Speaker 1: Hello, four or five six listeners. My name is Naima Brown,
Speaker 1: and I'm the executive producer of Mid with Holly Wainwright,
Speaker 1: Mamma MIA's flagship podcast for our gen X listeners, and
Speaker 1: we are bringing you a special episode today, four or
Speaker 1: five six ers, because it's about finding love in your
Speaker 1: mid years. This is a conversation with doctor Amantha Imber.
Speaker 1: She's an organizational psychologist who got divorced a few years ago.
Speaker 1: When she knew she was ready to repartner, she went
Speaker 1: about it with a typical approach to efficiency, which meant
Speaker 1: that she went on more than fifty first dates in
Speaker 1: her first stint of online dating. How did this work
Speaker 1: out for her? Is it a happily ever after? You'll
Speaker 1: have to listen. I hope you enjoy.
Speaker 2: I'm writing a brief.
Speaker 3: It's for my perfect second husband, actually my first husband,
Speaker 3: because my current one, Brent, is not really my husband,
Speaker 3: but my boyfriend. He's been my boyfriend for twenty years
Speaker 3: this year. And my boyfriend and I have.
Speaker 2: Two children, a more brggage, a dog.
Speaker 3: Two decades of shared history and stories and travels and
Speaker 3: shared friendships and families and illnesses and deaths and miscarriages
Speaker 3: and weddings and funerals and money worries and work stress
Speaker 3: and fights and diagnoses and at least five different homes
Speaker 3: and wordle and sundowners and a great.
Speaker 2: Deal of laughter.
Speaker 3: For now, at least, we are stuck too, and with
Speaker 3: each other. But if I, like my guest today, found
Speaker 3: myself suddenly single again, would I, like my guest today,
Speaker 3: get busy with a blank page, fill in and Excel spreadsheet,
Speaker 3: devoid of history and the messiness of familiarity, and ask
Speaker 3: myself what.
Speaker 2: Do I want next?
Speaker 3: And if I did, would the universe laugh at me
Speaker 3: the way it did twenty years ago, when I was
Speaker 3: convinced what I wanted was not what was right in
Speaker 3: front of me, but a whole list.
Speaker 2: Of unchecked boxes.
Speaker 3: I'd dated musicians and artists and cliff scaling, risk takers,
Speaker 3: addicts and travel as an earnest world changes. I had
Speaker 3: the words life less ordinary taped on a corkboard somewhere,
Speaker 3: and I took those words to mean chaos and drama
Speaker 3: and constant movement manifestos.
Speaker 2: That's not what I got.
Speaker 3: If the universe knew anything, it was that I'd had
Speaker 3: my fill of all that. But back to the blank
Speaker 3: sheet of my imagination. If I was single, with all
Speaker 3: my mid wisdom under my arm, like my guest today,
Speaker 3: would I devise a strategy, write up some rules, enforce
Speaker 3: the guardrails, start a stop watch and email chain, a
Speaker 3: crowdsourcing plan. I doubt it. I'm not a strategist. I'm
Speaker 3: a panser, not a plotter. But if we are here
Speaker 3: and the lines must be filled in, I would learn
Speaker 3: to click on my Excel cells and I would drag
Speaker 3: and drop and I would write kind, funny, kind, tall, kind, smart, kind, warm, kind, optimistic, kind, creative, kind, calm, kind, hot,
Speaker 3: and probably because this was my brief and only my brief,
Speaker 3: I would feed it into a hungry AI assistant and
Speaker 3: it would split out a photo of print, and that
Speaker 3: would be really, really annoying and also perfect.
Speaker 2: Hello.
Speaker 3: Hello, My name is Holly Wainwright, and I am mid midlife,
Speaker 3: mid family, mid long relationship. Today's episode is all about love. Specifically,
Speaker 3: it's about finding it in your mid years, maybe for
Speaker 3: the second time, maybe for the fourth, maybe for the first.
Speaker 2: We've touched on this.
Speaker 3: Before here and mid Our second ever episode was called
Speaker 3: the midlife Dating Pool?
Speaker 2: Has we in It?
Speaker 3: And it was about Katherine Mahoney's chaotic app dating world,
Speaker 3: and it was very, very funny, and you all told
Speaker 3: me that you wanted more of those stories. And so
Speaker 3: today something very different about dating after a divorce, A
Speaker 3: story about a woman who did it in the most
Speaker 3: methodical way. I can imagine a woman who knew exactly
Speaker 3: what she wanted, and her particular list of needs and
Speaker 3: wants weren't necessarily the same as her friends, and the
Speaker 3: way she was going to find the partner that she
Speaker 3: knew she wanted was probably not going to be the
Speaker 3: same either. Doctor Amantha Imber is one of the most efficient, productive,
Speaker 3: and interesting people I know. She is an organizational psychologist,
Speaker 3: and organizational psychologists are amazing, and she is the creator
Speaker 3: of the innovation business Inventium, and she hosts the podcast
Speaker 3: How I Work. And she is the author of a
Speaker 3: few books and the mother to one child. And she
Speaker 3: also got divorced a few years ago. Organizational psychologists don't
Speaker 3: necessarily date the same way chaotic writers do. It seems
Speaker 3: Amantha took an efficient approach when she decided she wanted
Speaker 3: a new She decided to balance quantity and quality on
Speaker 3: the dating apps, and she went on fifty one first
Speaker 3: dates in her first stint of online dating. Those dates
Speaker 3: had strict rules and boundaries, time limits and schedules, and
Speaker 3: they didn't work. So then Amantha drew up a brief
Speaker 3: and cold called a whole lot of people in her
Speaker 3: circle who might know the person she was looking for.
Speaker 3: But well, that didn't work either, So what did I'm
Speaker 3: going to let her tell you that, Amantha, You're getting married.
Speaker 3: Massive congratulations, Thanks Holly, thank you.
Speaker 2: I need to.
Speaker 3: Let the mids in on the fact that I have
Speaker 3: interviewed you before a couple of times. Actually, but the
Speaker 3: last time we had a proper chat I looked today,
Speaker 3: it was actually eight years ago.
Speaker 4: Oh my gosh. And that was in Melbourne, yep, it was.
Speaker 3: And it was in Melbourne, and we were talking about
Speaker 3: because you owned your own company, and you were talking
Speaker 3: about this wild way of working where people could work
Speaker 3: remotely from wherever they wanted to, and all these things
Speaker 3: that at the time was so mind boggling that I
Speaker 3: came back to work and said to everybody, you won't
Speaker 3: believe it. Fast forward eight years and a lot has changed,
Speaker 3: but also a lot has changed in your life since then.
Speaker 3: Catch me up quickly, on what's been going on with
Speaker 3: 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 personal 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 3: Very exciting and I need. That's what we're here to
Speaker 3: talk about, because a lot of midlife women are divorced,
Speaker 3: dating not dating, deciding if they want any part of
Speaker 3: it ever again. And I would love to hear from you,
Speaker 3: who's one of the smartest women I know for sure.
Speaker 3: Was it soon after your divorce that you were like,
Speaker 3: I know, I want to repartner, or did you go
Speaker 3: through that period of time where you were like, never again.
Speaker 3: 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 separated is that
Speaker 4: they will have grieved if they were the one making
Speaker 4: the decision before the actual relationship ended. And so I
Speaker 4: can't remember when exactly I knew that I definitely wanted
Speaker 4: to repartner, but it would have only been a few
Speaker 4: months after the breakdown of the relationship. So I definitely
Speaker 4: knew that one of my values is that life is
Speaker 4: best shared with someone and that's just me, and I
Speaker 4: knew that I felt that way, and so I knew
Speaker 4: that I wanted to take finding a new partner really seriously.
Speaker 2: And you did.
Speaker 3: I want to know, first of all, because I imagine,
Speaker 3: correct me if I'm wrong that you went to the
Speaker 3: apps first, and the apps didn't really exist probably the
Speaker 3: last time you were single. Certainly the last time I
Speaker 3: was single, there was like RSVP online, and I did
Speaker 3: play with that a bit, but the whole dating app
Speaker 3: revolution hadn't started.
Speaker 2: How did you find 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 5: 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 Man, it's like it's.
Speaker 5: A whole other world. It is so strange.
Speaker 4: And I was very reliant on the apps because the
Speaker 4: two main years where I was dating before I met
Speaker 4: Neo my soon to be husband, was twenty twenty and
Speaker 4: twenty twenty one, and I live in Melbourne and I
Speaker 4: was locked down for a good part of those two years,
Speaker 4: so APPS was really the main way to meet people.
Speaker 3: I can imagine that that was also made it particularly difficult,
Speaker 3: because I mean, apart from the fact that you're all
Speaker 3: locked in your houses, but it was also the extra
Speaker 3: level of how careful is everybody? Do we meet up
Speaker 3: under what circumstances? It's not like you're going to bars
Speaker 3: 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 strange way to get to know
Speaker 4: someone when you can't even read their facial expressions. But
Speaker 4: I think what was good about online dating is that
Speaker 4: for me, given like you know, part of my work
Speaker 4: is around productivity and using time more wisely, is that
Speaker 4: it's also quite efficient in that you can screen a
Speaker 4: lot of people a lot more quickly than you can
Speaker 4: if you're just reliant on meeting people in real life
Speaker 4: or through connections in the workplace, or you know other
Speaker 4: ways that people meet their partners.
Speaker 3: So yeah, so the listeners understand you are a psychologist,
Speaker 3: you are a productivity expert, you're an academic, You're big
Speaker 3: on research, you're big on efficiency. So did you devise
Speaker 3: a kind of system for how to weed out the
Speaker 3: wheat from the chaff in the dating world?
Speaker 5: I did.
Speaker 4: What I realized pretty early on is that there is
Speaker 4: a huge amount of quantity.
Speaker 5: 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 the.
Speaker 3: Apps and siphon off time that you're like, I'm going
Speaker 3: to look at it between this time and this time.
Speaker 5: I absolutely did.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, Like I didn't stick to that one hundred
Speaker 4: percent of the time, but most of the time I
Speaker 4: was quite conscious. It's like, okay, if I'm opening up
Speaker 4: Bumble or Hinge, and they were my main go tos.
Speaker 4: I tried Tinder, which just don't even get me started
Speaker 4: on how that's the Yeah, there's no way.
Speaker 2: So they're all quite different.
Speaker 5: 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 3: I know it does to me too, and I worry
Speaker 3: that it makes me a snob, but it's very much.
Speaker 3: I think it's just if that's part of your value, like,
Speaker 3: if that's part of what you do in your value system.
Speaker 3: It's very hard if somebody just it doesn't use grammar
Speaker 3: and doesn't and spells everything wrong and.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yes, yes.
Speaker 4: And then I had to try to develop other heuristics,
Speaker 4: like things that would just help me shortcut decision making,
Speaker 4: because if you agonize over every single person that you're
Speaker 4: looking at on an app, I mean it's a never
Speaker 4: ending task. And so just for the sake of using
Speaker 4: my time, well, I thought, I just need some quick
Speaker 4: decision making rules that will help me decide yes I
Speaker 4: want to know more or no swipe left, which I
Speaker 4: think is the direction that you say no in man,
Speaker 4: I think.
Speaker 5: 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 voice 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? And again, I mean, I'm sure that there
Speaker 4: are lots of people in the world that are fantastic
Speaker 4: that probably wouldn't say great in a voice memo, And yes,
Speaker 4: I ruled them all.
Speaker 5: Out because of this little heuristic that I developed.
Speaker 4: But time is finite, and so I had to keep
Speaker 4: coming back to that and going, look, I just I
Speaker 4: need decision making criteriously and I'm not agonizing some things.
Speaker 3: And then so you went on some dates from the
Speaker 3: dating apps, but then you decided to come off the
Speaker 3: apps for a while and try a different kind of
Speaker 3: dating experiment. Did you not meet anybody good on the
Speaker 3: dating apps that first time around?
Speaker 5: Look?
Speaker 4: I reckon all up, I calculate it. I probably went
Speaker 4: on about fifty first dates. Wow, yeah, answer, that's loads
Speaker 4: it's so many over two years, and some of those.
Speaker 3: Did you have like rules about the dates too, like
Speaker 3: how long they could be, what they were and that
Speaker 3: kind of thing.
Speaker 5: Of course I didn't tell me.
Speaker 4: I feel like, when you go on a date, a
Speaker 4: lot of people feel an obligation just to stay for
Speaker 4: a decent amount of time.
Speaker 5: 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 4: And so I would typically I think my shortest dates
Speaker 4: for about forty five minutes, because I felt like that
Speaker 4: was long enough. I mean, often you can tell in
Speaker 4: the first five minutes, but I tried not to hang
Speaker 4: on to those first impressions as well. It's really easy
Speaker 4: to form like very quick impressions when you start a date.
Speaker 4: But I would try to just you know, force particularly
Speaker 4: any judgmental parts.
Speaker 5: Of my brain to just go no, no, remain open.
Speaker 4: But I sort of thought, look, after forty five minutes,
Speaker 4: I'm just going to call it. And sometimes I was
Speaker 4: honest and I just said I just don't feel like
Speaker 4: there's a connection here. Other times I just made up
Speaker 4: a lie, yeah, and said that I had to go
Speaker 4: to you know, in my mind, protect the other person's feelings.
Speaker 5: 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 feel the disconnection.
Speaker 3: Were you ever like, oh, you know, this is exhausting.
Speaker 2: What's that movie?
Speaker 3: Where is he? I?
Speaker 5: As Charlotte m Sacks in the city?
Speaker 3: Where is he?
Speaker 4: Did you?
Speaker 2: Did you feel like that?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 5: 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? Am I expecting
Speaker 4: too much? Like what am I doing wrong? And just oh, man?
Speaker 4: Like there were so many low points in that two years,
Speaker 4: But I think somewhere inside of me I felt I
Speaker 4: did feel truly optimistic, even though there were lots of
Speaker 4: low points and lots of nights just feeling really lonely
Speaker 4: and discouraged on that drive home from the date. But
Speaker 4: I think, you know, I was definitely holding onto some
Speaker 4: optimism and hope, which I think you have to if
Speaker 4: you're going to deal with the apps, because the apps
Speaker 4: can be credibly depressing.
Speaker 3: And you're a pragmatic, practical person, right, And I imagine
Speaker 3: that that helps in this situation because if you're meeting
Speaker 3: somebody and it's obvious there's no chemistry, hopefully you're not
Speaker 3: walking away from it going there's something wrong with me,
Speaker 3: because that's not what it's about, right, That's not what
Speaker 3: it's about at all. But that can be tough on
Speaker 3: the ego after a while if you do internalize it.
Speaker 3: So having that pragmatic approach is probably really helpful.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think it is helpful. I think also I
Speaker 4: ended up like just I did so much research into
Speaker 4: almost like how to be at and how to make
Speaker 4: a good decision.
Speaker 5: Yeah. I read a lot of books.
Speaker 4: And one of the lessons that stuck with me that
Speaker 4: I tried to implement but I found it really hard
Speaker 4: is to always default to a second date. Whereas for me,
Speaker 4: I've gone into dating, going one date and if I'm
Speaker 4: not enamored, then I'm calling it. So I changed my
Speaker 4: approach part of the way through to go I'm defaulting
Speaker 4: to a second date unless there's a massive problem or
Speaker 4: red flag on the first date, which I felt just
Speaker 4: having that rule helped me keep an open mind. But
Speaker 4: it did get to a point where about two years
Speaker 4: of doing this.
Speaker 5: I just thought, I'm so over this. Surely there's got
Speaker 5: to be a better way of finding people.
Speaker 4: And so I my resid an email out to a
Speaker 4: few 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 or me
Speaker 4: and you could, you know, avoid the apps but still
Speaker 4: find dates.
Speaker 5: And I remember someone someone emailed me back and.
Speaker 4: They said, well, you know, you know lots of people
Speaker 4: like you, you know, host a podcast that's very popular.
Speaker 4: You've got like, you know, large networks through work. Surely
Speaker 4: with all those kind of assets in inverted commas, you
Speaker 4: could utilize those to find a date.
Speaker 5: And I thought, oh, that's interesting. And so I then.
Speaker 4: Decided that I would try to crowdsaw dates. So what
Speaker 4: the approach was, it was quite specific. So I put
Speaker 4: together a list of people who I would call a
Speaker 4: little bit more than acquaintances, so they weren't my inner
Speaker 4: circle of friends. Because my inner circle of friends they
Speaker 4: knew I was looking for someone. They know me if
Speaker 4: they knew someone, they would have introduced me. So yeah,
Speaker 4: so I went sort of down the friendship tears, if
Speaker 4: you like, to people that knew me and knew my
Speaker 4: values and kind of who I am as a person,
Speaker 4: but is not someone that would necessarily, you know, if
Speaker 4: they knew a person that they thought, oh they could
Speaker 4: be great for Amantha, it just wouldn't be top of mind.
Speaker 4: So I literally I opened up Excel and I created
Speaker 4: a spreadsheet and I wrote down all these people's names.
Speaker 4: And the other thing is I was specifically thinking about
Speaker 4: who were the most well networked people of.
Speaker 2: That most people, yeah, who.
Speaker 4: Knew the most And then I put together a one
Speaker 4: page brief of what I was looking for.
Speaker 3: Okay, I need to know what was on the brief, Amantha.
Speaker 4: Well, it had a few second 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 5: 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.
Speaker 5: And I think that's.
Speaker 4: Something I really discounted when I was dating in my twenties,
Speaker 4: where I think I sort of focused on, you.
Speaker 5: Know, more of the superficial things that a lot of
Speaker 5: us have focused.
Speaker 6: On in our twenties, like you know, are they smarter,
Speaker 6: are they funny? And you know they have a good job,
Speaker 6: and is the hot all that sort of thing, But
Speaker 6: somewhere along the lines, like I think of the guys
Speaker 6: that I dated in my twenties and the decisions I made,
Speaker 6: kindness didn't really feature.
Speaker 5: And so for me, that was front 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 3: Because that's how you are. You know, you're you're a searcher.
Speaker 3: You're a learner or a researcher. You yeah, you're constantly curious. Yes,
Speaker 3: you wouldn't want to be with someone who was this
Speaker 3: is it, this is the way things are closing?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Not yeah, And like I even think about some of
Speaker 4: the rituals that that Neo, my partner, and I have,
Speaker 4: and it's like for a lot of people they would
Speaker 4: think that, like these are mad rituals, like what are
Speaker 4: you doing? But for us, because we're very similar in
Speaker 4: our value set, it just makes sense because.
Speaker 2: I'm just ask you about that one second.
Speaker 3: We're going to get onto Neo in a bit when
Speaker 3: we when we when we find him.
Speaker 2: But when I love this idea of.
Speaker 3: Ask when you when you actually articulate what you want,
Speaker 3: because I've heard women of all kinds of different ages
Speaker 3: talk about this. Jesse Stevens, who's my co host on
Speaker 3: out Loud. Not long before she met her partner Lucas,
Speaker 3: she said she'd been disastered and she was only in
Speaker 3: her twenties, but she had been disastrously dating and she
Speaker 3: did write a list and a lot of people teased
Speaker 3: her about it because they're like, you shouldn't be so
Speaker 3: close minded. You know, it's kind of a bit judgmental
Speaker 3: to write a list. You know, Lightning strikes in all
Speaker 3: kind of ways, and just like what you just said
Speaker 3: kindness was top of her list, and then she met
Speaker 3: the guy and he was very kind when you wrote
Speaker 3: your list, and then you shared that list with your circle.
Speaker 3: A that feels like quite a vulnerable thing to do,
Speaker 3: like kind of showing that to people in your world
Speaker 3: like I do. It can even be vulnerable saying I
Speaker 3: really would like to meet someone and I haven't, but
Speaker 3: also these are the things that matter to me. Were
Speaker 3: you worried about that vulnerability and were you worried about
Speaker 3: seeming I don't know, And so a twofold question, Well,
Speaker 3: did the vulnerability worry you? And do you think there's
Speaker 3: just power in getting really clear about what matters to you?
Speaker 5: 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 5: 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 nervous,
Speaker 4: and what I got on the receiving end and keeping
Speaker 4: in mind these people like I knew them, but I
Speaker 4: didn't know them well, Like I knew them well enough
Speaker 4: for them to be on the list well.
Speaker 3: Enough they were going to pick up the phone or
Speaker 3: onunce your email and be like, Hi, i'mnthing a good
Speaker 3: tear from you. But then they'd be like, oh, that's
Speaker 3: what we're talking about.
Speaker 5: Today, Yeah, exactly, exactly.
Speaker 4: And I remember every one of them was just like
Speaker 4: so so honored to be asked and so excited to help.
Speaker 5: And I ran it as.
Speaker 4: Like a four week campaign where every week I would
Speaker 4: send them like a little nudge, a little question to
Speaker 4: try to trigger memories around all the people that they
Speaker 4: might know. And then I think I had some kind
Speaker 4: of an incentive, not that they needed an incentive, because
Speaker 4: I think they just you know, enjoyed the idea of
Speaker 4: helping that I'd make it. I think I was going
Speaker 4: to make a hundred dollar donation to charity for every
Speaker 4: date that I went on that they found me.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And the experiment was an utter failure.
Speaker 4: Not a single date came out of that experiment.
Speaker 2: Why do you think that was?
Speaker 4: Well, I think it was because I had a very
Speaker 4: clear brief, and it wasn't an extensive brief, it wasn't
Speaker 4: a long brief. I think all up there were nine
Speaker 4: points that was it because I think one of the
Speaker 4: arts of making a great brief is making it very
Speaker 4: succinct as opposed to a whole shopping list, and that
Speaker 4: was really hard, but it was a good process to
Speaker 4: go through. I think for myself in going what are
Speaker 4: the absolute must haves here? But I also think it
Speaker 4: is hard to find someone that is your person. I
Speaker 4: think it's harder when it's when you're in your forties
Speaker 4: because just I mean statistically, a lot of people are
Speaker 4: still married. It's not like in your twenties, where the
Speaker 4: majority of people are probably single or in you know,
Speaker 4: like not non life committed relationships. So just statistically, it's
Speaker 4: really different. And I think when you're in your forties
Speaker 4: and beyond, like you're really clear on who you are
Speaker 4: and what you value and what is important and what
Speaker 4: you won't compromise on. And I think that for me
Speaker 4: because I had no biological clock ticking, I had my
Speaker 4: beautiful daughter she's now ten. There's also no sense of
Speaker 4: urgency as well, and that changes everything when it comes
Speaker 4: to dating.
Speaker 5: As a woman.
Speaker 3: That's so interesting because it's true. It's like you this,
Speaker 3: to put it in very basic language, you don't need
Speaker 3: to settle, like you know what I mean, You don't
Speaker 3: need It's not you don't necessarily need a partner for
Speaker 3: financial reasons or to have a baby with, or to
Speaker 3: buy a house or whatever, because you're well established in
Speaker 3: your life, your career.
Speaker 2: You've got your beautiful daughter, as.
Speaker 3: You say, so a partner, as you said at the beginning,
Speaker 3: you said, I know that life is for me. Life
Speaker 3: is better shared. That's your goal. It's not just anyone
Speaker 3: will do. It's got to be shared with the right person.
Speaker 3: Not that not that we all go around thinking anyone
Speaker 3: will do. But a lot of those filters, you know,
Speaker 3: they're stronger at this point because you don't need to settle,
Speaker 3: right I think so.
Speaker 4: I think when you're racing against a clock as a woman,
Speaker 4: if you do want to have children, then it just
Speaker 4: I think sometimes it can lead to more pragmatic decision making.
Speaker 4: And I hold no judgment against that because I totally
Speaker 4: get that.
Speaker 5: I totally get that.
Speaker 4: But my experience was it was very, very different without
Speaker 4: at any kind of timeline, Like yes, I wanted to
Speaker 4: find someone you know, and sooner would have been better
Speaker 4: than later. But equally it had to be an additive
Speaker 4: because life was really good before Neo, and unless that
Speaker 4: was going to add something really wonderful to life, then
Speaker 4: why why would you? Because obviously relationships involve sacrifices as well,
Speaker 4: and so you know, the additive needs to be strong.
Speaker 3: So we've written this type brief. I'm just imagining your friends.
Speaker 3: The reason that you didn't get dates out of that
Speaker 3: going through it because the brief was type being like, well,
Speaker 3: yes he's smart, but he's not creative, and they're like
Speaker 3: crossing it out and then or whatever it was. Anyway,
Speaker 3: then so that didn't work and you went back on hinge.
Speaker 2: Now quite quickly you did meet Neo.
Speaker 3: Do you think the list exercised the brief helped you
Speaker 3: further clarify things when you did go back into app world?
Speaker 5: It absolutely did.
Speaker 4: But I also think I mean, like, look, it was
Speaker 4: putting pen to paper with what I knew inside to
Speaker 4: be true. But with Neo, I'd like, it wasn't an
Speaker 4: arming and r ring, like oh you know, I remember
Speaker 4: like our first phone call that we had, so we connected,
Speaker 4: we messaged we voice memode, and then we had a
Speaker 4: phone call, and I used to have this rule for
Speaker 4: when we would get to the phone call part of
Speaker 4: the dating process, which which i'd strongly recommend instead of
Speaker 4: just going straight to a face to face date, because
Speaker 4: you can tell a lot in a phone conversation. I
Speaker 4: used to have this rule that I wouldn't let a
Speaker 4: phone conversation go over an hour because which sounds like
Speaker 4: quite an anal strange rule, but the reason for it
Speaker 4: is that I'd had experiences where I had connected with
Speaker 4: someone on the app, and like, I can think of
Speaker 4: a couple of instances where we talked for like two
Speaker 4: or three hours on the phone. And when you talk
Speaker 4: to someone for that long and they're a stranger and
Speaker 4: they're normally you know, I feel like when it's a
Speaker 4: phone conversation, you sort of let it let down some
Speaker 4: of your guard and you can talk about things that
Speaker 4: are quite vulnerable because there's no visual, there's just voice.
Speaker 4: And something about that I think brings on to honesty
Speaker 4: in a yeah and an intimacy in the conversation. And
Speaker 4: what then I'd done between the phone conversation and the
Speaker 4: face to face date in those instances is that I've
Speaker 4: just started to project all these qualities onto the person.
Speaker 5: That really I didn't know.
Speaker 4: I just talked to them on the phone. And then
Speaker 4: the first date was a real letdown, and so I thought,
Speaker 4: I'm just going to limit that first phone conversation to
Speaker 4: an hour. It's like, it's long enough to get a
Speaker 4: really good feel for someone, but it's not so long
Speaker 4: that you're learning all this stuff and then forming, like
Speaker 4: starting all these assumptions and projections of what this person
Speaker 4: could possibly be. Because I found that that's really unhelpful
Speaker 4: going into a date.
Speaker 3: After this shortbreak, we're going to hear about a month
Speaker 3: first date with Neo and whether all her hard work
Speaker 3: paid off.
Speaker 2: Stay with us.
Speaker 3: So, your first conversation with Neo did it break this rule?
Speaker 5: Yeah? It did, But I told him about the rule.
Speaker 5: I look, 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 fifteen or twenty minutes, and then I'm like, Okay.
Speaker 5: We 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 5: 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 5: 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'd go for
Speaker 4: a drink afterwards. So we went tenpin bowling, and I
Speaker 4: remember that 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, dealt
Speaker 4: in the conversation.
Speaker 5: I think the date ended at like two in the morning,
Speaker 5: which I mean like my bedtimes ten.
Speaker 2: I know you're alive. That's what I know about you.
Speaker 2: You're alark. 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 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: So it was pretty obvious straight away that this was
Speaker 3: special and different to those other fifty first dates very much.
Speaker 3: And so did was it all sort of plane sailing
Speaker 3: from there? I mean, we've already put a spoiler at
Speaker 3: the beginning of this episode, which is that you are
Speaker 3: getting married and Neo is the man you're getting married to.
Speaker 3: But I guess what I want to know is, you know,
Speaker 3: when you are falling in love in mid you've got
Speaker 3: it's very different in a way from when you're young
Speaker 3: and you're you know, you haven't got all the experiences
Speaker 3: in the wisdom of what can go wrong, or how
Speaker 3: sometimes things that start beautifully you can fall apart, or
Speaker 3: sometimes people who charm the pants off you, maybe literally,
Speaker 3: maybe figuratively, can then turn out to have some serious
Speaker 3: red flags and that can make us all you know,
Speaker 3: it can it can complicate things right because we're wiser
Speaker 3: and more experienced, but that also can mean we're more guarded,
Speaker 3: Like how was it was it immediate that you could
Speaker 3: trust him that things were going to go well?
Speaker 2: How did 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 5: 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. The second thing
Speaker 4: that was really helpful is that I had done maybe
Speaker 4: I've been, you know, in and out of therapy for
Speaker 4: a lot of my life. I think as a psychologist,
Speaker 4: even though I'm an organizational psychologist not a clinical one,
Speaker 4: I've always just really believed in the value of therapy,
Speaker 4: and so, you know, I've had chunks of my life
Speaker 4: where I've been very committed to therapy. And during those
Speaker 4: two years of dating, I was seeing a therapist fortnightly,
Speaker 4: sometimes weekly, and a lot of the discussion was around
Speaker 4: relationships and dating and experiences that I was having. And
Speaker 4: what I came to realize is, you know, and I
Speaker 4: imagine you've probably had guests talk about attachment theory, and
Speaker 4: what I learned about myself is that I have the
Speaker 4: tendency to to have like an anxious attachment system like
Speaker 4: that can get activated where I'm not sure where I stand,
Speaker 4: but I think when you've got that anxious attachment system
Speaker 4: being activated, what tends to happen when you're in those
Speaker 4: early stages of dating and you're kind of not quite
Speaker 4: sure where you stand, You're not quite sure if they
Speaker 4: feel the same way. You can confuse that anxiety for
Speaker 4: lust or god to be love.
Speaker 3: For butterflies and the yes, can I just ask you
Speaker 3: on that? MEA did an episode of No Filter about
Speaker 3: attachment theory with an expert, and we'll put a link
Speaker 3: in the show notes. But is the ideal situation that
Speaker 3: you and the person you pair with have the same
Speaker 3: 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 anxiously attached
Speaker 4: matching 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 4: pattern the problem is going on. But the thing is, like,
Speaker 4: based on the person who you're with, and depending also
Speaker 4: on what their attachment style is, that can bring out
Speaker 4: a different attachment style in you. So what I felt
Speaker 4: with Neo and what I think if I hadn't gone
Speaker 4: through those two years of therapy, I would have misinterpreted.
Speaker 5: What was going on is.
Speaker 4: That I didn't like I felt butterflies, and I felt
Speaker 4: excited to see him. But I didn't feel that anxiety
Speaker 4: that 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 5: I knew exactly where I stood.
Speaker 4: And what happened with that experience with this, I guess
Speaker 4: secure attachment that Neo offered me, and just this confidence
Speaker 4: in where we stood, it meant that my anxious attachment
Speaker 4: system wasn't activated, and so therefore it's like I was
Speaker 4: just really present and I wasn't making up stories in
Speaker 4: my mind, and I wasn't thinking that, Oh, because I
Speaker 4: feel this way, it must mean that I'm madly in
Speaker 4: love and.
Speaker 5: 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 5: Now.
Speaker 3: I've heard you and Neo interviewed, and it's clear that
Speaker 3: you are. You have a lot of shared passions. You're
Speaker 3: both really curious, really interested in experimenting with different ways
Speaker 3: of living, different health things, different habits. Tell me a
Speaker 3: little bit about how you knew that he was indeed
Speaker 3: 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.
Speaker 5: Do that was a monthly ritual.
Speaker 4: We've sort of we've adapted the ritual slightly, but for
Speaker 4: the first couple of years of the relationship. And I
Speaker 4: think if some Neo's suggestion, but the fact that it
Speaker 4: was Neo's suggestion, but it could have been mine's suggestion.
Speaker 5: I just don't I can't remember tells you a lot.
Speaker 5: It's just like how.
Speaker 4: Similar we are in terms of our mindedness. Is that
Speaker 4: we decided that we would have a monthly meeting about
Speaker 4: our relationship. We used to call it our monthly check in. Wow,
Speaker 4: we still call we still call it our monthly check in.
Speaker 4: And we devised a series of questions and I can
Speaker 4: share some of them with.
Speaker 5: You, you know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Yeah, that would basically be a chance where we
Speaker 4: actually have time carved out, and typically it was on
Speaker 4: a date night. You know, we would go out to
Speaker 4: a restaurant or you know, we've got that space where
Speaker 4: we're actually talking and reflecting about us and about how
Speaker 4: we're behaving towards each other and about how we're feeling,
Speaker 4: so you know, some of the questions like somewhere about
Speaker 4: you know, acknowledging the positives. Like one question was what
Speaker 4: are we appreciating most about the other person?
Speaker 5: Which is so simple, but.
Speaker 4: It's really powerful to actually sit down with your partner
Speaker 4: once a month and here, what are they appreciating and
Speaker 4: also think about that to them. You know, we also
Speaker 4: would talk about what do we need from the other
Speaker 4: person that we're not getting, which again just having that
Speaker 4: space where a lot of times that's an uncomfortable conversation
Speaker 4: to have, but if you've got this time carved out
Speaker 4: where like 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 3: And that shows obviously or compatibility because there would be
Speaker 3: some people you could be dating who you'd say I
Speaker 3: think we should do this, and they'd.
Speaker 2: Be like, are you joking? That would be their worst nightmare.
Speaker 2: They would be running out the door.
Speaker 3: So it's beautiful that you've found somebody who you know
Speaker 3: that you found each other rather in this way. Tell
Speaker 3: me a little bit too, for the listeners who are
Speaker 3: 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.
Speaker 5: That right, correct? Yeah?
Speaker 3: But being you and the very mindful person you are,
Speaker 3: I know that you were did a lot of research
Speaker 3: in the best way to introduce this person who you
Speaker 3: knew was going to be around to your daughter. Tell
Speaker 3: me what you learned about that and what worked and
Speaker 3: what didn't.
Speaker 4: I think so midway through my whole dating experience, I
Speaker 4: had this conversation with Michael kr Greg, who I guess is,
Speaker 4: you know, probably one of the most well known psychologists.
Speaker 4: I think he is a child psychologist or a clinical
Speaker 4: psych Yeah. Yeah, and his advice really formed I guess
Speaker 4: some of the principles that I had around how was
Speaker 4: I going to integrate this person that I knew I
Speaker 4: wanted to be my life partner into Frankie's world.
Speaker 5: My daughter and there.
Speaker 4: Are a few things that he gave advice on. He said, ideally,
Speaker 4: wait at least six months before introducing your new partner
Speaker 4: to your daughter, and his reasons for that. And actually
Speaker 4: Neo was the only person I dated that Frankie did
Speaker 4: end up meeting, because obviously, if you go through a divorce,
Speaker 4: I mean, that is an enormous amount of change and instability,
Speaker 4: and I just wanted to protect her from any more
Speaker 4: of that wherever that was in my control.
Speaker 5: And so I think I felt like six months was
Speaker 5: long enough to.
Speaker 4: Go, Yeah, there is a very very high likelihood that
Speaker 4: this person will be around for a very very long time,
Speaker 4: and so I wanted to be really clear on that
Speaker 4: before Frankie and Neo met. Neo and I actually spend
Speaker 4: a lot of time like curating what would that first
Speaker 4: meeting be, Like, A lot of thought went into that, like,
Speaker 4: for example, we wanted it to be on Frankie's home ground,
Speaker 4: because it could have been at Neo's place, it could
Speaker 4: have been in a neutral place like a cafe or
Speaker 4: a park, but we wanted it to be in the
Speaker 4: place where Frankie felt safest, and that was at my home.
Speaker 4: 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 before, but the yeast was off and the
Speaker 4: pizza dough failed, and so he was like stressing about
Speaker 4: his pizza dough that has failed. Ended up going to
Speaker 4: the 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.
Speaker 5: So a lot of thought went into that and just thinking.
Speaker 4: What is going to make this the best and most
Speaker 4: positive and most comfortable experience for Frankie.
Speaker 3: Were you really nervous because I imagine, without obviously wanting
Speaker 3: to pry into Frankie's world at all, but I imagine
Speaker 3: for you you're thinking, I really love this guy, like
Speaker 3: I can see a future. But if she hates him,
Speaker 3: or if she's not comfortable in his presence, or if
Speaker 3: she's not. If this doesn't work, then this changes everything.
Speaker 3: 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.
Speaker 5: Right, because she didn't know anything about my dating life.
Speaker 4: She didn't, you know, like I kept that very very
Speaker 4: separate to my role as a mum.
Speaker 5: With Frankie.
Speaker 4: We know other friends of mine had made different choices,
Speaker 4: and you know that they might have had older kids
Speaker 4: where that actually show them the apps and get them
Speaker 4: a bit involved.
Speaker 5: But Frankie had no idea.
Speaker 4: And I remember one night, like I you know, we
Speaker 4: were sitting in bed talking, you know, before bedtime, and
Speaker 4: I remember I was so nervous and I shared the
Speaker 4: news with her and I said, I've you know, I've
Speaker 4: met Salmon and we've been dating, and I'd really like
Speaker 4: you to meet them.
Speaker 5: Would you like to meet them? And she like she
Speaker 5: 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 5: 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 mum, 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.
Speaker 5: Just wasn't nervous about that.
Speaker 4: I knew, I think I just I just knew that
Speaker 4: they would, and I knew like just what a beautiful,
Speaker 4: kind of fun person Neo was, and just how caring
Speaker 4: and thoughtful he was, And I just thought, man, like,
Speaker 4: you know, I just think Frankie is, you know, just
Speaker 4: the luckiest girl to have like this amazing male role model,
Speaker 4: you know, in addition to her dad, like in her life.
Speaker 2: Oh how gorgeous?
Speaker 3: After this break? How did Amantha know she was ready
Speaker 3: to get married again? Stay right here, we'll be back
Speaker 3: in a minute. We've got to get to the point
Speaker 3: at which you have decided to get married again. So
Speaker 3: tell me, was this always did you? After your divorce?
Speaker 3: Did you ever think I'm not going to get married again?
Speaker 3: Or is it something you were very keen to happen
Speaker 3: or what and how did 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 been married before, he'd been
Speaker 4: married for nineteen years or with his last partner for
Speaker 4: nineteen years, and you know, we could both give or
Speaker 4: take marriage. And then I remember we'd been on the
Speaker 4: Separate Bathrooms podcast together when I was promoting The Health Habit,
Speaker 4: my 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. But I can imagine it would
Speaker 4: 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 decided.
Speaker 4: Then we sort of said, I think this is something
Speaker 4: that we want to do. And I'm about six months
Speaker 4: after that conversation, Neo proposed when we were on a holiday,
Speaker 4: and so it was kind of it was absolutely beautiful,
Speaker 4: but it wasn't a surprise because of that conversation. Gorgeous
Speaker 4: And so you're getting married next year? Is this and
Speaker 4: what will be different about this wedding?
Speaker 5: 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 families, so about fifty people and we're
Speaker 4: doing it.
Speaker 5: In our house.
Speaker 2: Oh how gorgeous.
Speaker 4: Got like wonderful celebrant who used to be a pop
Speaker 4: star in the eighties, and she's super fun, perfect, and
Speaker 4: it's it's not overstated. It's small, it's intimate, it's meaningful,
Speaker 4: it's it's kind of yeah, so happy you want it
Speaker 4: to me?
Speaker 3: He looks so happy and Manthea, you're like, when you're
Speaker 3: talking about it, you're just beaming.
Speaker 2: It's just gorgeous. It makes me very happy.
Speaker 3: But if someone is listening to this who maybe has
Speaker 3: been through a relationship breakup and is thinking I'm never
Speaker 3: going to meet him, I would like to like you.
Speaker 2: I would because not everybody does. There are a lot
Speaker 2: of women in mid who.
Speaker 3: Are like I never want to repartner, I don't want
Speaker 3: to look after anybody. I don't want to repeat any
Speaker 3: of those things. I'm just going to live. That's which
Speaker 3: is great. But if you, if like you, you're thinking
Speaker 3: life is better shared, what's your best piece of advice
Speaker 3: for how to handle that?
Speaker 4: I would say, get really clear on what you're looking
Speaker 4: for and what you 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 3: That's very good advice, Amantha. I love your love story.
Speaker 3: I'm so happy for you and Neo. I'm so happy.
Speaker 3: I can't wait to see your wedding pictures somewhere, and
Speaker 3: thank you also for your wisdom.
Speaker 2: As always.
Speaker 3: Look, I just love that conversation. Amantha is getting married
Speaker 3: in March to Neo, and what I particular love about
Speaker 3: that is, you know, my gran would have said, every
Speaker 3: pot has its lid. If your pot is a little
Speaker 3: bit different to other people's pots, that's okay. I love
Speaker 3: how specific Amantha was. It's a wonderful story. But if
Speaker 3: you are after more dating stories about midlife, then please
Speaker 3: do listen to the episode I told you about it
Speaker 3: Front with Catherine Mahoney.
Speaker 2: It's very funny.
Speaker 3: But also if you are in the throes of divorce
Speaker 3: and you're going through the horrors of that, that can
Speaker 3: be incredibly difficult, knock you around unbelievably. I want you
Speaker 3: to go and listen to the episode we did with
Speaker 3: Nicki Parkinson because it is raw and uplifting in a
Speaker 3: way that we don't hear people talking about divorce very often.
Speaker 3: As always, I want to thank you all mids for
Speaker 3: being here with us for these big conversations that we're having.
Speaker 3: Please jump on and follow us on Instagram. DM me
Speaker 3: with any ideas about the show. You'll find me on
Speaker 3: Instagram too, at Waynwright, Holly, and I'd love to hear
Speaker 3: your thoughts. Don't forget to give us a rating horror review.
Speaker 3: It really helps other people find MID. And of course
Speaker 3: I want to offer a massive thank you to our team.
Speaker 3: The MID team is executive producer nam A Brown, senior
Speaker 3: producer Grace Ruvre, and producer Charlie Blackman. And we've had
Speaker 3: sound design and production by Jacob Brown. And I'm your host,
Speaker 3: Holly Wainwright and I'll see you back here next week
Speaker 3: for more Mid