Ep. 9: Know Your Worth (Part 2)

All right, so welcome back to another episode of Black Girl Fly. I'm your girl Tenisha Nicole, I'm Tashaunda Dixon. And today we're going to be continuing a conversation that we had before really talking about how your relationship is a very, very important part of your financial picture. Yeah. And this, to me is really a continuation of our episode about knowing your worth. And so just to get started, what I want to say is, I don't think we, at all times realize in a dating environment in a romantic environment, how important it is to pick someone who is at your level, would you even say at your level?

I think that's the point. So so so that's the point that I wanted to bring out. And I'm not saying that Oh, If you make a certain amount of money, that person has to have the same amount of money, you're gonna make that type of thing. But I'm saying it's kind of the principle of being equally yoked, you have to have someone who comes to you at a specific mind frame that's similar to yours or equal to yours in different areas. I mean, in my relationship, before we even decided talking, we knew kids were going to be involved. We're like, Okay, before we decide that we're going to move forward. What do you think about this? Yeah, where are you at? Would You Do you understand that this is my perspective? Yeah. And so I would say that that's all around. Yeah, but there's so so here's the thing. There's so many topics that you need to get clear on in a relationship that are going to impact your finances. So like having kids is a huge one huge, huge, but also like, what city are y'all gonna live in? Yes, like Will you be stuck in a city? Will you be stuck in a city are you gonna have family around where y'all wouldn't have to pay for extra child care like our somebody's going to stay home with the kids So get out the kids thing. What about how you spin? What are our goals? What are we trying to accomplish? In the house? Yeah, ever. Yes. I think there's so much and we take this whole dating thing to be Oh, he's fine. I want him. He got a nice body. I'll let it well, but baby girl, you gonna be broke? Talk about the right. Oh, yeah. And so I did want to get into that in our last because the statement that you said about making the comment of being at the same level. I think it is so funny that people react that way. I mean, because same level to me a relationship is all about like growing together and like the other person pushing you to become a better but I am so sorry, though. But I'm not trying to say people aren't worth it. But if a billionaire is trying to date a homeless person on the street, how do you expect that to work out? So there are many things like that person can be very wealthy. Like character in a relationship. But when the homeless person says I would rather stand on the corner and collect change and the billionaires going, I'm going to create 18 sources of income. from personal experience, yes, I think it's hard to put out these theoretical, okay, personal experience and keep it real. So personal experience. This is actually one of the hardest parts that was in my marriage. When we were deciding to get married. We spoke about what are we trying to accomplish? What are our goals, we had a plan. Our plan was that I will continue working full time to start and the reason we did this because I made more money. And it was easier for my ex to transition to be a full time entrepreneur. And so we're able to build this business together, and I would eventually retire my work. So let me tell you how this went down, though. I don't know the story. I want to hear. So so we got me We did all the great things. We had a beautiful wedding, we bought a house we were we were living, right we were doing all the things we were supposed to be doing. And when it came down to it, I was literally getting up for work. So we because we knew what our plan was. We bought a house that was at least an hour without traffic away from my job. This girl used to call me her commute was like so I said an hour without traffic. I lived in the DFW area in Dallas right outside of Dallas, Texas. And my job was on the other side of Fort Worth. And I would do the commute but I didn't come here because I knew our goal was we're going this way we're internet we're making it happen. And so me doing that i would i would commute an hour and a half there an hour and a half back. I would then freshen up and go on appointments at this time we were doing like financial advising, we were doing investments, insurance and stuff together. And so I would literally be working all day, all night. Come home. 12 one o'clock in the morning for me with clients, doing trains, doing all kinds of stuff. I did this hard for two to three months after we got married. And my ex when I got up in the morning, he would get dressed or I would think you'd be dressed to go to the office. And his job was to prospect to process so we had to we're doing investments. So he had to make sure all the paperwork was in for my clients the night before, follow up with people do different things, whatever, and come to find out, he was not doing that. He was like, Oh, we live in a good life. And I don't want to summarize this too much because there is his perspective. But when I talked to him about it, he was like, what's the problem? We're good. We got nice cars, a beautiful house. We are doing it comparatively to what he had grown up. And by the way compared to what I had grown up with to, but I had a different vision. I had a vision of us, me being free from the employer of us building a business together. And it was that difference in vision that led to our different actions, which ultimately led to us not being able to see eye to eye about how we would handle our finances and how we will move forward. Yeah, I mean, I totally get all that. But I also think there's a level it's not about being equal. So number one, you and your partner may not be good together in business, like I think, I think we've kind of figured out that we're actually pretty good in business, although I get on your nerves. We struggle Yeah. Like just because you're in a relationship also doesn't mean you have to like have a whole you know, entrepreneurship Empire, but your home. So that's not what I was saying. So that is what I'm saying. So in my example, we just happen to be in business together. When I say being even I don't mean that You guys do the same thing. So in my current relationship, we are very different. He actually I hate to cook, and he loves to cook. And he'll be whipping up some stuff, making up some stuff making it all gourmet. And I'm like, I don't think so extra I don't, I don't cook. So it's not about necessarily bringing the same thing to the table, but is meeting each other in a space where you can decipher? Yes, where you are. Yes, I would say that that's the most, right. It's important to be able to communicate that. But I don't want to shy away from the fact that your partnership is a business in and of itself, although may not be, you know, you're going out getting clients and all this but you have to manage your budget. You have to, you know, create investments. I have some large expenses, create a plan for where you're going to be able to communicate and both contribute to that plan. So in essence, it is a you know, it's a business, but I feel like you still can work like you're saying even though Y'all are so different. You can still work together. Yeah. And that, um, yeah, I don't know. Yeah. So So getting back to it, though, I think it's important to our echoing theme is having conversations having a relationship isn't about Oh, he find she find, you know, sex was good. Yeah. I mean, that's an important lie. But isn't that the only part you really want to thrive with someone like you want to spend less time fighting? Yes, in like at each other's throats about the big decisions you'll have to make. And more time buildings, but putting more energy towards that. Yeah. And thinking about it just a while I wanted to have this conversation is I don't think I was ever taught that. Like, well, we thought about being that they were to be you. Yes, really, that they could provide resources. But that was it. Yeah, that was pretty much our training. And now I think we're really having to unlearn that and You're out how to do this whole relationship and how to be a partnership. Yes, a true partnership. Yeah. And so I think it's funny though, in my relationship now I struggle with it all the time. Like sometimes I'm like, man, I just do that. And so we were talking about it is definitely easier to be single. Yo, I'm the first one to throw in the towel. I'm notorious for taking men to the benches to joke with me all the time. Like Did you take him to the girl wasn't working out how I needed it. So you think that that's because of how you were raised? Or what do you think that attribute? So for me, I feel like I've been basically dealing with a lot of healing over the last 15 years, trying to heal from like some, you know, childhood trauma, and trying to figure out like, what a healthy relationship looks like. Yeah, so for most of my, you know, formative years, like I didn't live With the people, you know, I believed were supposed to love me the most. Yeah. And so it was, you know, very strange for me at first to try to be in a relationship where the person wanted to talk to me every day. Yeah, I thought that was so weird. We don't do that. I'm like, by the way, I used to call you. And if I called you two days in a row, you'd be like, not just speak to you yesterday, what you want to talk about today, because we obviously just talked yesterday, I was so used to like not having family around every day, and then only seeing each other like three times a year. And I started to believe like, that is what love should look like. But I found myself very unhappy with that. Yeah, cuz I my love language is quality in person time. And I wasn't getting that from the people I love the most. And so I really had a very skewed perception of what love was supposed to be. So I think I spent most of my 20s trying to figure out what that means for me. And so, so now I think, you know, I'm 30 Already you know, I've done a lot of healing on that front, but I'm still trying to figure out like, what my role is in a relationship. Yeah, how I balance. So I do want to say we were playing Robert Kiyosaki board game. And we were actually playing with tenacious is this team? Hey, we shall be keeping it real. So this board game though it really is with a gentleman sooner? Yes. So this board game, it's really real life, really thinking about being in a workspace being an employee and kind of chugging away at life. Right. Yeah. So Robert Kiyosaki his game called cash flow for the people who are curious. Yeah. And so I realized very early on in this game in watching Tony Hsieh and her reactions, that she was really judging this guy, and I did not intend for it to go down like But it was it was it was very obvious that her judging kind of caught her off guard, but she was hard on it like it was. It was real. So when we have we bought this game a couple of months ago, and we kind of stumbled through it at first, but then we started to realize like, Oh, this game can really tell you about somebody's character. Yes, yes. Well, not only that, but we we've also used the game ourselves like and having to make real life decisions. Yes, we use it to learn and to like, test some theories and like really try to unpack like how we think about things. Yeah, but so to that point, in that I feel like you realize that maybe you guys weren't in the same place about how you thought about it was a confirmation of some suspicions I had had like, we don't have the same approach to life or like how we will want our future family or like our, you know, the business of our life together. And I was just like, we are so not aligned. And that's when life But was like, yo, your partner is literally the most important financial decision. And so I do have to say that though be out there, my significant other, he plays the game with us all the time. And he definitely have a different approach. But it's funny though, because in my relationship with him, I don't think that I obviously understood how he was thinking about things in life, like when he was actually doing things. And the games really helped me to understand how he takes things in Yes, I'm in that perspective. And I've also been able to use a game to like, coach him into my thought process. That is true. Yeah, we definitely I've seen that happen, and it's crazy how now real life has started to shift for us and look like the game looks very much like the game is crazy. And we know how to win the game now. Yeah. So I'm just very curious to see how that plays out in our life. Yeah, we're gonna do another episode about that game and how it applies to our lives. Yeah, but overall, though, we're here to talk about the relationship and knowing that your relationship is a partnership. And is that I think you kind of in your last statement said, Hey, there is a level of balance that needs to come to any romantic relationship that you have. Yeah, definitely. So with that being said, we're gonna sign off and with that being said, I'm Tashaunda Dixon, and I'm Tenisha Nicole, and we are Black Girl Fly.