Episode 174: 17th Marriage Anniversary Special

No need to whine, it's Whiny Palooza! Have some wine and join us on the Whiny Palooza podcast with Rebecca Green.

Welcome to the Whiny Palooza podcast. I'm your host, Rebecca Green. I'm a wife, mother of 3, and licensed clinical social worker. I also have 3 fur babies at home too. My passion has always been to help children and their families. I always dreamed of being a wife and a mother. Parents are always learning through their struggles failures, and successes and joys. I am no stranger to this wild ride of parenting, and I know behind every great parent lies a team of supportive friends and family. I want to be part of your support system. I want you to know that you are not alone. We are in this parenting world together. Join me every week for insightful discussions with experts on parenting and marriage, as well as other parents who have found the secret to successes in parenthood. You'll learn tips and tricks to make life with your family better than ever. I hope you will follow along with me while we dive into what it takes to achieve a happy family.

Hello everyone, this is Rebecca Green for the Whiny Palooza podcast, and I have my fantastic husband Seth Green with— here with me today. Hi honey!

Hi honey, I, I am the— playing the part of the fantastic husband today.

Well, you do an excellent job playing that part every day, and I want to introduce you to my husband, and I want to tell you why he's on the podcast today. Seth Green. Oh my gosh, I, I'm still not perfected at introducing you. Let's start with Market Domination. Seth is the CEO of a marketing business titled Market Domination, and it's an amazing marketing business that I also profit from. And our dog is barking in the background.

Welcome to real life.

This is real life, people. You're going to hear kids and dog and our dog because we're at home together recording this. Seth also is a fantastic financial planner and has Silver Spoon Financial, and he can help you find money for college. His business, How to Find Money for College, will help every single family find money for college. So Connect with Seth. We will tell you how to connect with him to help you out because everyone listening probably has children. Um, BMD Publishing. Uh, what else, Seth?

I think you did a great job. Those, those four will cover it for a while.

I think I need a printout. I think I need— what I need you to do is I need you to type it up for me. You probably already have it because I'm sure you have a, an excellent bio that I could just read and not have to ask you if I'm forgetting anything.

That is true. We normally do all 4 businesses in one bio because they're for different purposes, but for you we could totally do it.

I would like to introduce you with all of what you do because you offer so many awesome services. He's also a wonderful husband, uh, fabulous father. For you, I know, but you have other jobs that you do too, other roles. Yeah, and we're going to talk about the husband role today. And the reason why we are going to focus on our marriage is because you are going to hear this podcast the day before our 17th wedding anniversary. So happy, happy almost anniversary. I'm very proud of us. I think we're doing a great job, um, as evidenced by both of our happiness, wouldn't you say?

And still being married.

But people are married and unhappy, and I don't—

that is very true.

Yeah, I don't find— I mean, I don't think that's a great goal. I think the goal is to stay married and be happy.

I am happier now than I was 17 years ago when I married you. How about that?

Me too, me too. So we'll talk about that. I want to give Crystal Clyde in some credit because I just stole a bunch of her questions from her article of what to ask your husband.

All right, well, way to go, Crystal. We love outsourcing production.

So I added a few of my own, but let's see if you like Crystal's question, Seth. Okay. What is your favorite thing about being married?

I've got to come up with one. Uh, that I get to wake up and go to sleep to you every night.

Oh, let's see how many times I cry during this podcast.

3. Just shouting out random numbers.

Okay. When you were younger, what did you think marriage would look like?

Wow. So I don't know, depends on how young you're going. I don't think I really thought much about marriage probably until high school, um, and college. Obviously in college I started seriously thinking about it. I would— my goal, and I, I have said this publicly elsewhere, my goal in high school, college-ish, was I wanted to marry a woman who had a good relationship with her mother, who didn't remind me of my own in the negative ways. Mom, I love you if you're listening or watching.

Oh boy.

And, um, who would let me be— that's— I want— my goal as a father was, uh, when it came to my daughter or daughters in the future, was I wanted to raise a girl with no daddy issues whose only daddy issue was, how do I find someone who can compete with my dad? So those were my thoughts about marriage and fatherhood, you know, when I was 16, 17, 18.

So how do you think you're doing with all those thoughts about marriage?

I, I think the— on the daughter side, I think I'm succeeding very well. I think on the, uh, did I marry a woman with a healthy relationship with her mother? For sure. You have a great relationship with your mom. I love watching you too. And I didn't do so on the other one. So marry a woman with a relationship, healthy relationship with mother who didn't necessarily remind me of my own. So you are very different from my mother, whom you know very well, and I think you embody some of the best of her best qualities. So there are ways that you remind me of her in the most positive way possible.

I was going to tell you that I think you succeeded with 2 out of 3 because I do see similarities with me and your— with your mom and I.

Yes, in the, in the awesome similarities department.

Yes, yes.

Thankfully, you, you— I succeeded in that. You avoided any of the negative ones.

Yes, I— okay, so how does our marriage compare to your vision of marriage?

It doesn't at all. My, uh, our marriage is way better than anything I ever could have dreamt of.

I feel the same way. I feel the same way. I had this— did I tell you about my dancing dream? I think I did.

Why don't you start?

Okay, so forgive me if I'm repeating, but I've never told our listeners this. I had this repeating dream. I would fall asleep and be dreaming of dancing with somebody, and I never saw the person's face. And I would always have the same dream over and over again. And then when I found you, then the face showed.

Yes, you have told me that story. I did not know that you called it the dancing dream. I didn't remember the dancing part. I remembered that you had dreams of a significant other, but there was no face. I remembered that part. I didn't know we were dancing.

Yeah, it was the dancing dream.

Got it. I will now know that that is what it is called.

What was your favorite part of our wedding day?

Uh, the look— okay, the look on your face when I sang to you at the part at the reception.

So Ella wants to see it, so maybe we can actually watch our wedding video.

I've never stopped you. You've never— you've never wanted to watch it.

I think we should watch the wedding video and the bat mitzvah video.

You're talking about our Liz Bonnet's?

Yeah, yeah. I have mine too somewhere.

I'm sure I have mine and it will remain hidden.

Our kids would love to see them.

They would not.

I would. Anyways, I won't embarrass you.

You embarrass me enough for one day.

I think you were absolutely adorable and I think you are way too hard on yourself.

I accept that analysis.

What is your favorite thing that I do for you?

Love me.

Okay, well, how do I, how do I show you that love?

I would say some of my, my favorite ways you express it, um, I, I think the twinkle in your eye and the smile is probably my favorite. The adoring look that is in that, for example, our wedding picture, like you, that, that look I would move mountains for.

Oh, okay. Crying number 1 or 2. Okay. Oh, my eyes are all teary. I have to focus on the paper. How do you show me that you love me?

Your love language is acts of service. So right before this podcast, while you were upstairs getting ready, I was doing the dishes.

I know.

And I took out about 6 bags of garbage and recycling because you decided to purge before the school year started.

Hi, you know, so I brought in— you haven't even seen the bags and bags of school supplies that I've brought in. And as I'm bringing in the school supplies, um, I want to— I want everything organized. So it's been a lot of shopping and organizing this week.

Well, I greatly appreciate that you did all of that and I didn't have to do anything except pay the bill.

I appreciate that you understand the Target bills and the Walmart bill and whatever, whatever else. I have to get them sneakers, so that's next. What would be your favorite date?

Our first one. Oh, I met one 12-hour date.

I meant one that we could go on now.

Oh, okay. Well, is that okay? Is this local, as in you and I are going out to dinner? You and I are going to an overnight here? Or is this a sky's the limit bucket list? And, you know, I'm flying you on a private jet to Hawaii or something.

Oh, let's do sky's the limit. Tell me, tell me.

Well, there you go. Moonlit walk on the beach in Hawaii.

Oh my God. Oh, I tear up over that. Can we do that one day?

I'm not sure about the private jet part, but yes, if you'll get on a plane for 17 hours, we could get you to Hawaii. Or maybe there's a cruise to Hawaii.

Well, I have been advised to fly to California, stay in California, and then fly to Hawaii.

Yes. Well, yes, if you broke it up, it would be— because you can do California in like 6 or 7 depending on the delays and depending on the layovers. Um, yes, if you did one day to get to California, hang out for a couple days, and then fly another 7 or 8 to Hawaii, yes, that would theoretically be less than doing it all at once.

Hmm, is that—

pack up and get back on a plane.

Is that where you want to go, or is there some— somewhere else that you're dreaming of going?

That's where I think you want to go most if we're doing the sky's the limit thing, so that would be my pick because it would make you the happiest.

I know, but I want to know your pick.

I mean, there's a lot of places. I would love to go to Israel. I would love to go to Italy.

Do you really want to go to Israel?

I do.

Is it safe to go to Israel?

It's never— no one ever says Israel is no safe. People just go anyway and they're okay.

Oh, that's true.

That's why I would probably go to Hawaii first.

My brave husband. Yes, you would probably travel anywhere.

I would.

I think that's one of my favorite qualities, is that Seth is so brave.

Well, thank you.

It helps me Be brave.

You can hide behind me.

I do. I do hide behind you.

Yes, whenever there's a bug or a spider.

Or if there, if there was like a mouse or a snake or a shark or—

Okay, well, we've done the mice. We've done the snake. No sharks, thank God.

Oh my gosh, let's never meet a shark, okay?

Just at the aquarium or whatever.

Okay, so, uh, list 5 things that you love about me.

Only 5? Your smile, your infectious laughter, your spirit, your heart, um, your warmth, your constant desire to help others, your desire to always improve at whatever it is you're doing. How's that? I think that's 8.

Oh my goodness. Well, I think that I should tell everyone the things I love about you.

Well, we do have this rule where if you ask a question, you also have to answer it, remember?

Well, you haven't been holding me up to that on this interview. I have not, because you're letting me, me be the interviewer.

It is your show. You should be.

Okay, there's so much. Okay, well, the most important to me is your heart. Um, your brain is really Hot. Seth is so smart, um, just like our son. Our son gets it from him. Okay, he makes me laugh every single day. He knows when I am super uptight and he swoops in and makes me laugh, and it's magical. Um, how you are with our kids I mean, I knew you were going to be a good dad, but I had no idea how good. See, I'm crying. That's number 3.

And that was 5 things, in case you were keeping track.

I don't think it was 5 things. I think that was 4 things, wasn't it?

Well, then I guess you got to do another thing.

Okay. I cannot even believe how hard you work for your family. It blows me away every day.

Thank you. That was very warm and sweet. And if I was going to get emotional, I would do it now.

Oh boy, this is good for our marriage. We need to do this more often.

Yes.

Interview your spouse. It will make you very appreciate them more and fuzzy and appreciative.

As long as you ask positive questions. Yes. Well, speaking of which, here come the negative ones.

What is my most annoying trait? Oh, come on, we don't have to be— people need to see that we're real and we're human.

That is true.

Listen, we, we fight and we annoy each other. Okay, tell me what's most annoying.

Uh, the way you express your anger.

Oh, you don't like when I get upset?

Well, no one likes when someone gets upset. I think upset is the wrong word because you could be upset and you could be sad.

I knew you were going to say that.

I, I don't like the way you experience and express your anger.

So Seth loves the smiles and the warmth and the, um, glisten in my eye that I get for him and the children. What I have learned about myself over the years, if you haven't analyzed this yourself about yourself is sadness and anxiety can sometimes come out as my anger, and I'm hiding behind the anger instead of—

it's your wall of self-protection.

So instead of letting myself cry, like, I really don't— like, happy tears, emotional tears for Seth during this podcast is great, but to cry about something I'm sad about, or I'll get really anxious and it'll come out as anger. So I've learned a lot about myself over the years, and I think acknowledging those two things has decreased my anger. Yes, yes. Because Seth will say, like, over these last 18 years, he has said to me, just be sad. Like, just, it's okay, just be sad, right?

You don't, you don't have to protect yourself from the emotion of being sad. Okay, so then I'll ask in the, in, in the inspiration to improve myself, what is my least endearing quality to you?

I have analyzed your defensiveness because I've put it on me, like, how are you causing the defensiveness.

Wow, I didn't know you realized that.

Well, because I can't stand—

there you go.

So if I can't stand when you're defensive, like, I want— in my ideal scenario, you, you will say to yourself, okay, what am I doing right now that's annoying her that I could fix? Instead of defending yourself.

Yeah.

So to put it on myself what am I doing to cause the defensiveness? And it's usually being too controlling.

Yep, that is true, and I agree 100%. And my latest— one of my latest best marital insights is my new philosophy of deflect, not defend. Because if I defend myself, then you're not only mad about the first thing, but you're mad that I was defensive too. Whereas if I just say, you know, wow, you're frustrated about that, let's figure that out, let's fix that, let's do whatever, then you de-escalate faster. And when you— if it's something where you realize I didn't actually do it, then you get to that happy place, that place, and apologize much better than if I made you mad by being defensive.

That's a, that's a, uh, married man.

That's emotional aikido.

That is really, um, smart. And, um, I think a lot of men and women can learn from that comment. And, and I want to tell you that I think me being controlling is my most annoying trait to you. And I think that, you know, the anger, the controlling, it's anxiety. It's like, if I control this, I feel, you know, like my life is in order. And if he's doing things a different way, like, I need to say It's different. It's not wrong. It's just different.

So, so, so putting the waffles on the wrong setting makes you anxious?

Yes.

Okay. I didn't know that.

You can talk about the waffles. Do you want to— should we, should we tell them about the waffles?

Sure. That's a good marital lesson.

Um, so go ahead, honey.

So I went, I was making one of our daughters waffles. And I turned on the toaster oven. And I went outside to do something super quick, like hang something up super quick, and come right back inside and watch the waffles. Because I put it on the setting where you watch it. And in the 2 seconds I managed to leave the kitchen and go outside, Rebecca had come in and was mad at me. You're going to burn the waffles. And I put the— you put the waffles on the wrong setting. That's not how you make waffles. I do this all the time. It works. I was coming back to watch it. For 2 seconds. No, no, this is the right way to make the waffles. You're wrong. And then I asked Lily, which Rebecca didn't hear, do you want whipped cream and chocolate syrup on your waffles? She said, no, I want butter. So I started to butter the waffles, and Lily never asked for butter. So I get where Rebecca's reaction came from, and she's like, why are you putting butter on the waffles? That's not right. I said, because she asked for butter. She wants whipped cream and chocolate syrup. Did you even ask her? Yes. Lily, what did you say you wanted? I said I wanted butter. Oh, you're putting the butter on wrong. There's not enough butter on this one. There's too much butter on the other one.

Oh my God, I did.

He's, he's, he's— I, I made up, okay, the butter on, but the first two, that you're cooking it wrong and she doesn't want butter, were accurate recollections.

I, um, I will say that in that scenario, as per usual, I was spinning in a million directions and getting overwhelmed and already cranky. So, so overwhelmed and cranky does not equal a nice wife. And it can equal a nice wife, but it didn't.

I was impressed with how you got overwhelmed and cranky, and we were— had been awake, I think, less than half an hour. You had a list spinning in your head.

I was getting stuff done. I had way— I had way too much that I wanted to accomplish, and I overwhelmed myself. And I tend to be unrealistic in what I put on myself in one day.

Amen to that.

So I toast the waffles on the light setting and still burn them. So Seth was toasting them on the dark setting.

No, that's not true.

He doesn't. He doesn't burn them because he watches them.

I wasn't toasting it on the dark setting. I was toasting it on the timer setting, and I stand there and watch them. But see, I was being defensive right there by saying, no, you got it wrong.

It's all good. It's all good. It was a stupid waffle, and you Watch them.

And that's why they're busy doing other things.

I don't watch the waffles. I put them on the light setting and I walk away, and sometimes they burn anyway. So I think that the trick is, is that you have to just watch the waffles.

You gotta watch the waffles. You gotta cook the grilled cheese really low and slow.

She loves how you cook. Listen, I am not controlling about the grilled cheese. She says Daddy does the grilled cheese better.

So sorry, honey. I'm just not multitasking. I can stand there.

I, I definitely think that multitasking makes us do things not as well.

My, my list at home is much less than your list at home. My list at work is obviously very different.

I know, I know. If we could do anything together, what would it be?

Does, does my walk on the beach in Hawaii not count?

Yeah, it totally does. It totally does. What do you value most in our marriage?

Your love, your loyalty, your compassion, your, your never-ending desire to improve it. You take marriage and motherhood more seriously than anyone I know. Like, I am always— you say you're always reading a book for work. You're always watching videos for work, which is true because I'm always trying to improve some level of something every single day. I've never seen anyone approach the due diligence and desire to improve their marriage and parenting, and you got a master's degree in it, and you're still looking and doing research and doing stuff every single day, which impresses the heck out of me.

So sweet.

I was wrong. We're at 4. You keep asking me questions about this. I say nice things about you, you're going to keep crying.

Oh my gosh, we have to ask each other questions more often.

I'm around.

Oh my goodness. You know, um, people dream of careers, you know, um, they dream of being a doctor, a lawyer, an actor, you know, whatever. And all I dreamed of was being a wife and mother. It's all I ever wanted. The other stuff is, is wonderful. I love to help people and And this job in particular is so fun. So thank you, Seth.

You are welcome.

This was Seth's idea.

The podcast. Yes.

Well, a lot of what I'm doing for work right now is you taking my social work master's degree, my, my motherhood and marriage and making it a career for me that I can do from home.

Yes.

So keep that up because you're, uh, helping me work and make us some money.

And, and you help people every day, and I help people and have fun. Yes, ma'am.

And meet awesome people, by the way. Can you— yes, keep sending me awesome people. I, I just like— oh my God, the last one was amazing.

Okay, for our listeners and viewers, she is referencing the guests, other guests on her podcast other than me.

Yes, Donna Kay will be next week, and I had such an amazing time interviewing her. What a great lady. Uh, what do you feel your needs are in our marriage?

You— what are my needs? So—

oh geez, I have to buy you a present. Oh my God, I suck sometimes.

Cut it out.

Okay, okay, you're multi—

you're literally thinking of something else right now. I can't even hold your attention on the podcast.

You're holding my attention.

You're thinking about other things. You're checking off items on your to-do list.

I have to buy you a present for our anniversary. Like, shame on me.

It's really okay.

Okay, go ahead. I don't need anything.

All right, uh, needs in, uh, warmth, love, compassion, adoration, walks. We go for walks with the dog, uh, date once in a while.

We're gonna go on a date for our anniversary. I better pick a place.

It would be helpful.

Unless you have a place you want to go.

Um, I— let me do one bit of research and then I'll get back to you.

Okay. Um, I have to, um, make sure Seth communicates what he wants because Seth will not say what he wants to give me what I want.

True.

Which is very sweet, but I want to take care of him too.

I am learning to be a better receiver.

I love it. Um, we are two givers in a relationship. I think it's really lovely.

Yes, although I did ask you for something I wanted last week, so I mean, I'm making progress.

I keep it going, keep it going. Um, what did you learn from your parents' divorce? Wow.

All right, so we went from all warm and fuzzy light about each other to the heavy stuff. Okay.

Yeah, Crystal's questions were lovely. Mine gets Down and deep.

Yeah, I see that. All right, some therapy. What did I learn? Appearances can be deceiving. You don't know what goes on behind closed doors. I learned you have to take responsibility for your own behavior. That it's sometimes what bugs you about other people can be what's going on with you yourself. I learned how much I valued loyalty, um, and, and other things like that. I learned— I mean, I already wanted to be a great husband to you, but it made me more, even more intent and ferociously loyal. Um, and heck, my brother and I were adults when this happened, right? I mean, you and I were engaged It wasn't like they divorced when I was 12. I would— we were in our late— I was in my late 20s, and it was still traumatic.

I think that we had already had Max. I think we were married and had Max. Am I wrong? Maybe it started.

No, I think you're— I remember when we found out, like, I literally went for a run, and at that point in our lives, I wasn't a runner. I just had— I was like literally running away around her neighborhood.

Um, I think that's, that's when you found out they were having issues. They announced that they were getting divorced when we had Max.

Oh, okay. Your memory would be on that would be better than mine. You have a much better memory for significant emotional events.

Oh, so isn't that interesting? Because I tend to critique my memory.

Well, you are kinesthetic, but you process auditorily, so it's a fascinating combination.

What did you just say?

Okay, so you know there's 3 types of—

Yes, but how—

Auditory, visual, or kinesthetic. And you're kinesthetic because you're all about feelings, but you process everything out loud. Like, you talk to yourself out loud. Your stream of consciousness is out loud most of the time. I don't know if you're actually— I had to learn— Is she actually talking to me? I don't know. She's talking. So you're processing your— you have all these feelings, but you share— you process them out loud.

Okay, I thought I was visual.

Okay, I've never— tell me your favorite childhood memory. See, you, right, but you went down, your eyes moved, you went kinesthetic, you went to the look, you were searching for a feeling, not a picture.

Okay, well, I learn visually.

I'm not— I didn't— oh, I wasn't talking about your learning style.

Okay, so what are you talking about?

I'm talking you are a feelings-based person, but you process your feelings out auditorily.

Okay, okay, that is absolutely correct. I, I screwed up and was thinking of my learning style. My learning style—

you're absolutely a visual learner. You look at stuff, you see stuff, you pick it up.

Yes. And when I see people do it, then I can do it, right?

I was talking about your communication.

Okay, I'm sorry, I got totally on the wrong track.

It's all good.

What are we doing right?

What are we doing? I mean, we talk to each other, we do things like this, we make time for each other, we watch shows together, we go for walks together. Um, we occasionally go on some dates. I think we talk about our marriage, we work on it, we're both committed to it. We're always looking for ways to improve. Um, we ask— we read some books like Love Languages and stuff like that together, or when we go, oh, this is really good, you should read it, and then we talk about it and try and implement things like that in our marriage. I think we are very committed to always improving our ability to relate to each other in this relationship.

I agree. I like that we are aware of what we do wrong and acknowledge it and try to work on it. I think neither of us thinks that we are perfect.

Correct.

Right, right. What could we work on?

Well, you asked the least favorite quality of both, so I can work on not being defensive. I can work on my communication. I think it's all come down to communication, right? It's all about how we say what we say to the other person and how we express our feelings to them. I think, yeah, because defensiveness is based on a feeling. Um, crankiness, irritability, you call me, say when I'm being prickly, again, those are feeling, feelings. Yeah, I think it's all based on how we communicate what we're feeling.

You know, my mother, I think it was my mother taught me, um, it's not what I say, it's how I say it. That was, that was from my mom. And There are so many times that I say something to you and I'm like, you know, if you would have communicated that nicely to him, he would have like walked on water to—

I would do whatever you want—

help you with this, but you were just really snotty about that and you're going to put him into a defensive, cranky place.

Yes.

So I think I could say almost anything to you, it's just how I'm saying it to you.

You could read me the phone book and I would do whatever you wanted. Right. But now I don't ever want to make waffles again, so I'll do it anyway because I'll know.

No, no, no, no. I now know that the difference between us is that you watch them and I don't.

Yes.

That is why I was worried about you burning it, because I burn it because I don't watch it.

Right.

Okay.

Just ask you a question. Why do you have it on that weird setting?

Well, and it's kind of a new-ish toaster, so I just assumed that you didn't know how to use it.

I did read the directions, unlike some person on this podcast.

Did you really?

I did.

You always read the directions.

Right? That's what they're for. Someone took the time to write those to tell you how to use the thing.

Oh my gosh. So you know how you have learned to build things?

Yes.

Do you know what I have been wanting?

No, what?

The like, cover thingy. What are they called on your patio that Marcy has? What is it called? What is it called? Not a gazebo.

Pergo, perg something.

Pergola.

Pergola.

Pergola.

Did you hear Ian describe the process of putting that together and what a pain in the whatever it was?

Maybe somebody, maybe we could have someone put it together for us who is very handy.

What? Where? I didn't know you wanted a pergola. Where is pergola going? I thought you wanted something over the hot tub.

I will.

We wanted like the curtains with lights and stuff.

We'll talk. We'll talk.

Okay. This podcast is supposed to be making me money. Now it's costing me money.

Oh my God. See, the problem is that, and every single wife listening is going to relate to me. I have all these visions. For our backyard, for our house, like things to update. And you're like, if I had to guess, you're like, our house is great.

Yep. That is absolutely accurate. It works.

And I'm like, I want to do this and I want to do this. And can we paint this? And can we take this wall out?

And no, we cannot just take out a wall. I bet you gotta have some engineers find out it's a load-bearing wall. Like, I bet you there's a process. Like you gotta measure for a hot tub to see if it'll actually fit.

I bet you the wall behind you could be wiped out.

I'm not an architectural engineer. I do not know if it's a load-bearing wall or not.

Okay, well, I'm totally getting off topic. We're not—

yeah, I was saying we're not ripping apart the kitchen.

Okay. What are you excited for in our future together?

I, um, yeah, I will steal a line from you in that I feel like I'm growing up with my kids. I'm getting to different phases with them. I'm excited to watch us parent together as they get older and their needs change and our needs changed. And I'm excited to see our continual improvement as a couple relating to each other and see how much even more amazing it is and how much better we are communicating 17 years from now.

I love that. I think we've gone through a couple, um, You know, the summer hasn't been the easiest for us, I don't think. I'm crying again.

I didn't do it. Sorry, there I was defending myself.

So, um, I think what amazes me is that, you know, there's like a bump in the road, like the road isn't smooth. There's, there's ups and there's downs. And, you know, like they say in your wedding vows, through the highs and the lows and the health and the sickness and all that stuff. And I'm impressed that as we go through these bumps, I love you more.

Yeah, the goal, we get stronger, right?

Right. But a bump can make you— a bump can lead to not good things in a marriage. True. And I think that the bumps— we're getting through together and supporting each other through the bumps. Don't you think?

That is the plan, right? I guess there is an art, uh, kintsugi, of Japanese pottery, where they take broken pottery and then put it back together and replace the— where the breaks are with gold. Because they're trying to illustrate the point that something broken and repaired is stronger than if it had never been broken before. And I'm not saying we've ever been broken, but I'm saying that is an art. They believe it's more beautiful because of what it's been through.

Well, I mean, if we were a vase, there would be some cracks in the vase, not because we're broken, but because there's been some hard stuff.

Yes, yes.

So, um, I, I don't think this has been an easy summer, and, um, I'm proud of us for growing stronger through it.

Yes, I, I remember that when that is— when those things started, that you were very worried that it would go in the opposite direction. I, I wasn't worried about that, but I understand that you were, and I'm glad that you see the light.

Well, and to that note, we don't always agree on how to handle things, right? So I think that we have to respect— like, I think what makes it work is that you have to respect each other and like each other. Like, the love is there, but does the love stay if you don't like and respect each other, right?

I hope to never find out.

Well, no, I'm not asking that I want to find out. I'm just saying that I actually like who you are and I respect you and your opinion. And even if I don't agree with you, I still want to hear where you're coming from. Awesome.

So I feel the same way.

I'm not saying that I'm going to always do it your way.

Oh, we know that. You didn't need to put that in there. That was a given.

We have this joke. Oh my God, women, mothers, you will understand. And I'm sorry, fathers. When you— Seth, you can argue and tell me I'm full of crap, but when you have your child live inside of you, grow inside of you, and then you give birth to this child, I don't know, I don't know that I completely agree with the whole 50/50 I'm being honest. I think that, um, I don't know, I think that there's something, there's something ferocious. Yes, inside of me that was born the second that I saw Max's face. Don't you think?

Yes, Mama Bear.

Mama Bear was born. And, uh, yeah, but Mama Bear wants to do it with Papa Bear, right?

I promise if I ever burn the waffles, I'll make new ones. They won't starve. He's like, he's like, you know I cook for them all the time when you're not home, or when you're upstairs sleeping, or when you're upstairs folding laundry and haven't come downstairs yet, or when you're—

or when you say, you know that I did laundry and cooked for myself before Before you came around.

Yes. I wasn't dead on the floor because I starved or ate something that was spoiled.

No, but I can't believe what you were living on, but that's all—

that's a different episode.

I make you such good meals, honey.

Yes, you do.

Yes, you do. Okay. So I'm very excited for our future together and what's to come in this next year. And I want to do this every year and talk about our growth as a couple.

I love that idea.

Happy anniversary.

Happy anniversary.

17 years is a big deal.

Yes, ma'am.

I love you very much.

I love you too.

Thank you for doing this with me.

Thank you for having me on yet again. Yours is my favorite show to do.

Is it?

It is.

Well, you're my favorite guest.

Well, there you go.

This is Rebecca Green reminding everyone to spend every day laughing, learning, and loving.

Thank you for tuning in to the Winey Palooza podcast. If you like what you heard, please be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode. While you are there, leave a review. I love to hear your feedback. Thank you so much for listening.

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