LANDING IN LOVE: Is the settling-in phase the best stage of love?
November 5, 2021
Glennon Doyle:
Hi, everybody. You came back to, We Can Do Hard Things. We’re thrilled about that. Today, we are answering your questions, but we’re going to start today by talking a little bit more about love. Our last episode was all about falling in love and the wild experience that that is. And then the landing in love, which we discussed as the second part of love when the chemical imbalance of falling in love starts to rebalance. And we left with ourselves once again, when the real love starts. And how, if we don’t know better, we could think that love has ended when really it’s kind of like the work of love actually begins. So one of the things that people ask us a lot is when did we know? When did you know that you were in love with me? And sister is doing the-
Abby Wambach:
Air quotes.
Glennon Doyle:
The air quotes because she doesn’t believe in knowing or anything. She doesn’t believe in anything.
Amanda Doyle:
You can stop the sentence that doesn’t believe. She doesn’t believe.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. If sister were Ted Lasso, she would have a big sign over the locker room that says, “Don’t believe.”
Amanda Doyle:
Odds are we’ll definitely lose.
Glennon Doyle:
Right. Right. I’ve calculated the odds and they’re against us. So does everybody be effing realistic? Do you have a moment, babe, that you could pinpoint that wasn’t that first night that we first met where we were just like, what is happening? That wasn’t when we knew, we just knew something was up but we didn’t. When did you know?
Abby Wambach:
Well, I think we knew in retrospect thinking about what was going on that night, because there was a lot of confusing feelings happening like what is this? What’s going on?
Amanda Doyle:
May I interject for the listener? Because it sounds like you had some hot, sweaty, amazing night. This was at a librarians conference where they just happened to notice each other from across the way. So, I mean, that’s what we’re referring to here. Not like that night in the way that some most of us understand what that means.
Glennon Doyle:
No, no. We literally had zero time alone together. We were in front of thousands of librarians discussing books. I mean, it was the hottest thing I can imagine.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah, that’s right.
Glennon Doyle:
I mean, it was like there is a God. God would definitely set up my meet cute. With my person [crosstalk 00:02:42] at a librarian.
Amanda Doyle:
Storms of angels descended upon you in the form of librarians.
Abby Wambach:
I think that we spent months, months, and months apart and writing-
Glennon Doyle:
After that first night.
Abby Wambach:
After that first night, we never saw each other for many, many months because we both had lives that we had to untangle ourselves from. In some ways, I think that during that time we spent some time talking on the phone, but not much, but mostly we were just emailing and texting. And I think you sent me a picture of you going to a wedding with the babies and something had happened to Emma. I had no idea what happened, but somebody took a picture of you holding Emma. Now, I don’t know why. I don’t know why this hit me, but it struck me so… It was just the most tender thing I’d ever seen in my life. The way that you were holding this child. And I know this is going to sound so bizarre but I could feel that that was also my child on some level, because she came from you and it was just this cosmic…
Abby Wambach:
I don’t know. It was just this picture. And every time I see that picture, I’m completely reminded, “Oh yeah, this is when I knew that I was in love with you and this is when I knew that we were going to spend the rest of our lives together.” You are radiant in this photo and I could see straight into your soul. I don’t know. There’s no factual… It’s just how I felt. And I was like, “Yep, that’s the person I’m going to marry and be with for the rest of my life. She’s holding my child.” What the hell is that about?
Glennon Doyle:
I don’t know. Well, I would say this… I’ve never told this story before. I don’t think-
Abby Wambach:
Yeah, I was going to ask… You’ve never actually even told me, I don’t think.
Glennon Doyle:
Well, I don’t know. I mean, I had a few different moments and truly a lot of my moments were with myself in the mirror like, “Holy shit, are we doing this?” They were come to Jesus moments with myself. But there was this one day where you sent me, it was the first gift that you had ever sent me. It was a package and I got it at the door and it was a package from you. And I was like, “Oh my God.” I don’t know, I just felt like so intense about it. And I took it into my closet and I sat on the floor and I opened up the package. And first of all, this smell came out of it. Okay? It was whatever you used to wear back then and it was very masculine and feminine. It was just this smell that was so oh my God. I remembered it from the first night when we met and it was-
Abby Wambach:
I still wear it now, just so you know.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh, okay.
Amanda Doyle:
She can’t smell it anymore, on account of the euphoria is gone.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
The euphoria gone so now it smells like effing cologne. All right? Whatever.
Abby Wambach:
She’s just covering up her body odor.
Glennon Doyle:
Right. But back then, it was as if magical fairies had escaped this box and this smell was just like… And then I picked up next thing. Well, you had sent me a t-shirt to sleep in, covered in your… So I was just smelling this t-shirt and then I picked up this, it was like this big booklet, like stacks of paper, stacks and it had to be four inches and it was a stack of computer paper.
Abby Wambach:
Two reams.
Glennon Doyle:
Two reams of paper. And it was every single email that we’d ever sent each other, which was wild that it was that thick already, by the way. I mean, we used to write to each other for hours and hours and hours, but you had printed out every single email, stacked them with a thing. And then, I don’t know if you remember this, babe, but you had tied it with this precious colorful twine.
Glennon Doyle:
And then it was tied in a bow. And then there were three little letter cubes, almost like plastic Scrabble pieces that you had weaved onto the twine and it said G-O-D tied into… And I was like, “What?” First of all, it was the most… That was the moment where… First of all, why did you do that? What was the G-O-D? I still have that twine sitting on our… The God twine sitting on our bookshelf upstairs. But can you just tell me, because I actually don’t know that story. Where did you get these plastic letters? Why did you choose G-O-D? Were you at a freaking craft store? How did this happen?
Abby Wambach:
Well, I was putting together a gift box for you. And I don’t know, I was at this store and I just felt like… Well, to go back, you have, up until this point, been talking to me about your God. And for the first time in my adult life, I started to consider that maybe my definition of God was changing. And I felt like everything that we were communicating to each other in these emails that I had printed out and I wrapped up and I sent to you, I felt like it was holy. And also your first initial and your last initial was G D. So I thought, “Oh, this is kind of sweet that her first initial and last initial is G and D and I could just throw an O in there. And that would be like really special.”
Abby Wambach:
Because I felt like everything that you had said to me, and I don’t know, it was just such a beautiful time for me. Not only to experience that falling in love, but also to experience God in a different way that felt more comfortable, I guess, or felt more believable for lack of a better word and loving. And I don’t know, I have always just felt like you had this portal, like this portal to the divine that I’ve been so curious about and in some ways jealous of like, “How do you believe all this shit so effortlessly?”
Glennon Doyle:
The only thing I do effortlessly. Well, that’s amazing. I think there was something for me about opening that box that was so specific to you. And also it was my first understanding of this feels so feminine. This is feminine love, like the twine and the letters and the smell and the detail of… I can’t explain it. I just remember thinking of, “Oh, this is what it’s like to love a woman. I’ve landed in the right galaxy.” I don’t know. It felt like it was the finally living in the right planet of love for me. The gift was something that felt like love to me, whereas gifts I’d received from other gender always just felt like something I was like, “Thank you for this thing.” There was too much of a gap between it or something. Then all of this mystical shit we’ve just been talking about wears off and now we’re just arguing about toothbrushes and have this different level of love, which we actually think is realer than the beginning.
Abby Wambach:
The beginning phase of landing in love was kind of difficult for us. I don’t know if you remember.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. It was awful and terrible.
Abby Wambach:
Well, we struggled. We were in a power struggle because for a lot of reasons, but I think you lasted falling in love a little bit longer than me and that was hard. We weren’t in the same plane at the exact same time and that was confusing. It was really hard and then the landing in love period… I don’t know. That beginning phase was hard. We were fighting, we were nagging and fighting and it’s almost like, “I can’t believe you’ve been this person all along.”
Glennon Doyle:
Exactly. I got bamboozled. That’s how we felt. What the fuck? We got bamboozled. It was like somebody drugged us. We were shrooming and while we were on a trip, somebody let us get married? And now we’ve got these papers and we’re just starting to get to know each other. And it was a power struggle in the beginning. We had so much to work through with really getting to know each other.
Glennon Doyle:
We’ll talk about that another time. We’ll do a whole thing about that, about that phase and constant power struggle was like in the beginning. But now we have different moments where we’re not in mystical situations with fairies in closets, but I will tell you that I had a moment recently with you that I felt like was a landing in love moment. And it was, I don’t know, really late at night. I was already in bed and so tired so it was probably 8:30. And you had just taken Hattie out, our dog, for a walk. And you had noticed that she had something in her paw that was bothering her. Okay? And you brought her back in. So I’m laying in the bed, watching you in the bathroom on the floor with Hattie. And you’re curled up with Hattie with this whole set of tweezers and all of these tools.
Glennon Doyle:
And you just spent a half an hour on the floor with Hattie getting her paw free from whatever was hurting her. And I just was watching you like, “Oh wow, that’s love.” And my thought was, “I would not do that crap. I would just wait till this thing just gets… ” I would just not do that at this late at night. I would not have that level of tender care that you are giving this dog. And then remember you asked me to do one job while I was in bed. Do you remember what… I just, while telling the story, remember this. Do you remember what you asked me to go get? Okay. You said, “Glennon, can you just do one thing for me?” And I was like, “Okay.” You said, “Can you just go get me some salt?”
Abby Wambach:
Oh my gosh. Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
Because you needed it so her paw wouldn’t get infected. So I very heroically got out of bed and walked upstairs. And do you remember what I ended up bringing?
Abby Wambach:
You brought the sugar. You brought the freaking [crosstalk 00:14:11] You brought the pepper. You brought the pepper.
Glennon Doyle:
I brought pepper. I sat it next to you, got back in bed. You said, “Honey, this is pepper.” And I was like, “Well, I think it’ll still work.” So that’s what landing in love is, it’s somebody on the floor getting poop out of your dog’s paw and then your partner bringing you pepper. And you somehow finding love in the midst of all of that.
Glennon Doyle:
Babe, have you had any landing in love moments?
Abby Wambach:
So I actually started this podcast telling all of us about recently Glennon… Okay. Recently I have gotten Glen and I into it. I have a tendency to get us into things because as you may remember on one of our podcasts, I sometimes say too many things.
Amanda Doyle:
I can’t wait to hear this. I don’t even know this story.
Abby Wambach:
I say the thing. And then a lot of times I’m like, “Ugh, shoot. I did it. I did it again. And now we’re in it. And now we’ve got to find our way out of it.” And Glennon is often always the person that solves the problem I’ve created for ourselves.
Amanda Doyle:
From I’ve created for ourselves. That’s so good.
Abby Wambach:
And recently I’ve got us into it again, because I’m working on it. I’m trying, I’m just still not yet there.
Amanda Doyle:
Like a family thing or a work thing or a neighborhood thing-
Glennon Doyle:
It’s a friend thing. How do we describe this without describing it? Sometimes when I overthink what I’m going to say, okay? So I think how is this going to… What is that other person going to think when I say this? What’s going to come out of this? What’s going to happen? How does it-
Amanda Doyle:
It implicate the entire ecosystem of our lives.
Glennon Doyle:
Exactly. What is that person going to think about my wife if I say this? I’m overthinking it.
Abby Wambach:
And here are the things that I go through in my process. That’s it, nothing. I go through no process. I go no process. [crosstalk 00:16:34]
Glennon Doyle:
So sometimes something is said, and I’m like, “Oh my God, you can’t just say that.” She said something that made another person really excited about something that we’re never going to do. Okay? So it’s something that I wouldn’t have said until a year of consideration-
Abby Wambach:
And of course, I didn’t even talk to Glennon about it.
Glennon Doyle:
But I will say that it was in a conversation where she just said something. And then afterwards I was like, “Babe, what are we going to do now? What’s going to happen?” And she said, “Well, everybody knows I was just kidding. I was just kidding.” But sister, I need to tell you that what she said was the thing. And then she said, “Also, I am totally not kidding.” Literally those are the words. So, we’re in it and now, what’s the rest of the story, love?
Abby Wambach:
So the whole point of this story is the way you have responded to me getting us in it again, makes me know that we are landing in love because this feels like a part of my personality, though it’s just a behavior that I’m working on. It feels like I am flawed and yet you still love me. The way that you’re responding to it, it feels like you’re responding to it in a way that makes me know you’re not trying to change me anymore and just trying to love me through some of my faults or failures or little knits that I get us into. And I just think that-
Glennon Doyle:
Well, it’s not a flaw. It’s just a shadow side of a beautiful thing. I don’t think it’s any bad or good thing. It’s like, “Oh, I overthink things. Everything I’m going to say, I’m thinking about forehand afterward, blah, blah, blah.” That’s I guess good in some ways, because I’m always thinking about everyone’s feelings and terrible in some ways, because then conversation can feel very controlling or manipulative or not in the moment. Your situation sometimes you get us into it. That is for sure as hell true.
Glennon Doyle:
But also the positive side of that is that you’re the most present fully yourself. You’re not presenting different sides of yourself all the time. It’s what people love about you the most. It’s a beautiful thing. And I think what happened to me during that particular situation and I’m starting to think more about the fact that sometimes I care about other people’s feelings more than I care about my family’s feelings. That’s how it feels. I feel like you said this thing, Abby, that now this person that’s not even… They’re going to have their feelings hurt. Well, okay but am I going to care more about that person’s feelings than my wife’s?
Abby Wambach:
Also your own feelings.
Glennon Doyle:
But if I shame you about it, then I’m valuing that person’s experience more than yours because I know that you didn’t do anything with bad intentions.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. And also, I mean, I understand there’s impact on what I do and so I already feel bad. I already know that I’m in it. So I mean, long story short, I just think that us landing almost every single day, I feel like there’s a moment where I’m just like, “Wow, wow, this is just really something.” And I can’t believe because this is the part of love that I’ve never experienced. I’ve had the in love bit. I’ve gone through the wild stages of it, but I’ve never successfully landed in love like truly landed in love in a way that I know that you are actually in fact the one.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay, here we go. Do you think that love… We talked about this last night, if somebody asked us what is the one strategy to make love work? I would say working on yourself. That’s it. I know there’s not one strategy, but if I had to boil it down, it would be a relentless pursuit of dealing with your own shit. Do you agree with that or disagree?
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. I agree with that, but there’s equal parts of dealing with your own shit and also inviting your partner to participate in that journey. That’s something that I value so much about you, Glennon, is you never force me to evolve or growth or work. You just do it yourself and that is this beautiful, gentle reminder and then I see things actually work. So I’m engaged and enticed in some ways to do this work on my myself. And I think you know that I’ve been kind of afraid of myself my whole life and being as gentle as you are in our love makes me feel like we’re five years in, I’m like, “Oh, okay. I can start working on myself now. Good on you.”
Glennon Doyle:
Sissy. What do you think about all this?
Amanda Doyle:
Well, another way to say the most important thing is to work on yourself is to say stop looking for everything… For the answer to everything you need and the culprit for all of your qualms in the other person. [crosstalk 00:22:35] Yeah, I feel like it’s so often like if you’re a partner in life and something in your life isn’t going well, they’re the obvious person to be like, “If things were different, I wouldn’t be feeling this way. And obviously, that’s on you.” Or, “If I feel uncomfortable right now in this conversation, in this day, in this life, that’s you.” I think that’s especially true with right now and we’ve been so cooped up in our houses. We’re used to having these outlets with friends who meet certain needs, family who meet certain needs, activities and things that meet certain needs.
Amanda Doyle:
And we’ve been in this very weird period where our only outlet has been the person we’re with and that’s just a setup. It doesn’t work and it never has work. The reason our relationships has worked is because we’ve had this whole supplemental life surrounding our units and that whole life was taken away. And now we’re looking at our people and being like, “This isn’t going to cut it.” But that’s not sad or unromantic, it literally another you and one person were never supposed to cut it the whole time. You always had a full life to make it work. And I just think that to me, it’s just realizing that is helpful because it doesn’t necessarily mean that this isn’t going the way it should. It just means that this was never supposed to be the only thing that kept things going.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, that’s good.
Glennon Doyle:
All right. Let’s get to some love questions. And by the way, for any of you who… I don’t know if how many of this people this has happened to, but if you’re somebody who has never fallen in love. I didn’t fall in love ever in my life until I was 40. How old was I? 40? When I met you, babe?
Abby Wambach:
Mh-hmm (affirmative).
Glennon Doyle:
So I don’t know what I want to say about that other than I get it. I get it. I get what it’s like to not have that particular experience. And I had a really full life without having had that experience. I just want to say that, I had all different kinds of love in my life.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. You fell in love with the babies.
Glennon Doyle:
I fell in love with the babies. I fell in love with my work. I had always had this God thing going on. I had fell in love with my sister. I fell in love with friends. I fell in love with books. I don’t know. I just think there’s a lot of different kinds of love that may up a full life.
Abby Wambach:
Agreed, but there’s still only the one.
Glennon Doyle:
All right. First question. Let’s hear from our beloved pod squad.
Elizabeth:
My name is Elizabeth. I wanted to see if you could dig deeper into that year of your life after you met Abby and you were exchanging emails and falling in love with each other. How much did you wrestle with the decision and how did you come to the conclusion that you were in the same place? I’m going through something similar right now and I’m scared that the guilt of pursuing joy is going to ruin the potential of the future relationship. Thank you so much.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh, Elizabeth. The guilt of pursuing joy is going to ruin. I would agree with Elizabeth that the guilt of pursuing joy does ruin everything, right? It’s just that it’s not the pursuit of joy that ruins things, it’s the guilt of pursuing joy that ruins things. And I do believe that the guilt of pursuing joy is something that well for everyone is especially deep in women. I remember saying to a friend when I was deciding what to do about Abby is just saying I’m not going to do it. I’m not going to leave my marriage. I’m not going to go. I know this is going to hurt.
Glennon Doyle:
This will probably be the most painful thing I’ve ever gone through. But I also know that I always learn from pain, that the most painful things in my life have been the greatest lessons afterwards. And so I will learn from this. And she said, “Yes, Glennon, you have always learned from pain. What if you could also learn from joy?”
Abby Wambach:
Thank God for her.
Glennon Doyle:
What if that’s the first plan? Learning from joy. And then that we just default to the pain because we didn’t pick the joy because we deeply, and somewhere in us, have the misbelief that the suffering is what we deserve. So we have to find the lessons there because we keep picking it.
Glennon Doyle:
I am still waiting each day because of my deep beliefs to be struck down somehow for pursuing joy, for choosing joy instead of suffering. But I got to tell you it hasn’t happened yet. I have not been struck down. And the people that I thought would be hurting the most like, “My God, I can’t pursue this joy for myself because it will cause pain for my people, for my kids, for my parents, for Craig, for sister, for everybody.” What I will tell you is that there is some pain in the beginning because women have created ecosystems where their denial of self is what makes everybody else lives run what we consider smoothly. And so when a woman does choose joy and does choose her own self, her own path, everybody does have some disequilibrium in the beginning, which they might consider pain. And then what happens is that everybody in that ecosystem watches the woman choose joy and slowly learns, “Oh my God, we get to choose joy? What?”
Glennon Doyle:
Watches the woman come alive, watches the woman refuse the narrative that the woman is the martyr and slowly disappears for the rest of her life, and watches the mother or the sister or the wife or the whoever come to life. And that woman choosing joy, like a ripple effect, grant’s permission for everyone else in her circle to choose joy. And that is how freedom and the pursuit of joy becomes contagious. So what I would say to Elizabeth is please do not be afraid of the pursuit of joy, but please be avoidant of the guilt pursuing joy. Okay.
Hannah:
Hi, Glennon and sister. My name is Hannah and my hard thing is falling in love. My marriage fell apart last year and I’m now divorced and I found myself unexpectedly falling in love with an absolutely wonderful person. It’s been incredibly difficult to make myself vulnerable again. And I find myself wanting to be absolutely sure that it’s right this time before I let myself fully dive in. And when I say absolutely sure, I mean, beyond a shadow of a doubt that it’s going to be good forever, which is something that I know I can never have I guarantee on. Also, I’m doubting myself because I got it so wrong last time. Do you have any advice about letting yourself fall in love and be vulnerable after heartbreak? Thank you so much. Bye.
Glennon Doyle:
Hannah is my favorite. So I just need to know how to be absolutely sure beyond a shadow of a doubt that this is going to be perfect until the day that I die. So if you could just tell me that.
Amanda Doyle:
This love needs to come with a lifetime warranty. I can return it whenever it breaks bad. I love that.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh, God. It’s so hard to trust again. It’s because it’s hard to trust yourself again, right? Why do we keep entering into these things that could crush us? Could annihilate us completely? Does anyone have any good words for Hannah, sister or Abby?
Amanda Doyle:
I feel like I really am interested in the part that she said one of her key struggles is based on the fact that she got it so wrong the last time. And that resonates with me a lot because I think after my first marriage and everything that came with it, the first couple years after were completely… It was hard to trust but the hardest part was trusting myself and my instincts and my judgment because clearly, I had very consciously chosen this person. Clearly, I had not seen what I should have seen throughout it. I started to think of it a different way. I’m not sure I did get it wrong at all. I think it’s kind of like what we talked about in that last episode about if your whole life is a love story and you’re just telling stories. This is what happened.
Amanda Doyle:
This is the way I felt. This is what they chose. This is what I chose. I mean, we’re so fixated on deciding what’s right and what’s wrong and attributing how it ended to cover the whole chapter. And I think if we let go of that, we could really let go of a lot of the problems that we have for ourselves because I think maybe you didn’t… Maybe you got it wrong, but maybe you didn’t. Maybe that was just a love story that ended how it ended and maybe there were a lot of really great things about that. And maybe there was a reason you ended up there and there’s a reason where you are now here. Nothing has to be wrong and nothing has to be right. It’s just like, “Here you are. Are you- “
Glennon Doyle:
It’s chapter.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s just a chapter. And I don’t know. I think we hang a lot on that, that is not necessarily helpful to us. I get avoiding, wanting to avoid pain and avoid the kind of crushing blows that come with things.
Glennon Doyle:
And I would say to Hannah, I like to think of what I can control and what I can’t. Right? So, Hannah, what I cannot tell you whether this person is going to abandon you ever emotionally, physically, whatever but what I can suggest to you is that you make a commitment to yourself that you’re not going to abandon yourself. Okay? So when you say things like fully dive in, that’s romantic bullshit language. That’s the kind of thing that we tell ourselves and we’re like, “Okay, should I go unconscious? Should I just do the thing where I just am in love and I’m just in it and I’m whatever?” No, we’re going to stay awake. We’re going to not abandon ourselves. We are going to not turn our intuition off.
Glennon Doyle:
We are not… We can trust this. We can trust relationships if we trust ourselves to stay conscious, to admit when we see a red flag, to not allow our boundaries to be crossed, to stay awake. You can trust other people to the extent that you can trust yourself to when things start and if things start to feel wrong, to say it to not completely lose ourselves in any relationship. So I guess what I’d say to Hannah is I can’t tell you what this other person’s going to do, but I can tell you, Hannah, that you can be a woman who’s not going to abandon yourself. And if your gut is telling you that this is right for you right now, go in knowing that you will go out the minute it stops being right for you.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. I want to go finish with this write-in y’all. This is what Jenny says, “Dear Glennon, Amanda, and Abby. I love your story of falling in love and the family you’ve built together. The most amazing part is how easily your children and ex-husband and seem to accept you and your relationship but sometimes it seems too good to me. Many of us are not surrounded by people who are accepting and understanding, and we risk real anger and damage in choosing us over them. My question is, what do you do if you fall in love, but that love risks the loss of your children? A while ago, a friend of mine told me she was in love with me. It was a shock as neither of us had been with a woman and she was married with kids. Since then, we have fallen deeply in love and have built a very strong and amazing relationship that is based on trust, acceptance, and love.
Glennon Doyle:
I can honestly say it is the most beautiful thing I have ever been a part of. We struggle with one outstanding issue, will we be accepted by her children or will our relationship cause a rift that we cannot repair? They are teenage boys and her ex is openly unaccepting of the LGBTQ community and voices this around them. She cannot live without her children and I do not want that either, but he is a very dominant and controlling man. So we struggle with how to move forward if we cannot be open with the only people who matter. In telling them, she risks losing them and not telling them we can never be whole. We have spent many hours crying over this reality and cannot see a way through it.”
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. I read this a few days ago and I’ve been thinking about Jenny every night when I go to sleep. I think about Jenny and I really want to hear sister and Abby, what you have to say about Jenny’s situation, but what I keep coming back to is this. There’s two situations here. She uses the terms, I think, controlling and dominating, is that right? So my first question is, is this man abusive? If this man’s abusive, then there’s a whole nother set of things we need to do. The second option is that he’s not what they would define as abusive, but is clearly controlling, dominating, intolerant, bigoted is what I’m reading here.
Glennon Doyle:
I just keep thinking that this family needs a hero that somebody along the way is going to have to break this pattern of this person who is living… Who is controlling this family with bigotry, with anger, with domination, somebody’s going to have to break that pattern. This sounds like the family including Jenny’s love and those children, those teenage boys, are living in captivity of this unhealthy controlling pattern. And I just keep thinking is Jenny’s friend going to allow her children to be the ones who have to break that pattern? Does Jenny’s love this woman? Does she want her boys to be able to live their lives free from this oppression? Even if those lives are not what this dad would deem acceptable, does she want freedom for her sons one day from this dominating, controlling man?
Glennon Doyle:
If she wants that for her sons, what a beautiful time to be the model of that now, to be the pattern breaker, because we cannot expect our kids to do what we will not do. So if not now, when does Jenny’s love decide to model for her children that we do not cower and defer to bullies? To me, it feels like now is the time for Jenny’s love to change the pattern of this family, to stop even if it causes all kinds of destruction first, because reconstruction always causes destruction first. And I just think at the end of the day, this isn’t a story about gayness.
Glennon Doyle:
I just want to say being controlled by a dominating and controlling and bigoted man is not okay. I just want to say that this is not okay to be held hostage for a family to be held hostage by one dynamic like that. And I just can’t… Like she said, Jenny said, “I can honestly say it is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever been a part of.” Just please, even if it’s hard, you pick your heart. It’s hard to stay in a family where there’s a dominating scary presence that controls everything. That’s hard. It’s hard to break free from it, but both are hard. So pick the beautiful hard, right? Don’t give up the most beautiful thing you’ve ever been a part of to maintain something ugly.
Amanda Doyle:
And it’ll get harder before it gets better for that family. I mean, the reality is they’re teenage kids and they’ll be half of the time with a dominating controlling bigot who is bashing their mom and their mom’s partner. So I mean, the reality of it is isn’t going to be like, “Tell the truth and it shall set you free.” And these teenage rules will be like, “We’ve been waiting for this moment of liberation where we could get [crosstalk 00:41:55] well under… ” What the reality is, is that they’re going to be living with him and it’s going to be very hard.
Amanda Doyle:
I mean, if it’s hard for their mom, it’s going to be hard for them to deal with that but they are teenagers, right? So they’re going to live with a lot of turmoil for the next few years while they have to navigate their dad’s disgust and disdain with their love for their mom. And they’re trying to accept their mom’s new partner and they’re going to navigate that. But that isn’t to say that exactly right, Glen, that they’re not going to see glimpses of, “Holy shit. I can’t believe mom’s brave enough to do that.”
Glennon Doyle:
She’s taking the arrow so that we can see a way. If you don’t stand up to the bully, then you are basically handing down the legacy that we don’t stand up. We don’t stand up. And if she’s sending… She has to share those kids with that scenario, at least she’s showing them another way. At least they will see two different ways. If we just stay in the one way, that’s just the water the kids swim in, they don’t know anything different ever. They don’t have anything to choose from in the future.
Amanda Doyle:
And I think that she’s doing the thing that mothers do, which is I’m not going to overcomplicate my kids’ lives. I’m not going to make my kids’ lives that much harder because the truth is it will be hard for them to hear their mother bashed by their father. It will be hard to navigate dealing with that with their dad and having to… I don’t know if he’s going to make them choose and make them condemn their mom, like who the hell knows? So that is hard. But so there is some her living openly for the next few years, as opposed to waiting until they’re 18 and on their own and they can make their own choices when they’re out from under their dad’s control is putting them in a position to navigate that. It’s also putting them in a position to exactly what you said, see that it is possible to go against this controlling way. And also, I just keep thinking, God forbid one of these kids is gay.
Glennon Doyle:
One of these kids is in a classroom with other kids who are gay and passing on their dad’s bullshit. This family for many reasons needs somebody to say, “This is wrong and we’re not doing this here anymore.”
Abby Wambach:
Well, and also any kind of difference. It doesn’t even to be about gayness. It’s just like if these kids are different from their parents in any way, they’ve learned to swallow it and to not ever express that difference.
Glennon Doyle:
I mean, there’s a million hard things about it and to me, the right kind of hard is to face it now, change the pattern now, let the chips fall. Okay. Let’s hear from our pod squadder of the week because I’m completely obsessed with them.
Robin:
Hi, super women. My name is Robin, I want to share the latest thing with you because I feel like I have all of you ladies to thank for it. So first I’m going to say, do yourself a favor and listen to the song, Turn Me On by Nora Jones. I was just doing that. And as I was singing it, because it’s an old favorite, I started to sing it to myself. I sing it to my fucking self because of you ladies. I am the only one, and I’m realizing this now, I’m the only one that can turn myself off and I’m also the only one that can turn myself back on. And holy shit, it’s liberating. Oh my gosh. I feel so grateful. I feel so excited about this revelation where my mind was just blown to have that self autonomy, I can turn myself on. I love you ladies. I thank you for the hard work you’re doing, paving the way for all of us who want to do hard things too. Love, love, love all of you. Bye-bye. I hope you guys listen to the song.
Glennon Doyle:
Did you just hear the freaking life in Robin’s voice? Let us all find the life that Robin has found. I’m going to listen to that Nora Jones song. What was it called? Turn Me On.
Abby Wambach:
Turn Me On by Nora Jones.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. Do you know it, babe? [crosstalk 00:46:41] Do you know that song?
Abby Wambach:
Going to do it. Of course, I know it. Nora Jones? Early 2000s? Just mindblowing.
Amanda Doyle:
Some fresh ass ice. Yeah.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s a really, really good song.
Abby Wambach:
2003, I was driving in my Jeep in Washington, DC, new professional athlete here [crosstalk 00:46:58] listening to Nora Jones. I mean, it’s like that soundtrack is [crosstalk 00:47:03].
Glennon Doyle:
She’s kind of like the jazzy. She sounds kind of like jazzy, full of soul.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. Piano, jazz.
Glennon Doyle:
All right. Well, you all here, here’s your homework. We’re all going to listen to Nora Jones, I guess, today. We’re going to turn ourselves on. I love all of you. We will see you next week. At which point we will discuss more hard things. And in the meantime, take it easy on yourselves. All right? We love you. Bye.
Glennon Doyle:
We Can Do Hard Things is produced in partnership with Cadence13 Studios. Be sure to rate, review, and follow the show on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Odyssey or wherever you get your podcasts. Especially be sure to rate and review the podcast if you really liked it. If you didn’t, don’t worry about it. It’s fine.