Life Uncut - Ask Uncut - Life is Short, Have an Affair

Episode Date: July 26, 2023

Hey Lifers! First up today we unpack the Ashley Madison Affair doco (on Disney Plus). We were glued to our screens and it brought up a lot of questions within the team! Questions about infidelity and consent, what's worse; cheating or leaking everyone's data? Did this website 'save' relationships? We unpack. Vibes for the week:Laura: Esther Perel's podcast episode Donor DaddyBritt: "Hijack" on Apple TVKeeshia: Grace Beverley's podcast episode with Caroline Calloway Then we jump into your questions: I have just found out I’m pregnant. I have been sleeping with the same two guys for months now and it could be either one of them as the father, as I slept with them both 2 days apart and I conceived somewhere in there. Other than being super confused about what to do with the pregnancy, I am also confused about what is best to do in regards to telling these guys. Should I tell them both?  I met a guy at a work conference, had a hot fling and he's gone back to London. We are planning on meeting up in Bali soon! He's just told me that he lives with his ex (they broke up last year). She was meant to move out but hasn't. The long distance thing is something I can handle, but am I being unreasonable to tell him that now he really has to stop living with her if he actually wants to be with me even though I’m on the other side of the world? I met a guy on tinder 7 weeks ago. Initially we both said that we were just wanting to spend time with, hangout, have fun and get to know before getting into anything serious. We've now been on a weekend away together but haven't slept together. I've just found out that he's still matching with and dating other people. We are still going on dates and kissing/holding hands. Should I keep seeing him or end it? Link to Matthew Hussey's episode that is mentioned in the episode is here! If you have an question please send it on it to life uncut podcast on Instagram hereJoin us on tiktok Or join the facebook group here Tell your mum, tell your dad, tell your dog, tell your friend and share the love because WE LOVE LOVE! xx      See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Life Uncut acknowledges the traditional custodians of country whose lands were never ceded. We pay our respects to their elders past and present. Always was, always will be Aboriginal land. This episode was recorded on Darug Wollongong land. Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of Life Uncut. I'm Brittany. And I'm Laura. And this is Ask Uncut, where we answer Your deep, your dark and your burning questions, but usually where we talk for 25 minutes first. Well, yeah, I mean, that's what a podcast is, right?

That's what we do. We talk. But you've come in a bit flustered this morning. No, I'm not flustered. I came in with my phone because I woke up this morning and I'd lost my laptop. Couldn't find it. Wasn't in my house. Spent a good three hours last night, like, cleaning my house because we have an inspection

today. And then I realised, ah, I haven't seen it since lunchtime yesterday when it was in my my handbag underneath a table at a cafe. Oh my God. You left your laptop and your bag at a cafe? Turns out no, but I thought I did. Okay. So I thought I left it there. I left the house and I was like, Matt, please go and sort this out. I brought it home. It was underneath the actual dining room table, but this I'm sorry that Laura, that story was far less dramatic. It was a much better story when I thought it was at a cafe. I know, but the part of the story, that's the big part of the story is that I think my brain is actually broken down. I think I've gone into

that part of my life where maybe I have some sort of like memory loss. Early onset dementia. I don't know if you can call it that, but honestly, I have done so many things recently in the last couple of weeks where I have absolutely no recollection of doing them. And some of them are small things like I'll put my keys down and they're in the fridge. Well, you lost them at my house remember it's almost like i just had these complete blackouts do you know i think it's because in my in my expert scientific doctor opinion i'm gonna call it i don't think you got early onset dementia thank you i'm glad because i am only 36 i've done some studies well i mean you can it's a thing it's not common but it's a thing but i think you just have too

much on your mind and on your plate and i correct me if i'm wrong but i think like me you don't write lists you keep it in your brain is that right it's not even stuff that you would write lists for it's like where did i put my hand back i'm not going to put that on the to-do list or but it's because your brain isn't registering that that's so unimportant because you've got a billion other important things to do like feed the child keep the child alive just one of them the other one we don't know where she is we don't know where lola is we lost her in one of the boxes lola's gone but to be fair lola's the sturdier of the two she'll be out of fend for herself for a while yeah i feel like molly get picked up by a bird or something she lives in the rest of her

life in a nest somewhere but it takes her half into the tree lola is definitely more sturdy of the two but that's what i think it is i think you're just too hectically busy maybe try maybe try starting to do like proper lists and categorize them and see if it like subconsciously frees up space in your brain because it might or maybe i need to start some mindfulness things start doing meditation yeah but let's be realistic i'll forget yeah you're never you're like i feel like i'm supposed to be doing something right now you will never do that so like let's be realistic let's do things that you actually probably do i'm the sort of person who anytime i've tried to do meditation after about 25 seconds of trying to do the meditation i kind of no i don't forget but i

get a bit bored and then i pick my phone up that's what i do which is and then i start scrolling yeah and then i'm like oh shit go back to the mindfulness close my eyes for another 20 seconds and then i'm like oh what's happening over here that's not it that's not the whole point you need to put your phone in another room. I'll go and find it. If I put it in another room for too long, I will find you. Okay. Well you need to work that out. Okay. So look, if I don't know what I'm talking about today, guys, it's cause I'm trying to do everything off my phone. I can't find my laptop. Another thing people do for brain power is Sudoku. It's actually something to keep your brain healthy. And actually Laura, have you seen the Chris Hemsworth documentary that he did? No.

it's about his life in general but you know i don't know if you've heard he's lightly spoken about not giving up acting and giving up hollywood but way way way peeling it back and having a rest because he found out that he has all the genetic markers for like alzheimer's young alzheimer's too and it is in his family apparently so he's he's completely changed his whole life as soon as the doctors gave him his results and said this is something that could actually be happening to you he's like peeled back everything he's done all this research on what to do for your brain and have a better life but it could be something that your little frizzle brain might be interested in well i know we joke about this and obviously i don't want to go from

joking about having memory loss to talking about alzheimer's but alzheimer's is something that's very prolific in my family so as much as we joke about me forgetting things then it usually turns into the joke about how i'm the one who's going to get early onset alzheimer's yeah that's not actually funny it's not funny and you know when i say this i mean my so my great aunt she passed away my nan's sister really young like in her late 50s from alzheimer's which is so young so young and it happens so rapidly as well but in saying this i would actually really be interested in doing an episode about like living alongside a parent who has alzheimer's because i think that so many of us are getting to an age where we do have to consider our parents health and well-being

so many of us are going to have parents who struggle with alzheimer's or dementia or whether it's not a parent it's a grandparent so if you think that that's an episode that you would be interested in slide into the dms because i i mean it's for my own therapy but it could also be for yours too it is funny when you say you know you always you end up being the butt of the jokes like you forget everything you always forget anything like it's funny when you say that and you're actually like well you know sometimes that might offend me i remember we used to do that with my sister sherry we used to say to her all the time because you'd talk to her she wouldn't hear you and i'd be like what are you deaf like we used to be like why are you so deaf when she was deaf and

we didn't know she ended up getting hearing aids in retrospect and it wasn't we weren't saying it meanly like you'd say something she was like huh and I'd be like are you deaf or something like you know those throwaway comments you don't think but these are the things and I think for people who are generally I mean obviously there's a big difference between people who are neurodivergent who have ADHD and have forgetful and people who are just generally forgetful because they've got too much on but it can be really embarrassing because you become and I know we were talking about this before you become the butt of the joke you become the like oh of course Laura forgot it because she always forgot it and it when you hear people say that even if it is true even if I do

forget things a lot it makes you feel useless it makes you feel like you're not good at anything and it makes you think that people think that you're unreliable and that then can really affect your self-esteem you know as friends we can kind of be like very critical on the things that maybe aren't perfect about our friends or the things that they do that might be a bit different and sometimes I think we have to have the empathy to go oh that probably makes them feel a bit shit about themselves because they already feel shit about themselves with those things but I say this because you found your laptop I found my laptop but I felt I felt stupid and I really remember this massive period of my 20s that I went through where I would forget things

all the time for example this one day I put the day's takings from the shop like my shop in the city when I used to work in Westfields I put all the money at Christmas time on top of my car and I put all my groceries and everything in and then I drove away and my wallet was gone and all the money was gone and I just remember thinking like what is wrong with me oh you guys are both looking at me like what the fuck is wrong because you've been four and a half years you've never told me that story you've told me okay you've told me the story where you left your wallet on there but I can see in your face you you left out the fact that you left the takings no because that was a separate time these things have happened multiple times in my life anyway do you not

actually do you not actually want to think why and then like try and figure that out and I don't mean why isn't a bad thing but like have you ever tried a diary or like a points list or a to-do list because you do have a lot of shit going on in your life yeah I definitely have tried those things but they don't seem to help in the same way I think that you know people like just do this it's so simple and it's not simple well next time you lose your days takings lose them at my house yeah thanks I lost my keys in your house and also my entire wallet and my income and I don't the wallet never showed up but the keys are here and I have a new house so it so last night we all it was super cute we had like a movie night and we all watched the documentary Ashley Madison we

didn't watch it together we all watched it in our own home so it wasn't that cute but we had our own little snacks and Keisha started actually Keisha's like oh my god I've started watching this doco it's so good and then I was like I'm gonna turn it on so this is in our group chat so I turned it on then Laura's like well I've got FOMO now so you turn it on so we sat there all together but independently and text each other throughout watching the same documentary we're like oh my god could you believe this we're like i'm two minutes behind you we can't keep up anyway it is wild if you guys haven't seen the ashley madison documentary we can't recommend enough but laura why don't you tell people what it is if they haven't heard about it and you know why i say

if they haven't heard about it before i let you tell i had this conversation with ben last night he's like what are you doing i said i'm watching ashley madison and he goes oh who's that and i was like what and he's like who's ashley madison and i was like don't you know what ashley madison is And he's like, am I supposed to know what Ashley Madison is? And that's when I realized maybe it didn't stop the world in its tracks like I thought it did. Well, I find this interesting because I asked Matt and he was like, oh, yeah, I know what that is. And I was like, well, why do you know what it is? It was leaked.

And now you'll understand why. Okay, so for anyone who doesn't know, Ashley Madison, it's a site that's still around. The documentary, it's on Disney Plus if you want to go watch it. It's a three-part like miniseries basically. It's three episodes. And it is a documentary that kind of recaps the massive scandal, the rise and then the fall and then the rise again of this dating website called Ashley Madison. Now, the reason why Ashley Madison was so hugely controversial is because it was an affairs website. So even the tagline was

Ashley Madison, life is short, have an affair. And I mean, I remember the reason why it kind of came into in terms of like within Australia, it came into full mainstream public media was that in 2015 there was a huge data leak from Ashley Madison and now you can imagine a site like this an affairs website is based on secrecy it's based on privacy so many men and women had signed up to this thinking that they had anonymity to go about and have affairs without their spouse finding out there was a hacker group called the impact team they went in and they completely stripped all the data from Ashley Madison this is globally worldwide millions and millions and millions of users something crazy like 32 million users their information was taken put into a torrent

and Ashley Madison was given 30 days to shut down their site or all of the information of their users was going to be disseminated throughout the dark web and basically what happened is they got to the end of that 30 days and it wasn't a hoax and bit by bit massive chunks of data was released and there were websites set up where you could go on and you could type in the name of a man or the name of a woman or an email address and it would basically dox any of the users so much so and this is actually on the documentary it's so interesting fitzy and whipper had a segment on their radio show where you could ring up and and they've got the sound grab of it this woman rings up and she says i have a feeling my husband might have been on the website and they did it live they

searched his email address and sure enough the woman's husband was on there this is playing out across breakfast radio in Australia like that's how big it was. It was worldwide. Worldwide but there were so many points this documentary I thought was so interesting so many moral debates around obviously cheating it's a horrible thing it's completely unethical but whether it's better to do it on something like an affairs website where everybody there at least knows the intention of what they're doing or the way in which they use controversy to drive marketing and they had this incredible, intense explosion of user subscribers. It was also the kind of debate between what was more immoral. Is it the people who signed up to use the website and they were

having affairs on their spouses? Or was it the data leak itself who was doxing all these people? And, you know, there was not really any differentiator. It wasn't like they were saying, oh, well, these users have had multiple affairs and these users just signed up and never had an affair everyone was kind of criminalized in the same way everyone was lumped into this the same sort of package of if your name was on there you did the wrong thing the reason it was sad with the leak is and i say sad because it did result in people killing themselves it resulted in suicide and depression but there are a lot of people's names that were on there and the point that they made on the docuseries were there a lot of women's names that then became adulteresses in

the public eye once their names were released but they only ever went on there to try and see if Their husbands were on there. Like there were women that were like, I'm suspicious about my husband. I'm going to go and try and suss this out. Then their names will eat. And then their quote unquote careers and lives were ruined because everyone in the world could see that they were on this site. I am on the fence with this site.

And I'm saying this because it really provoked some thoughts when I was watching it that I didn't think I would ever have. So I do not condone cheating at all. I want to make that clear. I think if you're going to cheat, don't be in the relationship. also we live in a world now where there's so i mean i understand that back in say 2015 it wasn't as liberal but in this day and age the different types of relationships that you can opt into you can have a polyamorous relationship you can have an open relationship they are not as socially

frowned upon as what they used to be people are so much more open and accepting to choose adultery just doesn't really it doesn't fly anymore it's like just fucking live authentically well the thing is it does fly because still there's seven between 70 and 75 million users on this site like this data leak didn't crash the site the whole point was they wanted this site taken down they wanted it to end they're like let's leak 32 million users they're going to have to shut the site down all it did was give it free publicity around the world and the sign up went through the roof so they're now at between 70 and 75 million people on this site so adultery still exists cheating and these affairs is still more rife than ever but to be clear you didn't have to be in a marriage or a

relationship to go on this side you could be single like there were single people going on there that obviously just wanted to be involved in an affair or it's just another way to go and have sex the thrill of it because it does take away from the fact people generally weren't wanting to go on there and have proper relationships although they did there were some people that were in relationships for like 18 months that were sleeping with the same person so it was a proper affair other people going one-off hit sex and going back to their families and I can't imagine the number of families and relationships this ruined once this came out and the fact that this happened but I also had this thought where I was like I actually wonder how many relationships this saved and what

I mean by that is you know we've spoken to so many people Esther Pirelli is one that comes to mind so many specialists in this relationship field that have said it's actually quite hard to stay in a committed relationship for 50 or 60 years and sometimes people want to go and find something outside of the relationship but they don't want to leave the relationship they love that person they love the family and there's part of me that thinks I wonder how many relationships were saved because someone man or woman completely loved their life they loved their family and their kids but they felt like that one sex drive was missing or they weren't getting what they needed from their partner so instead of leaving completely the family and going starting a new life

they went got what they needed for a night came back to the family and continued now I'm not saying it's right but I do wonder how many people how many men went and did that and then stayed in the family without their partner knowing their partner thinks they're in this lovely committed relationship still it makes the home life better and life goes on and it's so morally wrong it's so morally bankrupt I mean it's it's just a thought that popped in my head I was like fuck this ruined people but I wonder how many families stayed together I think I struggle with that sentiment because I'm like well I mean is a relationship that's based on one-sided lies you know a fabrication of what the truth is someone who's doing one thing in their private

life and another thing in their personal life is that a relationship that's worth saving obviously there's people who maintain relationships after cheating scandals and affairs it happens all the time but they usually maintain relationships once there's been transparency and there's been change I think that like, yes, you could say, oh, it saved relationships on a technicality. But if you ask the woman who was being lied to, is that a relationship that she would have wanted to stay in? I think you'd get a varying number of answers. Some people would choose to stay and some people would absolutely want to leave.

No, well, this is, I guess this is what I'm saying. It's like, I'm saying it's, think of this, there would be, and this is sad, but there would be so many people out there that don't know that their partners were on that site. They don't know that they're, to this day, they're still in a relationship and they don't know that their partners are cheating on them but they feel like they're in a solid relationship it's complete manipulation it's it's it's not healthy and it's not right but people also stay in relationships for other reasons they want to stay because of their family unit they want to stay for their kids i reckon there would be loads of people out there that have gone

fucked someone because that's what they felt they needed but they didn't want to leave their family come back had a great family she never knows i'm not saying it's right it's disgusting but i reckon there are people doing that getting what they need elsewhere and coming back to the family but I think that's exactly what people were doing on this site that was the whole purpose of it it was a site that was set up for people who didn't want to leave their marriages but they wanted to deceive their partner and have an affair yeah so did that save the relationship is my question I don't know I don't think you can answer that question though without saying is it a relationship that the other person in it who the non-consenting person the person that's being deceived

would want to be in so yes it saved the version of the relationship that exists but that relationship is not real in the essence of which both parties believe it to be. I think cheating is such a, it's such a challenging one because we look at it in a very black and white way. We think if someone's had an affair or someone's cheating, then it must mean that there's no love at all. If we think that someone has, you know, stepped outside of the monogamy, what you both have chosen in the relationship, then that person is an essentially a terrible person. And I guess the part of this documentary I found so interesting is more so the debate around there's no question cheating's awful you know but people think it is so morally

and and completely bankrupt that it justified having all of these people's personal data leaked and having all of their nudes leaked having their addresses leaked like it was so prolific the amount of information that was leaked about these people and it's like does the punishment and I know we say this a lot when it comes to social media and kind of internet vigilante but does the punishment fit the crime and something you mentioned earlier but just briefly like there were people men and women who were on this site who lost their jobs obviously they lost their families they lost their relationships because their partners left them but there were also people who suicided off the back of this because they felt as though they had completely lost any control in their lives or

respect in their lives or sense of purpose and well-being and you know the fact that everyone was painted with the same stroke the fact that there were people who had had long-term adultery and affairs and then there were some people who had actually never ever had an affair that only just signed up to the site were all seen as equally as bad as each other I think that that's where the real gray area around like who was more in the wrong when it comes to this kind of conversation and then the thing I thought was so interesting so the CEO of Ashley Madison this guy named Noel Bitterman he was kind of at the forefront of this entire site like it was his personality his pizzazz his media presence he did not shy away from the controversy of affairs even

though he was supposedly in a committed relationship himself his wife was also one of the figureheads of Ashley Madison and they really lent into this idea of like even though he was in a monogamous relationship supposedly he was so clever in how he really lent into this idea that all publicity is good publicity and you know he would be on some like religious-esque talk shows where they're debating whether or not that there was an ethical standpoint he was saying well look everyone cheats I didn't create cheating I just created a safe platform for which people could do it on anyway during this data leak it's revealed that he was also having extramarital affairs which his wife had no idea about and one of the one of the end tiles that came up because Noel Bitterman he

refused and declined to comment on all of that part of it he was stepped down as a ceo it frames him as though he was also a victim of the data breach so even though he was having an affair on his wife he was also someone who was caught up in this defaming of his public figure and i thought that that was a really interesting twist on the whole thing it kind of packaged it up for me well i think when you say like this is i think this is funny when you say who's morally at fault like who's morally worse the person cheating on the person that's leaked the data i had this same thought but in a different sense morally speaking it came out that not everyone on the platform was real right not all the women on there were real they were bots they were fake people with fake

profiles and they were there to lure these I'm saying men but they were the women were fake were there to lure the men into the site and everything was paid on the site so you didn't just pay your membership but then when someone wrote to you you could see like a little bubble and to continue the chat you had to pay more money buy more credit so it was always paying more, more, more, more, more once you're on there. And when I didn't know all this time, like I've always known about Ashley Madison, but I never knew it was, I never, it never crossed my mind that there'd be fake profiles on there. I just thought people went on, they all fucked, they all had their affairs and then they got on with their life. But when it came up that there

were these bots on there and they were fake, I was like, that is so unfair to that person that is paying that money. And then I was like, hang on, that person's paying their money to cheat on their wife. And I was like, which is morally worse? The fact that someone's gone to pay money to cheat or the company that is taking the money for them to cheat and it's fake i was like it's which is the first the chicken or the egg but i didn't know who i felt more sorry for i sort of felt sorry for the person trying to have the effect i was like they're not even on the other end it's like there's not even a woman that you're talking you've just been doxxed the entire world for the affair that you didn't have with the bot with exactly and the man there's this one man and

i felt really sorry for him because he wasn't he was one of the men on the documentary that was just talking I got the impression he wasn't in a relationship he was just a single man that wanted to go and meet a woman he was a swinger yeah he was a swinger so I felt like he was you know he wasn't doing the wrong thing so I think I had more empathy for him but it was really sad he was like you know I was writing to all these people and he's like I'm a lot of fun to hang around and he was really sweet and then he's like no one was writing back to me and my heart broke for him because I was like there were all these it showed all the messages he wrote and no one responded and it's because they were all bots I mean it's the same as being on any dating site right like

some people are going to hit home runs. Some people are going to get nothing. It just, you know, it's all very dependent, but the documentary is so interesting. Go and watch it. I mean, no matter how morally corrupt you think cheating is, I think that that's something that pretty much everyone can agree on to some extent that like cheating is the reason why it is so just like so hurtful and so insidious and like it ruins relationships so much is because of the breakage of trust. Right. And it's that one person thinks they're living a certain life. One person thinks that everything is one way and then it's almost like their entire reality was a lie and it's rediscovering well what is our relationship if it wasn't the version of it that I've been living

and what's the version of it that you've been living yeah and the last thing that I want to say that I found really fascinating and it goes back to the point of when the founder said you know I didn't create cheating I'm just giving you a space for it people have always cheated was when they they sort of were trying to take Ashley Madison brand global and they took it to Asia and they took it to South Korea because they were trying to take it global and infidelity there is a crime it is illegal and I thought wow why would you take that there they're having between 20 to 40,000 signups a day in South Korea but these numbers when they're put right in front of you on a screen really took me back I was like I actually can't believe how common it is now when you see the

numbers there in black and white in front of you I was definitely taken back I was like wow it's it's far more common than I thought it was. The only thing that I really thought about those, you know, up to 40,000 people signing up per day was like, this is a company that had no issue with lying about the validity of the people on the website. It had no issue with, you know, creating a bit of a false narrative. That data came from Ashley Madison. So I'm like, do we take this with a grain of salt? I even question the amount of people signed up now. I'm like, do you just want to create the kind of picture that this is a lot more normal in quotation marks than what it actually is yeah of course we're absolutely we're only given the information we're given and that's

all we can talk about but i still i don't believe that they have it even if that's exaggerated i don't believe they went to the country and no one signed up i would love to know if any other third parties have had access to be able to confirm these numbers that would be really interesting i agree with what you said keish in terms of like creating this illusion but i also think then there's like another question that you can pose yourself, which is like, well, what defines cheating? Because like we said, you know, some people are using it and actually having real life meetups. Some people are just using it for online validation to get text messages. People use online dating and have very varying degrees of what constitutes cheating. That I think is a whole

separate kettle of fish that we can unpack on a whole other episode, but it's definitely our record of the week. Yeah. I mean, I look, when we talk about vibes and unsubscribes, the three of sat and watched all three episodes last night independently by ourselves texting each other and it's I just found it so interesting because it really was a cultural phenomenon between 2015 and 2020 in addition I mean I know we kind of just did an entire vibe and unsubscribe this week a whole episode is a vibe but I do want to recommend Esther Perel's her podcast I know that it's one that's been out for a little while but that she's just brought out the new season of it and it's where should we begin and I was listening to one of the episodes the other day

it's called Donor Daddy. So basically this podcast is couples come in and they sit down for a one only therapy session where they unpack whatever the big issue is in their relationship. They definitely don't walk away with all the answers, but it is so voyeuristic and so interesting to hear about the issues and complexities of other people's relationships. And obviously, if you're listening to this podcast, you're probably quite interested in people's relationships. So this episode, Donor Daddy, was all around a man who was in a committed relationship. He'd had an affair in the past, but they were in a really good place now. And his wife had found out that before they were married, he had actually donated his sperm to one of their mutual lesbian

couple friends. And so he had a biological child to another set of parents, but he also had biological children with his wife. And so she was dealing with the betrayal. She was also dealing with the complexities around what does it mean that he has other biological children and should their children know that they're related it was so interesting I was like wow some people really have some things to sort out my life's not so bad my relationship ain't so bad it's not so bad that I forget things and Matt forgets to tell me that the electricity is getting cut off on a Thursday okay well my vibe is also tv show it's on apple tv it is called hijack do you know Idris Elba the actor he's absolutely brilliant this whole series is set on a plane I was like how could

that possibly be good so i kept going past oh my god sounds like snakes on the plane i'm having flashbacks that was horrible yeah i'll make it end i was like snakes on a plane like why am i gonna watch this i kept going past it past it and then i saw somebody else raving about it and i was like oh maybe i'll just there's nothing else to watch i'll give it a go also idris elba oh he's so hot a whole thing of him just because he's so manly and who is he here i've got a picture of him because i knew you would uh yeah he's beautiful yeah you wouldn't kick him out of bed he's also in luther back to hijack it's on this plane it's just uh from dubai to london it's a flight that gets hijacked and it's just the main character trying to negotiate his way out of it

and calm everyone down and figure out what's going to happen and you wouldn't think so much could happen on a plane but it does and i'm just i've been hooked the only the only caveat is it's also one of those series where they've dropped like the first half and then you're up to date now so you have to wait so it's coming out week by week now so the next oh my god next episode's tonight can i just say for this whole time until you got to the end of what the plot line was which has been like several minutes we've just talked about how hot no no i thought it was called hi jack like the person's name was jack and you were saying hi i've just realized you put a big space when you say hi jack you say hi jack no hi jack hi jack hi jack hi jack anyway

what platform is it on apple okay my vibe for the week is actually a podcast of someone that we have had on the show, Grace Beverley. Her podcast is called Working Hard, Hardly Working. She had a very controversial guest this week and I could not stop listening to it. Do you guys remember the scandal that involved Caroline Calloway? I do, yes. In 2012, she kind of was one of the very initial Instagram influencers, hugely famous for kind of not really being a famous person, right? her whole entire life has been embroiled with scandals and lies so she even lied on her application to get into Cambridge and that was a lot of what her Instagram post was about in 2016 she secured a half a million dollar book deal but she never had any intention of actually

writing the book and she ended up having to pay back the publishers $100,000 that they gave her as an advance in 2019 her ex-best friend who she had employed to write captions for her did this tell-all piece with the cut and basically claimed that Caroline was a liar like a full scammer that she was actually responsible for a lot of her writing and in that same week her father died by suicide so she was kind of in this position where she was being cancelled and she was actually dealing with like a lot in her personal life obviously anyway so she kind of went into the shadows and then she's come back this year with an actual book she's actually written she finally did it that people are raving about yeah apparently it's written incredibly well

so the book is called scammer and so this whole podcast episode where she sits down with grace beverly they have all these parallels in their life you know grace went to cambridge and sorry grace went to oxford while she was at cambridge and they were both instagram influences at the same time but they've taken these really different paths and one was honest one wasn't well this is What's quite strange about it is that in this particular episode with Grace she talks a lot about how she had a drug addiction and how that fueled a lot of her quite manic behavior and even now sober my impression of her was that she is quite a manic person but she's got this weird quirky innocence about her like I actually don't even know what my personal opinion of her

personality is she's quite a complex person but she does compare herself to other scammers that we know like anna delvey billy mcfarland and she was like yeah but the difference is that i'm not in fucking federal prison like i didn't break the law and yet i'm kind of held to this same social justice as what they were but they scammed people out of a lot of money whereas i paid a lot of people back and it's just a very interesting episode really complex kind of issues like you don't want to hate her even though she did the wrong thing yeah I don't want to hate her but I also don't want to support her like I'm not like I want to go hang out with you I didn't like her but I didn't dislike her it was interesting yeah but it also sounds like she's on the rebrand trail

100 this is the PR trail when people have gone so look when people have gone into the dust from being cancelled for whatever it is you know they have this not everyone because not everyone is warranted or able to achieve one I shouldn't say warranted but some people are very good at the public rebrand and it sounds like that's what this is for her and it's working because look at you she scammed people but she said sorry well she is really it's super strange because you know that this person has lied so much to get where they are but this episode felt super honest she was like my instagram account started because i purchased followers and i purchased instagram likes it's almost like she understood how these things would work before they were even things

which now you've got me thinking that she's just very very very good at understanding pr and she's this is like a whole other maneuver but look she has written the book now and she's kind of detailed a lot about that in and i know a lot about her life i really recommend the episode working hard hardly working by grace beverly it is the most recent episode you can listen wherever you get your podcasts also i just want to reiterate we always put the links to our vibes in the show notes we get a message at least every day being like what was that vibe if you're listening to an episode and you get to the end of the episode and you're like oh I can't remember what that was and you don't want to go back and find it it will be linked in the show

notes question number one I've just found out I'm pregnant it was a big surprise congratulations congratulations yeah I've been sleeping hopefully oh hang on no congrats but the next sentence is we should have pre-read this one I've been sleeping with the same two guys for months now and it could be either one of them as a father because i slept with them both two days apart and i conceived somewhere around there other than being super confused about what to do with the pregnancy i am also confused about what is best to do in regards to telling these guys should i tell them both should i not tell them at all i don't know what to do p.s why is the health care system so judgy about unplanned

pregnancies i've had so many questions already pretty much asking me when i'm going to get an abortion seen as it was unplanned and i'm single how awful oh my god that's really shit that's fucked like yeah that i mean that for the second part of that that's really no yeah the health care part you don't need us to tell you but if you do need it i'll say it anyway and for anyone else listening to this whoever gets into this position you can make whatever decision is right for you because you have body autonomy and if you feel like you're ready to be a mom and to parent and you want to do it on your own or in whatever capacity that looks like you have every right to regardless of whether it's an accident regardless of whether you know exactly who the parent is or

the father is or not and you know don't be made to feel bad for this because this could happen to so many people you know I think for a lot of us we're just lucky it didn't I think a lot of us would have had multiple sexual partners within short time frames of each other and it is a matter of luck and circumstances that other people haven't been in this position and I'm sure there's been so many women who have been in this position you have nothing to feel shameful about does that make it less uncomfortable for you to have to go and have the conversation with the guys no of course that's going to be something that's a little bit uncomfortable but it doesn't have to be you don't have to walk into that conversation with shame unless you specifically lied and said I'm

not sleeping with anyone else it's only you then obviously that's a trickier conversation but I think firstly like take care of your well-being make a decision for yourself have a chat to the people around you who love you who support you and make the best decision for you whether that is going through with this pregnancy or whether it is having a termination but either of those decisions it's up to you to choose and I also think before you do make that decision seek out podcast episodes seek out people who have been in a similar position who have chosen both options And I say this because, so for example, Booker Nile, she's just had a baby to somebody who she's co-parenting with.

I don't know the surrounding situations of their relationship, but she was on maths a few years ago. The person that she's had the baby with, she's not in a relationship with. So now they're co-parenting. We're very much being brought up on the traditional, you know, you're in a relationship, you have a baby, but I think there's so much more choice now. So I think really seek out people who have done it, who have paved the way and see if it's the life that you want.

If you want to be a single mom, that's the first step. The second step is, do you have to have a conversation with these men? You only have to have a conversation with them if you choose to keep the baby or if you want them to support you through a termination. If you want to have a termination yourself, you can do that and you don't have to speak to them. That's how I feel about it. I think if you are happy to have your friends or your family be your support people, then

you don't necessarily owe it to them to sit down and have a conversation about your fertility, the fact that you're pregnant and the fact that this is happening, especially if you don't know who is the biological father. I agree with everything you just said. I don't know what more I would add other than really to reiterate that it is your body and it's your choice. A hundred percent. You do need to have the conversation. I think if you choose to keep the child because the father is entitled to know that they're a father, I really do believe that. And maybe that's just me. Maybe there's other people out there that think that they don't have to tell them that they have a kid in the world, but I'm not one of them.

I think the man is entitled to know. He might be stoked. He might've always wanted to be a dad. He also might freak the fuck out and be like, I'm not ready for this. It's hard too, because we don't know your relationship with these men. Have you been sleeping with them both for years and you're close to them and you have a love for each other that's, you know, are friends with benefits or is it someone you just met? Because that can change things in your mind about what you want to do for sure. But at the end of the day, no one can make the decision, unfortunately, except you and that sucks because it feels like the weight of the world is probably on your shoulders. If you feel like you want to talk to these two men and gauge how they would feel, I think that

that could also make a big impact on your decision because believe it or not, it will change things if one of them is going to be really active in the child's life and say that they will support it financially, they will support you emotionally. There's a big difference knowing that and that could change they could say that now and of course in the future it could change no one's going to know what's going to happen in the future but you could also go and talk to them and they could both be like what the fuck like we don't want anything to do with this which makes it harder and that makes it harder again so if you think knowing how they feel about it is going to help the situation help your decision a hundred percent ask them but it's again it's like all we can do is talk this

out for you that's a really hard decision that you're going to make on your own have you seen that episode of bridget jones's diary where she's like pregnant but she doesn't know which guy is the dad and then she remember that so it's like i think it's number two or three i can't remember but anyway bridget jones she's pregnant and it could be the man that she's always been in love with or it could be the naughty boy which was hugh grant and then it turns out that it was like the lovely placid man that she'd always been in love with there is a thing called amniocentesis it's a test that can be done in neutrones so basically it's a needle it collects amniotic fluid and in that amniotic fluid is DNA from the baby. Often they use it to test for genetic abnormalities,

but it can also be used to test for DNA. So if you've made the decision and you want to get that test done, you can also wait. So you could wait until you're past a certain point in pregnancy, you could have that test, and then you could go and ask for the two men to provide their samples because you want to do a DNA test. Obviously, hopefully one of them says yes, and then you'll, you know the rule of elimination maybe both of them will say yes but I think like you have many options and you have many I mean very very big decisions ultimately whatever you choose whether it's to have an abortion or it's to have this child that choice is completely up to you and you should feel no shame over either of those options I didn't interview yesterday Laura was

actually really unwell and couldn't do it unfortunately but um this is really reminded me of it she's a woman in the UK it's coming out in a few weeks but she's a single mum and she really really really drove home in the interview you and you alone as the individual as the woman need to really really want this child and that decision shouldn't be based on somebody else in your life like like the man or the partner because at the end of the day especially in this situation a lot of that is going to be falling on you so as hard as it is I wouldn't have in your mind okay if I go to this man and he says he's excited I'm going to keep it and if he says he's not excited I'm not going to keep I wouldn't put it as something as simple as that because you inside

and you alone have to really really think that this is something that you want in your life totally also because it's a good chance that you barely know these people like you might not know how they're going to show up in parenting they might say oh yeah I'll be a great dad then they might be an absolute drop kick so like I think you know like absolutely what you said Brit like the decision has to be solely made by you and if you do decide to have an abortion you don't have to tell them either of them question number two i'm 35 and i've been divorced for 12 months i met this guy at a work event three months ago and we instantly connected now i had sworn off anything serious for a while as i worked through the post-marriage life change etc etc but when i

met this man i let nature take its course it started as and getting down to fuck it was horny it started as a three-day conference event and then he flew home to london now we have spoken every day since. We are planning a rendezvous in two weeks in Bali. Here's the catch. As soon as he got back to London, he told me that he still lives with his ex. They broke up in November and she was going to be moving out. No. Three months later. I've been there, babe. It's probably the same guy I dated. Three months later, he's still living with her. And last week she told him she wanted to get back together and can't imagine life without him. I'm at a loss as to what to do. He has been upfront with me, but has been struggling with the emotional toll of the

whole situation right now with her. I feel like I'm starting to back away from him, which is probably good. I don't want to be the other woman. I don't want to be the rebound. He's told me that I'm not. I don't want the drama also. The long distance thing is something I can handle, but am I being unreasonable to tell him that now he really has to stop living with her if he actually wants to be with me I this is like igniting trauma and this was my relationship in my 20s this happened to me relationships that feel this hard people who are like oh we're still living together but we've broken up what to me that feels like is that haven't broken up they weren't broken up they were probably still in a relationship when you hooked up and maybe he's trying to break up

with his girlfriend. Maybe he's trying to sever the relationship, but I think you deserve somebody who's being transparent about where they're at. There is always a chance that they are broken up and he's just been trying to keep the peace. But if you want a relationship with him and you want to do long distance and you want to have trust, which is the most important thing to build a relationship off, he needs to show you and almost prove to you that what he's saying is actually congruent with what he's doing in his relationship. So that means either moving out or having some transparency that you're seeing each other. Like when you go to Bali, is he going to post photos of you? Does the girlfriend know that he's going to meet you? The ex-girlfriend know.

It's the secrecy around it and it's the inconsistencies with him saying, oh, I just need to take care of my ex-girlfriend that makes me go, he's lying to you. If your instincts are telling you something is wrong, if your body is telling you that something doesn't align, listen to it because it is the most powerful tool in you actually figuring out when someone is lying to you okay two things the question is am i being unreasonable to tell him that he has to stop living with his ex if he wants to be with me no that is not unreasonable number two some people do devil's advocate some people do break up and stay living together for a long time for situational reasons cost of living finances maybe they've been together for a long time and they're

trying to work their shit out mortgage repayments you don't know it does happen I know I have a friend who got into a relationship and he was living with his ex and she was all very skeptical about it right she's like you can't do that and be with me you're obviously something's going on long story short they've been together for a long time and he still was living with the ex so she would go over to her boyfriend's house and the ex was there it was two bedroom house and they lived it and that was real now I'm saying that that is probably a rarity and an exception to the rule but it is out there and I don't want to blanket this if this is it really is this beautiful thing and it's your soulmate because I'm all about long distance we know that but it comes back to what

Laura just said if he can still make you feel safe in that by posting you and making sure that the girlfriend that you know the ex that he lives with now knows about you if it's all out in the open And then it hits different, right? Because you're like, well, he's proud to be with me. She knows about it. So he's obviously not still in a relationship with her. But if he's making excuses as to why no one can know about you and he wants to keep you private and he doesn't want to hurt her feelings

because she's not coping with the breakup so he doesn't want to add to it. Well, then you call bullshit. And I think that is what it's going to take for you to figure out if this is the right thing or not is how open he is about the relationship 100% because the situation could be real and he could be telling the truth and he could be amazing but he could also be a fucking bullshitter that's just having an affair with someone on the other side of the world and he's living with his wife like you don't know totally and big questions are like do you have plans to go over to where he lives at all I know

that you've mutually made the decision to meet in Bali because obviously it's closer and it's cheaper and it's beautiful summertime now and it's certainly not in the UK but is there any long-term decisions to go over and see where he lives and be in his space because I do think that that's a pretty big indicator as to whether he's lying or not lying. It's very easy for him to say, I'm going on this work trip and come meet you in Bali. I think going back to this idea of transparency and feeling as though you're not a secret, like Britt said. And then the other part of your question, you said that they've been split up for several months now, they're still living together and that his ex has recently said that she wants to get back with him.

and he's obviously told you this but what is his response to that because if he is set on the fact that they're not getting back together then that's even more of an indication as to why they need to not be living together because it's not a friendship it's not two people who are mutually on the same page and so he needs to really put some action into place where he's creating separation in what is his ex-relationship and his current living space and I think you're being completely reasonable to expect that especially if you're going to commit to someone who lives in another fucking country oh it's a part of me that's like too hard basket there's so many people also just type his name into ashley madison see if he's on there all right last question i met this guy on

tinder seven weeks ago and we've been seeing each other every single weekend since we met we've had such quality dates and they always last for more than five hours on the night this is so specific on the night we met we had what are you looking for chats i told him that i'm looking for someone to spend time with, hang out with, have fun with, and get to know before getting into anything serious. Good thing is that he wants the exact same thing. But then on one of the dates, he suggested we go away. And so we did. But while we were away, we didn't sleep together because I said I wasn't ready and felt like I needed more time. I'm going to sum up the rest of it. They then went out on another date after they've come back from this little weekend away,

but he had been a little bit MIA the night prior to their date. So they'd been texting, then he'd stopped texting. Yeah, he'd gone a bit cold. Anyway, she finds out that he has gone back on the dating apps and he's been on a date with someone else and that's why he wasn't texting her that night. And she's written, now I know he's not ready for a relationship

because he just came out of one, but is it right for a guy to spend so much time with me, take me away and then decide to go back on the dating apps to match with more girls? We spoke about being friends for now, but then we caught up for dinner over the weekend and he held my hand and he kissed me. I don't know about you,

but I don't usually make out with my friends or hold hands with them. What should I do? Should I end this? I have feelings. Do you want me to start? The guy's just come out of a relationship. He wants to have sex.

Yeah, I just think it's, I actually don't think he's done anything wrong, to be honest. You feel like he's done something wrong because you actually took another step as opposed to a date. You went away for a weekend and you spent some quality time together

and it's hard because it makes you probably like them more. It makes you feel like you're getting those boyfriend-girlfriend vibes because that is usually something that you do with a partner but he's also been pretty clear that he doesn't want a relationship right now so he's giving you some great time when it sounds like when he's with you you he's actually being quite attentive like he's holding your hand and kissing you and making you feel great

but he's not lying to you he's always said this is what I want and I'm not ready for a relationship but he's he's still making you feel good with the time he's giving you I'm not saying it's fucking great but he's not doing anything wrong and if it's upsetting you that he's dating other people and then sometimes he's with you and sometimes he's not if you're confused if you feel shit we can't ever say this enough if you don't feel good in a situation remove yourself from it because you do have that control you can just say you know what let's just be friends friends don't make out well friends with benefits do but like let's be friends without benefits because there's no benefits right now you're not having sex no but they're hooking up you know so

they, they are still semi benefits, but I think she's upset that in, in between you're seeing other people, which is like, you know what, he's, he's a young person that's single and doesn't want to date. This is, it is what it is. Okay. So I agree a hundred percent. And I just want to reiterate in case anyone missed it, they spoke and the thing that they said that they're looking for and they mutually agreed is they want to spend time with, hang out, have fun and get to know someone before anything serious. So you guys are still in the before anything serious phase, right the only other part of this I think is important is he's just come out of a relationship where he's been a boyfriend it's so easy to do that like all the nice things the cuddling

the kissing the going away for weekends spending long days together that's like full-on boyfriend mode and sometimes even though people are not looking for relationships and even though they just want something casual and they want sex because they're so conditioned to be in the comfort of a relationship they slip into boyfriend or girlfriend mode right like we can slip into that and use someone almost like as an emotional support blanket because we are so used to having that person around and so he's kind of transferred girlfriend tendencies onto you but without any of the commitment I think like in terms of like going away for the weekend and spending really long periods of time together because if you were just gonna be fuck buddies you probably wouldn't have

a weekend away together so that's where you're confused you're like hey but you're doing all these things you're planning all these things which might pertain to it turning into something more serious but then you're also still seeing other people I actually think it's what he's doing is nice if I was going to casually see someone literally you know it's not going anywhere you want your time together to still be good you want to be having fun doing fun things laughing you want to be getting the intimacy that you need because that's what we do right we want to go and get an intimacy hit doesn't mean you have to go and get married I think I would rather be treated like a million dollars in the time that we are together than traded like walk in, have sex,

put some pad thai on the table, don't even get out of the container and put a bowl, eat it straight out of the plastic and then leave. Like for me, I think it sounds like he's doing actually all the right thing. No, I think the reason why it's confusing, and I do agree with the person who wrote this in, if a guy that I was just seeing who I'd said like, let's hang out and then it might build into something serious. If he was taking me away for weekends away, I would assume that it would be turning into something serious. I would have assumed that that we were heading towards something. I think the weekend away thing is where it becomes a little bit of a, that's above and beyond the necessity. Yeah. But it comes back to listen

to what they say. It's like what he's telling you. Exactly. It absolutely comes back to listen to what they say. And then also I do think the sex part of it is a big thing. Like if he's looking for something more casual, if he was expecting that, you know, a weekend away would probably mean that he would have some sex, then I think there is probably a part of him that's like, okay, you're great. We obviously like hanging out with each other and we're having a lot of fun, but like the other needs that he has, which is sex. He's looking for sex. Yeah. It's sex after he's been, you know, in a long-term relationship and he wants to have a bit of fun. Those needs not being met. And with you, he's not getting the sex and it's kind of just, you know, it's friends

that's then maybe going to head into a pretty much serious relationship and maybe he's not ready for that commitment yet. So ultimately, has he done anything wrong? No, not at all. Are you feeling a bit betrayed and are you not going to get what you want out of this relationship? Who knows? But I agree with you, Britt. I think if you're not happy, then it's totally up to you to end it. Or I think have a few more personal sort of boundaries in place where you're like, cool, I know that you're seeing other people, so I'm not going to put all my eggs in your basket. I'm not going to take this too seriously. I'm going to decide whether I do want to have sex with you or not have sex with you, but

you can determine the friendship slash relationship as well. Also, just to really drive home, don't feel bad that you didn't have sex with him or you don't want to have sex yet because that's, you're both on your separate journeys, right? He's looking for someone to sleep with. You're looking for someone to probably sleep with, but maybe take your time with and develop something more. Both are fine. it just means you probably aren't the match at this point in time because you want different

things it's totally fine but also ask him like ask him what he wants I know he said he wants someone to hang out with and you had that conversation on date one but you're not at date one anymore and you've just had nice weekends away together and stuff and maybe had the conversation of like hey I know we haven't slept with each other yet I do feel like it's heading in that direction but I just want to I just want to get a better gauge from you because I don't want to get myself hurt so like are you at all interested in a relationship anytime soon and if the answer is no which I think he would be honest with you then that kind of your cards are on the table but I really think if you had those conversations on date one it's absolutely okay

to reassess them at date 10 or whatever it's been to kind of get a bit of a better indication because it's clear that your feelings have changed I was with this guy and I say with this guy and I've spoken about him over the years it went for a few years and I was in my head I was like well we're obviously together because he treated me like that all the time yeah we did the families we went away we did all the stuff but he always the whole time was consistent he said I'm not looking for a relationship I don't want a relationship but his actions were different so I hung on exactly like this situation I was like well I mean we went away together like we're proud of Sarah's but he always was like I don't want that and I could never get my head around it and

it took me years to come to this realization of fucking listen to what they say like someone is going to tell you what they want it doesn't necessarily and you know we do also say actions speak louder than words and they're different things but if someone is physically saying to you like I do not want a relationship I'm happy to hang out with you for a while but just so you know we're on the same page you have to listen to that well when we had Matthew Hussey on the podcast I think this is such an important thing to reiterate if you listen to that episode he had the most incredible advice surrounding this often we say listen to what they say but it's very easy for people to say I love you you mean everything to me and then cheat on you treat you badly be toxic

and abusive he was like it's not so easy as to say listen to what people say right because people can lie but you should listen to what people say when what they say is inconvenient to them what I mean by that is he might be treating you as though you're his girlfriend but if what he's saying to you is you are not my girlfriend and I do not want to be in a relationship then in those instances you should not pay attention to his actions you should pay attention to what he's saying because it is not convenient for him to say that it doesn't feel good for him and it could actually mean that you take away the thing that he wants which is the physical the affirmation the comfort of the relationship I think when they say listen to what people say you can only listen to what

people say if their actions and words are in alignment also Matthew Hussey is a god so like he said he said it so it has to be real totally can you just go back and listen to that episode if you need a little bit more clarity. We'll put it in the show notes. We'll link it. We'll link it. Anyway, guys, that is it from us today. You can go and follow us on Life Uncut Podcast,

on Instagram, on TikTok. Go follow Bruniana School Hockley. Bruniana School Hockley, yeah. My followers have been pretty stagnant for a while. Dropping? Not dropping. No, they're just chilling. It goes like up 30, down 30.

It must be boring, yeah. Okay, and also Lady and Cat. And also if you have any Ask Uncut questions, slide into the dms and also tell us your aftermath so we can do an aftermath episode yeah don't be lazy give us your aftermaths you want to know if the advice because it kills them i lose sleep at night don't forget tell your mom tell your dad tell your dog tell your friends and share the love because we love them i have said that sign off 470 times can you believe