Speaker 1: When I look back on it now, I'm like, I
Speaker 1: put myself in this very dangerous situation on purpose, and
Speaker 1: I think that no regular relationship could even ever be
Speaker 1: that exciting because there was so much risk and danger.
Speaker 1: And I mean the danger was to my marriage, and
Speaker 1: the danger was to my identity and self respect. This
Speaker 1: is she wants more. I'm your host, Joe Piazza. Last week,
Speaker 1: we heard from a woman named Nikki about the twelve
Speaker 1: years that she's been cheating on her husband. This week,
Speaker 1: we're going to hear from Katie. Katie risked everything in
Speaker 1: her life for her affair, and she ended up losing
Speaker 1: most of her friends and having to move to a
Speaker 1: new city just to escape the fallout. The implication was
Speaker 1: that I hopped from person to person and that I
Speaker 1: didn't care about people's feelings. People that I thought I
Speaker 1: was close with called me like four the names. It
Speaker 1: really puts this perspective on like, am I selfish? Do
Speaker 1: I not care about others? Extra marital affairs, especially for women,
Speaker 1: have never been without risk. In many countries and cultures,
Speaker 1: including this one. It has historically been illegal for women
Speaker 1: to commit adultery, and through the years, the sentences have
Speaker 1: been harsh. Women could either get slut shamed or get
Speaker 1: murdered for exercising sexual autonomy and having an affair, or
Speaker 1: saying I don't want to be a monogymous. That voice
Speaker 1: you heard is Wednesday. Martin Wednesday is a feminist author,
Speaker 1: an anthropologist, and a cultural critic. She is also a
Speaker 1: woman who loves nothing more than talking about female sexuality
Speaker 1: and pleasure. Her book Untrue is a deep dive into
Speaker 1: the topic of women and non monogamy. High Wednesday. When
Speaker 1: I decided as doing a podcast on women and adultery,
Speaker 1: you were the only person I wanted to talk to.
Speaker 1: Thank you. I'm very honored because I've been studying this
Speaker 1: full time for seven years now, and it's such a
Speaker 1: universal topic in many ways, and it's so personal to people,
Speaker 1: Like what could be more dishy or delicious or devastating
Speaker 1: than affairs? And so many great novels have been written
Speaker 1: about affairs, so many great scripted series and movies. It's
Speaker 1: almost like it's in our blood. It's in our blood.
Speaker 1: I think it is in our DNA that we just
Speaker 1: we want to know more, we want to know everything,
Speaker 1: and a lot of us who have not had affairs
Speaker 1: really want to hear about and from people who have
Speaker 1: had affairs or who are non monogamous. When we watch
Speaker 1: a scripted series like The Affair, or when we read
Speaker 1: Anna Karinina, we get a thrill from watching another woman
Speaker 1: have an affair because maybe we secretly really want to,
Speaker 1: but it's not an option for us because it's too
Speaker 1: dangerous for us physically, or there's too much of a
Speaker 1: risk of stigma in our community. I mean, that's something
Speaker 1: we want to touch on in this podcast. Can you
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about some of the ways that
Speaker 1: women are still shamed for their affairs. Yes, most women
Speaker 1: do not have the option to be openly non monogamous,
Speaker 1: so they kind of have to be on the deal.
Speaker 1: This is a culture where we have TikTok's and I
Speaker 1: g reels about women doing what we call the walk
Speaker 1: of shame. Right, We really stigmatized female sexuality even when
Speaker 1: it's monogamous. So yeah, the reason that so few women
Speaker 1: seem to be openly non monogamous is simply because we
Speaker 1: don't really give them the option. We make it dangerous.
Speaker 1: I mean, I know a lot of feminists who will
Speaker 1: make jokes about the walk of shame and I'm like, so,
Speaker 1: a woman's being autonomous, and we literally call it the
Speaker 1: walk of shame. A woman is walking around in an
Speaker 1: outfit that says, yes, I had sex, or we presume
Speaker 1: means that I presume. There's a lot of assumption, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of storytelling. The walk of shame is just
Speaker 1: one classic example of a way we judge women we've
Speaker 1: never really thought twice about. When it comes to infidelity,
Speaker 1: we judge women way more harshly than we judge met
Speaker 1: scholars have looked into this and it gets dark and
Speaker 1: Lynn was beheaded. Medieval scholars have found that guilty women
Speaker 1: were often expelled from their homes and their heads were shaven.
Speaker 1: They were forced to parade through the streets. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: just like that episode of Game of Thrones. Women in
Speaker 1: Sudan even today can face death by stoning for adultery,
Speaker 1: and in America more recently, women aren't sentenced to death,
Speaker 1: but they've definitely been judged more harshly than men. Just
Speaker 1: take a look at pop culture. Yoko Ono and John
Speaker 1: Lennon were actually both married when they began their affair,
Speaker 1: but it's always been Yoko who has been publicly shamed
Speaker 1: and vilified not only as the person who broke up
Speaker 1: John's marriage, but as the person who broke up the Beatles.
Speaker 1: We are still judging women more harshly than we judgment
Speaker 1: Take Olivia Wilde and Harry Styles. Male directors have always
Speaker 1: been having affairs with their actresses and no one says
Speaker 1: much about it, whether they're married or not. But when
Speaker 1: married director Olivia Wilde allegedly slept with her actor Harry Styles,
Speaker 1: it was all we could talk about. Then there's Katie's story.
Speaker 1: This story, the one you're about to hear, is a
Speaker 1: classic example of a woman being judged more harshly than
Speaker 1: a man, and you'll hear all of it. After a
Speaker 1: quick break, we're back with she Wants More Now. Before
Speaker 1: we get into Katie's affair, we're going to start with
Speaker 1: her marriage. Katie fell in love in college when she
Speaker 1: was just nineteen of the baby. But you know, I
Speaker 1: felt so sure then at that time, you feel like
Speaker 1: you kind of own the world and know everythinging we
Speaker 1: became adults together, we got our jobs. I was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: this is adulthood, and I think I didn't even realize
Speaker 1: how much more growing up I had to do. Katy
Speaker 1: had grown up in New Jersey, and her dream had
Speaker 1: always been to move to California. Her and her husband
Speaker 1: fulfilled that dream when they moved to Los Angeles together,
Speaker 1: and to save money, they became roommates with Katie's husband's
Speaker 1: best friend. This becomes a huge part of the story.
Speaker 1: So I asked Katie to tell me just a little
Speaker 1: bit more about that. My husband had this really close
Speaker 1: high school friend who had an apartment, and he was like,
Speaker 1: come moving with me. It'll be great. I'll show you
Speaker 1: around the city. And it sure was great, and we
Speaker 1: had a wonderful time together. I started exploring new things
Speaker 1: about myself in a new city, and I felt kind
Speaker 1: of free, and I almost felt like I wasn't married anymore.
Speaker 1: And I did a lot of exploring alongside this friend
Speaker 1: of my husband's, and he was kind of guiding us
Speaker 1: in this new place. And it took me a really
Speaker 1: long time to realize that I was growing very attached
Speaker 1: to him, and that I was drawing away from who
Speaker 1: I was and developing into someone new, and it didn't
Speaker 1: include my husband as much anymore. I asked Katie who
Speaker 1: this new person she was turning into actually was. How
Speaker 1: was she becoming different than the person that met her
Speaker 1: husband at age nineteen. I think there's a lot of
Speaker 1: things about my female identity that I was coming into.
Speaker 1: I had one idea about myself that I wasn't a
Speaker 1: very sexual person. And it's so interesting because I'm not
Speaker 1: sure why I developed that idea or how long I
Speaker 1: held it, but I just was like, well, I'm not
Speaker 1: really interested in sex. I don't feel like exploring in
Speaker 1: that arena. And then I started kind of just feeling differently,
Speaker 1: like no, maybe I am a sexual person. I just
Speaker 1: haven't explored with different partners, and maybe that's what I need.
Speaker 1: And I had a lot of these thoughts and I
Speaker 1: didn't know what to do with them, And also, what
Speaker 1: the hell does anyone know about sex with our nineteen
Speaker 1: years right? Nothing? And just like the relationship, I also
Speaker 1: thought that you shouldn't have to try at that either.
Speaker 1: I just was like, well, I'm lucky I found this
Speaker 1: great partner, he's really nice to me, we have some
Speaker 1: things in common, we live in this great city. Why
Speaker 1: should I want more? But I did want more? Did
Speaker 1: you feel guilty for wanting more? Oh? So guilty? And
Speaker 1: I just thought, you know, I have these feelings. I
Speaker 1: have these wants and desires, but I can just push
Speaker 1: them down because that's just what we're supposed to do
Speaker 1: in life. And I think I didn't really start feeling
Speaker 1: guilty until I really wanted to act on them. When
Speaker 1: I really started being like, oh, I have to do
Speaker 1: something about this, then that's when like the big guilt
Speaker 1: set in, and it really changed who I thought I was.
Speaker 1: I thought I was a good person and a girl
Speaker 1: and someone that was faithful and loyal, and I didn't
Speaker 1: know what to do with the desires that went against
Speaker 1: these thoughts I had about myself. What were some of
Speaker 1: the fantasies that you've started having. I think mostly it
Speaker 1: was about like being desired and desiring, and that was
Speaker 1: something that I felt like was no longer happening in
Speaker 1: my current marriage. And I want to do things that
Speaker 1: are scary, and we'll teach me about myself. So Katie
Speaker 1: was having all these fantasies about her husband's best friend,
Speaker 1: who was also their roommate at the time. Eventually, Katie
Speaker 1: and her husband moved into their own place, thank god,
Speaker 1: but her feelings didn't go away. We started to push boundaries,
Speaker 1: like we would always be sitting next to each other.
Speaker 1: We would hold hands, would put our arms around each other.
Speaker 1: We would have like intimate conversations while the rest of
Speaker 1: the group of friends, including my husband, were doing other things.
Speaker 1: No one seemed to be bothered by this. No one
Speaker 1: seemed to notice or care. Has been never brought it up.
Speaker 1: But I was starting to feel like this tension building.
Speaker 1: So I said to Phil, what are we going to
Speaker 1: do about this? Phil is the roommate's name, by the way.
Speaker 1: And he said, well, nothing, We're not going to do anything.
Speaker 1: And that seemed safe enough, but it was just growing
Speaker 1: and growing. And the next day he called me and
Speaker 1: he was just like, you have to come over here,
Speaker 1: like I have to see you. And I was like,
Speaker 1: I know. And that was kind of just how the
Speaker 1: affair started. I can picture that night like it was
Speaker 1: a war evening in Santa Monica. I held his hand
Speaker 1: when we walked into his apartment and he kissed me,
Speaker 1: and that was just like the crossing of the boundary.
Speaker 1: And it was like all the fantasy that I had
Speaker 1: made up in my head were coming to fruition. And
Speaker 1: I was scared, but it felt so comfortable because I
Speaker 1: had built a relationship with this person over basically two years.
Speaker 1: When I look back on it now, I'm like, I
Speaker 1: put myself in this very dangerous situation on purpose, and
Speaker 1: then I just kind of kept escalating the level of
Speaker 1: the danger. And I mean the danger was to my marriage,
Speaker 1: and the danger was to my identity and self respect.
Speaker 1: And it almost felt like a relief to finally have
Speaker 1: some kind of actual intimacy with Phil because it had
Speaker 1: just been growing and growing and growing. It was all
Speaker 1: terribly exciting, and I think that no regular relationship could
Speaker 1: even ever be that exciting because there was so much
Speaker 1: risk and danger. Right when you say regular relationship, you
Speaker 1: mean something that's not unfair. Yes, the regulars, the normal,
Speaker 1: just the regulars that are like going on normal dates
Speaker 1: and they're both single life. What do you think made
Speaker 1: it sexier just because it felt forbidden, It felt like
Speaker 1: what we assumed to be bad. I think so. And
Speaker 1: I think it also because it challenged who and what
Speaker 1: I thought I was, So that kind of felt dangerous,
Speaker 1: and I, you know, I have like some kind of
Speaker 1: excitement desire living on the edge thing in me. I
Speaker 1: was a competitive gymnast growing up, and that's a pretty scary,
Speaker 1: dangerous sport. And like even things like surfing. I like
Speaker 1: these risks that push the boundaries of what you're comfortable with.
Speaker 1: It was definitely like a high. I mean, I know
Speaker 1: love can be such a high, and it's just a
Speaker 1: really interesting phenomenon. You feel like you're not in control
Speaker 1: and there's just this other worldliness to the situation. Was
Speaker 1: it living up to the fantasies? Yes? I think it
Speaker 1: lived up to the fantasies in that I felt so
Speaker 1: excited and desired and full of desire in a way
Speaker 1: that I never had before. I mean when I started
Speaker 1: my relationship when I was nineteen, we had that for
Speaker 1: a little period of time, but it's I was so
Speaker 1: immature then and so uncertain in my own body, and
Speaker 1: so I think that being twenty nine and feeling that
Speaker 1: was entirely different. And we also were just very connected
Speaker 1: and we knew each other very well, so it was
Speaker 1: really really passionate and exciting, and like we just wanted
Speaker 1: to be, you know, intertwined at all times and couldn't
Speaker 1: stop thinking about each other, and when we were near
Speaker 1: each other, we were just like all over each other.
Speaker 1: I Mean, if I saw people on the street acting
Speaker 1: this way, I would just feel like, what is wrong
Speaker 1: with those people. Yeah, like, no one wants to see that,
Speaker 1: but feeling it is a really interesting experience. And then
Speaker 1: I also think that as soon as our affair started,
Speaker 1: I knew that we were actually in love with each other.
Speaker 1: And that was when I started to kind of break
Speaker 1: down because I realized what that meant. And so it
Speaker 1: was really exciting and fun for a couple of weeks,
Speaker 1: and then it was fairly devastating because it was real
Speaker 1: and I knew that it was gonna uproot my life
Speaker 1: and change who I was. And then I started being
Speaker 1: kind of honest about it and being like, I'm going
Speaker 1: to see Phil and my husband would say, okay, have
Speaker 1: a fun afternoon, and he just wouldn't ask what was
Speaker 1: going on. Her husband was oblivious. He thought that Katie
Speaker 1: was just hanging out with a mutual friend. But eventually
Speaker 1: Katie felt so guilty that she had no choice but
Speaker 1: to come clean. And a couple of weeks like that,
Speaker 1: and I started saying things to him like I'm having
Speaker 1: a problem. I'm having really big feelings for your friend
Speaker 1: and I don't know what to do about it, and
Speaker 1: he was kind of like, well, we'll get through this.
Speaker 1: Do you want to go to therapy, and I was like, sure,
Speaker 1: but there was a huge level of denial from his part.
Speaker 1: And I also think he just trusted me so much
Speaker 1: and he thought I was a good person that would
Speaker 1: never betray him. Katie couldn't imagine ending things with her husband.
Speaker 1: It just seemed like something so out of the realm
Speaker 1: of possibility. I had to hurt someone I loved, and
Speaker 1: I had to hurt myself, and I didn't want our
Speaker 1: time together to be over. He was my best friend
Speaker 1: and I had been through my whole twenties with him,
Speaker 1: and he held my hand while my father was dying.
Speaker 1: The last thing I wanted to do was hurt this person.
Speaker 1: And so then it really puts this perspective on like
Speaker 1: am I selfish? Am I just going after what I
Speaker 1: want in this life recklessly? And then I just got
Speaker 1: to a point where I started definitely lying. I was
Speaker 1: making up places that I was and I was kind
Speaker 1: of withdrawing, and it was getting very hard for me
Speaker 1: to be around him. Interestingly, in the beginning, maybe like
Speaker 1: the first two months, my sex life with my husband
Speaker 1: got way better, and I reflect on that and it
Speaker 1: was almost like I found my sexuality. And then it
Speaker 1: could be applied to other situations as well. Tell me
Speaker 1: everything about that. I just felt more confident, more sexual,
Speaker 1: And I think it was probably very confusing because in
Speaker 1: one hand, I was kind of out all the time
Speaker 1: and constantly going to see his friend. But on the
Speaker 1: other hand, like our sex was better than it had
Speaker 1: been in years, and I felt like I wanted to
Speaker 1: have sex with him again, which I hadn't in a
Speaker 1: few years. It was as if it like enlivened my
Speaker 1: whole sexual being, and there was a part of me
Speaker 1: that at that time desperately wished I could just be
Speaker 1: in a relationship with both of them, which obviously was
Speaker 1: not realistic. Wow, So I would it have actually worked
Speaker 1: if you could have had both men in your life
Speaker 1: at once? Don't there's any situation, any scenario where that
Speaker 1: could have happened. I mean, like I think it would
Speaker 1: have worked for me. I don't think it would have
Speaker 1: worked for either of them. Um. I mean what happened
Speaker 1: for me to leave him is he gave me an ultimatum.
Speaker 1: He said, you need to not see Phil anymore, Like
Speaker 1: I just don't see him anymore and then we'll be fine.
Speaker 1: And I said, I'm so sorry. I don't want our
Speaker 1: marriage to be over, and I don't want to lose you,
Speaker 1: but I can't do that. And I wished deeply that
Speaker 1: I could have made a different decision. It wasn't the
Speaker 1: decision that I wanted to make necessarily, like if I
Speaker 1: had put a pros and cons list, But I felt
Speaker 1: I couldn't not see Phil anymore because we were just
Speaker 1: passionately in love and obsessed with each other, and it
Speaker 1: just I would have been depressed and sad and yeah,
Speaker 1: so you know, I think maybe if we had been older,
Speaker 1: if we had had kids, like I wonder how much
Speaker 1: that would have changed my decision in that situation. But
Speaker 1: as it was, I couldn't do it. And so he said, Okay,
Speaker 1: then then it's over. I never want to see you again.
Speaker 1: And that was awful. So he took the hard line,
Speaker 1: he said, I never want to see you again. Yeah. Wow,
Speaker 1: how did that fail? Oh? It broke my heart. I
Speaker 1: mean I I was fully broken hearted. Katie moved out
Speaker 1: of the apartment that she shared with her husband. She
Speaker 1: moved in with Phil. She cried and cried for weeks,
Speaker 1: and after a couple of weeks, she ended up getting
Speaker 1: into this accident that she was convinced she completely deserved
Speaker 1: because of everything that she had done. I broke both
Speaker 1: of my feet in a random accident jumping into a pool,
Speaker 1: and so then I was just fully broken. I felt
Speaker 1: like it was what I deserved, and I felt like
Speaker 1: it was appropriate to literally not be able to stand
Speaker 1: on my own two feet and also like figuratively to
Speaker 1: feel that I had dissolved as a person. Um it
Speaker 1: was like my rock bottom and took me years to
Speaker 1: kind of rise back up into owning who I am
Speaker 1: and what I am and understanding myself again. Choosing Phil
Speaker 1: cost Katie everything. Both Phil and I lost friends. We
Speaker 1: were super judged. You know, people people that I thought
Speaker 1: I was close with called me like horrible names and
Speaker 1: just you know, the implication was that I just like
Speaker 1: hopped from person to person and that I didn't care
Speaker 1: about people's feelings. And also that, um so, you know,
Speaker 1: because when I broke my feet, I couldn't coach gymnastics.
Speaker 1: So then Phil was like taking care of me physically
Speaker 1: and financially. So there was like a lot of mean
Speaker 1: money words too, like that I was like that I
Speaker 1: used people, and you know that I that men took
Speaker 1: care of me and like these things that made me
Speaker 1: just feel really horrible about my female identity. And I
Speaker 1: think that some people thought that I wasn't like thinking clearly,
Speaker 1: like that Phil had cast some kind of spell on
Speaker 1: me and I was just being dragged around and it
Speaker 1: wasn't really my decision, and that also felt bad, and
Speaker 1: ultimately I ended up leaving Los Angeles because it just
Speaker 1: felt too negative, and I had coworkers that had been
Speaker 1: part of our group of friends that didn't want to
Speaker 1: talk to me anymore. We just felt really like none
Speaker 1: of our friends would see us anymore because they all
Speaker 1: show was the other side the hurt party, which I
Speaker 1: understood and I didn't hold it against them, but it
Speaker 1: felt really negative, and I ended up taking a job
Speaker 1: in San Francisco as soon as I could walk again.
Speaker 1: Doing The fallout was as bad for Phil was it
Speaker 1: was for you. I think a lot of the times
Speaker 1: women get judged more harshly, but in this scenario, because
Speaker 1: he had been friends with my ex husband for so
Speaker 1: many years, they had like this larger network of high
Speaker 1: school buddies that pretty much all stopped speaking to Phil,
Speaker 1: and that was really hard for him and sad. They
Speaker 1: kind of just saw him as someone that came in
Speaker 1: and stole someone else's wife, and they would, you know, like,
Speaker 1: why why didn't you get your own girlfriend? Why do
Speaker 1: you have to steal somebody else's wife, that sort of thing.
Speaker 1: So I do feel like it was equally harsh and judgmental. However,
Speaker 1: I think that people were more surprised about me. They
Speaker 1: were kind of shocked, whereas to him they were like, oh, yeah, happens.
Speaker 1: Why do you Why do you think people were more
Speaker 1: shocked about you because you were the married woman. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think just because I'm a woman, I'm a woman
Speaker 1: who is a nice person and people consider me, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm nice to people that I don't try to hurt
Speaker 1: people's feelings, like I tried to be a positive human being.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I think that just like be it being
Speaker 1: good and nice and married, and a woman doesn't like
Speaker 1: equate with you know, passionately falling in love or leaving
Speaker 1: your husband or things like that. I started to think
Speaker 1: about the way that Katie was judged, the shock of
Speaker 1: it all, compared to the way philm was judged, which was, hey,
Speaker 1: you're an asshole, but we'll get over. And I wonder
Speaker 1: if it's because we expect this kind of behavior from them.
Speaker 1: Maybe maybe not. But one thing I think we do
Speaker 1: have to acknowledge is that women have the same desires
Speaker 1: for sex, for passion, and for fulfillment as dudes do.
Speaker 1: Despite what society may have historically told us. We have
Speaker 1: listened to all this hogwash science for decades, even centuries
Speaker 1: that tell us that men are more naturally sexual than women.
Speaker 1: What do we know based on more recent sex research data.
Speaker 1: We know that women and men's libidos are very closely matched.
Speaker 1: That's Wednesday again. If we look at data across many countries,
Speaker 1: what we find consistently is that in long term, exclusive
Speaker 1: cohabiting relationships, women get bored of monogamous sex with their
Speaker 1: long term partner they're living with more quickly than men do.
Speaker 1: On average, a woman who is living with her male
Speaker 1: long term partner in an exclusive arrangement will experience a
Speaker 1: steep drop and desire in years one to four, whereas
Speaker 1: a man's desire will add more slowly over nine to
Speaker 1: twelve years. It has to do with evolutionary biology. It
Speaker 1: has to do with the fact that in our evolutionary prehistory,
Speaker 1: having multiple partners was really advantageous. For female hominence and women,
Speaker 1: and it was disadvantageous for male hominence and men. And
Speaker 1: that's another lie of science is that, oh, men can
Speaker 1: just spread their seed and create a million babies, but
Speaker 1: a woman can only create one, and that's why women
Speaker 1: are monogamous and men are promiscus. Nope, that's also untrue.
Speaker 1: It's very hard to hit a woman if you will
Speaker 1: at exactly the right moment to impregnate her. So if
Speaker 1: you're a dude and you're pumping and dumping, as some
Speaker 1: people say, you're just going and having sex with all
Speaker 1: these different women, what's the likelihood that you're going to
Speaker 1: get them at the right point in their menstrual cycle
Speaker 1: where they're ovulating. Very slim chances, Whereas if you're with
Speaker 1: one female partner and you're having sex with her, it's
Speaker 1: more likely. Right. So there's one reason that monogamy and
Speaker 1: exclusivity were more advantageous for males and many species. Second thing,
Speaker 1: there were a lot of benefits to being what scientists
Speaker 1: sometimes called promiscuous. Say you're some female mammal and you're
Speaker 1: doing it with one male. What if he is infertile
Speaker 1: m what if he just has kind of crappy sperm motility.
Speaker 1: What if you guys are too closely genetically matched so
Speaker 1: that you don't have enough genetic differences that you will
Speaker 1: create a robust pregnancy and offspring. If you're with this
Speaker 1: one male, you're decreasing your chances of getting high quality sperm.
Speaker 1: So my view is an evolutionary biologist, is the software
Speaker 1: is still in there. We have changed up the ecology
Speaker 1: and now women could either get slut shamed or even
Speaker 1: shot in the face right in the United States, get
Speaker 1: murdered for exercising sexual autonomy and having an affair or
Speaker 1: saying I don't want to be a monogamous So we
Speaker 1: have changed the ecology, But the long wiring, all the
Speaker 1: advantages that promiscuous behavior confirmed for thousands and thousands and
Speaker 1: thousands of years, is still in there. And I believe
Speaker 1: that that is the reason that monogamy is a tighter
Speaker 1: shoe for women than it is for men. When we
Speaker 1: get back, we'll find out more about what happened after
Speaker 1: or Katie and Film moved out of l A to
Speaker 1: escape the fallout from their affair. We're back after the
Speaker 1: fallout from their affair and leaving Los Angeles. It was
Speaker 1: really hard for Katie and Phil to get back that spark.
Speaker 1: We had a really hard time for like three years.
Speaker 1: We broke up for like a really short period in there,
Speaker 1: because we're just like, this isn't this isn't working, We're
Speaker 1: not committed, we're not good. And after we broke up,
Speaker 1: I think we both quickly realized that we really loved
Speaker 1: each other and that even though it had started in
Speaker 1: a negative and difficult way, that didn't mean that we
Speaker 1: weren't compatible and that we weren't in love. Then we
Speaker 1: started doing like hard adult work and like just really
Speaker 1: trying to grow as people together and separately, and I
Speaker 1: think that was kind of like the start of our
Speaker 1: actual adulthood. I think that's really when I took responsibility
Speaker 1: for who and what I was and he did too,
Speaker 1: and we were like, we want to be together, we
Speaker 1: want to have a family. We love each other, so
Speaker 1: let's just work hard. And we've been doing that ever since.
Speaker 1: Katie and Phil eventually got married, and I had to
Speaker 1: ask her what her ex husband's reaction was when he
Speaker 1: found out they had finally settled down together when we
Speaker 1: were broken up. I guess he had known just because
Speaker 1: through the Grapevine situation, and he actually was willing to
Speaker 1: exchange a few emails with me during that time, and
Speaker 1: then as soon as we got back together and then
Speaker 1: got married, he would no longer respond to me in
Speaker 1: any way again. So that's I guess all the information
Speaker 1: I have. Did you and Phil ever have problems with
Speaker 1: trust because of how you got started? Yeah, at the beginning.
Speaker 1: I remember his father one time asked him. Phil's father said,
Speaker 1: and why do you think that she won't just cheat?
Speaker 1: Done you? And that's harsh, and I'm sure a lot
Speaker 1: of people had that thought, and that that made me sad.
Speaker 1: But I think that ultimately Phil didn't think I was
Speaker 1: that kind of person, and he saw the ways that
Speaker 1: I hadn't fostered, you know, my sexual connection in my
Speaker 1: previous relationship, and we are very intentional and work really
Speaker 1: hard at continuing to foster that in our relationship because
Speaker 1: that piece is scary and I don't want to lose
Speaker 1: that again. And then I mean, there was trust issues
Speaker 1: from my end two because I felt like, well, maybe
Speaker 1: he just did this with me because it was an
Speaker 1: affair and it was really exciting and this kind of high,
Speaker 1: and that didn't mean that he actually wanted to be
Speaker 1: with me and didn't actually love me. So I think
Speaker 1: my fears came from kind of that place. Do you
Speaker 1: think that because of how you guys started, your marriage
Speaker 1: is actually stronger, your relationship is actually better now? I
Speaker 1: think in some ways, I think we learned so much
Speaker 1: going through that situation. And even though Phil didn't get divorced,
Speaker 1: I got divorced. He went through the divorce with me,
Speaker 1: you know, and he was by my side and it
Speaker 1: was hard and he saw that firsthand, and even you know,
Speaker 1: experienced it a little bit. So that is interesting to
Speaker 1: like start your relationship with someone by going through divorce
Speaker 1: and like a really hard, sad divorce. And I think
Speaker 1: that that just made us realize how hard you have
Speaker 1: to work to be in a relationship that's successful, and
Speaker 1: that as the years go on, you have to work
Speaker 1: harder and harder. Not the opposite. Katie and Phil are
Speaker 1: happier than ever before. Their marriage is solid, and they
Speaker 1: recently had a baby. I'm a mom of a two
Speaker 1: year old little girl and she's the best. And Katie
Speaker 1: says that everything that happened between her and Phil and
Speaker 1: after the affair has ultimately made their bond even stronger,
Speaker 1: and frankly, it's helped her grow in ways she never
Speaker 1: would have been able to if she hadn't acted on
Speaker 1: her feelings. Sometimes, taking this scary leap in your life
Speaker 1: in a variety of ways, this is one of them,
Speaker 1: propels you into growth and understanding and compassion for other
Speaker 1: people who are imperfect, because we are not perfect and
Speaker 1: we have so much growing and learning to do. I
Speaker 1: think at all parts of our life and I don't
Speaker 1: regret being daring, and I don't regret following things that
Speaker 1: filled me with passion and excitement. Of course, I regret
Speaker 1: ever hurting someone else, but I hope that he was
Speaker 1: able to grow in his own ways eventually from the
Speaker 1: experience as well. Of the four categories of affairs that
Speaker 1: researchers Susan Shapiro Barrish told us about in the last episode,
Speaker 1: Katie's is a great example of a love affair, and
Speaker 1: thankfully her love story worked out for eventually. Next up,
Speaker 1: on the next episode, we have a very different kind
Speaker 1: of affair, and this one is going to make you
Speaker 1: rethink everything that you thought you knew about women and
Speaker 1: their appetite for sex. Let's just say you like to
Speaker 1: play tennis and you're really good at it, like really good.
Speaker 1: And at some point you go to your partner and
Speaker 1: you say, you know what, I really need to play
Speaker 1: tennis with somebody who plays tennis at my love one.
Speaker 1: Nobody would say, oh no, don't go find that person
Speaker 1: and be like, yeah, I probably get it. You know,
Speaker 1: you love this. This is one of your favorite things
Speaker 1: in the whole world. Go find somebody who's this into
Speaker 1: it as you are. If you take out tennis and
Speaker 1: say really fun, really great sex, yeah, and suddenly it's
Speaker 1: not the same kind of activity. That's all in next
Speaker 1: week's episode. This has been She Wants More. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Joe Piazza. Thanks for listening. She Wants More was inspired
Speaker 1: by the book A Passion for More by Susan Shapiro Bearish.
Speaker 1: It was adapted for audio by executive producers Merril Poster,
Speaker 1: Kara Peiffer, and Susan Shapiro Bearish. She Wants More is
Speaker 1: hosted and reported by me Joe Piazza. Jennifer Bassett is
Speaker 1: our lead producer and story editor. Our sound design is
Speaker 1: by Jessica Crunchich. Our theme was composed by Anna Stumpf
Speaker 1: and Hamilton Lighthouser. Our executive producers for i Heeart are
Speaker 1: Ali Perry and Nikki Eatore. She wants more as a
Speaker 1: production of i Heeart podcasts. For more podcasts from my Heart,
Speaker 1: visit the i Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows. Two