, making out with boys, fun and kind of, you know, sewing my wild oats, knowing that, honey, she's going to be a mother soon and she is not going to have time for any of this. And so, yeah, that's what I was doing while my children were growing in a beautiful woman's belly. I have my children in September of 2013, and my now partner, Patrick, reaches out to me shortly thereafter when I'm back in the US and he congratulates me on children and tells me that he always wanted to be a father. So this is really exciting to see. And that he will be traveling to California, Louisiana and San Francisco. And we started chatting that day. We haven't stopped chatting ever since. Meaning, like, we would chat every day. We would call each other, we would FaceTime each other 5, 10, 15 times a day. He's a teacher. I don't know what he was doing during that time. Maybe he was giving his kids lots of tests so he can text me. I don't know. But he had come during his spring break, and then he decided that during his summer break he would spend time in San Francisco. That's what he did. So we basically shacked up together. You know, it's interesting, and I bring it back to my loves out there with pets. But also, when it came to these children, I don't think that I could have ever gotten in a relationship if I didn't have these children, because they opened up my heart. And that had been closed for so long, where I was in a space, space of unconditional love and open to love, not thinking about hurt, past hurt, past pain, that my heart was full of care and positivity. And so I wanted to mention that because I know that there are a lot of people out there whose hearts are closed. And you're going to have to find a way to open those hearts up, ladies. Whether it is doing community service, whether it is helping family members, whether it is doing something for someone else without the need for validation, that's what I think is really important here. And I think my children gave me the opportunity to experience love. So Patrick spends a week and a half with us in spring break. He lives with us during the summer, and then after that we're visiting each other every month. Mostly he's coming to me since I have the kids. He comes during their birthday. He comes during Christmas break for the three weeks I go and take him to my mom's house to introduce him to her, which I had never done before with any man. And, you know, we're visiting every month. He's staying for the next spring break after that, and then he takes a sabbatical from work. And from that summer of 2015 until 2016, we're living together in the Bay Area. It was great. I was working. He decided to stay home with the kids, which was really amazing. They have such a tight bond now. He speaks purely French with them, I speak purely German with them, and we speak English with each other. So it's a trilingual household. And yeah, we recently. And then in 2016, we moved to Montreal. We were living in expensive San Francisco and it didn't make any sense because we were homebodies and we got kids. So we were not even able to experience all of the culture that the Bay Area has to provide. So we made the decision to move to Montreal, which has been an amazing decision since then. 2018, we've had our third child, Sasha, and yeah, life has been really good. There were moments of insecurity, especially when he first was living with me during his sabbatical. I think every day, every couple of hours for the first two or three weeks, I was like, are you okay? Are you happy? Can I do anything again? Very much in that people pleasing mode. Very much in the. I have to be perfect for him to love me, to accept me. And he. He already loved me and accepted me. And I think I was like that for the first year while we were living together in the Bay Area. Why am I mentioning this? I'm mentioning this because I think that people feel like once they're in a relationship, everything's hunky dory and it's not. And I would say that first month of being in an exclusive relationship, there's so much insecurity, and that's where things get. Can really kind of get derailed. And so that's where you and your partner may need a lot of reassurance. So, yeah, living in Montreal with three kids and my partner, Patrick. And I'm so happy. And it's. What can I say about Patrick? He is loving, he is amazing, he is understanding I am at my desk recording this podcast right now, and I have a beautiful, fresh bouquet of flowers that he got me today. He is not what I expected, but exactly what I needed. And I say that because the package looked completely different than I thought it was going to look when I created this narrative or story in my head about what my love life would potentially look like. But I know that I will stay with him forever. I cannot imagine my life without him. And I say that because I think sometimes we get caught up and what it is supposed to look like, and rarely does it ever look like that. Sorry, ladies. Sorry to burst bubbles, but I'm about being real about love and what it looks like and helping hundreds of women and my love, my person, my love journey ended up this way. And so many of my clients love journeys end up this way as well. So get over that.

Right? Well, he's got to be a certain height girl. I'm like six two. My partner is like five, eight. It's not a thing. It might be a thing to you. I understand that. But you're not going to care about his height 20 years from now. And I want you to be thinking about these relationships in the long term and not the short term. Right? Why am I telling you about my love journey? I think I'm telling you about my love journey because if I can help myself a skinny, tall, black, feminine, gay man, and I can get him together, get his love life together, I could probably do it for you as well. So I've given you my love journey, and I want to challenge you to write down your love journey on a piece of paper or in your notes app, or in word.

I want you to write out your love journey how it's been up until this point. Secondly, I want you to write what you want it to look like in the future. Right? Not being married to what you want it to look like in the future. But you have to have a vision to move toward. You can't just, like, wait for something to appear within thin air, right? I hope that you enjoyed this love journey of mine. It's been an interesting one, one that I would not change. And I hope that you get something out of it. I work with smart and successful women because I've been on that journey. I understand what it looks like, especially for women of color, and I know all of the trials and tribulations of what we go through, through being surrogate parents who are siblings, studying in a pwi, the microaggressions at work where you feel like you can't necessarily be your full self, and you're only giving parts of yourself to work, parts of yourself to your family, parts of yourself to your romantic life. Right? I've had those moments where I didn't feel confident. I had moments where I didn't have great boundaries or I settled for men because I wanted something, even if that thing wasn't fully serving me. And so I want you to know I've been there, I've lived it, and I'm here happy with my love life. And I want to encourage and inspire you so that you know that you can also achieve all of your love goals. I hope this inspires you. I hope you realize that your love life is not as much of a mess as anyone else's.

Because, girl, mine was as well. I hope for those women out there who haven't really dated a lot, haven't had a lot of experience, there's hope for you as well. Those women that have so much love to give, that have pets and dote on them, you can allocate that love to an amazing man. But you have to give yourself the opportunity to do so, and you have to open your heart to do so. Part of the work that I do with my clients is opening their heart and opening their mind. All right, I love you all so much and I will chat with you soon. Bye.

Hey girl. Thank you so much for listening to the GetYourGuy coaching podcast. If you like this episode and want to talk with me personally, please book a free consultation at www.getyourguycoaching.com. apply or subscribe and leave me a review. Wherever you listen to your podcasts, talk.