May 25, 2026 • 54 mins
Divorce is often difficult and painful, but there are positives too. In this classic, we delve into the complications of getting a divorce in the US, especially for women, research about the impacts and how the conversation is shifting.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Listen
Watch
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. I welcome to stuff
and never told your reprection by Heart Radio, and today
we're bringing back a classic that I still want to
revisit with more depth. But it's about divorce. It is
(00:27):
about how divorce works. And I'm not sure why this
was on my mind. I do know that it has
become a really political topic lately in the United States
because even going back to Project twenty twenty five and
stuff beyond that, they were trying to get the people
(00:50):
who were behind that have been trying to get rid
of ways that generally women could get out of abusive marriages.
And in this episode, I particularly remember in my naivete,
I didn't know that in some states there's like a
(01:11):
year wait before you can get a divorce there. You
have to go to counseling and sometimes it's religious counseling
and all of these things, and it is coming back,
is really coming back and forth, and I just I
don't like it, Samantha. I don't like it. That's what
(01:31):
I'll say.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
I'm with you.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Yes, we are agreed on this front, but we are
going to have to come back and revisit it. But
for now, please enjoy this classic episode. Hey, this is
Annie and Samantha and welcome stuff. Never told you predicting
to buy her radio. And today we're coming in swinging
(02:05):
in the new year. We are talking about divorce in
the United States and specifically how it impacts women. It
is a topic we have been meaning to do for
a while. I appreciate so much your patients because a
lot of times I'll be like, yes, we're going to
do that, and then a year later and like, here
we finally are We do take care your suggestions. We
(02:29):
absolutely do. Sometimes it just takes us a minute. And
several of you have written in about it and thank
you for sharing your experiences about your divorce. And recently
I have gotten so many cold call emails about it.
This is what we call emails where people are like,
(02:50):
you should do a topic on this, and I was
getting so many about divorce. I didn't know that the
first Monday of January is divorce day? Did you know that?
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Not? I That seems so sad. At the same time, why.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
I'm depending on you, sman Thin You're the one who
tells me about cuffings Heason. I don't know, but I
based on what I read, which by the way as
a recording. Divorce day was this past Monday. People hold
off on getting the divorce until after the holidays, especially
if they have kids, so it's sort of the it's
(03:27):
a new year. I'm done with this. I would like
to move on. Situation disclaimer. We are not lawyers. Neither
of us have ever been married. Unless you have something
to tell me.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Unless you have something to tell me, no, between the
two of us, you would be treated into a marriage
before I was.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
I have been proposed to more than one, I'm sure,
but I have never ever ever been married. I do
have a friend who surprised me that she had been married.
I didn't know that. My dad also was married before
my mom, and I didn't know that. But anyway, I
do not get your legal advice from a podcast.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Please, oh my god, don't do it.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
Don't do it, even if it's a legal podcast. No,
just look up other films.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Different states have different outlines of what, yes, they're allowed
to do.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Oh my gosh. So originally I wanted to do how
to get a divorce like step by step. I didn't
realize how vastly that varies in the United States. So
we're gonna put that on hold for a minute. I
(04:41):
do want to come back and talk about it, because
this is a huge topic. We are primarily focusing on
the US. Listeners from other countries please write in I'm
really curious and yeah, we're definitely gonna have to revisit
it because the history of marriage, the religious aspects, the
legal ass affects, how it has changed and how it
(05:02):
hasn't changing. Your insurance, is your finances, maybe your name,
your will, splitting your assets if you have them, child custody,
the history of racism, of homophobia, of ableism. See our
recent episode on disability and marriage. Like it's there's so
much to unpack in this episode. We have done past
(05:27):
episodes on some of these issues, but just know there
are so many of these histories and influences enshrined in
our laws in the US that still remain when you're
trying to get a divorce. We are going to touch
on LGBTQ plus divorce, but very briefly, that's a whole
separate episode in itself, And frankly, when I was researching it,
(05:49):
I mostly just got law websites that I I wasn't
sure I could trustfully to be honest and that's not
a great place to be in when you're trying to
get a divorce. Yeah, so today we are mostly going
to be talking about divorce in the heteronormative sense. You
can see our book where we did a chapter on
(06:14):
the legalization of gay marriage and all of the conversation
arguments about that, so check that out. You can also
see the episode we did on Glennon Doyle's book Untamed,
and you can see our episode on some research that
says single women are happier. Another thing to keep in
(06:37):
mind as we go through this, and we are going
to expound on it more, but divorce is hard emotionally, financially, legally,
it takes up a lot of your time. Sometimes legally
as in by law, it takes up a lot of
your time. But it's not always bad, and we often
frame it as a failure, especially for women. And you
(06:58):
can see our Religious Trauma episode on divorce for more
about that. Oh my, sometimes it is a good thing.
That doesn't mean it doesn't hurt or it isn't difficult,
but sometimes it's a net positive. On top of that,
marriage isn't bad. Many people have happy marriages, but marriage
has historically systemically favored men, and yes, the internet will
(07:21):
tell you otherwise. We will talk about that more later.
I personally haven't. I don't have a lot of experience
with divorce other than a friend, one of my very
close friends, her parents got divorced and it was really emotional.
(07:41):
I at one time, which I'll talk about a bit
more later, really wanted my parents to get a divorce.
I thought it would have been better. But through media,
I will say, I thought it was a negative thing.
I thought it was always bad. And through doing this research,
I have read many accounts by women where that is
(08:04):
not the case. But what about your Samantha, do you
have experienced thoughts Before we get into.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
This experienced thoughts, I will say, as a person who
did work for CPS Top Protective Services, man, if you
don't know if your marriage is not going to last,
or if you have doubts about your marriage, don't have children.
Like that's the way they use a lot of cases,
(08:31):
especially when it comes to divorce, the way that children
are used to manipulate a lot of honestly women, I
mean both sides. I guess we can say both sides,
but like we know that it's doing pregnancy and divorce
that is the highest risk for the death of a spouse,
the woman, specifically the wife. So like all of these things,
(08:54):
and even with growing up in a household that said,
you do not divorce no matter what, no matter what,
like the only reason is for cheating, and even if that,
you need witnesses to the cheating, and like he has
to agree to the divorce as well, biblical level of
like how to get a divorce is insane anyway, but
(09:15):
like really coming and understanding as a person who didn't
have many relationships growing up, that wasn't the most important
thing for me, watching family members around me really trying
to stick to that, even like condoning that life, Oh
gave me the biggest dick. So I will say, as
(09:37):
gross and as hard as divorce can feel, or you know,
break ups, but divorce is a whole different conversation. Being
stuck in a miserable relationship where you feel like you're
trapped is even worse. And I can't imagine fifty sixty
years ago when people were really really harping on that
you have to stay together no matter what is death
do you part, even if it's your death that he
(10:01):
caused or they caused like it doesn't matter, it's so absurd.
I'm glad to see that narrative changing a bit. I
know everybody's still harping onto the but the divorce and
the fifty percent and his cousin sin. Yeah, but with that,
I think marriage is not overrated, but it's not for everyone.
(10:27):
And I think that's a great reminder. This episode is
a good reminder things change.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
That's what I'll also say. Yeah, and we're gonna we're
gonna get into that because, as I said, this is
a huge topic. This is actually more of a kind
of an update on where divorce is in the United States, which, uh,
we are going to talk about kind of differences that
are really interesting between breakups and divorce when it comes
(10:56):
to gender, because you know, divorce involves you going to
core to file a document to like dissolve your marriage legally.
It's actually pretty difficult to track divorce rates in the US,
and that's not even accounting for separated couples because for
a lot of reasons, people will separate but not get divorced.
(11:20):
The estimate is currently around forty percent. A lot of
times it's quoted at fifty, but they think it's actually
closer to forty. Most sources indicate that divorces are less
of a specific event and more often one partner deciding
to leave, and historically the increase has gone up with
women's evolving role in society. So there are a couple
(11:43):
of reasons behind this why this might be. Some of
them we're gonna get into a bit more, but just
off the top of my head, I was thinking about
like the history of marrying young older men marrying younger women,
so like, as you grow older, maybe this isn't for you,
the woman usually having to sacrifice for your family and
(12:06):
for your children, being kind of indoctrinated with this idea
that happiness is silly. You're not good enough to choose
your own well being. That would be selfish. That ideal
is kind of shifting. I think, who will care for
your kids if you have them? Can you afford childcare?
Who is getting paid more? I think these questions are
(12:27):
more prevalent. I did see this. I'm going to talk
about this more later, but when we were researching this,
I saw a bunch of like magazine articles that were
(12:48):
like how to save your marriage, and a lot of
them were like have we just tried being sexier, though
I don't think that's flying anymore. I don't think that's working.
And also, just reminder, marital rape was legal till disturbingly recently.
So a lot of reasons why women couldn't get divorced
(13:09):
were it was difficult. There were financial especially which we're
going to talk about reasons why. And now that's a
little that's changed a little bit and we're seeing more
divorced and angry men on the internet like to say
it's women's fault, which I'm just like, I think maybe,
I think maybe things have just changed and women have
(13:31):
the option now and they didn't earlier. But Okay, there
have been a lot of headlines about women and divorce
in recent years. A twenty fifteen study from the American
Sociological Association found that women initiated seventy percent of divorces.
The same was not at all true of non marital breakups,
(13:52):
which is interesting. A twenty thirteen study out of Kingston
University tracing the before and afters of big life events
found that women were generally happier after divorce. I mean,
if you're making that choice to get a divorce, then
I feel like that makes sense to.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Me right, I mean and not again. We don't know
for sure when it comes to the lines when it
comes to gender, but typically big decisions like this, we
talked about this with like finances and stocks and how
a lot it has been noted that women have been
a lot more successful because they are patient and think
through before they make a decision. It's kind of the
(14:32):
same with like big life decisions like divorce, and they've
gone through a lot first. Like it's a TikTok trend
to see how people are. Like we've talked about weaponized
and competence and this level of stuff, and women responding
when they see these types of things happening being like, yeah,
and it's going to come to that. I don't know,
(14:53):
she's left all of a sudden, and in naturality, it's
been a long time making that same kind of conversation.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Yes, yes, we're going to get more into that later.
Share Heights nineteen eighty seven Work Women in Love found
that four five hundred women aged fourteen to eighty five
that four fifths reported feeling their relationship was unequal. I know,
around ninety ninety percent of divorce women said they were
(15:22):
lonely in their marriages, and a whopping ninety five percent
said they experienced quote emotional and psychological harassment. Her research
and the respondents were attacked by men who believed it
couldn't possibly be true. That can't be the case. I
am interested in how many cases I have of friends
(15:46):
who have been together for years getting divorced and breaking
up very quickly after getting married, like they were together
over a decade in more than one case, got married,
broke up within months.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Yeah, I wonder again, it could be like the setup.
They've already had things planned, Yeah, things taken care of,
ready to go, and then they're like, yeah, my sugar,
Yeah we'll see. Liz Lind's, author of The American ex Wife,
How I Ended My Marriage and Started My Life, wrote,
these weren't just stories of women falling out of love,
(16:21):
but of political, cultural, and romantic institutions that asks too
much of wives and mothers and gives too little in return.
As one mother of four who runs her own small
business said, I'm a divorce single mom. Leaving my husband
didn't increase my workload. He wasn't doing much. My workload
is the same, but I have more peace now. I've
(16:45):
seen that a lot like essentially where the husband was
the other child that was making it more difficult.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
Yeah, and that goes back to what you were saying.
Several studies did find that men colley and they were
surprised by divorces, like she sprung this out of nowhere.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
Right, it came out of nowhere, Like that nagging that
you've been complaining about that she does was hard trying
to fix things.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
Yeah. I read some really for me upsetting stories of
women pretty much just like outright asking for public I
need your help, and the man in this relationship saying
get it together. I don't know why you can't get
(17:30):
it together, and basically like gaslighting them and being right,
I don't want to deal with whatever this is that
you're doing. Some research has found that women are financially
worse than men after divorced, sometimes by double percentage points,
(17:54):
often due to things like gender wage gap. Women are
less likely to remarry and frequently take on the soul
burden of childcare if children are in the mix. However,
the same studies found that women were happier in doing
better at their jobs than they had been pre divorced.
Many women reported feeling positive about taking that step the initiative,
(18:18):
so kind of like what you were talking about that
here's something on my to do list, I'm going to
take care of it. All of that comes with an
important caveat. Studies are usually focused on short term impacts
of divorce. A few of the long term ones indicate
that women over time actually do better financially post divorce, too,
(18:40):
I can see another caveat. Some women reported subjective satisfaction
of making or having their own money, even if it
was less than what their husband made. This is part
of why these things can be tricky to measure, because
our experiences shade our understanding. But also the subjective cannot
be measured fully. But reported being happy that you know,
(19:03):
I'm making my own money, right, I like it?
Speaker 2 (19:06):
I mean subjective could be like getting away from the
mental abuse, emotional abuse, constant berating or scared of you know,
saying the wrong thing, type of things. You know, yeah,
really measure that. So. Other studies have found that many
women reported higher levels of happiness, a better social life,
increased feelings of control and self confidence after divorce, and
(19:28):
often went on to pursue creative career paths. They've also
shown an increase in sexual desire. I've actually heard that
as a conversation. I don't know like the level, but
like all of a sudden, they're ready to hit the
road again, like they're excited for the new challenges and
I've said it challenges.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
Yeah. Well, and to clarify, like a lot of the women,
a lot of times it's like, oh, she must not
have any sexual desire anymore, therefore there was no sex
in their marriage, and therefore their marriage ended. But a
lot of times, you know, they weren't maybe sexually attracted
to that person anymore, But that doesn't mean they don't
(20:09):
have sexual desire.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
Right. Again, this is that whole conversation of like what
is sexy to certain people? Yeah, and it could be like,
I mean, we talked about affair, so this is completely different.
But like why people get into a fairs is the
newness and excitement of it. That could be something that's different,
or it could be that you're just especially like if
we're talking about the weaponized incompetence or any of those
(20:33):
types of levels where you're just finally done taking care
of your husband, they no longer look like a partner
to you, but more of something that you are stuck
with and or taken care of constantly.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
Yeah, yes, and yeah, I mean I think again, not
to say that divorce is like all fantastic, but to
highlight that for so long we have framed divorces in
fat bad and our studies have only looked into the negatives.
But recent studies have looked into the positives too, So
(21:05):
that's why conversation is changing a bit. Some research does
indicate that after divorce from a man, women may start
dating women for the first time. And this is what
happened in Glenn and Doyle's book Untamed. You can see
that episode. But I did find that like a research paper.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
So I've seen this in person, like I've seen this
of people who have been in long term marriages with children.
They get divorced and their next pecture is this is
my new girlfriend, And I'm like, oh, congratulations, wait to
step it up, Like that's amazing. You found who you
(21:44):
were and you did not have that chance, possibly when
you first were in relationships and didn't understand who you
were or couldn't I like come to terms with who
you were at that time. I don't know, whatever the reason,
And now you're here, like in a whole different level
of yourself, you know, And I'm like, go ahead, But
like I've seen that it could be that our generation,
(22:07):
that people who've become the divorce as or getting divorced
are now a lot more open than they could have
been before. Like that could be the different changees honestly timing.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
Yeah, but also going back to a lot of women
got married very young, so I think you might not
have known at that time. And it is like I said,
I mean, I don't want to downplay the divorce is
(22:37):
painful and we're going to talk about it more later,
but it's also it can be it can be something
that is good, and so I think we need to
talk about both sides, all of the shades of why
of how divorce can look. One of the things that
has grabbed a lot of attention in recent years is
(22:59):
something called gray divorce, which I had not heard of.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
I haven't either, This is new to me.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
Well, I think it got a lot of attention because
a lot of celebrities started doing it.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
But yes, okay, yeah, okay, I think I know the
terms without knowing. But going on, So, starting around twenty
twenty three, a lot of articles started coming about how
women over fifty were initiating divorce. According to PE Research
and the American Psychological Association, between nineteen ninety and twenty ten,
the divorce rate of people over fifty increased substantially, while
(23:34):
younger people still account for the most divorces. In twenty nineteen,
divorces initiated by people over fifty reached thirty six percent,
up from around at nine percent in nineteen ninety. The
media started calling this gray divorce.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
Yes, and there are some key differences in grey divorce
in how finances look. When it comes to getting divorced
at this age, there are typically more assets involved. On
top of that, if the couple has been together for
a long time, there are friend groups, communities, and possibly
children involved. So why is this happening? Researchers believe it
(24:15):
reflects changes in our society, especially when it comes to
women and their opportunities. Divorce and living in general is expensive,
and we've talked numerous times about financial abuse and especially
how that impacts women. Now that women can have jobs
and credit cards, because reminder, that's fairly recent. The gender
(24:37):
wage gap is still thing, but it is more feasible
for women to get a divorce, and it had been
a couple of studies have found that women who advance
in their careers or are the breadwinners are more likely
to get divorced, and this raises several questions, including yes,
who can afford to get divorced, how the narrative would
(24:59):
be presented, But also it brings to mind the nightmare
of all the ambitious woman who is two career obsessed,
she goes home for Christmas and she doesn't understand. This
largely ignores the fact that ambitious men with families were
able to do it because they had wives at home
(25:21):
taking care of things. A lot of these arguments are
also conveniently ignored statistics around domestic abuse and partner violence.
And also people are living longer, so you might be like,
I've got a good thirty more years. Do I want
to spend it like this? So do I don't want
(25:42):
to get a divorce?
Speaker 2 (25:44):
Or you could do like me where you forget what
it is and how old you are and you're like nah, Also,
well I'm too young for that. Also until I realize, oh,
it's coming up to you can't have babis. Yeah, I'm
okay with that too. Moving on, the person who is
credited with terming the term great divorce, A sociology professor
(26:05):
Susan Brown said women seem to be maybe a little
bit more likely to initiate divorce, but many would argue
that they could actually just be reflecting the fact that
women are the ones who have to do these types
of tasks within relationships.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
Hmmm, which is what we women saying. So I think
that's important to keep in mind too, is like maybe
maybe the woman is usually just the one who fills
out the.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
Patio, has to do the paperwork for them and be
like just sign for the love of Jesus.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
Oh, we're going to talk about some media portrayals soon
that brought that memories of Twister. While there's a lot
of work to be done societally, we have moved towards
(26:59):
a equitable marriages when it comes to things like domestic work,
or something at least closer to equitable marriages. This means
that more women have reported being unwilling to settle for
quote empty shell marriages, especially after their kids leave home.
That being said, studies have been done on if things
(27:22):
like children leaving the home or catalyst for these later
in life divorces, and while they have been found to
be factors. Statistically, they weren't the main cause. Economic stability
was much more of an issue, but it still wasn't.
There was no like way outlier. It was a lot
of things, I would say, a lot of things. We've
(27:45):
also talked before about the health effects of divorce. Studies
indicate women typically have stronger support groups outside of their family,
meaning that they are more able to move on. Studies
have also found that women post divorce are more like
cleaned to do rewarding activities they've always wanted to do,
like travel, or rely on their support groups, seek out
(28:08):
therapy as opposed to harmful coping mechanisms like drug and
alcohol abuse. But similar to what we discussed earlier, most
studies are on short term effects of divorce. Longer term
studies suggest that men recovered just about as much as women,
although other studies found the opposite. So grain of salt
(28:30):
is always with these social science surveys. Also, I found
a really great essay about kind of comparing the pandemic
what we saw on the pandemic of where a lot
of women were having to stay at home and maybe
quit their jobs to take care of the kids. And
(28:55):
the author was saying you know, like, if I'd gotten
divorced earlier, I would have done this and this and this,
and who knows how much creativity we've lost out on.
So I do think that's an interesting question of since
women are still tasked more with a child rearing and
(29:20):
domestic stuff on top of jobs, like, how much are
we losing from those women in terms of innovation and creativity?
Speaker 2 (29:30):
But what about the children?
Speaker 1 (29:31):
Though? Okay, so this is not not not an episode
on child custody and or an episode on children whose
parents went through a divorce, But it is pretty impossible
to talk about a divorce that involves children without talking
about the children. We do not have the time to
go into the history, but very briefly, pregnancy could and
(29:52):
still can lead to death. So the person who was
pregnant often had to stay at home and the person
or persons caring for them provided shelter and whatever they needed.
So this whole thing is still present in our modern
day systems of marriage and divorce and in the workplace
with things like pregnancy discrimination, which now we have birth
(30:14):
control and abortion ish family planning tools, but all of
that is being more and more restricted, So it's sort
of going back into the whole you have to stay
at home with the kids thing. The narrative often solely
puts the blame on women for divorce, especially children are involved.
(30:38):
She failed, and it is very complicated. Absolutely, children can
usually tell when you're miserable. They generally want you to
be happy. Women staying in a relationship and using children
as the reason why can be harmful, not just to
the women but to the children. The narrative also has
been that women steal their children from men. This is
(31:02):
largely not true, but there are nuances that get laws.
It's a whole mess. It's a different episode. I was
overwhelmed looking to it. But yes, some divorce women have
spoken about how anxious joint custody made them, not because
of abuse or anything like that, but just like having
(31:23):
that time away from their children and actually finding more
time to relax do things for themselves, but also reporting
that it helped form a better relationship with the father
in this very heater norm of case, because she had
previously been taking care of everything and now he had
to actually deal with the kids. And this reminds me
(31:44):
of a Jimmy Kimmel bit where it's very uncomfortable but
it's like a Man on the Street bit where they
just ask fathers to with their kids to like name
basic facts about their kids and they just fail, and
like who's to know. I'm sure they pick out the
worst ones, but it's like shocking, and then they bring
(32:07):
in the mother and she's like, oh, yes, this, this, this, this,
like she knows everything. So it just reminded me of
that in terms of like, now you have to actually
learn about this kid.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
Oddly enough, i've seen skits like that, except as about uh,
pet parents. Of course I would get that content literally,
like a lot of them are vets talking about how
oftentimes if it's not the woman in the heteronormative relationship
heteros relationship, then they don't know the information that they
(32:42):
have to call them, Like that's the skit is essentially
if it's the dude that always, oh no, it's him,
he's not gonna know anything. Can you please just have
your wife write down or all the information about the
dog or the cat. And I'm like, really, I've seen
this before and actually right, but you're like, but that's
so funny to me because I can't believe it would
(33:04):
also translate to that, and we know there's so many,
Like I've never looked at any status about ownership like
gender based on gender, but I think there's plenty of
men who who own dogs or pets in general. So
I'm like, huh, it crosses over like that.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
Yeah, yeah, And this is like you can see our
Emotional Labor episode for more on this, but like, we
are not believers in gender essentialism here, but I do
believe that in socialization of gender and expectations of gender.
(33:39):
So I think it's much more like if you look
at the comments under those Jimmy Kimmel videos, people are
horrified and they're like, I can't I can't believe you
couldn't take the barest interest in your own child, like
because they don't have to. They haven't had to, right. So,
the belief that divorce was bad for children was really
(34:02):
enforced by a few poorly researched but very publicized and
popular books spanning from the eighties to two thousands. I
bet some of you know who which ones, along with
historic and systemic governmental and religious pressure that were layered
with racism and misogyny. In twenty fourteen, Florida Senator Marco
Ribau said that marriage was quote the greatest tool to
(34:25):
live children and families from poverty. And honestly, yeah, going
back to our religious conversation around marriage and divorce, it's
a doozy, no wonder we had a twelve plus partner
on religious drum on my fault. It's not your fault
at all. Oh wow. But a twenty twenty study found
(34:47):
that women repartnering had no significant impacts on her adult children.
Other studies have found women are less likely to repartner
due to things like the fact that they are caring
for the kids, or they're older women, which you know
is the worst so who, or that men just don't
(35:08):
like the idea of dating a woman who makes more
than them as much as they might like to say
that they're cool with it. Which was that an actual
study that I found?
Speaker 2 (35:19):
Of course, it is a to be fair. I think
if my current relationship, whom I'm very happy with, we
do really well. We had like he knows everything about peaches,
so we're good, Like he could take car to the vent,
he'd be fine. I would put that out there, But like,
I'm like, I don't want to date I think in general,
(35:41):
just like for me in general, I'm like, no, I'm good. Yeah,
I just hang out with my dog. Thanks.
Speaker 1 (35:47):
Yeah. Oh. I think we're going to talk about that
in a little bit more at the end. But I
think that's kind of the general vine right for.
Speaker 2 (35:56):
I'd rather be alone. To those who are dating, god speed,
let us know what's going on. How are you? Oh
so we're gonna get into laws? Yeah, yeah, you're ready
for it. So, by and large, it is easier to
get married than it is to get divorced in the US. Yes,
even at fourteen. Yep, it is not easy. Even if
(36:21):
a lot of people like to paint this as a
oh you're quitting or you're giving up to get divorced,
it's actually a very long process. The history is regionally specific.
According to Investipedia, the first divorce on record in America
was granted in sixteen thirty nine in the Massachusetts Bay
Colony because a man named James Luxford had married two wives.
(36:44):
Lux first punishment was to relinquish his possessions to his
second wife as alimony and was put in the stocks, fined,
and banished. So did he get divorced from both people? Though?
Which one?
Speaker 1 (36:57):
Yeah? I think just the one. I almost again this episode,
it could have been so long because I wanted to
do famous examples of like how they changed parts of Catholicism.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
Yeah, around the world the eighth isn't that the whole story? Yeah,
he did this because he wanted a new wife, but
then he killed all of them.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
Yeah, I mean this is a simplification, yeah, but I
mean it's and looking at all the history is a
lot of men being like I don't want to be
with you anymore. I want this other person. And that
has guided a lot of our laws. But okay, we
(37:42):
are not lawyers, as we said, and to be really honest,
I had no idea about how hard it was to
legally get divorced. So here are just a few examples.
And to be clear, these laws very by state. Here
in the United States, most states have waiting periods of
twenty to one hundred and eighty days, not to mention
(38:04):
the fees on top of that, this means for an
amount of time you're in sort of a painful limbo,
especially financially from what I read a lot, and emotionally absolutely,
but that financial part can be really difficult. Certain religions
require or strongly pressure you to get religious counseling. Marriage
(38:24):
is often given incentives, but single parents do not receive
anything close to that. Some marriage counseling and seminars are
text funded. Currently and unfortunate emphasis on Currently, no fault
divorce is legal in all fifty states. This rose in
popularity in the seventies and eighties in the US, after
(38:46):
first being legalized in California in nineteen sixty nine. And
I know some of you are like shouting out the computer.
We'll get to the fun effect behind that. At the end.
It means that you don't have to prove fault to
get divorced. Legal experts believe it was necessary to correct
a system that incentivized concocting plane to justify the divorce,
(39:06):
so like everybody was lying essentially. That being said, some
states require that the broken up couples spend a year
and one day in separate living spaces, which is not
so easy. This is often called the cooling off period. Obviously,
it can be painful and intimidating to prove fault in
(39:27):
an abusive marriage. Research has found a significant decrease in
suicide and women where no fault divorce was an option.
They've also found lower rates of domestic violence, which makes
sense to me. Apparently in Texas you cannot finalize the
divorce while pregnant if the divorcee in question is the
biological parent. Like I said, LGBTQ plus marriage and divorce
(39:52):
separate episode, but a lot of it is similar to
no fault laws in the US, but further complicated by
gen laws and language like who is the biological parent?
Who is the quote mother? It can get really really messy,
so that future episode. And then this brings us to
(40:16):
just a brief venting session. Oh the Internet, because when
I was looking this up, a lot of the first
results were men being real mad about how in their
minds divorce favors women, men blaming women for divorce, asking
what state they should go to to get divorce that
(40:38):
will favor them the most. And then, of course, as
per usual, the whole go and make me a sandwich thing,
because yeah, like when do you stop and think about it?
Like men were working, they were getting to own things,
they were controlling their finances, they were getting out of
the house. But women were doing unpaid notice labor, cooking, cleaning, chowdering,
(41:03):
and being made fun of her having frivolous relationships outside
of the house, like how we used to still do
make fun of like, oh, she's always talking with her friends,
like like it's so frivolous or useless. Other studies have
found that women work harder to receive less in their
jobs due to biases, So add that to the pile.
(41:24):
So for these angry men on the internet, Yeah, the
marriage is great. Come you come home to a meal.
You don't have to deal with the kids other than
like acknowledging that they're kids. Meanwhile, she's been working all day. Still,
I was working when you get home, and then it's
mocked if she's too tired for sex, you.
Speaker 2 (41:42):
Know, which is interesting because the level of women coming
back round to yeah, I'll be a stay at home mom,
and I will. I will serve you and cook you
if you provide for everything else, and I don't do
a damn thing after the fact. Like that's that kind
of conversation from like maybe the seventies and probably more so.
(42:04):
And this is very like white perspective, heteronormative ideals to
like about what the nineties they said. They're saying that
the uptick of divorce happened in the nineties. I don't remember,
but all of that to say is like women were
working and doing the nine to five, coming home, clicking
and cleaning, taking care of the children because they were
also having children still at that point, and the men
(42:26):
were just working coming home, putting their shoes up, telling
the kids to stay out of the way while they
watched their show. So this is all stereotype obviously according
to sitcoms. But like they were living their best life. Yeah,
and they're really mad that they had it for a
period and they're like, why can't I have that again?
And it just doesn't make sense to be.
Speaker 1 (42:47):
Like, yeah, it's I mean, it was upsetting and kind
of funny.
Speaker 2 (42:55):
They fit.
Speaker 1 (42:56):
They're like it would be like you know, the Yahoo
asked and to be why are you with my woman
not doing this anymore? And I'm like, oh, wow, you have.
Speaker 2 (43:06):
Whoa And this is kind of like and then it's
the basis of the red pill. And in so many
ways when we talk about that content, when we talked
about religious trauma, we're talking about Project twenty twenty five,
even which we haven't really talked about and we're going
to come back to. But all of these narratives of
like going back to the good old days, is that
(43:28):
that ideal of oppressing marginalized people for this specific look.
They're like, I want to get back to where a
home was a home where two with a man and
a wife and two to three children, and the woman
came in as subservient to the man, but of course
the man protected her. Yes, that's us our job, that's
our duties. And it's kind of that beginning of yeah,
(43:51):
there used to be such the golden days, as they
would claim, and it's this, it's the beginning of the
narrative for the red pill and having that level of
if we can get back to that, then all is
right with the world. And this is the whole point.
And this is the decency and the godliness that they
are talking about. And this kind of ideal for young
(44:12):
boys was like, yeah, why can't I have that? And
it slips into these are my rights when it never was.
Speaker 1 (44:19):
Right absolutely, And I think a lot of this was
in part missing the point of a twenty nineteen US
Census Bureau report that come through numerous studies and found
women do have more to benefit from divorce, like leisure time,
career time, time to relax less chores, less childcare. But
(44:41):
I think they took it and saw that as I'm
getting punished more for the divorce. Coincidentally, this report also
found that areas that had more social nets and easier
access to divorce at higher rates of marriage. Interesting. But yes,
(45:10):
the media, we must also talk about that, because when
you talk about divorce and women, there are a lot
of tropes. The evil ex wife, the mean mom who
punishes her ex. I thought about missus stubtfire for that one,
nagging sitcom wives, men complaining about the old ball and chain.
(45:30):
And then this whole idea of women changing or chaining
their man, which a lot of people who have written
about divorce have said, like, here's how you failed. You
should have changed him in this way, And I think
that's a problematic. No, No, you can work together on things,
(45:50):
but that whole idea. In nineteen seventy two, sociologists Jesse
Bernard wrote quote, there are a few findings more consistent,
less equick, and more convincing than the sometimes spectacular and
always impressive superiority on almost every index, demographic, psychological, or
social of married over never married men. Despite all the
(46:12):
jokes about marriage in which men indulge, all the complaints
they lodge against it, it is one of the greatest
boons of their sex because they always made fun of it.
They're always like, it's always bothering me. But a lot
of women have reported feeling like failures at first after
(46:35):
a divorce, but over time realizing that they made the
right decision and were happier. And a lot of them
have reported finding a community of other divorce women, not
even purposefully, always like you know, you'd be calling up
to cancel your insurance and like I'm getting divorced and like, oh, yeah,
I went through that, or you know, something like that,
and how that helped them. Another Pew Research study found
(46:57):
that most women are unsure about remarrying, while most men
want to. I do think this is pretty telling in
terms of who marriage largely benefits, as do the study
authors that found seventy percent of divorces are initiated by women,
but not breakups. One of the study authors, Michael Rosenfeldt, said,
(47:18):
I think that marriage as an institution has been a
little bit slow to catch up with expectations for gender equality.
Wives still take their husband's surnames and are sometimes pressured
to do so. Husbands still expect their wives to do
the bulk of the housework and the bulk of the childcare.
On the other hand, I think that non marital relationships
lack the historical baggage and expectations of marriage, which makes
(47:41):
the non marital relationships more flexible and therefore more adaptable
to modern expectations, including women's expectations to more gender equality.
Speaker 2 (47:50):
You know, what we haven't really talked much about is
the common law. Yeah, we have to which in Georgia
has that I believe, yes, which is kind of concerning.
Why is this the thing? It seems very misogynistic. We
haven't looked into it, very patriarchal because I also think
if you're in that same level, like you, no matter
(48:11):
what you do, you're stuck type of conversation. But probably
a different episode.
Speaker 1 (48:18):
Oh, absolutely definitely a different episode and all of these
I mean, I hope we've been clear throughout. We did
research this, but it is you know, a lot of
it's not everybody's experience at all, these things we're talking about.
But it's also interesting in terms of our media, where
the X or the single bomb is a failure, but
(48:39):
in fairy tales, your dream come true is finding the
husband and getting married. This is also a conversation of
unrealistic expectations of love. But the point stands because it
stops when you get married, so you don't see all
the work or all the discord that might be in it.
(49:01):
I will say this brought back a memory of when
I was first starting as a host for Saver. We
were recording at a bar and there was a group
of divorced women who were there having the time of
their lives and we got into chatting. They were just
talking to us and they're telling us all their stories.
(49:22):
But it was I remember being like kind of moved
by how they were having this camaraderie and this They
were like, oh, yeah, once a month we meet up.
And I really liked it. I thought it was great.
But they were very open about it, and one of
them gave me your business. Carden was like, after this,
(49:43):
I got into divorce law.
Speaker 2 (49:46):
That was amazing.
Speaker 1 (49:49):
It honestly was. It honestly was. And then my mom,
like I said, I and I each the point where
I wished my parents had gotten divorced. I don't blame
my mom for not getting divorced, and I don't want
to get into it too deeply, but I've reached a
(50:11):
point where I was like, I think it would be better.
But after my dad died, she's been very open with
me about like, I don't want to remarry again. I
don't want to date again because I was always putting
his needs first. I was always worried about him and
what he wanted and what he wanted to do. And
those are like larger conversations to have about how we're
(50:32):
as women socialized the people please and put ourselves second.
But it's just been interesting to hear her be like, no,
I'm good, I am good. Things are changing, though some
speculate that the whole idea of marriage is shifting, and
the data we're seeing here is very reflective of boomers
and Gen X, but the younger generations won't follow the
(50:52):
same patterns. As Joey said in our recent episode on
being gen Z and dating, the goalposts and desires aren't
the same. Many more necessarily, some countries have introduced laws
around divorce that recognize the value of domestic work, which
is interesting and on a less serious note, I have
seen a lot of recent conversation about being the stay
(51:13):
at home partner and having that scene as more of
an equal partnership, like actually recognizing the work. I personally
am still grappling with some of the ways those conversations
are phrased. But I do like that, you know, I'm
glad we're taking that step of there is value in
that work. You should have known that all the time.
But the attitude around divorce has also changed. It's no
(51:35):
longer ashamed as it once was. That's not to say
there isn't still that aspect, but that is moving. I
do want to say. The flip side of this whole
thing is people who want to get married but can't
for whatever reason, and who long for partnership or might
even need it if they want to have kids. To
(51:56):
afford kids are expensive. On top of that, it isn't
always the woman initiating divorce, and even if it was,
there is pain involved. So just to say I think
it's good, like I said, to recognize the full spectrum
of it doesn't always have to be bad. But it's
also you know, some people I read an article about,
(52:21):
like I wish I could get married before I could
talk about divorce. But anyway, and yeah, I see things
again like our disability and marriage episode and unfortunately in
our climate, oh, our political climate, the US House Speaker
Mike Johnson called no fault divorce a scheme. VP jd
(52:42):
Vance said it is insult on marriage. A few states
have put forth proposed restrictions, and to be clear, the
restrictions are largely targeted at women. And yeah, my fun
fact I to used earlier then Governor Ronald Reagan was
the one until you no fault divorces. He was the
first elected president to have a divorce. He later said
(53:05):
it was a mistake. Trump was the second president to
be elected to have a divorce, so at least one.
So yeah, we clearly have a lot to return.
Speaker 2 (53:22):
To his ex wife. He's now ex deceased wife was
kind of like the inspiration for the First Wives Club.
Can we talk about.
Speaker 1 (53:30):
That, yes, which did come up in my like do
you need a movie about older women in divorce? And
we have an episode on it we have so you
can go check that out.
Speaker 2 (53:43):
He makes a cameo she does, don't get mad take everything.
Speaker 1 (53:50):
A lot of a lot of threads past episodes we've done,
in future episodes we need to do on this one.
But yes, listeners, please write in if you have any
experiences you want to share, our resources, you want to
share we do want to dig into this more deeply
and go in some other directions with it, so let
(54:13):
us know where you'd like us to go. You can
email us at stuff Media, mom Stuff at iHeartMedia dot
com or Hello at stuff one Never Told You dot com.
You can find us on blue Sky at mom Stuff podcast,
or on Instagram and TikTok at stuff one Never Told You.
We have YouTube page, a tea public store, and a
book you can get wherever you get your books. Thanks
(54:35):
as always to our super producer Christina or executive duc
to my and your contributor Joey. Thank you, and thanks
to you for listening stuff Never Told You the prediction
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, you
can check out the art radio app, Apple podcast or
where you listening to your favorite shows
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. I welcome to stuff
and never told your reprection by Heart Radio, and today
we're bringing back a classic that I still want to
revisit with more depth. But it's about divorce. It is
(00:27):
about how divorce works. And I'm not sure why this
was on my mind. I do know that it has
become a really political topic lately in the United States
because even going back to Project twenty twenty five and
stuff beyond that, they were trying to get the people
(00:50):
who were behind that have been trying to get rid
of ways that generally women could get out of abusive marriages.
And in this episode, I particularly remember in my naivete,
I didn't know that in some states there's like a
(01:11):
year wait before you can get a divorce there. You
have to go to counseling and sometimes it's religious counseling
and all of these things, and it is coming back,
is really coming back and forth, and I just I
don't like it, Samantha. I don't like it. That's what
(01:31):
I'll say.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
I'm with you.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Yes, we are agreed on this front, but we are
going to have to come back and revisit it. But
for now, please enjoy this classic episode. Hey, this is
Annie and Samantha and welcome stuff. Never told you predicting
to buy her radio. And today we're coming in swinging
(02:05):
in the new year. We are talking about divorce in
the United States and specifically how it impacts women. It
is a topic we have been meaning to do for
a while. I appreciate so much your patients because a
lot of times I'll be like, yes, we're going to
do that, and then a year later and like, here
we finally are We do take care your suggestions. We
(02:29):
absolutely do. Sometimes it just takes us a minute. And
several of you have written in about it and thank
you for sharing your experiences about your divorce. And recently
I have gotten so many cold call emails about it.
This is what we call emails where people are like,
(02:50):
you should do a topic on this, and I was
getting so many about divorce. I didn't know that the
first Monday of January is divorce day? Did you know that?
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Not? I That seems so sad. At the same time, why.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
I'm depending on you, sman Thin You're the one who
tells me about cuffings Heason. I don't know, but I
based on what I read, which by the way as
a recording. Divorce day was this past Monday. People hold
off on getting the divorce until after the holidays, especially
if they have kids, so it's sort of the it's
(03:27):
a new year. I'm done with this. I would like
to move on. Situation disclaimer. We are not lawyers. Neither
of us have ever been married. Unless you have something
to tell me.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Unless you have something to tell me, no, between the
two of us, you would be treated into a marriage
before I was.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
I have been proposed to more than one, I'm sure,
but I have never ever ever been married. I do
have a friend who surprised me that she had been married.
I didn't know that. My dad also was married before
my mom, and I didn't know that. But anyway, I
do not get your legal advice from a podcast.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Please, oh my god, don't do it.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
Don't do it, even if it's a legal podcast. No,
just look up other films.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Different states have different outlines of what, yes, they're allowed
to do.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Oh my gosh. So originally I wanted to do how
to get a divorce like step by step. I didn't
realize how vastly that varies in the United States. So
we're gonna put that on hold for a minute. I
(04:41):
do want to come back and talk about it, because
this is a huge topic. We are primarily focusing on
the US. Listeners from other countries please write in I'm
really curious and yeah, we're definitely gonna have to revisit
it because the history of marriage, the religious aspects, the
legal ass affects, how it has changed and how it
(05:02):
hasn't changing. Your insurance, is your finances, maybe your name,
your will, splitting your assets if you have them, child custody,
the history of racism, of homophobia, of ableism. See our
recent episode on disability and marriage. Like it's there's so
much to unpack in this episode. We have done past
(05:27):
episodes on some of these issues, but just know there
are so many of these histories and influences enshrined in
our laws in the US that still remain when you're
trying to get a divorce. We are going to touch
on LGBTQ plus divorce, but very briefly, that's a whole
separate episode in itself, And frankly, when I was researching it,
(05:49):
I mostly just got law websites that I I wasn't
sure I could trustfully to be honest and that's not
a great place to be in when you're trying to
get a divorce. Yeah, so today we are mostly going
to be talking about divorce in the heteronormative sense. You
can see our book where we did a chapter on
(06:14):
the legalization of gay marriage and all of the conversation
arguments about that, so check that out. You can also
see the episode we did on Glennon Doyle's book Untamed,
and you can see our episode on some research that
says single women are happier. Another thing to keep in
(06:37):
mind as we go through this, and we are going
to expound on it more, but divorce is hard emotionally, financially, legally,
it takes up a lot of your time. Sometimes legally
as in by law, it takes up a lot of
your time. But it's not always bad, and we often
frame it as a failure, especially for women. And you
(06:58):
can see our Religious Trauma episode on divorce for more
about that. Oh my, sometimes it is a good thing.
That doesn't mean it doesn't hurt or it isn't difficult,
but sometimes it's a net positive. On top of that,
marriage isn't bad. Many people have happy marriages, but marriage
has historically systemically favored men, and yes, the internet will
(07:21):
tell you otherwise. We will talk about that more later.
I personally haven't. I don't have a lot of experience
with divorce other than a friend, one of my very
close friends, her parents got divorced and it was really emotional.
(07:41):
I at one time, which I'll talk about a bit
more later, really wanted my parents to get a divorce.
I thought it would have been better. But through media,
I will say, I thought it was a negative thing.
I thought it was always bad. And through doing this research,
I have read many accounts by women where that is
(08:04):
not the case. But what about your Samantha, do you
have experienced thoughts Before we get into.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
This experienced thoughts, I will say, as a person who
did work for CPS Top Protective Services, man, if you
don't know if your marriage is not going to last,
or if you have doubts about your marriage, don't have children.
Like that's the way they use a lot of cases,
(08:31):
especially when it comes to divorce, the way that children
are used to manipulate a lot of honestly women, I
mean both sides. I guess we can say both sides,
but like we know that it's doing pregnancy and divorce
that is the highest risk for the death of a spouse,
the woman, specifically the wife. So like all of these things,
(08:54):
and even with growing up in a household that said,
you do not divorce no matter what, no matter what,
like the only reason is for cheating, and even if that,
you need witnesses to the cheating, and like he has
to agree to the divorce as well, biblical level of
like how to get a divorce is insane anyway, but
(09:15):
like really coming and understanding as a person who didn't
have many relationships growing up, that wasn't the most important
thing for me, watching family members around me really trying
to stick to that, even like condoning that life, Oh
gave me the biggest dick. So I will say, as
(09:37):
gross and as hard as divorce can feel, or you know,
break ups, but divorce is a whole different conversation. Being
stuck in a miserable relationship where you feel like you're
trapped is even worse. And I can't imagine fifty sixty
years ago when people were really really harping on that
you have to stay together no matter what is death
do you part, even if it's your death that he
(10:01):
caused or they caused like it doesn't matter, it's so absurd.
I'm glad to see that narrative changing a bit. I
know everybody's still harping onto the but the divorce and
the fifty percent and his cousin sin. Yeah, but with that,
I think marriage is not overrated, but it's not for everyone.
(10:27):
And I think that's a great reminder. This episode is
a good reminder things change.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
That's what I'll also say. Yeah, and we're gonna we're
gonna get into that because, as I said, this is
a huge topic. This is actually more of a kind
of an update on where divorce is in the United States, which, uh,
we are going to talk about kind of differences that
are really interesting between breakups and divorce when it comes
(10:56):
to gender, because you know, divorce involves you going to
core to file a document to like dissolve your marriage legally.
It's actually pretty difficult to track divorce rates in the US,
and that's not even accounting for separated couples because for
a lot of reasons, people will separate but not get divorced.
(11:20):
The estimate is currently around forty percent. A lot of
times it's quoted at fifty, but they think it's actually
closer to forty. Most sources indicate that divorces are less
of a specific event and more often one partner deciding
to leave, and historically the increase has gone up with
women's evolving role in society. So there are a couple
(11:43):
of reasons behind this why this might be. Some of
them we're gonna get into a bit more, but just
off the top of my head, I was thinking about
like the history of marrying young older men marrying younger women,
so like, as you grow older, maybe this isn't for you,
the woman usually having to sacrifice for your family and
(12:06):
for your children, being kind of indoctrinated with this idea
that happiness is silly. You're not good enough to choose
your own well being. That would be selfish. That ideal
is kind of shifting. I think, who will care for
your kids if you have them? Can you afford childcare?
Who is getting paid more? I think these questions are
(12:27):
more prevalent. I did see this. I'm going to talk
about this more later, but when we were researching this,
I saw a bunch of like magazine articles that were
(12:48):
like how to save your marriage, and a lot of
them were like have we just tried being sexier, though
I don't think that's flying anymore. I don't think that's working.
And also, just reminder, marital rape was legal till disturbingly recently.
So a lot of reasons why women couldn't get divorced
(13:09):
were it was difficult. There were financial especially which we're
going to talk about reasons why. And now that's a
little that's changed a little bit and we're seeing more
divorced and angry men on the internet like to say
it's women's fault, which I'm just like, I think maybe,
I think maybe things have just changed and women have
(13:31):
the option now and they didn't earlier. But Okay, there
have been a lot of headlines about women and divorce
in recent years. A twenty fifteen study from the American
Sociological Association found that women initiated seventy percent of divorces.
The same was not at all true of non marital breakups,
(13:52):
which is interesting. A twenty thirteen study out of Kingston
University tracing the before and afters of big life events
found that women were generally happier after divorce. I mean,
if you're making that choice to get a divorce, then
I feel like that makes sense to.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Me right, I mean and not again. We don't know
for sure when it comes to the lines when it
comes to gender, but typically big decisions like this, we
talked about this with like finances and stocks and how
a lot it has been noted that women have been
a lot more successful because they are patient and think
through before they make a decision. It's kind of the
(14:32):
same with like big life decisions like divorce, and they've
gone through a lot first. Like it's a TikTok trend
to see how people are. Like we've talked about weaponized
and competence and this level of stuff, and women responding
when they see these types of things happening being like, yeah,
and it's going to come to that. I don't know,
(14:53):
she's left all of a sudden, and in naturality, it's
been a long time making that same kind of conversation.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Yes, yes, we're going to get more into that later.
Share Heights nineteen eighty seven Work Women in Love found
that four five hundred women aged fourteen to eighty five
that four fifths reported feeling their relationship was unequal. I know,
around ninety ninety percent of divorce women said they were
(15:22):
lonely in their marriages, and a whopping ninety five percent
said they experienced quote emotional and psychological harassment. Her research
and the respondents were attacked by men who believed it
couldn't possibly be true. That can't be the case. I
am interested in how many cases I have of friends
(15:46):
who have been together for years getting divorced and breaking
up very quickly after getting married, like they were together
over a decade in more than one case, got married,
broke up within months.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Yeah, I wonder again, it could be like the setup.
They've already had things planned, Yeah, things taken care of,
ready to go, and then they're like, yeah, my sugar,
Yeah we'll see. Liz Lind's, author of The American ex Wife,
How I Ended My Marriage and Started My Life, wrote,
these weren't just stories of women falling out of love,
(16:21):
but of political, cultural, and romantic institutions that asks too
much of wives and mothers and gives too little in return.
As one mother of four who runs her own small
business said, I'm a divorce single mom. Leaving my husband
didn't increase my workload. He wasn't doing much. My workload
is the same, but I have more peace now. I've
(16:45):
seen that a lot like essentially where the husband was
the other child that was making it more difficult.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
Yeah, and that goes back to what you were saying.
Several studies did find that men colley and they were
surprised by divorces, like she sprung this out of nowhere.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
Right, it came out of nowhere, Like that nagging that
you've been complaining about that she does was hard trying
to fix things.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
Yeah. I read some really for me upsetting stories of
women pretty much just like outright asking for public I
need your help, and the man in this relationship saying
get it together. I don't know why you can't get
(17:30):
it together, and basically like gaslighting them and being right,
I don't want to deal with whatever this is that
you're doing. Some research has found that women are financially
worse than men after divorced, sometimes by double percentage points,
(17:54):
often due to things like gender wage gap. Women are
less likely to remarry and frequently take on the soul
burden of childcare if children are in the mix. However,
the same studies found that women were happier in doing
better at their jobs than they had been pre divorced.
Many women reported feeling positive about taking that step the initiative,
(18:18):
so kind of like what you were talking about that
here's something on my to do list, I'm going to
take care of it. All of that comes with an
important caveat. Studies are usually focused on short term impacts
of divorce. A few of the long term ones indicate
that women over time actually do better financially post divorce, too,
(18:40):
I can see another caveat. Some women reported subjective satisfaction
of making or having their own money, even if it
was less than what their husband made. This is part
of why these things can be tricky to measure, because
our experiences shade our understanding. But also the subjective cannot
be measured fully. But reported being happy that you know,
(19:03):
I'm making my own money, right, I like it?
Speaker 2 (19:06):
I mean subjective could be like getting away from the
mental abuse, emotional abuse, constant berating or scared of you know,
saying the wrong thing, type of things. You know, yeah,
really measure that. So. Other studies have found that many
women reported higher levels of happiness, a better social life,
increased feelings of control and self confidence after divorce, and
(19:28):
often went on to pursue creative career paths. They've also
shown an increase in sexual desire. I've actually heard that
as a conversation. I don't know like the level, but
like all of a sudden, they're ready to hit the
road again, like they're excited for the new challenges and
I've said it challenges.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
Yeah. Well, and to clarify, like a lot of the women,
a lot of times it's like, oh, she must not
have any sexual desire anymore, therefore there was no sex
in their marriage, and therefore their marriage ended. But a
lot of times, you know, they weren't maybe sexually attracted
to that person anymore, But that doesn't mean they don't
(20:09):
have sexual desire.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
Right. Again, this is that whole conversation of like what
is sexy to certain people? Yeah, and it could be like,
I mean, we talked about affair, so this is completely different.
But like why people get into a fairs is the
newness and excitement of it. That could be something that's different,
or it could be that you're just especially like if
we're talking about the weaponized incompetence or any of those
(20:33):
types of levels where you're just finally done taking care
of your husband, they no longer look like a partner
to you, but more of something that you are stuck
with and or taken care of constantly.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
Yeah, yes, and yeah, I mean I think again, not
to say that divorce is like all fantastic, but to
highlight that for so long we have framed divorces in
fat bad and our studies have only looked into the negatives.
But recent studies have looked into the positives too, So
(21:05):
that's why conversation is changing a bit. Some research does
indicate that after divorce from a man, women may start
dating women for the first time. And this is what
happened in Glenn and Doyle's book Untamed. You can see
that episode. But I did find that like a research paper.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
So I've seen this in person, like I've seen this
of people who have been in long term marriages with children.
They get divorced and their next pecture is this is
my new girlfriend, And I'm like, oh, congratulations, wait to
step it up, Like that's amazing. You found who you
(21:44):
were and you did not have that chance, possibly when
you first were in relationships and didn't understand who you
were or couldn't I like come to terms with who
you were at that time. I don't know, whatever the reason,
And now you're here, like in a whole different level
of yourself, you know, And I'm like, go ahead, But
like I've seen that it could be that our generation,
(22:07):
that people who've become the divorce as or getting divorced
are now a lot more open than they could have
been before. Like that could be the different changees honestly timing.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
Yeah, but also going back to a lot of women
got married very young, so I think you might not
have known at that time. And it is like I said,
I mean, I don't want to downplay the divorce is
(22:37):
painful and we're going to talk about it more later,
but it's also it can be it can be something
that is good, and so I think we need to
talk about both sides, all of the shades of why
of how divorce can look. One of the things that
has grabbed a lot of attention in recent years is
(22:59):
something called gray divorce, which I had not heard of.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
I haven't either, This is new to me.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
Well, I think it got a lot of attention because
a lot of celebrities started doing it.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
But yes, okay, yeah, okay, I think I know the
terms without knowing. But going on, So, starting around twenty
twenty three, a lot of articles started coming about how
women over fifty were initiating divorce. According to PE Research
and the American Psychological Association, between nineteen ninety and twenty ten,
the divorce rate of people over fifty increased substantially, while
(23:34):
younger people still account for the most divorces. In twenty nineteen,
divorces initiated by people over fifty reached thirty six percent,
up from around at nine percent in nineteen ninety. The
media started calling this gray divorce.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
Yes, and there are some key differences in grey divorce
in how finances look. When it comes to getting divorced
at this age, there are typically more assets involved. On
top of that, if the couple has been together for
a long time, there are friend groups, communities, and possibly
children involved. So why is this happening? Researchers believe it
(24:15):
reflects changes in our society, especially when it comes to
women and their opportunities. Divorce and living in general is expensive,
and we've talked numerous times about financial abuse and especially
how that impacts women. Now that women can have jobs
and credit cards, because reminder, that's fairly recent. The gender
(24:37):
wage gap is still thing, but it is more feasible
for women to get a divorce, and it had been
a couple of studies have found that women who advance
in their careers or are the breadwinners are more likely
to get divorced, and this raises several questions, including yes,
who can afford to get divorced, how the narrative would
(24:59):
be presented, But also it brings to mind the nightmare
of all the ambitious woman who is two career obsessed,
she goes home for Christmas and she doesn't understand. This
largely ignores the fact that ambitious men with families were
able to do it because they had wives at home
(25:21):
taking care of things. A lot of these arguments are
also conveniently ignored statistics around domestic abuse and partner violence.
And also people are living longer, so you might be like,
I've got a good thirty more years. Do I want
to spend it like this? So do I don't want
(25:42):
to get a divorce?
Speaker 2 (25:44):
Or you could do like me where you forget what
it is and how old you are and you're like nah, Also,
well I'm too young for that. Also until I realize, oh,
it's coming up to you can't have babis. Yeah, I'm
okay with that too. Moving on, the person who is
credited with terming the term great divorce, A sociology professor
(26:05):
Susan Brown said women seem to be maybe a little
bit more likely to initiate divorce, but many would argue
that they could actually just be reflecting the fact that
women are the ones who have to do these types
of tasks within relationships.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
Hmmm, which is what we women saying. So I think
that's important to keep in mind too, is like maybe
maybe the woman is usually just the one who fills
out the.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
Patio, has to do the paperwork for them and be
like just sign for the love of Jesus.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
Oh, we're going to talk about some media portrayals soon
that brought that memories of Twister. While there's a lot
of work to be done societally, we have moved towards
(26:59):
a equitable marriages when it comes to things like domestic work,
or something at least closer to equitable marriages. This means
that more women have reported being unwilling to settle for
quote empty shell marriages, especially after their kids leave home.
That being said, studies have been done on if things
(27:22):
like children leaving the home or catalyst for these later
in life divorces, and while they have been found to
be factors. Statistically, they weren't the main cause. Economic stability
was much more of an issue, but it still wasn't.
There was no like way outlier. It was a lot
of things, I would say, a lot of things. We've
(27:45):
also talked before about the health effects of divorce. Studies
indicate women typically have stronger support groups outside of their family,
meaning that they are more able to move on. Studies
have also found that women post divorce are more like
cleaned to do rewarding activities they've always wanted to do,
like travel, or rely on their support groups, seek out
(28:08):
therapy as opposed to harmful coping mechanisms like drug and
alcohol abuse. But similar to what we discussed earlier, most
studies are on short term effects of divorce. Longer term
studies suggest that men recovered just about as much as women,
although other studies found the opposite. So grain of salt
(28:30):
is always with these social science surveys. Also, I found
a really great essay about kind of comparing the pandemic
what we saw on the pandemic of where a lot
of women were having to stay at home and maybe
quit their jobs to take care of the kids. And
(28:55):
the author was saying you know, like, if I'd gotten
divorced earlier, I would have done this and this and this,
and who knows how much creativity we've lost out on.
So I do think that's an interesting question of since
women are still tasked more with a child rearing and
(29:20):
domestic stuff on top of jobs, like, how much are
we losing from those women in terms of innovation and creativity?
Speaker 2 (29:30):
But what about the children?
Speaker 1 (29:31):
Though? Okay, so this is not not not an episode
on child custody and or an episode on children whose
parents went through a divorce, But it is pretty impossible
to talk about a divorce that involves children without talking
about the children. We do not have the time to
go into the history, but very briefly, pregnancy could and
(29:52):
still can lead to death. So the person who was
pregnant often had to stay at home and the person
or persons caring for them provided shelter and whatever they needed.
So this whole thing is still present in our modern
day systems of marriage and divorce and in the workplace
with things like pregnancy discrimination, which now we have birth
(30:14):
control and abortion ish family planning tools, but all of
that is being more and more restricted, So it's sort
of going back into the whole you have to stay
at home with the kids thing. The narrative often solely
puts the blame on women for divorce, especially children are involved.
(30:38):
She failed, and it is very complicated. Absolutely, children can
usually tell when you're miserable. They generally want you to
be happy. Women staying in a relationship and using children
as the reason why can be harmful, not just to
the women but to the children. The narrative also has
been that women steal their children from men. This is
(31:02):
largely not true, but there are nuances that get laws.
It's a whole mess. It's a different episode. I was
overwhelmed looking to it. But yes, some divorce women have
spoken about how anxious joint custody made them, not because
of abuse or anything like that, but just like having
(31:23):
that time away from their children and actually finding more
time to relax do things for themselves, but also reporting
that it helped form a better relationship with the father
in this very heater norm of case, because she had
previously been taking care of everything and now he had
to actually deal with the kids. And this reminds me
(31:44):
of a Jimmy Kimmel bit where it's very uncomfortable but
it's like a Man on the Street bit where they
just ask fathers to with their kids to like name
basic facts about their kids and they just fail, and
like who's to know. I'm sure they pick out the
worst ones, but it's like shocking, and then they bring
(32:07):
in the mother and she's like, oh, yes, this, this, this, this,
like she knows everything. So it just reminded me of
that in terms of like, now you have to actually
learn about this kid.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
Oddly enough, i've seen skits like that, except as about uh,
pet parents. Of course I would get that content literally,
like a lot of them are vets talking about how
oftentimes if it's not the woman in the heteronormative relationship
heteros relationship, then they don't know the information that they
(32:42):
have to call them, Like that's the skit is essentially
if it's the dude that always, oh no, it's him,
he's not gonna know anything. Can you please just have
your wife write down or all the information about the
dog or the cat. And I'm like, really, I've seen
this before and actually right, but you're like, but that's
so funny to me because I can't believe it would
(33:04):
also translate to that, and we know there's so many,
Like I've never looked at any status about ownership like
gender based on gender, but I think there's plenty of
men who who own dogs or pets in general. So
I'm like, huh, it crosses over like that.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
Yeah, yeah, And this is like you can see our
Emotional Labor episode for more on this, but like, we
are not believers in gender essentialism here, but I do
believe that in socialization of gender and expectations of gender.
(33:39):
So I think it's much more like if you look
at the comments under those Jimmy Kimmel videos, people are
horrified and they're like, I can't I can't believe you
couldn't take the barest interest in your own child, like
because they don't have to. They haven't had to, right. So,
the belief that divorce was bad for children was really
(34:02):
enforced by a few poorly researched but very publicized and
popular books spanning from the eighties to two thousands. I
bet some of you know who which ones, along with
historic and systemic governmental and religious pressure that were layered
with racism and misogyny. In twenty fourteen, Florida Senator Marco
Ribau said that marriage was quote the greatest tool to
(34:25):
live children and families from poverty. And honestly, yeah, going
back to our religious conversation around marriage and divorce, it's
a doozy, no wonder we had a twelve plus partner
on religious drum on my fault. It's not your fault
at all. Oh wow. But a twenty twenty study found
(34:47):
that women repartnering had no significant impacts on her adult children.
Other studies have found women are less likely to repartner
due to things like the fact that they are caring
for the kids, or they're older women, which you know
is the worst so who, or that men just don't
(35:08):
like the idea of dating a woman who makes more
than them as much as they might like to say
that they're cool with it. Which was that an actual
study that I found?
Speaker 2 (35:19):
Of course, it is a to be fair. I think
if my current relationship, whom I'm very happy with, we
do really well. We had like he knows everything about peaches,
so we're good, Like he could take car to the vent,
he'd be fine. I would put that out there, But like,
I'm like, I don't want to date I think in general,
(35:41):
just like for me in general, I'm like, no, I'm good. Yeah,
I just hang out with my dog. Thanks.
Speaker 1 (35:47):
Yeah. Oh. I think we're going to talk about that
in a little bit more at the end. But I
think that's kind of the general vine right for.
Speaker 2 (35:56):
I'd rather be alone. To those who are dating, god speed,
let us know what's going on. How are you? Oh
so we're gonna get into laws? Yeah, yeah, you're ready
for it. So, by and large, it is easier to
get married than it is to get divorced in the US. Yes,
even at fourteen. Yep, it is not easy. Even if
(36:21):
a lot of people like to paint this as a
oh you're quitting or you're giving up to get divorced,
it's actually a very long process. The history is regionally specific.
According to Investipedia, the first divorce on record in America
was granted in sixteen thirty nine in the Massachusetts Bay
Colony because a man named James Luxford had married two wives.
(36:44):
Lux first punishment was to relinquish his possessions to his
second wife as alimony and was put in the stocks, fined,
and banished. So did he get divorced from both people? Though?
Which one?
Speaker 1 (36:57):
Yeah? I think just the one. I almost again this episode,
it could have been so long because I wanted to
do famous examples of like how they changed parts of Catholicism.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
Yeah, around the world the eighth isn't that the whole story? Yeah,
he did this because he wanted a new wife, but
then he killed all of them.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
Yeah, I mean this is a simplification, yeah, but I
mean it's and looking at all the history is a
lot of men being like I don't want to be
with you anymore. I want this other person. And that
has guided a lot of our laws. But okay, we
(37:42):
are not lawyers, as we said, and to be really honest,
I had no idea about how hard it was to
legally get divorced. So here are just a few examples.
And to be clear, these laws very by state. Here
in the United States, most states have waiting periods of
twenty to one hundred and eighty days, not to mention
(38:04):
the fees on top of that, this means for an
amount of time you're in sort of a painful limbo,
especially financially from what I read a lot, and emotionally absolutely,
but that financial part can be really difficult. Certain religions
require or strongly pressure you to get religious counseling. Marriage
(38:24):
is often given incentives, but single parents do not receive
anything close to that. Some marriage counseling and seminars are
text funded. Currently and unfortunate emphasis on Currently, no fault
divorce is legal in all fifty states. This rose in
popularity in the seventies and eighties in the US, after
(38:46):
first being legalized in California in nineteen sixty nine. And
I know some of you are like shouting out the computer.
We'll get to the fun effect behind that. At the end.
It means that you don't have to prove fault to
get divorced. Legal experts believe it was necessary to correct
a system that incentivized concocting plane to justify the divorce,
(39:06):
so like everybody was lying essentially. That being said, some
states require that the broken up couples spend a year
and one day in separate living spaces, which is not
so easy. This is often called the cooling off period. Obviously,
it can be painful and intimidating to prove fault in
(39:27):
an abusive marriage. Research has found a significant decrease in
suicide and women where no fault divorce was an option.
They've also found lower rates of domestic violence, which makes
sense to me. Apparently in Texas you cannot finalize the
divorce while pregnant if the divorcee in question is the
biological parent. Like I said, LGBTQ plus marriage and divorce
(39:52):
separate episode, but a lot of it is similar to
no fault laws in the US, but further complicated by
gen laws and language like who is the biological parent?
Who is the quote mother? It can get really really messy,
so that future episode. And then this brings us to
(40:16):
just a brief venting session. Oh the Internet, because when
I was looking this up, a lot of the first
results were men being real mad about how in their
minds divorce favors women, men blaming women for divorce, asking
what state they should go to to get divorce that
(40:38):
will favor them the most. And then, of course, as
per usual, the whole go and make me a sandwich thing,
because yeah, like when do you stop and think about it?
Like men were working, they were getting to own things,
they were controlling their finances, they were getting out of
the house. But women were doing unpaid notice labor, cooking, cleaning, chowdering,
(41:03):
and being made fun of her having frivolous relationships outside
of the house, like how we used to still do
make fun of like, oh, she's always talking with her friends,
like like it's so frivolous or useless. Other studies have
found that women work harder to receive less in their
jobs due to biases, So add that to the pile.
(41:24):
So for these angry men on the internet, Yeah, the
marriage is great. Come you come home to a meal.
You don't have to deal with the kids other than
like acknowledging that they're kids. Meanwhile, she's been working all day. Still,
I was working when you get home, and then it's
mocked if she's too tired for sex, you.
Speaker 2 (41:42):
Know, which is interesting because the level of women coming
back round to yeah, I'll be a stay at home mom,
and I will. I will serve you and cook you
if you provide for everything else, and I don't do
a damn thing after the fact. Like that's that kind
of conversation from like maybe the seventies and probably more so.
(42:04):
And this is very like white perspective, heteronormative ideals to
like about what the nineties they said. They're saying that
the uptick of divorce happened in the nineties. I don't remember,
but all of that to say is like women were
working and doing the nine to five, coming home, clicking
and cleaning, taking care of the children because they were
also having children still at that point, and the men
(42:26):
were just working coming home, putting their shoes up, telling
the kids to stay out of the way while they
watched their show. So this is all stereotype obviously according
to sitcoms. But like they were living their best life. Yeah,
and they're really mad that they had it for a
period and they're like, why can't I have that again?
And it just doesn't make sense to be.
Speaker 1 (42:47):
Like, yeah, it's I mean, it was upsetting and kind
of funny.
Speaker 2 (42:55):
They fit.
Speaker 1 (42:56):
They're like it would be like you know, the Yahoo
asked and to be why are you with my woman
not doing this anymore? And I'm like, oh, wow, you have.
Speaker 2 (43:06):
Whoa And this is kind of like and then it's
the basis of the red pill. And in so many
ways when we talk about that content, when we talked
about religious trauma, we're talking about Project twenty twenty five,
even which we haven't really talked about and we're going
to come back to. But all of these narratives of
like going back to the good old days, is that
(43:28):
that ideal of oppressing marginalized people for this specific look.
They're like, I want to get back to where a
home was a home where two with a man and
a wife and two to three children, and the woman
came in as subservient to the man, but of course
the man protected her. Yes, that's us our job, that's
our duties. And it's kind of that beginning of yeah,
(43:51):
there used to be such the golden days, as they
would claim, and it's this, it's the beginning of the
narrative for the red pill and having that level of
if we can get back to that, then all is
right with the world. And this is the whole point.
And this is the decency and the godliness that they
are talking about. And this kind of ideal for young
(44:12):
boys was like, yeah, why can't I have that? And
it slips into these are my rights when it never was.
Speaker 1 (44:19):
Right absolutely, And I think a lot of this was
in part missing the point of a twenty nineteen US
Census Bureau report that come through numerous studies and found
women do have more to benefit from divorce, like leisure time,
career time, time to relax less chores, less childcare. But
(44:41):
I think they took it and saw that as I'm
getting punished more for the divorce. Coincidentally, this report also
found that areas that had more social nets and easier
access to divorce at higher rates of marriage. Interesting. But yes,
(45:10):
the media, we must also talk about that, because when
you talk about divorce and women, there are a lot
of tropes. The evil ex wife, the mean mom who
punishes her ex. I thought about missus stubtfire for that one,
nagging sitcom wives, men complaining about the old ball and chain.
(45:30):
And then this whole idea of women changing or chaining
their man, which a lot of people who have written
about divorce have said, like, here's how you failed. You
should have changed him in this way, And I think
that's a problematic. No, No, you can work together on things,
(45:50):
but that whole idea. In nineteen seventy two, sociologists Jesse
Bernard wrote quote, there are a few findings more consistent,
less equick, and more convincing than the sometimes spectacular and
always impressive superiority on almost every index, demographic, psychological, or
social of married over never married men. Despite all the
(46:12):
jokes about marriage in which men indulge, all the complaints
they lodge against it, it is one of the greatest
boons of their sex because they always made fun of it.
They're always like, it's always bothering me. But a lot
of women have reported feeling like failures at first after
(46:35):
a divorce, but over time realizing that they made the
right decision and were happier. And a lot of them
have reported finding a community of other divorce women, not
even purposefully, always like you know, you'd be calling up
to cancel your insurance and like I'm getting divorced and like, oh, yeah,
I went through that, or you know, something like that,
and how that helped them. Another Pew Research study found
(46:57):
that most women are unsure about remarrying, while most men
want to. I do think this is pretty telling in
terms of who marriage largely benefits, as do the study
authors that found seventy percent of divorces are initiated by women,
but not breakups. One of the study authors, Michael Rosenfeldt, said,
(47:18):
I think that marriage as an institution has been a
little bit slow to catch up with expectations for gender equality.
Wives still take their husband's surnames and are sometimes pressured
to do so. Husbands still expect their wives to do
the bulk of the housework and the bulk of the childcare.
On the other hand, I think that non marital relationships
lack the historical baggage and expectations of marriage, which makes
(47:41):
the non marital relationships more flexible and therefore more adaptable
to modern expectations, including women's expectations to more gender equality.
Speaker 2 (47:50):
You know, what we haven't really talked much about is
the common law. Yeah, we have to which in Georgia
has that I believe, yes, which is kind of concerning.
Why is this the thing? It seems very misogynistic. We
haven't looked into it, very patriarchal because I also think
if you're in that same level, like you, no matter
(48:11):
what you do, you're stuck type of conversation. But probably
a different episode.
Speaker 1 (48:18):
Oh, absolutely definitely a different episode and all of these
I mean, I hope we've been clear throughout. We did
research this, but it is you know, a lot of
it's not everybody's experience at all, these things we're talking about.
But it's also interesting in terms of our media, where
the X or the single bomb is a failure, but
(48:39):
in fairy tales, your dream come true is finding the
husband and getting married. This is also a conversation of
unrealistic expectations of love. But the point stands because it
stops when you get married, so you don't see all
the work or all the discord that might be in it.
(49:01):
I will say this brought back a memory of when
I was first starting as a host for Saver. We
were recording at a bar and there was a group
of divorced women who were there having the time of
their lives and we got into chatting. They were just
talking to us and they're telling us all their stories.
(49:22):
But it was I remember being like kind of moved
by how they were having this camaraderie and this They
were like, oh, yeah, once a month we meet up.
And I really liked it. I thought it was great.
But they were very open about it, and one of
them gave me your business. Carden was like, after this,
(49:43):
I got into divorce law.
Speaker 2 (49:46):
That was amazing.
Speaker 1 (49:49):
It honestly was. It honestly was. And then my mom,
like I said, I and I each the point where
I wished my parents had gotten divorced. I don't blame
my mom for not getting divorced, and I don't want
to get into it too deeply, but I've reached a
(50:11):
point where I was like, I think it would be better.
But after my dad died, she's been very open with
me about like, I don't want to remarry again. I
don't want to date again because I was always putting
his needs first. I was always worried about him and
what he wanted and what he wanted to do. And
those are like larger conversations to have about how we're
(50:32):
as women socialized the people please and put ourselves second.
But it's just been interesting to hear her be like, no,
I'm good, I am good. Things are changing, though some
speculate that the whole idea of marriage is shifting, and
the data we're seeing here is very reflective of boomers
and Gen X, but the younger generations won't follow the
(50:52):
same patterns. As Joey said in our recent episode on
being gen Z and dating, the goalposts and desires aren't
the same. Many more necessarily, some countries have introduced laws
around divorce that recognize the value of domestic work, which
is interesting and on a less serious note, I have
seen a lot of recent conversation about being the stay
(51:13):
at home partner and having that scene as more of
an equal partnership, like actually recognizing the work. I personally
am still grappling with some of the ways those conversations
are phrased. But I do like that, you know, I'm
glad we're taking that step of there is value in
that work. You should have known that all the time.
But the attitude around divorce has also changed. It's no
(51:35):
longer ashamed as it once was. That's not to say
there isn't still that aspect, but that is moving. I
do want to say. The flip side of this whole
thing is people who want to get married but can't
for whatever reason, and who long for partnership or might
even need it if they want to have kids. To
(51:56):
afford kids are expensive. On top of that, it isn't
always the woman initiating divorce, and even if it was,
there is pain involved. So just to say I think
it's good, like I said, to recognize the full spectrum
of it doesn't always have to be bad. But it's
also you know, some people I read an article about,
(52:21):
like I wish I could get married before I could
talk about divorce. But anyway, and yeah, I see things
again like our disability and marriage episode and unfortunately in
our climate, oh, our political climate, the US House Speaker
Mike Johnson called no fault divorce a scheme. VP jd
(52:42):
Vance said it is insult on marriage. A few states
have put forth proposed restrictions, and to be clear, the
restrictions are largely targeted at women. And yeah, my fun
fact I to used earlier then Governor Ronald Reagan was
the one until you no fault divorces. He was the
first elected president to have a divorce. He later said
(53:05):
it was a mistake. Trump was the second president to
be elected to have a divorce, so at least one.
So yeah, we clearly have a lot to return.
Speaker 2 (53:22):
To his ex wife. He's now ex deceased wife was
kind of like the inspiration for the First Wives Club.
Can we talk about.
Speaker 1 (53:30):
That, yes, which did come up in my like do
you need a movie about older women in divorce? And
we have an episode on it we have so you
can go check that out.
Speaker 2 (53:43):
He makes a cameo she does, don't get mad take everything.
Speaker 1 (53:50):
A lot of a lot of threads past episodes we've done,
in future episodes we need to do on this one.
But yes, listeners, please write in if you have any
experiences you want to share, our resources, you want to
share we do want to dig into this more deeply
and go in some other directions with it, so let
(54:13):
us know where you'd like us to go. You can
email us at stuff Media, mom Stuff at iHeartMedia dot
com or Hello at stuff one Never Told You dot com.
You can find us on blue Sky at mom Stuff podcast,
or on Instagram and TikTok at stuff one Never Told You.
We have YouTube page, a tea public store, and a
book you can get wherever you get your books. Thanks
(54:35):
as always to our super producer Christina or executive duc
to my and your contributor Joey. Thank you, and thanks
to you for listening stuff Never Told You the prediction
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, you
can check out the art radio app, Apple podcast or
where you listening to your favorite shows
Stuff Mom Never Told You News
Hosts And Creators
Anney Reese
Samantha McVey
Popular Podcasts
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
Bleep! with Ana Navarro
Fear thrives in silence and confusion. Ana Navarro rejects both. Her voice is an antidote to today’s chaos. Her new podcast, Bleep! with Ana Navarro, takes on today’s most pressing issues with the voices most connected to it: decision-makers, political leaders, cultural shapers, and people on the frontlines of the story. The conversations acknowledge the emotions we all feel—despair, sadness, fear— but emerge with knowledge, perspective, and hope. The belief is simple: fearless dialogue can transform fear into courage, and courage into change. When fear dominates the headlines, this show digs deeper. Because information, debate, and conversation don’t just ease fear, they give us power to shape the future.
Hey Jonas!
Hey Jonas! The official Jonas Brothers podcast. Hosted by Kevin, Joe, and Nick Jonas. It’s the Jonas Brothers you know... musicians, actors, and well, yes, brothers. Now, they’re sharing another side of themselves in the playful, intimate, and irreverent way only they can. Spend time with the Jonas Brothers here and stay a little bit longer for deep conversations like never before.