SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Drinking, stop drinking, quitting drinking, stopping drinking, sobriety, recovery, not hate husband, husband, kids, motherhood, triggers, anger, sobriety, mindsets, alcohol-free, relationships, priorities, self-talk, you got this, I got this, practice, self-care, driving to daycare, bottle of wine, get out of the drinking cycle, anger-resentment cycle, couple’s therapy, resentment, frustration, parenthood, marriage, get support

SPEAKERS: Casey McGuire Davidson + Jancee Dunn

00:02

Welcome to the Hello Someday Podcast, the podcast for busy women who are ready to drink less and live more. I’m Casey McGuire Davidson, ex-red wine girl turned life coach helping women create lives they love without alcohol. But it wasn’t that long ago that I was anxious, overwhelmed, and drinking a bottle of wine and night to unwind. I thought that wine was the glue, holding my life together, helping me cope with my kids, my stressful job and my busy life. I didn’t realize that my love affair with drinking was making me more anxious and less able to manage my responsibilities.

In this podcast, my goal is to teach you the tried and true secrets of creating and living a life you don’t want to escape from.

Each week, I’ll bring you tools, lessons and conversations to help you drink less and live more. I’ll teach you how to navigate our drinking obsessed culture without a bus, how to sit with your emotions, when you’re lonely or angry, frustrated or overwhelmed, how to self soothe without a drink, and how to turn the decision to stop drinking from your worst case scenario to the best decision of your life.

I am so glad you’re here. Now let’s get started.

 

Hi there.

Today, we are talking about

how to not hate your husband after you have kids

and I know for so many women listening to this, it’s a huge issue.

[00:01:32]

Having young kids is a time when a lot of women’s drinking takes off because you get rid of so many of your self-care mechanisms and you are stuck with going to work, driving to daycare. Coming home, starting the second shift and opening a bottle of wine.

 

So, I read this book and loved it.

[00:01:54]

My guest is Jancee Dunn.

[00:01:56]

She’s the well columnist at the New York Times. She is also a New York Times bestselling author. She has written 9 books, including… How Not to Hate Your Husband After Kids, which has been published in 12 languages.

 

She lives in New Jersey with her husband, the author Tom Vanderbilt.

[00:02:13]

And their daughter. So welcome, Jancee. I’m so glad you’re here.

[00:02:17]

Oh, I am, too. Thank you for having me.

And I forgot to mention, but you actually are sober as well. You quit drinking 20 years ago.

I did at the time. I was working, you know, I’ve been a writer for years and years and I was working as an editor at Rolling Stone magazine.

[00:02:34]

And because I was out and about and I had to go to clubs as a part of my job description, we could expense our bar tab at that.

Wow.

So, as you can imagine, I’m young, I’m in the city. I’m having a great time. I’m out every night. I’m seeing music. Hearing music rather. And, and so, so yes, I took full advantage of that policy and I just, I’m not in a program or anything.

[00:03:01]

And as you’ve said many times, not that there’s anything wrong with being on a program. I don’t find any stigma about it. But for me, personally, it’s just that I started really feeling horrible when I woke up in the morning. My hangovers increased, which often happens when you get older.

[00:03:18]

I know there’s science behind that. And. I just started kind of weighing whether it was worth it because I effectively started just my next day was killed and I had to work the, you know, high functioning in the office and so I just stopped and I realized when I stopped how much I had relied on alcohol as a way to get over my shyness.

[00:03:43]

I present as an extrovert from many years of cosplaying. Being an extrovert, but I’m really an introvert, which is, I don’t quite know why I have a job where I interview people all day. It’s much easier and cozier when it’s on the phone or if it’s one-on-one. So, so, yes, I quit and it, it took, it took a while.

[00:04:03]

The most. The greatest benefit was my sleep started improving almost immediately. It was shocking, and in which case, it had a cascade effect. And then, the rest of my life, because my sleep had improved, improved dramatically. My moods, my relationships, my energy, my ability to exercise. And then, from there, I just had to get over using alcohol as a crutch in social situations.

[00:04:32]

And I made myself walk into a party alone strike up conversations with people alone and it took a while, but now it’s second nature. And I really, I don’t I don’t, I don’t miss it at all. The, the, the, I’m you address this. I know, but they now the most it’s been so many years that the most, the most difficult thing for me is reassuring everyone that I’m still fun because it really gets people wigged out when you tell them you don’t drink.

[00:05:02]

 And in fact, I still don’t have the right language for it. I’ll say like, Oh, I don’t drink. And then everybody, it’s funny because you can say, Oh, I don’t, I don’t eat dairy or whatever. And everybody just sort of nods. But when you say you don’t drink alcohol, it’s, you know, and I don’t do it in a judgy way.

[00:05:18]

If everyone wants to get drunk around me? Great, fine. I’m used to that. I can, of course, you know, deal with that, but it’s more about the language that you use, and I’ll just say, oh, no, I don’t drink, but then that inevitably invites questions. It never ends there, and so I’ve just kind of learned to say, ah, it just made me feel like crap, so I kind of quit, and that usually happens.

[00:05:42]

Bye. Stops the questions. I don’t mind answering the questions, but it’s just very interesting to be on the other side of that and see how other people react. You know, you do know, you know.

Well, I always say, like, I used to be a huge red wine girl and it was sort of part of my identity. I’d be like, oh, I work in Marketing and live in Seattle.

[00:06:01]

I’m a big red wine girl. I have 2 kids and now, it’s sort of like the same thing except for and I quit drinking, you know, and so what I always tell people is like, yeah, I used to be a huge red wine girl, but I stopped and I feel better without it. And that usually, like, ends the conversation or, you know, unless they’re like, oh really, was that hard?

[00:06:23]

You know?

Yeah, that’s a nice way to put it, isn’t it? It’s a way that is clear and is the truth.

Yeah. Yeah, well, thank you for telling us about that. And I am very impressed that you stopped. Well, were you working at Rolling Stone at the time?

Yes, but as it turns out, it was kind of the tail end and it was, it was kind of, it was just time for me to go anyway and try something new.

[00:06:48]

But yes, then the temptation was pretty much removed after about a year or so. Yeah, well, so I told you I was reading your book and had underlined and dog eared like so many pages throughout it and I was sitting next to my husband while I was doing it and I was surprised with your stories how much of my rage and anger and resentment came back and how much I remembered all those little things that like Pissed me off so much when my first child was 6 months old or a year old because he is 16 now and Driving. And you know, when they get older, life gets a lot easier. You kind of get your independence back.

But you were writing one of the first things you wrote in the intro was, You know when people are when you’re pregnant yada, yada. They tell you all this stuff.

And then, the other one was, Oh, and get ready to hate your husband and I remember after I had my son, one of my best friends had her son 6 months later and I remember telling her before she had her son.

[00:07:56]

I was like, oh, yeah. And by the way, everyone hates their husband when their kid is 6 weeks old. And she was like, I’m sorry. That’ll never happen with Maddie. We’ve been together since high school. He’s incredible, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, okay, that’s awesome. And then, she called me right around 6 weeks after her son was born.

 

[00:08:13]

And she’s like, I flew to see my parents in Arizona. If I was going to be a single mom, I wish I’d just known that because he’s fucking a disaster and I hate him and she was so pissed. So, tell us about that. Why does that happen? I had a similar circumstance.

[00:08:30]

I had been together with my husband for 10 years and he was, you know, he was a progressive guy and everything in our relationship had, when we had problems, we sort of, worked them out and, and I just figured, Okay, we’ve got a nice set, like your friend, like, We have a nice solid foundation. We’ll be fine.

[00:08:50]

It’s just, this is a, this is a big change, but of course we can handle it. And it just was shocking to me. I mean, I know that you were reading that next to your husband. They don’t love that title. And I did try for other titles, but let’s face it. How to love your husband after kids just doesn’t have the same resonance.

 

[00:09:10]

I remember everyone on our Marketing team said, no, no, no, that’s the title. Because I tried for, you know, a bunch of other titles. And then I said, is there room in the budget for us to have some sort of fake cover? Like, you know, introduction to string theory or something that you can just sort of, you know, slip over the actual jacket, but they said there wasn’t a budget for it.

[00:09:29]

So, I do get why it’s, it, it makes husbands or partners feel defensive.

Yeah. You know, it’s funny on the Marketing team, it was all women and most of them had kids and they said, no, no, no.

So anyway, it was just a, it was an utter shock to me after I had the baby, my daughter, she’s now 15.

[00:09:52]

Okay. So, she, I was going to ask how old she is now and, and it just was amazing how we slid back into traditional roles and I was working and he was working. We were both writers. I was writing books. He was writing books. I was writing for magazines and newspapers. So was he. We had about an equal workload and he just I can remember things that just set me off.

[00:10:17]

Like, he would say, “well, you’re the expert” and it would be about like changing diapers where it doesn’t actually there’s no kind of like gendered skill set for that. I’m not the expert. He just started, you know, offloading everything to me, like the problem I can, with hindsight, I can see that his life actually didn’t change that much.

[00:10:41]

His life kind of stayed the same. He went out on the weekends. He kept playing soccer. He would go, he would just leave. We lived in Brooklyn at the time. He would just kind of leave at night and go out with his friends and not like check in or anything. God, and I was still doing all a lot of the work and then the added workload with even one kid.

[00:11:01]

And that’s the thing, too. I always feel funny because sometimes when I do book events and people will say, well, how many kids do you have? And I’ll say one. And, and I know that if you have multiple kids, it’s just, exponentially more work, potentially more friction and I only had the one, but I will say that even if you just have one, it is an absolute, it just, Turns your world upside down.

[00:11:24]

You just cannot imagine until you’re in it and yeah, I mean I remember, I feel like men’s life changes 20 percent and they resent that 80 percent and women’s life changes 80 percent and we resent the 20. It’s so unequal. It just blows my mind and they don’t realize it.

[00:11:43]

But I remember on Saturdays, I would ask, to go to the gym. And it took me an hour and a half. And he would take that hour and a half and his thing took five hours. And I was like, that’s not equal. You know what I mean? And even there’s been Science, I wrote about it in the book about like division of labor that among the big five tasks you know, laundry and cooking and all that, that men.

[00:12:07]

That one of the tasks they do the most is food shopping and I can remember when I started writing this book and really researching it. I would go to my supermarket and especially on the weekends. It was all men because, you know, food shopping is fun. It’s more fun than scrubbing toilets anyway.

[00:12:21]

Right? And cooking is more fun than scrubbing toilets. And that’s 1 of the things that women were doing more often. And so, you know.

So, yeah, it was just, I couldn’t. We weren’t really big fighters, which I know is annoying when people say that, but we had, I had met him later in life, I met him when I was 35, I had dated a series of wildly inappropriate men, and when I met him, I knew within, you know, I think we got married 6 months after we met, because we just knew, and I was, I was just so happy to meet him, and we really had just like a low key relationship, we were these, You know, kind of quiet living writers. We panicked and loud noises, like, I thought, okay, this is going to be fine.

[00:13:01]

And it wasn’t, and we fought all the time. We fought all the time. I can remember, it really came to a head one night when I was, I was kind of doing all this stuff at once. I was cooking dinner, I worked all day, and then I was cooking dinner and I was like banging pots and pans around because I was annoyed, which, I, this, that was on me, because I didn’t say what I was annoyed about, and I was like, simultaneously, the kid was a little older, and I was like, Getting her food together and then like checking her something that she was doing for school and preschool or something. It was just a I was like this octopus and he kind of came in and I thought, oh he’s going to help me out and he kind of weaved past me and he went to the fridge to get some chardonnay. Speaking of wine. And then, he kind of like went out and you know there were just things like that. And then, we got in a fight and I, he’s kind of a stonewaller when we fight and I’m more of like, I have more of a temper.

[00:13:57]

And so, what my kids saw was me losing it. And him being defensive and me attacking. And so, it got to the point, you know, where she would jump in front of him and say, don’t yell at daddy. And I thought, okay. And the sad thing that I see now is when I realized like, I have to do something about this. We have to go to Counseling.

[00:14:20]

I wasn’t thinking like a book project, but I thought like, you know, I have to research this. I write about mental health. I write about relationships, what I’m failing here. What’s wrong with me. And the impetus for doing it. I thought, Oh, we’re ruining our kid, you know, and, and that’s, that’s kind of sad.

[00:14:38]

Like, it wasn’t, Oh, my relationship is crumbling because at that point I really was contemplating divorce, you know, like, Oh, you’re, this is not working at all. And this hasn’t been working. And it was that I was, I thought, Oh. You know, now my kid is absorbing this. This is a problem. And that’s how that’s also on me.

[00:14:57]

Like, this is the thing about the book too, is that I really want to get across is that this is me taking a hard look at myself and my behavior too. My stoicism of like, Oh, I can do it all. And then resenting him that I wasn’t asking for help, you know, not sitting down and like divvying up. Household chores, which is so boring.

[00:15:16]

The most boring conversation you could ever have. But like one counselor told me something. I know I’m all over the place, but this is like opening it up for me to like, Oh, no, no, no. Right. It like brings it all back. Oh, my God. Right. And but 1 counselor told me that I thought about it a lot that. Tension arises when things are not clear.

[00:15:37]

And that was, that compelled me to take a hard look at what am I not making clear? I wasn’t making my feelings clear. I was yelling. I was waiting until things got really bad and then I would yell. That isn’t making things clear. And even like being clear about what person has what duty. Also, me being a maternal gatekeeper.

[00:15:57]

You know, I would say like, Oh, you, you don’t, you don’t bathe the baby. And then he would try to bathe the baby and I would like hover behind him like a buzzard. And I’d be like, okay, wait, no, you have to support her head. Like what? No, she’s going to slip. She’s going to drown. You know, that’s annoying.

[00:16:14]

That’s annoying. And how is he supposed to learn if I’m trying to control things all the time. And so, it was also about relinquishing control, but going back to your original question the way I’m talking, you may not be able to ask another question. I’m sorry. Is there anything you want to say? Is that yeah, it was it was shocking and it was upsetting.

[00:16:36]

And so, I just, I mean, I can remember also, like, going back to thinking I was going to ruin my kid. One thing that, when we were fighting when she was really little, because again, like, six months really is this time of reckoning, I feel like. I don’t know if there’s research on this, but, you know, like your friend, like, there’s something about that time period.

[00:16:58]

When everything really gels. When you’re kind of in the routine and you think, oh, these routines are messed up. And so, that’s what happened with us. And I can remember thinking, oh, well, the baby doesn’t know what’s going on. We can fight in front of the baby. Who cares? But there is research that babies as young as 6 months, they do absorb the stress.

[00:17:21]

Their heart rates go up when you’re fighting. When they hear angry arguments you know, from their parents that they do have a physiological reaction. And so, I thought, ah, right. So, it doesn’t bounce off of her. I’m actually doing damage. So, so again, once I sort of realized, okay, this is really critical I thought I have to do something about it.

[00:17:45]

But one thing I didn’t do, that is kind of, I think back on it, like, wow, this is. I didn’t even talk to, I have two sisters, I kind of talked a little bit about it, I kind of asked them a little bit about it, but I didn’t really, I couldn’t talk to my mother because my mother has a long memory, and if I said anything about Tom, who she loves so much, like a son, but she would never forget it.

[00:18:11]

You just can’t tell your parents certain things. I just felt, I could. I felt like I couldn’t tell anybody. I couldn’t even talk to people on the playground about it. I could sort of joke around lightly about it, but I didn’t really get into it. Like, wait, I don’t know if we’re going to make it.

[00:18:28]

And my feelings of hostility for him are so deep and I don’t even know if I know him because this behavior that I’m seeing is not, not what I expected at all and is he some sort of like Is he like pining for these for the retro days when women did everything like I don’t know. It was just it was I really felt alone and on social media.

[00:18:50]

Of course. Oh, my God. There was so many photos of people posting when they had newborns and everybody looks well rested and everyone looks calm and happy and, you know, hashtag blessed (#blessed). Oh my god, I fucking hate that. Oh my god, with that, right? That’s like the worst. Well, it is, and it’s also sort of like, oh, does that mean that you’re signaled out to be blessed?

[00:19:15]

Like, there’s something fake humble about it that I can’t stand. Oh god, it’s totally fake humble.

Yeah. I mean, I just, it’s so hard and this is why a lot of women, when they have kids get together with each other and drink and bitch about their husbands, which I think the bitching is totally valid. And I mean, not that we don’t have our part and not that we can’t improve.

[00:19:39]

Like, I love that your book had a lot of really, tangible strategies that you can use and I want to talk about them, but like you either like get together with your friends or, and drink. Or, you know, for me, I would open a bottle of wine when I came home with my kid because I used to be able to go do other things.

[00:20:00]

And you can multitask when, like, you could drink wine while playing Candyland. You know, it’s really boring. You can drink wine while doing laundry. It sounds stupid, but you can so it’s, it’s really hard and yeah, you’re supposed to everybody tells you like, this is the best time of your life, but it’s so humbling.

[00:20:20]

I mean, I remember like pumping milk before I went back to work at the dining room table some morning and my husband comes down and like you said, like, my hostility was just radiating off me from like a million small slights and he was like, I think you’re depressed. Maybe you have postpartum depression.

[00:20:39]

And I was like, maybe you need to fucking step up and do something useful. Thanks doc. Yeah, I mean, I had so many friends that, that drank a lot, drank a bottle a night and it was of wine because they, they felt isolated. They felt socially isolated. They felt physically isolated. And this was something that they could control, you know, they could sort of mitigate what they were feeling or, you know, or again, like you say, like, making certain kind of mundane tasks a little easier and I don’t like a fuck you to the other person. Like, I’m going to drink. I don’t know. Right? No, I know. There’s this you’re, you’re absolutely right. There’s so many different factors that can go into it.

[00:21:28]

It can be, it can be defiance. Yes. Rebellion against adulting something. Yes. And, and so I had, I can’t even really thinking back. So many friends doing that. And again, it was a place where you could sort of, if you’re with other friends to get loose and at that point I had, I had quit, but I, I went to many of those kind of gatherings where, you know, we would just sort of laugh and stuff, but, but it didn’t But it didn’t solve, you know, the core problem.

[00:22:00]

It just makes it worse like with depression and anxiety and sleep and all the anger comes out when you’re drinking, or at least it did for me. But also I drank. While my son was young, I stopped for a bit when he was five, and then I quit for good when he was 8.

[00:22:18]

So, I drank through most of his baby toddler years. My daughter, I drank for about 22 months, and then I quit. So, her 2 years and after, I didn’t drink it. I have to say that. Parenting without a hangover and without adding alcohol to your life is so much easier than doing it when you’re drinking and hungover.

[00:22:41]

So, I’ve just experienced both sides of it. But yeah, it’s, it’s not easy.

So, I wanted to ask you, when I was reading the book, one of the stats, blew my mind, although I totally believed it was something about men actually doing more housework before they had kids than after, like they do less after they have children.

 

[00:23:04]

Is that right? Correct. Isn’t that wild? That’s insane.

Yes. I mean, you know, research like that, when I started researching the book, it really was comforting. I put a lot of it in the book because, because you, you think, okay, I’m not insane. Like this is actually. A studied phenomenon, you know, but, but yes, and the researchers are trying to tease out why that is.

[00:23:30]

I mean, again, I can bring it back to my own story that I, I am used to I’ve worked forever and I’m used to being like, capable and this was just another challenge. It was thrown at me. And so, I was just like, okay, I’ve got this because that’s what I know. Even now, when I do self-talk, the thing I say the most probably is, you got this, you know, and I do it whenever I’m trying something new, or when I have to make a presentation, or any of that stuff.

 

[00:23:52]

And so, so that was, that was definitely I probably seemed more capable than I was, again, on me. And or on us, maybe, you know, but that was, yeah, that was, that was an eye opener. There are many, there are many eye openers. Once you dig, it’s kind of incredible. And, and also that, you know, men who are in their twenties now, well, this was a couple of years ago, but, but, you know, they, they really do in, in, in.

[00:24:23]

You know, hetero relationships, but they, they really have the best You know, they, they say that they’re going to help. They’re going to do 50/50. They’re going to help with this help with that. And then they just don’t. And so they can even kind of mean, well, or have good intentions like my husband did.

[00:24:42]

Although our problem was that I think. Subsequent generations, they’re talking about it a little bit more. I hope, but we didn’t have one conversation about the nuts and bolts of having a kid. Not one we talked about. What color are we going to paint the baby’s room? So many conversations. It’s a fun conversation to have, isn’t it?

[00:25:07]

Oh yeah. We want to do something that is intrusive. What kind of glider do you want? Like, what should we name? Oh, names. The most fun conversation ever, you know? And you know, hours and hours we would take walks when we lived in Brooklyn and, and you know, oh, what if it’s a boy? What if it’s a girl? You know, maybe we could do, do a name that would apply to either.

[00:25:27]

And, and, and It was, I don’t think we had one conversation about the actual, partly because you’re clueless, like, you don’t really know, even when people tell you, it sort of, you know, it doesn’t really register, but like, Who’s staying home when the baby gets sick? We both work. Oh my god. Like, what are weekends going to look like?

[00:25:51]

What, you know, what if, who’s getting up in the middle of the night? Like, who’s, you know, all that stuff. And like, baby laundry. It was bizarre to me, and I had been warned by many people. Like, you can’t believe how much laundry a baby or a toddler generates. It is. It is crazy. Like who’s going to do the laundry?

[00:26:10]

At the time we lived in an apartment, there was three laundry units for like 38 units. And so there was, I was constantly like hauling laundry downstairs and there was someone in there and I’d be in a rage. So, you know, having really practical conversations before, while, while, while someone is pregnant, or if you’re adopting, while you’re waiting for the adoption or anything like that, like, it is crucial.

And it isn’t just division of labor, we, I advise in the book, like. And it’s not too late, even if it’s years later, Saturday, get ready to have the most boring conversation in the world. I have a sweet tooth. I like to have when we did it. I had lots of like sweets around and we just had like coffee and, you know, cake and we just divvied up everything and we did it by preference, which research shows gay couples are better at, they’re not kind of, you know, encumbered by traditional gender roles. And so, I kind of followed their lead, like, what do you like? I happen to love grocery shopping, so he doesn’t like it. So, I do that.

[00:27:14]

Okay. One down. Like clarity helps a lot. You know, all these, you know, I have a bunch of I have a list in the book of like, things that you can go over with your partner. Just life stuff, just like logistic stuff. And so, it’s not this last minute scramble where you end up either fighting about who has the more vital work schedule if you both work or Who is the most well slept and thus is more equipped to deal with whatever, you know is coming up there’s constant fights about like who’s in better, you know shape mentally to deal with this.

And so, having those conversations ahead of time and even, even philosophical conversations would have been a big help because you know, John and Julie Gottman, the famous couples counselors they advise asking each other, sitting down and just saying like, and you can do this at any point, even now, like, you know, with us having teenagers, it could be name five ways that you were parented.

[00:28:19]

That you would like to replicate in your family life now and name 5 ways that you’re parented that you don’t want replicated with you and your kids and that was, you know, values is a word that we kind of throw around. But that was a way to kind of get at what your values are. And that’s a great question, right?

[00:28:41]

Because it’s not about you and what you’re doing, right? Exactly. We’re not doing they were there. Of course. They’re so good at this. Right?

Yeah. And so, that really kind of drilled down to how we want our family culture to be, you know, and, and so that helped a lot too, but just regular conversations where as boring as it is.

[00:29:07]

Like, a family meeting that you have we still have them. I started them when I was writing the book like just regular check in meetings. We do check in walks now, but it’s really to talk about all the quotidian stuff in your life. I mean, of course, there’s, it does become a lot easier as you say with kids, but, you know, there’s still logistical stuff and just to make sure that we’re both okay, which we, we were not doing either.

[00:29:35]

And we, another counselor had told me, I saw, we saw several said take 10 minutes and take a walk. Walks are so, there’s So many good things about walks, but take a walk for, you know, if you can, like I said, if you’re both there and you have a baby, you can’t. This is when she was a little older. But just take 10 minutes a day where you’re not talking about your kid.

[00:30:00]  

It can be anything except logistics. We need more paper towels and your kid just talk about anything you used to talk about before you had kids and 10 minutes. It can be 10 minutes on a book or a TV show that you like, just something that is connects you to your partner. And so we, we really, we started that habit and we, we never stopped.

 

[00:30:21]

So, that was helpful. Also. Yeah, no, totally. And my husband and I do that every Friday night. Now. We just have a big yard. Like an acre. And so every Friday after dinner, it’s kind of how we kick off the weekend. And my daughter is 10 now, but for years, she’d be like, oh, are you and dad going for your walk?

[00:30:41]

And I was like, yeah, we are. So, like, it’s our way of like, transitioning, which really helps. And I think it’s a lot harder when you’re sucked into that like resentment anger cycle. I love in your book, you are super, super open about your couple’s therapy and about your anger and how mad you were and like exactly the things that work hard.

 

[00:31:09]

You said you take an honest look at yourself. And I, I really appreciate that. Of course, I’m like, yeah, but he’s done all this shit. That he shouldn’t have like there’s the story where he didn’t pick up your daughter on time and you were out at a work event downtown. I was like, I feel that rage. Right?

 

Casey McGuire Davidson 

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[00:31:28]

Like, how could you? I remember there were sometimes when I’ve never been as mad at anyone as I was with him. And by the way, you saying that you have this Friday night ritual. I mean, I know, you know, this, but it’s really lovely to model that kind of behavior for your daughter to see that you prioritize that time together and that she knows this and she’s internalized this, whether she knows it or not.

[00:31:52]

And it’s just, it’s just really nice. And, you know, I mean, that’s what I also say the book is like. If you like me are like, oh, I don’t want to ruin my kid or, oh, I need to behave better in front of my kid. Like, if that’s your way in, if that’s your gateway to fix your relationship, whatever works, you know, anyway, what you were saying is, yes, the, the rage that I felt it was, it was disproportionate.

[00:32:18]

And I can remember also feeling shame. Like, like, what’s wrong with me? It’s one kid. And I’ve had a privileged background and a privileged life compared to so many other people like the shame component of it, too. It’s hard to get over because you think, oh, my God, why am I whining about this? Like, like, everybody’s like, first world problems.

[00:32:36]

And you’re like, but they are problems. Like, they’re legit and that’s your, you know, what Terry real one of the counselors that we saw in the book. I love him. I love his work so much. He calls it a biosphere. I think about this a lot too. He said. When you’re fighting, you’re polluting your biosphere.

[00:32:54]

Like, that’s your family culture that you’ve established. And when you’re fighting, that all swirls around in that biosphere. It’s not like it leaves, you know, and he’s absolutely right. So, yes, we would go to, we went to counselors, we went to Terry Real and every, a lot of people know who he is, you know, and he’s, he’s really pretty renowned in the world of counseling, So, we went for a week long, a weekend long session with him where he does these intensives that are really kind of terrifying because he does. He pulls no punches.

[00:33:29]

So, we went and this is how this is what a mess our relationship was. We couldn’t find a babysitter. My husband, Tom, and I, because we never went out because we never went out with each other and babysitters in New York City are also expensive and but we never even thought to do things like, oh, you know, take another person’s kid and trade-off babysitting.

[00:33:50]

We knew tons of babysitters. Families with young kids like we just didn’t think we just didn’t prioritize our relationship at all. So we, we couldn’t find anybody. My parents were too old. They felt weird about taking her. We took our kid I think she was like 4 at the time to our marriage counseling intensive in Boston, we went from New York to Boston.

 

[00:34:13]

We spent a weekend there. We got a hotel and we stuck her in the next room. Oh, my God, we stuck her in the next room with headphones on and put her in front of, you know, an iPad and she watched. I don’t know, Blue’s Clues or whatever. She was watching at the time. And then, we had our marriage sessions. It would be like a couple of hours and then a break and then a couple of hours and then a break.

[00:34:34]

And then at nighttime, we would go home to the hotel. And You know, his sessions are not cheap and it was worth every penny because he, I’ve never been that vulnerable with anybody in my life. There’s something about him. And so, he drilled down to our problems. He had his 1st separate. I’m such a proponent of counseling and I know it can be expensive, but, like, having a 3rd party.

[00:35:03]

Forensically examine your relationship is so important and, you know, you can go to your friends or your sisters or whomever, and they’re going to be like, you go girl, you know, what exactly, you know, and like, men, there’s research. They don’t confide in their friends as much about this sort of stuff.

[00:35:25]

And so, to have somebody really, you know. We went to several counselors, but Terry was the most impactful because he, he takes sides. He’s unusual. And he also, he tells you things. He is really blunt. And so, within an hour, he said to Tom. Why don’t you help her out and I had told him about that story that you relate earlier about him, not picking up the kid or like, he was constantly doing chess. He was doing social chess on his phone and he would just like lay on the couch and do social chess while I was doing everything. It would make me so mad. But I did. I say get up and help me? No. So, Terry said, why aren’t you helping her? This is not the 19th century. Get off your ass. Get off your ass and help her out. She’s drowning. And he like. Tom’s hair was blowing back. Terry went on and on and on. And of course, I was like, yeah, this is great. I love counseling and by the end of it, I could see Tom is very gentle and kind and he’s not confrontational and he was turning, turning gray and just like retracting into himself, like this snail in a shell. And by the end of it, I felt sorry for Tom, but then Terry turned to me and said, and you, and I thought, oh, me, what am I doing wrong?

 

[00:36:48]

You know, and he said, just talked about all the reasons. Oh, my God. He said, you sure are comfortable being a martyr time for you to climb off the cross. And I thought, oh, you know, he said, you’re grandiose. You love being right. You love being you know, you I’m trying to think of the language used. It was like because there is something sort of, empowering about like, feeling justified and so righteous.

Indignation.

That’s what I was looking for. Thank you, Casey. And so they, he said, that stops today. You cannot do that anymore. You have to ask for help. No more yelling. He said to me. I don’t want you to raise your voice with him.

[00:37:33]

I want this to be your new challenge. You know, there’s nothing that you can say. There’s no reason for yelling. There’s no reason for name calling. There’s no reason for swearing. And he said, it stops today. And I thought, what, what are you kidding me? And sometimes I did lapse. But from then on, maybe because I didn’t relish the idea of going back to Terry for another weekend intensive because it almost killed me in a good way, but I used all my willpower and I really, I stopped yelling after that intensive and I still got my point across.

[00:38:14]

But he said that there is nothing that yelling can do that kind of loving firmness can’t do better. And so, I don’t mean to sound like, aren’t I great. I stopped yelling. Like, I know how irritating that sounds. I just mean that a, he scared me. B, he made me look at myself and, and, and C, I realized that, like, especially when I was watching Tom get yelled at, and like, how, how sad he looked I thought, oh, you know, I really, I really do love him.

[00:38:42]

And like, how did it come to this? And so, so we put a bunch of things in place, kind of behaviors in place that we tried and, you know, because, yelling and name calling and swearing and seething with resentment and rage cooking, which I also did, like, banging pots and pans around, hoping he’s going to notice.

[00:39:02]

He never noticed. You know, and what was probably was like, I don’t want to go in there. She’s all pissed. Right. So, more like chess, that enrages me to just like playing on your phone. And while I’m like getting the kids ready and running out the door, like my husband would sit there scrolling on his phone while I was running around getting the kids ready and breakfast and out the door.

[00:39:25]

And he would then like an hour later, roll out of bed, get ready and leave before I left. And I was a parallel reality, like just a single guy, right? Like, I was like, what the actual fuck? You got up an hour after me and you’re out the door before me and we’re both going to work. Right. And like, Terry had said to him, I want you to familiarize yourself with this phrase.

[00:39:50]

Need a hand? Need a hand. Not tell me what to do. Need a hand. If, if she’s doing something and you’re not, like, I remember another rule that one of my friends instituted when we, when we all started talking about this more, when the book came out, I can’t tell you how many friends were like, Oh my god, this is my life.

[00:40:05]

And I, I said, what? Why didn’t you tell me? Why weren’t we telling each other? This is so silly. If we’re all experiencing it, why, why do we have the shame? But she said that she, she instituted a rule in her house, like in the kitchen, if I’m up and doing stuff, everyone’s up and doing stuff. Like I’m, because it was that thing, right?

[00:40:24]

Where, where you’re preparing or you’re loading the dishwasher for the 75th time that day and everyone else is sitting down or they’re on their phones or they’re just like checked out. And so, so, yeah, you have to be this squeaky wheel and because, you know, in traditional relationships. Right now, of course, men don’t want to change the status quo, especially in two working relationships.

[00:40:48]

It’s working for them. It works for them, right? So we have to do it. I wish it weren’t so, but that’s kind of the way that it is now. And so, so it was a little bit more on me because I was desperate for change. He was not. But I kept saying to him, like, look at all this research. I would print it out to show him, because again, he’s a reporter as well.

[00:41:08]

And I would say, when I feel supported, you will be happier. This will benefit you directly when I’m not rage cooking, when I’m not like angrily folding laundry. Like, you know, it’s amazing how you can hastily fold laundry. Hostily do anything. Yeah. And, and he would pretend he didn’t see, I knew he saw it was like this, you know, poisonous cloud around me.

[00:41:36]

And, and in fact, it was this kind of. Upward spiral where the more he would say things like need a hand, which is just like the best thing you could ever say. Right? Need a hand? Yes. Why? Yes.

You know, and then you have to be like a grown up too and be like, yes, could you please do this? You know, relish being the Manager again, but like, that’s the world we’re living in right now, but it just got better and better and better to the point where.

[00:42:02]

The times where I did yell because, of course, I wasn’t perfect it felt weird. It felt like unnatural and that was definitely some progress. So, yeah, I love some of the strategies you had in here to like, the hostage negotiation 1, I thought was amazing when you talked about, like, how I think that was Terry, to like, how we instituted, like, the hostage negotiation strategies, like minimal encouragement, mirroring open ended questions, like all that good stuff. Can you tell me a little bit more about that? Yes, that was such a fun 1, because I remember being at the gym and I had seen some sort of hostage situation on the news or something.

[00:42:48]

The news was always running at my gym and I thought, oh, those guys get in. They managed to like, rest away a gun from some guy and like 3 minutes. I thought, wait, what did he do to calm people down? So quickly, you know, and so, I called up the former head of the S of the FBI’s hostage negotiation unit.

[00:43:09]

His name is Gary Nestor. I’m still in touch with him. I had dinner with him. Not long ago. He’s a delightful guy and awesome. I said, listen, could this could your techniques apply to relationships? And he said, oh, yeah, you know, I mean, my wife is onto it when, when I do it with her, but there’s this kind of 8 part behavioral plan that he helped develop.

[00:43:31]

And so, yes, 1 of the things is, so there’s a bunch of steps and so I know when Tom is doing it now, but it’s kind of funny because I’ll be like, you’re doing the FBI thing, right?

[00:43:42]

And it’s, it, it breaks the tension because we kind of laugh about it. Okay, so here it is. It’s, and I talked to this other, I talked to several experts who are former FBI guys, but, so it’s offering minimal encouragement. Okay, so when the person is starting to vent, you just say minimal encouragement.

[00:44:00]

It’s like, mm hmm, yeah, okay, I see. And it’s really, if somebody’s going, mm hmm, mm hmm, yep, it’s hard to be mad at them, okay? And then Another one is mirroring and so that’s just repeating the last few words from the other person that when they’re talking to sort of build rapport. So, if I’m like going off and I’m like and I’m angry, Tom has, he’ll say, and you’re angry and immediately it like takes the wind out of my sails.

[00:44:30]

Okay. So another is, Asking open ended questions. So, you know, even though it can open up, you know, a can of worms, you could say, okay, could you tell me more about that just to just to let people know that you’re tracking them that you’re listening? I mean. People just want to be heard no matter what expert I was talking to, whether it was, you know, the former head of the FBI crisis negotiation unit or a counselor people want to be heard.

[00:44:56]

And that’s 1 of the problems that we have. Okay. So another 1 is, using “I” messages. So, as Gary said, it was to drop the cop. So what you do is you say it’s like, instead of saying, don’t yell at me, you say, I’m having trouble understanding. You because you’re yelling. So it’s just I so that it’s not you because you can immediately put you on the defensive.

[00:45:20]

Another is allowing effective pauses. This was a funny one because Gary said that sometimes they would just strategically keep it really they would stop talking and the person would sort of calm down because they didn’t know whether. The agents were still listening or not, and it can be a way where you just take a breath, but paraphrasing was really my favorite, and I use it all the time. And I know this is psychology 101, and a lot of people do this. But when you take a moment to rephrase what the person is saying, or what the message they’re trying to get across in your own words, it indicates that you have to use a little mental process in order to do that, that you weren’t just because, I can tell Tom uses his ghost voice, which I also wrote about, like, I can tell him he’s not listening and he’s playing social chess on his phone because I’ll say like, do you want like some, you know, sauce with this or whatever I was making?

[00:46:19]

He’d be like, yes, I want some sauce with this. And I would know he wasn’t even listening, but if you paraphrase, you have to at least grasp what the other person is saying. And there’s something. Okay. Really gratifying when you know you are being heard. So paraphrasing, I cannot stress enough. If you say, okay, so, you know, what you’re, I think what you’re trying to say is, and then try it.

[00:46:41]

If you miss, they’ll correct you. Or you can laugh. If it’s wildly off course, which Tom has been, you know, many times. It’s so funny that sometimes I can’t help but laugh. And so, that helps a lot. And it really does. Calm you down quickly. So we use that one all the time. Years later. [00:47:00] Yeah. You know, what’s funny is I read a book that was all about parenting toddlers and they had this comment, like there were all these different strategies and it was something about when they’re a toddler, like treat them like Neanderthals.

[00:47:13]

But one of the things they said is like, you have to get like to their same level of being upset and again, repeat what they want. So, it’s like, you know, you’re like, you’re mad. You don’t want to take a nap, like whatever it was, like, you know, just like mirroring their emotions. So, they feel hurt. And then I was at work and I was really mad about, like, something, some decision that happened that, like, negated the work I did.

[00:47:39]

And I thought was going to be bad for customers and someone did it to me. They were like. You’re pissed. Like, pissed. You think it’s unfair. Yes. Like, it’s bad for the customer. And I was like, oh my god, they did it to me. But it worked. Yes. Everyone wants to be heard. Toddlers. You know, it’s you’re absolutely right.

[00:48:03]

So, yes, how do you get your husband to like buy into that? I mean, you know, it’s like almost like they won’t read this because they’ll get maybe they will but they’ll get totally like riled up and feel defensive in the beginning, but Like you, I mean, yes, we need to do it to them, but in the book you stated, like, at least with my husband, like, his strategy was to like, I don’t know, ignore me or go to the bathroom 4 times for 20 minutes or like, our lawn has never looked better than when I had my second daughter, hours, like 5 hours a day on the lawn on the weekends.

[00:48:40]

Oh, yeah. Yes. And so, my way to get my husband to buy into it is I just sat him down and said, obviously, what we’re doing right now isn’t working. This is broken. It is absolutely broken and we’re both miserable. I have these strategies, that I’ve been researching, like, can you give me a month where I, we try it my way. I think you will be happier. I think we will both be happier. And I threw in the kid, like, and, and our daughter will be happier because she was starting to pick up on our tension and that was not good.

[00:49:16]

And so, it was both a motivator for me, like, Oh, I don’t want to ruin our kid. And it was also a motivator for him, like, like, you know, he’s starting to be upset and she’s starting to be watchful. I mean, I really, I sold it to him two ways. One is it’s a trial. This isn’t working. Let’s try this. It may fail. I mean, that’s the thing about the book is that I wanted to be honest.

[00:49:41]

And when I got that book deal, I said, we might not make it and you have to be prepared for that. Like, I want to be honest and I want to report in a real way. And they said, no, no, no. However it ends. I mean, statistically a lot of ’em do. These marriages do end.

So of course. So, when you got the book deal, you were like, my marriage may not, like, I might write this book about how to not hate my husband, but we may not make it.

[00:50:03]

I absolutely did because I was in the thick of it then. And so I was like doing the reporting and experiencing it kind of in real time as I was writing it. And so, yes, so that was, that were the two ways were. It, it, it, how about a new way? Give me a month. What’s a month? You know, that’s a, a great way to present it.

[00:50:22]

It really is like, what we’re doing is not working. I’ve done all this research. Can we try this for a month? Right? And, and then saying like, do you notice that Sylvie, our daughter, her personality is changing a little bit. She’s getting a little more subdued. And that’s classic behavior, you know, in a volatile household.

[00:50:42]

It wasn’t. I don’t know if you can see it, but she was getting a little watchful, and she wasn’t quite as exuberant as she once was. This may have been just developmentally she was growing up, but at the time that’s how I read it. And so, again, because he loved her so much, and their relationship was pure, unlike ours, you know, that also was a motivator for him, for sure.

[00:51:08]

Yeah. Yeah, and the other thing that I noticed, which is so true that you said in the book, is that dads always get the fun jobs, right? Like, you’re the one doing all the shit and they’re like, I will take the children to the park on Saturday morning so you can have a break. And you’re like, yeah, but that, and then they come home and are like, daddy’s the best, you know?

[00:51:29]

Totally. And, you know, oh, I made pancakes. I left the kitchen a mess, but, you know, I’m the fun guy. And, yeah, no one’s going to pat you on the head for doing all the, all the, you know, more quotidian things. And so like running around in the morning, but so, okay. I love the FBI strategy that I can totally see how that works.

[00:51:51]

You also talked about the Gottman’s a lot, and I have to say that one of the best things that Mike and I ever did in our marriage is we actually somehow read the 7 Principles of Making Marriage work, like, within our first year.

So, 5 years before we have kids, and we’ve been married 22 years now, and we still refer to the 4 horsemen.

 

[00:52:11]

Like, when someone’s being like, it’s almost a joke to break the tension, like someone’s being doing one of them. And like, one of us are like, Hey, like, we make a horse out so anyway, it’s just kind of funny and one of the 4 horsemen that can, you know, and your relationship is contempt. And that goes back to.

[00:52:35]

Yelling, swearing, name calling, sarcasm, you know, that whole playbook, which does feel good in the moment, but it makes you feel bad later. It’s funny. My daughter recently, she tried out for she’s in marching band and she tried out for to play piano in another band and she, she got an attack of nerves and she wanted to leave and there was a coach there.

[00:53:00]

And the coach said to her, you know, if you run out now. You’re going to feel great in the moment and you’re going to feel really bad later for a longer period of time. If you stay, you may feel bad. Now, if you don’t make band, but you’ll feel good later for a long period of time. And I wish I had heard that advice a long time ago, because it does feel good to let loose in the moment because it is so it’s such a powder keg. Right? But then you just crappy afterwards guilty.

Yeah. I think 1 of the things I got from the book was you are not going crazy that this is unfair meaning the amount of work you’re doing and the type of work you’re doing like the shit work is, is not what it was before you have kids and is not, you know, Equal because I think we all experienced that and acknowledging that there are strategies that you need to employ that probably aren’t bitching or drinking or contempt that will help actually change the situation versus you being righteously indignant that he’s not pulling his weight and being a jerk.

 

[00:54:12]

Which does feel good. It kind of feels good. It really does. But again, it doesn’t change what’s happening. Right? Or it doesn’t clearly that doesn’t work if otherwise all men would be super helpful when your kids are young. Right? And it does. It does. You’re, you’re so right that it makes you feel a little bit better.

[00:54:32]

Like, okay, so this is happening to other people. This is the, you know, things have improved certainly since like our parents day, but it’s still not where it should be in terms of, you know, the equal distribution of household labor and. And, and, you know, it’s funny because I, I talked to, I talked to a lot of experts in the book that I didn’t use, you know, you just sort of sift through the ones that make sense.

[00:54:55]

And I had a couple tell me, oh, you know, you should demand 50 50 in terms of household labor and kid labor and all that stuff. And to me, that seemed unrealistic. Like, it should just be what feels equitable to you. And, and that’s different for every For every person, right? Like, maybe, maybe a different statistic feels equitable to you, but it should just feel fair, whatever that means to you.

[00:55:25]

Yeah, yeah, and I think it’s interesting because a lot of people, and I’ve seen this too, like, my husband is just more comfortable with the kids when they’re older, right? Once my son started playing baseball and basketball, and he was happy to go do a bunch of that stuff. But. The problem was that I was not comfortable with the kids when they were young either, like, I was not the finger painting mom, so the assumption that, he’ll handle it when they’re older and I’m better suited, like, I wasn’t better suited to that time.

[00:55:57]

I was just kind of sucking it up because I don’t know. I felt like a bad mom if I didn’t do it. I mean, that’s, that’s a whole other, that could be a whole other book, actually. You’re giving me an idea about, about how some people are suited temperamentally for different stages. My mother said that too. She said she was bored out of her mind.

[00:56:18] T

here was three of us when we were little and, and she’s, she feels like a much more, she feels much more comfortable in a role now that we’re adults and we’re closer to her now, for sure. And like, There are those distinct ages when they’re little, right. They really are so very different and some you’re more suited for and some you aren’t and yeah, that would be an interesting book.

[00:56:43]

I was thrilled to send my kids to daycare. I like, I think I, and I’ve said this out loud and wasn’t even joking like. I did not stay home with my kids. I went back to work when they were like three months old because I wanted a break from the kids because I found that really hard. Working was hard too.

[00:57:03]

But having to have like an hour and a half in the morning and three hours in the evening was way easier for me than doing 12, 14 hours of childcare. At least at work I got to have a coffee, sit at a desk, talk to someone. Oh, sure. A hundred percent. And I, I love how judgment free you are about all this stuff and how we can talk about it in a real way, you know, and it’s just really nice.

[00:57:29]

And yeah, and, and, I mean, another thing that. I, I should point out that I was doing is and this goes back to communicating is that I would do this thing that, you know, Brené Brown and other counselors talk about it a lot, but the story that you are making up and when I was fuming and not talking about it to him, you know, to some of my friends, but not to him.

[00:57:54]

I was making up this full, I was making up stories in my head all the time about him and going back to going back to what you were saying about, like, being, being on their phone, like, I would look at Tom staring at his phone while I was doing a thousand things and I would be like, I would truly put a, like a thought bubble above his head saying like, Ha ha, I’m pulling something over on my wife.

[00:58:19]

She’s doing all the work and I’m relaxing. Feels good. Ah, you know, that’s not what he was thinking. And, and that only made things worse for me. So I, I constantly had to catch myself and say, like, is this the story that I’m making up? Cause sometimes. I would, I would cast him as in this kind of nefarious light and he really wasn’t like that.

[00:58:41]

Clueless, yes. 100%. But not, not like, you know, gloating that he’s relaxing while I’m working. Flawless and not wanting to do the work right, but not too bothered by if anything needs done for sure. Yeah, 1 of the things that was 1 of the most interesting comments that a friend ever made to me was we used to joke amongst our friends about my husband, like.

[00:59:08]

That he had a really good life. He was 6th grade teacher. He coached sports. He, had all summer off to, go to baseball games and go fishing. And, I was working and we were always like, must be nice to be Mike D. but then and I would resent it. Right?

[00:59:23]

Three annual fishing trips when we had kids still does but when they were little and I was like what the hell the only vacation I get is like when the kids are sick or we go on a family trip and finally I was bitching for the 11th million time to one of my friends and she was like, is it that you don’t want him to be happy?

[00:59:42]

Or is it that you aren’t happy? And I was like, holy shit, I am really unhappy. You know, like. That’s a great question. About everything, and so I booked an annual vacation with my best friend. And I was like, you know what? I’m going to Santa Barbara. I was like okay. Like, I was like, okay. Love that you did that.

[01:00:05]

I didn’t do that for years. And it must have been the most delicious time off for you. Was and he appreciated me so much more after it because he was like, oh my god, when I go on those 10 day fishing trips, that’s really fucking hard because you were gone for five days. And I was like, yes, are you asshole?

[01:00:26]

No, just kidding. So anything else that you think like? People who are deep in that, like, resentment, young kids, overwhelm, all of that, like, all of those emotions daily, if they were to take the first step, what do you think it should be? To have a frank conversation where you’re not yelling, you can even write things down ahead of time to make your points.

[01:00:57]

When the kid is asleep or when you’re away from the kid or kids and. You know, establish some ground rules right away that you’ll wait for the person to be done speaking and then you speak and you take turns and you don’t yell. 1 counselor told me that when you’re having a frank conversation, it helps to hold hands and maybe that’s the last thing you want to do because you’re mad, but feeling their hand, you know, like, reminding.

[01:01:25]

Reminding yourself that they’re, they’re someone that you love, it’s their hand, you know, it’s their warm hand. They’re not the boogeyman. They’re someone that you cared about, or you once cared about, maybe care a little bit about less now. That really helps. So it’s about having a, a really honest conversation and, and also I mean, okay, that would be number one.

[01:01:47]

Number two, divvying up your chores. It’s never too late. It, again, boring. And then, number three, an exercise that I found really helpful that kind of makes you find your way back to this person that you care about is Guy Winch, another great counselor that writes amazing books that I highly recommend.

[01:02:10]

He had us, when we went to him, again, I told you I went to several therapists with Tom and he had us do this exercise that I really changed things for us. Like there’s a couple of turning points. That I wrote about in the book that really were, made a lot of impact on me and it was to take a piece of paper and write down, without showing your partner, 10 actions that they have done for you that you appreciate, not showing your partner characteristics, not, oh, you know, he’s funny or she’s, you know, good at this or that. It’s about things, specific actions that you’ve done that they’ve done for you. Because as Dr. Winch put it, like, you can talk about stuff theoretically all you want, but actions are where they’ve shown you how they love you.

[01:02:56]

And it can be small things. It can be, That they always keep the gas tank filled for you, which is what my husband does for me. He also does this thing, he has this, this kind of air what do you call the things where you’re like, Air pressure? It’s a thing that you, that you blow your computer with to get the, Oh, okay.

[01:03:16]

Yeah. It’s like a keyboard cleaner with the air blower thing. So he’ll come over and he’ll kind of be like, It’s so little, but like, I don’t like having a dusty keyboard. And so I wrote down 10 of those things and he wrote down 10 things too. And then we said, and then he said, okay, don’t show each other.

[01:03:34]

And we’ll wait for the next session. So, at the next session, we got there early, you know, like did our homework, we’re all ready. And he said, okay, now turn to each other. and read your list to each other. And we thought we were going to read it to Dr. Winch. And it was so funny because I instantly felt shy. So, I turned to him and I read the list and one of the things on the list was you painted my parents’ house last summer.

[01:04:01]

The exterior of the house, even though there was a wasp’s nest. And I thought, wow, that blew by me at the time? Like, ah. Not his parents, my parents. He would drive, we were in Brooklyn at the time, he would drive to New Jersey where they live, paint the exterior on a ladder, no one loves heights, there was a wasp’s nest, and he did it without complaining, this is one reason why they love him, but like, that’s, I’m not quite sure how that blew by me in kind of the rush of life, but like, what a nice thing to do.

[01:04:36]

And then, I remember at the end of it, I was crying and then he read the list to me and the last question, I mean, the last thing he said was, Oh my God, I’m getting choked up now. This was years ago. He said, you’re my best friend. And I said, I am? He, he’s never said that to me before, but he said it to me in the list.

[01:04:56]

And I thought, oh my God, really? Like, just that. There was something about the actions. Rather than characteristics because that otherwise it feels like it like obviously you’re sweet and loving. Something about the specific actions and about reading them to each other. It takes just a few minutes, but that that was a breakthrough for us. It seems so simple and it seems like I’m, you know, making it like oh this miracle thing that happened. But it really did make things better for us.

[01:05:32]

It was a good reminder. Yeah, and I love how at the end of the book, you sort of summarize because the book actually is a great read in a quick read because there’s so many stories in there.

Yeah, it’s important. Like, who has time? Right? There’s so many stories that yeah, that made me be like, oh, my God. Yes.

[01:05:51]

And of course, every time you said something, I was like, and then when Hank was 1 year old, he did this, like, whatever. But interspersed are all the really good strategies.

I remember you writing about that list. I remember that story about him painting your parents’ house. And, at the end, you summarize exactly what the strategies are, so that you can kind of go back and be like, okay, yes, here’s 1 more thing that I can do or I can try. And I love the idea of proposing it as an experiment to switch things up and to try to make things better. Because, yeah, it’s really, it’s really obvious when things are not good.

[01:06:35]

And not working when Hank was 5. 1 of the reasons I stopped drinking for the 1st time was because I was like, I was also being like, this is not going to work. Like, I don’t know if this is going to work. And I was like, I need to separate alcohol from this to figure out if we’re going to. Be good together, you know, to get that clarity because it was fueling fights and anger and resentment and it was so complicated and so I ended up stopping and going to a therapist for like anxiety and addiction end.

 

[01:07:08]

It really, you know, I went in there and I was like, Oh my God, my boss, my husband doesn’t help me, my kid, this, that, et cetera. And I was like, and by the way, I drank a bottle of wine tonight. And the guy was like, let’s talk about your drinking. I was like, let’s talk about my husband. But it did help to like, separate that and to have someone external to vent to and to be heard, but also to be given strategies.

[01:07:33]

Good for you. I’m sure that was not an easy time and you sought help and, we know how hard that can be, right? And, and, and, and even giving up alcohol, that is a process. So, yes, it is. Well, thank you so much for coming on. I really appreciate it. I know how busy you are and I appreciate you taking time out of your weekend.

[01:07:55]

And I love this book. I already posted about it in my group that I was going to interview you and my God, the comments of everyone talking about this happened that happened. It is good to get it out, but I’m going to post again after this interview to just be like, okay, there’s some really great strategies here that you guys should try.

[01:08:13]

It was my pleasure to come on and you are so easy to talk to and thank you for having me. Oh, thank you.