What Five Years of Rebuilding Taught Me About Leading When You're Broken

This has been one of the hardest seasons of my life, and someone that you know is probably going through the hardest season of their life. So I want you to do me a favor. Watch this entire video. I don't know how long it's going to be I know that I'm gonna share, but I know there's something I wanted to share with you. So share this video with someone because I know that they're going through it. They're just not putting it out there. A few months ago, I was laying in my room and my daughter, she's the oldest, she came out. Like, I'm laying in bed and it was probably around 01:00 at night, 01:00 in the morning. And I heard somebody because when I'm sleeping, I'm usually I'm a light sleeper sometimes because I usually wake up at that I'm usually up at that time. But I heard somebody sniffling and I felt somebody tap me. She was like, dad, she tapped me. And I'm like, hey, what's up, mama? She was crying. You know, I was like, what's going on? She said, I can't sleep. You know, my mind just so much going on in my mind. And when she said that, I immediately just like, okay, just like, can I lay down here with you? And my kids, you know, my daughter, she was like, you know, 17, I think like 17, she's gonna be 18 soon. But my kids always come in my room. If you're a parent, you understand this. I'm laying in bed, my kids, they'll come in, there's one to lay right there, there's one to lay right there. And that's just something that's how it's always been. And my youngest was laying next to me too. And I'm like, It's okay, mama. And she was crying. She was just crying uncontrollable. I said, It's okay, mama. And I knew what was going on, but I just wanted to just talk to her to say, hey, what's going on? And she was just like, my mind, you know, I can't sleep. You know, I'm just disturbed and I'm just down, you know, just so much going on. And all I could do at 01:00 in the morning, just said, okay, I just had a shit came and laid on my arms and I just held and we just prayed because that's that's how we do as a family. We're going through things. We just prayed. And she laid there. And I usually get up, you know, my kids are sleeping. This is something I've always done since they were younger. Like, I'll pray pray in the house, walk around, get get the anointing oil, anoint the house, pray over them and pray over their room. And I said, okay, mom, let's pray. And we prayed and she was able to go to sleep. I was just sitting out with peace with sleep. So for almost that week, she would come in the bed and we'd just lay down and my kids, they'll come in. And then my other son, my second son came, he was like, Dad, he was just crying. Dad, he's going through different things, his mind, and he was just balling again. I said, Okay, Lord, we're going to pray. And he slept in my he stayed in my room. Usually he got his own bed, his own room, everything. But he stayed in my room for over a week, over a week, just like my mind, know, stuff you were sharing with me and said, okay, we're going to pray. And we'll pray. If you're a parent, especially if you're a single parent, you know how hard it is when your kids are going through things and it's hard. So my daughter, after the whole thing, I was in the corridor one time. I was in the corridor just probably two months ago or so. And she was down, she was crying. And I said, What's going on, mama? What's up? She was just She said, You don't know what it's like to not have both parents. You don't know what it's like for those that, you know, if you haven't watched my videos, this now is something I talk about a lot, but, you know, her mom and I, we are, divorced and my kids have been living with me for the past five years full time with me. And my daughter's been going to therapy for the past few years now. She's been going to therapy and it just broke her. And she was like, you don't know what it's like to not have both parents there. And I know that her mom not been had a huge impact in her life, just what she's dealing with. Because I spoke with her therapist and she was like, Yeah, that's one of reason when Now I'm gonna get to that story about that because I think me sharing this hair is to help someone else. You know, in the age that we live in, you know, people take what you say, they'll clip out different portions and then put whatever they want to put out there. It's okay. I'm sharing to be able to help someone else that's probably going through the same thing. And I said, okay, mama, you know, she was crying and she said things that just stopped me dead in my tracks. She said stuff that just broke me. She said, you you don't know what it's like to not have both parents, you know, because she I grew up with both of my parents. I grew up with both my mom and dad, married. They're still married now, almost forty seven years. Like, they've had their issues and things like that. And so I'm like, you're right. I don't. I never had to experience, I never had to think about coming to house one day and my mom wasn't there, my dad wasn't there because one person just decided to leave. It never crossed my mind at all. And she said she had a conversation with her mom. Well, she had called me. I know I'm jumping all over the place, but just before graduation, she had called me crying. And I'm like, what's going on? Like I said, days or before graduation, why are you crying? I'm like, she just gone up the phone with her mom and she said, yeah, her mom just chewed her out. And I'm like, what do you mean? I said, it's okay. I had to speak life to her. I had to encourage her because she was broken. She was so broken. She was just balling. And I just, I had to just encourage her And that I was furious. I was heated when she told me that. But I'm like, okay, Lord, let me just pray with her. Because I know if I had called mom, it'd have been, you know, another battle again. And I had a chance to talk with her. After that, I came back home. One of the things that I do with her, you know, my kids sometimes, especially my daughter, is that we just take drive sometimes and, you know, we'll just go somewhere. And I remember she just wanted us to drive, you know, a little longer than I usually would this time. And I parked the car after we did this long drive, you know, I think it was like over an hour drive, driving around. And she said, you know, I thought I parked the car. I don't know what it's like. She no. She said she said she didn't feel like her mom wanted to have her. You know, she felt like, you know, she felt like her mom regret having her. And she's like, you know, dad, I'm not the only one who have to deal with a mom like that, you know, have a mom like that. And then she says something that just it just stopped me dead and it hit me. I I just I cried when she said it. She said, I didn't choose her to be my mom. You chose her to be your wife. And when she said that, I just got my eyes just swell up with water. My eyes just and I say, yeah. I said, yeah. You're right. I did. And I said, of all the women in the world that I could have chosen, of all the options that I had, yeah. I chose her and we're paying for it. You guys are paying for it. I'm paying for it. We're all paying for it. And I just broke that cry. She was crying and I was just like, God, how did I end up here? You know, one of the things that I've always, my whole life growing up, I never wanted to, I didn't care about fancy things. I didn't care about I'm not a flashy person. I'm not a high maintenance person. I'm not into flashy stuff. Not because I don't think those things are nice, you know what I mean? But just me, the one thing that I desired my entire life ever since I was about seven, eight, nine, around that age, I just wanted to find a woman, a beautiful girl, a little boy and a beautiful girl, to get married, start a family, have some kids. And that for me was the highlight of what a good life is for me. It wasn't, I think, you know what I mean? And that's what I desired the most out of anything else in life was just to get married and start a family. And when my daughter said that, it just broke me. I remember just I was just messed up in the head. I was just like, when I'm in messed up, was just like, oh my goodness, this is really hard. She doesn't have a relationship with her mom. And there was one time, my youngest son, he said, dad, can you ask mom to come babysit me? I remember when he said that to me. That whole week I was just crying. Now you're probably wondering why, you know, for me, as a parent, I don't think parents babysit their kids. Parents don't you don't babysit your kids because you had those kids. You hadn't for a reason. You don't babysit your kids. They are yours. They came from you. Maybe your brothers probably babysit them, their grandparents probably babysit them, other people do, but you don't. I remember just crying for a while. I was like, Oh my gosh, Lord, what is going on? And then now when the kid's a little bit older, sometimes you just have to stay positive. You have to stay positive because kids, they see a lot of what you don't say to them. They see that. And when my daughter said that to me, you chose her, I was just like, that hurt so deeply. That hurt me so much that she would feel like that. And I didn't know what else can I say? So I usually have my studio, you know, and I'm usually cranking out videos. I'm usually, you know, going and but this season has just been so so hard, you know, in terms of dealing with some of that. And when she started college, you know, she just a few days ago, I went and that morning I was just crying. I was just crying that morning. And for those of you that have sent the pictures that I put out, it was just to let you guys see that that's the reality of life. And she was broken. And I'm like, God, all I wanted as a kid was, you know, I always picture how her graduation was going to be when I was a kid. I always picture how going to college was going to be for my kids. I always had this idea that, you know, me and my wife and, you know, their mom would take the kids different, you know, toward different colleges. And they'll like, just how you sit in the movies, like how they'll go to different colleges, they'll go, you know, visit different things, you know, a beautiful family time, and it was time to go to college. You know, the mom and dad had taken their kids to the college and, you know, that whole beautiful scene because that's how it was for me. You know, my parents took me to college when I was 16 and, you know, I remember my mom, she, you know, she cried, you know, to drop me off and I just started my journey then. So I'd always envisioned that in my head, like, that's how I wanted to be for my kids. And especially for my daughter, I'm like, that's how I wanted it to be. And that's how she would have loved it to be too, but it just didn't. It didn't go that way. And now I have to pay the college tuition, which is ridiculous. And usually, you know, I just looked at the portal and I send the college tuition stuff. It's like over 12,000 just for the semester. It was almost 20,000, but with the scholarship and some of the other loans and grants, they came out to like 12,000. I'm like, Lord. Usually that wouldn't have been an issue at all. Usually that wouldn't have been anything like Because financially, I've always been, you know, had things set. Know, I'm a saver, I'm an investor and things like that. But this past season has just been like, Lord, it's just been rough. That I did some work for clients and then you send an invoice and you're expecting for that money to come in, especially when you're self employed. You do work for them, you send them invoice, and then a day turned into a week, a week turned into a month, and then month turned into two months. And now, the money that should have taken you, covered you, given you, you know, some type of breathing room for the next, you know, three, four months is delayed. It's not there. And so I'm just trusting God that he's going to make a way for her college tuition. I have some invoices out that haven't been yet, and I got until the thirty first of this month, August, to pay at least 4,000. And I'm hoping and just praying that it just happened. It's been just super heavy. I never thought that I'd been this predicament just overall with my family. It never crossed my mind at all. And my kids, they'll come ask questions, especially my daughter. When I spoke with her therapist, just to see what was going on and the root of her problem, the root of why she was there, because of her mom. That is the root. And I told her, I said, Mama, there's nothing I could do about that. You know? Her mom decided, you know, wanted to do her. She wanted to do her. You know, she wanted to, you think the grass is greener on the other side, you know, you wanted to wanted to do her and abandoning everything and just I said, okay, you know, just go do you, you know, go do you. There's my kids that I wanted to have kids. I always wanted to have kids, always wanted to have them, and I don't regret them at all. And it was as painful having to be in that predicament, It's painful having to to have a mindset that's not shared with someone that you thought could share that same mindset. It's painful when you have to deal with certain things, certain mindset, certain attitude. It hurts. A lot of time people try to mask what they're feeling. They try to mask, try to cover it up. And there's been times when my kids, you know, I've just sat down and they've expressed to me their pain. I told them, I said, look, your mom should decided She wanted to go do what was best for her. You guys not a priority. And now it's just plain plainly it. And I remember how she would have some some God come pick her up. I couldn't believe it. She would have some God come pick her up at my at our house. And when I confronted her, one night, I'm laying in bed with her. This is before, you know, I'm laying in bed with her and I'm like, we haven't been intimate in a while. Not just like, we haven't been intimate in over couple of years now. And then when I said that, she flipped out. She flipped out. I asked her, I'm like, you know, are you cheating on me? And she flipped out. She got off the bed and and I didn't understand. I didn't understand. Like, why is she flipping out like that? I just asked you a simple question. You flipping out like that? Now for those of you who help me understand a little bit my mindset. Okay? And it's not that I'm perfect. It's not that I got got everything together, but I didn't know what that meant. When you ask questions like, can somebody flip out like that? I thought it was gonna be like a a simple conversation. It's like, oh, you know, babe, no. I'm not. Know, I'm just going through this and this, but shit flipped out and cussed me out. And I didn't understand why. So I had to go to Google and try to figure out to understand. A husband asked wife this and she flipped out, what does that mean? But whatever. Ask this question. And as I'm reading it through, I'm like, wow. She's cheating? And that day, she got out the house, flipped out on me. And it wasn't until much later that I caught on what that meant. She left the house, went out to go go smoke weed. And that was another thing. I said, look, I can't have you smoking weed in this house. I cannot have you smoking weed around these kids. I cannot. That, the most disgusting smell that I've ever smelled in my life is weed. And I remember my kids, they came to me like, dad, what is that smell? It smells so it smells so nasty. What is that smell? And I went to their mom. I said, look. And she said, she heard him. I'm like, my gosh. What what how did I end up here? How in the world did I end up here? I'm like, look, you wanna smoke weed, you wanna get hot, whatever. I'm not that's not gonna happen in this house. That's not gonna happen. I don't because I grew up around grew up in the hood and I know what weed do to people. I see how it destroyed relationships, it destroyed homes, it destroyed families, it destroyed marriage, it destroyed them. And my kids, they asked me, they said, you know, my youngest, they said, dad, the way that mom act, did you know she act like that before you married her? Did you know that, you know, she smoked weed before you married her? Sometimes your kids ask you questions that'll stop you dead in your tracks, man. That'll stop you dead in your tracks. And I had to give them answers. I had to give them answers. So there I am. My home has just been flipped upside down and this woman, she has chewed me out. The things that she said to me. Now I know it's couples sometimes, you know, you get to each other, you say certain things, you know, sometimes and not not that it makes it right. But she has chewed me out like I've never been chewed out before. And I told her, I said, you are the most disrespectful woman I have ever met in my life. The most, not one of the most. And my kids have heard have heard her chewing me out. My daughter came one time and she had a gun in my face. And my daughter's like, hey, Ma, can you guys, you know, take that downstairs and not? And she went off on her. She went off. She went off. And so they'll come. I say, you know, that's your mom. Y'all you know, you love her. You pray for her. And but she need help. She need help. So I'm putting this out there because I know that you have some stuff that you're dealing with and you're just not holding it in. And you're trying to figure out, you know, sometimes we would care so much about what people gonna think, what people gonna say, but I wanted to just create a raw video that no editing, no cutting this, and no none of that. And that's where I've been and having to manage everything alone. You know, I made a decision that the area that we live in, I made a decision to live in a town where the cost of living is not high. And my strategy was like, you know what? Let's live in this small town. Let's take the next few years. We got kids, save up some money, and then we can go anywhere in the country and buy a nice place. We can move anywhere. But that didn't happen, and I've had to deal with literally hell from her. And the back end, like, and I pray that my kids I said, Lord, my kids will never go through this. I said my kids will never go through anything like this ever. And I pray for them. I encourage them. I lift them up. I'm usually very I'm a positive person. I like speaking life, you know, when things happen. I like speaking life and not just be sorry and pitiful and sad. But this one just knocked the wind out of me. It literally knocked the wind out of me. And they say, you know, when you find a husband or a wife, when you guys like, you're supposed to have a prayer partner. I heard someone say you, when you get married, you either marry a person that will be your prayer partner or your prayer point. And what that mean is you can either have someone that war with you, that have the mindset that, you know, we're gonna figure this thing out together for the rest of our lives. You know, I get tired of you. You get tired of me. We'll, you know, come back. We'll deal with it. And you're together like this. You're fighting life together. You're going through the hardships together. You're sticking together through it all through all of it. Or you can marry someone that they become a point like, Lord, just help me how to deal with them. Just give me the grace. How do I deal with this person? How do I deal with all the things that's coming? And that's what I had to deal with. And that's why, you know, the family that you marry into have a significant role in your life, has a huge impact in your destiny, especially when you have kids with them. Whether you like it or not, you have to deal with that person at some capacity, at some level for the rest of your life. Whether you like it or not. Maybe even if they're not there, wherever they are, that conversation about them will always come up, and it's always a touchy one. And that's why on The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, that episode, the most popular episode and the most popular scene, probably in daytime TV history, where Will Smith's dad came back and he was excited to go with him and his dad left and that's emotional. I've seen that, I was like, Wow. I was like, Wow. And I did take several steps in the past to try to say, Look, a lot has happened. You've done things. We've done things. Let's see how we can be able to But that was just So for those of you that are going through issues with family, I know it's a hard thing to deal with. God knows it's a hard thing to deal with. And that's why the Lord said, I hate divorce because it breaks families apart. It destroys families. It just causes such a catastrophic pain, you know, especially with the kids. And I'm living that. I'm living that. And to see the kids, how much it just break them. My kids, when this started happening, man, I would get a call from the school every day or every other day. I would literally have to stop what I'm doing, go to the school, pick them up because this one was crying. This one couldn't focus. This one was going through, and they'll get back home, and it was just a mess, just broken. Just broken. And I said, give me the strength. Give me the grace because this is not something that you can deal with on your own in your own strength. You can't deal with this on your own strength. And then now I looked at her college tuition and I got a few days of deadline to pay that. I'm like, Lord, it's gonna take you. It's gonna take you. The one thing in my life that I desire the most, which is marriage, which is a family, became the most painful thing in my life, which is marriage. The most painful thing. And it's not because I'm perfect. It's not because Matthew got it all together. But my mindset had always been, you find someone that the both of you figure it out together. You work through it. You're going to get frustrated. You're going to get angry. You're to feel so you know, all those things. But for someone, for a woman to walk out in a marriage, step out in a marriage, slip around, and for a woman to just abandon her responsibility and you couldn't say nothing to her, that hurt. I'd always seen her stories like that, how the wife was cheating on her husband and he could approach her and say something, could All that stuff was just stripped from me. And I had to deal with that part because that hurt it. You know? My right as a husband at that time was completely just stripped 100% from me. What could I do? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I couldn't tell this woman nothing. I couldn't say nothing. She would chew me out. She would cuss me out. She would I mean, my confidence dropped to an all time low because of her. My confidence dropped to the floor. And I was like, dang, man. My confidence was low. And it takes a lot of prayer. You know, it takes a lot of, focus to kind of build that up again. You know, it's not something you should build up overnight, especially when you've been dragged to the ground like that. And I'm like, Lord, I'm here. I'm the one with my kids. I'm here. I'm the one that's with the kids taking care of everything. When they were younger, I had to cook, I had to make breakfast, lunch, dinner, especially during the summertime when they weren't in school. This one got to do homework. This one got this meeting, PTA, doing all this and had to juggle all that. And they're a little bit older now. So I need your prayers. I wanted to come and share this with you guys. Hopefully, if you've watched to this point, you can share with someone else that's in the same boat, having to start over. And it's something that takes the grace of God. I remember, at the peak of this when when I found out that she cheated, I was working in the office. I was the head of my department. I just broke down in the office. I was just crying. So I went into my supervisor's office. He and I were really cool. Was a thank God that he was married for about twenty five years, a family man, stable man. So he understood that. And I went to you know, because I happened to share he and I talked, you know, we connected real we're really connected. So I went in his office and he just saw me crying. And I could see his eyes. He was teary eyed. I was like, yeah. I just found out. My wife cheated, and I was in the office. I was, you know, it wasn't wasn't just that simple. It was that deep cry. And he just said, hey. This is probably around 01:00 in the afternoon or whatever. I think that's what time it was. I'm not really sure. I was balling and he just said, Hey, it's okay. Just go work from home. Just take the next I think it was like a Wednesday or something like that. He was like, You know what? Next couple of days, just go work from home and you come back on Monday. I was balling. Never thought that was gonna happen to me. And then when I approached her about it, it was just she cussed me out. She said, it's none of your effing business who I'm effing. Yeah. And I haven't heard on the phone. And when I approached her about that, she flipped out on me. Do you know the pain as a husband to to catch a wife cheating and no and then you approach her and then she say, it's none of your effing business who I'm effing and eff you? That was that that that that just stopped me in my tracks. And it wasn't one it wasn't one time. But even after all that, I was still willing to, like, you know what? We said for better or worse till death do us part. Still, we can figure this thing out. Even after all of that. Even after all of that. But after trying for a while and, you know, the kids I know that the kids, you know, when we were together as a family, the kids, they'll be happy, their moods was different. Then, so I tried it for that because I'm like, let's rebuild. And I just like, after a few years, I'm like, it's okay, I'm not just whatever, just go do you. And I have to handle everything. Now where I thought I'll be at this age. I'm 41 and this started to happen when I was about 35. And after that, I just made a decision like, you know what, I'm just going to be celibate. And the reason for that is it's not because I'm superman strong. It's not because I'm perfect. It's not because I'm trying to prove a point. But I'll make that decision. I said, Lord, I just don't I just don't I wanna honor you first and foremost, Lord, and I just Sex get things complicated. I'm like, from what I've heard in other people, I'm like, I just don't wanna have to go through that, you know? And you got to start down with a lot of issues and different things. So I'm like, yeah. So since I've been sober since I was, even before the divorce, she punished me with sex, punished me. And it was hard, you know, it was real hard. She punished me with sex and made it very clear. And it even hurt me even more that she was punishing me, but she was sleeping with other people. That just hurt me even the more. It just crushed my soul. And when I approached her about it, and she brought it all, you know, how could I be intimate with a man who brought up some instance about something that happened years ago that I forgot about That was irrelevant to anything intimate at all. It was something, she wanted me to, was afraid of a maestro or something that happened. I didn't respond. She wanted she's like, well, how can I be intimate with a man who, can't even kill a bug from you? Something like that. So, yeah, she punished him with sex. And back then, that opened up the door for porn, that opened up the door for masturbation when that happened. And there I was, married, but dealing with celibate. I was married but forced to be celibate. I was married and forced to deal with porn and masturbation. Been married. And that hurted. That hurted at my core. That hurt is so deep. If you haven't experienced that, I hope you never do for a husband or a wife to punish their spouse with sex. Yeah. But it's one of the decisions that I gotta live with. It's one of those things that I have to live with for the rest of my life. And my kids, the painful part about the toys, they were in the mix of the whole thing. They saw a lot of that stuff play out, which they shouldn't have. Because one day when she told me, I'm gonna tell the kids, you know, we're getting a divorce. I'm like, no. Please don't get this kid they were young. You know, my my youngest son was about six. I'm like, please don't. Just let's try to figure this out first. Don't say anything to these kids because you're gonna open up a door that you're not gonna be able to shut. That door, when you open that door, it stays open for life. I said, please don't open that door. I know we can deal with different things. Let's figure this out. Don't don't. She's like, no. I'm gonna talk to the kids. I'm like, don't do that. You're gonna you're gonna do I was like, please don't do that. I begged. I said, please don't do that to these kids. Let's live them out of it. If we can't really figure this out, if we can't really, then let's and I went in the bathroom. And I'm in the bathroom. By the time I came, should have assembled four of them and we're telling them. And I'm like, oh my goodness, she just opened up a door. That's not a door you just closed like that. Now I'm not saying that I was perfect the whole time. That's not what I'm saying. But the things most of on my part was just needing someone to mentor me and how to, you know, you have a wife, how to deal with certain things. So for me, it was more so my ambition, you know, to just want so much more from my family, that I push, let's do so and so, let's go so and so direction, just because I'm thinking like, you know what, I just want the best for my kids and looking for opportunities. I think that's why I fell short a lot because I'm like, I'm a go getter. And when I see that I want the best for my family. So that was what's at the back of my mind. So every decision that I was making was like, you know what? This is gonna put my family in a better place, in a better place. I kept pushing, you know? And that was one of my biggest fault, you know, as want it as a man, when you see, when you're in a place and you want opportunity, you don't get in that place, we're designed to, okay, let me try something else. If this is not working after a while, let's do this. And so I'm not saying that I was perfect in the whole thing. But what I am saying is the thing that the areas that I messed up at was things that could have been fixed. And it wasn't like I was out there slipping around cheating. It wasn't like I was out there physically abusive to her, you know, putting my hands on her. It wasn't that. It was I made a decision let out to take our family certain direction that she didn't think I needed to, which later on made a lot of sense, you know, and she later talked about it and she later on okay. From, I didn't make an emotional decision, right? I didn't make a decision just out of feelings. I made a decision when I looked at the math. I looked at our kids. I looked at the economics. I looked at all those things before I made that decision. Now, like, know what? I don't wanna live here because they don't have anything. It's a small town. There's nothing going I didn't care about all that. I know those things matter, but I was looking at it from a standpoint of, you know what? In the next couple of years, let's just suck it up. Let's just bite the bullet. After two years, we're gonna be in a better place financially. That's what I was thinking. But it was more so an emotional part for her, emotional feelings and emotional, and and I can't understand why. You know? So I just go to God. So I just share all this with you guys. I don't know how long it's gonna be, how long this clip was gonna be, but I'll just share all that with you. First, I need you to pray for me, pray for my family. And now I just gotta figure out how to pay for my daughter's college tuition, which was something that I already had some money for years saved up, then all this happened, just kinda got in the mix. So I hope that you've gained something from this. I hope that you were able to take something from it. Learn even if it's just one thing you can pass on to someone else.