Dr. Kelly Coyne joins Kelly to explore the rise of unconventional domestic arrangements—think married couples who live apart, partners who sleep separately, and stay-at-home dads. As featured in The New York Times and The Washington Post, Dr. Coyne’s work challenges the traditional idea of what marriage should look like and invites us to rethink how we build relationships that actually work for us. Together, they unpack how these modern models can foster independence, intimacy, and emotional growth.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Conversations on life, style, beauty, and relationships. It's The Velvet's
Edge Podcast with Kelly Henderson.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Doctor Kelly Coin is a faculty member in English and
American Studies at Georgetown University, and she is here today
to discuss a series of recent features that have been
in The New York Times in the Washington Post about
off kilter domestic arrangements. So we're going to cover married
couples who live apart, stay at home dads, and married
(00:32):
married couples who sleep apart, which I think is becoming
much more common.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Hi, Kelly, Hi, Kelly, Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Of course, I'm so excited to talk to you. I
was telling you before the podcast. This has been a
topic of conversation in my own personal life recently, and
I think one of the biggest things I love to
bring the listeners on this podcast is just the option
of something different. I think we were all kind of
brought up in this way that's like this is what
you do, and that is how you live a successful
(01:02):
life or a happy life, or create a happy life.
And the older I've gotten, the more I've started to
question that existence, you know, like I've really tried to
start carving a path that is unique to me and
that works for me, and that makes me genuinely happy,
not because someone else told me to do it that way,
but because it's truly in alignment with me.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
I was telling you.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Also, I'm in a relationship and my boyfriend lives in Charleston,
and the constant question I'm getting from people is, well,
when is somebody going to make the move? Like is
he going to move here or to Nashville? Are you
going to move to Charleston? And it's so weird because
sometimes I'll start to feel this pressure to make these decisions,
and then I ask myself, is that because of me?
(01:45):
Or is that because of him? Or is that because
of the pressure from outside of our relationship? And the
truth is is we're really happy as is right now,
and so we're just kind of figuring it out as
we go. But so I love these options that you
present that you're writing in these arts articles about the
different kinds of ways that you can be married and
(02:06):
live apart that you could maybe be a stay at
home dad if your wife is the breadwinner, or the
one who wants to go out and build a business,
or to just sleep in separate beds, so you get
a good night's What made you want to start exploring
these topics.
Speaker 4 (02:22):
Well, I come from a literature background, so my master's
is in English and my PhDs in film and media
studies and cultural studies. And when you study books, you
learn a lot about genre, right, And for instance, the
marriage plot is a convention of many novels that you read.
And I started to think about, well, does American culture
(02:45):
prescribe a certain kind of life path for women? And
might that be a genre? Like the first comes love,
then comes marriage, then comes ladies, and I think that,
you know, it shares many features of genre, like you
have that iconography of the wedding dress, and the iconography
then of the home and the baby carriage. And so
(03:06):
once you start thinking of things as a genre, then
you start to realize that there isn't necessarily a natural
order of things, and that there are actually many conventions
that are imposed on us by mainstream society, you know,
via television. And so once I started, you know, doing
more ethnographic research and talking to people, I realized women's
(03:26):
lives are just so much more interesting than that, and
they're longer than the marriage plot, Like you might have
the marriage plot, but then you get divorced right or
you have a baby before you get married. Like, I
think those are the stories that we often make invisible,
and I really just want to bring them to the
surface because they're so much more common than we think.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
Do you find that there is a difference between a
male mentality and a female mentality in this whole conversation,
because what you just described was kind of the marriage plot,
and I know as a young girl like that is
pushed into our brains as girls from a very early age,
like your whole goal in life is basically set up
(04:07):
to be to find a man and get married. And
I haven't had the conversation with men where I'm feeling
that they have that same pressure, not that they don't
get it at all, but it doesn't seem like they're
programming from early life is about finding that exact partner
to have this marriage, Like they're supposed to build a career,
build a whole life. So are you seeing a difference
(04:28):
in that.
Speaker 4 (04:30):
I do. I think that women are pressured much more
in terms of the lifespan and the lifestyle, where men
it's like you have to find a hot girlfriend or
a hot wife woman. You know, you'll start to get
the gesture of like tapping the ring finger, you know,
at baby showers, or like you're dating someone it's time
to start, you know, thinking about marriage, or like you're
(04:51):
encountering well, when are you gonna as though, that is
the inevitable outcome of rechab And I think with women,
the more that I speak to women, it obscures their
ability to actually see what they want. Like they might
have grown up actually not liking those stories and like
not identifying with them, and then they find a partner
(05:14):
they really like and they're compatible with and they're like,
you know what, I don't think I need to get married,
But the pressure will just start to eat at them
and the questions will start to eat at them. And
what concerns me is that I feel like it never
really stops. You know, first it's to get the ring
on your finger, and then it's to get married and
live in the same place, and then it's to have babies,
and then it's to make sure that those babies kind
(05:36):
of continue this upward ascent socially. And if women were saying,
you know, I talk to a lot of older women,
like in their sixties, and there have been studies that
have found that women after their partner dies, they actually
often don't want to remarry where men do, because women
(05:57):
after their partner dies will say, you know what, I love,
I want to have fun, I want to date, but
that arrangement, that marital arrangement, really put me at a disadvantage,
and I don't want to do that again. And they'll
talk about how often, you know, when they are dating,
men will just look for a nurse with a purse,
like someone who can take care of them and someone
who can pay for them. And so if women were
(06:20):
in their sixties and saying, listen, I really want to remarry,
I feel like it worked really well for me. It
made me really happy. I'd feel differently about the coercion,
but they're saying, actually, I felt like I got the
short end of the stick on this one, and that's
what concerns me about the pressure.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
I had another guest on this podcast. You talked about
invisible labor and relationships, and I read a lot of
that in your articles because you were saying that the
happiest people in different studies have been married men and
single women. Yeah, and that was really interesting to me,
and it made me immediately think of that invisible labor
(06:58):
conversation because I think often what I was reading in
the articles was that the women felt like they couldn't
necessarily follow their dream or really pursue their path career
wise or in life or whatever it was, because they
were giving so much energy to the relationship and also
to building up the man's career. And I'm sure that
(07:20):
can go in different dynamics, like in queer relationships and
things like that, but I know that really resonated for
me because there have been times in my life where
I've thought, oh, my career is so much more successful
when I'm not in a relationship. It's not necessarily true now,
but it has been true in the past, and that
was for that exact reason of the invisible labor I
was giving to the relationship.
Speaker 4 (07:41):
Yep, there's the literal labor of like picking up socks, yeah,
whatever it is. And a lot of women say that
they have like different standards for cleanliness than their male partners,
and so they end up because they're the only ones
you can see the crumbs on the table. They're the
ones who think, okay. But I've also spoken to women
and we do know, especially post COVID, like women do
(08:03):
in heterosexual marriages. Women do so many more hours a
week of domestic labor than men. But then there's also
this interesting emotional thing that I've heard about from a
few women where it's kind of like the second their
partner steps into the house or steps into the room,
they start seeing themselves as his wife, and they're like,
(08:24):
is he hungry? Is he comfortable? If he seems not happy,
I should ask him what's going on and try to
fix it for him, and you know, make him feel better.
And I learn, you know, I hear about mothers who
like forget to feed themselves. You know, they're like, I
was just feeding my kids all day, and that actually
makes sense to me. Like becoming a wife is kind
of this first step of you start to think of
(08:46):
yourself as a wife and think of the demands a
relationship is putting on you before you actually are able
to recognize like what you actually want in that moment.
And I think that can really drive relationships into the
ground because you start to disconnect.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
From yourself absolutely well.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
So one of your articles we're obviously talking about is
that about married couples who actually live apart, which was
fascinating to me. And I actually read all the comments
underneath the article, which was because I was like, what
are people saying about this? And the majority was it
was just really interesting. It's like a fascinating experience to
read the comments. But the majority of men were almost
(09:25):
frustrated with it from what I could see in the
comment section. And then there were a lot of women
who didn't necessarily think that that would work for them,
which is totally fine, like they were married and wanted
to stay that way or stay living together. And then
there were a lot of women who thought, Wow, that
really could be a situation that would really work for
me for the exact reason you're saying, I wouldn't be
(09:47):
spending so much time picking up socks off the ground
or you know, doing all that things. I would be
asking myself what do I want from my life? So
what are the overall themes that you have found doing
this research about men and women living separately, like in
individual houses or apartments or anything like that.
Speaker 4 (10:05):
Yeah, I mean the comments on that article were astounding
to me to go to sort of by most liked comments.
It was like this very clear line where women were saying, wow,
this sounds great, and men were like, do you not
love your partner? It was kind to look at the
gender names against The comment was really amazing, and I
(10:28):
just felt really grateful to these people for sharing their
experiences and their stories. But you know, something that people
often ask is they say, well, if you're not living
with your spouse, how do you afford to live alone?
You know, which is really really hard in this country.
And I think that pop culture, because you know, I
study mass media, has made it difficult to see that
(10:51):
there are other options. So people in real life in
America buy homes with their siblings, like I know multiple
people who have bought an apartment with her sister, or
like a duplex situation where one sibling gets one floor
and another sibling gets another floor. You can be married
and you can live with a sister, or you can
(11:13):
live with a friend, or you can live with a roommate.
And I think especially for heterosexual women, like there is
a difference between living with a woman and living with
a man. And something that's becoming more and more prominent
are mom munes, which is when women post divorce move
in together to not save money but make it tenable to,
(11:33):
you know, pay the bills and help each other raise
their children. And I think that's something that I've struggled
a lot with in my research. Is I feel like
we give more weight to I love hearing from divorced women,
or we're getting all these great memoirs from divorced women
talking about how they felt marriage disadvantage them, but I
feel like we are not very good at centering the
(11:56):
voices of women who just opted out of that life.
I think that if you're divorced, you have a certain
kind of credibility because it's not a sour great situation
where like this woman got the Colden ticket and she
experienced it and now she can speak on the disadvantages
of the arrangement. Where I wish that we could hear
more from women who have never just said, you know,
(12:17):
this isn't really for me, Like I love my boyfriend,
I want to do this, but I don't want to
go through the whole lifespan, move in together, have kids,
all of that stuff.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Yeah, it's interesting because that has been my experience. I
told you I've never been married. I was engaged at
one point, but never got married. And it's interesting. I
think almost people are associating my calm nature about being
apart from my boyfriend now as almost like an avoidance
of some sort, And it's not like it's not.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
That at all. It's actually the opposite.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
I feel more in tune with myself and with him
than I ever have in a relationship, which is just
really interesting. But I'm feeling this confidence that I didn't
have before in carving out my own life path. And
I think a lot of times, when we're supposed to
get married, I'm doing air quotes right now, you're so young,
like you don't really know, you don't know what you want,
(13:10):
you don't really understand what the obligations of marriage look
like or the responsibilities of that kind of relationship. And
so I'm often seeing women, you know, ten years down
the line saying I love my husband, but like I
feel like I'm missing out on my own life.
Speaker 4 (13:33):
There's a movie called a Nora that I'm writing on
right now. Yeah, I think what happens to her is
what happens to many women, where they kind of they
believe that, you know, they're going to enter into this
family as a first class citizen, and it's a sure thing,
and so they leave their work behind, they burn bridges
at work, they kind of leave their friends behind, they
(13:55):
leave their house behind, and then it falls apart. And
they've given up so many things, And it makes sense
that you would cling very hard onto a marriage if
you've given up so much for it. Sure, you know,
And so I think that we're having a lot of
these interesting cultural texts. I mean, that movie one four Oscars.
Sean Baker won four Oscars for that movie. The last
(14:16):
person two have won four Oscars was our last director
was Walt Disney. And you know, that movie has been
builed as a Cinderella story for our time. And I
think it's a really interesting movie because it kind of
answers the question of what happens after the fairy tale.
Like so many of these movies and these books end
with the wedding, but this asks, well, what does it
(14:38):
look like after and what does it look like on
a daily basis to be a wife.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
Yeah, so let's talk a little bit about the arrangement
if people are living apart. Because in the article you
referenced a couple different couples and they all said equally
that that was the best move for their marriage, and
some of them ended up moving back in together, but
they said the experience in and of itself was what
their marriage needed and it deepened their marriage. I would
(15:05):
assume that a lot of people associate living apart with
on the road to divorce, separation. They must not be
doing well. So how do we start to reframe that
in our mind as not necessarily a negative thing for
our relationship, but just as another option that if we
do feel the calling, is not deemed as like bad
(15:26):
for their relationship.
Speaker 4 (15:28):
Yeah. I mean, what I found in talking to people
from that community is how the la so it's living
apart together is what sociologists call it. It was actually
a point of pride for many people. And it's really
interesting as a reporter to you know, I write about
things that are often pretty taboo, like you know, living
a part together. I'm writing an article on prenaps right now.
(15:50):
I had more people wanting to talk to me about
living a part together than anything else, and it's been
difficult to get people to talk about their prenups, which
I understand, but I think that there is this and
it's probably self selecting the people who want to talk
to me, because people who want to talk to a
journalists are really happy with their lives, they're really proud
of their relationship, they feel very secure in their relationship.
(16:12):
If they're going to talk to a journalist, and I
found that it was often the woman who both initiated
the arrangement and also wanted to speak to me. And
I think I spoke to twelve couples and I profiled
three of them, and they all were pretty different. One
of them, you know, was a temporary arrangement. It was
(16:32):
a woman who grew up in a very traditional family
and she went straight from living with her parents to
living to her with her husband, and she just, you know,
one day over Covid was like, I never got that experience,
and I'm really sad about it. I don't know if
I'm ever going to get it. And she brought it
up to him and he told me. He was like,
(16:53):
I would never dismiss what she said. And I was like,
oh my god, totally, that is so like what a
sign it is. I I feel so lucky for my
job because I often hang up the call and I'm like,
oh my god, like I want to cry, it's so moving.
And so they ended up moving apart temporarily because she
felt like she was falling into this wife role that
she didn't like, and she was losing connections with her
(17:14):
friends and with her artistic pursuits and things like that.
And then they realized, okay, we can live outside of
New York and actually get more space, and so they
were able to get a bigger spot where she had
her own room and they moved back in together. But
another couple I spoke to it also came about during COVID,
where one member of the part the family was an
(17:37):
extrovert and she really liked the city. And then her
husband actually was literally a farmer and they lived in
a farm outside of the city, and she just started
kind of going store crazy over COVID, and so she
got a place in the city and they see each
other multiple times a week. And the way she funded
that was, even though they're in their sixties, she got
a job as a shuttle driver for a college nearby,
(18:00):
and so she found a way to fund it that
actually also kind of fed her desire for social interaction.
She loves being a shuttle driver, and so there are
many different ways people go about it. It does get
really complicated with couples with children, and so there are
many other ways those kinds of couples do it. But
for the couples I spoke to, it seemed like it
(18:20):
was a pretty fluid thing, like it's not assumed that
this will be forever, but it's not assumed that this
is temporary either. It's just kind of this ongoing conversation
they have.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
The thing I like about the idea of it, and
just in hearing you even talk about those couples, is
there's two different people in a couple ship, right, And
it seems like often when people get married, we just
assume they almost have to become one person. I mean literally,
that is what is said, like you're becoming one, you know,
biblically or whatever when you get married. And I believe
(18:52):
that kind of does an injustice to each human in
those situations, because no matter if you are in line
with your partner or you do, you know, create a
situation together in this relationship, you are still an individual person,
and I think that often can get lost because you
start doing everything together. Obviously, we all have to compromise
(19:13):
a bit in relationships, and so I think the beauty
of it is in seeing like the extrovert versus the introvert.
It's not that their relationship has to end because of
those differences, but it's about embracing the different qualities and
learning how to thrive individually so that you can thrive together.
It's actually almost like a healthier way to be in
relationship to me, Yeah.
Speaker 4 (19:34):
I totally agree, you know, and I think that we
know that marriage is temporary now, like your partner might
die and you might get divorced, right like, especially if
you're a woman in a heterosexual partnership, you're likely going
to outlive your husband. And so we act like if
you're living with a friend or a sister, that's temporary,
(19:56):
where if you're living with a spouse, thoughts forever and
that's just not There isn't data that supports that at all.
And so allowing for all of these many different kind
of lives within your marriage if it's a really long one,
I think is a really exciting thing.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
Well kind of in line with the living separately if
that didn't feel right to a couple, Another option a
lot of couples are doing is just sleeping in separate rooms.
And I actually have multiple friends who do this for
multiple reasons. It's like the partner snores, or one has
to get up super early in the morning, one has
a night job, one needs to be closer to the
(20:34):
you know whatever it is. But for whatever reason, it
worked better for them, and they've openly discussed that they
don't like to talk about it all the time because
people judge it. And I find that to be so interesting.
It's like, why have we put a marriage and the
way that it should look under this umbrella that seems
so specific, and we don't allow ourselves to kind of
(20:55):
craft and create what actually works for us. I e
sleep like I'm I'm a bad sleeper, so sometimes I
toss and turn, you know, and that's not always fair
to my partner. So what is the deal with this,
like sleeping in the separate bedrooms? What did you find
in this kind of research?
Speaker 4 (21:11):
I feel lucky that we have a lot of really
great historians at work who have shown me that this
idea we have of the nuclear family on all the
details right, like the man going and going to work,
the woman staying home, the couple sleeping in the same bed.
This is really like a nineteen fifties invention. Like back
(21:32):
in the day, nuclear families were very different. They were
deeply embedded and extended families in community, in their community.
So you know, pre war, it wasn't this idea that
you're this like self sustaining unit. And one of those
things is that couples have not always slept together in
the same bed. So you know, back in the day,
(21:54):
poorer families there would often be two beds. And if
you ask your grandparents about this, I'm sure it all
you know, listeners, we'll hear stories like this. But in
poorer families, the wife would often sleep with the girls
in one bed, and then the dad would sleep with
the boys. And then even if you look at like
pop culture depictions of very wealthy families back in the day,
(22:16):
many many wealthy people had separate sleeping quarters.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
I was thinking about like the king and queen and.
Speaker 4 (22:21):
Yeah, uk, yeah, yeah, like the crown, and you know,
twin beds were quite common pre nineteen fifties. So this
idea really came about in the fifties, and I think
it has something to do with men coming back from war.
We need to make sure that to help the economy,
babies are created. Let's great advertising, create this norm to
(22:44):
get them in the same bed. As though that will
like lead to more sex, which as I spoke to
have a lot of sex. I think they do this
because they are very confident in their sex lives. But
the reasons people do, as you said, really range, especially
by age. So men once they get older often have
(23:07):
very serious snoring problems. Like there was one woman I
spoke to and she said, our neighbors could hear and snoring,
like it was a neighborhood situation, lady at all, and
even younger women. Though our women are more likely to
be woken up than men are, so that's another you know,
(23:28):
men are able to sleep more deeply than women, so
that's another reason why women are asking to have their
own bedroom. But it is often as in the case
of living apart, I found that it was usually the
woman asking for this, and you know, many couples think
that they're the odd ones out. But then I brought
it up with like we had a neighborhood barbecue and
there was some older women there, and it was like
(23:50):
I was speaking to four women in their fifties and sixties,
and three out of the four we're sleeping separately.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
Right, It's just like we're not talking about it, maybe,
but it's happening, but it's happening.
Speaker 4 (23:59):
And the other thing that makes me sad, I think
it speaks to the stigma is I was like at
Ikea a couple months ago and I was looking at
a pullout, okay, and this couple came by and they
were like testing out the pullout and they said, yeah,
we sleep separately, but it's because of his job, Like
it's because.
Speaker 3 (24:18):
Like she had to justify it.
Speaker 4 (24:20):
Yeah. I found that, like you have to often justify
it by work, because if not, it sends the message
if there's a problem in a relationship. I know a
woman in her forties who said that she sleeps separately
from her husband, and her mother just thinks it's like
the death knell of their marriage.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
I'm just so fascinated by the fact that we do
operate on these thought processes even and where if we
don't ever ask the question of the why, like where
did this come from?
Speaker 3 (24:57):
Do I actually believe this? Like is this true for me?
Speaker 2 (25:01):
Have I experienced something where I've seen a couple start
sleeping in different bedrooms and they actually.
Speaker 3 (25:05):
Break up or it's bad for their marriage?
Speaker 2 (25:07):
You know, I would just be curious if anyone is
asking those questions when they make those judgments.
Speaker 4 (25:12):
Yeah, And there's that line in Mean Girls where like
Gretchen says about Regina's parents, like they totally don't sleep
in the same bad anymore. Like there is a.
Speaker 3 (25:20):
Stay, there is a stigma, you know, it's just so free.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
It's just really wild to me because I find that
when you actually start carving your own path, you feel
more freedom and everyone else is really what actually feels
more uncomfortable with it. It's just very interesting. But this
is why I think these kind of conversations are really important.
The other one you talk you've written about is stay
at home dads, and I think there is a massive
(25:46):
stigma on that one of You know, if the man
is the stay at home he must not be able
to find a job or be successful. And I feel
sorry for men in this capacity because it's just really
not true all the time. Of course that can be true,
but a lot of times and relationships that I've seen,
the dad is the more nurturing person. And like this
goes again to like our own unique wiring and how
(26:08):
we all really need to be in tune with our
own path and what we you know, are wiring is
so we can build the life that we want when
I was reading the articles. That was kind of what
a lot of the stay at home dad said was,
you know, the ones that did it back in the
day really felt shame about it, and we keep it
pretty secret. Then it has become more of a common conversation.
(26:28):
So can you tell the listeners a little bit about
what you found with the dads.
Speaker 4 (26:32):
I think the stigma is lessening like it used to be.
You know. I think of that movie Mister Mom, even
though idle mister Mom, as though, like, you can't be
a man who is taking care of your children, right,
And many of the older men I spoke to said
that they're often mistaken for not the father, Like they
(26:54):
were like, oh, are you the grandfather? Is that your grandchild?
Or like people were often and confused when they saw,
you know, a man during the day out in the
grocery store with his child. But I think one of
the biggest things I took away from that article is
the queer population has really opened up so many different
(27:18):
ways of arranging our lives, you know, for heterosexual people
and for you know, even like I think asexual Americans
as well, because there's this idea that like, just because
you're having sex with someone. It doesn't necessarily mean they
have to be the most important person in your life.
Just because you're a man and you have a kid
doesn't mean you have to be the breadwinner. Queer couples
(27:40):
are really really changing the possibilities for everyone, And I
mean it was great. I spoke to a gay couple
probably in their forties, and one of them he just said,
this is always like I've always wanted to be the
primary caregiver, like his husband proposed to him, and you know,
(28:00):
he's like, I often embody more of the kind of
female role in the relationship. But then I speak to
heterosexual couples and they're doing these you know, mutual proposals
like there. I think that queer couples are really kind
of showing us different ways to make relationships more equal
and more based in preferences rather than tradition.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
You've mentioned the nineteen fifties, and this is where my
head is going with that. But if you had to
define now, what like the broader conversation about relationship and
marriage and those kind of things that are happening in
our culture at this moment, what do you think the
overall sense is. It doesn't feel like it was the
same as in the nineteen fifties anymore.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
But what is it?
Speaker 4 (28:46):
I have been talking to a lot of experts, like
both historians and psychologists, and the takeaways that I'm getting
are we put a lot more pressure on our marriages now,
Like there is this idea that your spouse should be
everything to you and that it is actually you know,
(29:10):
marriage used to be. It still is an economic thing,
but it used to be like you would find someone
in your community and you would marry them, like they
didn't have to be I'm always thinking it like this sit,
what is it fine? I'm looking for a man in
finance six' five trust, fun blue, eyes like, yeah like
and The. Materialists that, MOVIE i think really goes to
show like this ridiculous standard that people look for in their.
(29:31):
Marriages it used to be something where you found someone
who is kind of suitable and you learn to love each.
Other AND i think now there is a lot of,
pressure AND i, think especially because people are marrying, later
they really want to make sure that they can hold
up their end of the, bargain which is WHY i
think we're seeing a, crazy crazy rise in. Prenups AND
(29:51):
i think that is part of it like people are
entering marriages much later in life with many more you,
know sometimes they've bought a, house or they created a
business or. Whatever BUT i think women in particular are
leading the way and really beginning to question kind of
this social. Conditioning and because of the visibility of the queer,
(30:12):
POPULATION i think that women are being shown, many many more.
Options so it seems to be really an evolving.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
THING i would have thought it would have been the
reverse to what you, said like that more pressure was
put on it back in the day because more people got.
Married it feels like you, no but that is that
is very. TRUE i think that what you're saying about
what we request or require from a, relationship the standards
are just. Higher AND i, know for me in, PARTICULAR
(30:38):
i have not wanted to give energy to something that
isn't serving my life on a bigger.
Speaker 3 (30:43):
Scale you don't need to exact make your own.
Speaker 4 (30:46):
Money, yeah, Friends.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
Yeah that's totally what it. Is and then how does
that tie into like the stay at home dad. Piece you,
know what's the conversation around, that and how do we
wrap our minds around the variation in those kind of.
Speaker 4 (31:01):
LIFESTYLES i think of how queer, people you, know were
treated in the eighties and nineties with such, stigma And i'm,
like when people are talking to me about the, Stigma i'm,
like why why are we so obsessed with other people's,
relationships with what they're choosing to do with their, Lives
like what is so frightening about? This and SO i
(31:24):
get frustrated with the stigma around all these, things but
especially the stay at home dad, thing BECAUSE i think
there is this like many of the MEN i spoke
to found their job to actually be like, masculine like
fulfill some sort of masculinity that they missed when they
were going into an. Office, like you, know they really
enjoy doing the yard. Work they really Enjoy they talk
(31:45):
about how they learn to be a plumber from YouTube
and they're, LIKE i just saved my family thousands and
thousands of. Dollars AND i think we value certain kind
kinds of labor when it comes from, men but there are,
many many different ways you can add value to a,
household AND i think stay at home dads are really
showing that to, us which is. Wonderful and they're you,
(32:06):
know also making way for their wives if they're straight
to fulfill the parts of themselves that they've also always
known have been there and show their value in a
way that might not be so. Traditional.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
YEAH i, mean this is WHY i want to have
these kind of conversations on the, podcast because when you
said why are we so? Scared this is WHAT i,
Thought because it's different and it makes us question if
we're doing the right. Thing like if someone else does
something different and they look, happy and you've done something
that you are just doing because you're programmed to do
it or you think it's the only, way the questioning
(32:43):
can make you really start to feel scared about what
your decisions, were you, Know like even the conversation of
some a different option can make a lot of, PEOPLE i,
think panic Almost and it's the same with the queer.
COMMUNITY i, MEAN i think that's always been the. Case
is the queer community to, me has always just challenged
the norm in a way that like people, go but
(33:04):
if that's, true then what's? Everything they start to question
everything they've ever believed their whole?
Speaker 4 (33:09):
Life, yeah you, know, yeah like what does that mean
for my? Marriage If i've committed to this person AND
i want kids and that's All i've, wanted what if,
wait this person might not even want, that and that's
really really.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
Scary, yeah or what If i'm hiding for? Myself Then i'm,
happy you, know not, happy but, YEAH i mean a
lot of.
Speaker 4 (33:29):
Things, yeah there is like a site of very basic
psych when in one experiment that looked at homophobia in
relation to same sex, attraction and it found that the
higher level your homophobia, was the more tendencies you had
towards same sex. Attraction they actually like measure direction sizes with.
Porn they would show gay porn and measure direction sizes
(33:51):
and they and it makes, sense like you hate in
others what you can't accept in.
Speaker 3 (33:55):
Yourself oh first you, know so, yeah not.
Speaker 4 (33:58):
Happy in your marriage and you're seeing in a very
traditional marriage and you're seeing someone do something differently and
they seem. Happy and especially if you have given up a,
lot you've put your whole life on the, line you're
going to cling to that norm as that that'st and
the only option and really try to degrade the other.
Person and SO i do think we have learned so
(34:20):
many lessons about like the way that we treated the
poorer population back in the days is so so. Wrong
why are we stigmatizing other kinds of, relationships.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
Yes or even other choices within. Relationships, yeah like what
works for you in your? Marriage like you, said why
is that of concern to anyone else but? You that's
an interesting question to. Ask, WELL i loved the. RESEARCH
i love these. Articles i'm going to put the links
for all of these articles in the description of this.
Podcast BUT i read that you're writing a book as.
Speaker 3 (34:54):
Well, YEAH i.
Speaker 4 (34:56):
Have to convert my dissertation into a, book So i'm look.
Okay my dissertation looked at depictions of off kilter domestic
arrangements and, MOVIES tv shows and novels from the seventies until,
today alongside the actual experiences lived experiences of, people and
so many of these article the research from these articles
(35:17):
came out of that. Dissertation so it's great THAT i
get to kind of publish it to a wider.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
Audience, yeah, well we'll be on the lookout for. That
if people are interested in keeping up with stuff like,
that or they want to read more about your, work
where would they find You.
Speaker 4 (35:30):
Go to My instagram which is At kelly underscore coin
so k e Ll y underscore, cooyne and there was
a link there to all of my.
Speaker 3 (35:41):
Writing. Amazing we looks like The Kelly show today with
both of US i heard of. It thank you so.
Much this was.
Speaker 2 (35:48):
FASCINATING i love that you're putting this out in the.
WORLD i love that there's other options for. People it
doesn't have to all look the. Same you, guys go
keep up With. Kelly i'll put all of her. Information
LIKE i said in the description of this. Podcast and, Again,
kelly thank you so much for being, Here.
Speaker 4 (36:02):
Thank you for having.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
Me thanks for listening to The Velvet's edge podcast With Kelly,
henderson where we believe everyone has a little velvet in
a little. Edge subscribe for more conversations on, life, style,
beauty and. Relationships Search Velvet's edge wherever you get your.
Speaker 3 (36:16):
Podcasts
Conversations on life, style, beauty, and relationships. It's The Velvet's
Edge Podcast with Kelly Henderson.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Doctor Kelly Coin is a faculty member in English and
American Studies at Georgetown University, and she is here today
to discuss a series of recent features that have been
in The New York Times in the Washington Post about
off kilter domestic arrangements. So we're going to cover married
couples who live apart, stay at home dads, and married
(00:32):
married couples who sleep apart, which I think is becoming
much more common.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Hi, Kelly, Hi, Kelly, Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Of course, I'm so excited to talk to you. I
was telling you before the podcast. This has been a
topic of conversation in my own personal life recently, and
I think one of the biggest things I love to
bring the listeners on this podcast is just the option
of something different. I think we were all kind of
brought up in this way that's like this is what
you do, and that is how you live a successful
(01:02):
life or a happy life, or create a happy life.
And the older I've gotten, the more I've started to
question that existence, you know, like I've really tried to
start carving a path that is unique to me and
that works for me, and that makes me genuinely happy,
not because someone else told me to do it that way,
but because it's truly in alignment with me.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
I was telling you.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Also, I'm in a relationship and my boyfriend lives in Charleston,
and the constant question I'm getting from people is, well,
when is somebody going to make the move? Like is
he going to move here or to Nashville? Are you
going to move to Charleston? And it's so weird because
sometimes I'll start to feel this pressure to make these decisions,
and then I ask myself, is that because of me?
(01:45):
Or is that because of him? Or is that because
of the pressure from outside of our relationship? And the
truth is is we're really happy as is right now,
and so we're just kind of figuring it out as
we go. But so I love these options that you
present that you're writing in these arts articles about the
different kinds of ways that you can be married and
(02:06):
live apart that you could maybe be a stay at
home dad if your wife is the breadwinner, or the
one who wants to go out and build a business,
or to just sleep in separate beds, so you get
a good night's What made you want to start exploring
these topics.
Speaker 4 (02:22):
Well, I come from a literature background, so my master's
is in English and my PhDs in film and media
studies and cultural studies. And when you study books, you
learn a lot about genre, right, And for instance, the
marriage plot is a convention of many novels that you read.
And I started to think about, well, does American culture
(02:45):
prescribe a certain kind of life path for women? And
might that be a genre? Like the first comes love,
then comes marriage, then comes ladies, and I think that,
you know, it shares many features of genre, like you
have that iconography of the wedding dress, and the iconography
then of the home and the baby carriage. And so
(03:06):
once you start thinking of things as a genre, then
you start to realize that there isn't necessarily a natural
order of things, and that there are actually many conventions
that are imposed on us by mainstream society, you know,
via television. And so once I started, you know, doing
more ethnographic research and talking to people, I realized women's
(03:26):
lives are just so much more interesting than that, and
they're longer than the marriage plot, Like you might have
the marriage plot, but then you get divorced right or
you have a baby before you get married. Like, I
think those are the stories that we often make invisible,
and I really just want to bring them to the
surface because they're so much more common than we think.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
Do you find that there is a difference between a
male mentality and a female mentality in this whole conversation,
because what you just described was kind of the marriage plot,
and I know as a young girl like that is
pushed into our brains as girls from a very early age,
like your whole goal in life is basically set up
(04:07):
to be to find a man and get married. And
I haven't had the conversation with men where I'm feeling
that they have that same pressure, not that they don't
get it at all, but it doesn't seem like they're
programming from early life is about finding that exact partner
to have this marriage, Like they're supposed to build a career,
build a whole life. So are you seeing a difference
(04:28):
in that.
Speaker 4 (04:30):
I do. I think that women are pressured much more
in terms of the lifespan and the lifestyle, where men
it's like you have to find a hot girlfriend or
a hot wife woman. You know, you'll start to get
the gesture of like tapping the ring finger, you know,
at baby showers, or like you're dating someone it's time
to start, you know, thinking about marriage, or like you're
(04:51):
encountering well, when are you gonna as though, that is
the inevitable outcome of rechab And I think with women,
the more that I speak to women, it obscures their
ability to actually see what they want. Like they might
have grown up actually not liking those stories and like
not identifying with them, and then they find a partner
(05:14):
they really like and they're compatible with and they're like,
you know what, I don't think I need to get married,
But the pressure will just start to eat at them
and the questions will start to eat at them. And
what concerns me is that I feel like it never
really stops. You know, first it's to get the ring
on your finger, and then it's to get married and
live in the same place, and then it's to have babies,
and then it's to make sure that those babies kind
(05:36):
of continue this upward ascent socially. And if women were saying,
you know, I talk to a lot of older women,
like in their sixties, and there have been studies that
have found that women after their partner dies, they actually
often don't want to remarry where men do, because women
(05:57):
after their partner dies will say, you know what, I love,
I want to have fun, I want to date, but
that arrangement, that marital arrangement, really put me at a disadvantage,
and I don't want to do that again. And they'll
talk about how often, you know, when they are dating,
men will just look for a nurse with a purse,
like someone who can take care of them and someone
who can pay for them. And so if women were
(06:20):
in their sixties and saying, listen, I really want to remarry,
I feel like it worked really well for me. It
made me really happy. I'd feel differently about the coercion,
but they're saying, actually, I felt like I got the
short end of the stick on this one, and that's
what concerns me about the pressure.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
I had another guest on this podcast. You talked about
invisible labor and relationships, and I read a lot of
that in your articles because you were saying that the
happiest people in different studies have been married men and
single women. Yeah, and that was really interesting to me,
and it made me immediately think of that invisible labor
(06:58):
conversation because I think often what I was reading in
the articles was that the women felt like they couldn't
necessarily follow their dream or really pursue their path career
wise or in life or whatever it was, because they
were giving so much energy to the relationship and also
to building up the man's career. And I'm sure that
(07:20):
can go in different dynamics, like in queer relationships and
things like that, but I know that really resonated for
me because there have been times in my life where
I've thought, oh, my career is so much more successful
when I'm not in a relationship. It's not necessarily true now,
but it has been true in the past, and that
was for that exact reason of the invisible labor I
was giving to the relationship.
Speaker 4 (07:41):
Yep, there's the literal labor of like picking up socks, yeah,
whatever it is. And a lot of women say that
they have like different standards for cleanliness than their male partners,
and so they end up because they're the only ones
you can see the crumbs on the table. They're the
ones who think, okay. But I've also spoken to women
and we do know, especially post COVID, like women do
(08:03):
in heterosexual marriages. Women do so many more hours a
week of domestic labor than men. But then there's also
this interesting emotional thing that I've heard about from a
few women where it's kind of like the second their
partner steps into the house or steps into the room,
they start seeing themselves as his wife, and they're like,
(08:24):
is he hungry? Is he comfortable? If he seems not happy,
I should ask him what's going on and try to
fix it for him, and you know, make him feel better.
And I learn, you know, I hear about mothers who
like forget to feed themselves. You know, they're like, I
was just feeding my kids all day, and that actually
makes sense to me. Like becoming a wife is kind
of this first step of you start to think of
(08:46):
yourself as a wife and think of the demands a
relationship is putting on you before you actually are able
to recognize like what you actually want in that moment.
And I think that can really drive relationships into the
ground because you start to disconnect.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
From yourself absolutely well.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
So one of your articles we're obviously talking about is
that about married couples who actually live apart, which was
fascinating to me. And I actually read all the comments
underneath the article, which was because I was like, what
are people saying about this? And the majority was it
was just really interesting. It's like a fascinating experience to
read the comments. But the majority of men were almost
(09:25):
frustrated with it from what I could see in the
comment section. And then there were a lot of women
who didn't necessarily think that that would work for them,
which is totally fine, like they were married and wanted
to stay that way or stay living together. And then
there were a lot of women who thought, Wow, that
really could be a situation that would really work for
me for the exact reason you're saying, I wouldn't be
(09:47):
spending so much time picking up socks off the ground
or you know, doing all that things. I would be
asking myself what do I want from my life? So
what are the overall themes that you have found doing
this research about men and women living separately, like in
individual houses or apartments or anything like that.
Speaker 4 (10:05):
Yeah, I mean the comments on that article were astounding
to me to go to sort of by most liked comments.
It was like this very clear line where women were saying, wow,
this sounds great, and men were like, do you not
love your partner? It was kind to look at the
gender names against The comment was really amazing, and I
(10:28):
just felt really grateful to these people for sharing their
experiences and their stories. But you know, something that people
often ask is they say, well, if you're not living
with your spouse, how do you afford to live alone?
You know, which is really really hard in this country.
And I think that pop culture, because you know, I
study mass media, has made it difficult to see that
(10:51):
there are other options. So people in real life in
America buy homes with their siblings, like I know multiple
people who have bought an apartment with her sister, or
like a duplex situation where one sibling gets one floor
and another sibling gets another floor. You can be married
and you can live with a sister, or you can
(11:13):
live with a friend, or you can live with a roommate.
And I think especially for heterosexual women, like there is
a difference between living with a woman and living with
a man. And something that's becoming more and more prominent
are mom munes, which is when women post divorce move
in together to not save money but make it tenable to,
(11:33):
you know, pay the bills and help each other raise
their children. And I think that's something that I've struggled
a lot with in my research. Is I feel like
we give more weight to I love hearing from divorced women,
or we're getting all these great memoirs from divorced women
talking about how they felt marriage disadvantage them, but I
feel like we are not very good at centering the
(11:56):
voices of women who just opted out of that life.
I think that if you're divorced, you have a certain
kind of credibility because it's not a sour great situation
where like this woman got the Colden ticket and she
experienced it and now she can speak on the disadvantages
of the arrangement. Where I wish that we could hear
more from women who have never just said, you know,
(12:17):
this isn't really for me, Like I love my boyfriend,
I want to do this, but I don't want to
go through the whole lifespan, move in together, have kids,
all of that stuff.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Yeah, it's interesting because that has been my experience. I
told you I've never been married. I was engaged at
one point, but never got married. And it's interesting. I
think almost people are associating my calm nature about being
apart from my boyfriend now as almost like an avoidance
of some sort, And it's not like it's not.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
That at all. It's actually the opposite.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
I feel more in tune with myself and with him
than I ever have in a relationship, which is just
really interesting. But I'm feeling this confidence that I didn't
have before in carving out my own life path. And
I think a lot of times, when we're supposed to
get married, I'm doing air quotes right now, you're so young,
like you don't really know, you don't know what you want,
(13:10):
you don't really understand what the obligations of marriage look
like or the responsibilities of that kind of relationship. And
so I'm often seeing women, you know, ten years down
the line saying I love my husband, but like I
feel like I'm missing out on my own life.
Speaker 4 (13:33):
There's a movie called a Nora that I'm writing on
right now. Yeah, I think what happens to her is
what happens to many women, where they kind of they
believe that, you know, they're going to enter into this
family as a first class citizen, and it's a sure thing,
and so they leave their work behind, they burn bridges
at work, they kind of leave their friends behind, they
(13:55):
leave their house behind, and then it falls apart. And
they've given up so many things, And it makes sense
that you would cling very hard onto a marriage if
you've given up so much for it. Sure, you know,
And so I think that we're having a lot of
these interesting cultural texts. I mean, that movie one four Oscars.
Sean Baker won four Oscars for that movie. The last
(14:16):
person two have won four Oscars was our last director
was Walt Disney. And you know, that movie has been
builed as a Cinderella story for our time. And I
think it's a really interesting movie because it kind of
answers the question of what happens after the fairy tale.
Like so many of these movies and these books end
with the wedding, but this asks, well, what does it
(14:38):
look like after and what does it look like on
a daily basis to be a wife.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
Yeah, so let's talk a little bit about the arrangement
if people are living apart. Because in the article you
referenced a couple different couples and they all said equally
that that was the best move for their marriage, and
some of them ended up moving back in together, but
they said the experience in and of itself was what
their marriage needed and it deepened their marriage. I would
(15:05):
assume that a lot of people associate living apart with
on the road to divorce, separation. They must not be
doing well. So how do we start to reframe that
in our mind as not necessarily a negative thing for
our relationship, but just as another option that if we
do feel the calling, is not deemed as like bad
(15:26):
for their relationship.
Speaker 4 (15:28):
Yeah. I mean, what I found in talking to people
from that community is how the la so it's living
apart together is what sociologists call it. It was actually
a point of pride for many people. And it's really
interesting as a reporter to you know, I write about
things that are often pretty taboo, like you know, living
a part together. I'm writing an article on prenaps right now.
(15:50):
I had more people wanting to talk to me about
living a part together than anything else, and it's been
difficult to get people to talk about their prenups, which
I understand, but I think that there is this and
it's probably self selecting the people who want to talk
to me, because people who want to talk to a
journalists are really happy with their lives, they're really proud
of their relationship, they feel very secure in their relationship.
(16:12):
If they're going to talk to a journalist, and I
found that it was often the woman who both initiated
the arrangement and also wanted to speak to me. And
I think I spoke to twelve couples and I profiled
three of them, and they all were pretty different. One
of them, you know, was a temporary arrangement. It was
(16:32):
a woman who grew up in a very traditional family
and she went straight from living with her parents to
living to her with her husband, and she just, you know,
one day over Covid was like, I never got that experience,
and I'm really sad about it. I don't know if
I'm ever going to get it. And she brought it
up to him and he told me. He was like,
(16:53):
I would never dismiss what she said. And I was like,
oh my god, totally, that is so like what a
sign it is. I I feel so lucky for my
job because I often hang up the call and I'm like,
oh my god, like I want to cry, it's so moving.
And so they ended up moving apart temporarily because she
felt like she was falling into this wife role that
she didn't like, and she was losing connections with her
(17:14):
friends and with her artistic pursuits and things like that.
And then they realized, okay, we can live outside of
New York and actually get more space, and so they
were able to get a bigger spot where she had
her own room and they moved back in together. But
another couple I spoke to it also came about during COVID,
where one member of the part the family was an
(17:37):
extrovert and she really liked the city. And then her
husband actually was literally a farmer and they lived in
a farm outside of the city, and she just started
kind of going store crazy over COVID, and so she
got a place in the city and they see each
other multiple times a week. And the way she funded
that was, even though they're in their sixties, she got
a job as a shuttle driver for a college nearby,
(18:00):
and so she found a way to fund it that
actually also kind of fed her desire for social interaction.
She loves being a shuttle driver, and so there are
many different ways people go about it. It does get
really complicated with couples with children, and so there are
many other ways those kinds of couples do it. But
for the couples I spoke to, it seemed like it
(18:20):
was a pretty fluid thing, like it's not assumed that
this will be forever, but it's not assumed that this
is temporary either. It's just kind of this ongoing conversation
they have.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
The thing I like about the idea of it, and
just in hearing you even talk about those couples, is
there's two different people in a couple ship, right, And
it seems like often when people get married, we just
assume they almost have to become one person. I mean literally,
that is what is said, like you're becoming one, you know,
biblically or whatever when you get married. And I believe
(18:52):
that kind of does an injustice to each human in
those situations, because no matter if you are in line
with your partner or you do, you know, create a
situation together in this relationship, you are still an individual person,
and I think that often can get lost because you
start doing everything together. Obviously, we all have to compromise
(19:13):
a bit in relationships, and so I think the beauty
of it is in seeing like the extrovert versus the introvert.
It's not that their relationship has to end because of
those differences, but it's about embracing the different qualities and
learning how to thrive individually so that you can thrive together.
It's actually almost like a healthier way to be in
relationship to me, Yeah.
Speaker 4 (19:34):
I totally agree, you know, and I think that we
know that marriage is temporary now, like your partner might
die and you might get divorced, right like, especially if
you're a woman in a heterosexual partnership, you're likely going
to outlive your husband. And so we act like if
you're living with a friend or a sister, that's temporary,
(19:56):
where if you're living with a spouse, thoughts forever and
that's just not There isn't data that supports that at all.
And so allowing for all of these many different kind
of lives within your marriage if it's a really long one,
I think is a really exciting thing.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
Well kind of in line with the living separately if
that didn't feel right to a couple, Another option a
lot of couples are doing is just sleeping in separate rooms.
And I actually have multiple friends who do this for
multiple reasons. It's like the partner snores, or one has
to get up super early in the morning, one has
a night job, one needs to be closer to the
(20:34):
you know whatever it is. But for whatever reason, it
worked better for them, and they've openly discussed that they
don't like to talk about it all the time because
people judge it. And I find that to be so interesting.
It's like, why have we put a marriage and the
way that it should look under this umbrella that seems
so specific, and we don't allow ourselves to kind of
(20:55):
craft and create what actually works for us. I e
sleep like I'm I'm a bad sleeper, so sometimes I
toss and turn, you know, and that's not always fair
to my partner. So what is the deal with this,
like sleeping in the separate bedrooms? What did you find
in this kind of research?
Speaker 4 (21:11):
I feel lucky that we have a lot of really
great historians at work who have shown me that this
idea we have of the nuclear family on all the
details right, like the man going and going to work,
the woman staying home, the couple sleeping in the same bed.
This is really like a nineteen fifties invention. Like back
(21:32):
in the day, nuclear families were very different. They were
deeply embedded and extended families in community, in their community.
So you know, pre war, it wasn't this idea that
you're this like self sustaining unit. And one of those
things is that couples have not always slept together in
the same bed. So you know, back in the day,
(21:54):
poorer families there would often be two beds. And if
you ask your grandparents about this, I'm sure it all
you know, listeners, we'll hear stories like this. But in
poorer families, the wife would often sleep with the girls
in one bed, and then the dad would sleep with
the boys. And then even if you look at like
pop culture depictions of very wealthy families back in the day,
(22:16):
many many wealthy people had separate sleeping quarters.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
I was thinking about like the king and queen and.
Speaker 4 (22:21):
Yeah, uk, yeah, yeah, like the crown, and you know,
twin beds were quite common pre nineteen fifties. So this
idea really came about in the fifties, and I think
it has something to do with men coming back from war.
We need to make sure that to help the economy,
babies are created. Let's great advertising, create this norm to
(22:44):
get them in the same bed. As though that will
like lead to more sex, which as I spoke to
have a lot of sex. I think they do this
because they are very confident in their sex lives. But
the reasons people do, as you said, really range, especially
by age. So men once they get older often have
(23:07):
very serious snoring problems. Like there was one woman I
spoke to and she said, our neighbors could hear and snoring,
like it was a neighborhood situation, lady at all, and
even younger women. Though our women are more likely to
be woken up than men are, so that's another you know,
(23:28):
men are able to sleep more deeply than women, so
that's another reason why women are asking to have their
own bedroom. But it is often as in the case
of living apart, I found that it was usually the
woman asking for this, and you know, many couples think
that they're the odd ones out. But then I brought
it up with like we had a neighborhood barbecue and
there was some older women there, and it was like
(23:50):
I was speaking to four women in their fifties and sixties,
and three out of the four we're sleeping separately.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
Right, It's just like we're not talking about it, maybe,
but it's happening, but it's happening.
Speaker 4 (23:59):
And the other thing that makes me sad, I think
it speaks to the stigma is I was like at
Ikea a couple months ago and I was looking at
a pullout, okay, and this couple came by and they
were like testing out the pullout and they said, yeah,
we sleep separately, but it's because of his job, Like
it's because.
Speaker 3 (24:18):
Like she had to justify it.
Speaker 4 (24:20):
Yeah. I found that, like you have to often justify
it by work, because if not, it sends the message
if there's a problem in a relationship. I know a
woman in her forties who said that she sleeps separately
from her husband, and her mother just thinks it's like
the death knell of their marriage.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
I'm just so fascinated by the fact that we do
operate on these thought processes even and where if we
don't ever ask the question of the why, like where
did this come from?
Speaker 3 (24:57):
Do I actually believe this? Like is this true for me?
Speaker 2 (25:01):
Have I experienced something where I've seen a couple start
sleeping in different bedrooms and they actually.
Speaker 3 (25:05):
Break up or it's bad for their marriage?
Speaker 2 (25:07):
You know, I would just be curious if anyone is
asking those questions when they make those judgments.
Speaker 4 (25:12):
Yeah, And there's that line in Mean Girls where like
Gretchen says about Regina's parents, like they totally don't sleep
in the same bad anymore. Like there is a.
Speaker 3 (25:20):
Stay, there is a stigma, you know, it's just so free.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
It's just really wild to me because I find that
when you actually start carving your own path, you feel
more freedom and everyone else is really what actually feels
more uncomfortable with it. It's just very interesting. But this
is why I think these kind of conversations are really important.
The other one you talk you've written about is stay
at home dads, and I think there is a massive
(25:46):
stigma on that one of You know, if the man
is the stay at home he must not be able
to find a job or be successful. And I feel
sorry for men in this capacity because it's just really
not true all the time. Of course that can be true,
but a lot of times and relationships that I've seen,
the dad is the more nurturing person. And like this
goes again to like our own unique wiring and how
(26:08):
we all really need to be in tune with our
own path and what we you know, are wiring is
so we can build the life that we want when
I was reading the articles. That was kind of what
a lot of the stay at home dad said was,
you know, the ones that did it back in the
day really felt shame about it, and we keep it
pretty secret. Then it has become more of a common conversation.
(26:28):
So can you tell the listeners a little bit about
what you found with the dads.
Speaker 4 (26:32):
I think the stigma is lessening like it used to be.
You know. I think of that movie Mister Mom, even
though idle mister Mom, as though, like, you can't be
a man who is taking care of your children, right,
And many of the older men I spoke to said
that they're often mistaken for not the father, Like they
(26:54):
were like, oh, are you the grandfather? Is that your grandchild?
Or like people were often and confused when they saw,
you know, a man during the day out in the
grocery store with his child. But I think one of
the biggest things I took away from that article is
the queer population has really opened up so many different
(27:18):
ways of arranging our lives, you know, for heterosexual people
and for you know, even like I think asexual Americans
as well, because there's this idea that like, just because
you're having sex with someone. It doesn't necessarily mean they
have to be the most important person in your life.
Just because you're a man and you have a kid
doesn't mean you have to be the breadwinner. Queer couples
(27:40):
are really really changing the possibilities for everyone, And I
mean it was great. I spoke to a gay couple
probably in their forties, and one of them he just said,
this is always like I've always wanted to be the
primary caregiver, like his husband proposed to him, and you know,
(28:00):
he's like, I often embody more of the kind of
female role in the relationship. But then I speak to
heterosexual couples and they're doing these you know, mutual proposals
like there. I think that queer couples are really kind
of showing us different ways to make relationships more equal
and more based in preferences rather than tradition.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
You've mentioned the nineteen fifties, and this is where my
head is going with that. But if you had to
define now, what like the broader conversation about relationship and
marriage and those kind of things that are happening in
our culture at this moment, what do you think the
overall sense is. It doesn't feel like it was the
same as in the nineteen fifties anymore.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
But what is it?
Speaker 4 (28:46):
I have been talking to a lot of experts, like
both historians and psychologists, and the takeaways that I'm getting
are we put a lot more pressure on our marriages now,
Like there is this idea that your spouse should be
everything to you and that it is actually you know,
(29:10):
marriage used to be. It still is an economic thing,
but it used to be like you would find someone
in your community and you would marry them, like they
didn't have to be I'm always thinking it like this sit,
what is it fine? I'm looking for a man in
finance six' five trust, fun blue, eyes like, yeah like
and The. Materialists that, MOVIE i think really goes to
show like this ridiculous standard that people look for in their.
(29:31):
Marriages it used to be something where you found someone
who is kind of suitable and you learn to love each.
Other AND i think now there is a lot of,
pressure AND i, think especially because people are marrying, later
they really want to make sure that they can hold
up their end of the, bargain which is WHY i
think we're seeing a, crazy crazy rise in. Prenups AND
(29:51):
i think that is part of it like people are
entering marriages much later in life with many more you,
know sometimes they've bought a, house or they created a
business or. Whatever BUT i think women in particular are
leading the way and really beginning to question kind of
this social. Conditioning and because of the visibility of the queer,
(30:12):
POPULATION i think that women are being shown, many many more.
Options so it seems to be really an evolving.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
THING i would have thought it would have been the
reverse to what you, said like that more pressure was
put on it back in the day because more people got.
Married it feels like you, no but that is that
is very. TRUE i think that what you're saying about
what we request or require from a, relationship the standards
are just. Higher AND i, know for me in, PARTICULAR
(30:38):
i have not wanted to give energy to something that
isn't serving my life on a bigger.
Speaker 3 (30:43):
Scale you don't need to exact make your own.
Speaker 4 (30:46):
Money, yeah, Friends.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
Yeah that's totally what it. Is and then how does
that tie into like the stay at home dad. Piece you,
know what's the conversation around, that and how do we
wrap our minds around the variation in those kind of.
Speaker 4 (31:01):
LIFESTYLES i think of how queer, people you, know were
treated in the eighties and nineties with such, stigma And i'm,
like when people are talking to me about the, Stigma i'm,
like why why are we so obsessed with other people's,
relationships with what they're choosing to do with their, Lives
like what is so frightening about? This and SO i
(31:24):
get frustrated with the stigma around all these, things but
especially the stay at home dad, thing BECAUSE i think
there is this like many of the MEN i spoke
to found their job to actually be like, masculine like
fulfill some sort of masculinity that they missed when they
were going into an. Office, like you, know they really
enjoy doing the yard. Work they really Enjoy they talk
(31:45):
about how they learn to be a plumber from YouTube
and they're, LIKE i just saved my family thousands and
thousands of. Dollars AND i think we value certain kind
kinds of labor when it comes from, men but there are,
many many different ways you can add value to a,
household AND i think stay at home dads are really
showing that to, us which is. Wonderful and they're you,
(32:06):
know also making way for their wives if they're straight
to fulfill the parts of themselves that they've also always
known have been there and show their value in a
way that might not be so. Traditional.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
YEAH i, mean this is WHY i want to have
these kind of conversations on the, podcast because when you
said why are we so? Scared this is WHAT i,
Thought because it's different and it makes us question if
we're doing the right. Thing like if someone else does
something different and they look, happy and you've done something
that you are just doing because you're programmed to do
it or you think it's the only, way the questioning
(32:43):
can make you really start to feel scared about what
your decisions, were you, Know like even the conversation of
some a different option can make a lot of, PEOPLE i,
think panic Almost and it's the same with the queer.
COMMUNITY i, MEAN i think that's always been the. Case
is the queer community to, me has always just challenged
the norm in a way that like people, go but
(33:04):
if that's, true then what's? Everything they start to question
everything they've ever believed their whole?
Speaker 4 (33:09):
Life, yeah you, know, yeah like what does that mean
for my? Marriage If i've committed to this person AND
i want kids and that's All i've, wanted what if,
wait this person might not even want, that and that's
really really.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
Scary, yeah or what If i'm hiding for? Myself Then i'm,
happy you, know not, happy but, YEAH i mean a
lot of.
Speaker 4 (33:29):
Things, yeah there is like a site of very basic
psych when in one experiment that looked at homophobia in
relation to same sex, attraction and it found that the
higher level your homophobia, was the more tendencies you had
towards same sex. Attraction they actually like measure direction sizes with.
Porn they would show gay porn and measure direction sizes
(33:51):
and they and it makes, sense like you hate in
others what you can't accept in.
Speaker 3 (33:55):
Yourself oh first you, know so, yeah not.
Speaker 4 (33:58):
Happy in your marriage and you're seeing in a very
traditional marriage and you're seeing someone do something differently and
they seem. Happy and especially if you have given up a,
lot you've put your whole life on the, line you're
going to cling to that norm as that that'st and
the only option and really try to degrade the other.
Person and SO i do think we have learned so
(34:20):
many lessons about like the way that we treated the
poorer population back in the days is so so. Wrong
why are we stigmatizing other kinds of, relationships.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
Yes or even other choices within. Relationships, yeah like what
works for you in your? Marriage like you, said why
is that of concern to anyone else but? You that's
an interesting question to. Ask, WELL i loved the. RESEARCH
i love these. Articles i'm going to put the links
for all of these articles in the description of this.
Podcast BUT i read that you're writing a book as.
Speaker 3 (34:54):
Well, YEAH i.
Speaker 4 (34:56):
Have to convert my dissertation into a, book So i'm look.
Okay my dissertation looked at depictions of off kilter domestic
arrangements and, MOVIES tv shows and novels from the seventies until,
today alongside the actual experiences lived experiences of, people and
so many of these article the research from these articles
(35:17):
came out of that. Dissertation so it's great THAT i
get to kind of publish it to a wider.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
Audience, yeah, well we'll be on the lookout for. That
if people are interested in keeping up with stuff like,
that or they want to read more about your, work
where would they find You.
Speaker 4 (35:30):
Go to My instagram which is At kelly underscore coin
so k e Ll y underscore, cooyne and there was
a link there to all of my.
Speaker 3 (35:41):
Writing. Amazing we looks like The Kelly show today with
both of US i heard of. It thank you so.
Much this was.
Speaker 2 (35:48):
FASCINATING i love that you're putting this out in the.
WORLD i love that there's other options for. People it
doesn't have to all look the. Same you, guys go
keep up With. Kelly i'll put all of her. Information
LIKE i said in the description of this. Podcast and, Again,
kelly thank you so much for being, Here.
Speaker 4 (36:02):
Thank you for having.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
Me thanks for listening to The Velvet's edge podcast With Kelly,
henderson where we believe everyone has a little velvet in
a little. Edge subscribe for more conversations on, life, style,
beauty and. Relationships Search Velvet's edge wherever you get your.
Speaker 3 (36:16):
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