Speaker 1: Big things happen when you're pretty, pretty bold, pretty clever,
Speaker 1: pretty strong. I'm Danielle Robe, and each week my guests
Speaker 1: and I have conversations that put a new spin on pretty.
Speaker 1: This is pretty smart. Psychotherapist and author esterre Perel says
Speaker 1: that cheating is the only taboo thing that is universally
Speaker 1: practiced and universally condemned. She says, affairs actually have a
Speaker 1: lot to teach us about relationships. Now, I'll be honest,
Speaker 1: I have been cheated on by well several of my boyfriends.
Speaker 1: But I've also cheated. I know what both sides of
Speaker 1: it feel like, and I've learned a lot from both
Speaker 1: experiences and all those social norms. In Hollywood, portrayals often
Speaker 1: depict men as the sex more likely to cheat. Studies
Speaker 1: show that the infidelity gender gap is narrowing, especially among
Speaker 1: younger people. According to data gathered in twenty twenty two,
Speaker 1: twenty percent of married men and thirteen percent of married
Speaker 1: women admitted to having sex with someone other than their spouse.
Speaker 1: Those numbers kind of seemed low to me, but I
Speaker 1: guess that's just what is reported, right. However, infidelity rates
Speaker 1: among women are on the rise. They've increased by forty
Speaker 1: percent in the last twenty years. So the stats beg
Speaker 1: the question, are more women having affairs or are they
Speaker 1: finally just talking about it. That's the question that journalist
Speaker 1: and author Joe Piazza set out to answer in her
Speaker 1: new podcast, She Wants More. Joe is the national and
Speaker 1: international best selling author of many critically acclaimed novels and
Speaker 1: nonfiction books, including How to Be Married. She's the creator, host,
Speaker 1: and EP of The Committed podcast, which is all about
Speaker 1: romantic relationships, and before she was an author, she was
Speaker 1: an advice columnist in New York City. She says the
Speaker 1: Carrie Bradshaw comparisons were tireless. She's been published in The
Speaker 1: New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Time, The list goes on,
Speaker 1: but one of her most viral pieces was for l
Speaker 1: in which she chronicled buying her own engagement ring at
Speaker 1: thirty four. It's clear that Joe has been obsessed with
Speaker 1: relationships for quite some time. Now she's venturing into a
Speaker 1: new aspect of them cheating. In this new podcast, She
Speaker 1: Wants More. With iHeartRadio, Joe interviews dozens of women who
Speaker 1: open up about their affairs. She explores the double standard
Speaker 1: of cheating, Unpacking the guilt, the shame, and expectations placed
Speaker 1: on women, but also the rush, excitement, needs, and desires
Speaker 1: of women. Joe explores the many motivations behind these affairs,
Speaker 1: speaking with dozens of women about how these affairs have
Speaker 1: bln strengthened, and in some cases broken their marriages. So
Speaker 1: today we're digging in to the other side of monogamy
Speaker 1: to understand why women cheat and is it different than men?
Speaker 1: As it turns out, the answer, it's more complicated than
Speaker 1: you'd think. So, Joe, you're the host of the popular
Speaker 1: Committed podcast. What is it about romantic relationships that fascinates you?
Speaker 2: You know, I never thought that I would be a
Speaker 2: person to write and report on romantic relationships. I'm not
Speaker 2: generally a terribly romantic person, but I got started doing
Speaker 2: it seven years ago. I got engaged late. I was
Speaker 2: thirty four years old when I met my husband. We
Speaker 2: got married on my thirty fifth birthday to try to
Speaker 2: make it really easy for him. It's like he just
Speaker 2: he can't fuck it up. Our Anna Rochary my birthday
Speaker 2: is the same day, and I had no idea what
Speaker 2: I was doing, like how to be a wife. I'd
Speaker 2: been single and been really happy being single for a
Speaker 2: long time. And I was also a travel journalist, so
Speaker 2: I used that job to travel around the world and
Speaker 2: interview people about how marriage worked, just I mean completely
Speaker 2: self servingly, and wrote the book How to Be Married
Speaker 2: and just discovered some really fascinating things about how to
Speaker 2: create not just a working marriage, but like a good marriage,
Speaker 2: a happy marriage. And the Committed podcast was spawned off
Speaker 2: of that because I loved the stories even more than
Speaker 2: the advice. I just liked to hear how real people
Speaker 2: did this thing. I felt like we didn't hear nearly
Speaker 2: enough about how an actual marriage worked. We heard about
Speaker 2: the wedding, we heard about the engagement, or then we
Speaker 2: heard about the divorce, but not the nitty gritty of
Speaker 2: a marriage. And and now I'm seven years into this
Speaker 2: and three children in and I'm forty two, and a
Speaker 2: lot of people in my social circle seem to either
Speaker 2: be getting divorced or having affairs, and I thought maybe
Speaker 2: it was time to start reporting on that.
Speaker 1: It's interesting because you say that it was spawned from
Speaker 1: your own social circle, which I think kind of the
Speaker 1: best reporting usually is, because it's like, if it's happening
Speaker 1: in your world, it's happening in other people's worlds. Did
Speaker 1: you have any sort of judgment when you were walking
Speaker 1: into this?
Speaker 2: Oh my god, I had so much judgment walking into this.
Speaker 2: I don't think anyone gets married and says, gee, I
Speaker 2: can't wait to cheat on my husband. But what I
Speaker 2: quickly realized is that there's too much judgment when it
Speaker 2: comes to what women do, and all women deserve a
Speaker 2: safe space to share their stories. And I walked out
Speaker 2: of it thinking, you know what you do. Everyone has
Speaker 2: their own path. Everyone should get to define what marriage
Speaker 2: means for them and their spouse, because, frankly, the whole
Speaker 2: idea of marriage and monogamy is a construct that was
Speaker 2: created thousands and thousands of years ago by men to
Speaker 2: work for men, and I think it's important to question
Speaker 2: these things. I think it's important to question does monogamy work,
Speaker 2: does the contract of marriage work? What is good? What
Speaker 2: is bad? And what can we take away from that
Speaker 2: and from the preconceptions that we came into it with.
Speaker 1: Well, in the pod, you talk about these four types
Speaker 1: of affairs, So what are the four that you saw?
Speaker 2: There's the love affair, and these are based actually on
Speaker 2: the research of a woman named Susan Shapiro Barrish. She
Speaker 2: wrote a book called A Passion for More, and she's
Speaker 2: been interviewing women about infidelity for thirty years and she
Speaker 2: has found that women are having more affairs now than
Speaker 2: they were before, and that they're more willing to talk
Speaker 2: about them, which we also found when we started reporting
Speaker 2: the podcast. And so she categorized the different types of
Speaker 2: affairs that a woman would have. The first one is
Speaker 2: love and I think that one is so interesting because
Speaker 2: there's all these assumptions that if a woman were to cheat,
Speaker 2: it would be for love. That's the only reason a
Speaker 2: woman would cheat, for the emotional reasons. And in my
Speaker 2: interviewing and in Susan's interviewing, the love affairs there were
Speaker 2: less of them than any of the other kind of affairs.
Speaker 2: Women seemed to be cheating. I don't want to say
Speaker 2: that women cheated like men, that women seem to cheat
Speaker 2: for a wide array of reasons much like men do.
Speaker 2: The other is the confidence boosting, the self esteem affair,
Speaker 2: and we saw a lot of those, and frankly, you
Speaker 2: know the reasons for the affairs. I don't love categorizing
Speaker 2: them into just one category because I think that it's
Speaker 2: always a mixture. It's always a mixture of the different ones,
Speaker 2: and confidence building was a really big one. And almost
Speaker 2: all of the women that we talked to said that
Speaker 2: they just wanted to be seen again by their partner
Speaker 2: and they weren't experiencing that kind of spark or that
Speaker 2: kind of return of affection that they had early in
Speaker 2: their relationship, so they looked for it outside of their marriage,
Speaker 2: and that the affairs then gave them confidence not just
Speaker 2: in themselves but in the workplace. It gave them more
Speaker 2: confidence in their actual marriage. It gave them more confidence
Speaker 2: even as mothers, because they just felt worthy again, worthy
Speaker 2: of love, worthy of affection.
Speaker 1: I've heard Esther Pearrell talk about how many affairs and
Speaker 1: this has no gender, but happened not because really of
Speaker 1: the other person, but because the person that is stepping
Speaker 1: outside of their relationship is looking for a new version
Speaker 1: of themselves mm hmm. And that one kind of fits
Speaker 1: under that assumption.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, And I think that's so true. I don't
Speaker 2: think that people necessarily cheat because of their partner most
Speaker 2: of the time. I think I completely agree with Estaire
Speaker 2: that people are looking for something for them, They're looking
Speaker 2: for a different version of themselves, an earlier version of themselves,
Speaker 2: a part of themselves. You know that is often taken
Speaker 2: away when we have children. We have kids, we lose
Speaker 2: so much autonomy over our own bodies, and sometimes we
Speaker 2: just want that back.
Speaker 1: M So it's actually much deeper, so.
Speaker 2: Much deeper, so much deeper, and so much more complicated,
Speaker 2: I think than we ever really think about.
Speaker 1: Did you come away feeling with any of these women,
Speaker 1: because we actually have several clips from the women you
Speaker 1: interviewed and we're gonna oh thought about them. But did
Speaker 1: you come away thinking that any of these women could
Speaker 1: have like dug into some of this stuff in therapy
Speaker 1: instead of in an affair, or did you find it
Speaker 1: to be kind of this valid outlet.
Speaker 2: A lot of women did dig into it in therapy.
Speaker 2: Some of those women had a therapist who said you
Speaker 2: should go for this, this is someone you should try. Yes,
Speaker 2: And I mean I have friends of my own who've
Speaker 2: had therapists who have said, yeah, why don't you try this?
Speaker 2: I think this is exactly what you need.
Speaker 1: That is fascinating.
Speaker 2: And there's other women who told their husbands what they wanted.
Speaker 2: They said, look, I want something different in the bedroom
Speaker 2: I want to be dominated. I want you to spank me,
Speaker 2: and their husband said that I'm not into that, and
Speaker 2: then that's why they went and decided to go have
Speaker 2: an affair. You know, it's not always a complete lack
Speaker 2: of communication. Sometimes there is communication and it's just what
Speaker 2: they want or need just isn't reciprocated.
Speaker 1: That's really interesting. A long time ago, someone said to me,
Speaker 1: you can't yuck someone's yum.
Speaker 2: No, you sure can't. I sure can't.
Speaker 1: Okay, So I want to start with Nicki. So Nicki
Speaker 1: is a woman who was deeply dissatisfied with her sexually
Speaker 1: uninterested husband, so she actually made an Ashley Madison account.
Speaker 1: She's flooded with messages and she decides to meet up
Speaker 1: with a man and she finds the passionate sex that
Speaker 1: she's been craving for so long. So let's play her clip.
Speaker 3: Instant Spark, Instant Flame, the hottest sect I'd ever had
Speaker 3: in my life. Hours and hours and hours of sex.
Speaker 3: And I was so proud of myself in a way
Speaker 3: that I didn't just fall over this man and just
Speaker 3: fall in love and have all the heart eyes. And
Speaker 3: I was very mature about it, and I thought it
Speaker 3: was interesting to recognize that, oh, so this is how
Speaker 3: men do it. I didn't feel attached to him at all.
Speaker 3: And the one I thought about it like, why are
Speaker 3: men the only ones that get to call the shops?
Speaker 3: Why are they the ones you get to have all
Speaker 3: their sexual pleasures to build?
Speaker 1: There's a lot there.
Speaker 2: There's so much there, and I mean there's so much
Speaker 2: in every episode. It's crazy.
Speaker 1: They are they're juicy because there's this thing in therapy,
Speaker 1: in science, even book editing, where the presenting problem is
Speaker 1: never the real problem. Like in book editing they say,
Speaker 1: what's the note behind the note? And that's how I
Speaker 1: feel about that clip. It's like, in my mind, one
Speaker 1: of the things there is that she she wants to
Speaker 1: feel powerful, like there was this impalance and she wants
Speaker 1: to feel like a man. She wanted to test how
Speaker 1: she would feel. What did you feel from her?
Speaker 2: You know? I felt like she was a woman who
Speaker 2: hadn't been getting what she wanted sexually for a very
Speaker 2: long time and didn't know how to ask for it
Speaker 2: or even exactly what she wanted. She just knew something
Speaker 2: was missing, and once she opened the floodgates, there was
Speaker 2: no turning back. I mean, she just went for it,
Speaker 2: and I think it's it's so interesting. We heard this
Speaker 2: over and over and you heard it in the cliff.
Speaker 2: She compares what she's doing to a man, and I
Speaker 2: think that we see that so much because we don't
Speaker 2: have any other point of comparison. We've been talking about
Speaker 2: male affairs. We talk about how men have sex, We
Speaker 2: talk about male passion and the male gaze and male
Speaker 2: desire so often, and we don't talk about it with
Speaker 2: respect to women, which is why the only thing we
Speaker 2: have to compare any of us too is how a
Speaker 2: man does something. And if I learned anything doing this podcast,
Speaker 2: it's that women have affairs just like men. They desire
Speaker 2: just like men, They have passion just like men of
Speaker 2: all ages too. Women's desire does not stop at age
Speaker 2: thirty or forty or fifty. But we just haven't talked
Speaker 2: about those things enough. And that's what we wanted to
Speaker 2: do with this podcast. We wanted a place to share
Speaker 2: women's stories that we don't hear nearly enough of.
Speaker 1: Well, this one was like particularly interesting to me because
Speaker 1: it becomes a lifestyle for Nicki. She went on to
Speaker 1: cheat on her husband for twelve years in counting how
Speaker 1: did she say that this changed her marriage?
Speaker 2: NICKI said that for a long time, it changed it
Speaker 2: for the better, that she was actually much happier with
Speaker 2: her husband. And we heard this a lot, that women
Speaker 2: were happier in their marriages because they were finally getting
Speaker 2: what they needed somewhere else, and then the resentment went away.
Speaker 2: I think resentment is such a huge issue in a marriage. It's,
Speaker 2: you know, you expect this person to give you all
Speaker 2: of the things, to be your everything, to be your soulmate.
Speaker 2: It's such a bullshit construction, and it's just the rom
Speaker 2: com version that we've been fed for so long, like
Speaker 2: this one person walking down the aisle and seeing them
Speaker 2: and finally marrying them is going to change everything and
Speaker 2: make your life better. And that's not true. No one
Speaker 2: person can be your everything. It can't be your best friend,
Speaker 2: your soulmate, the best sex you've ever had, your tennis partner,
Speaker 2: all of the stuff, and so sometimes, and I'm gonna
Speaker 2: sound really crass here, sometimes you have to outsource things.
Speaker 2: Like you know, I spend so much time with my friends,
Speaker 2: both male and female, and have so many talks with
Speaker 2: them that I would never have with my husband. I
Speaker 2: am not outsourcing sex. But that's what some of these
Speaker 2: women are doing.
Speaker 1: I guess the question is is what are you comfortable outsourcing?
Speaker 1: Because to me, I have zero judgment in terms of
Speaker 1: women or men finding what they want. What I can't
Speaker 1: seem to reconcile is the lie. And that's just a
Speaker 1: personal thing, right. Everybody has their own, you know, feeling
Speaker 1: of what's okay and what's not. But yeah, as I
Speaker 1: listen to these clips, that's the one thing that I'm
Speaker 1: having trouble with.
Speaker 2: Yeah, same, same, I have to say. I mean, the
Speaker 2: one thing that I have difficulty with is the deception,
Speaker 2: and especially as one who was cheated on by boyfriends
Speaker 2: and I know how much that broke me and how
Speaker 2: terrible it was. The lying aspect sucks, and that is
Speaker 2: what is completely destructive, honestly. But the rest of it
Speaker 2: I don't have any any judgment about. And I think
Speaker 2: a lot of people, you know, I've talked talked to
Speaker 2: talk to some people who they say they're judgmental about
Speaker 2: the lying, but they're really judgmental about the sex. And
Speaker 2: I think that's so interesting because it just it feels
Speaker 2: almost more culturally acceptable for us to be like, no,
Speaker 2: but lying is wrong and we don't want to admit, like, oh,
Speaker 2: but the sex parts making me feel a little squishy too.
Speaker 2: And I think about that a lot because I was
Speaker 2: I was judgmental about all of it. Walking into this podcast,
Speaker 2: I was like, well, you're only supposed to have sex
Speaker 2: with your husband? Why and why is sex such a
Speaker 2: thing that can only happen with like such a big
Speaker 2: thing in the marriage. When when a marriage is really
Speaker 2: a business partnership in so many ways and a friendship partnership,
Speaker 2: and you're raising kids together, you're building a home together,
Speaker 2: why does the sex have to be entwined with that?
Speaker 2: Which feels kind of esoteric, But this podcast got me
Speaker 2: bringing up all of these esoteric questions.
Speaker 1: Well, I guess you're picking a totally different partner if
Speaker 1: you're not thinking about the sexual aspect, potentially totally right.
Speaker 2: I mean, then you might be picking a different partner.
Speaker 2: But maybe you should pick a different partner because the
Speaker 2: person that you're having the greatest sex of your life
Speaker 2: with may not be the person that you're meant to
Speaker 2: lead a life with.
Speaker 1: It's interesting, it sounds like you have really been able
Speaker 1: to separate the two I.
Speaker 2: Have I have, But then again, I think I can
Speaker 2: separate them as a reporter and as an observer. But
Speaker 2: you know, if I found out that my husband was
Speaker 2: treating of me, I'd probably lose my fucking mind.
Speaker 1: So there was data released last year that says in
Speaker 1: fidelity rates among women are on they and they've increased
Speaker 1: by forty percent since the early nineties. Forty percent, and
Speaker 1: that's reported, so I can only imagine what's unreported. Yeah,
Speaker 1: data from married adults ages eighteen to twenty nine say
Speaker 1: that women are slightly more guilty of infidelity even and
Speaker 1: in adults thirty years and older, men are more likely
Speaker 1: to cheat. So women are more likely to cheat when
Speaker 1: they're younger, and women are more likely to cheat post thirty.
Speaker 1: What do you make of that?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 2: I think we also have to think about when it
Speaker 2: comes to those stats, who is more comfortable talking about
Speaker 2: it too? But I have to say I think women
Speaker 2: are getting a lot more comfortable overall confessing this. I
Speaker 2: think of what this study had been done ten twenty
Speaker 2: years ago, women wouldn't have talked about it. It did
Speaker 2: not feel safe to talk about having an affair then,
Speaker 2: and for so much of human history it wasn't safe
Speaker 2: for a woman to commit adult treat and it was illegal.
Speaker 2: A woman could be jailed or killed for having an affair.
Speaker 2: And I think we finally reached a place, at least
Speaker 2: in America, where more and more women feel comfortable admitting it.
Speaker 2: So we're seeing those statistics rise a lot when people
Speaker 2: are doing these studies. Also, people are finally doing studies
Speaker 2: on this, and that was something interesting that we found
Speaker 2: reporting this podcast, because we talked to so many experts
Speaker 2: and they were studying this at the university level, and
Speaker 2: they were still mocked by their fellow academics for studying
Speaker 2: the sex lives of people, when so many people would
Speaker 2: consider their sex lives such an integral part of their
Speaker 2: entire lives.
Speaker 1: Well, it's interesting that you use the word comfortable because
Speaker 1: you interviewed Susan Shapiro Bearrish, who's you mentioned the book
Speaker 1: that inspired your podcast, and in that first episode, she
Speaker 1: says women are feeling more and more like they deserve
Speaker 1: to have an affair, and deserve is way different than comfortable.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And we heard that over and over again that
Speaker 2: more and more women felt like they deserved it, that
Speaker 2: more and more women described their affair as self care,
Speaker 2: as the way that they were taking care of themselves,
Speaker 2: and I going into this podcast, I would not have
Speaker 2: been like, oh, yeah, of course, having an affair is
Speaker 2: self care, like your dry brush, you do some yoga,
Speaker 2: you just go have sex with someone who's not your husband.
Speaker 2: But that's what we kept hearing over and over again.
Speaker 2: It wasn't a one off.
Speaker 1: So I'm fascinated by the gender differentiation here because, like
Speaker 1: we constantly talk about if men and women cheat for
Speaker 1: different reasons, and esta Verell writes in her book that
Speaker 1: there's this generalization that men cheat out of boredom and
Speaker 1: fear of intimacy, and women cheat out of loneliness and
Speaker 1: hunger for intimacy. I'm dying to know what your take
Speaker 1: is after these all of these episodes.
Speaker 2: I really think that that is such a stereotype and
Speaker 2: I don't think it's true. I saw so many women
Speaker 2: cheat for the reasons that we believe men cheat, and
Speaker 2: I think men are hungry for the same emotional things
Speaker 2: that women are, and that women are hungry for the
Speaker 2: same kinds of physical things that men are. I don't
Speaker 2: think that there is a huge dichotomy in how men
Speaker 2: and women cheat, except for one thing I do believe
Speaker 2: that women are better at covering it up. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I've heard that too, that they're more meticulous like that
Speaker 1: first woman Nikki was twelve.
Speaker 5: Plus years never got caught, Now got caught. Okay, let's
Speaker 5: talk about Katie. So Katie has a very specific type
Speaker 5: of affair. This is a love affair that you mentioned.
Speaker 5: So Katie and her husband move in with her husband's
Speaker 5: best friend when they decide to relocate to la and
Speaker 5: in this new city, Katie feels free to explore new
Speaker 5: things and aspects of herself to the extent that she
Speaker 5: almost doesn't feel married anymore. Romantic tension builds between Katie
Speaker 5: and Phil, her husband's best friends, and as they spend
Speaker 5: more and more time together.
Speaker 1: This one really threw me for a loop.
Speaker 6: We started to push boundaries, like we would always be
Speaker 6: sitting next to each other, we would hold hands, we
Speaker 6: would put our arms around each other. No one seemed
Speaker 6: to be bothered by this. No one seemed to notice
Speaker 6: or care. My husband never brought it up, but I
Speaker 6: was starting to feel like this tension building. It was
Speaker 6: definitely like a high. I mean, I know, love can
Speaker 6: be such a high, and you feel like you're not
Speaker 6: in control and there's just this other worldliness to the situation.
Speaker 1: So Katie wants to get caught.
Speaker 2: It seems she sure did. She shared it, and she
Speaker 2: did get caught, And like I said, the love affair
Speaker 2: was really rare. Katie's our only love affair in the
Speaker 2: whole series. She wanted to get caught. She also got
Speaker 2: married very young. That was a common thread that we
Speaker 2: saw over and over again that people, a lot of
Speaker 2: the women that were having the affairs had tended to
Speaker 2: get married when they were very young, and they had
Speaker 2: felt like they'd missed out on something.
Speaker 1: So I can tell my mom, who's upset that I'm
Speaker 1: not married yet, that it's gonna I'll be okay, Oh
Speaker 1: my god.
Speaker 2: One hundred percent. Wait how old are you am I
Speaker 2: allowed to ask.
Speaker 1: That, of course, of course I'm thirty two.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, You're totally fine. You're a baby. I
Speaker 2: don't think anyone should get married until they are thirty
Speaker 2: four or thirty five. And I was the very last
Speaker 2: one of my friends to get married. I had given up.
Speaker 2: I thought I was going to be a spinster. I
Speaker 2: had written an article about how I was going to
Speaker 2: be a spinster. I bought myself an engagement ring. I
Speaker 2: was like, oh my gosh, yeah, it's like it's my
Speaker 2: story that went the most viral on the internet. I
Speaker 2: bought myself an engagement ring. It was on l dot com.
Speaker 2: I bought a beautiful tans night ring in Tanzania. And
Speaker 2: then two months later I met my fucking husband on
Speaker 2: a boat in the Galapagos.
Speaker 1: Of course you did. That's unbelievable. Really feel like you
Speaker 1: were able to make a better decision because you knew yourself.
Speaker 2: Yes, and so was my husband. I was forty two
Speaker 2: when we met. I was thirty four. We were grown
Speaker 2: up human beings, and I chose the right person. I
Speaker 2: chose the right partner. I was a gossip columnist in
Speaker 2: New York City for all of my twenties and just
Speaker 2: getting these constant comparisons to Carrie Bradshaw. But I didn't
Speaker 2: end up with the fifty mister Biggs that I dated.
Speaker 2: I married Aiden. I made the right choice.
Speaker 1: Okay. So Katie's story, the one where she cheats with
Speaker 1: her friend's husband, you call it a classic example of
Speaker 1: a woman being judged more harshly than a man. Totally, Yeah,
Speaker 1: how did that play out in Katie's story?
Speaker 2: Well, Katie lost all of her friends, and to be fair,
Speaker 2: she probably should have. She really she was ingrained in
Speaker 2: her husband's social circle, and she did cheat on him
Speaker 2: with his best friend who they were living with. I mean,
Speaker 2: she was not innocent in this situation. But that said,
Speaker 2: I've known so many guys that have done something very
Speaker 2: similar and they did not lose their whole social circle.
Speaker 2: They i mean, maybe got like a slap on the rest,
Speaker 2: but they didn't feel like they were ostracized and they
Speaker 2: had to leave the city and completely rebuild a new life.
Speaker 1: You know, it's interesting you say that because I was
Speaker 1: watching Chris Rock's comedy special and at the end he
Speaker 1: finally talks about what happened with the slap with Will Smith,
Speaker 1: and he makes this joke in it that like, Will
Speaker 1: was a quote unquote bitch for sitting with Jada after
Speaker 1: she cheated on him, and they talked about it on
Speaker 1: Red Table Talk.
Speaker 2: Mmmmmmm.
Speaker 1: And I felt always so uncomfortable with what the consensus
Speaker 1: was among people, because how many times have we seen
Speaker 1: women stand by men, stand by their husbands after they've
Speaker 1: cheated publicly, and they hold hands and it's all going
Speaker 1: to be okay, and it's almost like it's expected and
Speaker 1: okay if that's what the woman chooses. But because Will
Speaker 1: decided to stand by and be okay, that was such
Speaker 1: a double standard to me, did you think about that?
Speaker 2: Such a huge double standard. I covered so many political
Speaker 2: scandals where the politician had stepped out on his wife.
Speaker 2: I covered Elliott Spitzer and the prostitution scandal, I covered
Speaker 2: John Edwards, and I have such a visceral memory of
Speaker 2: those women standing next to their husbands, holding their hands
Speaker 2: while they apologized. And it feels like such a huge
Speaker 2: double standard that a man sticking around after an affair
Speaker 2: is considered weak, right, yea. And again, it's just one
Speaker 2: of the many double standards when it comes to men
Speaker 2: and women and sex and fidelity.
Speaker 1: Hillary Clinton did an interview a few years ago and
Speaker 1: someone said, what's the bravest thing you've ever done? And
Speaker 1: she thought about it for a minute, and she said,
Speaker 1: stay with my husband, stay in my relationship. There's not
Speaker 1: one decision that's right for everybody, but whatever you choose
Speaker 1: is brave because it's just gut wrenching.
Speaker 2: Well. Absolutely, And again it's because a marriage is so
Speaker 2: much more than just sex. A marriage is a partnership.
Speaker 2: A friendship, it is building a life together. But we've
Speaker 2: been conditioned to believe that sex is really kind of
Speaker 2: this thing that we have to think about as the
Speaker 2: only thing that matters when it comes to fidelity.
Speaker 1: So you talk about a recent sex study an episode
Speaker 1: two that in exclusive cohabitating relationships, women get bored of
Speaker 1: monogamous sex more quickly than men do.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I found that fascinating because I think in my relationships,
Speaker 1: I don't get bored, and I think I think it's
Speaker 1: such a consensus that people feel like like men get
Speaker 1: bored faster.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah again, yet and not a myth that we've
Speaker 2: been fed that it's men who get bored faster, That
Speaker 2: women don't like novelty in a relationship, that men want
Speaker 2: sex more than women do. That's all just bullshit science
Speaker 2: from the people the experts that we have talked to,
Speaker 2: and a lot of those studies were done by men
Speaker 2: for men, and they have no bearing on women's actual desire.
Speaker 1: One of my favorite episodes I've done off Pretty Smart
Speaker 1: was with Eve Rodsky.
Speaker 2: On Oh I Love Eve. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, her work is really great, And there's a sociologist
Speaker 1: Lisa Waite who says there's a correlation between equal division
Speaker 1: of labor and better sex. So, I mean, this is
Speaker 1: Eve's like all of her work, is that women are
Speaker 1: often responsible for so much of the invisible labor and households.
Speaker 1: Did you feel like anyone you interviewed echoed that statement
Speaker 1: because the resentment you talked about earlier definitely is fed there.
Speaker 2: Oh. Absolutely, I think that resentment definitely leads to worse
Speaker 2: set and one hundred percent leads to less sex. So
Speaker 2: when there is more emotional labor being done by the woman,
Speaker 2: when everything is unequal, yeah, you're not gonna want to
Speaker 2: do it with your husband. You're just not. And I
Speaker 2: think that that is also why we see a drop
Speaker 2: off in people's sex lives after they have kids. It's
Speaker 2: not because a woman becomes a less sexual being when
Speaker 2: she has children, but it's because she's doing so much
Speaker 2: more of the goddamn work.
Speaker 1: M that's really important to note. Yeah, okay, let's talk
Speaker 1: about Monique. Yeah, this is the one that your friends
Speaker 1: want to know about, so this might also be good.
Speaker 1: So Monique has been married for thirty years, but her
Speaker 1: husband doesn't share her same adventurous spirit when it comes
Speaker 1: to sex. She enjoys the stability and love that her
Speaker 1: marriage provides, but she decides to open herself up to
Speaker 1: new opportunities, not wanting to miss out on all the
Speaker 1: experiences that life has to offer her.
Speaker 4: Let's just say you like to play tennis, and you're
Speaker 4: really good at it, like really good, and at some
Speaker 4: point you go to your partner and you say, you
Speaker 4: know what, I really need to play tennis with somebody
Speaker 4: who plays tennis at my level. Line, nobody would say,
Speaker 4: oh no, don't go find that person.
Speaker 1: You'd be like, yeah, I totally get it.
Speaker 2: You know, you love this.
Speaker 1: This is one of your favorite things in the whole world.
Speaker 4: Go find somebody who's as into it as you are.
Speaker 2: If you take out tennis and say really fun, really great.
Speaker 4: Sex, yeah, then suddenly it's not the same kind of activity.
Speaker 1: So Monique's story is part of an episode titled Can
Speaker 1: One Partner Give You Everything? Where do you think you
Speaker 1: land on that after this pod?
Speaker 2: Absolutely not. That was something I discovered when I was
Speaker 2: reporting the book How to Be Married Too, that one
Speaker 2: partner can't give you everything. And it is such an
Speaker 2: American ideal, that ideal of the soulmate, of that one
Speaker 2: person being your everything. In so many other cultures, they
Speaker 2: don't believe that. I mean, for instance, in France, they're
Speaker 2: much more open to flirting, to just kind of enjoying
Speaker 2: the company of other sexes. It's a lie to say
Speaker 2: everyone in France is having an affair. It's a ridiculous
Speaker 2: lie in stereotype. But they definitely do flirt more, and
Speaker 2: they definitely do have relationships, not necessarily sexual, with members
Speaker 2: of the opposite sex, because they get things out of
Speaker 2: those relationships that you're not necessarily getting from your spouse.
Speaker 2: Those people, even if it's something as small as someone
Speaker 2: to laugh at your jokes. Again, your spouse has hurt
Speaker 2: all your jokes, they might not think they're funny anymore.
Speaker 2: So maybe you need to get that somewhere else, you know.
Speaker 2: Or then I talked to a lot of couples when
Speaker 2: I traveled around India who will tell you it takes
Speaker 2: a village to make a marriage work. It takes having
Speaker 2: family around you, It takes support to have a marriage work.
Speaker 2: The idea that you're going it alone with this one
Speaker 2: person who's going to be or everything is uniquely American
Speaker 2: and also incredibly destructive.
Speaker 1: Did you personally have any sort of because you were
Speaker 1: talking about like you were. If you were writing about
Speaker 1: being single and you bought your own engagement ring, did
Speaker 1: you have these romantic wander lusts?
Speaker 2: Totally? Totally. I absolutely did. And you know, I had
Speaker 2: bought into the whole like romantic industrial complex when I
Speaker 2: was single that there was only one way to be
Speaker 2: that there was only one person out there for me.
Speaker 2: And I think that being married and doing the hard
Speaker 2: work of marriage because mcne mistake, I mean, marriage is work,
Speaker 2: has not lessened the romantic in may. It's definitely made
Speaker 2: me more practical and it's definitely made me question all
Speaker 2: of the norm surrounding marriage.
Speaker 1: Do you see marriage changing for people in the US
Speaker 1: in the next forty to fifty years.
Speaker 2: I don't think we're going to see a massive sea
Speaker 2: change anytime soon. I will say that now I've been
Speaker 2: in interviews where people are like, but there's so much
Speaker 2: more ethical non monogamy and open marriages there are. I
Speaker 2: think that monogamy will likely remain the norm. What I'm
Speaker 2: hoping is that we start to see a little more
Speaker 2: flexibility in how we judge people for what they choose.
Speaker 2: If they choose monogamy, if they choose ethical non monogamy.
Speaker 2: I want to see a more openness to different systems.
Speaker 2: I also, what I really want to see change is
Speaker 2: exactly what you were talking about, which is the emotional
Speaker 2: labor in a marriage. I want to see more actual,
Speaker 2: real equality in a marriage, because right now it remains
Speaker 2: really hard. Even if you have a feminist husband, a
Speaker 2: husband who wants to do the right things, so much
Speaker 2: of a burden still falls on women. And I think
Speaker 2: that that's what makes marriage really difficult.
Speaker 1: It's what I hear from almost every woman I interview.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I know like Nick does try very hard,
Speaker 2: naturally does really great. And I will say, now that
Speaker 2: we've got three kids, we're as close to parody in
Speaker 2: terms of who is doing what as we've ever been.
Speaker 2: And I still do feel like I'm doing a little more.
Speaker 2: But we're getting so much better. We're so much closer
Speaker 2: now than we were in the beginning. But that took
Speaker 2: a lot of work. I feel like it was emotional
Speaker 2: labor just to get rid of all that emotional labor.
Speaker 1: Do you feel like the hard conversations you've had with
Speaker 1: Nick have allowed you to be more attracted or have
Speaker 1: they lessened the sexual tension?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: Where do the hard conversations get you.
Speaker 2: No, they make you way more attracted to your spouse
Speaker 2: because you get rid of all of these resentments. Like
Speaker 2: the marriages that I know that are failing right now
Speaker 2: or failing in one way or another, are the ones
Speaker 2: where they didn't talk about these hard things. I don't
Speaker 2: think that there is anything as being too open in
Speaker 2: a marriage, because in a marriage, you're got to be
Speaker 2: open anyway. They're going to see you be totally gross.
Speaker 2: You're going to be at your worst, really are. My
Speaker 2: husband has seen three children come out of my body.
Speaker 2: The last one just fell out. She just like he
Speaker 2: looked down and all of a sudden we're in the
Speaker 2: hospital and he's like, the baby's in the bank. She
Speaker 2: just slithered out.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, Joe.
Speaker 2: So like, marriage is gross, and so they're like, you
Speaker 2: only have something to gain by talking about all of
Speaker 2: the things because you're gonna resent your spouse.
Speaker 1: Lass. You know, I noticed when you asked or when
Speaker 1: you talked about what you hope to see in the future,
Speaker 1: you mentioned polyamory and consensual non monogamy, but you didn't
Speaker 1: say non monogamy. That's where you've landed. It's like you
Speaker 1: want people to have the conversation about it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I do. I think it's definitely healthier
Speaker 2: if people can have the conversation about it right now.
Speaker 2: I don't think everyone is able to have that conversation.
Speaker 2: It's not always easy. Sometimes you try to start to
Speaker 2: have the conversation and you just get shut down by
Speaker 2: your spouse. We saw that a lot in the She
Speaker 2: Wants more podcasting. People say I approached this, I said
Speaker 2: what I wanted, and he didn't want it, and now
Speaker 2: we're at an impasse, so what do we do? And
Speaker 2: then they decided to cheat because the conversation wasn't getting
Speaker 2: them anywhere. You know, in an ideal world, if you
Speaker 2: wanted to step outside your marriage, you could talk to
Speaker 2: your spouse about that. I do not think we are
Speaker 2: in that ideal world yet.
Speaker 1: I think some people are.
Speaker 2: No, some people are sure, of course they are, but
Speaker 2: I don't think. I mean, I definitely don't think everyone is.
Speaker 2: I mean, I have friends both male and female, who
Speaker 2: said I would like to open up my marriage. I
Speaker 2: know that my spouse isn't going to go for it, right.
Speaker 1: I guess you never know until you try it. I
Speaker 1: hear from a lot of men in particular that I
Speaker 1: think they're nervous to bring it up to their wife
Speaker 1: or their spouse because they feel like there's no turning back.
Speaker 1: Even broaching the conversation could blow up everything. I clearly
Speaker 1: don't have enough experience in that world, but I always
Speaker 1: think that maybe you're underestimating them. You never know until
Speaker 1: you talk about it.
Speaker 2: You never know until you talk about it. But then,
Speaker 2: just as you said, there's also no going back. Once
Speaker 2: you've let the cat out of the bag, you're never
Speaker 2: going to find the cat again. You cannot put a
Speaker 2: cat back in a bag.
Speaker 1: I guess, can't put the toothpaste bag in the tube?
Speaker 2: Sure can?
Speaker 1: M m okay, I have a quick rapid fire for you.
Speaker 2: All right, let's do it.
Speaker 1: A piece of love and marriage advice that you've learned
Speaker 1: and used.
Speaker 2: Talk to your spouse about all of the hard things
Speaker 2: and the weird things, and the more uncomfortable the better,
Speaker 2: and try to do it every night. And what you
Speaker 2: need to do is you have to let each person
Speaker 2: talk for five minutes and the other person isn't allowed
Speaker 2: to interrupt you.
Speaker 1: You do that every night, No, but I wish I
Speaker 1: did even once a week would be good right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: once a week is great. Okay. A piece of love
Speaker 1: and marriage advice that you think is way outdated.
Speaker 2: The fact that your spouse should be your best friend.
Speaker 2: You should have another best friend. It's weird if your
Speaker 2: spouse is your best friend. Get more friends.
Speaker 1: Okay. A book you've read that changed your life.
Speaker 2: I like to recommend books that came out kind of
Speaker 2: recently that I would like people to read more often.
Speaker 2: So The Great Circle is my favorite book of the
Speaker 2: past five years. It's just a soaring, beautiful piece of
Speaker 2: historical fiction about female pilot and the author is so
Speaker 2: smart that it will just, you know, make you feel
Speaker 2: like the dumbest person in the room. But it's a
Speaker 2: perfect novel in my opinion. And I read a lot
Speaker 2: of bad novels in my line of work and a
Speaker 2: lot of great novels, and The Great Circle is one
Speaker 2: of the greatest that I've read recently.
Speaker 1: Thank you for adding that to the Pretty Smart library. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I do a pretty smart question. I have this
Speaker 1: card deck, and I picked a random question for you.
Speaker 1: It says, what's the best thing you've ever quit?
Speaker 2: I quit my job at a newspaper and Jerry Maguire
Speaker 2: out of there and it was just kind of these
Speaker 2: golden handcuffs. I loved my job, I loved my coworkers,
Speaker 2: and it was the best thing that I ever did
Speaker 2: because it forced me to start writing books. And now
Speaker 2: I've written something like ten books.
Speaker 1: That's amazing.
Speaker 2: I know so much better.
Speaker 1: What is the smartest decision you've ever made?
Speaker 2: Marrying my husband? Mmmmmm? Find it because you know. I
Speaker 2: talked to Catlin Moran about this and her advice for
Speaker 2: young women is so smart. Your glass ceiling is the
Speaker 2: person that you marry. I truly believe that for women
Speaker 2: that if you choose your spouse properly, there is nothing
Speaker 2: you can't do. But if you choose someone who is
Speaker 2: going to restrict you in any way, then that is
Speaker 2: your glass ceiling.
Speaker 1: No pressure, not at all.
Speaker 2: But that person doesn't have to be your best friend.
Speaker 2: That should take some of the pressure away.
Speaker 1: But you do have to want to have sex with them.
Speaker 2: You do, you do, but not all the time. I
Speaker 2: also think that you have to remember that the marriage
Speaker 2: has different seasons and you will want to have sex
Speaker 2: with them all the time sometimes and then other times,
Speaker 2: like after you've just had a baby and your husband's
Speaker 2: vasectomy keeps getting postponed, you won't want to have sex
Speaker 2: with them for a while.
Speaker 1: Thanks for sharing that, Joe.
Speaker 2: Any time, I.
Speaker 1: Want to thank the people that make the show possible.
Speaker 1: Colleen O'Neill, Jill Salama, Carrie o'keef and Phil Speed Tech. Okay,
Speaker 1: you know what time it is. Today's a good day
Speaker 1: to have a good day. I'll see you next week.