The Bossticks - Tactics & Tips For A Better Relationship - Couples Finance, Sex, Parenting, Future Planning, & Limited Fights

Episode Date: August 18, 2020

#288: On this episode Lauryn and Michael breakdown what they believe makes a relationship stay afloat. Covering topics on how couples manage finances, work together, parent together, stop fighting, and have better sex. The couple discuss why they believe their relationship works and try to provide tips and tactics for couples to stay in health relationships. To connect with Lauryn Evarts click HERE To connect with Michael Bosstick click HERE Read More on The Skinny Confidential HERE For Detailed Show Notes visit TSCPODCAST.COM To Call the Him & Her Hotline call: 1-833-SKINNYS (754-6697) The episode is brought to you by AncestryHealth  Your inherited health risks don't have to stay unknown. Learn if you're at lower or higher risk for some commonly inherited conditions linked to breast cancer, colon cancer & heart disease, with AncestryHealth. Find out what your DNA says about genetic risk with AncestryHealth®. Head to Ancestry.com/SKINNY to get your AncestryHealth® kit today! This episode is brought to you by Helix Sleep We are all quarantined and spending a lot more time at home. We are also spending a lot more time lounging around in bed. Make sure you have the right mattress to make enhance your sleep. Helix is offering up to $200 dollars off ALL mattress orders and two free pillows for our listeners at www.helixsleep.com/skinny This episode is brought to you by Versed. Versed is the non-toxic, cruelty-free, and vegan skincare brand that's hyper-focused on bringing you real results at prices your bank account appreciates. Their products are made with proven ingredients at skin-changing levels, without the fussy packaging and conventional markups. You only pay for what matters—the goop inside the bottle Get 10% off for first time users when you shop at versedskin.com with promo code SKINNY Produced by Dear Media

The following podcast is a dear media production. She's a lifestyle blogger extraordinaire. Fantastic. And he's a serial entrepreneur. A very smart cookie. And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic are bringing you along for the ride. Get ready for some major realness. Welcome to the skinny confidential, him and her.

Another Tuesday, back in the studio, fresh from Aspen, we are talking about so much many fun things today. I don't know if funds the word. Finances, parenting, working together, chores, friends, sex, conversations. It's kind of like a bag of fucking tricks today. Checks mix. You never know what you're going to get. Well, I mean, coming off the backs of the episode or the back of the episode of Dr. Alyssa Berlin, and a lot of people wrote in and said they appreciated that episode, liked it. It was a little bit of a couple's therapy session for me. And Lauren didn't know I was getting blindsided with a couple's therapy on that episode. But we did. And, you know, we've been getting questions for a long time. I mean, throughout the entire podcast,

And we've done a few episodes to address this, especially solo, but kind of getting into some relationship Q&A. So we thought it might be fun here to do a little bit of topic covering, a little bit of couples therapy together and talk through some, you know, issues that many couples face, that many couples have to navigate new and old and basically talk about how both of us navigate them in a relationship. And also I would disclaim here, or put a disclaimer on this, that this is what works for us. It's by no means going to work for everybody. But, you know, some of these strategies do work for us in a relationship. and I have been together now since what, close to over 10, 12 years, since we were 21?

It's been 87 years. Been married for a long time. Obviously, known each other for a long time, have a family together, work together, all these things. So, you know, there's some things we're doing, so not everything, but some things we're doing right when it comes to being in a relationship together. And a little context just for our relationship. So Michael and I met when we were 12.

And we like fell in love, if you want to call it that at 12 years old and dated. I put that in quotes from 12 to 13 to 14 to, I think, We broke up, we went our other ways, we did a lot of different things, and definitely hung out with a lot of different people. And then we got back together later in life. And now we've been together for 10 years. And I think the foundation of our relationship is, like for me, is that Michael and I really didn't want to settle for anything less when it came to marriage. Like, I guess what I'm trying to say is that if I wasn't with Michael right now, I don't, I think could be single. You're saying you found the very best there is to be found. For me. I don't know about that

after this episode. We'll see. But I think the first part of a relationship, like the foundation should be that you're not settling for less just because it's what society told you to do. I get a lot of girls that write me on Instagram that say, I'm 30 years old. I'm not engaged. I don't have a baby yet. I don't think there should be that kind of timeline on your life. I think that if you are single until you're 45, who cares? Who the fuck cares? I think this like whole pressure that society's putting on women that they have to be married and have a baby by a certain age is bullshit. So that's like for me like the foundation of our relationship. It's that we really didn't settle. Well, and I think this is not necessarily one of the topics we're going to cover. But we, Lauren and I, when it comes to our relationship and listen,

we work with a lot of different people in different areas and take all sorts of different advice when it comes to, you know, business or friendships or, you know, hobbies, whatever we're working on. But when it comes to our relationship, I think that one thing that has made us somewhat unique is that both of us have kind of put our head down, blinders on and really drowned out a lot of outside noise. I mean, it took us like five, six years to get engaged. Once we were engaged, it was like four years till married. Then we were married for a while and waited to have chill. Like, we've really kind of done things at our own pace.

And if we would have listened to what friends and family and other people outside the relationship had told us, I'm sure this would have ended up a little bit differently. And the reason I mentioned that is I think for couples, like the most important, piece of advice out of it. Like, you just stop the episode after this maybe. Like the most important piece of advice is that you guys got to do what works best for you in a relationship, not what your parents think, not what your friends think, not what other people have done. You know, you got to follow your model because really nobody else outside of the couple understands what's going on in the relationship or what's going and they shouldn't, right? Like it should be about the two people

that are in their relationship and nobody else. So the first topic, finances. So yeah, finances. So, I mean, this sounds like a boring topic, but there's, you know, we've gotten so many questions over the years about how to manage finances as a couple. And I think both of us have unique perspectives. We haven't talked about this before. We just like literally just have bullet points of topics that we're going to talk about. And how we manage finances. We'll tell you how we do it and what we think the best advice is for couples trying to navigate finances together. I personally think that I don't obsess over it. I think that when you get in the weeds with finances, things get tricky. I think you and I sort of have this unspoken understanding that we're in it together. We're on the same team or working towards the same goals. And if I overspend on something, you will say something to me, but you don't make it an issue within our relationship. Yeah, my perspective, and listen,

everyone's going to be in different circumstances here, but I'll make it very, like, kind of like, dumbed down. And I know there's granularities to this. And I know that sometimes there's marriages that occur where some people are financially better off and worse off. And so I get that there's intricacies here. Lorne and I personally have had the benefit of really kind of like growing up together in this relationship and building our careers together. So our attitude, whether she's doing better or I'm doing better is really, it's never about who has more, who has less. We take the approach that it's all equal, you know, it's, it goes into one pot. We all, we don't think about it. We don't obsess over it. She's not on some kind of like strict allowance. I'm not on some kind of strict allowance. We

manage it together. And I think that's what works for us is we make money a non-issue. It's not like who paid rent, who paid the mortgage, who paid the car bill. It's all just in one pot. And whether I'm making more or she's making more, I think we've just kind of both gotten a line and said like, we're going to make money a non-issue in this relationship when it comes to like who gets what. And we just look at it as like, this is the collective pot together for our family. And, you know, we both look at it now with the child and say, you know, this is eventually going to all be for her. So like we're both protecting that. So I think that's the all-in approach. my second take and then, Lord, you'd correct me if I'm wrong, would be if it's not an all-in,

all-equal-equal approach. It needs to be an all-separate approach and have, and completely separate. Because I think when you get into a back and forth about who gets what and who gets more and who gets less, that's when it gets dicey. I grew up in a family that it was very clear that both of my parents wanted to encourage me to make my own money and be independent. That's how I've grown up since I was born. Both my parents, my mom and my dad always stressed the importance of making your own money. I hope that I can teach that to my daughter. For me, I think that that's been really beneficial when it comes to finances because

if I went into a relationship with you, Michael, and you put me on an allowance, I would not feel free. You know, I would not feel liberated. For me, Lauren Everett's. I know everyone is different and everyone has their own thing. But for me, if you put me on an allowance, I think that would drive me fucking crazy. So I think going back to what Michael's point where he says, this is what works for us, I think you need to look at who you are as a person and then determine how you're going to do the finances based on that. And this is why I didn't want to get into granularities here and say like, oh, well, one per, you know, say you're getting married to somebody and they've got a lot more money than you.

And then they're the ones that get to make the money decision. Why I have a problem with this and if it's not an all equal approach and just, you know, and you're not marrying someone that saying, hey, this is all our money, is that then that puts that individual person in a position of power over you because they're controlling the finances. And I think that's difficult in relationships. So if you are in that situation, I would say maybe have conversation saying, is this an all equal or all separate? And if it's an all separate, that's okay too. If you're like, listen, that's your money. You have it. And I'm going to do mine and my thing.

Like, it's okay. And I know some are going to be. This is, it gets tricky with finances. But what I found looking at all the different levels and all the different types of relationships, what works, what doesn't preempts, no prenups, all this is that when you can get to a place where you take money out of the equation, is that. it takes the power dynamic and the power battle out of the relationship, which enables you to have a solid relationship. And by the way, some people really, really like to be in a marriage where they're on an allowance. I know I have a girlfriend that she's on an allowance and she knows how much she has to spend per month and she loves it. Like she likes having that structure. Like I said, though, it's like going back to the very beginning of this conversation. You have to do

what works for you and your relationship. Everyone's different. But for us with finances, we make it a non-issue. It's in one pot. What do we do with credit cards, Michael? Explain that. So to make it even more, like when you talk like concrete strategy, Lauren and I each we have businesses together, which we'll get into later when we talk about working together. And in that, it's obviously like equal businesses.

And then we have our personal bank accounts. And what we do there is like, you know, she has her personal money. I have mine, but we throw everything in one equal pot. We have joint business accounts, joint investing accounts. And like I said, we really look at it as like equal. And listen, I know there's a lot of people that are scratching their head saying, well, wait a minute, maybe I have all this. money I've done better and I just got in this new new relationship and like I shouldn't be giving all my

money. That's fine too if you have that approach. All I'm saying is down the line if you make money an issue. It's going to be a hard obstacle to overcome. And so it's better to have the conversation up front and say like, hey, is this all equal? Is this all separate? Is there an allowance? But somehow you have to take the dynamic and the power dynamic out of the money conversation so that it's not a focus and a detriment to the relationship. I think when I first met you, I was really broke, really broke. And Michael wasn't. you were doing a lot better than me. And I think you were very, very generous with me. Not in a way where you would spoil me, but just you were a generous person. So if there's ever been a switch where when I started making money, I wanted to give you the same respect. I think that's important

to think of it like a seesaw. You know, a seesaw at a playground. You should also say that there's also been times in my business career where like I've been on the down, even though I was doing better when we first got together. but there's been times when you've been doing better when I've been on the down, whether I made a stupid business or what, and you've supported. So it's like, it's been this very equal thing. And I think if we had the approach of like, oh, this is my money, your money, we could never got there. Like, Lauren has definitely picked me up when I've been down and I've picked her up when she's been down. And it's because it's the shared resources that we look at together and say like, this is for our relationship to build our

future. With finances, Michael and I also look at it with abundance and not scarcity. I've seen a lot of people with money always looking at it as like with such scarcity. And the way that we try to look at money is with abundance. It's like you want to work and work and work so you can spend and then you work and work and work and then you spend. And you don't think of it as like, oh my God, I have to hoard this away. Grudiness to me and being cheap is such a turnoff. If I was dating a guy or married to a guy and he was cheap, I couldn't do it. No, and I tell people all the time, like, you don't want to be in a position where somebody's controlling you with money. I think that's never going to end well. And I know there's a lot of people that get in those situations. And again, what's worked for Lauren

and I has been taking that out of the equation and making it a shared resource together so that it doesn't become a power dynamic, which leads us and Lauren, I'll jump into the next topic because I think this actually helps frame out the money conversation easier than other things is parenting. When a child enters the equation, this shared resource becomes even more abundantly clear because it, at least for Lauren and I, again, I'm just going to keep saying that this episode, it's not necessarily about her and I anymore and her and I's money. It's also about, you know, providing for, you know, this is what we're all here to do, providing for a new member of the family, a child for their future. And so even more now, this has become a shared resource. And I think if we

went into this where it was like, this is my money or Lauren's money, then you're like, well, what do you do now with the kids? So maybe now we could talk about parenting a little bit. here's a quick break to talk about something that I think is really important or we think is really important to talk about. You know, this year we have been talking a lot more frequently about health and health care and how to take care of ourselves and boosts immunity and look for potential risks and problems for our health. And that's why we are excited to announce this partnership with ancestry health. So for those of you that don't know what ancestry health is, it is one of the most advanced genetic testing technologies out there. So I took the test and I found out all these things about

my family history. I found out that diabetes runs in my family, so that's really good for me to know. And I also found out that we tend to run low in vitamin D. So to know this gives me the right tools in my toolbox. So I know I need to really, really up my D3, and I know I need to really pay attention to how much sugar I'm eating. So if you're out there and you sort of want to be preventative about your health, this kit is for you. It's really simple. You know, they send a kit. You basically just spit in a little vial and send it in the mail and boom, they send back the results to tell you what in your doctors what to look for and what to potentially prevent against. What I like about this kit is that most DNA tests don't give you all your genetic risks and this one does. And that's why I just think it's the best

on the market. There's two areas where people get the most stress and have the most problems in my opinion. And that's in finances and health. And I think it's because in both instances, we all get scared to look and see what's actually going on. We get scared to look at our bank accounts. We get scared to look at our health reports. And so we put it off and we never check. And then before we know it, the problem has gotten bigger than we can handle. So this is a, you know, Lauren and I are always talking about preventative measures. And this is a really solid tool to take something, grab it by the reins and say, okay, this is what's going on with my health so that you can potentially guard against any future complications. And since we have so many women listeners, I think it's important

to point out that one and eight women develop breast cancer in their lifetime. And about five to 10 percent of those have an inherited genetic risk. So now it's your turn. Find out what your DNA says about genetic risk with ancestry health. Head to our URL at Ancestry.com slash skinny to get your ancestry health kit today. That's ancestry.com slash skinny. All right. Let's get back into the show. The number one thing that I'm interested in teaching my daughter is resourcefulness. I think resourcefulness is such a tool in the toolbox. I don't think it's talked about enough. And I think when you're resourceful, you have the ability to sort of design your life how you want it. So that's for me, number one. And I think Michael has a very

similar opinion on that. We're also very big on teaching our daughter independence. I, you know, try to let her sort of go off on her own while I'm watching her, of course, but watching her out of my peripheral, not hovering over her. I don't want to be a helicopter parent. My parents weren't helicopter parents, neither were Michaels. And I just think independence is another, like, thing we really want to give her in her toolbox. And the third thing that we think is really important is probably resilience. And that's developing your adversity muscle. I think that, you know, for me, it's not always making her 100% comfortable. She's going to have to get uncomfortable because I think that if you don't work out that muscle, it doesn't get used. And I actually think

adversity is a superpower. Well, listen, I think this is what's going to be hard about being a parent, because I think, like, you know, I'm not going to lie here, this child is probably going to grow up with resources and in a way that is better than what we both grew up with. That's the whole point of evolving is, you know, each generation is hopefully set up to do better than the previous generation. And one thing that Lauren and I are very aligned on and talk about a lot is like, we don't want to make it easy on this kid. Obviously, like, we want to provide and make sure she's got all the tools to find her own success. But we don't want to just hand her everything. And I think that's very difficult for parents to do because, you know, we look at our kids and if they're struggling in any kind

of way, we want to jump in immediately and help them. And I think Lauren and I are like, okay, let's let her, I don't want to say suffer because that's a little extreme, but let's let her struggle a bit and that's something that we're aligned on how we do that. I don't know. Maybe some of you are sitting there as parents and laughing at us because we're new and like, yeah, good luck as soon as this baby needs anything. You're going to be right there. But, you know, I think about a child later in life when they become 20, 30. If they don't have the tools, if they hadn't had a couple setbacks, if they haven't had a couple hard conversations and say like and heard no a bunch of times, you know, the real world comes and it's a real place. And, you know, you've got to be able to

navigate that. So it's something that we think about a lot. I also think work ethic is really important. I started working when I was 14 and, you know, never stopped. I found how it was to make my own money and it sort of became like an addiction. I wanted to make my own money to be able to support myself. I didn't want to have to rely on anyone. That was like a very big theme of my childhood. I always say like everything was figure it out. You want something. Go figure it out. Go get it. So I hope that we can sort of instill that in her too. So yeah, I think like the biggest thing here is that when it comes to children, again, I'll go back to one of the things that, you know, we've talked about. about a lot is that we are kind of going about it in our own way. I've never heard and I've gotten in trouble in the podcast or saying this if people jump in and you know, you've heard me say this before that if there was a number less than zero that I could care about how people think Lauren and I should parent this kid, that would be the number. And I think this is because again, people when it comes to children relationships, people feel the need that their advice is best. They need to jump in. They need to tell you how to do it. And I actually think this is very difficult on a relationship

when you're hearing a bunch of different noise. Maybe, you know, your aunt Susie's coming in and saying, well, you do it this way or your friend, Jenny is coming in and saying, do it that way. And like, again, that's penetrating the relationship and getting into the relationship space where you start questioning each other. Why the fuck does anyone care how anyone parents? I don't, because I think parenting, like, it's so, it's so personal to people. And now I've had time because I've just been super blunt with people and kind of just been like fuck off. But I realize you can't necessarily just shut people down. Well, you can, but it doesn't necessarily always work well. But I think it's because parenting is so, like, some people like really,

like this is their identity they're wrapped in and it's so important to them, which I get, like, as a new parent. But I think sometimes people overstep the boundaries and they start putting, pushing their way on someone else. And like there's so many intricacies and so many different things that go on a relationship, so many conversations behind closed doors, so many different value systems, so many different ways that people view the world that I think this is one area. If there is one single area that people should not get involved with other people, it's telling them how to parent, because there's just too many dynamics there. Unless, if I can understand if someone's doing something that's

wrong or unethical. Like, that's one thing. But as far as just like people just giving blanket advice for no reason, it just feels like a waste of energy. It's kind of like how much content can you consume at once? You have to sort of narrow down your content so you can see and have clarity. The same thing is for me with parenting. Like, I don't want 5,000 opinions. I just, I just want to sort of follow my intuition and then maybe seek out certain sources that I seek out. I don't want 100 daggers coming at me. Yeah, so what we've done, and listen, we have not always agreed on what we want to do as parents. And what we, so what we have personally done, again, that's worked for us, is that we have a lot of conversations.

They're like, how do we want a parent? What do we want the baby to eat? How do we want her to sleep? What schedule? What do we want to eventually have her do for school? Where do we want her to grow up? All these things. And it's a very, it's very much a conversation just between Lauren and I.

And we get to a place where we compromise. And again, it's not my way or her way. It's a very lengthy, long conversation to figure out what's going to work for our relationship together. And that's the bigger thing here to, guys, is that in a relationship that's going to be successful, it's not always going to be your way. It's not always going to be your partner's way. It's got to be a healthy compromise. And that's the biggest thing in a relationship is if you can't compromise with your partner and get to a place, you're like, okay, like they have a point. I have a point. Let's meet in the middle somewhere. You know, and do it with reasoned thought. You're going to get

in trouble. And so for us, it's tons and tons of conversations without outside noise, figuring out how we want to raise this child and getting completely aligned so that we can, again, be equal in the input when it comes to parenting and take the power dynamic over like, you're doing this, you're doing that. It's very much like, again, equal the same way as finances. And I'll give you a very detailed opinion here, okay? So Michael really likes a schedule. He likes everything to be written out and drawn out. And he's very type A like that. He really wanted Zaza to get on a specific sleep schedule. And that was fine for me because I obviously have to work. I really didn't do maternity leave. So I had to work. And so having a sleep schedule has been

a savior. However, when we travel or when we aren't at home, I'm not as strict. So recently we just went to Aspen. She missed a couple naps. You know, she was in a restaurant and her stroller at certain times when she should have been napping. If Michael was super anal about that, I would not feel it was a compromise. I think that Michael has been able to be malleable with me in the sense that I like flexibility sometimes. And when I travel, I don't want to be chained to the crib. You know what I mean? I want to be able to be like, okay, today we're going to go out for lunch and she can sleep in her stroller and she's fine. So I think it's about having these conversations and like Michael said, making compromises that work for you. You were a little anal at first about the sleep schedule, though.

Well, because, you know, I like, I think I've figured out that, you know, I want to be able to spend as much time with the baby as possible. And sometimes I can't do that if she's not, like, if I know exactly when she's sleeping, when she's eating, when she's up, when she's down, like, I can't. I can't. But if it, if it's all over the place, sometimes then I can't and it compromises that. So, like, that was my thought behind it is that this is the most optimal way to be able to spend the most time with the child. Because sometimes, like, if she just gets up at random times and I'm doing something else, then like, I lose that time. You were chill on vacation, though. But that was time when I didn't have any other obligation. So I'm a little bit more chill. But when we're at home, like, and I'm working or you're working and the babies, right? Like, it's, to me, it makes a little bit more difficult. But again, this is what I'm saying to everybody is like, is you're going to keep hearing this theme is like it's, there's, you know, you're taking the power dynamic out of relationship. You're taking it so that one person is not a control. And I think, you know, in society, we've heard for so long. And this is maybe sexist comment, but men have been the decision makers in households for so long. And I think that's why we've seen struggles and relationships where Lauren and I like, you know, like, you it's very much an equal say in the relationship and we try to get to a place where we're both in agreement. Now, this brings me to my next topic or our next topic that I don't think everything should be equal. And that when it comes to working together. And I'm not saying it shouldn't be equal in terms of money or this. I'm saying when it comes to working together. Buckle up your fucking seatbelt if you're working with your partner. Buckle up. Yes. And it's, it's different. And I'll tell you why. This is different if you're building an organization or a

business because it actually can't always be equal. And I always tell people now that, you know, I've got 10, 12, 13 years under my belt as an entrepreneur, I will never in the rest of my career ever do a 50-50 partnership with anyone ever again. Like everyone can understand that, hear it. Like, here's me saying it. I will never do it again. I think 50-50 partnerships are some of the hardest things to navigate, some of the worst ideas. I'll tell you why. This is a situation if you're in a 50-50 partnership with someone where 100% of the time you have to be in agreement. And if you're not, then it either doesn't happen or it doesn't get done. And that's difficult. So for the rest of my career personally, I will either be in a 5149 where I'm fully in control or in the or in a 51.49

where somebody else is in control making the decisions because it's really difficult, which brings me to talking about working together in a relationship. This is not easy. This is probably the hardest thing that Lauren and I have to do together. We made a decision early on that we wanted to do it. but it's not easy. And I would preface this that I think, and Lord, tell me if you think I'm wrong here, I believe that the majority of couples should not work together. And there's a couple reasons for that. One, I think you get into a lot of different dynamics when it comes to like whose idea, whose venture, where there's so many different things. And I also think you get to a dangerous place where you start bringing work into the relationship, into the bedroom. It's hard to get away.

It's, you know, running a business, working together. It's a stressful thing. And again, you're bringing that into a relationship. Lauren and I got to a place where we realized that we just, you know, really love working together and building business together and we were able to figure out how to do it. But I think the high majority in like in very successful relationships, this is not like people who, you know, this is most relationships. I think that unless you can get extremely aligned on working together, you should not. Because it's definitely the hardest thing that's happened in our relationship.

I am going to interrupt the program to tell you about versed. You've probably heard about it on the skinny confidential. podcast, you've probably heard about it on Instagram. It's that pastel aesthetically pleasing skincare. So Verst is a non-toxic, cruelty-free, and vegan skincare brand that's hyper-focused on bringing you real results at prices your bank account appreciates. It's backed by experts and driven by community. I love this. Their mission is simple. Make good skin and clean products for all. So very, very, very affordable skincare products. If you're looking for a cleansing bomb, they have one. It's called day dissolve. It's major. It's cute. It works and it takes off your makeup. I don't like using

wipes on my skin. I feel like it pulls down the face. And with a cleansing bomb, I always feel like it lifts the skin. You can do some facial manipulation. They also have a weak and glow daily brightening solution, a press restart, gentle retinal serum, and a hydration station booster with hyluronic acid. Out of all of their products, though, and I've talked about this a lot, I am a huge fan of their lip oil. Specifically, it's their silk slip conditioning lip oil, and I just feel like it's not super sticky, and it doesn't, like, leave the lips after five minutes. It's this blend of a hoba, sesame seed, and sunflower seed oil, and it's full of vitamin E. So when you put it on your lips, they just feel really hydrated. There's no cracks in them. You don't get lip wrinkles. This is just the

product out of all versed products that I keep going back to. So definitely check it out. They are going to give you 10% off, okay? Get 10% off for the first-time users when you shop at versedskin.com with promo code skinny. Verst already offers skincare products at prices your bank account appreciates, and now they're giving you 10% off for first-time users with promo code skinny. Available at versed skin.com, spelled V-E-R-S-E-D-S-K-I-N.com with promo code skinny. You're going to go to their site, you're going to get 10% off, and you're going to pick up that lip oil.

Working together requires, practice, in my opinion. So I'll give you an example. When we first would do the ads in our podcast when we first started, it was a brawl. We would fight. We would go back and forth. I think I threw shit at you once. I mean, it was like a whole thing. Not just once. Yeah, twice, 10 times. But as we've gone on, it's become a lot easier because we know what irritates each other. We know which buttons not to press. And I think you become more savvy to the energy of your partner. I do think that it's more rewarding. Like I would say the reward is greater than not working together. I think that if you can if you can still stay in a relationship for the reward. That's the

hard part. Yes. That's the hard part. But you know, there's been lots of conversation on how it is hard to shut it off. It's hard. You know, we I think we put boundaries though now. Like Michael knows when we're in bed, he's not going to bring up something. You used to bring, when we first started dating, you'd bring shit up. Of all the things that we've had to work on, with the one of the, of all the hardest things we've had to deal with in our relationship, it's not parenting, it's not money, it's not sex, it's not friends, it's none of that. It's the hardest thing that we've had to deal with personally in our relationship is working a business together. Because, again, like, maybe you're out to dinner with your, with your significant other and, you know, they're trying to be intimate and you start

talking about the numbers. I've been guilty of that. Or we've been in bed and like, waking up in the morning and you want to talk about, like, who's hiring who? Again, guilty. Like, these are things and all of a sudden it's like, wait a minute, am I dating or married to my partner or am I laying next to my business partner? Like it's, it gets into a weird room. So, you know, again, I think with this, Lauren and I are extremely aligned now because we love building things together. But if we, this has definitely been the hardest area of our relationship. I think that to get really micro, we set boundaries. So now when I wake up in the morning, Michael doesn't bring me work at all. You haven't done that in such a long time. You won't, you won't come to me with something.

work related until like 10 o'clock. No, but it's taken six years. It's taken six years for him to understand that. There's been so many times, you know, in the past where he would come to me in the morning and I'm not the type of person that jumps out of bed and wants to start thinking about work. I need to set my day up. Another thing he does is you don't talk about, we don't talk about work in the bedroom anymore at all. Like, we're either watching Yellowstone having sex or sleeping. Again, six years though. Six years. Most people don't work that hard for six years. I had to train him like a dog. I did have to train you. It was like, you know those things that are on dogs that you have to press when they,

when they go outside the gate? What are this called? A shock collar? Yeah. Yeah, that's basically what I had to do. Every single time he would bring it up, I would shock him with one of my like evil looks or perhaps like something mean. Like I had to shock you. So I guess like what's the advice here?

Like, you know, Lauren and I in our own, again, personal life and for us, we're both very type A. So when it comes to the skinny, here's an example. When it comes to the skinny confidential, the skinny confidential, the skinny confidential, is 100% Lauren's brand. Everything you see that's put out, everything you hear has her approval, her stamp, it's her vision, it's her creative energy. When it comes to that particular business, I'm really, you know, I'm a co-host of the show. Sometimes she pays me.

Sometimes she doesn't. You know, I contribute here, but really like the creative direction, all decisions is her. And for me, who's also used to running my own things, like I had to make sure that I was good with that. I had to take the backseat there and say, Lauren's the boss here. in our relationship, nobody's the boss. It's equal. But in this particular instance with the skinny confidential, Lauren's the boss. Now let's talk about Dear Media with that. Lauren's obviously a partner with me, but decisions there and with that team are mine. She's very hands off. She's not involved.

But I will say things like here and there. I'll give you little things like that are my opinion, but I definitely do not step my toe over the line. Sure. But that's the point is like in that world, then I'm, again, this is taking like having somebody say, hey, we're working together on this. got to respect the hierarchy, we got to respect who's in control. So she takes a backseat there. When it comes to investing together, because we invest in businesses together, again, there we get completely aligned. I may really like a deal and say, Lauren, we need to do this. If she doesn't agree, then we don't do it. If she likes something and I don't agree, we don't do it. So business gets really tricky with dynamics because you have to navigate all these things and you almost have to act in

when it comes to business as a couple working together. You almost have to act as if you're not a couple when you're engaged in the business. What didn't you say? I think that you definitely have to sit down and write down expectations for each category. So sit down with your partner if you are going to work together and write down what they're going to do and write down what you're going to do and make it crystal, crystal clear. I think that is like one of the most important things you can do. And I think writing things down is so underrated. And when someone steps their toe over, like say that we, Lauren and I align and say Lauren's responsible for all the creative of the skinny confidential.

she is the director, she's the CEO, she makes every decision. If at any time she makes a decision and I disagree and try to step my toe over, she has veto right to say, nope, Michael, that's my area, you get out. But let me also give another example, which is the opposite of that. So I'm building a product line. I've been working on it for the last two years. It's almost here. Thank Lord. And there was something within the product that was being put out on the packaging that Michael just did not agree with. And I've never heard him. him have such a visceral reaction to something that I was producing. He had a list of reasons of why he didn't like it. So he just kept suggesting that he didn't think it was a good idea. And he didn't

really shut up about it. He just kept telling me that he really just doesn't agree with it. Finally, I was like, okay, Michael never, ever, ever goes this gnarly about something. So I'm going to take it off. And looking back, it was 100% the right decision. So I think you just need to pay attention when your partner comes to you and it like has a very, very strong reaction, maybe evaluate that, take a day or two to think about it before you just say no and shut it down. Well, and again, that sounds like I'm telling you what to do here. But in this particular instance, you know, ultimately it was your decision. And but like again, when you get in a position where every decision's yours and I think this is what good business leaders do, the best thing I can do at

Dear Media is be the most dumb person in the company, you know, once this company's fully built. Like that's my goal is to just surround myself with the smartest people. And as a leader of any business or any organization, it's my job to listen to the input of the smart people around and say, okay, do they have a point? Are they seeing something I don't see? And so, like, again, if you're in a business and then we're getting on a tangent and you're a leader, it's your job as the leader to hear all the different opinions and thoughts and make the best decision based on that. And you may get to a point where you disagree with all of them, but if you can't at least listen and hear, you get vulnerable. And so for this particular thing, I felt very firmly that it was a mistake to follow this certain path. And I think ultimately, Lauren, and a few of her partners came to that conclusion as well. And so again, it's not, you don't want to get into a positional relationship where you're not saying anything and you're scared to talk to your partner. You just have to be, you know, I, if she would have decided to move forward with that decision, I would have said, okay, that's your decision. Let's move forward. But I would have fucking said, though.

No, but I would have felt, but I would have never, like, if you ultimately said, like, that, like, that's the agreement we made is like, your creative director, you, you, you're the CEO of the Skinny Confidential. If that was the decision you made, like, I would have followed it. I just would have felt remiss to not say at least something for this particular instance. Thanks for giving me that tip. because it was a good one. So again, if you're thinking about working with your significant other, have about 50 million conversations, define the line, the lanes, you know, figure out that's what you really want, really get a line on what you want to happen, five, 10, 15 years down the line with

the business, which brings us to our next thing, which is aligning in your future. I think for couples, this is probably the most important thing. Whenever Lauren and I have struggles in our relationship, which I keep telling people, this is, it's frequently, it's because we haven't put in work to say, okay, what's our three-year plan, what's our one-year plan, what's our five, what's our 10. We really try to get a line in the future so that when we have these fights or we get off the path, we can say, wait a minute, is this working towards what we agreed on or is this working against what we agreed on? I had an anxiety attack in Aspen where I started crying and it was just like a whole mess. And you text me and you said, let's go on a walk and let's talk about what we're doing.

And we went on a walk. We got outside. We moved our body and we just sort of mapped out a plan for the next three years that is a plan that is just unique to me and Michael without any outside noise. It's a plan that him and I came together with and made. We didn't ask anyone's opinion. We just made it together. And it made me feel so much better. So I think you're so right. Like aligning your future is another foundation and key element of a good relationship.

Yeah. I think so many couples get into trouble because they start to fight and maybe it's like, you know, maybe if you were an outsider looking in on that relationship or an outsider looking in on your own relationship, you'd say, why are we fighting about this? This is so dumb. But so many of us, and Lauren and I have been guilty of this too, we get in these tit for tats, especially when you're in a relationship with someone where you start fighting about things. And you can't let it go. And it could be a small issue. And maybe there's underlying things. It gets bigger and bigger and bigger. And most of the time when Lauren and I, when that happens to us, it's because we've

either gotten misaligned on where we eventually want to end up or we've lost focus on where we're going. And so we start fighting about these stupid things. So now when that happens in our relationship, when we start fighting a lot, which happens. Again, guys, it happens to us. You get misaligned and you start holding onto issues that aren't important, and it's because you're not focused on the long-term vision of where you want the relationship to end up. And I think one of the main relationship killers is resentment. When you start to feel resentment to your partner, it's something I think that needs to be

acknowledged right away. I feel like resentment is like a cancer in a relationship. It grows if you do not nip that shit in the bud. So I think it's important also to examine the feelings that you're having. towards your partner when it comes to your future. So if you're feeling, if you're feeling something and you're not talking about it, it needs to be talked about. I personally think that I'm more effective in with writing something out. I like to write Michael a letter via text or I'll write it down and give it to him. Writing to me is just really cathartic. So whatever way you communicate

best, tap into that. You know what, Michael? What, Lauren? I have a new love. Uh-oh. Yeah, uh-oh is right. Helix sleep, okay? They have a mattress that is amazing. You get to personalize it. If you like a mattress that's really soft or really firm, or you sleep on your side or on your back or on your stomach, or you sleep really hot like Michael. With Felix, there's a specific mattress for each

and everyone's unique taste. Now, this is a big deal because I'm very, very specific. So you go on the site and you take this quiz. And you can pick if you're soft, medium, firm, if you sleep on your side, your back, your stomach, if you move around all night. Michael, you move around all night and you sleep hot. So I'm sure I know what your quiz said. You can also zone in on what your partner loves, which is amazing. And their delivery is quick. It's easy. It's efficient straight to your door. And let's face it, we're at home a lot more now. We used to spend a lot of time in bed. And I imagine many of you are spending a lot more time in bed now. And you need a solid mattress. I mean, so it's so crazy to things we think that we need to invest in life and how little thought

we put into something that we spend at least a third of our time in, which is our bed. It's got to be good, guys. Michael and I like to use our bedroom for sleep and sex, and we installed these red light bulbs in our room, and now we have a mattress that's optimized for our taste. So the whole thing just makes winding down so much easier. Helix has a 10-year warranty, so you get to try it out for 100 nights risk-free. And don't just take our word for it. The Helix was awarded the number one best overall mattress picks of 2019 and 2020 by GQ and Wired

magazine. So it's not just us that's raving about this thing. There's plenty of others. Here's what you're going to do. You're going to go to helix sleep.com slash skinny and take their two-minute sleep quiz and they'll match you to a customized mattress that will give you the best sleep of your life. Helix is offering up to $200 off all mattress orders and two free pillows for our listeners at helix sleep.com slash skinny. That's Helix, H-E-L-I-X, sleep.com slash skinny for up to $200 off. Guys, this is going to change your sleep. So the first step of you say you're in a relationship and we all do this and you start and you find yourself fighting with your significant other more and more is to say wait a minute. Are we aligned here on our future? Are we fighting about things that are important or is this something we can let go? Lauren and I talk about recovery a lot. We've talked about it early on in this show where it's you know we can have a blowout fight and then say okay we're recovering. If this is not that bad and we can say sorry and get up next day and say that was done moving on so many people especially young couples they get in fights and they hold on it's these tiny little issues that you know it's like making a mountain out of a mole hill. You can't You've got to be able to let things go if it's not, if it's something that's not so important.

You've got to recognize like, okay, that was stupid. Let's move on. If you got into fight with your best friend, you know, and it was some stupid fight, you would forgive. But sometimes in a relationship, these things fester and fester and fester. And I think it's because people get off the path to recovery and they can't get and say, like, wait a minute, that was stupid. We weren't aligned. Let's figure it out and move on. I think that we, too, I'll weigh the pros and cons.

And what I mean by that is the other day we were traveling together and we got in a fight. and the next day we were going bike riding and I was sitting there pissed off at you, not talking to you, ignoring you. And you came up to me and said, let's have a really beautiful day and just put everything behind us. And I had a choice right there to be to say, you know, F off or to say, you know what, you're right. Let's go have a really great day in Aspen.

And we went and ended up doing this amazing nine mile bike ride out in nature and had such a good time. And you realize what's important. But also like I would also add to the. that. Like, this shouldn't be an opportunity then for me to discourage or to set aside the feelings that you had in that fight. It's just more about like, okay, let's address why we got in the fight and why you felt this way. But in the meantime, let's not ruin our relationship in a great day on something that we could potentially recover from. And I think so many people get stubborn in relationships and they're like, well, I'm mad, so I'm going to stay mad. And to me, like, this is just

so counterproductive and against, like, why being in the relationship in the first place. So it's not disregarded and not acknowledging why Lauren was upset. It was just saying, like, let's have an opportunity to recover. And then once we got to a good place, we have the conversation on, okay, that was fucked up. How do I fix it? How do I say sorry? How do we move forward? I also think it's having an open mind to other people's experiences and opinions. So what I mean by that is, you know, reading a book on a relationship or practicing stoicism in a relationship or having someone on the podcast that knows a lot about a relationship and being open to hear. hearing about other people's relationships so you can refine yours. Michael and I are very open-minded

to hearing other people's experiences. And not in a, like, we don't like to be preached at. We talked about that earlier with parenting, but just being open-minded to hearing what is working for other people. And then we go back and we sort of discuss it together. So that's another tip. And I think one thing, another thing I'd say is like, Lauren and I, I believe we truly do love each other. We're not trying to put a round peg into a square. hole here. We, or is it a square peg into a round point, whatever the fuck. You know, everyone knows I'm talking about here. You know, and so we can get aligned and say, okay, we do love each other. We do want to end up together. We do want to raise kids together. And I, and so, you know,

we're willing to work on them. We put in thousands and thousands and thousands of hours of work, conversation, going through hard things, happy, sad, mad, all these things. And I think that's a foundational thing. So if you're in a relationship right now, you're like, wait a minute, I don't feel that way to these people and I don't really want to work through the problems. And I don't want to spend the time and all the hours to do that, you then got to ask yourself, is this the right relationship? For us, like the alternative, it's like that grass is greener thing. Like, there is no alternative for me. I'm hoping there's no alternative for Lauren. And so I know that we have to put in the work, or at least I have to put in the work to make sure this relationship works.

And it's honestly the hardest challenge of my life. Depends on the day. You never know. I'd like to keep you guessing. I'm a Gemini. Taylor, what do you think is your favorite part of our relationship? I'd love to hear what you say because you see the ends, the outs, the good, the bad, the ugly. the fucking pencil thrown in Michael's eye. He's like, these people are fucking crazy. You see everything. No, I think it's your willingness to meet each other halfway or at least kind of give and take. And I don't think I've ever really seen either of you be like, I'm going, this is my stance

on it. And I'm not willing to even see or try to understand the side that you're coming from. But you've seen us have some fucking blowouts. Yeah, no, I have. And that's what I mean. But still, even though they're blowups and I mean, I think that no matter how big the blowup is, that you always make it to a calm place at the end of the day. But I think that you're willing to give and take.

That would be a funny podcast if we pulled all the bloopers of all the blowups that are all the like edited blows on the screens. It's like a 400 hour podcast. People go like, what the fuck? These people are nuts. We should do that sometime. I think fighting is normal. And I actually would question a lot of relationships for people who don't fight.

They're either repressing anger or frustration with the other person. But it's normal. So when you guys fight it, I just, I sit back and I think, hey, this is good. Fight it out. Some of the best sex of my life is after a fight with Michael. Sometimes that's why I do it. No, sometimes there's been- Sometimes you got to rally up a little bit. Remember Palm Springs at my bachelor's party.

Some of the best fights, I like spice. I don't want some flat, limp dick relationship, okay? I need a little spice in my life. And sometimes I like to throw a grenade and walk away. And sometimes you like to do the same thing. I am a fiery, sassy person. And if you didn't fight with me, I would think I swear to God, be bored. Everyone that was listening to this episode and taking maybe somewhat seriously and being like

these people could potentially give good relationship advice. I have now been like, nope, these people are fucking nuts. They're throwing grenades at each other, verbal grenades. But no, I mean, I think the biggest thing here is to distinguish between like what's a healthy fight where you can actually work through and talk about issues and address someone's feelings and then fights that are unhealthy where it's just getting to a very negative place. You've lost love for each other. You're not, you're being mean. You're trying to tear each other down. We don't do that to each other. One time when I was 22, I throw him out in your face. Yeah, that was like, you kicked him in the balls when we were in seventh grade, too. I kicked him so hard in the balls.

Taylor record this. If anyone ever comes, you can say that she just, she just, um, admitted to physical abuse on me. But no, I, you know what I'm saying? Like some, we, we never get to a place where we're actually trying to hurt one another. It's just mostly expressing vocally frustrations of our feelings. And I think, you know, that's another thing. If you find yourself in a relationship, and we all know friends like this, where you get to a place where you're like, you're trying to tear your partner down. You're trying to make them look bad. They're trying to do that to you, vice versa. And you get to a place where this is negative and unhealthy. Like, just get back to place. But like, wait a minute. At one point, I really did like and love this person. I really

respected them. Like, do I want to end? Is it better to end the relationship and get back to that place? Or is there a way to work through so that you can get there again? There's nothing worse than that couple that you're out to dinner with who can't control their emotions because they're in a fight and it changes the entire mood of the situation. If me and Michael are in a fight and we're going out with another couple, I fucking rally. I'm like, okay, I don't want to change the energy of the room because I'm in a bad place. I think it's so horrible when you go out with a couple or two couples or three couples and someone is in a fight and they bring their fight into the entire crowd. I think one of the things that you and I really try to do is we try to have respect for

each other's privacy. Sure, we talk about it on the podcast, but at the same time, there's a lot of privacy to our relationship that people don't know. Oh, that's one of the biggest things I think, is I've seen so many, I'll call women out because I mostly have male friends. I have a lot of women friends, obviously, but I have a lot of male friends that complain to me about this, and I've seen it, where, like, their wives are significant others are tearing them down in front of other women in front of other men, talking about their sex life, talking about how they're so terrible. Talk about this. How about that? That's a very difficult place to get to when you're airing dirty laundry to out of the relationship to other people because how's the other person

supposed to react? They go and they see these person and then all of a sudden, like, they realize all of their dirty laundry has been aired to everybody else. So I think if Lauren are ever airing any dirty laundry, it's together or in front of people together. It's never like me venting about her to someone or complain about her to someone or her doing that to me. We never talk about each because, again, we respect and love each other. So we're always protecting each other and making sure that we're both privy to the conversation and not talking behind each other's backs. That's a huge one. I think that Michael's so right about that.

I have this guy friend and he was dating this girl. And I remember we were all like having drinks and he, he's started talking and she was mad and she just started saying your dick doesn't get hard. You don't fuck me right in front of Michael and I. And to me, that is not respectful to your partner. I don't think that's the way to go about it. I understand that she had anger and, and, bad energy in her and she wanted to get it out, but I don't think that's the time or place for it

in front of a table full of people. It's also not going to get his dick hard. It's going to make it softer. Just to prephrase that it wasn't me. Should we talk about you? Because I have a couple stories about you. Hold on it. I'm glad I'm a story. I have a story. Yeah, I have a story about you. Wait, I'm glad in the entire episode. That's when you felt that you needed to interject. Just clarify that it wasn't you. It was not you. But thank you for letting you know. The reason he wanted to clarify that it wasn't him is because. No, it's because I said the dick didn't get hard. Yeah. He could. He could. If I had said like anything worse than that, he would have been fine.

But that was like his one claim. I got to clarify this everyone. Yeah. Um, but the guy's dick ended up like shriveling into his intestines because he was so turned off and they ended up breaking up. Again, you're in an intimate relationship someone. This is the person that's supposed to protect you against everything more than your parents, more than your friends.

Like this is the person you've chosen to be in this relationship. And if you and if they betray that trust and start talking behind your back and talking to their friends and talking about without you knowing and complaining, like how do you ever get to a place of trust? And so, you know, again, maybe there's some people in relationships that don't hear this and be like, fuck, I'm doing that. I don't know with the path to recovery. I just think that if you haven't got to that place that you'd have a conversation and say no matter what, like we're not airing each other's dirty laundry. We're going to work through it together or or not. But this isn't the blueprint. Make your own blueprint.

Michael and I make our own blueprint. We're we're on this. We're reading the same book. We're on the same page. You might be reading another book. This is just our journey, sharing it with you guys, sharing what works for us. You got to do what works for you. sex is the next subject, which we already have done a lot of podcasts on. It wouldn't be, it wouldn't be a him and her show without at least a couple sex innuendos or references. Sex is important. I think it's, I think it's another pillar of the relationship. You got to have sex, in my opinion. Well, let me ask you this. Why be in an intimate relationship if you're not going to have sex?

And I bet there's a thousand answers they're going to come in. But like, again, like, do you have to be an intimate relate? Like, could you be in a relationship where, you know, couldn't you just be friends? Like, I don't know, maybe I won't understand this. But I think, you know, maybe you're still there because you have children. You want to keep safe for the kids. Again, I don't know. Like, I don't necessarily agree that that's the healthiest thing to do. But I do on one thing, agree, and I think longer is that sex is a pillar to a solid relationship

and that it's the closest, you know, form of being intimate with someone. And so it needs to be put on a pedestal. And I get that people get tired. People get stressed. You have kids. You add that to the dynamic. Right now I don't. We've had our lulls.

It happens. Yeah, right now I don't feel my best ever. I don't really particularly want to be in doggy style right now. You know, I'm 20 pounds heavier than normal. And, you know, it's not like my favorite time in the whole world to have sex, but I still think it's really, really important to make it a priority. I remember when I first started dating Michael and you wanted to have sex like every single second. And I called Julie, my stepmom. She does burlap and crystal and I'll say. She's all over my Instagram. And I said, Michael wants to have sex all time I'm so tired. I'm working until one in the morning. What am I supposed to do? And I thought she was

going to say, oh, like, you know, you just should tell them that you're tired. And she goes, Lauren, you rally. And I've never forgotten that. I don't think I've ever turned you down. And she does rally. She does. I do. I do. I always rally. And I think that's important. Like, if my husband wants to have sex, like, let's have it. And if I want to have sex, let's have it. Both into, like, everybody in a relationship wants to feel wanted and desired. And that doesn't necessarily mean it's always easy and you hit lulls and you go and, you know, and especially being in long-term relationship, kids enter the dynamic and like there's so many different things, work, stress, all these things. But if your partner is expressing that they're feeling wanted and you're not giving

it to them, like, that's a problem. That's when people start to stray. That's when people start to think about the grass is greener on the other side or to think about other people. It's not always going to be easy, but just like a very common theme of this podcast is you got to work at it. You got to work at sex just as you work at sex just as you work at sex. You got to work at sex. And if you're not what you get into a mismatch again because one partner may say like, hey, I need to feel intimate and I want this. Other person says not. Again, it starts to create a power struggle in the in the relationship. And so, again, it has not always been easy for Lauren and I. We've definitely hit lulls. We try to snap out of them. But what I found to get us out of the lulls on both of our part is when one of us just gets super

revved up and just keeps pushing for sex and it starts to happen more than slowly but surely it gets the other person back involved and then you start to have good sex again. So again, it's a conversation. We've had a lot of podcasts covering the topics of sex. You know, I think it's an area of the relationship. And Lauren, tell me if you disagree, where everybody should be very vocal and honest about what they really want, how they really like to do things. If you're not doing that, if one person's, it's not the easiest topic for everybody to talk about.

But if you can't get to the place where, again, you're both aligned on how you want to have sex, when you want to have sex, et cetera, you get to a weird place. I think the best sex happens when you're out of your natural habitat. So I think that it's important to mix up the environments. I think just having one environment where you always have sex is predictable and boring. So switching it up. I think that's always the best sex is when it's away from our house, in my opinion. Yeah. If you get to a place or like maybe, especially during this pandemic, if you get to a place where like, hey, I've been in the same house with the same person. It feels very boring. We don't feel like revved up. Take a road trip. Go down to a motel. Go to a hotel. Go somewhere. Go do something. Switch up the location, you know, do different things. Don't just accept that like, hey, we don't have sex anymore and it's over because again, like if you start to think about your life, five, 10, 15, 20, 30 years down the line, it's not like sex is going to go away. I mean, for some people, they don't care. But, you know, if you work at it and you do care and you realize, like, this is the person I want to be with. Like, it's something that you need to put a massive focus on,

in my opinion. I also think Halloween's fun because you can dress up as someone else. I also think we did sexy stranger. Can we talk about sexy stranger and going to tangent here for a second? Yeah. You did sexy stranger in the worst possible way. And I want to tell you why. did I do it in the worst way? Taylor, back me up on this. Okay. Taylor, don't back him up. You back him up on everything. Listeners. Taylor, if you don't back me up, I'm going to tell a story about it. A wig did look good though. No, listen, listeners back me up. I'll tell you why. Sexy Stranger. You didn't like getting a blowjob from Yvana. No, that was fine later. But let me tell you why sexy stranger was very, very awkward. We did it wrong. I'm telling you we did it wrong. So if anyone wants to do sexy stranger, let me tell you how to not do it. Lauren decided to dress up. She had a black wig on. She had this very slutty outfit on. She, you know, got all intimate and all this stuff. And the way that I thought about sexy stranger, I think I had like a cowboy hat or something stupid.

But the way I thought about sexy stranger was that I go somewhere and Lauren's there. We don't go together. And she's like either sitting at a bar or something like maybe a hotel bar or something. And then you like, I go up and people like, you know, we're strangers. And I go and I do my best to try to pick you up. But the way you did it was you booked us at, you know, Georgia Baldi, which is, is one of the most intimate restaurants in L.A. And we met there together. And the tables next to everyone else, guys, picture this. The tables are basically like you could reach over to the left or right

and grab something off of your neighbor's table. So like I could go and like grab my neighbor's wine glass or my neighbor's salad fork or a big knife on this case. You know, I have proper etiquette here that's set up. But anyway. And so when we showed up, we were supposed to do sexy stranger, but there was no, there was no room and we were sitting at an intimate dinner reservation. clearly knew each other, but you were dressed as like a literal whore. And I was dressed as a cowboy in a nice intimate restaurant. Everyone's like, what the fuck are these people? I like, I like, I like that. But I didn't even have the, you're more, you're more private and like secretive. I didn't even have the opportunity to pick you up. It was like, we were at the restaurant doing an intimate dinner already. Like I should

have. How would you have done it again? I would have gone to a bar or something and seen you and then tried to put the move on you and then picked you up and then take you to a hotel room or then take you dinner. But we would have this preset place that people were like, oh my God. Remember there's I loved it. My tits were on the tape. my vagina was else. There was nothing but, listen, I was wearing this black short wig. Respect to the elderly, but we were there like at Happy Hour, like, you know, early bird special. And these people were like, what are these two freaks doing? You didn't like my black hair. You said you missed my blonde hair after we had sex. Well, and it would have been weird because we were

already at the intimate dinner. And it's like, so like I, we got, we skip past the point of me trying to pick you up. You know, I had already picked you. We're at the dinner. And people were just like, Taylor, what do you think? What are your thoughts? I'd love to know. I don't know. I agree. Because I, if you think about it, the fun of being someone that you're, you're really not, is trying to work that whole unknown situation or encounter. We already ended up at the step of after you would pick somebody up. That was like three steps. Like say I picked a random girl up if I was single.

Like we wouldn't end up at that dinner place until later. Like this is like, hey, I see you at the bar. You're cute. I'm going to go and see if I can get something to done. But you skipped ahead to like step three. And then we got stuck between these two random people that were like, what are these two freaks doing? They could hear everything we were saying. Let's do it again.

Did you meet each other at the restaurant? Did you not, this is what he does every time. Yeah, we've met each other at the restaurant. But it's like saying like, hey, we like, it's not like, it was not some like big crowded restaurant where I got to go like pick up. I said, hey, do you want to have dinner? It was like reservation for Bostick and then two people. You is Lawrence at the bar and she should have told you, listen, I'm in the bar in this

restaurant. You need to come actually hit on me and hook me in to go to dinner. Like basically make you work for it. Okay, Taylor, let's do sexy stranger threesome and you and Michael can be sitting at the bar. That sounds even worse than the first one. So I'm, okay. So do sexy stranger, but make sure you don't do it the way we did it. Like actually have to go pick up.

We're going to do it again. You're going to be at the bar. You can pick me up. Next time I want you dressed like Brad Pitt in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Okay. Okay. I can dress like him. I'm not going to look like him, but I can dress like him.

I don't know. You're looking pretty good lately. Oh, we're going to do. Okay. All right. Our next and last topic is in-laws. Oh, in-law. Hi, daddy.

Hi, daddy. I don't even know where you're taking this one, but I'll let you take it away. In-laws, in-laws can be difficult. I've heard from a lot of different people. My in-laws are pretty cool. My mother-in-law is amazing. She's smart. She's savvy.

She's someone that I look up to and she's a role model. My father-in-law is loud. He's amazing. He's charismatic. So I got pretty lucky. And I think you got lucky with my stepmom and my dad. Yeah, I got no qualms, actually. I like, you have the best parents ever. So they're super easy. And so my advice here is actually really simple is make sure when you're finding someone that they have cool parents you get along with. That's not always easy. You don't always get that choice. But like, that would be my advice. If you can kind of vet the parents at the same time that you vet the- You knew my dad for so long that it was such a seamless relationship. And my parents are the type of parents that can come stay in a house with us. And they just leave us alone. They cook for us. They're so cool. They're so easy.

they like to drink margaritas and have fun. So Michael is really lucky. I got lucky there. And so like my advice is like that one is an area where it was kind of easy. But I would say if it's not easy, my biggest piece of advice is to trying to not get in between the parents and the son or daughter. Because that is a very dicey situation because you take someone who's been raised by people their entire life. Obviously I have a very, very, very close relationship, almost unbreakable in most cases. And if you try to be the person to get between that, you know, daughter and son and whatever, however the dynamics, you get to a dicey place because then not only are you fighting with the in-laws, but you're going to create potential fights or stuff. So sometimes in that situation, my opinion is maybe be a little bit more submissive, not be like, hey, it's my way or the highway. Like, try to understand, try to get a little closer to parents. You can't do that. I don't know the solution. But I do think that it's dicey to start fighting within laws. Don't do it. I have had so many girlfriends that try to get between the boyfriend. and his sister or the boyfriend and his mother. Stay out of it. Get your emotions under control

and look at it from a logical perspective. It is a losing strategy, in my opinion, to get between the mother and the son. For the husband to get between the wife and her father, it's just not a situation you want to be in. It's more stress than you need. My advice, if you have awful, horrible in-laws is ignore their energy and don't let it affect you. So, um, just, um, just, just try to be nice, try to be kind, but try to avoid as much circumstances with them as you possibly can. That is it. That is all we have for today. That was a little, you know, peek into our relationship. We thought that would be fun after the Dr. Elisa Berlin podcast. We talked all about postpartum on that podcast if you haven't listened. And we just thought it was important

for us to do a solo episode together. And the last thing I want to say, again, back to my original thing I said in the beginning, if you heard any of this and you're like, that doesn't work for us, then you can disregard all of it. Like, that's the one of the main things we're saying here is that this is what works for us. This is how we've navigated. But again, it's been in a way where we've kind of put our blinders on to what everybody else thinks about how we should be in a relationship, how we should parent, how we should manage finance. This is just what works for us. And if it can potentially help frame out what works for you, great. And if not, disregard it. This is just kind of like a peek into what, what's, what, how we go about it. And we're not perfect. We've got a lot of work to

do. I don't like, by no means am I trying to come off like I have. I have, the perfect Instagram-y blogger relationship, okay? We have a lot of issues that we need to work on. You probably saw some in this episode. But I think that's the beauty of the relationship. It's like we're working on it together. We're trying to grow together as better versions of ourselves. Yep.

And you really, like, honestly, like, some work that you really need to do on yourself is getting better at sexy stranger. Like, if you, you really need to think about how we're going to navigate that next time. You had a fucking cowboy hat on, Michael. Well,

no, I think Lauren, like, honestly, hear what I'm saying here. respect the conversation, think long and hard about how to be a better sexist. I'm sure you're thinking hard about it. Thanks for listening, guys. If you like this episode, let us know your favorite part on my Instagram at the Skinny Confidential. We love your feedback. And someone from the team will drop into your inbox and send a few of you Skinny Confidential pink stickers. They are cute.

They're on my Hydroflask and my charger. And with that, we'll see you on Friday.