I’ve been feeling closed off from love recently.
I was confused about why, and it took me a minute to figure it out.
After some reflection, I realized that my social media newsfeed was giving me the same three messages on loop:
- Dating sucks
- Don’t trust your intuition in love, you need an expert’s help
- “You don’t need anyone, just focus on yourself” hyper independence porn
Just like the news hooks us with dramatic headlines, that content had me addicted. Then I realized that I was feeling jaded in dating and wasn’t having fun. Obviously, one of the culprits was my media consumption!
So, I decided to find better stories. I put out a call on Instagram and said that I wanted to interview couples who were proud of their relationship. I wanted to remind my heart and soul that deep, real love is possible.
As the fates would have it, Erica and Rich were two of the first to reach out. I was extra excited, because I hadn’t chatted with Erica since before the pandemic — and she got engaged, married, and had a baby in that time!
Our Conversation
This deep dive happened on Zoom, and perfectly encapsulated the feeling of having a baby in the pandemic era. Erica was breastfeeding their son, Leo, on her lap as we talked. Eventually he went off to toddle about the room and make loud little baby pronouncements.
If you want to read even more of Erica and Rich’s love story, you can find it on their website here.
Jillian
I’ll start with a big one: how did the conversation about having kids come up? I’ve been doing more thinking about why people decide to have kids or not, and that choice is so fascinating to me.
Erica
Basically, we met online and then went on our first date. And on our first date, we told the other person the thing that we’re most self-conscious about. So Rich has been married and divorced before, which he told me towards the end of our date.
I said, “Okay, are you against marriage?” And he said no. So I asked, “Do you want to be married again?” And he said, “Yeah!”
So it wasn’t a problem for me. I just brushed it off. But I really appreciated that he said it, because it would obviously be a big deal if he withheld that.
At the same time, I told him that I wasn’t working. I said, “I don’t have a job right now, but don’t worry, I’m not here to get free dinners. I’m fine. I’m on a break from work, and I’m going to figure out what I’m going to do next.” And he was fine with it! But those were two big things that we just needed to say to clear the air.
Then it sort of just moved really fast. We went on three or four dates in the first week. And on day nine, we said “I love you.”
Rich
It was important, at least for me from the very beginning, to do the whole “full disclosure” kind of conversations. Especially for someone like myself, who has previously been married and is still quite young, that information needs to come out sooner rather than later. That transparency is important.
I think part and parcel of that is this idea of if you want to have kids. And when are you thinking about having kids? What kind of lifestyle do you want?
I can’t remember which date exactly, but I remember it was one of the earlier dates where we talked about kids — how many we wanted and when we wanted to have them.
Jillian
Tell me more about your full disclosures!
Erica
For instance, one of my full disclosures was, “I have a lot of books, I haven’t read them all.” Because one of my ex-boyfriends made me feel really bad about that. And I like my books aspirationally. I want them in my presence.
He just just like “Yeah, okay, me too.”
It’s funny because that was a big deal to someone else, so I just thought, let me share this with you and see if it matters. It sounds stupid, but it matters.
Rich
It was important to just have permission to be vulnerable about the stuff we feel insecure about.
Jillian
Anything else happen around the idea of kids?
Erica
Well I remember after our first date thinking, this guy is too good to be true.
Jillian
Why is that?
Erica
He was writing such in-depth posts on Instagram. I was like, wow, this guy sort of writes like I do. So I was learning so much about him. And there’s this one post that was like, written a year before. It was “to my future twin daughters.”
I get chills still thinking about it. Since Mary Kate and Ashley, I said, I was gonna have daughters. Ask anyone in my life. It’s part of my plan.
So when I saw that I stopped in my tracks. Then the next date, I must have brought it up.
Jillian
Tell me about how you communicate during conflict.
Rich
I would say it’s really just trying to reach a place of understanding and sometimes getting there requires flare ups. And sometimes it just requires being quiet and patient. And so it’s it’s very unstructured, but it’s really just about trying to feel heard and feel understood.
We’ve been doing therapy individually. So that’s providing a bit more structure for me as to how to have those conversations.
Jillian
Do cultural differences ever come up, from either the countries you were raised in or the families you come from? (Context from Jillian: Rich was raised for 10 years in Ghana.)
Rich
There’s a whole ton of stuff. I think we do a really good job of projecting the positive aspects of our relationship and the way in which we work to everyone else, because we want everyone else to have that. But that doesn’t mean that in our home, it’s perfect.
For me, especially, there’s a lot of cultural nuance that plays into how our relationship dynamic is. Everything from just like, what kind of a mother I had and how that mimics what I expect of a woman.
This is one thing that always comes up when we’re talking about our families. I mean, when Erica talks about her family and her family dynamic, it sounds like rainbows and sprinkles. And then my family dynamic seems like a mystery thriller slash suspense and horror.
Jillian
Totally different sections of Blockbuster.
Rich
Sometimes, you know, we’ll have misunderstandings. I’m just like, you don’t get what I’m trying to tell you. And those kinds of differences do rear their heads periodically. It’s one of those things where, you know, you are marrying into somebody else’s family. And so you need to understand what has transpired before you guys got together.
Erica
I’ll give you an example. Like we’ve both been very, very busy at work. And we’re also full time parents. So it’s been a lot of pass the baby. And for Rich’s family, everyone operated pretty singularly. Everyone fended for themselves for a lot of things.
My family operated like, we have to do stuff together. Like on my mom’s birthday we all went to the grocery store so she could parade us around and introduce us to everyone. She was like, I want everyone I talk to here on a weekly basis to know my family!
So as we’ve had Leo I realized that it’s very important to me that we do something together every day. So that had to become a compromise. Like, how can we fit that in? I didn’t even realize that’s what it means to me to be a family. It’s so deeply rooted. I didn’t even know until we had a discussion. So interesting!
Jillian
So, I’ve got a big one: Would would you tell a younger version of yourself about romantic love?
Erica
Physical attraction is not the end all, be all. But you really want to feel like you are lucky to be around this person, whether that’s physically or personality-wise. It has to feel like you’re magnetically attracted to them, especially in the very beginning.
When I hear my friends talking about a first date, and it doesn’t sound like that, great. I really hesitate to say “Give it another try.” I mean, sometimes it’s like, okay, a second date, maybe something was off the first date. But if you’re a few dates in and you don’t feel magnetic attraction? I would sort of just scrap it.
That’s how it started with Rich. I was like, I want to know this guy. I want to be around him. I want to like start a life with him.
That’s what I would tell a younger version of myself. Really trust your instincts, and know that feeling doesn’t last forever. Everything in life takes work. So really find somebody willing to do the work with you.
Jillian
Oh my god, truly. I was listening to a comedian, Mike Birbiglia’s, podcast. He said that he was at a dinner party and both people in the couple said they “married down.” In front of each other! I literally couldn’t imagine anything worse than that.
So what about you, Rich? What advice would you give your younger self about romantic love?
Rich
I think I’d just say take your time and make sure that it feels right for you. Because there’s a journey that needs to happen. A journey through maturity, a journey through self-awareness.
I’m always very surprised when I hear people say they were high school sweethearts, for example, because you didn’t date anybody else! You don’t know all the different kinds of people that are out there.You’re not really learning from the diversity of experiences that you would have with different people.
So I’d tell my younger self to just spend time with more people and don’t place too much expectation on it. When you’re committed and serious in your dating journey, you can put so much pressure on one person that you might be forcing it and ignoring certain things.
Want more Erica and Rich?
You can follow them on Instagram here or watch their videos here.
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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.
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From The Good Men Project on Medium
What Does Being in Love and Loving Someone Really Mean? | My 9-Year-Old Accidentally Explained Why His Mom Divorced Me | The One Thing Men Want More Than Sex | The Internal Struggle Men Battle in Silence |
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