Kevin Thompson [00:00:00]:
Welcome to Change the Odds podcast with Kevin Thompson, where marriages and family were never meant to be. A game of chance.
Blaine Neufeld [00:00:08]:
Almost. You got it. You're pretty good. Yeah, that's not bad.
Kevin Thompson [00:00:11]:
Okay. Okay, good. Let's keep it going then.
Blaine Neufeld [00:00:13]:
Oh, we got it.
Kevin Thompson [00:00:14]:
Yeah.
Blaine Neufeld [00:00:14]:
Blaine Neufeld.
Kevin Thompson [00:00:15]:
Let's go.
Blaine Neufeld [00:00:15]:
Adrienne Neufeld.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:00:16]:
Hello.
Blaine Neufeld [00:00:16]:
How do you spell your last name, by the way?
Adrienne Neufeld [00:00:18]:
N. How it sounds? N, E, W. No. Oh, I guess.
Kevin Thompson [00:00:23]:
Yeah. Nobody has spelled it right.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:00:24]:
N, E, F, E, L, D. Okay.
Kevin Thompson [00:00:27]:
Sometimes they add a T, which is annoying.
Blaine Neufeld [00:00:30]:
Oh, Neufelt.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:00:31]:
Or people say Neufeld.
Kevin Thompson [00:00:32]:
Neufeld.
Blaine Neufeld [00:00:33]:
Yeah, I don't spell very well, so it might be a while.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:00:37]:
I don't either.
Blaine Neufeld [00:00:37]:
It might be a minute.
Kevin Thompson [00:00:38]:
That's why we have A.I.
Blaine Neufeld [00:00:39]:
Oh, there we go.
Kevin Thompson [00:00:40]:
Yeah, we try to work A.I. into all of our conversations, like the last episode.
Blaine Neufeld [00:00:44]:
Take care of everything. All right, so we're back.
Kevin Thompson [00:00:46]:
We're back.
Blaine Neufeld [00:00:47]:
Here we are. We're doing five trends for 2025.
Kevin Thompson [00:00:50]:
Yes.
Blaine Neufeld [00:00:50]:
Here we are two weeks into 2025. Ironically, we're still dressed as though it's the first week of 2025. It's been a tough year so far, but so we're going to cover the last three. So the first two we covered in the previous episode.
Kevin Thompson [00:01:02]:
Can I pause you there? We've got to start with marriage hot topics, don't we?
Blaine Neufeld [00:01:05]:
Yeah, we're going to get to that right after I give a summary of what we're going to do for the.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:01:08]:
Rest of the episode over here.
Kevin Thompson [00:01:10]:
Let's try to establish the leader, but clearly not there yet.
Blaine Neufeld [00:01:13]:
You're a great host, Blaine.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:01:14]:
Can we start this over?
Blaine Neufeld [00:01:15]:
It's working great.
Kevin Thompson [00:01:16]:
No, no.
Blaine Neufeld [00:01:17]:
All right, so last time we talked about two marriage trends, which is, one, marriages are far better than culture portrays. That's going to continue in 2025. Two, that is attention is probably the primary issue for every couple. Right. So today we're going to cover. What are those last three? But you know what we're going to do before that, Blaine? What? I don't know. We're going to do a hot topic of some sort, but I don't know.
Kevin Thompson [00:01:38]:
What the topic is.
Blaine Neufeld [00:01:40]:
Give me a hot topic. We're going to respond on a hot topic.
Kevin Thompson [00:01:43]:
Yeah.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:01:44]:
Do you think that couples who post a lot on Instagram are healthy or not healthy?
Blaine Neufeld [00:01:51]:
So just in general, they post on Instagram.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:01:54]:
Post about them, like, as couples.
Blaine Neufeld [00:01:56]:
Oh, about their marriage.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:01:57]:
Yeah. Oh, no, they're not healthy.
Blaine Neufeld [00:02:00]:
They're not.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:02:01]:
The more they post, the less healthy they are.
Blaine Neufeld [00:02:03]:
Yeah. We can't say this out loud. Oh, can we say this out loud? We got to whisper this.
Kevin Thompson [00:02:08]:
Okay.
Blaine Neufeld [00:02:08]:
Okay.
Kevin Thompson [00:02:08]:
Yeah.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:02:09]:
So here's put my ear to the mic.
Blaine Neufeld [00:02:14]:
All right, so, hey, here's things we can't say out loud.
Kevin Thompson [00:02:16]:
Yeah.
Blaine Neufeld [00:02:16]:
But it's just. It's just scientifically proven, actually.
Kevin Thompson [00:02:19]:
Okay.
Blaine Neufeld [00:02:20]:
That the better your marriage is, the less likely you are to post about it on social media, which. So you can deduce from that the more a couple posts about themselves and their marriage, chances are. Now, you gotta be very careful about this. We can't judge. We can't necessarily take a general statistic and look at an individual couple.
Kevin Thompson [00:02:44]:
Right. Because everyone's thinking, how much am I posting right now?
Adrienne Neufeld [00:02:47]:
However, generally.
Blaine Neufeld [00:02:49]:
Generally speaking, the more you post on social media, the more you're trying to convince yourself that your marriage is good than it actually is good.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:02:55]:
Very interesting.
Kevin Thompson [00:02:56]:
What's interesting about this is I've never.
Blaine Neufeld [00:02:57]:
Posted about marriage, and I'm okay with that now. People don't even know you're married.
Kevin Thompson [00:03:04]:
He's married. No kidding.
Blaine Neufeld [00:03:06]:
So, no, I feel horrible saying this.
Kevin Thompson [00:03:07]:
Right.
Blaine Neufeld [00:03:08]:
Because again, you don't want people now scrolling through Instagram going, oh, yeah. Now, obviously, if it's your anniversary and you post a grateful anniversary post, that's who cares?
Adrienne Neufeld [00:03:18]:
I'm saying just like, daily, it's like, oh, look how happy we are. Look at what we're doing today.
Blaine Neufeld [00:03:23]:
Yeah. Yeah. It really raises some questions for me.
Kevin Thompson [00:03:26]:
Interesting.
Blaine Neufeld [00:03:27]:
So I don't know about. I don't know if this happened in Canada, but this was an Arkansas thing. I don't know about California. I'm not familiar enough with it here. My kids were at a different age. But here's what would happen in Arkansas on Valentine's Day. When my kids were in elementary school, it was a big thing that parents would buy these gifts and bring them to the school, and then on Valentine's Day, they would pass out the gifts to the kids. Right.
Blaine Neufeld [00:03:48]:
And here's what I began to notice when my kids were really little. It were. It was. It was the parents who I perceived were least connected with a child that bought the biggest gifts.
Kevin Thompson [00:04:02]:
The biggest gifts. Yeah.
Blaine Neufeld [00:04:03]:
And I started paying attention to this, and then you start to recognize that it's almost as though they're trying to make up for the lost time for not being as involved or engaged that I love gonna try to buy it. And so. And not only, I think are they trying to. I could be wrong. Not only are they trying to convince themselves and their child, then they're trying to project to others how good I.
Kevin Thompson [00:04:28]:
Am, how great it is.
Blaine Neufeld [00:04:29]:
But then I noticed among my friend group who were highly involved parents, we wouldn't get our kids anything.
Kevin Thompson [00:04:37]:
Yeah, well, yeah, that was 2024 for us. There was no gift year. And we love our children. That actually goes into another one that. I mean, this is another hot topic for another day. But what does it mean when your wife says, hey, babe, let's just not do gifts this year? What does it really mean? Because that was proposed to me actually, a year ago, and I took it as literally, don't get hurt gifts. So therefore, on December 25th, when we're all opening up gifts, the kids are opening up gifts. Everybody's laughing.
Kevin Thompson [00:05:10]:
Oh, it's wonderful. And oh, my gosh, you surprised me with a gift. I said, I thought we weren't doing gifts because you said we weren't doing.
Blaine Neufeld [00:05:18]:
I hate that.
Kevin Thompson [00:05:19]:
And I had, like, four gifts from her.
Blaine Neufeld [00:05:20]:
Hate that.
Kevin Thompson [00:05:21]:
And then she went to open her gifts, and there was no gifts left.
Blaine Neufeld [00:05:23]:
Oh, yes.
Kevin Thompson [00:05:24]:
Nothing.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:05:24]:
Not even from the kids.
Blaine Neufeld [00:05:25]:
Oh, wow. So this is. Yeah, joyful. I could tell this is really a couple years ago.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:05:31]:
So are we diving into this hot topic?
Blaine Neufeld [00:05:34]:
Welcome to 2025.
Kevin Thompson [00:05:35]:
The point is, don't get gifts. It's cuz I love you.
Blaine Neufeld [00:05:40]:
I think we got to be very careful about this.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:05:42]:
You really worked that in his favor.
Blaine Neufeld [00:05:44]:
Okay, so, no. The way Blaine just took that, I would say no. That's not the. That's not the situation. So let's say the hot topic of gifts for later in the year, as we're getting into maybe near birthdays or things like that, we can discuss that, because I do have opinions on that, by the way.
Kevin Thompson [00:06:00]:
Yes.
Blaine Neufeld [00:06:01]:
And. Yeah.
Kevin Thompson [00:06:02]:
Well, maybe this is why. To trend number three, which we'll get right into, if I may take over, is the fact that many will continue to delay marriages. Talk about this, Kev. This is your trend. What are we thinking about this? Why do we think people are delaying their marriage and parenting?
Blaine Neufeld [00:06:19]:
Yes. So trend number three. Yes. That many will continue to delay marriage and parenting. So we're in a culture right now where people are choosing not to get married, and then those who do choose to get married are then choosing not to have kids. And it's a cultural issue that's going on. It's creating a great deal of a different lifestyle for now. What would be grandparents that aren't grandparents? This is a headline everywhere right now.
Blaine Neufeld [00:06:46]:
New York Times last month did a major story on it of this whole generation of people who are really excited. And, you know, they've heard their whole lives. There's nothing like grandkids. And they had their kids, they're all excited, and they've done. They've done all the tough work, and now they're at the stage, and their kids aren't getting married. And then they do get married, and then they hear the kids aren't going to have kids, and they're like, wait, what? And they feel robbed from this whole aspect of what culture is going to be. And so, yeah, I do see this is going to continue in 2025, I think. Delayed marriage.
Blaine Neufeld [00:07:17]:
And so we've talked about it on the show here before, this concept of the difference between a cornerstone marriage and a capstone marriage. So a cornerstone marriage is the idea of kind of, I'm going to build my life on top of this marriage. So one of the first things I'm gonna do is get married. As I'm trying to figure out my career, as we're trying to figure out where we're gonna live, all of that, and then together, we're gonna build the rest of this. That is the way marriage has been done forever. A capstone. I mean, a cornerstone experience. We've transitioned to where this generation now sees marriage as a capstone, A capstone being the last thing.
Blaine Neufeld [00:07:56]:
So we pick where we're gonna live, we pick what we're gonna do, we pick our life, we pick all these things, and then we try to find the perfect spouse to fit in. Going on. Interesting. So the difference between a cornerstone marriage and a capstone marriage is sometimes a decade. It's going to take you a decade to probably figure out who you are and what you want to do and where you're going to live and all those kind of things. And there's several dangers to that, I think. First of all, the danger of a cornerstone marriage is if you get married too early, your brain's not fully developed, you don't even know who you are yet, and the other person doesn't know who they are. There's a risk that's definitely there.
Blaine Neufeld [00:08:35]:
And we do encourage people to wait for. For maturity, all those kind of things. And statistics will show the longer you wait to get married, the more likely your marriage is to succeed. But with one caveat. As long as you're not bringing in a great deal of relationship baggage to that.
Kevin Thompson [00:08:53]:
Okay.
Blaine Neufeld [00:08:53]:
And so for a lot of people, they're delaying marriage, yet they're still having these relationships. And so the waiting doesn't help them. No, it is better to get married at 22 with no relationship baggage than at 30 with relationship baggage. And so. So there's dangers getting married early, no doubt. But I think there's a great deal of benefit in that. We are figuring this out together for sure. And yet couples right now, for whatever reason, they're putting career first, putting education first, putting all these things right? So we're where we live here.
Blaine Neufeld [00:09:29]:
We're very close. My daughter goes to School at UC Davis, one of the top 10 public institutions in America. And so I'm speaking to their grad students at one point. So These are all PhD students, right? All these things. And I just told them, I said, look, you can do whatever you want. There's nothing wrong with being single. Single is a very acceptable form of life. You can be very happy.
Blaine Neufeld [00:09:48]:
No question. However, here's what you have to recognize. One, you have to recognize that there is a very clear marriage advantage. Every statistic has shown us that people who are married tend to be about 15% happier than those who are single. Marriage leads to more happiness. That's just life. You have to admit that that's the case. And then the second thing is this.
Blaine Neufeld [00:10:09]:
Don't assume that the opportunities you have now to find somebody to marry will be here 10 years from now.
Kevin Thompson [00:10:16]:
No kidding.
Blaine Neufeld [00:10:17]:
Because they won't be the same.
Kevin Thompson [00:10:18]:
No kidding.
Blaine Neufeld [00:10:19]:
The options will be less. The options that are there will be more, different. They'll have different experiences again. They're more likely to have baggage of various kinds.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:10:27]:
Or kids, Right.
Blaine Neufeld [00:10:28]:
Yes. All those kind of things.
Kevin Thompson [00:10:30]:
And for me, it's just like the stress builds because it's like, as you got, as. As I am at 38 years old, I know what I like. I know what I want. And the box is smaller. Right before is like, I'd take anyone. Right.
Blaine Neufeld [00:10:43]:
Wow.
Kevin Thompson [00:10:44]:
Wow.
Blaine Neufeld [00:10:44]:
Wait, wait. What?
Kevin Thompson [00:10:46]:
She was next door, so it was convenient.
Blaine Neufeld [00:10:49]:
Yeah.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:10:49]:
I was just a convenience.
Kevin Thompson [00:10:51]:
It was. It's one of.
Blaine Neufeld [00:10:55]:
Send that for. For Valentine's Day. Right. You're. You're a month away from Valentine's Day for convenience.
Kevin Thompson [00:11:00]:
Valentine's Day, you'll do. But no, the. I think she's said this many times, too, is like, we've gone through seasons and journeys and we've shaped, you know, who we are, but we've changed ourselves many, many times.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:11:13]:
Right.
Kevin Thompson [00:11:14]:
You know, and because of that, we have a great marriage. I couldn't imagine, you know, not knowing this past of her and, like, doing all these things together.
Blaine Neufeld [00:11:23]:
Yeah.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:11:23]:
Because we got married really young, so we've grown like this. Instead, I Know couples who do that, they can grow like this. But luckily we've been blessed and we've grown together differently, but together in the same align. And when you're whatever in your 30s, you're already like this and now you have to try and come like this. So, yeah, I can see how that would be a challenge.
Blaine Neufeld [00:11:44]:
It can definitely be difficult. There's no question. And then not only that, then people aren't having kids for sure. And part of that is our own fault. It's because we are quick to run to social media. We are quick to talk around the metaphorical water cooler of oh my goodness, my kids. What they did.
Kevin Thompson [00:12:03]:
I don't want that.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:12:04]:
Right, but what's the line of just being honest and like sharing your burdens with someone, but also not trying to paint a bad picture of parenthood?
Blaine Neufeld [00:12:15]:
Yeah, well, I think you gotta give the full picture for one thing, is that there is all this meaning and value and love and affection that is there as well. We just are more prone to. And let's face it, you're a comedian aspiring. No, no, no. Just embrace it.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:12:32]:
Haven't been paid.
Blaine Neufeld [00:12:32]:
Just embrace it. That'll change. So just. But the funnier story stories are in the negative. I mean, there's no question, there's no question.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:12:43]:
They're more interesting.
Kevin Thompson [00:12:44]:
Yes, that's where she lives. In the negative.
Blaine Neufeld [00:12:46]:
Absolutely. I'm right here is blinking. Get kicked off the podcast.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:12:51]:
I can't hear you in the mic.
Kevin Thompson [00:12:52]:
Who is this guy?
Blaine Neufeld [00:12:53]:
You can be replaced.
Kevin Thompson [00:12:55]:
Aw.
Blaine Neufeld [00:12:56]:
So. And I think it's also who the audience is.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:13:00]:
True.
Blaine Neufeld [00:13:01]:
So I mean, if you're, you know, if you're with another mom and you're talking about the hardships of what you're both experiencing, well, you both probably know the good side.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:13:09]:
Like a close friend, you're like, oh, this is what my kid did today.
Blaine Neufeld [00:13:12]:
But when I'm on stage on a weekend and you know, we got a thousand people, 1500 people out in front of us, I need to be more intentional about sharing the good stories.
Kevin Thompson [00:13:21]:
Yeah.
Blaine Neufeld [00:13:22]:
Because I mean, here's one of the rules I've had from the very get go, because one of my pet peeves is for guys like me to get a cheap laugh from their spouse. The very thing that you're getting paid to do and the very thing that.
Kevin Thompson [00:13:33]:
I've done in this podcast. Right. So it's like the listener needs to know our marriage is so, so good that we can make this joke.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:13:40]:
And I love it. Like, I think it's funny.
Kevin Thompson [00:13:42]:
But at the Same time. It's for a cheap laugh. And that's too bad sometimes, but yes, well.
Blaine Neufeld [00:13:46]:
And that's. Y'all can work that out however you want to whenever we're done. That's why we're here. So my policy has always been this, that whenever I tell a story, that Jenny is always gonna be the hero and I'm gonna be the one the crowd looks at going, what? Like what? Even yesterday, I told a story. I tell it all the time. And in the story, it's the idea of me basically asking if I can miss our first anniversary. Well, clearly the crowd is going to side with Jenny.
Kevin Thompson [00:14:14]:
Well, it depends on what you're doing.
Blaine Neufeld [00:14:15]:
Come after me because I'm choosing golf over my wife. Right.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:14:20]:
I can relate.
Kevin Thompson [00:14:21]:
You can relate.
Blaine Neufeld [00:14:22]:
But think about that. It doesn't mean there aren't stories in which I might have been right and she was wrong. It's that those don't make the stage because I'm in the position of power. It would be cheap for me to use the position of power now to exploit her. And yet it draws the crowd in whenever I'm setting her up now as the hero. Not only that, it projects the strength of marriage.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:14:47]:
I think.
Blaine Neufeld [00:14:48]:
I think we gotta do the same thing with our kids. And so even with the kids, I do my best that whenever I'm telling those stories, the kid is the funny one. I'm the one who made the mistake. Right. And so I think in that way, we can begin to communicate the good side that goes on with marriage and parenting. And it doesn't all come down to that. Let's face it. There is an inward sense of selfishness that's also taking place, is that we live in a culture in which the self is now centered over everything else.
Blaine Neufeld [00:15:21]:
And parenting, you can't parent that way in a healthy way. No, Be the center. Correct.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:15:30]:
I think we should just clarify that we're not talking about people who can't have kids and like all those things. This is just for people who are choosing not to for whatever reason.
Blaine Neufeld [00:15:40]:
No, that's a great point to point out. And this is why we need a woman on the podcast that shouldn't just be blamed. And so. But, yeah, I think that's a vital point. And now there. And we don't have to go here now because it's not the point of the podcast, but there's a whole sociological ramification of the breakdown of the family of less marriage and less kids eventually will literally destroy a country economically. Destruction begins to take place. You Get a top heavy population.
Blaine Neufeld [00:16:09]:
That's how economies fall apart.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:16:11]:
What do you mean by top heavy?
Blaine Neufeld [00:16:13]:
Top heavy means they're older. So think about. This is a horrible way to describe it, and I'm not an economist. I think that's very important to recognize. But in some ways, all of society almost works like a pyramid scheme. Explain in that it is the younger who are at the bottom of the pyramid who are paying for the older who are at the top of the pyramid who are less. Because now over time, some have died and all that kind of thing. Well, whenever you start having a population decrease, when birth rates decrease, and I think you have to have.
Blaine Neufeld [00:16:43]:
I can't remember exactly what it is. It might be just like 2.1 kids per family, maybe it's like 1.8 to replace the population. Anytime you're having less kids, replace the population. Now you have a top heavy, an.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:16:55]:
Older population like China.
Blaine Neufeld [00:16:57]:
It happens in a lot of places and that is where there's a great deal of danger. So this is a whole topic for anthropologists, sociologists, all those kind of things. But just for us, on the practical ramifications, we have to admit that there's a great book out there called Get Married. I can't remember the author's name, he's a professor in Virginia. But he is just making the case of look statistically that now if you want to be single, you can be single.
Kevin Thompson [00:17:22]:
Absolutely.
Blaine Neufeld [00:17:23]:
However, there is a marriage advantage that is undeniable. Do you know that a married woman with kids is far happier than just a married woman, than just a woman in general without kids or without a husband? That statistically. And yet, if you look at what we're projecting from a societal standpoint, it's, oh, my goodness, I'm exhausted and this life is horrible. Well, you are exhausted, but life is also good. And the benefit that comes from it.
Kevin Thompson [00:17:51]:
It was interest. Think the. One of the reasons, let's say, put ourselves in this shoes of should we get married early or not? Even when we had gotten engaged, our dilemma was do we get married in six months or do we get married in 18 months because we're going to school, we're broke and we got, you know, do we marry, get married while we're just like dead broke and then somebody's like, you're going to be broke now or you're going to be broke together, you might as well do it with somebody, right? And it's just like.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:18:16]:
And then we got married in six.
Kevin Thompson [00:18:17]:
Months and it was, it was great. And we're Thankful that we kind of learned how to save and do things together along the way and made it our own. Together versus here's mine and here's yours. How do we get that? That's tough. Right? So it's like we've been blessed that we were able to go after that earlier, I think, too. But it's like. Yeah, it's. It's one of the reasons for sure.
Kevin Thompson [00:18:36]:
Financial, you know, being financially stable, or I have my career in line and career driven, all these things. It's just like. But how can we not do this where we still have the other person in mind, you know, in some degree or whatever the family picture looks like.
Blaine Neufeld [00:18:50]:
But go after those goals, especially in the culture in which we live now. I mean, our grandparents would have had one, maybe two jobs over their lives, so they literally had a career. That this is what I'm going to do for the rest of my life. Well, I mean, I've read stats that your kids will have, like, 15 jobs over their lifetime.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:19:10]:
I've had probably 15 jobs.
Blaine Neufeld [00:19:11]:
Oh, wow. There you go. So this idea that I'm going to wait till I have my career exactly where I want it. Well, your career is never going to be exactly where you want. You want it. And so why not? Why not come together? And also from a financial standpoint, it's actually cheaper to do it together.
Kevin Thompson [00:19:25]:
That's right.
Blaine Neufeld [00:19:26]:
Than. Than apart.
Kevin Thompson [00:19:27]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:19:28]:
Child tax benefits.
Blaine Neufeld [00:19:30]:
There we go.
Kevin Thompson [00:19:31]:
Yeah. More so in Canada. Yeah.
Blaine Neufeld [00:19:33]:
Such a Canadian.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:19:36]:
We make money.
Kevin Thompson [00:19:37]:
So they had them. Right.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:19:39]:
It was very helpful.
Kevin Thompson [00:19:40]:
Yes. Yes. Okay, Kev.
Blaine Neufeld [00:19:42]:
All right, number four. Here we go. Are you ready for this one? Prepare yourself for this one. This might be a little controversial, but I kind of like it. I think a trend that's going to continue, and it's primarily good, it has a few negative things to it. A trend that's going to continue is that women's expectations for men will continue to increase in 2025. Now, there's an assumption there, and I think I got to explain the assumption. The assumption is that there has been overall a general increase in expectation of mental by women.
Blaine Neufeld [00:20:16]:
That if we were to flip back 50 years ago, what was expected of a man in marriage, it was far less than what is expected now.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:20:26]:
And are we talking like, household responsibilities? Just like expectations in general, all of it. Okay. Parenting, we want you to be at the plays, too. At the soccer games. We want you to do the dishes.
Blaine Neufeld [00:20:38]:
Yes. Here's one place that this is playing out a lot, that maybe a lot of people don't recognize. But then I think it has ramifications in every generation. And it's this. Widows are not remarrying anymore, whereas they used to. Widowers desperately want to get married, and they're struggling to do so. They want to. If they can, they do it quick.
Blaine Neufeld [00:21:04]:
The old line is that women grieve, men replaced. But that's a whole psychological kind of concept.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:21:10]:
No, seriously, that does seem to be the truth.
Blaine Neufeld [00:21:13]:
Women actually grieve. What's going on. Men generally struggle to go there, and so they replace in order to cope. That's just life. And so. But here's the concept. Widowers still want to get married. So what's happened for generations is as a spouse dies, it's not uncommon at all for then for those people to remarry, the living spouse, the surviving spouse to remarry.
Blaine Neufeld [00:21:37]:
Both widows and widowers, a lot of times they marry each other. Right. You see this? Both spouses have died, and now they come together. And they have. Sometimes it can be even within a friend group, all those kinds of things. That's always been a thing. Well, something happened within the last 15 years in which that has changed just a little bit. And what they've discovered is this.
Blaine Neufeld [00:21:59]:
The widows don't want to get remarried. Do you know why?
Kevin Thompson [00:22:04]:
No.
Blaine Neufeld [00:22:04]:
There is a reason.
Kevin Thompson [00:22:05]:
No, go on.
Blaine Neufeld [00:22:07]:
They don't want the responsibility of raising a man.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:22:11]:
That's rich.
Blaine Neufeld [00:22:14]:
It really is the concept of what does he bring to the table? And so she loves her first husband and serves him well, and they have a great relationship. All those kind of things happen. He dies. And her choice is now I can either live my life, do my thing, take care of myself, or I can marry this guy over here, do my thing, do my life, and cook for him, clean for him, take care of him. And so what is he bringing to the table? If he's not bringing something important to the table, she's not gonna do it.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:22:57]:
I actually saw this in my grandparents. I don't know the exact ages, but older, 70s, 80s. And my grandma, after my grandpa died, she was like a new woman and, like, just funny and would laugh all the time. And her husband was not a bad man, but he, you know, maybe just stifled her a little bit. And she never remarried, but she seemed happy.
Blaine Neufeld [00:23:21]:
Oh, absolutely.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:23:22]:
And they are both amazing people. But, yeah, it was interesting that you say that.
Blaine Neufeld [00:23:27]:
Yeah. So I think we can take this now into every generation.
Kevin Thompson [00:23:31]:
Sure.
Blaine Neufeld [00:23:31]:
And again, there are some negatives here, but I think there's a lot of positives. Where it is now the expectation of the man to be just as involved in parenting as the woman, rightly so. It is just the same expectation for a man to be involved in what's going on around the household. All those things, I think all those expectations are actually very positive things. And those aspects need to continue. But we need to recognize that that's the case. And specifically, Blaine, for us as men now, we're currently married, and hopefully we'll do everything in our power to stay married. But even as we're talking to other guys, if they want to get married, great.
Blaine Neufeld [00:24:09]:
What do you bring to the table? Because if. And I don't understand where we have somehow lost this, that obviously whenever we're young and we're dating, we're courting, we're going after, we want to find somebody. We have to make the of your life is going to be better with me than it would be without me. And yet somewhere along the line, we lose that idea.
Kevin Thompson [00:24:31]:
And I wonder, too, if it's like the friendship and the partnership version of the piece that kind of folds into the older stages of life in this scenario where it's like, we bring more value than populating the earth to the marriage, right? So it's like if we have a partnership or we have a friendship, it's like the woman I want that. I want to be a part of that. You know, it's like, what do we really bring to the table? If it's like, okay, the grandkids are going, and grandma just serves everybody, and grandpa just sits there like this and serve me too. Well, what's the point? What? You know, and that's the value. It's like, I want to be a grandpa that is bringing value to the home of wisdom and fun and friendship and partnership with these goals that were set off to do so that, you know, not that because I want to be missed if I'm gone before her, but it's like. Because it's something that you want to be a part of, right? So it's like, what do you bring to the table? And I think it starts with the partnership piece, right? Where it's just like, I want to be more than just a lover to someone, right? So I want to be a partner and a friend to someone so that, you know, we can grow into something much more than just the human needs. Because my mind goes quickly to a woman that, okay, I need you to, you know, give me babies and the rest. I'll take care of it.
Kevin Thompson [00:25:44]:
You know, it's just like that's where we've gone a little bit in society. So therefore, what can we do as men to bring some more value to the table? Yeah, right.
Blaine Neufeld [00:25:51]:
No, absolutely. Yeah. And especially I think the idea of partnership is. I mean, think about it. If you're going to start a business and you wanted a business partner, you would have expectations of that business partner. If you're going to split the profits, they better bring something to the table. And I think we can move beyond just the gender stereotype within this. This is true for both genders.
Blaine Neufeld [00:26:14]:
You have to bring something to the table. I was watching a video yesterday. They're interviewing this couple walking down the street, and you never know if these things are staged or not. I get that. But they stopped this couple and they said, hey, are you guys a couple? And they're like, no, we're just great friends. And so then they begin to ask the woman, okay, so if a guy comes up right now with a gun, would you expect him, your buddy, to take care of that, to step in front of that? Oh, absolutely. He'd give his life for me. Okay, well, what does he get? Well, he gets a good friendship.
Blaine Neufeld [00:26:45]:
Well, hang on now. And so she's literally treating him like a husband without any of the benefits of the relationship and basically exploiting him. Now, that's not acceptable either.
Kevin Thompson [00:26:56]:
No.
Blaine Neufeld [00:26:57]:
Right. So I mean, the question I would ask him in this moment is, what does she bring to the table? Right. What is it that's going on? So both parties have to bring things to the table. And I think what we're seeing in the older generation, we're seeing this actually played out in the younger generation, too. There's a lot of young women who are looking at men going, what do you bring?
Kevin Thompson [00:27:17]:
What do you bring?
Adrienne Neufeld [00:27:17]:
Yeah.
Blaine Neufeld [00:27:18]:
And if they can't make the argument of, here's why life would be better with me, then that's gonna contribute to some of the things we talked about before, which is a lowering marriage rate because they don't have anything to bring.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:27:30]:
But I also think we have to be careful about that, because I can easily be like, this dude's never bought toothpaste in his life. I have to do that. But then I have to remind myself and be like, oh, he pays the bills. He does a lot of the things I don't have to think about. And so if you can be equally yoked, whatever, like, share the responsibilities, then one person doesn't feel like they're giving everything they have and not getting anything in return. So I think also, like, women and men have to be careful. Like, what are the expectations you're putting on your spouse? Because that could be unfair.
Blaine Neufeld [00:28:08]:
100%. And so that comes to the negative side of this. Right. I said it's mostly positive. It has a few negatives. What are the few negatives? That's one is if we're not very careful, we can actually begin to overlook the things our spouse is contributing and to not recognize that we play a role. And so I think one of the ways that we can overcome that now is through a basic. I mean, just a basic gratitude practice.
Blaine Neufeld [00:28:35]:
A regular sit down. Why am I grateful for Blaine? You and I could both benefit from this. Why am I grateful for Blaine? What does he bring? What does he do? And to remind yourself of things that are easy to overlook. Oh, yeah. The other day, whenever our kid got sick and we went and we. Insurance paid for it. Oh, yeah. That's actually something his job brings to the table.
Blaine Neufeld [00:28:56]:
Right. So that's a.
Kevin Thompson [00:28:57]:
Are we not doing it? Are we not saying what we're grateful for Blaine for?
Blaine Neufeld [00:29:00]:
No.
Kevin Thompson [00:29:00]:
Okay.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:29:01]:
We're fine.
Blaine Neufeld [00:29:02]:
We'll save that for. People can post on changetheods.com, all the ways they're grateful for Blaine. So I think that's an important aspect, is to have that kind of gratitude practice, to recognize what's taking place and how to go on about that. But here's what you gotta watch out for. There is a little bit of an expectation right now that it's too high, which is he is supposed to meet all my needs. He is supposed to be absolutely perfect in what he does. A complete fit. Everything's taking place.
Blaine Neufeld [00:29:33]:
My best friend. And he should just know what I think and anticipate all my needs. And basically, what people are looking for, in part in a husband, if we're not careful, is they're looking for a really good girlfriend and not a guy. And that's just a bad expectation that there is a reason God created us differently and there's a benefit. And that's also one of the reasons that we need friends. Your spouse is supposed to be your best friend, but not your only friend.
Kevin Thompson [00:30:02]:
That's right.
Blaine Neufeld [00:30:03]:
We need these other relationships because your spouse was never meant to. To fulfill every emotional need that you have.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:30:09]:
They can't.
Blaine Neufeld [00:30:10]:
And yet in our culture, we've kind of almost got the wrong expectation even on what marriage itself can do. And so. And is it possible that's some of the cause of the unhappiness? Is we now expect. Think about this. Many people now expect from this one relationship called marriage, what generations ago would have expected from all of society. So in generations ago, families would have been larger, would have been closer together, more friendships, more sense of community. And so I would have all my emotional needs fulfilled in the midst of this much larger context. Well, now we've become so isolated that for many people, maybe sometimes the only relationship they have is their marriage relationship.
Blaine Neufeld [00:30:57]:
And now the expectation is upon you to fulfill every aspect of that.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:31:01]:
And that's going to crush them.
Blaine Neufeld [00:31:03]:
Oh, can't do it.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:31:03]:
No, no.
Blaine Neufeld [00:31:04]:
Absolutely impossible to do it.
Kevin Thompson [00:31:06]:
And we've seen, I've seen many husbands try, right. And this idea of like trying to figure out everything your wife is thinking and it's just an absolute no win scenario to trying to fulfill all her needs. And what we're really trying to do is like, well, actually just go hang out with the girlfriends. Like go take some time with the girlfriends because I'm not going to be able to do that. But yet he's trying to figure out the perfect gifts and the things and the thought that it, you know, and it's impossible, but the expectation on him is being put and it's interesting.
Blaine Neufeld [00:31:34]:
So we need to both ways. We need to. Right. Size our expectations. There are some expectations that actually that have increased and that need to continue to increase. There are other expectations I think that have shown up that aren't fair and they need to be decreased. And let's face it, there are some expectations we've given up on that we need to bring back, which is first and foremost, your spouse is meant to be an adult. Marriage is a game for adults.
Blaine Neufeld [00:31:59]:
And yet what I see so often is when relationships go bad, it really does become a parent child relationship. It just gets toxic in every way and that's not a good place to be.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:32:09]:
Well, can I just say one thing? The other day I had to, I was like, hey, can you not play Lego until everyone is ready for school in the morning? To Blaine.
Blaine Neufeld [00:32:20]:
Okay.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:32:21]:
So it felt like a little bit. I've had moments where I'm like, I have four children today and it is not fun.
Blaine Neufeld [00:32:27]:
There you go. Yes. Legos.
Kevin Thompson [00:32:29]:
I was playing with my child.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:32:30]:
I don't know. I don't think you were.
Blaine Neufeld [00:32:32]:
You were preparing.
Kevin Thompson [00:32:33]:
Yeah, it was. Yeah.
Blaine Neufeld [00:32:33]:
You were preparing before.
Kevin Thompson [00:32:35]:
Yeah, the new year. Before the new year, we were playing Christmas. We created a Christmas village. And you know, try to justify this a little bit here as a family. We like to do this. Now, Cash, my oldest, loves us as well, but at the same time he had Actually disappeared for about 15 minutes. So. In fact, I was.
Blaine Neufeld [00:32:49]:
So you were. You were playing by yourself. Legos by yourself with three kids.
Kevin Thompson [00:32:53]:
Lunches weren't made, breakfast wasn't okay, and.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:32:56]:
School actually had been a little bit of a tension point.
Blaine Neufeld [00:32:58]:
Legos.
Kevin Thompson [00:32:59]:
Yeah.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:32:59]:
Well, just the morning.
Kevin Thompson [00:33:00]:
Morning routine.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:33:01]:
One time. I. Anyways, I won't air our dirty laundry.
Kevin Thompson [00:33:04]:
Yeah, please.
Blaine Neufeld [00:33:05]:
Is that the next episode?
Kevin Thompson [00:33:08]:
Next marriage.
Blaine Neufeld [00:33:08]:
Hot Topic. We might work through the morning routine.
Kevin Thompson [00:33:12]:
Oh, we should.
Blaine Neufeld [00:33:12]:
That's. See, it's. It's over for me. I don't have to worry about the morning routine anymore.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:33:16]:
I mean, it's a struggle, I'm sure, for many kids are gone, so.
Kevin Thompson [00:33:20]:
And then there's also a conversation that we had about firstborn versus oh, yeah.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:33:24]:
I'm first born and he's the baby. Whatever.
Kevin Thompson [00:33:27]:
We get there, when we get there, it's no big deal.
Blaine Neufeld [00:33:28]:
And she's like, oh, yeah, no, yeah, birth order matters.
Kevin Thompson [00:33:32]:
It does matter.
Blaine Neufeld [00:33:33]:
Yeah. There's actually a guest we could have on that. Go. Dies deep into that. We can have that. All right, we got to go to number five.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:33:39]:
Sorry, sorry.
Blaine Neufeld [00:33:40]:
Here we go. No, we're good. So this is the fifth trend, 2025. Right. And it's this. The primary question for marriage will shift from will we survive? To how can we flourish now, here's what we're doing. We're prophesying into a future because we're going to shift that question. Here's what I'm tired of.
Blaine Neufeld [00:34:02]:
See, I can't even be tired of it. That's inappropriate. But let's talk real, just for a moment, as if we've been lying up to this point. Here's what I've grown weary of. Every single marriage asking the question, how can we survive now? If that's where somebody is right now, that's where they are. You need to fight for that marriage. You need to answer that question. You need to figure out, can we survive or not? All those things.
Blaine Neufeld [00:34:24]:
Okay, that's fine. That is an appropriate question at times, but for most people, that is not the question we need to pursue. My goal would change the odds. My goal is not, oh, we just have more marriages survive. That's what we've changed the odds. Less divorce, more marriages, surviving. That's not success. Success for me is I want to change the odds of your chances of flourishing to where you look back on your life and go, you know what? What are the top two or three things that ever happened to me in my life was that marriage.
Blaine Neufeld [00:34:56]:
And it was that. And then for us to be so passionate about it, how can we grow it? How can we make it better? Man, this is great. Now, what if we got 10% better? What would 10% better look like? You wouldn't be fighting over Legos. What would that look like if you were just 10% better? If that morning routine became 10% better.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:35:16]:
Oh, yeah, your life would change.
Blaine Neufeld [00:35:18]:
How great would that be?
Kevin Thompson [00:35:19]:
The Evening routine gets 10% better.
Blaine Neufeld [00:35:21]:
Yes.
Kevin Thompson [00:35:21]:
You know what I'm saying?
Blaine Neufeld [00:35:22]:
That's exactly what you're doing.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:35:23]:
I know where you're heading.
Blaine Neufeld [00:35:24]:
We see where that went. So this concept, we're going to work hard in the year to come to change the question for most people, because if the question is just, how can we survive? Okay, you know what? I can give you some tools. There are some skills you can learn. There's some habits you can incorporate. And you know what? I bet you we can keep a lot of people together. Not everybody. Not everybody was meant to stay together. Some people, literally, some people, you need to leave your spouse.
Blaine Neufeld [00:35:51]:
The marriage is horrible. They're abusive, they're addicted. It's just not going to work. But for most, yeah, I can help you survive. But why? Why is that the bar? In what other area of life am I thinking to myself of, oh, man, if I can just be. If I can just endure. If I can just endure this conference, If I can just endure a book, what kind of life is that? Why not succeed and why not try to flourish it? So, I mean, from a biblical standpoint, this is Psalm 1. The whole picture of a tree planted by streams of water whose leaf flourishes in every season.
Blaine Neufeld [00:36:29]:
The picture of flourishing is the biblical example of life. That's what marriage is supposed to be. So what can that look like? And what would it look like if we change this question?
Kevin Thompson [00:36:38]:
And it's so exciting for us because I think a couple of. Maybe a month or so ago, we had a conversation of, like, this is what we're. We have a pretty good marriage. It's pretty good, right? It's good. It's not great. There's a tagline of ours, right? But at the same time, how can we make it great? Like, we want to. We don't want to deal with the lowering the bar. We want to push it all the way up.
Kevin Thompson [00:36:58]:
How can we be a power couple? How can we have this mission for Jesus that is so exciting that every day we just want to work on this marriage. And the Lego fight is not 15 minutes. It's one minute.
Blaine Neufeld [00:37:09]:
Shoot.
Kevin Thompson [00:37:10]:
I'm sorry, babe. Legos down. I forgot. My bad.
Blaine Neufeld [00:37:13]:
I can't believe we're having this actual conversation.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:37:15]:
See what I mean?
Blaine Neufeld [00:37:19]:
All right. Hey, maybe we need to go back to can we survive? Maybe that. Maybe that needs to be the question.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:37:24]:
Burn all Legos. Step one.
Kevin Thompson [00:37:26]:
And it's one time a year, babe. Like the Christmas.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:37:31]:
Funny. I think it's funny that I said it to you and not the kids. That's the point.
Blaine Neufeld [00:37:34]:
That is a funny.
Kevin Thompson [00:37:36]:
That's a comedy bit working.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:37:37]:
As soon as I said it, I was like, that's pretty good.
Blaine Neufeld [00:37:39]:
It's research.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:37:39]:
Yeah.
Blaine Neufeld [00:37:40]:
See, I mean, that's just research.
Kevin Thompson [00:37:41]:
Yeah.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:37:42]:
Yeah.
Kevin Thompson [00:37:43]:
But anyway, do you not agree, like, we want to be the best version of ourself?
Adrienne Neufeld [00:37:48]:
A power couple, if you will.
Kevin Thompson [00:37:50]:
Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah.
Blaine Neufeld [00:37:52]:
I just think there's an opportunity that's out there. That. And here's the thing. Here's where I think the beauty comes in. It's one thing for Jenny and I to love each other. Well, and there's a beauty in that. And there's a benefit to that to Ella and Silas and to her family and my family and others as well. But to me, when marriage is really doing what marriage is supposed to be, the love that Jenny and I share for each other actually begins to ripple into everything we touch.
Blaine Neufeld [00:38:21]:
And everybody else is benefiting now from what God is empowering us to do for each other. And whenever you reach that level, that, to me, begins to change absolutely everything. And the sense of gratitude that then comes from that of, I cannot believe that God has given me the opportunity to love this woman in this time, in this place, in this way, and then to allow other people to benefit from just what we're experiencing together. And absolutely, there's tough days and there's dumb fights and there's all those things, but even then, they're couched in a much broader context of thankfulness, whereas I think so many couples are just in a survivor mindset. And then every small fight becomes another ding of, oh, I don't know if we're gonna make it or not.
Kevin Thompson [00:39:11]:
So what are, like, one or two things? Is it a goal? How do you get scooped out of this? Oh, we're just surviving, too. I want to turn the corner here, and I actually want to start thriving. What are some practical things where a couple that's listening says, let's try this for a month. Let's see where it goes. What do they do?
Blaine Neufeld [00:39:27]:
Yeah. So I think step number one is to create a true emotional connection. And so what is that going to require? That's going to require some time, some intention, some attention. As we talked about in the previous episode. Right. I mean, the very first chapter of Friends, Partners, Lovers, I know you all know it well, is that the number one cause of divorce is not adultery. It's not social media. It's not money.
Blaine Neufeld [00:39:50]:
It's not communication. It is apathy. People drift into bad relationships, so it is intentional. Now that brings them back into good relationships, and so they can move. To me, that's how we get them to survive, is they begin to catch this idea of, oh, I have not been dealing with this intentionally. Let me deal with this intentionally. And then as they begin to build on that, then they begin to recognize the question has suddenly changed because things are getting better. And once you feel known and seen and valued and loved and connected, all those needs are met, then it empowers you to begin to learn some skills to just make life easier.
Blaine Neufeld [00:40:30]:
And so suddenly, a communication skill. If you don't have emotional connection, learning how to communicate well will simply make the divorce much more peaceful. Oh, interesting, right?
Kevin Thompson [00:40:40]:
Yeah.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:40:40]:
Yeah.
Blaine Neufeld [00:40:41]:
But if you have an emotional connection, then learning how to communicate well suddenly makes life easier.
Kevin Thompson [00:40:46]:
Totally.
Blaine Neufeld [00:40:47]:
Learning how to handle money well, now suddenly, suddenly we got these other resources, and we're not fighting over this issue anymore. The emotional. It all begins with the emotional connection. And then they begin to layer all these skills on top of it of how to just navigate life in an easier way. What does it look like to have a set of family values to where we're not dealing every single day trying to figure out what's the punishment for what this kid just did? 1. Did they violate a rule? Was that clearly communicated? If so, what's the punishment for that? To where every single day we're playing the role of judge, and it's tiresome, and it's confusing for the kid because they don't know what judge they're gonna get that day. If the parent feels great, they're gonna get a happy judge that laughs off the mistake that they just made. If the parent is upset, they're gonna get a harsh judge who actually made up a rule that's never been communicated, and they're experiencing a punishment they didn't even know existed.
Kevin Thompson [00:41:40]:
Right.
Blaine Neufeld [00:41:41]:
And so. So what would it. But here's the thing. You can have all the family values you want. If you don't feel known, seen, loved, valued, connected, taken care of, none of those things are going to matter. So it all begins with emotional connection, and then it moves on to the skills that then Come next.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:41:57]:
And could we say that maybe just a starting point for couples who are like, I don't even know how to start an emotional connections. Go have fun. Go do something fun together. Go laugh together. Go just. Just find what you thought about that person when you were dating. Like, go date again.
Kevin Thompson [00:42:14]:
Oh, I love dating.
Blaine Neufeld [00:42:15]:
No, that's great.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:42:16]:
I don't know. Cause when I'm thinking, when I feel, like, disconnected from Blaine, I just. Quality time is my love language. And I'm just like, we need to do something fun. We need to go laugh together. And that just sparks.
Kevin Thompson [00:42:27]:
Yeah. And it's interesting how often we want to. Quality time would also be another couple there. Right? Let's just go have fun. We're good now it is okay. We gotta do this thing together. And that's where we sync up nicely. But go laugh.
Kevin Thompson [00:42:43]:
Yeah. Go have fun. Go do something. Yeah, that's cool. And I'm just thinking about how we. We learned a little bit of that. That emotional connection. And then the communication layer really developed in our relationship to the now where it's like, get off the lego.
Kevin Thompson [00:42:59]:
You know, it's the funny as it is, but it's like, I got you. Because we know.
Adrienne Neufeld [00:43:03]:
Because he respects me and I respect him.
Kevin Thompson [00:43:05]:
Yeah. And it's just like, it's not. No, I worked hard. I'm playing Lego. I'm relaxing. No, no, no, no. And we also don't take ourselves, like, all that serious. Like, we're pretty humble to one another.
Kevin Thompson [00:43:15]:
It's like, I don't deserve you, you don't deserve me. And it's just like, what a blessing. The gratitude piece. It's just like, oh, my gosh. Thank you so much, Lord Jesus. Therefore, I'm gonna just. Yeah. Submit myself to this, because this is a gift.
Kevin Thompson [00:43:28]:
Right? So we don't think that we've earned this. We've been blessed by it. Therefore, we just want to have a compound and more and more.
Blaine Neufeld [00:43:35]:
Right, Absolutely. One of our principles here at change the odds is, look, if your marriage is halfway decent, then what do you need to do to kind of stay in marital shape? Then you probably need to every other year, take a concentrated period of time and work on your marriage. You don't have to do it all the time, but every other year. All right, well, 20, 25. This is an odd number of year. Let's work this odd year to work on your marriage. And if you do that, I think that can actually begin to change the odds of what's going on. One love it.
Blaine Neufeld [00:44:04]:
All right. I love it. Five trends for 2,025. It's going to happen. All right, Great to see you all. Thanks.