In this conversation, Jai opens up about marrying young at her father's urging, falling in love with who her husband could become instead of who he was, and the moment she realized their shared identity in ministry had quietly become a third partner in their marriage. She talks candidly about purity culture's silence around sex, the dreams and visions that first revealed his infidelity, and the small, radical act of self-love that finally brought her back to herself.

This is a conversation about accountability without self-blame, about loving someone's potential without losing yourself in it, and about what it looks like to finally build a life — down to the color of your bed — for no one but you.

In this episode she tells host Dr. Stacii Jae Johnson the story that inspired her book — a close friend, married to a doctor for 28 years, who discovered she had no bank account, no credit card, and no financial access in her own name. Janean turns that story into a bigger conversation about money, self-worth, and why so many women stay silent about finances even with their closest friends. She also gets honest about her own first marriage, which she admits she entered only to “check a box,” and the very different, financially transparent marriage she built the second time around — including the framework she now teaches: the financial date night.

In this deeply personal conversation, Dr. Contessa Metcalfe sits down with Dr. Stacii Jae Johnson to talk about what she has never fully talked about on television — the childhood wounds that followed her straight into a 21-year marriage, and the years she spent filing for divorce on a man who never stopped fighting for her. 

What you will hear in this episode: the concept of object permanence and why an absent father programs a woman to expect everyone to leave. The moment her mother died in her arms and what she said. How Contessa filed for divorce multiple times — and what finally made her stop running. What therapy actually looked and felt like for a woman who knew all the clinical answers but could not apply them to herself. Why your feelings are not facts. And what it actually means to take off the armor and give love a real chance. 

This is not a celebrity interview. This is a conversation between two women who trust each other — and what comes out of that trust is the kind of honesty that changes how you see your own life. 

If you have ever talked yourself out of something good because it felt too hard, too risky, or too much — this episode is for you. SUBSCRIBE to A Different Kinda Woman for weekly conversations about healing, love, emotional wholeness, and becoming the woman you were always meant to be. 

COMMENT below: Have you ever run from something that was actually good for you? What made you stop?

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