No Regrets Parenting

Transcript of a Sage Hill Live Fully Podcast conversation with Dr. Chip Dodd. Lightly edited for readability; speaker labels omitted.

This podcast is brought to you by Sage Hill, a social impact organization. Our mission is to help people be who they're made to be so that they can do what they're made to do. Find more resources to live fully, love deeply, and lead well at sagehillresources.com. Hey. This is Stephen. Thanks for listening to the Sage Hill podcast. We have a little bit of a different podcast today. Recently, I had the, great pleasure, and honor of being on a podcast called no regrets dad or the no regrets podcast with a guy named Chris Bruno. I've not met somebody who, is similar to me as Chris in lots of ways. We went to the same graduate school. We're doing a lot of the same work with people. He has a counseling center in Fort Collins, Colorado. He was a great guy, and and he had me on his podcast, to talk about parenting, to talk about fathering, to talk about regrets and no regrets and hope. It was a great conversation. And I asked Chris if I could use the recording and release it to this HIL podcast. And if you're a father or you know a father that would, benefit from being part of an intentional online community, the noregretsdad.com platform is awesome. They send monthly things about what to do with your kids. I just went on and signed up for me, because I always need help in knowing how to be a better father, to my boys and to my daughter. So, it's an awesome platform. Noregretsnoregretsdads.com. Chris Bruno, great guy. Check him out, and enjoy my conversation with Chris on what it means to be a dad.

Stephen, great to have you as a part of no regrets today. It's, we we come to this conversation having so much overlap of history in our background and just thrilled to have the opportunity to be with you. So thanks for jumping on with us, today. Why don't you tell our, no regrets members a little bit about yourself and, where you're at and what you're up to, and then we'll dive in. Thanks, Chris. Yeah. It feels like we're definitely brothers from another mother. And, knowing if you knew more of my story, that actually caught might be true. We look enough alike that I know. We actually could be a girl. Have hair. Or you still have hair. I don't. I still have hair. Yeah. Let's get clear on who has hair. Let's get clear. It's me, not you. From the front, I'm not sure. I don't look at that my hair from the back. I don't You know, I'm I'm married to Heather for twenty five years, a few months ago. That feels like my most, proud accomplishment. You know, we've grown up together. We got married right out of college and figured out how to be grown ups a lot, along the way. We have a a 20 year old 21 year old daughter in a couple of weeks. She's off in Chicago learning to be an adult and making that transition as she finishes college. We've got a 18 year old son who's about to graduate high school, and then we have twin boys that just turned 16, this week. So from a personal standpoint, it it feels like we're in the hardest season we've ever been in in parenting.

You know, I think I say that in every season. I was gonna say that I've said that every every step along the way. It just gets harder and harder. Yeah. You know, professionally, I'm a licensed therapist in Nashville, Tennessee. I lead a counseling center called Sage Hill Counseling. Got a couple locations. And then I also run an organization called the Leadership Lab, which is a community of of leaders, here in Nashville that are people who are trying to live very intentionally with each other, so that we can have deep influence and impact in our community. So we run small group cohorts of six to eight people. You know? We get together for bigger events and and that kind of thing. So Okay. That's what I do. I've also written some books. I mean, you you know, you've referred to Wild Things and, written other books along the way. And, some have sold, some have just been labors of love that haven't sold. But

Put put it out there in the world and and just Yeah. Somebody good. Yeah. Yeah. So that that's what I do. And, when I'm not doing that, I love to ride motorcycles and go out in the woods and, yell at things and watch watch the stream roll by and leaves fall and write poetry. And, you know, I'm I'm an Irish background, so I'm either loving, fighting, or writing poetry. Like, those are my my heritage. As we're looking for a fight the central warrior poet, Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't care if I win the fight. I just need to be in one sometimes. So it's awesome. Yeah. Well, Stephen, we, this month in no regrets, we are talking about some of the challenges of raising boys specifically. And the, as I the the material that I put together in the man maker project book that I wrote, Wild Things was on the top of my list to be reading as a part of that. And I just really appreciate a lot of your thoughts and perspectives and have referred, dads to and moms too to to the wild things material because I just think you unpack some things that are really key there. And so one of the questions that we get often is, you know, what do I do with my, off the wall boys that are just kinda running around? They're high energy. The testosterone is just, like, raging, and and and they're literally wild things, in my home. So what better person to talk to the talk about that than you? So can you just bring us into some of your thinking with regard to, you know, that kind of a scenario? What is it that we as parents need to be aware of as as boys are literally terrorizing our home?

They certainly are terrorizing our scripts. Right? That that boys, when they're young, are uniquely gifted at poking holes in our order that we try to create, right, or the scripts we try to write to make our life work. In a lot of ways, I think that's kind of their divine calling in the world is to thwart our control. I think daughters have their own way of doing that later. You know? But boys kinda come out of the womb with that, you know, with this sense of yeah, ready to go. And and the parent the wise hearted parent that gets that, right, is gonna learn learn how to let that boy, follow the path of his own design. Like, raise up a child in a way they should go when they get all they want to part from it. It's kinda that guiding idea. And it really is there's a way that each child is made, and a discerning parent starts looking very early and letting that child teach them who they are as opposed to the parent trying to impose on them who they need the child to be to make the parent okay. Okay. Can you pause there for a second?

Sure. I think what you just said is really important for us to get. Right? That it is the child that is training the parents in who the child is. Is that what I understand? Yes. Yes. My son said to my oldest son, we were having a family discussion in air quotes, which means an argument in the kitchen one night. And, he said to me very clearly and very honestly with a raised tone, dad, you only listen when you're talking. Right? Which is great feedback. Yeah. It's hard to hear, but great feedback. You know? And he's the truth teller in our family. Right? Like, he's always been the truth teller. And when we need truth, that's uncomfortable, we ask him. And he does such a good job at that. That's not necessarily the I thought the role I wanted my oldest child to play. Mhmm. He looks like me. Everybody set like, look at pictures. It's like, oh my gosh. You look just like your dad. You know? And so I thought he'd be a lot like me. And I am a truth teller, but, I had a little more respect for authority at his age than he does. In some ways, he's got a respect for truth. You know? And Yeah. And he's been forged by trauma. He's had some really difficult events happen in his young life that have shaped him, and he doesn't have a lot of room for BS anymore in his life. Right? If if I didn't have an ear for who he was and a heart for who he was and an eye for who he was, along the way, I would've squashed him to fit my image of who I needed him to be. Right? Yeah. And I look at my other sons. I've got two other 16 year old sons. And I still feel like I'm a work in progress as a father. Like, I I,

Y'all are. Yeah. Thanks. One of one of my sons I athletics was a huge part of my life growing up. It was, two things that kinda saved my life were my my soccer team and my youth group growing up. Like, those are two places that I found family and found home and found purpose and found belonging and mattering and significance and accomplishment and all these things. And none of my children are are competitive athletes, though they're all athletic, which is kind of like a poke. It's God's poke in my side. You know? And the closest I've gotten to a competitive athlete is a mathlete. Is that one of my sons was a competitive Rubik's cuber. Yeah. He, he he reached some some really fast times with Rubik's cube, and we traveled all over The United States competing until he was, early retired because we found out some genetic issues in his bones, and it caused him pain to solve the Rubik's cube. Right? Which is heartache. Right? Heartache and tragedy, for a young man. And that's I didn't imagine myself going to school gyms and church basements all around The United States for fifteen to well, he could do it, like, eight, nine seconds. Like, we would go for a weekend of, like, four rounds of, like, watching him compete for eight seconds. You know? Right? It's amazing. Which one? Amazing. Yeah. Yeah. And, I thought we'd be going to soccer games and baseball games, and all those things, and we weren't. You know, we're going to math competitions and Ruben's Nerdfest Nerdfest competition. That's right. And but I did have this idea that that they're gonna teach me more about who I am and more about wisdom, more about love, and more about forgiveness than I could ever teach them. Mhmm. You know? And, my relationship with my kids, I would say, is based on the foundation of mercy that that I get to mess up and they get to forgive me. And I get to forgive myself in some ways along the way. And as long as we have that groundwork, I think we're gonna have a relationship when they're 30, 40, 50 years old. Yeah. You know? Because that's what I'm parenting towards. I'm parenting 50 year olds. I'm not parenting 16 year olds. Right? I I want to be in a relationship long term. Right. And if we kill them first for being Yeah. And let yeah. I I told them the the the place where I've had more murder in my heart has been my own children. Totally. Totally. Totally.

You know? You know, I think one of the postures that we have in restoration project is really what you're talking about, and that is that our children were made in the image of God, not in our image. And that if we try to discover or impose our image onto our children or if we hope that they will be like us or reflect us, then we're actually missing them completely. And and recognizing also what you just said of, like, the image of God in your children is unique, and it is this exploratory process of invitation to let me discover who you are. And when they poke holes in our scripts and when they, you know, are terrorizing our home and and all that, there does need to be some some guidance and some level of, you know Oh, there's there's consequences, parenting, boundaries, all that stuff. Like, all that kind of stuff. But if we let it derail us from finding our child in our image and not invite us to discovering the image of god within them, then then I think we really miss them, and we end up so we only listen when we talk.

Man, our children to piggyback on that, Chris, our children aren't here to fix our story. Right? They're not here to make up for all the things I failed at. They're not here to win the awards I didn't get. They're not here to make my parents proud. You know? One one Christmas, I had my my daughter was learning guitar, and I had her over, come over in the middle of the family to play the songs that she'd learned so that my father would be proud of me. Mhmm. Right? And I, man, I knew I was doing it, and I couldn't stop doing it. And to her credit, she's playing the guitar, and she said, he's not listening to me. Right. Can I stop now? Which is so smart. Like, you know, she had her own voice. Child. Yeah. Brilliant child. You know? And I said, yes, sweetie. You could stop now. He didn't listen to me either. And we all kinda laughed about it. Right? Like, it was a it was this joke. And and and I was playing out my story with my on my daughter, right, trying to be, the son my father wanted, you know, and not not be the son I am to my father. Right? And, you know, and we were all at a place where we could chuckle about it. Right? But it was still heartbreaking. Right? Like like, knowing what I know, and I I still did that unconsciously unconsciously did that, you know, It was tough. Right? And so any anytime I try to get my children to to make up for my story, I'm basically packing their backpack, my shame and my fear and my regret, and sending them out into the world to to redeem me. And that's not their job, is to redeem me. Right? They they can't redeem themselves.

You know? So as a as a father listening to this, I think there can be some guys that are like, shit. He just described me. Right? Like Well, I totally understand. Yeah. What do I do? If you do that. It's that you do do that. It's that you do do that. If you're if you're not the father going, oh, I just I just put this on my kid. Yeah. You know? Or this is my expectation for my child. This is my demand on their life. It we're gonna do that as a father. Right. Right? Especially to our sons. So what do we do? Yeah. You well, good question. I know that's not and I'm not asking for the three steps or five tips. I'll give you three steps. I'm gonna give you three steps. Okay. This is the three steps. Okay?

Feel your feelings. Tell the truth. Give it to God, and trust the process is the third step. Right? So I better be able to feel my feelings about my life. Mhmm. Right? Which I better which means I better be able to recognize where my history shows up, you know, where my story is clouding my vision of of what my life really is, how my past shapes my present. I better know that. You know? And whenever my feelings are bigger than the actual event that I'm living in, it's always about my past. Something else is going on. Yeah. It's called a childhood emotional trance, you know, and I get caught up in that. And as, modern people you know? And I'm a, as my son said to me, dad, you I don't know what your problems are. You're straight. You're white. You're male, and you're rich. Yeah. Right, sir. I don't have problems. He goes, so why are you yelling at me? You know? It's it's because of my past. Like, I've got a story. I've got trauma. I've got regret. I've got disappointment. I've got betrayal. I've got abandonment. I've got abuse. Like, I've got all these things. You know? And whenever my feelings are bigger than the event, it's usually about my unfinished business I need to go deal with. Right? So feel my feelings. Tell the truth to myself first, to other trustworthy people. Right? So I've gotta have a community of men around me Safety. You know, that that can tell the truth to me, that can hear the truth for me, like, that I'm talking to, for me, on a daily basis. Like, I start my day with phone calls. I end my day with phone calls, and there's phone calls in the middle about calling men that I know and that know me, processing my life in real time. Right. You know? So that when I come home to be with my family, I'm not a work in prog process. I'm a work in progress. Right? I've already processed that. So feel my feelings, tell the truth, myself, others, and also tell my truth to god. Right? Like, confess my true self to the god who already knows me and then give it over to that god because he's ultimately in control, not me. And I don't like his control because he doesn't play nice. You know? He plays not fair. So

I think part of that too, Stephen, is is not just the confession of sin of what we've done, but really a confession of our pain. Yeah. My experience. Yeah. And the word confession means to come into agreement with. That's what the word means. Yeah. Right? So it's the when I confess, it's not like admitting my wrongs, so that might be part of it. It is actually coming to agreement with myself. I'm scared. I'm lonely. I'm hurt. I don't know what to do. I love this child, and I wanna strangle this child. I I you know? Yeah. You know? I'm so tired of watching someone play Fortnite and still trying to learn to play Fortnite because I'm trying to love my kids on their terms. You know? Like Yeah. It's but I'm gonna do it because that's what I wrote in the book. Like, you gotta meet them where they are. And, you know, we have a PlayStation five with VR. I hate it. And we I play it with my sons. And you do it. And you do it. And I do it. I don't think it's good for them. I actually think it's bad for them. It's bad for their brains. It's bad for their development.

You know what is what is worse for them is for them to do that without their father. A 100%. Right? A 100%. Yeah. Oh, I I love that. And So that you're right. But that confession is not about naming my sin. Like, that's that's the easy confession. Right. Right? That's how I make myself feel better. Right? It's the confessing of being honest with myself about who I am and being honest with other men about who I am. And and who I am meaning in in in my experience, it's that that little boy inside of me who was neglected or abused or confused or, you know, whatever that childhood experience was, that little boy in me is still longing for my father to hear me play the guitar.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. That's the conclusion. Yeah. Or play catch with me or Whatever. You know? Whatever the whatever your story is, you're never gonna outgrow needing your father's adoration. You know, even like, it was fundamental scenes in the in the Bible is is Jesus coming out of the water and his father blessing him with, like, this is my boy. I'm crazy about him. Yeah. You know? He's mine. Right? For just being him, not for what he's done Yeah. For just being him. And, you never outgrow that. You know? And and I don't wanna outgrow that because that makes me wonderful. That makes me a wonderful person, that need for that, makes me human. Now you said something a few minutes ago, and you said especially for boys. And as we're talking about this, right, I find that raising boys and raising girls, there are some real significant similarities of what it means to father and what it comes, you know, what comes out of us to father our children. But there are some also uniquenesses of what it requires of us to father our sons and especially as a man with a boy who's becoming a man, there is a journey that is real connected to our sons that is is gonna be different than the journey of our our girls becoming women because I've never experienced being a woman before. I don't know that journey like I do this other one. And so I'm curious what you meant when you said, especially our boys, and maybe in relation to what you what you just said about god and he's my boy and I'm crazy about him, that that adoration and affection.

It it boils down to, you know, strength and tenderness, I think. The the strength of a man and the tenderness of a man. And when a father can embody both those things in full measure, right, with their son, their son can begin to embody or, like, himself fully. You know? And the natural proclivity of a boy around 11, 12, 13 is shame. They're gonna hide in shame. And they filter the world through shame. Like, how do I fit in? How do I measure up? Do I have what it takes? Like, that's the question of an adolescent boy. You know? And, if a father can stand in the gap with that boy and not talk him out of his shame, but remember what it was like to be in middle school, which I think is hell on earth. Like, the biggest testimony that there's a hell is that there's little that there's middle school. You know? Like, that's my version of hell is to go through fifth through eighth grade again and again and again and again. You know? And it like, but that's the time like, around that time, fourth, fifth grade, there starts to be a shift in a boy's bio like, his developmental psychology, his biology, his neurochemistry starts shifting in a way. And he really starts to pull away from mom. And if he doesn't have a kind and strong presence, right, just to meet him in that space that can say, look, I've been there. I know what it's like, and I'm here with you in it. Right? And, and I'm gonna I'm gonna mess up with this with you, and that's not the point. Right? I'm gonna be with you. I'm not gonna leave you in this. And when I do leave you, I'm gonna show back up and said I've been absent. I've left you. Like, I've been off duty with you. And that that, like, that happens at really middle school, high school, early twenties, and then, like, you kinda become friends more and more. Like, late teens, early twenties, you're becoming friends with your son in a way that, we all dream about. You know? And so I have found lately, as I've got these older teenage boys, I've had some typical parenting challenges, right, that they're they're doing typical teenage things. You know? And I reached out to some older guys recently, went over and sat on a guy's back porch because I've seen some older guys around me to tell me, like, what's going on Totally. You know? Yep. And encourage me. So these guys were in their sixties, and, and I know there's adult sons, and I know they had been through their own tomfoolery and have end up being great men. You know? And so I wanted not to hear how to do it. I wanted to hear who they were in it. Like, tell me your story. Mhmm. And every one of those guys said the pivotal point for them with their, teenage boys was, have you told them your story? And I'm like, well, I thought I have. They're like, no. No. No. No. No. No. Like, they need to know. They need to know about you. They need and I was like, that's not what I wanted to hear. Like, I I just did not wanna hear that. You know? Yeah. But the last few weeks have been strategically, like, being more and more honest with my sons around, hey. This was life for me. You know? And we we have this great fire pit behind our house that I built built for these things. And so we like to do fire pits. Us men and, you know, my oldest son and I smoke cigars together because he's of age and I have to smoke a good cigar. And so we buy good cigars and, do that and tell the truth to each other and talk late into the night and, laugh and Mhmm. You know, all the stuff that we do. But there's been some moments that have come up lately. It's like, well, I've never told you this. Let me tell you this about me. Yeah. You know? And and he's not bewildered. He's not he knows enough about me that these aren't, like, breakthrough kind of stories. But they're the more the detail that he's ready to carry. You know? Well, and what you're doing is you're normalizing his experience.

Yeah. Yeah. You're actually Without saying I'm normalizing your experience. Right. Right. And and you're actually giving him the normalization of the experience through the story without saying, you know, I've gone through things like what you're talking about. Yeah. It's actually telling him what you've gone through. Yeah. So the other night, we talked about the transition from high school to college, And I didn't tell him how to do it. I told him this is what it was like for me, and it didn't go real well. You know? And I told him about my parents getting divorced a couple weeks before my senior year. I told him about my girlfriend going off to college. You know? I told him about my dog dying. Like, all these things happened. Right? Like, this was a big deal. Right. And, and he was like, dang. That that sucks. And I said, it did suck. It did suck. Yeah. It did suck. And we just kept on talking.

You know? Just last week, a really good friend of mine, his he was out of town. Dad was out of town, my friend. So we had one of his, sons come stay with us, and kinda like farmed out the kids to various people. And so the one son came to us, and unfortunately, the day that he came to us, he got suspended from school. And, so then it was like, he's in our home in this suspended, shameful kind of space. And and, Stephen, I'll tell you, like, I I took him out, and out here in Colorado, we've got some back, you know, back roads, and I'm sure you have them out there where you're at too. They're not like Colorado back roads. Thank you thank you so much for your pity, but they're not anything like that. Okay. Well, I did wanna give at least a nod, but, you know so, took him out on some back roads in my Jeep and just we just were in the car for, like, maybe three hours. And the first hour and a half was just, you know, looking out the window and just a little bit of chitchat here and there. But he then asked me, have you ever been suspended? And then the whole next hour conversation was some stories, but then also I tried not to talk a ton, tried to share more of my story, but, like, invite him. And then he would ask the next question and the next question and tell me about girlfriends and tell me about, you know, this and that. Like and and it was so rich and just being able to sit with him and tell him stories.

Well, then sometimes we get, like, our I mean, we talk about this in the book wild things, but boys need surrogate fathers in this season. Right? Yeah. Like, they need other men to speak into their lives like you did with this kid. You know? And he needs to tell his story to other men along with his father, but not just his father. Right. And and a secure man knows that. Like, a man who's secure in himself knows, like, this boy needs other guys. You know? And I've been meeting with the same guys for about eleven years now, once a week. You know? And, there's a certain age where it's okay for your sons to show up for some of the night. You know? And I'm I'm so it's about 17. They could show up for about an hour and a half, and then they get the time to get out of here. You gotta go. Now go. You know? Now go. But but it's so cool that they start to hear how men actually talk around men and men of heart, you know, where we can talk about sports, talk about our lives, talk about our struggles, talk about our fun, talk about our accomplishments, and talk about our burdens. And they're just getting to listen to the tribe. You know?

That is so important for our boys to listen to the conversations of men. You know, I think another part of what we've talked about here in no regrets is preparing our children for adulthood. And I think a lot of times we think, well, preparing our children for adulthood is to make sure they get a diploma from high school or to make sure they get their driver's license or to make sure that they, you know, register with us, you know, the the military as a 18 year old boy. Like, that's that's preparing them for adulthood. And then maybe a little a little bit more on the intentional side is let me teach you how to change a tire. Let me teach you how to, you know, change the oil or, you know, here's how you hook up utilities here. Let me teach you how to change the oil, son. I go to the Audi dealership. That's how I do it. It's it's called Jiffy Lube in my house. Called Jiffy Lube. So, but, you know, so that but what you're talking about, Stephen, is teaching them how to have brothers for the rest of their lives and engaging them and showing them and welcoming them into the company of men and and showing them, like, the ropes of this is how we talk. This is and I love your your, your phrase men of heart. Okay. If you wanna have heart in the world, this is how it's done.

Yeah. You gotta keep heart. Right? So you gotta be around people who are keeping heart with you. You know? And and to me, that's the dividing line for for life is, I'll host a fire pit this week at my house, and don't tell anybody because COVID times, but we'll have about 25 guys show up. You know? Mhmm. And they're all endeavoring to keep heart. Yeah. And, they'll be laughing. Usually, somebody cries. You know? But it's it's important work that that's the most important work we do as men is being with other men. The most important work we do as fathers is having good male friendships, like, deep male friendships. You know? Because that's what our boys need. They need us. You know? And we and I wrote this other book called Parenting with Heart, and their the first title is called Giraffes on Ice, because the metaphor and we wanted to write the we wanted to title the book this way, but the publisher wouldn't let us. They wanted to call it something else. But this idea that as good the best we get as parents are like giraffes running on ice and our willingness to be clumsy with our boys, with our daughters too, we're talking about boys today, the more the more willing I am to live out loud with them by clumsiness The the more chance they're gonna get to have themselves and their own clumsiness as they grow through life because it takes a whole life to learn how to live. You know? Yeah. And, I you know, I Chris, I don't know I don't know if I'm a good dad or bad dad or whatever kinda I really don't know. I think there are things I do really well with them, and there's a lot of things I have regrets about. You know? You know, we're Heather and I are getting to the age now where we're doing more reflecting than looking forward right now. And, we're both on, you know, that late forties, early fifties kinda window. Right? And there's just we we've realized there's just some things that we can't promise that we're gonna do that anymore. Like, that ship has sailed. Mhmm. And, and so I've got a lot of, like, this good holy sadness around my children right now. And, I don't beat myself up over it. I'm not in toxic shame around it. I'm not in self pity around it. There's just some things I missed. You know? And if I'd if I had it to do over again, I know I would do it exactly the same. That's that's what I'm sad about. Like, I'm me. Yeah. And, I think not living in denial of that is gonna allow me to be with them longer, though, like, longer in their journey as as they come into manhood. And as you name that with your with your children,

then it even gives them a leg up for for the next time around. You know, one of the other interviews that we did for no regrets was with Morgan Snyder, and he I loved one of the things he said was, that as I'm parenting my children, I need to remind them that this is my first time too. Oh, never done this before. I've never done this before. I don't like, give me round two, and it'll be awesome. But round one, like, it's a it's like giraffes skating on it. And even I've got four kids, but each one's different. So I've never done this before. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I've never I've never parented a a second child before. I've never parented twins before. I've never parented a, you know, 21 year old daughter before. I don't know how to do that. You know? Yeah. Exactly. We're works in progress. Right? And and my kids, they're not asking me to know how to do it. Like, they're they don't have any expectation that I'm gonna do it right. They have none that I'm gonna do it right. They do have an expectation that I'm gonna love them. I'm gonna take responsibility when I make a mistake. I'm gonna try to make it right. You know? And I'm gonna live better tomorrow. Like, that that's the the they know I'm not God. Like, I'm the only one who thinks I have to be Jesus to my kids. Like, they don't have that expectation. They want me to be a human. They want me to be Stephen with them. And, I wish I would've, embodied that more when they were younger. I've spent a lot of my parenting energy trying to be the father who I thought Heather wanted me to be. Though she never said it, my own codependency was such that, like, I would perform in front of my boys and my daughter, but mostly my boys, trying to be somebody I thought she would admire instead of being myself because that's what my boys needed. Right. You know? And as our marriage has evolved, because we're, you know, married twenty five years, we're on our the beginning right now of our probably our fifth marriage to each other. Like, we're renegotiating our marriage again. She's letting me know that the last marriage is kind of in my favor, not hers. So we're renegotiating some things right now, which I love. I'm actually grateful for. But I've also seen my own codependency in my marriage and how that's kept me from being myself with my boys. And they they've been harmed by it. You know? And and so now I have to live my my own repentance with them. Like, hey. You know? This is who I am, guys. This is what it means to be me, and and you get to love me for me. Let's go. And Yeah. And they they respond great. Like, they're wonderful people. But that's my biggest regret right now is how, you know, my my relationship with Heather has how I've chosen to relate with Heather has affected my children. You know? And I do think there's a triangle in a marriage where the kids want the dad, the dad wants the wife, and the wife wants the kids. It's like a Bermuda Triangle relationship.

And, I think we could spend a whole other conversation unpacking what you just said right there. I think there's a bunch of, a bunch of stuff we could talk about here for sure. Well, Stephen, thank you. This is, this has been great. I know we could talk on and on about a whole variety of things, and I just want for for the no regrets dads, in our online community here for them to know you and to hear from you. And I wanna just say, like, I highly recommend your work, your books, and, just really think that what you have birthed not only in your children, but in the work, the body of work that you've brought to the world. It's helping guys like me and guys like, you know, the dads in this community be, be the dads that God actually called us to be. So Oh, thank you so much, man. That's very humbling. I appreciate that. Yeah. Well, and thank you for your time today. Really appreciate it. You're welcome.

Hey. Thanks for listening to the Sage Hill podcast. Again, that was me and Chris Bruno talking for his podcast on No Regrets Dads. And check it out. It's awesome stuff. I think it'll bless you. That was fun. He's such a good guy. And he lives in Colorado, which makes him cooler than me. He drives a Jeep. So I'm a little jealous of that. Alright. Thank you all. This podcast is brought to you by Sage Hill, a social impact organization. Our mission is to help people be who they're made to be so that they can do what they're made to do. Find more resources to live fully, love deeply, and lead well at sagehillresources.com.