Let me set the scene for you guys. I’m currently sitting here, sipping on my absolute lifeline—a Philz Tesora with heavy cream and sugar, obviously—while Daisy is snoring her little Shih Tzu head off right next to me. I’m taking a rare, quiet moment before the chaos of the day begins, because today, we are throwing a massive party.
It was recently my husband’s birthday, and honestly, the planning and the celebrating have had me deep in my feelings. I found myself doing something I do a lot when life gets quiet for a second: I started reminiscing. I’m just looking back at the timeline of our relationship, the years we’ve spent, the life we are still building, and I am incredibly proud of the man my Mo has become today.
Finding a Partner with Emotional Intelligence
To all 605 of you subscribed and reading this, you already know I say all the time that having my son and daughter changed me completely. Becoming a mother rearranges your whole DNA. But I need to be real for a second: it is a totally different kind of change when you finally find a man who actually has emotional intelligence.
Mo is my safe space.
He loves me when I am fighting my daily demons. He forces me to sit down and have those deeply uncomfortable conversations that my spirit is tired of and I desperately want to run away from. He has made it completely safe for me to exist—emotionally, physically, and mentally. He pushes me to be better, he motivates me, and he loves me through every single phase. He loved me when I was in my skinny, depressed era, and he loves me currently in my fat phase of life! But don’t worry, y’all, I’mma lose that weight. Because you know how it goes: you can always lose the weight, but you can never lose an ugly spirit. Thankfully, I’ve got that proud Leo energy—my spirit is fabulous, even when my jeans refuse to zip.
Which is a good thing, because my man Mo is a Gemini. Let me tell you, that Gemini energy balances my Leo fire perfectly. Mo absolutely loves to work out. Fitness is his thing, and because he takes his own wellness so seriously, he is always looking out for me entirely, especially health-wise. He wants me to be around for a long time.
The Power of Unconditional Acceptance
This man has seen me at my absolute best, glowing and thriving, but he’s also seen me at my rock-bottom worst. His love doesn’t fluctuate based on my appearance. He loves me when I am completely glammed up with a full face of makeup, and he loves me just as fiercely when I have zero makeup on, looking like a tired zombie. He loves me when I have my real hair laid and freshly done, and he doesn’t skip a single beat on those days when I feel incredibly lazy and just want to slap a wig on my head before we walk out the door. He accepts every single version of Tina that exists.
Loving Loudly and Thoughtfully
But beyond just accepting me, I have to take a minute to brag about how genuinely loving, caring, thoughtful, and kind this man is. It’s not just the big, protective moments; it’s the quiet, everyday things. It’s the way he anticipates my needs before I even say a word. It’s how gentle he is when my anxiety is peaking. The pure kindness he pours into our home, the way he remembers the smallest details from a passing conversation just to make me smile later—he is constantly finding ways to show me I am cherished. He doesn’t just love me loudly; he loves me thoughtfully. That level of care is rare, and it completely melts my heart.
Navigating Health, Hardships, and Healing
Because he is so deeply caring and protective of my well-being, he really steps up when things get rough. As a 33-year-old nurse —and no, I don’t work the chaotic ER or med-surg floors, but I still see a lot—I am entirely used to taking care of other people. But when I am the one who is down? I am a mess. And I don’t just mean a little under the weather. I’m talking about those times when I get extremely sick, throwing up everything, looking literally like I am about to die. Mo doesn’t flinch. He is right there holding me, taking care of me, and making sure I pull through. He knows my body, my mind, and my health inside and out. He’s literally right there with me at every doctor’s appointment, holding my hand.
Surviving the Pain: How We Make It Work
And look, has our relationship been easy? Absolutely not. I have put this man through hell and back, and heck, we’ve both put each other through it over the years. We have had our moments where we pushed each other away, where we cried and then wiped each other’s tears. Sometimes it feels like we are toxic, but we just find a way to make it work.
Every single time we fight, he is the one to de-escalate. Even when he crosses a lot of lines and I am fuming, he always stops and says, “Give me a chance to make it better.” And I end up giving him those chances. And you know what? He always makes it better. He is a true man of his word.
Sometimes Mo tells me that love and pain are the same thing. And I think the reason we survive the pain is because this man and I are alike in so many crucial ways. We both have this habit where we see the good in people, no matter how much they have hurt us, betrayed us, or lied to us. We always try to understand where they are coming from and why they did certain things. We give grace to the world, and because of that, we know how to give grace to each other. Every time I lose myself, he is the one who picks me right back up. When I’m getting into it with people or just plain pissed off at the world, he is the only one who can calm me down. He knows when I’m lying. It’s like he knows my exact heartbeat.
The Unfiltered First Date Confession
I have to laugh when I think back to our very first date, because I almost scared this man away before we even got started. Immediately after the date, I went home, practically lost my mind, and sent him a 10-page paragraph text of every single piece of baggage about me. I laid it all out.
I told him about my past in the adult industry. I told him about my two baby daddies. I explained how my second baby daddy is in my life, but the first one is just unfinished business and honestly, a lost cause. I vented about how no matter what I do or say, that man has officially convinced himself that I am his enemy. I told Mo about how he blames me for everything, acts like I’m a walking disease, but outright refuses to open up and talk to me about what the actual issue is.
Dealing with Co-Parenting Challenges and Past Trauma
It’s infuriating dealing with someone who lacks emotional intelligence, maturity, and communication skills—someone who will smile in your face and act like everything is okay when, deep down, he’s still hurting. He’ll communicate with everyone else about me, but refuses to speak to me about the real issues. I guess we both hurt each other, but you can’t fix anything when one person keeps running, blocking me, avoiding the hard communication, and refusing to open up.
I dumped all of this on Mo right after date number one.
Choosing to Heal Together
And the funny thing? After I sent him those paragraphs, I completely ran him away. Crickets. He vanished.
But two weeks later… he came back.
He came back, took me on another date, and asked me to be his girlfriend. When I asked him, “Why? Why did you come back instead of staying away?” his answer changed my entire perspective.
He told me that he saw something in me that was wifey material. He said he knew I wasn’t perfect, that I was damaged by life, broken, and had street scars and trauma. He knew the road wasn’t going to be easy. But he told me he would rather love me when it hurts, and that he would rather heal with me and hurt together than be alone. Because the truth is, nobody in this world is perfect. Everyone is damaged. Everyone is going through trauma. We are both broken, but we can make our pieces fit together.
Accountability and True Partnership
And since that day, he has been my ultimate protector. This is a man who stands up to my siblings, Val and Brooke, and my father. He defends me every single day in public, even at times when I am dead wrong—and Lord knows, I be wrong a lot! But he corrects me privately. He sits me down for the harshest, realest conversations, and then just says, “It’s cool, it’s nothing we can’t fix.” That is real love. Love is accountability.
He’s a man of his word in every aspect of our lives. He even stands up to my second baby daddy when boundaries need to be set, but at the exact same time, he manages to have a relationship with both my kids AND my second baby daddy. I mean, the relationship is perfect—well, it’s good. Really, really good.
This man is my heart. I mean, I could literally walk through the door right now and be like, “Babe, I cheated on you with so-and-so,” not saying I would ever do such thing to him and instead of flipping out, he would just look at me and be like, “Okay, sit down, let’s talk about it and work it out.” Because I know there’s a lot of men and women out there willing to take our spots, but I would rather have us work through our issues—the good, the bad, the ugly, the worst. I would rather be with you and grow old with you than anyone else, because the devil you know is better than the angel you don’t know.
Building a Safe Haven for the Future
He loves me so much that we literally have each other on GPS for everything. We have grown so much and built so much with one another. After all the pain, the heartbreak, and the trauma I’ve experienced over the years, this is the first man in my entire life who has ever made me feel truly safe.
I mean it when I say: if this man tells me to jump, I say how high. Anything he says, I do. Wherever he wants me to go, I go, no questions asked, because this man is my person. He found me when I was broken and hurting, and he holds me down like there is no tomorrow. He heals me, and I heal him. This man loves me even when I get extremely angry and blow up his phone with close to 40-plus calls and paragraphs of text just expressing myself to him. He takes it all, and he stays.
So, I’ve got to wrap this up and get back to setting up the decorations before the guests start arriving, but I just needed to put this out there into the universe.
Happy Birthday, Mo. Thank you for loving me in the dark so we could finally stand in the light.
Wishing Mo a happy birthday.
I told him he said thank you