Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff Mom Never Told You from how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Speaker 1: Kristen and I'm Caroline. And on our last episode we
Speaker 1: talked about wedding planning and the concept of feminist brides
Speaker 1: and weddings and something Caroline, I've thought a lot about
Speaker 1: during my engagement is Yes, the big day, the big event,
Speaker 1: but also becoming a newlywed. Yeah, and how your life
Speaker 1: might change. Oh my god, will it change? How do
Speaker 1: you have a marriage that's like equal and egalitarian. There's
Speaker 1: so much and you know what, as much of a
Speaker 1: pain as wedding planning is and has been, what I
Speaker 1: really tried to do with it partially to it's a
Speaker 1: glass half full of the whole thing is see how
Speaker 1: it has been this exercise of my fiance and I
Speaker 1: establishing these skills that we will take into our marriage
Speaker 1: in terms of divvying things up, of communicating, of merging
Speaker 1: our families and the fun things that go along with that,
Speaker 1: and sometimes having to be brutally honest. I mean, Caroline,
Speaker 1: I learned one night that he just you know, really
Speaker 1: can't stand Garland. And I was briefly offended by that.
Speaker 1: Oh no, I know, but I'm serious. It's it's funny
Speaker 1: how these small things. I mean, it's it's a nice
Speaker 1: dress rehearsal because it's like, oh, we're talking about Garland.
Speaker 1: We're not talking about daycare unless you name your child Garland. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which we're planning to because we're a big Judy fans.
Speaker 1: So in a way, I've been so selfishly excited about
Speaker 1: talking to a practical wedding founder, Meg Key, as we
Speaker 1: did in our last episode about wedding planning, um, and
Speaker 1: talking to you are also about this newly wed phase
Speaker 1: and what being a feminist wife looks like and means,
Speaker 1: and what a feminist husband means, and the heteronormativity of
Speaker 1: it all. Yeah, we did. We did definitely address the
Speaker 1: heteronormativity of it all and like what we can stand
Speaker 1: to learn from our same sex peers, which Meg's basically
Speaker 1: saying everything, we can learn everything from them. Um. But
Speaker 1: even I, as someone who is unmarried, I just felt
Speaker 1: like I had so much to learn from Meg. She
Speaker 1: had some really really great, reassuring, valuable perspective for just
Speaker 1: people who are in serious relationships, screw the whole marriage thing, even,
Speaker 1: like just valuable advice for people who are in committed,
Speaker 1: long term, serious relationships and in case you didn't tune
Speaker 1: into our last episode, just to reintroduce who Meg is.
Speaker 1: In two thousand eight, she founded a Practical Wedding dot com,
Speaker 1: which started off as sort of a casual wedding blog
Speaker 1: sharing her wedding planning and d I y um experiences.
Speaker 1: That has now become one of the leading wedding resources
Speaker 1: on the internet, and she recently published her second book,
Speaker 1: A Practical Wedding Planner, a step by step guide to
Speaker 1: cutting through the crazy and creating the wedding you want.
Speaker 1: And A Practical Wedding is such a fantastic resource because
Speaker 1: it not only focuses on, of course, the fundamentals of
Speaker 1: planning a wedding, but they also spend a lot of
Speaker 1: time on relationship advice. Um there's an entire essays series
Speaker 1: on their about reclaiming wife and what that means. So
Speaker 1: whether you're engaged or even single, if you go to
Speaker 1: a Practical Wedding there are um so many great relationship
Speaker 1: advice columns on there. So you wanted to tap into
Speaker 1: that expertise that Meg has gleaned, but both in her
Speaker 1: work and also in her personal life. So let's continue
Speaker 1: our conversation with Meg Kane. Why don't we transition to
Speaker 1: newlywed life? Since we've we've planned the wedding, we've gotten
Speaker 1: through it, the DJs told us everything that we're doing
Speaker 1: as we're doing it. So what can we expect when
Speaker 1: we're expecting to be newlyweds Because during engagement we're planning
Speaker 1: all this wedding stuff. But what about the marriage, right,
Speaker 1: So let's just assume for the sake of argument that
Speaker 1: you have slept together and you live together, because I
Speaker 1: think if you haven't, that's like a it's a little
Speaker 1: bit of a different ball of life. Um. So, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think the biggest thing to keep in mind is
Speaker 1: that it can change things, like it can be different.
Speaker 1: If it doesn't, doesn't mean that there's anything wrong. But
Speaker 1: I think in this sort of modern era, we all
Speaker 1: assume that nothing's going to change that, um, like we're
Speaker 1: just having a party and then we're coming back to
Speaker 1: our partent um. And I think that is often I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's the majority or not, but
Speaker 1: probably the majority of the time that that is not
Speaker 1: the case, Like it does change something, um And so
Speaker 1: sort of knowing that that might happen is I think important.
Speaker 1: And the other thing to think about is that, um,
Speaker 1: while most of us have lived together and slept together, uh,
Speaker 1: many of us have not combined our finances um. And
Speaker 1: so that's sort of the final frontier I think. Um,
Speaker 1: my husband and I didn't combine our finances held the
Speaker 1: week before the wedding, which I do not recommend that
Speaker 1: that that was. That was when I found out he'd
Speaker 1: accidentally spend the money he was the post us for
Speaker 1: as his like living money for the last year of
Speaker 1: law school. Bless his spendthrift heart and nearly died of
Speaker 1: shock because I was the the only breadwinner. UM. So
Speaker 1: you know that was a little bit stressful the week
Speaker 1: before the wedding. UM. So maybe I had that conversation before. Uh,
Speaker 1: But that combining finances UM or fighting about combining finances,
Speaker 1: or trying to figure out how and if you're going
Speaker 1: to combine finances um is it's big. It's emotional. And
Speaker 1: for us, suddenly we were planning for a joint future
Speaker 1: and living a joint present in a really real way, um,
Speaker 1: in terms of money and checking accounts UM. And that
Speaker 1: was a really, really big transition for us and a
Speaker 1: good month, but big, well, how what are some good
Speaker 1: healthy ways during the engagement? So you're you're you've been
Speaker 1: planning for this wedding, you have the wedding, are there
Speaker 1: also some good healthy ways during that time that you
Speaker 1: can plan a healthy marriage and healthy sort of egalitarian
Speaker 1: division of household duties on the last one? Good luck? No,
Speaker 1: not good luck. But I think you may be fighting
Speaker 1: about that for the end of time and he should be. Um.
Speaker 1: But uh, I'm a big fan of premarital counseling. UM.
Speaker 1: If you if you have a religious service, you often
Speaker 1: get it as sort of part of the deal. UM.
Speaker 1: And we did UM and it was really helpful. And UM,
Speaker 1: if you have a secular service, you can find therapists
Speaker 1: that do it. UM. What I found that was interesting
Speaker 1: is it was less like a couple's therapy session, which
Speaker 1: we've done and whatever. Those are like driving pencils through
Speaker 1: your eyes. But it is more it's usually when done
Speaker 1: if you don't have like huge outstanding issues. UM, it's
Speaker 1: it's usually more about like asking questions, like we committed
Speaker 1: to going to a couples therapy if either of us
Speaker 1: even ever asked for it. UM. During pre marital counseling,
Speaker 1: which is a really good thing to do. UM. We
Speaker 1: talked about like final wishes and death and finances and
Speaker 1: what we might do if we found out that, you know,
Speaker 1: someone was unfaithful and you know, all those sort of
Speaker 1: big questions that you haven't always talked about. UM. And
Speaker 1: then this isn't even a shameless plug. This is just
Speaker 1: sort of like funny for me. UM. I put together
Speaker 1: a couple of pages in my first book for questions
Speaker 1: to ask before you get married, UM, and I like
Speaker 1: threw it together in an hour. I was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: let me just do this, UM. And then every single
Speaker 1: friend of mine that has gotten married and use the
Speaker 1: book UM has been to come up to me that's
Speaker 1: my favorite part of the book. And I was like,
Speaker 1: I couldn't done the whole book in an hour, that
Speaker 1: that's all anyone wants. UM. And then therapists have come
Speaker 1: to me and said, like, people bring it into them
Speaker 1: and are like, we need to cover all of these questions,
Speaker 1: and they're like, we we cannot cover all of these
Speaker 1: questions because it's like every question you could ever ask
Speaker 1: in the history of a relationship. But maybe let's pick
Speaker 1: a couple, um, but doing something like that, you know,
Speaker 1: whether it's from my book or some other book. Um.
Speaker 1: I'm actually looking at a book on the shelf of
Speaker 1: my office called one thousand and one Questions to Ask
Speaker 1: Before You Get Married, which is kind of a lot
Speaker 1: of questions. And I haven't read the books, so I
Speaker 1: don't know if it's good, But there are you know
Speaker 1: a lot of books and resources like that that that
Speaker 1: you can, um look at. And I think it's good
Speaker 1: to do during planning because it's good to take a
Speaker 1: little bit of time out of like planning what is
Speaker 1: basically an event, um, to think about why you're doing it.
Speaker 1: What are a couple of those questions from your book
Speaker 1: that kind of stand out as maybe some of the
Speaker 1: tougher ones are more unexpected questions you might not even
Speaker 1: think to ask. There's sort of two kinds of questions.
Speaker 1: I think, Um, we're sort of consistently shocked as a staff,
Speaker 1: right because we both get a lot of questions written
Speaker 1: in and we're able to observe a whole lot of comments, um,
Speaker 1: and people discussing marriage. And you know, in my case,
Speaker 1: I've been doing it for almost a decade, so I've
Speaker 1: sort of had a bird's eye view on what people
Speaker 1: are thinking about and talking about UM for a long time. UM,
Speaker 1: and I'm consistently surprised how often people are ignoring really
Speaker 1: big issues, really big questions, UM that like you can't
Speaker 1: sort anything out for forever, but like you probably need
Speaker 1: to have a grip on like I don't know what
Speaker 1: do you want kids? Do not want kids? Where do
Speaker 1: you see on that? UM? What religion do you you
Speaker 1: know want in your family if you're not the same religion? UM?
Speaker 1: Is one if this is something I've seen come up
Speaker 1: more and more actually is like is one of you
Speaker 1: essentially monogamous? And it is one of you maybe not
Speaker 1: essentially monogamous. We've we've had commentars, you know, talking about
Speaker 1: like how do I go to my husband and talk
Speaker 1: about opening my marriage? Um? And you know that's tough.
Speaker 1: Uh if if you've never floated it before, UM, your
Speaker 1: husband might be like, oh my god, what are you
Speaker 1: talking about? UM. So there are those really sort of
Speaker 1: fundamental questions that I think people often, especially if you
Speaker 1: have not been together for forever and ever and ever
Speaker 1: before you get married, I think people sort of want
Speaker 1: to say we love each other so it'll be okay. Um,
Speaker 1: But in my experience now having been coupled for more
Speaker 1: than a decade and married for half of that, Um,
Speaker 1: there's sort of two parts of marriage, and one is
Speaker 1: a relationship part, and one is also this sort of
Speaker 1: like life management part, like your co workers and household
Speaker 1: management and life management. And if you really are far
Speaker 1: apart on some issue around life management, it's gonna come up.
Speaker 1: It's going to be a problem. Um. And then the
Speaker 1: most sort of not unexpected but the question people don't
Speaker 1: think to ask, which I think is important, is about
Speaker 1: your views on aging parents and on family um. Because
Speaker 1: that comes up, right, parents get sick and die, parents
Speaker 1: get sick and don't die. Um, parents need to go
Speaker 1: into retirement homes. Parents might want to move into your home. Um.
Speaker 1: So it really starts coming up for people, and it
Speaker 1: can be really shocking to discover that. Like, Oh, my
Speaker 1: partner's assumption was that his mom would just move into
Speaker 1: our house, right, And he just assumed that was fine,
Speaker 1: And that is not fine at all. UM. So I
Speaker 1: think that's an important thing to discuss, along with sort
Speaker 1: of financial ramifications around that, like if your parents or
Speaker 1: family needed money, would you expect you and your partner
Speaker 1: to anti up or now now you mentioned, um, just
Speaker 1: a minute ago, the issue of one partner being monogamous
Speaker 1: and maybe the other not so much. And I was
Speaker 1: curious whether you hear very much from a practical wedding
Speaker 1: UM visitors about that transition, the newlywed sex life transition,
Speaker 1: and whether that's the thing, because I mean, it's kind
Speaker 1: of funny. We're like, as brides were often gifted all
Speaker 1: of this lingerie, and there's all the expectations about the
Speaker 1: first night together, which is funny because of course it's
Speaker 1: probably not the first night. And so I was wondering
Speaker 1: if that is another unexpected thing. I don't know if
Speaker 1: it is. I mean whatever, I think married sex is hot.
Speaker 1: I do though, like that was surprising for me. I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, it's sexy, um, but like something about
Speaker 1: the concept of it. Uh, But yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't hear a lot. I don't think it's a
Speaker 1: big transition point for for most people, UM, the way
Speaker 1: I think you do sometimes come across that like, oh,
Speaker 1: We've been together for X amount of time and suddenly
Speaker 1: I'm realizing I want this different thing, um, And and
Speaker 1: that could be legitimately quite stressful. I think, well, that's
Speaker 1: good to know that's kind of comforting that it's not.
Speaker 1: But it's not. It's just it's sexy. It's fine, Caroline.
Speaker 1: I have a personal website and I gotta admit it
Speaker 1: doesn't look all that great because I haven't redesigned it
Speaker 1: using square Space. And get on that. Well, I will
Speaker 1: because Caroline sites that you square Space look professionally designed,
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Speaker 1: sign up for square space, make sure to use the
Speaker 1: offera code mom stuff to get ten percent off your
Speaker 1: first purchase square Space. Build it beautiful. And now back
Speaker 1: to the show. Well, a couple of years now ago,
Speaker 1: Kristen and I didn't episode on the division of household labor,
Speaker 1: and we were mainly focusing on the fact that according
Speaker 1: to Academia, uh, it looked like same sex couples were
Speaker 1: away on the ball. Men living with men and women
Speaker 1: living with women pretty much had it down in terms
Speaker 1: of splitting things up equally. It wasn't a huge fight
Speaker 1: as to who's gonna mow the lawn versus who's going
Speaker 1: to do the dishes. It was more like, let's do
Speaker 1: things fairly simply because there aren't traditional gender roles to
Speaker 1: fall into. If you both are the social planner and
Speaker 1: no one's mowing the lawn, nothing will get done. Well. Actually,
Speaker 1: you might have a lot of parties. You just will
Speaker 1: have an overgrown law. So you have to like weed
Speaker 1: whack to get through the door. Yeah, jeez, yeah, every
Speaker 1: every person to bring your own beer and you're own
Speaker 1: weed whacker. Um. So A, I want to ask you
Speaker 1: what can opposite sex couples stand to learn from same
Speaker 1: sex couples once they're in the marriage, But also like
Speaker 1: how can people in general learn to strike that balance
Speaker 1: in their marriage? I think we can learn everything from Um.
Speaker 1: We we live in Oakland, and Oakland is like the
Speaker 1: lesbian capital of the universe now or something. I think
Speaker 1: I think we have a special crown. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: the per capita lesbian population is really high, um, which
Speaker 1: is great because it means that now that we have kids,
Speaker 1: were raising our kids around a lot of um same
Speaker 1: sex Uh. Parents. UM. So I just feel like there's
Speaker 1: all this stuff that we're not going to have to
Speaker 1: undo with our kids because they're going to see that
Speaker 1: from the beginning. But it does mean that we get
Speaker 1: to watch, you know, how other couples are doing things,
Speaker 1: and how same sex couples are doing things. UM. And
Speaker 1: I tend to think that we're reasonably good. Um, but
Speaker 1: we're not that good ever, because we do still we
Speaker 1: are still fighting the good fight, as opposed to as
Speaker 1: being like, well, how are we going to divide this up? Um?
Speaker 1: I think that I mean other than the more. If
Speaker 1: you have same sex couples in your life, ask them
Speaker 1: how they do it? Seriously, like, get all the advice
Speaker 1: you can get. But um, I think as a woman,
Speaker 1: it's really about fighting for what matters and fighting for
Speaker 1: what matters over and over and over again. UM. I
Speaker 1: have a stafford who says, um, if it's worth yelling about,
Speaker 1: it's worth yelling about every time. It's not. It's not easy.
Speaker 1: It doesn't become easy. Um. In my experience, if you
Speaker 1: have kids, it becomes way harder, real fast, especially if
Speaker 1: you have biological kids. Right, because guess what, I had
Speaker 1: to be pregnant twice. UM. And we have uh lesbian
Speaker 1: couple at UM school at our school, our kids school,
Speaker 1: and so envious they their pregnancies were like at the
Speaker 1: same time, right and um they switched off and I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, oh, I hate that so much that
Speaker 1: I have to do it twice. UM. But then I
Speaker 1: was nursing. Um, I'm nursing UM, so that there was
Speaker 1: like an even division of labor that can can't be
Speaker 1: undone UM. So there was a lot of conflict around that,
Speaker 1: and a lot of conflict around also like societal roles.
Speaker 1: Once you're both really entrenched in your careers and then
Speaker 1: possibly have kids, UM, that's when it stops being about
Speaker 1: like what you theoretically thought you were going to do,
Speaker 1: and about you know, I have to nurse and you
Speaker 1: feel like your career will be impacted if you tell
Speaker 1: your male boss that you are going to part time
Speaker 1: because of kids, right, Like just all this stuff that
Speaker 1: gets layered on UM. But I just think you have
Speaker 1: to fight about it over and over and over and
Speaker 1: over and over again because it's important. UM. So you know,
Speaker 1: my husband and I just had another big blowout about
Speaker 1: daycare pickup and our oldest is three, and I would
Speaker 1: say within the last He's three and he's been going
Speaker 1: to Dake care since eight weeks, and I would say
Speaker 1: within the last month, we have finally started to work
Speaker 1: at out daycare pickups. So that's a lot of like
Speaker 1: hitting it over the head over and over and over again. UM.
Speaker 1: So yeah, you just gotta like work at it for
Speaker 1: forever well, taking it a couple of steps back from motherhood. UM.
Speaker 1: One thing that you've written about a lot, and is
Speaker 1: also um a hallmark of practical wedding is the concept
Speaker 1: of reclaiming wife and the whole wife identity. So I
Speaker 1: was wondering if you could speak to that because wife
Speaker 1: is such a loaded term. God, it's so loaded. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I realized the day after we got married, like I
Speaker 1: vividly remember where, like crossing the Bay Bridge, like I
Speaker 1: remember where we were. Um, Dave used the word wife
Speaker 1: for the first time, which is like intense when it happens, right,
Speaker 1: because I felt like he was. I think that everyone
Speaker 1: does this, like you feel like they're lying and then
Speaker 1: you're like, oh my god, it's really true. Um. And
Speaker 1: like remember looking at his wedding ring and looking at
Speaker 1: my wedding ring, UM, and just realizing that like him
Speaker 1: having a wedding ring on meant that he now had
Speaker 1: like more job security, like more respects, was going to
Speaker 1: get promotions easier. Um. And the inverse was true for me.
Speaker 1: It would be harder for me to get jobs, It
Speaker 1: would be harder for me to move up in the ranks. Um,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't have in many ways last respect. Um, certain
Speaker 1: things would be expected of me, like giving up my
Speaker 1: career or for kids, right. Um. And so it was
Speaker 1: just like heavy and tough. And I took off my
Speaker 1: engagement ring at that point. Um. It's since been stolen
Speaker 1: and replaced. So now I wear my engagement ring everywhere,
Speaker 1: but it's a new ring. Um. And just wore a
Speaker 1: band because the band was like it didn't visibly look like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's a wedding band. Um, because I just sort of
Speaker 1: had this feeling that like it wasn't the public's business
Speaker 1: that I was married. Um. So, God, it's just a
Speaker 1: lot of time pack. I wish I had some easy
Speaker 1: answer like let's just reclaim wife and it's awesome and done.
Speaker 1: But oh oh, and so when you first get married,
Speaker 1: I think it's just like heavy and a lot and
Speaker 1: trying to figure out what it means to you and um,
Speaker 1: doesn't mean you have to do all these things? That
Speaker 1: do you want to do these things? And and then
Speaker 1: everyone's asking you about kids, and um, it's tough, man.
Speaker 1: I mean, even the answer, well, even though it's not
Speaker 1: an easy answer, it's comforting to know that those kinds
Speaker 1: of emotions can happen because similar to motherhood, I think,
Speaker 1: you know, we expect women to be overjoyed at becoming
Speaker 1: wives and becoming mothers, and our complexity of our emotions
Speaker 1: and identity are often marginalized. Yeah. And I also just
Speaker 1: want to take an intersectional feminist time out, um to
Speaker 1: say that I was saying all of that as a
Speaker 1: white feminist, and um, it is not always the same
Speaker 1: for black feminists certainly, who have you know, there's a
Speaker 1: whole history there of stripping family rights away from black
Speaker 1: people in this country. UM. So I'm not the sort
Speaker 1: of anything like an authority on that, um and shouldn't
Speaker 1: be the one to speak to it. But I do
Speaker 1: want to like take a time out to say, like, hey,
Speaker 1: this is I can only speak for I can only
Speaker 1: speak for white ladies. Well, I have a friend who
Speaker 1: got married a couple of years ago and even I
Speaker 1: mean up to the wedding, and I think even after
Speaker 1: they got married, her mother in law was still sort
Speaker 1: of ignoring the fact that her brand new daughter in
Speaker 1: law wanted to keep her maiden name, did not want
Speaker 1: to change her name and take her husband's last name.
Speaker 1: And so her mother in law kept making all these comments.
Speaker 1: And even I think had a tote bag monogramed, and
Speaker 1: that's fun. So if not that uncommon, like it happens,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Like I didn't have a toebag,
Speaker 1: but I have a lot of mail. Yeah, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: what's the big deal. What's what's going on with the
Speaker 1: name changing? And have you dealt with any of that?
Speaker 1: And and what do people tell you? Um? I mean
Speaker 1: like at first I should be blunt. I have, again
Speaker 1: as a white feminist, need to be really clear about that.
Speaker 1: But like I have a pretty unapologetic point of view
Speaker 1: where I'm like, ladies, don't change your names, um, and
Speaker 1: give your kids your name, which I did. Um. And
Speaker 1: I feel really strongly about I'm like it, right, we're
Speaker 1: wiping off match, We're literally wiping matrilineal lines off the
Speaker 1: face of the world. Um. So I feel strongly about it,
Speaker 1: and that really is sort of one of my big, big,
Speaker 1: big feminist fights. Um and uh, it's not easy. And
Speaker 1: I don't know what goes on with the older generation.
Speaker 1: I think they're sort of it's the whole women policing
Speaker 1: women thing, right. I think there's psychological theory up once
Speaker 1: I and then the other about this, but that you know,
Speaker 1: marginalized groups end up enforcing the norms, like self enforcing norms. Um.
Speaker 1: So I think it's you know, if you change your name,
Speaker 1: then you like sort of have a dog in that
Speaker 1: fight and want to enforce that code. Um. But and
Speaker 1: then there's this other idea that if you um don't
Speaker 1: have one name of your Plat family, which I find
Speaker 1: to be like just profoundly ridiculous and um, apologies if
Speaker 1: you think that, but I find to be sort of
Speaker 1: profoundly ridiculous and really entrenched. Um. And we don't, right,
Speaker 1: My husband has the names worn with, I have the
Speaker 1: name I was born with. Our kids have hyphenated names
Speaker 1: with my math um, so we don't have a family
Speaker 1: name at all, and we don't use the hyperennated name
Speaker 1: as a family name because neither of us use it
Speaker 1: at all, even socially. Um, like it's just not even
Speaker 1: a thing. Like it's just not even a thing. Um.
Speaker 1: So yeah, the world really pushes back. And I think
Speaker 1: that if you have made the stand of taking your
Speaker 1: name or of keeping your name, um, it's you kind
Speaker 1: of write like best that you picked the fight, um,
Speaker 1: which is great, but that means to kind of push
Speaker 1: that right because otherwise you didn't pick the bite. So yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of correct thing that goes on. For me,
Speaker 1: it went on for like five years. It keep didn't
Speaker 1: die easily. Wow, like five years post wedding. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: oh yeah. And then also then we had the kid thing, right,
Speaker 1: where then people really want to enforce the kid having
Speaker 1: me the dad's last name only. So like I've already
Speaker 1: taught my kid who speaks to um correct people, uh
Speaker 1: and tell them what his name is it really is. Um.
Speaker 1: So yeah, God, it's intense. It's intense. The patriarchy does
Speaker 1: not die quietly, ladies. So in terms of what a
Speaker 1: feminist marriage looks like, it sounds like it looks like
Speaker 1: a continual work in progress and a constant negotiation in
Speaker 1: a way. Yeah. I mean, I think it's one of
Speaker 1: those things where it's like a continual struggle, but in
Speaker 1: my opinion, better than the alternative. Right, Like, I'd rather
Speaker 1: have a blow up with my husband about gender rules
Speaker 1: once a month. Then I have to do everything. So
Speaker 1: maybe it's just laziness, but um, I don't want to
Speaker 1: do everything. Um, I don't want to have to go
Speaker 1: to work and then come home and do all of
Speaker 1: the cleaning and all of the cooking and you know,
Speaker 1: like I don't want to have to do everything that
Speaker 1: I stayed at home you know wife did once upon
Speaker 1: a time, A work full time. Um, I don't want
Speaker 1: to be both, So it's worth fighting for me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: my boy, and and I just made I'm not kidding
Speaker 1: a short chart for the house because well because we
Speaker 1: found it. Because he cooks a lot, which is great
Speaker 1: because I am nowhere near a great cook. But I
Speaker 1: can do some laundry and too. Yeah right, So like
Speaker 1: I love laundry. It's so satisfying. There's a pile and
Speaker 1: there's not a pile, and then it smells good and
Speaker 1: so like that's so satisfying. Um, And so that's fine. Great,
Speaker 1: you cook, I'll clean up after you cook, and I'll
Speaker 1: do laundry and then fold it. And it's it's everything's great, um,
Speaker 1: but there were just the outlying stuff. Basically, anything that
Speaker 1: wasn't cooking or laundry could potentially turn into a fight.
Speaker 1: Oh there's two things I think studies have actually shown
Speaker 1: maybe or maybe making that up. And it's a made
Speaker 1: up city in my head, um, But according to the
Speaker 1: made up city in my head, um, I think that
Speaker 1: you have less fights and less stress if you have
Speaker 1: defined roles, right, and then it's like, my job is
Speaker 1: to do the laundry, and if you do the laundry
Speaker 1: for some reason, you're that's great and you're doing me
Speaker 1: a favor, but we both know that you're doing me
Speaker 1: a favor kind of thing, um than like the undefined
Speaker 1: gray area. And then I also will say that if
Speaker 1: you get to a point where you can and like
Speaker 1: feel like you can do it ethically, etcetera, hiring helps.
Speaker 1: We've only done that really recently, but um, having someone
Speaker 1: come in and clean the house once a month and
Speaker 1: do like the deep clean has removed a lot of
Speaker 1: fights and a lot of filth from our our lives. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we that's something that's on the table. We haven't made
Speaker 1: a decision about that, um, but that's definitely something that
Speaker 1: we've talked about too, just because then I mean, that's
Speaker 1: one less thing to fight over, honestly, and like the
Speaker 1: deep cleaning than it really is, like the laundry, there's
Speaker 1: like these discrete tasks. And also I should say that
Speaker 1: having been in this for a while, I had kids
Speaker 1: and had my marriage changed with that and stuff. Um,
Speaker 1: things change, and I think things change more than we
Speaker 1: expected them to um, And I think it can be
Speaker 1: hard to be like, but no, you said you'd do
Speaker 1: the dishes always and forever. We signed that contract, um,
Speaker 1: and you know, stuff changes and there's like different needs
Speaker 1: at different times, and when I was heavily pregnant there
Speaker 1: was stuff I just couldn't do and um. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: it's just like you're just always like negotiating and renegotiating
Speaker 1: for forever. But that's why you should marry someone you
Speaker 1: can talk to communicate with. And yeah, I mean that's
Speaker 1: what I'm hearing between the lines of everything you've said. Honestly,
Speaker 1: when it comes to engagement, wedding planning, having the wedding,
Speaker 1: and then going home the day after. You know, everything
Speaker 1: that I'm hearing is how important communication is and just
Speaker 1: picking a partner or looking out with your partner that
Speaker 1: you really can communicate with each other. Yeah, and picking
Speaker 1: someone that can be a partner and not just a
Speaker 1: boyfriend or a girlfriend. Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Because like I really have thought a lot in the
Speaker 1: past few months since having a second kid, So like
Speaker 1: there's all that extra layers of stuff going on, and
Speaker 1: we've had just a really hard few months with deaths
Speaker 1: and the works. Um, but so life's getting really complicated
Speaker 1: and just realizing like how much of our lives together
Speaker 1: are like who's doing what? And is this getting done?
Speaker 1: And also managing investments and do you know what anything?
Speaker 1: But like the stuff that you do together ranges from
Speaker 1: like sex to financial maintenement helps keeping um, and like
Speaker 1: the sex heart falls well in the realm of relationships.
Speaker 1: But I think we're conditioned to think about like relationships
Speaker 1: is like are you in love? Love? And that they
Speaker 1: make you feel angly and like that stuff comes and
Speaker 1: goes right and sometimes you feel like that and sometimes
Speaker 1: you feel like I would like to murder you, um,
Speaker 1: but I will carry on because we're living a life together,
Speaker 1: and um, then you and you come back around. Um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, you've got to be able to manage. It's
Speaker 1: like it's like managing a company, which I also do right. Like,
Speaker 1: there's two companies, my company and my household, um, and
Speaker 1: they both have remarkably similar tasks. I will say, So, Meg,
Speaker 1: I feel like you're in the like planning stages of
Speaker 1: your next website, A Practical Marriage, which I totally visit
Speaker 1: all the time. I think it's gonna be like a
Speaker 1: lifestyle site. So, Meg, where can people go to learn
Speaker 1: more about you? And A practical wedding? And the book? Uh,
Speaker 1: the book is a practical wedding planner and you can
Speaker 1: find it on Amazon or the side part of my
Speaker 1: site A Practical Wedding. You will notice that it is
Speaker 1: uniform and consistent and easy to find me. You can
Speaker 1: find us on Instagram and a Practical Wedding. Um. And
Speaker 1: if you want to find out more about me for
Speaker 1: some reason, um, I m at mag Keen dot com.
Speaker 1: But I'd really live in a practical wedding That's probably
Speaker 1: the best place to find me. Well, Meg, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for spending so much time with us and
Speaker 1: giving us so much insight, and also thank you for
Speaker 1: making a practical wedding, which I'm not exaggerating when I
Speaker 1: stay has helped keep me saying for the past year.
Speaker 1: Thanks ladies, it was really fun. Yeah, thank you so much.
Speaker 1: You are a joy. It was so it was so
Speaker 1: good to talk to you. Well. Thank you again so
Speaker 1: much to Meg for spending so much fabulous time talking
Speaker 1: to us. We had so much fun. Honestly, again, it's
Speaker 1: worth saying. I just want to talk to her all
Speaker 1: the time and would love to just have her be
Speaker 1: the third person on the podcast. She doesn't even have
Speaker 1: to talk if she didn't want to. She's just so funny.
Speaker 1: I just love her. I agree. I mean, you and
Speaker 1: I uh talked about that interview outside the ste video
Speaker 1: for like thirty minutes after she just to like digest
Speaker 1: all of the great stuff and insight that Meg shared
Speaker 1: with us, um and so honestly and openly, which we
Speaker 1: really appreciated. Well. I think she's a very valuable voice,
Speaker 1: whether it's in terms of your engagement planning, a wedding planning,
Speaker 1: a marriage planning, a life with your partner. Um, because
Speaker 1: she's there's no fruit for to her, There's there's nothing
Speaker 1: that she's trying to like sugarcoat anything about relationships or
Speaker 1: marriage or weddings or parenting. It's just nice to talk
Speaker 1: to a fellow lady about these things honestly and openly.
Speaker 1: She's just one of those great people who helps you,
Speaker 1: or I hope helped you realize like you're not alone
Speaker 1: and these things making you feel like you're crazy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that some of this relationship stuff is really hard,
Speaker 1: you know. I mean, there's a reason why not to
Speaker 1: be dismal. But a third of marriages dissolved within the
Speaker 1: first five years, and I think it's because we don't
Speaker 1: walk into these relationships with full tool sets, because it
Speaker 1: can be really easy to get distracted by the wedding
Speaker 1: or just by problems are negativity in general, if you
Speaker 1: get too swept up in any of that instead of
Speaker 1: working through it. Yea. So definitely head over to A
Speaker 1: Practical Wedding and check out everything that Meg's about, and
Speaker 1: we also highly recommend if you are engaged like I am,
Speaker 1: definitely check out their two books, which are fantastic resources.
Speaker 1: A Practical Wedding, Creative Solutions for Planning a Beautiful, affordable
Speaker 1: and meaningful Celebration, and most recently A Practical Wedding Planner,
Speaker 1: A step by step guy to cutting through the crazy
Speaker 1: and creating the wedding you want, and we'll have links
Speaker 1: to those over at our website Stuff I've Never told
Speaker 1: you dot Com. And now, of course, listeners, we want
Speaker 1: to hear from you because a lot of you are
Speaker 1: in relationships or have been in them. Some of you
Speaker 1: might be wives, husbands. We want to know what your
Speaker 1: insight and ad ices as well for having a long
Speaker 1: term feminist relationship and the work that that takes mom.
Speaker 1: Stuff at how stuff works dot Com is our email address,
Speaker 1: and we've got a couple of messages to share with
Speaker 1: you right now. I have a letter here from a
Speaker 1: listener who said that she wanted to share a personal
Speaker 1: story as a military member serving in Europe during the nineties.
Speaker 1: She says a junior enlisted friend of mine found herself pregnant.
Speaker 1: After consulting with her boyfriend, another junior enlisted service member,
Speaker 1: the decision was made to terminate the pregnancy. After consulting
Speaker 1: with a male military doctor, it was explained that the
Speaker 1: procedure could not take place on base. She would need
Speaker 1: to have the male hospital commander and her male squadron
Speaker 1: commander signed off on her to receive care at a
Speaker 1: local civilian facility. Take leave time and pay for out
Speaker 1: of her own pocket. For the record, abortion was legal
Speaker 1: in the country where we were stationed. The doctor assured
Speaker 1: her the paperworkers a formality and to come back in
Speaker 1: a week to go over the process. Two days later,
Speaker 1: the service member was summoned to her male squadron commander's
Speaker 1: office and interrogated at length as to her decision. Her
Speaker 1: boyfriend escaped any such interrogation. This went on daily for
Speaker 1: a week. The base male chaplain, who was not of
Speaker 1: her faith, was brought in to persuade her to change
Speaker 1: her mind. Mostly the sessions were about guilting, shaming, and
Speaker 1: bribing her with better assignments. When the first two tactics failed, finally,
Speaker 1: the commander said he refused to sign the paperwork allowing
Speaker 1: her to seek medical treatment off base because he was
Speaker 1: a family man and against abortion. After a week of
Speaker 1: these interrogations, she returned to the military hospital to meet
Speaker 1: with her mail doctor, who was shocked and horrified at
Speaker 1: her treatment. The hospital commander had signed his part of
Speaker 1: the paperwork, but the squadrons commander still refused. Talk about
Speaker 1: men controlling women's bodies, my friend chose to defy her
Speaker 1: squadron commander. She joked leave, drove herself to a civilian facility,
Speaker 1: had the procedure, stayed two days in the hospital, which
Speaker 1: was a hospital requirement, and then drove herself home. She
Speaker 1: spent the next several months in fear, year of retaliation
Speaker 1: and the possibility of punishment up to a court martial
Speaker 1: for essentially disobeying her squadron commander. I now live in Texas,
Speaker 1: where it seems not a day goes by that the
Speaker 1: state legislature is not chipping away at the women's access
Speaker 1: to legal abortion. This is all under the guise of
Speaker 1: keeping women safe. So today when someone asks me how
Speaker 1: I can be pro choice, I just tell them I
Speaker 1: have my reasons. As for my fellow service member, she
Speaker 1: left the service at the end of her enlistment. Today
Speaker 1: she's a happily married mother with three college degrees. So
Speaker 1: thank you for writing in Well, I gotta let her
Speaker 1: hear from Amy about our recent beauty and fashion episodes
Speaker 1: from the end of she writes, in your episodes on
Speaker 1: beauty and fashion blogging or vlogging, as the case may be,
Speaker 1: you commented about the lack of mail equivalence to this
Speaker 1: kind of emotional work. Briefly, mentioning sports shows, I think
Speaker 1: there's a better comparison to be made to video game
Speaker 1: reviewers and let's play commentaries. Like ashen bloggers, let's play
Speaker 1: videos portray a desirable lifestyle to their audience, earning money
Speaker 1: playing video games. What could be more fun? However, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of unseen work setting up cameras and audio,
Speaker 1: playing and replaying through levels, cutting and editing videos, creating
Speaker 1: title cards, et cetera. Let's play videos must simultaneously provide
Speaker 1: interesting live commentary while playing the game. Their personality sells
Speaker 1: the video even more than actual skills. This is intensive
Speaker 1: behind the scenes as well as performative work, combining improv comedy,
Speaker 1: expert commentary, and likable personality. Furthermore, the market is similar
Speaker 1: to fashion blogging in that there are a few elite
Speaker 1: let's play groups that make the real cash money by
Speaker 1: charging subscription fees to join their live chat, YouTube ads, merchandise,
Speaker 1: and donations. Examples include, but aren't limited to, yoggs cast
Speaker 1: that might be yos cast, y'all don't know what how
Speaker 1: it is actually pronounced video game awesome, and the omnipresent
Speaker 1: beauty Pie. However, were making a living wage is difficult
Speaker 1: in the market is staturated by amateurs doing their best
Speaker 1: to break in. It's difficult to know how much or
Speaker 1: how little some of the pros and quotes make. Some
Speaker 1: make a point of buying their own games. Others get
Speaker 1: copies sent to them as well as gadgets to try.
Speaker 1: I think that let's play sector differs from fashion blogging
Speaker 1: and that the players maintain a level of personal privacy. However,
Speaker 1: there's a certain false intimacy that develops on the viewer's side.
Speaker 1: I've spent hours listening to a couple of strangers play
Speaker 1: a video game on the other side of the world,
Speaker 1: and it starts to feel like I know them and
Speaker 1: I'm actually just quietly chilling in on their couch. It's
Speaker 1: an odd feeling, and I'd like to clarify that while
Speaker 1: I think Let's Play have more male than female creators,
Speaker 1: it's not completely exclusive to the ladies. Nor do I
Speaker 1: speak from direct experience as an actual creator of Let's
Speaker 1: play videos, just an occasional viewer. So thank you Amy
Speaker 1: for that insight, and I think your comparison is spot on.
Speaker 1: And to yags or yogs cast fans, my hypologies and
Speaker 1: if you've got letter us to send our way Mom's
Speaker 1: seven hell. Stuff works dot com is where you can
Speaker 1: do it every links to all of our social media
Speaker 1: as well as all of our blogs, videos, and podcasts
Speaker 1: with our sources so you can learn more about what
Speaker 1: it means to be a feminist wife, or just you know,
Speaker 1: like of a human person. Head on over to stuff
Speaker 1: Bob Never Told You dot com for more on this
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics. Does it has stuff works
Speaker 1: dot com