David
Welcome to the Since You Asked show. My name is David Stewart. I am the founder of AGEIST magazine.
Susan
Hi, my name is Susan Guidi. I’m a 66-year-old competitive bodybuilder and standup comic.
Rob
Hi, my name is Rob Angel. I’m the creator of Pictionary, traveler and explorer.
David
And since you asked, we’re going to answer your questions. Hey, everybody, welcome to Since You Asked. Great to have you with us. We’re here to answer your questions. And we have a couple of amazingly talented people here. Well, Rob, we’ll get to him. But Susan is really interesting. She was telling us before the show about her background as a traveling harmonica player. Susan, what’s up with this harmonica thing?
Susan
Well, I’m actually going to do a one-woman show next week, and I’m playing several songs, and one of them I’m playing to my Cuban heritage, which is One Panamera, because my mother is Cuban. But I don’t know if I can play that.
David
Okay. I’m impressed. Amazing. Thank you, Susan. That was a spur-of-the-moment harmonica concert.
Susan
Yeah, that was; I didn’t expect I should have warmed up.
David
Rob, how are you today?
Rob
I’m fine. I’m fine, David. I was wondering how you were going to ask me that question after that beautiful solo. I’m great. I feel great.
David
You know what I’m wondering. You’re an inventor of Pictionary. Do you, like, wake up in the middle of the night with, like, words? You wake up and say, like, aardvark. I’m just curious.
Rob
It is weird, but seriously, I still, after all these years, I see a word that I like: “Oh, that makes a good word.” It’s part of my DNA now. It’s weird, but true.
David
Well, it’s only one of the many weird parts about you, Rob. But we love you.
Okay, so this week we have a question. This is from a woman. “My daughter recently got engaged, but I don’t like her fiancé. How do I handle this?” Guys, you have experience with this. What do you think?
Susan
Rob, I’ll let you start.
Rob
I got lucky. My daughter got married a year ago, and we love the guy a lot. Do they support each other? I mean, it’s all you want out of a spouse, man or woman, for your child. But it’s hard. I mean, he’s not going anywhere. And so you’ve got to figure out how to get along.
This isn’t, you know, figuring out what’s wrong with a perfume or a cologne or something’s wrong that you can fix. You have to figure out how to get along because he’s going to be around for a while; hopefully forever. And if you’ve got to find something in common, find something that makes you guys bond a little bit.
Otherwise, you’re not going to see your grandkids. We talked about that one before. Your job is to be invited for the grandkids. So figure out how to get along with this guy almost at all costs.
Susan
100% agree. And nobody’s asking you to live with this person, you know? And unless you fear for their health and safety, quite frankly, on this one, you really have to bite your tongue because, I often say, you know, you raised your own children, but it’s a lot harder navigating another person you didn’t raise yourself and their morals, their culture. Unless you fear the fact that he’s abusive, goodness, I don’t think you really get to have an opinion, because I will tell you again from experience, if you start to mention that to your daughter, they’re going to almost always be with the fiancé.
Rob
I mean, if your child is marrying somebody that you don’t like, you’re going, “Oh, what did I do? Where did I go wrong? Why didn’t I raise you differently? What is wrong with this person?” Don’t even go there because we’ve all been there judging ourselves. Don’t go there. It’s out of your control. Figure out how to make it work somehow.
David
It’s essentially none of your business.
Susan
It really is none of your business. And that’s such a hard lesson to learn because, I’ll often say, in the adult manual, that chapter doesn’t exist. No one gives us the chapter that says, “How do you deal with the spouse, the husband, of your child?” And then, like Rob said, wait till they get married and have kids.
Wait to see this person interact with your grandchildren or maybe not help your daughter or be gone all the time.
Rob
Yeah, nothing you get to say. And you can always find some positive quality in somebody; you just have to. And, you know, just pretend they’re somebody new every time you see them. Just make it up. Oh, it’s, you know, it’s so-and-so. I like so-and-so. I’ll just pretend it’s that person. You’ve got to just play tricks on yourself because you want to get invited back.
Susan
And it also creates a really uncomfortable dynamic for your child. If they feel like you’re up against the spouse or the fiancé, it’s so awkward. So in a way, you kind of have to learn how to be Eleanor Roosevelt and say, “Would you like more tea, darling? You know I adore you.” And even if you have to fake it to make it, you’re going to come out a heck of a lot better. Because if not, it’s just way too much pain, you know.
Rob
This is one of those awkward ones. You know, they say, oh, the daughters marry the father sometimes. I mean, that might be part of the emotions you’ve got to be feeling. So just put it out of your mind. Enjoy the ride. Enjoy the soon-to-be son-in-law, focus on planning the wedding.
How’s that? That was terrible. I don’t even like the advice that I just gave. I wouldn’t even like my own advice. I take it back here. Cut that out.
Susan
The fact is, you need to find purpose for your own life. If you have enough time to be obsessed with this person, you need a life. This is the time where you must have something that is exclusively yours. Otherwise, it’s just too painful.
David
Yeah. Clean up your side of the street. That’s going to take you long enough. And when you get that clean, you can start obsessing about someone else. But that’s going to be a long time. So live and let live and see what you can do for yourself. Guys, thank you so much. Great advice, as always. I so appreciate the harmonica.
Rob
Thank you.
Susan
I’ll warm up next time, David. But yes, you are awesome.
David
You’re amazing, Susan. We love you. Everyone, until next week. We’ll see you on Since You Asked. Take care now.
