How's work is an unscripted one-time counseling session focused on work. For the purposes of maintaining confidentiality names employers and other identifiable characteristics have been removed But their voices and their stories are real. Hey, I'm Matthew Shell comedian writer and floating head you may or may not have seen on your FYP. I'm starting a brand new podcast Wait, don't swipe away.
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Listen now She has commented at times that the church feels like a third member of our marriage Oh, I want to talk about work, but his work slash our work slash the fact that I don't really like it being our work In many relationships home and work exists in separate spheres on occasion One person will tell their partner about what's going on at work But my experience working with clergy or family doctors or politicians is that work becomes a family member a presence in the house At all time and it is no longer one person's job. It's everybody's involvement with that job And my work as a pastor there certainly a number of expectations placed on me There are also expectations placed on you for me I don't know that it feels so much like oh, I want more attention from you as it feels like I don't want this Organization to be the kind of global organizing point of our lives In the case of this particular couple they are a young couple young in age But also young in terms of the very few years that they have been together They met through school in a big city together They have moved to a small town where he has been named as the pastor of a rather central church They are learning what it means to be the pastor and I am saying they are learning because it isn't just his career It also has become a daily involvement on her part more than she ever hoped for or bargained for She has her own career as an academic, but his job the church has become the third member of their relationship So your request is I would like I would like to have an understanding of how we can flourish as Partners together as a married couple But also how I would like to understand how we can flourish not only for ourselves But for the people that we serve together even though she doesn't get paid for it I'm the only one that gets paid for it because I do think my own religious beliefs lead me to understand that We have a dual responsibility of service to a particular community and I believe that if we are flourishing that will help the community that we serve flourish as well And if I understood something many times the community flourishes and you experience it at your expense Or you find yourself as I have sometimes said recruited for a play that you did not listen for Yeah Yeah, I mean one tricky thing is that I would maybe reframe it a play I thought I might be okay Participating and then as I've gone along acting have thought oh this was maybe not as great for me as I thought it was gonna be Same arm. That's an excellent reframe. It's a more yeah, cuz we were very clear before getting married I mean I knew exactly what I was not yet for and you said that to me Well, I mean I knew when she docked you knew to play but then she would just script again Maybe let me put it this way I knew the outlines of what it involved both from my own childhood and from you saying you know you realize marrying me with me This and I said yep, I can do that.
I think I maybe did not realize the cost to me Or what my experience of it would be and I of course you can't really know in advance fully what your experience of something was gonna Be like I think I sort of thought like oh I can do that. I don't remember I can do what? I can be the cheerful person who shows up in chats with people and hosts the party and is the supportive wife and wants to on the side to vote herself to the church one thing that occasionally comes up is If something happens at the church that I vehemently disagree with like Wanting to fire the youth minister like hiring the police officers like various examples and I in my strong opinions and strong sense of justice I'm like this is wrong and digging my heels. What's especially hard for me is I feel like yes I have voice and so far as I live with him and he has to literally listen to me But I don't have formal voice.
I could never be part of the governing body of the church I can't like show up and advocate. I get no representation. I would say that's not because you're a woman It's because you're my wife. Yeah, I agree that I should not have a Well, I Yeah, I should not because they make decisions about your pay and hiring for instance It's a very appropriate wall, but then it frustrates me because I I feel this kind of helplessness that I don't like to be But kind of pass it like I sometimes feel like I am endorsing something By my presence and support that I don't actually want to get behind Go back a sec.
I am here today so that oh I mean a few things I do sometimes have this Kind of wish to be free of it the church and the responsibilities sometimes more than others Honestly, there have been points in the last year that have been some of my happiest moments with the church So I'm very aware that there are lovely things about it some real friendships happening But sometimes I just kind of think oh my word Can I just be on my own to do my own many projects and not have all of your projects also heaped on me and you have a good Review on yes, yeah, it's a lot And then even little things like oh like every Sunday I do that the children's message the time to talk to the children or like singing in the choir or Especially as he started graduate school this year like times I've delivered meals on Saturday or like trunk or tree like just the various things It just feels like oh my word can I not can I do them because I want to do them and not because you're telling me you need me To do them like I imagine that I would still choose to do some of those things all on my own So when I hear her describe her career With students and obligations and allegiances to a university That is not where the tension lies the tension is in the fact that she doesn't ask him for anything in order to Achieve in her career whereas he relies heavily on her. I find that my own spiritual life has become a long to-do list And it's squelched some of the joy and meaning of it out of it for me And I would like to reclaim some of it When have you felt it? I mean for the longest stretch of time at the church I was at before we got married which I mean I'll probably cry now I grieved leaving that church like a person It's sometimes I think a painful point because I try not to idealize it I think you sometimes feel jealous like that's what you where she really wants to be or that's where you really want to be So that was so there is the current church Which is another member of the relationship and then there is the previous church which is like an ex that you see yes I'm just trying to get a sense of who else is part of the relationship. No, I think it's a fair analogy You probably have felt some kind of jealousy around it.
Yeah, she's still in love with the Rex It's not an accident that I almost always refer to the current church as his church I think only recently in the last few months had I sometimes switched to saying my church or our church Yeah, yeah, she always refers to it as oh those are your parishioners. Yeah And what does it do to you? It makes at times it has made me feel sad because It feels like she's not all in with me with this and she made some statement that sometimes she wants to be free from the church And I've got better about this, but especially in the beginning of our marriage We've been married about four years now. I actually got married at her old church But it No, no did you panic when she would say that yeah And when she would say she you know when she says she wants to be free of the church in the beginning I would almost felt like it was a way of her saying she wanted to be free of me Yes, that's why I ask if you panicked because it's an it's a statement of I want to leave you yeah And it took me a while to actually believe that she wanted to be with me and love me Irrespective of church irrespective of church.
Yeah, okay, so that's a separate statement Say more I came from a very dysfunctional family My mother Left us with her parents my brother and I when I was around two and he was around four My dad was not in the picture and then my dad came back into the picture and We were with him for a while, but he had his own demons and so he left he left my brother and I was the woman He married after my mother We've just made a sharp turn from talking about the manifest differences and pressures of their careers He has just made such an important statements that is less about his role and more about the sense of himself And how his sense of self-worth is intricately connected with her and with their careers I don't know where it's going, but I know I have to follow him and I never felt like they really loved us They kept us for a little while With that my step parents grandparents They kept us around because my dad and my stepmom had a girl my younger sister, but I never felt like they really loved us my brother and me and So and they loved your sister they yeah, I think they loved her more I mean they let her do anything she wanted and we were yeah, it was you just saw something Yeah We were not treated right. Why did you just see? We were treated as second-class citizens and We were verbally and sometimes physically abused Not sexually abused never sexually abused but physically and emotionally This is a choice point for me. I've asked him twice Each time he tells me a little bit more His voice changed his face left But he didn't want to take us there in a specific way But I think we can all pretty much imagine it so he need not say anymore on that and we kept following him My grandmother my biological my maternal grandmother my mom's mom I believe was the only woman that truly left me only person that I felt like loved me unconditionally she died in 2013 And I've had a series of people coming in and out my grandmother was the only constant My brother was the only constant until I was 16 and when I was 16 I moved to Another town to be with my mom we reconnected I would say my mom loves me but in a weird way.
I mean she's got she's a hot mess So Why did you mom leave? I don't I don't think she was meant to be a mother That's that's the simplest way I could put it she was she had some mental health issues And I think frankly it was some of it was selfish reasons it was in it was drug sex and rock and roll And I think she was 25 when I was born And I don't think she has grown up since I went she had 40 she became a little more responsible But by that time I was a teenager I didn't really have a mom or a dad that really loved me or valued valued me for who I am and it created a lot of instability in my life I think the church was an important church has always been a source of stability and family for me And frankly my vocation in the church has been away from me to rise above much of the trauma and chaos of my Origins My parents don't have any college degree. I have a master's degree I'm getting paid a professional salary. You know, we're not you're working on PhD We're not you're a wealthy, but we have a house.
We own we own our cars. We're thoroughly middle class My parents were never that working on PhD and the church was Theologically that I mean through the church I came to hear the story of salvation But in a very practical sense the church has saved my life because On the whole people that come from the circumstances that I came from end up as addicts or in jail or Not really doing something good with their life. I have risen above all of those odds When did the church become your home? It's always been my home How little were you when you first said you want to be a preacher?
I can't remember a time So it has been it has been a genuine calling for me to do this It has been a real family that I never had at home May I throw something out Because one of the topics that we are talking about is what is the extent of one's obligations to a community And what is the range of one's own free choice? And if I listen to you People who acted with their own free choice didn't act very careingly or morally or responsibly and so in your Organization Duty and obligation and acting with others in mind Takes on a whole new meaning versus free choice Yes, I'm also I can be selfish Thank you I said another layer Yeah, I can be selfish. I feel like you can be selfish in how important your sense of responsibility has to be in overriding whatever else Your wife. Yes is important.
You always think that you think is the most important Yes, it's kind of a whose career matters more On some level I think mind matters more. That's what I thought you said. Yeah, I believe it does because Well I thought not that I you need to justify yourself I'm just curious when you say that statement it comes with a whole set of beliefs Yeah, maybe some arrogance and maybe some selfishness and maybe some fear But even even though I'm admitting that it matters more that is not to say that there isn't room for negotiation about what happens with her career um, but I do believe it matters more because I'm feeling challenged. I'm feeling angry.
I'm not angry at anyone but maybe impassioned I had to fight To get where I am And I'm not going to work as hard as I have work to have it taken away I did not have anyone holding my hand or showing me the ropes About how to go to school to make connections to do what I needed to do to get ordained I had to do all this myself. I hear you And I've worked too hard To be a show and someone else's play. I've never played that strongly before I don't remember this. You've never said my career matters more That's new but but It's me forgive me.
I'm gonna call it the entitlement of kind of like I work too hard. I deserve it that that I've heard about that before Yeah, well and I do not So her background is very different from mine The major event in her life would I guess would be her father's death, which was from totally natural causes when she was young But her mother is a doctor family practice physician She comes from a family of academics um family with means and So in some sense, she's always lived a very stable and comfortable life And I am getting to a place where I'm experiencing some of that for the very first time and I'm already an adult If tell me if I heard you when because when I'm hearing you say my career matters more or more Which doesn't mean yours doesn't but it does mean mine matters more It's a more because I busted myself to get there and nobody helped me or some people helped me But still I did this and There's an anger about how much I had to do this all alone And then there is a fear that it may not stick. Oh, absolutely Yeah, I'm so afraid of fucking up Or I'm so afraid of something else out of my control happening Where what I've worked so hard and to achieve crumbles And that that has happened to people in my line of work. I see it happen But it also has happened to you as a child it has yeah, so that fear is a fear you know well Every time you think you have a new place and there is some stability it can be ripped from underneath you at all times So you don't really have a sense of constancy But the fear is not a fear that is rooted in the hearing now.
No of your profession correct. That is very true That that lands is true to me. Yeah, so put it in your own words Because when you argue with your wife about career matters and priorities And who should say what to whom and who should be helpful and when can you demand her help rather than just ask for it? And she could say yay or nay And there is that sense of urgency and ultimatum for which she cannot really say what she really wants to say Because she feels your panic So the conversation looks like it's about our jobs and who needs to support who for what but it sits on top Yeah, something much more raw, but I also make more money than she does Don't go there The making more money is not what gives you the sense of panic the fear of losing it may So we're going back to the fear the fear the panic the sense that it can disappear at all time Is what makes the conversations about work between the two of you more fraught?
Yeah, that's that feels right to me. Does it that seems very right to me? Yeah At first the emphasis was on his sense of entitlement and his sense of arrogance and even selfishness But it's deeper than that On some level he experiences her privilege as a birthright that what she has is natural and she deserves it And he lives with the internalized sense of precariousness Of neglect of loss of trauma that his legacy issues from his childhood and the notion that whatever he has achieved Could at any moment disappear That precariousness as if he hasn't fully internalized it is a driving force underneath his role as a pastor and his relationship to his congregation Support for where should we begin comes from Shopify when starting a business There's always the question at the back of your mind What if I fail the other side of that is of course, but if you don't there's only one way to find out You can make it happen with the help of Shopify millions of businesses around the world rely on Shopify for e-commerce From businesses just getting started to household name brands It can help you with everything from payment processing to analytics to website design Choose from hundreds of templates to create a great looking website Their email and marketing tools can help you get your name out there and stay connected with customers And if you ever need help Shopify's 24 7 award winning customer support has got you back You can turn those wadives into a thriving business with Shopify today You can sign up for your $1 per month trial today at Shopify dot com slash ester You can go to shopify dot com slash ester That's Shopify dot com slash ester Support for where should we begin comes from babble the language learning app that's all about small steps big wins and progress you can feel It's an immense privilege to get to travel the world But especially when you're an english speaker chances are that you'll encounter people who speak your language abroad But even so it pays when you make the effort to learn a few words or phrases in preparation for your journey To every country I go I have a list of the words of hello. Thank you.
Please happy birthday How are you? Where am I? How do I get to the basics for when I'm lost and I need to find my way But I remember very much when I went to 30 and I was having my birthday during the trip and everybody was in icky doh doh doh doh I'm not even sure I'm pronouncing it correctly, but it meant happy birthday Here's a special limited time deal for our listeners right now get up to 60 percent of your babble subscription at babble dot com forward slash ester Get up to 60 percent of at babble dot com forward slash ester spelled b a b b e l dot com forward slash ester Rules and restrictions may apply But I also I do want you to be your own person Yeah, I mean we're both Kind of strong wilt in various respects This hasn't always been the case, but in the most extreme circumstances in the past few years There have been times where I felt like I'm putting out this fire and now I've got to put out this fire and then I'm moving back here and then back and forth Yeah, yeah, like I'm running from here and yonder because we've had Some significant events in the life of the church that have been really I would say that like in general that's a great source of stress for you and certainly some of our Worst fight surrounding the church have involved you feeling like you have to put out a fire that I started I sometimes I start the fires. She has started fire.
Yeah, not only on purpose But yeah, same one Like the one we want to talk about the mayor the most egregious case Oh in covid days after george floyd was killed there was all of the unrest we live in a conservative southern town There was this Community police kind of exchange. It went I think terribly there just all this talking past each other You know the police officers kept saying like we didn't kill george floyd like we don't have control over every police officer america Stop yelling at us But then I also felt like they were not listening at all to the fears being articulated by the people in the crowd So I Maybe being a little bit paternalistic was sort of like I get why I'm gonna try to summarize what I heard and wrote a post on facebook That was not a like here's my political view I really I meant it as a summary like this is what I heard here were the points where I heard people talking past each other And for various reasons some of them having nothing to do with me It it really set off the mayor of our town who is a member of his congregation and someone who writes or wrote I don't he might not be writing checks anymore. He used to write large checks to the church And I was kind of aware that he was upset and I had reached out to him directly and said, you know, hey I see you're upset Do you want to talk about this like I'd be happy to talk to you and explain what I meant or if you're bothered Please tell me and he never responded like never followed up on that But he sent a furious email Which now like we really do laugh about it now now at a distance It's funny the things he was saying about me in this email But it was like the worst caricature of saying really nasty things about me the implication being like you need to be in control of your wife Or I'm withdrawing my money like it was kind of a direct line So you felt incredibly panicky about having to put out that fire And did not tell me that he got the email until he was about to go to a church meeting where he was going to read this email to the entire Like governing body and I of course lost it Like you can't not tell me that you're getting these complaints like I felt like this is my problem Let me deal with it like just respond to him and say great talk to my wife. She'd love to talk to you It was also my problem, but it was of course it was but so yes, that's like our paradigm incident We worked through it, but but it was your problem.
It was also my problem That's why it's such an example of how we can't fully disentangle like I want to insist no just let it be my problem But of course it can I do realize that yeah, I wish I had handled it differently because in that I was in panic mode I felt like okay I've got to bring more people into the conversation before this blows up and gets out of control because he was sending screenshots Of her post to people all over town Look what she's saying. Look what she's doing. So I felt like okay major fire going on I don't want this to explode. So I went to my leadership and said you need to know this happened This is my side of the story And I did not include her in any of those conversations with the leadership Which that was a source of pain for you.
Yeah, I felt like I had no voice I said this to your people and everyone is talking about me and no one will talk to me I would I would handle the situation differently. I don't know what I would do, but I would do something different I think that was a turning point. Yeah, and some ways it was I think since that moment I At least in my way of operating as the leader of this community I have tried not always successfully to be more reflective and intentional About how I respond to things Well, and part of it I would say is the church came through for both of us They had my back like basically their reaction to hearing this letter was this is absurd Like does he know that person? Does he know who she is?
And one of them even kind of called him up and said you've got to stop saying such absurd things about her like no one is taking this seriously No one thinks all of this stuff you're saying He made himself look bad really is what it amounted to and we were very supportive. Yeah, they came they had our backs Yeah, I mean it seems so obvious to you that when the shit hits the fan It's all on you and only you can handle it because that's exactly how you got here is only you That's why I left around of it. Right. So if you want to act differently next time You have to understand that the more panic you are the more you rely on yourself Yes, which is the opposite Yeah of what your relationship can offer you The more panic you are and the more you act like you think you made it You know, I made it by myself I made it here all on my own and that's what I do when I'm extinguishing a fire too I mean it is an incredible thing You describe a past where except for grandma None of the adults ever were there for you.
No, and then you marry A wonderful woman and the entire thing is predicated on her being there for you I can't that's surely part of what attracted you to me. I'm a pretty stable person and I Yes, yeah, but the dynamic is one in which you have to continuously prove to him how much there you are for him Yeah, I feel like my personhood is validated when she says yes It's not just the fact that she says yes, it's the fact that somebody has strong will that's her says yes, yes So what would it take for you without being prompted to look at your wife on occasion and just say You've just The way you continue to play a part in that play that is not the play that you had imagined And the way that you're even trying to edit it so that it becomes more and more a play you can be a protagonist in deeply deeply moves me Because you are doing something that I don't think I could ever do There's no way in hell I can do it and there's no way in hell and what this is that you see the accommodation that she made for you Is is beautiful, but it's an accommodation that you could never make and I think that acknowledging that Because that's a power dynamic and it's an act of generosity as well and it's an act. It's an expression of flexibility What she is doing by joining you in your track and this may not be the last church And she's going to continue following you and she's going to every time have to make that world her world It's like the expats wife They're different professions that carry this dynamic where one person is the actor and the other person is the follower the enabler the one who makes it possible The one who sets it up But the focus is all the time about how this one needs to adapt to the choices of the other versus about how much the one who makes the choices Depends on this one doing this in order to be able to continue on their track and having to say thank you I am so deeply appreciative because you're doing something for the life of me. I could not have done I could not be the side show and I guess just realizing that is making me more grateful for you But I'm feeling guilty that I have not said that unprovoked Honestly, it's a source of some a bit of shame on my part.
I mean, how could I be so blind not to see The call me stuff the one that we all miss stuff. Yeah, I missed up As I've reflected back on these last four years and even back on our time in that our relationship I think my panic as much as it has helped me that it has also distorted My perceptions of reality So it as much as it has helped me it has also hurt me. Do you know what he means? Yeah, and can you translate to me?
And that when he gets in this panicky fearful mood I would I'll use the kind of coloring shades metaphor like things become very black and white There's not a lot of room for the kind of compromise and negotiation that I want it's either like this way or this way and the conversation is over And I have to either hop in line or totally check out in the simplest terms for me It's like it's just not really a relationship. There's not the back and forth. I want to have a dialogue To respect her freedom is to truly see her as a partner is what I want instead of I want this relationship to be a partnership and not a dictatorship as it has been in the past The nature of their interdependence in which she is the accommodator Is a really important dynamic in many partnerships in many pairs in many romantic relationships There is one person who can make the accommodations of speaking another language of living in another country Of raising the children in a different culture or religion of being the one who follows their partner from place to place country to country The accommodator is not the person who has no track of their own It's just that they have a certain latitude and flexibility to make an accommodation that their partner Most likely would have been unable to make and in that sense they have power It is easy to think of the accommodator as the weaker person and the follower when in fact often the accommodator is the person who has the power The power to make this relationship possible I'm Mitch first two-time individual cell champion championship MVP and forward for the us from national team before I went pro I graduated from Harvard with a degree in psychology which comes in handy more than you think any athlete pursuing greatness knows There's a certain mentality you have to have what people don't know is what that costs in my podcast confessions of elite athlete I sit down with the best athletes in the world and explore the psychology mindset and unseen battles on the path to greatness So take a seat and learn from the confessions of an elite athlete on youtube or wherever you get your podcasts I'm Maria Sharapova and I'm hosting a new podcast called Pretty Tough Every week I'm sitting down with trailblazing women at the top of their game to discuss ambition, work ethic and the ups and downs that come on the path to achieving greatness We'll dive into their stories and get valuable insights from top executives, actors, entrepreneurs and other individuals who have inspired me so much in my own journey Follow Pretty Tough wherever you get your podcasts Let's go back to the first sentence you said the church is a member of the family The church is a third person in the relationship In what way? So now we're going to go to this dynamic When do you feel that she supports you which is translated when she makes me feel good about myself And I can be proud and she becomes the perfect extension of who I want to be in the world And when she becomes A part of me that I have to be ashamed of but it becomes all reflections on me.
Uh-huh I do love her as her own person but She's good PR for me in the church I know you're very proud of me but my cynical interpretation is that you sometimes wear it like a badge It's more like a badge I am proud in our own right but it's like look what I managed to attract Look what is interested in me if she someone of her pedigree She earned some of her degrees at prestigious institutions Is interested in me then that means that you need to take me seriously It affirms that I'm not white trash anymore. I was I grew up in white trash She's proof that I'm not white trash anymore and that means I feel good it means that I am better than my parents. I'm better than the people who were a part of my childhood I don't know what I can bring to her. I have no idea Yeah, I think that presses on a challenge for us kind of both ways that I simultaneously feel like Can't you offer me something?
Why do I have to be doing all the offering? But then there's also the undercoat of like the flip side of well, I'm the one with all the things to offer Um, yeah I feel like she's brought me much more than I have brought her And does that get acknowledged? Out loud? No occasion?
Well, are you thinking primarily of material things By material I include both financial but also like literally all the stuff I do or are we talking about self validation I mean, I do I do what I bring to her. We have a house I have a nice salary. You have a salary too, but I have a bigger one Yeah, you two bring those things, but I also it would be sad if that's where we stopped I don't think she doesn't need self validation. She is validated.
It's not true. That is not true Do you really need it in the way that I need it you think Do you remember the times when I was disertaining and I would cry and say I feel like a failure and you would just hold me Like that was pretty important validation. You think Because I come from lower than you Because that's part of your narrative. You had more and therefore you need less Yeah And does that you have different life stories for sure different but that you're an idea that she doesn't need because she has But I need because I haven't had And she will always have more and I will always have had less and the only way I can measure it is by talking about my salary in the house No If you've listened to her carefully if you respect her opinions if you ask her for her opinions if you Engage her in a dialogue over decisions and you don't impose your decisions driven by panic If you don't make every situation where you need her to step in a proof of her trustworthiness Because it's the only way that can diminish your catastrophizing Yeah, that is a long list already hearing you say that I capture that first of all Are we missing I think so You clarify also, but I do think we sometimes work under the assumption that like you're the one with the needs and I have very few needs Yes, um, and then there's the layers of why that is but yes I That's an assumption that I haven't really articulated or had articulated to me, but it makes a lot of sense But but I do think as I'm reflecting I think I bring A sense of resilience Then we can get through something because I've gotten through something.
I think that can be its own gift beautiful You're also really validating. I would say you're probably more validating if I'm struggling or ranting than I am That's because I'm the one who needs validating a lot. So I know what it means to validate Yeah, but you're going to offering it. Yeah, and does that apply also to the church?
So your relationship with the church if I need validating with something on the church. Yes That is a little more dicey like a simple example a few weeks ago when I said It's becoming a bit wearing on me to prepare something for the children every week I think in the near future. I would like a break from this your first answer was like okay We could talk about that, but then it kind of very quickly shift anxiety Well, I guess there's just one more thing I'm gonna have to do you said something like that So That there you I think we're probably struggling because as you expressed you felt like well great now more jobs for me And is that part of your life description to work with the youth? Not specifically with children, but I am always amused to the degree to which what I do talking to the children on Sunday morning Is just what I do with my adult students and to me.
There's a beautiful continuity like in the classroom I show up and we say look at this thing. It's so puzzling or this word. It's so puzzling or this story It's so puzzling and that's kind of my basic stance in talking to the children all the time So I I think they work together beautifully It was an act of generosity on your part to start doing that That's a nice way putting it There's so many themes in this session that we all relate to Whose career matters most? What is the deeper meaning of each person's career to themselves and in the relationship?
How do we as couples triangulate with our jobs and the job becomes like a third person in the relationship? What is the degree of involvement that each partner has in the professional world of the other? To what degree do we need to involve our partners when we have issues at work? And to what degree do we listen to what our partner sees about our predicament in the workplace in a way that we sometimes can't see?
But nothing prepared me for what came to follow The button fell from underneath them and pretty much from underneath me as well so much so there was no way I could capture all of this in one episode And so we decided to continue a second session so that together we can listen to what happened and how they dealt with it There was a lot of shit to clean up after that in terms of taking care of the kids and people that were just wrecked by this In some sense, I hate him for what he did You know, why would you do such a thing to the kids over what you had responsibility and they loved him? Esther Peral is a therapist best-selling author speaker and host of the podcasts Where should we begin and housework? To apply with a colleague or partner to do a session for the podcast or to follow along with each episode show notes go to housework.esterperal.com Housework is produced by Magnificent Noise We're part of the Vox Media podcast network in partnership with New York magazine and The Cut Our production staff includes Eric Newsom, Eva Wanchover, Destry Sibley, Sabrina Farti, Eleanor Kagan, Kristen Mueller, and Julian Hap Original music and additional production by Paul Schneider And the executive producers of housework are Esther Peral and Jesse Baker We'd also like to thank Courtney Hamilton, Mary Alice Miller, Jen Marlar, and Jack Saul