Speaker 1: You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast.
Speaker 2: Mamma Mere acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters
Speaker 2: that this podcast is recorded on. I don't think my
Speaker 2: daughter in law likes me. I'm not sure what it
Speaker 2: is I've done wrong. My team thinks that I'm their therapist.
Speaker 2: I can't lose weight no matter what I do. My
Speaker 2: best friend ghosted me and my heart is broken. My
Speaker 2: hairdresser's highlights have failed. My husband doesn't understand my perry phase.
Speaker 2: I'm never good enough for my mother in law. I'm
Speaker 2: lonely help. I don't want to go to my best
Speaker 2: friend's baby shower because for me, the IVF just won't work.
Speaker 2: Behind every problem, every question, a story, a small hurt
Speaker 2: or a big one, a betrayal. We can't admit to
Speaker 2: someone who's done us wrong. Hello, I'm Holly Wainwright and
Speaker 2: I am mid midlife, midfamily, midfix. Today we are solving problems,
Speaker 2: your problems like the ones you just heard. And when
Speaker 2: I say we, I mean we, because sitting beside me
Speaker 2: today to talk through your troubles is a hero of mine.
Speaker 2: One Marian Keys. Marian says that she started writing books
Speaker 2: four thousand years ago but actually it was only thirty
Speaker 2: years ago. I bet that you have read at least
Speaker 2: one Maryan Keys, and if you've read one, you've probably
Speaker 2: read I don't know fifteen. Her first Watermelon, was published
Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety five, and ever since, the way she
Speaker 2: spins up the sticky themes of our real lives with
Speaker 2: wicked humor and big dollops of heart and irish wit
Speaker 2: have made her both incredibly successful and beloved. She has
Speaker 2: written twenty four books now and sold more than there
Speaker 2: are zeros to count. And not only is this woman
Speaker 2: one of the most successful novelists of her generation. Not
Speaker 2: only has she shared her hilarious natural storytelling with the world,
Speaker 2: but she's also shared herself. Because Marian has written about
Speaker 2: depression and alcoholism and loss, and these are things that
Speaker 2: she has lived as well as written. And if you,
Speaker 2: like me, are just a little bit obsessed with Mary Keys,
Speaker 2: you'll know there's something else she does too. A podcast
Speaker 2: of her own for the BBC called Now You're Asking
Speaker 2: with fellow writer and great friend Tara Flynn, and on
Speaker 2: that they answer listener's questions with as much heart as expertise.
Speaker 2: So when Marian was in Sydney, recently for an event
Speaker 2: to celebrate her lady's book, My Favorite Mistake, which I
Speaker 2: was lucky enough to host for her. I couldn't resist
Speaker 2: asking her to come and tell me how things are going,
Speaker 2: update me on the world and on the Walshisters, who
Speaker 2: she's written so many books about that you love, and
Speaker 2: also to help us with some of those sticky mid
Speaker 2: questions of yours. Come sit with us and let solve
Speaker 2: some problems. Marian, thank you so much for being here
Speaker 2: with me today.
Speaker 1: Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2: I know that all the mid audience are going to
Speaker 2: be so excited that you're here. We were talking of
Speaker 2: Mike about how you've had a couple of chats with
Speaker 2: me here before on No Filter, and I'm going to
Speaker 2: put the links to those episodes in the show notes
Speaker 2: on this so people can go back and listen to
Speaker 2: those two. Thank you, because selfishly, I really want to
Speaker 2: talk to you about My Favorite Mistake.
Speaker 1: Thanks. That's not selfish at.
Speaker 2: All, because it's a Welsh family book. Yes am I
Speaker 2: right in that this is the eighth, it's.
Speaker 1: The seventh, but they're all standalones, right in case anyone
Speaker 1: is worried.
Speaker 2: No you don't, Yeah, you don't have to have read
Speaker 2: no but that feature the same family they do. And
Speaker 2: so although they don't, although they're all standalones, the thing
Speaker 2: that's glorious is obviously the characters are all grown up
Speaker 2: now like us. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've been about them for thirty years, and I
Speaker 1: was thirty one, I think when I got started. So yeah,
Speaker 1: as I've aged, they've aged.
Speaker 2: And it's I think there's so much, particularly in this
Speaker 2: book that's wonderful about Anna and this phase of life
Speaker 2: that a lot of our listeners are in.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Anna's forty eight and is invisible to young men
Speaker 1: on the street. She walks through a pile of them.
Speaker 1: They just refuse to make room for her, and she
Speaker 1: just barrels through them out of rage and just the
Speaker 1: fact that they have no manners. And yeah, she's going
Speaker 1: through menopause. She's like genuinely burnt out on a very
Speaker 1: stressful job. She's had a long relationship that has kind
Speaker 1: of run its course, and she doesn't see any point
Speaker 1: in hanging around trying to resuscitate it. And she kind
Speaker 1: of throws her entire life up in the air and
Speaker 1: waits to see where things will land. And she's angry
Speaker 1: and she's hopeful, and she feels still entitled to love
Speaker 1: and to sex and to live in whatever way she
Speaker 1: feels like living. And I've seen that, like I'm older
Speaker 1: than that, I'm sixty one, but I've seen it so
Speaker 1: much in women in their late forties and fifties and older.
Speaker 1: I've just deciding, I've still got like decades of life
Speaker 1: ahead of me, and I don't really enjoy I'm not
Speaker 1: getting the same kind of enjoyment out of my life
Speaker 1: as I have been for the last twenty thirty whatever years,
Speaker 1: And I just want to try living in a different way,
Speaker 1: and I love to see it happen, like in big
Speaker 1: ways in small ways, like last year, I took a
Speaker 1: lot of time off work and I went back to
Speaker 1: college and I did a course just something that I
Speaker 1: had always wanted to do and never really felt that
Speaker 1: it was the right time to do it. But I've
Speaker 1: seen people but like leave marriages or you know, or
Speaker 1: just take breaks from their marriage or just leave their
Speaker 1: job and decide that they will live very frugally for
Speaker 1: a while until they figure out what they want or
Speaker 1: can do next. You know, there's a feeling that like
Speaker 1: life is for living, and it is not infinite.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not infinite. But also it's not done before
Speaker 2: it's done.
Speaker 1: Oh god, absolutely not for as long as we're alive.
Speaker 1: We're alive.
Speaker 2: Yes, I love that you've just said that about this,
Speaker 2: because this is exactly obviously, which was your intention, what
Speaker 2: I got from Anna. So when we meet her at
Speaker 2: the beginning of the book, she's in New York, where
Speaker 2: she's been for a long time, and as she says,
Speaker 2: she's burnt out and she's been through COVID. So and
Speaker 2: then what I love is that when she decides she's
Speaker 2: going to move home, and obviously we're not going to
Speaker 2: do spoilers, but that's pretty much in the book. Are
Speaker 2: a bit like really, and it made me think about,
Speaker 2: you know, when you're making those big changes in your
Speaker 2: life that a lot of people do this stage. Often
Speaker 2: the people around.
Speaker 1: You, they don't celebrate it. They really don't. It's not
Speaker 1: like a movie like, it's really not there. You don't
Speaker 1: get applauded. I mean, in Anna's particular case, she works,
Speaker 1: she does pr for like a load of skincare brands,
Speaker 1: so her sisters and her mother's and her mother are
Speaker 1: used to getting free stuff. And now that she's giving
Speaker 1: up her job. They won't be getting any more free stuff.
Speaker 1: And it is really funny when something people can be
Speaker 1: happy for you in the abstract, but if it impacts
Speaker 1: you negatively, then people stop being happy for you. It's
Speaker 1: very It's just people are complicated, and you know, people
Speaker 1: are always going to kind of react from their own
Speaker 1: their own needs, are their own wants. So no, her
Speaker 1: mother and sisters are really really disappointed and afraid.
Speaker 2: Yes I'm afraid for her, but also for them how
Speaker 2: it impacts them, because as you say, I think that,
Speaker 2: as you say that, people are ready to applaud you
Speaker 2: unless it impacts them or be it makes them wonder
Speaker 2: about their lives.
Speaker 1: Oh that's another thing. Yes, that's another thing. Yes, if
Speaker 1: somebody comes to you and says, you know, I'm leaving
Speaker 1: my husband of whatever number of years, and say, until
Speaker 1: this point you have always thought he was fine, a
Speaker 1: bit boring, but actually really quite boring. But he was okay.
Speaker 1: But then when one person starts leaving their husband, it
Speaker 1: kind of makes one question your own circumstances and thinking, well,
Speaker 1: should I be leaving mine? Or or actually mine is
Speaker 1: less than optimal. You know, you kind of start wondering
Speaker 1: at what point does less than optimal become unsustainable, you know,
Speaker 1: or like if somebody else says, actually, I've decided to
Speaker 1: stop drinking. You know, I actually think I kind of
Speaker 1: have an issue with it, and I'm stopping People who
Speaker 1: might have talked behind your back, you know, about how
Speaker 1: bad you're drinking was up to this point, might suddenly
Speaker 1: think Jesus Christ, know you're fine. You're fine. No, really,
Speaker 1: you're fine. You just overdo it like at birthdays or whatever,
Speaker 1: But you're fine. Because once people, once one person kind
Speaker 1: of changes their life, it makes the people around them
Speaker 1: start looking at their own lives and thinking, should I
Speaker 1: be changing in mind? Do I need changing or fixing?
Speaker 2: Did your family think that feel like that when you
Speaker 2: went did your course last year?
Speaker 1: Why is Marian going back to college?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: Actually no, they were fairly happy for me. The funny
Speaker 1: thing is, like I studied law like eight million years ago.
Speaker 1: I have a law degree. But one of the women
Speaker 1: that I went through university with, she also went back
Speaker 1: to college last year to study fashion. Like, you know,
Speaker 1: we're in our sixties and I kind of, you know,
Speaker 1: it's much harder to learn new things at this age.
Speaker 1: But you can still do it.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's still.
Speaker 1: Possible, and why not. Yeah, it's so exciting. Yes, when
Speaker 1: you've always been curious about something but the door has
Speaker 1: been blocked to you for whatever reason, and suddenly somebody
Speaker 1: is saying, come in, I'll deconstruct it for you.
Speaker 2: What cost did you go back to?
Speaker 1: You need to do interior design? Yeah, Like, I've always
Speaker 1: loved color and fabric, and as it turned out, it
Speaker 1: wasn't really about that. It was about more fundamentals. Like
Speaker 1: I know this sounds pathetic, but I am really good
Speaker 1: at measuring things now, like and I have a lovely
Speaker 1: eight meter long yellow metal measuring tape that my husband
Speaker 1: bought me, which honestly is one of my most favorite
Speaker 1: things ever. Yeah, so I'm kind of good at the
Speaker 1: technical stuff. And then I had taken enough time off work,
Speaker 1: so you know, I've I've parked it for the moment.
Speaker 2: So have you been putting that to you? So you
Speaker 2: let doing your house? I am need to love it.
Speaker 2: I love it. Yes, Yeah, I am your style. I
Speaker 2: know nothing about interior design, right, but I know that broadly,
Speaker 2: there's like minimalism, and there's like shabby she and there's
Speaker 2: gold toilets. I don't know what's your style.
Speaker 1: It's sort of girly gothic girl. Yeah, like I bought
Speaker 1: an antique wooden carved bed from Portugal, and yeah, kind
Speaker 1: of a lot of black and purple colored wallpapers. It's
Speaker 1: and green glass. It's the spare bedroom. I want people
Speaker 1: to come in and feel sort of mildly uneasy, you know,
Speaker 1: that they're kind of happy to stay for a night,
Speaker 1: but maybe not for much longer.
Speaker 2: God, that's perfection. It's great. So what I loved about
Speaker 2: Anna and the other wallh sisters, but in this book,
Speaker 2: so you nail. And it's not surprising, of course, these
Speaker 2: particular midlife moments, like before she decides because she's, as
Speaker 2: you said, she's going through perimenopause and menopause, and before
Speaker 2: she does get into the HRT, she tries looming for
Speaker 2: a while. She's you know, and which I think is
Speaker 2: so common, is that lots of so like, what's happening
Speaker 2: to me? Yes, I need to find a way to
Speaker 2: man regulate myself. Maybe gardening is my cliched answer. Maybe
Speaker 2: you know, looming or whatever, scrap booking or what those
Speaker 2: kind of things.
Speaker 1: Yeah, upcycling furniture, yes, that was mine for a while.
Speaker 2: Yes, So we grab onto these things and then finally
Speaker 2: we're like, okay, something really is happening. Yeah, and Anna,
Speaker 2: like very many women, including myself, then she's on an
Speaker 2: almost comic but serious quest for our HRT. The doctors
Speaker 2: don't want to give it to her. It's out of
Speaker 2: stock at the chemists. We've all been there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it's bizarre, like half of the world's
Speaker 1: population go through this and have done since the dawn
Speaker 1: of time, and like, why has it never been spoken
Speaker 1: about when it is Okay, some people breeze through it,
Speaker 1: and fair play to them, lucky them, but I don't
Speaker 1: want to hear from them, thank you very much, because
Speaker 1: for an awful lot of people, it's incredibly debilitating, because
Speaker 1: it's like adolescence in reverse, and like we can see
Speaker 1: now as adults how awful it is for teenagers, like
Speaker 1: the terror, the change of the moods. They can't regulate,
Speaker 1: the changes in their body, the changes in their identity
Speaker 1: and sense of self. And that's what menopause is, its
Speaker 1: adolescence in reverse, and for an awful lot of people
Speaker 1: it's very, very frightening, and like for me, it wasn't
Speaker 1: so much the hairiness and the hot flushes. It was
Speaker 1: the anxiety, And it was like forgetting people's names, Like
Speaker 1: when that first began to happen, like I thought I
Speaker 1: was getting dementia, and there was no one there to say, oh,
Speaker 1: that's probably part of the menopause. That's probably you know,
Speaker 1: you're depleted in estrogen or whatever.
Speaker 3: Like.
Speaker 1: There hasn't been a road map given to us, Like
Speaker 1: there has been just complete silence about all the possible
Speaker 1: ways that it can affect us.
Speaker 2: I think that's one of the things that's so good
Speaker 2: about this book is that, as we were saying before,
Speaker 2: it's your characters have aged as we've aged, and we
Speaker 2: are seeing these issues being explored in all kinds of
Speaker 2: different accessible ways now, including in our favorite fictional people.
Speaker 2: But before I get onto one of the things that
Speaker 2: I love the most about Anna, which is that she
Speaker 2: still wants to have sex and fall in love, I
Speaker 2: just have to tell you that one of the things
Speaker 2: I'm not sure which one of your characters mentions is,
Speaker 2: but they say that a podcast about murders committed by
Speaker 2: menopausal women against man's plaining men. I was like, that's
Speaker 2: a solid idea.
Speaker 1: That's a great idea.
Speaker 2: When you're done with now you're asking this is your
Speaker 2: ex podcast women who have been wrongly convicted.
Speaker 1: It wasn't their fault. They were pushed beyond human endurance. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that we need that.
Speaker 2: Yes, after this shortbreak, more from the very funny Marrying
Speaker 2: Keys on sex and desire and so much more. One
Speaker 2: of the things that is most common that a lot
Speaker 2: of women feel as they get all that, as you've
Speaker 2: mentioned already, is invisible and we are often written or
Speaker 2: perceived as being these sort of either just hypernurturers or
Speaker 2: just sort of bland and self sacrificing. But Anna is
Speaker 2: a properly layed person and she has when she does
Speaker 2: sort of restart her life again in this small town,
Speaker 2: she has options when it comes to love and sex.
Speaker 2: And I love the way you wrote that. Were you
Speaker 2: intentional about wanting to explore that for women in that
Speaker 2: of this age?
Speaker 1: I suppose I was, because I mean, I really dislike
Speaker 1: the mythology around women and sex. You know, is that
Speaker 1: you know is that women actually don't like sex at all,
Speaker 1: and that it's merely transactional, that like, women will only
Speaker 1: have sex in order to get their grass cut or
Speaker 1: to have shelves puts off. Yes, you know that it's
Speaker 1: only ever given. You know that it's never joyful or
Speaker 1: like or lost for or you know that women aren't
Speaker 1: allowed to be horny or or are loving. Yes, you
Speaker 1: know that it's always given kind of in a mean
Speaker 1: spirited way.
Speaker 2: It's a weapon or a yes, or something to be
Speaker 2: swapped for something else. Commitment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, exactly, And like you know, I know a
Speaker 1: lot of women. We all do, probably, and we all
Speaker 1: have different attitudes to sex at different points of our lives.
Speaker 1: And the worst myth of all is that like women
Speaker 1: shut up shop entirely at forty because that's not what
Speaker 1: I see and some people do. And again, I really
Speaker 1: mean this with love. If that's how it is for you,
Speaker 1: if you feel, you know, you just don't want it,
Speaker 1: you're dead from the neck down and you and your
Speaker 1: partner are happy, that's wonderful. But like I don't, not
Speaker 1: every woman I know feels like that. Far from it.
Speaker 1: And you know, people have kind of happy sex within
Speaker 1: a really relationship, or people have various flings, or people
Speaker 1: just they're not committed to anyone and they're having joyful,
Speaker 1: happy sex. And yeah, I just wanted to show that
Speaker 1: there are many ways to be a woman after forty
Speaker 1: and that an awful lot of us are still having sex.
Speaker 1: And you know, and again, it's not something that kind
Speaker 1: of travels in a straight line. The desire comes and
Speaker 1: goes all depending on your life circumstances, how what your
Speaker 1: body is doing, you know, how your workload is, how
Speaker 1: stressed you're feeling or not feeling, how resentful or not
Speaker 1: that you're feeling. You know, it's something that's in flux.
Speaker 1: It's not a fixed part of our identity, and it's
Speaker 1: something that can always be picked up again. You can
Speaker 1: go through long spells of thinking that's gone forever, yeah,
Speaker 1: and then it can come back.
Speaker 2: Which I think is reflected in this because obviously Anna's
Speaker 2: reflecting on different bits of her life, and there's the
Speaker 2: kind of section you might have when you're young, other
Speaker 2: way you feel about somebody at that time, and then
Speaker 2: there are periods of your life when you're like, I
Speaker 2: wonder if I'm ever going to feel like that again,
Speaker 2: And Anna's kind of feeling like that because she's been
Speaker 2: with this lovely, sensitive guy, and then the stirring for
Speaker 2: the bad boy kind of comes back, and I just
Speaker 2: what I just like about all that is it's just
Speaker 2: very human, which is what we all are, rather than
Speaker 2: it being like midlife ladies.
Speaker 1: Yeah, don't do any of that or any of them. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I mean, and like in many ways, like Anna is
Speaker 1: a lot more mature than she used to be, and
Speaker 1: she knows that this bad boy well was a bad boy,
Speaker 1: and that there's an awful lot of kind of potential
Speaker 1: heartbreak from going down their road.
Speaker 2: But she's still self protected.
Speaker 1: Yeah, would she still fancies something. And I love that
Speaker 1: for her because people still fancy each other like that
Speaker 1: doesn't seem to stop, or people still get crushes on
Speaker 1: people that doesn't stop, or people still fall in love.
Speaker 1: I just think you know that thing that like young
Speaker 1: people think that they invented sex. Yeah, they really do.
Speaker 1: Mean in no disrespect, I was young myself once, But
Speaker 1: that kind of giddy butterflies in your stomach feeling, there's
Speaker 1: always potential for that, which is beautiful. It's lovely, isn't it?
Speaker 1: Is it?
Speaker 2: I just ask you one more thing about the Welsh
Speaker 2: family before I get I ask you nicely to answer
Speaker 2: some of our listeners questions. Is it lovely to spend
Speaker 2: time with them again if you're writing, you know, as
Speaker 2: you said, this is your seventh book about them, and
Speaker 2: I know that your audience loves it when you write
Speaker 2: about them and they welcome them back like old friends.
Speaker 2: Is that what it feels like to you?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I mean I'd never intended to write a sequel.
Speaker 1: I'd given each of the five sisters their book, yes,
Speaker 1: and the last one was in twenty twelve, and then
Speaker 1: through the pandemic, I decided to return to Rachel. And
Speaker 1: it was so lovely because I couldn't see my own
Speaker 1: family during lockdown, and it did feel like I had well,
Speaker 1: I certainly had the same They have the same energy
Speaker 1: the Watches as my family, that kind of noisy, opinionated.
Speaker 2: Funny, funny, funny.
Speaker 1: It was lovely. And then I was going to write
Speaker 1: a very different book after again Rachel, and I thought, no,
Speaker 1: I'm just I prefer to stay in a happy place
Speaker 1: for a while, so I stayed with that. Then I
Speaker 1: was all set to do a third sequel, but my
Speaker 1: editor said yet, really, yeah, she did, that's enough Watches
Speaker 1: for a while, she said, So I'm writing something different,
Speaker 1: but they do it feels it just feels very familiar
Speaker 1: and fun and war and safe. That's what it feels.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, and they almost live alongside you and they
Speaker 2: are I don't know if you're allowed to talk about this. Yes,
Speaker 2: I yeah, you are, Yes, yes, yes, because the TV series, Yes,
Speaker 2: the Walsh Systems.
Speaker 1: Yes, the first The first series has wrapped the BBC,
Speaker 1: the BBC. It's coming to Australia on Stan. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: going to be out in November, I think in the
Speaker 1: Northern Hemisphere. I don't know when it will be here.
Speaker 2: Have you been involved?
Speaker 1: Well, I'm called an executive producer. I don't know what
Speaker 1: that means.
Speaker 2: I mean what says who I work with? Her book
Speaker 2: has been turned in and she's she says, I'm the
Speaker 2: executive producer. But yeah, I have no idea.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I have no idea and I think I
Speaker 1: have no rights either, But it doesn't matter. They're ask
Speaker 1: me small things like would Maggie wear disengagement ring and
Speaker 1: stuff like that, which I love being asked. And you know,
Speaker 1: I was allowed on set, like I was allowed off
Speaker 1: her opinions.
Speaker 2: I didn't like to see them come to Lifeline.
Speaker 1: It was so beautiful. I've lived with them for thirty
Speaker 1: years and my husband and I went to the set
Speaker 1: together and we don't have children, and we wanted children.
Speaker 1: And I don't know if this is part of it,
Speaker 1: but like we arrived and this woman was strutting along
Speaker 1: and like she had amazing blonde highlights in her hair,
Speaker 1: and she had like gold rimmed sunglasses, and she was
Speaker 1: just really glamorous and fabulous, and I thought, that's Claire.
Speaker 1: And then there's another one and she's her hair is
Speaker 1: sort of in a mullet, and there's something slightly off
Speaker 1: about her. Her jeans are slightly too short, she's got
Speaker 1: like her hands bunched into fists in her pockets, and
Speaker 1: she's kind of just just very dissatisfied with the world.
Speaker 1: And that was Helen, and it was it was so
Speaker 1: weird to see these people that I recognized by their
Speaker 1: clothes and their body language.
Speaker 2: It must have been well done, yeah, because it must
Speaker 2: have been very beautifully produced because they've done.
Speaker 1: Such a lovely job. They really have. You know, it
Speaker 1: was fairly low budget, but you would never know how
Speaker 1: it was made with so much love. It's beautiful.
Speaker 2: I think people are going to be very.
Speaker 1: It's very uplifting and it's very kind of Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: very loving.
Speaker 2: Actually, just because of what you just said about you
Speaker 2: and your husband going to set and you hadn't had kids.
Speaker 2: One of the other things I love about Anna in
Speaker 2: this book is the other thing that's that comes through
Speaker 2: is the choices that all the sisters have made, or
Speaker 2: choices that weren't even choices, things that have happened to them.
Speaker 2: Is the making peace with things, like holding on to
Speaker 2: some of the sadnesses that are always going to be there.
Speaker 2: It's just very well rounded, like it's just that's what
Speaker 2: life's like, like a loss, doesn't you know, Anna lost
Speaker 2: had a terrible loss in her husband. But it doesn't
Speaker 2: mean that everything's funny there. I think you are masterful
Speaker 2: of that complexity.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Holly. Yeah. I mean, nobody gets
Speaker 1: through life without something, you know, one of those huge,
Speaker 1: painful things that are only meant to happen to other people.
Speaker 1: It happens to us all, even if it's something as banal.
Speaker 1: I hope that word isn't offensive, but like, you know,
Speaker 1: to lose a parent, you know, it's so it happens
Speaker 1: to everyone, but it's so huge and so shocking, and
Speaker 1: the idea of getting over something I don't really think
Speaker 1: of it in those terms anymore. But I live alongside
Speaker 1: things and I don't, and the volume of loss gets
Speaker 1: dialed down, and then there are days when it can
Speaker 1: be suddenly very loud again, and that's okay, It's all okay.
Speaker 1: I don't think anything ever really goes way. It stays
Speaker 1: on file, and it can be resuscitated under certain circumstances.
Speaker 1: But we've survived it this far. We are more resilient
Speaker 1: than we know. Somebody said that to me recently. And
Speaker 1: often we don't know how resilient we are until we're
Speaker 1: in the circumstances that need the resilience. But we are.
Speaker 1: I know this sounds really trite, but we are stronger
Speaker 1: than we know we are. And yeah, just because we
Speaker 1: have survived the loss doesn't mean that it will never
Speaker 1: be painful against you know, the pain will come back,
Speaker 1: and then it will recede and we'll still be here.
Speaker 2: Marian. One more thing on aging, so physical aging, as
Speaker 2: in how we look, because physical aging means all kinds
Speaker 2: of things, of course, but how we look is something
Speaker 2: that also gets touched on quite a bit in here.
Speaker 2: I love that Anna is when she gets to this
Speaker 2: small town Nile and she is finding that way to
Speaker 2: get the boatox pretty quickly, which is great. But I
Speaker 2: love this paragraph that you wrote about Anna's view of
Speaker 2: what was matt hat and old because she'd been living
Speaker 2: in New York for a long time and then she
Speaker 2: goes back to Ireland and can I just read to
Speaker 2: you this little bit?
Speaker 1: Thank you please?
Speaker 2: Yeah? She said, this is a warning against being a
Speaker 2: person who tends towards optimism. I hadn't thought of myself
Speaker 2: as middle aged, never mind old. I think that's something
Speaker 2: that we all feel at that point. You could blame
Speaker 2: my mindset on Manhattan, where once you hit forty, aging
Speaker 2: no longer happened, or rather, an elaborate protocol was used
Speaker 2: to blur the evidence, including but not limited to restaalin, retinol,
Speaker 2: hit yoga, hair bowtox, hair botox, edible collagen, low carving,
Speaker 2: no carving, intermittent fasting, be twelve injections, and wearing trainers
Speaker 2: and dimante canes to black tie garlands. This seemed to
Speaker 2: work efficiently until maybe the age of ninety two, where
Speaker 2: your hit broke unexpectedly while you were opening the fridge,
Speaker 2: and then a conversation had to be had. Now, Anna
Speaker 2: says that because she'd done spin classes four times a week,
Speaker 2: and she had the stressful job that stopped her remaining,
Speaker 2: and she was doing botox and fillers and all the things.
Speaker 2: She thought she could pass for a woman much younger
Speaker 2: than her, but she realized that she was just Manhattan.
Speaker 1: All. Yeah, she was like masking the evidence. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: it is a thing, because I have botox and you know,
Speaker 1: and I kind of I'm at my face with various things,
Speaker 1: you know, But then my feet are gone to the dogs,
Speaker 1: Like I have a Bonian. They're painful, you know, and
Speaker 1: it's like that's not meant to happen, you know, Like
Speaker 1: and like I still run, but like I'm in bits.
Speaker 1: You know. There's something kind of going on with my
Speaker 1: left arm. And it's really strange when your body starts
Speaker 1: letting you down in those kind of ways.
Speaker 2: Do you think, though, that we have maybe decided that
Speaker 2: aging is a choice. You can face it off. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Resources exactly, enough resources and the right like peer group
Speaker 2: who can hook you up with all the rare things
Speaker 2: that we think it's a choice. And that's why it's
Speaker 2: almost more shock when you have asked, starts doing something
Speaker 2: funny and refuses to go away.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that it's a choice and sort of an obligation almost,
Speaker 1: and that if if anything goes wrong, it's your own fault.
Speaker 1: You could have prevented that if you had done X,
Speaker 1: Y or Z and then protein. Yeah, but actually no,
Speaker 1: I cannot hold back, you know, time, and then that's
Speaker 1: a bit kind of can't I. This is very disappointing,
Speaker 1: you know, with all the things I was doing and
Speaker 1: they still weren't enough. Yeah, it's funny because we are
Speaker 1: living so much longer, but we are not remaining in
Speaker 1: perky twenty seven year old style help till the age
Speaker 1: of one hundred and twelve, you know that. Yeah, we are. Actually,
Speaker 1: the d L joints aren't great, and these things happen,
Speaker 1: and it's a surprise.
Speaker 2: It is a surprise. Don't go anywhere, because when you
Speaker 2: come back, we're getting to your questions. Yes, yours, mid listeners,
Speaker 2: you sent them to me, and now Marian and I
Speaker 2: are going to talk them over, and her answers are
Speaker 2: very marrying keys in the best possible way back in
Speaker 2: a tick. My other Maryan Keys related obsession is your
Speaker 2: podcast with Tara Flynn, My beloved Tara, My goodness, you
Speaker 2: two on that show. I shouldn't be promoting other podcasts
Speaker 2: on my podcast just Rude, But now you're asking is
Speaker 2: a joy, and I bet there are so many MID
Speaker 2: listeners who listen to it. So you answer listener questions, Yeah,
Speaker 2: you and Tara all kinds of things, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Like funny, serious, dark, not dark.
Speaker 2: It's one of my favorite comfort listens. I just love
Speaker 2: listening to you. So when I knew you were going
Speaker 2: to come on MID, I said, do you think that
Speaker 2: we could ask some of our listeners. I would be
Speaker 2: honored because I think they would love us to talk
Speaker 2: through some of their Sure, we might have to put
Speaker 2: a bit of color around some of these because I
Speaker 2: asked them on social media and the box where they
Speaker 2: put their problems quite small. Okay, we've got really good,
Speaker 2: succinct problems. We may have to color in some context.
Speaker 2: I'm going to start with actually my favorite of all
Speaker 2: the problems. Okay, I got this is a very good
Speaker 2: problem to have from one of our middle listeners who says,
Speaker 2: I want to spend three months in Italy next year
Speaker 2: with my bestie but no husbands.
Speaker 3: How do we tell the husbands? Okay, this is fantastic,
Speaker 3: good problem. This is it's a great problem. And it's
Speaker 3: also it's very zeitgeist.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, isn't it Like it's hard to know
Speaker 1: what age they are.
Speaker 2: So I think I think we can assume that most
Speaker 2: of these listeners are over fourteen, not necessarily, but let's
Speaker 2: say broadly like forty.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, all right, so grown up as I them. Yes, yes, yes, yes, okay.
Speaker 1: I mean I think it's a fabulous thing to do,
Speaker 1: and I think the way to do it is to
Speaker 1: present it as a huge positive. You know, I've had
Speaker 1: this great idea, you know, and maybe there's something the
Speaker 1: husband has always wanted to do. There probably is. There's
Speaker 1: always there are always dreams that we've never had a
Speaker 1: chance to fulfill. And to present it as you can
Speaker 1: go and I don't know, walk the Camino, or or
Speaker 1: do a tour of all the great football grounds of Europe.
Speaker 2: Or oh you could stay high home, peace and quiet.
Speaker 1: For three months.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, I wonder if I would maybe, but this
Speaker 2: might spoil the whole thing. But I might say we
Speaker 2: could meet up in the middle or something for a while.
Speaker 1: Well, I would present that in vague terms. Maybe we
Speaker 1: could even and meet up, yeah, you know, somewhere if
Speaker 1: her past across. I mean, probably kind of quite new
Speaker 1: at the end, but you know, never finish the sentence,
Speaker 1: you know, just kind of throw it into the mix,
Speaker 1: but never actually wild it down. And the thing is,
Speaker 1: I think people are more emotionally literate than they used
Speaker 1: to be, you know, and that it would be easy
Speaker 1: to say to the person because Okay, if I was
Speaker 1: the person being left at home or being told tour
Speaker 1: the football grounds, I might feel kind of rejected. Or
Speaker 1: is this the first part of a kind of a
Speaker 1: you know, a divorcing or whatever, you know, for somebody
Speaker 1: to be honest with you and say, I'm mad about you.
Speaker 1: You know, you're my best friend, Like I want us
Speaker 1: to grow older together, but I want to do this
Speaker 1: with my friend and only with her. You know, the
Speaker 1: dynamic would be completely different if you came with us.
Speaker 1: You know, you are a good man. You're an intelligent person.
Speaker 1: Please try and understand that. Even if he isn't a
Speaker 1: good intelligent man, say it anyway, you know, kind of
Speaker 1: lead with the positive, you know, yes, say and like
Speaker 1: you could go and hang out with your brother or
Speaker 1: the guys, or you know, you could just you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: and then at three months, after three months, I'll come
Speaker 1: back and I can show you. I don't know, I
Speaker 1: can do a slide show whatever. Yeah, yeah, yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: Like I really think the thing is right. We get
Speaker 1: one life, you know, and if you don't ask, you
Speaker 1: don't get And.
Speaker 2: This might be your moment to say this, right, yes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And like if you kind of anticipate how the
Speaker 1: other person will be feeling when you when you ask,
Speaker 1: stroke tell them, you know, try and meet their fears
Speaker 1: and their insecurities head on and and ask them to
Speaker 1: trust you. You know that you've been together for eight years,
Speaker 1: fifteen years already, and that you're going anyway. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: they because once you've kind have forged that plan and
Speaker 1: been brave enough to ask. If you're told no, that's
Speaker 1: going to damageationship anyway.
Speaker 2: That we could maybe come back from that, but it
Speaker 2: will always the resentment there.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think you're right. So I don't think it's an
Speaker 2: ass yea.
Speaker 1: Three months out of eighty years or however long we're
Speaker 1: living these days.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, not bad. Okay, this one is a little
Speaker 2: more serious. My husband is sixteen years older. It's been
Speaker 2: perfect for decades, decades okay her many, but now he's
Speaker 2: an old man. In mind, body, and spirit.
Speaker 1: Oh dear, Oh, this is so sad. Sad, that is so.
Speaker 2: But this is this is a thing that age differences,
Speaker 2: which you know, very common and happen all the time,
Speaker 2: and no big deal. Sometimes they shift as you age,
Speaker 2: right in whichever direction. I mean, that's obvious. I suppose
Speaker 2: that they shifted you age. But it isn't a problem.
Speaker 2: It isn't a problem. It is a problem. And suddenly
Speaker 2: it's odd.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, suddenly, and forgive my language, but kind of
Speaker 1: suddenly the older partner falls over a cliff in terms
Speaker 1: of the aging process. You know, for a long time,
Speaker 1: they're they're they're great for their age, and then we
Speaker 1: can't outrun the process, not forever, and like people age differently,
Speaker 1: And this is incredibly sad. And for the listener who
Speaker 1: has written in, first of all, you have my my
Speaker 1: acute sympathy because you've lost the man you love and
Speaker 1: that now you're having to caretake in a way that
Speaker 1: perhaps you had never anticipated. Because you know, when we
Speaker 1: know somebody at their their most vital and vibrant and
Speaker 1: strong and healthy, it's kind of impossible to imagine them
Speaker 1: being properly old until it happens and I mean, in
Speaker 1: practical terms, I would ask you to get as much
Speaker 1: support as possible. If you have children, if you have
Speaker 1: extended family, you know, if their home helps, like we
Speaker 1: have them in Ireland. You know, get as many people
Speaker 1: as who can, who can help, you know, pick up
Speaker 1: the practical slack. But then also spend time with your
Speaker 1: husband and you know, remember them sorry. You know what,
Speaker 1: it's kind of very hard to be kind to people
Speaker 1: when they let us down, when they let us down
Speaker 1: by getting sick or aging. I know it's a really
Speaker 1: kind of selfish response, but it's human, But I be kind.
Speaker 2: Do you think do you think that this part, as
Speaker 2: she says when she says help, this part is going
Speaker 2: to be hard, right, this part is going to be hard.
Speaker 2: But the decades that you've had that are perfect, maybe
Speaker 2: this is payback.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's an awful kind of transaction the way
Speaker 1: of looking at it. But it's I suppose it's a
Speaker 1: fact and you were clearly very happy. You say it
Speaker 1: at the start of your letter. You know, you were
Speaker 1: very happy, And that's still possible, not all the time,
Speaker 1: like things have definitely changed, but it's still it's still there.
Speaker 1: But to also find a way to grieve separately. Okay,
Speaker 1: that sounds very selfish. Okay, enjoy what you can of
Speaker 1: what remains of the man you married, and at the
Speaker 1: same time find a way to grieve. See a counselor,
Speaker 1: I don't know, some sort of spiritual practice, maybe like meditation,
Speaker 1: anything that helps kind of you to live with the
Speaker 1: pain of this. Do it and get as much practical
Speaker 1: help as you can. And I wish you so.
Speaker 2: Wells Absolutely, it's it's a lot to be able to
Speaker 2: say that out loud, even I think friendships. So many
Speaker 2: questions about friendships.
Speaker 1: Mary, Isn't it bizarre? It's the most the most taboo relationship.
Speaker 1: It's so rarely openly discussed female friendships.
Speaker 2: It's true. So I've got a couple about friendships, but
Speaker 2: this is a good one because it's about how to
Speaker 2: put a boundary in place, basically. And I think you
Speaker 2: I've heard you talk about this before. This woman says,
Speaker 2: I've got a high school friend I see twice a year,
Speaker 2: once on my birthday and once on hers. I've come
Speaker 2: to hate these birthday dinners. It's forced, and we have
Speaker 2: nothing in common. And if I talk about enjoying work
Speaker 2: or my kids doing well, she gets annoyed, suggests, I
Speaker 2: guess that she doesn't feel that way. How do I
Speaker 2: stop these birthday dinners? I get so anxious when they
Speaker 2: come around, But I don't want to hurt her.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, who doesn't who doesn't sympathize and identify
Speaker 1: FI with this? Oh? And I feel so bad for
Speaker 1: the letter writer because, yeah, like the remnants of the
Speaker 1: kind of the friendship that was once there that makes
Speaker 1: you not want to hurt them. I mean, there are
Speaker 1: two there are three things you can do. One is
Speaker 1: you carry on as you are. Please don't like, please
Speaker 1: don't like, please please please don't.
Speaker 2: Your birthday is kind of important to yeah, feeling anxious
Speaker 2: about this event you don't want to.
Speaker 1: And also to be seeing a person who kind of
Speaker 1: doesn't celebrate your successes and joys, like, don't do that
Speaker 1: to yourself, like, please don't. Life is far shorter than
Speaker 1: we realize. I mean, if you add up all those birthdays,
Speaker 1: how many months of your life have you spent in
Speaker 1: the company of a person who doesn't celebrate your happiness? Okay,
Speaker 1: so you could continue doing it, but I'm begging you
Speaker 1: not to. You could say, I mean, people have done
Speaker 1: this you know, you could say it's really not working
Speaker 1: for me anymore. You know, I wish you well, I
Speaker 1: really sincerely do, but we won't be friends going forward.
Speaker 1: Isn't it very funny? Like you could say that to
Speaker 1: a boyfriend or a husband or something. You could say,
Speaker 1: you know, I have loved you and I don't love
Speaker 1: you anymore, and our lives will be separate from now on.
Speaker 1: And people might be upset, but they wouldn't think it
Speaker 1: was odd.
Speaker 2: No, and they're not say now I don't think so. Well, no,
Speaker 2: they might.
Speaker 1: They might, but but you can stand your ground. Or
Speaker 1: you could do the gentle slip, which is so around
Speaker 1: the time of your birthday. You could be very busy.
Speaker 1: You could have gone away, somebody took you away for
Speaker 1: a weekend in such a place. And then I know
Speaker 1: this is awful, but could you have some sort of
Speaker 1: ear infection? You know, maybe not actually diagnosed, but like
Speaker 1: you know, you're not hearing so well and there's a
Speaker 1: kind of blocked up feeling like you've been swimming and
Speaker 1: you can't hear very well. A point and then let
Speaker 1: a couple of texts go on, red, I've got this
Speaker 1: brutal I know, you know.
Speaker 2: It's just tricky though, right because one of the other
Speaker 2: ones I've got is that this person said that they
Speaker 2: feel their good friend has ghosted them, is what we're
Speaker 2: sort of almost suggesting here, and that they've said, I've
Speaker 2: got no idea what I've done, and I can't stop
Speaker 2: thinking about it now that that's like the other side
Speaker 2: of this. But when you were saying before you could
Speaker 2: say to them, you know, I don't love you anymore,
Speaker 2: or you know, words that effect, the thought of doing that,
Speaker 2: particularly face to face.
Speaker 1: Is horrific.
Speaker 2: It almost feels impossible climbing every yeah, jumping out of
Speaker 2: a plane or something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you think you got to email it? What
Speaker 1: do you think? I mean, it's God, it's difficult. You know,
Speaker 1: we can't be saints. Oh god, I mean it's hard
Speaker 1: because who wants to cause pain to another person? But okay,
Speaker 1: all right, if you felt and this doesn't come across,
Speaker 1: if the woman who wrote in and felt that, like
Speaker 1: this other woman is trilled to see her and it's
Speaker 1: delighted to see her, and like it really like lifts
Speaker 1: her up, and she loves here and all the news
Speaker 1: and she's so happy for all the good things in
Speaker 1: the letter writer's life, you'd feel, ah, for God's sake,
Speaker 1: how much does it kill me to spend two and
Speaker 1: a half hours in her company twice a year? That's
Speaker 1: but if you're already getting if you're feeling undermined and
Speaker 1: that you have nothing in common, a little brutality. See,
Speaker 1: I would find this very very difficult, very very who
Speaker 1: wouldn't I? And only a psychopath was literally only a psychopath.
Speaker 2: And this is why I think that maybe it is
Speaker 2: a time when it is permitted to put it in writing,
Speaker 2: all right, because I think that maybe because I know
Speaker 2: what you mean about if it's only wants a year
Speaker 2: two hours. But she says she feels anxious, and she
Speaker 2: uses the word I've come to hate these dinners, So
Speaker 2: that suggests she comes home feeling terrible. Yeah, And you know,
Speaker 2: sometimes I think it's cruel when we might go home
Speaker 2: and we might she might then bit about this woman
Speaker 2: friends to our husband or two around for ages and
Speaker 2: in a way that's not gravy either, No, it's not.
Speaker 2: So maybe this is a time when you're allowed to
Speaker 2: run email.
Speaker 1: Yes, and to be and to write it with huge
Speaker 1: love and pick the words yeah, and to not assign
Speaker 1: any blame, but to say it's simply our lives have
Speaker 1: gone in such different directions and I like blah blah blah,
Speaker 1: and you like such and such, and I get pleasure
Speaker 1: from this thing, and you're the things you love leave
Speaker 1: me cold. And not even language like that, but just
Speaker 1: just to kind of lovingly give reasons for yes, why
Speaker 1: why there, why it is in no longer nourishing, it
Speaker 1: no longer serves you in the in the therapy language. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and just you know, to end with that, you know,
Speaker 1: to wish them happiness and joy and peace and like
Speaker 1: every good thing that they could have in their life
Speaker 1: and detached with love.
Speaker 2: I think. I think that's good because I also think
Speaker 2: that to our other writer, the other lady who wrote
Speaker 2: in and said I'd love some advice about being ghosted,
Speaker 2: I have no idea what I've done, and I can't
Speaker 2: stop thinking about it. I think that if you do,
Speaker 2: if you write an email or whatever, is that you're
Speaker 2: not then going to enter into correspondence. That's right, You've
Speaker 2: provided your side of the story.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean as for the woman who has been ghosted,
Speaker 1: I mean, that is a horrible thing to happen, and
Speaker 1: I think they're entitled to email and say, look, either
Speaker 1: I did something or something wasn't working for you. All
Speaker 1: all I need is an explanation. You know, I'm not
Speaker 1: looking to be friends again. You know I'm adult enough
Speaker 1: to know that that's not what you want. But I
Speaker 1: would just really like to know. I mean, that's that's allowed.
Speaker 2: Also, I think that's reasonable to it. Well, it's not
Speaker 2: that you deserve an explanation, but it's that that will
Speaker 2: at least give you something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, concrete, to kind of comfort yourself with.
Speaker 2: Yes, otherwise you can spin off. Yeah, I've got one
Speaker 2: about a sibling. How to stop my brother. This is
Speaker 2: full of the story behind this message must be fantastic.
Speaker 2: How to stop my brother being so soft and generous
Speaker 2: with his adult kids. They are taking advantage of him.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, in what we well obviously financially.
Speaker 2: But I wonder do you think, because you write so
Speaker 2: brilliantly about siblings, do you think it's any of her business?
Speaker 1: That's the very phrase I was going to use, was
Speaker 1: in what way is this any of her business? It isn't.
Speaker 1: It absolutely isn't. You know? If he is compassmentous, it's
Speaker 1: none of her business. He can give them you know,
Speaker 1: the shirt off his back if he so chooses, if
Speaker 1: he's sane, he can do what he likes.
Speaker 2: And do you think it's hard to stay out of
Speaker 2: his siblings business.
Speaker 1: It's very, very hard. I mean people are very opinionated,
Speaker 1: and people, Yeah, I suppose I speak for myself, like, yes,
Speaker 1: I have opinions on everything. But having opinions and actually
Speaker 1: deciding to interfere they're two different things. Have opinions all
Speaker 1: you like, but no, when you're dealing with adults, unless
Speaker 1: what they're doing is criminal or the signs of mental illness,
Speaker 1: they can live their lives whatever weight they want, and
Speaker 1: they can parent whatever weight they want. Just because it's
Speaker 1: not the way we would choose to do it, it doesn't
Speaker 1: give us any rights. And yeah, because I mean siblings
Speaker 1: especially are very it's kind of weird. You think you
Speaker 1: come from the same set of parents and you kind
Speaker 1: of have learned the same way to parent, but you
Speaker 1: don't know. You know, there's five people in my family.
Speaker 1: You know we had five different sets of parents. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's bizarre, but it's it's true. You know your parents
Speaker 1: are at different stages with different children. And and just
Speaker 1: because the woman who's written in has a different approach
Speaker 1: what a brother is doing.
Speaker 2: It's not wrong, it's not wrong. And one last family one.
Speaker 2: There were a few in here about daughters in law,
Speaker 2: which I think is really sad.
Speaker 1: It is obviously difficult, but it is it, but it is,
Speaker 1: you know, it's it always has been clearly.
Speaker 2: I think my new daughter in law doesn't like me.
Speaker 1: Oh god.
Speaker 2: And I don't think I have done anything wrong. Oh lord,
Speaker 2: I really feel for this person. Yes it's a short message,
Speaker 2: but I don't think I have done anything wrong.
Speaker 1: It's oh, it feels like.
Speaker 2: A chasing child.
Speaker 1: It does.
Speaker 2: Have you seen in your family and your travels or
Speaker 2: in your books even like a way that this relationship
Speaker 2: like how what distance is the right amount of distance here?
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean I'm lucky, Like my mother
Speaker 1: in law is a lovely, lovely woman, and like yeah,
Speaker 1: and like like as soon as I met her, I
Speaker 1: saw how much she loved her son, and she could
Speaker 1: have taken again me like because I don't have children,
Speaker 1: but I understand that thing of like I love this
Speaker 1: person and I don't want you to take them from me,
Speaker 1: or I don't want you to be inferior to what
Speaker 1: he deserves. I mean, there's so much weird stuff going on.
Speaker 1: And then as a daughter in law, there's other fears
Speaker 1: of like she disapproves of me, or she thinks I'm
Speaker 1: not good enough for him, or she interferes too much,
Speaker 1: or and it's it's awful because it's a forced relationship,
Speaker 1: you know, like you wouldn't kind of decide to be
Speaker 1: friends spontaneously, which you're obliged to be two people united
Speaker 1: by the love of one person. And and some people
Speaker 1: they just hit it off. They're just they're on the
Speaker 1: same side. I just think for most people it's fear,
Speaker 1: fear of being usurped or yes.
Speaker 2: It sometimes feels like for the mothers sometimes it feels
Speaker 2: like this woman might have the power to take my
Speaker 2: son away way, yeah, you.
Speaker 3: Know, and that.
Speaker 2: It feels like a power thing that can be very
Speaker 2: unhealthy if that's the way of viewing it, like one
Speaker 2: of us has to be more.
Speaker 1: Important or yes, I has to have that that yeah,
Speaker 1: the upper hand.
Speaker 2: Yes. But then from the daughter in law's perspective, if
Speaker 2: this woman is saying I don't think she likes me,
Speaker 2: well does she have to like you? As in that
Speaker 2: you would go and have you know, a coffee together
Speaker 2: or whatever, or do you just have to be able
Speaker 2: to coexist when necessary?
Speaker 1: God, I don't know. I mean personally speaking, I prefer
Speaker 1: to be liked, like I want warm hugs and and
Speaker 1: kind of so lovely to see you and that's come
Speaker 1: around for dinner. Yeah, well no, actually no, I mean yeah,
Speaker 1: or a line there for sure. No, I don't mean that.
Speaker 1: But like I think, I think a separate relationship outside
Speaker 1: of the sun isn't necessary. Yea, but it is kind
Speaker 1: of horrible to feel, even on those family occasions, that
Speaker 1: somebody is cold or withholding and you don't know why
Speaker 1: when all you have been is friendly and welcoming. I
Speaker 1: don't know. I would recommend that the woman has written
Speaker 1: in just continues love bombs the daughter in law, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: like why not? Maybe the daughter in law is feeling insecure,
Speaker 1: maybe maybe she'll change. Maybe she's afraid of you. Maybe
Speaker 1: she's afraid of you and she doesn't know what you know.
Speaker 1: And a lot of the time we behave in ways
Speaker 1: and we don't know what's driving us. But you don't know,
Speaker 1: and I think there is no circumstance at the moment
Speaker 1: you can kind of front up and say have I
Speaker 1: done something to you like you can't, you know, so
Speaker 1: kind of try and accept that it may not be comfortable,
Speaker 1: but be the adult here and be kind, keep your
Speaker 1: distance a little bit, let that. Let it be like
Speaker 1: a little wounded bird. Give her, give her kind of space,
Speaker 1: the daughter in law to kind of find her feet
Speaker 1: within the dynamic. And and maybe when she realizes that
Speaker 1: you're not going to, you know, gather the son up
Speaker 1: under your arm and run off with them, maybe she
Speaker 1: relax a bit. Yeah. Yeah, so kind of start by
Speaker 1: being the bigger person and and give it I don't know,
Speaker 1: I don't know how much time, you know, six months,
Speaker 1: a year, and then if she hasn't warmed up by then,
Speaker 1: then don't bother. Yeah yeah, nothing, nothing, nothing at all.
Speaker 1: I'm kind of joking about that. Yeah, be a be
Speaker 1: as kind as you can for as long as you can.
Speaker 2: And then but as you say, we're not perfect.
Speaker 1: We're not perfect, and we cannot be perfect, and we
Speaker 1: try our best, and some days our best is pretty poor.
Speaker 1: And I speak for myself marrying Keith.
Speaker 2: Thank you. I don't think Tara Flynn needs to worry
Speaker 2: about them. Wonderful now you're asking, but I so appreciate you.
Speaker 1: You were lovely.
Speaker 2: Thank you, yes, but I so appreciate you answering our
Speaker 2: listeners questions.
Speaker 1: It was an honor.
Speaker 2: Thank you, and thank you so much for writing another
Speaker 2: wonderful book, all the wonderful books. I really appreciate it,
Speaker 2: so thank you so much.
Speaker 1: It's my absolute pleasure. Holly, thank you so much for
Speaker 1: having me.
Speaker 2: It's been a joy. How good was that now? It
Speaker 2: was such a delight. And of course, if you want
Speaker 2: to know more about Marian read her books all those things.
Speaker 2: There are links in the show notes. But if you
Speaker 2: want to hear another conversation with an incredible author, please
Speaker 2: scroll back in your feed and find my conversations with
Speaker 2: Leanne Moriadi or with Jane Tara right here on MID.
Speaker 2: If you have a dilemma that you would like us
Speaker 2: to tackle on mid, we would like to do that
Speaker 2: for you, and we've got an address week and send them.
Speaker 2: It's helped me at mamamea dot com dot au. And
Speaker 2: if you send us any dilemmas there, who knows who
Speaker 2: might answer them with me for you. We didn't necessarily
Speaker 2: know maryan Keyth was going to do that, but she
Speaker 2: certainly did. Thank you. For being with us here on
Speaker 2: mid We have loved it. I would love you to
Speaker 2: be here with us next week too, for the final
Speaker 2: episode of this current season. The executive of this episode
Speaker 2: his name A Brown. The producer is Charlie Blackman, and
Speaker 2: we've had audio production from Jacob Brown. And a massive
Speaker 2: thanks to all of them and to you. See you
Speaker 2: next week.