Life Uncut - The ‘Roommate Phase’ - Are You Resting or Rotting? 

Episode Date: June 2, 2026

Hey Lifers! We kick off this week with Britt calling in from Italy (hungover, again 👀) and why it took us YEARS to stop performing on camera and actually just be ourselves with our naturally low voices.  Laura had a suspicious parcel arrive at her front door. It was full of syringes, tiny vials, and one very tanned man who came to collect it. We speak about the world of Melanotan, carrot maxing, and the very real question of whether eating 20 carrots a day will make you glow. The roommate phaseIs your relationship resting or rotting? There's a big difference, and we break it all down from the red flags that say you're rotting to why the roommate phase is actually really common, and sometimes even kind of… nice? We chat about the trenches of parenthood, feeling a little flat in your relationship and finding novelty.  Keeshia opens up about where she's at in her relationship and why she's genuinely embracing the rest.  We wrap up with sucks and sweets; Britt is a year into marriage and almost forgot her anniversary, Laura's baby Poppy is pulling herself up on everything and immediately face-planting, and Laura's heading to India with her sister. TIMESTAMPS 0:00 — Britt's calling from Italy, hungover (again) 2:00 — 7 years of podcasting and our voices have completely changed 7:40 — The mysterious package 14:00 — What IS carrotmaxxing? 17:20 — The roommate phase: is your relationship resting or rotting? 19:30 — Having kids and the relationship shift — does it have to be negative? 22:30 — How to tell if you're just in a lull vs. something more serious is happening 30:00 — Keeshia opens up: she's embracing the roommate phase 35:20 — Resting vs rotting and what the real line is between the two 43:00 — Suck and Sweet You can watch us on Youtube Find us on Instagram Join us on tiktok Or join the Facebook Discussion Group Hosted by Britt Hockley & Laura Byrne Produced by Keeshia Pettit Video Produced by Vanessa Beckford & Lachy Pugsley Tell your mum, tell your dad, tell your dog, tell your friend and share the love because WE LOVE LOVE! XxSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hi guys and welcome back to another episode of Life Uncut. I'm Laura. I'm Brittany and I just want to confirm I have pressed record on all of my equipment. I'm both recording. We've got the camera. We've got the laptop. I've got the machine. I'm good to go. I'm really proud of you because if you guys listened to last week's Wednesday episode, we had nothing but tech issues. And then this week Britt arrived and she said I'm actually a bit hungover again which is just completely shocking for the multiple reasons one because you don't drink and two because it's a school work night again do you know but here we are I think those things play into each other laws I think I get more hungover because I don't drink it's like I'm not a frequent drinker so when

I do it just hits me and the problem is I don't think the problem is that I've had drinks on a school night hell the problem is that we get up and record at now like 6 a.m Laura's like can we bring it back early a little bit I need to go and I was like yeah absolutely no worries and then at midnight last night I was like I was like I deeply regret what I said to Laura I was like I deeply regret that I have to work tomorrow but it's fine it's Italy it's what we do I just want to preface this I don't just get wasted on a school night alone I did have a sound hung over do I I don't just get it worse I put the blackout blinds down I just sit in a dark room and drink away my worries no I my friend was I told you guys that my friend was rolling into town from London and she was just

she didn't give me a lot of notice and every time she comes in we end up going out for wine so that's what's happened that's why if I sound a little bit sexier today I don't sound sexy do I it's like remember when you got really sick Lauren you were almost dying of pneumonia you've never sounded better like that was hot I mean I looked the worst I've ever been but like in terms of the voice, I didn't mind it. I think I did some damage to my vocal cords though. Hey, I wonder if anyone else has noticed this. It's probably not every day that you guys who listen to this podcast, go back and listen to like our very, very early episodes. I don't recommend it. The content isn't that good, but we sound completely different. I think,

especially me, like it's like my balls grew in or something. Like my voice has dropped over the past seven years. Well, your labia dropped. Maybe it was that. My labia dropped. That's what it is. The estrogen left my body, but I mean it, something happened. And I don't know whether it's just seven years of talking has damaged my vocal cords, but I sound like a different person. I've been a slow progress. So I never realized it until I went back and I listened to some really old episodes and I was like, oh, what happened?

I think that when you're comfortable and when you're just like relaxed, you sound a little bit deeper, you know? I think when you initially start doing something like podcasting, for me, it was radio, but it's like the same kind of idea I think you're a little bit like you're pretending to be someone a little bit whereas when you've been doing it for as long as you know everyone in this room has you kind of be like ah well and when you're Brit you're just drunk yeah you're like it's just just school night if I Keisha that is so accurate and we've been in this industry now for like seven or eight years we went on the Laura and I went on The Bachelor not nine and ten years ago or eight

or nine years ago. I don't know, but basically a long time ago. And when, so for me, I don't know if you did this as much, Laura, when I went on The Bachelor, I was 30 years old, but I had never done anything in media. I'd worked in a hospital forever. And I remember my mom, when I was going on there, she's like, don't you embarrass us. You make sure you speak well, pronounce your, dot your I's and cross your T's. And anyway, I remember being like, oh my God, The Bachelor is such a big show. So many people are going to see me. And when I, I didn't feel it at the time, But when I watch it back, I was like, why am I talking like I'm a royal? I'm like, why am I walking around?

And I can tell now in hindsight that I wasn't really sitting properly in who I was. I was so worried about like, oh, my God, someone's going to drag me. I'm going to get canned. I'm going to embarrass myself. I'm going to embarrass my family. And I was still who I was, but it was my voice. I was like, I don't talk like that. I'm like, why am I talking like that?

I mean, Matt and I have tried to watch back our season of Batch. Oh, shut up. The cringe factor is so unbelievably high. I've never given myself the ick more. Like, I hate myself. There's a moment in the final where he's telling you that you're the one that he's going to pick. And you're like, I was so ready for you to break my heart. I can't.

But everything, it's everything you said, Britt. Like, it's the not wanting to be, and I don't want to say not wanting to be disliked, but it's like, it is the millennial people pleaser in us. like there is something very much about and I don't want to like be like gen zeds don't seem to have it as much as what we do but the millennial people pleaser of like the optics of not coming across right it really takes so long to like recondition yourself to realize that actually sometimes when you are more yourself and you are more authentic and the way you talk is more you people like oh I like that person but before that you were like shiny and I didn't quite know who you were and that's what seven years of doing this podcast has done to us it's made me gravelly

and jaded everyone jen said has also grown up with cameras the entire time they're so used to filming themselves we didn't have any of that so you were a lot more aware of like oh i'm being filmed and like what i say is going to be recorded i don't think that the kids growing up these days would have that same awareness well i mean think of that transition for anyone who is kind of you know if you're a millennial and you're listening to this you will remember back in the day when like people first started taking selfies and the concept of taking a selfie was the most embarrassing thing like if you saw someone taking a selfie or like videoing themselves you would have looked at them maybe you're on holidays in Bali and you'd have been like that

person's a loser now it is just like so commonplace and so normal and so yeah I do think that there is a huge shift someone is still judging you if you're walking around Laura with you know how you get selfie sticks are like four meters long I'm still judging you like if you're walking around I'm with a four-feet-long selfie stick. I'm like, babe, we've got the pull-back button on iPhone now. Just pull back. The amount of times, though, the amount of times I've been caught, like, mid-filming a story and even then, like, the shame,

the shame spiral that comes over me. I'll be hiding in my car trying to record something and someone will walk past and I'm like, oh, God. I even hate doing it when my partner's in, like, the room or even in the house. I'm like, can you just leave for a bit? Something I wanted to ask you guys, and this is, I don't know if I'm going to get myself in hot water for this,

but look, there's a story to it and it's going somewhere. What do you do when you receive an incorrect item to your home? Okay. Like when you receive a wrong letter or a wrong package or something that's been sent to your address, what do you do? Are you someone that like writes RTS and takes time out of your day to take it back to the post office? Yeah. I write return to sender in full. I don't even write RTS. I write return to sender. Sometimes I write please. And then I take it. Well, if it's a package, I take it back. If it's a letter, I just repost it in a post. I I don't have to go into a post office. You just find a post box.

Keisha, what are you doing? I'm not doing RTS. Keisha's stealing. I've got shit to do. Sorry. Keisha's stealing packages. You sent it to the right. Also, make it an email.

Like, they don't even want letters in the mail anymore. I'm not RTSing anything. No, because people move a lot. It might feel differently. That's just for letters. If it was a package, I would probably feel differently because, firstly, I mean, they're going to be expecting for the package to be delivered, whereas most letters, like, you don't know when they're coming.

You would keep it. Yeah, who's it from? Keisha opens it and checks. Is it a good brand? I just think that there's two very different people. I'd love to poll this because I do think that there are people who are considerate, kind and are doing the right thing and they're going and they're taking time out of their day

to return something that's an inconvenience to them. Then there's other people who will open it, forget about it and never return it, right? They live in two different camps. We had a situation happen to us recently and it wasn't intentional. Matt gets a lot of stuff sent to the house, right? a lot of stuff. Like I'm talking Amazon things. I'm talking random deliveries. Like every other day there's like shit coming from pet barn. There's stuff for the kids. Like there is always

some sort of package that's being delivered to the house. And we got this like parcel that arrived and it was like a padded, quite large, one of those heavy duties that you can't break through them parcels. And it arrived to the door. Now, interestingly enough, it had our actual address on it. Like the address wasn't incorrect. And the person who it was addressed to, his name was Matt, just not Matt Johnson, a different Matt. So this parcel arrives. I brought it in, didn't think anything of it, threw it on the table. Matt picks it up and he also thought it was for himself. He opens it. Inside is a whole lot of, and I don't know whether they're peptides or how you describe them, but they're like melatonin injections.

Melanotan. Melanotan. That was it. So someone has purchased, like it's literally syringe, little tiny vials, you suck it up, you inject it into yourself to make yourself more tanned. Like people are buying this shit. It was an entire delivery of it. I'm talking like 20 vials. Is that why Matt's so brown right now?

He's so tanned. Looks like he's been to the sun. I'm pretty sure that that was actually developed initially as a medication for skin cancer. And so like way back in the day, it was developed to try and kind of alleviate some of the, I guess, effects that get sunburned really easily. Yeah, but surely that would be prescribed by a doctor and you'd be going to a chemist to buy that.

Like this looked like some sort of like skinny tea online purchase. Do you know what I mean? Like the packaging was all pretty, but also like, I don't know, part of me was kind of, I was like, how would anyone even discover this to make the purchase in the first place? Well, the thing about it in Australia, and I sound as though I'm juicing, but I do have a reason that I was quite interested by this. So it falls under a weird category. So it is an illegal product to have at the moment. it's illegal to import but somehow they get around it it's quite strange okay so we open this parcel it's full of these injectables and syringes and Matt opened it and he's like oh I don't want to

bring this into the house so I'm going to go put it downstairs in the garage he's like I don't know we'll figure out what to do with it like we're going to throw it away but then he's also like it's like it's someone's actual parcel he brought it down in the garage now our garage door that opens kind of like the access door is really close to the front gate and so when you walk through the front gate you can see if there's like a parcel or anything that's been put in the garage so kind of forgot about it and forgot that it was there the very next day we were leaving the house and this guy comes walking up the driveway area and comes straight into our gate now he's very tanned checks out checks out he's very tanned he's very buff he's clearly someone who is maxing

in lots of different ways he's just a guy that's maxing all different parts of his life and he goes oh excuse me um he's like I just wanted to check my name's whatever I won't say his name and he's like I think that there might have been a delivery that came for me and instantly we're standing in front of the door to the actual garage as well and I was like oh my god it's the injections and I look down and there's the package on the floor that's been opened this we hand it to him open so he can see that we've seen what's in it he looks like he's doing a walk of shame and he walks away but I kind of was like I don't know if I'd purchase something like that whether I would go and pick it up from a house I think I would just let it be it's so expensive I don't know

well they didn't he didn't expect you to have opened and gone through his package he thought he was just coming to pick his package up he's not he's not like hey you know that shit that you went through and probably used can I have that back I absolutely did not use it I did not but he accidentally put the wrong address on it so he fully instead of him putting like the apartment a number that would have corresponded to like, I won't say my house address, which I was just about to, but he put, he knew that he'd put completely the wrong address on it. So he knew that it was at our house. We couldn't have lied about it, but it was more so just the shame, the overwhelming shame of having to admit that we had gone through and opened his parcel and

rummaged through it and then hand it back to him. Like, so sorry about that. I do this in a different way. I don't think I've told you this, probably have a little bit. I open your shit all the time. exactly the same but the same thing because you still have stuff that gets sent to me all the time but because i'm always sending myself stuff and getting packages if there's a package with my address at my door i never read the name and sometimes i open it i'm like what the fuck is that and then i'm like laura burn matt johnson marley may i'm like who is all this stuff getting delivered i have a real question for you because you very rarely bring things in for me so i'd love to know where it's all gone to be honest most of the time it's letters or it's like marley may needs her

vaccinations and so I just send you a picture of it do you know what though this did lead me down a rabbit hole okay so what is it called melanotan yeah so when he opened it and I was like what is this because I didn't know I'd never seen it before so I went online and I googled it to be like what the hell is this person ordered that's how I discovered that it's like this thing that you put inside yourself that makes you produce melanin right because it would come in a what a glass vial comes in like a little vial like a full it is a weird thing to receive in the mail I'll put it that way. Receiving a package full of syringes and tiny little vials.

Look, it piqued my interest. I was like, I want to know what this is. Anyway, so yes, some people are using this to be able to build a tan. And look, from the looks of the guy, it clearly works. I'm sure it gives you cancer, but it clearly works. This led me down the rabbit hole. Has anyone heard of what carrot maxing is? Well, without it being called that.

How about it described as carrot maxing? Yes, without it being called that, people have been doing it for a long time. No, it's literally been coined the name carrot maxing. it's a viral apparently term kids on tiktok are doing it it is like increasing your carrot consumption so that you can change the color of your skin apparently it's a real thing and there are people out there chowing down on carrots to make themselves build or produce more melanin people were doing that when i was at school no joke it's just that we didn't label everything yeah we didn't label everything everything's maxed now and i'm over the maxing to be honest i've had

enough of it that's my unsubscribe wrong episode but i don't care i'm unsubscribing from how we label maxing on everything like just increase your carrot content you don't have to call it carrot maxing well if you're doing it for the purpose of becoming more orange then I would say it is carrot maxing I actually think it's been named perfectly what would we call the equivalent of using lemon to try and blonde your hair blonde maxing from back in the day lemon blonde maxing okay so the reason why I thought this was interesting firstly don't do it apparently it turns out it's really dangerous for your liver how many carrots you have to eat no like hundreds the carrots are good for you no it's too many hundreds of carrots how many carrots

you know this one time when I was at uni I bought a whole box of mangoes and like I couldn't afford them but I really wanted the whole box of mangoes and then I felt the need to eat them all so that they wouldn't go off and my poo was yellow for weeks no one needs to know that it's disgusting that's an inside story sorry I've just found myself in a reddit thread that said thoughts on carrot maxing and it said I just found out that there's a thing called carrot maxing kind of like looks maxing but it helps you like you know increase your melatonin and someone else wrote I shove them up my ass sometimes still studying the results so this says this says you need to eat about 10 to 20 carrots per day for up to a month for it to start but how many do you stick

in your ass but only the one up the ass that's just one in the butt but like that's a lot of carrots. So apparently there's a thing that's called carotinemia. It's when you consume more better carotin than your body can process. And it means that it gets stored in the excess body fat and skin, turning you a bright yellow slash orange hue. That's when you've taken it too far. That's the telltale signs that you maxed for the max. You jaundiced. Keisha, I'm just like, I didn't think this is where I would be, but I'm actually just deep into how many carrots you need. But it also says it's not just carrots, it's mangoes as well. So if you ate that whole tray of mangoes, you were probably close to mango maxing or glowing. One of the two. You do look particularly

glowy. Speaking of Reddit, something I came across a couple of weeks ago, and we've been talking about having this discussion over the last few weeks. It's around the roommate phase of a relationship. Now, obviously not everyone is going to end up having a roommate phase to their relationships, but I do think by and large, if you've been in a long-term relationship, it's probably something that you can relate to it was a term that I really loved that I saw and someone had described it as is your relationship resting or is it rotting and how do you define the difference this to me and I think it was like the real definer in discussing this I think that like sometimes we talk about this roommate phase of like getting into the lulls of everyday life

and like trying to actually kind of maintain the spark and the desire whilst also simultaneously like you know if you've got kids getting the kids ready for school and trying to manage your schedules or work or whatever it looks like. I guess like the pragmatism of everyone's day to day is quite different. I think the deep question here is too, is that if you find yourself in this roommate phase, and I guess that's the term we're going to use throughout this, but if you find yourself in the roommate phase, is it actually that detrimental and something that you want to leave from? Or are you self aware enough to know that it is just a part of a high and a low in a long-term relationship? I don't know any long-term relationship. Literally, I was trying to think,

I don't know any long-term relationship that hasn't gone through this phase I think we're biologically programmed to get into a comfort zone the chemistry levels drop and this wanting to rip each other's clothes off all of these things drop after you spend a decent amount of time with somebody and life starts happening and by life I mean exactly what you just said Laura do you want to wake up and have morning sex when you've been up eight times in the night with a screaming baby when you've got a baby that needs to feed on your breasts literally to stay alive when you have to go and get kids ready to school like you are not going to wake up and feel that same desire doesn't mean the love is gone but I think the tricky question then is do I sit in this

knowing that I still love the person want them and it's going to come back because this is a normal part of a relationship or trying to work out if it's because I actually don't want to be in this situation anymore and I don't want to love this person anymore and I want to leave that's a really tricky thing to try and dissect yeah and on top of that as well I guess like it really is like the way in which society views this idea of falling into a roommate relationship like it really is negatively viewed and I guess like one of the things that I would love for us to unpack a little bit is whether or not there are situations where actually being in a roommate phase is quite comforting to a relationship like it doesn't always have to scream the alarm bells

that we've been told that if you end up there in your relationship that it's not necessarily always the red flag that we've been led to believe and I know that you've already mentioned it Brit but it is really one of the phases that I have seen the shift myself, but also I've seen it in my family and in my friends, you know, people who have gone through having kids, like there is this enormous shift, not just in the relationship, because I actually think that having kids, sometimes people talk about it in a really negative way and it doesn't always negatively impact the relationship. Sometimes having kids actually makes you be like, wow, my partner is incredible and they have like really stood up to the plate and they have kind of like been and

created and done all the things that I guess like met all the expectations you had for them when it comes to parenting it doesn't mean that you have as much time for the relationship but it certainly doesn't mean that you step away from them in terms of like the intensity of your feelings but I guess like I have seen a lot of people talk about entering this phase post having kids and it's because there is so many other pressures and so many other things to think about and so many other, I guess like life admin that becomes part and parcel of your day. You don't have the time or the energy to be able to spend on your relationship in the same way that you may have prior. And I guess like for me, this has kind of been a conversation I've had with friends who have

really little kids. If your relationship was great pre-kids and you found yourself in the whole of being in this roommate phase, don't give up on the relationship or think that negatively of the relationship at this point in time because like this is just a phase of parenting that is so hard where you're in the trenches that like actually you will come out the other side and you'll be able to have time for the two of you again and I think that for so many couples and I know that this is parenting specific but so many couples almost like rediscover each other when they have clawed themselves out of the trenches a little bit and they're like oh my god you that's right you're fucking great I love you and then they find themselves having a second baby

you know what i think only to climb back down into the trenches again but on that laura i think what happens sometimes is too it's not always about like if you were good before kids you're going to be good after and you'll find yourself again and claw back out sometimes somebody can be a relationship can be really solid and you have kids and that person the way that they show up or the behavior can make you realize that maybe they aren't the person you thought they were it's a new experience that they're showing up to that you've never had to experience with them before because it's impossible to know how your partner is going to be with kids until you have your own kids. Sometimes you're not going to claw yourself back out of that. Sometimes you're like, fucking,

I know why I'm in the roommate phase with you because you're not who I thought you'll be. And I don't want to claw out of that. That's okay as well. But I think for me, I've been in this situation, the roommate phase when I was young without kids, you know, I remember I was in an eight year relationship and he was a wonderful person. Like otherwise we wouldn't have been together for eight years and we had a house and dogs and this amazing life and I remember and when you brought this up laws and said you want to talk about it I remember saying that word for word when I was wanting to break up with him and talking to my friends and stuff and I said it's like we're just roommates living together and I had to grapple with is that the worst thing

like I feel safe I feel secure is that the worst thing and then you have to go it's almost like like a tree of life, right? Like you have to go down all the branches and figure out what it means and why, because a roommate phase to me isn't necessarily bad. We as a modern relationship and modern society, we confuse the contradictory longings that we need in a relationship. And by that, I mean, we want excitement and safety at the same time. And we want chemistry and security at the same time and comfort. And those things, those contradictory feelings can't last long term we can't expect everything from our one partner and as much as at the start you are having that excitement and the longing you're too early to have that real stability comfort safety

and security and as that develops the other one drops a little bit and I think it's just trying to work out what it means to you in that time and for me in that eight-year relationship there was nothing bad about the relationship but I just knew deep down that those desires were not going to come back so I felt comfort safety security but I had to work out if I thought the desires were ever going to come back and if I wanted to work on that part and I ended up with I didn't and that is why for me the roommate phase ended up being detrimental but I think it can be a really beautiful thing if both couples are in it and are happy with where you're at as long as there's still a level of intimacy and connection whether it's verbal or physical then I think that that's what

you should be looking at to break down if you want to stay in it? I think where it becomes sticky for some people is like the not knowing, right? Like the not knowing whether or not this is something that they're ever going to come out of. And I guess if you're both in a relationship and you're both completely happy with being in this phase, then there isn't a problem, right? There's only a problem, once again, with anything in a relationship. If one person is unhappy or one person feels like there's been a shift in the relationship, something's changed, or they're wanting to be able to create more closeness I think it's really important to kind of and maybe that's why this checklist might be a little bit helpful for some people figure out what are the

things that would identify that the relationship is unrecoverable versus the relationship is actually just going through what quote-unquote could be deemed as a resting phase and actually you guys have the potential to drag yourself out of this some of the big things I think anyone who's ever felt this feeling in a relationship knows that it's kind of like the beginning of the end but like is there resentment there like do you feel resentful whilst you're sitting in this roommate phase is there like this resentment over the way in which they've behaved or the way in which that they speak or whatever it is but I think an underlying feeling of resentment makes it really really hard to come back from and I think for me like that's like a telltale sign

that if you've reached that stage of cohabitating with each other there's no well it's really really hard to come back from that level of like feeling as though the relationship has slipped. Well, I did a little deep dive into what our good friend Esther Perel would say. So if you don't know who she is, she's an amazing relationship therapist. We've had her on the podcast a few years ago. She's incredible. But she says that the key thing and the number one thing is that you're self-aware. So as long as you know that you guys are in that phase, that is a brilliant start. Secondly, she says, if you really know that you do want to try to bring it back and get out of that ditch novelty is really powerful so she goes on to explain that like when we live this routine

life and it's monotonous and it's predictable and that's when you start to fall into this trap because nothing's exciting you anymore nothing's different you know what they're going to say you know what they're going to do there's nothing new to talk about so she's like recreate that with new experiences because that human connection is what brings you back the laughter they've been able to talk about something new, share a new experience. So she's like, maybe go and do something like start doing things you don't do, go places that you haven't been, try a new hobby together or try to reconnect outside of what you were doing every single day. And I think that makes so much more sense. Even I say that now with Ben, sometimes Ben's work means he does the same

thing every day, which is fine, but he's so exhausted because they work so hard. Like they train physically so hard that he never wants to do new things. And sometimes I find us just sitting on the lounge and I'm like wow a bit of a we don't really have a lot to talk about right now as soon as we go and do something different together it reignites this like excitement and the energy changes and everything just feels different so when I read this what Esther was saying about the novelty I thought that's so spot on do you know what it's also the feeling of like and I feel like so many people and so many relationships go through this because like obviously life work everything is hard everything is full-on we're all fucking burnt out like that's

no new that's no new topic but like think about the amount of us that go home at the end of the day you see your partner a little kiss small chat catch up on the day some people aren't even having catch-ups on the day you sit down on the couch after making dinner and you just pull your phone up and then you're scrolling on your phone and like you miss the opportunity for those small moments of connection but there is this little bit of a checklist which I kind of think if you're listening to this episode because you're questioning whether or not you're having these feelings in your own relationship here are some things to like ask yourself has one partner emotionally checked out? Namely, have you emotionally checked out? Is that a big feeling? The resentment thing,

I think, is so important. Resentment sitting underneath silence. So are you resentful, but you're not speaking about the things that you feel resentful about? You're not actually talking or communicating about the things that have upset you. And so it's kind of like this compounding reality of, yes, you're roommates, but you're not cohabitating in peace. You're cohabitating in quiet resentment. Another one was avoiding real conversations altogether. you know like you are doing the day-to-day exchanges that actually keep I guess like the day-to-day functioning moving forward but you're not actually connecting on anything else of any level of deep importance there's no physical intimacy over long periods of time and you feel

lonelier with them than you do without them some of these things I think if you find yourself saying yes I'm at this point yes I'm at this point yes I'm at this point it's not to say that the relationship is not recoverable but what it is to say is that this is not resting this is not like you guys are in a roommate phase that you're just going to naturally call yourself out of like this is a relationship that's rotting and if you don't take action or do something about it then it's not going to just spontaneously repair itself I do think that there is a version of the roommate phase that is absolutely fine and Keish I don't know how much you want to talk about but I know that you've sat in this phase for a little while yeah I'm interested by the whole distinction

between resting and rotting and and I'm not like pointing the finger but laws that when you said the resting thing you spoke about like if you want to drag yourself out of it and I just had this thought where I was like I don't want to drag myself out of it like I'm finally in a position where I actually I'm really enjoying the rest of being in the roommate phase or whatever they're calling it and I think it's because for me I really have like a dichotomy of how I've been in relationships. And, and so being in, and we are 1000% in roommate phase because work schedules are pretty insane for my partner. And, and like a lot of times where we will literally be shifts in the night, cause he'll be doing night shifts or whatever it might be. He'll be studying for

exams or like whatever it is. And I found like a nice sense of comfort in it. And, and I think a couple of weeks ago we spoke on Ask Uncut and like kind of made a lot of jokes about the fact that I started taking a certain medication and my sex drive got up and left the building. It has not returned. And I know that for a lot of people, they're like, oh, that's an issue. You know, how are you going to work on it? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But it does not feel like an issue for me. And whether it's an issue for him, like he's not really bringing it up with me. I would hope that he would feel like he could. And I think that he does. So I don't think it's an issue for us and that for me is actually a really beautiful place for me to be like oh you got to the

destination because if I compare it to what I was like in you know relationships beforehand I'm specifically speaking about sex sex was the way that I I knew that I was in a good position in the relationship I knew I was somewhat in the driver's seat like I was in control of the situation and I learned about this listening to Elizabeth Gilbert's latest book it's called All the way to the river and where she identifies as a sex and love addict and I had never ever thought of myself as even remotely close to that but she spoke about how she had used sex as a tool and that was like I really had to kind of hold a mirror up to myself and I was like holy fuck I definitely did this and I had no idea like I would use it I yeah I would actually say to manipulate

I would use it as a way to get what I wanted to get the validation of like knowing that I could have who I wanted when I wanted it it was exciting I got a lot of dopamine from it it was that cat and mouse like chasing and I really got the thrill from it and that was what sex was to me it was also like in toxic relationships it was the way that I knew that things were okay between us because if we were having sex you know that meant that we were connecting and that meant that everything was fine and if we weren't having sex well then that was a big red flag and as it turns out for a few of them it was because they were getting it somewhere else so I don't know to me it's like yes I can see that if you're in this for too long and if you don't have desire and you don't have

blah blah blah it could be like this rotting phase but for me I'm really enjoying the rest I'm really enjoying the resting phase I question though Keish I mean and in what you've just described in terms of like the relationship dynamic that you have I mean I think it's important at the very start we were talking about when something is okay for two people in the relationship then there is no issue right I think that this concept of like a resting relationship is more so because there's an identification that there is a problem I would question whether or not you even could be classified as being a resting relationship or that you guys have just found a level of intensity that suits you and that is like prolonged and

long-term do you know what I mean like I think we are roommates at times though because we literally have different bedrooms. But it works for you guys. And it's totally like, I think that's just a reflection that so many relationships are so different in how they present. And I remember you saying, I mean, we talked about it just recently, but you were like, the only time that I question whether or not it's a problem is when other people tell me that it's a problem to them or that it should be a problem to me. Yeah. And like I said, we spoke about that on Ask Uncut a couple of weeks ago and quite a few people messaged me saying like, oh, thank you for saying this. Cause like, I feel exactly the same and, and I don't hear many people saying, I think it's

because people might, I don't know, maybe I should feel embarrassed about it. Like maybe there is a bit of shame attached with thinking that you don't have a particular sex drive and I'm only 32, you know, that seems like it's quite not normal. Like, and it's not something that people would want to talk about publicly, but I just don't really care. Like, I think that it's the roommate phase and I can see where it can be a problem specifically with resentment because that is on a trajectory of feeling contempt for someone. But I guess the other side of the coin that I feel is that I'm actually really happy being in a roommate phase

because it's contrasted to what I used to experience, you know, and there's a peace around it. The reason that I feel like it's a really nice thing and that I feel comfort from is because I don't feel as though I need to use sex as a tool for anything. You know, like I don't feel as though I need to gain more control in my relationship or I need to have dominance in it, or I need to like claw back some power, it feels equitable and it feels like I just don't need to worry about those things anymore. I don't want to put words in your mouth by any means, but if it is linked to validation, which when I think about sex in my past relationships, so much of it was linked to validation. When I hear people talk about love addicts, I'm like, I think maybe that

was my problem also. But when sex is linked to validation, like obviously, you know, that becomes the spark in the relationship. But I guess for me, I get validation in so many other ways out of my relationship that sex is not the only thing that is required. Keisha, I think the interesting thing here is that you're, I don't want to say getting stuck on, but the differentiation is when we talk about a roommate phase and rotting, you're looking into the sex aspect and you're saying like, we don't have that sex. But I think that's fine as long as you have the other aspects, which is like communication and still intimacy and still that drive to want to be around each other and like a fondness well you and Toblerone yeah you guys still have that like you guys still

have those conversations and we also do I should like have a little footnote we also do have sex but you know what I mean nowhere near as much as what I would have thought I would be having in a long-term relationship because I was it was a lot when I was younger yeah girl you need a rest I need to rest referring to the people that come home and feel lonely like they come home and there's nothing like it's just somebody else that's in the house you know like that's when I think it's detrimental and it's rotting I think if one aspect is lacking it's okay if the other things are still there when you lose that connection as a whole every aspect the intimacy the physicality the mental stimulation the touching once you've lost everything including

conversation that's when I think it's really hard to come back from and it needs to be more of an active choice which leads me to the next question which is when you're in that situation do you think you need to work really hard to fall back in love and reconnect or do you think you just come out of the depths of despair see the light and then you're like oh here we are again like we don't have to make this active choice to work that hard I think it depends on what's happening in the relationship and I think it depends on how much distance has happened in terms of the communication how big that separation is depends on how much work is going to have to be put in for it to spontaneously, quote unquote, come back. Like for some people that could be all you might

need is a weekend away, the two of you to like spend time together. For other people, that might be some really honest conversations around. I don't know how we arrived at this destination, but I feel as though we don't speak anymore. I feel as though we don't share the things that actually make us feel connected. I don't feel like we have the intimacy. I don't feel like we have the conversation. And I also feel like the fondness that we have for each other is dwindling as well. I do think for a lot of people, if you find yourself in a roommate phase in the relationship, but you still have all those key things, like we said, like you have fondness, there is intimacy.

It just might not be as frequent as what it used to be. You're still able to laugh together. You still have moments where you like still go like, you know, you see glimmers of like all the reasons why you love that person. Then I don't think it needs to be alarmist. Like I think you just know and can innately believe that like relationships go through ebbs and flows. but I do think that if those qualities start to fade in your relationship I think it's really

important if you want to save it you have to get on the front foot of that before it erodes so much for at least one person that the emotional disconnect is too much that they have just checked out and that does happen in relationships sometimes you get to a destination where one person still thinks that there's the ability to fix it and for the other person they are completely emotionally gone yeah and I don't know if you'd be able to choose to fall back in love if you're in that point of like not wanting to be there you know like if you've gotten to that point if you've gotten to that destination I just don't know how much willing that love to come back would work but weirdly enough I actually feel like I saw the best piece of relationship advice and they are

gonna laugh when they hear this so it was on Holly Kingston or Holly Nicholson I'm not sure what she goes by so batch Jimmy Nicholson he was the pilot he married Holly they have a son together and she did a Q&A on her Instagram the other day and she had this one question it was I can't even remember the exact wording of it I just remember her answer to it and I think the question was I do remember now it was how do you keep the spark alive after having children so being postpartum how do you keep the spark alive interesting because what she said I was like far out that is actually such good relationship advice and she did not mean to but she just said we make sure that we say thank you for everything because when we're not feeling appreciated that is the first way that we are

going to start arguing so we say thank you for doing every single little thing that we do and all of a sudden like we're back to being good again and I was like wow I relate to that so so so much so I think if I was getting to like a rotting phase that would be the first thing that I would have to implement myself and be like okay I need to even if I feel all of the anger and I feel all of the negative emotions i need to say thank you for making dinner for taking out the bin like thank you for the little things that contribute to the relationship to get it back on track brit you've been over there what two months are you roommate phasing yet i can tell you we're definitely not roommate phasing yet no we're making up for lost time i'd love to know

guys like if you have found yourself in this situation if you either called yourself out of it or you found that it was kind of like the beginning of the end what did that look like for you slide onto the dms at life uncut podcast like we would love to know kind of i guess like especially if you found yourself fixing it and coming out the other side better and stronger than ever i think that it's nice to sometimes hear the success stories of what life can look like after you have a lull in a relationship rather than it just being like you know that it means the beginning of the end all right it is time for our suck in our suite our highlight and our low light each and every week brit what does your suck my suck is simple said at the start

of the episode I'm hungover that's it when am I going to learn I don't know we don't know I feel like that should be your suite you're like living life over there and actually on a school night and also and I know we spoke about it a couple of weeks back when you also showed up to another record hungover but um it's only two it's only two but I think the thing that's like the sweetest of the sweets with this is that like normally I would say when you're in Sydney like you're not out doing stuff on a school night you know it's so nice that while you're over there you're able to kind of be carefree and fancy free. Let your hair down.

Go loose and fancy free. I think it's great. It's not actually even a school night for me because I don't know what day of the week it is so it doesn't matter. Like I'm like all the days blend into one here. But you know what you can do over here? I think when I say I'm hungover, I am joking, right? I just feel a bit dusty.

I'm not joking. I feel a bit dusty but it's not the same kind of a hangover I have in Australia and I do think it's because the food here and the alcohol here is different. Like they don't have as many preservatives and things that make you feel the way that you feel in Australia. I don't know if that makes a lot of sense, but I can drink more here and not feel the same kind of way.

You should test it out, Britt. I am. Oh, I am. Test it out more. I'm doing it for you guys, okay? Not all here. Do a scientific study of one. Oh, I actually saw something about this on Instagram.

I don't know if it's true or not, but it was a guy who was either a scientist or a nutritionist. I'm not sure. but essentially he explained why his partner who is gluten-free here can eat gluten over there and it had something to do with the wheat crops and that they're different in Australia to over yeah and apparently it's easier on the gut so a lot of people who can't like eat gluten and not feel uncomfortable here are okay eating it over there well that's me that sounds like some sort of like pseudo influencer science no the gluten is different it's because you know how like you

can buy bread elsewhere America specifically but you can buy stuff there and you could have it in your cupboard for like a month and it doesn't go off but here everything has to be eaten that day because they don't have the preservatives and a lot of the time people that think that they're intolerant to gluten it's not necessarily the gluten but it's the protein and preservatives that go alongside with it so I get really sick from gluten I'm not allergic to it it doesn't sit right with me in Australia and America and other places I can go to town over here and it does nothing like it does not touch the side so it's it's definitely a thing and my sweet guys I didn't really think of this and you're probably going to say I should have spoken about it at the

start of the episode but guess what tomorrow is what your anniversary yes it's my one year anniversary which I don't know if this is a good thing but slipped my mind I'm like wow is that we're at. That's crazy. One year. That feels like the fastest one year I can even, wow. So much has happened. And I'm going to sound like the most vague old person right now, but like, it's crazy how something can feel like it's gone so fast and so slow at the same time. Like so much has happened, but it did, I did not expect it to be a year. I know. I just got goosebumps thinking like my weddings, plural, feel like yesterday. Like it genuinely, if you said to me, if I didn't overthink it, you said, when did you get married? I was like, oh no, like four or five months ago.

a year like I'm like what have I known what have I done in that time but I've done a lot I know that but a year I survived my first year of marriage when I never thought I would get married probably because I didn't see him for half the year I love that you completely forgot about it which probably also means that you haven't gotten him a gift what is one year anniversary is a paper no we said we actually said no gifts and I hope and I meant that I don't have anything for him and I don't need anything from him Ben and I are actually like I know we joke about it on the podcast a lot I genuinely don't need gifts I would rather a moment and a memory if that makes sense I would rather and a designer bag that is a beautiful memory no but I would rather any day of the week

him take me on a surprise that he has planned like a really nice dinner or something that we can experience together and I know people don't believe me because we always pretend that I love fancy things and that's because i don't dislike them but if i had to choose i had to choose i would choose that connection in that moment any day of the week and so we and we have spent a lot of money this year like fuck so like we are trying to say let's not waste money on superficial things but imagine if you could have like the connection and the moment and also a designer bag and the moment the moment comes in the bag on a yacht in sardinia that's what i'm thinking all right well my suck of the week actually my suck of the week is it's kind of a sweet but like

anyone who has a baby slash toddler i think would understand why it also is a suck poppy is at the stage where she's pulling herself up on everything but she's too much of an uncle that she actually can't hold herself up so she just falls down hurts herself so like she now could pull herself up on her cot except she's in a sleep sack and so all she does is go she gets up and she's like so bad And then she's up for about 30 seconds and then she fucking acts as herself. And so she, the amount of head knocks these kids had, like, she's like a footballer with concussion. Honestly, she is falling down off everything before thing.

Just rolls over, smacks her head, calls up on the coffee table, smacks her head. It's just this really precarious couple of months time where they have terrible core strength, but a lot of arm strength. So once they get up, they can't stay up. So anyway, that's, we're there. and my sweet for the week is you guys would know by now that we are having some time off for holiday like we're having our mid-year enforced podcasting ban and I'm heading over to India with my sister to go and do some Tony May work I'm like taking off the life on cat hat and I'm putting on the

Tony May hat and off I go but I like feel very excited about it because this is the first time that we've actually been planned and organized and like normally I'm not an itinerary person I don't do itineraries I just rock up and figure out what the fuck I have to do because Alicia does the itinerary true however last year my sister did the itinerary my sister is so organized that last year she organized her visa for us to go to India the problem with an Indian visa is that you actually have to do it really close to when you leave because it's only valid for a short amount of time like 30 days or something and my sister's so organized that she did the visa and by the time we rocked up at the airport it had already expired because she'd done it two months

earlier so she wasn't able to get on the flight two years ago and I ended up flying to India by myself I remember the reason why I'm excited this time I know ridiculous and she still talks about it because I think it like it truly hurt her soul it traumatized the type a personality that she is it punishes it she felt like she failed but this year like we have like such a good itinerary in terms of work stuff lots of goals to be kicked but also just like I'm really looking forward to taking her and going and seeing some of the stuff that she's never seen like I've been to India for like fun and for travel and she's only ever been there for work so like I'm really looking forward to having a bit of a mix of both this time and also it feels really really naughty

to have 10 days away when I have three kids like it feels like that's just an unthinkable you are not going to know yourself laws you're going to be like who is she I know you're going to be hung over I'm living with like simultaneous guilt but also I can't wait I'm so excited I'm so excited you're going to miss them so much though I reckon you'll even potentially book a flight home early not because you feel you have to because everything at home will be fine but you'll be nah she's gonna fucking love it she's gonna no you're gonna love it i think i'll be fine yeah you're not gonna care you're gonna be like touch my heart getting drunk on a school night anyway guys that is it from us if you have any questions for ask on cart slide on into the dm's

at life on cart podcast you can also join the discussion group or you can put your ask on cart in there as well and also all the episodes are available on youtube so you know the drill Tell your mum, tell your dad, tell your dog, tell your friends and share the love because we love love!