Relatively Ordinary

Betsy brings a topic ripped straight from Maine headlines — the Graham Platner Senate race and the media's gleeful dissection of his marriage — and uses it to ask a bigger question: why are we so obsessed with other people's relationships? What follows is an honest conversation about how we actually judge marriage success (spoiler: it's mostly vibes), what non-traditional arrangements reveal about the assumptions we didn't know we were making, and what nearly two decades of being deeply known by another person does to your sense of self. Also, Karl's soul mate doesn't believe in soul mates. That figures.

It's time for The Talk — not the birds and the bees, but the whole messy American relationship with sex. On the table: why Americans are so uniquely bad at discussing sex openly, what it means that porn has become the default sex education for most teenagers, and what a genuinely healthy sexual foundation actually looks like. Somewhere between Satan's butt baby and studying anatomy, we go back to the basis: it starts with honest relationships, open communication, and locking the door. Kids, put your AirPods in.

It's Mother's Day, our butts are finally comfortable, and Karl is in his "I Love Hot Moms" shirt, as nature intended. After swapping signs of spring (daffodils vs. fiddleheads — a true Maine debate), Betsy turns the tables and puts Karl's tech brain to work on a topic that hits close to home: cybersecurity. From a false alarm active shooter alert at their son's school to the Canvas data breach affecting millions of students, Betsy has questions — and Karl has opinions. They unpack why your data is worth more than you think, what cookies actually are (hint: think creepy guy at the mall), and why dismantling national cybersecurity infrastructure at this particular moment in history is, uh, not ideal.

Could Karl go a full week without making Betsy mad if $10,000 were on the line? He gives it about 14 minutes. From there, the conversation turns to something they're both actually facing — aging. They dig into the longevity industry's promises vs. reality, what it means to be physically active people whose bodies are starting to have opinions, and the particular chaos of being sandwiched between launching kids and watching parents get older. Betsy has no more shits to give, Karl is playing every baseball game like it might be his last, and they're both just trying to be the kind of grandparents who can throw kids over their heads someday.

What did you want to be when you grew up? Betsy had Broadway in her sights; Karl was aiming for astronaut-paleontologist-baseball player (a reasonable combo). From there, we dive into something a little less whimsical: the Manosphere. After watching a documentary on the growing network of online influencers targeting adolescent boys with messages about masculinity, misogyny, and "looks-maxing," Betsy brings the topic to Karl for a reality check. We talk about why young men are vulnerable to this messaging, what Fight Club got right, and why the real threat isn't the influencers themselves — it's who's listening. Time to man up.

Religion is having a weird moment in America — loudly invoked, quietly ignored, and occasionally weaponized by people who've clearly never finished the book. A week after Easter, Karl and Betsy take a step back from the noise to ask what they actually believe, why every human civilization has reached for something bigger than itself, and whether science, Buddhism, chocolate eggs, and a good parable about three blind men might add up to something like a spiritual life.

If you could host a dinner party with any five people, living or dead, who's making the cut? We work through our lists (Jesus gets a seat, Kid Rock does not), before diving into this week's main topic: the quiet epidemic of loneliness. Research shows that close friendships have declined dramatically over the past three decades — and a growing number of adults report having none at all. Betsy breaks down the data while Karl gets real about what actually defines a deep friendship and why building one as an adult is so much harder than it looks. Turns out connection takes work — but it might be the most important work there is.

We start off this week with comfort food for the soul, showing our potential prowess for a future edition of 'The Newlywed Game' by correctly guessing each other's favorite nostalgic nourishment. The exchange gets us thinking about food, family, and where we come from — which leads right into this week's main topic: parenting. Betsy shares her philosophy on what it actually means to raise good humans, from the love-and-chores theory of child development to the tricky balance of structure versus just letting kids figure things out. Not sure if we're doing it right, but we're pretty sure you aren't either... so we're all in this thing together.

Spring has sprung in Maine — which means Mud Season, daylight savings hangover, and big questions about who's actually going to clean up the mess. In this episode, we kick things off with a billionaire fantasy (turns out one of us would be a terrible billionaire), then get into a conversation about accountability in the workplace, in leadership, and in life. We also explore the difference between shame and shaming (thanks, Brené Brown), and ask whether public trust in our institutions can ever really be recovered. Spoiler: we're not super optimistic, but we still believe in the Constitution.

In Episode 20 we recap the best of the Olympics: two gold medals in hockey for the U.S.A., the unbelievable comeback of Federica Brignione, and the joy of Alyssa Liu. Not even Kash Patel can ruin those good vibes! Then we discuss the dystopia of social media in the context of Sarah Wynn-Williams’s book Careless People and the current California lawsuit against social media companies over alleged harm to minors.

It took 19 episodes, but we finally broke our “no angry political rants” promise to ourselves. There was no other way to tackle WTF is going on in the U.S.A. today. So if you’ve been dying to know what we think of MAGA, The Epstein Files, and politicians who put special (and personal) interests ahead of the Constitution, this one’s for you.

It’s Super Bowl Sunday and we’ve got a date with destiny, so this is a quick one! Stay tuned for game predictions that probably won’t age well, a(nother) trip down memory lane, and then we dive into the messy world of couples finances. We unpack our own financial journey as a couple and share our view on splitting finances. Go Pats!

Join us for a “pants optional” episode where we delve into the pros and cons of the changing landscape of higher education. We discuss the costs and benefits of approaches to college education in our society and speculate on the future of higher ed in the face of institutional pressures. Between the two of us, we have five college degrees… are we getting high off our own supply? That’s for you to decide.

When nature calls, we answer. We talk about the benefits of being in nature, how it impacts our lives and how to get more of it. Also, Karl gives the world’s least inspiring elevator pitch.

We ring in the new year tanned and full of optimism after a reinvigorating family vacation. We open up with the questions we SHOULD have asked before we got married (too late now!) and go into a deeper exploration of life lessons we’ve learned from our respective travel experiences. What does it mean to be an American? We’re sure we don’t know, but we love it anyway!

We're in the Christmas spirit for another episode of Relatively Ordinary! We talk New Years resolutions and why its so difficult to help your spouse start the snowblower over the phone. Karl asks his favorite desirable difficulty her opinion on cultivating resilience in ourselves and our children. Happy Holidays!

Betsy tees Karl up to hit one out of the park this week with a game-winning episode about competition and sports. We take a few warmup shots by pretending we’re Gwyneth Paltrow in “Sliding Doors”, then break the huddle and run our favorite plays. Big questions to tackle: are we too focused on winning? Do kids have enough recreational sports opportunities? How much should Karl get paid to play baseball? Can Betsy dunk on sports gambling before the buzzer sounds? Listen and find out!

We all love the technology that gives us driving directions, helps us with homework, saves time with grocery shopping and makes our poop magically disappear. But is the relentless drive toward technology pervading every corner of our lives a good thing or are we all just being buried in enshittification? Professor Fairly Fair gives us a breakdown of the impact of distractions on education, we talk about the pros and cons about kids and phones, and speculate about the subtler, crappier side of the digital divide.

We spend our latest “crappy date night” pontificating on the wild, weird world of AI. We explore topics of ethics, policy, science, Reddit, and what Karl named his AI girlfriend. We're AI optimists... for now.

In our milestone 10th episode we agree that the only thing we’d add to our “three months to live” bucket list is to become outspoken jerks. Then, after narrowly avoiding an on-air domestic dispute, we debate the causes and meaning of America’s housing affordability crisis.

This week we talk about our old friend burnout. We share our personal tales of burnout, how to recognize when burnout is pending, and how to prevent going down the burnout hole ever again (as if that’s even possible…). Also, hawktoturtles, birthday suits, and Betsy introduces the world to "Dinnercise" (patent pending).

In this episode we’re putting the yin back in your yang. Karl appeals to Betsy's sense of "equality" by letting her hog the mic and preach about what it means to be a woman. Apparently, it involves kicking ass.

In our latest episode we talk about when the time is right to put a bun in the oven, reflecting on our experience of starting a family and how that decision has shaped our lives. We briefly find religion, debate the future of the planet, and recall the glory days of falling asleep on piles of Legos.

This week we’re talking healthcare, insurance and what it means to be healthy (hint: it may or may not involve putting peanut butter on Girl Scout cookies). We try hard not to take shots at RFK Jr. and debate whether shots of GLP-1 is just what the doctor ordered. And as a bonus, we’ll pop the top off a jar of cringey adolescent memories.

This week we’re discussing when we discovered that we weren’t going to be superstars, the yin and the yang, and the challenges of growing up young and male in America today. Plus, Karl says goodbye to a hometown legend.

We’ve got a short, sweet, and hopefully hopeful episode for you today. We delve a bit into our origin stories and talk about why we don’t think we’re completely hosed as we get dragged kicking and screaming into the future. And someday soon you’ll be able to engage with us on social media and email!

We're back at it for our third episode and proud to say we're at least 25% less "s***show" than last week. In this week's installment we talk about what surprises us about parenting and how to build and restore trust in a household, community and as a country. Karl toes the line of delving into his favorite conspiracy theory and Betsy wastes no time in doing what she does best - giving Karl crap. Cheers!

Coming to you from Relatively Ordinary's state of the art recording studio, in this episode we bring the joy. We cover such important topics as how to cultivate joy in our day-to-day lives, factors in improving social cohesion, and which countries are most familiar with the clitoris. Apologies for the poor sound quality, we're going to fire our sound engineer and do better next time.

In our very first conversation we have a conversation about ... conversations! Topics include "whose bud is this?" and how to talk about difficult news with your teenagers. Betsy behaved herself, Karl stayed on script and nobody got hurt. Cheers!