EP 3828 Tough decisions lead to a better life

0:00Hey guys, welcome to today's podcast, today's episode. Tough decisions often lead to better times. So I was talking about this a bit yesterday and I've slightly changed the wording, but I was talking yesterday about a relationship I was in for a couple of years that ended like last year with a young woman who's amazing. She was like almost 20 years younger than I was. And a fantastic person, we got on great and there was no massive issue between her and I, except such a change in age and the fact that, you know, she wanted a family and at my age, I didn't want to have more kids. And it was a really difficult decision, but it was one of those things, it was a tough decision to go, you know what, I don't think for both of us having these conversations, saying we don't think it works because her being so much younger than me means that, you know, if I don't want to have kids and she does, that's a deal breaker. And then we had all sorts of conversations about like,

1:01would I change my mind? Could I possibly have more kids and I was looking at it and you know, I do like I love my daughters to death and my niece is nephew's and other kids that I have around God kids that I have like, they're awesome, I love them to death. I was like, you know what, I don't think it's fair to the children, like to little kids to have such an old dad, there was a whole lot of things. And then, equally, we had the conversation and she was like, well, I'm not sure if that's, if I'm really super focused on it or if it's something I definitely want. And I said, unfortunately, there's no good outcome here because if we stay together and we had a great relationship, we got an exceptionally well. She's a really good person. Is a very good person, she's a really good person. And we had like a cracker relationship and I learned so many amazing things that was fucking awesome. But if I had kids, then I probably would resent it at some stage and it would affect us. And if she didn't have kids, then it would probably cause resentment and affect her

2:01and affect us. So the tough decision, because it is the most loving connected relationship I've ever been in, same for her, we both just got on so exceptionally well. But the tough decision was to go, we need to not be in this thing. Because either way, the chances are, resentment, whatever it is, will probably come up for one or both of us and it will cause great issue. There's not many things that you can't negotiate around or sort out or communicate well with, but kids or no kids is a pretty black and white thing. And that took a quite a long time for us to get to. And it still wasn't easy, it was still painful, it was still really sad, there was still some stress and some challenge in it for both of us. So it wasn't easy. But that tough decision made up front to walk away from something that was pretty spectacular was absolutely the right choice because of that difference between having kids or not. And the problem then being,

3:03if we had taken the easier option, which was just, I'll be far more work out, blah, blah, maybe we're 10 years down the track and it blows up. And because I've been in a situation already, where I stayed for too long and it didn't work out and she had also been in a similar situation in a previous marriage, that where you know, stayed too long and it didn't work out. We both definitely, and I can only speak for myself, I absolutely was so aware of going, this could go a pair of shape, and I don't want that to be the case. So I decided to make that tough call for me. And it was hard, but the tough decisions that we make up front often save us from so much heartache later on. But we don't know that because you never know what the other circumstance would have been if you made a different decision. Now, maybe we could have been together, been super happy and it would have been absolutely fine. Who knows? But it certainly seemed as though that was going to be a pretty big hurdle.

4:03So when we look at our lives, if we look at the decisions you've got to make, the things that are difficult, often making that difficult choice, making the tough decision, the one we don't want to make, the one that's fucking painful now is so often the correct one. Because ultimately, you're saving yourself from a whole lot more probably grief and difficulty and pain longer term. But because you don't experience that, like I said, it's hard to understand. So if you look and you come to a fork in the road and down the left hand fork is the tough choice, down the right hand fork is the easy choice. Then whichever fork in the road you decide to take, you don't know what the other one held. So for us having made the left hand tough choice, if that was tough, I can't remember now. But if the left hand fork where the tough choice was, having made that, then we will never know what happened down that right hand fork. But if I had a guy down the right hand fork in the road and taken the easy choice and in 10 years' time, had a massive, you know, got divorced and it was a fellow part and it didn't work

5:04and whatever, back in it was a really difficult situation like I wasn't with a girl's mum. Then I would have been like, holy fuck, why did I not make that tough choice back then? I knew that was what I should do. I knew that the most painful thing was the right thing. And we've all been down that track. We've all had circumstances and situations where we've made decisions that we look back and go, I fucking knew I should have done that thing, but I didn't because it was too hard. It was too tough a conversation. It was too difficult. That person might have been upset by it. Whatever happens. And often just saving ourselves from pain just come from difficulty, often just wanting the easy options because that's where hardwired to want easy option. We're hardwired to not want pain and difficulty. But the problem is if you avoid the pain up front, you often have to pay for the pain later. You always have to pay the pipe, as they say. I don't know who says that, but it's your someone does. And I look now and still go, you know, yet sad that she's an awesome person and unfortunately

6:07that just couldn't happen because of that circumstance. And that was a really difficult thing to get my head around. And now whatever, eight, nine months post that, it's, I'm like, yeah, it makes a lot of sense. And still sad, but it's obviously a lot better with the passive to time. And I look and go, I do think that was the right choice. But I tell you now, it was not an easy thing to come up with. Even though I knew what the right choice was gonna be, but I tried to convince myself of a thousand other things first because it was gonna be tough. But what I've realized is making that tough choice up front, it's never let me down because they're normally the right ones. And we have this natural desire and proclivity to take the easy option. Do the thing that makes us happy, of course. That's why it's really easy to eat donuts. And eating fruit isn't as easy.

7:07That's why we would much rather, you know, drink alcohol than drink water and frickin' cellarages. Because, you know, there's the things that just short term, instant dopamine hit, all those things make it feel better. But if you're making a decision that's gonna be really hard up front, then that's tough. Because there's also no guarantee that that's the right decision. Unfortunately, you never have a guarantee. Now, you can convince yourself it's the right thing. You can absolutely look at all the evidence and assess that it's the right thing, but you never know until you do it. And like this decision, I will never know what the other outcome would have been. It's impossible to know. Unfortunately, we don't have time machines. Fortunately, we can't teleport into the future and see where we're at. So you're only making the decision based on what you think might occur. But I am a firm believer that we have that intuition, gut feel, gut instinct, whatever you wanna call it. That points us in the right direction if we listen. And often, it's that fear brain that drives us to make the opposite decisions. It's that brain that goes,

8:08oh, but I'm missing out on this amazing person and I've never been this happy with someone before and what if I never meet someone else like that again? And that was absolutely the decision making process that I went through. But I was like, equally, I've been in a really challenging and difficult relationship because of fundamental differences in opinions, desires and whatever with the girls' mum. And I'm like, that kids will know kids. It's a pretty fundamental thing. Now, if that wasn't an issue, then there were still other things we had to look at and work out and talk about just the difference in age. Is a pretty big factor. But that one was just pretty black and white. Now, if that wasn't the case, would it have been as hard a decision? Yeah, it would have been harder, actually. Would have been even worse. But knowing what the tough choice, you're knowing what the easy choice up front potentially could bring later and having been through that real pain and challenge and difficulty of, you know, married, break down, kids, et cetera. I just didn't want to risk that.

9:09And equally, I did not want to stay in that for any longer and still time from that person when we weren't heading in that direction. You know, when that wasn't something I wanted, like I would not be the person that would light us up and be like, oh, yeah, maybe and do that because I just think that's absolutely fucking disgusting. When particularly men do that with women where they go, oh, no, maybe I want kids, maybe, and they drag it on for ages and then it's too late. I would never do that. So part of it was making a decision that was definitely tough, but I knew was the right decision for myself and for her. And that's really a difficult choice. And that tough choice up front for me, for you, for all of us is often the right one. So lean into those, try and do your best with it because if you follow the easy path, your life's gonna suck long too. Have an amazing day, chat tomorrow.