Dear Future Wifey S3, E305: Is Love Blind? (The Martins)

this one this one nurse and it look rich we walking through the hospital and she's like are you completely blind and i said yeah and so she was like well who is this with you i said oh this you know this is my husband and she said how you getting married and you blind and i look this way and i don't have anybody and all i remember is when we walked back to the room and she said it again and i looked at her i'm like you must be crazy there i'm the tara sarwiki and welcome to the dear future wifey podcast welcome to the dear future wifey podcast i'm your host letter s r whitfield hey listen stop right now stop shacking up with us and hit that subscription button and subscribe see a lot of people they actually think that they already have subscribed because they have become such uh frequent listeners of the podcast but you'll be amazed if you go look at your subscription button do that right now see if you actually have subscribed we're trying to hit 50k this month so i need everybody's help you know you meet people in your life sometimes that have a lasting impression beyond that initial encounter and i was working on this project last week of this very heartfelt powerful project we'll get into that as we get into this episode but i've met this couple and when i tell you i wanted to just lay on the floor and cry because a love story is so amazing but not only that but they don't look like what they've been through they're a couple that have weathered some of the most amazing storms and they keep a smile on their face they joke with each other it's just it's a beautiful sight to see and i'm telling you if there's any episode you want to watch it's this episode right here so grab your kleenex and get ready to cry yeah yeah because i feel it in my spirit listen without further ado welcome to the dear future wifey podcast my new homies rich and tiffany martin how y'all doing [Music] why why are y'all so silly tell me why y'all just so crazy keeps the days going yeah and i'm naturally a fool so accurate so listen i was trying to think of a befitting name for this podcast and um i'mma call this episode is love blind is love blind because you guys got married while after you've lost your sight correct right and the love that rich has for you is just incomparable and the love that you have for him is just so dope but it didn't start off that way it didn't start off that way where it was butterflies and fireworks uh you was a hard cookie to crack right tiffany so tiffany tell me how y'all met uh we met through a mutual acquaintance in 2012 2012. um and you know she hit me up and it's like this this guy he might want to you know meet him and he he checks all the boxes you know every every girl got a list so he on paper he hit all my lists but it was just bad timing it was i'm fresh out of college and got a good job traveling i was not trying to set up you weren't trying to settle down i know when i was you know when i saw him i was like oh okay but it just i was not trying to settle down for anybody so he was out there playing the field tiffany field making the field playing the field quarterback all the things and just you weren't going to get me settling for nothing so rich what was going on with her what she said like just like i was i ain't gonna lie i was smitten i was like yo this girl got some fire she looked good and it seemed like she was like beyond her ears yeah and i was like drawn to her so i was like man i want to know who she is and she wasn't she just was not having it she would talk for like two months i was doing too much so answer that because you said that in the in the in the project that we're working on and we'll tell the people about it later but why would you say he was doing too much he's a good guy and i'm like you know like whatever you don't but he called how you doing i'm like don't run game on me and he not he just he's just a good guy so i was just like you know whatever i just really it's so weird he's attractive to me but i wasn't attracted to him yeah yeah and i don't get that at all he said you're attractive but i'm just not attracted you know why it's because you were such a good guy were you were you were you like did you always date bad boys or something because you said that wasn't even the case it was just like why you say you doing too much you said he would call cause he's weird i'll give you that you said he was doing too much because he would call us i was just always on the go and he was doing all the right things it was just like you just wasn't ready for the right things yeah and it was very it was scary oh see that's where i want to get to it was scary because he was too good to be true there you go there it is there it is after all this time well i mean we're married now you can't go nowhere that's what it was you were scared he did all the right things and you just kind of like i don't trust it didn't trust it i understand that though i do understand that like so what did you think it was did you feel like she had another guy did you feel like she wasn't she had commitment issues or what did you take that as as a man because oftentimes we don't hear about men being in pursuit of a woman and a woman saying hey i ain't ready to settle down there's no one the other way around so how were you how did you take that oh no it was it it was like oh no you a whole jerk a whole jerk because i'm like i didn't i didn't think i did anything wrong like i'm like okay i'm calling to show you i'm interested i'm trying to get to know who you are yeah you just throwing a nolan ryan curve at me and i'm like all right i'm good like i don't know what else to do then when she honestly you were honest i didn't believe you everything no okay about everything yes we have been honest about everything but when you said you was gonna come back i did not believe her i friendzoned him but i was honest about everything i told him what was going on so what you say what you say when you friends on them i told him if he gave me time i would come back to him it was a lot of stuff that i needed to like get squared away so you just won the little men wrong that's what says what men say man be like say give me time i'm not ready it was game i thought it was games i ain't playing with you i was honest you were honest like all right i took that but like expecting to see her after she said it nah in your mind you automatically just canceled that you was like i was on the move after that it was like oh he said are you gonna handle me like this that's what you gonna do yeah all right all right we're gonna see if i'm around you come back all right this is what we do all right cool so your first day we talked about this tell us about your first date first date it was valentine's day so it was like all right cheat code i got cool with her sister mm-hmm so i asked this sister like yo what is someone who did not know this oh you didn't you had no clue they knew anything i didn't tell my family nothing about it it was very covert so i i was real smooth about it now put this in perspective you lived in connecticut at the time i lived in and she was living in dallas yep all right and so i asked her like you know what are some of the um things she liked to do she gave me the rundown i'm like okay connecticut it's kind of small so can't really do most of that stuff there new york is right there so we i just went found all the museums found a nice place to stay that was in like in new york but like right outside new york where it was like comfortable so you had to come out and deal with noise and um just told her hey you want to come down and and chill she was like yeah how about my ticket and i forgot about it i bought i bought my ticket i think he asked in like december so i bought my ticket and completely forgot about it you forgot about the whole trip and that week i had flown to denver my sister was doing um an internship i wasn't well she was doing an internship i want her to be out there alone plus i was trying to finish up a book and everything so i'm gonna go out there i'm gonna work and it literally five hours before my flight my phone doesn't notice and says flight and i'm like oh my god i completely forgot about this date so i'm scrambling and couldn't change our clothes and just from denver to dallas to new york in a matter of like what six seven hours um and i show up and i get there and he has this cheesy cardboard cut out with my name on it robinson i'm trying to be creative and mentally yeah and she still remembers this yeah so it worked it worked it worked it's so gross he's laying it on thick and opens the door got you here's your limo missing and so i get in um that's funny he said here's your limo miss robertson all of the all of it no he's a [ __ ] good job good job none of that right mm-hmm she would be saying he ain't doing nothing he wasn't interested too much and now if i don't do it like you all on the other side on the other side greatest day dab yes and that's what i loved about it when you said what is this dude like he's gonna he's gonna kidnap me this is what this is what you see in horror films or something like too good to be true um first of all and this is no colorism here i am too light-skinned to kidnap you because i'm too light-skinned to go to jail huh i can't tell you oh no let's put this perspective so during that time what year was this 2015. it was 2015 tiffany had her sight yes i had she had her side at that time so um but when you saw him you said he's attractive but i'm not attracted to him but y'all had this brewing friendship going and the friendship was locked down like we were so old yes so y'all was dope on that and he wanted to just say hey let's see if i can go from uh friends to lovers and you're like all right let me kind of open my mind up to it but then here it is you got this most amazing date that you've ever had uh was that just the weekend or was it just it was just the weekend it was the weekend so it's a whole weekend you spend time with them you're about to get ready to go back to dallas what happened so a whole weekend just great read all the places did all the things um get you know to my flight um we kissed and i was just like feelings i don't like it so i get them and i'm like i go right into work mode like okay i'm at the airport they call and or other you know speakers and blizzard no flights going out and i'm like so i'm trying to call get you know work my magic can i get a flight at jfk some eventually ended up calling him dude drives back through a blizzard hour two hour i don't know comes back picks me up couldn't find a hotel everybody because you can't stay at lake order you know yeah you can't just lay up in there they kick you out he's spending all of his time driving all over queens anywhere he can go everywhere he's booked and finally find a place we get there and i'm just mad i ain't even focused on him so i'm like doing my own thing and he just you okay and i'm just like i ain't worried about i'm like i'm going to bed i ain't saying thank you i just went to bed next morning so you remember not saying thank you oh absolutely why my my head was on i got to get home i got meetings i got to do this this was nice done right so you wasn't appreciative of him coming back nope not at the time oh i was terrible why we married is a it was a miracle within this old blood it's an act of god now i will say this rich intensity for me to go after me has never ceased blind sick health good it has remained the same and even more throughout the entire time that's beautiful nothing changed and that's what touched me so much to see a man operate with clear intentions um below hold on we got to go back here so you left and then no thank you no whatever then what happened i get home and during that entire time i had noticed my body changing um face swollen can't sleep coughing losing my breath all of these things but i said nothing again no one not even my family at the time as soon as i get home i go straight to the doctors and i just trying to figure out what's going on so they let me know hey you in the early stages of renal failure and i'm like okay you know i'm not one to start crying or anything it's like what what needs to be done never called him never let him know that i made it home nothing two what two or three days later babe what was it both i won't even say two or three days a day later it might have been a day later he calls did you make it like he oh you didn't even tell him you made it home you didn't tell him you made it to dallas i landed straight to the doctors forgot to completely just put him aside and i'm trying to see like just make sure she's good yeah you have to tell me nothing else just let me know you landed yeah we just had a whole blizzard i don't know like them just make sure you're good and she tried to go off on me what i'm like you doing too much i'm like i open the door as i should i try to set up a nice date try to make you have a good time did that now i'm making sure you're home but you're doing too and i'm doing too much if i listed out all the things he did women would be like you are dumb like when i took me to all of my favorite museums all of these specific exhibits i wanted to go to took me shopping bought me boots food all the places yeah you kissed me on the mouth and i'm doing too much uh-huh you all kissing him looking at you being fast and then he said no too much being fast all the things but tiffany think about this that how intentional god was because you got a chance to see your favorite museums for the first and last time like like it's like it's the think about how dope that is that is amazing but we ain't gonna put the cart before the horse go ahead so so so you're doing too much you calling to make sure that that she made it home she went to the doctor and what did you find out you said that you had early stages of renal failure early stages of renal failure didn't tell them i didn't tell my family this at all at that time either but it was like i got a lot going on i can't deal with you and since i didn't know that i just went off on her because i'm like you're going to say i'm doing too much when i'm checking on your well-being i'm like if something would have happened to you your mother and your father calling you yeah they looking for me and i'm like oh no she was on that plane i checked to make sure she was all right what happened in between there i don't know just just just covering all my bases here and you talking about i'm doing too much oh no you got me messed up you got me all the way messed up so i think at that point we stopped talking didn't wasn't aware that she was sick or anything like that we just stopped talking about how long it was i don't recall the time but it was a lengthy amount of time that we did not months or this years no it was months like about what was at least a year when i no when i when i got sick sick i woke up september um september 15 2015. um just got back from l.a had all the intentions of um had job offers in la i was going to commute back and forth from between dallas and everything i was standing up let my parents know like you know i'm about to do this and what industry were you in marketing okay to this day same industry and everything um but really just kind of you know trying to make my own mark without you know the help of my family and all of that stuff just doing my thing and um i woke up one morning and i was standing with my parents for some reason i woke up one morning and the entire um left side read couldn't see and i i screamed from my dad like dad and he comes up what's wrong like i can't see what he means i can't see on my left side i don't know what's going on so he takes me uh emergency you know to the doctors and they're like okay this is early stages of the wear and tear of juvenile diabetes and so i'm like okay so in my head at this point i'm like okay renal failure you know my eyesight it's just a lot's coming on this is september by march i had lost over 50 pounds i am down to a buck ten mind you been thick all my life love my curls i'm a southern girl so that's my pride and look right there gone sticks just skin and stick and it just losing my sight in pain because with um the particular um what was happening to me i could feel my retinas detaching you could feel it i could feel it so at night it was no sleep so i'm going on borderline psychosis because i'm not asleep um you can have like if you ask my family to this day every day i had a heating pad on my face um i'm in tears literally just feeling my my retinas just detached so would you be i mean was it the type of excruciating pain that you're yelling or is it just you can just bear it but you're it's debilitating i'm if i'm sitting i'm laying down on the table with my hair rested like i can't lift up my head or i'm um i'm shaking because of the pain and i'm wearing it like i have a high threshold did they give you medication for it i'm sedated on everything you can still feel it still felt it so the pain threshold is like unreal like unreal i like i've never met anybody that could take that much so you know it had to be very painful if she's on medication and she's still saying this is unbearable i mean when i say heavy i'm on like that heavy stuff like morphine made me tickle it it took him it didn't do anything like for real like when they would say oh we're giving her morphine and i'm like oh you might need to get something a little stronger than that cause she laughs at morphine like the doses they were giving me they were like you should be asleep and when i say i'm having coherent conversations i'm working you said working no now that's that's the one thing you got to learn if you ask any of my friends my family if i'm in the hospital once they get me to a point i set it up as an office literally that's good that's a good coping thing anyway to keep your mind focused and are you just a workaholic either well that was the issue when we first got married that we had to work through there was a workaholic it wasn't even a workaholic it was when i first got sick and i'm jumping ahead oh okay we're gonna get back to that because i wanna i wanna get there okay i wanna get there so you're in the hospital uh i mean you had you're at home or you're in the hospital going through this feeling your retinas detaching when all of this happened it was boom boom boom boom so it was we got to get you on dialysis um because the water weight that i gained it was it was drowning me internally so it was okay boom we got you on dialysis then it was four or five eye surgeries back to back to back to back boom your eyesight is gone then it's um the medicines they were putting me on killing my muscles dennis boom can't walk so i don't lost my independence my sight and i can't walk and lord that hit me hard man 2015 or what like it was it happened in a matter of like three months like it really was like boom boom boom boom but like september 2015 until about april 2016 and it was just gone yeah i think by 2016 is when i started to become aware like of what was going on yeah because i think from the time we stopped talking after new york we hadn't we hadn't spoken and so i went off and did my own thing i'm not even knowing that she's going through this is this is popping off so like one day out of the blue i just checked on him like hey cause by that time i talked it up like we ain't gonna never be a couple we're just gonna be friends so i'm like all right we just cool i'm checking i'm afraid and i sent her a text i believe and i tried to send her something like one of the little animated gifs or whatever she said i can't see it and i'm like but did i not send it right or something and she was like that's when she told me and i'm like oh so and put those times that we weren't talking in perspective like oh that's why you ain't talking to me you got all this other stuff going on and i'm like dawg i would have been there like regardless of whatever my thought process was like no that's not important like your health is important and i come from a household where health is an issue so the kidney thing i'm familiar with it because my brother had to deal with it right my aunt had to deal with it so it's like it's not foreign so to me i'm just chalking it up there's another one that you add to the list and you go put your energy toward that and so talk about that phone call she was she was calling different friends asking to see them no so this particular time um this is right before i lost all of my vision i was down to um i think they said 30 and mind you the depression is unreal at this point i can't i can't i can't cope i can't deal and um i'm taking all kinds of meds between what i needed and what i wanted so i'm like i just i couldn't take it and so um i'll never forget it and i love this woman and if i could ever find her i got to tell her thank you it was this black optometrist and she she did my work and everything she came in and she said she grabbed my hand and she pulled my parents over and she said listen you are going to lose your sight but you are strong and you are a strong black woman get your affairs in order and figure out how to beat this and my my parents were like yes this is what we're going to do in my head i couldn't i couldn't digest it it was just like you know everybody knew tiffany is always on the road tiffany's traveling tiffany working tiffany is doing her and for her to say it was like all my dreams you know everything i had and playing it's just it's gone but all the other doctors just you to be blind we can't do anything her that bad bedside manner terrible they just deliver the news nice and loudly and just keep going walk away like you you just drop the bomb on somebody and you're going to leave them yeah to that and just walk away as if this is nothing you know go about your life and he was like well you just told me i'm going to lose my sight she was the only one that treated me like a person yeah and not a prognosis and so we got home my parents you know was like you know we're gonna go out and run some errands and i had this just ridiculous idea in my head i had literally just bought me a toure red um souped up challenger i love my challenger i love speed i love i love american muscle this was this was the car i worked on like i worked hard i was doing all kinds of job and this is my own car didn't need a co-signer this is mine so i got mine this is my car and i remember just thinking i am never going to be able to drive again and it just crushed me so when they left mind you down to 30 vision found my keys and i'm a joyride i don't care what happens and when i tell you i got on this strip um and i hit that card to about 120. and i hit it hard and i i mean i'm just gone and i just and i thought and there was a it was a there was construction on this bridge and i thought for a quick second i said if i turn this i can end it you're like i ain't got to i ain't got to go through this yeah and right at the last minute i just turned it back and went through and i drove for about two three hours parents calling um i finally pull up and they run out my mom is in tears my dad is hysterical where you been and i was just i just told them just leave me alone i'm never gonna be able to drive again leave me alone and i gotta um they you know it was disrespectful i don't disrespect my parents but it was disrespectful and i think they kind of got i think for them it was my my daughter's safe yeah but they got what happened and so they went in and i um i called rich and i facetimed them and i and i said you know this might look at me and i think this is where i was like this is unusual because prior to all of that our conversations were pretty much text messages i think we might have faced time once or twice and i'm like oh no she doesn't she don't call she don't she don't do that so when i got the facetime i'm like okay this is this is different and so she's sitting in the car and i remember she's sitting in the car she had sunglasses and hat on and that's when she told me about the division thing and i was like all right okay wow right and so um you know i'm she's explaining to me how it happened and the whole process and all that stuff and i'm just like all right so what we gonna do you say we i'm used to that so it's like okay those situations for me there's not enough time to process sorry feelings yeah it's okay stuff got to get done we can cry later so what what's the deal how do we how do we work through this and um she didn't ask for anything at that moment but i could tell she was like way beyond frustrated and so i was like well just screaming cuss in the car and she was like what is that going to do i said absolutely nothing but for the moment you know for the moment like get that out you know don't don't just build on top of that you know if you got a scream scream and if you want to scream in front of me do that yeah i screamed went off so loud and i just i lost it like it was a it was unreal because i and i nev i just screamed and then i wept and there's a difference between like crying and weeping i wept like i whipped i i didn't have anything and it was just i wept and it was such a moment of vulnerability that like it's beautiful now that i could experience it with somebody in a safe space but at the time it just i felt exposed um i didn't have a covering i didn't feel safe you know and that time i didn't even feel safe with god because i'm like i'm praying to you yes and you letting this happen and i was like i don't trust you yeah and it's it's and this is what i wish people leaders in the christian community would explain it's like it's something completely different when you are scared of god not fear of god not a reverence but genuinely scared to believe to move to live because you you feel like the guinea pig i don't want to be a testament of faith i never asked you know it's you know i didn't want to be the example of like what strong faith is that wasn't my mo i didn't want it yes in that other side where it's just like yeah we could read about miracles all day don't mean we gonna get one yeah and nobody talks about that and the confusion that brings because it's like what am i doing wrong what am i reading about a miracle for if i'm if if the opposite is just going to happen yes and so many people are dying yeah that i was like in my situation i'm like this don't end well healing healing is when you go to heaven that ain't healing to me yeah but so many people were dying younger than me older there was no reprieve from anything you're talking about people that were close to you are people that was going through dialysis and stuff oh wait it didn't matter so many people were dying the same exact thing and i was just like i don't want i just it was just too much and then when it actually started kicking in and rich would just call he didn't want anything he would just call and when i say call it first started like hour three hours then it became he's calling and we are talking the entire nine hours i'm on dialysis that night and then after that he get about an hour of sleep and he's going to work and he did this consistently for like ask me what was wrong with me there wasn't nothing wrong with you because i mean and i didn't know let me tell you something black man let me tell you something that's how you love somebody yeah that's how you love somebody with intentionality that's how you love somebody to life that's how you love somebody to to you can heal somebody by that type of love and it's amazing the reason why this story resonates so much to me is because not only do i want to honor you with this episode because as a as a black man you are loving on a high level but um because most people most divorces first of all you got married to her while she was sick but most people can't even handle it when they are in love with this person they get married to this person this person goes through sickness whether it's the the the husband or the wife and they just can't handle it so most people walk away from that from that marriage but for you to intentionally i had a friend on this episode i mean on the podcast um my friend lauren and she talked about how she has rheumatoid arthritis and her boyfriend who she loves so much told her i'm not i'm not i didn't sign up to take care of you for the rest of your life and that was the end of their relationship that hurts my number it made me so angry to hear that but here it is you saying i see you and the c is so powerful because you see her for the essence of who she is who god called her to be and the queen that she is and and it's irrefutable about what type of illness she's dealing with whether or not she can physically see you but from a spiritual standpoint y'all see each other now here's the funny part oh jesus because you i don't know how you tapped into that but that's the funny part we joke about it now it was like when we were good you was all nice and thinkings and all that you know and i'm in the gym i'm doing my thing i'm getting tats because you know i'm gonna make this thing look good yeah y'all swole and never it would never click never clicked we was like bumping heads all right you doing too much you you whole jerk because you know i'm like i'm remembering here being nice to you this is how you gonna act didn't click at all it wasn't until she got sick and that hurt my heart so we had the best communication we got to know each other and i said oh god i see what you did i see what you did with all this other stuff it was like it's blocking okay i could i could put forth the right effort i don't mean you know me yes and this tough exterior that she got is so far from who she is there it is and so when i got to talk to her i was like you know it wasn't about nothing it was just like oh no you're actually sweet you're actually am i giving i am such a sensitive just baby like threw me off but i will never people on the outside will never get like they will never get the access through me completely off and um and then i was still trying to understand because remember there was some time in between us not talking yeah so i'm doing my thing yeah i'm dating and i'm you know i'm like look i'm single yep whatever you guys going that's what you got going on i'm good and i don't know what made me reach out to her that day but it just literally just started to change but at the same time stuff with me was starting to change like the dating thing and i was like picking up on cues i'm like okay this is this isn't it no disrespect to whoever i was yeah at the time it's like look it out of disrespect all all the nuts yeah y'all weren't as good as me to this day blind as a back butch wife ain't nobody gonna beat me loving him period so let that be known talk about it tiff that's all you let them know it's all 50 000. let them know too y'all hear this on his page my page and so all of that stuff began to like just it ran its course yeah and um when we started to communicate more it was like she said it was an hour and i'm just like wow now funny stuff but like this is the first time we talked this long on the phone but i know when i know you know uh you do it too much no awkward pauses like what do i say next it just it was a natural conversation so it's like okay we hit the reset button on that good and so when we talked i mean we talked i don't know how you talk to somebody that long nine hours and and not even know if it's been nine hours and i look you talking about the sun and so i'm like well i can't see it what you talking about and you hooked up to a machine the whole time going through dialysis i could hear it beeping mm-hmm nine hours and when she when we would kind of talk about that because my brother would go into the dialysis center and she did her peritoneal which was at the house so they break up those days in the dialysis center she's doing the full hours and one night every night every night and so every night nine hours every night it was um it's a tube coming out my stomach connected to a machine connected to the tub to drain and i am i cannot go anywhere every night every night help me understand this forgive me of my ignorance why did it have to be every night what's going on the difference between peritoneal um and then you know hemo is peritoneal is a fluid-based so they put a glucose in your system and it flushes out your system and it goes through cycles throughout the night um and like every night nine hours you just being flushed through this and so um it was a lot of wear and tear on the body you did that how long i did it for a year three months and i believe two days and and this is me not knowing nothing up until my parents like it was so much going on my my grandmother is suffering terribly from dementia they bring her they move her into the house so i have my mom which is taken care of a dying parent and then my dad is taking care of pretty much a dying child and their marriage was the one where i was like this is this is how you this is a partnership this is love this is how you move together but they i mean it was so bad on the house and i didn't know that that was in play at the same time because okay back up a bit prior to me even meeting her my stepfather is off of his bout with cancer a little bit after that my mom has a diabetic spike she's in the hospital brother kidney disease pops up on after that and so i'm going to these little seminars because i'm like i was going to get my brother my kidney and he's like oh no you can't because you developed kidney stones and just ruled me out but just hearing how that process goes the waiting the if you pass a certain age you're not even like considered to get one because you know just disagree between the lines yeah they say hey and it's like listening to him talk about how the older people look at them and they're like we hate y'all because y'all get a chance to live we have to keep doing this until to until you know and it's like for them it's unfair if you hit me like i'm just trying to live like i'm sorry and now that she's doing hers at home i'm like okay you don't have to go through that but it's like you got that going on and then now here's my friend people started dropping off and that's what that's what got my goat because i've been in enough situations where it's like okay when you good to people all right cool i'm not asking you for much of my if my time happens to be bad just be there but then you can't do that then all i was only good to you when i was good yeah and i imagine how that makes you feel when it's like okay i'm not asking you for much and now you just feel like okay i'm useless to you and you dip whether you said it or not that's what you said yeah and it struck a nerve with me because i'm like oh no we don't do that yes we don't we don't do that it's like if it's good it's good and when it's bad we here yeah so now you don't pick and choose when you get to be a part of my life and not only that i'll get defensive from my friends you don't pick and choose when you're gonna come into their life or like oh no they trash they can't come back there it is and so me and her sister same page my sister do not mess with me because that one all five foot two small sh we'll talk about that later that one is scary but it turned like when my family started noticing you know where so and so have you and i'm like i can't nobody's calling and it like i was to the point i don't ask for anything yeah i wasn't asking for much i was like yo just call and tell me the good things happening in your life it takes the focus off of what's going on with me now the connecticut thing is like okay anytime something happened with my folk i could be there yeah this it was too much distance and so when she finally got to the point she was like rich can you come see me i'll pay you i got mad at her i was like y'all need you to pay for nothing yeah you know knock i got it i just got this bomb job i could pay for it i think i'm gonna i can afford a flight right yeah and when i say the timing of all of that was perfect because it was like any situation outside of her that i had was literally just gone done done yep sorry fun whatever it was it's done and it seemed to like i'm like god you really must be walking us like you ain't saying nothing but your providence is around because how do i know that this is going to end and this door opens up mm-hmm and so it's like all right cool when you coming down my birthday now here's here's what amazes me about her lost sight i'll do this crazy dialysis all night she wants to have a dinner party for me on my birthday and inviting her family to come really and i'm like what is wrong with you y'all weren't even in a relationship then no we were in a relationship i think about that time we were but it was really early like it was like three four months in it wasn't but this is what i did i don't remember this because i when she asked me to come down she was like are we dating and i was like man i went right back to the beginning i was like yeah probably dude i got it right it took you long enough like that but then it was like wait a minute there was some stuff transpiring before let's clear that up first before uh you know come to you so i finally got that out the way that's when i'm like all right i'm coming down and um i couldn't believe it i'm like this is this is this is your heart on display for me because it's like you technically don't have to do none of this at all you don't need to yo you um i'm gonna be on dialysis i gotta go back to the hotel you gotta stay here tonight hey you wanna have a dinner party and i'm meeting your folks and that was scary i bet it was because i just heard about it that i hadn't seen them at this at the time and so you know just had this nice party and it almost went bad because he shot up late and so four months and my dad comes to me he's like so what what is this what you mean what is this what is this you serious yeah y'all talking about marriage ain't nobody said you know like i said all that but we see him yeah he's like no and so he said make me a promise i said yeah you know what he wants he said do not get married until you get a transplant okay no one knew i was getting a dual transplant just three months later and so fast forward and oh don't forget you was ready to call it you you were done this one week was like so life-changing because if it determined whether i was going to be here to this day talking to you or not this one week it was just hard body is just worn i have my again when people go blind they have this thing called my 24 and it's where you can't determine between days and nights so you are just up and everybody knows you do not get adequate sleep your brain fun it just cuts borderline psychosis so this last week um we had got a call for a kidney excited all the way up until the point couldn't get the kidney on top of whatever depression i was just like i don't whole family distraught i mean countenance of everybody is falling it's you know this was the hope and it was ripped and um i never forget it was a week before um we before father's day so around this time and i got asked to do a video for my church or for a father's day um tribute and in my head i had planned i said i'm not going on dialysis anymore which is pretty much a suicide i'ma leave but i know i can give a tribute to my dad and my family and i know the world to see it and so we did the video in the video i just i wanted my dad to know how much i appreciated him as a black man not just taking care of his kid but his family the emotional support from my all of these things i wanted to thank my mom even though it was a dad's trip you know you know mom thank you you know just i can say thank you to my family and not just the world can see you know how great my family is and i had it stuck in my head i did the video and i remember the uh the producer uh he couldn't even say cut he was in tears and i just got up took the mic off and i told my mom let's go went home and my dad came up our routine because i have to do the whole sterilization and everything before i get on and um i told that i said dad um i'm not doing dialysis anymore i made my decision i'm not doing dialysis anymore this was wednesday and he said all the work that me and you put in and he said just for me hold on one more day and i said i'm gonna do it for you only you and i remember that night just crying the full nine hours never went to sleep just cried um i woke up uh got through the day and i was like all right dad we ain't got a call back i gave you a day i'm not doing dialysis tonight and i get a call from rich and i don't know what happened but i wept again and i said i don't i don't i don't understand god like i don't i don't want to i don't want to understand faith i don't care about it at this point i don't get it i am in such pain i gotta find something to end it and it wasn't like suicide on the emotional or mental it i'm physically in pain and i'm i'm literally like digging like forks in my leg to divert the attention away from like it was just excruciating and i said i told richard so i'm not doing it again and he literally said these same exact words my dad said verbatim one more he said just one more day for me and i said let's add one more day literally the next day we got a call about a dual transplant go in get the surgery come out and i got health back you know it's everything changed and what was this this was uh june 17 2017. and i mean everything changed overnight it was you know i feel different you know i got energy i can breathe you know um i hadn't been able to leave out of my room at night for over a year i got home i walked out of my room late at night i went and got a drink of water you know all the little things people take for granted i just this is different you know and then um you know rich coming down and it's like we can spend time you know i yeah i don't have to go through rehab and you know i feel that my legs work you know all of these things and um just us talking about marriage and it was just like i actually get to live you know i i have a life now you know i can do all of these things and um it was just so close on the verge of like giving up and just like accepting death and it was just like those to me and just hadn't talked to each other said the same exact things and just got me through two days them two days and it was so funny because in the hospital i woke up for the first time after my surgery and my dad was watching the video that i did the tribute but it was sunday it was father's day and he watched the video and my mom and dad are in tears mind you my parents don't cry but we all in the hospital room and i wake up and i'm like just like what's going on and dad is just like he unconsoled couldn't so you came out of your surgery came out of my surgery on father's day listening to the video the tribute video and he just oh well i can't take it when i tell you god is so intentional i can't i can't help thank god i mean just think about that you got these two kings in your life pushing you to your purpose pushing you to life and one says just give me 24 hours get do it for me another one says just give me 24 hours and then your blessing comes on the other end i didn't even know that he said it she told me much later like you know dad said the same thing and i'm like really yeah they talk about now but like then they had no idea that they had said the same thing and everything and see what i was talking about was when your father told you that man he loves you he's sitting on the phone with you for nine hours every day that man loves you yeah and he was like no man spends his time like that it was crazy because i'm like it must have been subconscious because i was trying to push that like nope rich that ain't important right now like but like low key you don't you do you do love it but hey what you do you're doing it you just been a friend you're just being a friend i'm just being a friend and then i remember when i got my transplant and he was talking about marriage i said listen i cannot make up for them for all the years i don't stuck you in the friend zone but as long as i live i will love you as hard as i can to make up for the moments and i mean we chuckled about it but i was so serious it was i if i could go back because it would be moments when we got married that i think about i'm like you know if i would have just gave in and we could have just dated when i was healthy you know we could have had way more moments of just god knew exactly see he's shaking his head no tell me why you're shaking your head though because it didn't happen that way there it is it's as simple as that it just didn't because you can only we can only say that in hindsight but like at that moment we were in different places figuring things out having different experiences so god being all seen and all knowing probably said look if i let you two get together y'all gonna wreck it in at this stage if y'all did it earlier yeah and i need y'all to go through some little something yeah and it's like whatever he had planned for us we would have we would have been prodigal with it yeah we'd have wasted it because i know the mind frame i was in then wasn't suitable for where we got what we got now i know that yeah and so you know when i brought it up i knew i may not have fully understood but i knew enough to know that like okay it's not gonna get any better for me without her rich i want you to say that one more time for the people in the back need to hear that where the camera's at yeah yeah hey right there go that center counter that's centered it was not going to get better for me without her because and again it's like for me with my growth and through all of this is like i don't have to put any of my old relationships down to be yeah to uplift this one they're like no it's just it is what it is talk about it with her i get challenged i get pushed when i don't want to be i get encouraged i get love and sometimes i'm sitting over here like okay i'm not used to this i'm not used to it what so what's wrong with me she ever challenges you it's like it bugs me out now because it's like when people kind of say what they want they actually get it oh okay yeah there's some stuff that comes with it and i'm figuring that out now yeah not only that but she can see things i haven't even been aware of because it's been so normal for me so she's like oh no you too loud i'm not loud like that's a normal decibel for me you got a normal decibel sorry it's like oh no you loud he got like this east coast aggression calm all that down we can we can have a conversation and get through some things but you're not going to come at me and i come back i come back to that three different occasions it's like okay with her she was the first one to say i go to the barber shop yeah we don't play like not that i didn't tell him i was like hey bro yeah we don't play that loud stuff out here man just be cool you'll be all right and i'm like i picked bed up for being out here like i never said it but it's like bad i'm like all right cool and so we were ultimately it was a lot of his upbringing coming out in the challenges of our marriage where i had to look past like you know this anger and aggression oh he wasn't able to talk when he was younger he couldn't articulate how he felt he you know emotions are fine in this safe place and it's like the majority like oh you you have no idea marriage the mind job this whole thing has done for me i wish people would tell the truth about marriage you got it you can't okay rich go ahead give this comment so i'ma just walk through it so before we even got married it was this whole discussion about who's moving mm-hmm and for me it was like okay i'm attached to my mom's ministry and i think i'm supposed to finish that out now i don't have dreams and primitives whatever you want to call it right i'm thinking that's what it is me i don't care about what your mama right right and i'm sitting over here and i'm sitting over here like i'm trying to do guys with the best i can understand are you rich and she just said they're like ain't nobody moving to connecticut i see y'all taxes like you get more bang for your buck out here and i'm like we're having those little practical conversations right but then but then it gets to like she's like look i ain't coming up there because guess what god told me if i move up there we're getting a divorce so i'm sitting there like oh and it wasn't even on the surface level it was literally god came to me and he said he said listen you moved to connecticut your first year gonna have challenges you will go you will end in divorce and it was so real and that i sat on it for like months and finally because i was trying to convince rich on like a on the physical like taxes yeah just financial standpoint and then flat out i said you're not hearing me god told me do not move up there or it's the end of and i'm like my if you know me you know i ain't out here telling me god told me so for me to say through that threw me through it who told you i said no i heard this it was audible and yeah i know what he said lo and behold never would have we get married that first year is hell and if it if we were in connecticut yeah we would never would you i'm saying it out of my own his mom said we wouldn't have made it my parents really we would have never made it through that and they said that they confirmed that after everybody anybody who knows our situation know that if i was up there i would have been dead oh yeah so so tell people what happened the first year you're married so you got your you got your kidney transplant and dual transplant dual transplant so i don't have diabetes i don't have to do you know any dialysis i'm good only thing i'm blind but we don't i don't got all around that all right so i got you on this so we got married january so it's march it's my birthday january 20 no 17 17 2017. so no january 17th 2019. uh 2019 i thought i got married in 2019. so we um january 17th oh go ahead i'm like so it's it's my birthday march 4th we um had dinner they brought the you know aunt's uncle's all come to dinner right and the next day she goes into the hospital and i'm like okay what's going on here we thought we were pregnant which for me went from like ain't nobody trying to have no kids this early in our mid life like we wouldn't try to like not the first day like i didn't even get a year in yet and this is what we do but like on the flip side of that it was exciting because it's like um like for me it was i get to have his baby we get to have a family yeah i get you know i get to figure out a name like it was just like exciting and so we're in the hospital and she the nurse comes in and they go um early detection uh rejection of your kidney so we went from okay we're thinking about life creating life to now we got to talk about death you know they're asking me power of attorney do you have a living will and i'm just taking i'm like wait wait wait wait you know like i just got married he just you know it's so many things flash and i'm like we were just you know talking about like getting more space you know for kids and it just honeymoon heartbroken like some i was just like my body betrayed me you know like god portrayed you know all of these things and i'm i'm over here malfunctioning because like i heard what you said i didn't process none of it because i'm used to not processing none of it yeah everything that had happened before prior to her there was no time to process no we got to figure out get this done all y'all y'all can go ahead and cry somewhere else we got to focus on this and so i think that was now i'm looking back at it and it's like my psyche and everything else is telling me bro are you depressed boy are you stressed he would be so angry like his energy in the hospital rooms and i'm like and i think he sat down one day i said babe you're depressed i said no no no you're not eating he's all over the pressure like no no he genuinely had no idea he thought it was like the commercials or you know i like i don't feel down but like you telling me i'm depressed and i'm like i don't know what depressions feel like so i'ma automatically tell you no i'm not but i'm angry though yeah and i'm yelling nurses no no listen i yelled at that nurse because oh my god you ain't even have to pinpoint them on me no no i'm sorry i'm not you're telling the world about life i'm there i'm sorry world but no it's like when you're going through that you got to start learning to ask these questions and you remember what other people have done prior to yeah and it's like okay they tell you something i remember that the next person comes in i tell them what they told us you choose to do something else that puts her in pain yeah i'm mad at you i just told you yeah don't do that i don't care about my height how i would look at this six they'll kick you out and you can't come help me no no but it was like listen if everybody else seems to know okay she's a hard stick but those who don't know what that is is when you're getting blood and your veins are either small or rolling they just poke you like a pig and it's just i mean they were poking me in between my knuckles trying to find it in my neck and she told them hey don't poke me here don't poke me here find that other machine y'all got to get the blood they understood that this one person didn't understand it and we telling you this is what everybody else has been doing oh no i can get it you got a few tries you got a few tries to get it and now i'm looking at her she is trying to be be a champ i'm listening like oh no we told you yes stop yeah he didn't go out another way she just rolled up and she's she's like he just rolled up on the wall because it's like okay from from my from my vantage point i'm looking at her like you better hurt my woman yeah she's over here winston in on i'm like oh no and you just don't blame me for that rich huh i don't blame you for that no no and anna and alex she will never win that argument yeah because as a husband man you you're a protector and you watch her go through so much pain and you're like this is this is something that we can control you don't have to do this there was another alternative oh no i can get it and i'm looking at the blood not coming through the tube but i'm trying to tell him i said rich i don't have been in the hospital like i know what this is i'm like you can't do i need you here i can't have them banning you and then on top of that i need these nurses to treat me right now that's right i needed them to treat her right while i'm here right but like that year it was it was just so much because you got him transition he has never been anywhere else out of connecticut as far as living living he comes down brand new everything um what was bad about i'm in the hospital for like months it wasn't like a week stay week i am in the hospital for months and he can't actually get a job because he has he has to help me when he's trying to find a job i want no job first time there at all you got him oh you need to take he can't get a job and you we know how provided men and providing hand-in-hand and i'm trying to tell him like babe you know i don't save no money we good you ain't he's that's not in his head so when he came i said you got 50 million dollars your bank can't be and that's what it was it was like listen i have nothing nothing i came down here hoping you know yeah did my due diligence of trying to find something that didn't pan out cool i'm here now we'll hit the hit the ground running no no and i'm trying to tell her like lizzie i've been in this situation before i hadn't worked for three years you think i'm going to do this again with this happening yeah my first year of marriage with somebody struggling through all this health stuff he was at home by himself so he married and single you know he's going home to an empty bed i'm sick they were never giving us good news it was always bad it was always dim he's not like when i say he changed it was um his demeanor he's naturally a happy-go-lucky it was gone cracking jokes all the time it was gone he was he was just angry not eating or eating too much going to sleep not going to sleep it was such a roller coaster i didn't i didn't know how to i didn't know what was happening i couldn't tell you you'd be like how are you today fine whoa and it was just built like it was just like he just said he could not he could not catch up it was just like i'm told three of the people i was fine and now i got to the fourth floor like i told him other three i was fine not knowing he ain't had nothing to do with that right nothing to do with it and it was this one moment where um i got so sick and i had jumped up and i got i mean i'm when i stayed sick just couldn't keep anything down all the nurses are rushing in and he kind of lifts me up and i'm telling and in this moment i don't know what happened he was trying to like embrace me and hold me up like give me like it was like a hug but he was just trying to like hold me and i kept pushing him away because i'm like i'm about to faint you know like and he he i don't know if it broke him but like it he he broke i don't i never experienced a man breaking but he just when i when i'm like i'm fainting i can't you know and the nurses are trying to catch me he's just trying to hold me and i'm just like going and once i finally like hit the bed and they just kind of he just broke and it was like when he left and the nurses came back and they was like you know it's we know it's rough on you like it it was just it was just too much like it makes me emotional to this day how he just like just to feel somebody physically just kind of like give it up like it just i i have i have nothing and it and that's what it felt with him in that moment where it's like i'm trying to hold my wife up and i'm about to break and i'm just like this is weird i was i was like rich i don't know like let me again i'm transitioning so not only am i transitioning everything with me is transitioning to get adjusted to here yeah not just to here to her not just the hair's life to what's currently happening right now yeah and i have no vantage point for it i have no no point of reference to figure this out and i'm like i can now say yeah i'm lost i'm completely lost because i can't lean on you i won't because you got enough going on as it is i haven't developed this rapport with your parents and i'm like still low-key scared of them you know i mean i haven't developed anything yet and they're like oh yeah you can call us and i'm like okay now i'm reverting back to old habits where it's like yeah i've heard that before yeah i'm not going to bank on it yeah and it was he didn't have support it was dumb you're here to have support when i say dumb i mean dumb in the sense where it's like i know it's the east coast yeah yeah it was like this is dumb this is really really dumb i didn't come out here for this yeah let's go back to when you proposed to her didn't do it what happened what happened how'd y'all get married i just said hey we married so here's what happened we it was like okay we talking about it and she goes you know you're gonna have to talk to my parents about it right and i'm like okay so her grandmother and aunts and uncles live in virginia and so we they were going to visit and you know spend some time up there and i was like hey virginia's only five hours from me i can ride up and so i'm like telling my mom i'm like hey mom about to go to virginia and and she's like that'd be a good time to talk to mr robinson and i'm like yeah i'm gonna do it and i'm like okay this is happening right so um get there it's the next day i'm outside hooping with the cousins playing basketball daddy's at the grill everybody happens to go in the house and i'm like this is it this is it and so i said hey sir um listen you you know but i do have plans of marrying tiffany but i do want to move out to texas but before i even do all that he was like y'all grow do what you want that's the number i don't freaked out this whole time thinking like i'm gonna get the ride act from y'all girl he said y'all grow you can do what you want and he smiled though which kind of let me know like i'm good yeah yeah i'm good it wasn't even him it was my mom my my mom i'll call her mom okay my mother-in-law yeah woman so that woman so i go to the house and i'm telling all my cousin i tell them tell my sister-in-law i'm like hey talk to dad you should be solid and um as they're doing their own thing my mother-in-law walks by she's like i was like hey i like that shirt she's like yeah i got to get somebody else added to it it was a shirt of me my sister and my my brother my brother-in-law and she said yeah i got to get another one added to it and floats away right i literally floated away and i was like oh he don't told her right so i tell um i said hey babe he told her nah he ain't tell her i'm like no he told her and so next day he said we'll talk we'll talk more about it in the morning so i go i meet him in the morning and when me and him get up i see out the corner of my eye my mother-in-law get up i'm like oh here we go and it wasn't so much that they had any um issue with me and her getting married just know what you're getting into yeah it's like her health concerns this that in the third and i told him well here's my history with that so i'm not not saying that i have it all figured out but i'm ready to embrace whatever comes with it if that if that that's what we got to do then that's what we got to do so there's there's no getting around that i'm not running from that and it was like okay well you got our support if y'all need anything let us know and he said listen if it don't work out just return her the way you found her and that was that i said that to my daughter's uh it's it's uh her fiance now but while he was dating and they went to college i said return it away you found her unopened that's what i thought it was funny was it was other people talking about you know hi i'm soul so i got this i got that and i'm like i don't care i already talked to the two main people so you're just talking right now at this point they worry about you they ain't threatened by y'all i got a good job so so then so then y'all had that conversation and then what y'all just said hey meet me at the office end of august that was uh labor day weekend and then he came down in october and brought his mom and his aunt 2018. no same year uh um yeah the 2018 yeah yeah 2018 and um while he's there um we go look at apartments sign at least in an apartment which i don't even know why we did it because we weren't you know nothing was set in stone he just signed up and so i kept it to myself and um i love that particular weekend because um of course in my family fashion he got people coming down we don't have a party so rich don't talk about nobody in his family but his mama and his aunt and so they came down and of course my family like oh we family not like no ain't nobody put out no ring or nothing but everybody family now just great just a great day the funny part was how it happened tiff as a present to my mom had got her um a registration for woman down loose and so my mom was like you're happy oh yes it's so my mom tells my aunt when he's supposed to go she's like oh but i'm going and i'm like all right matt so it's the three of us and we get out there and mom had the time of her life um that sunday um we had family dinner so watching the game my my uncle came the same one to help me up came through and so it was a um i i had a blast that they had a good time mingling with the fam not knowing that that next week december december it was december oh okay all right you're right so that was the end um the conference was the end of october so it was it was like yeah you're right so i know in december was what december 7th and the funeral was on our anniversary yeah so it was like her last she got to see tiff before she got to see who my future family was going to be and she said to me that was the best trip i've been on in a long time and not knowing like that week she had led a lot of stuff in service she was a preacher that day she did the bible study friday night prayer that saturday after she did all that all week she passed and i just remember going up me and my mom was going i'm like here we go again right because my she's been fighting health for a whole like latter part of her life so there's one thing she's gonna do she's gonna fight but just that time felt different yeah because everything leading up to going to see her was god like no i'm taking her i'm taking her this time and we got there and it was like okay we thinking she's an emergency no she's not an emergency you have to go around the front but around the front the computer shut down okay cool yeah but she might be on this floor we go to the floor oh no she's not there she's downstairs okay so we go back downstairs and the whole time usually me and my mom have this indication where we know it's going to be all right it was none of that i knew it was final by the time he walked in we were looking for a room and when i looked and i saw everybody outside the room praying i said yeah and so it was kind of like again another situation i haven't processed yet yeah because now we got we're the first ones there all the time so now we have to tell everybody else here's the here's the thing get these things in order so this was december of 2018 and then the next month i got married yeah like we talked on the phone and that now mind you my sister had just gotten married march of that year her wedding should have been on platinum weddings i mean it was amazing and i'm not saying that like legitimate like go look at magazines in the city she's in them like it was i was like i looked there rich i looked at rich blind i looked at me do this this was too much i too much i mean hold on how you know how it look everybody telling me everybody's losing their mind about this you didn't need eyes to know what was happening really it was where she studied where she had it and um it was just it was a thing it was like it was it was beautiful but it was like oh no it was too much too much and it was funny because when i walked down the aisle of her wedding rit said you better act like this i would so in the pictures he gave me a kiss and we both leaned it was like i do l.a new years we were um we were somewhere and i told my mom i said hey man rich getting married in two weeks that's how you say it you're not getting no it didn't take long at all invites you ain't getting to know everybody i told i said this is what i want boom boom boom boom boom i called charnel charnel had been there from junk when i had my vision shout out to charnel shout out to charnel i said this one i want my hair and my makeup i called this seamstress i said i want my dress to look i knew what i wanted a pencil skirt classy 1920 field i want my decoration this had it planned out my dad loved it my dad doesn't he is the most low maintenance and he was like what y'all need i said i need you to do this gotcha my mom we gotta invite we got why can't we do it and girl and this is what we're doing this y'all got married in a pastor's office you had your wedding with your other daughter beautiful this i want to hear and i want to go and it was the most beautiful night i mean it we were surrounded i saw some pigeon pits beautiful y'all trying that that's beautiful listen for me it was like it was funny yeah for me it it was funny because my mother was like oh no this is bigger than what you think it is she kept saying our marriage is bigger than what and i was like i am not trying to do nothing about our met like i'm not trying to be no instagram inspiration everybody wants to do a podcast and it is like can we get through life i'm like you want me to do a podcast you want me to produce a pocket no i can't see nothing oh but the powerful thing about it is not so much of giving people advice it's just people just look at what you're doing that's what this whole this this episode i'm not i'm great with it yeah just this level you asking me advice i'm like listen no just let them watch it it just seems like people want us to capitalize off and i'm well no it's not so much it's coming no it's people who's like real y'all need to write a book hey you need to tell stories and say what what what you're saying now just write a story about you could write a powerful story about loving loving somebody like like what we don't realize is that the bible call calls us walking epistles so though epistle is a book that you read so it's like when you're we we reading y'all like that that's what i'm about to not be best friends normally why because i said walking epistles because you trying to we know you mean well though we know you mean well it's just with us it's like we really they're not y'all not like that y'all i'll tell you why i i i just over here but tell me why i tell you why i don't want the attention and stuff from me we would go out and i would hear it it would be um this one this one nurse and it look rich we walking through the hospital and she's like are you completely blind and i said yeah and so she was like well who is this with you i said oh this you know this is my husband and she said how are you getting married and you blind and i look this way and i don't have anybody and all i remember was when we walked back to the room and she said it again and i looked at her i'm like you must be crazy there he just said i said you said you must be crazy but then it was like after that when we go out in public i would hear people oh the lady said that out of her mouth and i looked at her like no there's a reason it don't matter how i look you crazy but then it just started coming everywhere we would go random places meanwhile let me just put this in perspective was she laughing when she said that no she just said straight up like how did you know she was almost borderline kind of like bad here's what it was because she was our nurse a few nights so it was like she kept seeing it and i think she was trying to process like who you and then when she finally asked and it was like oh wait this your husband oh nah like i got everything on me and it's like i can't get one yeah because you're crazy now i know you guys don't project that on to us like get out of here friendly podcast no my podcast keep it lit we live intentionally transparently so speak your heart on my side i was like you better get all these compound cuss words not the compound i was those you really try and i ain't got the energy right now but get this get these antibiotics in my system me and you brad like oh man it took me to the roof but like everywhere we went it was one of us got to be cool because i go off in public i'm uh my lawyer tell her she's like look one of y'all bonnie has to be cool because if y'all both go off every time we go in public it'd be something it'd be something remember the girl that prayed this okay i'm gonna let y'all kind of guess this woman no no i got it background i got it i got you i got you i'm gonna live it right now it'll do that right you get mad too so we went to this juice bar and we just having a moment me and her they play some music so i pick her up and we slow dance mind you yeah you you'll guess in a minute somebody's watching off in there so leaving just trying to get away we probably get our music we try to leave and she's like can i pray for you guys and we're like we don't want to be rude we let her pray i'm trying to think for what because i think when she realized like oh tiff is blind because i'm leading her and she's like oh well can i pray and she prayed and so we getting ready to leave she's like wait is there a way we can test this out and i'm like what i'm like i'm confused i don't know who to look at we let you pray i don't know where folks is i'm like i need somebody to like help me look at me give me a cue some and i said test what else let's look let's see if this prayer worked anymore what you want me to do in my head i'm like you know what no it didn't work now get out of here i was like girl there's way too much pressure on me now if i and now if i move this cane and i run into a wall then i feel like you ain't gonna believe in god we building your insurance how about that so i said she was like what what happened um hopefully it'll come later yes ma'am we'll we'll we'll come right back in and i'll let you know we leave you in the car she was like rich god give me my sight back it ain't happening like this like that's why i don't want the attention people say do they do this and i'll be like no everywhere we go somebody trying to like pray tell me your story pray for what oh he must really love you and i'm like can he just love me why can't i just give good wife and just so happen to be blessed i'm sitting over here like i got a like they say get good wife i got enough to deal with trying to make sure i'm good and deal with her to write some books these people then this is what it irks me when people be like you married you sean what's wrong with your friends how you take care of them what you mean how take care of them i didn't have several women come up to me well how how do y'all have sex ma'am do you always have the lights on when you have all right the light is always off okay for me ma'am get out my drones like oh you talking about total strangers walk up and say this once they figure out we married and then they get past the whole love story the what's that movie the walking to remembers then they got questions because i'm trying to figure out how blind person functions ma'am i do the same things you do just imagine what the lights off it ain't that hard i am not spectacular there's nothing extra about my ordinary i am living we are living we are chill any time he forgets all the time that i'm blind yeah because it's normal now it's like we learned how to function till this point was like i do forget yeah and sometimes i hand her something like oh my bad i'll be like y'all rich where are my palms at over there where's this we're up there over there yeah like over there like that's why when i wake up in the morning i slap the hell out of them search me out i'll rub him good on his chest in the morning and just whack him i'm like what's that for later he took away my pump said over there like one time me and dad did it like we was like she's like where's the napkin we both pointed to it and i sat there and i said y'all both pointed dance y'all and they just crack over laughing i hate you it's like we reported and we looked at each other like yo but no that's what i'm saying with the public it'd just be like you said you don't want all that crazy we're just trying to eat you ain't got to eat dinner and for me it's like i haven't there's so much living i still have to do yeah to be telling anybody anything or this story isn't finished we don't have the advice so it's like and i think from what we see not saying that everybody do it but just from what we see the minute somebody goes through something oh i gotta write about it i got to tell the story and it's like just cause you experienced it and then it's like it did not make you an expert hey hey give it time it's not finished yet and before you know it if you haven't finished living this out you might make a mistake and relive it again mm-hmm and i know people who have done that it's like you too quick to tell me something yes and you ain't figured it out yet that means i'm telling you we haven't yeah and you still healing yes that's powerful so it's like we ain't trying to bleed on nobody um you say that again we are not trying to bleed on nobody this ain't no story we want to capitalize on like no we are still trying to live i'm still learning who i am with her yes and her with me you think we got time to tell y'all what to do now hold on why are we going through this life experience and once you know if people are around us and they see it and they're inspired by it and ask that is an absolute moment yeah where we can share i do not take that if anybody i am not going to go out here and promote promote promote and just be living off of of a struggle of an experience of of suffering but if anybody pulls me over just jim would just ask i'm quick to share my testimony let me tell you what depression is let me tell you what suicide is let me tell you what love does you know i love telling my story my love story like i i it's not that i just love like it's a spiritual experience to be like married to rich i love sharing it that's transformative yeah but you're not going to catch me out here trying to get instagram and then you got me selling teas no we got a whole lot of identity around this yeah and that's not us around this thing and like okay god healer like now we got to go through a whole nother experience to tell you something else like if god just delivers the message and say hey say this we'll say it you act like we had a conversation with you yeah i was like come on let's share and i'm like all right cool yeah that's fine but it's like all right we we got to go to a photo shoot to to promote this new i'm not doing that there's no office to anybody else who does but it's like we're learning our identity is a little more than that and so just for us if we just narrow it down to this god will have to do something else so that we can be used to reach more people we don't want to be pigeonholed like that i literally want god to pull me to the people that like need it i don't have to i ain't got to brand myself you know a lot of people and and as a marketing professional yeah that's why i want to go you know i'm like when i sit back and people i go you got to brand yourself burn just and i'm sitting there like listen you and i'm not big on the law of attraction and everything because i listen biblical over here but what i am saying is and especially with christian leaders when they i gotta bring myself no you don't no you don't listen what what's going on with me and rich the people that i have met going through similar things have found me i don't know how they have found me and there's it's always god moments i am not are pushing them they have always been god when we out and you know somebody does see us and once we get past that whole you know thing when somebody genuinely comes up and like you know i'm going you know in the middle of a separation how are y'all sticking it out yeah that's powerful sure let me let me i'm not to give you advice on what you should do in your marriage i'm going to tell you what we did and how it's a struggle this this isn't a one size fits all situation here like i'm pretty sure there's other people who are have a similar story but how they deal with it and how they're reacting to it can be totally different from ours and so to try to like project our story onto them it may not fit it's like okay saul david put this on and go fight i can't wear that mm-hmm that's going to hinder me in my face yes talk about it so [Music] for me it's almost like a little arrogant to think that like what i say shouldn't matter that much to anybody else it's what i say yeah do it it'll work no it may not so god has to speak to us to speak to you directly see what i think it is rich and tiff is that is not so much of y'all being some type of marriage counselors or saying what you should step number one is do this uh when i launched this podcast it was strictly when god told me to do this last year in april he said i said god i ain't no guru ain't no specialist i'm not no therapist i'm not any of that i said if i do a podcast all i'm gonna do is just invite people on my journey they're gonna see my mistakes they're gonna they're gonna hear me just talk about me and my journey of it uh my journey to uh manifesting my future wifey and uh i said so they're gonna just watch this journey and i want to bring guests on that i can glean information they won't even realize what they're pouring into me how what they may be speaking on these episodes are speaking to those crevices in my heart and my soul i said they have no idea we're just gonna have conversations but it's going to enlighten me and illuminate inside of me stuff that they don't even realize you the good stuff that got filtered out everybody whatever cash app that he has whatever zell make sure you support that because okay i will stop because like no that's that like the and i think it's the intention about it yeah and it's like for some it's like oh no you need this attention in the worst way exactly we don't but for what you just said it's like oh no a lot of people can like yeah some things together you can give me a nice little work of art so i ain't mad at that at all and so with me was that reason why i wanted y'all on the show is because just hearing the project that we're working on which we're about to go into now um is that i said i can't let that story just be just for this video we're doing and i said cause it's speaking to me like it's challenging me you didn't say la terrace what you need to do is find a woman that doesn't have sight and marry her you know but you challenge me as a man to look beyond whatever little idiosyncrasies that she may have with with health or whatever or any physical limitations or whatever it is and say see her and that and that's that was the biggest thing for me because it was like okay you've seen it and done it you've seen it and done it and you realize or at least i realize i'm like it don't matter how it's packaged it doesn't and when you get past that to see her it's like oh no no no no no no no no no all that other stuff you can you can work on but what you need what you absolutely need and that that's a statement that can cover all grounds what you need is this and i to put the weight on that for me right now where it's like and i'll say this i don't care i'm in counseling right now counseling should be right but who where i come from no especially me and period no you just deal with the stuff right and die from the others start from the stress of it just or you trying to figure it out and you just repeating the cycle over and over again and it's like for generations generation yeah and so so i applied you black man for going through counseling and the thing is it's like she told me to go most men wouldn't do it because she said it but that's the thing about it it was like okay rich you have to get past the point where your defenses are way too high and she's not trying to kill you yeah she's not trying to bully you she's not trying to like no i mean we have like we got something and i'm saying like rich you don't know how to talk to me and i had to figure that out i am not joking i am not i'm married to you so me coming to you is not to pick on you yeah it's you getting help benefits me and it took so long for him to kind of like get it where i'm like our arguments um they're not like yeah we ain't out here like because here's the thing when you need somebody all that little stuff that petty stuff you want to get mad and do i can't do it eventually i'ma need him for something so we get we get over it we got to get over it and most of the times he always is the one beating me to apologize hmm because i'm like first of all it it takes me a long time to get mad period now i'll get over it for the sake of like i didn't even come at you like that in the first place so this whole okay yeah y'all talking about as much as like okay i'm dealing with the healthy health issues and stuff like that oh no i am getting a whole healing myself in the process yes because there is somebody that is directly in not opposition but like can show me a a boy listen you're talking to me a little crazy it's normal to me though yes yes so i don't know how far these things go down in my life that i have to uproot people think that they marry in the representative you are marrying their upbringing so everything that came out with us i'm literally looking at a man child and i'm not calling him you know like i'm just talking about him you're dealing with the boy a broken boy a broken father issues he working through i got to deal with the dynamic between the family and like you know family depending on him he don't have an end all of these things are coming out in our marriage and i'm trying to tell like hey you can be vulnerable home you can lay your head on my lap i'm not going to attack you at the at the end of the day my well-being is your well-being there it is and i had to learn that because there were so many other things that i learned like people don't understand where maybe some do i shouldn't say that but it's like when it's constant survival constant repetitive 40 plus years of survival and now you just learning how to be on the other side of survival yeah what yeah it's going to take me a minute to learn that this is safe the last time i tried to be safe i got burnt forward there it is and then it's either i'm like i'm not in a place where it's balanced i'm swinging from one extreme to the next so either i'm completely closed off and i can't stand anybody or i leave myself totally wide open and i'm exposing too much and i'm getting hurt by everything and he was institutionalized that is the best way to put it yeah we got family moments dinners and we like and i'm having i'm having a time of my life but like in the beginning rich would be off on the corner i'm like yo we having family dinner don't be rude i'm not being rude not realizing he might not have had family dinners he don't know what a family conversation is he don't you know my dad will start the conversation though we all you know we all should kids share their mind mom shares them and we just talking we're working through stuff issues and um i'll put this out there because i hadn't but on top of everything that we were dealing with i cut that out that's good after everything start from there with everything that was going on um i really wanted to heal i wanted to be whole not physically spiritually i really wanted to be whole and after years decades i finally went to my family and let them know hey when i was a child i got molested never told anybody nothing this day and i'm sure when people hear this podcast it'll be a thing with my circle group and when i went to rich i told him everything i put every every bad thing i ever did in my life everything that ever affected me i came to him and it was it was here is me naked if you take me i'm gonna do everything in my power to heal and be better not really not realizing that like putting that weight on him with everything and him okay i have to digest this i'm married i got to guide her i have to leave it was it was a lie then for him to come to me and this is my childhood you know here my father issues you know i got a brother that's um 10 days younger 10 days younger figure you know all of these things and it's just like we are literally oh vulnerable exposed and then that's when stuff started coming out and we had and we not had it out like like we had it out yeah to where it's like she didn't leave anything from me i didn't leave anything from her so it's like okay this is what this feels like it's strange it is strange to me like i don't it's like okay guy how do now how do i navigate this and then i don't hear you and for me it's like don't leave me to my devices i'll figure it out the way i'll figure it out yes and i've done that a ton of times it hasn't got me nowhere but that's all i know so you got to help me here and so when she started to go through hers you know her process is like not intentionally but i waited for mine because i wanted to make sure i was there for her to show that you know to be supportive and i'm like i could wait i don't know how healthy that was but it was like i could wait yeah but um and i think i waited because i wasn't sure what i was going to [Music] run into or how that looks for me or how i would even feel about it because up until this point i'm pretty numb to it i'm pretty used to how things go barely getting it by or somebody telling you to figure it out and it's like figure out what this is all i've seen you trying to tell me something that i didn't see and i have to now figure this out at this age i'm 44. like there's this expectation of where people should be at a certain age and they're like oh no i'm just now figuring it out yeah and i'm married yeah i'm moved this is all new so if this is culture shock hey this is culture shock so to now be like okay you got to go to counseling and not only that but just now understanding like okay i am a byproduct of something and i now understand that i am a byproduct of that it made me feel better that i didn't i can identify where it was because for so long i couldn't tell you yes this is normal this is really really normal fragmented friendly it's normal survival it's normal the stuff that i've seen it's normal to me so to try to tell me there's something different you're gonna have to show me that because i ain't seen it yeah and this was the first year of marriage of marriage like his mom was a big support my family was a big support but it was literally like we just kept getting hit it's the job situation is you know we experience every part of our vows in such a short time and it was just it just kept coming i mean and even when we thought we was going to get a break covet hit it was just yeah we just never to this day we haven't had a vacation no break nothing and it's stuff we got to consider with that because her health okay we just can't be around anybody like that like we everybody vaccinated stuff here but it's just like oh no now that's stuff we have to really take in consideration because of the dynamic that we have you know just it's just it was some it's just thinking about it now our marriage is stronger because of it and everything you know we stronger we can talk and every but it's just like i just wanted to enjoy my marriage and i'm getting i'm getting choked up now and i'm trying to fight but it was just like we only got two months lower like it was just two months of just exhaling and it was just ripped and it like after march 5th 2019 since then it has just been fighting and fighting and i'm a fighter like i am a fighter like when the health situation came it wasn't you know i had my moments but i had the moments in the closet and it was we got my family we gonna fight this together rich when you don't have and he i remember him saying it because i was i had just gone back from the doctor and they said i had two choices and they said the way your kidney is right now if we give you a treatment you're gonna be at risk for cancer if we don't you're going on dialysis and i'm like that's that's not a choice it's not a you didn't give me an option it's a lose-lose and i remember i held it up the doctor's not gonna see me cry and i got outside and as soon as i felt the air hit me i just cried and i just fell in his chest and cried we went home and um i got in the tub and he came and he and he washed me and i'm just i leaned over and i just i told rich i said you know i don't know i get you know god did this to us you know i don't we never we weren't trying to be anything we didn't want anything we all we wanted was to just get married and just have this little home and it'd just be us and everything is attacking us in every health [Music] it was just like everything we could think of would just come and i just and in that moment he said babe if you ain't got it lean on me and i was just like rich you going through and he was just like we just i can't go back it'll just be us and i just remember being in the tub just landing on him and it just we cried and i told them i said just give me give me this night in the morning i'll be fine and i woke up the next morning and i said all right we're just going to make decisions and we're going to keep going and it's been like that since i ended up going on dialysis on my birthday 2019 20 20 20 20 20 20 on my birthday august 22nd on my birthday ended up on dialysis and what's your birthday august 22nd so you said so in march of 2019 is when they told you that you were gonna have to go back they gave you the the choice between no they tried they tried to fight i was on so many different um treatments okay to fight the rejection and it was hurting my body like um i don't want to say it's the equivalent but it it it's kind of similar to chemo to where they're trying to attack an affection but all this other stuff happens and i got like the worst of it like i think you're only supposed to get like five to seven i was getting nine of these treatments and my body is just like they're sedating me at the same time to keep me on the treatment and i'm just it's just pain we did that for the whole year 2019. no for that treatment that was um that was about a week and then after that just kept going back in never got better and every time we would go in i'm in there for like a month two months a month oh you've been hospitalized for that all of 2019 it wasn't like a day here or a day there it was like months weeks like one or two weeks going into a month thinking like okay we're gonna get out today here's another five days so surgeries i'm getting biopsies people know me and it's like yeah that's cool but i don't want y'all getting that familiar with me because i want to be up here like this so where y'all at right now she needs a kidney she needs a kidney she needs a kidney and the video that we um shot last week uh we're going to roll that video right now my name is tiffany martin and i am in need of a kidney donor hello my name is richard martin and i'm the husband of tiffany martin um in 2012 through it was a mutual acquaintance and she said you know i think this this might be your guy you know he's your type or you know everything on paper you know how girls write on paper they're they're typing everything and um just the kind of compact that we tried today or at least i tried to date her she didn't like me i was living my best life whatever you want to take that ass that was me he tried i mean he he really tried his best and i got off the plane and i walked out and he has this little cheesy cardboard box or cardboard paper or whatever with my name on it and you know miss robinson on your ride i'm like oh my god he's laying it on thick it's gross we get in the car he takes me right to one of you know one of the places i've been trying to go to for years and it was the met the greek exhibit the egyptian exhibit it was just it was just great roses and cards and just everything and he took me to the airport you know we said our goodbyes and lo and behold a blizzard comes and i'm stuck at the airport this guy drives back an hour in the blizzard to come pick me up the next day he got me you know to the airport and i leave and i get home and the entire time i didn't tell him and i didn't tell anybody but i had noticed that my my body wasn't feeling normal so as soon as i got home i didn't think to call him i just went directly to the doctors and that's when they told me i had started experiencing some kidney failure but i had never called him back i didn't let him know i was fine anything and he called maybe a day later and he went oh just you don't you don't go home and not tell me you know about your whereabouts and i'm worried about you and my silly immature self just you know told them like you're doing too much like back off you're doing too much we kind of went our you know separate ways and i completely started focusing on my health but for some reason he just he called back you know we just focused on the friendship and just remember her telling me that she was losing her eyesight and that her kidneys had failed and along with her pancreas and so we kind of focused on [Music] just that you know dating and anything else wasn't important at the time our friendship did kind of get stronger literally every single day he called and we would talk for hours and it wasn't he wasn't trying to get anything from me or he just how are you doing and we would just talk about the stuff i used to enjoy and i would be on dialysis every night for nine hours on peritoneal and he would talk to me for nine hours and wait till i fell asleep and he would go to work at the end of 2017 16 or 17 um she asked me to come down and pay her visit and i think that's when we began to like reconnect on a more uh relational level like being a couple and um we just went from there and then i was saying 2019 we were married it's it's overwhelming to be to be loved by rich and i'm a type one juvenile diabetic i was diagnosed when i was five years old and um just over the course of two decades just the wear and tear of diabetes resulted in me losing you know function of my kidneys i'm completely 100 blind and in 2017 i received a dual transplant between the kidney and the pancreas 2019 i married the love of my life in january and literally in two months my kidney rejected and she began to say that it would attack my spinal cord and so certain things would deteriorate so it would be you know my motor my movements and you know the tremors would increase and it was literally just you know my body deteriorating to a point to where it wouldn't be able to self-sustain i am pleading with you to give my wife a kidney so that she can live i've always been a fighter it's not in my nature to ask for anything i've been very independent all of my life [Music] but i've been humbled and it's not it's not a bad thing i'm learning i'm learning god's care and sovereignty and love and all of those things just by asking and so i'm coming to you with a humble heart asking for a living donor [Music] if you feel that you're a match you heard that you don't have to be a specific match for her blood type they can do cross-matching if we're not a match per se and there's somebody else in the world and they have them their theirs doesn't match they'll swap so every we will still get the kidneys in the you know and the transplant would you know happen but they'll they'll coordinate all of those right right so make sure you go to the description and on the youtube channel and um the information will be in the youtube channel and so let's step up if we really truly believe that black lives matter then hey this is what it's about right here so um that's the reason why i want them to be on this podcast because their life touched me so much i was convicted by just hearing their story so yeah y'all don't have to be relationship gurus for people's lives to be transformed the bible says that we'll be people overcome by the word of our testimony so just by y'all giving your testimony people are going to extract whatever they need in that season and so that's what i'm doing as you know this podcast is me going through my journey and i don't believe that anything happens by happenstance that through a powerful video that i shot for charnelle uh dope woman overcomer she's the bomb and um meeting her a couple years ago opened up the door for me to meet y'all at such a time as this so it's nothing is just about happenstance so first of all let me just thank y'all so much for your willingness to share for your willingness to to just be naked and unashamed listen thank you because she she put me on to you all right [Music] and so you can imagine like all right i don't know you yeah because we're just listening yeah so when we finally arrived i'm like oh that's dude i keep forgetting because i when i pulled up the video everything's audio and i'm like it's a podcast so i'm like i'm not realizing that i had the phone tucked he's not looking at the phone i'm just listening and so when we got here i'm like this is a guy i already told you about him you've seen him he's like i ain't saying he's missing the door you're just listening i was just listening because anytime she plays anything like on her phone yeah i'm just listening to it yeah so because you have to enter into her world yeah and and it's quite funny now because she has she has her phone up to a specific speed and it's fast so all i hear [Laughter] it's got dumb to the point now i'm starting to understand who and what is i'm like okay i've been around you way too way too much got me something like minnie mouse you say like okay it was like okay no that's the dude oh okay so thank you all so much for joining me on the dear future wifey podcast tiff and rich y'all give it up for tiff and rich y'all oh can i get something like jamaican air horns when i tell you their story is so impactful to me such an amazing story it it really it really convicts me and it teaches me to see outside of my sight to see outside of my eyes and so this letter definitely reflects exactly that dear future wifey i want to see you i want to close my eyes and still see you i want the predestined purpose of our futures to resonate in my soul when we meet and give me the undeniable clarity to identify you as my purpose partner i must see you the holy spirit is my optometrist he's been detecting defects in my vision there has been signs of injury to my retinas due to choices i made when my vision was foggy i was prescribed i was prescribed spectacles the bible to strengthen my sight last year i became laser focused to get my vision clearer so i would recognize you i needed eye surgery so i consulted jesus christ as my ophthalmologist my surgery was completed on december 30 of 2020 when i surrendered my sexuality to him and became abstinent my vision is 20 20 now follow me as i follow christ i'm following his footsteps in the sand other guys didn't have the right prescription to see you beautiful you come with a unique eye chart with closed eyes i want my heart to be faster when you are in my vicinity and see you in the spirit before gazing into your eyes baby i will see you your future hubby thank you for listening to the dear future wifey podcast remember be lit live intentionally and transparently and don't stop loving make sure to subscribe to our dear future wifey youtube channel we're available on apple podcast google podcast spotify and stitcher we welcome your support simply share our podcast with your friends and family

Channel: Dear Future Wifey

Views: 915,339

Keywords: dallas, love, podcast, relationships, black love matters, black men, Christianity, healing, weddings, marriage

Id: I4WjvfEc65c

Length: 123min 10sec (7390 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 02 2021