Life Uncut - Gen Z Could Never & Are You The 'Change' Or Acceptance Partner

Episode Date: July 29, 2025

Hey Lifers!There’s brain fog and general chaos today.We’re so excited for Tanya Hennessy with her pregnancy news. You can listen to our previous episode with her here. If you’re in the dating world, are you video calling your potential dates first? If you are, is it to see whether you have a bit of chemistry/compatibility or is it to check they’re ‘real’ and not a bot? We’d love your horror dating stories in our DMs. Gen Z would literally probably die if they were forced to go clubbing in 2010. We shared some of our nostalgic memories of our club era and we wouldn’t take our jacket piles and grinding men back for anything! Original video from @Marysantoracomedy What nostalgic memories do you have from your 2010 club era? Is There an “Effort Mismatch” in Your Relationship? Are you the ‘change’ partner or the ‘acceptance’ partner? We unpack the work of Dr Alexandra Solomon around “Effort Mismatch”. Usually this is caused by one partner being the ‘change’ partner and the other being the ‘acceptance’ partner. We break down what the qualities and behaviours of each of the partners are and chat about which we think we identify with.Original video from @baya_voce You can watch us on Youtube Find us on Instagram Join us on tiktok Or join the Facebook Discussion Group 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.

This episode was recorded on Camaragal land. Shut up. Hi guys! Keep the shut up in. I'm starting it. Hey guys and welcome back to another episode of Life on Tide. I'm Brittany. I'm Laura.

Shut up. We've tried to do this so many times and we just keep telling each other shut up. Some days things roll really easy and we're ready. Content is prepped. I mean, to be fair, Keisha, the content is prepped. We're just not ready. We're not prepped internally. That's the problem.

Sometimes you come in here. I'm going to blame for me personally. The early starts. I wasn't going to blame that. Me. You probably blame me, wouldn't you? I'm going to blame Laura. No, I'm going to blame my time in the month.

It's only started happening in the last few years or maybe even the last year. My periods have never affected my life and they do now. I feel like I get brain fog, get so fatigued now. Like a couple of years ago, wouldn't have even known. Do you think it's because you're off the pill now? Well, I've been off the pill for four years. She's like, I can't remember.

Yes. She's like, sorry, what? That does make sense. But no, everything changed off the pill four years ago, but I wasn't affected to this point. Like my emotions and everything were. This is where I get brain fog and I can't find my words and stuff. And it's only that few days before my period.

I do wonder if anyone else gets that. That's a real problem when we work in an audio medium. Hey, you get it every time you're pregnant and you're always pregnant. Don't you come for me. My three days a month. My three years of my life back to back. Since we started, since the day we started the podcast, you've been up the daffle breast.

I think I've been actually statistically, I'm just doing the maths. I've been pregnant three times statistically. I've had three babies. We've been doing the podcast for six years. I've almost been pregnant for the same amount of time that I haven't been pregnant because if you include I mean there's a bit grim but if you include the miscarriages in there and the time that I was pregnant with those as well yeah it all equates to like half there's a lot's a lot of pregnancy that's a lot of pregnancy brain go me I did well yeah yeah Keisha and I also know

that that's how long it's been you're like when are you gonna take a pay reduction you're only ever working at half blast because you're like oh sorry guys I can't think my brain fog and I'm like we know we got it yeah do you know what though this and I think I've said this before I'll say it again in case I'm repeating myself in case you don't know my baby's standing up for anyone who's new to the podcast I do keep repeating stories I'm sorry about that this has been the easiest pregnancy I've ever had and I think when I got pregnant knowing that I was like heading into my 40s I assumed that this would be the worst I assumed I'd have like the most pain be the most uncomfortable have the most reflux be the most tired and run down yeah all those

things I feel great like I mean apart from like a bit of sciatica and a bit of reflux every so often I'll complain about those things but they're probably but you think half as bad as last pregnancy do you think it's just because your pregnancy is different or do you think it's because now you know like you have the expectations of what they are that things just aren't as bad whereas when you're going to your first pregnancy you don't know how bad you're going to feel but now you get it so you're like oh not so bad I definitely think the first time around you're a bit more like what's that what's that feeling am I in labor find yourself constantly googling like am I in labor and I have definitely not googled am I in labor at all but like there's

only been one time this pregnancy where I've been like what is that feeling and then I realized that the baby had hiccups and I was like that's cute it's kind of like dating narcissistic men like after the first one like oh that's what this is you find yourself googling at the start then you're like oh this is pattern behavior and I'm the problem got it that's also that's also what I And what my brain is thinking, as we all know, I'm on the pendulum of the childbirth thing. Not the childbirth thing. The child thing. I keep doing the math in my brain about what age I'm going to be if I fall pregnant and

have them. And I'm going to be like going into my 40s. And I know there's nothing. No, but I know there's not. Yeah, but you're done and third. I haven't started. I get the feeling you're going to be a one and done. I tell you, I'm going to be that rare case where they're like, oh my God, the eggs split

25 times. You're an osteo mom. There's 25 kids in there. that's I bet you some freak thing you heard it here first some freak split thing's gonna happen and I'll have heaped there's a lot of bad rap when you go into having what they call a geriatric pregnancy and also I know that genetically things get harder as you get older blah blah blah like I know I know that I'm not discrediting any of that but there was a lot of fear mongering around like god number three your body's gonna really be fucked after this one and so far I'm like oh okay

if I we're doing all right if I had like spontaneous triplets I mean would you guys take one each. If they were your genes, I think I probably would. You don't want one, Laura? My family? Done. Speaking of pregnancy chat, you guys might remember we interviewed Tanya Hennessy a couple of weeks back, actually a couple months back now. God, that's me. I was flown by. Hasn't it? And Tanya Hennessy has just announced that she's having a baby. We absolutely could not be more thrilled for her. She's 18 weeks pregnant, maybe 19 weeks by the time this comes out but when she spoke to us she's been trying for seven years seven years of infertility and like trying like trying everything everything that there is every kind of fertility treatment foods

and acupunctures and spells weight loss um yeah spells wizardry she literally would have done anything yeah and i think as well like every single person in the room that day where she had us all in tears because she described how ambitious she is and how she's managed to achieve everything that she wants in career and then the one thing that she wants so badly she's had to work for seven years for and hasn't been able to have and Tanya spoke about on that episode if you guys want to go back and listen to it I think it's really beautiful and full circle now that she had three embryos on ice two of them had been tested one of them hadn't been tested and she'd lost 42 kilos in preparation she'd done two rounds of endometriosis surgery she gave up Red Bull she

Gave up Red Bulls. She really did say, I have done every single thing that I can possibly do within my power to make my last three chances, the three possibilities I have of becoming a parent work. And so to see her talking about her pregnancy, to hear that she's announced it is honestly just the best news in the freaking world. We could not be more happy. It was almost like, I don't think I felt happier for someone online, like when I saw that than I have in that moment in a long time like of course you're always happy for people

but when you I guess maybe because we have that personal connection when you know how how much it had affected her life and how much she wanted it it's all she has thought about and and tried to do for seven years and she's gone through the motions of feeling like a failure she's gone through the motions of everyone in her life being able to fall pregnant like that and not understanding why and to see that announcement I was just beside myself it also gives hope right like I mean for so many people who find themselves in the trenches of infertility it was the same thing when we interviewed Chloe Fisher and seven years a lot of people would stop trying you know a lot of people would feel as though they'd already done everything and so not that financially people

can't do it that much it's so expensive like to do seven rounds of IVF people are taking loans out people are remortgaging houses people are really making sacrifices because I mean I've done four rounds of egg retrievals and embryos so no implantation but they're like they range between depending on what drugs you need and you know they range between like seven and thirteen thousand dollars a round so people that are doing you know seven years I know a woman that did 40 rounds she had to like remortgage a house because she just really wanted a baby and that's how long it took yeah and I guess like 10 to 39 so I know that age was like a thing that she had in the back of her mind, but I commented on her post and I just said, this baby is going to grow up knowing how

deeply it was wanted. And like, what a beautiful feeling for a kid to look back and to be able to actually listen to podcast interviews that she did and be like, wow, I was really wanted in as well. Yeah. What's my kid going to think? I was at the pendulum for two years. It's going to be like, what the fuck mom? You're going to be paying for your kid's therapy, but probably for multiple reasons. I don't want my kids ever listening to this. Not for that reason. For a lot of other reasons. Do you know how many messages I got off the back of the episode? Actually, it was really nice. So many people that were in the same place as me mentally, like I call it the purgatory, like that fertility purgatory. You're talking about last week's episode. Yeah. Last week,

if you didn't listen, I just spoke about that really complicated place that you are where you want kids, but you don't want kids, but you're not sure, but you want them in the future, but not right now. And just that really complicated idea of not knowing where you are and what you want. But so many people resonated with it. But the number of people that wrote to me and not convinced me, but it was quite comforting saying, you think that your overthinking means you don't want them or you're not going to be a good mom because to be a mom, you should be 100% sure. But they said the fact that you are considering it so in depth, so specifically, you're doing the research on it that means you're going to be a good mom it means that you want to

you want to make sure you're ready and I guess I hadn't looked at it in that way before so it was really nice to receive messages from people saying don't think that your over-depth thinking equals not wanting to be a mom because that's what I hear I'm even more confused I was no none of it helped none of it made it clear it just added more questions and the nicest thing that because I shared in that episode that's something I've been quite worried about you know entering the motherhood conversation and whatever is because I've been diagnosed with mental health issues for a very long time now it's very much a part of my like everyday life and I was quite worried about getting pregnant and going into that stage where a lot of people experience postnatal depression

who don't have depression beforehand you know and I was like fuck how bad could it actually get how dark could it get and quite a few people messaged me after that and it was a really reassuring thing to read a lot of them said hey I was in exactly the same position I felt exactly the same way same diagnoses beforehand and apparently a lot of people who have existing mental health issues actually handle the postnatal depression kind of era a bit better because you're quite aware of it and you maybe even have management strategies in place already so yeah so I just wanted to share that for anyone else who may be related to how I felt and you had a fear around that maybe it will alleviate some of those you know fears for you too but overall like Tanya I hope that you

hear this we are so so insanely happy for you like I don't think I've ever been as happy for a friend to see a pregnancy announcement like we just could see how much you wanted it yeah well speaking of the polar opposite back in the dating scene I just chose to work with a friend and I was having a chat to her about it and I realized for me it feels like being in the dating world was not that long ago but I guess it was you know nearly three years I'm married now but it feels like yesterday anyway she's still in the depths of it she matched with someone I know like a couple of days ago I don't know him well but enough that she sent a photo an old photo from like 12 years ago of me and him you know and like I was like she's like you know this guy blah blah she wants the intel

and I said oh he was good friends with my old situationship but I was like I don't know him Anyway, I just caught up with her and I was like, how did it go? Did you meet up? Did you chat? What's going on? And she said, no, we've just spoken on the phone. And I was like, what? I was like, we spoke on the phone, but what do you mean?

Like you're not meeting him? And she's like, yeah, it's this thing that everyone's doing in the dating world now. Everyone just cold calls. First of all, let's jump on a call and chat when's good. That's one thing. A cold call out of the blue, just like spontaneous, but it's also cold video calls as well. She was saying, yeah, they just FaceTime call you all the time. She's like, the other day, a guy who I'd barely been speaking to, I'd just gotten out of the sauna and he's trying to FaceTime me.

And I was like, well, you can't answer that. I was like, don't answer after a sauna. She goes, no, because I didn't want to be that girl that like cared what she looks like. And I was like, so you answered out of the sauna? Care a little bit. I'm like, care a little bit. I'm like, just say you're busy. And she's like, was it too much?

And I'm like, yes, like in the sauna, you're like bright red and sweaty. But I don't know. I understand why people are doing it. And I love a phone call. I don't like this generation of cold surprise calling because it's it's to catch you out and see who you really are what you really like without planning without whatever but I'm like it's okay to put a little bit of effort in at the start and want to impress somebody and I don't know I'm not about it I don't know if it's like intentionally to catch you out it is I think

people are sick of the endless text messaging and like we've all been there we've all experienced the fucking doom hole of just the endless texts that you are going to plan to meet up and have coffee or whatever it is and then it never happens and you've all wasted over a day or how a week like sometimes longer so I think people are just trying to cut to the chase and like weed out things that don't have potential on top of that and we all miss this we are so lucky that we miss this but apparently online dating is full of AI now and full of bots and not real people and like cryptocurrency bros like fake bots that are selling you and trying to get you to sign up for stuff and so apparently that's why people are calling now because nobody believes anyone's real anymore

Like that's, it's gotten to the point that no one, you match with someone and you're genuinely, instead of saying they look nice, the question is now, are they real? Which is just a whole nother world. I couldn't imagine adding that pressure to how hard online dating is. Yeah. I mean, we had catfishes, like sometimes you'd be talking to someone who was so hot that you'd be like, I don't know if they're real or not. And then I guess you would see if they turned up or if they didn't.

How many people didn't turn up to your date? You know what I mean? Like if they turned up and they looked like how they actually did. but I kind of did this with my boyfriend now I mean I should start calling me part it's been two and a half years but I remember we met on hinge and we were messaging back and forth for a short period of time and he was like what are you doing on Saturday night like do you want to go on a date and at the time I remember writing back and I was like whoa Saturday night is prime real estate like you're a Wednesday night guy I don't know you yet you don't get my weekend I

obviously didn't say it I did say Saturday night is prime real estate but I didn't say like I don't know you well enough because I'd been in the past I'd been like yeah sure and then I'd spent a Saturday night with someone that I was like if I had had a phone call with you I would not be sitting here because we're not compatible we don't match like and you would have figured it out if you chatted totally so he ended up he was like okay well what's your phone number and he called me every day for a week for only for like five ten minutes and it was just like a phone call it wasn't a video call just phone sex quickly just to see the vibe we actually were talking about this a little bit earlier something we used to do on the pod all the time we haven't done it in so

long is your worst dating stories usually it was brit bringing her worst dating stories thank god i don't have them anymore now we realize like no one's been bringing them because brit hasn't had any catastrophe dates for a while you're really letting the team down pal do you know i think you underestimate the pressure i felt to stay single i really wanted to fall in love and i felt like i wasn't allowed because i was letting the podcast down because laura's already like i'm having a baby go do something and i was like we need the yin to the yang god damn it and i was like but Laura, I want to be in love too. You're like, not yet.

Stop her. Now go get fucked. Now go have someone go shoot. Well, look, we want to know what are your worst dating stories. We want the horrifying stuff. We actually had someone in who we interviewed who was telling us about how they had had truly the most train wreck dating history slash stories.

She's the best. She dated a wizard. Just say it. She was dating a wizard. And they dated a man who was part of the sperm retention society, which we fucking have to unpack one day. It's actually the same person. But it's the same person, yeah.

These are not two stories. I want to know, send us your most cooked dating stories that you've had, whether it's a first date, whether you found out a couple of weeks in that actually, I don't know. They are a wizard too. You were dating someone who's part of the sperm retention society. I don't know. I don't care.

Whatever it is. Do you remember the time that we got sent a dating story? It was a first date story about the girl who'd gone for a walk around the clifftops with the guy, like first date, clifftop walk. I know the one. They were down on like the rock platform. And it was quite windy and he tried to go in for a kiss and she was like, fuck it, I'm not into this at all.

But she did it anyway? No, he goes in for a kiss and she was like, oh, thank God, like the wind kicked up and it was really dusty and she was like, oh, sorry, dust in my mouth, got out of the kiss, walks up to the top of the hill and realised someone has thrown a cremation off the hill. She ate a dead person instead of kissing him? It was spreading ashes.

They were covered in it. But imagine how bad the day is if you'd prefer to consume a dead person's ashes than kiss that person. like that saying a lot. I've been on them. What were you eating dead ashes? Something that I came across online the other day, and it was truly the most amazing nostalgia piece. I saved it and shared it with the guys. I wanted to play this for you because if you were a millennial, there's always that debate between like Gen Z millennials, like the never ending fight between Gen Z thinking millennials are lame and millennials thinking Gen Zs don't

relate. I didn't know that there was a fight. Yes. I'm not in it enough to know that we're fighting it's not really a fight it's just that I think we're losers yeah they think we're losers they think we're losers and they think they're better than us and like fair they probably are but we've lived a life and I came across this one woman her name is this her Instagram handle it's Mary Santa a comedy and this took me back to the year 2000 when we have a lot of regrets we don't remember everything that happened but I feel like anyone who is a millennial who lived this life who is similar age to us will deeply, deeply relate. Have a listen to this. Hi, this message is for Gen Z. Stop being mean to millennials. Just stop, okay? Because guess what?

You could never. You could never. I would love to take a Gen Z in their prime right now, today, hot 21. I want to take you to a club in 2010 and you would literally probably die. Let's start with the pregame. You guys don't even know what a pregame is. You're getting ready. It's probably nine ten o'clock you start playing music little john's going all through the house people are running around you're taking shots you're doing shots of vodka that you can't pronounce that came from a gas station in a plastic bottle you might make yourself a little mixed drink take that in the shower you deserve a spa day everyone's feeling toasty you start to get ready what are you wearing not sneakers you wouldn't be caught dead in a pair of tennis shoes at the club no

baby you have your six inch ten dollar charlotte roos heels that are going to destroy your feet you're going to be bleeding you're going to have blisters but you're going to wear them the whole night because they make your legs look good and we're not wearing baggy jeans and tank tops no we are wearing tubi dresses they start here they end just at your and that's it that's what you got now let's get to the club you get inside no one has cell phones there's nowhere to sit even if there is a vip section no one's in it because we went to the club to dance okay i don't think i've ever seen a gen z person dance that wasn't like tiktok dancing that's what she's doing for audio comes on you are sprinting to the dance floor i understand you guys grew up with like social

distancing and like staying away from people but not at the club if you're not mashing against a stranger in the dark for four straight hours you can go to the club and then maybe you have hpv maybe you don't that's for garter still to figure out later the only time you stop is to go pee or to go do another shot at the bar the night you're drenched in sweat you're so drunk your feet hurt. You probably took your shoes off bottom. Your feet are black. You're walking around outside with no shoes, your fist fighting a horse cop. Things got crazy. You wake up the next day, you don't know where your coach wristlet is. Why do you have a black eye? No clue. But guess what? You had the time of your life. You had so much fun that you're going to go to brunch

and then do it again tomorrow. So the next time you guys want to talk about millennials, just remember that you guys are at home at 9 p.m. when you should be out having the best time of your life? Like I'm not proud of myself but I don't regret any of it. This is literally what the hangover is made from. It's so accurate. You wake up and you don't remember what happened and you got a black eye and you're like where was I? It took me back to sitting on the floor in my bedroom in front of my mirror doing my makeup at 10 o'clock at night getting ready to go out and just like you would not get home until 5am in the morning. No it's the shoes. It was the commitment. It's the shoes that you couldn't walk in, like the huge shoes that you knew your feet were going to be bleeding and cut up and you would never dream of taking them off.

You wore an outfit that was probably $15 from Super 8, thin and see-through, barely covered your vagina. And that was winter. It's like those elastic bodycon dresses, you know, the ones that had the pieces that went across. What were we all doing? So we were talking about it earlier. We were like, what are some of the things that you like have visceral memories of doing? And that was completely normal at the time. My number one was you'd go out with your group of friends.

you'd get your handbags, you'd put them in like either on a couch, like next to where you're dancing or in a pile on the floor and put a jacket over it and dance around. You had to make a circle. Or next to your protected little pocket of bags and then every so often you'd run back to check and make sure that everything's still in your bag and no one had robbed you.

No, you could never disperse the group. Someone always had to stay with the bags. Oh, no. No, we left ours. No, we left it. The jacket prevented it. We left it. yeah look my go-to like i said none of this is us encouraging it's just purely reminiscing

i would go and buy a bottle of bombora which is like kind of like bad cheap coconut malibu a cask of fruity elixir and mix the two together what was wrong with me when your alcohol comes from the bladder you're in a bad place i can't think about that without i could vomit at the thought. I do not have a more visceral memory in my life. I can smell right now. It's not even in the room. I can smell the drink and it makes me want to vomit from this one night. Since I was like 17, I have not been able to drink it. I've got one more for you, Brit. Wet pussy shots. No. Are they good? No. Schmurn off double black. Do you guys remember when you would be in the dancing circle and there would always be someone who would come up behind you and grind on you

and you couldn't see enough? Like you couldn't really turn around and look at them. So firstly, you didn't really know who it was. But you do it anyway. You make the eye contact with your friend and it would be like a handshake of is this person do I want them grinding on me or not because right now I have no idea I'm putting all of the trust in you no I feel like I feel like it was the opposite for me my memory of it is like you would see your friend getting grinded on and then you would look at them for the facial cues as to whether they wanted to be saved or not and they'd be like no no I'm good and back on or they'd be like run away like and we all it was Just normal.

Mack on is even a phrase. What about doing laps? So like you'd dance for a while. You'd say cuddle up. Then you'd see who's hot. You'd have to do a lap around the club just to check out who you might want to hook up with that night. And then you'd go back dance with your friends for a while.

Then you might pick one friend, do another lap. But also, you guys just don't even know. You would leave smelling of smoke, cigarette burns. Like everyone was smoking inside the clubs back then. It wasn't banned yet. The kids now, they don't get it. They don't get what we had to go through to get macked on. To be fair, though, I think I was 22 or 23 when the no smoking clubs rule came in.

Yeah, we only had a couple of years. Yeah, our formative years of burns. We'll link the video because it's great. And also it's got like 15,000 comments because I know everybody else has their own, like everyone else has their own nostalgia moment of the early 2000s, right? Whether it's Balmora or it's Supre. But there was one comment that said the entire clubbing ritual is our generations. I would walk five miles one way to school in the snow with no shoes on story.

And I just so deeply believe it. But the heels that we used to wear were insane. Did you guys have those Jeffrey Campbell lace-up boots? I didn't have anything with a name. That had the wood at the back. I had them in like three different colors and I would just alternate them with my bodycon dress. The fact that you would go out for one night, it wasn't an event,

it wasn't someone's birthday, it was just like let's go out. You would upload an entire Facebook album of 150 photos from that night and you'd call it Saturday night, best night ever. that was the album name, and you would just flood it with blurry, drunk, nothing photos. And it's just everyone dancing, holding drinks. 150. When I did The Bachelor, I had to go back through my Facebook

and fucking scrub it. I scrubbed that. And as I was going through it, I was like, Laurie's got like heroin injections on the clothes. She's like, oh, I better take that one out. There wasn't a lip in sight. Everyone used to put foundation over their lips. And your whole face would be the one colour,

but it would be like 10 shades darker than what it was supposed to be of that Dream Matte Mousse. Did you guys have that? Had everyone smelt like Britney Spears fantasy or Midnight Fantasy? Or Lynx Africa? Or Lynx Africa. Also, St. Ives Apricot Scrub. That was our entire skincare ritual.

Kids these days have like their vitamin C. They've got the drunk elephant. We just exfoliated our skin barrier until it did not exist. I don't even think I did that. Did you guys have the proactive subscription? No, I actually had great skin. Must be not. Must be not.

No, I did. I didn't have to do anything. I was lucky. I had good skin. To be fair, Britt, I probably had good skin too. I just used St Ives until there was no skin barrier left. Because back in the day I thought, oh, exfoliation means you should probably bleed.

But do you know what? You're doing the vampire facial at home. No, but when you talk about the Dream Matte Foundation, I remember when everyone started wearing foundation to school. And, I mean, we didn't have a lot of money. So, like, I would buy a foundation and I wouldn't use it much. But I remember, I don't know why I did this for years. I would only put it on below my eyes, not my forehead.

I don't know why. Top deck chocolate. No one told me. So I used to just like put it from here down and then just have like a white forehead. I don't know. I didn't know what I was doing. It's true though. No one taught us to do makeup and there weren't YouTube videos to what, there weren't girls

doing their skincare and makeup routines on TikTok and Instagram for us to learn from. So if your mum wasn't a makeup person, you just went in blind. You really did, didn't you? It was such a time to be alive. I'm so embarrassed I'm going to say this. Did you guys get into the trend of when? I don't want to say it. I need to find a photo.

When butterfly clips were in? Yeah. You used to section my hair like this into like really long strips down my head, but I would roll it all the way and then you'd put a clip on your head and you would have a roll of butterfly clips like a crown. Britt, if you were really into doing your hair, you would roll your entire hair and spray each section. So you had like makeshift curled red locks your entire head. The last thing I want to add is that hair straighteners didn't exist at this point.

And I would get out an ironing board, flip my hair upside down and iron my hair to go out to the nightclub. That is ground zero of where hair straighteners came from. That's what we lived through. If you do have any nostalgia moments from early 2000s, if you are here with us in the trenches of being almost 40, we want to hear it because they are, it's just so refreshing. How did we all survive? How are we all still alive? I remember my little sister, Sherry, and all her friends for the school formal, they all didn't know what to do with their hair. And I was like, come on girls, I'll sort you out. And we did those oiled swivels that you just said. They all came over and I oil

swiveled their whole hair. And that was like, that was the cool look. And I was like the cool older sister I was like you guys got this oh it's a bad time I'm gonna find some photos guys I have a question for you have you ever been in a relationship where you feel as though there is an effort mismatch and now the reason why we're talking about this is because we came across quite an interesting piece of content by a person named at bayer underscore voice and it was all around this effort mismatch and how it can be misunderstood in relationships as being a dysfunction or as being in a toxic relationship. And it kind of reminded us a little bit of the conversation we had quite a few months ago around askers and guesses. I don't know, was it years?

Yes, like three years. To be fair, I'm pretty sure I saw it on a different podcast recently and I was like, we talked about that so long ago. We did it first. So askers and guesses, if you're not familiar with that, it's kind of putting people into two different types of categories, right? In one sense, you have people who are very motivated to ask for the things that they want, who feel as though it's not rude to be quite direct and to ask the questions about the things that they want in their life. Then you also have guessers. Now,

guessers are people who think that upfront, direct conversation like that comes across abruptly and kind of rude. And when you have an asker and a guesser trying to communicate with each other, there can be a misunderstanding and there can be a misinterpretation around the intention behind the way that person communicates. Guessers also just expect things to be done for them. Like you should know that I want this done for me. Like you should read my mind. They don't feel comfortable putting anything forward or being assertive in any way. Yes and no though. The other thing I think that is important in terms of a guesser is that askers can abuse a guesser's kindness and generosity because a guesser would only ever ask

someone if the answer is going to be yes, but an asker will ask anyway. So the thing that we established in that conversation is that someone who is truly a guesser feels like they have to say yes to people that's where burnout comes from that's where feeling like this sense of of like I'm not appreciated comes from whereas like it's just a mismatch in communication well it's also where the saying don't ask don't get comes from askers are happy to ask it doesn't matter what the answer is like it doesn't matter if it's no like that's actually I was an asker yeah and I'm a guesser I am absolutely I shoot your shot no isn't the end of the world and no doesn't feel bad. And it's always a no if you don't ask. That is my motto. I'm happy to get a no and put that

out there. And as a guesser, I hate saying no to people because I don't like disappointing people. I think people who are people pleasers usually fall into that guesser category. Now, this idea of effort mismatch, I wanted to play you this little reel so that you understand kind of the premise behind it. And then we're going to unpack it a bit because I do feel like there are going to be a lot of people who find themselves in this type of relationship and maybe feel like their partner doesn't care as much as they care or feel as though that they're having the same fights and arguments on repeat. But really, it might be a way in which you can kind of approach a new way to communicate that might help fix this. Have a listen to this.

One of you is exhausted from always initiating the hard conversations. The other is exhausted from being told they're not doing enough. That's not dysfunction. That's what we call an effort mismatch. It shows up like this. One partner listens to the podcast and bookmarks the reels and pushes for couple therapy and the other says we're good why are we always talking about the problems it's easy to paint this as a motivation problem but that's actually not what it is dr alexandra solomon has called this a dynamic that happens between the change partner and the acceptance partner the change partner pushes for growth and insight and forward movement the acceptance partner holds down the fort of now everything's good as it is easy breezy they feel

pretty good about life and how things are going. Nothing's really wrong. But if we're not careful, it polarizes. The change partner starts to feel alone in the effort and the acceptance partner starts to feel criticized just for being themselves. Just to give you some examples off the back of that so you can really understand what it is. The change partner behaviors are things like we should really talk about our communication. They make suggestions like, hey, if you're free, let's set an hour aside a week. Let's lock it in our diary where we're going to sit down and talk about our feelings and talk about our problems. Let's do our five-year plan together. Yeah. They're the people that will be constantly reviewing your relationship patterns

and saying, hey, something doesn't feel right. Like, can we check in? Constantly checking in. And they are the people that have bookmarked and listened to the relationship podcast. And they are the people wanting to move it forward. And then when you go to the acceptance partner, they're the ones that are like, what's the problem? We're fine. Like, why are we fixing something that ain't broke? Because they're not looking at it in the same way as maybe you're looking at it. You're probably looking into the future and seeing problems before they have risen and wanting to deal with them then. Whereas somebody that is okay to cruise through a relationship, they don't have the foresight to see that. Well, I think one of the real defining things

for me that I found really interesting about this is if you are the change partner in a relationship, and it's not to say you might, you might both be change partners. Like this is when there's a mismatch, right? But if you're the change partner and you have an acceptance partner the change partner is the one who notices small issues like and small issues are things that they want to talk about like hey this happened and it made me feel like this and you want to actually communicate those things because to you that feels like working towards resolution more harmony whereas the acceptance partner is like that was not a big deal why are we talking about that so it doesn't even matter and sometimes that can feel super dismissive when you're in a

relationship because especially if you're a talker and your partner's not and you're like hey I want to talk about that thing and they're like i fucking don't yeah and i also think that these are the kind of the extremes of them right like i think you can kind of live a little bit closer to the center but these questions that came up i think actually helped me understand a little bit more which side of the kind of scale i sit on so when conflict arises do you find yourself instinctively wanting to talk it through and figure it out so like can we discuss this or do you prefer to give it space and have silence do you often scan the relationship looking for things to improve or fix even small annoyances while your partner seems more comfortable with

how things are now. If your partner expresses frustration, do you feel the urge to suggest books, therapy, solutions, podcasts, whereas your partner tends to respond with empathy and emotional availability? When your partner brings up potential problems, do you appreciate it or do you feel nagged? That last question was probably the most enlightening for me to ask. I asked Ben that actually last night. I read that word for word and I said, when I bring a problem to you or an issue that I'm feeling, do you feel like I'm nagging you or are you able to see what that is and want to work on it and understand where I'm coming from? And he's like, a bit of A, a bit of B, to be honest. He's like, it's like a bit of A, a bit of B. And I said, yeah, I guess

I do nag you a bit. I was like, but that's because I can say the same thing multiple times and you don't change it. And I think this is where the conflict arises is because there's no right or wrong, but in these situations, both individuals feel like they are in the right. And sometimes if you don't understand your relationship dynamics and what category you're in, that's where the big issues arise from. And I think the thing that Ben and I have learned, so I am definitely the change maker. I'm the one that is constantly thinking of the future and working towards the future and wanting to work on little things in our relationship that come up. Whereas he's just happy to cruise he's like we're having fun now well I haven't even thought about what we're

going to do in a year or three months time or whatever else then that leads to the decision fatigue the mental load that people feel because you are constantly thinking of not only yourself but them but then that's where the fight arises because if you can't understand who your partner is at their core and why they're thinking that you both end up in this cyclical argument of like I'm right you're not listening to me well hang on you're not listening to me I'm right instead of saying, hey, maybe we're both right to an extent and let's meet in the middle. I do think that it's a very easy space for resentment to start to fester. But I also kind of think, and the more that I looked into this, I was like, it's very easy for the person who is the change partner

to be identified as like the better partner. Like I'm putting in all this effort. I'm doing all these things. I'm trying so hard and you're not meeting me where I need to be met. And I would say that if we had a question that came in and obviously like no one's ever going to write a question that's like I'm a change partner and my partner is you know the acceptance partner but I would say looking at it with this lens there's probably a different way that we can attack some of those questions because sometimes we would say well they're not picking up their weight or they don't seem to care about the future as much as you care and like you're trying so hard to progress this relationship and there's a mismatch in effort but really and when I read

through this and when we kind of dug into the research around a little bit we are also the generation that is so guilty of not appreciating what we have like there is so many of us who are so caught in that hustle culture trap because it's sold to us as progress and we really struggle with just being appreciative of the relationships or of the place that we are in at the moment and I think that sometimes we probably should take the change partner off the pedestal a little bit and prop the acceptance partner up in some ways in terms of appreciating that they have the ability to really love where life is now. And that's not always a bad thing. And also love where their relationship is now and appreciate the person for what they are now,

rather than who they're going to be in the five-year plan. Yeah. Always trying to kind of change them. What do you think exists more naturally in your relationship dynamic? I think Matt and I are probably both change partners in ways in ways but I think I'm probably more the change partner in terms of it's tricky because when we talk about these relationship dynamics we're not actually talking about work but I think I do push work and I've spoken about it before in terms of like where I want things to be and Matt has had the conversations with me before where he's like well when is enough enough for you like what version of okay I need to get to this place because five years ago you

would have been happy at the place you're at now. Yeah. Because I struggle with really appreciating where we are along the journey. But at the same time, the mismatch in our relationship is very, very small. I would say it's a tiny window and maybe it changes over time and fluctuates, but we are both super appreciative of where we're at. And there's not really a day that goes past where we're not like, we're so lucky to have the relationship we have. Necessarily. Maybe I read this and interpreted it in a way different to you guys, but I don't see this as not being appreciative of your partner I think you can be very appreciative of who they are and what they are but still be very different and want different things like I don't necessarily

collate the two I think I'm guilty of not being as appreciative as what I probably should I do feel as though I nag my partner a bit like I feel as though when I read through the whole lot of this I was like oh wow I actually am really the one who listens to all the podcasts and I have all the suggestions of the things that we should do and and he has mentioned to me before in the past where he's like, I just feel as though you don't appreciate me for who I actually am now, you know, like, so I guess reading through this, I was like, wow, that's really held a mirror up to me. And that's something that I feel like I can take away from this. But another section of this that I did find quite interesting, we always talk about relationship compatibility and we talk

about, you know, if you're extroverted, you need to be with another extrovert because otherwise you're going to hate spending time out with people and all that kind of thing. Yeah. Like the opposites attract theory is not correct. Yeah. And you guys have spoken with Dr. Ali Walker before She wrote this incredible book that was all about frequency and intensity of communication. And in that, she highlighted that you don't actually want someone who's the opposite to you. You want someone who's not the same, but in the kind of similar realm so that you're not building that resent towards each other for being the way that you naturally are.

And I came across this thing. I'd never heard of it before. It was called relational dialectics theory, a psychological concept developed quite a few decades ago and it basically explains relationships involving opposing needs so this theory kind of talks about the fact that you need to have some type of opposing perspective on things like stability versus change for me the one that was really relatable was the desire for certainty versus the desire for novelty like i'm really heavy in the desire for novelty my partner is very heavy in the desire for certainty i don't know you have changed i feel like since i met you

you were medicated no but yeah but you're once and I think it changed with your relationship and with age you definitely when we met were novelty and I would say now your certainty you want to lock in the house you want to lock in your relationship security you want to know that your future's okay changing all the color of the walls because I'm getting bored but that's no that's not bored that's just creating the certainty that you want like that's creating your home and your future I would say you've morphed maybe I mean and these things all of the research on all of these things the change partner and the acceptance partner it does say that you actually can change over the course of your lifetime but you also can switch places and back and forth one

person can be one and then the other but you also influence each other right like I mean if you're someone who is spontaneous and crazy and wild and you get into a relationship with someone who's not they're the grounding person in that relationship there will be times where you go you know what that spontaneous crazy thing that I was gonna do I probably won't do that because it's kind of really disrespectful to my partner. Like there is, everyone makes sacrifices in their relationships. And I think that the person that we end up with has a huge influence on our personality. I'm not saying they change your personality, but you, you kind of come together a little bit more to meet in the middle. A lot of the time, I think when there's this massive resentment or mismatch that

we're talking about, it's when you're both going in opposite directions. But Ben has completely changed me. 100%. Yeah, that's what I mean. I was the spontaneous person that didn't want to make plans I have sayings with my friends that's PBE which is play by ear I won't lock in we'll say play by you want dinner on Saturday night play by so many times I said like PBE play by ear I'll tell you at five if we're meeting at seven because I hate plans I'm disorganized I love to live my life very freely but unfortunately I can't do that now because Ben does that times a hundred like Ben is so much more disorganized and doesn't plan that I then have to take that role so I don't want to take the role that I am in now of having to do everything basically for planning for

the future I mean like not everything in the day-to-day but he doesn't have that forethought so I feel like that's a prime example of when you do switch who you are like what orientation that you see yourself what end of the pole you're at because you sometimes you're forced to and I imagine it happens a lot when people have kids like that's something that you don't get to choose anymore yeah I do I definitely think that there's I mean no one stays the same throughout their entire life and I know you just established a case when you said like these things can shift and change but they have to shift and change depending on your relationship dynamic going back to this type of effort mismatch that we're talking about though in terms of like if you feel

as though you're in a relationship with someone where you are the one who is driving for change or your partner's always kind of pushing or talking about the things that are issues or whatnot like if you do feel like there is a caveat between what the two of you seem to appreciate in the relationship. How do you fix that problem? Is kind of the real question is to get to the bottom of. I think for me, I've found a really sweet spot of being able to have those conversations with Ben. Ben's very emotionally intelligent. He's happy to talk about it. But what I will do now, most couples will bring a problem or maybe like their husband or partner gets home from work and they're giving them the silent treatment because something's bothering them. Like,

hey, what's wrong? Nothing. Don't want to talk about it. It creates this tension, creates an argument you know this could go on for days what I do now with Ben because I used to just bring those topics up what I will do is I will read an article that resonates with me that's maybe something to do with a relationship or the future or issues or you know a lot of it's from the podcast of course we do our research I will send that to him in advance he reads it and then we will dissect it together later and so we go through it later no one's attacking anyone but it's like sometimes I'll say hey what did you think about that and he'll say oh yeah I definitely saw parts of me in this. And, you know, I saw parts of you in that. And then we'll talk about it off

the back of an article. And I found for our relationship, that's a far better way to meet in the middle than just like verbally spitballing things that you have an issue with. So I don't know if that's something that you guys can take away. If you have a dynamic at home in your relationship that you are very different in the effort mismatch and it's bothering you and you seem to not being able to sort it out, try something like that. Try something like sending a podcast and asking them to listen. But I think it's the way that you approach the conversations just as much as it is what the conversation is about. I also think it's that one is not right and one is not wrong.

I think the goal of kind of understanding this is similar to askers and guessers actually is just to have a little bit of self-awareness around it because you kind of need to know what will happen if this isn't recognized, you know, like the change partner is going to feel alone, like they're the only one making effort for you guys to grow and evolve and change. But the acceptance partner might feel really criticized or really nagged. totally and so I think that the way I tried to look at it and the lens I tried to put on was

like oh okay I probably do lean more into being the change partner the work for me is to be a bit more appreciative of what I've got currently like right in front of me and not mistake that for us not going or evolving or becoming better or being stagnant and then the work for the acceptance partner is to try and take a bit more initiative and facilitate some of the harder and deeper conversations and take up a little bit more of that effort that the other person is putting onto you. Yeah. And I think that that's probably, I mean, on one hand, it's easy to say like, appreciate

where you are now, but it is important that both people are initiating in a relationship. Like it will only lead to resentment if one person feels as though they're carrying the entire load and the other person's like, I don't need to do it because they're doing it already. And that I guess is kind of like where you can slip into if you're someone who is the acceptance partner because you don't think it's a big deal you don't think it's an issue and therefore when your example that you've made brit where you're like send the podcast the thing i worry about and i think about the friends who i have who i can see these dynamics play out with

is like you can send it but they're not going to listen to it because they don't care in the same way as what the other person cares of course you have to be receptive and they don't see that as an issue they're just like i'm not i wasn't that interested in it so i wasn't going to spend an hour of my day listening to a podcast, not reading between the lines that the reason why that was sent was because it was actually like a subliminal attack on their character. It shouldn't be subliminal. Like if you're not in this world and you just send a relationship article to your partner, that's not subliminal. Like it's very obvious you want to have a chat about it or the whole idea is, hey, read this. I'd love to get your thoughts on it later.

Can I read you guys my favorite comment on the video that we played at the start? It was the acceptance partner will never see this as they don't follow content like this and algorithms will not show it to them. Exactly. So send it. Absolutely send it. That's true. Well, I think at the end of the day, the conclusion to this is that it doesn't have to be deemed as something that is, like it said in the video, dysfunctional or toxic. And I do really think when it comes to like answering ask uncut questions, it's like another lens to put over it. When sometimes that person who's driving and pushing for change is deemed as being the person who cares more. And it's not always the case. It's just a complete either drive communication

or effort mismatch, which happens in relationships. And I think that sometimes like trying to see things from the other person's perspective a little bit more rather than trying to be right about it is always a good way to approach relationship conflict. It is time for Suck and Sweet, your highlight and your low light of the week. Laura, kick it off. What's your suck this week all right my suck this week is that we have a very bad leak in our house not like our house in Bondi we've been dealing with it for ages every time it rains the rain is coming in through our door and going straight down and coming out the downstairs bathroom light that's just got to be rotting there's nothing there's nothing worse than like seeing a water feature coming from a

light fitting and you're like oh that feels dangerous yeah I feel like that's not supposed to be there and that looks expensive is what it was we're in the midst of trying to get that fixed but it just means that like it's always something it's like pandora's box because as soon as they when you've got a leak it's not the leak it's all the damage that it does inside the house of the mold and everything else that you've got to get out so we're kind of like working through that at the moment and we also have a neighbor who's been really really fun to deal with around that so yay yay for trying to fix shit in houses and for really cranky old neighbors who never leave their own house so they have nothing else to complain about except everything else that's

going on in the street love you uh and then okay what's your sweet let's not get into a neighborly fight on the podcast what's your sweet can we do a section around like fucking horror neighbors we've done it before but we can bring it back your upstairs neighbor sucks too yeah she's trying to kill my dog i think i mean that's a blanket statement she's throwing like chilies into my yard knowing i showed keisha the other day giant chilies and i was like You didn't drop that. Like that's not dropped. For context, because anyone who's new might not know this,

I used to live in the apartment that Britt now lives in and it's the ground floor and the neighbour who's directly upstairs. So she used to just hose me from her balcony. She still does. I get hosed all the time. So if I was downstairs in my own outdoor area on the phone in the middle of the day, I'm talking like 3pm, Saturday afternoon, chatting on the phone.

Oh, you don't want to be on the phone outside. Sitting, talking to friends or anything. she would get her hose plug it in hide and just put her hose over the balcony so she hoses us down crazy she does it too the other day oh so annoying this wasn't even my sock i've just hijacked yours the other day i had all these clothes out there drying like and they're not hidden she knows they're there and then they were just all soaked she waters them she waters your clothes yeah yeah when you hang your clothes out on the so you hang your clothes out on a clothes horse in your own backyard and it's like she purposely throws things on them mitch churi came

over water cut off no mitch churi came over and she hosed him down i was like okay i'm one thing you don't hose my guests anyway now there's like food in my yard all the time and it's not it's not just like it's dropped down so it's not below it's on the other side like she has lobbed it into the yard she's lobbing them so that's what i'm dealing with at the moment anyway continue on okay so that's my sock is like dealing with neighbors and dealing with a leak that we can't find so yay yay and then my sweet for the week is that we went to Cairns and Cairns everyone is lit we had the best time I took the girls to Fitzroy Island I'd heard great things about seeing turtles on Fitzroy Island right and I got off the boat with Matt and the girls and the second we got off the

boat there were three massive sea turtles that were swimming under the jetty and so Matt jumped in and like Lola's never been snorkeling before because she's four and like four-year-olds don't wear snorkels but she like put her little snorkels on and she got in and it was just so it was so cool that it was so accessible that like a four-year-old and a six-year-old were able to see turtles and go swimming with turtles anyway that was last go to Cairns was right my suck is that I've probably had this suck over the years maybe it rears its head maybe once a year but this suck is how fucking cold my house is you've said it before when you said it reasons head once a year I was like every winter I was like insurance or like your green slip like what you've been scammed

I just didn't pay bill no I just my house is like I know houses are cold in Australia we don't do it well mine is I cannot exist without a puffer jumper I wear thermals puffers thermal socks then I'm under a blanket and I have a heater on I wear beanies in my house just to live your house This is freezing. I slept over. We had to sleep over a couple, maybe a fortnight ago. Genuinely. It's so cold.

You thought you were going to die? I actually thought I was in an ice bath. I was like, what's happening? I want to give you the same advice that I gave you the last time, which is the same thing we did when we lived there and were never cold. Get a gas heater. It's got gas outlets all over the house. Just buy a gas heater.

No. A hundred bucks. No. You can do it, Brit. Just put an onion on. If you spend less money on puffer jackets, just get a gas heater. The apartment's small and the gas heater heats the whole thing up and it's so toasty.

Well, it's too late now. We're five weeks out of winter. That's what you said last winter, the winter before, the winter before and the winter before. And you know why? Because every winter I'm like I'm not going to be in that house next year. I've said that for four years. I've been in that house for four years and I was supposed to be there for one.

Anyway, moving on. Just buy a heater. My switch is on the semifinals of Dancing With The Stars this week. I won, which was cool. It was so good. I got a 10. It was amazing. yeah and um you are a 10 mate thanks mate you were amazing I waltzed which was I wasn't sure

about the waltz because usually they're all quick and fast and every week until now I got given the hardest dance every week I got given the fastest dances every single week everyone else had been doing these slow beautiful dances at different times and I was just like constantly backflip backflip backflip don't be able to breathe run run run run so I was like begging them to give me a waltz and I finally got one and I loved it and um yeah I won that day whatever And now you've made it to the finals. Oh, on the night. So I'm in the grand final next week.

The grand final, everyone. Is it next week, is it? Yeah, it's on Monday night. So the Logies are on Sunday night and the grand final is on Monday night. But it's pretty cool. I sometimes forget I'm on it because it is like we recorded it months ago. So I feel like we haven't really spoken about it much on the podcast, to be honest, but like it is happening.

And, yeah, I don't want to brag, but we killed it last night. I did better than I thought. You were amazing. All right, well, guys, that is it from us. If you have any questions for asking, I can't slattle it into the DMs. If you have any accidentally unfilled stories, also we want your fucking tragic dating stories, like what happened on your first date that was diabolical.

We'll put that call out as well on to Instagram. We will. We'll put it on socials, and you can watch it on YouTube. You know the drill. To your mum, to your dad, to your dog, to your friends, and share the love because we love love. you