We Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle - LANDING IN LOVE: Is the settling-in phase the best stage of love?

Episode Date: November 4, 2021

1. How Glennon and Abby transitioned from the “falling in love” phase to “landing in love” at different times—and how Glennon felt “bamboozled” by it. 2. How the self-inflicted guilt of pursuing joy ruins everything. 3. Why a precious gift from Abby made Glennon feel like she’d finally landed in the right galaxy. 4. How the things about our partners that drive us nuts are the same things that attracted us to them. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Whether you're doing a dance to your favorite artist in the office parking lot, or being guided into Warrior I in the break room before your shift, whether you're running on your Peloton tread at your mom's house while she watches the baby, or counting your breaths on the subway. Peloton is for all of us, wherever we are whenever we need it, download the free Peloton app today. Peloton app available through free tier or paid subscription starting at 12.99 per month. Hi everybody! You came back to We Can Do Hard Things. We're thrilled about that.

Today, we are answering your questions, but we're going to start today by talking a little bit more about love. Our last episode was all about falling in love and the wild experience that that is. And then the landing in love, which we discussed as the second part of love, when the chemical imbalance of falling in love starts to rebalance and we're left with ourselves once again. When the real love starts. And how, if we don't know better, we could think that love has ended when really it's kind of like the work of love actually begins.

So one of the things that people ask us a lot is when did we know? Like when did you know that you were in love with me and sister is doing the the air quotes because she doesn't believe in knowing or or anything. She doesn't believe in knowing or or anything. She doesn't believe in anything. She doesn't, you can slap the sentence that doesn't believe. She doesn't believe. Yeah. Like if sister were Ted Lasso, she would have a big sign over the locker room that says, don't believe.

Odds are will definitely lose. Right. Right. I have calculated the odds and there against us. So just everybody be effically realistic. Okay. Do you have a moment, a moment, babe, that you could pin point that wasn't that first night that we first met where we were just like, what is happening? That wasn't when we knew, we just knew something was up, but we didn't. When did you know? Well, I think we knew in retrospect, like thinking about what was going on that night

because there was a lot of confusing feelings happening. Like, what is this? Like, what's going on here? Manor checked for the listener because it sounds like you had some like hot, sweaty, amazing night. This was at a librarians conference where they just happened to notice each other from across the way.

So, I mean, that's what we're referring to here. Not like that night in the way that some most of us understand what that means. No, no, we literally had zero time alone together. We were in front of thousands of librarians discussing books. I mean, it was the hottest thing I can imagine. Yeah, that's right. I mean, it was the hottest thing I can imagine. Yeah, that's right. I mean, it was like there is a God. God would definitely set up my meat cute

with my storms of age. Light rays. Light rays. And light rays. And light rays. And light rays. And light rays. And light rays.

And light rays. And light rays. And light rays. And light rays. And light rays. And light rays. And light rays. And light rays. And light rays. And light rays. We spent months, months, and months apart. And right after that first night. After that first night, we never saw each other

for many, many months because we both had lives that we had to untangle ourselves from in some ways. I think that during that time, we spent time, some time talking on the phone, but not much, but mostly we were just emailing and texting. And I think you sent me a picture of you going to a wedding with the babies. And something had happened to Emma.

I had no idea what happened, but somebody took a picture of you holding Emma. Now, I don't know why. I, I, I don't know why this hit me, but it struck me so, it was just the most tender thing I'd ever seen in my life. The way that you were holding this child. And I know this is going to sound so bizarre, but like I could feel that that was also my child on some level because she came from you. And it was this cosmic, I don't know, it's this picture. And every time I see that picture,

I'm like completely reminded, oh, yeah, this is when I knew that I was in love with you. And this is when I knew that we were going to spend the rest of our lives together. You were just, you were radiant in this photo. And you, I could see straight into your soul. I don't know. I have no, there's no like factual, it's just how I felt. And I was like, yep, that's the person I'm gonna marry and be with for the rest of my life. She's holding my child. Like, what the hell is that about?

I don't know. Well, I would say this, I've never told the story before. I don't think. Yeah, I was gonna ask, you've never actually even told me, I don't think. Well, I don't know, I mean, I had a few different moments. I'm, but, and truly, a lot of my moments were with myself in the mirror.

Like, holy shit, are we doing this? Like, they were come to Jesus' moments with myself. But there was this one day where you sent me, it was the first, like, gift that you would ever send me. It was a package. And I got it at the door. It was a package from you. And I was like, oh my god, I don't know, I just felt like so intense about it. And I took it into my closet and I sat on the floor and I opened up the package. And this, first of all, this smell came out of it. Okay, this like, it was whatever you used to wear back then.

And it was like very masculine and feminine. It was just this smell that was so, oh my God, I remembered it from the first night when we met and it was, I still wear it now just so you know. Oh, okay. She can't smell it anymore on the account of the euphoria's gone. The euphoria's gone, so now it just smells like effing cologne,

all right, whatever. She's just covering up her body odor. Right, but back then it was as if like magical fairies had escaped this box and this smell was just like, and then I picked up the next thing. Well you had sent me a t-shirt to sleep in covered in your, so I was just smelling this t-shirt. And then I picked up this, it was like this big booklet, like stacks of paper, stacks. And it was this, it had to be four inches and it was a stack of computer paper.

Two reams. Two reams of paper. And it was every single email that we'd ever sent to each other, which was wild, that it was that thick already, by the way. I mean, we used to write to each other for hours and hours and hours. But you had printed out every single email,

stack them with a thing. And then I don't know if you remember this babe, but you had tied it with this precious colorful twine. And then it was tied in a bow. And then there were three little letter cubes, like almost like plastic scrabble pieces that you had weaved onto the twine and it said, G-O-D. Tied into, and I was like, what?

First of all, it was the most, that was the moment where, first of all, why did you do that? Like, what was the G-O-D? I still have that twine sitting on our, the God twine sitting on our bookshelf upstairs. But can you just tell me because I actually don't know that story, like, where did you get these plastic letters? Why did you choose GOD?

Were you at a freaking craft store? Like, how did this happen? Well, I was putting together a gift box for you. And I don't know, I was at this store, and I just felt like... Well, to go back, you have up until this point been talking to me about your God. And for the first time in my adult life, I started to consider that maybe my definition

of God was changing. And I felt like everything that we were communicating to each other in these emails that I was print that I printed out and I wrapped up and I sent to you, I felt like it was holy. And also your first initial and your last initial is G.D. So I thought, oh, this is kind of sweet that her first initial and last initial is G and D and I could just throw an O in there. That would be really special. Cause I felt like everything that you had said to me and I don't know, it was just such a beautiful time for me. Not only to experience that falling in love, but also to experience God in a different way

that felt more comfortable, I guess, or felt more believable for lack of a better word. And loving. And I don't know. I just, I have always just felt like you had like this portal, like this portal to the divine that I've been so curious about and in some ways jealous of like, how do you believe all this shit? So so so effortlessly. You know, the only thing I do effortlessly. Well, that's amazing.

I think there was something for me about opening that box that was so specific to you and also it was my first understanding of this feels so feminine. Like this is love, feminine love. Like the twine and the letters and the smell and the detail of, I just, I can't explain it. I just remember thinking of, oh, this is what it's like to love a woman.

Like this is, I'm landed in the right galaxy. I don't know, I felt like it was the finally living in the right planet of love for me. Like, the gift was something that felt like love to me. Whereas, the gift side received from other gender. Always just felt like something. I was like, thank you for this thing that there was too much of a gap between it or something.

Then all of this mystical shit we've just been talking about wears off. And now we're just arguing about toothbrushes and have this different level of love, which we actually think is realer than the beginning. Like the beginning phase of landing in love was kind of difficult for us. I don't know if you remember. Yeah, I was awful and terrible. Well, we struggled. We were in a power struggle because for a lot of reasons, but I think you lasted falling in love a little bit longer than me. And that was like hard.

Like we weren't in the same plane at the exact same time. And that was confusing. It was really hard. And then the landing in love period, I don't know, that just that beginning phase was hard. Like we were fighting, we were like nagging and fighting. And like, it's almost like, I can't believe you've been this person all along. Exactly. I got bamboozled. That's how we felt. What the fuck? We got bamboozled.

We were it was like somebody drugged us. We were swimming and while we were on a trip, somebody let us get married. And now we've got these papers and we're just starting to get to know each other. And it was a power struggle in the beginning. We had so much to work through with really getting to know each other. We'll talk about that another time. We'll do a whole thing about that about that phase and what that constant power struggle was like in the beginning. But now we have different moments where we're not, you know, in mystical situations with fairies and closets. But I will tell you that I had a moment recently with you that I felt like was a landing

and love moment and it was, I don't know, really late at night. I was already in bed and so tired, so it was probably like 830. And you would just take and hatty out our dog for a walk. And you noticed that she had something in her paw that was bothering her. Okay, and you brought her back in. So I'm laying in the bed, watching you in the bathroom on the floor

with haddie. And you're like curled up with haddie with this whole set of tweezers and all of these tools. And you just spent like half an hour on the floor with haddie getting her paw free from whatever was hurting her. And that was, I just was watching you like, oh, wow, that's love. And I, and my thought was I would not do that crap. I would just work till this thing just gets, I would just not do that at this late at night. I would not have that level of tender care that you are giving this dog. And then remember you asked me to do one job. Well, while I was in bed, do you remember what, I just just while telling the story, remember this.

Do you remember what you asked me to go get? Mm-hmm. Okay, you said Glennon, I just, can you just do one thing for me? And I was like, okay, you said, can you just go get me some salt? Oh my gosh. Yeah.

Because you needed it so her pollen get infected. Yeah. So I very heroically got out of bed, walked upstairs. And do you remember what I am? You brought the sugar. You brought the freaking. No, no.

You brought the pepper. I brought pepper. I brought pepper. Cause it was, I've had it next to you got back in bed. You said Honey This is pepper And I was like well, I think it'll still work So that's what landing in love is it's somebody on the floor getting poop out of your dog's paw and

then your partner bringing you pepper, and you somehow finding love in the midst of all of that. I'm Jonathan M. Hevar. I'm a podcast producer and someone who likes fancy things. But I grew up working class. My parents were immigrants with factory jobs. And because of that, I think about class a lot. And I want to talk about it. That's what we're doing on my new podcast, Classy. And what did you all eat?

You know, trailer food. I was like, girl, why not doing that anymore? You'll hear from people who told me awkward, embarrassing, and strangely intimate things about what class means to them. She said, you know, for the house cleaner, I hide the tag on the $6 bread. And I just thought, don't you think she knows that you're wealthy? You're hiding the tags from yourself.

Classy. A new podcast from Pineapple Street Studios. Available now. Wherever you get your podcasts. They've had you had any landing in love moments. So I actually started this podcast telling all of us about recently, Glenin, okay, recently I have gotten Glenin and I into it. I have a tendency to get us into things because as you may remember on one of our podcasts, I sometimes say too many things. I can't wait to hear this. I don't even know this story. I say the thing and then a lot of times I'm like, I did it. I did it again. And now we're in it. And now we've got to find our way out of it.

And Glennon is often always the person that solves the problem I've created for ourselves. She's from I've created for ourselves. Yeah. So good. And recently I've got us into into it again because I just I'm working on it. I'm trying I'm just still not yet there. Like a family thing or a work thing or a neighborhood thing. It's a friend thing. It's how do we describe this not describing it? It's you know sometimes when I over think

what I'm gonna say. Mm-hmm. Okay, so I think how is this gonna what is that other person gonna think when I say this like what what's gonna come out of this, what's gonna happen? How does it implicate the entire ecosystem over live? Exactly. What is that person gonna think about my wife if I say this? What is I'm overthinking it? And here are the things that I go through in my process. That's it, nothing.

I go through no process. I go through no process. Sometimes something is said, and I'm like, Oh my God. Like, you can't just say that. The other person. Like, she said something that made another person really excited about something that we're never going to do. Okay. So it's like, it's something that I wouldn't have said until a year of consideration. And of course, I didn't even talk to Glenn in about it. But I will say that it was in a conversation where she just like said something. And then afterwards, I was like, babe,

what are we gonna do now? Like what's gonna happen? Like that part, and she said, well, everybody knows I was just kidding. I was just kidding. But sister, I need to tell you that what she said was the thing and then she said, also, I am totally not kidding. Ha ha, what's the rest of the story love?

So the whole point of the story is the way you have responded to me getting us in it again, makes me know that we are landing in love because this feels like a part of my personality, though it's just a behavior that I'm working on. It feels like I am flawed and yet you still love me. The way that you're responding to it. It feels like you're responding to it in a way that makes me know you're not trying to change me anymore and just trying to like love me through some of my faults

or failures or little, little, little knits that I get us into. And I just think that... Well, it's not a flaw. It's just a shadow side of a beautiful thing. Everybody's, I don't think it's any bad or good thing. It's like, oh, I overthink things. Everything I'm gonna say, I'm thinking about forehand, afterward, blah, blah, blah. That's like, I guess good in some ways,

because I'm always thinking about everyone's feelings and terrible in some ways, because then conversation can feel very controlling or manipulative or not in the moment. Your situation, sometimes you get us into it. That is for sure as hell true. But also, the positive side of that is that you're the most present, fully yourself, you're not, you're not like presenting different sides of yourself all the time.

It's what people love about you the most. It's a beautiful thing. And I think what happened to me during that particular situation, I'm starting to think more about the fact that sometimes I care about other people's feelings more than I care about my family's feelings. Like that's how it feels. Like I feel like you said this thing, Abby, that now this person that's not even, they're gonna have their feelings hurt. Well, okay, but like, am I gonna hurt your, feel, care more about that person's feelings than my wife's.

Also your own feelings. But if I like shame you about it, then I'm valuing that person's experience more than yours because I know that you didn't do anything with that intentions. Yeah, and also, I mean, I understand like there's impact on what I do. And so I already feel bad. Like I already know that I'm in it, you know, so I mean, long story short, I just think that like us landing, I feel almost every single day, I feel like there's a moment where I'm just like, wow,

wow, this is just really something. And I can't believe because this is the part of love that I've never experienced. I've had the in love bit. I've gone through the wild stages of it, but I've never successfully landed in love, like truly landed in love in a way that I know that this is, that you are actually, in fact, the one. Do you think, okay, here we go. Do you think that love, like we talked about this last night, if somebody could, if somebody asked us what is the one strategy to make love work, I would say working on yourself. But that's it. Like, I know there's not one strategy, but if I had to boil it down, it would be like a relentless pursuit of dealing with your own shit. Do you agree with that or disagree? Yeah, I think that I agree with that, but there's equal parts of dealing with your own shit. Do you agree with that or disagree?

Yeah, I think that I agree with that, but there's equal parts of dealing with your own shit and also inviting your partner to participate in that journey. That's something that I value so much about you, Glenin, is you never force me to evolve or growth or work. Like you just do it yourself. And that is like this beautiful gentle reminder. And then I see things like actually work. So I'm like engaged and enticed in some ways to do this work on myself. And I think you know that I've been kind of afraid of myself my whole life. And being as gentle as you are in our love makes me feel like, you know, we're five years in. I'm like, oh, okay, like I can start working on myself now. It's good on you.

Sissy, what do you think about all this? Another way to say the most important thing to work on yourself is to say, stop looking for everything, for the answer to everything you need and the culprit for all of your qualms in the other person. I feel like, yeah, I feel like it's so often, like, if you're a partner in life and something in your life isn't going well, they're the obvious person to be like, if things were different, I wouldn't be feeling this way. And obviously that's on you

or if I feel uncomfortable right now in this conversation, in this day, in this life, that's you. I think that's especially true with right now. We've been so cooped up in our houses. We're used to having this outlets with friends who meet certain needs, family who meet certain needs, activities, and things that meet certain needs.

And we've been in this very weird period where our only outlet has been the person we're with. And that's just to set up. Like that's just, it doesn't work and it never has worked. The reason our relationships has worked is because we've had this whole supplemental life surrounding our units and that whole life was taken away. And now we're looking at our people and being like, this isn't going to cut it. But that's not sad or unromantic. It literally another you and one person were never supposed to cut it the whole time.

Like you always had a full life to make it work. And I just think that to me, it's just realizing that is helpful because it doesn't necessarily mean that this isn't going the way it should. It just means that this was never supposed to be the only thing that kept things going. Yeah, that's good.

All right, let's get to some love questions. And by the way, for any of you who I don't know, how many of this people this has happened to, but if you're somebody who has never fallen in love, I didn't fall in love ever in my life until I was 40. How old was I 40 when I met you babe? So I don't know what I wanna say about that. Other than I get it, I get what it's like to not have that particular experience. And I had a really full life without having had that experience.

I just want to say that I had all different kinds of love in my life. Yeah, you fell in love with the babies. I fell in love with the babies. I fell in love with my work. I had always had this God thing going on. I had fell in love with my sister. I fell in love with the babies. I fell in love with my work. I had always had this God thing going on. I had fell in love with my sister. I fell in love with friends. I fell in love with books.

I don't know. I just think there's a lot of different kinds of love. Agreed. That make up a full life. Agreed, but they're still only the ones. So. All right. First question.

Let's hear from our beloved pod squad. My name is Elizabeth. I wanted to see if you could dig deeper into that year of your life after you met Abby and you were exchanging emails and falling in love with each other. were exchanging emails and falling in love with each other. How much did you wrestle with the decision and how did you come to the conclusion that you were in the same place? through something similar right now and I'm scared that the guilt of pursuing joy is going to ruin the potential of the future is going to ruin. I would agree with Elizabeth that the guilt of pursuing joy does ruin everything, right? It's just that it's not the pursuit of joy that ruins things. It's the guilt of pursuing joy that ruins things. And I do believe that the guilt of pursuing joy is something that well for everyone is especially deep in women. I remember saying to a friend,

when I was deciding what to do about Abby is just saying, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna do it. I'm not gonna leave my marriage, I'm not gonna go. I know this is gonna hurt. This will probably be the most painful thing I've ever gone through, but I also know that I always learn from pain. That the most painful

things in my life have been the greatest lessons afterwards. And so I will learn from this. And she said, yes, Glennon, you have always learned from pain. What if you could also learn from joy? from pain. What if you could also learn from joy? Hmm. What if that's what if that's the first plan? Yeah. Learning from joy. And then that we just default to the pain because we didn't pick the joy because we deeply and somewhere in us have the misbelief that the suffering is what we deserve. So we have to find the lessons there because we keep picking it. I am still waiting each day because of my deep beliefs to be struck down somehow for pursuing going to be a person who's not going to be a person who's not going to be a person who's not going to be a person who's not going to be a person who's not going to be a person who's not going to be a person who's not going to be a person who's not going to be a person who's not going to be a person who's not going to be a person who's not going to be a person who's not going to be a person who's not going to be a person who's not going to be a person who's not going to be a person who's not going to be a person who's not going to be a person who's not going to be a person who's not going to be a person who's not going to be a person who's not going to be a person who's not going to be a person who's not going to be a person who's not going to be a person who's not going to be a person who's not going to be a person who's not going to be a person who's not going to be a person who's not going to be a person who's not going to be a person who's not going to be a person who's not going to be a person who's not going to be a person who's not going to be a person who's not going to be a person who's not going to be a person who's not going to be a person who's not going to be a person who's not going to be a person who's not going to be a person who's not going to be a person who's not going to be a person who's not going to be a person who's not going to be a person who's not going to be a person who's not going to be a person who's not going to be a person who's not going to be a person who's not going to be a person who's not going to be a person who's not going to be a person who's not going to be a person who's not going to be a person who's not going for myself because it will cause pain for my people, for my kids, for my parents, for Craig, for sister, for everybody.

What I will tell you is that there is some pain in the beginning because women have created ecosystems where their denial of self is what makes everybody else's lives run, what we consider smoothly. And so when a woman does choose joy and does choose her own self, her own path, everybody does have some equilibrium in the beginning, which they might consider pain. And then, what happens is that everybody in that ecosystem watches the woman choose joy and slowly learns,

oh my god, we get to choose joy. What? Watches the woman come alive. Watches the woman refuse the narrative that the woman is the martyr and slowly disappears for the rest of her life. And watch as the mother or the sister or the wife or the whoever come to life. And that woman choosing joy, like a ripple effect, grants permission for everyone else in her circle to choose joy. And that is how freedom and the pursuit of joy becomes contagious. when the pursuit of joy becomes contagious.

So, what I would say to Elizabeth is please do not be afraid of the pursuit of joy, but please be avoidant of the guilt of pursuing joy. Okay. Hi, Glennon and sister. My name is Hannah, and my heart thing is falling in love. My marriage fell apart last year, and I'm now divorced, and I found myself unexpectedly falling in love with an absolutely wonderful person. It's been incredibly difficult to make myself vulnerable again, and I find myself wanting to be absolutely sure that it's right this time before I let

myself fully dive in. And when I say absolutely sure, I mean, beyond a shadow of a doubt that is going to be good forever, which is something that I know I can never have guarantee on. Also, I'm doubting myself because I got it so long last time. Do you have any advice about letting yourself follow me up and be vulnerable after heartbreak? Thank you so much. Bye.

Ah. Hannah is my favorite. So I just need to know how to be absolutely sure beyond a shadow of a doubt. But this is going to be perfect until the day that I die. So if you could just tell me that, yeah, this love needs to come with a lifetime warranty. I can't turn it whenever it breaks bad. warranty I can turn it whenever it breaks bad. I love that. Oh God. It's so hard to trust again. It's hard to trust yourself again, right? Like, why do we keep entering into these things that could crush us, could annihilate us completely? Does anyone have any good words for Hannah, sister, Abby? I feel like I really am interested in the part that she said one of her key struggles is based on the fact that she got it so wrong the last time.

And that resonates with me a lot because I think after my first marriage and everything that came with it, the first couple of years after it were completely, it was hard to trust, but the hardest part was trusting myself, myself and my instincts and my judgment, because clearly I had very consciously chosen this person, clearly I had not seen what I should have seen throughout it.

I started to think of it a different way. Like I'm not sure I did get it wrong at all. You know, I think it's kind of like what we talked about in that last episode about if your whole life is a love story and you're just, you're just telling stories. You know, you're just, this is what happened. This is the way I felt. This is what they chose. This is what I chose. I mean, we're so fixated on deciding what's right

and what's wrong and attributing how it ended to cover the whole chapter. And I just don't necessarily, I think if we let go of that, we could really let go of a lot of the problems that we have for ourselves. Because I just think, I think maybe you didn't, maybe you got it wrong,

but maybe you didn't. Maybe that was just a love story that ended how it ended. And maybe there were a lot of really great things about that. And maybe there was a reason you ended up there. And, and there's a reason where you are now here. Nothing has to be wrong and nothing has to be right. It's just like, here you are. Are you chapter? It's just a chapter. And I don't know, I think we hang a lot on that that is not necessarily helpful to us.

I get avoiding wanting to avoid pain and avoid the kind of crushing blows that come with things. And I would say to Hannah, I like to think of what I can control, what I can't. So Hannah, what I cannot tell you whether this person is going to abandon you, ever, emotionally, physically, whatever. But what I can suggest to you is that you make a commitment to yourself that you're not going to abandon yourself? So when you say things like fully dive in, that's like romantic bullshit language. That's the kind of thing that we tell ourselves

and we're like, okay, should I go unconscious? Should I just do the thing where I just am in love and I'm just in it and I'm whatever? No, we're gonna stay awake. We're gonna not abandon ourselves. We are going to not turn our intuition off. We can trust relationships if we trust ourselves to stay conscious, to admit when we see a red flag,

to not allow our boundaries to be crossed, to stay away. You can trust other people to the extent that you can trust yourself to when things start and if things start to feel wrong, to say it, to not completely lose ourselves in any relationship. So I guess what I'd say to Hannah is like, I can't tell you what this other person's gonna do, but I can tell you Hannah that you can be a woman who's not gonna abandon yourself. And if your gut is telling you that this is right for you right now, go in knowing that you will go out the minute it stops being right for you. ["In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the In the and I'm Abby. I love your story of falling in love and the family you've built together. The most amazing part is how easily your children and ex-husband seem to accept you and your relationship,

but sometimes it seems too good to me. Many of us are not surrounded by people who are accepting and understanding, and we risk real anger and damage in choosing us over them. My question is, what do you do if you fall in love, but that love risks the loss of your children? A while ago, a friend of mine told me she was in love with me. It was a shock as neither of us had been with a woman and she was married with kids. Since then, we have fallen deeply in love

and have built a very strong and amazing relationship that is based on trust, acceptance, and love. I can honestly say it is the most beautiful thing I have ever been a part of. We struggle with one outstanding issue. Will we be accepted by her children, or will our relationship cause a rift that we cannot repair? They are teenage boys and her ex is openly unaccepting of the LGBTQ community and voices this around them. She cannot live without her children, and I do not want that either.

But he is a very dominant and controlling man. So we struggle with how to move forward if we cannot be open with the only people who matter. In telling them, she risks losing them. And not telling them we can never be whole. We have spent many hours crying over this reality and cannot see a way through it. Yeah, I read this a few days ago and I've been thinking about Ginny every night when I go to sleep, I think about Ginny and I want, I really want to hear Sister and Abby what you have to say about Ginny's situation, but what I keep coming back to what you have to say about Jenny's situation, but what I keep coming back to is this.

There's two situations here. She uses the terms, I think, controlling and dominating. Is that right? So my first question is, is this man abusive? If this man's abusive, then there's a whole other set of things we need to do. The second option is that he's not what they would define as abusive but is clearly controlling, dominating, intolerant, bigoted is what I'm reading here. I just keep thinking that this family needs a hero. That somebody along the way is gonna have to break this pattern

of this person who is living, who is controlling this family with bigotry, with anger, with domination. Somebody's gonna have to break that pattern. This sounds like the family, including Jenny's love and those children, those teenage boys, are living in captivity of this unhealthy controlling pattern. And I just keep thinking, like,

is Jenny's friend gonna allow her children to be the ones who have to break that pattern? Like does Ginny's love this woman, does she want her boys to be able to live their lives free from this oppression? Even if those lives are not what this dad would deem acceptable. Does she want freedom for her sons? One day, from this dominating controlling man. If she wants that for her sons, what a beautiful time to be the model of that now,

to be the pattern breaker, because we cannot expect our kids to do what we will not do. So, isn't it, if not now, when does Ginny's love decide to model for her children that we do not cower and defer to police? Like, isn't it, to me, it feels like now is the time for Ginny, Ginny's love to change the pattern of this family, to stop even if it causes all kinds of destruction first because reconstruction always causes destruction first.

And I just think at the end of the day, this isn't a story about gainess. Like I just want to say, like, being controlled by a dominating and controlling and bigoted man is not okay. Yeah. Like I just want to say that, like this is not okay to be held hostage for a family to be held hostage by one dynamic like that.

And I just can't, like she said, Ginny said, I can honestly say it is the most beautiful thing I've ever been a part of. Like just please, even if it's hard, you pick your heart. There's, it's hard to stay in a family where there's a dominating scary presence that controls everything. That's hard. It's hard to break free from it, but both are hard. So pick the beautiful hard. Right, don't give up the most beautiful thing

you've ever been a part of to maintain something ugly. And it might get, it'll get harder before it gets better for that family. I mean, the reality is their teenage kids and they'll be half of the time with a dominating controlling bigot who is bashing their mom and their mom's partner. So I mean, the reality of it is isn't gonna be like, tell the truth and it shall set you free

and these teenage rules will be like, we've been waiting for this moment of liberation where we can get under what the reality is, free and these teenagers will be like, we've been waiting for this moment of liberation. We're like, you got it. Right. Well, under the, you know, what the reality is is that they're going to be living with him and it's going to be very hard. I mean, if it's hard for their mom, it's going to be hard for them to deal with that. So, but they are teenagers, right?

So they're going to live with a lot of turmoil for the next few years while they have to navigate their dads, discussed and to stay in with their love for their mom and they're trying to accept their mom's new partner and it's going, and they're gonna navigate that. And, but that isn't to say that exactly right, Glenn, that they're not gonna see glimpses of holy shit. I can't believe mom's brave enough to do that. She's taking

the arrow so that we can see away. If you don't stand up to the bully, then you are basically handing down the legacy that we don't stand up. We don't stand up. And if she's sending, she has to share those kids with that scenario, at least she's showing them another way. If she's, at least they will see two different ways. If we just stay in the one way, that's just the water the kids swim in.

They don't know anything different ever. They don't have anything to choose from in the future. And I think that she's doing the thing that mothers do, which is I'm not gonna over complicate my kids' lives. I'm not gonna make my kids' lives that much harder because the truth is it will be hard for them to hear their mother bashed by their father. It will be hard to navigate dealing with that

with their dad and having to, I don't know if he's gonna make them choose and make them condemn their mom, like who the hell knows. So that is hard, but so there is some her living openly for the next few years, as opposed to waiting until they're 18 and on their own and it can make their own choices when they're out from under their dad's control, is putting them in a position to navigate that. It's also putting them in a position to exactly what you said, see that it is possible to

go against this controlling way. And also, I just keep thinking, God forbid one of these kids is gay. One of these kids is in a classroom with other kids who are gay and passing on their dad's bullshit. Like this family for many reasons needs somebody to say this is wrong. And we're not doing this here anymore.

Well, and also any kind of difference, like it doesn't even need to be about gayness. It's just like, if these kids are different from their parents in any way, they've learned to swallow it and to not ever express that difference. I mean, there's a million things, a million hard things about it.

And to me, the right kind of hard is to face it now. Change the pattern now. Let the chips fall. Okay, let's hear from our pods, Glatter and the Week because I'm completely obsessed with them. Hi, super women. My name is Robin. I want to share the latest thing with you

because I feel like I have all of you ladies to thank for it. So first I'm going to say do yourself a favor and listen to the song, Turn Me On by Nora Jones. I was just doing that. And as I was singing it, because it's an old favorite, I started to sing it to myself. I sing it to my fucking self. Because of you, ladies, I am the only one,

and I'm realizing this now. I'm the only one that can turn myself off, and I'm also the only one that can turn myself back on. And holy shit, it's liberating. Oh my gosh, I feel so grateful. I feel so excited about this revelation where my mind was just blown to have that self-economy. I can turn myself on. I love you ladies.

I thank you for the hard work you're doing. Caving the way for all of us who want to do hard things too. Love, love, love all of you. Bye bye. I hope you guys listen to the song. Did you just hear the freaking life in Robbins voice? Let us all find the life that Robbins has found. I'm going to listen to that Nordgone song again. What is it called? Turn me on. Turn me on by Nora Jones. Okay, do you know it now? Do you know that song?

Going to do it. Of course I know it. Nora Jones, early 2000s. She just, just mind blowing. Some fresh ass ice. Oh, okay. Yeah, it's, it's a really, really good song. 2003, I was driving in my Jeep in Washington DC new professional athlete here

I mean, it's like that is not just like the jazzy. She sounds kind of like jazzy like full of soul All right, well, you all here's your homework. We're all gonna listen to our Jones. I guess today. We're gonna turn ourselves on I love all of you. We will see you next week at which point we will discuss more hard things. And in the meantime, take it easy on yourselves. All right, we love you. Bye. We love you. Bye. We can do hard things, is produced in partnership with Cadence 13 Studios. Be sure to rate, review, and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Odyssey, or wherever you get your podcasts, especially be sure to rate and review the podcast if you really

liked it. If you didn't, don't worry about it. It's fine.