Speaker 1: You're listening to a MoMA mea podcast.
Speaker 2: Mamma Mere acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters
Speaker 2: that this podcast is recorded on. I'm writing a brief.
Speaker 2: It's for my perfect second husband, actually my first husband,
Speaker 2: because my current one, Brent, is not really my husband
Speaker 2: but my boyfriend. He's been my boyfriend for twenty years
Speaker 2: this year. And my boyfriend and I have two children,
Speaker 2: a mortgage, a dog, two decades of shared history and
Speaker 2: stories and travels and shared friendships and families and illnesses
Speaker 2: and deaths and miscarriages and weddings and funerals and money,
Speaker 2: worries and work, stress and fights and diagnoses and at
Speaker 2: least five different homes and wordle and sundowners and a
Speaker 2: great deal of laughter. For now, at least, we are
Speaker 2: stuck too and with each other. But if I, like
Speaker 2: my guest today, found myself suddenly single again, would I,
Speaker 2: like my guest today, get busy with a blank page
Speaker 2: in and Excel spreadsheet, devoid of history and the messiness
Speaker 2: of familiarity, and ask myself what do I want next?
Speaker 2: And if I did, would the universe laugh at me
Speaker 2: the way it did twenty years ago when I was
Speaker 2: convinced what I wanted was not what was right in
Speaker 2: front of me, but a whole list of unchecked boxes.
Speaker 2: I'd dated musicians and artists and cliff scaling risk takers,
Speaker 2: addicts and travelers and earnest world changes. I had the
Speaker 2: words life less ordinary taped on a corkboard somewhere, and
Speaker 2: I took those words to mean chaos and drama and
Speaker 2: constant movement manifestos. That's not what I got. If the
Speaker 2: universe knew anything, it was that I'd had my fill
Speaker 2: of all that. But back to the blank sheet of
Speaker 2: my imagination. If I was single, with all my mid
Speaker 2: wisdom under my arm, like my guest today, would I
Speaker 2: devise a strategy, write up some rules, enforce the guardrails
Speaker 2: star we are to stop watch, an email chain, a
Speaker 2: crowdsourcing plan. I doubt it. I'm not a strategist. I'm
Speaker 2: a panther, not a plotter. But if we are here
Speaker 2: and the lines must be filled in, I would learn
Speaker 2: to click on my Excel cells and I would drag
Speaker 2: and drop, and I would write kind, funny, kind, tall, kind, smart, kind, warm, kind, optimistic, kind, creative, kind, calm, kind, hot,
Speaker 2: and probably because this was my brief, and only my brief.
Speaker 2: I would feed it into a hungry AI assistant and
Speaker 2: it would spit out a photo of print, and that
Speaker 2: would be really, really annoying and also perfect.
Speaker 3: Hello.
Speaker 2: Hello, my name is Holly Wainwright and I am mid midlife,
Speaker 2: mid family, mid long relationship. Today's episode is all about love, specifically,
Speaker 2: it's about finding it in your mid years, maybe for
Speaker 2: the second time, maybe for the fourth, maybe for the first.
Speaker 2: We've touched on this before here in mid Our second
Speaker 2: ever episode was called the Midlife Dating Pool Has.
Speaker 1: We in It?
Speaker 2: And it was about Catherine Mahoney's chaotic app dating world
Speaker 2: and it was very, very funny, and you all told
Speaker 2: me that you wanted more of those stories. And so
Speaker 2: today something very different about dating after a divorce, a
Speaker 2: story about a woman who did it in the most
Speaker 2: methodical way. I can imagine a woman who knew exactly
Speaker 2: what she wanted, and her particular list of needs and
Speaker 2: wants weren't necessarily the same as her friends, and the
Speaker 2: way she was going to find the partner that she
Speaker 2: knew she wanted was probably not going to be the
Speaker 2: same either. Doctor Amantha Imber is one of the most efficient,
Speaker 2: productive and interesting people I know. She is an organizational psychologist,
Speaker 2: and organizational psychologists are amazing. And she is the creator
Speaker 2: of the innovation business Inventium, and she hosts the podcast
Speaker 2: How I Work. And she is the author of a
Speaker 2: few books and the mother to one child. And she
Speaker 2: also got divorced a few years ago. Organizational psychologists don't
Speaker 2: necessarily date the same way chaotic writers do. It seems
Speaker 2: Amantha took an efficient approach when she decided she wanted
Speaker 2: a new pun. She decided to balance quantity and quality
Speaker 2: on the dating apps, and she went on fifty one
Speaker 2: first dates in her first stint of online dating. Those
Speaker 2: dates had strict rules and boundaries, time limits and schedules,
Speaker 2: and they didn't work. So then Amantha drew up a
Speaker 2: brief and cold called a whole lot of people in
Speaker 2: her circle who might know the person she was looking for.
Speaker 2: But well, that didn't work either, So what did? I'm
Speaker 2: going to let her tell you that, Amantha, You're getting married.
Speaker 2: Massive congratulations, thanks Holly, thank you. I need to let
Speaker 2: the mids in on the fact that I have interviewed
Speaker 2: you before a couple of times actually, but the last
Speaker 2: time we had a proper chat, I looked today, it
Speaker 2: was actually eight years ago.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh. And that was in Melbourne. Yep, it was.
Speaker 2: And it was in Melbourne, and we were talking about
Speaker 2: because you owned your own company, and you were talking
Speaker 2: about this wild way of working where people could work
Speaker 2: remotely from wherever they wanted to and all these things
Speaker 2: that at the time was so mind boggling that I
Speaker 2: came back to work and said to everybody, you won't
Speaker 2: believe it. Fast forward eight years, and a lot has changed,
Speaker 2: but also a lot has changed in your life since then.
Speaker 2: Catch me up quickly on what's been going on with
Speaker 2: you in the last eight years.
Speaker 4: Oh well, look, lots changed at work, and you know,
Speaker 4: we've now been doing the four day week for the
Speaker 4: last four years, and that's you know, that's a whole
Speaker 4: other topic of conversation. But in my person life, the
Speaker 4: most significant thing that has happened is that I got
Speaker 4: divorced in twenty nineteen and I am getting married in
Speaker 4: March twenty twenty five, which is.
Speaker 2: Very exciting and I need. That's what we're here to
Speaker 2: talk about, because a lot of midlife women are divorced,
Speaker 2: dating not dating, deciding if they want any part of
Speaker 2: it ever again, and I would love to hear from you,
Speaker 2: who's one of the smartest women I know for sure?
Speaker 2: Was it soon after your divorce that you were like,
Speaker 2: I know, I want to repartner, or did you go
Speaker 2: through that period of time where you were like, never again,
Speaker 2: I think I want to be single forever.
Speaker 4: I think before the separation and then the divorce happened,
Speaker 4: I'd probably been grieving that relationship for a while, and
Speaker 4: so I think, you know, in any relationship breakdown, I
Speaker 4: think there's always one person that probably knows first. Sometimes
Speaker 4: it is mutual, but I think oftentimes and stories I've
Speaker 4: heard from my friends that have been said O parated
Speaker 4: is that they will have grieved if they were the
Speaker 4: one making the decision before the actual relationship ended.
Speaker 1: And so I can't remember when exactly.
Speaker 4: I knew that I definitely wanted to repartner, but it
Speaker 4: would have only been a few months after the breakdown
Speaker 4: of the relationship. So I definitely knew that one of
Speaker 4: my values is that life is best shared with someone
Speaker 4: and that's just me, and I knew that I felt
Speaker 4: that way, and so I knew that I wanted to
Speaker 4: take finding a new partner really seriously.
Speaker 2: And you did. I want to know first of all,
Speaker 2: because I imagine correct me if I'm wrong, that you
Speaker 2: went to the apps first, and the apps didn't really
Speaker 2: exist probably the last time you were single. Certainly the
Speaker 2: last time I was single. There was like RSVP online,
Speaker 2: and I did play with that a bit, but the
Speaker 2: whole dating app revolution hadn't started. How did you find
Speaker 2: the apps first?
Speaker 4: Up? Oh wow, Yeah, it's totally different world because I
Speaker 4: was with my ex husband for thirteen years, so there
Speaker 4: was definitely no apps, but RSVP was definitely a thing.
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness.
Speaker 4: So when I decided I was ready to date again,
Speaker 4: which was a few months after the separation, I think
Speaker 4: I tried bumble first and it was.
Speaker 1: Man, it's like it's.
Speaker 4: A whole other world. It is so strange. And I
Speaker 4: was very reliant on the apps because the two main
Speaker 4: years where I was dating before I met Neo my
Speaker 4: soon to be husband, was twenty twenty and twenty twenty one,
Speaker 4: and I live in Melbourne and I was locked down
Speaker 4: for a good part of those two years, so apps
Speaker 4: was really the main way to meet people.
Speaker 2: I can imagine that that was also made it particularly difficult,
Speaker 2: because I mean, apart from the fact that you're all
Speaker 2: locked in your houses. But it was also that extra
Speaker 2: level of how careful is everybody? Do we meet up
Speaker 2: under what circumstances? It's not like you're going to bars
Speaker 2: and things like that. It was very, very different.
Speaker 4: It certainly was, and I think they needed to be
Speaker 4: quite a high level of trust to meet up with
Speaker 4: someone face to face, which you know, oftentimes might have
Speaker 4: been for like a walk around the park wearing a mask,
Speaker 4: which I mean, what a strange way to get to
Speaker 4: know someone when you can't even read their facial expressions.
Speaker 4: But I think what was good about online dating is
Speaker 4: that for me, given like you know, part of my
Speaker 4: work is around productivity and using time more wisely, is
Speaker 4: that it's also quite efficient in that you can screen
Speaker 4: a lot of people a lot more quickly than you
Speaker 4: can if you're just reliant on meeting people in real
Speaker 4: life or through connections in the workplace, or you know,
Speaker 4: other ways that people meet their partners.
Speaker 2: So yeah, so the listeners understand you are a psychologist,
Speaker 2: you are a productivity expert, you're an academic, you're big
Speaker 2: on research, you're big on efficiency. So did you devise
Speaker 2: a kind of system for how to weed out the
Speaker 2: wheat from the chaff.
Speaker 1: In the dating world, I did.
Speaker 4: What I realized pretty early on is that there is
Speaker 4: a huge amount of quantity.
Speaker 1: Time is finite.
Speaker 4: I run a business, and so therefore I work something
Speaker 4: that resembles full time hours. I've got a daughter that
Speaker 4: is with me fifty percent of the time. I've got friends,
Speaker 4: I've got family, and so there's a part of time
Speaker 4: that I carved out for dating, and I wanted to
Speaker 4: use that time really well as opposed to almost have
Speaker 4: the dating apps become like social media is for a
Speaker 4: lot of people, where you're just kind of mindlessly on
Speaker 4: it without too much of an end goal. So I
Speaker 4: tried to be very conscientious almost in how I use
Speaker 4: the apps.
Speaker 2: You like siphon off time that you're like, I'm going
Speaker 2: to look at it between this time and this time.
Speaker 1: I absolutely did.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, Like I didn't stick to that one hundredent
Speaker 4: of the time, but most of the time I was
Speaker 4: quite conscious. It's like, okay, if I'm opening up Bumble
Speaker 4: or Hinge, and they were my main go tos. I
Speaker 4: tried Tinder, which just don't even get me started on
Speaker 4: how that's the Yeah, there's no way.
Speaker 2: So they're all quite different.
Speaker 1: They're very different. They're very different.
Speaker 4: I would have a bit of a process where you
Speaker 4: connect with someone if you've both I guess liked each other.
Speaker 4: And granted things might have changed in terms of the
Speaker 4: features of these apps given where now you know, I
Speaker 4: think three years that's all that. But then what was
Speaker 4: really important for me is rather than just exchanging words,
Speaker 4: and I mean, words are important, and we're both writers,
Speaker 4: so I think you and I can appreciate the importance
Speaker 4: of how someone uses words. But beyond that, I mean,
Speaker 4: so like good grammar matters to me, which might sound superficial,
Speaker 4: but I think it's important.
Speaker 2: I know it does to me too, and I worry
Speaker 2: that it makes me a snob, but it's very much.
Speaker 2: I think it's just if that's part of your value, like,
Speaker 2: if that's part of what you do in your value system,
Speaker 2: it's very hard if somebody just it doesn't use grammar
Speaker 2: and doesn't and spells everything wrong.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yes, yes, And then I had to try to
Speaker 4: develop other heuristics, like things that would just help me
Speaker 4: shortcut decision making, because if you agonize over every single
Speaker 4: person that you're looking at on an app, I mean,
Speaker 4: it's a never ending task, and so just for the
Speaker 4: sake of using my time, well, I thought, I just
Speaker 4: need some quick decision making rules that will help me
Speaker 4: decide yes I want to know more or no swipe left,
Speaker 4: which I think is the direction that you say no
Speaker 4: in man, I think I've just repressed all this stuff, Holly.
Speaker 4: So I had a thing where I would move to
Speaker 4: voice memo quite quickly, because I think you can tell
Speaker 4: a lot about someone by their voice and how they
Speaker 4: speak and just what energy they bring to a conversation,
Speaker 4: and so I would move from text to voie fairly quickly.
Speaker 4: And because I think that feature was just being introduced
Speaker 4: at the time, it was a little bit unusual, and
Speaker 4: so people would often reply by, oh, I didn't even
Speaker 4: know that there was a voice recording feature in the app,
Speaker 4: And we would exchange a few messages and I would
Speaker 4: just get a bit of a feel for them. So
Speaker 4: again I could go, Hm, does this feel like someone
Speaker 4: that has the kind of energy that I want to
Speaker 4: be with?
Speaker 1: And again, I.
Speaker 4: Mean, I'm sure that there are lots of people in
Speaker 4: the world that are fantastic that probably wouldn't sound great
Speaker 4: in a voice memo.
Speaker 1: And yes, I ruled them all.
Speaker 4: Out because of this little heuristic that I developed. But
Speaker 4: time is finite, and so I had to keep coming
Speaker 4: back to that and going, look, I just I need
Speaker 4: decision making criteriously and I'm not agonizing some things.
Speaker 2: And then so you went on some dates from the
Speaker 2: dating apps, but then you decided to come off the
Speaker 2: apps for a while and try a different kind of
Speaker 2: dating experiment. Did you not meet anybody good on the
Speaker 2: dating apps that first time around?
Speaker 1: Look, I reckon all up.
Speaker 4: I calculate it probably went on about fifty first dates.
Speaker 2: Wow, yeah, Antha, that's loads.
Speaker 1: It's so many over two years, and some of those.
Speaker 2: Did you have like rules about the dates too, like
Speaker 2: how long they could be, what they were, and that
Speaker 2: kind of thing.
Speaker 1: Of course I didn't tell me that. I feel like,
Speaker 1: when you.
Speaker 4: Go on a date, a lot of people feel an
Speaker 4: obligation just to stay for a decent amount of time.
Speaker 1: But for me, I just thought, if we're both.
Speaker 4: Sitting there and there's clearly no connection, just call it early.
Speaker 1: And so I would.
Speaker 4: Typically, I think my shortest dates were about forty five minutes,
Speaker 4: because I felt like that was long enough. I mean,
Speaker 4: often you can tell in the first five minutes but
Speaker 4: I tried not to hang on to those first impressions
Speaker 4: as well. It's really easy to form like very quick
Speaker 4: impressions when you start a date.
Speaker 1: But I would try.
Speaker 4: To just you know, force particularly any judgmental parts of
Speaker 4: my brain to just go no, no, remain open. But
Speaker 4: I sort of thought, look, after forty five minutes, I'm
Speaker 4: just going to call it. And sometimes I was honest
Speaker 4: and I just said I just don't feel like there's
Speaker 4: a connection here. Other times I just made up a
Speaker 4: lie and said that I had to go to, you know,
Speaker 4: in my mind, protect the other person's feelings.
Speaker 1: So I did a lot of that.
Speaker 4: Some of those first dates turned into second dates and more,
Speaker 4: but most did not, And that was fine, because you know,
Speaker 4: it takes meeting a lot of people to find the
Speaker 4: person that you, you know, feel the disconnection.
Speaker 2: Were you ever like, oh, you know, this is exhausting.
Speaker 2: What's that movie?
Speaker 4: Where is he?
Speaker 2: I always Charlotte m sax in the city? Where is he?
Speaker 4: Did you?
Speaker 2: Did you feel like that?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 1: My gosh, Holly.
Speaker 4: After so many dates, I would be driving home and
Speaker 4: I would call my best friend and I would say,
Speaker 4: I've just been on another date. And it didn't work,
Speaker 4: and like, am my standards too high?
Speaker 1: I am I expecting too much? Like what am I
Speaker 1: doing wrong?
Speaker 4: And oh man, like there were so many low points
Speaker 4: in that two years, But I think somewhere inside of
Speaker 4: me I felt I did feel truly optimistic, even though
Speaker 4: there were lots of low points and lots of nights
Speaker 4: just feeling really lonely and discouraged on that drive home
Speaker 4: from the date. But I think, you know, I was
Speaker 4: definitely holding onto some optimism and hope, which I think
Speaker 4: you have to if you're going to deal with the apps,
Speaker 4: because the apps can be incredibly depressing.
Speaker 2: And you're a pragmatic, practical person, right, And I imagine
Speaker 2: that that helps in this situation because if you're meeting
Speaker 2: somebody and it's obvious there's no chemistry, hopefully you're not
Speaker 2: walking away from it going there's something wrong with me,
Speaker 2: because that's not what it's about, right, That's not what
Speaker 2: it's about at all. But that can be tough on
Speaker 2: the ego after a while if you do internalize it.
Speaker 2: So having that pragmatic approach is probably really helpful.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it is helpful.
Speaker 4: I think also I ended up like just I did
Speaker 4: so much research into how almost like how to be
Speaker 4: a data and how to make a good decision. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I read a lot of books and one of the
Speaker 4: lessons that stuck with me that I tried to implement
Speaker 4: but I found it really hard is to always default
Speaker 4: to a second date. Whereas for me, I've gone into dating,
Speaker 4: going one date and if I'm not enamored, then I'm
Speaker 4: calling it. So I changed my approach part of the
Speaker 4: way through to go I'm defaulting to a second date
Speaker 4: unless there's a massive problem or red flag on the
Speaker 4: first date, which I felt just having that rule helped
Speaker 4: me keep.
Speaker 1: An open mind.
Speaker 4: But it did get to a point where about two
Speaker 4: years of doing this, I just thought.
Speaker 1: I'm so over this.
Speaker 4: Surely there's got to be a better way of finding people.
Speaker 4: And so I my resident email out to a few
Speaker 4: close friends and I said, Okay, I want your ideas.
Speaker 4: I'm still dating, I'm still single, but I'm taking it
Speaker 4: really seriously finding a new partner. Give me some ideas
Speaker 4: of like what would you do if you were me?
Speaker 4: And you could you avoid the apps but still fine dates.
Speaker 4: And I remember someone someone emailed me back and they said, well,
Speaker 4: you know, you know, lots of people like you you know,
Speaker 4: host a podcast that's very popular, You've got like, you know,
Speaker 4: large networks through work. Surely with all those kind of
Speaker 4: assets in inverted commas, you could utilize those to find
Speaker 4: a date. And I thought that's interesting, and so I
Speaker 4: then decided that I would try to crowdsource dates.
Speaker 1: So what the approach was, it was quite specific.
Speaker 4: So I put together a list of people who I
Speaker 4: would call a little bit more than acquaintances. So they
Speaker 4: weren't my inner circle of friends, because my inner circle
Speaker 4: of friends they knew I was looking for someone.
Speaker 3: They know me.
Speaker 1: If they knew someone, they would have introduced me.
Speaker 4: So yeah, so I went, I went sort of down
Speaker 4: the friendship tears, if you like, to people that knew
Speaker 4: me and knew my values and kind of who I
Speaker 4: am as a person, but is not someone that would necessarily,
Speaker 4: you know, if they knew a person that they thought,
Speaker 4: oh they could be great for amoutha, it just wouldn't
Speaker 4: be top of mind. So I literally I opened up
Speaker 4: Excel and I created a spreadsheet and I wrote down
Speaker 4: all these people's names. And the other thing is I
Speaker 4: was specifically thinking about who were the most well networked
Speaker 4: people of that most people yeah, who knew the most.
Speaker 4: And then I put together a one page brief of
Speaker 4: what I was looking for.
Speaker 2: Okay, I need to know what was on the brief, Amountha.
Speaker 4: Well, it had a few sections, so it had just
Speaker 4: basic demographics because for age demographics brought age and location
Speaker 4: demographics because that was important. I didn't want a long
Speaker 4: distance thing and I didn't want to be dating someone
Speaker 4: you know it was like twenty years younger or you know,
Speaker 4: thirty years older.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I decided that that wasn't for me.
Speaker 4: I had thought about what are the most important values
Speaker 4: and what are the most important qualities? And I think
Speaker 4: that's something I really discounted when I was dating in
Speaker 4: my twenties, where I think I sort of focused on.
Speaker 1: You know, more of the superficial things that a lot
Speaker 1: of us have focused on in our twenties, like, you know,
Speaker 1: are they smarter? Are they funny? And you know they
Speaker 1: have a good job? And is the hot all that
Speaker 1: sort of thing.
Speaker 4: But somewhere along the lines, like I think of the
Speaker 4: guys that I dated in my twenties and the decisions
Speaker 4: I made, kindness didn't really feature.
Speaker 1: And so for me, that was france and center.
Speaker 4: I wanted someone who at their core was just a beautiful,
Speaker 4: kind person. And I feel that, you know, now in
Speaker 4: my forties, I understand how important that is for a relationship.
Speaker 4: But for a lot of the dating that I did
Speaker 4: in my younger years, it's like I was looking for
Speaker 4: qualities that just it didn't matter. And I knew I
Speaker 4: also wanted someone that had a real kind of learning
Speaker 4: growth kind of mindset.
Speaker 2: Because that's how you are. You know, you're you're a searcher.
Speaker 2: You're a learner or a researcher. You Yeah, you're constantly curious. Yes,
Speaker 2: you wouldn't want to be with someone who was this
Speaker 2: is it? This is the way things are closing?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Not Yeah.
Speaker 4: And like I even think about some of the ritual
Speaker 4: that Neo, my partner, and I have, and it's like
Speaker 4: for a lot of people they would think that, like
Speaker 4: these are mad rituals, like what are you doing? But
Speaker 4: for us, because we're very similar in our value set,
Speaker 4: it just makes sense.
Speaker 2: Because I was just asking about that one second. We're
Speaker 2: going to get onto Neo in a bit when we
Speaker 2: when we find him. But when I love this idea
Speaker 2: of ask you when you actually articulate what you want
Speaker 2: because I've heard women of all kinds of different ages
Speaker 2: talk about this. Jesse Stevens, who's my co host on
Speaker 2: out loud, not long before she met her partner Lucas,
Speaker 2: she said she'd been disastered and she was only in
Speaker 2: her twenties, but she had been disastrously dating. And she
Speaker 2: did write a list and a lot of people teased
Speaker 2: her about it because they're like, you shouldn't be so
Speaker 2: close minded. You know, it's kind of a bit judgmental
Speaker 2: to write a list. You know, lightning strikes in all
Speaker 2: kind of ways, and just like what you just said,
Speaker 2: kindness was top of her list. And then she met
Speaker 2: the guy and he was very kind When you wrote
Speaker 2: your list, and then you shared that list with your
Speaker 2: circle A that feels like quite a vulnerable thing to do,
Speaker 2: like kind of showing that to people in your world
Speaker 2: like I do. It can even be vulnerable saying I
Speaker 2: really would like to meet someone and I haven't. But
Speaker 2: also these are the things that mattered to me. Were
Speaker 2: you worried about that vulnerability and were you worried about
Speaker 2: seeming I don't know, so a twofold question, Well, did
Speaker 2: the vulnerability worry you? And do you think there's just
Speaker 2: power in getting really clear about what matters to.
Speaker 1: You, yes and yes.
Speaker 4: So I still remember how I felt when I called
Speaker 4: these people. Actually had a list of fifty people, and
Speaker 4: I thought, I'm just going to start with ten, treated
Speaker 4: as an experiment, And I remember every one of those
Speaker 4: ten phone calls, and I felt so nervous.
Speaker 1: I felt sick in the stomach.
Speaker 4: It felt like a really big deal to put yourself
Speaker 4: out there and say I'm like, unashamedly looking for a
Speaker 4: partner and I really want your help. I was so
Speaker 4: nervous and what I got on the receiving end and
Speaker 4: keeping in mind these people like I knew them, but
Speaker 4: I didn't know them well, Like I knew them well
Speaker 4: enough for them to be on the list.
Speaker 2: Well enough they were going to pick up the phone
Speaker 2: or once your email and be like hi a month
Speaker 2: in a good tear from you. But then they'd be.
Speaker 3: Like, oh, that's what we're talking about today, Yeah, exactly, exactly,
Speaker 3: And I remember every one of them was just like
Speaker 3: so so honored to be asked and so excited to help.
Speaker 1: And I ran it as like.
Speaker 4: A four week campaign where every week I would send
Speaker 4: them like a little nudge, a little question to try
Speaker 4: to trigger memories around all the people that they might know.
Speaker 4: And then I think I had some kind of an incentive,
Speaker 4: not that they needed an incentive, because I think they
Speaker 4: just you know, enjoyed the idea of helping that I'd
Speaker 4: make it. I think I was going to make a
Speaker 4: hundred dollars donation to charity for every.
Speaker 1: Date that I went on that they found me.
Speaker 4: And yeah, and the experiment was an utter failure. Not
Speaker 4: a single date came out of that experiment.
Speaker 2: Why do you think that was.
Speaker 1: Well?
Speaker 4: I think it was because they had a very clear
Speaker 4: brief and it wasn't an extensive brief. It wasn't a
Speaker 4: long brief. I think all up there were nine points
Speaker 4: that was it, because I think one of the arts
Speaker 4: of making a great brief is making it very succinct
Speaker 4: as opposed to a whole shopping list, and that was
Speaker 4: really hard. But it was a good process to go through,
Speaker 4: I think for myself in going what are the absolute
Speaker 4: must haves here? But I also think it is hard
Speaker 4: to find someone that is your person. I think it's
Speaker 4: harder when it's when you're in your forties because just
Speaker 4: i'man Statistically, a lot of people are still married. It's
Speaker 4: not like in your twenties, where the majority of people
Speaker 4: are probably single or in you know, like not non
Speaker 4: life committed relationships. So just statistically, it's really different. And
Speaker 4: I think when you're in your forties and beyond, like
Speaker 4: you're really clear on who you are and what you
Speaker 4: value and what is important and what you won't compromise on.
Speaker 4: And I think that for me because I had no
Speaker 4: biological clock ticking, I had my beautiful daughter she's now ten.
Speaker 4: There's also no sense of urgency as well, and that
Speaker 4: changes everything when it comes to dating as a woman.
Speaker 2: That's so interesting because it's true. It's like you this,
Speaker 2: to put it in very basic language, you don't need
Speaker 2: to settle, like you know what I mean. You don't
Speaker 2: need It's not you don't necessarily need a partner for
Speaker 2: financial reasons or to have a baby with, or to
Speaker 2: buy a house or whatever, because you're well established in
Speaker 2: your life, your career. You've got your beautiful daughter, as
Speaker 2: you say, so a partner, as you said at the beginning,
Speaker 2: you said, I know that life is for me. Life
Speaker 2: is better shared. That's your goal. It's not just anyone
Speaker 2: will do. It's got to be shared with the right person.
Speaker 2: Not that not that we all go around thinking anyone
Speaker 2: will do, but a lot of those filters, you know,
Speaker 2: they're stronger at this point because you don't need to settle,
Speaker 2: right I think.
Speaker 4: So, I think when you're racing against a clock as
Speaker 4: a woman, if you do want to have children, then
Speaker 4: it just I think sometimes it can lead to more
Speaker 4: pragmatic decision making. And I hold no judgment against that
Speaker 4: because I totally get that.
Speaker 1: I totally get that.
Speaker 4: But my experience was it was very, very different without
Speaker 4: any kind of timeline, like, yes, I wanted to find someone,
Speaker 4: you know, and sooner would have been better than later.
Speaker 4: But equally, it had to be an additive because life
Speaker 4: was really good before NEO, and unless it was going
Speaker 4: to add something really wonderful to life, then why would
Speaker 4: you Because obviously relationships involve sacrifices as well, and so
Speaker 4: you know, the additive needs to be strong.
Speaker 2: So we've written this type brief. I'm just imagining your friends.
Speaker 2: The reason that you didn't get dates out of that
Speaker 2: going through it because the brief was type being like, well,
Speaker 2: yes he's smart, but he's not creative, and they're like
Speaker 2: crossing it out and then or whatever it was anyway,
Speaker 2: then so that didn't work and you went back on hinge.
Speaker 2: Now quite quickly you did meet Neo. Do you think
Speaker 2: the list exercised, the brief helped you further clarify things
Speaker 2: when you did go back into app world?
Speaker 1: It absolutely did.
Speaker 4: But I also think, I mean, like, look, it was
Speaker 4: it was putting pen to paper with what I knew
Speaker 4: inside to be true, but with Neo id like, it
Speaker 4: wasn't an uming and r ring like oh you know,
Speaker 4: I remember like our first phone call that we had,
Speaker 4: so we connected, we messaged, we voice memode, and then
Speaker 4: we had a phone call. And I used to have
Speaker 4: this rule for when we would get to the phone
Speaker 4: call part of the dating process, which which i'd strongly
Speaker 4: recommend instead of just going straight to a face to
Speaker 4: because you can tell a lot in a phone conversation.
Speaker 1: I used to have this rule that I wouldn't.
Speaker 4: Let a phone conversation go over an hour because which
Speaker 4: sounds like quite an anal strange rule, but the reason
Speaker 4: for it is that I'd had experiences where I had
Speaker 4: connected with someone on the app, and like I can
Speaker 4: think of a couple of instances where we talked for
Speaker 4: like two or three hours on the phone, and when
Speaker 4: you talk to someone for that long and they're a
Speaker 4: stranger and they're normally you know, I feel like when
Speaker 4: it's a phone conversation, you sort of let it, let
Speaker 4: down some of your guard, and you can talk about
Speaker 4: things that are quite vulnerable because there's no visual there's
Speaker 4: just voice. And something about that I think brings on
Speaker 4: to honesty in a yeah, and an intimacy in the conversation.
Speaker 4: And what then I'd done between the phone conversation and
Speaker 4: the face to face date in those instances is that
Speaker 4: I've just started to.
Speaker 1: Project all these qualities onto the person that really I
Speaker 1: didn't know. I just talked to them on the phone.
Speaker 4: And then the first date was a real down and
Speaker 4: so I thought, I'm just going to limit that first.
Speaker 1: Phone conversation to an hour.
Speaker 4: It's like it's long enough to get a really good
Speaker 4: feel for someone, but it's not so long that you're
Speaker 4: learning all this stuff and then forming like starting all
Speaker 4: these assumptions and projections of what this person could possibly be,
Speaker 4: because I found that that's really unhelpful going into a date.
Speaker 2: After this short break, we're going to hear about Amantha's
Speaker 2: first date with Neo and whether all her hard work
Speaker 2: paid off stay with us. So your first conversation with
Speaker 2: Neo did it break this rule?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 1: It did, But I told him about the rule. I look,
Speaker 1: I remember, you know, it was in the evening.
Speaker 4: I think we got to about nine o'clock at night
Speaker 4: and I looked at my watch and I said, Neo,
Speaker 4: so I've got this rule. And I got to cut
Speaker 4: the phone conversation short now and I explained why, and
Speaker 4: because he's as nerdy as me, He's like, I totally
Speaker 4: get it. And then we just ended up talking I
Speaker 4: think for another fifth or twenty minutes, and then I'm like, Okay, we.
Speaker 1: Really have to go now. This rule has been broken.
Speaker 4: But I think I just I knew after that phone
Speaker 4: conversation that I think this guy's pretty special.
Speaker 1: I think this is going to be a good first date.
Speaker 2: Tell me about your first date.
Speaker 4: I remember one of the I think like it was
Speaker 4: kind of like a bit of a pet peeve where
Speaker 4: I feel like I spent a lot of my life,
Speaker 4: you know, in charge and in a leadership kind of
Speaker 4: role as a business owner, and I really appreciated it
Speaker 4: when the person that I was dating would take charge
Speaker 4: and take some initiative in terms of what are we
Speaker 4: doing for the first date or the second date. And
Speaker 4: it's kind of owned some of those decisions because I
Speaker 4: will naturally go to that role. But I really like
Speaker 4: it when I'm relieved of that role. And I remember
Speaker 4: Neo texted me and he said, so, I've been thinking
Speaker 4: about what we could do for our first date, and
Speaker 4: what do you reckon about going bowling?
Speaker 1: And I thought, oh, that's awesome. That's awesome.
Speaker 4: Like he's you know, a bit like quirky and creative,
Speaker 4: and he's put some thought into it, and he had
Speaker 4: his reasons for suggesting bowling. And then we go for
Speaker 4: a drink afterwards. So we went ten pin bowling, and
Speaker 4: I remember there was just really fun eighties music blasting
Speaker 4: over the speakers, and you know, this like one or
Speaker 4: two hour, you know, several games of bowling. It was
Speaker 4: just it was fun and it was silly, and it
Speaker 4: was lighthearted and it was flirty, and you know that,
Speaker 4: like there was a bit of conversation, but there wasn't
Speaker 4: pressure on the conversation. And then when we went to
Speaker 4: a bar afterwards, it's like we just you know, delvet
Speaker 4: in the conversation I think the date ended at like
Speaker 4: two in the morning, which I made like my my
Speaker 4: bedtimes ten.
Speaker 2: I know you're alive. That's what I know about you.
Speaker 2: You're a lark. It's you're an early morning person.
Speaker 4: I am so like, I don't do two am, but
Speaker 4: on this first date I did.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: So it was pretty obvious straight away that this was
Speaker 2: special and different to those other fifty first dates very much,
Speaker 2: and so did was it all sort of plain sailing
Speaker 2: from there? I mean, we've already put a spoiler at
Speaker 2: the beginning of this episode, which is that you are
Speaker 2: getting married and Neo is the man you're getting married to.
Speaker 2: But I guess what I want to know is, you know,
Speaker 2: when you are falling in love in mid you've got
Speaker 2: it's very different in a way from when you're young
Speaker 2: and you're you know, you haven't got all the experiences
Speaker 2: in the wisdom of what can go wrong or how
Speaker 2: sometimes things that start beautifully can fall apart, or sometimes
Speaker 2: people who charm the pants off you, maybe literally, maybe figuratively,
Speaker 2: can then turn out to have some serious red flags
Speaker 2: and that can make us all you know, it can
Speaker 2: it can complicate things, right because we're wiser and more experienced,
Speaker 2: but that also can mean we're more guarded, Like how
Speaker 2: was it was it immediate that you could trust him
Speaker 2: that things were going to go well? Like how did
Speaker 2: it progress?
Speaker 4: There were two things that I think about that I
Speaker 4: think served me really well in terms of navigating that.
Speaker 4: The first is that I became really good through all
Speaker 4: the dating that I did over those two years just keeping.
Speaker 1: An eye on whether words.
Speaker 4: Matched actions, because people can say a lot of good
Speaker 4: words in dating, but often the actions or the behavior
Speaker 4: won't align with those words. And what became really clear,
Speaker 4: particularly in those first six months where you're falling in
Speaker 4: love but you're also getting to know someone well and
Speaker 4: certainly like you know, in the three years that we've
Speaker 4: been together, is that the words always matched the actions,
Speaker 4: And for me, that was really important.
Speaker 1: The second thing that was really helpful is.
Speaker 4: That I had done maybe I've been, you know, in
Speaker 4: and out of therapy for a lot of my life.
Speaker 4: I think as a psychologist, even though I'm an organizational
Speaker 4: psychologist not a clinical one, I've always just really believed
Speaker 4: in the value of therapy, and so, you know, I've
Speaker 4: had chunks of my life where I've been very committed
Speaker 4: to therapy.
Speaker 1: And during those two.
Speaker 4: Years of dating, I was seeing a therapist fortnightly, sometimes weekly,
Speaker 4: and a lot of the discussion was around relationships and
Speaker 4: dating and experiences that I was having. And what I
Speaker 4: came to realize is, you know, and I imagine you've
Speaker 4: probably had guests talk about attachment theory, and what I
Speaker 4: learned about myself is that I have the tendency to
Speaker 4: have like an anxious attachment system like that can get
Speaker 4: activated where I'm not sure where I stand. But I
Speaker 4: think when you've got that anxious attachment system being activated,
Speaker 4: what tends to happen when you're in those early stages
Speaker 4: of dating and you're kind of not quite sure where
Speaker 4: you stand, You're not quite sure if they feel the
Speaker 4: same way. You can confuse that anxiety for lust or
Speaker 4: god to be love.
Speaker 2: For butterflies and the yes, Can I just ask you
Speaker 2: on that? MEA did an episode of No Filter about
Speaker 2: attachment theory with an expert, and we'll put a link
Speaker 2: in the show notes. But is the ideal situation that
Speaker 2: you and the person you pair with have the same
Speaker 2: attachment type or that you have complementary attachment types.
Speaker 4: I would say one thing you don't want is you
Speaker 4: don't want someone who who is kind of.
Speaker 1: Anxiously attached matching.
Speaker 4: With someone who is an avoidant where they avoid intimacy.
Speaker 4: That like, if you look at any unhealthy relationship or
Speaker 4: kind of dating situation, there's a high probability that that.
Speaker 1: Pattern the problem is going on.
Speaker 4: But the thing is like, based on the person who
Speaker 4: you're with, and depending also on what their attachment style is,
Speaker 4: that can bring out a different attachment style in you.
Speaker 4: So what I felt with Neo and what I think
Speaker 4: if I hadn't gone through those two years of therapy,
Speaker 4: I would have misinterpreted what was going on is that
Speaker 4: I didn't like I felt butterflies, and I felt excited
Speaker 4: to see him, but I didn't feel that anxiety that
Speaker 4: I in past situations had mistaken for falling in love.
Speaker 4: It just felt like I felt really safe, and I
Speaker 4: don't think i'd experienced that with anyone that I dated.
Speaker 4: I knew exactly where I stood, and what happened with
Speaker 4: that experience with this, I guess secure attachment that Neo
Speaker 4: offered me, and just this confidence in where we stood
Speaker 4: it meant that my anxious attachment system wasn't activated. And
Speaker 4: so therefore it's like I was just really present, and
Speaker 4: I wasn't making up stories in my mind, and I
Speaker 4: wasn't thinking that, oh, because I feel this way, it
Speaker 4: must mean that I'm madly in love and.
Speaker 1: This is my person.
Speaker 4: Instead, I knew it was coming from I guess, like,
Speaker 4: you know, a more secure place.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: I've heard you and Neo interviewed, and it's clear that
Speaker 2: you are you have a lot of shared passions. You're
Speaker 2: both really curious, really interested in experimenting with different ways
Speaker 2: of living, different health things, different habits. Tell me a
Speaker 2: little bit about how you knew that he was indeed
Speaker 2: your person in this healthy way.
Speaker 4: Oh gosh, I mean there there were so many things.
Speaker 4: I think one thing that we do that was a
Speaker 4: monthly ritual. We've sort of we've we've adapted the ritual slightly,
Speaker 4: but for the first couple of years of the relationship.
Speaker 4: And I think there was some Neo's suggestion, but the
Speaker 4: fact that it was Neo's suggestion, but it could have
Speaker 4: been mine's suggestion.
Speaker 1: I just don't I can't remember tells you a lot.
Speaker 4: It's just like how similar we are in terms of
Speaker 4: our mindedness. Is that we decided that we would have
Speaker 4: a monthly meeting about our relationship.
Speaker 1: We used to call it a monthly check in. Wow,
Speaker 1: we still call it. We still call it our monthly
Speaker 1: check in.
Speaker 4: And we devised a series of questions and I can
Speaker 4: share some of them with you.
Speaker 1: You know. Yeah, yeah, that would basically.
Speaker 4: Be a chance where we actually have time carved out,
Speaker 4: and typically it was on a date night. You know,
Speaker 4: we would go out to a restaurant or you know,
Speaker 4: we've got that space where we're actually talking and reflecting
Speaker 4: about us and about how we're behaving towards each other
Speaker 4: and about how we're feeling. So you know, some of
Speaker 4: the questions like somewhere about you know, acknowledging the positives.
Speaker 4: Like one question was what are we appreciating most about
Speaker 4: the other person? Which is so simple, but it's really
Speaker 4: powerful to actually sit down with your partner once a
Speaker 4: month and here, what are they appreciating and also think
Speaker 4: about that to them. You know, we also would talk
Speaker 4: about what do we need from the other person that
Speaker 4: we're not getting, which again, just having that space where
Speaker 4: a lot of times that's an uncomfortable conversation to have,
Speaker 4: but if you've got this time carved out where like
Speaker 4: there is space and the freedom to just go, Okay,
Speaker 4: this is the conversation that we're having, and it feels
Speaker 4: much more comfortable to bring that up. We also like
Speaker 4: reflect and go what have been our best connection moments
Speaker 4: in the month just gone, and again being mindful, because
Speaker 4: if we're mindful of those, then we can go, how
Speaker 4: can we recreate more of those those really powerful moments?
Speaker 4: So they're just some examples, and so we did that
Speaker 4: pretty religiously for a good two and a half years.
Speaker 2: And that shows obviously your compatibility because there would be
Speaker 2: some people you could be dating who you'd say, I
Speaker 2: think we should do this, and they'd be like, are
Speaker 2: you joking? That would be their worst nightmare. They would
Speaker 2: be running out the door. So it's beautiful that you've
Speaker 2: found somebody who you know that you found each other
Speaker 2: rather in this way. Tell me a little bit too
Speaker 2: for the listeners who are dating and they've got kids.
Speaker 2: You obviously you have a daughter. She's ten. NEO doesn't
Speaker 2: have kids, is that right, correct?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: But being you and the very mindful person you are,
Speaker 2: I know that you were did a lot of researching
Speaker 2: the best way to introduce this person who you knew
Speaker 2: was going to be around to your daughter. Tell me
Speaker 2: what you learned about that and what worked and what didn't.
Speaker 4: I think, so midway through my whole day experience, I
Speaker 4: had this conversation with Michael kar Greg, who I guess is,
Speaker 4: you know, probably one of the most well known psychologists,
Speaker 4: I think as a child psychologist or a clinical psych Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and his advice really.
Speaker 4: Formed I guess some of the principles that I had
Speaker 4: around how was I going to integrate this person that
Speaker 4: I knew I wanted to be my life partner into
Speaker 4: Frankie's world, my daughter. And there are a few things
Speaker 4: that he gave advice on. He said, ideally, wait at
Speaker 4: least six months before introducing your new partner to your daughter,
Speaker 4: and his reasons for that. And actually Nia was the
Speaker 4: only person I dated that Frankie did end up meeting,
Speaker 4: because obviously, if you go through a divorce, I mean,
Speaker 4: that is an enormous amount of change and instability, and
Speaker 4: I just wanted to protect her from any more of
Speaker 4: that wherever that was in my control. And so I
Speaker 4: think I felt like six months was long enough to go. Yeah,
Speaker 4: there is a very very high likelihood that this person
Speaker 4: will be around for a very very long time. And
Speaker 4: so I wanted to be really clear on that before
Speaker 4: Frankie and Neo met. Neo and I actually spend a
Speaker 4: lot of time like curating what would that first meeting be, Like,
Speaker 4: A lot of thought went into that, like, for example,
Speaker 4: we wanted it to be on Frankie's home ground, because
Speaker 4: it could have been at Neo's place, it could have
Speaker 4: been in a neutral place like a cafe or a park,
Speaker 4: but we wanted it to be in the place where
Speaker 4: Frankie felt safest, and that was at my home.
Speaker 1: And then we also wanted kind of a fun activity.
Speaker 4: So it wasn't this like intense, Okay, let's just sit
Speaker 4: down and have a big long conversation, you know, over
Speaker 4: a meal or something that you know that can be
Speaker 4: maybe a bit intense. We thought, what's like a fun
Speaker 4: activity that we can all do together, And so we
Speaker 4: decided that we'd make pizza together. And so Neo went
Speaker 4: to all this trouble to cook pizza dough from scratch
Speaker 4: the night for but the yeast was off and the
Speaker 4: pizza dove failed, and so he was like stressing about
Speaker 4: his pizza dough that has failed.
Speaker 1: Ended up going to the.
Speaker 4: Supermarket and border base and then we made pizza together,
Speaker 4: and then I think we ended up watching a movie
Speaker 4: together that afternoon, So a lot of thought went into
Speaker 4: that and just thinking what is going to make this
Speaker 4: the best and most positive and most comfortable experience for Frankie.
Speaker 2: Were you really nervous because I imagine, I mean without obviously
Speaker 2: wanting to pry into Frankie's world at all, but I
Speaker 2: imagine for you you're thinking, I really love this guy,
Speaker 2: like I can see a future. But if she hates him,
Speaker 2: or if she's not comfortable in his presence or if
Speaker 2: she's not if this doesn't work, then this changes everything.
Speaker 2: So were you really nervous about that meeting too?
Speaker 4: It's funny I was more nervous about telling Frankie that
Speaker 4: I'd been dating someone, right, because she didn't know anything
Speaker 4: about my dating life. She didn't, you know, Like I
Speaker 4: kept that very very separate to my role as a
Speaker 4: mom with Frankie. Were other friends of mine had made
Speaker 4: different choices, and you know that they might have had
Speaker 4: older kids where that actually showed them the apps and
Speaker 4: get them a bit involved.
Speaker 1: But Frankie had no idea. And I remember one.
Speaker 4: Night, like I you know, we were sitting in bed talking,
Speaker 4: you know, before bedtime, and I remember I was so
Speaker 4: nervous and I shared the news with her and I said,
Speaker 4: I've you know, I've met Somemon and we've been dating,
Speaker 4: and I'd really like you to meet them.
Speaker 1: Would you like to meet them? And she like she
Speaker 1: was all excited.
Speaker 4: She said, oh, does that mean you're getting married and
Speaker 4: I get to go to a wedding?
Speaker 1: And I think she was stabbed at the time.
Speaker 4: Maybe when I say no, it doesn't quite mean that,
Speaker 4: but and anyway, so it went from there, and then
Speaker 4: I think about a week later we had the meeting.
Speaker 4: So I was actually more nervous about that, just telling
Speaker 4: her that, like her mom, who she's only ever known
Speaker 4: in relation to her dad, is now bringing another man
Speaker 4: into this family system. So that was really nerve wracking.
Speaker 4: But she was like really good and happy about that.
Speaker 4: I actually wasn't nervous about how Frankie and Neo would
Speaker 4: get along, because yeah, I just wasn't nervous about that.
Speaker 1: I just I just knew that they.
Speaker 4: Would and I knew like just what a beautiful, kind
Speaker 4: of fun person Neo was and just how caring and
Speaker 4: thoughtful he was, and I just thought, man, like, you know,
Speaker 4: I just think Frankie is you know, just the luckiest
Speaker 4: girl to have like this amazing male role model, you know,
Speaker 4: in addition to her dad like in her life.
Speaker 2: Oh how gorgeous after this break? How did Amantha know
Speaker 2: she was ready to get married again? Stay right here,
Speaker 2: we'll be back in a minute. We've got to get
Speaker 2: to the point at which you have decided to get
Speaker 2: married again. So tell me, was this always did you?
Speaker 2: After your divorce? Were you did you think I'm not
Speaker 2: going to get married again? Or is it something you
Speaker 2: were very keen to happen or what? And how did
Speaker 2: it come about?
Speaker 4: I would say I just had no attachment to it.
Speaker 4: I thought maybe I will, maybe I won't. It wasn't
Speaker 4: something I was aspiring to. It wasn't something I was
Speaker 4: aiming for. But I remember about two years into our relationship,
Speaker 4: you know, we talked about this. We talked a lot
Speaker 4: about our views on marriage. Neo felt pretty similarly to me,
Speaker 4: and that, you know, he'd been married before, he'd been
Speaker 4: married for nineteen years or with his last partner for
Speaker 4: nineteen years, and.
Speaker 1: You know, we could both give or take marriage.
Speaker 4: And then I remember we'd been on the Separate Bathrooms
Speaker 4: podcast together when I was promoting The Health Habit, my
Speaker 4: last book, and they had introduced Neo as my husband,
Speaker 4: and we just had like a bit of a laugh
Speaker 4: about it. Afterwards, I heard that, I was like, that's
Speaker 4: a bit awkward, But because we talked about it so much,
Speaker 4: it just wasn't awkward.
Speaker 1: But I can imagine it.
Speaker 4: Would have been awkward for us for some people, but anyway,
Speaker 4: it just we I remember we went on a walk
Speaker 4: a little bit after we'd recorded that podcast episode, and
Speaker 4: you know, I said like, like, where are you at,
Speaker 4: Like what do you think about getting married? And we
Speaker 4: just had this like walking conversation where we talked about
Speaker 4: for both of us in a very similar way, our
Speaker 4: views on marriage had changed, and we felt that it
Speaker 4: was actually something that had started to feel important. And
Speaker 4: I think also thinking about Frankie and the security that
Speaker 4: she feels, I thought, you know, as a child, when
Speaker 4: you've been through a divorce, I think there's something that
Speaker 4: maybe feels like there's some stability when there is a marriage.
Speaker 4: And you know, again like no judgment on anyone else's choices,
Speaker 4: but it just felt right for us, and so we
Speaker 4: decided then we sort of said, I think this is
Speaker 4: something that we want to do. And I'm about six
Speaker 4: months after that conversation, Neo proposed when we were on
Speaker 4: a holiday, and so it was kind of it was
Speaker 4: absolutely beautiful, but it wasn't a surprise because of that conversation.
Speaker 2: Gorgeous and so you're getting married next year? Is this
Speaker 2: and what will be different about this wedding?
Speaker 1: Ah, what will be different?
Speaker 4: Look, I mean my first wedding was pretty low key,
Speaker 4: but this is it's a small wedding. It's just our
Speaker 4: close friends and family, so about fifty people and where
Speaker 4: we're doing it.
Speaker 1: In our house.
Speaker 2: Oh, how Gorgeous got like.
Speaker 4: A wonderful celebrant who used to be a pop star
Speaker 4: in the eighties and she's super fun, perfect and it's
Speaker 4: not overstated. It's small, it's intimate, it's meaningful. It's kind
Speaker 4: of so happy you want to.
Speaker 2: He looks so happy a Manthia, You're like when you're
Speaker 2: talk about it, you're just beaming. It's just gorgeous. It
Speaker 2: makes me very happy. But if someone is listening to
Speaker 2: this who maybe has been through a relationship breakup and
Speaker 2: is thinking I'm never going to meet him, I would
Speaker 2: liked it, like you I would, because not everybody does.
Speaker 2: There are a lot of women in med who are
Speaker 2: like I never want to repartner. I don't want to
Speaker 2: look after anybody. I don't want to repeat any of
Speaker 2: those things. I'm just going to live that, which is great.
Speaker 2: But if you, if like you, you're thinking life is
Speaker 2: better shared, what's your best piece of advice for how
Speaker 2: to handle that?
Speaker 4: I would say, get really clear on what you're looking
Speaker 4: for and what your most what you won't compromise on.
Speaker 4: I think the quality of your decisions when you're going
Speaker 4: through a dating process where you are making literally thousands
Speaker 4: of decisions if you're using the apps, the more clear
Speaker 4: you can be on what matters to you, I think,
Speaker 4: the better your outcome will be.
Speaker 2: And that's very good advice. Amantha. I love your love story.
Speaker 2: I'm so happy for you and Neo. I'm so happy.
Speaker 2: I can't wait to see your wedding pictures somewhere, and
Speaker 2: thank you also for your wisdom as always, look, I
Speaker 2: us love that conversation. Amantha is getting married in March
Speaker 2: to Neo, and what I particular love about that is,
Speaker 2: you know, Mike gran would have said, every pot has
Speaker 2: its lid. If your pot is a little bit different
Speaker 2: to other people's pots. That's okay. I love how specific
Speaker 2: Amantha was. It's a wonderful story. But if you are
Speaker 2: after more dating stories about midlife, then please do listen
Speaker 2: to the episode I told you about at the Front
Speaker 2: with Catherine Mahoney. It's very funny. But also if you
Speaker 2: are in the throes of divorce and you're going through
Speaker 2: the horrors of that, that can be incredibly difficult, knock
Speaker 2: you around unbelievably. I want you to go and listen
Speaker 2: to the episode we did with Nicki Parkinson because it
Speaker 2: is raw and uplifting in a way that we don't
Speaker 2: hear people talking about divorce very often. As always, I
Speaker 2: want to thank you all mids for being here with
Speaker 2: us for these big conversations that we're having. Please jump
Speaker 2: on and follow us on Instagram. DM me with any
Speaker 2: ideas about the show. You'll find me on Instagram too
Speaker 2: at Waynewright, Holly, and I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Speaker 2: Don't forget to give us a rating horror review. It
Speaker 2: really helps other people find MID And of course I
Speaker 2: want to offer a massive thank you to our team.
Speaker 2: The MID team is executive producer. I am A. Brown,
Speaker 2: Senior producer Grace Ruvre, and producer Charlie Blackman. And we've
Speaker 2: had sound design and production by Jacob Brown. And I'm
Speaker 2: your host, Holly Wainwright. And I'll see you back here
Speaker 2: next week for more mid