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SMNTY Files an Update on Divorce · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome stuff. Never
0:07
Speaker 1: told you production of by Heart Radio, and today we're
0:20
Speaker 1: coming in Swinging in the new year. We are talking
0:24
Speaker 1: about divorce in the United States and specifically how it
0:28
Speaker 1: impacts women. It is a topic we have been meaning
0:31
Speaker 1: to do for a while. I appreciate so much your
0:35
Speaker 1: patients because a lot of times I'll be like, yes,
0:38
Speaker 1: we're gonna do that, and then a year later and like,
0:40
Speaker 1: here we finally are We do take care your suggestions.
0:45
Speaker 1: We absolutely do. Sometimes it just takes us a minute.
0:49
Speaker 1: And several of you have written in about it and
0:52
Speaker 1: thank you for sharing your experiences about your divorce. And
0:59
Speaker 1: recently I have gotten so many cold call emails about it.
1:02
Speaker 1: This is what we call emails where people are like,
1:06
Speaker 1: you should do a topic on this, and I was
1:08
Speaker 1: getting so many about divorce. I didn't know that the
1:11
Speaker 1: first Monday of January is divorce day? Did you know that?
1:16
Speaker 2: I did not know. That seems so sad at the
1:19
Speaker 2: same time, why.
1:22
Speaker 1: I'm depending on you, Samanthy. You're the one who tells
1:25
Speaker 1: me about cuffings. Heason. I don't know, but I based
1:28
Speaker 1: on what I read, which, by the way, as of recording.
1:32
Speaker 1: Divorce Day was this past Monday. People hold off on
1:37
Speaker 1: getting the divorce until after the holidays, especially if they
1:39
Speaker 1: have kids, so it's sort of the it's a new year.
1:45
Speaker 1: I'm done with this. I would like to move on.
1:48
Speaker 1: Situation disclaimer. We are not lawyers. Neither of us have
1:54
Speaker 1: ever been married. Unless you have something to tell me.
1:57
Speaker 3: Unless you have something to tell me, no, between the
2:00
Speaker 3: two of us, you would be treated into a marriage.
2:02
Speaker 2: Before I was.
2:03
Speaker 1: I've been proposed to more than one, I'm sure, but
2:07
Speaker 1: I have never ever ever been married. I do have
2:09
Speaker 1: a friend who surprised me that she had been married.
2:12
Speaker 1: I didn't know that. My dad also was married before
2:15
Speaker 1: my mom, and I didn't know that. But anyway, I
2:18
Speaker 1: do not get your legal advice from a podcast.
2:21
Speaker 2: Please God, don't do it.
2:24
Speaker 1: Don't do it, even if it's a legal podcast. No,
2:28
Speaker 1: just look up other films.
2:31
Speaker 3: Different states have different outlines of yes they're allowed to do.
2:36
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh. So originally I wanted to do how
2:42
Speaker 1: to get a divorce like step by step. I didn't
2:48
Speaker 1: realize how vastly that varies in the United States. So
2:55
Speaker 1: we're going to put that on hold for a minute.
2:57
Speaker 1: I do want to come back and talk about it.
3:00
Speaker 1: Because this is a huge topic. We are primarily focusing
3:04
Speaker 1: on the US. Listeners from other countries please write in,
3:07
Speaker 1: I'm really curious and yeah, we're definitely gonna have to
3:10
Speaker 1: revisit it because the history of marriage, the religious aspects,
3:15
Speaker 1: the legal aspects, how it has changed, and how it
3:18
Speaker 1: hasn't changing. Your insurance, is your finance, is maybe your name,
3:22
Speaker 1: your will, splitting your assets if you have them, child custody,
3:27
Speaker 1: the history of racism, of homophobia, of ableism. See our
3:32
Speaker 1: recent episode on disability and marriage. Like it's there's so
3:37
Speaker 1: much to unpack in this episode. We have done past
3:43
Speaker 1: episodes on some of these issues, but just know there
3:48
Speaker 1: are so many of these histories and influences enshrined in
3:51
Speaker 1: our laws in the US that still remain when you're
3:54
Speaker 1: trying to get a divorce. We are going to touch
3:57
Speaker 1: on LGBTQ plus divorce, but briefly, that's a whole separate
4:02
Speaker 1: episode in itself, And frankly, when I was researching it,
4:05
Speaker 1: I mostly just got law websites that I I wasn't
4:11
Speaker 1: sure I could trustfully, to be honest, and that's not
4:14
Speaker 1: a great place to be in when you're trying to
4:17
Speaker 1: get a divorce. Yeah, so today we are mostly going
4:21
Speaker 1: to be talking about divorce in the heteronormative sense. You
4:25
Speaker 1: can't see our book where we did a chapter on
4:30
Speaker 1: the legalization of gay marriage and all of the conversation
4:36
Speaker 1: arguments about that, so check that out. You can also
4:39
Speaker 1: see the episode we did on Glennon Doyle's book Untamed,
4:44
Speaker 1: and you can see our episode on some research that
4:48
Speaker 1: does single women are happier. Another thing to keep in
4:53
Speaker 1: mind as we go through this, and we are going
4:56
Speaker 1: to expound on it more, but divorce is hard emotionally, financially, legally,
5:01
Speaker 1: it takes up a lot of your time. Sometimes legally
5:06
Speaker 1: as in by law, it takes up a lot of
5:09
Speaker 1: your time. But it's not always bad, and we often
5:12
Speaker 1: frame it as a failure, especially for women. And you
5:15
Speaker 1: can see our Religious Trauma episode on divorce for more
5:18
Speaker 1: about that. Oh my, sometimes it is a good thing.
5:23
Speaker 1: That doesn't mean it doesn't hurt or it isn't difficult,
5:25
Speaker 1: but sometimes it's a net positive. On top of that,
5:29
Speaker 1: marriage isn't bad. Many people have happy marriages, but marriage
5:33
Speaker 1: has historically systemically favored men. And yes, the Internet will
5:37
Speaker 1: tell you otherwise we will talk about that more later.
5:42
Speaker 1: I personally haven't. I don't have a lot of experience
5:48
Speaker 1: with divorce other than a friend, one of my very
5:53
Speaker 1: close friends, her parents got divorced and it was really emotional.
5:57
Speaker 1: I at one time, which I'll talk about a bit
6:01
Speaker 1: more later, really wanted my parents to get a divorce.
6:04
Speaker 1: I thought it would have been better. But through media,
6:08
Speaker 1: I will say, I thought it was a negative thing.
6:11
Speaker 1: I thought it was always bad. And through doing this research,
6:17
Speaker 1: I have read many accounts by women where that is
6:20
Speaker 1: not the case. But what about your Samantha, do you
6:22
Speaker 1: have experience thoughts? Before we get into.
6:27
Speaker 3: This experienced thoughts, I will say, as a person who
6:30
Speaker 3: did work for CPS to help protective services man, if
6:36
Speaker 3: you don't know if your marriage is not gonna last,
6:38
Speaker 3: or if you have doubts about your marriage, don't have children, Well, like,
6:43
Speaker 3: that's the way they use a lot of cases, especially
6:47
Speaker 3: when it comes to divorce, the way that children are
6:52
Speaker 3: used to manipulate a lot of honestly women, I mean
6:57
Speaker 3: both both sides. I guess we can say both sides,
6:59
Speaker 3: but like we know that, uh, it's doing pregnancy and
7:03
Speaker 3: divorce that is the highest risk for the death of
7:06
Speaker 3: a spouse, the woman, specifically the wife. So like all
7:10
Speaker 3: of these things and even with growing up in a
7:14
Speaker 3: household that said, you do not divorce no matter what,
7:17
Speaker 3: no matter what, like the only reason is for cheating,
7:20
Speaker 3: and even that you need witnesses to the cheating, and
7:24
Speaker 3: like he has to agree to the divorce as well,
7:27
Speaker 3: biblical level of like how to get a divorce is
7:30
Speaker 3: insane anyway, but like really coming and understanding as a
7:35
Speaker 3: person who didn't have many relationships growing up, that wasn't
7:37
Speaker 3: the most important thing for me watching family members around
7:41
Speaker 3: me really trying to stick to that, even like condoning
7:44
Speaker 3: that life, Oh gave me the biggest dick. So I
7:51
Speaker 3: will say, as gross and as hard as divorce can
7:55
Speaker 3: fill or you know, break ups, but divorce is a
7:58
Speaker 3: whole different conversation. Being stuck in a miserable relationship where
8:03
Speaker 3: you feel like you're trapped is even worse. And I
8:06
Speaker 3: can't imagine fifty sixty years ago when people were really
8:10
Speaker 3: really harping on that you have to stay together no
8:12
Speaker 3: matter what is death do you part, even if it's
8:16
Speaker 3: your death that he caused or they caused, Like it
8:19
Speaker 3: doesn't matter, it's so absurd. I'm glad to see that
8:22
Speaker 3: narrative changing a bit. I know everybody's still harping onto
8:26
Speaker 3: the but the divorce and the fifty and his cause
8:29
Speaker 3: of sin.
8:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, but with that, I think.
8:40
Speaker 3: Marriage is not overrated, but it's not for everyone. And
8:44
Speaker 3: I think that's a great reminder. This episode is a
8:47
Speaker 3: good reminder things changed.
8:49
Speaker 1: That's what I'll also say. Yeah, and we're gonna get
8:52
Speaker 1: into that because, as I said, this is a huge topic.
8:56
Speaker 1: This is actually more of a kind of an update
8:59
Speaker 1: on where divorce is in the United States, which we
9:06
Speaker 1: are going to talk about kind of differences that are
9:09
Speaker 1: really interesting between breakups and divorce when it comes to gender,
9:14
Speaker 1: because you know, divorce involves you going to core to
9:18
Speaker 1: file a document to like dissolve your marriage legally. It's
9:26
Speaker 1: actually pretty difficult to track divorce rates in the US,
9:30
Speaker 1: and that's not even accounting for separated couples, because for
9:32
Speaker 1: a lot of reasons, people will separate but not get divorced.
9:36
Speaker 1: The estimate is currently around forty percent. A lot of
9:39
Speaker 1: times it's quoted at fifty, but they think it's actually
9:41
Speaker 1: closer to forty. Most sources indicate that divorces are less
9:46
Speaker 1: of a specific event and more often one partner deciding
9:50
Speaker 1: to leave. And historically the increase has gone up with
9:54
Speaker 1: women's evolving role in society. So there are a couple
9:59
Speaker 1: of reasons behind this. Why this might be some of
10:04
Speaker 1: them we're gonna get into a bit more, but just
10:07
Speaker 1: off the top of my head, I was thinking about
10:08
Speaker 1: like the history of marrying young older men marrying younger women,
10:12
Speaker 1: so like, as you grow older, maybe this isn't for you.
10:18
Speaker 1: The woman usually having to sacrifice for your family and
10:22
Speaker 1: for your children, being kind of indoctrinated with this idea
10:27
Speaker 1: that happiness is silly, You're not good enough to choose
10:30
Speaker 1: your own well being. That would be selfish. That ideal
10:34
Speaker 1: is kind of shifting. I think, who will care for
10:38
Speaker 1: your kids if you have them? Can you afford childcare?
10:40
Speaker 1: Who is getting paid more? I think these questions are
10:44
Speaker 1: more prevalent. I did see this. I'm going to talk
10:58
Speaker 1: about this more later, but when when we were researching this,
11:02
Speaker 1: I saw a bunch of like magazine articles that were
11:05
Speaker 1: like how to save your marriage, and a lot of
11:06
Speaker 1: them were like, have we just tried being sexier? Though
11:10
Speaker 1: I don't think that's flying anymore. I don't think that's working.
11:15
Speaker 1: And also just a reminder, marital rape was legal till
11:18
Speaker 1: disturbingly recently. So a lot of reasons why women couldn't
11:22
Speaker 1: get divorced. Uh, we're it was difficult. There were financial
11:30
Speaker 1: especially which we're going to talk about reasons why. And
11:34
Speaker 1: now that's a little that's changed a little bit and
11:36
Speaker 1: we're seeing more divorce and angry men on the internet
11:40
Speaker 1: like to say it's women's fault, which I'm just like,
11:43
Speaker 1: I think maybe, I think maybe things have just changed
11:46
Speaker 1: and women have the option now and they didn't earlier.
11:49
Speaker 1: But Okay, there have been a lot of headlines about
11:54
Speaker 1: women and divorce in recent years. A twenty fifteen study
11:58
Speaker 1: from the American Sociologicalnociation found that women initiated seventy percent
12:03
Speaker 1: of divorces. The same was not at all true of
12:06
Speaker 1: non marital breakups, which is interesting. A twenty thirteen study
12:11
Speaker 1: out of Kingston University tracing the before and afters of
12:15
Speaker 1: big life events found that women were generally happier after divorce.
12:21
Speaker 1: I mean, if you're making that choice to get a divorce,
12:23
Speaker 1: and I feel like that makes sense to me, right.
12:27
Speaker 3: I mean, and not again, we don't know for sure
12:31
Speaker 3: when it comes to the lines when it comes to gender,
12:34
Speaker 3: but typically big decisions like this, We talked about this
12:37
Speaker 3: with like finances and stocks and how a lot it
12:40
Speaker 3: has been noted that women have been a lot more
12:43
Speaker 3: successful because they are patient and think through before they
12:46
Speaker 3: make a decision. It's kind of the same with like
12:49
Speaker 3: big life decisions like divorce, and they've gone through a
12:52
Speaker 3: lot first. Like it's a TikTok trend to see how
12:56
Speaker 3: people are, Like we've talked about weaponized and competence in
12:59
Speaker 3: this life of stuff and women responding when they see
13:04
Speaker 3: these types of things happening being like, yeah, and it's
13:08
Speaker 3: going to come to that. I don't know, she's left
13:10
Speaker 3: all of a sudden, and in natuality it has been
13:12
Speaker 3: in a long time making that same kind of conversation.
13:16
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, we're going to get more into that later.
13:20
Speaker 1: Share Heights nineteen eighty seven Work Women in Love found
13:23
Speaker 1: that four five hundred women aged fourteen to eighty five
13:29
Speaker 1: that four fifths reported feeling their relationship was unequal. I know,
13:35
Speaker 1: around ninety ninety percent of divorce women said they were
13:39
Speaker 1: lonely in their marriages, and a whopping ninety five percent
13:43
Speaker 1: said they experienced quote, emotional and psychological harassment. Her research
13:48
Speaker 1: and the respondents were attacked by men who believed it
13:51
Speaker 1: couldn't possibly be true. That can't be the case. I
13:58
Speaker 1: am interested in how many cases I have of friends
14:02
Speaker 1: who have been together for years getting divorced and breaking
14:07
Speaker 1: up very quickly after getting married, like they were together
14:10
Speaker 1: over a decade in more than one case, got married,
14:14
Speaker 1: broke up within months.
14:16
Speaker 3: Yeah, I wonder again, it could be like the setup.
14:19
Speaker 3: They've already had things planned, things taken care of, ready
14:22
Speaker 3: to go, and then they're like, yeah, by tuggar, Yeah,
14:26
Speaker 3: we'll see. Liz Lynd's, author of The American ex Wife,
14:30
Speaker 3: How I Ended My Marriage and Started My Life, wrote,
14:34
Speaker 3: these weren't just stories of women falling out of love,
14:37
Speaker 3: but of political, cultural, and romantic institutions that asks too
14:41
Speaker 3: much of wives and mothers and gives too little in return.
14:45
Speaker 3: As one mother of four who runs her own small
14:47
Speaker 3: business said, I'm a divorce single mom. Leaving my husband
14:51
Speaker 3: didn't increase my workload. He wasn't doing much. My workload
14:55
Speaker 3: is the same, but I have more peace now. I've
15:01
Speaker 3: seen that a lot like essentially where the husband was
15:04
Speaker 3: the other child that was making it more difficult.
15:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that goes back to what you were saying.
15:10
Speaker 1: Several studies did find that men claim they were surprised
15:14
Speaker 1: by divorces, like she sprung this out of nowhere, right,
15:17
Speaker 1: it came out of nowhere.
15:19
Speaker 3: That nagging that you've been complaining about that she does
15:23
Speaker 3: was her trying to fix things.
15:25
Speaker 1: Yeah. I read some really for me upsetting stories of
15:32
Speaker 1: women pretty much just like outright asking for help, like
15:38
Speaker 1: I need your help, and the man in this relationship
15:43
Speaker 1: saying get it together. I don't know why you can't
15:46
Speaker 1: get it together, and basically like gaslighting them and.
15:52
Speaker 4: Being right, I don't want to deal with whatever this
15:57
Speaker 4: is that you're doing.
16:03
Speaker 1: Some research has found that women are financially worse than
16:07
Speaker 1: men after divorced, sometimes by double percentage points, often due
16:11
Speaker 1: to things like gender wage gap. Women are less likely
16:16
Speaker 1: to remarry and frequently take on the soul burden of
16:19
Speaker 1: childcare if children are in the mix. However, the same
16:23
Speaker 1: studies found that women were happier in doing better at
16:27
Speaker 1: their jobs than they had been pre divorced. Many women
16:31
Speaker 1: reported feeling positive about taking that step the initiative, so
16:35
Speaker 1: kind of like what you were talking about that here's
16:37
Speaker 1: something on my to do list. I'm going to take
16:40
Speaker 1: care of it. All of that comes with an important caveat.
16:45
Speaker 1: Studies are usually focused on short term impacts of divorce.
16:49
Speaker 1: A few of the long term ones indicate that women
16:51
Speaker 1: over time actually do better financially post divorced, too. I
16:56
Speaker 1: can say another caveat. Some women reported some objective satisfaction
17:01
Speaker 1: of making or having their own money, even if it
17:04
Speaker 1: was less than what their husband made. This is part
17:07
Speaker 1: of why these things can be tricky to measure, because
17:10
Speaker 1: our experiences shade our understanding, but also the subjective cannot
17:14
Speaker 1: be measured fully but reported being happy that you know,
17:19
Speaker 1: I'm making my own money, right, I like it?
17:22
Speaker 3: I mean subjective could be like getting away from the
17:26
Speaker 3: mental abuse, emotional abuse, constant berating or scared of, you know,
17:30
Speaker 3: saying the wrong thing.
17:31
Speaker 2: Type of things you know really measure that.
17:34
Speaker 3: So other studies have found that many women reported higher
17:37
Speaker 3: levels of happiness, a better social life, increased feelings of
17:41
Speaker 3: control and self confidence after divorce, and often went on
17:46
Speaker 3: to pursue creative career paths. They've also shown an increase
17:50
Speaker 3: in sexual desire. I've actually heard that as a conversation
17:53
Speaker 3: I don't know like the level, but like all of
17:56
Speaker 3: a sudden they're ready to hit the road again, cited
18:00
Speaker 3: for the new challenges and I've said it challenges.
18:05
Speaker 2: Yeah.
18:05
Speaker 1: Well, and to clarify, like a lot of the women,
18:09
Speaker 1: a lot of times it's like, oh, she must not
18:12
Speaker 1: have any sexual desire anymore, therefore there was no sex
18:15
Speaker 1: in their marriage, and therefore their marriage ended. But a
18:17
Speaker 1: lot of times, you know, they weren't maybe sexually attracted
18:21
Speaker 1: to that person anymore, But that doesn't mean they don't
18:25
Speaker 1: have sexual desire.
18:28
Speaker 2: Right.
18:28
Speaker 3: Again, this is that whole conversation of like what is
18:31
Speaker 3: sexy to certain people? Yeah, and it could be like,
18:35
Speaker 3: I mean, we talked about affairs, so this is completely different.
18:38
Speaker 3: But like why people get into affairs is the newness
18:40
Speaker 3: and excitement of it. That could be something that's different,
18:43
Speaker 3: or it could be that you're just especially like if
18:46
Speaker 3: we're talking about the weaponized incompetence or any of those
18:49
Speaker 3: types of levels where you're just finally done taking care
18:52
Speaker 3: of your husband, they no longer look like a partner
18:55
Speaker 3: to you, but more of something that you are stuck
18:59
Speaker 3: with and orn care of constantly.
19:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, and yeah, I mean I think again, not
19:07
Speaker 1: to say that divorce is like all fantastic, but to
19:12
Speaker 1: highlight that for so long we have framed divorce as
19:15
Speaker 1: emphatically bad, and our studies have only looked into the negatives.
19:19
Speaker 1: But recent studies have looked into the positives too, So
19:22
Speaker 1: that's why conversation is changing a bit. Some research does
19:27
Speaker 1: indicate that after divorce from a man, women may start
19:29
Speaker 1: dating women for the first time, and this is what
19:31
Speaker 1: happened in Glennon Doyle's book Untamed. You can see that episode.
19:36
Speaker 1: But I did find that like a research paper, So.
19:43
Speaker 3: I've seen this in persons, Like I've seen this of
19:46
Speaker 3: people who have been in long term marriages with children.
19:50
Speaker 3: They get divorced and their next pecture is, this is
19:53
Speaker 3: my new girlfriend, And I'm like, oh, congratulations, wait to
19:57
Speaker 3: step it up. Like that's a you found who you were,
20:01
Speaker 3: and you did not have that chance, possibly when you
20:04
Speaker 3: first were in relationships and didn't understand who you were
20:07
Speaker 3: or couldn't I like come to terms with who you
20:11
Speaker 3: were at that time. I don't know, whatever the reason.
20:14
Speaker 3: And now you're here like in a whole different level
20:18
Speaker 3: of yourself, you know, and I'm like, go ahead, But
20:20
Speaker 3: like I've seen that it could be that our generation,
20:23
Speaker 3: that people who've become the divorces or getting divorced are
20:27
Speaker 3: now a lot more open than they could have been before.
20:30
Speaker 3: Like that could be the different changes honestly timing.
20:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, but also going back to a lot of women
20:37
Speaker 1: got married very young, so I think you might not
20:42
Speaker 1: have known at that time. And it is like I said,
20:49
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't want to downplay the divorce is
20:54
Speaker 1: painful and we're going to talk about it more later,
20:56
Speaker 1: but it's also it can be it can be something
21:00
Speaker 1: that is good, and so I think we need to
21:04
Speaker 1: talk about both sides, all of the shades of why
21:08
Speaker 1: of how divorce can look. One of the things that
21:12
Speaker 1: has grabbed a lot of attention in recent years is
21:15
Speaker 1: something called gray divorce, which I had not heard of.
21:22
Speaker 2: I haven't either, This is new to me.
21:24
Speaker 1: Well, I think it got a lot of attention because
21:27
Speaker 1: a lot of celebrities started doing it.
21:28
Speaker 3: But yes, okay, yeah, okay, I think I know the
21:31
Speaker 3: terms without knowing. But going on, So, starting around twenty
21:34
Speaker 3: twenty three, a lot of articles started coming u about
21:37
Speaker 3: how women over fifty were initiating divorce. According to PE
21:41
Speaker 3: Research and the American Psychological Association. Between nineteen ninety and
21:45
Speaker 3: twenty ten, the divorce rate of people over fifty increased substantially,
21:50
Speaker 3: while younger people still account for the most divorces. In
21:54
Speaker 3: twenty nineteen, divorces initiated by people over fifty reached thirty
21:59
Speaker 3: six percent, up from around at nine percent in nineteen ninety.
22:04
Speaker 3: The media started calling this grey divorce.
22:08
Speaker 1: Yes, and there are some key differences in great divorce
22:14
Speaker 1: in how finances look. When it comes to getting divorced
22:17
Speaker 1: at this age, there are typically more assets involved. On
22:20
Speaker 1: top of that, if the couple has been together for
22:22
Speaker 1: a long time, there are friend groups, communities, and possibly
22:25
Speaker 1: children involved. So why is this happening? Researchers believe it
22:31
Speaker 1: reflects changes in our society, especially when it comes to
22:34
Speaker 1: women and their opportunities. Divorce and living in general is expensive,
22:40
Speaker 1: and we've talked numerous times about financial abuse and especially
22:45
Speaker 1: how that impacts women. Now that women can have jobs
22:49
Speaker 1: and credit cards, because reminder that's fairly recent. The gender
22:53
Speaker 1: wage gap is still a thing, but it is more
22:56
Speaker 1: feasible for women to get a divorce in it had
23:00
Speaker 1: been a couple of studies have found that women who
23:03
Speaker 1: advance in their careers or are the breadwinners are more
23:07
Speaker 1: likely to get divorced? And this raises several questions, including yes,
23:11
Speaker 1: so who can afford to get divorced? How the narrative
23:15
Speaker 1: would be presented flipped? But also it brings to mind
23:20
Speaker 1: the nightmare of all the ambitious woman who is two
23:24
Speaker 1: career obsessed. She goes home for Christmas and she doesn't understand.
23:30
Speaker 1: This largely ignores the fact that ambitious men with families
23:34
Speaker 1: were able to do it because they had wives at
23:37
Speaker 1: home taking care of things. A lot of these arguments
23:44
Speaker 1: are also conveniently ignore statistics around domestic abuse and partner violence.
23:50
Speaker 1: And also people are living longer, so you might be like,
23:54
Speaker 1: I've got a good thirty more years. Do I want
23:57
Speaker 1: to spend it like this? So do I want to
23:59
Speaker 1: get a divorced?
24:00
Speaker 3: Or you could do like me where you forget what
24:02
Speaker 3: it is and how old you are and you're like nah, Also,
24:06
Speaker 3: well I'm too young for that. Also until I realize, oh,
24:11
Speaker 3: it's coming up to you can't have babies.
24:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm okay with that too.
24:15
Speaker 3: Moving on, the person who is credited with terming the
24:18
Speaker 3: term great divorce, A sociology professor Susan Brown said women
24:23
Speaker 3: seem to be maybe a little bit more likely to
24:26
Speaker 3: initiate divorce, but many would argue that they could actually
24:30
Speaker 3: just be reflecting the fact that women are the ones
24:32
Speaker 3: who have to do these types of tasks within relationships.
24:36
Speaker 1: Hmmm, which is what we've been saying. So I think
24:41
Speaker 1: that's important to keep in mind too, is like maybe
24:45
Speaker 1: maybe the woman is usually just the one who fills
24:48
Speaker 1: out the.
24:48
Speaker 3: Baby, has to do the paperwork for them and be
24:50
Speaker 3: like just sign for the love of Jesus science.
24:55
Speaker 1: Oh, we're going to talk about some media portrayals soon
24:58
Speaker 1: that brought that men of Twister. While there's a lot
25:12
Speaker 1: of work to be done societally, we have moved towards
25:16
Speaker 1: equitable marriages when it comes to things like domestic work
25:19
Speaker 1: or something at least closer to equitable marriages. This means
25:24
Speaker 1: that more women have reported being unwilling to settle for
25:28
Speaker 1: quote empty shell marriages, especially after their kids leave home.
25:33
Speaker 1: That being said, studies have been done on if things
25:38
Speaker 1: like children leaving the home or catalyst for these later
25:42
Speaker 1: in life divorces, and while they have been found to
25:44
Speaker 1: be factors statistically, they weren't the main cause. Economic stability
25:50
Speaker 1: was much more of an issue, but it still wasn't
25:53
Speaker 1: there was no like way outlier. It was a lot
25:58
Speaker 1: of things, I would say a lot of things. We've
26:01
Speaker 1: also talked before about the health effects of divorce. Studies
26:06
Speaker 1: indicate women typically have stronger support groups outside of their family,
26:10
Speaker 1: meaning that they are more able to move on. Studies
26:13
Speaker 1: have also found that women post divorce are more likely
26:17
Speaker 1: to do rewarding activities they've always wanted to do, like travel,
26:22
Speaker 1: or rely on their support groups, seek out therapy as
26:25
Speaker 1: opposed to harmful coping mechanisms like drug and alcohol abuse.
26:29
Speaker 1: But similar to what we discussed earlier, most studies are
26:33
Speaker 1: on short term effects of divorce. Longer term studies suggest
26:38
Speaker 1: that men recover just about as much as women, although
26:42
Speaker 1: other studies found the opposite. So grain of salt is
26:46
Speaker 1: always with these Social science surveys also found a really
26:52
Speaker 1: great essay about kind of comparing the pandemic what we
26:57
Speaker 1: saw in pandemic of where a lot of women were
27:03
Speaker 1: having to stay at home and maybe quit their jobs
27:06
Speaker 1: to take care of the kids. And the author was saying,
27:13
Speaker 1: you know, like, if I had gotten divorced earlier, I
27:17
Speaker 1: would have done this and this, and this, and who
27:18
Speaker 1: knows how much creativity we've lost out on. So I
27:22
Speaker 1: do think that's an interesting question of since women are
27:31
Speaker 1: still tasked more with a child rearing and domestic stuff
27:37
Speaker 1: on top of jobs, like, how much are we losing
27:41
Speaker 1: from those women in terms of innovation and creativity?
27:46
Speaker 2: But what about the children?
27:47
Speaker 1: Though? Okay, so this is not not not an episode
27:52
Speaker 1: on child custody when we're an episode on children whose
27:55
Speaker 1: parents went through a divorce. But it is pretty impossible
28:00
Speaker 1: to talk about a divorce that involves children without talking
28:02
Speaker 1: about the children. We do not have the time to
28:05
Speaker 1: go into the history, but very briefly, pregnancy could and
28:08
Speaker 1: still can lead to death. So the person who was
28:11
Speaker 1: pregnant often had to stay at home and the person
28:14
Speaker 1: or persons caring for them provided shelter, food, and whatever
28:16
Speaker 1: they needed. So this whole thing is still present in
28:20
Speaker 1: our modern day systems of marriage and divorce and in
28:23
Speaker 1: the workplace with things like pregnancy discrimination, which now we
28:30
Speaker 1: have birth control and abortion ish family planning tools, but
28:37
Speaker 1: all of that is being more and more restricted, so
28:39
Speaker 1: it's sort of going back into the whole you have
28:44
Speaker 1: to stay at home with the kids thing. The narrative
28:49
Speaker 1: often solely puts the blame on women for divorce, especially
28:53
Speaker 1: children are involved. She failed, and it is very complicated. Absolutely,
28:59
Speaker 1: children can usually tell when you're miserable. They generally want
29:04
Speaker 1: you to be happy. Women staying in a relationship and
29:06
Speaker 1: using children as the reason why can be harmful not
29:09
Speaker 1: just to the women but to the children. The narrative
29:13
Speaker 1: also has been that women steal their children from men.
29:18
Speaker 1: This is largely not true, but there are nuances that
29:22
Speaker 1: get lass. It's a whole mess. It's a different episode.
29:26
Speaker 1: I was overwhelmed looking to it. But yes, some divorce
29:31
Speaker 1: women have spoken about how anxious joint custody made them,
29:35
Speaker 1: not because of abuse or anything like that, but just
29:38
Speaker 1: like having that time away from their children and actually
29:42
Speaker 1: finding more time to relax do things for themselves, but
29:45
Speaker 1: also reporting that it helped form a better relationship with
29:48
Speaker 1: the father in this very heater norm of case, because
29:51
Speaker 1: she had previously been taking care of everything and now
29:54
Speaker 1: he had to actually deal with the kids. And this
29:59
Speaker 1: for my of a Jimmy Kimmel bit where it's very uncomfortable,
30:05
Speaker 1: but it's like a man on the street bit where
30:08
Speaker 1: they just ask fathers to with their kids to like
30:11
Speaker 1: name basic facts about their kids and they just fail,
30:15
Speaker 1: and like who's to know. I'm sure they pick out
30:19
Speaker 1: the worst ones, but it's like shocking, and then they
30:23
Speaker 1: bring in the mother and she's like, oh, yes, this, this, this, this,
30:27
Speaker 1: She's like she knows everything. So it just reminded me
30:31
Speaker 1: of that in terms of like now you have to
30:35
Speaker 1: actually learn about this kid.
30:38
Speaker 3: Oddly enough, I've seen skiits like that, except as about uh,
30:42
Speaker 3: pet parents, I would to get that content literally, like
30:47
Speaker 3: a lot of them are vets talking about how oftentimes
30:50
Speaker 3: if it's not the woman in the heteronormative relationship heteros relationship,
30:56
Speaker 3: then they don't know the information that they have to
30:58
Speaker 3: call them, Like that's the skit is essentially if it's
31:00
Speaker 3: the dude that always oh no it's him, he's not
31:04
Speaker 3: gonna know anything. Can you please just have your wife
31:06
Speaker 3: write down or all the information about the dog or
31:09
Speaker 3: the cat. And I'm like, really, I've seen this before
31:14
Speaker 3: and actually right like you were like what but that's
31:17
Speaker 3: so funny to me because I can't believe it would
31:20
Speaker 3: also translate to that, and we know there's so many
31:23
Speaker 3: like I've never looked at any status about ownership, like
31:27
Speaker 3: gender based on gender, but I think there's plenty of
31:30
Speaker 3: men who do who own dogs or pets in general,
31:33
Speaker 3: So I'm like, huh, it crosses over like that.
31:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and this is like you can see our
31:39
Speaker 1: Emotional Labor episode for more on this. But like, we
31:44
Speaker 1: are not believers in gender essentialism here, but I do
31:49
Speaker 1: believe that in socialization of gender and expectations of gender.
31:56
Speaker 1: So I think it's much more like if you look
31:58
Speaker 1: at the comments under those Jimmy Kimmel videos, people are
32:00
Speaker 1: horrified and they're liken't. I can't believe you couldn't take
32:04
Speaker 1: the barest interest in your own child.
32:08
Speaker 3: Like.
32:10
Speaker 1: Because they don't have to. They haven't had to, right, So,
32:15
Speaker 1: the belief that divorce was bad for children was really
32:18
Speaker 1: enforced by a few poorly researched but very publicized and
32:21
Speaker 1: popular books spanning from the eighties to two thousands. I
32:24
Speaker 1: bet some of you know who which ones, along with
32:29
Speaker 1: historic and systemic governmental and religious pressure that were layered
32:33
Speaker 1: with racism and misogyny. In twenty fourteen, Florida Senator Marco
32:38
Speaker 1: Ribau said that marriage was quote the greatest tool to
32:41
Speaker 1: live children and families from poverty, and honestly yeah, going
32:46
Speaker 1: back to our religious conversation around marriage and divorce, it's
32:50
Speaker 1: a doozy, no wonder we had a twelve plus partner
32:53
Speaker 1: on religious drum on my fault. It's not your fault
32:56
Speaker 1: at all. Oh wow. But a twenty twenty study found
33:04
Speaker 1: that women repartnering had no significant impacts on her adult children.
33:09
Speaker 1: Other studies have found women are less likely to repartner
33:13
Speaker 1: due to things like the fact that they are caring
33:16
Speaker 1: for the kids, or they're older women, which you know
33:19
Speaker 1: is the worst so who or that men just don't
33:24
Speaker 1: like the idea of dating a woman who makes more
33:26
Speaker 1: than them as much as they might like to say
33:30
Speaker 1: that they're cool with it. Which was that an actual
33:33
Speaker 1: study that I found?
33:35
Speaker 3: Of course, it is a to be fair. I think
33:40
Speaker 3: if my current relationship, whom I'm very happy with.
33:43
Speaker 2: We do really well.
33:44
Speaker 3: We had like he knows everything about peaches, so we're good.
33:48
Speaker 3: Like he could take car to the vet and he'd
33:50
Speaker 3: be fine. I would put that out there, but like,
33:54
Speaker 3: I'm like, I don't want to date I think in general,
33:58
Speaker 3: just like for me in general, might.
33:59
Speaker 1: No, I'm good, Yeah, I just hang out with my dog.
34:03
Speaker 2: Thanks.
34:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, Oh, I think we're going to talk about that
34:07
Speaker 1: in a little bit more at the end, but I
34:08
Speaker 1: think that's kind of the general vine.
34:10
Speaker 3: Right, I'd rather be alone to those who who are dating, ye,
34:18
Speaker 3: god speed, let us know what's going on.
34:21
Speaker 2: How are you?
34:22
Speaker 3: Oh so we're gonna get into laws? Yeah, yeah, you're
34:25
Speaker 3: ready for it. So, by and large, it is easier
34:28
Speaker 3: to get married than it is to get divorced in
34:31
Speaker 3: the US.
34:32
Speaker 2: Yes, even at fourteen.
34:34
Speaker 1: Yep, it is not easy.
34:37
Speaker 3: Even if a lot of people like to paint this
34:39
Speaker 3: as a oh you're quitting or you're giving up to
34:41
Speaker 3: get divorced, it's actually a very long process. Uh. The
34:45
Speaker 3: history is regionally specific. According to Investipedia, the first divorce
34:50
Speaker 3: on record in America was granted in sixteen thirty nine
34:54
Speaker 3: in the Massachusetts Bay Colony because a man named James
34:58
Speaker 3: Luxford had married two wives. Luk's first punishment was to
35:03
Speaker 3: relinquish his possessions to his second wife as alimony and
35:07
Speaker 3: was put in the stocks, fined, and banished. So did
35:10
Speaker 3: he get divorced from both people?
35:12
Speaker 1: Though?
35:13
Speaker 2: Which one?
35:14
Speaker 1: Yeah? I think just the one. I almost again this
35:18
Speaker 1: episode I could have been so long because I wanted
35:20
Speaker 1: to do famous examples of like how they changed parts
35:24
Speaker 1: of Catholicism. Yeah, around the world.
35:28
Speaker 3: Henry the eighth, isn't that the whole story? He did
35:31
Speaker 3: this because he a new wife, but then he just
35:34
Speaker 3: killed all of them something.
35:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean this is a simplification, yeah, but I
35:42
Speaker 1: mean it's and looking at all the history is a
35:46
Speaker 1: lot of men being like, I don't want to be
35:48
Speaker 1: with you anymore. I want this other person, and that
35:53
Speaker 1: has guided a lot of our laws. But okay, we
35:59
Speaker 1: are not lawyers, as we said, And to be really honest,
36:02
Speaker 1: I had no idea about how hard it was to
36:05
Speaker 1: legally get divorced. So here are just a few examples.
36:09
Speaker 1: And to be clear, these laws very by state. Here
36:13
Speaker 1: in the United States, most states have waiting periods of
36:16
Speaker 1: twenty to one hundred and eighty days, not to mention
36:20
Speaker 1: the fees on top of that, this means for an
36:23
Speaker 1: amount of time you're in sort of a painful limbo,
36:25
Speaker 1: especially financially from what I read a lot, and emotionally absolutely,
36:30
Speaker 1: but that financial part can be really difficult. Certain religions
36:34
Speaker 1: require or strongly pressure you to get religious counseling. Marriage
36:40
Speaker 1: is often given incentives, but single parents do not receive
36:44
Speaker 1: anything close to that some marriage counseling and seminars are
36:48
Speaker 1: text funded. Currently and unfortunate emphasis on Currently, no fault
36:56
Speaker 1: divorce is legal in all fifty states. This rose in
36:59
Speaker 1: popularity in the seventies and eighties in the US, after
37:02
Speaker 1: first being legalized in California in nineteen sixty nine. And
37:05
Speaker 1: I know some of you are like shouting out the computer.
37:07
Speaker 1: We'll get to the fun effect behind that. At the end.
37:12
Speaker 1: It means that you don't have to prove fault to
37:14
Speaker 1: get divorced. Legal experts believe it was necessary to correct
37:18
Speaker 1: a system that incentivized concocting plane to justify the divorce,
37:22
Speaker 1: so like everybody was lying. Essentially. That being said, some
37:26
Speaker 1: states require that the broken up couples spend a year
37:29
Speaker 1: and one day in separate living spaces, which is not
37:33
Speaker 1: so easy. This is often called the cooling off period. Obviously,
37:40
Speaker 1: it can be painful and intimidating to prove fault in
37:43
Speaker 1: an abusive marriage. Research has found a significant decrease in
37:47
Speaker 1: suicide and women where no fault divorce was an option.
37:50
Speaker 1: They've also found lower rates of domestic violence, which makes
37:53
Speaker 1: sense to me. Apparently, in Texas you cannot finalize the
37:57
Speaker 1: divorce while pregnant if the divorce seeing question is the
38:01
Speaker 1: biological parent. Like I said, LGBTQ plus marriage and divorce
38:08
Speaker 1: separate episode, but a lot of it is similar to
38:12
Speaker 1: no fault laws in the US, but further complicated by
38:16
Speaker 1: gendered laws and language like who is the biological parent?
38:21
Speaker 1: Who is the quote mother? It can get really really messy,
38:27
Speaker 1: so that future episode. And then this brings us to
38:33
Speaker 1: just a brief venting session. Oh the internet, because when
38:39
Speaker 1: I was looking this up, a lot of the first
38:43
Speaker 1: results were men being real mad about how in their
38:46
Speaker 1: minds divorce favors women, men blaming women for divorce, asking
38:52
Speaker 1: what state they should go to to get divorce that
38:55
Speaker 1: will favor them the most. And then, of course, as
38:58
Speaker 1: per usual, the whole goal and make me a sandwich thing,
39:02
Speaker 1: because yeah, like when do you stop and think about it?
39:07
Speaker 1: Like men were working, they were getting to own things,
39:11
Speaker 1: they were controlling their finances, they were getting out of
39:13
Speaker 1: the house. But women were doing unpaid, unnoticed labor, cooking, cleaning,
39:18
Speaker 1: chowd hearing and being made fun of her having frivolous
39:21
Speaker 1: relationships outside of the house, like how we used to
39:24
Speaker 1: still do make fun of like oh, she's always talking
39:27
Speaker 1: with her friends, like it's so frivolous or useless. Other
39:32
Speaker 1: studies have found that women work harder to receive less
39:37
Speaker 1: in their jobs due to biases. So add that to
39:39
Speaker 1: the pile. So for these angry men on the internet, Yeah,
39:43
Speaker 1: the marriage is great. You come home to a meal,
39:47
Speaker 1: you don't have to deal with the kids other than
39:49
Speaker 1: like acknowledging that they're kids. Meanwhile, she's been working all day. Still,
39:54
Speaker 1: I was working when you get home, and then it's
39:55
Speaker 1: mocked if she's too tired for sex.
39:58
Speaker 3: You know, which is interesting because the level of women
40:02
Speaker 3: coming back round to yeah, I'll be a stay at
40:05
Speaker 3: home mom, and I will.
40:06
Speaker 2: I will serve you and.
40:07
Speaker 3: Cook you if you provide for everything else, and I
40:11
Speaker 3: don't do a damn thing after this fact, Like that's
40:15
Speaker 3: that conversation because from like maybe the seventies and probably
40:20
Speaker 3: more so, and this is very like white perspective, heteronormative
40:24
Speaker 3: ideals to like about what the nineties they said. They're
40:28
Speaker 3: saying that the uptick of divorce happened in the nineties.
40:30
Speaker 3: I don't remember. But all of that to say is
40:32
Speaker 3: like women were working and doing the nine to five
40:36
Speaker 3: coming home clicking and cleaning, taking care of the children
40:39
Speaker 3: because they're also having children still at that point, and
40:42
Speaker 3: the men were just working, coming home, putting their shoes up,
40:47
Speaker 3: telling the kids to stay out of the way while
40:49
Speaker 3: they watched their show. So this is all stereotype obviously
40:52
Speaker 3: according to sitcoms, but like they were living their best life. Yeah,
40:57
Speaker 3: and they're really mad that they had for a period
41:00
Speaker 3: and they're like, why can't I have that again? And
41:02
Speaker 3: it just doesn't make this to be.
41:04
Speaker 1: Like, yeah, it's I mean, it was upsetting and kind
41:10
Speaker 1: of funny. They're like it would be like you know,
41:15
Speaker 1: the Yahoo asked and it'd be why are you with
41:18
Speaker 1: my woman not doing this anymore? And they're like, oh, wow,
41:21
Speaker 1: you have.
41:22
Speaker 3: Whoa And this is kind of like and then it's
41:26
Speaker 3: the basis of the red pill. And in so many
41:28
Speaker 3: ways when we talk about that content, when we talked
41:31
Speaker 3: about religious trauma, we're talking about Project twenty twenty five,
41:35
Speaker 3: even which we haven't really talked about and we're going
41:37
Speaker 3: to come back to, but all of these narratives of
41:40
Speaker 3: like going back to the good old days, is that
41:44
Speaker 3: that ideal of oppressing marginalized people for this specific look.
41:49
Speaker 3: They're like I want to get back to where a home.
41:52
Speaker 3: It was a home where two with a man and
41:55
Speaker 3: a wife and two to three children, and the woman
41:57
Speaker 3: came in as subservient to the man, but of course
42:00
Speaker 3: the man protected her. Yes, that's us our job, that's
42:03
Speaker 3: our duties. And it's kind of that beginning of, yeah,
42:07
Speaker 3: that used to be such the golden days, as they
42:10
Speaker 3: would claim, and it's it's the beginning of a narrative
42:14
Speaker 3: for the red pill and having that level of if
42:17
Speaker 3: we can get back to that, then all is right
42:20
Speaker 3: with the world. And this is the whole point, and
42:22
Speaker 3: this is the decency and the godliness that they are
42:25
Speaker 3: talking about. And this kind of ideal for young boys
42:29
Speaker 3: was like, yeah, why can't I have that? And it
42:32
Speaker 3: slips into these are my rights when it never was.
42:35
Speaker 1: Right absolutely, And I think a lot of this was
42:40
Speaker 1: in part missing the point of a twenty nineteen US
42:45
Speaker 1: Census Bureau report that come through numerous studies and found
42:49
Speaker 1: women do have more to benefit from divorce, like leisure time,
42:53
Speaker 1: career time, time to relax less chores, less childcare. But
42:57
Speaker 1: I think they took it and saw that as I'm
43:00
Speaker 1: getting punished more for the divorce Coincidentally, this report also
43:06
Speaker 1: found that areas that had more social nets and easier
43:09
Speaker 1: access to divorce at higher rates of marriage. Interesting. But yes,
43:26
Speaker 1: the media, we must also talk about that, because when
43:28
Speaker 1: you talk about divorce and women, there are a lot
43:31
Speaker 1: of tropes. The evil ex wife, the mean mom who
43:34
Speaker 1: punishes her ex. I thought about missus stubtfire for that one,
43:40
Speaker 1: nagging sitcom, wives, men complaining about the old ball and chain.
43:46
Speaker 1: And then this whole idea of women changing or chaining
43:51
Speaker 1: their man, which a lot of people who have written
43:54
Speaker 1: about divorce have said, like, here's how you failed. You
43:56
Speaker 1: should have changed him in this way. And I think
43:59
Speaker 1: that's a problematic. No, No, you can work together on things,
44:06
Speaker 1: but that whole idea. In nineteen seventy two, sociologists Jesse
44:12
Speaker 1: Bernard wrote quote, there are a few findings more consistent,
44:15
Speaker 1: less equivocal, and more convincing than the sometimes spectacular and
44:19
Speaker 1: always impressive superiority on almost every index, demographic, psychological, or
44:25
Speaker 1: social of married over never married men. Despite all the
44:29
Speaker 1: jokes about marriage in which men indulge, all the complaints
44:32
Speaker 1: they lodge against it, it is one of the greatest
44:34
Speaker 1: boons of their sex because they always made fun of it.
44:38
Speaker 1: They're always like, it's all bothering me. But a lot
44:46
Speaker 1: of women have reported feeling like failures at first after
44:51
Speaker 1: a divorce, but over time realizing that they made the
44:54
Speaker 1: right decision and were happier. And a lot of them
44:57
Speaker 1: have reported finding a community of other divorce women, not
45:00
Speaker 1: even purposefully, always like you know, you'd be calling up
45:04
Speaker 1: to cancel your insurance and like I'm getting divorced and like,
45:07
Speaker 1: oh yeah, I would do that, or you know, something
45:09
Speaker 1: like that, and how that helped them. Another Pew research
45:13
Speaker 1: study found that most women are unsure about remarrying, while
45:17
Speaker 1: most men want to. I do think this is pretty
45:20
Speaker 1: telling in terms of who marriage largely benefits, as do
45:25
Speaker 1: the study authors that found seventy percent of divorces are
45:28
Speaker 1: initiated by women, but not breakups. One of the study authors,
45:33
Speaker 1: Michael Rosenfeldt, said, I think that marriage as an institution
45:37
Speaker 1: has been a little bit slow to catch up with
45:39
Speaker 1: expectations for gender equality. Wives still take their husband's surnames
45:43
Speaker 1: and are sometimes pressured to do so. Husbands still expect
45:46
Speaker 1: their wives to do the bulk of the housework and
45:48
Speaker 1: the bulk of the childcare. On the other hand, I
45:51
Speaker 1: think that non marital relationships lack the historical baggage and
45:55
Speaker 1: expectations of marriage, which makes the non marital relationships more
45:59
Speaker 1: flexible and there far more adaptable to modern expectations, including
46:03
Speaker 1: women's expectations to more gender equality.
46:07
Speaker 2: You know, what we haven't really talked much about is
46:09
Speaker 2: the common law.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, we have, which and Georgia has that I believe,
46:15
Speaker 3: which is kind of concerning, why is this the thing?
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Speaker 2: It seems very misogynistic.
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Speaker 3: We haven't looked into it, very patriarchal, because I also
46:24
Speaker 3: think if you're in that same level, like you, no
46:27
Speaker 3: matter what you do, you're stuck type of conversation.
46:30
Speaker 2: But probably a different episode.
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Speaker 1: Oh, absolutely definitely a different episode. And all of these
46:40
Speaker 1: I mean, I hope we've been clear throughout. We did
46:43
Speaker 1: research this, but it is you know, a lot of
46:46
Speaker 1: it's not everybody's experience at all these things we're talking about.
46:50
Speaker 1: But it's also interesting in terms of our media, where
46:53
Speaker 1: the X or the single bomb is a failure, but
46:55
Speaker 1: in fairy tales your dream come true as finding the
46:58
Speaker 1: husband and getting made. Uh. This is also a conversation
47:03
Speaker 1: of unrealistic expectations of love. But the point stands because
47:08
Speaker 1: it stops when you get married, so you don't see
47:11
Speaker 1: all the work or all the discord that might be
47:14
Speaker 1: in it. I will say this brought back a memory
47:19
Speaker 1: of when I was first starting as a host for Saver.
47:25
Speaker 1: We were recording at a bar and there was a
47:28
Speaker 1: group of divorced women who were there having the time
47:31
Speaker 1: of their lives and we got into chatting. They were
47:34
Speaker 1: just talking to us and they're telling us all their stories.
47:38
Speaker 1: But it was I remember being like kind of moved
47:43
Speaker 1: by how they were having this camaraderie and this. They
47:46
Speaker 1: were like, oh, yeah, once a month we meet up,
47:48
Speaker 1: and like, I really liked it. I thought it was great.
47:55
Speaker 1: But they were very open about it. And one of
47:57
Speaker 1: them gave me your business card and was like, after this,
47:59
Speaker 1: I got to divorce law.
48:02
Speaker 2: That's amazing.
48:05
Speaker 1: It honestly was. It honestly was. And then my mom,
48:11
Speaker 1: Like I said, I I reached a point where I
48:17
Speaker 1: wished my parents had gotten divorced. I don't blame my
48:21
Speaker 1: mom for not getting divorced, and I don't want to
48:25
Speaker 1: get into it too deeply, but I've reached a point
48:27
Speaker 1: where I was like, I think it would be better.
48:29
Speaker 1: But after my dad died. She's been very open with
48:32
Speaker 1: me about like, I don't want to remarry again. I
48:34
Speaker 1: don't want to date again because I was always putting
48:38
Speaker 1: his needs first. I was always worried about him and
48:41
Speaker 1: what he wanted and what he wanted to do. And
48:44
Speaker 1: those are like larger conversations to have about how we're
48:48
Speaker 1: as women, socialized people please and put ourselves second. But
48:52
Speaker 1: it's just been interesting to hear her be like, no,
48:55
Speaker 1: I'm good, I am good. Things are changing, though, some
49:00
Speaker 1: speculate that the whole idea of marriage is shifting, and
49:03
Speaker 1: the data we're seeing here is very reflective of boomers
49:06
Speaker 1: and gen X, but the younger generations won't follow the
49:09
Speaker 1: same patterns. As Joey said in our recent episode on
49:12
Speaker 1: being gen Z and dating, the goalposts and desires aren't
49:15
Speaker 1: the same anymore. Necessarily, some countries have introduced laws around
49:20
Speaker 1: divorce that recognize the value of domestic work, which is
49:23
Speaker 1: interesting and on a less serious note, I have seen
49:26
Speaker 1: a lot of recent conversation about being the stay at
49:29
Speaker 1: home partner and having that scene as more of an
49:32
Speaker 1: equal partnership, like actually recognizing the work I personally, I am
49:36
Speaker 1: still grappling with some of the ways those conversations are phrased.
49:38
Speaker 1: But I do like that, you know, I'm glad we're
49:41
Speaker 1: taking that step of there is value in that work.
49:45
Speaker 1: You should have known that all the time. But the
49:49
Speaker 1: attitude around divorce has also changed. It's no longer ashamed
49:52
Speaker 1: as it once was. That's not to say there isn't
49:55
Speaker 1: still that aspect, but that is moving. I do want
50:00
Speaker 1: to say. The flip side of this whole thing is
50:03
Speaker 1: people who want to get married but can't for whatever reason,
50:07
Speaker 1: and who long for partnership or might even need it
50:11
Speaker 1: if they want to have kids. To afford kids, kids
50:14
Speaker 1: are expensive. On top of that, it isn't always the
50:17
Speaker 1: woman initiating divorce, and even if it was, there is
50:21
Speaker 1: pain involved. So just to say I think it's good,
50:26
Speaker 1: like I said, to recognize the full spectrum of it
50:29
Speaker 1: doesn't always have to be bad. But it's also you know,
50:33
Speaker 1: some people I read an article about, like I wish
50:38
Speaker 1: I could get married before I could talk about divorce.
50:41
Speaker 1: But anyway, and yeah, see things again like our disability
50:46
Speaker 1: and marriage episode and unfortunately in our climate, oh, our
50:50
Speaker 1: political climate. US House Speaker Mike Johnson called no fault
50:55
Speaker 1: divorce a scheme VP jd Vance said it is an
51:00
Speaker 1: salts on marriage. A few states have put forth proposed restrictions,
51:05
Speaker 1: and to be clear, the restrictions are largely targeted at women.
51:10
Speaker 1: And yeah, my fun fact tased earlier then Governor Ronald
51:14
Speaker 1: Reagan was the one to legalize no fault divorces. He
51:18
Speaker 1: was the first elected president to have a divorce. He
51:20
Speaker 1: later said it was a mistake. Trump was the second
51:23
Speaker 1: president to be elected to have a divorce, so a
51:28
Speaker 1: at least one. So yeah, we clearly have a lot
51:38
Speaker 1: to return to.
51:39
Speaker 2: His ex wife.
51:40
Speaker 3: He's now ex deceased wife was kind of like the
51:44
Speaker 3: inspiration for the first Wives Club?
51:46
Speaker 2: Can we talk about.
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Speaker 1: That, yes, which did come up in my like do
51:50
Speaker 1: you need a movie about older women in divorce? And
51:53
Speaker 1: we have an episode on it we have so you
51:56
Speaker 1: can go check that out.
51:59
Speaker 3: A lot he makes a she does, don't get mad,
52:03
Speaker 3: take everything.
52:06
Speaker 1: A lot of a lot of threads past episodes we've done,
52:11
Speaker 1: in future episodes we need to do on this one.
52:16
Speaker 1: But yes, listeners, please write in if you have any
52:20
Speaker 1: experiences you want to share, our resources you want to share.
52:23
Speaker 1: We do want to dig into this more deeply and
52:26
Speaker 1: go in some other directions with it, so let us
52:30
Speaker 1: know where you'd like us to go. You can email
52:34
Speaker 1: us at stuff Media, mom Stuff at iHeartMedia dot com
52:37
Speaker 1: or Hello at stuff one Neever Told You dot Com.
52:40
Speaker 1: You can find us on blue Sky at mom Stuff podcast,
52:43
Speaker 1: or on Instagram and TikTok at stuff one Never told You.
52:46
Speaker 1: We have YouTube page, a tea public store, and a
52:49
Speaker 1: book you can get wherever you get your books. Thanks
52:51
Speaker 1: as always to our super producer Christine or Exective Duc,
52:54
Speaker 1: to my and your contributor Joey, thank you, and thanks
52:57
Speaker 1: to you for listening. Stuff never told you the propections
52:59
Speaker 1: of Iheartradia. For more pod guest from My Heart Radio,
53:00
Speaker 1: you can check out the art radio app, Apple podcast,
53:02
Speaker 1: or where you listen to your favorite shows