An Intimate Conversation with Debbie & Derin About Their Co-Parenting Journey (Part 3)

Debbie:
Hey Derin, welcome back to the podcast.

Derin:
Thanks for having me, Debbie.

Debbie:
So those of you, if you’re watching this on YouTube and you haven’t met my husband, this is Derin and we are doing a special episode together. And this is actually the first time we’ve recorded together for the show in eight years.

Derin:
Wow, eight years. Goodness.

Debbie:
Yeah. Yeah. So, and just for listeners who haven’t heard, we’ve done two conversations in the past and they were centered on our experience of parenting our unique neurodivergent child together. And I will include links in the show notes. If you haven’t listened to them, they’re definitely worth going back and listening to. Cause we talked a lot about how we got on the same page and how messy that was. Not that we’re still always on the same page today, but we shared a lot of our kind of journey when our kid was younger and we were really kind of just figuring out what the heck is going on here. Yeah. So, but we thought because we got so many questions now that our child is 21 is away at university and we’re still in it, it just looks different, but we get a lot of questions about what this looks like and we thought it might be helpful to do another episode where we talk, kind of catch people up on what’s been happening in our life. Also, if you’re watching this on YouTube, I don’t have a studio that’s set up for us to be in the same room. So I’m upstairs, Darren’s downstairs in the dining room. So that’s what’s happening, but we are in the same home. So I thought, Darren, that we would start by kind of catching people up on where we are for those, again, who don’t know us in context. Yeah, so. From eight years to now, you want to just tell people where we’re living right now

Derin:
We have moved back to Amsterdam from Brooklyn. We were living in Brooklyn for a while. And we worked hard to get back to our beloved city of Amsterdam. We’ve been here for almost two years. And gosh, so much has happened.

Debbie:
The last time we recorded, we were living here, we had a 13 year old. And in the eight years between then and now, we moved back to Brooklyn. Our kiddo did high school in New York at a very kind of unique high school. We survived COVID along with everyone else on the planet and got through the teenage years, which were super messy in so many ways. And COVID certainly complicated that. And a new city and all of those transitions. And now we’re back in a more, I would say more, a more stable place because a lot of things that we’re feeling uncertain, like what comes next? What is this going to look like? Where will our child be living? What does post secondary life look like for a child? All that stuff is kind of for now, we have some answers. So we’re kind of in a, I would say a stable, albeit still messy, but we’re in a stable place. Would you agree?

Derin:
A stable place. I would agree. Yes. And the kid is in college now. So that’s a big change from where we were. I was just thinking, I remember when we first moved back and we were in, we moved to New Jersey very briefly. And you put together that PowerPoint of options for the child. Where do you want to go to school? You collected a number of different options. And it was like a PowerPoint presentation. The kid got to look at the pros and cons and then make an informed decision. And that’s how we chose the high schoo;, it was based on that.

Debbie:
It was a PowerPoint presentation. Mm-hmm. Yeah. After six years of homeschooling, we kind of realized this isn’t necessarily working anymore. And that was a decision we came to as a family. We gave a lot of agency to our child to kind of think about what environment do I need right now. Yeah.

Derin:
It was important that the child made the decision. The kid made the decision and not us.

Debbie:
I also just want to say that if you guys listen to the show all the time, you know that I don’t really talk much about what is happening for our kiddo in their life. So we’re going to center this conversation on our experience and what we’ve been through as a couple, how we are working together. I actually, as we’re recording this, I sent out a newsletter yesterday and the subject was scaffolding the scaffolder and I was referring to me scaffolding Derin who’s scaffolding our child. So you know, we’re just working through things in a very different way. So we’ll kind of talk about what that looks like in our life now. But we will really be respecting our kiddos privacy as we do that. So just putting that out there. But what I wanted to start with for this is talk a little bit about the teen years as much as we can while also still kind of respecting our child’s unique journey. But I’m curious for you. last time we recorded, we were still kind of coming out of almost crisis mode, right? Like we were still, we were kind of transitioning to where we’re like, OK, we’re getting on the same page. We’re working together as a team. We’re starting to feel more cohesive and connected as a family. So I’m just wondering from your perspective, then moving into adolescence and now having a teenager, what was that like for you? What got harder for you maybe from your perspective for us? And did things get easier? Like, what was that experience like?

Derin:
That’s a good point, I actually think things got a lot easier during the teen years. I do. Well, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I misremember. OK, so the early teens, let’s put it like that. The early I mean, yeah, first off, kid became more centered and more, I don’t know, present, I think is the right word. So we were able to have conversations at dinner, normal-seeming conversations about.. we could talk about news, we could talk about video games, there was back and forth. was, you know, it felt like we were a family unit. And I remember that very fondly. The whole modding thing occurred during this time, too. So the kid and I bonded over creating video games together, which went on to be very popular. And that was so much fun, just goofing around. And we would goof around for hours about this stuff, code and we design and then we would laugh. I mean, you probably remember those times.

Debbie:
It almost felt like this Renaissance or this kind of really creative, fun, really more regulated time in our family. And I’m just going to like give a little like shout out to you guys. For those of you listening who have kids who play Minecraft, what Derin’s talking about are some mods that they created together for Minecraft that some of which have become quite popular. So if your kids are into Minecraft, you might check them out. They’re Inventory Pets, Carry On. What are the other ones that are big? Just so people know they’re checking them out. 

Derin:
Animania, Better Invisibility is still going strong too.

Debbie:
Okay, anyway, sorry, that was a little side note, but I know that a lot of y’all have kids who are into Minecraft. That was a really cool thing to see happen. And I’ll just before we move on to, cause I think things really shifted when we moved back and then we, you and I had to figure out how to work together in a whole new way, cause it put a lot of strain on our relationship in general. But. For me, a lot of that period was also starting to see leaning into your relationship. And I was able to kind of step back a little bit. I used to often feel like I was like the mediator. And to be fair, I was still a mediator in a lot of your creative meetings that got escalated. Because you’re very similar in terms of how you are both very sure about your visions and those visions didn’t always like mesh. But anyway, it really was a time of connection that I was able to kind of breathe a little bit more and realize, okay, this isn’t all on me. can, I can have, can start working on my own things and you know, I lean more into tilt at that time, but also I became more comfortable with letting you guys work things out too. Sometimes even if that would be messy. Cause I think I started to realize that was part of how you guys were going to have your own relationship and it needed to be what it was because you’re bonded in your own unique way. There’s nothing I can do, I don’t, I didn’t want to interfere with that anymore. I wanted to kind of let it be its own thing. So I just wanted to put that out there.

Derin:
Yeah, something we shared, the kid and I, it takes us a while to accept somebody else’s viewpoint, if it’s different, if it’s vastly different. And sometimes just a little bit of a break is enough. And then we come back and then we’d say, yeah, let’s do it this way, or you’re right, let’s do it this way. And it was back and forth. And usually we made the best possible decision. So yeah.

Debbie:
I hadn’t noticed that. Yeah, yeah. So that was the early teen years, the Renaissance period, if you will. And then we moved back to the US and, you know, I think our kid had just was about to turn 15. So a tricky time to change to a new city. We were in New Jersey for a few months, then moved to Brooklyn. Lots of big changes, new school, then COVID hits. You and I are, you know, just in terms of what we were going through personally, you started a new job that kind of brought us back there and you were very busy. It was a very intense job. I was mourning the fact that we left the home that I had grown to love so much in Amsterdam and was myself starting over feeling like, oh my gosh, like I am now, you know, this nearly 50 year old person who has to create my own life here again, even in a city that I love, but I definitely was struggling. So I think we were all going through some big identity crises and I think it put a lot of pressure on us as a family and our relationship. What do you remember about that transition?

Derin:
Well, that first job was really busy. We had a big launch coming up, a lot of eyeballs on the product. And I was working very long hours, 12 hours, maybe more. And I get calls from my boss late at night during dinner and I’d have to pick them up. I was leaving early to grab the train. It was an hour and half to get to work. I mean, and it was all intense. It was full-on intense software development for, you know, for many, many months. Yes. And that caused all sorts of stress because I was trying to prove myself and, yeah, I was not available. I was not available to you at all. And by the time I got home, it was dinner time and then time, you know, go to bed. 

Debbie:
Well, that’s one of the big reasons why we decided to move from New Jersey back to Brooklyn. So you wouldn’t have that long commute because that was really tricky for sure. One of the things we talked about in probably the first episode was how you were feeling really disconnected from what was happening in the family. Would you say that that started happening again? You know, were we in many ways, and I’m sure this is probably the case for everybody listening, like COVID changed everything, 

All of a sudden we were living in the same space, and unfortunately we had just moved to the tiniest department in Brooklyn, so we were sharing a very small space with a hormonal teenager and a hormonal perimenopausal woman. And that was an interesting time and a stressed out dad. So let’s talk about those kind of years where we don’t have to focus on COVID because we all went through that. But in terms of our relationship, I feel like it was during that period of time when, you know, older teen years started getting more complicated. because development, right, developmental changes and hormonal changes. And then you’ve got moving into high school and you start thinking about what is after high school and that stress comes up and the identity exploration and there’s individuation, all of these things, the increasing demands on executive function. Like there was a lot happening at once. And I feel like you and I started to reconnect in how we communicated with each other. Because back when we first reconnected and got on the same page, we were doing these family check-ins, couple check-ins, like every night, just so you would be kind of caught up. Here’s what’s going on. Here’s what I experienced today. Here’s what we did in school today. And just so you were always on the same page. And we kind of fell out of that. for a couple of years, maybe because things were stable and then because you were too busy.

Derin:
That seems to be the pattern. Things become stable, kids doing well, morale is good, and then all of those muscles begin to atrophy, those things that we did on regular basis. There’s no update. Things are fine. So yeah, and then we forget. We forget that anything could happen at any time. 

Debbie:
And then things started to not be so fine. And we kind of moved out of the Renaissance and into another very challenging season of those kind of older teen years were tricky. They were hard. And they demanded things from us in a way that I wasn’t anticipating because we had had kind of a little bit of a breather. I was like, cool. We’re good. Yeah.

Derin:
Things are working. Yeah. We’re good.

Debbie:
So I think when we started, when things started changing again and we realized, okay, things are complicated now, but in a completely different way. You know, there were mental health things that we were probably all dealing with that we had to kind of get on top of. And what I remember about that period and what has helped so much and what we have really continued now and done for years is you and I started going on long walks together.

Derin:
Mm-hmm.

Debbie:
I’ll share what I remember from those walks in Brooklyn. And then I want to hear what you remember, those became really a lifeline that we would just, we needed to get out of the house so we could have a kind of a place to often vent. And sometimes we would just go for a walk. When you, when you live in New York, you walk really fast. And so we would walk really fast. We’d walk up to Prospect Park and then we’d do a loop and whoever of the two of us was more escalated would vent and just like say the things that needed to be said that we didn’t feel safe really saying to anybody else because it didn’t feel okay. But we needed to say the things. And then we’d go back home. And it felt to me like we often, sometimes we would like, yeah, and you know, we would like team up and be on the same page. And sometimes one of us just needed to dump and the other one could just hold space. I’m curious to know what you remember about those walks.

Derin:
Yeah, it’s funny, I block those out. But I remember them now. I remember, yeah, getting very angry and upset and confused. And a lot of the times I would say things like, well, you know, when I was a teenager, I didn’t, I didn’t do this. I don’t know why this is happening. Why, why isn’t this person acting more like me? And I just couldn’t get out of my head. And you would say, well, this person is not you. I think you might have said that 20 times. I still fall into that trap. There are so many similarities and so many differences. And I just couldn’t figure out why the kid wouldn’t just make different decisions. Decisions more like I made, although I was no bundle of joy when I was a teenager either at that time. So yeah, I remember just getting out and like sweating, like we were almost speed walking. It was a release. It was definitely a release. It was a very tough, tough time. Yeah.

Debbie:
Yeah. And I feel, for me, I feel like that connected us again in a way that we hadn’t had to rely on each other in the same way. We both kind of got into our own rhythms again. You were going to work every day. I was kind of more managing the household. Our child was taking once COVID ended was, you know, off to school on the subway alone every day. I got to be alone every day, which I really loved having the like the apartment to myself for a couple hours a day. And so we were just kind of in our rhythms and routines. And then we really, I grew to rely on those walks just because you were the only one who understood what I was going through and vice versa. I mean, I think we’ll get to where we are now, but definitely in those years, there was a lot of frustration and perplexity and just trying to figure out what is this kid need? What do we need? How do we do this as a family? So we just kind of.

Derin:
Blue period. 

Debbie:
The blue period, Picasso’s blue period. So anyway, I think those walks became, and it doesn’t have to be a walk for anyone listening, but for us that there’s something about moving while processing that really helped get it, know, semantically, maybe get it out of our body and kind of work through the emotions. And that way, when we got home, the emotion was gone, we we’d release that and we could just be more present. And sometimes those walks were also strategizing. OK, here’s what I think we should do. And I was learning at the time, I think that’s probably when I started learning about declarative language, which has become one of my favorite tools. So I would share and we would strategize and we’d come up with a plan. And yeah, so that was kind of the way that we got through that season. I guess the question I want to ask you and I’ve never asked you this before, so I’m curious to hear what you will say. because this is an issue for so many couples. Like it’s this identity and we get stuck in just being parents and showing up in that role. And we forget to see our partner as a partner, as our best friend, our relationship partner, our deepest connection. And so I’m wondering from your perspective, what did we do or how did we make sure to take care of our core relationship outside of the role of parenting our kiddo.

Derin:
I mean. We were, I mean, we were very intentional about it. And we, I mean, it sounds like, don’t know, it sounds corny, but we did date nights and that was important to us. There were some other things. I remember some things where we were feeling very down. It was the beginning of COVID and I don’t want to dive into COVID too much. And I was working hard, but I was working from home and I remember we bought those stands, we had a music stand and I put the laptop on that or whatever when I was doing my morning meetings. And one morning I came in and you had put googly eyes on the music stand, it was underneath my laptop. So I didn’t see it until I put it down and joined the meeting. I was still cracking up. And then that became a thing. And we started putting googly eyes everywhere. You’d put them on the mirror, put them in the bathroom, and we’d try to make it so it would be a surprise. put it inside food items in the refrigerator and it was just, it was just enough. It was that kind of simple stuff that we were doing for each other. And that started a whole, it was like a love prank kind of thing. And that made a difference. And it was important to do the date nights. You started baking and then you were doing that out of love and of course we just ate that up. And yeah, and you would ask, what do you want? What can I bake for you and things like that. Yeah. So those kinds of things just to. And the connections like again like you said the connections in the morning, connections in the evening and then we would we text each other all day long we’ve been doing that since we first started dating. 

Debbie:
When it was AOL Messenger or something like that. Yeah, I think that also because we were spending that time almost every day going on walks and reconnecting. So we were kind of caught up to speed that also facilitated us feeling more connected because I think when we feel like we’re in this alone or we’re carrying more of the weight than the other person, then that’s when kind of the stress on the relationship really starts to play a bigger role. So I think that was almost protective for our relationship was those walks, even though often they were just venting walks. They definitely helped us stay on the same page. Let’s fast forward there. Right now we are, as we said at the beginning, we’re, we’ve moved again and I honestly, I never want to move again. Like I’m so I’ve moved so many times in my adult life. It’s exhausting. So I’m quite happy to stay here. We’re feeling pretty settled. Our kid is finishing up year two at university, not living at home. They’re in another country, which I can, if I time it right, I can get there in just under four and a half hours via Uber, plane, tram, train, and bus. I’ve got it down to a science, so, parenting looks different for us now. And we’re still very much in it because now we’re learning how to support an individuating neurodivergent young adult who has, I hate this word, launched, but things have changed in our day-to-day life. So let’s talk a little bit about that and how you and I with the focus on us, how you and I are navigating this. I have lots of thoughts about this because it’s strained our relationship in a whole new way that we weren’t anticipating. 

Derin:
Yeah. It’s a different way. I kind of feel like things have flipped a little bit. But right now the kid is trying to, they’re individuating, sorry, not just trying. Uh, let’s just say, right now I’m the primary communicator with our kid. In fact, Debbie, I would say you talk to them less than once a week And it’s put a strain on the relationship because you want to communicate, and I’m still helping the kid day to day get through schedule, you know, organizing things like that. I don’t know what to say, but it’s almost a complete opposite to the way it was.

Debbie:
Yes. And, know, I’ll just say that it’s been really difficult for me. and you know this very well, Derin, but you know, Having been the primary caregiver and homeschooling all those years together and being the one kind of in the know with everything, and now you are, and our kids majoring in computer science, you guys can geek out on programming, and you understand stuff in a way that I don’t, and you are similar in many ways. I mean we have our own similarities too, but you guys share a lot in terms of how you approach problem solving and things like Yeah, I don’t think I anticipated that when my kid left for university that I was going to be kind of, I felt kind of left behind and left out. And, you know, I support and respect autonomy and agency. I understand what individuation is and it’s all good. Like I’m here for it. And I still thought I was going to be more involved than I am. And so that first year, was really, really hard for me because I was realizing, this looks different than I thought. And now you’re getting access to my child that I desperately want. And of course, I have a lot of wisdom that I want to impart because I’m learning stuff all the time. And I’m always like, okay, how can we support this? And this is going on, this should happen. And so we got in this dynamic where Every time you were going to jump on the phone with our child, I’d be like, okay, make sure you say this and tell them this and make sure this and let me and I’d be or you’d be downstairs and I’d be upstairs like texting you don’t forget to ask about this. And you were like, my god, you need to back off. Do you remember that?

Derin:
Do I remember? Yeah. That’s a daily struggle. It is a daily struggle. It’s got yes, it’s definitely gotten better. And yes. But it’s hard. It’s hard because you know, you want to be the mom and you’re so much better at this. In my mind, the language around parenting, especially with neurodivergent kids and people, and I’m trying my best to, to support and it’s, it’s going fine. There are always challenges, but it’s for the most part, you know, so I, I hear you, but I’m also like, the kid needs to, needs to grow. The kid needs to fail and learn. The kid needs to get a victory. You know, and that’s what my brain sometimes does this sort of, you know, Hey, back off, you know, let the kid, whatever. And I think that’s, sometimes it’s right and sometimes it’s completely wrong and the intervention needs to happen, you know, or something like that. I don’t know how to explain my way around my brain, but I’m, I’m being protective of the kid sometimes, I feel like. And that’s really, really weird for me. It’s really bizarre. But it’s gotten better. I’d say it’s gotten better. You want to follow up on that? 

Debbie:
Well, I do. I have a few points I’d like to make. Thank you. One of them is that, especially last year, it was clearly my anxiety of wanting to also prevent my kid from crashing and burning, right? It’s always that fine line and having no access and you were it, you were the conduit. And so I was, I really wanted you to communicate these things and you were very clear in like, listen, I don’t want to push this kid so much that they cut me off. Like, so you need to, yeah, you would say back off and that was really, I understood that intellectually, but when my brain would get hijacked with anxiety and concern and this sense of urgency, yes, but this has to happen now, that was really, really hard for me to just kind of try to take a step back. And then I started to realize, you are supporting our child. You’re the primary person supporting our kid right now. So my job has to then become how do I support you so that you can support my child. So I tried to make that pivot. And I think this year has definitely I feel like you and I at the moment are working really well together. We’ve both had to really address our own anxiety and get on the same page in terms of where is that edge that learning or growth edge when it comes to scaffolding because as we talk about all the time on the show, when you are scaffolding for a neurodivergent human, no matter their age, their capacity fluctuates, not just a week to week or day to day, but sometimes hour by hour. And yeah, yeah, yeah. So we’re always having to, and thankfully, I think we’re really in alignment now. We’re able to talk about it most of the time without conflict. We’re able to talk about, OK, this is what’s going on. Here’s a path forward that we suggest. Here’s how we can support. And then you and I have both started to prioritize our own regulation. So starting to learn that when our kid isn’t doing well or has a rough patch at school, we both escalate, right? And I can feel it. It’s happening and then our communication becomes really intense towards each other. And I’m like, we’re both in fight or flight mode right now, probably fight mode. So what I’ve been trying to do is regulate myself separately and even, I don’t always do a great job of it, but even just acknowledging we both care about this a lot. We’re both having a really hard time right now. This is really, really hard and we’re feeling it. So just kind of giving each other some grace for the fact that we’re both experiencing this in our own way. And so I feel like we’ve been doing a good job, at least separately, of trying to self-regulate so that when we are ready, we can co-regulate for each other, which then allows us to be a much different person on the other end of a Discord message or a text for our kid.

Derin:
Yeah. I agree. And I think it’s been, it’s interesting because now I see that something will happen that will throw me off and I will go to a very anxious place and you’ve seen it and you, you helped me. You’re, you’re there for me, which is great. but now I go, okay, I’m going to go for a run. I’m going to go work out. I’m going to go for a walk. I’m going to do something else, I need to take a mental break and then I come back and attack it again. it’s a challenge and the roller coaster continues. I mean, the tilt to whirl, it continues. hasn’t stopped. But it’s just different now. It’s different. Self-regulation is huge. And it’s so hard because kids not here. So we just see the moments where help is needed.

Debbie:
Mm-hmm. So just as we’re starting to wrap up, I definitely feel like we’re communicating better. I see us kind of moving in this really good direction, and I feel like we’ve up-leveled, especially even in the past couple of months. And I’ll just say this. have allowed myself to be more vulnerable about my own hurt or sadness or frustration about the fact that I’m not as involved in my child’s life as my mama heart would like. I’ve been working through that. I’ve come to you and shared things and sometimes you’ve tried to convince me to feel otherwise, like, you know, or prove to me that that’s not true or explain it away. And I’d be like, I’m just telling you how I feel. And you’re like, oh yeah, okay. I’m sorry, that’s really hard. So I feel like that’s where for me, that’s where our work has been like me being able to be vulnerable and you being able to receive and support that and not try to fix. I’m wondering for you, where is your kind of growth been happening in terms of our relationship?

Derin:
I think that you just put a point on it, which is I’m listening better to you and understanding when you’re feeling hurt. It’s, you know, it’s emotional. And it’s not rational. And, you know, I’m such a logical person. I’m like, well, gosh, that’s just, that’s just not true, Deborah. I’m just kidding. So for me, I have to be there for you to hear what you’re feeling, not necessarily what you’re saying, but hear what you’re feeling. I get it. I mean, I get it. I think that’s brought us closer together because I understand it. I’ve been there. I’ve been in your shoes and it’s not a great feeling. But I also know that you are really important to our kid, really important to our kid. And that in some ways, I’m just there to help move things along. So I don’t know. I just. I’m grateful. We’re here right now. Our kid is in college, going to classes, doing okay, you know, having some great days and some okay days and some not so great days, but they’re doing it. The kid is doing it and we’re here and we’re parenting. That’s a remarkable amount of growth. And we’ve been parenting through all of that as a team. I think it’s amazing. how far we’ve come and how far the kid has come. And there’s, it never ends. It never ends. And I’m not tying this in a bow. I’m just saying right now it’s going pretty remarkable.

Debbie:
Yeah, and just to add onto that, it’s also still super, super messy and there’s no guarantees of any of it. And to me, that’s one of the biggest things that you and I have aligned on this year is really together, letting go of any expectations of what this is going to look like. And knowing that our job isn’t to have any kind of agenda for an outcome or anything. This is our kid’s life now and our job, I mean, it’s always been their life, but our job is to support who our incredible human is becoming and the goals and the vision and whatever that looks like. And how can we support that? Not how can we get back on this path or how can we make sure this happens? We, I feel like we have really genuinely come to that place where it’s like, you know what, this works or it doesn’t work, it’s okay. Like where there’s still the growth is still happening. And what matters more is our kid understanding who they are, and following their own growth and us being there always to scaffold support, love, see however we can.

Derin:
Absolutely.

Debbie:
For couples who are listening to this and our last two episodes we did together were episodes that a lot of couples listen to it together or separately and then, so I’m imagining there are going to be people listening to this who are. who are really in it in a way that they’re just not connecting and they’re just feeling like I can’t see a place where we’re going to be okay or at peace with this or I feel so far apart from my partner right now and what I envision for that relationship. And it’s really important to me, but I don’t even have the energy to put any attention on that right now. What would you say to them? Anything that you have learned?

Derin:
You know, when I was the most stuck and, you know, I can be very stubborn, about things. When I was the most stuck, I really thought that I was doing fine. I was doing everything correctly and that you were doing things wrong or the kid was just, just too difficult or something like that, right? I think, I mean, it sounds so dumb now, but I mean, I had to accept the fact that, yeah, I was partially responsible for the quagmire that our family had had stepped into and that the family was also in the quagmire too. were all in the quagmire together. We were all making mistakes. We were all in need of a hug, a lean in, a discussion candor and that once we did that, once we started talking to each other in a more respectful and understanding way and accepted our parts in the quagmire, things started to improve. But you have to be honest with yourself and with your partner. It seems so simple, but you know, accept where you are and have that honest communication, you know, and go from and it can, it can happen. It doesn’t matter where you are. Like we were in a really bad place, was it 10 years ago. And we turned that around big time. We turned it around big time and it became a strength. So I, yeah, you can do it. That’s my last word. You can do it.

Debbie:
Yeah, you can do it. Just do it. Yeah, I mean, the last thing I’ll say is I think we’ve both really committed to prioritizing our relationship and whatever that looks like at any given time. And also we’ve committed to our own personal growth journeys. I’ve been in therapy for years and every time, you’re like, did I come up in therapy today? And some days I’m like, Nope, not once. And I’m like, yeah, this was all about you. No, but, but that’s something I’ve committed to. And so I’m always doing my work. You’re always doing your own work in your own way. And so that I think has been really important too, is just knowing that. Yeah. It doesn’t end, the roller coaster does not end. There are always going to be highs and lows, but we can continue to. to grow and how we move through that. The ride doesn’t have to be as wild and unpredictable. And we can kind of remain more grounded even in the midst of what’s super messy. So that’s what I would leave listeners with.

Derin:
Yes.

Debbie:
OK, thank you for agreeing with me. so thank you for doing this. I know that when I suggested doing this, you’re like, OK, what are we going to talk about? And you wanted to have a meeting. And I was like, we’re not going to have a meeting. We’re just going to jump on and start talking. So thank you for trusting me to do a third installment. We’ll see. This is our 10th year of the show. Maybe we’ll do another one in another five years, and we’ll see where we’re at.

Derin:
It was fun. Thank you, Debbie. Thanks for having me. And I’ll see you for lunch.

Debbie:
Thanks, Derin for sharing so openly today. Sounds good, see you in a few.