Tim Moffitt + Marriage Counseling

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Visit 6634 Truth or check him out online at TheSteveNobleShow.com. And now, here's your host, Steve Noble. Good afternoon, everybody. This is Matthew Winslow here for Steve Noble as a host. And I tell you what, it is a big honor to be here today and a little overwhelming first time of hosting for Steve. We'll go through a little bit the agenda for today, some exciting stuff we're working on, and also share with you a little bit how I got on the show. Steve is out of town this week, so he's got a few guest hosts. Today, we're going to talk about, I'm going to have my friend, good friend, Tim Moffett, Representative Tim Moffett from Hendersonville.

He's going to be with us the first section of the show. And then my special guest, my wife, Marquita, she's going to be on the show. And we are going to talk about marriage and counseling, some things that I don't think we talk about enough and try to do away with the stigma of marriage counseling. I'll give you a little background real quick, and we'll go over again the second part of the show, but I have been married for 22 years. I started, I married Marquita in 1999, and this is not a test, I actually, I know when I got married on August 7th, but we started dating when I was 16 and she was 17. So we've been together since we were children. And so a lot of history together, we grew up together, had a good time, and so when we get, I'll get her to call in the second half, we'll kind of go through that. And then we'll talk about how we ended up on the show today.

That's kind of a funny story on that one. But if our good friend Tim Moffett's on the show, we'll go ahead and let him in. Alright, Josh, we'll let Tim Moffett in here. Representative Moffett, you there? I am here. Hey, good afternoon. Thanks for joining us. It's good to be here.

It's always a pleasure to converse with one of my best friends in the General Assembly, and it's a pleasure to be on the Steve Noble show. Oh, come on, man. You're making me blush. You're making me blush. Well, I do have a quick question.

Are we men with titles today, or can we just be who we are? Oh, yeah. I'll just introduce you. You're my friend, Tim, and I'm Matthew. Sounds good.

So I appreciate you jumping in to help me today. First time hosting a show, so you might have to fill in all the time for me. I don't know.

We'll see how it goes. So, Tim, tell me about yourself. You're from Hendersonville, up in the mountains, right? Yep.

Born and raised in the mountains. I guess I could say that I am younger than I actually am in age, but I feel every bit as old as my age would tell you I am. Well, you've been at this for a while, haven't you?

Politics. I'm currently in my seventh year. Yeah, I'm in my seventh year. Actually, this is my second tour duty in the General Assembly. The first two terms that I served actually was in the county north of Henderson County, which is Buncombe County.

And when people would ask me where my district was, I would always tell them that I manned the far western outpost closest to the enemy's base camp, which is Asheville, because part of my district was part of the city of Asheville. Yeah. Now, remind me, at the time, the year that you lost was the most expensive race in history for the North Carolina House? Yeah, so I can actually walk you through the four races I ran when I was in Buncombe County, if you'd like me to. Absolutely.

Have at it, brother. So in 2008, I was actually recruited by Skip Stamm. Everybody knows Skip, a great gentleman, lives in Apex and Wake County. He was at that point the House Minority Leader, and he gave me a call as I was referred to him as a businessman that lived in the district. And he introduced himself, and of course, like most people, I have no idea who our leaders actually are at the state level. Did you have any public service before then, like county commissioner, town councilman, or anything like that? I had not, no.

Okay. Yep, so Skip showed up at the office and introduced himself, and we had a nice conversation, and I had about a week or so to decide whether to run. I did. Of course, 2008 was a wave election that benefited the left, and I lost that election. It was my first real experience in running a big-time campaign, being involved in politics. It was insightful.

I learned a lot, but I was disappointed. And about a year later, Tom Tillis gave me a call and asked me to run for the seat in 2010, and I was reluctant because of my experience in 2008, but he said that if I would agree to it, that he would be, you know, every step of the way, he would help me through the entire campaign process. And he's a man of his word, and he did help me, and I won in 2010.

So I served 11, 12, 13, 14. In 2011, I was ranked the most conservative member in the House. John Blust, gentleman from the Greensboro area, he and I tied for ranking number one.

And in my second term, which was 13 and 14, I was ranked the most effective lawmaker in the House and the Senate combined. So my reward for that was facing a tremendous, well-funded campaign to defeat me in office, and in reference to your point, $4.2 million was spent in that race, and sadly, I lost that race. And up to that point, what was the average cost to run a race? Just estimating.

Yeah, probably in North Carolina. At that point, the record, I think, was $1.8 million. You know, most members in the House, their races are going to cost between $30,000 and $50,000 maybe, and that kind of gives everyone an idea of what, you know, some races can actually cost when they're desperate to get somebody out of office. Now, I'll tell you, I know why they came after you, because you're definitely effective. You know, I'll never forget the day I walked in your office, and so, you know, in the House, we're only supposed to run about, what was it, max 15 bills or 12 bills a year, and just to kind of manage the process a little bit. And I walk in Tim's office, and I see a stack of photos on his desk. I said, what are you working on there?

He says, I got 45 bills I'm working on. So you're definitely somebody that gets to work and knows how to work within the system. Well, I appreciate that. I have a good work ethic. My dad brought me up the right way, and when I, you know, when I get to Raleigh, I'm there to serve not only the folks in my district, but I feel like I'm a servant to the entire state. I'm one of 120 in the House, one of 170 in the entire body, and it's such a privilege and honor to be there.

I don't waste any time not doing the work that needs to be done. Well, what we'll do, Tim, if you'll stand in line, we're going to keep you on hold. I'm Matthew Winslow. I am guest host for the Steve Noble show today, and Tim, when you come back, we're going to follow a couple of things. Am I coming up, Josh?

Hey, this is Matthew Winslow. I'm guest host today for the Steve Noble show. So excited to be here. Steve, so much for trusting me to be on your show today.

At the same time, I don't know what we were thinking. Let me be on the show. This is very exciting.

At the same time, I'm glad to be here. So, a good friend, Tim Moffett. Tim Moffett is on the phone. Tim, you still with us? Tim, you still there? Yep, I'm here.

There we go. So, we were just talking about you running for the House and then having the most expensive race and then spent $4.2 million to get you out, but we didn't tell the rest of the story. You came back, how many years later? Two years or four years later?

Actually, it was six years. After I lost in 2014, I actually had the opportunity to serve as the County Commissioner in Buncombe County for a year. And at that point, I had an opportunity to move back to my home county, which was Henderson. And I did, so I was minding my own business when the representative from that area at that time, Chuck McGrady, decided to retire from the House. And he asked me to succeed him in the General Assembly. And I thought about it, wasn't sure if I really wanted to go back, but after some reflection, decided to do so. So, there was a six-year gap between when I lost in 2014 upon returning in 2021. Well, I'm glad you did because you have, I think I've shared with you before, you have helped me out so much my first year in office and I have shared your advice with several people.

I shared it on the show. You know, you come from the business world, I come from the business world, and when we see issues, we want to solve and move on to the next one. And in politics and in government, that's not how things necessarily work. And I think after about month two, you took me under your wing. You can see the frustration in my face going, you know, you brought me into office and I was like, if this way it's going to be, I'm going to be one term, I'm out of here.

I'm going to go back to work full time. And you just, it was almost like a cackle because you, it's like almost like, yes, I've been there. I know where you're at. And the advice you share with me, listen, you know, if you don't worry about putting your name on it, you can make things happen right here. And you have to be patient and look at it as a challenge.

And that's how I've looked at it ever since. And I tell you what, I really enjoy the challenge. You get to see the direct benefits of working in the General Assembly. And also when you have constituent requests, when people call you and hey, by the time they've gotten to you, because they've got an issue with DMV or something else is going on, they've gotten to the last person they know to call. And we are the people, you know, where the rubber meets the road and help them out, which one of the things I really enjoy. And it's some of the things that you have taught me to be there. So I'm really glad that you ran and I'm excited to be a good friend.

Well, it's very kind of you. Well, I will tell you that the state of North Carolina and your district, they should be very proud to have you as their representative. The state is better off when we have folks like yourself that are willing to take their time to invest in complete strangers in public service, to make sure that the mystery of how the state operates from a constituent service standpoint, you know, how that puzzle is worked to the benefit of our constituents. But more importantly, what I've enjoyed about working with you is how quick you are on understanding the complex issues that are facing our state. You take a very thoughtful approach. The frustration that you and I both have, of course, as you were alluding to, is we operate every day with a sense of urgency. And sometimes when you try to do that in the world of public service from a policymaking standpoint, it seems futile, but you never take your eye off of what you're trying to get accomplished.

And there are many ways to get good things across the finish line that benefit our folks back home. So I just want to thank you for being who you are and being receptive to taking, you know, some unrequested advice from someone that values who you are and sees what potential you have for our state. All right. Thank you for reading off the note card I gave you ahead of time. You know, rehearse this.

So thank you so much for that. Now, one of the things I want to touch on, and this is one of the things I have really learned, I really learned to appreciate that I don't think most people understand, is the sacrifice that you make and members like yourself across the state and the House and the Senate make away from your families and your business. You drive, what, about four hours in a rally? It's four and a half hours one way. And depending on the traffic, when I left, I guess a couple of weeks ago, it had taken eight and a half hours to get home.

Yeah. And so just for everybody's record, in the state House and the state Senate, we get paid the same. Tim gets paid a salary of $13,900 and gets 0.9 cents a mile to drive into Raleigh. And so he does this not because of the glory or the money or anything else.

He does it because he truly cares. And I think we have some members that drive six hours and five hours and they have to pay for their own hotel rooms and their own fuel and then turn around and do it again. And we may come in for one day for voting, or we may be in for three or four days of voting. And this last time, this last week, coming up with the budget, I think everybody came in on Sunday and stayed all through the week and then turned around and went back. And so last session was the longest session in history, and we started in January and finished in March. And so one of the members, I was joking around about how long we were in session, and he made a comment.

He says, yes, I was actually, I know exactly how long I was gone because I paid for 54 days with hotel rooms. And so that's a lot of time to be away from your family and your business and everything else. And, you know, you're kind of spinning plates all over the place at the same time while still doing the people's business. And so, for me, I really appreciate it because I drive into Raleigh every day. It's a 45-minute drive, I want to say every day, whenever we're in session. And so what's funny is that when you meet new members, first thing I ask is where you're from and how far your drive is.

It's kind of like the introductory thing. And I quit saying where I was from and how far I drive because you could tell when a member drives in five hours, and I say, oh, I'm 45 minutes from here, they kind of look at you like, hmm, that's not right. You know, you get to sleep, you're going to bed. So I really appreciate the sacrifice that you do as a member. And speaking of which, let's talk about your running for the Senate and leaving the House. You know, I wasn't going to let you off the air for that.

So go ahead and get your shots in now while you can. Because when I become a senator, you know, we won't be able to talk to one another because apparently that's the way that it actually works when you're in Raleigh. No, we're not doing that. We are going to stay good friends and we're going to reach back and forth between the House and the Senate and we're going to make some things happen. That's how we do the people's business. We don't care about the politics.

We care about doing the right things. You've been doing a great job in the House and a lot of the thing is when you become in the Senate, your territory gets much bigger, especially in rural areas like yours. You don't have the density to justify to be in one county. So you're actually in several counties. So you have to travel more and do more to be part of the Senate.

So tell me a little bit about running for the Senate. Sure, sure. Before I go there, let me clarify one thing. You had mentioned that we had the longest session in history when you said January to March. Which is actually January of 2021 to March of 2022.

Thank you, yes. So that was, what, 15 months long. Which was an extraordinary amount of time that we had to spend in Raleigh.

Now moving back to your question. So the western part of the state, like the eastern part of the state, is losing quite a bit of actual population. Even though we probably had some population growth, it was certainly not as much as the center part of the state around your area, Wake County, that area. And down in the Charlotte, Mecklenburg, Union County, those areas. So when the maps were redrawn, the Senate district that I'm competing for right now is actually three entire counties. It's Henderson County, Polk County, and Rutherford County.

In order to get the population the right number of folks for the geography that I need to be serving in the Senate. I hear the music. We're down to 15 seconds. Let's walk us out of here. I want to thank Steve Noble for letting me host today. My name is Matthew Winslow.

My good friend, Tim Moffett, running for the Senate. Thank you so much for being on the show today. Hey, this is Matthew Winslow in for Steve Noble today. So excited to be here. Thank you, Steve, so much for being a guest host. We're going to finish up. We finished up the first half with my good friend, Tim Moffett. Now we're bringing in my wife, Marquita.

Is Marquita on the line? Hey, sweetie, are you there? Yeah, I'm here. Hey, sweetie. Hi. All right, let's see.

So I've got Marquita on the line. She's my wife. We've been married now.

You've been married for almost 23 years coming up? I'm glad you reminded me because you know I'm really bad at it. I even got the month wrong. Yeah, August 7th. Just a reminder, okay?

I know it's December 7th. It's just do you remember when I did my e-mail that time? And I was like, why did we know? It's zero time, zero seven. You're like, I love you, but we weren't married in September.

That's right. Well, part of it is when I asked you to marry me, I only gave you like four months to get ready to get married because we were in college. And we either had to wait a year and a half for the summertime or we had to get married that summer because I asked you in March and then we got married in August. And so we couldn't get married during exams because we had to finish college.

And then you said, I'm not waiting. We're getting married. And then a few months later we were married, right?

Yeah, I mean, we literally came home from our honeymoon and went to class the next week. We sure did. Yep, absolutely. Don't regret it. Don't regret it.

No, definitely not. Hey, so let's talk about how I ended up on the show. I was kind of doing this as a teaser so everybody would kind of hang out and see how long I can get through this thing. But what's funny is I actually had a dream about being on the Steve Noble Show. And I woke up that morning, and I can't remember if I told you first or Steve. I may have been driving around and it hit me because dreams always come right after you wake up. And I had a dream.

I was guest host of the Steve Noble Show. And the best part about it was that I could picture a studio. And you see in the studio, Steve's got all the Star Wars, Milveria, and everything else. And the first part about it was I was giving Steve a hard time because he had all these hats in his studio in my dream. And he had like the Sherpa hats, and he had cowboy hats, and he was trying them on during the show and everything else, and I was giving him a hard time. And the other part of it was, you know, he's very particular about Star Wars stuff. And I was giving him a hard time.

And instead of saying Star Wars, I kept calling stuff Star Trek. Josh, you believe that? Yeah.

Oh, yeah, yeah. And so I just remember giving him a hard time, and you could see I was frustrating him and giving him a hard time the whole time, while I was guest hosting the show. And so I called Steve and told him about it, and while I was in the middle of it, he says, you know what, I think you need to guest host the show. And that's how I ended up on the show. So those of you who are like Joshua, now is your opportunity to go on Facebook Live and comment.

I went wrong answers only about what my dream actually meant and why I ended up on the show. So you guys have fun with that when I'm talking with my wife, Marquita, all right? So you ready to talk about marriage and counseling? Absolutely.

All right. So Marquita and I have, we have been through marriage counseling because we grew up like brothers and sisters, and we have both very strong personalities. If you take the DISC profile, she's a high D, I'm a high D, you know, both strong extroverts, although she would argue that she's not an extrovert, she's actually an introvert. I'm an introvert.

Yeah, I know, I know. And then even, but on the opposite sides of things, like you can get ready for the show. I asked her, I said, hey, do you want to go with a list of questions and I'll create an agenda of things we're going to talk about? She's like, oh, no, we'll just talk. And for me, you know, that creates anxiety. I'm like, oh, no, no, we have to be prepared.

I have to have questions and everything that's ready to go. And Marquita is way on the other side of it. Like, let's just have a conversation, see what happens. And so you can imagine, you know, with two strong personalities and with two opposite ends of the spectrum about who we are and what we do, it can cause some conflict. And so I was talking to Marquita that I want to come out of the dark and take away the stigma of marriage counseling. Right, Marquita?

Yes, absolutely. And I'll tell you one of the things that, and the reason I feel this way is that, again, here we are two opposite sides. I go to the doctor every single year on my birthday. I get my blood drawn. I do my wellness check, you know, heart checks, all those kind of things. I don't just go to the doctor when I'm sick.

Marquita has to be one foot in the grave and I have to drag her to the hospital, you know, for her to get better before she goes to the doctor. And so I think- This is true. This is true.

Yes, it is. And so one of the things that I want to talk about is that I believe that for a good marriage, we should have biblical counseling in our life. And we're not talking about, you know, your friend that you go out and talk to and you share your troubles and all those kind of things. I'm talking about a trained professional that is strong in biblical counseling. And you go to them and you have a conversation about your marriage, the things that you're trying to work on.

And we do this because we don't just go to the doctor when we're sick. I don't want you to wait until you have problems in marriage. What we want to do is you go regularly because what that does is it helps build that foundation for a strong marriage. And Marquita, you know, we've gone to counseling off and on throughout the years and we've been together for a long time, a lot of history. And give us some takeaways from our marriage counseling, some things that we have learned of being in marriage counseling. Well, I mean, one of the ways or things that we took away from it is that we definitely look at it as preventative care and that it helps you in that, like for me personally, am I listening, like actively listening to you or am I just being offended by you?

And is that productive? Just because you're saying something I don't like doesn't mean that it's not something I need to hear, you know, in order for our marriage to get better or if there's something that you need that I'm not providing you, that I could be providing you, like I really need to listen to that. And that is something that I have to really make myself do because for people who are into the love languages, my love language is words of affirmation, so words can either kill me or thrill me. And so that's just something I personally have to work on.

Yeah, like how that killed you or threw you, that's for sure. Now, what's my love language? I'll put you on the spot.

Oh, we know it's physical type. Absolutely. Mine's everything. I'm a feeler, aren't I? You are, but I'll say we're liking that, like we both like to give gifts. For some reason, we matched up on that one. Like, we really enjoy that, but I don't like keeping it a secret.

I will forever, and I'm like, no, tell me now. Now, I'll tell you, one of the takeaways for me is that just for everyone else, what marriage counseling is and what it isn't, you don't go in there and hash it out and solve whatever issue that you work on in your marriage. You don't go in there and argue it, and the marriage counselor's not the tiebreaker.

That's not what it's for. What it does is it teaches you how to resolve your issues, and one of the things, one of my takeaways is that we have been taught, even after all these years, about how to effectively have a good, honest conversation and argument and get to the end and not hurt each other's feelings, right? Because over time, when you know the people personally, like we do over time, you know what the hot buttons are, and you know how to end the conversation quick when you feel like it's a win-loss, right? And so for me, you know, it says what we're trying to do is we are trying to accomplish something.

We're talking about where our daughters go to college or where our children go to school or how we're going to educate them and those kind of things. Instead of letting our feelings and our pride get in the way, we learn to have these good, strong conversations and have both sides and have what's the best of both of us and then come to a resolution at the end. And so by doing this, I think, is good, and I really enjoy the fact that we can have good, open conversations because there's nothing wrong with having differences of opinions, and that's not what we're trying to do. We're just trying to be aligned in how we walk and, at the same time, enjoy the conversation.

No comments on that, Marquita? No, I mean, no, I agree with you. I also like kind of go along with that, one of my takeaways, because this is not something I don't think you struggle with, but I do personally, is that I like to be right because I'm always like, oh, this is a fact. But if your goal is to be right in marriage, your marriage loses, and that is not the purpose of marriage, and that shouldn't be the purpose of your marriage in that you are always working for a resolution, not to be right. It was basically learning that you're a team, and it's you together facing the problem, not each spouse versus each other. So you always have to think of it as like for us, we're Team Winslow, and we attack problems and work through problems as Team Winslow, not Marquita versus Matthew.

Exactly, exactly. And you know what I've talked before, is that our marriages are on attack every day by the world and the evil one. The evil one knows that if he can attack our marriages, he has won, because our foundation, everything we're based on, is based on the biblical relationship between husband and wife and then following God's lead. And so when we allow the evil one into our marriage, now what's happening is we no longer are letting God in, let the light in. And so one of the things Marquita and I have shared back and forth is that over time, when we let the evil one in, he doesn't show up one day and go, aha, I'm the evil one, I'm here to ruin your relationship. It's one small block at a time. What happens is over time, you build your block and I build my block, and every time you add one more block over time, your wall gets taller and taller, and eventually you get to the point where it's hard to see over and then come to your resolution. And what marriage counseling does is it actually starts to tear down those walls, one brick at a time, one over time.

And then the evil one steps in and he helps you to add a couple more, and what we're trying to do is for every three that we put up, every two or three that go up, we want to take three or four down. And so that's our goal over a long time when we're doing marriage counseling. So this is Matthew Winslow. I'm in for the Steve Noble Show.

We're talking about my wife, Marquita, and we're talking about marriage counseling and taking away the stigma of going. Almost took a couple more seconds. Hey, this is Matthew Winslow. I'm in for the Steve Noble Show. Glad to be here, Steve. Thank you so much for being part of the show and hosting today. I'm excited to be a part of it, and I've got my wife Marquita online today, so we can talk about marriage and counseling. Marquita, are you still there? Is she still there, maybe?

Yes. Oh, there we go. Hey, Marquita. Hi, honey. It's funny talking to you live on the radio if everybody can hear you, and then, you know, honey, sweetie stuff.

I love it. So we're talking about marriage and counseling, and Marquita, I don't know if you heard me talking on Facebook Live, but, you know, the evil one tries to get into our marriage, and I think today was important for us to talk about marriage and counseling. You know, you weren't feeling well, and we had to readjust and put things together and, you know, because we feel like it was important enough that we need to do away with the stigma of marriage counseling. One of the things that I want to encourage people to do is that even if you're not having issues in your marriage, you know, we should go for a well check and go in and have good conversations with good biblical leaders and counselors and people that understand what a biblical marriage looks like following God, and so Marquita agreed to be on the show with me today and fill in this last half of the hour and kind of talk about it, and so we talked about some things about some of our takeaways from counseling. We talked about, you know, how long we've been together.

We've been together 28 years, and we talked about things like how I know our anniversary is in August, so I passed the test on that. So one of the things I want to talk to you about, Marquita, is one of the questions we're going to talk about is do you enjoy marriage counseling? We both know it's tough. Sometimes we hit on some things that is a nerve we don't want to be touched, but do you enjoy it? I don't know if enjoy is the right word, but I feel better afterwards. I am not in, yeah, I don't really like enjoy conflict when it comes to talking about feelings and that type thing, but I feel better afterwards because I feel like the process is getting us, you know, to that next step is growing us closer to God, and we're being equipped to have a better marriage and to model that kind of marriage for our children as well so that someday when they pick their spouse that, you know, they have the example of us and hopefully it's a positive example, so yeah. You know, it's funny, as you say, you don't like talking about feelings. Do I like talking about my feelings? Oh, my gosh, yes, please don't ever put me in a long car ride with you.

I don't swear, please no. That's right, so those of you, if we ever have unresolved issues, I can tell you that I'm going to put you in a car, we're going to go for a drive, and so Marquita always knows that we're going to have a long conversation about something that we need to either resolve or something's going on in our life or something big we got to talk about. She already knows that, so hey, let's go for a ride.

So where we're going to go, I said, I don't know, we're just going to run some errands. She's like, oh, no, I'm not getting in the car, and it's been passed down to our kids too. They know that when we get in the car, and this is going to be a ride to go have the conversation, so our daughter, when she started dating, and now she's going to college, and so all the big things, and then my son's 15, he's going to start driving here soon, and so having these opportunities to just hop in the car and have these car talk conversations. And so now Marquita, you want to talk about the car talk rule that you came up with years ago.

Oh, yeah, for sure. So when I think Delaney was 11, so Hudson was about 9, we were just out and about, and they both saw something that they immediately wanted to have a conversation about, but it wasn't an appropriate conversation to have out in public. So I said, just wait until we get in the car, and we can talk about the car, and I might have even said car talk or something like that, trying to distract them. And so we got in the car, we had the conversation, and I don't even remember what that conversation was about, but it was satisfying to them. And then maybe a month later, we're out and about again, and I'm pretty sure it was Hudson, our youngest, saw something, and he just starts patting my arm. Mom, car talk, car talk, car talk.

I was like, what are you talking about? And he's like, oh, I've got something to tell you in the car. And so got in the car, talked about it, and it just started becoming, like, it clicked. Like, they feel safe to question and ask about things in the car.

It doesn't matter what it is. If they see something now, it saves us awkward conversations. It's also enabled us to ask questions that we thought our kids knew, like, the answer to, that really they needed clarification.

So I've found it's been, like, a really good way to talk to our kids with no pressure, especially as they became teenagers. Carpool, when I used to do that, and I'll have to go back to that again for one year. Yeah, we've lost our driver. She's going to college, so now we've got to carpool for a year.

I say we, actually you, carpool for a year for a son, right? Yeah. Exactly, exactly.

But yes, car talk has been a very positive thing for our family in that our kids feel safe and secure and that they're going to be armed with facts and also security when they talk to us in the car and they can ask about whatever they want. Yeah, it's the judgment-free zone, right? They know they can ask about anything we want and no matter how shocking it is sometimes that we try not to react except for our face sometimes, right? Right, and it doesn't mean that there's no consequences or that something doesn't need to be redirected, obviously.

Like, of course. But you want your children to continue to talk to you because I think you and I have always discussed this about we always enjoy the season of life we're in, especially with our children. So we were like, what do you mean teenagers don't talk to you later? Our kids talk to us, and I think this is why. It wasn't because we're brilliant.

It just happened to happen this way. And I think that's been something very special with our children and I feel blessed that they'll talk to us. Now, of course, they probably will talk to us about everything, but majority of things, I think they do.

Well, actually, I'll give you the credit for this because you do a much better job than me. I'm the one that had my facial expressions and I want to jump right in, and if it's an issue, whatever, try to solve it, and you're the one that reminds me. Now, listen, it's more important for our children to share with us what's going on in their life because there are times when I'm surprised how naive they are for their age because I'm just being raised differently, and there's other times I'm surprised about how grown they are and how much they actually understand, and your boy is a good example. I mean, he's charming and loving, and he doesn't really engage in conversation, but he really focuses in and listens, and he is the one that surprised me the most, understanding what's going on and seeing what's going on in the world, and he comes up with some very interesting stuff sometimes. It reminds me that he is paying attention. Oh, yes, they're definitely paying attention to us, and just like our oldest is very definitive in her ideals.

Christ Jesus, she's for life. She educated herself on that after we gave her the facts. Same with our son because, again, car talk, we don't pull any punches. These are the facts. So, yeah, it's been a real blessing to have two people with such distinct personalities. I think they have combinations of us inside of them and then their own version of themselves, obviously.

Absolutely. Two passionate children, very loving and very caring, for sure. So one of the things I also want to bring up, let's get us back on the marriage council, but I got us a little sidetracked, is that my background, I dated Marquita for almost six years, and I started dating when I was 16 and she was 17, and I dated all through high school and then into college and got married in college. One of the reasons I waited so long was I kept thinking, what is going to show me the reason why I shouldn't marry her? My background in history is that both parents divorced multiple times, and so coming from that background, I kept thinking, what is it that I'm missing from Marquita? And then I asked her to marry me because I realized that we are in charge of our own future and our past is our past and it does mold us and make us who we are, but at the same time, this doesn't define who we are.

And so Marquita and I have kind of paved our own way and learned lessons from the past, at the same time being ourselves. And a quick little story, not so serious, but I asked Marquita to marry me on Ocracoke Island before, it was everybody there before cell phones, and the best part about it was is that we drove all the way out there. It was kind of a cloudy day and she was wondering, why are we going all the way to Ocracoke? And her parents lived down in, is it Kildever Hills or Kitty Hawk?

I can't remember which one. And so her mother knew and she almost gave it away. She was so excited because I told her in advance and I had packed the ring away and we went down to the beach and so if you've never been to Ocracoke, even from Kitty Hawk and Kildever Hills, it's a good two and a half hour drive and then a 35-minute ferry ride. And I drove to the beach and we walked down to the beach and unrolled a sleeping bag and got the ring and I sang to her and asked her to marry me. And by the way, I'm not a good singer so it wasn't that pleasant. It was something that took a lot of courage for me to do it. It was sweet.

I don't care. It was sweet. But I did the worst thing possible to her. I took her to the most remote place possible and asked her to marry me before cell phones were really available.

And so she had to ride the ferry back in the two and a half hour drive before she could even tell her mother or friends or anybody else. And I wasn't thinking about that kind of stuff. It was long before social media and cell phones and everything else. And so nowadays everything is instant and everybody can do it live. And so I just think it's hilarious that I drove out in the middle of nowhere and asked her to marry me. Yeah. They're funny.

They're funny. We couldn't afford cell phones. There were cell phones. We didn't get married in the dark ages. But we couldn't afford it.

We were broke. All right. That's all our time here on the show today. We've got about 30 seconds.

We're going to wrap up. So Steve always ends the show from his dad, says, Forever Ford. Forever Ford.

Ever Ford. Well, my father-in-law gave me some advice. And it works today in politics.

He says, if you straddle the fence, you'll get a picket up your rear end. And so that has served me well being in the house. And I thank my father-in-law for being such a good influence on me. And I thank you, Marquita, for being part of the show. I love you very much. And thank you, Tim Mauffer, a good friend, for helping fill in the first hour. Thank you, Steve Noble, for letting me host the show today. And I hope you enjoy your vacation. And everybody out there, have a good afternoon.