Speaker 1: Hi guys, and welcome back to another episode of Life
Speaker 1: on Cut.
Speaker 2: I'm Laura and I'm Brittany, and.
Speaker 1: We're inching each day one step closer to Christmas.
Speaker 2: Oh, they're going to say to a breakdown.
Speaker 1: Yeah, twenty twenty one has its way with us before
Speaker 1: the end of the year. Yeah, that's definitely where we're
Speaker 1: going to be. But this weekend, Brittany, I was going
Speaker 1: to put up the Christmas tree.
Speaker 2: Let me guess you didn't. I didn't. I didn't see
Speaker 2: that one coming. Laura, Well, did I realize?
Speaker 1: Okay, there's also no Christmas tree in your house. We're
Speaker 1: recording in your lound room.
Speaker 3: Where in this jungle that is my loundroom? Would you
Speaker 3: like me to put a Christmas tree? Actually what I
Speaker 3: was thinking of do so just so people know my loundroom.
Speaker 3: It's not human, but there's a lot of greenery. Like
Speaker 3: you walk in here and it's like you're in a florist.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you could just put some tinsel around that
Speaker 1: there fiddle fig, I reckon, it.
Speaker 3: Is a really healthy fiddle fig. It's actually what I
Speaker 3: was thinking of doing. I was thinking of wrapping some
Speaker 3: tinsel down the tree and calling it a day.
Speaker 1: Can I just say how arrogant you are you had
Speaker 1: to put in there. It's a really healthy fiddlefig purely,
Speaker 1: but everybody who doesn't have a healthy fiddle fig, fuck you, Brittany. Okay,
Speaker 1: we felt that in our soul. It is so hard,
Speaker 1: we know to keep these bad boys alive. I know
Speaker 1: keeping your children alive is easier than keeping a fiddle
Speaker 1: fig alive. If you move that fucker out of one
Speaker 1: corner and put it outside for five minutes, it does.
Speaker 2: Bro.
Speaker 3: If you rotate that fiddle one centimeter, it has an aneurysm,
Speaker 3: and it's like, I'm done.
Speaker 1: You cannot look at it, touch it, move it. You
Speaker 1: can't talk to it, you cannot play it. Don't look
Speaker 1: at it's too loud. You cannot do not show that
Speaker 1: fiddle any level of attention or the thing will die.
Speaker 1: It's so true. But anyway, okay, back to the whole
Speaker 1: Christmas thing. So like small sidetrack the whole weekend to
Speaker 1: the kids. I mean, this is where you really set
Speaker 1: your children up for disappointment. The whole weekend. I was like,
Speaker 1: we're gonna do the Christmas tree. We're gonna do the
Speaker 1: Christmas tree. If you have your nap, we can do
Speaker 1: the Christmas tree. If you eat your greens, we can
Speaker 1: do the Christmas tree. If you stop pooping in the bath,
Speaker 1: we can do the Christmas tree. And then I got
Speaker 1: to Sunday night and I was like, I can't be
Speaker 1: fucking bothered to do the Christmas tree. And I realized
Speaker 1: I'm that person. I love Christmas, I love it, but
Speaker 1: I need somebody else to do Christmas for me. There's
Speaker 1: always one person in the family who puts the tree up,
Speaker 1: who gets everyone excited, who plays Mariah Kerrey, And it's
Speaker 1: not me, and it's not Matt.
Speaker 3: Do you know the only good thing about this is
Speaker 3: that I'm going to assume your two year old and
Speaker 3: seven month old don't quite have the concept yet of
Speaker 3: what a weekend is, so they don't know that the
Speaker 3: weekend is only two days. They don't know the weekend's over.
Speaker 3: So if you just keep saying we'll do it over
Speaker 3: the weekend, that could go on for the next few weeks.
Speaker 3: So I should just keep lying to them, let them
Speaker 3: think a weekend is a month.
Speaker 4: Good.
Speaker 2: I like your thinking failure, but it's like, don't you
Speaker 2: think it's so true?
Speaker 1: Like every family has that one person who is the
Speaker 1: Christmas driver. They're the person that gets everything ready, that
Speaker 1: like get all the family together. They're the ones who
Speaker 1: always want to have Christmas lunch at their house. They're
Speaker 1: the jolly person. And then the rest of us just
Speaker 1: kind of go along with it and get excited that
Speaker 1: somebody else did it. Okay, So spoiler, it's not me either.
Speaker 1: I can tell in my family it is I've got
Speaker 1: there's four kids in my family, obviously my mum and
Speaker 1: dad four kids.
Speaker 2: It is Sheridan.
Speaker 1: It is my sister. I know she's listening to this now.
Speaker 3: As a prime example, we are all going to Queensland
Speaker 3: for Christmas at Sherry's house. She has already bought all
Speaker 3: the food, all the drinks, all the ingredients for everything.
Speaker 3: She's set the tree up, She's already sent the list
Speaker 3: to us of what everybody owes and has to contribute.
Speaker 1: She's done the Chris Kringle like, she's done the drawer
Speaker 1: for the presence. She is so organized.
Speaker 3: I literally just said to her, I was like, I'm
Speaker 3: going to show up two days in advance. Just tell
Speaker 3: me if I need to bring something, but don't text
Speaker 3: it to me until the day before because I will
Speaker 3: lose that. I will not be organized enough to do it.
Speaker 3: It is one hundred percent hers. She's got the Christmas Carol,
Speaker 3: She's got everything.
Speaker 1: If she has already got all your food organized, I
Speaker 1: really hope it's all preserved.
Speaker 2: I hope it's not prawns.
Speaker 3: Because Sherry, I am tapping out. No, we do always
Speaker 3: have seafood lunch.
Speaker 1: So she would have organized that as well, But she
Speaker 1: would have already just like she would have already pre
Speaker 1: ordered it.
Speaker 2: That's how organized is.
Speaker 1: You got to do the pre order. But I feel
Speaker 1: sorry for my future kids because they're gonna have a
Speaker 1: miserable Christmas.
Speaker 3: Like my children, well, they're gonna spend every holiday at
Speaker 3: Annie Sherry's house.
Speaker 2: I don't plan on looking after them anyway.
Speaker 1: Guys, we have some big things to talk about on
Speaker 1: today's episode before we jump into let's get to the
Speaker 1: main thing and then we'll work our way back. On
Speaker 1: this episode, we're talking about codependency. We've spoken about codependency
Speaker 1: multiple times before, mostly because I am a reformed codependent addict.
Speaker 1: I'm going to talk about how much Lauren needs me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, and here I am showing up at her
Speaker 1: house all the time. I say it's work, but really
Speaker 1: it's because I don't like to be alone. Surprised this
Speaker 1: is a therapy session. But so many of us display
Speaker 1: different characteristics of codependence. For a lot of us, we
Speaker 1: can be codependent in our relationships, but it can show
Speaker 1: up in so many different ways. It can show up
Speaker 1: in our relationships with our children, it can show up
Speaker 1: in a relation to how we get on with people
Speaker 1: at work. It's such a big and interesting thing to unpack.
Speaker 1: It's also something that we can kind of ebb in
Speaker 1: and out of at different times in our life. We
Speaker 1: might have some codependent characteristics and they may become more
Speaker 1: inflamed or more noticeable depending on the relationships that we're in.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna unpack codependency on this episode, but before
Speaker 1: we do, we always like to talk about a couple
Speaker 1: other things.
Speaker 2: First.
Speaker 1: It was a very big week in the world of
Speaker 1: reality TV. Firstly, just some happy news. Martha and Michael
Speaker 1: from Mass got engaged. I mean they're already married, right.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, like they got married with you.
Speaker 1: But it isn't it nice to see like reality TV
Speaker 1: actually work out?
Speaker 2: It's actually success story.
Speaker 3: So in Australia, I don't know if anyone actually knows this,
Speaker 3: but the Australian married at first sight. It is not
Speaker 3: a legally binding marriage. It's just classified as an experiment.
Speaker 3: But you don't even have to get a divorce if
Speaker 3: it doesn't work out. So years later, I think it
Speaker 3: is they've been together for three years and they just
Speaker 3: got officially engaged.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 2: I see them around all the time in Bondi.
Speaker 3: They're very in love and it's really nice to see
Speaker 3: a success story from reality TV.
Speaker 1: I also love, actually, okay, I love Martha and Michael
Speaker 1: together because I feel like when their show finished and
Speaker 1: when they first came out into the Big Bad world,
Speaker 1: they had a target on their back that they weren't
Speaker 1: going to work out. Media wanted to say that they
Speaker 1: were a pr stunt. So many people were so negative
Speaker 1: on their relationship about how it wasn't going to end
Speaker 1: up in anything. And that was also because Martha was
Speaker 1: a little bit embroiled in the drama with Jess on
Speaker 1: her season. There was a lot going on there. But
Speaker 1: over the years they have proved time and time again
Speaker 1: that they are not only a real relationship, but they
Speaker 1: are a thriving real relationship out of reality TV. They're
Speaker 1: happy and they're getting married, and she got a big
Speaker 1: whopping ring.
Speaker 2: Oh so beautiful.
Speaker 1: It has so much envy, so big, like so big.
Speaker 2: I'm sure we're.
Speaker 3: Going to see a very beautiful, big Greek wedding and
Speaker 3: I absolutely can't wait to see it.
Speaker 1: So congratulations to those two.
Speaker 3: There is a part of reality tea though, that the
Speaker 3: public don't always want the couples to work out. And
Speaker 3: I remember even Laura, when you and Matt you had
Speaker 3: your happy ending you were together, you were like, whoo,
Speaker 3: we're out in the public. There were so many people
Speaker 3: hating for you. It's not gonna work.
Speaker 2: It's fake.
Speaker 3: He should have chosen someone else, Like there's always this
Speaker 3: idea for some reason, there are always these people that
Speaker 3: made me happy for you. But there is a big
Speaker 3: chunk of people that don't want that happy ending from
Speaker 3: reality TV. They want to believe from the bottom of
Speaker 3: their heart that reality TV cannot work.
Speaker 1: And you know what, the really, really nice thing about
Speaker 1: that whole experience is is that they don't mind telling
Speaker 1: you because they've seen you on the TV and they think, oh,
Speaker 1: you're a public figure. I'm going to tell you that
Speaker 1: I think your relationship isn't going to work out. The
Speaker 1: amount of messages the matten I received pre me falling pregnant. Actually,
Speaker 1: do you know what, even once I was pregnant with Marley,
Speaker 1: messages like, Oh, he's never going to marry her, she's
Speaker 1: just pregnant, Pista, still a pista, Like this relationship is
Speaker 1: never going to work out. How about we check in
Speaker 1: five years time and see if they're still together. People
Speaker 1: write that shit to you, and so, you know, it's
Speaker 1: really nice when you can go through this huge experience
Speaker 1: because reality TV is a very galvanizing experience. You either
Speaker 1: hit the ground running and you make it as a
Speaker 1: couple or it goes down in a burning glory. But
Speaker 1: it's really one of those experiences that either it makes
Speaker 1: or breaks you as a couple, and it happens very
Speaker 1: very quickly.
Speaker 3: Now that is a perfect segue to what we want
Speaker 3: to talk about, because we are going to talk about
Speaker 3: another reality TV relationship, and that is Abby Chatfield and Brooklyn.
Speaker 1: So this is I mean, unfortunately, this is the relationship
Speaker 1: that has taken over the media in the last couple
Speaker 1: of weeks. There's been so much conversation around it. The
Speaker 1: Facebook group has been going off brook who is this
Speaker 1: year's bachelorette. She is the very first ever indigenous bisexual
Speaker 1: member of the LGBTQR community, and that is worldwide. We've
Speaker 1: never had that in Australia, but they've never had a lead,
Speaker 1: a bachelor or bachelorette lead who's been a member of
Speaker 1: the LGBTQR community. Absolutely huge, huge moment. And now Brooklyn
Speaker 1: has or was very very good friends with Abbi Chatfield.
Speaker 1: Abby Chatfield who was from The Bachelor, She's Season seven,
Speaker 1: Matt agnew season. If you're somebody who listens to the
Speaker 1: podcast but doesn't follow Australian bachelor or bachelorette. Now, the
Speaker 1: reason why this has come into such the spotlight and
Speaker 1: this was causing so much conversation the Facebook group. That
Speaker 1: is the reason why Britain and I wanted to have
Speaker 1: a conversation about it on the podcast is because Abby
Speaker 1: Chatfield hard launched her relationship with Conrad and Conrad was
Speaker 1: one of the contestants on Brooks season and it has
Speaker 1: caused quite the stir. It's so convoluted and hard to
Speaker 1: talk about that we're going to try. Conrad was a
Speaker 1: favorite on the season of brook season. Everyone loved him,
Speaker 1: The public loved him. Abby had said on her podcast
Speaker 1: that she loved him. Abby appeared in the final of
Speaker 1: Brooks season as a friend as a confidante to help
Speaker 1: her through that. But on the day before Brooks finale,
Speaker 1: Abby decided to hard launch her relationship with Conrad. And
Speaker 1: this has just caused so much confusion, so much tension,
Speaker 1: so much divide in the public and against two people
Speaker 1: that were originally friends. Because it's so talked about in
Speaker 1: the Facebook group and it has been everywhere. We wanted
Speaker 1: to just give a bit of an.
Speaker 3: In sit into I guess because we've been in the
Speaker 3: Bachelor old we know what it's like to go to
Speaker 3: the whole thing, to be there at the end, to
Speaker 3: be at the finale. One thing that I want to
Speaker 3: point out straight away, and I think this was something
Speaker 3: that really pushed this divide, is that Abby had said previously.
Speaker 1: That she will never speak about her relationships publicly. She
Speaker 1: has made that very clear. She also said when she
Speaker 1: did hard launch this relationship with Conrad, she also said
Speaker 1: that she went against pr advice. She said she had
Speaker 1: pr advice.
Speaker 3: To not launch it. It wasn't the right time, and
Speaker 3: she said she ignored that and did it anyway. This
Speaker 3: was what started the divide. This is what started the
Speaker 3: conversation because people sort of saying, well, was the day
Speaker 3: before your really good friends finale the right time to
Speaker 3: launch a relationship knowing how much of a public figure
Speaker 3: you are. Because Abby is a really big public figure,
Speaker 3: she knows that what she's going to do is going
Speaker 3: to gain a lot of attention.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think you know, the big part of
Speaker 1: this is that the reason why people are so divided
Speaker 1: is because everybody's ships Abbey and Conrad together as a couple,
Speaker 1: and that became such the huge focus of the media
Speaker 1: attention is that everyone was so excited that Abby Chatfield
Speaker 1: is in a relationship with Conrad, both of them being
Speaker 1: so hugely loved. And I guess at the time Brooke
Speaker 1: had been very silent on the matter, even to the
Speaker 1: fact that Pedestrian brought out an article which was to
Speaker 1: the effect of, if Brooke doesn't have a problem with
Speaker 1: the fact that Abby and Conrad are together, then why
Speaker 1: does anybody else have a problem with it? Who were
Speaker 1: we to comment?
Speaker 3: Which is fair. I'm actually on board with that, and
Speaker 3: I thought the same thing. I had my own opinions
Speaker 3: of it. But the reason we never spoke about it
Speaker 3: was because we were not, you know what this is
Speaker 3: between them really, and if Brook doesn't have a problem,
Speaker 3: then we can't.
Speaker 1: As this was all unfolding, Britt and I both sort
Speaker 1: of sat back and we were like, Oh, this is
Speaker 1: a little bit fishy and there is definitely more to
Speaker 1: the story here. But until one of them came forward
Speaker 1: and actually gave a bit more context around it, we
Speaker 1: were like, we don't want to get dragged down into
Speaker 1: hypothesizing how anyone feels. But Brooke made it very clear
Speaker 1: this week exactly how she feels. Brooke put out this
Speaker 1: statement on her Instagram stories the other day and it reads,
Speaker 1: I hate to bring it up, but personally and mentally
Speaker 1: I have been disrupted by all the crap that came
Speaker 1: with the finale week we both have. I'm not a
Speaker 1: hostile person and literally do not have hate in my heart.
Speaker 1: Everyone who watched the show or was on the show
Speaker 1: cast or working as crew will know that I put
Speaker 1: my heart and soul into it and it meant a
Speaker 1: lot for me to open myself up so vulnerably like that.
Speaker 1: Not only that, but for what it meant for the
Speaker 1: lgbt QIA plus and First Nations community to have that
Speaker 1: display of representation, which moves me on to my new point,
Speaker 1: the hardest point. For that to be tainted once again
Speaker 1: by one to what I thought was a close friend,
Speaker 1: by two another white woman displaying what white privilege looks like,
Speaker 1: and three a very clear display of narcissism hurts me,
Speaker 1: literally paints me. I've reached out to this person to
Speaker 1: resolve this conflict, which in fact classic naive me, adult
Speaker 1: me went to this person to communicate openly about the
Speaker 1: layers of the complexity that this person's actions show and
Speaker 1: take away from not only me, but what it meant
Speaker 1: for a queer woman of color. If this wasn't me,
Speaker 1: I think still have this stance. You guys ask for
Speaker 1: my comment there it is now go give them more airtime,
Speaker 1: which is exactly what this is about.
Speaker 2: Woof Now, this is a.
Speaker 3: Really powerful statement, and I think it came from the heart.
Speaker 3: I think it was very well thought out. She definitely
Speaker 3: didn't jump into this without thinking. This is something she's
Speaker 3: sad on and she's in a place of her She's
Speaker 3: had a lot of personal issues. Everybody knows that as well,
Speaker 3: and I can't imagine what she's been going through. She
Speaker 3: did go on to say that this, in fact was
Speaker 3: about Abby, So we do know that there's a part
Speaker 3: of me that's glad that Brooks spoke up, because I
Speaker 3: think it's important that if she really felt hurt by
Speaker 3: this situation, she did bring it up.
Speaker 2: She's completely entitled to that.
Speaker 3: When I sat back and watched this all unravel, I
Speaker 3: would never have commented until everybody else involved had my
Speaker 3: initial thought one hundred percent after have been someone in
Speaker 3: that position in a finale, knowing how it works. I thought,
Speaker 3: just one more day. You could have just waited one
Speaker 3: more day. That's what I thought. There was absolutely no
Speaker 3: reason that it couldn't have waited one more day. And
Speaker 3: I know that Abby knows that as well. We've all
Speaker 3: been in this situation. You can't have gone through what
Speaker 3: Abby has gone through, what I went through, what you
Speaker 3: went through. You can't have gone through a finale on
Speaker 3: the Bachelor and not know how it works. She's so popular,
Speaker 3: she really is. She has a lot of pool. She
Speaker 3: knows that launching a relationship, finally finding love, everyone wants
Speaker 3: her to find love, like everybody wants her to be happy,
Speaker 3: So knowing that she's finally found love, she's finally happy
Speaker 3: with somebody that was on brook season and somebody that
Speaker 3: was really popular. Abby must have known deep down that
Speaker 3: that was going to cause a lot of attention.
Speaker 1: I don't think that there's any debate that that's a
Speaker 1: true and hard fact of this. I think that there
Speaker 1: is a bigger conversation that's kind of developed this idea,
Speaker 1: and especially it played out in the Facebook group, which
Speaker 1: is why we wanted to kind of address it. This
Speaker 1: conversation around what Brook has said is white privilege. And
Speaker 1: I saw so many comments in our Facebook group. I
Speaker 1: saw so many comments on Instagram. If you go to
Speaker 1: Abby's apology post, which we'll get into, surely, there's literally
Speaker 1: thousands of comments where people are debating around whether this
Speaker 1: ease or isn't white privilege. Now, the conversation here and
Speaker 1: the and I think that it's the big one is
Speaker 1: that the reason why it plays into white privilege is
Speaker 1: that this was such a huge momentous time in media
Speaker 1: to have an indigenous person be the lead on The
Speaker 1: Bachelor was huge. And when you go for your final
Speaker 1: exit interviews, like you sit down with Carl and Jackie O,
Speaker 1: you sit down with Who magazine, you sit down with
Speaker 1: all of the massive publications. This was a real time
Speaker 1: for Brook to be able to sit there and say
Speaker 1: what it meant for the Indigenous community, to answer conversations
Speaker 1: around why this season was different. But instead of her
Speaker 1: being asked questions around the contribution that this has to
Speaker 1: her community, the questions that she was being asked was
Speaker 1: around Abby and Conrad's relationship, and it completely overshadowed a
Speaker 1: time that puts so much light on something that was
Speaker 1: so important to be overshadowed by somebody else's relationship. And
Speaker 1: that's where the white privilege comes into play.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and there's.
Speaker 1: Obviously an aspect of saying, who are we if we
Speaker 1: were not a person of color, if we're not a
Speaker 1: person of color, how can we say that this has
Speaker 1: nothing to do with white privilege. The fact of the
Speaker 1: matter is.
Speaker 3: A person of color that has been affected by this
Speaker 3: is telling us that this is what it has to
Speaker 3: do with and that this is how it has affected her,
Speaker 3: and we need to listen to that. We need to
Speaker 3: hear what Brooke is saying. And we saw how important
Speaker 3: this was to Brook and how.
Speaker 1: Momentous this moment was around Australia and how much she
Speaker 1: brought in her culture to this show. She was so
Speaker 1: proud of it, as she should have been, and I
Speaker 1: can only imagine how she felt like that was taken
Speaker 1: away from her at the end by Abby announcing her relationship. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I guess like it was an interesting one for us,
Speaker 1: like for Britt and I and what you said earlier, Bert,
Speaker 1: like we've been through the Bachelor wheelhouse, like we know
Speaker 1: how it works, we know how much it is drummed
Speaker 1: into you, especially when you're that person at the end.
Speaker 1: So Abby Chatford being someone who made it to finale,
Speaker 1: we've all made it to finale. There's not that many
Speaker 1: people that have made it to the finale. And once
Speaker 1: you have experienced that, no, but it's once you've experienced that,
Speaker 1: you know that there's a very different set of rules
Speaker 1: that are forced into you by production, that are forced
Speaker 1: into you by your PR team, and your condition to
Speaker 1: know what isn't isn't acceptable. And I think that that's why,
Speaker 1: unfortunately for Abby she's been held to a higher set
Speaker 1: of standards because unlike Conrad and I know that there's
Speaker 1: a lot of people being like well, Conrad also broke
Speaker 1: the rules. I get it he did too, but he's
Speaker 1: kind of almost irrelevant in this conversation because he didn't
Speaker 1: make it through to finale, and he also was off
Speaker 1: the show by the time. It's more so the fact
Speaker 1: that Abby being friends with Brooke, her having that deep connection,
Speaker 1: that relationship, her having an active part on this actual season.
Speaker 1: That's what meant that these actions fell so much more
Speaker 1: in her court to be the responsible person. And I
Speaker 1: understand why everyone's feeling conflicted by this because genuinely we
Speaker 1: ship the relationship too, We think they are great together.
Speaker 1: We just also felt like, wow, that was a really
Speaker 1: really poor timing to launch it. Do we think that
Speaker 1: it was in bad taste? Absolutely? Do we think that
Speaker 1: Abby should be canceled for this, No, we don't. But
Speaker 1: Abby did come out straight away and very very effectively.
Speaker 1: It was literally within hours of brook statement, she brought
Speaker 1: out her own statement and her own apology. And I
Speaker 1: don't think an apology could have been worded any better
Speaker 1: than what it was. Look, it was a well oiled
Speaker 1: pr apology. But the problem with apologies now is you
Speaker 1: apologize and the public will say you didn't mean it,
Speaker 1: or it's not good enough, or you didn't think about it,
Speaker 1: or it's pr you don't apologize and the public say.
Speaker 2: You're a bitch.
Speaker 1: You can't front it, you're scared. It's the same thing
Speaker 1: if you turn off comments or leave comments on like
Speaker 1: in these situations. I don't know what the answer is.
Speaker 3: I think you definitely need the apology, but I understand
Speaker 3: that in the public eye it's so hard to come
Speaker 3: out on top.
Speaker 1: I do also think it plays into the idea that
Speaker 1: you're never going to please everyone. There's always going to
Speaker 1: be people who after you've made an apology, are mad
Speaker 1: because they feel let down.
Speaker 3: So abby did come out straight away with an apology
Speaker 3: to Brook Now it was a two page apology is
Speaker 3: very long. I'm not going to read the first page.
Speaker 3: It's just setting up how they met and the ins
Speaker 3: and outs. The second page let's get into now. The
Speaker 3: morning of I mistook a message from Brooke expressing her
Speaker 3: happiness for an approval of our relationship as a green
Speaker 3: light to upload a post. In the post, Conrad received
Speaker 3: an equally supportive message. I see with hindsight that this
Speaker 3: assumption was naive. I now understand the timing of publicly
Speaker 3: sharing our relationship should have been more considered, and that
Speaker 3: is my fault. I acknowledge that impact outweighs intent. I
Speaker 3: didn't take into account the Australian media landscape and the
Speaker 3: inherent privilege that I hold as a white woman. My
Speaker 3: actions have the potential to undermine the importance that this
Speaker 3: pivotal season of The Bachelor it holds to the First
Speaker 3: Nations and lgb TQIA plus communities. This is an extremely
Speaker 3: important conversation to be having. In future, this will be
Speaker 3: at the forefront of my mind and I will continue
Speaker 3: to listen to and amplify minority communities and endeavor to learn.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. It truly is a great apology, like has
Speaker 1: all of the parts that make for a good apology,
Speaker 1: I think for Abby and like I had just mentioned
Speaker 1: this before, but this being held to a high set
Speaker 1: of standards. It's not only because she's been through the
Speaker 1: whole wheelhouse of The Bachelor and she knows how the
Speaker 1: Bachelor works, and she knows how social media works, and
Speaker 1: she knows that all the eyes were going to be
Speaker 1: on her. It's also because Abby has really platformed herself
Speaker 1: as being an advocate for minority She has platformed herself
Speaker 1: as being somebody who fiercely is an ally of the
Speaker 1: indigenous community and of people of color, and I think
Speaker 1: in this instance, people who have seen support in her,
Speaker 1: people who have aligned themselves with her, they feel let down.
Speaker 1: And I think that that's another reason why there hasn't
Speaker 1: been so much focus on Conrad in this conversation, But
Speaker 1: it's all kind of been aimed at Abby being the
Speaker 1: one to announce it. So many people have weighed in
Speaker 1: on this conversation, and there does seem to be this
Speaker 1: real outrage on social media at the moment. Clementine Ford
Speaker 1: had some very interesting points. She went quite hard on her,
Speaker 1: but there was one part of it which I thought
Speaker 1: was really interesting, and I think it really sums up
Speaker 1: why Abby has been held to her higher standard. I
Speaker 1: don't want to be all people who work in media,
Speaker 1: but people who work in media are attuned on timing
Speaker 1: and what makes a good headline. One of the things
Speaker 1: I have always liked most about Abby is how media
Speaker 1: savvage she is. She came out of her season having
Speaker 1: the last laugh, and that is because she innately gets
Speaker 1: how this stuff works. She is an intensely influential person
Speaker 1: who speaks social media fluently, so doing the hard launch
Speaker 1: or whatever the kids are calling it these days of
Speaker 1: her relationship with Conrad the day before Brooks final episode.
Speaker 1: This is not a casual mistake made by someone distracted
Speaker 1: by love. At best, it's strategic at worst. It's cheap
Speaker 1: and mean and yes, deeply steeped in white privilege.
Speaker 2: Wow, that is a big statement.
Speaker 3: And like you said, that is a big statement coming
Speaker 3: from I guess two people that have always had a
Speaker 3: really good relationship with each other, Abby and Clementine.
Speaker 2: I mean, it is true, and this is us.
Speaker 3: We're the only reason Laura and I are talking about
Speaker 3: this today. We always steer clear of this stuff. The
Speaker 3: only reason we're.
Speaker 1: Commenting is because you guys asked from people that have
Speaker 1: been in that position. You asked our opinion on it,
Speaker 1: and we don't want to cancel anybody.
Speaker 3: We just want to have a conversation about us. What's happening.
Speaker 3: Was Abby in the wrong? Yes, I think she was.
Speaker 3: I think she could have waited a few days, and
Speaker 3: I do I think she knows that. Yes, she knows
Speaker 3: the media world. We know she knows that she's really
Speaker 3: really great at what she does. I definitely think that
Speaker 3: there is remorse for it though. I think we all
Speaker 3: we can all.
Speaker 1: Make mistakes, and it is very easy to get caught
Speaker 1: up in the pr wheelhouse. It's very easy to get
Speaker 1: caught up in knowing all right, if I do this
Speaker 1: on this day, it's going to have the most attention,
Speaker 1: It's going to attract the most eyes. And for somebody,
Speaker 1: when our life and our currency in the way that
Speaker 1: we earn an income is based on having clicks and
Speaker 1: lights and social media, it's really important to factor in
Speaker 1: these big life decisions because it's I mean, I'm not
Speaker 1: going to say that a relationship is a business decision,
Speaker 1: because their relationship is a real relationship, but the way
Speaker 1: that you launch a relationship can be very strategic as
Speaker 1: to how the public receives it. And unfortunately, I think
Speaker 1: a backfire. I don't think that it was done with
Speaker 1: deep malicious intent, but I think it was the wrong time.
Speaker 1: At the end of the day, where all humans, people
Speaker 1: do make mistakes, I personally and.
Speaker 3: You law, you don't ei that. We don't believe in
Speaker 3: canceling anybody. I know some people do, but we don't.
Speaker 3: The end of the day, Abby and Conrad are in
Speaker 3: a real relationship and they're really happy and they're working
Speaker 3: on that and that is amazing. Brooke and darvit in
Speaker 3: a really great relationship as well. I hope that everybody
Speaker 3: can find their happy ending and work it out. And
Speaker 3: I think there are a lot of lessons that have
Speaker 3: been learned in this situation by everyone involved.
Speaker 1: And do you know what, though, the last thing I
Speaker 1: would add to this is, like the big thing that
Speaker 1: this whole conversation came back to is that it took airtime.
Speaker 1: It took conversation and tension away from the fact that
Speaker 1: Brooke was the first indigenous lead. But these big conversations,
Speaker 1: even though they still unfortunately center around Abbey and the
Speaker 1: poor timing and everything else, it was Brook's opportunity to
Speaker 1: be able to gain back a little bit of that airtime.
Speaker 1: And as much as everybody, like we said, still ships
Speaker 1: this relationship, it's really great that we can look at
Speaker 1: it from the other perspective have some learnings. And that's
Speaker 1: the whole concept and why Britain and I are against
Speaker 1: cancel culture. It's because there is literally no learning. If
Speaker 1: you cancel someone and say we don't want anything to
Speaker 1: do with them anymore, then it's not an opportunity for them.
Speaker 1: To be able to do better, for us to do
Speaker 1: better and for us, or to learn about how this
Speaker 1: is all so closely tied into and linked to white privilege. Rightio,
Speaker 1: Well that was a big one to one back.
Speaker 2: It really is.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm going to say the very last thing, and
Speaker 1: that is that I don't think I think what we
Speaker 1: need to be very very aware of is that Abby
Speaker 1: Chatfield has done some bloody awesome stuff in advocating for
Speaker 1: and standing up for minority groups, in talking about conversations
Speaker 1: around feminism. And I don't think that one thing necessarily
Speaker 1: negates all of the good stuff. And that's the only
Speaker 1: thing about social media that I think sometimes makes me frustrated.
Speaker 1: It's like when someone puts one foot out of line,
Speaker 1: we go, well, everything you did prior is now in
Speaker 1: the bin because you're fucked up.
Speaker 2: And I don't like that.
Speaker 1: I think that we all live and we can have
Speaker 1: this continuum where we all make mistakes and we can
Speaker 1: all do better from them. Let's get into accidentally unfiltered,
Speaker 1: all right. I'm bringing in a confessional. It's been a
Speaker 1: little while since without a confessional.
Speaker 2: This is a pre random confessional. Actually, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's use something you'd want to
Speaker 1: confess Anyway, last night I've been like, it's something that
Speaker 1: you should take to the grave, Well.
Speaker 2: You tell me once you finish.
Speaker 1: Every's so often we get confessionals, and I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's a bit fuss dirty. Yeah, like, no one would
Speaker 1: ever have to know this if you also like, you
Speaker 1: don't need you never need to confess that to us. Okay,
Speaker 1: you didn't want to take that to the grave, We
Speaker 1: also don't want to have the burden of taking it
Speaker 1: to the grave for you.
Speaker 3: Also, it's not like this, you understand when I read it.
Speaker 3: But there's nothing she's done wrong as such. It was
Speaker 3: just a very unfortunate situation.
Speaker 2: Oh god.
Speaker 3: Last night I was patting my puppy and I was
Speaker 3: running my hands through his tail when I felt something
Speaker 3: in his tail. Didn't think anything of it. When about
Speaker 3: my night, I started to eat my takeaway grilled.
Speaker 1: Burger and chips. Each time I brought a chip to
Speaker 1: my mouth, I could smell this subtle smell of pooh.
Speaker 1: I thought to myself, hmm, this is strange. Do these
Speaker 1: chips smell a bit funky?
Speaker 3: I kept eating my burger and chips while noticing the
Speaker 3: slight smell of shit after dinner. After dinner, I noticed
Speaker 3: a patch of smudged pooh on my sheets, and then
Speaker 3: it all clicked. I checked my dog's tail, and in fact,
Speaker 3: he had a massive dag hanging from his tail. I
Speaker 3: had poop on my fingers, and I ate my entire
Speaker 3: dinner with poop fingers. I mean, I love my dog,
Speaker 3: but not enough to eat his shit?
Speaker 2: Why do you mean?
Speaker 1: Why why are you telling us? But also I just
Speaker 1: think it's funny because she's like, I have a confession.
Speaker 2: You didn't do anything wrong.
Speaker 3: This is just disgustingly unfortunate. But my question is if
Speaker 3: you were taking single chip by chipped your mouth and
Speaker 3: every time you've smelled pooh, why not keep eating the chips,
Speaker 3: like why instead of being like this smells like pooh.
Speaker 3: But I'm just gonna keep eating my way through it.
Speaker 3: That was for me, that is a red flag.
Speaker 1: To be fair, Okay, you're gonna think I'm disgusting. To
Speaker 1: be fair, I eat my shit. It was only that
Speaker 1: one time after I lost a bet On batchun cut, No,
Speaker 1: for like about three days, I was going into our
Speaker 1: bedroom and so we have an on suite in our
Speaker 1: bedroom and I was going into our bedroom. I was like,
Speaker 1: this is and this is also going back a while.
Speaker 1: This is not a recent story, but for three days
Speaker 1: I was going into our bedroom. I was like, fuck,
Speaker 1: it kind of smells a bit like shit in here. Like,
Speaker 1: it smells a little bit like shit. We need to
Speaker 1: get some drain oaks. That drain doesn't smell very good.
Speaker 1: So like second day, I was like, God, need to
Speaker 1: remember to get that draino. Yeah, it smells a bit
Speaker 1: like shit in here. The day I was like, could
Speaker 1: it be shit?
Speaker 2: I was like, I really need to remember to get
Speaker 2: that draino.
Speaker 1: Anyway, turns out I had a shitty nappy that I
Speaker 1: had changed one night in the middle of the night
Speaker 1: and couldn't remember and just like left it under my bed.
Speaker 2: I had a human shit under my bed and it
Speaker 2: would be hot in festering in the smell.
Speaker 1: In winter, but it was still, well, that makes it
Speaker 1: a lot better. Three day old baby shit just hanging
Speaker 1: out under the bed, shit on us in winter. I
Speaker 1: love that.
Speaker 2: What well, I was like, it was like hot and funky.
Speaker 2: You're like, now it was cold. I'm like, oh cool,
Speaker 2: it was poo.
Speaker 1: On I mean, if you're gonna, if you're gonna make
Speaker 1: a choice between like a warm summer poo and like
Speaker 1: a winter poo, you go for a winter poo.
Speaker 3: But I feel like the moral of the story here is,
Speaker 3: if you guys are smelling shit, maybe sus that out
Speaker 3: because it could just be that is ship.
Speaker 2: Isn't it.
Speaker 1: That's that's just like the most perfect Instagram quote for
Speaker 1: us to sum this up on you like shit, shit,
Speaker 1: If it smells like shit, investigate a little bit further,
Speaker 1: because there's a very good chair as it's shit. It's shit. Okay,
Speaker 1: I have a accidentally unfiltered for you. This accidentally unfiltered
Speaker 1: also brought up some really great conversations in my home
Speaker 1: with Matthew Johnson. So here we go for some context. First,
Speaker 1: though my boyfriend and I have been together for four years.
Speaker 1: We are very much in a beautiful, healthy, loving relationship.
Speaker 1: He is my penguin. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed that.
Speaker 1: Now let's get down to business.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: The other day I got ready, I had some brecky,
Speaker 1: I kissed my beautiful boyfriend goodbye, and I went to work.
Speaker 1: You know the usual. Once I got to work, however,
Speaker 1: which is only five minutes drive away. I quickly realized
Speaker 1: that I had forgotten something at home, so I decided
Speaker 1: to drive back. It's the five minute drive. I come home.
Speaker 1: I opened the door, I went upstairs, and I immediately
Speaker 1: found it pretty odd that I couldn't see my boyfriend.
Speaker 1: By the way. He's also a FIFO worker and that
Speaker 1: was his week home, so I knew he would be
Speaker 1: chilling in the house somewhere. Our unit is very small,
Speaker 1: so usually I always see him on the couch or
Speaker 1: at his desk.
Speaker 2: There's nowhere to hide.
Speaker 1: I walked towards our bedroom door, which was closed, which
Speaker 1: is also odd, and before opening I said, hey, babe,
Speaker 1: and then I hear this little yep in a very
Speaker 1: defeated way. I opened the door to find him fully naked,
Speaker 1: sitting on the side of the bed, holding his flacid
Speaker 1: penis and covered income.
Speaker 2: Covered like covered income.
Speaker 1: He had just masturbated, and I fully walked in on
Speaker 1: him and caught him at the very final stage. He
Speaker 1: was so embarrassed. I couldn't stop laughing.
Speaker 2: I feel like, this is fucking fantastic. Imagine walking into your.
Speaker 1: Boyfriend and he's just like covered with come all up
Speaker 1: his belly in his chest?
Speaker 2: Is it funny?
Speaker 1: Because why do people think that's embarrassing?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 1: I asked Matt, and I was like, obviously, like we
Speaker 1: see everything of each other. The guy will poop with
Speaker 1: the door open. And I said to him, have I
Speaker 1: ever walked in on new masturbating? And he was like no,
Speaker 1: And I was like, would you be embarrassed if I
Speaker 1: walked in on new masturbating? He's like, the shame would
Speaker 1: kill me? Why?
Speaker 3: Like, as a woman, I don't get that because I
Speaker 3: feel like if I was masturbating and my partner walked
Speaker 3: in and saw me, I would probably just dive of
Speaker 3: laughter or like get like, yeah, just.
Speaker 1: In time, come join in? Would you would you join
Speaker 1: in if you walked in.
Speaker 2: On your I wouldn't say get out. I'm busy, aunt.
Speaker 1: It's different ones you've got kids, because I'm always too tired.
Speaker 1: If I'm gonna do it myself, I don't. I'm doing
Speaker 1: it because I don't want you to join.
Speaker 2: Okay, So if.
Speaker 1: You were masturbating and Matt walked in and saw you,
Speaker 1: would you feel shame?
Speaker 3: Like would you be embarrassed? I feel like we would
Speaker 3: both be the same. I think we'd just being hysterics.
Speaker 3: I masturbate under the covers, so he would never walk in.
Speaker 3: I would just be like, oh, it was like rolling
Speaker 3: over or something like, he would never know. It must
Speaker 3: be more of a man thing though, But like, would
Speaker 3: you be embarrassed? As my question, because I don't get
Speaker 3: the embarrassment. I don't get why the man's like I am.
Speaker 1: Mortified that you caught me at touching my penis, even
Speaker 1: though I touched my penis in front of you. Sometimes
Speaker 1: like I don't get it. I think I wouldn't be
Speaker 1: I think I would feel bad if Matt walked in
Speaker 1: on me masturbating. I would I just don't have the
Speaker 1: time for you. Yeah, I would feel so guilty that
Speaker 1: I was like, well, I'm pleasuring myself, but I would
Speaker 1: rather sleep than pleasure you. I mean feel bad.
Speaker 3: It is much better that you walked in on him
Speaker 3: masturbating than you walked in on him with someone else.
Speaker 1: And also, can I just say when I say I
Speaker 1: would feel bad, like when I say I'm too tired,
Speaker 1: I'm too tired to even do that. I like am
Speaker 1: the most unsexual being in the world right now. There's
Speaker 1: nothing I can't eat. I just don't have it hang on?
Speaker 2: What was the end of that sentence? I can't eat
Speaker 2: what I can't I can't eat pins, I can't eat
Speaker 2: I can't eat my dinner.
Speaker 1: I can't eat a dick Right now, let me tell
Speaker 1: you you could not.
Speaker 2: Fit it in. Too tired to inpendency?
Speaker 1: All alrighty. Today we are talking about co dependency. And
Speaker 1: the reason for that is, well, I mean, I think
Speaker 1: it's something that's a lot of us have some characteristics of,
Speaker 1: or display some traits of at different times in our lives,
Speaker 1: in different relationships. For some of us, it can be
Speaker 1: a very overwhelming and over arching characteristic. I myself, as
Speaker 1: I said, am a reformed, born again codependent. I was
Speaker 1: very very codependent in my past relationships. But understanding and
Speaker 1: unpacking where codependence comes from. On one hand, it also
Speaker 1: removes the guilt, like it makes I think that there's codependence.
Speaker 1: It's got a bit of a dirty word, like some
Speaker 1: people think of being codependence and they think of like, oh,
Speaker 1: you're so clingy or you're so needy, And the issue
Speaker 1: of it is really put on the person who is
Speaker 1: codependent without looking at the reasons as to why that
Speaker 1: person has formed those habits and The big thing that
Speaker 1: we're going to unpack is that a lot of codependent
Speaker 1: tendencies they're actually learn tendencies. They come from learning how
Speaker 1: other people navigate relationships emulating that behavior. They can also
Speaker 1: come from being in relationships that are maybe a little
Speaker 1: bit volatile or traumatic. So there's a lot of different parts.
Speaker 1: And also there's not really a cookie cutter, one size
Speaker 1: all when it comes to codependency. There are lots of
Speaker 1: different variations of this. There's lots of different types of severity,
Speaker 1: and the one person or the same person may be
Speaker 1: super codependent in one relationship and pretty autonomous and healthy
Speaker 1: in another. It can can also be relationship dependent.
Speaker 3: And when we talk about codependency just with our friends
Speaker 3: or when we think about it ourselves, the first thing
Speaker 3: you think of is this real neediness, this real negative connotation,
Speaker 3: Like someone's like, oh my god, they're so needy. You
Speaker 3: don't want to be you don't want to get into
Speaker 3: a relationship with them. They're two time consuming. I literally
Speaker 3: cannot think of another word other than needy. For me,
Speaker 3: that's what codependency is before I jumped into the research.
Speaker 1: Well, controlling, I think is another big one. Like I
Speaker 1: remember and looking back on my relationships and we'll unpack.
Speaker 1: We'll have a therapy session for Laura. I will unpack
Speaker 1: some of it. But like I remember when I was
Speaker 1: in relationships and I felt like I needed to check
Speaker 1: my partner's phone. And I think the big part of
Speaker 1: this is that if you have ever turned into a
Speaker 1: FBI investigator in your relationships, if you ever turned into
Speaker 1: that per person who's checking a phone or you need
Speaker 1: to know the whereabouts, the why, or what your partner's doing,
Speaker 1: it could be because their behavior has also not matched
Speaker 1: up to the things that they've been saying. Maybe you've
Speaker 1: been gas lit in your relationships. But a big part
Speaker 1: of that is also because you've struggled to set boundaries
Speaker 1: and you have some codependent tendencies. So we've always made
Speaker 1: jokes if you're a expent, if you're an OD listener
Speaker 1: of Lifelin Card. From the very beginning, we have made
Speaker 1: jokes about Laura monkey branching too relationships and the fact
Speaker 1: that she will openly say I was needy.
Speaker 3: I was really codependent. I needed someone in my life.
Speaker 3: I needed to feel wanted, I needed them, I needed
Speaker 3: to feel validated. But I want to ask you about that.
Speaker 1: Laura, Now, how do you define codependency in your relationships?
Speaker 1: Because it does present itself differently. It can be emotional bullying,
Speaker 1: it can be manipulation, caregiving, It can be suffocating, It
Speaker 1: can be an obsession with your partner. We know there
Speaker 1: are so many levels to codependency. Now, how did it
Speaker 1: present itself for you and your relationship?
Speaker 4: All?
Speaker 1: Right, Well, before we get into how it presents itself
Speaker 1: for me, let's just give you guys an overview of
Speaker 1: what being codependent is or what like the definition for
Speaker 1: it is. So codependency refers to a mental, emotional, physical,
Speaker 1: and or spiritual reliance on a partner, friend, or family member.
Speaker 1: Now that that's the definition, I actually think that's a
Speaker 1: pretty unfair definition. And like you, Telly, you tell Webster
Speaker 1: Dictionary on.
Speaker 2: Like you you hundred years of psychology report, I have
Speaker 2: zero degrees. But I'm going to tell you that that
Speaker 2: is wrong.
Speaker 1: The reason why I think that's wrong is because, like
Speaker 1: we all are going to rely on our family members,
Speaker 1: our relationships, our partners. Having some level of dependency is healthy.
Speaker 1: Like it's healthy to be in healthy relationships where you
Speaker 1: depend on your partner, if you have expectations, if you
Speaker 1: have healthy boundaries with your partner. That's healthy dependency. The
Speaker 1: reason and where codependency I think comes in. It's it
Speaker 1: goes beyond just having a dependence on your family members
Speaker 1: or your friends. It's when you don't have the ability
Speaker 1: to set healthy boundaries for yourself. It's when you sacrifice
Speaker 1: your own boundaries to be able to tend to that person.
Speaker 1: It's when you lose your sense of purpose outside the relationship.
Speaker 1: For me, I didn't care if my ow well, I
Speaker 1: shouldn't say I didn't care. I did care that my
Speaker 1: relationship was bad. I desperately wanted my relationship to be better.
Speaker 1: But I would have taken a shitty relationship over being
Speaker 1: alone because the fear of being alone was so much
Speaker 1: worse than being in a relationship where I knew what
Speaker 1: was going to happen. And when I say I knew
Speaker 1: what was going to happen, I knew I was going
Speaker 1: to get cheated on. I knew that I couldn't really
Speaker 1: trust him. But I also was so committed to fixing
Speaker 1: him and fixing our relationship and seeing his potential. And
Speaker 1: that's another huge trait of codependent people is that often
Speaker 1: when you play the role of being codependent. What that
Speaker 1: actually is is that you play the role of the
Speaker 1: caretaker and you get a lot of importance and self
Speaker 1: validation out of being needed yourself. It's very reciprocal in
Speaker 1: that way. Yeah, And at its core, and I'm saying,
Speaker 1: at its core now, this is a learned behavior. So
Speaker 1: you can come back from codependency, and you can come
Speaker 1: back to a healthy relationship, But at its core, codependency
Speaker 1: is dysfunctional. Is a dysfunctional dynamic where there is one
Speaker 1: giver and one taker. Now, I always have.
Speaker 3: Been the giver. I have never ever been a taker.
Speaker 3: I have been exactly in your position now. I have
Speaker 3: never thought of myself as codependent or needy. I've always
Speaker 3: thought of myself as a very independent person that I
Speaker 3: never felt.
Speaker 1: Like I needed a relationship.
Speaker 3: Until I did a deep dive with this, and until
Speaker 3: we spoke to psychologists Dan who've got on the podcast today,
Speaker 3: I didn't realize that maybe there were some traits of
Speaker 3: me that did present themselves as codependency. Just because I
Speaker 3: had been alone for ten years and didn't chase relationships
Speaker 3: and ran away from them doesn't mean that I don't
Speaker 3: develop some of those traits when I'm in the relationship,
Speaker 3: and when I read about it, it is definitely a
Speaker 3: lot of taking care of people and giving so much
Speaker 3: of yourself and sacrificing parts of yourself, maybe some of
Speaker 3: your non negotiables. Maybe there are things that you always
Speaker 3: thought you would negotiate on in a relationship, and you
Speaker 3: find yourself in the relationship putting those aside and saying
Speaker 3: it doesn't matter, I'll make you, I'll deal with it
Speaker 3: if it means that I'm going to be with this person.
Speaker 2: And that's exactly what you just said, Laura.
Speaker 1: You knew it was wrong, and you knew you were
Speaker 1: going to get shat all over, but you didn't want
Speaker 1: to be alone, so you put your non negotiables to
Speaker 1: the side and you stay in that relationship. And that
Speaker 1: is and it's called the definition of codependency and dysfunction totally.
Speaker 1: And sometimes it happens so slowly, like your boundaries erode
Speaker 1: so slowly that you get to a point where you're like,
Speaker 1: I don't even know who I am anymore?
Speaker 2: Now? Did I get here?
Speaker 1: Totally? And that's what happened with me, Like I mean,
Speaker 1: I've spoken a lot about my past relationships, but the
Speaker 1: reason why I really wanted to talk about this today
Speaker 1: is because going back to this idea of blame, there
Speaker 1: can be a lot of guilt when you're somebody who's
Speaker 1: codependent because you don't necessarily feel like you're good enough.
Speaker 1: You don't feel like you are enough, and when you're
Speaker 1: in these dysfunctional relationships where you know, you go from
Speaker 1: one relationship that's not working out to another to another,
Speaker 1: because your sense of purpose is based around being loved, essentially,
Speaker 1: it really does erode your sense of self worth. And
Speaker 1: I really took that on as being like, this is
Speaker 1: my problem, what's wrong with me? And it wasn't until
Speaker 1: I unpacked a little bit around my childhood, my relationship
Speaker 1: with my parents that I kind of took a step
Speaker 1: back and had a bit more understanding around it and
Speaker 1: didn't wear that codependency with such blame. And also I
Speaker 1: think when you that whole concept of like when you
Speaker 1: know better, you can do better, and like when you
Speaker 1: know and understand why you are the person that you are,
Speaker 1: you can also work towards changing those things. One thing
Speaker 1: that's really interesting about the whole definition of codependency where
Speaker 1: it came from now, it's not actually a clinical term
Speaker 1: but the term was originally coined in the nineteen fifties
Speaker 1: and it came in context to alcoholics anonymous. Now where
Speaker 1: it came from is the partner of somebody who was
Speaker 1: substance abusing. What clinicians were seeing were that some partners
Speaker 1: were almost enabling of the behavior, and not enabling is
Speaker 1: then that they wanted their partner to remain alcoholics by
Speaker 1: any means, but that they made excuses for and so
Speaker 1: put up with this terrible behavior because they're life were
Speaker 1: so enmeshed in the relationship in a very unhealthy way.
Speaker 1: So that's where this whole conversation around codependency came from.
Speaker 1: It actually stemmed from being talked about in regards to
Speaker 1: being with someone who has substance abuse problems. But it
Speaker 1: is definitely something that has evolved in pop culture to
Speaker 1: be a much broader term. And when you think of
Speaker 1: like the classic person who is codependent, I mean, look
Speaker 1: at Lady Gaga in A Star Was Born. That is
Speaker 1: a codependent relationship someone who has very problematic views, very
Speaker 1: problematic substance abuse, and she was extremely codependent on that
Speaker 1: relationship because she was the vehicle to fix him. Now,
Speaker 1: don't judge me I haven't seen A Star is Born started, and.
Speaker 3: I know that is so controversial because everyone has said
Speaker 3: it's the biggest film of all time. It's that my
Speaker 3: friends have been like, it is the best movie you'll
Speaker 3: ever see. I've never been able to watch it because
Speaker 3: people tell me I'm going to cry in.
Speaker 1: It one hundred percent crime, and I can't do it.
Speaker 3: When someone tells me in crying is guaranteed, I avoid it.
Speaker 3: If no one told me that would watch. It's why
Speaker 3: I can't ever watch A Dog's Purpose.
Speaker 1: It's okay, that has got nothing to do with codependence.
Speaker 1: See but I agree, but that this okay, this whole
Speaker 1: concept is like we romanticize. Unfortunately, the movie is romanticize
Speaker 1: codependent relationships. They make it seem like it is the
Speaker 1: pinnacle of romanticism, this whole idea of like I can't
Speaker 1: live without you. But we realize that in actual real
Speaker 1: life that is very, very fucking dysfunctional and it leads
Speaker 1: to a lot of heartbreak and people who have overwhelmingly
Speaker 1: codependent tendencies really struggle to have long term healthy relationships
Speaker 1: if the other person is a taker and you can't
Speaker 1: get confused with dependency and codependency because everybody has to
Speaker 1: be dependent on someone at some point of life. That
Speaker 1: is healthy, That is normally in a relationship as long
Speaker 1: as they given and taking is equal. As long as
Speaker 1: when you need to take something and when you need
Speaker 1: your partner to be there for you, they are. Codependency
Speaker 1: is when the other person just isn't returning that. And
Speaker 1: I think it's really important that we differentiate the two.
Speaker 1: I want people to understand that there is definitely a
Speaker 1: difference with dependency and codependency. And if you do need
Speaker 1: your partner at some point, that is okay, and that
Speaker 1: is normal and you should be needing you partner. That's
Speaker 1: why we have these relationships as long as you guys
Speaker 1: are meeting in the middle. And as Britt mentioned, we
Speaker 1: do have Dan Orbark who's coming on the podcast. He
Speaker 1: is a psychologist. He has over two decades of experience
Speaker 1: as a relationship therapist, so he definitely comes with the
Speaker 1: experiments we come with the life experience.
Speaker 2: He knows his shit.
Speaker 1: He knows his shit. But what I wanted to talk
Speaker 1: about before we get into that chat with Dan, is
Speaker 1: that codependency isn't just in regards to romantic relationships. It
Speaker 1: can present itself in so many different areas and aspects
Speaker 1: of life. It's a learned and lived experience. You can
Speaker 1: be codependent in your parental relationships, as in like a
Speaker 1: mother can be codependent on her children. You can be
Speaker 1: codependent in a workplace. They just kind of present themselves
Speaker 1: in very different ways. So, for example, if you're somebody
Speaker 1: who has codependent tendencies and that was going to present
Speaker 1: itself in a workplace. You might be someone who is
Speaker 1: attracted to drama. And when I say attracted to drama,
Speaker 1: you probably don't even realize that the drama is happening,
Speaker 1: but somehow you always seem to get sucked into it.
Speaker 1: It's a very triangulating experience. So it could be, for example,
Speaker 1: that britt and Keisher are having a fight, maybe they're
Speaker 1: upset with each other, and Britt comes to me and
Speaker 1: she's talking about Keisha, And instead of me saying to
Speaker 1: brit hey, Britt, if you have a problem, you should
Speaker 1: really speak to her directly about it, I embed myself
Speaker 1: in that drama and then I go and say, ta, Keisha, Oh,
Speaker 1: Brittany's upset with you. It's it's this is a hypothetical,
Speaker 1: by the way, Kesha's gonna edit this and be like,
Speaker 1: what the fuck No, But it's just like we can
Speaker 1: kind of get sucked into that form of communication. And
Speaker 1: that also shows that as somebody who has codependent tendencies,
Speaker 1: we thrive on being needed, on being wanted, and that's
Speaker 1: where the being sucked into drama comes from.
Speaker 3: And it's the same thing with a family relationship. You
Speaker 3: can have codependency within your families, not necessarily always the
Speaker 3: parents or the children. It can present itself in any way.
Speaker 3: But if you find yourself as maybe the person that's
Speaker 3: constantly the caregiver of the family, the person has to
Speaker 3: fix all the problems, the person that everyone goes to,
Speaker 3: that is still a level of codependency and there are
Speaker 3: still ways that you can deal with that. We do
Speaker 3: talk to Dan about that in our conversation as well.
Speaker 1: In regards to like parent child codependency, which I think
Speaker 1: this is so interesting because I cannot tell you the
Speaker 1: number of ask gun cut questions we get written in
Speaker 1: where people are saying like, oh.
Speaker 2: My mother in law she does everything for my husband.
Speaker 1: Or vice versa. But there's this real feeling of like, oh,
Speaker 1: my husband is such a child and he takes and
Speaker 1: takes from you know, his mum, she still comes and
Speaker 1: does his washing. Or I think we've all been in
Speaker 1: relationships with not just men but women, people who almost
Speaker 1: have like an unusual relationship with their parents, where their
Speaker 1: parents still they almost infantize them, They still do too
Speaker 1: many things for them beyond what there is age appropriate. Right,
Speaker 1: maybe they're still doing their tax, maybe they're still doing
Speaker 1: their washing, whatever it is that can also be learned
Speaker 1: top down. It can be the parent who has codependent
Speaker 1: tendencies on their children, whereas their only sense of purpose,
Speaker 1: their only sense of like who they are, comes from
Speaker 1: the fact that they are a mumm and they struggle
Speaker 1: with the idea of having adult children because it means
Speaker 1: who are they if they can't parent their child. Ultimately,
Speaker 1: you want your children to grow up to have their
Speaker 1: own nucleus family. As much as you are still a
Speaker 1: critical and crucial part as their parent, you want your
Speaker 1: children to be able to form those connections and move
Speaker 1: on to create that family network with their own children.
Speaker 1: You need to cry alone in your bedroom.
Speaker 2: Don't put that on them.
Speaker 1: But it's hard, you know, it's hard to kind of
Speaker 1: make those transitions at each phase in life and to
Speaker 1: go from being a kid's most important thing, you know,
Speaker 1: the most important person, to accepting that evolution of that relationship,
Speaker 1: to understanding that you won't always be that person. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think my girls are going to grow up and
Speaker 1: they're not going to necessarily need me. They will one
Speaker 1: hundred percent always need you, but in a different capacity,
Speaker 1: in a different way, and it's it.
Speaker 2: It's just evolving.
Speaker 3: It's one thing I think is really interesting is this
Speaker 3: attraction for codependency and narcissism. Now we've done a whole
Speaker 3: episode on narcissism. We are really obsessed with narcissism. We
Speaker 3: like love, we love the time topic.
Speaker 2: We've both lived it.
Speaker 1: We have very lived experiences with it.
Speaker 3: But the idea of codependency stemming from wanting to help
Speaker 3: people and wanting to be careers and wanting to feel needed.
Speaker 3: Narcissists to thrive on that.
Speaker 2: They know that.
Speaker 3: So you do often see relationships, codependent relationships with one
Speaker 3: person being the giver and one person being a narcissist.
Speaker 3: Because they're coming hot, they love bomb, they get them
Speaker 3: really attached, then they pull back and they make them
Speaker 3: feel like that person is constantly having to work for
Speaker 3: their love. And work for their attention and give them
Speaker 3: and make them happy and do all these things for them.
Speaker 3: So I think this is why we see This is
Speaker 3: why it's not uncommon to see codependency and narcissism linked
Speaker 3: together totally.
Speaker 1: They completely go hand in hand, which when I found
Speaker 1: that out, I was like, no, that doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 1: But then the more you unpack it, You're like, oh, actually,
Speaker 1: that totally makes sense. And it also for me personally.
Speaker 1: You know, we've spoken, like we said, we did the
Speaker 1: whole episode on Narcissism Britain. I have both been pretty
Speaker 1: open about how we've both been attracted to narcissists in
Speaker 1: the past, and for me it made so much sense
Speaker 1: as to why I was attracted to that type of guy.
Speaker 1: But also secondly to that it's a real slap in
Speaker 1: the face when you're someone who is codependent or has
Speaker 1: codependent tendencies to accept some fault and to accept some
Speaker 1: blame in how how volatile that relationship can transpire. Because
Speaker 1: I guess when I say this what I'm I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna sit here and be like it is your fault
Speaker 1: that your relationship sucks. It is it is no like, well,
Speaker 1: I mean Yeah, sure, there, it's definitely sometimes it's people's
Speaker 1: fault and we can all sit back and figure out
Speaker 1: what we did or didn't do right. But when you're
Speaker 1: someone who's codependent, and this whole idea of like having
Speaker 1: no boundaries, you know, really succumbing to what that other
Speaker 1: person's needs and wants are and lacking in that self
Speaker 1: value and self worth means that you transform into the relationship.
Speaker 1: You become like you're like a little plugin of that relationship,
Speaker 1: and it's so hard to remove yourself because you get
Speaker 1: a lot out of making that other person happy as well.
Speaker 1: It's not like the relationship is entirely one sided where
Speaker 1: you'll give you giving and getting nothing back. You almost
Speaker 1: feel good about the fact that you're giving so much.
Speaker 1: It gives you purpose and validation. So there is this
Speaker 1: cyclical nature to it. Where as much as the codependent
Speaker 1: person is a victim in that environment, we also are
Speaker 1: contributing to it by continuously giving, and that makes us
Speaker 1: feel a little bit good as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, just treating me and Kim kean joking, don't do
Speaker 3: that at the end of the day. I guess there
Speaker 3: is this blurred line between being codependent and just setting
Speaker 3: some boundaries for yourself, and it's a really hard place,
Speaker 3: and it's a really hard balance to.
Speaker 1: Achieve in a relationship. But I don't think it should
Speaker 1: be hard.
Speaker 3: With the right communication with your partner, Knowing what you
Speaker 3: want in a relationship, knowing what is healthy, knowing your
Speaker 3: non negotiables, all these things are going to help you
Speaker 3: in this relationship.
Speaker 1: They're going to help you set the boundaries.
Speaker 3: If you've written these down, If you've written these things
Speaker 3: down that you want in a relationship and you know
Speaker 3: that they're being crossed, if you know they're being compromised,
Speaker 3: if you know you're giving more than you should and
Speaker 3: not get anything back, this is when you need to
Speaker 3: take active steps to either remove yourself from the situation.
Speaker 1: Or work it through with your partner. If it can't
Speaker 1: be worked.
Speaker 3: Through, then you might need to think of the other option,
Speaker 3: which is leaving moving on to a different relationship.
Speaker 1: I mean, but that can be so hard for somebody
Speaker 1: who truly is codependent. The idea of being alone if
Speaker 1: you're very tried, totally to absolutely terrifying. If you're very
Speaker 1: high on that end of the spectrum, feeling the defeat
Speaker 1: in a failed relationship can be pretty overwhelming and a
Speaker 1: horrible feeling. And we're not saying like, well, if you're codependent,
Speaker 1: you need to break up, because, like we said, there's
Speaker 1: so many versions of a relationship that can be healthy
Speaker 1: that you can work on. And I would say only
Speaker 1: if you're someone who's codependent and you're in a relationship
Speaker 1: with the narcissis should you cut ties and move on?
Speaker 1: Something that I think is really helpful, and it goes
Speaker 1: back to this whole conversation around attachment styles. We did
Speaker 1: an episode on it back in July. It was episode
Speaker 1: one hundred and forty three.
Speaker 2: Fine topic.
Speaker 1: I did not have to look that up, but if
Speaker 1: you do, go and I haven't done your attachment styles.
Speaker 1: What attachment styles is is it talks about how well,
Speaker 1: when you were a kid, how you related to your
Speaker 1: primary caregiver, so it related to your parents and whether
Speaker 1: your parents were there for you. They gave you consistent love.
Speaker 1: And now this doesn't mean that they had to be
Speaker 1: incredibly perfect all the time. It just means that they
Speaker 1: were consistent and tended to your basic needs. For a
Speaker 1: lot of people who came from dysfunctional houses who didn't
Speaker 1: have or dysfunctional families who didn't have that consistency in
Speaker 1: their love from their parents. Maybe there was divorces, maybe
Speaker 1: they were going through some other turmoil. For me, and
Speaker 1: from my upbringing, my stepdad was a heroin addict, which
Speaker 1: I've spoken about before, very very briefly on this podcast.
Speaker 1: But it was a really really hard time in my
Speaker 1: childhood and there was definitely times where I guess that
Speaker 1: there wasn't that consistency, and it was I saw my
Speaker 1: mum go through so much and we went through so much,
Speaker 1: and I guess when I grew up, I never really
Speaker 1: thought that my childhood had had an impact or my
Speaker 1: ability to have good relationships. And it wasn't until we
Speaker 1: did this podcast and we started read searching all these
Speaker 1: different aspects of what makes healthy relationships and how we
Speaker 1: show up in our own relationships that I started to
Speaker 1: really realize, holy shit, maybe my childhood messed me up
Speaker 1: a little bit more that I realized at the time.
Speaker 1: But I think it's so important that once you know
Speaker 1: the where and the why behind something like why is
Speaker 1: it that you're making these decisions? Why is it that
Speaker 1: you're showing up in your relationship the way that you're
Speaker 1: showing up. That's the first step to being able to
Speaker 1: change some things about yourself that you don't like, or
Speaker 1: be able to change the way that you set boundaries
Speaker 1: in your relationships.
Speaker 2: For most of us, these.
Speaker 1: Are things that we can deal with on our own
Speaker 1: or with our friends or with loved ones in our families.
Speaker 1: But for those that aren't, and I found this really interesting,
Speaker 1: but there are big support groups. There are codependency anonymous
Speaker 1: groups that you can go to to get help. You
Speaker 1: can speak to you online, you can meet up in person.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of help out there.
Speaker 3: So I don't want you to feel like you're stuck
Speaker 3: and drowning in a relationship.
Speaker 2: And there's no doubt because.
Speaker 1: We all know that there is always, always help for
Speaker 1: anything in life. We can put some of the those
Speaker 1: details in regards to like codependency anonymous groups, we can
Speaker 1: put those details in the show notes. It's so interesting.
Speaker 1: It's like a twelve step plan similar to alcoholics anonymous.
Speaker 1: And the reason for that is is because it does
Speaker 1: play so closely into this addiction I mean codependency. Another
Speaker 1: name for it, if you look at the literature is
Speaker 1: actually relationship addiction, which is also what it's known for,
Speaker 1: which I just found so interesting because it's exactly what
Speaker 1: it is, this whole idea of like you need to
Speaker 1: find purpose, but finding it in your relationship with someone else,
Speaker 1: whatever that relationship is.
Speaker 2: But whilst we have the.
Speaker 3: Experience and we are interested in it, we obviously wanted
Speaker 3: to get somebody on that is a professional has literally
Speaker 3: studied this for the best part of twenty years, and
Speaker 3: that is why we got Dan all back on Now.
Speaker 3: He's the founder and co director of Associated Counselors and Psychologists.
Speaker 3: He literally has two decades worth of experience as a
Speaker 3: relationship therapist, so we wanted to ask him some questions
Speaker 3: and get a professional opinion on codependency. I learned a
Speaker 3: lot and I hope you guys enjoy this chat with Dan.
Speaker 2: Dan, welcome to light On Card. We're so excited to
Speaker 2: have you here today.
Speaker 4: Thank you for having men, glad to be here.
Speaker 3: Now, look the term a codependency. It is one that
Speaker 3: Laura and I have thrown around a lot over the years,
Speaker 3: but it's often sort of described as this person that's
Speaker 3: really needy or guess that's the colloquial way we all
Speaker 3: talk about it.
Speaker 1: But there's so much more to codependency. So can you
Speaker 1: just tell us in your experience, what is it?
Speaker 4: Yeah, Look, it's a really good question and it's not
Speaker 4: an easy one to answer in a simple way because
Speaker 4: it's not a clinical phenomenon. It's not something that as
Speaker 4: clinicians we have a scale of. But probably the closest
Speaker 4: thing that you can come at it from is something
Speaker 4: we call attachment studies. So I don't know if a
Speaker 4: listeners are familiar with this idea of attachment. It's started
Speaker 4: as a study of infants and their caregivers and how
Speaker 4: they sort of relate. Are they having a good time together,
Speaker 4: are they getting soothing from each other? And then what
Speaker 4: does the infant do to sort of get soothing and
Speaker 4: care and what are the patterns? And then it started
Speaker 4: to develop into adult literature as well, and to how
Speaker 4: to adults relate to each other to get care and
Speaker 4: soothing from each other. And if we look at the
Speaker 4: attachment literature, there is a style of relating which is
Speaker 4: what we call sort of anxious preoccupied. It's really concerned
Speaker 4: with the other person and what they're up to, right,
Speaker 4: And in that sort of style, we often see more
Speaker 4: of a dependency on the other or at least externally,
Speaker 4: it looks like this person's dependent on the other person
Speaker 4: and they're kind of looking for confirmation. Are we okay?
Speaker 4: Are you still with me? Are you happy with me?
Speaker 4: And that's that sort of needy personality that you're sort
Speaker 4: of talking about, right, And it's really common. It's probably
Speaker 4: about twenty to twenty five percent of people in the
Speaker 4: other population have got that style of relating. And so
Speaker 4: you know, in some ways that makes for a great
Speaker 4: deal of warmth and sensitivity, right. Most therapists probably fall
Speaker 4: into that bag in some way. Right, And that's sort
Speaker 4: of one end of the spectrum, which is just nothing
Speaker 4: sort of in the sense clinical. And then on the
Speaker 4: other side, if we look at slightly more extreme examples,
Speaker 4: we're talking about that person you might see in a
Speaker 4: movie or possibly a friend who is in a relationship
Speaker 4: that you really are concerned is harming them or they're
Speaker 4: really putting themselves aside in a big way. They're not
Speaker 4: looking after themselves, and they keep making excuses because they're
Speaker 4: really attached to this other person who everybody else is
Speaker 4: going shit look out, and this person just somehow goes, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: I know I should, but right, So I guess that
Speaker 4: kind of sets the scene that helps you.
Speaker 3: We talk a lot about these attachment styles and how
Speaker 3: they developed.
Speaker 1: You know, we develop them very young. Is children with
Speaker 1: our families?
Speaker 3: Does codependency have to stem from our childhood and developing
Speaker 3: these attachment styles young? Or can somebody can an event
Speaker 3: happen later in life and we become more codependent as
Speaker 3: adults or teenagers.
Speaker 4: There's a lot of consistency from early attachment styles of
Speaker 4: influence through to adult life. And you know, it's quite uncanny.
Speaker 4: You can almost predict the attachment style of a preborn
Speaker 4: infant by interviewing the mother and then having a look
Speaker 4: at what happens ten years down the track, and you
Speaker 4: can pretty much get a good hit on what sort
Speaker 4: of attachment style that child's going to have. But there
Speaker 4: are definitely things that happen throughout the livespan. Definitely in adolescents.
Speaker 4: Sometimes there are a sort of you know what we'd
Speaker 4: call relational sort of trauma or stresses where somebody's got
Speaker 4: a really bad experience or a very intense experience and
Speaker 4: it orients them totally differently. It can even be bullying
Speaker 4: at school. It can be really shame inducing and suddenly
Speaker 4: the person loses their sense of security and they get
Speaker 4: really pushed off their equilibrium. The other way that it
Speaker 4: can sort of develop a lot later in life is
Speaker 4: an adult relationship to it as a real dependence on
Speaker 4: a person. And let's say you've got financial or physical
Speaker 4: dependence on a person. You're in a relationship and you're
Speaker 4: not financially independent, and suddenly that person becomes epusive in
Speaker 4: some way or dominating, and it can then be a
Speaker 4: real mix of this sort of real dependency and these
Speaker 4: developing traits of codependency, and it can be pretty hard
Speaker 4: to tease apart.
Speaker 1: So what's the difference between codependency and just dependency? Is
Speaker 1: there a difference or is that a silly question?
Speaker 4: Yeah? No, I love that you're asking that. It's a
Speaker 4: great question. I think the risk of the term codependency
Speaker 4: is that we start to think of dependency as something negative,
Speaker 4: you know, And that really is the popular culture thing
Speaker 4: is like I don't want to be so needy, you know,
Speaker 4: And I think we really have to knock that on
Speaker 4: the head. I mean, what we're doing now in a
Speaker 4: lot of adult relationship work is looking at what healthy
Speaker 4: dependency looks like and healthy interdependency. And we now know
Speaker 4: that the sort of modern theory of adult love tells
Speaker 4: us the being able to depend on somebody, being able
Speaker 4: to call on them and bring them near to you
Speaker 4: to help and suthe you, is the most adaptive way
Speaker 4: to be in the world. Right, being alone just doesn't
Speaker 4: work as well. It's not as efficient. Right, you don't
Speaker 4: get as good a result. A host of studies now
Speaker 4: that tell us, even physically, the incidence of heart disease
Speaker 4: are stress cardiovascular problems are much lower in people who
Speaker 4: are well connected and who can call on another person
Speaker 4: for support. We do things like functional MRI studies where
Speaker 4: we look at people holding the hand of another person
Speaker 4: while they're enduring an electric shock, and if they're holding
Speaker 4: the hand of somebody they can reliably depend on, their
Speaker 4: experience of pain is greatly lessened. So we really understand
Speaker 4: now that dependency is a way to go. A codependency
Speaker 4: or a complex dependency which isn't going well, well, yeah,
Speaker 4: that can lead you to difficulties.
Speaker 1: That's so interesting that a I want to know who's
Speaker 1: putting their hand up to have an electric shock in
Speaker 1: an MRI machine.
Speaker 3: But I guess there's this in life. And I've talked
Speaker 3: to my friends about it, and I've thought about it
Speaker 3: a lot.
Speaker 1: I was on my own, I was single for the
Speaker 1: best part of ten years, So personally, I have no
Speaker 1: or I like to think I have no dependency or
Speaker 1: codependency issues.
Speaker 2: Sure that could develop, but.
Speaker 1: I just feel like as a learned trade, I learned
Speaker 1: to be in my own financially, emotionally, physically for a
Speaker 1: long time. But I guess when I speak to all
Speaker 1: my friends and everything, there is this real negative connotation
Speaker 1: to the idea of being needy. So when friends are
Speaker 1: talking about relationships, or I have a guy friend, for example, the.
Speaker 2: First thing he'll say is, I'm not that into it.
Speaker 2: She just seems a.
Speaker 3: Bit needy, She seems a bit too much, she wants
Speaker 3: to call me too much. Is there always this negativity
Speaker 3: surrounding codependency or can there ever be, Like you just said,
Speaker 3: other aspects of positivity Besides the fact that you know
Speaker 3: when you're being shocked, you feel more calm because you
Speaker 3: have someone with you. But are there other positive aspects
Speaker 3: to it?
Speaker 4: The cult that I belong to a relationship counselors, we're
Speaker 4: sort of super into lovely dependency and making it work
Speaker 4: so that each person can go out and be independent,
Speaker 4: knowing that they can come back to a really secure place. Right,
Speaker 4: so we've got this concept of a secure base. It's
Speaker 4: like we come back together to connect to sort of sense,
Speaker 4: share the things we're interested and excited about, share that
Speaker 4: things are a bit stressed about, help each other out
Speaker 4: with those, and then we go back out into the
Speaker 4: world and have our independence. So they're not exclusive of
Speaker 4: each other. But I get the feeling like maybe modern
Speaker 4: live instead of some of these sort of new ways
Speaker 4: of saying, ah, she's too needy. But it may also
Speaker 4: be a complaint about something else, which is we're just
Speaker 4: not quite able to work out how to get our
Speaker 4: cadence right together. We're just not able to sort of
Speaker 4: work out how to make it work so that we're
Speaker 4: both getting what we need here. And I think there
Speaker 4: is a lot of competing pressures in modern life. Right
Speaker 4: We're always working, we're at leisure, we're always doing everything
Speaker 4: at once. So it is more complicated now to sort
Speaker 4: of work out is it in our time to be
Speaker 4: together or are we doing something else.
Speaker 1: How common is it in your practice that people would
Speaker 1: come to you and talk to you about codependency being
Speaker 1: an issue for them.
Speaker 4: Generally speaking, the issues that we see most of in
Speaker 4: couples counseling are people who have perhaps drifted apart. Okay,
Speaker 4: that is in a sense the most dangerous if you
Speaker 4: like presentation, the most negative prognosis, where people have totally
Speaker 4: disconnected from each other, where they've failed at connecting so
Speaker 4: much that they've just gone into their own own worlds.
Speaker 4: And that's really it can be harder to turn around
Speaker 4: than a couple who's in high conflict. But the high
Speaker 4: conflict couples we see there is usually a pattern that establishes,
Speaker 4: and one person feels like they're not getting enough of
Speaker 4: a connection and they will sort of reach out for
Speaker 4: more of a connection, and the way they can often
Speaker 4: do that is through frustration or criticism. The other party
Speaker 4: then feels like, well, I'm not getting it right here,
Speaker 4: I'm not winning, I don't want to cut start a fight,
Speaker 4: so I'll sort of keep myself to myself and they
Speaker 4: start to withdraw and this sets up a little bit
Speaker 4: of a dance of sort of what we call a
Speaker 4: sewer distancer, and so the pursuer can start to look
Speaker 4: like a really needy, codependent person and you might say, Geane,
Speaker 4: they're so needy, right, But what you're not seeing is
Speaker 4: on the other side that the sort of real thing
Speaker 4: they're wanting is an engagement, like a real connection about something.
Speaker 4: The way they're going about it, it's to be critical.
Speaker 4: So this other person pulling away, and this is really ubiquitous.
Speaker 4: This is nearly all couples at some point in their
Speaker 4: relationship will recognize this pattern if they've been together for
Speaker 4: any length of time and they've had a few stresses
Speaker 4: thrown in the job, stress or children or whatever. So
Speaker 4: it's definitely a part of every relationship pattern that will
Speaker 4: sort of see that pursue distance. Not every but you
Speaker 4: know most of them will see that pursue distance pattern.
Speaker 4: But it's not quite the same as codependent because really
Speaker 4: what's happening there is that the dependency needs aren't being
Speaker 4: met properly and the person's in a reactive state. The
Speaker 4: more clinical sort of presentation of that codependency we see
Speaker 4: when somebody's had let's say early or relational trauma and
Speaker 4: they're not feeling really safe in the relationship and they
Speaker 4: feel really urgent about having the other person there. They
Speaker 4: feel like if this person turns away from me and
Speaker 4: doesn't sort of regard me, Well, it doesn't care for me,
Speaker 4: I'll fall apart. I will just dissolve. And they can
Speaker 4: become so panicked that they might drink, or they might
Speaker 4: act out in a huge way. They might cause themselves
Speaker 4: harm and then tell somebody let them know they've done that,
Speaker 4: and that is what we would sort of call that
Speaker 4: sort of more clinical level of codependency. Or on the
Speaker 4: other hand, you might have somebody who feels so much
Speaker 4: of a need to be reassured about being special to
Speaker 4: the person loved that they've got a sort of a
Speaker 4: more narcissistic need where they want constant reassurance of their specialness.
Speaker 4: And they might look like the dominant party. They might
Speaker 4: look the one who's giving everything to the relationship and
Speaker 4: who's the hero, but they're being bolstered by somebody who's
Speaker 4: constantly looking after their ego. And if they're turned away
Speaker 4: from they can get quite ashamed. Often that's off the
Speaker 4: shame based issue. They can get violent or controlling or manipulative.
Speaker 4: So yeah, those are the sort of patterns that we
Speaker 4: don't see that often, but they're the more serious what
Speaker 4: we'd sort of probably be able to call codependent. In somewhere.
Speaker 1: Do you ever think that people are fearful of explaining
Speaker 1: or asking for what they want in relationships, for fear
Speaker 1: of being deemed as needy or for coming across as codependent.
Speaker 4: That kind of is a good question of like, is
Speaker 4: it a turn off to ask what you need? No? Actually,
Speaker 4: we know that when people clearly, cleanly ask for their
Speaker 4: needs to be met, when they show vulnerability, it's a
Speaker 4: massive magnet. And that's the same for men and women.
Speaker 4: It's just a mammal thing when we say, hey, look,
Speaker 4: here's my underbelly. I want to be with you. If
Speaker 4: people like that, you need to tap into what it
Speaker 4: is you want. And often if you just ask yourself
Speaker 4: the question is do I want to be nearer? Do
Speaker 4: I want to be closer to this person? The answer
Speaker 4: is probably yes, what do I really want? And how
Speaker 4: do I bring that a non accusatory way that is
Speaker 4: about what I want rather than about what they're not doing?
Speaker 4: And that's super easy to say, it's super hard to do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, It's like here at life, I'm kitt Laura and
Speaker 1: I We constantly people advice, We give each other advice,
Speaker 1: we give our friends advice. And then when it happens
Speaker 1: to ourselves. We're in a situation, we just that advice
Speaker 1: goes out the window. Do you think it's easier for
Speaker 1: people outside of the relationship to identify what's happening in
Speaker 1: your relationship as opposed to actually being in the relationship.
Speaker 1: So to many couples to come to you knowing that
Speaker 1: they're in that situation, or do they come to you
Speaker 1: with their problems and you're like, hang on a minute,
Speaker 1: I know what's going on.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Look, I think often they don't know what's going on.
Speaker 4: There's often a sense of things aren't good. He's not changing,
Speaker 4: he's not hearing me. All the other way around. Everyone
Speaker 4: else is sort of concerned about us. Yes, we should
Speaker 4: do something about it doesn't feel good. There's lots of fights,
Speaker 4: But outside the relationship people are seeing, hey, you're starting
Speaker 4: to compromise yourself, you know. And it can be a
Speaker 4: stippery slight. But it doesn't necessarily always happen that it's
Speaker 4: a childhood condition. Sometimes it's just to be fall in
Speaker 4: love with somebody and they gradually show themselves to be
Speaker 4: a little unwell, like they might have an addiction that
Speaker 4: we didn't know about, and suddenly we're like, oh, well,
Speaker 4: I really want to keep the relationship. I'll make it work.
Speaker 4: Or they've got a gambling problem, or they don't like
Speaker 4: us seeing our friends, and suddenly we're like making excuses
Speaker 4: and everybody is going, this is bad news. But we
Speaker 4: are so attached and we so want to make it work.
Speaker 4: With that attachment drive, that desire to connect starts us
Speaker 4: compromising ourselves, and yet everybody else can see it, but
Speaker 4: we're like, no, no, no, I really need this.
Speaker 3: So you think sometimes it's important for us to I mean,
Speaker 3: if friends or family or people that are close to
Speaker 3: us are reaching out and telling us things these things,
Speaker 3: do you think it's important to actually take that on
Speaker 3: board and try and take yourself out of the situation,
Speaker 3: Because I feel like a lot of people get really defensive.
Speaker 4: I've had experiences like when I started in clinical practice
Speaker 4: twenty plus years ago, out of client, she was in
Speaker 4: hospital for a very strong alcohol dependency. She was in
Speaker 4: an extremely violent relationship and a very isolated spot in
Speaker 4: the country. I was the sort of case manager on
Speaker 4: this file, and after three or four weeks of inpatient treatment,
Speaker 4: we'd made this plan for her to leave and for
Speaker 4: her to arrange her affairs. And on the last day
Speaker 4: I went to sort of go over her exit plan,
Speaker 4: and she was like, you know, yeah, I've just decided
Speaker 4: to go back just for a few more weeks, just
Speaker 4: to tidy up and do a few bits and bobs
Speaker 4: with these affairs that I've got to settle. My heart
Speaker 4: just sunk and I just thought, Wow, like, you know,
Speaker 4: this is the power of that sort of a toxic
Speaker 4: attachment or that sort of a sort of need to
Speaker 4: stay connected. And so I think that we can be
Speaker 4: so attached to the relationship that we don't see the
Speaker 4: danger that everybody else sees, and even if we do,
Speaker 4: we feel more urgent about losing the relationship than having
Speaker 4: that other dangerous thing happened to us. So I think
Speaker 4: there's a couple of things that I can think to do.
Speaker 4: You know, one thing I learned was that if you're
Speaker 4: really with somebody who doesn't want to look after themselves
Speaker 4: in something, then sometimes we can turn it and to
Speaker 4: have them take the perspective of their partners. So, for example,
Speaker 4: in a relationship where somebody is violent and the if
Speaker 4: you're like victim isn't wanting to speak for themselves, we
Speaker 4: can start to say things like, look, you know, I'm
Speaker 4: aware that X has been violent with you lately, and
Speaker 4: it seems to me like he's got a lot of
Speaker 4: regret about that, and I'm thinking we should work on
Speaker 4: something we can do to sort of make sure that
Speaker 4: doesn't happen, because I know it's bad to both of you.
Speaker 4: So we incorporate the other person into the care which
Speaker 4: sounds a little bit benevolitive, and it is, but it's
Speaker 4: sometimes just a way of getting a little bit of
Speaker 4: an entry point, which is they're so used to caring
Speaker 4: for the other, we have to bring the other into
Speaker 4: the equation and make it something that's going to be
Speaker 4: beneficial for everybody. The other way where codependency comes from
Speaker 4: is actually from the addictions movement, and it comes from
Speaker 4: the idea of partners who are dependent, or rather were
Speaker 4: seen to be codependent with their addictive partners. There's the
Speaker 4: sort of philosophy of, look, we can't enable you, we
Speaker 4: can't agree with you, but we're here for you, or
Speaker 4: ready here to sort of be with you and love
Speaker 4: you and support you. Think it our help to sort
Speaker 4: of get sober or get claimed. So in a roundabout way,
Speaker 4: I guess what I'm saying is you can stay a
Speaker 4: good friend by staying in contact, staying connected and being there,
Speaker 4: but you've got to wait for that person's readiness to
Speaker 4: sort of have the opening.
Speaker 1: If somebody is listening to this and they think that
Speaker 1: maybe they themselves have some codependent tendencies or that it's
Speaker 1: something that they identify with, but they're definitely not ready
Speaker 1: to leave their relationship, or they're not even necessarily ready
Speaker 1: to have those conversations with their friends, and there is
Speaker 1: that defensiveness. What are some suggestions that you might have
Speaker 1: or how can somebody work through having these codependent personality traits?
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, look, I think it's tremendously hard to work
Speaker 4: on yourself. But one of the things you can ask yourself,
Speaker 4: I guess, is you can make a list of things
Speaker 4: that you've compromised in order to be in the relationship.
Speaker 4: You know, like in terms of trying to build some motivation,
Speaker 4: you can say, look, are they're things that I've never
Speaker 4: imagined myself accepting or doing or agreeing with that I'm
Speaker 4: now doing And try to make that list and try
Speaker 4: to sort of see, look, what would it look like
Speaker 4: if I wanted to get these once non negotiables back
Speaker 4: into my life, like, how would my partner react right?
Speaker 4: How do I feel about the fact that they don't
Speaker 4: react well? And even if I'm not ready to admit
Speaker 4: it to anyone else because they might threaten my desire
Speaker 4: for this relationship, can I admit it to myself that
Speaker 4: I'm starting to compromise myself? Can I start to build
Speaker 4: that awareness? And then I guess just acknowledging that, like
Speaker 4: the dependency you have, it really is giving you something,
Speaker 4: even though it might just look abusive to other people.
Speaker 4: That sort of shared commitment to each other is the
Speaker 4: most essential thing in human adult experience is to have
Speaker 4: somebody else that you can count on, is to have
Speaker 4: a connected adult partner. We just know it's the dependency
Speaker 4: that really helps people to thrive. So I guess it's
Speaker 4: just acknowledging, Look, I have a real need here, and
Speaker 4: at the same time, there are things that I'm starting
Speaker 4: to compromise and starting to keep in mind whether or
Speaker 4: not you can bring those things back into the relationships
Speaker 4: as needs of yours. You know what a lot of
Speaker 4: people will do is they'll sort of speak to their
Speaker 4: friends about it, and they'll sort of say, oh, you know,
Speaker 4: this and this happen. Their friends will get really urgent
Speaker 4: and say you've got to do this, you got to
Speaker 4: do that. Then you'll go, yeah, yeah, I really got
Speaker 4: to And it's just a cycle and never goes anywhere.
Speaker 4: So I guess I'm trying to acknowledge both. I'm trying
Speaker 4: to say, look, at least to yourself, acknowledge in a
Speaker 4: real way what the issues are, don't try and sort
Speaker 4: of hand them over to somebody else, necessarily initially, and
Speaker 4: then also acknowledge that you really have this need for
Speaker 4: this or this design for this connection. And if that's
Speaker 4: a dilemma that you can't solve on your own, then
Speaker 4: it's probably not a bad idea to have a private
Speaker 4: space to do some therapy and to try and see
Speaker 4: if you can sort of rebuild and reconnect with this
Speaker 4: sort of sense of self or maybe develop it for
Speaker 4: the first time. The sense of this is who I am,
Speaker 4: this is what I need. I come first. I have
Speaker 4: to look up with these certain things, and it's not
Speaker 4: so easy for everybody to do, so I'm not quick
Speaker 4: to judge people who are struggling with this. Come back
Speaker 4: to that sort of is what the definition of codependent.
Speaker 4: Sometimes we've got people who are let's say, engaged in addiction,
Speaker 4: or we've got serious mental health issues, and if they're
Speaker 4: unaddressed and the other person's trying to sort of make
Speaker 4: it work, you've got one partner who's trying to make
Speaker 4: the relationship work and somebody else is very unconscious about
Speaker 4: a lot of their behavior. Right in that circumstance. We
Speaker 4: call those pretty hard reasons in order to address the
Speaker 4: relationship in relationship counseling and to ask for change. So
Speaker 4: those things have got to be addressed by the other partner.
Speaker 4: So you can try and change yourselves as much as
Speaker 4: you want. But if there's an unaddressed significant addiction or
Speaker 4: mental health issue, or you know, violence, those are hard
Speaker 4: reasons to ask the other person to look at their
Speaker 4: behavior and change. You can't turn that around them, you're right.
Speaker 4: But if there's a sense of look, you know, we're
Speaker 4: in this sort of dance where I'm constantly sort of
Speaker 4: asking you to be there more and you're constantly feeling
Speaker 4: I'm too needy. I would hate for somebody to give
Speaker 4: up the relationship on that basis, because I think that
Speaker 4: happens to most couple at some point.
Speaker 1: Can you just tell us overall, what do you think
Speaker 1: has changed over twenty years.
Speaker 3: What do you think has changed? What is our generation
Speaker 3: doing wrong or differently? Because the biggest thing we get
Speaker 3: in our dms and our emails that people write in
Speaker 3: is that they can't make relationships work. They feel like
Speaker 3: no one wants a relationship anymore. They feel like people
Speaker 3: throw it away and check out too quickly. They feel
Speaker 3: like they're disposable. And I think this is why people
Speaker 3: are making sacrifices and settling in relationships, because they're so
Speaker 3: scared that these days someone's going to be like, you
Speaker 3: know what, thank you. Next I can jump on twenty
Speaker 3: five different dating apps and find someone to replace you.
Speaker 1: What do you think we're doing wrong?
Speaker 4: As an individual psychotherapist, where I work with individuals, I
Speaker 4: see a lot of this and a lot of people
Speaker 4: sort of going, you know what. In the real world,
Speaker 4: I can't demand my real needs. I can't really ask
Speaker 4: people to take me seriously. I've got to just sort
Speaker 4: of be playful and easy going and roll with the punches.
Speaker 4: And I think that's our mistake as a society. As
Speaker 4: a society, we're not demanding proper dates, proper starts to
Speaker 4: a relationship right, and so people are going along and
Speaker 4: trying to play it cool and allowing all sorts of
Speaker 4: shitty behavior that makes us feel insecure, and maybe this
Speaker 4: will change. Maybe you know, my model is outdated, but
Speaker 4: my sense is that people need a bit of certainty
Speaker 4: when they're starting out on something, at least in that
Speaker 4: sort of courting period, that like, hey, let's check each
Speaker 4: other out. Let's see if we're into each other, and
Speaker 4: let's do that at the exclusivity to some extent of
Speaker 4: other people. Once we have an idea that maybe it's
Speaker 4: sort of something we're interested in, and I think that
Speaker 4: we need to sort of back ourselves and go, you
Speaker 4: know what, like proper order to things, you know, like,
Speaker 4: let's take this seriously for a while. Let's not see
Speaker 4: anyone else for a little WHI, let's give us a
Speaker 4: little shot. We don't have to be super casual about
Speaker 4: sex or about dating. I think there's this sort of
Speaker 4: casualization now of sex where it'swipe left, let's hook up
Speaker 4: and then see what happens next. We can still be
Speaker 4: traditional and say, look, you know, let's meet, let's go
Speaker 4: for a walk, let's have a coffee, let's see if
Speaker 4: our bodies actually feel like sex before we get into it,
Speaker 4: rather than get really pissed and just hook up it
Speaker 4: and then sort of feel like shit. So I think
Speaker 4: trusting ourselves a little bit more on what our bodies
Speaker 4: are telling us we really would do if we had
Speaker 4: the choice, and backing ourselves rather than falling victim to
Speaker 4: the sort of commodification or sort of applification of our relationships.
Speaker 4: You know, we've kind of got to win back a
Speaker 4: little bit of our control about how humans do shit
Speaker 4: from the tender era.
Speaker 1: Dan, thank you so much for coming on the podcast
Speaker 1: and bringing your expertise to talk to us about codependency.
Speaker 1: For anybody who is interested in finding out more about you,
Speaker 1: where can they find you?
Speaker 4: Yeah, so you can. You can find us on the
Speaker 4: internet Associated Counselors. I work with a network of counselors
Speaker 4: around Sydney or counselor Sydney dot com, dot you, or
Speaker 4: you can follow us on eight two o five five
Speaker 4: sixty six and we'll get to put up with the
Speaker 4: councilor look for yourself with your relationship.
Speaker 2: Thanks Dan, all right, thank you?
Speaker 1: All right, guys, you know that we never finish our
Speaker 1: episode with that. Our suck and our suite, our highlight
Speaker 1: and our lowlight of each and every week. Brittany, I
Speaker 1: know what your sucking your sweet is going to be
Speaker 1: this week, because I'm pretty sure maybe for the first
Speaker 1: time in two and a half years, we have the
Speaker 1: same sucking suite. Okay, I'm going to start bye, We're
Speaker 1: going to do opposites.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna start with a suite this week and then Laura,
Speaker 3: you can deliver our suck our suite one hundred and
Speaker 3: ten thousand percent. Is that because of all your amazing humans,
Speaker 3: We won the Listener Choice of the Podcast Awards for
Speaker 3: the Australian Podcast Awards for two years running, and we
Speaker 3: were just it was actually so unexpected and we were
Speaker 3: so beyond excited. I can't believe that we got to
Speaker 3: the end of the episode before we remembered to like
Speaker 3: tell you guys and also thank you.
Speaker 1: It's just been a fucking mental week. But last Thursday
Speaker 1: is when the Podcast Awards were on. If you guys
Speaker 1: followed along on Instagram, you would have already known and
Speaker 1: we just we just love you, We just love you
Speaker 1: so much. So honestly, if you voted me has a
Speaker 1: puppy descent, to every single person who voted, 'll be
Speaker 1: in the mail next week. He's incorrect. That is a
Speaker 1: fabricated lie, Laura. But honestly, it was just the best night.
Speaker 1: It was so awesome to be out and be around
Speaker 1: people who were all from the industry because podcasting is
Speaker 1: such a weird thing. It's a weird, little, insular, isolated
Speaker 1: world where we all work in silos. We all sit
Speaker 1: in our bedrooms, or most people are a bit more
Speaker 1: professional than us, they sit in studios. But we don't
Speaker 1: really get to interact with other industry people. And so it's.
Speaker 2: Awesome which is in with each other.
Speaker 1: We don't have like a workplace. It's so amazing that
Speaker 1: there is every year, once a year that there is
Speaker 1: this Podcast Awards, and that it kind of just gives
Speaker 1: us a moment and to sit back and be like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's it's a really cool little industry that we get
Speaker 1: to work in.
Speaker 3: And we did also get bronze in another category, which
Speaker 3: is the Spotlight Award, which was we're really stoked about
Speaker 3: as well. But one thing I wanted to say is,
Speaker 3: and I feel like people might not know this, but
Speaker 3: podcasting is an industry where I think a lot of
Speaker 3: people think that women and competing podcasts are exactly that
Speaker 3: in competition.
Speaker 2: With each other, that we don't like each other.
Speaker 3: I cannot tell you how great it was to have
Speaker 3: drinks with all these other women that we I guess
Speaker 3: people think that in our competing categories were everyone was amazing,
Speaker 3: everyone was congratulating everybody.
Speaker 2: It was just such a beautiful environment. Totally wish people
Speaker 2: could see that. I wish we could see the behind
Speaker 2: the scenes.
Speaker 1: Actually, I'll read you around a message that Mia Friedman
Speaker 1: sent me because she wasn't there at the awards. But
Speaker 1: this is just goes to show this whole idea that
Speaker 1: just because we work in the same industry that podcasts
Speaker 1: must be competing for downloads, we must hate each other.
Speaker 1: Mia sent me a message saying you won, you fucking bitch.
Speaker 1: I presume there are some laughing emojis after that. I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't know why anyone would think that we all
Speaker 1: hate each other. Sure, I'm so thrilled for you guys.
Speaker 1: You have earned it. We're so proud of you. And
Speaker 1: I said, don't worry me out. We hate you guys
Speaker 1: as well. And then she said, oh yeah, cat fight
Speaker 1: with lots of little Ninja emojis.
Speaker 2: That's just the best.
Speaker 1: It's so awesome that even though we obviously are competing
Speaker 1: in this space that you know, we got to meet
Speaker 1: Jesse from Mama Mia out Loud, We've got to hang
Speaker 1: out with other people who are in our industry, and
Speaker 1: it really is such a supportive, uplifting women working together,
Speaker 1: little vibe I'm all for. There is absolutely room for everyone. Okay,
Speaker 1: we're talking about like women supporting women and women being
Speaker 1: successful in all this the suck of the week. I
Speaker 1: know that brit you have the same one, and I'm
Speaker 1: gonna say it right now. So you guys know, we
Speaker 1: talk about Daily Mail a lot on this podcast. We
Speaker 1: complain about the media all the time. So we did
Speaker 1: win the Podcast Awards. It was an awesome achievement and
Speaker 1: we were so so proud of ourselves and we were thinking,
Speaker 1: maybe for once, maybe for once, Daily Mail will write
Speaker 1: an article that's like, yeah, you know what, go the girls.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately, the article that came out, the article headline was
Speaker 1: Laura and Brittany get upstaged by a very handsome Mattie Jay.
Speaker 1: And now it doesn't sound like it's I mean, it's
Speaker 1: a pretty innocuous little headline. It doesn't sound like it's
Speaker 1: that offensive, but it really was. It was just a
Speaker 1: moment where I guess it felt so belittling that this
Speaker 1: huge achievement that we, you know, had worked so hard
Speaker 1: for and that all you guys had voted for, which
Speaker 1: meant the world to us, had been overshadowed by literally
Speaker 1: the suit that Matt was wearing. Literally you were wearing
Speaker 1: linen of the same color, and no one mentioned any
Speaker 1: Aboutlaura's abby.
Speaker 2: No, it was just really bad, pointing fucking iron my
Speaker 2: outfit too, guys. I had to iron at twice.
Speaker 1: Not to have the only article written be about Matt,
Speaker 1: who was there and how good he looked is absolutely
Speaker 1: I mean we were like, we don't need we don't
Speaker 1: need people to prop us up.
Speaker 2: That's not what it was about.
Speaker 1: We just thought, if you're going to write an article
Speaker 1: on us being at the podcast Awards, surely just maybe
Speaker 1: say well done to us, congratulations, good war, so not
Speaker 1: just make it about the man in the photo. So
Speaker 1: we were really disappointed with but Matt had such a
Speaker 1: great comeback. He recorded such a great video that sort
Speaker 1: of put them in their place.
Speaker 5: Last night was the Australian Podcast Awards, and there was
Speaker 5: an article that came out. Headline reads up here Laura
Speaker 5: and britt get upstaged by a very handsome Mattie Jay.
Speaker 5: And initially I was quite flattered, especially because it's a
Speaker 5: pretty shit photo of me. But then I thought, you
Speaker 5: know what a shame. This came out just after the
Speaker 5: girls had won the People's Choice Award for the most
Speaker 5: popular podcast and all of Australia. You know what an
Speaker 5: incredible achievement, and yet this is the headline they get.
Speaker 5: And I just think it was a perfect example of
Speaker 5: the sexism that women have to face by Australian media,
Speaker 5: and I just think we can do better.
Speaker 1: Anyway, That is it from us, guys, Another episode down.
Speaker 1: Thank you to everybody who has tuned in listened. Also
Speaker 1: to every single person who voted. We love you so
Speaker 1: much and we are so grateful for this community. It
Speaker 1: is truly the best thing to ever happen to Brittan
Speaker 1: I and you guys.
Speaker 2: Know that are anyway. I mean, you know, once upon
Speaker 2: a time we won the bachel little Bit. Fuck it.
Speaker 2: This podcast well and truly is the best.
Speaker 1: But guys, you know the drill if you haven't left
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