Don’t Be A Trash Bag!
06.23.14 | Share: Share on Twitter Share on Facebook
Totally Married Podcast
Episode 155
In this 3 parter episode - broken up in chunks due to a power outage and a crying baby - Elizabeth and Andy discuss their latest foray into “the good life” (A chef! Pilates! Central Air! Oh wait, nevermind) before diving into listener questions about division of labor amongst couples (how do I get him to do anything?!) whether or not it’s appropriate to share this filthy podcast with a respectable female friend, whether or not Andy and Elizabeth still share their one gratitude a day with each other, if a relationship is moving too fast when it’s happening before the previous divorce is final, how to reconnect with a dad who has a new ball and chain, and then a doozy of a question about a husband who might not be willing to stay in the relationship if the wife is unable to conceive. Enjoy!
27 Comments!
Maybe I am not being super sensitive to the writer-inner whose husband is backing her into a corner to seek an egg donor, but adoption is such a huge priority for me that it’s almost impossible for me to be sympathetic to her husband. Would you really want to raise an adopted child with him, knowing that he wouldn’t value her as much as a child he was biologically related to? What kind of a man is that, who wouldn’t be able to father and raise a child with the woman he “loves” because of some genetic affiliation?
You shouldn’t be made to feel any less valuable because of something like this. You will be a mother, he’s already showing that fatherhood comes with conditions for him. (Bounce)
Preach it, Kat!
How about a “Don’t Be A Trash Bag” shirt?
I’d buy it for sure!
Love it! I’d totally wear it :).
To the writer inner who’s ex is an addict; no judge in the right mind will give custody to a person who already has a record like him. I have to disagree with Andy, it’s not too soon at all the wedding is a year away, I wouldn’t make any announcements to the whole world but I would give heads up to close family. After all, they probably aware what you been through and understand it’s your time to be happy. Hopefully you’ll get your divorce finalized soon and will get your Happily Ever After!
Most importantly your son will grow up with a real father figure, and a complete family, and you should not care what people will say or think too soon or not too soon. It happened you’ve met a great person, and it’s better now than few years later when your kid is a teenager and has all kind of issues from being raised without a father.
All the best to you!
Great episode! The letter from the woman whose husband blames her for not being able to conceive is so heartbreaking. If I were her, I think I would try counseling, just so you’ll know in your heart that you’ve tried everything you could to make the marriage work before you “bounce.” The guy doesn’t sound very open to it, but who knows; maybe having an objective mediator there would help him to see things differently. Either way, I think you have to ask yourself if this is really the guy you want to have kids with. Marriage is supposed to be about getting through the hard times as a team, no? And kids are permanent.
Maybe I’m biased because I have adoption in my family, but I would wonder what room there was for me in this person’s life if he felt so strongly about love being tied to blood lines. After all, you don’t share his blood either. It seems unfair for him to place so much importance on having his DNA be a part of your child when he doesn’t seem to care about you raising a child without your DNA, for instance if you went the egg donor route. I really hope you can get him to see things differently.
Trader Joe’s is awesome for meals to make in minutes in one skillet. They also have already cooked chicken that Andy can heat up to add to the dish. They have options for different allergy groups and cheaper than other organic stores. This may be where Amazon Fresh helps with shopping at different stores from the comfort of your home.
Also, maybe a good gift to yourself or Andy would be cooking and meal planning lessons from Merida.
Love your show and your unqualified advice! “Andy Says Bounce” t-shirt is a necessity!
Yes, great point! Trader Joes saved my evening meals for a few months after returning to work after having my baby!
We have to get “Andy says bounce” into the lexicon. Not just for relationships, but any unpleasant/uncomfortable situation. Example: “My boss wants me to stay late tonight, but I have plans so Andy says bounce.”
Indeed, i’ll input it into Urban Dictionary now!!
it’s done and pretty funny should be live soon enjoy
Yes!!!
Love it!
I think “leave the dishes until he does them” isn’t great advice, not only is it passive aggressive but will probably just make the woman who wrote in get more annoyed with the dishes piling up. If he won’t do them, either he should make dinner (or order food) or some other kind of trade (he takes care of the baby while she does dishes?) I think most people hate doing specific chores around the house and it’s better to delegate them depending on what you and your partner tolerate best.
Totally agree with Anna above. I wonder if, juvenile as it sounds, a “chore chart” situation wouldn’t help here. Sit down together and list everything that needs to get done, then go back and forth picking which person will do which task. Maybe he really abhors dishes but doesn’t want to say so. Maybe he’d rather do the laundry, I don’t know anyway, then post the list by the kitchen or front door or a highly-trafficked area of your home. It’s a physical reminder of what he has to do each night without the nagging (even though you didn’t sound naggy!) of “Do the dishes.” My other thought is maybe to give him a choice after dinner. “Okay, are you on baby bathtime or dishes?” and let him pick which he’d rather do. I have to say, getting to sleep in every day until 7:30am and coming home to a homecooked meal every night sounds like my dream! Your husband is lucky
To the writer-inner annoyed about the husband not doing the dishes:
in return your husband can so a load of laundry on his day of or something else. But please let the dad get to do the bedtime-routines nightly with your son! It’s super-important for their attachment and bonding.
Why oh why dont the dad take care of putting the baby to bed if he’s been away at all day while you’ve been with the baby? Making him do the dishes instead is robbing your son of some very valuable daddy-bonding time! And please don’t give me the “oh but I soothe baby best” or “baby falls asleep faster/easier with me”, because the only way to change those scenarios is to let the dad have access to those lovely daily caregiving activities such as bed-time routines. If you are still breast feeding and usually breast feed the baby to sleep, just give it a few nights and the baby will very soon get that dad has no milk and will accept him as the bedtime-person from now on. Meanwhile you can do the dishes while listening to podcasts.
I dig it
This is such great advice! Good call!
This is exactly what I was saying out loud while driving/listening to the advice. Have the dad do bedtime, and even though the wife was trained you don’t do dishes if you cook, it would be a great compromise!
I desperately need an “Andy Says Bounce” tshirt!! Maybe even that wonderful graphic of Andy wearing an “Andy Says Bounce” tshirt on a tshirt! Make it META!!
Just have to chime in about the gal whose husband is putting their inability to conceive all on her shoulders. Just breaks my heart. How could you turn on the person you’ve promised to love forever through good and bad, is beyond me. My knee jerk reaction is that if this guy wants his own brood in the world so badly- be a sperm donor.
F- that guy. I agree with Andy. Bounce.
Ugh. I love you guys.
Ok. So very many responses.
First, to add my two cents to the “Do couples therapists ever decide” debate: a couples therapist is rarely if ever going to suggest an end to a relationship. However, they might “game it out.” That is, discuss, hypothetically, how it would change the lives of the people if they ended their relationship. If done wrong, this might come across as suggesting a break-up.
Also, to Andy’s point about judging a couple w/in a few minutes, therapists are human, we absolutely develop immediate impressions of clients and that can include: “boy, these guys aren’t going to make it.” That is not the same though as counseling a couple to give up on their relationship.
Alright: to this week.
1.) The husband being obsessed with having his own biological child: he knows like he’s behaving badly but that isn’t the same as being a bad guy. He might just be doing a fairly terrible job of processing his own grief here. That’s not to say it is ok, because it isn’t, but it may mean it is a good time to hold off on bouncing quite yet. As he deals with his new reality, he may return to a decent human being. How long the wife is willing to wait though is entirely up to her.
2.) Chores: Echoing other comments think the way through this is to expand the conversation. Rather than make the battleground “Dishes, Done between these time periods” it might be helpful to go to the “what chores are least bothersome to you” and “when do you like to do chores” discussions.
By making it more about “how do we split things going forward” and less “you didn’t do this thing you said you would” a lot of the defensiveness can be defused and, clearly, the old “you do the dishes now, please” approach isn’t working so why not go at via a different direction?
Anecdotally, I am someone who would rather do work/chores when people are not around in part because I don’t like being observed and in part because I’d rather be more present if someone is there. So I’d save chores for when my wife was asleep, still at work, or out with friends. My wife prefers to do things as she thinks of them.
Thus, when she asked me to, say, sweep the garage and I told her I would but didn’t do it right away she’d get annoyed and then do it herself. I’d then get annoyed because I said I’d do it and she did not even give me a chance to honor that promise and round and round it goes. Once we actually talked about how we approach things though, I was able to understand she needed to know when I’d do something if it wasn’t right away to feel that I was taking it seriously and she was able to understand that I’d much prefer to do chores at specific times when I could be uninterrupted and unobserved (even though she probably would never actually watch me sweep or whatever).
That was frightfully and embarrassingly long. My apologies.
For the woman who was in the midst of a divorce, I think that the advice to slow down is very important. I think that Andy was trying to describe rebound relationships when he mentioned statistics about that sort of relationship failing. (Here’s an article about them: http://divorcesupport.about.com/od/romanceafterdivorce/f/reboundrelationshipwork.htm) Some obvious signs of a rebound are when the new partner doesn’t necessarily have a lot in common or if the divorcee feels the need to hide the new partner. While I don’t necessarily think that the writer-inner’s new relationship is really unstable or unhealthy, it does still seem like it’s a rebound to me. The divorce and the last part of her marriage seems like it’s been really hard on her. I can see why it would be refreshing to meet someone new and to begin planning the future that she’d always hoped and dreamed about. It would be a pleasant escape from all the other troubles she’s dealing with. However, it’s important to remain realistic. This new guy likely seems like a saint when compared to her ex-husband, but when the venom of the past relationship fades away, will he still seem as amazing? Maybe, but maybe not. It’s easy to get swept up in the happiness and excitement of something new. Considering that there’s a child involved though, I think that it’s dangerous to get swept up so quickly. I definitely agree with Elizabeth’s advice to slow things down some. It won’t hurt anything, and will likely be really helpful, to take some time to be independent and explore the new relationship without any pressure. That will allow the writer-inner to make a choice that isn’t informed by stress or excitement. I hope that it works out well for her. She’s been through a lot and she deserves to start over!