0:00 [Music] welcome back to JK out of the closet we got Nick back and today we're talking about laugh the fourth most pivotal moment in his life which is hilarious to Anthony Lee apparently so you and Tiff obviously met as children basically we met as children at the ripe age of 15 years old did that make you feel kind of p n cuz she's older than me actually she's older than me by a month oh cradle robber yeah she's the one um so yeah we the story short story is like we've been in high school we're dating ever since in 2019 we got engaged I got on one knee and I popped the question which was at 20 I was 20 no no no 20 I feel like you've never told us what made you want to do that so soon well also I'd like also when when did you know she was the one I guess that's not that soon how did
0:51 you know she was the one you know like the whole like honestly I didn't know for real still didn't know like that whole concept of like still not sure yeah the whole concept of like she's the one to me is like I kind of don't really jet Le thing but I think the the the anything about Nick what I've learned is he doesn't do anything with conviction yeah yeah yeah he is aing I'll say this if anything I did with conviction my life it is Mary and Tiff it's like as our relationship because but you didn't do it prior to from the jump like the one thing I took seriously in my life was Tiff was my relationship with Tiff cuz I saw how my parents grew up not grew up I saw my parents growing up I saw my parents were married Looper baby yeah yeah and seeing how they engage with each other and seeing what kind of
1:42 distress it caused both sides right and I just remember being like I do not want this in my life like and that was the one thing I felt confident on is that why you didn't want to be a sound guy I knew I didn't have a passion for it I could give two ████ about sound EDI yeah unfortunately so sorry Dad if you're watching he knows I wanted to be a s he put me in karate it's his ████ fault as a young age you know but he said even when I was like when I was a little kid I was just doing Kung Fu all the time okay I just was like it was just drawn kick in the air and ████ so anyway so uh going back to tip like that was the one thing I put and I worked really hard on and I felt like my mindset going in was very clear of making sure our relationship was good even from the beginning like whatever I could do to be a good partner communicating not letting fights get to a point where we never talked about
2:32 anything and we just kind of push it off and have resentment so anytime we had a big issue I knew that we had to talk about it cuz if we didn't it was going to come back up um just observing my family and observing my parents oh okay how are you able to have the tools cuz I feel like in most people people like take a couple relationships to learn this where in the beginning when you guys have fights and you guys are talking it out it's usually one person trying to prove their Point mhm mhm and it's not until maybe couple relationships in where it's like oh ████ like if you really want to work things out it's really trying to hear each other out and not one person beating the other person but like where are you coming from um like how are you guys able to work that out within the first relationship so obviously like that is a master skill of like being able to understand where somebody's coming from and sometimes like what
3:23 they're saying is not like what the actual issue is right so it's like you do have to be you have to look out for different signs right obviously the context is really important but growing up I would always see my family just fight all the time like my sisters my mom you know Grandma and all this ████ like everybody was just yelling all the time and just screaming and I was always just kind of like in the back like what the ████ is going on right my dad would just throw ████ slam ████ you know people like it would just it would just be chaos no real conversations could be had um and I just realized like this can't be it like okay this is what I've been seeing my whole life and then growing up I just kind of always want to be a natural like Peacemaker like hey just chill chill chill chill like let's not we don't got to yell we don't got to scream and it wasn't until I started
4:14 getting older and like maybe like mid 20s where I would see my parents and my sisters and my dad like argue with each other like pretty crazy and I had the confidence to be like hey like chill like everyone stop cuz that was like a big thing for me cuz before I would never I would just sit in the back and be like mhm can everyone just get along you know that ████ little stupid kid well you were the youngest yeah exactly I like I hate when everyone's fighting um but and then I became kind of like you know I started fighting a little bit like one time my my dad and my uncle were trying to ████ fight in the middle of the front lawn no way my dad was my dad was trying to ████ sock out my uncle uncle is in his brother yeah his brother his youngest brother you like the sound on Indian Jones is whack you call those footsteps I didn't even s like a boulder they were talking about some family ████ like some deep rooted like
5:04 you know and they were like squiring off and like for once in my life I stepped in the middle like hey ████ chill like and then they actually like stopped and I was able to diffuse the situation right but before nobody would be there to do anything it just kind they just start throwing down they probably would have or something they're looking at your cauliflower ear they're like all right I will stop it wasn't even that it was just like hey like we got to whatever this is and they knew right away as soon as like cuz as you need someone to snap you out of that situ but anyways so seeing that throughout my entire life maybe understand that I didn't want that for our own relationship I didn't want us to be able to have this weird relationship where we're fighting all the time and we just never move forward from whatever issues that we had yeah so it and it was it was more just like day it was just actions every time we had a fight I was like no we got to sit down and talk we got to talk talk talk talk talk even though as
5:54 much as she didn't want to but I was like Stern on that and then over the years you do that more you get you get more feedback from each other you understand that like oh when my partner has a problem with me instead of trying to fix everything right away you just sit down you shut the ████ up you listen and even if it hurts your feelings and your ego a little bit and your pride you do have to at the end of the day you just want to come to a deal and how do we move forward together like how do we get on the same page and make sure that we're living a life that we both want cuz if I'm living a life that I want and you don't have a life that you want and you don't have a relationship that you imagin in your head or whatever and in 5 years from now we're going to get a divorce we're resentment resentment builds over time and that's what I saw in my parents like I saw resentment build up from and it was just stuff that they never disclosed to each
6:45 other right and it was when I had a conversation with my dad about like his issues with my mom like one day he just blew up cuz I I I I went to him and I was like I was like how could you even say that to your mom blah blah blah like giving him ████ about something and then he gave me he gave me his whole side and I was like like oh ████ like this is actually I I understand where you're coming from I didn't think she was a ████ yeah Mom why got to be such a Bach cuz in my eyes my mom was always right and my mom my dad was always the problem right cuz my mom would always complain and talk ████ about my dad all the time be like this guy ████ sucks blah but you would hear more about your mom's opinion than your dad's so I thought that was that was the right side right and then by the way and I I I this happened to me too it's messed up of our mom want to do that ████ cuz it's like they're actually like putting us into a hole for sure they know what they're
7:35 doing with that too but some of the other things though too is like my mom just had this is my opinion this take this with a grain of salt but from what I saw my mom she just didn't really have any coping methods like she didn't have anything for herself her life was just the kids y doing everything in a house and then just being burnt out all the time and it was like who's doing anything for her right and my dad was burnt out from working all the time right and he came home he just want to like ████ kick back and there was just like a disconnect like there was an intentionality behind like going on like date nights like they didn't do things with each other and when you just go through your life just doing the things that needs to get done for your family and work and all that you realize that like you could really easily get disconnected from your partner and the past two years I kind of had that with Tiff like where we're like oh ████ like we're just going fast fast fast I was just working working working where I'm
8:26 like oh yeah we're not spending intentional time and we're not putting the work into our relationship that we need to kind of have legs right cuz you got to like you got to put all the time and effort that you did to get the girl and you kind of have to do that for your whole life right like to keep that relationship you can't as soon as you get complacent you know that's when the chaos starts to happen and you know I saw a little we we've had like issues like that where we're not spending time and we have arguments and I'm not I feel like I'm not being seen But then all it really takes is some intentional sitting down and spending time and you know little cuddles little kisses so was that a recent thing or is it like um is this something you learned early on and you're like oh ████ this is why I should propose like is it pre-proposal or post- proposal that was like after we got
9:16 married because like he's talk the last two years yeah like when you get married like I didn't think it was going to be a big change and it ████ it was like like having that official title when we found out like okay so we picked our wedding date and we got in 2020 in Co like July um we picked our date and we had to do the wedding the next day I was so ████ nervous I've never been that nervous in my life night for any fight I was so nervous to get married the next day it was just crazy it just felt like nervous I have no idea cuz the show's called out the closet because I don't know it's also like you're jumping into something with somebody that you you obviously know really well like I knew Tiff very well like we were two peas in a pot but then there's that fear right of like okay sometimes for for people when they get married it's a death sentence for that exact reason that I
10:06 said where people get complacent oh we're married now we're legally tied together there's nothing you could do to you know there's a whole barrier to to get divorced and separate that's like the whole thing so soon as we got married and all merging our families together was a big deal too seeing that Dynamic of my family is so different than their family having to come together that was like things that we had to work through that I didn't see coming I didn't think that would be an issue at all and then getting really tested with like when I think 20 what year was it 2022 Tiff got diagnosed with like a rare condition she doesn't really want me to disclose like the name of it so I'm not going to but she got she got
10:56 diagnosed with a rare condition and it was just like it just kind of shook our ████ world right and it it really made it made it really clear of like she's my family like she's my next of King like she's my right like this it changes completely she's not just my girlfriend yeah like and wife is you know I don't know how people feel about the title of wife but in my yeah in my head it's like wife is a title but like family is like a different level in that way right like when she took my last name I was like oh ████ this is like she's your responsibility now yeah like I have to look over her and she has to look over me and all my decisions up in that point were all just like whatever I wanted it was just I only had to think about myself and then now getting married and going through this whole process is like oh ████
11:46 like my livelihood is her livelihood I need to make sure I could support her no matter what and I have to change how I do everything now like I have to be a ████ adult like I can't be a little kid anymore I can't have all these excuses about things that I can't get done or whatever and I have to kind of man up a little bit like that's how I felt when we got married and then seeing Tiff just go through her medical like this journey of her getting diagnosed and all the ████ that she has to go through I was like it just made everything so ████ real it made all these other problems that I had in my head just not doesn't ████ matter and our only objective at this point is like making sure that she's okay and getting the treatment that she needs and it's weird how all the other things in my life that I really ████ cared about just kind of fell by the
12:37 wayside and having our family just come together for this one and Soul Purpose was something I didn't really I didn't expect and I didn't think it was going to have that big of an impact on how I was going to have to change as a person like I don't know just this past year has just been so crazy um um watching Tiff get diagnosed with something that not her fault came out of nowhere they can't figure out why she has this right and a lot of the first stages when Tiff got this was like why me like why why um and that was like just really hard because just there's nothing I could do I'm just watching her suffer and I was just kind of on the outside and all I had to do was try to support and it it's just frustrating cuz it's like you wish you could like you wish that was me like ████ I'd rather deal
13:28 with that than you damn so and and learning how to move forward despite that because you do have all these other responsibilities that you have to keep up and you're spinning so many multiple plates and sometimes it's overwhelming you're like ████ like I don't know how people do this but what and another thing that kind of put it in perspective was our neighbor this lady that we live with for like four or five years older couple really sweet she finally retired she was 65 years old she got diagnosed with um brain tumors 6 at 65 she just retired this is like a month after her retirement this is your neighbor this is my neighbor she had plans on you know traveling with her husband they all these PL and they're they're the best neighbors I could ever asked for she you know and then I slowly see her I watch her deteriorate right I see the I see the stress and all the the
14:18 pain that um her husband had to deal with and you see that and you know like this this dude's like crying on my shoulders in their ████ driveway cuz he's like I don't know what the ████ to do God damn bro but and then it's like yeah while we're dealing with our ████ which is very like it's awful right but it's a good perspective cuz it's like oh it could always be worse and it doesn't ████ matter yeah that's true this ████ could hit you in the face and you know like and then you just go like oh ████ like this is all I really have yeah is just the people around me my family my community and those are the people that keep you strong and keep you uh focused to to get through it and you know my neighbor she passed right she passed in like 3 months and you're just like ████ dude this is crazy that's quick heartbreaking cuz you see you're seeing it from the beginning she was
15:08 completely normal damn and by the time she left she she was a shell of herself like she wasn't the same person right cuz she was deteriorating and um it just made us very thankful for for kind of what we have despite having this really crazy medical condition that's you know it's it's very sobering I guess like it's a it's a slap in the face it's like at least you still have her cuz it's like when you're in it you're probably not even thinking that that's a possibility but then your neighbor is going through that same thing at the same time and you're like well yeah damn and then and at that point it's like you're faced with okay you could feel all these different emotions of getting this really terrible news and then watching Tiff just go like cuz I think for for the specific condition that she has half of the
15:59 people just give up cuz it's a it's a degenerative disease it it only gets worse right when you say give up like they just let the dis go to treatment or nothing they go to treatment or until it's too late until they have to like amputate or something like something crazy but watching Tiff be so proactive with her own treatment with her own doctor's appointments like and she and you know anyone that's dealt with the medical industry it's like you really do have to fight for every single ████ inch that they give you anytime they pay for something you got to fight for everything and to watch her despite all this and and like trying to make sense of everything that's been happening but still being able to push through and saying ████ that no just keep going keep going keep going and to really like go all in on herself and to really take care of all things that she needed to do was like wow man I am so ████ lucky
16:51 to have this person on life you know cuz like that's going to be the future mother of my kids yeah it's uh it's cool that's it's cool to see but I'm very thankful to have my lady you know yeah you shut the ████ up dude I'm not going to ████ cry you're going to cry no that's awesome dude for D no we got two more minutes dud yeah we're good you ever think though cuz like this is like such a crazy thing for her to go through and like I know it's like it's like man it's like I I wish I could take it all on or whatever but do you ever just think why couldn't this have happened to Anthony oh my God obviously this is like an insane thing and so my mom went through cancer we talked about that but but one of the things I asked my dad one time that was kind of wild is and then I want to ask you is like um how are you
17:41 doing man cuz cuz doing ████ like this it's always like obviously Tiff is the one going through ████ sucks but like your neighbor had to hug you in the in the street cuz he didn't want his wife to see that he's going through it yeah yeah yeah no man it's it's definitely hard but you know it's like we're lucky that we're seeing progress because Tiff was so proactive because she's so like whether it's nurotic or she's anxious or whatever it doesn't matter but she's still just like I just follow her lead man we just we just deal with what what's right in front of us and I feel like it's the easiest way to deal with it so she's getting better and better though yeah like thankfully like you know we we don't know what's going to happen in the next couple months like we we're going through all this treatment she's busting
18:31 her ████ ass that's what really matters is that if she wasn't busting her ass to to to get herself better or just to pull herself out of the situation then you know then it would be way harder but in my eyes all I could really do is just keep telling her like especially on the hard days where it feels like she's not making any progress I just keep reiterating like hey we are making progress and it's hard for her to see cuz she's so close to it right and she's the one feeling it and internalizing it but I tell her all the time like we're it's getting better it's getting better like there's hope there's hope and like that's what I kind of have to do because it's like whether you think I saw her do it early like she was thinking very negatively like this is over I don't know what I'm going to do I
19:21 don't I'm not going to be able to do anything in my life Dam you know like ████ like that where I go crazy and we didn't know the landscape of of what this disease was what the treatment looks like at the time early in La when we were in La we had we've been having to go to Cleveland because there's um really good Specialists out there but in La we're getting contradictory advice from doctors everywhere we go specialist people are like hey you got to Hey doctor you got to come here take a look at this ████ this is crazy this is the most rare condition I've ever seen like somebody said was like oh you're you're a zebra amongst horses you ever heard that that that phrase that like no bedside ████ when you hear when you hear hes outside is it horses or zebras right so it's like we so we're seeing stuff like this and we're just like sheesh what the
20:11 ████ is happening like what is this right so we don't know what her life is going to be like and everyone's telling you like ah you got to live with it oh it's over and there was no like potential for cure at the time um and then this specialist is like yo I got like my record is like 99% like I'm really good at this ████ and he's like the he's badass oh in that specific thing in that specific disease and he's like the Leading Edge of of this uh industry and he's our surgeon right like and Tiff made that ████ ████ happen she sought this dude out she she had to jump through so many goddamn Hoops to get this ████ guy and she got this guy to treat her you know so it's like man this chick is badass bro it's really cool to see are the medical bills pretty crazy or is it all covered under insurance she she's finding a way to make that work she's making she's
21:03 finding a way to to do the but but because she works on industry she knows that really well so she knows how to like navigate that and then you know we've also had tons of friends and and family like from our community like hey dude like I have family in the insurance industry B I can help you out so it's like dude you just feel so much like warmth and um you just feel very grateful for the people around you and you're like man like this is what it's really about like whatever self like whatever things that I've I whatever weird pressures I put on myself to be this person or whatever that ████ just went out the window bro I was like nope this is this is what really matters you know so yeah it's pretty crazy it's pretty crazy thanks for sharing man thanks for stepping out of the closet uh that's how yeah heavy good ████ we never had this Nick until now it only took 5 years 5 years yeah
21:54 you guys are trying to do this whole ████ new series I was like ████ damn we call him the man the man of a million chances I didn't want to do this Bart made us do this Bart made us this is the new JK it's turning into a AA meeting and ████ yeah honestly ah damn man going to be pissed that I talked about this sorry babe love you
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