What Our Past Relationships Taught Us

Kevin Anthony 0:11
Welcome to the Love Lab podcast a safe place to get real about sex. Whether you’re a man, woman, single, or couple, this is the show for you.

Céline Remy 0:20
We are your hosts, Kevin Anthony and Celine Remy. And we are here to guide you to go from good to amazing in the bedroom and beyond.

Kevin Anthony 0:27
Alright, welcome back to the Love Lab podcast. This is episode 173. And it’s titled what our past relationships taught us. So I don’t know how we came up with this topic. Exactly. But it actually was a great idea because everybody, well, everybody should. Everybody does. But everybody should be learning stuff from their relationships.

Kevin Anthony 0:55
And if you really are honest with yourself, and you really look back at the past relationships that you’ve had, you should have learned certain things from each one. And so what we’re going to do today is we’re going to talk about past relationships we’ve had, and we’ve had a few.

Kevin Anthony 1:12
We did not meet as high school sweethearts and live happily ever after, that would have been great. It didn’t happen. So here we are. So we’re going to talk about some of the past relationships we’ve had and some of the major lessons that we’ve learned. Now, when I was sitting down to write my list, I kind of realized that some of it was so old, I was having a little bit of trouble remembering some of them.

Kevin Anthony 1:40
But I’m gonna do my best because some of them really did have big impact on who I am today. And I imagine the same is probably true for you as well. Yeah.

Céline Remy 1:50
And there’s not always a correlation between the amount of time spent in the relationship and the lesson because I’m realizing that, you know, there’s even somebody I haven’t written about that I got great lessons from, and I was just with him for a few weeks while traveling, you know. So that’s an interesting thing to know, right? That it’s not always all about how much time and stuff that lessons can come in anyway.

Céline Remy 2:16
And it’s also important to understand that if you got the lesson, usually, your relationships kept getting better and better, because you’ve learned what you had to learn. And then you get to a higher place. If you find yourself in a place where you constantly have the same people and the same trouble.

Céline Remy 2:33
That just means that you’re being very stubborn about learning the lesson. And until you’re able to make the changes within yourself, you are going to keep attracting the same people over and over and be unsatisfied.

Kevin Anthony 2:45
Yeah, that’s a pretty big red flag. If every time you get into a relationship, you have the same problems you had in the one before that, and the one before that, it’s a pretty big red flag.

Céline Remy 2:58
That’s true. Alright, let’s first give a big shout-out to our sponsors. Before we dive in, I’m very excited about today. And we’re going to be sharing things pretty much openly. As always, we’re open books here. So we are looking forward to that. But let’s give a big shout-out to power and mastery.

Céline Remy 3:14
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Kevin Anthony 3:36
All right, well, I’m going to be going in roughly chronological order. The lessons seem to get bigger in life, why not? Start with some of the smaller lessons, I think, and then work up to more of the present. I will not be sharing any names. By the way.

Céline Remy 3:58
If you’re one of our exes, you might just guess who are we talking about? Yes, it will be you.

Kevin Anthony 4:02
You’ll recognize yourself. I’m sure. I’m friends with pretty much every woman I’ve ever dated. And so I don’t know how many of them or if any of them actually listen to this podcast. But if you are listening, you might recognize yourself. Okay, I’m gonna go way, way back to the beginning on this one. So, I had a girlfriend when I was I want to say, I think like 16.

Kevin Anthony 4:33
And she was always asking me in the beginning, how many people I had had sex with. And I absolutely refused to answer this question. Because you were a virgin. No, I had sex with one person. But I was embarrassed by that because as a guy, you’re like, Yeah, I should have had sex with a whole bunch of women. I know what I’m doing. I’m experienced.

Kevin Anthony 4:56
So I didn’t I wouldn’t answer the question, which of course, like then we, you know, she didn’t want to have sex for a long time until she finally got comfortable enough with me to decide it didn’t really matter so much. But what I learned from that was one, you need to be honest, all the time. And what I realized was that had I had been honest, right from the start, we probably would have had six months earlier. Right.

Kevin Anthony 5:27
But what I also learned from that was, it wasn’t just that she didn’t trust me, because I wouldn’t answer the question. And this took years to figure out, you know, later on, but what it really was, is she wanted to feel safe. That’s really what it came down to. And so there was okay, you got to be honest, in your relationships to women need to feel safe when they’re with you.

Kevin Anthony 5:51
Sorry, I also realized how you can see the exact same thing from two very different points of view. In other words, from my point of view as a 16-year-old, I didn’t want to say, because I was embarrassed that it was only one person, and that I wasn’t really skilled in that area. But for her knowing it was only one person would have made her feel so much better, much safer, much more comfortable.

Kevin Anthony 6:22
So you can see how we, the same fact would have been perceived very differently or was perceived very differently between the two of us. And so these are kind of important lessons because you realize there’s a lot of things in your relationship that is very likely like that, right? Where you perceive it one way, and the other person perceives you as completely another way.

Kevin Anthony 6:45
And so what’s really important is to just be open and upfront about all this stuff, and then talk about how each other perceives things. So that was my number one.

Céline Remy 6:54
Well, my first lesson with basically going back to my very first official boyfriend, I waited until I was just about 18 years old. And I was still a virgin, it was just a few weeks prior to my birthday. But I waited until I was in love with somebody. And I thought it was a really good choice and a good lesson. As a young woman, there was a bit of pressure, but like, wow, I’m just about to turn 18 I’m still a virgin, it’s quite embarrassing.

Céline Remy 7:23
I hadn’t even kissed anyone really back then. So I really was looking forward to popping those cherries everywhere. But I held back until I found somebody that I felt connected to and with and didn’t give in to the peer pressure that the cool thing was to do this or that. And so I appreciated that about myself, well, that relationship really lasted just a few weeks, literally because then I went away for an entire year.

Céline Remy 7:53
And what was interesting was that my parents meant when they were 14, and 16. And so growing up, I thought that relationships were meant to be forever. And that’s really what I had hoped I was going to create, to have somebody I would fall in love with we would build a life with and we’d have liked all of these years together. So when my first boyfriend came around, for sure, I was like, I’m going away for an entire year. But no problem, our love is strong distance doesn’t matter. And we’re going to stay together.

Céline Remy 8:25
And it didn’t take very long, I want to say maybe three months before we realize that this was a bit over our head. But then we barely had internet, we’re still writing letters most of the time. But we realized that being 18 just was not the best plan to be away for long-distance relationship. And we both wanted to have different experiences anyway.

Céline Remy 8:49
And so for me, that was the first maybe disappointment in terms of letting go of some ideas and ideals that I had preconceived in my head from the models I had. So some of them were okay when you have a boyfriend’s forever, right. And then also about the Prince Charming. And we’ll come back to that. So the whole idea that the minus one was going to be my one and on the end first. And all of this got shattered.

Céline Remy 9:18
And I realized ultimately that it was a good thing because I’ve seen him again years later, and we would not have been good matches for each other or happy together.

Kevin Anthony 9:30
All right, so my next one. This person actually had really profound impact on my life at the time. But this is one of those ones where when I was sitting down writing it, I couldn’t really feel the energy of it anymore. Because it was so long ago. It was a little hard to remember but here’s what I do remember, she was much more of what we would kind of call a free spirit.

Kevin Anthony 9:57
And growing up what I grew up, how I grew up with who I grew up was much more rigid. And so what was interesting is she really opened me up to being more spontaneous, and being more sort of free spirit. Like she’s the type that, you know, if it was summertime, and rainstorms suddenly happened, she would like to rip off her clothes and run in the backyard and dad’s naked in the rain, like, like that kind of stuff, you know?

Kevin Anthony 10:26
So not like crazy, crazy stuff. But just like, hey, let’s go here and do this. Oh, this would be cool. And like, so well, who

Céline Remy 10:33
hasn’t dense naked in the rain? Of course, it’s a normal thing to do

Kevin Anthony 10:37
this now it wasn’t back then. But it really did. You know, we dated for a couple of years. And it actually by the time that relationship was over, I was really transformed as far as how I looked at the world and what I was open to compared to, you know, what I was hoping to prior to that, I will give her a bonus.

Kevin Anthony 10:58
Also, that she took me on my first ever mountain bike ride, which mountain biking has been one of my passions now for 28 years. Yeah, so I’m doing it to this day, right. So she gets credit for having taken me on the first ride. I was like, this is the coolest thing ever. I was instantly addicted.

Céline Remy 11:20
Oh, that’s wonderful. So ladies listening, notice how Kevin was talking about his experience in how she helped to make him a better person and to just open up more. And as a woman, in my younger experiences with men too, I saw that a lot, I pretty much left all of my boyfriends better than when I found them.

Céline Remy 11:45
And I do see that as women a lot of our roles are to inspire the men in our lives to step into their greatness. And that we women often get clear on that sooner than they do. And that it is one of our responsibility to help them step into that place that they can be. So that leads me to wasn’t really my second one. But we’re gonna skip

Kevin Anthony 12:11
a second one on this list. Yeah, I’m skipping around as well. It’s boyfriend

Céline Remy 12:15
am and boyfriend am was my very first like long term relationship. It lasted about a year and a half. And it was an interesting one because my parents hated him. So the more they hated him, the more I wanted to be with him, right? Because it’s shocking. I’m like, 20 something, right? So it’s totally the thing that you would do. Because the more you being told, You shouldn’t do that, you’re like, oh, I’m going to do that.

Céline Remy 12:40
What was interesting about that relationship for me is that from the start, I knew that we weren’t really a great match. And I knew I was going to break up with him at some point, I just didn’t know when. But I also knew that it was an important relationship to have, and a year and a half when you like 1920 is a long time. And I definitely learned some good stuff there more about things that I didn’t want rather than anything else.

Céline Remy 13:09
So one was about how it’s not sustainable to change yourself to please your man. So M and I were very different. And he liked a certain type of woman. And he liked them super pretty and high heels, tight pants and makeup and the long hair and all of this. And I mean, I could fit that description. I have that side. But I also have the hippie side of being barefoot and dancing in the rain.

Céline Remy 13:35
And I was like, Well, I can just focus on one side of myself to please Him. And I think that’s definitely something that I learned that I lost myself, I lost myself in that relationship in trying to be someone who I wasn’t fully aligned with. And while there were parts of it that were a match, it wasn’t exactly a true resonance.

Céline Remy 13:58
And so the biggest lesson was really about the importance of staying true to who you are. And that molding yourself and changing yourself to make your partner happy is not going to work in the long term and it’s not sustainable.

Kevin Anthony 14:11
Mm-hmm. Yeah, that’s a great lesson. All right, the next one on my list is I was trying to think about this particular relationship. This was another one that was slightly fuzzy in my mind, but then one part really came back and I was like, oh, yeah, now I remember. I was dating a girl who was getting her master’s degree in psychology. Enough said no offense to all your psychologists out there, psychiatrists, whatever.

Kevin Anthony 14:43
But, you know, it probably had something to do with the fact that she was still learning to write because he’s learning all this stuff. She wants to put it into practice. But what I learned from this relationship was how to set boundaries, because she kept overanalyzing our relationship all the time. So you know, like, when you’re learning something new, you see everything through that lens.

Kevin Anthony 15:06
Right? So, you know, she’s getting her master’s degree in psychology, and she’s constantly looking at relationships. Does this match what I read in the book, that maybe this could be such a psychosis or, you know like constantly doing stuff like that drove me insane, and I think was ultimately responsible for the end of that relationship? Because finally, I just had to set some boundaries, I had to say, look, you’re not analyzing. You’re not our couples counselor.

Céline Remy 15:38
I’m not a willing participant in this experiment.

Kevin Anthony 15:41
Exactly. But you know, the idea of learning how to set boundaries is really, really important. That’s just one example, where at one point, I kind of had to, put my foot down and say, look, here’s the line in the sand, we can’t continue like this, because it’s just not working for either of us. It’s not healthy, it’s causing more problems than it is actually helping.

Kevin Anthony 16:02
So yeah, I’m glad that that that sort of idea of I got to set boundaries, not to say that I learned it once and was perfect at setting boundaries from there on out because I wasn’t. But at least I understood that there are times that you really do have to do that. And one of the things that we see a lot when we work with couples is that people don’t set boundaries, it’s a huge, huge problem,

Céline Remy 16:27
or consequences. If they set a boundary, there are no consequences if the boundary grits cross, or they change on mine. And then again, the no consequences is really important that you got to change that boundary consequence and stick to those. Yep. But it’s a whole other episode there. So we left my last boyfriend M. And after that, I took a very conscious decision that I wanted to be celibate for a while so that I could understand and find myself more after that relationship.

Céline Remy 17:03
Even though I’m the one who called it off, I realized that it wasn’t worth just jumping right away into something else that I would benefit more from taking some time to get to know myself, I was just in my very early 20s. Right. And that was a really smart decision to give me some space in between. So fast forward was a few people I had sex with, there was some traveling and like I said one person that wasn’t on this list, but was someone I traveled with for a few weeks.

Céline Remy 17:32
And what I loved in that relationship was that we both knew this was just a few weeks together. But we both gave our whole to each other like we gave it all. And I remember this time where we were in Thailand, and we rented this cute little bungalow together. And he went to the farmers market and got all these roses. And then he came to the bedroom and was like showering me with roses, petals, and all of this.

Céline Remy 17:58
And this was like the most magical thing that no one had ever done for me. And I was so surprised that someone who was in this very short-term relationship was willing to invest so much because my previous relationships even have many years and never ever did anything like that to me and for me. And so that helped me raise my standards, so much more about what was possible what to expect.

Céline Remy 18:23
And also learned about the whole power of just being in the now like we never focused on or it’s only going to be a few weeks, and then you’re going to go each, like in our separate ways. But the funny part of that story is this. This is a really short relationship travel blah, blah, blah, and then fast forward a few months.

Céline Remy 18:44
And you are meeting my was Ben de Well, husband at that time, right? And it’s like I’m about to get married. And it’s the day before marriage. And I happen to run into the one man that I was talking about from my traveling. And here I am. And my husband was 31 years older than me.

Céline Remy 19:06
So it definitely was a big age difference. And the lover I was with was only I think about a decade old or something like that. And it was kind of like watching the two together. I could see the older version, the younger version, and had this moment of like, which one do I pick? What do I do to get married tomorrow?

Kevin Anthony 19:25
Sign? A good sign. So

Céline Remy 19:27
that leads me to the lessons of Well, I was married and now obviously I got divorced. And if I’m being really honest, I kind of doubted it from the beginning of that marriage. So my lesson number one is just because somebody proposes you don’t have to say yes. Okay, ladies, very important. It’s tough to say no. And you might want to do it gently. But just because someone proposes you don’t have to say yes.

Céline Remy 19:52
But the other thing too that I learned in retrospect was the fact that I was doubting it like I didn’t really trust myself in that, like, I knew it wasn’t really the best match. But I wanted that fantasy. I wanted to be married, I wanted to have kids, I wanted to have like, the picket fence and the dog and all of that. And that was kind of that fantasy. And what’s interesting about that is what of what part of that was mine, what part of that was societal pressure and expectations.

Céline Remy 20:25
And we’ll come back to that in a little bit. So some of those lessons that I learned are young, you know, in your heart, if it’s not the right relationship, and please, please, please listen, because it’s much easier to walk away before you’re married. And then you have to go through a divorce. Luckily, my husband and I divorce on really good terms, we did it on our own, and only cost us a few $100. And it was super easy to split, we didn’t have any children.

Céline Remy 20:50
So it was very, very easy. Now, also, what was interesting is that the relationship with D was a good relationship. But I wanted great, I wanted great, and I knew it could be so much better. And I kept waiting for him to change, do some things that he promised me he was going to do is say I’m going to be doing these things. And I’m like, okay, and five years in, it still hasn’t happened. And I’m like that, just that I have to go, I have to go find my great.

Céline Remy 21:23
And so the lesson I got is that don’t settle just because you’ve created something. And if you know in your heart that something greater, like go for it, because life is short, and you got to go for those things. The other thing that I want to give D some credit for is that maybe also because of our age difference is that he gave me a lot of freedom in our relationship, which was really necessary.

Céline Remy 21:50
I was very young, between 23 and 28, that we were together. And because I was doubting the relationship a lot. At some point, he just gave me the car keys and said, you’ve got the credit cards, you’ve got the car, just go do whatever you need to do and come back when you’re ready. And now was so bold, it was bold. And that was so powerful that I actually stopped wanting to go somewhere else after that like I was like,

Céline Remy 22:15
Oh, I have that freedom. And so he did that was a beautiful lesson in terms that are things that I got to and also from my upbringing, my parents were very bit more controlling and judgmental. And D was so much more of a free spirit, like the total opposite from my parents. And I think that that was a really important experience for me to see that the other end of the spectrum of what was possible.

Kevin Anthony 22:41
Yeah, absolutely. That was that was huge. That was really bold of him. And notice that once you felt like you had the freedom, you didn’t need to actually exercise it. So it’s kind of a good example of you know, everybody thinks the grass is always greener on the other side. You know, it’s not exactly the same thing.

Kevin Anthony 22:59
But the idea is that when you’re sitting over here, and you’re in your relationship, and maybe things aren’t going the way you would like them to go, you’re looking out over there going, Oh, if I could just have more freedom if I could just do this, right. And then when you actually get that you go, wow, wasn’t really that great.

Céline Remy 23:17
You know, something to that I want to add is the Deaf finally let go that he wasn’t doing what he said he would do and what I wanted in a relationship. And I decided to go for it and find somebody else. It took a while. But then you know him and I still saw each other and in the divorce was still had sex a few times, there are still a few things that happened. But a few years down the road.

Céline Remy 23:43
He called me and then he finally started to give me all the things I had wanted to have when I was in a relationship with Him, the appreciation, the attention, and all of that. But what’s interesting is how I’d stayed with him, I’m not sure he would have been able to get there. I knew it was within him I knew was possible. But he couldn’t do it. And so giving like going after what I wanted not settling.

Céline Remy 24:08
First, I got what I wanted. And second, it allowed him to be forced to morph into that version and be a better man. Yeah. So before we get into our, we have about I have about a couple

Kevin Anthony 24:22
left, or I got some big ones coming up.

Céline Remy 24:26
Big, big, big lessons. Let’s give a little shout out of Big shout out to our sponsors, which is us. We want to invite you all committed couples if you feel that you are stuck in a rut and that you’re going through the daily motions instead of connecting the way you used to if you feel tired of stale, mechanical sex that lacks spontaneity and fun and you don’t want to live a life of average. No, no, no, no fun.

Céline Remy 24:51
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Kevin Anthony 25:15

Alright, I got quite a few more, so I’m gonna kind of go through them maybe a little faster, maybe do like two at a time or something like that, if I can do that. Okay, so the next one on my list is interesting. There were a couple of things I could share about her. The first one, which is super, super, sort of short and fast is that she was kind of the first girlfriend I had where we really started to experiment sexually outside of the like, it’s just the two of us have, you know, quote, unquote, normal sex.

Kevin Anthony 25:47
So like, you know, toys, we went to our first sex club together, stuff like that. So that was that was. Well, that was kind of important experimentation at that point in life. But the biggest lesson, actually, that I learned from her was, we both moved across the country at the same time. And I came first, and she was still finishing up some schooling that she was doing. And then she came later.

Kevin Anthony 26:16
So I had, I think about three months to sort of establish myself, she showed up not knowing anybody or anything. Well, I was pretty busy, I was pretty actively involved with the local mountain bike scene and rock climbing, and just people that I had met, I was riding with, I wasn’t writing for them, I was training with a pro mountain bike team.

Kevin Anthony 26:43
And so most weekends, I was out on training rides and stuff like that. So at some point in the relationship, I noticed that something was different. Something was not quite right. And, you know, of course, I confronted her, I asked her okay, what was what’s going on? She denied everything wouldn’t tell me what was happening. Well, she used to keep a journal by the bed all the time.

Kevin Anthony 27:08
And I know everyone’s like, Oh, my God, you read her journal? That’s terrible. How dare you violate that, like? Well, I gave her the opportunity to talk to me first, I really tried and it wasn’t happening. So I was like, I got to figure out what’s happening here. So of course, I opened up the journal, read an entry where I found out that she had actually cheated on me with somebody else.

Kevin Anthony 27:29
So, you know, there’s a lot that could be said about that. But the biggest part is, is that once I understood that I didn’t, I didn’t act irrationally, I didn’t scream at her, I didn’t kick her out of the house, any of that kind of stuff. I was really hurt. I was really disappointed. But I really had to sit back and say, Okay, how do I feel about this person? And what do I want? Right?

Kevin Anthony 27:52
Because what most people do in a situation like that, is overreact, right? They fly off the handle, and then they, they do actions, that don’t take them in the direction that they actually want to go. So in my case, I still loved and cared about her a lot, I realized, kind of in that moment that I was somewhat neglecting her and not giving her enough attention. And so I thought, Well, what do I really want, why what I really want is for us to stay together, and have a great relationship said,

Kevin Anthony 28:21
Well, how can I go about getting that? Right? So basically, you know, I just sat down with her and, you know, said, okay, look, here, here’s what I know. And here’s, let’s talk about why this happened, and where we go from here. And we actually were able to move past that. And we were together for several more years after that. And it really, you know, there’s a lot of people, we hear this too, when we work with people like, well, when the seven years ago, at the beginning of our relationship.

Kevin Anthony 28:50
When we were very first dating, he was sort of dating somebody else to at the same time, and I never really got over that. And I’m thinking, that’s like every new relationship that starts right, especially dating apps, most people are like juggling 234 at a time in the beginning, but we hear these things from our clients.

Kevin Anthony 29:10
And so that was an important lesson for me to learn that, hey, you know what, you can move beyond these things because it honestly never came up again. And I wasn’t holding any resentment. There was no weirdness about it. We both just said, Okay, we understand why this happened. Let’s not do that again. And then move forward. So that was a huge lesson because I had zero examples in my life of anybody that was ever able to do that.

Céline Remy 29:42
Now that’s, that’s awesome. And it’s great to know that it’s possible. And your great example for people listening knowing that there is another way even if the trust got broken, you can repair it. If you’re dedicated to doing that. You can’t hold on to a grudge or hold on to the past. Once you’ve decided to forgive, forgive, forget, move on.

Kevin Anthony 30:03
That’s it. You got to make that decision.

Céline Remy 30:07
Are you going to talk about a couple more? Before I share some of my things? Or how many you got that I have basically are in you? Oh, okay. Yeah, let me do a little bit more.

Kevin Anthony 30:16
And then, yeah, that way, it’s a little bit more balanced. Okay, so the next one, this next person on the list was, you know, the one, the one I just talked about was probably the first partner where we actually lived together and we’re pretty serious. But even though we were serious, there was something there was a level of depth there.

Kevin Anthony 30:45
That wasn’t quite right. But we were still relatively young. The next one on the list, we were a bit older. And it was the first relationship where I really felt like, like, this is the one, right? Like this is okay. Yeah, like I’m going all-in on this. So two things to share about that particular one. In this one, we really dove into opening up our viewpoints on spirituality and the intersection of spirituality and sexuality. S

Kevin Anthony 31:21
o that was kind of big. There were some really big things I learned there. I mean, it was that relationship when I learned how to separate orgasm from ejaculation. And there was some cool stuff about that. But probably the biggest lesson I learned was when that one ended, and it was not by my choice.

Kevin Anthony 31:37
She decided she wanted to go in a different direction, which at the time, I was like, I don’t think that’s really the direction that you think you anyway, as it turns out, she never did go in that direction, like 15 years later. Yeah. So I kind of was right, but I’m not I’m not gonna say that.

Céline Remy 31:59
I’m glad it ended. I was I wouldn’t be here.

Kevin Anthony 32:01
Absolutely. Absolutely. So but the point is, is that, you know, that it was pretty crushing for me when that relationship shifted. But what we were able to do was not only part very amicably, but to stay really good friends. pretty much ever since even to this day,

Céline Remy 32:24
and you guys work on some projects together as she was at our wedding. I mean, that’s just exactly what my life is.

Kevin Anthony 32:31
Exactly. So but again, how do most people treat a breakup, right? So somebody like you’s totally in, you’re invested, you know, you’ve already started to build your life together, and then one person decides they’re gonna bow, right? You’re totally crushed by what most people do? Well, they get pissed off, they don’t want to talk to them, like whatever they basically just like, I need to cut ties completely and move on.

Kevin Anthony 32:56
Not to say that any of that is wrong, because in some cases, you might need a distance at first. Yeah, yeah. And you know, we had some distance, we weren’t like, Best Buddies hanging out, you know, for the first few months or a year, but we always were close. I mean, a side note was when we had to move out to you because we were living together. She got really sick on the day like that we’re supposed to move out.

Kevin Anthony 33:22
So she had arranged like, I had my movers come and she had her movers come in, and we were going in two separate directions. But she again ended up getting really sick and couldn’t do anything like Like, like, couldn’t get out of bed sick. So even in that situation, I was between running to the natural food store to get her chicken soup, to make her feel better while continuing to box the rest of her stuff.

Kevin Anthony 33:50
And then help her one mover who showed up. I had to movers help me, or one mover that showed up, move everything. But the point is, is that that you can do that, right, you can realize okay, maybe this isn’t what I want at this moment. But for whatever reason, that’s happening and I still care about this person.

Kevin Anthony 34:13
So I’m not going to sabotage you know, the friendship or you know, all the good times that we’ve had by turning into an asshole basically, I’m not gonna do that for you. Screw you, you know. Okay, I’m gonna do one more and then you can do yours and then I’ll finish up with my

Céline Remy 34:31
Alright. Alright. Yeah, we get just a few more minutes before the end of the show. So let’s

Kevin Anthony 34:35
do no right. Next foretells, please. Okay, next one. All right. So after that relationship that’s just talking about ended. I was like, in no place to be in another relationship. But there was somebody that I was friends with that I’d known for a while and we had really good did chemistry in a sense that we got along really well, we laughed together a lot.

Kevin Anthony 35:05
We had a lot of fun, like going rock climbing and stuff like that. And, you know, she was interested in being more than just that. And I said, from day one, I’m like, okay, look, I am not ready. I am not capable of giving you what you want. Like from day one said that she totally agreed. We decided to move on. So we traveled together, we had sex together, we, you know, climbed around the world and did a lot of cool and fun stuff.

Kevin Anthony 35:35
But there were some major lessons to be learned in that one. The first one was, even though that she said she was okay with that arrangement. She really wasn’t okay with that arrangement. So I learned from that I’m like, Okay, I need because, you know, she just said, Yeah, that’s cool with me. And I was like, Alright, sweet. Let’s do it. Whereas if I were confronted with that same situation, today, I would ask a lot more questions, and I would be a whole lot more certain.

Kevin Anthony 36:06
And then I would still be aware that even if I was 100%, certain, it probably wouldn’t be true. Because the other lesson that I learned, which was one that I talked about earlier, in the show, was, it didn’t work for her because she didn’t feel safe. She just didn’t feel safe. And I totally get that I did not give her any reason to feel safe. So she had massive jealousy issues and all kinds of stuff.

Kevin Anthony 36:33
So that was the first one like that, okay, I, I get it this time, the universe, God, whatever, they need to feel safe. Got it. So that was the first one. The second one was she and I had really different communication styles. And it was the first time I was ever in a relationship where we communicated so differently, that I was forced, literally forced to learn how to be a really top-notch communicator, because I just couldn’t do it.

Kevin Anthony 37:06
If I said, If I said, Wow, that wall is white, she’s gonna tell me that’s black. And it’s not what I how I didn’t white left my mouth. How did you hear black? Right? That’s a lot of the communication struggles that we had. And so, you know, I like I literally took communication workshops. I read books on communication, like nonviolent communication and stuff, I was like, I need to figure out, I this is insane, it’s not working.

Kevin Anthony 37:37
So I learned a bunch of skills, like slowing down because I was communicating a lot of stuff. And it was too much for her. And so a lot of what I would say would just get lost, right? I learned things like chucking it down, like giving her one small piece at a time, letting her process that right, and then coming back before I give her more. I learned stuff like asking each other to repeat back. Well, okay, here’s what I’m telling you. Now, tell me, what did you hear?

Kevin Anthony 38:03
And then they repeat it back. And I’m telling you, for the longest time, when we first started that exercise, nearly everything that came back to me was absolutely the opposite of what I had said. And I was like, wow, how is this even possible? You know, it’s not like the game you played when you were a kid, you know, telephone where everybody whispers and by the time it gets all the way to the end, it’s totally different.

Kevin Anthony 38:22
Yeah, because it went through 15 people by the time it got there. Now, this is from one person to another, and it would come out the opposite. And I was like, whoa. So that, for me was like a huge crash course. And how can I communicate so efficiently, that these problems don’t occur? I still, you know, I got I improved significantly, I still had a little ways to go, but I improved significantly. The last lesson from her was this is when I really, truly understood polarity.

Kevin Anthony 38:58
I’m going to try to give this part of the story as quickly as I possibly can. Okay, so when having sex with her there were times when it worked amazingly. And we had great sex, and there were times when it just absolutely flat out was a disaster. I’d never heard that before I never had usually it’s like it’s either amazing and then good. And then amazing and good.

Kevin Anthony 39:22
Or it’s just not good at all, or never had anything worse, like, wow, that was awesome. And then like how what? How could that be the same person? Right? And I was really struggling to figure out why because, you know, I’m one I always want to have good sex too. I always want to please my wife. I gotta figure out this problem. Why does sometimes is it terrible? So one day, I started to get a clue, because I’m pretty good at noticing patterns.

Kevin Anthony 39:49
And the pattern I noticed was that every time that I was really tired, and I didn’t really step up and take charge of the situation, I started to notice that those were all the times when it didn’t work. because she was a woman who was at a pretty strongly developed masculine side, and she would attempt to take over. The problem is then we end up crashing all the time. So I decided to do a little experiment.

Kevin Anthony 40:13
And I said, Okay, here’s what I’m gonna do, I’m not going to tell her what I’m doing because that’s going to influence the experiment. I said, the next time we have sex, and it’s not working, no matter how tired I am, no matter how much I just want to lay on my back and let her ride me, I am going to take charge of the situation no matter what it takes. And so I started doing that. We never had another bad lovemaking session after that.

Kevin Anthony 40:37
And that’s when I started to realize, okay, I get what’s happening here. I started researching it a little bit more, I started coming up with words like polarity, because I didn’t really know that word at the time. And I realized that you had to have polarity in a relationship for it to really function. And we’ve talked plenty about polarity. So I’m not going to go into a polarity teaching now. But this is just to tell you that this is where I really learned it.

Kevin Anthony 41:05
So the last piece on that is after I figured this out, I told her what I was doing that was different. And she basically was like, like, Yeah, whatever, that’s bullshit. She’s like, that has nothing to do with it whatsoever. She literally did not believe me. So then fast forward a few months, things are still going well, because I’m not stopping. I figured out this is the solution, I’m not stopping.

Kevin Anthony 41:30
So we go to a workshop given by a guy who’s teaching polarity teachings. It wasn’t David Deida, but it was very similar stuff to what David Deida teaches. And at the break, I got, we went up to him, and we got to have a private conversation with him. And I said, let me ask you something. And I basically told him, here’s what was going on. Here’s what I did. And here’s the result I saw. And he looks her square in the eye and says, Yep, he’s right. And that’s when she finally started to get it like, a Fuck, he’s right.

Céline Remy 42:09
Wow, that’s what the relationship is there are lots of great lessons.

Kevin Anthony 42:12
Yeah, that’s the best part of that was all the lessons learned. Actually, that’s true, because we have a good friendship to this day, and we had some amazing travels around the world to

Céline Remy 42:22
bonuses. Alright, so back to my sores here. After I left a husband, D went into another relationship with r and that relationship, what was interesting is in that process, I started to look really realistically at the expectations of what I wanted in life. So I had thought I wanted to have a husband and the kids in the house, I’ve always thought that I was going to have my prince charming saving me.

Céline Remy 42:52
And I came to the realization, ladies, listen to that, that no one is ever going to come and save you. And that if I were to want to do that, I had to do it myself. Not that you know, don’t need a man and want a man. But it was a very different very important turn of events for me in understanding, I

Kevin Anthony 43:12
wish I had the sound effects, I would have dropped multiple truth bombs on that one.

Céline Remy 43:18
as well. So I started taking more responsibility for not just wanting to be saved by somebody else, but for the co-creation when you’re in a relationship. And I got in a relationship with our who also had a big age difference with me. And what I learned from that relationship was some really positive things, we had an open relationship and explored a lot in that. So anytime that you dabble outside of the box, you will learn things about yourself.

Céline Remy 43:48
And so that taught me a lot of things about communication, interaction with multiple people, and expressing your needs and wants. But in that particular relationship, I got a lot of appreciation and safety, which is funny, like what Kevin was talking about, which was lacking so much from my previous relationship. And in this one, he showered me a lot with it. And that’s really why to helps me blossom and open up.

Céline Remy 44:13
And so that is one of the principles we teach in our work with our clients that you’re never going to get changed from criticism. There’s no such thing as constructive criticism, you’ll get changed from appreciation and reinforcement, the positive. And I saw that in myself, I still had really helped me to step into my confidence and to the women that I knew I could be to just be held enough that I felt safe and seen and appreciated.

Céline Remy 44:42
One of the downsides in that relationship that I learned is, you know, we all have different patterns. And while we always want to help our partners to be the best they can be, and especially for me like I tend to kind of have that healer within the ones to help heal everybody, like help everyone right?

Céline Remy 44:59
What I’ve learned is that no matter how much you see their potential, what they can do, who they can be in the thing and their way, if your partner is not willing to do the work themselves and change, it’s not going to happen. And I had to let it go at some point that we could continuously try to challenge each other or just be okay with who we were as we were, or move on.

Céline Remy 45:21
Yeah, no. And that was very important, that moment of the stop pushing to make something happen, that wasn’t really happening. And we parted. amicably, too. And that’s also when Kevin came into my life. For a little while there, we were still kind of, we were in an open relationship together.

Céline Remy 45:41
And then given I really, like, dedicated ourselves to one another, and that would be my last there. It sounds like I only had just four relationships. But really, I think there was more like 15. But I kind of glanced over a few because whatever, right?

Kevin Anthony 45:55
Well, not, you know, I glanced over a few, two, because not because they were insignificant, but they just didn’t have major life lessons. Yeah, you know, so there’s only so much you can do in one show we’re already at it’s

Céline Remy 46:07
exactly well, I’ll quickly tell you about my husband, Kevin is the only one that I get to say his full name. Well, what I was, so far, what I’ve gained in just about six years is that there’s nothing better than being with someone who’s compatible, where the person’s not trying to change you, but accepts you for who you are, and then cheers you on, that makes a whole world of difference in how easy a relationship is. And I celebrate that.

Kevin Anthony 46:34
Mm-hmm. Okay, so I got two more, but one’s gonna be super fast. You know, the one. The next one sort of chronologically, that I’m choosing to put on the list was somebody who, on the surface, at least in the beginning, looked like we had a lot of compatibilities, which was why I initially got involved in that.

Kevin Anthony 46:55
But as time went on, I started to notice there were more and more things that weren’t compatible. But at that point, I was kind of like, well, you know, we’ve been together for a while, and maybe they’re not that big a deal. And I’ve really tried hard to compromise and make it work. So much so that it literally was to a significant detriment to me.

Kevin Anthony 47:18
And so what I really learned from that one is just don’t compromise just, and that doesn’t mean like, we have a small disagreement over what time the trash goes out. No compromise. No, no, but there are core values, there are core things that you know, are important to you. And if they’re not present in your relationship, don’t compromise and try to make it work because none of you’re going to end up happy.

Kevin Anthony 47:39
Okay, so that one’s done. The last one on my list, of course, his wife, silly. We did not compare notes, we just wrote her own things, and then showed up to the show. But as I was scrolling to get to mine, I happened to see one of hers. And I laughed because she just read to you what she wrote down for her.

Kevin Anthony 48:03
And I here’s what I wrote down. There’s nothing better than having a partner who is extremely compatible, that you can really go deep with be a total team with be completely yourself and build a life together, it’s almost the same thing that you wrote.

Céline Remy 48:16
Nice.

Kevin Anthony 48:21
So, you know, this relationship is also the longest one that either of us has ever had. And so to simply say, that’s the only lesson that we’ve learned in the number of years that we’ve been together really wouldn’t be accurate. There’s so much that we’ve been through, even in, you know, just the years we’ve been together and so much more to still continue to go through.

Kevin Anthony 48:46
So I don’t want to limit it to that and say, That’s all we’ve learned. But we’re trying to just pick like, major overarching themes here. And so for me, one of those themes, really, is the fact that when you really find that person that just fits, there really is nothing better. There just isn’t, you know, and if you haven’t found that yet, I wish for all of you that you do, and don’t

Céline Remy 49:14
settle because there is somebody out there who will be a perfect match. We have the craziest people we know kinkiest weird things they into, and they found matches, they found people who love them just as they are and if we were to tell you some of their preferences and stuff, you’d be like, wow, like you would probably put those people into the free category. But guess what, they found their match. There is somebody out there

Kevin Anthony 49:40
when they did the first thing you and I both said to each other well, if they found it, there’s somebody out there for everyone. Alright, everybody, that was a long list and then the last wrap-up.

Céline Remy 49:51
Now we just heard I just hope really that this was inspiring to listen about our experiences that you found some common threads. We’d like to invite you to revisit some of your timelines and see like, can you pull out some of the lessons, and that way you won’t have to repeat them?

Kevin Anthony 50:08
Here? All right, everybody. That’s all the time we have for this episode and we will see you next week. We hope you liked this episode of the Love Lab podcast. If you enjoy this show, subscribe. Leave us a review and share it with your friends.

Céline Remy 50:29
And for more free exclusive content. Join us in the passion vault at kevinanthonycoaching.com/vault.

Kevin Anthony 50:43
Thanks for listening. And remember, you’re amazing.