hey if we ever met before my name is Tom and I used to be married to Dawn hey before this video gets started I'm going to jump in here real quick and say that uh not everything that Don said in her video is true and I'm going to talk more about that at the end of the video but I'm going to give you a story first here well welcome back to Rusty judgement and uh welcome back to our home uh I am usually sitting over here and there is usually a beautiful woman right next to
me uh but that is not that is not that's not what's happening today uh so typically I am making videos about um investment properties developing and fixing up houses or sheds or anything real estate related um anything Dawn and I have created I usually am doing some sort of a project as last fall Dawn and I uh got divorced um it is nothing that I wanted um I still don't want it um and it's been a really hard year you may have noticed I didn't post hardly any videos in 24 uh I've been having a
really hard time U making YouTube videos uh I am the feeler I show my emotions and I express them and I have a hard time like putting on a front or a cover and so um so it just it was really difficult for me to smile and look at the camera and talk to you about how amazing everything we have is and what we do is um that's been that's been tough so uh 24 has been difficult um I just started releasing videos again um I will continue releasing videos but you're not here for that
you are here to find out why on left and to be completely honest uh Dawn's my best friend uh I met Dawn when I was 20 when I was dating her twin sister Diana and then Diana and I only dated for a brief period of time but I met the family then and uh even though I wasn't dating anybody uh I had always come down to her parents house we lived a few hours away and so I just I'd always been close with with uh DA's mom and Dad uh Mark Lan and their brother Eric
and so I I mean I came down and helped them helped Farm uh we snow build together like we always we always did stuff together um Dawn's family has been uh okay my family if you're watching this I love you uh Don's family has been the closest Family I've had uh parents wise um I couldn't imagine having better in-laws than Mark and Lan um I mean you guys have seen my father-in-law is brilliant my mother-in-law is kind-hearted and optimistic we love vacationing with them and living near them I mean we try we continually as the
years went on as we were married we kept migrating closer to Mom and Dad um and now we live a mile away um well now I live a mile away this is a hard video to record so Don and I have struggled um Don was my best friend we uh were friends in our early 20s we were actually friends for several years before we started dating and then I knew like I knew I had known I I wanted to date Don for a long time and I knew that if she said yes to dating me
I knew without a doubt in my mind we were going to be married the day that came when I was going to ask her to go out with me like for real I actually threw up two times because I was so afraid because I knew I knew this was like this was the line I was either going to have a beautiful girlfriend or I was about to lose my best friend because I knew like she's either going to say yes or my best friend isn't my best friend anymore and she said yes and then we
got married we had kids and I'd like to tell you we lived happily ever after but Tom came with some baggage Mom and Dad I love you guys and there may be some things that I'm going to share right now that you might get offended by and that's not my intention my intention is to just speak from my life experience um I have a lot of a lot of stuff from my childhood my mom and dad got divorced immediately following Dawn in my marriage and it was ugly it was really ugly sorry Mom but uh
my mom tried to take everything from my dad in their divorce uh she him for every bit of anything and everything and that beat the heck out of my dad and he didn't handle any that well and it just I was in the midst of all of it CU I worked for them and then their business got torn to shreds and it just it was rough it was really damaging on our whole family my siblings and I and like that was Dawn in my first several weeks of our marriage like that's how it began and
um I'm trying not to give try not to give out too much detail so yeah so we first got married uh that all happened and then like I had a sister came and lived with me we were remodeling our first house then our my dad came and lived with us for a while we had a high school girl live with us for a period of time like and then we found out we were pregnant which was amazing but also like just the first year marriage was a lot and I grew up where my mom and
dad yelled and fought and all that stuff and so then I brought that into our marriage and like our first year of marriage I thought wow this has just been a really stressful year and you know it's going to get better once all this Smooths out everything will be good and then year two went along and year three went along and four and five and there was always a reason why I was stressed out and angry like why something was wasn't well and I mean don't get me wrong Don and I have had great times
together and I I love her like Don is my best friend and was my best friend and I I wouldn't choose another individual to spend the rest of my life with and don don don was Don was a dream come true um for me like as my wife like when she when she said me she'd marri me like like that's that was the best um that was the best thing I could have imagined um but it all it all didn't go well um Don was trying to be a good mom and a good wife and
she had a husband who didn't know how to manage his emotions um didn't know why he was upset or unhappy I put all my happiness Into Dawn like Dawn was the reason I was happy and so if her and I were good then I was good if if things got off with her and I then I wasn't good if something happened at work I wasn't good um and I I didn't always treat Don well um and I always and I didn't always treat our children well so we went through a lot of count wrestling um
over the years and you know everything you've seen on YouTube is real like we didn't put on a show for YouTube like da and I like we have so many similar interests and hobbies and children um we love so many of the same things but there's a few things that were different about and um and I guess it was too much for her so then over the last few years um I believe that as I got healthier as I became a a safer partner uh a Kinder dad a better husband um it seemed like Dawn
just pulled further away I feel like Dawn fought for our marriage at the beginning of it and then I feel like I fought for it for the last three years um at the end of it and I I mean I still did this day fight for it and I'm still fighting for it I've learned a lot in the last several years of pretty intense counseling and like learning about myself and psychology I used to not think that I was a good man I used to think that I have anger and I'm like emotional and I
get stressed out and stuff and I used to think that I wasn't a good person uh I don't believe that anymore I believe I am a good man and I believe that I'm not the man I used to be and I believe that I have good kids and I have a Good Wife I think the thing that I want to express to you all is that marriage is tough but I believe marriage is worth fighting for and I believe that if you have like a spouse that is committed to you and is willing to fight
for your health of your family and your marriage you don't quit on that person that's my personal belief others may feel differently or you do not trust that things are progressing or going to get better and you've lost hope um and I believe that is what happened is that Dawn lost hope in things getting better so yeah so Don's right we did do a lot of counseling um I don't believe we tried everything she says that she thinks we tried everything and that we can solve our our our differences I don't agree with that honestly
I think that the last like the last few years um since YouTube started getting really big I believe that the focus um has shifted I mean okay so we'll just say it all like this like so you have a marriage that's a little challenging and then you're accelerating in your business that also is a Ministry so your business is a Ministry and it's giving you life but then you're struggling in your marriage I mean I I can understand that then that person would invest a lot more of their time into that business and so then
the marriage in my understanding and belief also then starts to break down even further or starts having more challenges um and so I believe that things have changed a lot in the last few years I believe that YouTube has become a great a greater Focus um than our family and like I'm I don't want to speak anything ill about Dawn because I to this day love her and I think that she is a wonderful person but I do believe that things have changed um uh what's going on now is uh I don't actually know I
never really envisioned a future without dawn uh so this has been this has been tough what I am doing now is I am you know when I have the kids I trying to dedicate every bit I time I have with them um to taking care of them and being a good dad uh that it is single parenting is nothing I again nothing also nothing I wish on anyone either um but uh I started working uh doing handyman work I do some contract work for a company as well but yeah know I I'm trying to pick
the pieces up here and move on uh I mean I'll I'll shoot it straight I'm not giving up on our marriage I'm still I still believe her and I can be successful I'm praying for you know the Health and Wellness my kids and that someday we have restoration I'm I believe that I serve a god of of transformation and and restoration and that he can do anything and that's what I'm praying for uh I love you and I will see you next time
