Speaker 1: This episode was recorded on cameragle Land. Hi guys, and
Speaker 1: welcome back to another episode of Life. I'm Cut, I'm Laura,
Speaker 1: I'm Brittany. Now we've spoken about it on the podcast
Speaker 1: so many times around different decades of age or years.
Speaker 1: I always say that my twenties were an absolute effing
Speaker 1: shit show. They were just like the years where everything
Speaker 1: seemed to go wrong and I don't know what I
Speaker 1: was doing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, But then I always talk about the fact that
Speaker 2: I hit my thirties as well, and I did not
Speaker 2: have the life I thought I was going to have.
Speaker 2: I was so single, I'd been dumped on the bachelogue,
Speaker 2: I didn't have the white picket fans, I didn't have kids,
Speaker 2: didn't know where I was going. And it's like this
Speaker 2: idea that society says you've got to have your shit
Speaker 2: together when you really just don't.
Speaker 1: Do you feel though, britt and I know this is
Speaker 1: an intro, but we'll get into that in a second.
Speaker 1: Do you feel like your thirties were better than your
Speaker 1: twenties or do you feel like you're like, when did
Speaker 1: you peak?
Speaker 2: Oh man, my twenties were'lyty Like I had great twenties
Speaker 2: because I was in my twenties, I traveled to fifty countries.
Speaker 2: I went like around the world with my sister, but
Speaker 2: I was broke. And it's different now because now I
Speaker 2: have more money because I've got more of a stable job,
Speaker 2: but I don't have the time and freedom to go
Speaker 2: and do and live the life I wanted. So I
Speaker 2: think it's like it's a catch twenty two.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's so interesting because I think that we can
Speaker 1: approach new decades and especially real milestone birthdays like your
Speaker 1: twenty or your thirties or whatever it looks like for you,
Speaker 1: and be fearful about what it is to come. And
Speaker 1: I do think that there's something very unique about the
Speaker 1: decade of being in your thirties. It's the years where
Speaker 1: a lot of us figure out our relationships. It's where
Speaker 1: a lot of us figure out what we want in
Speaker 1: our careers, or we've come into a little bit more autonomy.
Speaker 1: But getting a better understanding of what that looks like
Speaker 1: can be really frightening. We have Bridget Husway joining us
Speaker 1: today on the podcast, and that is because Bridget has
Speaker 1: written a book and it is called Figuring Out Thirty,
Speaker 1: which is all about this topic. Something that we have
Speaker 1: unpacked so many times in our own lives, and I
Speaker 1: guess in some ways we're still figuring ourselves. Bridge isn't
Speaker 1: familiar to the podcast. We've had her on before to
Speaker 1: speak about endometriosis so long ago when we very first started.
Speaker 3: But Bridge, welcome back to the podcast.
Speaker 4: Thanks for having me. I'm so excited to catch up because, yeah,
Speaker 4: the last time that we did speak about ENDO, that
Speaker 4: was when shit was really kicking off for me. But
Speaker 4: I was just in like book press mode for how
Speaker 4: to ENDO, but all this kind of personal internal chaos
Speaker 4: was happening, but I couldn't really tell you about it,
Speaker 4: But now I can a couple of years later.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so for those that may have missed it, we
Speaker 2: will link it in our show notes. But we did
Speaker 2: do an entire episode with Bridget around endometriosis. And now
Speaker 2: we are going to crack onto all the unexpected lessons
Speaker 2: that you've learned and all about the book. But before
Speaker 2: we do, you have shared previously a banging accidentally unfiltered
Speaker 2: where you've vomited at you work Christmas party. But do
Speaker 2: you have another one for us?
Speaker 4: I do well, the one that I thought of was
Speaker 4: the most recent one that's happened, and in a nutshell,
Speaker 4: it was telling Troy Sevann to go we wi and
Speaker 4: it got captured on National Live TV, and it was
Speaker 4: you go wee wee wee.
Speaker 3: Oh you just go do a wee wei.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I just said to him, you go we wei.
Speaker 4: It was at the Arias just recently, and I know,
Speaker 4: and I just decided to be like, go Toilee, toy,
Speaker 4: like toy Savann. The cameras weren't meant to be rolling,
Speaker 4: and they were. And then I watched the Arias back on,
Speaker 4: you know, on Stan and that whole thing is in conversation.
Speaker 4: He needed to go to the toilet. He just won
Speaker 4: an Aria, and so we had him backstage, and you know,
Speaker 4: we wanted to make it quick for him because he
Speaker 4: was clearly needing.
Speaker 3: To pay past it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and it was actually a bit of an extensive chat,
Speaker 4: and so we try to wrap it up and then
Speaker 4: I'm staring at the camera thinking that it goes off,
Speaker 4: because you know, like when you're on TV and you
Speaker 4: stare at it for a few seconds and everyone's just
Speaker 4: walking around as if like we have just gone off air.
Speaker 4: And I just turned to him and go, you go
Speaker 4: wee wee and he's like, yeah, I go wheak wee
Speaker 4: and walked off. Brigain made it to the broadcast.
Speaker 1: I'm more interested whether you said it satirically, like will
Speaker 1: you try? Was it meant to be a joke or
Speaker 1: is it just something that you would say in a
Speaker 1: normal conversation.
Speaker 3: Yeah, got a.
Speaker 4: Normal conversation that was like so nurturing of me, But
Speaker 4: I did not intend that to make the bra.
Speaker 2: Always my fear, like working in radio or TV or whatever,
Speaker 2: when you have an aspect of being live, it's always
Speaker 2: my fear that somehow it's gonna like when you're talking
Speaker 2: in between breaks or whatever, that you're gonna go to
Speaker 2: air like you need to really monitor yourself.
Speaker 3: See the mum vibes in me is just like there's
Speaker 3: nothing wrong with saying we we. I'd be like, do
Speaker 3: you mean to wipe your bum? Do you need? Do
Speaker 3: you mean to wipe your bum?
Speaker 4: To me all the time exactly, But it was just
Speaker 4: like such a professional, considered music chat going straight to
Speaker 4: that and yeah, I don't know, don't trust anyone, don't
Speaker 4: trust any producers, don't trust cage. No, it would be fine,
Speaker 4: but like you just never know when the cameras are
Speaker 4: still on, still rolling.
Speaker 1: I mean, we got the press release for your book
Speaker 1: that kind of rolled across our desk, and Keisha literally
Speaker 1: devoured the book at a weekend and was like, you
Speaker 1: need to speak to bridget about this. And you know,
Speaker 1: I kind of think about my like I said, I
Speaker 1: think about my thirties, and I think about how they've
Speaker 1: been such pivotal years for me, like so much change
Speaker 1: has happened, but I also think they've been some of
Speaker 1: the best years of my life so far.
Speaker 3: What was it about figuring out.
Speaker 1: Thirty or turning thirty that made you want to write
Speaker 1: a book about it?
Speaker 4: Well, approaching thirty, I thought I had everything kind of
Speaker 4: downpat So on paper, it looked really good that I
Speaker 4: was hosting my own radio show, I was an author, yeah,
Speaker 4: becoming an no, I was an author approaching every yet
Speaker 4: that much yeah, already an author, approaching thirty five year relationships.
Speaker 4: So felt like that was pretty concrete, I guess.
Speaker 2: Which is laughable now.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I'm sure we'll get into that. But so
Speaker 4: these things on paper, you know, financially independent, all looked
Speaker 4: really good. But there was still just a very lingering
Speaker 4: sense of unease about approaching thirty. It kind of built
Speaker 4: up over the months, but as I was getting nearer
Speaker 4: and nearer, and then there was just this one night,
Speaker 4: middle of the night and ended up being four days
Speaker 4: before I got dumped. Four days before that even happened,
Speaker 4: I was up at like one am and just put
Speaker 4: a notes entry in my phone being like, I don't
Speaker 4: know what it is, but like, I'm freaking out about
Speaker 4: turning thirty, Like why I have all of these things.
Speaker 4: I mean, I'm not married, and I don't have kids,
Speaker 4: and I haven't owned like my own pet yet. I'm
Speaker 4: not sure if those are the things that are freaking
Speaker 4: me out or I'm just getting this weird sense of uneasy.
Speaker 4: And I don't know if that was a weird anticipation
Speaker 4: of I guess what was to come. But it's a
Speaker 4: really interesting thing because I don't think I was thinking
Speaker 4: about it at all until just yeah, those very close
Speaker 4: moments leading up to actually turning thirty, and you know,
Speaker 4: being in lockdown was probably an interesting situation with it
Speaker 4: as well, because I was kind of confined to this
Speaker 4: apartment that I was living in with my partner at
Speaker 4: the time, and I was feeling restless in that sense.
Speaker 4: But then I kind of was looking around me, and
Speaker 4: I guess more so from my friends back home and
Speaker 4: Balorite being in like a regional area, there's people settling
Speaker 4: down and some of my ex's friends were getting married
Speaker 4: and stuff, and I just didn't feel like a grown up,
Speaker 4: the kind of grown up that I thought I needed
Speaker 4: to become thirty, there was definitely a gap between where
Speaker 4: I was at and where I thought I should be,
Speaker 4: and so that kind of catapulted everything. I mean, the
Speaker 4: breakup was six days before How to Endoor came out,
Speaker 4: and it was just freaking chaos. The year of thirty
Speaker 4: was just such a huge transformative year for relationships, fertility,
Speaker 4: even just looking back at family stuff and being like,
Speaker 4: why am I the way that I am? It was
Speaker 4: a really big personal debrief and also just thinking about
Speaker 4: why are women in particular freaking out about this? And
Speaker 4: why do we have the pressures with aging and you know,
Speaker 4: the biological clock and this crazy sense of urgency and
Speaker 4: can we please talk about it more.
Speaker 1: I definitely think that thirty as an age, it's kind
Speaker 1: of like the first time that you become really conscious
Speaker 1: of age, Like I don't mean my twenties, kind of
Speaker 1: just like say o by. I never had a point
Speaker 1: in my twenties where I was like, oh, I need
Speaker 1: to think about these things. But it was the year
Speaker 1: I also turned thirty that I was like, fuck, my
Speaker 1: life is not where I thought it was going to be.
Speaker 2: It's because we as a society put that expectation on
Speaker 2: and the fact that we just make thirty the benchmark
Speaker 2: because it is a new decade where you are supposed
Speaker 2: to have a little bit more responsibility, because everyone gives
Speaker 2: you a bit of leniency in your twenties to be
Speaker 2: like a bit.
Speaker 3: Of a mass, a bit of a waker, great.
Speaker 2: With your money, whatever it is, you get a hall pass.
Speaker 2: But in your thirties you don't get as much grace,
Speaker 2: I don't think. And also I think it comes from
Speaker 2: I'd love to know what you think as well. But
Speaker 2: thirty is crucial for women because we are told statistically
Speaker 2: and scientifically biologically that our clock, our biological clock, is
Speaker 2: slowing down. So that's just not a number that we've pulled,
Speaker 2: you know, from anywhere society pulls numbers out of their
Speaker 2: buttthole when it's like you should own a house by thirty.
Speaker 2: But it's a little bit different when it comes to fertility,
Speaker 2: because we know there is a clock. Do you reckon
Speaker 2: you have any more insight now since you've done this
Speaker 2: deep drive on your on for you specifically, do you
Speaker 2: think that all of this uneasy and anxiety that you
Speaker 2: felt that night, do you think that came more from
Speaker 2: your own internal pressures or from society's pressures. Or do
Speaker 2: you think maybe you felt a little bit unsettled because
Speaker 2: you knew maybe something was about to change a few
Speaker 2: days later, as you said, you got broken up.
Speaker 4: With Yeah, kind of all the above. I think, you know,
Speaker 4: when I look back at my twenties, I was twenty
Speaker 4: one when I started to be really career focused and
Speaker 4: really striving to be a music presenter, and I got
Speaker 4: my first time, my first full time gig in that
Speaker 4: field at the age of twenty seven. So the thought
Speaker 4: of kids was just never in question, nor was marriage.
Speaker 4: I never felt any direct pressure from my parents or anything.
Speaker 4: They've been amazing in that regard, like, I've never once
Speaker 4: felt an ounce of pressure from them that I need
Speaker 4: to marry someone, or settle down or have kids for
Speaker 4: that matter. So I think there was I guess that
Speaker 4: internal comparison. I think again, with lockdowns because we you know,
Speaker 4: I was in Melbourne, so I was very confined and
Speaker 4: once you kind of come out of lockdowns too, or
Speaker 4: even when you're in the midst of it. There was
Speaker 4: a really interesting thing that I read called the pandemic SKIP.
Speaker 4: So it's kind of like, you know, you don't feel
Speaker 4: like a lot of my friends turn thirty in lockdown
Speaker 4: and you don't feel like you're that age because you
Speaker 4: haven't been able to go out and experience, you know,
Speaker 4: those last few years or months leading into your thirties.
Speaker 4: But now you're kind of at that age where you
Speaker 4: initially thought this is when I was going to have kids.
Speaker 4: I mean, my mum had four kids under the age
Speaker 4: of four when she was thirty two, and I'm thirty three,
Speaker 4: and I just could not relate to that at all.
Speaker 4: Like that terrifies me when I think about home ownership
Speaker 4: as well. I mean, obviously cost of living is cooked,
Speaker 4: so that was never a direct pressure. But I think
Speaker 4: it's like a historical societal pressure because what we've seen
Speaker 4: previous generations do, and I think, being like millennial women,
Speaker 4: we've kind of been not the I don't want to
Speaker 4: say we're the first, but where a generation where we
Speaker 4: haven't been literally ticking off tick tick tick tick because
Speaker 4: our parents, you know, we're going through that time where
Speaker 4: they could begin women were beginning to be in the workplace,
Speaker 4: But now we are very much in it.
Speaker 1: I think it's fascinating to me, though, because this is
Speaker 1: such a universal feeling that so many women in their
Speaker 1: thirties have.
Speaker 3: But the thing is, so many.
Speaker 1: Of us feel like this collectively, but so many of
Speaker 1: us are not in you know, stable relationships or the
Speaker 1: relationship that we thought we would be in by this time.
Speaker 1: A lot of us don't have the jobs of the
Speaker 1: careers that we thought we would have. And I'm not
Speaker 1: sure if there is even though a lot more people
Speaker 1: are talking about it, I don't know if we find
Speaker 1: collective comfort in this, because I still think we compare
Speaker 1: ourselves every day. On Ask Guncut, we get questions from
Speaker 1: people who are all different ages, who say, like, my
Speaker 1: life is just not where I expected it to be.
Speaker 1: For you, going through a breakup, a really significant one
Speaker 1: just before thirty, how did you grapple with that change
Speaker 1: of identity from going from Okay, this is what I
Speaker 1: thought life was going to be, and now I'm here
Speaker 1: and I have to rebuild.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's an interesting one. Yeah. Again, you realize that
Speaker 4: space of where I was, where I thought I would be,
Speaker 4: and I hadn't fully yet embraced I guess the idea
Speaker 4: that those traditional markers of success didn't necessarily apply to
Speaker 4: me in the way that I expected. I just didn't
Speaker 4: know how to sit with that. And I think with
Speaker 4: a breakup as well. I mean that was the first snowball,
Speaker 4: and it was a very significant one at that because,
Speaker 4: you know, despite it was funny, despite having such a
Speaker 4: personality out there, being on Triple J and stuff, I
Speaker 4: felt like my identity had really collapsed when that breakup happened,
Speaker 4: and then going straight into book press mode too. Not
Speaker 4: that I didn't have a chance to process it. I
Speaker 4: kind of had a real game. I had no choice
Speaker 4: but to kind of, you know, face it front on
Speaker 4: and sign up for therapy, and you know, I really
Speaker 4: made a conscious effort to make sure I was processing
Speaker 4: things in real time. But I also didn't want it
Speaker 4: to taint the success of my book and everything.
Speaker 2: Did you see it coming the breakup?
Speaker 4: Look, it should have happened four months before it happens.
Speaker 4: So we had a conversation four months beforehand where I
Speaker 4: actually came to him and said that I was feeling unhappy.
Speaker 4: I was actually looking at getting my own rental, and
Speaker 4: I think that was a pretty I don't want to
Speaker 4: say a red flag, because it's.
Speaker 3: A pretty big red flag for a while, it's a
Speaker 3: pretty five.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think it's a red flag.
Speaker 3: For the red flag, but like, yeah, it really is.
Speaker 4: Especially when you're already living together. So don't want to
Speaker 4: say that. You know, there are some relationships out there
Speaker 4: where they don't live together for a really long time.
Speaker 4: But for us to go from living together to me
Speaker 4: now thinking about just having my own space again, and
Speaker 4: I was really yearning a sense of independence, and again
Speaker 4: lockdown probably amplified that, but I also was thinking, but
Speaker 4: I was suppressing it so much because I was approaching
Speaker 4: thirty that I was like, no, this is the one,
Speaker 4: this is the relationship, This is the serious relationship after
Speaker 4: my last youthful, reckless relationship, and we're approaching five years.
Speaker 4: I think what we really struggle with at this point
Speaker 4: in our lives, as we enter our thirties and throughout
Speaker 4: our thirties even our forties for women, is the fear
Speaker 4: of starting over. People we hear so much about fomo
Speaker 4: and being left behind, and there's a very unique tension
Speaker 4: between those. But it's something about the fear of starting
Speaker 4: over that really terrifies women, and for good reason. I mean,
Speaker 4: if you look at pop culture what we grew up
Speaker 4: watching and how thirty was embodied. Bridget Jones, Rachel Green
Speaker 4: calculating the timeline in Friends.
Speaker 2: That's Friends Laura. Laura doesn't watch Friends, so I'll just
Speaker 2: break that down.
Speaker 4: Oh okay, well that's a good episode to start on. Yeah,
Speaker 4: to be fair, I only started watching it in the
Speaker 4: last like eighteen months.
Speaker 2: Blasphemy both of you.
Speaker 1: I think as well, this idea of starting again, it
Speaker 1: is such a recurrent question that we get through our
Speaker 1: ask gun cuts from our listeners. The fear of starting
Speaker 1: again also comes from this fear of well, what if
Speaker 1: I don't get something that's better than this, Like what
Speaker 1: if this is as good as I either a deserve
Speaker 1: or b I can get, Especially when you find people
Speaker 1: who have found themselves in relationships that maybe aren't fulfilling,
Speaker 1: but they're a nice person.
Speaker 3: They're not in a toxic.
Speaker 1: Relationship, they're just dating essentially someone that they've maybe outgrown.
Speaker 2: I think also tied into it. As another layer is
Speaker 2: the sunk cost fallacy of well, I'm thirty and I've
Speaker 2: already I've already contributed five six seven years of my
Speaker 2: life to this person, Like I don't want to quote
Speaker 2: unquote waste that time, Like what a waste that would
Speaker 2: be to start again now. So I think it's like
Speaker 2: aspects of all three.
Speaker 3: What did starting again look like for you?
Speaker 4: Well, I mean, so we were three weeks into a
Speaker 4: new rental lease. We just moved into a new townhouse,
Speaker 4: so we were on like a month to month kind
Speaker 4: of thing, but we signed on this new twelve month lease.
Speaker 4: Kept checking in with him throughout that whole process, being
Speaker 4: like you sure you want to do this? Things were
Speaker 4: kind of tense, I guess stress with that move. Also
Speaker 4: in the lead up to the book. It's funny looking back,
Speaker 4: you know, because we were literally sleeping back to back
Speaker 4: in bed. There was no affection, so much distance, and
Speaker 4: I just, I guess was also so caught up in
Speaker 4: my book stuff that I didn't kind of clock it
Speaker 4: at the time. So, you know, Dolly Olderton has used
Speaker 4: a really great kind of analogy of sorts about this.
Speaker 4: She said in her Life Lessons, like if you had
Speaker 4: a big red button in front of you and if
Speaker 4: you could press it, and you know, you get through
Speaker 4: a breakup and all the practical things were no fuss,
Speaker 4: like it was fine, don't even think about those things.
Speaker 4: They would be taken care of if you could press
Speaker 4: a button that allows you to do it. Would you
Speaker 4: break up with this person? And if you're going if
Speaker 4: you're saying yes, and it's like, well you got to
Speaker 4: break up with them, because it's the practical aspect, and yes,
Speaker 4: that whole starting over for me, it was you know,
Speaker 4: having to find a new apartment to live in because
Speaker 4: there was like no way I was going to stay
Speaker 4: in this freaking townhouse that we just broke up, and
Speaker 4: you know, those logistical things. It's also the unraveling of routines,
Speaker 4: of relationships that you have with their family and friends,
Speaker 4: the dividing of belongings. I mean, fortunately in our case
Speaker 4: at least, like it could have been way more stressful
Speaker 4: in the sense that we didn't have a pet, we
Speaker 4: didn't have kids, we didn't have a mortgage, we didn't
Speaker 4: have joint bank accounts. So in comparison to other situations,
Speaker 4: like you know, it wasn't all bad, but it was
Speaker 4: still fucking stressful, but we got there. Took time, but
Speaker 4: it was not fun.
Speaker 1: Bridget you wrote in your book, the older you get,
Speaker 1: the higher the stakes are. Can you talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about what you mean by that in terms of
Speaker 1: relationships specifically?
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, I think it goes back to that whole
Speaker 4: fear of starting over and when you are in your thirties,
Speaker 4: and even if you're in your forties as well. The
Speaker 4: older you get, and you know, when I think back
Speaker 4: to my first breakup, right, so I just had to
Speaker 4: pack my toothbrush and get going. That was it. You know,
Speaker 4: there really wasn't much to it. A couple of drunken
Speaker 4: follow up pook ups in the months you know that
Speaker 4: came and that was stupid, but there was no big
Speaker 4: you know, it wasn't a big breakup. This was a
Speaker 4: big breakup because there was five years of emotional investment.
Speaker 4: I think the emotional investment side of things is very
Speaker 4: underestimated at this period in our lives, because, as you
Speaker 4: guys said before, when you're kind of thinking about I've
Speaker 4: put so many years into this relationship and I don't
Speaker 4: want it to be a waste or I've put all
Speaker 4: of this in because I thought he was the one
Speaker 4: and I definitely put my x on that pedestal of
Speaker 4: being the one, you know, and he wasn't, but I
Speaker 4: would I think I was so also just so scared
Speaker 4: of failure, you know, and that the relationship wouldn't work
Speaker 4: out and it should be working out at that age.
Speaker 4: So I think that's a big part of it. The
Speaker 4: higher the stakes. Again, it kind of goes back to
Speaker 4: if you in the relationship and you're not sure, but
Speaker 4: you're still cruising along and you are you know, you
Speaker 4: get to that point where you might have kids, and
Speaker 4: you have more of these practical things, and it just
Speaker 4: makes the whole separation a lot more difficult for you,
Speaker 4: if that makes sense.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I love this, but I almost think it
Speaker 1: has a time limit to it, because it's like the
Speaker 1: older you get, the higher the stakes are. I would
Speaker 1: say that for a woman, the higher stakes are kind
Speaker 1: of in your thirties or in your forties. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: for a lot of people who want children, once you've
Speaker 1: gone past that window of fertility, that window of yes,
Speaker 1: do I want kids?
Speaker 3: Is this the person?
Speaker 1: And a lot of relationship decisions in these years for
Speaker 1: a lot of people, and I don't want to speak
Speaker 1: for everyone, because there's loads of people who don't want
Speaker 1: to have kids, but they're driven by this idea of like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I can't waste time. The thing is is that once
Speaker 1: you get to a certain age, you might be in
Speaker 1: your fifties or your sixties, and I have friends who
Speaker 1: are dating now in that age group, and they're like,
Speaker 1: I have no time for bullshit because there's nothing that
Speaker 1: keeps me wanting more with this person if they're not amazing,
Speaker 1: Because what am I going to do? Spend twenty years
Speaker 1: with some fucking loser and time seventy But they're not
Speaker 1: gonna They're not going to like almost progress it as
Speaker 1: quickly as they might have had they been in a
Speaker 1: window when kids was part of this equation.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I think a lot of people and it's
Speaker 4: to no fault of their own, because again it speaks
Speaker 4: to this wider societal pressure and the biological aspect. Sometimes
Speaker 4: we get so caught up in trying to attain this thing,
Speaker 4: and again it's the idea of it as well that
Speaker 4: we will never kind of stop to think or question
Speaker 4: even if the person that if this is the person
Speaker 4: that we want those things with it's almost like a
Speaker 4: you'll do, like, let's just get it done. I mean,
Speaker 4: and I'm not saying that's the case for a lot
Speaker 4: of people, but I know I've definitely been guilty of
Speaker 4: having that kind of mindset, especially when I was twenty nine,
Speaker 4: because I was starting to think about children. Then I
Speaker 4: was actually thinking I was doing my own timeline. So
Speaker 4: I was like, oh, you know, maybe thirty one, I'll
Speaker 4: take maternity leave from the ABC and I'll stop doing
Speaker 4: good nights for that year, and that's when we'll have
Speaker 4: a kid. But I wasn't actually in a state or
Speaker 4: ready to have kids, but I was just doing the
Speaker 4: math there because I felt that deadline.
Speaker 1: And I know, I like I'm the one who made
Speaker 1: it just about children in that kind of questioning. But
Speaker 1: I do also think it pertains to other aspects, like
Speaker 1: it could be about getting married and having you know,
Speaker 1: because when all your friends and everyone around you seem
Speaker 1: to be in happy relationships, they're getting married, or they're
Speaker 1: moving in with their partners, all of these things kind
Speaker 1: of shine a spotlight on yourself and you go, well,
Speaker 1: why don't I have that or who is that person
Speaker 1: that I'm going to do? Those things?
Speaker 4: With even career as well. Liked about career being scared
Speaker 4: to quit or change industries at that age. It's all terrifying.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it does come back to that idea of
Speaker 1: what you said, Brute, like this idea of how much
Speaker 1: time you've put into something is how much harder it
Speaker 1: is to walk away from it entirely. You speak about
Speaker 1: an interesting relationship dynamic that you have, and it's something
Speaker 1: that a lot of people have to navigate. Is kind
Speaker 1: of as we get older, figuring out what does that
Speaker 1: relationship look like with our parents or also with our
Speaker 1: siblings when we no longer have like a juvenile relationship
Speaker 1: with them because we've got to be friends with them.
Speaker 1: But we move into adults who can choose the relationships
Speaker 1: we have. You know, in my life, like Matt doesn't
Speaker 1: have a relationship with his dad. He made an active
Speaker 1: decision in his thirties that he doesn't speak to his
Speaker 1: dad anymore, and that's the relationship they have. But something
Speaker 1: a lot of people might not know about you is
Speaker 1: you have a twin mm hmm.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and it's rise as people because it's like not
Speaker 4: only a sibling, but it's.
Speaker 3: A twin, you know, and you like the same person.
Speaker 4: We womb mates, you know. And I think because it
Speaker 4: kind of stems back to that ideal or assumption that
Speaker 4: you know, twins are the closest bond of all and
Speaker 4: by no means my disputing that, because I've seen that
Speaker 4: for pretty much all the twins that I do know,
Speaker 4: except for my situation. My dad's also a twin. He's
Speaker 4: got a twin sister, but also no contact, So estrangement
Speaker 4: is a real Honestly, the topic of family dynamics and estrangement,
Speaker 4: I think was the biggest one for me. You know,
Speaker 4: once I got over the real bumpy bits of heartbreak,
Speaker 4: I really was wanting to kind of I just had
Speaker 4: this crazy curiosity. It's like, you know, when you're a
Speaker 4: toddler and like you'll have this laura like when your
Speaker 4: girls are like but why, but why? But why and
Speaker 4: they're constantly asking but why. For me, when I was thirty,
Speaker 4: I was just like why am I like this? Like
Speaker 4: why do I, you know, regulate my emotions like this?
Speaker 4: Or why do I stress like this? And how has
Speaker 4: my both my parents had quite abusive upbringings. My dad
Speaker 4: had a very abusive upbringing. His dad took his own life.
Speaker 4: So I never met his dad. That was before I
Speaker 4: was born, but it was kind of as a result
Speaker 4: of this just awful upbringing that he was responsible for.
Speaker 4: So there's just been a kind of a legacy of
Speaker 4: trauma I suppose that has kind of trinkled through my
Speaker 4: family web and coming to understand how that has influenced
Speaker 4: me as a person, but also my familiar relationships and
Speaker 4: why estrangement is just so big in my family, Like
Speaker 4: estrangement is my normal. So I have a twin sister
Speaker 4: and you know, she decided to essentially cut me off
Speaker 4: would have been nine years ago, but then we briefly
Speaker 4: had contact the year that we were thirty, and it
Speaker 4: was looking promising that we were able to like, you know,
Speaker 4: get on that path of mending the relationship. But then
Speaker 4: she kind of cut me off again and it was
Speaker 4: a very you know, I'm sure she has her reasons,
Speaker 4: but it was a very devastating thing for me, like
Speaker 4: to have this breakup and then a few months later
Speaker 4: have this ghosting essentially twin sister. And it's a very
Speaker 4: interesting thing to talk about, right because you want to
Speaker 4: be to write about because I've wanted to be very
Speaker 4: conscious of how I'm articulating it and to talk about
Speaker 4: my feelings and my experience and kind of look at
Speaker 4: this bigger picture as to what it means for estrangement
Speaker 4: of family dynamic in a broader sense without exposing relatives
Speaker 4: or making them feel like you don't want to air
Speaker 4: dirty laundry.
Speaker 3: And it's half a story.
Speaker 1: You know, you can tell your side of a story
Speaker 1: and your side as to why a relationship dynamic doesn't
Speaker 1: exist anymore, but that only accounts for that version of it,
Speaker 1: and not the reason why someone might have made the
Speaker 1: decisions they've made. It's something that's prevalent, and I think
Speaker 1: a lot of people as we get older have to
Speaker 1: decide whether or not they want to keep family members
Speaker 1: as part of their life. Could it could also be
Speaker 1: because you know, you might have a challenging relationship with
Speaker 1: a parent, and then you decide, well, do I want
Speaker 1: this person to actually be a grandparent figure for my children.
Speaker 1: There's so many parts of like relationship dynamics that have
Speaker 1: to be figured out as you're older. And I think sometimes,
Speaker 1: like when you're growing up, you kind of just get
Speaker 1: dealt the cards that you get dealt. But then when
Speaker 1: you're an adult, you get to choose the people that
Speaker 1: you surround yourself with, and family looks different for different people.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and especially in the case of thinking about whether
Speaker 4: or not I want to start my own family. For me,
Speaker 4: I was like, I need to just figure out the
Speaker 4: family that I've already got before I even think about
Speaker 4: starting a new one. I just had this crazy curiosity
Speaker 4: about it. And it's also kind of you know, a
Speaker 4: really big part of growing up with this is coming
Speaker 4: to that place where you're able to practice empathy for
Speaker 4: the other person, for the other relative, because like you said,
Speaker 4: there's always gonna be two sides, and like, I have
Speaker 4: to respect, you know, I have to respect that from
Speaker 4: my siblings and particularly my twin sister. It's having empathy
Speaker 4: for that. But also so I suppose just not normalizing it,
Speaker 4: but I just would love to have more conversations that
Speaker 4: this is actually a really common thing. Not only is
Speaker 4: it a very common thing for people to experience, especially
Speaker 4: in adulthood, but it's not a decision that's ever made
Speaker 4: lightly for anyone involved. You know, we don't just do
Speaker 4: it for shits and giggles. And I mean you just
Speaker 4: have to look at the queer community as a prime
Speaker 4: example of you know, for so many of them not
Speaker 4: being accepted by their family, and they want nothing more
Speaker 4: than to be accepted by their family, but to protect
Speaker 4: their well being, their boundaries and for them to feel accepted,
Speaker 4: you know, sometimes they have to just cut off those tis.
Speaker 4: It's never a decision that is easy, but for many
Speaker 4: people it's just out of necessity. And that's just what
Speaker 4: it is.
Speaker 2: So to be clear, you don't just have estrangement just
Speaker 2: from you and your sister. All the three other siblings
Speaker 2: that you have, they don't talk to your parents at all.
Speaker 2: You're the only one of four siblings that have a
Speaker 2: regular contact with your parents.
Speaker 4: Yeah. So my older sister, I think she is in
Speaker 4: contact with them every now and then. But I'm like
Speaker 4: the only only child who will go back, you know,
Speaker 4: to say at their house. I have Christmas with them
Speaker 4: every year. Yeah, it's the constant relationship. So and I
Speaker 4: don't And I honestly, I don't even know if my
Speaker 4: siblings talk to each other, Like, I just don't know.
Speaker 2: Do you understand why?
Speaker 4: I understand, I mean not fully my older brother and sister.
Speaker 4: I understand from a broad sense of you know, when
Speaker 4: we think about our upbringing, and you know, I mentioned
Speaker 4: this in the book and prompted a difficult conversation with
Speaker 4: my dad. So due to his abusive upbringing and how
Speaker 4: I guess that kind of trinkled through to the way
Speaker 4: that he was a father, he really struggled with regulating
Speaker 4: his emotions, and we just remember him as really angry
Speaker 4: and scary. And I think it just got to the point,
Speaker 4: like I remember, you know, my twin sister never never
Speaker 4: really got along with him and never wanted a relationship
Speaker 4: with him. And I think for my older my older
Speaker 4: sister moved out of home when she was seventeen to
Speaker 4: go do journalism cadet ship and my brother I had
Speaker 4: a conversation with them about nine years ago about how
Speaker 4: I guess it had made him feel. And we've never like,
Speaker 4: the last time we were all together was my twenty
Speaker 4: first birthday party, you know, and I'm thirty three, so
Speaker 4: I don't know, like I haven't sat down with them
Speaker 4: to be like, all right, let's you know, hash this out.
Speaker 4: I connected. I reconnected with my cousin who's in New
Speaker 4: Zealand and is the daughter of my dad's twin sister,
Speaker 4: who I haven't seen for gosh, nearly twenty years. I
Speaker 4: actually connected with her the year I turned thirty because
Speaker 4: yet me and dad had a bit of a blow
Speaker 4: up and we had a zoom for like two hours,
Speaker 4: and she told me about her upbringing because of how
Speaker 4: her mum was, you know, in an abusive upbringing and
Speaker 4: how that shrinkled to her parenting. And it's a really
Speaker 4: big chapter in the book and it's very hard to
Speaker 4: kind of tell it in a nutshell. But yeah, I
Speaker 4: don't know if that opportunity will come about or if
Speaker 4: there's even a desire to sit down with the siblings,
Speaker 4: but again, it just has even though I don't know
Speaker 4: their full perspective, you still and I may never will,
Speaker 4: but you still kind of have to have that kind
Speaker 4: of empathy and acceptance and kind of just focus on
Speaker 4: how it's affected me and how I want to be
Speaker 4: better out of it from my end, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1: It's such an interesting conversation to talk about, and we've
Speaker 1: spoken to Sam Fisher on this podcast before, if anyone
Speaker 1: who wants to go back and listen to that. We
Speaker 1: had a really quite I mean, it was quite an
Speaker 1: intimate conversation around how he chose to no longer have
Speaker 1: a relationship with his dad. And I think unless you
Speaker 1: come from a family where estrangement is a thing, it's
Speaker 1: really hard to understand how you could ever get to
Speaker 1: a point where you choose not to have a relationship
Speaker 1: with either a parental figure or a brother or a sister.
Speaker 1: And I think sometimes people think, well, there must have
Speaker 1: been really bad abuse, must have been like, the abuse
Speaker 1: must be so bad that it's unforgivable. And in some
Speaker 1: cases that's absolutely the case. But in other cases, it's
Speaker 1: a subtle yet consistent disregard for your boundaries or your respect,
Speaker 1: and it's and I think as an adult, you get
Speaker 1: to a point where you go, do you know what,
Speaker 1: I no longer want to be disappointed by my parents.
Speaker 1: I no longer want to be disappointed or devalued. And
Speaker 1: so there's a choice that's made because you're like, it's
Speaker 1: very considered, it's very hard, but you go, I will
Speaker 1: be happier if I stop putting my happiness in you
Speaker 1: actually showing up to this relationship in a way that's
Speaker 1: helping for me. And unfortunately it is a choice that
Speaker 1: some people have to make. And I know even for us,
Speaker 1: like we had these really big conversations Matt and I
Speaker 1: around when we had kids or when we got married,
Speaker 1: because Matt's dad's never been a part of that and
Speaker 1: the kids have not met him. And I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: do do you think, like, you know, the kids, maybe
Speaker 1: he should meet the children, and and Matt was kind
Speaker 1: of like, I'm not doing that for me, and I'm
Speaker 1: not doing that for them, so I'd be doing it
Speaker 1: for you.
Speaker 3: And that's a weird thing.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's a big conversation that absolutely permeates some families.
Speaker 4: And I think what makes it even harder is when
Speaker 4: is the reaction from external people, you know, because.
Speaker 3: They can't understand it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because we always view family as the sole centerpiece
Speaker 4: of our life, and it's certainly true to an extent,
Speaker 4: but it doesn't have to be the sole fulfillment, much
Speaker 4: like just having you know, the one in a romantic sense.
Speaker 4: But that's probably been the hardest thing for me, is
Speaker 4: the reactions and because like, for me, it's my normal,
Speaker 4: like I've accepted it, so I don't really know any
Speaker 4: different for other people who here, like you have a
Speaker 4: twin and wow, what's that? Like, what do you mean
Speaker 4: you don't talk to your twin? And it's just like,
Speaker 4: I mean, I don't know, and I think that's why
Speaker 4: people really don't like talking about it, or they feel
Speaker 4: a lot of shame, like it's their fault and that
Speaker 4: they've failed in some aspect when it is more common
Speaker 4: than what we think. And yeah, I really hope that
Speaker 4: chapter in particular helps people, you know, open that dialogue
Speaker 4: or just feel a little bit more seen and validated.
Speaker 4: I mean, for me at least, writing it just again
Speaker 4: prompted some difficult conversation with my dad because he and
Speaker 4: Mum had to sign off on it, like you know,
Speaker 4: they have to sign off on what you're saying, and
Speaker 4: that wasn't easy, but I was and but Dad was
Speaker 4: really good, and he was like, you know, if this
Speaker 4: is important for you and like your growth and you know,
Speaker 4: for your book, and like I'm happy for you and
Speaker 4: I support it, and you know, this is great. But
Speaker 4: it wasn't easy, and I felt sick that they had
Speaker 4: to read it, and I had to be very careful
Speaker 4: being like, again, it's not an attack or exposing you
Speaker 4: or saying it's not a right or wrong again, it's
Speaker 4: just coming back to how I've felt and coming back
Speaker 4: to me understanding why I am the way I am
Speaker 4: and what I want to do with that kind of
Speaker 4: knowledge moving forward in my thirties.
Speaker 2: Do you feel like the relationship you have had with
Speaker 2: your family and with your brothers and sisters has that
Speaker 2: had any impact on whether or not you think you
Speaker 2: want to go down the track of having your own family.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Absolutely, This whole dynamic has been probably a big
Speaker 4: influence as to why I don't have a particularly strong
Speaker 4: maternal desire at this point, because I do think about, like,
Speaker 4: you know, they're not going to have contact with any
Speaker 4: aunts and uncles. On my end, if I was to
Speaker 4: have children with my current partner, Oscar, you know, he's
Speaker 4: really close with his sisters and his brother and his mum,
Speaker 4: So you know there's that side of the family which
Speaker 4: is fabulous. But oh, it's been a huge part of it,
Speaker 4: you know, just thinking about what kind of environment I
Speaker 4: suppose I would want to bring a child into. And
Speaker 4: when I look back, even growing up, me and my
Speaker 4: twin used to say to each other like, because dad was,
Speaker 4: you know, in conflict with his siblings, and mum cut
Speaker 4: off her brother, and mum cut off her brother her
Speaker 4: mum as well. I remember me and my twin saying
Speaker 4: to each other like, oh, we're not going to be
Speaker 4: like that, Like we will, you know, talk to each
Speaker 4: other and we will have a relationship in adulthood, and
Speaker 4: the exact same thing has happened, you know. Yeah, It's
Speaker 4: been a big factor as to why I don't have
Speaker 4: a particularly strong maternal desire at the moment, which in
Speaker 4: some ways is annoying, but then it's not because it's
Speaker 4: like I can't force it. And I know, I was
Speaker 4: talking to some girlfriends on the weekend who are like
Speaker 4: so freaking ready to be kid to have kids, and
Speaker 4: they're just really, really eager, and I if I don't
Speaker 4: have that energy, I'm not ready, Like I'm still leaning
Speaker 4: in then section and I don't want to have one
Speaker 4: just for the sake of having one. But then it's
Speaker 4: also when you think about when you're older, and with
Speaker 4: my endomitriosis, come that point where I do try to
Speaker 4: conceive what's that going to look like? Is it going
Speaker 4: to be easy? And will future Bridget look back on
Speaker 4: past Bridget and be like you idiot, like you should
Speaker 4: have But you can't live with that kind of mindset
Speaker 4: or mentality, because this is how I feel in the moment,
Speaker 4: at the time, and nothing's going to change that, and
Speaker 4: I can't regret that, do you, Like, Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's so true, like the decisions that you make for yourself,
Speaker 1: whether or not like there's no oh wait, no one
Speaker 1: has a crystal ball.
Speaker 3: No one knows.
Speaker 1: But I think when you make decisions that I have
Speaker 1: a lot of thought and have a lot of consideration
Speaker 1: put into them, as it seems that you were doing.
Speaker 1: I don't think you're gonna wake up when you're forty
Speaker 1: or fifty or sixty and be like, Wow, I regret
Speaker 1: that decision because it's an accumulative decision that has been
Speaker 1: made many times.
Speaker 2: I disagree. I think you can one hundred percent regret
Speaker 2: decisions down the track. You can't change them, but I
Speaker 2: think you can be like, what, maybe I shouldn't have
Speaker 2: made that decision.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but I mean maybe if it's like a one
Speaker 3: off thing.
Speaker 1: But I think when you consciously setting your life up
Speaker 1: in a certain way, what I mean is people who
Speaker 1: make a conscious decision to not have children, there's already
Speaker 1: enough fear mongering around you're going to regret that decision.
Speaker 1: I don't know anyone who made a conscious decision to
Speaker 1: not have children who has gone on to regret it
Speaker 1: in their fifties and sixties. The only people who I
Speaker 1: know have experienced that are people who really wanted to
Speaker 1: have children but tried fertility treatments too late. That's a
Speaker 1: different conversation. It's not around like consciously choosing to have kids.
Speaker 1: But I mean, I guess everyone is different. But I
Speaker 1: think people live with that fear enough. I don't think
Speaker 1: that that fear needs to be driven home that like.
Speaker 3: You let regret it. People are aware. That's the whole
Speaker 3: conversation is I.
Speaker 2: Disagree, and I disagree just because I'm in it. I
Speaker 2: disagree because I don't know if I want kids or not,
Speaker 2: and I constantly bounce between if I'm going to regret
Speaker 2: not having them or if I'm going to regret having them,
Speaker 2: Like my seesaw is teetering constantly either way, I will
Speaker 2: feel regret because I'm not convinced of which way I
Speaker 2: want to go. So I know that I'm going to
Speaker 2: have that feeling. I'm hoping that changes very soon.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I hope you get to a point where
Speaker 4: it's like you can just be a bit kinder to
Speaker 4: yourself and honor what you're feeling in that moment and
Speaker 4: not blame yourself. I think we're so easy and quick
Speaker 4: to blame ourselves in those situations. And I think in
Speaker 4: terms of motherhood as well. There's a UK writer called
Speaker 4: Ruby Warrington who wrote a fabulous book called Women Without Kids.
Speaker 4: She talks a lot about the mummy binary and how
Speaker 4: it's so black and white across society that if you're
Speaker 4: not sure about having kids or it's a no, that
Speaker 4: must mean you're like selfish or indecisive and just not
Speaker 4: mature or whatever. But it really is a spectrum where
Speaker 4: it's it's not a clear yes or no, and we're
Speaker 4: all at different points of the spectrum. Like I'm bouncing
Speaker 4: up and down, BRIT's bouncing up and down. And the
Speaker 4: last thing we need to do is like beat ourselves
Speaker 4: up about it. It's so fucking annoying.
Speaker 2: You're endometriosis, so just feel everyoney in and how does
Speaker 2: that affect your fertility?
Speaker 4: So if we're going to go like a little bit
Speaker 4: down the scientific biological ground, there's like a structural component.
Speaker 4: So if you've got endometriosis just popping off down there,
Speaker 4: and it's like a physical barrier or physically impairing the
Speaker 4: environment in which the you know, the egg's trying to
Speaker 4: like fertilize and do all that kind of stuff. So
Speaker 4: there's that kind of aspect to the like inflammatory nature
Speaker 4: of those lesions. I suppose can function impair the function
Speaker 4: of both the egg and the sperm and then prevent
Speaker 4: that you know, correct environment for it to kind of
Speaker 4: you know, develop and have that implantation kind of stuff.
Speaker 4: The structural issues again because if you might have ENDO,
Speaker 4: like on your filopian tubes or whatever. There's also the
Speaker 4: third one, which I love mentioning, is like painful sex
Speaker 4: is like a very common symptom of ENDO. So if
Speaker 4: you're gonna have painful sex, you're like less likely to
Speaker 4: do it. So that's I guess another way, feel like.
Speaker 3: Avidence means I can't get pregnant.
Speaker 4: Yeah, essentially, but up to fifty percent of people with
Speaker 4: ENDO will experience infertility. And it's just really annoying because
Speaker 4: it's like, I'm not ready now, but what happens. Like
Speaker 4: I went and got my you know that that AMH
Speaker 4: test and stuff, and it was all looking fine, but
Speaker 4: you just don't know until you go and try to conceive,
Speaker 4: and anything can happen. I may be able to conceive naturally.
Speaker 4: I kind of a feeling, you know, when you just
Speaker 4: have a feeling that that's not gonna happen, or like
Speaker 4: you know your body, Like I just have a feeling
Speaker 4: it's not gonna be easy for me. Yeah, but that's
Speaker 4: kind of where it's at. And you know, I want
Speaker 4: to freeze my eggs probably in a year's time, so
Speaker 4: when I'm you know, down the point t end of
Speaker 4: thirty four heading thirty five. But you know, another spanner
Speaker 4: for me is that, like I live in Perth right now.
Speaker 4: I moved over here for my partner's work, so I
Speaker 4: don't have any immediate network here. I wouldn't want to
Speaker 4: have a child here. I don't know how long we're
Speaker 4: here for depending on his work. So that's another conversation.
Speaker 4: It's like, well, where am I going to freeze my eggs?
Speaker 4: I'm going to freeze them in Melbourne? Am I going
Speaker 4: to freeze them in Perth? How do you ship them
Speaker 4: across a NULLI wall like, yeah, it's yeah, it's a
Speaker 4: really it's a bit of a head fuck with the
Speaker 4: fertility front, and your ENDO is just an added layer
Speaker 4: to it with how it can affect it even happening
Speaker 4: in the first place.
Speaker 2: You asked a really interesting question in your book, which
Speaker 2: I find fascinating. You said, can a woman who's fought
Speaker 2: for equality and respect against sexism and misogyny become a
Speaker 2: bride or does that make them a walking contradiction.
Speaker 4: This was such a fun chapter. So this is all
Speaker 4: about marriage.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because I'm getting married, yes this year, mid mid
Speaker 2: next year. Sorry, And I feel the same. I feel
Speaker 2: like you know the podcast. We are fighting for women's
Speaker 2: rights constantly, We're always talking about feminism. Yeah, but I
Speaker 2: can't wait to get married.
Speaker 4: At the same time, this was a very interesting thing
Speaker 4: and a very fun thing for me to explore the
Speaker 4: marriage chapter, So not only whether or not I want
Speaker 4: to get married, but taking it a step further and
Speaker 4: kind of leaning into that real curiosity that I've had
Speaker 4: in my thirties of being like, why do I want
Speaker 4: to get married? And how did this start? And what's
Speaker 4: in it for me? So I dived into a real
Speaker 4: rabbit hole of exploring the origins of the institution and
Speaker 4: seeing how it has played across cultures over time, how
Speaker 4: it has evolved. And I think that's a real privilege
Speaker 4: to even sit and ponder whether or not I want
Speaker 4: to get married, because in areas of the world people
Speaker 4: are still being forced under the age of eighteen. There's
Speaker 4: literally just news coming out now of Columbia that they've
Speaker 4: been able to pass this law that makes it illegal
Speaker 4: to be married under eighteen because one in four Colombian
Speaker 4: women and girls were being married under the age of eighteen.
Speaker 4: It's been like seventeen years of campaigning. So, like childbrides,
Speaker 4: non consensual arranged marriage is that kind of thing. So
Speaker 4: very lucky that we can even ponder whether or not
Speaker 4: we want to and that our lives don't literally depend
Speaker 4: on it. But yeah, I was just really curious to
Speaker 4: kind of step into that discussion of you know, I
Speaker 4: consider myself feminist, and I think there's with feminism there's
Speaker 4: agency and choice. But with the institution like marriage, where
Speaker 4: does that come into play? So I spoke to a
Speaker 4: lot of well known feminists in Australia for their take,
Speaker 4: and it was just so interesting because they're a feminists
Speaker 4: who completely oppose it and want to abolish the institution,
Speaker 4: and then they're a feminists who who are married, and
Speaker 4: you know, who say yes, there is capacity to redefine
Speaker 4: this framework and push it in that direction where it
Speaker 4: works for you, and that it's about it's a personal choice,
Speaker 4: and that it's a personal, you know, reflection of your
Speaker 4: relationship and what your marriage means to you. And added
Speaker 4: complexity is with marriage equality. And I remember reading a
Speaker 4: book from a lesbian feminist who you would think, if anything,
Speaker 4: that she would be the one who'd be like, like burn
Speaker 4: it down, like you know, but she wanted nothing more
Speaker 4: than to be married and is married. I think the
Speaker 4: conversation of abolishing marriage for me is I can't help
Speaker 4: but liken it to the gun laws in America, right,
Speaker 4: Like we are so far in you're not going to
Speaker 4: be able to just abolish marriage, right, so you have
Speaker 4: to move it forward. And that's what we're seeing with
Speaker 4: you know, in Columbia with these legal reforms and stuff.
Speaker 4: Move it forward in a direction that is going to
Speaker 4: benefit everyone. It's going to be equal and redefine it.
Speaker 4: Like that's how all social and legal frameworks evolve over time.
Speaker 4: But it is like it's a really tricky thing to
Speaker 4: navigate because I've definitely had that kind of you know,
Speaker 4: there's nothing worse than someone calling you like a fake
Speaker 4: feminist or that like you know, you're not actually what
Speaker 4: you claim to be when it's like I am. But
Speaker 4: I also have a particular view about this, and I
Speaker 4: do see the capacity for positive change and I love
Speaker 4: people getting married and that I don't think that makes
Speaker 4: me any less of a feminist. And so it was
Speaker 4: really interesting to speak to feminists across the board on
Speaker 4: the topic, but it was very respectful, And yeah, I
Speaker 4: think it just will always come down to a differing opinion.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's an interesting debate, isn't it.
Speaker 1: But I think it's we're in a sad place when
Speaker 1: we have to defend ourselves for being feminists if you
Speaker 1: have made the choice to get married, and how that
Speaker 1: somehow is a betrayal. And I say this because I
Speaker 1: know that there is this real push at the moment
Speaker 1: to be like, burn it to the ground. But I
Speaker 1: think it's probably more important to acknowledge the privilege, the
Speaker 1: privilege that we have to be able to choose what
Speaker 1: marriage looks like to us, where we live and how
Speaker 1: we live. That is a privilege that is not bestowed
Speaker 1: on all women in all places.
Speaker 3: But certainly here in Australia.
Speaker 1: If you are able to have agency and choice, you
Speaker 1: have the privilege to choose what does your relationship look
Speaker 1: like and what does marriage mean to you?
Speaker 3: And not everyone can make that choice.
Speaker 1: And I think, you know, I look at my marriage specifically,
Speaker 1: and I go, it is an incredible place of equality,
Speaker 1: but not everybody has that option, and not everyone has
Speaker 1: that choice once they enter into a marriage. And so
Speaker 1: I think as much as there is the conversation around feminism,
Speaker 1: there's a huge conversation around privilege that is linked into
Speaker 1: it as well.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I think that's why it's just so important
Speaker 4: for me, like what I would like for me. It's
Speaker 4: not about judging people who get married or people who
Speaker 4: strictly oppose it, but I would love everyone to just
Speaker 4: read into the origins, just to have the understanding and
Speaker 4: then you make the decision, because again, it's that kind
Speaker 4: of informed consent of like you knowing what you're signing
Speaker 4: up for and what it has historically stood for. And
Speaker 4: marriage is very complex because it has been so different
Speaker 4: across time, across many cultures. I mean back nineteenth century,
Speaker 4: I think it was Chinese women could marry dead bodies
Speaker 4: and they would prefer to married dead body so they
Speaker 4: didn't have to deal with an actual man you know.
Speaker 2: The thing is, though it's been completely redefined, and when
Speaker 2: I get married, that does not make me not a
Speaker 2: feminist anymore. And it makes me angry that there are
Speaker 2: people out there that are putting such labels on people.
Speaker 2: And you could do so much advocacy and work for
Speaker 2: however long, and then you get married and it's like,
Speaker 2: fuck you, you're not a feminist. I do not believe
Speaker 2: in that. I do not believe we have to stick
Speaker 2: to this stringent set of rules but define who and
Speaker 2: what we are.
Speaker 4: I think it's important to remember that everything to this
Speaker 4: day operates under a patriarchy. So in the sense of marriage,
Speaker 4: I don't think, yeah, abolishing it, because everything operates under patriarchy,
Speaker 4: so like you're damned if you do, damned if you don't.
Speaker 4: In a way, but I think it is just yeah,
Speaker 4: coming back to and we've again seen it with marriage equality,
Speaker 4: that it continues to evolve at a rapid rate and
Speaker 4: means something different for everyone. And I think regardless of
Speaker 4: whether you're married, single, de facto Polly, as long as
Speaker 4: the end of the day you can say that you
Speaker 4: feel happy, fulfilled, secure, safe, whatever your relationship status, we
Speaker 4: don't need to be tearing each other down. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, which is also why I think it's such a
Speaker 1: fascinating conversation around around how it links back into privilege.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: We spoke to Elizabeth Gilbert who wrote Eat, Pray, Love.
Speaker 4: Yes and Committed.
Speaker 3: Yes and Committed is fantastic.
Speaker 1: It was honestly one of my favorite interviews this year,
Speaker 1: and she spoke about the statistics of dissatisfaction and unhappiness
Speaker 1: in married women and how married men are the most
Speaker 1: happy version and the most like fulfilled they live longer,
Speaker 1: but married women have shorter life spans. They're the most
Speaker 1: unhappy and the most unfulfilled, and that just shows that
Speaker 1: patriarchal dynamic and why one person is bearing the weight.
Speaker 1: I mean, we all know the mental load and everything
Speaker 1: else is so much greater for women. But it is
Speaker 1: a very new time that we are living in where
Speaker 1: women able to find partners who may be progressive enough
Speaker 1: to not be total dickheads, and then they can to
Speaker 1: find what that relationship looks like for them. But not
Speaker 1: everyone has the opportunity to do that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and her book Yeah Committed was such a great
Speaker 4: read for my own on because Yeah, to kind of
Speaker 4: pick up from where Eat pray Love left off, and
Speaker 4: you know her and the Bali guy like I lost
Speaker 4: his shit and I was like, oh my god. The
Speaker 4: Bie guy like they both had previously been divorced and
Speaker 4: they didn't want to get married again, but it kind
Speaker 4: of came out of necessity for that immigration law for
Speaker 4: them to live in America. So really great, really great read.
Speaker 4: And I think, yeah, again just coming back to like,
Speaker 4: if you choose to get married, as long as you're
Speaker 4: doing it for the reasons that will benefit you. And
Speaker 4: I mean even in our thirties, I've seen a number
Speaker 4: of people get married because they feel like they have
Speaker 4: to or they feel like it's going to solve their
Speaker 4: relationship problems and be a really be a band day.
Speaker 4: But it doesn't actually change anything. So it's not really
Speaker 4: about for me at least the ceremony or marriage. It's
Speaker 4: for all the days that follow. Like when we're talking
Speaker 4: about relationships, you know, a marriage is not going to
Speaker 4: suddenly fix everything, And I think, just yeah, we need
Speaker 4: to be mindful of that, particularly in this period of
Speaker 4: our lives.
Speaker 1: Well, I think that's sometimes we can look at it
Speaker 1: as a token of security. You know that my relationship
Speaker 1: is more secure because I'm married, but the reality is
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm a product of multiple divorces. My parents
Speaker 1: both got divorced, Dad three times, Mum twice. Like, a
Speaker 1: marriage is only as good as the paper it's written
Speaker 1: on if you're not making the commitment and your actual
Speaker 1: actions in that relationship, you know, like it offers no
Speaker 1: more security than a de facto relationship or anything else.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and that was an interesting kind of comparison to
Speaker 4: be I guess some of the rights that you may
Speaker 4: be granted just because you're married in terms of the
Speaker 4: life admin stuff like for you know, the central link
Speaker 4: as an example for differing like payments or benefits, how
Speaker 4: that can differ to de facto and how we do
Speaker 4: kind of see de facto as inferior. And also like
Speaker 4: quickly just on divorce as well, you know that's not
Speaker 4: a failing. Like I had a friend who got divorced
Speaker 4: at twenty eight and at the same time she was
Speaker 4: getting divorced, everyone around us was getting engaged. And she
Speaker 4: went to her high school reunion and was like, she
Speaker 4: wore the ring even though she was divorced, but was
Speaker 4: so embarrassed to tell people. And that's another thing I
Speaker 4: think it really important to highlight in this period of
Speaker 4: our lives. So if you do find yourself getting divorced,
Speaker 4: it's nothing to be ashamed of, and you know you
Speaker 4: haven't failed.
Speaker 2: Like it's I have a friend getting divorced now for
Speaker 2: the second time. That yeah, and she didn't want to.
Speaker 2: She's like, oh, how do I start dating again? Saying like, hey,
Speaker 2: I'm twice a forced already, and I'm like, who cares?
Speaker 1: You also don't have to tell them straight away, Like,
Speaker 1: you don't have to tell them until you're like in
Speaker 1: a committed relationship, you know, like even then, some people
Speaker 1: may rush to get married and then find themselves in
Speaker 1: relationships where they're like, fuck, this is not what I thought.
Speaker 3: It was going to be.
Speaker 1: Better to have divorces under your belt and be in
Speaker 1: a happy and sustained relationship than be in something purely
Speaker 1: because you've committed to it and spend the next ten
Speaker 1: years of your life fucking miserable like that had What
Speaker 1: a horrible life to live? Yeah, bridget coming from being
Speaker 1: in this relationship, going through a breakup, and then having
Speaker 1: to navigate dating in your thirties, which you know can
Speaker 1: leave you feeling like like either and I don't want
Speaker 1: to say desperate, but like I do think like when
Speaker 1: I was in my thirties at the start, like fuck,
Speaker 1: I went on the Bachelor cause I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: my god, must meet a man. Like it worked out okay,
Speaker 1: But you know what was that, Like what was the
Speaker 1: period of getting back into dating when you kind of
Speaker 1: felt like you had the plan figured out?
Speaker 4: Like for you, it was utterly confronting because when I
Speaker 4: entered my previous relationship, Tinder was kind of just breaking through,
Speaker 4: so we didn't have this dominant digital dating landscape. The
Speaker 4: culture has entirely shifted since I was last single, So
Speaker 4: it was really confronting in that sense of being like, oh,
Speaker 4: it's like, you know, you can't really and again being
Speaker 4: in lockdown, you can't just go meet someone out. It's
Speaker 4: a very intentional thing to download an app, to create
Speaker 4: and curate a profile, and to swipe and to initiate
Speaker 4: conversations in that manner. It was very unnatural for me.
Speaker 4: There was also and I'm mindful of how I say it,
Speaker 4: but like you, guys will be able to relate when
Speaker 4: when you have a somewhat visibility to your name. So
Speaker 4: when I went into my last relationship, I wasn't on
Speaker 4: Triple J or anything. I was nobody having like a
Speaker 4: radio national radio show and you know, a small profile
Speaker 4: but somewhat still visible, especially in a dating landscape in
Speaker 4: like Melbourne or something. I was really self conscious. I
Speaker 4: was really self conscious. And I hate saying it because
Speaker 4: I don't want anyone to feel self conscious about it,
Speaker 4: but I did. I hated seeing Bridget thirty as my profile.
Speaker 4: I really didn't feel comfortable with it. I took my
Speaker 4: time with it, and I was mindful of what I wanted,
Speaker 4: and I think this is the important thing to be
Speaker 4: mindful and aware and actually have that moment to think
Speaker 4: what do I want to get out of this. I
Speaker 4: wasn't looking for a new relationship for me. Actually, it
Speaker 4: was just baby steps and little personal developments, so like
Speaker 4: just to initiate a conversation with a guy, to reply
Speaker 4: to their story on Instagram, and have a conversation.
Speaker 2: With a guy like fire flames.
Speaker 4: The heart eye amuji. But those things are really big
Speaker 4: and scary for me at thirty, and I just had
Speaker 4: to take it, you know, one step at a time.
Speaker 4: And I ended up meeting my current partner on an
Speaker 4: app about a year after this. Breakup. I mean, he
Speaker 4: was my only dating app date and my only I
Speaker 4: guess only blind date in the sense that I didn't
Speaker 4: know him before I met him on the date, and
Speaker 4: thank god it went well because I was kind of
Speaker 4: getting not defeat, well, I guess I was getting a
Speaker 4: bit defeated, like it's a rough out there. It is
Speaker 4: rough out there. And to add on that extra kind
Speaker 4: of insecurity that I wish we didn't have, but we do,
Speaker 4: because again, how thirty has been portrayed, especially single and
Speaker 4: thirty Bridger Jones has not been painted in a positive
Speaker 4: light really, so it was it was hard, but I
Speaker 4: got through it, and I think more so it's just
Speaker 4: kind of coming to that understanding now that single time
Speaker 4: that I had was so amazing in that no matter
Speaker 4: what happens, and if a relationship doesn't work out, like
Speaker 4: I know, I'll be fine, and I know that I'm
Speaker 4: focusing on the right things, you know, getting fulfillment from
Speaker 4: friendships and work and just just having like an even
Speaker 4: spread and not putting my heart and soul and everything
Speaker 4: riding on a romantic relationship. But yeah, it was very
Speaker 4: sobering and confronting to enter that dating world, especially after
Speaker 4: heartbreak when you've been dumped, because that really confirms, as
Speaker 4: awful as it is, but in a way, it kind
Speaker 4: of confirms you've been rejected by the person who knows
Speaker 4: you better than anyone. And then it kind of confirms
Speaker 4: any ounce of negative self talk that you have about yourself.
Speaker 4: And you try not to let it happen, but it does.
Speaker 2: And your partner is five years younger than you. Yeah, Cooker,
Speaker 2: I have zero issues because in the last ten years
Speaker 2: I've only dated down. My partner now is significantly younger
Speaker 2: than me. My ex was seven or eight years younger
Speaker 2: than me. Have you faced like, I hate to say backlash,
Speaker 2: but there are definitely stereotypes about women that do date
Speaker 2: younger men. Did you experience that or did you feel
Speaker 2: a bit wary entering into a relationship that was someone
Speaker 2: that was still in their mid twenties.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I was very wary because lish like when we
Speaker 4: were talking on I didn't know at the time it
Speaker 4: was his twenty sixth birthday. That morning of his twenty
Speaker 4: sixth birthday, I was pulling up to the fertility.
Speaker 2: Clinic to like so like the old freeze.
Speaker 4: Yeah, like we were just on. It was just so
Speaker 4: funny like, and we didn't know at the time until
Speaker 4: a little bit further down the track when we talked
Speaker 4: about that day and I was like, oh, like, we
Speaker 4: could not be more contrasting. But for a twenty what
Speaker 4: is he now? Twenty eight? For someone five years younger
Speaker 4: than me, Oscar's very very logical, headscrewed on. He's older
Speaker 4: brother who's a year younger than me, is married with
Speaker 4: two kids, so those kinds of conversations were never scary
Speaker 4: or daunting or too much for him. He's also like
Speaker 4: a professional athlete, so he has a very disciplined routine,
Speaker 4: I suppose. But we also had really good character references
Speaker 4: for each other from a mutual friend that we didn't
Speaker 4: realize until that kind of popped up, so there was
Speaker 4: never any fear of being judged. I suppose that he's
Speaker 4: five years younger than me because he doesn't act like
Speaker 4: it doesn't feel like he feels like he's my age,
Speaker 4: feels like he's thirty three. I think there's definitely been
Speaker 4: times in terms, and this is like for all relationships,
Speaker 4: just when you kind of figure out each other's way
Speaker 4: of communicating and how we navigate conflict and those kind
Speaker 4: of emotional aspects that you can sometimes see a bit
Speaker 4: of a difference. But I wouldn't say that's like a
Speaker 4: total deal break, like those are just for me. Those
Speaker 4: are just opportunities as all relationships should have, where you
Speaker 4: can learn and grow and he can learn and grow.
Speaker 4: Because yeah, I think if you're not constantly in that
Speaker 4: kind of cycle of growth with your partner, then that's
Speaker 4: a bit worrying. I don't know, like I always want
Speaker 4: to feel like I'm learning from him or I'm learning
Speaker 4: from myself in response to something that he may have
Speaker 4: said or that I have said. Yeah, I mean, honestly,
Speaker 4: the only annoying thing is when people find out what
Speaker 4: he does and then I'm called a fucking wag. That's
Speaker 4: annoying because it's like I am, like.
Speaker 1: I'm an author, goddamn ye feel exactly the same way.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and it's just really that's the only annoying thing
Speaker 4: about our relationship.
Speaker 2: But well, you like, technically I am, because wag is
Speaker 2: just a wife and girlfriend, so you're like, yeah, cool,
Speaker 2: technically I am.
Speaker 4: But negative, we know how people are saying it, and
Speaker 4: that's what really pisses me off. Like when I got
Speaker 4: the Aria's co hosting gig. The headline was AFL wag
Speaker 4: and I was like, that's really insulting to like the
Speaker 4: twelve night never mind me being a music presenter for
Speaker 4: twelve years doing it last year. I've literally seen Oscar
Speaker 4: play three quarters of AFL and the three years that
Speaker 4: were together totally go off on a wag, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Bridget, thank you so much for joining us today.
Speaker 2: Bridget's book Figuring Out Thirty is gonna be out January seven.
Speaker 2: We're going to link all of the socials the book
Speaker 2: in the show notes, so if you want to go
Speaker 2: grab it. It is a brilliant read that I think
Speaker 2: everyone should get around.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much. It was so nice to catch
Speaker 4: up from where we last when we last left things.
Speaker 1: So much, so much has happened. Your absolute breath of
Speaker 1: fresh air. And I know that so many people who
Speaker 1: are in their trenches of their thirties or even like
Speaker 1: approaching these years, we'll get so much.
Speaker 4: Out of this, I think so. Thanks gals,