Sept. 26, 2026
Richard Marx and Daisy Fuentes Explain Why They Had to Break Up Before Saying I Do
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RSS Feed When your true love story was right here…waiting for you. Real-life I Do Part 2 success story: Richard Marx and Daisy Fuentes are taking over the pod!
From a love story 30 years in the making, to the unconventional way they started dating, to the breakup they had to have before they said “I Do” — Richard and Daisy are opening up about their unique love journey and why it was built to last.
Email us at: IDOPOD@iheartradio.com or call us at 844-4-I Do Pod (844-443-6763)
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See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
00:00:08
Speaker 1: Hey, I do part two. It's Richard Marks and Daisy Fuentes here jumping in to take over this podcast.
00:00:23
Speaker 2: That's right.
00:00:23
Speaker 3: And we're just like you listeners. You know, we're in our chapter two and we've been through divorce and we really, I think, know how hard that can be. But we also know about not wanting to give up on love. So here we are to talk about all that.
00:00:38
Speaker 1: We are here to give advice, to answer questions, talk to experts, talk to other chapter two success couples, maybe down the road. It's going to be nothing but fun.
00:00:48
Speaker 3: So today we thought we would let you all in on a little bit of our journey. And, you know, if you want to know some things, which I understand that some people are interested, we'll take some questions later.
00:01:01
Speaker 1: Maybe not answer all those questions.
00:01:03
Speaker 2: Definitely not all those questions.
00:01:05
Speaker 1: We have to keep some mystery.
00:01:07
Speaker 2: Do we, though?
00:01:08
Speaker 1: Maybe not. Well, I guess we should start with how we met.
00:01:12
Speaker 2: That's a good place to start.
00:01:13
Speaker 1: Twitter. Twitter.
00:01:15
Speaker 2: DMs?
00:01:16
Speaker 1: People don't believe it. I know. When they say, so how did you guys meet? And we go, Twitter. And they go, what?
00:01:22
Speaker 3: But do you think they don't, they're shocked and surprised because like we're old and they don't expect us to be like slipping into emails?
00:01:30
Speaker 2: I mean, into DMs. Well, I mean, at this stage of.
00:01:32
Speaker 1: The game, honey, it's not like Twitter is like cutting edge.
00:01:35
Speaker 2: No, but okay. But when Twitter.
00:01:38
Speaker 1: It was, it was like.
00:01:39
Speaker 2: You know, 12 years ago. It's what the kids were doing. It's what everybody was doing.
00:01:43
Speaker 3: And I know, you know. Parents weren't really on Twitter. Like, older people weren't really on Twitter. It was more of a younger person's game, and especially the sliding into DMs. That was not like.
00:01:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I didn't slide into your DMs until much, much, much, much later.
00:01:57
Speaker 2: That's not the point. The point is you did slide.
00:02:00
Speaker 1: That's what Twitter's for, isn't it? Okay, okay. Okay, Richard.
00:02:03
Speaker 3: Yes.
00:02:04
Speaker 1: I thought.
00:02:05
Speaker 2: That's what it's for.
00:02:06
Speaker 1: I have to say.
00:02:07
Speaker 2: Use any means possible. Use whatever is available to you.
00:02:10
Speaker 1: You do what you got to do. Okay. Yeah. Use whatever is available to you. That's exactly right. You're right. And at that time, I mean, it was... That was 2013-ish when we became aware of each other on... No, it was maybe even a year before that. 2012, 2013, somewhere in there. I was already aware.
00:02:33
Speaker 1: That Twitter was, I don't want to say useful, but it was nice in terms of connecting with people you wouldn't normally have connected with.
00:02:45
Speaker 2: Right. So you're saying you did this with numerous other women?
00:02:49
Speaker 1: No, but I did it with numerous other men. That's weird.
00:02:51
Speaker 2: Okay, that's weird. That's new knowledge to me.
00:02:54
Speaker 1: No, men and women, actually. Yeah, I became like some of my friends now, as you know. It's true.
00:02:59
Speaker 4: It's true.
00:03:00
Speaker 1: It's not just that my wife I met through Twitter, but a few of my really good friends now in my life I met through that health site.
00:03:09
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:03:09
Speaker 1: I mean, I haven't been on it in years. It's gross. But back then it was fun. It had its moment. It had its moment. And luckily we were both engaged with it. At the same time, or else we wouldn't be sitting here today.
00:03:21
Speaker 3: So here's the thing. We both obviously were aware of each other because.
00:03:25
Speaker 2: Well, I.
00:03:25
Speaker 1: Was very aware of you for a long time.
00:03:28
Speaker 3: In our younger era, when I was on MTV, I was introducing Richard's videos.
00:03:34
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:03:35
Speaker 3: And so I was aware that he was this totally cute, great, you know, superstar with a mullet that everybody knew and loved. But.
00:03:45
Speaker 2: I think you were married very young.
00:03:47
Speaker 1: Yes.
00:03:48
Speaker 3: And so you weren't on my radar on that, in that way.
00:03:52
Speaker 1: I was in the cute but married.
00:03:53
Speaker 3: Yeah, but also we both were. I was married very young and you were married very young. So we were both aware of each other, but never actually had a chance to meet.
00:04:02
Speaker 1: No, which is crazy because you met so many artists.
00:04:05
Speaker 2: Literally everyone.
00:04:06
Speaker 1: When you were on MTV. And I was interviewed, I think, by literally every other BJ except you, which is bizarre. Yeah.
00:04:14
Speaker 3: I think the universe, uh, it, it has, there's something about timing for sure.
00:04:20
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:04:20
Speaker 3: I know it's, it's probably timing is probably the last real romantic thing that really exists.
00:04:28
Speaker 1: You're right about that. You're right about that. We've talked about this so many times of, cause it's a double-edged sword with us because we met later in life. I was turning 50. You were 46.
00:04:40
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:04:40
Speaker 1: Um, We've talked about it in a negative sense that we don't have as much time together just chronologically as we would like. But then we've also thought, well, but if we'd met 20 years earlier or 30 years earlier, who knows what would have happened? Maybe it would have just flamed out or it would have been amazing and we would have had an extra 20 or 30 years. You never know.
00:05:08
Speaker 2: Do you think.
00:05:09
Speaker 3: We would have fizzled out had we met younger or would we... have gotten married if we had met when we were younger? Or do you think like with anything else that would have had an era too? Just because we were young and we're such different people.
00:05:26
Speaker 1: I think my instinct, knowing me, I can't really speak for you because you were different back then, as you've told me. My instinct is that we would have dated for three or four years and gotten married. I probably had kids or a kid and we would have made it work. I have this feeling because of the dynamic in our relationship now. Yeah. And because of the way I feel about you, I can't imagine anything but that. I don't, I actually don't, I could, you know, casually go, Oh, we would have just flamed out. Cause we were both driven and we were all over the place and we were young and And we had, you know, our temperament and we were fiery and all that. I think we would have worked it out. I think we would have figured it out. Yeah, I do.
00:06:24
Speaker 2: I don't, I'm not so sure. Not because of you, but because of me.
00:06:27
Speaker 3: Yeah. Because I was very quick to, you know, when you're young and you're an independent woman and you really, you know, you get to the point where you're like, I don't need this shit.
00:06:39
Speaker 1: Oh, no, no. You would have dumped me at least once. But I would have been so relentless to get back together with you, which is kind of what happened.
00:06:48
Speaker 2: Which is kind of what happened anyway.
00:06:50
Speaker 1: But I don't know my instinct. I don't think I've ever said that to you. We've talked about it. We've talked about the maybe this, maybe that. But my gut tells me we would have been together and stayed together.
00:07:03
Speaker 2: That's good to know. I like that, honey.
00:07:06
Speaker 1: So for those listening, here's what happened. Daisy and I both followed. a person in common, a wonderful lady named Martha Quinn, who was one of the original MTV VJs back in the 80s. And Martha had interviewed me so many times. We weren't friends. We've never been like friends hanging out, but we always liked each other. And so she was someone that I followed on Twitter and she followed me and we would banter with each other now and then. Well, one of these times we were bantering, I forget what the thread was or what the context was, but it showed up in Daisy's feed because she followed Martha Quinn. And so then Daisy chimed in on that thread saying, I think you said, oh my God, you guys are giving me the sweetest 90s flashback or something like that. So now I see that response and I hadn't heard about you in a while and same with you, with me. So immediately I was like, oh, Daisy Fuentes. And I had this like rush of memories of how I always viewed you. Which was? Because it wasn't just that you're so gorgeous because you are so extraordinarily beautiful. Thank you. That's not, you can't dispute it. But I always had a feeling about you back in the day when I would see you on MTV or even on an interview on, you know, when you would be interviewed on other shows or whatever, whenever you would show up in front of me, I thought that there was something about you that was compelling and cool and fun. And I remember having this weird thought, like, I think I would like her. Not just, oh my God, she's so hot. There was that. But there was something about your personality that came through the screen that made me think, I bet she's a good hang. I bet I would really like hanging out with her.
00:09:05
Speaker 2: I love that.
00:09:05
Speaker 1: And that's why I was always pissed off every time I would go to MTV and it wasn't you interviewing me. I try. We talked on the phone 30 something years ago.
00:09:14
Speaker 3: Yeah. He actually made someone get me on the phone. He was under the impression that I was going to do the interview. Then he gets there and he had someone call me.
00:09:22
Speaker 1: Which in retrospect was a little out of. line.
00:09:27
Speaker 2: Oh, but you were, you were very ballsy when you were younger. I mean, still are, but I was just like, I.
00:09:32
Speaker 1: Thought it would be cute to go get her on the phone. And I was like, the only reason I'm here is because I thought you were interviewing me. We had a cute little convo for, yeah.
00:09:40
Speaker 2: And that was it.
00:09:41
Speaker 3: And then it cut to what, 25 years later when we actually made contact on Twitter.
00:09:50
Speaker 2: And okay. So you slide into my DMs.
00:09:53
Speaker 1: Much later, like a year and change after we became aware of each other on Twitter.
00:09:57
Speaker 2: So we're following each other on Twitter and just kind of.
00:09:59
Speaker 1: She would retweet me once in a while or comment.
00:10:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, like now we're just on each other's radar.
00:10:03
Speaker 1: And I got little butterflies.
00:10:04
Speaker 4: No big deal.
00:10:04
Speaker 1: I got a little like, oh my gosh, she retweeted me. No, you didn't.
00:10:08
Speaker 2: Yes, it's true.
00:10:08
Speaker 1: I'd be like, oh my God.
00:10:09
Speaker 3: Okay, so then he's going to finally have this show at the Grammy Museum in L.A.
00:10:15
Speaker 2: Total flex, by the way. Good flex.
00:10:19
Speaker 1: Of course.
00:10:20
Speaker 2: He invites me to it.
00:10:23
Speaker 3: Long story short, I show up with a friend, get to meet him backstage, say a quick hello. I noticed there were a bunch of other cute little Hollywood starlets there, so I immediately left. And then, like a month after that.
00:10:38
Speaker 1: Well, you're leaving out an important thing.
00:10:40
Speaker 2: What's that?
00:10:41
Speaker 1: When you came backstage... And we met. Yeah. There was a Getty photographer there. That's right. So there's a photograph.
00:10:47
Speaker 2: Of the moment we said hello.
00:10:48
Speaker 1: That we have framed in our house.
00:10:50
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:10:51
Speaker 1: And I will say, because this part of the show is really about romance and beyond love, one of the most romantic things that's ever happened to me happened to me when you walked through the door, which is that for the first time ever in my life, I got hit with that lightning bolt that you hear about, that I've even written songs about that I'd never really truly experienced. And I remember that when you walked in the door, because I knew you were there, I'd invited you and I put you in the front row and I wanted to impress you. But there was like, it wasn't like making a move at all, as you know. It was just- I.
00:11:33
Speaker 2: Think it was.
00:11:34
Speaker 1: Well, maybe subconsciously it was.
00:11:35
Speaker 2: I mean, let's be honest.
00:11:37
Speaker 1: But when you walked through the door- the feeling that I've told people this, but all I knew was that everything was different. I didn't know what was going to happen. I didn't know whether we were going to become friends, whether we were going to become lovers, whether we would ever see each other again. But I just remember that everything shifted in me. There was some awareness that everything up to this point was then, and now there's now.
00:12:02
Speaker 2: That's really beautiful, honey. Although knowing you the way I know you, You say you weren't sure if you were ever going to see me again, but I'm pretty sure knowing you now, you knew exactly what the plan was at that moment.
00:12:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess that's true.
00:12:16
Speaker 2: So I'm going to call bullshit.
00:12:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, she's talking about how I manifest things and how I make things come to life. And I think you're right, baby. I think that there was a, like the way I felt that night, I remember thinking, I have to have her in my life somehow. I have to explore this.
00:12:34
Speaker 2: I love that.
00:12:35
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:12:35
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:12:35
Speaker 2: I didn't feel that.
00:12:36
Speaker 1: So that's how we met. And then some time went by. I was not divorced yet, but I'd been separated for a while, but it was not public knowledge at all. Yeah.
00:12:48
Speaker 2: I remember thinking that I didn't know anything about you. That's what I remember thinking, like, oh, what's his deal?
00:12:53
Speaker 1: Well, I was always very private.
00:12:55
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was like, is this guy flirting with me? Is he just being a nice guy and inviting people to the show?
00:13:00
Speaker 1: Or is he being a douche?
00:13:01
Speaker 3: Or is he being a little douchey because, you know, I'm out? I didn't know what was going on because I really, really knew nothing about you.
00:13:08
Speaker 2: Because nobody knew that I was split.
00:13:10
Speaker 3: And so coincidentally, we had the same publicist. And when I asked her, you know, what she knew about, she's like, I don't know. I don't know anything about him. He's very private. And so that was also really.
00:13:20
Speaker 2: Weird in an age. where everybody knew everything about everyone.
00:13:24
Speaker 3: So I obviously kind of just didn't think anything.
00:13:29
Speaker 1: I was like, whatever. But that was cool, too, because you could have just assumed the worst.
00:13:33
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:13:33
Speaker 1: And been like, this guy's being a douche.
00:13:35
Speaker 3: No, I was old enough at that point to know.
00:13:38
Speaker 1: But you were like, okay, let me see what this guy, let's see if this guy is a douche.
00:13:41
Speaker 2: Or if he's like, what's going on with this guy?
00:13:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, I didn't want to automatically assume that, you know, I was at a point in my life where I think we all, and I didn't believe this when I was younger, but I got to a point where I thought, you know, men and women can definitely be friends. Every man that talks to me or asks me out doesn't necessarily want to date me.
00:14:02
Speaker 1: Okay. Let's go with that.
00:14:04
Speaker 3: No, I really want to believe that we can reach an age, you know, and especially the older you get as a woman, the more that you realize that it's not how it used to be.
00:14:18
Speaker 2: So I wanted to believe that.
00:14:19
Speaker 1: So you think that a heterosexual man, that there are heterosexual men who would want to go out with you, but not date you.
00:14:29
Speaker 2: 100%. Really?
00:14:31
Speaker 1: Sure. You think that? Well, I'm... You're doubling down.
00:14:35
Speaker 3: I am a very good conversationalist. I love going out to dinner. I enjoy a martini. I am good for all of those things. We're talking about the mindset of the man.
00:14:45
Speaker 1: You're actually going to double down. You think that there are heterosexual men who would be like asking you to spend time with them, but they're not interested in you romantically.
00:14:53
Speaker 3: Sure.
00:14:54
Speaker 1: Absolutely. Just like one of the guys.
00:14:56
Speaker 2: Not everybody's attractive to everybody.
00:14:58
Speaker 1: Why would that man want to spend time with you if he wasn't interested in you?
00:15:03
Speaker 3: I just named a few of them because I'm really, I'm fun. I contribute good conversation at dinner. I enjoy a martini. So I think there are many reasons why, you know, I would enjoy having a nice casual friendship with someone and not have a sexual relationship.
00:15:22
Speaker 1: It reminds me of that conversation in When Harry Met Sally.
00:15:27
Speaker 2: What was that? I forgot.
00:15:28
Speaker 1: She's like, no, men and women can be friends. And Billy Crystal's like, no, they can't. Yeah. No. Every man who's going to spend time with a woman wants to bang her.
00:15:36
Speaker 3: No, I think that that's a very old-fashioned way of thinking. I think times have changed. It's a very truthful way of looking at it. I think we have evolved a little bit past that these days. I'd like to think so.
00:15:46
Speaker 1: Well, I will grant you that had you been not interested in me that way, or had you been maybe in a relationship or... I would have still pursued some kind of interaction with you, for sure.
00:16:03
Speaker 3: Right.
00:16:03
Speaker 2: I think we would have had a nice time as friends regardless.
00:16:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I had an instant crush. Okay.
00:16:09
Speaker 2: You have a few women in your life who are longtime friends.
00:16:13
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:16:14
Speaker 2: And you, I think you don't want to sleep with all of them.
00:16:20
Speaker 1: Not all of them. Yeah, but it's a different thing. The women that I'm friends with, I'm not friends with any single women.
00:16:31
Speaker 2: But it doesn't matter. It's the point that you just said.
00:16:34
Speaker 3: Can men and women be friends?
00:16:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, but that's a bad example because the women that I'm friends with, there was never that dynamic from the beginning. It was always either a work thing, like we wrote songs together or something. It wasn't like we met at a party together. And now we're friends.
00:16:52
Speaker 3: It doesn't matter how you meet. The point is the point. And you just contradicted yourself a little bit.
00:16:59
Speaker 1: I love that we're already fighting on this podcast. I don't know.
00:17:02
Speaker 2: I'm just saying.
00:17:14
Speaker 1: What were your first impressions of me? Because you know what my first impressions of you were.
00:17:21
Speaker 3: Well, that's a good question because I thought, my first impression of you when I saw the show, I thought you were really funny and witty. And that's always a winning combination for a man who's, you know, attractive and talented on top of that.
00:17:39
Speaker 1: Because I could be a total zero.
00:17:41
Speaker 3: Yeah, but you had all the things going on. So that was, that was interesting. But, you know, the minute that we meet each other, the, I'm going to cut to our first dinner.
00:17:53
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:17:54
Speaker 2: When we start getting to know each other, just on a, on a friend.
00:17:57
Speaker 1: It was epic. Yeah. Our first date was epic.
00:18:00
Speaker 3: And so for me, the resume disappeared at that moment. I, it didn't matter who, yeah, what preconceived ideas I had of you or it all disappeared. And it was just me getting to know this guy who, you know, everything that was being presented to me was something that I didn't imagine.
00:18:16
Speaker 1: Didn't you feel instantly comfortable?
00:18:19
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:18:19
Speaker 1: That's rare.
00:18:20
Speaker 2: That is rare. I felt like we knew each other.
00:18:24
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:18:25
Speaker 3: And I don't know if it's that we share a lot of nostalgia. You know, we come from the same area in time and pop culture. We come from, we're sure we were in the same rooms at the same time.
00:18:41
Speaker 1: For sure. And we're age appropriate.
00:18:44
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:18:45
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:18:47
Speaker 2: I mean, I am a little younger than you.
00:18:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, but not tremendously. Okay. Let me ask you this because I think people would want to know. So I'll preface by saying, as I casually mentioned, I was somewhat newly single. I was separated after a 25-year marriage. I was kind of reeling from it. I was, you know, I'd never been single in my adult life.
00:19:18
Speaker 3: And were you thinking you were going to be dating again right away? Is that something that you were already kind of?
00:19:24
Speaker 1: Because I think I'm a pretty smart guy. And I knew that it wasn't a case of like, oh, I'm single after all these years. Now I get to run out and date whoever I want. And like, it wasn't that. I was very sad. I was navigating three mostly grown sons and the fallout from the marriage how it was affecting them, how it was affecting me. I raised my kids in Chicago. So my ex-wife still lives in Chicago. And so I had a life there that I was sort of cleaning up because I knew that I wanted to move back to LA. So I was living in LA in a hotel room for months figuring out what was, what I was going to do.
00:20:17
Speaker 2: But it was not like, you know, party. It was really tricky time. I remember you were, you were going through all of the emotions.
00:20:25
Speaker 1: Yeah. So I was not looking to date or like rush into anything. And so the way the, the feeling that I had about you so soon after being single was unexpected.
00:20:39
Speaker 2: Sure.
00:20:40
Speaker 1: I didn't, expect to meet someone that I would have this chemistry with so quickly. I really thought I would be single for a while.
00:20:48
Speaker 2: So what was it? Did you remember a moment where you were like, this is serious?
00:20:56
Speaker 1: It wasn't a moment. It was just that every time I would interact with you, whether it was in person or on the phone or even just texting, I found myself wondering where you were picturing you you know what is she wonder what she had for dinner or i wonder how her morning's going or like i was it was instant um and as we'll get into i'm sure at some point i fell madly in love with you before you felt things for me that way.
00:21:27
Speaker 3: Well i think i was also being very cautious because of everything that's going.
00:21:32
Speaker 1: On in your life leading with this i i think i've kind of The audience now kind of knows where my headspace was when we started seeing each other. Where were you at in your life?
00:21:42
Speaker 3: I was in a very good space. I had been single for quite a while. I mean, I'd been in a couple of long-term relationships, but I'd been single. I wasn't married since I was in my 20s.
00:21:57
Speaker 1: And for six years?
00:21:59
Speaker 3: I was married for four and a half years when I was 24. And so I'd been single for a long time, although no kids, no kids, although in a couple of relationships and then, you know, dating in between the relationships. And when you met me, I had been single for a couple of years and dating. But I had come to a point in my life where I had created such a great life for myself with my family and my friends and I was working and I just wasn't looking to get into another super long-term relationship or marriage. I was definitely not auditioning husbands. And I thought I was very open to love and relationships, which I think I was, but I was also a bit jaded, which I didn't really realize at the moment. So I had huge walls up.
00:22:51
Speaker 2: And I was.
00:22:54
Speaker 3: I was definitely in the mindset that if you were going to come into my life, you were going to add to my life. You had to make my life better. Otherwise, you know, there's a door. So that's where I was at. And then add to it the fact that you were coming out of this really long marriage.
00:23:14
Speaker 2: You had three kids. adult sons but still very young.
00:23:18
Speaker 3: Yeah um you were going through a lot and I just really didn't not only did I know not know really what that meant for you or for us I didn't want to be that rebound girl I didn't want to be like oh he came out of that marriage and then went right into it with this one and now.
00:23:35
Speaker 1: That that's which is what everybody else around me was saying too yeah My sons were like, wait a minute, you're in love already?
00:23:44
Speaker 2: So that was difficult to navigate.
00:23:46
Speaker 4: The fuck?
00:23:47
Speaker 3: Yeah, but you did break down the walls, slowly but surely. I did not make it easy for you, but you definitely broke down the walls.
00:23:56
Speaker 1: Wouldn't you say that, because I remember a version of you saying this to me way back when, the way I pulled the walls down, was by consistently showing up and being consistent.
00:24:14
Speaker 3: You were who you said you were when you did the things that you said you were gonna do. Yeah.
00:24:18
Speaker 2: And so that to me, I think that with anyone.
00:24:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, with any relationship.
00:24:26
Speaker 2: With any relationship.
00:24:26
Speaker 1: When somebody's authentic.
00:24:27
Speaker 3: When someone's authentic and they are who they say they are, that's important.
00:24:34
Speaker 1: And I also wanna mention that for me, aside from all the other things I've mentioned about you and what was so attractive to me about you, and I know that this is case by case, you know, everybody's into different things. I found myself incredibly attracted to your independence and your, I even was attracted to the aloof part of you because you were both really engaging and fun, but also aloof. At the same time, there were levels of that that ultimately I didn't like. But there was something about your strength and independence and the fact that you had carved out this life for yourself as a single person with your family, your sister and your brother-in-law and your nephews. And you just had it. The way you were living your life was so attractive and admirable. And so it made me that much more attracted to you, but it also instilled respect. I really respected the way you lived and who you were and what you represented.
00:25:50
Speaker 3: And I think that's something that is really important in relationships, but especially something that I think you find more in the second relationships is Yes. I think in that first relationship, you're looking for someone to build a life with.
00:26:08
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:26:08
Speaker 2: In that second relationship, you each already have a full life cut out for yourself.
00:26:15
Speaker 3: So you've worked really hard to become who you are. I've worked really hard to be who I was and have the things that I had and the lifestyle that you want. And so you're not really looking for anything from each other. You know, so when you do find someone.
00:26:33
Speaker 1: Because you're already a complete person.
00:26:35
Speaker 2: Yes.
00:26:35
Speaker 3: And when you find someone that complements that and can flow into that world nicely, I think it's important, but it doesn't always happen.
00:26:46
Speaker 2: I think it's.
00:26:47
Speaker 3: Important for the individuals in the relationship to maintain that individuality and that independence. I think it's really important not to lay... that much responsibility on the other person just because now you're a couple and now you have to provide me with everything in my life.
00:27:06
Speaker 1: So that's important. To that point, we haven't talked about this too much, but it's not like a bombshell information. We've talked about it before publicly. There was a period a few months into us starting to see each other where I was already so full on. I was in love with you. I was obsessed. I just wanted to be with you.
00:27:30
Speaker 2: Which I loved, by the way.
00:27:34
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:27:35
Speaker 1: I secretly loved it. I don't think I was like clingy, codependent.
00:27:39
Speaker 2: Well, you weren't creepy.
00:27:40
Speaker 1: Right.
00:27:40
Speaker 2: It was just really nice to see someone.
00:27:42
Speaker 1: You could tell that I was in. I was all in. And you were like, I'm not all in yet. And also, you're so smart that you thought to yourself, you had no way of knowing at that time if it really was just like, well, this guy, maybe this guy just needs to be with someone. Maybe he doesn't know how to be on his own. And that's not cool. And you forced me into discovering that because you dumped me.
00:28:09
Speaker 2: Well, yeah. I mean, there are nicer words to use.
00:28:14
Speaker 1: And it was the most shattered I think I've ever felt in my life.
00:28:19
Speaker 2: Oh, honey.
00:28:19
Speaker 1: That period of.
00:28:20
Speaker 2: I hate when you say that. It kills me when you say that.
00:28:22
Speaker 1: No, but it's a happy ending, obviously, because we're together all these years. But it was... I think the pain of you ending our relationship then is testament to why we're together. Because it made me, I was so miserable. I was in physical pain. So to me, that was like, oh, this is not some flame. This is like, I really am in love with this person. But what happened was, was that for several months that we didn't see each other romantically at all. At all.
00:28:56
Speaker 2: We didn't talk for a long time.
00:28:58
Speaker 1: You forced me to be my own person.
00:29:01
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:29:02
Speaker 1: Not in a relationship.
00:29:03
Speaker 3: I could see that you definitely needed to figure some things out alone.
00:29:07
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:29:08
Speaker 3: You know, coming out of the relationship that you had just come out of, you needed, I knew the value of that.
00:29:16
Speaker 1: And as much as I missed you, I started to learn about myself in a way that When we did circle back to each other, I was a much more fully formed person.
00:29:26
Speaker 2: You were. You were.
00:29:28
Speaker 3: And I knew that it was a risk because I was already very much into you. And I I think by that point, I definitely was into a relationship with you, but not in the way that it had formed. I knew that if we continued along that path and something happened down the line, I was going to say to myself, Oh, it's because you were the person right after that marriage is because he never had a chance to, you know, So, and then I would have probably lost you anyway. So I, it was a chance that I had to take in that, yes, I could possibly lose him because he's going to start dating other girls. He's going to maybe love that life. He's going to maybe find out something about himself as a single man, you know, much later in life now that he's maybe he likes that better. And he's going to realize he's not as into pursuing this relationship as he thought he was.
00:30:25
Speaker 2: That was a chance that I had to take. I had to know.
00:30:29
Speaker 1: So our journey was not like, it was not a straight line at all, but it was exactly the navigated path that we needed.
00:30:38
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:30:39
Speaker 1: Well, I think one thing that needs to be mentioned, it's important to mention, is that the reason we got married and didn't just stay together as a couple, not married, was no reason.
00:30:54
Speaker 2: No reason at all. There was no agenda.
00:30:56
Speaker 1: There was no agenda.
00:30:57
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:30:57
Speaker 1: So Daisy and I had been together for two years, and we were living together, but we weren't living together. We both had our own place.
00:31:06
Speaker 3: Yeah, we still had our independent homes, but we had all our stuff in all of the homes.
00:31:10
Speaker 1: Right.
00:31:11
Speaker 2: So we were always together. We were clearly a couple.
00:31:13
Speaker 3: Yes.
00:31:13
Speaker 1: And we were traveling together, and now the families knew each other.
00:31:16
Speaker 3: Yes.
00:31:17
Speaker 1: My sons at that point knew you. I was spending more time with your family. Mm-hmm. in Miami where we live now, for a while, didn't think about getting married for sure. And I knew, because we used to kind of talk about marriage.
00:31:37
Speaker 2: We used to joke about it.
00:31:38
Speaker 3: Like, oh, you know, why do people get married a second time when you don't, you know, you're not building a life together.
00:31:43
Speaker 1: What would you think about contract? Like the last thing I want is another contract.
00:31:45
Speaker 2: The last thing you need at this point is another contract. Like, what is the point? We're not going to have kids.
00:31:50
Speaker 3: We're not like, it's not necessary at that stage in life.
00:31:54
Speaker 1: Right. So we, it wasn't on our radar.
00:31:57
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:31:57
Speaker 1: And then I was performing in Singapore for, And I had, it was a weird thing, an unusual thing where I had a show, a private show in Singapore on a Saturday night and then a public show the following Saturday night. And I love Singapore, but we didn't want to spend the week in Singapore. So we went to the Maldives for the first time. Because we love to travel together. We travel really well together. Yeah.
00:32:21
Speaker 2: That was our first, I think that was one of our first clues.
00:32:24
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:32:24
Speaker 2: Because when we traveled, we were like.
00:32:25
Speaker 1: Because we started traveling together really early on. Yeah. And we were like, oh, this is easy.
00:32:29
Speaker 2: And we were like, oh, this is easy.
00:32:31
Speaker 1: Like, we do this really well together. Yes. So in that five days, six days in the Maldives, we stayed at this beautiful resort where people go to get married. So we witnessed a couple of weddings.
00:32:46
Speaker 2: A lot of weddings. And we talked so much. We talked so much.
00:32:49
Speaker 1: We were like, oh my God, look at them signing up for misery.
00:32:51
Speaker 2: All the cliches. Every cliche. All the jokes. They all, we were like, it became a thing.
00:32:58
Speaker 1: So then we come back to Singapore. I do my show and we're flying back to LA the next morning. So it's late. I'm still, I'm always wired after a show. We're having room service in our beautiful room in Singapore. And we're kind of just talking about what a great week it was and the Maldives and And the subject of weddings and marriage came up.
00:33:19
Speaker 2: Because it was like a running joke through the.
00:33:21
Speaker 1: And I think you started it by saying, you know, I mean, I talk a lot of shit about it, but I'm not against marriage.
00:33:26
Speaker 3: Yeah, like I didn't want to come off like this marriage-hating person.
00:33:30
Speaker 2: I just wanted to make it clear. I was just joking.
00:33:33
Speaker 1: So I said, well, the truth is, if I didn't know how you feel about marriage, I probably would have already asked you by now.
00:33:41
Speaker 2: And you looked at me- To which I said, are you asking?
00:33:45
Speaker 1: And then I panicked.
00:33:47
Speaker 2: Because it sounded like he was asking. I'm just saying, right?
00:33:50
Speaker 1: But I didn't panic out of like, oh, my God. No, I have to. I panicked because I thought, oh, my God, I just ruined this. Now she thinks I want to get married and she doesn't want to get married. I just f * * * ed myself.
00:34:01
Speaker 2: And I totally wasn't even. I was just making a joke. But I panicked. I did not think that much into it.
00:34:07
Speaker 1: I thought, oh, no.
00:34:07
Speaker 2: I was like having a laugh.
00:34:08
Speaker 1: I just ruined this.
00:34:09
Speaker 2: I was totally busting your chops.
00:34:10
Speaker 1: Because then I also pictured myself going, hey, no, no, no, no. I don't want to get married. Yeah.
00:34:16
Speaker 2: So we kind of laughed it off and benched it. Yeah.
00:34:20
Speaker 1: There was only you, of course, on the plane the next morning.
00:34:22
Speaker 3: The next morning I turned to him and I was like, did you ask me to marry you last night?
00:34:27
Speaker 1: Oh my God, Daisy, you're so hilarious.
00:34:29
Speaker 2: I just, I thought maybe you, I don't know, just checking.
00:34:33
Speaker 1: But she said, cause you know, I'm not against marriage. And I, Even though I did panic, but then I really thought about that conversation and the way we joked about it on the plane the next day, I realized that there was this window or door.
00:34:52
Speaker 2: That was a little open.
00:34:53
Speaker 1: That was a little open. And then I realized it was on me. And so we flew home and my mom, rest her soul, was living in my house at the time. And you were staying at my house when we got home. And I went to my mom to say hi and back from the trip. And I said, hey, Daisy's leaving in a couple hours. And then I need you to run an errand with me. I'm going to go get a ring and propose. And I want you to go with me.
00:35:20
Speaker 2: I thought that was crazy when you told me that. I was like, you wasted no time.
00:35:23
Speaker 1: First day back. Yeah. And my mom was so excited because she was crazy about you. And we went and I got a ring. And the next morning, it was a few days before your birthday in November. And I.
00:35:39
Speaker 1: Proposed and you said yes immediately. And that whole story is to circle back. She said to me, do you remember exactly what you said when I asked you to marry me? I said, there's no wrong answer. Right. Because if you'd said, I love you, but I just want to do what we're doing, it would have been fine with me. Totally. Yeah.
00:36:01
Speaker 3: But you said, I said, I didn't think I ever wanted to get married and I don't need To be married, but I want to be married to you.
00:36:11
Speaker 1: And that's, that was it. The fact that we had no agenda other than I just wanted you to be my family. I wanted to, and I also, I think maybe this is a, maybe this is part, many, I have a lot of old school stuff in me.
00:36:28
Speaker 2: Which I love about you, by the way.
00:36:30
Speaker 1: There was something about like, make that declaration. Because I really, I wanted to marry you.
00:36:39
Speaker 3: And who doesn't want that? Like who doesn't want to feel chosen like that? Especially when you both lived a full life and you don't need to go through the big demonstrations of, you know, it felt great. I mean, and I do think that I'm old fashioned in the way that I still want, I still wanted the man.
00:37:08
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:37:09
Speaker 3: To choose me and to choose me over and over and over and really show me. Because I'd been through enough relationships to know that I wasn't going to go out of my way anymore to, you know, jump through hoops for any man. So that was the stage that I was at at that point. And I think that attitude for me really was going to separate the men from the boys. And you were the man who clearly stepped up above all others.
00:37:39
Speaker 2: That's important.
00:37:39
Speaker 1: And interestingly, I would say the biggest change in our relationship after we got married was that you finally, you talked about the walls that I had to bring down, but you, you're still a completely independent, strong, you, you know, you run your own business, you do your own thing. But once we were married, there was this whole other side of you that you allowed yourself to show me, which was a girl. Like softer.
00:38:18
Speaker 2: I'm just a girl standing in front of a guy.
00:38:22
Speaker 1: Because she was such a hard ass and she was so tough all the time, which is attractive in its way. But I remember saying to her when we were dating, like once in a while I would say, why do you have to be so tough all the time? And it was because she had learned it the hard way. Like she had, you know, she had to be. Yeah. And I think that there came a point when you realized that you could lean into me.
00:38:42
Speaker 2: And that was the moment we got married.
00:38:44
Speaker 1: And go, hey, I need you to do this for me.
00:38:45
Speaker 2: I didn't realize that it was a very.
00:38:47
Speaker 1: I need you to be the man and I'll be the girl.
00:38:49
Speaker 3: It was a very subconscious like thing that just automatically happened from the moment we got married.
00:38:54
Speaker 2: Not a minute before.
00:38:56
Speaker 4: Right.
00:38:57
Speaker 2: Literally like the next morning.
00:38:58
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:39:01
Speaker 2: I was like, honey, can you do this for me? And I think that's... This is too heavy for me.
00:39:09
Speaker 3: You figured out my love language early on, which is, you know, I think when you're young, it's, you know, the big shows of like, here's some flowers and the.
00:39:19
Speaker 2: I did a lot of that too. You did a lot of that too.
00:39:21
Speaker 3: I still do. But you figured out that like my real love language at that stage and at this stage in life is, it's okay, honey, I've got it handled. It's okay, honey, I did it.
00:39:30
Speaker 2: Already. And I was like, oh my God, he's got it handled.
00:39:35
Speaker 1: We've been married 10 years, almost 11 years. And you still once in a while.
00:39:39
Speaker 2: Go, oh, I forgot that you just take care of shit. Yes.
00:39:42
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:39:43
Speaker 2: That's hot.
00:39:43
Speaker 1: I love that. All right.
00:39:55
Speaker 2: Well, I think that that's enough about us and our journey.
00:40:00
Speaker 3: I know it never is, but I do want to hear.
00:40:02
Speaker 2: Let's hear from the folks out there.
00:40:05
Speaker 4: Hi, I've been married a long time. And so this goes to couples who've been together for a while or who are really busy and have lots going on, which I think is a lot of us between kids and work. I find that we have very little bandwidth at the end of the day to talk about things that aren't just logistics and calendars. And did you remember to do this or that? And I know that that's, a bad habit to get into. And I'm wondering if you have any advice of how to get out of it.
00:40:38
Speaker 2: That is such a good, it's, it's such a good question.
00:40:40
Speaker 1: Really good question.
00:40:41
Speaker 2: And it happens to everyone.
00:40:43
Speaker 1: Typical.
00:40:44
Speaker 3: I mean, I can see how it happens and we don't even have kids that we have to raise, but we have a lot of responsibilities and you have your own schedules. You, you both have full lives and you can really get caught up in it. So I can totally relate to that question.
00:41:00
Speaker 1: My, I know you'll think about it. I immediately have a suggestion.
00:41:05
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:41:08
Speaker 1: Make a deal with each other. And it doesn't have to be every day because that's a little bit of a challenge. But at least every other day, you make a deal with each other at some point for 15 minutes, whether it's a cocktail or a cup of coffee, somewhere in your house, and you just look at each other and you go, We're not talking about the kids. We're talking about work. How are you? What's going on with you? How are you feeling? Are we okay? What do you need from me? That, if we were, if we needed to do that, and we do that kind of just instinctively anyway. But we don't need to do it. But if we did need to do it, I think that that's what we would do.
00:41:54
Speaker 3: And we have gone through stages where we're both realizing that, okay, for a while now, we've just been annoyed.
00:42:02
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:42:02
Speaker 2: Not at each other, at us.
00:42:05
Speaker 3: That goes on that you have to be doing that you don't want to be doing. And then you both just become managers of life and managers of work and you become co-managers and you forget that you are friends, that you are lovers. And that's important to always remember and to go back to. So yes, what you said, like have a moment. I was listening to, I forget who it was, somebody talking about relationships. And they suggested something that we do instinctively, which is we go on walks.
00:42:37
Speaker 1: I swear I was just going to say that next.
00:42:39
Speaker 2: For us, we will just take long walks or long hikes.
00:42:44
Speaker 1: Change of scenery.
00:42:45
Speaker 3: And sometimes we will, on that walk, talk a little bit about just dumb shit going on.
00:42:51
Speaker 2: But right away.
00:42:53
Speaker 3: I think being in nature and connecting that way, not having our phones, not having a calendar, not having distractions, we all of a sudden get back into the flow that we naturally are with each other. We will start talking about things that we want to do, more positive things, more fun things. We just lighten up a little bit. And I think sometimes it's as simple as that. Doing an activity together for a short period of time where you both just, lighten up or you're setting the scene for you guys to just naturally be a little bit more.
00:43:28
Speaker 2: At ease with each other.
00:43:29
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:43:30
Speaker 3: And you did something a couple of times with me when I was going through the just a lot of dumb responsibility where I was just after, you know, a couple of weeks, I was just like in a bad mood and you were like, what's going on? And I remember saying to you, I'm just so like, I'm just, I just want to have fun. I want to like not work for the house. I want to not work for our assistants. I want to not work to like do stuff for other people. Like I want to start enjoying my life again. And it feels like I haven't done that. And you said to me, okay, let's talk about everything and find out what we can do that would make your life easier.
00:44:10
Speaker 1: I was going to say, ask yourselves, ask each other.
00:44:13
Speaker 2: What's one thing that you can put in place?
00:44:15
Speaker 1: How could your life be better?
00:44:17
Speaker 3: Yeah. And that's really important because little by little, one thing turns into two things. And by the time you've rearranged like three or four things, your life is easier and you can feel a little bit of a lighter load. And you remember, just remembering that you can, Ask for assistance that you can, there are things that you can eliminate. Not everything needs your attention or your immediate attention.
00:44:43
Speaker 1: I also think it's important to ask that question of each other when things aren't so stressful.
00:44:48
Speaker 3: Right.
00:44:49
Speaker 1: It's almost like preemptive.
00:44:50
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:44:51
Speaker 1: Like we've been on a beautiful hike and been in a really nice place in our lives. And I've still said, so what would make your life better?
00:45:01
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
00:45:02
Speaker 1: It's not out of stress. It's out of like pondering and thinking, oh, well, I do. You know what? Now that you mention it, this thing that we've been dealing with, I'd love to just get rid of that. You know, I think it's really, it all comes down to communication. Yeah. You have to, it's really hard with, if you have young kids. Yeah, it is. But it's doable. Even if it's literally you carve out 15 minutes.
00:45:28
Speaker 3: Because you do have to prioritize in your life.
00:45:31
Speaker 2: And yes, kids are a priority.
00:45:34
Speaker 1: But your kids will benefit from that. Exactly.
00:45:37
Speaker 3: But then the next priority or equally as important is that relationship.
00:45:42
Speaker 1: For sure.
00:45:42
Speaker 2: And you can't put that on the back burner.
00:45:45
Speaker 1: Agreed.
00:45:46
Speaker 2: I hope that helps a little bit.
00:45:49
Speaker 1: All right.
00:45:49
Speaker 2: Well, that was really fun.
00:45:50
Speaker 1: It was. Yes.
00:45:51
Speaker 3: That's a wrap on our first podcast here with you guys. But if you have any questions or need advice when it comes to dating after divorce or marriage.
00:46:04
Speaker 2: We're your people. We got you. Yeah.
00:46:05
Speaker 1: Send an email or leave us a voicemail. All the info is in the show notes. Follow us on our social media. I'm the Richard Marks on Instagram.
00:46:13
Speaker 2: You sure are. I'm Daisy Fuentes.
00:46:16
Speaker 1: But if you go to her page, it says Daisy Fuentes Marks, which is the one way that she's a Marks. And I love it.
00:46:24
Speaker 2: I'm a Marks in many ways.
00:46:25
Speaker 1: This is I Do Part Two, an iHeartRadio podcast where falling in love is the main objective.
Speaker 1: Hey, I do part two. It's Richard Marks and Daisy Fuentes here jumping in to take over this podcast.
00:00:23
Speaker 2: That's right.
00:00:23
Speaker 3: And we're just like you listeners. You know, we're in our chapter two and we've been through divorce and we really, I think, know how hard that can be. But we also know about not wanting to give up on love. So here we are to talk about all that.
00:00:38
Speaker 1: We are here to give advice, to answer questions, talk to experts, talk to other chapter two success couples, maybe down the road. It's going to be nothing but fun.
00:00:48
Speaker 3: So today we thought we would let you all in on a little bit of our journey. And, you know, if you want to know some things, which I understand that some people are interested, we'll take some questions later.
00:01:01
Speaker 1: Maybe not answer all those questions.
00:01:03
Speaker 2: Definitely not all those questions.
00:01:05
Speaker 1: We have to keep some mystery.
00:01:07
Speaker 2: Do we, though?
00:01:08
Speaker 1: Maybe not. Well, I guess we should start with how we met.
00:01:12
Speaker 2: That's a good place to start.
00:01:13
Speaker 1: Twitter. Twitter.
00:01:15
Speaker 2: DMs?
00:01:16
Speaker 1: People don't believe it. I know. When they say, so how did you guys meet? And we go, Twitter. And they go, what?
00:01:22
Speaker 3: But do you think they don't, they're shocked and surprised because like we're old and they don't expect us to be like slipping into emails?
00:01:30
Speaker 2: I mean, into DMs. Well, I mean, at this stage of.
00:01:32
Speaker 1: The game, honey, it's not like Twitter is like cutting edge.
00:01:35
Speaker 2: No, but okay. But when Twitter.
00:01:38
Speaker 1: It was, it was like.
00:01:39
Speaker 2: You know, 12 years ago. It's what the kids were doing. It's what everybody was doing.
00:01:43
Speaker 3: And I know, you know. Parents weren't really on Twitter. Like, older people weren't really on Twitter. It was more of a younger person's game, and especially the sliding into DMs. That was not like.
00:01:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I didn't slide into your DMs until much, much, much, much later.
00:01:57
Speaker 2: That's not the point. The point is you did slide.
00:02:00
Speaker 1: That's what Twitter's for, isn't it? Okay, okay. Okay, Richard.
00:02:03
Speaker 3: Yes.
00:02:04
Speaker 1: I thought.
00:02:05
Speaker 2: That's what it's for.
00:02:06
Speaker 1: I have to say.
00:02:07
Speaker 2: Use any means possible. Use whatever is available to you.
00:02:10
Speaker 1: You do what you got to do. Okay. Yeah. Use whatever is available to you. That's exactly right. You're right. And at that time, I mean, it was... That was 2013-ish when we became aware of each other on... No, it was maybe even a year before that. 2012, 2013, somewhere in there. I was already aware.
00:02:33
Speaker 1: That Twitter was, I don't want to say useful, but it was nice in terms of connecting with people you wouldn't normally have connected with.
00:02:45
Speaker 2: Right. So you're saying you did this with numerous other women?
00:02:49
Speaker 1: No, but I did it with numerous other men. That's weird.
00:02:51
Speaker 2: Okay, that's weird. That's new knowledge to me.
00:02:54
Speaker 1: No, men and women, actually. Yeah, I became like some of my friends now, as you know. It's true.
00:02:59
Speaker 4: It's true.
00:03:00
Speaker 1: It's not just that my wife I met through Twitter, but a few of my really good friends now in my life I met through that health site.
00:03:09
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:03:09
Speaker 1: I mean, I haven't been on it in years. It's gross. But back then it was fun. It had its moment. It had its moment. And luckily we were both engaged with it. At the same time, or else we wouldn't be sitting here today.
00:03:21
Speaker 3: So here's the thing. We both obviously were aware of each other because.
00:03:25
Speaker 2: Well, I.
00:03:25
Speaker 1: Was very aware of you for a long time.
00:03:28
Speaker 3: In our younger era, when I was on MTV, I was introducing Richard's videos.
00:03:34
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:03:35
Speaker 3: And so I was aware that he was this totally cute, great, you know, superstar with a mullet that everybody knew and loved. But.
00:03:45
Speaker 2: I think you were married very young.
00:03:47
Speaker 1: Yes.
00:03:48
Speaker 3: And so you weren't on my radar on that, in that way.
00:03:52
Speaker 1: I was in the cute but married.
00:03:53
Speaker 3: Yeah, but also we both were. I was married very young and you were married very young. So we were both aware of each other, but never actually had a chance to meet.
00:04:02
Speaker 1: No, which is crazy because you met so many artists.
00:04:05
Speaker 2: Literally everyone.
00:04:06
Speaker 1: When you were on MTV. And I was interviewed, I think, by literally every other BJ except you, which is bizarre. Yeah.
00:04:14
Speaker 3: I think the universe, uh, it, it has, there's something about timing for sure.
00:04:20
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:04:20
Speaker 3: I know it's, it's probably timing is probably the last real romantic thing that really exists.
00:04:28
Speaker 1: You're right about that. You're right about that. We've talked about this so many times of, cause it's a double-edged sword with us because we met later in life. I was turning 50. You were 46.
00:04:40
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:04:40
Speaker 1: Um, We've talked about it in a negative sense that we don't have as much time together just chronologically as we would like. But then we've also thought, well, but if we'd met 20 years earlier or 30 years earlier, who knows what would have happened? Maybe it would have just flamed out or it would have been amazing and we would have had an extra 20 or 30 years. You never know.
00:05:08
Speaker 2: Do you think.
00:05:09
Speaker 3: We would have fizzled out had we met younger or would we... have gotten married if we had met when we were younger? Or do you think like with anything else that would have had an era too? Just because we were young and we're such different people.
00:05:26
Speaker 1: I think my instinct, knowing me, I can't really speak for you because you were different back then, as you've told me. My instinct is that we would have dated for three or four years and gotten married. I probably had kids or a kid and we would have made it work. I have this feeling because of the dynamic in our relationship now. Yeah. And because of the way I feel about you, I can't imagine anything but that. I don't, I actually don't, I could, you know, casually go, Oh, we would have just flamed out. Cause we were both driven and we were all over the place and we were young and And we had, you know, our temperament and we were fiery and all that. I think we would have worked it out. I think we would have figured it out. Yeah, I do.
00:06:24
Speaker 2: I don't, I'm not so sure. Not because of you, but because of me.
00:06:27
Speaker 3: Yeah. Because I was very quick to, you know, when you're young and you're an independent woman and you really, you know, you get to the point where you're like, I don't need this shit.
00:06:39
Speaker 1: Oh, no, no. You would have dumped me at least once. But I would have been so relentless to get back together with you, which is kind of what happened.
00:06:48
Speaker 2: Which is kind of what happened anyway.
00:06:50
Speaker 1: But I don't know my instinct. I don't think I've ever said that to you. We've talked about it. We've talked about the maybe this, maybe that. But my gut tells me we would have been together and stayed together.
00:07:03
Speaker 2: That's good to know. I like that, honey.
00:07:06
Speaker 1: So for those listening, here's what happened. Daisy and I both followed. a person in common, a wonderful lady named Martha Quinn, who was one of the original MTV VJs back in the 80s. And Martha had interviewed me so many times. We weren't friends. We've never been like friends hanging out, but we always liked each other. And so she was someone that I followed on Twitter and she followed me and we would banter with each other now and then. Well, one of these times we were bantering, I forget what the thread was or what the context was, but it showed up in Daisy's feed because she followed Martha Quinn. And so then Daisy chimed in on that thread saying, I think you said, oh my God, you guys are giving me the sweetest 90s flashback or something like that. So now I see that response and I hadn't heard about you in a while and same with you, with me. So immediately I was like, oh, Daisy Fuentes. And I had this like rush of memories of how I always viewed you. Which was? Because it wasn't just that you're so gorgeous because you are so extraordinarily beautiful. Thank you. That's not, you can't dispute it. But I always had a feeling about you back in the day when I would see you on MTV or even on an interview on, you know, when you would be interviewed on other shows or whatever, whenever you would show up in front of me, I thought that there was something about you that was compelling and cool and fun. And I remember having this weird thought, like, I think I would like her. Not just, oh my God, she's so hot. There was that. But there was something about your personality that came through the screen that made me think, I bet she's a good hang. I bet I would really like hanging out with her.
00:09:05
Speaker 2: I love that.
00:09:05
Speaker 1: And that's why I was always pissed off every time I would go to MTV and it wasn't you interviewing me. I try. We talked on the phone 30 something years ago.
00:09:14
Speaker 3: Yeah. He actually made someone get me on the phone. He was under the impression that I was going to do the interview. Then he gets there and he had someone call me.
00:09:22
Speaker 1: Which in retrospect was a little out of. line.
00:09:27
Speaker 2: Oh, but you were, you were very ballsy when you were younger. I mean, still are, but I was just like, I.
00:09:32
Speaker 1: Thought it would be cute to go get her on the phone. And I was like, the only reason I'm here is because I thought you were interviewing me. We had a cute little convo for, yeah.
00:09:40
Speaker 2: And that was it.
00:09:41
Speaker 3: And then it cut to what, 25 years later when we actually made contact on Twitter.
00:09:50
Speaker 2: And okay. So you slide into my DMs.
00:09:53
Speaker 1: Much later, like a year and change after we became aware of each other on Twitter.
00:09:57
Speaker 2: So we're following each other on Twitter and just kind of.
00:09:59
Speaker 1: She would retweet me once in a while or comment.
00:10:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, like now we're just on each other's radar.
00:10:03
Speaker 1: And I got little butterflies.
00:10:04
Speaker 4: No big deal.
00:10:04
Speaker 1: I got a little like, oh my gosh, she retweeted me. No, you didn't.
00:10:08
Speaker 2: Yes, it's true.
00:10:08
Speaker 1: I'd be like, oh my God.
00:10:09
Speaker 3: Okay, so then he's going to finally have this show at the Grammy Museum in L.A.
00:10:15
Speaker 2: Total flex, by the way. Good flex.
00:10:19
Speaker 1: Of course.
00:10:20
Speaker 2: He invites me to it.
00:10:23
Speaker 3: Long story short, I show up with a friend, get to meet him backstage, say a quick hello. I noticed there were a bunch of other cute little Hollywood starlets there, so I immediately left. And then, like a month after that.
00:10:38
Speaker 1: Well, you're leaving out an important thing.
00:10:40
Speaker 2: What's that?
00:10:41
Speaker 1: When you came backstage... And we met. Yeah. There was a Getty photographer there. That's right. So there's a photograph.
00:10:47
Speaker 2: Of the moment we said hello.
00:10:48
Speaker 1: That we have framed in our house.
00:10:50
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:10:51
Speaker 1: And I will say, because this part of the show is really about romance and beyond love, one of the most romantic things that's ever happened to me happened to me when you walked through the door, which is that for the first time ever in my life, I got hit with that lightning bolt that you hear about, that I've even written songs about that I'd never really truly experienced. And I remember that when you walked in the door, because I knew you were there, I'd invited you and I put you in the front row and I wanted to impress you. But there was like, it wasn't like making a move at all, as you know. It was just- I.
00:11:33
Speaker 2: Think it was.
00:11:34
Speaker 1: Well, maybe subconsciously it was.
00:11:35
Speaker 2: I mean, let's be honest.
00:11:37
Speaker 1: But when you walked through the door- the feeling that I've told people this, but all I knew was that everything was different. I didn't know what was going to happen. I didn't know whether we were going to become friends, whether we were going to become lovers, whether we would ever see each other again. But I just remember that everything shifted in me. There was some awareness that everything up to this point was then, and now there's now.
00:12:02
Speaker 2: That's really beautiful, honey. Although knowing you the way I know you, You say you weren't sure if you were ever going to see me again, but I'm pretty sure knowing you now, you knew exactly what the plan was at that moment.
00:12:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess that's true.
00:12:16
Speaker 2: So I'm going to call bullshit.
00:12:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, she's talking about how I manifest things and how I make things come to life. And I think you're right, baby. I think that there was a, like the way I felt that night, I remember thinking, I have to have her in my life somehow. I have to explore this.
00:12:34
Speaker 2: I love that.
00:12:35
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:12:35
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:12:35
Speaker 2: I didn't feel that.
00:12:36
Speaker 1: So that's how we met. And then some time went by. I was not divorced yet, but I'd been separated for a while, but it was not public knowledge at all. Yeah.
00:12:48
Speaker 2: I remember thinking that I didn't know anything about you. That's what I remember thinking, like, oh, what's his deal?
00:12:53
Speaker 1: Well, I was always very private.
00:12:55
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was like, is this guy flirting with me? Is he just being a nice guy and inviting people to the show?
00:13:00
Speaker 1: Or is he being a douche?
00:13:01
Speaker 3: Or is he being a little douchey because, you know, I'm out? I didn't know what was going on because I really, really knew nothing about you.
00:13:08
Speaker 2: Because nobody knew that I was split.
00:13:10
Speaker 3: And so coincidentally, we had the same publicist. And when I asked her, you know, what she knew about, she's like, I don't know. I don't know anything about him. He's very private. And so that was also really.
00:13:20
Speaker 2: Weird in an age. where everybody knew everything about everyone.
00:13:24
Speaker 3: So I obviously kind of just didn't think anything.
00:13:29
Speaker 1: I was like, whatever. But that was cool, too, because you could have just assumed the worst.
00:13:33
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:13:33
Speaker 1: And been like, this guy's being a douche.
00:13:35
Speaker 3: No, I was old enough at that point to know.
00:13:38
Speaker 1: But you were like, okay, let me see what this guy, let's see if this guy is a douche.
00:13:41
Speaker 2: Or if he's like, what's going on with this guy?
00:13:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, I didn't want to automatically assume that, you know, I was at a point in my life where I think we all, and I didn't believe this when I was younger, but I got to a point where I thought, you know, men and women can definitely be friends. Every man that talks to me or asks me out doesn't necessarily want to date me.
00:14:02
Speaker 1: Okay. Let's go with that.
00:14:04
Speaker 3: No, I really want to believe that we can reach an age, you know, and especially the older you get as a woman, the more that you realize that it's not how it used to be.
00:14:18
Speaker 2: So I wanted to believe that.
00:14:19
Speaker 1: So you think that a heterosexual man, that there are heterosexual men who would want to go out with you, but not date you.
00:14:29
Speaker 2: 100%. Really?
00:14:31
Speaker 1: Sure. You think that? Well, I'm... You're doubling down.
00:14:35
Speaker 3: I am a very good conversationalist. I love going out to dinner. I enjoy a martini. I am good for all of those things. We're talking about the mindset of the man.
00:14:45
Speaker 1: You're actually going to double down. You think that there are heterosexual men who would be like asking you to spend time with them, but they're not interested in you romantically.
00:14:53
Speaker 3: Sure.
00:14:54
Speaker 1: Absolutely. Just like one of the guys.
00:14:56
Speaker 2: Not everybody's attractive to everybody.
00:14:58
Speaker 1: Why would that man want to spend time with you if he wasn't interested in you?
00:15:03
Speaker 3: I just named a few of them because I'm really, I'm fun. I contribute good conversation at dinner. I enjoy a martini. So I think there are many reasons why, you know, I would enjoy having a nice casual friendship with someone and not have a sexual relationship.
00:15:22
Speaker 1: It reminds me of that conversation in When Harry Met Sally.
00:15:27
Speaker 2: What was that? I forgot.
00:15:28
Speaker 1: She's like, no, men and women can be friends. And Billy Crystal's like, no, they can't. Yeah. No. Every man who's going to spend time with a woman wants to bang her.
00:15:36
Speaker 3: No, I think that that's a very old-fashioned way of thinking. I think times have changed. It's a very truthful way of looking at it. I think we have evolved a little bit past that these days. I'd like to think so.
00:15:46
Speaker 1: Well, I will grant you that had you been not interested in me that way, or had you been maybe in a relationship or... I would have still pursued some kind of interaction with you, for sure.
00:16:03
Speaker 3: Right.
00:16:03
Speaker 2: I think we would have had a nice time as friends regardless.
00:16:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I had an instant crush. Okay.
00:16:09
Speaker 2: You have a few women in your life who are longtime friends.
00:16:13
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:16:14
Speaker 2: And you, I think you don't want to sleep with all of them.
00:16:20
Speaker 1: Not all of them. Yeah, but it's a different thing. The women that I'm friends with, I'm not friends with any single women.
00:16:31
Speaker 2: But it doesn't matter. It's the point that you just said.
00:16:34
Speaker 3: Can men and women be friends?
00:16:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, but that's a bad example because the women that I'm friends with, there was never that dynamic from the beginning. It was always either a work thing, like we wrote songs together or something. It wasn't like we met at a party together. And now we're friends.
00:16:52
Speaker 3: It doesn't matter how you meet. The point is the point. And you just contradicted yourself a little bit.
00:16:59
Speaker 1: I love that we're already fighting on this podcast. I don't know.
00:17:02
Speaker 2: I'm just saying.
00:17:14
Speaker 1: What were your first impressions of me? Because you know what my first impressions of you were.
00:17:21
Speaker 3: Well, that's a good question because I thought, my first impression of you when I saw the show, I thought you were really funny and witty. And that's always a winning combination for a man who's, you know, attractive and talented on top of that.
00:17:39
Speaker 1: Because I could be a total zero.
00:17:41
Speaker 3: Yeah, but you had all the things going on. So that was, that was interesting. But, you know, the minute that we meet each other, the, I'm going to cut to our first dinner.
00:17:53
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:17:54
Speaker 2: When we start getting to know each other, just on a, on a friend.
00:17:57
Speaker 1: It was epic. Yeah. Our first date was epic.
00:18:00
Speaker 3: And so for me, the resume disappeared at that moment. I, it didn't matter who, yeah, what preconceived ideas I had of you or it all disappeared. And it was just me getting to know this guy who, you know, everything that was being presented to me was something that I didn't imagine.
00:18:16
Speaker 1: Didn't you feel instantly comfortable?
00:18:19
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:18:19
Speaker 1: That's rare.
00:18:20
Speaker 2: That is rare. I felt like we knew each other.
00:18:24
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:18:25
Speaker 3: And I don't know if it's that we share a lot of nostalgia. You know, we come from the same area in time and pop culture. We come from, we're sure we were in the same rooms at the same time.
00:18:41
Speaker 1: For sure. And we're age appropriate.
00:18:44
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:18:45
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:18:47
Speaker 2: I mean, I am a little younger than you.
00:18:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, but not tremendously. Okay. Let me ask you this because I think people would want to know. So I'll preface by saying, as I casually mentioned, I was somewhat newly single. I was separated after a 25-year marriage. I was kind of reeling from it. I was, you know, I'd never been single in my adult life.
00:19:18
Speaker 3: And were you thinking you were going to be dating again right away? Is that something that you were already kind of?
00:19:24
Speaker 1: Because I think I'm a pretty smart guy. And I knew that it wasn't a case of like, oh, I'm single after all these years. Now I get to run out and date whoever I want. And like, it wasn't that. I was very sad. I was navigating three mostly grown sons and the fallout from the marriage how it was affecting them, how it was affecting me. I raised my kids in Chicago. So my ex-wife still lives in Chicago. And so I had a life there that I was sort of cleaning up because I knew that I wanted to move back to LA. So I was living in LA in a hotel room for months figuring out what was, what I was going to do.
00:20:17
Speaker 2: But it was not like, you know, party. It was really tricky time. I remember you were, you were going through all of the emotions.
00:20:25
Speaker 1: Yeah. So I was not looking to date or like rush into anything. And so the way the, the feeling that I had about you so soon after being single was unexpected.
00:20:39
Speaker 2: Sure.
00:20:40
Speaker 1: I didn't, expect to meet someone that I would have this chemistry with so quickly. I really thought I would be single for a while.
00:20:48
Speaker 2: So what was it? Did you remember a moment where you were like, this is serious?
00:20:56
Speaker 1: It wasn't a moment. It was just that every time I would interact with you, whether it was in person or on the phone or even just texting, I found myself wondering where you were picturing you you know what is she wonder what she had for dinner or i wonder how her morning's going or like i was it was instant um and as we'll get into i'm sure at some point i fell madly in love with you before you felt things for me that way.
00:21:27
Speaker 3: Well i think i was also being very cautious because of everything that's going.
00:21:32
Speaker 1: On in your life leading with this i i think i've kind of The audience now kind of knows where my headspace was when we started seeing each other. Where were you at in your life?
00:21:42
Speaker 3: I was in a very good space. I had been single for quite a while. I mean, I'd been in a couple of long-term relationships, but I'd been single. I wasn't married since I was in my 20s.
00:21:57
Speaker 1: And for six years?
00:21:59
Speaker 3: I was married for four and a half years when I was 24. And so I'd been single for a long time, although no kids, no kids, although in a couple of relationships and then, you know, dating in between the relationships. And when you met me, I had been single for a couple of years and dating. But I had come to a point in my life where I had created such a great life for myself with my family and my friends and I was working and I just wasn't looking to get into another super long-term relationship or marriage. I was definitely not auditioning husbands. And I thought I was very open to love and relationships, which I think I was, but I was also a bit jaded, which I didn't really realize at the moment. So I had huge walls up.
00:22:51
Speaker 2: And I was.
00:22:54
Speaker 3: I was definitely in the mindset that if you were going to come into my life, you were going to add to my life. You had to make my life better. Otherwise, you know, there's a door. So that's where I was at. And then add to it the fact that you were coming out of this really long marriage.
00:23:14
Speaker 2: You had three kids. adult sons but still very young.
00:23:18
Speaker 3: Yeah um you were going through a lot and I just really didn't not only did I know not know really what that meant for you or for us I didn't want to be that rebound girl I didn't want to be like oh he came out of that marriage and then went right into it with this one and now.
00:23:35
Speaker 1: That that's which is what everybody else around me was saying too yeah My sons were like, wait a minute, you're in love already?
00:23:44
Speaker 2: So that was difficult to navigate.
00:23:46
Speaker 4: The fuck?
00:23:47
Speaker 3: Yeah, but you did break down the walls, slowly but surely. I did not make it easy for you, but you definitely broke down the walls.
00:23:56
Speaker 1: Wouldn't you say that, because I remember a version of you saying this to me way back when, the way I pulled the walls down, was by consistently showing up and being consistent.
00:24:14
Speaker 3: You were who you said you were when you did the things that you said you were gonna do. Yeah.
00:24:18
Speaker 2: And so that to me, I think that with anyone.
00:24:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, with any relationship.
00:24:26
Speaker 2: With any relationship.
00:24:26
Speaker 1: When somebody's authentic.
00:24:27
Speaker 3: When someone's authentic and they are who they say they are, that's important.
00:24:34
Speaker 1: And I also wanna mention that for me, aside from all the other things I've mentioned about you and what was so attractive to me about you, and I know that this is case by case, you know, everybody's into different things. I found myself incredibly attracted to your independence and your, I even was attracted to the aloof part of you because you were both really engaging and fun, but also aloof. At the same time, there were levels of that that ultimately I didn't like. But there was something about your strength and independence and the fact that you had carved out this life for yourself as a single person with your family, your sister and your brother-in-law and your nephews. And you just had it. The way you were living your life was so attractive and admirable. And so it made me that much more attracted to you, but it also instilled respect. I really respected the way you lived and who you were and what you represented.
00:25:50
Speaker 3: And I think that's something that is really important in relationships, but especially something that I think you find more in the second relationships is Yes. I think in that first relationship, you're looking for someone to build a life with.
00:26:08
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:26:08
Speaker 2: In that second relationship, you each already have a full life cut out for yourself.
00:26:15
Speaker 3: So you've worked really hard to become who you are. I've worked really hard to be who I was and have the things that I had and the lifestyle that you want. And so you're not really looking for anything from each other. You know, so when you do find someone.
00:26:33
Speaker 1: Because you're already a complete person.
00:26:35
Speaker 2: Yes.
00:26:35
Speaker 3: And when you find someone that complements that and can flow into that world nicely, I think it's important, but it doesn't always happen.
00:26:46
Speaker 2: I think it's.
00:26:47
Speaker 3: Important for the individuals in the relationship to maintain that individuality and that independence. I think it's really important not to lay... that much responsibility on the other person just because now you're a couple and now you have to provide me with everything in my life.
00:27:06
Speaker 1: So that's important. To that point, we haven't talked about this too much, but it's not like a bombshell information. We've talked about it before publicly. There was a period a few months into us starting to see each other where I was already so full on. I was in love with you. I was obsessed. I just wanted to be with you.
00:27:30
Speaker 2: Which I loved, by the way.
00:27:34
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:27:35
Speaker 1: I secretly loved it. I don't think I was like clingy, codependent.
00:27:39
Speaker 2: Well, you weren't creepy.
00:27:40
Speaker 1: Right.
00:27:40
Speaker 2: It was just really nice to see someone.
00:27:42
Speaker 1: You could tell that I was in. I was all in. And you were like, I'm not all in yet. And also, you're so smart that you thought to yourself, you had no way of knowing at that time if it really was just like, well, this guy, maybe this guy just needs to be with someone. Maybe he doesn't know how to be on his own. And that's not cool. And you forced me into discovering that because you dumped me.
00:28:09
Speaker 2: Well, yeah. I mean, there are nicer words to use.
00:28:14
Speaker 1: And it was the most shattered I think I've ever felt in my life.
00:28:19
Speaker 2: Oh, honey.
00:28:19
Speaker 1: That period of.
00:28:20
Speaker 2: I hate when you say that. It kills me when you say that.
00:28:22
Speaker 1: No, but it's a happy ending, obviously, because we're together all these years. But it was... I think the pain of you ending our relationship then is testament to why we're together. Because it made me, I was so miserable. I was in physical pain. So to me, that was like, oh, this is not some flame. This is like, I really am in love with this person. But what happened was, was that for several months that we didn't see each other romantically at all. At all.
00:28:56
Speaker 2: We didn't talk for a long time.
00:28:58
Speaker 1: You forced me to be my own person.
00:29:01
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:29:02
Speaker 1: Not in a relationship.
00:29:03
Speaker 3: I could see that you definitely needed to figure some things out alone.
00:29:07
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:29:08
Speaker 3: You know, coming out of the relationship that you had just come out of, you needed, I knew the value of that.
00:29:16
Speaker 1: And as much as I missed you, I started to learn about myself in a way that When we did circle back to each other, I was a much more fully formed person.
00:29:26
Speaker 2: You were. You were.
00:29:28
Speaker 3: And I knew that it was a risk because I was already very much into you. And I I think by that point, I definitely was into a relationship with you, but not in the way that it had formed. I knew that if we continued along that path and something happened down the line, I was going to say to myself, Oh, it's because you were the person right after that marriage is because he never had a chance to, you know, So, and then I would have probably lost you anyway. So I, it was a chance that I had to take in that, yes, I could possibly lose him because he's going to start dating other girls. He's going to maybe love that life. He's going to maybe find out something about himself as a single man, you know, much later in life now that he's maybe he likes that better. And he's going to realize he's not as into pursuing this relationship as he thought he was.
00:30:25
Speaker 2: That was a chance that I had to take. I had to know.
00:30:29
Speaker 1: So our journey was not like, it was not a straight line at all, but it was exactly the navigated path that we needed.
00:30:38
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:30:39
Speaker 1: Well, I think one thing that needs to be mentioned, it's important to mention, is that the reason we got married and didn't just stay together as a couple, not married, was no reason.
00:30:54
Speaker 2: No reason at all. There was no agenda.
00:30:56
Speaker 1: There was no agenda.
00:30:57
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:30:57
Speaker 1: So Daisy and I had been together for two years, and we were living together, but we weren't living together. We both had our own place.
00:31:06
Speaker 3: Yeah, we still had our independent homes, but we had all our stuff in all of the homes.
00:31:10
Speaker 1: Right.
00:31:11
Speaker 2: So we were always together. We were clearly a couple.
00:31:13
Speaker 3: Yes.
00:31:13
Speaker 1: And we were traveling together, and now the families knew each other.
00:31:16
Speaker 3: Yes.
00:31:17
Speaker 1: My sons at that point knew you. I was spending more time with your family. Mm-hmm. in Miami where we live now, for a while, didn't think about getting married for sure. And I knew, because we used to kind of talk about marriage.
00:31:37
Speaker 2: We used to joke about it.
00:31:38
Speaker 3: Like, oh, you know, why do people get married a second time when you don't, you know, you're not building a life together.
00:31:43
Speaker 1: What would you think about contract? Like the last thing I want is another contract.
00:31:45
Speaker 2: The last thing you need at this point is another contract. Like, what is the point? We're not going to have kids.
00:31:50
Speaker 3: We're not like, it's not necessary at that stage in life.
00:31:54
Speaker 1: Right. So we, it wasn't on our radar.
00:31:57
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:31:57
Speaker 1: And then I was performing in Singapore for, And I had, it was a weird thing, an unusual thing where I had a show, a private show in Singapore on a Saturday night and then a public show the following Saturday night. And I love Singapore, but we didn't want to spend the week in Singapore. So we went to the Maldives for the first time. Because we love to travel together. We travel really well together. Yeah.
00:32:21
Speaker 2: That was our first, I think that was one of our first clues.
00:32:24
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:32:24
Speaker 2: Because when we traveled, we were like.
00:32:25
Speaker 1: Because we started traveling together really early on. Yeah. And we were like, oh, this is easy.
00:32:29
Speaker 2: And we were like, oh, this is easy.
00:32:31
Speaker 1: Like, we do this really well together. Yes. So in that five days, six days in the Maldives, we stayed at this beautiful resort where people go to get married. So we witnessed a couple of weddings.
00:32:46
Speaker 2: A lot of weddings. And we talked so much. We talked so much.
00:32:49
Speaker 1: We were like, oh my God, look at them signing up for misery.
00:32:51
Speaker 2: All the cliches. Every cliche. All the jokes. They all, we were like, it became a thing.
00:32:58
Speaker 1: So then we come back to Singapore. I do my show and we're flying back to LA the next morning. So it's late. I'm still, I'm always wired after a show. We're having room service in our beautiful room in Singapore. And we're kind of just talking about what a great week it was and the Maldives and And the subject of weddings and marriage came up.
00:33:19
Speaker 2: Because it was like a running joke through the.
00:33:21
Speaker 1: And I think you started it by saying, you know, I mean, I talk a lot of shit about it, but I'm not against marriage.
00:33:26
Speaker 3: Yeah, like I didn't want to come off like this marriage-hating person.
00:33:30
Speaker 2: I just wanted to make it clear. I was just joking.
00:33:33
Speaker 1: So I said, well, the truth is, if I didn't know how you feel about marriage, I probably would have already asked you by now.
00:33:41
Speaker 2: And you looked at me- To which I said, are you asking?
00:33:45
Speaker 1: And then I panicked.
00:33:47
Speaker 2: Because it sounded like he was asking. I'm just saying, right?
00:33:50
Speaker 1: But I didn't panic out of like, oh, my God. No, I have to. I panicked because I thought, oh, my God, I just ruined this. Now she thinks I want to get married and she doesn't want to get married. I just f * * * ed myself.
00:34:01
Speaker 2: And I totally wasn't even. I was just making a joke. But I panicked. I did not think that much into it.
00:34:07
Speaker 1: I thought, oh, no.
00:34:07
Speaker 2: I was like having a laugh.
00:34:08
Speaker 1: I just ruined this.
00:34:09
Speaker 2: I was totally busting your chops.
00:34:10
Speaker 1: Because then I also pictured myself going, hey, no, no, no, no. I don't want to get married. Yeah.
00:34:16
Speaker 2: So we kind of laughed it off and benched it. Yeah.
00:34:20
Speaker 1: There was only you, of course, on the plane the next morning.
00:34:22
Speaker 3: The next morning I turned to him and I was like, did you ask me to marry you last night?
00:34:27
Speaker 1: Oh my God, Daisy, you're so hilarious.
00:34:29
Speaker 2: I just, I thought maybe you, I don't know, just checking.
00:34:33
Speaker 1: But she said, cause you know, I'm not against marriage. And I, Even though I did panic, but then I really thought about that conversation and the way we joked about it on the plane the next day, I realized that there was this window or door.
00:34:52
Speaker 2: That was a little open.
00:34:53
Speaker 1: That was a little open. And then I realized it was on me. And so we flew home and my mom, rest her soul, was living in my house at the time. And you were staying at my house when we got home. And I went to my mom to say hi and back from the trip. And I said, hey, Daisy's leaving in a couple hours. And then I need you to run an errand with me. I'm going to go get a ring and propose. And I want you to go with me.
00:35:20
Speaker 2: I thought that was crazy when you told me that. I was like, you wasted no time.
00:35:23
Speaker 1: First day back. Yeah. And my mom was so excited because she was crazy about you. And we went and I got a ring. And the next morning, it was a few days before your birthday in November. And I.
00:35:39
Speaker 1: Proposed and you said yes immediately. And that whole story is to circle back. She said to me, do you remember exactly what you said when I asked you to marry me? I said, there's no wrong answer. Right. Because if you'd said, I love you, but I just want to do what we're doing, it would have been fine with me. Totally. Yeah.
00:36:01
Speaker 3: But you said, I said, I didn't think I ever wanted to get married and I don't need To be married, but I want to be married to you.
00:36:11
Speaker 1: And that's, that was it. The fact that we had no agenda other than I just wanted you to be my family. I wanted to, and I also, I think maybe this is a, maybe this is part, many, I have a lot of old school stuff in me.
00:36:28
Speaker 2: Which I love about you, by the way.
00:36:30
Speaker 1: There was something about like, make that declaration. Because I really, I wanted to marry you.
00:36:39
Speaker 3: And who doesn't want that? Like who doesn't want to feel chosen like that? Especially when you both lived a full life and you don't need to go through the big demonstrations of, you know, it felt great. I mean, and I do think that I'm old fashioned in the way that I still want, I still wanted the man.
00:37:08
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:37:09
Speaker 3: To choose me and to choose me over and over and over and really show me. Because I'd been through enough relationships to know that I wasn't going to go out of my way anymore to, you know, jump through hoops for any man. So that was the stage that I was at at that point. And I think that attitude for me really was going to separate the men from the boys. And you were the man who clearly stepped up above all others.
00:37:39
Speaker 2: That's important.
00:37:39
Speaker 1: And interestingly, I would say the biggest change in our relationship after we got married was that you finally, you talked about the walls that I had to bring down, but you, you're still a completely independent, strong, you, you know, you run your own business, you do your own thing. But once we were married, there was this whole other side of you that you allowed yourself to show me, which was a girl. Like softer.
00:38:18
Speaker 2: I'm just a girl standing in front of a guy.
00:38:22
Speaker 1: Because she was such a hard ass and she was so tough all the time, which is attractive in its way. But I remember saying to her when we were dating, like once in a while I would say, why do you have to be so tough all the time? And it was because she had learned it the hard way. Like she had, you know, she had to be. Yeah. And I think that there came a point when you realized that you could lean into me.
00:38:42
Speaker 2: And that was the moment we got married.
00:38:44
Speaker 1: And go, hey, I need you to do this for me.
00:38:45
Speaker 2: I didn't realize that it was a very.
00:38:47
Speaker 1: I need you to be the man and I'll be the girl.
00:38:49
Speaker 3: It was a very subconscious like thing that just automatically happened from the moment we got married.
00:38:54
Speaker 2: Not a minute before.
00:38:56
Speaker 4: Right.
00:38:57
Speaker 2: Literally like the next morning.
00:38:58
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:39:01
Speaker 2: I was like, honey, can you do this for me? And I think that's... This is too heavy for me.
00:39:09
Speaker 3: You figured out my love language early on, which is, you know, I think when you're young, it's, you know, the big shows of like, here's some flowers and the.
00:39:19
Speaker 2: I did a lot of that too. You did a lot of that too.
00:39:21
Speaker 3: I still do. But you figured out that like my real love language at that stage and at this stage in life is, it's okay, honey, I've got it handled. It's okay, honey, I did it.
00:39:30
Speaker 2: Already. And I was like, oh my God, he's got it handled.
00:39:35
Speaker 1: We've been married 10 years, almost 11 years. And you still once in a while.
00:39:39
Speaker 2: Go, oh, I forgot that you just take care of shit. Yes.
00:39:42
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:39:43
Speaker 2: That's hot.
00:39:43
Speaker 1: I love that. All right.
00:39:55
Speaker 2: Well, I think that that's enough about us and our journey.
00:40:00
Speaker 3: I know it never is, but I do want to hear.
00:40:02
Speaker 2: Let's hear from the folks out there.
00:40:05
Speaker 4: Hi, I've been married a long time. And so this goes to couples who've been together for a while or who are really busy and have lots going on, which I think is a lot of us between kids and work. I find that we have very little bandwidth at the end of the day to talk about things that aren't just logistics and calendars. And did you remember to do this or that? And I know that that's, a bad habit to get into. And I'm wondering if you have any advice of how to get out of it.
00:40:38
Speaker 2: That is such a good, it's, it's such a good question.
00:40:40
Speaker 1: Really good question.
00:40:41
Speaker 2: And it happens to everyone.
00:40:43
Speaker 1: Typical.
00:40:44
Speaker 3: I mean, I can see how it happens and we don't even have kids that we have to raise, but we have a lot of responsibilities and you have your own schedules. You, you both have full lives and you can really get caught up in it. So I can totally relate to that question.
00:41:00
Speaker 1: My, I know you'll think about it. I immediately have a suggestion.
00:41:05
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:41:08
Speaker 1: Make a deal with each other. And it doesn't have to be every day because that's a little bit of a challenge. But at least every other day, you make a deal with each other at some point for 15 minutes, whether it's a cocktail or a cup of coffee, somewhere in your house, and you just look at each other and you go, We're not talking about the kids. We're talking about work. How are you? What's going on with you? How are you feeling? Are we okay? What do you need from me? That, if we were, if we needed to do that, and we do that kind of just instinctively anyway. But we don't need to do it. But if we did need to do it, I think that that's what we would do.
00:41:54
Speaker 3: And we have gone through stages where we're both realizing that, okay, for a while now, we've just been annoyed.
00:42:02
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:42:02
Speaker 2: Not at each other, at us.
00:42:05
Speaker 3: That goes on that you have to be doing that you don't want to be doing. And then you both just become managers of life and managers of work and you become co-managers and you forget that you are friends, that you are lovers. And that's important to always remember and to go back to. So yes, what you said, like have a moment. I was listening to, I forget who it was, somebody talking about relationships. And they suggested something that we do instinctively, which is we go on walks.
00:42:37
Speaker 1: I swear I was just going to say that next.
00:42:39
Speaker 2: For us, we will just take long walks or long hikes.
00:42:44
Speaker 1: Change of scenery.
00:42:45
Speaker 3: And sometimes we will, on that walk, talk a little bit about just dumb shit going on.
00:42:51
Speaker 2: But right away.
00:42:53
Speaker 3: I think being in nature and connecting that way, not having our phones, not having a calendar, not having distractions, we all of a sudden get back into the flow that we naturally are with each other. We will start talking about things that we want to do, more positive things, more fun things. We just lighten up a little bit. And I think sometimes it's as simple as that. Doing an activity together for a short period of time where you both just, lighten up or you're setting the scene for you guys to just naturally be a little bit more.
00:43:28
Speaker 2: At ease with each other.
00:43:29
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:43:30
Speaker 3: And you did something a couple of times with me when I was going through the just a lot of dumb responsibility where I was just after, you know, a couple of weeks, I was just like in a bad mood and you were like, what's going on? And I remember saying to you, I'm just so like, I'm just, I just want to have fun. I want to like not work for the house. I want to not work for our assistants. I want to not work to like do stuff for other people. Like I want to start enjoying my life again. And it feels like I haven't done that. And you said to me, okay, let's talk about everything and find out what we can do that would make your life easier.
00:44:10
Speaker 1: I was going to say, ask yourselves, ask each other.
00:44:13
Speaker 2: What's one thing that you can put in place?
00:44:15
Speaker 1: How could your life be better?
00:44:17
Speaker 3: Yeah. And that's really important because little by little, one thing turns into two things. And by the time you've rearranged like three or four things, your life is easier and you can feel a little bit of a lighter load. And you remember, just remembering that you can, Ask for assistance that you can, there are things that you can eliminate. Not everything needs your attention or your immediate attention.
00:44:43
Speaker 1: I also think it's important to ask that question of each other when things aren't so stressful.
00:44:48
Speaker 3: Right.
00:44:49
Speaker 1: It's almost like preemptive.
00:44:50
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:44:51
Speaker 1: Like we've been on a beautiful hike and been in a really nice place in our lives. And I've still said, so what would make your life better?
00:45:01
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
00:45:02
Speaker 1: It's not out of stress. It's out of like pondering and thinking, oh, well, I do. You know what? Now that you mention it, this thing that we've been dealing with, I'd love to just get rid of that. You know, I think it's really, it all comes down to communication. Yeah. You have to, it's really hard with, if you have young kids. Yeah, it is. But it's doable. Even if it's literally you carve out 15 minutes.
00:45:28
Speaker 3: Because you do have to prioritize in your life.
00:45:31
Speaker 2: And yes, kids are a priority.
00:45:34
Speaker 1: But your kids will benefit from that. Exactly.
00:45:37
Speaker 3: But then the next priority or equally as important is that relationship.
00:45:42
Speaker 1: For sure.
00:45:42
Speaker 2: And you can't put that on the back burner.
00:45:45
Speaker 1: Agreed.
00:45:46
Speaker 2: I hope that helps a little bit.
00:45:49
Speaker 1: All right.
00:45:49
Speaker 2: Well, that was really fun.
00:45:50
Speaker 1: It was. Yes.
00:45:51
Speaker 3: That's a wrap on our first podcast here with you guys. But if you have any questions or need advice when it comes to dating after divorce or marriage.
00:46:04
Speaker 2: We're your people. We got you. Yeah.
00:46:05
Speaker 1: Send an email or leave us a voicemail. All the info is in the show notes. Follow us on our social media. I'm the Richard Marks on Instagram.
00:46:13
Speaker 2: You sure are. I'm Daisy Fuentes.
00:46:16
Speaker 1: But if you go to her page, it says Daisy Fuentes Marks, which is the one way that she's a Marks. And I love it.
00:46:24
Speaker 2: I'm a Marks in many ways.
00:46:25
Speaker 1: This is I Do Part Two, an iHeartRadio podcast where falling in love is the main objective.