How To Fail With Elizabeth Day - Christine McGuinness - ‘I don’t want to hold back anymore - I date women! So what?’

Episode Date: June 4, 2025

TW: discussions around anorexia and sexual abuse. In an incredibly powerful episode (and a How To Fail first), Christine McGuinness speaks publicly about her sexuality for the first time. She reveals she had a long-term relationship with a woman before her marriage to comedian Paddy McGuinness and that she’s now dating women again. She refuses to label her sexuality - as she puts it: ‘I want love for me’. What an honour to be part of Christine’s journey to live her truth! You will already know Christine as a TV personality, author, businesswoman and prominent autism advocate. The mother of three autistic children, she has made critically acclaimed documentaries including Our Family and Autism, with her then-husband, as well as penning a series of autism-inclusive children’s books and launching a range of sensory-positive clothing. Despite serious adversity (her father was a heroin addict, she endured bullying at school and suffered sexual abuse at the hands of a family member), Christine is a total inspiration and has achieved so much. She’s about to launch her first podcast, Situationships, in which she and her co-host Sophie Gravia delve into listeners’ dating and relationship dilemmas. Elizabeth and Christine answer YOUR questions in our subscriber series, Failing with Friends. Join our community of subscribers here: https://howtofail.supportingcast.fm/#content Have something to share of your own? Click here to get in touch: howtofailpod.com All episodes in June are brought to you by @arlalactoFREE - all the taste, easier to digest. Listen to our bonus episode brought to by ArlaLactoFREE with Vicky Pattison here: https://link.chtbl.com/VickyPattison 🌎 Get an exclusive 15% discount on your first Saily data plans! Use code [howtofail] at checkout. Download Saily app or go to to https://saily.com/howtofail ⛵ Production & Post Production Coordinator: Eric Ryan Mix Engineer: Matias Torres Studio Engineer: Gulliver Tickell Assistant Producer: Suhaar Ali Senior Producer: Hannah Talbot Executive Producer: Carly Maile How to Fail is an Elizabeth Day and Sony Music Entertainment Production. Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts To bring you Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

How To Fail is proudly partnering with Aala Lacto Free through June. Delicious dairy with all the taste, none of the lactose. Hello and welcome to How To Fail with me, Elizabeth Day. Now, if you're a regular listener, welcome back. And if you're new around here, this is the podcast that thinks that failure is not the end, just a beginning to a different kind of story. A lot of people think that if a marriage ends that it's failed and I don't believe that at all. Totally agree.

I don't think anyone in the public eye or not should ever really ever have to explain who they're spending time with if they're an adult. Do you feel safer with women? Yes, I do. Definitely. As someone who loves a trip away, being connected to home and the rest of the world when I'm overseas is an absolute must. I mean, I need to have my daily FaceTime check-ins with my cat Huxley and, yeah, I guess catch up on work emails and stuff. Now, something that can make this all possible is Salie, a new eSIM service app that allows

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to get 15% off your first purchase. Christine McGuinness is a TV personality, author, businesswoman and prominent autism advocate. The mother of three autistic children, she credits her kids with having helped her seek out her own diagnosis at the age of 33. In the four years since, she has made critically acclaimed documentaries including Our Family and Autism with her then husband, the comedian Paddy McGuinness, as well as penning a series of autism-inclusive children's books and launching a range of sensory-positive clothing. McGinnis's journey is an inspiring one, given her challenging childhood. Her father was

a heroin addict. Her mother left him when she discovered baby Christine crawling over his syringes. McGinnis was bullied at school and suffered sexual abuse at the hands of a family member. She developed an eating disorder and turned to alcohol to numb the pain. Her way out was beauty pageants and her modelling career led to her meeting her future husband, although the couple are now divorced, and eventually to a two-year stint on the Real Housewives of Cheshire. This month, she's launching her first podcast, Situationships, in which she and her co-host, Sophie Gravia, delve into listeners' dating

and relationship dilemmas, as well as lifting the lid on their own private lives. "'Each of my failures has shaped who I am today in powerful ways,' McGuinness says. While they've brought challenges, they've also brought self-discovery, resilience, and growth. Christine McGuinness, welcome to How to Fail. Thank you so much for that. That was amazing, that intro.

You're amazing, and I'm so delighted to have you sitting here. And it's the first time I have ended on a quote that was written to me in an email as part of your failures because we were saying before we started recording, I was saying how beautifully you write and you were saying that you find it easier to express yourself. I do, I've always struggled to verbalize my emotions and my thoughts but writing them down I'm quite good at. I think I can get more clarity when I'm writing. I can take more time to really process what I'm thinking and what I want to say.

When I'm talking about my experiences, I never want them to come across in a negative way. So it was important for me to write it to you that I've gained a lot of positives from my failures and it's not something that I'm a victim of. it's something that I've gained a lot of strength from. That's amazing and it's exactly the premise of this podcast. We wouldn't be who we were without the things that have gone wrong as well as the things that have gone right. Yeah. Now, you called your memoir a beautiful nightmare because you also say that out of every nightmare something beautiful comes. And one of the

ways that you say that's informed you is that your childhood, which we heard a bit there, was really difficult by any measure. Has informed your parenting now, is that right? Yeah, definitely. I think from my childhood, it made me realise what I wanted for my children and that I wanted them to have so much more life experience. I wanted them to have so much more love. I wanted them to have that continuity and a strong family. And that was really, really important to me probably because I didn't have that. My mum was incredible. My mum was a single mum, but she struggled. She had three little kids and she struggled financially. She struggled with her time and to give all of us the attention what we needed. That was something positive that I took from a negative experience knowing that when I

had children, I wanted to make sure that I was secure enough that I could be around at home. And I did. And I absolutely loved it and embraced it for the first five or six years I've had my children. I was a full-time stay-at-home mom by choice. That's what I wanted. I wanted to be there for all of the first milestones. And I wanted to make sure that I was secure enough before I had children that I could do that. And I did, and I absolutely loved it. You've got three children, two of them are twins, and all three of your children are neurodivergent.

Yeah. And I wonder if the twins in particular have a special relationship, because I've been learning so much about autism recently, about how so many autistic people are so incredibly clever that they can communicate telepathically without words. And I wonder if your twins have that because twins are meant to be renowned for that kind of relationship too. Yeah, there's definitely a bond between them and it's very much an unspoken bond. It just exists, they feel when one of them isn't in the house. And it's been from when they were

very, very little, I remember trying to settle them into school. And obviously they're in the same year, they're in the same class. And whenever one of them would go to the toilet, the other one would be really, really upset to where they would just end up going together. And it's took years to get to the point of them being calm if one of them wants to go and do an extra activity

outside of school and one of them stays in, that they're okay with it. They need some reassurance but they must feel almost like their other half is gone. They shared a room, you know, they shared a room for years and it was only when the youngest came along that I kind of went, okay, everyone's waking each other up, I need to try and separate them and separating them was hard but they're just so, so close. But all three of them are just gorgeous. The relationship that they've got is incredible. Before we get onto your failures, I'm very interested in the fact that you are in a household where you're all autistic. And how does that manifest itself? What strategies do you have in place to make life more easeful for each of your family members?

Try and plan ahead. I use visual planners a lot. I have a calendar that I will either write down what time Mummy's leaving or coming back or I'll put pictures on if there's a visitor that they're not quite familiar with. It might be a family member, a distant family member that pops over once a year to remind them of who they are, what they look like when they're coming. If we're ever visiting anywhere new, even if it's a park or if I'm going abroad and it's to a hotel, I'll make picture books to help them understand where we're going and just to take away that anxiety because they do get quite nervous still about going out. So that's how I manage it in a way that I do things for myself, I do for the kids and I didn't realize that I was looking after myself in an autism friendly way.

When I used to go to places for filming on different location I would always research where I was going and how long it's going to take me to get there and what the temperature is like and I would literally look at what colour the wallpaper was in a hotel room that I was staying in because I wanted to know what it looked like before I got there. And I've always done that for myself not knowing that it's quite an autistic thing to do. So I do the same for my children. You're such a great parent. Okay, your first failure is your failure to ask for help. You describe yourself as a people pleaser and a perfectionist. When do you think you realise

that about yourself? Probably when I had the twins. I just insisted on doing everything. And it's one of them things I love about myself because it's given me a lot of independence and I can juggle an awful lot before it gets on top of me. But there are times where I should have asked for help because it was affecting me and my own health. And I think that's where you kind of got to draw the line. And, you know, I haven't got an ego. I need to just kind of go, OK, it doesn't, it's fine asking for help. It's not, it's not a bad thing. It doesn't necessarily mean that you're failing. It's

just being self aware and going, do you know what, this is too much. Can anyone please just come and help me out for a couple of hours because I'm struggling. And I think being vulnerable like that is actually a strength, but I didn't learn that lesson until I was absolutely exhausted, up all night, looking after babies all day every day. We all know what it's like as mums, the nappies, the bottles, the food, the appointments and I kind of just got on with it and done with it and didn't ask for help when inside I was really struggling and just needed a pair of extra hands now and again. Who was the first person you asked for help?

My mum. My mum got really, really involved with the children when they were around three. It was when I had my third one. I'd never left the twins. I didn't know that they were autistic at the time. They were three years old. They were non-verbal.

They didn't eat solid food. they were really sensory to any noise if the doorbell rang, if the coffee machine was turned on. They had no eye contact. It was like they just wasn't aware of anyone or anything around them. They were just very much in their own little world and in their own little bubble. And now I understand autism it was very obvious but then I just loved them I just I just loved these little toddlers that were running about and I loved how much they were in their own little world so I didn't see it as this something different with my children and when I was pregnant obviously I had to go and give birth at some point and I'd never ever had a minute away from my twins. So my mum came over to look after them whilst I went and I had a C-section with my third

one. And it was the first time I'd had a night away from the twins. And I had to stay in hospital for a couple of days because Felicity was taken into the intensive care baby unit and that wasn't planned and I wasn't prepared for that. I asked my mum to come and babysit for one night for me and she ended up there for three nights. It was a moment where I accepted that I needed to just be at the hospital and I needed to recover myself with my C-section and I needed to be close to my newborn baby who was in intensive

care and I had to just hand over the twins to my mum and accept the help. Yeah, well I was thinking as you were talking that for you to get to that level of crisis point shows how unbelievably strong you are. Because most people would have been undone years earlier. And I think that it's so brave to acknowledge when you need someone's help. And that vulnerability allows other people to connect and feel close to you. And I wonder whether part of you feeling you couldn't ask for help, dated from your own childhood and feeling like you kind of, you couldn't say a lot of the things that were going on or you had to control a lot of what was going on and not tell your

mum because maybe you didn't want to worry her. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And I understand that now, especially the last couple of years, I've spent a lot of time working on myself and trying to understand other people as well as how our mind works. And I completely agree. I understand that if your childhood has been difficult or challenging in any way, you're more likely to be a very independent, strong, quite resilient adult when you're older. So being aware of that has also made it easier for me to ask for help now and again, because I know sometimes when I'm juggling too much, I'm doing that because it's almost

learnt behaviour from childhood. It's not absolutely necessary. If now and again I just say, Mom, do you mind just having the kids for me for one night because, you know, growing up and down is too much for me, that's okay. I haven't got a problem in doing that now, although I don't like to do it too much. I wonder whether now that you're a mother and you understand your own autism diagnosis, has it made you reflect on your child differently? Can you see elements of your children in the child you were?

My children are mini-me's. It's amazing. When you get diagnosed, especially a late diagnosis, I think people assume that you're instantly going to go, oh great, I've got all of the answers. It's like a light bulb of this is amazing and now I can start a whole life and be my authentic self. I think that's what people want and expect when you get a late diagnosis but actually before you get to that point you've got a lot of unpicking to do and you can't help but think back to experiences of when you were younger and wonder if it would have been different if I was diagnosed earlier would I have spoken up and used my voice a lot more have been different if I was diagnosed earlier, would I have spoken up and used my voice a lot more because I never did. I was very quiet up until I got

diagnosed and even in the last few years it's took me a while to be as vocal as I am and I still am quite quiet and I hold a lot in. But with some of the stuff I experienced when I was younger, I do wonder if I'd have known, or if other people around me like my mum would have known, would they have treated me differently to get me to open up more and to be able to say things that were going on or where I was struggling. Even at school where I wouldn't go into the school canteen,

it led me to have an eating disorder. That wasn't because I didn't want to eat, but I couldn't verbalize that at the time. I went to the doctors and he kind of just said to me, well, you know, she's a teenage girl and obviously she's just got anorexia because she probably just wants to be slim. And I should have really then said,

no, actually I'm really struggling in the canteen. I can't cope with the noise. I can't cope with the queuing up, with the smell of all of the food, the menu's different every single day, so I don't know where I'm getting when I get there. Then I'm panicking about making a decision on what I want because there's a queue of people behind me. So instead of me doing that every day at school, I went once, realised how much I couldn't bear it and then stopped eating for years at school. And that's something that I think if it was known that I was autistic then, then maybe that wouldn't have happened.

I want to say how sorry I am for what happened to you when you were a kid and how resilient you must've been to get through all of that. And I'm very aware that my asking about it might be upsetting for you. So I also don't want to intrude. It's okay. I've spoken about a lot of this stuff before and if I wasn't ready to, I wouldn't have. I never spoke about anything until I wrote my autobiography. I didn't mention a lot of stuff like the sexual abuse, like meat and disorder, the drinking. As a teenager, I would always kind of play it down and dismiss everything as, you know, oh yeah, I was a fussy eater or I didn't like socializing.

But really, actually, there were big challenges that I dealt with as a child. And I think accepting it and being able to talk about it is the best way that I can help myself. So again, from that failure, I've learned from it and now I help others and I talk about it. I help my children, I'm very aware. This episode of How To Fail is brought to you by BetterHelp. I know firsthand that stress and anxiety can show up in all kinds of ways

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Terms and conditions apply. If you could give any advice to a young girl like you, who is going through a really tough time at school, who's being bullied as you were, who perhaps is being targeted in some way by an unscrupulous family member, what would you say to her? First of all, that it's not you. It's not you. You don't deserve it. It's not kind. It's not nice, but it's nothing that you have done. Unfortunately, not everyone in the world is kind and we're going to come across people like that for the rest of our lives. But certainly when you're young and you're struggling to deal with it, please speak to someone. If

you don't want to speak to someone, if you can't because I didn't, find a way to let somebody know whether it's writing it down on a text message or if it's writing it down on a piece of paper. That's how I communicate with my eldest daughter sometimes if she's too emotional to explain what's going on. And another thing I think I've learned again just dealing with my own children when they're struggling to open up and communicate. I like to let them know that this is a safe place and if they don't want to talk about it they let me know that this is just an output. So some of our conversations that we have we're allowed to say I just want to let you know about this. I don't want your opinion. I don't want a conversation.

It's just an output. I don't need any input. Especially with being bullied, I think the person who's being bullied can often feel quite embarrassed. That's how I was. I was really, really embarrassed. I didn't want to tell anybody at all. So I would keep it quiet and suffer in silence and I would wear a smile every day when really I needed help or I needed it like solving or something. And I ended up leaving school at 14 and it's one of them things that I look back at and I wonder, not just if I wasn't bullied, but if people at school would have known that I was autistic and ADHD, then maybe I could

have been given that extra support to help me stay at school, to help me feel safe and to help me feel understood. Instead, I was just skipping school as much as I could until it got to the point where we were called into school me and my mum and it was kind of like, you know, we all want to keep her safe. She's out and about walking in fields or down the streets avoiding classes. So I just ended up leaving to keep me safe. But thinking back really, I should have been able to finish school quite happily and safely and I should have done my GCSEs. I should have even maybe gone to college, who knows what I could have done. But yeah, it wasn't known and I stayed quiet and I didn't speak up.

You didn't ask for help. Didn't ask for help. But you would now. I failed to ask for help. I think that idea of output, this is just my output and I don't need your input is such a good one. Yeah, I love it. I use it a lot. Yeah, because I think if it's a loved one, your compulsion is to fix it immediately. And actually, that's not what's needed a lot of the time. A lot of the time is just

someone to listen and be present. Yeah, and I think sometimes it's really important, especially for me, who's I've always struggled to just be myself and make decisions. And now I know that until I start doing that, I'm always really living somebody else's life. If I keep asking for everyone else's opinion, even if it's just on what shall I wear, what dress do you think?

Do you think these shoes or they'll go to a restaurant? I'll instantly go, well, what are you like eating before I order? At what point, what age do I go, well, what are you like eating before I order? At what point, what age do I go, okay, hold on. I want to live my life how I want to. I want to wear the clothes that I wear and eat the food that I like. So I need to just actually start speaking for myself and, and get them what I want. So if you, if you're having a conversation with someone and it's not just an output, you're always getting somebody else's opinion, input, then those thoughts and opinions and those decisions aren't your own anymore.

I think that's so relatable. I'm someone who was a terrible people-pleaser throughout my teens and twenties. And I realized after a while that I was outsourcing my entire sense of self to someone else's projected opinion of who I should be. But I know that there's an extra element of this when you are an autistic woman because of the masking. So how much of that, I mean it's probably impossible to question, but how much of that do you think played into the people pleasing? Probably 100%. Really?

Yeah. Like I genuinely, once I understood autism after my diagnosis, I looked back and I was kind of like, was any of that actually me or what I wanted? And I've gone through years of self discovery of thinking, okay, well, who am I? Who do I want to be like even? And there was no one or nothing I could come up with. And I realized how much I didn't know myself at all. And I'm still learning. You can't just take the mask off. I think people think that once you're diagnosed,

you'll stop masking and you'll suddenly just be yourself. It's not that easy because actually masking is also part of me. That is authentic to me to pretend to go to a red carpet event and actually find it extremely overwhelming. But the one second photograph that people see on Instagram, I will look so happy and be smiling and I'll look confident inside. I'm thinking, okay, how long am I here for? Is this nearly over? Is it too rude if I just say that I'm going to go and make a phone call because really I just need a break? I'm still doing all of that overthinking constantly, but it's getting less and less. The more I'm feeling, just comfortable in my own skin.

LARLEYY My final question on this failure is you mentioned that some of this stuff you had only ever spoken about for the first time in your book and your autism diagnosis is still only four years old, so you're doing an amazing job for, you know, it's only been four years. But I wonder how much it affected your mother. Did your mother learn about some of these things for the first time too and has that impacted your relationship? Yeah, yeah, yeah she did. I spoke to her whilst I was writing the book. I called her a lot and I was just, you know, are you okay with me talking about this? I was very aware of, you know, that it's not just my story, although it is, it's my life that, you know, it could

affect other people. And I thought a lot about my children reading it when they're older and family members. For my mum, she was really supportive, it was upsetting for her but she understood why it was important for me to just write about my own life in a book and it was a really, really big amazing opportunity. I couldn't believe that anyone would even want to redevelop me or my life. At the time, I felt very invisible and kind of no one, like just a mom. And it done really well. It went to number one in the book chart. So yeah, it done good. It deserved to. This podcast is brought to you by Squarespace. Now, if you're an entrepreneur like me, or living the creative freelance life, then

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Being in the public eye, obviously. At school where I got bullied, I felt very on my own and I had no one. So being in the public eye is kind of like you've got your own little fan club, especially with followers on social media. But with that comes a lot of attention and sometimes a lot of intrusion on your private life and that's something that I've struggled with everyone's opinions because although I know I don't need it, it does still affect me and I know it shouldn't but it does because I'm human and that's something that I've had to work hard on kind of going. It doesn't matter on how my life looks to anybody else, it really matters how it feels to me and if it feels right to me and it feels good to me, then it's up to me to block out the noise. And how does your relationship fit into this context? Because you mentioned your divorce

and the email to me underneath this failure. So talk to me a little bit about that. With the divorce, I think, again, a lot of people think that if a marriage ends that it's failed. And I don't believe that at all. Totally agree. We actually had a good 16 years we were together. I mean, I still live with them. I met them when I was 19 and we still live together and we've been separated for three years. And it was one of those things I remember when we put out the statement about us separating. We were both nervous about what the reaction was going to be publicly.

nervous about what the reaction was going to be publicly. But for me, it was the first time where I really thought, okay, I'm going to do this because we almost have to explain because we're in the public eye, people expect that and it's part of being in the public eye, you have to take the pros and the cons with it. So we've done it and that was the first time where I kind of went, do you know what, putting this statement out, yeah, it's going to be a lot for us mentally and emotionally to let everybody else know, but it's more important that we live our truth. We're literally just saying what is going on, and that's the truth. We're divorcing, but we're okay and we are still living together with the children and we're all right. It's challenging at times, but we need to not worry about what other people think because this feels right.

If it feels right to us, that's what we need to do. And I think after that is where I've struggled more because of the attention around my sexuality. And that's something that I haven't discussed publicly. And I haven't discussed it intentionally because for me, it's took me years to process why it's big news. Why is it such a big story in the press? Who I date. It shouldn't matter somebody's gender, it

never mattered to me, which is why once me and my ex-husband were separated and I just met, I met people, I didn't properly date. It was more like blurred the lines of friendships. For me, that was normal. It felt comfortable because I'd done that as a teenager and as a teenager I dated both men and women and my ex-husband knew, my family knew, it was never a secret for me, it was just a part of me and it was normal. So then when I was single again, that's what I'd done but it was made such a big fuss out of in the press, I almost went back into myself. I went extremely quiet from feeling quite comfortable and happy and free. I almost was going backwards and I could feel myself shrinking and staying quieter because of the noise around it. It almost made me feel like,

well, I must be doing something wrong because why would it be front page news? Why is it on every cover of every magazine if I'm seen with a woman? And it's happened multiple times over three years and every time I've met another woman or started dating somebody else, if there's a photograph, I always think, oh well it won't be a big thing now, surely it will have calmed down and it's not, it still is such a big thing now, surely, you know, it will have calmed down. And it's not, it still is such a big thing. So I've intentionally stayed quiet on it because I didn't want to draw any more attention to what is my normal. And then now it's just got to the point where I'm like, okay, if I don't actually acknowledge

this at some point, then I don't know if it's ever going to go away and I just want to be able to date and I want to be able to just enjoy it and I want to be able to just feel free. If I want to hold somebody's hand, it shouldn't matter if they're male or female, it shouldn't matter what their gender is and I shouldn't really ever even have to explain in any way who I want to spend my time with. That's my business. CK I'm so moved by that, Christine. I'm so moved by it. I'm so happy for you that you're living your truth.

Don't cry. CK No, I can't. I'm so, like, congratulations. That's so wonderful. And you're so right. You should be empowered to live authentically because you spent so much of your life just keeping a lid on things and trying to please and trying not to cause any trouble and trying not to ask for help. And actually, I just want love for you. And there are people out there who want to love you. I want love for me too.

Well, it's totally going to happen after this, don't you worry. But I think you're so right that there's something so retrograde around someone having to explain their sexuality because we live in such a heteronormative culture. So heterosexuality is still probably wrongly seen as the default. And anyone who doesn't subscribe to the default has to explain it in the same way as neurodivergence. There's a pressure to explain when actually we're all living our own unique lives and we shouldn't be putting pressure on anyone to explain who they are. Yeah, and I think that's something that's took me a while as well. For the last couple of years, I have experienced everyone's opinions and thoughts from being pushed and pushed and pushed to talk about it and to say who I'm dating or who I'm with.

And I've also been told to never discuss it ever. And it's hard because I fully stand by that I don't think anyone in the public eye or not should ever really ever have to explain who they're spending time with if they're an adult. I really believe I don't need to talk about that. It's not anybody's business, it's my private life. But I also get why people have encouraged me to talk about it because, like you said, people just want love for you. If people want you to be happy, people want you to just be yourself. And until I say it myself, I'm always going to be a little bit more kind of holding back and being careful if I'm going on a date, in case I get seen, you know, which has happened

multiple times. And then it's a big shock, again, in the media. I'm just at the point where I think I've got a nice balance of going, yeah, I date women and so what? What's the big deal? But also knowing that I don't have to go into big massive detail about it either. Would you give your sexuality a word? How would you describe it? No. And again, I've thought about it a lot. People always ask me, you know, are you a lesbian? Are you bisexual? Is this a phase? No, I've always been quite a free spirit.

I think that's the only word I would put on it. When I was a teenager, like I said, I dated boys and girls, young 14, 15 was probably when I had my first kisses with both. And I never felt like it was anything different or a big deal then. I think where I grew up, everyone was kind of just there for a good time. I grew up on a council estate. Everyone just had big dreams. Everyone just wanted to be happy. And I was just being me then, but of course, that wasn't in the public eye.

And I was just being me then, but of course that wasn't in the public eye. So then having to kind of do this with a much bigger audience, I wasn't prepared for that. I never ever expected my love life to be such a big talking point in the media. And yet it kind of made me go quiet and go, Oh God, am I doing something wrong? Why is this such a big deal? Now we're just going, it doesn't feel like it's a big deal to me. It feels absolutely fine. So I need to not worry about what other people are thinking. Preach, you're not doing anything wrong. You're doing everything right. How does it feel having said that?

I feel like I'm being me and that's lovely. Have you ever had a long-term relationship with a woman? My longest was two years before I met my ex-husband and then I've had really, really lovely long situation shifts where we kind of purposely haven't put like a label on anything, but my experiences with women have been lovely and it's not like women are better or worse, it's simply that the connection for me is different. Oh, you're a bit better. And that's, I just, I need a connection now. I need something different. I really, really,

honestly, I love my family and Patrick is part of my family and he always, always will be. But now for my next relationship, I know what I want and I want someone for me. So I want someone that I like spending time with, that we can do stuff together that we both enjoy. I want that emotional connection where I can be open and I can talk and I can be vulnerable and I can ask for help. But I can also have a laugh and just have a good time. It's not like I'm trying to find a new family unit or someone to come in and be like a step parent. I want my next relationship to be for me. Mm-hmm. Do you feel safer with women?

Yes, I do, definitely. When I was younger, my experiences with women were so lovely and so good, but after the two-year relationship with a woman, it ended in heartbreak and now I can look back and smile and just be like, it's so almost silly because I was so young. But if you think back to those relationships when you're a teenager, your first proper one, that heartbreak is horrible and you think it's the end of the world and that you're never going to be happy ever again. And that's where I was with her. And we actually left it very, very mutual. It was just that she was from Czechoslovakia, so we obviously couldn't, she just couldn't move over here and I couldn't just get a move over there.

So we left and it was really sad. I wanted to make sure after that that I wasn't avoiding men because of what I experienced when I was much younger and that actually I was very, very comfortable whether I was dating a man or dating a woman. I didn't want to just say, okay, this is it, I'm only being with women for the rest of my life because of what I experienced from one man. And it took me a while from when I had that relationship with a woman, it took me a while to feel comfortable to then go with a woman. It took me a while to feel comfortable

to then go with a man, but the next person was of course my ex-husband. And I felt safe with him. We laughed loads. It was a slow burner, so it wasn't intense. There was no pressure. And I think that's probably why it worked. But then after him, so for the last three years where I've had the opportunity to just be single and kind of experience who or whatever, and I couldn't do it. I can't bring myself to feel comfortable with another man in that kind of way. You call him Patrick. Many of us know him as Paddy McGuinness, and it sounds like he's fully supportive of this era of your life. He is, he is in some ways and in some ways not, and I don't mean that in a negative at

all, it's no diss on him at all. I think it's a different side of life for both of us, in the same way that him dating other people has had me feeling in many different ways. I think the sexuality side of it doesn't come into it with his opinions, I think, I hope, I'm not sure. It's kind of, we're both going to be doing other things with other people and we both just need to be okay with it. And we also know that it's not each other's business as well. We're quite respectful of that. We both know that we we can date and we're allowed to. We're adults and we're single so we can, but we also know that we don't need to overshare any information about anything because we are still exes and we are

still living in the same house. Do you have different wings? We have different wings. I always joke about it, so he's in the West Wing. It's kind of like, yeah, we completely have our own space. He's on the top floor of the house. I'm on the floor with the children. And yeah, it works. It works and it doesn't.

It works for us as a family because we don't have to move the children. So they've got that continuity and it's consistent. When they come home from school, they know where they're going to. They've got their own rooms, their clothes, their computers, everything they need is in that house. And it doesn't matter too much whether it's mummy at home or daddy at home. So with our schedules being all over the place, it doesn't affect them. Whereas if we were in separate houses, they would kind of be leaving school Wednesday thinking, oh, are we going to mummy's or daddy's?

And then Thursday it might be different. And it's, yeah, it's a lot for them. So I think for now, just keeping it the same one step at a time. It's nicer for the children. For me and him, it works because we're not having to do the backwards and forwards drop-offs and, oh god, where's the charger or they've left something that they need at daddy's house and I'm going to have to go and get it. We don't have to deal with that yet. But then the negative side is, of course, trying to move on properly is definitely a slower process. Christy McInnes, I really, really admire you.

I can't thank you enough for choosing this space to talk in this way, in such an empowering and honest and moving way about your true self. Thank you. Summer is Tim's ice latte season. It's also hike season, pool season, picnic season, and yeah, I'm down season. So drink it up with Tim's ice lattes, now whipped for a smooth taste. Order yours on the Tim's app today at participating restaurants in Canada for a limited time. Let's get on to your final failure, which before I start crying all over my notes again, which is your failure to trust your gut, which is so interesting given the context in which

we've been speaking. And the way that you wrote this to me is that historically you've been taken advantage of financially and emotionally. So what were some of the times that you were taken advantage of? Being a natural people pleaser and wanting to make everyone happy. I find, especially financial stuff, I find really difficult to talk about. I don't like it. I don't like it at all. I just don't like oversharing that kind of stuff. I also don't ever like to come across like I'm showing off equally. I also don't like to say when I'm not doing so good and I'm struggling.

So simple situations could be a meal with two or three people. I will be going, I'm paying, I'll get it. It's okay. It's all right. I'll pay. You all do it. It's fine. No, it's not. And I will overly insist on just sorting it out because I would rather do that than be sat there going, okay, so are we splitting this or and then the waiter comes and I'm having to have a long conversation with the waiters and can you just split that into three or four and I just find,

I just honestly, I just don't mix my skin crawl. So I think by me doing things like that, I just don't mix my skin crawl. So I think by me doing things like that, people around me would say like, oh, she'll sort it or she'll do it. And it would become a thing then that every time I'd go anywhere, it would be me who would go, oh, I'll pay. And then that then leads on to people saying,

oh, can you get tickets to that event? Cause you'll be able to get tickets, won't you? And I would think, oh, this is like someone wants to be my friend and they want to go out with me. So yeah, I'll sort the tickets. And now I look back and I go very, very obviously just being used and being taken advantage of and where they really actually my friend, if I didn't sort those things out, when would we have actually seen each other? And I kind of let it spiral to the point where it's affected businesses because I've overtrusted and I've believed, I've really, I believe in everyone. I've literally believed whatever people say to me.

Because of that, I've been burned quite badly and I'm still dealing with a lot of that and it's very very heavy but from that now only in the last six months I have taught myself how to build my own website, how to build an app, how to super secure everything, run all of my different businesses and social medias on different accounts and juggle it all. And all of those skills I never thought in a million years that I would understand how to actually build a website and read all of the back data and be able to do a whole stock check and understand money and finances and profit and what goes in and what comes out. All of those lessons I've learned because I was burnt along the way.

And talk to me a bit about friendship and how all of this has affected your approach to friendship. So I've always struggled with socialising and this was probably one of the red flags of being autistic that wasn't picked up on. I think people just thought I was a loner and quite happy to be on my own, which is true in a lot of ways. But the reason behind that was because of how much I do struggle to socialize and I still do. I'm definitely getting better at it because I'll put myself in situations to keep learning and trying, but it's not something that comes naturally to me. So when I have made friends in the past and I haven't

made a lot, I usually will have one friend for a while and then something will happen. It's hard because I'm still learning to trust, I'm still learning to be okay with letting people in into my life and to know me, like actually me, not what I present at work, which is still me, it's another side of me, but we all have a different side, you know, that we only share with our closest and I'm not at that point with anybody right now in my life. I've got Duncan, he's my closest friend and even that friendship took years. We met seven years ago on the Real Fommante. This is Duncan James.

Yeah. Yeah. And he was really good fun. He was a good life. And we had a friendship like instantly. But our bond now has only grown in the last two years. It's took me a long time to get to the point where I will go, yeah, he is my friend. He is my friend. I know I can call him at any time. And if I need any help or advice with anything, I know that I can call that one person. You say that you can only trust, well, one friend, but presumably you can trust your family, you trust your kids. Yeah, oh my gosh, yeah, of course, but that's a completely different relationship with the children. Like they are, they're my soul.

They really are. They are my whole heart. If it wasn't for those children, I don't think I would be here. I don't think I would be me. I don't think I would be doing half of the stuff I'm doing, even speaking like this today, because without those children, I wouldn't have understood autism. I wouldn't, I'd never heard of it, didn't understand it until my children got diagnosed. And it's quite ironic. I was thinking about this the other day that I gave my children life by

being the mom and giving them life, but they save mine every day and they don't even know. And I love that. It's just because it's pure love and they are my people and we get each other. We get each other and that's amazing. Nobody gets me like my children do and nobody gets my children like I do. This podcast obviously is all about failure and what we learn from it, but I wonder if that's how you define success then, motherhood, your relationship with your children, is that success for you? It's beyond success. It's the Oscar of motherhood. I only ever wanted to be a mum. So just getting

pregnant first of all, I felt I had won. I felt I had succeeded everything I ever wanted. Now, not only am I a mum to three absolutely incredible little humans, like they really, I'm not even just being biased. My children are pure magic. That's how I see them. They are little miracles and they're changing the world through through right now, through me speaking, but I fully believe one day that they will speak for themselves. And it is thanks to them that so many people have been diagnosed, so many people are understanding themselves, and I am one of those people. I'm so, so grateful and thankful for my journey of being a mum has over-excluded anything that I ever imagined it to be because I now get to know me as well.

What an unbelievable interview. I'm so grateful to have had the chance to speak to you as your authentic, powerful self. And I'm so excited for what lies in store for you in the future. Thank you, Christine McGinnis for coming. I loved it. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Absolutely loved it. Thanks so much for listening and watching. This June on How To Fail, we're all about celebrating wellness from the inside. If you'd like to hear more on this, go and listen to my episode with Vicki Patterson, brought to you by Ala Lacto Free.

The link is in the episode description. Please do follow How To Fail to get new episodes as they land on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. Please tell all your friends. This is an Elizabeth Day and Sony Music Entertainment original podcast. Thank you so much for listening.