Letting Go of How It’s “Supposed to Be”
September 29, 2022
Glennon Doyle:
Welcome to We Can Do Hard Things. We love your guts. We love you so much that all we’ve been doing is listening to your amazing voicemails and questions. And today, we are hearing from the pod squad, our people.
Amanda Doyle:
Woot, woot.
Abby Wambach:
This is my favorite day.
Amanda Doyle:
Are people still saying woot, woot?
Glennon Doyle:
No, they’re not.
Amanda Doyle:
Can someone tell us what the new generation of woot, woot is?
Glennon Doyle:
I don’t know. It’s just you still saying woot, woot. I actually don’t know if anyone ever said woot, woot. Okay. But I do write in a text every once in a while. Woooot. Let’s go. Let’s hear from our first pod squader.
Abby Wambach:
Julie.
Julie:
Hi, Glennon, Abby, sister.
Glennon Doyle:
Hi.
Julie:
This is Julie. My question is a sports question.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh God.
Abby Wambach:
Yes.
Julie:
So my partner is a professional soccer coach in the US and I hate sports, but I love him. I’m trying to figure out how to be supportive and engage in the sports or soccer without hating my life. So I just think there’s too many sports, too many games, too many seasons, too many things. It’s never stops. And I find myself rejecting even conversations about scoring goals and all those things. I’m just like, I don’t care how many times the ball went in the net or who won. I just genuinely don’t. And so yeah, I guess my question is how do I support and not hate my life? That’s all. Thank you.
Glennon Doyle:
This is such a foreign concept to me. I have no idea how to talk to Julie about this because I’ve never experienced anything like these feelings. I love Julie’s guts.
Abby Wambach:
I love this question.
Glennon Doyle:
Do you want to take a stab?
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Amanda Doyle:
Relate to Julie’s husband, maybe?
Abby Wambach:
I mean, listen, Julie, I appreciate the honesty here. I think one thing that I would ask in response is, do you love your husband? And do you love what he does through his eyes? So for an example, I watch my wife read books for hours during the day.
Glennon Doyle:
She does.
Abby Wambach:
And reading is not something that… it’s not like my first instinct. I’m not like, “Oh, where’s my book?” But I do see Glennon reading all the time and she loves reading. And so I love witnessing her doing something that she loves.
Glennon Doyle:
I know, but baby, Julie and her husband are not lesbians. So they’re not going to stare at each other.
Abby Wambach:
No, I understand that. Okay, let’s go a different route. Maybe you can look at his coaching. He’s not just a coach, he’s like a life guide for these people. I understand that it’s weird because there’s rules and this team has to score goals in that net and this team is trying to go through the other way. And there’s a lot of these complications during sports that can feel confusing and not fun to watch. But if you could see it as maybe like a TV drama that’s unfolding before your eyes, maybe you could find it more interesting. So when he comes home and he might be talking about the Xs and Os. In sports we call the Xs and Os like the tactics of the game.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s hugs and kisses, right?
Glennon Doyle:
XO, XO.
Abby Wambach:
No. Maybe you could inquire and ask about the people.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. Agree. I’d agree.
Abby Wambach:
Ask him about the people. Because Glennon, you’ve told me when we were watching sports on the televisions, and you want to maybe die at times and then they start talking about this woman’s story.
Glennon Doyle:
Right. Right. But also you get annoyed when I ask you, is that person married? What is that person’s mental health? Where do they live? Do they have pets? You don’t want to talk about it. You just want to talk about the net and the ball.
Abby Wambach:
That’s not true. I talk about the people because I am a leader. I think that you have to get into the hearts and minds of the people that you’re trying to lead, especially as a coach. And we all get to like different parts of it. I just don’t know if Julie has found that there is a different part to watching sports or listening to a coach husband talk about the sports. She might have to prod with a follow up question of, “Well, who’s struggling the most?”
Glennon Doyle:
That’s interesting. I’m desperate to hear what sister thinks. Sister, what are you thinking?
Amanda Doyle:
Shocking to everyone, I’m sure. I just don’t understand why we can’t each individually do what each of us individually loves. And then if we happen to have a struggle in that area, bring it to each other and say, I need your help in this area, but why can’t we reserve our togetherness for the things that we together love? Why does our together time need to be consumed by our individual idiosyncratic interests? I don’t want to spend my life pretending to be interested or impressed by shit that is not interesting or impressive to me.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Amanda Doyle:
I did that a lot as a teenager and I just don’t feel like I need to do it anymore. I’m allergic to placating. And it’s not even about having a realistic expectation of my partner’s genuine fascination with my interests. I don’t expect him to do that. I don’t expect him to be genuinely interested about the things that I find individually fascinating. But I also a hundred percent, I’m not going to fake fascination in his tangential interests. Why are we faking that? It’s silly. There should be enough that we can be like, you have a bucket that you love, I have a bucket that I love. What’s in our bucket of things we love together? And perhaps we could focus on that when we’re talking.
Amanda Doyle:
Also just for context, I just want us to imagine a world. Julie has called in okay? She’s struggling with her lack of genuine fascination with the sports with which her husband is consumed. Can we please try to imagine a world for one hot second in which Julie’s husband is sitting around fretting and asking for advice about how he can become more actively and genuinely engaged in Julie’s love for gardening? It has never happened. Not going to happen, ever.
Abby Wambach:
I hear that, but-
Glennon Doyle:
Fair enough.
Abby Wambach:
… I also think that what people do for their life, their career, their life’s work, which might be gardening, I’m not taking that away, I do feel like there has to be a little bit of open-heartedness in what-
Glennon Doyle:
Don’t tell sister that there has to be open-heartedness, she will turn this pod around.
Abby Wambach:
But they’re spending half of their fucking life doing this thing.
Glennon Doyle:
Right. I could be totally wrong, but there’s a little flavor in this of, I have this one image of myself from my past that is, God is my witness, I will never return to again. And that is this-
Amanda Doyle:
I know what you’re going to say. It’s watching your boyfriend play video games.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. Okay. I used to sit my very smart, albeit wasted at the time, ass on a dirty couch and for hours I would watch my boyfriend play video games. I don’t like video games. I don’t like boyfriends. But for some reason, I felt like what I should do with my one wild and precious life, it would’ve been dumbass enough to spend it playing video games, but now I’m spending it watching someone else play video games. And all I’m just saying is that I don’t know how to say it other than that’s a vibe I am not returning to. And it feels like maybe there’s a flavor of this as God is my witness, I will not do that again in Julie. Okay?
Glennon Doyle:
Because, here’s what I will tell you, and I’m not saying this is fair, I’m not saying this is fair, I understand it’s not fair, when I was married to a man, I, as God as my witness was not going to be interested in the sports. But when I married Abby, I was like, huh, all right. I don’t know. There was something about the power dynamic. She brought more of the sports to me. It was very clear that it wasn’t just about the sports. It actually wasn’t about the net. It was about the human struggle of learning how to work together as a team, learning how to experience deep emotions like competitiveness and loss and jealousy, pouring yourself out and losing and all the things that I actually do care about in the world but it’s all playing out in front of you on a field.
Glennon Doyle:
She brought humanity to it to me in such a way. When our daughter wasn’t playing sports, she was like, “Why?” And I was like, “Well, she’s not that good at them.” And she was like, “So? That’s not what any of this is about.” And so we put our girl back in sports and I watched the teamness of it. I watched her learn how her body was for accomplishing something and not appearing a certain way. I watched her learn how to lose. This child never knew how to lose without having a complete breakdown. I watched her lose. I watched her pull herself together. I watched her experience all of these emotions on the field safely in the container of a game. Sports became, I can cry now watching this shit, but it was because it was brought to me in a human to human way, not the way some people do it.
Abby Wambach:
I’m curious, does she respect what he’s doing? Because is what she’s seeing just a more glorified version of her watching-
Glennon Doyle:
Video games.
Abby Wambach:
… him playing video games.
Amanda Doyle:
I think there’s two things going on. I think that Glenn, and what you’re saying is what I think I’m trying to say with the third bucket. You can love your thing over here I’m disinterested in. I can love this thing over here that you are disinterested in without having my thing feel threatened and without personally feeling threatened. And then there’s a third bucket in the middle, that is the thing that we can both, genuinely without pretending, be engaged and interested around.
Amanda Doyle:
What Abby did is she took some of her first bucket and poured it into a third that you could be like, “You know what? I am genuinely interested in that.” That is so cool to me. I’m never going to be remembering the stats, but I love this heart of this thing and therefore I can be really engaged with it. And so I think that’s the job of both parties. You don’t have to say, “Come over here and entertain my bucket and love it. Love it.”
Abby Wambach:
That’s right.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s like, no, my job is to translate it to you in a way that you will love it.
Glennon Doyle:
And include you.
Amanda Doyle:
In a way that includes you.
Glennon Doyle:
Includes you in a way that is generous because I know my partner and I have this thing I love and so I’m going to figure out what is the Venn diagram of that. If Abby had come to me and just talked to me constantly about statistics, that would not have included me. I needed her to be like, “This is my wife. I know her so well that this is the part of my thing that’s going to light her up,” and think that through and include me in it. But if you don’t, it’s a repetitive scene from Fried Green Tomatoes where it’s just the dude coming home and taking his TV dinner to the sports and leaving his wife out of it because there’s no generosity. There’s no Venn diagramming.
Abby Wambach:
And both parties need to be a part of that Venn diagram. Julie’s husband has to translate it to her and she also has to have some openness and some curiosity with the sports.
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah. I’m also going to take a little gander which was not included in this question and wonder if a little bit of the there’s too many seasons, it’s too much, it is quite possible that in some relationships when somebody’s hobby or work overshadows and dominates the life and the conversations and the time and eclipses-
Glennon Doyle:
Not cool.
Amanda Doyle:
… the rest of it, that then the expectation that you’re going to be giddy in discussing it just breeds resentment.
Abby Wambach:
That’s good.
Amanda Doyle:
Right?
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Amanda Doyle:
So if you have a husband that plays two rounds of 18 hole golf every Saturday and you’re already bitter as shit because that’s your family time and he is not taking care of the responsibilities. You’re taking care of them, Saturday, and then he comes home and wants to talk to you about golf, you’re probably going to be like, “You should fuck all the way off. I hate golf.”
Glennon Doyle:
Mm-hmm. That’s right.
Amanda Doyle:
And just for the record, my husband doesn’t do this because I know sometimes I present theoreticals that are like, are you just trying to couch that? That is not a thing. But I think there’s a lot of, “Well, why don’t you like golf? It’s so not cool you don’t like golf.” There’s a reason she doesn’t like golf, you guys.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. That’s really good.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. Yeah, because you can sense someone’s priorities too. It’s like, is sports your life and you’re just trying to fit your family into it? Or is your family your life and you’re adding sports to it sometimes? It’s complicated, but I’m with Julie in the fact that the sports presents itself as in it’s a season. So that’s a lie. It’s not a season. It never ends. It doesn’t end. Seasons stop, like fall, winter, spring, summer, that’s a season. The sports, they just overlap and they keep going. And the second there’s a championship and then the next day there’s a practice. It never ends. It’s a big lie. Even when the game’s over, it’s not. There’s extra time. It’s just, I’m with Julie in the fact that the farce is over. There’s no end to it and it’s just sports till we die.
Amanda Doyle:
Yes. Right.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s what it’s.
Amanda Doyle:
That’s right.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay.
Abby Wambach:
Thank God.
Amanda Doyle:
We have an anonymous question.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh, let’s do it.
Anonymous:
I am 46 years old and I still feel like friendships are such a struggle for me and I’m highly sensitive. I’m a teacher. I’m a mom, and I still am struggling to find where I sit with friendships. I have a few really close friendships that do provide me a lot of joy and are very fulfilling. But it’s the times where I get these twinges of loneliness or when I see other females having ladies nights out or these families at vacation together and all their families and kids get along and then I think, gosh, am I doing something here? How come I don’t have that? So I guess I’m just wondering at this phase in my life how to do this friendship thing.
Glennon Doyle:
I’m with anonymous. I actually called that question in.
Abby Wambach:
You paid somebody.
Amanda Doyle:
You are 46.
Glennon Doyle:
All I can hear in this question is the red flashing words vacation together. Vacation together. Just because I want to honor this person and this question, I’m going to tell this story and if my friends who it’s about her are listening, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. Here’s what happened. So what happened was I decided that I was going to go from 0 to 60, that I needed to jump into the friendship thing. I was very much like anonymous. I didn’t understand how people were doing this. My friends, every summer, this group of friends who were always… Togetherness was easier for them than it was for me. I was kind of in, but not really all of it. They would go for a vacation together in a big beach house every single summer, all of their children and them, like six freaking families with their children. And so I was like, “You know what? I’m going to do this.”
Amanda Doyle:
I am a person who goes on beach family vacations, that’s the kind of person I am now.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. I saw the pictures. It looks delightful. I am going to do it.
Abby Wambach:
Oh my God.
Amanda Doyle:
Terrible idea.
Glennon Doyle:
Day two, I love these people.
Amanda Doyle:
Oh, they’re the best.
Glennon Doyle:
I love these people as far as people on the planet go, they’re my favorite people. It was a slice of hell on earth. All of these freaking children, so many children, so many different parenting strategies, so many different approaches. Some people getting up in the morning, my kids were little. I lived for 7:00 PM because I was like, they’re out. Kids are done. We’re done. Some people’s kids stayed up till midnight so it didn’t matter. There were still children everywhere. It was so many, so much. So here’s what happened. Craig and I got in bed both nights and we just couldn’t even talk. We were just in the fetal position. We don’t what we were going to do that this is… The next seven days spread out in front of us like a fiery hell. And Tish woke up one morning and said, “My tummy hurts.”
Amanda Doyle:
And you’re like, “Yes, it does.”
Glennon Doyle:
I looked at Craig like, “Oh, we have been given a gift.” I proceeded to make Tish appear so sick. I behaved concerned. I laid her on the couch in front of everyone, took fake temperatures. We prepared this dramatic exit. I took her to the emergency room to make my story complete.
Amanda Doyle:
You were like leaving the house, “Pray for us.”
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. Yes. Craig was in on it with me. He will call in and verify this whole story. We took her to the emergency room. She was like, “What the fuck?”
Amanda Doyle:
I feel like that might have been a bridge too far. Couldn’t you just say you went to the emergency room?
Glennon Doyle:
Oh no. Because that would’ve been a lie. This was more of a performance with a truth at the end.
Amanda Doyle:
I got it. So you were just like everything was reasonable as long as we keep it within the factual-
Glennon Doyle:
Of course. It could be-
Amanda Doyle:
… plausible deniability.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s trueish. So we took her to the emergency room, lo and behold, they couldn’t find anything wrong with her but just to be safe-
Abby Wambach:
Oh no, it’s a mystery.
Glennon Doyle:
Just to be safe, we packed up, drove home, best trip home of my entire life. The point being don’t try that, anonymous. Don’t jump into family vacations. I think it was sister who said if there’s anything worse than being with my kids on vacation, it’s being with my kids and someone else’s kids on vacation.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah, that’s right.
Amanda Doyle:
That is what I said and that is true.
Glennon Doyle:
What do you think about this love bug and her wishes, her desire to have this group of friends?
Abby Wambach:
Well, I would just ask clearly she might not be the kind of person, maybe a little bit like you Glennon that would do well, that would thrive in these, but she wants to be the kind of person in some ways because there’s something about what she’s seeing or hearing or looking at on the fucking Instagram. God help us with everybody’s favorite-
Glennon Doyle:
Right! Frolicking women together around candles. It’s just-
Abby Wambach:
… best photos. It’s just not ever totally like that. So I don’t know. I would ask, what is she seeing that other families are getting from these family vacations? Because there’s a difference between a vacation and a trip. Like a vacation is what you take without any children. And a trip includes children. It is not vacation. It is a trip.
Glennon Doyle:
There’s probably some tree climbing in our family, rapids.
Amanda Doyle:
I totally agree with you, Abby. I think there’s two things happening here. I think the main thing is when we see ladies’ nights out or these people are in this book club together, these people do this and the family vacations together that we feel like there’s this wide swathe of something that we’re missing. And I get that too. Definitely, I see things and I’m like, ouch. You know when you get that little twinge. What did she say? She said-
Glennon Doyle:
Twinges of loneliness.
Amanda Doyle:
Twinges of loneliness. I love that. Because mine always just feels like a little baby boa around my heart like contract, contract. And it just makes you feel sad, especially if it’s people who you used to be friends with and you see it. And I think that’s totally natural and that is valid and also has nothing to do at all with whether you should be someone who’s going to ladies’ nights out or going on group family vacations.
Abby Wambach:
That’s right.
Amanda Doyle:
The fact that you have that twinge means, oh, that looks awesome. And oh, I wish I had something that feels like that looks like that feels.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes, exactly. That feels like that looks like that feels, because I always think every time there’s a picture like that, I’m like, okay but somebody had to arrange and take that picture, which means it’s staged a bit. And for every group of people that are together, she’s like, “How do their families get along and their partners get along and their kids get along?” For sure they don’t. For sure that’s a picture. And then their kids are like, “I hate her and I hate when you bring me here.” And the partner’s like, “How much longer we have to stay here?” And for sure they don’t all get along. Or I have never been a part of that where everyone’s just magically melding together.
Amanda Doyle:
And if they are, if you have that, good on you. That is so great. I love that for people. And I believe that there are whole groups of people that go and it’s the time of their life and that is beautiful. And I wish I were a person who would do that. And also, it’s like a personality test. I am never ever, ever going to be a person who does that. So I think there’s that whole bucket and then there’s this am I missing something? Do I have my friendships right? And she said that she has a few really close friendships that provide me with a lot of joy and are very fulfilling. And to that, I say me too anonymous.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Amanda Doyle:
That is what I have and I don’t particularly think I’m doing it wrong.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Abby Wambach:
Is there a third way here? Because Glennon, my birth family has a place that we sometimes go to in the summer for a few days and we go because you know it’s my favorite place in the world and it’s our kids’… one of their favorite places to go to, but it’s a literal island with my whole family.
Glennon Doyle:
But tell them it’s like 40 people.
Abby Wambach:
It is entirely-
Glennon Doyle:
40 people.
Abby Wambach:
Too much for you.
Glennon Doyle:
And I need you to explain to them what an island means. They’re picturing tropical. The island is like the size of a bed.
Abby Wambach:
It’s a quarter acre. It’s very tiny.
Glennon Doyle:
A king-sized bed.
Abby Wambach:
It’s very tiny. And there’s a lot of people and a lot of goings on all the time.
Amanda Doyle:
Isn’t there a bathroom outside?
Glennon Doyle:
There’s an outhouse. There’s an outhouse, is the bathroom.
Abby Wambach:
It’s the best and for you, it’s the worst.
Glennon Doyle:
And also there’s 40 people and there’s two bedrooms, but the bedrooms don’t have walls.
Abby Wambach:
The walls are half walls. So this is a late 1800s build, the walls don’t go all the way up to the ceiling. The point of my story is-
Glennon Doyle:
There’s one shower and it’s outside and there’s spiders in it.
Abby Wambach:
We have gone a couple of times.
Glennon Doyle:
25 children.
Abby Wambach:
And you were more inclined to go early on because you didn’t know what it would be like.
Glennon Doyle:
Because I was still trying to impress you.
Amanda Doyle:
Because you were still chemically dependent on Abby.
Glennon Doyle:
I was still hiding my personality so as-
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. And so now I know-
Glennon Doyle:
… to get you under contract.
Abby Wambach:
… kind of what and I believe that if we were to ever go back to this area, that we would have to actually stay somewhere else. We would have to have a place of our own.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. Third way. Third way.
Abby Wambach:
And then opt in to said family vacation. Maybe the kids stay there.
Glennon Doyle:
I feel so cozy about this.
Abby Wambach:
Maybe the kids stay there. And we’re just over here doing our thing or maybe we opt in on dinner or we’re only there for a few hours a day. That it allows you and your kids to have this kind of familial, friends experience-
Glennon Doyle:
But also boundaries. But also a safe place to return to with bathrooms on the inside.
Abby Wambach:
Yes.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. No, but we’re laughing but I think that’s brilliant. It’s like it doesn’t have to be all this way or all or nothing. I mean, we’ve learned this with our families. We can still go, but stay in different houses and then opt in and then opt out. I think there’s also something that anonymous mentioned in the beginning that she started with. And she said, I’m highly sensitive. That’s the first thing she said. What I want to say about that is if you had super sonic hearing, you might be more uncomfortable at a loud dinner party than someone else. You would hear things that person didn’t hear, so it didn’t upset that person. It’s not because there’s anything wrong with you that you’re upset or emotionally activated-
Amanda Doyle:
Dysregulated.
Glennon Doyle:
… dysregulated in large social settings. It’s because you have super sonic hearing. It’s because you are affected by more things that.. I’m 46 and I’m not going to change that about myself. So what I know is that that picture of the way things are supposed to be, that thing we say over and over again on the pod, that the thing that screws us up most is the picture in our head we have of how things are supposed to be. So just because Instagram presents women and friendships as this never ending get together in someone’s living room or on the beach, that has never worked for me and it won’t.
Glennon Doyle:
But what I am creating now is a few deep friendships, a couple people at a time. I’m getting that connection. It sounds to me like she’s getting the connection she needs from friendships and it’s just this idea out there of how it’s supposed to be that’s causing the twinge of loneliness. We’re with you anonymous. Okay, let’s hear from Christie. This is a question that’s based on our help conversation.
Christie:
Hi, I’m Christie and I’m a 45 and I’m a married mom of two teenagers. I have a full-time corporate job and I have a question. So all the time when we hear advice about self care, we’re told, don’t be afraid to ask for help. Don’t forget to ask for help. Be sure to ask for help when you need it. And often it’s implied that someone else is going to pick up your kids or make you a meal or provide free daycare for you while you have a date night or a spa day. What the actual hell? Every time I hear it, it makes me grit my teeth. Literally, my jaw clenches and I’m totally not a jaw clencher. My immediate reaction to that every time is don’t ask me for help. I mean, I’m buried in work and my own family obligations. I’m behind in every single aspect of my life. I’m barely keeping my head above water myself.
Christie:
And then I guess, so someone might say, “Well, then you should ask for help.” But who do I ask? I mean, most of my friends are in the same situation I am. I don’t have any family near me, or at least not family who’s willing or available to help. My boss is very kind and flexible, but he just wants me to get my work done. I do buy some help. I have someone clean my house and do some other household tasks. I get takeout all the time. I pay for childcare when I need it, things like that.
Christie:
And I do often get asked for advice or connections or referrals and I’m very happy to provide that kind of help when I’m asked. I do offer to help in some situations when I see that I could do something easily that would help someone else, but the idea that I would make a meal for another family because somebody recently had surgery or somebody had a new baby, it’s completely inconceivable to me. I can barely get it together enough to feed my own family. And so I feel guilty for gritting my piece about the meal train request. I feel trapped because I don’t have anyone to ask for help myself. So am I alone in this? Why are we telling everyone to ask for help? Who are they asking? I don’t understand. Thank you for everything you’re doing. I really appreciate you.
Abby Wambach:
Oh, Christie.
Amanda Doyle:
Christie.
Abby Wambach:
She just summed it all up right there.
Amanda Doyle:
Bring in the varsity level questions. So Christie, if everyone didn’t listen to the last podcast that we did, it was all about help like why it’s so hard to ask for help, why some people are help-phobic and why you should ask for help and Christie is doing what they say calling us out on who the hell should you be asking and sure as shit, don’t ask me.
Glennon Doyle:
I love her. It’s so true. It’s so true. Why are we telling everyone to ask for help? Who are they asking? Does anyone, wife, sister have a freaking answer for Christie?
Amanda Doyle:
I have one thing that I think. First of all, good on you, Christie.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. It’s bullshit. There is nobody left.
Amanda Doyle:
And she’s like I double dare you to send me a meal train. You know what I mean? I’m having to send out a meal train for my regular ass family every day of the week. When I think, and we alluded to this a little bit in Tuesday’s episode, this very thing before I even knew about this question of there is this understanding that everyone around you is drowning. And so you putting your hand up and saying, I need help is in some ways not cool because you’re like, “Who am I to say that I’m struggling more than everybody else that I look around and is struggling too.” There’s a, God I don’t know, a self importance about that, that I’m not comfortable doing. So maybe it isn’t even starting with the asking for help if you’re in Christie’s position. Maybe it’s even just a getting together with the other friends that are in the same situation as you and all admitting that it sucks and that you’re struggling and that you all need help. It’s the first step, right?
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. Christie’s life has become unmanageable. Yes. And can we just allow for life to be unmanageable for women without an added crisis? What I hear her saying also is you have to have a death in the family-
Amanda Doyle:
Have surgery.
Glennon Doyle:
… or have surgery. It’s like my friends who voluntarily stay in the hospital for days after they have a baby because they’re like, “This is my best life.”
Amanda Doyle:
This is my vacation.
Glennon Doyle:
This is the only time people will bring me food. It’s all over after this. I just think that with the demands of life right now, every day is help-worthy. So I just think she’s the exact person to lead that this is bullshit revolution amongst her people because she’s so honest about it.
Abby Wambach:
It’s almost crazy making what I’m hearing in her voice. It’s like this is all a game here. And I think what you’re saying is true. What she needs is for a group of women to be like, “Everything is bad. Everything is bad, and I don’t need you to fix it because I know it’s equally as bad for you, but I just need to tell you what my kind of bad is.” And it’s like this little place where you can be honest with each other before you even get to the help part. Before we’re making food, it’s just the acknowledgement. I’m exhausted. And sometimes when you share that with each other, it makes it a little bit easier burden to carry.
Glennon Doyle:
And also what’s annoying is like we’re always talking about the women, the women, the women, the women. And then when the meal train goes out… I actually don’t know, is the meal train like sign up for Josie, she needs-
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah. It’s like this person’s in chemo and we need to deliver lunches every Thursday for the rest of the year.
Glennon Doyle:
Right, but typically in our culture, it’s always the women that are also doing the helping. So what Christie’s saying is, I can’t help this other woman because I’m drowning. And then we’re like, “We’ll get all the women together and then help each other.” But it’s most of these women are in straight marriages. So where the hell are the guys? Maybe the guys need to get a support group together because every time there’s a problem in a classroom, the email goes to the woman. Somebody says to a dad, “Is your kid free for the birthday party?” And the dad’s like, “Oh, oh, you can send the email to my wife.” Where’s all the helping that goes on the dads?
Amanda Doyle:
Girl, don’t get me… Just trying to keep my blood pressure low for this one. First of all, Christie, you’re going to sit your husband down and have him listen to two podcasts. It is the Overwhelm episode and then the Acts of service one and then we’re going to get together with our friends and talk about how awful it is. Because honestly, Christie clearly is managing it all and she’s the one that is suffering from it. It does not appear to Christie’s people that she is struggling. And so I think sometimes if you say it out loud, it’s just an opening. I have a group of friends where we all admit how much it sucks all the time and it’s so therefore it’s an open invitation for any help that you can give.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s nice.
Amanda Doyle:
There’s structural ways. It makes me absolutely crazy that we are all with our opportunity cost, hourly rate of life, doing all the same shit-
Glennon Doyle:
Yes, why don’t we have division?
Amanda Doyle:
… in our houses, individually.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes, divisions of labor.
Amanda Doyle:
Divisions of labor. It’s insane. So this year I went through the whole school calendar. I wrote down every single day, picture day, field day, alternate field day. This is the day they get off early. I made an entire document with the three pages of every date we needed and I sent it around to every single person I know, because I was like, to hell with this all reinventing every wheel and doing it every time.
Glennon Doyle:
Well, that’s so good.
Amanda Doyle:
Put these in your calendar and by doing stuff like that, you know what? The next time, my friends are always like, “Doyle, you won’t know this, but tomorrow’s tie die day at school.” And I’m like, “Thank you.” Because of course I didn’t know that. That’s not dramatic help. But if you open yourself up to be like, I’m willing to receive all intake that is provided to me-
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. Life is-
Amanda Doyle:
… it is more likely to come to you.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, and treating life as a communal experience. Let’s recreate the village somehow. Yeah, that’s really cool. And also when you said people probably don’t know that Christie’s struggling, I feel bad for people who have the reputation of being very sufficient, of being very steady. I think it’s wonderful for me that my people are a little bit worried about my mental health.
Amanda Doyle:
High alert.
Glennon Doyle:
I love that. Right?
Amanda Doyle:
They tread carefully.
Glennon Doyle:
Right.
Amanda Doyle:
That’s good.
Glennon Doyle:
And that’s good. We should all tread a little bit carefully with each other because we are all just teetering on that cliff. It’s just that some of us our faces are like, aah. And some of our faces are like, “I’m fine. I’ve got this.” But everybody’s teetering.
Abby Wambach:
Yep. Truth.
Amanda Doyle:
Teeter central over here.
Glennon Doyle:
Teeter central. Christie, we love you.
Amanda Doyle:
We agree with you. There’s no one to ask for help and don’t ask us for help.
Glennon Doyle:
Let us please hear from our pod squader of the week, Cynthia.
Cynthia:
My name is Cynthia. I called you to thank you for inspiring me with courage that I needed. I’m a recovering Ivy League perfectionist and people pleaser who often prioritizes regard of strangers to the point that if a salesperson spent long enough with me, I would either put the item on hold or buy and return it as to not disappoint them with a non-purchase. Anyway, today I did a hard thing and resigned from a professional job after less than a month because it wasn’t the right place for me. And I told myself over and over on the way, I will disappoint them before disappointing myself. I really appreciate it. Leaving was the right kind of quitting as it was honoring myself. It’s onto greener pastures for me. Anyway, I appreciate you ladies so much and your inspiring words and vulnerability every week. It really matters. Thank you.
Abby Wambach:
Oh, Cynthia.
Amanda Doyle:
Oh my god, Cynthia. She is an Ivy League perfectionist and people pleaser who formally, if she was talking to a salesperson for too long, would just go ahead and buy the shit she didn’t want so as not to disappoint them.
Glennon Doyle:
I get it. Do you know that, that made me think of when I used to check out at the grocery store and then there would be people behind me and inevitably the lady would ask me, “Are those organic apples or regular conventional apples?” And for sure they were conventional apples but I would be so scared that the lady was going to think I was lying, that I would just say they were organic-
Abby Wambach:
Because you’d pay more.
Glennon Doyle:
Because I’d rather just lie instead of her thinking I was lying. So I would lie to the lady to pay more so that she didn’t secretly think, suspect that I was lying.
Abby Wambach:
That’s amazing.
Amanda Doyle:
You would lie in order to preserve your integrity as a truth-teller.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes, I would lie to preserve my integrity. That’s exactly right. I mean, checking out shopping, forget it. It’s a death trap of stress when you check out at those places. And then besides all the questions about is that organic and then you have the moment where you put your freaking credit card in and then you have to concentrate so much because it’s like, do not remove. Do not remove card. Do not remove card. And then there’s like this split second where it goes from do not remove card to remove card, remove card, remove card, just pay such close attention-
Amanda Doyle:
And then it always beeps in this shameful way. It’s like you don’t have any money. What are you doing trying to buy those organic apples? And then I always think it’s not sufficient funds. And I look at it and I’m like, “Uh,” and then it’s just like, “Remove card.” And I’m like, “Why do you have to be such a judgey, ominous beep?”
Glennon Doyle:
It’s like my nervous system is too nervous for this system.
Abby Wambach:
Is this why your wallet is always out of sorts?
Amanda Doyle:
Yes, because then if you don’t pay with a card and you try to pay with cash to avoid remove card, remove card, remove card, that doesn’t work because then they hand you change. They hand you change while all the people are in line behind you so then you have to figure out what to do with the change. It’s too long and then you have to take out your wallet and put it in. So I just feel like throwing the change and running. You can have it. Please keep it, it’s too much stress. I can’t handle change. I can’t handle change both literally and figuratively. But Cynthia, let us focus on this because you went from that level to a professional job one month in so connected to your knowing that quitting was honoring yourself and this. This needs to be our next right thing with God bless Cynthia. She said, “Over and over I told myself on the way, I will disappoint them before disappointing myself.”
Amanda Doyle:
Amen Cynthia.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s it. Let’s disappoint somebody this week you all.
Abby Wambach:
Don’t disappoint me, honey.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay, let’s disappoint somebody.
Amanda Doyle:
You will disappoint them before you disappoint yourself.
Glennon Doyle:
Before you disappoint yourself, right? Who do you need to-
Amanda Doyle:
That’s the energy.
Glennon Doyle:
Who do you need to disappoint, pod squad?
Amanda Doyle:
Let’s get to it. We love you.
Abby Wambach:
Bye.
Glennon Doyle:
Bye.