S12E10: Is Marriage the Be All End All?

00:00:01 - 00:05:07

The Dateable podcast is an insider's look into modern dating that the Huffington post calls one of the top ten podcast about love and sex. On each episode, we'll talk to real daters about. From sex parties to sex droughts, date fails a diaper fetishes and first moves to first loves.  I'm your host Yue Xu, former dating coach turned dating sociologists. You also hear from my co host and producer Julie Krafchick as we explored this crazy dateable world.

Welcome to another episode of dateable where we dig into the wise of people's behavior when it comes to modern dating last week's episode was a fire complete. I love jeff. Harry and his whole spiel abou- why we need to bring play back making dating fun again. Making dating fun again yes. I think there is such overwhelming response. And i think that's really showing that. This is actually a problem for a lot of people that it doesn't feel father feels like a chore such a great reminder both treat dating like it's the they treat dating like this employer whose mistreatment and we're all like disgruntled employees and that's not the case. Dating should be so much fun. Have you ever listened to that episode or if you wanna listen to it again. We highly encourage you to do that. I feel like. I listened to it three times now and each time. I have a different idea my creative juices start flowing and it just inspires me to do something different that day will. I think it's great like if you're in a relationship to add that playful and fun and adventure and think this year's is that a reminder that all we really have is the present day i love jeff said about how we take for granted that we have this luxury to go out with people and do stuff in you know maybe in a future of ours were not gonna have that luxury to just go out to dinner go to a bar do whatever and meet new people and that so. I think we need to appreciate what we have. And i think a lot of times. We're always looking for like what we don't have. And how do we feel that so. It's really important. I think it ties in one hundred percent with this week's episode that you know it's kind of like grass is greener. Were talking to alice. Who talks about how like marriage wasn't the be all and end. All marriage is not the end all be all marriage. Is this elusive idea where people think that once you get married your story is complete and happiness is guaranteed for you feel like there's some kind of safety net that's guaranteed. My mom always says that too. If you're not married how can you ensure that your partner doesn't stray people stray all the time or just to. It's insane that people think that just because you get that certificate your relationship a solid and it's not so alice will prove you'll see in her interview. That marriage is not the end. All be all for her and it may not be then hopi all for a lot of people. I definitely was actually at dinner with some friends of this last night. This cave off like reiterated. I totally agree that this is not. You know the safety net that we all think it is but one thing that i actually listened to when i was realistic to the episode. Because you always released the episodes to hear how they sounded. Yeah we also get a lot of learnings ourselves from them for sure and one of the things that actually i heard myself say it and i was like oh my god i like kinda cringe when i said it. It was actually about like eastern hate crimes that we were talking about an thank you first of all you a set me like this virtual event that may lee spoke at this week so i think it was really good for me to go to that and i did notice that i was probably like one of the only white people in the crowd too so what be cringed. When i said it was how this conversation is not coming up with my white friends. Which is true. But what i thought about as i was like i should be the one bringing it up like that is how i can be an ally and how i can do it. It's not good enough to just be like. Oh it's not coming up. And i think that is what's happening. Right now is that it's only in these agents circles. It's not really mount mainstream in widespread and that's what happened. Blm that it turned out like they're like no. We need white people. Asian people we need hispanic people me. Our ally is so is it was a reflection for be hearing that words kubota by both. Yeah and i think sometimes it happens with dating to. We just morph ourselves into the partners that we engage with people. We go on dates with when we should insert ourselves a little bit more matters to you the most right now. What is top of mind. And there's nothing wrong with bringing that up even in circles that you don't feel like it's top of mind for them because they probably should be aware of what's happened totally. It goes back to like the fun and dating to. If you're going on a date in the conversation is feeling depressed. Singer going down a rabbit all try to change the two like why not before just dismissing the person or saying.

00:05:07 - 00:10:03

This was another bad day. At least give it your all. I think i'm gonna start to do that from now. On like i reference to date that i went on that was definitely a little bit of a doom and gloom. Coming from the other person's they just really weren't ready to be dating. And i think i definitely fell into the trap myself instead of being like. How could i turn this around. Like how could i make this more of an experience between the two of us and maybe we would have had a different outcome. If i had that it's it takes a lot of effort. Does i've started implementing. Jeff's his advice of constantly asking. How can i make my day even better. And i love that question. Because i've been doing that the last two days i was in a bunch of interviews For work and she's like falling asleep. Basically 'cause you're saying the same things over and over again and then i had a moment of say. How can i make this conversation even better than something. More interesting enough dammit. Why don't we do this in every aspect of my life where i can steer the conversation in a direction. That pleases me. That makes it more interesting for me right. And then you then at least you know when you've hit that law that it can't get any better you know kind of like what we're talking about today in this. There's sometimes comes a point that things aren't working out for you and it's time to move on with your life in have a different life and we will get into our whole guests story. She has a phenomenal story. That we will not honestly not even due diligence to start saying ourselves or we're gonna let her talk with it. But i think just like the way. She's like vibrating now in the energy. She's putting out there sometimes. Like you need to close a chapter to make room for other things exactly. I was just thinking about that. Having you've been on dates where you thought would make the state better. If i went home. Exce- took a show that happened to be recently. And i was like you know he's like let's go get ice cream like i'm really tired and then i was like. Oh my god. It's eight thirty h- kovic type is like totally different especially san francisco. Would your look all outdoor stuff. I feel like. I don't know i'm sure other cities are experiencing this too. It's like when used to go to dinner. I went to dinner last night at eight thirty. Lou rabble is the only time we could get this reservation. I like kinda late. And i was like okay but back in the day. Eight thirty was a totally normal time to eat holding dinner at five thirty pm yet. That is what we're doing today right because being closed at nine so it gets colder. You gotta like advantage of the warmer time but yeah i was like this feels like a totally invalid. Excuse but to me. I i felt drains and i was like i really just wanna go hall. That was what i wanted. And you're right. Sometimes that is. And i love with jeff actually just to like kinda quickly recap last week. He said if play fails. That's also a positive 'cause you know it's not the match yes absolutely and this happens. Relationships like with our guest alice. Sometimes you think like what's going to make this relationship better is we both get the fuck out like we could be happier and it sounds like they have a better relationship today that they even did back then but we are super excited. That jeff harry is actually going to be our guest for the dateable after so he's going to help us all put this into practice. I loved actually. We saw some people Janice led the charge here in our group the exercise that jeff walked us through that. I actually did when hugh you a about. Like when you come most alive and how to what now you your life. He's going to help us. Facilitate a lot more exercises in ways that we can bring our playful nature into date. So i'm super excited louise our events producers working with him their friends to begin with so it's going to be a phenomenal event. And louise has a podcast all about play. So she's been in the space and they're going to make this workshop. I'm going to call it a workshop because it's going to be very interactive. It is next thursday. The twenty second. It is only available for sounding board members who are at the friends with benefits level or above. If you don't know what we're talking about all to go to our website dateable podcast dot com slash sounding board. Get all the info or dms m. on instagram. You're happy to answer any questions you have if you want to upgrade your tear in the sounding board to for this event you can. You're free to do that. We're more than happy to have you upgrade to that and it's going to be a phenomenal event but before that even this coming thursday julian i are doing our monthly community livestream. It's free. It's going to be in the facebook group love in the time of corona. We shift for thirty minutes but were also introducing. Y'all to our newest member of the month we won't reveal who that is the last last Last month we had ryan if you guys all remember. And he if he revealed his now boyfriend john miller.

00:10:04 - 00:15:04

You never know during these live super excited to announce this bud's winter because i think they really do show the values of the community for sure so just for anyone. That's new if you. If you've heard this zillion times you can just dog your head and move on but we have our free love in the time of corona group. This is the public group. This is about sixteen hundred members. Strong people still are super supportive. Super personal all of that but then we also have the the sounding board which is the premium group. And that's where you know. People really are forming these deep friendships in their tuning in for happy hours every week in podcast discussion groups in dateable after shows an all of that. Were there really getting to know each other like i'm so excited. One of our community members. Caitlin is actually planning to come out to san francisco the next couple weeks so hopefully she really s. Hopefully we'll get to meet some people start to be people in the flash which is really exciting. I think a lot of She's like i'm definitely hitting the dateable fan just us around and who can hang out in. Yeah it's going to be. I think i'm just constantly amazed by the friendships that are formed and we talked about this last week. Like community and belonging is so coordinating relationship. It's a relationship in itself at. Can we just pimp out caitlyn as well. I love you kaitlyn. Thank you for all the feedback and thank you for being so engaged in the community and four. Just your sound advice lot of the times. You're pictures of you master. Dating all the time very inspirational you join the community in caitlyn. She's also super super passionate about inclusion. And she put up a really great post actually of how people can start addressing people in a non binary way and i loved it. There is some really good ones on there. That was like humans like all these different ways that you can reach out to people or you all or like different ways that are just like non gender basis. I can't wait. I if anybody has expertise in this field and especially when it comes to dating. We will love to talk to you about an inclusion in dating. What does that mean. And how can we shift our mindset. My friend just started dating someone who is pan. Sexual gender fluid adaptive and what was the fourth one college for life and just those four things altogether. i was my mind was blown. I'm like how do i think about this differently. What is adaptive mean wheelchair. Oh okay college for life. That just means you're law lifelong learner lifelong learner. I don't it's like a blank canvas. Anything goes you know is really funny. I'm trying to pull it up. But there is a post actually in the facebook group about like new acronyms or things that you're seeing a dating profiles. Oh there there was one that okay. This is what it was dink dido at the guests. What dink me if you had to guess way way. Way way is it. is it someone who said. But also what's a tw- ink okay. i'm gonna have. My friends explained that one. Because i will definitely fuck it up. Is it okay. No i really give. You're never gonna guess it. It's dual income. No kids no. I know that apparently is like a fake. That people are putting their profiles. There's also i mean this one's pretty like Standards he'll probably know this one but gee-gee do not that is she. Gt girls no no. I don't know actually had a look it up. Because i was seeing. It's so often especially on tinder. Actually good giving in game so it's basically like you're sexually open. Yeah but it's not. It's not necessarily like you're sexually non naga mass or anything like that. It's just that you're like down sexually and unlike hey someone's giving and down sexually by to be the worst thing. I'm a interesting. Wow these terms okay. We gotta do a whole terms coming out drink. I don't think i would have ever. If i saw dink on a profile i would not know without man. That is what it sounds like at all. Yeah i would think of something negative. Yeah totally totally. Anyways we will be way explore all this on the livestream also on personal note. I'm super excited that you're going to be back. It's every codex speak. I feel like you have like this. I want to see like your pita chair. But it's not really it's like your boyfriend's place. It's kind of like you're just call my vote.

00:15:04 - 00:20:01

Just living the double city lifestyle. It's so great. Yeah it's a. It's you know i'd like to tell people. I like to tell people have to places you got your your one month here. What mayor shit. My vacation home in san francisco. It's nice to see you julian. I are going to treat ourselves to a nice dinner just so you want to go on dance. We also go on dates. And it's about time we spend the money on utada true. That's true gonna bastardy but sometimes you're gonna friend date home. Do master day. I've you know. I mean you and i also have a relationship in itself that we are like business partners like more than we ever realized what we started this podcast. We share bank account. That's pretty aggressive. Gosh i've never shared a bank account with anybody. I know a huge step now. I'm scared i mean it's actually kind of amazing that it's been five years and we're still like as good as what we started. But we really don't know when we first started this really. It's a hobby or just go to do it. It's going to be shooting shed. It's going to be fun. Yeah it's it's funny. Last night i met someone. And i was telling them about the podcast and he was like. Oh how long have you been doing it for. And i said five years and he pulled up our apple podcast page and he's like has been with the same girl. I'm like yes. We've been monogamous for five years. Yeah but we did have. We did a third. Yes we had you use a weird stage where we were tested. Some third people who i happen to actually listen to it old episode and i was like wow our focus really sounds like a different podcast back that it's kind of amazing for god that we were. We were dating other people. We're dating around. We were dating around. And you know like i definitely started more on the back end of things to yes so the original. I love that. We're getting on this conversation because is bring up old memories when we first started this it was me and this male co host. His name's michael and are still might still. Michael has not changed. His name is michael and we thought it was a i just think about old school. Radio shows there's always a producer in the background yelling out remarks and adding color. So julie was that person yuli was our producer but she would every once in a while be like. I don't understand as more about that. Or i don't agree with that. So she was color commentary and we quickly realized that we should give her a mike because she had a lot to say in the episode. So when we transitioned from michael We just gave julia mike and we're like why don't we just become co hosts what it is and we touch. I actually put up a post about this on international women's day. I think both of you both of both of you. Both of us about all two of us because i mean you and i were always like the business arm behind it anyways. Even though we had these rotating other people they were kinda just there to chat more. And i think you and i thought was that we needed a male voice. Yeah we thought like i think. Actually the revelation hit me with the show morning show a jennifer aniston basically like had her steve corral in he got like sexual harassment. Suit's lead in that replaced. Him with reese witherspoon to women hosts and that was like unseen of mtv because it was always the man and the woman. And i think. And i had that in our mind that we needed this mail in this female. And then i think we also thought we needed people that were like dating. Coaches and experts are like michael was dating coach them background. So i think we thought that and what we quickly realized with. Podcasts was this was giving anyone voice. You did not have to have this background. There were so many female duos popping up and did not have to be the stereotypical like balance. And i think what we realized too when we were doing all this testing. Is that a lot of them. Felt very unnatural with you is. It just felt forced. And you and i are friends so it worked like because we're such good friends just natural and the other issue with male and female co hosting is that you end up in buckets where you're representing. Agendas you're not right so we kept asking my collegue. What's a male perspective right. It's not really the. I call for specialty. So when you have two women it's not so much like we're representing all women's just were representing our own our own beliefs and people believe that. I think we were under selling men to think that we could have that all wrapped up in one man's voice. There's no way no way no way we've come a long way.

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Our relationship has evolved so much. And you'll in this. I'm going to tie this back to this episode. bring it back bring about. Thanks for sitting through. All of this was like a therapy session for me. We're we're going to bring it back because every relationship goes through so many evolutions is constantly changing but as long as the people involved in the relationship continue to be passionate about their journey into be to really believe in each other and believe in what they're creating together. The relationship will go in a place. That's post to go and that's what this episode is about. When two people are no longer willing to be on this journey together. Time to get out and find yourself no shame. No shame moving onto our newest segment. Dateable advice where we dole out dating of the best of our ability. Here's a question and we've gotten this. I always say this boat. It's true we gather the most popular questions so this was asked by more than one person my partner and i have been together for a while and we've been trying to work things out. At what point do you call it quits or do you say. Let's keep working harder. Something to that degree in variations bat. I mean i think we'll talk will say each thing just depends on the specific people of course but i think it's like have you gone to therapy. Have you like Intermediary comment to kinda see the relationship as a whole and not just like the built up resentment that each of you have ever why it's not working like have you tried to put your foot forward of how you can make this work like how you can shift. You're like way of thinking. And i think also like have you tried to bring back the fun that might be. May like we think about early times when you met. What attracted you to this person. What did you did you used to do together. And what does that look like now. Like has your life just changed so much that you don't have that anymore. Is there a way to still incorporate it all of that. I think i read somewhere. That the reason why most i mean there's obviously a lot of reasons why relationships don't work out like financial and you know all the different things there but one of the big ones was that people stop being curious about their partner. They stopped eating their partner like in early stages. You're just like you want to know everything about this person. And you're just so excited to see that and to learn more in an overtime you already know. This person were nothing new to learn in. that's when it becomes complacent so can you bring. That back is what i would say he. I love bring back the curiosity. I would just ask two questions. Is we see this with a lot of disgruntled couples. They keep saying stuff like well. We've done this this this the list all the things that they've tried already but then i would ask. What haven't you tried so maybe move away from the list of things you've done and start list of things that you should be doing or could be exploring and the second question is have you done your best z. At the end of the day. Can you say i did. Everything could and. I did my best and if that you can honestly say yes. I've tried my best and it's still not working. It's time to say goodbye. Then we are not in the business of telling people to break up but there is a tipping point where you either have tried enough and your partner you and your partner just no longer compatible and you've gone separate directions. Where maybe they're still a bit more room to push that relationship forward but once you get past that tipping point. There's no turning back so he just got to find. Find that tipping point yeah. I think it's a good rule of thumb to always walk out of any situation being like. Did i give it my all because at least you know that i did give it as much as i possibly could in. You've tried law well. Hopefully that helps some people out there and if not you can just keep listening to this episode because there's a lot of really great advice in it Okay so before we get into the episode. Let's do a quick break for our sponsors we like to think rockies for supporting this episode. Have you heard about this company. Making stylish sustainable shoes and bags. They're carefully crafted with eco. Friendly materials like repurpose plastic water bottles and marine plastic. Well in case you haven't heard of them. They're called rockies and their shoes offer zero break in period due to their seamlessly knit to shape design and their bestselling shoot point in black has over five thousand near perfect reviews. I presently opted for the navy houndstooth in the style. They're so chic looking at. I could wear them to work or night out but also comfy because her flats. They're also versatile so far. I've worn them with skirt. Slacks jeans and dresses roth. 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00:25:00 - 00:30:05

Roth are fully machine washable. Simply toss him in the washing machine. And they'll come out looking good as new check out all the mazing shoes bags and masks available right now at rockies dot com slash dateable. That's robbi dot com spelled r. o. T. h. y. s. dot com slash dat ab l. e. style and sustainability. Meet to create your new favorites head to rocky's dot com slash dateable. Today we would also like to thank kensington books for sponsoring this episode. Our latest book highlight as called the most eligible viscount in london in bestselling author eloquence intriguing. New book a dashing suitor must decide if love marriage are mutually exclusive. Viscount gavin turley convinced that love matches caused nothing but trouble still after months of courting he's fall in love for ms. Georgie feather ten and plans on proposing to her. however he doesn't plan on saying the words. I love you. The words of love are not an indulgence. he will allow himself without a declaration of love. Georgie can only reject. His offer seems fair right. Not if her family members have you to say about it get were deeds on the most eligible viscount in london by going to kensington books. Dot com were wherever books are sold awesome. So let's get into alice's story so we talk about marriage quite a bit on this. Podcast is something that people want is at the end. All be all and honestly. I think people don't think about marriage what it entails. After you get married that they think about the road to marriage the wedding. The wedding. The engagement of proposal. And then you just have kids and then you live happily ever after or you. You're miserable. I mean there's also this notion that once you get married you don't have sex and then you just like live like roommates but nobody thinks about what it takes to make a marriage work and weather after you get married you decide if marriage is actually something you want or not so our guest today live through it all with marriage and i would say that she thought marriage was probably the end game like many of us and was pleasantly surprised by what she discovered afterwards. So i think now's a good time to introduce alice. Forty loving issue currently lives in portland originally from california sacramento area. She is divorced. I could i say happily divorced not divorced yet. The papers have been filed though okay. Great so close to being divorced very close to be divorced. I met someone the other day i was like. Oh what's your relationship status. She's like happily divorced was her way to put it. She's in a friends with benefits relationship. Right now it's monogamous yet casual. Alice how are you. i'm great. Thanks for having me on. thanks for coming. we're definitely super excited to hear your story at more depth. I from what i understand. Is you were married. I guess technically you're still married. You have kids with your partner and you file divorce and now you're you're in a situation where you're co-parenting living under the same roof but not as married couple. We live in a duplex side by side on technically as it is the same roof. There's a wall dividing are two units but yeah we live there. We had a door installed between the two sides of the duplex so our kids could go back and forth multiple times a day. We have family dinners every night. Do holidays together but we are not romantically involved. In in a couple of weeks we will be officially divorced. We how long have you been under this arrangement separated. We've been separated for two years. We've been living in the duplex for a year and a half okay. Why is the time from separation. Divorce been so long right. I think it was just kind of laziness there was motivating reason to get divorced. Because we enjoy each other's company sufficiently were planning on continuing to live here so the only reason to get divorced was really to make us more eligible dating other people because people don't wanna state separated people normally. It just felt like this was finally the right time to make it official than get divorced for real. Let's back up for a sec. Let's talk about your marriage wind. Did you get married. And what happened in the meantime for you to be in the situation right now. It's a long story so we met first week of freshman year of college. So i was eighteen. He was seventeen. We dated for seven years. We got married in our mid twenties. Five years later we had kids so we have to elementary age. Kids and our sex life just kind of took a slow decline. This was twenty years of relationship. In marriage and sexist kinda did not stay at the same high level at started ad in college.

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Obviously right and so for a long time we just kind of put up with it because we had a good partnership life with good so we just kind of came to live with the fact. That wasn't great but then being in two thousand eighteen. My husband came to me and told me that he had developed feelings for co worker. And so that kind of launched two years of rethinking what our relationship with going to be so when he told you that like acted on it or was it more just like oh my god i actually have a feeling and now this brings up stuff right so it was early stages he had feelings in they head Cuddled at a company retreat in on the spectrum of things of spouse can do somebody outside the marriage minor but still it broke my heart to hear that. Like totally out of abril. Yeah probably made you both stop. Be like if he's doing this. What's missing in our relationship right and we had had discussions before that. He was unsatisfied with the amount of sex that we were having. We both knew it was an issue. We try to fix it. Mostly me just trying to have sex more to keep him happy but this was kind of the final like uh oh crap. Our marriage is not going to survive this now. There's like a person outside the marriage he's interested in. You can't just keep kind of floating along have been doing it for twenty years and when you say the sex was declining can you give a number around that frequency right so i it was usually once a month and that was me just kind of making myself have sex to keep the marriage. Yikes moderately good in. I know like people always say that like you know. There's always a deeper reason usually why you don't want to have sex. Like what was it for you that made you be like i'm doing this out of obligation basically right but spent a lot of time thinking about that. He was resentment so when we first started a relationship. Sex with fun i liked it and then it kind of felt like a chore. I didn't feel love. It came to realize that we have different love languages which i didn't even know about when we got married. He knew that when you're young. Yes so just kind of piling on of me. Spending all day taking care of kids in then feeling like sex was another chore had to do at the end of the day and just became not something i wanted to do but i felt like i had to do it to keep things in our marriage. Yeah that's never a good thing to feel like you have to have sex to keep going especially if that meant having sex once a month so crazy to me but you don't know any better. You're college sweethearts. Did you date much before him. I mean even did. It probably wasn't exactly like a dating right. I had a couple of boyfriends in high school but yeah this is my first adult relationship and we kinda grew up together like we learned how to do marriage together. And you know we didn't have all the information until we started indiana and then we read a lot of books and learned a lot of things so we had the guest on it. I'm not trying to call your husband this by any means but we have two guests back you fray basically have this article like an open letter to shitty husbands. I'm not trying to call your husband. Shitty is i don't have at all but his point was that like women leave because they get frustrated by all the emotional labor that they have to do and it comes as a surprise sometimes to men. Because they don't see it at least in the heterosexual situations he was referring to like. Did you feel that emotional. Lieber like i'd love to hear more about that. Oh yeah definitely i mean. It was the standard like preparing dinner every night. Taking care of kids school work and kind of doing the background worker. Then sometimes don't think about. It wasn't really like contributing to that on scale of like that husband awesome husband hands doing okay. He was trying and he wanted any marriage but there were just some things that neither of us really stopped. Think are we splitting up fairly. You are stay at home right. you're staying dry. I stay at home from when my older son was born up until we officially separated in. I went and got a job. Because i needed one right. So you basically had to reinvent yourself and reestablish a new identity after separation which is very commendable. I think that's really hard to do. But in this process so take us to the moment where your husband holds you. That he was developing feelings for co worker. They had cuddled not much beyond that. What was the conversation after this was it like. Did he say that he wanted to take things to the next level or was he just letting you know right so this coworker was in an open marriage and she told him that if he could get me to agree to an open marriage also than they could explore their feelings together so myers initial response was no. I don't want an open marriage and we spent maybe three or four months We went to a couple of therapists.

00:35:04 - 00:40:08

I went to group therapy for women with vetos. I read a bunch of books. I started wearing makeup and perfume. Just like anything. I could think of to salvage our marriage and make myself wants sex which that's not makes sexes forcing voicing it to happen but eventually he still wanted to open the marriage and he wasn't backing down so i said okay we can try that and so i was kind of hoping that he would get together with her once and he'd be like okay. I did that now. I'm ready to come back and be faithful. Manas not what happened. And so the second time he asked to see her. I kind of lost on my motivation to fix things. It just seemed pointless in. That's when it kind of we transitioned into a romantic relationship in trying to figure out a way to still make things were so we could parent together. We are good at parenting together. So it was that the reason like because i know you said like he told you he met someone else. You were kind of already feeling like the obviously didn't have saxon like you weren't feeling like this was like the best relationship either but was that what kept you going was really just like to co parent. Your children definitely co-parenting the children's a lot and just fear of being an independent person. Because you know we got together. When i was eighteen my whole life being an adult was shared with him him during the financial stuff and taking a garbage fixing the house in just the thought of having to do all that by myself was terrifying. And so i kind of clung onto whatever marriage i could get. Even if it wasn't perfect. I was really afraid to be by myself for a long time and also is just the amount of effort to do that too right as you would have to start over in some ways but then you're still supporting your family. It's a lot harder to do this in your forties than it is like in your twenties and leave and probably you like a rental apartment. You're whatever but now your lives are intertwined. I can't even imagine to. Would it would take to unravel all that time together. Us you screw up together. You spent your adult life together. It's got to be something that you really gotta think hard about. But you made the decision. So wizar- moment that made you come to this decision. It was pretty gradual on your. We decided to officially separate january of two thousand nineteen. We didn't agree to divorce for a year more than that and it wasn't even like neither of us walked up to the other and said i want a divorce or i'm ready. I think i just walked over to said the duplex. So are you ready to start filling out divorce papers you like. Yeah okay Anti-climactic divorce marin case to like you tried to open it. Did you go to therapy or do anything that was like that to try to salvage it before you made that like okay. We're even separating decision. We did a lot So i we did couples therapy with a sex therapist. That didn't make me want sex anymore. But it did make me realize that i needed a therapist of my own. I really. I should have seen a therapist in my twenties. There'd be amazing. I've really done it. A long breaks so i started seeing my own therapists. We took had a special getaway. Just the two of us to try to rekindle seeing but it was just too far gone by that. Point is like at least ten years of not great sex. Life is just too hard to come back from that. Did you guys like dive into therapy like beyond just sacks but like you were saying like you had different love languages like did you go in different pass outside of that too. Yeah we did some more standard couples therapy read. Lot of self-help help books. So there's love languages There is come as you are right. That book is really helpful for just me feeling like i was normal sexually like learning about responsive desire versus can't remember we know it's all good. It's a desire other people's desires. What we think everybody has more turns out a lot of women have responsive sexual desire. And i had no idea. And so that's part of the reason why our sex life wasn't working because we expected me to just be excited to go after taking care of kids all day. That's not how it works. Yeah i wanna marinate in this for a sec. Because i was in relationship where we didn't have sex for an entire year. And i remember thinking like what is wrong with me. Why am i not desirable. Mit desirable to other people. I put a lot of blame on myself. And ultimately i think what happened was there were a lot of hormonal issues with my partner that came with aging. We didn't know much about so. I think we need to go the doctor to to see of issues with that. I would love to hear from your perspective. Alice is when your husband tells you he's unhappy with the sex life and you guys are forcing once a month sex.

00:40:08 - 00:45:01

What is going through your head. What do you think the cause of the problem. I thought it was all new Like i had both self-esteem for this whole relationship in new just kind of felt like of course it's my fault. Why can't i be a good wife and supposed to want sex with my husband. Just that made it even worse it was kind of spiral like and have these bad feelings around sex. I would avoid a faction within. Because i didn't want to get his hopes up. I wouldn't even like act happy around him by the end because i thought he might think. Oh she's happy. Maybe he wants us tonight. I just stuff myself into this little tiny ball to hide from sex and it it impacted me in so many different ways and even just like going to bed at night. Going to bed at night with stressful. Like i couldn't just get into bed and go to sleep. It'd be like does he wanna have sex tonight of white. Why do i my my so bad it. This is so nice after we separated. And i had my own bed and i got into it. There is no pressure. I just went to sleep was amazing when you were still married. And getting into the same bed what he try to make a move very rarely he yeah. He was kind of beaten down and giving up in ghana withdrawn. Like i totally get why you would like turn inwards there like wizar- anything that he was like okay. This marriage isn't working like me. Need a media go beyond just the physical the emotional level. How did that work. So i mean we did the couples therapy and he tried. We talked about our love languages and we tried to show love in the other person's love language but it wasn't enough like he bought me flowers. You got me a birthday present for the first time in ten years in those real wonderful nice things but i come to release recently that one of my levering which is words of affirmation and i hadn't realized that before a friend with benefits is very good at the word. Get to that. I feel like maybe. I didn't have the full picture on the love languages back when you're trying to fix the marriage okay. Let's take a quick break from alice's story to go into some of our sponsors. This episode is sponsored by better help. We dateable are huge fans of therapy and better help can match you with your own licensed therapist and connect you in a safe and private online environment. Me for example. I was able to start communicating with my therapist in less than forty eight hours. It was so quick now. Better help is committed to facilitating great therapeutic matches and it's more affordable than traditional off-line counseling. They're licensed professionals specialize in everything from dating trauma stress anxiety trauma with a big t. A depression grief you name. It have someone who's an expert in that we adaptable. Wish for all of you to live a happy healthy life and that's why the listener you'll get ten percent off your first month by visiting our sponsor at better help dot com slash dateable. Join over one million people who have taken charge of their mental health again. That's better help. H. e. l. p. dot com slash d. a. T. e. a. b. l. e. Let's face it. It's a weird time to be dating or developing relationships. Have you recently decided that you wanna make some changes to your love life. Maybe you've recently reentered the dating scene. Maybe you've gone on one too. Many dates that went nowhere. Or maybe you're ready to take your current relationship to the next level. That is exactly why we created the sounding board a true extension of our podcast that delivers a personalized experience which includes one on one coffee dates with us. A monthly dateable live after show exclusive audio content and much more allow julian. I become your dating. Sherpa us to provide real time guidance and wisdom in a more intimate way so we can navigate dating and relationships together. Join the sounding board today by going to dateable podcasts dot com slash sounding board again. That's dateable podcast dot com slash sounding board. Okay let's get back into this condo. Yeah i think that's a lot of couples is that there are things wrong but we just can't verbalize what is wrong. It's hard for us to really tell her partners what we want our desires and what we need. And that's why you build up this resentment because you just haven't been able to verbalize what you're needing. Communication was not our starting point hit from any uncomfortable subjects in our marriage. Your never when we were talking. You're saying how like you kind of became like relationship experts. But you're doing meeting all right doing all that but it was like too little too late. Could you kind of elaborate more on that. yeah The last two years.

00:45:01 - 00:50:05

I've learned so much about what makes a good relationship asserting my needs. I'm still working on that part but therapy has really helped me kind of liquid variety and talk about what i need not be afraid to ask for what i want. Learning about. Responsive desire was a huge thing yet is just our desire for each other was gone by that point. We couldn't say unfortunately so interesting. Because i think sometimes people think like kind of bats like marriages the game. The people often think like people that are married. Have it all figured out and people that are single or like daily lost. But i know what i'm gathering from you is like no you totally fall into a marriage in not have the core like relationship skills that holds a marriage together essentially. Yeah absolutely like at eighteen. What do you know about maintaining a relationship. Just kinda guessing at it but so part of this is also my my curiosity around the lack of dating and relationship experience before getting into this marriage. Do you think that if you to dated around and had more relationships let let's say met each other in your late twenties and got married. Do you think your marriage would look different today. It would have a better chance of surviving. But i still feel like our love. Languages are two different. It would be too much of a change to ask him to Desire tell me beautiful. that just doesn't come naturally to them. If we put in a lot of work than maybe could work you know what really pisses me off when people say this. That marriage will kill your love life. It's not marriage that keeps our love life. It's the ramp up to marriage. People do not do the work before they got married once they got married. They're like what the fuck like. Hey why is marriage likewise my relationship like this so we to stop blaming. The institution of marriage should not do this to you right now. You like stop like you're like you've done all this work while you're big then one union that relationship come true i've done i got it and then it's like no we've talked about this with people like being dateable doesn't stop when you're interrelationship married like you have to work every day. You can't just be like your good. Yeah it was definitely. We were comfortable for a long long time and just stopped putting in the effort to rub each other. You know just kind of were roommates instead. Right exactly but i wanna hear about this. Non roommate situation. Which is your friends with ben. How did we get here. Who is this. i'm dying to note. Okay so last fall. I finally found myself wanting human contact and sex like for two years. I was just happy not to be obliged to have sex me more than all sudden like you know with a man might not be so bad actor all and i went on reddit of all places to kind of. Read it where you would go looking for a nice guy last. Go to look for a penis like very last place. There's plenty of than there. That's true that's true actually. It's the hot tip for people. Okay please elaborate. There are probably a lot of dudes that are absolutely there are so i was just kind of looking around trying to figure out which dating app was most popular. Where i live and i came across on reddit. Therapies are for our pages. Which is people on reddit looking for other people like classified ads and most of it is like casual sex. One liners i probably should. I can say anything say aging. Alice go for it. It's like guys posting. Come give me a blowjob on the corner this street. Which that's not what i want at all. I saw this post. It was just like a normal guy. A divorced dad who seemed fun so i reached out to him in. We ended up meeting up socially distanced and then we got together. Now are awesome. How did you go from socially distanced to getting together alice. Give us a details. The i need the juicy stuff right. So we met up in apar- twice. We have ice cream of first time. A wholesome hot figure out if he was actually like the person that represented until fast. Because you know on the internet pinocchio announced possible and he seemed like a decent person. And so i invited to my house and we got together nuke that first pursue times was a little rough getting to know each other but after that it was really good fit and really good communication. How will i mean what was that. Like because i remember you know not having sex for over a year with my previous partner and then having sex for the first time again. I felt like a virgin. Because i was like. Do i still remember how to do. This am i. Am i going to be good at this. Tell us about the moment that you know you became reversion fide surreal. Just like there was a naked man in my bedroom and it was the man who i had not been naked with before news.

00:50:05 - 00:55:03

This is really happening. Wow it was uncomfortable. Not physically emotionally uncomfortable. The first timer to just trying to decide if is making the right choice and was moving too fast. You know sex. Hormones did their job and we started feeling more attached more connected and just easier and also. There's a whole factor. I have a mom body now. Like this was the first person i've been with since having two children My body does not look like it did when i was eighteen and i was self conscious about it in one of the things he did. That was really great. Was he asked me what i was self conscious about and then he specifically complimented those parts of me in neil so like my belly i have like a purge and percent he complimented us like i'm a belly guy as i go sure whatever but he continues to complement it and either. He's an awesome liar. He actually while that's great. That's sexy. I feel like i've missing piece of the story like how you go from you like. I don't want to have sex with my husband looking at it as a chore like going to read it and being like i'm gonna like look on the moors around. I just ask shift that happened. We did you find your vagina right. Just having a two year break where it wasn't anything. I have to do for anybody else and then it became something i wanted to do for myself. And also i think when you're forty some hormones chicken like this is supposed to be prime of a woman l. Hell thought thirties was the pry. But i'll take your from for forties after thirty. It's all uphill from here right. Was there anything else that was going on your in your life too. We always say on the podcast. That usually like what you're at a good place for day day in relationship wise is usually like other stuff factors go again like where were you post separation like. Obviously you get a job now. What is that like. Do the right job was a really good choice. I feel like i should have done it earlier. Just because no one is staying home mom. My identity was wife and mother and that was pretty much. Like i didn't do my hobbies anymore. I didn't french very much And getting a job. I got to interact with the outside world as an adult again and just be seen as myself in so good i mental state to not just be a wife a mom all the time so that probably was like a confidence boost on top of definitely going out in the world scene like men out there and wondering are they singly interested in me and just having that option in my mind really helped me get out of my marriage funk. There's something really sexy about having a friends with benefits. You feel like you're fifteen again. Where i guess i don't know if fifteen year olds have friends have benefit. Let's hope not but is something really sexy about that. But i i am curious to know how you to came upon this arrangement because you both of you have to agree that this is nothing more than friends with benefits right. That's kind of a sticking point. We'll see how long it lasts. Because he is looking for a new partner somebody to move in with him and help races kids and that's totally legitimate thing for somebody to be looking for and it's not what i'm looking for. I don't want to have a new dad for my children. They have data already. I don't wanna raise somebody else's kids. I don't want to move in with somebody because i'm having a really good time in my own side. The duplex living life right now so we definitely have different in games. But he wanted to try. I think he was lonely for human connection insects too. We've had a good connection so this is playing it by ear like see how long this works for us so. I don't want to stereotype but i've noticed a lot of times. Divorced men are like seeking a new partner like a kind of and a lot of people in our facebook group. That are women are like you know what i was married you know. I think i'm good now. Like why do you think that is the case. It's not everyone. I don't wanna say it's every single person but it seems to be a recurring theme. I have my theories. Yeah i mean. I think there's a stereotype that divorce. Dads are looking for bang maids. Something i've seen like somebody'd have sex with them. Take care of their house. Take care of their kids. But that hasn't been my experience with my equals one data point so far my friend with benefits. He's got the single that thing down like he cooks. His meals takes care of his kids. He doesn't need a helper in that respect. I think he just wants partner. Somebody to wake up in the morning like companionship. So yeah i think divorce dads get a bad rap sometimes. Yeah i think it's like the way at least from my perspective. It's not like necessarily that. They're looking for someone to like. Do like the cooking and cleaning and like stereotypical.

00:55:03 - 01:00:01

But it's like it's almost like harder to be on your own where i think women are kind of like thriving. A bit like with the independence. That's what i've noticed. That is a good point. Like i mentioned. I've been on read it and i read the dating forums and it seems like a good distribution of men not wind to be alone. You're right it is more men being only read it. Maybe that's just selection by his. Well that's the thing you know. A lot of my divorced friends girlfriends will say you know what. I'm just fucking tired. That's literally what it is. The marriage exhausts me i am completely depleted. I cannot imagine exerting the senate this kind of energy for anybody else. So i'm gonna take it. I'm going to take a chill pill and just be cool and like smoke weed and just feel good on exhausted all the time. Yeah and again. This is a generalization like. Obviously some people are. Some people aren't like for men and women. It's not going to be universal everywhere. What's been your take about like getting married ago. Yeah i'm not. I have no intention of getting married again. I'd say once my kids are out of the house. I would be open to being living relationship with somebody waking up in the morning with them like that. That does sound nice but right now. I'm enjoying my freedom a lot. I mean i would think some of it is like feminism to that lake for so long we were told like. We can't do this on our own. There slinging empowering about like being on your own. But then i guess the question i would have for. You is like how does that. Come in as now being like the the. No you are sharing parenting duties but like how does that come in with your children. One perception i would have is that it could be challenging to be a single parent. Do you feel like this is your situation or do you feel like it's actually easier or better than it was before. I think it's better. And i don't know fair for me to call myself a single parent because i have so much more like the father. My children is right next door. Helping take care of them every day so it kind of feels different than somebody. Who's living on her own taking care of the kids. What like thirteen to fourteen days per month. But it's better for me. Because when i was a stay at home mom i cooked pretty much. All the dinners. I did all the emotional labor. And now we've split pretty much fifty fifty like i do four nights a week dinner. He does three nights a week. He takes hits to their doctors appointments. So it's just a lot more equal better for me and i to be okay with it to which is great and now that burden is sort of alleviated. Do you see your soon to be ex husband in a different way. Do you feel like there could be hope for reconciliation. I mean he's like. I don't see any chance for romantic reconciliation and i don't think he wants said either he's seen the co worker. He's been seen for three years. Are happy like we're good romantically were done. I mean i respect him as a person in the way he's growing from this change in our relationship. I'm really impressed. Like he's taking on new skills. Just like i am in pretty awesome to see that you guys like sit down and hang out at like. Are you like friends or is it more like sharing parent duties. Yeah i wouldn't say we're quite friends. We don't ever hang out just the two of us but we have friendly conversation during dinner when the kids are there. But i'd say we're more like co workers at the job of raising our kids to get interest. I mean the one. Like petty thing i might have is like resentment of like. Oh you can share the labor now but you couldn't do it that ever cross your mind or you just like. I'm good not really because i think i brought. I never asked for him to share. When we were in our standard marriage. I kind of took it on myself. I didn't expect him to do any of it. So i don't feel like i can be resentful now because i didn't ask for it if i had. You probably would've willingly put things up more dot in. That's the key right there and then do you guys talk about each other's love lives knows you know as you just on the basic level. Like i'm going to lock the door between the units tonight because my friend is coming over over there before bedtime. They can't come over after no we don't we don't talk about it. He put a sock on the door. Really storm again go-between Each side has a lock. It's kind of like a hotel door. Were not get on either stool door. Icici i see. Okay that makes sense. I turn on the white noise machines up to talk for the best. I take it. You don't why you're friends with benefits. His poly-amorous girlfriend coming to like thanksgiving dinner.

01:00:02 - 01:05:01

No we're making progress okay. My husband's girlfriend. That's a weird phrase to say is twenty twenty one anything going so she comes to visit. She lives in california. So it's a long distance relationship. Okay she comes to visit him. Maybe every three to six months. And i've i met her six months ago out and so you know it's not not like i'm sitting on the other side of the door hating her. We are civil. And i feel like in time. It could evolve to assault having holidays together. I'm not quite there yet. But we're going in the right direction. What do you tell your kids. Especially about her when she comes and visits and i also about your situation Yes so. They know that their data's girlfriend and i have a boyfriend. They like to tease us about that like you. I try to be honest at an appropriate level for their age. Is i don't like to keep things from them or treat them like they can't understand. She comes over. They go have meals with her and they played the indeed. They love playing with her dungeons and dragons for what she's just she's another friend who comes over and they know that she's a girlfriend and they don't seem bothered by it. They know that we're getting divorced. But it's not going to affect their lives. They still get to live with both of us. So it's cool. Do they know what divorce means they do. I mean i think picked it up from school. Tv books like they have. This idea of stereotypical divorce. And i think that kinda made them nervous when we started talking about separation divorce like are we still going to get steep both you guys in. So we've done a lot of explaining russillo family. Were still gonna live together and just trying to reassure them that their lives aren't going to change that much. Just what their data. I call each other Change that husband ex wife. We eddie for details about this duplex. Did you hear before. Like put up a wall or do you like move into it after you decided to separate like it was set up for two people so we moved into it after we separated on. Its a side by side duplex. So it's fair for both of us. It's not like one person gets a little bit in. The other person gets a big house. It's the same on both sides and when we moved in we had a door put into the wall between the units so the kids didn't have to go around to the front door every time they want to switch sides got it from your children's perspective like when you told them they. Hey we're going to be separating or divorcing so they basically moved to this duplex. what else chain bristol. Eat dinner together and stuff yet. We still eat dinner together So we do holidays together. My husband gets the christmas tree on his side. I get the stockings on my side. We have each other over for christmas breakfast. Christmas eve dinner. Yes so not too much changed for them. They're even at the same school. We are will stay in the same school zone. So basically the only difference is at the end of the night you go to europe room in your husband goes to his room. Yep pretty much. My husband. And i don't interact as much as we used to were. Welcome in each other's side. The duplex like to go purpose to do their homework. Whatever but it's definitely trying to each other as much space as possible so they've tube rooms like do they have a on your new plex room. There they do. Wow this is like a sweet deal. Are there some nights that like you eat dinner with them and heeds dinner with just read dinner together every night so far and i don't know if it's going to keep being like that or will eventually kind of separate gradually more and more but right now it's it's easier not to have to make two dinners every night logistically. That makes sense. I guess if you're having dinner date with your friends with benefits that maybe not but we've never had a dinner date. He's always with his kids. God god he only comes over at two. Am i'm just screaming. She goes through the back door though doesn't have signed door. Do you think that obviously things are going to change. And you've already anticipated this. What are some things a. You're anticipating already for example. Would have you stay over at his place. So you're staying over for the week or something. What do you tell the kids stuff like that right. So i had state over his place not for the week just for overnight when the kids were sleeping on their dad's side for the night and i think maybe they knew i was staying over at my friend's house like no sleepover They're not quite old enough to understand what that entails. Don't they're not even sure if we kiss each other. I don't want it. That's enough information. Just cuddle example has gone time.

01:05:02 - 01:10:18

I feel like that's a good amount of being away from my kids right now. I think as they get older. And they're teenagers. I could see myself staying over. The house may be hanging out with his kids. If that kind of relationship and i think once my kids graduate i would be open to living with somebody full-time maybe not getting married again. But having a more standard relationships while my kids are here. It's easier to stay like we are right now. The duplex got it. Yeah i was gonna ask you like obviously you said earlier. Part of divorced is because people don't wanna deep people it or separated like. Are you looking to date now. Informed more like a relationship or you still in the place like i want that commitment right. I'm not looking for colon relationship right now. I'm happy with companionship and sags and not being super tangled in each other's lives casual did yeah. I think my default setting is to like form strong connection with somebody in kind of really mesh. Our lives together. I can feel to myself wanting to do that with my friend with benefits. That's not the right thing for where i am right now. I'm happy raising my kids next door my soon to be ex husband and yeah just keeping it monogamously casual. What does your family think of it. They think it's cool. Yeah i mean. My parents got divorced when i was a teenager in had a amicable relationship with holidays together so just kind of carrying on the family. Tradition passing the torch so we have like a wide variety of listeners. That i'd be curious to hear some advice that you might give them given your experience so like maybe the first group are people that are currently in a marriage. That may not be willing to them. What advice would you have for those people. If you cut of like you know. Go back in time for yourself. Therapy burton you together and for you. Individually is a really important starting point learning about spontaneous desire versus responsive desire. Just reading books to understand yourself. And how you interact with your partner. I think those are very important in communications to don't think you're educated just because you're a relationship based always be learning. Yeah and then. What about. We have a subset of listeners. That are like dying to get married. Just find the right person and you know. Maybe they're hitting a certain age where they feel. They should be married but they're not yet. What is your advice for them to make sure that you've worked on yourself sufficiently the you can kind of bring a whole person to the marriage not looking for somebody to complete you and filling the gap of where you're missing party yourself like and i'm still working on that myself. I i don't think i'm like a whole for so two super awesome person. Who's ready for a new relationship. But yeah just kind of. Don't expect somebody to fix you in a relationship and then probably the last subset is what about those people that are recently coming out of a divorce or separation. What advice would you have for them. I would say go have fun. Don't try to jump into another marriage. Track relationship is like get to know yourself one on one and just you know eight around a little bit. I have one more group of people the people who are in a marriage but are feeling tempted by a co worker and friend someone they met. Recently you as the spouse who went through this situation. What is some advice. You'd give to that person who is debating whether they tell their spouse or not and not sure what to do in that situation. Definitely tell your spouse as soon as you're feeling the feelings hopefully before you act on them approach it with just as much integrity as you can like the reason. I can still be living next door to my husband is because he's a really good guy. He treated me with respect throughout this whole transition. And so i can respect him back and we can still work together and i feel like if he can be my back in light to me that things would have turned out very differently agreed. Well now is. That was quite a story. It was more than i thought it would be. So thank you for your honesty and openness to sharing all of that Should we go to some takeaways. Julie's jewett like now a good time. So i was like jotting down all the things i was. Learning about and one of the main takeaways for me is relationships. Don't end and i think that's the reason why they're called relationships as your constantly relating to the other person so when we think about end all y'all relationship especially for a lot of our single listeners. Right now feel like if i'm in a relationship all is good and well it's not necessarily the truth is just that you're opening up a different chapter it doesn't mean things stop doesn't mean things are just magically going to be better so i think we got to think about like this idea that being dateable is not just about being single and dating but you gotta date your spouse too.

01:10:18 - 01:15:18

I like this idea of figuring out your own way of doing things. And i've really think you alice have pioneered something that is to me. I think is super creative and progressive. But also it's done with integrity for your partner and your kids and i really love the fact that you've you balance your own personal needs because now you're getting some you got you got yourself some stuff going on there with the needs of your family and i think so. Many people are stuck in marriages. Because they're like. What do i do with my kids. And all the family obligations and you found a way to do both not that not that. This doesn't come with challenges. Absolutely they're going to be challenges down the road as well. But you found a really creative way of carving out situation for you that works at least for the time being. And i think he's just really inspiring to hear that agreed. Yeah i think my biggest takeaways. A couple of them is one. I think this is not to quote of sex the city. But i've got do it. You know the best relationship you could have with yourself. And if like eddie what else is second to that then wonderful and i think ultimately it sounded like yes of course there was another woman in the picture but there was more going on in your relationship and a lot of it was that you weren't happy with where you were like yourself in like you felt like you were kind of like succumbing to this relationship and putting yourself seconds and i think like it sounds like you. Start to really thrive. When you did put yourself i you had that like you know working environment again and being surrounded by friends and family and i think sometimes people think like oh when i'm getting into a relationship that's all i'm going to focus on any time. We put that much emphasis away from ourselves. There becomes resentment that builds and like other things. So i do think like regardless of your relationship status like always making time one of our favourite terms in our community the called master david. So you're by yourself. And i think we've heard for people that are buried in the group to it's like still make time to master date on your own or masturbate. Whatever you ought to do but you know it's like you need that alone time to really be. Who am i as a person. Who am i a couple so i think that's my biggest takeaway but the other one is grass is always greener like feeling. We're like kind of what you were saying you. When i get into a relationship. All my problems will be solved her. I'll be good and it's like you know it doesn't work that way. It i think sometimes like we think that people have it so much better than us in you see on social media. Certain things us. Don't get a realistic glimpse into all the hard work. That comes with marriage. Not saying that. Like i do one day want to be married. So i'm not like a downer of marriage. But like i think a lot of people do look at it as like the wedding in not what happens after the wedding and ultimately like that's when the work begins it's not like the end goal and then you're just like oh hands off nothing to do at that point. I personally believe married. People should stop giving dating advice. I think married people are the worst with dating advice. I think the people who are the best dating vise or those who've navigated through a divorce. Could i think they've learned the most so i'm gonna put that out there. Okay you marry people you do. You do not have it all figured or ethic also too. It's like sometimes we're like oh my god. Why am i going in this endless loop of dates but ultimately like that does help you get to know yourself and communicate what you're looking for. All of this is like practice for that person that comes for you like sometimes you just need the time and getting to know yourself your styles relieving to others that like the shortest relationship ever or a friends with benefits situation that could really propel you forward absolutely. I'm learning so much in this relationship right now. love it. i love it so much. I love when you said it feels so great. getting into my own bed cabbie. My own space. That's something i think. A lot of single people take for granted like literally around right now and just kiss your walls kiss your bed your door because that is yours. You're not sharing that. It is something that you you gotta share once you in a relationship but it's really beautiful and empowering to have your own space i wish as society we just stopped being like marriage the end game and just accept people for where they're at because i think there's pros and cons to everything like when people are complaining about being single. I'm always like okay. What can you do now that you're talking to people to do when you have children or you are married like the bed example or so many other examples of things that actually freaking rockwood you're single and instead of like complaining about it kind of like embrace what's good in that state and then also with good when you are in a partnership it's not either one is right or wrong.

01:15:18 - 01:19:02

They're just different out and alice. I think you inspired something in all of us where i think there is. There's something to this side by side duplex even for married people. I think it could work in a marriage. Yes you have your own space. Your spouse has their own space and then you have a shared space where you share the responsibilities and every night could be really sexy to be like you wanna come over asleep over my place or should i replace. I think this is a fantastic idea. Once you have kids you can build it out where the kids can have multiple places to play and you still keep your own identity in your own place. So i think you're onto something here. Not the more. I agree and like i've had partners. That store really loud. There's nothing wrong with like our relationship. But i'm like god damn it. I wanna be a beset by myself. Because i want to get a good night's sleep so having that option of the duplex would be frikkie easy so true and it'd be just sexy like sneak into each others places at like three. Am you know the new way of living. The duplex duplex will call the alice. We'll just name it after you thank you so much again for sharing your story It was so great to to hear from your side because hearing the full story is really wonderful and for anybody listening right now For us to get great guests like alice. It's really are awesome reviews. Because i think once people see that we are legit and we have great reviews. And they're like okay. i'm. I'm okay opening myself up to these two women so if you can help us out and get more great guests just like alice go on apple podcast and give us a five star review salable nice thing or two and we will show the love back by giving you more awesome content each week after week. And if you wanna learn more about us if you're a new listener welcome welcome. Just go to dateable. Podcast dot com awesome. Okay we're going to wrap this up. Stay long the dateable. Podcast is part of the frolic podcast network. Find more. Podcast you'll love at frolic dot media slash podcasts. Want to continue the conversation. I follow us on instagram. Facebook and twitter with the handle at dateable podcasts. Tag in any post with a hashtag. Stay dateable and trust us. We look at all those posts then head over to our website dateable podcasts dot com there. You'll find all the episodes as well. As articles videos in our coaching service. With vetted industry experts you can also find our premium series where we dissect analyze an offer solutions to some of the most common dating conundrums also downloadable for free on spotify apple. Podcasts google play overcast stitcher radio and other podcasts platforms. Your feedback is valuable to us. So don't to leave us a review and most importantly remember to stay dateable. Join me on the turning point up close and personal with leaders and get to know walk. Mix dan metal and fiber. I am keisha. And i look forward to. I'm dragging greatness with you. The turning point podcast is now on spotify. If your loved one is at risk of a fall the symphony medical alert system from. Cvs health can help support their safety in their home. With twenty four seven emergency monitoring even when you can't be their terms and conditions apply learn more about symphony at cvs dot com slash symphony. Or find it at your nearest cvs health hub.