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SMNTY Classics: Are rebound relationships unhealthy? · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. You're welcome to stuff
0:07
Speaker 1: I've never told your production of I Heart Radio. I
0:18
Speaker 1: have kind of a personal question for you, and you
0:20
Speaker 1: don't have to answer it if you don't want to.
0:22
Speaker 1: Have you ever like I had a rebound relationship? Oh yeah, yeah,
0:27
Speaker 1: I haven't had too many relationships, so anything I thought
0:30
Speaker 1: could be serious. If I got heartbroken or sad, I
0:33
Speaker 1: would go back to this one. Dude. He was my
0:35
Speaker 1: one rebound. Is that weird? I don't know. I don't
0:39
Speaker 1: Did he know he was your rebound? I don't know,
0:41
Speaker 1: because I told you we didn't. We haven't really communicated
0:46
Speaker 1: about what we ever were Like, we were off so
0:49
Speaker 1: badly in communication that when one would be actually interested
0:52
Speaker 1: in one actual relationship, the other wouldn't. And we definitely
0:56
Speaker 1: had moments of just being off. So everything finally did
1:00
Speaker 1: when he started seriously seeing somebody and I started seriously
1:03
Speaker 1: seeing somebody, and it kind of just died off and
1:05
Speaker 1: then he got engaged, so I was like, oh, yeah,
1:07
Speaker 1: definitely definitely off. So I think, yeah, so typically that
1:14
Speaker 1: would be he was my rebound guy, which, by the way,
1:16
Speaker 1: is a Sex in the City episode. Are we coming
1:19
Speaker 1: up on it. No, it's a long time. It's a
1:22
Speaker 1: long time. Well no, I want to say, since season two.
1:25
Speaker 1: So we're coming along, We're coming along. Okay, I'll have
1:30
Speaker 1: more time to think about it, all right. Well I
1:33
Speaker 1: had I also had a guy. It's sometimes it's strange
1:37
Speaker 1: to think because to me, reinbound relationship is something I've
1:40
Speaker 1: seen a sitcoms. I know it exists, but there's kind
1:43
Speaker 1: of that like really over the top aspect of it.
1:47
Speaker 1: But there was a guy in my life that I
1:48
Speaker 1: think we were on the kind of rebound path, even
1:54
Speaker 1: though nothing serious really ever happened, but like if he
1:57
Speaker 1: broke up with somebody all of a sudden, I was like,
2:01
Speaker 1: he wanted to hang out with me all the time,
2:03
Speaker 1: and I was kind of the opposite, where not the opposite,
2:07
Speaker 1: but I always want to hang out with him. I
2:08
Speaker 1: kind of had a crush on him. But it was
2:12
Speaker 1: just interesting to me that it's a strange place to
2:16
Speaker 1: be where you're like, Okay, now you're sad at alone,
2:21
Speaker 1: and I am here, and we can we can He
2:29
Speaker 1: said the quiet part out loud. Okay, it's true, it's true.
2:36
Speaker 1: And I just I was thinking about this because of course,
2:41
Speaker 1: I my mind is I'm riled up about some some
2:46
Speaker 1: Star Wars stuff, so I I'm going to talk about
2:50
Speaker 1: it in the future. But I was just thinking about attachment,
2:54
Speaker 1: types of attachment, and a rebound came up. People were
2:59
Speaker 1: bringing that up, and now it's kind of it can
3:01
Speaker 1: be different based on your attachment, and it can be healthy,
3:04
Speaker 1: and it can be unhealthy and all these things. But anyway,
3:07
Speaker 1: all that to say, please enjoy this classic episode in
3:10
Speaker 1: the meantime, Welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You from
3:17
Speaker 1: how Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
3:25
Speaker 1: I'm Kristen and I'm Caroline. So Caroline, I think that
3:28
Speaker 1: we can both agree on and the breakup suck. I
3:32
Speaker 1: do believe they do. Yeah, I mean, even if you're
3:34
Speaker 1: the one doing the breaking up or you're the one
3:37
Speaker 1: being broken up with, it's just a pain in the
3:41
Speaker 1: painful is yeah, like the heart. The pain is a
3:44
Speaker 1: pain in the heart and the butt and the but yeah, no,
3:47
Speaker 1: it leaves you feeling kind of worthless sometimes. So sometimes
3:52
Speaker 1: the knee jerk response to a breakup is, well, you
3:55
Speaker 1: can you can just get back together with a person,
3:58
Speaker 1: or you can rebound. Yes you can. Now this is
4:04
Speaker 1: kind of a bad idea. According to some people, though, Yeah,
4:07
Speaker 1: rebound relationships have I think a pretty negative connotation. You're
4:12
Speaker 1: like you always fear like, oh, you know, you're just rebounding.
4:14
Speaker 1: It sort of implies that you are still an emotional
4:18
Speaker 1: wreck and nobody wants to be with the rebounder. Yeah, no,
4:21
Speaker 1: because you're just gonna use them up. You're gonna use
4:23
Speaker 1: them until you are whole again and have regained your
4:26
Speaker 1: self confidence and self worth, and then you'll move on
4:29
Speaker 1: to the more substantial person unless you just get stuck there. Yeah,
4:33
Speaker 1: if you just want attention, I mean, you might just
4:35
Speaker 1: stick with whoever you come across right after your breakup exactly. Yeah.
4:39
Speaker 1: Rebounders also tend to be labeled pretty desperate. Yeah, but
4:44
Speaker 1: so many people do it. So are we all just
4:46
Speaker 1: a desperate pack of sad sex? That might be a
4:50
Speaker 1: harsh assessment. I mean, I don't think there's anything wrong
4:52
Speaker 1: with uh, you know, after you've either been broken up
4:55
Speaker 1: with or or dumped somebody that you know, you want
4:58
Speaker 1: to get back to feeling like a normal person. Yeah,
5:00
Speaker 1: And it also it sort of broadens your perspective maybe
5:03
Speaker 1: instead of just focusing on that one person you've broken
5:06
Speaker 1: up with, so some pros and some cons um And
5:10
Speaker 1: we actually found a study, a survey published in the
5:14
Speaker 1: College Study Journal UM oddsounding journal from March two thousand
5:19
Speaker 1: nine that looked into the characteristics of a rebounder. They
5:25
Speaker 1: weren't all positive. They were not all positive. Rebounders were
5:28
Speaker 1: painted as love seeking, desperate, lonely individuals yes, who were
5:32
Speaker 1: also cheaters yes, and promiscuous ye. So so there you
5:38
Speaker 1: go in a podcast. Don't do it. Don't get involved
5:40
Speaker 1: with a rebounder. Now, first of all, Um, a majority
5:43
Speaker 1: of the people in the survey, this was roughly a
5:45
Speaker 1: thousand undergrads, said that they had knowingly been in a
5:51
Speaker 1: rebounding relationship, had initiated a rebound um And the top
5:57
Speaker 1: characteristics that these researchers found among the people who were
6:01
Speaker 1: in these rebound relationships were Number one, Caroline, like you said,
6:05
Speaker 1: they just tend to fall in love fast, right, They
6:09
Speaker 1: also tend to get married faster. So once they got
6:12
Speaker 1: their hooks and somebody, they just keep them. Yeah. So
6:15
Speaker 1: not only do they marry quickly, but they are also
6:18
Speaker 1: randomly enough more likely to marry foreigners. I have indeed
6:21
Speaker 1: rebounded with an Englishman myself. Yes, he was an actor,
6:26
Speaker 1: an English actor. Yes, that wouldn't have lasted in real life,
6:29
Speaker 1: but luckily I was in England so it didn't count.
6:31
Speaker 1: That sounds like a fantasy rebound. I would like to
6:34
Speaker 1: be made into a movie. And he was very concerned
6:36
Speaker 1: with his hair, so well the stage what the stage?
6:40
Speaker 1: It would not have worked out. Was he a stage actor?
6:42
Speaker 1: He was British, very theatrical. He told me I should
6:45
Speaker 1: wear more dangly earrings. And did you know, good for you?
6:52
Speaker 1: You knew a rebounding sawd And you're not going to
6:54
Speaker 1: invest in new jewelry. Buddy, You're in shape and you
6:57
Speaker 1: have an accent. You're making me feel better about myself.
7:00
Speaker 1: I have no desire to change anything for you or
7:03
Speaker 1: randomly get married. Yes, exactly. And also I thought this
7:08
Speaker 1: was interesting. They found that people who are quote looking
7:12
Speaker 1: for love on the internet are more likely to be rebounders.
7:16
Speaker 1: And that makes total sense if you think about online dating.
7:19
Speaker 1: First of all, so many people are doing it. But
7:22
Speaker 1: I mean, if there were an easier way to rebound
7:25
Speaker 1: these days, I can't think of one other than signing
7:27
Speaker 1: up for say I don't know, okay, keep it and
7:32
Speaker 1: just letting the dates slow your way, or just being
7:36
Speaker 1: you know, a volunteer to be the doorman at a bar.
7:39
Speaker 1: Just let the dates come to your said, you just
7:42
Speaker 1: have a little business cards ready with your with your
7:44
Speaker 1: number on them. But then this is where it starts
7:47
Speaker 1: to get a little little sketchy. Is the hedonistic patterns
7:53
Speaker 1: cheating Caroline, what's up with these cheaters and rebounding? Now?
7:57
Speaker 1: It says the study says that people who cheating their
8:00
Speaker 1: relationships are more likely to rebound. Does that just mean
8:03
Speaker 1: that they just want so much attention that they they're
8:06
Speaker 1: not getting enough attention from their girlfriend or their boyfriends,
8:08
Speaker 1: so they're cheating on them with somebody else, and in
8:10
Speaker 1: that busts, they just go for somebody else right away.
8:13
Speaker 1: And what a double whammy if you somehow end up
8:16
Speaker 1: being with a person who is not only a pathological
8:18
Speaker 1: cheater but a rebounder. Yeah, so that maybe they are
8:22
Speaker 1: cheating on you while also rebounding, so that then you
8:26
Speaker 1: would probably need to rebound big time. That's too many steps,
8:29
Speaker 1: I know, it's a lot. Those are people that you
8:31
Speaker 1: just need to draw big red X over. Yeah, just
8:33
Speaker 1: stay away from them. Um. And the researchers also tried
8:36
Speaker 1: to draw a correlation between rebounding and unprotected sex, but
8:40
Speaker 1: that one was a little weak to me. Yeah, this
8:43
Speaker 1: was a study of about a thousand, like you said,
8:45
Speaker 1: about a thousand undergrads, and so I'm thinking that's more
8:48
Speaker 1: a result of maybe young people like eight nineteen, you know,
8:52
Speaker 1: your first to college. You're young, You're doing crazy things
8:55
Speaker 1: that might have more to do with it than actually
8:57
Speaker 1: being someone who rebounds frequently. And there was one big
9:14
Speaker 1: question that the study did not address, which is the
9:18
Speaker 1: reason behind why these people were rebounding, like how the
9:22
Speaker 1: relationship dissolved, um whether they initiated the breakup or they
9:26
Speaker 1: were the ones who were being broken up with. That
9:29
Speaker 1: can really tell you a lot more about maybe the
9:31
Speaker 1: quality and motivation of a rebound, because, as we learned
9:36
Speaker 1: in psychology today, there are some benefits to rebounding, especially
9:43
Speaker 1: if you are anxiously attached. And that leads me to
9:46
Speaker 1: picture somebody in an absolute panic over finding a relationship.
9:49
Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, these people tend to have avoid they
9:55
Speaker 1: feel like they have to fill this void with someone else,
9:57
Speaker 1: and you know that could lead you to had decisions,
10:01
Speaker 1: but it could also help you disconnect from your previous relationships.
10:05
Speaker 1: So if you just are one of those people who
10:07
Speaker 1: after a breakup, you know, you just feel all of
10:09
Speaker 1: this tremendous grief and you just can't get over it.
10:12
Speaker 1: If you rebound with somebody that you know disconnects you
10:15
Speaker 1: from your previous relationship, it could make you feel you know,
10:19
Speaker 1: attractive again, or you know, just having a good time
10:22
Speaker 1: after a bad breakup. Right, because anxiously attached people tend
10:25
Speaker 1: to put so much emotional investment into one person that
10:30
Speaker 1: they feel such a great loss. It's all of this
10:33
Speaker 1: is based around the idea of an exchange theory, and
10:37
Speaker 1: it's this psychological sort of framework of relationships that puts
10:41
Speaker 1: it in very sort of economic terms of gains versus losses.
10:46
Speaker 1: So by rebounding, you move as quickly as you can
10:50
Speaker 1: from a loss to a gain. So this could be
10:54
Speaker 1: a good thing for an anxiously attached person to instead
10:57
Speaker 1: of wallowing, you know, in a very bridget owns this
11:00
Speaker 1: kind of Bridget Jens is Bridget Jones kind of way. Uh,
11:06
Speaker 1: It pulls your head out of the other person's behind
11:11
Speaker 1: behind and and gets you moving forward. Right, But what
11:15
Speaker 1: happens when the reboundy realizes that you're just an anxiously attached,
11:19
Speaker 1: crazy individual. And you know what if they then leave
11:24
Speaker 1: you because they don't want to be the reboundy, or
11:26
Speaker 1: because since you're on the rebound, what if you start
11:29
Speaker 1: acting maybe a little desperate, maybe treating them like they're
11:33
Speaker 1: your ex, you know, sliding them right into that position. Yeah.
11:36
Speaker 1: I have been guilty of that. I'll be honest, I've
11:38
Speaker 1: I've certainly done the rebound that I just wanted to
11:42
Speaker 1: funnel all like unresolved emotion in the last relationship straight
11:48
Speaker 1: into them, and they were not ready for it, and
11:50
Speaker 1: they should not have been ready for the exact same
11:53
Speaker 1: thing happened to me. I sort of put all of
11:55
Speaker 1: my angs onto this poor, unsuspecting schmuck, and you know,
12:00
Speaker 1: you thought, oh, nice girl, we're just hanging out casually.
12:03
Speaker 1: But I pretty much started dating him a month after
12:05
Speaker 1: my to your relationship broke up. So yeah, I just
12:09
Speaker 1: sort of started treating him like my boyfriend. And he
12:11
Speaker 1: didn't know where that came from. Did not to me
12:14
Speaker 1: as well, because I was like, wait, wait is this
12:16
Speaker 1: I mean, it's cool if we hang out every day, right,
12:18
Speaker 1: because I'm like, I mean I can call you all
12:20
Speaker 1: the time and text you throughout the work day, right,
12:22
Speaker 1: I kind of expect you to stay over every night.
12:24
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's a little tricky. You gotta you gotta
12:27
Speaker 1: be careful with that timing. But it is good to
12:30
Speaker 1: know that rebounding isn't all all bad. I mean, there's
12:33
Speaker 1: there's this um study from University of Toronto saying that
12:38
Speaker 1: that rebounding absolutely can provide confidence in the availability of
12:43
Speaker 1: new sources of connection. You know, yeah, there are other
12:48
Speaker 1: it's the whole they're more efficient to see that. All
12:51
Speaker 1: your girl friends and guy friends whoever will tell you,
12:54
Speaker 1: you know, to comfort you. But that sounds like total
12:58
Speaker 1: trite cliche, right honky, But um, but it's true. It's
13:03
Speaker 1: actually true, and there's facts to scientific data to back
13:07
Speaker 1: that up. But if you are finding yourself, you know,
13:11
Speaker 1: in a rebounding kind of pattern, or if you are
13:13
Speaker 1: fresh out of relationship and you want to move forward,
13:16
Speaker 1: but maybe you're thinking, like I don't know, maybe this
13:18
Speaker 1: isn't maybe this is the right time. There are possibly
13:21
Speaker 1: some questions you would want to ask yourself. You found
13:25
Speaker 1: these over um at Huffington Post. This is from a psychotherapist,
13:29
Speaker 1: Mary Darling Montero, And I mean, there and there are
13:31
Speaker 1: questions kind of no brainer questions that you would ask like, okay,
13:35
Speaker 1: am I just ping ponging around from person to person?
13:38
Speaker 1: Are you giving yourself any sort of time to actually recover?
13:41
Speaker 1: Are you giving yourself any time to actually deal with
13:44
Speaker 1: what you just went through? Or are you just going
13:46
Speaker 1: to dump it on the next person who comes along?
13:48
Speaker 1: And I think that there's a definite distinction between, like
13:51
Speaker 1: you said, dealing with um, the past relationship and wallowing
13:57
Speaker 1: right right, and that's going to be different from every
13:59
Speaker 1: person for every person as well. UM, and then also
14:02
Speaker 1: recognizing if you are legitimately rebounding and you just want
14:06
Speaker 1: to have fun with someone, yeah, because you've got to
14:08
Speaker 1: be careful with the other person in that case, like
14:10
Speaker 1: if you want absolutely nothing serious, because I think we've
14:13
Speaker 1: been there as well, dude, and it can get you know,
14:17
Speaker 1: you don't want to hurt the other person, So also
14:19
Speaker 1: good to be straightforward about it. Well, so do you
14:21
Speaker 1: warn the other person? Do do you just let it
14:24
Speaker 1: come up naturally like oh, yeah, you know, my fifteen
14:27
Speaker 1: year relationship just broke up. Watch out, Yeah, I am
14:32
Speaker 1: trouble waiting to happen. I have a psychological in this.
14:35
Speaker 1: Do you warn them of this. Do you just let
14:37
Speaker 1: that come up naturally or you know, in my experience,
14:40
Speaker 1: they you know, they catch on eventually, when when the
14:44
Speaker 1: emotional distance becomes more and more apparent, you know, they'll
14:48
Speaker 1: either just be down with it or it'll dissolve. But
14:52
Speaker 1: that's essentially what you want, though, is at some point
14:55
Speaker 1: for it to dissolve, you know, So God, don't date me. Apparently. Well, No,
15:00
Speaker 1: I got into a situation where, um, I was the
15:04
Speaker 1: REBOUNDY went on some dates with this guy who had
15:07
Speaker 1: just gotten out of a very long term relationship, and
15:11
Speaker 1: he was under the impression that he was fine, and
15:14
Speaker 1: I warned him. I said, you know, I've been in
15:16
Speaker 1: your shoes. I know it's hard to get out of
15:18
Speaker 1: a long term relationship. You probably feel a little, maybe
15:21
Speaker 1: little lonely. You know, I get it. But you know,
15:23
Speaker 1: are you okay because you're probably not? Oh no, no, no, no,
15:28
Speaker 1: I'm fine. No, I really like you. Let's hang out. Yeah.
15:32
Speaker 1: Lasted a couple of weeks and we finally actually called
15:35
Speaker 1: each other the day before Valentine's Day and I said, hey,
15:39
Speaker 1: I think we should talk about something and he said, oh,
15:42
Speaker 1: me too. I said, I think maybe we shouldn't see
15:45
Speaker 1: each other anymore. He said, oh me to Oh that's good. Yeah,
15:49
Speaker 1: we both realized that he was in no position to
15:52
Speaker 1: be dating someone because he started actually treating me like
15:55
Speaker 1: his ex. Yeah, that's gonna be awkward. It was definitely awkward,
15:59
Speaker 1: was on it. You know, I would totally get bombarded
16:01
Speaker 1: because I would say something innocent and he would just
16:04
Speaker 1: totally respond negatively because it's something he and his ex
16:08
Speaker 1: had thought about. You know, I think it's interesting, like
16:11
Speaker 1: we we talked about this um actually before we started
16:13
Speaker 1: recording the podcast, but this idea that there might be
16:16
Speaker 1: kind of a gender difference between men rebounding and women rebounding,
16:21
Speaker 1: Like time and again, it seems like the story is
16:24
Speaker 1: a guy and a girl breakup and the girl is lonely,
16:27
Speaker 1: and the guy somehow rebounds and ends up marrying the
16:30
Speaker 1: girl or something. Is that that could just be differences
16:33
Speaker 1: and how men and women deal with things. I mean,
16:34
Speaker 1: do you think it's possible that women are more open
16:37
Speaker 1: to actually working through their feelings? Although I definitely have
16:42
Speaker 1: been guilty and rebounding immediately, you know, it's it possible
16:45
Speaker 1: that maybe women are more likely to work through their feelings.
16:49
Speaker 1: You know, think about it, get through it, talk about
16:51
Speaker 1: it with their friends, whereas a guy might just be
16:54
Speaker 1: lonely and go straight to dating someone else. I think
16:57
Speaker 1: that could absolutely be the king. And we haven't been
17:00
Speaker 1: able to find any studies, Like, there's no data to
17:04
Speaker 1: back this up. But I think that you make a
17:06
Speaker 1: very good point. But we need to hear from from
17:08
Speaker 1: guys out there because obviously these are two female minds
17:11
Speaker 1: right at work. Cookie thing, we're just judging away exactly
17:16
Speaker 1: her huge But we've been talking a lot about dating,
17:21
Speaker 1: so I guess the final thing to talk about is
17:23
Speaker 1: the marriage rebound. This might be the most horrified thought
17:27
Speaker 1: to me is a rebound marriage, because that right there
17:31
Speaker 1: sounds like trouble. Yeah, there was actually a study that said, hey,
17:37
Speaker 1: this isn't so bad if you want to leave one
17:39
Speaker 1: marriage and hop right on over to the other one,
17:41
Speaker 1: don't worry about what your friends say about recovering and
17:44
Speaker 1: taking your time for yourself. It says, no, just go ahead.
17:49
Speaker 1: And what he's what the guy was saying was just
17:51
Speaker 1: that there's no evidence of a higher rate of divorce. Yeah,
17:54
Speaker 1: I think that the divorce rate is already probably still high.
17:58
Speaker 1: You can't screw it up whether you've been there's been
18:01
Speaker 1: time between marriages or not. Um, maybe it's difficult for
18:06
Speaker 1: that person who you're marrying. You might have to deal
18:09
Speaker 1: with any any excess baggage that you have, but you
18:12
Speaker 1: know what, there's always gonna be baggage. Yeah, there's someone
18:14
Speaker 1: for everyone. There's enough desperate people in the world that
18:16
Speaker 1: hopefully they can find each other. Yes, but I don't
18:19
Speaker 1: see how, um, something so legally binding could be a
18:23
Speaker 1: good idea. Yeah, that definitely seems like a lot. But hey,
18:28
Speaker 1: study says not a problem, you know, so don't take
18:32
Speaker 1: our word for it, but you know so, what's our
18:35
Speaker 1: consensus then on rebounding good bad? Depends? I think it
18:40
Speaker 1: depends depends. It depends on the rebound or the reboundies
18:43
Speaker 1: breakup that night. Pretty much, we should maybe stop demonizing
18:48
Speaker 1: rebound relationships because it sounds like rebound relationships are pretty
18:53
Speaker 1: much the same as any relationship and that both parties
18:57
Speaker 1: will bring in different sets of things and the outcome
19:01
Speaker 1: just depends. Yeah, you if you're the reboundy, you gotta
19:06
Speaker 1: watch out for that crazy watch off that cheater, that crazy, hedonistic,
19:11
Speaker 1: actually promiscuous cheater. Yes, and if you're the rebounder. If
19:16
Speaker 1: you're doing it all the time, if you're not dealing
19:18
Speaker 1: with your baggage and someplace siphoning out onto other people. Um,
19:23
Speaker 1: your your your mess. You put a stop to it. Yeah.
19:27
Speaker 1: If you're uncomfortable being alone in any time, then maybe
19:33
Speaker 1: ate twice. Yeah, you have issues that you need to
19:35
Speaker 1: work through. Caroline says, you got issues, Yeah, get a cat,
19:38
Speaker 1: maybe dog volunteered to shelter. Yes, and some box set
19:42
Speaker 1: DVDs of good TV shows such as twin Peaks. You'll
19:45
Speaker 1: be too scared to want a date. And you know,
19:48
Speaker 1: if it helps, you can yell at happy couples on
19:50
Speaker 1: the street. Yeah, that's always fun. I think that them.
19:55
Speaker 1: So if you have any thoughts to lend to our
19:58
Speaker 1: rebounding conversation, we'd love to hear from you. Mom stuff
20:01
Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com. And we have a
20:09
Speaker 1: couple of emails to read here in Caroline, why don't
20:12
Speaker 1: you kick it off for us? Sure? This is from Erica.
20:14
Speaker 1: This is in a response to the Delivery Room podcast.
20:18
Speaker 1: She said, there are a lot of questions and things
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Speaker 1: people don't know about in regards to delivery. My friend
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Speaker 1: and I decided to be each other's support person for
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Speaker 1: our deliveries, and it has worked out great all four time. Wow.
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Speaker 1: We each had our husbands with us, but we had
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Speaker 1: another buddy there that could be a support and be
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Speaker 1: there for you on a level your husband can't. Her
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Speaker 1: husband truly dislikes hospitals, so he frequently leaves and goes
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Speaker 1: into the waiting room or outside for large parts of
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Speaker 1: the labor, giving him a break so he can be
20:47
Speaker 1: better focused for the actual delivery. It's worked out great.
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Speaker 1: Both my children ended up meeting immediate medical care and
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Speaker 1: my husband was able to go with them and my
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Speaker 1: friends stayed with me. I think birth is very individual
20:58
Speaker 1: and whatever works is good. And I've got one here
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Speaker 1: from Jane, also in response to our dads in the
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Speaker 1: delivery room episode, and she writes, my friends and I
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Speaker 1: have discussed this subject before. At the beginning of the conversation,
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Speaker 1: a lot of them thought they wouldn't want anyone except
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Speaker 1: the doctors to see them as a sweaty mess. But
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Speaker 1: by the end we really had come up with a
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Speaker 1: good answer. Marry the guy who you want to be
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Speaker 1: there holding your hand. That seems pretty simple. Simple advice
21:26
Speaker 1: from Jane, And if you have any advice to send
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Speaker 1: our way or thoughts. Again. The email address is mom
21:33
Speaker 1: Stuff at how stuff works dot com. We'd also love
21:35
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21:38
Speaker 1: if you don't mind, and follow us on Twitter. So
21:41
Speaker 1: many things we ask Our handle over there is at
21:43
Speaker 1: mom Stuff podcast. And then finally, we have a blog
21:47
Speaker 1: during the week, It's stuff Mom Never told You at
21:50
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. Be sure to check out
21:56
Speaker 1: our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join how
22:00
Speaker 1: Stuff Work staff as we explore the most promising and
22:02
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22:06
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