Let me tell you it's a complicated relationship. Welcome to the Only Child Diaries podcast. I'm your host, Tracy Wallace. Have you ever felt like you didn't receive the how-to brochure on life, that you didn't get enough guidance about major life issues? So did I. You don't have to be an only child to feel this way. In my podcast, we'll explore some of the best ways to better navigate adulting, while doing so with humor and light. Welcome everyone to the Only Child Diaries podcast.

Today, I'm going to talk about a lot of different things, but I'm going to talk about some things as it relates to relationships, and so that's why I'm calling this the brochure on marriage, part three, because I've talked about marriage before, not really marriage per se, but things that relate to marriage, things that have happened to me or things that I've learned about marriage in the course of my time being married, and there's a lot to learn. Let me tell you, it's a complicated relationship. It's got a lot of layers. I mean, okay, maybe it doesn't have to be complicated, but it is complicated, it just is All right. So here's the basis of today's topic, and that is have you ever had a friend or someone that you know for a long time that you thought you knew right. And then comes an occurrence or an event where you start spending more time with this person, you start working things out with this person, you start working things out with this person, you start doing things or working towards a common goal and you realize that maybe you didn't really know this person. Maybe some of the things that you thought about the person, some of the values that you thought this person had, or some of the smarts that this person had, they didn't really have. They are different than you kind of expected. They are for whatever reason, but you got to know them and maybe the depth or the ideology or just the way that they think things through is different than you expected. And how does that relate? How does that affect your relationship with that person? Now, granted, I'm not talking about my marriage, but I'm talking about a person that I know, a friend, right, and I started thinking about what would happen if it was my marriage, if it was my husband, or what would happen if it was somebody, a couple, that I knew and they hadn't gotten to know each other as well. They got married and then they discovered, right, this difference. I mean, I'm lucky because my husband and I knew each other for well. It's laughable.

We knew each other for 17 and a half years before we got married and in a lot of ways it was like we were married. We acted like we were married mostly because of the time that we were together. There weren't a lot of surprises. I mean, okay, there were some here and there about each other, but I think for the most part we really got to know each other, got to know each other, and I think we were both lucky in that the parts that we didn't know about each other kind of went along with what we expected.

I mean, you can't possibly know everything about another person in the space of a year or five years or probably even 10 years. So when you start dating or you start a relationship with somebody or you make a commitment to spend the rest of your life with a person, it's still kind of a guessing game. Is this going to work long term? So I started to think that this is kind of an interesting topic, an interesting thing to think about and, sure, maybe, over the course of time, the people that I've dated, um, or the people that I did date rather um, I started to learn about things that I wanted in another person, values that I wanted, um different factors, right Things that I was looking for, that I could accept, and things that I couldn't accept. What was a hard no for me? It's a good question what's a hard no for you in a relationship, especially a dating relationship and something that might go further like an engagement or a marriage? Well, in terms of the friend that I have, I can't say that this is the first time that this has ever happened, but I guess I'm looking at the relationship for what it is and for what it might be in the future and well, to say that I'm slightly disappointed. I guess it's not an understatement. I am slightly disappointed. Sometimes people surprise you in a way that they're smarter than you thought they were, and sometimes people surprise you in that they're not as smart as you think they are. Does it devalue your friendship if they're not as smart? If you feel like you're the smarter one? I don't know, maybe not, but it's something definitely to take note of. So that's an interesting discussion point, maybe for you with some of your friends.

Now it's September, it's mid-September here, and I know I promised you that I was going to get you the interview edited with Leslie Berlin this month and I'm still working on that. I haven't had as much time as I thought I'd have because I've been working and I've also been working on some other projects here that have been taking up a lot of time for me and I've also oh gosh trying to finish our taxes. Our taxes are very complicated Not trying to toot my own horn or anything, but our taxes are very complicated, and earlier in the year I realized that the woman that had been doing our taxes are very complicated. And earlier in the year I realized that the woman that had been doing our taxes went MIA. I'm not sure what happened to her. I reached out to her in February, march, several times. I called her, texted her, emailed her. Never heard back. So I don't know if something happened to her, if she just got tired of us, if she changed her mind about, you know, having us as clients. But I had to find somebody else to do a tax thing for my mom's estate, which was on a very short timeframe thing for my mom's estate, which was on a very short timeframe, and I had had a conversation with her and she knew about it. But when push came to shove and the deadline was looming. She, she was totally MIA and so I'm not going to even bother reaching out to her about our taxes, because why would I?

So I've been trying to put together all that for the new guy and there's just a lot of stuff to find. There always is most of it's electronic, which is good, but it's I always put it off and then I always hate myself for putting it off. And I've got most of the stuff, but there's a few files, a few electronic files, that I'm still looking for and I just want to hit my head on the wall with it. Um, taxes are just a big pain in the neck, right, okay?

So the next thing is that it's also coming up on Halloween. I know it's a month and a half away, I know, but we're starting to decorate. It was really hot here until this week. It got it started to get, you know, manageable I wouldn't say it's fall yet, but it's manageable. So we've started putting up the, the, uh, the decorations, and it's a lot of work.

I was out there yesterday just kind of well, I was in the garage and I was just kind of laughing at myself like what the heck am I doing, but I've got most everything out of the garage up in the front yard, which in and of itself was a huge undertaking, and we've got some things up already. I think we were the first in the canyon to actually put something out. We've got the skeletons and some cute little animals that are out. So, working on our headless horseman my husband I think he wanted to shoot himself yesterday too he's trying to remember how to put it together, but we are getting there and I'm hoping by the end of the month, uh, we'll have everything complete, because it's just there's limited amounts of time that I can put into it every day. If I could just sit there and do it, but I, I, I don't have that kind of time. So, anyway, that's pretty much what I have to tell you right now.

We're into our fourth season, our fourth year of the Only Child Diaries podcast. Thank you again for listening. It's hard to believe that I've been doing this this long, very exciting. Believe that I've been doing this this long, very exciting. Still have many messages to share with you. Thank you for listening, and next week we're going to tackle another topic together. I hope you'll join me. If you like this episode, please follow the Only Child Diaries podcast on Apple Podcasts or other platforms you might listen on and consider the Only Child Diaries podcast on Apple Podcasts or other platforms you might listen on and consider rating Only Child Diaries and writing a review. It helps others to find us. Please share it with a friend you think might like it as well. Visit my Instagram page Only Child Diaries or Facebook Only Child Diaries Podcast. Thanks for listening. I'm Tracy Wallace and these are the Only Child Diaries.