00:00:00: Music.

00:00:11: Everybody welcome back to another episode of bitch breathe our very first in 2021.

00:00:18: So I hope you all had a smooth transition from that last.

00:00:23: Indescribable year to this one that you did indeed find some time find some opportunity to be with

00:00:32: at least some of your loved ones and that there are reasons for you to look forward to 2021 so this year.

00:00:41: Might mean a lot of things for us many of which we don't know but maybe some of us are getting married

00:00:48: and I thought I would love to talk about marriage and so this is part 1 of a double episode.

00:00:57: About the marriage myth so I loved marriage

00:01:03: both of them I had a significant amount of years when I really really enjoyed being married I guess that's why I did it twice I believe in it in a way that I think it's such a wonderful thing to show your commitment to this other person and a whole bunch of other people whose

00:01:21: is plates and food you paid way too much for her but I just think it's a beautiful ritual one of those old

00:01:30: old rituals that we as a species have pursued for God only knows how many centuries I

00:01:38: I really do love weddings even I love going to weddings it's

00:01:43: doesn't even matter if I know the couple or not I always end up crying because again I love marriages I'm a total victim of Hollywood if you will in fact one of my best friend's is always saying

00:01:54: what is with the Hollywood shit why do you always have to make everything so bigger than life when it comes to romance but.

00:02:01: What are you going to do I just really love it I even love rom-coms in fact one of my top five favorite movies is a movie with John Cusack.

00:02:10: And it's very cheesy.

00:02:12: And very marriage Pro marriage and it's Serendipity I do advise you to check it out even if it is a bit of a Christmas movie anyway.

00:02:20: See how I get into this thing about marriage I could just talk just about my enthusiasm forever okay but again.

00:02:29: Just because I love Hollywood doesn't mean I have to believe everything that Hollywood sells me and that marriage or the marriage myth as this episode is called sales me.

00:02:42: So I wanted to share with you today some of the myths and in this part 1 I'm going to talk about the myths around being married.

00:02:51: And in the second part we're going to talk about all the myths that surround the end of a marriage so.

00:03:01: I thought this is something.

00:03:04: So how do you say omnipresent it's such a concept if you just name the word marriage everybody's got an opinion on it maybe a lot of them have experiences about it but certainly we all have some sort of.

00:03:17: Idea expectations dreams about this particular.

00:03:25: Ritual that we go through so let me begin with myth number one.

00:03:32: I got married the first time when I was rather young I was only 24

00:03:36: Anna was a very young 24 and my idea of this marriage because it was also a bit of a shotgun marriage to be quite honest I mean I love my husband but we weren't going to married just gonna get married just yet the reason we sort of spent the whole thing up

00:03:52: was because my insurance was going wasn't going to cover this is so funny now I don't know why this makes me laugh.

00:03:59: But my insurance in the states back in New York at the time was only going to cover me up until the birth but the birth itself

00:04:07: was not going to be covered so that seemed a little strange and a little dangerous and I was also married to a Korean guy or getting married to a Korean guy

00:04:16: so my Korean family was very determined to have us married before the baby came so.

00:04:23: Myth number one was for me that this has to last forever.

00:04:30: I know that a lot of us have a lot of us have been.

00:04:34: Disillusioned by now about how long married has two last but honestly speaking especially when there are children involved

00:04:41: don't you really want it to last like isn't that something you're really kind of expecting otherwise why would you get married if you don't think it's forever

00:04:49: Riot and I certainly did I thought that if this didn't last forever that was going to be a failure

00:04:56: in fact people often speak of this word a failed marriage

00:05:00: however if somebody was together for 20 years they don't talk of a failed relationship is just well the relationship is now over so what I want to say about this first.

00:05:11: Myth if you will is that it doesn't have to last forever.

00:05:14: Right I've known excellent marriages that ended after five years and I've seen horrible marriages that were kept alive you know sort of like lying in a coma for 20 30 years.

00:05:29: And the truth is it doesn't have to last forever

00:05:33: right it doesn't mean we don't think about what we're doing with that doesn't mean we don't understand the consequences of what this means let's not even get into the financials and all the pressure of doing this in front of other people and stuff.

00:05:47: I don't mean any of those things but I don't think we have to go into this thinking that we only going to be together.

00:05:55: Until as The Vow says death do us part not true doesn't have to be that way.

00:06:04: Myth number two everything is about compromise.

00:06:09: So when I first started being married this is certainly something that

00:06:14: I believed in and that I had been told by older Generations you know those wise people who came before us and I thought that if I want this to last we have to sort of.

00:06:25: Smooth out each other's edges a little bit and you know really

00:06:29: the whole idea of give-and-take and especially my second marriage where my husband and I were very different people.

00:06:37: I always looked to bridge this incredible divided witch.

00:06:42: Especially my second marriage was really really huge right so I thought no ricardia you have to compromise this is what marriage is all about it's hard work everybody says you got to dig your heels in and really really.

00:06:57: Try to work to get everything sort of 50/50.

00:07:01: After my second marriage had been lasting for maybe five or six years very happy years I might add I start to think you know this compromise thing

00:07:12: I feel like it means

00:07:14: that everybody only gets half of what they didn't really want in the first place so let's say you have vacation plans and you know you want to go to Machu Picchu right which might still want to do and the other guy.

00:07:28: Really just wants to go surfing at a beach so the compromise would be of course that maybe you find a place where you can both

00:07:36: see mountains and go surfing I think in California you could probably do that right so you could go to California hey that sounds like a nice plan I can imagine worse things and spending my time in California together

00:07:49: but it always rubbed me the wrong way that you couldn't have what you wanted which was much a pitch I mean

00:07:58: you have a life as well that is yours and you have individual dreams separate from this unit of marriage so why do you have to forgo something that is really really huge on let's say your bucket list right.

00:08:11: And it wasn't until Marshall Rosenberg you've probably heard of the guy nonviolent communication where he says you know.

00:08:20: And nonviolent communication and conflict or whatever it's not about a compromise it's about having your needs met and I thought.

00:08:29: That's a bit of an epiphany because for all I knew I thought know you have to like really just you know stay calm.

00:08:38: Understand that this is a marriage and then only get half of what you like I said only half wanted in the first place but Marshall Rosenberg says

00:08:46: I know you talked about the needs that you have you then Express a

00:08:52: a wish of how you would like this to go down and then the other person also looks at their needs and what they think they need to come out of this conflict or a conflict of interest in a way that doesn't feel like a lousy little compromise I don't know compromises

00:09:07: I don't know like stale bread doesn't

00:09:10: doesn't gel with my with my thinking as you might have noticed so I thought that was really great so if it's the Machu Picchu I'm surfing plan

00:09:18: then maybe it's about taking a vacation separate from each other I mean do you

00:09:22: always have to go on the same vacation at the same time because you married do you always have to be in agreement of how time is spent.

00:09:32: I don't think so again as you know this is always my opinion that doesn't mean that.

00:09:40: You know you can't you can't always be in pulling in the same direction great for you but my thinking is two units.

00:09:49: Two separate people who have decided to spend some of their lives together but that doesn't mean you have to compromise.

00:09:56: On everything myth number three there's this understanding that marriage ends because.

00:10:05: You know you get too familiar or maybe and so we have all these ideas but really marriage doesn't kill marriage cohabitation does.

00:10:17: So maybe already guessing where I'm going with this I often like I said I really liked being married what I didn't like at all was the

00:10:26: cohabitation sometimes the the living together because I felt like the respect and.

00:10:34: Freedom eroded while I watched.

00:10:38: Yeah so whether it was the old cliche of one is tidying up and the other isn't or

00:10:45: you know one says I'm going to be home at this time after work and the other prepared a meal maybe whatever these domestic disputes

00:10:53: are I always felt like it wasn't marriage per se it's not because I said I want to be with this person for the next foreseeable future or decades on my whole life it was the whole living together that just

00:11:05: made everything not just boring but really really challenging and trust me I loved you no slouching down with the babe

00:11:14: on the couch on a Sunday night and watching a movie being really familiar not just having a drawer at this person's place but actually living there together waking up having breakfast and all these things those things are wonderful and I still love them

00:11:31: I do but the question really is is do you have to live together the whole time now that you're married and.

00:11:40: From what I can say from my own experience I don't think so and if I get married again which.

00:11:48: There's a chance I might hey if it's good enough for JLo but if I were to get married again I was very seriously consider not living with this other person of course if you have children together

00:12:02: maybe that's a different story and I totally get it but even then I've seen couples live in the same building.

00:12:07: With each other and then one apartment was sort of the work-study place and the other was the living area and it allowed for a lot of freedom of movement and thoughts and living so whatever the combo is I just.

00:12:22: I think it's a nice idea to think about whether marriage automatically has to lead to living together

00:12:31: in my case my kids already grown so I don't have to worry about living in the same space because now there are children but I have to say if I'd had the

00:12:41: kind of partner who also love their freedom as much as I now do I think it might be a really workable model.

00:12:49: That was myth number three myth number four we must always be faithful to each other.

00:12:58: Hmm.

00:13:00: Fidelity if that isn't a big topic around marriage then I don't know what it is and it's a tricky one I really really think it's a very very sticky.

00:13:11: And icky and altogether puzzling concept really and.

00:13:19: The reason I brought this up is because I live in a city where there are so many models of cohabitation romance monogamy polio.

00:13:33: Cameras

00:13:35: I think I came across a word called throuple the other day which I'm guessing is a couple plus a third person and so there are all these models and I think a lot of times we're very judgmental towards how people conduct their

00:13:50: two together thing right like we

00:13:54: feel there's this need to really really stick it out together after all if you're not going to stick it out together as two people then why the hell are you getting married then you might as well just not be married and just you know play the field and for a long time I thought the same thing I thought

00:14:10: well why would you get married and then.

00:14:13: Feel the need to sort of play around like that but the truth is and I know that a lot of people think this is an apologetic argument but I really do believe that the truth is you don't have to be faithful.

00:14:25: To be honest with each other and I think Honesty is the value.

00:14:30: That I would like to look for in my relationships my long-term relationships going forward now I'm not saying I would be able to tolerate other partners next to me.

00:14:41: Because that takes a lot of communication and it takes a lot of safety.

00:14:47: Respect and it's a whole lot more work than just the two of you together because you really now have changed the Rules of Engagement there are more players in this game

00:15:00: and so it takes besides all the logistics and everything which to be honest I don't really want to get engaged with but apart from the logistics it really

00:15:09: really takes an incredibly solid connection for this to work so I'm not advocating you know.

00:15:19: More people more marriage sort of thing like I'm not advocating that I'm also not advocating

00:15:25: the monogamous relationships as we've known them for centuries what I would like to Advocate is the idea that there are different models

00:15:33: or like my Irish friend set likes to say a different horses for different courses right and.

00:15:40: Yes there's a lot of risk and experimenting with this but if we've been together for a long time maybe our kids are already grown maybe we really really respect each other we love

00:15:52: each other we want to be together because we think we have a mission still with each other but there are also sort of.

00:16:01: Other aspects of Life of Engagement that we want to explore that does not have to mean the end of a marriage necessarily.

00:16:10: Again very sticky subject if you're not even remotely on the same page with your partner this could be

00:16:17: a really negative Game Changer so that all said it obviously depends on the two individuals that you are.

00:16:26: And my last sort of marriage myth that I would like to share with you myth number five is.

00:16:35: The idea that this will never change

00:16:38: so in both of my marriages my first marriage my second marriage my experience was that a marriage does not necessarily end you know the year that it ends or the month that had ends

00:16:50: that ending is probably a long time coming right

00:16:55: maybe sometimes you already guess it probably you do especially if you're a woman and your intuition Works fairly well but

00:17:05: that said that marriage doesn't necessarily end.

00:17:11: In that year you know we also have this.

00:17:17: Thing where we stay and we think that nothing will ever change here

00:17:22: and so the logical consequence might be two separate white but my what I'm trying to Advocate having a hard time getting to the point on this one what I'm trying to sort of look at is

00:17:33: does it not does it not change because my experience has been that it does.

00:17:39: Sometimes through marriage counseling yes I've found Partners to be very reluctant to go to marriage counseling so I don't have any actual experience there but I think that's something really can change.

00:17:52: When we do and this is not a new insight right we've heard it specially if we're in any way in the spiritual Traditions that the only person we can change is us but where I'm trying to go with the soul change idea is that.

00:18:06: When I started to change this is especially applicable to my second marriage I became a yoga teacher I left the very toxic work environment of film.

00:18:18: And acting and I started to notice all these changes in me and I didn't think.

00:18:24: That any change would happen in my husband just because I'm a yoga teacher I'm obviously not becoming a yoga teacher just so my husband will.

00:18:32: You know start staying home or whatever it is that we would require from our partners know I became a yoga teacher because the pain of who I was.

00:18:41: Personally separate Von my marriage was becoming too much to bear I had to do something about me.

00:18:50: So when that happened I did notice changes in my husband.

00:18:57: You know whenever I didn't blow up we used to have incredibly temperamental fights where would I mean objects would literally fly through the air and I used to love all the drama right it just felt so Italian to me and so cool

00:19:11: but that changed I didn't have these kinds of fights as much anymore they still occurred but at a much lower frequency

00:19:18: because then my husband also didn't escalate and and even though the ultimate change of me became

00:19:26: the ultimate end in our marriage in some ways because I think not because I left because now I was so enlightened I left because

00:19:34: staying had become impossible because of the own my own changes that I had gone through and because of the kind of well changes my husband was making so.

00:19:47: Really this whole idea that nothing will ever change it's just not true if you are willing to put in the work.

00:19:55: And to look at what it is that you're bringing to the table that's really not working I almost want to promise you that things will shift around and if that shift means that your marriage ends.

00:20:07: Then that's the change that needed to happen and that will be the second part of this.

00:20:15: Episode or podcast rather the marriage myth.

00:20:20: Here was about being married and in the next episode we're going to talk about all the myths surrounding marriage ending.

00:20:29: So I hope this was useful to you I'm so curious to hear what your marriage experience is and maybe you have things to add what other myths

00:20:38: are there that you feel really need to be put to rest so just a little reminder we have a Facebook group now it's called bitch breathe so you can easily find it just by

00:20:48: looking for the name I will also pop.

00:20:51: The URL in the show notes here if you'd like to write to me more privately please please do I love hearing from you the email address is bitch breathe at GM x.com.

00:21:06: Looking forward to hearing from you have a wonderful happy New Year and stay well.

00:21:12: Music.