173: What Do You Want to Do With The Rest of Your Life? Find Out Like I Did!

The Remarried Life

Brian Mayer discusses how being in a blended family with everything that you responsible for can make you feel trapped. This is a very common feeling and a common reality. We will talk today about how to plan to do what you really want to do with the rest of your life. We hope you are inspired by today’s message. For more information and additional resources please visit our website at http://www.theremarriedlife.com

Today's Goodies

• Do you feel stuck? Do you feel like you are in a rut? If you are listening to this episode close to the time of publishing you surely might be feeling an extra dose of this because of the constraints we are under due to this pandemic.
• But on the bright side, what better time it might be than now to assess where you have been, where you are now and where you want to go with your future.
• If you would we will go on a journey to talk a bit through my life so that you might see how I got to where I am now which includes being a podcast host, running my own couples therapy practice, and heading up a volunteer marriage mentoring ministry.
• If you just met me you might think this journey has been easy but as for all of us it is never easy and we often don’t see the heartache and pain that goes into getting us where we hope to be one day.
• As I talk about my journey, I want you after this episode to also think about your past, present and hopeful future as a guide to help you in your journey.
• So again how did I get to where I am now, as a podcaster with several thousand downloads every month that helps those that are remarried and in blended families, a successful couples therapist who owns his own practice, and who heads up a marriage mentoring ministry with his wife? Lets go way back to start.
• I was born in 1971 as the first and only child. A couple of years later my parents divorced. So I was probably around 2 years old. I don’t really have any memories of my parents being together.
• So that being said, my entire childhood that I can remember was spent in split households, with blended family experiences starting in both households sometime maybe a few years after that.
• My mother met a man who did not have children and they later would have a daughter together who of course would be my “half-sister.” My mother would later divorce a second time. She met her third husband when I was probably around 17 years of age. Unfortunately she suffered a massive aneurism about a year into their marriage and she passed away 2 years later. They did not have any children together.
• Her third husband took custody of my “half-sister” from her second marriage. Are you following this?
• On the other side, my father met my stepmother. She had a son who was about 6 years younger than I was. He would of course become my stepbrother. They then had a son together who is about 9 years younger than I am who is of course my half brother.
• So are you starting to see where the seeds of this podcast came from and my other present work? Now of course at that I would have never thought that this would be what I was doing. Mainly because I had other thoughts like wanting to be an astronaut when I was a child. And of course there was no such thing as podcasting.
• Fast forward to my adult life. I met my first wife when I was 17 years old. So really not my adult life yet. This was honestly as I used to look back a period of deep regret. I met her the summer before going away to college at Purdue University a few hours away from my home in Cincinnati. I was a kid of who had fallen head over heels for someone and I could not concentrate on my studies. So I returned home much to the chagrin and upset of my mother.
• My first wife had a child when we met who would become my stepson. We were both 22 when we got married. The marriage lasted 5 years. During that time however, my daughter was born probably 3 years into the marriage.
• After the marriage ended, for the next 6 years I dated but I suppose would be considered single. If you have listened to this podcast for any length of time you know that I went through a rather terrible depression for probably 3-4 of those years.
• The depression became so bad that I decided a move to another state might be best. I had primary custody of my daughter and we moved from Ohio to Florida. It took even a few years after that for the depression to lift. I would say time and the sunshine of Florida probably didn’t hurt!
• So let me ask again as we all look back on what I describe can you see where my life might be headed? Now of course in my work with couples we talk a lot about childhood and for some running away from the types of issues is one way to move forward and running into them is another. Probably for awhile I chose to run away but something changed that helped propel me to run into the direction of helping others.
• The thing that happened that slowly started to change things involved meeting my current wife. She did not have any children and because of a cancer she went through when we first met we ultimately did not have any children together. So all that being said my daughter grew up in my home as only child but yet she was in a blended family.
• As a side note, my ex-wife got remarried. She and her husband had another child together. So my daughter spent time in that home which was probably the more real blended family type experience.
• Okay so back to what started changing for me. So as our marriage progressed it was incredibly strong and connected with one exception. And that involved beliefs on how to raise and discipline my daughter. However, after several years we figured out better ways and compromises that helped.
• After those difficulties and obstacles were successfully dealt with, our marriage took off to an even better place.
• As a result we approached the church we attended in Florida to start some kind of marriage help. It never really got off the ground but set that stage for what was to come. Again are you seeing where this is headed? As we talk just remember to think about your own life journey for clues to where you should head. And it doesn’t have to be in the direction of the fire. Maybe it is in the opposite direction? Either way is okay!
• So fast forward a bit and the insurance company I worked for at the time transferred us to Virginia which is where we are now and have been for the past 12 years.
• A marriage mentoring ministry was created and my wife and I were asked to be a part of it. I enjoyed it so much that we decided that I should change careers from insurance to counseling. This was a long and difficult financial journey. It was one I thought about quitting several times. How about you? Have you had something tough you have thought about quitting?
• Simultaneously everything came together. The pivotal years were 2017 and 2018. During those years, I created this “The Remarried Life Podcast,” started my own private practice to help couples, and then my wife and I were named leaders of the marriage mentoring program because the prior leaders moved to another city.
• So I want you to look across your life for clues about where you might want to go and what you want to do. I still have even more dreams and for the sake of time on this broadcast today will not get into. But I hope you are just as excited about your future as I am mine.
• Take care and thanks for listening.

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Thanks For Listening!

• With so many things that take time in our lives, I more grateful than you know that you took time to listen to this podcast episode.
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As always remember that marriage is not something you have, it is something you do. Talk to you next week unless you are binge listening in the future in which case I will talk to you in about a minute! Take care.