Jen Hatmaker & Tyler Merritt Double Date!
April 14, 2022
Glennon Doyle:
Okay, welcome back to We Can Do Hard Things. You came back again. Thank you. We are-
Abby Wambach:
So-
Glennon Doyle:
Excited.
Abby Wambach:
So excited.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. Today we’re doing a double date. Today our-
Abby Wambach:
I feel nervous.
Glennon Doyle:
I do too.
Abby Wambach:
I feel nervous kind off.
Jen Hatmaker:
Why?
Glennon Doyle:
I do too. Well, the reason we feel nervous is because… so have you ever gone on a double date where you’re going with your good friend, but then your good friend is bringing their new person?
Jen Hatmaker:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
So you’re like, “I have to make a good impression on this person.”
Abby Wambach:
I want them to like me. I want to like them.
Glennon Doyle:
I don’t know how it’s going to go. We’ve never had a conversation before. Okay, so this is another reason we should be nervous is because these two are in the early-
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. Their brains are lit up.
Glennon Doyle:
… Can’t stop. They are honeymooning right now basically. Do you remember those days when we couldn’t stop kissing?
Abby Wambach:
I do. I still think about those days often.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. Let’s tell the people who these people are-
Abby Wambach:
Yes.
Glennon Doyle:
… As if they don’t already know.
Abby Wambach:
Yes.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. On our double date, who we are meeting right now. Imagine us sitting, we’ve just walked into the restaurant, our friends are there. Jen Hatmaker, is there. Jen Hatmaker, is the New York Times bestselling author of, For The Love, and Fierce, Free, and Full of Fire, along with 12 other books.
Abby Wambach:
Geez, Louise.
Jen Hatmaker:
Geez, Louise.
Glennon Doyle:
She hosts the award winning For The Love podcast, is the delighted curator of the Jen Hatmaker book club and leader of a tightly knit online community where she reaches millions of people each week. Jen is a co-founder of Legacy Collective, a giving organization that grants millions of dollars towards sustainable projects around the world. She’s a mom to five kids and lives happily just outside Austin, Texas. And her new boyfriend. Do we say boyfriend?
Abby Wambach:
What are you guys calling each other?
Jen Hatmaker:
Well, this was my question too, when I asked Tyler recently. I’m like, “What am I supposed to say?” Because I’m 47, do 47 year olds have boyfriends? I don’t know if that’s what we do.
Tyler Merritt:
Yeah. You have boyfriend.
Jen Hatmaker:
Tyler says, that is what we say.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay.
Tyler Merritt:
Yes.
Jen Hatmaker:
I was like, “Are you the man I’m dating? I don’t really know how to do this.”
Glennon Doyle:
Okay.
Jen Hatmaker:
And he is like, “You just say boyfriend, how about that as a solution?” Right, Tyler?
Tyler Merritt:
Yeah. We walk into a room together and all the dudes are like, “Ooh, she’s hot.” You need to be like, “That’s my boyfriend.” Not some random mixed up like man I’m dating. No, you need to be like, “That’s my dude.”
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Jen Hatmaker:
Okay.
Glennon Doyle:
Fair enough.
Jen Hatmaker:
Right. It’s a little bit more solid than just like, “We’re seeing each other.”
Abby Wambach:
Yes.
Jen Hatmaker:
I don’t really know what the terms are. I’m new here.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s right.
Tyler Merritt:
You were going through the introduction. It’s okay if you just now say and with Jen, with all the million things with 13 books, we have her boyfriend, Tyler.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay.
Abby Wambach:
Oh, no.
Glennon Doyle:
No. Thank you. We have the Tyler Merritt, I picked up Tyler’s book, I Take My Coffee Black, opened it and didn’t stop, Tyler. You are so smart. You tricked me into learning so many things.
Jen Hatmaker:
Yes.
Glennon Doyle:
By making it funny and then I’d be three pages past and I’d be like, “Wait a minute. I feel like I’m learning things about states.”
Abby Wambach:
That’s good.
Jen Hatmaker:
That was history.
Tyler Merritt:
Right. I got you.
Glennon Doyle:
Tyler, is tricking me into learning history.
Tyler Merritt:
Yep.
Glennon Doyle:
Tyler Merritt is a Nashville based actor, activist cancer survivor, founder of the Tyler Merritt Project and author of I Take My Coffee Black, Reflections on Tupac, Musical Theater, Faith, and Being Black in America. Over the course of his career, Tyler has gained recognition through notable acting projects, including Kevin Probably Saves The World, Outer Banks.
Glennon Doyle:
Our children love that show, and The Outsider, as well as serving as the face of the worldwide teaching curriculum for the Gospel Project for Kids. Tyler Merritt, made headlines with his 2018 viral video, Before You Call The Cops, which has been viewed by over 60 million people worldwide.
Jen Hatmaker:
60 million.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s more books than Jen, has written.
Jen Hatmaker:
It certainly is, or sold.
Glennon Doyle:
Tell us, how did you two meet?
Abby Wambach:
I’m dying to know this.
Glennon Doyle:
Is this one of the first times that you guys have really talked about your relationship together?
Jen Hatmaker:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. Are you nervous?
Jen Hatmaker:
For sure. We’ve never talked together.
Glennon Doyle:
Did you call each other and talk about what you were going to say and not say?
Tyler Merritt:
A little bit. No, we did not.
Jen Hatmaker:
We had a meeting last night.
Glennon Doyle:
I would. I get that.
Tyler Merritt:
We had a meeting at 1:30 the morning-
Jen Hatmaker:
That’s right.
Tyler Merritt:
… Over FaceTime about this.
Jen Hatmaker:
Last November, at the beginning of November, we were both in New York. I was there for work and Tyler, was there for life and for fun. I was there with my publicist, Heather and we had done a bunch of stuff and she’s like, “You want to go back to the airport?” I’m like, “I’m actually going to stay another night. I want to be here. I want to see a show. I want to see Waitress. I just do.” I think because Jennifer Nettles, was playing the lead, and I just want to… I don’t even have a ticket yet. I’m just going to get one and I’m just going to go sit wherever.
Jen Hatmaker:
She was like, “You know what’s weird? I have a brand new client and you would probably love him, but he’s actually in New York right now by himself and he is going to see Waitress tonight.” And she’s like, “Why don’t I connect you?” I’m like, “Okay, sure.” She connects us via text, and so I reach out to Tyler. I’m like, “Hey, let’s meet for drinks beforehand.” I didn’t know Tyler didn’t drink at the time, so that was a great start, a super start, “Let’s meet and have wine.” He’s like, “Well, you can.”
Jen Hatmaker:
I don’t even know how, and the next thing I know a ticket has shown up in my phone that he got, so we go beforehand and we sit down over French fries and honey mustard and one wine and one water. We just started talking and I was like, “This is interesting.” I assumed Tyler was gay. He’s single, he’s a musical theater guy. This is how Heather, described him, had some musical theater background and never been married. I’m like, “Oh, I’m going to have a new gay best friend.”
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Jen Hatmaker:
And then-
Tyler Merritt:
I am so okay with anybody thinking I’m gay and she knows I am super gay on paper. We talk about this.
Jen Hatmaker:
That’s what he says.
Glennon Doyle:
New GOP, gay on paper.
Jen Hatmaker:
That’s right. We get together and I know immediately he is not gay. That immediately went away. We were together the whole night. Tyler, just because to me this is the gold of the story, which is why you were there. I forgot to ask you on our meeting last night if you wanted to talk about this, but you had just decided that very week to go to New York by yourself, which now I know isn’t even like you.
Tyler Merritt:
At all for me to be anywhere by myself. Right.
Jen Hatmaker:
Yes.
Tyler Merritt:
Yeah. This is going to be a hard left, right quick and hard left. I was diagnosed with cancer right after I turned my book in at the end of 2020, a rare form called liposarcoma where I had a 28 pound cancerous tumor in my abdomen. It was during the pandemic, so I just thought I was gaining weight, but really what was happening is I started to lose weight and this tumor began to show itself more.
Tyler Merritt:
Anyways, long story a little bit shorter. I had it removed at the end of 2020, went through a year, half a year of recovery, already had my six month follow up, it was gone and I was feeling really good about life. Then in that week of New York, my friend, Megan Hilty, James [inaudible 00:07:57], a handful of had some Broadway things happening that weekend. I was like, “I don’t think I’m going to go.”
Tyler Merritt:
Well, I had to go in that Monday to Vanderbilt to have a checkup, and my doctor said to me very casually, who I love him, very casually because he had been reading my book and was super hyped, was like, “Let’s talk about the book.” My friend was like, “Can we talk about the cancer?” He was like, “Yeah. It’s back. You have like a really small… it’s like two centimeters.” He was like, “It’s almost an inch that’s back. But when cancer comes back, I want you to know it’s not because it’s just growing back. It’s just with the 28 pounds, there was some that was left over and it’s growing back. We’re just going to have to monitor it now every six months. And if it continues to grow, we’re going to have to go back in and take it back out.”
Tyler Merritt:
The first time, my first surgery, I lost a kidney, there was a lot involved, but this time it wasn’t that, it was just, there’s a small piece that has come back. That was on Monday and suddenly my whole thought process on what I wanted to do next with my week immediately shifted. I said to everybody, I was like, “Yo, I’m going to New York City.” I called James, Megan, all of them. I was like, “Yo, I’m coming to see all of your stuff.” James was doing Hamilton. And Megan had some show at [inaudible 00:09:23], I was like, “I’m coming.”
Tyler Merritt:
Jennifer Nettles, who I’m a huge fan of was doing Waitress. I bought a ticket, jumped on a plane and on my way there I text my publicist and said, “Hey, I know you’re leaving New York, but I’m coming in.” She said, “Jen Hatmaker is here.” I was like, “Cool. I don’t really know Jen, but I’m there by myself, if she wants to kick it while the night she’s there.” I had my friend Sarah, who’s on my team basically give me a quick update of all things, Jen Hatmaker. Then we met at our little bar thing and it was so platonic.
Glennon Doyle:
It was platonic in your intention when you went, but how, that first night when you sat and talked for a little bit, did you feel the sparky butterflies? What was your experience of Jen, that night when you were sitting at that table?
Tyler Merritt:
Jen is hot.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, she is hot. Of course.
Tyler Merritt:
I underestimated the hotness of Jen. That’s just the truth.
Jen Hatmaker:
Thank God.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s a mistake you only make once. Yes.
Tyler Merritt:
That’s a mistake you make one time.
Jen Hatmaker:
Oh, gosh!
Tyler Merritt:
I walked into this bar thing and she was there in all of her hotness. I think you had a black leather jacket or something, she was just dope. I went in from like, “I’m trying to get to go see the show.” Into suddenly, I put on a little swag. I was like, “What’s up though? What’s up Jen Hatmaker.” Real talk though, listen, I’m a 45 year old bachelor, I wasn’t even thinking anything about that.
Jen Hatmaker:
Yeah.
Tyler Merritt:
But this is what stood out, and this is the truth. When I sat down at the table, she already knew the server’s name. And that was hugely important to me. I went, “Whoa! She sees people.”
Glennon Doyle:
Yes, she does.
Tyler Merritt:
To me, for as fine as Jen Hatmaker is, the most attractive part to me in that moment that I think attached to me was watching how she saw people. I was like, “Wait a minute. We see people the same way.” That I think was the first thing that shifted in me a little bit. It still wasn’t romantic at the time, it was just like, “Okay, you see people.” Then we went to Waitress together, and her and I both by the time the show was over, we had both made friends, because we were sitting in separate spots so we weren’t sitting next to each other. But by the time we left, we had both made friends with all the people sitting around us.
Tyler Merritt:
As we walked out of the theater, I had my new friend, she had her new friends and we walked out and I’m going like, “Yo, are we the same person? What’s happening right now?” Then we walk out of the theater and we walk to go and leave. Let’s be very clear.
Jen Hatmaker:
Oh, I knew this was coming.
Tyler Merritt:
Jen was not trying to have any Tyler, in her life on that night, I wasn’t either trying to-
Jen Hatmaker:
I wasn’t expecting it. I wasn’t ready.
Tyler Merritt:
Right. This is what happened y’all, I was there for three more days. I was going to go see Hamilton, a show she loves that I wasn’t aware at the time and loves and I’m like, “Yo, I’m going to go see Hamilton tomorrow with great seats. I’m going to go do all these things.” I was like, “Look, if you don’t have anything to do, I’m by myself, stick around.” And she was like, “No.” I was-
Glennon Doyle:
Well, you had to go home probably because of all the various children.
Tyler Merritt:
She didn’t have anything to do. She’s Jen Hatmaker. She does her own time.
Jen Hatmaker:
I did have to go home, and I’d already been there for three days.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay.
Jen Hatmaker:
I told you I have regrets around that. I wish I could go back and do that differently, I do. We had a little like, “I like you.”
Glennon Doyle:
What was yours? Because his was that you saw the person and you knew the waitress’s name, which makes me want to just explode.
Abby Wambach:
Seriously.
Glennon Doyle:
Then you were going to see Waitress. It’s just all very perfect for another lifetime movie perhaps, but yes-
Abby Wambach:
The fact that Tyler noticed that-
Glennon Doyle:
I know.
Abby Wambach:
… Is just-
Glennon Doyle:
I know. What did you notice about him? Did you have the mmm?
Jen Hatmaker:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Well, I just went in really cold. I didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t know Tyler, and I didn’t know his work yet, and I didn’t know really anything about him, and so I was not ready for him, this guy to walk in the door because he’s just a really powerful presence in every room and in every way, not just the way he looks, which is how he looks. It’s like, “Look at you. Everyone does.” But it’s the way he is.
Jen Hatmaker:
He’s talking about me knowing our waiter. We hadn’t been seated for two minutes and a mom and a daughter come walking past this, and he’s like, “Whoa! You look good. I like this outfit.” I was like, “That’s sweet.” It was just a mom in her 50s.
Tyler Merritt:
I forgot about that.
Jen Hatmaker:
Yeah. He was like, “This is working.” I’m like, “This is working.” I’m just-
Glennon Doyle:
He pointed out an outfit on a 50 year old woman and said, “This is working.” And you thought he was not gay after that?
Tyler Merritt:
What had happened is she had on some red leather pants or something.
Jen Hatmaker:
It was noteworthy.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Tyler Merritt:
I dressed women for a while.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s right.
Tyler Merritt:
She walked up and I was like, “Yo, those pants are fire.” Then what you did Jen, is you didn’t just sit back and go, “Well, let me just watch Tyler do this.” You jumped into and were like, “Those are amazing. What are you guys doing tonight?” And that was again, I looked over at you like, “Are we seeing people together right now? Is this what we’re doing?”
Tyler Merritt:
There was the piece after Waitress where we left, we walked outside and I saw that she made all these friends and we both made friends. I was taking pictures for her and all this, and we walked away and we were about to leave and I told her, I said, “Hey, I want to be very clear, I don’t mean this flirty. I don’t mean this like I’m trying to like get at you.” Because I was not. Again, wasn’t even a part of my thing.
Tyler Merritt:
I said, “But I am so blown away by how you see people and how you make people be seen and feel loved. I don’t know if we’re ever going to hang out again or ever see each other again, but I want to just take a moment to let you know that I see that in you and please don’t ever stop doing that.” Granted, of course, I didn’t know Jen, so I didn’t know that’s just what she does. I remember thinking to myself like, “She’s dope. She’s just dope.”
Jen Hatmaker:
That was the beginning. What happened was we had each other’s cell numbers, because how else were we going to go have drinks before a show? It just started like a little texting.
Glennon Doyle:
A little texting.
Jen Hatmaker:
We were texting.
Glennon Doyle:
We know how that goes, don’t we?
Jen Hatmaker:
Hey.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Jen Hatmaker:
Oh, we’re following each other now on social media. Then it was like, “How about a phone call like the olden days?” Am I getting this wrong?
Tyler Merritt:
No, you’re right. Do you remember how the phone call happened?
Jen Hatmaker:
I don’t know. Do I?
Tyler Merritt:
Because if there was a definitive question of who started what with who, I would probably say it was the phone call is what started the whole thing, and the phone call was Jen’s idea.
Jen Hatmaker:
That makes sense. This tracks.
Tyler Merritt:
We had been texting and it was completely platonic, it was all good. She got to chapter seven in my book and I wanted some intel on her about that chapter. I’m thinking she’s a writer, she’ll text and she texts me and she goes, “Hey, can you talk?” I text her back and I said, “On the phone?”
Jen Hatmaker:
It’s confusing.
Glennon Doyle:
So aggressive.
Tyler Merritt:
Do people do that?
Jen Hatmaker:
Yeah.
Tyler Merritt:
I only talk to my mom on the phone.
Glennon Doyle:
Completely, same.
Tyler Merritt:
I said to her, I was like, “You want to talk like 1992?”
Jen Hatmaker:
Yeah.
Tyler Merritt:
And she said, “Yeah.” Even to this day when we talk on the phone, we call it 1992.
Jen Hatmaker:
Yeah. Then we did upgrade to FaceTime, which we call 2010.
Abby Wambach:
Ah, yes.
Jen Hatmaker:
Anyway, that is true, but I’m just talking because I’m a human who talks to people.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Jen Hatmaker:
How much can we text? I was getting thumb fatigue. We started talking on the phone and then I’ll tell you who really flexed-
Glennon Doyle:
Okay.
Jen Hatmaker:
… Because first of all, let it be known, Tyler sent me his book, so I got that in the mail and read it cover to cover. It is annotated you guys, it looks like that’s my college textbook. I have highlighted the shit out of that thing. That revved up the engine. Then Tyler, in December sends me… I had written something about buying my Christmas essentially, like we’re doing a bougie Christmas. I have somebody come in, they’re going to do my whole tree, I’m just not doing it this year, not this year.
Jen Hatmaker:
Tyler texts me, he’s like, “I sent you something.” It should be there tomorrow or whatever.” I was out of town and I’m like, “Okay, I’ll see it when I get back.” I get back and he has sent me this… I do not know how to describe this, but it’s a big box of gold preserved roses. This is a thing I didn’t know. He’s like, “This is for your bougie Christmas.” They were gorgeous. They’re over the top gorgeous. I’m like, “These are so pretty.”
Jen Hatmaker:
Well, that night, my brother and my sister-in-law are over the house having dinner and I’m like, “You guys, look what Tyler sent me. Look at these beautiful flowers.” My sister who’s essentially a private investigator, starts Googling because I’m like, “I don’t know what these are.” She’s like, “Jen, these roses are $500.” I’m like, “What?” Then I mentioned to Tyler and he’s like, “I have only sent these roses to one other person ever and it’s my mom.”
Tyler Merritt:
This is not how the story-
Jen Hatmaker:
It is exactly how it went. It is precisely how it went. He keeps trying to act like this was not a flex and it sure was.
Tyler Merritt:
The reason why I’m-
Glennon Doyle:
Gold covered roses. I can’t wait to hear Tyler, try to get around this one.
Jen Hatmaker:
Thank you.
Tyler Merritt:
Okay. I’m 45, single with no kids, which it means… this is what this means, and I do pretty okay for myself. It’s just me, I have no kid. I don’t have anything else except just stuff, and so she posts this thing and she has this tree that basically matches these flowers. I know because I had sent my mom some, I see this thing and I think to myself, “Yo, I’m going to send these over to, Jen.” I send them to her, I was just like, “This post is cool. And how fun is it going to be for her to have this bougie Christmas that she wrote a whole thing about and open up these roses and be like, “I’m going to put these over here.”
Tyler Merritt:
I’ll be honest with you in my mind, I’m keeping… this is 100. In my mind I’m thinking, “Jen has 12 dudes that send her things and people send her things all the time.” At that period of time, I already had friends in my life then who were being like, “You talk about Jen a lot. Are you guys something?” And I said, “No, she’s just my homie. She’s cool is all, get out.” But I’m-
Glennon Doyle:
To be fair to you Tyler, gold and roses have historically always been platonic gifts.
Tyler Merritt:
That’s-
Glennon Doyle:
Tyler, when you think about it, there’s no-
Jen Hatmaker:
We’re trolling you.
Tyler Merritt:
I feel attacked.
Jen Hatmaker:
Thanks, Glennon.
Glennon Doyle:
You’re welcome, Jen.
Jen Hatmaker:
Okay.
Glennon Doyle:
How then did the first move actually happen?
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
Because-
Jen Hatmaker:
I will take ownership of that one.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay.
Jen Hatmaker:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
I’m so excited.
Tyler Merritt:
100%.
Jen Hatmaker:
But here’s the thing, I don’t know what you mean by move, because-
Glennon Doyle:
Like making out, physical.
Jen Hatmaker:
Well, the thing is we fell for each other in a not normal way. We fell for each other from two different states, over 100 million hours of FaceTime, and so we weren’t even together. We weren’t together in the same city, and so we fell for each other in our hearts and minds, way before we even knew what our sexual chemistry was going to be like. We didn’t know what we knew, but we were guessing it.
Tyler Merritt:
I knew.
Jen Hatmaker:
Okay. It wasn’t that much of a mystery. All right. That’s fair. By the time we finally got together in the same place, we were 100 miles down the road. You know what I mean?
Glennon Doyle:
Yes, we do know what you mean.
Jen Hatmaker:
It wasn’t like, I wonder if we’ll make out. There wasn’t-
Glennon Doyle:
It was happening.
Jen Hatmaker:
It was clear. Yeah. It was happening.
Glennon Doyle:
Isn’t that a weird experience? It’s so different. Because we had the exact same thing. We fell in love 100 of miles apart.
Tyler Merritt:
Jen and I, we have two very different lifestyles, that’s the whole other thing.
Jen Hatmaker:
Yes.
Tyler Merritt:
Two very different lifestyles.
Jen Hatmaker:
We should get to that.
Tyler Merritt:
She’s right though. We had had a lot of communication. I slowly started to fall for Jen, and then she sped it up immediately.
Jen Hatmaker:
Yeah.
Tyler Merritt:
Because I didn’t even really know I was really falling for her, I just knew we talked a lot, we were joking a lot. What should have given me the clue is I don’t text that much with anybody except people in my immediate circle, but here she is over in Texas and we just got along so well, it just seemed so natural. We started getting a little flirty, but even then it was like, as a single dude, flirty is not weird. Then one day she just made shit real, Glennon. She made it real.
Glennon Doyle:
What did she do? What did she say?
Tyler Merritt:
She doesn’t know any dating rules at all, like zip.
Glennon Doyle:
No, but she’s new here.
Jen Hatmaker:
How would I? I asked you. How would I know anything? How?
Tyler Merritt:
None, not zero, not at all. One day just casually, she drops the, “What is this?”
Glennon Doyle:
Oh, the DTR.
Abby Wambach:
DTR, define the relationship.
Jen Hatmaker:
Well, what is it? Am I a crazy person for wanting to know that? He’s 100% right. It was flirty and it was going somewhere and we were texting each other. There is no way we were texting each other and calling each other like normal people, we don’t do that. That’s not how we operate anymore in today’s modern age, and so it was going somewhere and we were like Johnny on the spot when one of us sent the other one another text and it was… something was happening. I thought it was happening in Tyler, now know he’s a very exuberant person.
Jen Hatmaker:
I was like, “Is he like this with everyone? Is this Jen specific? Or is this just Tyler? Maybe he just loves everyone.” I’m not sure, but I don’t want to start barking up this tree if it’s the wrong tree.
Abby Wambach:
That’s right.
Jen Hatmaker:
Because I was feeling something for him. Something is happening in me.
Tyler Merritt:
All those internal thoughts she said to me.
Glennon Doyle:
I love it.
Tyler Merritt:
She put it in the form of a text.
Glennon Doyle:
Look at you, Jen.
Tyler Merritt:
She went, “Hi, so what’s going on? I want to be very clear. Do you talk to everybody like this? I need to go down line and define this exactly.”
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. Clarity.
Jen Hatmaker:
I did this. I’m like, “I like you, do you like me? I can’t tell. But I just need to know because I don’t know what’s happening and I need to have some knowing about what is happening right now.”
Tyler Merritt:
We’ve always had clarity.
Jen Hatmaker:
Yeah.
Tyler Merritt:
We’ve always had clarity. I don’t know if you remember this, but you did say, “There’s some other people in my life, so I’m just trying to figure out if I’m trying to holler at you or not.”
Jen Hatmaker:
Well, sort of. Who was I thinking about all the time? You. Anyway, he was like, “Oh, damn. I didn’t even know. I thought we were both in the same head space.” I’m like, “Oh, okay. I don’t know what’s happening now to this reaction.”
Glennon Doyle:
Awkward.
Jen Hatmaker:
But to your credit Tyler, you picked up the baton there and we-
Tyler Merritt:
What I said was give some time. I’m for real you all, I was like, “Can I have a minute?”
Glennon Doyle:
Fair, good. So you wanted to be intentional.
Tyler Merritt:
“Can I have a minute, because this just got real immediately.” 20 minutes ago you were like, “How’s your day?” And now you’re like, “Can you define this please?”
Jen Hatmaker:
I just didn’t want anything that wasn’t real, I’m too old for it, I’ve already done it, I’ve done it. I’m not interested in casually dating eight men. That sounds like a fucking nightmare.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Abby Wambach:
Yes.
Jen Hatmaker:
I just didn’t want it, and so if I was feeling one way and he wasn’t, I needed to know because this has taken up a lot of time and energy.
Abby Wambach:
How long did the minute last?
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. How long did you take? How much time did you need?
Tyler Merritt:
Out of respect for Jen, it was only about 24 hours.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay.
Abby Wambach:
Wow! Oh, my God! I would have died.
Tyler Merritt:
I came back to her and it got real technical.
Jen Hatmaker:
I know Abby.
Tyler Merritt:
Listen, it got real clinical. I came to her and I was like, “Okay. I feel like I may have some feelings for you.”
Abby Wambach:
Thank God.
Tyler Merritt:
“Here’s the situation, my life is very complicated. I have been a bachelor for a very long time so I need to figure out what it would even look like for me to be in a relationship with somebody. And if you have patience with me to see what that would look like, then we can investigate.” I was just so transparent with her. I wasn’t trying to-
Glennon Doyle:
Is this what it’s like to be two whole people coming together? This is interesting. Because you’re just clinical, careful, intentional, clear.
Abby Wambach:
Wise, yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
Truth, want, is that what I want? These are things that two whole people say to each other as opposed to these younger relationships where you’re just trying to be everything to each other and reflecting each other and not… you were two… you were negotiating an adult relationship.
Tyler Merritt:
100%.
Jen Hatmaker:
Yeah, it’s like a business meeting. It’s true because the two of us each have a whole life-
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Jen Hatmaker:
… And it’s lovely. Both of our lives, it’s full of people that we love and that love us. We love our work. We have built our communities around us. The thing about Tyler is, and I’ve told him this, but he’s just so secure and confident, and that’s new to me. That’s a new personality for me to be in a relationship with, who isn’t fragile and doesn’t need me to fill in gaps or spotlight, or those things that we were talking about in our other episode, not at all.
Jen Hatmaker:
Interestingly, I found out that I’m not that person either. This is why I’m like, “What’s going on here? Because I don’t want to waste time.”
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Jen Hatmaker:
“I don’t want to like you if you don’t like me.” Then it was like with that rip cord pulled, then I would say at that point it was a fast forward button for the two of us.
Tyler Merritt:
There was this other piece too that was very serious for me. I was very aware of who Jen was at this point. I understood where she was coming out of… what relationship she had come out of.
Abby Wambach:
Yes.
Tyler Merritt:
I was aware of her previous, for lack of a better word, is it okay to say hurt? Is it okay to say that?
Jen Hatmaker:
Yes it’s okay to say hurt. We say that.
Tyler Merritt:
Hurt. I knew where she was coming from. I was very clear on being like, “I have a history of not trusting women. I have a history of dogging people so that I could protect myself.” I knew I was stepping into something with somebody who was whole and I needed her to know that she was safe. That piece, that’s where the negotiations began where I was like, “All right, there’s a couple things you’re going to understand. My best friend is a girl. The person who I spend 98% of my time I’m with is another single woman who is my ride or die, and so you just need to know this and coming into this that that’s not going to change because that’s my best friend. I’m surrounded by a ton of women.”
Tyler Merritt:
There’s a song in the musical called Take Me Or Leave Me where there’s a character saying like, “This is just who I am. I’m going to always have these people around me. If you can roll with that, then we’re going to be okay, but you’re just going to have to know it.” I came to Jen and was like, “Yo, I just got to keep it 100 with you. Give me a little bit to get my situation straight. Let me talk to the people that are in my life, and if we’re going to do it, let’s do it. But before you step into this, I need you to know that this is a safe place.” Then we started to walk from there, and it switched.
Tyler Merritt:
She gave me time too, because we live two very different experiences dating. We really live in two different worlds. Here’s something we don’t talk about that often, and I really truly believe this. There is a single community. People that have been single for a long time, we speak our own language, we have our own rhythms, we go our own places. When somebody leaves the fold, it’s kind of an event. It’s a thing.
Glennon Doyle:
Is it like an abandoning? Like you feel like you’re abandoning the crew to jump ship?
Tyler Merritt:
100%. One of my best friends, Mike Holser, we were roommates for… two grown men were roommates for most of my adult life. He started dating someone and they got serious and got married. The last year of our relationship was really difficult because I saw that he was leaving, he was getting married and going away. There was this internal hurt there like-
Glennon Doyle:
Sure.
Tyler Merritt:
… “Well you’re abandoning me, you’re abandoning this thing that we just do. This unspoken world that exists of single individuals.” It’s something we don’t talk about, because I don’t think it’s something that we realize is so there, but I know that there are single people listening to this right now that are growing, “I know that community. I know those people.” And-
Glennon Doyle:
It must be extra confusing, it’s because our culture, we value romantic love as the ultimate thing.
Abby Wambach:
Right.
Glennon Doyle:
And friendship is just what we have extra to get us there. When you have a group of people who you have said, “That’s not our value. We actually believe in this as real love friendship.” And then you say to them, “Oh, but actually I’m going to go.” It probably feels like you’re abandoning the value of the group.
Tyler Merritt:
100%, Glennon. Here’s the other thing about that. We give women so much shit, single women so much shit. If there’s a single woman, we ask the question, “What’s your dating life like?” When they reply and they go, “I don’t have one. I’m cool. I’m a boss and this is my shit.” We want to go, “Yes, sister do it.” But really there’s this other piece of going, “But how do you do that? How do you really manage that single thing?”
Glennon Doyle:
Or, “You must just not have found the right person yet.” Or you must just not-
Tyler Merritt:
Right. We don’t typically do that with men as much. I have some amazing female friends in my life who are single and they’re okay being single.
Glennon Doyle:
Sure. How do you feel, Jen? Are you scared after going through so much pain, opening your heart again? What is that like? And do you find yourself self-protecting or fighting the urge to shut it down before it hurts?
Jen Hatmaker:
It’s interesting because, Tyler and I, have some pretty marked differences, black guy, white girl, the racial piece alone is a real deal. For me, for my personal experience, the bigger distinction between us is this piece which is, I’ve been married since I was 19, and so I’d never spent an adult day where I wasn’t married except for the last year and a half, and Tyler has never spent an adult day married.
Abby Wambach:
Wow!
Jen Hatmaker:
We built our adult lives so differently. I was building a family and he was building a life. I’m a parent, he’s not a parent. These to me are the differences that rise up more acutely. I think we’ve had exactly one wobble, and it was around this because you guys know that I did just so much work in recovery, my own work, my heart, my soul, my mind, my processes, my patterns, my reactions, my responses, my worldview, everything. I put my own damn feet on stable ground.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes you did.
Jen Hatmaker:
And I recovered, I was a recovered person and I was healthy and I reclaimed myself and I stepped into my own life. What I’ve learned is that there’s some residual effects of my specific brand of trauma that would just simply not present themselves until I was in a relationship with another person.
Abby Wambach:
That’s right.
Jen Hatmaker:
I just wouldn’t have the opportunity to experience it. It wouldn’t come up because it wouldn’t have happened.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s right.
Jen Hatmaker:
This is the piece that I didn’t even understand I had a fear trigger inside of me like I did because I never had it before. I’ve always been stable and confident and secure in my relationship. To the bitter end when I was still just clawing my way forward, just always felt confident in my body. I felt confident just in everything. “I don’t have to worry, this person is never ever going to hurt me. This person will not walk out on me. This is a forever match.” That has broken something inside of me-
Glennon Doyle:
Self trust.
Jen Hatmaker:
… That isn’t all the way healed it, called trust and safety.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Jen Hatmaker:
Trust and safety are my triggers. When Tyler is just living his normal life, which he explained to me and I understand, and then a little something happens and all of a sudden I freak out.
Glennon Doyle:
Yep.
Jen Hatmaker:
I just freaked out. All of a sudden felt unsafe, “I don’t know if I’m going to be enough. I don’t know if I’m going to be enough for you, sexually.” I just had a complete sideways panic attack. This was just a couple of weeks ago and he was like, “What is happening right now?” Because the punishment did not fit the crime.
Glennon Doyle:
Right.
Jen Hatmaker:
It did not fit the conversation. It did not fit the context. It was an over response. I was like, “Fun fact, I actually don’t also know what is happening right now. What is this? What is going on?” I was like-
Tyler Merritt:
You know what? Let me say this.
Jen Hatmaker:
Okay.
Tyler Merritt:
I don’t know if what is happening is actually really what went down. I think what really went down was Jen was like, “I don’t know what’s happening. This isn’t how I usually am.” You felt a certain way about yourself feeling the way that you were feeling.
Jen Hatmaker:
Yes.
Tyler Merritt:
And if I was over here, and correct me if I’m wrong, but I was like, “This checks out to me, this makes sense.” I feel like someone who has the past trauma that you have.”
Jen Hatmaker:
Yes.
Tyler Merritt:
You should not be walking around all the time like everything is good. You came out of a tricky situation out of a… the last time you dated somebody was when you were 19. Not everything with you and I should be so easy. And if for as much as I’ve tried to make you feel safe and secure, it is okay. And I told you this, I was like, “It is okay for you to walk through what you’re walking through right now. You just need to know I’m not going anywhere.”
Glennon Doyle:
That’s beautiful.
Jen Hatmaker:
Yeah, you did.
Tyler Merritt:
And if you understand and knowing I’m not going anywhere, then we then we’ll make it through this.
Jen Hatmaker:
And we did.
Tyler Merritt:
Don’t be so hard on yourself because this is a journey.
Jen Hatmaker:
I know, but that’s what I do, I do that well. I called my counselor, who I haven’t seen in a few months because I felt like she and I had really gotten to the bottom for a lot of our stuff. I was like, “Hello. I find I’m in need of your services. There’s some new things, surprise, a new relationship brings up new things.” Did you guys experience this where you felt like you didn’t even know what was wobbly inside of you until you got together?
Glennon Doyle:
Just recently-
Abby Wambach:
I think-
Glennon Doyle:
… It just stopped.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. I think one of the things early on, because both of us left relationships where there was betrayal, and so because we’re smart people, we were like, “This is probably going to show up in certain ways, and one of the things that I need is to be told over and over again that she’s not going to leave me.” And I’m like, “I’m so sorry that it’s going to probably make you feel sad.” She said-
Glennon Doyle:
Yesterday.
Abby Wambach:
She said, “You think that it’s going to make me feel sad to tell you that I’m not going to leave you?” I thought, “Oh, that’s interesting that I would feel that way.” I had a dream that she was leaving me the other night-
Jen Hatmaker:
Yeah.
Abby Wambach:
… And I woke up and I was pissed at her, like we all are sure after those dreams and I told her about it and she texted me the sweetest thing yesterday. She said, “I just want you to know that I’m so sorry that that dream happened and that I’m never going to leave you.”
Glennon Doyle:
I’m never going to cheat on you, I’m never going to leave you. But I am going to tell you that it wasn’t sweet like that in the beginning. The first year I would lose my mind, I would-
Abby Wambach:
You went through my phone.
Glennon Doyle:
She found through her phone once. Or wait, I just told you.
Abby Wambach:
You told me. Yeah, fessed up.
Glennon Doyle:
That I went through her phone.
Jen Hatmaker:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
I was so humiliated because what kind of 45 year old woman is going through her partner’s phone?
Jen Hatmaker:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
She took a deep breath and then she said, “What else do you need? Do you need my email passwords?” She was doing what you were doing, which was just making room for trauma and not making it personal. It’s not a character defect, it makes sense from what you went through. Jen, just trauma makes you… it is a very difficult thing that no one talks about to truly trust yourself and then find out that trusting yourself was the wrong move before.
Jen Hatmaker:
Yeah, exactly.
Glennon Doyle:
And then trying to trust yourself again, it’s a cluster.
Jen Hatmaker:
That’s what me and my counselor are working on right now, that trusting yourself piece, because I’m like, “Oh, that gear was broken apparently.” And so if I could be that wrong about a marriage, which that person had no reason to leave, we had a whole empire, I guess anybody can leave.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Jen Hatmaker:
And that’s not fair to Tyler, and because he’s only… and I told him this after that, it was like a two day slide. I was like, “I’m sorry that you have fallen in love with a person who has trauma. I don’t love this for you, and I don’t love it for me, but here we are.” And all he has ever done in response to me ever is add safety and security, constant. It’s literally constant, and so it’s nothing that Tyler is doing or not doing, it’s just this is mine to work out. I am teeny a little bit grateful for it because it’s just shown me a new place that needs my attention.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Jen Hatmaker:
And I’ll be better for it on the other side. I will be stronger for having experienced this and then faced it, which I know how to do now, I have muscle memory for this. In the meantime, while I’ve been, as he said, maybe patient with him in terms of his single life and putting up new pillars in his life that weren’t there before, he’s patient with me too, and understanding where we come from.
Glennon Doyle:
And you please remember, because this helped me is that I used to tell myself, “Well, I trusted myself before and it didn’t work so now-.” But the fact is that I just wasn’t trusting myself before in the first marriage.
Jen Hatmaker:
Same.
Glennon Doyle:
I actually knew. I didn’t know exactly what, but who cares about the what? I knew what was happening inside me, I knew something was wrong. I wasn’t trusting myself enough. It’s not like I trusted myself before and I was wrong. It’s like, “I didn’t trust myself before.” Now what we know is when we feel real things, we’re going to say the real things, which also you did.
Jen Hatmaker:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
That is doing it. You felt something weird and you said it and you trusted Tyler, to handle it, and he did.
Abby Wambach:
Yep.
Jen Hatmaker:
Yeah.
Tyler Merritt:
Abby, let me ask you this. After you wake up from your scary dreams and all of that, which I think we all have. I think this is a little bit unrelated from your dream, but as I was listening to you talk what is… and I’m sure there’s a laundry list of things, but what would you say is one of the singular topnotch things that you say that you absolutely love about, Glennon.
Abby Wambach:
I just said it to her this morning. Glennon, has this unique way of tapping into a future world. We talk about it in the idea of God of bringing heaven to earth. She has this beautiful way of when she gets into her creative space of seeing into a future that we don’t live in yet, and then trying to find ways to breathe actual reality in life into that future. I think that being around somebody who lives like that is one of the things that I admire. Also, she loves all of her people so relentlessly, it’s just unbelievable.
Abby Wambach:
I think that it was just one of those things that I said to her this morning. I just was like, “You have this beautiful relationship with God and how your relationship-.” It really has transformed my relationship. I came into this marriage as an atheist and now I see and define God very differently. This is all to say is I see the God in Glennon, and I also see the heaven on earth that she is so trying to create in some way, shape or form.
Jen Hatmaker:
That’s so sweet.
Tyler Merritt:
Yo, that is dope. Glennon, what about you with Abby?
Glennon Doyle:
I don’t think that there is any moment since I have known Abby, that Abby has not made… it’s like if every moment or every dinner or every conversation it’s like 70%, everything is 70%. My whole life I’ve been like this Tyler. I’ve really just always been like, “Is this it? This is it.”
Glennon Doyle:
Then Abby came and every moment, every dinner, every conversation, everything is just 100% now. It’s like that Wizard of Oz thing where it was all black and white and then, and everything is in color forever, everything is in color forever with, Abby. It’s not on just spiritual. It’s like she leaves the house to go away for two days and the kids and dogs look at me like, “What the hell?” And I can’t do it. No matter of dancing or turning on the music or I can’t… Chase, wrote in our little… we had this little silly wedding book where people could write something and no one really wrote in it. But when we were flipping through it once there was this page where Chase had written, he was 14 or something at the time, and he had written one little sentence and it said, “Abby, before you came, mom never turned the volume up past 11.”
Tyler Merritt:
Wow!
Glennon Doyle:
And it was literal, but also just that’s our life. She came and turned the music on, and we went from just surviving to living.
Abby Wambach:
I have to ask you guys-
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Abby Wambach:
… Tyler-
Jen Hatmaker:
I love those answers.
Abby Wambach:
… What would you say about Jen that you love the most?
Tyler Merritt:
Okay, so it’s an interesting thing when you have somebody who is in a public forum, where people see that person, they follow what they do, watching the thousands of people that are absolutely in love with my girlfriend for a gazillion reasons, I watch that and I think to myself, “You don’t even know the best of her. You don’t even know the-.” Yo, I know Jen is funny, but she’s witty and funny in a way that we will talk and go back and forth laughing about stuff, and I’ll think to myself, “You can hang with me.”
Glennon Doyle:
Oh, yeah. She’s as funny as they get.
Tyler Merritt:
You have that humorous piece, but in the same moment she can flip over and go, “Okay. Let’s talk about what’s happening in your heart right now.” I feel like people can’t understand the greatness of who she is and I get to see that shit like every text message or every FaceTime. I’m going to say this man, and I probably shouldn’t say this in a public forum. I don’t understand how anyone could leave Jen, in the way that Jen has been left before.
Tyler Merritt:
Listen, I’m a grown ass man, so I know relationships don’t work out, things change and this that and the other, but I can’t imagine spending 20 plus years with Jennifer Lynn King, and then be okay not still having her around, because you’re that damn good, Jennifer. I feel bad that the whole world is never really going to know how good you are. They get pieces. They don’t get the 1:30 in the morning FaceTime calls, but she’s the shit, Abby. It’s hard to put in words, man. I know I’m going to listen back to that and be like, “I fumbled all over that.”
Glennon Doyle:
No, it’s beautiful.
Tyler Merritt:
But I don’t know how to say, and people will probably never get to really experience how great she really is.
Abby Wambach:
Perfect. Jen, your turn.
Jen Hatmaker:
God, I just have never ever known anybody like Tyler, never. I don’t have a comparison. I don’t have somebody I can hold up and be like, “He’s like this. Or he is like that.” Just everything about him is so new to me and so astonishing and so shocking. It’s like I’m in a completely new zip code that I didn’t even know ever was. Tyler, it’s not just that he’s neutral with me, like he just holds room for me or whatever, it’s that he… I cannot give you enough examples. There’s million examples of him not just seeing me, but absolutely celebrating who I am. He would no sooner ask me to shrink by one millimeter forever. That would be so absurd to him yesterday.
Jen Hatmaker:
Yesterday I was on a TV show, a talk show, and I get this long text from him after he watches the whole thing. He watched the whole thing and he sends me this long text yesterday telling me how much… what he saw in me, what he saw in my poise and my confidence, how I was made for this. It just went on and on. He is like, “I’m drawn to you. You’re such a discerning leader.” You don’t have to say that, he could have said, “Nice job.”
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Jen Hatmaker:
“You looked pretty.”
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Jen Hatmaker:
Instead, it’s this-
Tyler Merritt:
You did look pretty though. You did look pretty.
Jen Hatmaker:
Okay, thanks. Instead, it’s this laser precision. I’m going to tell you what I see in you. And it’s all the bigness of me. You know what I mean? It’s the big parts of me. It’s the shiny parts, and those were the parts that just didn’t get to live free and clear. It’s just a miracle every day to me, the way that Tyler sees me and loves me like that, doesn’t just like, “She’s a lot.” But loves me like that and wants me to be like that. I’ve never felt for one second that I have to be anything other than literally exactly who I am, and that’s my best self for him.
Jen Hatmaker:
Even under that, you guys are understanding this as you get to know him, but he’s just good. Do you know what I mean? He’s just good. He’s good. He’s good in the world. He’s good hearted. He’s generous. He is loving, and he cares about all the right things. And that matters to me. That’s a big deal. That whole bit of him is important to me, that I am with somebody who is good at his core.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Jen Hatmaker:
Which again, for me creates safety and trust. Those are my wobbles, and so all these ways that Tyler, not just acts toward me, but just is as a person, it’s just constantly scaffolding for me, safety and trust, just constantly.
Abby Wambach:
Yes, Jennifer.
Glennon Doyle:
Beautiful.
Abby Wambach:
Tyler.
Jen Hatmaker:
And he’s so hot. He is a really hot guy.
Glennon Doyle:
And that brings us full circle. That brings us full circle too. We start with Jen’s hotness. We end with Tyler’s hotness.
Jen Hatmaker:
Yeah. Let’s bookend it.
Glennon Doyle:
You have always been such a beautiful story in the world, Jen.
Jen Hatmaker:
Thank you.
Glennon Doyle:
As for this house, we love us some Jen Hatmaker, and we are so freaking grateful to now know, Tyler. When I’m talking to you guys, I’m thinking about this episode We did a long time ago about stress in our lives and how what helps us the most is a hug from a person for 20 seconds. But what we learned about is that the only way that the hug works to lower all of our trauma-
Abby Wambach:
And bring the oxytocin in.
Glennon Doyle:
… And to bring us comfort and peace is when the two people in the hug are both on equal footing, because if one is leaning too much on the other, it scientifically doesn’t lower the adrenaline and cortisol as much as when both have a center of gravity that is completely on its own. If they separated, they would both standalone. But together, the choice of the togetherness instead of the desperation and need for the togetherness is what actually creates true love, which is out of want and desire, not just need.
Tyler Merritt:
That’s dope.
Glennon Doyle:
You are amazing. We love you so much. We can’t wait to get to know you IRL.
Jen Hatmaker:
Same.
Glennon Doyle:
And just thanks for being here and for the rest of you, we will catch you next time on, We can Do Hard Things. We Can Do Hard Things is produced in partnership with Cadence 13 Studios. Be sure to rate, review and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, 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.