Jealousy: Glennon & Abby Share It All
May 28, 2024
Glennon Doyle:
Welcome back to We Can Do Hard Things.
Abby Wambach:
Hi.
Glennon Doyle:
Hi. It’s just you and me, babe, today.
Abby Wambach:
I know. Just you and me.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s just you and me.
Abby Wambach:
You and me, babe.
Glennon Doyle:
What we’re going to talk about today is something that we have talked about, oh, low, so many times by ourselves in our bed.
Abby Wambach:
Can you tell me, you and Sister say, “Oh, low, so, many, a lot.” I don’t know what that means.
Glennon Doyle:
You’re probably just jealous because it’s kind of like old-fashioned Victorian term, which is more in your lane, because you are a Victorian on the inside.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. Okay, so what is my jealousy about?
Glennon Doyle:
Oh, here we are. Okay, so this episode y’all is about jealousy. We thought we had one question from a pod squatter about jealousy, and we thought we would just answer it in 10 minutes and move on, we ended up talking about the depths of the jealousy in our relationship and what it means and what it doesn’t. We’ve come to low, so many conclusions during this conversation, and it’s been so helpful.
Abby Wambach:
I know I actually am so grateful that we… Because in marriage, whether you’re in couples counseling, we process so much, but we’ve never done it in a way that we knew that this stuff would go out into the world. So to me, it was extraordinarily helpful because we were very conscientious of our words, which is really good for therapy, really good for communication in marriage, number one. And number two, we hadn’t talked about this and a long time. It’s the undertone, the knowing, and I wouldn’t say an elephant, but this thing in our relationship that we’ve never really kind of broken down into the details of what we really think and feel about it. So to me, I’m grateful. I feel like I learned a lot today.
Glennon Doyle:
And it feels like, Pod Squad, listen, you tell us what you think, but for me, what it came down to is trust, not just of each other, but of ourselves. What I realized at the end of this conversation is I’m really starting to trust the Pod Squad.
Abby Wambach:
Whoa.
Glennon Doyle:
I think that that has… As always, boundaries helps trust and I think I have gotten us a little bit off of social media. So the Pod Squad feels safe and real to me because I know that most people don’t hate listen to podcast.
Abby Wambach:
Podcasts. Hate listen.
Glennon Doyle:
But they do hate follow. I don’t know. It’s kind of a beautiful thing. I realized, “Oh my God. I’m saying things that I don’t normally say out loud,” and I think it’s because I actually trust this community.
Abby Wambach:
That’s right.
Glennon Doyle:
But that’s also because I have self-trust enough to be like, “Actually, the social media thing is no good for me.”
Abby Wambach:
And you got you.
Glennon Doyle:
I got me.
Abby Wambach:
Okay. We can’t go into the whole thing. They have to listen.
Glennon Doyle:
Y’all just listen. Tell us what you think. We love you.
I don’t know where this next one’s going to go, but I’m very curious to hear what you have to say, Abby, let’s hear from Sarah.
Abby Wambach:
Okay.
Sarah:
My name is Sarah. I’m calling because I have not heard an episode on jealousy yet, though I have heard you touch on it a little bit throughout other episodes. I would love to hear your experience with jealousy, how you manage it, what you do, what comes up, what are your major issues with jealousy? Also, extension question for Glennon and Abby, I would like to know how you handle friendship with other women as a queer couple. I’m also queer and I’ve noticed in the heterosexual, cisgender world, there’s a little bit of a clearer line. I’m a guy, I hang out with guys. I’m a girl, I hang out with girls. And maybe a guy taking out a woman to dinner who’s not his wife would be a cause for concern. But in queer relationship and a lesbian relationship, how do you navigate who is a friend and a safe person, and who is someone you might feel threatened by, given that you’re hanging out with mostly women? Thank you. I love your show so much.
Abby Wambach:
Oh, no.
Glennon Doyle:
Sarah, if you could see us-
Abby Wambach:
Like squirming.
Glennon Doyle:
… processing our emotions in real time right now-
Abby Wambach:
I’m squirming.
Glennon Doyle:
Abby is squirming. We are stretching. We are moving. We are sweating.
Abby Wambach:
I would like to say that I wish that my answers would be different.
Glennon Doyle:
So you’re going to tell the truth?
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
But you have… Okay. But that’s interesting. So you have an ideal self?
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
And you have an actual self?
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
I don’t even know where to start with this. We have jealousy issues, Sarah. I feel like they’re getting less and less as we get what older, we trust each other more. I don’t know what.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. Well, a little context though. Our jealousy issues are kind of fair, because of where we came from.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. So here’s the deal, Sarah. I have never… I’m just going to give you my trauma first as an excuse for my jealousy because of context-
Abby Wambach:
And then I will also.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. I have been a kind of serial monogamous my whole life. You too. But whenever I’ve been in a monogamous relationship, I have been the only monogamous one. It’s been very mono. Okay. It’s just me.
Abby Wambach:
So you’ve been cheated on in every relationship?
Glennon Doyle:
Every single… I have never, ever, since high school… And I’ve probably been in about seven, six or seven long-term relationships. Long-term, meaning some of them are high school, I was in 10th grade.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. I would say you probably had three or four.
Glennon Doyle:
No, I think it’s been about five.
Abby Wambach:
Okay.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay.
Abby Wambach:
Great.
Glennon Doyle:
Five.
Abby Wambach:
We will land on five and talk about it later.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay, great.
Abby Wambach:
I feel jealous, because I feel like I don’t think that math adds up and my jealousy is like, “Who are we talking about?”
Glennon Doyle:
Okay, let’s through them.
Abby Wambach:
Okay, thank you.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. Well, I want to start early then. When I was in eighth grade, I was very in love with someone named Adam. He cheated on me.
Abby Wambach:
Okay. How long were you in that relationship for?
Glennon Doyle:
Who knows? It felt like a very serious relationship to me. It might’ve been a week.
Abby Wambach:
Okay.
Glennon Doyle:
Then I dated a person named… Should I change their names? I’m going to start with the first letter that’s right, and then change it. Sorry, Adam, I already did you. There was a Joe and I was a software.
Abby Wambach:
Okay.
Glennon Doyle:
That was like a year long, two years maybe.
Abby Wambach:
I don’t know. And we will never know, because his sister would be good with the facts right here because she would know all of these dates.
Glennon Doyle:
Then there was, we’ll call him Bill.
Abby Wambach:
Okay, so that’s three.
Glennon Doyle:
Right. Then there was, well, Craig and everyone knows Craig.
Abby Wambach:
Okay.
Glennon Doyle:
So you’re right, it’s four.
Abby Wambach:
I knew it.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay.
Abby Wambach:
Thank gosh, there wasn’t a secret one in there.
Glennon Doyle:
The point is that I thought in all of those relationships, that I was in a exclusive relationship. It wasn’t just my feeling, that had been discussed. Not a one of them ended up being exclusive, all of them were cheating on me in one way or another. Now, I’m not here to judge them or myself at this moment, because I have done lots of judging privately over the last whatever. It’s interesting. I do see that there’s one common denominator in all of those relationships, and it’s me. So I assume there’s something there.
But I present all this to say that when I entered the relationship with Abby, I was absolutely certain, even though I don’t think I would’ve known this, but my body was certain that I was going to be cheated on again. So I was preparing myself because I knew I couldn’t control the cheating, because I never had been able to before, but I felt like I could control my vulnerability to it. I could control whether I was stunned and wiped out again by it. No, that’s not true. You can’t really control that. But that’s what I told myself. So the way that I protected myself was to just be ready. And often to search for evidence of it. Because it’s better to be the detective that discovers it than to have a detective knock on your door and say, “We have discovered this thing about your life.”
Abby Wambach:
Is that true?
Glennon Doyle:
That’s what I-
Abby Wambach:
That’s what you felt.
Glennon Doyle:
That was my old way.
Abby Wambach:
Got it.
Glennon Doyle:
I’ve told this story before, but it got to the point where, Abby, I think he walked out of the shower once, and I was going through your phone.
Abby Wambach:
Mm-hmm.
Glennon Doyle:
And this is very early on. There were no signs that anything, I just was protecting myself, and I used to be so crazy jealous. Oh my God. I think something that is interesting about the jealousy between the two of us is that I am, and still, I get jealous when you have any apparent connection to someone who quote, looks like me.
Abby Wambach:
A parent connection.
Glennon Doyle:
Apparent, like something that I can see.
Abby Wambach:
Oh, not a space parent.
Glennon Doyle:
No apparent, like clear.
Abby Wambach:
A clear connection.
Glennon Doyle:
Clear connection. Even if it’s just you like them or you’re friends with them or they like you or whatever, I feel alarmed when it feels like that person is in my femme lane. You tell the people, let’s just get me out of the hot seat and move to you. Tell us your jealousy origin story.
Abby Wambach:
My jealousy origin story, basically, I was in a lot of relationships with bisexual women, which many of whom left to go be with their husbands. Not that they were with the husbands, but we would split up and then they would end up being with men. I’ve had partners who emotionally and physically cheated on me before, and it left me feeling like I was the problem and that there was something that I was unaware of that I was doing in the relationships that was causing this behavior. That I wasn’t good enough, that I wasn’t lovable, all this stuff.
Knowing all that, when we first got into… There’s this tug like push-pull, where we have incredible connection, that I am terrified that anybody else will come into our lives and even a millimeter separate us. So I have been very vocal with you about some of the people that have come into our lives that I have an insecurity about, that I feel insecure. Early on in our marriage, I think I would say something like, “Be careful with that one.” It would be so passive-aggressive. “Be careful with that one.” I’d put all the onus back onto you rather than honoring my insecurity and owning my own insecurity, and that’s unfair. But we all have our trauma, and when trauma rises, it’s hard to know how to navigate that. So we have had a couple of people that have come into our lives that I feel really uncomfortable and insecure. Maybe I have not said the word insecure, because that feels less cool and strong. So I’d just say I feel uncomfortable in some way around it. And many of these folks are still in our lives, we just had to work through it.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, that’s interesting. Sometimes you’ve been right, where the person actually eventually did cross a line that we were uncomfortable with, but oftentimes that wasn’t true at all.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. The thing that works for you and me is true transparency. I feel a hundred percent confident to come to you and you not freak out. In my past, I would come to the person with a fear or an insecurity, and I would feel like I’d be gaslit. That’s something that you don’t do. You’re like, “Oh, wow, okay.” You really think through it and hear me and see it from my perspective.
Then also the way that you handle… Because when I come to you with an insecurity, you then have a choice. You get to either continue that relationship with no difference, or you can come at that relationship with a little bit of difference so that it makes me feel more comfortable and more secure, and you are really good at doing that. I don’t know, I just think that that’s really been helpful, because it’s given our relationship and the relationship with another person, space to be what it’s supposed to be, rather than my imagination of what it could be worst case scenario. And I do think when we’re watching a show and somebody who presents more masculine, a woman who presents more masculine and wears the clothes that I wear, and you’re like, “Oh my gosh,” you said one time, “That is a beautiful human,” my feelings got hurt.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. Do you remember who that was?
Abby Wambach:
No. I would never… Even if I did, I would not say it out loud.
Glennon Doyle:
Right. I remember that moment, and then you just looked at me like I had just stabbed you in the eyeball.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. Because it was a non-binary person. I thought that my attraction and that lane was me and only me.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh, wait a minute. Okay. When I allude to something like that, is it that you suddenly feel like my attraction to you is less individual? It’s like, “Oh, no, she just has a sexuality that is this type,” and that’s not what we are telling ourselves. We are telling ourselves, early days when I said on to a freaking magazine reporter when they were asking me, “What are you?” And I said, “I’m Abby-sexual” I can’t first of all believe that I said that, that’s so cheesy. But you like that vibe?
Abby Wambach:
I do. It makes me feel safe and good. Also, I will be totally honest right now, and this is going to make me feel like a little bit icky and cringey for my own self, I actually feel that way about you. I know that I have claimed myself to be lesbian, and I have been in many lesbian relationships, but the way that my brain and my heart work because of my extraordinary monogamy, I literally have no eyes for other people. It doesn’t matter what they are.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay, so let’s say you watch a show, your truest honest self here, pretend this chair will shock you if it’s not totally true.
Abby Wambach:
Okay.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. So you’re watching a show and there’s someone who is beautiful. You don’t think that person is beautiful?
Abby Wambach:
Oh, no, I do. I think they’re beautiful, but it’s not on the same neural pathway that makes me go, “Oh, I want to have sex with them. Their kind of beauty is a kind of beauty I would want to sleep with.” That’s not something that I have ever thought since meeting you, about another person.
Glennon Doyle:
So you notice the beauty, but it’s noticing a beautiful flower or something.
Abby Wambach:
That’s right.
Glennon Doyle:
You can appreciate the beauty, but there’s no desire attached to it.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah, and there’s no meaning to it. For me, it’s just an open factual thing. Maybe your attraction for other people is different than my-
Glennon Doyle:
No, I get that.
Abby Wambach:
… kind of attraction, but I don’t associate it with what maybe other people do when talking about attraction. Like, “Ooh, I’m attracted to that person. I want to be with that person. I want to see them naked, and I want to sleep with that person.” I know that’s generalization on attraction here, but I’m like, “Oh, interesting.” That’s it. It never goes a step further.
Glennon Doyle:
I always think it’s so interesting when we’re hanging out with a couple and they are freely expressing their appreciation for other people’s beauty or in the relationship, and we are so-
Abby Wambach:
Oh, no.
Glennon Doyle:
I feel that that is a very… Whenever I am around it, I feel like that is a very evolved way to be.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah, we’re not there yet.
Glennon Doyle:
We’re not evolved about this.
Abby Wambach:
No, we’re not there yet. The other day, I think I said something. As soon as it came out of my mouth, I felt bad about it because I thought that maybe it made you feel bad. Oh, it was Craig’s sister. I was like, “She’s so beautiful.” That was real for me. Then I thought about it through your eyes and I didn’t want you to have any feelings about it, so I think I probably stumbled my words after that, but it was just like a factual statement, leading and having no other meaning.
Glennon Doyle:
I think you probably read my energy in that moment, and I did stiffen a little bit. But the reason I stiffened is because, and this is not correct, don’t be like this people, the kids were there, and in my head I was doing mental gymnastics about I don’t like
Abby Wambach:
Oh, for them.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, for them. I just don’t like beauty standards confirmed by us in front of the kids. I don’t know how to explain it. I just don’t like when we define what is beautiful and it matches what culture has defined as beautiful, and then we say that to the kids. I don’t know how to explain that in a way, but that’s what was going on in my body in that moment.
Abby Wambach:
I get it. And that sounds right.
Glennon Doyle:
Really?
Abby Wambach:
Yep. You’re right.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s like if you see someone who’s a 6 foot 2 blonde, big boobed, whatever. Whoever’s the standard-
Abby Wambach:
6 foot 2 blonde, big-
Glennon Doyle:
I don’t know. Whatever’s the standard, I don’t know. The standard of white supremacy.
Abby Wambach:
That’s a giant.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay, whatever. I don’t know height. I’m very short down here.
Abby Wambach:
All of us tall girls, tall girls around are clapping so hard, because none of us, six foot, two blonde, big boobed, and maybe I’m wrong, but I think that a lot of us tall girls don’t like our tallness.
Glennon Doyle:
Because we just don’t like whatever we have.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
But my point is, I feel like there’s something that Yaba talks about that always makes me, talk to Yaba Blay, unfurl inside. I’m like, “Oh, that’s true.” I like when beauty is something that we… Because beauty should be something that’s so idiosyncratic. It’s like something inside of us sees something that lights us up from the inside. Beauty is so personal. I love it when people notice something that’s beautiful to them, that it feels personal. It doesn’t feel like, “Oh yeah, the culture has taught her that that’s beautiful, so she says, ‘that’s beautiful.'” I don’t know. Do you know how-
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. It really makes sense and especially in front of the kids.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay, here’s what I mean. This one time we were in Hawaii and we were on a family vacation. We had just gotten done with a day on the beach, and we were all together as a family, and we stopped by this pokey-
Abby Wambach:
Hut.
Glennon Doyle:
… stand on the side of the road. We were just all sitting there and we were all salty. Tish looked at me across, or maybe it was Emma, I don’t remember, across the table and said, “Mom, you’re beautiful.” And I felt it. I felt like she looked at me and she saw something that made her unfurl from the inside, that was true to her. I could accept that. I felt it.
When I’m dolled up, hair bleached… By the way, I don’t do this anymore. But the decades I spent with my anorexic self, hair bleached lashes on, spanks on, walking out into the world, and somebody would say to me, “You’re so pretty.” I never ever felt that as personal to me. What I felt like they were saying is they were looking at me and they were thinking, “Wow, you did a good job matching yourself to the cultural expectation in our white supremacist world of beauty standards. You must have worked your off for that good job. Looking outside yourself, gathering a bunch of data about what this world decides it has worth and painstakingly molding yourself to that model.” When people said, “You’re so pretty,” at that time, I heard, “You’re a good soldier. You’re a good soldier.” It had nothing to do with beauty. True beauty, how I feel about it.
Abby Wambach:
So I think we’ve digressed a little bit.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. But I liked that digression.
Abby Wambach:
No, I know. But I do want to get a little bit to more of the question that Sarah asked because I think it’s important. How do we discuss our jealousy? How do we get through our jealousy?
Glennon Doyle:
What is jealousy?
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
What is jealousy?
Abby Wambach:
I think it’s the belief, the fallacy that we own somebody else and nobody else is allowed to be a part of that ownership.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes, I get that. I think that’s right, because also I do believe that I own you and I don’t want anyone else thinking that they can even rent you.
Abby Wambach:
Yes, exactly.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. Damn it.
Abby Wambach:
And it’s not healthy for sure, and I think that we have some work to do around this.
Glennon Doyle:
I do too.
Abby Wambach:
Because I do think it’s taken us both a long time because of our backgrounds. First couple of years it was so love and everything, but we were both still side-eyeing each other to see any break, look for any kind of-
Glennon Doyle:
Chink in the armor.
Abby Wambach:
Yes. I think that we’ve gotten far, here we are like seven years later or eight years later, and I think that we’re just now starting to believe, I truly think that this is true, that this is it, that I actually am starting to trust you. I did a therapy session and I couldn’t say it out loud.
Glennon Doyle:
You couldn’t say, “I trust Glennon,” because it was too terrifying.
Abby Wambach:
It was too terrifying. Then I forced myself to come to say it to you, “I want you to know that I trust you.” What I meant was like, “Don’t fuck this up.”
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. I know you said, “I trust you,” like it was a threat.
Abby Wambach:
It was.
Glennon Doyle:
It is a threat.
Abby Wambach:
That’s an uninvolved way of explaining, maybe it’s not even a true way of saying I trust you, because I’m threatening you.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s like with narrow eyes, “I trust you, motherfucker.”
Abby Wambach:
Yeah, exactly. So I want to get to the place where it’s like, “No, I trust her with every relationship she will ever have for the rest of her life.”
Glennon Doyle:
It’s so terrifying though, because true trust is like, “Here, I give you the power to annihilate me,.”
Abby Wambach:
Yep.
Glennon Doyle:
But that is true anyway,
Abby Wambach:
And that’s just true. That’s love. That is the definition of love, is that when you get into a relationship with anybody and you love them and you truly love them, giving them access to truly annihilating you, I think that is the risk we all take.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, and you just have to do it over and over again. Because if you don’t do it, even if you’ve been cheated on in every relationship of your life like me-
Abby Wambach:
Not this one.
Glennon Doyle:
Right. If you don’t give over the power of annihilation, you’re already annihilated.
Abby Wambach:
That’s exactly right. Then you’re not fully there. Then you’re always waiting for the shoe to drop. Then you’re always looking for evidence. Then you’re always even keeping your eye open.
Glennon Doyle:
I just wanted to say also that Sarah called out how tricky-
Abby Wambach:
Friendships.
Glennon Doyle:
… this is in relationships, but it should be this tricky in all relationships. It’s just that in heterosexual relationships, it’s easier to be like, “That’s a guy, so no, you can’t hang out with him. That’s a girl, so no, you can’t…” It’s a fake power control.
Abby Wambach:
That’s right. It’s a fake safety mechanism.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s like the manifestation of the bullshit Christian rule, “I don’t hang out with women for more than 10 minutes.” Which is really just a complete denial of everyone’s full humanity.
Abby Wambach:
And the goal, I think for us, as we keep going through our marriage, is to, when insecurity rises, try to handle that so we don’t even have to go to the other person, and to completely trust. Over these last seven or eight years, I have learned to really trust you. So the more we keep going, I think that the less the jealousy will happen because the more certain, I guess I don’t even know if certainty is the right goal to look for-
Glennon Doyle:
Safe.
Abby Wambach:
The more safe I will feel and the more healed, the wounds inside of me will get.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes, but for now, it’s a beautiful thing that we are protecting each other’s trauma.
Abby Wambach:
That is exactly right.
Glennon Doyle:
If somebody was attacked by a tiger and then they got into a marriage, it would be okay for the other partner to be like, “I know it’s weird to never go to the zoo, but I’m going to choose that because it’s your particular trauma.”
Abby Wambach:
That was something that was really important in our vows, that we were never going to use the deepest wounds against each other.
Glennon Doyle:
Because the should of it all can really fuck you up.
Abby Wambach:
That’s right.
Glennon Doyle:
We should be able to do this. We should be able to do this. Well, the thing will always remain that we are human beings, and should helps us not at all. I also think that there is a way that jealousy has actually, if you’re a jealous person, in some ways, it has actually nothing to do with your relationship and it’s stuff that you can help in your own individual work. Because for me, letting go of trying to control other people’s brains is part of this. What I mean by that is… Okay, I’m just going to give a total random example. But let’s say you’re at an event and there’s a bunch of femme women just like-
Abby Wambach:
Me.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Abby Wambach:
Okay.
Glennon Doyle:
I’m annoyed even talking about it, but just like gaga-ing over you. What I’m saying to the Pod Squad, because I love you and I’m going to be vulnerable with you is, I know Abby’s not going to cheat on me with those women. I just don’t even want them thinking-
Abby Wambach:
I get it
Glennon Doyle:
… that they have a chance. That they have an in, that they might if they tried hard enough. I don’t want them to even think it. That is my jealousy. Now listen to how insane that is. What I would like to do to solve my jealousy, is to just control millions of women’s brains. If I could just control your brain, “Don’t even think it.” What I’m trying to connect that with is, my work has largely been to understand and accept that I cannot control other people’s thinking.
Abby Wambach:
That’s right.
Glennon Doyle:
I cannot control other people’s narratives. I am not responsible for changing or controlling the narrative of anyone, except for my own. So I have to allow everyone to think whatever they want. That is insanity to me.
Abby Wambach:
I know.
Glennon Doyle:
I have to let everyone think whatever they want. Want whatever they want. Imagine whatever they want. Wow.
Abby Wambach:
I need to tell you something more embarrassing.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay.
Abby Wambach:
I don’t know if you can relate to this, I think that you can. This is so unhealthy and I know it, but I kind of love when you get a little jealous. It makes me feel like you love me.
Glennon Doyle:
I love when you get jealous because it makes me feel less crazy, because I’m always the jealous one.
Abby Wambach:
You’re more jealous than me, outwardly.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh, it’s because I tell you the truth when I feel vulnerable. That’s not fair for you not to tell me.
Abby Wambach:
No, I know. I go through a process of insecurity that I think through and I’m like, “You’re fucking crazy.” Sometimes I go through my process of insecurity and I come out the other side and I talk to you about it. Recently I had to have a conversation with you about something. The fact that we can come to each other with this jealousy, is everything. Because it’s going to happen, we are human beings. For whatever reasons, for whatever our backgrounds are, the way that we hold space and hold each other’s jealousy when it shows up, that’s why I think it works. Is because you don’t fly off the handle. I wasn’t when you first were looking at your phone, I wasn’t, “Give me my fucking phone back, what do you doing?” I was like, “Oh, what else do you need to see?”
Glennon Doyle:
Pod Squad, if you have not heard that story before. When she caught me with her phone in my hand going through her texts, she looked at me and said, “Oh, honey, what else do you need? Do you want my email password? What else do you need?” Which I don’t even know what to say about that. That was really-
Abby Wambach:
Yeah, I understand that for some people that’s an invasion of privacy. I totally get it. But based on your wounds, based on me knowing your wounds, based on my wounds, that felt like such an easy thing to do. That felt like the easiest thing to do. The thing that I think that most partners would really benefit from by just really being like, “Oh, what do you want to know?”
Glennon Doyle:
Is jealousy a deferred… What I do think is interesting is, while I am working on trusting you, which I do now, what I trust most and forever more is myself. I think one of the things that infidelity does is, it’s not just about breaking trust with the other person, it’s not just that you go around not trusting other people your whole life. What’s so fucked up about it, is that it makes you not trust yourself.
Abby Wambach:
You’re gas-lighting your own self.
Glennon Doyle:
Because you have been allowing yourself to gaslight yourself. Or I have had relationships where I kind of suspected the other person was cheating, but then they told me so many times and then I talked myself out of it over and over again. I have had that experience. I have had the experience where I was completely and totally blindsided by it, and I didn’t have any suspicion. The cruelty of it, is that it makes you think that you can’t trust yourself to know other people or to make decisions about yourself.
Abby Wambach:
Because there were probably so many different signs and intuitive or instinctive feelings that you had prior to the telling of it, prior to the truth coming out. Those moments, I think, are where the wounds are created. Because those moments you have this instinct, whether it’s fear or jealousy or whatever, something is happening. Some part in you is coming up. When you get gaslit or lied to for a considerable amount of time, you start to not trust your own instinct or your own feelings that arise. So then when the house of cards falls down and they come to you with the information, the actual truth or even half of the truth or a 10th of the truth or a little bit of the truth, or, “Oh no, it was just an emotional affair.” Those things make you feel, not only devastated by the actual trauma, by the betrayal, but it makes to me it was more devastating because I knew it.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Abby Wambach:
And I lied to myself and I pretended not to know it. Then because of all of those circumstances, then I don’t really trust myself anymore or the feelings that arise.
Glennon Doyle:
So you end up keeping people so far away, not just because you don’t trust other people, but because you don’t trust yourself. You think, I have to keep you so far away because I don’t even trust that if I start feeling suspicious, I’ll handle my business.
Abby Wambach:
That’s exactly right.
Glennon Doyle:
I will be totally annihilated.
Abby Wambach:
That’s exactly right.
Glennon Doyle:
I will gaslit myself. I will get to the point of ruin again. But I think there’s an and both here. I think that my work has been… Okay, there’s enough evidence here with you that is not just outside, but inside my body that I can trust you. And, one of the reasons that I can trust you and let you close is that I know that I have my own back. That the second I start to feel something is off, I am going to honor that. It’s not going to be a slippery slope anymore. I am going to not gaslight myself. If I’m in a relationship where somebody betrays me or my trust in whatever way, I’m going to get my ass out. It’s like, sometimes the only people who can actually trust other people are the people who deeply trust themselves. It’s a very big act of power to trust another person and let them in, because it implies I’ve got my own back here. I can let you in because I can get you the fuck out anytime I want to. For me, that’s probably too belligerent, but that’s where I am now.
Abby Wambach:
That rings true. That rings really true. Also, I’m sure everything that we have been saying is couched. I just want to say this, it’s couched all in our own idea, in our own experience with the traumas that we experienced throughout our life. So it’s very personal to you and me, so I just want to make sure that we’re not claiming this is the way jealousy is.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh God, I hope not. I hope not everybody is thinking this. I hope there’s more healthy versions of it out there.
Abby Wambach:
This is just kind of how we run through it, and it’s not a perfect circle. Some days it just shows up. I think that we have a way to communicate that isn’t scary.
Glennon Doyle:
I think we have also, when in doubt, we have prioritized each other’s comfort over what is normal or sane.
Abby Wambach:
That’s right.
Glennon Doyle:
And that-
Abby Wambach:
That is right.
Glennon Doyle:
That is what we might be moving towards-
Abby Wambach:
In a lot of ways in our life.
Glennon Doyle:
I think that’s kind of how we’ve built trust. We’ve had situations where you tell me, “I don’t like that. I don’t know why I don’t like that blossoming friendship.” And I have… Well, forever I didn’t trust my own gaydar or whatever about this, because no one has worse gaydar than me. I didn’t know I was gay. I didn’t know my kids were gay. I’d never know anyone’s gay.
Abby Wambach:
Because I think that we… Yep, you’re right.
Glennon Doyle:
But it’s so confusing. I’ve had situations where I have looked at that blossoming friendship or that whatever, and thought, “Oh, I really like this person. I really like this friendship. I think this would be a good thing for me.” And I have thought really carefully about… And truthfully I’m thinking, “I don’t want to hurt that other person’s feelings.” I’m thinking, “That person needs me or…” I don’t know. Maybe I like being needed in that way. I’m not sure. It’s usually somebody who needs something from me, right?
Abby Wambach:
Mm-hmm. It’s a random new person who showed up in your life that they have some sort of crisis or problem that you are the person they’ve selected.
Glennon Doyle:
That is how I always start my friendships.
Abby Wambach:
I know. So then, because it’s starting in such an intense way, that also feels out of balance to me.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s like intimacy skipping.
Abby Wambach:
We haven’t even met. We don’t even know each other. And here you are diving into the most intense shit of their personal lives, and that is hard for me. Because there is a way that you interact with folks in this way that is so beautiful and so loving. It reminds me of the way that you parent our children, that you are just so much love and it’s so beautiful. And, if I were on the other end of that, I wonder if any of it could be confusing.
Glennon Doyle:
I think that it is simpler for me and easier and more controllable and safer has been over time. I’m always the EMT friend. I am the person who you should come to When you have a crisis, I will get in it with you. It won’t even make sense. I will get in it with you in a way your best friend won’t. I will show up for, you’ll be like-
Abby Wambach:
You’re the best.
Glennon Doyle:
“Who the hell is this person coming in like a tornado helping me with my shit?” But then you must know that you will never hear from me again.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah, no, it’s true. And-
Glennon Doyle:
But that’s not normal.
Abby Wambach:
No, I know. But I just want you to know that there are people that fall in love with the EMTs that save their lives.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, I hear that. I think it’s not totally healthy. It’s like, I don’t know how to slowly and deliberately insanely build friendship. I don’t know how to do that. It feels stressful to me. It feels like-
Abby Wambach:
It’s going to take too long, maybe.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s going to take too long.
Abby Wambach:
I don’t know, what is it called when people fall in love with their therapists?
Glennon Doyle:
Trauma bonding?
Abby Wambach:
No, it’s mirroring or some sort of…
Glennon Doyle:
Anyway, I understand why that would cause… Is that jealousy on your part? Because you’re also trying to control that other person’s narrative. You don’t want them to think-
Abby Wambach:
Totally.
Glennon Doyle:
… that I love them.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. I’m scared that some of the ways in which you communicate with these very new friends that are in a crisis, could be perceived from their perspective, as little drops of real feelings.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. Are you worried about me getting wrapped up in that and also feeling little seeds growing with that other person?
Abby Wambach:
No, I’m worried about the other person feeling feelings for you. Because you’re amazing and you’re beautiful, and if anybody in the whole world understands that, it is this guy.
Glennon Doyle:
This guy.
Abby Wambach:
I am the one who understands how, especially when you’re in a crisis, how wonderful you are and how loving you are and how… If I’m them… That’s the thing. If I am those people, I’m falling in love with you, because I did. So that’s part of the thing that I get a little confused about is, I don’t want anybody to fall in love with you. But then I’m also like, “How is not everybody fall in love with you?”
Glennon Doyle:
I think we’re both trying to control other people’s brains then.
Abby Wambach:
Totally. I don’t want to do that. Of course, in my capital S self, I can’t do that. I know that. But then again, I also feel like, if we really want to keep protecting the marriage, our connection, our love, there are times where I’ve called marriage and I’m like, “Mm-mm, I don’t feel good about it.” And you’re like, “Okay, great.” I don’t know why. I can’t locate why.
Glennon Doyle:
Well, because that’s the moment you know it’s trauma and you just say, “Okay.”
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
But that’s also because you’re not trying to control me. That is something that some couples could use against each other, is just constantly say it’s trauma.
Abby Wambach:
But no, we don’t do it often. It’s once every three or four years, that’s something, or someone comes into our life that I’m like, “This feels off.” Like it just feels a little bit too much, so you change. Because the other thing of it too is, valuing this non friendship with somebody else more than our marriage, it doesn’t make sense to compare the two in a way, because we would always choose our marriage more than anything.
Glennon Doyle:
But I think that’s too simplifying it. If I were like, “Look, value our marriage. Don’t go to those places where all those femme women are falling all over. Value our marriage.” That’s oversimplifying it. Because no, what you’re doing is your work out in the world.
Abby Wambach:
Of course.
Glennon Doyle:
For me, I think it’s not about the friendship. Clearly, I’m never going to talk to this person after I help them through the crisis. For me, it’s about my self-worth in the world. It’s like, “Oh, I know how to do this.” Even if it’s not healthy, which as I’m hearing myself talk, I don’t think it’s the most healthy form of service or connection maybe, but it is what I know. It’s how I know how to be important.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. What we can say, Sarah. Sarah, if your point was to call in and be more confused after you heard the response than you were before-
Abby Wambach:
You’re welcome.
Glennon Doyle:
You are welcome. You are welcome. But what I do think is true, is that jealousy, we put it in this teeny little category like it’s just one thing we have to worry about. The reason why it’s complicated, is because it’s about everything. It’s not one little thing. It’s about trust. It’s about self-trust. It’s about love. It’s about risk-
Abby Wambach:
Communication.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s about connection. It’s about being annihilated. It’s about friendship, it’s everything.
Abby Wambach:
Transference is the word. Our producer just texted it. Transference is the word that happens when you’re in therapy and you fall in love with your therapist.
Glennon Doyle:
Well, if it’s true that people fall in love with a person that swept into their life and helped them with the crisis and left, there are so many people in love with me out there.
Abby Wambach:
I know. That’s my problem, is I do think that there are a lot of people that might think they know you, that might think that they have real feelings for you. As a public person, it’s just a thing. I know that that’s true for me-
Glennon Doyle:
Exactly.
Abby Wambach:
That people think that they know me and they think that they actually have real feelings for me. But it’s not true. And I also want to thank you for honoring my trauma through all of this.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh, same.
Abby Wambach:
Because I really don’t think that I could be in a position to even start thinking about really trusting you.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. It’s like people think that what will help people out of their trauma to more normalcy is if they just keep telling them that’s not how they should be. You could have… When I was looking through your phone, the more logical response would’ve been, “Why do you need that? What are you doing?” And instead for you to take the approach of, “What else do you need?” You didn’t think, “Why the hell did you need that you loser?” You thought, “Oh, it’s so sad, but also precious that you need that. And what else can I give you that you need that will help build trust?” Which is quite a beautiful thing.
Abby Wambach:
I will say this, I trust you. No aggressive, passive-aggressive threat.
Glennon Doyle:
I trust you too.
Abby Wambach:
I think you’re the first person in my whole life that I have ever truly trusted with my sincere happiness and with my sincerest the love that I have. You protect me and you hold the love that you have for me precious. I do think that jealousy is real and human, and I think that we’re going to keep working on this forever and keep talking about it. I’m sure it will evolve and morph into different things. But more than anything, I feel stunned that I could trust somebody.
You’ve gone through it, you’ve gone through it all, and you’ve proven to me more times than are required. It’s like the relentlessness to continue to prove it is what makes me know. It’s not a one time thing where you’re like, “Oh, no, now I…” Because I told you you could look through my phone, now you must trust me. It’s like, no, it’s constant. And because we’re lesbians who work together and are together 24/7, I know that I’m constantly codependent and meshed in ways that my work too is to not try to manage and worry so much about any kind of disconnection for fear that it could threaten the relationship. That’s ultimately, I think, what jealousy is too.
Glennon Doyle:
I also think there’s just letting the world love your person is okay. When I think about what little moments that I get jealous, like when someone comes up to us, and this is annoying of me, but when someone comes up to us and I can see that they’re not seeing me at all, and they’re only seeing you and the eyes are locked in and they are like, “I love you. I need a picture. I need a whatever.” And I’m like, “Oh my God.” I think what’s happening in my body is I’m like, “They’re not seeing us as a unit. I don’t even exist. They’re just seeing Abby.”
Abby Wambach:
They only know Abby without Glennon.
Glennon Doyle:
Right. I think I’m getting closer to the point where I’m like, “Oh my God, that’s so beautiful.” But there’s always a part of me that feels like I’m going to disappear.
Abby Wambach:
That makes a lot of sense to me.
Glennon Doyle:
Like, “Oh my God, am I visible? Do I exist?”
Abby Wambach:
When we first met, that was more profound. I think now the tides have shifted a little, where it actually happens the reverse, where people come straight up to you. And because I have had this established fame-ish thing, that people know me for what I did on the soccer field, I have not had that insecurity of becoming invisible. So when people come up to us now and they’re like, “Glennon.” Then ultimately it always is like, “Oh, and Abby.” It’s this thing, I love being your wife, particularly yours. I can’t imagine what it must feel like to feel that people don’t see you, so I don’t know how to help in those moments. Maybe yesterday felt really good for you at Target.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh my God, let us end with this gem. Yesterday at Target I went in for something candy for the kids. So $380 later-
Abby Wambach:
Oh my gosh, it was 190. But yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay, whatever. We just…
Abby Wambach:
You don’t even stand by the cash register.
Glennon Doyle:
I can’t look
Abby Wambach:
She goes away.
Glennon Doyle:
I cannot… Look I-
Abby Wambach:
And the cash register.
Glennon Doyle:
I’m so upset by how much we spend there.
Abby Wambach:
We pull in line and the cash register is kind of giving me the, looking at me, looking back to the stuff, looking at me, looking back to the products, scanning the items-
Glennon Doyle:
And why? Because he was recognizing you.
Abby Wambach:
Recognizing me. I’m like, “Okay, here it comes.” He was like mentioning, “You didn’t happen to play soccer?” And I said, “I did.” And he said, “Are you…” And I said, “I’m Abby.” And he’s like, “Oh my gosh.” He then goes into his history and he was a coach, et cetera, et cetera. And then-
Glennon Doyle:
And then I walk back up, because I’m trying to miss the total, so I make myself busy, and then I come back after the total is done. It’s not good. It’s a sleeping beauty approach to finances. I know that.
Abby Wambach:
It’s bad.
Glennon Doyle:
I know. I’m working on it.
Abby Wambach:
Maybe.
Glennon Doyle:
I’m thinking about working on it.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah, there you go. And then-
Glennon Doyle:
The man looks at me, then he looks back at Abby and he says-
Abby Wambach:
No, no, hold on. He doesn’t say. He looks at you, looks back at me, and then he motions with his hand back to Glennon as if, “Who’s this?”
Glennon Doyle:
Right. But then he says, “Oh, is that your…”
Abby Wambach:
“Is that your…”
Glennon Doyle:
And what he was going to say, which was very apparent to both of us, what he meant was, “Is that your child?” This man at Target thought… And I did have overalls. I did look… I don’t know. Anyway, he thought that I-
Abby Wambach:
Well, you’re smaller than I am.
Glennon Doyle:
… was Abby’s child.
Abby Wambach:
So I tried to put this guy out of his misery, because I knew it was going to end badly for him. He kept doing this waving motion with his hands, “Is that your… Is that your…”
Glennon Doyle:
And he did not mean wife, just so you know. It was very obvious.
Abby Wambach:
And I go, “That’s my wife.” He was like, “Oh, oh.” Then he started to kind of, “Oh, well… Oh, oh.” At that point, the receipt comes right out and he hands me the receipt and I said, “I hope you have a good day.”
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. There was no malice. There was no-
Abby Wambach:
No, lovely.
Glennon Doyle:
For sure, his mind couldn’t compute that we would be married, so it went to child. But he was a sweetheart and let no-
Abby Wambach:
Lovely.
Glennon Doyle:
Pod Squad, if you knew… What’s the first thing I did? Before we were out of target, I was texting the family chain saying, “You all, the target man just thought I was Abby’s child.” Craig was laughing so hard. He’s like, “What did you say?” I said, “I love you.” That is what I said to that man. “I love you.” Then I said, “If I had a nickel for every time somebody thought I was Abby’s child, I would have 5 cents.”
Abby Wambach:
Oh, you guys.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay, let’s end this very strange but episode that I loved, babe.
Abby Wambach:
You did?
Glennon Doyle:
I loved this conversation.
Abby Wambach:
Oh, good.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. Let’s hear from a pod squatter of the week.
Abby:
Hi, my name is Abby and I live in Minnesota. When I just heard Abby talk about how she moved behind the goal in your daughter’s game, memory instantly came back to me where I was playing hockey when I was 10 years old, and it was overtime. And I split the defense and I scored top shelf. I remember just looking up above the net and seeing my dad there. And all he did was just nod once and give me a grin. I will never forget that moment. Now I’m wondering how often my dad moved to that goal net, just like Abby did, and wondering if he knew what he was doing. Because I always thought he was trying to get away from the catty moms, but now I’m thinking, “Holy crap. I was gravitating towards him.” We had this moment of just pure joy and proudness. Oh, I can relate so much. Thanks for sharing that.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. I-
Glennon Doyle:
That makes me emotional.
Abby Wambach:
I don’t know if I mentioned this, but I do-
Glennon Doyle:
Can you tell the story though, so that everyone who didn’t listen to that episode knows?
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. Okay. The episode that I’m talking about is the episode 289, The Sports. The kind of embarrassing psychology of winning and losing. Check it out. Oftentimes during Emma’s game, her soccer games, I basically, if it’s just a stale period of time throughout the game, I will get up and move my seat for a few reasons. One, because as an athlete, I remember how conscious I was of where my mom was, and that being kind of a stability, a stabling force, and also a security blanket. And, I think during Emma’s soccer games, I get an intuition, is really what I get. I believe kind of what you just said, that if I move closer to the goal, I believe that my energy that moves closer to the goal that we’re trying to score on, will help Emma and her team score a goal. Now, I know how weird that sounds.
Glennon Doyle:
I don’t think it’s weird.
Abby Wambach:
I just think that there’s more to sports than just tactics and technique and physicality. I think that energy plays a big role. So yeah, that’s kind of what I’ve done. Sometimes it doesn’t work, PS.
Glennon Doyle:
Of course. But when you think about first of all, the beauty of Abby revisiting those memories and realizing that her dad was there because he knew that she would come towards him like a magnet, energetically, is so beautiful. It makes me get the chills when I think about your dad. Actually, when I think about you remembering that Abby, and seeing your dad’s little smile and realizing what was behind it, is so beautiful. But it’s also the most beautiful metaphor for parenting.
There are parents who just stand on the sideline and scream at their children to run towards the goal. Just tell them what to do. And there are parents who move and go where they want their kids to go. Because our kids-
Abby Wambach:
Silently.
Glennon Doyle:
… will go where we are. So the parenting approach of stopping, telling them what to do all the time, and instead just being who we want them to be, just calmly going where we want them to go, knowing that they will end up where we are and who we are and what we model-
Abby Wambach:
Well they will end up where they should be, and they will end up who they should be. I don’t believe that any of my movement is to tell Emma that, “I’m the magnet here. If you just follow me over here then you’ll become me.” I want her to learn the lessons of individuating and also the lessons of deeply trusting herself and her own intuition. Yes, energetically, I’m hoping to pull her along, but not to become me or to be next to me, but to become herself, and to prove to herself over and over again that she’s got herself.
Because the parents who are standing on the sidelines yelling, “Come on, go, go.” That has unfortunately its place in sport. But the parent who’s silent on the sidelines, who might move their body so that their kids can energetically become themselves. I don’t know how to say this, but I think it’s an important element in watching our kids play sports. We want our kids to play sports so that they can figure out who they are.
Glennon Doyle:
And when somebody’s just screaming at them incessantly, they’re not discovering their inner voice. They’re scared of yours.
Abby Wambach:
No. If you are screaming, it just needs to be positive. Like, “Good job. I see you.”
Glennon Doyle:
How about good idea or good hustle. Those are the two I alternate because-
Abby Wambach:
Or good effort.
Glennon Doyle:
Somebody’s already… I don’t say effort, that feels too sportsy for me. I feel like someone’s always hustling, so if you yell, “Good hustle-“
Abby Wambach:
Could always be true.
Glennon Doyle:
Could be to any team, could be to anybody. It’s just a general support of what is happening on the sports field. “Good idea,” I’m not even actually sure what that means, but I think it’s a nice thing to yell.
Abby Wambach:
It means that you tried to do something that might not have worked out, but the idea itself was great.
Glennon Doyle:
But then do you think that’s not a thing we should yell at them, because then does that just show that whatever they tried didn’t work?
Abby Wambach:
Depends on your kid.
Glennon Doyle:
Right?
Abby Wambach:
Emma does not like good idea.
Glennon Doyle:
No.
Abby Wambach:
Tish, liked it. Because especially too, based on the position in soccer, a lot of central midfielders will have to try new things, play balls into passing channels that are tight, that get closed down, that get picked off. And if you just say, “Oh, bad. No, that’s not good.” Because you’re now training that player to not pass and try that ball again.
Glennon Doyle:
So are you seeing their thinking? It’s like when I was teaching. When I was teaching and somebody would do a long, long division-
Abby Wambach:
That’s exactly right.
Glennon Doyle:
I never was like, “This is right or wrong.”
Abby Wambach:
That’s right.
Glennon Doyle:
Because you don’t always end up with the right thing, but if you’re showing your work and I can see that you get the process that you just mixed up a little number at the end-
Abby Wambach:
That’s right.
Glennon Doyle:
But I can see your thinking that you are truly starting to understand division.
Abby Wambach:
That’s right.
Glennon Doyle:
You should get almost all the points, is how I felt as a teacher.
Abby Wambach:
That’s right. And as Emma progresses throughout her life, I think that what she will understand is, good idea, is a real compliment.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. Because it means good soccer thinking. I can see you’re developing.
Abby Wambach:
Yes. And it also means keep trying.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. Do that again. We would rather you keep trying that and not get a goal, then stop trying that and be safe.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. It’s an exercise and failure.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. I say bravo to both Abby’s. You and to this Abby. Pod Squad, I had so much fun just doing this with you today. I miss Sister, but I feel like it was great. I loved it.
Abby Wambach:
I know. I actually feel like we don’t go into the depth… We have, but we haven’t gone into the depths of our marriage-
Glennon Doyle:
I know.
Abby Wambach:
… about some of this stuff and it’s helpful.
Glennon Doyle:
It makes me feel like we’re making progress, babe.
Abby Wambach:
And look, I do think we’ve got a long way to go.
Glennon Doyle:
We sure as hell do.
Abby Wambach:
… with the jealousy piece and other things. However, I actually really appreciate talking about this stuff with you in this forum. It might help if Sister were here. I don’t know. Maybe not.
Glennon Doyle:
Maybe Sister can listen to this and just place in facts and fact check us. I’m feelings checking us.
Abby Wambach:
That’s true.
Glennon Doyle:
There’s always fact checking us. Pod Squad, we love you. We want to hear your thoughts about jealousy actually. I think it’s a fascinating topic. I could talk about it all day.
Abby Wambach:
I do too.
Glennon Doyle:
If you all have thoughts after this, which I know you always do, call them in. If you can keep your voicemails less than a minute, just it becomes impossible for us to use. And again, it’s 747 200 5307. 747 200 5307.
Abby Wambach:
I really, really love you.
Glennon Doyle:
I really love you.
Abby Wambach:
And I really, really trust you.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s like somebody handing you their very, very, very delicate, fragile China heart. And you’re like, “Oh God. This is a big responsibility.”
Abby Wambach:
It’s like, what the Japanese art that when the vase breaks, they recreate it?
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. It starts with a K, and they put the gold in it.
Abby Wambach:
Yes, the gold, they connect the shards together to refill. That’s what my heart looks like.
Glennon Doyle:
Well, I feel like we are each other’s gold filling. We can’t make it so it was never broken.
Abby Wambach:
That’s right.
Glennon Doyle:
But we can just keep… My God, our producers, Lauren and Allison are… Right away.
Abby Wambach:
Kintsugi.
Glennon Doyle:
Kintsugi. Is the art of Japanese repair of pottery. But the way they repair it is that they don’t try to minimize the cracks, like most repairing of things does, they accentuate the cracks with gold filling. Which is counterintuitive because we think you’re supposed to hide the cracks in things, this illuminates the cracks in things, making the cracks gold and shiny and the actual most beautiful part of the pot. Meaning all of our trauma, when loved well, can actually become even more beautiful than had we never been broken.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah, you lit up my cracks with gold.
Glennon Doyle:
Which could be taken out of context in so many ways. With that, we love you Pod Squad. See you next time.
If this podcast means something to you, it would mean so much to us. If you’d be willing to take 30 seconds to do these three things.
First, can you please follow or subscribe to We Can Do Hard Things? Following the pod helps you, because you’ll never miss an episode, and it helps us, because you’ll never miss an episode. To do this, just go to the We Can Do Hard Things show page on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Odyssey, or wherever you listen to podcasts. And then just tap the plus sign in the upper right-hand corner or click on follow.
This is the most important thing for the pod. While you’re there, if you’d be willing to give us a 5-star rating and review and share an episode you loved with a friend, we would be so grateful. We appreciate you very much. We Can Do Hard Things is created and hosted by Glennon Doyle, Abby Wambach, and Amanda Doyle, in partnership with Audacy. Our executive producer is Jenna Weiss-Berman, and the show is produced by Lauren LoGrasso, Allison Schott, Dina Kleiner, and Bill Schultz.