In just five years, Laterras R. Whitfield, playwright, Emmy-nominated producer, host, and entrepreneur, has turned his Dear Future Wifey podcast into a brand that boasts 640,000 YouTube subscribers, constantly ranks in the top 10 relationship podcasts on iTunes, and has 200,000+ monthly subscribers. Whitfield started the podcast five years ago, in the throes of the Coronavirus pandemic, about five years post-divorce, and needing to process his next steps in life and love.
“Divorce is the most painful thing I’ve ever been through for various reasons, as a Christian man. I was the one who filed for divorce, I was the one who was adulterous in my relationship, and then decided after years of going through therapy that it would be best for me to walk away from my marriage,” Whitfield told EBONY. “It’s a death, and I felt it. I felt it the day that the judge hit the gavel, and I walked out of there; I felt exposed; I felt naked. I felt uncovered, and I was like, “This don’t feel good.”
It was this level of vulnerability that Whitfield displayed on his podcast and that his guests brought out in him that helped him grow quickly. Some guests were controversial, such as Da’Naia Jackson, who had gone viral for her tumultuous relationship with self-proclaimed relationship expert Derrick Jaxn, or Pastor Reggie Steale, who admitted that his wife of 30-plus years wasn’t initially his type.
But the subtext behind the clips that go viral is that Whitfield hopes that the honest conversations he hosts can help people learn more about the complexities of relationships, even when it’s not pretty, and how to show up in love, starting with themselves, and then by extension, an eventual spouse.
“God told me, ‘I can’t heal what you won’t reveal,’ Whitfield said. He emphasizes that he’s not trying to be an expert or tell anyone what to do, but to illustrate through honesty and imperfection that evolution and healing can start from within.
This philosophy is the basis of Whitfield’s upcoming book, “Student of Love.” The premise is encouraging people to become students of love before they can become healthy in love. The book is for anyone—whether single, dating, divorced, married, or healing from heartbreak—who is seeking to build more intentional connections. It’s a practical guide that provides practical tools for navigating the highs and lows of relationships and being in-between, reflections on rejection, self-sabotage, and healing from trauma with the help of 200+ podcast interviews with everyday couples, A-listers, and lessons from Leterras’ own life.”
“I want readers to take away from it that we’re all in process and we’re not all at the end point. If we become a student of love, and the student of our partner, a student of our kids, a student of our parents, a student of society, as a whole, whether it’s our co-workers, then you learn that people have certain needs,” explained Whitfield.
“A lot of times when we get into these friendships or relationships, whether they’re platonic and romantic, we want people to be like us. It’s like ‘I’d want you to think, like, I think, be like, I am,’ instead of saying, ‘What can you teach me?’ And if we always maintain the heart posture of a student to learn how people show up in love or not show up in love, then we’ll become a better student of love.”
Whitfield, who recently remarried, looks forward to his wife joining him on the Dear Future Wifey podcast as a cohost starting December 31, and the launch of “Student of Love,” which can be pre-ordered now, on January 13.